3rd World Dictatorship?

The big headline after the 3rd presidential debate was that Trump refuses to accept the results of the election. Pundits are up in arms, claiming that Trump is putting our republic at risk and acting like a 3rd World strongman. What's the truth of the matter?

First and most important, Trump didn't refuse to accept the results. He said "We'll see". There's a huge difference.

As for the 3rd World accusations, let's look at it the other way. Trump's challenger, Hillary Clinton, is there mainly because she was married to a former president. Yes, she was a Senator and Secretary of State but everyone knew at the time that those posts were given to her to pad her resume. She accomplished very little in those roles which is why she's still talking about accomplishments (real and imagined) from her days as First Lady.

Hillary was the first First Lady to be deposed under oath (for her part in the Travelgate scandal). She's probably the first candidate to have earned the nomination while under a criminal investigation by the FBI for mishandling confidential data. Numerous media outlets have reported that rank and file FBI and many federal prosecutors are upset that no charges were filed. The persistent rumor is that the decision not to prosecute came from the White House.

Trump has complained that the system is rigged. The Left is in horror about that but they just smiled and nodded when Bernie Sanders said the same thing last Spring. And yes, as it turned out, the Democratic party was cooperating with the Clinton campaign to end Sander's candidacy as fast as possible.

But that was all within the Democratic Party. What about the national election?

It's come out that there was collusion between the press and the Clinton campaign. Questions were sent out in advance for approval. Participants in town halls were plants (at least one was an actress and daughter of a Democratic operative reading from a script and given a red bow to wear so the moderator could find her).

In 2004 CBS 60 Minutes aired a poorly vetted report that President Bush had evaded service while in the Texas national Iar Guard. The Kerry campaign had advance warnign of this and would have used this as a major campaign issue if the story hadn't fallen apart. In 2008 there was an email list called the JouroList. It let the Obama campaign coordinate their message with the press. Does anyone seriously believe that such a list does not exist in 2016?

Leaked emails show that Trump is the candidate that the Clinton campaign wanted since polls showed her losing to every other Republican. The Clinton campaign urged the press to keep treating Trump as a front-runner.

The IRS is still slow-walking conservative organizations' applications for tax-free status.

So, we have the wife of a former president who should have been charged but wasn't being helped by a sympathetic press.

Finally we have the electorate.

Studies have shown that the voter registration lists are in terrible shape. 1 in 8 voters is registered in the wrong place, has died, or otherwise is listed inaccurately. States are forbidden by the government from performing mandatory purges. 47 states make no effort to check that people who are registered while getting a driver's license are actually citizens. There are legal challenges to two of the three states that do check.

Unless you are homeless and living on handouts, it is impossible to function in this country without an ID but efforts to ensure that the person showing up at the polls is who he says he is are constantly denounced as racists voter intimidation.

Studies that show a significant number of non-citizens voting are dismissed with a wave of the hand.

Recently a Democrat in Virginia was caught registering dead people. As with all cases like this, the Left dismisses this pointing out that no one actually voted. That begs the question of why Democrats keep trying to register non-existent people if they won't use those registrations to vote?

There's a lot of uncertainty in modern elections, most of it caused by Democrats.

Ironically, the same people insisting that Trump should accept the election results (three weeks before the election) complained of irregularities in the 2004 election. It was reported that it was statistically impossible for some counties to have voted for Bush (except the same counties had voted Republican for years). There were wide-spread worries of voting machine tampering. No one at the time complained that this would bring an end to the republic.

As with the entire Clinton campaign, the fuss over Trump's charges of a fixed election are manufactured outrage. The real outrage should be how Clinton is being forced on the electorate.

Trump and the Sliding Scale

Picture a scale from 1-10 and below it one from 10-1. The top scale measures outrage. The bottom scale measures usefulness to causes the Left is pushing. This scale explains the reaction to Trump scandals.

25 years ago the Left declared Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas unfit for the court because he had allegedly made some off-color jokes to a woman who worked for him. In fact this was so important that Democratic Senators broke the rules and released information that was supposed to be kept private.

While he was President, Bill Clinton had sex with an intern multiple times. He lied about it in sworn testimony. It also came out that he had probably abused several women while governor and possibly had affairs with others while president. The outrage was notably muted.

When asked about it, several feminists admitted that Clinton was too important to their cause and that they were mainly angry that he had endangered the cause, not that he had abused women.

Now we have Trump who has been recorded talking about touching women. Not using his position of power to have sex with them, simply groping them. So why is he unfit for office when Bill wasn't? Because he's on the wrong point of the sliding scale, of course.

Granted some of the outrage reflects different standards but most of the current standards date to Clarence Thomas's confirmation.

This is a long-standing tactic from the left and no matter who that Republican nominee was, Team Clinton would find something to be outraged about. Four years ago we heard about Romney's binders full of women, his car elevator and his magic underwear. We were told that he was so rich that he could never relate to ordinary people. And years ago he fastened the dog's carrier to the top of his car.

No matter who the Republican candidate turned out to be now, we'd be seeing the same story. Team Clinton's opposition research on conjunction with mainstream media would discover some damaging October surprise and that's all we'd be hearing about.

