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An American Coup D'etat?


Monday, October 31, 2016

FBI, Circling the Drain?

I have had the honor and the privilege of working closely with the FBI many times during my nearly 34 years at State. We worked against Soviets, Cubans, East Germans, Bulgarians, drug dealers, pedophiles, criminal fugitives, money launderers, terrorists, fraudsters, and on suspected security breaches. I had tremendous respect for the professionalism and dedication of these FBI agents. They were world class in every way. My respect for the FBI was shared by many in foreign intelligence and security services with whom we worked. I remember, in particular, the British, who were markedly ambiguous in their attitude towards the CIA, had great respect for the FBI's investigative prowess and, as one Brit friend in the intel service said to me, "their humourless thoroughness." I had a lot of friends in the Bureau; they were terrific patriots with a morale and esprit d'corps rare among civilians and more akin to what I found with SEALs, Rangers, SAS, US and Royal Marines, and French Legionnaires. They were incredibly proud of their agency's history and accomplishments, and took it hard and personally when that agency or agents screwed up, e.g., Robert Hansen.

Given what we have seen of late, however, I, reluctantly, have to give vent to growing skepticism about the FBI and to the damage wrought on that jewel of an agency by political interference and correctness.

The investigation of the Clinton Crime Family and, in particular, that of SecState Clinton's use of  a private email server for classified information, and her use of the State Department as her and Bill's ATM leaves much to be desired. I, for example, cannot understand how an apparently morally upright and professionally competent Director, such as James Comey, did not go public with a resignation slammed down on the President's desk when Attorney General Lynch met "secretly" with Bill Clinton on that Arizona tarmac days before the FBI was to wrap-up its initial investigation into the Hillary Clinton email scandal. I do not understand how Comey could have made the public statement that he made on July 5 when he gave Hillary Clinton a pass on her scandalous, unethical, dangerous, and illegal use of a private server for official work. I do not for a second believe, despite what Comey said at the time, that nobody, including presumably Lynch, Obama, and the Clintons, knew Comey would recommend no indictment. I knew it the minute Lynch announced beforehand that she would accept whatever recommendation the FBI made. Right. Sure thing. Did Donna Brazile send you an email?

The FBI leadership made a hash of the investigation into Clinton. It was such a hash, that, reportedly, Comey's desk received a large number of outraged letters of resignation from agents justifiably angry over what Comey had done. He needed an excuse to try to save his reputation, when along comes Huma Abedin's husband El Perverso Anthony Carlos Danger Weiner.  Apparently, an investigation into his "sexting" with a minor girl revealed tens-of-thousands of emails on his computer which MIGHT have relevance to the original investigation into Hillary's emails. So, reboot: A public reboot via a vague letter to the Congress that requires a lot of reading between the lines.

The Dems, once full of praise for Comey, have exploded in anger calling Comey the most foul of names imaginable, including the foulest of all, "Republican." The Dems are desperately trying to put the focus on Comey and take it from the core issue: Hillary Clinton's despicable behavior.

But do they have a point? Yes, somewhat. I understand Comey's predicament. I understand that he called Lynch's bluff when she said she would not interfere and would accept whatever the FBI concluded.

That said, however, this would not have been necessary had the FBI done the right thing to begin with; I am just an amateur but it sure seems to me that the investigation did not press key individuals, including Hillary, very hard. Why wasn't this computer found initially? Was Huma Abedin's house searched? The letter sent to Congress by Comey, I have to say, was unfair to Hillary Clinton and to the electoral process. It is a massive innuendo which raises all sorts of questions that nobody can answer and leaves the field open to all sorts of speculation.

Now, that said, of course, we have the relentless deluge of Wikileaks data which has provided a context for concluding that Hillary and her Gang are crooks of the grossest kind. So maybe Comey was trying to get ahead of the Wikileaks? I don't know. Maybe he hates Clinton as much as Obama does--note Obama's defense of Comey. I don't know. All that and more is possible.

What I do know is that one of the last institutions held in high regard, the FBI, has been dragged into the political swamp created by the progressives. Another victory for the Alinsky brigades.

Friday, October 28, 2016

No Reason to Vote for Hillary

Trump was not my first choice for Presidential candidate. I liked Gov. Walker of Wisconsin: he had a long record of accomplishments; a track record of taking on the progs and beating them; a good sense of humor, and--like me--a face made for radio. He did not do well in the primaries and faded out. After that, I remind aloof, and briefly flirted with voting for Rubio . . . but in the end Trump's brash, non-PC style won me over. He was saying the things that the elite establishment does not want said. He was a full-throated practitioner of the first amendment. Sure, his conservative credentials were far from perfect (here)--and who has such?--and, in the end, I decided I would take a chance on a nationalist populist.  We got Trump warts and all, and some of the NeverTrump crowd will still not vote for him, unable to see past the warts to his message and the movement he heads. OK, fair enough.

Let's look at the other side of the battlefield: Hillary Clinton. For the life of me, I cannot think of a rational reason to vote for her UNLESS I was getting some sort of sinecure, or was able to get in on that Clinton Foundation scam to rip off poor Haitians to help a billionaire Irishman secure a mobile phone monopoly on that ravaged half island.

What has Hillary ever accomplished? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. At least nothing positive.

She has a record of corruption, lying, poor judgement, and ethical lapses that would have sent dozens of politicians to an early date on Political Boot Hill. Her vaunted feminism is a joke; why, for example, does she run as Hillary Clinton? Why not Rodham? She has latched onto her politically brilliant and morally compromised husband for a lifetime ride. Nothing is going to get her to loosen her grip on that trolley car. She and her husband have become fabulously wealthy playing the "We are here to help the poor" progressive game and have developed a loyal criminal entourage that puts those of drug cartel bosses and mafia dons to shame.

