So I have an idea...

Want to get a look at the secret place?

It's not nearly as salacious as it sounds.

It's a corner of my mind that engages during truly difficult times.

It's an escape.

It's the writerly equivalent of dumping out everything in the toy box and just playing. Cowboys with dinosaurs. Universal monsters in the Star Wars cantina.

I give no thought to how saleable the story is or if it's conforming to everything I've learned in grad school, workshop, or Writer's Digest. You see, creating good literature or art is hard. It requires great depth of thought. I just can't do that right now. This election, my Grandmother's death, problems at work, and personal exigencies of the highest order leave me with only enough mental bandwidth to teach my classes...and sometimes I wonder if I even have that much. No, as much I live life in service to the intellect, I must turn it off for now.

There's seldom anything new that germinates from this creative process. In fact it's downright derivative as I play in other people's sandboxes without acknowledging the properties by name, Sometimes the writing comes into a fully-formed and readable text. Most other times its notes, sketches, and research spat out in "diary of a madman" style. Things only I can read. But I enjoy it because sometimes I think planning and researching are the most enjoyable part of the writing process. You know, when everything is new? But I digress...

So would you like to see what I'm playing with? I could post it in episodic installments here on the blog. I suppose your answer depends, and justifiably so, on just what "it" is. I can tell you a few attributes that I have in mind right now. I'll pitch it to you in bulletpoint form with each point accompanied by its inspiration (read: ripped off source):

-This is going to be a sweeping space opera of the pulpiest sort. Just look at the pic I've included at the top of this post. Visually, it says it all. There will be bubble-shaped helmets on spacesuits and spiky rocketships. And laser guns. Lots of splodey laser guns. If you want another stylistic inspiration, take a look at DC's Adam Strange.

-Star Wars. Man, will there be a lot of Star Wars. I can't even begin to relate how much Star Wars will be in this toy box.

-Our lead character will owe a heavy debt to both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Of course both of those characters played off of one another in various respects so mentioning them in tandem should not be surprising. This guy will be a great athlete, a swashbuckling fighter, but also a keen intellect. Basically he's everything I'm not. I once wrote an old pulp story with a James Dean-like character named Chase Danner. I think the name fits here too. Chase it is.

-He has a sidekick, natch. A major domo, a "his man Friday" that serves as his Alfred or his Dr. Watson. Only this time the character isn't human. He's an artificial being like a Replicant a la Blade Runner. He's on the run with Chase because the galaxy hates artificial lifeforms and is forcing them to register.

-Oh yeah, both of our heroes are on the run from a tyrannical empire that has taken over the galaxy. The guy now in charge of the known universe is an orange-skinned former pirate who amassed a fortune and took leadership. What's more, all of his lowbrow cronies are now governors of individual star systems.

-Fleeing this tyranny for having run afoul of it somehow, Chase and his major domo crash land on a planet that bears an uncanny resemblance to prehistoric Earth. That means dinosaurs. Lots of 'em. I see it being equal parts John Carter of Mars and Land That Time Forgot, both of which written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I don't know what the humanoid life will be like on that planet, but they will carry swords.

-Apes. I'm a sucker for ape people. Get ready for a whole city of them,

-Our heroic duo are going to meet a small, green-skinned member of a quasi-samurai organization called The Order. The membership of this sect has been broken by the new government and most of them are in hiding. They're sort of a mix of Vulcan and Jedi.

-You know how everybody seems to hate the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi? I mean, that was of course before we were assaulted with Jar Jar Binks. After that they looked positively glorious. My idea? The cute, teddy bear-like creatures are engaged in a woodsy facade. They're really covering up a highly technological civilization planning for galactic dominance.

-There's another rival for the orange tyrant. A criminal. A product of genetic engineering just like Khan. Except in this case I'm thinking more the Bennedict Cumberbatch version because I wouldn't want to sully the perfection that was Ricardo Montalban.

-I once saw a documentary on cuttlefish that featured my cousin Josh. I thought the fish would make a great basis for alien beings so I might as well toss them into this stew.

-There will be a large ship full of refugees similar to Battlestar Galactica. I may or may not draw upon non-Western Earth cultures as my inspirations.

