America's Gas Problem

This isn't a post about farts (apologies if you're looking for fart jokes here, not today) or even gas really (apologies if you thought I was going to go off on how we need to use less gas).  It's a post about my frustration with the new gas containers.  I grew up in the 90s, during which time my dad taught me how to do basic things like mow the lawn.  He had a very simple gas container that is still in the shed at my mom's house.  For all I know, it could have been his father's gas container before it was his.  It is durable.  It has always worked properly.  It has never failed.  It is very simple to use, even for a child.

I bought my own house a few years ago, and naturally I needed to buy my own lawnmower and my own gas container.  The lawnmower thing was simple enough.  I have a small lawn, so it takes about 20 minutes to mow the entire thing with a push mower.  I found an inexpensive one with a Briggs and Stratton engine.  Easy enough.  But I couldn't seem to find the gas container I wanted, which is one like Dad had.  It has two holes in it.  One hole is where you uncapped it and poured the gas out of, and the other is the vent.  But every place I went had this terrible looking thing that looked like it could never possibly function properly.  I went to Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, the local Hardware Store (Goody's).  None of them had what I was looking for.  I didn't understand it.  Did this weird looking thing that I would have to actually read directions in order to use work that much better?

I finally asked a worker in one of the stores if they had what I was looking for.  They did not, nor could they or anyone else.  In the name of environmental protection, the Government/EPA had passed new laws and regulations regarding what could legally be sold as gas containers (dafuq?).  I wondered if one person somewhere had somehow misused the old container and destroyed something.  Nope.  Turns out, there were concerns about vapors escaping from the vent, air quality, spills, smog...  Look, I'm all for helping the environment, but I was skeptical that this new container could help anything at all.  But what choice did I have?  Unless a store broke the law or I came across one at a tag sale at some point, I had to buy this thing.  So I did.

I read the directions on how to use it.  It didn't work quite how it was supposed to.  It was even worse than the complete piece of plastic crap it appeared to be.  In fact, pretty much every fucking time I used it, I spilled gas.  It got on my hands, it got on my grass.  I know I'm not the only one either.  I guarantee you these things have made the environment much worse overall.  What the hell were wrong with the old ones that worked and were made far better?  The ones that didn't come with instructions because you didn't need them?  Who got paid off to turn something that has never been a real problem into something that turns simple tasks into a headache?  Everything smells like gas.  My grass smells like gas.  My hands smell like gas even after washing them for several minutes.  It's a good thing I don't smoke cigarettes.

So finally, somehow, this monstrosity of a contraption in my shed ended up getting to the point where one of the crappy plastic mechanisms must have gotten stuck, and this has caused it to actually work significantly better.  I've figured out how to avoid gas from dripping out of it, and since I'd probably end up breaking it if I tried to force the disassembly that's supposed to occur after each use, I just leave it as it is.  There's something disconcerting about there not being a vent where there should be one though.  I hope that if Donald Trump gets elected President, bringing back the old gas containers will be one of the ways in which he plans to make America great again.

NEVER Hillary

I don't particularly care for Donald Trump.  I really don't.  I wasn't a big fan of Ted Cruz either.  I think I actually started to like him less than Trump in the final days of his campaign.  John Boehner obviously likes Trump better than Cruz.  Of the final three Republicans, I endorsed John Kasich.  He grew on me over the course of his campaign, and he became the only voice of reason, but the American people decided against voting for reason this time around, and he was nowhere even remotely close to clinching the nomination, so he eventually had to drop out of the race as well.  That leaves Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee.  Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are still fighting it out for the Democratic nomination, but Hillary will more than likely be the nominee (assuming she's paid off enough of the necessary people to avoid an indictment).  Without any truly viable third party candidate at the moment, it looks like I may be casting my vote for The Donald.  Trump is not the Hitleresque Racist Misogynous Xenophobe that the media makes him out to be.  He's Donald Trump, not Donald Sterling. He's said some unfortunate things, no doubt, but he's not who he's pretending to be either.  This isn't the first time a candidate has pretended to be something that he's not (see John McCain 2008, ugh...).  In any case, Trump could be a not-so-good President, or he could be a good one.  Hillary on the other hand?  There is no doubt in my mind that she would be a TERRIBLE President.

