Could It Get Any Worse?

I have really been working at putting myself out of range in this election season, as I mentioned in my last post. Instead, I have been filling my time with far more productive activities, like following the Cubs through the playoffs. How great is that story? After 71 years of futility they are going back to the World Series. I am so happy for them and all their long-suffering die-hard fans. I suspect there are overnight now more Cubs fans than at any time in their history.

And how about those Utes? Now 7-1 overall, and tied for the the lead in the PAC-12 South. Their 52-45 shootout with UCLA yesterday in the Rose Bowl where Joe Williams smashed the single game rushing record with 332 yards was poetry in motion on a football field. They got some love in the coaches poll today, moving up to number 16. Even the Cougars from the school down south have been fun to watch. Their record doesn't reflect how close they've come to being undefeated. Even Utah would be undefeated with a few more inches that fell short on the final drive in their single loss to California.

So, believe me when I say these have been pleasant diversions from the nightly news. Speaking of that, aside from the politics, I have wearied of the nightly crime blotter - murder, adultery, theft, burglary, armed assaults, and all that goes with it. As a product of the Sixties, I have always been a television addict, but those days are now gone as my television time has been self-restricted. I hate commercials. God blessed the man who developed the "Hopper," and I praise that man's name now.

I am continually reminded of the ancient record as found in Mormon 8. Mormon was the father of Moroni, and one of the last survivors of an ancient nation state that once thrived in the Americas. But his civilization was destroyed by wickedness. He writes here in about 400 A.D., with a prophetic vision of the times in which we live today:

 35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.

 36 And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.

 37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

 38 O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies — because of the praise of the world?

 39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?

 40 Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads?

 41 Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer.

I want to be clear - I have always thought of myself as an optimistic person. I really don't want to believe in secret combinations that are set up to get gain, murder the innocents for power, and grind the faces of the poor into the dust. I don't look for the anti-Christ under every bush. I want to believe that people are basically decent, hard-working and honest with one another. I really don't want to let myself go there with conspiracy theories about "rigged" systems of government or business that pollute our inheritance as free people in America.

But, that said, the conditions, the rhetoric, the back and forth of the political dialogue to which we have been exposed this election cycle have been so reprehensible that if I had small children at home I would have no choice but to unplug the television. Even with sports, I record the games, fast-forward through the endless commentary and commercials and reduce my watching to the actual plays. That Utah-UCLA game yesterday took four hours. Watching it the "Hopper" way I do takes a little longer than a half-hour.

Elder David A. Bednar, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Filtering out all the "noise" is exactly what Elder David A. Bednar was speaking about here. The search for truth isn't difficult if we ask ourselves these two important questions posed by Elder Bednar.

Some are simply too young to remember the Clinton era when Bill was the POTUS and his whole presidency seemed to be one sexual intrigue after another. Stains on a blue dress, parsing of tortured definitions of what constituted "sexual relations" in front of a panel of the House of Representatives convened to impeach him for lying to a grand jury, and the lies that were told, then refuted and corrected with hard evidence to the contrary; all were the "highlights" of those years. Impeached in the House, but a conviction lacking in the Senate, Bill Clinton skated, though he was impugned and lost his license to practice law. And now he's back running for "First Gentleman," whatever that may come to mean. He is anything but a "gentleman."

This year the Clinton legacy has all been brought to the forefront once again, accompanied by the allegations of the escapades of one Donald J. Trump, man of the world if ever there was one. It seems our national moral compass has been demagnetized. We are no longer shocked by anything that once would have immediately disqualified these two candidates in Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Our true north is whatever a scheming politician says it is. I noticed the other day that the polling done last week puts Clinton and Trump in exactly the same place they were a year ago when this all started - in other words, nothing has been settled yet. I guess we should be grateful they are both the most loathed candidates ever put forward to run for the presidency.

I think the counsel of this priceless hymn is worth repeating - If the way be full of trials, weary not. . .



And so, in answer to my question, "Could it get any worse?" I answer yes - the Cubs could lose the World Series, and the Utes could lose to Washington next week and get little or no respect in the national rankings.

Speechless. . . and Clueless

I don't know how many people have noticed, but I'm getting this question a lot recently: "Why haven't you been writing about this election?" A close second in popularity is: "Who are you voting for?" Forgive my rant, but I will lay it all out.

