Hillary Is In Trouble

It's worth noting two more bits of information about the putative campaign for president by Hillary Clinton.

1.  Hillary's support is collapsing.  Over the last three months, the polling organizations have been doing head to head polls which pit Mrs. Clinton against individual Republicans.  During that time,  the news has made its way into the public consciousness about (1) the Clinton foundation taking millions in cash during the last year from foreign governments and lobbyists, (2) the same foundation taking millions in cash from those foreign governments and from companies that had business before the State Department while Hillary was Secretary of State, and (3) Mrs. Clinton improperly and maybe illegally setting up a private email account on a private email server during her time in office.  The result has been a marked decline in support for Hillary.  Just look at these results which come from the Real Clear Politics website:

Hillary against Jeb Bush over the last three months

Hillary          Bush
53                    40
54                    41
54                    41
48                    43
50                    40
45                    36
45                    42

Since Bush has been actively campaigning, one could assume that his activities have contributed to Hillary's decline even though Bush's numbers have not risen much.  Let's look at the matchup between Hillary and Mike Huckabee who has been busy with a book tour and no campaigning.

Hillary          Huckabee
59                    38
56                    39
50                    41
47                    40

Hillary's margin over governor Huckabee has dropped from 21 percent to seven percent in three months, and nearly the entire reduction has been the result of Hillary's collapsing numbers.  The only conclusion one can reach is that Hillary is in deep trouble.

2.  Hillary is going to sink herself with her prior statements.

In 2007, while she was a candidate for president, Hillary addressed the issue of the alleged use of private emails by people in the Bush administration.  Here is her exact quote:

“Our Constitution is being shredded. We know about the secret wiretaps, the secret military tribunals, the secret White House email accounts. It’s a stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok. It is everything our founders were afraid of, everything our Constitution was designed to prevent.”

So private email accounts smack of secrecy and corruption, and of cronyism run amok according to Hillary's own words!  Indeed, Hillary says the practice amounts to the Constitution being shredded.  There is no way to get away from this.  Oh, Mrs. Clinton will give us one of those famous Clintonian parsings of the phrases, but she will have to wear this statement as a millstone around her neck.  She is in big trouble.

 

Obama Throws Hillary Under the Bus

Last night, David Axelrod told an audience on MSNBC that Hillary Clinton should answer all the questions about her private email account.  Why did she have a private account only when the administration had a clear policy that government accounts were to be used to conduct government business and Mrs. Clinton had been briefed on this policy before assuming her office?  Why did she have a private server for that account which had much less security than would be the case on the government servers or even most servers used by private email providers?  How many emails did she send on that account during her years as Secretary of State?  What's in all those emails?  How many emails did Clinton send that she did not turn over to the State Department after a recent request for her to do so?

This may not sound like much, but here's the point:  there is no way that David Axelrod would say such a thing without the blessing of the White House.  Indeed, president Obama could not come out and say these things without appearing to attack Hillary.  Even the White House spokesman Josh Earnest could not say these things without attacking Hillary.  Instead, Obama used his old chief political advisor, sent him to a trusted media outlet (MSNBC), and had the words said in a way that Obama could deny responsibility.  Some may think that this is a conspiracy theory, but those people do not understand how Washington, in general, and the Obama White House, in particular, work. 

Corroboration of the fact that Obama is not going to help Hillary and is annoyed that she used the private email comes from the valley girl at the State Department.  Marie Harf, the department's spokesman, said yesterday that State had no way of knowing if the 55,000 email turned over by Mrs. Clinton in response to State's recent request were ALL of Clinton's email sent in performance of her duties as secretary.  Once again, Marie Harf is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but she knows how to follow orders.  There is no way that she would say such a thing without prior clearance from above.

It's funny, in a way, that the response from Team Hillary has been to ask State to release her 55,000 emails to the public.  The Obama team has already made that response comical.  Harf's statement that there is no way to tell if the 55,000 emails are all the relevant emails makes Hillary's gesture a very empty one.

Think of it this way:  Suppose Hillary sent three emails while secretary of state to the king of Saudi Arabia in which she thanked him for his contributions to the Clinton Foundation and also discussed some issue that had arisen between the USA and the kingdom.  Those emails would be smoking guns that Hillary used her position to get cash from the Saudis.  Now suppose that there were 55,003 emails sent by Hillary while secretary of state and her people turned over 55,000 to the State Department.  Somehow, those three emails with the king just got omitted from the group turned over.  Releasing the 55,000 emails to the public does not cure the problem.  Hillary now has her own 18 minute gap in the tapes, and for Hillary, emulating Richard Nixon is not a good path to follow.

