Trail Mix

By PatD, a Trail Mix Contributor

While getting set for the kick-off game on Monday between Team Hillary and Team Trump, an article on the background of how this superbowl came to be caught my eye.

The State of the Presidential Debate
How should candidates—and voters—argue about politics?
By Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

Aside from historic references, political insider tales and the discovery that a man named Ailes is still coaching debaters, it had other lessons worth sharing. The following excerpt seems applicable to recent discussions on the Trail:

“Political argument has been having a terrible century. Instead of arguing, everyone from next-door neighbors to members of Congress has got used to doing the I.R.L. equivalent of posting to the comments section: serially fulminating. The U.S. Supreme Court is one Justice short of a full bench, limiting its ability to deliberate, because Senate Republicans refused to hold the hearings required in order to fill that seat. They’d rather do battle on Twitter. Democratic members of Congress, unable to get the House of Representatives to debate gun-control measures, held a sit-in, live-streamed on Periscope. At campaign events, and even at the nominating Conventions, protesters have tried to silence other people’s speech in the name of the First Amendment. On college campuses, administrators, faculty, and students who express unwelcome political views have been fired and expelled. Even high-school debate has come under sustained attack from students who, refusing to argue the assigned political topic, contest the rules. One in three Americans declines to discuss politics except in private; fewer than one in four ever talk with someone with whom they disagree politically; fewer than one in five have ever attended a problem-solving meeting, even online, with people holding views different from their own. What kind of democracy is that?”

Will we individuals ever return to civil discourse, civil discussion and civil debate while civilly listening to those with whom we disagee let alone allow, expect and want that of our government leaders and representatives?

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USA TODAY

Hillary Clinton had to fight Bernie Sanders to the finish line, and now struggles to keep Donald Trump at bay. For someone who was supposed to have this thing in the bag, she has fumbled her way throughout this process, belying the mantra from supporters that she is supremely qualified, presenting the ultimate resume for office. Her incompetence as a candidate raises a question about her potential skill in office. What’s her agenda? Can anyone name three things she’d do without googling it? All I’ve seen are clueless mistakes that provoke doubt, calling half of her opponent’s voters “deplorable”, questioning whether they are smart enough to do their own research, at the very least prevaricating in her various and conflicting comments about the email mess, dodging the media, obviously to avoid questions about the Clinton Foundation and so much more. No wonder she and her supporters simply hope to run out the clock focusing on Trump. That’s the whole campaign: I’m not Trump. Anybody’s guess who I am. No mandate there. Another president half the country hates.

Kudos to NYC law enforcement for capturing the bombing suspect so quickly. And let’s take a moment to assert that this coward, or any others out there, will not undermine us, ever. This episode thankfully left no one dead. Others to come might. Still, someday maybe these would-be killers will get it, that they will always fail in their ultimate objective to destroy us. No matter how many innocents they take, they are the losers every time.

and let the Communists set up any government in the Western Hemisphere. — Lyndon Baines Johnson

By Blue Bronc, a Trail Mix Contributor

All the deep brotherly air kisses and love between the old guy wearing a shedding rat as a hairpiece and the old KGB agent keeps bringing one thing up.  The old Soviet wants to destroy America.  Whatever the bloater has in mind, and his mind is one thing that could use a bit of chemical treatment, thinking Putin is going to make a favorable deal is nuts.

He is old enough to know how the Cold War went, and how it destroyed many countries around the world.  His business dealings also show he is stupid too.  The blowhard is being played by Putin and the Russian mob.  As he will not release his tax papers we can assume that he his more Russian than American.

Give me people who distrust the Communists. People who were not fooled when Putin said he was all for democracy, as long as he was elected.  People who have seen the real world and not one created in the vacuum of an orange covered cranium.

Hillary has seen much of the world, starting with her Republican youth.  I still cannot understand why the Republicans hate her so much.  Is it because she stood by her husband, unlike the fifty percent plus divorce rate of the Republican states?  Is it because she is smart? Maybe because she is everything they are not?

A side effect of being a Boomer is to have lived through the Cold War.  The constant propaganda of both sides.  How horrible the Russians/Soviets are compared to your average criminal.  Those godless people, how could we not hate them.  McCarthy assuring us that the Commies are everywhere and only he can protect us from them.

Today we have a McCarthy wanna be.  But more dangerous.  McCarthy drank too much and died before running for president.  The bloater does not drink, whether or not we can trust that as he lies about anything and everything, so lying about drinking does not rise above anything else he states.

The problem is nothing like Obama bringing an end to the most foolish of embargoes in history.  That Cuba is going to the world, actually Cuba went to the world decades ago, and America finally recognizes the problem of holding an embargo for Miami votes is nothing like taking the Soviets into America through the White House.

No sleeper cell is the bloater.  He admits to being under the influence of the Kremlin in his campaign word salad.  Having been in the U.S. military I was trained to be ready to fight in Europe against unnamed forces which probably had a big red star on their uniforms. Although I could not and would not mix up the Soviet star and the Macy’s star (yes there are people who do not shop at Macy’s because they think it is a Soviet store).

I do not trust Putin.  I do not like Putin and his minions.

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