Jake Tapper: Foole

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Oct 2016

For some inexplicable reason I watched Jake Tapper on CNN this Sunday morning, and caught his interview with the lovely Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump’s campaign manager.

In the course of the interview, Tapper played a tape of a man chanting at a Trump rally and asked Conway to denounce him, a tiresome and pointless media trick.

The rally was chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”  The man, who was in the back row, turned to the media at the back of the room and showed he was wearing a Hillary T-shirt.  He chanted towards the media, “Jew-S-A! Jew-S-A!”  Apparently.  I could hardly tell.

When Conway asked Tapper why he required her to denounce the man, Tapper replied with the well-known (!) association of the alt-right with Trump, and his failure to denounce them.  Conway, rather than make a fuss, proffered the required denunciation.

It hadn’t occurred to Tapper that perhaps the man was an agent-provocateur of the type uncovered last week by James O’Keefe of Project Veritas, a Bob Creamer special.  One of Hillary’s disavowable paid agents.  Why else would he make a spectacle of himself to the media at a Trump event?  What’s with the Hillary T-shirt?  Why did arrange himself so conveniently for the media to see him?

Besides, Trump is well-known as being pro-Israel; it is the left-wing progressive Democrats that have a problem with Israel.  Why would a supposedly pro-Trump alt-right movement do something to embarrass Trump?

It makes no sense.  Why would Tapper think that Trump was somehow responsible for this man?

The Black Lives Matter movement is a hate movement.  It hates cops and has called for cops to be killed.  And Hillary panders to them.  Has Tapper called on Hillary to denounce the extremists in her party, such as Black Lives Matter?  I don't think so.  What we have got from Hillary are excuses that the Black Lives Matter movement has a point.

Tapper gets this week’s media Foole award, so spelt in honor of the late comedian George Carlin.  Carlin intended to be funny.  Tapper is funny without intending to be.

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Bill Clinton Inc.

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Oct 2016

In the posting headlined Chelsea Clinton: Foundation an Ethical Mess, I report Chelsea Clinton discovered the all conflicts of interest at the Foundation, her alarm at the tactics employed by fundraisers like Doug Band, and the need to bring in a governance review lest her father’s good name be tarnished.  The effect of that governance review was to push Doug Band from his position of high influence at the Foundation.  Band bitterly denounced Chelsea Clinton in emails to John Podesta for her interference as he struggled to maintain control, and expressed anger and bitterness at the ingratitude of Bill after all Band had done for him.

Band had been Bill Clinton’s “body man” during the latter part of Bill’s presidency, and he maintained that role in the years following.  He had become something of a gatekeeper to Bill Clinton in respect of everyone but his family.  Band discovered to his dismay that, for Bill, blood is thicker than water; and when Chelsea spoke to her father about her problems with the Foundation, Band saw, and bitterly regretted, the political knifing characteristic of the Clintons used against him.

In the course of defending himself to the lawyer running the governance review, he prepared a thirteen page memorandum explaining the relationship of himself, Teneo, and his close associates in Teneo, with the Clinton Foundation.  The section reproduced below concerns what he and his associates did to help Bill make money, and how self-sacrificing they were in helping the great man^TM keep body and soul together over the years in retirement.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have Doug Band explaining what he called “Bill Clinton Inc.”

For-Profit Activity of President Clinton (i.e., Bill Clinton, Inc.)

Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities – including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements.  In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals.  In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.  Neither Justin nor I are separately compensated for these activities (e.g., we do not receive a fee for, or percentage[1] of, the more than $50 million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements).

With respect to business deals for his advisory services, Justin and I found, developed and brought to President Clinton multiple arrangements for him to accept or reject. Of his current 4 arrangements, we secured all of them; and, we have helped manage and maintain all of his for-profit business relationships for the past 11 years.  Since 2001, President Clinton’s business arrangements have yielded more than $30 million for him personally, with $66 million to be paid out over the next nine years should he choose to continue with the current engagements.

President Clinton Paid Speeches:

In support of the President’s paid speech activity, Teneo partners have created and secured the following paid speeches for President Clinton.

UBS – $900,000 - $450,000 in 2011; $450,000 to be paid in 2012

Mr. Kelly asked UBS to offer President Clinton paid speeches based upon a concept he developed with Bob Mccann for the firm’s clients.  In addition to the $540,000 UBS contributed to the Foundation, Teneo partners have secured a commitment from UBS for President Clinton to deliver three additional paid speeches for them in 2012, should he choose to do so.

Ericson – $750,000 plus $400,000 for a private plane

After meeting one of Director of Ericsson on a business trip, I learned that they were sponsoring an inaugural event in China. I pursued them to invite President Clinton to China to speak at this event.  I negotiated a fee for President Clinton of $1 million dollars to speak for two one-hour sessions in Hong Kong, which he did this past weekend.  In addition to the $1 million speaking fee, I negotiated additional coverage of the cost of a private plane.

BHP – $175,000 in 2012

BHP is hosting a board of directors meeting in June of 2012. Teneo is organizing the event for BHP and encouraged them to do it in NY and pay Presdent Clinton through Walker. The offer is currently at the state department being vetted.

Mati Kochavi

President Clinton recently turned down a 2 year, $8 million offer to become Honorary Chairman of Mati Kochavi’s new media business venture. Mati is a former client of Teneo who we were referred to through Marty Edelman. I went back to Mati and proposed a new structure without any business connectivity other than 4 speeches for $1 million and $250k to the foundation should President Clinton choose to accept it. That would also include any broadcasting of foundation events or anything President Clinton would like exposure for on his website. This offer will be presented to President Clinton in Walker speech invitations which he can choose to decline or accept with no role or relationship with the company.

Barclays

Teneo cultivated its client relationship to help secure two paid speeches in 2010 and 2011 totaling more than $700,000.

Other Matters:

Justin Cooper and I have, for the past ten years, served as the primary contact and point of management for President Clinton’s activities – which span from political activity (e.g., campaigning on behalf of candidates for elected office), to business activity (e.g., providing advisory services to business entities with which he has a consulting arrangement), to Foundation activity (e.g., supporting his engagement on behalf of the initiatives and affiliated entities of the Foundation), to his speech activity (e.g., soliciting speeches and staffing and supporting him on speech travel) to his book activity (e.g., editing his books and arranging and supporting him on book tours) to supporting family/personal needs (e.g., securing in-kind private airplane travel, in-kind vacation stays, and supporting family business and personal needs).  In the unique roles in which we have had the opportunity to serve, we have been able to help balance the multiplicity of activities that demand his time and engagement to best fulfill his personal, political, business, official former President, and Foundation/non-profit goals. 

We appreciate the unorthodox nature of our roles, and the goal of seeking ways to ensure we are implementing best practices to protect the 501(c)3 status of the Foundation.[2]  As we go forward, we welcome the opportunity to identify better strategies for serving the President, the Foundation and its affiliated entities.”

