Quick Hits, September 8, 2016

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Joe Benning

Speaking the Truth

When politicians start talking about speaking the truth, inevitably a whopper is just around the corner. Enter Mike Pence, Indiana Governor and Republican VP nominee.

 

In an address at the Reagan Library, Pence reportedly said: “Ronald Reagan spoke the truth to the American people, just like Donald Trump has.” In fairness, Pence may not have been lying; he may be as clueless as his boss is. Stay tuned.

 

No discussion about politicians speaking the truth would be complete without a mention of…Hillary Clinton. Remember the bit about carrying one Blackberry around for convenience purposes? It turns out that she had no less than 13 devices. And when it came to deleting the “yoga routines” supposedly on the devices, staff members took hammers to some of them.

 

A Big Libertarian Gaffe

 

Gary Johnson didn’t do himself any favors when he appeared on Morning Joe and it was clear that he didn’t know that Aleppo is the epicenter of the Syrian Civil War. At the very least it seems to confirm suspicions of many that Libertarians are not truly serious about foreign policy.

See the Clip from Morning Joe below.

 

Hillary Clinton Obstructs Justice. Again. 

 

On September 20, 2012, shortly after the terror attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security sent then Secretary of State Clinton a request for any and all documents relevant to the attack. Additional document requests went out in August 2013 and May 2014.

 

On March 3, 2015, after the news broke that Clinton had a private server, the House Select Committee on Benghazi sent a request to Clinton and her lawyer, David Kendall, asking Kendall to “prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, or mutation of electronic records.” Then on March 4, 2015 the Committee sent a subpoena to Clinton for “all records in unredacted acted form” related to Benghazi for all of 2011 and 2012.

 

According to the FBI, on March 25, 2015, the firm responsible for managing her private server (Platte River Networks), had a conference call with Clinton’s staff, after which Platte River Networks deleted Clintons e-mail archives using a software program called BleachBit.

 

Destroying evidence that has been subpoenaed is obstruction of justice. Even James Comey should be able to figure that out.

 

More details can be found in a story by Deroy Murdoch. And this story about the time line by Andrew McCarthy should not be missed.

 

JFB

 

 

 

 

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Hillary Clinton: Pharmacist-in-Chief

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Joe Benning

It is a rare day when Hillary Clinton has not provided convincing evidence that she is unsuited for the White House. Friday she did not disappoint. The occasion was Mrs. Clinton’s decision to weigh in on the faux crisis stirred up over the pricing of EpiPens. Apparently, Mrs. Clinton was so exercised that she courageously performed a ritual denunciation “[calling] out drug companies for outrageous and unjustified pricing practices”. See her website.

 

As usual, Mrs. Clinton has a “plan” to deal with the situation. This one, outlined on her web site, is a treasure trove of progressive ignorance in which more bureaucracy saves the day. The plan would establish a consumer oversight panel “charged with protecting consumers from outlier price increases.” It would determine these “unjustified, outlier price increase[s]” based on (1) the trajectory of the price increase, (2) the cost of production, and (3) the relative value to patients.

 

Needless to say, the all-knowing panel would be staffed and advised by agency “experts” and consumer groups.

 

After fact-finding we go on to the enforcement phase. Here below are three “enforcement tools” emphasized in the Clinton plan.

 

  • Making alternatives available and increasing competition
  • Emergency importation of safe treatments
  • Penalties for “unjustified price increases”

 

Let’s take them one at a time. And just for laughs, let’s pretend that the people who proved to be utterly incapable of launching the Obamacare website on time for a mere $600 million can figure out drug production costs at the drop of a hat in order to deal with some drug price “emergency”. And let’s not forget they are going to find “relative value to patients” presumably after they figure out what that is supposed to mean.

So here we go.

Enforcement Measure 1: Making alternatives available and increasing competition.