She is so corrupt that even, even Comey's FBI have decided to launch a whole new investigation of her and her friends.

Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt politician to emerge on the American political scene since, well, since Bill Clinton.

The whole thing makes no sense.

If you can't vote for Trump for whatever reason, then don't. But for crying out loud don't vote for Hillary Clinton . . .

OK, going to climb into my truck and head off to the airport. My son is flying to Chicago, and I am his personal Uber . . . in fact, I call myself Über alles . .  . catchy, that.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

The Polls and My Shooting: Don't Count on a Bullseye

Finally made it to the range. Thought the Diplowife would join me, but she saw a Ross store and decided to go there while I went to do manly-man things.

Took my new .44 Mag plus my two .357 Mags. On this range run, I included my old reliable .357 from Guyana days, a wonderful piece of iron which I shamefully had neglected for some years. Cleaned it up. It shot wonderfully. That gun is over 55 years old and still works -- unlike its owner.

I did very well with the two .357s, and pretty well with the .44 when using .44 Special "Cowboy Action Rounds." Not so great when I went full .44 Magnum. OK, but nothing to brag about. Let's just say it's a good thing those splatter targets don't shoot back . . . I, however, did like the sound. Quite impressive even with a headset on.

My Washington-based son, a political junkie of the first degree, gave me a lesson yesterday and today on why the election polls are not to be believed. He says most polls have way over-sampled Democrats and make the invalid assumption that over 95% of Democrats will actually vote for The Hillary. He seems very confident of a Donald victory on November 8. I, however, am more cautious having gone through this in 2012, when I was pretty sure Romney would win. The electoral college remains a challenge for Trump, but . . . we'll see.

Now, of course, adding fuel to the fire of skepticism about the polls are some Wikileaks which apparently show senior Democratic activists discussing getting friendly pollsters to oversample Democrats in their polling data bases. I also find it suspicious how all the press are joining in a chorus of "It's All Over!" I can see this as a strategy trying to discourage Trump voters from going to the polls, but wonder if it might not have the opposite effect, and discourage Hillary voters who are markedly unenthusiastic about their candidate to begin with. I guess we will know the answers soon enough . . . assuming the illegal alien vote doesn't throw all calculations into the dust bin.

Best to disconnect from the media for a bit . . . allow sanity to return.

Love the smell of Hoppe's 9.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Reflections on my .44 Mag & the End of Our Civilization

Picked it up.

Oh, but first, our Spanish visitors left yesterday for Las Vegas in the company of my son, who knows his way around Vegas better than Elvis ever did--worrying, that. What euros our guests have left will soon clatter into the vault of some casino or another. Watch the euro-dollar exchange rate.

Yes, I picked it up.

California's absurd ten-day waiting period over, I drove my 'Stang this fine sunny Saturday morning to Turner's and picked up my new S&W 44 mag with a 6.5 inch barrel. A magnificent piece of work. Clint Eastwood has nothing on me now . . . well, except rugged good looks, international fame, and hundreds of millions of dollars . . . but besides that, nothing.

As I oiled and wiped my new S&W and put it to rest in the safe with the other 20 or so handguns (until range day, Monday), I couldn't help but think, "Does anybody really need a .44 Magnum?" I mean, "Aren't .357s and .45s enough for anybody?" Hmmm? The answer, of course, is, those are the wrong questions. The proper question is, "Why as a free citizen can I not have any gun I want?" In other words, where in the Constitution does it say the nanny state can determine what gun I can and can't own? I have no intention of holding up a liquor store, shooting up a church, or killing the neighbor's hideous cat. Why should the actions of criminals determine what I can or cannot do? Perhaps it's true that nobody needs a .44 Mag, a GT Mustang, a cigar, a fine whisky, a Harley, a speed boat, a large tattoo of an eagle, or an ill-fitting suit with a pink carnation in the lapel. But what if I want one, and can get one without taking anything from anybody or hurting anybody?

Freedom, baby, that's what it's all about, and freedom and its corollary fun are what progressives hate. If you are having fun, they are not in control.

This made me think about the current "uproar" over Trump's refusal to endorse the results of the November 8 election beforehand. That's the other thing progressives do. Not only do they tell you what you cannot have, they tell you what you must do and have: such as, give an ever increasing portion of your wealth to the progressives; wear a motorcycle helmet; wear seat belts; not eat your meat medium rare, and on and on.

In fact, I am going to go on about some of that "on and on."

Above all, the progressives want you not only to tolerate certain things they favor, they want and insist you endorse them. We, therefore, must not only go along with the progressive gag that there is no electoral fraud, we must endorse now the November 8 results of an electoral system we know is rife with progressive corruption of all sorts. We must not only tolerate gay marriage, we must endorse it; we must not only tolerate the sexual perversion known as transsexualism but must endorse it and allow these perverts to use bathrooms with our children. A baker, or a pizzeria owner must cater events his religion and conscience tell him not to. Speech codes determine the limits of discussion and even redefine the words we use.

We must all chant, "Diversity is our strength," when in many cities in our beleaguered Western Civilization, we cannot walk safely down the street, or take a bus thanks to the diversity that has been imposed upon us by progressive immigration laws and practices. Stockholm, once one of the world's safest cities, is now the rape capital of Europe thanks to progressive immigration policies; in fact, police there are instructed no longer to mention the "ethnicity" of the rapists. Here in the US, Trump states a truth that any Central American migrant headed north knows: women migrants in Mexico will be raped. He gets chastised for being a racist, for not refusing to see what is in front of his nose. We must not only tolerate the importation of thousands upon thousands of Muslim refugees who adhere to a creed that advocates our enslavement and death, we must embrace them; we must make up history showing that they have always been part of our culture; we must encourage MORE of them to come to the West. Any violence emanating from followers of Islam is to be attributed to lax gun laws,  and the failure to embrace the Muslims in our midsts even more lovingly.

