Here is my conundrum.  On the left is HRC around  9 AM on the morning of 9-11, before she departs feeling ill.  On the right is HRC around 1 PM outside Chelsea’s apartment.  The difference in her look is striking (click to enlarge).

I am not sure what to make of this.  In one way, the pictures confirm the Clinton Campaign meme that HRC was very dehydrated on the morning of 9-11, 2016. You can see how HRC looks like her skin is sagging and more wrinkles are apparent in the morning.  By noon her face is filled out and the wrinkles are very muted.

My mother has had bouts of dehydration that put her in the hospital (she is over 90) and I have seen similar changes in her appearance. But they don’t usually show up in under 4 hours (estimated time between the pictures). Of course, my mother is much older.

And before anyone asks, no I do not buy into the “body double” theory.

But I will point out that in the Doctor’s note for HRC the doctor was quite clear that she did not “examine” HRC until she was home, much later in the day.  This does not rule out her being “with” HRC earlier in the day (given the Clinton penchant with selecting words to divert details). So the comments in the letter make sense in one way (Hat Tip Powerline):

On Sunday, September 11 at the 9/11 Memorial event, she became overheated and dehydrated and as a result felt dizzy. I examined her immediately upon her return home; she was re-hydrating and recovering nicely.

So, it would seem HRC may have been given an IV-boost at Chelsea’s.  But again, why not mention that? I do not believe drinking fluids can make that big of a difference in 4 hours.  I am not a doctor – but I do have a BS in Biology and I am pretty sure basic fluid intake does not work that well, that fast.

So if she was given an IV to boost her, why not just say so??

Update: Of course I missed one obvious answer – the Democrat pliant news media could had “photo-shopped” a few years off before they released the second picture

Tags: 9-11, Chelsea, Clinton, Faint

Major Update: Another conflicting detail: Hillary recovered at Chelsea’s without medical assistance????

When Hillary Clinton got whisked away from the 9/11 memorial service Sunday and diverted from the ER, most assumed that her personal physician or another private doctor checked her out there. Not so, said Robby Mook yesterday in this interview with Jake Tapper, but Tapper had to drag it out of him.

…

TAPPER: Was the doctor at Chelsea Clinton’s apartment?

MOOK: No, she saw the doctor in Chappaqua.

…

This sequence of events raises even more questions about the decision to divert away from a hospital. That’s dangerous enough for a pneumonia patient who has collapsed, but that decision meant that Hillary didn’t get any professional medical attention for hours. In the meantime, the campaign made the announcement of “dehydration” as though it was a medical diagnosis — which appears to be a lie. Who made that call, and what evidence did they have to support it?

OK, then how did Hillary get over pneumonia, dehydration and overheating so quickly and so well? End update

This past weekend’s ‘medical event’ with Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is raising some serious questions about her health. I for one have not fully bought into the “pneumonia” story line. There are some concerning data points popping up.  Let’s begin with those fabulous blue glasses Clinton was sporting yesterday. Those look very similar to glasses provided to people with Parkinson’s Disease.

And people may not recall, but inside those State Department email dumps from Wikileaks we learned that in 2011 State Department employees were investigating Parkinson’s Disease and remedies for Hillary:

We know now that as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton dispatched her executive staff in the State Dept. to help conduct research on Provigil, a controlled drug often prescribed for patients suffering from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Multiple Sclerosis.

Provigil is often used to help such patients stay awake and curb extended bouts of sleep. The drug is also used to treat narcolepsy.

In a series of emails spanning from August to Oct. 2011, Clinton asks and receives information from her trusted inner circle on the drug Provigil, including the side effects of the pick-me-upper drug favored by long-haul truckers to stay awake for long periods of time.

Another problem is the timeline of events on Sunday.  Clinton arrives at the 9-11 event in the morning and is not there for very long.  Between 9:23 and 9:30 she abruptly leaves the event, escorted by someone who is assessing her vitals while walking:

It is at just after this we have the video of her “collapse”, where she is leaning against a post and unable to move her legs and walk.  Now having a doctor on hand after being diagnosed with pneumonia may not be odd, but the fact the Secret Service agents were so well orchestrated with her collapse, like it had been rehearsed or at least tried before, is a bit of an oddity. At least Gary Byrnes, former Secret Service agent in the Clinton White House, notes:

It is very revealing that, whatever is wrong with her, she is being treated by her own private medical specialists in secret and, judging by the ballet-like reaction by her detail, they have dealt with this before.

Emphasis mine. Is there a rapid response plan for these incidents (even though her diagnosis was just on Friday, less than two days prior)?

Well let’s look at the next sequence of events.  From 9:30 to to 11:00 AM there is nothing from the campaign, but at 11 the campaign claimed:

“During the ceremony, she [Hillary] felt overheated so departed to go to her daughter’s apartment, and is feeling much better,” said spokesman Nick Merrill.

This announcement contained a gem of information for the press.  Hillary was at Chelsea’s – so everyone should get over there quickly. At 12:50 the media is stationed outside Chelsea’s building, and so the next “act” was ready to begin.

