RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is claiming vindication—albeit in a passive-aggressive way. The inevitable Democratic presidential nominee’s press secretary, Brian Fallon, retweeted a New Year’s Day tweet from Steven Greenhouse, a recently retired New York Times reporter: “Whoops, Donald, Hillary Turns Out to be Right—Your Rant Against Muslims Shows Up On New Terror Recruitment Video,” a headline from a left-liberal blog called Addicting Info.

Trump responded yesterday: “Hillary Clinton lied last week [sic] when she said ISIS made a D.T. video. The video that ISIS made was about her husband being a degenerate.” Followed by this: “Al-Shabbab [sic], not ISIS, just made a video on me—they all will as front-runner & if I speak out against them, which I must. Hillary lied!” (In fact, Mrs. Clinton made her assertion in a Dec. 19 debate, and al Shabaab is transliterated with one “b” and usually a double “a.”)

Was Mrs. Clinton right? One might charitably speculate that naming the wrong terrorist group was the product of honest confusion. But she framed her assertion not as a prediction but a statement of fact: “They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.” That was false at the time she said it. Was it prescient? Maybe, but if one recasts the statement as a prophecy, it could very well have been a self-fulfilling one. That is, it’s quite possible al Shabaab got the idea from her.

Blogger Tom Maguire observes of another Trump response:

He might want to Trump that up a bit. He might say something like “I’m calling it like I see it and trying to be straight with the American people. If other politicians are picking and choosing their words to stay out of terror videos, well, people can judge their candor for themselves.”

It was a muted Bill Clinton who stumped for his wife in New Hampshire on Monday.

Only a few weeks back, Mr. Clinton was thought to be Hillary Clinton’s “secret weapon.” Well, he has just made his first two appearances of the 2016 campaign—and the Associated Press describes him as “subdued,” while the New York Times says he “seemed to be on a tight leash.”

Not to mention how adrift he looked when a reporter asked him about Donald Trump’s slams about his treatment of women.

It’s not the first time the Big Dog has been fixed. Back during Mrs. Clinton’s first run for the Democratic nomination, her husband was stung by accusations of racism after he seemed to diminish Barack Obama’s landslide victory in the 2008 South Carolina primary by pointing out that Jesse Jackson had won that primary before. Mr. Clinton would later complain the Obama team had “played the race card” on him.

Now it’s Mr. Trump who’s spoiling the primary season. After Mrs. Clinton accused The Donald of sexism, he responded as he always does: He escalated. If Mrs. Clinton was going down that route, he said, he was going to bring up all the female skeletons in her husband’s closet.

Mr. Trump has been at it ever since. “I hope Bill Clinton starts talking about women’s issues so that voters can see what a hypocrite he is and how Hillary abused those women,” he tweeted on Saturday.

We ended the year with the good ship ‘United States’ rudder-less, in a threatening sea and captained by an imperious and aloof President – an Ahab fixated on his dislike for America’s imperious past and determined to amend it in his own image. Prospects for the upcoming Presidential election, at least given the two individuals who lead their respective Party’s polls, are dispiriting. On the one hand we have a megalomaniac, a man who approaches politics as though he were hosting a fantasized-reality TV show. His narcissism exceeds his respect for his fellow man. On the other, we have an arrogant and supercilious woman who feels the crown is her due – a consummate liar who measured her success as Secretary of State, not in terms of bringing peace to the world’s hot-spots or in treaties enacted but by miles flown and countries visited. While the present is daunting, the future – unless our choices are different – scares the bejezus out of anyone who loves their Country, has knowledge of its history and is endowed with common sense.

Sadly, we have reached a point where Lincoln’s depiction of the United States seems no longer to apply. We have become a “government of the elite, by the elite, for the elite.” The “people,” apart from their votes and their money, are no longer relevant. Washington politicians are a class unto themselves, with mainstream media as their PR department. We listen to President Obama talk of fairness, of wealth and income inequality; yet the divergence has grown sharper during the past seven years. We listen to Mrs. Clinton claim she speaks for the “little” people, while subverting the system to her own financial benefit. Donald Trump is adored by what was once termed the “silent” majority – those who believe that the Country they see is not the one they knew. Yet they ignore his past crony-like ties to politicians of all persuasions.

The media is applauding this as if shutting up a rape victim is some kind of political triumph.

Yes, that was me and yes, I am fully aware of how impolite I was. According to a little sign in Hillary Clinton’s Salem, NH office; Well Behaved Women Rarely make History.

I have been trying to get Hillary’s side of the story for many years and gave her many opportunities to talk to me about it. She cannot say she is both fighting for women but will not even try to find out what her husband was doing on the day in April of 1978 that the rape probably happened according to the very well researched Dateline NBC story Lisa Myers did in 1999. I would not blame a woman for what her husband did but it is what Hillary did after the fact, intimidated Broaddrick and has enabled her husband’s abuse of other women. Hillary is a traitor to the core values of feminism.

