Hilly's best chance ...

Well, boys and girls (pilgrims), I do believe that unless there is a yuuge hidden vote out there for him and/or against her, she will receive the post inaugural oath salute of all the armed forces in the traditional march past behind the capitol.  A saluting battery will be there and the US Army Band,  "Ruffles and Flourishes" will sound across capitol Hill, and there will be 21 guns for the Commander in Chief.  The troops will grit their teeth and do eyes left as they and the 3rd Infantry Regiment's colors pass her.  For those who do not know, this regiment is colloquially known as "The Old Guard" and is the ceremonial regiment of the Army.  As he watched this regiment march into Mexico City, Winfield Scott told his staff "Hats off, gentlemen, this is the Old Guard of the United States."  They have the singular privilege granted by Congress to pass in review with fixed bayonets.  They had swept the field at Cerro Gordo and Churubusco with the bayonet.

This symbolic march past will go down hard for many.  I remember that little Chelsea when required to accept a ride in General McCaffery's staff car stared at him and said "in my family we don't like the military."  That's what McCaffery said afterward and who am I to doubt the story?  He must have been shocked.  C in C Hilly will have the power to send these deplorable deployables whom she despises out to some god awful place to fight other poor dumb bastards.

IMO her best chance in office will be a continued retention of control of both houses of Congress by the GOP. 

The country is in a state in which the level of alienation between the coastals and the rest is as bad as any state of alienation seen since the 1850s. 

Bahzad wrote here that France is protected from the scourge of internal strife (French on French) by the emotional and political safety valve offered by Marine Le Pen and the Front National.  In this country civil strife can be avoided if Hilly has the ability to say to her sans culottes (including the coastal smarties) that she would have accomplished their Jacobin dreams if the nasty constitution and the GOP Congress had only let her. 

Her actual backers in finance do not give a s--t at all about the sans culottes but as long as the money rolls in ...

Therefore she needs to win without much in the way of coattails.  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_U.S._Infantry_Regiment_(The_Old_Guard)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Four_ruffles_and_flourishes,_hail_to_the_chief_(long_version).ogg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War

http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/Marines%20in%20the%20Mexican%20War%20%20PCN%2019000412200.pdf

"The Marine Battalion assigned to Scott's army numbered less than 400, but when it was employed in battle or used for other duties the Marines would earn the praise of the Army's highest officers."  That's for you, Mike.  pl

 

Comments

[LeaNder]

Joan, from my earliest days on the American web on, there was always a high level of dissent. It was no doubt the driving force behind both Sanders and Trump. Partly a response to the "change" president on the side of the democrats? The tea-party integrated into the larger GOP structure after a while? But the "sans culottes" will never be able to do something essential without support from at least a part of "the elite". Also: Revolutions tend to devour its people, history tell us. ...

Among us females, concerning the issue of abortion in the last debate, I was a bit puzzled, only vaguely familiar with the American-up-to-the-third-trimester-debate. How many days before the calculated birth in the third trimester? As female, I find this no doubt utter freedom demand* that seems to reign on the issue on one side highly disturbing. "Freedom's just another word for nothing else to loose"?

* if I understood Clinton's claim correctly. Maybe I misunderstood. I had to watch the debate in German since a friend misses to much in the original American, which I am not particularly fond of.

[turcopolier]

mike allen

I was suffering from too much to eat last night. Sorry about Chapultepec. the big story there is the ninos heroicos (the cadets of the Mexican military academy) who joined the garrison to fight on the walls. Actually, the Mexican War is a rather amazing thing. The Mexicans and Americans were rather evenly matched in numbers and equipment. Scott's amphibious landing at Vera Cruz to begin the campaign up to Mexico City always amazes me as a planning achievement. pl

[BrotherJoe]

Issue Greenbacks like Lincoln did to fund the Union army.

[Cee]

Col. Lang,

Wonder what she had to give for this 12 million.

http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/day-debate-wikileaks-strikes-hillary-pay-to-play-shocking/

[John Minnerath]

If the wicked witch from the east ascends her coveted throne, expect to feel unbearable government intrusion on your everyday life, right and left alike.
Along with even heavier use of Executive Orders and direct attacks on Constitutional Law and any other thing counter to the current Borg agenda.

[William Fitzgerald]

Pat Lang,

I was about to remind you of the cadets. Good catch.

WPFIII

[LeaNder]

You are making the assumption that there are actually two parties.

