First they came for Hillary Clinton, but I was not Hillary Clinton - so I said nothing....
This is an avenue I rarely travel down. Coming to the defense of Hillary Clinton is not something I am used to (or even comfortable) doing. Although I did support her once she received the nomination from those perpetually clueless Democrats; and although I did manage to make my way to my local polling place to cast my ballot for her on Election Day 2016, it was more a matter of necessity than anything else. I had supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries. The Dems had been offered the most visionary candidate to come their way in eighty years and - true to form - they blew it. They chose to cast their lot with a tired and stale old plutocrat. To this day many of them are still blaming Bernie for Ms. Clinton's loss. Back in August, when I posted on my Facebook page that she was the worst nominee since Mike Dukakis in 1988, I was "unfriended" by over one-hundred people before the sun went down.
Show me a candidate who is unable to defeat an unhinged, common pervert like Donald Trump, and I'll show you a bad candidate.
This week, under pressure no doubt from Trump and the usual suspects in the house and senate, the Department of Justice has decided to reopen the investigation into Hillary's emails. Although it was proven over a year ago that she was careless with regard to the handling of certain classified documents, former Attorney General James Comey concluded that she had, in fact, done nothing criminal. This unpleasant fact is hardly satisfactory for the Trump Mob.
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Let's take a good look at what is now happening: the president of the United States is determined to send a former political opponent to prison. Now ask yourselves the following question: When was the last time something like that happened in this country? The simple answer is that it has never happened. In nearly two-and-a-third-centuries of presidential politics in the dark and strange history of Idiot Nation, not once has the victor in a national election ever sought to bring trumped-up charges (pun intended) against the person who ran against him. The campaign of 1800 between incumbent-President John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was the dirtiest, most bitter political battle in American history. Although the two men wouldn't correspond for many years after, I'm sure it never occurred to Jefferson to send his former friend and ally to the slammer. Old Tom had a helluva lot more class than that.
Not even Dick Nixon ever dared something as atrocious as what is now being attempted by the Donald and Company. Oh, sure, the Trickster was perfectly capable of instructing the IRS to audit the taxes of his "enemies" (the old bastard had enemies everywhere) but he stopped decidedly short of having any of them hauled off to Leavenworth. For all Nixon's flaws, he was no Donald Trump.
The precedent that is apparently about to be established is ominous and deeply disturbing. This is the sort of thing that happens in banana republics; this is the type of behavior to be expected of Orwellian despots. If these people have their way, it will soon become the accepted behavior of the American president. Isn't that something? Has the thought occurred to you yet that a lot of us might have been on to something in 2016 when we warned our fellow countrymen and women that sending Donald Trump to the White House might not be a terribly neat idea? I knew this administration would be an ongoing constitutional debacle, but not even I was prepared for the scope of its incompetence and corruption. Quite frankly, it boggles the mind.
As it stands, we'll have at least another year to deal with this out-of-control ignoramus as our commander-in-chief. Don't expect the Republicans to do their patriotic duty by removing Donald Trump. In the meantime, the damage that he will do to the people of the United States is impossible to assess. This much is beyond a smidgeon of a doubt: 2018 is going to be an extremely interesting year. Brace yourselves.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
SUGGESTED READNG:
Alice
by Stacy A. Cordery
This is the third biography I've read on the life of Alice Roosevelt Longworth (TR's daughter) and it is by far the best. Sometimes arch-conservative, sometimes flaming liberal, during her long life the only consistent thing about Princess Alice was the fact that she did not give a damn what people thought about her. In this respect she truly was one of the fist modern women. Her father once said to a friend, "I can be president of the United States, or I can manage Alice. I cannot possibly do both."
Here is a link to order it off of amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Alice-Roosevelt-Longworth-Princess-Washington/dp/0143114271/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515344046&sr=1-1&keywords=Alice+by+Stacy+Cordery
I've always said that Alice's life is a Broadway musical waiting to happen!