RUTHFULLY YOURS

Most of what we read about the election of 2016 was untrue. Here are the most glaring of the election fables.

Hillary would have been better off politically to come clean long ago
We hear a few on the left lament Hillary’s two-year stubbornness in stonewalling, lying, and distorting the facts surrounding her unlawful use of a private e-mail server — as if her problems were largely a result of not being candid soon enough.

Nothing could be further from the truth if we define “better” as “more politically viable.” Had Clinton in spring 2015, from the outset, confessed that she had violated federal law in her transmissions of classified material, or admitted that she had deleted some e-mails under subpoena that contained government business, or had she apologized for allotting, as secretary of state, time to Clinton Foundation patrons of her husband, on the basis of their donations and honoraria, she would have lost the primaries to Bernie Sanders and landed in jail.

Had the president and the Democratic National Committee not intervened to massage the political climate and help to warp the primaries, or had Donna Brazile not continued to sabotage the sanctity of the debates, Hillary might well not have found herself on the eve of the election tied or ahead in the polls for the presidency. Had Bill Clinton not met Loretta Lynch on the tarmac, James Comey might well have acted earlier and with greater effect — and avoided his flip-flopping.

In other words, in all these cases of malfeasance, Clinton calculated quite correctly that Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the entire Obama administration, as well as the media and the liberal establishment, would rally to her side, even when it was evident that her denials were empty and her conduct ethically bankrupt and clearly illegal.

Lying paid off. It got Hillary this far; it could win her the presidency, and there is little likelihood in this world that she will pay a price — and some likelihood she will continue to benefit from smooth prevarication. Cosmic justice will come, as it always does, but probably in her dotage — or somewhere else.

The truth is that for all her campaign weaknesses (voice, demeanor, stamina, etc.), she remains an effective liar and cynically and correctly believes that she is largely immune from accountability — a fact borne out by the 2016 election.

‘They go high, we go low’
Clinton enjoys quoting the supposed hip ethical platitudes of Michelle Obama and, by association, her husband (of campaigning ever more nobly while Trump campaigns still more ignobly).

In fact, the Clinton campaign has matched all mud thrown by Trump, toss for toss — perhaps even more so, given its far greater cash reserves. This final week, she and the president of the United States were falsely alleging that Trump welcomed the official endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan — as if Trump had sat on a bench at a rally of the KKK the same way that Obama once had described himself as being mentored by the racist, anti-American, and anti-Semite Reverend “Audacity of Hope” Jeremiah Wright.

Republican Donald Trump has a good shot at defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in today’s election but late polls still give Clinton an advantage.

Whatever happens in the presidential race, Republicans seemed poised to retain control of both houses of Congress – albeit with reduced majorities. Whether Republican lawmakers would suddenly develop a spine and resist a President Hillary Clinton after President Obama steamrolled them for years is a separate question.

Democrats seem unlikely to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans and extremely unlikely to take over the House of Representatives. Current standings in the Senate are 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats (including Independents who caucus with the Democrats). If the Senate is split 50-50 which is possible but unlikely, then the party that wins the White House will control the Senate because the new vice president becomes the presiding officer in that chamber and gets to break tie votes.

Current standings in the House are 246 Republicans to 186 Democrats. It would be next to impossible for Democrats to knock off enough Republicans to reach the 218-seat threshold that gives a party control of the 435-seat House.

In the Senate, the Wisconsin incumbent Ron Johnson (R) might get bumped off by former Sen. Russ Feingold (D). Ditto for incumbent Pat Toomey (R) in Pennsylvania who is slightly behind challenger Katie McGinty (D). In Illinois, incumbent Mark Kirk (R) seems a safe bet to get knocked off by Tammy Duckworth (D).

