RUTHFULLY YOURS

Thank God that’s over. You don’t have to be an Amtrak conductor to want to punch the next guy who says, “There are three tickets out of Iowa.” In the end, Ted Cruz won eight delegates and Donald Trump seven. Which doesn’t sound so bad for Trump. Except that Marco Rubio also won seven delegates. Had the caucus been held 24 hours later, Rubementum might have pushed Trump to third place.

There’s no point pretending it wasn’t a setback for the billionaire party-crasher. Who knows why it happened? Perhaps he should have taken his own advice and shot a guy on Fifth Avenue: That’s gotta be worth a couple of points in Polk County. For over six months, each supposedly fatal misstep – from McCain to Muslims – only made him stronger. Now the first actual votes of this interminable process have made him weaker. For a candidate running on the platform that he’s a winner and the other guys are losers, the aura of invincibility depended on the perception of invincibility. So it’s not helpful to let five thousand hayseeds shuck Trump Tower like a corncob. Doing without consultants, doing without ads, doing without Fox News, doing without National Review, doing without debates …great, great, love it. But doing without voters is a trickier proposition. This week the Trump campaign sent my 15-year-old kid, who lives in New Hampshire, a reminder to make sure he caucuses in Iowa.

Rubio did the usual caucus-night thing. He came third so he hailed himself as the most stunning victor since Wellington at Waterloo and then segued into the stump-speech bollocks about being the son of a bartender and promising a new American century. Ted Cruz followed with a victory speech that lasted most of the new American century. It was the kind of ruthless Canadian triumphalism older Americans haven’t seen since the War of 1812, which, like Cruz’s speech, went on into the following year. If he wins again next Tuesday, let’s hope he cuts to the chase and burns down the White House.

IN THE LAST Democratic debate before the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton came up with her fourth explanation for the gluttonous speaking fees and campaign contributions that the financial sector and investment firms — “Wall Street,” in liberal shorthand — have been showering on her for so long.

Explanation No. 1, you’ll recall, was the one about her family being “dead broke” when they left the White House and needing “the resources for mortgages for houses.” Explanation No. 2, uncorked during a debate last November, was that all that money came her way because “I represented New York on 9/11, when we were attacked.” Explanation No. 3 was the one she gave on Wednesday’s CNN broadcast, when Anderson Cooper asked if it was appropriate for her to accept nearly $700,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs: “I don’t know — that’s what they offered.”

Rachel Maddow put the question to Clinton once again during Thursday’s MSNBC debate. Lo and behold, she was ready with yet another rationale: “They wanted me to talk about the world, what my experience had been as secretary of state.” Wall Street firms were no different, she claimed, than all those other audiences that had hired her to speak — “heart doctors” and the “American Camping Association” and “auto dealers.” Why, they just wanted her thoughts and reminiscences on “world affairs,” Clinton said serenely. You know, like “how stressful it was advising the president about going after Bin Laden.”

Which is why, when a questioner asked if Clinton would release the transcripts of her Goldman Sachs speeches, her reply was a prompt “Of course!”

Oh, wait, sorry — I misread my notes: Her reply was actually “I’ll look into it.” That’s Clintonspeak for “Not a chance.”

They say that elephants have fantastic memories. That may be why some Republicans still remember the night that Chris Christie killed the Romney campaign. And they still hold it against him.

In late October 2012, the race between GOP nominee Mitt Romney and Obama was tightening. An October 27 Business Insider headline read: “Gallup: Romney holds five-point lead, Obama approval rating slides.” Romney seemed to be on a roll.

“Then Hurricane Sandy hits,” one top Romney adviser remembers. After the Jersey shore was devastated on Monday, October 29, “Christie starts his bromance with Obama,” this former aide says. At one point Pufferfish gets a ride with Obama on Marine One. That apparently made a major impression on him.” Pufferfish was the internal code name that Team Romney used while vetting Christie as a potential running mate.

Sandy knocked Romney off the air for the final week of the campaign. Rather than engage in divisive, partisan behavior, Obama rose above the fray, donned the First Windbreaker, and did his job.

It didn’t hurt the Democrat nominee that, at the same time, “Pufferfish was humping Obama’s leg,” as the Romney aide put it. “Pufferish was very upset that he did not make it as Romney’s V.P. pick.” This adviser thinks that Christie was driven, at least in part, by revenge.

