Tag: Bill Clinton

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insider corruption scandal

The Devil and the Deep Blue Dress

Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, blue dress, Israel, Washington D.C.

There is a slim possibility that Jeffrey Epstein did actually kill himself, but what possibility is there that he wasn’t running an elaborate blackmail/​spy endeavor — a “honey pot” scam — for major Deep State outfits, foreign or domestic?

Or both.

So when Axios scooped everybody, Monday, with the story that the FBI had closed the Epstein case, most rolled their eyes. Not that they didn’t believe Axios. They didn’t believe the aptness of judgment in closing the case.

Even if Epstein did actually commit suicide, it was still a huge criminal justice failure for that act to not have been prevented. And for the notorious Epstein files (remember that the Attorney General had said she had them on her desk) to suddenly go poof! … does not inspire confidence. 

Frankly, there’s no reason to trust the government. Especially on this.

Why? We all pretty much believe the initial reports. We remember the image of Bill Clinton — it is surely seared into many a brain, alas for those brains — posing in a blue dress, portrait hung up prominently in Epstein’s trap, I mean, townhouse.

The ties to Israeli intelligence and politics and U.S. spymasters has been fairly well established — at least Whitney Webb’s readers seem certain — and that brings us to the bottom line:

Donald Trump is not shining light upon the Stygian Deep State here, nor “draining the swamp.”

“I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein,” the president said, interposing himself between a reporter and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump eagerly added context: all the “successes” and “tragedies” of the current day. Videos? Computer files? Victims? Lolita Island? Brushed aside.

As if unimportant.

Thus America’s unexpected encounter with the dark, Deep State. They insist we blithely accept that there is nothing to see here.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration created with Krea and Firefly

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media and media people national politics & policies

Trump = Bad

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden

“In an extraordinary stretch of just over two weeks,” Naftali Bendavid reports in The Washington Post, “three former presidents have taken to the public stage to sound the alarm against the current occupant of the White House, despite the tradition that former presidents generally refrain from publicly criticizing their successors.”

It turns out that “Obama, Biden and Clinton did not explicitly name Trump,” admits the Post’s senior national political correspondent, though he argues “their message was unmistakable.”

Wait. The three former opposition party presidents bravely took on President Donald Trump but not one has enough courage to mention him by name?

Bad communication skills — no wonder why Trump is president.

“The three Democrats said, as much by their presence as their words,” writes Bendavid, “that these are unusual times for American democracy, that norms are being disregarded and extraordinary measures are required.”

Today’s Washington journalist! 

More a psychic diviner of the deep inner meaning of a former president’s mere presence than mere observer. 

Bendavid failed, however, to detail any specifics from the former commanders in chief as to the “extraordinary measures” that are somehow now “required.”

“Think of [former presidents] as a sort of advisory council to the people of the United States,” he quotes a historian from Columbia University. “And when the advisory council sounds the alarm, the people should listen.”

Wake up, people! Your former leaders have spoken: Trump = bad. 

Thus we witness the national press corps continuing to miss the point. The people are not moved by these ex-​presidents — at least not in their direction. 

From political heavy-​weights to legacy media newsmen, the more the DC establishment attacks President Trump, the more a sizable group of voters like him. 

Trump is validated as the outsider. 

The more popular outsider. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Accountability folly ideological culture partisanship

#YouToo?

Bill Clinton, impeachment, sexual, #metoo, sex, scandal

“Will Democrats regret if they don’t open an impeachment investigation?” NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked Heather McGhee, a distinguished senior fellow at Demos.

“It’s important, right?” Ms. McGhee responded. “And we can have, you know, Bill Clinton impeached for obstruction of justice about a sexual affair,” she added dismissively, comparing that to Trump’s possible crimes, which “are things that could amount to treason against the United States.” 

“Treason” does seem more ominous than the affair President Bill Clinton had two-​plus decades ago with 22-​year-​old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. 

But aren’t we missing a “teachable moment” for the #MeToo Movement?

President Clinton perjured himself about his sordid fling during a deposition in a lawsuit brought by Arkansas state employee Paula Jones. She alleged that he, while serving as governor, had exposed himself and sexually harassed her. An awfully serious charge, for which Clinton paid $850,000 to settle.

“Paula Jones spoke out against the most powerful man in the world, and when his lawyers argued that a sitting president couldn’t be subject to a civil suit, she took them all the way to the Supreme Court and won,” Amanda Hess wrote late last year in The New York Times, two decades after the fact. “In another world, she would be hailed as a feminist icon. But not in this world — not yet.”

Democrats, progressives and much of the popular media ridiculed and attacked Ms. Jones back then — and are still sweeping her story under the rug.

Treating sexual harassment, abuse and assault in a partisan manner, ignoring the sins of your side, is a slap in the face to the #MeToo Movement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bill Clinton, impeachment, sexual, #metoo, sex, scandal

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folly government transparency ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies

The Problem with Ruth Marcus

Bill Clinton, First Gentleman

Channeling The Sound of Music’s Mother Superior, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus asks, “How do you solve a problem like Bill Clinton?”

Marcus means Bill’s problematic possible return to the White House, the scene of his crimes, as First Dude in a new Clinton Administration — specifically his difficulties with “the twin minefields of sex and money.”

Starting with sex, Marcus argues that, “Trump’s misbehavior with women is a far more important topic than Clinton’s” because “Trump is on the ballot; Bill Clinton is not.”

True, except that Mrs. Clinton has promised to place Mr. Clinton “in charge of revitalizing the economy,” which Mrs. Marcus called “crazy.” Maybe, but it wasn’t Trump’s idea to ballyhoo the old two-​for-​one Clinton couple “advantage.”

