BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN, PJ MEDIA, OCTOBER 9, 2016
The referee should have stopped it in the tenth. Punching at will, Donald Trump said, “Hillary used the power of her office to make $250 million. Why not put some money in? You made a lot of it while you were Secretary of State? Why aren’t you putting money into your own campaign? Just curious.” Reeling and against the ropes, Clinton gasped that she supported — the Second Amendment. It was a brilliant rhetorical device: under the rubric of campaign financing, Trump slipped in an allegation that Clinton corruptly enriched herself by using the power of her office for personal game–and Clinton didn’t even respond. That’s a win by a knockout.
That’s the decisive issue of the campaign: the corrupt machinations of a ruling elite that considers itself above the law, and the rage of the American people against the oligarchical ruling class that has pulled the ladder up behind it. Trump’s bombshell below Clinton’s waterline came at the end of the debate, well prepared by jabs at Clinton’s erased emails and Bill’s rapes. Trump used the “J” word–that is, jail. That was the perhaps the evening’s most important moment. This is not an election fought over competing policies but a struggle for legitimacy. A very large portion of the electorate (how large a portion we will discover next month) believes that its government is no longer legitimate, and that it has become the instrument of an entrenched rent-seeking oligarchy.
By and large, I agree with this reading. “America’s economy is corrupt, cartelized and anti-competitive,” I wrote in August. It is typical of rent-seeking that Lockheed Martin’s stock price has tripled during the past three years, and payment to its top management team has risen from $12 million a year to over $60 million a year, while Lockheed Martin’s F-35 languishes in cost overruns and deployment delays. Produce a lemon and get rich: that’s Washington. It is not a trivial matter, or unrepresentative of our national condition, that the FBI director who declined to prosecute Mrs. Clinton for mishandling of classified material just returned to government from a stint at Lockheed Martin, where he was paid $6 million for a single year’s service. I don’t know whether FBI Director Comey is corrupt. But it looks and smells terrible.
That’s why it was so important for Trump to talk about jail time for his opponent. If things had not gotten to the point where former top officials well might belong in jail, Trump wouldn’t be there in the first place. The Republican voters chose a reckless, independently wealthy, vulgar, rough-edged outsider precisely because they believe that the system is corrupt. They are right to so believe; if the voters knew a tenth of what I know about it, they would march on Washington with pitchforks.
The whole weekend news cycle centered around Trump’s potty-mouth tape, which will count for exactly nothing in the final tally. No-one who has followed Donald Trump in public media for the past thirty years expected anything less from the great vulgarian. We are stuck with Trump precisely because the Republican Establishment imploded over Iraq and the economy.
I assumed that Trump’s diffidence during the first debate amounted to profiling his opponent. No-one would remember what was said in the first debate come the general election, and Trump appeared to be probing and watching Clinton’s response. This time he has bloodied her. Whether there is more to come–a thermonuclear revelation of some kind–I have no idea. But given Trump’s experience in the entertainment business, we can assume that the really nasty stuff will come out later.
Whoever wins, a very large part of the electorate–perhaps more than a third–will believe that the government lacks legitimacy. We have no had circumstances like this since the Civil War. If Trump loses, his voters will blame a corrupt oligarchy and its allied media for electing a criminal to the White House; if Clinton loses, the minority constituencies of the Democratic Party will respond as if the Klu Klux Klan had taken over Washington. There has never been anything like this in the past century and a half of American history, and it is thankless to predict the outcome. Nonetheless I will: Trump will crush it. Clinton, the major media, the pollsters and the mainstream Republican Party has badly misread the insurrectionist mood of the electorate.
@ Austin:
The true discoverer of the NA Continent.
http://img00.deviantart.net/a362/i/2008/282/7/d/leif_erikson_day_by_nine_tailed_fox.jpg
Austin Said:
http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/113795/what-does-chilosa-mean-
@ Austin:
Texas is a nation and culture all to it’s own. In many ways Israel and Texas are more alike then different.
As for Spanish, on the border both languages are needed. Much like Quebec and French.
Austin Said:
Done got rid of the King/Queen and their English in 1776.
Well,I had looked exhaustively on the internet-for a change- and found nothing except the name of a waterfall, somewhere or other, and an “esoteric” reference to Hindi, with a bit of gobblydegook attached.
However…. However…..I DID find a reference to an item named ChilGoza, being a pine nut, an article of food with some of the qualities you mention….