*

Justin Cooper we saw previously as being instrumental in setting up Hillary’s off-the-books-server.  The principals of Teneo have done rather well for themselves after separating themselves from the Clintons.  Despite all the money accounted for by Doug Band, it doesn’t come close to explaining how the Clintons collectively came to be worth north of $250 million.  There must be more shenanigans going on at the Foundation by which the Clintons enriched themselves that Band was not aware of.

This corruption is just the tip of the iceberg, and if the Clintons regain control of the Oval Office again, the political drama in Washington, D.C. will be unending.  A Republican controlled Congress will be in a political war with the executive branch as the Congress tries gain the information required to cripple a Hillary Administration and perhaps lay the groundwork for another impeachment of another Clinton.

Hillary brought this upon herself and is bringing it upon America.  The election will decide if the American electorate has the stomach for four more years of this contention or if it wants America to go in a different direction.

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---

[1]  For example, the Harry Walker agency, the President’s speaking agent, receives a10% fee on every paid speech without regard to whether they originated the speech.  The agency conservatively estimates that in the last decade, $20 million in speeches for the President have derived sole from Justin and my efforts.

[2]  For example, I understand our policy on uncompensated (comped) passes to attend CGI is being reviewed.  Historically, CGI has accommodated as many paying members as we can identify; the majority of members that attend are comped.  In the absence of an established policy, there are a variety of methods used to determine who receives comped passes.  We have comped individuals that fall primarily into the following categories:  spouse of CGI employees, government employees, potential donors being cultivated – including target Teneo clients, President Clinton’s family and friends, family and friends of Foundation employees, guest requests of foreign dignitaries, and celebrities.  As the Foundation identified a formal policy for comped passes, we encourage the creation of a policy that will be commonly applied – as opposed to applied by exception.  We are happy to help identify the range of instances where comped passes benefit the goals of the Foundation so the final policy operates in service of the Foundation’s goals.

Michael Moore Gets Trump

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Oct 2016

Of all people, Michael Moore understands why Donald Trump’s candidacy is resonating throughout America.

MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: “[Trump is] saying the things to people who are hurting. And it's why every beaten down nameless forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human Molotov cocktail that they've been waiting for. They've essentially lost everything they had except one thing. The one thing that doesn't cost them a cent and is guaranteed to them by the American Constitution, the right to vote….Corporate America hates Trump. Wall Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump. Yes on November 8th, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, Billy-Bob Blow, all of the Blows get to go and blow up the whole God damn system because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be the biggest “fuck-you” ever recorded in human history, and it will feel good.”

The people Michael Moore has championed his entire career are voting for Trump, and Michael Moore perfectly articulates why.  He understands them, and he gets Trump’s appeal to them.  At that moment, however, Moore is transformed into a Hillary-like superior person who doesn’t want mature grown-ups to act upon their own rational decisions, because he, Michael Moore, knows better.

“There, there. I, Michael Moore, know better, and you’ll regret what you’ve done.  Do what I tell you to do instead.”  That’s the Progressive in Michael Moore.  He, the expert, knows better and you should do what he says.

On Fox News (of all places for a good progressive to be found!) Thursday night, he said, “I'm here and I'm here on Fox to appeal to people who are watching to not [vote for Trump]. I understand why you're angry. You have every right to be angry. The system has failed you. But he is not the solution to this.  And I make the case in the film (i.e. Trumpland) -- the film is sort of a humorous love poem to Hillary Clinton.”

Okay, Moore.  Why should the Blows vote for Hillary?  How is four more years of same-old, same-old going to make things better?

“Because she will make this better.  She's the proponent of universal health care, she's been that way for 25 years. And that is what's going to -- Obamacare will get better under her. Remember, the real problem about Obamacare is not the Obama part of it. It's the private insurance companies are still calling the shots. They get to raise these rates. There's no control like there is over Medicare and things that the government has a stay in. Obamacare was only a halfway measure. We'll get the rest of it under Hillary Clinton. She's going to do so many things, to raise the minimum wage, she's going to do things that will help equality for women.”

The problems of progressivism, in other words, are going to be solved with heavier doses of progressivism.  Just like the answer to the pressures of totalitarianism is a further turn of the screw.

Moore admits that Obamacare was sold on a lie.  Not the lie of “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor…” but the lie of being “comprehensive” of not being merely a failing way-point on the road to a socialistic single-payer plan like in Canada and Britain.

It is laugh-worthy to see Moore place so much faith in Hillary.  Obama is much more of a progressive than Hillary is, and Obama got all there was to get out of a Democrat controlled Congress, with 60 votes in the Senate.  Moore himself supported Bernie Sanders in the primary because he was the more progressive candidate.  And Moore is telling us that Hillary will deliver single-payer health care from a Republican controlled Congress?  With all the scandals, the perjury, and the above-the-law treatment she has received her whole career beclouding her candidacy even now?  How many dozen times has the Republican House voted to repeal Obamacare?

Since Michael Moore finds the lies told to pass Obamacare morally acceptable, corruption in a progressive, you would think, is something he can stomach.  And you would be right.  Megyn Kelly exposed it:

KELLY: What about all of the Wikileaks disclosures, do they bother you?

MOORE: No, not at all.  

KELLY: You don't care about the Clinton cash?

MOORE: I care about women should be paid the same as men, I care about the polar ice caps melting, I care about the big, big issues.

Funny things is, Hillary’s entire campaign has been about Donald Trump being totally unfit^TM for office.  Trump is the one running on the issues, not Hillary.

Hillary hasn’t run on anything she would do other than “work hard^TM,” and her scandals are even now destroying whatever legitimacy she would have as president.  It hasn’t occurred to Moore that Hillary’s service to the downtrodden was done in the same sense that Al Capone’s soup kitchens were operated during the depression in Chicago.  It was a publicity stunt that accidently helped people.

She and Bill, with the aid of Doug Band, figured out how to monetize the Clinton brand, and the Clintons are now worth north of $250 million, after having done no work.  The Oval Office for Hillary will simply be her final Eldorado, and if anything gets done the progressives like, it will be pure accident.

Michael Moore gets why Trump appeals to Moore’s people.  And that brings out the morally empty, intellectually superior progressive in Moore.

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Hillary, Raytheon, Qatar, and $26 Billion

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Oct 2016

What do Hillary Clinton, defense contractor Raytheon, the Emirate of Qatar, and $26 Billion have in common?

The name Podesta.

As in Heather Podesta and John Podesta.

Heather Podesta is John Podesta’s sister-in-law, and she works as a lobbyist.  Raytheon hired her to lobby on its behalf at the State Department where her brother-in-law John worked as a “Senior Advisor.”  In 2012, Raytheon was looking to increase its share of lucrative foreign sales of high tech weapons systems, such as missile defenses and helicopters.

