The Colonel's Forum

This is a photo of a crawfish boil. We've thrown one nearly every year since we moved to Lexington in 2005. It's a unique take on something us midwesterners call a BBQ, but it would be more appropriate to say that a BBQ is a watered down boring version of a crawfish boil. I grew up in Indiana, so that shapes my perspective on backyard food parties. If you grew up in Louisiana, this is normal; burgers and hot dogs are ok, but nowhere near as fun. This photo is from 2012, but this weekend was our 2018 crawfish boil. The attendee list changes from year to year. We meet new people, people move, old friends might get busy and can't attend, but that's fine. The location changes too. We've had 5 homes in Lexington. One year we lived in a condo and a friend host this for us in her backyard. Crawfish boils are serious undertakings. My in-laws cook, because they are Louisiana natives and wonderful food is in their genes. I hope some of that passed to our son. My parent...

Excerpt of an interview Bob Woodward did with Trump in March of 2016. Look at his comments about Nixon being a criminal. Look at his speech patterns, and how frequently he feels the need to paint himself as a victim, and also to portray himself as an important, successful man. Look at how he talks about winning. And look at how frequently this reads like a conversation with a 5th grader trying to BS an essay test. BW:  Any . . .  . Before coming over, Bob and I have had lots of chats. And we were thinking about this, that you are running for the nomination in the Republican Party. DT:  Right. BW:  Which is the party of Lincoln and the party of Nixon. . . . And so we have this party that you are running to be the nominee in, and it’s got two heritages. Lincoln and Nixon. DT:  That’s true. That’s true. BW:  And why did Lincoln succeed? Thought about that at all? DT:  Well, I think Lincoln succeeded for numerous reasons. He was a man who w...

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...

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...

Today, an interfaith service will be held for the 5 Dallas law enforcement officers who were tragically killed last week. Sadly, there is also news this morning about what may be the first "copy-cat" ambush of police subsequent to the Dallas incident - 5 men were arrested in Washington D.C. this morning after shooting at law enforcement who were responding to a report of shots fired. These incidents, combined with the citizens who are peacefully protesting nation-wide about extra-judicial killings, represent an extremely disturbing state of affairs. I truly do not feel it's an exaggeration to say that our police and our citizens are at war with each other.  What's equally tragic is that this scenario is being reported on and discussed by so many people using the same dichotomous lens of false alternatives that America applies to so many issues we face today. It's A or B. You either blindly support everything the cops do, or if not then you clearly hate ...

I tried to warn you people. While remaining a registered Republican, I have complained for years that the party is on the wrong track, that it has strayed from its founding principles. I voted for Barack Obama twice, and endured constant criticism for supporting him. This is not because I think he's an amazing president - I don't - but rather he's "above average and far better than McCain or Romney." He didn't propose that we build a wall with Mexico and make them pay for it. He didn't propose banning all Muslims from entering the US. He didn't pick Sarah Palin, an absolute moron, as his running mate. He didn't try to divide the country by characterizing anyone on public assistance as a "taker who feels entitled." He has tried to end Bush's endless wars and his unjust, indefinite detentions and torture scheme. Those unfunded wars are a bigger impact on our national budget than all the food stamp programs that modern Republicans love ...

One of the more bizarre narratives about Obama in 2008 was "we don't know anything about him." The implication was that somehow Obama emerged from the ether in 2007 had no friends, family or acquaintances, and therefor should be viewed with a high level of suspicion and skepticism. I had a number of otherwise-intelligent friends and family members who bought into this one, and it always baffled me because it was so easily refuted with this thing called Google. We knew where he grew up, where he went to college, what his views were ... but people will embrace any excuse to not like a guy who was otherwise highly qualified for the job and far more modern than the ignorant, blow-hard Republican they really wanted to vote for. Fast forward to this year and Trumpageddon. I continue to chuckle anytime I think about the predicament into which the GOP has placed itself. They let the angry-white-man sentiment fester and ferment for decades now; supplying a new "boogeyman...

