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Saturday, 29 October 2016

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'for the sake of the American people'...spoken like the text book totalitarian she is. Hillary is fully aware that the emails are part of a criminal investigation and can't be released. But it sure sounds good to her cannon fodder base.

The excitement is palpable, isn't it? Two days ago Trump was a dead duck. Now he's a dead duck with a closing argument: The FBI is totally the opposite of what it just was and the election isn't rigged after all! Stop the presses! News room writers everywhere are on their second pots of coffee! Huma Abedin, who is connected with the State Dept. in no way, shared a laptop with the creep who can't stop sending pictures of his dick far and wide!

Two will get you three this amounts to nothing but another investigation of the FBI by the House and more egg on Comey's face. He might be a good cop, but he's probably the most politically pitiable man on Earth.

"Huma Abedin, who is connected with the State Dept. in no way"

Wasn't she? I thought she was deputy chief of staff to HRC when she was US Secretary of State?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, coz I'm hugely catching up on this one to wean myself of Brexit (balls, sorry again), and I hadn't realized quite how up my strasse it was and I have the feelin' it's gonna run and run.

SoD

A quick look at google shows that she was a government employee at the State Dept. Bob is just being a typical Democrat. He ought to get a job with the BBC!

As I've written here at least twice, I'm not a Democrat or Republican. I do study politics, though, and should have remembered Abedin was deputy chief of staff to the Secretary of State until 2013. However, she's now only vice chair of Clinton's campaign. We don't know when the emails date from, so it's possible there's something incriminating in them, but this just seems like a media event. It probably won't affect the election and Comey is getting it from both sides.

Abedin may be only the vice chair of the Clinton campaign now; but when Clinton was SoS, she was employed by the State Dept. Perhaps the searchlight will now switch to this woman. She is a Muslim and worked for the Muslim Brotherhood. They are classified as terrorists in several Arab countries.

Bob,

You and I both have stated that we are neither Democrat nor Republican because neither one of us is a member of any political party. But, whereas I have never tried to hide my political preferences for a conservative point of view, you continue to strive mightily to persuade us that you are politically impartial and are a Clinton supporter strictly on the basis of her greater merits compared to those of any Republican and Trump in particular.

What gives with you? Can you seriously maintain that Clinton, because of some efforts she had made for "women's causes" is entitled to have her egregious actions as the Secretary of State ignored? Do you not care at all about having the President of your country be a law-abiding citizen of your country?

TBH,

I have a minimal political philosophy that could be described as liberal, but I don't like to use the word because it's been so distorted by 40 years of false characterizations it's been left meaningless. I believe in liberty (the root word of liberal), individual rights, limited government, and the utilitarian ideal that government should be run to do the most good and least harm for the largest number of people. Neither party always stands for any of it, and I've always been an independent.

I don't expect politics or government to work as I would like and consider my personal beliefs important only to myself. That saves me a great deal of heartburn. These days I don't bother to hate politicians. I did hate both LBJ and Nixon because of the Vietnam War, but was much younger then. In hindsight I recognize they both did some good too. The last Republican president I respected was GHW Bush. I disagreed with a lot of what he did, but he seemed relatively honest and had a sense of noblesse oblige that was rare by that time. He also worked to undo some of Reagan's more absurd policies. Of course that made true believing Reagan robots hate him.

I do care about having a President that is law-abiding. Which of the two major candidates do you consider qualified on those grounds? My view is that the reason the Clintons derange so many people is they're both lawyers and know how to play everything right up to the line. I don't respect them for it, but the only other choice is Trump, who is crazy.

I used to read conservative columnists to understand the conservative point of view. After a while it was obvious they all just read the same talking points and wrote the same column. This blog is more useful because it has non-professional opinions from individuals in several different countries. David is an interesting chap; an ex-military type with a number of intellectual impulses. You, JK and others can be friendly as well as informed in ways I'm not. I've yet to figure out SoD.

"I've yet to figure out SoD". If you ever do, please let me know!

I sympathise, Bob, with your irritation that so many words have been gang-banged out of all meaning. The result is that all political proposals are followed by the phrase "It all depends on what you mean by .....".

For example, "I believe in liberty (the root word of liberal), individual rights, limited government, and the utilitarian ideal that government should be run to do the most good and least harm for the largest number of people." Defining even half of that could take us through most of the night and several bottles of a decent claret!

"dribbling with anticipation"...David that image is disturbing!

Alas, Whiters, at my age I rarely stop dribbling!

Fair enough, Bob. I appreciate your candid reply. With a couple of details excepted, your philosophy is quite similar to my own.

I voted for LBJ when I first became old enough to vote. But I voted against Nixon. I now view them both pretty much the way you do. It might surprise you that I also voted against Reagan because at that time I was still a liberal (in the traditional sense of that philosophy). I admired GHW Bush because he drove Saddam Hussein out of the desert that was stormed, though I did not vote for him (and I was disappointed that he stopped General Schwarzkopf who had Saddam's forces in complete disarray). I did vote for Bill Clinton both times and against Dubya the first time. I clung to my traditional liberal views for quite a while.

Finally, when George W. Bush responded with fury after the 9/11 atrocity, I realized the error of my youthful naivete. I saw the Democrats, who owned the "liberal" brand, for what they had become since I first became aware of American politics under Harry Truman (one of the near greats in my opinion). And I came to admire Dubya even more than I admired his father. GWB loves our country, as 0bama and HRC never did. And HRC is a despicable person who has committed despicable unlawful acts, though she has technically escaped conviction in a court of law. You can not accuse Mr. Trump of having done anything even close to what everyone knows HRC has done.

TBH, I don't want to ruin the bonhomie, so I'll leave the relative criminality of Clinton and Trump alone for now.

David, we can thank the expediencies of politics for perverting honorable old political philosophies. As far as I know it was ever thus.

Fine with me, Bob. I didn't expect you to agree with me on the "relative criminality" of Clinton and Trump.

At least we managed to reduce our current differences to what constitutes criminality in principle (i.e., outside a court of law), and, presumably, what constitutes a well-prioritized list of criteria for choosing one candidate over another in a Presidential election.

I can live with that since differences of opinion are why we have elections. Some wise man once said that everyone is entitled to his own opinions, albeit not to his own facts.

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