So tell us...have you stopped beating your wife?

Donald Trump's worst enemy is without doubt his own mouth, and it has his lawyers sweating...umm...bullets.

Yesterday I heard several legal experts who were asked if Donald Trump has to speak to Robert Mueller's investigators under oath.  Their unanimous answer:  yes he does.  Some Supreme Court decision awhile back (Nixon...Clinton?) said if subpoenaed, the President must appear and answer questions.  Trump's lawyers can indeed try to negotiate favorable terms for him, but Mueller is in the drivers seat.  "I don't remember" will likely backfire as these slick gubment prosecutors can ask seemingly innocent, unrelated questions that are all really leading up to the same answer, one they already know the answer to.  

Where Bill Clinton's Rhodes Scholar mind carefully considered the question before he answered "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is", Trump will just blurt out whatever first comes into his mind.  He doesn't understand the concept of "the powerful pause" before answering.  Proof?  See yesterday's "shithole African countries" comment.

They said if President Trump's lawyers can't negotiate a deal whereby he can answer written questions with written answers carefully crafted by them, they'll likely advise the President to just pardon everyone remotely involved and then resign.

Interesting times.

S

Better late than never

While it might be five or six years too late, it looks like the FBI is finally going to look into a possible "pay-to-play" scheme involving Obama's Sec State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.  I wrote a blog post about this 18 months ago.

Here's the suspicion:  Any application that had to go through the State Department for review and approval could have been expedited or slow walked (or worse) at the "suggestion" of Sec Clinton.  Simultaneously, private citizen Bill Clinton was accepting substantial contributions on behalf of the Clinton Foundation and/or being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to give speeches by entities who had applications pending before said State Dept.  Your two-bit oil-infested country might get State Dept approval to buy a dozen F-22's if you contributed, or sent home empty handed if you didn't.  Did this actually happen?  I have no idea.  But the opportunity was certainly there for the taking. 

The press has been skating around this issue for years, I guess too timid or too star-struck by the Clinton's to make an issue out of it.  I once heard a reporter ask Bill if there was any truth to the suggestion, and he just answered with a straight face, "No, how could there be?  I'm a private citizen now.  I have nothing to do with making those sorts of decisions."  And the reporter just skipped off, happy as a lark.

Trouble is, a scam such as this would be extremely hard to prove.  The Clinton's are no dummies.  Surely they would never have said anything out loud or put anything in writing that would have connected the dots. But imagine the private dinner conversation at the Clinton's house as they were sharing some Sloppy Joe's and a Big Red:

BILL:  Say sweetheart, guess who stopped by the Foundation today with a nice donation?

HILLARY:  Why, I have no idea.  Who?

BILL:  That nice Crown Prince boy from Saudi Arabia.

HILLARY:  Awww, how sweet.

And three weeks later the Saudi's request to buy jet fighters and gold-plated Humvees is approved.  How convenient.

Yes, I know the Clinton Foundation spread a lot of cash around to legitimately deserving causes, but sources say the mafia is a major sponsor of neighborhood Little League baseball teams, too.  So what?

And take it step further:  What's to prevent the wife or daughter or son or brother, etc, of a major political figure....think House Speaker or Senate Majority Leader or even a major committee chair....from setting up their own "charitable foundation", too?  The opportunities for arms-length corruption are off the charts!

But here to me is the best part....now maybe the Republicans will have to stop using Billary's possible grand larceny as a distraction.

   "There's no Russian collusion.  There's no Russian collusion.  But...but...what about Crooked Hillary, huh?  What about her?  Lock her up!"  

Oh puh-leeze.  I say investigate the Clinton's and the Trump's both, and let the chips fall where they may.

S

The media should put me on retainer....I'm quite the soothsayer!

It seems the news media has somehow discovered there is something fishy smelling at best, and maybe illegal at worst, about the sale of a uranium mining company to Russia after the Clinton Foundation, a philanthropy run by her husband, William Jefferson Clinton (aka POTUS 42), received "contributions" from Russians close to the uranium deal. 

BIG SHOCK!

Well put me in for a Pulitzer Prize!

I wrote about this very sort of sleaze in this blog back on June 9, 2016.  The Clinton's IMO set up a pretty sweet scheme whereby "contributions" were made to the pure-as-the-driven-snow Clinton Foundation, then Senator and later Sec of State Hillary Clinton blessed a transaction favored by the same contributors. I doubt they'll find any paper trail on the subject as a casual comment and an understanding nod over dinner between husband and wife sealed the deal.

This is what our politicians do...."one for me, and one for the country".  They go in with a modest net worth, and leave public service filthy rich.  Coincidence?  Methinks not.

