RUTHFULLY YOURS

“As Robert Kaufmann wrote recently,

A vote for Hillary Clinton is therefore a vote for Mr. Obama’s dangerous doctrine, which fears American power more than it fears our enemies. As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton contributed enormously to lowering the barriers to aggression everywhere—with much worse to come unless we reverse course.

Gates’ “pox on both your houses” rhetoric in the end leaves the door open to voting for Hillary, based solely on taking seriously campaign words while ignoring a 25-year-long record of dangerous deeds.”

Robert M. Gates, ex-CIA chief and Secretary of Defense for both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, published a column in the Wall Street Journal last week criticizing both Trump and Hillary for their their lack of “credibility” on foreign policy. This seemingly even-handed critique, however, is in fact an exercise in an apples-and-oranges comparison that ends up as a back-handed endorsement of Hillary.

Gates begins with a well-known survey of the mess Barack Obama’s foreign policies will leave his successor. A surging China threatens the Far East despite the “pivot” to Asia. Vladimir Putin is expanding everywhere on Russia’s western border, and in the Middle East has replaced the U.S. as the number one power broker. Putin also has serially gulled our mediocre Secretary of State John Kerry with “cease fires” that give cover to his aggression, and exposed our president’s gutlessness by buzzing our naval vessels and taunting our military aircraft. North Korea has just tested a nuclear device and intercontinental missiles that can reach as far as Chicago. And ISIS continues to hold ground in Iraq and Syria, and inspire terrorist franchises and attacks in Europe, the U.S., and Africa. And of course, there is the disastrous appeasement of Iran on nukes, along with the mullocracy’s active support for terrorism and serial humiliation of the U.S.

For each crisis, Gates explains, neither Trump nor Hillary offer any specific strategy or response that can even start to repair this dangerous erosion of American prestige and influence. Rather, as Gates says of their announced plans for rolling back ISIS, both candidates propose what “in essence sounds like what President Obama is doing now—with more ideological fervor and some additional starch”.

Yet at this point Gates makes the same mistake (or employs the same rhetorical tactic) of the NeverTrump folks. He does not distinguish between Trump’s campaign rhetoric and Hillary’s long record of failure, only specifically mentioning one example, the intervention in Libya. No word of her active support of the “reset” with Russia that encouraged Putin’s geopolitical adventurism. Nor any mention of her role in the Iranian deal, easily the worst foreign policy mistake since World War II, given the stakes of allowing an apocalyptic cult to possess nuclear weapons.

Nor does he say a word about Clinton’s obvious character flaws––her long record of sacrificing the country’s security and interests to her own political and financial gain, as she did with her unsecured private server and her pay-for-play State Department. Nor does he mention Hillary’s numerous health issues that raise serious questions about whether she will be physically and cognitively able to handle a crisis.

“When it comes to credibility problems, though, Donald Trump is in a league of his own,” Gates asserts. Yet his catalogue of sins refers to campaign rhetoric and personal style, and even then Gates’ take on Trump’s comments is tendentious. For example, Gates criticizes the wall with Mexico proposed by Trump, which would enhance security by making it more difficult for terrorists to infiltrate the U.S. Next comes the old tired charge that Trump’s suggestion we bring back enhanced interrogation techniques advocates “torture.” Waterboarding is not torture under current U.S. statute, as even Eric Holder told Congress in May of 2009. And as ex-CIA director George Tenet detailed in his memoirs, it delivered valuable information that prevented numerous attacks and helped locate bin Laden’s hideout. Gates here is recycling an old progressive smear against George W. Bush. As for Trump’s call for “killing [terrorists’] families,” what does he think Obama’s drone strikes do at times? And is Gates now morally condemning Allied strategic bombing of Germany and Japan, which killed nearly a million civilians?

