http://thebostontribune.com/
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The Nobel Peace President will leave office with America engaged in a multitude of wars, America's role shrunken and the world in a mess. So much for electing an arrogant incompetent.
Now we seem anxious to do it again but this time we are apparently placing our bets on a woman who escaped jail because she is above the law.
Hillary also received four able assists. One from Trump, one from Obama and the other from Comey and let's not forget the prestigious law firm in DC.
Specific to Trump, he reminds me of an undisciplined prize fighter who rejects orthodox training methods and is likely to knock himself out with his own wild swings.
Obama, unlike Trump, is very organized and purposeful. He thinks he knows what he is doing but when everything begins to collapse he blames everyone else.
Comey's actions are an example of how powerful pressure can corrupt anyone. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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The Republican Party is an elephant with three conflicting snouts. As long as it remains philosophically conflicted it is unlikely to win at the top unless the Dems really screw up and even then that may not be enough and Repubs might not even be able to control Congress. (See 2 below.)
In a Democratic Republic the way to bring about peaceful change is through the ballot box but when the candidates running are repugnant that too might not work. If this circumstance persists long enough discontent could drive citizens to seek redress through other more violent means or they could just sit silently by as America becomes just another third world type nation.. This is the history of many South American countries. Could this virus spread to America? Anything is possible.
The problem is that few believe Hillary is as radical as she really is because she talks all the time about being for "the people." She has nothing but contempt for "the people" but knows this is an effective ploy for gaining control over them. (See 2a predictions below.) These predictions are not mine but I suspect many of them will turn out to be correct should Hillary become president and live through her term.
Trump is not the answer to our problems but his election might possibly allow more time for us to stem the current tide of America's demise as a once great and powerful nation now in a state and/or spiral of permanent decline. (Also, see 2b below.)
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Is it all a strange coincidence? You decide. (See 3 below.)
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I watched the debates and this is my conclusion: Hillary is clever and a trained lawyer and knows how to debate and evade questions and answer from a script. Against a more competent lawyer she would be destroyed. My father would have blown her out of the courtroom.
Trump is a poorer debater and misses opportunities to be specific.
Both are unsuited to be president and I will vote for Trump.
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Dick
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1)
Obama’s Tide of War
As he leaves office, the U.S. is engaged in five hot conflicts.
An eternal law of global affairs is that weakness invites aggression that can lead to war. The latest validation of this truth is that in the eighth year of the Obama Presidency the tide of war is building on multiple fronts and the U.S. can’t escape the consequences.
Start with the rumors of cyber war between the U.S. and Russia. Vice President Joe Biden said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that the U.S. plans to retaliate against Russia for its hacking into Democratic Party files “at the time of our choosing.” Such a hawkish boast isn’t this Administration’s style, but perhaps it wants to look stronger against Vladimir Putin in this election campaign than it has for eight years.
Russia’s interference with U.S. elections is serious and deserves a response that is large enough to deter future attacks, not merely reply to this one. That could involve offensive cyber operations to damage the hackers’ hardware or ability to operate. Or it could include exposing Russians with foreign bank accounts or assets abroad, including Mr. Putin.
Yet there’s no evidence the U.S. has done anything to deter previous Russian hacks, or even to respond to its harboring of national-security thief Edward Snowden. Russia dismissed the Biden threat and promised to retaliate in turn. After the VP’s boast, the U.S. has to do something or look like it is erasing another red line. But if Mr. Obama does take serious action, Mr. Putin could escalate.
After the U.S. pulled out of cease-fire talks on Syria, Mr. Putin unilaterally withdrew from a plutonium-disposal pact and deployed nuclear-capable missiles to the Soviet territory of Kalingrad on the Baltic Sea. His next move could be on the Baltics, perhaps as Robert Kaplan argued on Monday in these pages on the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians. What does Mr. Obama do then?
Speaking of Syria, Russians are threatening to retaliate against U.S. forces if they bomb the marauding forces of Russian ally Bashar Assad. Mr. Putin is also deploying anti-air defenses in Syria that could shoot down U.S. planes or drones. The point is to suggest that an attempt to establish a no-fly zone to protect Aleppo or refugees runs the risk of war with Russia. The U.S. response has been to again deploy . . . John Kerry.
Then there’s Yemen, where the U.S. Navy is being drawn into the conflict by Houthi forces backed by Iran. The USS Mason, a destroyer, took defensive actions again Saturday after it detected more missiles fired from the Yemen coast. The Pentagon is investigating what would be the third attack in 10 days.
The Houthis have little incentive to stop firing because their risk-reward ratio is so low. They know Mr. Obama has no appetite to get further involved, while one hit on a U.S. ship could kill dozens of sailors and cause the U.S. to drop its support for their Saudi enemies.
Next up is Iraq’s looming battle at long last to retake Mosul from Islamic State. The U.S. has some 5,000 troops engaged in that effort, including special forces in forward deployments to help Iraqi or Kurdish peshmerga units. Mr. Obama declared the Iraq war was over when he pulled out all American troops in 2011, but the U.S. departure created a political vacuum that Islamic State filled.
By the way, notice that U.S. troops are back on the ground in Iraq without a U.S.-Iraq status-of-forces agreement. The lack of such an agreement was the excuse Mr. Obama used in 2014 after ISIS marched into Mosul to justify his 2011 unilateral troop withdrawal. Another case of retreat inviting aggression.
Iraq will retake Mosul, albeit at a fearsome cost to its soldiers and the one million or so civilians still trapped there. But it isn’t clear that Iraq’s Shiite-led government can maintain order afterwards without allowing for more local Sunni control. Iran-backed Shiite militias will also be fighting in Mosul, as part of Iran’s plan for a Shiite arc of power from Tehran through Syria to the Mediterranean.
As important as ousting ISIS from Mosul is, the fight to retake the city portends a new phase of conflict that will continue. The next American President would be wise to avoid Mr. Obama’s mistake and negotiate a permanent base for U.S. forces in Iraq to deter the return of ISIS.
And don’t forget the war in Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama also promised would end on his watch but now may require U.S. military help for many more years. The Washington Post reported this week that Afghan forces in Helmand Province require U.S. air power and military advisers to block the Taliban from regaining control. The U.S. strategy is “just enough to lose slowly,” New American Foundation Senior Fellow Douglas Ollivant told the Post.
All of this means the next President will face some difficult choices, especially how to respond to Mr. Putin’s aggression. Negotiating to ratify his gains might buy some short-term peace but at the cost of emboldening him further. Standing up to him will mean more tension and perhaps conflict. Thus rises Mr. Obama’s tide of war.
1a) Lawyers Reviewed Classified Clinton Communications Without Clearance
1a) Lawyers Reviewed Classified Clinton Communications Without Clearance
FBI files show Williams & Connolly partner admitted emails viewed by non-cleared attorneys
BY:
Lawyers without security clearances viewed emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server that included classified communications, according to files released by the FBI.
The revelation comes in a batch of interview summaries released by the bureau on Monday in connection with its investigation into Clinton’s use of personal email to conduct government business during her time as secretary of state.
Attorneys representing Clinton and Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at the State Department, admitted to investigators during a meeting on August 17, 2015 that emails from Clinton’s private server “had been viewed by attorneys who did not have a security clearance at the time they reviewed the material.”