A leader in the KKK endorsed Hillary a few months ago.  A lot of folks on the Left said that it was a sham designed to hurt her and aid Trump, a candidate who all White Supremacists must clearly support (wait, didn't his daughter convert to Judiasm when she married a Jewish guy?  I thought the KKK was anti-Semitic...).  I'm not so sure that this was a sham after all.  Yes, a former House Representative, David Duke, who was involved in the KKK decades ago, is apparently supporting Trump.  And that was big news why?  Why does Hillary get a pass on support from someone currently in the KKK?  What was Hillary Clinton doing in 1964?  Supporting racist Barry Goldwater for President (apparently she only supports Republicans when they are against civil rights for Black people?).  Oh, and she's really tight with and supportive of former Klan member Senator Robert Byrd.  But it's cool because he's a Democrat.  David Duke is a Republican, so it's not cool.  It's not like it's the Democratic party that was pro-Slavery and has held countless positions detrimental to non-White folks over the course of many decades.  Oh, wait, it is!  Just look at all the cities that have had Democrats in control, uninterrupted, for many decades if you need modern day evidence.  It's sickening.  But that's just the tip of the iceberg that is Hillary Clinton's body of work.  I will never vote for Hillary Clinton for President.

Why not?

Benghazi, lying, lost money, more lying, illegally obtained money, even more lying, defending a child rapist, discounting her husband's accusers, big donors, absurd payments for speaking engagements, disrespect for people who serve, telling a secret service agent to fuck off when he said good morning to her, supporting murder in the form of abortions, not supporting the second amendment, so many lies, oh yeah... the personal e-mail account with classified information on a private server thing too, and didn't she have to give back the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff she stole from the White House when her family moved out, she wants to get rid of the coal mining jobs, millions of other jobs will go out the window too if she tries to raise the National minimum wage to $15 per hour, may as well get rid of guards on the borders altogether if she gets into office, she wants to make the government bigger and more powerful, taxes will skyrocket, is she that forgetful or just a terrible liar, maybe she's senile, her views change based on convenience, I'm getting tired of making this list so I'll stop with saying that perhaps worst of all are the devastating choices she would make for Supreme Court Justices...

Never Hillary.

Never.

Trans People Poop Too

There's a lot of talk lately, especially on social media, about the law in North Carolina that mandates that people must use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate.  If you were born a man, you must go into the men's room.  If you were born a woman, you must go into the women's room.  For most of the population, this presents no problem at all.  But for transsexuals, it's not that simple.  You see, the title of the classic children's book "Everybody Poops" is also a fact.  Everybody pees as well.  Thus, regardless of what their genitalia looks like, transsexual people must also poop and pee.  But, because we have nothing better to do in America than literally have debates about shit, where transsexual people defecate and urinate is now a controversy.

Those who are in favor of the law are especially fond of pointing out that they do not want their daughters to see someone with a penis in the women's room, which seems like a perfectly reasonable concern to me.  They also point out that, without this law, predators can, under the guise of identifying with a different gender than they appear to be, and without any way to prove whether or not that is actually the case, take advantage of the situation and become legally-protected peeping toms.  This, also, is a reasonable concern.  However, it is NOT reasonable to say that transsexual people using the restroom of the opposite gender on their birth certificate ARE predators.  Very few people are making that argument though, although those who are could indeed be labelled as bigots.  But those who are not using that argument should not be put into the same category as those who are.

Those who are not in favor of the law are especially fond of pointing out that they do not want their daughters to see someone who looks like a man (apart from having a vagina) in the women's room, which seems like a perfectly reasonable concern.  They also point out that, with this law, transsexuals would not be able to use the bathroom they are most comfortable using, which is another reasonable concern.  Additionally, the law does not stop predators, as they can certainly prey on folks in locations other than restrooms, and predators who are attracted to the same sex rather than the opposite sex exist as well.

