Poisoning the Well in Post-Election Posturing by a Party Scorned

It wasn’t nearly enough that a candidate and her political party, their accomplices in the mainstream media citing all of the polls from the esteemed experts, so certain of her inevitability, that they ultimately lost to a man running largely on his own, backed only with the support of the millions wanting to change, and seek real change, in Washington, DC. A candidate done under, largely by her own illegal actions, repeated prevarications and ethical shortcomings, it had become obvious to Hillary Clinton, as early as Tuesday afternoon, November 8^th, that she would not prevail in the electoral college- hence the reason she called off the planned fireworks display, in what was supposed to be the introduction of her victory celebration in New York.

Having conceded victory to her rival, Donald Trump, now she has decided to join forces with Jill Stein in demanding recounts that will change nothing- except to reinforce the proposition that Trump’s is an election without legitimacy. The idea is to deny the man elective legitimacy, and in so doing, poison the well of chances that the new president can achieve success in leading the nation. There are no losers like sore losers, and it is these two scorned women who cannot get past their own respective defeats, at the end of the day.

It wasn’t nearly enough that an incumbent president, who framed this year’s election as a referendum on his own presidency, smug in the certainty that his own sense of self perfection was something shared outside of himself and his mirror, was roundly rejected by a country dispirited by a combination of his own ineptitude, internationally, and the failure of his prized domestic program to deliver all that was promised in the passage of ObamaCare. The American people, regardless of what the mainstream media would have you otherwise believe, have effectively said that his presidency has grown stale, ineffective and ultimately a failure, in the end.

Now, Barack Obama travels the world, reinforcing the lie that foreign leaders should dread the new president, and therefore need his own reassurance that the United States will not have its values compromised by one man. Time was that partisanship ended at the shores of our country. Yet, rather than admit that it was his own presidency that ultimately led to the election of Donald Trump, Barack Obama wants to spend the remainder of his presidency poisoning the well of good will from abroad, and punishing the American people for what he sees as the betrayal of his own legacy. Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, who had the class, the decency and the sense of duty to refrain from criticizing his successor, Obama has promised to remain in Washington, there to speak out whenever Trump pursues a policy not to his liking. In effect, he seeks to poison the well of American exceptionalism long after he has left office.

It wasn’t nearly enough that most of the major media, so certain in the election of the candidate they championed, got proverbial eggs all over their collective faces, both from the collusion with the Clinton campaign, and the ultimate failure to faithfully report the news and the real mood of an American electorate. Their status, not good even prior to this year’s election, now lowered to the point of disdain and disrepute to the American public, and their viewership and readership will suffer as a result.

Now, they purport to be true and pursue false stories on a Trump transition team in crisis, when the truth is that Donald Trump is leading the way in the timely construction of his cabinet, as compared with his most immediate predecessors. Despite the media’s attempt to show a divide within his own transition team, by focusing on whether or not Mitt Romney will be named Secretary of State (on the record, we’re doubtful), and by raising questions as to the disposition of the financial empire that bears the new president’s name- questions that are the potential seeds of discontent, Donald Trump characteristically plods on, in the face of such scrutiny from a media which has grown more hostile in light of his election. By giving voice to the mobs rioting against his election, by giving airtime to initiatives to recount state elections, the media thus seeks to poison the well of public approval for a new president, even prior to his inauguration.

May Donald Trump be splendidly successful, if for no other reason than to spite all of those who seek to poison the well of hope that he achieves such success, in his own presidency.

January 20^th 2017 cannot come soon enough.

-Drew Nickell, 29 November 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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2016- Lessons Learned from the Election

That Donald Trump has shocked the world, and masterfully won the presidential election of 2016 is no longer in dispute, despite the rioting malcontents paid to express intolerance and lawlessly act out, purportedly on behalf of a party that preaches tolerance (well, their own, anyway). Furthermore, all of their ill-behavior changes nothing about who will take the oath of office on January 20^th, 2017. Our guess is that they were merely a riot in search of a cause, that Donald Trump’s election filled the bill, and that they’ll act out again against something else when George Soros gives them a financial incentive to do so. In a word, pathetic are the losers who can face neither certainty nor reality.

