I think it is obvious that I am not a great blogger. I still have a number of partially written posts and ideas for posts which have not and may never see the light of day. Some of them are bad, like a description of journals in physics, so it is OK if they never come out.
I was asked recently about the current election and what it means to Experimental High Energy Physics (HEP).
Recently there has been limited funding for HEP and fundamental science in general despite both parties saying they support fundamental science. The problem arrises due to the Democrat President and Republican House disagreeing on everything and so not agreeing on a budget, even though both budgets support fundamental science. Later, when an emergency agreement is made, only the priorities are agreed on and fundamental science is not a priority to either party.
Due to this, and the intrinsic power Republicans have in the House, neither of the Democrat candidates would be great for fundamental science.
If we consider the Republican candidates we also run into problems. The chaos of a Trump presidency would result in fundamental science being forgotten. Cruz values enormous tax cuts, beyond anything that Reagan or Bush envisioned, in addition to a balanced Federal budget. This would result in no funding for science of any kind, and little for social programs or the military. That leaves Kasich whose program merely consists of large tax cuts and a move towards a balanced budget. This would result in limited funding for fundamental science.
Most likely Sanders, Clinton and Kasich would continue to support fundamental science including HEP at approximately the current level.