They want us to be like Rohm's SA "Brownshirts" screaming, "Heil Hitler!" as they were executed by the firing squads sent by Hitler; like the victims of Stalin's purges forced to proclaim the greatness of the Comrade as they were lead off to receive a bullet in the back of the head.

Trump, win or lose, has managed to demonstrate how rotten our civilization has become under the tutelage of the progressives. We see in the volumes of Wikileaks documents how these progressives are so confident in their corruption and in their ability to manipulate us that they lay out their comments and plans in insecure emails and other texts. They can't imagine a world in which the stuff they say and plan might just be "triggering."

Triggering? Back to my .44 mag.

Molon Labe . . . and I just mailed in my ballot for Trump . . .

Thursday, October 20, 2016

The Final Debate

The debate. I didn't watch it. I listened to it on Sirius radio as I drove back from San Diego. I, therefore, did not see the faces, the gestures or any of the other body language. Just listening to it, however, I thought Trump won most of it. He certainly gave the best summation either of the two has given at the end of any of the debates. He rocked her on the Clinton Foundation and on Wikileaks. I thought her answers were weak and tired.

Got to give credit to Chris Wallace who I thought was BY FAR the best moderator of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates. He brought up topics previously ignored and pressed both candidates, and did a credible job of controlling both candidates without being obnoxious.

As usual, however, Trump gave the media something to yammer on about. He, again, stepped on his own performance. He, frankly, gave a bad answer on the question of whether he would accept the results of the election if he lost. I cringed while driving upon hearing his "I'll keep you in suspense." That gave Clinton the opening to launch one of her faux patriotic speeches about how that was unprecedented in 240 years of American elections, blah, blah, blah. She, of course, ignored, among others, the election of 1860, when a good chunk of American states seceded from the Union because they would not accept the election of Abraham Lincoln, and, more recently and less dramatic, Al Gore's lengthy refusal to admit he had been beaten in Florida by George W. Bush--both of those refusals, by the way, were by the Democratic Party. Trump needs a better answer, especially since his running mate and his own daughter have stated that, of course, Trump would accept the results. Bad coordination that.

I think Trump should have turned the question around and said something along the lines of, "Hillary, will you, right now, disavow the actions of your party--which we learned about through Wikileaks--to disrupt my rallies with violence and intimidate my followers? Will you join me in insisting that voters must be US citizens and that poll workers must insist that those who vote are indeed Americans and eligible to vote? Will you ask your party machine to help scrub from the rolls dead voters, illegal aliens, felons, etc.? Will you promise not to do what you did to Bernie Sanders? Will you abandon the Democratic Party's long, long history of electoral violence and fraud?"

Anyhow, yes, I think Trump "won" the debate, but will it make a difference? How many genuinely undecided were watching? Plus, of course, millions of people, living and dead, American and foreign, already have cast ballots in the idiotic process known as "early voting."

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

The Integrity of the Electoral Process

This will have to be short.






Questioning is the essence of democracy.

Back to hosting . . .

Friday, October 14, 2016

Appalling Days

Haven't been writing as the Diplowife has returned from Spain. As I feared, my housekeeping did not meet her standards; your humble Diplomad, therefore, has been busy vacuuming, cleaning mirrors, wiping dust, mopping floors, and throwing out garbage. I don't know how she does it. She walks into a perfectly clean room and immediately spots the two beer cans on the foosball table, the old sneaker on the ottoman, and the half-eaten submarine on the sofa. How does she do it? Anyhow, the two dogs did not escape her wrath either, and have been sentenced to bath row, with execution scheduled for tomorrow. She shows no appreciation for how I recharged the battery in the '66 Olds, had the oil changed in the Expedition and the 2015 Mustang, fixed a tail-light problem in HER Jeep, started the paperwork for the ten-day waiting period on a new S&W .44 Mag, cleaned my guns, ordered hundreds of rounds of ammo from Cheaper-than-Dirt, or even how I had a gun safe installed in my walk-in closet. All that passes unawares in Diplowife world!

All of the aforementioned drama has kept me from watching, listening or reading too much election coverage. That's fine. I, frankly, am sick of it all; it's all been said. There's nothing more to say. I have never seen such a concentrated and coordinated effort by the media, working as the armed wing of the DNC, to destroy politically and personally a candidate. The polls? Who knows? They're all over the place, and many of them are extensions of that effort to destroy Trump. So, who knows where the voters actually stand? Are there enough ignorant, anti-American, progressive sheep along with some electoral corruption out there to put the Hillary criminal in the White House? Perhaps so. I give up reading the political scene.

The stuff coming out almost daily from Wikileaks re Clinton should be enough to derail any campaign and launch a thousand criminal investigations. Nothing. The MSM is trying to ignore the incredible evidence of illegality and immorality by the Clintons and to fill the air with 30-year-old allegations of sexual advances by Trump. Contrary to some, I do not believe allegations of sexual misconduct should be automatically believed any more than allegations of any other misconduct unless backed up by evidence: Duke Lacrosse? UVA? Ring a bell? I have a hard time taking too seriously some of the women who have come forward four weeks before the election with tales of alleged "inappropriate" conduct by Trump decades ago. I must call BS. At the same time, of course, there is a near total blackout on reporting of actual misconduct, up to and including rape by Bill Clinton and the enabling actions by Hillary.

The whole thing stinks and I fear for our Republic as I never have before.