“There is no condoning a record that reflects not just serial adultery, but abuse of power,” writes Marcus. Yet, she does precisely that by adding, “Clinton was a successful president who deserved the two terms for which he was elected, but his misbehavior would disqualify him from a third term even if the Constitution allowed it.”

What?! Quite a convenient drawing of the line, eh?

Of course, the problem isn’t merely Bill, as the columnist admits: “[I]t has become clear that they cannot be trusted to appropriately navigate ethical boundaries between their private interests and public responsibilities.”

Complaining about the “incessant schnorring for private jets, luxury vacation lodging, expensive trifles” by the Clintons, Marcus warns that, “It cannot happen in a new Clinton White House, especially with a Republican Party already drooling over the prospect of congressional investigations.”

But, Ruth, how will electing Hillary Clinton the next president cause Bill & Hill to change their ways?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bill Clinton, First Gentleman

 

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Accountability free trade & free markets moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

It’s the Stupid Economy

HIllary Clinton, Obama, Bill Clinton, economy, election, illustration

When Bill Clinton ran for president, the slogan inside his campaign’s war room was a blunt reminder to focus on “the Economy, Stupid.” This was Clinton’s first enduring contribution to the American stock of catch-phrases.

Now, Bill’s wife, Hillary, seeks the top banana position. But she has a harder job than Bill: he could fight against a lackluster incumbent caught in a big lie (“No New Taxes,” another slogan). Hillary is almost required to defend the outgoing president, in no small part because she served in his Cabinet.

If she were candid, she’d address the weak recovery and long-​term stagnation.

Her slogan could be, “It’s the Stupid Economy.”

No matter what politicians say, however, secular (long-​term) stagnation is a thing. Lots of people have given up, are off the roles of job-​searchers and so don’t appear in official unemployment statistics, and too many people have taken early retirements on trumped-​up disability claims.

At least, economist Lawrence Summers is decrying it, jet-​setting around the world to meet with financial leaders and political functionaries.

I doubt his diagnosis, however. Summers talks Keynesian, pointing to inadequate aggregate demand. While there may be something to the general shift in the desire to hold monetary assets, leading to deflation and even negative interest rates, I bet the underlying problem is regime uncertainty — when widespread fears of the future and doubts about governmental consistency and follow-​through lead the owners of capital to withhold investing in production.

There are also the effects of general regulatory and redistributionist kludge.

When the problems stem from your favored policies, you can’t revive FDR’s slogan “nothing to fear but fear itself” and let it go at that.

Hillary will surely explain — Thursday night.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.   

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HIllary Clinton, Obama, Bill Clinton, economy, election, illustration

 

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national politics & policies

Lies You Can Believe In

“Folks, whether the American people believe what I just said or not may be the whole election,” former President Bill Clinton intoned at the Democratic National Convention this week. “I just want you to know that I believe it. With all my heart, I believe it.”

Don’t believe it.

Also not worth believing? Clinton’s television ad, for which, you can be sure, every word was chosen carefully, not just ad-​libbed (as some of the gray-​haired Lothario’s lines from the convention were said to be):

This election, to me, is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment. This is a clear choice. The Republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper-​income people and go back to deregulation. That’s what got us in trouble in the first place.

President Obama has a plan to rebuild America from the ground-​up — investing in innovation, education and job training. It only works if there is a strong middle class, That’s what happened when I was president. We need to keep going with his plan.

Very persuasive … until examined.

Is the current economic depression the result of tax cuts and deregulation? No.

The original implosion was in the mortgage bundle markets, and that was fed by Clintonian homeownership policy and the Federal Reserve’s cheap credit. Regulation had increased dramatically under Bush, and the only bit of deregulation worth talking about was the repeal of Glass-​Steagall … which Clinton himself signed.

The idea that the prosperity of the Clinton years was caused by his “investment” and “education” and “job training” plans is a howler. Clinton’s era was blessed, instead, with

  1. a mostly stable Fed policy;
  2. Republican opposition in the House that forced him to make his most famous policy moves; and
  3. low gas prices.

This latter was the result of the two most astounding policy moves in the years prior to his administration:

  1. The Carter-​Reagan deregulation of the oil industry; and
  2. George Herbert Walker Bush’s sending Saudi Arabia and Kuwait the bill for the Persian Gulf War.

Politics, we must remember, is often dominated by expert liars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability free trade & free markets too much government

Able to Raise Keynes

Recently on This American Life, economists told NPR listeners how the then-​upcoming stimulus bill would amount to the very first legitimate and full test ever of Keynesian ideas.

Sure, politicians have been using John Maynard Keynes’s notions as an excuse to deficit spend ever since the Great Depression. But then, Lord Keynes had wanted politicians to spend even more, more than they dared.

Now, President Obama and our Democratic Congress have decided to spend enough billions, or trillions, to really do the trick.

Switch to Larry King’s latest interview with Bill Clinton. Our former prez assured us that the stimulus bill “would do what it is supposed to,” and he mentioned three things, only one of them vaguely about stimulus. He said the bill was better seen as a “bridge over troubled waters.” 

Clinton said the real issue was declining asset values, which Congress would address later.

At Mises​.org, Stephan Kinsella asked how this could amount to Keynesianism. Clinton used a different lingo entirely. 

Here’s how: It’s not that the bill will give us Keynesian stimulus. It’s that it has stimulated politicians in the old, old Keynesian way. 

Congressional Democrats know that the stimulus won’t work. So they are preparing the spin now. From them we heard the official excuse for the bill. From Clinton, the future excuse. 

Politicians know zip about the economy. They just know how to spend our money. And our great, great, great grandchildren’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.