To save you from scouring my blog archive (in the column on the right), below is what I wrote 16 months ago.  As Yogi Berra would have said, "It's deja vu all over again."

S

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So why won't I vote for her [Hillary Clinton]?  It's all about trust, or lack there of.  For starts, it's hard for me to separate the activities of the Clinton Foundation run by her husband and her duties as a Senator or Secretary of State.  There is no clear demarcation. 

Under federal law, foreign governments seeking State Department clearance to buy American-made arms are barred from making campaign contributions, a prohibition aimed at preventing foreign interests from using cash to influence national security policy.  But nothing prevents them from contributing to a "philanthropic foundation" controlled by policymakers.  (A tidy little loophole, wouldn't you say?)

Admittedly the philanthropic Clinton Foundation has done a lot of good for a lot of worthy causes.  But mixed in with its good deeds are lots of highly suspicious "coincidences".  While it was perfectly legal for anyone to give to the non-profit Clinton Foundation while Hillary was a sitting US Senator and a cabinet official during the Obama administration, the potential for abuse was off the chart.  As an aspiring public servant, she should never have let herself be put in such a compromising position.  It was simply a bad decision of the highest order.

Consider this:  In 2011 while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the State Department approved a $29 billion dollar sale of American-built fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, despite the pleas of many that a deal that large would upset the delicate balance of power in the region.  The deal was even considered a "top priority" for Ms. Clinton personally.  Is it just a coincidence that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed $10 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and Boeing contributed $900,000 just months before the sale was given official approval?  

In fact, in just three years (2011-2013) under Hillary Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion dollars worth of arms sales to 20 nations who had given contributions to the Clinton Foundation.  This number is over twice as much as was approved by the State Department in the same time frame during the last term of George W. Bush. 

*sniff*....What's that smell?

And does this seem odd?....Hillary Clinton switched from opposing an American free trade agreement with Colombia to supporting it after a Canadian energy and mining magnate with interests in that South American country contributed to the Clinton Foundation.  

In fact, 13 companies lobbying the State Department paid Bill Clinton $2.5 million in speaking fees while Hillary Clinton headed the agency.  Even if it was a coincidence, just the appearance of impropriety is staggering!

And then we get to her (likely) coziness with Wall Street.  In that regard she seems more like an old-school Republican.  Doesn't it seem suspicious that she was paid $1.8 million dollars to make just eight speeches in less than two years to big banks?  And just this election cycle, based on their campaign contributions to date, she is far and away their favorite candidate.

Do you think they sought her out as a speaker because of her good looks and personality, or could it have something to do with the fact that maybe, just maybe, they felt their relationship might soon pay big dividends if she were to become President of the United States?  Whether true or not, the opportunity to personally gain from her official position and her relationship with Bill's Clinton Foundation is just too tempting.  She sleeps with the guy, for crying out loud!

Spend just a few minutes on Google and see all this and much more documented for yourself.   

Yes, I know...."They all do it."  But they aren't ALL running for President.  We've been giving such shenanigans a blind eye for too many years now, and IMHO it has resulted in the mess we're in today.  We can't afford to put someone in the White House who could with the stoke of a pen put a fast buck ahead of our national interests.

IN YOUR FACE, SCUMBAG!

Where did we go so wrong?  For 200+ years Americans have admittedly done a fair amount of bickering among ourselves (our Civil War being the most dramatic example), but we somehow managed to get along well enough to keep us moving forward to become a land of freedom and opportunity for all (well, some more than others). 

But somewhere during the 1980's (?) things began to change.  We became less tolerant of anyone who disagreed with whatever we believed.  We became intensely polarized.  Today liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, have built a no-man's-land mine field between themselves.  Some of you who may be more politically knowledgeable than me might disagree, but as I recall it the one person who most personified this winner-take-all, take-no-prisoners brand of partisan politics was Rep Tom DeLay of Texas.

DeLay was the Republican House Whip.  He was the guy who "whipped" all his party members into voting exactly as the party leadership said, or else.  You crossed him at your own risk.

Our national leaders after WWII understood it was in our best interest to NOT totally humiliate our recently vanquished enemies.  We allowed the Emperor of Japan to maintain his title, and helped the Europeans rebuild via the Marshall Plan.  Unfortunately Tom DeLay missed history class the day that was discussed.  By the time he made it to a leadership position in Congress he had earned a reputation as the meanest SOB in town.  He was never interested in negotiating with the Democrats, but only in stomping them.  He wanted to steamroll them, kick 'em in the teeth, scalp them, and finally disembowel them and spit on their carcass.

