Poor Kelly Ayotte

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Aug 2016

Poor Kelly Ayotte.  Kelly Ayotte is the Republican senator from New Hampshire, first elected in the TEA-party wave of 2010.  Upon election, she immediately allied herself with Republican senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).  Previous to her election as senator, she was the Attorney-General of the State of New Hampshire.

Ayotte, along with Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), Rob Portman (R-OH), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and John McCain himself, are thought to be in electoral trouble this season, and if the Republicans lose four senate seats, they would lose control of the senate in the event of a win by Hillary Clinton.  Holding only fifty seats, the Democrats would control the senate in virtue of the tie-breaking vote held by the putative Democrat Vice-President, Tim Kaine.

Republicans are hoping to pick up the senate seat being vacated by present Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).  That win would give Republicans fifty-one seats after the loss of four, and control of the senate withal.

One of the reasons for Republican establishment's concern about the Trump campaign is that if Trump loses too badly, then it is likely that Republicans will lose control of the Senate also.  And rather than get behind Trump four-square, the Republican establishment is busy complaining about Trump and his potential lack of electoral coattails.  They are preparing to blame their loss of the senate on Donald Trump.

Over the last few days, it appears that Rob Portman is rising in the polls against his Democrat rival, Ted Strickland, and the Democrat National Committee is deploying party money elsewhere.  Portman is rising out of danger.

Likewise, Marco Rubio is coming on strong in Florida; and last night John McCain won the Republican primary handily and looks to be the odds-on bet to be re-elected this fall.

Mark Kirk looks to be a goner.  Kirk is lacklustre, and has an undistinguished record in the Senate.  Kirk is one of those reliable people any team needs, but he is not one to carve out a distinctive place for himself in the Senatorial firmament, and hasn’t.  He is a guy who needs coattails.  Illinois is Barack Obama’s home state, it is solidly blue, and is in terrible financial shape.  The state will likely vote desperately for the party of hand-outs this time around.

Which brings us to Kelly Ayotte.  Trump’s coattails are supposed to carry her across the finish line in New Hampshire.  Ayotte has not endorsed Trump for president even after his nomination.  I’m sure a few remarks critical of Trump can be found in her public statements.  Ayotte has had political career in the granite state, both as Attorney-General and as U.S. Senator for the last six years.  She has had visibility in the senate, having allied herself with the two biggest military hawks in that body.  And people are counting on Trump’s coattails for a victory by her in the fall?

Apparently, her career in the Senate has not been pleasing to the folks in New Hampshire if she is in trouble.  She’s not a newbie riding on the wave of a movement, like she was in 2010 riding the TEA-party wave.  She has a record all her own to run on, and she doesn’t want to get on board the Trump train.

Okay, so she is going to do all the heavy lifting herself.  Fine.  Then let’s stop hearing the talk of Trump’s having long enough coattails or not.  And let’s stop hearing about Republican discontent with Trump’s campaign affecting down-ballot races when the Republican establishment is distancing itself from Donald Trump.  If the grown-ups are going to do all the heavy lifting themselves while shooting spit-balls at the presidential nominee, then shut-up and stop complaining that he isn’t helping you.  Just lift, and mind your own business.

The senate would probably be poorer with the loss of Kelly Ayotte and her replacement with another cookie-cutter Democrat, in this case the state governor Maggie Hassan.  Ayotte has chosen to fight her re-election battle in her own way, and that’s fine.  She’s a grown-up.  But it would be wrong to place the blame for her defeat, if it happens, at the feet of Donald Trump.

The Republican establishment is preparing to blame Donald Trump for their losing down-ballot races.  If Trump wins the presidency, it will be an amazing case of divided government: the Trump party holding the Whitehouse, the party of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan holding the Congress, and both parties being nominally Republican!

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Trump Immigration Policy

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Aug 2016

Most Americans have no idea how bad U.S. immigration law is.  Canadian ex-pat Mark Steyn has written often of disgraceful episodes of the capricious application of U.S. law.  The law is so bad, it amounts to the bureaucracy making it up as they go along.

Here is one particularly choice episode concerning a British woman named Deena Gilbey:

Her husband Paul was a trader with EuroBrokers on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center and that Tuesday morning he stayed behind to help evacuate people. He was a hero on a day when America sorely needed them, having been thoroughly let down by those to whom the defence of the nation was officially entrusted. Mr. Gilbey was a British subject on a long-term work visa that allowed his dependents to live in America but not to work. The Gilbeys bought a house in Chatham Township and had two children, born in New Jersey and thus U.S. citizens. All perfectly legal and valid.

But then came September 11th. And a few days afterwards Mrs. Gilbey received a form letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service informing her that, upon her husband's death, his visa had also expired and with it her right to remain in the country. She was now, they informed her, an illegal alien and liable to be "arrested and deported."

Think about that. On the morning of Wednesday, September 12th, some INS departmental head calls the staff into his office and says, "Wow, that was a wild ride yesterday. But the priority of the United States Government right now is to find out how many legally resident foreigners have been widowed and see how quickly we can traumatize them further."

“The point is, as I said to Sean, that US immigration has no qualms about deporting "anchor babies" who are the children of legal immigrants if it happens to suit their perverse priorities. All this talk about amending the Constitution and that could take ONE HUNDRED YEARS (said in scary Doctor Evil voice) is ridiculous. US judges dispose of minor children every day of the week: it's called "family court". The other day, in a custody dispute between a US mother and a German father resident in Monte Carlo, a New York judge ordered the kids - both US citizens - to be dispatched to live with dad in Monaco. When two illegal immigrants are deported back to Guatemala, their six-year-old kid does not have the right to decide he wants to remain in Cedar Rapids. The judge will order that he accompany mom and pop.”

With this as background, let’s turn to the immigration issue of Trump’s campaign.  Trump wants to deal with the 11 million illegal Hispanic immigrants living in the United States, and restore law and order in that sphere of American life.

First, Trump is going to stop the problem from getting worse by building a wall.  The wall will have some big, beautiful gates in it, to allow for immigration that is orderly.  Then, he has to deal with the 11 million illegals.

Amnesty is not possible.  That has been tried once, and failed.  In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed an immigration bill that granted amnesty to 3.5 million illegals then living in the U.S. in return for promises from the Democrat-controlled Congress for legislation to halt further illegal immigration.  Of course, the Democrats lied to Reagan, nothing was done, and now the problem is three times worse.

The remedy of forcing deportation of 11 million people is seen as either inhumane or physically impossible.  Let’s agree with those characterizations for a moment, and look at what can be done to eliminate the inhumanity and the extreme effort required to forcibly deport so many people.

The way to regularize the presence of 11 million people and uphold respect for the rule of law is to create an incentive for those 11 million to leave the country and then apply for regular entry, and landed immigrant status.  Trump and the Republican Congress have to amend U.S. immigration law to set up this special program.  People who have lived in America for, say, twenty years, and can prove it, should be allowed to cross the Mexico border, have a coffee in Tijuana, and then apply for landed immigrant status upon their return to the U.S.  For convenience, the legal paperwork for landed immigrant entry can be prepared before the immigrant departs the U.S.  They would have to stop at the border station and deal with immigration officials to be sure, but preventing re-entry altogether cannot be in the cards, or the incentive is lost.

Yes, that landed immigrant status is on the path to citizenship, but they start at the back of line like every new entrant.  It has to be this way, for if the plan is to fine and allow to them remain without a path to citizenship, then there is no incentive for the illegal to enter the program.  He isn’t going to be chucked out, he keeps his money, and he has no U.S. citizenship.  Just like he is living now, and the crisis is not resolved.