Monday, October 10, 2016

The Rock is Overturned

I spent most of my life in what was once called the underdeveloped world, then it became the more politically correct Third World; I don't know what it's called now. I guess Third World is still an au courant phrase? Social Justice Warriors please correct me, and my apologies if by employing my white privileged vocabulary and labelling I have triggered anyone to retreat into his/her/ze/zir/its safe space.

Reading and listening to the reactions to last night's debate. Many of them are quite weird, well, until one realizes what is actually taking place. Let me explain in my usual stumbly, wordy, inarticulate way. We have a whole school of pundits who feign annoyance or contempt for the debate, with phrases such as "I don't know who won, but I know who lost, America." Lots of spurious fact-checking of everything Trump said with little of what Clinton said. We have some more Republican defections, e.g., Paul Ryan, who are adopting a holier-than-thou approach and refuse to support the Republican candidate--which makes me wonder why bother having a primary process? We have people for whom I once had respect, such as the two Bush Presidents and Mitt Romney, saying they will not vote for Trump, with some of them saying they will vote for Hillary Clinton. Ryan and other Republican congressional sorts, have hit on the strategy of keeping the Congress in Republican hands while ceding the White House to the Clinton Crime Family. It is sort of the Alamo ploy which we saw in the movie "Saving Private Ryan" in which any survivor of the initial battle is to retreat to a designated building and from there blow-up the bridge to halt the German counter-attack.

Yeah, sure, we all know how the original Alamo story ended. Lot of bravery and sacrifice, but in the end Santa Anna's troops poured over and through the walls.

We had a GOP-controlled Congress for most of the Obama misadministration's years in power. What did that get us? Did it slow down the attack of the progressives? Did we repeal Obamacare? Did we put honorable and honest people into key positions such as SecState and Attorney General? Did this Republican control prevent the willful and ongoing destruction of the world's greatest military machine via spending cuts and--even more destructive--the forcing of political correctness on our warriors? Have we named people to the Supreme Court who will actually adhere to the document? Did it secure our borders and repair our broken immigration system? Did we stop deficit spending and halt the growth of the public debt? Do you trust Ryan, et al, to do in the next four to eight years what they didn't do in the past six or so years in which they controlled the Congress? I know my answer.

You know, now that I think about it, it's not really an Alamo strategy, at all. It's more of General Petain and Vichy strategy. It is more of a hope that the crocodile will eat you last "strategy." In fact, it's more of a Quisling strategy; we will have some nominal power, we will keep our nice salaries and lobbyist sinecures, and we'll be fine.

Hillary Clinton at the debate last night referred to the "Trump Effect." This supposedly is one in which teachers report an increase in bullying and general nastiness. Trump is being blamed for the coarsening of dialog in the public square. All nonsense, of course. We have Hollywood stars who make a living out of coarseness and the glorification of gangsta culture and perversion all up in arms because Trump--who was once one of them--used some bad language.

The real Trump Effect is actually quite different. It is similar to the LePenn Effect in France or the Farage Effect in the UK. Trump, for all his flaws, has unleashed a force made up of people fed up with watching our country become a Third World souk, of watching all standards and definitions torn up and replaced by God-knows what gibberish coming out of the universities and the media. Above all I think we see large chunks of the American people gradually realize that our great nation has become a place where the elite have one set of standards and laws and benefits, and the rest of us something else quite different. The elite get armed guards and walls, we get speeches about tolerance and welcoming others. We are told that our country is evil and that the elite know what is best to address that evil--and, of course, that requires that we give up our money, and our God-given rights so that the evil we have caused can be redressed. We have to become the Third World.

Trump, win or lose, and the system is in top gear to make sure he doesn't win the White House, has changed the country. I think he has highlighted the great divide not so much between rich and poor, but between the arrogant Washington-New York-Los Angeles elite and the working people of the country, the producers of the wealth upon which all the system depends. He has turned over the rock and the insects and worms are crawling out.

OK, I am going to stop. I am depressing myself, and have bathrooms to clean, etc., because the Diplowife returns tomorrow. And I fear her wrath . . .

Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Debate: He Does It

Wow! The Donald won and he won big.

I gave the last debate to Hillary on points, but this one had The Donald mopping the floor, the seats, the walls, and the ceiling with The Hillary. He had what should become one of the most memorable lines in any presidential debate when he said Hillary was trying to blame Abe Lincoln for her lies.

OK, let's review.

First of all, as always, I watched this debate with my two dogs. At the end of the debate, I immediately switched off the TV, and took them for a walk. I got home, made myself a vegetarian beef steak (comes from cattle that do not eat meat), had a can of V-8 juice, and sat down at the keyboard. I do not want any pundits or other outside influences affecting my evaluation and recollection of the debate.

The debate started with a pre-game event that clearly shook and shocked the Clinton campaign.  Trump held a little presser with several of the victims of Bill Clinton's sexual assaults, as well as the woman who was raped and Hillary got her assailant off. He then doubled down: he had Mayor Giuliani lead the women into the forum where they got front-row seats. Just after they sat down, the families of the candidates trooped in: the look on Bill Clinton's face was worth a million bucks. He looked ashen, and not all his jovial back-slapping country-boy self. He looked to the floor and tensely made his way to his seat with only a precursory greeting to Melania Trump. The two candidates then walked onto the stage and the tension was palpable. No handshake, no air kisses, no wishing of luck, none of the usual hypocrisy we require of political combatants.

Hillary's face was a frozen mask

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that Trump, for once, got under her skin. She knew that any time spent on the Trump tape would result in a retelling of the Clinton's sordid history of sex and scandal. And so it came to pass. I think Trump handled the tape question masterfully, pivoting not only to other issues more important, but then hitting Clinton between the eyes with her own behavior towards the women whom Bill had assaulted, and bringing up her own tape in which she is laughing after getting the rapist of the 12-year-old off. She did not want to talk about the tape anymore.

