Overlooking and letting go

When I'm not writing blogs or getting involved in music, I work in a plastics factory here in Omaha. 

This company recently hired a new director of human resources after firing her much-appreciated predecessor, a long-time company executive.

This past Wednesday, a question the firm's new HR chief asked me got under my skin...big time.

At 4:55 PM that afternoon, I was trying to leave the break room at the plant I work at in order to resume production. A fellow machine operator of mine (a middle-aged woman) was talking with the new head of HR about trying to recover items stolen the previous day from the machine operator while she herself was in the women's restroom at the same plant. 

The operator was attempting to find the culprit.

As I was trying to get back to the machine I was assigned to run, our company's new exec asked me: "Did you do it?" 

I felt stunned.

Nevertheless, I answered: "No, I didn't! I was raised better than that." 

WHAT THE HELL MADE THIS DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES THINK I'D GO INTO A WOMEN'S RESTROOM AT ALL...LET ALONE TO STEAL FROM ANYONE IN IT? 

When I returned to the break room that night to eat dinner, I told another machine operator about the incident...and this coworker asked me to "let it go."

I WON'T!!

I'm still stunned by this question.

In fact, three days ago, I regained enough composure to write down what had happened in the break room and submit the report to the supervisor's office...then got a copy made for personal safekeeping (and to provide documented proof that this HR honcho asked me this inane question). 

By the way, I learned that this isn't the first time said executive popped off like this to a rank-and-file employee.

Every late summer or early fall, the firm holds a picnic, and all the executives within the company get involved in it. (And that means the head of human resources will be there...to, among other things, help conduct an employee raffle.)

This year, I'm not going to show up.

And I'm going to continue to boycott the company picnic as long as this new HR leader is part of the firm I'm still with. 

You know, all of this overlooking and letting go has, in recent decades, led America to the point where- let's not kid ourselves- a dictator is in the White House (and his fellow Republicans, especially the ones on Capitol Hill, are fighting tooth and nail to help him convert America from the constitutional republic it was founded to be into a police state). 

During 2016, 231.6 million of America's 323.1 million people were eligible to cast ballots. 

62.9 million people voted to turn these United States into a fascist nation. (I mean, let's face it. They're getting what they've been on their knees begging for.)

They sold out their country...and, in the process, trashed the Allies' 1939-45 efforts to keep full-fledged fascism from spreading beyond Germany, Italy, and Japan (let alone hit America's shores in a complete and total way). 

In addition, according to the United States Election Project, 108.6 million citizens stayed away from the polls on 11-8-2016...but 21.0 million of them were forced to do so on account of voter-suppression laws enacted in state after state after state after Barack Obama picked up his second term of office (and because the Supreme Court ruled against the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2013). 

So...87.6 million citizens are, like it or not, just as complicit as the aforementioned 62.9 million folks in saying "yes" to the nightmare we entered into on 1-20-2017.

That's right...the self-inflicted nightmare. 

After all, when you don't vote, you give the other side the choice. That's all there is to it. 

Do you enjoy GOP efforts to take away more and more of your rights- especially the right to speak out against injustice? Are you okay with the Republicans' drive to capitalize on Russia's heavy hand in the 2016 US election? [By the way, do you remember when US Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) talked about how much they admired Russia's Vladimir Putin? This was just four years ago!] 

You cool with families being torn apart at the border...

with the children thrown into cages? 

Well, if you don't like this Great American Nightmare, all you've got to do is make sure you get out to your neighborhood polling place on 11-6-2018. 

Vote to take Congressional control away from the Republicans. Today's Elephants keep proving that they don't give a crap about America.

They just care about power.

Come on now...you can't really expect a Graham (or a Mitch McConnell or a Paul Ryan or a Steve Scalise) to call Donald Trump out when they have the same basic core beliefs Trump has.

And you can't expect the heads of this country's biggest media companies to call DJT and his fellow Republicans out on the carpet when Big Media helped bring all of this garbage about. 

It's up to us rank-and-file citizens to save this country.

We won't do it by overlooking and letting go.   

Dear Jeffrey Toobin:

You recently told Larry Wilmore that you now find yourself regretful about your role in pushing a "false equivalence" between Hillary Clinton's actions and those of Donald Trump during Big Media's coverage of the 2016 US presidential race.

Fine.

There's just one thing:

You're too freakin' late!  

