by Dave McElhaney

There’s a radio station here in New Mexico that I listen to which plays rare oldies I like, but it also comes with a political agenda. Their version of the news consists of mostly whitewashing Trump and the occasional vilification of Democratic senators. I found out where the station’s political leanings were back in 2016 when I heard one of the DJ’s constantly trashing Hillary. I supported and voted for Hillary, but at the time didn’t resent the jokes so much because I reckoned Trump too revolting to be elected. I was looking forward to President Hillary and first Gent Bill.

That’s not how the cookie crumbled. And during the time of the 2016 election I knew a fellow who had always been liberal, but because Bernie Sanders didn’t win the primary, he decided Hillary was evil. “She’s terrible, crooked,” he would say. “She’s taken money from Wall Street!” He voted for Jill Stein from the Green Party. As far as I can tell, he’s never voted for any major party candidate, but now we really do have a crooked president, in part because of those who chose not to vote, but to a certain degree because of those who voted third-party candidate.

And now that same oldie radio station I listen to is running one add that goes like this, “Tired of the same old political parties, vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson for Senate,” Their other commercials are for Republican Mick Rich who’s also running for the same senate seat in New Mexico. But it’s no accident that they don’t have any commercials for Democrat Martin Heinrich, who’s up for re-election.

Sure, there are plenty of adds on TV for Martin Heinrich and theirs is not the only radio station in town with Republican sponsors. They all seem that way to me. But let’s take a look at something else that plays into the midterm elections, and that’s a viewpoint held by some people about the Democrats.

I watched a segment on YouTube by a group associated with TYT (The Young Turks), a network out of LA that I respect. In the segment they had a young lady informing Trump supporters at a rally about the Trump family’s tax evasions through the years, entitled “Trump supporters SHRUG OFF his bankruptcies and tax crimes.” She started out by saying “I’m here in Erie Pennsylvania and I wanted to tell Trump supporters about the bombshell New York Times report that Trump received around 413 million dollars from his father and together they worked to evade taxes by undervaluing their properties etc.” Then she interviewed one old duffer with a potbelly and a cane, sporting a star spangled t-shirt and hat. When she told the star-spangled fellow about Donald Trump receiving far more than just one million from Fred Trump and that in fact it was 413 million, his reply was predictable. “What about Hillary and Bill? You know they make money and never report it.” Her answer was, “They’re not president.” Then the star-spangled fellow said, “She would have made it.” Then she replied, “Hey I think Hillary Clinton has gotten a ton of money from shady sources, but I’m asking you,”

That’s where she lost me. And I noticed a grin on the star-spangled duffer’s face, when she said “Hey I think Hillary Clinton’s gotten a ton of money from shady sources.” You could say she just wanted to get across the message without an argument from the guy. But she’s not there to agree with people if she’s from a liberal network reporting at a Trump rally. She could have said that’s debatable because Fact Check doesn’t support either claim about Hillary. In addition to that, Fact Check also points out some misleading claims made about Hillary by even Vladimir Putin.

Voting is important and let us not forget that during the 2016 presidential election 46.9 percent of America’s eligible voters didn’t vote. As for those who voted third party, note that Cenk Uygur founder of The Young Turks had been an independent from 2000 until 2016, the year of the presidential election, now he votes Democrat. This is because Cenk Uygur, whose organization is always very anti- Trump, realizes that the way to beat Trump is vote Democrat.

Summing it up, when Michael Cohen former personal attorney and Trump fixer tells you go to the polls and vote Democrat, that’s who to vote for this midterm.