Durham, N.H. – Well, that escalated quickly.

Hillary Clinton emerged Monday as the victor of the Iowa caucuses. But after winning by the smallest margin in history and trailing by 20 points in recent New Hampshire polls, she was anything but complacent during Thursday’s one-on-one New Hampshire debate. The former secretary of state erupted in righteous indignation after her rival, Bernie Sanders, brought up the money she’s raised from Wall Street, accusing him and his campaign of perpetrating a “very artful smear” by implicitly calling her a corporate shill.

But Thursday night also opened up a new, unexpected front for Clinton on the paid speeches she gave to Wall Street after she left office. After struggling on Wednesday to answer why she took $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs, she was asked on Thursday to release transcripts of all her paid speeches to large corporations. It’s a question that clearly caught her off guard, and one her campaign will now be forced to address.

Clinton opened the debate with a bang, pushing back furiously against Sanders’s jab at the $15 million her super PAC raised from the financial industry in the last quarter. “I really don’t think these kinds of attacks by insinuation are worthy of you,” she said, shooting daggers in Sanders’s direction. “And enough is enough. If you’ve got something to say, say it directly! But you will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received!”

‘The Republican Obama.”That’s the new hot attack on Senator Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz leveled the epithet at Rubio just days before the Iowa caucuses, which is a little ironic since Cruz has been called the same thing in the past.

But the leader of the opposition to Rubio, at least when it comes to this line, is actually someone not in the race: Joe Scarborough, the normally affable host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Contrary to all evidence, Scarborough has denied he has an unhealthy obsession with his fellow Floridian. But given Scarborough’s near-relentless denigration of Rubio, objective viewers might wonder if Rubio had run over Scarborough’s dog or toilet-papered his house one Halloween night in junior high school.

On Thursday morning’s show, Scarborough launched into an extended tirade about the best ways for other Republicans to attack Rubio. Sounding a bit like an armchair general who can’t wait any longer to be asked his opinion, Scarborough declared, “He is the Republican Obama. And he really is.” Time magazine, Scarborough complained with more than a touch of resentment, “anointed him the Republican party’s savior before he threw his first pitch.”

“Seriously,” Scarborough added, “I have complained for years that Barack Obama was sold and marketed like a bag of potato chips, and when I have said it, every Republican has agreed with me, and I said it was a bad move for America when they had a chance to have a more experienced candidate. Even Hillary Clinton. So now Republicans are going . . . down that road to elect a guy that has been marketed like a bag of potato chips. Good luck.”

It’s almost as if Scarborough forgot that Obama was elected – twice.

With this week’s caucus in Iowa, speculation finally has finally given way to actual voting results in the presidential campaign. That makes it as good a time as any to observe that the Clintons have done it again: They have so degraded our politics that criminality rather than unfitness for office appears to be the only potential disqualifier for Democrats.

Sadly, we must say “potential” because we cannot be confident that even an indictment would cause Hillary Clinton’s supporters to abandon her. They’d rather have the Oval Office run out of Leavenworth than have a Republican occupy it in Washington.

The evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s mishandling of classified information is mounting. In just the past few days, we’ve learned that several emails communicated through and stored on the private email system Clinton improperly used to conduct government business contained the most closely guarded categories of national-defense intelligence. They cannot be disclosed even in redacted form without endangering (I should say, further endangering) vital intelligence methods and sources.

Moreover, there is so much classified information strewn through Clinton’s thousands of emails that the State Department claims it cannot comply with a federal court’s disclosure schedule. Translation: State is carrying water for the Clinton presidential campaign, ensuring that, for the next several weeks, primary voters will go to the polls not knowing what other damaging information may compromise the Democrats’ frontrunner before the November election.

The former chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said with the “body of evidence” against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, FBI Director James Comey “really has no choice but to refer this for indictment.”

“It does appear as though the administration continues to push for, if you will, double and triple and quadruple measuring,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), now chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, told Fox Business Network. “But as you know, we have communications back and forth, the president from Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail. We have 1,300 sensitive documents, 22 classified at the highest level.”

“This is well past anyone claiming that they didn’t know.”

Clinton told ABC on Sunday that her email scandal “is very much like Benghazi… the Republicans are going to continue to use it, beat up on me.”

“I understand that. That’s the way they are,” she said.

Her appearance came after 22 emails the State Department originally planned to release with Friday’s batch were withheld because of top-secret classification.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special counsel to oversee the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as the nation’s top diplomat.