Why do you spikka da mexicana anyhow? You a Texan..”ain’t you” or …in the words of the infamous song “Is you is or is you ain’t ma baby”…
That would be politically incorrect…but just imagine it repeated in the King’s English. Which reminds me…….
In the days of yore, when very young, In Dublin where I was born and grew up, there was a man Sonny Ch—– whose parents spoke only Yiddish, and he never really learnt English. One night he was playing cards in the Jewish Club in Harrington St. Dublin, when an argument arose. His opponent was also “from der heim arous” a poor English speaker but brave. The argument was shut down like a bomb when this man said of Sonny….
“Lissin to dot fella…vat kudent efen shpoke prapaly de Kenks Eyngles”,…
Norman the waiter, couldn’t stand it, he was literally on the floor laughing and crying, and everyone else was rolling around laughing their heads off. It remained for years because even on a visit home over 40 years later, I heard it, and many times before that…..
Sadly, I’m probably the only one left who remembers it. Still makes me laugh.
Austin Said:
I done though you was so real good at esoteric languages.
Austin Said:
Mexican meaning “hot ” as in too muches chili. Esta demasiado chilozos de los burritos. Chile is rich in vitamin C and bean and corn tortillas combine to make a vegetable protein. Could account for the health of Mexican children. But in reality, dysentery among Mexican children , in Mexico, is a killer.
@ honeybee:
I suppose you really mean “Czech”…but with the surprises you constantly produce, this is not a “given”….. I keep my checks for Chabad.
“Chiloza” indeed…..trying to pull a fast one on ME…. A scholar of the Great Napaloni…. figure THAT one out….
Austin Said:
Oh my Burritos [little donkeys]. Yes that what they live on and the played in the dust and dirt. The Anglo and Mexican kids would trade lunches. Fried chicken & peanut butter sandwiches were prized. Homemade cookies were rarely traded. And prune filled Kolaches wonderful. The Cookie was of Check descent.
Austin Said:
Try a good ” mail order” college. Try translating the documents from Dar Al Medina too. The musings of the common people of Egypt.
@ honeybee:
Reminds me of a sentence I read in a book of mine, many years ago, which I always remember…It was John Steinbeck’s “Tortilla Flats”.
The local doctor had been marvelling at the perfect health of the Spanish speaking kids in the community which he looked after, who seemed to eat nothing but tortillas and bean… paraphrasing….
“for breakfast they eat tortillas and beans, for lunch they have a tortilla rolled around some beans, and for supper they eat a helping of beans wrapped in a tortilla”…. it was something like that….. Maybe you’re related..
@ honeybee:
Well…that effectively stopped me, I should go back to college…
HMMMMMMM?????? Let’s see, 2/3 of 70 billion is approx. 46.6 Billion….. I wonder how the obama clinton network split that cash up and how did they wash it? They probably paid it to the Afghan leaders, giving them their cut, and then they forwarded it to bank accounts, foundations, real estate, stocks, etc etc etc thats almose 50 billion on one deal alone… who said these guys were pikers? I wonder if the bushes were in on it too after all that deal would be too big to fully hush up…. alot probably went to the suppliers of the troops… the suppliers in Iraq were Carlyle or haliburton…. yep, thats where a lot of it probably went… 50 billion out of the 70 washed through the suppliers… perhaps they didnt even need the afghan leadership.
are folks getting this yet? This is the real world.
Bernie’s supporters have much, much more in common with the Trump supporters!!! They should work together. Only way to castrate the corrupted elitocracy!
Austin Said:
I wish I had made those documents more difficult for a commoner to translate, when in another life, as Nefertiti, I inscribed them !!!!!!!!!!!!
Austin Said:
It’s Honey Chiloza!!!!!!!!!
Austin Said:
I don’t eat no fruits and veg none. !!!!!!!!!!!! Is comparable to an Mexican removing his sombero, looking painful heaven ward and exclaiming ,” Yi Chihuahua”,don’t you know no nothing.
Honeybee chile, I am an expert in ancient Egyptian writing, and other esoteric scripts, to the degree that I could have deciphered the Rosetta Stone or the Tel Amarna Letters at a glance,…but I do not understand what is meant by !!!!!!!!!!
An added qualification is that I can understand both Yiddish and Italian, the parts of those languages expressed by prolific hand gestures, where words are not neccessary..
Please explain to this poor old dunderhead. It won’t even interfere with your enjoyment of your corn pone and fritters… Dare I add a slice of melon….