Looking back on all that has transpired during the last year and a half, which culminated in the election of Donald Trump in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, November 9^th, 2016, there are several and certain lessons that beg to be stated and, more importantly, must be remembered for the next presidential election, and the one after that:

• First, the mainstream media is not to be trusted in any way, shape or form, to report on presidential campaigns to any degree of accuracy, nor without the bias attendant to acting as a propaganda wing for the Democratic nominee. Such overt bias, having continually worsened since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, it was this year’s election that proved, once and for all, that any Republican seeking the presidency does so in the face of an unfair, overtly biased and at times libelous press who seeks their defeat with every word they write. Therefore it is up to the voter to seek out information from other sources because the mainstream media warrants no such trust;
• Second, presidential polls are worth about as much as screened portholes on a submarine, and are no more indicative of an electorate’s mood than wisdom coming from the wrong end of a bull, and should therefore be regarded in the same manner. Most, if not all, of the “scientific” forecasts had Hillary Clinton certain to win north of 300 electoral votes, and the complete opposite happened. (Brexit, anyone?) There’s a very simple way to know who is winning the presidential election…it’s the candidate who is not screaming nor coming across in an angry demeanor, as Hillary so profoundly displayed in her recent rallies;
• Third, the voters who cast ballots for Donald Trump are neither ignorant, nor racist, nor sexist, nor xenophobic, nor Islamophobic, nor anti-LGBT, nor any other pejorative with which they have been accused, unless one is willing to accept that a plurality (yes, it will be shown that Donald Trump won the popular vote, too) of voters are ignorant, racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, anti-LGBT, and all of those horrible things. Anyone who seriously believes that about the American people, should come to the conclusion that the United States is too intolerant to deserve their citizenship and should soon make arrangements to expatriate to another country, more to their liking;
• Fourth, there is nothing wrong with the electoral college that cannot be fixed with a requirement that voters substantiate their right to vote with a picture identification card, which most states offer and all states should offer at no charge to anyone asking for it, provided that the person can substantiate their citizenship. Other countries require this and one must produce such identification to bank, board an airplane, drive a car, purchase a firearm, or secure gainful employment in this country, so there is nothing racist about requiring a state-issued voter ID card, either;
• Fifth, the politics of incumbency and the powerful influence of money in the halls of Congress must, at long last, be put to an end. On a rotating basis, beginning with those who have served longest, term limits of three two-year terms for a representative, two six-year terms of a Senator, and twenty years for a Supreme Court justice must become the law of the land, by constitutional amendment. If the legislature refuses to act on this, then a convention of the states must bring this about. In addition, all forms of lobbying through an exchange of money must be declared illegal and, again if the legislature refuses to act on this, then a convention of the states must bring this about, as well;
• Sixth, the illegitimate use of federal agencies and departments, including State, Treasury (including the IRS), and Justice (including the FBI), as a means to wage partisan political warfare must come to an end if the country is ever going to restore its trust in government. Any breach of this covenant must be dealt with severely and automatically become grounds for immediate termination of employment. If criminal violations occur in such scenarios, legal ramifications, including loss of pension and imprisonment must be in the offing for such offenses;
• Seventh, the Presidential Commission on the Debates has shown to be incapable of impartially and judiciously selecting moderators for any presidential debate, and therefore should be completely done away with. Each party should select their own moderators for the debates during the nominating seasons, and then each party should select one moderator for each of the debates leading up to the election. The debates themselves need to return to the television studio so as to eliminate the possibility of audience involvement, and the format of the debate should resemble that of a high school forensic debate, as opposed to what we have witnessed in the last several elections;
•  Eighth, President Barack Obama has shown that an elected president can rule by executive order, but has also exposed the need that doing so must remain within Constitutional constraints, which has not been the case throughout his presidency. His insistence on doing so largely contributed to the election of a candidate who ran in opposition to his policies, and one who can undo all of these executive orders with a stroke of a pen on the afternoon following his inauguration, as we hope Mr. Trump will do;
• Ninth, the myth that the candidate who has the most money to spend, or has the most organized ground game to utilize, or has the greatest backing of partisan power-players, is going to be the likely winner is pure bunk. Hillary Clinton had all these advantages and yet Donald Trump won the election handily. He did this through hard work, as evidenced by the number of campaign events he held on any given day, and by sheer determination to stand up against the forces allayed against him;
• Tenth, nothing, NOTHING is ever a lock- not in sporting events, and certainly not in politics. Anyone who says otherwise is nothing more than the south end of a northbound horse, and gambles their credibility by doing so. Fortunes were lost in the waging rooms of Brexit, and fortunes were lost in the wagers on the results of this year’s presidential election. It’s easy to determine when a pundit has no idea what they are talking about…it’s the one who starts with “There’s no way…,” because, in the end, there is always a way.