Hillary departs the building looking very well, claiming it was a beautiful day in New York (not what someone would say from just overheating). And then a little girl is allowed through the barriers for one of those too-cute photo-ops. But Hillary has contagious pneumonia (according to the others sick with it in the campaign).  So why go to where her grandchildren are? Why the photo-op with the little girl (and apparently a baby on Saturday)?

I am going to wager at this point in time Team Clinton did not realize there was video tape of her collapsing  near her van.  By ditching her press pool at the 9-11 event, Team Clinton may have assumed their cover was still good.  They had avoided any hospital – against what would be the proper procedure for an unknown medical event. So I wager that at 11 AM they felt they could keep with the cover story.

So out walks Hillary all happy and healthy. Except, she is supposed to have pneumonia and had just collapsed from overheating and dehydration.  Even if she had been given an IV at Chelsea’s (doubtful), you don’t just bounce back from heat exhaustion AND pneumonia in 3 hours. And why the staged photo op? She looks TOO GOOD – in my humble opinion

The fact is the pneumonia ruse was not communicated until 5 PM – 4 hours after her miracle recovery at Chelsea’s. Well after the video went viral

Sadly, there is are medical incidents someone can recover from fairly quickly: Tardive Dyskinesia event is one example:

This neurological disorder, by definition, most frequently occurs as the result of long-term (usually at least 3 months duration) or high-dose use of antipsychotic drugs.

…

In some cases, an individual’s legs can be so affected that walking becomes difficult or impossible

…

Respiratory irregularity, such as grunting and difficulty breathing, is another symptom associated with tardive dyskinesia, although studies have shown that the prevalence rate is relatively low

Similar symptoms also come from Parkinson’s:

(4) Unpredictable OFF Episodes

These OFF episodes occur without warning when the patient is in the ON state and at unexpected times. The goal of levodopa therapy is to maintain a constant blood level of levodopa that is expected to result in a constant supply of levodopa to the brain and, therefore, a constant level of dopamine and dopaminergic stimulation. However, the brain does not utilize dopamine at a constant rate. Changes in activity level or changes in mood such as agitation or anxiety result in an increased use of dopamine. The brain then depletes the reserves of dopamine, and more time is required to rebuild that dopamine deficit. As a result, a patient in the ON state can unexpectedly and suddenly turn OFF when their normal PD medications are typically effective.

OFF episodes can have a tremendous negative impact on patients’ daily lives. The potential for unexpected loss of motor function or the unpredictable onset of benefit of one’s PD medications can result in patients’ avoidance of certain social settings and hinder performance of simple daily tasks such as eating, bathing and dressing. Further, a patient’s varying consumption of dopamine from variable “daily stresses” as well as the loss of dopaminergic cells, exacerbates the frequency, duration and severity of OFF episodes.

Does Hillary suffer from one of these? No clue – not a doctor. But I think the fact she bounced back so quickly and put on a great act at Chelsea’s three hours after being unable to walk would indicate this is not pneumonia plus dehydration plus overheating (overheating seems a big stretch given the temps that morning). So the question is, if not those then what?

And no, I think the campaign’s credibility is pretty much shot on any and all excuses they provide which do not stand up to simple logic and common sense. Hillary’s responses to the Benghazi and Email issues torched that. Not to mention the fact we heard a string of conflicting and changing reasons all day long. This indicates we are not done yet hearing more “clarifications”. Like Hillary regularly gets so dehydrated she faints:

Bill Clinton’s attempt on Monday at downplaying his wife’s recent fainting spell may have backfired.

During an interview with CBS News’ Charlie Rose, the former president said that Hillary Clinton has “on more than one occasion” had a fainting episode after becoming “severely dehydrated.”

So this HAS happened before – guess that is why the secret service were so well choreographed.

Tags: 9-11, Fainting, Hillary Clinton, Parkinson's., tardive dyskinesia

This is a “populist” election cycle.

Coming on the heels of Brexit and in tandem with many other anti-globalist-cronyism movements, it is a societal reaction that has been building for years (since Bush 2, and definitely since the Tea Party before it was co-opted by the Political Elite). When the elite bend and break the rules to line their pockets, and the masses end up being severely financially impacted in return, then there is going to be a visceral response to those hoarding the nation’s riches and opportunities.

What is amazing is the depth of ignorance (or compliance) in the news media. Take Jonathan Chait at the New York Times, who has been in near constant apocalyptic fit since the “debate” on national security.

His conniption hit a new level with a brilliantly self-projecting article entitled:

Hillary Clinton Is a Flawed But Normal Politician. Why Can’t America See That?

My only quibble with Chait is I would title it:

Hillary Clinton Is a Flawed But Typical Politician. Why Can’t America See That?

My only response is to inform Chait of the blatantly obvious:  Of course we see Clinton as a typical and flawed politician!!

So were the establisment GOP contenders in the primary.  So are all the power brokers in the Political Industrial Complex (PIC). So is the pliant, PIC-suckling news media.

