The Russian Conspiracy Theory

A far-Left portion of the Democrats has been pushing the idea that the election of President Donald Trump is somehow illegitimate because of claimed Russian interference — "Russian hacking" — of the presidential election. But just what is it the Russians are accused of having done? Not interfering in the actual voting or the vote counting, though that's what they would like to have you think. No. It's charged that the Russians changed the election results by releasing information that made the Democrats look bad. That is, they changed the election results through advertising. (Advertising executives wish they could be that effective!)

Let's step back and take a bit longer view. The main thing that has the Democrats disturbed is that they didn't win. After all, they know they are the ones who represent reality, reason, compassion, and all things good and true. They know there is no legitimate reason why people would oppose them. That being the case, the opposition must have some nefarious reason to oppose them and their policies. There's simply no other possibility.

They are especially disturbed when the opposition is successful. In effect, then, here is what really has the Democratic Left riled up. Stated succinctly,

That's right. It's their own string of failures that has them becoming so rabid.

This is just another reflection of something that's been true for roughly fifty years. It's a truism. If you understand these two statements, you understand nearly all of American politics.

      Conservatives think liberals are wrong.

      Liberals think conservatives are evil.

This was true before, but increasingly more so in the past thirty years.

A Thought on the ObamaCare Repeal

It seems to me that "Repeal And Replace" should be the proper approach to dealing with ObamaCare (the horribly misnamed Affordable Care Act). The reason for this has nothing to do with any of the bill's primary provisions, the things that were why the bill was written. The reason is this: Nobody liked this bill when it was being pushed through the Congress. (That's actually not quite true. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the one or two other people allowed into the office to draft this bill must have liked it at least a little.) That's why the Democrat leadership had to add item after item to the bill to enable them to talk other Democrats into reluctantly voting for it. (The biggest single one of these items was probably the federal take-over of the entire student loan process.) None of these additional items was seriously or appropriately considered by Congressional committees or members — not even to the extremely limited degree allowed for the main bill. And, of course, the Democrat leadership couldn't allow anything like the normal amendment process or their entire house of cards would have collapsed.

The only way to get rid of all the extraneous garbage accretions that were used to bribe enough senators and representatives to vote for this turkey is to repeal the entire bill outright. Otherwise, even if all parts of ObamaCare get fixed perfectly, all the additional garbage will still be left in place and in effect.

Just a thought.

Legislative Insanity and Stupidity

Legislators in New Mexico seem to have been going out of their way to be stupid. And nuts.

A case in point: The Legislature in our state capital of Santa Fe has decided they don't like switching onto and off of Daylight Savings Time every spring and fall. So far, so good. But their solution is to stay on Daylight Savings Time all year round. (!) The bill's sponsor claims the farmers in his district support his proposal, but he admits elsewhere that they will be in the fields based on the sun, completely independent of whatever the clocks are doing. Dumb! Just dumb!

The Legislature also demonstrates insanity, defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The Legislature's only solution to any problem is "Raise taxes and throw more money at it." (Actually, that's not true. It's really "Raise taxes and throw more money somewhere.) They haven't yet learned that this never works. I can't tell you how many tax increases have been and are being passed by this Legislature, but they amount to something close to half billion dollars a year in tax increases on this small, poor state.

The Legislature's insanity disease has also been contracted by the city council in Santa Fe — or is it the other way around? The city council this week passed a "sugar tax" that will principally affect soft drinks and other sweetened drinks like Gatorade. (The actual boundaries of this tax are not yet well publicly defined.) The tax is to be 2¢ per ounce of liquid. As opponents have noted, that means your drink will often cost you more in tax than for the drink itself. The only good news is that this proposal is going before the voters for ratification. The bad news is that the city council is a reasonably accurate reflection of the community they represent, including in its insanity.

These are just some current examples of this phenomenon. Every legislative session provides new ones. It's almost enough to suggest that those who want to run for Legislative office should be banned from serving there. But then,

¡Así es en Nuevo Mexico! That's how it is in New Mexico!