In Florida incumbent Marco Rubio (R) seems likely to beat back a challenge from Patrick Murphy (D). In Missouri, Democrat Jason Kander (D) whose campaign and rhetorical style is very much like Trump’s, has been nipping at incumbent Roy Blunt’s (R) heels. In North Carolina, incumbent Richard Burr (R) may barely hang on in a contest with Deborah Ross (D). It’s close in New Hampshire but incumbent Kelly Ayotte (R) seems likely to defeat challenger Maggie Hassan (D). In Nevada Joe Heck (R) is slightly behind Catherine Cortez Masto (D) but given the turnout machine put together by Big Labor and retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D), Cortez Masto seems likely to keep the seat in Democrat hands.

I realize that most of the polls have Hillary ahead by a few points, the polls in the battleground states are very close, and it is difficult for any Republican to win the Electoral College because the Democrats have a solid advantage with California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and other large states.

But given all that, I find it difficult to believe that a person as corrupt as Hillary will be president of the United States. We have had elections where there are clear differences in the policies of the candidates, such as Mondale vs. Reagan and Nixon vs. McGovern, but we have never had a candidate who everyone admits is corrupt and lies like Hillary.

The main recommendation for Hillary seems to be that the FBI’s Director Comey does not believe that there is “clear evidence” of criminal intent to violate the statutes dealing with classified information. It is undisputed that she acted with extreme negligence by using a private unsecured email server and that there is evidence of criminal intent, although not clear enough for Comey. We still have no reasonable credible, innocent explanation why she used a private email server that endangered our national security.

The only reasonable explanation is that she used the private server to hide the pay-for-play scheme in the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary’s entire public service career reeks of corruption and lies, starting with her representation of a 41-year-old man who raped a 12-year-old girl and then cackling about how she got the charges reduced by attacking the credibility of the 12-year-old victim while she knew the rapist was guilty. This is important because she has always held herself out as fighting for women and children, yet her conduct shows her hypocrisy. Just as she attacked the 12-year-old girl, she attacked the female victims of Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct.

We have the selling of a pardon to Marc Rich, Whitewater, Travelgate, FBI files on Republicans, lying about Benghazi, attacking the families of the victims of Benghazi, appeasement of Iran on the nuclear deal, and the general mess in the Middle East.

OK, granted this is a tough presidential election with two rather difficult choices from the main parties while the alternatives from the minor parties aren’t that appealing either. What to do? What to do? Luckily, several non-great celebrities are helping us make the choice easier by promising to help fulfill Donald Trump’s (R) slogan Make America Great Again! by planning to emigrate should he win. Knowing their departures would greatly improve America’s quality of life could tilt undecided voters towards Trump just to see them go.

Several months ago, Ms. Twerkiness, Miley Cyrus, announced her planned exodus in her usual eloquent fashion.

Among the better known entertainment figures who have promised to join her and whose promised absence would improve the country’s diversity and democracy are:

Chelsea Handler. The funny lady (sic) would move to Spain. “I did buy a house in another country just in case, so all of these people that threaten to leave the country and then don’t, I will leave the country,” she reportedly said on “Live with Kelly and Michael” in May. (snip)

Amy Schumer. The comedian might become neighbors with Handler. “I will need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain or somewhere … it’s beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It’s too crazy,” she told BBC Newsnight in September. (snip)

Barbra Streisand. The singer might opt to live Down Under. “He has no facts. I don’t know, I can’t believe it. I’m either coming to your country [Australia], if you’ll let me in, or Canada,” she reportedly told Australian journalist Michael Usher in August.

Sweetening the pull towards voting for Trump, Lena Dunham and Whoopi Goldberg have also promised to split should he be elected.

A recent article in the “The Economist” was entitled “Milk Without the Cow:” Capitalism, in Putin’s understanding, is not about production, management and marketing. It is wheeling and dealing. It is not about workers and customers. It is about personal connections with regulators. It is finding and using loopholes in the law, or creating loopholes.” The article was from a book by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin.” I was struck by how closely those words describe the Clintons. They produce nothing – no consumer or industrial goods; no services like law or accounting; no hotels or casinos; they have created no patents or inventions. They do not manufacture, nor do they lend or invest money. They have not trod paths of entrepreneurs; yet they have become wealthy. In this, they are not alone. Public service has become a means to private wealth. But the Clintons have taken this model to new heights.