Each party dug in their heels.  The hard-core "base" of each side refused to believe that their guys could ever do anything wrong, and that the other side could ever do anything right.  For 8 years Republicans were constantly at Bill Clinton's throat, and Democrats returned the favor by constantly sniping at Dubya Bush for his 8 years in office.  Each thought they had been wronged, and it was 100% the other parties fault.  They themselves were always right, regardless of the facts.  (Truth was there was plenty of blame to go around.)

We moved from the gutter into the sewer when Barack Obama was elected President.  The Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, openly admitted it was his goal in life to see to it that Obama was a one-term President.  Many even refused to believe Obama was American born.  Anything the Democrats proposed, the Republicans automatically opposed, sight unseen.  If any Republicans might have wanted to participate in the drafting of ObamaCare, their leadership took them aside and beat them senseless.  "NO COLLABORATING WITH THE ENEMY!"

Now the tables are reversed.  Republicans are proposing a replacement healthcare plan, and they wouldn't in a million years throw the Democrats a bone to get them to play ball.  If they should be offered a seat at the table, I'm sure the Democratic leadership would put any party defector before a firing squad.

And here we are in 2017.  Donald Trump is President, and his family and administration are under attack.  The smoke and stench of something going on between Russia and his administration, if not the President personally, is pretty powerful.  The Republican base refuses to even acknowledge anything smells, and the Democratic base is ready to start build gallows.  As Republicans and their media stooges (FOX News) see it, the crime is not that they did it, but that they got caught because someone leaked it to the other side's media stooges.  "HOW DARE THEY CATCH US!"

IMO we've pretty much hit bottom.  Today our choice is between the Party of Oil  and the Party of Water....they will never mix.  The best quote I've heard in months was this morning when a commentator on TV, a Republican, called Washington politicians "the lowest form of human life".  Too harsh?  I think not.

Oh, and Tom DeLay?  He was indicted and convicted for money laundering in 2011 and sentenced to 3 years in prison.  However, in 2013 his conviction was overturned by a highly partisan (surprise!) Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  

I'm honestly not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but just a realist.  Individually we're wonderful people, willing to work together to better our neighborhoods and communities and schools.  But the minute we put on a red hat or a blue hat, we turn into animals.  If civil discourse isn't actually yet dead, it's definitely on life support.  Hurts to hear, doesn't it?

S

Whatcha gonna do?

Life's a bitch.  Everyone feels stress of one degree or another on a regular basis.  The single mom wonders how she's going to feed her kids with payday still a week away.  The owner of a small business hopes he can make payroll on the 1st.  Any of us would probably freak if we got a hospital bill or a "tuition due" notice demanding tens of thousands of dollars by Friday.

Can you imagine the stress a President of the United States feels when his country is attacked on his watch, or when the world's economy is crumbling and everyone is looking to him to fix it?  Just look at these President's before and after photos.  Talk about stress!  Yikes!  

There have been times in history when the President was unable to continue in his job due to illness or injury.  Woodrow Wilson, for example, suffered a stroke, and Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack.  In 1965 our Constitution was amended to spell out who would take over in such an emergency.

When Ronald Reagan was the victim of an assassination attempt in 1981, the 25th Amendment kicked in and VP George H.W. Bush took over temporarily until the President recovered and could return to work.  

It's pretty easy to see when a President is disabled when he/she has bullet holes in them or is in a full body cast, but how can we tell when a President is MENTALLY incapable of performing the duties of the office?

The 25th Amendment says the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can simply declare a President disabled and the Veep takes over.  If the President contests this, Congress decides with a 2/3 vote required to turn the country over to the VP.  But how can we tell if someone has gone "nucking futs"?  A CAT scan can't see it.  An X-ray can't see it.  A blood test won't show anything.  It's only the OPINION of a mental health expert.  It's a very inexact science.

Does a judge get a say if the President is to be declared mentally incompetent, as in the civilian world?  (The 25th Amendment doesn't mention it.)  If so, which judge?  The Supreme Court?  How long might that take?  Who runs our country in the interim?  Who has control of our nuclear codes until it's decided?  If it's a decision outside judicial review, does that mean we're putting it all in the hands of the 535 most distinguished *snort* scoundrels in the land?  (Now that should cause a spike in Imodium sales!)

I believe this is something we need to give serious thought to.   As they say, "Plan for the worst, hope for the best".

