Can Two Such Different Men Share a Foreign Policy Without Driving Each Other Crazy?

Mitt Romney as Trump's SecState? Seems bizarre, but that oddest of political couples is going to meet tomorrow at Trump's New Jersey golf resort, so we shall see.

Some people like the idea:

By contrast [with Trump's choices for National Security Advisor and Attorney General], choosing Mitt Romney as secretary of State would send a signal of reassurance and resolve to our allies abroad, and would be welcomed by many Republicans as well as Democrats in the Senate and House. Romney would be one of the most highly qualified candidates for any seat in the Cabinet of any president, and would be particularly valuable for America during the presidency of Donald Trump because of his knowledge of the world, experience and policy depth.

But Donald Trump and Mitt Romney?!

Weekends in New York With The Donald

New York Magazine frets that President Donald Trump might spend weekends in his NYC home, which would bring White House-levels of security to that stretch of Fifth Avenue. "If President Trump really uses Trump Tower as his regular getaway from the burdens of the Oval Office ... The man in the high castle will have turned a public thoroughfare into a glowering moat."

I think their language is overwrought - militarization?? - however, there is certainly a real adverse impact on public spaces when such a large security footprint is imposed on a congested city.

Trump Tower, Fifth Avenue, and the Militarization of Urban Public Space:

Fifth Avenue in the 50s is almost always clotted with pedestrians and cars, and this time of year it becomes even more congested as department stores turn their windows into Christmas Barneys-, Saks-, and Dior-amas. But Trump’s election has turned his stretch of Fifth into the urban equivalent of the security line at JFK: Aluminum barriers squeeze traffic into a pair of lanes, sidewalks are blocked off, and pedestrians shuffle past a gauntlet of armed officers.

-- snip --

We’ve seen it so often: Jersey barriers and modular fences, automatic weapons slung across Kevlar vests — the whole visible apparatus of control and intimidation in the name of safety.

-- snip --

Ever since 9/11, architects and planners have looked for more genial ways to minimize potential threats: cameras, of course, but also bollards that look like charming street furniture [TSB Note: They really do! Please click the link.] and public structures that are tougher than they appear. Even so, militarizing the streets has become the option of first resort, establishing a presence that’s as frail as it is aggressive. Paris has been bristling with security forces since the Charlie Hebdo attacks — which didn’t prevent the calamity of the Bataclan less than a year later. The 85,000 soldiers who kept Rio de Janeiro quiescent during the Olympics retreated after the crowds went home — and the military soon found itself in a shooting war with resurgent gangs. Blatant security works like a burglar alarm sticker on a front door: It announces to aspiring evildoers that they’ll do better down the block. And shooters tend to take that advice, attacking cafés, movie theaters, offices, elementary schools, and relatively unguarded streets rather than the fortified “targets” identified by consultants like, say, Rudolph Giuliani.

It's enough to make you appreciate Camp David. Maybe Trump will give Fifth Avenue shoppers a break and take up fly-fishing in the Catoctin Mountain streams, like Hoover and Eisenhower did. But, then, I really don't see him as the fly-fishing type.

Donald Trump (if that really is his name), Born in Pakistan?

Traffic Police in #Peshawar say they've had to confiscate number plates from vehicles celebrating Donald Trump. (This country = Surprises) pic.twitter.com/jBvhLQjgxH

— Iftikhar Firdous (@IftikharFirdous) November 16, 2016

Not that I think for one minute that President-Elect Trump was born in Pakistan, as this report from Neo News has it, but then, it might explain the burst of local pride in Peshawar this week.

Maybe Trump's real name was Dawood Ibrahim Khan, orphaned in Waziristan in 1954, taken to London by a kindly British Army officer, and then adopted by the Trump family a year later.

I mean, that could kind of happen, I suppose.

Brexit? This Was the Hexit

And so we say goodbye to Hillary Rodham Clinton. To Bill, too, I think, since the country seems to have reached Peak Clinton. Where will they go? Once, they might have retired to run the Clinton Foundation in their golden years, but now, the Trump administration may well appoint a Special Prosecutor who would spoil that fun.