 

Why Not Vote For What's Good For the Country For Once

The Senate tried and failed to override the veto by president Obama of the bill authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.  The final tally was 62 in favor of the override and 37 against, but they needed 2/3 of the votes in order to win.  It's interesting that the votes to override were bipartisan; all of the Republicans and just under 20% of the Democrats voted to override.  Only the remainder of the Democrats voted to sustain the veto.

It ought to tell the Democrats something when every Republican and a big chunk of their own party members voted to override.  Remember, polls show that more than 60% of the American people favor construction of the pipeline.  The idea that the Dems voted to support the veto so as to give the State Department more time to study the issue is outrageous.  The department has already had about eight years to study the issue and has already issued three reports that supported approval. 

What is stopping the approval is the opposition of some of the billionaire donors to the Democrats who oppose the pipeline.  The Democrats may talk about helping the middle class, but the people they truly care about helping are billionaires like Tom Steyer who are heavily invested in green energy and do not want to see Keystone help bring down the price of oil further.

Big News: Chief Justice Roberts Doesn't Say Anything

The oral argument on King v Burwell was today at the Supreme Court.  Strangely, most of the coverage of this argument that I have seen focuses on the fact that the Chief Justice did not say much during the argument.  It may be worth noting that Chief Justice Roberts was silent for the most part, but the stories don't stop there.  The majority of the articles go on to "explain" what Roberts' silence means.  In other words, the stories are a complete joke.

Maybe at the next argument at the Court, USA Today or CNN could bring a phrenologist.  That "expert" could examine the head of each of the justices before and after the argument and then could announce the result.  It makes about as much sense as "explaining" the meaning of what Roberts did NOT say.

 

It's an Embarrassment

I think it's time to paraphrase Michelle Obama.  For the first time in my life, I am embarrassed by my country.  I'm speaking now of the response to yesterday's address by the prime minister of our ally Israel to a joint session of Congress.  The speech was a sober assessment by the prime minister of Israel's view of the progress (or lack of progress) in the efforts to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  Many agree with prime minister Netanyahu (including me.)  Many disagree with the prime minister's assessment.  That's fine.  Indeed, in a democracy like ours, such disagreement is to be expected.  What's not fine has been the organized response from president Obama and the Democrats.  They have gone out of their way to use personal insults as a response to a serious speech.

Think about the response.  Almost 60 Democrats in Congress and every member of the administration boycotted the speech.  It's one thing to disagree with the leader of an ally.  It's something quite different to say that you refuse to even listen to what he has to say.  Then there was the immediate outpouring of vitriol about the speech, much of which came from the same Democrats who refused to even attend to listen.  Netanyahu was called a "petulant child".  The House Democrat leader said that the speech was "insulting".  Now no one would call Nancy Pelosi a deep thinker, but even for her, calling the speech insulting was terrible.  Netanyahu spent the first third of his speech recounting the reasons why Iran is a bad actor on the international stage, a country that promotes Islamic terrorism and which has the blood of thousands of Americans and many Israelis on its hands.  That is hardly insulting.  Then Netanyahu spoke about the concessions in the latest proposed deal.  The parameters of the proposal were confirmed by secretary of state Kerry before Congress the other day, and they are discussed often in the media, so there is nothing unusual about the subject.  Netanyahu just gave us his view of the proposal.  Once again, this is hardly insulting.  Lastly, Netanyahu spoke of ways that the deal could be improved.  He also discussed some strategies for the negotiations.  Lastly, he told Congress what Israel's reaction would be to Iran's nuclear program.  No insults there, just some extremely serious words.  But nutty Nancy denounced the prime minister for insulting her and this country.  Of course, Pelosi never said what insulted her.  Was it the truth?

Finally we have the response from president Obama.  Obama pointedly scheduled a conference call with leaders of other countries while Netanyahu spoke.  It's Obama's way of telling the Israeli just how insignificant he is.  That is insulting, but nevermind.  Obama went before the press almost immediately after the speech was over to say that although he had not watched it he had read a transcript and there was nothing new in it.  Obama could not bring himself to discuss the substance of what Netanyahu said; instead, he just dismissed this speech from a foreign leader as nothing new.

The only other foreign leader to address Congress three times is Winston Churchill.  Now I don't put Netanyahu in the same league as Churchill; indeed, no world leader today is in Churchill's league.  Nevertheless, consider what would have happened if Churchill had come before Congress to warn about Hitler and Nazi Germany.  Would the Democrats and president Roosevelt have boycotted that speech?  Would they have called Churchill names rather than respond to the substance of his remarks?  Would they have falsely and idiotically claimed that Churchill had insulted the USA?  Would president Roosevelt have dismissed Churchill's words as nothing new and refused to address the substance?  Of course not.  It's called common courtesy.  It's called diplomacy.  It's called good relations with an ally.

