Equal Justice Under Law (unless you are a Clinton)

Well folks, the fix is in for Hillary Clinton.

On Monday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton aboard his private plane, for about a half hour. According to the Attorney General, it was an unplanned, spontaneous meeting where the two of them talked football, grandchildren and the weather, but not about the two criminal investigations of Hillary Clinton, concerning her illegal use of a private e-mail server while she was Secretary of State, and her selling of favors to foreign governments in exchange for cash contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

If such claims by the Attorney General were not so laughable, anyone with half of a brain would know fully well that the two met specifically to plan a strategy on how to handle (or, as it should be said, not handle) any criminal referrals coming from the FBI. Since the Attorney General has the choice to refer, or not to refer, such a referral to a federal grand jury, it has become obvious that such a referral will not occur, regardless of an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that such a referral should take place.

Media and “insider” claims that Attorney General Loretta Lynch is a straight-shooter, devoid of political influence, are just as laughable, as evidenced by her remarks during a June 22^nd post-Orlando press conference where she proffered that our best weapons against terrorism are “compassion, unity and love.”

Her appointment, subsequent to her predecessor’s (Eric Holder) resignation as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, was predicated on nothing else but her ability and willingness to selectively enforce the law, subject to the wiles of the Obama administration. That fact, along with the undeniable and inexorable truth that the Clintons have never had to face justice, despite decades of a well-documented and infamous record of criminal activity on both of their parts, underscores the reality that the application of justice in the United States depends strictly on who you are and who you know…

…and if you happen to be a Clinton, you can get away with anything and everything, without fear of having to answer to the law.

So much for the concept of “Equal Justice Under Law,” or some such rot.

-Drew Nickell, 30 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

The Considerable and Ponderous Stretch to Support Hillary Clinton

Setting aside the ignorant, the naïve, and the sycophantic souls who dwell amongst us, one has to hand it to those who still support the candidacy of, and intend to vote for, Hillary Clinton. To do so requires a backward bend that would truly break the spine of most ordinary mortals. To wit:

• To support Hillary, one must accept the fact that one is supporting a woman who has besieged and attempted to destroy a very lengthy list of women who have been sexually and, in some cases violently assaulted by her husband, William Jefferson Clinton…and this from a presidential candidate who purports to support “women’s causes.” One must also accept the fact that she giddily laughed during an interview while bragging about the fact that she used a flimsy loophole in criminal law to exonerate a serial child rapist who she knew was guilty of brutally raping a twelve-year-old girl.

• To support Hillary, one must accept the fact that Hillary Clinton intentionally and illegally set up a private e-mail server in order to control the dissemination of e-mails she sent and received while she was Secretary of State, and that she did so to hide the fact that she was indeed selling State Department favors to foreign governments, many of which harshly treat women, homosexuals and non-Muslims, in exchange for millions of dollars of cash contributions to the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Global Initiative.

• To support Hillary, one must accept the fact that in order to withhold evidence from the Congressional Investigative Committee, she intentionally and illegally deleted over 33,000 e-mails from her server and directed the State Department to slow-walk FOIA requests pertaining to the use of her private e-mail server while she was serving as Secretary of State.

• To support Hillary, one must accept the fact that, during the night of the Benghazi raid and while it was still in progress, it was Hillary Clinton who led a meeting of State Department officials, Defense Department officials and White House operatives where the focus was, based upon five of the ten action items ordained at the meeting, on how to cloak the cause of the attack on a bogus narrative that the attack was the result of a spontaneous protest against an anti-Mohammed internet video, as opposed to the fact that it was a pre-planned terrorist raid by an Al-Quaida affiliate group Al-Shabaab on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. At this meeting there were no action items regarding any attempt to rescue the American personnel under attack at the Benghazi consulate.

• To support Hillary, one must accept the fact that Hillary blatantly lied to the families of those killed in the attacks, while standing behind their flag-draped coffins, promising to get the man who made the video when, it has been documented that she knew from the get-go that the attack had absolutely nothing to do with the video, and was instead a planned and coordinated attack by the Al-Quaida affiliate group Al-Shabaab, as evidenced by an e-mail she sent to her daughter, Chelsea, that very night and an e-mail she sent to the Prime Minister of Egypt the very next day following the attack.

• To support Hillary, one must accept the fact that there have been numerous accounts from a host of sources going back to her years as first lady of Arkansas, of her hot temper, vile outbursts and, in some cases, violent tantrums, as most recently enumerated in a book Crisis of Character by a former Secret Service officer, Gary J. Byrne assigned to protect President Clinton during his term of office…and this temperament on the part of a candidate who alleges that it is Donald Trump who lacks the temperament of one who would be President of the United States.

It is even more of a stretch to arrive upon a single, logical reason why anyone in their right mind would support such a candidate- discounting, of course, the fact that, at the end of the day, Hillary has a vagina.