Cornyn said the investigation should be as “far removed from White House politics” as possible.

“In light of the unprecedented nature of the case and the multiple conflicts presented to the Department of Justice, I can see no other appropriate course of action than for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special counsel to pursue this matter wherever the facts may lead,” he said on the Senate floor. “That need is underscored by the apparent inability by the White House to try to influence or at worst obstruct the current investigation.”

The State Department categorized at least 22 emails found on Clinton’s server as “Top Secret.” The agency recently announced it would not release them. In response, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said an indictment does not seem to be the direction in which the White House is heading.

“Either the White House has information that they should not have about the status of this ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI, or they’re sending a signal to the FBI and the Department of Justice that they want this to go away,” said Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee.

“It’s hard for me to interpret these comments both by the president or his press secretary as anything other than trying to influence the FBI or the Department of Justice on the outcome the administration prefers.”

President Obama has spent seven years denouncing Wall Street and persuading young progressives that the U.S. economy is rigged for the benefit of wealthy financiers. So how will he now persuade them to support Wall Street’s favorite Democrat?

This is the political trap Mr. Obama has sprung on Hillary Clinton, who made it difficult to watch Wednesday’s Democratic town hall on CNN as she squirmed in response to a question about speaking fees she collected from Goldman Sachs. Host Anderson Cooper asked her whether she really had to be paid $675,000 for giving three speeches.

“Well, I don’t know. That’s what they offered,” said Mrs. Clinton—to much audience laughter. She then tried the argument that every Secretary of State does it, and then settled on the unbelievable claim that at the time she took the money she didn’t know she would be running for President again. Mr. Cooper was so startled he asked her to repeat the point.

The laughter likely occurred because the average voter can guess that the traders at Goldman have a keen sense of value. And they’re not trading $675,000 for the entertainment value of Hillary Clinton appearances.

SIDE NOTE: From Janet Levy- I’m not sure where the candidates stand on ethanol production and its blending with gasoline but there are some SERIOUS negatives involved:

1) Per gallon, ethanol contains about 30% less energy than gasoline.
2) Ethanol production results in higher food prices as land used for food production produces corn for transportation fuel.
3) Ethanol mixtures increase gas prices as oil companies are forced to blend specified amounts of ethanol into their products.
4) Ethanol damages engines – cars, boats, lawn mowers, etc.
5) Burning ethanol increases air pollution adding 22% more hydrocarbons to the atmosphere than burning gasoline.

“In all fairness, we Texans have had a sizeable advantage over the rest of the country because we have followed Ted Cruz’s life and career for many years. What makes many of us Texans value Ted Cruz so highly is because of his proven record to stand for the Constitution even if it means alienating other people.

We Texans well remember the horrible crime committed by illegal immigrant José Ernesto Medellín in 1993. Two innocent girls, 14-year old Jennifer Ertman and 16 year-old Elizabeth Peña, were walking home in Houston and decided they would take a shortcut through a secluded area. José and members of his “Black and White” street gang captured and repeatedly raped and murdered both girls. At José’s trial, the details of his handwritten confession indicated that after the girls were raped, he stomped on the neck of one girl and strangled her with a belt. The other girl was strangled with a shoelace: José held one end of the shoelace while another boy held the other end, watching while it cut into the girl’s throat.

José was convicted and sentenced to death, but that is not the end of the story.

In 2004 while President George W. Bush was in the White House and Condoleezza Rice was the Secretary of State, the judicial arm of the United Nations (a.k.a., International Court of Justice, World Court) decided that José’s case should be reopened because he had not been informed by the police of his right to contact his consulate even though José had lived as an illegal immigrant in the U. S. almost all of his life!

Gov. Greg Abbott was the Texas Attorney General at the time, and Ted Cruz was his Solicitor General whose job as lawyer for the state of Texas was to defend the laws and the Constitution of the State of Texas and represent Texas in litigation. Both Gov. Abbott and Ted Cruz agreed that the World Court had no right to subject state and federal courts to the authority of the United Nations.

Unfortunately, because of particular political circumstances at the time, President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and the U. S. Solicitor General Paul Clement (all Republicans and all people Ted Cruz respected highly) decided that Texas should obey the World Court’s decision. This would have meant that José Ernesto Medellín, a rapist, torturer, and murderer of two young girls, could have been set free.