When Al Gore was running for president, I asked him if he believed her too because I was shocked that women’s groups like NOW were not demanding answers. Gore told me that he doesn’t know the story but that I should forgive Clinton anyway as if I was asking about an affair, not a crime. After Broaddrick saw that question on TV, she called me and I asked her all the questions people were throwing at me about why she may not be telling the truth. I was in a support group at the time for rape and sexual assault survivors and I know this subject better than I want to

Hillary believes Broaddrick was raped and that is why she will not discuss it in any sincere way. That is what drove me to do what I did today, my concern for sexual assault survivors. If I could have brought this issue up in any polite way or if people in her campaign really did follow up with me by calling me, I would never have been so impolite. I know I was impolite but in this whole scenario, you are angry at the wrong person, save that anger for Bill Clinton for being a sexual predator or for the woman who enables him-not me.

Bill Clinton, perhaps the best natural campaigner of his generation, will stump for his wife’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire on Monday. He will inject an energy into her sometimes lackluster campaign, but bringing Bill back comes with a price.

Bill Clinton made a famous 1992 campaign promise that if people voted for him, it would be a package deal that included Hillary: “Buy one, get one free.” Now Hillary is in danger of reminding voters that in voting for her, they also get Bill Clinton and what he brings with him — from the dubious dealings of the Clinton Foundation to his “woman problem” and his renowned talent for evasion (“It all depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”). Democratic primary voters aren’t likely to care much, but polls show many independent voters in a general election would be leery of the baggage the couple drags with them. In a new Quinnipiac national poll, only 23 percent of independent voters view Hillary Clinton as “honest and trustworthy.”

Donna Brazile, a CNN commentator who was Al Gore’s 2000 campaign manager, has bluntly said that “one of the most important things [Bill Clinton] can do in this election cycle is basically stay out of the way. Let Hillary Clinton make the case for herself.”

Hillary Clinton dismissed a heckler Sunday during a town hall in Derry, New Hampshire, calling the woman “very rude” and promising never to answer her questions–which concerned Juanita Broaddrick and her allegations of sexual assault from Clinton’s husband Bill.Clinton got a round of applause when she announced her husband Bill would be campaigning in New Hampshire this week.

Hillary then continued her habit as of late of taking rather adult questions from young children.

That is to say, his positions from within the past year, and no earlier.
ConservativeReview.com, which is edited by conservative talk show host Mark Levin, has emerged as a great ranking service for politicians. Recently the site ranked the positions of Donald Trump based on his public comments. Since everyone knows that Trump has spent most of his adult life as a liberal but has since recanted nearly all of his former positions, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and exclude any quotations over one year old. Everything you read below has come from Trump’s own plush lips in the past twelve month

Taxes: Trump wants to lower income taxes (though not as much as Ted Cruz), but he also wants to take a lot of voters off the tax rolls entirely, giving them incentive to vote for politicians who will vote to raise taxes and spending on the remaining people who do pay income taxes.

Free Trade: Trump will slap high tariffs on goods from China, Japan, and Mexico, which has the potential to create more jobs in America but also to radically raise the price of consumer goods here.

Guns: Trump currently supports Second Amendment gun rights, in contrast to his past support for gun control.

Abortion: Trump is against abortion. On August 3, he said he would defund Planned Parenthood, but on August 11, he changed his mind, saying he wants to continue funding Planned Parenthood, finding ways to finance the “good things” they do. Since all money is fungible, that would mean the continued indirect subsidy of abortions and sale of baby parts.

Sidney Blumenthal’s input to secretary included materials by his son Max, a self-described anti-Zionist who wrote a volume seen as the ‘I hate Israel’ handbook.

The State Department’s New Year’s Eve release of over 5,000 pages of former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s emails from her private server reveals correspondence with one-time adviser Sidney Blumenthal regarding Israel, with Blumenthal citing the work of his son, writer Max Blumenthal.

The younger Blumenthal, author of the book Goliath, is a fervent critic of Israeli policies and a self-described anti-Zionist. The senior Blumenthal referred his son’s work to the secretary of state, sending her transcripts and links to articles. On at least one occasion, Clinton appears to have asked that one of the younger Blumenthal’s articles be printed out in multiple copies for distribution.

The Times of Israel has previously reported on correspondence between Sidney Blumenthal and Clinton regarding Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latest emails provide further insight into the opinions of the secretary’s confidant.

In March 2010, Blumenthal plugged his son’s work — this time, playing up links between evangelical Pastor John Hagee and Netanyahu — in the context of an article (written by a different writer) discussing a controversial Pentagon briefing on US relations with Israel and the Arab world.

The briefing had dealt with the lack of progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and American concerns over a growing perception among Arab leaders that the US was incapable of standing up to Israel.