Truman once famously replied when offered a corporate board seat with a hefty salary: “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.” The Clintons have no such scruples. Sixteen years after leaving the Presidency, eight years after leaving the U.S. Senate and three and a half years after leaving the State Department, the Clintons have a net worth of $50 to $60 million, and maybe more. They have exchanged dollars for access. It is not policy or public service that drives them; it is greed.

The Clintons have used their Foundation to up the ante on “pay-to-play.” They introduce the well-off who want access and/or favors to the politically connected who provide them. In doing so, they enrich themselves. They have dealt with some of the world’s most oppressive dictators. Additionally, they have asked for and received upwards of $200,000 from colleges and universities for hour-long Pablum-like speeches – fees four times what colleges charge for tuition and four times the average family’s annual income. As “honorary chancellor” of Laureate International University, a for-profit university, Bill Clinton became the highest paid college official in the United States – $17.6 million over five years, for little or no work. The Clintons have been “bought” by Wall Street banks, in exchange for tax and regulatory favors. Since leaving the White House (“dead broke,” as Hillary later said), it has been a quest for money that has driven them. Hillary reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara in the final scene in “Gone With The Wind,” but without having suffered the deprivations Scarlett did: “If I have to lie, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” Substitute “poor” for “hungry” and you have Mrs. Clinton.

With Hollywood on her side, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton figured she could glitz up her yawn-eliciting campaign and wicked-witch-of-the-west persona with some light-hearted entertainment.

Putting their heads together to come up with “what millennials and blacks want,” her advisers came up with a few hot properties, among them the sex symbol Beyonce and her rapper husband, Jay Z.

Performers young and old have been threatening to leave America if Donald Trump wins the election on Tuesday. So, other than this serving as a reason for many of us to run to cast a ballot for Trump, it is likely that it was easy for Clinton to book the Grammy winners for her rally in Ohio on Friday.

As Trump pointed out after the event, however, even one of the music world’s most prominent power couples was unable to attract or even keep the attention of the audience at the concert-turned-political happening.

More significantly, Clinton made a major blooper by inviting Jay Z to the stage, particularly after spending so much time attacking Trump for being a racist and a misogynist. Because what the rapper did was belt out songs whose lyrics would have landed the rest of us in a prison of ostracism, if not worse.

Though it appears, from her fashion-forward version of the classical Clinton pantsuit, that Beyonce was told in advance to keep her usual display of cleavage in check, it is doubtful that the Clinton team thought to request a preview of Jay Z’s lyrics. Nor is it clear whether Clinton was actually listening to the words being shouted out on her behalf.

But then, she has a great knack for seeing and hearing no evil when those exhibiting it are in her political camp. This was true even when she herself was being mistreated and publicly humiliated by her man. In fact, she went as far as to call the women who came forward to recount stories of Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct and abuse “whiney” and “trailer trash.”

But, hey, what’s good for the goose — in this case, not only a woman, but a left-wing one, to boot — is forbidden to any Republican gander.

Given my own penchant for foul language, I am the last person to judge others who use profanity to express themselves — though, in my defense, profanity does not butter my bread; it merely prevents me from throwing my computer off the nearest ledge at least once every day, and has helped me get through this intolerable pre-election period without putting my fist through the TV.

However, I do feel fully justified in calling out the hypocrisy of the #neverTrump-ers, many of whom I happen to know personally, and therefore I am aware that they engage in the kind of behavior that would make The Donald blush.

More than a dozen people have sent me the same email over the past couple of weeks, purporting to tell the “REAL story on Benghazi.”

Like a lot of information circulating on the Internet, it contains an important kernel of truth, namely a reference to the July 25, 2012 Taliban attack on a U.S. Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan, using a U.S.-supplied Stinger missile.

That attack really did take place, as I reported in my 2014 book Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi.