I really hadn't expected a Trump administration, but we'll have one just 72 days from now. Which makes we wonder: who will he appoint as Secretary of State? Senator Bob Corker is absolutely begging for the job. I guess he'd be better than John Bolton or Newt Gingrich, but I dislike Senators and Congressmen as a rule. Surprise us, President Trump!

The Foreign Service might just be pleasantly surprised by Trump's Ambassadorial appointments. Since he lacks the usual big money donors and money bundlers, will he appoint mainly from the professional ranks? Let's hope so.  

Oh, and who will be Trump's Director of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations? I assume he'll take a personal interest in that job. Believe me, our new POTUS is someone who knows how to build the biggest, classiest, and most totally secure embassies in the world, which by the way, is a very tricky thing to do, that I will tell you. Might OBO be run by some construction world crony of Trump's? Yes, please!

Fear and Trembling in DC

Winds at Washington Monument as storm moved into DC @amelia_draper @ABC7Alex @SteveRudinABC7 @capitalweather @JimCantore @JustinWeather pic.twitter.com/MS9OkvMCzs

— Harrison Jones (@h_jonesphoto) October 30, 2016

It could be just a coincidence, but this storm passed through Washington DC right after the FBI obtained a search warrant for Huma Abedin's home computer.

The Further Adventures of Carlos Danger

From the New York Times, New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Devices Once Used by Anthony Weiner:

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.

The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the thousands — potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election.

So there we are. It is pure Greek tragedy, all about fate and character. Two women fated to tragedy by two men who won’t keep their dicks in their pants.

The Family Business is the Family Business, Whether it's on Mott Street or Lexington Avenue

The WaPo finally took notice of the thousands of Podesta emails that have been pushed out by WikiLeaks and did a story today about the money-making machine that is Teneo Holdings, the "C-suite advisory firm and investment banking platform" created by his one-time White House aide, Douglas Band. Read it here, Inside Bill Clinton Inc:

Band, who grew close to Bill Clinton two decades ago as his personal aide in the White House and became the architect of his post-presidential activities, argued in the memo that he and his firm had benefited the former president and his foundation.

“We have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities,” Band wrote. He also said he had “sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the foundation.”

Band’s memo provided data showing how much money each of Teneo’s 20 clients at the time had given to the Clinton Foundation, how much they had paid Bill Clinton and, in some cases, how he or Kelly had personally forged the relationships that resulted in the payments.

Band wrote that Teneo partners had raised in excess of $8 million for the foundation and $3 million in paid speaking fees for Bill Clinton. He said he had secured contracts for the former president that would pay out $66 million over the subsequent nine years if the deals remained in place.

Teneo Holdings ... the name is a bit redundant, since teneo is the Latin verb for to hold. Band might as well have named it the Genco Olive Oil Company, since it seems to play the same role for Clinton Inc that Genco did for the Corelone family.

Give the Hackers a Hand

So John Podesta used a public wi-fi system on AMTRAK (see Re: My John.podesta account) to do his business with the clinton.com world?

I'm starting to suspect it did not really take Russian super-hackers to get the podesta emails that Wikileaks is pushing out. His poor security practices alone can account for that.

Perfect Casting for the Remake of Miss Bala

One of the more interesting and unlikely characters to emerge in the 2016 Presidential election is the one-time Miss Universe and now Hillary voter Alicia Machado. If Machado has an agent, and I'm sure she does, I hope he or she is pitching her for the Sony Pictures remake of Miss Bala.

Miss Bala was a terrific independent Mexican picture from 2011 which was inspired by the true story of a Mexican beauty queen who became hooked up with a drug cartel boss. Machado seems perfect for the role if you credit the details in this CBS commentary on the curious case of Alicia Machado:

[T]there is little mention of how a Venezuelan judge once alleged on live TV that Machado had threatened to kill him. Or how the Mexican attorney general’s office later said she was the girlfriend of a major narco trafficker, and that she he had a child with him, according to Univision and other outlets. Or how a government witness who reportedly testified about their affair was later shot to death.