The whole problem is that you, your buddies at CNN, and counterparts at America's other newsgathering television networks pushed this "false equivalence" to begin with.

After all, Jeffrey, you work for Jeff Zucker...the same man who, when he headed up NBC Entertainment, helped Trump's The Apprentice get on the air in the first place.

You people were so smitten over the prospect of one of your medium's biggest stars landing the most talked-about job in politics that you failed to see the danger signs...such as his studying Adolf Hitler's speeches for ideas on how to handle things.

By telling your viewers that Clinton- one of the most politically-experienced major-party nominees in a long, long time- is just as wretched as Trump, you helped usher in a period where, when Trump, Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and Co. are through doing their damage to this country's government, we won't have a constitutional republic anymore...let alone a shot at a real democracy.

You helped usher in a time where America's now the laughingstock of Planet Earth.

ARE YOU SATISFIED?? 

Instead of going for truth, you folks in Big Media wasted the 6-15-2015/11-8-2016 period going strictly for ratings...and you consistently think the way to get those good-looking Nielsen numbers is to portray every US political campaign as a horse race.

The way I see it, we stopped having presidencies on 1-20-2017.

Instead, we've got an emperor/king/dictator/premier/generalissimo. 

I hope you're happy, Jeffrey.   




  

A playoff cycle for the books!

The first six-touchdown performance in the history of these "shoulda-coulda-woulda" Division 1-A football playoffs...the first second-round loss by a Number One seed in six years...a team that'd been 0-2 in playoff appearances finally rising up to win a pair of postseason contests...a Mid-American Conference team making the Final Four for the first time...and a new color in the throne room.

Well, I'm just going to cut to the chase and tell you how the 2016 edition of this version of a big-school NCAA football playoff went down: 

FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Michigan (9) 63, Oklahoma State (24) 21; San Diego State (16) 28, Toledo (17) 7; Colorado (13) 30, USC (20) 23; Wisconsin (12) 31, Nebraska (21) 0; Florida State (19) 41, Western Kentucky (14) 34; Stanford (22) 24, South Florida (11) 21; Louisville (18) 28, Temple (15) 14; West Virginia (10) 31, Appalachian State (23) 27

SECOND ROUND: Michigan 37, Alabama (1) 22; San Diego State 28, Boise State (8) 7; Ohio State (5) 21, Colorado 13; Washington (4) 42, Wisconsin 10; Penn State (6) 46, Florida State 7; Clemson (3) 30, Stanford 21; Oklahoma (7) 28, Louisville 21; Western Michigan (2) 19, West Virginia 3

QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Michigan 42, San Diego State 17; Washington 13, Ohio State 12; Penn State 38, Clemson 27; Western Michigan 35, Oklahoma 28

SEMIFINAL ROUND: Washington 20, Michigan 6; Penn State 34, Western Michigan 20

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Penn State 29, Washington 13

Now...on to the highlights!

FIRST ROUND: Freshman RB Chris Evans (12) keyed the Wolverines' rout of the Cowboys by scoring six TDs- four on the ground, one on a catch, and the other on an 84-yard punt return- to break Ki-Jana Carter's one-game record of five, set in 1994 (still the mark for a championship game)...after two first-round failures (1986 and 2015), Aztecs rode RB Donnel Pumphrey's 18-carry, 200-yard spree to victory over the Rockets...Hilltoppers' 30 first downs (and 574-527 yardage edge) weren't enough to stop the Seminoles, who won the game when WR Kermit Whitfield ran it in from seven yards with 3:05 to go in the fourth quarter...in a battle of Mountaineers, West Virginia pulled it out with 4:15 left in the fourth on RB Justin Crawford's two-yard scoring jaunt after K Michael Rubino's 48-yard field goal gave Appalachian State a brief 27-24 lead...Buffaloes avenged a 20-5 loss to the Trojans when QB Sefo Liufau scooted to paydirt from the USC 11...Badgers capitalized on Husker QB Tommy Armstrong's absence (due to an injury against Iowa) by limiting Nebraska to 229 total yards and by avoiding turnovers and penalties...RB Christian McCaffrey (20 runs, 133 yards, 2 TDs) helped Cardinal overcome Bulls' 14-10 halftime lead.