Look at the 2004 election. 60 Minutes aired a report questioning George W. Bush's service in the Texas National Air Guard. The Kerry campaign knew this was coming and had ads all set to run capitalizing on the 60 Minutes report. They only failed because they got too eager and based the story on some flimsy documentation with no provenance.

So take all of the stories about Trump's behavior decades ago with a grain of salt. Is it more important than his proposals for the economy? Or Hillary's illegalities?

Lurking?

Images such as this have been all over social media after the October 9th debate between Trump and Hillary.

This and similar images show "Trump lurking in the background". But what is really going on here?

I watched the debate and I remember this part. Trump stood at his stool while Hillary walked in front of him, closer to the audience. He was not "lurking". It was a trick of the cameras and her placement that made him appear over her shoulder.

Clearly the news media chose pictures such as this to make Trump look scary. The only question is if Hillary deliberately positioned herself for these shots?

Hillary had clearly been coached heavily. Every time Trump landed a rhetorical blow, she gave a knowing grin, often shaking her head in a "There he goes again" gesture. As the debate continued, her grin looked more and more forced, turning into a grimace.

Of course, no one commented on that. They were too busy disapproving of Trump's position behind Hillary.

Tax deductions and the future

Let me get this straight - around the same time that Trump was taking legal tax deductions for a well-publicized business loss (remember when Trump's bankruptcies came up in the Republican debate?) Hillary was claiming deductions for donating Bill's used underwear to charity. Most charities don't even accept used underwear and those that do sell them for less than Hillary claimed in deductions. And Hillary has the nerve to complain about Trump's taxes as if he was the one who did something wrong?

If we're going to dig 20+ years back into Trump's taxes and his dealings with beauty queens then let's go back a bit further and look at her commodity trading. Or the White House Travel Office firings. Or Whitewater (the original scandal when Bill may have used his power as Governor to try to save a bank that he had a personal stake in).

But none of this tells us what the candidate will do for the economy how how they will solve the crisis in Syria.

How about if the next debate limits the candidates to talking about the future instead of each other's past?

Why I'm Voting Against Hillary

Trump was not my first choice. In fact, out of around 13 candidates, he ran 10th or 11th. Watching the Republican National Convention I felt like the party had left me and I seriously considered voting for Hillary Clinton. But then I watched the Democratic National Convention. I might have been able to stomach the Bill Clinton-era Democrats but the current party has moved so far to the left that they disowned all of his accomplishments. Bernie ran on an anti-Bill platform, against NAFTA, Welfare Reform, and Clinton's crime bill. Eight years ago, Hillary ran on a platform of bringing back the Clinton Years. Now she's running on a platform that says President Obama didn't go far enough.

As an ex-senator and Secretary of State (and First Lady), Hillary Clinton is as establishment as you can get. The Democratic Party has played up the Wall Street/Main Street division and Hillary is firmly entrenched with Wall Street. She was paid huge sums for short speeches and her son-in-law is a hedge fund manager (but one who loses his clients' money while making money himself). Most of Hillary's money comes from wealthy Wall Street donors and other millionaires and billionaires. This is not someone with the interests of everyday workers in mind.

Hillary has no new ideas. You can see this from her ads. She's run one ad outlining her economic plans. They boil down to tax, spend and regulate. She discarded that ad fairly quickly in favor of one showing that she's been giving the same speech for 40 years.

With no new ideas, her campaign has been all about personal destruction. That's what she's always done. In 2008 her campaign invented or at least circulated rumors that Obama was a secret Muslim and not really "American". Most pundits were sure that the rumor Obama was born in Africa started in the Clinton Campaign staff. Before that she and her staff made personal attacks on the many women Bill slept with, trying to destroy their credibility. And let us not forget the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Or the Basket of Horribles.

This time she's trying to destroy Trump. While she's got two positive ads, most of her campaign spending has been on attack ads, all following the same formula. All of them feature quotes from Trump. Some of these quotes are ancient, up to 20 years old. And we've heard them innumerable times. It hasn't occureed to the Clinton Campaign that these ads have lost their punch through constant repetition.

Hillary is insisting that we should vote for her because of things her opponent 20 years ago about a beauty contestant.

The left constantly insists that Hillary may be a bad choice but Trump is much, much worse. Some have admitted that they exaggerated in previous elections, casting fine men such as Romney as racists but this time the candidate really is a racist. Also Hitler. We can't forget that Trump is Hitler. And if we do forget then someone will remind us. Again and again.

Every time I read a column about how electing Trump will bring an end to American democracy, I have to wonder: What in Hillary's record makes anyone think that she's better?

I already mentioned her need to destroy opponents. The most extreme example of that came when she suggested using a drone to kill Julian Assage.

Hillary has spent her career bending rules to her benefit. She is much more likely than Trump to continue Obama's precedent of bypassing Congress and the Constitution through executive orders and regulatory decree.

Clinton brandishes her resume but her biggest achievement was probably convincing Obama to help overthrow the Libyan government, replacing a cooperative government with chaos that has no sign of ending. This was as disastrous to the people of Libya as Bush's overthrow of Iraq with even less planning for the aftermath.