That Univision story (here) is from 2010, so it predates the emergence of Machado as a figure in the gringo election. CNN Latino also named her around then in a story about celebrities running with drug bosses. In fairness, Machado has kinda-sorta denied that her child was fathered by this guy, whom the U.S. State Department described as "a key member of the [Arturo Beltran-Leyva] drug trafficking organization ... [who] coordinated the movement of illegal narcotics into the United States and oversees the repatriation of narcotics-related proceeds" when it offered a $2 million reward for his capture.

So, what's the truth? If you google it, you can find a Miami city document - which has not been validated so far as I know - establishing the child's domicile in Miami and listing a patronymic that agrees with the name of the drug boss. There was no DNA test conducted - so far as I know - when Alicia Machado filed for U.S. citizenship for herself and her daughter, despite the legal implications of the Kingpin Act which prohibits U.S. persons, such as the then legal permanent resident Alicia Machado, from “engaging in any transaction or dealing in property or interests in property of [specially designated narcotics trafficker]s and from engaging in any transaction that evades or avoids the prohibitions of the Kingpin Act." The purported baby daddy was listed as a Kingpin by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008. If Machado had any financial transactions with him, and I'm not saying she did, should that have prevented her from receiving U.S. citizenship this year? I don't know.

But, back to Miss Bala. It was an innovative movie about the horrible situation in Mexico today, shown entirely from the point of view of a naif waif would-be beauty queen who is snatched up by narcos. If even half of what criminal justice officials in Venezuela and Mexico have alleged is true, then Alicia Machado can understand that character.

The real-life incident that inspired the movie was reported by the WaPo in 2008: Busted: Mexico's Miss Sinaloa and the 7 Narcos.

That's Miss Sinaloa, skinny jeans and all, along with some of the seven suspected narco traffickers, $53,000 in cash, two AR-15 rifles, three handguns, 633 rounds of ammo, and 16 cellphones which were in the truck with her when Mexican police arrested her in 2008.

And that's the movie poster for Miss Bala, in a scene depicting a narco boss using her to repatriate narcotics-related proceeds smuggle his cash back into Mexico.

Alicia Machado, you were made for that role.

Benghazi and HRC's Culpability, the SECCA Time Around

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Gregory Hicks, the former DCM in Tripoli, now retired, has written an opinion piece for Fox News with the very election-year-sounding title of "What the Benghazi Attack Taught Me About Hillary Clinton."

Far be it from me to defend HRC, however, Mr. Hicks repeats a mistaken impression concerning security waivers that was debunked by the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report (here) but which has been flogged repeatedly by his legal counsel, the frequent Fox News contributor Victoria Toensing (bio here). It ought to be corrected, although of course it won't be so long as it has political utility.

Here are excerpts from Hicks' opinion piece:

Last month, I retired from the State Department after 25 years of public service as a Foreign Service officer. As the Deputy Chief of Mission for Libya, I was the last person in Tripoli to speak with Ambassador Chris Stevens before he was murdered in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on our Benghazi post. On this, the fourth anniversary of the Benghazi tragedy, I would like to offer a different explanation for Benghazi’s relevance to the presidential election than is usually found in the press.

Just as the Constitution makes national security the President’s highest priority, U.S. law mandates the secretary of state to develop and implement policies and programs "to provide for the security … of all United States personnel on official duty abroad.”

-- Snip --

The Benghazi Committee’s report graphically illustrates the magnitude of her failure. It states that during August 2012, the State Department reduced the number of U.S. security personnel assigned to the Embassy in Tripoli from 34 (1.5 security officers per diplomat) to 6 (1 security officer per 4.5 diplomats), despite a rapidly deteriorating security situation in both Tripoli and Benghazi. Thus, according to the Report, “there were no surplus security agents” to travel to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens “without leaving the Embassy in Tripoli at severe risk.”