In answer to the first, my response has been, "This election leaves me speechless." And it's true. What do you say that hasn't already been said? The two major political parties have been through a bruising primary season, eventually settling for their respective nominees on the two candidates with the highest negatives in terms of popularity in modern history. Right now, I am conflicted.

Which leads me to the answer to the second question. Ask me in November who I'm voting for, because right now I haven't got a clue. The electorate is woefully fragmented. The hashtags #nevertrump, #neverhillary are everywhere. As never before, this election looms as a vote AGAINST someone, rather than FOR someone. I talk to people every day who say they will NEVER vote for Trump and NEVER vote for Hillary. One thing is clear - they are both loathed in record numbers, and apparently loved by enough to grab their respective parties' nominations. Mind-numbing, right?

You Be The Judge, Make Your Choice - November Looms

On the one hand, we have a serial adulterer, working on wife number three, the owner of hotels, golf courses, casinos, escort services, a multi-billionaire with really bad hair who has built an empire on the foundation of his father's fortune, and a newcomer to the political scene who changes policy positions like you and I change our socks in the morning.

His demise has been predicted repeatedly for over a year because he has violated every pundit's political playbook of rules multiple times.

He's managed to offend nearly every ethnic group in America on a "platform" of building a wall on the Southern border, excluding Muslims from immigrating to America, and then touting a long list of populist conservative agenda items sufficient to win over Sean Hannity, among others. And by the way, Fox News is nearly unwatchable now. He played "bimbo" Megyn Kelly like a fiddle.

He personally attacked each Republican candidate along the way. His rhetoric against them was over the top. And everyone ate up his politics of personal destruction. Apparently, while we denounce bullies publicly, we embrace a "tough guy" with our votes. In the Utah primary, I voted for loser John Kasich, the obvious "protest" vote I could find against Trump and Cruz.

Despite the deep divisions within the party, Trump went on to secure the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot at the upcoming Republican convention.

Give him this - he has succeeded in a tough New York real estate business where few do. Were there ethics violations involved? Probably. Were bankruptcies the result in some cases? Who cares?

Despite Mitt Romney's protestations to attempt to wreck his chances, he has survived even the most blistering attacks from inside his own party. Romney called him "a fraud," "a con man," and worse. It  didn't matter in the least. Take a principled stand against Trump and he gains strength.

His reckless abandon in making his spontaneous and seemingly irresponsible comments is somehow appealing to the voters who have stoutly supported him and rejected every one of his opponents from among what appeared at the outset to be the strongest field ever assembled on the Republican side. Now as they coalesce around him, it seems beating Hillary is enough to unite the majority at any cost.

On the other side, we have a serial politician, dishonest lawyer, driven by power, greed and amassing a fortune based upon trading influence for contributions to a specious "foundation." The list of donors and their contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the favors obtained in exchange will be fully documented before November. Who cares?

She's the wife of an inveterate and skilled politician who enabled her husband's sexual exploits, then mercilessly berated and publicly humiliated all his accusers. Some voters in this election cycle are simply too young to remember. They will get a list of particulars from her opponent, no doubt. But will anyone really care?

The list of her political scandals is as long as a career criminal's rap sheet, spanning a period of well over forty years. She makes Ronald Reagan's "Teflon" moniker laughable. Reagan was around when character mattered, and his character was so well-documented nothing seemed to stick that was critical. These days nothing critical seems to stick to the Clintons, even suspected criminal activity. In that sense she and Trump have a lot in common.

Her record is clear, and her self-inflicted e-mail server debacle of handling sensitive classified documents while she was serving as Secretary of State under the Obama administration is only the latest in that long line of scandals. Is she guilty of felonies? Who knows? What she is guilty of is poor judgment on a host of issues. And setting all that aside, this qualifies her to serve? Go figure.

Somehow, her supporters have looked the other way in their enthusiasm for her candidacy. When pressed to name even one substantive accomplishment of this woman, those who are interviewed are routinely stumped by the question.

She has been opposed by only one seemingly weak candidate - an over-the-hill and underwhelming self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist whose honesty creds are at least legit, who prolonged the primary contests to the very last voter, even longer than it took Trump to vanquish the large Republican field. And what has been his platform? That Hillary Clinton wasn't liberal enough, not socialist enough, not progressive enough.

And finally, after setting aside his bruising and prolonged opposition, Clinton has enough votes for delegates, "super" or otherwise, to become the first woman from a major party to win her party's nomination. Being the first woman in politics may be her only achievement, but it is sufficient, it seems, in the minds of many.

