Closing arguments: Beware the Ides of October and what is at stake

Ancient Romans had a superstition that on a certain  date, something bad would happen and they expressed it with  “beware the Ides of March”.  We should rephrase that as the “beware the Ides (or near Ides) of October”, since that is when political dirty tricks and surprises seem to come out of the blue.  The FBI dropped a potential game changer eleven days before Nov 8 when they wrote  a letter to Congressional leadership saying they found more emails that pertained to Hillary Clinton’s email server.

Timing is everything .  The surprises coming so late in the game give the targets no time to defend themselves, especially when reports are the FBI investigators sat on this information for weeks, waiting until October 27 to tell Director Comey, putting him in an untenable situation , danged if he did and did if he did not.  

 It is even more of a surprise when the surprise is unprecedented, with its director violating his own FBI department and Department of Justice rules not to spring findings related to a candidate within the 60 day pre election day period or that they  violated their  own FBI  rules not to discuss if and what was being investigated until the investigation was completed.  How did it happen that the FBI  announced they were undertaking more investigations of Hillary Clinton’s emails without having even reviewed the material that appeared to be “pertinent” and were not sent by her?   

Another surprise was sudden attention on the long predicted increase in Obamacare premiums. If you get your insurance from an exchange and you get a subsidy  or you get your insurance from your employer, or military related provider,  or   are on Medicare and Medicaid, you will not see an increase due to Obamacare.premiums because they do not get insurance through the Obamacare system,. That is due to a general increase in health care costs which would have risen anyway and will be worse even if Obamacare goes away.Those who earn too much money to be qualified  for subsidies.who do  get insurance from the state Obamacare exchanges will see the hike. Congress can fix that if it wants to.

Who occupies  the  White House will have the power to influence our lives by  interpreting legislation broadly, appointing  agreeing cabinet officials, and nominating candidates to fill Supreme Court and lower court vacancies.Whether you still have to vote, know that whatever your motivation, love, hate, protest, your vote for a candidate or non vote or a third party vote is then all that really counts to determine who will occupy the White House and run the Senate. Recent Colorado polls: Clinton and Tump are tied in the state.

Here is what at stake : If Donald Trump and the GOP continue to be the majority in both houses of Congress and control the White House and Supreme Court appointee process, women’s control of their reproductive lives is in danger as Roe v Wade could be overturned. Obamacare will be repealed with no effective and comparable replacement for the 20 million losing insurance. The GOP still beats its drums for repeal of Obamacare, but after years of trying, they have found no replacement to cover similar numbers with similar consumer protections. Donald Trump proposes enormous tax cuts for the rich depending on old failed trickle down theories, and will increase the gap between the rich and the middle class. Fossil fuels will get preferential treatment .  

What is even more critical are the issues of war and peace:  Donald Trump’s stream of conscious  uncontrolled  demagogic mouth vs. skilled diplomatic experience of Hillary Clinton is the choice we must make  in a dangerous world where one word or phrase could harm American national security,  and provoke  a needless war  or a frightening incident that leads us to the brink.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/12/news/economy/health-care-costs/index.htm