Was it Yogi Berra who said “it is déjà vu all over again?”

With 99 percent of the vote counted, Hillary Clinton had about 200,000 votes more than Donald Trump. She had 59,814,000 while Trump had 59,611,000 but he had more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win and she was stuck at 228.

"It certainly is going to bring this back into the forefront of public discussion," John Koza, the founder of the National Popular Vote campaign, which aims to effectively get rid of the Electoral College, told NBC on Tuesday night as votes were counted.

"We think every vote should be equal throughout the United States," he said. "We think the candidate who gets the most votes should become president."

In a country where it is supposed to be one man, or one woman, one vote, this destroys for some the legitimacy of a government already unpopular.

And it would be the second time in 16 years.

George Bush was elected in 2000 after several days of counting and court cases only settled by the Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court. Bush won a second-term but became widely unpopular because of a recession and war in Iraq that was launched looking for weapons of mass destruction that were never found. Some believe the war led to the creation of ISIS terrorists.

The nation still hasn’t recovered and the Middle East plague of terrorists has reached the U.S. and Europe.

Former Vice President Al Gore, meanwhile, had more votes but chose to concede in 2000 to avoid creating a controversy that might hurt the nation.

This week, unlike 2000, it was clear in 24 hours that Trump lost the popular vote and thousands of his opponents hit the streets in big cities from coast-to-coast in non-violent protests Wednesday night. A common cry was that Trump was not their president.

Also unlike 2000, Republicans will be inheriting a government that they deliberately sought to destroy. They publicly stated they would make it impossible for President Obama to get anything done when he was first elected in 2008.

It was a fight all the way, though Obama restored the economy to previous levels and killed Osama bin Laden.

Trump will have a narrow margin in the Senate, and it would be no surprise if Democrats block him any time they can.

The battle to take away the rights of women and gays by appointing conservatives could backfire. The way the court works, justices try to avoid turning around on important decisions.

Cornell University says: “Stare decisis is the doctrine of precedent. Courts cite to stare decisis when an issue has been previously brought to the court and a ruling already issued. Generally, courts will adhere to the previous ruling, though this is not universally true. See, e.g. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 US 833. 

Stare decisis is Latin for “to stand by things decided.” The doctrine operates both horizontally and vertically. 

Horizontal stare decisis refers to a court adhering to its own precedent. A court engages in vertical stare decisis when it applies precedent from a higher court. Consequently, stare decisis discourages litigating established precedents, and thus, reduces spending.

“According to the Supreme Court, stare decisis “promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.”

In practice, the Supreme Court will usually defer to its previous decisions even if the soundness of the decision is in doubt. 

A benefit of this rigidity is that a court need not continuously reevaluate the legal underpinnings of past decisions and accepted doctrines. “Moreover, proponents argue that the predictability afforded by the doctrine helps clarify constitutional rights for the public. Other commentators point out that courts and society only realize these benefits when decisions are published and made available. Thus, some scholars assert that stare decisis is harder to justify in cases involving secret opinions.”

President Trump vowed the morning after he was elected to be conciliatory.

Nevertheless, he will be under pressure from his base to overturn decisions supported by the majority in many polls.

With California voting to legalize recreational marijuana, which is growing more popular from coast to coast, Trump will be risking losing his majorities in both the House and Senate. Seven states have legalized recreational marijuana and more than a dozen more have made medical marijuana legal.

The 2018 election has already begun.

Op-ed: Not only is Donald Trump behind in polls with about two weeks to go, pundits believe his remarks about nasty women will elect more of them than ever before.

“The irony is that Donald Trump may result in Democratic women having their best year ever.

In the final two weeks of the 2016 contest, Democrats are casting the GOP nominee’s insult-driven, misogynistic campaign as the embodiment of everything they say the Republican Party gets wrong on women. And their effort looks poised to deliver record-setting results,” Politico reports.

“It’s not just Hillary Clinton, who would of course be the first female president if she defeats him, or Nancy Pelosi, who has a slim chance of reclaiming the speaker’s gavel if enough Republican seats get sunk by Trump. In many of their most competitive races, Democrats are poised to win House and Senate seats that could easily bring the number of women to new levels in both chambers, along with potentially two female governors winning their first elections.”

For three weekends in a row, after he bragged about being such a big star he could grab any woman’s private parts, Trump has been the target of hilarious skits on Saturday Night Live that have gotten some record ratings.

The election website 538 predicts Trump’s foul tongue will depress the turnout of Republicans.

“The nightmare scenario for the GOP is that high-information Republican voters, seeing Trump imploding and not necessarily having been happy with him as their nominee in the first place, feel free to cast a protest vote at the top of the ticket. Meanwhile, lower information Repubican voters don’t turn out at all, given that Trump’s rigging rhetoric could suppress their vote and that Republicans don’t have the field operation to pull them back in,” said 538.

The New York Times has published a list of Trump insults.

Last weekend a Saturday Night Live skit, hosted by the popular Tom Hanks, drew laughs by saying Trump had won the national election insult “Bingo.”

