Guard Dog

http://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2363 Latest Quinnipiac has this circus in a dead heat. Make of that what you will, we are a hell of a long way from the point where polls matter. But I do love this quote: In other news Gary Johnson seems to be stuck at 8% and he'll have to do better to be invited to the debates. But after his performance on CNN, perhaps it's for the best.

You'd think suicide bombing would be a hard sell for an atheist.

When you go on vacation it feels like I'm going on vacation!

If a President is frustrated by Congressional intransigence I'd tell them tough luck. Congress is what Congress is.Use the bully pulpit to call them out if you want. But their refusal or even inability to act is NOT an open invitation to usurp their responsibilities. Could you imagine if a President shuffled their feet nominating a candidate for the SC so the Senate decided to do it for him/her? That wouldn't fly.

I slept late, watched a movie (The Revenant, great movie) cleaned the house now heading to the VFW with Tommy & Sunny for dinner & a poker game.

My biggest hope as far as a the LP is concerned is to just do better this time than last. Getting 70 minutes of exposure on CNN was a big deal last week. It's a pity they did not make better use of it. I think a viable Green & LP party challenging the Elephants & Jackasses for real congressional seats will be a good thing and at least the LP i on the ballot in all states on a regular basis now. But as far as negative voting I'm afraid that sums up every presidential vote I've ever cast save two. I didn't like Dole but I didn't hate Clinton so I voted for Harry Brown that year. I didn't care for George W Bush but I absolutely HATED Al Gore so that was a negative vote. I dislike Kerry and Bush equally so I voted LP that year too. The next two were against Obama who, at first at least, scared the bejesus out of me. Not because of his melanin percentage or that he might be a "closet Muslim". It because he was (and still is) and ideologue, a "true believer" in the almighty power of the State. You are a lawyer and a highly educated man Enoch, can you honestly tell me some of his actions don't make you very uncomfortable? The worst of which being using a non existent executive authority to change laws passed by congress and signed by him long after the fact? If a President can do that, what can't they do? Hillary Clinton is a sour, foul tempered and basically dishonest individual that seems to look down her nose at everyone not named Hillary Clinton. She is not someone I'd want to spend any time around. That said she is politically pragmatic and a quintessential "machine politician". She probably would not be the worst President we've ever had. If it wasn't for the fact that she would give us another Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court I would be a bit more indifferent to her. Trump just woke up one day and decided he wanted to be President. What bothers me is he's promising to do things a President can't do and people are cheering him on for it. Which means he will probably do them anyway. As Obama has demonstrated if a President does something bad and gets away with it, it's now as accepted as being OK. That is dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

You mean this? http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html As of right now, Clinton's still up 5.6% in the aggregate in a four way with Trump, Johnson, and Stein. 3rd party folks also consistently underperform polling-- particularly polling this early. People are not frequently motivated enough to show up on election day just to cast a protest vote. Well there is more at stake than just the President. In fact given the choice is between Clinton and Trump the congressional elections are particularly important this year. Plus there is the State legislature, State offices, County offices even my own boss is up for re-election. I realize these don't get the attention they deserve and that is a shame because they are important. I'm casting my vote for Gary Johnson this year because I have large and completely irreconcilable differences with both Clinton & Trump but there is a lot more motivation to get me to the poll than just a protest vote.

I guess enough people have commented on the high speed rail system: https://www.yahoo.com/movies/game-thrones-writer-explains-why-221200600.html

You would be wrong, and I suggest expanding your horizons to include more people of different mindsets, so you are not wrong about such things in the future. There's a lot of folks who support Trump for a variety of reasons. Those are the ones that have been on his bandwagon for many or more months. The 'voting for Trump so we don't get Hillary crowd' hasn't yet factored in all that much. A good many, if not most of the folks in that crowd are still dazed and confused of sorts. They haven't yet come to terms with the idea that they will need to vote Trump if they don't want Hillary Clinton in office. Almost every Bernie supporter I know, as well as even many diehard lifetime red voters are in this crowd. I should clarify. I was not referring to voters in general. I really meant the members of the WoT forum who were supporting Trump. You are correct in that I would be wrong to assume no one supports him on his merits. He's only gotten more Republican primary votes than... well anyone I can remember.

