61% panicked ...

" ... what should disturb Obama, who bypassed his own vice president to lay out the red carpet for Hillary, is that the email transgression is not a one off. It’s part of a long pattern of ethical slipping and sliding, obsessive secrecy and paranoia, and collateral damage.

Comey’s verdict that Hillary was “negligent” was met with sighs rather than shock. We know who Hillary and Bill are now. We’ve been held hostage to their predilections and braided intrigues for a long time. (On the Hill, Comey refused to confirm or deny that he’s investigating the Clinton Foundation, with its unseemly tangle of donors and people doing business with State.)

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We’re resigned to the Clintons focusing on their viability and disregarding the consequences of their heedless actions on others. They’re always offering a Faustian deal. This year’s election bargain: Put up with our iniquities or get Trump’s short fingers on the nuclear button.

The Clintons work hard but don’t play by the rules. Imagine them in the White House with the benefit of low expectations."  Maureen Dowd in the NY Times

-------------

 Panicked?  Yes indeed!  Why should they not be?

A significant attempt is underway to re-program Trump as a more plausible person who could be trusted with the actual ability to launch a nuclear strike without congressional action.   That ability is a vestige of the Cold War when it was thought that MAD required it.  Do we still need for the president/commander in chief to have that actual power?  Is there really a threat of such immediacy that the concentration of such apocalyptic power is justified?   The neo-cons and neo-liberals are trying to re-start the Cold War.  Why are they doing that?  I don't know.  I don't see what the actual, as opposed to notional, threat from Russia consists of.  In any event can Trump actually be trusted when in office?  That is the question and I expect that will remain the principal question.

Hillary is not trusted by the public.  She polls at around 20% with regard to whether or not people across the country trust her.  Can one actually and successfully govern with that low a level of public trust?  The Democrats undoubtedly think that they will re-capture control of the senate because of mistrust of Trump, but is that really true in light of the level of mistrust of Clinton?

Baggage?  She has a lot of it. 

1.  Health.  There are massive questions, unresolved by her physician's statements, as to the actual state of her health.  How bad was her head injury?  Has she had a series of micro-strokes? What about her numerous blood-clot incidents?  What is the total effect of the prescription drugs that she takes, drugs designed to keep her alive by keeping her blood thin?    How much is she medicated for stress and anxiety?  

2.  Legal problems.  Comey let her off on the issue or whether or not she could be successfully prosecuted for malpractice with regard to government secrets but a number of other issues remain.   Representatives Gowdy and Chaffetz have their staffs perusing all of HC's sworn statement to Congress looking for material upon which to make a "referral" to the FBI for an investigation of possible perjury.  Comey declined to discuss before Chaffetz' committee the question of whether or not there is a different ongoing FBI investigation into the operations of the CGI and the Clinton Foundation and possible intersections of HC's receptivity at State to foreign people or groups who were or later became donors to the CGI and the Clinton Foundation.  There is also a question concerning the Greece centered hedge fund activities of HC's son in law, Mezvinsky.  It has been alleged that HC provided Mezvinsky US government secret material concerning the intentions of various European leaders with regard to propping up the Greek economy.   This would have obviously been useful to Mezvinsky in making "bets" in the markets on Greek economic recovery.  He was a miserable failure at doing that but that would not obviate HC's culpability if she did give him US Government information especially if, as it is said to me, some of this were SIGINT products.

IMO if HC faced anyone but Trump she would be "toast."  pl  

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/the-clinton-contamination.html?emc=edit_th_20160710&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=405151&_r=0

Comments

[jonst]

Personally, I always prefered the Snopes model for the Clintons.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Snopes-family

Just my opinion mind you.

[rjj]

gloomy suspicion: voters are being set up to choose Biden as the least of 2.5 evils.

[Cee]

rjj,

If Donald is smart!!

[rjj]

TTG, did a speed-read right by the link. Apologies. YES!!! it would create much havoc!! Seems likely CorpsMedia will give it their flatus in ecclesiam (fart in church) treatment while the problem is resolved behind the scenes. Has it even been mentioned by mainstream media commentariat?

[Fred]

Matthew,

As I recall Nixon proposed national health insurance, created more than one national park and then there is that war record. When he got caught lying about stealing secrets was held accountable.

[Dave in MD]

I'm amazed that so many white Americans (and we only have a two-party competition b/c of whites, the only non-lockstep demographic), who have children and grandchildren, yet somehow think Democrat or liberal policies will make things better for them or their offspring. Is it cognitive dissonance? An unawareness of what is actually going on? I work a job where I see the societal collapse and emerging clusterf*ck first hand. Sometimes I tell my liberal acquaintances about what I deal with, and what goes on in the real world, and they seem seriously shocked and ask, "How is that possible?"

