Will there ever be a perfect candidate? Is it possible we will have some glowing Deity float down from the heavens on a fluffy white cloud surrounded by angels flinging gold coins and smelling of roses and whispering ‘FREE’. Someone we could all get behind, someone with no history, someone with no skeletons, someone with DNA to match this diverse nation who did not offend any of our sensibilities.
The Perfect Candidate, who we can fall all over ourselves in our rush to the polls. The Perfect Candidate who would pass all of our Purity tests. The Candidate with the most beautiful wife, two and half children, a dog and zero sins to their name.
The Perfect Candidate does not exist. There is not a human being alive today, nor will there ever be one who hasn’t collected some bumps and bruises and an imperfect track record. There will never be a candidate, especially one seeking the Presidency that will pass the unreasonable Purity Tests of the Democrats who align to their individual candidates to the detriment of all others. Let us consider the real issues and real outcomes for 2020. What do we really want?
- Beat current occupant of White House, Donald J. Trump
- Take back Senate
- Retain House
As an Independent Centrist who usually votes Democrat I am committed to voting a Blue ticket this year. Not just on a federal level but at the state and local level as well. I want to see the nation brought back together. I want to see us working together again as a single people, it has been too long that we have been divided. I want to see our government work. I want to see Justice began to work. I want to see our courts work. I want to see real work done for and by the people. Do I think this will happen overnight? No, of course not. What I believe is if we elect the right president and a Senate and House to back that President we can begin to make the nation whole by passing legislation and undoing a dysfunctional federal Courts filled with under qualified and unqualified judges.
I do not do Purity Tests. What I do is listen, I look at history but not just soundbites the full history. I look at everything, what a person has done and hasn’t done. What they have said and haven’t said. When they said it, what context they said it in. What have they written? Many candidates today have a written history, many have books and an on-line presence they cannot escape from either. Some of the candidates today have had decades of public presence, not just one or two, but three to five or even more. It is impossible not to build a portfolio of missteps and misjudgments during the course of a 
long life and those who wish to serve behind the Resolute Desk must be prepared to walk naked before the citizens of this land, we have no remorse and no shame in exposing our would be Presidents.
It wasn’t always this way, the Presidency of William Jefferson Clinton seems to have opened the door and now we have no shame in peering through the window of Presidents private lives, judging their personal predilections. We, as a nation seem to think it is our calling to judge whether a President is ‘Pure’ enough for us even while we ourselves would never meet this very same test. Just to bring this full circle, the party of family values and moral righteousness elected a President who is an anathema to all they stood for and yet claim he is God’s chosen.
So we stand at the abyss and stare down into the darkness and still instead of listening with open minds, we apply Purity Tests. We allow members of this broken party and non-members who have the audacity to run under the banner to tear down others in the name of their own desire to WIN. We watch idolaters and ideologues tear at others in base terms disallowing any view but their own from being heard, any question being asked, any challenge being made.
Does anyone remember 2016? I do.
Does anyone know how Donald J. Trump got elected? I do.
Don’t answer those questions with baseless bullshit about White Woman, Electoral College, Hillary won the popular vote or other nonsense. Let me give you the real answer.
Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States of America because Bernie Sanders was allowed to run on the Democratic Ticket and many of those who idolized him, followed him did one of three things:
- Stayed home
- Voted third party
- Voted for Trump
Why did they do this? Because they were convinced they were cheated, because Trump was the most like Bernie in his rhetoric and demeanor and because they were revengeful snots.
Purity Tests. Why they don’t work and how to overcome them.
First and foremost, participate. This means vote in the Primaries in your state and vote for the candidate that you believe best represents your interests and the interests in the nation. Vote for the candidate that you believe will put the nation back together. Vote for 
the candidate that will best influence the down ticket. Vote for the candidate that will put our alliances back together. Vote for the candidate that will represent the largest majority of the people in America, not just a small minority but all of us, keeping in mind there is not a single candidate standing before you without something to explain, without history, without skeletons.
My question to each of the candidates isn’t ever going to be are you Pure, it is going to be how are you going to remedy the sickness in this nation. What will you do to fix what is broken. Do you acknowledge that you might have contributed, what did you learn and what are you doing today based on what you learned?