 

Anyone who has taken freshman economics (and passed) is well aware that vigorous competition and attendant substitution effects are among the default assumptions of market economies. But vigorous competition depends, in part, on easy entry and exit into the market. That can be problematic in the U.S. because there is a bottleneck otherwise known as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

The FDA presents a number of problems. First, it is notoriously slow when it comes to approving new drugs and generics, thus restricting competition and raising costs. Second, the FDA like all government agencies is subject to regulatory capture. Why should we assume that Hillary Clinton’s committee of “experts” would not be subject to the same phenomenon? It should be obvious that the FDA and similar agencies are not the solution—they are the problem.

 

Measure 2: Emergency Importation of Safe Treatments

 

Once again we have what should be a normal market process being treated as an “Emergency” measure. Why shouldn’t safe treatments be traded across borders as a matter of routine? Well for one, see regulatory capture in the preceding paragraph. The reason why drug importation is not routine is because government restricts it. And at the very least, pharmaceutical companies cheer the restrictions on because the effect is to reduce supply and increase prices.

 

For classical liberals, Free Trade across borders is a norm of free markets. Not so for restrictionists like Mrs. Clinton. They assert that trade is at best a zero-sum if not a minus-sum game, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. And so they restrict trade, tax consumers and protect favored constituencies. This holds true whether the product is autos or drugs. Mrs. Clinton’s way of thinking is the problem, not the solution.

 

Measure 3: Penalties for “unjustified” price increases.

 

This is Mrs. Clinton’s de facto price control board. Price controls of this type represent the most effective way to create product shortages and price spikes. In the process it discourages innovation and leads to thriving black markets. Anyone who doubts this should have a wonderful time living in Venezuela.

 

As Monty Python used to say: And now for something completely different. The enforcement measures discussed above are part of a much broader plan of breathtaking absurdity. Here I quote verbatim a sentence (actually a paragraph heading) from the plan that is in bold on the website. Because it is in bold I assume that the authors are quite proud of it and want to emphasize it. Ready? Here we go:

 

Require drug companies that benefit from taxpayers’ support to invest in research, not marketing or profits.

 

For its sheer lunacy, this one is truly for the record books. Hillary Clinton wants to prohibit drug companies from investing with the aim of making a profit. For the record let’s note the disclaimer that the prohibition applies only to drug companies that “benefit from taxpayer support”. Let’s also note that broadly speaking, the definition applies to 100% of drug companies.

 

Let’s consider for a moment why drug companies even exist. It is to make profits (technically to seek returns on invested capital). Let’s consider why drug companies engage in research. It is to develop drugs that they can sell and thereby earn profits (returns) from doing so.

 

Hillary Clinton, in the words of Barrack Obama, the most qualified person to seek the job, hasn’t quite figured this out yet.

 

So let’s sum up. Among the reasons why Hillary Clinton should be President is that she has a plan to “fix” the drug pricing “problem”. The solution is to restrict market entry, engage in free trade during emergencies only, institute a de facto price controls board, and put drug companies out of business.

 

Problem solved.

 

JFB

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Corruption and the House of Clinton

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Joe Benning

Corruption at the House of Clinton is not just about mere appearance. Corruption is vital to its existence, just as it was to Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. That is why corruption trails the Clintons wherever they go. It is part of the deal. And, like Tammany Hall before them, the Clintons leave behind damaged institutions that are vital to good governance.

 

The latest scandal that swirls around Hillary Clinton’s private email server is instructive. It provides a clear picture of what is now the institutionalization of corruption through an organization that purports to have been created to perform charitable works. And to be sure, the Clinton Foundation does do commendable work. But that charitable work also provides cover for the heart of what the Clinton Foundation is all about.

 

The Clinton Foundation

The Clinton Foundation serves as a conduit for collecting payments from people, firms and countries seeking favors from the U.S. government. The arrangement is stunningly simple. Here is essentially how it works. The favor seeker makes a donation to the Foundation; Bill Clinton gets paid several hundred thousand dollars to make a 30-minute speech, and the donor now has access to some of the top policy-making officials in the government.

