The Colonel's Forum

I loved Mythbusters. It was one of the best shows on TV, ever. In one of the original intro sequences, Adam had a sound byte where he'd say "I reject your reality and substitute my own." That's what blows me away about my Trump friends. Of my friends who support Trump, I would not characterize any of them as dumb. I tend to not hang out with dumb people. And yet, so many of them actively reject any fact that would require them to re-evaluate their support for Donald Trump. This is far beyond confirmation bias; it's the active, conscious embrace of manufactured data points that these people know are inaccurate, along with the rejection of any fact that paints Trump in a negative light. Some examples of Trump-fan logic: All 12 of the women claiming he sexually assaulted them are lying. Even though he's on tape saying he likes to sexually assault women in the exact manner these women are claiming he did it to them.  Hillary Clinton has rigged the FBI. She w...

Today, more women came forward and accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. His record of degrading comments about women, and objectifying women, is a mile long, and a video recently surfaced where he bragged about assaulting them, including details of how he does it. But Donnie responded in his typical way: deny everything, attack the accusers, then paint himself as the victim. In this case, he's gone a step further, threatening to sue the New York Times for libel. Donnie threatens newspapers a lot when they write unflattering stories, but he rarely follows through. He hasn't actually sued a publication since 1984. Even the threat though, should be alarming from a presidential candidate. Freedom of the press is at the core of who we are as a nation. This is not the first time he has threatened the media and tried to manipulate it in his favor  Law school 101: the truth is the ultimate defense. It's not libel if it's true. Libel also requires that it defame his c...

As painful as it is to watch all of the non-substantive coverage in this election cycle, I'm still doing it. I figure someone has to, because I know so many friends and family and colleagues who have, understandably, tuned out at this point. I get it. But I want you to know, I am making the sacrifice to see this debacle through to the finish. For the record, I gave up on talking sense to the Trump fans long ago. The people who are still supporting him at this point fall into one of two categories. They are either truly ignorant lemmings who are following a pied piper because they don't know any better, or they are smart enough to know that he is a racist, sexist, bigoted ego maniac and that doesn't bother them. Either way, they're a lost cause. What does concern me is election day logistics. This November, half the states have new voting laws on the books. Many require new or different forms of ID. Many of these laws blatantly target black voters (not because the...