Hillary: Is She Da Bomb...or...Is the Bomb About to Fall on Her?

Hillary: Is She Da Bomb…or…Is the Bomb About to Fall on Her?  Hillary Clinton is an enigma to me.  Her public record clearly shows that she’s had problems telling the truth; almost to the point of being a congenital liar.  It seems at times that she will lie when telling the truth is easier to do.  On the other hand, one must acknowledge that she has been pretty successful in her life.  With the exception of the thrashing she took at the hands of Obama, she has proven to be very skillful at picking the right time and place to run for office.  What some might call devious and opportunistic, others may call genius.  I continue to be amazed at the broad and deep Democratic voter loyalty she engenders.  She has managed to cobble together a rather impressive resume of public experience.  Many in the media, both her allies and her critics, refer to her as an intelligent person.  Personally, I am not prepared to give her this crown.  The ability to succeed in the pursuit of power and fortune is not necessarily an indication of intelligence and we are all way too anxious to join these two traits in a seminal fashion.  In fact, Hillary’s wealth and power, and the manner in which she acquired them, might very well prove to be liabilities before this presidential campaign is over.  That, my friends, is what I dwell on at this time.

What are the chances that sometime before the Democrats officially select their 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will be indicted?  Six months ago, mentioning this possibility was laughable; today, not so much so.  I see three indicators that have raised the possibility of a Clinton indictment.  First, there is a silence that surrounds both the Congressional investigations into Hillary and the FBI investigation into her affairs.  One may argue that silence means there is nothing there and perhaps that is true.  On the other hand, many times silence can be more ominous than incessant chatter and that might just be the case this time.  Secondly, the trigger man in deciding whether or not Hillary skates or skews is James Comey.  Comey comes as close to being an objective, non-partisan, by the book, bureaucrat as exists in the Obama administration.  He has just as many Democrat hides on his wall as he does Republican.  In a very public fashion, he has demonstrated his political independence on several occasions and there is no reason, at this time, to doubt that he will go where the email trails lead him.  And finally, what exactly does Obama think of Hillary?  I have long been of the notion that Obama might not personally like her much, but would view her as the best option to preserve, at least in his mind, his presidential efforts.  At this late date in his tenure, with the public opinion of his performance settling in, I am no longer sure that there is very much of that legacy that Clinton could or would try to preserve.  If I am correct in this thinking and Obama comes around to this position, he might very well decide that history might be kinder to him with a Republican successor than with Hillary.   As is his wont, he would demonize and demagogue a Republican successor and continue his plea that all he accomplished was in spite of the Republicans and all that went wrong under his watch was because of the Republicans.  A Republican successor would allow him to continue that theme into his post-presidential era.  On the other hand, and if given the opportunity, Hillary would undoubtedly rework Obama’s initiatives; some with a tweak and some with a hammer.  Is her vision for America the same as his?  It is not out of reason to think he might prefer the clear foil of a conservative Republican president to that of a more traditional Democrat president.  I grant that this is entirely supposition and a high grade of supposition at that.  However, if it were to have a grain of truth, it might be the third factor that results in serious legal issues for Hillary in 2016.  There can be little doubt that even without influencing Comey, the Obama administration will have some effect on how the public image of Hillary is impacted by her 2016 adventures in justice. 

National polls consistently show that fully sixty percent of the public do not view Hillary as trustworthy.  Even though one would be a fool not to consider her political apparatus as formidable, that type of locked-in public perception will be extremely difficult to overcome.  Now the 2016 presidential election may be a technical one decided more by political metrics than by simple vote tallies and if so, Hillary could very well figure out a way to win this thing.  On the other hand, if sixty percent of folks don’t trust you now and the Republicans have yet to spend one dollar to encourage that notion, what will happen to her image when the attacks come?  And then, what would happen if Obama took a laissez faire approach to the FBI investigation of her and even worse, began to drop bread crumbs that lead down trails better left untraveled?

If Hillary were to be indicted, could Bernie end up being the Democrat’s Goldwater?  The 2016 Presidential election may already be engaged to a much greater degree than any of us realize; it might be the Republican presidential nominee primary. 

Erring On the Side of Simplicity.

