RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday accused Donald Trump of looting his casinos and pillaging Atlantic City, and that was the gracious part. If she’s going to criticize Mr. Trump’s business record, she should also have to defend the failure of Atlantic City’s model of progressive governance.

Democrats aim to rehash the story of how Mr. Trump loaded his casinos with debt and declared bankruptcy four times—stiffing creditors and workers while shielding himself personally—ad nauseam through November. “He doesn’t default and go bankrupt as a last resort,” Mrs. Clinton declared. “He does it over and over again on purpose.” She’s one to talk about incorrigible behavior.

While Mr. Trump may have contributed to Atlantic City’s downward spiral by oversaturating the casino market, it takes more than one man to raze a city. The businessman experienced a moment of lucidity—if only he could expand beyond 140 characters—when he fired back in a tweet that “Democrat pols in Atlantic City made all the wrong moves—Convention Center, Airport—and destroyed City.”

In 1976 New Jersey voters approved a referendum that legalized gambling in Atlantic City. The constitutional amendment required casino revenues to fund programs for senior citizens and disabled residents, but politicians have instead funneled the cash to favored projects and businesses under the guise of promoting development. Guess how that’s turned out?

A 1984 law required casinos to pay 2.5% of gaming revenues to the state or “reinvest” 1.25% in tax-exempt bonds issued by the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority for state and community “projects that would not attract capital in normal market conditions.” Investment recipients have included Best of Bass Pro shop, Margaritaville and Healthplex.

A decade later, state lawmakers imposed a $1.50 fee (which has since doubled) on casino parking spots to fund Atlantic City transportation, casino construction and a convention center. In 2004 lawmakers added a $3 surcharge for casino hotel stays to finance new hotel rooms and retail establishments, which had the effect of promoting unsustainable commercial and casino development. CONTINUE AT SITE

There has already been a tsunami of commentary about FBI Director James Comey’s remarkable performance today. Director Comey informed the world that he would not recommend that criminal charges be pursued against Hillary Clinton in the matter of her mishandling of classified material on her hombrew email system. There is much disbelief and anguish about this, a lot of it to the point. I think that my friend Andrew McCarthy was particularly astute with his NRO column. The title sums it up: “FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook.”

Andy homes in on the gaping hole at the center of Director Comey’s argument. On the one hand, Director Comey allows that “there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information.” On the other hand, he found “no clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws.”

So, you might be asking yourself, what? As Andy points out,

Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust.

Director Comey admits all this, indeed, he took pains to lay it out carefully. But he concludes that because Hillary Clinton did not intend any harm by her negligent behavior, there were no grounds to recommend prosecution. “Our judgment,” he said, “is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

This makes no sense. Andy:

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

How are we to understand Director Comey’s conclusion? Some commentators — my friends James Robbins and Roger L. Simon, for example — argue that Director Comey’s withering assessment will in the end be more damaging than an indictment because he has pointedly drawn attention to Clinton’s recklessness and incompetence. “Did Comey,” Roger asks, “Actually Destroy Hillary Clinton by ‘Exonerating’ Her?”

My sad suspicion is that the answer is “No.” Why? Because that would only be the case if there were sufficient public outrage to call her to account. Is there?

Cast your mind back over the many, many scandals the Clintons have been involved in: Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, cattle futures, Monica Lewinsky, etc., etc. Has anything ever stuck? As far as I know, the answer is “No.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Hillary Clinton is corrupt and corrupting of everyone she touches. President Obama has engaged in outrageous executive conduct so often as to be numbing. Those in powerful positions throughout this administration behave like lawless thugs and keep getting away with it. The courts have been packed with judges who find excuses to not enforce the laws or who create ones out of ideology contrary to intent. The major media shamelessly look away or cover up for the lawless and abusers, and seek every opportunity – or blow out of proportion every trivial thing – to damn opponents of the regime. Much of the Republicans in office lack the guts or integrity to fight back, outside of mewing noises.

Where does that leave us now?

The Tea Party movement occurred at a point in time between elections, and succeeded in electing many who promised to be better. Some have been. Many have been useless or become tools. Now, it is election time, and the demonstration we require is at the ballot box.

Donald Trump is far from the perfect leader. But, then it takes someone with gumption and determination who will not be intimidated to take on the rot that permeates our government and self-appointed ruling class. And, Trump is the only revolution we have available.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called on President Barack Obama on Friday to “recognize and condemn” each terror attack committed against Israel, a mere few hours after he issued a strong statement lamenting Thursday’s slaughter of a 13-year-old Israeli girl.

