Some would have you believe the reason we, along with the rest of the world, are today mourning our nation’s demise is because of FBI Director James Comey’s illegal actions just days before the presidential election. While that certainly may be plausible, the real reason we have a President Trump may be traced more directly to the actions of Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

As chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Wasserman Schultz paved the way for Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. How do we know this? Simple. We learned she and the DNC had their thumbs on the scales for Hillary through hacked emails released by WikiLeaks. Far from being the impartial body it was supposed to be, the DNC took actions that favored their desired candidate, Clinton, from the get go.

It didn’t matter that polls showed Bernie Sanders beating Donald Trump in head to head match ups more consistently than Hillary Clinton. It didn’t matter that Bernie had more of what makes campaigns successful … voter enthusiasm. It didn’t matter that Bernie’s approval ratings were miles ahead of Clinton’s.

Not surprisingly, in a private pre-election poll, as reported by the Huffington Post, Sanders would have beaten Donald Trump by a historic margin if he had been the Democratic nominee.

As it turned out, many loyal Sanders supporters became so outraged over the news that Wasserman Schultz and her cronies were trying to sabotage Bernie’s chances at the nomination they swore never to vote for Hillary. The actions of the DNC just reinforced the belief that the Democratic primary was being rigged. It played right into the hands of Trump who portrayed his opponent as “Crooked Hillary.”

If the Democratic primary contest had been allowed to take place on a level playing field, and Hillary had still came out on top, it is likely many Sanders supporters would have gotten behind their party’s nominee.

In a move that showed the shear tone-deafness of the Hillary camp, once Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign as Democratic National Committee chairwoman, she was immediately hired by the Clinton campaign!

In hindsight, it seems fairly clear that but for Wasserman Schultz’s meddling in the Democratic primary, we would be celebrating a Sanders victory today and not trying to wrap our heads around the thought of a President Trump.

This election was supposed to signal the fall of the GOP. Instead we may be witnessing the death of the Democratic Party.

Photo | 34justice.com

We’ve all seen this. You’re up late watching TV when up pops an infomercial promising amazing weight loss within only two weeks. All you have to do is call the toll-free number for your very own supply of “Twenty Pounds In Two Weeks.” You are skeptical but decide to order because you are protected against any possible foolishness … the product comes with a full money-back guarantee.

Of course any sane person would know such a weight loss claim is nonsense … pure hucksterism at its very best. But you want to believe and heck, you can always get your money back!

Donald Trump won the presidency by making some pretty bold and outlandish promises. He is going to build a large wall along the entire 2000-mile Mexican border (“It’s going to be a wall that’s going to make that ceiling look quite low, and it’s fairly high”) He is going to roundup and deport 11 million illegal immigrants. He is going to ban Muslims from entering the United States. He is going to bomb the hell out of ISIS.

Surveys have shown Trump voters actually believe the man they just elected president can, and will, do all that he said he would. It doesn’t matter that what’s been promised is either beyond a president’s power or simply unconstitutional.

Trump voters are in for a big letdown. It is only a matter of time before they realize they have been duped by perhaps the greatest political con artist in American history.

The bad thing for them, and the nation, is that Trump’s election does not come with a money-back guarantee. We are all stuck with the great con man, and the potential harm his presidency will inflict on our great country, for four years.

There are no do-overs in presidential elections.

God help those Trump voters who will have to live with the shame of their foolish purchase; who will have to explain to their children and grandchildren how they could have been so gullible as to believe what, in the light of day, was pure horsefeathers.

Photo | businessinsider.com

While Hillary Clinton promised voters to fix all that is wrong with Washington D.C., Donald Trump promised to “drain the swap.” Instead of some minor White House renovations, the billionaire real estate developer called for a complete tear down and rebuild.

While pundits and pollsters try to come up with reasons why they were so wrong in their forecasts, it might be as simple as the American voter having had enough of politics as usual. They were willing to roll the dice on a TV celebrity with zero political experience than to vote for the ultimate political insider, Hillary Clinton. Her brilliant resume of governmental service actually turned out to be the kiss of death.

Donald Trump went up against a formidable group of experienced Republican politicians in the primary. He came out on top for the same reason he was able to defeat Clinton. Trump’s primary opponents, except for Carson and Fiorina, were all establishment types who promised more of the same, not a shock to the system.

Bernie Sanders’ strong showing in the Democrat primary revealed that the appetite for political revolution was not limited to Republicans. It is a safe bet that many of those Bernie revolutionaries helped get Trump elected.

The fact that Trump was light on policy proposals throughout his presidential run, and the American voter was fine with that, speaks to the level of disdain voters had for what used to be called standard political fare.

If GOP establishment types think Trump’s win is a victory for them, they better think twice. Trump has surrounded himself with members of the fringe alt-right who despise them as much as they do Democrats.