The meeting involved Katherine Turner, a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, as well as another attorney from the firm and legal counsel for Mills from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, whose names have been redacted. They met with FBI officials to discuss handing over six laptops used to review Clinton’s communications, which were “known to contain Top Secret classified information.”
During the August 17 meeting, Turner “acknowledged that these laptops contain Top Secret email communications” but said that attorneys who viewed them “were not aware that they were classified at the time” because the messages did not contain classification markings.
“Both [Mills’ counsel] and TURNER admitted that the emails contained on these laptops had been viewed by attorneys who did not have a security clearance at the time they reviewed the material,” the FBI documents state. “TURNER said the emails did not contain classification markers and thus they were not aware that they were classified at the time.”
FBI Director James Comey told a House panel in July that Clinton granted individuals without security clearances access to classified information, though he could not confirm that those individuals, particularly her lawyers, had read the classified material.
At the time, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign insisted that “the lawyers who sorted through Clinton’s emails had Top Secret-level clearance.”
Both David Kendall, Clinton’s personal attorney at Williams & Connolly, and Turner, his partner, had previously received top secret security clearances from the U.S. government. The files released Monday indicate that other lawyers without proper clearances also viewed Clinton’s emails.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Of the six laptops, one was in possession of Mills’ lawyer, whose name was redacted and who “admitted that the computer in his possession has been connected to the Internet on numerous occasions subsequent to being loaded with the classified email communications,” the FBI documents state.
This particular laptop was used by Heather Samuelson, a lawyer and 2008 Clinton campaign staffer, who worked under Mills to review Clinton’s 60,000 emails and delete half of them deemed personal.
The remaining work-related communications were eventually turned over to the FBI.
The FBI announced in July that it would not recommend charges in the case, though Comey faulted Clinton and her aides for being “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information.
Clinton has repeatedly stated that she never sent or received classified information on her personal system. However, the FBI found 113 emails on Clinton’s server that contained classified material at the time they were sent or received, including some communications that were top secret.
The bureau on Monday released nearly three dozen summaries of interviews in connection with its investigation into Clinton’s use of private email at the State Department. The FBI, which has previously published declassified documents related to the investigation, released the summaries under pressure from congressional lawmakers.
Clinton’s personal email use was first revealed by the New York Times in March 2015 and quickly became a flashpoint of the 2016 presidential election.
1b) ‘Rigged’ Was Hillary Clinton’s FBI Case
Democrats are lucky in Trump but the scandal will follow her to the White House.
Donald Trump at a rally in Green Bay, Wisc., Oct. 17. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr. Trump lacks message discipline. Instead of scattershot claims that the race is being manipulated, wild conspiracy theories about ballot box-stuffing, which both parties and Americans of decency and goodwill strongly refute, he might be focusing laser-like on the “rigged” argument that nobody can confidently refute.
That’s the argument that Hillary Clinton is her party’s nominee and on her way to the White House only because the Obama administration decided to waive the law on handling classified material—and the FBI went along—in order to assure that its designated heiress would succeed to the presidency.
Google says the question “is Trump trying to lose?” has skyrocketed in popularity in the last few days. Mr. Trump is perhaps willing to be president but hasn’t been willing to do what was necessary to win. He never seriously tried to expand beyond his core support. He never wanted to spend the money, especially on TV advertising, that would be needed to do so.
America, you’ve been played. If, in a deeper realism, he suspected that something like the Billy Bush tape was always going to stand in his way, he was rational to limit his financial risk—though he did the country no favor by accepting the nomination. In any case, Mr. Trump is now behaving as we knew he would. The appeal of “rigged” is obvious. It’s an argument that can continue to be prosecuted on-air after Election Day. Mr. Trump need not, as losing candidates do, concede defeat and disappear. His son-in-law, we’re told by the Financial Times this week, has already reached out to an investment banker about starting a Trump TV network after the election.
If today’s Democratic campaign were being fought against a generic Republican without Mr. Trump’s distinct qualities and history, here’s what would dominate the news:
Mrs. Clinton was verbally convicted by the FBI chief for mishandling classified information yet somehow not formally charged.
Her aides were allowed to cut curious deals with FBI investigators that effectively swept under the rug any possible charges against them for obstruction or evidence tampering.
Those same aides have been revealed, through email leaks, to have freely mixed public and private interests, including their own and Clinton private interests, in the performance of jobs that, in some cases, saw them receiving salaries from the Clinton Foundation or the Clinton family even as they also worked for the taxpayer at the State Department.
The State Department itself, during Mrs. Clinton’s time as secretary, operated as an extension of the Clinton Foundation when it came to handling the requests and advancing the interests of important Clinton Foundation donors, some of which were foreign governments.
The latest email leak, likely at the hands of Russian hackers, shows the State Department negotiating with the FBI over the classification status of Mrs. Clinton’s private emails in search of reducing her legal jeopardy.
The latest email leak, likely at the hands of Russian hackers, shows the State Department negotiating with the FBI over the classification status of Mrs. Clinton’s private emails in search of reducing her legal jeopardy.
Here’s what we can expect after Election Day: Democrats will claim that a sweeping victory over Mr. Trump is a mandate for policies that were hardly talked about during a campaign focused on the shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s treatment of women. If Democrats don’t win the House, Mrs. Clinton will adopt President Obama’s strategy of aggressively using executive orders to expand Washington’s dominance of the private sector while painting Republicans as obstructionists.
Those who reason that Mrs. Clinton and House Speaker Paul Ryan have histories and temperaments suited to cooperation and see hope for bipartisan progress will be disappointed. Why? Because of the steady drip of email leaks. Because of new information challenging the quality and objectivity of the FBI investigation.
Mrs. Clinton, like Nixon in 1972, may not get a honeymoon no matter how big her win. The debate we aren’t having in the campaign, we will continue not to have: how to foster a modern state that doesn’t metastasize corruption, cronyism, elites helping themselves. There will be no bipartisan action on things that ail the American economy and hold back its growth. All of Washington will be enmeshed in a replay of the Watergate era, inward-looking, destructive, consumed with investigations and score-settling.
Of course, much will depend on how the vote for control of Congress goes, and whether Mrs. Clinton has an unsuspected gift for creative political leadership that somehow can give the GOP a stake in her success—as Mr. Obama so signally failed to do. Pleasant surprises are always possible. Don’t bet on one.
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3) The Three-Headed GOP After Trump
Today’s Republicans are—like Caesar’s Gaul—divided into three distinct parts.
Donald Trump at a rally in Ocala, Fla., Oct. 12. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Barring an unprecedented comeback during the final three weeks of the campaign,Donald Trump’s insurgent bid for the presidency will fall short. It is not too early to wonder what the Republican Party will do in the wake of his defeat, its third consecutive quadrennial loss.
No Republican will ever try harder than Mr. Trump has to make working-class white voters the centerpiece of a majority coalition. His no-holds barred effort to mobilize them has offended minority voters as well as the more educated white voters who have long supported more mainstream conservative candidates. If current trends continue, he will register single-digit support among African-Americans, he will underperform Mitt Romney’s woeful showing among Latinos, and he will lose to Hillary Clinton among college-educated women.
Underlying these results are deep structural tensions. On economics, today’s Republicans are—like Caesar’s Gaul—divided into three parts. Establishment conservatives reflect the interests of corporate America. They favor free trade, immigration reform, and well-targeted public investment. They are broadly internationalist and mostly support the treaties and institutions through which the United States exercises global influence.