The FBI sent a hundred agents over months to investigate Michael Brown's death in MO, who was shot while attacking a cop in his cruiser. Meanwhile, if you see someone from their Most Wanted-Murders list and call them, they might have someone available to take your information as long as it's not after-hours. Chances are some watch officer will take the call and refer to a local PD who will say it's not their jurisdiction.
Btw, check out the list. All these murders took place in the U.S. Notice anything?: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/murders/@@wanted-group-listing

But mark my words, this liberal dystopia emerging will do away with the problem by doing away with discriminatory criminal databases. They already eliminate criminal history for government hiring and EEOC sues companies who disqualify applicants because of prior criminal arrests/charges/convictions.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fact-sheet-during-national-reentry-week-reducing-barriers-reentry-and-employment-formerly

"The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is publishing a proposed rule that would prohibit federal agencies from asking questions about criminal and credit history to applicants for tens of thousands of jobs in the competitive service, as well as the career senior executive service, until a conditional offer of employment has been made. People with criminal records are already eligible to compete for the vast majority of federal jobs; the proposed rule builds on current practice at many agencies by ensuring that hiring managers are making selection decisions based solely on applicants' qualifications."

I'm sure someone's past behavior is not indicative of future behavior. Right?

[jld]

The 1% are not the billionaires nor even the millionaires, it is EVERY HOUSEHOLD MAKING $180,000 annually:
https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-the-global-1-and-the-asian-middle-class-have-gained-the-most-from-globalization
The thirld world poors have benefited from industry moving toward them and the ones who got f--ked up are the lower middle classes.

[Christopher Fay]

Yes, "the left's real concerns are class and labor." Those other things are not necessarily leftist. Being on the left is a type of Progressive where you want an improved standard of living in the U. S., and for all. Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive.

[Castellio]

Do you?

The terms left and right come from the French Revolution. It was the "left" that created and pursued the idea of national citizenship. Before that it was the nobility with their serfs. That was the right, and we are returning to it.

Nothing destroyed the left more thoroughly than commitment to identity politics, which has momentum both in the right wing and left wing circles.

Having said that, the whole concept of left and right is now suspect. Those who use any and all issues of the moment to blast the "other" side are more likely to be expressing anger and resentment than addressing the present.

[rjj]

it's not emerging. it emerged 20-30 years ago and is the new normal. people have nothing to compare it with.

[The Twisted Genius]

rjj,

Just did a quick search for news stories on this issue. The MSM has indeed buried this. I'm not sure the Green Party has done the work to ensure they are on the ballot in all 50 states, but the MSM sure doesn't want the idea to gain traction.

[kao_hsien_chih]

I meant Bernie is like Gatsby in the sense of someone who is not "natively" of the political ruling class (i.e. of the two parties) trying to join the ruling class and not succeeding. So his run as a "Democrat" after having avoided joining the Democrats for decades is, to me, the equivalent of the ostentatious parties. It didn't work for much the reason Gatsby's parties did not work: Bernie is not a "real" Democrat, as the Democratic Party insiders see him, and it is their party, pun intended, much the way Gatsby was never a real member of the ruling class.

[kao_hsien_chih]

The strength of party loyalty shows itself in the number of Democrats who oppose HRC in principle but are willing to vote for her in large numbers nevertheless. At most, 1/3 (and probably much less) of the Sanders voters, for example, will break from the Democrats if HRC goes through unfettered. Tellingly, these identify as "independents," not "Democrats." Even then, a large chunk, perhaps even a sizable majority, of them will not consider voting for anyone "Republican," even an unorthodox Republican. The two party system may be disgusting to many, but not disgusting enough that they are willing to publicly claim that the narrative is dead. Even if enough people can sense that the "common knowledge" is wrong, they see no "credible" alternative to playing along just yet--because they do not know what to make of those outside the standard narrative (or even how to think about them: how often do people say Sanders is "liberal" or ask if Trump is "conservative"? As if these labels, products of conventional wisdom in politics, are meaningful descriptions of them.) In a sense, this is exactly why even outsiders like Sanders or Trump had to seek nomination through the existing parties, despite all the institutional hurdles.

[gemini33]

I loathe agreeing with Maureen Dowd on anything. She's just as bad as Hillary. But she's not running for president. And she's spot on in this column. I'm terrified of a Hillary presidency. Maybe even more terrified than of a Trump presidency but he's a complete wildcard and I can't vote for that and for other reasons that really don't need explaining.

I'm also weary, already, of another Clinton presidency. From day one they'll probably be working on impeaching her. We'll go through all the same junk we went through in the 90s with the constant, constant political attacks and counterattacks and obsessive media and it make my stomach feel sick just remembering it and thinking of how much more of it there will be.

But what makes my stomach even more sick is that I firmly believe she will take us into wars, big wars, unnecessary wars, deliberately provoked wars that will eventually involve nuclear powers.

She's also dead set on demolishing what is left of the New Deal, to finish the job they started in the 90s and Bush and Obama continued working on but there are a few very large tasks left, involving Social Security and Medicare.

I could go on but we all know all of this. It's sickening. Why couldn't the Clintons retire and enjoy their ill gotten wealth and their grandchildren and their foundation?

