Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy

Longfellow wrote, "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." I have no doubt that the gods have targeted Hillary Clinton. There are many definitions of madness. They range all the way from anger to psychopathy. And many, not, of course, all of these have touched Ms. Clinton in her long lifetime.

In 1978 Ms. Clinton invested $1000.00 in cattle futures. A small investment but doable for a woman three years out of college with a law degree. But remarkably enough, in a short ten months, her small investment had turned into one hundred thousand dollars. Anyone who has ever done their own investing knows that the odds of this happening are in the range of one in ten gazillion. That would certainly give one the delusion, a form of madness, that they are an investing genius.

Hillary married Bill in 1975. Shortly after that he became the Attorney General of Arkansas and she was invited to be the first female partner of the Rose law firm. This certainly must enhanced her self image. It had to be her legal talent, not the fact that she had hooked up with an ascending star. Confusion, confusion, confusion.

Then there came the Whitewater Development Corporation. A questionable investment scheme where their partners, the McDougals bore the brunt of the legal problems and Ms. McDougal served 18 months in jail. The Clintons skated but carried that cloud for many years.

This was probably the start of the anger. I believe that in her soul, Hillary is a very angry women. This brought on paranoia, cover-ups and lies.  White water papers, long lost, were suddenly found in the White House. A four year effort to take over health care abandoned when the details came out. Then the Scandals. They had always been there, but then they became public.

She was supposed to win the Presidency in 2008. But out of the woodwork came Barack Obama. Her party turned on her in favor of this young upstart. She was out and he was in. That would anger anyone.

She gave up her job as Senator to become Secretary of State. After messing up the "reset" with Russia she was kept busy doing minor tasks in minor countries. Then came Benghazi and that critical televised moment when she shrieked, "what difference, at this time, does it make?" It made a lot of difference because good men died.

But now she will get her chance. Of this she has been convinced. 2016 will be her year. But suddenly, two things are converging to prevent this. She feels privileged and she has a past. As Secretary of State, she thought she could make her own rules. When it comes to national security one must go by the book. It is shear madness to do anything else.

So the gods in one final joke send Bernie Sanders, a seventy-three year old, somewhat unkempt, socialist to run against her. And he is succeeding. And the FBI is examining Hillary's email procedures. That is not looking good. Will Mr. Sanders be the candidate. I doubt it. But I also believe that the Gods, not of Olympus but of the Democrat party, do not want Hillary either. I suggest that those same gods have another dark horse candidate on standby waiting for the final destruction.

Trumpeting Trump

The most successful person trumpeting Trump, is Trump himself. To his credit, Trump is very smart, very successful, and a showman in the image of Phineas T. Barnum. He projects a larger than life and a louder than life image. He is not one who is easily ignored.

To his detriment, he has a huge ego, a conviction that he is always right, and, in spite of the fact that he bills himself as a tough guy, a very thin skin. We have just spent the past seven years under the thumb of a man with these selfsame characteristics. Can we afford any more?

What America has to decide, is will the whole of the Trump persona make a good and effective President. On the positive side, he seems to truly love and believe in America. He extols American exceptionalism. The is clearly a step up. But Trump always seems to be angry. He constantly has a look on his face reminiscent of Jeff Dunham's little friend Walter.

Mr. Trump got all in a dither when he felt that Megyn Kelly was too hard on him in the debate. Please, she is a reporter. And a tough one at that. Manly men don't pull out their cell phones and start a twitter war. Don't go negative on "The Donald" or lightening bolts may start falling from twitter-world.

Mr. Trump claims a solution to all of America's problems. He is very big on solutions but not so big on plans to execute those solutions. He claims that he will straighten out Mexico, ISIS, China, Russia, and the National Debt. And on the seventh day he will rest.

I do not dislike Mr. Trump. He is just another who was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run. But I do not think he has the temperament to be a good President. Our President cannot be perpetually angry and react in that anger. A good President cannot demand but must negotiate. A good President needs a good poker face and affability, not a scowl and a loud response. 

Mr. Trump is saying a lot of politically incorrect things that most Americans are thinking. This makes him attractive to many. But he is simply not Presidential. He is a businessman but he is not business like. He is just too much the showman.

