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Inside The Magician's Trick
10.21.16

Does it diminish your appreciation of something if you understand it? For example music.

You're listening to a beautiful piece. "Ooh, I like the way they transitioned to the tonic through the suspended fourth."

Does knowing the details about that take away from the beauty of the piece? Art—well, creation in general—is something that more people can appreciate than can create. But maybe understanding it enhances the appeal. Maybe it's not like Orwell said about explaining jokes—that it's like dissecting a frog. You understand it, but the subject dies in the process.

Think of it like a magic trick. Do you still clap and enjoy it if you know how it's done? Is part of the entertainment figuring out what the magician did?

What I'm talking about is the interesting "rigged election" plot playing out before our eyes this year. Should we just sit back and watch the fight, or is it okay to analyze what the guys on the stage are doing?

The plot is intriguing; it's a great plot.

Okay, I'm going to use the words "Trump says" and I need you to understand at the outset I'm not analyzing what Trump says. That's a fool's errand. Crap just falls out of the man's mouth. I'm not for a second trying to say "What Trump meant was . . . " because anything Trump says only means he's expelling sounds from his face. That's all. This is not about Trump. It's about the demorats.

Trump says "The system is rigged!" That's an intriguing plot right there. But then the democrats counter with "It's dangerous and irresponsible to say that America can't hold fair elections."

Whoa! They are exactly right!

We can watch the drama. Hey, Trump is making a good case. He's absolutely right. But the demorats do, too. They are right. Wow. We've got a classic dilemma. Literary conflict. Pass the popcorn.

Here's where the dissecting of the frog comes in. You want to watch the conflict, see the character development, watch the twists and turns before the resolution comes about. Who is right?

Then I spout off. Wait! I know how they did that! They're not even addressing what he said. It's a misdirection!

Hush! Why do you have to go and ruin it for everyone?

See, the conflict is fake. It's a classic straw man. Trump says it's all rigged (remember my caveat—"Trump says" always means "Pay no attention to the ramblings") and the demorats immediately take it in the direction they want it to go. The $29 trick (what happened to the other dollar?).

The misdirection is that they're making us think about voting machines and ballots and those shenanigans. I'm not saying that can't happen (more on that in a minute).But while we're saying "Yeah! We can hold fair elections!" we're adopting what they want us to think when we say "election." They want us to think about the process of casting a ballot. That's a very small part of the election

And it's not what's rigged. Again, I am NOT analyzing the ravings of a lunatic. Remember the image we're creating here—a story, a fiction.

So Trump says it's rigged, the demorats are all incensed and indignant. "You don't believe in the American system!"

No. No, this isn't the system. The democrats are screwing it up.

But it's a great plot. Even if you understand the plot, it's a great plot. You've got a conflict and both sides come across as reasonable. What the demorats say is absolutely right; that's how they can get away with it. If it didn't sound plausible you couldn't have a story. By the end of the story you see they've been twisting it around into a sophistry that sounds plausible..

The only problem is I like a story with a happy ending. I've been surprised by endings before. Let's hope there's a deus ex machina somewhere that I'm not seeing.

Okay. Wow. This is turning out to be a whole lot more boring than I had envisioned it. That's the liberty of having no readers.

What's "rigged" is the persuasion. You remember the free coverage the press was giving Trump in the primaries? It may be a stretch to say they wanted him to win the primaries. But it may not be. Who do you think the liberal press would rather have run against Hillary? Which one would they prefer over Trump?

Think about it.

So intentional or incidental, the liberals that make up the press wanted Trump to go up against Hillary. (And when you're talking about Hillary, nothing is incidental. Every "spontaneous" question at a town hall or press conference, every question on a late night show, even the debate questions are scripted.)

Now they are slamming him like crazy. Every piece of material they are putting out on him they had years ago. Is it just a coincidence they were all for him in the primaries and all against him now?