Why do you think Clinton is sinking in the polls during an election cycle where the vast majority of voters on Main Street USA see the country heading in the wrong direction? Does this translate to “more of the same please?”!!

Why would a swath of voters who sees their slice of the American Dream being trampled want more of the same policies from the “globalist” Political Elite sitting behind their gated communities in their posh mansions?

Of course we see her that way. She is simply not what the country wants – nor deserves.

The PIC should realize that when their best argument is “the worst of us is better than anyone from outside the PIC” – they have hit rock bottom.  And it is sooooo obvious!

This election cycle is so amazing one cannot help but think it has been scripted by some invisible, all-powerful, hand. I mean, how could we have two completely opposite candidates, perfectly reflecting the forces at play in this day and age? It truly is a clash between The Elites and The Masses!

Main Street vs Wall & K Street.

The Political Industrial Complex (PIC – a.k.a., The Elites or Political Class) is all up  arms over the outsider barging in on their big con. The PIC is beside itself trying to stop Donald Trump from gaining the Presidency, where he will be able to clean out the People’s House and the bureaucratic cesspool that has shackled Main Street with political correctness, propaganda, impossibly expensive health care, ridiculous taxes and a national debt that will take generations to pay off.

The PIC has run amok long enough – illustrated perfectly by the defect ridden democrat candidate: Hillary Clinton. I mean, how could you frame America’s choices this cycle any better than this!

Back in July, Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “there is absolutely no connection between anything that I did as secretary of state and the Clinton Foundation.”

On Monday of this week, ABC’s Liz Kreutzer reminded people of that statement, as a new batch of emails reveal that there was a connection, and it was cash.

…

The Abedin emails reveal that the longtime Clinton aide apparently served as a conduit between Clinton Foundation donors and Hillary Clinton while Clinton served as secretary of state. In more than a dozen email exchanges, Abedin provided expedited, direct access to Clinton for donors who had contributed from $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In many instances, Clinton Foundation top executive Doug Band, who worked with the Foundation throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure at State, coordinated closely with Abedin. In Abedin’s June deposition to Judicial Watch, she conceded that part of her job at the State Department was taking care of “Clinton family matters.”

This is what has Main Street so fed up with Wall & K street (big business, big government). The Clinton foundation is a cash cow for  Clinton, Inc. So while our taxes go up, our debt sky rockets and our health care becomes too expensive to afford, Clan Clinton has made 100’s of millions of dollars selling access (and obviously doing favors, because no one spends that kind of money without results).

The PIC is circling the wagons with its news media arm shrilly screaming anything and everything about Trump as if they could fool Main Street with their worn out propaganda. I seriously doubt it will work. The Internet has broken the information monopoly that allowed the PIC in the not too distant past to control what people knew and thought.

Now we have cracks in the PIC’s media spin, through which we can see the ugly truth about our modern democracy:

Massachusetts has a long history of using the power of incumbency to cripple political opponents. In fact, it’s a leading state for such partisan gamesmanship. Dating back to 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed into law a redistricting plan for state Senate districts that favored his Democratic-Republican Party, the era of Massachusetts rule rigging began. It has continued, unabated, ever since.

Given the insider dealing and venality that epitomized the 2016 presidential primary process, I’d hoped that politicians would think twice before abusing the power of the state for political purposes. Galvin quickly diminished any such prospect of moderation in the sketchy behavior of elected officials. He hid his actions behind the thin veil of fiscal responsibility. He claimed to be troubled by the additional $56,000 he was going to have to spend printing ballots to accommodate Independent voters. He conveniently ignored the fact that thousands of these UIP members have been paying taxes for decades to support a primary process that excludes them.

…

In my home state of Kansas, where my 2014 candidacy threatened to take a U.S. Senate seat from the Republicans, they responded predictably. Instead of becoming more responsive to voters, our state’s highly partisan secretary of state, Kris Kobach, introduced legislation that would bring back one of the great excesses of machine politics: straight party-line voting – which is designed to discourage voters from considering an Independent candidacy altogether. Kobach’s rationale, like Galvin’s, was laughable. He described it as a “convenience” for voters.

The article goes on to note these acts by the PIC are an affront to the large swath of the electorate who really choose who will win elections:

In a recent Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans said they do not feel well-represented by the Democrats and Republicans and believe a third major party is needed. Fully 42 percent of Americans now describe themselves as politically independent.

That means the two main parties are each smaller in size than the independents (68% divided by 2 equals 34%), which is why independents pick which side will win. If the PIC attacks this group – guess what the response will look like?

I recently had a discussion with someone from Washington State who is pretty much my opposite policy-wise. She is a deep blue democrat voter, whereas I am a deep purple independent who is more small-government Tea Party than conservative-GOP. She was lamenting the fact that her state has caucuses, which is one method to blunt Main Street voters from having a say. It was interesting that we quickly and strongly agreed on one thing above all else: open primaries. We both knew that if the voters had the only say in who are leaders would be, all sides could abide that decision easily. It is when PIC intervenes that things get ugly.