Three Obama Rules to Follow

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on January 24th.

To honor the legacy of ex-president Obama, it would be fitting to continue to observe three rules that were hallmarks of his presidency.

First, for the next eight years, anything bad that happens is the fault of the previous president.

Second, starting January 20, anything good that happens is the result of the wise guidance of the current president.

Third, any attempt by the party in the minority to exert influence over the course of government is to be considered a bigoted and racist attempt to thwart the will of the people.

Given how well these principles served President Obama, I am sure we can all agree that we should continue to follow them as part of Obama's legacy.

It is going to be an interesting ride and, to paraphrase ex-president Obama, "You progressives are welcome to come along for the ride, but you will have to ride in the back (of the pickup)."

After all, elections have consequences.

          DAVID HOLCOMB
          Cedar Crest

No further comment is necessary.

The Inauguration Approaches

President Barack Obama offers to give President Elect Donald Trump his best advice as Trump prepares to take office.

Meanwhile, a sizable chunk of the Democratic Party, not believing in the Constitution or the orderly transfer of power, does what they do best.

Just To Be Clear

It's being reported that 54% of Democrats believe the Russians interfered in the U.S. presidential election by hacking into and changing vote totals last November 8. That means they've fallen for some "fake news" 'bause that's never what the actual news reports said. The actual charge was that the Russians influenced the U.S. election by passing all those e-mails to Wikileaks. (But see this item.)

And what follows from that is this:

I would also say all the continuing crying, screaming, bellyaching, rioting, and abuse of process on the left demonstrates a HUGE amount of hypocrisy on their part. Just compare what they were saying before the election with what they've been saying since.

It won't make sense to the young and historically illiterate, but what all the Leftist bitching and moaning makes me think is this:

The "Russian Hack"

The primary US media outlets have been spending a LOT of ink and air time talking about the Russians and their purported hacking of the US presidential election last month. These stories are disingenuous. In point of fact, the hacking that was done — by whomever — was, according to the detail behind the stories, of the Democratic National Committee (& maybe the Republican National Committee) and the Hillary Clinton campaign organization and the Hillary Clinton State Department. There have been no real reports of the hacking of any state's election voting processes. So the claims are really of using hacked material to influence voters to change who they voted for, no matter how the primary media outlets may wish to spin them.

Let's look at some of the issues surrounding these claims.

First is the difference between what is claimed in the stories and what has actually been reported by the stories' sources. That is pure deception. And the reality takes us from the realm of direct action to the realm of influence. In the latter realm, Russia would have a lot of company.

And what was Russia doing to influence the US presidential election? It was purportedly releasing through Wikileaks e-mails sent among members of the Hillary Clinton campaign showing it and she were disingenuous, deceptive, unethical, criminal, & etc. Meanwhile, as the hacked e-mailes showed, others were working to influence the election.

Second is motivation. As reported

"The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter," the Post reported on Friday.

The problem is that despite Vladimir Putin's reported dislike of Hillary Clinton, Russia could more easily have pushed the US around with her as president (just as with President Obama) than with Donald Trump in the Executive Office. A serious pragmatist like Vladimir Putin would — and has — go with what best serves his purposes regardless of his personal feelings.

Third is the question of why the Russians (or whoever) would have released data hacked from the Democrats but not the Republicans. There are two possible answers to this, both of which may be true.

(1) It may be that the Republicans' e-mails gave the Russians (or whoever) nothing juicy as the Democrats' did — nothing unethical or illegal to attach to the Republicans' candidate or his campaign like what whoever found in the e-mails of Hillary Clinton and her campaign, including her campaign manager.

(2) The hacker may not have gotten into the Republicans' e-mails. Perhaps no one at the Republican National Committee responded to a phishing e-mail and no one in the Donald Trump campaign did that or kept and used a completely unsecured server.