The latest polls have Hillary Clinton with a lead of at least five percent, some put her in double digits.

To win she needs 270 votes in the electoral collect.

​Many believe she will top 330 votes.

New York Times
​Politico
​538
​Vox

Op-ed: When Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton the devil and threatened to jail her it was not the first time I had heard such talk, though not in recent years and in America.

It reminded me of political contests in the Third World, and often the incumbent made good threats to jail opponents.

Sometimes they were never seen again.

This was over the top even for a potty mouth. We don’t threaten opponents on debate stages.

"If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your (missing email) situation," Trump said, "because there has never been so many lies, so much deception."

Trump's threat -- which he has made before on the campaign trail -- is extraordinary even by the standard of the vitriolic 2016 campaign.

Clinton responded first by calling Trump's comments about her emails false, then said, "It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country."

Trump, as if continuing her sentence, added: "Because you'd be in jail."

It was very Nixonian, said former Attorney General Eric Holder, a Democrat. He recalled Nixon’s attorney general quit when ordered to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.

But Republicans were shocked as well.

“Former White House said, "Winning candidates don't threaten to put opponents in jail," he tweeted. "Presidents don't threaten prosecution of individuals. Trump is wrong on this."

There was a certain irony as Trump stalked Hillary on the stage, to use the verb chosen by several pundits, to talk about jailing her.

He is the one facing trial three weeks after the election for running a phoney university. And he will face trial in more than one state for ripping off students. Trump’s Foundation has been ordered to cease and desist taking donations because it is not registered.

In our living room, and many others from what I heard on several stations, people wondered why the taller Trump kept creeping up behind Clinton when it was her turn to speak. It seemed like something from a Frankenstein movie.

In the past such bizarre behavior has worked for Trump. Appparently not Sunday night.

Nearly as scary as the jail threat was his total lack of knowledge of Russia’s role in Syria. It reminded some viewers of Libertarian Gary Johnson’s comment “What is Aleppo.”

The two polls taken right after the event showed Hillary the winner.

Before the debate many Republicans had abandoned him, others said they would look for a strong performance to get him back in the race as his poll numbers tumble.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/who-won-the-debate_us_57fb0e0ae4b068ecb5dfbc2c
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/09/politics/eric-holder-nixon-trump-presidential-debate/

Op-ed: Fat Trump a Health Risk for President

While the TV nation focused on Hillary Clinton’s brief episode with pneumonia, it was learned that Donald Trump has a much more serious health problem.

He is so fat, or obese, that he may be prone to heart attacks and diabetes, and he is 12 years older than Mrs Clinton. He gobbles fast food, not healthy for anyone.

It is bizarre that in a country that worships thinness Trump has been able to pull this off.

And not only is it a question of how models look, but doctors have warned that obesity is a killer, especially among the elderly. They say it is at epidemic levels. Trump is 70, and would be the oldest president in nearly a century, and close to the most obese ever.

Some accounts list him at 237 pounds, others at 267. He is 6 foot 3. And his only exercise is an occasional round of golf.

“There’s a legitimate issue,” said Dr. David Plouffe.”

A paper put out by the National Institutes of Health said:

“Obesity is a significant risk factor for and contributor to increased morbidity and mortality, most importantly from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes, but also from cancer and chronic diseases, including osteoarthritis, liver and kidney disease, sleep apnea, and depression. The prevalence of obesity has increased steadily over the past 5 decades, and obesity may have a significant impact on quality-adjusted life years. Obesity is also strongly associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality as well as cardiovascular and cancer mortality.”

“Considering Trump’s age, his weight becomes a significant risk factor.” A Georgetown University report on obesity among older Americans includes this startling warning:

“Rates of chronic conditions are higher among obese adults than among their non-obese counterparts, but the differences between groups are particularly great for adults ages 51 to 69. Obesity can also affect the severity of chronic conditions. For example, obese older people with arthritis are more likely to say the condition limits their activities than non-obese adults age 51 and older."

Obesity, like smoking, heavy drinking, and poverty is a known health risk factor. Of the four risk factors, obesity is the most serious problem. It affects more people and is more strongly linked to very high rates of chronic illness than the other three risk factors. In terms of chronic conditions, the effects of obesity are similar to the effects of 20 years of aging.”

The Washington Post said, “It is ironic that Trumpkins have made such a to-do about Hillary Clinton’s health. He’s got a real issue that isn’t going to be cured by a couple days of bed rest. “Nevertheless, he won’t provide documentation for voters to assess his health and how that might impact his presidency. No presidential candidate of a major party in modern times has gotten away with stiffing voters and concealing personal information.

“The media, once again, seems to miss the forest for the trees in this campaign. Entirely legitimate questions get raised about a candidate who has never held public office. He has a demonstrated pattern of blatant lying. And he refuses to come clean by providing verifiable information about his finances and health. Why isn’t that the story day in and out? Trump plainly has a lot to hide, and neither the media nor the voters should let him get away with it.”

http://wapo.st/2cLsD3M
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879283/
https://hpi.georgetown.edu/agingsociety/pubhtml/obesity2/obesity2.html