RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat to become secretary of state in the Obama administration, making her the public face to the world for the man who dashed her own hopes for the presidency,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 22, 2008.

Well, that was a mistake.

Maybe even the mistake of a lifetime. You’ve probably heard that Mrs. Clinton is seeking the presidency again. As in 2008, she is the inevitable Democratic nominee but her prospects are looking shaky. This time virtually all of her problems, except those having to do with her character and political talent (or lack thereof), can be traced to her decision to leave the Senate and join the Obama administration.

Start with the one that is most obvious, and most severe: the metastasizing scandal over her improper use of a private email server. As the Associated Press reported in March, when the scandal first became public:

Members of Congress who are demanding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails are largely exempt from such scrutiny themselves.

Congress makes its own rules, and has never subjected itself to open records laws that force agencies such as the State Department to maintain records and turn them over to the public when asked.

There’s also no requirement for members of Congress to use official email accounts, or to retain, archive or store their emails, while in office or after. That’s in contrast to the White House and the rest of the executive branch.

The AP piece suggests that makes hypocrites of the Republicans who currently hold majorities in Congress, but then goes on to note that “open government advocates are largely unconcerned. They agree it makes sense for Congress to be treated differently from the executive branch.”

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign “is taking on the stale air of the bunker,” writes Peggy Noonan. “When you mention to Democrats that Nixon never burned the tapes but Hillary surely burned that server, they nod, smile or half-wince. No one grows defensive for her. It does not seem possible that more candidates, big ones, won’t get in.”

A Journal editorial today adds that the “admission that her aides were also using her server demolishes Mrs. Clinton’s previous claim that she used this server for personal ‘convenience.’ She was really running a parallel mini-State email operation.”

And our columnist Kimberley Strassel notes that this week Mrs. Clinton’s “use of private emails while serving as secretary of state turned from a political problem into a potentially legal problem.”
It’s not the only problem. “Democrats also see new weakness in their favorite themes. Here is Mrs. Clinton trying out an inequality argument, as she builds up her personal bank account. Here she is floating the ‘war on women’ theme, as her foundation takes donations from countries that whip rape victims. Here she calls for lower college costs while charging these institutions $250,000 for a speech. Here is a candidate who was in the past for Keystone, and for trade, and for more intervention overseas. And who maybe now is not. Though they don’t really know.

A cheer and a half for the Obama Administration for finally recognizing something the U.S. government has been denying since the 1970s: that the market for oil is global.

The acknowledgment takes the form of a Commerce Department decision disclosed Friday to let U.S. companies export domestically produced crude oil to Mexico. Technically it’s a swap, meaning that we give Mexicans crude oil in the grade they need in exchange for Mexican oil that fits our needs. The swap will help to ease a refining mismatch on the Gulf Coast that has caused America’s light crude to pile up in storage areas that are almost full because they have no place to go.

While this is a good step, it leaves the real problem untouched: the ban itself. The ban dates to the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which Congress passed in response to that era’s oil crisis. The idea was that if we could keep oil produced within our borders for the domestic market, it would insulate Americans from price spikes.

‘Cuba’s future is for Cubans to shape,” declared Secretary of State John Kerry in Havana on Friday as he reopened the U.S. Embassy after 54 years. If only this were true. The reality is that Cuba’s future is still reserved for the Castro brothers and their political comrades to shape, and that hasn’t changed a whit since President Obama decided to recognize the Cuban regime in December.

“Having normal relations makes it easier for us to talk—and talk can deepen understanding even when we know full well that we will not always see eye-to-eye on everything,” Mr. Kerry said. This sums up the Obama vision of foreign policy, in which talk typically turns out to be its own reward.

Certainly there isn’t much to show so far for the U.S. outreach to Cuba. The U.S. has supplied the government run by Fidel and Raúl Castro and the military with much-wanted new global legitimacy. The U.S. has also eased travel restrictions to the island, and American business interests and the Obama Administration are lobbying Congress to end the U.S. trade embargo.

Edward Said leaves us with the impression that all prejudice is only on the part of the West.

To the traditionally minded, news of such things as man-made laws based on objective evidence, free speech, equal justice under law, democracy, elections, freedom for women, freedom of religion and respect for the “other,” and so on, may have come as a sort of horror. Despots recoiled from the very thought of democracy. Religious leaders fumed at secular education, the freedom to question and say what one liked, even about religion.

“It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated; to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” — Hasan al-Banna’, Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, 1928.

The vast amount of what is called “Islamophobia,” however, is not that at all. Fair criticism is not phobic, responses to Islamic terrorism are reasonable reactions to violence.

Based on news reports of Muslims murdering other Muslims and killing Christians, there is, ironically, probably more Islamophobia among Muslims for each other than there is from Westerners toward Muslims. There is also probably more “Infidelophobia” by Muslims toward non-Muslims than by non-Muslims toward Muslims.

The position of US voters on the nuclear deal with the Ayatollahs – and therefore the position of Senators and House Representatives – is shaped by their worldview, in general, and US homeland and national security considerations, in particular.

According to RealClearPolitics’ most recent polls, a major wedge has evolved between the US constituent, on the one hand, and US policy-makers, on the other hand, when it comes to foreign policy and national security: a mere 38.5% approval rating of President Obama’s foreign policy. For instance, a CNN poll documented a majority disapproval of Obama’s handling of Islamic terrorism, and a majority backing the use of military force against ISIS.

The chasm between most constituents and the White House is highlighted by the congressional debate on the nuclear deal with the Ayatollahs.

Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09) and as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York (1988-2006).

The question of whether Hillary Clinton’s emails were marked top secret isn’t legally relevant. Any cabinet member should know that.

Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct public business while serving as secretary of state, followed by the deletion of information on that server and the transfer to her lawyer of a thumb drive containing heretofore unexplored data, engages several issues of criminal law—but the overriding issue is one of plain common sense.

Let’s consider the potentially applicable criminal laws in order of severity.

It is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than a year to keep “documents or materials containing classified information . . . at an unauthorized location.” Note that it is the information that is protected; the issue doesn’t turn on whether the document or materials bear a classified marking. This is the statute under which David Petraeus—former Army general and Central Intelligence Agency director—was prosecuted for keeping classified information at home. Mrs. Clinton’s holding of classified information on a personal server was a violation of that law. So is transferring that information on a thumb drive to David Kendall, her lawyer.

EXCERPT….AND THANKS TO G. WALPIN FOR THIS ASSESSMENT…RSK

This is par for the course from a man who inherited all the wealth of Richie Rich but acts as if he personally invented money. Probably half the Junior Achievement students in the country could take an inherited $400 million and plaster their names all over ugly buildings, even without needing to hire enough lawyers to figure out how to game bankruptcy laws so as to walk away four times while leaving not just lenders but plenty of small-business vendors high, dry, and undeservedly hurting.

Judging from the nonsense that spews from this man’s blowhole, if his brain were ink, it wouldn’t dot an ‘I.’

His supporters say, though, that they admire him for at least “telling it straight,” saying whatever his feeble mind happens to think. Even that isn’t true, though: Trump doesn’t say what he believes; he says whatever he thinks people want to hear or, if that doesn’t work, whatever will bring him the most attention.

This is a man who first rocketed to the top of the polls by talking tough against illegal immigrants. Yet less than three years ago he was blaming Mitt Romney for not being nice enough to illegals – and he, Trump, was suggesting that the United States should provide a “path” to citizenship not just for 11 million illegals, but 30 million.

Trump is a chameleon, a charlatan, and a certifiable con-man. He pretends to be conservative, but (as has been amply documented) he has a long, long record of being anti-gun, pro-abortion “rights,” pro-taxes, pro-socialized medicine, for even more abusively expanded powers of government to confiscate private land, for massive government spending (he supported Barack Obama’s 2009 “stimulus” that stimulated almost nothing but government debt), and for the most leftist of politicians – giving well over half a million dollars to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Anthony Wiener, Edolphus Towns, and a host of other of liberal louts who like nothing better than to tax and regulate ordinary Americans into subservience to big-government busy-bodies.

Trump has played footsie with the mob so often that even his socks may be subject to omerta restrictions. He has vulgarized the culture in a way even Madonna might envy. He has spent so much money trying to buy (or at least rent) politicians that he is a walking advertisement for corporate-political cronyism. And, as Megyn Kelly’s debate question indicated, he has treated women with less respect than even Rodney Dangerfield might earn on one of his very worst days.

Trump has no proof for his claims about the Mexican government deliberately sending rapists our way (although it is true that President Obama has let loose hundreds of violent alien criminals); no remotely plausible way to get the Mexican government to pay for a wall across the border that as recently as 2012 Trump himself seemed to want to make more porous; no actual public plan to deal with illegals; no public plan to revive the American economy; no known record of saying he was wrong for advocating higher taxes, socialized medicine, and hundreds of billions of dollars of non-stimulating “stimulus” spending; and certainly nothing indicating he has embraced any limits on the power of government to take the private property of the working poor for the benefit of plutocratic wealth inheritors and squalid deal-makers like himself.

“Of course, Trump is not what he claims to be. He is hardly a paragon of conservative virtue, having supported Democratic politicians and liberal causes until quite recently. And it is all well and good to be frustrated; it is quite another to do something about it. Trump would never get anything done, even if he could win a general election (which he can’t). His in-your-face style might work great on a reality TV show, but the Framers designed our system to thwart such bullies.”

Donald Trump is not going to be the next nominee of the Republican party. The flamboyant businessman has made billions in real estate, but politics is another matter. He manifestly lacks the temperament to be president, and his conversion to the Republican party is of recent vintage. As the field narrows, and voters look closely at the other candidates, Trump will fade.
Still, the Trump surge should remind Republican politicians of a truth they may prefer to forget: Their voters do not like them anymore. Tune out Trump’s bombast and what’s left is a simple, compelling message to the Republican base: The rest of your party has been bought and paid for, but I’m my own man, and I’ll actually represent you.

All else being equal, it is surprising this message should resonate. For a party that does not control the White House, the GOP is in incredibly strong shape. Tallying up the state legislative, gubernatorial, and congressional seats, Republicans are as strong as they have been since the 1920s. History suggests that the GOP should win the White House, too: The Democrats are going for a historically rare third consecutive term; the incumbent president’s approval is weak; and their presumptive nominee has acute ethical problems.

August is traditionally a vacation month, and East Coast elites, following European tradition, are thick on the ground in the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard (the Obamas’ choice), and Nantucket.

But news — in some cases, shattering news — keeps breaking out all over, at home and abroad this August. Actually that’s not unusual. Saddam Hussein overran Kuwait in August 1990; Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland in August 1939; the great powers of Europe went to war in August 1914.

Nothing quite so momentous has happened so far this August. But the political world seems to be spinning out of control.

Thus last week 24 million Americans watched the Fox News Republican 9 p.m. Thursday presidential debate, an unprecedentedly enormous audience. And 6 million watched the 5 p.m. debate featuring candidates with low poll numbers. That’s 5 o’clock Eastern, 4 Central, 3 Mountain, 2 Pacific. How many Americans usually watch political debates at that hour?