Fourth is was it really the Russians? The leaked e-mails came out through Wikileaks. And the Wikileaks folks insist they didn't come from the Russians — or anyone else foreign — but from a disgruntled Hillary Campaign individual frustrated and disgusted by the behaviors he saw running rampant in the campaign. Of course, the primary media outlets are ignoring what Wikileaks keeps saying — it doesn't fit their narrative.

Fifth is the question of what impact the leaked e-mails had. In a way, it doesn't matter:

• If they had a major impact, it was because of what they revealed about the candidate and her campaign organization (see "third" (1), above). In such a case, the impact would be the same whether the e-mails came from a whistleblower, a hacker, or Woodward & Bernstein.
• If they had no major impact, the whole premise of the media story collapses. In that event, it doesn't really matter who got the e-mails out. Aside from a desire for blame, of course.

In any case, it appears the likely answer is that the e-mails didn't have much impact. The reason I say that is that we kept seeing stories about how sparse the crowds were at Hillary Clinton events, while Donald Trump events were . . . well, like this:

The remaining question would be how well such crowds transfer into vote margins. This time, the rally crowds appear to have transferred just enough to make a real difference; last time (2012), not so much.

The bottom line of all this is that No, Democrats, Russia and Vladimir Putin didn't steal the presidential election for Donald Trump.

Since the election, Leftists have used the purported Russian hack (as well as other reasons and no real reason at all) as excuses for demands that the election results be overturned. All of these excuses boil down to "It isn't fair! We didn't win!" A typical immature child's reaction.

But even an immiature child should understand that don't change the rules of the game after the game has started. And you especially don't change the rules of the game to change the winner after the game is over. That would be like changing the definition of Checkmate because you don't like the fact that you lost.

All of this still leaves at least one problem, one that is suggested by the issues above. With all these issues, why did the CIA (reportedly) give this story to press people but (apparently) not not to those in the normal reporting chain? And why, when asked, was the CIA unwilling to provide more information — and maybe even evidence — to appropriately cleared folks like Congressional intelligence committees (and unlike the press folks who lack security clearances)? This key question, put another way, is

[I]f it turns out people in the CIA were pushing a phony story to damage Trump's presidency, and that a credulous anti-Trump press eagerly spread these claims — they should be held accountable as well. Undermining the credibility of our Democratic system is a terrible offense, no matter who is behind it or why.

That same article provides a thought that can perhaps help lead us toward an answer.

Until some actual facts are known, however, everyone would be wise to keep in mind that everyone currently pushing the Russians-stole-our-election story has a reason to hope it was true.

I wonder if that would be "hope" or "wish". And what they would do to make their wish come true.

UPDATE: Even some of Hillary's friends on the Left can't swallow these claims. See this story, citing this one.

Donald Trump & Carrier

President-elect Donald Trump called the head of Carrier Air Conditioning's parent company and had a "heart to heart" talk with him. With that and some additional serious negotiations, the Carrier plant in Indiana will remain open instead of moving to Mexico, saving 1,000 jobs.

If President-elect Donald Trump could do that without yet being in office, why couldn't President Barack Obama do anything like it?

Looks like it's because Donald Trump actually gives a damn.
He cares.

Not even in office yet, and he's saving jobs.

Reflections on the Election

Before Election Day, everything seemed so clear. Hillary Clinton would be elected president and Donald Trump would be exiled to the wastelands and never heard from again. But then Election Day came, and everyone's expectations were turned upside down.

That caused Shock. Consternation. Horror. The Hillary partisans in the blue cities reacted badly. And that brought about some immediate aftereffects.

Another quick side effect was in the financial markets, where the market futures took an immediate dive. The market gurus said the financial markets would be devastated and would never recover. But we know how that turned out.

There was one more thing that apparently passed unnoticed on election night. A glass ceiling was shattered — just not the one the Left expected. It was the one shattered by Kellyanne Conway.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Now the election is over and we're done with all those political comercials filling all the radio and television broadcast time. And now we will see over the coming weeks the unfolding of a new era. We'll just have to see how different it is from the old one.