Open primaries make the political parties accountable to the voters. Open primaries make it harder for the PIC to control who gets into office, and reduces the leverage of big donors. Open primaries reflect the will of the states and the nation – not the vested interests (read bank accounts) of the PIC.

That is why you when you hear someone oppose open primaries, it is a clear sign they are from the Political Industrial Complex and not from Main Street. For example:

Without doubt, one of the most troublesome aspects of the current system is its gross inefficiency. Whereas generations ago selecting a nominee took relatively little time and money, today’s process has resulted in a near-permanent campaign. Because would-be nominees have to win primaries and open caucuses in several states, they must put together vast campaign apparatuses that spread across the nation, beginning years in advance and raising tens of millions of dollars.

The length of the campaign alone keeps many potential candidates on the sidelines. In particular, those in positions of leadership at various levels of our government cannot easily put aside their duties and shift into full-time campaign mode for such an extended period.

It is amazing how this kind of thinking can be considered legitimate.  Note how independent voters are evil in the mind of the PIC, and only government leaders need apply. Not surprising, their answer is to control access to the ballot:

During the week of Lincoln’s birthday (February 12), the Republican Party would hold a Republican Nomination Convention that would borrow from the process by which the Constitution was ratified. Delegates to the convention would be selected by rank-and-file Republicans in their local communities, and those chosen delegates would meet, deliberate, and ultimately nominate five people who, if willing, would each be named as one of the party’s officially sanctioned finalists for its presidential nomination. Those five would subsequently debate one another a half-dozen times.

Brexit became a political force because the European Union was not accountable to the voters. The EU members are also selected by members of the European PIC – not citizens of the EU. Without direct accountability to all citizens (a.k.a. – voters) there is no democracy – just a variant of communism:

During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), the Bolsheviks nationalized all productive property and imposed a policy named war communism, which put factories and railroads under strict government control, collected and rationed food, and introduced some bourgeois management of industry. After three years of war and the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion, Lenin declared the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, which was to give a “limited place for a limited time to capitalism.” The NEP lasted until 1928, when Joseph Stalin achieved party leadership, and the introduction of the Five Year Plans spelled the end of it. Following the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks, in 1922, formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or Soviet Union, from the former Russian Empire.

Following Lenin’s democratic centralism, the Leninist parties were organized on a hierarchical basis, with active cells of members as the broad base; they were made up only of elite cadres approved by higher members of the party as being reliable and completely subject to party discipline.

Emphasis mine. Note how communism begins with government control of major industries.  The current con job about Global Warming is the cover-excuse for a government grab of the energy sector.  Obamacare is an attempt to grab the healthcare sector.  And Wall Street already controls the banking sector. See a trend yet?

This is then followed by imposing a rigid hierarchy of “leaders” at all levels of politics – so no opposing views can gain traction. Party discipline uber alles!

Our nation is in the grip of such poisonous thinking. The DNC with its “Super Delegates” already has a way to control who will be their candidate.  In an irony to beat all ironies, the DNC’s Super Delegates were able to stop Bernie Sanders – a socialist/communist – from being their candidate! But the control is still there – just by another name.

The reason Trump is still rising (and I believe will win handily) is he clearly represents the original image of America: a self made success story based on capitalism and the free market.

His opponent is the epitome of the Political Industrial Complex – a cancer that has eaten away America’s free market foundation and core strength. A person who wants to impose government on the individual.

How could the choice be any starker, any clearer?

Tags: 2016 Election, Brexit, Clinton, Trump

Update 10:30 PM Eastern: Unsurprisingly Paul Ryan won his primary. It was a tall order to unseat a Speaker of the House. But as I proposed, the results could be an indicator of the strength of the populist movement and if it was not being measured by the polls.

Unfortunately for Trump supporters (and I are one), the results indicate little to no energy in the WI 1st district for populism over elitism.  With 80% of precincts reporting, Ryan is ahead by 69% points:

Paul Ryan

84.4%

45,034 votes

—

Paul Nehlen

15.6%

8,297 votes

Given the uniqueness of this election cycle with candidate Trump and the populist wave building in many countries of “the west”, it is hard to put much trust in the polls.  This lesson was learned during the Brexit vote in the UK when polls showed the “stay” campaign comfortably ahead on the day of the vote:

The paper ballots were still being counted by hand. Only the British overseas territory of Gibraltar had reported final results. Yet the assumption of a Remain victory filled the room—and depressed my hosts. One important journalist had received a detailed briefing earlier that evening of the results of the government’s exit polling: 57 percent for Remain.

Emphasis mine. Brexit went on to win 52% to 48%.  That is a swing of +14% to -4% on the day of the vote! The polls were off by 18% against the Elites/Globalist who inhabit the European Political Industrial Complex (or PIC). I commented on why the polls were likely to be so far off:

… why would any anti-big-government voter participate in a poll from the PIC? They won’t. So the polls become more and more over sampled by the PIC defenders: an ever shrinking fraction of the voting population.