Of all of the despicable acts Hillary has committed in her worthless lifetime, the most reprehensible may be her compelling me to defend the likes of grubby Donald Trump.

And they answer any hint of things being skewed by righteous indignation about how anybody who questions anything is just plain un-American!

Really? Al Gore is still whining about an election that happened 16 years ago.

The reason he is so upset is because he bought and paid for that election. That's like the poker player who is outraged. "You're not playing the cards that I dealt you!"

Demorats have a lot of nerve saying it's crazy to question the legitimacy of an election. Right here in America! The very idea! These are the people who installed Al Franken in the Senate after he lost a democratic election in Minnesota. Look it up. Al Franken lost the election, but then more votes for him kept miraculously appearing. They were literally finding ballot boxes in trunks of cars. "How many more votes do we need? Okay, gimme a minute, I'll be right back with them."

That whole exercise was just their way of throwing in our face that we are pitifully naïve if we think The People have any say in the outcome of elections.

See? Isn't that an interesting plot? The very people who are rigging things are coming up with very emotional responses about why things cannot possibly be rigged.

Okay, I know I should start a new heading. You looked at all this text and never started reading (ha-hah, I imagined someone looking at this blog, my dear imaginary reader). But I won't

I do actually have to think the election is rigged. I have to think that. Because I'm in a position where anything I do in this election is immoral. On November 9th I am a scumbag. No matter what I do.

To vote for Trump or Hillary is obscene. To not vote is morally irresponsible. To vote for a third party candidate helps one of these despicable wastes of skin to get elected. Whatever I do is immoral.

So let's go with Trump's idea that it's rigged.

But the crazy deal is that the main thing that is rigged is Trump himself.

Trump may be the only person in this country who could lose an election to the likes of Hillary Clinton. That's why he was picked to be the guy. And if you watch him it seems like he is actually trying to lose. Nobody could accidentally be that bad. But you'd have to be brilliant to intentionally be that bad, too.

So does he understand he's part of the rigging?

I get it. Everybody on the planet, and by everybody on the planet I mean me, knows that Bill Clinton talked Trump into running. But there is a lot of empty sky between Trump running in the primaries and actually being the candidate. More empty sky than we have on the planet. We have to borrow empty sky from other planets to fill that gap.

So if Bill's plan was to get Trump to go up against Hillary, how could he have imagined it could ever happen in a million years? Clinton could get Trump to run, but how in the name of Dale Q. Earnhardt did he orchestrate the part where he won the primaries?

Did he just take a chance knowing it was a long shot?

When have you known the Clintons to leave things to chance? Oh, maybe that woman Bill raped won't say anything.

I just . . . I'm done . . . dear imaginary reader.

You remember, dear imaginary ready, my three tests for why a person doesn't do a bad thing. They are driven by mind, body, spirit . . . or in this case spirit, body, mind. The first thing is they are morally opposed to it—their spirit prevents them from doing it. That's why most people don't do bad things, because they aren't bad people.

Next is that they can't. Say someone is a bad person, but he just doesn’t have the ability to do the bad thing he wants to do. He can't pick the lock, he isn't smart enough to hack into a computer system, he doesn't have the means to do the bad thing. But he would if he could.

Okay, say someone has both the skill and the will; he wants to and is able to. Does that mean he will do the bad thing? Not necessarily. The mind then comes into play. The person doesn't want to get caught.

Okay, is Hillary morally above fixing an election? Really? Is Hillary morally above anything? "I'd really like to be President, but not bad enough to do something untoward." Yeah, I think we can check that requirement.

Is Hillary able to fix an election? I don't know. I don't know how you go about such a thing, but then I don't have 10s of millions of dollars to get it done like Hillary does. Most voting is electronic, or involves electronics. Hillary knows that electronic things can be hacked. I'm leaning to her being able to do it. If that idiot Al Franken could get it done on his behalf I'm guessing that someone as evil as Hillary could figure out who to buy to do that for her.

