Today is not just any old primary day as you know. History is being made - not just for the Republican Party, not just in the country, but the global repercussions the results of the US presidential election will have on the world. Can you imagine how nervous and filled with anxiety the candidates are? Is this Rubio's last stand? I think so. I still feel strongly that Trump could pull off the key states of Florida and possibly Ohio. What are the odds .....?
Primary voting in those two states today could determine whether there will be a contested convention among Republicans or a clear path to the nomination for Trump. Much is at stake. Voting for both parties also takes place in Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina. Here's what we're watching. Bernie Sanders is looking to repeat his upset in Michigan across the Rust Belt, where Hillary's support for trade agreements has created distrust among working-class voters. Stay tuned ...
By the way ... Legal disputes are emerging across the nation over voting requirements, district lines and the rules governing elections.
Gov. John R. Kasich is aiming to become the main establishment Republican alternative to Trump, but he'll have to win the primary in his home state, Ohio, today. Not surprisingly, the state flag was part of the backdrop at rallies as Mr. Kasich recently barnstormed across the state. What's unusual is that Ohio is the only U.S. state with a nonrectangular flag. It has a swallowtail design, like a cavalry flag or those used by yacht clubs. (Nepal has the world's only nonquadrilateral national flag.)
Ohio's flag made its debut in 1901 in Buffalo, hanging from the Ohio building at the Pan-American Exposition, a World's Fair. John Eisenmann, its designer, based it on the pennant flown by the Ohio cavalry during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. The flag is also distinguished by a blue triangle that has 17 stars. Thirteen stars are grouped together to represent the original colonies, with four more added because Ohio was the 17th state to enter the union. A large white circle with a red center represents the ÒOÓ for Ohio. It also suggests the state's nickname, Òthe Buckeye State,Ó which comes from the buckeye tree.'
Beware the Ides of March
I came, I saw, I conquered.
As Trump speaks of building walls and barring Muslims from entering the U.S., it's interesting to note that the supreme symbol of American immigration was first conceived to be Arab. The Statue of Liberty - depicting a Roman goddess - began as a robed woman representing Egypt, scholars say. The design, by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, was based on one for a lighthouse he proposed in 1869, to be built at the mouth of the Suez Canal and called 'Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia'. The lighthouse was to be in the form of a woman standing with a torch in her hand. Bartholdi's sketches were inspired by the Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. But the canal's construction sent Egypt into debt. So the khedive, or viceroy, of Egypt didn't have the money to make the Frenchman's dream a reality. Bartholdi reimagined his design, and his masterpiece in New York was completed in 1886.
