Tag: trump

Excuses, Excuses: Now Hillary Clinton’s Attacking Her Own Party’s Candidates

Thomas L. Knapp

“I’m not making any predictions, but I think [the Russians] have got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” said Hillary Clinton on her former campaign manager’s podcast.  “They know they can’t win without a third party candidate.”

Was Clinton referring to US Representative Tulsi Gabbard, CNN asked? “If the nesting doll fits” her spokesperson replied.

Nearly three years after losing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton’s still trying to find someone other than Hillary Clinton to blame.

If it’s not women voting the way their husbands tell them to vote, it’s James Comey’s unconvincing job of “exonerating” her for her grossly negligent handling of classified information.

If it’s not the media taking too much notice of her scandals, her health problems, etc., it’s Bernie Sanders supporters staying home instead of going to the polls for a candidate who hated them as much as they hated her.

Whatever it is, it can never, ever, ever be the fact that she’s among the most disliked and distrusted politicians of the last century, or that she ran an incredibly inept campaign, or that she failed to pay sufficient attention to Rust Belt voters upon whom Donald Trump lavished attention and promises to “bring the jobs back.”

And sooner or later it always comes back around to !THEM RUSSIANS!

!THEM RUSSIANS! spent a miniscule amount of money (a fraction of a percent of what Clinton’s campaign spent, and far less than !THEM RUSSIANS! donated to Clinton’s family foundation) on cheesy Facebook ads.

Donald Trump made a secret deal with Vladimir Putin! He’s a Kremlin “asset!”

!THEM RUSSIANS! backed a third party candidate (Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party), who “stole” enough votes from Clinton to throw the election to Trump.

And now !THEM RUSSIANS! are at it again. The long arm of the Kremlin is reaching into the very heart of the Democratic Party itself to once again wrest a  presidential election away from Hillary Clinton (or from someone, anyway).

There’s no obvious evidence that Tulsi Gabbard plans to defect from the Democratic Party and run for president as an independent or on another party’s ticket.

On the other hand, given her treatment by the Democratic National Committee — including gaming polls to try to keep her out of primary debates and out of the running — and now by Hillary Clinton, who could blame her if she did?

Furthermore, in what universe is an independent or third party presidential candidacy any less legitimate than a Democratic presidential nomination?

Votes belong to voters, not to parties. Democratic and Republican candidates aren’t magically entitled to your vote. Whether or not they’ve earned that vote is your call and no one else’s.

If Democrats are interested in winning next year, they might want to consider publicly dissociating themselves from Hillary Clinton, who’s gone in a mere three years from even whinier than Donald Trump to even loonier than Lyndon LaRouche.

Open This Content

The Down Side of Impeachment

Thomas L. Knapp

Unless there’s some dramatic change in the political landscape over the next month or so, I believe that the US House of Representatives will impeach President Donald Trump.

Unless there’s some dramatic change in the political landscape between now and Trump’s trial in the US Senate, I don’t believe the Senate will vote, by the necessary 2/3 majority, to convict him.

Taken together, those two outcomes constitute a bad thing. Here’s why:

If I’m correct on the first count, Donald Trump will become the third US president to be impeached by the House (the first two were Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998).

If I’m correct on the second count, Donald Trump will become the third US president to be acquitted by the Senate.

When Johnson and Clinton were impeached, no reasonable doubt remained that they were guilty of at least some of the charges laid in their articles of impeachment. Johnson had indeed dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from office after the Senate had voted not to concur with his dismissal. Clinton had indeed lied under oath concerning his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

If Donald Trump is impeached, he will likewise be charged with one or more things which he, beyond a reasonable doubt, actually did.

In theory, the House’s job is to decide whether or not an act is worthy of impeachment, and the Senate’s job is only to determine whether or not the president actually committed that act.

In real life, this will make three times out of three that the Senate engages in a form of jury nullification. At least 34 Senators will vote, in the face of facts plainly demonstrating guilt, to acquit.

Blame partisan bias if you like.

Or, if you prefer, accept some Senators’ claims that they disagree that the acts in question, though proven, rise to the level of treason, bribery, or “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Either way, a three for three record of acquittals sends a message to every future president:

So long as your party can whip 34 Senators into line to vote against conviction, anything goes.

Fans of the separation of powers envisioned in the Constitution have bemoaned “the imperial presidency” since the 1960s.