SECOND ROUND: Broncos dismissed the Men from Morgantown by holding WVU to a sickening 76 total yards (44 on the ground, 32 in the air)...RB Saquon Barkley (23 rushes, 101 yards) and QB Trace McSorley (two TD passes, two rushing scores) keyed Nittany Lions' dismantling of Seminoles...QB Baker Mayfield hooked up with WR Dede Westbrook for a 54-yard TD to advance Sooners over Cardinals (and their Heisman-winning QB, Lamar Jackson)...McCaffrey took the opening kickoff 100 yards for a score, but Tigers overcame all that with QB Deshaun Watson's three TD tosses (and 20-of-29 passing for 187 yards)...the Pumphrey Express flattened Boise State (he gained 131 yards on 23 tries and scored a TD)...QB Jake Browning's four air scores (18-29-359 yards-2 INTs on the night) helped Huskies oust Badgers...Crimson Tide outgained Wolverines, 334-253, and kept Evans out of the end zone- but six sacks by Michigan's defense led to Alabama's demise (six years after Wisconsin embarrassed top-seeded Auburn, 28-21, in the second round). 

QUARTERFINAL ROUND: 19 Tiger penalties (for 131 yards) caused Clemson to waste Watson's 38-49-358 yard-3 TD-2 INT effort...for the first time ever, a team from the Mid-American Conference reached the semifinals- because WMU QB Zach Terrell flipped a one-yard scoring toss to WR Corey Davis with 4:54 remaining in regulation to kick the Sooners out of the playoffs...in what was a game of three-pointers, WR Aaron Fuller won it for the Huskies by running a punt back 80 yards to daylight (after returning just one other punt during the season- and that for five yards)...QB Wilton Speight's five TD throws (he went 20 for 31 for 311 yards and two picks) helped the Wolverines bury the Aztecs.

SEMIFINAL ROUND: Terrell outdueled McSorley (316 passing yards to 290), but Trace flicked three air scores to Zach's two- and got help from Barkley, who ran 24 times for 121 yards...Huskies held Wolverines to 272 total yards- 54 on the ground (in 28 carries); meanwhile, Browning and WR Chico McClatcher hooked up for two scoring strikes.

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Barkley (this season's playoff MVP) toted the Nittany Lions on his back by scoring a pair of TDs (while running 24 times for 88 yards).

Result: Penn State won it all for the first time since 1994 (when the team from State College, PA crushed Kansas State, 63-14, in Carter's monster game).

The Nittany Lions kept the "shoulda-coulda-woulda" crown in Big Ten Conference hands (Iowa was last season's champ after stopping Alabama, 14-7, in overtime).

The Blue and White became the fourth club in the history of these playoffs to win it all under two different head coaches- joining Nebraska (Tom Osborne in 1982, 1989, 1990, 1993, and 1997 and Frank Solich in 1999), Miami (FL) (Dennis Erickson turned the trick in 1992, followed nine years later by Larry Coker), and Ohio State (which won in 1996 under John Cooper, then did it again in 2005, 2007, and 2010- all on Jim Tressel's watch).

And 22 years after Joe Paterno brought the crown to Happy Valley, James Franklin got it done...and became the first African American to head up a champion in this version of a D-1-A playoff. 

Had Washington come through, Chris Peterson would've made "shoulda-coulda-woulda" history, too...as the first head coach to take two different teams to the top. (His Boise State squad went all the way in 2006 and 2008.)

This playoff cycle was truly one for the books.

Can the 2017 playoffs top that? 

I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading this blog!

Good riddance to 2016

For billions (well, at least millions) of people all over the world, 2016 was a trying, bad, horrible, no-good twelve-month period.

From personal problems all the way to global issues, this year was a testing one...to say the least. 

The way I see it, the clincher came on 11-8-2016.

Because 62 million Americans preferred this man to run this country's government (and he got the magic number of electoral votes as a result), most of the world's remaining 7.1 billion people (including the 65 million US voters who wanted the first woman who ever won a major political party's presidential nomination here in these fifty states) received coal in their stockings. 

The Chinese didn't term this "The Year of the Monkey" for nothing...and they weren't talking about a dance from the 1960s. 

I hope we all can survive 2017...let alone see it turn into a Happy New Year. 

Is it time to split the United States?

Like millions of other Americans, I'm still smarting over what happened three Tuesdays ago.

That's right...unless at least 41 electors get some spine and decide to vote their conscience when they and the remaining 497 electors meet on 12-19-2016 (or unless the current recount effort in four states bears real fruit), the United States will official go under a fascist government as early as 1-20-2017.

Inauguration Day.

Think about it...if you haven't been doing so already. 