[Note: Political Industrial Complex (PIC) = all the career politicians, all the career bureaucrats, the sea of career political consultants and career staff, the political donor class and their career lobbyists, and of course the pliant career political news media. The EU is the epitome of the Political Industrial Complex – the apex of bad ideas hoisted upon the masses without thought or responsibility. The “elite” denizens of the PIC live apart from the rest of humanity]

Today we are going to get a clear indication of how deep the ant-elite wave is in America. Paul Ryan, GOP Speaker of the House, is fighting off a primary challenger who has built his “Hail Mary” campaign on the populist movement. How he performs against Ryan is going to be a clear and unambiguous measure of the anti-government movement.

I seriously doubt Ryan will lose. But I also seriously doubt he will win by 60%.  The closer Ryan  gets to 60%, the less likely we have “Brexit In America” and the more likely it is Hillary can pull this election out.  But if Ryan is down near 20% (or worse), then it is more likely Trump will ride a populist wave to victory in November.

This will be a very enlightening evening as the primary results come in.

BTW, turnout seems to be low today, which is probably really bad for Ryan.  We know the populist voters have energy (see Trumps record breaking vote totals in his primaries).  So ambivalence will probably be on the Ryan side.  The lower the turnout, the more likely it is Ryan’s tepid supporters who just failed to be worried about him losing. Paul Nehlen’s supporters – who were all about sending a message to DC – will win the day on the urge to purge DC.

Check back for updates if we detect a hint of Brexit tonight

Tags: 2006 Election, Paul Nehlen, Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Primary

OK, be patient why I delve into my inner geek.

Everyone is proposing those toxic DNC emails that roiled the Democrat National Convention this weekend were hacked by Russia. Which I actually do not doubt.

But please understand, to hack into a system someone needs to be sloppy and “invite” the hackers in! So how is it that HRC emails and DNC emails were both exposed to the voters during this election year?

Well, … let’s begin with Hillary’s “personal” server and known incidents:

Clinton’s server was configured to allow users to connect openly from the Internet and control it remotely using Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Services.^[64]It is known that hackers in Russia were aware of Clinton’s non-public email address as early as 2011.^[71] It is also known that Secretary Clinton and her staff were aware of hacking attempts in 2011, and were worried about them.^[72]

In 2012, according to server records, a hacker in Serbia scanned Clinton’s Chappaqua server at least twice, in August and in December 2012. It was unclear whether the hacker knew the server belonged to Clinton, although it did identify itself as providing email services for clintonemail.com.^[64] During 2014, Clinton’s server was the target of repeated intrusions originating in Germany, China, and South Korea. Threat monitoring software on the server blocked at least five such attempts. The software was installed in October 2013, and for three months prior to that, no such software had been installed.

Now we know for a fact the “personal” side of Clinton’s electronic communication was to pave the way for her second run at the presidential election.  In fact, the server originated in 2008 to support her first run. Clinton would not want “Personal Political” emails to become public – for many reasons! (especially to hide any nexus between Bill’s speaking fees and State Department Policy decisions).

Everyone knows Politicians set up one account for “official business” and one for political business – a separation required by federal law. So if HRC was in communication with politicians and the DNC, it was through her personal server!

Then, there is the straight up admission by the FBI Director that Clinton’s email server was hacked because people in communication with her were hacked as well:

We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

Rooster coming home to roost! I would wager the reason the DNC email server was compromised was due to the lack of security on Clinton’s “personal” (read political) email server. HRC left the IT Security door open and that exposed everyone she was in contact with – government, DNC and friends!

Oh the irony – It Berns!!!

Tags: 2016 Election, DNC emails. Democrat Convention, Email Server, FBI, HRC

I have no idea where the Donald Trump who delivered that excellent convention speech has been hiding out all these months, but I am very glad to see he showed up when he did. His speech capped a great convention – but not in the politically mainstream or politically correct sense of “great”.

The most jarring aspect of the convention was comparing the politician speakers (obviously the GOP selected speakers) against the non-politicians (probably selected by the Trump campaign). It was no contest. The Americans who were not from the Political Industrial Complex (PIC) outperformed across the board. Poor Hillary – I am sure her convention will tow the conventional convention line!

For the denizens of the PIC  the Trump Convention was awkward and different from any convention than they could imagine or desire. One that no sane politically elitist would suffer. Which is why it was so damn good!

Today’s commentary from the News Media wing of the PIC is pathetically predictable:

Trump’s speech proved once again that he would continue to throw out the traditional campaign rulebook that might dictate softer language and broader appeals. Instead, he offered his grim portrait of the country and a law-and-order message in the hope of summoning an army of disaffected and forgotten voters large enough to topple the political status quo in November.

Throughout this election year, it has been evident that the forces of change are in control, which puts Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton at an obvious disadvantage. But with questions about his temperament and readiness to be president, Trump has but one way to win, and that was on display Thursday night.

Sounds good, right? Sounds like Trump hit the nail on the head. But there is always a caveat or some strand of false hope that the PIC reality extends to rest of the country:

His target audience remains white, mostly working-class, Americans bruised by economic change and worried about cultural changes.