Erring On the Side of Simplicity.  As we move inside the “one year to go mark” of our next presidential election, I am going to crawl out a bit further on the skinny limb and make a prediction or two.  If the last few elections have taught me anything at all, they have taught me that not only do I, an abject layman in politics, know nothing of national politics, but that professional journalists who follow national politics for a living don’t seem to know too much either.  Bottom line: there are damn few certainties as we look ahead to November of 2016 and anyone who pretends otherwise is rather foolish.  I now join that club.

I will submit for your consideration what I believe are the three politically-viable choices for our next President and the reasons you might choose each of them.  Those choices are Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio.  Now predicting Hillary as the Democratic nominee does not require a lot of courage.  Short of an indictment, she will be the candidate of choice for the Democrats.  And even though Cruz and Rubio are gaining strength in poll numbers, one would be very foolish to dismiss the outside chances of Kasich or Christie.  Yes, I am eliminating Trump and Bush at the outset; in spite of his continuing poll performance, I refuse to take Trump seriously.  Kasich and Bush rely on voters to select their candidates on the basis of performance, not appearance.  Unfortunately, that simply is not the way people select their public officials today.  Christie has not yet found his moment and time is wasting.   So…choose your poison.  And for what it’s worth, here is a guide to that choice.

There is no truth in Hillary; you cannot put any reliance whatsoever on what she says she believes or will do if elected President.  However, you can draw some conclusions based on what she has actually done in public office.  Hillary would, in effect, be a third term for Obama.  She is just as liberal, if not more so, than Obama and exceedingly more competent.  She would pursue many of the liberal (progressive??) goals that have been pursued by Obama, but I feel like she would be more successful.  Although it would clearly be contentious, I think her ability to work with a Republican Congress would yield far more results than that achieved by Obama’s administration.  I believe she would eschew the executive action proclivity set forth by Obama and tend towards a greater reliance on legislative results and appointees’ discretion.  No doubt, she would attempt to mold the nation in her image; but she would approach it more as an exercise in political competition rather than a religious pursuit.  I do not think Hillary would be as dead set on reforming this nation as has been Obama.  Like them or not, the bulk of her appointees would be competent; corrupt, but competent.  I don’t know about you, but give me bad policy administered competently over bad policy administered incompetently (Obama anyone??) any day of the week.  Hillary would likely preserve most of Obama’s domestic issues, including Obamacare.  Sure, it will be tweaked and revised; but hey…it was her brainchild to begin with!  Do you really think she will dump it?  Look for tax reform around the edges if Hillary is elected.  On foreign policy, Hillary would be more hawkish and frankly, more effective than Obama.  To be honest with you, all three of the candidates I will address will be more hawkish than I like, but such is life in today’s world.  So…if you like the way things stand right now on domestic issues, but would like to see a bit more effectiveness and efficiency in the way government runs, then Hillary might be your gal.  If you believe that Government is a solution to many of today’s problems and it should expand to address those and more, then Hillary is your choice.

Ted Cruz might just be the brightest candidate of the three I am addressing; one can easily see why he was a national debate champion.  He is a strong fiscal and domestic conservative, comfortably situated in the far right parlor of the Republican Party.  Here is what gives me pause about Cruz: He has trouble getting along with his own party in Congress; how could we expect him to get along with Democrats if he were President?  Now some would argue that is not a problem.  They might say that “compromise and business as usual” has gotten us where we are today.  They might say that the only way to begin to unwind the big, chaotic ball of twine that is the Obama legacy is to attack it the same way it was built; by autocratic rule and executive action.  One can never be sure what a candidate’s foreign policy will be, because few candidates have much experience in foreign policy.  We have a bit of a yardstick to use on Hillary, but none to use on Cruz or Rubio.  They are politicians, so their rhetoric has limited reliability.  Based on his words and votes, one could surmise that Cruz might be considerably more hawkish than Obama, but no more so (perhaps even less so) than Hillary.  However, there can be no question that when it comes to domestic policy, Cruz and Hillary are polar opposites.  Cruz wants to shrink government.  He wants to reduce the number of agencies, cut them off, and cauterize them.  He advocates a move towards a smaller, less intrusive government that shifts a WDC-centric vertical integration of rule back towards a state-centric horizontal integration model.  If you want to stop the car, back it up, and go back in the direction from whence you came…then Cruz is your man.  If you want to flip off the Democrats and take the position that damn the pain and side effects, we have to take the medicine to cure the Obama illness, then Ted Cruz is your choice.  If you want a dramatic departure from our current tax law towards a VAT option, then Cruz should be your candidate.  Is he a right-wing zealot who will wreck the government in order to recreate it or is he a strong-principled conservative that will do whatever it takes to steer the nation back towards a conservative bearing?  Answer this question with your vote.

