Crooked Hillary, The Clinton Foundation, And The Most Corrupt Enterprise In Political History

The GOP nominee, Donald Trump, on Monday called for the foundation to be shut down altogether, describing the charity as "the most corrupt enterprise in political history."
                Washington Post, Aug 22, 2016

All the news organizations, and probably the Russians too, are poring over the Clinton emails looking for the smoking gun in the Clinton Foundation pay-to-play scandal.  They are looking for that one slip of the tongue that would prove that donors received political favors from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

And if they find it, so what!  Donors gave 325 million dollars in charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in the fiscal year ending Dec 31, 2014.  And of that money, 88% of it went to implement the stated mission of the Clinton Foundation:

Works to improve global health & wellness, increase opportunity for women & girls, reduce childhood obesity, create economic opportunity & growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change.

I'm not making this up.  It is from the Charity Watch website.

If you're not familiar with Charity Watch, here are its mission statement and goals:

If  donors who contributed to the Clinton Foundation asked for help, I'm sure the Clintons did everything that was legally possible to help them.   But although thirty years of previous investigations have turned up nothing illegal, nevertheless, the investigations have clouded people's opinions of the Clintons.  They must be crooked! And the fact that the Clintons raised millions and millions of dollars to help the people of the world appears to have been lost in the pile of manure that Trump and others are trying to bury the Clintons in.

I am more concerned with the appearance of impropriety that Donald Trump's candidacy presents.  Here is a man who says he is "going to make America great again." Yet, he refuses to release his tax returns, but is reportedly 600 million dollars in debt.  Moreover, he has been involved in no less than 4,056 lawsuits in the last 30 years.  Exactly who is Trump going to make great again?  Would Trump Enterprises benefit if Trump were elected President? Already he is making money by renting his properties to his own campaign.

I am reminded of Former Vice President Cheney and Halliburton. And the billions of dollars its subsidiary, KBR, was awarded in no-bid contracts during the Iraq War.

https://www.cs.cornell.edu/gries/howbushoperates/halliburton.pdf

Halliburton would certainly be in the running as the most corrupt enterprise in political history.
We don't need another Halliburton.

Give me, and give America Crooked Hillary!

BIG SMEAR Is Coming

Donald Trump has changed campaign managers again.  And this time he is going BIG.  He has hired Stephen K. Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart, to be his new campaign manager.


At Brietbart, there is BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG JOURNALISM, and BIG HOLLYWOOD.  And now, in the Trump Campaign,  BIG SMEAR is coming!

For those not familiar with Breitbart, its heavily edited "video evidence" brought down ACORN in 2009,  and smeared Shirley Sherrod in 2010.  And Breitbart is still working on destroying Planned Parenthood.

The former executive chairman of Breitbart, Stephen K. Bannon,  also happens to be the co-founder and executive chairman of the Government Accountability Institute, an investigative organization that is still looking into alleged political corruption involving the Clinton Foundation.

Smears work, sometimes even in presidential elections.  Smears worked against John Kerry in 2004, but not against Barack Obama in 2012.  Will BIG SMEAR work in the 2016 presidential election?

Let's hope not...

13 Benghazis, Prejudice and Logic

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.
                                         Robert Heinlein

Surf the internet and you will find who knows how many news articles about 13 Benghazis that occurred on President George W. Bush's watch. But will you find mention of any of these 13 Benghazis occurring on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's watch or on Secretary of State Colin Powell's watch?

I am not pointing the finger here.  Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell have my highest respect.  The 13 Benghazis were not their fault.  And as Colin Powell himself said, Benghazi was not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's fault either.

All In?

NY Times Aug 8
Headline:  A Letter From G.O.P. National Security Officials Opposing Donald Trump:

Dozens of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter saying they will not vote for Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/08/us/politics/national-security-letter-trump.html

Politico Aug 11

Headline:  More than 70 Republicans have signed an open letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending any money to help Donald Trump win in November and shift those contributions to Senate and House races.

We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck,” states a draft of the letter obtained by POLITICO. “This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump’s chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day.

Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/republicans-urge-rnc-cut-funds-trump-226918#ixzz4HFOYaYow



CNN Aug 12,
Headline:  RNC Chair Priebus Rallies with Trump.

Read more:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/12/politics/reince-priebus-donald-trump-rally/

Priebus just went "All In" with Trump... minus most senior Republican National Security Officials and 70 odd Republicans...

