RUTHFULLY YOURS

‘Drain the swamp!” GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump has insisted before huge crowds increasingly confident of a well-deserved, sorely needed, come-from-behind victory.

But this slogan doesn’t quite capture the urgency of the moment. This one does:

“Flush the toilet!”

Washington’s corruption under Barack Obama and the Clintons has devolved to fetid depths suggestive of the days before indoor plumbing. Step back and shudder at today’s unsanitary state of public affairs.

The Cosa Nostra–like tone that Hillary Clinton has set for herself and her associates suggests a preview for a new film: The Godmother.

As word emerged on March 2, 2015, that Hillary maintained an outlaw e-mail system in her Chappaqua mansion’s basement, WikiLeaks reports, her campaign chairman, John Podesta, e-mailed her top aide, Cheryl Mills: “We’re going to have to dump all those e-mails.” Podesta now claims that the meaning of the word “dump” is to “release, distribute, or otherwise publicize.” This might be plausible, except that Team Clinton then erased some 33,000 “private” e-mails and used BleachBit software to guarantee that Hillary’s server, at least digitally, sleeps with the fishes. Hillary’s aides demolished her 13 communications devices — not the single one that she lied about having, for “convenience” — some with hammers.

Most of this happened while these public records were under congressional subpoena. This is called obstruction of justice.

Bryan Pagliano, the computer whiz who managed Hillary’s clandestine server, initially took the Fifth Amendment while under congressional scrutiny. But he twice couldn’t be bothered to show up in September, despite being subpoenaed by the House Government Oversight Committee.

Meanwhile, five different FBI offices are probing the Clinton Foundation on suspicion of public corruption. The Wall Street Journal called this “a sprawling cross-country effort.” Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, citing “more than six” sources in the FBI “with specific knowledge of the Clinton investigations,” reported today that “they confirm that there is an active investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year. It is continuing, and for those investigators working it, it is a priority.”

While Clinton apologists call the foundation a font of beneficence, its 2014 IRS filings show that it spent a whopping 5.76 percent of its funds on actual charitable activities — far below the 65 percent that the Better Business Bureau calls kosher. That paltry figure also mocks Hillary’s Las Vegas lie, uttered at the final presidential debate on October 19: “We at the Clinton Foundation spend 90 percent — 90 percent of all the money that is donated on behalf of programs of people around the world and in our own country.”

The Clinton Slush Fund . . . uh . . . Foundation seems to be mainly a travel and full-employment program for Hillary’s government in waiting. It’s also a bribe pump that sucks in money and spews out favors.

As detailed in Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash, the IRS wanted information on some $20 billion in 52,000 accounts that well-heeled Americans deposited with the Union Bank of Switzerland. So, UBS gave $60,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Hillary then met in March 2009 with Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey and then intervened with IRS officials on UBS’s behalf. Like magic, IRS asked UBS for only 4,450 accounts — roughly 91 percent fewer than IRS first demanded.

Three days away from the presidential election, the Islamic State issued a seven-page voter guide warning that both candidates will “undoubtedly” break their election promises and U.S. Muslims should skip the voting booth — and that Americans who do vote are “more deserving” of being killed than soldiers.

ISIS even details what it sees as the nominees’ worst qualities: that Hillary Clinton is a woman, and Donald Trump is “impulsive and unpredictable.”

The release from ISIS’ Al-Hayat Media Center titled “The Murtadd Vote” — the apostate vote — begins with the first George W. Bush administration and the up to 80 percent of Muslims who voted for the Texas Republican over Vice President Al Gore.

“Thus, in addition to committing the apostasy of democratic voting, they share in the crimes committed by Bush against Islam and the Muslims throughout his eight years of rule. The murtadd voters, however, did not learn, as by 2008, Obama got up to 90 percent of their vote,” the booklet reads. “And after almost thirty years of history proving to the entire world that there is no difference between the American Republican and Democratic parties in their policies against Islam and Muslims, the murtadd imams of the so-called ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ and its sister sects continue to advocate voting in the pagan festivals of US democracy, this time campaigning for the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.”

