Greetings, loyal minions. I suppose it is time to put some thoughts down on the blog about guns, gun rights, individual rights, and political discourse…

Like any decent person, I was horrified at the mass shooting in Las Vegas. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone who wasn’t. Now, one week removed, we are into the cycle of argument and recrimination. Sadly, this cycle is just that, a cycle. It has phases that are more or less predictable and will eventually come to an end with all sides remaining angry at one another. There are so many reasons for this and to unpack them all is going to take more time than I am willing to spend writing, but I’ll take a shot at addressing some of the broader topics in the public square.

It should be no secret that I am a gun owner and supporter of the Second Amendment. Further, I am a member of the NRA. If that causes you to stop at this point, fine, but I hope that you might proceed a bit further.

Because I am a gun owner and NRA member doesn’t mean that I am part of a monolithic block of Americans. I find that gun owners opinions on various aspects of gun rights will vary between them. In this we (I?) am no different that other Americans that may not agree when we discuss the nature and possible limitations to our rights in our Republic. In one important point of discussion we are unified, we believe that Americans have a right, enshrined in the Constitution, to keep and bear arms.

And we immediately hit the first sticking point in the broader discussion of guns, such as that discussion is able to be had. The Second Amendment does enshrine the right of Americans to keep and bear arms - that is to own guns. There are many people who will parse the wording of the Second Amendment to say that the right exists only as part of an organized militia. Those people, are now, wrong. This particular piece of debate was ended when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. This ruling confirmed what I had always believed. And it is the law of the land now.

There are, as one might expect, those who believe Heller was wrongly decided and that they would like to see it overturned. I don’t believe it will be, at least not under the Supreme Court’s current make up. And if Heller is not overturned soon, it will not be overturned.

I am going to take a dangerous turn here to illustrate and illuminate my thinking on this point. My point is that Heller affirms an individual right to keep and bear arms. It is currently the law of the land. As such, it’s authority is shaping our view of the law across the nation. If it is not overturned or limited soon, the hold of that decision will become more a part of the fabric of our legal system and will become less and less able to be overturned. To illustrate this point I will direct you to Roe v. Wade. Roe was decided in 1973. It has been the law of the land forty-four years. During those 44 years attempts to overturn it have been unsuccessful. Many of the attempts to limit the potential scope of the decision have been made, to various degrees success. To be frank, most of those attempts have been unsuccessful. I will posit to you that it will never be overturned and limitations to abortion rights will be minimal.

I use this example to help to frame the way in which the issue of guns is discussed, or not discussed, in America. As a people, many Americans have strong opinions on abortion. These opinions are quite polarized and the two sides mostly talk past each other when they even try to talk. Those who are pro-abortion can always fall back on the legal fact that abortion is legal, and it is enshrined as a right by a decision of the Supreme Court. A right that was not specifically enumerated in text of the Constitution but has been determined to exist nonetheless. Those who are pro-life hope that they can limit this right through legal and judicial means, or have the Supreme Court change its mind. After years of observing, I don’t think the pro-life side will ever get Roe overturned. I also have my doubts that they will ever be successful at limiting the scope of legal abortion.

Now take the Second Amendment. Here is a right that is specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The actual right to keep and bear arms is right there in the text for anyone to read. The right to keep and bear arms doesn’t emanate from a penumbra of another enumerated right. To hear or read many of those who want to restrict the right to keep and bear arms, you wouldn’t know it. This is not to say that all rights are unlimited, there can and ought to be limits on our rights. The first that should jump to your mind is not being able to yell fire in a crowded theatre. But many gun control advocates do want to severely curtail or eliminate the right to own a gun.

If you have not, you probably ought to read a very good piece from Meredith Dake-O’Connor at The Federalist. I want to cite two of her “6 Reasons Your Right-Wing Friend Isn’t Coming To Your Side On Gun Control.” They are reasons 1 and 6. Here they are:

1. We Rarely Get to Come to the Conversation in Good Faith
The most destructive, divisive response when dealing with Second Amendment advocates is the notion that we aren’t on your side of the issue because we “don’t care” about the tragedy and loss of life. Two years ago at Christmas I had a family member, exasperated that I wasn’t agreeing about gun control, snarl, “It appears that if your [step] daughter was killed because of gun violence you wouldn’t even care!”

I’ve seen journalists, politicians, and friends in recent days say something to the effect of “If children dying (in Newtown) won’t change their minds, nothing will!” The obvious implication is that we are unmoved by the loss of life.

It is a true dehumanization of Second Amendment advocates to think that we didn’t see the events unfolding in Las Vegas and have the same ache deep in our souls. That we, too, haven’t read the memorials of those who gave their lives for others and silently cried over our computers or phones. We felt it, and we hurt, and some of us even died or were heroes and rescued others. As hard as it may be to imagine, a person can watch this, ache, hurt, and be profoundly affected by these events and not change his or her position on the Second Amendment.

You may be thinking that the right-wing kneejerk response to assume that progressives just want to confiscate guns is also a denial of coming to the table in good faith. You would be right. However, I suggest assuming progressives just want to ban guns, or some other policy, is not equivalent to thinking, “If you really cared that people died you would agree with me.”

…

6. We Really Do Consider Owning Firearms a Right
I view the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as declaring the intrinsic and inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I believe the framers knew that liberty is only achieved when the citizenry is known to keep tyrannical government, and those who would do me harm, at bay. My favorite explainer on citizens and their relation with tyrannical government is James Otis’ “Rights of the British Colonies” essay, but many like to use Hamilton’s Federalist Paper No. 29.

Beyond that, part of having liberty is personal safety from harm. Outside of the grace of God, I am the one primarily responsible for my safety, because I am able to be responsible for my safety. While I view the government’s primary responsibility the safety of its citizens, I am first responsible for my safety. Further, because I am able to be responsible for my safety, I have a duty as a good citizen to be prepared to protect others who cannot protect themselves. This is part of liberty. And the primary way I can ensure my liberty is by owning a firearm (and voting for those in favor of limited government—but that’s another debate).

Second Amendment advocates truly view owning a firearm as an intrinsic right and a must to preserve liberty. It has nothing to do with hunting. It has nothing to do with hobbies. That’s why when discussions of firearms that aren’t meant for hunting come into the debate you don’t see many advocates conceding they aren’t needed. Further, it’s the primary reason we seem unwilling to budge on this policy when tragedies occur. Evil acts don’t cancel out a law-abiding citizen’s rights.