Good lord, how can you still believe this (especially since the white “working class” has endured Obama’s economic failures better than many minorities)? There is a reason I stopped watching conventions on cable or prime time, because the talking heads do nothing but translate and spin what is going on for the poor dumb masses.

I watch these unfiltered and in the raw on C-SPAN, and I suggest everyone else do the same. Because if you didn’t watch C-SPAN, you missed this purely white working class speech:

Pastor Mark Burns “burned” down the house! He had the place rocking. He had our family room rocking! And he was not alone – Peter Thiel got a standing ovation.

I see echos of Brexit, where the elites kept claiming the populist message was not resonating, how could anyone put their livelihood above such glorious endeavors things such as “globalization”!

Look, the dynamics are not that hard to figure out. Those who have done all the sacrificing – blue collar workers whose jobs went overseas, minorities fighting for ever shrinking jobs with illegal immigrants, small family businesses fighting mega-companies, just about all average Americans – are done sacrificing. They are going to send into DC an outsider to change the direction of this country and call on the PIC to begin sacrificing for once.

The Political Industrial Complex encompasses all those elites whose livelihoods are predicated on central-control of resources and who determine who is allowed to succeed in society. It is a bipartisan exclusive club. It includes the Politicians and their career staffers. It includes crony donors and lobbyists who reap government windfalls and special treatment that average citizens cannot obtain. It includes the PIC industrial base of pollsters, consultants, etc. And it includes the pliant news media, whose success rest on access to those in power, and in return for access making sure no bad news will disrupt said power.

And it is their turn to sacrifice their cushy, crony-built livelihoods so the rest of this country can get their fair share of the American Dream!

Tags: 2016 Election, GOP Convention, Trump

Last night Ted Cruz exposed the Political Industrial Complex (PIC) in all its arrogant and self-centered glory. He is the next (but not the last) of a long line the GOP-algned members of the PIC to confirm why Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump are necessary and legitimate grass root movements.

As a reminder, the Political Industrial Complex encompasses all those elites whose livelihoods are predicated on central-control of resources and who determine who is allowed to succeed in society. It is a bipartisan exclusive club. It includes the Politicians and their career staffers. It includes crony donors and lobbyists who reap government windfalls and special treatment that average citizens cannot obtain. It includes the PIC industrial base of pollsters, consultants, etc. And it includes the pliant news media, whose success rest on access to those in power, and in return for access making sure no bad news will disrupt said power. It is sect of society just as insidious as the  Military Industrial Complex, from which I derived the label:

The military–industrial complex (MIC) is an informal alliance between a nation’s military and the defense industry which supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy.

Established to funnel funds to the crony defense industry, the MIC simply exploits the PICs power via taxpayer money and skewed laws to funnel that money. The PIC has no power if it cannot reap financial reward from redistribution of tax payer money.  Just look at how the Clinton’s used the Office of Secretary of State to grow wealthy:

At least two dozen different companies, groups or foreign governments paid former President Bill Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees at the same time that they had issues pending with the State Department that was being run by his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, alleges a new report this week.

More than $8 million was eventually paid out to the former president – and 15 of the organizations also donated as much as $15 million to the family’s charity, The Clinton Foundation, according to the report published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.

These people you see on TV this week at the convention – with the exception of the the Trumps and those business owners who spoke on behalf of Donald Trump – are all part of the PIC. The talking head media especially is in the tank for the PIC, as can be seen by their rabid attacks on the Trumps and those average Americans speaking at the convention:

CNN Pundit Equates Hillary to Jesus, Christie’s Speech ‘Was Everything Except Crucify Her’

Chris Matthews: ‘Bloodthirsty’ GOP Delegates Ready to ‘Kill’ Clinton?

ABC, MSNBC Denounce Christie as ‘Inciting’ a ‘Mob,’ Pushing a ‘Banana Republic’

Film Critic Called GOP Convention the ‘World’s Largest Lynch Mob’

This is the news media protecting its gravy train – plain and simple.

So back to Cruz – who is a creature of the PIC and is as afraid of Trump’s grass roots forces as much as any other insulated member of the PIC.  What Cruz did, in withholding his support of Trump, is join the line of GOP-leaning PIC members who are actually trying to circle their wagons to protect themselves from THE VOTERS!

The #NeverTrump movement was all about one thing – overturning the primary election results. It was all about negating not just the votes of the Trump supporters, but all the volunteered hours they put in to bring this phenomena to fruition. Cruz was the last ditch option of the GOP-aligned PIC. They tried Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco (Marco, Marco, Marco) Rubio, and others to derail the grass roots.

It is no coincidence that outsiders such as Herman Cain and Ben Carson have been pushed out of races by the PIC-aligned news media. The PIC cannot afford outsiders who will disrupt the flow of wealth.

But make no mistake, this realignment began in 2010 with the Tea Party turning the tides on establishment candidates. Surprisingly, those grass root outsiders are now the insiders fighting Trump and his broader coalition of voters (Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to name two). It does seem that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And quickly in DC. I was born inside the beltway and grew up and raised our family just outside. I know DC, and I know what it does to people.