They believe in climate change and can live with reasonable measures to abate it. They want corporate tax reform, but not at the expense of provisions in the current code that benefit their economic sectors. They would like individual tax reform but already can use the current code to minimize their effective tax rate. They believe in “entitlement reform” but would accept revenue increases along with it—the ever-elusive “grand bargain” at the heart of blue-ribbon commissions.
Second come the small-town, small-government conservatives who channel the anxieties and antipathies of the National Federation of Independent Business and whose sentiments pervade the Paul Ryan-House Republican manifesto, “A Better Way.” They believe—passionately—that government is the principal obstacle to growth. They insist on major tax cuts, especially in the individual code through which their unincorporated businesses are taxed, and fervently reject any new taxes.
They favor reductions in domestic spending (especially welfare), structural changes in Medicare and Medicaid, and an all-out assault on the regulatory state. Compared to their corporate brethren, their outlook is more nationalist. They mostly depend on the domestic market rather than exports and frown on institutions such as the Export-Import Bank, which they regard as corporate welfare. They are not invited to meetings at Davos.Second come the small-town, small-government conservatives who channel the anxieties and antipathies of the National Federation of Independent Business and whose sentiments pervade the Paul Ryan-House Republican manifesto, “A Better Way.” They believe—passionately—that government is the principal obstacle to growth. They insist on major tax cuts, especially in the individual code through which their unincorporated businesses are taxed, and fervently reject any new taxes.
They favor reductions in domestic spending (especially welfare), structural changes in Medicare and Medicaid, and an all-out assault on the regulatory state. Compared to their corporate brethren, their outlook is more nationalist. They mostly depend on the domestic market rather than exports and frown on institutions such as the Export-Import Bank, which they regard as corporate welfare. They are not invited to meetings at Davos.Second come the small-town, small-government conservatives who channel the anxieties and antipathies of the National Federation of Independent Business and whose sentiments pervade the Paul Ryan-House Republican manifesto, “A Better Way.” They believe—passionately—that government is the principal obstacle to growth. They insist on major tax cuts, especially in the individual code through which their unincorporated businesses are taxed, and fervently reject any new taxes.
They see large corporations as indifferent, even hostile, to their interests and concerns. They view the world outside the United States more as a threat than an opportunity. So they oppose trade agreements as well as large immigration flows and are suspicious of the obligations that alliances such as NATO impose on the U.S. Like Mr. Trump, they regard such arrangements, on balance, as burdens rather than benefits. For them, “America First” is more than a slogan; it is a demand.
Despite the hostility between Paul Ryan and Mr. Trump, it is just possible to see how small-government conservatives and populist conservatives might make common cause. The small-government advocates could make their peace with Social Security and phase in changes to Medicare slowly enough to convince the populists, many of whom are near retirement age, that they have nothing to fear. Over time, they might be able to smooth the rough edges off the ethno-nationalism that has disfigured the Trump campaign and repelled so many Americans. Issues such as trade and immigration would remain points of contention, but focusing on border security and tougher enforcement of existing trade agreements could make the tensions manageable.
It is harder to see how establishment conservatives can find a place within this coalition. Their policy agenda contradicts the demands of the populists, and their outlooks are antithetical. They know that their long-term success depends on the kinds of public investments that small government conservatives shun—and the economic internationalism that populists abhor. Having abandoned the bipartisanship they espoused after World War II and casting their lot with the Republican Party, they find their influence shrinking among the kinds of conservatives who have come to dominate the GOP.
As working-class white voters left the Democrats after the 1960s, Republicans won them over with appeals to cultural traditionalism and American exceptionalism. It was a low-cost acquisition. Now, with the hollowing-out of the manufacturing sector on which working class communities depended, the bill—a balloon payment—has come due.
2a) Predictions for the coming Hillary Clinton presidency:
2b) America’s Civilizational Paralysis
Something like it has blown up lots of people in the 2016 election and left behind empty institutions.
After the current campaign — the maverick Trump candidacy, the Access Hollywood Trump tape, the FBI scandal, the Freedom of Information Act revelations, the WikiLeaks insider scoops on the Clinton campaign, the hacked e-mails, the fraudulent pay-for-play culture of the Clinton Foundation — the nuked political infrastructure may look the same. But almost everyone involved in the election has been neutroned.
In theory, there are nominally still such things as a D.C. establishment, the Republican party, still abstractions known as “fact-checking,” still something in theory called “debate moderators,” still ex-presidents’ “foundations.” But, in fact, after this campaign, these are now mere radiated shells.
Who are the big losers of 2016, besides the two candidates themselves?
The D.C. ‘establishment’ and its ‘elites’
Collate the Podesta e-mails. Read Colin Powell’s hacked communications. Review Hillary’s Wall Street speeches and the electronic exchanges between the media, the administration, and the Clinton campaign. The conclusion is an incestuous world of hypocrisy, tsk-tsking condescension, sanitized shake-downs, inside profiteering, snobby high entertainment — and often crimes that would put anyone else in jail.
The players are also quite boring and predictable.
They live in a confined coastal cocoon. They went largely to the same schools, intermarried, traveled back and forth between big government, big banks, big military, big Wall Street, and big media — and sound quite clever without being especially bright, attuned to social justice but without character. Their religion is not so much progressivism, as appearing cool and hip and “right” on the issues. In this private world, off the record, Latinos are laughed off as “needy”; Catholics are derided as near medieval and in need of progressive tutoring on gay issues. Hillary is deemed a grifter — but only for greedily draining the cash pools of the elite speaker circuit to the detriment of her emulators. Money — Podesta’s Putin oil stocks, Russian autocrats’ huge donations in exchange for deference from the Department of State, Gulf-oil-state-supplied free jet travel, Hillary’s speaking fees — is the lubricant that makes the joints of these rusted people move. A good Ph.D. thesis could chart the number of Washington, D.C., insider flunkies who ended up working for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac or Goldman Sachs — the dumping grounds of the well-connected and mediocre.
In this world, there are Bill and Hillary, the Podesta brothers, Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin, Samantha Power and Cass Sunstein, Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan, and on and on. Jorge Ramos goes after Trump; his daughter works for Hillary; and his boss at Univision badgers the Clinton campaign to stay lax on open borders — the lifeblood that nourishes his non-English-speaking money machine.
George Stephanopoulos, who helped run the Clinton campaign and White House, and who as a debate moderator obsessed over Mitt Romney’s answers to abortion hypotheticals, is the disinterested ABC News chief anchor.
CNN vice president Virginia Moseley is married to Hillary Clinton’s former deputy secretary at the State Department Tom Nides (now of Morgan Stanley) — suggesting “The Clinton News Network” is not really a right-wing joke.
Former ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, a — pre-Benghazi — regular on the Sunday talk shows.
CBS president David Rhodes is the sibling of aspiring novelist Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for “strategic communications and Speechwriting,” whatever that fictive title means.
ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman married former White House press secretary Jay Carney (now senior vice president for “worldwide corporate affairs” at Amazon: not just “corporate affairs” or “worldwide affairs” but “worldwide corporate affairs”). And on and on.