So many gun control advocates are begging for a conversation on this issue, and it’s unfortunate they don’t see the Second Amendment advocates as willing to engage. I find it hard to have an honest and vulnerable conversation about a deeply held right when the starting point is often challenging my motives while coming from a place of ignorance on firearms. If you’re really looking to win over your gun-loving friend, try reading up on firearms, dumping anti-NRA talking points, and assume her or she is equally committed to preventing these evil acts.

I agree very strongly with Ms. Dake-O’Connor in this. It is hard, almost impossible in fact, to have a discussion about guns in America when one side denies that owning guns is a right, and furthermore starts the discussion from the position of “we must do something” and “something” is restricting your rights.

This is a good a time as any to address that favorite trope of “if there is a right to own a gun, it would be a flintlock or other gun available in 1787.” This particular point upsets me greatly. More than it should really. If you put forth this argument are you also willing to apply it to the First Amendment? Your free speech rights are perfectly secure, as long as they are only exercised in a way that they would have been in 1787… Published paper broadsheets? Protected speech! Talking to your neighbor face to face? Protected speech! Internet? Not protected speech. Talking on the telephone, radio, or TV? Not protected speech. Is that really the heart of the argument? It would seem you have to believe the people who wrote the Constitution didn’t know that flintlocks were improvements on hand-cannons, which were better than crossbows, which were better than a regular bow, which was an improvement over a thrown spear, which was better than a thrown rock. I really wish we could retire this whole line of “argument.” And by the way, I will direct you to my previous point on the dangerous issue of abortion. If your right to bear arms were to be restricted to an 18th century firearm, do you want your abortion to be an 18th century affair as well?

So if it is the right of Americans to own guns, what then do we do about gun violence? There again, we’ve hit a very sticky wicket. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had discussions that all boil down to me talking about reasonable restrictions on purchasing guns, and the person I’m talking to throwing up their hands in disgust because that will not prevent all gun violence. Should I just go full Sadiq Khan on guns and declare that mass shootings are “part and parcel” of living in America and we all have to learn to live with it? On the face of it that seems to be a pretty awful thing to say. But at some level it might be what we have to say.

I feel I have to state that we might have to deal with mass shootings in America, just as we are having to live with terror attacks around the world, because I am not willing to seriously curtail the rights of law abiding Americans. There is never going to be a foolproof system that will prevent a person wanting to do violence with a gun and who can legally acquire a gun from doing so. I am all for strict enforcement of the existing laws that can prevent those who should not be able to get guns from getting them. I also would be amenable to the restriction of transfers of guns between private citizens. (NB: I think there could be a system whereby a dealer who can run a background check for a nominal fee can be used to make sure transfers between non-related people don’t result in someone who shouldn’t have a gun getting one.) The fact remains that there has never been a foolproof system for preventing bad, even evil, things from happening. There will not be one on this issue either.

This is as good a place to address a proposal put forward by a great number of people. I’ve read about proposals to insure that anyone on a “terror watch list” to not be able to buy a gun. This seems like a reasonable proposal on its face, but it is rife with difficulties. It doesn’t actually take suspicion of terrorist ties to get on a terror watch list. Having a similar name to a terrorist could be enough. Posting something to Facebook or Twitter (or your blog) could get you on a watch list. A whole range of items can get you on a watch list. The big problem is discovering you’re on a watch list, and then getting off of it. I think it is bad policy to restrict a person’s Constitutional rights without a judicial hearing with due process to make it happen. Again, just like I have stated a number of times already in this missive, would you apply this standard to other Constitutional rights? Are you okay with having a person’s right against search and seizure to be restricted or eliminated because they were on a terror watch list? How about their right to free speech or religion? I am not. Neither am I okay with restricting access to a gun because someone is on a watch list.

So have I thrown up my hands and said that there is nothing we can do about gun violence? In some sense I have. Don’t think I don’t feel awful about it either. While we can’t stop every violent act committed with a gun, there are things we can do on the periphery to start to address some of the causes of gun violence. The recent and oft quoted op-ed piece by Leah Libresco entitled “I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.” is a good starting point. Many gun control advocates point to Great Britain and Australia as places where gun control and confiscation was enacted to some success. However, if you’ve read some of the linked pieces I’ve provided here, they are not analogous situations at all. First off, neither of those countries has a written Bill of Rights that specifically and clearly states that there is a right to keep and bear arms. Rights in Britain and Australia are more able to be changed by a law passed by their Parliaments. They don’t have the same tradition, or Constitution, that we do. Believe it or not, that makes it a hugely different matter.

This post has been, at so many levels, a sad and unfulfilling exercise. I make no apology for my support of the Second Amendment, and for the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution more broadly. But, after an atrocity is committed it is hard to feel like a full-throated statement of support is the proper thing to do. But it IS the proper thing to do. It is when it is most difficult to support your rights as an American that those rights need the most support. I strongly support the First Amendment, and I believe it is being severely and sometimes violently curtailed on college campuses across the country. I believe that the power of the police and state is expanding and our rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are being diminished. It is in this time that we must stand up for our rights and fight that they not be reduced.

No matter what the costs may be.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has, if you noticed, decided in the header line of these posts to abbreviate “The Writing Project” as “TWP.” No big deal really. At some point it will make sense to drop the “TWP” all together. But it will stay for now as a reminder that this is still a project. If the “project” takes and writing returns to being a habit, then the “TWP” will probably be dropped…

So what to write about…

This episode will be on politics.

On Friday night I had a long conversation with Villainette #2. My younger daughter is a freshman at Virginia Tech. She is also 18 and eligible to vote in November. As you may know, we here in Virginia have elections every year. We love democracy so much we have to keep practicing it every year. In odd numbered years we have state and local elections. On November 7, 2017, Virginians will elect a new Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and House of Delegates. We will also elect county Supervisors and School Board members.

Villainette #2 has a very logical and reasoned mind. She approaches things very analytically. She received her absentee ballot earlier in the week, and between the date she got the absentee ballot and last Friday she watched all the gubernatorial debates on YouTube and found all the websites of all of the candidates on her ballot. Then she called me for questions.

