The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I know it was just 12 years ago when Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency, but given the fact that's 1/3 of my life, it's a significant duration of time for me. Ever since the nightmare that was the 2016 election, I've been pulling for a Kamala Harris/Cory Booker ticket for 2020. Well, while Booker has yet to announce his intentions heading toward 2020, Senator Harris has officially announced she's running, and I have to say, this is the most excited I've been about a potential presidential candidate since Obama 12 years ago. I voted for Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, but I didn't vote for any of them in the Democratic primary. The only time I've voted for the eventual Democratic nominee in the party's primary was for eventual 2-term president Barack Obama. While it's very early in the nominating process, to this point, Kamala Harris is who I'm pulling for to be on the top of the party's 2020 ...

There's been a great deal of debate about the Electoral College since Donald Trump's victory last Tuesday night, for while he exceeded the necessary 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, he currently trails Hillary Clinton in the popular vote by over 1.3 million. Electoral College defenders continually say that the current system makes things more fair for the smaller, less populated states, as it prevents the larger states from having too great an influence on the results. Going through the math, I can say, without any hesitation, that's complete hogwash. Let's first take a look at the population and electoral vote count of all 50 states (as well as D.C.), and then showcase how many people one electoral vote represents. 1) California: 38,332,521, 55 EVs, 1 EV per 696,955 people 2) Texas: 26,448,193, 38 EVs, 1 EV per 696,005 3) New York: 19,651,127, 29 EVs, 1 EV per 677,625 4) Florida: 19,552,860, 29 EVs, 1 EV per 674,237 5) Illinois: 12,882,135, 20 EVs,...

What are far-right politicians' two favorite words besides impeach Obama? Let's secede! Well, one county in northern California is trying to make that happen. This past Tuesday, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of seceding from California to form a new state called "Jefferson." The county, largely Republican, is home to 44,154 people, which accounts for about one-tenth of 1% of California's 38,041,430 residents. If Jefferson became a state, it would be given two senators just like the state of California. Jefferson's two senators would represent 22,077 residents a piece while California's senators would represent 18,998,638 residents each - 860 times the number represented in Jefferson. Why does Siskiyou County want to secede? As one member of the board of supervisors said: "[It's because of] regulation, restriction of rights, lack of representation, regionalism and restoration of limited government." Well, I...

Global-warming conspiracists crack me up sometimes. Due to that, it should come as no surprise that when reading California Representative Dana Rohrabacher's conspiratorial comments on the topic earlier today, it prompted quite the chuckle. What makes this especially humorous is the fact that Rohrabacher is a long-time member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. With regard to climate-change, Rohrabacher said this: "Just so you'll know, global warming is a total fraud and it's being designed because what you've got is you've got liberals who get elected at the local level want state government to do the work and let them make the decisions. Then, at the state level, they want the federal government to do it. And at the federal government, they want to create global government to control all of our lives. It's step by step by step, more and bigger control over our lives by higher levels of government. And global warming is that strate...

House Oversight Chairman and man least likely to believe the lyrics to the song "I'm Too Sexy" are about him - Darrell Issa (Republican - California) - just recently told Megyn Kelly of Fox News the following regarding President Obama and the Benghazi attacks: "The president sent a letter to the President of Libya where he didn't call it a terrorist attack even when at the time the President of Libya was calling it pre-planned Sept. 11 terrorist attack. The words that are being used carefully - like you just said, 'act of terror' - an 'act of terror' is different than a 'terrorist attack.' The truth is, this was a terrorist attack, this had Al Qaeda at it." Mr. Issa, if you would be so kind, could you differentiate the terms "act of terror" and "terrorist attack" for me please? I have a feeling I'll be waiting awhile... In light of the before-mentioned quote, I have a hunch Mr. Issa will engage in the fol...

President Obama recently received some criticism for a remark he made regarding California Attorney General Kamala Harris, especially from some far-left women supporters of his. The one line these offended individuals pointed to is when the president said the following in reference to Ms. Harris - "She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country..." Some claimed that was a sexist comment. I happen to disagree. The word "sexism" is defined as: 1. "attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles." 2. "discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially such discrimination directed against women." How was the president discriminating or devaluing this woman who happens to be the attorney general of California? He was simply complimenting her. If I tell a woman I find her physically attractive, does that make me sexist? I certainly ...

What is it about these idiot males either currently in or running for a position of power and believing they're experts on women's bodies and rape - more so than even the women themselves? We had the likes of Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, and other Republicans making absurd statements about rape. Now it's California judge Derek Johnson's turn. It has just been reported that in 2008, Judge Johnson said the following during a case involving one Metin Gurel being charged with rape: "I'm not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something. If someone doesn't want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case. That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn't necessarily willing, she didn't put up a fight." This comment sounds eerily similar to Todd Akin's, when he said, "From what I understand from ...

Yeah, this goes to show you how much my brother follows politics. I wore a shirt the day before my family and I left for San Diego that has a picture of former president Bush (W.) and a school bus. On the shirt, it says, "Daddy Say I Special." My brother said something along the lines of, "You may not want to wear that where we're going (California), especially if they support him." Where did we reside? Nebraska, one of the reddest states in the U.S. That's right, my brother thought California was a red state, just like Nebraska. Now I remember why I don't talk politics with the kid, because he doesn't know a dang thing about it.