Then think back to 12-26-1991 (if you were around back then).

That day happened to be the one in which the Soviet Union officially broke up (after all fifteen of its old socialist republics, one by one, declared their independence).

What if some regions of the United States declared their own independence? 

After all, it's now estimated that on 11-8-2016, 62 million US voters- whether they thought so or not, knew it or not, liked it or not- decided they'd rather live under fascist rule. 

What if they had their own country...the old Confederacy plus some states in the Northwest and Midwest? 

Due to the geographical implications, the states to the west of this new Confederacy would be an entirely different nation...hopefully, one run as the republic America was supposedly set up to be.

And the same thing would go for the new country north of this revived CSA.

Oh, well...it's just a thought.

What do YOU think? 

Is splitting these fifty states three ways the only answer to satisfy Trump supporters, Clinton fans, and everybody else?

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

This date, too, will live in infamy.

That's because yesterday, hatred and bigotry won out.

That's all there is to it.  

Yesterday, American voters- as a whole- chose to replace Barack Obama with a PROVEN racist/sexist/misogynist/homophobe/Islamophobe who's studied Adolf Hitler's speeches.

And they were aided and abetted by the reporters, producers, and executives from the nation's biggest media companies...as well as by FBI director James Comey.

Many claim they never saw this coming. But they might have forgotten about how, in 2010, voters joined with those Democrats who chose to stay home in giving the US House of Representatives back to the Republicans...and, four years later, repeated the process with this country's Senate. 

Handing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue back to the Elephants was the next step. 

Those who decided to go with Donald Trump just spat on the graves of all those American veterans who died during World War 2- people who gave up their lives in an effort to keep German/Italian/Japanese totalitarian rule from reaching America's shores. 

So now, as early as 1-20-2017, Trump could call a fascist government. 

I wouldn't put it past him, knowing his supersized ego.

It isn't as if we weren't warned, what with years of evidence that DJT doesn't give a hoot about rank-and-file citizens.

And when many of this country's Trump supporters find out he really doesn't give a crap about them, they'll express remorse over giving control of the US government to the one-time host of TV's The Apprentice...instead of letting one of the most qualified presidential nominees in history take the reins. 

Those Trump supporters' eventual tears and sadness will prove useless and meaningless. 

What's more, media personalities such as CNN's Dana Bash and NBC's Matt Lauer might privately express grief over allowing this con artist to become this year's Republican nominee, let alone the leader of the American people. And Bash's boss, Jeff Zucker (the same man who, when he was president of NBC Entertainment, got The Apprentice on the air), might eventually start expressing sadness...if only in private.

Me, I stopped watching corporate news programs the night of 11-4-2014. After all, news is news, not entertainment...contrary to what Zucker and CBS CEO Les Moonves teach.

But now, I'm going to stop watching ANYTHING the Big Media companies have to offer, now that this has happened. 

They have to pay for their part in bringing eventual (if not immediate) full-fledged fascist rule to the United States...just as those voters who thought Trump would be better than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton must pay for their decision. 

If you're just as worked up about what just took place at the polls as I am (and yes, I voted yesterday), then you're welcome to join me in this boycott of CBS', Comcast's, Disney's, News Corporation's, and Time Warner's shows. 

Yesterday, America threw it all away.

With the whole world watching.

The First Time Ever!

Starting tonight, at 8:00 PM Eastern time, 7:00 PM Central time, etc., people all over the world (not just Americans and Canadians) will be able to turn on their TV sets, mobile devices, computers, and so on, and experience something unprecedented:

They'll be able to watch live coverage of a World Series involving baseball's Chicago Cubs.  

Last Saturday night, Joe Maddon's club beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-0, to win this year's National League Championship Series, four games to two

...and, at long last, snare the team's first NL flag since 1945. (That year's World Series- won by the Detroit Tigers, four games to three- could've been the first time a television network brought viewers a Fall Classic...if a date almost four years earlier hadn't gained infamy and, among other things, halted the progress American TV had been making.) 

Well now, here in 2016, the Cubs- after losing National League pennant series in 1984, 1989, 2003, and 2015- have to push the American League's best team, the Cleveland Indians, out of the way to grab major league baseball's biggest prize for the first time since 1908.

In 1908, you couldn't even turn on your radio and thrill to the Cubbies' four-games-to-one triumph over that earlier edition of the Tigers. America's first radio station- KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA- was twelve years away from signing on for the first time. (To follow MLB back then, you had to trust your local newspaper.) 