What cannot be part of the new immigration policy is to require the payment of fines and back taxes.  For the most part, illegal immigrants are poor.  They don’t have the tens of thousands of dollars that would be required to get their presence regularized under that sort of scheme.  The incentive to enter the program would not be there.  And unless the U.S. does create a deportation force, their status would remain quo and the immigration crisis remains.

A deportation force of some type will be required, because there are so many felons among the illegals, and they would not enter the program because they would not be allowed back.  The question is how big does it need to be.

The arrangement proposed here is a variation of the “touch-back” plan.  In my view, touch-back is the only workable solution that avoids the forced deportation of 11 million unwilling illegals, with all the dislocation, disruption, and the outcry of inhumanity that would ensue.  That said, a deportation force will be required because of the presence of felons, and because it usually requires both carrot and stick to get a donkey moving.

So, there we are.  Build a wall first.  Then work with Congress to develop a special program to deal with this crisis.  The plan has to ensure that the rule of law is upheld.  There will need to be stepped-up and vigorous deportation activities to incentivize self-deportation and return.

U.S. immigration law is pretty bad, and because it is so bad this crisis was allowed to develop.  The Democrats look upon the 11 million as potential Democrat votes, while the Chamber of Commerce Republicans look upon them as cheap labor.  That’s why the problem was allowed to fester.

But they are already in America, and the economic consequences are already fully in play.  If they were few in number, or did not have the political repercussions favorable to one party, they would have been deported as Deena Gilbey nearly was.

Yes, there is an element of racism here, and it is anti-white.  But this is the only way I see to resolving the crisis in a humane way without a whole lot of disruption.  (Besides, whites were stupid enough to let it happen, and so this is condign punishment for being stupid.) 

Then Congress has to get to work fixing the rest of U.S. immigration policy, and it can start by repealing the Act of 1965, sponsored by the notorious Ted Kennedy.

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Contrasting Styles

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Aug 2016

“Hillary Clinton is a bigot, who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future,”

"What does she do when she can't defend her record?"  "She lies, she smears, she paints decent Americans as racists. She bullies voters, who only want a better future, and tries to intimidate them out of change."

"To Hillary Clinton, and to her donors and advisors, pushing her to spread her smears and her lies about decent people, I have three words: Shame on you."

“Obama founded ISIS.”

Hillary Clinton said this of Trump:

"From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia."  "He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous."  (Pardon me for observing that after accusing Trump of building his campaign on paranoia, Hillary launches immediately into a conspiracy theory concerning the hitherto unknown “alt-right.”  It’s a vast alt-right conspiracy…..It’s going to take over the Republican party!)

Republican candidates are not supposed to be blunt.  They are supposed to be gentlemen who lose gracefully.  Trump is blunt, and he is not going to lose gracefully, like a Jeb Bush would.  Jeb Bush would rather lose the election than lose his dignity.  And did lose, to Trump.

One of Saul D. Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals was to make the other side live up to their rules.  If Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz were to look a little nasty, the Democrats and the media would be all over them for not being perfect gentlemen all the time, as they are supposed to be, and are hypocrites for not being all the time.  The public would notice.

Trump did not fall into that trap; and the media and the Democrats (and to be fair, the rats deserting the Republican ship) are highly annoyed with Trump for not playing the perfect gentleman with Hillary.  That seems to me to underlie many of their criticisms of Trump: they are put off by his crudeness.

The president is supposed to be gentleman, and Hillary can play the lady, at least in public.  She can appear to be measured and pleasant even as she lies to you through her teeth, as Chris Wallace found out recently when he interviewed her immediately after the nominating convention.  My wife observed that Hillary can play the offended harridan well, as if to say, “When are you going to stop beating me, Mr. Trump?”

When Hillary isn’t castigating, she is hectoring.  She gets all mealy-mouthed, vicious, and insinuating.  Trump is enabling the haters like the KKK, but says nothing when the KKK come out and endorse her and donate, they say, some $20,000 to her campaign.

The poor, beaten woman is Hillary’s contrast to Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop.  The witch versus the alpha male.

Hillary, exhausted after a speech on Saturday, repaired to her home to recuperate and isn’t schedule to grace the public with an appearance until Wednesday.

Trump’s bluntness, his toughness, his air and demeanor as an alpha male are off-putting to the metrosexuals in the media and the chattering classes.  When making the decision to support Hillary or Trump, these sorts of things matter.  A decision is a practical matter, and knowledge of facts is only part of the equation.  One’s appetites also enter into practical decision making, and if rough, tough, blunt-talking maleness is off-putting on a personal level then Trump is unlikely to be the choice.

Then there is the rancid corruption and utter deceitfulness of Hillary.  She ain’t pretty, and her voice is like fingernails on a blackboard.  These too are off-putting, but less viscerally than a stomping alpha male.

These contrasts in style account for a lot of the discontent with the nominees, for neither one is without their flaws.  The decision of who to support turns, not on policy, but on visceral feelings.  That’s one reason that Hillary stays out of the public eye, for the less the public sees and hears of Hillary, the more they like her.

Trump’s style wears better.  He is running for a leadership position.  In strutting his stuff often and everywhere, he is demonstrating leadership.  People may come to realize that Trump’s leadership personality is not as threatening as they perceive, because he wants to work for them, not against them.  Nobody believes that Hillary, in office, will work for them, only that she will not abuse the powers of her office and upset an applecart that needs upsetting.

The debates will show which leadership style America prefers: the alpha male, or the harridan, the poor, beaten woman.  If Trump holds his own on the technical details of the issues, his dominance may lead to the general conclusion that America will be safer in his hands than in Hillary’s.

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Al Capone Ran Soup Kitchens

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Aug 2016

Pulled from the internet:

Al Capone was a gangster who made a fortune during the prohibition though bootlegging. He had a bit of the Robin Hood mystique by being charitable from some of the money he made running his criminal enterprise, and because in Prohibition anti-government sentiments were quite strong. Being a bootlegger (made/distributed illegal alcohol) during Prohibition (the period in the USA from 1920-1933 when alcohol was illegal) was seen as an acceptable, glamorous, even brave thing to do by the public. But it’s well known that he had brutal methods- murdering enemies, extorting local businesses, bribing public officials, intimidating witnesses.

Al Capone’s intentions were an effort to clean up his image. “120 000 meals are served by Capone Free Soup Kitchen” the Chicago Tribune headlined on December 1931. Al Capone’s soup kitchen became one of the strangest sight Chicagoans had ever seen. An army of ragged, starving men assembled three times a day beside a storefront at 935 South State Street, feasting on the largesse of Al Capone. Toasting his health. Telling the newspapers that Capone was doing more for the poor than the entire US government. He was even offering some of them jobs. Capone milked his good works for all the favorable publicity they were worth. He came down and walked among the men, the wretched of the earth, offering a handshake, a hearty smile, and words of encouragement from the great Al Capone. During November and December, Al Capone’s coup kitchen kept regular hours, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thanksgiving Day 1930 was a particular public relations triumph for Capone. On that day he could boast that he fed more than 5,000 hungry men, women, and children with a hearty beef stew.

Sound familiar?  Just like the good works of the Clinton Foundation!

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Bahrain’s Quid Pro Quo

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Aug 2016

Various spokesliars for the Clinton campaign are defending Hillary from accusations of selling favors of the U.S. government by saying there was “no proof of a quid pro quo” for donations to the Clinton Foundation.  Never mind the meetings these donors had with Hillary when she was Secretary of State; that doesn’t count as a quid pro quo.  There is no proof that changes in U.S. policy were made by Hillary in exchange for donations to the Foundation.