It makes their careers dependent on towing the line. A great example of an average good person being consumed by the PIC is Vince Foster.

Hillary Clinton relentlessly browbeat her clinically depressed former law partner Vince Foster shortly before he committed suicide in 1993, according to notes from a final jailhouse interview with a former close business partner of the Clintons.

Jim McDougal, a long-time member of the Clintons’ Arkansas inner circle and a central figure in the Whitewater scandal, passed away from a heart attack in prison in 1998. But he said in a final interview before his death that Hillary Clinton had a “hard, difficult personality” and was “riding [Vince Foster] every minute” about Whitewater before Foster took his own life.

The leaders of the PIC are very aggressive. They will do things most people would not think about doing to gain power and prestige. Which is why the PIC is circling the wagons and trying to mute and control the voters. They will be working to control who can be a viable candidate. They will be putting in stops and checks to thwart voters – for “convenience” of course:

Without doubt, one of the most troublesome aspects of the current system is its gross inefficiency. Whereas generations ago selecting a nominee took relatively little time and money, today’s process has resulted in a near-permanent campaign. Because would-be nominees have to win primaries and open caucuses in several states, they must put together vast campaign apparatuses that spread across the nation, beginning years in advance and raising tens of millions of dollars.

The length of the campaign alone keeps many potential candidates on the sidelines. In particular, those in positions of leadership at various levels of our government cannot easily put aside their duties and shift into full-time campaign mode for such an extended period.

….

Though the reforms of the nominating process that began in the 1960s and ’70s were intended to better represent the will of the voting public, the result has been a system that does not reflect the interests and values of the nationwide Republican electorate at all. Instead, inordinate amounts of power are held by a handful of groups that do not represent the broader party or its interests.

Emphasis mine. I was dumbfounded the by the string of “logic” in this argument. It sounded straight out of the European Union (where they have eliminated the role of the citizen voters all together). So, it is hard (weep, weep,, wah, wah) to gain the support of the voters in enough states to win primaries and caucuses. This is especially hard on government leaders!!

Like non-government leaders don’t have to sacrifice to win an election? What a bunch of PIC-centric crap.

And wait to you hear the solution!

During the week of Lincoln’s birthday (February 12), the Republican Party would hold a Republican Nomination Convention that would borrow from the process by which the Constitution was ratified. Delegates to the convention would be selected by rank-and-file Republicans in their local communities, and those chosen delegates would meet, deliberate, and ultimately nominate five people who, if willing, would each be named as one of the party’s officially sanctioned finalists for its presidential nomination. Those five would subsequently debate one another a half-dozen times.

Bottom line – remove the voters who may just not agree with the party apparatchik.

This solution – couched in claims of efficiency, purity of GOP doctrine and bizarrely accountability to the “voters” – is a path to a new form of communism. When the PIC down selects for us  all we will get is PIC-approved (donor funded) Manchurian candidates.

Charles Lipson said it well today:

For years, rank-and-file Republicans had been sending the same message, and their leaders have refused to listen. This year, the voters pounded their fists and said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Their message: The GOP’s elected leaders had failed in their core obligations. They had been elected to staunch the progressive tide of Washington centralization, Big Government legislation, and endless regulation by faceless bureaucrats.

They had not just failed. They had hardly tried. When big bureaucracies broke the laws or botched their responsibilities, they escaped the consequences. That was true for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service, Government Services Administration, and many others. After some theatrical congressional hearings, there were few punishments, fewer firings, and no budget reductions—this by a Republican Congress. The predictable result is a bloated, unaccountable, incompetent government slipping away from its constitutional moorings.

We don’t need to reform the primaries – we need to reform the entire PIC.

Trump has shaken the GOP-aligned PIC to its core. So badly the insulated denizens have openly called for MORE insulation – from the voters. If you want a sign Trump is the person to shake up Washington and break the elites’ hold on our country – just keep watching how various elements of the PIC  react. Watch how news media, Supreme Court Justices, pols like Romney/Bush/Cruz and now the punditry all are thinking of ways to remove the voters from the equation.

Trump must be doing something right – or is planning on it. And remember, those in the PIC standing beside Trump now are a mixed bag. Some agree completely with him (Christie, Guilani, Gingrich, etc), and some are just positioning themselves to survive (Ryan).  We will find out who is who very soon.

Tags: 2016 Election, Brexit, Convention, Cruz, European Union, Political Indu, Trummp

 

First off, my prayers go out to all those families who lost loved ones, or who have loved ones fighting to survive.  I wish there was more I could do or say to help you in these dark days.

But I do have something I want to say to everyone else.

Very few of us can grasp what kind of evil can entice someone to drive through a crowded street and kill innocent people – including too many children – all  in the name of “Allah“. But the source of this evil is not western civilization, white racists, national pride, strong border advocates, the police, Trump supporters, Brexit voters or Islamophobia.

The evil that plowed a 20+ ton truck through crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in France was not born from the regular straw-men of America’s Liberals and Democrats. It was born in the radical mosques of a religion being torn apart by forces no one can seem to satiate. The blood lust is now too deep, the cancer of violence now spreading faster in Islam. The excuses used to cover this fact up are becoming thin and tattered with over use.