Comey Sends Another Letter

After recently announcing the reopening of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, FBI Director James Comey has now announced he atill won't recomment pressing criminal charges against Hillary Clinton et al. All this after having outlined Hillary's criminal behavior in his press conference in July.

I have been mystified since July over the discrepancy between the facts summarized and the recommendation made. Maybe this explains it:

The Best Reason . . .

Ruben Navarrette summarizes this year's presidential race rather succinctly in his column in today's Albuquerque Journal. He says

The best reason to vote for Clinton is not because you believe that she cares about you or will keep her promises; it's to stop Trump. And the best reason to vote for Trump is not because you believe that he'll change a system that made him rich and famous or will keep his promises; it's to defeat Clinton.

As for me, I remain "Never. Never." I've chosen this path because I see the truth in the meme I read recently that described Trump as representing "everything that is wrong with our culture" and Clinton as embodying "everything that is wrong with our government."

That about covers it.

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez sums up how Navarrette and a large part of the country's population feel.

This additional Ramirez cartoon puts the choice we face a little bit differently.

That-s pretty close to what Thomas Sowell said (quoted here):

Voting for an out of control egomaniac like Donald Trump would be like playing Russian roulette with the future of this country. Voting for someone with a track record like Hillary Clinton's is like putting a shotgun to your head and pulling the trigger. And not voting at all is just giving up.

As Sowell also says, "Nobody said that being a good citizen would be easy."

Consider carefully. After all, one of these two people will end up living in the White House next year. Are you going to vote for a chance at life or for a guaranteed disaster?

Willful Blindness

Just one of the areas where President Barack Obama and his administration deliberately close their eyes to reality. I wish we had an adult in the Oval Office.

The Media Surrender

Subtitle: Media For Hillary

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump confirmed his belief that President Barack Obama was born in the United States, and noted that the original story had come from the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The major media outlets — including the AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS — quickly produced their agreed view on the issue. (The Wall Street Journal cites here the varying wordings of that agreed viewpoint by the AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN. I heard the reporting by ABC, NBC, and CBS myself, and read the AP account in the Albuquerque Journal.) The way the agreed media story was put in the Albuquerque Journal is this:

WASHINGTON – After five years as a promoter of a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, Donald Trump abruptly reversed course Friday and acknowledged the fact that the president was born in America. He then immediately peddled another false conspiracy.

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump declared, enunciating each word in a brief statement at the end of a campaign appearance. “Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”

But as the GOP presidential nominee sought to put that false conspiracy theory to rest, he stoked another, claiming that the “birther movement” was begun by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence that that is true.

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said.

While the question of Obama’s birthplace was pushed by some bloggers who backed Clinton’s primary campaign against him eight years ago, Clinton has long denounced it as a “racist lie.”

If memory serves, Hillary started denouncing it as false about the time she was named to be Obama's Secretary of State.

Note that this agreed media story on the issue appeared in the media's news stories, not just in their editorials.

This writer suspects that Trump picked up legitimate discussions of and questions about Obama's birth that were running around the country (no, not just "some bloggers") in 2008. Some questions continued for a time even after the White House finally released a copy of the original long-form birth certificate because of perceived discrepancies in it.

But, frankly, that's not of concern. What is of concern is that the media have agreed on a single viewpoint, across news and editorial departments and across organizations, that is at odds with the verifiable facts — both as stated currently and as can surely be verified in news reports from 2008. Multiple members of Hillary's 2008 campaign, including her senior advisor and close confidant Sidney Blumenthal, are the ones who took this story to various reporters — a story that was supported by Obama's own statement in a collegiate biography that he was born in Kenya. Indeed, Blumenthal's deep involvement in spreading this story may be the reason President Obama absolutely forbade the hiring of Blumenthal in the State Department by Secretary Clinton, and order Hillary followed in its letter but not in its intent as he was clearly still working for her at the time of the Benghazi Attack.