 

And of course, the Clintons are richer for the effort. However, it would be a mistake to see this strictly in terms of Clintonian profiteering. To be sure, Clintonian venality is an important part of the story. But the bigger story is the institutionalization and normalization of corruption that the Clinton Foundation represents. For all intents and purposes the Clintons blended together the charitable work of the Foundation, the work of the State Department, and the Clintons’ private finances. This arrangement has allowed the Clintons to charge for access and in the process set up a sort of parallel government staffed by Clinton loyalists, ready to take jobs in the next Clinton Administration.

 

That is why people like Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain could get a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton through his Foundation contacts, but could not get a meeting using normal State Department channels.

 

Or consider this AP report for example.

“At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.”

 

Grand Corruption

This is symptomatic of grand corruption, not the parking ticket fixing variety. In its wake it leaves behind a State Department with damaged credibility. U.S. citizens as well as foreign governments and multi-national institutions are justifiably left wondering whether American policy was made to protect and defend U.S. interests and U.S. ideals, or whether policy was bought by a Clinton Foundation donor. Which also means that foreign nationals have less reason to trust charities doing work in their home countries when the charities may turn out to be fronts for self-dealing by politicians.

 

The damage does not stop there, not by a long shot. The FBI and Justice Departments have taken a clear blow to their credibility as a result of FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch giving Hillary Clinton a pass on her email set-up. Polling shows that 56% of the public thinks that Clinton should have been criminally charged, while only 35% indicated satisfaction with Comey’s exoneration of her.

 

Hillary Clinton, who has consistently lied about every aspect of this affair, argues that there was no explicit quid-pro-quo involved when, as Secretary of State, she innocently met all these people who gave boatloads of money to the Clinton Foundation who just so happened to have business before the government. But the long history of favors supplied to very unsavory donors, including some of the most repressive governments on earth is actually fairly well documented. One of the more detailed accountings is in the book “Clinton Cash”, written by Peter Schweizer.

 

Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer has been under relentless attack by Clinton surrogates since he published the book in May of 2015. Likewise the attacks on Judicial Watch as a “right wing extremist” operation have already begun. (Judicial Watch is the legal watchdog group whose lawsuits have successfully forced the State Department to begin releasing the Clinton documents to the public”.) James Carville has made his obligatory appearance to announce that “somebody is going to hell” for the attacks on the Clinton Foundation, because of all the goods works that it does.

 

But consider this: in the last few days the Clinton Foundation has announced that if Hillary Clinton is elected President, the Clinton Foundation will no longer accept donations from foreigners. Well, if it is not proper for the Foundation to accept gifts from foreigners when Hillary Clinton is President, then why was it proper when she was Secretary of State? For that matter, why was it proper while she was a sitting U.S. Senator? It wasn’t then and it isn’t now.

 

Damage Done to American Institutions  

With its financial clout, political power and large network of players, the Clinton Foundation is arguably the most important part of the Democratic Party today. It effectively dominates the party as the leaked DNC emails show. And the Clintons are feared by elected Democrats who are well aware of its ability to punish those who cross them.

 

Up until now, Democratic officials, including elected ones, have not had bad word to say about the whole operation. Instead they immediately rush to the Clintons’ defense, and try to silence critics even as the story constantly changes. And let’s not forget that this is the crowd forever complaining about the “appearance” of impropriety. Apparently they are not bothered by actual impropriety.

 

Hillary Clinton, with the aid of her loyalists and the backing of the Democratic Party has succeeded in placing herself above the law in a way that Richard Nixon tried but failed to achieve. In the process her success in doing so has corrupted some of the most fundamental institutions of American governance. She has stained the State Department, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Democratic Party and its leadership.

 

Defining Deviance Down

Even more importantly the Clintons have, in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s memorable phrase, “defined deviancy down” once more. They have lowered the bar of what constitutes acceptable behavior to the point where the institutionalization of corruption on a grand scale is at least tolerable in the public mind.

