Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
About Draining That Swamp…
I mean to speak plainly. There’ll be no polemical high-wire acts this time around, no rhetorical flamboyance and none of the gallows humor that rolls so trippingly off the tongue when one pauses to contemplate our disastrous current state of affairs. And as consequential as ideology is in this election, I will eschew discussion on those terms as well.
Instead, I write simply as a veteran with over 20 years of military service who has seen both honor and dishonor in action, who has seen the effects of integrity as well as corruption. I’ve worked with leaders for whom I would storm the gates of hell, and I’ve worked for scoundrels who unleashed hell on everyone around them. I’ve experienced both the exuberance of working within a strong and ethical command structure, and the misery of being trapped in a crooked and shady chain of command that poisons everything it touches. But in 54 years on this earth I’ve never seen anything approaching the sheer magnitude of the criminal enterprise that threatens this nation with a level of debauchery whose width and breadth will defile everything and everyone in its insatiable orbit.
In short order we will have a new president-elect. That this person will either be the Democratic or Republican nominee is assured, as is the fact that a great many of us fervently wish our choices were otherwise. We might as well wish that we could control gravity or redirect the storm clouds for all the good our dreams will do at this point. We could vote for a third party candidate who has as much chance of winning as I have of wearing a tutu and dancing with the Russian Ballet, but that accomplishes about as much as Arlen Specter voting nolo contendere’ or whatever damn thing he voted during the Clinton impeachment trial in the Senate. Specter’s vote afforded him a certain amount of self-satisfaction but ultimately helped Bill Clinton get away with his crimes.
Similarly, I respectfully submit the there is a choice to be made in this election which, in this observer’s opinion, transcends the traditional left/right political spectrum. Which is not to trivialize nor marginalize the stark alternatives on a spectrum ranging from individual liberty on one end to collective servitude on the other. Those differences are real and the consequences momentous. This year, however, the choice is as much between right and wrong as it is between right and left.
For perhaps the first time in history, we have a candidate who has been the subject of multiple criminal investigations by the FBI. If you suspect this is the result of political chicanery, please consider that the candidate and her staff responded to the FBI’s investigation by:
- Providing two BlackBerry devices with their SIM or SD data cards removed.
- Destroying or losing 13 of Hillary’s personal mobile devices being sought by the FBI as evidence while claiming publicly that she only used one device.
- Deleting server backups to avoid FBI examination.
- Wiping laptops with BleachBit when notified that they contained records sought by the FBI and the House Benghazi Committee.
- Permanently deleting emails from her “PRN” [Platte River Networks] server after those emails were subpoenaed.
- Manually deleting backups of the PRN server after her records were subpoenaed.
Despite these extraordinary efforts by the candidate and her staff to circumvent lawful subpoenas by hiding and destroying evidence, further FBI investigation discovered:
- 2,093 emails that the State Department classifies as Confidential or Secret despite Hillary’s claims that there were no classified emails..
- 193 emails (totaling 81 individual email chains) that ranged in classification, at the time they were sent, from Confidential to Top Secret/Special Access Program.
- 8 Top Secret email chains.
- 37 Secret email chains.
- 36 Confidential email chains.
- 7 Special Access Program email chains.
- 3 Sensitive Compartmentalized Information email chains.
- 37 Not Releasable to Foreign Government email chains.
- 2 Releasable Only to Five Allied Partners email chains.
- 12 of the above email chains which were withheld by Clinton attorneys, but which the FBI recovered using other methods.
- The above email chains also contained classified information from CIA, DOD, FBI, NGA, and NSA.
Why, you ask, would a Secretary of State take such stunning measures to conceal official correspondence, to the point of compromising some of America’s most sensitive and highly classified secrets? The answer was revealed when we learned that the FBI has also been investigating the subordination of the US State Department specifically, and US foreign policy generally, to the financial goals and personal aggrandizement of the Clinton Foundation and Bill and Hillary Clinton. “It is,” as Andrew McCarthy writes at National Review, “suggestive of a pattern of pay-to-play bribery, the monetizing of political influence, fraud, and obstruction of justice that the Justice Department should be investigating as a possible RICO conspiracy under the federal anti-racketeering laws.”
Compared to the Clintons, Richard Nixon was guilty of selling Girl Scout cookies without a permit. But the problem goes deeper than even the Clinton Foundation putting US foreign policy on the auction block. Please stay with me here: As McCarthy explains, and as the Wall Street Journal’s Devlin Barrett confirms, when FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation corruption case requested access to emails on the nongovernment laptop computers that were part of the FBI’s Clinton classified email case, the Justice Department refused the agents’ request. As McCarthy explains it:
…[I]t was already clear that Lynch’s Justice Department was stunningly derelict in hamstringing the bureau’s e-mails investigation. But now that we know the FBI was simultaneously investigating the Clinton Foundation yet being denied access to the Clinton e-mails, the dereliction appears unconscionable.
