The danger is greater today than it was in July of 1863 that government “of the people, by the people, for the people” may perish from the earth.

I’ve survived a long battle with cancer to find my country afflicted by twin deadly cancers.  The election of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump spells doom for the constitutional republic for which – during my service in the Marine Corps and Army Special Forces -- I was willing to lay down my life.

Even if he weren’t a liberal Democrat, a con man, a boor, and an ignoramus on public policy, I’d never vote for Trump because he’s the antithesis of everything my parents taught me a good man should be.

Hillary Clinton is even worse.  If they weren’t the presumptive nominees of their parties, neither Hillary nor The Donald could get a security clearance.

In their desperation to stop her, some conservatives refuse to recognize how little difference there is between the political views of Hillary and Trump, and none whatsoever in their (lack of) ethics.  Arsenic is as deadly a poison as cyanide.  I don’t plan to take either.

It’s not hard to see why the discussion of Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes’ exchanges with the New York Times – The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru –  has received so much attention from the chattering class. A lot of it is all about them, after all, and we all love to talk about ourselves.

By now, we’ve all heard the insults to the D.C. press corps (they’re 27 years old and don’t know anything about anything) and the self-satisfied account about how Rhodes and his colleagues, including Obama himself, deceived America about the Iran deal.

The deception hasn’t stopped, however, nor does it go away because Obama and Rhodes have given us a new account of the Iran deal.

For now we discover that negotiations with Iran started even before Obama was inaugurated, and had nothing to do with events over there. It was Obama’s initiative, and  it’s the key to his foreign policy.

The end is near — depending on how you define “near” and where you live.

A couple of weeks ago, hedge fund legend Stanley Druckenmiller gave an important talk arguing that the crisis is about to hit and investors should liquidate their equity holdings. He and others who have similar views have been the subject of much debate among economists — more of it about the timing of the next global and U.S. downturn and not so much about whether it will come.

The crisis has already hit many — depending on where you live and what assets you hold — and will eventually spread to billions of others, including a very large segment of the U.S. population.

The fundamental problem is most countries are experiencing little or no growth as a result of excessive government spending (particularly on transfer payments), and destructive regulations and tax policies.

The unwillingness of the politicians (and their voters) to cut back on spending and regulation has led to an explosion of government debt, which is not sustainable at current levels of economic growth. This, in turn, is fueling a demand for more government spending (more free stuff) and thus more debt.

How long do you think this can go on?

Earlier this week, Jack published “The To The Point Rebel Alliance.” You should certainly read it if you haven’t. It starts with a clip of the Galactic Senate giving Palpatine thunderous applause as he declares himself emperor.

Across the Atlantic, two branches of a very real empire collided a couple of weeks ago. Barack Obama threatened Britain with draconian consequences should it vote to leave the European Union (or as it’s more fondly known, the EUSR). Boris Johnson’s rejoinder was an instant classic, demonstrating that he, not David Cameron, is Margaret Thatcher’s true heir.

Continuing to confound expectations of his certain doom, this week Donald Trump pulled ahead of or even with Hillary Clinton in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Quinnipiac has Trump 4 points ahead (43-39) in life-and-death Ohio, and just 1 point down (43-42) in the other two.

Hillary's mistakes just keep piling up, as virtually everything she does seems to reinforce the Trump brand. Indeed the campaign is so tone-deaf that everyone’s earlier worries about Trump being a ringer for Hillary increasingly look backward: if anything, it’s Hillary who’s working to elect Trump.

All this, plus Admiral Akbar, America’s own Emperor Palpatine, and the most encouraging Jimmy Kimmel segment you’ve ever seen, all in this week’s Half Full Report.

Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee, Republicans should unite behind him, say, among others, (Republican National Chairman) Reince Priebus and (over the hill blowhard) Newt Gingrich.

Fat chance of that.  I wonder who (besides themselves) they think they’re kidding?

A conservative columnist I admire, former Army colonel Kurt Schlichter, despises Trump almost as much as I do, but plans to vote for him, because he thinks Hillary would be worse.  Hillary is a fascist, Kurt says.  Trump is more of a clown.

Rick Wilson, one of the few GOP consultants I think is worth a hoot, said he may vote for Hillary because he thinks Trump would be worse.

I don’t see how a principled conservative could vote for either.  To choose between Trump and Hillary is like taking sides in the Iran-Iraq war.  America wins only if both lose.

Well, at least he wants to call "radical Islam" by its name. I’ll give him that. But then there’s that silly, misleading bit about how we Americans love it when former enemies become friends.

Most of the time this is said with regards to Germany and Japan, our leading enemies in the Second World War that are now close allies. If you put it that way it’s just a happy story, and it fits with Trump’s theme of making ours the happiest times … ever.

But it so drastically oversimplifies the subject that it’s worrisome, because he suggests that our current unpleasantness with Russia and China can be transformed if we sit down and make a deal. You know, the sort he claims he’s so fabulous at making.

The enemies-to-friends/allies story about Germany and Japan came about only after we destroyed them in a world war, not because FDR and Truman struck wonderful deals with them.

Enmity is like that. Trump’s dealmaking theory of making friends out of enemies has, in fact, just been tested by Barack Obama, and it hasn’t worked out very well.