And, Trump-like, that accomplishment in a tough game of politics may in fact be an achievement. If an upstart Senator from Illinois can win two terms in the White House, why not her? Why not Trump? There are many who love the narrative of the first black POTUS followed by the first woman POTUS, qualifications for the job notwithstanding. Elections have turned on less. Whose resume was thinner than Obama's?

Morality, it would seem, has taken a permanent holiday in American politics. If making America great again were to include a return to morality, I would be on board with it. However, the American psyche, it would seem, now favors looking for a departure from the politics of the past at almost any price. Bernie Sanders has made outrageous proposals for socialism on steroids. Give him points for sincerity and honesty. You can judge for yourself if he's credible. However, the fuzzy math associated with how to pay for it all is mind-boggling, and yet his appeal even here in redder-than-red Utah is stunning. He turned out BY FAR the largest crowds for his rallies of any and all competitors in Utah.

One has to suspend all reason and all rational thought to suppose that his foolishness in American politics is sustainable to any degree. We are living on borrowed money, and yet there is no serious debate any more about a balanced budget. Both political parties are spending us into oblivion. Does anyone believe either Trump or Clinton will curb the spending? They aren't even talking about it. The military leaders are warning that our national debt is our biggest security threat. Oh really? You don't hear politicians echoing that warning at all. They can't even agree on whether the attack last week in Orlando on defenseless gays and lesbians that killed 49 innocents in a bar was carried out by a "radical Islam" adherent or a "deranged madman." Are we at war with the Islamic State that has sworn to destroy America, or is what happened in Orlando merely a police matter?

The sad reality for me is that we have brought our current state upon ourselves, and we have no one else to blame.

Both Sanders and Trump have struck a raw nerve of discontent that has overthrown all the conventional wisdom traditionally ascribed to politics. All the enthusiasm in this cycle has been for Trump and Sanders. Trump logged more votes in the Republican primary season than anyone in history! No small feat. He claims that's because he's added Independents and Reagan Democrats to the mix. How or if that will translate into a win in November remains to be seen.

If I take my cues from the prophetic Book of Mormon, I would not be remiss in sizing up this election as unfathomable. Likening the years preceding the coming of our resurrected Lord among the Nephites on this continent to our day, there are ample precedents to suggest things are going to get a lot worse than better. Begin your reading in Helaman 1 through 3 Nephi 9. Consider these chilling insights:

. . . they did destroy the government of the land. . .  and all this iniquity had come upon the people because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan. And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combinations of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets. (3 Nephi 7:2; 5-6).

There are many ways to murder the prophets without killing them outright. One of the most effective is to simply ignore their warnings. Few people I know outside the Church care much about the contents of the Book of Mormon, nor the prophets, ancient and modern, who have given specific counsel about the days in which we live.

I've abandoned all hope of coming up with a palatable scenario to my liking at this point, and remain simply speechless and clueless about how all this turns out in November.

Hillary Clinton: “liar,” “dishonest” and “untrustworthy.”

I don't know when the summer leading up to a presidential election has ever been more interesting (read "strange") than this one. I think someday America will probably have a female president. There, I've said it. But this woman, who has been running for president most of her adult life, now faces the end of the trail.

Hillary Clinton

The smart money on the Democrat side got behind Hillary Clinton early. Then a radical socialist named Bernie Sanders started making headway and he began to nibble away at the Clinton lead. Strange that someone even more polarizing and radical than either Obama or Clinton could make that kind of headway.

Now comes news that her fund raisers are reporting less than enthusiastic support from traditionally reliable sources. Some are aching for Vice-President Joe Biden to get into the race, and even President Obama has reportedly "given his blessing" for another Biden run at the presidency. So much for forgotten pledges to Bill Clinton, who campaigned for Obama in exchange for a Hillary endorsement someday. The political calculus these days for me has become increasingly mystifying, and well, just strange. But some have suggested the Biden pick as VP was a cool political strategy on Obama's part because it insulated him from impeachment - no one would want Joe Biden as the replacement POTUS. Yes, strange.

Yesterday Hillary boasted that she already had 25% of the "super delegates" on the Democrat side already locked up, and she was certain the nomination would be hers. Well, time will tell on that one. Strange she could be so self-assured when her favorability ratings and her polling numbers keep dropping like a rock. She thinks the "fix" is in, but she may just sink her own ship that is beyond fixing.