Trump has openly and routinely hacked away at that fraying separation. Impeachment and acquittal would be an injection of steroids in his sword arm.

Absent conviction, impeachment isn’t just useless, it’s catastrophic.

Open This Content

Entangling Alliances Make For Forever Wars

Thomas L. Knapp

In March of 2018, US president Donald Trump promised “we’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon.” That December, he issued an order to begin withdrawing US troops. Apparently the order never got executed. Most of a year later, US forces remain.

Now Trump and his opponents are arguing over his decision to move a few dozen of those troops around within Syria, to get them out of the way of a Turkish invasion force massing on the border. Both sides are pretending that a tiny troop movement constitutes the supposed withdrawal he ordered last December.

This minor situation illustrates a major problem  that two early presidents warned us about.

“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world,” George Washington said in his farewell address.

Four years later, Thomas Jefferson called for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none” in his inaugural address.

I wonder what Washington and Jefferson would think of the continued presence of US troops in Europe and Japan  75 years after the end of World War Two, or in South Korea 66 years after the ceasefire on that peninsula?

I wonder what they’d have to say about NATO, a multi-country military alliance still operating three decades after the collapse and disappearance of the enemy it was supposedly formed to guard against?

Because Trump failed to follow through on his promise to get out of Syria, he now finds himself caught between two putative allies: NATO member Turkey on one side, the Kurds (an ethnic group which Washington periodically uses in its regional wars then invariably  abandons) on the other.

The Turks and the Kurds have a long and antagonistic shared history.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to invade Syria to establish a “safe zone,” by which he means a “zone without armed Kurds in it.” He wants US troops out of the way.

The Kurds, having carved out something resembling a small nation-state of their own in northern Syria with US assistance and as a side effect of chasing the Islamic State out of the area,  would rather those US troops stayed so that the Turks won’t have as free a killing hand.

Given the choice between pleasing Turkey (a major regional power and a NATO ally) or pleasing the Kurds (who have no internationally recognized state of their own and depend entirely on the US for the viability of their enclave), I can’t say I blame Trump for caving to Erdogan’s demands.

But if the US hadn’t invaded Syria in the first place (under former president Barack Obama), or if Trump hadn’t escalated the war instead of ending it when he took office, or if he had kept his subsequent promise to withdraw US forces, he wouldn’t have found himself in the current situation.

Like adhesive bandages, entangling alliances cover ugly wounds and seldom come off without pain. But leaving them in place and letting the wounds fester is even worse.

Open This Content

Politicians: A Necessary Demystification

Thomas L. Knapp

Politicians are people with jobs and with bosses.

On its face that seems like a relatively uncontroversial statement, but I’m always surprised at how much time people spend looking for high principle in the decisions politicians make instead of considering the mundane dynamics of political employment.

In a recent column, I pointed out that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) finally opened a formal impeachment inquiry versus President Donald Trump because she’s good at counting votes, not because  she’s personally keen on the idea. Pelosi wants to keep her party’s top job in the US House of Representatives. Sometimes keeping that job involves running to the front of parades she didn’t plan.

When I write things like this, some accuse me of being overly cynical. Agree or disagree with a particular politician on a particular issue, they’re convinced that politicians in general are more like painters or musicians who create art for the sake of art than like fry cooks or janitors who work for paychecks and in hope of promotion.

I don’t think I’m too cynical. I’m not saying that politicians lack principles or beliefs. I’m not saying they never act on their principles or beliefs. But they’re people with jobs and with bosses.

Many people seek particular jobs out of what we might consider selfless, or at least highly principled, motives.

A kid dreams of becoming a veterinarian because he or she loves animals.

Decades later, is that kid still spaying, neutering, smooshing stool samples, etc., solely from pure love of animals, or does paying the mortgage and building a profitable practice (or remaining employed in one) perhaps also play a role?

The average elected official probably answers to more  bosses than the average American worker. Voters. Campaign contributors. Party officials. Fellow politicians up and down the ladder of power.

Those bosses have conflicting goals and priorities, which means conflicting pressures on the politician. Pressure to move slowly on something he supports. Pressure to move fast on something she has doubts about. Pressure to sacrifice his goals to the group’s goals, just for now, we’ll get to your thing soon, pinky promise.

Politicians aren’t ethereal creatures of pure principle, operating on a higher moral plane than the rest of us. They’re people with jobs and with bosses, just LIKE the rest of us. And that’s more than sufficient reason to not give them much power OVER the rest of us.