“It had to be screamingly obvious,” McCarthy continues, “that the Clinton State Department e-mails, run through a server that also supported Clinton Foundation activities, would be critically important to any probe of the Foundation.” And yet Loretta Lynch, an Obama appointee who owed her original position as a US attorney to Bill Clinton, whose wife is the subject of said investigation and who met with Lynch privately on the tarmac in Arizona just days before an announcement was made that Hillary would not be indicted — yes, that same Loretta Lynch stonewalled the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation. This is political inbreeding at its worst and demonstrates the awful consequences of a Department of Justice which has been compromised and corrupted by the machinations of a comprehensively criminal political enterprise.
Elsewhere, recall please the evidence confirming that the Democratic National Committee broke its own rules of impartiality to actively help Ms. Clinton defeat Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries. When DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz denied access to voter database files to the Sanders campaign, DNC Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach responded to the backlash by writing to a colleague, “Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.”
When this and similar emails became public, correspondence between MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and a DNC staffer surfaced in which the reporter and the DNC staffer discuss how to discredit calls for Wasserman Schutz to resign. Above all, the progressive industrial complex protects its own. Indeed, the DNC soon found itself in hot water when Politico revealed that the organization’s joint fundraising committee was funneling money to the Clinton campaign itself, rather than fundraising for down-ticket Democrats. Thus has the Democratic National Committee itself been contaminated by Clinton misconduct.
Meanwhile, CNN has had to sever ties with its contributor Donna Brazile when it became known that she severed ties with any semblance of professional ethics by providing Hillary Clinton with debate questions in advance. Brazile remains interim Chair of the DNC however, underscoring the ethical rot infecting both organizations. Then came news that an interview with popular entertainer Steve Harvey was completely scripted down to the questions from audience members and Hillary’s answers, which were prepared in advance, planners having evidently concluded that Hillary was incapable of an extemporaneous exchange, and that little niceties like journalistic ethics shouldn’t stand in the way. From moderators who tip the scales, to ostensible newscasts which distort events and reporters who collude with political operators to advance one candidate over another, the media showcases the ubiquitous reach of the Clinton machine’s corrupt tentacles.
It is my hope and ardent wish that the reader will consider the magnitude of the damage such a thoroughly corrupt organization will inflict should it obtain the power inherent in the presidency. We already have an IRS which persecutes with impunity citizens whose political opinions deviate from progressive orthodoxy. We already have an EPA that wages war on energy producers and the property rights of private citizens. We already have a Justice Department that is actively engaged in a federal takeover of local police departments. We already have a federal assault on the integrity of the voting ballot, on the right of people of faith to exercise their religious beliefs, on the right of little girls and ladies to the most basic privacy in the ladies room, on the right of school sports teams to say a simple prayer before a game, and on the right of unborn children to their first breath.
Yes, there is a liberal agenda and a conservative one. But such considerations and ideological struggles could be superseded and even rendered obsolete under a nationalized, ham-handed yet iron-fisted rule of a candidate and organization that is currently under criminal investigation. History shows that inept utopians at the levers of power can be bad enough. But granting presidential powers to a person who has demonstrated in every conceivable way utter disdain for the law or even a modicum of ethical behavior would be catastrophic.
The failure of the progressive industrial complex and their enablers in both parties is, in a pivotal way, an intellectual failure because as Bill Buckley observed, “…all intellection is moral, because disembodied from moral precepts, thought is misleading, empty, vulgar.” For all the talk of Donald Trump’s vulgarity, his “moral precepts” do not revolve around bribery, subterfuge, lawlessness, the destruction of evidence, the compromising of national security, and a network of accomplices both in and out of government who actively undermine the democratic process.
Over 40 years ago, a President was forced to resign over a mere fraction of what the Clinton political machine has wrought. Under the circumstances, we must not entrust instrumentalities of the state to a presidential candidate whose moral compass consistently points the wrong way, whose administration would make the Nixon administration look like the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Published in General
He will operate corruptly in Office. The same way he’s been let to do already.
Where has he been allowed to operate corruptly “In Office”? Which office? That doesn’t even make sense.
Do you think the media and other elected officials will give him the same “pass” that they give Hillary? Seriously? Because I see no support for that view.
People are (rightly) frustrated with the entrenched leadership. I share that frustration. I just didn’t share the conclusion that Trump was a good answer to that frustration, or a good choice overall. But here we are, and I have to make the best of it.
I’m not as put off by Trump’s boorishness as I am by her shocking corruption and the rest of the countries willingness to put up with it.
When a party embraces and institutionalizes corruption in the way the Democrat party has, it becomes irrelevant what the ideological differences are. The corruption supersedes the ideology.
We have to clean out the corruption before any ideological movements can happen, either left or right. With corruption this deep, is there anyone on the left who can have confidence their ideology is not on sale alongside the national interest on the Clinton foundation menu?
We have to drain the swamp, and the only chance for that is to oust the corrupted party. At this point, the village idiot would be preferable to any Democrat running.
And that would be just as true under a Republican administration that illustrates the same level of corruption.( I believe that is why Nixon’s own party stopped supporting him once? and as you say, that is like the little sisters of the poor compared to this juggernaut of corruption. )
Corruption supersedes ideology!
Maybe we just need to be ok with this site not being an echo chamber and accept that people with honorable motives can still have different opinions. I often find that I learn more from those opinions that I disagree with than those with which I agree.