Some reason to vote for a President.

-Drew Nickell, 28 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Pundits and Pollsters Can Wish, Can’t They?

Now that all of the mainstream media has practically declared that Hillary Clinton has already won the 2016 Presidential election, Americans will have to take this with all of the same degree of seriousness that our British counterparts took when that country’s mainstream media had declared that the British will vote to remain part of the European Union.

These same pundits would have us believe, as stated in the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, that Hillary Clinton has opened up a 12-point lead over Donald Trump, and that Barack Obama is enjoying a 56% job approval rating.

Ahem…not so fast, folks.

What the pundits have conveniently not disclosed about this poll, conducted by Langer Research Associates, is that the sampling ratio used in the poll favored Democrats by a 2-to-1 margin over Republicans. In other words, for every Republican polled, two Democrats were polled. Based on that reality, it is little wonder that Clinton would be leading Trump in that particular poll, and that in the same poll, Obama’s job approval ratings are right up there with Ronald Reagan’s, in June of 1988.

In other words, the poll that is being talked about all over the mainstream media has about as much credibility as the content of rose petals in a dump truck load of horse manure.

More credible polling, conducted in battleground states, indicate that Clinton and Trump are virtually tied- within the margin of error, and it is those states that the election will teeter, and ultimately decide who will succeed Barack Obama in January.

This is what the media does. They spin the truth to suit a narrative which supports a pre-determined outcome that is completely divorced from reality. It happened in Great Britain when the final “leave/remain” poll got the percentages “bass-ackwards,” and the same thing has happened in this country, based upon the polls that would have us believe that Donald Trump has already and irretrievably lost the race.

Notice that the news cycles are filled with the poppycock that there is a movement within the Republican Party to release the Republican delegates from their commitment to vote for Trump on the first ballot- a commitment based upon actual primary and caucus voting that gave Trump an undeniable nomination win. This is merely the wet dream of mainstream, elitist Republicans who are miffed that the GOP is on the verge of nominating someone outside their micro-managerial control…the familiar types like Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and the members of the Bush family, one of whom barely registered in this year’s nominating contests.

Add that to the news that the so-called Republican pompous ass-in-chief, also known as columnist George Will, has left the Republican Party because of the presumptive nominee, and it would seem that “the Donald” is headed for an electoral defeat in all fifty states. It should be remembered that George Will routinely assailed Ronald Reagan during his presidency and it was only after “the Gipper” passed away that Will started singing his praises.

So, while Democrats and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, the entire mainstream media who work at their behest, and the “Republi-can’ts” who have trouble building up enough testosterone to oppose the President on practically anything, for fear of offending their own opposition, can all be united in celebrating Hillary Clinton’s ascendancy to the nation’s highest office, the only thing that stands in their way is… the will of the people.

Until then, November 8^th, we look forward to all of the stories of how Trump cannot possibly win, and we look forward to November 9^th, when the mainstream media assails Americans for being racist, xenophobic and intolerant (just as they have in Great Britain) because of all of the eggs on the faces of those who could not see the forest, for the sake of all of the trees standing in their way.

-Drew Nickell, 27 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Rule Britannia- Britain Votes to Leave the European Union- a Parallel Across the Pond

As a rule we refrain from commenting on foreign political movements, for the reason that we believe it to be a bit “cheeky” to insert our nose into the affairs of others, as it were. Back in 1980, we spent four months as an exchange student at the University of London, so we’ve always held an affinity for all things British, and have abided a keen interest in the affairs of our British allies, nevertheless. 

Ironically, one hundred years following the Easter Rising in Dublin which inexorably led to Irish home rule six years later, Great Britain voted today to assert its own “home rule,” leaving the European Union more than forty years after having joined the union in 1973. 

In an April 23^rd essay, http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=694 , we discussed the arrogance of President Obama’s assertion that, if Britain went against his wishes that they remain in the EU, he indicated that their doing otherwise would move them to the very back of the line when it comes to future trade negotiations. 

In spite of Obama, the wishes of Britain’s Labour Party, the strong advocacy of Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain remain part of the European Union, and polls predicting a win for the “remain” vote, Britons on the whole rejected the globalist agenda (one also supported by Hillary Clinton, among others) and voted to leave the union, instead. It is interesting to note that the political classes in both countries all favored the continued membership with one notable exception… Presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, favored what was billed the “Brexit” vote, instead, and urged the British to leave the European Union and thereby reassert and regain their own national sovereignty. 