Your exam will take place on November 3^rd, 2020.

Class dismissed.

-Drew Nickell, 15 November 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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Special Announcement – Drew Nickell to Participate in Hampton Roads Authorfest 2016 on Saturday & Sunday, 12-13 November 2016

For those of you living in Hampton Roads, otherwise known as “the 757,” Author, Blogger and Commentator Drew Nickell will be participating in Authorfest 2016 on Saturday, November 12^th and Sunday, 13^th, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers-Town Center, located at 4485 Virginia Beach Boulevard, Virginia Beach Virginia 23462. Drew will be doing live readings at 2:30 PM on Saturday, November 12^th and on Sunday, November 13^th at 10:00 AM, and will be available throughout the Authorfest to sign copies of his book, Bending Your Ear- A Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, and discuss the 2016 Presidential Election and the implications of this election going forward.

Please come out to see Drew this weekend !

-Drew Nickell, 10 November 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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President-elect Donald Trump

Despite all of the forces allied against his candidacy, from its very start in June of 2015, businessman and real estate mogul Donald J. Trump was elected the forty-fifth president of the United States, having bested Hillary Clinton in thirty of the fifty United States. Winning seven of the eleven so-called “swing states,” his victory was sealed when he was awarded the presidential electors of Pennsylvania in the early hours of Wednesday, November 9^th– a state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1988.

Not only did Trump defy all of the so-called experts, who were forecasting an electoral landslide of more than 300 electoral votes for Mrs. Clinton, as late as Tuesday afternoon, he has also effectively ended any future presidential aspirations on the part of the three ruling political families- the Bushes, the Clintons and the Obamas, who have held power since that same year of 1988. The dominance of these three families on their own respective parties, for longer than the last quarter-century, has been shattered on the rocks of a determined man- one who has never run for any political office, in his lifetime.

In doing so, he also managed to raise the curtain of decades-long mainstream media collusion with Democrats, in general, and the Clinton family, specifically, and has forced even the most vaunted experts of presidential polling to admit the error of their ways, and their inability to read the sentiments of an American electorate. Once derided as a “clown candidate,” condescendingly laughed at and scorned upon by political and media elites who viewed him and his supporters as what Hillary Clinton once called a “basket of deplorables,” it was Donald Trump who had the last laugh, in the end.

Today, the mainstream media speaks much about the “need” for Donald Trump to reach out, to mend fences and to engage his erstwhile adversaries- the Democrats and the “NeverTrump” Republicans, to join with him to form some kind of cooperative coalition as he enters into his own presidency. In reality, Donald Trump should outwardly and cordially treat these adversaries with a sense of presidential decorum, truly, but never fall into the foolish trap of entrusting any of these entities with his pursuit of an agenda with which they have taken so much issue.  Having retained both houses of Congress, it is now up to the Republicans to work with Trump and start acting like an opposition party opposed to Democrats, instead of acting like Democrat-wannabes. Failure to do so will effectively end the Republican Party- a party whose beginning can be traced back to 1854.

Donald Trump is to be congratulated for an amazing win of historic and consequential proportions, but now the real work of all that he and his followers have sought, begins. It will not be easy to mend a broken nation and the challenges that he and the American people face will not easily be overcome.

Most urgently, he must bring about the immediate demise of ObamaCare. In doing so, he must work with the Congress to replace it with a new system that is designed to serve patients first- one that is not coercive with the sword of the IRS, but rather a consumer-focused system where open competition amongst several insurance providers, across state lines, keeps the costs of coverage within the financial grasp of working Americans.

Second, he must secure the borders of this country, ensure that those entering the United States are carefully vetted to assure the public safety, and ensure that any and all immigration is managed legally, competently, and professionally.