Then there's Hillary's email server. That's multiple scandals all wrapped together. She most likely used a private server in order to escape FOIA requests. She used her Blackberries to send unencrypted emails in areas where hostile powers could easily intercept them. The emails that the FBI recovered show that the firewall between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation didn't exist. The Clinton Foundation was selling access to the Secretary of State. Clinton and her staff were careless about handling classified emails. And they destroyed documents under subpoena.

Any other official would have been charged for one or more of these actions but Hillary is Obama's chosen successor and his Justice Department will not touch her.

Finally there is Hillary's over-use of the woman-card. She constantly complains about how hard it is to be a woman and how she's been discriminated against all her life. Many of these claims keep the fact-checkers busy disproving. If shes caught concealing pneumonia then it's sexism. The reason that such a flawed candidate isn't way ahead in the polls must be sexism. After eight years of opposition to Obama's policies being dismissed as racism, we don't need another 4-8 years of principled opposition being dismissed as sexism.

Questions for the Candidates

In case anyone's listening, here are some serious questions I'd like to see asked of the candidates. All are related to security and foreign relations.

Clinton: You've said that we will never have boots on the ground in the Middle East again. Since we already have a large number of Special Forces training and aiding our allies, are you saying that you would withdraw them?

Follow-up: Doesn't this mean that you are ceding the Middle East to Iran and Russia?

Trump: The past couple of years have shown that air power by itself is not enough to defeat ISIS. How will you handle the need for American boots on the ground?

Clinton: The Iran treaty was negotiated in secret while members of the Obama administration lied to Congress about sanctions and the intentions of Iran. It was never formally presented to the Senate to ratify, it is in force by executive order. Among the conditions for the treaty to continue, the US has to refrain from interfering with Syria's Bashir who has repeatedly used poison gas on his populous. Will you abide by the terms of the treaty? If not, how will you change it?

Trump: Same question.

Clinton: Your anti-terrorism plan basically consists of increased spying on Americans. Is there anything else to your plan?

Trump: You have also called for increased spying but more targeted at Muslims. Given your reluctance to engage Islamic extremists overseas, how will you stop self-radicalization?

Clinton: President Obama scaled back on American pro-democracy efforts across the globe. Will you continue his policies or return them to the levels they were under President Bush or even your husband?

Follow-up: Obama opened relations with Cuba without any human rights concessions. Will you follow his lead in dealing with the Castro brothers or will you apply pressure on them to improve human rights?

Trump: You have talked about withdrawing from NATO and closing overseas bases. American protection is more than a matter of defense. It is also a huge bargaining chip in trade negotiations and international crises. It would also give Russia and China a great deal more international influence. Given these factors, don't the benefits of overseas bases balance out the costs.

Birtherism

Birtherism, the notion that Barack Obama was born outside the US, has become a hot topic recently. Trump, a birther since 2011, finally agreed that President Obama was born in Hawaii, as claimed.

There are a few interesting things about the media coverage. The first is the blanket denial that Hillary Clinton's campaign was responsible for birtherism in the first place. Politifact gave it a false ruling. While I used to have a lot of respect for this site, they've been getting more and more partisan over the years. While it is true that there is no record of Hillary Clinton ever questioning Obama's birthplace, there is no question that this was part of a general campaign against Obama when the two were competing for the 2008 nomination. The Clinton campaign's surrogates quietly suggested that Obama was a secret Muslim. When asked to deny it, Hillary always said things like "Obama's a Christian... as far as I know."

Two reporters have come forward saying that Clinton campaign operative Sidney Blumenthal pushed stories about Obama's birthplace and his religion.

Remember, this was early 2008. The Republicans were still a long way from settling the nomination and Obama was still the underdog. No one but the Clinton campaign had any reason for spreading doubt about Obama's qualifications to be president. Even if the Clinton campaign didn't start the rumor they were the reason it spread.

Politifact's ruling rests on the construction that there is no evidence that Clinton's supporters invented the claim while admitting that they spread it. They also accept Hillary's statement that this was unauthorized. The statement they were fact checking said, "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy." Even Politifact admits that people in the Clinton campaign were involved in spreading birtherism. It takes no stretch of the imagination to picture Hillary approving this. It's in keeping with her treatment of the women Bill had affairs with.

Everyone in the news media in 2008 knows this. Hillary covered her tracks (on a private email server?) but there were no other suspects.

So the news media is covering for Hillary.

Even worse, they are insisting that birtherism is racist and that Trump should apologize for it. This is my second point. The media knows full well that birtherism began with Hillary but rather than admitting it and calling her a racist, they are throwing that insult at birther-come-laty, Trump.

For the record - birtherism was always a dumb idea. It required foreknowledge that the newborn Barack would need to claim American citizenship at a time that a black president seemed inconceivable. Regardless of where he was born, Obama's mother was an American citizen, just as McCain's and Cruze's so he'd be a citizen regardless.

One thing that makes me leery of Trump is that he revived this silly idea after it died out.

 

Did Hillary Just Lose the Election?

Very few people are actually planning on voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. They will be voting against the worst candidate. Over the past weekend, Hillary made her case for being the worst.

First it came out that she's been saying that half of Trump's supporters are a "basket of deplorables". She later had to back off from that, saying that she had over-generalized. This did not stop her supporters from doubling down and insisting that she'd lowballed the figure when she said that 1/2 of Trump's supporters (and 1/4 of the nation) are irredeemable racists.

