Monday, January 25, 2016

What a privilege it has been to be a Clinton


"Should Bill Clinton’s sexual misdeeds be an issue for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy?"   From Ann Althouse.
The NYT does one of its forums on this question, asked of 4 women and one man.   (Could this be a glimpse of "New York values"? Well, they did choose David Dinkins and Bill DeBlasio as mayors, completely ignoring Mayor Giuliani's record of cleaning up crime in the city. TD)
. . . "Katha Pollitt says there's "no evidence that Hillary actually did 'enable' Bill’s philandering" or that she "slut-shamed Paula Jones or any of the other women who accused Bill of sexually aggressive behavior." She muses "What is enabling, anyway?" Is it really so different from "love, loyalty, credulousness, naivete, practicality, forgiveness, saving the marriage, protecting the children, just getting on with life"?" . . .
. . . "Nona Willis Aronowitz, a Fusion editor, says: "Even I, a progressive feminist, tend to think of Bill Clinton as a sleazy ex-boyfriend I can’t stop drunk-texting but not, you know, a rapist. He’s one of us, after all. One of our dudes." . . ."
Political Cartoons by Dana Summers

Former Hillary Staffer Calls Benghazi Victims’ Families Media Whores *  . . . "Nomiki Konst said on The Blaze today that the families of the Benghazi victims are calling Hillary Clinton a liar because they are desperate for media attention. Konst has no real claim to know the truth of what happened in Benghazi other than that she worked in Libya after the attacks in Benghazi, but that doesn’t really stop her from trying to say that she knows the motives of the Benghazi victims’ families:" . . .


*Does she mean like Cindy Sheehan, Al Sharpton and Code Pinkies?

The State Department’s Ridiculous Excuse for Delaying the Final Release of Hillary’s Emails   . . . "The State Department just filed a motion to have the final release delayed until February 29th – coincidentally after the first four primaries in the country. Lawyers for Jason Leopold, the journalist whose lawsuit forced the issue in the first place, are having none of it." . . .
Of course, if worst comes to worst and the judge rules against the State Department, I am sure Trump will find a way to save her from a bad news cycle yet again.

DeLay: FBI sources say they're 'ready to indict' Hillary   . . . "One way or another, either she's going to be indicted and that process begins, or we try her in the public eye with her campaign," DeLay said Monday. "One way or another, she's going to have to face these charges." 
"FBI officials have repeatedly declined to comment on the status of the investigation into Clinton and her staff.
Being a Clinton whose every sentence must be carefully parsed, her statement to the effect that she sent nothing marked "classified" must be examined with a microscope. Apparently she had excerpts of classified materials cut and pasted into emails she sent. She would have sent secret material via her private, hackable email but would be "truthfully" saying she sent nothing "marked classified".
Remember also that her husband told Jim Lehrer "there is no improper relationship" and Lehrer let him get away with it.  The Tunnel Dweller

Lena Dunham lists the words and phrases that may not be used against Hillary   . . . "Dunham said during an interview with Variety magazine. “Adjectives – whether it’s attacks on her personal life or the adjectives that are used to describe her clothing – we have to do a full reexamination. I really want to do a list that we hand to media outlets that says, ‘These are the words you can’t use when describing a female candidate: shrill, inaccessible, difficult, frumpy, and plastic.’ I mean there’s just a list of words. If we were allowed to talk about male candidates like that, I’d have a f***ing field day. I’d enjoy my life so much.' ”

The Nominee We Deserve?

 Stephen F. Hayes  
 "Do Republicans deserve to lose? Consider the state of play as we write this in late January, just days from the first GOP nominating contests.

"The Republican frontrunner is a longtime liberal whose worldview might best be described as an amalgam of pop-culture progressivism and vulgar nationalism. His campaign rallies are orgies of self-absorption, dominated by juvenile insults of those who criticize him and endless boasting about his poll numbers. He’s a narcissist and a huckster, an opportunist who not only failed to join conserv­atives in the big fights about the size and scope of government over the past several decades but, to the extent he was even aware of such battles, was often funding the other side, with a long list of contributions to the liberals most responsible for the dire state of affairs in the country, including likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton." . . . 
"Who is to blame? Virtually everyone."
 Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy

Hillary's service trophy and legacy exhibit

Trophy Case

"Welcome to AfterMath. Scroll down for the Cartoon Archive button to see hundreds more."

"For the complete cartoon history go to Cartoon Archive."

Trump, Cruz, and ‘New York Values’


John Podhoretz  . . . "Cruz is operating from a false premise here. In point of fact, the base has had months to evaluate Trump, and one can argue that the base long ago decided he was unacceptable. As I write, national polls have Trump leading the field with 35 percent to Cruz’s 19 percent in the wake of Trump’s seven-month run at the top of the charts and what must be judged the most spectacular primary bid of our time. These polls are problematic, but at the very least what they suggest is 65 percent of the Republican electorate is actively opposed to Trump. They know he’s pro-choice, they know he supports Democrats, they know he’s crude and ugly and insulting, and they know his foreign-policy views are at best inconsistent." . . .