These nice people report on each other. They praise each other, award each other, make money together, and bristle with each other when they are collectively and pejoratively dubbed the “elites.” They write and sound off about the buffoon Trump and preen in sanctimonious moral outrage, as the rest of the country sees this supposedly lavishly robed imperial class as embarrassingly naked. If our version of El Escorial continues, something like the prognathic Habsburg jaw may begin to appear as an elite D.C. marker.
As administration officials go in and out of lucrative banking, foundations, academia, and Wall Street posts, the idea of a permanent New York or Washington “power couple” or “power family” becomes more banal.
Is there a rule somewhere that requires a media kingpin to be married to a political operative or government official or like kind? Can an opinion journalist not be actively involved, whether overtly or stealthily, in an ongoing campaign or married to a consultant who is? Is there a retiring high official who just goes home and calls it quits after his public service? Is Nebraska, Carson City, or Mississippi such an awful place after Chevy Chase, Georgetown, or Dupont Circle?
The Republican Party
What exactly is the Republican party? Has it any coherence or unity or shared ideas?
Is it for legally enforced borders or “let the market adjudicate” free passage of inexpensive labor between countries? Fair or free trade? Assimilation and integration, or identity-politics lite? Cashing in on government service or against emeriti lobbying?
Does it embrace traditional values or a slight slowing of the descent of popular culture? Does it want to reverse big government or ratchet it down somewhat? Is it against $1 trillion deficits, but okay with $500 million ones? Does it believe losing the presidential election nobly is preferable to winning it ugly? Does Obamacare need a tweak or two?
Is it for a Jacksonian, don’t tread-on-me foreign policy, or isolationism, or neocon nation building — all, some, or none?
Are Trump’s private boorishness and crudity worse for Republicans than Clinton’s now quite public corruption and dishonesty?
Atheist free-market conservatives seem to despise Trump’s vulgarity more than do Christian Evangelicals — not necessarily on the grounds that they are less likely to say such Trumpian things in their own private lives than are fundamentalists, but because they find him so very gauche.
No one quite knows what the party will become after Donald Trump sprinted away with the Republican nomination and then discovered that most of the Republican establishment, implicitly and explicitly, would rather lose to Hillary Clinton than win with him.
Many said they quit the Republican party when Trump was nominated, as many perhaps will quietly quit when it returns to normalcy.
After the election, don’t expect a rapid reconciliation. The Trump base, often in nihilistic fashion, does not wish to be part of Paul Ryan’s pragmatic world; and those who identify with the culture of the Wall Street Journal and the Chamber of Commerce have no desire to be seen with the NASCAR and tea-party crowd. For fleeting moments in the primaries a Marco Rubio or Scott Walker posed as a Reaganesque uniter, only to implode under national scrutiny and candidate infighting.
The Presidential ‘Foundation’
The presidential foundation is now a parody of itself.
The Clinton Foundation Syndicate served largely as a sinecure for Clinton hangers-on between elections who were apparently otherwise unemployable. It offered free jet travel for the Clinton family. It oiled pay-for-play donations that would spin off into private speaking and consulting gigs for the insatiable Bill and Hillary. Oil profits — from Russia, the Persian Gulf, and the autocracies of the former Soviet Union — fueled the Clinton cash nexus. (How odd to oppose domestic fracking but to welcome carbon cash from medieval foreign petro-nations.)
Many Republicans damn conservatives who would hold their nose and vote Trump in hopes of saving the Supreme Court or stopping the socialization of the federal government. They should spend a quarter of their time writing about the Clinton Foundation. In the past 50 years, have we ever seen anything quite like the listing of VIP foundation donors by name so they could cash in on Haitian relief contracts to pick over the carcass of a ravaged, impoverished nation — or blatant requests to medieval sheikdoms to send million-dollar presents or free jet service to the ex-president, the message routed by way of his secretary of state spouse? Dick Nixon would not have found a way to enrich himself on the backs of the Haitian refugees or think out loud about assassinating a troublesome political opponent.
There are three models for ex-presidents and their foundations. One is Jimmy Carter’s sanctimonious progressivism — of setting up a quite legitimate “center,” staying active in politics, and assuming a (sometimes tiring) role as senior citizen of the world who globetrots and editorializes on how humanity has disappointed him.
A second is more or less genuine retirement in the fashion of George H. W. and George W. Bush; their respective foundations and libraries are largely apolitical. Neither comments much on contemporary politics, nor do they trash their successors. Painting or sky-diving is preferable to returning to the campaign trail or slicing Obama.
The third is the Bill/Hillary Clinton paradigm of non-stop electioneering, tawdry enrichment, and massaging the office of president emeritus and a presidential foundation to feather one’s nest.
Barack Obama will choose one of these three models, but it is likely that the most lucrative Clinton paradigm is now utterly discredited.
‘Fact-checking’
Few any longer believe in fact-checking, largely because it was exposed as an arm of progressive campaigns.
The embarrassing recent statements of Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, were a frightening synopsis of rank bias defined up as disinterested audit. So were the obsequious check-ins by toady journalists with the Clinton campaign to remind Podesta, Inc. of their own lack of ethics.
Fact-checkers inordinately go after conservatives. Or they make up rules about what constitute “facts” as they go along, providing context and supposed noble intent to water down progressive inaccuracies. Or they use adverbs like “mostly” to suggest that false liberal assertions are “mostly” true and other accurate statements of non-liberals are “mostly” false. Fact-checking is postmodern truth that depends on who says something and for what purpose.
When Hillary Clinton in the second debate directed the audience to her own website to “fact-check” Trump, we came full circle from naiveté to farce.
Fact-checking might have been a neutral concept, not inherently better or worse than the original “facts” themselves — given that it is entirely predicated on the character and ability of those who fact-check (who, as we see from WikiLeaks, can be just as sanctimonious and deceitful as the politicians they audit). Fact-checking in the age of the Internet arena will go the way of America Online or Myspace.
Debate Moderators
There are no such persons any longer as “debate moderators.” The enterprise has devolved into artifice, in which the moderator is supposed to argue with the conservative candidate, “fact-check” him or her in mediis rebus, while being deferential to the like-minded progressive candidate.
Debate moderators follow assumed premises: an Anderson Cooper, Candy Crawley, Lester Holt, or Martha Raddatz envision themselves as crusaders hammering away at selfish and dangerous conservatives, in behalf of an ignorant audience that needs their enlightened help to avoid being duped. In a few of the worst cases, a scheduled debate question is leaked to the liberal candidate to ensure she is not embarrassed.
If a conservative candidate seems to have tied his opponent, the liberal moderator — witness a Matt Lauer — is considered a sell-out, soon to be shunned by the right people. Most are thus deterred from moderating “incorrectly.”
After 2016, we should either let the candidates go at it, or, better yet, let robot time keepers run things.
The 2016 campaign is not quite over, and there are a few neutron bombs left to go off — but for many of our accustomed fixtures it is too late. They are nuked, and nothing remains but their shells.
