The Colonel's Forum

Remember logic puzzles from elementary school? I loved those things. Here's a fun one that is, sadly, a work of non-fiction. Answer all 4 questions with well-reasoned, fact based arguments, and I will mail you a bottle of the Bourbon of your choice, up to $100 value. Seriously. In 2012, Donnie said " He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election, We should have a revolution in this country! , " regarding early results from the Romney/Obama contest. He further called the electoral college a "disaster for Democracy." Donnie ran for President himself in 2016. Just before the election, he said that, if he loses, the election is somehow rigged . He offers no evidence for why this is the case, or in what way he believes it's rigged, but promises NOT to accept the result if he suspects fraud. If he wins the election, Donnie says there is no fraud. 1) Explain how it is possible for an election to be fraudulent if one person wins, and totally legit if...

Trump won. I was definitely surprised by this, but the time has come to reflect, and to seek to understand. As I posted before the election, I don't think this is the end of the world, or the end of America. Unlike the anti-Obama crowd who said "he's going to ruin our country" and were counting down the days until he was out of office, I will hope that Mr. Trump is successful and can deliver on some of his promises. Certainly I disagree with many of his policy positions, but there are others I think are good ideas - simplifying our tax code, term limits for congress, a ban on congressmen becoming lobbyists, foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections to name a few. I also want to understand America better. I've been living in a bit of a bubble, apparently. Lexington is a well educated city. Most of my friends are good people who are open minded - not bigots, if you will. There is simply no denying that hate was a key part of Trump's platform. He ...

A couple friends have asked me this week what will happen if Trump wins. The fact that we're even considering this possibility is still a shock to me, but Nate Silver has upped Trump's chances to 33%, so I suppose we'd better prepare ourselves for it. My short answer is "not much." As I've said before, and anyone who paid attention in US Government class will tell you, the presidency is an intentionally impotent position. We were trying to NOT create a king, remember? This is why the people who were scared Obama was going to turn us into a socialist state and take away everyone's guns were being ridiculous. "Well he did make us socialist - what about Obamacare?!" is all I need to hear from someone to confirm it's not worth my time to try and explain socialism to them. Our standing in the world is already lowered, thanks to picking the two least like-able people in the US and putting them on a Presidential ballot. Yes, I've made fun o...