People learn, people are not the same today they were yesterday, five years ago or a decade ago. Unless a person is a complete and utter moron with the emotional and intellectual capacity of a snake, they grow. I want to know how a person has grown in knowledge, compassion and emotional empathy. I will not hold yesterday against you if today your actions show you have made true changes. If the words you say and the actions you take are in accord, I am going to take you at your word and listen with the openness you deserve from me as a citizen.
Purity Tests are abhorrent and we need to stop, today. If we do not we can look forward to another four years of Donald J. Trump in the White House and this is something the nation will not survive.
Today is my anniversary. If I could find a less ‘romantic’ word for today I certainly would, but today I celebrate twenty-eight years since I lived beyond when I should have lived, beyond the day three miscreants tried to take my life with three bullets. Today I woke up and it was my twenty-eighth year of life beyond the day they attempted to take my life and certainly changed my world forever.
pain or finally that pain was simply my new norm and we can learn to live with anything. The refusal to resort to pain medications, to live in a haze saved my sanity even when everyone around me thought I was crazy; maybe it was just that I was so damned mean and I was driving them crazy.
found, we are all of us human; there but for the grace of God go I. None of us are without our own choices, our own failures, our own sins. The difference is some of us have been more fortunate in our outcomes. I use to say there could be no forgiveness without remorse, that I did not need to forgive my offenders that was between them and the God they worship. I still believe this. The difference is now, I had to let go of their punishment. I had to stop demanding my pound of flesh and leave that to fate, this was a hard lesson.
We have forgotten civility, manners and courtesy. We have forgotten how to be kind to each other despite differences. We are failing miserably at simple human compassion. I use to think this was a generational thing, you know I was getting older and those who were behind me were doing what every generation does, rebel. Now though, I believe there is something much more nefarious at work, something much uglier at the heart of this descent into our national obnoxious turn towards the terrible.
frankly their self-exploitation. Mind you, I am going to give these young women credit where it is due, they tapped into a market, continue to tap into that market and have made themselves extremely wealthy, good for them.
ambiguous hints and then, when that doesn’t get the rise they needed, the full frontal attacks. There is nothing to stop them, they will go after individuals for their personal stances, they will go after anything and everything without moderation or exception. Suddenly, you feel unsafe, attacked and are exiting.
matter, even in the abyss of the internet. If your friend doesn’t stop the attack, you are savaged, gleefully and without let up. From this point on, your friendship is questioned as you no longer trust your friend and certainly will not interact in social media and will not put yourself in a position where you might meet these people in a real life setting.
I have been accused of being abnormal, of not being feminine in my responses, of not being sufficiently emotional. This is not the first time someone has said this to me, likely it will not be the last. My only answer to these accusations is I keep my emotions under control and am not given to public displays, even if you are an audience of one. If you are acting out to gain a response from me you will be sorely disappointed and I will not apologize for this.
when I realized I could not make someone love me, could not force someone to stay and could not change another person’s heart no matter what I felt. There was no point to this emotion, it hurt no one but me. I didn’t do anything to change myself, it was simply I stopped feeling jealous. I still felt angry at a betrayal, at a lie but I no longer felt jealous.
and others in a destructive path. While it might have been justified it was not healthy in its expression and it never ended well. Now, I know how to express anger when it occurs rather than let it burn me out. Now I know how to speak up and speak out. Now I know that to hang on to anger, allow it to become fury, give it free rein and rent in my soul is one of the most self-destructive things I can do.
Watching the last debate I was struck by one glaring omission, Trump, #45, #3. Nowhere in the discussion and that is what we had last night on the stage, was the name of the current occupant of the White House hammered upon. With rare exception when given the opportunity did those standing on the stage compare themselves, what they would do differently, why they would be better for the nation.
base is rude and crude, they want to see him draw blood. They want to see a street fight, no rules just bare knuckle ugly and you laying on the ground where he can kick you again, and again, and again till you cry for mercy. That is what he and they want.
current POTUS.
bubble, the time I can spend in my own company is strangely comforting. There are simply times I would like to know there is another person who is uniquely part of my world and chooses to share in my future. Someone who is a dependable source of both solace and pleasure. That single person who I can turn to as companion, partner, friend and yes, lover. Does this seem to be two distinctly different, even polar opposite spaces to occupy?