Without violating her confidence in any way, we had a very wide-ranging talk that took about two and a half hours. We concluded that either of the men running for Governor (Ralph Northam - D, or Ed Gillespie - R) would probably be pretty good. I find them both to be good and honorable men who would serve the Commonwealth well. I plan on voting Gillespie myself. I do think, from the polling I’ve seen and the people I’ve spoken to, that Northam has an edge. I don’t know if Virginia will lead the way in a much-desired-by-Democrats wave of anti-Trump sentiment. We very well could be the leading edge of such a wave. I am not sure we will be, but the race will get heated in these last four weeks.

We also concluded that the people running for Lt. Governor are spending a lot of time and energy talking about issues that they will not have ability to do anything about once elected. We also had a very tactile conversation about the Attorney General’s job and the two men running for the job.

I don’t feel it is my place to say much about our conversations, but let it suffice to say that I am very proud of my daughter and her diligence in finding out what the issues are and where candidates stand on various issues.

I’ll probably write a little more about state political races in the next few weeks…

Here is a thought for you to mull over…

What if the only skill a politician has is getting elected?

Think about that for a minute. Office holders are skilled at getting elected, but might be (perhap probably might be) inept or unlearned at other things. Say you have a Congressman that is good at getting elected, but not all that savvy in understanding the nuances of public policy. I will submit to you that at least a slight majority of office holders in this nation are good at getting elected, and mostly inept at the jobs to which they are elected. There are notable exceptions at all levels, but they tend to prove the rule of ineptitude…

Or perhaps I am being particularly cynical today.

One that thing, concerning Puerto Rico. I am, like I think the majority of Americans are, concerned about the speed at which recovery/rebuilding/relief activities are taking place in Puerto Rico. The citizens of Puerto Rico are Americans. They are our brethren. I want them to get the same treatment that any other place in the United States would get. That being said, I am well aware of logistical difficulties of getting supplies to an island that is pretty far from the mainland. All this being said, let me get to the heart of the matter. I am disappointed that I can’t get a straight answer about what is actually going on in Puerto Rico. Things are not good. That is clear. But the Mayor of San Juan is proclaiming that “We are dying.” The official death count has gone from 13 to 16 over the past few days. If they dying the Mayor is describing is metaphorical and not literal, she should ratchet down the hyperbole. I see reports of towns without supplies. I see images of acres of containers with supplies sitting at the docks. Depending on the source, either the roads are not not passable and there is no way to get supplies to where they are needed, OR the truckers are on strike and will not drive the supplies to where they are needed. Both of these situations are plausible. I have no idea the scope of either. This is a major problem with news coverage. It seems very slanted and trying to fit a narrative. I realize that this is nothing new, but it is also not helping.

This is just griping of course. I’m not empowered to take decisions that will change the situation quickly. I am just a guy typing away on a computer and pushing his ranting out into the ether.

I am, though, a voter and will be able to exercise what power I do have at some point. I also have a long memory.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has learned, Hugh Hefner has shuffled off his mortal coil and is now in that great Playboy Club Lounge in the great beyond.

Like boys (men now?) of a certain age, Hefner’s contribution to society, Playboy Magazine, had a part to play in your Maximum Leader’s formative years. He remembers the first Playboy he ever saw. It was the issue for May 1978. Here is a picture of the cover of the issue. He remembers finding it in the spare bedroom of a friends house. The friend’s uncle had been staying with them for a time, and had left the magazine out. My friend and yours truly took the magazine and spent an inordinate amount of time looking over it. Specifically looking at the three sections that contained the nudie pics. The Playmate of the Month was Kathryn Morrison. There was another photo group of some model. There was also a picture spread of a New York City swingers club and the orgies within. It was pretty exciting for excitable boys.

As it turns out, many decades later, your Maximum Leader was in a used bookstore and they had a room in towards the back of the store that was separated from the rest of the store by a black curtain above which was a handwritten sign reading “Over 21 only.” He entered the room expecting to see lots of smut and erotica. But instead the room was filled with neatly ordered rows of magazine racks holding pretty much every back issue of Playboy and Penthouse every published. Remembering the first Playboy he’d ever seen, your Maximum Leader went to find it. Sure enough it was there. He paid for it and the magazine now resides on a shelf in his gun safe.

(NB: It wasn’t until he’d purchased the magazine that he bothered to read the articles. One of which was the famous Anita Bryant interview.)

In later years, mostly in college and immediately thereafter, your Maximum Leader would pick up a Playboy when he’d heard there was an article that was worth reading. The titilation factor was also a consideration in buying the magazine, but he did read the articles.

As for Hefner himself, there isn’t much your Maximum Leader wants to say. He’ll let others speak to the nature of the man. Insofar as your Maximum Leader could tell, Hefner was a lifestyle unto himself. You can judge it as you like. Regardless of how you choose to judge him, Hefner did what he chose to as he chose to. Few people in this life do.

And now, since smut has been a theme of this post… One of your Maximum Leader’s favorite smutty songs…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader says that you all must be terribly loyal if your eyes gaze upon these words. I’ve not given you much (to wit: anything) to work with since February. I’ve had lots of ideas, but very little motivation to write. Then I read a piece by Bridget Phetasy. (You can find her, among other places, on the Twitter @bridgetphetasy, or as the Playboy Advisor, or on The Federalist.) She wrote recently that she had to organize her life around writing. This is a good thing, as she is a professional and makes money from writing. (NB: Her writing is compelling and worth a read, and if you like it, worth a buck or two at her Patreon page.) To paraphrase her, she needed to organize her life for writing. When I read that it caused me to think. Since I’ve let this blog sit idle for so long, has my life become disordered?

Well, my life is as disordered as the next person’s. Perhaps more than some, less than others. But I’ve come to realize that I think I need to organize my thoughts more and writing is a way of doing that.

I’ve decided to try to write on this blog again. Perhaps not a treatise or screed. Perhaps just a paragraph here and there. But at least writing something. Perhaps the routine of organizing my thoughts enough to type them into words will help me organize other parts of my life that I am letting become disordered.

That’s it. Just write.

I believe I’ll have to drop the 3rd person schtick that has been my bread-and-butter on this site for lo many years. (Or at least it will not be my only voice.)

Please come back from time to time. See if I have produced anything worthy of your time.

Carry on.

I was thinking tonight about the past.

