Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Hillary

5 Comments

What does she want?

She became a senator from New York as a final tribute from a Democratic electorate to her husband. The man who preceded her in office, the great Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wryly saluted her “Illinois-Arkansas enthusiasm,” Hillary and New York being as much a marriage of convenience as Hillary and Bill. She was a legislative nonentity in the Senate, because she was running for president from the day she was sworn in. (A few of the 2016 Republican contenders know a thing or two about that.) When her moment came, she was outdone in the Democratic primary by an even bigger legislative nonentity in the Senate. It was funny, in a cruel way, and people laughed at her, in a cruel way.

Barack Obama condescended to offer her the scrap of a Cabinet position, which she botched, doing great damage to his administration and the country in the process. She was one of the most inept chief diplomats in memory. Bill Clinton had found a place on the global stage through his close relationship with Tony Blair while Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright minded the shop. George H. W. Bush before him had in a moment of Middle Eastern crisis shown himself to be a true master of the game. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department had the nation, including its Democrats, longing for the steady-handed confidence of the Carter years. She was bad enough that John Kerry was considered an improvement.

When her moment came again, she was put through the wringer by a dopey socialist from Vermont whose young, idealistic partisans — the people people like Mrs. Clinton like to think of themselves as — still don’t want her. They’ll take her over Donald Trump, of course, and they’ll feel a little like the man who hears: “You’re responding reasonably well to the chemo.”

RTWT. It’s cruel, but fair.

[Update a while later]

Link is fixed, sorry.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The IRS

Why won’t they comply with the Congressional Review Act?

Because like the rest of this administration, they’re corrupt lying political hacks who think they’re above the law.

[Sunday-morning update]

Related: If you think that the bureaucracy is the bulwark against tyranny, you should support Donald Trump:

…the bureaucrats — allied with the press, of course — will do more to check misbehavior by Trump than they’ll ever conceivably do to check misbehavior by Hillary. And certainly much more than they’ve done with Obama, who has weaponized the IRS, the EPA, the Department of Justice, and a host of other federal agencies, all the way down to the Park Service, with barely a peep from within the bureaucracy.

So what people worry about with Trump has already happened under Obama. And that’s part of the problem. Obama broke down and devalued a lot of political traditions in this country, to very little objection from the parts of the political class that matter. That opened up a hole for Trump. My main positive expectation for a Trump presidency is that he will remind people of why those political traditions were important.

They only think they’re important when a Republican, even a faux Republican like Trump, is in the White House. Trump also has the potential to arouse Congress to finally exercise and defend its own prerogatives. The Founders didn’t put in the impeachment power with the idea it would never be used.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Trump’s Acceptance Speech

83 Comments

I haven’t read it yet, but putatively, this is it.

I should note that I’m living in an empty house in Florida, renovating it for sale, with no access to media, other than over-the-air radio, tethering off my phone for Internet, and leaving garage door open in 90+ weather to hear Sirius on the rental-car radio. I feel like I’m living in the late 20th century.

[Update a while later]

I’m very interested in what Thiel says. I’m listening on NPR.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Puerto Rico’s Crisis

7 Comments

Coming soon to a state near you?

The collapse of recklessly-managed state and local finances on the mainland will create a political crisis of far greater proportions than Puerto Rico’s struggles. Congress should heed Padilla’s advice and start pressuring states and localities to get back on track. It should also develop a framework for managing these meltdowns if and when they do occur (Will assistance be available? On what terms?) as they do occur, so as to avoid extended squabbling and gridlock when the rubber meets the road.

As I’ve noted in the past, a bailout of California should be done only on condition that it revert to territory status, and not be allowed to reenter the union as a single state.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

#NeverTrump

56 Comments

What it means, and what it doesn’t.

Yes, that’s all it means. I am not going to support Donald Trump. The notion that non-support of Trump is support of Hillary is nonsense.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Will Trump win in a blowout? It could happen. I’ve never said he can’t win the election, just that he’ll be a terrible president. Hillary will be worse.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Hillary’s people “freaked out” by the polls. They’ve been and continue to be in denial about what a truly awful candidate she is. They don’t care about lies and corruption, but Americans do.

[Update a while later]

“‘Crooked’ means crippled for Hillary Clinton“:

Democrats…have been operating on the assumption that most Americans shared Clinton’s belief that talk of her misconduct was just more slander from the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Her inability to get ahead of Trump by a comfortable margin even though he spent the weeks after clinching his nomination going off on racist tangents is remarkable. The problem for her isn’t so much that he has risen—he is still stuck at the same low number that he’s had in national polls for months—as it is that she has declined or failed to gain ground.

Looking ahead, it’s hard to predict how a race between two deeply unpopular candidates will turn out. Trump’s undisciplined character and his alienation of elements of the Republican coalition and inability to appeal to non-white and young voters may ultimately cancel out Clinton’s weaknesses. But the one thing we know for sure is that the Democrats will nominate a crippled candidate. No amount of spending or spin can sell Hillary Clinton to the American people as either honest or competent.

Yup.

[Update a while later]

“Hillary managed her emails like [other] criminals I’ve known.”

Meanwhile, here’s a deep dive into her email mess from Ars Technica. One thing not mentioned; how did the classified info get from the SCIF to her server?

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The Gaps In Hillary’s Email Traffic

3 Comments

No, there’s nothing “strange” about them. It’s straightforward destruction of evidence, for which this administration is determined to let her skate.

[Update early afternoon]

Hillary, the Democrats and the problem of trust:

…if you think promoting trust in government is important, you should nominate someone trustworthy. But there are other priorities, apparently, and they outweigh that trustworthiness, or we’d have different nominees.

The other way you promote trust is through transparency and accountability. Voters should be able to tell what politicians and bureaucrats are doing, and when those politicians and bureaucrats do wrong they should face real consequences. We’re not doing very well on that front either.

No, we’re not.

[Update a few minutes later]

The FBI agents involved with the probe had to sign special secrecy agreements. Gee, this doesn’t look like the fix was in to let her of the hook and they were worried about leaks at all.