Let’s ignore for the moment how it came to be that Russian oligarchs came to control 20 percent of America’s uranium production after donations were made to the Clinton Foundation.  Foreign control of a strategic U.S. asset requires a sign-off by the State Department, but never mind that.

Let’s instead focus for a moment on the donation the Crown Prince of Bahrain made in order to get face time with Hillary.  What could be his quo in exchange for the quid?  He got his face time thanks to the intervention of the Clinton Foundation through Huma Abedin.  Bahrain got an arms deal with the United States.

But let’s say that that arms deal was already in the works, and that it was a done deal.  Therefore, the spokesliars say again, there was no quid pro quo, there was no arms deal as a result of the meeting with Hillary.  The arms deal was already in the works.  But that’s not how it need be portrayed in Bahrain.

Bahrain is one of those oil Emirates, a near absolute monarchy.  Absolute monarchies always have problems with legitimacy, especially in these days of democracies.  The monarch is never sure that he won’t be overthrown in some popular uprising or coup d’etat.  The Crown Prince may be unsure of his standing, of his perceived legitimacy, in the political framework of Bahrain.  Yes, he is next in line, but what if other people take advantage of the crisis of succession?  What better way for the Crown Prince to burnish his standing among the Bahraini political set than to be perceived as having a high standing with the United States government?

He got face time with the Secretary of State.  Bahrain got an arms deal with the United States.  The natural perception is that the two are related.  Maybe the deal was in trouble, and the Crown Prince fixed things up.  Anyhow, concern about the political legitimacy of the Crown Prince in Bahraini society was dampened by the meeting with Hillary and the conclusion of the arms deal.  And Bahrain remains an absolute monarchy.

The spokesliars who say that there is no proof of a quid pro quo have no idea of the quos that could be asked for; and they don’t want to know.  They don’t want to entertain the breadth the quos being solicited by the quids.

This morning, Fox News reported that in December, 2010, Huma Abedin was busy arranging which Clinton Foundation donors could sit next to the president of China at a lunch being arranged by the State Department.  Imagine that, having lunch with the president of the biggest emerging market in the world? And an oligarch with plenty of personal power to boot!  American policy wouldn’t be changed if the president of China cut a business deal with, say, a major bank like UBS, or Western Union, for example.  Clinton Foundation donors feel good because they gave big money to a well-known charity, and they wind up with a business opportunity with China.

Is this a quid pro quo?  The spokeliars would deny that there was one – no U.S. policy was changed.  But Hillary sold her powers of access to other rich and powerful political leaders, and maybe these business concerns made a lot of money in China.  It all depends upon the meaning of the word “quo.”

Whenever you have to start parsing meanings with a Clinton supporter, you are face-to-face with a liar, a purblind liar maybe, but a liar nevertheless.

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Meet Dennis Cheng

27 Aug 2016

Vincent J. Curtis

Remember Charlie Trie?  How about Johnny Chung?  John Huang?  James Riady?

How about Maria Hsia?

Well, meet Dennis Cheng.

You haven’t met him yet because his name features prominently in those 33,000 emails that Hillary deleted and then BleachBitted as “personal.”  His name is only coming to light because of that new batch of 15,000 emails

Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, John Huang, James Riady, and Maria Hsia were involved in Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign finance controversy.

Trie was a Taiwan national who emigrated to the United States in 1974, and was responsible for providing big money to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund.  He and his family also donated big money to the DNC.   Trie was convicted and sentenced to three year’s probation and four months home detention for violating federal campaign finance laws by making political contributions in someone else's name and for causing a false statement to be made to the Federal Election Commission.  The money was eventually returned.

John Huang was born on the Chinese mainland and fled to Taiwan at the age of four.  Huang was an employee of the Lippo Group and was a key fundraiser for the DNC in 1995, and raised some $3.4 million.  Huang visited the White House 78 times while working as a DNC fund-raiser.  James Riady visited the White House 20 times (including 6 personal visits to President Clinton).   Immediately prior to joining the DNC, Huang worked in President Clinton's Commerce Department as deputy assistant secretary for international economic affairs. His position made him responsible for Asia-U.S. trade matters. His position at the Commerce Department gave him access to classified intelligence on China. While at the department, Huang met 9 times with Chinese embassy officials. Huang eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to reimburse Lippo Group employees' campaign contributions with corporate or foreign funds.

James Riady was convicted of campaign finance violations relating to the same scheme, and was heavily fined.  Shortly after Riady pledged $1 million in support of then-Governor Clinton's campaign for the presidency, contributions made by Huang had been reimbursed with funds wired from a foreign Lippo Group entity into an account Riady maintained at Lippo Bank and then distributed to Huang in cash.  In addition, contributions made by Lippo Group entities operating in the United States were reimbursed with wire transfers from foreign Lippo Group entities.  Both James Riady and his father had had a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency.

Hang with me here.  Not too much more of ancient Clinton history.

Maria Hsia was born in Taiwan, and was a long time fund raiser for Al Gore, and business associate of John Huang and James Riady.   Hsia arranged for $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions through the Hsi Lai Temple, a Chinese Buddhist temple associated with Taiwan.  This money went to the DNC, and to the Clinton – Gore campaign. She was convicted 2000.

The His Lai Temple event became controversial because it was attended by the Vice President Al Gore. In an interview on the January 24, 1997 edition of the Today show, Gore said:  “I did not know that it was a fund-raiser. But I knew it was a political event, and I knew there were finance people that were going to be present, and so that alone should have told me, 'This is inappropriate and this is a mistake; don't do this.' And I take responsibility for that. It was a mistake.”  Big deal.  Ancient history.  A poorer version of Bill, who never because president.

But enough of old history.  We’ve moved on.  Meet the new history.

Dennis Cheng is Hillary Clinton’s national finance director, and according to newly released emails was the middle man between Hillary’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation.  Cheng was deputy chief of protocol at State while Hillary was Secretary.  Cheng then moved on to the Foundation.  After leaving State, but before joining Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign, Cheng was the Clinton Foundation’s director of development, and worked closely with Huma Abedin.

Among the batch of 15,000 newly released emails was one from November 2012, in which Cheng sent a nine pager to Huma Abedin that briefed her (and presumably, Hillary) on no fewer than 67 VIPs (i.e. donors) attending a Foundation dinner.

During Cheng’s three and a half year’s work at the Foundation, he built a donor base in excess of $246 million.  Cheng was described by an observer from Citizen’s United as “the bag man.  He’s the one that raised the money and also kept the donors happy.”  The observer further said that “Cheng would be right in the middle of some of these transactions that were going on between the Clinton Foundation and their donors and those that wanted access to the State Department and Secretary Clinton.”

Cheng’s name was barely mentioned in the emails released by Hillary because he was most often mentioned in those 33,000 deleted “personal” emails.  You know, the ones about yoga and Chelsea’s wedding.

When asked about Cheng’s two hats, one at State and the other at the Foundation, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that there was no impropriety.  There was nothing precluding State Department officials from having contact with Clinton Foundation staff.

No, not a bit.  They weren’t bound by a legal agreement like the one signed by their boss, Hillary.  The agreement Hillary made was supposed to maintain a “Chinese Wall” between her at State and activities of the Clinton Foundation.

I just found it curious at the number of people of Chinese extraction who have worked over the years financing for the Clintons.

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Is Karl Rove a Professional?

