It's Because She Is Spectacularly Corrupt

"Why do people hate Hillary so much?" asks a writer at the Sacramento Bee. He answers: gotta be misogyny.

I wrote about sexism and Clinton back during the 2008 primary, when she was facing some pretty nasty coded attacks from the Obama campaign. At the time, I was trying to be very careful to criticize her policy positions without saying things that would be generally offensive to women.

Yet when I think about why Clinton herself is so particularly offensive, it is a fact about her that the author of this latest piece seems simply to ignore: her and her husband's spectacular corruption. They have vastly enriched themselves through a set of "speaking fees" given by corporations, banks, and governments who either had business before Secretary Clinton or expect to have business before President Clinton. When I say "vastly enriched," I mean that the amount of money is truly incredible.

Mandatory financial disclosures released this month show that, in just the two years from April 2013 to March 2015, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state collected $21,667,000 in “speaking fees,” not to mention the cool $5 mil she corralled as an advance for her 2014 flop book, “Hard Choices.”

Throw in the additional $26,630,000 her ex-president husband hoovered up in personal-appearance “honoraria"...

Bill Clinton's totals since leaving office, just for speaking fees, are over a hundred million dollars according to the first of the two sources I just cited. Much of that money, as much as three-quarters of a million dollars for a speech, came from foreign governments and corporations while his wife was Secretary of State.

She is a corrupting influence, too. Her presidential ambitions stand on the concept that the Department of Justice won't accept an FBI recommendation that it indict her for her numerous and manifest violations of the law. And, indeed, it seems likely that they won't -- top Justice Department officials have invested $75,000 in her career by donating to her political campaign this year. What do you suppose those officials expect to receive if President Clinton is elected? High public postings, obviously, from which they will more than recoup their donations. They'll have earned it, not so much for the cash donation as for the 'payment in kind' they will have provided if they succeed in blocking her indictment.

Is there some lurking sexism in the depths of my subconscious that allows me to look on the Clintons with horror while ignoring similar transgressions from others? I don't know -- is there anyone else in government who has personally profited to this degree off the sale of their use of the American office with which they were entrusted? How can we compare such peerless individuals as these two?

UPDATE: David Brooks says it's because she works too darn hard. Maybe she needs better creases on her pants, too.

Clarence Thomas Is The Only One Thinking Clearly

In a seven-to-one ruling, the US Supreme Court threw out a Georgia State Supreme Court ruling and granted a new trial to a black man convicted by a jury that prosecutors had carefully constructed as all-white. The sole dissenting voice was Clarence Thomas.

You can imagine the hateful rhetoric that is being poured on his head this afternoon. However, if you follow the link above you can read his dissent. The media reports I read before I found a link to the actual ruling suggested that Thomas sets a ridiculously high bar before he will accept that race has anything to do with a conviction. The argument actually goes something like this:

1) Our laws say that Federal courts should only overturn state courts where there is a clear Federal law issue.

2) The argument being forwarded by the majority is that the racial bias in jury selection is a Federal issue that gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction.

3) That is only true if there is some reason to think Georgia's courts didn't adequately address the issues of bias in their own consideration of this case.

4) Georgia's State Supreme Court ruled that this jury construction didn't plausibly affect the outcome of this case.

5) They're almost certainly right about that, because the murderer confessed to the murder, as well as to sexually violating his victim before killing her.

Thomas may be the only one thinking clearly about the issues of race in this case. Everyone else is blinded by the fear that America's original sin, racism, may have been a factor in the prosecution's conduct. Thomas is calmly pointing out that there's little doubt that nearly any jury would have convicted him and sentenced him to death.

More to the point, he's right that -- given the facts of the case -- death is the correct penalty for this murderer. The Court is merely delaying the application of justice. They are doing so, as he says, without adequately grappling with the question of whether or not they have any legitimate authority to interfere.

Ten Bikers Suing Waco in Federal Court

I'd expect a lot more of them to file suit if these cases work out, but these do sound like plausible test cases.