Speaking of trust...I had more faith in Terry Francona's team to get to this year's World Series than was the case with Chicago's NL squad. 

Francona, after serving as the Philadelphia Phillies' field manager from 1997 to 2000 (285-363 and Philly good for no better than third in the NL East in 1998 and 1999), got the Boston Red Sox' job in 2004...and took them right to the top of the sport, guiding his new team to that famous four-game WS sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals to end that 86-year drought between World Series titles.

Boston proved it all was no fluke by going back to the Fall Classic in 2007, when the Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies...one of the fourteen teams formed in the majors after the Cubs appeared in what turned out to be the Cubs' final World Series of the 20th Century. 

The Red Sox were Francona's gig through 2011 (he left Beantown 744-552 and with those two Commissioner's Trophies); two years later, the Indians hired him...and he was named AL Manager of the Year after he guided Cleveland [the team he played on in 1988; his dad, John (better known as "Tito"), was with the Tribe from 1959 to 1964] to one of the two AL wild-card slots.   

And so, while the 2016 Indians were sailing past the Toronto Blue Jays, four games to one (the clincher was a 3-0 win), to get their first AL championship since 1997, I kept looking at this year's NLCS- and how the Cubs blew NLCS leads in 1984 and 2003- and thinking: "I hope the Cubs win it...but I've got the feeling Dave Roberts' club's gonna pull it off."

The Dodgers didn't pull it off. 

This time, the team with MLB's second-oldest current park (the oldest facility in the NL by 47 years) came through.  

Maddon, like Francona, knows a thing or two about transforming a hard-luck baseball team.

After two interim spots with the California/Anaheim Angels (1996 and 1999; combined mark: 27-24), Maddon got hired by the then Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2006. Two years later, that club knocked the Devil out of its nickname, changed its team colors, and...won it all in the AL. (Okay, the 2008 Fall Classic didn't work out for the Blue and Gold; the Phils stopped them, four games to one.)

But Maddon won the 2008 AL Manager of the Year award, duplicated that in 2011, and left the Tampa-St. Pete area with a record of 754-705 in nine seasons in charge of the local American League team- the only winning record by a Tampa Bay skipper thus far.

Tom Ricketts and his team's general manager, Theo Epstein (the same Theo Epstein who helped the Red Sox get the 2004 and 2007 World Series titles as their GM), took a look at Maddon's record...and had him catch a plane to Chicago in time for the 2015 campaign.

Joe guided the Cubbies to a wild-card spot in his new league, an NL Division Series triumph over the Cards, and...was named NL Manager of the Year last year. 

And now, the Chicago Cubs are getting ready to take on a team that hasn't won a Fall Classic since 1948 (just the second WS berth ever for the Tribe; the first was in 1920)...and since 1948, got to the Series just three other times in the 20th Century: 1954, 1995, and, of course, 1997. 

Anyway...it should be an interesting World Series for 2016. 

Okay...that's a real understatement.

Especially if you're a Cubs fan.  

The 84-Year Itch

I took a look at the opinion page in this past Sunday's Omaha World-Herald...and was stunned out of my wits. 

Then a smile crept onto my face. 

The paper's editorial staff decided to go ahead and endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton to be America's 45th president.

I don't know how long Nebraska's largest newspaper has made presidential endorsements, but I do know this: It's only the second time since the Great Depression began this month in 1929 that the World-Herald thought a Democrat would be better off calling the shots from the Oval Office than a Republican. 

In fact, the fact that Wall Street laid that egg on 10-29-1929 led the OWH's then editors to tell their readers that it was time to kick Republican Herbert Hoover out of the White House and put Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in there for 1932. (Hoover- who died on this very date in 1964- was America's commerce secretary from 1921 to 1928; some historians feel he was the best chief this country's Commerce Department ever had.)

In the intervening 84 years- with one exception- the World-Herald went strictly with GOP nominees. (The paper's editors didn't endorse a presidential nominee in 1964.) 

When it came to 2016, editor-in-chief Terry Kroeger joined the rest of the editorial staff in biting their fingernails over Endorsement Time. 

They could've decided to sit out Endorsement Time.