The GOP is now the party of Trump, not Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell. How this is going to play out or how anything is going to get accomplished in Washington remains to be seen.

Trump, and his supporters, will soon learn he has not been elected Czar of the United States. He cannot simply order a huge wall to be built along the Mexican border; he cannot simply start deporting all illegal immigrants; he simply cannot repeal Obamacare; he simply cannot undo treaties; he simply cannot ban all Muslims from entering the country; he simply cannot order manufacturers to move back to the United States.

But Trump supporters are hopeful of one thing … they start winning so much they will be sick of winning.

Photo | libertyfriends.blogspot.com

With Election Day less than 48 hours away, American voters are being told this election is the most important political choice they may make in their lifetimes.

Funny thing. It seems the exact same warning is sounded every presidential election cycle. Voters hear the message and shrug. They’ve been conditioned to see all that gloom and doom stuff as just campaign fodder to drive members of their party to get out and vote, nothing more, nothing less.

But something feels different this time around.

Far from being just another “boy cries wolf” analogy, this could actually be the most consequential election in generations.

And it is not because Donald Trump, the least qualified presidential candidate in terms of experience, temperament or judgment ever to run for office, might be elected president. No, the country, and the world … with any luck … might be able to withstand four years of almost certain chaos such a prospect could bring.

What makes this election so important is that the next president, through his or her appointments, could shape the Supreme Court for perhaps the next 30 years!

This fact cannot be overstressed.

The new president is likely to take office with one Supreme Court appointment to make, as it is unlikely President Obama will get his nominee, Merrick Garland, considered by the Senate before he leaves office. But here’s the kicker … the next president could have one or even two additional appointments to the high court before their time as president is up, even if they only serve one term! This could ultimately end up being a presidency that sways the balance of the court, progressive or conservative, for generations.

A President Trump would no doubt yield to the most conservative members of his party who would look for him to appoint the most conservative justices. Does anyone think Trump really cares who sits on the highest court? The man knows, or cares, as much about the Constitution as he does the Bible. Was that one or two Corinthians?

In deriding George H.W. Bush in the 1992 presidential election, Bill Clinton famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

With the election of 2016 upon us, it cannot be stressed enough… this time “It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.”

Vote as if the next 20-30 years of your life depends on it … because it just might.

Photo | politico.com

With only nine days to go before the presidential election, I woke up today with every intention of writing an open letter to Trump supporters. You know, point out some of the main reasons why their man should never occupy the White House.

But then, shaking the cobwebs from my brain, reality set in. My gut told me it would only be an exercise in futility. If all the news over the last 15 months on why Donald Trump is not suited to be president hadn’t swayed them by now, what made me think I had a prayer of changing minds?

Whatever happens on November 8th, I believe our country has changed in a profoundly sad way. Yet some say Trump’s run for the presidency only showed us who we really are. They point out we are, and have always been, a divided nation along so many lines: racial, ethnic and religious. That old “melting point” myth, they say, is just that. Trump only lifted the rock and welcomed all the slumbering racists and bigots to come see the light of day.

So now we know. Nearly half of Americans would prefer as their leader the least qualified, most temperamentally unstable, presidential candidate in United States history. They know his shortcomings full well … yet don’t care. They would rather roll the dice with Trump than see the country led by the first female president who happens to have a resume making her the most experienced and qualified presidential candidate, man or women, to seek the office.

It doesn’t matter that:

1. Trump is a defendant in an upcoming fraud trial (Trump University)
2. Trump is a defendant in an upcoming rape case of a 13 year old
3. Trump has boasted about sexually assaulting women with impunity
4. Trump has refused to show his tax returns
5. Trump may be in serious debt to Russian oligarchs
6. Trump has zero political experience
7. Trump is a failure at business
8. Trump’s entire adult life has been a giant con

Oh what’s the point? I could go on and on. You know the litany.

Sorry for doing what I set out not to do. It’s just that I’m having a hard time believing this election is even close.

I know that for those regular readers of this site, I am preaching to the choir. Let’s hope we have truly not devolved into nation taken over by fear and hatred.

My belief is that on November 9th, we will have a Madam President-elect, Hillary Clinton.

But I know we will also have a wounded nation that will need a lot of TLC if it is to heal from this traumatic campaign odyssey we’ve been subjected to.

Image courtesy of Just2shutter at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the only thing that has come out of Donald Trump’s mouth recently, which has any connection with the truth, is that our election system is rigged. But he’s right for all the wrong reasons.

No, we do not have millions of dead people and illegal immigrants voting. There is no massive voter fraud. There is massive voter suppression.