In addition to Heather Podesta, who was hired in July 2012, Raytheon hired John Merrigan and Matt Bernstein of the D.C. law firm DLA Piper.  Podesta, Merrigan, and Bernstein were major donors and fund raisers for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 campaigns, raising money in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  They also earned hundreds of thousands lobbying the State Department on behalf of clients.  Raytheon in particular paid the three of them roughly half a million dollars in 2012.

Their lobbying efforts worked for Raytheon.  The company was granted the contract to supply Qatar with $19 billion worth of equipment, and a further $7 billion in sales elsewhere.

WikiLeaks revealed that in 2011, Qatar offered $1 million to Bill Clinton as a birthday gift, but wanted “five minutes of his time” in exchange.  The Qatari government desperately wanted U.S. military equipment for the prestige it would confer, and also to suppress a rebellion if necessary.  Hence, Raytheon and Qatar worked towards the same goal from different ends: the willing seller and the willing buyer, with the State Department standing between them.

The particular individual standing between Raytheon and Qatar at the time was Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs under Hillary Clinton.  Before that, he was Hillary’s national security advisor when she was Senator from New York.  Today, Shapiro is partner with Phillipe Raines, another close Clinton aide, in a Washington “consulting” firm.

After Hillary stepped down as Secretary of State in February, 2013, Raytheon ended its relationship with Heather Podesta and DLA Piper as lobbyists at the State Department.  Their job was done, and their further effectiveness was questionable in view of the change of Secretary of State.

For her part, Heather Podesta specifically denied having lobbied either Hillary Clinton or John Podesta in the Raytheon matter.  Significantly, the name Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin were not on the list of people Heather Podesta denied lobbying.  DLA Piper have replied to no inquiries on this matter.

Thus we have a defense contractor hiring lobbyists closely connected to Hillary Clinton in order to sell many billions of dollars of equipment to foreign buyers, and those foreign buyers offering baksheesh to the Clinton family on the other side.  Hillary’s circle getting their cut, the deal was allowed to proceed.  Then the contractor ends its relationship with the lobbyists, the deal done.  Raytheon pays lobbyists half a mill for six month’s work, and gets $26 billion is foreign sales.  A good deal for Raytheon.

Hillary can say that she was only looking to advance the interests of the United States, and supplying Qatar with$19 billion worth of equipment can be said to be in the foreign policy interests of the United States.  But the question of which U.S. contractor gets to profit from the sale in this case strangely turned on the Clinton circle getting its wheels greased.  This may not be pay to play, but it sure looks like a clever version of it.  Make the game complex enough, and you lose sight of the hidden ball.

James Rosen of Fox News broke this story.

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Megyn Loses It with Newt

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Oct 2016

In a previous posting headlined Megyn’s Obsession I cover the fact that Fox News host Megyn Kelly seemed obsessed with establishing the belief that Donald Trump is a sexist-pig and a lout who is dangerous to the women around him.  And this overrides all consideration of the hideous corruption of Hillary Clinton, Bill’s own well established sexual predations, and that Hillary is in no position to deal with all the problems facing America.

The Middle East is burning down thanks to the weakness and stupidly of the foreign policy of the Obama Administration, in which Hillary was Secretary of State.  Obamacare is collapsing, and Hillary will be in no position to fix anything in the face of a Republican congress.  Hillary offers nothing concerning the stagnation of the American economy, of an immigration system that is broken, out of control, and takes no account of the plight of working class Americans whose wages have been depressed by illegal immigrant labor; of Hillary’s pandering to the Black Lives Matter movement, her disrespect of  law enforcement (whom she thinks are in need of re-education camps), of her support for partial birth abortion, of her desire to import even more unvetted misogynistic Muslims, and her plan to corrupt the Supreme Court with political hacks.

None of that matters compared to her obsession with branding Donald Trump.  Megyn is a good Hillary girl in that respect.  She’s pretty comfortable making $15 million a year, and her concerns are pretty refined.  The needs and the especially morale of the American breadwinner are buried underneath the irrational fixation of women like Megyn on their perception of Trump’s crudeness.

But if the women of America want the horses to keep pulling the wagon, they need to look after the horses and concern themselves less with their “feelings.”  “Feelings” versus policy came to a head on Megyn’s show Wednesday night.

On Oct 26^th, Megyn tangled with the formidable Newt Gingrich, and the exchange went viral on Youtube.  The hottest part of the exchange went as follows:

KELLY: If Trump is a sexual predator --  

GINGRICH: He's not a sexual predator.  

KELLY: Okay. That is your opinion.

GINGRICH: You could not defend that statement. I'm sick and tired of people like you using language that's inflammatory, that's not true.  

KELLY: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, you have no idea whether it's true or not.  

GINGRICH: Neither do you.  

KELLY: That is right. And I'm not taking a position on it unlike you.

(Note: This is a vicious rhetorical trick.  Substitute ‘Megyn is a lesbian’, re-run the argument and see for yourself if the trick is fair and valid.)

GINGRICH: When you used the word you took a position and I think it's very unfair of you to do that, Megyn. I think that is exactly the bias people are upset by.  

KELLY: I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes sir.

(Note: Megyn imputes false motives to Newt, i.e. his defensiveness)

GINGRICH: No. Let me just suggest to you --

…..

GINGRICH: -- the tapes of your show recently, you are fascinated with sex and you don't care about public policy.  

KELLY: Me, really?

GINGRICH: That's what I get out of watching you tonight.  

KELLY: You know what, Mr. Speaker, I'm not fascinating by sex but I am fascinated by the protection of women and understanding what we're getting in the Oval Office and I think the American voters would like to know –

(Now look who is defensive…)

GINGRICH: And therefore, we're going to send Bill Clinton back to the East Wing because after all, you were worried about the sexual predators.  

KELLY: Yes. Listen, it's not about me, it's about the women and men of America and the poll numbers show us that the women of America in particular are very concerned about these allegations and in large part believe that they are a real issue. And --

GINGRICH: You want to comment on whether -- you want to comment on whether the Clinton ticket has a relationship to a sexual predator?

KELLY: We on "The Kelly File" have covered that story as well, sir.  

GINGRICH: I want to hear your words. Bill Clinton sexual predator. I dare you. Say Bill Clinton sexual predator.  

KELLY: Mr. Speaker, we covered --

GINGRICH: Disbarred by the Arkansas bar.

KELLY: Excuse me.

GINGRICH: Disbarred by the Arkansas bar.

KELLY: Excuse me.  

GINGRICH: Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollar penalty.  

KELLY: Excuse me, sir. We on "The Kelly File" have covered the Clinton matter as well. We've hosted Kathleen Willey, we've covered the example of him being accused as well. But he's not on the ticket. And the polls also show that the --

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: He'll be in the east wing --

KELLY: In the deeds of Hillary Clinton's husband than they are in the deeds of the man who asked us to make his president, Donald Trump. We're going to have to leave it at that and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for being here.