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Aug 2016

“Hillary Clinton is a bigot, who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future,”

"What does she do when she can't defend her record?"  "She lies, she smears, she paints decent Americans as racists. She bullies voters, who only want a better future, and tries to intimidate them out of change."

"To Hillary Clinton, and to her donors and advisors, pushing her to spread her smears and her lies about decent people, I have three words: Shame on you."

The attacks were "the oldest play in the Democratic playbook" -- the "one tired argument" left for Democrats when their policies fail.  "They keep going back to this same well but the well has run dry."

Hillary Clinton said this of Trump:

"From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia."  "He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous."

Karl Rove doesn’t like Donald Trump accusing Hillary Clinton of being a bigot - explicitly.  On the O’Reilly Factor earlier this week he said he preferred Trump not being so blunt, but rather painting a picture and letting people draw their own conclusions.  Rove said nothing about Clinton’s remarks about Trump.

Rove doesn’t seem to get the difference between a TV commercial and a speech.  TV commercials are all about painting pictures, and letting you draw your own conclusions.  (Actually draw the conclusion the commercial leads you to, unless you are repelled by the lying premises.)  TV commercials are repeated endlessly, so that the message it carries is eventually driven home.

A speech on the other hand is given once.  There are no replays.  The audience either gets the message the first time it is delivered, or they don’t get it.  The whole art of rhetoric is about making speeches memorable and effective.

Rove doesn’t seem to get this.

As a piece of rhetoric, Trump’s line that “Hillary Clinton is a bigot.” is terrific.  It is short, simple, the word ‘bigot’ is punchy and powerful, and the whole expression is memorable.  Hell, we’re still talking about it.

The rest of the passages are also very strong rhetorically.  “She lies, she smears, she bullies.”  “She paints decent Americans as racists.” “Shame on you.”  Members of the audience grasped Trump’s meaning immediately.  There was emotional power both in the words and in the delivery of them.

Compare this with what Hillary said of Trump.  The sentences are long, wordy, full of polysyllabic words, and not one of them is memorable enough to be repeatable.  She said them in a voice as if she were reading the phone book, in order.  The words and delivery meet Rove’s requirements perfectly, and as rhetoric they are terrible.

If being a professional means being paid for work that does not involve manual labor, then Karl Rove is a professional political advisor.  That doesn’t mean he is any good, any more than being a professional financial advisor means that his financial advice is any good.  He may know how to implement, but that doesn’t mean that where he is taking you is the right place.

What proves that a professional is any good is repeated success, in a statistical sense.  A short string of successes is statistically meaningless.  Prolonged success, or a theoretical understanding of how success is routinely achieved, are signs of real professionalism in a complete sense.

With Rove, we have only his success with George W. Bush.  We have no other successes as a professional political advisor to demonstrate a real professionalism in a complete sense.  His error in respect of speaking in public and making a TV commercial is a sign to me that he is not a complete professional, but a guy who got lucky, once, and has been living off that one success ever since.  Just like some financial gurus.

I don’t know who is writing Trump’s speeches for him, but he is an excellent rhetorician.  Trump’s speeches are like artillery raining down on Hillary’s campaign.

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Is Hillary Punch Drunk?

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Aug 2016

In a speech she delivered yesterday, the heroine of “Where’s Waldo” came out of hiding to accuse her opponent, Donald Trump, of being a racist.  She then disappeared in a cloud of smoke without taking questions from reporters.  There is no truth to the rumor that the smoke emanated from the controversy surrounding the Clinton Foundation, which, according to the Clintons, is all smoke and no fire.

The charge of racism was going to be a part of the Democrat campaign against whoever was the Republican nominee.  It was leveled at John McCain, especially every time a supporter used Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, as in “Barack Hussein Obama.”  Whenever the name of his opponent was used in full, McCain was expected to denounce his supporter who employed the formulation.  To use Obama’s full name was a “dog-whistle” to racists, though no one identified exactly who those “dogs” were.

Then, to rub in his victory, Obama was inaugurated with his full name, “Barack Hussein Obama,” by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Likewise, Mitt Romney was accused, among other things, of harboring racist beliefs on account of his religion, Mormonism.

Bob Beckel, when he was among the hosts of the Fox News’ show “The Five,” often hoped aloud that Ted Cruz would be the Republican nominee because the Democrats already had a ‘book’ on how to handle a Conservative.  They wouldn’t have to develop anything new to handle a Ted Cruz candidacy.  He would be labelled a racist, and a race traitor to boot.  Not really a “true” Hispanic, just as Sarah Palin was not really a woman. (just ask journalist Kirsten Powers, who believed the latter absurdity until Kirsten had a religious experience.)

It was always in the cards that the Republican nominee was going to be called a racist; it was just a matter of how it would be formulated.  Like a desperate, punch-drunk boxer, Hillary threw the racist punch in her speech yesterday.

Specifically, she said that Trump was “taking hate groups mainstream, and helping a radical fringe group take over one of America’s major parties.”  She said that Trump had a history of racial discrimination, and his businesses discriminated against African-Americans and Hispanics.  The proof of Trump’s racism was his support for the claim that Barack Obama was not born in America, a claim which actually originated in Hillary’s 2008 campaign against the self-same Barack Obama!

Let’s examine Hillary’s contention that the Republican Party is being taken over by hate groups.  Has Reince Priebus joined the KKK?  What about Paul Ryan?  Mitch McConnell?  Any member of the RNC?  No?  However, Dinesh D’Souza has a movie out that details the history of racism in the Democrat Party.

Her husband’s mentor, J. William Fulbright (D-AR), was a well-known racist-segregationist from Arkansas.  And Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) used to be a recruiter for the actual KKK in West Virginia.  In fact, the Democrat Party from the South right into the 1970s had a terrible history of racism and association with the KKK, including the beloved segregationist Sam Ervin (D-NC), head of the Senate Select Committee on Watergate.  Hillary worked for the House Judiciary Committee, headed by Peter Rodino (D-NJ), that voted articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

Hillary offered no proof that any of Trump’s businesses discriminated against African-Americans or Hispanics.  But facts point to the opposite.  Trump purchased a failing Golf Club in Florida that would not allow blacks to join for the precise purpose of racially integrating it.

Hillary has already said that Republicans are her enemies, and her concern for the fate of the Republican Party is must be touching to the members of that party.

Trump has been landing body blows against Hillary by pointing out that she sees the African-American community as a block of votes, not as individuals, and that she will only look after herself, her family, and her donors while in office.  It pays her politically not to solve problems because the continuation of those problems keep suffering people voting for her.  The problem of illegal immigration will never be solved during a Hillary presidency because she will keep raising the ante until the Republicans say no.  It pays her to keep Hispanics hoping she will, somehow, come through.

Blows to her head in the form of email scandals and the Clinton Foundation have staggered Hillary.  Body blows by Trump are proving effective.

Like a punch-drunk boxer on the ropes, Hillary is lashing out almost unconsciously as her training has taught her.  But her flailings are signs of desperation, not winning.

-30-

Cracks in the Foundation?

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Aug 2016

Perhaps disturbed at the breadth and depth of Hillary’s corruption as it is revealed so far, reliably Democrat noise makers and cheer leaders are beginning to make noises in the direction of Hillary, not at the voters.

Former Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, recently offered advice in the direction of the public that the Clinton Foundation should be shut down if Hillary were elected.  The potential for conflict of interest would be too great, he felt.