Republicans realized long ago that the electoral landscape was shifting below their feet. Our country was becoming less white and more diverse, with large increases in the Hispanic and Afro-American populations. Researchers at the Brookings Institute have shown this trend favors Democrats, not Republicans.

Whites have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968. African-Americans have voted Democratic in every White House contest since 1936, and Hispanics have been strongly Democratic, too.

With the help of a conservative Supreme Court, the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was effectively struck down in 2013 (Shelby County v. Holder) by the Court’s 5-4 decision, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval.

It didn’t take states previously covered by the Act to take advantage of their good fortune. It wasn’t months or even weeks. How about the next day?

North Carolina Republicans, the day after the Court’s decision, passed one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation that restricted access to voting, eliminated same-day voter registration, reduced early voting, instituted a strict photo ID requirement, and ended a program that preregistered 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. That law had been previously struck down in a scathing 83-page opinion that exposed the extent of the law’s racial bias. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, writing for the majority on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, noted that the law’s provisions “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision,” by using race data in the decision-making process.

The defense for all these new laws? We needed to eliminate voter fraud … even though it has been proven to be statistically non-existent. The integrity of our voting system needed to be upheld, we were told!

Despite Chief Justice Roberts’ misguided Shelby opinion that “Our country has changed,” and racial discrimination in voting was a thing of the past, the Court did say Congress remained free to try to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights were at risk.

Fat chance! Not by a congress controlled by the GOP for whom the Court’s decision was every Republican’s wet dream.

Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote. The only way to bring back a level voting playing field is for Congress to act on restoring/revising the Voting Rights Act or for a new Supreme Court to overturn its decision.

Republicans know they have no chance of surviving in the “new” America without well-crafted voter suppression laws firmly in place.

This is where we, Americans who care about, and believe in, equality and fairness come in.

Your mission this election, Vote Blue … no matter who!

Photo | cbc.ca

Here’s a chilling reminder of the things Black people endured in order for us to have the right to vote: http://trib.al/cEDocYS

Its no secret most Republican politicians know Donald Trump will not be our nation’s 45^th president. Yet they are not saddened in the least. They are salivating over the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency and immediate impeachment (making the Clintons two for two). At the very least, they are looking forward to obstructing Hillary’s legislative agenda by tying her up in one House congressional investigation after another.

“It’s a target-rich environment,” said Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, head of the powerful House Oversight Committee. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.”

Yes, even before she is sworn in as the nation’s first female president, talk of impeachment and endless investigations is making Republicans down right giddy!

It doesn’t matter there is precedent for the notion that federal officials cannot be impeached and removed from their current offices for crimes committed before they have assumed those positions. The House’s 1873 impeachment investigation of Vice President Schuyler Colfax has come to represent the general understanding that impeachment is reserved for “high crimes and misdemeanors” a federal official may commit while in office.

To be fair, however, this is not settled law. In the words of Gerald Ford, who as House minority leader spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to remove Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1970, “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

It also doesn’t matter that Republican House members have already spent millions of taxpayer dollars investigating Hillary Clinton to death. But then again, Hillary bashing has become the glue that binds Republicans of all stripes. What better way to unite a splintered party after Trump’s debacle? Party over country forever!

Republicans want to treat Hillary Clinton as they did Barack Obama. With zero respect. With zero interest in uniting the country. With zero concern for passing meaningful legislation that helps ordinary Americans.

But if Republicans follow through on their threats, they may be in for a rude awakening. Hillary Clinton is no Barack Obama. She is not like our mild-mannered president who let Republicans get away with their nonsense, for so long, without cost. No, Hillary knows how to fight fire with fire. She knows how to play dirty.

After all, the first time she and Bill occupied the White House, a certain aide of the Clintons, who might have had the goods on the couple, mysteriously died.

Republicans should think twice before messing with those criminal, murderous Clintons.

Photo | republicbuzz.com

Donald Trump’s main campaign theme during the past few weeks has been that our election system is corrupted. If he loses the presidency, he tells his loyal followers, it will be because the voting was rigged.

In tonight’s third and final presidential debate, moderator, Chris Wallace, asked Donald Trump a direct question – twice – to which he refused to give a direct answer.

After reminding Trump that his running mate, Mike Pence, pledged that both he and Trump would “absolutely” accept the will of the people, Wallace asked him, “Will you absolutely accept the results of the election?”

Trump’s reply, to a question he no doubt was prepared to answer, was, “I will look at it at the time.”

I will look at it at the time?

By refusing to say if he would accept the legitimacy of a Hillary Clinton win, Trump undermined the basic American belief that our election system is fair. By leaving in doubt whether he would concede after a loss, Trump did something no other presidential candidate has ever done… question the entire basis of American democracy.