Brilliant. Give the man some credit.

The moderators were a joke, and it was hard to take seriously that the Muslim woman who asked a question was an "undecided" voter. Right. No matter. Trump handled them all. He dealt well with the Islamophobia question, called the moderators on their obvious bias throughout the evening, and tore into Clinton on Syria, Libya, her emails, and her lack of accomplishment as a Senator. Hilary completely fumbled the question about the leaked speech she gave to Goldman-Sachs in which she talked about the need to have a "public position and a private position." She gave a convoluted answer which not only confirmed the authenticity of the leaked document, but tried to claim that she was doing as Lincoln had in trying to eliminate slavery (?) Uh, OK. The Donald seized on this and chastised Clinton for trying to blame Lincoln for her dishonesty: "Abe Lincoln did not lie, but you do."

There was lots more, but let me stop here, and shift gears a bit. Yes, Trump won, and won clearly. I think, however, that the Clinton campaign is not counting on the debates, on the substance of the issues, or on policy prescriptions; they are counting on more leaked scandal tapes about Trump including a rumored one in which he uses the n-word. Can he continue to deflect those tapes? We'll see.

I don't think this debate won Trump the presidency but it sure kept him alive, and Hillary did not look good. OK, off to listen to the pundits and see if they're copying me.

Heading into the Debate

In a few hours, the second presidential debate will begin. It will be in a faux-townhall format, wherein the moderators decide who can ask what questions, in addition, of course, to the questions the moderators themselves ask. You know the questions will be rigged to make Trump look small, mean, and defensive and, of course, as a hater. I am sure we're going to get some lachrymose question from an illegal "Dreamer" who fears having his parents deported, the usual stuff. We are going to get a YUGE amount of attention devoted to the nefarious Trump tape and his tax returns.

It's going to be a tough night for Trump.

He is going into the debate under severe media and GOPe pressure, with rumors swirling that his running mate Mike Pence is thinking of jumping off the train, and the late night comics trying to turn him into a bad punchline. He, in other words, is now facing the full wrath of "the system," one which had dismissed him as a laughable crank, but in the last few weeks broke into a cold sweat in the realization that the man might just pull it off.  Trump might just become President and put that "system" into terra incognita. That cannot be allowed and all false party labels are being ignored as the ruling elite has decided that the rampaging Trump beast must be killed at all costs. Any and all weapons in the system armory are valid for use.

What can he do at the debate? My advice, and you know the value of that, is to be calm, almost zen-like, very focussed, and articulate; no broken half-sentences, no weird tangents. Allow no question to remain one-sided: no matter what is asked insist that the same same or equivalent be asked of his opponent, and, in fact, Trump should ask it. Trump tape? Yes, I was coarse and crude in joking around, but was Hillary just joking when she tried to destroy the lives of the women her husband abused and raped? My tax returns? Yeah, sure, as soon as Hillary releases her deleted emails and her speeches before the Wall Street fat cats, and, oh by the way, I see some of those speeches are leaking. What does she say? She says that she will have a "public position and a private position" and that the bankers need not worry--she is not going to do anything to regulate them or to go along with those dopey Bernie people. Immigration? Deport the criminals first, build the wall, and insist our laws are obeyed, and, oh by the way, will Hillary disavow sanctuary cities? Will she apologize to the families of victims of illegal alien criminals? Will she apologize to the Deplorables? And so on.

Trump will have to be on an A-plus game. He cannot let himself get angry and rattled or look defensive. He has to come off as serious but with a sense of humor and empathy for what ordinary people are enduring under progressive rule.

Will it make a difference? Who knows. I can assure you if the Hillary-Media complex decided to release the Trump tape 30 days out from the voting, that means they've got more. They want to drown out the disastrous economic and foreign policy news, and not leave room for the Wikileaks which show how corrupt and venal Hillary truly is.

The odds are against him.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Trump Tape: Feet of Clay vs. Pajama Boys

Daniel 2:31-33 (NKJV)


I wrote the original draft of this post re the Trump tape at 0300 this morning. I almost published it, but at the last moment remembered the wise ol' saying from either Shakespeare, Lincoln, Twain, or "Banjo" Paterson, that "one neither should tweet nor blog in the darkest hours of the morn." Whoever said it was right. I re-read at 0900 what I had written six hours earlier and . . . delete, delete, delete, maybe not 33,000 times but many deletes, nevertheless, followed. BleachBit ordered.

That said, here I go again. 

I've listened to the audio tape of Trump's unguarded "hot mic" comments. Shocking? Disgusting? Indefensible? Absolutely . . . yes, well, that is if you've lived your life as a delicate snowflake in a nice cool safe place. If, however, you've been in the company of men, when they are allowed to be men, the language can get a bit colorful; that's not surprising. Look, I don't talk like that because I spent  over half of my life in a profession in which one never knew who was listening, a misplaced comment, an infelicitous phrase, or a bit of overly exuberant verbal color could prove fatal to your career. Embassies, consulates, cocktail parties, negotiating sessions, and public venues, are not places conducive to uncensored guy talk. I have to admit, however, that when we would get out into the bush for a few days, far from recording devices and the PC police, in places such as Pakistan, Guatemala, and Bolivia, well, the language could get a bit, uh, saltier, shall we say--not mine, of course, but that of others . . .  that's my story, and I am sticking to it.