GINGRICH: And you too.  

(Transcript courtesy of Fox News.)

(Note: Megyn’s imputing that Newt has anger issues, though he kept his cool in the face of provocations by Megyn.  She didn’t provoke anger, so she had to make it seem that she had.  Extremely unfair tactics by the person in control of the microphone.)

Newt was not about to be buffaloed by Megyn, and in the course of the exchange Megyn showed herself to be, not only sensitive, but as a much of a political operative as any spokesperson for the Clinton campaign.  Issues didn’t matter, what a woman ought to feel about Donald Trump is what matters to Megyn in this campaign.  Her journalistic chops deserted her, her interest in Newt’s take of the state of the race didn’t matter, she lost her poise and posited the naked assertion that Donald Trump was a sexual predator.  Megyn's entire argument consisted of her concern for the women who might work around Trump in the Oval Office, and that that matters more than any change of policy he might undertake on behalf of America.  Luck for Bill, he was never subject to those standards.

It is worth recalling that until the middle of October the media had found no woman who accused Donald Trump of unwanted sexual touching.  But starting from August, 2015, first question, first debate, Megyn pushed the theme of Trump as a sexist pig.

Megyn’s contract with Fox is up for renewal next year, and she is reported to be asking for a raise from $15 million to $20 million, which is Bill O’Reilly money.  Rupert Murdoch is said to be solicitous about keeping Megyn on FNS.  Her viewership has been dropping once it became obvious she was thumping for Hillary, and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC is now beating her for ratings in the timeslot.

We’ll see how long Megyn stays around Fox, but she won’t get the money she is asking for if she loses her Fox audience.

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Hillary’s Belt and Suspenders

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Oct 2016

When news broke of Hillary Clinton’s secret server, the Clinton campaign sought to protect Hillary from the worst of the disclosures.  The biggest problem was that she had sent and received material classified at the highest level.  She was protected in part by the fact that President Barack Obama had been one of her correspondents, and his knowledge and tacit consent gave him good reason to lean on law enforcement doing the investigation, protecting Hillary at the same time.

But one can never be too careful.  Therefore Clinton may have sought a second method for corrupting the law enforcement process and keeping herself out of the hoosegow.

It seems such an odd coincidence, then, that the wife of the FBI official leading the investigation into Hillary’s possible criminal violations of the law - for keeping state secrets not in their proper place - should have received such flattering and helpful attention from a major Clinton friend.  Terry McAuliffe was and is a close confidant of the Clintons.  He saw them through the Starr investigation, the Lewinsky and Paula Jones scandals, and secured the $1.35 million mortgage for the purchase of the new Clinton home in Chappaqua, NY, when Bill and Hillary left the White House.

Terry McAuliffe is now governor of Virginia and is himself under investigation for possible violation of campaign finance laws.  It just so happened that the governor recruited Dr. Jill McCabe to run as the Democratic nominee for a state senator’s position, and the husband of Dr. McCabe is one Andrew McCabe, presently Deputy Director of the FBI.

In March of 2015, the month that the scandal broke and the Hillary campaign got a little panicked.  The secret server was revealed on March 2nd.  McAuliffe first met Dr. McCabe on March 7, 2015, according to McAuliffe himself.  It was there and then, he says, that he decided she was the best candidate to put forward for a state senate seat.  Next day, March 8^th, Obama denied knowing about the server to Bill Plante, sending the Clinton camp into panic mode.  The day after that, March 9^th, Josh Earnest is having to clean up the mess Obama’s denial left behind.  Then on March 10^th, Hillary held her infamous news conference at the U.N. where she said, “there is no classified material.”

McAuliffe arranged for $675,000 to be contributed to Dr. McCabe’s campaign, which had a total expenditure of approximately $1.8 million.  More than a third of her campaign budget came from McAuliffe controlled sources.  Dr. McCabe ultimately lost to the incumbent Republican. 

I suppose that Andrew McCabe could not have been more proud of his wife for her attempt at public office.  But when the FBI launched the official investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s server in July, 2015, Andrew McCabe was running the bureau’s D.C. field office, which allocated resources and personnel to the email scandal.  This was at the beginning of the Virginia election campaign, and the election was held Nov 3, 2015.  He was promoted deputy director in February, 2016.  His promotion to deputy director clearly had no bearing on how he conducted Hillary’s investigation, but he was the one in charge of the investigation at the ground level while his memories of the kindnesses of Terry McAuliffe to his wife were fresh in his mind, and ongoing.  That same office is also investigating Terry McAuliffe for having accepted campaign contributions from a Chinese businessman.

At the end of July 2015, Mr. McCabe was promoted to FBI headquarters and assumed the No. 3 position at the agency. In February 2016, he became FBI Director James Comey’s second-in-command.

As deputy director, Mr. McCabe was part of the leadership team overseeing the Clinton email investigation.

Nobody is saying that there was a quid pro quo between Terry McAuliffe and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  Nobody is alleging that the recruitment of his wife for state senate with full party backing and $675,000 in financial help in any way influenced the way in which Andrew McCabe did his job investigating the Clinton email scandal, or the final outcome of that investigation – which was the decision not to indict Hillary and to grant immunity to everybody in sight.  Nobody is alleging any connivance between Hillary, her campaign, and Terry McAuliffe in respect of trying to corrupt an FBI investigation.  In respect of Hillary, we put all that down to the handiwork of Barack Hussein Obama and the pressure applied to FBI Director James Comey by the president of the United States.

Nobody is alleging that, for all the things Terry McAuliffe did for the wife of the Deputy FBI Director, it was going to influence the investigation into his own legal problem

What people are noticing, however, is how closely McAuliffe’s actions track with the real attempt to do so.

If Obama played the role of suspenders keeping Hillary’s legal pants up, McAuliffe has the appearance of playing the role of a secondary belt.

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Obama Relied on Hillary to do the Right Thing

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Oct 2016

Barack Obama enjoys the highest favourability ratings he has had in years.  That is probably because he is no longer the focus of attention, and people fall back upon the abstract ideal of a black man as president rather than the ugly, partisan reality that is Barack Obama.

The few news anchors that have covered Hillary’s email scandal from the beginning had looks of consternation on their faces last night as it gradually dawned on them that Barack Obama can be a stone-cold liar when he wants to be.  On March 8, 2015, after news broke that Hillary ran a private server for her State Department emails, CBS correspondent Bill Plante asked Obama when he first learned about Hillary’s server. Obama replied, “the same as everybody else learned it, through news reports.”  He repeated the lie later in October, 2015, in an interview for CBS News program 60 Minutes.