Then there’s Trump’s offhand comments about Putin’s qualities as a good leader for a “system” Trump said he doesn’t like. We’re supposed to think Trump’s words are more consequential than Hillary’s and Obama’s appeasing deeds that empowered Putin’s aggressive foreign policy? Or more significant than Obama’s pledge to be more “flexible” with Russia after his re-election? And given that the U.S. has dealt with much more murderous leaders like Mao and Khrushchev, does Gates and other NeverTrumpers think future dealings with Putin will be easier or harder if Trump preens morally about Putin’s evil like the pundits and retired government officials free of accountability do? More likely, hard-nosed calculations of national interest on both sides will be more important than American presidential campaign rhetoric whether positive or negative.

Jennifer Epstein, a reporter for Bloomberg and clearly the very model of a modern Leftist journalist, asked Hillary Clinton today:

Are you concerned that this weekend’s attacks or potential incidents in the coming weeks might be an attempt by ISIS or ISIS sympathizers, or really any other group, maybe the Russians, to influence the presidential race in some way, and presumably try to drive votes to Donald Trump?

In response, the former secretary of State for a president who has given billions to the Islamic Republic of Iran — a country which ordered its people to chant “Death to America” every Friday in their mosques — accused Trump of treason.

She said Trump was being used as a “recruiting sergeant for terrorists,” and that “the kinds of rhetoric and language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries.”

Giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy is not a simple colloquialism. The phrase is part of the legal definition of treason.

Trump was a traitor, in Clinton’s view, because:

[W]e know that a lot of the rhetoric we’ve heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular ISIS, because they are looking to make this into a war against Islam, rather than a war against jihadists, violent terrorists, people who number maybe in the maybe tens of thousands, not the tens of millions, they want to use that to recruit more fighters to their cause, by turning it into a religious conflict. That’s why I’ve been very clear. We’re going after the bad guys and we’re going to get them, but we’re not going go after an entire religion and give ISIS exactly what it’s wanting in order for them to enhance their position.

How she proposed to distinguish the “bad guys” from the larger population of Muslims, Clinton didn’t say.

Nor did Clinton mention that hardly any Muslim organizations or authorities around the world have declared that someone who believes in the Islam of ISIS or al-Qaeda is not welcome in their mosques and Islamic schools.

“We’re going after the bad guys,” she said, on the same day the following was revealed:

[The Obama administration] mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders.

…

Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs.

Hardly a promising indication of how effectively the Obama administration has been “going after the bad guys.”

Clinton likewise did not address the point of Trump’s proposed temporary moratorium on immigration from countries with a high incidence of jihad terror. Trump has not looked to demonize all Muslims or Islam as a whole, or to blame all Muslims for the crime of a few. In reality, Trump’s proposal is a recognition that there is no other means of preventing jihadis from entering the U.S. among peaceful refugees. There is no way to distinguish one from the other.

Also, he’ll consider it “a personal insult” if black people don’t vote for Hillary.Also, he’ll consider it “a personal insult” if black people don’t vote for Hillary. He will never change…he is hopeless…..rsk

President Barack Obama, speaking at an event in New York City on Sunday, suggested that sexist attitudes are the reason why the most qualified person in American history does not have a commanding lead in the polls.

The “Lecturer-in Chief” told liberal donors at a fundraiser in Manhattan that Americans are trying to “grapple” with electing a “powerful woman.” But he expressed confidence that the American people will make “the right decision” and elect Hillary Clinton.

“There’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president,” Obama lectured. “We as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.” He concluded, “The good news is, despite all that, I have confidence in the American people that we’re going to make the right decision and we’re going to win this thing.”

See, there’s always a good explanation for why a Democrat might struggle to win over certain “deplorable” segments of society. In 2008, it was because the deplorables were bitter and clung “to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

In 2016, it’s because we are grappling “with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.” Okay, we get it. These are the Neanderthals who are voting for Trump.

Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented deluge of small-dollar donations for the GOP, one that Republican Party elders have dreamed about finding for much of the past decade as they’ve watched a succession of Democrats — Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton — develop formidable fundraising operations $5, $10 and $20 at a time.