Just to play devils advocate here (Devil being Hillary lol) I would say the campaigns and especially Wiki leaks have shown just the opposite. Trump seems to prefer admirers to actual advisors and has long frustrated his campaign staff by refusing to take their advice (for instance, talking about suing his female accusers during the Gettysburg speech) while it appears that Hillary is completely controlled by her staffers and handlers.
Evil wins. That is the problem with this election. After 4 years of whoever wins, things will likely be worse.
Our voting system has been compromised by the media and the university system corruption, not just politics, it is culture wide now. I don’t think we even can call this an election since so much was covered up by the media cheering on corruption.
It is hard to fault people for voting any direction because it’s all so evil.
I think HIllary is more of a threat to our freedom because of the systematic corruption that will be left to harden and make itself more permanent. But it’s not like Trump would be helpful, he is such a disaster of a man.
We have been headed down this dark path for a long time. And now it’s here. We really can’t do anything but live our own lives with honor and hope that is enough.
His office as CEO? I am just saying that private bad behavior is a strong and likely indicator of public bad behavior and you can’t just wash it away with a “he’ll be different in the white house”.
Yes, but we lose all moral rights if we actually vote for Hillary Clinton, that is voting for throwing debates and hiding truth… that is immoral.
But there is no win.
Exactly. Sometimes the best we can do is buy time. It might turn out to be futile, but we have to do it.
In the face of flat out proof people are still voting for Hillary. That means our whole culture is completely corrupt.
I can’t see voting for either, but voting for Hillary is voting to continue the corruption and lies.
Oh yes, Hillary supporters are willingly blind. I would never vote for her and the only solace a Trump win would bring me is her loss.
My point however was that the emails seem to show that Hillary is nearly completely controlled by “adults” while Trump is nearly uncontrollable…..which could be problematic since he has horribly totalitarian instincts combined with amazing ignorance and irrational confidence.
Can I repeat this for my next Quote of Day which is due the end of November. I have a feeling a reminder will be appropriate.
Dave, you know it is quite common to smash your old cell phones with a hammer to be sure nothing can be retrieved from them…..I do it all the time. :)
He can surround himself with all the ‘admirers” he wishes. If he steps out of line, the media will crucify him, ensuring that the voters will also demand correction.
The problem is not what’s in each of these candidates hearts (neither are paragons of virtue), but rather what the consequences will be to each of them. We can be reasonably assured that Hillary will get a pass, Trump, likely not.
Well said!
You take care cowboy. Don’t be a stranger.
Have to agree with you to an extent….when a Republican is in office the press suddenly decides to pay attention instead of cheerlead. However, if Trump goes left and makes some “great deals” with his “friends” Pelosi and Reid the media will cheer him on. That’s the “stepping out of line” I’m more worried about.
Isn’t that why Trump was elected? Because he was immune to media heat?
So, all of a sudden that’s gonna be the check on his power.
Nixon was a Republican. Do you think he’d have had to resign if he was a Democrat? I wonder.
Elected to what?
Right, sorry, nominated.
And, we have a system of checks and balances built into government that is supposed to keep a check on corruption. I believe this will be deployed against Trump – the media, congress, and the people will demand it . It certainty has not been deployed against Hillary. This should scare us all.
Point being, was that he broke the mold, the media’s bias and attacks didn’t work during the primary, and then once nominated, the media is somehow going to keep him in check.
GOP has been keeping Obama in line pretty well, not perfectly, but they’ve done a decent job.
Seats in the house and Senate are in jeopardy because of Trump, so if Congress can’t keep Hillary in Check, that’s on Trump.
We have no idea how he’d actually behave in office. This is a problem, but historically, Republicans have a much shorter leash. For Trump, this will be even shorter because the other elected Republicans (most of them anyway) don’t like Trump. The media doesn’t like him, and the democrats don’t like him.
I believe his actions will be scrutinized. Its a easy case to make that her’s will not.
Like so many of us who’ve been around a while . . I’m so disheartened and demoralized that this evil has been allowed – nay: encouraged – and that this great good land may never fully recover.
I rise in defense of Claire, with whom I disagree very strongly.
I don’t think that she has gone over to the Dark Side. I think that the Trump-Clinton choice is painful for most of us, and much more painful to some. I think that this is a time to extend a lot of grace to each other.
Absolutely not. He resigned because his own party refused to prevent his impeachment, and he knew he couldn’t win. The Democrats have already shown how they would react. They would fight and cover up and justify to the bitter end.
I had a good friend (now deceased) who was a raging, radical liberal. We had many long discussions (disagreements) about politics, and he explained his support of Clinton as based on:
The right claims to stand for morality and decency, so they have to be held to that standard or they are hypocrites.
The left doesn’t claim to stand for either, in fact, they believe in moral relativism, so they don’t have to hold themselves to any standard.
He made it very clear that what he liked most about the Clinton’s is that they can get away with anything. That is what he admired-not morality, honesty, etc. Getting over, that is what he liked. And who gets over and gets away with more than the Clinton’s?
I agree but it was @davecarter who said it.