Democrats’ Strategy of Resist, Persist & Throw Hissy Fits
The View from the Middle
Just when I think that the Hypocrisy can’t get any worse in Washington, just when I think that the actions of our politicians can’t get any more ridiculous, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi show me that they know no limits. I had to actually laugh out loud when Ms. Pelosi said that Donald Trump was only interested in “stunts” (referring to the empty seat picture of the debt ceiling meeting) especially when she had just executed a marvelous stunt of her own by refusing to meet with the President in the first place. Are these people listening to themselves?
But what’s more ridiculous is the lack of any real strategy by Democrats to make our country better. If anyone out there has any evidence of what that is, let me know. And don’t show me some dusty platform document that hasn’t been touched by Democrat leadership for more than a year now. Show me what Democrats are talking about on a daily basis other than resist, persist, insist, enlist, desist (and anything else that rhymes with resist). This may be a strategy to get people elected (or not, I’m not sure) but it certainly is not a strategy that will help the country.
Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is actually following through on his campaign promises. His administration has significantly reduced regulations, put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and at least tried to repeal and replace Obamacare. This kind of promise keeping is unheard of in politics and may be one reason why Trump maintains support despite his childish and often abrasive personal style. And now, as if all those “promises kept” were not enough, he is inches away from delivering on his pledge to reduce and reform America’s taxes.
Are the bills that have been passed by the House and will be passed by the Senate perfect? Of course not, but no tax bill would, whether it was initiated by Democrats or Republicans. There are too many factions to appease. In our Congress and in our country we find everything from the ultra conservative TEA Partiers to Libertarians to moderate conservatives and liberals to the big government liberals to the ultra-liberal socialist democrats represented by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. A bill that would please all of these people does not exist.
But the bills that currently exist contain some very encouraging elements. First of all, the actual tax rate will go down for virtually every tax bracket with an emphasis on the lower brackets that impact average and lower income households. Next, the standard deduction will likely double even in the compromise bill and so will the child tax credit which has a huge affect on middle to lower income tax brackets.
Corporate rates will be dramatically decreased from the current 35% rate to somewhere in the low 20’s and both versions include an incentive to repatriate profits back to America where they can be invested to expand markets, increase incomes and create more jobs.
All of this will stimulate the economy from both the supply side (trickle down) and the demand side (bubble up). My honest assessment of this bill is that all Americans will benefit through higher wages, lower unemployment and higher job participation levels as well as just having more of their own money to spend. In the end, I predict that all of this will happen while also reducing our deficits as our economy will grow in the 3 and 4 and even 5% levels. This will drive higher revenues into the treasury which happened under Coolidge, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan and Clinton. With a little discipline on the spending side we could even balance the budget and actually reduce the debt we are currently planning to pass on to our children and grandchildren.
With all of the positive aspects of this tax bill, you ask yourself, “How can Democrats be against it?” There is a simple twofold answer. First, their whole strategy is to resist and obstruct. That’s all they have, so they must focus on the small pieces that make it “not perfect” and ignore all of the benefits. But the real answer is that they are terrified that this will actually work.
Imagine if the Republicans pass this bill in December and our economy starts growing at 3 or 4% by the midterms in 2018? Republican majorities could actually increase in both the House and the Senate. What if people do their taxes for the 2018 tax year and 90%+ notice that they are paying less taxes than they did the year before? What if 90%+ of Americans find that they can now use the short form (maybe even a postcard) to file their taxes? What if the labor force participation rate gets back to 64 or 65% (it is currently under 63%) and income levels begin to rise again? What if, because of increased revenues and lower spending, we can decrease our deficits and see a path to a balanced budget by November of 2020?
This is the nightmare that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi dream every night, and they are willing to keep all of these positive things from happening as long as they can keep their jobs and cushy lifestyles. I say, bring on the tax cuts, and I may even consider voting for Trump again if he delivers the results!!
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Hillary Clinton, Criminal or Rascal? You Decide.
Hillary Clinton, Criminal or Just Rascal?
The View from the Middle
Have you heard the defenders / excusers of Hillary Clinton’s skullduggery? They point out that all of her misdeeds occurred in the past, and they want to focus on the future. While that may sound clever and even profound, just a small amount of thoughtful consideration reveals this rationale to be laughable.