I'm still not entirely convinced that Hillary and Trump will be the ones running come November. In such a volatile situation, anything could happen. But I'm also not convinced we'd end up with anyone much better because post-convention candidate choices would be done by disastrous party leadership and their oligarch owners.

[David Habakkuk]

All,

In Britain, attempts to make sense of what is happening in terms of divisions between ‘right’ and ‘left’ becomes less and less helpful – although they always were somewhat misleading.

More interestingly, the division between ‘élite’ and ‘non-élite’, which was also not always very helpful, has less and less 'grip'.

In many ways, our key ‘Borgist’ organ is now the ‘Financial Times’. Unfortunately, its articles are behind a subscription wall, which means that the comments on them, which unlike most of the articles are often very interesting, are not openly accessible.

What however this also means is that those commenting are people who have enough interest in the issues involved, and also enough money, to pay for a subscription. So generally they are very different in background from those who comment on the 'MailOnline' site.

What is the very striking is how often there is overlap between the views expressed in comments on both sites.

A few hours ago, an article appeared on the 'FT' site by Tony Barber, who is billed as ‘Europe Editor and Associate Editor’, under the title ‘A renewed nationalism is stalking Europe.’

What is striking is that, so far at least, almost all the ‘Most Recommended’ comments are hostile.

That at the top of the list, by one ‘Metrodorus’, which refers to an interesting British political philosopher called John Gray, is I think striking:

‘A quote from the thoughtful John Gray (New Statesman, 05.07.16):

‘“As it is being used today, “populism” is a term of abuse applied by establishment thinkers to people whose lives they have not troubled to understand.”’

Fifth down the list, from one ‘rrahul’:

‘Another HUGE problem that people are rebelling against is political correctness.

‘The war against political correctness must not be underestimated and/or written-off as mere “dinnertime conversation.” For this war is well and live, and it is completely reshaping the political order.’

What are at issue here are emphatically not divides between ‘left’ and ‘right’, or indeed simple divisions between 'haves' and 'have nots'. Those are real, certainly, but, as so often, economics only explains a certain amount.

[ked]

"... telling such secrets isn't that bad."
perhaps one could make the same point about the Hill's emails. I selected a famous example, not necessarily a critical one.

[Matthew]

DH: I suspect that many people oppose political correctness for the darn good reason it is used to shut off debate, not elevate debate.

[ked]

yes, however my intent is to put a slight damper on Blame Allocation in Service to Righteous Indignation that's all the rage. sometimes I wonder if people just landed on this planet.

[Bill Herschel]

The use of "populism" is the absolute perfect example of Edward Bernays (may Satan rest his soul) at work.

It is the word the rentiers use to turn democracy into a dirty word. Ukraine's elected government was overturned in the name of "democracy", but when Donald Trump thrashes 18 rentier sycophants it is "populism".

[Tyler]

TonyL,

My point is they always influence them towards Leftist secular humanism, which is NOT what you are arguing.

[Tyler]

Castellio,

We have labels for a reason, not so they can be endlessly redefined on a whim by people uncomfortable with what they mean.

[Tyler]

Mark,

What song you whistlin' past that graveyard?

[gemini33]

Question: Why does Gen Michael Flynn hate the Iran deal and believe that Iran "has every intention to build a nuclear weapon" and also to destroy Israel? If he got into a position of power, say Trump's VP, would we end up in a war with Iran (which seems logically to lead to a war with Russia and China as well)?

I also saw his proposal to partition Syria.

Both of these things seem contradictory to his strong opposition to overthrowing Assad and the resultant overrun of the country by extremists. I'm trying to understand his positions on things.

[different clue]

Mark Logan,

The problem with that is that there are currently undecided people who might vote for Trump but who would not/ will not vote for any of the brand name Establishment Republicans. Especially the pack of Darwin's Discards who got defeated by Trump to begin with.

And as to Trump's firm supporters . . . if they are presented with a "Trump overthrow" and the installation of one of the Darwin's Discard Republicans in Trump's place as the nominee . . . how many of Trump's firm supporters are going to accept that? What will those who do not accept that outcome do instead?

[David Habakkuk]

Bill Herschel, Matthew,

This is a matter to which we need to return.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find time to read the Bernays book.

What I do not know is whether he ever reflected on what happened when the ‘narratives’ used for the purposes of ‘propaganda’ collapse.

In recent months, I have thought that someone maybe needed to write a supplementary chapter to his study, which could be called ‘The Art of the Own Goal’.

It might feature sections entitled ‘The Cameron Curveball’ and ‘The Breedlove Boomerang’.

This is not simply a bad joke.

When Cameron claimed – using the supposed authority of our Joint Intelligence Committee – that there were 70,00 ‘moderate insurgents’ in Syria, the effect was simply to sow distrust of everything that he and others had claimed about that country.

And then, when Breedlove claimed that Putin was ‘weaponizing’ migrants, the effect was once again to fan the flames of distrust.

Very many people here have a rather different view as to who is to blame for the migrant crisis and Islamic terrorism.

And 'propaganda' is not going to persuade them out of it.