Had Ambassador Stevens’ July 2012 request for 13 additional American security personnel (either military or State Department) been approved rather than rejected by Clinton appointee Under Secretary of State for Management Pat Kennedy, they would have traveled to Benghazi with the ambassador, and the Sept. 11 attack might have been thwarted.

To digress a bit, that is not really what the former RSO in Tripoli, Eric Nordstrom, said in his testimony to the House Oversight Committee. You can read his prepared statement here courtesy of state.gov.

Let me say a word about the evening of September 11th. The ferocity and intensity of the attack was nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service. Having an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault.

The minority side lead on the Oversight Committee came back to that statement during his question period. You can read it in the hearing transcript:

Mr. Cummings: I just want to go back to something that you wrote in your statement, Mr. Nordstrom, in reference to the question that the chairman just asked you. And I quote you. I am reading from page 2. You said, ``Having an extra foot of wall or extra half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault.''

Did you write that?

Mr. Nordstrom. Yes, I did. And I still believe that.

Mr. Cummings. Thank you.

But back to that misleading impression of HRC's supposed illegality. It concerns whether SecState Clinton did or did not approve a waiver of public law. Hicks wrote:

U.S. law also requires the secretary of state to ensure that all U.S. government personnel assigned to a diplomatic post abroad be located at one site. If not, the secretary — and only the secretary — with the concurrence of the agency head whose personnel will be located at a different location, must issue a waiver. The law, which states specifically that the waiver decision cannot be delegated, was passed after the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa, when deficient security was blamed for that debacle under Bill Clinton's presidency.

The law in question is the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act (SECCA). As anyone can read for himself in the publicly available online 12 Foreign Affairs Manual 310 (right here), paragraph 313 b says:

For purposes of the application of SECCA, a U.S. diplomatic facility is any chancery, consulate, or other office notified to the host government as diplomatic or consular premises in accordance with the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations, or otherwise subject to a publicly available bilateral agreement with the host government (contained in the records of the United States Department of State) that recognizes the official status of U.S. Government personnel present at the facility.

So there it is. SECCA applies only to declared diplomatic premises, which neither of the two facilities in Benghazi were, according to the findings of the Benghazi Accountability Board, specifically in its second key finding (" ... the decision to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility, not officially notified to the host government, even though it was also a full time office facility ... resulted in the Special Mission compound being excepted from office facility standards and accountability under the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act ...").

Mr. Hicks is repeating Victoria Toensing’s misguided deduction from testimony at a Benghazi Select Committee hearing, which I posted about before (here). Maybe she knows better, maybe she doesn't. Either way, this is a politically convenient line in an election year, so it won't go away soon, if ever.

Put a Little 'C' On It

Whenever I hear ex-President Bill Clinton speaking I see in my mind's eye Mister Haney, that lovable barnyard con man from the Golden Age of TV sitcoms. The same wheedling tone, and something about the way he tilts his head and glances sideways at his mark.

He was in full form yesterday, selling Mister Douglas a cow he didn't want accusing FBI Director Comey of selling "the biggest load of bull I ever heard" when he testified before Congress that Hillary Clinton had received emails on her private server that were marked as classified national security information.

But what's the big deal about that?

"The State Department typically puts a little 'C' on it, to discourage people from discussing it in public ... does that sound threatening to the national security to you?"

As Mister Haney might say, let me put that another way: it sounds to me like the State Department was following the rules for marking classified information, and the little "C" for CONFIDENTIAL is the particular marking that "shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security," as it says in this Executive Order from Barack Obama.

Trump Rally Protester Charged and Released

That guy who tried to jump on the stage at the Donald Trump rally in Dayton, Ohio, was charged in Montgomery County with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and inducing panic, and released a few hours later after posting a $300 bail. His name is Thomas Dimassimo, age 22, a senior at Wright State University.

The Dayton Daily News has an actually informative report on him here: Suspect preplanned to interrupt Dayton Trump rally.