Trump has been actively soliciting cash for only a few months, but when he reveals his campaign’s financials later this week they will show he has crushed the total haul from small-dollar donors to the past two Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney — during the entirety of their campaigns.

All told, Trump is approaching, or may have already passed, $100 million from donors who have given $200 or less, according to an analysis of available Federal Election Commission filings, the campaign’s public statements and people familiar with his fundraising operation. It is a threshold no other Republican has ever achieved in a single campaign. And Trump has done so less than three months after signing his first email solicitation for donors on June 21 — a staggering speed to collect such a vast sum.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a senior Republican operative who has worked closely with the campaign’s small-dollar fundraising operation. “He’s the Republican Obama in terms of online fundraising.”

Clinton counted 2.3 million donors as of the end of August, the result of decades of campaigning, a previous presidential bid and allies who painstakingly built her an email file of supporters even before she formally announced her second run. But Trump had zoomed to 2.1 million donors in the past three months alone, his campaign has said.

The question now is what the gusher means for the GOP. The Republican National Committee, through a deal struck with Trump in May, is getting 20 percent of the proceeds from its small-donor operation for Trump plus access to this invaluable new donor and email file. But can Trump’s candidacy help close the Republican Party’s small-donor divide in one fell swoop? Will these donors — 2.1 million and counting — give to other Republicans? Will they drag the Republican Party in Trump’s direction for years to come? Or, if he loses, will they simply vanish?

Eleven days ago Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a revolutionary speech in Cleveland about public education that should have changed the face of American politics forever. Unfortunately few people know about this compassionate blueprint for desperately needed change. That is because the Sept. 8 address came the day after Trump’s strong performance at the Commander In Chief Forum hosted by Matt Lauer. Pundits’ tongues were still wagging furiously over what happened at that event as the thought that Trump could actually win in November began to sink in.

But it’s not just the fault of talking heads and the rest of the mainstream media. Trump did himself no favors during what was touted as a major speech focusing on education and lifting up America’s inner cities. Instead of diving right in, he devoted the first 18 minutes to attacks on Hillary Clinton over national security issues and the war on the Islamic State that had nothing to do with America’s inner cities and the decades that corrupt big city Democrats have spent oppressing inner-city children.

In short Trump’s revolutionary call to arms against the public school monopoly was effectively buried by the candidate’s lack of discipline. Consequently, few people are aware of Trump’s unprecedented proposal for a $130 billion plan to bail poor inner-city kids out of schools that don’t teach them, who are thus condemned to lives of grinding poverty.

The speech that unveiled a modern-day Marshall Plan to rescue poor kids in low-income neighborhoods from failing public schools barely caused a ripple. But if the lives of the poor in our inner cities are to change, Americans need to know about Trump’s plan.

What’s especially refreshing about the Trump proposal is that it is not half-hearted or drawn up in a way to placate Democrats, who now are not going to relinquish their control of the failed urban public school system. Republican politicians have in the past advocated relatively timid, innocuous-sounding school choice proposals but Trump’s plan is a blazing thunderbolt hurled at the education establishment that puts previous school choice proposals to shame.

Trump’s plan, which he laid out at Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, an inner-city charter school, drives home the point that Democrats are the true enemies of inner-city residents. They have a monopoly control of America’s major inner cities that goes back 50 to 100 years. Democrats want poor blacks and other inner-city inhabitants to stay exactly where they are – and keep on voting Democrat until the end of time.

Everyone with eyes knows that the urban public school system in America is a travesty. Over decades the Left took a basically good system that churned out good citizens, entrepreneurs, and employees, and transformed it into a jobs program for adults, especially Democratic Party supporters and labor bosses. It amounts to a gigantic partisan slush fund that everyone who pays taxes in America is forced to support. And no matter how much money gets spent, things never seem to improve.