There is an interesting twist in the Clinton email scandal. One of the most surprising elements of Hillary Clinton’s statements to the FBI was her insistence that it was former Secretary of State Colin Powell who convinced her to use a private email server. Clinton told investigators that Powell not only advised her to use a private email system but made it his one piece of advice when prompted by a third former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. Now, Powell has come out with a seemingly angry denial of the account and has said that Clinton’s “people have been trying to pin it on me.”
Clinton used this rationale with the FBI and it has apparently been raised by Clinton aides and close supporters. Author Joe Conason is viewed as a close ally of Clinton’s and wrote in his book, “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton” recounted the dinner with former secretaries:
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat. Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer … [Powell] confirmed a decision she had made months earlier – to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.”
Powell has responded that he has absolutely no recollection of such a statement to Clinton and that the system in place at the State Department did not exist when he was Secretary. His office said that “He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department.” However, Powell recently added that “The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.”
One of the most common mistakes in Washington for high-level targets is to trip the wire under 18 U.S.C. 1001 in making false statements to federal investigators. Such contradictions can raise that concern but it is likely not a significant risk in this case. The FBI director was clearly not inclined to charge Clinton and this can be answered as simply a difference in recollection of a fact that was not critical to the underlying alleged violations. The Powell story is of more political than legal benefit for Clinton.
What do you think?
To readers: Please read my actual information given in several earlier posts above to determine for yourself what I am really writing about.
Thank you.
They won’t find anything other than intermediated complaints by Zelaya that the U.S. Government was communicating with the Government of Honduras and mendacious press agentry for Zelaya contending he was not attempting to circumvent the Honduran constitution when nothing he did made any sense unless he was attempting to do that (he was also acting in defiance of both court orders and resolutions of the legislature). Jill, that demonstrates absolutely nothing. It does tell the world that Jill is incapable of selecting credible sources and determining what’s central and what’s ancillary to a chain of events.
What’s amusing about this is your investment in Zelaya, and the investment of fools like the editorial staff of The Nation. The effect of Zelaya’s removal was to reduce his future income stream from graft. That’s it. The utility of elected administrations in Honduras is that one can make a reasonable supposition that their performance over time will improve on that of military or caudillo regimes. That doesn’t mean the country will be governed in a public-spirited manner. That’s not on the menu in Latin America. Incremental improvement just might be. The Nation invests in Zelaya because he declared fealty to Chavez and Ortega. ThYoue Chavez and Ortega crews are predatory, abusive, and incompetent. Anyone can see that. The point for The Nation is never to advocate anything that will bring about incremental improvement in a country’s political economy. The point is to play status games through trumpeting political consumer choices. The grosser the foreign despot, the better. People pretend to like Jackson Pollack for the same reasons. You’re all telling the world how much you ‘care’, and you’re all phonies suffused with petty malice.
@Art D
Amen on the Jackson Pollack stuff! His art is good only for color if you are trying to tie in a room. Centuries from now, somebody is going to take a huge write off on their investment in Pollacks.
Plus, you are right on the phonies, and all the “virtue signaling.” Nothing really has to work, or accomplish anything—it just has to be the “favored thing” to signal virtue, or intelligence, or tolerance. And it works in reverse, too. A thing can be bad, and accomplish bad things, yet if it is the “favored thing” it will get kudos. Witness BLM, and the various poverty programs.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
When I was teaching Intro to Art and History to Art I always told my students that Pollack was a rip-off. Then I got to see one of his major pieces at SFMOMA and had a chance to really study the rhythms of the piece. He is as complex as a Mozart symphony. I would love to own one, or a bunch.
@PaulCS
I have only seen his work in books and on the internet. I am not overly impressed. It is like with that Ezra Pound thing from the other day. You can take any piece of work, either a painting, or a poem, or a book, that is real real “busy”; and then read qualities into the middle of all the busy-ness. That is easy. You can see a real piece of art, or a bunch of dreck, and the nature of the work permits that dual vision because the work itself is not really a firm polished piece like we are used to seeing. It is some sort of inchoate work.