Can she do it without getting caught? I guess this really ties into item number, two, doesn't it? Having the ability includes having the ability to not get caught. So I'm guessing Hillary could have a pretty good confidence that she will get away with it. Plus, when has getting caught ever resulted in consequences for Hillary?

Tell me again how crazy it is to think the election is rigged.

Think about it.

After laying out a (brilliant) explanation of why rigging an election is about more than just tampering with ballots, I make a (brilliant) case that Hillary is willing and able to tamper with the ballots. Welcome to Leany on Life.

I've flogged this dead horse before. A couple of years ago I coined a name for a concept I identified back in the 90s. "Immunity by Absurdity."

The paradox is that the more evil or outrageous a person's behavior is, the more likely he is to get away with it, because to accurately describe it is to come across as delusional or "hateful." The Clintons have benefitted from that time and again. They always beat us because we sound nuts when we describe what they do.

Imagine a person so evil that they set up a "charity" to steal money from people who are giving to those desperately in need. Sounds pretty whacked.

You know the deal. When I say "Looks like you've got it all figured out" I'm not giving you a compliment. It's one of those . . . whatchamacallit . . . you know, those sarcasm deals.

Obviously it's sarcasm because obviously I'm the only one who really does have it all figured out.

You know why Trump is the nominee. It's because he is the only one who could lose an election to the likes of Hillary Clinton. I still don't know how he is the nominee, but I know why. Nobody else in the field could lose to someone as reprehensible as Hillary.

Despicable. Reprehensible. Contemptible. Corrupt. Evil. Vile. Abhorrent. Revolting. Loathsome . . . I'm gonna need a bigger Thesaurus.

You see Hillary (did you know she's a grandmother?) and listen to her talk and you just recoil. What a repellent person she is. What horrible policies she espouses. Wow. You can't imagine anyone considering voting for her even for a second.

Then Trump opens his mouth.

Uh . . . I'm so confused right now . . .

The man could not do worse if he tried. Just awful. He is the only person walking around loose who can look like an unhinged fool on the same stage with Hillary Clinton (who, if I'm not mistaken, is a grandmother).

Unless it's part of the plan. The Clintons can't pay him off—he's as rich as they want to be. What do they have on him that's making him throw this fight? It that's what's happening here I'm expecting to see him in movies after this. If that bumbling fool performance is an act the man is brilliant.

On the other hand, people have been waiting for 25 years to see a public figure talk to Hillary like that.

This is a flogging the dead horse day. Oh . . . I guess it's just a flogging the dead horse blog.

Let's take a stroll through history, see how we got here. First a bunch of visionaries start a country. Hey, let's call it America. Okay, that sounds good, kind of exotic, like an Italian actress kind of deal.

But they had slavery. Ugh.

So they started the Republican party to get rid of slavery. And they did. So far so good.

Then a bunch of stuff happened then they passed the Civil Rights Act. Cool.

But we weren't there yet. Culture still had to come along and progress and evolve, until one fine day it happened!

One fine day "racist" became the worst thing you could call a person. That's a very good thing.

So then we had to elect a token black guy to prove that we weren't racist. That's a very bad thing.

As it turns out this guy was useless. In addition to being a radical and an extremist and an America hater, he was just useless. He had no experience at anything, awful judgment, he was a wussy putz panywaist and just dumb. But he was black. So you couldn't talk about any of that. Because everyone knows that black guys are never dumb or never inexperienced or never have wrong philosophies.

John McCain became a goat. He lost to Obama so he became the personification of everything that was wrong with Republicans. Even though he only lost because people were anxious to not seem racist.

Then Mitt Romney lost to Obama, too.