So, what both sides seem to agree on is that they do not want someone who is or appears to be a man using the women's room in front of their daughters.  Apparently, this is what makes the most people uncomfortable.  Of course, most restrooms have partitions, and no one ever sees genitalia.  In reality, it's locker rooms, where people shower and change in the open, where any of this would actually be an issue.  However, we can't modify the law to say that people can use the room of the gender that they most appear to be either, because this would offend transitioning folks, among others.  So what's the solution here?  Is there any way to please everyone?  Probably not, but I will offer my thoughts.

Home bathrooms are gender neutral, as was the bathroom in the hall of my college dorm.  That bathroom was used almost exclusively by horny college students, and I never heard of anything predatory occurring in there.  I never saw anyone's genitalia in there either.  So, personally, I don't have a problem with gender neutral bathrooms.  I wouldn't even have a problem if they were all gender neutral.  I really don't care whether I'm sharing a bathroom with a man, a woman, a transsexual, or all of the above.  But that's me.  If you're not like me, maybe you need to grow a pair (pun intended), or maybe you have a different way of thinking based on your own life experiences.  So I suggest that, in many places, we ought to have a men's room, a women's room, and a gender neutral room that anyone can use.  Men can use it, women can use it, those who were born a different gender than they now identify with can use it, and those who don't identify as either male or female can use it.

As far as people who use the men's room or the women's room, I really don't think anyone is inspecting genitalia.  At least I hope not.  So if a transsexual person uses a men's room or a women's room, let common sense and decency prevail.  If someone actually thinks a person is in there for a predatory reason or if they are deeply emotionally scarred by sharing a restroom with this person for some reason when there exists a gender neutral restroom option, then hopefully the authorities have wisdom when the case is reported.  I have a feeling this will be a pretty rare occurrence though.  Really, there are so many more important things to worry about in this world right now than where someone goes to the bathroom (human trafficking is one example, and also pretty much everything else).  Who cares, as long as it all makes it into the toilet, right?

Primary Concern

It took me until this year to figure out that the Presidential primaries in the United States are an absolute joke.  I knew very little about superdelegates, contested conventions, and a whole host of other obscure rules before 2016.  Now, this stuff is in the news every single day, because the Democrats and Republicans may both be heading to contested conventions for the nominations.

For the Democrats, you have Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by a slim margin among voters, and thus in regular delegates.  But, in part because Hillary Clinton is a corrupt career politician in everyone's pocket, she is destroying Bernie in the superdelegates.  Of course, superdelegates do not officially support a candidate until the convention, so if neither gets enough regular delegates outright, there will be a contested convention.  And if Bernie continues to win states and ends up winning the popular vote, it is very likely that many of the superdelegates will support him at the convention.  But they don't have to.  Actually, the whole reason superdelegates exist is so the party's elite can better control who the nominee is, just in case it's relatively close and the voters choose someone they don't like.  Some Democracy.

At least the Republicans don't have superdelegates, but don't worry, in a close enough election where no candidate gets the magic number of delegates, the party elite can still control who the nominee is at the convention.  And while Donald Trump may still win outright, he may not, and then we can end up with a whole lot of fun at the convention in Cleveland.  Ted Cruz and John Kasich will both try to wrestle the nomination away from Trump should a contested convention take place.  The funny thing about that is that it is almost impossible for Cruz to win the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination ahead of the convention, and it IS impossible for Kasich, yet he's still hanging around anyway.  He knows the rules.  At a contested convention, Democracy be damned.

The funny thing here is, I am rooting against the will of the people in the Republican primary right now.  Let me take this moment to officially endorse John Kasich, the one person out of the five remaining candidates for President who actually has a shot at uniting this politically-divided nation.  I am not a fan of Trump or Cruz for a whole host of reasons, though I would vote for either over Hillary, but a great thing about Kasich is that he would almost certainly garner enough support from Independents, Republicans, and even some Democrats that he would handily win the presidency should he be nominated.  Trump and Cruz are almost certain to lose in a general election, barring the unlikely event of a Hillary Clinton indictment (I imagine enough of the right people are paid off to stop that from happening).  This is reason enough for Republicans to root for a Kasich nomination, but the man also speaks with common sense and conviction, and he has proven that he can govern and bring people together rather than tear them apart.