Sooo, like with Pollack, I am not sure if I am wasting my time on Pound. I find that same thing happening in some books. Like Sexual Personae by Paglia, and Male Fantasies 1 & 2 by Theweleit. Are they great works chugging full of wisdom? Or are they the product of smart people with a really bad case of ADHD??? I tend to like both the books I mentioned, and FWIW Theweleit is Jungian in his approach and wiki says Pollack underwent Jungian analysis. But, I can see why someone would say those books are far less than organized.
OTOH, there is no doubt about some art, because you don’t have to read anything into it, like this one I am just wilde about:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Beguiling_of_Merlin.jpg
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – First, taste is personal. However, with Pollock you look for rhythms, not meaning. The titles really have nothing to do with the painting, expect maybe the color scheme.
The film “Pollock” is a good look at his life, his wife and his painting style. He was a raving alcoholic which made it tough to keep him on course.
@PaulCS
True, taste is personal. But some artists require a whole lot of “personal” to sell their stuff, because it is way outside the mainstream. For example, I like a dude named Joan Miro, who I guess from his name is maybe transgender or something??? Anyway here is one of his:
http://www.joan-miro.net/images/paintings/harlequins-carnival.jpg
As much as I like that, or this accidental painting from a sink where people were cleaning paint brushes, which I just stumbled across because I confused Miro with Arp (too lazy to get out my surrealists books!):
https://artamaze.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/harms-wood-003.jpg?w=500&h=375
. . . I would be hard pressed to make the case that these were “great works of art” because any enjoyment of these comes almost totally subjectively from within a person, and is not due to the painting itself, because who can even tell what is??? Titian, who painted a lot of Madonna and Child’s IIRC, was pretty objectively a great artist. Even though I would rather have the paintbrush cleaning one on my wall.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Retrying the second painting:
https://artamaze.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/harms-wood-003.jpg
with a link:
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – I also enjoy Miro but it depends on which stage he is in. Same with Picasso.
I LOVED that movie. So intense, so troubling,
@Paul
Agree with you about Pollack. His works evoke a response from viewers – the emotion (frustration?) he put into his pieces is authentic and that is why is in the “pantheon” of great post modern artists. It’s one thing to see a work in a magazine and another thing to experience it. Real art resonates. For example I had read a lot pro and con about Serrano’s “Piss Christ” – I thought it was another stunt by an artist to gain publicity but when I saw it I found it to be an incredible work.
Autumn – I will be more impressed when Serrano does his “Piss Mohammed.”
@Paul
No idea what Serrano is up to these days. My point was that until people actually see the work they should reserve judgement.
The essence is this:
“If it is bad, someone else is to blame. If it is good I’ll take credit.”
Art,
I was and have been refuting your point(s) with actual information.
You claim that the Honduran coup had nothing to do with Clinton and it doesn’t matter. This cannot be correct because her own e-mails cover the coup on many occasions. She also writes about it in her book. Therefore, Clinton thinks it’s important, even though you do not.
I gave examples of why what you were saying is incorrect and why the coup also matters to the people of Honduras. If Hillary thinks it’s important, if the people of Honduras think it is important, then certainly you are free to believe as you wish but your belief is not supported by facts.
I gave examples of why what you were saying is incorrect and why the coup also matters to the people of Honduras.
Coincident with it, the public opinion polling at the time discovered that just north of 40% favored removing Zelaya and just north of 40% were opposed. That was 7 years ago. It certainly does not matter anymore to anyone not on Zelaya’s patronage. Or doesn’t matter to anyone sensible. Counterpunch contributors are another matter.
I was and have been refuting your point(s) with actual information.
You could have referred me to the records your veterinarian maintains on your cat. That’s also ‘information’. And it’s just about as relevant.
This cannot be correct because her own e-mails cover the coup on many occasions.