Why did Mitt Romney lose? He was an experienced leader with a track record of getting things done, even with opposition in the legislature. He had good solid philosophies and was smarter than anyone we'd seen in a long time. He was honest and ethical and hard-working. He was phenomenally experienced in economics—the one thing that needed fixing that Obama had spectacularly failed at. (Well, and Foreign Policy. OMG what a mess that man made of Foreign Policy.) Romney was the Presidential candidate ordered right up from Central Casting.

But he was missing one thing that Obama had that he did not. He was not Barack Obama.

That was the one qualification Obama had—the only qualification Obama ever had—for being President. He was the cool black guy.

Romney could fix the economy. He could get people working again. He could deal with Foreign Policy issues. He was above reproach in his personal and professional life. He was likable and smart and a family man. He could . . . you name it. Everything that a real President needs to do. But he could not give people the chance to say they voted for the cool black guy.

Also, I don't care who says it, the notion that ten million Republicans stayed home instead of voting for Romney and ten million extra democrats were so impressed with Obama's performance that they got up from watching Oprah to go vote is rubbish. It comes right off the stable floor (It's total BS, for those of you (imaginary readers) who think Community Organizer is a real job).

So now all of a sudden the Republicans are arguing about what went wrong. Mitt Romney is a horrible person, he's a borderline communist, he probably roots for the Lakers in the privacy of his den. He didn't appeal to the Latinos, he was wrong about . . . whatever.

So the Republicans are at each other's throats about why they are losing elections, but it's against the rules to address the real reason.

Everybody knows we lost the keys in the toilet, but nobody wants to look in the toilet.

"Hey, shall we look . . . ?" You hush your filthy mouth! Help me search the planters on the patio!

Are the democrats smart enough to have orchestrated this? The democrats can get away with all their horrible agenda and we're over here fighting amongst ourselves.

Then just when you think it can't get any worse . . .

Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a Republican like Michael Moore-on is a fashion model. So now we have a party that's already in shambles fighting like Bill and Hillary in a shop full of vases. "Never Trump!" "Oh, yeah! Well, you love Hillary!" "Your mom is a Tony Stewart fan!" "What?! You sonofa . . . !!"

The democrats are sitting back laughing their Hillaries off. "Look! We did that."

They elect a President whose only qualification is that he's black. We start fighting over why we lost. They pursue their radical agenda while we sit around with our thumbs up . . . a dark and unsanitary place. That gives rise to Donald Trump. Then the fighting on our side escalates. This is what engineers call a positive feedback control loop. That's bad. It's unstable. Ordinary mortals call it a death spiral. It's gotten so bad that it's culminated in two of the greatest icons of conservatism, Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich, at each others' throats on national TV. And the democrats are laaaaaaughing and laaaaaghing like Br'er Rabbit in the briar patch.

Do you think that our fighting is curtailing them fulfilling their agenda?

It's brilliant—or it would be if they were smart enough to orchestrate it. It just accidentally happened 'cause they were terrified someone was going to find out they were racist. And as a bonus they get to watch us destroy ourselves.

Click on image for full size version.

Of course you remember that charming "What difference, at this point, does it make?!" line delivered in the ever-sonorous Hillary tones. Does anyone remember what she said after that?

The thing that she said didn't make any difference was why four Americans were dead. Was it because of a protest or just a random act of violence? (Hint: It was neither.) So she dismissed that they were different—with the quote that will headline her Wikipedia entry for the rest of history. Then she came back with this sage lecture to us unwashed masses.

"It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again."

Okay. I'll say it for you. Hillary Clinton is a brainless idiot.

If you are going to "figure out what happened" and "prevent it" doesn't it kind of make a difference . . . at this point? Idiot. Complete imbecile.

Maybe—just trying to be charitable here and explore every possibility (no matter how ridiculous)—she was just invoking a linguistic device (in her calm, Socratic voice). Mayhaps it was one of them there ree-torqual questions them smart folks use.

Socratic Hillary: "What difference does this make (you may ask)? Well, it's critical to our understanding how to deal with it and prevent it in the future." Again, in the measured dulcet tones that draw us to our beloved Hillary.