PoE hooked my right from the start and I really got into it once I realized sound combat tactics were a must.

Yes this is true, for some reason Scotland has always been very ungrateful IMO to what England has done for them To be part of the UK should be celebrated yet many Scottish people resent the UK, you almost want to tell Scotland " fine leave the UK " but Scotland is very relevant and important contributor towards the UK so we want them to stay

Did you guys find the Nucwear Wessels?

Okay that is a good point, I never considered that But it just seems extreme, is she really that disliked? This election is like trying to choose the cleanest turd. Seriously do you read nothing we link here? Even you have to admit that while she is many things, honest is not one of them.

I genuinely believe no one is supporting Trump for any reason he can take credit for. They are not "for" him, they are against Hillary.

I agree. The whole high speed transit between Westeros & Essos is a bit much for me to swallow. Although oddly dragons are not, go figure. This is supposed to be a "medieval fantasy". It takes time to move around by foot or horseback. Unless of course a lot of time is passing between scenes. But that is not the impression.

GD I see a real inconsistency in this type of statement, help please to understand this Patraeus and Snowden have both been found guilty of certain crimes...this is fact. Hilary has been accused of crimes....why is she associated with them? When the Cosby rape charges were revealed I said he was a disgrace and he was guilty, I said for this type of crime I dont need a jury to pronounce on his guilt ...to me thats just a technicality I was told by several members that in the USA people are not presumed guilty and there must be a legal obligation for them to go to court before we presume guilt So now it seems people give this courtesy to a truly deviant and reprehensible person like Cosby but Hilary we assume she is guilty before she even goes to court .....do you see why I appears hypocritical ? Because only someone completely blind to the situation would truly find themselves devoid of any suspicion that Clinton is guilty. No one is saying arrest her now, no one is saying don't give her a fair trial. What's being said is that why the HELL would anyone vote for someone with such obviously strong claims against them (she's doing a terrible job of denying said claims) and what's more there's concern she will walk away scot-free because of direct ties to the White House itself. Waiting for a fair trial is one thing. Allowing someone to run for President of the United States while a criminal investigation is taking place against that person is downright insanity. If innocent by all means let them run next election, but here we not only have an ongoing investigation that could threaten the presidency or the democratic candidacy (imagine if she were indicted in October or in December, what happens then?), but the entire DNC is highly suspect for leaked documents regarding bias in her favor. FFS there's currently a class-action lawsuit in the works against the DNC itself. "Natural selection" will weed out the democratic party at this rate, but it's absurd we need to rely on that instead of the government itself showing concern over potentially having an indicted official run for office. The issue I have with this post is that you still think everyone should believe she is guilty as if its a irrefutable fact but the reality is many, myself included, people simply dont believe she is guilty And I discussed this with GD and I read an entire article about this and her guilt is not clear Her guilt is VERY clear. She ordered the destruction of data that was the property of the United States Government. That much is not in dispute. When the Secretary of State conducts the business of the United States all communications belong to the United States. She circumvented that by using a private server. I will make no judgement on her motivations for doing that. She did it, we can all agree on that. Then when it was discovered and that server was subpoenaed she destroyed the data on it before turning them over. She is guilty of that. Now here is the thing... WHY did she destroy it? What did she want to hide? The FBI might know but the AG & DOJ (both controlled by HER political party) seem to be disinclined to do anything about it. And that's where we are. That she did something wrong is not in dispute. It's the level of culpability and the magnitude of the wrong we are speculating about. And while we are speculating it is interesting to note that the Clinton Foundation, a charity well known to not be on the up and up with the IRS (which is ALSO controlled by her political party) received millions of dollars in donations from people representing foreign interests who received favorable treatment from the State Dept during her tenure as SecState. Now this may be just a coincidence (and I may be the next Pope). But it does pose some questions about all those e-mails she didn't want Congress to see doesn't it?