-In their adventures, Chase and currently unnamed sidekick accumulate more adventure companions. This is in keeping with other space operas such as Message from Space and Battle Beyond the Stars. Who will I ripoff for them? The Gil Gerard-era Buck Rogers (Twiki!)? Battlestar Galactica? The Micronauts? Who knows. That's the fun part. I just know it will be a merry band of warriors. "Stronger together," right?

-There's going to be a giant robot. Something like a Shogun Warrior.

-Chicks. Really hot chicks. That's part of pulp. Of course I debated whether not to include this as it seems insensitive (yes, I thought I was going to stop thinking for this, but it ain't so easy.) Then I heard an interview with Carrie Fisher today on NPR where she talked about how great of a character Leia is and how she became a part of her. I can try to emulate all of that...and still put characters in metal bikinis.

So...any interest?

Hell, let's crowdsource this shit. What do YOU want to see?


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets

Space shuttle UFO incidents

Again, still reading Richard Hoagland's Dark Mission.

While it's not a "UFO book" exactly, it does operate from the premise that NASA has been concealing evidence of alien life. This has inspired me to look into, however cursory in method, allegations of other NASA cover ups related to aliens, particularly in regard to former space shuttle flights. Here are a few:

-February of 1996. STS-75 was a space shuttle mission intended to launch a tethered satellite system. A 12-mile long tether line was deployed from the shuttle cargo bay. The line broke and the satellite was lost. Video footage of this test shows circular objects in the vicinity. They do bear a resemblance to classic "flying saucers" and UFO proponents argue that they are indeed extraterrestrial spacecraft or anomalies at the very least. NASA says the objects are ice particles and space debris (there is a LOT of junk orbiting Earth,)

-In November of that same year, Columbia was again in orbit, this time on STS -80. There's an interesting bit of video footage from that mission that has made the rounds over the years. In it, a circular object comes to a stop over Earth, hovers, and then descends. Again NASA argues it's ice particles that nothing unusual was observed on the mission.

-I'm sure I'll get called a schlockmeister skeptic, but I'm actually comfortable with the explanations of ice particles and space debris. But there's one case that still has me intrigued, though. It happened on a Discovery mission in September 1991. In video footage from the mission, a point of light approaches Earth's atmosphere. There is a flash of light and the point charges direction.What looks like a missile then shoots up and into space from the Earth. Of course NASA says it's ice and debris particles knocked all helter skelter  from the shuttle firing its attitude thrustsers. That's where the flash of light came from. My problem with that explanation is that the shuttle should have moved. Therefore, the angle of the shot should have changed. It doesn't. The particles themselves don't appear to behave in the way you might expect from a thruster burst. I'm thinking primarily of the "missile" coming up at steep angle st high speed. There are those who say the video reflects a sort of "space defense" system against aliens. I'm nowhere near prepared to go that far. I don't think the video shows any aliens. I simply have questions.

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Oh I hope NASA has a stargate

So like I said, I've been reading by Dark Mission by Richard Hoagland.

It's getting even weirder.

I can't really get into it all right now as I don't have the time to do it justice. Additionally I'm still mulling over what it all means. Here are a few tidbits I've gleaned:

-Hyperdimensional physics. Yeah, better that you read it for yourself.
-NASA is obsessed with all things Egyptian. This may be because the Egyptians made it to the Moon first through a sort of "stargate."  Yes, you may proceed with all manner of movie comparisons.
-Inspired, I went to visit Hoagland's website, The Enterprise Mission (yes, I believe it's a direct Star Trek homage) to learn more. Upon visiting, I learned that episodes of Tom Corbett: Space Cadet and
a few View Master reels may have been part of a conspiracy to desensitize us to the idea of finding artifacts on Mars.

While that latter point is enticing, I'm still stuck on the idea of a stargate. Fiction is obviously repleat with such conveyances, from the movie of the same name to the device used by Jodie Foster in Contact (pictured above and a great film if you haven't seen it.) So if, as Hoagland, is arguing in this book, with such savoir faire I might add, that NASA is hiding the truth about so great many things, might a logical question be "so what else are they hiding?" Could a stargate be such a secret? I won't deny I'd be thrilled if such a thing actually existed. Certainly doesn't seem any less likely than anything else Hoagland argues for in the book (again in fairness, I have not finished reading it.)