The day in real life had gone longer than expected and I was on my own for dinner. I decided to pick up a slice of pizza at a local place and call it a night. While I stood over the kitchen sink and ate my pizza I remembered a dinner from decades ago. I might have been in middle school, or maybe early in high school. I was very close to my paternal grandmother. I spent lots of time with her as she lived near and had been widowed since I was 10. One evening, while I was with her, she suggested we go out and get a pizza for dinner. She said we should go to this small neighborhood place that had been open for about 50 years by that point. She said they had good pizza. I’d never been there, but was always up for pizza. We went to the restaurant, walked in, and were seated. Then we got the menu.

No pizza.

My grandmother asked our server, where was the pizza. She was told that they no longer served pizza. The next generation had recently taken over full operation of the restaurant and they were looking to make it more “upscale.” Pizza didn’t figure into their plans. My grandmother stated matter-of-factly that the only reason we came was to get pizza. All she wanted to eat was pizza and have a small glass of beer. Since there wasn’t any pizza she didn’t see much reason to stay.

My memory has grown hazy. I don’t recall leaving and getting dinner somewhere else, but I don’t recall what we might have actually had. I do recall my grandmother complaining for the rest of the night that all she really wanted was pizza and a small beer.

For what it is worth, we never went out for pizza (and beer) again. I don’t know if that craving was satisfied at some other time, or if she just decided to put pizza and beer out of her mind forever.

Carry on.

I regarded the bartender. He was young, perhaps 25, but there was a world-weariness in his countenance that spoke to a short lifetime of difficulties. Those difficulties were etched into his body. His tattooed arms and chest were a canvas of Celtic symbols, plants, and zombies. His earlobes had been cut and were distended, looking like three fleshy icicles.

Then there was the tremble. The boy’s hands shook, ever so slightly. But they constantly shook.

I wondered about his short past and his story, as I sipped the most delightful cocktail he concocted for me on the spot.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know what to say. After a few weeks of a Trump Presidency he isn’t sure what to think, say, or do. Here are some thoughts in random listicle form:

1) Your Maximum Leader feels that Trump’s cabinet is a mixed bag. Mattis & Chao are fine. Tillerson and Mnuchin are unknowns (frankly most are) and do not elicit much reaction now. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t approve of Sessions, Carson, or Perry. (NB: Though in all honesty, your Maximum Leader wouldn’t piss on Rick Perry if he was on fire.) Towards the rest of the picks he is largely ambivalent. We’ll see what happens with any, or all, of them. Though when you work for someone who has the attention span and impulsivity of a prepubescent ADHD boy hopped up on caffeine it is hard to do a good job…

2) Your Maximum Leader likes the pick of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. He is very pleased indeed. To be open, your Maximum Leader thought that Merrick Garland should have at least had a Senate Hearing. If you pressed your Maximum Leader, he’d even go so far as to say that the Senate should have confirmed Garland. Not because your Maximum Leader would have liked it. (He genuinely prefers Gorsuch.) But rather, the process is the process and delaying for nearly a year is too long. Delaying for six months seems too long, but probably isn’t. There is a fine line to it and your Maximum Leader doesn’t want to draw a hard line. Nearly a year until the election seems too long… And while speaking about the Gorsuch nod… Your Maximum Leader wonders if the Senate will be without a filibuster by the end of the year… He honestly thinks it could happen…

3) Your Maximum Leader has mixed, but mostly negative, feelings about the immigration ban. While he can support a temporary ban on immigration & refugees from a list of countries, the way Trump did this was awful. It speaks to amateurism, willfulness, impetuousness, and impulsiveness. None of which are good things. Just a few more days of consulting with the agencies tasked with implementing the ban would have done wonders on that issue.

4) Liberals/Progressives/Democrats… Dear God! All this rioting and protesting is getting tiresome. The rioting especially. It is disheartening for the future to think that there are many in our country who believe (and act on) the idea that the answer to bad speech (in the case of Berkeley today) or election results that don’t please you is to riot. Your Maximum Leader is getting tired of the term “violent protest.” A “violent protest” is a riot. Riots are lawless mobs bent on destroying property and injuring others. We can’t have riots… If the rioters think that more rioting is going to affect Trump in any way they really ought to think again. Trump is the type of person (if you haven’t figured it out now you probably are downright stupid) that when threatened will threaten back. If you take a swing at him, he’ll take a swing back. And if you take a swing at the Chief Executive of the United States, you are likely going to be hit with much more force than you bargain for…

5) Your Maximum Leader is dismayed by Trump’s calls for tariffs, roll-back of trade agreements, and pulling out of TPP. All these things are bad and will have bad outcomes…

But other than than that… How was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

Carry on.

Greeting, loyal minions. In an (edited and revised) edition of last year’s Christmas post, your Maximum Leader once again finds himself taking a break from real life to wish you all (such number of ye as there may be) a Merry Christmas.

So… How about 2016?

Ugh. What a hell of a year.

As your Maximum Leader has said before: our politics are boorish and crass; our culture is excessive, unrestrained, and frequently vile. We lost many artists and celebrities too young. We somehow elected a carnival barker to be our next president. Having said that about the United States, your Maximum Leader recognizes that we have it better than any other country out there.

Your Maximum Leader stated last Christmas that our civilization is a very tenuous thing. He is still thinking about our collective Western Civilization. Humanity’s true nature, a generally bad one at that, has to be concealed and shaped as best as possible actually, by a thin veneer of something else. Civility is that thin veneer that keeps humanity in any sort of shape. Your Maximum Leader hopes that 2017 is a year where good people around the west will start to stand up for civilization. He is not confident that it will happen. But hope springs eternal.

Of course, this time of year should not be spent dwelling on the unpleasantness in the world… We should try to elevate our thoughts and celebrate the possibility of humanity’s advancement. The Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar resets itself every year in Advent. One of the priests at your Maximum Leader’s parish suggested that like the church resetting the liturgical calendar each of us should try to reset our own personal quest towards living a life more in the image and likeness of Christ. Your Maximum Leader is sure that priests across the world, an ministers of every denomination, have preached the same message. Through our free will we have the potential for salvation. Your Maximum Leader wants to think this salvation is more than just spiritual salvation, but we can have societal salvation. We may not agree politically on items, but your Maximum Leader hopes that we in the United States (at least) can see the benefits our shared Anglo-Western-Judeo-Christian civilization and take steps to preserve it.