S

"Pay to play" sounds reasonable to me, said Guido "The Snake" Gambino

Back on June 9th I wrote here about why I won't vote for Hillary Clinton.  It isn't because she isn't smart, or isn't qualified...she is on both counts.  She's been in and around government almost her entire adult life.  After all these years she no doubt has a star-studded black book of important contacts.  She's likely shaken down many of them, too.  (Something not exclusive to Hillary.)

Politics is a sleazy business...big shock, I know!  Politicians (of both parties) know how to write laws that make themselves look pure as the driven snow, but not too many layers deep into the regulations they write, if you know what to look for, you'll find all the necessary loopholes that give them a free hand to do pretty much whatever they want.  The very people who decide by the laws they write what is legal or illegal will quite naturally declare whatever they do to be legal.  It's the proverbial "license to steal".

With Hillary's "pay to play" relationship with the Clinton Foundation now front page news, let me share again what I wrote more than two months ago:

"So why won't I vote for her [Hillary]?  It's all about trust, or lack there of.  For starts, it's hard for me to separate the activities of the Clinton Foundation run by her husband and daughter and her duties as a Senator or Secretary of State.  There is no clear demarcation."

"Under federal law, foreign governments seeking to buy American-made arms [among many other things] are barred from making campaign contributions, a prohibition aimed at preventing foreign interests from using cash to influence national security policy.  But nothing prevents them from contributing to a "philanthropic foundation" controlled by policymakers.  (A tidy little loophole, wouldn't you say?)"

"Consider this:  In 2011 while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the State Department approved a $29 billion dollar sale of American-built fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, despite the pleas of many that a deal that large would upset the delicate balance of power in the region.  The deal was even considered a "top priority" for Ms. Clinton personally.  Is it just a coincidence that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed $10 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and Boeing contributed $900,000 just months before the sale was given official approval?"
 
"In fact, in just three years (2011-2013) under Hillary Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion dollars worth of arms sales to 20 nations who had given contributions to the Clinton Foundation.  This number is over twice as much as was approved by the State Department in the same time frame during the last term of George W. Bush."

"And....Hillary Clinton switched from opposing an American free trade agreement with Colombia to supporting it after a Canadian energy and mining magnate with interests in that South American country contributed to the Clinton Foundation." 