That episode SUCKED! Yes... I'm kidding. It was really good!

GD I see a real inconsistency in this type of statement, help please to understand this Patraeus and Snowden have both been found guilty of certain crimes...this is fact. Hilary has been accused of crimes....why is she associated with them? When the Cosby rape charges were revealed I said he was a disgrace and he was guilty, I said for this type of crime I dont need a jury to pronounce on his guilt ...to me thats just a technicality I was told by several members that in the USA people are not presumed guilty and there must be a legal obligation for them to go to court before we presume guilt So now it seems people give this courtesy to a truly deviant and reprehensible person like Cosby but Hilary we assume she is guilty before she even goes to court .....do you see why I appears hypocritical ? OK, here is everything that is wrong with this meme: None of these three did the same thing. Petraeus exposed classified information to a journalist who was writing a biography on him and who he was having an affair with. He didn't want to leave an e-mail trail to be found so he would write messages and save them as drafts and have her access to his classified e-mail so she could read them.... and everything else he was exposed to as well. Snowden INTENTIONALLY leaked information that the Federal government spying on everyday Americans (you know the people they are REALLY afraid of) in a way that would make Orwell blush. As well as spying on friendly governments and unfriendly alike. Hillary Clinton disregarded the legal and procedural requirements that all of her e-mails as the Secratery of State were the property of the US Government. That same government was nice enough to set up a secure e-mail and data system which she deigned not to use for reasons that we can only speculate about. So she bought and used her own server which had none of the security and safeguards of the State Dept one AND did not have those pesky backups that would allow Congress to see those e-mails because, well, they DO have a right to after all. Once it was discovered that she was doing this and that server was not secure and terabytes of sensitive and classified information had been compromised and none of it was available for oversight (there is that pesky law again) it turned into a scandal. To which Hillary Clinton responded by having all data on that server professionally destroyed before complying with a court order to turn them over. This is a meme which is sort of like a political cartoon in that it makes a point but it also meant to be humorous. You are micro-analyzing it and that tends to not work. Of course any detail that Hillary might be the dirtbag we are all telling you she is will be dismissed by you out of hand because 1) She's a woman which you think seems to lend her some "special" credibility. 2) She is a controlling and government loving technocrat that is beholden to globalists, giant corporations, and of course the ever pervasive PC crowd that probably agrees with you that prison sentences are appropriate for "thoughtcrime".

Everything planted in the garden in March is now harvested. I filled my deep freezer with bags of black eyed peas, butter beans, corn on the cob, summer squash, and vidalia onions. I got 11 mason jars of strawberry preserves too. I was thinking of planting watermelons for the farmer's market in Covington but I think they would not be ready before labor day. So I'll probably just turn the soil and let it rest until August and plant the autumn stuff. It was a hell of a lot of work because I've never planted so much but it is extremely cool seeing the freezer full of stuff I grew. I ordered a solar power generator for the camper this morning and tomorrow I'm going fishing.

Congrats Shady

They don't get to leave. The US will remain united until the end of history. I'm just very surprised that it's Texas and not the South lol Been there... done that... didn't work out so good. Actually in all seriousness, state secession COULD actually happen but it would be precipitated by some very heavy handed action by the Federal Government. As in a lot more than anything Barack Obama even considered doing. I'm no fan of Obama's it's true. But he is not the tyrant that suspends the Constitution and starts ordering Americans in death FEMA camps. Neither is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for that matter. It would take something like that to do it.

Hurl before you go if you want to read an excellent history of some of the places you will drive through I'd suggest giving this a look: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BSAZ614/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 I read that last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Although the narrative is mainly about Red Cloud and the fight over the Powder River Country there is a lot of information on the land and the history and aftermath of the events of the book. One of the central parts pf the book Ft. Phil Kearney can still be visited today I understand. It's little more than a ruin and a walk from the highway to see it but if you're so inclined it wouldn't be hard to find out about. Gromnir, if you have any suggestions of other books that do good service to the history of the Lakota and the great plains in general I'd love to hear them.