A General Post Aware of the Election

This may be the rare mostly political post  on this blog as this election draws near. I think that the relatively thin commentary here throughout this cycle and the lack of my strong expression of support for anyone is  significant. But perhaps the answers are not all so simple. I do want to spend some time discussing the views I have developed of this political season and its candidates. I BELIEVE  THAT AT THIS POINT IT IS ABOUT 95% LIKELY THAT PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL HAD OVER THE ADMINISTRATION OF OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT  TO THE APPARENT WINNER OF THE CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AT APPROXIMATELY THE LEGALLY APPOINTED DATE AND TIME. I BELIEVE THAT IT IS ABOUT 99.95% LIKELY THAT THE WINNER OF THIS ELECTION WILL EITHER BE HILLARY CLINTON OR DONALD TRUMP.

While it seems very nearly certain it is not absolutely certain that our current constitutional arrangement will survive at least on more transfer  of power following an election which consists — despite all the controversies that have arisen — of very familiar moving and not so moving parts. I think that all six of the listed probabilities below combine for a fiver percent  chance all together that ONE of them could and would happen. The alternatives to expectations are as follows:

1. There will be large scale and detectable voter fraud, voter intimidation, technical and logistical breakdown on the actual polling of the electorate. By the time early voting is over and Election Day is underway this will have reached a scale which will inspire resistance in whatever groups and individuals can resist.
2. The Obama administration will confront any number of social crises which shall arise over the next few weeks to seize power in an openly extra-constitutional way and will disrupt or ignore the transfer of power. Or alternatively will hand it to Hillary in a sort of caretaker government.
3. Some entity or entities will convince military in sufficient numbers to attempt a coup d’etat and we will have an interim military government.
4. Trump will have a massive group of poll deceivers which sweeps him to a huge victory and the result will be to undermine faith in the news media and polling establishment as never before.
5. Trump will cry foul and launch a credible call for a constitutional convention across the Republican led States.
6. Such a massive crisis will occur that the election is not our top priority.

I think that there is a .05% chance that another candidate other than the Republican or Democrat will win this election. That mean I think that there is a chance of five in ten thousand that someone else could win. Such horrifying things would have to happen for that to happen and it might happen in a crisis plagued electoral college.

I myself have many concerns not  related to this election directly — either because they are too far from the seats of power and the concerns of the seats of power or because they are too big and far reaching for this process as it currently exists to address them well. I recently presented a paper at the Gulf South History and Humanities Conference and I have posted about that event here, here and here and will likely post on the topic of the Conference directly  at least once more.  That event was not directly linked to politics as they exist in the cycle we are living through as a nation. The  truth is that I have posted about other matters which have occupied my mind in this election cycle. Those matter include not getting into graduate school, the epic flood around here and my daily life. In addition I had several posts on the Dudley Leblanc exhibit.

Given all of this it is possible to think that politics have not mattered to me this season — but they have mattered.  The electoral race does matter.  I am not really endorsing Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. But I do provide links under each of their names to their official websites for their campaigns.  Politics really does matter and this election will matter.

Toby Takes Charge: DOTD set out state of I-49 Connector plans

Congratulating Louisiana State Senator Fred Mills on reforming Marijuana law…

Early December 2014? Whenever this is it is Clinton’s race to lose at that moment.

Early December 2014?

The voting booth remains a powerful part of our society.

Dr. Boustany and I at a town hall meeting. This was several years ago.

Hillary Clinton is unwilling to disavow partial birth abortions,  there is no limit to how far this will go within the context put forth. She was clear enough about this  in the third and final debate with Donald Trump. She not only escaped consequences of videos of Planned Parenthood selling foetal parts and the consequences of more scandals than can be counted she also has the willingness to demand forms of sexual equality which may harm traditional families, men in distress or husbands in anyway. She is an uncompromising ideologue without any concern for the costs of her adherence to principle for other consciences and principled people. She has also been revealed in Wiki-leaks and other sources to be involved in a corrupt and mendacious political machine.   For these and other reasons I cannot endorse Hillary Clinton and I am deciding here and now that I will not be voting for her — it may be hard to believe but until just now I was not sure.

I am in agreement with trump that we need a more nationalist point of view, we need to control immigration, we need a President of the United States with many skills that he has. I think his use of bad language is not important given the alternative of Hillary’s connections with Bill Clinton and Anthony Wiener. I perhaps should endorse him. I think he has many admirable qualities and has been unfairly portrayed in the media. But I do not trust him to do the right things with a head of steam pushing America to the right, I do not trust him to handle the relationship with Mexico, Mexican-Americans or the illegal aliens well. I MAY VOTE FOR TRUMP. But while he needs my endorsement (small a help as that might be) and anything else he can get right now right now I cannot give it to him.

I also think foreign policy matters. I do not think that the Obama administration and Hilary Clinton have effected good foreign policy. I do not feel good about here returning to the path we are on in any of a variety of areas of the world.   But I am not in favor of Trump creating a series of zero-sum games around the world and calling them deals. I really do not understand how he could choose to do that but I think that he might. Clinton can be fairly judged on her record and we all can see it — I dislike it. Trump could be worse and I am a pessimist — so I can imagine many bad outcomes.  So we will have to see what happens. Short of some terrible obstacle I do not expect — I will vote. On my Facebook page I placed links to all of the third -party candidates who will appear on my ballot. It will either be them or Trump. I may vote for a woman but she will not be the first woman POTUS. I did vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin knowing that she might become President of the United States. But I will not vote for Hillary this time and she is the only woman likely to become President soon.

The question of how Russia and Donald Trump will connect is an important question if he is elected. The question of how Russia is interacting with the United States right now and will interact with this country over the future is important no matter who wins. Here is a link to Russian journalism coverage of the race and here is a link to another such article.  They each say quite different things about the race although they are not really discussing the same issues.

So, I am offline in a sense as a commentator. I will vote unless stopped. I will comment once we have the election if I can. But I am caught up in my own concerns and cannot pursue this elections season with the kind of intensity it deserves. many Americans feel that way — we will see what the results of this and other pressures will be on voter turnout.