The 2005 Trump tape captures a conversation between two (trigger alert: semi-nasty word about to appear) bullshitters doing what bullshitters do, bullshit. What I find appalling is that somebody would record this and keep it for so many years. That is malice aforethought. Both men on the tape, lest we forget, were private citizens having a private conversation. Let us also not forget that Trump, at the time, was a Democrat. Come to think of it, he should just claim that he and Billy Bush were auditioning to form a white rapper group, Salt & Sugar. All would be forgiven.

We live in a digital and salacious age. One of the great triumphs of modern science is used to promote sex, and destroy private lives. We no longer can have leaders and heroes who live large colorful lives. Lincoln, Churchill, Eisenhower, and so many others would be undone by this age, and its use of intrusive technology that memorializes our foibles forever.

While this tape is run four hundred times a day, and crowds out all other political conversation, America's core national interests at home and abroad are in free fall. Our future is disappearing, but we must titter and tweet away over an eleven year-old tape of big boys talking trash. We are seeing a flood of new leaks showing just how corrupt and two-faced Hillary Clinton is, but we must talk about Trump's use of bad words. The same media that has given the Clintons a pass on so much, including serious allegations of rape and cover-up, must now feign outrage over a bawdy conversation.

A Spanish saying wisely notes, "The fish dies because of its mouth." Trump has provided the enemy something with which they can play forever. It will be even harder now for him to get his message out. The hostile media will talk only of this, making his crude words far worse than they are in fact. Is this the death knell for the Trump campaign? Is it going to turn away supporters or those who were considering supporting him? I don't know. Perhaps. Can he pivot to more important issues? I hope he tries, but . . . at a minimum he should apologize to his wife, kids, and Mike Pence.

The debate tomorrow will be critical. While I have doubts that the "moderators" and left-wing media will not let this rest--and who knows what else they have queued up for the coming four weeks?--Trump, nevertheless, will have to handle it with calm and grace, and keep bringing the conversation around to the disaster that looms for our nation and a civilization if the same old corruptocrats get re-elected. He is paying the price for defying the bipartisan elite. I guess those who switch their vote to Hillary because of The Donald tape, will have the satisfaction of knowing that if she wins our borders and economy will collapse, our foreign policy will be a disaster, and terrorists will pour in, but, at least, she did not say a "bad" word on tape.

Sad times.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

A Little Piece on Nutty White Guys

It's been a lazy sunny day here in southern California. I went shooting yesterday and slightly improved my results. I was going to go back again today, but felt guilty about leaving the dogs alone again for a few hours. The beasts and I have been sitting around watching "Longmire"--starring a terrific and under-appreciated Australian actor, Robert Taylor, who can do an American accent better than I can--and cleaning my guns. I love my two Kimber 45s, but the full size Kimber is kind of a pain to clean. I am always terrified that I am going to get a recoil spring embedded in my forehead. To avoid that, I let my Akita disassemble it . . . nah, just be careful, that spring is under a lot of tension. Anyhow, the three of us were sitting on the floor watching the TV, cleaning the guns, and . . . oh, one more tangent: when cleaning a gun think of Laurence J. Peter's aphorism, "Cleaning anything involves making something else dirty, but anything can get dirty without something else getting clean." We managed to get a lot of stuff dirty, and the guns ended up only marginally less so than when we started . . . anyhow, watching the news, it struck me that increasingly the white men left in the Democratic Party are pretty nutty. At the risk of being Captain Obvious, I must ask if others have noticed this?

The Democratic Party is one of the oldest continually operating political parties in the world--arguably the oldest voter based party. It has always had a bit of the bad boy image to it, and has had a long list of impressive politicians who, nevertheless, had something of an edge, not completely kosher. The Democrats, of course, were the party of slavery, secession, segregation, white lynch mobs, and massive voter fraud; one of the early Democrats, Andrew Jackson--held up as the founder of the party, in fact--was probably a full-blown genocidal maniac--and I am pleased he will be removed from our $20 bill. They had a crude racist populism from the start and have been reluctant in recent times to admit it. They now hide that racist populism under the banner of progressivism, but continue to play the race card at every opportunity.

For a number of reasons not worth going into here, the white voters, especially white males and married white women, and most especially working and middle class males, have moved away from the Democrats and vote increasingly Republican. The Democratic party has become largely a party of public sector workers, university professors and students, lawyers, labor union leaders, socialists, journalists, rich actors, crony bankers and CEOs, and, above all, racial and ethnic minorities. The glue that holds this disparate grouping together is government: Democrats are the party of government and of expanding the public sector at the expense of the private, while doling out vast sums to those members of the shrinking and maligned private sector who play along--Solyndra, anybody?

The electoral appeal of the Democratic party is to those who want more government, and who feel that a whole litany of current and historical grievances can only be addressed by more government taking more from, well, from the "rich," defined as anybody who is not one of the aforementioned categories. It is a party increasingly divorced from economic reality; it seeks to repeal the pesky and brutal laws of economics by reforming our souls, by getting us not to think or articulate bad thoughts, by getting us to give up on greed and privilege and allow the government to allocate resources and ensure the well-being of us all. And when that fails, it is a party that reverts to its violent lynch mob past to get its way.

Don't want to make this too long; I have still got my .357 Henry Big Boy rifle to clean--great gun, by the way, although a bit of pain to load. I notice that the white guys, especially the senior politicians who remain in the party, are more than a bit loopy. Gone are the Scoop Jacksons, the Moynihans, the Liebermans with whom one could disagree, but yet recognize that they were common sense politicians with whom a deal could be reached, and, above all, who were deeply patriotic. The party is left with gems such as the increasingly unhinged Senator Reid, the clownish Tim "I speak Spanish" Kaine, the unbearably smug Governors Brown and Cuomo, and the completely insane Mayor DeBlasio. They are white guys trying very hard to hide the fact that they are white guys. They adopt positions of extreme pandering to the worst and most radical elements of the party, and actively work for the elimination of the white majority in this country as a way to "solve" all our problems. They are ashamed of being who they are and must work to ensure that they are never succeeded by people like them.