The protester who rushed the stage at Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Vandalia told police he “preplanned” it, according to a police report obtained from the Dayton Police Department.

After he was booked into the Montgomery County Jail, Thomas DiMassimo, 22, told police all he planned to do was run up on stage, take the microphone and yell, “Donald Trump is a racist,” the report states.

DiMassimo told police he “had no intention of hurting anyone” and said he “preplanned” the incident because “he gave his keys to his girlfriend to take his car home before the rally,” according to the report.

-- Snip --

One of the Secret Service agents reported that he saw DiMassimo “grab an unknown citizen by the shoulder and pulled him out of his way,” before jumping the metal fence and run toward the stage, the report states.

DiMassimo was taken down about four feet from the stage and a Secret Service agent “busted his own nose as he fell on top of DiMassimo” while attempting to handcuff him, according to the report.

DiMassimo was charged with “inducing panic because he created a situation of panic among approximately 5,000 citizens,” the report said.

He was also charged with disorderly conduct “because he engaged in a conduct that caused inconvenience, annoyance, and alarm to citizens and Donald Trump that had an effect which interrupted the speech,” according to the report.

Viral videos and Facebook pages by his detractors notwithstanding, the guy has no connection to ISIS. Only slightly better than being connected to ISIS, however, "Tommy" DiMassimo is a former child actor. Plus, he has a history of protests that suggests his attention-seeking days are not over yet.

Symptomatic of his confusion over life role models, he evidently goes by the name Marlon Brando @younglionking7 on Twitter. Huh? Brando was an adult actor, and The Lion King was a cartoon baby animal. You can't be both. Tommy, pick a life and stick with it.  

Whether another Brando or The Lion King, he came close to not getting any older when he rushed to within four feet of a Presidential candidate. That kid probably has no idea how lucky he is not to have been shot by jumpy police and Secret Service agents.

Smells Like Chavismo Spirit

Deodorant rationing in Venezuela - one to a customer

Our friends in Venezuela have not done at all well under the socialist regime of Hugo Chavez and his successor. From being a wealthy oil state with little poverty 17 years ago, Venezuela's economy has gone steadily downhill until today, according to the World Bank, it has negative economic growth, massive public debt, 32 percent of the population in poverty, and 62 percent inflation, the highest rate in South America. It was into that economic death spiral even before the recent drop in oil prices.

Now, Venezuela's down and dirty socialism is getting personal, as Fox News Latino reports. Beauty-Obsessed Venezuelans Dealing With Another Shortage: Personal Hygiene Products:

Venezuela, a country that takes great pride in its looks, is dealing with an issue that has the country in a major tizzy – shortages in beauty products. That means women and men so accustomed to looking their best are now having to do without shampoo, cosmetics and, hold your breath, even deodorant.

The time is ripe for recalling what our foremost socialist here in the USA, Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont Ben & Jerry Land), famously told CNBC:

You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems. All right? You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country. I don't think the media appreciates the kind of stress that ordinary Americans are working on.

BTW, how many flavors does Ben & Jerry's need to sell? We don't necessarily need 23 of those, either. Would Vermonters be better off if they had only vanilla? I'm just wondering.

Bernie's whole more-consumer-goods-equals-more-hungry-children idea didn't make sense in the first place, given all the actual economic experience to the contrary. But now we have the example of Venezuela, the foremost socialist experiment in the Americas, where poverty is growing right along with a loss of choice - or even availability - of deodorant.

"Growth for the sake of growth" would sound, and smell, pretty good to Venezuelans, I think. 

Why There Are Almost No Girls Named Hillary

Doesn't anyone name their baby girls "Hillary" anymore? The evidence is inconclusive for several reasons, such as that popular names for children run in generational cycles, however, it does appear that First Lady Hillary Clinton put off many parents from naming their girls Hillary. Look at the steep drop off that coincides with the start of the Bill Clinton administration. It also looks like there was a bad Hillary aftertaste that has remained to the present day.