Thirdly, he must immediately begin the process of replacing the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, on the Supreme Court of the United States.

In the longer view, President Trump will be tasked with bringing together a divided country, one compoundly fractured along racial, religious, political and economic lines. This will no doubt take longer, given the enormous chasms that separate Americans from one another, but this must nevertheless be in the back of Mr. Trump’s mind in all of his decisions as he moves forward. With an emphasis towards American nationalism, so absent in the last twenty-eight years of an over-arching globalist agenda pursued by both parties, putting America and Americans first will go far in bringing the American people together, again.

There is much to do, Mr. Trump. On behalf of the American people, let’s get started…big league.

-Drew Nickell, 9 November 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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Election Day 2016 – Day of Decision, Day of Destiny

…and now it has come down to this…this day, this decision, and this destiny.

Today the United States will cast its ballots for the presidency of the United States, and never has more been at stake in the outcome of a presidential election than in this year of 2016. The distinction between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could not possibly be greater- in terms of style, in terms of flawed ethos and pathos, in terms of policy and the direction in which each would take us.

Hillary Clinton, whose ambition is all-pervasive and is devoid of any ethical standard other than that which is self-seeking and self-serving, feels that the presidency is something that is owed to her. She is advantaged by the widespread and pervasive collusion of most all of the mainstream media, her campaign, the Democratic National Committee, President Obama’s State, Justice and Treasury departments, including senior levels of the IRS and the FBI, all working to ensure her ascendancy to the throne that they have fashioned for her. Not able to draw large crowds in her own right, she has relied on more popular acolytes within her own party, from presidents to the first lady, to musicians and celebrities, all in an attempt to draw people who would otherwise not bother to see her.

Donald Trump- theatrical, bombastic, combative and sometimes even abrasive- stands stubbornly against all of the forces set on his demise. He has endured enmity from the establishment globalists within his own party, in addition to all of the forces united against him as listed above, and has spent a king’s ransom of his own money in a quest to save this country from the abyss of its own excess. Somehow, he has again and again proved the experts wrong, and seeks to do this one more time. Without any help from former Republican presidents (all of whom are named “Bush,” by the way), nor from the GOP leadership in Congress, nor from any celebrities of note, he nevertheless has managed to draw in the tens of thousands, all by himself. He speaks to their frustrations and offers a voice to those who have been squeezed out of both prosperity and opportunity, at the hands of policies driven by both parties which benefit the few, at the expense of the many.

The one thing that unites all of the diverse powers set against Donald Trump may yet prove to be his own saving grace. As all of these forces have something to gain from the continuation of the status quo ante, no one represents the status quo of the past quarter century than does Hillary Clinton. All of these same forces are threatened by the election of Donald Trump, because his election would come at the cost of their own demise. Their vested interests, their proclaimed competency and prestige, and even their positions of power and influence would all come crashing down, atop their lofty egos. The fact is that Donald Trump scares the living hell out of the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bushes and most all of the major media because, if successful, he will have done so without their aid or influence and their days of relevance would be numbered. The many masses of the middle class hear his call for substantive change and are willing to climb aboard what they see as the last lifeboat to their country’s salvation.

Lost in all the hubris of what most certainly is the most contentious and acrimonious U. S. presidential election in more than a century, is the cold reality of what this election says about its electorate. In a way, this election- comprised of what may be the most detested candidates in history- is a reflection of who we are as a people and our understanding, or misunderstanding, of its short- and long-term ramifications.

To be precise, we are either a people unafraid to seize control of our own destiny as a republic, or we are the moronic marionettes marching in step to the pied piper of political posturing. A Trump victory will ascertain the former, and give this nation one last chance to fix what has long ailed us, while a Clinton victory will prove the latter and etch the letters of our own demise- both as a nation, and as a force for good in the cause of liberty and prosperity.

…something to consider as we head to the polls on this day, and for all time.