“They refuse to see that Obama interfered – both directly and indirectly – against the interests of Muslims just as Bush senior, Bill Clinton, and Bush junior had done before him.”

This page of the article includes a footnote: “George W. Bush, John McCain, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and so forth are all supporters of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). So how can the murtadd imams of the West claim there is any real difference for Muslims between the various US presidential nominees and candidates?”

“The only differences between Trump and Clinton are that Clinton is more skilled in ‘political correctness,’ giving her leverage in the sorcery of hypocrisy,” the ISIS article argues, adding she’s a “female feminist” and the Prophet Muhammad said “never shall a people who give their leadership to a woman be successful.”

Clinton, they continued, sees American Islam as “a project that can be projected to other countries, thereby leading more Muslims astray towards apostasy and eternal Hellfire,” while Trump “has yet to learn that what he refers to as ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ is nothing but the teachings of Islam, plain and simple — no adjective needs to precede Islam to describe the just terror it incites.”

On this page is a photo of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, captioned: “Hillary Clinton’s running mate courting a Jewish taghut [legislative rival to Islam].”

The article delves into Quranic arguments on why Muslims shouldn’t vote, noting “as the US presidential election day draws nearer, it becomes necessary to remind others what the shar’i ruling on partaking in the rituals of democracy is and that this ruling remains the same whether or not one of the two candidates is ‘the lesser of the two evils.'”

Whoever votes, ISIS declares, “is an apostate whether he is an open secularist or an alleged ‘Islamist,’ as legislation is Allah’s alone and judgment is his alone, not for the people, nor the constitution of the people, nor the representatives of the people.”

The pages also included a photo of Trump “courting Jews at the AIPAC convention” this year and of Khizr Khan — “a murtadd supporting Hillary Clinton and the taghut constitution” — holding his pocket Constitution aloft at the Democratic National Convention.

I recently met with an academic colleague for drinks, and the conversation quickly turned, as seems inevitable these days, to American politics. She was appalled when I expressed my admiration for Donald Trump. How could I break ranks so egregiously? After all, she expatiated, Trump wants to end all immigration to the U.S., he hates Muslims, he intends to launch a vendetta against Mexicans, he is an uneducated barbarian and an unscrupulous mountebank to boot.

I explained that she had been conned by the media blitzkrieg against Trump and had not considered his stated policies, for which he has gone on public record: To reduce the multi-trillion dollar American debt, bring jobs back to a country suffering massive unemployment, seal the porous southern border in order to stem what amounts to an invasion of the homeland, monitor immigration protocols to prevent the Muslimization of the United States and limit jihadist attacks, and stamp out high-level corruption. Anyone against these legitimate and necessary endeavors has either been fast asleep or is in sync with the forces of destruction. What, then, was her position on these issues?

No answer was forthcoming. I was, apparently, an alt-right apologist for political oppression, a traitor to the morally enlightened consensus, and, to put it succinctly, a lost cause. She rose from the table and walked out with an expression of contempt on her face. I suppose one could expect little different from someone who reads only The Huffington Post, The New York Times, the National Post and the Toronto Star, and listens to the pap spewed out by the CBC, CNN and MSNBC. Like most liberals, she was wholly unfamiliar with the countervailing literature and was therefore in no position to weigh evidence, balance competing viewpoints, and make an informed judgment. And like most leftists, her only response to an opposing argument was to shut down the debate. Trump was doubtless the monster rising from the Black Lagoon, slavering to devour the country. Case closed.

I have met people more or less like Trump, businessmen with whom my father had dealings when he was, prior to going bankrupt, a flamboyant millionaire. These men were not so much the salt of the earth as the pepper of the earth—colorful men with fiery temperaments, with neither academic credentials nor pretensions, rough hewn in some ways but likable once you got to know them, and totally indifferent to what people thought of them. They were like characters out of Mordecai Richler: eccentric, highly successful, not always totally immaculate in their transactions, but generally sensitive to the needs of their employees and capable of unexpected charm. When I exchange impressions with people who have come to know Trump, whether personally or indirectly, I feel that I recognize him.