I have been so fortunate in my life. I have been loved and I have loved. I know what both look like. I have also been terribly disappointed, yes, I have also disappointed. None of us are without flaws, none of us have gone through life without mistakes. The thing is, I am better for mine, I hope. I don’t want to spend my last years alone, I want to share this last part of my life with someone who will love me knowing all my flaws, all my skeletons, all my baggage. Who will see me fully and without judgement hold me closely through the end.
In a word, what a world. Okay, that is three words. It is terrifying though, don’t you think? I wonder sometimes if we will survive the next eleven months to election day and then what will happen when the results are announced? Either way, what will happen whether the current occupant of the Oval Office wins or loses, what will happen? Already the fabric of our nation is being ripped apart, everything we stand for is being tested, everything that has ever been considered good is being proven to be rotten at its center. But what will happen if #3 loses the election on November 2? What will he do between November 3 and January 21? What hell will he unleash on the United States and every nation of this world in the eighty (80) days when he has nothing to lose and his battered ego is thrown into high gear?
his mind. He will spend the day excitedly tweeting plans to financially ruin allies who question him, commands to blow up nations, assassinate enemy heads of state and nasty childish insults at private and public citizens who disagree with him. He has most recently noted his tweets are on par with Presidential orders and Congressional Briefings.
course, he also made many terrified, thus we have this deranged imbecile sitting behind the Resolute Desk.
Supremacist marching in our streets and the best we get from the POTUS is they are very fine people, no one seems to care.
they chose and others had to be forced after much arm twisting. Some were there having already been part of a larger campaign to out the corruption and they acknowledged this in their testimony. Others had been part of the corruption, whether willing participants or hapless tools of more sophisticated players. All those who eventually testified, whether as Democratic or Republican witnesses painted a picture of this Administration that should terrify every single American, but somehow doesn’t and this is what horrifies me.
have observed this singularity, with those in his circle even his own children. Worse yet, an entire Trumpian culture has risen up around him, championed by Fox Network, who have espoused with great relish this fraud, this huckster, this carpetbagger as one who can do no wrong and is the victim of a churlish conspiracy to oust him, rather than the victimizer of America and American ideals. No matter what horror show this man creates daily they cheer him on to even worse, they excuse him and in the process they destroy the fabric of all that might once have been good, right and possible about this nation.
job and telling the truth. Yet, this dedicated man, who stood up and did his job multiple times, told what he heard, reported what he saw was ridiculed for wearing the uniform of the United States Army he still proudly serves by minions of the President, trying to make points and in the process destroy this patriot and his service and reputation.
Democratic presidents, with Senate confirmation in extremely hazard’s conditions would be the subject to threats and smears. That this woman would be threatened by the most powerful man in the world while testifying, under oath to a Congress Committee investigating him. Just to put this in perspective, foreign service officers aren’t carrying out their duties to get rich, these are civil servants who love their country their average earnings for foreign postings are $98k.
capabilities. They didn’t challenge what she saw, what she heard or the facts. No indeed, they challenged her competency and knowledge. They attempted to disparage her, to challenge even her patriotism. They refused to grant her even the courtesy of her hard earned title of Doctor, repeatedly calling her instead Miss or Ms.
enthusiasm. No, Donald J. Trump hates the America that might be, the America that is entombed in the Statue of Liberty, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, in decades of progress towards a better, freer and more inclusive America. Donald J. Trump hates the America that elected, celebrated and embraced Barack Obama, he hates the America that fights back against discrimination, school shootings, inhibiting voting rights and injustice. Donald J. Trump hates the America that desegregated schools, housing, marriage and the military. Donald J. Trump hates the America that placed limits on corporations for their destruction of public lands, water and air. Donald J. Trump, simply put Hates America and hates most Americans.
matter his personal insult, they will absorb it and excuse it just to hold on to their small piece of power a minute longer. Their fear of his tantrum falling on their head next far outweighs any moral judgement they might have once possessed. Their desire to change the face of the American courts far exceeds any love they might have once had for America, now they only love power and will follow Donald J. Trump into the swamp and beyond into Hell simply to hang on to that slimy reeking gunk that trails from him to them minute by minute.
QBG_Tilted Tiara 