On the Republican side all the air in the room is being sucked up by Donald Trump. He has been dissed, dismissed, and disassembled a thousand times piece by piece this summer by all the pundits who claim he has "no chance" of winning the nomination, much less the presidency in November 2016, and yet his ascendancy cannot be denied. Strange that someone so bombastic, arrogant and off-putting could somehow tantalize the electorate the way this man has.

Jeb Bush was the presumptive nominee a few weeks ago until Trump got into the race, and since that first debate Bush has been dropping. Three of his fund raisers have already abandoned the ship. That's very strange, given the inevitability of another Bush/Clinton match-up predicted by the political punditry earlier in the summer.

Someone I read yesterday on Twitter suggested to the DC establishment that if they want to stop Trump they should just endorse him. Strange that you've never heard that strategy enunciated in politics before this year. But these are not normal times. The disfavor into which the Republican establishment has dropped keeps finding new bottoms.

The Republican field is deep this year and filled with what one would presume is a talented field. One would think the GOP hierarchy would be licking its chops in glee. Experienced governors and ex-governors with tremendous accomplishments in the field this year would be a campaign organizer's dream come true. Talk about an embarrassment of riches! But this year things are different. Things are very strange this year.

Donald Trump

Topping the early primary polling, of course, is Mr. Trump, followed now by retired brain surgeon Ben Carson, and retired HP CEO Carly Fiorina. It depends of course on who's doing the polling, but the strange thing about the ascendancy of Trump, Carson and Fiorina is that they are political outsiders. It seems Republicans have forsaken their party champions and taken leave of their collective conservative and time-tested reasoning ability and their rational and measured sense of propriety. That's strange indeed to think Trump could be the standard bearer for conservatives.

But maybe, just maybe, what's happening is a collective disenchantment with leadership in the GOP. They made bold promises about standing up against Obama. Republicans swept control of both houses of Congress in 2014, with high hopes the promises made would be promises kept. But their perception seems to be that they got nothing of what they bargained for from either Boehner in the House or McConnell in the Senate. One senses the makings of an uprising in the base.

Maybe in part that's what might explain Trump's ascendancy. His scorched earth policies and rhetoric - maybe the best word is "hyperbole" - have swept across the land like a raging wildfire of pent up anger, especially over illegal immigration. Many are warning of what happened in pre-World War II Europe as millions promoted and embraced Adolph Hitler in the name of German nationalism. That idea, however, seems a little strange to me, since Obama would resemble more of a dictator than Trump. But I said this was a strange summer.

Nevertheless, there are those who see all the familiar earmarks of what's now happening in America in our desperate search for a savior who can deliver America. "Making America Great Again" has struck a responsive chord and Trump has found legs with his slogan this summer. Granted he's a little light on the specifics of HOW he's going to do that, but it seems a refreshing alternative to what Obama has given us in his "transformational change" of nearly everything in America.

People are saying they've had enough of politicians and their promises, period. Somehow, almost mystically it seems, Trump has managed to differentiate himself from lifelong politicians and their promises. He says outrageous things that would doom any other politician and he gets away with it as his poll numbers continue to soar! And that's very strange.

Here's the essence of all this: There was a poll last week that caught my attention. It was done by Quinnipiac, and summarized by Breitbart. The participants in the poll were asked to give the first word that came to their minds when Clinton, Trump and Bush were mentioned.

The top three words used to describe Hillary Clinton were "liar," "dishonest" and "untrustworthy."

And that might be the first thing I've read this summer that was not strange.

Political Quote of the Day: "Spread the Wealth Around"

I promise I am not making this up. . .

Speaking at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 2, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the audience the biggest issue facing the world today is how to spread the most wealth around to as many people as we can:

"It’s important, too, that we look at how to promote broadly-based prosperity. One of the problems in societies around the world today is that too much of the productivity of the economies are going to too few. Too few people, the political and economic elite, are realizing the vast majority of benefits from economic activity.

"It’s true in my own country where, unfortunately, economic inequality is increasing. And it’s true in Ukraine. It’s true in Europe and Asia and Africa and South America.

"So part of the challenge of economic growth and prosperity is to make sure it gets down and equally spread among people. And we have to work towards spurring investment and long-term growth in Ukraine. And we have to work together to end corruption in both the public and the private sectors."

Again, wanting to help the poor is laudable, but this isn't the right way to do it.  Teach them, educate them, train them, put them to work, then get out of their way and let them soar like eagles.  Don't give them the Robin Hood dole and make them dependent upon big government for their existence.

RightScoop has the video