Expect Me, When You See Me

Well, here I am again. But really, why bother?

In nine short days this election will be over, maybe.

I don't know who the winner of the Presidential race will be, I've given you my prediction, including the percentages but  no one really knows.

Here's what we do know, Donald Trump is completely ignorant of how our election system works and he continues his chant of corruption. What Trump fails to understand is that if he wins, the American people, including me, will accept the outcome because our process is sound and honest. Whatever irregularities that occur are from innocent mistakes, not corruption and the numbers are not significant enough to alter the election.

It starts with your friends and neighbors, do you trust them? They are the front line of our elections, volunteering their time to serve on precinct election boards. I was once a Precinct Vice-committeeman and then a Precinct Committeeman, I have seen our system up close and I know how it works. I have participated in vote counting and everyone who does this takes it seriously. The integrity of the voting booth is sacred.

Trump has routinely called on his supporters to "observe" polling places in "certain places and you know what I'm talking about", clearly demonstrating his ignorance on how the system works. There are already observers. Political Parties and candidates have the legal right to send observers to polling places but they do not have the right to intimidate any voter. There are strict laws concerning this. You may not engage in electioneering within a specified distance from the voting chute.

Now we come to the events of this past Friday when F.B.I. Director James Comey once again took an unprecedented action. Comey sent a nebulous memo to eight Republican Congressional Committee Chairmen advising them that as the result of a separate investigation there may be more e-mails that may or may not be relevant to their previous investigation of Hillary Clinton's email controversy. Comey did not have the decency to even send the same letter to the Ranking Members of those committees. Obviously those Republican Chairmen immediately went to the press. Speaker Paul Ryan, in a cheap shot which is beneath his office, said the C.I.A. should immediately suspend Clinton's intelligence briefings. Trump is saying it's obvious there is " grave criminality" with Clinton or else the F.B.I. wouldn't have reopened the case.

The F.B.I. have reopened nothing. They have been investigating former Congressman Anthony Wiener and his sexting and exchange of photos with an underage girl. During this process they have seized a laptop belonging to Wiener which was also used by his wife Huma Abidein, who is a top aide to Hillary Clinton and has some emails concerning Abidein, the investigators do not yet know what's in those emails, so it is an ongoing investigation. It is the policy of the F.B.I and the Department of Justice to not comment on ongoing investigations. The D.O.J.'s top legal advisors told Comey he should not send that memo to Congress because of those regulations, he did it anyway and then sent out a separate memo to F.B.I. employees explaining why he did it. This is the second time this year that Comey has acted imprudently and outside the scope of his office. The first was his press conference on July 5th when he announced there was no criminal violations concerning the Clinton State Department email investigation. He then added his personal opinion which was an admonishment of Clinton as "careless", that was an inappropriate statement and not within his charge. The second is this memo, just eleven days before the general election, which casts a cloud of doubt which in all likelihood will end with nothing of value but which could influence the election.

James Comey has always been someone respected by both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C. He was a lifelong Republican appointed to the Justice Department by President George W. Bush. He was nominated to be the F.B.I. Director by President Barack Obama and was confirmed by the Senate in September of 2013 to serve a ten year term. In 2016 he became an Independent. Republicans loved him until his professional conclusions on the Clinton email investigation, then they ripped him apart. Donald Trump also attacked Comey, now Trump and the Republicans love him again. At the moment there's no reason to believe Comey has ill intention but his overreaction to being accused of not reporting something, which may be nothing by his own admission, is his own careless moment.

I've been trying to take a step back and tune out these final days of the election for the reasons I've previously stated but this giant turd laid on our dinner plate by Comey is inexcusable. We're supposed to accept the presence of the turd , hold our nose and eat around it, no thank you Mr. Comey. Clean up your mess and stop worrying about the Republican hacks in Congress who whisper about impeaching you, you are a lawyer and should know better.

One final thought and I've said it before but it merits repeating. The only polls I'm truly sick of hearing about is the incessant quoting by the media of how unpopular Trump and Clinton are as Presidential nominees. These generalized polls of supposed voters are irrelevant. Each of them were nominated by the members of their own Party and not by small numbers. If you don't like the choice, get off your lazy ass and join a Political Party and do something about it in future elections. Stop bitching, get over it and go vote. If you can't figure out who to vote for, do the rest of us a favor and get off the island!