Look at bills face as the raped women stare at him…LOL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3830041/Second-debate-Hillary-Clinton-Donald-Trump-gets-underway.html
bush stooge just guaranteed that I will only vote gop locals if they overtly support trump. He wont remove his endoresement because that would open him to legal suit breaching original GOP contract with trump but in every way the gop bushites have breached.
If trump is smart he can use this as the opportunity to paint himself against the bush gop whom the bernie folk hate… show himself as the only anti establishment candidate… this could actually get him votes if he is smart. The Bush GOP is the poison pill for the independents, the undecided and the bernie ites…. Ryan gave him a gift but trump will have to act smartly to get the fruits
Trump will seek dialogue and avert war
Austin Said:
He should have said !!!!!!!!!
Juantia Broaderick in the spin room was also very good at showing how hillary attacked and threatened her after bills rape
Austin Said:
true, just like swearing, taking tax break deductions, being crude and rude is not against the law…. Trump was showing that he can also deliver punches of the same nature. Just like the clintons thought they could release and talk about the video and get their paid moderator whores to keep repeating it they would escape retribution. Trump showed them that if they play dirty he can also play dirty. Bills face showed that it was effective. Hill and bill thought that by parking chelsea there and slandering trump with allusions that they would stay clean. I notice that trump generally does not start the dirty fights, just like with Cruz, the other side does it first in an underhanded way and then Trump hammers them overtly and in public with no holds barred.
trumps electoral base have been demanding jail for the crooks. it is no accident that Trump said this… he has been sending out survey emails and reading the pulse of his supporters. He has been asking their advice and responding to them rather than the GOP establishment whom he distrusts. I think he beleives that their advice will bury him and I think he is right. Trump is dealing with marketing himself just like a business. Its different than all prior norms and that is because the electorate are sick of the prior norms which is what has been protecting all the thieves of both parties for decades.
Trump threatening to jail them is exactly what I want. NOw that the GOP establishment hypocrites have jumped ship he will owe them almost nothing because he did it all while they attacked him and likely he will treat them like the dems they really are… thieves and liars have no party.
I was impressed with how he handled a question on Syria whereby he had no problem disagreeing with prior pronouncements from his running mate Pence. He could have mealy mouthed tried to cover it up but he firmly stated his disagreement. He has made it clear that he will be the chief executive and that if there is error it will not be his first move to cover it up like every lying pol does. A businessman deals with it and moves on.
Frankly, I think Trump has decided that his only success in the election has come from being himself and he has no intention to be someone else. Hillary sounded well rehearsed, probably given the questions prior, very scripted.. and I was impressed by her hardiness and articulate delivery… very covincing tone. However, I notice that every time she spoke my mind automatically tuned out and everything she said became a meaningless blur. My mind seemed to have a mind of its own as I wanted to hear it consciously but my mind only wanted to hear what Trump said.
Guiliani was fantastic in the spin room, incredible… so much better than trump… he should give that job to guilianni the prosecutor…. he totally demolished hillary and the rest very articulately. thats his prosecutorial expertise.
I hope Goldman is right about Trump surprising everyone and winning the election, but the explanations for Trump’s difficult, if not practically impossible paths to victory, make it seem highly unlikely that hope will be realized.
Still American conservatives have for so long been down and put down further by Obama, his administration and the liberal-left that maybe their time for a little luck will be soon coming next month to raise them and their spirits up which a Trump win would bring them.
I agree with the writer and also think that when the dust settles a bit this real FACT will emerge. It was a bit lost with all the irrelevant rhetoric that Clinton spewed out. But….. it’s not against the law not to spend your own money even though you have plenty. It’s ignoble, true, but legal.
In particular, at the end when asked about one thing that she admires about Trump, she deliberately ignored the question and praised his children, almost as if they became what they are, in spite of their father. Then she went on for about 3-4 minutes …and WAS ALLOWED TO, by the moderators…to recap all her tired old promises that she’s been making for the past 20-30 years.
HERE ..Trump missed a HUGE opportunity, the biggest of both debates. In responding to what he resepcted about Clinton, he SHOULD have said….Well..that’s an easy one, because it’s the only one..
“It’s that she can spend nearly 2 hours on this and other stages, reeling off the most outrageous lies, half and quarter truths, with a perfectly straight face, with a plastic smile at the same time; (not an easy thing to do)…. so if this election was for liars, she’s win hands down, I couldn’t begin to compete against that….” Hollywood actors aren’t in it against her”.
THAT’S what he should have said.