Video Release: Paris Terrorists Shown Training With ISIS in Syria

Legal Insurrection

Paris terror attacks

"ISIS has reportedly released a video that confirms that the Paris terrorists trained in Syria; the video shows the men carrying out executions and reinforces the knowledge that they were not merely “inspired” by ISIS.

The Islamic State released a video on Sunday apparently showing footage of the men who carried out the November attacks in Paris while they were in Syria and Iraq, where they are pictured carrying out executions, including beheadings.
If the identities of all of the men in the video are confirmed, it would be the first evidence that the group that killed 130 people in coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 had been sent from the Islamic State’s base in Syria.
The video makes it clear that the Paris attacks were not just inspired by the Islamic State, but rather carried out by core members of the terrorist group, who had been trained and vetted in Syria before being tapped to carry out attacks on European soil. It also aims to show that the assailants — some of whom had European passports — had been carrying out atrocities in the group’s name long before their return to Europe.
"The NYT describes vivid and horrifying scenes from the video." . . .

Movie Review: 13 Hours is red meat for conservative base

"Plenty of disillusionment too.  And it’s pretty clear that, in the motion picture at least, for Silva and Woods the disillusionment crept in long before the men got to Benghazi.  We have the finest men fighting for our country, and we don’t have their backs.  Something to think about this November."
Legal Insurrection

Benghazi Book '13 Hours' Movie Adaptation Set For Release In January

. . . "The blame for the death of four Americans in the hands of the terrorists is never explicitly put on the the highest echelons of government.  Apart from the single sentence “The POTUS is briefed” superimposed over the picture of the White House, nothing assigns the responsibility for the death of four Americans to the president.  Something tells me if it was a Bush White House, the filmmakers would find a way to make it abundantly clear where the buck stops.

"Although Ms. Clinton’s name is never uttered, the oil industry lobbyist Sona Jilliani (Alexia Barlier) initially established herself as a Hillary archetype.  The character is a blue-eyed, Harvard-educated resident of the CIA compound, always on the verge of striking some sort of a deal and always berating the men who risk their lives to protect hers.  But Jillani redeems herself towards the end and, in any event, the Hillary connection, if intended, is in no way obvious to a mainstream viewer.  Because 13 Hours steers clear of partisan politics, it is a better, much less heavy-handed film than it would otherwise had been." . . .

Michael Bay to film Benghazi drama 13 Hours in Morocco and Malta
. . . "Morocco is the top international filming location for desert landscapes and is coming off a strong 2014 that saw a five-fold increase in foreign shoots. Tom Cruise was one of the highest-profile visitors with Mission: Impossible 5.
"Malta is also a popular double for Middle Eastern locations and in recent years has doubled for Israel in Brad Pitt’s zombie drama World War Z (above), and for the Indian Ocean in Tom Hanks’ modern piracy thriller Captain Phillips. " . . .

Trump, National Review, and the concern over Trump's appeal to many voters

Pat Condell on Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and leftist war on free speech they find offensive


Hat tip to John Paul Curnutt; Madras, Oregon

The Voters’ Trump Love Affair Explained in Terms Even Beltway Pundits Can Understand . . .  Media, listen and listen real good:


  • tapping into anger against the Establishment and over immigration and is a plain-spoken breath of fresh air. 



  • sounding a nationalistic note in an age where it is not the “elite” norm.



  • not campaigning as conservative but a populist, which, almost by definition, tends to make one popular in an era of mass discontent.



  • a crusader against hated political correctness, which has stifled tongues and killed careers nationwide. And in being the first prominent person to defeat the thought police (at least for now) — and by not cowering and apologizing to them — he has become a hero.
  •  What Democrats know (and National Review forgot)  . . . "N.R.’s demonizing Trump is worse than foolish.  It’s political malpractice of the worst sort: a suicidal rejection of a great opportunity to expand the GOP presidential vote."  
    Do not take this as an endorsement by this site. But if Trump -or any other Republican- is our candidate, I will support him.  Vote Republican, people, if only to cancel a Democrat vote. TD

    Donald Rumsfeld: Donald Trump has 'touched a nerve in our country'


    Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel

    National Review's Jihad Against Trump   

    . . . "It would be an American epic -- the quintessential business pragmatist against the most extreme ideologue to have run for national office in years ... in a nutshell, capitalism versus socialism.  Capitalism is ragged and wild and wooly, like Donald Trump. It changes its mind on a dime. Ideology is secondary.  Socialism is a rigid utopian theory that leads to bankruptcy (at best) or mass-murdering Maoist totalitarianism.  Ideology is primary."
    National Review's latest on Trump:
    Translating ‘Make America Great Again’ into English
    " . . .that the candidacy of Donald Trump is something that could not happen in a nation that could read."
    Give Trump’s Jacksonian Voters the Respect They Deserve, but Reject the Donald
    . . . "The Trump voter is moderate, disaffected, with patriotic instincts. He feels disconnected from the GOP and other broken public institutions, left behind by a national political elite that no longer believes he matters." . . .
    William Kristol: Trumpism Is Just Two-Bit Caesarism  
    ". . .  Leo Strauss wrote that “a conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.” Isn’t Donald Trump the very epitome of vulgarity?"
    Where Is the Evidence for Donald Trump’s Conservatism?
    Much more at NRO.