Wallace did not ask Trump a Bush v. Gore type question, namely, if the election results were close in one particular state, would he question those results if they went against him. No, Wallace was talking about our national election system.

Many analysts are now saying Trump sealed his fate with his unprecedented, conditional answer. They are labeling his refusal to give a “yes” or “no” reply to Wallace’s direct question as one that disqualifies him from office.

So why would Trump answer the way he did?

A Morning Consult survey of nearly 2,000 registered voters found that a strong majority of Republicans, 73 percent, now believe the election could be unfairly taken from Trump.

Trump’s loyal base has heard his message that he can only lose if the election is stolen from him… and they buy it. They have heard talk of massive voter fraud from their Republican leaders for years … and they believe it exists.

Many pundits are predicting Trump will keep pounding this narrative of a rigged election no matter how much pushback he gets from his Republican comrades.

The bottom line? Trump has no regard for any down ballot Republicans he may hurt. He doesn’t care if he loses in a landslide, even if it costs the GOP the Senate and the House.

For the purported billionaire, it’s all about keeping the loyalty, and anger, of his diehard base intact for his next, post-election business venture… whatever that maybe.

Nothing else makes any sense.

Photo | (Joe Raedle/Pool via AP)

Before his foray into politics, most people viewed Donald Trump as a smart, successful businessman. It has only been during his presidential run did we learn Trump’s business acumen revolves around running businesses into the ground, declaring bankruptcy and leaving his creditors, investors and employees holding the bag.

Trump, of course, always comes out smelling like a rose so, in a sense, he is a “smart” businessman.

We also learned the man is bereft of a moral compass.

The recent Access Hollywood tape where Trump boasts of sexually assaulting women, with impunity, just follows in a long pattern of morally reprehensible behavior and comments.

Trump began his presidential campaign by insulting Mexicans. Then he moved on to denigrate Muslims, women, blacks, the disabled and even the Pope. Though he has tried to walk back some of his more derogatory comments, the apologies have all rung hollow (I apologize if you were offended by the truth that I spoke). As Trump himself has said, he never really apologizes because he is never wrong.

As we get ready for tomorrow night’s third and final presidential debate in Las Vegas, look for Donald Trump to go as low as he’s ever gone. Heck, he has no sense of shame nor does he have anything to lose. His path to the presidency has been thwarted by a giant roadblock of his own making.

While his followers may not want to accept reality, Trump understands he will not win the presidency. Some are saying he has known this for some time. Others are convinced it was never Trump’s intention to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. All Trump wanted, they say, was a way to promote his brand.

There is serious speculation that Trump’s endgame now is to solidify his base of conspiracy-loving, Hillary-hating diehards for his next business venture, whatever that turns out to be. Trump Media Empire?

Tomorrow night may be Trump’s last shot at a national audience of his fanatical followers. While some delusional Republican establishment-types still hold out hope Trump will pivot to a softer, more presidential candidate, don’t look for him to break form.

I look for Trump to go full kamakaze by attacking Hillary Clinton with every alt-right conspiracy theory he can think of in order to placate his rabid base.

Moderator Chris Wallace will certainly have his hands full in Sin City.

Photo |  REUTERS/Scott Morgan

Drop out! If, as you say, the election is rigged against you by the press, Democrats, international bankers, Carlos Slim, global elites and even Saturday Night Live, why continue your campaign?

If the “fix” is in, you have no chance. Why suffer through a humiliating defeat next month? Why keep asking supporters for money? Why waste all that dough on a quixotic quest?

Think of your brand! It has taken a serious hit during your run for the presidency. Bookings at your hotels are down. Your casinos, stores, products and golf courses are all hurting.

Depending on the level of the fix, a Clinton landslide is a very real possibility.

For your sake and that of your family, there is still time to bow out.

Yes, your party would devolve into complete chaos but since when did you care about those cowardly Republican politicians anyway? They’ll figure something out. But the point is that you, Donald J. Trump, will not forever be known as a loser.

You might even rehabilitate your brand by telling us what we’ve suspected from the start… the whole thing was a ploy, a con, to promote your beloved brand. You can confess that you are as shocked as anyone that your “movement” developed the legs that it did.

A Hillary endorsement may make sense.

Yes, your diehard supporters would be up in arms (perhaps literally!) but they are not the ones that buy your products or stay at your hotels. Think of the legacy you wish to leave your children … a brand that is once again synonymous with luxury, class and refinement.

No doubt it will take time for your brand to bounce back. But it will happen. As you like to say, “At this point what do you have to lose?”

When you get around to having someone ghostwrite your book about this incredible ride you’ve been on, it will no doubt be a blockbuster!

If you get out while you can, and not give those forces against you the satisfaction of wallowing in your defeat, history may actually be kind to you.

Photo | Richard Bravo