Addressing our final candidate, I will shinny out a bit further on the limb.  I believe that Marco Rubio will be our next President.  Now I do not intend this blog as an endorsement for Rubio.  As of today, he is likely my candidate of choice; but I am not totally convinced he is the best man for the job and am certainly not here to advocate for him.  I simply say that he is best positioned to win the next Presidential race.  Taken at face value, Rubio presents what I believe to be the best solution to our nation’s drift; a drift towards loss of identity, purpose, morals, ethics, and position of influence in the free world.  I like Rubio’s proposal on tax reform that moves towards simplicity, fairness, and family-orientation while not departing from those parts of the tax code that have been fairly effective for decades.  I like the calm and studied approach that Rubio takes towards social issues; stating his personal beliefs when questioned but understanding that his beliefs do have to be everyone’s beliefs.  I like the way that Rubio continues to address the fact that government has become too large and intrusive and that we must get back to redefining government’s priorities and how those priorities can be financed.  I like Rubio’s life story and I see his youth as an asset; WDC is way too settled and comfortable for my taste. Picking someone who has been around the scene long enough to be a member of that club is not the solution to this nation’s problems.  Rubio’s hawkish positions on foreign policy give me pause.  I see him to the right of both Hillary and Cruz and I think that perhaps his life history has somewhat influenced what might be perceived as a hard-line approach to America’s leadership role in the free world.  Many will find this approach refreshing after eight years of Obama’s mushy foreign policy; but it would be a new and very different path for our nation in a world of chaos.  If he is open to advice and debate, then this could be a good departure from our current trajectory.  If he is autocratic in his decision making and keeps the blinders on when determining action, it could be a recipe for international disaster. As I said before, only time can answer questions such as these.  If you want a clear departure from the direction this nation has traveled over the last eight years, a withdrawal of government from the private sector, a de-emphasis on government interaction with social issues, a more Reaganesque approach to foreign policy and the overall tone of leadership, and a new emphasis on effective legislative efficiency, then Rubio might be your candidate.

So, if you look at a straight horizontal spectrum before you, put Cruz at the right end, put Hillary at the left end, and put Rubio about 75 percent (this number is certainly debatable) towards the right.  You now have before you the choices for our next President and what you might expect if they win.  One may argue that the principled voter will select one extreme or the other because, damn the torpedoes, the correct way is worth the costs!  A pragmatic voter might look in the middle at Rubio and see a more studied approach towards change; more of a shift towards a right-of-center direction for this country and its government.  Given their respective strengths and weaknesses, and imagining them both on a common stage, it is hard for me to envision a majority of voters selecting Hillary over Rubio…if he can win the nomination.  For what it is worth, and as of this day, I think the wise money is on Rubio.

Trump and Football Safety: Hyperbole and SHOT.

Trump and Football Safety: Hyperbole and SHOT.  Two topics that have been prevalent in the media over the last week are Trump’s comments regarding the Muslim faith and the safety issues swirling around concussions in football.  With no intention of relating the two, I will make a brief comment or two about each.