What’s amusing about you is that you fancy this argument is anything but non sequitur.
Art,
You are basically saying that facts don’t matter. To most Hillary supporters, I believe that is absolutely true.
You’re projecting, Jill, and playing games. Dishonest people do that.
I’m saying that Hilligula’s e-mails were unimportant then and unimportant now.
The policy stance of the BO Administration favored Zelaya and cherry-picked quotations from her correspondence cannot change that. In any case, the issue of Zelaya’s tenure of office was settled 6 years ago. You seem to fancy he’s Honduras President-for-Life. He is not.
Honduras has many problems. Zelaya’s sense of wounded pride or proprietorship is not one that merits any attention. That red haze opinion journalists elect to shill for this Central American political baron is a testament to the stupidity of red haze journalists and the essential worthlessness of their whole world view.
Why does a coup matter?
1. “Clinton’s false testimony is even more revealing. She reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the constitution and extend his term in office.” This is simply not true. As Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.”
more importantly: 2. “The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major source of the child migrants currently pouring into the United States, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress have repeatedly warned about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009 military coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign Affairs, the U.S.-backed post-coup government “rewarded coup loyalists with top ministries,” opening the door for further “violence and anarchy.”
The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression, the murder of opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists increased and continue to this day. Femicides skyrocketed. The violence and insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse. Drug-related violence has worsened amid allegations of rampant corruption in Honduras’ police and government. While the gangs are responsible for much of the violence, Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.
Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department’s response to the violence and military and police impunity has largely been silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces” (Al Jazeera link at counterpunch)
Past wrong doing has a lot to do with present wrong doing and THAT has predictive value for a Clinton presidency.
Why does a coup matter?
It doesn’t matter, Jill. The country has abiding social problems. The identity of the person occupying the executive suite between July 2009 and January 2010 has no discernible effect on the evolution of the country’s social problems nor will promoting Manuel Zelaya’s future career (using his wife as a decoy) likely have any salutary effect. The man is graceless and self-involved.
Repairing Honduras will take decades of patient institution building.
Art,
What is your question?
Your talking points are not in agreement with even Clinton’s own e-mails and the e-mails of her staff.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/hillary-being-misleading-about-her-role-honduras-coup
I put in the other link yesterday but you could look into the info by yourself if you were actually interested in knowing about what ICE is doing.
I’m not the one lying here!
Clinton’s emails are irrelevant to the situation in Honduras then or now. This isn’t that difficult.
@Art Deco
Fantastically wonderful comments! Particularly the one on the lousy hacks and shill Democrat nominees. Salutes!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Check out Clinton’s own e-mails on the coup! “In Honduras, as many as 25,000 people marched Friday demanding the resignation of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. The protests come six years after a coup ousted Honduras’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. In an exclusive interview, Zelaya talks about the new protest movement, the fallout from the 2009 coup, and Hillary Clinton’s role in his ouster. “On the one hand, [the Obama administration] condemned the coup, but on the other hand, they were negotiating with the leaders of the coup,” Zelaya said. “And Secretary Clinton lent herself to that, maintaining that ambiguity of U.S. policy to Honduras, which has resulted in a process of distrust and instability of Latin American governments in relation to U.S. foreign policies.” While the United States publicly supported Zelaya’s return to power, newly released emails show Clinton was attempting to set up a back channel of communication with Roberto Micheletti, who was installed as Honduran president after the coup. In one email, Clinton referenced lobbyist and former President Clinton adviser Lanny Davis. She wrote, “Can he help me talk w Micheletti?” At the time, Davis was working for the Honduran chapter of the Business Council of Latin America, which supported the coup. In another email, Thomas Shannon, the State Department’s lead negotiator for the Honduras talks, refers to Manuel Zelaya as a “failed” leader.