Anyway, I Googled "NASA" and "stargate" and came up with this. While it probably is just a wind tunnel getting torn down, the romantic in me chooses to believe it's a classified device capable of generating an Einstein-Rosen Bridge.

Until such a point where Richard Hoagland tells me different...


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets

Richard Hoagland's "Dark Mission"

Thanksgiving Break is upon me and I'm reading a few books.

One is Cormac McCarthy's The Road. As I blogged earlier, I think it will get me in the mindset of the next four years of Trump. Also, I checked out Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA by Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara, the latter writer you may know from multiple guestings on Ancient Aliens. As the back cover reads, Hoagland writes to clear away NASA's "squeaky-clean image of technological infallibility."

After Challenger, Columbia, and a few botched Mars missions, I'm not sure where he gets the "infallible" part, but it's clear Hoagland is arguing there is a conspiracy afoot. But just what kind of conspiracy?

For one thing, Hoagland believes in Cydonia. Longtime ESE readers are no doubt familiar with this famed "city" on Mars...or the remains of one...that features pyramids and the infamous "Face." He argues that the Cydonia "complex" has a geometric pattern to it that could not have arisen through erosion or other natural means. There are also, Hoagland asserts in the book, other artifacts of civilization on Mars as well as "crystal towers on the Moon." Despite the thrilling nature of these discoveries, NASA has kept them all quiet. As Hoagland says, he began to wonder "what did NASA know...and when did they first know it?

Why the secrecy? Hoagland claims that goes back to the Brookings Report which prior to our landing on the Moon argued that any evidence of an extraterrestrial presence should be withheld from the public. Hoagland and his fellow researchers believe otherwise. Pages 12-13 of the book describe Hoagland's frustration at releasing his findings on Cydonia, the "barrage of ad hominem criticism" he experienced and how pointless it was to attempt publication through the "NASA controlled peer review press."

Hoagland also claims that for all its ties to science, NASA is quite steeped in the occult and ancient religions. To emphasize this, the cover of Dark Mission features Buzz Aldrin flying a Masonic flag on the Moon, Yes, the Freemasons are laying claim to outer space. There's also a nifty hierarchy chart that shows how many higher-ups and actual astronauts in NASA were Freemasons. Allegations about Masons aside, I can see where he may be getting part of this "occult" tinge. There were, after all, bona fide Nazis working in NASA and then there was Jack Parsons, whose own dabblings in the occult are well-documented. Be that as it may, I still don't see how this makes NASA an evil organization with a "dark mission." Then again, I'm not finished with the book yet, but I'm still not holding out hope for a plausible answer. The most I'd be willing to accept at this point is that the organization is a bloated and dysfunctional bureaucracy.

Oh and there's a whole chapter on Kennedy's assassination! Can't wait to see how that all fits into this mess. Oddly enough, the assasination occurred on this very day in 1963. But I digress...

I'm not done reading Dark Mission, so I suppose I should hold off judgment and give it a fair shake. It's just so hard to do when you know that much of the scientific community regards Hoagland's arguments as bunk. You can go to Phil Plait for but one of many refutations of the contents of Dark Mission and other Hoagland offerings. Then again, you might only need to find a copy of the text and flip through all the color images of the Moon and Mars provided. I have a very difficult time seeing the things that Hoagland and Bara see in them and that might well be the point: we all see what we want to see.

More to come...


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets

Warren Ellis and online privacy

A while back, my good friend Dorkland posted tips from writer Warren Ellis on online privacy.

I thought it would be a good idea to repost it here on ESE. We are facing days of political uncertainty. Be that as it may, we have actually known about issues of online privacy for a while now so these really are a good idea no matter who is in office or what your persuasions are. And once you read this, I'm sure you'll agree that the writer of Global Frequency really does know his tech:

"If you have access to a Windows machine, there's an excellent Twitter archive eraser called Twitter Archive Eraser, haha.  All you have to do is request your archive from Twitter, install Eraser and feed your archive to the machine. I mean, if you don't want to delete your Twitter account entirely, which I totally understand, but.

"(You may want to do something with your LinkedIn account for similar reasons.)
Also, iMessage and WhatsApp are okay, but get Signal. If you're going to organise, try to form IRL spaces and try not to use Facebook right now.
Keep an eye on Safecast - as they build out their systems, their open environmental data may prove very useful in the coming years.