The fact that Trump is continuing to poll well ahead of his Republican presidential nomination opponents continues to stir very strong feelings from very different individuals and groups.  The Democratic Party and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) are overjoyed by Trump’s bombastic remarks and the journalistic gymnastical challenges of attempting to tie his remarks to the Republican Party in general and the other nomination candidates in particular.  The Republican Party leadership is obviously becoming increasingly concerned over the prospect of Trump winning the nomination outright and, if media reports are to be believed, are knee deep in strategy meetings to deal with that contingency.  The most amazing aspect of this entire spectacle is how Trump manages to maintain or increase his poll numbers while making statements that are broadly labeled outrageous, irresponsible, un-American, and downright racist.  I think what is happening here is that Mr. Trump has taken up permanent residence in the land of hyperbole; extreme hyperbole, but hyperbole nonetheless.  Trump has taken controversial positions on both the Mexican/South American immigration issue and the Syrian/Muslim immigration issue.  In both of these instances, he repeats a pattern he has used before.  That pattern is to capture almost complete media attention with a policy statement that, on its surface, appears to be so far to the extreme as to be indefensible.  Then, upon being confronted with the apparent extremity of his stances, Trump will begin to prevaricate, while never really walking back or admitting any misstatements or untruths.  And somehow, someway, while performing these feats of shape-shifting, he never seems to damage his standing in the polls.  To me, the best example of this activity by Trump was his statement about thousands of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 tragedy in New Jersey.   While there were specific stories about Muslims in New Jersey having tailgate parties on rooftops, by any stretch of the facts no one in the media reported thousands of Muslims celebrating.   In this case and many others, Trump takes a kernel of truth, selected specifically for its political volatility, blows it entirely out of proportion, using the most electric language possible, and throws it out there to the journalistic hounds.  They attack it with a ferocity that is remarkable; they go over the top with their condemnation and criticisms, and when they confront Trump with his apparent errors, he is able to take advantage of their over eagerness, rhetorically blurring the lines between what he actually said and the kernels of truth, and then comes out looking better than those attacking him for his obvious and outlandishly false statements.  And probably the most remarkable tool Trump uses in the charade is his uncanny ability to select the topics he will address.  He somehow manages to touch a nerve that is present in many, many Americans about certain subjects and even though his comments are over-the-top and outrageous, there is just enough truth in them to garner acceptance and support from a significant number of potential voters.  You have to give Trump credit for this: He knows how to read the public.

Now for a change of pace.  With the upcoming release of Will Smith’s new movie about the NFL and concussions, that topic has been consuming many of the sports talk shows on radio and television.  It has reached a point where, apparently, many parents of youth football league players are either forbidding their participation in the sport or withdrawing them from competition.  It is incredible to me how we have arrived at a  risk assessment of football before addressing mixed martial arts, boxing, and other forms of professional and youth competitions that appear to be much more threatening…but here we are.  The NFL, much like NASCAR, has experienced such a rapid explosion in popularity and profit that their management has not been able to keep us with their business.  They more resemble the Keystone Kops or a County Fair Board than they do a governing body.  Given this behavior and performance, it is difficult to have much confidence in their ability to deal with the concussion issue in a responsible way.  But if they choose to do so, they might take a SHOT at this approach.  At the collegiate and professional levels, where finances will allow something like this over the long term and the size/speed/strength of the athletes make it more imperative, a lot of consideration needs to be given to improving the (S)urface on which the players compete.  Bottom line: modern technology surely provides a better alternative to a helmet slamming down against hard ground and turf.  Figure out an underlayment or something to cushion those impacts and mandate it transitionally over the near term.  Next, take a good hard look at the (H)elmets the players are wearing.  No doubt, there have been dramatic improvements in how effective football helmets are in protecting the players; but there can equally be no doubt that further improvement is possible and it is simply a matter of devoting resources to the problem at the expense of less profit.  One of the biggest indictments that can be placed against the NFL is the (O)utcome of players’ careers who play in the league.  When compared to MLB and the NBA, the NFL is light years behind in protecting the financial security of its athletes in both guaranteed salary contracts and average salary earnings.  When you consider the violence quotient of the NFL versus MLB and the NBA, the NFL should clearly take some large strides in providing its average and lesser-talented players with longer term, better guaranteed, and higher-paying contracts.  There is no reason why literally hundreds of journeyman NFL players should risk career-ending injury every week with no protection for their own and their families’ financial welfare.  I’m not talking about the stars here; those elites have it made from day one.  I’m talking about the guys that can’t afford to miss a practice or a play because the next man up will be just as hungry (or more so) as they are.   Professional sports organization profits are obscene and it is time for the NFL to take care of the men that fill the rosters every week and make it possible to acquire those profits.  And finally, there needs to be new discussion about (T)echniques.  There are common sense changes that can be made to NFL game rules that can simultaneously preserve the violent nature of the game and make it safer for the participants.  There is a lot to be said about the value of old school philosophy, but there will not be an NFL 25 years from now if kids quit playing the sport in youth leagues and high schools.  The NFL athletes of today are freakish in their physical abilities.  The mere thought of a 240 pound linebacker, who can run a 10.9 100, and has a 36” vertical leap, moving to a tackle with 5-10 yards to build up momentum is nothing short of frightening (especially if you have the ball).   Oh…and did I mention he is girded up in equipment like a freaking gladiator.  There will always be physical risk in sports; but it can be effectively minimized and managed without damaging the integrity of the games.