So what happened yesterday with the Democrats?  I think I know.  In America's domestic politics the substance has been replace by name calling by the Democrats.  Think of the debate on climate change.  One side puts forth scientific data to demonstrate that the models upon which global warming theory is based are wrong.  The other side focuses on "climate deniers" and "flat earthers".  They don't talk about the science; instead, they focus on the individuals on the other side.  Then there's an issue like Obama's executive action on immigration.  The debate from the Republicans is about limits on presidential power in the Constitution.  The debate from the Democrats is about how Republicans hate Hispanics.  It's a phony line, but the Democrats choose the attacks rather than the substance.  How about Obamacare?  The King v. Burwell case to be argued before the Supreme Court this week could cause a major change in that law.  The Republicans mostly speak about the case in terms of the proper interpretation of the language of the Obamacare statute.  In other words, for the GOP it is an issue of the law.  The Democrats speak of the case as an attempt by evil Republicans to take healthcare away from the poor.  You know, those Republicans not only hate Hispanics, they also hate the poor.  Now it may be that our politics has descended to this level.  I don't like it, but we all have to deal with it.  Hopefully, the angry/nasty wing of the Democrats will be trounced in the next few elections and their tactics will die with their power.  But in dealing with the leader of a foreign country, an American ally, it is beyond the pale to treat him in this manner.

I am ashamed of it.  We all should be ashamed of it.

 

Netanyahu's Speech to Congress

 The speech by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress just ended.  It was a masterful summary by Mr. Netanyahu of 1) the reality of Iran as a terrorist/supporter of terrorism; 2) the deficiencies in the currently proposed deal being offer to the Iranians; and 3) the way forward to achieving a better outcome.  No one who listened to the facts summarized by Netanyahu could doubt that Iran is a bad actor on the world stage.  Just remembering all the thousands of Americans who have been killed by Iran or its proxies over the last decades makes that clear.  The prime minister also added an important point, however; Iran's fighting against ISIS does not make it a friend of the USA. 

It is also crystal clear that the proposed deal that virtually assures an Iranian nuclear weapon by ten years from now at the latest is a non-starter.  That deal will unleash a nuclear arms race across the region which is the center of global instability and war.  Once the nuclear arms are there, it is inconceivable that a nuclear war will not follow.

Netanyahu explained clearly that by ratcheting sanctions up on Iran, a better deal could be achieved.  He rightly pointed out that Iran needs the deal more than the USA and its allies.  After all, it was the stringent sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the first place.  Iran cannot face a future filled with additional sanctions, especially now that the price of oil has fallen so low.

The speech is well worth watching if you have not yet seen it.  I recommend it.

Here's The Question

It has not been a good week or two for Hillary Clinton.  First we learned that the Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has been taking tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and their lobbyists.  Somehow, it does not seem likely that the only motivation for these gifts has been charity.  More likely, these governments are making investments in future access to Hillary should she become president.  Then we learned that many large corporations with business before the government have contributed tens of millions of dollars to the same Clinton Foundation.  Most of these big companies have their own foundations through which they do charitable works.  For many of these corporations, the good publicity generated by doing charitable deeds through their corporations is a major benefit of those good works.  Why would a large corporation like Walmart give millions of dollars through the Clinton Foundation with no publicity when they could give the same amount through the Walmart Foundation with lots of good publicity?  The answer, once again, is to buy the future favor of Mrs. Clinton.  Then we learned that while Hilary was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation kept taking money from foreign governments and big corporations who had business before the State Department.  Some of these gifts violated the ethics rules put in place by the Obama Administration specifically for the foundation.  Finally, we learned yesterday that Hillary kept all her email communication while secretary of state in her own personal and private account despite government regulations that prohibit the use of such accounts for official business.  This is not a mysterious regulation; everyone in government is told about it. 

So why did Mrs. Clinton violate the law?  Was it just a careless oversight?  With Hillary, that is never the case.  Could it be that Mrs. Clinton was doing "fundraising" for the Clinton Foundation on her personal email so that no one would be able to see it?  Did Hillary ask the king of Saudi Arabia for a bunch of cash just at the time that some negotiation was going on with the kingdom?  Remember, many of the expenditures by the Clinton Foundation go to support the Clinton lifestyle.  They spent $8,000,000 on travel in one year and that may have been mostly for travel by the Clintons themselves. 

If Hillary announces her candidacy, she had better have an explanation for all this.