Excursus: Correct me, if I am wrong. But I had the rather superficial scanning impression that you and TTG were "tag teaming", as I recall the recent usage on the web, on the issue of Russian a Cyberwar against from opposite camps*.

I also noticed that one issue you brought into the debate from my highly limited perspective made headlines recently ... just as it was used by Trump.

* correct me if I am wrong.

********

all the while trying to convince us we actually have a functioning democracy and they care for the common citizen.

That seemed to surface as suggestion in a highly short book review in the German weekly "Die Zeit" around the time of 9/11. I may be misguided about before. But at what point exactly? A book by a journalist that after having been a correspondent in Russia for a very, very long time was sent to the US. ... It was a mistake to not make at least a note. That's why it surfaces time and again. Maybe I would have been disappointed, maybe not. In any case it would need serious digging ...

[The Twisted Genius]

LeaNder,

Clinton claimed that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that the Russians are behind the hacks. That is saying that the entire Intelligence Community agrees on this, although there are probably less than a half dozen agencies with the capabilities to properly investigate this. It's a consensus judgement. She did not refer to any specific individuals. You may have misheard her.

[Edward Amame]

Bill H

That was the idea during Clinton I. To pay down the debt with the surplus. Then Bush II and his tax cuts came along, along with a historic recession that we still haven't recovered from.

So here we are now. Interest rates are extremely low. We face an very low interest burden. We can buy back debt at a discount if interest rates rise.

[Fred]

Col.,

"ninos heroicos" That's a story I am certain most American's know nothing about. Similarly Jackson's meeting with the Archbishop of Mexico is a story known by few.

[mistah charley, ph.d.]

Outrage Beyond - Impeachment in the House of Representatives requires a simple majority of those present and voting. All of these people are up for election right now, and it is not yet certain which party will have a majority although chances are it will stay with the Republicans. Would it help their party to remove Hillary, if they could? And could they, given that the Senate requires a 2/3 majority for conviction? Recall that Bill was not removed. My guess is that impeachment won't happen if Hillary is elected. If Trump is elected, which would be surprising but not impossible, we would be entering uncharted territory. Or maybe we are already in uncharted territory - as Yogi Berra said, it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

[Lefty]

GOP retaining control of both houses is becoming less likely. The Senate always was the most likely to switch with the vagaries of timing that has the GOP defending 24 seats to the Dems 10. Saw Pelosi the other evening chortling that she had "more than 20" of the roughly 30 seats she needs to retake the house, with prospects increasing for the rest.

The greater Trump's collapse, the further the damage spreads down ticket and the more likely the Dems gain control of one or both houses.

The Senate is especially scary with Schumer poised to become majority leader. With Hillary in the White House and him running the Senate US foreign policy will be even more wholly owned by Netanyahu.

[eakens]

It's nonsense. The fact that they have emails from various groups (on various systems) indicates they have what is probably a zero day exploit, which means they can pretty much access anybody's email. This means there is a good chance it's homegrown. This also means that they probably, as I've predicted before, have the 33K emails Hillary had wiped.

They've been scraping this info for sometime most likely.

[Old Microbiologist]

Certainly not deliberate. I comment where I feel a comment is necessary. I do not believe that we have any separation of powers at all anymore. The failure to even mention impeachment for any one of the vast number of Obama abuses of power indicate to me an acceptance if not complete agreement. The only time a very rare veto was over-ridden was over the Sabudi involvement in 9/11. The fact that Obama in almost 8 years has only vetoed 3 times speaks volumes. Ryan's budget exceed the POTUS requests in ways that should boggle any conservatives mind but went basically unchallenged. The SCOTU has been vocal about Trump which is extraordinary by otself indicating they are politically aligned. The FBI and DOJ have failed in their duties and no one has been impeached. The same for the SEC and the list goes on. The very clear conspiracy between the media and the administration goes back to the beginning and they only report what originates in the White House or with tacit approval. Any dissent is orchestrated. However, there are small venues such as Wikileaks etc. whic still deadly report the news. My last work in DC was back in 2010 and I asked about the Wikileaks and was told to shut up with a lot of pointing at the ceiling as it is against the law for government employees to even read Wikileaks. So I rest my case on that.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

I generally agree with Different Clue's assessment of where the Bernie Lefties will go. I also believe there are many people who won't admit to pollsters that they're considering a vote for Trump, and that therefore the pollsters' numbers may be under-predicting what his vote will be.

[Freudenschade]

Col.,

I do know. In fact, I know a few of them.