"In fact, 13 companies lobbying the State Department paid Bill Clinton $2.5 million in speaking fees while Hillary Clinton headed the agency." 

~~~~~~~~~~

I know some will say, "But the Clinton Foundation does many good things with the billions of dollars they control."   That's true, but the legitimate companies set up by organized crime to launder the money from their illegal activities no doubt provide some welcome community services, too.  Just because they sponsor the neighborhood Little League baseball team doesn't make their drug operations any less illegal.  I wouldn't vote for Guido Gambino for President just because he supported the local SPCA, even though I'm an ardent supporter of the SPCA.

I'm not a venomous partisan political person.  I'm not pro- or anti- either party.  I just call 'em as I see 'em.  And not only does Hillary's relationship with the Clinton Foundation look bad, it smells bad, too.  I just can't trust that whatever decisions she makes will always be in the country's best interest vs the best interest of the family business.

S 

 

Well played, Pootie-Pooh

It should show up on YouTube any second now and is sure to go viral....Russia's Vladimir Putin tap dancing all over Barack Obama's face.  Admit it Barack.  Students for years to come will be doing their Doctoral Dissertations on the many ways you botched your handling of the Syrian mess, and in contrast how Putin aced his opportunity.

Surely Barack understands the American people are tired of 10+ years of war, throwing our youth and our money into efforts to civilize those Heathens of the East.  There was no way in hell we were going to look kindly on picking a fight with Syria.  

If he had really wanted to punish Syria for their use of chemical weapons he would have just cold-cocked them like Presidents Reagan and Clinton did when they found someone kicking them in the shins:  Executive Order....no telegraphing your intentions....no hand-holding with Congress....just BAM!  Some quick strikes, done.

Instead President Obama popped off and drew a line in the sand, then realized he couldn't cash the check his mouth had written.  "Aw, come on Congress.  Jump in with me.  Then when it all hits the fan I can say, 'Hey, they said it was OK.'"

By contrast Vladimir Putin has pulled a rabbit out of his hat, coming across as a peacemaker.  Imagine that!  Pootie-Pooh, a man of peace.  Ha!  Not only is he getting Syria to put their chemical weapons under international control (really?), but he's putting some of his elite Spetsnaz commandos in to "advise" / fight the Syrian rebels.  That civil war is FINIS.  No one is going to back the rebels now....they're a losing cause.  Assad wins.

Vladimir Putin has effectively baled out Barack Obama.  He doesn't have to press for a vote in Congress that he would have lost anyway.  And we don't have to throw another few hundred million dollars (BILLION dollars?) that we don't have into that sewer we call the Mid-East. 

A lame-duck President has just become even more lame.  Don't look for anything else of importance to come out of his administration for the remainder of his term in office.  He'll take credit for a gradually improving economy, but really he's just along for the ride.   That will be his last hurrah.  He's spent.

Game, set, match;  Pootie-Pooh. 

S

Don't look now, but Dubya's back

Today all five living past and present Presidents will be in Dallas to dedicate the President George W. Bush Library on the campus of SMU.  As a native Texan, please allow me to give you my impression of our (semi-) native son "Dubya".

We all know the early story....he grew up in west Texas in a family with money and prestige.  He partied hard like many most rich kids do and got into his fair share of minor trouble.  Big whoop.  He was President of the Texas Rangers when they were little more than a door mat, and sold out (and did very well) to run for governor.

He wasn't supposed to win but he did, beating HRH Ann Richards.  She took him too lightly and it cost her.  Dubya was actually a very good governor.  Reasonable, responsible, able to work with both parties in the legislature.  So well in fact that the Democratic Lt. Governor at the time endorsed him for re-election.

He might have come across as a tongue-tied doofus compared to the urbane veteran politicians in Washington, but that wasn't him at all.  (Just ask Ann Richards.*)  Ex:  His grades at Yale were better than those of John Kerry. 

He was a natural to fill the vacuum in the Republican Party leadership.  There was a lot of Republican money itching to take back the White House, he had his daddy's Rolodex, and probably a bit of a swollen head after his success in Austin.

In the strangest election in our history he won, and IMO was immediately steamrolled by the Washington political establishment.  Those guys eat little west Texas boys for breakfast.  He fell under the influence of long-time political heavyweights like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, which I think really came back to bite him hard later.  

Cheney, the ultimate insider, especially seemed to have his ear.  He seemed to have the knack of wanting something, and then making Dubya think it was his idea.  I trust Cheney about as far as I can spit into a hurricane.  (I still don't think Dubya "gets" Cheney's influence on him.)

Then, BAM!  9/11.  Dubya did what most red-blooded Texas boys would do when they get sucker-punched....he got out his can of whup-ass.

Again IMO, 9/11 would have happened regardless of who was in the Oval Office.  Islamic terrorists had been jabbing us since the Carter administration.  Dubya just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Regarding Iraq:  Saddam Hussein laid out too convincing a lie and it cost him.  He wanted the world to believe he had WMD's in order to make him seem stronger than he really was.  Our CIA bought it (led, don't forget, by a Clinton holdover), as did Britain's MI-6, Israel's Mossad, the French, the Germans, and probably many others, too.  Even Colin Powell bought it.  Nothing definitive was ever found, but there were enough shreads of evidence to seemingly corroborate Saddam's tale.  I really DON'T think Dubya lied to us deliberately.

The beginning of the end for Dubya was when the US got into Iraq and proved Colin Powell correct.  Remember Powell's advice?  "If we break it, we buy it."  We broke it, and we couldn't afford to buy it.  Paying for that war was where our financial wheels fell off.  There was more than that, of course, but paying for the war in Iraq financially devastated us.

Regarding the financial meltdown of '08:  Again, Cheney & Co. were in the back pocket of the financial interests.  They got the green light they wanted.  The rest of us got (and are still getting) the bill.

Regarding his Grand Plan for the Middle East:  Too many lightweights, probably academics (Condi?), convinced Dubya that if we could just set up a democratic Iraq that would mirror our free society, the other people of the region would want the same and fall in line, too.  Kum Ba Ya, y'all.  

That might have sounded good on somebody's PhD dissertation, but it didn't mean shit to the average guy on the average street in the average Middle Eastern country.  Again, IMO Dubya really thought this made sense.  He has a "western" thought process, while they will always have an "eastern" thought process.  They are very different.  It was just very naive thinking on his part.

In short, I really do think George W. Bush was/is a good man.  He meant well, truly wanted to do good things that would benefit us and the world at large.  His spirituality is genuine.  He was just out of his league, coaxed along by advisers he shouldn't have listened to into doing things that we'll be regreting for a long time to come. Once you find yourself at the bottom of a deep hole as Dubya did, your options are few and not very good.

Washington is a wicked place.  It devoured George W. Bush, and unfortunately he probably won't be the last.  This isn't meant to excuse Dubya's political failures.  For eight years the buck rightfully stopped with him.

Pity how things turned out.  A lot of us had high hopes for him.  

S

*Actually you can't ask her.  She's dead.