Given the low bar that the left has for labeling people as racists, homophobes, xenophobes, and islamiphobes, a lot of possible voters are going to assume that Hillary included them. Not the proper action for a close election that needs to attract voters from the other side.

A phrase like Basket of Deplorables isn't going to mobilize the Left but the Right won't forget it.

But that's minor compared to September 11 when Hillary left a 9/11 commemoration early and was seen collapsing while waiting for her van. After weeks of denying that Hillary had any health problems, the campaign was caught in a lie - again.

Actually, the campaign was caught issuing a series of excuses. First they said that Hillary was dehydrated. Then they said that she had pneumonia. But they kept falling back on the dehydration excuse, too.

There is a familiarity to this. Hillary went through a long list of excuses and prevarications about her private email server. For now, most people are accepting the pneumonia excuse but there are flaws in it. The official story is that she had only had a cough for a week but people were talking about it long before that. Then there's her detour to her daughter's apartment instead of a hospital. Someone with pneumonia collapses and doesn't go to the hospital?

Given Hillary's problems with the truth, flaws in her story look like possible lies. Hillary never tells a truth that will hurt her. She lies, she prevaricates, she misdirects, she stonewalls, but she never comes out and tells the truth. It's a major character flaw and it hurt her greatly over the weekend. There's a good chance that voters will be skeptical of pat explanations about her health and any other statements she says about major topics. That could cost her the election. 

Trump and Racism

It's a ritual - once the Republican candidate is chosen, the left talks about how racist he is or must be because he's a Republican. In some cases they delight in making fun of any dark-skinned grandchildren that the candidate has. The unusual thing about this election is that they've admitted that they did it in previous elections. The current message is, "Yes, we said that every candidate since Nixon is a racist but they weren't really and we regret saying it because Trump really, really is a racist and you won't believe us now."

There's a problem with this approach, it's hard to find actual racism from Trump. The usual examples are from Trump's statements on illegal immigrants. He's claimed that Mexico sends its worst over here. These are generalizations based on anecdotal stories and are exaggerated by Trump. They are certainly hurtful to law-abiding illegal immigrants (although they did break a law coming here). BUT, illegal immigrants are not a race. They are people who have come here illegally.

Then there is Trump's Muslim ban. He hasn't said that he will ban Muslims. He said that he will put a hold on accepting Muslim refugees until we have a better screening process. This seems like common sense to many people, especially after the spate of terrorist attacks in Orlando and Europe this Summer. Granted these were by long-time residents but people feel unsafe because of these and need assurance that new terrorists aren't being brought in.

Consider the stress that accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees has put on Europe. Accepting unlimited refugees is causing the rise of nationalist, anti-Europe parties. The Left is being foolish to emulate policies that are so unpopular in Europe.

Again, refugees are not a race. Neither is Islam - it's a religion.

Then comes the biggest problem with Trump being a racist - trying to find examples of racism against blacks. If it existed then it would be all over the airwaves. That's a problem when claiming that Trump is Hitler.

And here's another huge problem with claiming that Trump is a racist - he used to be a Democrat. Didn't anyone on the Left notice this back when he was one of them? President and Secretary Clinton were guests at his last wedding. Were they really willing to attend the wedding of the next Mussolini? Or were they willing to look the other way as long as he kept writing checks?

Given the Left's history of crying wolf (or "Hitler"), it's hard to believe that this time they are finally correct.

The Sun Queen

During the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King, the most desired post in the court was for the man who helped the King put his shirt on in the morning. The reason for this has modern implications.

If you were a wealthy person in 17th century France and you wanted to make an appeal to the King you could go through official channels but it was unlikely that it would reach the king and if it did it was likely to be lost among similar appeals. Plus every step of the bureaucracy expected a bribe to expedite your request.

But there was a short-cut. The person who helped Louis dress was also the first person he spoke with each day. Louis made sure to choose someone he liked and trusted. So, that person was ideally placed to put a word in the King's ear. And he did. His fees for doing this were high but it was a way to bypass the bureaucracy. He couldn't guarantee how the King would act, only that your message would reach the King's ear.

That's how the Clinton Foundation acted during Hillary's term as Secretary of State. You could try going through normal channels but there was a short-cut for Clinton Foundation donors. The head of the Foundation had a direct line to Hillary's chief assistants. That didn't mean that Hillary would act on your request. Sometimes it was outside the control of her office. It also meant that you had a good chance at arranging a a personal meeting with the Secretary of State. Who knows what happened then?

Hillary has said that this issue is all "smoke but no fire" but she has a long and complicated relationship with the truth. The important thing is that donors to the Clinton Foundation didn't have to play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Confidence in the Vote

The Left is upset by Trump's suggestion that the polls and elections are rigged against him. While this is a serious charge, it is hardly as unusual as the Left pretends.

First there was the 2000 election. Bush won and Gore conceded to him then called back to un-conced. Gore spent the next few weeks insisting that the election-night count was flawed and that he would win once "every vote was counted". Things got out of hand and the Supreme Court finally called an end to the recount when it was obvious that different standards were being used in different counties. Gore was an ungraceful looser and many of his supporters believed that he actually won the election. That was reinforced when Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 showed an article claiming that Gore won. This was, in fact, a letter to the editor that Moore typeset to look like an article.