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3)THE MANY CLINTON BODY BAGS
2a) Predictions for the coming Hillary Clinton presidency:
The transformation of the United States from a democratic republic to a socialist oligarchy is well under way and will continue apace in the next four years. The America we grew up in during the sixties and seventies is gone. Guess it depends on your perspective.The following predictions are not in any particular order.1. Hillary Clinton will win in an electoral landslide, although the voter turn-out will be low. Credit for the victory will go in large part to the turn out of the black vote and minorities mobilized by the Democratic machine. Trump’s gaffs will keep many away from the polls.2. The Black Lives Matter movement will fade away. Like the One Percent / anti wall street sit-ins when Romney was running, it will be recognized by some that the BLM movement was nothing more than a creation of the Democratic machine, with support from George Soros and others, to mobilize a segment of the population to get them to the polls.3. The Democrats will most likely take control of the Senate, although they may not have the 60 votes needed to pass everything they want.4. During the Obama administration, when the Democrats had less the sixty senators, they changed the 60 vote rule on certain key issues. They may expand this “nuclear option” to give them even greater control of the Senate.5. The Republicans will hopefully keep control of the House, but that is in doubt.6. Following Obama’s precedent, Hillary Clinton will implement a host of executive orders to circumvent Congress. Like Obama, hers will be an “imperial presidency” where Congress will be relegated to little more than a whipping child being blamed for all the ills of the country, unless the Democrats take control, in which case changes will be made legislatively to reduce the chances of a judicial rebuke.7. Hillary Clinton will appoint one or two Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court will take a sharp turn to the left locking in a liberal agenda that will continue for the rest of our lifetimes. The decisions will so alter the plain language of the Constitution, that many observers will acknowledge that it a document of historical interest with no real significance in the coming administration.8. The Second Amendment will be effectively repealed by the Supreme Court. It will be determined that the right to bear arms is limited to the military (“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State . . .” to reference the language in the Second Amendment).9. After the Supreme Court does the foregoing, laws will be passed both by states and the federal government outlawing ownership of certain types of guns, likely starting with military style AR-15 and similar weapons. Owners will be required to turn them in or face stiff consequences. Additional restrictions will be added over time. Semi-automatic hand weapons will be next, and so on. By taking away guns gradually over time the resistance from gun owners will be kept under control. Ownership of certain guns used for hunting will be permitted, but the guns and the owners will have to be registered with the government.10. The incidence of violent crime with guns will not be affected by the gun bans.11. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons was delayed by Obama’s massive cash payments to Iran until after he left office, Iran will likely acquire such a weapon during Clinton’s administration, sparking further unrest in that region and an arms race with Saudi Arabia and others.12. Israel will cease to exist during our lifetimes. Clinton will continue the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel policies pursued by Obama. Ironically, the Jewish minority in this country will continue to vote overwhelmingly Democrat.13. The US military will continue its decline, unabated. Fewer carrier fleets be on active duty due to budget cuts. The standing army will be cut further to the lowest levels in nearly a century. Obama’s purge of the top leadership in our military will be continued, leaving only “yes” men loyal to Clinton’s political agenda. Russia and China will be emboldened by these cuts and continue their aggressive policies14. The Baltic States and Ukraine will, once again, become subjects of Russia either directly or indirectly. The Chinese will continue to militarize the South China Sea, using the recently created islands as military outposts for intimidating the surrounding countries including Vietnam and the Philippines. The US will do nothing significant to stop this action. China will become recognized as the dominant power in the south Pacific.15. The few remaining insurance companies still affiliated with Obama Care will pull out. The Democrats will finally realize their dream: nationalized, government controlled health care. Consequences will include:a. A continuing decline in the quality of health care started by Obama Careb. Continuing and dramatic increases in costsc. Government access to your most private information through centralized medical record keepingd. Restrictions on health care. For example, cancer treatment will not be permitted if the patient is over a certain age, details of which will be determined by government bureaucrats (previously described as ‘death panels.’)e. Long waiting lists for non-emergent care, such as knee or hip joint replacements16. Massive numbers of Muslims and other non-Christian, non-white, immigrants will be brought into the country. Clinton will quietly advance her open borders policies. Obama’s closest advisor is Valerie Jarrett, who was born and grew up in Iran. Hillary Clinton’s closest advisor is Huma Abedin, who grew up in Saudi Arabia and served as an assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs from 1996 to 2008. The media will never connect the background of these advisors with these policies.17. Sharia Law will flourish in Muslim enclaves in this country. Law enforcement will stand by and not interfere with what occurs in those enclaves, following the French example. This situation will grow gradually over time and will affect our children much more than us.18. During the Obama administration, white Christians moved from the majority to the minority in the US. This trend will continue, the Clinton administration recognizing that the strength of the Democrats comes from government dependent minorities. Clinton’s abandonment of white Christian working class voters, manifested in the election campaign, will continue.19. The Guantanamo Bay detention center be shut down, and Hillary will return the US Naval base on the east end to Cuba in an act of “reconciliation” with the Communist dictatorship, further diminishing American influence in our hemisphere.20. Russia will increase its military presence in Cuba, perhaps taking over the former US Naval Base at Guantanamo.21. Several countries in the south Pacific will pivot towards China since the lack of support from the US will be apparent. The Philippines, a historical ally of the US, will be among the first.22. Taxes will increase dramatically, and the increase won’t be limited to “the rich.” Not only income taxes, but numerous less visible taxes will also be raised to conceal their effect on the middle class, following the pattern established by Obama.23. The dramatic increase in government regulation in our daily lives will only continue to increase. Small business growth will continue to diminish and many small businesses will shut down because of the burdens imposed.24. The economy will continue to grow at the lowest pace in decades due to the tax burden and over regulation.25. Efforts to nationalize the local police forces, already started by Obama in specific locations (such as Ferguson, Missouri) will continue, further expanding the Federal Government’s control over the states and localities. Executive orders will be used to further expand federal control over local police forces.26. Federal government control of elementary and high school agendas will be increased. Charter Schools may disaapear. Obama’s efforts to shut down private colleges outside of direct government control will continue under the HRC presidency. Increased federal funding for government colleges will provide the basis for increased control over state colleges.27. There will be direct assault on fracking, since carbon based fuel sources will remain a target of the Clinton administration, just as coal was a target of the Obama administration. Onerous federal regulations will be imposed by the EPA, outside of congressional control, sharply curtailing oil production by fracking, assuring American dependence of foreign oil.28. During the Obama administration, the power generating capacity of the country has decreased due to the war on coal. Although the power generating capacity has been able to keep up thus far, rolling brown outs and blackouts will begin to occur as demand surpasses supply. When this happens the majority of Americans will fail to see the connection between Obama and Clinton’s war on coal and oil as a factor.29. The national debt, which doubled during the Obama administration, will continue to grow, unabated. The stage for a major economic collapse will be set. Whether the collapse will occur during Clinton’s administration remains to be seen.30. Expect military adventures by Clinton, despite her comments to the contrary. They will be meager and poorly conceived, much like the air campaign on Libya which opened the door for ISIS. Or the cruise missile attacks by Bill Clinton on the eve of the impeachment vote. The possibility of a major conflagration is, however, growing given the increased global instability created by America’s withdrawal from the world stage, started by Obama and likely to be continued by Clinton. There are three forces for war: the growing militarization of China, Russia and Muslim radicalism.31. Crony capitalism will remain a hallmark of the Clinton administration. Certain business leaders will have favored status and their businesses will thrive, such as the Wall Street banks and General Electric. Special favor will be given to “green” industries. The Clinton administration will continue to insert itself into many aspects of business, interfering with the free market system to the detriment of the American people.32. President Hillary Clinton’s administration will take vindictive action against Donald Trump. It may be an aggressive IRS assault, quietly prohibiting the use of Trump properties for government business, criminal charges based on his university or charitable organizations, or something else. What specific reprisals will be taken is hard to predict.33. There will be significant scandals. They will involve events occurring both before and after she becomes president. How much we learn about those scandals will depend on whether the House remains in Republican control.