 

Anyone who doubts this should just ask a single question: Who will most likely be taking the oath of office on January 20, 2017?

 

JFB

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Hillary Watch

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Joe Benning

According to Politico, Democrats are now debating the size of a Clinton victory, and whether they should shift strategy to go for a landslide.

Hillary Clinton

 

The Washington Post now reports that the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails uncovered an additional 15,000 documents that were “not previously disclosed by the former secretary of state’s lawyers”. It is not clear whether any or all of these documents are work related, or were from the batch she deleted. Lawyers from Judicial Watch are negotiating with the State Department for a plan to release the documents to the public before the election.

 

Earlier, Judicial Watch had released another 725 pages of previously undisclosed email exchanges between Clinton and Huma Abedin. These documents included emails about a meeting that Doug Band from the Clinton Foundation was working to set up between Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain and then Secretary Clinton. The Crown Prince was a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation. By 2010 he had made contributions totaling more than $32 million. The Crown Prince got his meeting.

 

In the meantime Colin Powell appears to be getting a little tired of Clinton pretending that her email behavior was the same as his. After the New York Times reported that Clinton told the FBI that Powell told her to use her own email except for classified communications as he had, Powell responded. He said he had no recollection of the conversation.

Colin Powell

 

It is true that Powell wrote to Clinton describing how he used his personal AOL account for unclassified communication. But Powell has objected to Clinton’s characterization of his memo, reportedly saying that “[t]he truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.”

JFB

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The Lesser of Two Evils…

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Joe Benning

Polling by the Pew Research Center indicates that voter satisfaction with Presidential candidate choices is as low as it has been since 1992 when Ross Perot entered the fray. Only 43% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans are satisfied with the available choices. 41% say it is hard to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton because neither would make a good president.

 

Moreover, there is a great deal of interest in the election. According to Pew, fully 80% of registered voters say they have given “quite a lot of thought” to the election. That is the highest share since 1992. By comparison, only to 67% said they gave the election a lot of thought in 2012 while 72% did in 2008.

 

 

The depth of voter dissatisfaction with the race is made clear by the proportion of people who say they are voting against the other candidate. On the Republican side 55% say they are voting against Hillary Clinton rather than for Donald Trump. On the Democratic side, 50% are voting against Donald Trump rather than for Hillary Clinton.

 

Which brings us once again to “the lesser of two evils” gambit. Those making this argument should consider the following. (1) The lesser of two evils is still evil. (2) There is virtually no chance that an individual vote will be decisive. (3) There are plenty of alternatives to the major party candidates.

 

Combined, these indisputable premises lead to exactly one logical conclusion. A vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton actually represents a voter’s true preference compared to all other choices, not just one other choice. When confronted with this conclusion the vote against brigade, like Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, will surely protest too much.

JFB

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Quick Hits Aug 21, 2016

Posted on August 21, 2016 by Joe Benning

Restating the Obvious

Sometimes the obvious needs to be repeated. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

 

Defining Deviancy Down. Again.

Dana Balz of the Washington Post says that the voters understand the flaws of the major party candidates. That may be true; it is always easy to point at flaws in others. The real problem is not with the candidates. It lies with the voters themselves.

The Economy

Hillary Clinton has released her economic plan. The plan is: more taxes, more spending, more government and more regulations.

I Have a List of Names…

On “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robbie Mook charged that Donald Trump is “a puppet of the Russian government”. Once upon a time progressives recoiled at this sort of unsubstantiated charge. Apparently that time has passed.

 

And While We Are on the Subject…

It turns out that the Podesta Group (at the time run by Tony Podesta, John Podesta’s brother) has now retained the law firm Caplin & Drysdale to investigate whether the Podesta firm unwittingly did lobbying work for the pro-Russian political party that also hired Paul Manafort.

 

Hillary Clinton campaign Chair John Podesta has not been involved with the firm for years.