The generational cycles in children's names are quite pronounced, by the way. A college professor friend tells me she is always amused by the historical echoes she sees in the names of new Freshmen. Twenty years after the Woodstock generation, classes were full of students with names like Sunshine and Freedom. Then, there were waves of Yuppies' kids with corporate-friendly names. And there are always names of twenty year-gone movie stars, and so on.

I don't think all that many parents are inspired enough by politicians to name their kids after them. But, looking at that chart, I can believe that HRC spoiled the name for many parents who would otherwise have gone with Hillary. Truly, HRC has a likability problem, which is something that came up the last time she ran in a New Hampshire primary.



Thank you WaPo Wonkblog for today's story on how the Clintons ruined the name ‘Hillary’ for new parents.

Trump Gives Sanders the Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

This dubbing idea is brilliant. A Cockney accent fits Trump's rhetoric perfectly. He sounds so good this way, he ought to fund an app for converting all his speeches.


p.s. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 2007 movie.

Sid "Vicious" Blumenthal: Ineffectual Ectomoph?

So who is Sidney Blumenthal, exactly? He's an old Bill Clinton suck-up and HRC crony from the 1990s, a self-styled political hatchet man ('Sid Vicious') who works as a paid consultant to two groups supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign - American Bridge and Media Matters - and he's someone the Clinton Foundation had on its payroll for $10,000 a month while Hillary was Secretary of State. More to the point, he's someone who sent Hillary what she called "unsolicited" emails that she sometimes passed on to State Department officials.

I believe that they were unsolicited, because their content was plainly nonsense. See for yourself here. Just as plainly, they were really intended to advance Blumenthal's personal business interests by giving foreign clients the impression he was a Beltway influence peddler. Showing his clients that he could send their crap policy advice on Libya to Hillary's personal email account was a way to monetize his access to her. See this? "hrod17@clintonemail.com"!

Considering that motive, look at the email address Sid used for himself in those unsolicited messages, "sbwhoeop", which looks like an imitation of the official White House email address convention: first initial, last initial, White House, Executive Office of the President. Was that just self-important fantasizing, or window dressing for foreign clients who wouldn't know any better?

Last but not least, he's Ichabod Crane. At least, so said Camille Paglia in a 1999 interview about Hillary Clinton and the weird Ichabod Crane men she surrounded herself with:

"Hillary loves eunuch geek men! Oh, my God, look at them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes. They are all these weird Ichabod Crane men, all high-IQ men who have no natural virility ..."

I recall getting an uneasy feeling just looking at Ickes, Magaziner, and Blumenthal back in the first Clinton era. There was indeed something weird about them, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was until Paglia absolutely nailed it.

Norman Rockwell illustration of Ichabod Crane

The Legacy of HRC's Personal Email Troubles

Photo from Flicker

It's not all about the boot-licking sycophants and her frustration with DVRs and secure fax machines. It's about those too, but there are also much larger interests.

The National Security Archive - a non-governmental organization sponsored by The George Washington University which collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act - has a refreshingly sensible take on what is and is not important about Hillary Clinton's email troubles.

Read it here: The Real Legacy of Clinton’s Personal Email: Outdated Government-wide Email Management and Overclassification

Reports have paid particular attention to whether or not she mishandled classified information, speculation that has been buoyed by the retroactive classification of emails that she sent or received over her personal account. While Clinton, her camp, and the State Department’s FOIA office all share blame for her personal email use, the larger – and more complicated – problems of poor, outdated email management and government-wide overclassification have been buried by frenzied reporting on whether or not any of Clinton’s emails were classified.

Some of them were almost certainly overclassified, based on what State Spokeperson/Admiral Kirby has said, but that won't help Hillary's election campaign. Even if true, no excuse will be believed when it comes from a figure the public associates most closely with the word "liar", and the words "dishonest" and "untrustworthy" coming in at second and third place.

Could this be how The House of Clinton goes down? I had not thought so until this week, but now, with the White House giving her no political cover at all, I'm wondering.

Here's a tip: watch for signs of Joe Biden warming up.

