3/15/2016

Notations On Our World: On the Virtual Beat w/the US Elections on @realDonaldTrump & Other Thoughts.....

The Trump juggernaut has continued. Mr. Trump had a statement in Florida on the occasion of his wins as he also made sure that his embattled Campaign Manager got center stage too after a recent controversy regarding the Campaign Manager having been in a scuffle with a Briebart.com Reporter. It was also interesting how he noted that despite all the negative forces arrayed against him, he still won. The problem is still that over 60% of the Republican Electorate has voted against him as he called for unity in the party.

As we went to press, Governor Kasich has won his home state of Ohio. Missouri was too close to call. But, what we deemed "Super Dopper Tuesday" has underscored that the Trump train appears unstoppable as he has also won North Carolina and Illinois having tapped into the very nature of the disaffected that seem to help drive her candidacy. He has also won North Carolina and Illinois. What some refer to as the "Delegate math" is continuing to so far work in his favor.

As Trump won, Marco Rubio dropped out. This came out from his campaign:

Tonight, Marco reminded us why we’ve been working so hard to help him win this election, and while the results tonight weren’t what we had hoped for, we’re all very proud of Marco.

Click here to watch Marco’s message from tonight

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As we went to press, Hillary Clinton won Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois. She continues her march on to the nomination. The path to the nomination is pretty much blocked for Senator Sanders as Senator Sanders will apparently win Missouri. Senator Sanders' campaign will continue for a while though to follow through on the message of Equality and change. Our team has found it especially of note as Mr. Trump has noted how he has not even begun on Hillary Clinton yet.

We find it fun to be witness to history....

Notations On Our World: On the Eve of the Polls Closing......

Polls in the Five Pivotal States will be closing within the next few hours. Deliberations are continuing as we await the results. It was of interest as we saw this recent column by Professor Turley he published on USA Today recently that we have decided to feature here in its' interesting with some ideas to reinforce faith and mitigate the apparent anger being felt which has fueled the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders:

Washington Constitutional Convention 1787

Voters Want A Revolution. Here’s What It Would Take.

by jonathanturley

Below is my Sunday column yesterday in the Washington Post on reforming our political system. We are certainly, as the Chinese curse says, “living in interesting times.” We seem to be in the midst of an American revolution where citizens have arisen in collective disgust of the establishment and the status quo. For years, citizens have objected to a political system that is dysfunctional and detached. The two parties have largely ignored these objections and many have objected to this "doupoly" on power. For many, answer of the two parties to the American people seems to be the same as Henry Ford to customers of the Model T Ford: “you can have any color so long as it is black.” In the United States, you can have any party so long as it is red or blue; Republican or Democrat. Yet, in 2016, the public has responded with a deafening rejection of the establishment. The most obvious is Donald Trump who is the perfect personification of an angry electorate. On the democratic side, a 74-year-old Democratic Socialist has rocked the Democratic party, which overtly rigged a primary system to guarantee the selection of the ultimate establishment figure: Hillary Clinton. However, we seem to go this cathartic exercise every four years rather than seek some changes to break down the insularity of government. There is another way. Instead of just choosing some personality that matches our angry politics, we can really change the system . . . for the better. The Framers gave the public the power to solve our own problems, including the ability to circumvent Congress with a constitutional convention. We have the anger. The question is whether we have the answer.

Below is the column. There are a host of other changes that can be made to improve the system, including many that can be down without a constitutional amendment. However, there is a value in focusing on a few basics that could have a transformative effect on the respective branches of government.

Notations From the Grid: An #Outsider Newsflash on the US Political Scene with the latest from the Congressional Budget Office

As we await the results of the primaries over the course of the ensuing hours, there is one very pivotal announcement coming up which we will be on the lookout for that we wanted to note:

New From CBO

CBO to Release Updated Baseline Projections March 24, Analysis of the President’s FY 2017 Budget March 29

CBO plans to release its updated 10-year baseline projections and its updated estimates of the budgetary effects of the insurance coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act on March 24.

3/14/2016

Notations On Our World: Quite a Day re: #Syria, #OhioPrimary, @RealDonaldTrump & Other Thoughts (Updated)

As we have been noting in our Twitter Channel Earlier, President Putin of Russia has ordered Russian Troops to withdraw from Syria. He has said that Russian Troops have achieved their objectives--although troops will continue to remain in bases throughout Syria. This is as a perilous truce holds and as the Nusra Front and #Daesh continue their onslaught throughout Syria. This was released to the Russian Presidency Website earlier today:

Meeting with Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu

Vladimir Putin held a working meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to address issues of settling the Syrian crisis. The President gave an order to begin withdrawing the main part of Russian troops from the Syrian Arab Republic on March 15.