Democracy Now has more
In case you hadn’t noticed, Zelaya was removed from office consequent to an arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court of Honduras and succeeded by the constitutionally designated officer. In July 2009. His term of office ended in January 2010. He’s had not one but two elected successors and the current president is the man who defeated Zelaya’s wife in the 2013 elections. Presidents are limited to one term per lifetime. It was Zelaya’s efforts to do an end run around constitutional provisions and engineer his re-election which got him served with that arrest warrant. The military officers serving the warrant put him on a plane into exile in lieu of jailing him. Zelaya has no claim on the presidency and has had no claim for more than six years.
All of this is perfectly straightforward. Why you throw a mess of verbal chaff in everyone’s face only you can explain. (The smart money says you know nothing bar the nonsense traded in by worthless outlets like Counterpunch, run by liars).
Copied and pasted from “Counterpunch”?
Art,
How interesting. No coup in Honduras would be news to the people there!
As to children being deported. I linked yesterday to a hunger strike in an immigrant detention center by mothers with their children. Contrary to a court ruling, they are being held indefinitely and have vowed they will leave, alive or dead. I also wonder if you are aware that ICE holds children in freezing cold rooms for months before it, “sends them back to their parents”, (when it bothers doing that), whether their parents are alive or not.
Or perhaps you love her phoning in drone kills and her willingness to obliterate Iran? Your breezy acceptance of these atrocities is what people on the actual left find so disturbing about Democrats.
How interesting. No coup in Honduras would be news to the people there!
The only official removed from office was the President of Honduras. He was succeeded by the speaker of the national legislature per constitutional provisions. All other officers of state remained in place. The military was not the initiator of this action. They acted consequent to a warrant issued by the supreme courts.
It’s all perfectly irrelevant now. All of this happened 7 years ago and Mr. Michelletti was succeeded by the newly elected President, Porfirio Lobo. The election campaign was ongoing when Zelaya was removed and the candidates already chosen. The election occurred at its scheduled time. The successor president was succeeded by his elected successor in January 2014.
No clue why your flogging this.
As to children being deported. I
You seem to think striking attitudes and uttering sentiments relieves you of the obligation to
1. Answer a question
2. Offer an argument in support of some position you’ve taken
3. Stop lying.
The biggest concern in my view is not whether or not this was just an honest difference in memory but in Clinton’s apparent personality trait of being dishonest in order to avoid taking personal responsibility for her own actions. This news regarding Powell comes at the same time as news that something like 15,000 emails have been recovered that Clinton lied to the Inspector General about even having existed. What kind of a person goes to this length to obfuscate and hide things from official investigators? The only person that comes immediately to mind is Nixon. That is disturbing and unsettling and tells me that our country is faced with the bleak prospect of electing one of two people, neither of whom, are worthy of the office of President and neither of whom can be trusted to guide our domestic or foreign policies let alone have their finger on the nuclear button! Trump and Clinton should both withdraw and two responsible, trustworthy candidates should be put forward.
Thank you for a response that is so worth reading and thinking about.
What kind of a person goes to this length to obfuscate and hide things from official investigators? The only person that comes immediately to mind is Nixon.
L. Patrick Gray when he was acting FBI director deep sixed some incriminating files. That was in June 1972. That’s about the only comparable incident from the Nixon years. Nixon had Ronald Ziegler and others issue a mess of fraudulent press releases and Nixon made false public statements. We used to expect Presidents to tell the truth (see Barber Conable on why in 1974 he intended to vote for impeachment). The whole IRS scandal shows an administration getting away with lying and stonewalling to a degree Nixon never imagined. The Nixon Administration took 26 months to unravel and the trouble it was in was manifest after 10 months. Nixon was not forthcoming during the succeeding 16 months, but what was known as the ‘Watergate cover-up’ came to an end by April 1973.
King David was lucky & had only 3 choices. Famine, destruction by enemies or the plague.
