Sunday, April 24, 2016

BloggeRhythms


On one of the slowest days for news in quite some time now, a story written by David Maraniss, author of "Barack Obama: The Story," was found on Drudge from the Washington Post.  

In his article, author Maraniss presents the picture of a youth in Honolulu whose “political design arrived relatively late. He was no grade school or high school or college leader. 

"But once ambition took hold of Obama, it was with an intense sense of mission, sometimes tempered by self-doubt but more often self-assured and sometimes bordering messianic.” 

The article itself is quite long, detailed, and presents a glowing picture presented by an obviously enthralled, dedicated believer who feels Obama is one of the finest,  most-accomplished leaders in the nation’s history. In that regard, one long paragraph conveys the basis upon which Mr. Maraniss draws his conclusions regarding Obama’s effectiveness, as follows: 

“It is now becoming increasingly possible to argue that [Obama] has neared his goal. His decisions were ineffective in stemming the human wave of disaster in Syria, and he has thus far failed to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to make anything more than marginal changes on two domestic issues of importance to him, immigration and gun control. But from the Affordable Care Act to the legalization of same-sex marriage and the nuclear deal with Iran, from the stimulus package that started the slow recovery from the 2008 recession to the Detroit auto industry bailout, from global warming and renewable energy initiatives to the veto of the Keystone Pipeline, from the withdrawal of combat troops from Iran and Afghanistan and the killing of Osama bin Laden to the opening of relations with Cuba, the liberal achievements have added up, however one judges the policies.” 

And in that one paragraph,Mr. Maraniss reminds all readers that in only seven years the nation has lost its status as world leader in foreign affairs, released Guantanamo prisoners to come back harmfully again, allowed ISIS to form and expand, almost erased the nation’s borders entirely for illegals to enter, rammed through a health-care tax costing citizens treasure, wages and jobs, permitted fuel prices to choke the economy for no rational reasons, made Iran and Syria significant regional powers, committed billions of taxpayer dollars to non-existent temperature change, and made overtures to a neighboring communist nation that hates us more today than ever. 

So, although it’s true that bin Laden’s finally dead, believing the rest of the disasters are beneficial to the nation in any way whatsoever, is apparently, a matter of political persuasion and perspective. It's also going to take far more than another seven years for the nation to dig out from under what's been done to it. 

On another ongoing topic, David Downey, Staff Writer for The Press Enterprise @pe.com, writes: “At least four Inland Southern California law enforcement agencies are deploying or preparing to deploy drones – those techy flying devices that are all the rage these days – in ways, they say, will serve the public.

"Those include: 

“Finding lost hikers shivering in the cold in the local mountains or withering in the searing heat of the lower desert.

“Taking detailed photos and video from a sweeping bird’s eye view of a major traffic accident or crime scene.

“Peering in windows of suspects’ cars during standoffs or gun battles -- like the one that followed the Dec. 2 San Bernardino terrorist attack when shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were killed, but authorities weren’t sure if their black SUV was packed with bombs.”

Hemet Police Chief David Brown said recently: “Drones are going to be commonplace, eventually. And people won’t think twice about it.”  

Thus, although this technological advancement isn’t directly a threat to jobs directly as yet, it’s clearly another indication of how and where people are continually being replaced in all types of endeavor. And since raising the minimum wage will only accelerate mechanized growth, it's quite appropriate that this story relates to advancements specifically in California. 

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife.

Nicholas Kristof @nytimes.com headed his column today with a question: “Is Hillary dishonest?”

Making the point that “after the New York primary, the betting websites are giving Hillary Clinton about a 94 percent chance of being the Democratic nominee,” Kristof continues, “But Clinton’s big challenge is the trust issue: The share of voters who have negative feelings toward her has soared from 25 percent in early 2013 to 56 percent today, and a reason for that is that they distrust her. Only a bit more than one-third of American voters regard Clinton as “honest and trustworthy.” 

“Indeed,” Kristof states, “when Gallup asks Americans to say the first word that comes to mind when they hear “Hillary Clinton,” the most common response can be summed up as “dishonest/liar/don’t trust her/poor character.” Another common category is “criminal/crooked/thief/belongs in jail. 

“This is a narrative that goes way back and that this newspaper helped establish: My late friend and Times colleague William Safire in 1996 dubbed Clinton “a congenital liar.” 

After opining: “But I think this narrative goes way too far,” Kristof goes on to build a case that virtually all politicians are somewhat dishonest. Citing examples such as: “Thus once we in the news media had declared Gerald Ford a klutz (he was actually a graceful athlete), there were always new television clips of him stumbling. Similarly, we unfairly turned Jimmy Carter into a hapless joke, and I fear that the “Crooked Hillary” narrative will drag on much more than the facts warrant. 

“Then there’s the question of Clinton raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from speeches to Goldman Sachs and other companies. For a person planning to run for president, this was nuts. It also created potential conflicts of interest, but there’s no sign of any quid pro quo (in a broader sense, companies write checks to buy access and influence, but if that’s corrupt then so is our entire campaign finance system). Bill Clinton, Colin Powell and other prominent figures were speaking for high fees, so she probably thought she could get away with it as well.”

However, what Kristof conveniently glosses over for the sake of proving his point is that Gerry Ford was indeed a political “klutz,” Jimmy Carter was and still is indeed a hapless joke, Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to Congress, Colin Powell declined to run for the office of POTUS and yes, the entire campaign finance system is totally corrupt.

Reader Sam from Massachusetts summed it up this way: “He says the “a congenital liar" quote by Safire goes to far, and then offers no contrary evidence except to say "everyone does it/she's just a bad politician.

"Clinton is thin-skinned, private, controlling, wounded by attacks on her and utterly distrustful of the news media. Where Bill Clinton charms, she stews. My bet is that she and her staff wanted to prevent her emails from become public through Freedom of Information Act requests.

...and Mr Kristof wants to just insinuate that it was a simple matter of convenience to guard her privacy...while sailing over the whole point and not drawing the connections he is so adept at drawing abroad - that it was violating the law, knowingly, intentionally, for her own sake - which is the common thread for all of her scandals. We just know a little more about this one.

“So yes, she is dishonest, we can all see that, and I think Mr Kristof can too.”

All of which leads to the ongoing question: Joe Biden, Mayor Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you guys reading this?

That’s it for today folks.    

Adios

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