Instead, Kroeger and his people made Clinton their choice...albeit with some trepidation. Sunday's editorial cited the fact that many Americans are still ticked off about Clinton's private email server from her days (2009-13) in charge of this country's State Department, all those deleted emails, and her handling of the 9-11-2012 attack at the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Kroeger and Co. even cited some Americans' anxiety over HRC stumping for a single-payer health-care system, American style. 

The 10-16-2016 editorial, nevertheless, said that giving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Donald Trump just wouldn't cut it. 

Trump's alienated too many people (especially those who aren't male, Caucasian, professing Christian, heterosexual, and/or wealthy), failed to show a real grasp of current events, and repeatedly shown a bent for lashing out whenever he's attacked.

Et cetera.

The World-Herald top brass gave Clinton the nod over her vast governmental and political experience...from her days as Arkansas' first lady all the way to her 2016 US presidential bid (her second one ever, of course). 

And the paper's editors thought that kind of experience would make the difference in a world whose most closely-watched land (yep, this one) has a debt of nearly $20 billion and whose Middle East region is once again a ticking time bomb.

To sum it all up, Kroeger and his staff said that the first lady-turned-US senator from New York-turned US secretary of state needs to show she's a uniter once she gets the job that her husband Bill once had (1993-2001).

I think she'll do it...as long as we help out.

And I congratulate the OWH staff for endorsing HRC instead of DJT.

Just in Case This Week's Debate Didn't Convince You...

First of all, she wants to get America's multimillionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share to invest in the country they loudly proclaim they love. (Her solution: A "Fair Share Surcharge" on their taxes.) 

She wants to use the proceeds from that surcharge to fund the nation's ambitious investments.

She wants to simplify and cut taxes for small businesses so that those firms can hire and grow.  

She'd like to launch a $7.5 billion fund for new federal-and-state partnerships so that local leaders can cook up programs to treat and prevent drug addiction...whether the drug is alcohol, meth, cocaine, marijuana, or anything in between.

She's got a 100-days jobs plan that emphasizes repairing America's infrastructure, bringing more manufacturing jobs to these shores, aiding small businesses, propping up research and technology, and making clean energy more of a reality for these fifty states.  

Speaking of clean energy...she's proposed a $60 billion program to not only promote clean energy, but also to cut carbon pollution.

She wants 500 million new solar panels up and in use by 1-20-2021.

She's out to give America's college students a debt-free experience.

What's more, she wants to make that college experience a safer one...by giving this country's institutions of higher learning more of the tools they'll need to end campus sexual assault. 

She wants $2 billion invested annually for research to prevent, treat, and- by 2025- find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease. 

She vows to end the heinous 2010 Corporations United (oops, I mean Citizens United) decision...and to get dark money out of US politics once and for all.

She'll vow to help the coalition air campaign against the Islamic State, increase support for local Arab and Kurdish forces, and use diplomacy to end Syria's civil war. 

She'll also work hand in hand with European intelligence officials to spot and stop those groups and individuals who've been funding and enabling terrorism. 

She wants a meaningful, healthy dialog with America's Muslims...a far cry from the stance taken by her biggest rival for the top spot in America's government. 

On top of that, she thinks it's a great idea to let the FBI stop gun sales to suspected terrorists...and she thinks it's cool to give the country's first responders all the help they need to fight terrorism on these shores.

There's a lot more where this came from (including said nominee's Website).

I'm going with the nominee who's got more government experience than the other three nominees out there for 2016 combined.  

Take it from a man who started 2016 going for US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the Democrats' presidential nominee.

America's much better off going with Hillary Jane Rodham Clinton as the replacement for fellow Democrat Barack Obama.  

Don't believe all the lies you've heard about the former first lady/US senator/US secretary of state. 

A Moral Obligation

He's disparaged Mexicans, labeling them as murderers, rapists, and drug runners.

He's called African-American people lazy...and said "they can't help it."

He's talked about banning (or at least curtailing) immigration to America, and he doesn't want Muslims to travel to these United States "until we can figure out what to do with them."

He still wants to build that wall along the US-Mexico border. 

His weapons of first choice: Nuclear bombs. 

He's made dirty, rotten, filthy remarks about women of all colors. To say he's got utter contempt for women is an understatement.

He poked fun at a reporter (Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times) who's surviving cerebral palsy.  

He's made it clear that if you disagree with him in any way, shape, or form (especially if you're a news reporter), you'll suffer dire consequences. (Just ask the folks at The Washington Post. They're not allowed to interview him anymore.)

 

He still insists Barack Obama (who's got the job our subject is after) wasn't even born here in the US...despite planeloads of evidence showing otherwise.