Oh… The silly things your Maximum Leader wishes for at Christmas…

Anyhoo…

Tis the season to read over the Gospel of Luke and perhaps contemplate its meaning. This year your Maximum Leader has been thinking a bit about Mary. Take this portion of Luke, Chapter 2:

8 And there were in the same country shepherds watching, and keeping the night watches over their flock.
9 And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared with a great fear.
10 And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people:
11 For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying:
14 Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.
15 And it came to pass, after the angels departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath shewed to us.
16 And they came with haste; and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.
17 And seeing, they understood of the word that had been spoken to them concerning this child.
18 And all that heard, wondered; and at those things that were told them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.
20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all the things they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

Your Maximum Leader has always been struck by verse 19. “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.”

There is not much in the Bible about Mary. The passages directly mentioning her are very few. But there is always a gem in there. Your Maximum Leader’s money is on Luke 2:19 as the greatest of these gems. What does it say about a young girl that she should experience all she had and was still able to take in what she had seen and heard and ponder its meaning? If you aren’t a Christian, still take a moment to think through all this. Your Maximum Leader speculates that most young girls of the first century AD who had just delivered a baby under less than ideal circumstances might not be reticent and ponder their situation with the grace or poise that he reads in this verse. Of course, if you a Christian, there is a lot more going on in that one line.

Your Maximum Leader would like more people to keep the words they hear or read about and ponder them in their hearts. A little more pondering and little less talking and shouting might do us all a bit of good in preserving civilization.

And now… El Greco…

In an interesting turn of events, my eldest has asked to go to the Basilica Shrine of Immaculate Conception for their big Christmas Vigil Mass tonight. So we will be heading up to DC for the biggest and showiest Mass that the Catholic Church has to offer up today. You may even watch this Mass on EWTN cable network tonight. Look for your Maximum Leader. He’ll be there. Somewhere…

Peace and goodwill to you all.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader should have his amateur pundit status revoked. He got the results of the late Presidential election very, very, (and he can’t emphasize this enough - VERY) wrong. It is little consolation that most everyone else got it wrong too. Even the esteemed Larry Sabato and his “Crystal Ball” - which is your Maximum Leader’s favorite site for political punditry - got it waaaaaaay wrong.

Your Maximum Leader will try to digest what has happened and comment on it when he has some cogent thoughts on the matter. But here are a few items he’d like to put out there:

1 ) Not every person who voted for Donald Trump is a racist, woman-hating, sex-addicted, Islamophobe, degenerate. There are a lot of decent people out there who voted for Trump because they couldn’t abide by Hillary Clinton. Your Maximum Leader has been on the record stating that he’ll never vote for another Clinton, Bush, Kennedy, Roosevelt, or even Adams. Your Maximum Leader knows a great many people who voted for Trump because they wouldn’t vote for Clinton and “a vote for a 3rd party was a vote for Clinton.” (By the way, your Maximum Leader was told, often, that the reverse was also true, “a vote for a 3rd party was a vote for Trump.)

2 ) A vote for a candidate other than Clinton or Trump was, in fact, a vote for someone other than Clinton or Trump. Your Maximum Leader is a little embarrassed by his vote for Gary Johnson. Not because it was one vote less for a major party candidate. He’s a little embarrassed by his vote because, as he’s stated before, Johnson was a weak candidate who didn’t have mastery of foreign policy issues. Your Maximum Leader, if he had it to do all over again, would likely cast the same vote.

3 ) As hard as it may be for some, it would behoove everyone to try and give Donald Trump, President-elect Donald Trump, a chance to be a better President than he was a candidate.

4 ) Your Maximum Leader must tip his bejeweled mylan cap to Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. From what your Maximum Leader can gather, they are the masterminds behind Trumps strategy to hit “safe blue” state rural areas. They seem, at this point, to have had the vision to project a path to victory and convinced Trump to take it. Trump must also be credited for being a tireless campaigner and doing all he could to get out to actually talk to the voters he needed. It is a tremendous accomplishment.

5 ) Your Maximum Leader can’t state it enough… Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate. Certainly your Maximum Leader thought that the one Republican she could knock off was Donald Trump. But he was wrong. She couldn’t even do that. Your Maximum Leader would admonish Democrats stop blaming their shortcomings on voters and seriously examine their candidate and her campaign.

6 ) Though he doesn’t normally read post-election books on how campaigns were run, he may make an exception for this election year.

7 ) It is at a time like this that your Maximum Leader wishes that there was more civility among the political classes in Washington. The worm turns. The wheel of karma rolls on. The shoe always comes to be on the other foot. It is precisely at the change of administrations when one party or the other comes to regret the things they have previously said. Specifically your Maximum Leader is thinking about President Obama’s “you lost” and “elections have consequences” comments to Congressional Republicans shortly after taking office. Your Maximum Leader can imagine President Trump using much saltier language to the same affect against Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in January 2017.

8 ) Your Maximum Leader hopes, but doesn’t really expect, that Mike Pence (Vice-President-elect Mike Pence), Speaker Ryan, and Senator McConnell, will be able to influence President-elect Trump with an agenda that can get done and can repair some of the damage done all around, by both candidates, in this campaign.

9 ) Get over attacks on James Comey. While your Maximum Leader would not have made the same decisions he did about releasing information about ongoing investigations, Comey did what he thought best and has been as bipartisan as it is possible for an FBI Director to be. It may also be that Comey’s letters may have had less impact than we all have thought. (Please see #5 above.)

10 ) Pollsters and pundits really need to figure out what the hell they are doing and do better. The Brexit vote should have been a red flag telling pollsters that people lie to pollsters - especially if by being honest they think that they will be branded as racists, bigots, and degenerates. Apparently only the USC/LA Times polling picked Trump. Your Maximum Leader seems to recall reading somewhere along the line how the USC/LAT polls were “complex” and “poorly weighted.” So he dismissed them. He thinks now that the method used to collect this poll data will be replicated by others. Particularly the identification of people to participate in long-term polling and seeing the evolution of opinion. Also, by talking to the same people month after month, a level of trust - and a level of honesty with the pollster - is established. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know how this would work out, but it deserves being looked at.

That is all for now…

Carry on.