U.S. is not so lucky…..Only 2 choices.
issac, here’s the left wing criticism: Who could forget Libya? In the war championed by Hillary Clinton, who is regarded by experts as being the loudest voice in favor of regime change against Gaddafi and the destruction of the country, tens of thousands of women were raped, lynched, and murdered by the glorious “rebels” (read terrorists) backed by Clinton and her imperial coterie. Perhaps the great feminist hero could speak to the children of Misrata, Sirte, and Bani Walid who have now grown up without their mothers and fathers, and explain to them just how “worth it” the war was. Maybe Clinton could look mothers in the eyes and tell them how the deaths of their children from war, disease, and terrorism is a small price to pay for the foreign policy objectives of Washington.
And let us not forget about Honduras, the country suffering under a right wing dictatorship helped into office by then Secretary Clinton. Hillary brazenly, and rather despicably, took credit for her handiwork in her autobiography Hard Choices where she explained that, “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico… We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of [elected President Manuel] Zelaya moot.”
Indeed, Clinton was instrumental in bringing the right wing coup government to power. And that government today carries out systematic oppression of women and indigenous communities throughout the country. In a high profile assassination, renowned indigenous activist and feminist Berta Cáceres was gunned down by assailants tied to the government installed by Clinton. In fact, Cáceres herself called out Hillary Clinton prior to her death….
And let’s recall also Hillary’s support for the Obama Administration’s policy of child deportations. What a champion of the rights of children. Do you wonder if Hillary loses any sleep over the fates of thousands of children from Honduras, El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America, knowing that she is directly responsible for their suffering? And how about Hillary’s cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia, the world’s most oppressive country for women?
Far from being a feminist, Hillary Clinton is a serial exploiter, and serial killer, of women and children; her track record speaks for itself. The ongoing economic oppression and suffering of women and children in poverty can be directly traced to Hillary’s “pioneering work” as an advocate for the welfare reform now almost universally seen as a disaster for poor women and children… (see counterpunch for the whole article)
And let us not forget about Honduras, the country suffering under a right wing dictatorship helped into office by then Secretary Clinton.
??
Honduras is, and has been since 1981, a constitutional state. It has been so without interruption. Neither Hilligula nor anyone else is responsible for regime change in Honduras because there has been none in 35 years. It’s a poor country which has in recent decades suffered terribly from street crime. The red haze left despises Honduras’ political class because Honduras’ politicians and jurists successfully out-maneuvered the local Chavistas, so now its on the black list of crooked NGOs. There’s no reason to take George Vickers et al seriously.
And let’s recall also Hillary’s support for the Obama Administration’s policy of child deportations.
Are the children here illegally? If they’re here illegally, what’s wrong with sending them back to their families?
“Somehow the lesser of the two evils seems to be all that the right wing nuts have to say, against Clinton.”
We would have more to say IF, Hillary Clinton had a record, but she has none to debate about.
So Democrats are forced to attack Trump because HRC has no record to debate or defend.
Unless you want to talk about her FBI criminal investigation or the FBI Clinton Foundation investigation. . . but that’s a record of corruption, lies and utter incompetence.
Hillary Clinton’s record starts with being fired for misconduct by Jerry Zeifman when the ink on the letter notifying her she’d passed the Connecticut bar exam had just dried. Thence to that boffo job offer at the Rose Law Firm for the state attorney-general’s wife, trashing the Legal Services Corporation, her stupefying success with commodities trading, all the clients she represented before state commissions her husband had appointed, bringing such public servants as Webb Hubbell to the fore, stomping on Billy R. Dale as if he were a cockroach, her boffo performance as a health care financing maven (see Bradford deLong for details), great land deals with the McDougals (see retired FSO Lewis Amselem, “my Foreign Service colleagues understood immediately. In the third world, the function of the 1st lady is to launder the bribes”), her impressive years as a U.S. Senator (I think she got a zip code changed), and her four years as Secretary of State (FOIA avoidance, Benghazi, “Madam, that word means ‘overcharge’).
Somehow the lesser of the two evils seems to be all that the right wing nuts have to say, against Clinton. It seems that the right wing nuts want the greatest of the two evils.