It must be pretty embarrassing to the president of the United States, with the world’s greatest intelligence agencies at his fingertips, to find out from investigative news reporters that his own Secretary of State had been running a secret server on him.

But, turns out, he wasn’t embarrassed to find out.  He knew, because he had exchanged emails with Hillary through her private email address.  Never mind the excuses of Obama being too busy to find out the details of clintonemail.com - he was responsible.  He is the The Man.  Hillary worked for Him.  And He never asked.  He is surrounded by requirements for Federal recordkeeping, and he never wondered how Hillary’s system was going to comply with Federal recordkeeping.  This is egg on his face - he let an underling get away with this.

Hillary’s campaign became afraid of a vengeful Barack Obama, a president angry at being embarrassed by the revelation of her secret server.  They moved rapidly to minimize the damage to him and them.  Podesta immediately moved to have Obama’s 22 Top Secret emails to Hillary withheld from release on the basis of “executive privilege.”  If these weren’t withheld, it would have been immediately apparent that Obama and Hillary exchanged Top Secret information through her unsecured server.  Bad for her, and bad for his reputation also.

Obama was and is surprisingly relaxed about Hillary’s private system.  Presidential spokesman, Josh Earnest said in response to the discovery Obama lied to Bill Plante, ““The point that the president was making is not that he didn’t know Secretary Clinton’s email address — he did — but he was not aware of the details of how that email address and server had been set up, or how Secretary Clinton and her team were planning to comply with the Federal Records Act,” Mr. Earnest said on March 9, 2015.  Obama relied on “Hillary doing the right thing.”

Relying on Hillary doing the right thing?  Boy, is that stupid or what?

“When he did know? Is he incensed about the deception by Mrs. Clinton?”  Nobody asked Earnest.  Typical.  (“Is the president pissed at Mrs. Clinton?  What’s that useless toad going to do about it?  No wonder RT media is not welcome at the Whitehouse!)

More recently, Mr. Earnest commented, “I recognize that some of the president’s critics have attempted to construct some type of conspiracy about the communication between the president and the secretary of state, but they’ve failed to put forward a conspiracy that withstands any scrutiny.”  This concoction of Earnest’s is what doesn’t stand scrutiny. 

Why is Obama so relaxed about Hillary’s deceiving him?  Because he really did know, and didn’t care until it came back to bite him.  Both Obama and Hillary had an interest in keeping as much of this a mystery as possible, and so they cooperated with each other, to each other’s mutual benefit.  This isn’t a conspiracy; it’s fact.  That is why Obama put the kibosh on prosecuting Hillary, because he would have been defense witness #1.

Neera Tanden, President of the American Center for Progress, and a campaign adviser, raised holy hell with John Podesta on the day news of the secret server erupted.  She blamed Cheryl Mills for the fiasco, but ultimately reached the conclusion that Hillary thought she could “get away with it.”  Her moral analysis went no further than that:

In an email to Podesta dated Jan 17, 2016, Tanden said Hillary’s political instincts were “suboptimal.”

Obama’s stone-cold lies are nothing new.  They belong to the same pile of rubbish as “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; and if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” And “Everybody’s going to save $2500.00 per family on their health insurance.”  And the “red-line” in Syria.

Americans have grown used to lying and stonewalling from the president and the Whitehouse.  Americans haven’t rebelled against the abuse of truthful discourse because it would be racist to do so, and besides Obama was a progressive.  Hillary is a woman and something of a progressive, and she is as determined and frequent a liar as Obama and husband Bill.  It would be sexist to rebel against her abuse just as it was racist to rebel against Obama’s abuse of truthful discourse.

Trump’s political rise is in no small measure a reaction against political correctness.  A political correctness that forbids animosity to a Liar-in-Chief on the grounds that it is racist to speak the truth.  And it will be sexist to speak the truth about another congenital liar in the Oval Office.

Will the imminent collapse of Obamacare shake the American electorate enough that they will escape the bonds of political correctness on Election Day?

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Hillary’s IMF Team

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Oct 2016

Project Veritas is the underground outfit run by James O’Keefe that infiltrates shady organizations and secretly records admissions of illicit activity by high ranking members of that organization.  O’Keefe hit the big time, and made many powerful enemies, when he exposed Planned Parenthood for selling aborted fetal remains for cash, an action not only repugnant in itself but also contrary to law.

O’Keefe over the last year infiltrated Democrat party satellite organizations and over time recorded frank admissions by senior operatives of dirty tricks they perform, and have performed, for the party and on behalf of their candidate Hillary Clinton.  These satellite organizations work hand in glove with the Democrat party, but are formally separate for purposes of deniability.  “Should you or any of your I.M. force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions” as they saying goes.

Last week, Project Veritas released tapes of these Democrat operatives openly discussing fomenting violence at Donald Trump rallies.  The rioting in Chicago is the first example.  Yesterday, O’Keefe released tapes showing prohibited coordination between Hillary herself, and an “independent” organization, Americans United for Change, and Democracy Partners’s Robert Creamer - who was also a member of the DNC. Of course, there is a chain of intermediaries between Hillary’s lips and the field operation, but somehow Hillary’s expressed wishes got turned into a reality.

Hillary wanted “Donald Duck” to appear at Trump rallies to showcase her demands that Trump release his tax returns.  Project Veritas reports:

“In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground,” says Bob Creamer, of Democracy Partners, in one of several exchanges. “So, by God, we would get ducks on the ground.”

Creamer, realizing the illegal nature of coordination between his operation and the campaign (never mind with the candidate herself) then said, “Don’t repeat that to anybody.”

Also involved in the scheme to put “Donald Duck” at Trump campaign rallies were Brad Woodhouse, the president of Americans United for Change (AUFC), Scott Foval, and DNC Rapid Response Coordinator Aaron Black.

According to Factcheck.org, “Americans United is registered under the IRS code as a 501(c)(4), so it does not have to disclose its donors — although, over the years, other liberal organizations have reported making contributions to it. For example, Unity Fund — which has among its directors former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and Obama campaign bundler Louis Frillman — gave $500,000 in the 2010 campaign cycle to Americans United (see page 14 of Unity Fund’s 990 form).

Americans United made no TV ads, mass mailings or other independent expenditures or electioneering communications that advocated for the election or defeat of any candidates in 2012, according to FEC records. But it did team up with the AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) to criticize Republican members of Congress for supporting a tax plan that would preserve tax breaks for high-income persons and voting for Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan.”

Project Veritas has Brad Woodhouse on tape saying, “Let me tell you something. I think she [Hillary Clinton] has the right instinct on this. This thing is resonating, but that story is not exactly what you want to hear about how presidential decision-making happened,” indicating he believed Hillary was the source of the request.  Having that belief ought to have prevented him from acting on it, because to do so was illegal coordination.