Of course, they would like to forget all this and move on. So does every lawbreaker being tried for his or her crimes. What they don’t want you to realize is that all transgressions being investigated have occurred in the past. Duh! And, if every criminal were allowed to use this defense, we would have no need for a judicial system at all. Just forget all of these past offenses and focus on the future! Someone should call Paul Manafort quick. I’m pretty sure he’s being investigated for crimes of the past.
So, let’s get past this ridiculous argument and look at Hillary’s questionable behavior and decide whether it is criminal or just inappropriate. Let’s start with the most recently uncovered reality that Hillary and the DNC (arguably the same thing) paid for the now famous dossier. Hillary, of course, denies knowing anything about it, even though her campaign spent some 10 to 12 million dollars for this work of fiction. Even if she did know, she would suggest it was just “opposition research”.
Asking us to believe that she didn’t know about the dossier stretches believability to the point of its breaking point. The Clinton’s are very smart people. Bill is supposedly the fourth smartest President ever with a reported IQ of just under 150, and Hillary’s 140 IQ puts her in the top one quarter of one percent of all humans. They would have to be stupid or devious not to know about this 12 million dollar expenditure. I’ll let you make your own decision on which is most likely for the Clinton’s.
Next, was the dossier a piece of opposition research or an intentional smear job designed to cast doubt on the character of Donald Trump (like that was needed). Even though there is plenty of hanky-panky here, I have to agree with Alan Dershowitz, (an unlikely ally for me) even if intent was proven, I doubt that there is anything criminal in the dossier scandal. Sleazy? Yes! Criminal? No!
Now, let’s talk about her takeover of the DNC. Her supporters describe her as a “white knight” that came to the rescue of a bankrupt DNC. So I guess Bernie Sanders should be sending her a thank you note. I’ve read the agreement that the leadership of the DNC signed to give her control of hiring, strategy and spending when the primaries were just beginning, and it is my opinion that there is no way they could have offered Bernie the same deal. The two deals would have been in complete conflict.
But while this may have been underhanded, I again have to agree with my friend Alan Dershowitz again. This was probably not illegal. The DNC may decide to create some internal controls that would prohibit this in the future, but as of now, it is probably not illegal. Questionable behavior? For sure. Illegal? Probably not.
How about the Uranium One deal? Why would the United States allow the Russians to purchase 20% of our uranium reserves in the first place? And, was it appropriate for the Clinton Foundation to receive over $145 million from Russian entities connected with the deal while Hillary was the Secretary of State and one of the nine parties who had to approve the transaction? Don’t forget that Bill Clinton also received a measly $500,000 fee from a Russian bank invested in Uranium One for a 20-minute speech. I’m sure he’s spellbinding, but $25,000 a minute? Really?
Again, there may not be any actual laws in place that would prohibit a sitting Secretary of State from taking hundreds of million of dollars from foreign countries, but there may be some laws put in place for the future given the conflict of interest that this escapade suggested. Even President Obama asked Hillary not to do this because he knew the kind of optics it would create. Was this totally inappropriate? You bet! Criminal? Maybe not, - Yet!
Actually, the scandal that is most likely to end up in criminality is the oldest, and that is Hillary’s use of a private server. Actually, the use of a private server may not be illegal, although no other Secretary of State or President or Cabinet Secretary ever had their own private server, no matter how often her supporters try to tell you they did. Again, Congress may create a law to prohibit this in the future, and probably should, but Hillary may not have broken the law in setting up this private server.
There are two aspects of this particular scandal, however, that could get Hillary in legal trouble. First, as James Comey wrote in one of his early versions of Hillary’s exoneration, she was “grossly negligent” in her handling of classified and top secret information. He changed that language to “extremely careless” when he realized that that the terminology of gross negligence was actually used in the statute that Hillary was accused of violating. However, as legal pundit Judge Napolitano suggests, there is no real difference between “extremely careless” and “grossly negligent”. This could end up being a problem for Hillary.
Finally, Hillary deleted 30,000 emails that were under subpoena from the Justice Department. And she didn’t just delete them as you and I would. She used BleachBit to obliterate them to the point of being irretrievable. If she just wanted them out of her way, why wouldn’t she just delete them, as you and I would? Whether she likes it or not, the way she eliminated these messages reveals an attempt to conceal. This could also be a real problem for Mrs. Clinton.