OK, let's let it go at that. The beasts want to go for a walk.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The VEEP Debate


Quick and dirty.






Sunday, October 2, 2016

The Speech I Would Like Trump to Give

Pardon my temerity and my spilling out of my narrow minor blog lane, but I have written a little speech I would like to hear Trump give. I think he could even stick to these points in the debate regardless of what is asked.

Ladies, Gentlemen, Basement Dwellers, Irredeemables, and Deplorables All,

On November 8, you and I will vote for President and Congress. We will be joined on that day by thousands upon thousands of dead Democrats and illegal aliens voting for our opponents, so make sure you turn out to cancel the massive fraud that the Democrats are planning. Let's make sure that the voice we hear is that of US citizens, alive today but concerned about the tomorrow they leave their children. We don't want America to be like the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, or Detroit. All examples of where the path of progressivism leads.

We face a tipping point between a vision of liberty and individual freedom and that of a progressive nanny state that will decide what you can say, what you can believe and think, and how much if any of your money you can keep for yourself and your family. We are for a vision of America as a country based on universal values and responsibilities that apply to us all. We are for a country of accountable leaders who 99% of the time leave us the hell alone, and let us work out our own pursuit of happiness. Our opponents, Obama, Clinton and our morally bankrupt universities and media, promote a country full of grievances and entitlements, one in which the ruling elite will deal with those grievances and entitlements as befits and benefits the ruling elite. Our opponents want a country of no accountability for them, of laws that apply only to us, the Deplorables, but not to the anointed ones. If, for example, you and I handle classified information in a sloppy and "extremely careless way" we go to jail; if they do, they get nominated to be President. They want a country where if you speak up you get labelled deplorable, irredeemable, and racist. And the media goes along.

They want a country divided by race; we want a country dedicated to the advancement of the only race that counts: the human race.  

We have an opponent who attacks me for taking legal tax deductions under the tax code that existed while Bill Clinton was president--but look at her deductions, donations to the Clinton Foundation. We have an opponent who distorts and brings up incidents from my past as a businessman, such as occasional failures from among the thousands of efforts I have made to invest, to grow the wealth of my companies, and to employ thousands of people and give them good salaries and opportunities for advancement. We have an opponent who claims to have been "dead broke" when she and her husband left the White House. She doesn't mention why they were "dead broke." They spent a fortune on lawyers combatting the scandals of the Clinton years in power.

Well, she is certainly not "dead broke" anymore.

She and her husband are worth perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars. Where are the Clinton factories, retail outlets, hotels, and skyscrapers that provide employment and tax revenues? Don't exist. They got rich in the classic crony capitalist way of the beltway bandit. Hillary and Bill Clinton received fabulous sums for speeches to fat cats on Wall Street and abroad. On Hillary's speeches, what's amazing is that in this era of leaks, hacks, and covert IPhone recordings, nobody has seen or heard those speeches. What did she say? To whom? All nonsense, of course. It was just another classic Clinton "pay-to-play" scheme. What could Hillary Clinton have to say of such value to Goldman Sachs that they would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to hear her give a dull thirty minute talk? How about this? "Don't worry guys. When I get into power I will take care of you." And the  media goes along.

We have an opponent who promises all sorts of things, well, that is when she's not insulting those who oppose her. She says she is for women. Really? What's her record? I'll tell you what it is: it is one of demonizing and trying to destroy women whose only crime was to tell the truth of how they had been abused by her husband. Suppressing what she called, "bimbo eruptions," that's her record. And the media goes along.

In every policy area she addresses, we must ask, well, while you were in power what did you do about that? Nothing is what Hillary Clinton did. Nothing. She has spent almost three decades roaming the corridors of power and has nothing to show for it --- well, except for hundreds of millions of dollars and a very nice walled compound in Chappaqua. It has a very nice wall. I might use it as a model for another wall.

She says she is for African-Americans and Hispanics. Really? Is that what her record shows? Not at all. She has never questioned the Democratic party policies that have led to the destruction of Detroit and so many other great American cities, the policies that have produced widespread poverty and unemployment among African-Americans. She has never questioned the policies that have led to the crumbling schools to which overwhelmingly African-America residents of those cities are forced to send their children. She has never expressed concern about the thousands of black kids killed in Chicago by gangs. She has never deviated from the Democratic orthodoxy; the Democratic Party, the party of lynch mobs, KKK, and segregation. No, instead, she has called black kids, "Super Predators." One of her closest political mentors was a senior member of the KKK. She has a habit of the bigot which is putting people into baskets, Deplorables, Basement Dwellers, Super Predators.

Hispanics? Guess what? She doesn't care for or about you either--except on November 8. Her campaign, of course, refers to Hispanic voters as the "Taco Bowl." So you Hipanics have an insult from her, too. Don't forget, also, that this was the person who was Secretary of State when Obama declared a covert war on the people of Mexico with "Operation Fast and Furious." The administration illegally shipped thousands of guns to drug cartels, killing hundreds of innocent Mexicans, not to mention at least two US federal agents. Even the murdering drug lord El Chapo got a .50 caliber rifle from Obama. Did our Secretary of State ever speak up? Did she raise an objection to this illegal and immoral policy? Did she apologize to Mexico? To the families of the dead US agents? No. Why? Mexicans in Mexico can't vote for her, and our border agents won't, so she doesn't care. And the media goes along.