What Project Veritas does have is Bob Creamer on tape saying how the word was passed to him.  “I was actually on a plane to go to London last week -- Christina Reynolds [Deputy Communications Director for Hillary for America] calls saying, ‘I have good news and bad news. The good news is the candidate would like to have a mascot following around the duck -- I mean, Trump.’”  And Creamer then says, “If the future president wants ducks, we will put ducks on the ground.”

Hence, Hillary’s campaign and the DNC coordinated campaign activities with Americans United for Change and Democracy Partners, depending on how you count Bob Creamer; activities, therefore, expenditures.  Somebody had to rent the costume and pay the clown.  It is activity and expenditures opposing Donald Trump at the instigation of the Hillary campaign performed by the supposedly independent organization “Americans United for Change.”

Project Veritas witnessed “daily conference calls” among “representatives of Clinton’s campaign with Creamer, AUFC managers and their operatives.  They were talking about where to send the duck and the “ducks message.”

In addition, through Creamer, the DNC, Chaired by Donna Brazile, were in on the affair early, but other reports indicate the Brazile had the DNC bail on the effort out of fears of copyright violations.

Two members of Hillary’s IMF force have been caught and killed.  Americans United for Change last week fired Scott Foval, and Robert Creamer announced that he was “stepping down” from “campaign responsibilities.”

Hillary’s campaign continues to roll on, apparently impervious to email scandals, her “deplorables” remark, her physical collapse on the 9/11 memorial, her bare faced brazen lies about her emails, the WikiLeaks revelations, and now these Project Veritas tapes showing the coordination with Hillary’s campaign to foment violence and other dirty tricks at Trump’s rallies.

Hillary is beyond the reach of the law.  Has she put herself beyond the reach of the electorate?

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Obama Administration Defrauds Iraq, Afghan Veterans.

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Oct 2016

For thousands of years, experienced soldiers have been paid bounties for re-enlisting.  Rather than see trained, experienced men leave the service, armies throughout history have offered retention bonuses, or bounties, for those soldiers to stay in the service.  Usually this occurs in time of need, when those soldier’s skills are greatly in need, time is short, and there is not enough time to recruit and train replacements.  Sometimes, there may not even be replacements.  The service has to cut a deal, and it sucks to be a buyer in a seller’s market.

Thus when a soldier is offered a retention bonus, he has to take it as on the up and up.  He gets his money and he does his extra time.  It is not in his power to check to make sure that the people offering him the cash are lawfully entitled to do so.  If he gets the cash from the service, that’s good enough for him.  He does the time.

It does the service no good to develop the reputation of fraud and faithlessness:  giving the money, and then, after the extra time is served, asking for it back.  With interest.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting on the cases of thousands of National Guard soldiers from California who are being harassed to return retention bonuses they were paid a decade ago, and that they were offered to do another tour of Iraq or Afghanistan.  The Bush Administration paid the bonuses, and the Obama Administration is asking for it back.  Some of the bonuses amounted to $15,000 - cheap when you consider the cost of recruiting and training a replacement.

The Times reports as follows:

“Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses — and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse — after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade.

Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets.

But soldiers say the military is reneging on 10-year-old agreements and imposing severe financial hardship on veterans whose only mistake was to accept bonuses offered when the Pentagon needed to fill the ranks.

“These bonuses were used to keep people in,” said Christopher Van Meter, a 42-year-old former Army captain and Iraq veteran from Manteca, Calif., who says he refinanced his home mortgage to repay $25,000 in reenlistment bonuses and $21,000 in student loan repayments that the Army says he should not have received. “People like me just got screwed.”

In Iraq, Van Meter was thrown from an armored vehicle turret — and later awarded a Purple Heart for his combat injuries — after the vehicle detonated a buried roadside bomb.

Susan Haley, a Los Angeles native and former Army master sergeant who deployed to Afghanistan in 2008, said she sends the Pentagon $650 a month — a quarter of her family’s income — to pay down $20,500 in bonuses that the Guard says were given to her improperly. 

“I feel totally betrayed,” said Haley, 47, who served 26 years in the Army along with her husband and oldest son, a medic who lost a leg in combat in Afghanistan.

Haley, who now lives in Kempner, Texas, worries they may have to sell their house to repay the bonuses. “They’ll get their money, but I want those years back,” she said, referring to her six-year reenlistment.”

These veterans have every right to feel betrayed, because the country they served committed fraud against them.  They had a contract.  The papers were signed and the money was paid.  That’s a contract.  You can ask for the money back, but you can’t give the time back.  If the veteran had tried to bail, you can be sure the government would be enforcing its rights.

Why did it take a decade to find this out?  If it was discovered while these people were in the midst of serving their re-enlistment tours, why weren’t they offered the chance to leave while the damage was minimal?  Who was the pencil-neck who determined to ask for the money back?

Who were these “officials” who authorized the money and cut the check?  Why aren’t these “officials” being charged with a crime, or being made to repay the money personally?  Lack of oversight is a damned excuse.  Who committed the failure of oversight?  Why isn’t that supervisor on the legal hook – after all they allowed the unauthorized expenditure of public funds for fraudulent purposes.

Why aren’t they being held accountable for the money?  The CEO of Wells Fargo was forced to resign and forego millions in pay and bonuses for the same kind of thing.  He was chastised twice before the Congress, and the dollar fraud involved with Wells Fargo was a tenth the size of the fraud committed against U.S. veterans by their own government.

The veterans acted in good faith.  Why can’t the U.S. government act in good faith towards its veterans?  Why isn’t there anyone in the U.S. government saying this is plain wrong, and fixing it?  They demanded retribution and got it in the case of Wells Fargo!

What do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have to say about this travesty?  What will they pledge to do about it?

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Hillary Tax-Deducts Bill’s Donated Underwear

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Oct 2016

I was listening to an interview of political writer and analyst Michael Barone when he made a reference to Hillary and Bill Clinton donating Bill’s used underwear to charity and deducting it as an itemized donation from their tax return.  Barone used this example to support his contention that Hillary has a near pathological need for money.

Sure enough, this fact was reported in the Washington Post on Dec 28, 1993 as follows:

As reported by Lloyd Grove Washington Post, on 12/28/1993:

If the recent past is any guide, Bill Clinton and his wife, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, have been spending the past few months gathering up unwanted belongings -- from old shoes to shower curtains to jogging shorts to, yes, apparently used underwear -- carefully enumerating each item alongside dollar amounts on handwritten lists, and giving the lot to such worthy causes as the Salvation Army and Goodwill Industries.

The Clintons' tax returns over the past decade -- which "obviously were prepared with an eye toward being released," according to White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers -- are rife with detailed supporting documents that may someday prove a rich boon to historians and psychohistorians studying the forces that shaped the Clinton presidency.