Many Christians have expressed their horror of Donald Trump as some sort of incarnation of Beelzebub, as a wanton fornicator, as an adulterer, as a man without religious principle, as a pro-abortionist, as an exploiter of the poor—the list of his faults, transgressions and vices seems encyclopedic. I would ask the legion of anti-Trump Christians, including many commenters to my recent PJM article written in favor of Trump, to forgive me if I suggest that they have gone over the top in the intensity and scope of their animadversions. And I would ask them to consider three salient facts:

Jesus advised his followers in Matthew 22:21 to Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. The ballot within the framework of a secular democracy is a thing that belongs to Caesar, not to God. The two should not be confused.

The American Constitution provides for the separation of Church and State. The ballot in this case is a function of the State, not the Church. The two should not be confused.

If one believes one has a civic duty to vote—and to vote responsibly—in a national election, it becomes crucial to make a distinction between candidates, their character and their policies, and to consider the likely impact of these factors on the conduct and political nature of an incoming administration. One must also remember that a non-vote, or a protest vote for a splinter candidate —an Evan McMullin or a Jill Stein or a Gary Johnson—will generally translate as a vote for whoever is leading in the polls or appears to enjoy an Electoral College advantage, which seems to be Hillary. Such naivety is nothing but an injurious distraction. The race is between Hillary and Donald and no one else. The two should not be confused.

With respect to this third factor and certainly in the current electoral context, it behooves the believer to weigh carefully the moral, intellectual and political qualities of the major candidates vying for the presidency; and if he or she is dissatisfied in either case, there is no alternative but to vote for the lesser evil, despite the naïve urgings of the overly zealous, earnestly gesturing young man representing the organization “Faith Not Fear” not to do so. This young man is dangerously wrong in assuming that voting for a peripheral candidate will have a “statistically significant impact in this election and the major political parties will take note.” The major parties shrug and continue on their way. Remember Ross Perot?

Of course, I am convinced that Donald Trump, for all his shortcomings, is precisely the chief executive that America needs at this critical juncture in its history, but I do not ask anti-Trump Christians to agree with my convictions. I ask them only—despite their theological sensibilities, which I do not share but which I respect—to reflect upon the consequences of their political decision to act in such a manner as to promote the election of Hillary Clinton. For any impartial assessment of her past record, her character (FBI agents reportedly refer to her as “the antichrist”), and her declared and obvious policies irrefutably condemn her as the greater evil. In comparison with Clinton, Trump appears almost a choirboy.

“A true time for choosing. Get on the train or sit at the empty station waving goodbye. ”

Republicans, particularly those of the establishment ilk, cozy with the big donors and other party elites, have been reluctant to join the Donald Trump train. Fearing a landslide defeat on election day, these Republicans felt it in their best political interests to steer far clear of the Trump Titanic so as not to see their political futures dragged to the bottom of the electoral sea.

After sticking their fingers into the political winds, they decided the safer route would be to steer clear of Donald Trump, all in the hopes that come November 9, they could sit atop their high horses and proclaim, “See I told you so.”

As the political winds shifted this past week, with tightening polls and more talk of a Trump victory than a Clinton landslide, some of the fair weather Republicans are reconsidering their sideline stance, preferring to be on the winning train rather than being left at the station.

Paul Ryan was tap dancing around his party’s nominee. At a recent campaign rally, he told voters, “We are going to win everything including the White House.” In Lord Voldemort fashion, Ryan never mentioned, “He Who Cannot Be Named”, the actual candidate Donald Trump. At least Ryan is on the train, perhaps hanging on rather than seated, but on the train. Like Cruz, Ryan is campaigning with Pence, not with Trump.

Mitch McConnell is the GOP leader most firmly on the Trump train, although he too was late to the station and almost missed the train. Speaking at a recent rally, he told voters, “We need a new president, Donald Trump, to be the most powerful Republican in America.”