If it serves the cause it can’t be illegal.
Obama
Reading the Tea Leaves.
Once again, Richard Fernandez finds the essential point.
Russia isn’t governed well. But people don’t rise to power in Russia according to their skill at solving public policy issues. They climb a ladder by how well they can grip the rungs of guns, bribery and deceit. Putin’s “political socialization took place as vice mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, where … one of his key roles was acting as a liaison between the political and criminal authorities. It was the Wild Wild East, a world where duplicity was the norm, rules are for sissies, and only might makes right. It was a world where informal networks ruled and you controlled people by corrupting them.”
Such jungles tend to evolve very capable predators.
Putin, in my opinion, has done a fairly good job with Russia given the serious problems they have as a nation.
Madison tried to warn us about the risk of corruption, or as he called it, “Faction.”
Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
We now are at serious risk of electing the corrupt member of a cabal of self interested manipulators of the public interest for private gain.
“A new governing aristocracy made public deception acceptable”
Thoughts on the nexus between the growth of government and of an elite governing class, and the rise of flagrant, unaccountable, public lying by politicians and other officials who are members of that class:
…This statistical fact is, however, also a good example how radically this new American “aristocracy” has changed America in recent decades. Even President Obama in his first election campaign, only eight years ago, still categorically rejected the label of being a “socialist” for fear of becoming unelectable. Only eight years later, Bernie Sanders, a declared Socialist would, likely, have become the elected Democratic presidential candidate, had the party leadership not undemocratically conspired against his election.
[. . .]
Many, maybe even most presidents before Clinton, of course, also have on occasion been less than truthful; but nobody, except of course Nixon (“I am not a crook”), has in recent history so blatantly lied to the American people as Bill Clinton and, yet, gotten away with it, in the process changing American politics for ever by demonstrating that the modern multimedia world practically always offers the opportunity to relativize the truth of the message (to quote Bill Clinton, “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”).
The political “aristocracy” learned this lesson very quickly and, of course, nobody better than Hillary Clinton. She would never have dared to follow through with the absolute insane idea of establishing her own Internet server while serving as Secretary of State, had she not been convinced that she could manipulate the truth, should it be discovered. Piercing her words, as her husband had done so well during the Lewinsky Affair, she, indeed, has successfully avoided indictment by the Justice Department, even though a majority of Americans, likely, believe that she escaped because of special considerations by Obama’s Justice Department. Completely exposed in her deception by the FBI investigation, she, remarkably, still continues to lie in her statements to the public.
Another BLM Related Ambush & Mass Murder of Police in Baton Rouge, LA?
Seven Baton Rouge area law men have been shot and three are dead in an ambush near Police H.Q. in Baton Rouge. There was as single perpetrator in a black outfit, with a hoodie or other face covering, with a long rifle. He was engaged by Police and shot in the exchange. The USA Today won’t say his race.
The best one-stop place to cover the shooting seems to be this “The Conservative Tree House Blog” thread.
Odds are 9-to-1 that this perpetrator was a single black male with some connection to the Black Lives Matter’s protest movement.
Excerpt from USA Today below —
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Three police officers have been shot dead in Baton Rouge, La., and others may have been wounded, authorities said Sunday.
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The three officers were shot near the department headquarters, Baton Route Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC. At least four others were injured in the shooting, he said.
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“They are investigating,” he said. “Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything.”
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Two Baton Rouge police officers and one East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputy are dead, according to WBRZ-TV’s Michael Vinsanau.
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The gunman was shot, a Louisiana State Police spokesman said, but his condition was not immediately clear.
and
A witness told WBRZ-TV that a man was dressed in black with his face covered was shooting indiscriminately when he walked out between a convenience store and car wash across from Hammond Air Plaza. Police closed the streets between the police department’s headquarters and Interstate 12.
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Vinsanau of WBRZ tweeted that more than a dozen marked and unmarked police cars have sped to the scene, and that a SWAT team is on location. State police armed with rifles are posted blocks away, Vinsanau tweeted.
UPDATE:
Perpetrator Description —
“Obama rips ‘bigotry’ and ‘xenophobia’ with Ramadan message”
Nolan D. McCaskill at Politico.com:
President Barack Obama sent a message to Donald Trump on Wednesday in a statement marking the end of Ramadan, calling on Americans to renew their commitment to protecting Muslim Americans against bigotry and xenophobia.
Obama seems to want to teach Americans to like Islam whether they want to or not.
Nancy Reagan famously said “Kinder than who?” in response to GHW Bush’s “kinder, gentler nation” remark in his 1988 RNC acceptance speech. In Obama’s case we might ask, “Bigotry and xenophobia” from whom? That’s a rhetorical question, BTW.
(Via The Right Coast.)