The suit, filed by Dallas attorney Don Tittle, alleges unlawful arrest and due process violations and alleges the plaintiffs were arrested with no evidence that they committed any crimes or had any ties to warring biker groups the Bandidos or the Cossacks.

Matcek and Smith are identified in the lawsuit as members of the Line Riders Motorcycle Club, which the suit says has no affiliation with either the Bandidos or Cossacks. Matcek, according to the lawsuit, was running late and was not even at Twin Peaks at the eruption of the firefight, which left nine bikers dead and more than 20 wounded.

Once he arrived, Waco police allowed Matcek, Terwilliger and Smith to take one of their wounded friends to the hospital, the suit says....

The violence resulted in the arrests of 192 bikers — including 15 who later were named in sealed indictments because they were injured and not arrested May 17, 2015 — and the indictments of 154, all on identical first-degree felony engaging in organized criminal activity charges.

Matcek is apparently also a member of BACA, which is a noble organization.



I have a feeling Waco is going to end up paying through the nose for its handling of this matter.

A Third Possibility

Vox considers two options for why Donald Trump is now ahead in the polls:

1) It's just a blip because he's locked up his contest and she's still fighting Bernie.

2) It heralds a "nail-bitingly close" election.

Here's a third possibility you haven't considered: maybe she'll perform exactly the way she's performed against every other opponent, and lose ground in the polls more the longer the contest goes on. Clinton was way ahead of Sanders... but has lost ground steadily against him. She was way ahead of Obama in 2008... but lost ground steadily against him. Now that people are thinking in terms of Trump and Clinton, she's fading against him like she fades against everyone.

He's just now starting to turn his guns on her. By November, this may not be close at all.

How is this a paradox?

I saw this today in an article talking about difficult paradoxes.  But I cannot see how this is difficult to grasp.

This statement is, by definition, false.  Either he has told a truth at some point in the past, or he is telling the truth now.  That does not make this statement a lie, merely false (and provably so).  Lies may be true (if I say I have a million dollars when I believe I do not, but upon checking my bank account find that I have won the lottery at some point prior to making the statement unbeknownst to me, then the lie I believed I was telling was in fact a true statement; it does not change the fact that I was lying at the time I spoke it), and truthful statements may be false (again, if I say I have a million dollars, but find out later that at the time I spoke that my wife had spent it all prior to my making the statement, then it is a false statement, but one I did not lie about).  I suppose the problem comes from language not being a logical construct where lies must always be false and truthful statements must always be true.

Um, Pope Francis...

Wasn't I just saying something about feel-good Hippie nonsense in the Catholic Church?

– The fear of accepting migrants is partly based on a fear of Islam. In your view, is the fear that this religion sparks in Europe justified?

Pope Francis: Today, I don’t think that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.

In the face of Islamic terrorism, it would therefore be better to question ourselves about the way in an overly Western model of democracy has been exported to countries such as Iraq, where a strong government previously existed. Or in Libya, where a tribal structure exists. We cannot advance without taking these cultures into account. As a Libyan said recently, “We used to have one Gaddafi, now we have fifty.”

Saddam's was "a strong government"? I suppose, if the mark of a strong government is widespread torture, murder, ethnic cleansing, and the terror of the mukhabarat. East Germany was a strong government by these standards.

Perhaps we should be grateful to hear a Western leader say "It is true that conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam." Also, I understand that the Pope is making nice with Islam because he's trying to forestall the murder of Christians in the Middle East. Still, if it's strange to be unable to distinguish between "a strong government" and a murderous tyranny, it's far stranger to hear the leader of the Catholic Church elide jihad and Jesus. This is "the same idea of conquest"? The very same idea? Are we sure it's even a very similar idea?

Christianity and Islam both have a universal mission. That seems to me to be the end of the similarity of their ideas about conquest.

"The Miscarriage of Justice Department"

A Federal judge grows irritated. Sadly, this is not an isolated issue, but the standard practice of the Obama-era Justice Department. Indeed, it's of a piece with the conduct of many other Obama-era departments.