The Washington Post yesterday carried the AP story above the fold, that detailed the extent to which donors to the Clinton Foundation got access to herself and the mechanism by which Hillary continued to participate in the goings on of the Foundation.  As a condition of taking the office of Secretary, President Obama had Hillary sign an ethics agreement which required her to be hands-off the Foundation.  (We’re not sure if this was before or after she signed under oath the document swearing she would protect the secrets of the United States and follow secrecy protocols.)  Now we see that trusted aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were used as go-betweens to get around the literal meaning of the words on the document she agreed to.

So, Hillary evidently lied to Obama about keeping out of the affairs of the Foundation, and again by maintaining a secret email server, of which Obama said he knew nothing.  Obama must admire Hillary’s legal skills at getting around her sacred commitments, since he endorsed her as his successor.

The Sacramento Bee editorialized yesterday that it would be a good thing for the Foundation to stop taking money from foreign governments and corporations because there were “too many troubling questions and awkward appearances” regarding Foundation donors receiving special access to Hillary when she was Secretary of State, and the “potential conflicts would become untenable with her in the Oval Office.”  The editorial then goes on to praise the many good works of the Foundation that, regrettably, will have to shut down for the sake of appearances while Hillary is president.

The New York Times did not publish the AP story at all – nowhere- in the newspaper of record.  Perhaps it has its own blockbuster story in the works, but who knows?

The low-level grumbling coming from the Democrat ranks is because they would love to embrace and endorse Hillary wholeheartedly, except the stench of corruption that emanates from her keeps them from doing their heart’s desire.  Hillary has to do something to make them feel better about her.  The Tribune of the people has been busy this week raising money from the rich elites of California and New England so that she can afford more flowers for herself and to dump more buckets of manure over the head of Donald Trump.  So she may not be hearing them right now.

Bill Clinton has floated the proposal that the Foundation will stop taking donations from foreigners if Hillary is elected, while others have called for the Foundation to cease entirely after her election.  Long-time Clinton acolyte James Carville complained that “people will die” if the Foundation is shut down, meaning (let’s be clear here because people around the Clintons have been dying for decades) that the good work of the Foundation has saved some people’s lives.  Carville wants to keep it going.

The Clintons are again dangling a bright, shiny object in front of people to distract them from something else.  Foreign donors getting cut off doesn’t stop pay-for-play with domestic donors.  Like, for example, the way Warren Buffet’s railroads benefit from transporting oil that would be carried cheaper and safer in pipelines.  And how investors in solar panel makers benefit from the shutting down of coal mining.  That sort of thing.

And delaying the shutdown (if it actually happens – a big IF) until after the election enables donors to get in line for pay for play between now and the election.  Opportunities for abuse abound, and all those who want to love Hillary are asking for is a gesture from her in this direction.  So they can have a clear conscience.

The depth of Hillary’s corruption that was revealed by the latest scandal has had a surprising reaction among Democrats.  I thought their stomachs were stronger than that, and that they already expected such corrupt activity.  Maybe they didn’t.  Maybe they were purblind fools all this time.

The logic that the Clinton Foundation would represent a conflict of interest and a source of corruption if Hillary were president has yet to be fully applied to the actual conflict of interest and the actual source of corruption that it was when she was Secretary of State.  If it is potentially bad with her as president, then it must have been actually bad when she was Secretary of State.  That thought hasn’t sunk in yet.

If more shoes drop, then Hillary’s campaign will begin to drift in the wrong direction.  Since she is a rudderless, powerless derelict, having the wind gust in an unfavorable direction would be disastrous for her campaign.

-30-

Ho-Hum, Hillary is Corrupt

Vincent J. Curtis

24 August 2016

Further proof, if any was needed, of Hillary’s corrupt use of her office for personal financial benefit came to light yesterday.  After three years of being stonewalled by the State Department of John Kerry on a FOIA request for Hillary’s calendar and schedules, and finally going to court over it, the Associated Press (AP) finally received the documents that show Hillary’s pay-to-play scheme in action.

That Hillary corruptly misused her office for personal financial gain has been in the public domain since the publication of the book Clinton Cash by author Peter Schweizer in 2014.  With just publically available sources, Schweizer was able to document a remarkable series of co-incidences in which Hillary dispensed the powers of her office to the benefit of contributors to the Clinton Foundation or who financed (to the tune of $500,000 +) speeches given by husband Bill.

The contents of the book called for an investigation by the FBI, but so far that dog hasn’t barked.  Clinton hit-men denounced the book as “discredited” and “completely lacking in proof.” (The latter, as Switzer admitted.  Proof is the stuff the FBI brings to court.  Like emails, phone records, and appointment calendars, and even these are not “proof,” merely stronger circumstantial evidence.)

(As I’ve noted many times before, to be lacking in proof does not mean there is no truth to the accusation.  That it is false to say the deed was done.  If the perp destroys the evidence, then there is no proof crime – which is partly why destruction of evidence is itself a crime.  Listen carefully to a Clinton denial or counteraccusation and you won’t hear them say that the accusation is untrue.  They will say, “you have no proof.”.  Or, “These are attacks by Republicans…”  These refutations are non-denial denials.)

All the release of these latest documents do is strengthen the belief that many held earlier: that Hillary is a corrupt liar who used her office for profit.  The question is whether the scales will start to fall from the eyes of those inclined to support Hillary for President.

Clinton campaign spokeliar Brian Fallon said that the AP story relied on “utterly flawed data”

"It cherry-picked a limited subset of Secretary Clinton's schedule to give a distorted portrayal of how often she crossed paths with individuals connected to charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation. 

"The data does not account for more than half of her tenure as Secretary. And it omits more than 1700 meetings she took with world leaders, let alone countless others she took with other U.S government officials, while serving as Secretary of State.

"Just taking the subset of meetings arbitrarily selected by the AP, it is outrageous to misrepresent Secretary Clinton's basis for meeting with these individuals. Melinda Gates is a world-renowned philanthropist whose foundation works to address global health crises and eradicate disease in the developing world. Meeting with someone like Melinda Gates is squarely in the purview of America's top diplomat, whose job involves confronting these same global challenges."  (extract courtesy of Fox News.)

Why a news report would reprint dictation from a spokeliar for Hillary’s Campaign escapes me.  Fallon has no direct knowledge of this affair at all.  He didn’t work for Hillary at that time.  His dismissal of “cherry picking” and “arbitrary selection” would be flaws obvious to those doing the analysis, and the AP is not exactly stupid or rabidly anti-Clinton, as most of the press are rabidly anti-Trump.  Fallon obviously took his lines from Bill or Hillary herself.  Maybe the media think that reprinting unchallenged dictation amounts to “balance” in a news story concerning the Clintons.

The press report exposing Hillary’s corruption thus contains an unanalyzed, unchallenged Clintonian non-denial denial.

What is called for is a denial or an explanation, and a press conference, by Hillary Clinton herself.  But don’t hold your breath for one.  No reporter asked Fallon when Hillary would address this serious matter personally, and if not, why not.  I guess everybody knows how this game is played, and it was too tiresome to go through the motions of actual journalism.

Trump is going to have to keep hitting on this further proof of Hillary’s corruption to make the media get up and do its job.  His call for a special prosecutor is an old dog-whistle to the media, and repeated blasts on it might make the media sit up and take notice.

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The Campaign Is Getting Mundane

23 Aug 2016

Vincent J. Curtis

The usual allotment of campaign news came out yesterday concerning the usual suspects.  And it was boring; it was routine.  The campaign has either hit a flat spot, or the plot is already firm and now it is just a matter of letting the water-slide take you where it will.