 

About That Reset

Speaking of Russia, remember the reset? Russia is now flying sorties out of Iran to attack Syrian rebels, some of whom may have (or had) the nominal support by the U.S. In addition Russia is reportedly firing cruise missiles into the theatre from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. This display by an emboldened Russia is a direct result the U.S. abdication of its leadership role in world politics. There should be no mistake about it. The foreign policy of U.S. retreat, conceived and implemented by Barak Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, has been a strategic catastrophe.

 

Hillary Clinton promises more of the same.
Russian Missile
Green Politics

In 2005 Congress passed the ethanol mandate, a mix of corn and tax dollars. In 2007 Congress passed a law requiring the EPA to produce a report every three years on the impact of the ethanol subsidy on air and water quality. The EPA published an initial report in 2011, but then claimed they ran out of money and didn’t have enough time to produce another one. For this the Inspector General slammed the agency in a report released on August 18, 2016. The report can be found at this link.

 

Not to worry, says the EPA. They will have a report sometime next year, and a full study by 2024.

JFB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Unaffordable Care Act

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Joe Benning

The Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare is now approaching the death spiral its opponents predicted from the very beginning, and for the reasons they predicted. The Obamacare exchanges have attracted a population that is sicker than the law’s proponents expected. Why that should be so is a bit of a mystery; it was baked into the cake from the outset. At the same time younger and healthier people have declined to use the exchanges in sufficient number to make up the difference. Again, no surprise. The result is a significant increase in health insurance premiums, which has the effect of further discouraging young people from participation, which shrinks the pool of profitable premium payers, which puts additional upward pressure on prices ultimately causing the system to collapse under its own weight.

 

Paul Krugman doesn’t seem to think this is much of a problem, at least going by what he wrote in the New York Times. It is, he asserts, a mere bump in the road. But Aetna, United Health, and Humana disagree. They have essentially pulled out of the Obamacare exchanges in order to stem the flood of red ink washing over them, which is now running well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

Consequently Avalere, a consultancy, predicts that for 2017 one-third of the country will lack any competition at all in the health care plans offered on the Obamacare exchanges. They estimate that almost 36% of exchange market rating regions will have only one participating insurance carrier offering plans, and that there may be some sub-region counties where no plans at all are available. Finally they find that some 55% of exchange market rating regions may have two or fewer carriers. The report is available here.

 

By way of comparison, consider that in 2016 about 4% of rating regions had only one carrier, and 33% had two or less. So expectations are for those numbers to explode over 2017 (safely past the election), with one-carrier regions increasing by a factor of almost 9. So it would not be an exaggeration to say that the system is on the brink of collapse, left on its own.

 

Needless to say, Progressives are arguing that the Affordable Care Act is (1) a great success that has (2) lowered costs but (3) still requires more money. So they are out hunting for a hobgoblin to blame for an obvious systemic policy failure that they still regard as a success that just needs a few tweaks. Leading the posse is Paul Krugman, who suggests that Aetna’s withdrawal from the exchange market is vindictive, motivated in part by a desire to exact revenge because anti-trust authorities turned down a proposed merger. While it is true that Aetna told the Justice Department it would leave the exchanges if the proposed merger with Humana did not go through, the reason for leaving is that the insurers, including Aetna, have been hemorrhaging money.

 

Krugman also charges that Congressional Republicans bear a lot of the responsibility for the non-problem problem because, well, they are Republicans. The mere fact that the whole Obamacare scheme was conceived and passed when the Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and had zero Republican input and not a single Republican vote seems to have escaped his attention.

 

In any event Krugman asserts that it would be easy to fix the system. Surprisingly enough, all we need is an endless pot of subsidy money, this time accompanied by a “reinforced effort” to ensure that healthy Americans buy insurance “as the law requires”. Which is to say that the relatively poor but healthy (generally younger people) should be taxed to subsidize the relatively wealthy (older people).

 

So: does Nobel Prize winning economist Krugman truly believe that the young invincibles are going to willingly buy overpriced insurance that they don’t need in order to bail out the system? Unless he’s gone completely over the edge (always possible) he almost certainly does not. So he goes to the traditional Progressive first resort: the police power of the state. That’s what he means when he refers to the law’s requirements.