Like a guy I work with. Instead of saying "This will add to the part count" it's "Will this add to the part count? Yes." Or "Does Company X have a better product they got to market quicker? They do, but . . . " (Side note—it seems like that always gets used for bad stuff, disclaimer style. You don't hear "Will this supplement cost less and give you a better pump? Yes.)

Or maybe it was a sincere question. "I fall down. I bump my head. I'm confused. Can someone help me understand this?"

Or maybe she's just a fool. And an annoying screeching fool at that.

You remember, dear imaginary reader, that insightful (from the Latin roots meaning "long" and "boring") post about the continuum of things that are wrong with Hillary. We started from the imaginary body count side and worked our way through the fact that she and her husband are the most corrupt humans in the country at the moment, and then got to the fact that she is just a horrible person. Just vile. Annoying. Insufferable. Irritating. Grating. Inhuman. Heartless. Despicable.

Sorry. Getting sidetracked here.

But I cautioned you that you didn't need to go there. I told you that there was plenty of material just in the arena of her being wrong. Wrong policies. Wrong views. Just not a governing philosophy that is incompatible with what we've proven to work over two centuries of trying things.

The interesting thing, and the reason you focus on that, is because that's the only area where Trump has a slight edge. Trump is despicable. He is unethical. He's a horrible person. He is not intelligent, not focused, not disciplined.

The only area where he's not quite as bad as Hillary Clinton is in his (constantly changing) political philosophy. Supreme Court appointments. Taxes. Don't press me to try to make up other political views he has that are conservative. Point is, in every other way he's as bad as Clinton.

Okay. Elephant in the room. Access Hollywood video.

You can't defend the man. Can't be done. He's a contemptible, loathsome, detestable pile of pond scum.

But neither can you pretend to be surprised.

All these Republicans freaking out over the tape. Really? What did we learn about Trump that we didn't know before the tape went public. "Did you realize Castro had a beard?!!!!" Omigosh this changes everything!

It's like a boss I used to have. He'd get tired of people, just get disillusioned or didn't want them around, then use the dumbest event as a trigger to send them packing. You're not fooling anyone.

And . . . Nobody missed the fact that the media, the same ones who were pushing Trump in the primaries, waited until now to release this material that they've had for years. And you know there are piles more of it that they still have.

But it doesn't matter. The media could announce "We want Hillary to win and are presenting this to sway you to that same opinion." Oh, I guess they are doing that. And it doesn't matter. People are just . . . gullible.

Trump is scum. But it really is Hillaryous for Clinton and her rapist husband to feign outrage at how Trump treats women.

Just read this.

You're not going to read it, are you?

You're missing out.

The District Two Congressional candidates were debating tonight before the VP debate. The democrat, and future forgotten loser of the congressional race, said: "Congress wouldn't pass a law so Presidebt Obama had to do it by executive order."

Hold it, stop right there. Did you really just say "The doctor wouldn't prescribe it so the pharmacist had to do it?"

That's too cute to say in a real debate, but I would have liked Chris Stewart to say something like this: "Let's think about what you just said. Congress, who is charged by the Constitution with determining what law to make, didn't deem it necessary to make that law. Then someone who does not get to decide what law gets made decided that he wanted that law. So he did it."

Come to think of it, he should have said "Did you really just say 'The doctor wouldn't prescribe it so the pharmacist had to do it?' "

You know what I like? Articles about using egg whites for healthy recipes. And articles about gauging your obesity with BMI.

I like them because I'm all about efficiency. I spend quite a bit of time reading articles about health and fitness, and when I come across one of those I know I can skip it and not waste my time.

That's the same reason I like people who say "Aww! Republicans and Democrats, there's no difference between them."

Oh, good. For a second there I was afraid I was going to get caught up in a discussion of politics. See ya.

