Happy Memorial Day weekend. The Jolt returns Tuesday. The Crazy Gambit: Vote Johnson-Weld to Get Ryan-[TBD]? The Libertarians are meeting in Orlando, and by Sunday night, they'll have their nominee. At first glance, with two unpopular major nominees and a sense of deep discontent in the country, the Libertarian party should be set for their best year ever. But will they? The Libertarian National Convention kicks off at the Rosen Centre on International Drive, with more than 900 delegates from across the country meeting to choose their nominee for president. And if recent polls are any indication, the result potentially could have a major impact on the election this fall. "This convention is going to be huge," said Libertarian National Chair Nicholas Sarwark, adding that it is expected to be the party's largest in nearly 40 years. The front runner, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, received 10 percent of the vote vs. Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton in a three-way matchup, according to a May 20 Fox News poll. Trump was at 42 percent while Clinton was at 39 percent . . . There is some skepticism about the poll results, however. Public Policy Polling's latest poll of North Carolina has Johnson with 3 percent to Green Party candidate Jill Stein's 2 percent, stating that Johnson polls lower because it included more than one third-party candidate. As somebody put it to me lately, Gary Johnson looks so good on paper, and then he opens his mouth, and suddenly he sounds like the laid back high school teacher who rarely assigns homework and likes reminiscing about his days protesting the Vietnam War. Back in 2011, The Economist credited him with "the authenticity of awkwardness." Some Libertarians saw Wednesday's profile of Johnson's running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, as a hit piece. To me, the two most fascinating aspects of Weld are (1) how his long career had him working with and against almost every major player in American politics in the past half-century -- Hillary Clinton, the Watergate impeachment staff, Ronald Reagan, Ed Meese, Bill Clinton, Jesse Helms, John Kerry, John Podesta, Ted Kennedy . . . (2) his recent reversals -- for Obama and then against, endorsing Kasich and then criticizing him, a complete 180-degree turn on gun control, et cetera. Love his shifts or hate them, they're all a part of his record and fair game. Now, if you want to see a hit piece, the Boston Globe's Scot Lehigh speculates that Weld' secret endgame is to make Paul Ryan the next president. Weld declined a request for an interview until after the Libertarian Party National Convention in Orlando, but he has said publicly that he wants to nudge the Democrats rightward on fiscal issues and the Republicans leftward on social matters. But let's look for craftier intent. Weld, the Globe has reported, is telling confidants that he hopes the Libertarian ticket will attract enough votes to deny either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton the 270 electoral votes needed to win, thereby pushing the election into the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. That rationale certainly gives Republicans discontent with Donald Trump a reason for voting the Johnson-Weld ticket. Why, if the decision were thrown to the House, Speaker Paul Ryan might just become president. Problem: The into-the-House scenario is highly unlikely. Despite winning 19 percent of the national vote in 1992, Ross Perot garnered no electoral votes. The last third-party candidate to make any electoral college impact was Southern segregationist George Wallace, who carried five states in 1968. He, too, hoped to force the election into the House, there to play kingmaker, but the 46 electoral votes he won weren't enough to deny Richard Nixon victory. Checking In with President Nobel Peace Prize . . . Shot: Obama called on countries like the U.S. that have nuclear weapons to "have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them." "We have known the agony of war," Obama wrote in the guest book at the memorial site. "Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace and pursue a world without nuclear weapons." Chaser: A new census of the American nuclear arsenal shows that the Obama administration last year dismantled its smallest number of warheads since taking office. The new figures, released by the Pentagon, also highlight a trend -- that the current administration has reduced the nuclear stockpile less than any other post-Cold War presidency. Of course. Turn to another one of Obama's remarks: "That is a future we can choose," Obama said in a speech on Friday after laying a wreath at the site, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by his side. "A future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening." Except Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't the dawn of atomic warfare. Nobody's used an atomic or nuclear weapon since then. Sure, we had some tense moments and near-misses during the Cold War, but the genie has largely remained inside the bottle. How many people would have bet in 1945 that no nuclear weapons would be used in war in the next seventy years? In a world where governments fail all the time, avoiding a nuclear exchange through decades of on-and-off warfare might be their most significant accomplishment. And a key part of that accomplishment was keeping the number of countries with nuclear weapons to the minimum possible. The United States split the atom, and though the 1960s, only Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and China had nukes. India and Pakistan detonated their own bombs; Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but has never publicly confirmed it. We live in a world where countries have voluntarily ended their nuclear programs -- South Africa dismantled theirs in the 1990s. Belarus, Kazakhistan and Ukraine transferred weapons on their soil to Russia. (Bet Ukraine regrets that, huh?) And then there's North Korea, where no one seems to have any leverage or certainty that their bombs work, and Iran, where the administration seems content to live with a promise not to develop a weapon for a decade or so. Where our leaders have completely dropped the ball is stopping the use of chemical weapons. Syria's regime has used sarin nerve gas for the first time since 2013, dropping bombs laden with the chemical agent on Isil fighters outside Damascus, according to a senior Israeli official. This use of sarin would show that Bashar al-Assad has retained the ability to gas his enemies despite an agreement that supposedly disarmed Syria of its chemical arsenal. And . . . Islamic State has moved its chemical weapons operation to densely populated residential areas and is testing homemade chlorine and mustard gas on its prisoners, residents of the Iraqi city of Mosul have claimed. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) is reported to have set up laboratories in built-up neighbourhoods in the heart of its so-called caliphate to avoid being targeted by coalition air strikes. It sounds rather silly to wax poetic about a nuclear-free world when the two sides in the Syrian conflict are defying the "red line" with impunity, launching poisons without consequence, killing thousands and destabilizing Europe with a wave of desperate refugees as well. One final note: Depending upon whom you ask, the death toll in the Iraq War was 151,000 to 1 million. One of the estimates of civilian noncombatants is 112,000-123,000. Depending upon whom you ask, the death toll in Syria's civil war has reached 152,000 to 470,000; one estimate of civilian casualties is about 81,000. When America intervenes, as in Iraq, a collapsing Arab state convulses in mass bloodshed. When America doesn't intervene, as in Syria, a collapsing Arab state also convulses in mass bloodshed. For all of our flaws, we're not the cause of collapsing Arab states convulsing in mass bloodshed. Welcome Home, John E Anderson Finally, a story for Memorial Day . . . our fallen soldiers from World War II are still coming home, 72 years later: 
The remains of John E. Anderson arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Thursday evening. People waving flags, some saluting, some with hand on heart, greeted the hearse carrying his casket all along U.S. Highway 12. The three-vehicle cortege arrived at Willmar shortly after 8:30 p.m. The Willmar native was was a motor machinist mate 1st class who was killed in action on Normandy Beach June 6, 1944, according to the U.S. Navy. Anderson, who was 24 at the time of his death, was believed to be lost at sea, according to West Central Tribune reports. For 72 years, his remains were interred in the American Cemetery in France, in a grave marked "Unknown X-91.'' His remains were recently identified and were returned to Willmar around 8:40 p.m. Thursday. A memorial service with military honors will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Willmar War Memorial Auditorium. ADDENDA: On this week's pop-culture podcast, Mickey and I catch up on puppy bonding and ping-pong injuries, debating whether Hollywood's worst recent move is the Angry Birds movie, the Beauty and the Beast live-action remake, or Sony's plan to preemptively slime Ghostbusters critics as sexist; the seemingly endless NHL and NBA playoffs, a transition in the world of professional wrestling, Millennials living at home, and the "emotional terrorism" of Zillow commercials. For some reason, last week's show traffic surged, so thanks to everyone who's listening.  | 
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