The truth is, if there is a well-spring for this evil, it may lay at the feet of “globalization”.

The one thing Islamo Fascism seems to be clear about is it does not want the western world’s norms impinging on Muslim orthodoxy – as backwards and racist and sexist as it may be at times. Strict Islamic teachings are at odds with modern western culture – plain and simple. When the two mix it produces explosive and bloody results.

Just look at the emotional and religious forces at play with the Orlando killings.

Strict Islam may not be able to coexist side-by-side with western liberal norms. This is something the Political Industrial Complex (those gated community “elites” who have been lining their pockets while experimenting on the rest of us) may not understand, or may refuse to understand if it gets in the way of their plans and treasures. But it is something everyone should consider.

Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump are just two different forms of social antibodies rising up against the elites and their mad schemes. It may be the case that all parties involved are not interested in intimate cohabitation – at this time. I am not saying this will be  the case forever, but why not take a breather? It may be premature to force strict Islam and modern western societies to try and exist side-by-side, day-to-day. The coexistence may have to happen naturally, over time.

The Democrats in America don’t seem to be patient on this topic. They won’t face up to their errors in judgement and strategy. Instead they plan to spread the rising tensions to every corner of this nation, just as the elites did in the EU with such success:

Between 2001 and 2013, the U.S. permanently resettled 1.5 million Muslim migrants on green cards. However, under Hillary Clinton’s stated proposals, Muslim immigration would grow substantially faster, adding nearly one million Muslim migrants to the U.S. during her first term alone.

Based on the most recent available DHS data, the U.S. permanently resettled roughly 149,000 migrants from predominantly Muslim countries on green cards in 2014. Yet Clinton has said that, as President, she would expand Muslim migration by importing an additional 65,000 Syrian refugees into the United States during the course of a single fiscal year. Clinton has made no indication that she would limit her proposed Syrian refugee program to one year.

Hillary is heading for a historic defeat this election year. She represents the worn out “elite” mindset and arrogance. The same mindset that insults those who dissent with elite concepts, since rational debate is beyond their intellectual reach. She does not get it, nor does the Political Industrial Complex.  Their mistakes are legend (health care, education, infrastructure, good jobs, expanding economy, religious tolerance, national security, etc), their pathetic results clear. The violence between the west and strict Islam is just one more miscalculation.

The voters have had enough. Time to clean house and shrink government down to the bare essentials. Which includes suspending the forced merging of cultures.

Don’t think this is possible? Think again:

Both the GWPF and its chairman, Lord Lawson, have been calling for this much-needed rationalisation for several years.

As the new government under Theresa May focuses on the much more important issues of economic growth, international competitiveness and leaving the European Union, the decision will provide vital savings. It is hoped that the abolition of DECC will also encourage a new emphasis on cost-effective policy-making.

“Moving energy policy to the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should give ministers a fresh impetus to ensure that the costs for consumers and businesses are driven down, not pushed further up,” said GWPF director Dr Benny Peiser.

This move in the UK pretty much tanked the green insanity there and should kill off the now-debunked idea that “man made CO2” is poisoning the Earth. Don’t over react on this statement – humanity has poisoned the Earth – and still does in developing areas. CO2 is just not the primary culprit Green ‘science’ cooked it up to be (so they could siphon off more of humanity’s hard earned money and fatten the lining of their pockets). There are serious air and water issues that need addressing. Fighting CO2 is a waste of funds better spent on real problems.

Wouldn’t it be great to see these “rationalisations” come to America? Wouldn’t it make sense to  close our open borders and go back to controlled immigration? At a minimum we need to take a multi-year breather and see where we are.

And maybe it is not a great idea to bring two so diametrically opposing cultures so close together that they have to either surrender their beliefs or destroy each other? Of course, the Muslims who thrive in Western Societies are welcomed. This discussion is nuanced and focused. It is not a generalization on Islam.

We need to always remember that there is a broad spectrum of Islamic belief. But that end of the spectrum that condones and cheers acts like we saw in France does not seem to be capable of global integration – at this time.

Tags: Bastille Day, ISIS, Massacre, Nice France

If you think the whole matter of Hillary’s email abuse – and hiding her records from public view – was staged you are probably  brighter than the average “Political Elite”.  Or at least much brighter than those “Elites” would give you credit at being.

Today’s headlines echo the same talking point language President Obama uttered 2 years ago on this matter – proof positive this is all scripted and a coordinated maneuver by the Political Elite to protect Hillary:

By Reena Flores CBS News April 10, 2016, 10:04 AM

President Obama acknowledged in a new interview that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton had shown a degree of “carelessness” in managing her emails while heading the State Department.

“I continue to believe that she has not jeopardized America’s national security,” the president told Fox News Sunday in an interview. But, he added, “what I’ve also said is that — and she has acknowledged — that there’s a carelessness, in terms of managing e-mails, that she has owned, and she recognizes.”

Tags: Clinton, Email, FBI, Lynch, Obama