Maybe politicians of both parties are phonies, maybe elected officials from both sides care about money more than principles, but that's a very different thing than believing there is not a fundamental difference between the philosophies of the parties. Subscribing to that flawed notion is not helpful.

Listening to the debates between the congressional candidates, as well as between the governor and his soon to be forgotten loser of an opponent, underscored that very well.

There's a lot more to be said about that. Volumes of work could be written on false equivalencies.

I won't do that do you.

IYDAUIICEITYIYDIDNT.

If you don't already understand it, I can't explain it to you. If you do, I don't need to.

A close personal friend of mine showed up at his rental house one day. When the renters opened the door my close personal friend couldn't help notice that they had painted one wall of the living room—in his house—mottled orange. Orange. Mottled. Like various shades. With a heavy plaster texture like you'd have on an outside wall. An outside wall with a heavy random texture pattern.

My close personal friend commented that he didn't remember giving the okay for his wall to be painted. The renter said it was okay, he was going to do the whole living room. My CPF said that no, he wasn't okay with that. The tenant said, no, it's okay, he didn't mind. He'd do the whole thing and he'd buy the paint and everything. My CPF made it clear that the tenant was not going to do that. Shortly after the tenant was asked to find another place to live.

Do you see the problem here? Even if the wall in question had been plain old sheet rock that you paint, and not custom panel board with a light pin-stripe pattern, and even if the color hadn't been a loud orange and the texture like the mountains of the moon, it was not the tenant's wall to paint. Not only was it not his wall to paint, but he had signed a contract specifically promising that he would not do that.

You know what I'm talking about here. "The landlord didn't ruin the wall with a ton of plaster then paint it a jarring color, so Obama had to do it."

In spite of swearing an oath that he would not.

Honestly, how can anybody be okay with a dictator for a President?

When that democrat running a losing campaign for Congress—whose name isn't worth the 300 milliseconds it would take to look up—said that about Obama's executive order , it struck me so clearly. Really? Congress didn't pass a law? Oh, 'cause that's what they get to do. They make law, or not, as they decide. It's their house; they get to determine which walls they want painted.

And then I spent all this time trying to convey to you in words that very clear impression I had. So, Obama had some perverted notion of what he wanted done in Congress, which he is not a part of?

Does he service the Congressional wives just to make sure they are done up right in a manner that he approves?

Or . . . for the family-oriented imaginary readers . . . Did he go ahead and pick the starting lineup for Notre Dame football games while he was at it? "The coach didn't start the water boy at quarterback, so Obama had to do it."

Oh, wait. Maybe I could explain it this way: Did you really just say "The doctor wouldn't prescribe it so the pharmacist had to do it?"

The funny thing is, the democrat who is going to lose in November did point out that after Obama "painted the wall that didn't belong to him," the Supreme Court shot it down. Do these people listen to themselves? The other two branches of government said it shouldn't be done, but they are wrong because The One says they are. Did she realize she said that? She herself pointed out that his view was at odds with everyone else's. She calls herself a "democrat."

I'm not sure why we even have a Congress if it all goes back to the dictator anyway.

You remember when Obama's veto got overridden. Okay, so hundreds of members of Congress, hypothetically voicing the view of millions of their constituents, had an opinion different than Obama's. Democracy means you don't always get your own way.

But then he—really, do these people listen to themselves?—held a press conference to say they were wrong. Honestly, can Obama himself watch that video and not say "Wow, what a crybaby that guy is."

Just shaking my head here. Obviously you disagree with them, you putz, you vetoed the damn bill. Everybody knows you disagree with them. What kind of wet diaper crybaby pantywaist holds a freaking press conference to say everybody else is wrong and he is right? Wah, wah! In a "democracy" you are wrong by definition.

So, we have a Congress and a Supreme Court, but why? If Obama is right, even when he is at odds with all the American people and all both other branches of government, why? Why bother? Just ask the dictator what we should do.

Just . . .

I'm done.