Follow your Maximum Leader on Twitter and Gab.ai. His handle: @maximumleader

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will grace you all with his last thoughts on the impending election. He’ll even do this in the first person, for your reading pleasure.

I’ve not commented on the 2016 election as some might have expected. Afterall, I am an amateur student of politics and have, since I was very young, had a keen interest in it. But this year’s election went off the rails early and I’ve never been so disgusted in all my life by the state of political discourse in our Republic.

Perhaps I am growing older, more cynical, more bitter, more everything. I still find myself watching, reading and listening to commentary, news and the thoughts of others when it has come to the 2016 election. And the whole thing continues to disgust me. Not only is it disgusting, I actually have fears for the future of our Republic.

These fears may just be a general feeling of dread that come from hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and month after month of election coverage that doesn’t really change, it just continues down the tawdry path it started on. Maybe it is more than just general dread.

Well, let me begin at the end…

As I tweeted back in June that Hillary Clinton will become the next President of the United States. I stand by that. She will win tomorrow and will have achieved her ambitious goal. She will succeed to the office held once by her husband and be the first woman to hold the office. That being said… Hillary Clinton is an ambitious, corrupt, self-serving, paranoid, small-thinking person who under any normal circumstances would never get the nomination of the Democratic Party much less be elected President. As I’ve said to many people in person, Hillary Clinton has most of Richard Nixon’s negative traits with none of his positive traits.

I have to agree with many people who say that Hillary has an impressive resume. She does. But what really has she done in any of her positions? Nothing. From the moment Bill Clinton left office it has been painfully clear that any position Hillary Clinton aspired to was only a stepping stone to becoming President. She’s not been building a resume of qualifications. She has been ticking boxes on a checklist as she looks up to the ultimate goal.

Now, in order to be President you have to have ambition. I know that. Everyone with any sense knows it. But there is ambition and there is what Hillary has been doing. John McCain, after years in the Senate, got to thinking - as every Senator does at one point in their political career - that he would make a great President. He didn’t go to the Senate to become President. It was an eventual aspiration. Often people who are so unabashedly envious of the highest office in the land don’t actually ever get the chance to run. Because that ambition seems tawdry and unseemly. I think of Bill Nelson of Florida. He is currently the senior Senator from Florida. He was overly ambitious. The proverbial man in a hurry. His colleagues (and detractors) in Florida recognized his ambition for what it was and started jokingly calling him “Mr. President.” His ambition was the end of him. Sure, being a US Senator from a large state is a good gig, but it wasn’t where he wanted to be. People saw his ambition and were concerned. This concern goes back to the beginning of the Republic. If someone wanted to be President so badly, it was a disqualification of sorts. They had their own interests in front of those of the nation. If anyone other than Hillary Clinton had so shamelessly sought the office - from the beginning - I firmly believe that they would never have gotten far along in the primaries because people would have been suspicious of their motives and avoided her. But lucky for Hillary Clinton, she has always benefited from common perceptions not seeming to apply to her. She’s always wanted to be President and many people have just been fine with that. Frankly, this probably upsets me more than others.

Hillary Clinton’s ambition is, I believe, largely at fault for her many shortcomings. Her email scandals, her penchant for secrecy, her contempt for the press are all manifestations of her ambition. She has seen so many ways in which the path to her goal could be derailed, that she has made every effort to avoid the situations that could be problematic. But those avoidance tactics have just complicated her path and made her the phenomenally weak candidate that she is.

In fact, Hillary Clinton is such a weak candidate she would have been crushed in a general election by any person the Republican Party put forward.

Except one.

Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a narcissistic, megalomaniacal, carnival barker. He has no real understanding of how government works. He has blatant disregard for the institutions of government and of civil society. He is, as well I believe, an awful person.

It is hard to fully explain how bad a candidate Donald Trump is. I would try to point out bad policies. But it is hard to tell what his true beliefs are. I don’t honestly know that we know what Trump actually believes on anything. He says what he says without thought, reflection, or deeply held philosophy. Donald Trump is out for Donald Trump.

I’ve been told by Republican friends that Trump is better than Hillary. I don’t know how I could arrive at that position. Is he pro-life? Is he pro-choice? He’s been both. He seems to be against “globalism” and most every trade deal out there. I am for free-trade and think that globalism is generally a good thing. Trade deals don’t give everyone everything they want, because they are negotiated deals. One would think that Trump would understand how to make a deal. He has made business deals. But Trump can find a way out of a business deal by hiring a slew of lawyers and beating down his opponents. You don’t do that with a trade deal, or a military alliance, or a treaty obligation. Trump is against illegal immigration. I am too. But I am in favor of a radical overhaul of how we let people in from Central & South America. (For what it is worth, I am in favor of granting large numbers of temporary work visas for migrant workers. Many industries in the US would grind to a halt without immigrants - currently many illegal immigrants. I would prefer we establish a system to track coming and going and grant some legal status to the immigrant laborers who do much to build our nation.) Maybe Donald Trump is for comprehensive immigration reform. We don’t know. All we know is that he wants to build a wall. A big, beautiful, fucking wall. That is the extent of his discourse on immigration.

Donald Trump seems to be a rather vile person overall and I don’t want a vile person becoming President. I know he’s been accused of racism over the campaign. I don’t think that there is a lot of evidence of racism in his career prior to running for President, but he has been happy to play up the racist (at worst), or at least troubling (at best), prejudices of many Americans. That being said, Donald Trump hasn’t done anything to make anyone who isn’t white feel comfortable about how they would be regarded in “Trump’s America.”

I could go on and on about the negative qualities of both candidates. But I’ll stop here. It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe in the “undecided voter.” At least not this year. The only indecision in this year’s election was the type I had. Do you vote or not? That is being “undecided.”

I have voted in every election since I was eligible to vote. I live in Virginia and we have elections every year. Yes. Every. Single. Year. I’ve not missed one. President, Senate, Congress, Governor, County Board, Sheriff, Commissioner of Revenue, even Clerk of the Circuit Court. I’ve voted in all of them. I’ve voted for men, women, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. I’m a voter. Most of the time I’ve voted Republican. I’ve considered myself a “Conservative Republican” since the Reagan years. Sure I’ve pulled the trigger for some Democrats. (I voted for Chuck Robb for Senate in 1994 - when he ran against Oliver North. I also voted for Dave Crute as Mayor of Farmville, VA. I have also voted for other local office holders who are/were Democrats.) In Presidential Elections I’ve voted for Republicans. In primaries I’ve supported Republicans - and not always the winners. (I’ll admit that I flirted with Steve Forbes in ‘96, and before that Pat Buchanan against George H.W. Bush. Because I wanted Bush to be “more conservative.” In retrospect, I regret that. I should have had more appreciation in the moment for the elder Bush… Hell, this year I supported John Kasich. Frankly, I still support him and hope that he chooses to run in 2020.) But 2016 is the year I’m not voting for the “Republican” for President.

