If I were to sum up what I would consider the most glaring failures of this current crop, I would say Trump is a narcissist without even the slightest clue as to how the laws work. He makes pronouncements about what he thinks he's going to do as President, which sound great to his deluded followers, but will never work in practice. Someone needs to stick his head in icewater.

For instance, he seems to think he can end birthright citizenship. Well, no, that's the 14th Amendment and the President has nothing to do with the process that it would require to undo the 14th. That requires another Amendment and that is Congress and the states.

He also feels that he can order our troops to kill not only the enemy combatants, but their families, claiming that if he orders them to do it, they'll do it.

Ah, no. That would be committing war crimes, and our troops not only have the right to disobey patently unlawful orders, but the obligation to do so. Ask Lynndie England and Charles Graner.

And I can tell you that as a veteran myself, if Trump were president and told me to execute the families of enemy troops, I would tell him where he can stick his illegal orders.

Hillary will probably be our next President. She's basically mopping up the floor with Bernie and Trump, for all his bravado, is not exactly popular with the Republicans. His support base is actually quite small, but vocal.

She is completely without conscience or empathy, and intoxicated on power.

As for Bernie, he is a weakling. He might have grand and glorious visions for the U.S. (if he could just answer how we're supposed to pay for all this stuff he's promising). Bernie could not stand up to Congress. He couldn't even stand up to two female BLM disruptors who chased him off the stage.

+1 What Patrick said. A succinct review of the current state of the clown-horror-show that is the 2016 Presidential race.

If it plays out as it appears it must (Clinton v. Trump) I will not be participating. The total crapfest that will follow from the election of either one is going to make the current administration look reasonable and restrained by comparison. They are both so awful that I can't discern which one would screw things up worse/more, and so at least vote for the lesser of two evils. But at least I will be able to tell myself that I didn't vote for it.

WTF? You update your comment software in MARCH 2016*????....

Patrick,

While in most cases it is reprehensible, in some cases it would not be a war crime to kill the families of enemy combatants. There is the very gray area of reciprocity, as well as if the families are being used in an inappropriate way, such as human shields, etc. The human shields argument, by the way, is one of the things being legally justified by both the Obama and Bush administrations as part of the drone strike program.

Go ahead and stay home election day, llamas. (I know I will!)

If Hillary! needs our votes, the democrat fraud machine will cast our ballots for us.

(P.S., thumbs up on the new comment software. But the separation between comments needs some work.)

I wouldn't vote for him, but a Trump Presidency would show that it doesn't really matter who's in the White House, we're still going to be the best country to live in.

Sorry the comments lines disappeared. Gregg has been working on my site to upgrade it so it can be read on mobile. It's very hard and little things happen. I'll ask him to bring them back.

After the results of last night, it looks like it's going to be Hillary vs. Trump, unless the Republicans pull some convention shenanigans. (And if they do, the Democrats will win in a walkover, putting Hillary in the White House and taking both houses of Congress and probably some state legislatures and governorships too. The GOP establishment really needs to look hard at what happened to the Alabama Democratic Party in 1986 and decide if that's the hill they want to die on.) I don't have a good feel for who will win between those two. But I will say this: it will be a shift in electoral politics in the U.S., because it will be something we haven't had since about 1840: an elitist vs. a populist (or at least someone who presents himself as a populist). It would not surprise me if Trump pulls in some Sanders voters, since they are both basically running on a populist platform, and that could decide the election.

If this is what it comes down to, I will vote for Trump. Why? Because with Trump, there is a small chance that things will turn out all right: he might be smart enough to build a good staff around him, leaving the formulation of policy and negotiating legislation to them, while he mans the bully pulpit. It's a small chance, but it's there. With Hillary, there is no chance: she's a sociopath, and while Trump blusters a lot about trampling on laws he doesn't like, Hillary will actually do it, and she'll sleep soundly at night afterwards. A Hillary presidency will destroy respect for government and law in the U.S. I consider it a very real possibility that her presidency will lead to civil war.

CD x2

I think Trump has a good chance of beating Hillary despite what the polls say. The polls have frequently over sold Hillary and undersold Trump (and by some large margins too).

I don't like Trump. As Cousin Dave pointed out a while ago he is a Dixiecrat (I'm a fiscal conservative). Others have started to make that comparison too. But he does pull a number of democrat and independent voters to the republican party. At first I thought they were just democrats trying to mess with the republican primary. But now I'm suspicious they are here to stay.