Beyond Syria, there is the US Primary season. A number of key states are voting tomorrow that would determine the fate of the nomination process. We will be monitoring the key states and will have updates on Wednesday especially as the controversy around Donald Trump continues in the aftermath of the violence in Chicago and Dayton. Geoff Colvin reflected upon @RealDonaldTrump today:

Daily insights on leaders and leadership

By Geoff Colvin

March 14, 2016

Breaking with my nearly unswerving policy of looking forward in these ramblings, I want to glance briefly backward this morning in hopes of discovering one or two valuable lessons.
-I was wrong about Donald Trump’s motivations in running for president, I learned in yesterday’s New York Times. I had long held that his run was a publicity move that got out of hand. Trump’s great business innovation was the concept of branded luxury residential real estate, and the brand is his name. So for 40 years he has been finding ways to get the media to pay attention to him, thus growing more famous and building the brand. Running for president, a notion he has toyed with before, fit the pattern perfectly. My hypothesis suggested that he never intended to become the nominee, and I found that real estate veterans who know him agreed.
But he did intend to win, in fact wanted to win more desperately than virtually anyone but a close circle of advisers realized, as the Times makes clear in a substantial article. It pegs the decisive moment as the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, which Trump attended and at which President Obama gave a speech filled with jokes at Trump’s expense. We’ll never know whether that humiliation was the spark – Trump denies it – but it coincided with the launch of a well coordinated four-year offensive, involving pollsters, strategists, and others, focused on getting him where he is today. Even back then, an adviser envisioned on his website “a Trump candidacy steamrolling to the nomination, powered by wall-to-wall media attention,” the article reports.
This goes a long way toward explaining the Trump phenomenon and answering the great question of why his opponents and Republican Party leaders didn’t take him seriously sooner. The answer is that, first, they assumed his outrageous statements would doom him, and second, that in any case he didn’t actually want to be president. It all made sense, which is why no one looked deeper or discovered that an intensely serious campaign apparatus – and more important, a burning desire – was driving him.

We found it quite interesting how Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough noted how there is literally no campaign infrastructure exists beyond his immediate team out there. This is as Donald Trump deflected criticism of the violence--as the poll numbers continue to hold firm as reflected in the RealClear Politics Daily Average Today:

Battle for the White HouseRCP Poll Averages

National	Delegates	Florida
Trump36.0	Trump460	Trump42.9
Cruz21.8	Cruz370	Rubio23.8
Rubio18.0	Rubio163	Cruz18.3

Ohio	North Carolina	Illinois
Kasich38.0	Trump41.3	Trump35.0
Trump34.3	Cruz28.5	Cruz26.3
Cruz18.0	Kasich11.3	Kasich18.3

National	Delegates	Florida
Clinton51.0	Clinton1234	Clinton60.8
Sanders39.6	Sanders579	Sanders32.1

Ohio	North Carolina	Illinois
Clinton51.0	Clinton57.0	Clinton48.3
Sanders43.0	Sanders33.3	Sanders46.0

General Election Match-Ups

GOP Delegate Count | Dem Delegate Count
Nomination Polls | General Election Polls | 2016 Calendar

Some are suggesting this is 1968 all over again as the rhetoric continues with the insults continuing on all sides.

Today's Wall Street Journal underscored how it is the responsibility of all leaders to ensure a sense of civility on its' editorial page. The question in our view is whether civility will prevail or not?

(Update: As we await the results, this came thru courtesy of politico as Kasich remains optimistic despite all the controversy over the Trump Campaign that came to a head with this from the founder of Humans of New York that is probably going to get a hard hitting response from Donald Trump:

This is the lit Kasich is passing out as he makes closing argument to Ohio. pic.twitter.com/rXr5bYx9b2
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 14, 2016

3/13/2016

Notations On Our World (weekend edition): On #Turkey & The Plight of the Yazidis (An #outsider weekend newsflash)

Sunday's blast in Ankara occurred two days after US embassy issued a warning of a possible attack [Tumay Berkin/Reuters]

Ankara (Source: Al Jazeera)

The scenes from Turkey have been horrific as we have seen reports on the attack in Turkey as over 33 People have been killed in an attack in the central of the Capital. This is as there was another horrific attack in the Ivory Coast claimed by Al Qaeda's North Africa Branch as people ran away and as 14 people have been killed.

As we went to press, our team caught an interview +Sky News Alex Crawford did with 8 Yazidi families who were freed from Daesh and the horror they noted about slavery and the buying and the selling of Yazidi Sex Slaves. It is heart wrenching to listen to the stories.

Truly Challenging times....