[Larry Kart]

I don't yet know the detail of this particular episode, but O’Keefe’s track record as a gotcha truth-teller is far from spotless:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe

AFAIK O'Keefe doesn't outright fake his audio and video tapes; instead what he's done on many occasions is "selectively edit" them and/or record them under false pretenses -- this in order to create the impression of wrongdoing that he wishes to create.

[turcopolier]

Larry Kart

"and/or record them under false pretenses" How would this alter the veracity of what is said? pl

[LeaNder]

Thanks OM, sorry, I have to pay more attention to proofread or at least finish a line of thought in print, if I am once again in the babbling mode.

Certainly not deliberate.
Ok, no serious desire to go back and check. ;) But usually these tools are known in the larger scene no matter if white/gray/or black hats. Concerning the evidence given that surfaced in TTG's links: I could setup a system in Russian and shift to an English keyboard. Thus the little evidence given that surfaced doesn't convince me at all. Ditto IP/VPN network. ... No doubt they may have more evidence they don't discuss openly, as TTG suggested somewhere. But that's all that surfaced. And the extend to which matters are used polemically makes me wonder.

[LeaNder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Western_Sahara

[gowithit]

Also the Battle of Churubusco where US Army deserters known as the St Patrick's Battalion (honored in Mexico as"San Patricos") fought with Mexico. Composed mostly of new immigrants to the USA and of Catholic faith, they deserted to Mexico over conflicts with their faith, Mexico offering higher pay, and promise of 320 acres. Largely composed of Irish and German immigrants, but also Canadians, French, and other nationalities. I have read accounts of US Army burning down Catholic churches as they advanced and forcing the Protestant faith upon soldiers of the Catholic faith--this likely a large motivating factor for the desertions.

[kao_hsien_chih]

If I might interject, the central problem of the two party system as practiced in US today is that vast ranges of issues that are of concern to the mass public are systematically kept out of policy debate by elite consensus: trade, foreign policy, immigration, and "culture-and-identity" issues among others. The parties are indeed sharply polarized on certain issues, but again only on the terms of common consensus. In other words, the elites operate by agreeing to disagree publicly on some issues that they want to be seen disagreeing on, but ignore many issues of concern to many outside the political class. There are agitators who are clamoring from both the alleged left (Sanders being their chief spokesperson in 2016) and the alleged right (who have lined up behind Trump), but they have been systematically marginalized as being "outside the norm," quite literally.

In other words, by one set of metrics, Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites, because they are constantly disagreeing on the things that they have agreed to be seen publicly disagreeing on, but their leaders are all agreed to keep quiet on many issues where many people want to see debated and change the status quo, i.e. they are all the same on the topics that are kept off the table. Forcing them off the status quo and starting a consequential debate about these suppressed issues, however, is not easy: Perhaps all the discontented people, combined, may even make up the majority of the US electorate, but they are divided: as a case in point, the leftist anti-SQ crowd would not support Trump, for example, and Trump's supporters don't seem to want their support, and vice versa (one can see this from the tired moralizing from both camps.), not necessarily for unreasonable reasons. As the saying goes, the people who are happy with the status quo are all alike and they can stick together more readily, even if some call themselves Democrats and others Republicans, while the unhappy are all different for their own reasons and they can't be brought together without a heroic effort, if at all possible, and neither Sanders nor Trump is heroic enough to bridge the many gaps among them.

This has happened before in American politics: the populist movement in late 19th century, particularly in the South, where the discontented poor whites, including many former Confederate supporters, and the former slaves formed a formidable political coalition to challenge the status quo, only to be betrayed by their "leaders" most of whom were corrupt and opportunistic politicians who saw a rabble they could coopt and fell apart from their own mutual suspicion and distrust.

[gowithit]

Trump further added fuel to the fire bringing him down at the Al Smith Charity dinner last night. If only the Repubs had offered a viable candidate, Clinton would be toast by now, rather than toasted!

"A poor player struts and frets and then heard no more, It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Shakespeare in MacBeth

[Allen Thomson]

Niños Héroes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C3%B1os_H%C3%A9roes

(You find them called "Niños Héroes" and "Niños Heroicos" in about equal numbers. Hero Lads vs Heroic Lads.)

[turcopolier]

gowithit

Also in my regiment's museum was a punch bowl made in Mexico City from looted altar silver from somewhere back along the road to Vera Cruz. It was hand beaten and had some suitable inscription. I guess they were on occupation duty for a while. There was a punch cup for every officer then in the regiment. I remember the one with Lt. George E. Pickett's name engraved thereon. I suppose that 1/2 Infantry has these things now. pl