There is an opening on the Supreme Court. Scalia was as close as a supreme court justice gets to being a right wing nut, which means the 8 justices he leaves are split right down the middle between liberal and conservative. Filling the vacancy his death has created is a really big deal, and it's made even bigger by the fact that this is an election year with a cast of clowns running for the oval office. Enter my pal, my man, Kentucky's senior Senator, Mitch McConnell. Mitch barely let Scalia's body go cold before offering his two cents on a replacement appointment -    "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice," he said. "Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."  This, like so much that Mitch says, makes no sense at all. It's the President's job to appoint justices and the Senate's job to "interview" them and either confirm or reject them. Th...

Governor Bevin has wasted no time with press releases and executive orders. I'm looking at these and trying to see what the next 4 years has in store for my adopted home state. The early signs I'm seeing are not good. Bevin issued an executive order to accommodate one citizen , then promptly issued a press release about it. That's never good policy. It says that he's more interested in scoring political points than doing what's right. It's a waste of state resources for two reasons: it's only benefiting one citizen, and it's unnecessary. The citizen in question is of course Kim Davis, the bigoted bitch of a county clerk who embarrassed a majority of Kentuckians and Christians while simultaneously demonstrating she's unqualified to be a county clerk, because she doesn't understand that Supreme Court rulings are not open to interpretation. The order requires the creation of new marriage license forms, state wide, that don't contain the name ...

I read a well-written analysis on Politico today that will unfortunately never see the mainstream. People are too lazy, or too burned out on politics, or both for something like this to be presented to the masses. It doesn't fit in a "tweet" so people will tune out. The full article is here . It aligns with a couple theories I have about the current race, specifically: Trump is getting disproportionate media coverage because his statements are so sensational that they sell a ton of ads. He's the gossip/reality star of the race and that's what Americans lust for these days so he's a siren's song to the major media outlets. His positions are so outlandish that they skew the curve for other statements made by his fellow GOP candidates. In other words, if you remove Trump from the equation, there are plenty of crazy statements being made by the other Republicans in the race, they just seem less crazy and get less air time relative to Trump The Democrat...

I watched the 12/15 CNN debate and it was genuinely difficult to stomach. Here's what I heard: America won't be safe unless we continue these endless wars and significantly increase defense spending I'll demonstrate I'm tougher than Obama by making the current federal spying programs a lot more aggressive! "The FBI has the authority to investigate 'un-American' activities." Yeah, it's called McCarthyism. I promise to build a stronger, more heavily fortified wall on the Mexican border than _______. So, overall I saw a complete lack of respect for the lessons of history or the constitution. Going to war in Iraq was a terrible mistake, BOTH times. No one has ever won a war in Afghanistan, ever. Lybia and Egypt are not new democracies, they're new problem spots in the region. Who in their right mind says "if we would just carpet  bomb Syria and then put some boots on the ground this would all get better?" Right, Ted Cruz.  K...

Well, that didn't take long. The French authorities had barely cleared the bodies of the victims from the massacre scenes in Paris before US politicians started turning tragedy into an opportunity for grandstanding. I'd act surprised, but really I'm not. Those issuing policy statements today in the aftermath of these attacks are some of the most classless politicians we've got. Specifically, Trump, Carson, Cruz and Gingrich. They were not alone, they were just some of the most egregious. Their statements varied from "see, that's why we can't help the Syrian refugees" to "this is why Muslims are so dangerous" to "if the French were allowed to carry more guns this might never have happened." I'm not going to repeat the exact statements, but these are the main messages. NBC has the details here . Take a hard look at these statements, because so many of them are simply variations on "we need more war" and "don't ...

I talk a lot about politics because I love this country, and because I believe that an engaged and informed citizenry is one of the most important things we can have to ensure our future. Because of this, I find the current state of political discourse in this country alarming. At some point it became "impolite" to talk about politics. Our founding fathers would be furious at this, because it's the ability to freely talk politics that separates us from fascist, totalitarian regimes.  The media is a circus, and we can't wait for the next act. Good journalism is nearly impossible to find. The republican debate last week was more like Wrestlemania than a proper political debate.  Ignorance has become fashionable. Don't understand the issues? Don't care for science? No time to actually research a topic? Can't be bothered to know US History? Welcome to American politics in 2015 where you'll fit right in! I know this stuff isn't new this year, bu...