Both parties are rebuilding their coalitions. I can't predict where the chips will fall. There is just too much change and too much emotion in this election.

There is the very gray area of reciprocity, as well as if the families are being used in an inappropriate way, such as human shields, etc.

The Israelis do as much when the Palestinians shoot at them with little child perched firmly on lap. "Oh, look! The Israelis are murdering our children!"

The Israelis didn't murder the children. The Palestinians did by putting them in harm's way.

In such cases, it would not be considered a war crime. But if, say, after wiping out a contingent of enemy combatants, a hypothetical President Trump might say, "Now go into their homes and kill all the women and children inside."

In which case, the appropriate response would be, "Fuck you, Mr. President."

Gregg is working on fixing the comments. On a very positive note, the mobile version of my site (in test mode) was looking very good the other night.

It's hard to make the conversion because I have such a huge dataset, having been blogging since before some people knew there was such a thing as the Internet.

"For instance, he seems to think he can end birthright citizenship. Well, no, that's the 14th Amendment and the President has nothing to do with the process that it would require to undo the 14th. That requires another Amendment and that is Congress and the states."

People are sick of the whole anchor baby system and rightly so. I think there might actually end up being a Constitutional convention to reverse some of the power grab of the executive branch, and unelected regulatory agencies.

"He also feels that he can order our troops to kill not only the enemy combatants, but their families, claiming that if he orders them to do it, they'll do it."

He will do it with illegal drone strikes, just like Obama has done with impunity for the last eight years.

"Hillary will probably be our next President. She's basically mopping up the floor with Bernie and Trump, for all his bravado, is not exactly popular with the Republicans. His support base is actually quite small, but vocal.

"She is completely without conscience or empathy, and intoxicated on power."

Most low information voters vote by name recognition, People under 35, and most inner city people don't even know who Hillary Clinton is. They will vote for Trump.

Laying fifty fifty odds based on the immunity given to her IT staff that Hillary is indicted before the fall.

My 2 cents. Trump is a wild card, he says anything the more exaggerated the better. So difficult to tell what he will actually try to do. My guess he will try for half of what he is saying and get things 1/4. So instead of a wall, some increased security and some more fences.
Hillary, I put her defining characteristic as revenge. She will make the IRS targeting conservatives look like amateur hour, and if anyone questions her it will be laughed off and they then vanish.

People are sick of the whole anchor baby system and rightly so. I think there might actually end up being a Constitutional convention to reverse some of the power grab of the executive branch, and unelected regulatory agencies.

Understand, I'm not supporting birthright citizenship. Maybe once upon a time, it made sense, when a trip to the U.S. required a 4.5 day journey on a steamship, as opposed to hopping a jet and being in the U.S. in a matter of hours, dropping a kid and "Hey, look! A natural-born citizen. Green cards for the whole family!"

I'm just saying there is nothing that the President can do about that. He does not amend the Constitution.

I find this thread somewhat like debating who should be the captain of the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg.

I will vote against Hillary Clinton, because the prospect of her appointing 1 or 2 members to the House of Lords . . . umm, Supreme Court, terrifies me.

and taking both houses of Congress and probably some state legislatures and governorships too

Um, no.

1. she won't have coat-tails worth a damn

1a. no one in the down ticket races will be seen with her, in fact they'll probably beg her to NOT campaign with/for them

2. the back bench of the Democrat party is pretty thread bare

3. the advantage of being President is that she can declassify whatever she wants

Remember, the reprehensible Alan Grayson is a serious Democrat contender in Florida for Marco's Senate seat. Keep on an eye that one, because if the Dems can't keep him from winning the nomination for a US Senate seat, they're in deep doo-doo.

I agree with Cousin Dave.

Sorry, Amy. This blog has now become all but unreadable. I open it, and I see blog comments next to your original post, and once I pass the original posts, the blog entries that are left are now taking up the entire screen.

Yeah, this is now a disaster area.

And just as suddenly fixed.

I still wish commenters' names were at the top of the posts, though. Easier to filter out the twits that way.

"give your thoughts on the pathetic crop running for President."

The "crop" is rotten and really not worth harvesting.

But, it is all we have.

I've mentioned before that I seriously have considered not voting. That would be a first for me. So, I guess if it comes down to Trump vs. Hillary. I'll hold my nose against the stronger than usual stench and vote for Trump. Yea, he is a pompous narcissist; and, lord knows, I've had enough of that in the last 7 years.