I learned about the helicopter downing from early Wikileaks disclosures known as the Afghan war logs, and corroborated the information with a senior U.S. military officer working an intelligence billet in support of U.S. special forces operations overseas.

The officer explained that the Stinger never exploded – not because “the stupid Taliban didn’t arm the missile,” as the email claims (if you can fire it, the missile is armed) – but because of a malfunction, most likely in the impact fuze and the guidance system.

Instead of exploding against the body of the helicopter, as designed, the missile lodged and broke apart in the engine nacelle. The alert pilot managed a hard-landing, and everyone on board the Chinook walked away. Crash investigators subsequently discovered pieces of the Stinger lodged in the engine nacelle, including a portion of the missile casing that included a serial number.

That serial number tracked back to a lot of Stingers that had been “signed out” to the CIA in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in early 2011, and transferred to the government of Qatar, my U.S. Special Forces informant told me.

More fallout from the Podesta emails. This is a snapshot of the tensions within Clintonworld between Chelsea Clinton and Doug Band who for a while played the role of Bill’s Huma Abedin and claims credit for having effectively created the Clinton Foundation.

Doug Band starts off bashing Chelsea to Podesta, who appears to agree with his criticisms of the First Daughter. Then he suggests that her efforts to clean up the Foundation are dangerously misguided because, in his own words, “the investigation into her getting paid for campaigning, using foundation resources for her wedding and life for a decade, taxes on money from her parents…”

All of those are intriguing. The wedding part is getting top billing. Being paid for campaigning also suggests some obvious direction. And it’s no secret that the Clintons have been living off the Foundation. But the most intriguing part may be that final reference to “taxes on money from her parents”.

That suggests some rather basic illegalities that even the Clintons might not escape.

Every agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation takes an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” And he swears to “faithfully discharge the duties of the office.”

It is much the same oath taken by members of Congress, by military officers and government employees. It is an oath that goes back to Washington and Lincoln. Its origins lie in the Constitution.

And FBI Director James Comey violated it.

The oath is not to any president or government, but to the impartial law of the Constitution. It says that no one is above the law. James Comey twice stated implicitly that one politician is above the law.

Twice now, Comey faced a choice between his own rank and file agents who dutifully followed their oaths and faithfully discharged the duties of their office by investigating criminal conduct at the highest level and his political superiors who sought to protect the criminal conduct from coming to light.

Twice now, Comey submitted to a cover-up. Twice he violated his oath, sold out his own investigators and got nothing for his troubles except a swift kick in the teeth from the national press corps.

Like the Weebles, Comey wobbles. The Bureau’s agents pursue their leads. The DOJ scowls and warns. And Comey tries to serve both masters. He compromises both the investigation and the cover up. He serves up information while selling out its conclusions. His people find evidence of criminality while their boss whitewashes the culprits. Even as new damning emails come out every day, Comey shambles out to wave the whole thing away. He tries to do the right thing and the wrong thing at the same time.

Now Comey did the right thing and the wrong thing again. The order is predictable. The FBI director will only do the right thing until he’s intimidated into doing the wrong thing.

The last time around, one side wanted a cover-up and the other side wanted an investigation. And Comey obligingly gave them both what they wanted. His investigation also doubled as a cover-up. And his cover-up also doubled as an investigation. It all worked very well until Comey had to make a choice.

And Comey chose the cover-up. He laid out evidence of illegal actions and denied they were illegal.

He tried to play the trick a second time, but by now everyone was wise to it. The left demanded an instant cover-up and lambasted the looming lawman for even considering an investigation. It didn’t take long before Comey folded like a cheap Korean car. After being threatened with violations of the Hatch Act and Maureen Dowd no longer telling her media friends that he looks like Henry Fonda, he gave up.

If Comey was expecting gratitude for eventually agreeing to a cover-up, he had misjudged his audience.

“Today’s letter makes Director Comey’s actions nine days ago even more troubling,” Senator Feinstein hissed.