2b) America’s Civilizational Paralysis
By Victor Davis Hanson
Image credit:Barbara Kelley
The Greek city-states in the fourth-century BC, fifth-century AD Rome, and the Western European democracies after World War I all knew they could not continue as usual with their fiscal, social, political, and economic behavior. But all these states and societies feared far more the self-imposed sacrifices that might have saved them.
Mid-fifteenth-century Byzantium was facing endemic corruption, a radically declining birthrate and shrinking population, and the end of civic militarism—all the last-gasp symptoms of an irreversible decline. Its affluent ruling and religious orders and expansive government services could no longer be supported by disappearing agrarians and the overtaxed mercantile middle class. Returning to the values of the Emperor Justinian’s sixth-century empire that had once ensured a vibrant Byzantine culture of stability and prosperity throughout the old Roman east remained a nostalgic daydream. Given the hardship and sacrifice that would have been required to change the late Byzantine mindset, most residents of Constantinople plodded on to their rendezvous with oblivion in 1453.
We seem to be reaching that point of stasis in postmodern America. Once simple and logical solutions to our fiscal and social problems are now seen as too radical even to discuss. Consider the $20-trillion national debt. Most Americans accept that current annual $500 billion budget deficits are not sustainable—but they also see them as less extreme than the recently more normal $1 trillion in annual red ink. Americans also accept that the Obama administration doubled the national debt on the expectation of permanent near-zero interest rates, which cannot continue. When interest rates return to more normal historical levels of 4-5% per annum, the costs of servicing the debt—along with unsustainable Social Security and Medicare entitlement costs—will begin to undermine the entire budget.
Count up current local, state and federal income taxes, payroll taxes, property and sales taxes, and new health care taxes, and it will be hard to find the necessary additional revenue from a strapped and overtaxed middle class, much less from the forty-seven percent of Americans who currently pay no federal income taxes. The Obama administration has tried to reduce the budget by issuing defense cuts and tax hikes—but it has refused to touch entitlement spending, where the real gains could be made. The result is more debt, even as, paradoxically, our military was weakened, taxes rose, revenue increased, and economic growth remained anemic at well below 2% per annum.
Illegal immigration poses a similar dilemma. No nation can remain stable when 10-20 million foreign nationals have crashed through what has become an open border and reside unlawfully in the United States—any more than a homeowner can have neighbors traipsing through and camping in his unfenced yard.
Likewise, there are few multiracial societies of the past that have avoided descending into destructive ethnic chauvinism and tribalism once assimilation and integration were replaced by salad-bowl identity politics. Common words and phrases such as “illegal alien” or “deportation” are now considered taboo, while “sanctuary city” is a euphemism for a neo-Confederate nullification of federal immigration laws by renegade states and municipalities.
Illegal immigration, like the deficits, must cease, but stopping it would be too politically incorrect and painful even to ponder. The mess in Europe—millions of indigent and illegal immigrants who have fled their own failed states to become dependent on the largess of their generous adopted countries, but without any desire to embrace their hosts’ culture—is apparently America’s future.
Race relations pose comparable paradoxes. Inner-city Chicago has turned into a war zone with over 500 murders so far this year alone. As tragic as occasional police shootings are of African-American suspects, they do not occur at an incidence higher than the percentage of African-Americans who come into contact with law enforcement or who commit violent crimes. Yet when an African-American officer, in a department overseen by an African-American police chief, shoots an uncompliant but armed African-American suspect, a full-scale urban riot ensues, well beyond the ability of police to control.
No one would object that Americans need to be engaged in helping the inner-city poor—nor would anyone deny the moral importance of evaluating others by the content of their character, and not by the color of their skin. But Americans also accept society’s obligations to maintain law and order in communities racked by gang violence. The African-American community must, in the fashion of other ethnic communities in the United States, change its cultural norms around masculinity. It should define maleness in terms of a two-parent household and a father’s daily guidance and support of his own children. In a larger sense, the misogynist, anti-police, violent, and often racist lyrics of rap music should be as ostracized as Jim Crow-era stereotypes of blacks eventually were.
The cures for the maladies of the inner city are civic re-engagement, honest talk, economic entrepreneurship, self-help, and self-reliance in the black community. Liberal elites who avoid the inner city and send their children to mostly white and Asian prep schools fear honest talk as intensely as they mouth off about racism. But because we do not wish to talk honestly about the absence of parity in racial relations, and the causes for it, we plod on ahead, struggling with a slow wasting away malady rather than the chemotherapy of tough and honest solutions.
Donald Trump, in supposedly reckless fashion, questioned the present status of the seven-decade-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the cornerstone of Western collective security that deterred 500 divisions of the Soviet Red Army from overrunning Europe west of the Elbe River. Trump blasted away at our European Union allies in NATO, the vast majority of which do not contribute their fair share to the alliance. Most forget that the sole obstacle to an outlaw world led by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Iran, ISIS, China, and North Korea is the deterrent ability of the United States.
Few openly doubt NATO’s pretenses that it is willing and able to deter Vladimir Putin from swallowing the Ukraine or the Baltic states. But, on the other hand, no one wants to sit down with the Europeans and demand that they help turn the somnolent alliance into a real league for the collective defense of Western democracies. As a result, we fear the remedy more than the malady, and do nothing, in expectation that some miracle—or simple ennui—will convince our enemies that NATO is not a Potemkin Alliance.
The same lose/lose dilemmas plague current foreign policy. Under the Obama administration, the old postwar order led by the security guarantees of the United States abruptly ended—the vacuum filled by ascendant regional (and often nuclear) hegemons. Russia is expanding control, or at least influence, over the old Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. China carves out a new version of the old Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere at the expense of the democracies in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. Iran is on the path to be the nuclear adjudicator of the Persian Gulf’s oil depot. Radical Islamic terrorism has made the Middle East a wasteland.
America’s “lead from behind” abdication is variously explained by financial weakness, anti-imperial politics, or simply exhaustion. But the result is not so ambiguous: to restore deterrence as it existed before 2009 could be in the short-term as hazardous and costly as the long-term consequences of appeasement are fatal.
What would once have been seen as radical neglect of our existential problems is now the normal way of getting by one more day. What destroys civilizations are not, as popularly advertised, plagues, global warming, or hostile tribes on the horizon, as much as self-indulgence, self-delusion—and, finally, abject paralysis.
2c)Our Neutron Bomb Election
The shells of our institutions maybe survive the 2016 campaign, but they will be mere husks.
The infamous neutron bomb was designed to melt human flesh without damaging infrastructure.
After the current campaign — the maverick Trump candidacy, the Access Hollywood Trump tape, the FBI scandal, the Freedom of Information Act revelations, the WikiLeaks insider scoops on the Clinton campaign, the hacked e-mails, the fraudulent pay-for-play culture of the Clinton Foundation — the nuked political infrastructure may look the same. But almost everyone involved in the election has been neutroned.
In theory, there are nominally still such things as a D.C. establishment, the Republican party, still abstractions known as “fact-checking,” still something in theory called “debate moderators,” still ex-presidents’ “foundations.” But, in fact, after this campaign, these are now mere radiated shells.