For years the Left referred to Bush as the Resident in Chief, or the Current Occupant of the White House instead of the president.

Admittedly, the fact that Bush won an Electoral victory but lost the popular vote also hurt and there calls that he shold have stepped down in favor of Gore because of that.

Things only got worse in 2004. At a fund-raiser, a Bush supporter said that they would do "whatever it takes" to see Bush reelected. He meant fund-raising but he was also highly-placed in the leading producer of voting machines and many on the Left were convinced that he meant tampering with election results.

After Bush won reelection, the Left went crazy looking for evidence that the vote had been rigged. MSNBC anchor Keith Olberman took the lead on that, pouncing on any report. When someone claimed that it was "statistically impossible" for Bush to have carried sections of northern Florida, Olberman was there (a later analysis showed that Bush's victory was in keeping with voting patterns going back decades). One major embarrassment for the Left during this period was that the cases of suspected fraud never turned out to have the newer voting machines that they suspected.

In the 2006 mid-term election Democratic operatives were still insisting that Republicans were influencing the vote but that this could be neutralized by a large enough turnout of Democrats. After the Democrats swept Congress in 2006 and took the White House in 2008, they stopped claiming that the election was fixed.

But Trump, who was a Democrat during the Bush years, remembers all that talk about fixed elections.

The Burkini and the Problem with Headscarves

Violence broke out recently in France after several seaside towns banned the burkini - a swimming suit for Muslim women that covers the entire body except for the face, hands and feet. I've seen various columns and memes on the subject. They tend to deal in false equivalences.

A recent Facebook meme shows a woman in a burkini and a woman in a wet suit pointing out that only one is banned. This is a false equivalence for many reasons. The wet suit is used to protect a swimmer from cold water. It is not normally worn in a swimming pool or on a beach (unless the wearer is surfing in cold water). Men wear wetsuits at the same time, for the same reason as women. There is no cultural reason to wear one.

The burkini, in contrast, is worn instead of a western-style swimming suit. It has no utilitarian purpose. It is only worn by women and only because Muslim culture requires it.

Columnist Kathleen Parker wrote a column comparing the fight for Muslim women to cover themselves with the fight 100 years ago for Western women to bare themselves on the beach. This is another false equivalent since men were also fighting to show more skin 100 years ago. While concentrating on a patriarchal society telling women to uncover themselves, the burkini only exists because a patriarchal society demands that women hide themselves.

I'll make a few other points to put all of this in context. The burkini is a very recent invention. It is part of a general trend among Muslims to control women. While wearing headscarfs is the norm in Muslim countries today and enforced by law in many of them, that was not the case a couple of generations ago. Women in Muslim countries in the 1960s and 70s generally didn't cover their hair. That was something their grandmothers did (the great-great grandmothers of today's generation).

Similarly, when women from Muslim countries immigrated, they also assimilated and dressed like their Western neighbors.

All of that changed with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Even in Western countries, there is pressure on women to follow "traditional" dress.

In theory this is an individual choice but every time I see a woman in a headscarf (normally several times a day), I wonder about what other traditions the woman is being pressured to follow?

Is she allowed to drive a car or even go out by herself? Is she allowed to handle the family money or does her husband own everything and keep her on a small allowance? Did she choose her husband for love or was he chosen for her? Is she at risk for female genital mutilation? These are not idle questions. I live two miles from a radical mosque (two of it's members have gone to fight with Isis). Female genital mutilation is becoming more common in the US. Estimates are that it's been done to thousands of women living here. Arraigned marriages are also fairly common with the groom traveling to his homeland to meet his bride for the first time just before the wedding.

All of this should be troubling to anyone actually concerned about women's rights. Typically, though, concerns are dismissed as Islamiphobia by feminists as part of the theory of Intersectionality.

Return of the Spin Room

Back in 1992, voters were introduced to the concept of the spin artist and the spin room. Spin artists are political operatives who work with sympathetic media to put the best possible face on political events - or the worst for the candidate's opponent. The Clintons were masters at this.

Guess what? They're back.

Hints of the Clinton spin machine were seen during the Republican National Convention with the universal adjective for Trump's speech being "dark". It was far more obvious during the Democratic National Convention when Michelle Obama's speech was described as "a speech for the ages". This phrase is unusual enough and used so often that it has to have been fed to the press, possibly before she ever opened her mouth.

But all of that is nothing. The Democrats in general and Hillary in particular had a big problem: the release of thousands of emails and voice mails showing, among other things, that the supposedly neutral party was against Bernie Sanders. The Clinton spin artists attacked this problem in two stages. The first was to suggest that the emails had been obtained by the Russian government for the express purpose of helping Donald Trump. It was quickly floated that Trump would be Putin's puppet ruler.

While it is true that Trump and some of his staff have had dealings with Russian companies and Trump himself has been skeptical of NATO, it is also true that the Clintons also have deep ties to Russian businesses. Further, Hillary is a known quantity to them and they know how to deal with her.

The second phase started with a comment that Trump made. Trump called on the Russians, or anyone else who had hacked Clinton's private email server, to release the 30,000 emails she had deleted. Trump's jab was a stroke of genius because it reminded people that Hillary used a private email server that was so insecure that the FBI said that there was no way to tell if it had been hacked. It also reminded people of the thousands of "private" emails deleted from Hillary's server.