All of this being said, the primaries are an enormous scam.  If we truly want the people to decide the nominee, the rules should be changed to allow that.  Otherwise, why the fuck are we even voting in primaries?  Oh, WAIT, not all of us are.  In my particular state, Connecticut (yes, the one with possibly the worst Governor in the nation), I CAN'T vote in the primaries.  Why?  Well, like some other states, Connecticut voters who are registered as Independents can't vote in the primaries.  And I have, thus far, refused to change my affiliation to either the Democratic or the Republican party.  By exercising that freedom, I have disenfranchised myself during the primaries.  So, with all the rules varying by state and the strange delegate rules, it seems there exists the option to just do away with the broken primary voting altogether and let the party elite pick their nominees, and then the people can vote in the general election.  This, I believe, could also be the downfall of the two-party system, and I am perfectly fine with that.  Democracy in the primary process seems to make more sense though, but the rules have to be cleaned up and standardized.  We should do away with the electoral college too, but that's another topic...

I'm not even sure any of these things are even the most absurd thing about the primaries.  Did you know that Jeb Bush spent like $60 million on his campaign?  It was clearly doomed from the beginning.  I knew that, and just about everyone else knew that.  There is no way there was going to be another Bush in the White House at this point in history.  He never had a shot at the nomination, no matter how much money was poured into his campaign from wealthy donors and SuperPACs.  Add up all of the totals of all the losing campaigns when we finally have our nominees, and I am sure the number will be staggering.  Hundreds of millions.  Probably well over a billion dollars!  For what?  How many things could this money have been better spent on?  Feeding, sheltering, and clothing the poor?  Helping the sick?  I mean, just about anything else would have been a better use of that money, except for counterproductive things like donating to the ACLU.

I'll be over here hoping against all odds that John Kasich gets the Republican nomination.  And that Hillary goes to prison.  That has a nice ring to it, like a great title for a children's book.  Hillary Goes to Prison.  Yeah, I like that a lot.  But not nearly as much as I like the thought of President Kasich being sworn in.  It would be wonderful to see that page in a history book one day.

The Quest to Claim my Second Amendment Right

I live in Connecticut, which is a blue state.  We have several rather violent cities, with Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven all perennially finding their way into the FBI's Top 10 worst.  I feel pretty safe where I live, but you never really know.  There was a home invasion in Cheshire many years ago, and of course the unspeakable tragedy in Newtown a few years ago.  I've been to both of those towns.  They feel extremely safe.  But you know the old saying.  It's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.  And there are those in the government, both state and federal, who are attempting to chip away at our second amendment rights.  Heck, after what happened in Newtown, Connecticut passed a series of entirely useless laws.  I now can't buy guns that have a certain type of handle, and I can't have magazines that hold more than ten rounds or something like that.  I'm not particularly fond of guns, but, especially with my brother being a certified NRA instructor, I figured it was time to get my pistol permit.  This is my story.  [Dun, Dun]

I took the gun safety course in the Fall with my brother and cousins.  I actually believe that this course should be required for anyone who wants to purchase a firearm (as should a background check!).  I really knew very little about firearms before taking it, and now I know enough so that I can use one and do so safely.  This is of paramount importance.  Anyway, we went through the course, took the test, went to the range, and then ate some tacos.  It was the first time I had ever shot a gun in my life.  I actually had a few solid groupings.  I shot a Glock and a Ruger.  I liked the Glock better.  With some practice, I could probably be a pretty good shot.  After it was all over, I got my certificate and had what I needed to apply for a pistol permit.

