kanesrealm

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 parti...

The internet is filled with abandoned blogs. Some have many posts, others none or very few. The ones with many and then suddenly stop have left me wondering, what happened to the writer? The self evident conclusion is boredom, frustration or it simply had served it's purpose. Rarely is there a final post saying goodbye. There was a blog I used to read that ended in 2012 with a final post that touched me deeply. The writer had Alzheimer's and was no longer able to give all that he wished. He thanked his readers and said farewell with the heart wrenching poem "The Long Goodbye." From early 2007 to late 2009 I wrote a blog that mainly covered the Presidential election of 2008. By 2009 I had reached a plateau, it had met it's purpose and a restlessness had descended on me. When I launched Kanes Realm I had no specific direction in mind, though clearly politics became the focus. I have called this Presidential election a season of disgust and it has been so because ...

Conflation is a favorite tactic in politics, blending together things that have no relationship and pretending that they do. Trump's sexual misconduct charges are a perfect example of this as he attempts to use Bill Clinton's past as an issue when it is Hillary Clinton he is running against. Then to illogically say that people should not consider allegations against him from ten years ago, then immediately ranting about Bill Clinton over events from forty years ago. But there are other uses of conflation that are more disturbing. Throughout social media there are attempts to join together Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and whistleblowers in general. None of these belong in the same topic. I have written about my view of Edward Snowden, he released confidential information that he legally had access to and came to believe it's proof of wrongdoing should be released to the public. A gifted lawyer could certainly assert that Snowden's actions were those of a whistleblower...

WikiLeaks has begun dumping thousands of emails surrounding Hillary Clinton. Before you get too excited about this, let's consider some things which are of more than a little importance. The founder of WikiLeaks is Julian Assange, an Australian computer programmer, publisher and editor. He is a hacker and is affiliated with numerous hackers across the world including Russians who act directly at their governments behest. Hacking is a crime no matter how much we may enjoy what comes from that criminal act. Assange has spent the past few years living in the Equadoran Embassy in London. He took this measure because he is a fugitive. He is wanted in Sweden for questioning in a case where he is alleged to have committed rape. He tried to squash that warrant for his arrest while living in London. When he failed he was granted asylum by Equador. A Swedish court just recently made it clear that warrant remains in effect. If he steps one foot out of that Embassy he will be arrested and re...

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It's just one non-revealing revelation after another. This time it's about Hillary Clinton and leaked excerpts from those Wall Street speeches we've heard so much about. The focus is on her saying that people get nervous about what goes on in behind closed doors discussions and that to get anything done in Washington you have to take a "private and public position." That is a factual statement about politics going back thousands of years. But for the sake of this discussion we'll stick to our country going all the way back to it's founding, that's the way it is folks, if you don't like it tear down the Republic and replace it with a dictatorship, then you won't have to worry about any of these things. The simplicity of legislation is this, when it's working, negotiations between legislators and the executive involve bartering. If you vote yes on x, I won't oppose you on y. Public policy is created by give and take. Each party sets at ...

I was not going to write another commentary until after Sunday nights debate but resistance is futile. In light of the Access Hollywood dump of Trump's vulgarness about women many Republicans have unendorsed him. Speaker Ryan disinvited him from an event in Wisconsin and Ryan was booed by Trump supporters at that event. In leadership only Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded that Trump issue a real apology. You will recall that early Friday Trump issued a written statement using the words "if anyone was offended" I apologize. Which of course was not an apology, it's a phrase used when you wish to convey contempt for your audience. Trump's ninety second video released at Midnight Friday was no better but it was Trumpian. Senator Mike Lee said this morning that it was "time to act". No Senator, the time to act was a year ago. All of the speculation about Trump dropping out of the race is total fantasy. The Party cannot force him out, he would h...