Open This Content

Food Is Freedom: How Washington’s Food Subsidies Have Helped Make Americans Fat and Sick

Brian Miller

Farm subsidies are perhaps the ultimate, but secret, third rail of American politics. While entitlements are discussed out in the open, farm subsidies are rarely talked about – even though they are the most expensive subsidy Washington doles out.

All told, the U.S. government spends $20 billion annually on farm subsidies, with approximately 39 percent of all farms receiving some sort of subsidy. For comparison, the oil industry gets about $4.6 billion annually and annual housing subsidies total another $15 billion. A significant portion of this $20 billion goes not to your local family farm, but to Big Aggie.

(Note that this $20 billion annual farm subsidy figure doesn’t take into account the 30+ years of ethanol subsidies to the corn industry nor export subsidies to U.S. farmers issued by the USDA.)

The government never properly explains why this is. Certainly small farmers are growing their crops at enormous risk. However, it’s not clear that agriculture is any different than other high-risk industries – especially because the United States is blessed with some of the most fertile farmland in the world, and a highly skilled labor force.

Subsidies don’t just cost taxpayers, an expense that might properly be justified by showing a return on investment. Subsidies also provide powerful disincentives against innovation, as well as cost effectiveness and diversification of land use.

There is also a strong case to be made that farm subsidies are a major driver of the obesity and cancer epidemic in the United States. Every time Washington interferes in the private sector, they are picking winners and losers. The winners chosen are companies producing food that’s high in calories and low in nutritional density – and that helps make Americans sick and fat, because it distorts what food is available at what price.

While President Trump has sometimes discussed reducing farm subsidies, the solution to the problem is much more radical – the total elimination of all farm subsidies from the federal budget.

Continue reading Food Is Freedom: How Washington’s Food Subsidies Have Helped Make Americans Fat and Sick at Ammo.com.

Open This Content

Yep, These People are Stone Cold Crooked

Thomas L. Knapp

Did vice president Joe Biden threaten to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees from the Obama administration if the Ukrainian government failed to remove a prosecutor whose investigation targets included Burisma Holdings, a gas company on whose board Biden’s son, Hunter, sat? Yes. He’s publicly admitted it.

Did president Donald Trump pressure Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to re-open corruption investigations into Burisma in general and the Bidens specifically? Yes. He’s publicly admitted it.

Let us briefly pause while partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans, supporters of Biden and supporters of Trump,  get the screams of “false equivalency!” out of their systems.

I’ll even entertain the notion. Maybe Joe Biden was just worried about corruption in Ukraine and not throwing his vice-presidential weight around to protect his son. Maybe Donald Trump is just worried about corruption in Ukraine and self-dealing by American politicians, rather than cynically abusing his presidential power to have foreign governments torpedo his political opponents.

OK, now let’s get back to the real world where, as Lord Acton wrote, “power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Or, as President Trump tweeted about his accusers, and has he’s established concerning himself over the course of decades, “these people are stone cold crooked.”

The basic facts of both sets of accusations are undisputed by the accused. What’s at issue is their motives.

Those with power (including one of its forms, wealth) tend to act to preserve that power. As the amount of power requiring preservation increases, so does the temptation to use that power in corrupt ways to protect and expand it.

The positions of president and vice-president/potential president, entail considerable power. Suspecting corrupt motives on Biden’s part, Trump’s part, or both, is not only not beyond the pale, it’s perfectly reasonable.

The emerging scandal may cost both Trump and Biden their 2021-2025 presidential ambitions. It could conceivably even cost Trump several months of his current term if the House impeaches and the Senate convicts (the former looks increasingly likely, the latter seemingly unlikely).

But the problem goes deeper than the ambitions or personal moral compasses of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The problem is power itself. We’ve ceded far too much of it to politicians, and the executive branch in particular has co-opted far too much of what we’ve unwisely ceded to the state in general.

Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump should have ever had control over billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine’s government in the first place. If the US does dispense foreign aid (it shouldn’t), the job of the White House is to cut the checks as directed by Congress.

The US, after decades of creep toward dictatorship, is there. The executive branch has seized plenary power because Congress has failed to jealously guard its prerogatives and the Supreme Court has failed to zealously protect our rights.

The authoritarian dystopia into which we’ve fallen, not the specific details of a dictator’s or would-be dictator’s abuses,  is the problem. If we don’t solve it, we solve nothing.

Open This Content