Steve
“It’s almost laughable how far Trump has gone in this campaign. When he first announced, everyone joked about it as a sideshow.”
That’s just the point. Trump is a sideshow. He courted the mindless angry by promising everything with nothing to offer. He has no substance, other than amassing a personal fortune. He has made his fortune in the most ramshackle and arrogant manner with no concern for others and designed to make a profit even in bankruptcy. Trump’s only responsibility has been to himself. And, this is the guy you want for President, responsible to all?
Compare and contrast Clinton with every President, except Carter, since Nixon. Her transgressions fall well short of Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Hubby, Bush, Obama. Consider the damage and slaughter for which Presidents have been responsible, include the Congress and Senate, then include yourself, as we vote these people into office because they reflect our egos. It is the American ego that is responsible for this type of leader. The only way is to focus on the issues and demand change is from the bottom up. To do this the US needs stability and continuity at the top. The sort of turmoil that would be created by a Trump Presidency, especially with Republicans in power in the House, would parallel the conditions after 9/11. There is no way the midget cowboy would have been elected for a second term if there had been no attack. The country was completely galvanized against the ‘enemy’. Mickey Mouse could have been President; perhaps he was. You don’t change leadership under attack. So, elect Trump, put the country into turmoil, followed by stand-off, and then ???
The answer is to demand of those entering the political arena to abolish private wealth funding candidates. Only Clinton’s probable appointment of at least two Supreme Court Judges will accomplish this. Scalia, the most backward judge in a long while, proves this. There is no one interpretation of the Constitution. There is only the one that satisfies the left or the right. Abolishing the oligarchy that is the result of private funding will only come from judges appointed by a Democrat President.
There are many more reasons in spite of her slime, but Clinton is still the best choice. Trump is simply a buffoon. There is no there there.
Thanks for another installment of journaling. It’s been an education.
Thanks for reminding me that overturning Citizens United is essential. No republican will do that. Clinton will. In spite of her enormous flaws, that will be her proud legacy.
Thanks for reminding me that overturning Citizens United is essential.
Yes it’s essential that opponents of the Democratic Party be preventing from organizing.
Longforall thinks The New York Times is unincorporated – just lil’ Pinch Sulzberger with a printing press in his basement.
The only reason that Dem’s want Citizens United is because they can no longer buy the election.
If they could raise more money using Citizens United, you have to ask yourself, why would they want to overturn it?
Citizen’s United was a good decision.
It is simply a matter of free speech, whether an individual does it, or a collective like a corporation or a union.
Any other way is unAmerican, and anti-First Amendment.
The Democratic Party is the party of school administrators and lawyers. They understand political dissent as classroom disruption and contempt of court.
There is no one interpretation of the Constitution. There is only the one that satisfies the left or the right.
Than you have no Constitution. The whole point of judicial review is that the Constitution is superordinate and statutory legislation must be in accordance with it. That requires that the Constitution have a discernible meaning. It it doesn’t, judicial review is just a power grab by the elite bar and must be eliminated. Britain and Israel and New Zealand get along passably without a discrete charter. We could too.
issac – Hillary spent all of last month raising money. She had one, count it, one event with real voters. She is pushing 300 days without a press conference. What is she afraid of? Polls have her down by 1 to 2 points and she has spent 5 times the money Trump has. What is her problem?
Per RCP, she’s bouncing around a set point of 6% ahead polling a two candidate race and 4% ahead polling a 4 candidate race. Rothenberg still has her taking 332 electoral votes in his state-to-state projections.
One media tracker has said her last press conference was in December 2015. Her events are poorly attended. At events where she takes questions, the campaign salts the audience with plants.
Her husband let slip that it took months for her to recover from banging her head in January 2013. She was recently photographed struggling up a set of about 4 steps, with aides on each arm.