In a statement published on Facebook, Trump condemned Friday’s drive-by shooting attack which killed 48-year-old Rabbi Miki Mark, a father of 10. Mark was driving with his wife and children south of Hebron when a Palestinian opened fire on the family vehicle. Mark’s wife was seriously injured in the attack, with two of their children in serious to moderate condition. Over 20 bullet holes were found in the car.

“Yet another terrorist attack today in Israel — a father, shot at by a Palestinian terrorist, was killed while driving his car, and three of his children who were passengers were severely injured,” Trump said.

“I condemn this latest terrorist attack and call upon the Palestinian leadership to completely end this barbaric behavior. I also call upon President Obama to recognize and condemn each and every terrorist attack against our allies in Israel. This cannot become the ‘new normal.’ It has to stop!” Trump stated.

Earlier on Friday, Trump slammed the “heinous murder” of Hallel Ariel, who was butchered in her sleep by a knife-wielding Palestinian terrorist inside her family home in Kiryat Arba — located adjacent to Hebron — on Thursday. Following the attack, Palestinian Authority channels praised the terrorist as a “martyr,” with his own mother calling him a hero.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Donald Trump. The campaign was temporarily sidetracked with ancillary issues involving the ethnicity of a judge presiding over an obscure case that no one really cares about. After scoring significant momentum following his clinching of the GOP nomination, his polling numbers dipped markedly with some polls giving Hillary Clinton a double digit lead. And this week, Nate Silver, who accurately predicted the 2008 and 2012 electoral outcomes, gave Clinton an 80% chance of winning the general election.

But Clinton acolytes should temper their excitement. Those who underestimate Trump’s chances of securing the White House may be in for a rude awakening. Trump is perhaps one of the most resilient personalities in modern American politics who has demonstrated an uncanny ability to overcome insurmountable odds. Time and again he has defied the professional pundits — Nate Silver included — and has accomplished the seemingly impossible. He is anything but conventional and the normal rules of politics do not apply to him and that is precisely why this election cycle is still anyone’s game.

Buttressing this view, a new Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday suggests that Trump and Clinton are in a statistical dead heat, with 40 percent supporting Trump and 42 percent backing Clinton. That minor differential is well within the margin of error. Those surveyed saw Trump as being better equipped to deal with the economy and tackle terrorism. He also beat Clinton on leadership and honesty.

Clinton has been struggling with gaining the trust of voters, who overwhelmingly view her as untrustworthy. The recently released Benghazi report, which highlights Clinton’s role in advancing a fraud, will further tarnish voter’s perceptions of her. The FBI probe of her use of an unsecured bathroom server to send and receive classified emails and the prospect of being charged for related offenses still clouds her campaign and looms over her like an anvil swinging precariously above her head.

But Clinton’s campaign troubles go far beyond trustworthiness and FBI probes. As highlighted by a fascinating piece in Politico, life-long, card-carrying, blue collar Democrats are leaving the party in droves and switching sides. The situation is particularly acute in the Rust Belt where bad trade deals, including NAFTA and eight years of Obama have laid waste to industry and displaced or otherwise negatively impacted hundreds of thousands middle class, union workers, the bread and butter of the Democratic Party.

Elizabeth Warren has been coddled ever since Fordham Law Review insisted on believing that the blonde blue eyed woman was Harvard Law School’s “first woman of color”.

She has as much “color” in her pale face as she does principles, ideas, wit, ethics and speaking skills.

Warren isn’t a good speaker. Her speeches are inept, her cadence is uneven and she ends sentences on a squeak. She stumbles breathily through prepared texts, seemingly confused to be up on stage as if she’s waiting for everyone to realize that there was a mistake and replace her with someone competent.

Sadly that never happens. All this might be excusable if she had something to say, she doesn’t.

If Elizabeth Warren ever had a single original thought in her head, it long ago died of starvation. She achieved national fame by claiming that no one got rich on their own because the police protect factories. That was probably a more compelling argument back when the stereotypical millionaire got rich from factories. But Warren was cribbing from the twenties because she has no new ideas.

Either that or she imagines that Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Mark Zuckerberg became billionaires by having a lot of factories in Lowell.

These days she tours as Hillary Clinton’s attack Chihuahua lobbing piercing insults at Trump. Like the time she accused Trump of being “greedy”. Then she charged him with having a “goofy hat”.

But the media cheers every squeaky insult from the former Republican turned Democrat and class warrior turned millionaire as if she were the anemic half-assed second coming of Don Rickles.