But I'm reasonably sure of this:

It's not a conspiracy. It's worse. It's a consensus.

Perhaps the actual issue for this presidential campaign is that Donald Trump was gullible enough to really believe what he read in the media in 2008.

What is Hillary Really Like?

Hillary Rodham Clinton showed her true colors early in the Administration of President William Jefferson Clinton. (She had done so back in Arkansas as well, but not nearly so publicly or on the national public record.) This former First Lady, former New York Senator, and former Secretary of State engineered what would become known as Travelgate:

It was the first big case in which she showed poor judgment, a cool willingness to mislead, and a level of political aggression that gave even those around her pause. It was after this mess that her critics said she’d revealed the soul of an East German border guard.

The Clinton White House was internally a dramatic one, as George Stephanopoulos later recounted in “All Too Human,” his sharply observed, and in retrospect somewhat harrowing, memoir of his time as Mr. Clinton’s communications director and senior adviser. He reported staffers and officials yelling, crying, shouting swear words and verbally threatening each other. It was a real hothouse. There was a sense the gargoyles had taken over the cathedral. But that wouldn’t become apparent until later.

What showed up in Hillary's Travelgate actions? She took vindictive actions that were intended in part to funnel government funds to her friends and associates. Those actions included, in that case, not only the dismissal of all the members of the White House Travel Office, who had worked for a series of presidents both Democrats and Republicans, and having criminal charges lodged against them which she knew to be fabricated and false. She made a long series of false statements, attempting to hide her mendacity behind a long series of changing stories. And she misused and subverted a whole series of government files and departments.

All of which could have been ripped from this year's current headlines. It just goes to show that absolutely nothing has changed.

A Little Bit of Politics

Last week, President Barack Obama jumped into the presidential race. Supporting Hillary Clinton, he asserted that Donald Trump is "unqualified to be president" unfit to be president, lacking the necessary temperament and preparation for the office. His statement hit the news, as they say, big time — even though he's been saying the same thing for a long time, including in an interview reported in May.

My reaction on hearing Obama's latest outburst was this:
POT . . . KETTLE

We know what the last 7½ years have done to us. We know what Hillary has done in every area she has touched, and what kind of disaster she has been in those areas. Trump doesn't have that kind of record — or any government record. That's why Obama is calling him unqualified; he doesn't have his government "union card". Translated, that means we know how bad Hillary would be, but Trump is an unknown and we're left with guesswork.

Thomas Sowell may be right when he asks, "How did we get into the predicament where our choices for President are narrowed to a candidate who inspires distrust versus a candidate who inspires disgust — and where both are dangerous?"

In an earlier column, Sowell says "Voting for an out of control egomaniac like Donald Trump would be like playing Russian roulette with the future of this country. Voting for someone with a track record like Hillary Clinton's is like putting a shotgun to your head and pulling the trigger. And not voting at all is just giving up." As Sowell also says, "Nobody said that being a good citizen would be easy."

The Hillary Railroad

It's on the wrong track, naturally. (What would you expect?) Following the track well-established for her by her party and her (she hopes) predecessor.

Once again, Trever hits it out of the park!

The Non-Indictment of Hillary

Of course it's not quite that simple. The prosecutors that will review the information developed by the FBI could still choose to bring indictments against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her illegal activities as Secretary of State.

Of course, FBI Director James Comey said that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." That caused me to wonder just what he meant. Did he mean that the evidence didn't support criminal charges — the impression Comey worked terribly hard to convey? Or did he mean that no "reasonable prosecutor" would proceed with such a case because they would know they would be cashiered by DOJ political appointees if they did?