The spin machine quickly jumped into action insisting that Trump was calling on the Russians to hack Hillary's server. A storm of faux-outrage followed with some media outlets suggesting that Trump had crossed a line by inviting a foreign power to interfere in an American election. A few even called him a traitor.

This may backfire on the Clinton machine. Anyone who sees what Trump actually said knows that it was a lighthearted suggestion that assumed the Russians hacked Hillary's emails years ago. It makes no sense to suggest that Trump wants them to hack the servers now. They have been decommissioned and are in the possession of the FBI.

A good deal of the press is actively working against Trump and are willing to help the spin machine.

This particular spin might backfire, though. Any ordinary candidate would be sputtering and backtracking by now. Trump on the other hand said, "It was a joke" and moved on. Outrageous statements are nothing new from Trump.

The other problem is that the Clintons should want Trump's joke buried instead of given more attention. No matter how much it hurts him, it also reminds people of Hillary's own email mess. The Clinton spin machine shold be working to bury any mentions and put it behind them. Instead, they are being mentioned on the national news again and stealing time from the convention.

Michelle and the White House

On a few occasions including her address to the Democratic national Convention, Michelle Obama has talked about waking up every day in a house built by slaves. While various fact-checkers have rated this true, there are some facts they keep ignoring.

Research showed that the workforce that build the Capitol building was part-slave therefore the same proportions must hold for the White House. This is a bit of a stretch since the White House was quite a bit smaller and built as a house rather than a capitol.

Claims that slaves quarried the stone for the White House seem to be the strongest. Possibly slaves also worked under the direction of master stone carvers in building the structure.

What it usually skipped is that the current building is *not* the original White House. It has been rebuilt twice. The first time was after the British burned it during the War of 1812. It was reduced to a mere shell. None of the fact-checks I've seen talk about that rebuild.

More important is the rebuild that happened under President Truman. The original building had deteriorated by then and was in danger of collapse. Truman had the entire building gutted. The facade was saved but everything else was replaced with a modern steel-girder building. The White House was also enlarged significantly with wings and underground offices.

It would be much more accurate for Michelle to say that every day she wakes up in a house that has a facade built by slaves. But that doesn't have much ring to it.

Something she never mentions and might never have occurred to her - when she wakes up in a house built by slaves, she's sharing a bed with the descendant of slave-owners. Barack's white mother's family owned slaves. This came out in 2008 but was quickly forgotten after Oprah said that she'd be honored if Obama's ancestors had owned her ancestors.

The President's dark skin comes from his father who was from Africa where slavery is still practiced.

Obama supporters - now you know how we felt

Eight years ago Obama was treated a the savior of America. There were calls for him to suspend Congress and "just fix things". Over the last 7 1/2 years Obama has expanded the use of executive orders to unprecedented levels. Each time, he was applauded.

Enter Trump and the left is going crazy insisting that this is how fascism comes to America and that his acceptance speech was that of a strongman.

The truth is that the American system of government with its checks and balances and multiple levels resists a strong leader who tries to take personal power.

Also, as it turned out, Obama lacks the energy to try to subvert the American government.

Trump shows signs of having even less energy. By all indications, his campaign is still a vanity project and he has little interest in actually running the country. He's the salesman who loses interest in the deal after he makes the sale.

Black Lies Matter

Last week five police officers were killed and eight other people shot by a black man who wanted to kill white people, especially cops.

After that shocking incident, I hoped that the Black Lives Matter organizers would back off and reevaluate. I was disappointed but not really surprised instead they doubled down on their protests. There is no hint that their rhetoric incited the police shooting and others before this one.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is built on lies and violence.

The movement got its start with the death of Travon Martin. The original story was that Martin was targeted by a large, white guy because he was wearing a hoodie. The white guy, George Zimmerman, could easily have overpowered Martin but instead shot him then got off by using the Stand Your Ground defense. The main pictures we saw of Martin was of him as a skinny 14 year old. NBC even edited the 911 tapes to make Zimmerman seem racist.

Instead, it turned out that Zimmerman was a short, pudgy Hispanic and Martin was a hair under six feet. Martin was out in the first place on a drug run - he got two cigars to make bunts (cigars stuffed with pot) and watermellon drink and skittles to mix with cough syrup to make "purple thang". It appears that Martin realized that he was being followed and decided to teach Zimmerman a lesson by beating his head against the ground. In fear for his life, Zimmerman shot Martin. Zimmerman was described by people who knew him as someone who didn't care about race.

The original prosecutor determined that it was self-defense and had to be replaced before charges were filed. Zimmerman was found not guilty and a Justice Department probe found that Zimmerman had not violated Martin's civil rights. Despite all this the BLM protestors maintain that Martin was murdered because of his race and the picture of him at 14 is still the most common one shown on news shows.

Then there is Erin Garner who died while struggling with the police. While it is true that one officer had Garner in a choke hold at the time, Garner died from a heart attack.

The big one is Michael Brown. The original story was that Brown was a gentle, college-bound giant who was hassled by the police for jay-walking and was shot in the back while he had his hands up, trying to surrender. "Hands up, don't shoot" became a battle cry, even being done on the floor of Congress by members of the House of Representatives.