It is not my desire for anyone to go to jail. What I want is for our politicians to have character so that they are repulsed by the temptation for subterfuge. But if we don’t hold people of power accountable, we will continue to have a double standard of justice. People like you and me will be punished to the full extent of the law while the rich and well connected get off scot-free. Is that the America any of us want?
The View from the Middle
Have you heard the defenders / excusers of Hillary Clinton’s skullduggery? They point out that all of her misdeeds occurred in the past, and they want to focus on the future. While that may sound clever and even profound, just a small amount of thoughtful consideration reveals this rationale to be laughable.
Of course, they would like to forget all this and move on. So does every lawbreaker being tried for his or her crimes. What they don’t want you to realize is that all transgressions being investigated have occurred in the past. Duh! And, if every criminal were allowed to use this defense, we would have no need for a judicial system at all. Just forget all of these past offenses and focus on the future! Someone should call Paul Manafort quick. I’m pretty sure he’s being investigated for crimes of the past.
So, let’s get past this ridiculous argument and look at Hillary’s questionable behavior and decide whether it is criminal or just inappropriate. Let’s start with the most recently uncovered reality that Hillary and the DNC (arguably the same thing) paid for the now famous dossier. Hillary, of course, denies knowing anything about it, even though her campaign spent some 10 to 12 million dollars for this work of fiction. Even if she did know, she would suggest it was just “opposition research”.
Asking us to believe that she didn’t know about the dossier stretches believability to the point of its breaking point. The Clinton’s are very smart people. Bill is supposedly the fourth smartest President ever with a reported IQ of just under 150, and Hillary’s 140 IQ puts her in the top one quarter of one percent of all humans. They would have to be stupid or devious not to know about this 12 million dollar expenditure. I’ll let you make your own decision on which is most likely for the Clinton’s.
Next, was the dossier a piece of opposition research or an intentional smear job designed to cast doubt on the character of Donald Trump (like that was needed). Even though there is plenty of hanky-panky here, I have to agree with Alan Dershowitz, (an unlikely ally for me) even if intent was proven, I doubt that there is anything criminal in the dossier scandal. Sleazy? Yes! Criminal? No!
Now, let’s talk about her takeover of the DNC. Her supporters describe her as a “white knight” that came to the rescue of a bankrupt DNC. So I guess Bernie Sanders should be sending her a thank you note. I’ve read the agreement that the leadership of the DNC signed to give her control of hiring, strategy and spending when the primaries were just beginning, and it is my opinion that there is no way they could have offered Bernie the same deal. The two deals would have been in complete conflict.
But while this may have been underhanded, I again have to agree with my friend Alan Dershowitz again. This was probably not illegal. The DNC may decide to create some internal controls that would prohibit this in the future, but as of now, it is probably not illegal. Questionable behavior? For sure. Illegal? Probably not.
How about the Uranium One deal? Why would the United States allow the Russians to purchase 20% of our uranium reserves in the first place? And, was it appropriate for the Clinton Foundation to receive over $145 million from Russian entities connected with the deal while Hillary was the Secretary of State and one of the nine parties who had to approve the transaction? Don’t forget that Bill Clinton also received a measly $500,000 fee from a Russian bank invested in Uranium One for a 20-minute speech. I’m sure he’s spellbinding, but $25,000 a minute? Really?
Again, there may not be any actual laws in place that would prohibit a sitting Secretary of State from taking hundreds of million of dollars from foreign countries, but there may be some laws put in place for the future given the conflict of interest that this escapade suggested. Even President Obama asked Hillary not to do this because he knew the kind of optics it would create. Was this totally inappropriate? You bet! Criminal? Maybe not, - Yet!
Actually, the scandal that is most likely to end up in criminality is the oldest, and that is Hillary’s use of a private server. Actually, the use of a private server may not be illegal, although no other Secretary of State or President or Cabinet Secretary ever had their own private server, no matter how often her supporters try to tell you they did. Again, Congress may create a law to prohibit this in the future, and probably should, but Hillary may not have broken the law in setting up this private server.