 

Would Teddy Roosevelt Have Endorsed Trump?

I must be missing the point of The New Yorker's cover, the one that shows former Presidents looking shocked and appalled at Donald Trump.

Shocked and appalled? Really? At what, exactly?

Teddy Roosevelt was no fan of immigrants, to put to very mildly. He insisted that immigrants be thoroughly Americanized as quickly as possible ("this is a nation — not a polyglot boarding house") and speak English ("let the immigrant who does not learn it go back"). He was also an avid eugenicist who believed our "society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind." Does The New Yorker think TR would be aghast at anything Trump has said?

Abraham Lincoln was no respecter of Constitutional limits when it came to national security. In 1861 he had the U.S. Army occupy Maryland and arrest the state's legislators to prevent them from voting on secession. Thousands of Maryland officials were held without trial or charges for the duration of the Civil War. And they weren't held in GITMO, either, but right here, since Lincoln had unilaterally suspended Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights be damned.

FDR was another President who had little regard for limits on his power. After the Supreme Court struck down key pieces of his New Deal program, he tried to expand the Court to 15 members so as to appoint his own new majority. And, there was his wartime Presidential Proclamation No. 2537 which permitted the arrest, detention, and internment of enemy aliens - Japanese, German, and Italian citizens residing in the United States - and his Executive Order 9066, which authorized the physical removal of all Japanese Americans into internment camps.

John Kennedy certainly would have traveled in Trump's social circles, and would probably have liked Trump's economic policies. Kennedy strongly advocated for reduced personal and corporate income taxes, and got that reform passed over bipartisan opposition in Congress. He was also a Life Member of the NRA.

George Washington was our greatest President, but, well ... slavery.

Hey, New Yorker, if you dislike Trump just say so. But, if you dislike him, then you really ought to dislike some of those ex-Presidents even more.
 

Sarah Palin Channels Karl Marx

That is not as strange a pairing as you might think. While everyone else is laughing at Palin's stream of consciousness style endorsement of Trump, think about this part of her remarks, courtesy of a transcript on Buzzfeed:

“Trump’s candidacy, it has exposed not just that tragic ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, okay? Well, Trump, what he’s been able to do, which is really ticking people off, which I’m glad about, he’s going rogue left and right, man, that’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system. The way that the system really works, and please hear me on this, I want you guys to understand more and more how the system, the establishment, works, and has gotten us into the troubles that we are in in America. The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them. It’s why we see these lousy trade deals that gut our industry for special interests elsewhere. We need someone new, who has the power, and is in the position to bust up that establishment to make things great again. It’s part of the problem.

That is a very cogent statement of class interest and class consciousness, in those exact terms. The "donor class" has direct personal financial interests that are being served by the "political class" of both parties. The working class, meanwhile, can't get the system to protect its own direct personal financial interests.

A billionaire like Donald Trump might seem an unlikely candidate to advance those working class interests, but in fact he is a populist and an economic nationalist. Which only makes sense, since he made his billions in the real estate business and real estate cannot be off-shored or done cheaper in China. Trump is a rich guy, but his direct personal financial interests are more closely aligned with those of Sarah Palin than are those of, say, hedge fund managers. The hedge fund and investment bankers are better off backing Hillary.

Class interests ... economic base and political superstructure ... the elite and the non-elite ... the way the system "really works" to serve the elite and screw the underclass. That is classic Marxist stuff. Or better, it's classic James Burnham stuff, straight from his best work, The Machiavellians.

Burnham's view of politics, very briefly: “The primary object, in practice, of all rulers is to serve their own interest, to maintain their own power and privilege. There are no exceptions.” All societies are divided between a ruling class and the ruled, an elite and the non-elite. The primary goal of every ruling class is to maintain and expand its power and privileges. Therefore, the rhetoric used by these ruling classes should be carefully analyzed for what it says about the political elite’s desire to retain power and exclude the non-elites.

Underestimate this Palin-Trump alliance if you wish, but Marx would have understood and agreed.