This was a huge lie. Brown was stopped by a policeman because he had just robbed a cigar store. Brown attacked the cop, trying to get his gun. Failing that, Brown started to run then changed his mind and charged the cop who shot him. He never had his hands up and never tried to surrender and he was shot in the chest.

No one apologized for the Hand Up theatrics. BLM protestors still talk about Brown as being murdered.

BLM members have claimed that police are the biggest threat to black men. Actually, the biggest threat to black men is other black men. While it is true that a disproportionate number of black men are killed by police, it is also true that a disproportionate number of black men are invoivled in violent crime and in the same proportion.

While Black Lives Matters hasn't made outright calls for violence, neither has it made an effort to distance itself from these calls. Some marches have included such calls as: "What do we want? More dead cops. When do we want it? Now."

While I place direct blame on BLM for the Dallas shootings, 3rd wave feminists get a share, too. They believe in identity politics where your gender and race is more important than who you are individually. Therefore, all whites are responsible for the actions of white police officers and all police officers are equally guilty.

Because...

When FBI director James Comey announced that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges against Hillary Clinton for egregious use of a private server for official business, he truncated his statement. We can only guess what the rest was going to be. Here are my contributions:

No reasonable prosecutor would file charges because:

• It would mean a Trump presidency.
• It would upset the highly partisan Obama administration.
• It would incur the wrath of the Clintons, a family known for personal destruction.
• It would start a nation-wide shit-storm.
• It would be the end of that prosecutor's career.
• All of the above.

Trump's Problems

A few weeks ago I wrote about the problems that Hillary Clinton faces in trying to win the presidency. Against nearly any other Republican, the election would be an uphill fight for Clinton. Donald Trump however has his own, unique problems.

First of all, he's an of-again, on-again Republican. He supported Carter and Mondale over Reagan. He was very vocal about not supporting George W. Bush, preferring Gore, Kerry and Obama. There's every reason to believe that he'd be supporting Hillary over the Republican nominee if it wasn't Trump himself.

He's not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. Republicans have been against trade barriers since they caused the Great Depression. Trump is for them. On some issues, especially trade, Trump is to Hillary's left. The same is true for national defense. Trump is an isolationist, at odds with conservatives who are normally push for a strong national defense. As a Reagan Republican, it's galling to me that Hillary Clinton comes closer to the things that Reagan stood for than Trump.

Trump has no relevant experience. We suffered through 8 years of Obama thinking that he could substitute bumming around the world as a youth for actual world policy experience. We're likely to have a repeat of that with Trump.

Trump isn't really that good a businessman. Yes, he's made a lot of money - for himself. He's left a lot of wreckage in his wake. In investment after investment, Trump is the only person to come out ahead. We need a president who is looking out for the American people, not himself.

Trump has made a lot of promises he can't keep. The Wall is a big one. It won't be built. He's even said that it's just an applause line. So, where does that leave us if Trump doesn't mean his most famous promise?

Trump's vulgarity repulses a lot of voters. He seems shocked and offended by normal bodily functions of women. He stereotypes Mexicans and Muslims. He makes fun of people of the handicapped. All of this adds up and gives him the highest negatives of any candidate, ever.

Trump spent the primary alienating the Republican establishment but he needs them to be elected. So far there is little to suggest that he has made up with them.

Trump doesn't act like he's running to win. This is a big one. He ran his primary campaign on the cheap, relying on public polls instead of hiring his own pollster, and skipping many other standard expenses. He ran like a dilettante who was running a vanity campaign and didn't expect to get very far. Now that he is the presumptive nominee, he needs a national organization with joint fundraising with the Republican party. He hasn't even begun to assemble that. Pro-Hillary groups have been airing anti-Trump and pro-Hillary ads in swing states like Ohio for weeks. Trump has yet to make a significant media buy - or raise enough money to make one.

It is still possible that Trump could tap into a well-spring of resentment against the status quo or that Hillary could be indicted. Both of those are outside Trump's control.

Of the things he can control - fundraising, message, making up with former rivals and converting them into surrogates - Trump is way behind. He appears to be going through the motions reinforcing the impression that it's a vanity candidacy for him and he has no real desire to be president.

That's no way to win an election.

Tragedy and Politics in Orlando

The first news reports from Orlando called the mass shooting in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando called it the worst terrorist attack on America since 9/11. By the time President Obama made his remarks, the story had changed to the biggest mass shooting in American history. Despite calling 9-1-1 twice to profess his allegiance to ISIS and other Islamic organizations, that aspect of the massacre has been almost totally lost, buried under various agendas. This highlights one of the most shameful aspects of politics in America.

The two most commonly heard demands are that AR-15 style guns should be outlawed and that people on the terrorist watch list should be prohibited from buying guns. In short order the AR-15 was proclaimed the weapon of choice of terrorists, based on four shootings. This ignores the fact that the Sandy Hook shooter didn't choose his gun, he stole the gun his mother used for target shooting. The Aurora shooter had a tactical shotgun and a Glock as well as an AR-15-style rifle.

Keep in mind that Omar Mateen, the shooter, also carried a Glock handgun and no figures have been released about how many people were shot with which weapon, how many shots were fired, how many times he reloaded or other relevant data. He also carried something that may have been a bomb.

