RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Obama’s interview on CBS ’s “60 Minutes” Sunday has rightly received attention for his defensiveness about Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria. But the President made other news that deserves more attention: to wit, his legal advice to the FBI and Justice Department about Hillary Clinton’s email server.

The FBI has acknowledged it is investigating the former Secretary of State’s use of a private server for official communications, especially her mishandling of classified information. Though she denied in April that classified material had crossed her server, we now know that was false. Hundreds of emails sent to or from her server contained national secrets, some highly classified. She used her own email system in violation of the Federal Records Act and in order to protect her emails from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, and this evasion made her emails vulnerable to foreign hacking.

Yet when Steve Kroft asked if the server posed a security risk, Mr. Obama dismissed the idea by saying “I don’t think it posed a national security problem.” But how would he know unless his lawyers are filling him in on the investigation? Mr. Obama must know as a lawyer how inappropriate it is for a President to comment on a case being conducted by executive-branch officials who work for him.

Republican voters think the economy is the number one issue but can’t manage a public discussion on economic policy, as I observed Oct. 4 (“Who are you, and what have you done with the Republican Party?“). They flail at hot-button issues, defunding Planned Parenthood, for example, and look for scapegoats such as illegal Mexican immigrants (whose numbers are actually falling). It seems pointless to make predictions of any sort in the midst of the moral equivalent of a riot, but nonetheless I will go out on a limb: the Republicans will nominate Sen. Ted Cruz as president and Sen. Marco Rubio as vice-president, by process of elimination.

This conclusion seems inevitable by process of elimination. The voters are in a surly, rebellious mood and display their anger by telling pollsters they will vote for anti-Establishment candidates who never have held office (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Paul).

Republicans should wake up because, stultifying and predictable as the Democrats were Tuesday night (in case you missed it, Lincoln Chafee is a Man of Peace — or was it granite?), much as “climate change” is now the official religion of their party (someone should lead a prayer to Gaia at the beginning of their debates), much as they promise endless new pie-in-the-sky social programs without the slightest hint of how they intend to pay for them (other than taxing Donald Trump), the “evil party” didn’t spend much of the evening tearing each other down. Quite the contrary. With the most minor exceptions, they provided a cheering section for each other.

If Republicans continue their approach in their next debate, bashing each other at will and in extremis, they are likely going to lose in November 2016 and then we all lose. The country loses, maybe even disappears as we know it. Republicans aren’t the “stupid party” for nothing — and that includes the Tea Party and RINOS, both equally dopey, not to mention Kevin McCarthy who may have made the greatest unforced political error of the no-longer-young century. Republicans should focus like the proverbial lasers on the opposition, not each other. Fiorina and Rubio have both showed how to do this on different occasions.

Bernie Sanders crawled into the tank (where he jlined the media) and strengthened the possibility of being Hillary Clinton’s running mate (or God forbid cabinet member) last night when he said during the first Democratic debate:

“Let me say something that may not be great politics, but I think the secretary is right, and that is the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damned emails!

“The middle class Anderson, and let me say something about the media as well. I go around the country talk to a whole lot of people, middle class in this country is collapsing. We have twenty-seven million people living in poverty. We have massive wealth and income inequality. Our trade policies have cost us millions of decent jobs. The American people want to know whether we’re going to have a democracy or an oligarchy as a result of Citizens United.

“Enough of the emails! Let’s talk about the real issues facing America!”

See it for yourself via a CNN tweet:

It was clear from the first five minutes of the Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate on CNN (Oct. 13, 2015) that the debaters were sadly out-of-date. It seemed we went through a time-space warp. Social, economic, and foreign policy issues were discussed as though no laws addressing these concerns had been passed during the past 100 years.

Blacks

Anderson Cooper asked the candidates if “black lives matter or all lives matter.” No one acknowledged that black-on-black crime has skyrocketed in our cities. No one noted that the Democrats have controlled our big cities for more than 50 years, yet poverty, the collapse of the black family, and gun violence have been escalating that entire time. No one noted that literally trillions of dollars in Federal poverty dollars have been poured into communities of color with less than glorious results. No one noted the gains made through Affirmative Action or civil rights legislation. Instead we had references to “get out of jail free” cards to offset too much incarceration, free tuition for college (I’ve been good Santa, really), and making those rich bastards in the top .6% pay, pay, and pay some more.

The Dems like to point to the tax rates having been higher before Ronald Reagan’s presidency; yet many of the problems they descry existed before Reagan, and were not ameliorated during any Democratic Presidential administration after Reagan. Lyndon Johnson promoted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Despite the fact that tax rates for the top earners has gone down, the payments made under that act and amendments to that act made over the years have consistently gone up. So, the communities, white and black, supported by those programs have not suffered because of the lowered tax rates. Yet, the black community is insisting more than ever that it is “deprived” by the uptight Republicans. The debate proceeded as though we were in the fifties and had had no experiences with the ineffectiveness or even the limits of poverty programs to solve social problems. Those pricey programs correlate with even more community unrest and hateful rhetoric than before such programs, along with Affirmative Action, even existed. Thus, the debate was dancing around talking points that accept the retrograde thinking that has stifled black advancement, not helped it.

The first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday evening was an opportunity for the unknown challengers to Hillary Clinton to make an impression, and it’s fair to say they did. The four men on stage showed they lack the ability and will to take her on.

The most important moment of the debate came when CNN’s Anderson Cooper gingerly raised the issue of her private emails as Secretary of State. Bernie Sanders, who is leading in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, replied by giving her a whitewash. Americans “are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” he declared. The Democratic crowd loved it, and so did Mrs. Clinton, who shook Mr. Sanders’s hand in gratitude after having ducked Mr. Cooper’s question by dismissing the whole issue as a Republican attack.

Only Lincoln Chafee dared to suggest that her “credibility” might be an issue for voters, but he apologized for doing even that. If Democrats aren’t willing to raise the main reason that Mrs. Clinton is losing in head-to-head polls against most Republicans—her penchant for ethical corner-cutting and deceit—then they are essentially putting their nomination into a Clinton blind trust.

She registered her average-folks credentials by reminding listeners—twice—that she isn’t just the spouse of a former president but also the granddaughter of a factory worker. She had endorsed a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the wealthy and more equality for gays and lesbians, and subtly reminded the nation television audience that if she were elected president, “fathers can say to their daughters, ‘You too can grow up to be president.’”

And then, when she encountered what may be her greatest current campaign vulnerability, which is the continuing controversy over her use of a private server for government work while secretary of state, she didn’t have to bail herself out. That instead was done for her by her principal foe for the nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who declared, to moderator Anderson Cooper and the audience, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails…Enough of the emails. Let’s talk about the real issues.”

Right now, newly elected members of Congress — meaning anyone serving a first, second, or even third term — is powerless. Members lacking seniority are told to shut up and vote the way the Speaker dictates or be punished. Those who dare refuse are dumped from committees and threatened with a primary opponent (funded by the Speaker and his clique) at the next election. As Former Speaker Newt Gingrich observes, “in free societies, it’s very difficult to try to govern by punishment.” But that’s Boehner’s modus operandi.