RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

“And it gets worse when ethnic voting blocs become fixated on their own perceived ethnic interests. Alexis de Tocqueville worried about the tyranny of the majority. More worrying is the tyranny of minority ethnic groups pushing their own agendas and, by virtue of their strategic voting power, pushing the whole political process askew. No-one knows how this will end either. But it is not hard to see it taking Western societies away from their core cultural values. These are the values — free speech being one under notable pressure — which have separated Western societies from the banana republics that Latinos in America (or their forefathers) used to call home.”

There is a danger in these post-modern days, when Western culture is under attack from within by the left, that the impact of importing people whose culture is inferior (by any measure) will be underrated, that ethnic politics and enclaves shape the broader democracy.
According to CNN back in 2012, the Latino population in the US as a proportion of the whole will increase to 29% in 2050. It is now 17%. As to voters, according to Pew Research, published in January, 2016, 11.3% of eligible voters in the US election are Latino. This matters in some states more than others because of the uneven spread of the Latino population. In California, for example, it is 28%, in New Mexico 40%, in Texas 28%, in Florida 18% and in Nevada 17%. Usually around two-thirds vote Democrat in presidential elections. Obama got 71% in 2012.

What matters when it comes to having an open and prosperous society? It is clear that having material resources is not particularly relevant. When all is said and done it is only culture that matters. Or, (sotto voce) does race/ethnicity matter too in affecting cultural norms? My prior is that race only seems to be important because of the association of non-Caucasian populations with the absence of deeply-seated Christian norms of behaviour and civility. Though this does not seem to work too well when it comes to Central and South America. I don’t know the answer.

The US Census Bureau classifies Latinos (or interchangeably Hispanics) as having a lineage traced to Spain (25), Argentina (13), Cuba (n.a.), Colombia (6), Puerto Rico (n.a.), Mexico (9), Dominican Republic (6), Costa Rica (11), Guatemala (4), Honduras (2), Nicaragua (2), Panama (13), El Salvador (4), Bolivia (3), Chile (13), Ecuador (6), Paraguay (4), Peru (6), Uruguay (16), and Venezuela (n.a.). In brackets is the per-capita income of each country in 2015 to the nearest thousand $US, as published by The World Bank. Some do much better than others but, leaving Spain aside for obvious reasons; none are within distance of income in North America (55) or Australia (56) or prosperous Western European nations (Germany (41) France (36)).

Mrs Clinton is plainly a globalist like President Obama, Donald Trump an opponent—if not the best one. But this election will not decide the issue which of its nature pits most voters against the progressive elites. It’s your politics for the next century.
Five weeks ago I summed up the state of the US presidential race in the Weekend Australian. After a long stretch in the primaries that had produced one surprise after another, I wrote, the Trump-Clinton battled had settled down to a surprising if unedifying stability:

Maybe the best metaphor for the current state of the race is one Trump himself has used: the “fixed” fight. On this occasion, however, the Mob has blundered and “persuaded” both candidates to take a fall . . . Each is fighting to lose, moreover, in his and her distinctive ways: Clinton is being undermined by the continuing drip-drip-drip of her own emails that show her to have lied and broken federal laws during and since her time as Secretary of State; Trump is being derailed at intervals by his own gaffes and insults . . . Both presidential candidates as a result are now two of the most distrusted people in America. Each overtakes the other at intervals depending on whether her lies or his gaffes dominate the headlines.

That pattern has continued to the time of writing which is just three weeks short of the election—and two weeks before Quadrant appears on the news-stands. Surprises still occur, of course, indeed more extravagantly than before, but they do so within this pattern of gaffe versus insult, or as the race deteriorates, scandal versus scandal. Just at present the accusations of sexual impropriety (and worse) by numerous women against Donald Trump dominate the headlines. But the steady flow of leaked emails from the Clinton campaign courtesy of Wikileaks, including dismissive remarks about Catholics and Latinos (supposedly constituencies within the Clinton camp) ensures that the candidates remain within hailing distance of each other.

Mrs Clinton is clearly ahead. Most pundits predict her clear victory, made sweeter by Democratic gains in the Senate. Her scandals have thus far been less scandalous than his scandals in the public mind—and less high-lighted by a largely partisan media. On the other hand it seems likely that Wikileaks’ supply of material will be at least as extensive as Trump’s legion of insulted women. And one less-noticed aspect of the campaign is the depth of consumer resistance to Hillary Clinton. Trump’s repeated comebacks from seeming catastrophe—the latest poll shows him trailing only four points behind his opponent despite the “bimbo eruptions”—are testimony to her dogged unpopularity as much as to his energy and media skills. Behind the sleaze factor, something deeper in American society apparently lies behind the resistance to Clinton and the refusal of the Trump rebellion to go away even as its champion implodes.

David Blankenhorn, the president of a small conservative think-tank devoted largely to reversing the decline of the American family, discovered that he didn’t know a single person who intended to vote for Donald Trump. He felt that was wrong in someone whose title was president of the Institute for American values. So he set off on a drive around America’s South-East—an electoral stronghold of Trumpism—to meet Trump voters and to find out what makes them tick. The results are collected in his article in the current American Interest magazine.

Among other things he found that the Trump voters were realistic, even cynical, about Trump. Those who supported him most strongly did so because they liked the fact that he was not bound by political correctness in speaking about immigration and similar issues. Paradoxically, some of the same people disliked his insults to others, his use of profane language, and his inability to control his own mouth–but liked what one might call his political profanities all the same. That lack of illusion about Trump helps explain why he has not been destroyed by the scandals plaguing him. They’ve been “factored in”.