Several experts were consulted about Clinton's tax-deductible donations, especially of underwear. Paul Offenbacher, a longtime Washington-area tax accountant, said it is highly unusual to take an itemized deduction on donated underwear; indeed, he had never heard of such a thing. Adelphi University psychology professor George D. Goldman, a New York-based psychoanalyst who studies the unconscious symbolic meanings in human behavior, said the donations are, at the very least, fodder for intriguing speculation.

"Obviously I can't tell you what Clinton's individual symbols mean; all I can do is give you my own analysis -- which is that he's airing his dirty wash or maybe trying to take his dirty wash and make it cleaner," Goldman said. "I'm a lifelong Democrat, and I voted for him, but there's something, let's say, grandiose, both too personal and a bit inappropriately intimate, to give your underwear away for someone else to wear, and then to think that your underwear is worth giving this sort of a valuation to."

This stuff is sick!  Hillary deducted Bill’s used underwear, donated to Goodwill, at $0.95 per pair, to reduce their tax burden.

Barone has a point.  The Clintons grubbed for money while they were in the Whitehouse, going as far as renting out the Lincoln bedroom: make a donation, and Bill would let you spend the night.  The Clintons turned to making money big time after they left the Whitehouse.  Between 2001 and 2015, the Clintons somehow went from “dead broke” to worth $250 million.

Who knew the worth of used presidential underwear?  Maybe it had the presidential seal on it.  I hope they washed it first.

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Baksheesh for Hillary

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Oct 2016

Before Hillary Clinton formally announced her candidacy for president, she was still collecting millions of dollars from foreign governments.  In the case below, she was preparing to receive approximately $12 million from the King of Morocco.

As Huma Abedin, one of Hillary’s closest confidants, explains below, the Moroccans believed they were being hit up by the Clintons for the money.  The scheme involved the Moroccans going out of their way to host a conference of the Clinton Global Initiative, and in return for the upset and for future considerations, the Moroccans would be seen hosting a visit from the next president of the United States.

This was a clear case of quid pro quo.  The Moroccans host the conference and give the Clintons $12 million, and they get to bask in the prestige among their people and get future considerations from the next president.

From:huma@hrcoffice.com

To: robbymook2015@gmail.com, john.podesta@gmail.com  Date: 2015-01-18 13:57

Subject: Re: FYI CGI Africa

Thank you for sharing. Just to give you some context, the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation. If hrc was not part if it, meeting was a non-starter. CGI also wasn't pushing for a meeting in Morocco and it wasn't their first choice. This was HRC's idea, our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request. The King has personally committed approx $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting. It will break a lot of china to back out now when we had so many opportunities to do it in the past few months. She created this mess and she knows it. ________________________________

From: Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2015 10:38:52 AM

To: Huma Abedin; John Podesta

Subject: FYI CGI Africa

Came up on our call with HRC. John flagged the same issues we discussed, Huma. HRC said she's sitll considering.

Because Hillary had not yet announced and was no longer Secretary of State, technically this arrangement involves no direct breach of ethics.  Hillary was in a position to stiff the Moroccans if she didn’t run.

But she was going to run, and the occasion for this email exchange between Abedin and Hillary’s campaign-in-waiting was that the CGI event was going to happen in May, 2015, after she had announced.  Then the spectre of an ethics problem would arise.  That is what had the campaign team so exercised.

Hillary’s pathological obsession with money was getting the better of her, and her campaign team noticed.  Huma Abedin was tired of being caught in the middle, and her frustration came out in her email to the team, calling the situation a “mess,” and openly blamed Hillary for it.

To put some context to this, the Islamic religion has no tradition of giving charity to non-Muslims.  Zakat is Muslim alms-giving and is considered as a religious obligation.  It is intended to contribute to Jihad or to relieve suffering.  Muslims gain no religious benefit from alms giving to non-Muslims.

Baksheesh, on the other hand, is like tipping, or political corruption or bribery.  This is form of giving also quite well known in the Middle East.  When the King of Morocco, a deeply Muslim country, offered the CGI $12 million, it would be with baksheesh in mind, not zakat.  And that would explain why the Moroccans would be so upset at Hillary Clinton not appearing at the event because it would be a clear sign that they were being played.

When you look at all the so-called charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation from the Middle Eastern countries - Saudi Arabia and Qatar particularly - these donations were understood in the Middle East as baksheesh, not zakat.  The $ 1 million birthday gift that Qatar wanted to give Bill Clinton was baksheesh.

The Middle Eastern potentates were able to look like big-shots on the world stage to their populations by being seen giving “tips” to western charities run by the Clintons, or to the Clintons themselves.  The difference between zakat and baksheesh is why money ostensibly for Haiti was given to the Clinton Foundation and not to Haitian relief directly.  Giving zakat to Haiti makes no sense to Muslims, and they would likely feel pretty aggrieved at alms being given to western, Christian nations instead of to Muslims.

While western eyes see nothing wrong with Muslims countries giving charity for Haitian relief, Middle Eastern countries certainly would.  They were giving baksheesh so far as they were concerned, and the Clintons and Huma Abedin understood that.  That is why Abedin spoke of china breaking at backing out late in the game, and calling it a “mess.”

Muslims don’t like being played for suckers by westerners.  The Moroccan affair may not be seen as a quid pro quo in American eyes, but it sure was supposed to be in Middle Eastern.  Maybe it’s okay to us that Hillary could stiff the Moroccans, but word gets around diplomatic circles, and the ethics of the thing stinks.

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Megyn’s Obsession

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Oct 2016

No new beans are being spilt with this revelation, but Fox News’ Megyn Kelly has a hate on for Donald Trump.  She thinks Trump is a sexist pig and a lout.  She thinks Trump is disrespectful of women like her.  And for some reason she thinks this is disqualifying of Trump being president.  (And I hope my pointing this out doesn’t make her seem shallow and looks-obsessed.)

On debate night we had two more examples of this closet Hillary campaign worker in action, and of her obsession with a woman’s looks.  She tore after and scolded Trump communications director Jason Miller about Trump’s dismissing the allegations of unwanted sexual contact made against him the last ten days.  Kelly insisted that Trump’s sexist-pig attitude was evident when he dismissed the allegations on the basis of the women’s looks.

She ran a clip of Hillary making that very allegation during the debate and Trump denying it.  To confirm that Hillary was right, Kelly then ran several clips of Trump addressing and dismissing the allegations on the stump.  Did he or did he not disparage their looks, she asked?

When the clips were done I would have asked Kelly, “So where is your case, counsellor?  I didn’t hear Trump say what you said.  YOU ARE PUTTING WORDS INTO TRUMP’S MOUTH.  He is trying his best to make light of a bad situation, and you are trying to make it ugly.”