"You may want to consider private newsletters - Tinyletter is a very good free option if you intend to speak to less than a few thousand people - and, despite being Facebook-owned, a private Instagram account may be better for you than a public one right now."

Sadly, I'm having a few technical difficulties this week. Ellis provided many links to the apps he wrote of in the post but I was unable to copy them over because the app I'm using has gone buggy. You can find many of those links at the Dorkland link.

Welcome to the resistance.

Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets

Battle Beyond the Stars

In down times, I turn to "comfort science fiction."

That's something of a term I invented (or maybe I didn't...should check the interwebs) to describe purely entertaining science fiction films from my youth. Many of these were produced on the cheap and were blatantly attempting to cash in on the massive success of Star Wars. They have no serious message and don't pretend to and that is by no means to their detriment.

I recently watched Battle Beyond the Stars. It's a Roger Corman feature from 1980 that actually featured special effects work by a young James Cameron. It definitely borrows pages from Star Wars but also deliberately from The Magnificent Seven (and thereby Seven Samurai).

Akir is a peaceful planet (whose inhabitants are known as the Akira in a nod to the director of the aforementioned Seven Samurai.) But it's getting hassled by Mardor the Conqueror (played by John Saxon, a staple of 70s/80s scifi) who leads the Malmori army and a couple creepy, freaky sycophants. So a young boy named Shad (played by Richard Thomas...that guy from The Waltons) needs to head off into space in search of mercenaries to help defend his home. Fortunately, he picks up a love interest from Hephaestus Station (a space station where androids are repaired...and yes, there will be many more parentheticals in this post) who happens to own a hammerhead-shaped spaceship with a wise-cracking computer named Nell.

During their search, they acquire a wealthy assassin named Gelt (played by Robert Vaughn), a really cool reptilian alien named Cayman who has a personal vendetta against Mardor, Saint Exmin of the Valkyrie (played by the ever-voluptuous Sybil Danning) who flies by the motto "Live fast, fight well, and have a beautiful ending," five hive-mind clones called the Nestor, and a couple aliens who communicate by sharing heat. Best of all, there is George Peppard as the Space Cowboy (I'm not kidding), a hard drinking, space-rig driving sort that I swore would say "I love it when a plan comes together" at any given moment. The seven, each in their own respective ships, fly into battle against Mardor and the Malmori.

And it's pretty cool.

Seriously, I wish they made either toys or models of the spaceships. I can see myself sitting down on the floor and replaying all the space battles with no shame at all. Well, maybe a little. Nah, that's not true. I've got none left. Better yet, I wish there were comic books that filled in the back stories on the rag-tag group of heroes fighting against the Empire...er, Malmori. I might be alone in these desires but what the hell. I'm used to that.

You owe it to yourself to check this out. Guaranteed to get your mind off your troubles. Also might inspire you.

I mean, plucky band of misfits against a steamrolling tyrant and his army? Nice.




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Robot spinning a man with paint creates art

It sure sparked one of those "this isn't art" arguments in the comments section.

Then again its shooting fish in a barrel these days to set that off.

Sploid ran a piece about Serbian artist Dragan Iliclike. Iliclike's methodology is to attach himself to an industrial robot arm that moves him across a wall-sized canvas, spreading paint as he goes (see GIF above). There are those who might object, asserting that there is no premeditated purpose in the streaks of paint. Iliclike is just tossing paint on a wall to see where it lands, except he's doing it with the aid of a robot (which you must admit is kinda cool in its own right). There is no message about how the artist views the world as is present in Dadist or other abstract works, contrary to popular opinion.

Iliclike says not so fast. The robot moves Iliclike and the paintbrushes according to a preprogrammed route that imitates “both the repetitiveness involved in technological production, as well as representing a new stage of ritual or transgressive experiences of the author himself.” A statement on mass production and industrialization? A bit of a dig at big business (a popular even if somewhat trite target for art)? That's a bit like what Warhol was doing, so I can see it.

Is it art? Does it fit the Platonic definition? Does all art require premeditation? That might discount the cut-up method and that would be just plain silly. Sometimes art arises from the subconscious and the random. Do you like looking at it? Then again, does art have to be "pretty"? Of course not. To which "school of art" would this belong? Under the umbrella title of "postmodernism"? We could go round and round like this for the foreseeable future.