There is an important message by all of the attention devoted to so-called Assault Weapons*. These weapons were tools used by someone bent on murdering multiple people. If he had been unable to obtain an "assault weapon" then he would have used some other type of gun. That might have reduced the number of dead and injured but it certainly would not have stopped him. By focusing on "assault weapons" the message is that stopping this type of assault isn't really important. It's enough to reduce the number of dead and injured by an unknown amount. This is nothing but political posturing.

The reality is that rifles are seldom used in crimes. More people are killed by knives than all types of rifles combined. There are 20-30 million AR-15s alone. Target shooters love them because of the low recoil and because they are easily customized. Most crimes are done with handguns, not rifles. This is common sense. It's much harder to conceal a rifle. This is also true of mass shootings. By some measures, there have been hundreds of mass shootings since Sandy Hook but only four were mentioned when "proving" that this is the weapon of choice.

The watch list is even more posturing. It's true that Mateen was on the FBI list at one point but he was investigated and removed. He was not on the list at the time he bought his guns. As far as we know (the list is secret so we can't be sure) no mass murderer to date has been on a watch list when he bought his weapon. Congress should be investigating that rather than pushing meaningless legislation. they should be exploring ways to identify self-radicalized people.

The tragedy is being used other ways to advance various agendas. Many people have used it to condemn the Right for being anti-gay as if being against gay marriage is equivalent to wanting gays dead. A lawyer for the ALCU with a Muslim family insisted that right-wing Christians are to blame.

The left has been overly delicate about Islam. Islamic countries have no toleration for gays. Several Muslim countries will imprison or execute gays but any criticism is dismissed as hate speech. That is part of why the left is so quick to bury mentions of Mateen's religious motivations. That includes President Obama who has problems reconciling the Islam he remembers from his childhood with today's savage killers. That's part of Trump's appeal and refusing to acknowledge Islam's part in the tragedy only helps him.

* There is no official definition, the term generally describes semi-automatic guns that resemble military ones.

Hillary's Problems

Hillary Clinton will certainly become the Democratic candidate for President and is still the favorite to win but she has far more obstacles than expected.

First there's history. The White House normally changes parties every 8 years. People are usually tiring of the sitting president and his attempted successor is usually seen as a shadow or the President. That makes for a hard sell. George H. W. Bush was the only successor to score a decisive win. Hillary wasn't even vice-president. She was only Secretary of State for one term.

Bill Clinton has emerged as a bigger liability than an asset. As a campaigner he's touchy about his own record and doesn't stick to the script but that's minor. It's his history as president that's the problem.

In 2008, Hillary had a great campaign message - elect me and I'll turn back the Bush years and bring back the Clinton years. That's no longer valid. Bill took office 24 years ago and left office16 years ago. He's ancient history and any attempt to bring back the Clinton years is seen as rolling back the Obama years as well as the Bush years.

The Democratic Party has changed considerably since Bill left office. A short list of Bill's major accomplishments includes NAFTA, Welfare Reform and his Crime Bill. Bernie is running against all of those. Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act are also from Bill's years and despised by current Democrats.

Then there's Bill's record against women. By today's standards, he sexually assaulted several women and may have outright raped two. He was impeached for lying about a relationship with an intern. While Hillary cannot be blamed for Bill's actions, she can be blamed for her own complicity. She took the lead in covering these up and lead a campaign of personal destruction against any women who came forward. It's hard to see someone as a champion of women's rights when she acted like this.

Hillary can be her own worst enemy. She lacks Bill's warmth. Her campaign prefers small, controlled events to the huge rallies that Bernie and Trump hold. That's because she comes across as shrill and unlikable at large rallies.

She has few actual credentials. In 1988, CBS ran a series on George H. W. Bush entitled "Tracks" that implied that he had held a lot of positions but left few track. The same is true for Hillary. Her time as First Lady was billed as a co-presidency but her only actual assignment, health care reform, died on the vine. She was considered a Senate leader but only because everyone knew that she was using it as a spring-board to the Presidency. She accomplished very little in her 8 years. This was also true of her 4 years as Secretary of State.

Few people trust Hillary and with good reason.She has a long history of questionable activities. Most people have forgotten her commodities trading when she made $100,000 in one day then quit. Whitewater began as an investigation to see if Bill used his authority as Governor of Arkansas to try to save his investment in a real estate deal. The White House travel office was fired and replaced with Clinton campaign staffers, reportedly at Hillary's insistence. The White house Lincoln Bedroom was turned into a bed and breakfast for major donors. The Clinton Foundation has been described as the Clinton's personal slush fund with the possibility that large donations were made to it with the expectation of favors from the State Department. Hillary's $200,000+ speeches to Wall Street were probably more about gaining the favor of a future president than hearing her financian advice.

Expect Trump to dig up all of this.

Finally, Hillary is trying to sell herself as a candidate of change when she represents the status quo better than any politician alive. Both Bernie and Trump are attracting huge support by claiming that the system is rigged against regular people. Their details differ but both promise to change international agreements to benefit average Americans. Hillary will never be able to convince people that she is as much an agent of change as these loose cannons. Her only real option is to run as a stabilizing influence.