There are two aspects of this particular scandal, however, that could get Hillary in legal trouble. First, as James Comey wrote in one of his early versions of Hillary’s exoneration, she was “grossly negligent” in her handling of classified and top secret information. He changed that language to “extremely careless” when he realized that that the terminology of gross negligence was actually used in the statute that Hillary was accused of violating. However, as legal pundit Judge Napolitano suggests, there is no real difference between “extremely careless” and “grossly negligent”. This could end up being a problem for Hillary.
Finally, Hillary deleted 30,000 emails that were under subpoena from the Justice Department. And she didn’t just delete them as you and I would. She used BleachBit to obliterate them to the point of being irretrievable. If she just wanted them out of her way, why wouldn’t she just delete them, as you and I would? Whether she likes it or not, the way she eliminated these messages reveals an attempt to conceal. This could also be a real problem for Mrs. Clinton.
It is not my desire for anyone to go to jail. What I want is for our politicians to have character so that they are repulsed by the temptation for subterfuge. But if we don’t hold people of power accountable, we will continue to have a double standard of justice. People like you and me will be punished to the full extent of the law while the rich and well connected get off scot-free. Is that the America any of us want?
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Russia vs Trump, Sessions, Hillary and Wasserman-Shultz
Who is Winning in the Russian Collusion Scandal?
The View from the Middle
Oh, what a tangled web someone is weaving. It seems that there is another shoe to drop every day on the Russian collusion scandal here in America. I think it started with the Wikileaks release of the DNC emails. We may never know for sure if the Russians were involved, but it certainly wouldn’t shock me if they were. And the big losers in this piece of the scandal were Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Then there was the Russian dossier. This dossier was so salacious and uncorroborated that most of the media passed over this story until BuzzFeed released it in its entirety in January. Even though most, if not all, of this file was pure fiction, the big loser was Donald Trump.
And let’s not forget the outreach by Russian Ambassador Kislyak to Jeff Sessions. These were hardly shocking meetings. One was a handshake in front of hundreds of witnesses, but this forced Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the Russian investigation after he was appointed Trump’s Attorney General.
We certainly can’t leave out Donald Trump Jr.’s 20 minute meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with supposed connections to the Kremlin. Donald Jr. left this meeting early and no action was ever taken as a result of this little powwow, but real damage was done to Don Jr. and Paul Manafort.
And now we have the boomerang effect of the Russian dossier story that doesn’t focus on the contents of the dossier itself, but on who paid for it. The big losers in this saga are Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Podesta brothers.
So let’s list the losers in the Russian collusion scandal – Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, Hillary Clinton, John and Tony Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and might I add the American people and our entire democratic system. Neither party nor gender has been able to avoid the stigma of this narrative. So is anyone winning the Russian corruption story? Yes, Vladimir Putin!
I have heard the talking heads claim that they could read Putin’s mind and are absolutely sure that he preferred Donald Trump to win the Presidency. Let me give you an alternative theory. Putin, like 99% of Americans (according to the Princeton Election Consortium), thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 election. And given her policy positions, he probably would have preferred her to win. What Putin really wanted was a damaged American President and a weakened confidence in our Democratic system. And we are giving it to him on a silver platter.
There are at least two visible Russian strategies that support my theory. First, virtually all of these contacts, from Kislyak to Veselnitskaya to the Russian officials who approached Christopher Steele (of the Russian dossier), were initiated by the Russians. Does this sound like a coincidence or a plan? Second, the major aspects of the scandal, the Wikileaks email acquisition and release and the Russian dossier, were both two sided swords. They could be used to incriminate operatives on both sides of the political spectrum. This is not just a plan; it’s a sinister plot.
In my opinion, both of our political parties and our boneheaded lame stream media have been and continue to be “played”. Putin was counting on their lesser angels (greed, thirst for power, hypocrisy and hate) and bated them with the most tempting morsels of depraved innuendo he could find. And when he couldn’t “find” anything, he just made it up. He has worked both sides of our political fence, pitting each against the other, while he sat back and enjoyed the chaos he has created.
Why would he do this? First, he just hates America and what it stands for. Second, he needed to distract his people from the ravages of an anemic Russia economy and his stalled promise to reunite the old Soviet Union. Despite all his failures, his approval rating in Russia is still over 80%. And part of that popularity just might be that his people know exactly what he is doing to us, and they love it!