Participation Needed

I have written about the "Participation Rate" before. Usually as a passing reference. Forget the unemployment rate. They finagle those figures. They are, flat out, unreliable. The Participation Rate is the only true and accurate indicator of the employment picture.

The Participation Rate, today, is the lowest it has been in thirty eight years. That is 1977 when Jimmy Carter was President. In other words, there was more employment under Reagan. There was more employment under George H.W. Bush. There was more employment under Clinton. There was more employment under George W. Bush. There was more employment when Barack Obama took office.

So despite his strutting and self aggrandizement and his constant promises to focus on jobs, he has failed. Not only has he failed at getting people working, those middle class people that are working, are earning, on average, ten percent less.

American citizens are not a part of Barack Obama's agenda. "Global Warming" is. In spite of the fact that there has been no warming in decades. In spite of the fact that the polar ice caps are growing. In spite of the fact that Polar Bears are happy and breeding. Barack still drags down the economy for minute theoretical gains that will mean nothing.

So coal mining jobs disappear. Whole states are dragged down as more unemployed hit the streets. But Barack knows best. And down goes that pesky Participation Rate once more. Agencies pass laws but call them regulations to prevent a conflict with Congress. These arbitrary, and often ill-conceived, regulations cost American businesses time and money to comply to. They also create insecurity. Businesses don't hire or even lay more people off. And down goes the Participation Rate.

Taxes, Obamacare, an unsure future create a shaky business climate where fewer people start businesses or expand existing, keeping the Participation Rate in the doldrums. But our President still struts on the stage, bragging about how he has fixed the economy. The only thing he has fixed is the numbers that he presents to the public. 

We will be a great country again when the government gets out of the way and lets the American people participate. There is much talk on the liberal side about income inequality. Sure, some people earn more than others. Americans don't care about that. They only want an opportunity to work and advance their own cause.

Will Long Remember

History will long remember the results of Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry's pact with Iran. It will, in all likelihood, survive after the President vetoes the opposition bill. The Democrats will unwisely line up behind their leader and help him preserve what he sees as his legacy, when they should be protecting the United States and preserving peace in the world.

They will be long remembered, as Judas has been long remembered. Mr. Obama may get a temporary legacy. Mr. Kerry may get his Nobel Peace Prize. The members of Congress who support them won't even get their thirty pieces of silver.

Americans don't want this "agreement". They understand that we get nothing and that Iran becomes a very rich nuclear power. A nuclear power who is the largest supporter of terrorism in the world. A nuclear power run by a bunch of mad Mullahs who yearn for Armageddon.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry have just handed these mad Mullahs the keys to the destruction of Israel. While Mr. Obama gave us his usual straw man, "agreement" or war, he has actually greased the long slow slide into war by kicking the can down the road. There are so many alternatives to war. But that is a place that our President chose not to go.

Yes Mr. Obama, you will be out of office by the time this ticking time bomb, that you have created, blows up. But history will long remember your name. And not in a good way. You may have a legacy that lasts five or ten or even fifteen years. But that is when history is just starting. That is what makes the difference between historians and reporters, real historians seek truth regardless of ideology.

You have made yourself today's version of Neville Chamberlain with your ill conceived ideas. What you bring to us may be so much worse.

On Opinion

Opinions are good. They are something that everyone should have. The best thing is that you can have as many as you like. The worst thing is that so many opinions are wrong. But you're still allowed to have them.

Not only that, in this country, opinions can be freely expressed. Right or wrong. At least this is true for now. There are so many out there that would limit free expression to only what is politically correct. 

The strange thing is that the heart of limiting free expression is in the colleges. The one place where free expression should be encouraged. Whether they be right or wrong, good or evil, beautiful or ugly, opinion on campus should never be limited nor punished for representing whatever ism is unpopular at any time. That is the heart and soul of Socratic debate, where all learning begins and if done well, never ends.