Yesterday, the FBI dumped 15,000 more documents into the public record that Hillary swore upon oath that she didn’t have.  Same stuff, different day.  The closest thing that Hillary has to a body-woman, Huma Abedin, was found to have been on the board of a radical Islamic newspaper run by the other members of her family, a newspaper that favors sharia law - and nobody cares.  We suspected it all along, and now that the truth is finally in the public domain, and nobody cares.  It’s just Huma, after all.

Donald Trump was accused of changing his immigration policy, potentially flip-flopping on his central issue: the mass deportation of illegals in order to restore the rule of law and not to reward law-breaking.  While the deportation part of his plan was always controversial and deemed cruel and impractical besides, his turning to address the question of practicality was raised as a cudgel against his faithfulness to his true believers.  Was he turning all Washington already?  Said and implied without knowing any details at all by our faithless news outlets.

Trump’s response was to formulate his deportation plan as, “What Obama has been doing and Bush did, but with a lot more energy.”  A great riposte to the malicious rumour-mongers.  Still, the day of stories of Trump’s changing his tune about the illegal immigration chilled the soul.  Any turn by Trump to gain acceptance by going all Washington would destroy his campaign.  He has to be against Washington.  He has to be the mould breaker.  Any charge of saying that something is impossible should be met with, “Just watch me.”  Anyhow, a day’s glimpse of the apocalypse was disturbing.

Hillary’s scandals are all running together and are so similar that the public may be starting to tune them out.  Another document dump.  Another batch of emails, proving that Hillary lied about keeping her distance from the Clinton Foundation.  Okay, so she used Huma and Cheryl Mills as her go-betweens, and that makes everything legal – so we are expected to believe and told to believe by relentless spokesliars.  Hillary granted favors to Russian oligarchs? Well, go ask Trump about his Russian connections; he admires Vlad and Trump might just be a Russian plant.  Hillary required that $32 million be donated to the Clinton Foundation in order for her to meet with the Crown Prince of Bahrain?  No comment.  The campaign did not respond to a request for a comment before air time.

Hillary is under investigation again?  Is this something new?  Didn’t the FBI clear her on the emails already?  A DNC email dump showing scandal, a DNCC email dump showing how easy it is for Russians to hack into servers – but not Hillary’s because there is no direct evidence of that.  Hillary is being investigated for perjury before Congress, now, finally, or is this old news?  Why didn’t the FBI bring up her perjuries before Congress when they asked her about her email server as part of the criminal investigation?

Colin Powell may finally have had enough and said that the Hillary campaign was trying to blame her emails woes on him.  He advised her to do it, apparently.  That’s what Hillary told the FBI.  Her story was the he advised her to use private mail at a function held by Madelaine Albright.  He says he has no recollection of the exchange.  We are getting lost in the he says- she says, as is the usual Clinton technique for burying a scandal.  Still, Powell waited a long time to rebuke Hillary for implicating him.

The campaign is turning into an endless run of like-sounding scandals from the Hillary campaign, and one outrageous impracticality after another said to be coming from the Trump campaign.

This is a rut Trump can’t afford to remain in.  Yes, there will be the debates to shake things up, but his campaign needs to do something before then to stop the campaign from getting set in concrete and becoming sterile, predictable, and boring.

-30-

Where’s Waldo?

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Aug 2016

The Clinton campaign is taking a page from the playbook for the Benghazi Affair: Keep Hillary under wraps.

When the Benghazi Affair broke, it was UN Ambassador Susan Rice who was sent to appear on five Sunday talk shows to lie about it, and to relentlessly plant (as only she can) the story of the video as being the proximate cause of the killing of four Americans, including the US Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.  Rice knew nothing directly of the matter and was briefed (if that is the word) by the political side of President Obama’s National Security team, one Benjamin Rhodes.  It was Rice’s job to repeat the information and plant the story.

Hillary knew a lot about Benghazi.  She was fully aware of what was going on in real time as the affair unfolded.  Hillary was not the one chosen by the Administration to go on five Sunday talk shows and plant a false narrative that was to save Obama’s presidency in the election then about two months away.  The person who could be held responsible for knowing, and who actually did know, the facts about Benghazi was withheld by the Administration, and a talking Barbie doll was given a script, her string was pulled, and she was sent out to the networks.

Now, whether the cause of the killing of four Americans in Benghazi was due to a video or not, was quite beside the point.  But that narrative served as a red herring that drew attention away from the outrageous facts of the deaths and pulled the coverage down a rabbit hole.  The old and experienced hands who hosted the Sunday shows couldn’t cope with Rice’s relentlessness.  Not one of them confronted her and said, “I don’t think you know what you are talking about.”  Or say the same thing in even more colorful language.

Ben Rhodes’s contempt for 27 year old journalists is known because he boasted in print about how he fooled them about the Iran deal of 2014.  Rhodes has yet to express in print any contempt he holds for old and experienced media hands, but if he has any, the Rice incident proves that it would be well deserved.

Yesterday, another Sunday goes by and who appears on the Sunday talk shows, why another substitute for Hillary Clinton, her campaign manager Robbie Mook.  Not one host asked Mook in a friendly sort of way, “How is she doing?”  And then follow up with, “Why are you here and not her?  You aren’t the one running for president.”

The arrangement of interviewing a campaign manager is done occasionally, for variety, and when there is interest in the campaign of the candidate.  A campaign manager can say anything about another candidate: he can lie, make outrageous accusations, impute false motives, without his candidate soiling their hands themselves.  A campaign manager can be used as a sacrificial lamb, and they all know it.

This Sunday, Waldo’s campaign manager continued to insist on a dangerous Russian connection with Donald. Trump.  The connection occurs through the alleged hacking by Russians of the DNC computer and the alleged benefit it had for the Trump campaign.  Trump let Paul Manafort go as his campaign manager because of a story concerning Manafort to shady dealings with a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, but all this means is that Trump is being used as a Russian “puppet” in the race!

“We need Donald Trump to explain to us the extent to which the hand of the Kremlin is at the core of his campaign.”

“There are real questions being raised about whether Donald Trump himself is just a puppet for the Kremlin in this race.”  As if Trump’s denying it would satisfy one and all, or prove anything.  Besides, who is asking these ‘real questions?’

“We need Donald Trump to disclose all of his financial ties and whether his advisors are having meetings with the Kremlin.”

Mook also accused Trump of having ties with China.

Questions about the Clinton Foundation Mook dismissed as “right-wing attacks.”  (which doesn’t mean that the allegations are untrue!)

Mook also pointed to Trump’s apparent admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin, as if American policy towards Russia should be inveterately hostile.

Obviously, the old TV hands lost control of the interview with Robbie Mook.  These are wild accusations that, as tactics, are commonly seen during student association president elections at college.  Mook ought to have been shut down, or be made to affirm that he is speaking for Hillary and that she takes responsibility for his remarks.

Now, Hillary Clinton herself does have a problem with Russians quite apart from the failed Russian reset.  Hillary as Secretary of State approved a deal in which Russian oligarchs came to own twenty percent of America’s uranium production after husband Bill was given $500,000 for a thirty minute speech and $2.3 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation by these oligarchs.  This pay-for-play with Russian oligarchs story is out there, and if Hillary were to appear on a Sunday talk show and speak of Trump being a puppet of the Russians it would be too easy for the hosts to ask about her connections with Russian oligarchs.  With Mook doing it, the issue gets clouded in smoke, and like a squid disappears in a cloud of ink, Hillary’s problem with pay-for-play disappears.

Hillary’s campaign strategy of playing “Where’s Waldo,” and of sending relentless, uncontrollable spokesliars to do the Sunday talk shows on her behalf will to continue to the end of the campaign.  Hillary herself can’t make these wild accusations herself.  She would look ridiculous and leave herself open to questions of her own corruption.  Only if the shows insist that she herself appear could they force a stop to the practice.