Valheim Hof

A new temple to Odin has been opened in Denmark, for the first time in nearly a thousand years.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a Greek neopagan about a festival she attended recently. They apparently elected to "reimagine" the blood sacrifice, instead buying snacks from a local grocery. I found that vastly amusing, as the whole point of the particular ritual they were trying to revive was the blood magic. Apparently the danger of the basic tenets of the faith being overwhelmed by feel-good Hippie sentimentalism is not limited to the Catholic Church.

To the credit of these Odhinnic pagans, they did not omit the blood.

R.I.P. Logic Tobola II (FAIA)

I got to walk around in our new church building this week, the concrete having been poured and made it easier to approach without making the workers too nervous.  Every space, every transition between spaces, made me happy.  I felt I was in the hands of a talented designer.  What I didn't realize is that the architect, Logic Tobola, had just died, or was just dying, of cancer.  I can't find his obit up on the net yet, but here is a link to an article about a mobile church he designed for the Episcopal Church in Texas, and here are updated snapshots of our new church.  We'll be moving in sometime in July; for the first time I feel it will be an improvement over the charming existing building.

I'm sorry Mr. Tobola won't get to see the finished church, but he did get to tour the construction site a month or so, already in a wheelchair.  He loved his work and his church.

A Distinct Honor

There's a piece in Vox today about the firing of a Bernie Sanders supporter for using harsh language. That's to one side. What I want to draw your attention to is how the author describes the affair.

On one level, this Bruenighazi is exactly what it seems to be, a matter of considerable importance to one family's finances but essentially a tempest in a teapot — a series of personal spats boiling over out of control.

Bruenighazi.

Every President since Nixon has had their scandals reported as 'something-gate,' because the Watergate scandal set the standard for Presidential scandals. Clinton has had her share of those these 25 years: Travelgate, Filegate, Emaigate, etc. No more. Now all the scandals attached to her can be called "something-ghazi."

What that means is that Hillary Clinton would be the first President since Nixon to inspire her own scandal-naming convention.

Before even taking office.

That's a real accomplishment.

Life Ain't Fair

"The most outlaw thing that a man today can do is give a woman a ring ..."

Cherohala Wedding

My youngest cousin from the generation after mine married this weekend, which occasioned a ride up to the Tennessee River. I brought a tailored suit, a gambler's vest, and black cowboy boots. Turns out I could have swapped out the suit for Wrangler jeans.  The groom's wedding party wore boots and jeans, and the ladies all wore boots and dresses.

I should have asked.  On the upside the wife said I was the best looking man at the wedding.  Of course, she might be prejudiced.

The wedding venue, overlooking the mighty Tennessee.

Yeah, he was married in a barn.

The Cherohala Skyway on the ride home.

"A Branch of May."

The Absence of the Gulag is Not Negligible

Another good post from Wretchard.

Cass mentioned the other day that she thinks I'm sympathetic to Sanders. I guess, in a way: I'm not a socialist, and very much not one. On the other hand, he strikes me as basically honest. Being honestly wrong is not as good as being honestly right, especially if you are honestly wrong after a lifetime long enough to have learned better. But the honesty really does matter. My real candidate in this election, Jim Webb, was manifestly warm to him in the Democratic debate. "I don't think the revolution's going to come," Webb said, but he said it to a man he clearly regarded kindly after their interactions in the Senate.

When Wretchard says that the magic of Bernie Sanders is that he might really have illusions, there's something to that. When he talks about the Servile State, and the alliance of the establishments of both parties with this sort of crony capitalism, we know just what he means.

There are not only no perfect choices left, there are no good choices. There is a least worst. No matter what happens in November, at this point, we need to gird ourselves to be in the opposition for another long four years.

UPDATE:  EU Court Outlaws Criticism of EU.

THE European Court of Justice ruled yesterday that the European Union can lawfully suppress political criticism of its institutions and of leading figures, sweeping aside English Common Law and 50 years of European precedents on civil liberties.

The law is an ass, and this is a beautiful illustration of why political violence can be eminently justified. For "English Common Law was swept aside," read, "Sweeping Aside the Constitution." It's a violation on a similar scale. If that vacant SCOTUS seat goes left, 'the law' will mostly be a similar exercise in power. That's how close to the edge we are: one seat, already vacant.