Donald Trump is no more a Republican than Vladimir Putin is a peacenik. Trump is Trump. All is about and for Trump. And just as assuredly as Donald Trump is not a Republican he is not conservative.

I’ve known my whole life that not all conservatives are Republicans and not all Republicans are conservatives. But since the 1980s it has been safe to say that Republicans were closer to my brand of conservatism than were Democrats. Today I don’t know what the party is for a conservative. Frankly, I’m not sure what will be left of the traditional party system in four years. Because either way you cut it, the parties are going to burn.

Yes. Both of them. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are disastrous for the parties for which they are standard bearers. It will happen first and harder for the Republicans. Over the decades I’ve heard, and been told more than once, that the Republican party is doomed and will split. But this is the first year I seriously think it could happen. It has been happening over the past four years. It happens when your party doesn’t have a firm set of beliefs and policy goals. The only thing unifying the Republican party has been opposition to Barack Obama. In many ways that is enough to get by, until the election comes around. Donald Trump has successfully driven out many conservatives. He has done all he can possibly do to alienate minorities from coming to the Republican party. And he’s doing all he can to burn down the party apparatus by making the election all about him - no matter what he says or does.

Now many of my Republican friends point out that the party “elites” have grown away from the “base.” In many respects that is true. But I prefer to think that no one in the Republican party has tried to provide leadership and vision to the base to move them forward. Many Republicans are no better than or different from Democrats when it comes to keeping their jobs and doing very little. That is a serious problem. But the solution to the problem is not Donald Trump. He only makes the problems worse. I know many people who have said for years “if only the Republicans would put up a “real conservative” - then we could really show the Democrats and change America.” These people didn’t like John McCain or Mitt Romney. Those nominees “weren’t conservative enough.” Well… Here’s the thing. There aren’t enough conservatives in America to win the Presidency on the basis of only winning conservative votes. You have to appeal to conservatives, moderates, some liberals, and to idiots in order to get elected. Having said all that, Donald Trump isn’t a conservative. He is a populist carnie who is appealing to the most base feelings of a significant portion of the population. He is not the leader of a broad-based movement that will save America. He is a flame that has already damaged political discourse and political institutions. No good can come from him.

I don’t know what the future will bring for the Republican party. But there is some serious soul-searching and work to be done. If they want to be a serious party for the future they will have to purge some of the voices that echo the worst of Trump. They will have to come up with an ideology and a standard bearer for that ideology. If not, they will become a marginal group that will shrink to irrelevance. It is possible that some conservatives will bolt and form another party. One that is more conservative. I don’t know. But change is coming.

Of course, the Democrats are not out of the woods themselves. Hillary Clinton will be a disaster for them and for the nation. All the problems that have beset her as a candidate will magnify themselves 100 fold as President. Her penchant for secrecy will be viewed as Nixonian - and as much as they press may not like to do it I believe that they will ultimately have to report on the misdeeds that will surely come. Hillary Clinton’s first reaction to criticism is attack the source, circle the wagons, and protect herself. The press will go along for a time, but they eventually come around to defending themselves. Hillary Clinton will continue to use the Democratic party as an extension of her ambition and the disillusionment that is currently being felt by Bernie Sanders supporters who think that she used dirty tricks to cheat their guy out of the nomination will grow. I suspect that we’ll see that Hillary Clinton has, or will, use the party apparatus in some way that she shouldn’t and it will cause lasting damage to the party.

And when both parties are damaged, and when both candidates are so terribly flawed it can only hurt the Republic. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton care a wit about the nation. They are in it for themselves. As such, they can’t be transformational leaders, or even leaders. They only know blunt force. When the only tool you have in your kit is blunt force, you meet nothing but resistance. If you think that Hillary Clinton can “bring America together” then you need to share whatever you’re smoking with Gary Johnson. She can’t. She’ll never bring along anyone who isn’t already supporting her. You can’t govern a diverse nation without reaching out. And she’s incapable of doing that.

So gird your loins for four years of partisanship, bitterness, invective, investigation, and accusation that will make the last eight years of Barack Obama seem like the Era of Good Feelings.

So if you are wondering, after this rambling wreck of a blog post, “who will Mike be voting for?” Well let me tell you. This is the year where I’ve realized that the franchise is only an affirmative franchise. We vote “for” someone. A vote “for” someone is a positive affirmation of that candidate. There isn’t a vote that relates that the recipient of that vote is the “lesser of possible evils.” And we don’t have a “no” or “none of the above” category. Up until 2016 I’ve been able to vote “for” everyone I’ve ever marked a ballot for. I may not have agreed with them on everything. I know that I’ve held my nose voting for some. But I’ve always been able to assure myself that the person receiving my vote was qualified to hold the office and wouldn’t engage in malfeasance in office. I can’t say that about either major party candidate this year. I thought for a long time I’d vote for Gary Johnson. But the more I’ve learned, the less impressed I’ve been. Johnson doesn’t seem up to the job. I suspect that I’ll go into the voting booth tomorrow and leave blank the spot where I vote for President. (I’ll cast a vote for Rob Whitman - my Congressman. And I’ll vote against the Constitutional measures on the ballot.) I’ll not endorse anyone for President - because not one of them are worth my imprimatur. They are all an awful lot and not worthy of the office for which they run.

There is some small nagging voice within me that says I should vote for someone. I may get into the voting booth and realize that I just HAVE TO vote for someone to be President. I don’t know. I may yet vote for Gary Johnson - if only to boost the future prospects of the Libertarian Party. I might vote for Evan McMullin - who doesn’t seem to be ill-informed, ill-mannered, or incompetent. One thing is certain, I’ll not vote for Clinton or Trump.

All this being written… I could be wrong. I doubt it. But I could be. I also encourage you to vote. (If you haven’t already. And aren’t dead.)