December 16: My local Police Department does fingerprinting on Wednesdays from 3-7 PM.  However, the records department there is only open from 8 AM to 3:45 PM.  That left me a pretty narrow window to get my fingerprinting done and bring it a few steps over to the records department in the same day.  But being close to the end of the year and having a lot of errands to run anyway, I took some time off from work and showed up there at exactly 3 PM.  There were a bunch of people in line.  There had been recent mass shootings and more liberals talking about how guns are the problem and we need to make laws so that they will be harder for people to get.  You know, because criminals and terrorists obey laws.  Anyway, the line moved quickly enough and wasn't quite out the door.  The guy had some trouble getting good prints, but eventually the computer device he was using said they were good.  He handed me the prints and I signed some paperwork and gave him $25.  I walked over to the records department, minutes before they were going to close and handed these things to them along with some other paperwork I had to fill out and three more checks.  There was a $70 check, a $50 check, and then one for $14.75.  I don't even remember what went where.  Probably town, state, and background check or something.  So I'm up to $159.75 just like that.  I have a good job, so no complaints.

Christmas Vacation: At some point during my two-week vacation, I got a voicemail from the police department saying that my fingerprints were unreadable and needed to be redone.  Apparently the computer device they were using had failed us.  But of course my prints were unreadable!  I rock climb once or twice a week (indoors during the cold months).  My fingers are a damn mess.  I called them back when I got back from vacation.  At least they weren't going to charge me to do it again.  But this time when I went the line was even longer.  It was after work this time.  The woman who took my prints said that there were 18 people there for prints that day before me, and 17 were getting them done in order to get their pistol permit.  The line had been steady throughout her time there, a far cry from days when she used to get one or two people.  I'm willing to bet that more people have gotten their pistol permits (and bought guns for the first time) during the Obama administration than any other two terms in the history of our nation.  I brought the prints to the records office on the way to work the next morning.

January went by.  February went by.  Now it was March.  I called the police department and asked when I could expect my permit.  They said everything was good on their end, and the background check came back fine, so they had to see what was holding things up with the state.  They told me to call back the following week.  I did.  Someone who needed a copy of my prints apparently hadn't gotten it.  They took care of it and said I should have my permit in a week.  Sure enough, they called me a week later and said I could come pick it up.  So I picked it up on my way to work on Saint Patrick's Day.

Folks who haven't gone through this process here before don't know this, but what the town gives you is a temporary permit that's good for 60 days.  If you want a permanent one, you have to bring that to the state DPS along with a $70 check (Hooray, another money grab by the government, bringing that number to $229.75 now!), your license, and a passport or birth certificate.  Crap, who carries their passport on them to work?  I guess I had to do it another day, and Friday was the day I went out to lunch with the guys at work, so the final step took place just this week...

Monday was too busy.  Tuesday was going well, so I figured I could head there during lunch.  The DPS in Middletown isn't much more than 10 minutes from where I work.  There's a sign in the lot that you can't bring any weapons inside the building.  I don't have a... oh... yeah this is considered a weapon here, not a tool.  I leave my pocketknife in the car.  That wouldn't have gone far anyway.  It's airport security when you get in the building.
"Empty your pockets into the bin, take off your belt, walk through here.  Nope, you still have something metal."
"Oh.  Yup, steel-toed shoes..."
Here let me pet you with this wand.
OK.

The line is longer than I thought it would be.  There are 15 people in front of me.  At least.  One of them is this redneck guy who talks about a time he came and the line was out the door.  The door is very far away.  A lady in front of me is talking about how she took the day off to come here.  I'm last in line.  A guy with a mustache comes up behind me and looks at the line.
"Not today I guess."
He walks away.  Eventually, there are a lot more people forming a line behind me than there are in front of me.

There's another form to fill out.  They were nice enough to leave a small platform with some pens in the line next to the forms.  Lots of repetitive forms.  Oh well.  It will pass the time.  After that's done, I check some things on my phone.  I send a few texts, look at some things on ebay, swipe through some pictures on Tinder...  Hmmm... I usually take a half hour lunch, except on Fridays, but it's Tuesday.  Actually, I usually work through lunch.  And now it's almost 1 already, and I left work at noon.  I text my buddy at work who sits next to me and tell him if anyone is looking for me to tell them where I am.  Eventually I get to the window.  Two people are running the whole operation.  One is complaining that she's having computer problems.  They seem pleasant though.  They take my paperwork, take my photograph, and hand me my pistol permit.  Finally, a little more than three months later!  And the picture even came out alright.  It's a shame I'll have to get a new one in five years when I renew it (yes, they'll charge $70 for that too, probably more by then).