Look, the guy is swinging on the end of a robot arm. Cool enough.


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Our homegrown UFOs

I have been fortunate to give two UFO lectures recently. They mostly dealt with my work on Dulce.

In those lectures, I assert that about 90% of sightings are explainable as natural phenomena, mistaken identity, etc. Another 5% are from those who have actually witnessed classified aircraft in flight (something incredible in its own right) and the final 5% or so is downright weird and unexplainable. The point is, you'd be surprised how many questions I received about that middle 5%. When asked, I rattled off a few formerly top secret aircraft such as the F-117 and the SR-71 as well as a few that are only rumored to exist. But it all really got me thinking: what are our homegrown UFOs?

Well, one lesser-known candidate might be the Avrocar of the 1950s. It was a Canadian effort to produce a hypersonic fighter-bomber that had vertical take off and landing capabilities. There is no other better phrase to describe it than "flying saucer." It did not have a stable design, it never got that far off the ground, and it might have attained a top speed of 35mph. The Avrocar was scrapped. Doesn't sound likely that the Avrocar was ever mistaken for a UFO, but what if there were other saucer designs that had greater, but perhaps likewise temporary, success? Like I said, a long shot, but worth considering.

Then there is TR-3 Black Manta. I first remembered hearing about this mystery jet in the early 1990s when I saw video of Air Force maneuvers in the skies over New Mexico. As the aerial ballet played out, the military enthusiasts doing the videotaping zoomed in on a black, wing-shaped aircraft making lazy circles in the middle of it all. "That's got to be TR-3 Black Manta," the videographer said. Unfortunately the camera's battery gave out seconds thereafter (natch). The plane was of odd design but still recognizable as a type of stealth, so I'm fairly confident that the tape was authentic (everything else about it was). Word round the campfire is that Black Manta actually flew missions in the first Gulf War, painting targets for the F-117.

One alleged super secret super plane that I have only recently learned of is the TAW 50. The photo at the top of this post is said to be of said aircraft flying over Wisconsin in 2004. I can't find much quality information on the veracity of the TAW 50 but then you wouldn't expect to with a clandestine program now would you? Here's something, anyway, however weak. The TAW 50 is said to be, as you can see, roughly triangular in shape, black in color, and flying at speeds of up to MACH 50. You read that correctly. It is said to be powered by antigravitic drives (a few would say these drives were based on that manna from heaven, the "reverse-engineered, crashed UFOs"), giving it such high speed and maneuverability. Such a craft would no doubt explain many of the "black triangle" sightings such as those in Belgium.

So there's my look at what I call, for lack of any better phrase coming out of my brain right now, the middle 5%. Why are there conspiracy theories? Because out of necessity, there are things being kept secret.

Maybe even things that move 50 times the speed of sound.



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Let's kill death

Two weeks ago, I lost my Grandmother.

She was 96. She also enjoyed good health for the majority of those years. Therefore, I've heard all of the platitudes. "That's a nice, long life." "Death is a natural part of life." "You need to just come to terms with death."

To tell you the truth, such flat and dull remarks piss this transhumanist off. They are anathema to me. There is no reason why we need to "just accept" death and resign someone to a slow and dismal decline of their intellect, senses, and physical self. The human body deteriorates with age and brings with it conditions such as arthritis or worse...dementia. The most the medical field can currently toss at the problem of aging is "diet and exercise."

That's right. I said "problem." We need to start seeing aging as a chronic disease, a disease we can cure with enough intellectual scrutiny and technological innovation. Google is already working on it with Ray Kurzweil, biohacking devices like CRISPR will make DNA editing easier, and cybernetics always has promising developments on the horizon. There's more work to be done, of course. A tremendous amount of work. There are a few researchers though who say a breakthrough is not that far off. In fact if you were born after the 1950s, you might have a decent shot at an indefinite lifespan.

To be sure, I really don't believe my Grandma would have wanted any of this. She was, in her own way, at peace with what happened. It allowed her to rejoin my Grandfather who died in 1995 and 21 years is quite a long time to be without someone you love. Naturally, I wouldn't have forced any of these life extension procedures on her or anyone else. This is a personal choice for someone. But if you've ever watched the compromise of dignity that comes with advanced age, you might know a little of what I mean. Suddenly aging becomes a whole lot less noble.