As I say as your Maximum Leader,

Carry on.

UPDATED: Ballot completed. Was voter 268 in my precinct. Felt compelled to cast vote for President. It was Johnson. Don’t feel good about that. But it is finished.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader posted his Electoral College map back in July. If you have visited this site since July, you’ve surely wondered, “Is my Maximum Leader still confident of his Electoral College predictions?” Well, your Maximum Leader has made some adjustments. The outcome is the same, but here is his revised Electoral Map:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Congratulations, President-Elect Clinton and Vice-President-Elect Tim Kaine.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s buddy Kevin re-took the Political Compass test. He posted his results here.

Your Maximum Leader re-took the Political Compass Test. Here are his results:

Your Maximum Leader can’t immediately find the links to his previous results, but he thinks he’s grown more Libertarian and suspicious of authority.

UPDATED BY YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: Something compelled your Maximum Leader to retake the test, but change some of his answers from “agree” or “disagree” to “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree.” (For example the first time he took the test he “agreed” that what happens in the bedroom should be private, but changed it to “strongly agree” in the second test.) The change of a few answers gave him this result:

A little more right-wing, but about the same on Libertarianism… Interesting.

Carry on.

Follow your Maximum Leader on the Twitter and on Gab.ai: @maximumleader

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader stirs from his slumber to note the passing of King Bhumibol of Thailand. As reported in the AP, the King was the world’s longest reigning monarch. Beyond his longevity, he was the unifying figure in Thai society. Even here in the United States that is evident. To wit: your Maximum Leader can’t recall a Thai restaurant, or the home of Thai immigrants, that he’s been in and has not found at least a small photo of King Bhumibol.

It will be interesting, and concerning, to watch the situation in Thailand over the next few months. The military junta running the country will undoubtedly feel pressure to allow some sort of democracy to re-start in the nation. Your Maximum Leader has read, and John Oliver popularly noted, that the Crown Prince is not a particularly beloved (or competent) figure. One hopes that the transition from one monarch to another is peaceful. But in the world we live in, we’ll have to keep an eye on this unfolding situation.

Carry on.

Follow your Maximum Leader on the Twitter or on Gab.ai at: @maximumleader.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is not dead or departed from this place. He’s just lazy and busy with real life.

Some things to put out there for you…

Your Maximum Leader has been working on an essay for this space. It started as an examination of the 2nd Amendment, but is now just a mediocre political screed. He does want to finish and publish it. If only for a feeling of accomplishment. Perhaps he’ll work on it this weekend when it will be unfit for man or beast to venture outside the air conditioning…

The Republican National Convention is over. For the first time since 1980 your Maximum Leader hasn’t watched a significant portion of a political convention. He normally watches most of prime time for both major parties. This year he’s watched nothing. He doesn’t plan on watching any of the Democrats party either. Both major party candidates are completely unpalatable to your Maximum Leader. He will be voting for Gary Johnson the Libertarian candidate. If he doesn’t vote for Johnson, he’ll be voting for Cthulhu.

Speaking of politics… Let your Maximum Leader be among the first to congratulate Hillary Clinton on being elected President of the United States. Here is your Maximum Leader’s electoral map preditiction:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Your Maximum Leader might move Indiana over to Trump with its 11 Electoral votes. But he isn’t ready to move that state over yet.

And moving away from politics…

Your Maximum Leader’s best buddy Kevin surprised him with some Bundaberg Ginger Beer. It was an unexpected and wonderful gift. When a large box arrived at the Villainschloss, your Maximum Leader’s offspring were anxious to open it and discover what lay within. When they did open the box there were less enthusiastic than was your Maximum Leader. Which is a little strange because all of your Maximum Leader’s offspring really like ginger beer. Now, the standard ginger beer of the Villainschloss is Goslings. Your Maximum Leader is quite fond of Dark & Stormys and he tends to keep a supply of both Goslings rum and ginger beer on hand to make them. Your Maximum Leader has also had “Q” Brand ginger beer as well as Saranac ginger beer. While both Q and Saranac have characteristics to commend them, your Maximum Leader doesn’t care for them as much as Goslings. This weekend will be the moment of truth. Your Maximum Leader will taste test Bundaberg ginger beer and Goslings ginger beer. Kevin did his own taste test between ginger ale and ginger beer here. Your Maximum Leader will publish the results here and let you know his thoughts on this.

That is all for now…

Carry on.

UPDATE: There is one little update about the Electoral College map posted above. Your Maximum Leader could see where Iowa & Indiana go for Trump. Which would make the totals: Clinton - 336, Trump - 202. (Nebraska would give a vote to Clinton as they divvy them out proportionally. Maine does too, but your Maximum Leader thinks Maine goes all to Clinton.) As 270 is the magic number, Hillary Clinton still wins.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is excited that today is the first (full) day of baseball season for 2016. Sure there were games yesterday, but he feels like today is really the day. This is in part because his beloved Washington Nationals will start the season in Atlanta taking on the Division rival Braves.

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t done as much season previewing as he normally does. That is in large part due to his beloved hockey team, the Washington Capitals, being on the brink of the playoffs. He’s been focused on the Capitals since October and will stay primarily locked in on the Caps until their season is done. But now baseball will start creeping into the rotation of sports in his mind… So, about previews or predictions for the Nationals this season… Well… The New York Mets are the hot NL team this year. Being in the same division as the Mets, the Nationals are well positioned to either do well and surprise people, or just submit to the “inevitability” of the Metropolitans. It looks like Miami (who has for some mad reason always played well against the Nationals - even when they were the doormat of the rest of the league) might be a little stronger than expected. The Nationals are not, in my estimation at least, in the top tier of NL clubs. Those top tier clubs are: Cubs, Cardinals, Dodgers, Mets and possibly the Pirates too. Your Maximum Leader places the Nationals just out of that group. Of course, the season is a long one and we are just beginning it.

Your Maximum Leader predicts that the Nationals will win about 85-90 games this season. He isn’t sure that will be enough to get into the playoffs. Of course, he hopes for better than that, but from what he sees right now, that prediction makes sense.

By the way… Your Maximum Leader will attend his first game of the season on April 23rd… He hopes to get about 10 games in this year…

Carry on.

Follow your Maximum Leader on the Tweety: @maximumleader