However, the bottom line for me has become this:

I do not want anyone in the Oval Office who has LIED about American deaths overseas. That is an "error" that is unforgivable to me. So, my vote will be anyone but Hillary. The only house she belongs in has bars!

Much discussion has assumed that actions that disgust and horrify us are, if taken by our forces, war crimes and thus illegal. Would that it were so! "Politics by other means" covers a lot of ground.

The laws of warfare seek to limit the actions of combatants. Sometimes these limitations lead to tactical or strategic disadvantage. Combatants are therefore motivated by these considerations to ignore, bend, or be artfully selective with the laws of warfare.

The laws of warfare, considering this, include "reprisals". Reprisals are actions taken to motivate an otherwise noncompliant combatant to adhere to the laws of warfare. They tend to be frightful in the extreme, as nothing else is effective. The unacceptable alternative is that the most horrid combatant wins.

War is hell.

The above is closely argued. Yabbut me no yabbuts, refute it if you can.

You need to remember this was always the choice between bad and worse. With apologies to Reagan, there is no pony in that pile.

Sorry, Amy. This blog has now become all but unreadable. I open it, and I see blog comments next to your original post, and once I pass the original posts, the blog entries that are left are now taking up the entire screen.

It's fixed now. Gregg is a literary researcher who built my blog for me. It's not what he does for a living, figuring out blog software and remaking sites. It's really, really hard.

Gregg, just now, on the phone: "I blew a stop sign, that's all."

I really, really appreciate what he does to fix and maintain this site. I could never do it, and paying somebody to do it would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars I do not have.

Sheez, I like it the new way better. It helps those tormented little field mice who can't handle comments they disagree with, when they need to shuffle on down the page to something that flatters their indefensible idiocy.

I was just surprised that it was happening now.

Also, I too agree with Cousin Dave at March 16, 2016 6:56 AM, but not because...

> with Trump, there is a small chance
> that things will turn out all right

...But rather because his 8th-graders's moral idiocy will hasten the onrushing collapse of Western Civ, perhaps permitting an earlier start to Great Re-ennobling, or whatever we choose to call it. I mean, I could still live long enough to see to a few kids start stalwart lives of decency and hard work.

" the democrat fraud machine will cast our ballots for us."

No wonder the GOP is terrified of a liberal-majority Supreme Court. They might throw the election the wrong way this time!

My Team Uber Alles!

"I do not want anyone in the Oval Office who has LIED about American deaths overseas."

I just want the GOP back in power.

You know, so we won't have to see the caskets of dead soldiers returning to the USA from our overseas adventures on the tv news.

So disturbing, especially during Happy Hour! Ick.

"No wonder the GOP is terrified of a liberal-majority Supreme Court. They might throw the election the wrong way this time!"

"This time"?

Are you one of the many confused about what the USSC did in 2000 - and never bothered to read the report of the special commission on civil rights, which investigated?

Sure you are.

...But rather because his 8th-graders's moral idiocy will hasten the onrushing collapse of Western Civ, perhaps permitting an earlier start to Great Re-ennobling, or whatever we choose to call it. I mean, I could still live long enough to see to a few kids start stalwart lives of decency and hard work.

Crid at March 16, 2016 3:50 PM

In an intellectual and pragmatic comparison, I think it is Donald over Hillary or Bernie hands down. Trump is a pompous Ass but the democratic party gave up representing the interests of the worker, and small businessman about 1932, although they gave lip service to it, until about 1970.

In general I think the ass kissers and the boot lickers working for the Donald will be of a higher quality, and less ideologically driven than the current crop of Democratic sycophants.

I cannot in good conscience vote for the Clinton Criminal cartel who started off with criminal real estate deals in Arkansas, moved on to renting out the Lincoln bedroom, and then hit the big time selling state department perks and preferences ( and probably classified information) )to foriegn governments.

This is what is stamped all over her emails, the *pay for play* and why she wanted a private server to begin with.

Trump and Hillary are both unthinkably evil. And I'm not the only one who thinks so -- a recent poll said 1/3 of voters would consider a third party candidate in that case.

It's time. Gary Johnson, Libertarian.

"Trump and Hillary are both unthinkably evil."

I'd have to disagree with "unthinkably" evil.
Apparently there are quite a few citizens finding their individual brands of evil quite thinkable.

Okay, what about a third party vote? I cannot in good conscience vote Dem or Repub if Trump gets the nomination. I would vote Gary Johnson just to exercise my constitutional right I have done since I turned 18, except for his views on leaving Israel to fend for itself. I'm not down with that. Wish he'd change his mind on that stance.

Seriously though, any person who wants the conservative Christian vote in this country who has Israel's back can do better than Trump. I mean, I was in Sunday School and had an 8-year-old who made the same mistake he did reading from Two Corinthians. Seriously, there is a voting base of folks who are looking for someone other than Trump and his overflowing disingenuity.

"Okay, what about a third party vote? "

I've done that in the past, but I've come to realize that under the current system, at the national level it is pointless. Third parties simply don't have a prayer of electing a President. And doing it as a "protest" vote impresses absolutely nobody. The major parties do not give a damn what third party candidates say or do.

At the state level it is different. There, third parties can sometimes get their candidates elected. (Bernie Sanders, for all these years he's been in the Senate, has always run as a third party candidate.) The major parties, at the state level, have to pay attention to the third parties, so a vote for a third party candidate can influence them even if the third party candidate doesn't win.

Hillary belongs in jail and Trump belongs in an asylum.

Neither Trump nor Cruz are Hitler reincarnate. Nor is Hillary. Hitler rose to a dictatorship through a parliamentary democracy, one that does not have separate and co-equal branches of government. Ours does.

Trump will essentially be a third-party president, with few friends on either side of the aisle.

Clinton as president will be attacked immediately by Republicans and will have a hard time compromising with them and will have more than a few Democratic enemies as well. She sees her vision as absolute and will have a hard time compromising or encouraging legislators to follow her lead. I don't see her getting chummy with Congressional leaders (except for the women, whom she will use more as photo ops than allies).

At least Trump has made a payroll and understands what it is to start and run a business. Hillary belongs to the "you didn't build that" school of economic thought.

Trump and Sanders represent voter frustration with political leaders who hold themselves as knowing sages and the populace as a gaggle of ignoramuses. We're $19 trillion in debt thanks these idiots paying off supporters and buying votes.

Neither Trump, nor Cruz, nor Hillary will be the solution to that problem. Sanders doesn't even acknowledge it as a problem.

Something I got reminded of the other day, and it's ironic in the context of this thread: contrary to popular belief, Hitler was never elected to any executive position in Germany. It was the incumbent von Hindenburg, not Hitler, who won the 1932 Weimar-government presidential election. Hitler was appointed to the post of Chancellor by von Hindenburg, who thought he could keep the Nazi Party under his thumb by doing that. von Hindenburg, not Hitler, signed the Enabling Act of 1933.

Cousin Dave,

Hitler and the Nazis never got more than 37% of the seats in the Reichstag. In fact, in the last election before Hitler was appointed chancellor, the Nazis only got 34% of the seats. They were never a majority. However, the Communists had 30+% so forming a functioning coalition government without either the Nazis or the Communists proved to be impossible.

The conservatives didn't want Hitler as chancellor, but Hitler refused to join any coalition unless he was made chancellor. The first right-wing attempt at a coalition government failed because they couldn't muster enough votes (the Communists had 30+% of the Reichstag seats).

Finally, the right-wing relented and assured Hindenburg they could control Hitler. To control Hitler, the Nazis were kept from the major cabinet positions: foreign ministry, finance, and defense ministry. Hermann Goering was made the Minister of the Interior, considered a minor post.

However, the Interior Ministry controlled the police in Bavaria and several other states - which let Goering crack down on the Communists, to the delight of the right-wing, until Goering came after them and they realized what they had done.

Understand, I'm not supporting birthright citizenship. Maybe once upon a time, it made sense, when a trip to the U.S. required a 4.5 day journey on a steamship, as opposed to hopping a jet and being in the U.S. in a matter of hours, dropping a kid and "Hey, look! A natural-born citizen. Green cards for the whole family!" ~ Patrick at March 16, 2016 9:04 AM

Birthright citizenship came about as a response to anti-Reconstruction laws in the South which held that since slaves had never been recognized as citizens, the freed slaves were also not citizens and therefore could be legally barred from voting.

The Fourteenth Amendment made anyone born on US soil a citizen, automatically making the freed slaves citizens and voters.