She has supported horrendous trade deals which have destroyed American jobs. She once called the disastrous TPP deal, the "gold standard" of trade deals and has been walking that back since the campaign began. She wants to put coal and oil workers out of work, and replace their industries with the sort of crooked crony deals we saw in the Solyndra fiasco. Solar panels for everybody! Right.

Around the world, the interests of the United States and our allies are in collapse. Everywhere we look we are in retreat or defeat. NATO is a directionless shell. Our weakness has turned Russia into an enemy; China does not take us seriously. Even an old-time ally such as the Philippines has told us to take a hike. Our military is in severe decline. The policies of Obama and Clinton have produced bloody chaos in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and, of course, in Libya. Her grotesque incompetence in Libya left our facilities in Benghazi exposed to the attack of--you guessed it--radical Islamic jihadis. A phrase she won't use. She will call you Deplorable, or a Super Predator, or a Basement Dweller, or a Taco Bowl, but she won't label the terrorists who killed our people in Benghazi, in Ft. Hood, in San Bernardino, in Orlando, and so many other places, what they are: radical Islamic jihadis. Instead she tried to get the radical Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt, and tried to prevent the Egyptian military and people from throwing them out. She has put Israel in mortal danger by pushing and supporting the insane nuclear deal with Iran in which we give them $150 billion in exchange for . . . well, nothing. She and Obama have helped Iran, the world's greatest state sponsor of terror, become a major regional power; Iran, which has sworn death to Israel and to America, is to be rewarded when it seizes our sailors, takes our citizens hostage, and provokes our ships. I have not heard her talk about how Christians, Bahais, gays, and women are treated in Iran, or for that matter in many of the other Muslim countries in the Middle East. She can't do that: It might get them to cut their donations to the corrupt Clinton Foundation.

While she was Secretary of State she ran a "pay-to-play" scheme in which donors to that corrupt Foundation got access to her, and other favors, such as exclusive cell phone contracts in Haiti. She so mismanaged the State Department that to this day, billions in aid for Haiti remain missing. And the media goes along.

Her illegal and, yes, immoral use of a private server on which to conduct official classified State Department business has exposed our nation's secrets and, perhaps, even led to the death of an intelligence source. She even had exchanges with the President on this system, something which Obama had denied. So when I hear her talk about her concern for cybersecurity, I have to laugh. And the media goes along.

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats don't want us to defend our borders or our sovereignty. They know there is no way to vet the tens-of-thousands of Middle Eastern refugees. They don't care; one day they'll vote Democrat is the thinking. They want endless numbers of people to pour in, unchecked, to pad the voter rolls, and become dependent on government largesse controlled, of course, by the Democratic party machine. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment don't care about the impact these immigration and asylum polices have on the poor or the middle class. The Democrats need to have poor people. They thrive on the misery of others.

Electing Hillary Clinton is re-electing a stagnant economy; it is a vote for the disastrous Obamacare; it is for the political use of the NSA, the FBI, the IRS, the EPA, and more Washington agencies. Electing her is a sure way to wipe out the second amendment and so many other of our rights. She wants the government involved in every aspect of your life and wants the government to take what you have earned not only while you are alive, but even after you're dead. It makes sense, I guess: a political party that famously uses the votes of dead people has no problem taxing the dead, too. And the media goes along.

Reject the progressives and their effort to transform America into another failed socialist state. Vote for liberty; vote for a prosperous and free future. Make America Great Again!

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Surprise! State Department Diplomats Don't Like Trump!

An ideological compadre sent me a link to story from Politico which I had missed in my daily scouring of the wild and wonderful world of the internet. The story, written by Nahal Toosi, has the frightening headline, "U.S. diplomats fear Trump will unleash cronies as ambassadors; Will he just appoint a buddy to schmooze with the Kremlin?" Oh, horrors! Read it for yourselves and you will quickly see that it is just a typical inside the beltway hatchet job on Trump.
"He probably has no idea what the foreign service is," lamented one person with deep knowledge of the U.S. diplomatic corps. "At least with her we know who half the people who will get these jobs will be. With him we have no idea."
The tension! The drama! American diplomats are shuddering! Canapés are falling! Drinks are spilling!

She goes on relaying the devastating news that,
Ah, yes, AFSA--AFSA is agonizing . . . if only.

In my 33 years at State I refused to join AFSA. A more worthless organization would be hard to imagine. It is hardly non-partisan as it signs up for every progressive scheme out there. AFSA was a prime mover of "diversity" at State; in the name of making life better for black FSOs, State, with AFSA's OK, boosted the number of white women. There that makes things better for black FSOs, eh?

The organization, as is true for the Foreign Service and the Civil Service, is overwhelmingly Democrat. AFSA, every time a new president comes in, sends its silly letter asking for the number of political appointees to be kept to a minimum. Incoming administrations pay no attention. More important, however, I see no mention in the article of how SecState Clinton "skillfully" handled Syria, Russia, Venezuela, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, etc. Nor do I see any mention of how her policies opened up some vacancies in our staff in Libya, and how she acquiesced in the Obama/Holder illegal covert war against the people of Mexico via "Fast and Furious." Anyhow, you get the drift. Pay no attention to articles such as this or to a letter signed by "senior diplomats" opposing Trump. I know almost all those people; some of them are fine, but nearly all of them are creatures of the beltway and the lush post-FS jobs that go with being such a creature. Ignore them.

I don't see many "Senior Diplomats" reacting to a "damning" report out in the UK on Libya. The parliamentary report confirms what any sentient being has known for a long time (here, for example): there was no masterplan for the intervention in Libya, the reasons behind it were defective, the intel was hopeless, and nobody really knew what the end game was to be. Read it. I see that our press is ignoring it. Sure doesn't look too good for ol' Ms We Came-We-Saw-He Died.

Move along! Nothing to see here!