So no, I won't just accept death. I will kick, spit, and slash back at it.

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ESE endorses Hillary Clinton

I will not accept comments on this post.

After all, the message is "Why I'm voting for Clinton" and not "you should vote for Clinton."

For yes indeed, we here in the frantic and fast-paced editorial offices of ESE, after circumspect analysis, endorse Hillary Clinton for President.

There are no perfect candidates. Makes sense as I am not a perfect person and I've yet to meet anyone who is. Therefore, my task as I see it is to select the best candidate based on the available facts. For me, that is Hillary Clinton.

Clinton brings with her a lifetime of political experience, most notably her service as Senator and Secretary of State. She has a run a campaign that offers a vision of a future America. This vision includes a $12 an hour minimum wage, protection of abortion rights, making higher education affordable, and a reform of sentencing laws that have led America to become the world's largest jailer per capita. Contrary to the rhetoric of her opponents, her stance on immigration is not one of "open up the borders and let illegals flow in." In truth, Clinton accurately sees the current immigration policy as unsustainable and proposes sensible reforms that will not violate human rights. If national security is your greatest concern, then she is the logical choice as she has actual foreign policy experience and his been a party to overseeing military operations.

Critically for myself and readers of ESE, she views climate change as "the defining issue of our time."

But what of her flaws, you say?

Those emails...wait, that was resolved.

BENGHAZI!!!! Likewise resolved.

Pay for play? Not going to lie. It probably happened. Sadly, that is what I have come to expect from political leaders. That's an issue far larger than this election and goes to the root of politics itself. If it is a true sticking point, then let's examine the alternative.

Donald Trump is a billionaire with no record of public service or holding office. Indeed after reviewing his CV, I'm left wondering if the only thing Donald Trump really cares about is Donald Trump. He is woefully misinformed about political issues, most notably in calling climate change "a hoax created by China." While lauding the constitution, he is ignorant of both the document's content and its workings. In fact, one wonders if Trump reads anything at all.

Perhaps worse than all of that is the man's character. Trump aims to establish himself as a recalcitrant outsider immune to political pressures. In reality, the man is a thin-skinned demagogue who has repeatedly exhibited misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. The only solid policy proposals he has offered are building a wall along our southern border and replacing the Affordable Care Act with "something great." He has threatened to prosecute his political opponents and has expressed desire to punch protesters in the face and have them carried out on stretchers...just like most dictators do. He is little more than a bully, wanting only one thing and that is to beat whomever he is up against.

"What's wrong with that?" you might ask. "Who cares if he says mean things? So long as he gets the job done."

Said objection is often uttered by someone who has spent their life steeped in "business." I have five responses:

1) The real world doesn't work that way. In politics and diplomacy, one must be pragmatic and build compromises. Hillary Clinton demonstrated quite an aptitude for this as a senator, working with Republicans to get things done. Trump can't even deal with his own party's leadership. How much success do you think he'll have with Democrats? What's more, Trump's ignorance of how things operate on an international stage is underscored by his willingness to withdraw from NATO and the Paris climate accords.

2) I have seen the "bottom line" attitude in workplaces before and it invariably led to disaster. True, the person in question may indeed "get the job done" for a while, but their character and their attitude spill outward and affect the entire workings of the operation. In time, the demagogue collapses under his or her own weight. On a related point...

3) Words matter. They are powerful. We build reality with words. Listen to the audio where he brags of committing sexual assault. Our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters deserve better representation. There is no place in civil society for a man like that and he should not be rewarded...least of all...with the highest office in the nation.

4) You don't want to be governed. You want to be ruled. Whatever life has dealt you has you thinking in Machiavellian terms. Such thinking grows intractable and is no frame of mind in which to make sound decisions.

5) "Gets the job done." To which of his six bankruptcies are you referring?

Taken as a whole, Trump lives up to the caricature of "the ugly American": loud, loathsome, ignorant, and bellicose. I have never seen a person be less qualified to be president than Trump. Hell, I wouldn't even want him to have a job at Applebee's. A Trump presidency would result in four years of irreparable harm and GOP leaders such as Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham should rightfully be scared of what it would do to the Republican brand. Given these facts, you may view my vote for Clinton as more of a "vote against Trump." You may be right.

In any case, the result is the same. I'm with her.


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets