RUTHFULLY YOURS

Republican Donald Trump has a good shot at defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in today’s election but late polls still give Clinton an advantage.

Whatever happens in the presidential race, Republicans seemed poised to retain control of both houses of Congress – albeit with reduced majorities. Whether Republican lawmakers would suddenly develop a spine and resist a President Hillary Clinton after President Obama steamrolled them for years is a separate question.

Democrats seem unlikely to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans and extremely unlikely to take over the House of Representatives. Current standings in the Senate are 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats (including Independents who caucus with the Democrats). If the Senate is split 50-50 which is possible but unlikely, then the party that wins the White House will control the Senate because the new vice president becomes the presiding officer in that chamber and gets to break tie votes.

Current standings in the House are 246 Republicans to 186 Democrats. It would be next to impossible for Democrats to knock off enough Republicans to reach the 218-seat threshold that gives a party control of the 435-seat House.

In the Senate, the Wisconsin incumbent Ron Johnson (R) might get bumped off by former Sen. Russ Feingold (D). Ditto for incumbent Pat Toomey (R) in Pennsylvania who is slightly behind challenger Katie McGinty (D). In Illinois, incumbent Mark Kirk (R) seems a safe bet to get knocked off by Tammy Duckworth (D).

In Florida incumbent Marco Rubio (R) seems likely to beat back a challenge from Patrick Murphy (D). In Missouri, Democrat Jason Kander (D) whose campaign and rhetorical style is very much like Trump’s, has been nipping at incumbent Roy Blunt’s (R) heels. In North Carolina, incumbent Richard Burr (R) may barely hang on in a contest with Deborah Ross (D). It’s close in New Hampshire but incumbent Kelly Ayotte (R) seems likely to defeat challenger Maggie Hassan (D). In Nevada Joe Heck (R) is slightly behind Catherine Cortez Masto (D) but given the turnout machine put together by Big Labor and retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D), Cortez Masto seems likely to keep the seat in Democrat hands.

I realize that most of the polls have Hillary ahead by a few points, the polls in the battleground states are very close, and it is difficult for any Republican to win the Electoral College because the Democrats have a solid advantage with California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and other large states.

But given all that, I find it difficult to believe that a person as corrupt as Hillary will be president of the United States. We have had elections where there are clear differences in the policies of the candidates, such as Mondale vs. Reagan and Nixon vs. McGovern, but we have never had a candidate who everyone admits is corrupt and lies like Hillary.

The main recommendation for Hillary seems to be that the FBI’s Director Comey does not believe that there is “clear evidence” of criminal intent to violate the statutes dealing with classified information. It is undisputed that she acted with extreme negligence by using a private unsecured email server and that there is evidence of criminal intent, although not clear enough for Comey. We still have no reasonable credible, innocent explanation why she used a private email server that endangered our national security.

The only reasonable explanation is that she used the private server to hide the pay-for-play scheme in the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary’s entire public service career reeks of corruption and lies, starting with her representation of a 41-year-old man who raped a 12-year-old girl and then cackling about how she got the charges reduced by attacking the credibility of the 12-year-old victim while she knew the rapist was guilty. This is important because she has always held herself out as fighting for women and children, yet her conduct shows her hypocrisy. Just as she attacked the 12-year-old girl, she attacked the female victims of Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct.

We have the selling of a pardon to Marc Rich, Whitewater, Travelgate, FBI files on Republicans, lying about Benghazi, attacking the families of the victims of Benghazi, appeasement of Iran on the nuclear deal, and the general mess in the Middle East.

OK, granted this is a tough presidential election with two rather difficult choices from the main parties while the alternatives from the minor parties aren’t that appealing either. What to do? What to do? Luckily, several non-great celebrities are helping us make the choice easier by promising to help fulfill Donald Trump’s (R) slogan Make America Great Again! by planning to emigrate should he win. Knowing their departures would greatly improve America’s quality of life could tilt undecided voters towards Trump just to see them go.

Several months ago, Ms. Twerkiness, Miley Cyrus, announced her planned exodus in her usual eloquent fashion.

Among the better known entertainment figures who have promised to join her and whose promised absence would improve the country’s diversity and democracy are:

Chelsea Handler. The funny lady (sic) would move to Spain. “I did buy a house in another country just in case, so all of these people that threaten to leave the country and then don’t, I will leave the country,” she reportedly said on “Live with Kelly and Michael” in May. (snip)

Amy Schumer. The comedian might become neighbors with Handler. “I will need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain or somewhere … it’s beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It’s too crazy,” she told BBC Newsnight in September. (snip)

Barbra Streisand. The singer might opt to live Down Under. “He has no facts. I don’t know, I can’t believe it. I’m either coming to your country [Australia], if you’ll let me in, or Canada,” she reportedly told Australian journalist Michael Usher in August.

Sweetening the pull towards voting for Trump, Lena Dunham and Whoopi Goldberg have also promised to split should he be elected.

A recent article in the “The Economist” was entitled “Milk Without the Cow:” Capitalism, in Putin’s understanding, is not about production, management and marketing. It is wheeling and dealing. It is not about workers and customers. It is about personal connections with regulators. It is finding and using loopholes in the law, or creating loopholes.” The article was from a book by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin.” I was struck by how closely those words describe the Clintons. They produce nothing – no consumer or industrial goods; no services like law or accounting; no hotels or casinos; they have created no patents or inventions. They do not manufacture, nor do they lend or invest money. They have not trod paths of entrepreneurs; yet they have become wealthy. In this, they are not alone. Public service has become a means to private wealth. But the Clintons have taken this model to new heights.

Truman once famously replied when offered a corporate board seat with a hefty salary: “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.” The Clintons have no such scruples. Sixteen years after leaving the Presidency, eight years after leaving the U.S. Senate and three and a half years after leaving the State Department, the Clintons have a net worth of $50 to $60 million, and maybe more. They have exchanged dollars for access. It is not policy or public service that drives them; it is greed.

The Clintons have used their Foundation to up the ante on “pay-to-play.” They introduce the well-off who want access and/or favors to the politically connected who provide them. In doing so, they enrich themselves. They have dealt with some of the world’s most oppressive dictators. Additionally, they have asked for and received upwards of $200,000 from colleges and universities for hour-long Pablum-like speeches – fees four times what colleges charge for tuition and four times the average family’s annual income. As “honorary chancellor” of Laureate International University, a for-profit university, Bill Clinton became the highest paid college official in the United States – $17.6 million over five years, for little or no work. The Clintons have been “bought” by Wall Street banks, in exchange for tax and regulatory favors. Since leaving the White House (“dead broke,” as Hillary later said), it has been a quest for money that has driven them. Hillary reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara in the final scene in “Gone With The Wind,” but without having suffered the deprivations Scarlett did: “If I have to lie, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” Substitute “poor” for “hungry” and you have Mrs. Clinton.

With Hollywood on her side, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton figured she could glitz up her yawn-eliciting campaign and wicked-witch-of-the-west persona with some light-hearted entertainment.

Putting their heads together to come up with “what millennials and blacks want,” her advisers came up with a few hot properties, among them the sex symbol Beyonce and her rapper husband, Jay Z.

Performers young and old have been threatening to leave America if Donald Trump wins the election on Tuesday. So, other than this serving as a reason for many of us to run to cast a ballot for Trump, it is likely that it was easy for Clinton to book the Grammy winners for her rally in Ohio on Friday.

As Trump pointed out after the event, however, even one of the music world’s most prominent power couples was unable to attract or even keep the attention of the audience at the concert-turned-political happening.

More significantly, Clinton made a major blooper by inviting Jay Z to the stage, particularly after spending so much time attacking Trump for being a racist and a misogynist. Because what the rapper did was belt out songs whose lyrics would have landed the rest of us in a prison of ostracism, if not worse.

Though it appears, from her fashion-forward version of the classical Clinton pantsuit, that Beyonce was told in advance to keep her usual display of cleavage in check, it is doubtful that the Clinton team thought to request a preview of Jay Z’s lyrics. Nor is it clear whether Clinton was actually listening to the words being shouted out on her behalf.

But then, she has a great knack for seeing and hearing no evil when those exhibiting it are in her political camp. This was true even when she herself was being mistreated and publicly humiliated by her man. In fact, she went as far as to call the women who came forward to recount stories of Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct and abuse “whiney” and “trailer trash.”

But, hey, what’s good for the goose — in this case, not only a woman, but a left-wing one, to boot — is forbidden to any Republican gander.

Given my own penchant for foul language, I am the last person to judge others who use profanity to express themselves — though, in my defense, profanity does not butter my bread; it merely prevents me from throwing my computer off the nearest ledge at least once every day, and has helped me get through this intolerable pre-election period without putting my fist through the TV.

However, I do feel fully justified in calling out the hypocrisy of the #neverTrump-ers, many of whom I happen to know personally, and therefore I am aware that they engage in the kind of behavior that would make The Donald blush.