Who are the big losers of 2016, besides the two candidates themselves?
The D.C. ‘establishment’ and its ‘elites’
Collate the Podesta e-mails. Read Colin Powell’s hacked communications. Review Hillary’s Wall Street speeches and the electronic exchanges between the media, the administration, and the Clinton campaign. The conclusion is an incestuous world of hypocrisy, tsk-tsking condescension, sanitized shake-downs, inside profiteering, snobby high entertainment — and often crimes that would put anyone else in jail.
The players are also quite boring and predictable.
They live in a confined coastal cocoon. They went largely to the same schools, intermarried, traveled back and forth between big government, big banks, big military, big Wall Street, and big media — and sound quite clever without being especially bright, attuned to social justice but without character. Their religion is not so much progressivism, as appearing cool and hip and “right” on the issues. In this private world, off the record, Latinos are laughed off as “needy”; Catholics are derided as near medieval and in need of progressive tutoring on gay issues. Hillary is deemed a grifter — but only for greedily draining the cash pools of the elite speaker circuit to the detriment of her emulators. Money — Podesta’s Putin oil stocks, Russian autocrats’ huge donations in exchange for deference from the Department of State, Gulf-oil-state-supplied free jet travel, Hillary’s speaking fees — is the lubricant that makes the joints of these rusted people move. A good Ph.D. thesis could chart the number of Washington, D.C., insider flunkies who ended up working for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac or Goldman Sachs — the dumping grounds of the well-connected and mediocre.
In this world, there are Bill and Hillary, the Podesta brothers, Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin, Samantha Power and Cass Sunstein, Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan, and on and on. Jorge Ramos goes after Trump; his daughter works for Hillary; and his boss at Univision badgers the Clinton campaign to stay lax on open borders — the lifeblood that nourishes his non-English-speaking money machine.
George Stephanopoulos, who helped run the Clinton campaign and White House, and who as a debate moderator obsessed over Mitt Romney’s answers to abortion hypotheticals, is the disinterested ABC News chief anchor.
CNN vice president Virginia Moseley is married to Hillary Clinton’s former deputy secretary at the State Department Tom Nides (now of Morgan Stanley) — suggesting “The Clinton News Network” is not really a right-wing joke.
Former ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, a — pre-Benghazi — regular on the Sunday talk shows.
CBS president David Rhodes is the sibling of aspiring novelist Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for “strategic communications and Speechwriting,” whatever that fictive title means.
ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman married former White House press secretary Jay Carney (now senior vice president for “worldwide corporate affairs” at Amazon: not just “corporate affairs” or “worldwide affairs” but “worldwide corporate affairs”). And on and on.
These nice people report on each other. They praise each other, award each other, make money together, and bristle with each other when they are collectively and pejoratively dubbed the “elites.” They write and sound off about the buffoon Trump and preen in sanctimonious moral outrage, as the rest of the country sees this supposedly lavishly robed imperial class as embarrassingly naked. If our version of El Escorial continues, something like the prognathic Habsburg jaw may begin to appear as an elite D.C. marker.
As administration officials go in and out of lucrative banking, foundations, academia, and Wall Street posts, the idea of a permanent New York or Washington “power couple” or “power family” becomes more banal.
Is there a rule somewhere that requires a media kingpin to be married to a political operative or government official or like kind? Can an opinion journalist not be actively involved, whether overtly or stealthily, in an ongoing campaign or married to a consultant who is? Is there a retiring high official who just goes home and calls it quits after his public service? Is Nebraska, Carson City, or Mississippi such an awful place after Chevy Chase, Georgetown, or Dupont Circle?
The Republican Party
What exactly is the Republican party? Has it any coherence or unity or shared ideas?
Is it for legally enforced borders or “let the market adjudicate” free passage of inexpensive labor between countries? Fair or free trade? Assimilation and integration, or identity-politics lite? Cashing in on government service or against emeriti lobbying?
Does it embrace traditional values or a slight slowing of the descent of popular culture? Does it want to reverse big government or ratchet it down somewhat? Is it against $1 trillion deficits, but okay with $500 million ones? Does it believe losing the presidential election nobly is preferable to winning it ugly? Does Obamacare need a tweak or two?
Is it for a Jacksonian, don’t tread-on-me foreign policy, or isolationism, or neocon nation building — all, some, or none?
Are Trump’s private boorishness and crudity worse for Republicans than Clinton’s now quite public corruption and dishonesty?
Atheist free-market conservatives seem to despise Trump’s vulgarity more than do Christian Evangelicals — not necessarily on the grounds that they are less likely to say such Trumpian things in their own private lives than are fundamentalists, but because they find him so very gauche.
No one quite knows what the party will become after Donald Trump sprinted away with the Republican nomination and then discovered that most of the Republican establishment, implicitly and explicitly, would rather lose to Hillary Clinton than win with him.
Many said they quit the Republican party when Trump was nominated, as many perhaps will quietly quit when it returns to normalcy.
After the election, don’t expect a rapid reconciliation. The Trump base, often in nihilistic fashion, does not wish to be part of Paul Ryan’s pragmatic world; and those who identify with the culture of the Wall Street Journal and the Chamber of Commerce have no desire to be seen with the NASCAR and tea-party crowd. For fleeting moments in the primaries a Marco Rubio or Scott Walker posed as a Reaganesque uniter, only to implode under national scrutiny and candidate infighting.
The Presidential ‘Foundation’
The presidential foundation is now a parody of itself.
The Clinton Foundation Syndicate served largely as a sinecure for Clinton hangers-on between elections who were apparently otherwise unemployable. It offered free jet travel for the Clinton family. It oiled pay-for-play donations that would spin off into private speaking and consulting gigs for the insatiable Bill and Hillary. Oil profits — from Russia, the Persian Gulf, and the autocracies of the former Soviet Union — fueled the Clinton cash nexus. (How odd to oppose domestic fracking but to welcome carbon cash from medieval foreign petro-nations.)
Many Republicans damn conservatives who would hold their nose and vote Trump in hopes of saving the Supreme Court or stopping the socialization of the federal government. They should spend a quarter of their time writing about the Clinton Foundation. In the past 50 years, have we ever seen anything quite like the listing of VIP foundation donors by name so they could cash in on Haitian relief contracts to pick over the carcass of a ravaged, impoverished nation — or blatant requests to medieval sheikdoms to send million-dollar presents or free jet service to the ex-president, the message routed by way of his secretary of state spouse? Dick Nixon would not have found a way to enrich himself on the backs of the Haitian refugees or think out loud about assassinating a troublesome political opponent.
There are three models for ex-presidents and their foundations. One is Jimmy Carter’s sanctimonious progressivism — of setting up a quite legitimate “center,” staying active in politics, and assuming a (sometimes tiring) role as senior citizen of the world who globetrots and editorializes on how humanity has disappointed him.
A second is more or less genuine retirement in the fashion of George H. W. and George W. Bush; their respective foundations and libraries are largely apolitical. Neither comments much on contemporary politics, nor do they trash their successors. Painting or sky-diving is preferable to returning to the campaign trail or slicing Obama.
The third is the Bill/Hillary Clinton paradigm of non-stop electioneering, tawdry enrichment, and massaging the office of president emeritus and a presidential foundation to feather one’s nest.