Actually, Comey said more. He said that

To warrant a criminal charge, Mr. Comey said, there had to be evidence that Mrs. Clinton intentionally transmitted or willfully mishandled classified information. The F.B.I. found neither, and as a result, he said, “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

This is wrong in multiple respects. Here are two:

1. There are two statutes that apply to the mishandling of classified information as occurred in this case. One of them requires intent, either intentionally transmission or willfully mishandling of classified information. The other just requires the perpetrator be "extremely careless" — i.e., negligent or reckless — in the handling of classified information. And Comey demonstrated that Hillary had been "extremely careless" (his words).
2. Reasonable prosecutors have brought such charges in the past, including the charges against a former director of the CIA who was indicted for having classified material on his home computer, and was only spared a trial by being pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. And just last year the Obama Administration prosecuted and convicted a naval reservist who downloaded some classified to a personal electronic device but never made it available to anyone else.

There's also the fact that Hillary deliberately had her private server set up, in part to avoid the State Department's security systems.

So Hillary talks about how reckless Donald Trump might be, while she is the one who has demonstrated her recklessness — either deliberate intent or gross negligence — in handling national security information, as shown by FBI Director Comey.

And of course General Petraeus was cashiered for far lesser transgressions.

There are a couple of "take-aways" from this situation. One is part of what else the FBI director said.

After announcing his no-charge recommendation, Comey added:

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

In other words, laws are for little people.

Another likely inference is this:

which translates roughly as "the fix is in."

Clearly "All men are created equal", but some are more equal than others.

Your Democrat Congressmen in Action

In Washington DC today

Total truth. No comment is necessary, but I'll add a comment anyway:

It's very sad to see an icon of the civil rights movemeent attempting to deprive people of their civil rights and leading a demonstration in support of that attempt. He and his fellow demonstrators should be ashamed of themselves.

Update: Having gotten a lot of publicity, having promised to stay till they get a vote (on a bill that couldn't even pass in its first committee), and having engorged themselves on a banquet of food brought in,

these House Democrats have now declared their demonstration over.

Obama Transgender Decree

The Obama White House, along with President Barack Obama's puppet "Justice" and "Education" Departments, has issued a decree that all schools must allow anyone to use the bathroom and locker room of whatever gender they self-identify with on a given day.

This is simply stupid — as everyone with even half a brain knows. One part of this is that "self-identification" — "transgender" or otherwise — is subject to huge amounts of abuse. Here's a small example

But there's more. One piece is the role of political correctness in enabling mental illness and fraud.

So this guy walks into an OB/GYN clinic and demands a gynecological exam. The doctor, a woman, takes one look at him and says, "That won't work. You're a man." The man, however, "self identifies" as a woman and blasts the doctor for being a bigot. "I self identify as a woman," he says. "And I demand to be treated as a woman, or I'll call my civil rights lawyer."

The doctor, not wanting to be called a bigot, proceeds to give the man a fake gynecological exam, playing into his delusional distortions about his own biology and arguably worsening his mental disconnect with his physical self.

This is what transgenderism and "biological subjectivism" has come to in America today... a politically correct demand that everyone agree to participate in the mental distortions of a few individuals who suffer from a psychological disconnect from their biological realities. Such ideologies stand in complete contradiction to the known science on biology and physical reality, and sadly, this mental distortion is now being thrust onto children as part of a sick, demented political agenda to appease the most lunatic fringe elements of the political spectrum. [emphasis in the original}

But it's even worse than that. Let's start with the fact that news stories have cited "transgender" students as young as 3 years old. To think that kids that young have any thoughts at all about sex or gender is just dumb. The only way they would is if those thoughts come from their parents. And that looks like child abuse, causing mental illness in children.

It's not just me saying so. The American College of Pediatricians has reached the same conclusion. Their key findings:

1. Sex is immutable.
2. Gender is a social construct.
3. One's belief they are something they are not is, at best, confused thinking.
4. Nearly all "transgenders" return to their biological sex. Therefore,
5. "Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse."

This means the White House, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education — through their order to all schools from kindergartens through colleges — are objectively promoting child abuse and fraud, all in support of their left-wing extremist ideology.

It's time for a major change. The nation needs to get rid of these ideologues. Now.

UPDATE: This (below) is an excellent addition to this discussion.

A Piece of the Hillary Reality