Opinions even have value. I don't mean that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you find out you are right about something. I mean cold hard cash. Watch TV any Sunday morning. All those talking heads on there are selling nothing but their, usually less than humble, opinion. The spinmeisters are selling other peoples opinions to make those opinions seem great and significant. 

I have no quarrel with that. They are obvious and recognizable. That is their life and welcome to it. There is one area where I do have a problem with the selling of opinion for cash. That is when those that claim to be reporters bundle up their opinions and sell them as news. Lately, it seems that we see more of that than we see of real news. 

I love opinion in newspapers. When it is on the op-ed page. When I see opinion on page one above the fold, it reminds me why once great newspapers are failing. Aah yes, all the opinion that is fit to print.

But most of all, I love it when candidates are given a chance to express their opinion. Then to be pushed and challenged. The stress of hard and fair questioning can be a great leveler. Fair questioning. Not when the moderator brings his or her opinions into the fray as happened so blatantly in the last Presidential debates.

This is the time when opinions really count. At least that is my opinion. 

Wake Up Call

I used to be an active member of the Republican party. I even ran for office twice as a Republican. As far back as I can remember, there have always been two Republican parties. There were the conservatives. They were, and still are, a majority in the party. For the most part, they are average folks who live in flyover country and who's only power is their vote.

Then there are the "middle of the road" Republicans. Those who we used to call "Rockefeller Republicans" and now call RINOs. They had the money. And with that money came the power. They are beltway Republicans, having gravitated to Washington and the surrounding environs. 

They see the success of Democrats. They consider Democrats to be a sleazy bunch of mudslingers and know that they are above that. So they feel the route to political success is to be democrat-lite. You know, clean hands and a pure heart. The problem is that they have never been able to elect a President who is one of them who isn't named Bush. So here they are, taking another walk to that well.

Then along came a Trump. Big, loud, brash, and unafraid to say things that people are thinking but saying only out among the masses. Love him or hate him, he is the best thing in the world for the Republican party and may yet be able to breath life into that decaying corpse.

If the Republican party is to survive they need a rebirth. The RINOs who gave the country a long run of drab, status quo, old, survivors with little or no vision must change. The old guard has failed. Give birth to the new. Consider what we are seeing as Donald Trump bringing on labor pains.

The press has finally found something to write about on Republican politics. People will watch the debates. They will be looking for the he or she who dares. Mark Levin claims we have lost the republic and we no longer even have a democracy. He is right. And unless we do something in this election, we may never get it back. 

Republican leadership has sold the party and the country down the river. They have had far too many bites at the apple and have failed.

Random Thoughts - Sixty-Six

President Obama greatly fears "Climate Change". At least that is what he claims. In his mind the primary malefactor is anything with carbon in it's composition. You wont find any carbon paper in the White House, I'll bet. One of the great carbon villains is carbon dioxide. So I had this scary thought. What if one morning Mr. Obama wakes up and realizes that fermentation creates great gobs of CO2? Beer, wine, rum, whiskey, even soy and Worcestershire sauces are all fermented. Their "carbon footprint is massive". This could be serious. Stock up now before it's too late.

Speaking of our President, why does he insist on trying to take guns away from honest law-abiding citizens? His latest targets being the elderly and veterans. Legal fire arms owners use their guns for sport or to protect their homes. Almost all gun crimes are done by thugs with illegal guns. So, what is his objective in trying to disarm the people who have a Constitutional right? Not that he cares much about the Constitution.

I suggested a while back a Biden - Chaffee ticket for the Democrats. Now, as Hillary's numbers fall. As her virtual nose grows whenever she tells one of her virtual truths, will the Dems actually get desperate enough to consider this? Go, Joe!

So John Kerry has achieved the diplomatic ploy of our time. Nancy Pelosi calls it a "diplomatic masterpiece". Of course, Iran is still holding four Americans prisoner. Throughout the negotiations, while they shouted "Death to America", Kerry gave them everything. Now, Ayatollah Khamenei has published a book on how to outwit the United States and destroy Israel. Great job, John!

If you have seen and heard the videos from Planned Parenthood and you aren't nauseated you have a heart of stone and a soul of ice.

If I never hear the names Kardashian or Jenner again, it will still be too soon.