Politics, Politics

Over my short time voting I’ve been all over the map politically. I’ve gone third party (Libertarian), Republican, Democrat  (current party) and I’ve even considered voting Green Party. Too bad the GOP has completely gone off the rails by nominating Donald Trump, as in the past I’ve leaned right at times. Lately I’ve turned to more progressive causes, going with Bernie Sanders in a desperate attempt to find a decent candidate. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, he lost and choose to endorse someone based on research and recent Internet quizzes I’ve come to support: Hillary Clinton. 

Look she is not the best choice, and I can’t blame people for voting third party. I wonder why people vote Trump but it’s not much of a mystery: it’s based around fear. However those of us who don’t buy into his bullshit have to go with the lesser of two evils. It’s not great yet I’ll take it over the person who thinks building a wall or killing terrorists families is a good idea. Still we have the problem of Hillary being a hawk on foreign issues, albeit someone who maybe can be persuaded to not embark on too many crazy wars. Anyways the sad fact is that both parties are too close to each on foreign policy issues anyways. 

No its domestic that makes the decision easy. While I want to continue mocking Hillary’s pivoting on certain keys issues such as gay marriage, the truth is that even myself and President Obama took a while to decide to back rights for the LGBQ community. We all can’t be Joe Biden. At this point I favor gun control of some kind or another, am pro-choice, and pro-enviromment. Regardless of what you think of Hillary she either supports these issues or at least pays them lip service. And we all know that she backs the ACA and the idea of universal health care, which is a good thing. Look I may have insurance with my job but there are people who are not so lucky. 

So let’s get to the emails. She lied plenty, yet there was no indictment and therefore the matter is closed in my mind. I’m more worried about her support for the Iraq War and the disastrous Libya conflict. The last one was at least an international effort, while the Iraq War got the support and vote of way too many in Congress. As for Benghazi I’m sick to death of hearing about that, too. Guess what: more people died during the presidency of George W. Bush. Yet you don’t hear about that from Republicans. 

Oh yeah anyone who gets this much hate from many hypocritical and witch hunting Republicans can’t be all bad. I know what I am getting with Clinton Presidency Part II: Hillary Takes Over. I have no idea what Trump will do as president. He’s a loose cannon who cannot be trusted to do the right thing. I would love to vote third party again, or write in Bernie in anger, yet that is irresponsible in my opinion. I live in a swing state and don’t have the luxury of others. I also don’t want minorities who will suffer under a Trump presidency to be let down because I didn’t do everything possible to prevent “Cheeto Jesus” from taking power. We can’t survive another George W. Bush style presidency. I don’t want to live through that again, and oh yeah Jon Stewart retired so we won’t have him around this time. I’m with her. 

Okay so roughly a week or so ago I noted that I was divided on whether or not to vote yes for the local casino that had been proposed by a bunch of rich people. What happened over that period of time between then and the March 5th vote was something quite interesting-and also the reason I voted yes.

Nope it wasn’t the endlessly annoying campaign ads, my friends all badgering me to support the casino, hell not even a good honest last minute pitch from some “Vote Yes” group via telephone/my front door (luckily that didn’t happen). What pushed me over to the “Yes” side was the water park proposal. A 30 million dollar water park, which the man behind the Riverside casino would build if us, the people of Cedar Rapids, did not vote yes. Basically it was a bribe, the last act of a desperate man who knew he was beaten. It was also a huge insult to our intelligence. That was the last straw.

So in the end I walked over to my local voting precinct, grabbed a “Voted” sticker (I’m a sucker for those-honestly) and filled in the “Yes” part of the ballot. With a heavy sigh I might add, because neither side really convinced me that their choice was the right one. I’ll remain skeptical about the casino, however it was the best idea anyone’s proposed in a while. And I’m hoping it leads to a new movie theater, or something really cool along those lines. I can hope and dream, too.

Oh there is one major hurdle left: the casino has get a license from the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission. So the will of 61% of the people might not mean anything if the Riverside/Vote No crowd manages to bribe-I mean, convince-the commission to turn down the CR proposal. However all of the casinos approved save for maybe one have had over 60% of the vote in favor of them, so there’s hope there too future and current gamblers. I’ll be monitoring the results, naturally-if the license isn’t approved though the city better have a Plan B in place for something to attract people to Cedar Rapids. I doubt they’ll come up with anything worse than a water park.