I must confess that in the past the subject of Politics has never really held my interest.  I have always thought of Politicians and their ilk as being too lazy to work for a living and too honest to steal.  Right?  Boy, was I naive.  Little did I know.

Essentially, I grew up at a time when the only President we ever knew was FDR (by the way, I’m still growing up).  I was not around for the first of the four consecutive Presidential victories of Franklin Delano Roosevelt which was in 1932 and I admittedly have no recollection of his second victory in 1936 but I do remember the third and fourth victories in 1940 and 1944.  I guess that’s giving away my age but what the hell.  Since I had no interest in Politics, not only did FDR’s unprecedented third and fourth victories leave me unimpressed, so did all of them by his successors and I do mean all of them, up to the present time.

So when did things begin to change for me?  It was a little more than a year prior to Obama’s running for the second time, when he was not doing too well in the polls and in order to reverse the trend, our administration concocted the now famous scenario of how they completed the assassination of Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011 at his hideout in Pakistan.  For a detailed description and analysis of what really happened, read the article, “Who Killed Cock Robin?”

Immediately following Obama’s victory in 2012, he recalled the two squadrons of F-22 Raptors that were based within striking distance of Iran that were originally sent there by his predecessor (some say in anticipation of a joint preemptive strike with Israel to take out Iran’s growing nuclear program just as Israel did with Iraq on June 7, 1981 and Syria on September 6, 1907).  Following the removal of the Raptors, on the pretext that it was necessary because of needed repairs, the signal was loud and clear and relations between the US and Israel reached its lowest point.

Jump ahead a few years and we find Obama, the Big O, together with all of his minions, Hillary Clinton included, returning to Iran 150 billion of their own assets that were originally frozen because the Iranians were deemed to be bad actors (and still are), provided that they promise not to go nuclear.  Hah.  How stupid can our administration get?

And what about Obamacare?  It was doomed to fail from the very get-go.  Read the article, “An Actuary Looks at The Affordable Care Act”.

And what does all of this have to do with Hillary Clinton?  Everything.  Should Hillary win on the 8th of November, there is a good chance that she will nominate the Big O for the Supreme Court.  And that’s not a four year appointment.  It’s for life.

So, out of a total of five candidates, who should we vote for on November 8?  Yes, five.  Everyone knows that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are running as well as trying to kill each other in the process.  But what about the other three?  There is Darrell Castle, Roque De La Fuente and Gary Johnson.  What do you mean, you never heard of them?  They’re on the ballot.  Why?  Because the US is still a free country.

That doesn’t mean that either of those three have even the remotest chance of winning.  For all intents and purposes we are dealing solely with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  Do we vote for Hillary who admittedly does have an impressive resume or do we vote for Trump who has promised that he will “drain the swamps” in Washington?  Do we vote for Hillary who is a political descendant and or crony of the Big O or do we vote for Trump who seems to offend many of those who he comes into contact with?  Do we vote for Hillary who is a professional politician or do we vote for Trump who has never been a professional politician?

Five years ago I thought that Hillary would make a good President and that if she picked Bill as her running mate, she would win hands down.  Even if she didn’t or couldn’t pick Bill, he would still via the inevitable “pillow talk” become a de-facto Vice President.  Imagine, two for the price of one.  Such a deal.  But that was then and this is now.  During the interim more and more of the details regarding both Hillary and Bill would come to the surface.

Okay, so Bill didn’t know how to keep his fly zipped up.  I can’t think of any of our Presidents during my lifetime that didn’t fool around, except maybe Harry Truman or Jimmy Carter.  Even the great FDR, who was a gimp and a cripple, used to get some nookie on the side.  At one time I thought that JFK was the biggest whore master of them all.  When the rest of the Bill Clinton dirt was aired, he made JFK look like a Boy Scout.  Fast forward to Donald Trump.  Trump does talk a lot when he talks, or used to talk since everyone changes over time, about the opposite sex.  But most of his talk is just that, talk.  Bill Clinton never did talk about it.  He just did all of those things.  Naturally, through all of it, Hillary remained by his side and did stick up for him, as any “loyal” spouse should.

Do Presidents or Presidential candidates ever lie?  Of course they do.  The trick is not to get caught, which is very difficult to avoid when you are interviewed on TV saying one thing and later on denying that you ever said “such and such”.  That is why in my dealings with others, my preference is to use email, unless of course there is something that I want to hide.  In this manner, if I am ever questioned as to what I said or if the other person denies that they or I ever said it, whatever “it” may be, I can refer to the email which is not so easily dismissed.  Does Trump ever lie or at least exaggerate?  Probably.  Does Hillary ever lie?  You tell me.

What puzzles me is that when Trump announced his candidacy the main line media and almost everyone in the Republican hierarchy began to crucify him and circulate every possible rumor about him until many began to accept them as the gospel truth.  Almost everyone except the people or the “commoners” were against him.  Some of the people, particularly those who were brain washed as children by their elders that the Democratic party is the party of the people were almost exclusively against him.  I always wondered about the veracity of that statement since all of our so-called Democratic Presidents either came from wealth or became wealthy during or following their serving in office.

Since it was a foregone conclusion that Hillary, one way or another, would be the choice of the Democratic party and it was obvious that the Republicans had absolutely no one who could successfully stand up to her, let alone defeat her, until Trump came onto the scene, why then did not all of the Republicans accept him, especially after he trounced all of the other sixteen would be contenders and not by a small margin?  Without Trump or someone like him the Republicans wouldn’t stand a chance of defeating Hillary.  I can fully understand why Bush, Sr. and his friends spoke against Trump.  It was because he made his son look like a fool.  But what of the rest?  Why in the world would they not get behind him, unless they too are considered to be part of the “swamp” that Trump vowed to drain out of Washington?

One thing is very clear.  Whenever Trump makes a mistake he is excoriated not only by the Democrats but by the media as well because it is the popular thing to do and by the professional politicians of his own party because they perceive that they should behave in that manner.  But whenever Hillary makes a mistake it appears that for the most part she gets no more than a slap on the wrist and a free pass.  That’s how it has been.  But with each new revelation, the media is finally but slowly beginning to question her ethics and integrity.

Is Trump the perfect candidate?  Hell no.  For one thing he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.  He has a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time – probably because he is not a professional politician and has no clue when or how to smooth over an angry dissident or to just say nothing.

You say that he lacks the necessary experience for the important job of Commander in Chief.  Big deal.  No one really has the necessary experience.  In fact, those who are really best qualified for the job wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.  The Big O certainly didn’t have the necessary experience when he got the job but he sure was and still is a great talker.  Harry Truman had even less experience and he turned out to be one of the best Presidents that we ever had.  In my opinion, with or without the so-called necessary experience, this job will either bring out the very best in a person or it will break them.

Is Hillary the best candidate?  Perhaps, but only on paper for her so-called experience is riddled with inconsistencies, a lot of question marks and much more when her telling of outright lies is factored into the equation.  But I for one am not overly concerned about those inadequacies.  What bothers me the most is what did happen and what did not happen at Benghazi.  Following her questioning and to hear Hillary shriek, “What difference does it make at this point?”, is more than any reasonable person should have to swallow and be expected to unconditionally accept her response.  Yes, she was questioned but the idiot Republicans who did ask the questions, asked the wrong ones.

In our State Department there is a chain of command, at least that’s what we are told.  What I would specifically like to know is how did that chain of command function during the Benghazi fiasco.  I have it on good authority that two separate rescue operations were ordered to “stand down”, which in military terminology means, “stay put and do nothing”.  Who in that chain of command, gave the order to, “stand down”, twice?  Could it have been Hillary or maybe it was the Big O?  They both claim that they knew nothing about it.  Bullshit.  A decision like that is not left to some low level flunkie.  It goes straight to the top.  My assessment has always been that they never expected the situation to escalate the way it did and more importantly, they were fearful of causing any embarrassment towards the government of Libya.

If our heroes of yesteryear could witness our present day leaders cowering before lesser nations that get away with whatever they are doing, they would surely turn over in their graves.

And now we are all at what may be one of the most difficult crossroads of our lives.  Many in our country do not take the vote seriously because we have grown to take it for granted.  There are any number of places on this planet where people will gladly sacrifice their lives for just such an opportunity.  It’s not only a question of whether or not your candidate won.  The real question is: did you vote?