-Drew Nickell, 8 November 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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Presidential Predictions and Prognostications

Several months back this writer predicted that, despite all of the mainstream media predictions, prognostications and, for that matter, professional polling to the contrary, Donald Trump would shock the entire world by winning the presidential election, hands down. We made this prediction and, for the record, will stand by this prediction one week before the election will formally take place on November 8^th.  We did this (and do this) because Donald Trump’s candidacy is a “movement” candidacy, as opposed to a strictly “partisan” candidacy, which has been the case for Republicans since the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term in 1989. Movement candidacies, such as Roosevelt’s in 1932 and Reagan’s in 1980, tend to be won by decisive margins, as opposed to partisan candidacies such as Kennedy’s in 1960 and George W. Bush’s in 2000, which were won by razor-thin margins, respectively.

The difference?

While partisan candidacies are typically candidacies run by inside partisan heir apparents, i.e. typical Democrat vs. Republican, movement candidacies are candidacies run by relative outsiders, answering a call for substantive and actual changes. While Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton is the ultimate partisan insider, running her campaign as the partisan Democrat she is, Republican Donald Trump is anything and everything but a partisan insider, much to the chagrin of Republican mainstreamers like the Bushes, John Kasich, and Mitt Romney, who remain intransigent that one of their “own” didn’t get the nod, and are having to feast upon the sour grapes of their own vineyard.

Our prediction of a Trump win is just that- a prediction, which is to say that it’s not a prognostication. Whereas a prediction, as the one offered here, is based upon one’s take of what is going on, a prognostication is more of a view into the near future, as if that future is somehow ordained by forces beyond our comprehension.

Only a fool, and a damned fool at that, would prognosticate a win by either candidate in this election of 2016.

What we can do, then, is offer up two post-election scenarios- a Hillary win and a Trump win.

A Hillary Clinton win will be essentially a continuation of the stalemate that exists between the House of Representatives and the White House, where nothing actually gets done and partisan bickering between the Oval office, backed by their partisan allies, and the Congress, lead by the opposing party, will continue to be an exercise in futility and a continuation of the rancor to which all of us have grown quite nauseated. Whereas Barack Obama, for instance, was able to begin his term with a brief “honeymoon,” Hillary Clinton will not have this luxury, thanks to the level of distrust she would carry into her inauguration, based upon the plethora of scandals that are the hallmark of her candidacy. This certainty would be sealed with either Barack Obama’s pardon of her, on the final day of his presidency, or her own de facto pardon of herself on the first day of her own presidency, which has the potential of impeachment proceedings if further FBI revelations of her wrongdoing come to the surface in the next several months.

A Trump win will more likely resemble the first term of a Roosevelt presidency or a Reagan presidency, where much legislative action is proposed and acted upon- especially during the first hundred days of Mr. Trump’s term. This would occur where even the most stubborn “NeverTrump” members of his own party resign themselves to the fact of his presidency and thereby seek to jump aboard the “Trump Train,” at long last. A Republican retention of the Senate majority would ensure that a substantial part of his platform, namely ending ObamaCare, would be in the offing.

The good news for Hillary Clinton is that, either way, she will not likely face legal ramifications for her own dirty deeds, as it is almost certain that Obama’s final act as president will be a full, unconditional pardon- especially if Trump wins. Obama would do so for no other reason than pure spite for an American people, who would have effectively decided that two terms of an Obama administration is quite enough.

The bad news for Hillary Clinton is that, if Trump should win, any new and substantive revelations about criminal activity discovered after the 20^th of January 2017, would render Obama’s presidential pardon moot, and thus enable a Justice Department headed by Trump’s Attorney General to bring her and her husband justice, real justice, at long last.

The worse news for Hillary Clinton is that, if Trump should win, it is very likely that such post-inaugural revelations would eventually occur, since more is not known about the Clinton corruption than is known, at this point in time.

The good news for Donald Trump is that, should he lose the election, he can return to a relative life of ease and comfort, once again joining his children to manage their real estate and financial empire and thus returning him to the status quo ante he has enjoyed so much, over the years.

The not-so-comfortable-but-nevertheless-oh-so-gratifying news for Donald Trump is that, if our prediction holds true and he indeed wins the presidency, he will have an opportunity to make the fundamental changes he seeks and, at the same time, stick it to all of the professional politicos, pollsters and press by calling their so-called “expertise” into question, and serve up a career-ending crash of their own making.

Nothing would ice Trump’s inaugural cake sweeter than that…big league.

-Drew Nickell, 1 November 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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