Barack Obama will choose one of these three models, but it is likely that the most lucrative Clinton paradigm is now utterly discredited.
‘Fact-checking’
Few any longer believe in fact-checking, largely because it was exposed as an arm of progressive campaigns.
The embarrassing recent statements of Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, were a frightening synopsis of rank bias defined up as disinterested audit. So were the obsequious check-ins by toady journalists with the Clinton campaign to remind Podesta, Inc. of their own lack of ethics.
Fact-checkers inordinately go after conservatives. Or they make up rules about what constitute “facts” as they go along, providing context and supposed noble intent to water down progressive inaccuracies. Or they use adverbs like “mostly” to suggest that false liberal assertions are “mostly” true and other accurate statements of non-liberals are “mostly” false. Fact-checking is postmodern truth that depends on who says something and for what purpose.
When Hillary Clinton in the second debate directed the audience to her own website to “fact-check” Trump, we came full circle from naiveté to farce.
Fact-checking might have been a neutral concept, not inherently better or worse than the original “facts” themselves — given that it is entirely predicated on the character and ability of those who fact-check (who, as we see from WikiLeaks, can be just as sanctimonious and deceitful as the politicians they audit). Fact-checking in the age of the Internet arena will go the way of America Online or Myspace.
Debate Moderators
There are no such persons any longer as “debate moderators.” The enterprise has devolved into artifice, in which the moderator is supposed to argue with the conservative candidate, “fact-check” him or her in mediis rebus, while being deferential to the like-minded progressive candidate.
Debate moderators follow assumed premises: an Anderson Cooper, Candy Crawley, Lester Holt, or Martha Raddatz envision themselves as crusaders hammering away at selfish and dangerous conservatives, in behalf of an ignorant audience that needs their enlightened help to avoid being duped. In a few of the worst cases, a scheduled debate question is leaked to the liberal candidate to ensure she is not embarrassed.
If a conservative candidate seems to have tied his opponent, the liberal moderator — witness a Matt Lauer — is considered a sell-out, soon to be shunned by the right people. Most are thus deterred from moderating “incorrectly.”
After 2016, we should either let the candidates go at it, or, better yet, let robot time keepers run things.
The 2016 campaign is not quite over, and there are a few neutron bombs left to go off — but for many of our accustomed fixtures it is too late. They are nuked, and nothing remains but their shells.
3)THE MANY CLINTON BODY BAGS
A memory refresher, lest we forget what has happened to many "friends" and associates of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
1- James McDougal - Convicted Whitewater partner of the Clintons who died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.
2 – Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown (Washington, D. C.). The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment by Clinton in the White House.
3 – Vince Foster - Former White House Councilor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock 's Rose Law Firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide. (He was about to testify against Hillary related to the records she refused to turn over to congress.) Was reported to have been having an affair with Hillary.
4 – Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the Air Traffic controller committed suicide.
5 - C. Victor Raiser, II - Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
6 – Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock on September 1992. Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor".
7 – Ed Willey - Clinton fundraiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day His wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
8 – Jerry Parks - Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock .. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock . Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton . He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
9 – James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a"Black Book" of people which contained names of influential people who visited Prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
10 – James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to the Clintons ' Whitewater deals.
11 – Kathy Ferguson - Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones Lawsuit, and Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
12 РBill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fianc̩e of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fianc̩e, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fianc̩e.
13 – Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton 's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client, Dan Lasseter, was a convicted drug distributor.
14 – Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal, Mena, Arkansas Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot Wounds.
15 – Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died Of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a Suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.
16 – Paula Grober - Clinton 's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9,1992. She died in a one car accident.
17 – Danny Casolaro - Investigative reporter who was Investigating the Mean Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.
18 – Paul Wilcher - Attorney investigating corruption at Mean Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his Washington DC apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death. (May have died of poison)
19 – Jon Parnell Walker - Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington , Virginia apartment balcony August 15,1993. He was investigating the Morgan Guaranty scandal.
20 – Barbara Wise - Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
21 – Charles Meissner - Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
22 - Dr.Stanley Heard - Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton 's advisory council personally treated Clinton 's mother, stepfather and Brother.
23 – Barry Seal - Drug running TWA pilot out of Mean Arkansas, death was no accident.
1- James McDougal - Convicted Whitewater partner of the Clintons who died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.
2 – Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown (Washington, D. C.). The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment by Clinton in the White House.
3 – Vince Foster - Former White House Councilor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock 's Rose Law Firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide. (He was about to testify against Hillary related to the records she refused to turn over to congress.) Was reported to have been having an affair with Hillary.
4 – Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the Air Traffic controller committed suicide.
5 - C. Victor Raiser, II - Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
6 – Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock on September 1992. Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor".
7 – Ed Willey - Clinton fundraiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day His wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
8 – Jerry Parks - Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock .. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock . Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton . He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
9 – James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a"Black Book" of people which contained names of influential people who visited Prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
10 – James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to the Clintons ' Whitewater deals.
11 – Kathy Ferguson - Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones Lawsuit, and Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
12 РBill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fianc̩e of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fianc̩e, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fianc̩e.
13 – Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton 's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client, Dan Lasseter, was a convicted drug distributor.
14 – Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal, Mena, Arkansas Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot Wounds.
15 – Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died Of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a Suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.
16 – Paula Grober - Clinton 's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9,1992. She died in a one car accident.
17 – Danny Casolaro - Investigative reporter who was Investigating the Mean Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.
18 – Paul Wilcher - Attorney investigating corruption at Mean Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his Washington DC apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death. (May have died of poison)
19 – Jon Parnell Walker - Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington , Virginia apartment balcony August 15,1993. He was investigating the Morgan Guaranty scandal.
20 – Barbara Wise - Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
21 – Charles Meissner - Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
22 - Dr.Stanley Heard - Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton 's advisory council personally treated Clinton 's mother, stepfather and Brother.
23 – Barry Seal - Drug running TWA pilot out of Mean Arkansas, death was no accident.
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24 – Johnny Lawhorn, Jr. - Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole.
25 – Stanley Huggins - Investigated Madison Guaranty. His death was a purported suicide and his report was never released.
26 – Hershel Friday - Attorney and Clinton fundraiser died March 1, 1994, when his plane exploded.
27 - Kevin Ives& Don Henry - Known as "The boys on the track" case. Reports say the two boys may have stumbled upon the Mean Arkansas airport drug operation. The initial report of death said their deaths were due to falling asleep on railroad tracks and being run over. Later autopsy reports stated that the 2 boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
28 – Keith Coney - Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck,7/88.
29 – Keith McMaskle - Died, stabbed 113 times, Nov 1988
30 – Gregory Collins - Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
31 – Jeff Rhodes - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989. (Coroner ruled death due to suicide)
32 – James Milan - Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to natural causes"?
33 – Jordan Kettleson - Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June 1990.
34- Richard Winters - A suspect in the Ives/Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON PERSONAL BODYGUARDS ALL DIED OF MYSTERIOUS CAUSES OR SUICIDE
36 - Major William S. Barkley, Jr.
37 – Captain Scott J. Reynolds
38 - Sgt. Brian Hanley
39 - Sgt. Tim Sabel
40 – Major General William Robertson
41 - Col. William Densberger
42 - Col. Robert Kelly
43 - Spec. Gary Rhodes
44 – Steve Willis
45 – Robert Williams
46 – Conway LeBleu
47 – Todd McKeehan