For decades the media demanded candidates medical records. Richard Gephardt was appalled at how much information they demanded and attempted to persuade the other candidates that year to join a cartel of refusal. John McCain was compelled to sit down with small groups of journalists with his medical paperwork there, explaining it all. Members of the media demanded Trig Palin’s hospital records. BO got away with a one-page summary. John Kerry turned his Navy service records over to a reporter for the Boston Globe to inspect in lieu of releasing them or a releasing a summary. He knew the Globe would cover for him.
(It’s a reasonable inference that Kerry and Obama were hiding psychiatric treatment or clinical psych sessions). .
Decision making is a humbling experience…….King David had 3 choices.
One of the most difficult factors in decision making is humbling oneself, admitting that you don’t know it all or that you’ve failed. King David experienced first hand how his decision resulted in Israel being punished. Following David’s disobedience, God gave him three choices of punishment — famine, destruction by his enemies, or plague (1 Chronicles 21:7–15). David based his next decision on God’s mercy. David understood that submitting to God’s commands was the right choice, even when it was painful.
David choose to, as he put it, ‘fall into the hands of the Lord’ – which meant the pestilence. Tens of thousands died throughout Israel until the death angel that brought the plague was stopped just before entering Jerusalem.
Decision making is a humbling experience
It can be, unless you’re shallow above and beyond the call of duty. I doubt it’s been a humbling experience for the current incumbent.
Thank you Nick. I used to be a TV reporter at a CBS affiliate in my younger years, when facts had the upmost importance over opinion.
In fact, any reporter whom asserted their personal opinions, were met with threats of being fired. But this was back when Reagan was president and the very beginnings of media propaganda against him, and I was a Democrat then. 🙂
Lisa, I follow an ex-CBS reporter, Sheryll Atkisson who like you had the temerity to speak the truth. She was hacked by the WH and canned by CBS.
How did America ever become degraded enough to nominate these two people for president?? I wish I weren’t so negative, but I think it will take generations to recover from the dark ages that will result from either a Trump or Clinton presidency [each will look different but the end result will be the same]. I’ll be long dead, but it saddens me to think of those who will live through it.
The best we could possibly hope for going forward is that these morons would not get in office and the rules would be tightened. However, this implies the political will is there for this and it is not. We are going to have to clean house if this is ever the case and I can’t see that happening because the voters do not seem interested enough to do that either. They have bought into the fear mongering and will keep voting these people into office until doomsday arrives.
I agree. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Part of it’s the culture. Part of it is the subculture that is Washington politics. State capitols perform better on certain metrics. Part of it is the screening system. Part of it is that the presidency is an impossible office. Part of it is that a coast-to-coast set of election campaigns gives an advantage to people with certain skill sets, which sets are good for little else.
We might be better off if the state legislatures elected the President. In that circumstance, presidential campaigns would consist of fairly low-key meet-and-greets.
How did America ever become degraded enough to nominate these two people for president??
Where you been, buddy?
In 2008, the Democratic Party nominated an empty suit. The man had not one accomplishment to his name all his own other than making rent, passing the bar exam, and avoiding the divorce courts. He proves himself a study in vapidity and his administration merely a display of the resultant of all the rotten little vectors in the Democratic Party, and he’s re-elected anyway. His first opponent is a war hero with 26 years in Congress and his second is handsomely prepared for the office after 4 years as a public executive, leading a turn around of the Salt Lake City Olympics and a lucrative career in private equity.
In, 1992, a satisfactory incumbent president is turned out of office because…? On the one hand, we have a combat veteran who’d built his own business from the ground up (in a part of the world where he was a stranger) and (with his wife) raised 5 children. On the other, we have a career politician who’s hardly done anything else in his life but seek and cadge offices (but did successfully dodge the draft and welsh on his ROTC service obligations). Gennifer Flowers was a nice little maraschino on top. Among those the Democratic Party rejected that year were Jerry Brown (experienced public executive and indpendent thinker) and Bob Kerrey (combat veteran, capable businessman, experienced public executive).