He's got a cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin...and thinks it's cool for the KGB to spy on Americans.

He's suggested that his chief 2016 US presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, should be murdered by Second Amendment advocates. 

As a real-estate tycoon, he's filed for bankruptcy six times and been sued 3,000 times. 

He's too darned chicken to disclose his income tax returns. 

He's been known to shortchange his rank-and-file employees and to stiff his contractors. What's more, he wants to see the nation's minimum wage lowered.  

All along the campaign trail, he's incited violence...time and time and tiresome time again. 

He's got too enormous an ego to compromise, to delegate...to actually do the job he's seeking. 

With his authoritarian bent, he isn't really running for the presidency. He's running to be the nation's first dictator.

He doesn't give a crap about the country's rank-and-file citizens. It's all about HIM, HIM, HIM. 

His whole campaign has been built on bigotry. 

With him in front of the Republican Party, the GOP continues to represent the biggest threat to any hope for democracy in these United States.

He's been treating his whole campaign as if it were another season of The Apprentice. 

The bottom line:

We Americans have a moral obligation to make DOGGONE SURE Donald John Trump doesn't give the next inaugural address.  

After all, the whole world is watching us.

What about the Other Judicial Nominees?

It finally happened.

372 days after President Barack Obama nominated him to serve as a district judge for the US District Court for the State of Nebraska, Robert F. Rossiter Jr. finally got the gig.

This past Monday, the US Senate voted, 90-0, to confirm Rossiter, who's also the newly-elected president of the Nebraska State Bar Association...and the Purdue University and Creighton University grad (he got his doctorate at Creighton) assumed the bench yesterday.  
Congratulations to Rossiter...and all the very best to him. 

Now it's time for the two dozen other district-judge nominees to get their confirmations. 

In fact, it's long been time.

One of the reasons Rossiter's got a new job is US Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE),

who fought like you-know-what to get the Eighth Judicial District a replacement for the now-retired Joseph Bataillon. 

On the other side of the coin...Fischer's one of the US senators fighting like you-know-what to prevent Merrick Garland from even having a hearing as Obama's nominee to replace the now-deceased Antonin Scalia.

You know the big Republican rationale: "No president has ever nominated anyone for the US Supreme Court during an election year, and the Senate has never voted to confirm a Supreme Court nominee during an election year. And no Supreme Court justice ever took the oath of office in an election year."

That's the same line Fischer gave me and so many other Nebraskans when she received emails that pleaded for a hearing for Garland.

Fischer turned 37 in 1988...an election year. (Guess who she voted for on 11-8-1988.) 

1988 was also the year where, 49 days into the year, a 51-year-old Californian named Anthony Kennedy became the newest SCOTUS justice.

 

How about it, you Senate Republicans?

Isn't it time to give Garland his due?

How much longer does he have to wait? 

I've Got My Paper Bag(s) Ready...How about You?

Take a look at all these Republican presidential candidates for 2016.

Study them.

If you've got the stomach, pick up a copy of your local newspaper or a newsmagazine and read what they've got to say.

And if you've got even more of a stomach, watch these candidates on TV...and listen to what they've got to say.

Donald Trump...John Ellis Bush...Scott Walker...Rafael "Ted" Cruz...Rand Paul...Rick Perry...Marco Rubio...Rick Santorum...Chris Christie...Mike Huckabee...Piyush "Bobby" Jindal...Lindsey Graham...Ben Carson...Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina. (I've got the feeling I've left somebody out!)

You hear them bashing this ethnic group, that ethnic group, LGBT people, America's middle-income and low-income households, this country's rank-and-file employees.

You catch the officeholders among them just plain making it harder for rank-and-file Americans to live their own lives. If the Walkers and Jindals among them aren't fighting to put labor unions out of business, they're working 24/7 to make sure women can't get real access to health care products and services.

This country's biggest media companies don't help when their reporters and their immediate superiors (and the superiors' own bosses) care more about Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails (and actual or perceived role in the 9-11-2012 Benghazi uprising) than about JEB's role in the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s, his role in the 2000 US presidential election, and his signing of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law when he ran the Sunshine State's government. 

It all makes me want to vomit. (And I've thrown up just twice in my life...once in 1965, and then again two years later!)

The rhetoric of today's Republicans- especially those trying to get the chance to ride Air Force One- just makes me want to vomit.

How about you?