Ben Rhodes’s contempt for journalists in Washington is well-deserved, be they young or old.

-30-

The Putrefaction of Journalism

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Aug 2016

As U.S. Attorney-General Loretta Lynch learned, even being near a Clinton can get you covered in political filth.  Journalists have been bathing themselves in filth for the last nine years, essentially since the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama.  The filth is now so old that the smell of putrefaction is unmistakable.

For example, consider the piece of journalism that was published this morning on the front page of the Washington Post.  It was written by Anne Gearan, John Wagner, and Dan Balz,

-          “Hillary Clinton’s increasingly confident campaign has begun crafting a detailed agenda for her possible presidency, with plans to focus on measures aimed at creating jobs, boosting infrastructure spending and enacting immigration reform if current polling holds and she is easily elected to the White House in November.

-          In recent weeks, as her leads over GOP nominee Donald Trump have expanded, Clinton has started ramping up for a presidency defined by marquee legislation she has promised to seek immediately.  The pace and scale of the planning reflect growing expectations among Democrats that she will win and take office in January alongside a new Democratic majority in the Senate.”

And they know all this how?

Did they interview Hillary?  Are they retyping under their own names a for-the-Post exclusive press release that was written by the Hillary for President Campaign?  Okay, maybe it was dictated over the phone.

Anyhow, you would be wrong if you thought the former.  If it were the former, then they would have boasted about having an exclusive interview, and then they would have to answer why no questions were asked about the email scandal, and her lies about her lying.

It is wonderful that Hillary is crafting a detailed plan for all of these wonderful things, but is the public going to be told these details before the election?  Are the details she is working out going to be posted on her website?  Is she going to announce them in a speech?

And if she does announce them, on what grounds should be believer her?  Hillary has been known to lie for her personal benefit.  Benghazi being one example, her bald-face lie to Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace is another, the many lies told about her email server being another, her implication of Colin Powell as suggesting private email being another, but I digress.

The press is fawning over Hillary and have dispensed all pretense of objectivity.  They may not be the 27 year old reporters that Ben Rhodes boasted about fooling, but you would have thought “burn me once shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.”

New York Post Columnist Michael Goodwin has a piece in his paper today, headlined “American journalism is collapsing before our eyes.”  Ya think?  I would have dated the collapse of the towers of Journalism in 2007 (or earlier), for the reason mentioned; what is happening in 2016 is a pulling down of the remaining, burning rubble.

Goodwin writes, “The largest broadcast networks – CBS, NBC, and ABC – and major newspapers like The New York Times, and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play.  Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.  Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang suffers the daily beating that Trump does.  The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan, and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.”

He goes on, “By torching its remaining credibility in service of Clinton, the mainstream media’s reputations will likely never recover, nor will the standards.  No future producer, editor, reporter, or anchor can be expected to meet a test of fairness when that standard has been trashed in such willful and blatant fashion.”

Goodwin is absolutely right.  And all for what?  I can’t believe all these journalists are doing this to service the Clintons personally.  I have to believe they are doing it for the larger cause the Clintons represent, namely progressivism and the content of that political philosophy.

The man who the press has worshipped all these years, Barack Hussein Obama, holds them in contempt and treats them with contempt, unless it is with disdain.  Only when they are most fawning are they even allowed a touch of graciousness from his majesty.

By focussing on the political cause, the press don’t have to inquire about the putrid stench emanating from the bodies of their majesties.  Hillary’s lies, Bill’s lies, Bill’s girls, the Clinton Foundation, and lies and subterfuge from the Administration, no questions about any of that.  The cause cleanses all to these journalists.

This is yet another reason why Trump NEEDS to win.  Journalism is another Washington mould that needs breaking.  There will be no cleaning out of the Saugeen stables that journalism presently is unless Trump is elected.

-30-

Metrosexual Meets Alpha Male

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Aug 2016

Donald Trump did something presidential yesterday, while the actual president was playing golf.  Trump travelled on his own plane, with the name “TRUMP” emblazoned on the fuselage, to Louisiana to show his support for the beleaguered state, and to raise morale on the ground.  He stomped around like an alpha male, shook hands, spoke to people, gave encouragement, and called on the Metrosexual to get off the golf course, come down to Louisiana, act like the president, and to see for himself what was going on.

“We Knew You Would Come” read one headline. 

Meanwhile, the Metrosexual continued to play golf and enjoy his last vacation as president in Martha’s Vineyard.  A spokesman let out that the Metrosexual would travel down to Louisiana on Tuesday, August 23^rd, by which time the waters should have begun receding.  The Metrosexual had, in the 2007 campaign, viciously criticized his predecessor, George W. Bush, for flying over Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina for a look, and not landing.  The Metrosexual implied that he would have done things a lot differently.  Hope, change, and all that.

Now we have a clearer idea of how cynical that promise was.  Louisiana suffers another Katrina-like disaster, and the Metrosexual of hope and change gives them the back of his hand.  Only Trump’s decisive, alpha male action, and being reminded of his own cynical criticism of 2007 shamed the unshameable into promising to travel down about Air Force One as the first thing on the to-do list after the scheduled vacation is over.  His subjects can be so demanding at times!

Hillary, who is also campaigning for president occasionally, was nowhere to be found, or even heard from.  Perhaps she was nursing another one of those pounding headaches again.  She dodged being deposed in person in the Judicial Watch lawsuit that brought to light her secret email server.  She only has to respond in writing to submitted questions.  Campaigning can be hard on the elderly.

Hillary’s husband Bill used to be known in the news as “the big dog,” and “Bubba,” which, by comparison with Trump was not due to an Alpha Male personality.  Bill’s reputation as a dominant male was based upon his prowess with young girls, grieving widows, and female subordinates, and the absence of any other comparison.  The media now see for themselves what an alpha male looks like and acts like.

Trump was in the news all week, and has been completely dominant since Thursday.  Maureen Dowd has returned to mocking Trump in her tiny-fisted effort to keep the brute down.

The LA Times daily tracking poll now shows Trump with a half point lead over Hillary nationally.  Other reports indicate that Roger Ailes, recently retired head of Fox News, has been advising the Trump campaign, coincident with a tremendous surge by Trump.  After several bad weeks and a shake-up of his campaign team, Trump seems to have the wind at his back.

Hillary is powerless to help her cause.  She is a ruddlerless, powerless derelict drifting at the mercy of the winds and the tides.  If the wind gets behind the Trump Train, there is nothing she can do except pound home vicious lies on TV ads paid for with the bottomless pocket of Wall Street.

The take home from today is that the campaign conflict these last few days has been between Trump and the Metrosexual currently occupying the office, while Hillary is nowhere to be found.

-30-

Donald Trump is a Racist, Sexist, Islamophobe!

Vincent J. Curtis

19 August 2016

Okay, I said that just to make you read this.

The aim of this posting is to prove the opposite.

What Trump is, is a New York businessman who thinks practically, but is also able to think big.  Trump doesn’t care whether a contestant at one of his beauty pageants is white, black, brown, or yellow.  What is important to Trump is that she be beautiful.  Trump doesn’t care if an electrician he hires to work on one his buildings is a man or a woman, but that they do the job he is paying them for.  Trump discriminates on the basis of merit.  He fully applies the principle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and does so automatically, without making a show of it.  That's the New Yorker in him.