I get back to work by 1:30.  An hour and half lunch and I hadn't eaten.  I'm kind of hungry.  I warm up some chicken in the microwave and work while I eat.  No one was looking for me while I was gone.  My phone rings.  My boss had a question.  I realize that I'm blessed to have a job where I don't have to punch a clock and can come and go as needed.  I've earned trust, and they trust me because I do more than what's required of me, and while I don't get paid for overtime, there aren't very many weeks where I only work 40 hours.  I don't have to worry about getting fired for taking an hour and a half lunch break to get a pistol permit.  Some people do.  Some people can't do that, or they have to take a day off in order to do that.  And they can't afford the $230 to the government to claim this right (plus the cost of the safety course and the range fees--oh, yeah, and the gun).

Sometimes legal gun owners commit crimes, but I can't imagine someone going through these things, standing in the lines, paying the fees, filling out the paperwork, who plans to get a permit to buy a gun with which to commit crimes.  I imagine most of the time, those folks just obtain guns illegally, and, because the government isn't involved, it's cheaper and it happens more quickly.  Now I have to decide on a gun...  The one I choose costs $480.  My brother tells me it's a great deal.  I write out that check.  It's currently out of stock but coming in soon, and also, I have to special order it with a magazine that holds less rounds because it normally comes with a 15-round capacity magazine which is now, for no reason based in reality, illegal for me to have here in the great state of Connecticut.  Oh well.  Other than when I go to the range, I don't think I'll carry very often anyway.  But then, it's always better to have it and not need it, especially when a portion of society and the government don't want me to have it.  My quest to claim my Second Amendment right is nearly complete!

Scalias of Justice

The death of The Honorable Antonin Scalia has left a vacant Supreme Court seat.  Regardless of what Republicans may say, Barack Obama is going to nominate someone to fill that seat.  Any President would and probably should.  But, regardless of what Democrats say, the Senate is not obligated to confirm a nominee or even let it go to a vote.  The dishonorable Elizabeth Warren has pointed out that Americans voted for Obama again in 2012, so he should choose Scalia's successor, rather than the next President.  However, she failed to mention the massive mid-term losses for Democrats in 2014, where America chose Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.  Thus, they have a right to not confirm any of Obama's nominees.  And if the shoe were on the other foot?


Well, it has been...  In fact, Joe Biden led the Democrats in successfully blocking Ronald Reagan's nominee, Robert Bork, from confirmation.  Barack Obama tried to filibuster to block Samuel Alito in 2006.  Chuck Schumer preemptively encouraged blocking any George W. Bush nominee, when there wasn't even an opening on the Supreme Court (nor did one occur between Schumer's statements and the end of Bush's term).  Of course, all of them now believe that the current Democratic President should be the one to choose Scalia's successor.  That's because they are all Democrats.  If the President was Republican, they would believe the opposite, just like the Republicans would believe the opposite of what they are saying now if the President was Republican.


Like it or not, both parties play these games.  And if you want to compare who has played them dirtier historically, it's the Democrats by a mile.  And they are now going to have to deal with the probable scenario of Obama nominating someone who will not be confirmed or even be voted on while he is in office, at least not prior to the election.  Too bad.  And let's face it, America would look a lot different right now if Bork had been confirmed for the spot on the court that ultimately went to Anthony Kennedy.  The Democrats have appointed (and had confirmed) more consistently liberal justices, compared to the Republicans having appointed (and had confirmed) more moderate-to-conservative, rather than conservative justices.  The Republicans really have no choice but to block an Obama nominee, unless it's somehow someone who has a proven record of not being liberal.


Of course, if the Democrats take the White House again in November, this all becomes a moot point.  And the Republican Party is kind of a mess right now, so that is certainly a possibility, even with Hillary Clinton as the person in America who is least qualified to be President.  But here's hoping that our second amendment rights are not taken away and we find a way to stop so many lives from being ended before they start...  It'd sure be nice if Presidents from both parties nominated intelligent moderates though.  Can someone find a nominee who is pro-life, pro gay marriage, pro gun, and pro pot?  That would be a real accomplishment.