Unfortunately, Jason Miller was not so clever and Kelly’s interpretation of what Trump actually said – that he disparaged their looks and that this was wrong! - remained unrefuted.   Meanwhile the catastrophe of Aleppo, Syria, continues to unfold and Hillary’s ham-fisted diplomatic connection to it went undiscussed.  The nature of Trump’s jokes are more important.

Kelly was, however, refuted quite well by another guest, Bill Bennett.  Kelly was incensed that Trump had said of Hillary in the debate, “a nasty woman.”  Bennett replied, “Is Hillary nasty?  Is she a woman?  Yes and yes.”  Kelly rather stridently tried to affirm that Trump’s allegedly pushing himself on women was worse than Bill Clinton’s “affairs.”  Bennett replied that Bill’s was an actual, proven fact, while Trump’s are only allegations; and that it was an affair with an intern while he was president of the United States - calling into account the vast difference in age and power, which feminists, when it was convenient, regarded as unfair.

Kelly, embarrassed, then backed off, saying that she was not offering an excuse for Bill Clinton’s behavior, she was just “offering a distinction.”  The squid squirted ink in the water and she jetted away.  (I hope Kelly doesn’t think I disparaged her looks by comparing her to a squid – a particularly ugly fish.)

Kelly redeemed herself a little to the fair and balanced network when she tore Donna Brazile apart based upon new WikiLeaks revelations.  Brazile sent an email to John Podesta with a tough question Hillary was going to be asked at candidate’s town hall forum.  Brazile saw her media career evaporating before her eyes as she struggled to evade admitting to Megyn on national television that it was all true.  We got the Russian hack angle, that she was a Christian woman who would do no such thing, and other evasions.  It was ugly to watch.

Kelly had speared her fish and the fish flip-flopped desperately on the stick, vainly struggling to get away. (I hope Megyn is not offended by my comparing Donna Brazile to a flopping fish, or at the implication that Megyn herself would be so cruel as to engage in spearfishing.)

Brazile is Chair of the DNC, the second in four months.  She is not Hillary and is not closely connected to Hillary’s campaign.  The interview was a good demonstration of Kelly’s journalistic chops, but she emptied her gun in a safe direction so far as the Hillary campaign is concerned.  I hope Megyn is not offended by my suggestion that she fired a gun, and not at Hillary.

And no offence was intended if Megyn thinks that, at the beginning in my reference to beans, meant I was somehow likening her to a string bean.  Let me apologize in advance.

If I said, “Megyn Kelly?  Not my type, I much prefer Greta van Susteren” would she think I was disparaging her on the basis of her looks?

I’m a bad hombre.  Oops.

-30-

Getting used to Trump’s Warts

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Oct 2016

The final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, (all by herself this time) seemed drained of emotion compared to the previous two debates.  The first two were fiery as Hillary and the moderators sought to embarrass Trump and Trump fought back.  This time, the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News, ran the debate professionally, asked tough but fair questions of both candidates and focussed on the issues.  Wallace was rightly commended for his performance.

Trump looked stern the whole night but he did not allow himself to be goaded by Hillary.  As for Hillary’s performance, Jonah Goldberg gave the following apt description, which I don’t think can be improved upon:

“She, as ever, was plodding, uninteresting, deceitful, and arrogant. But she made no major mistakes because she understood she needs to sit on her lead and make this election a referendum on Donald Trump. Of course, if you know anything about the issues, or if you listened carefully to her answers, she just confirmed what a corrupt, dishonest, and un-compelling politician she is. She speaks in white noise, even when she’s saying outrageous or ridiculous things.”

For the first time ever, Wallace asked her about partial-birth abortion, a hideous procedure in which a baby just few days from birth is brutally killed.  Hillary waffled on about how all was unfair to the woman and then defended abortion in general, but not that procedure.  Trump pounced, and any pro-life voter knows whom he has to vote for in good conscience.  Trump was asked about Roe v. Wade and he forthrightly said that he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn the decision so that the matter could be returned to the States for regulation by the State.  A good answer.

That brought up the Supreme Court.  Hillary explained why she would appoint political hacks to the bench so that the Supreme Court could be used as a legislature for progressivist causes.  And she named the causes, and how the Court should be corrupted and stacked to vote as she desired.  Trump whiffed a little on his answer, but he did get in about the need to protect the 2^nd Amendment and that he would appoint justices in the mould of the late Antonin Scalia.  Trump should have said in answer to the question (where do you think the Supreme Court should take us?) that the role of the Court is to apply the constitution to the laws passed by legislatures, not to legislate itself.  Therefore, justices to the Supreme Court should be devoted to the constitution, not to particular political causes and should not decide what the constitution means on a given day based upon the state of their digestion.  It should be based on the text and the meaning of the words used at the time of passage.  Nevertheless, I think Trump’s meaning came across.

A question that Wallace put to Trump showed indirectly the lemming-like behavior of the media.  Wallace asked Trump if he would accept the results of the election given all he has said about the system being rigged.  Trump replied that he would decide at the time, based upon what he saw.  When pressed, Trump said he would keep Wallace in suspense.

Obviously, the media had been brewing up something beforehand about this matter of acceptance because every media outlet from Fox to the AP went wild immediatelyabout Trump not doing right by the republic, about peaceful transfer of power, blah-blah-blah.  The big media people are dumb as a bag of rocks.

After about half an hour of jumping up and down about not accepting results, people began to recall Al Gore and the fiasco over the Florida vote in 2000.  Gore conceded, then he withdrew his concession, then he fought the Florida results all the way to the Supreme Court.  Fox then recalled that Trump said the same thing at the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, and it was all those other candidates who said they would accept the results and support the eventual Republican nominee.  You know, the ones who failed to support Trump after he won.

The stupidest part of the matter lies in the alleged threat to a peaceful transfer of power.  If Trump wins, he’ll accept the results and there will be a peaceful transfer of power from Obama to Trump.  If Hillary wins corruptly, there will be a peaceful transfer of power between Hillary and Obama regardless of Trump’s opinion.  So there is no threat to the peaceful transfer of power.

But what is more destructive of republican virtues: making damn sure the returns are proper, or accepting corrupt results that put an illegitimate office-holder into power?  The media seem to think that winning corruptly and keeping up appearances is more important than getting it right and fighting corruption.

There are twenty days until the election.  The WikiLeaks scandals will continue to dribble out, and the Hillary campaign has thrown their last mud at Trump.  They are out of ammo, and Hillary is going into hiding.  Hillary demonstrated that she is more of the same, and the question before the electorate is whether Trump is deemed acceptable enough in office to bring about the change he has called for.  There is time for mature reflection, and for people to get used to Trump’s warts.  Time is against Hillary because her mask is falling away and the hideous face behind the mask is become more apparent.  Being so drained of emotion, the debate itself will likely not “move the needle” in and of itself.  People have time to reflect on what they have seen and Hillary is out of gas.

Will midnight strike Princess Hillary before, or after, the election?

-30-