 

But the sudden devotion to the requirements of law seems to be a tad selective here. For example, I haven’t noticed a whole lot of Progressive concern about Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail system; or the finances of the Clinton Foundation; or the disposition of the Lois Lerner / IRS case; or the truthfulness of Hillary Clinton’s testimony (under oath) before the Benghazi committee. Nor have I noticed an interest by Progressives in holding the Obama Administration to account for its routine overstepping of boundaries in its issuance of executive orders, or its payment of $400 million in cash ransom to Iran. The list seems to be endless.

 

 

But these details are for ordinary mortals. Because Progressives are even now gearing up to treat another gargantuan policy failure as proof positive that we need to be even more progressive. If the November election produces a landslide for Hillary Clinton as now seems possible if not likely, we may very well get a very progressive House and Senate. If so, get ready for another run at a full socialization of the health care system, first through a “public option” eventually leading to a “single payer” system.

 

This, while doctors and other health care professionals are fleeing the system, in part because of the bureaucratization of medicine, an inevitable consequence of a government takeover. So under a President Hillary Clinton we can look forward to the possibility of increased demand for subsidized health care services, a reduced supply of providers and more bureaucratization. Which is to say that government will produce more of what it produces best: lines.

 

JFB

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In the News…

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Joe Benning

The Clinton Foundation announced that it will stop accepting foreign donations if Hillary wins the White House. After January 20, 2017 only domestic bribes will be accepted.

The Obama Administration did not pay ransom to free Americans held by Tehran. The Administration delayed making the payment, in cash Euros, until the Americans were freed “to retain maximum leverage”. Sure.

 

The State Department edited out of the official record an exchange between Fox News Reporter James Rosen and then spokesman Jen Psaki. The edited portion appeared to show Psaki conceding that the Administration misled the public on the Iran deal. State Department Spokesman John Kirby conceded that the tape was deliberately edited, but said the State Department could not come to a conclusion as to why.

Politico describes journalists attending Kirby’s briefing as reacting “with amazement and disbelief”.

 

Racial arsonist Al Sharpton, who has long been in the payroll of the Democratic Party, announced that he will be endorsing Hillary Clinton sometime after Labor Day.

 

Washington is whispering about the possibility that Donald Trump may leak confidential information he received at his first intelligence briefing as the official Republican nominee. Just think, he might even e-mail about it from his own server.

 

In one of his milder statements, Green Party VP nominee Ajamu Baraka reportedly opined that Bernie Sander’s campaign was “a tacit commitment to Eurocentrism and the assumptions of normalized white supremacy.”

Check Out The Most Far-Out Views From The Green Party Ticket

 

 

 

JFB

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Quick Hits August 18, 2016

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Joe Benning

The Middle East is on fire. North Korea is becoming increasingly belligerent while it continues to build its nuclear arsenal. Iran is more brazen than ever as it violates its treaty obligations. Russia is engaged in joint military operations with Iran in Syria. Both Europe and the United States have had citizens slaughtered by violent jihadists in their homelands, including Paris, Nice, Boston, San Bernadino and Orlando. We have had riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, St. Paul Minnesota and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

To top it all off, Hillary Clinton, who was a key player in developing and implementing the policies that produced these results, is well on her way to capturing the White House. She hopes to win by promising more of the same.

 

 

In the meantime Donald Trump has ordered yet another campaign shake-up, apparently in the belief that he has been too genteel of late. He now apparently intends to double down on his rhetorical bellicosity, perhaps to insure that he loses all 50 states, freeing him up to take that long vacation he’s been talking about.

 

Back in Atlanta, CNN finally fesses up to editing a video in such a way to hide the fact that the sister of Sylville Smith, who was shot by police in Milwaukee, actually called for attacking the suburbs in retribution.

