The United States of America is the nation of freedom, liberty, and equality. It is a land like no other where man and woman, young and old, black and white, and those of all types of religions can come together for the good of the nation.

How many of you believe that Congress makes the laws of our land? How many of you believe presidential executive orders are also the law of our land? How many of you believe the Supreme court’s decisions are the law of our land?

Is there a Republican legislator in your district who is secretly an abortion-supporting Planned Parenthood minion ? If you live in Brookings or Sioux Falls (or District 34 in Rapid City), then there’s a pretty good chance that the answer to that question is “Yes”.

The Washington Post’s credibility, to the extent it still has any, is on the line. Jonathan Capehart cannot help himself. One shoddy article has now given rise to a second.

Wilfred McClay of the University of Oklahoma best summarized the root cause of conservatives’ unpleasant choice for president this fall: “when a political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising essential topics, the electorate will soon turn to ‘unrespectable’ ones” like Donald Trump.

As John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” This is true in the gun control debate, as evidence shows that guns keep us safe. A gun is used eighty times more often to save a life than to take one, and nations with more gun ownership have less crime.

Now that we’re stuck with the ugly choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, we’re long overdue for a chat about just how easily this mess could have been avoided. Shocking though it may be that such a cartoonishly unqualified and un-conservative figure could sweep the Republican nomination, it was inevitable that the mistakes and blind spots that establishmentarians and conservatives allowed to fester for years would eventually blow up in our faces.

On Sunday, the Libertarian Party nominated the former Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson as their alternative to Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Governor Johnson has been a longtime advocate of legalizing marijuana, and has also said that he would issue pardons to non-violent marijuana offenders via executive order.

The unprincipled, unhinged, and unelectable Trump is clearly the wrong instrument for Republicans’ reckoning, but if the impending disaster ends with the GOP blown away and conservatives free to build a new, principled party on its ruins, there may be a silver lining to this farce yet.

The left’s agenda is to impose their distinctly minority view of life on the rest of us. When they believe science helps their case, they argue science. When science undermines their position, they turn to subjective feelings. In their alternate universe, truth and reality are the first casualties.