Venn Diagrams

Oh, my goodness.

Friday Night AMV

Girls. Guns. Oh wait. Magical girls with magical guns.

Gotta work on that aiming though.

Life in the Bubble

Don't Congressfolk get out and talk to their constituents sometimes? Ever?

“It was a scary situation,” said Boxer, a Clinton supporter. “It was frightening. I was on the stage. People were six feet away from me. If I didn’t have a lot of security, I don’t know what would have happened.”

How is it that, representing a state as large as yours in a country as diverse as this, you're so unused to being six feet away from people who disagree with you? Why do you feel you need 'a lot of security' to be close to the people you undertake to represent? Could it be that you aren't really representing them?

Sanders Calls for FOX News Debate before California

“This is the worst-case scenario and the one people feared the most,” said one Clinton ally and former Clinton aide.

“Unfortunately, he’s choosing the path of burning down the house,” the ally said. “He continues with character attacks against Hillary. He continues with calling the Democratic Party corrupt and he not only risks damaging Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party but he's currently doing it."

Clinton allies say Sanders is only piling on by insisting that Clinton join him for a debate ahead of California's primary on June 7. The debate would be aired on Fox News, a network Clinton supporters see as fanning the flames between Sanders supporters and the former secretary of State.

I'd love to see FOX News moderators get ahold of both of these candidates. But I can imagine the questions for Clinton:

1) "We've all seen the news reports of the intensity of the FBI investigation into your mishandling of classified information. Some statements claim that they can't prove intent, but there is no need to prove intent under the law. How much longer do you think you can stay out of jail?"

2) "It's great you mention that, because the happier wing of stories about this are coming out of Justice Department leaks. Now it's a matter of record that high ranking Justice Department officials have donated $75,000 to your campaign this cycle, which represents a substantial investment in you. Isn't this proof of the corruption in the leadership of the Democratic Party that Senator Sanders is alleging, and will you call for an independent prosecutor to resolve all questions about your conduct once and for all?"

Yellowstone Grizzlies

Last year I had a chance to see a grizzly bear in Yellowstone. What amazing (and of course quite deadly) animals they are. There are now approximately 700 of them in the park, and that is causing the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider de-listing them as endangered.

Maintaining the health and natural beauty of America's National Parks is one of those few issues I think we should consider amending the Constitution to give the Federal Government power to do. In general I would like to see the 10th Amendment strictly enforced, but America's National Parks are genuine treasures. That includes the wildlife, especially the megafauna. On a 50 mile hike last year in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, on the other side of the country, I had a chance to see all the major species up close and in person: elk, black bear, wild boar, and deer. In Yellowstone, I saw many black bear, the grizzly, and bison. In the Tetons, I saw many more bison, pronghorn, more elk -- a small but significant sense of what this magnificent continent was like when we first encountered it.

So, small government guy that I am, here's one exception where I would consider "new" Federal power -- I mean licensing the power they've already seized for themselves, of course. Our National Parks is one area where the Federal government does a good job that is good for all of us.

Not Quite The Intended Effect

I'm on a bunch of political mailing lists. MoveOn just sent out an email titled, "This man is obstructing the President."

Naturally, I thought immediately of sending whoever it was a nice letter. It turns out the man is Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is problem #1 for getting Obama's SCOTUS nominee approved.

That wasn't a hugely urgent Democratic objective before yesterday's poll showing Trump in the lead in the general, I notice. Indeed, I haven't heard about this issue in a while.

Anyway, if you'd like to send Chuck a nice letter, you can reach him through his webpage.

UPDATE: Make that two polls with Trump out front.

Left v. Left

Slightly left Brookings Institute fellow Robert Kagan: Trump is how fascism comes to America.

Quite left outlet Vox: Nope, you're wrong.

Trump is a much better candidate for a democratic demagogue a la classical Greek thought (which Kagan knows enough about to mention). That's dangerous enough without needing to invoke a more-famously bad model that doesn't really fit.