 

 

When it comes to Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, the Green Party Presidential candidate, Jill Stein, says that she thinks Hillary Clinton “owes voters an explanation”. Seriously. Anyway, compared to her economic plans, that statement appears full of insight. Dr. Stein’s economic platform is so far out there that she manages to make Bernie Sanders look comparatively sane.

 

Then again, Stein’s VP selection, Ajamu Baraka, spends enough time out in the fever swamps for both of them. Among other things, he has had his work published in a book edited by a 9/11 “truther” and holocaust denier by the name of Kevin Barrett. In discussing the jihadist attacks in France here is what Baraka had to say.

 

“And in that sense, while the victims of the violence in Paris may have been innocent, France was not. French crimes against Arabs, Muslims and Africans are ever-present in the historical memory and discourse of many members of those populations living in France. Those memories, the systemic discrimination experienced by many Muslims and the collaboration of French authorities with the U.S. and others that gave aid and logistical support to extremist elements in Syria and turned their backs while their citizens traveled to Syria to topple President Assad, became the toxic mix that resulted in the blowback on November 13.

“Although a number of the dead in Paris are young Arabs, Muslims and Africans, in the global popular imagination, France, like the U.S. (even under a Black president), is still white.”

 

See the whole story here in the Daily Beast.

 

Every time you think it can’t get any worse…

 

JFB

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Do Not Be Cowed: Vote Your Conscience

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Joe Benning

A lot of people, especially conservatives, are convinced that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton is morally fit to be president. It is hard to argue with that proposition. The question is what to do about it. So as voters begin to confront the unappetizing choices they face on Election Day, it is time to address the question head on.

 

The first thing to do is to dispense with the non-sequiturs that are being tossed around with such wild abandon, the most popular of which is that a vote for Trump is a vote for Clinton and vice versa. In fact, voters do not face a binary choice. There are lots of options that are well worth considering. But that requires framing the question properly.

 

Talk to a Clinton voter and the first thing you’ll hear about is how awful Trump is. Fair enough. Talk to a Trump voter and the first thing you’ll hear about is how awful Clinton is. Again, fair enough. That said, poor question framing has induced these voters to mistakenly believe that a vote for Clinton is a vote against Trump and vice versa.

 

Let’s be clear: voting is an affirmative act. Full stop. A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Hillary Clinton. Likewise a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Donald Trump. There is no ballot line that says “Not Clinton” or “Not Trump”. To pretend otherwise is an act of extravagant self-deception.

 

Or perhaps intellectual laziness. In the heart of every “not” voter lurks the naïve belief that “every vote matters”. The endless repetition of this particular myth has persuaded otherwise sensible people to buy into it. In fact, the probability that any one vote will be decisive is so vanishingly small as to be virtually non-existent. Among other things it would require there to be exactly one decisive popular vote that flips a decisive state and with it, the Electoral College. The belief that one vote may do this in the over 100 million that will be cast in all the 50 states is a testament to the power of innumeracy.

 

Unfortunately, the two major political parties actively encourage this sort of binary thinking. It serves their interests to herd voters into believing that their choices are limited to the major party nominees. Thus we hear about the “obligation” to vote and the importance of not “wasting” a vote on third party nominees or for that matter, write-in candidates.

 

Except that we do not have an obligation to vote. And it is important to understand that a vote is simply an expression of preference. No more and no less. A vote for a third-party candidate is no less an expression of preference than a vote for a major party candidate. And not to put too fine a point on it, voting for someone with whom you fundamentally disagree, or even deem unfit for office, is irrational. Furthermore this type of strategic voting is detrimental to democracy because it serves to pad the vote totals of the major party candidates at the expense of alternatives. In so doing it conveys misinformation by contributing to the illusion that the policy prescriptions of the major parties have more support than they actually do.

 

So, to those who are sensible enough to be dismayed, repulsed, revolted—take your pick—by both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates: do not be cowed. Vote third party or sit out the presidential election. It just may send the right message for 2020.

JFB

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