Please Excuse Me, I have to go to the John...

If you're feeling the Bern, maybe you should go to the John.

That pretty much sums up the New Hampshire primaries today.

To borrow a word from Donald Trump's ridiculous lexicon, Bernie Sanders schlonged Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.  I use that word because my disdain for Hillary grows each day, and her latest strategy is calling everyone who isn't voting for her sexist.  ...Bernie's voters are sexist, the Republicans are sexist, everyone who doesn't like Hillary is sexist. Madeleine Albright spoke on her behalf and said that women who don't vote for Hillary have a special place in hell.  To be fair, Madeleine Albright is probably familiar with hell.  But really, this is all very despicable, because if you don't vote for Hillary, it doesn't mean that your sexist.  It means that you have a brain.

The only woman Hillary really cares about is herself.  She doesn't care about women who serve in the military or women who say they were victimized by her husband.  At one point, she even went so far as to defend against allegations that she is not "a progressive" by playing the "I'm a woman running for President, so of course I am" card.  Yeah, that holds a lot of water.  By that definition, Carly Fiorina is a progressive.  I mean, at least Carly Fiorina cares about women and unborn babies.  Heck, Ben Carson must be super progressive, seeing as he is running for President and is the son of two black parents.  Hillary is a felon who needs to go away, both from this race and to prison.  Bernie destroyed her in New Hampshire, and rightfully so.  A Democratic Socialist is far more worthy of the nomination than a hateful felon, regardless of whether or not she has a penis.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump solidly won in New Hampshire.  As unfortunate as it is, this was in line with the polls, and it came on the heels of probably Trump's best debate performance yet.  Maybe taking a debate off helped him rest up and prepare for the next one.  He actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about for some portion of the night.  But I still think that the lower-tier candidates need to drop out and Republicans need to eventually rally around someone who can beat Donald Trump.  A Trump nomination could be disastrous for the Republican party.

Where did John Kasich come from?  I had no idea who this dude was prior to the first debate.  He started off very underwhelming, but has gained momentum in each debate, and I think he did the best out of anyone in the most recent debate.  Accordingly, Kasich has shocked many people by landing in second place in New Hampshire.  This is great news for Republicans, because Kasich now appears to be a very electable common sense conservative.  And one who isn't crazy and seems like a pleasant person to be around too!  This is amazing.  What a rare breed.  He's still polling quite low nationally, and is a long shot to get the nomination, but at this point, I honestly think he is probably the best option for the Republicans.  He has one person to thank for that...

Domo Arigato, Marco Ruboto!  Like Cruz's poor performance in the Trumpless debate, which followed his best debate performance, so went Marco Rubio in the most recent debate.  I actually think he did pretty well in the second half of the debate, but his terrible beginning overshadows that.  He pretty much repeated the same "25-second memorized speech" like four times within a few minutes, and Chris Christie (rightfully) called him out on it!  I do still like Rubio, but he has got to avoid absurd things like that.  That's even worse than awkwardly sipping water.  Yes Marco, we get it.  Obama is intentionally changing the country to make it like the rest of the world.  He knows exactly what he's doing.  Got it.  You don't need to repeat it four times in virtually the same way.

All the votes aren't tallied yet, but third through fifth are pretty close between Cruz, Bush, and Rubio, but it's time for Bush to get out of the race.  He's blowing through ridiculous amounts of money and isn't getting many votes or favorable poll numbers anywhere.  Christie, Fiorina, and Carson should drop out too, after rounding out sixth through eighth in New Hampshire.  They're done, and that pains me, because I really have a deep respect and admiration for Carson.  Jim Gilmore is a joke at this point, for some reason still not having formally declared that he's out of the race despite getting virtually no votes in Iowa or New Hampshire and polling under one percent basically everywhere.

Here's hoping that we'll at least be down to the final four before the next primaries: Kasich, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump.  ...Although personally, I could do without Cruz and Trump as well.

[The picture here is from a rock climbing trip in New Hampshire this past summer.]