Question – How does Donald Trump know that the Washington establishment is up for sale to the highest bidder?
Answer – Because his accountant made him keep the receipts for tax purposes.

Question – Why does Hillary Clinton hang out with Hollywood celebrities?
Answer – She’s been playing Lady Macbeth for so many years, she feels more comfortable with other performers.

Question – Why does Bernie Sanders feel that cradle-to-grave government support is the best answer to the problems of the average American?
Answer – Well, look at how well it’s worked out for him.

Question – Why has Ted Cruz made a career in law and politics?
Answer – The part of Grandpa Munster was already taken.

President Obama recently showed some signs of awareness of the world around him when he criticized our European allies for the mess Libya became after its dictator was overthrown in 2011.  Mr. Obama seems to feel that, had the Europeans only done more,  Libya wouldn’t have evolved into even more of a cesspool than it already was.

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves in applauding the President for his sentience.  His only self-criticism appears to be that he trusted the Europeans too much.  You see, he’s not really angry; he’s just very, very disappointed.

The kicker, to me, is this quote:*

“Free riders aggravate me”

President Obama was commenting on the negligible amount of money Great Britain spends on her national defense, but he could have been talking about any of our European allies.

NATO member nations have ridden on the back of the American taxpayer for three generations.  From 1940 to 1992, this was a good bargain.  First, we needed to liberate Europe.  Next, we did not want to have to come back to liberate Europe again, and it looked like the Soviets were going to try to extend their empire to all points east of Liverpool and Reykjavic.  European NATO countries contributed much toward the goal of containing the Communists, and that problem eventually melted away.

But in the almost quarter century since then, NATO has become a farce.

Let’s take a look at a few numbers from 2014, when there were 28 members:

• The United States spent about 3.5% of her GDP on national defense.  This included world-wide commitments, not just the defense of central and western Europe.  This was the highest percentage spent in the alliance.
• The next highest percentage of GDP spent was a four-way tie between Greece, Turkey, France, and the U.K., who spent 2.2% apiece.
• The average expenditure for NATO was 1.41 %.
  • If you take the U.S. out, it was 1.33%.
• 57% of NATO members spent less than that average.  This included large, prosperous countries such as Germany and Canada.
• Almost 40% of NATO members spent 1% or less of GDP on national defense.  Germany, arguably the largest economy in Europe, was among them.

Here are those same numbers from 1989, when there were 15 members and the Communist threat was just beginning to dissolve:

• Greece spent 6% of GDP on defense, the largest percentage in NATO.
• The United States spent about 5.5% of her GDP on national defense.  This included world-wide commitments, not just the defense of central and western Europe.
• The next highest percentage of GDP spent was the U.K. at 4.1%
• The average expenditure for NATO was 3.19 %.  If you take the U.S. out, it was 3.02%.
• 40% of NATO members spent less than that average.  This included large, prosperous countries such as Germany and Canada.  However, Germany was just under that average at 2.9%.
• No NATO members spent less than 1.3% of GDP

To put that in perspective, the only NATO country currently spending at least the average percentage from 1989 or more is the United States.  None of the other members, old or new, even approached it.  Almost half of current members spent less than the smallest 1989 contribution, 1.3%.

Am I suggesting that anyone needs to spend as much as they did during the last truly dangerous year of the Cold War?  Of course not.But this is ridiculous.

I’m not an isolationist, but I’m also not a sucker.  The United States is being taken advantage of, and we’re not the ones bordering Russia and the Middle East.

If the United States is going to be involved in the security of Europe, then the Europeans need to pay their own way.  European money needs to pay for more of Europe’s peace.

Hopefully President Obama’s replacement realizes that the rest of the world is perfectly happy with us picking up the check earlier than the last year of their presidency.

*I’ll let the irony of this particular president expressing that particular sentiment just sink in without further comment.

I’d like to reach out to the Trump supporters here, and I’d like to do it with respect.  If you’ve read the position and policy papers on his website and you find that you agree with them, then this isn’t for you. You’re an informed voter, and you’ve obviously done your due diligence and still feel that Trump is the best candidate for your interests.  I can respect that and I wish you the best.

This is for those who are voting for Trump, or any other candidate for that matter, because you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore.  If you’re supporting Trump in the primaries because you want the Establishment, in whatever form you want to describe it, to feel pain for their past transgressions, this is for you.

Here we go:

Mission accomplished.  Time to declare victory and go home.

Bush, the favorite candidate of the Republican leadership, is out of the race.  Yes, Rubio is snuggled up pretty close to the welcoming bosom of the party elites.  But the Establishment has had its nose broken in the schoolyard fight that is American politics, and the guy they all stood behind and cheered has taken his ball and gone home.

Now, if you’re still angry and want to keep making that statement, more power to you.  At least you’re going to the polls.

But before you pull that lever, fill in that circle, or press that button, please think about a few questions, because the things I’m going to ask about are probably going to happen in the next four to eight years.

What will President Trump do

1. When some whackjob turns a school or office building into a killing field?
2. When the stock market tanks and the official unemployment rate starts heading north again?
3. When Justices Ginsberg and Kennedy leave the Supreme Court, for whatever reason?
4. When China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran stop playing games and directly challenge us and our allies?
5. When there is a terrorist attack or large-scale civil disturbance on American soil?

Please, think about what he will do, not what he ought to do, or what you think any President should or should not do.  Consider the man’s history, both in actions and words, over the course of his entire, and quite well documented and publicized, life, and be honest with yourself about how you think he will handle these events.