What generally strikes you about l competitive presidential candidates in general is how well-adapted they’ve been to electioneering and political hustling and how ill-adapted to everything else. Exceptions have been Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, John McCain (to a degree), Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, George Bush the Younger (to a degree), Steve Forbes (to a degree), Ross Perot, Bob Kerrey, George Bush the Elder, Paul Simon (to a degree), Michael Dukakis (to a degree), Ronald Reagan (to a degree), Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, William Scranton (to a degree), Barry Goldwater, and Stuart Symington. In a typical cycle, you have 6 competitive candidates, of which maybe 2 on average are men who have demonstrated that they’ve other things they could be doing with their life than engage in electoral politics. You might have 1 other who’s something of an idea man (e.g. Ted Cruz, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Bill Bradley, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas, Paul Simon, Gary Hart, John Anderson, Ronald Reagan, Eugene McCarthy), or has a history of sticking to his guns (Rick Santorum).
So, about 1/2 the competitive candidates in any given year are hacks and / or con men. That’s what culture, professional recruitment, and the nominating process gives you. And you very seldom get someone of stature: someone who’s done things few men have done or could do. Mitt Romney, arguably the Elder George Bush, arguably Wesley Clark, arguably Stuart Symington are (or were) such men. Four men in nearly 60 years does not impress.
I should say about the current incumbent a study in vapidity, absence of scruple, self-indulgence, and petty spite.
What credentials or experience did Obama have to run for President?
He was a Constitutional Law Professional. Then why did he make so many Executive Orders that were reversed by the SCOUS? Can’t blame the judges.
What experience did he have with the Nuclear black box? NONE. But then Trump is criticized for the same lack of experience.
How successful is Obama care? Premiums higher than he said they would be. Fact, he said they would be $2,500 lower per year. Can’t keep your doctor and can’t keep your insurance. Oops. Was that a salesman lie or ??
Could go on, but I am not in denial.
He was a Constitutional Law Professional.
He was a 40% time lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. In 12 years on the faculty, he published not one scholarly article.Check Lexis. Not one article. William Dyer (“Beldar”) has offered that he’d be more impressed had BO been a commercial law or tax law specialist; the problem with constitutional law as a teaching specialty is that, while it can be done well, it’s the easiest class for a law instructor to fake. BO also taught boutique electives “___ & the Law”. Per Prof. Richard Epstein, he didn’t show up for faculty meetings or serve on committees. By some accounts, he was hired from above in defiance or ordinary procedures.
It took years of neglectful (negligent) failure of educating our children. Some current examples include the attack on free speech, and the drive to not call kids by boy or girl.
I really feel for the generations that follow, for they will never know what freedoms they will be missing. Instead their minds will be directed as to what to say and what to say to whom. They’ll never how great America once was, nor will they care.
And you can be sure that it WAS NOT the Republications who are pushing this agenda.
Change you can believe in? Yes it, a most REGRETTABLE change.
Let no one forget that when he told her about his use of a private email server he recommended she use it “except for classified communications”. And as we now know, she did it anyway. Being “extremely careless” and “grossly negligent” seems to be, in the thoughts and minds of too many Americans, a virtue in running for president.
Compulsive lying. Sociopath lying. Seems to be pretty well accepted (at the very least, lying, widely and without any boundaries).
That vs. a non politician who wants to keep us
>Free from repeat criminal illegal’s and the harm and grief they cause our families,
>To know who is granted permission to come to America, (immigrating to America is not a RIGHT),
>Lower the corporate tax rate to the level that competes with the rest of the world’s corporate tax rate and bring $2 trillion dollars back to the US,
>Attack the attackers of America and freedom,
>Stop the silliness with PC language.
Well, if Trump only accomplished those 4 items, that would be more than enough for most Americans who say that America is going in the wrong direction.
CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN
Adam, are you arguing the devil herself can actually be “squeezed through the door of respectability,” as Tim Black so eloquently put it on his show last Friday? Better be an effen barn door.