With this in mind, let’s tackle the question of Islamophobia.  When a water pipe bursts in your house, what is the first thing you do?  Turn off the water, and then call a plumber, call the plumber and wait for him to arrive, or do nothing?

Trump’s answer is to turn off the water first.  Don’t let the problem get any worse before you try to fix the real, underlying issue.  Why is it so hard for people to understand that stopping the problem from getting worse is the rationale behind his ban on more Muslim immigration?  (Hillary and the Dems want to do nothing!)

The Islamic world has a problem with radicalization.  (If you studied the history of Islam as I have, you would believe that that Islam has had a problem with extremism since its inception.)  Everybody knows it, and even the Muslim world admits it.  A sizable plurality, if not a majority, of Muslims in the western world believe in sharia law.  While they may not engage in violence themselves, Muslims in the western world do not have the concepts in their religion or otherwise in their thought processes to oppose jihad.  If one of their number decides to go supernova, pious Muslims are going to say nothing to the authorities and do nothing to stop it.  So, with this in mind, why would we import the potential for more trouble when we don’t have to?

For the life of me, I do not understand why, after 9/11, the United States increased Muslim immigration.  What were they thinking?

It is not Islamophobic to oppose Muslim immigration to America.  One is not anti-neighbor to build a fence between your property and that of your neighbor.  One is not anti-neighbor by requiring your neighbor to sleep in his own house at night, however much you might like his company during the day.  So, why is Trump labelled Islamophobic when he wants to stop the growing terrorism problem in America by halting Muslim immigration, at least temporarily?  He shouldn’t be labelled Islamophobic by calling for the permanent ban of Muslim immigration, especially by one who is aware of the 1,400 year conflict between the Muslim and the Western world.

Muslims divide the world into dar al Islam and dar al harb, the world of Islam and the world of war.  Historically, Muslims were forbidden to sojourn in the land of the infidel, but now this unchanging religion is sending millions of its believers to sojourn in the land of the infidel, dar al harb.  The only way to reconcile this practice is that the dar al harb will be turned into dar al Islam by immigration.  Hence, if one is concerned about the loss of western culture in the western world, then opposing Muslim immigration should be a policy favorable to your concern.

Trump is not Islamophobic by calling for a ban on Muslim immigration to America, or for “extreme vetting” as that is now formulated.  Trump does the Muslim world credit by taking it seriously, which progressives do not.  (Progressives treat Muslims like harmless children, as if that were not insulting – on several levels.)

Now let’s turn to Trump’s being racist and sexist.  On the campaign trail, Trump has been an equal-opportunity insulter.  If by discriminatory one means that one group is disfavored and another favored, then Trump is neither a racist nor a sexist.  He has insulted those who unfairly (in his mind) attacked him or been unfair to him - indiscriminately.  He has absorbed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s principle, which calls for judgement on the basis of character and merit, not on race (or sex).  Hence, Trump is neither racist nor sexist, but a meritist, which has been held to be a western ideal since the days of John Stuart Mill.  There is nothing in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s principle that requires one to be nice and cuddly.

And if you think that Islamophobia is racist, then you obviously wasted your years at school because Islam is a religion, not a race.

Donald Trump is not a sexist, racist, Islamophobe.  He is a New York businessman with a highly practical turn of mind.  He judges on merit, and particularly on what a person’s merit can do to advance what Donald Trump has as his goal.  Trump is not an ideologue, which is why he drives ideological conservatives crazy.

You vote for Trump not because of his ideology, but because he is practical and wants to tackle in a practical way the problems that concern you – illegal immigration, the wall, a failing economy, American power, law and order.  Matters that concern those pulling the wagon, but perhaps not those riding in the wagon.

-30-

Indecent Dems Make It Easy

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Aug 2016

This morning, National Review is observing that as Louisiana drowns, President Barack Obama is enjoying his last vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, and by all accounts was painting the town red the last four nights in a row.  He has a press coterie with him, which might explain why Obama isn’t getting the treatment George W. Bush received after Hurricane Katrina.  The press are too drunk to notice, or care.  Their buddy, Barry, is picking up the tab.  He’s on vacation, and so are they.

In a similar vein, the incomparable Victor Davis Hanson wonders today where the grand national security poohbahs of the Democrat Party are with their letter saying they won’t vote for Hillary Clinton because of her actual recklessness with national secrets.  Her recklessness may have led to the death of an Iranian informant.  Trump was victimized by the security set of the Republican Party when seventy of them wrote a letter saying that they wouldn’t vote for him because he was too uncouth for their tastes.  Trump hasn’t broken any national security laws, had his server breached, caused the death of any informants, or lied to the families of victims of his negligence, but nevertheless he shouldn’t be president.  They didn’t actually say they were voting for Hillary…..

The mind boggles.

Trump shook up his campaign team earlier this week, and yesterday Hillary’s campaign needlessly issued a press release that contained the following passage,

-          “After several failed attempts to pivot into a more serious and presidential mode, Donald Trump has decided to double down on his most small, nasty, and divisive instincts by turning his campaign over to someone best known for running a so-called news site that has divisive at times racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.  And what has become clear from this is that no matter how much the establishment wants to clean Donald Trump up, get him on a teleprompter and get him on message, he has officially won the fight to “Let Trump be Trump,” and keeps telling us who he is.  It’s time that we believe him.”

The lines were attributed to Hillary’s campaign manager, Robby Mook.

What is most striking about the release of this statement is its sheer indecency.  It really is no business of the Democrat campaign to talk about personnel changes in a rival campaign except to score the cheapest of political points.  If Mook really thinks he is winning, and he does, then he ought to be gracious.  He ought to be silent.  He ought to be indifferent.  But no, the head of the “Stronger Together” campaign viciously tries to score points that convince no one of anything.  He does nothing but rub salt in the wound, and he is enjoying doing that.

At least, that is what he is trying to do.  No doubt the Trump campaign is going to do better, not worse, with these changes, and there is really no wound to rub salt in.  But Mook wants to make it look like there is one because he is rubbing salt on something.  The sheer viciousness of the trick is striking, coming from the head of the campaign of “Stronger Together.”  I wonder if Hillary will fire him.  Will she even be asked to denounce him?

The campaign changes move Kellyanne Conway, a respected Republican pollster and political advisor, to the position of campaign manager, and Stephen Bannon to the role of campaign chief executive.  Bannon was one of the founders of the Breitbart news website.  That Conway is an actual woman, the first woman campaign chair in U.S. presidential history, has so far gone unnoted in the media.  Her promotion shows that Trump looks for merit and results first, last and always, and disregards gender.  Maybe soccer moms will notice, but who knows?

The Hillary campaign press release inter alia accuses Trump of being small, nasty, and divisive, as well as racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic.  It also makes the curious recommendation that it’s time we believe him.  The funny thing I've noticed about what Democrats accuse their opponents of being or of doing, are things that they actually are themselves or would do themselves if they were in the same position.  A case of projection of sorts.

Thus, who is being nasty, small, and divisive in Mook’s and Hillary’s release, the Hillary campaign or Trump?  Trump is strongly pro-Israel and Hillary, not so much, especially with Bibi as PM.  Trump is not anti-Muslim any more than I am anti-neighbor by not wanting my neighbor to move into my house and live with me 24/7.  I am not anti-crazy people if I’d prefer that a half-way house not be put next door to me.  Trump is no racist, he is a New Yorker.  Where is Hillary from again?  Arkansas? Chicago? New York?  Pennsylvania? Wherever she sets her carpetbag?

Hillary wants us to believe Trump, just as she wants us to believe her.  I’m sure she does want us to believe her, every time her lips move.

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