What Donald Trump Says That He Doesn't Know

... And by the way, if she gets to pick... if she gets to pick her judges... nothing you can do folks!  Although the Second Amendment People, maybe there is... I don't know...
                           Donald Trump, Aug 9, 2016

   Donald Trump says that there is nothing folks can do if Hillary gets to pick her judges.  But then he mentions the Second Amendment People–and that maybe the Second Amendment People can do something so Hillary doesn't get to pick her judges... But Donald Trump says he doesn't know...

What is it that the Second Amendment People can do that "folks" can't do to prevent Hillary from picking her judges?  Donald Trump says he doesn't know...

Let's hope and pray that someone with a gun doesn't read between the lines and think that Trump really said what he says that he doesn't know....

About Cursory Remarks

We do not talk -- we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests
  Henry Miller (1891-1980)

...and that was before the advent of social media!

Cursory.  Also cursorie, cursary. 1.  Running or passing  over a thing or subject, so as to take no note of details ; hasty, hurried, passing.   2.  Moving about, traveling.  3.  Adapted for running.  4.  Cursory lectures:  lectures of a less formal and exhaustive nature...
 THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

This blog, separated from my other blogs about books and book collecting, is about politics–and particularly about the upcoming presidential election.  I created the title of this blog from an essay by Hugh Henry Brackenridge that was published in Paul Leicester Ford's book, Essays on the Constitution of the United States Published During Its Discussion By the People 1787-1788, Brooklyn, N.Y.:  History Printing Club, 1892.

I will begin this blog with the first two paragraphs of Brackenridge's essay, "Cursory Remarks," from whence this title came.  Mr. Ford noted that the article first appeared in The Pittsburgh Gazette, but he wasn't able to find a copy of that paper.  So he reprinted it from The American Museum.





Cursory Remarks
By
Hugh Henry Brackenridge
Printed In
The American Museum
April, 1788

   It is not my intention to enter largely into a consideration of this plan of government, but to suggest some ideas in addition to, and of the same nature with, those already made, showing the imperfections and dangers of it.
    The first thing that strikes a diligent observer, is the want of a precaution with the regard to the sex of the president.  Is it provided that he shall be of the male gender?  The Salii, a tribe of the Burgundians, in the 11th century, excluded females from the sovereignty.  Without a similar exclusion, what shall we think, if, in progress of time, we should come to have an old woman at the head of our affairs?  But what security have we that he shall be a white man?  What would be the national disgrace if he should be elected from one of the southern states, and a vile negro should come to rule over us?  Treaties would then be formed with the tribes of the Congo and Loango, instead of the civilized nations of Europe.  But is there any security that he shall be a freeman?  Who knows but the electors at a future period, in days of corruption, may pick a man-servant, a convict perhaps, and give him the dominion?  Is any care taken that he shall be of perfect parts?  Shall we, in affairs of a civil nature, leave a door open to lame men, bastards, eunuchs, and the devil knows what?

Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748-1816) was an early American scholar, lawyer, and author who was later appointed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1799.  He went to school with the American statesman, James Madison, and the American poet, Philip Morin Freneau.  Although he was never ordained as a minister, he served as a chaplain in George Washington's army, preaching fiery patriotic sermons to the soldiers of the American Revolutionary War.

When he wrote his article, "Cursory Remarks," he was a member of the Pennsylvania state legislature but would be defeated in the next election because he supported Federalism (Western Pennsylvania did not support Federalism).  Brackenridge was in favor of Robert Morris's plan to establish a national bank, and was quoted at a dinner as saying:

The people are fools; if they would let Mr. Morris alone, he would make Pennsylvania a great people, but they will not suffer him to do it.

Brackenridge's literary masterpiece, Modern Chivalry, was published in two parts in 1793 and 1797, was revised in 1805, and was added to in 1815. Henry Adams called Modern Chivalry  "a more thoroughly American book than any written before 1833."  

In his 2009 book,  Empire of Liberty:  a History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, Gordon S. Wood called the great moral of  Brackenridge's novel, "this evil of men seeking office for which they are not qualified (220)."

And so, dear readers of this blog, you have a choice in this upcoming presidential election between an old woman or the devil knows what? A man seeking office for which he is not qualified?

Stay tuned...