If they give you pause, if you can easily think of ways that he will react to these events and harm you and your interests, then I ask you to do some more thinking.

And once you’ve done that thinking, please vote for the candidate that you think will do what you would want a president to do when these events happen, be it Trump or not.

I noted, as I imagine most of you did, the sad passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the other day.  President Reagan appointed Justice Scalia to the federal bench in 1982, then to the Supreme Court in 1986.  Since then, he has been a staunch conservative voice on the Court.  I can’t say that I agreed with him at all times, but he always forced those who opposed him to think, and was responsible for several landmark rulings in the past few decades.  We are lessened by his absence.

I’d like to say that the passing of such a great man gives us an occasion to pause in our attempt to rip out each other’s throats and to come together as a nation to honor him.

Unfortunately, I can’t.

We are left with two bad choices.  Either President Obama appoints another Supreme Court Justice, upsetting what little balance there is on that body, or we go for over a year without a 9th Justice.

The President has the power to nominate whomever he wishes.  The Senate, however, has the power to either reject that nomination or to not even bring it to a vote.  Squabbling on whose power is of greater importance and how unprecedented it is for a Senate to swear off any Supreme Court nominations until after an election streaks across the news, and the rest of us are here in the middle wondering where we go from here.

So, it’s time to get in touch with our political servants once again, and it’s time to start paying attention to the presidential election.

If you believe that President Obama should nominate someone soon, and the Senate should vote on that nomination with all due speed, reach out to your Senator and tell them.

If you believe that the Senate is justified in refusing to bring up any Supreme Court nominees until after the election, reach out to your Senator and tell them.

Either way, we all need to tell our servants our wishes, or they will go off on their own and make an even bigger mess of things.

So, Iowa is over, the Clinton/Sanders tug-of-war came down to a rather unlikely series of coin flips, and we all sail on to the rest of the primary season.

At the same time, not a day seems to go by when we don’t learn that the manner in which Mrs. Clinton did email while she was at State is worse than we thought.  The latest revelation is that several of her emails contained information from Special Access Program level categories.  This is the kind of classification you put on things like “We have a guy in the Chinese Politburo.  No, not on the staff, I mean actually in the Politburo.”  Needless to say, they’re highly classified for a reason.

OK, let’s be blunt.  When information like that is compromised, people die.  It usually starts with the source and his family.  From there, it may be anyone who had contact with them, including our own agents who had to gather the data.  Eventually, the decisions and plans that would have been made on the now-lost data will be less grounded in reality, so people’s jobs (if it’s a technological or economic source) or lives (if it’s a political or military source) can be lost.

Got that?  When people have to break out extra words to put a proper classification on something, the chance that something bad will happen if it gets out go up.

Reports are that the FBI is investigating Mrs. Clinton and her staff, and they may be making quite a case against her.  Even if they don’t find a smoking gun that gets somebody on their staff to start singing so as to not spend a couple decades in federal prison, she may be in a bit of legal trouble.

So, what happens if the FBI finishes its investigation, and concludes that Mrs. Clinton, either through design or negligence, allowed highly classified material to slip outside of controlled pathways? (Heaven forfend that they find evidence of Mrs. Clinton and her staff trying to destroy evidence or conspiring to thwart a federal investigation.)

I see a few scenarios:

1. The Obama Justice Department decides it doesn’t want to be splashed with that particular flavor of bovine waste, so they sit on the investigation until next January.  By then, either Mrs. Clinton will be the president-elect or Mr. Obama can issue her a Ford/Nixon style pardon.  If she’s the president-elect, then the next Attorney General will make it all go away.  If she’s pardoned, she’ll write a book about it.
   • Alternate – The Attorney General buries the report, but the FBI leaks it at a rather inopportune moment for the administration and Mrs. Clinton.  This may or may not have a significant impact on the election.
2. Mr. Sanders pulls a rabbit out of the hat and gets the nomination.  Mrs. Clinton is indicted a few days after the general election so that the President can point to applying justice fairly without directly impacting the Democrats’ chances in November.
3. Vice-President Biden changes his mind about wanting to be president, or the White House decides that they’d rather have Sanders go up against the Republican nominee.  Around about the time that the primaries get done, the Attorney General presents the FBI’s findings to a grand jury and gets an indictment.  Mrs. Clinton either drops out of the race (unlikely) or the DNC disqualifies her and forces her out of the race (more likely).  I imagine that this would cause all of Mrs. Clinton’s delegates to go into a big pile marked “Unclaimed,” because she sure as hell isn’t going to throw them behind Sanders or Biden if she’s staring at a trial brought about by Mr. Obama.  The floor vote at a brokered Democrat national convention would be epic to behold as Sanders and whoever tries to step into the void rip into each other over the carcass of the Clinton candidacy.

So, which one do I see as likely, assuming that the FBI gives the Attorney General something that could be brought to a grand jury?  Cynical old me thinks that option #1 is most likely.    If Clinton wins the election, then she is in the clear.  If she loses and Obama pardons her, the Republicans will have just one more thing to ding him with (who cares?) and the Democrats will love him for helping a fellow Democrat out against those nasty law and order types.

But, to be perfectly honest, I kind of want to see option #3.  I love a good political dog fight, and it would make for awesome blog fodder.

Either way, I’m laying in an emergency supply of popcorn to watch this unfold.