When are we going to learn? When we abandon all respect for each other (and I accuse both sides of this) we stop listening to each other and begin to demonize real and rational concerns of good, patriotic Americans who love this country. There are real and meaningful compromises that can be made on Healthcare, Immigration, Taxes and even abortion if we start listening to each other. Our parties must give up their strategies of “I can’t hear you” and “Resist everything” and look for the areas on which we agree. Freedom, equality of opportunity and individual responsibility are good places to start, or else we will continue to play checkers while Putin plays chess with our heads!!
The View from the Middle
Oh, what a tangled web someone is weaving. It seems that there is another shoe to drop every day on the Russian collusion scandal here in America. I think it started with the Wikileaks release of the DNC emails. We may never know for sure if the Russians were involved, but it certainly wouldn’t shock me if they were. And the big losers in this piece of the scandal were Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Then there was the Russian dossier. This dossier was so salacious and uncorroborated that most of the media passed over this story until BuzzFeed released it in its entirety in January. Even though most, if not all, of this file was pure fiction, the big loser was Donald Trump.
And let’s not forget the outreach by Russian Ambassador Kislyak to Jeff Sessions. These were hardly shocking meetings. One was a handshake in front of hundreds of witnesses, but this forced Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the Russian investigation after he was appointed Trump’s Attorney General.
We certainly can’t leave out Donald Trump Jr.’s 20 minute meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with supposed connections to the Kremlin. Donald Jr. left this meeting early and no action was ever taken as a result of this little powwow, but real damage was done to Don Jr. and Paul Manafort.
And now we have the boomerang effect of the Russian dossier story that doesn’t focus on the contents of the dossier itself, but on who paid for it. The big losers in this saga are Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Podesta brothers.
So let’s list the losers in the Russian collusion scandal – Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, Hillary Clinton, John and Tony Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and might I add the American people and our entire democratic system. Neither party nor gender has been able to avoid the stigma of this narrative. So is anyone winning the Russian corruption story? Yes, Vladimir Putin!
I have heard the talking heads claim that they could read Putin’s mind and are absolutely sure that he preferred Donald Trump to win the Presidency. Let me give you an alternative theory. Putin, like 99% of Americans (according to the Princeton Election Consortium), thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 election. And given her policy positions, he probably would have preferred her to win. What Putin really wanted was a damaged American President and a weakened confidence in our Democratic system. And we are giving it to him on a silver platter.
There are at least two visible Russian strategies that support my theory. First, virtually all of these contacts, from Kislyak to Veselnitskaya to the Russian officials who approached Christopher Steele (of the Russian dossier), were initiated by the Russians. Does this sound like a coincidence or a plan? Second, the major aspects of the scandal, the Wikileaks email acquisition and release and the Russian dossier, were both two sided swords. They could be used to incriminate operatives on both sides of the political spectrum. This is not just a plan; it’s a sinister plot.
In my opinion, both of our political parties and our boneheaded lame stream media have been and continue to be “played”. Putin was counting on their lesser angels (greed, thirst for power, hypocrisy and hate) and bated them with the most tempting morsels of depraved innuendo he could find. And when he couldn’t “find” anything, he just made it up. He has worked both sides of our political fence, pitting each against the other, while he sat back and enjoyed the chaos he has created.
Why would he do this? First, he just hates America and what it stands for. Second, he needed to distract his people from the ravages of an anemic Russia economy and his stalled promise to reunite the old Soviet Union. Despite all his failures, his approval rating in Russia is still over 80%. And part of that popularity just might be that his people know exactly what he is doing to us, and they love it!
When are we going to learn? When we abandon all respect for each other (and I accuse both sides of this) we stop listening to each other and begin to demonize real and rational concerns of good, patriotic Americans who love this country. There are real and meaningful compromises that can be made on Healthcare, Immigration, Taxes and even abortion if we start listening to each other. Our parties must give up their strategies of “I can’t hear you” and “Resist everything” and look for the areas on which we agree. Freedom, equality of opportunity and individual responsibility are good places to start, or else we will continue to play checkers while Putin plays chess with our heads!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)