The voting also revealed a deep divide within the United Kingdom. Those in England’s largest cities, those in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU. Conversely, those in the surrounding areas of England and in Wales, were able to parlay enough votes to leave the union as the referendum to do so narrowly won out, overall. Contributing factors in the win for leaving included anxiety over unemployment, concerns of lost national sovereignty, and uncontrolled immigration (sound familiar?). Essentially, the concept of subjugating British law and jurisprudence to the whims of non-English speaking bureaucrats on the continent, proved too much for the largely independent British people, who had also decided some years back to reject the Euro and retain the British Pound as its own currency, instead. The vote in England also revealed a degree of divide between whites, who largely favored leaving the union, and non-whites who largely favored remaining within the EU. Similar stratification exists here, in the United States, as well. 

As a result Prime Minister David Cameron, whose own Conservative Party largely favored the “Brexit” vote, announced today that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister, indicating that Britain’s exit from the EU would require the leadership of someone other than himself. He did so despite the urging of his own party’s Members of Parliament that he remain in his position, and it is the early odds-on favorite that Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP and former Lord Mayor of London, will be elected Prime Minister in a national election to take place sometime in the autumn of this year. Johnson, who fiercely advocated Britain’s exit, has often described himself as a “One-Nation Tory” and has been called by many as Britain’s version of…Donald J. Trump. 

If ever there was a suggestion that wholesale populist rejection of political correctness in a foreign country like Great Britain might be an indicator that this same rejection could well take place in the United States, certainly this surprise vote indicates a very real possibility that such nationalist sentiments “across the pond” might well prove to be a harbinger of change in these United States. 

Advantage Trump. 

-Drew Nickell, 24 June 2016 

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Naiveté, Stupidity or Deception- It’s the Wrong Approach to Islamic Terrorism

“We stand with you to say that the good in this world far outweighs the evil, that our common humanity transcends our differences, and that our most effective response to terror and to hatred is compassion, it’s unity, and it’s love,”

– Loretta Lynch, Attorney General, 22 June 2017

Hmmmm.

Yes, it’s true. The nation’s top law enforcement officer says that the best way to respond to terrorism and hatred is with “compassion, unity and love.”

Yeah, right.

Imagine, just for a moment, if the following had been said…

• “Speak softly, and carry a big heart.” Not said by Theodore Roosevelt
• “Yesterday, Sunday, December 7^th, 1941, a day that will live in love, The United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by airplanes because the United States hasn’t shown compassion or unity towards the Japanese Empire.” Not said by Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• “Let every nation know, whether they love us or not, that we will offer any compassion, accept any attack, bear any hardship, love any friend, and embrace any foe, to assure that we will not be offensive to anyone, ever.” Not said by John F. Kennedy
• “Mr. Gorbachev, if love and peace is what you seek, then we want to show you unity and compassion by begging you to rethink your position on the Berlin wall.” Not said by Ronald Reagan

So if we are to believe Attorney General Lynch, the best way to respond to those who rape women, mutilate children, sever the heads of Christians and Jews, throw homosexuals off of the tops of buildings, and target unarmed, defenseless and innocent civilians is to shower them with compassion, unity and love.

Assuming that she really believes this, then she is either woefully naïve or as dumb as a box of rocks. In either case, she has no business being Attorney General of the United States.

Assuming, on the other hand, that she knows better, then she is part and parcel of the deception that the Obama administration is parlaying on the American people that Islamic Terrorists will cease and desist their atrocities, if we will only drop our Islamophobic bias, and show them compassion instead…and, in order to do this, we should all be willing to give up our rights to defend ourselves and submit our very lives to the wiles of those who hate us.

And, by the way, we are also supposed to believe her when she says that the FBI’s criminal investigation(s) of Hillary Clinton is something that she has not discussed with the president, and that it will be handled no differently than any other investigation.

Does anyone really believe this?

Not this writer…not ever.

-Drew Nickell, 23 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Obama and Islam – an Action of Redaction

The time has come for America to face the truth, and the truth is that President Barack Obama doesn’t want to admit that Radical Islam is behind the growing threat of terrorism around the world. So determined is he and his administration to scrub any mention that Radical Islam is to blame for hundreds of terrorist acts around the world, that he has directed his Justice Department to redact any reference to ISIS and Radical Islam, in the transcripts of the telephone calls made by Orlando gunman Omar Mateen, while he was in the process of killing forty-nine innocents at the Pulse nightclub, last Sunday morning. By redacting these references, Obama is openly trying to change the narrative from his own failure to protect the American people from Radical Islamic Terrorists, to a false narrative on gun control and anti-LGBT bias, instead.

It’s not the first time that Barack Obama has suborned the truth to drive a false narrative, when it comes to Radical Islamic attacks in this country.

• When Nidal Hasan killed thirteen people and severely injured thirty others, in a November 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas, the Obama administration blamed the massacre on workplace violence, despite the fact that Hasan had been in regular contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, whose involvement with Al-Quaida and multiple terrorist attacks is well documented.

• Following the September 11, 2012 attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the Obama administration tried to blame the attack on an anti-Muslim video when they knew all along that the attack was a pre-meditated, planned attack by Al Quaida-affiliated Radical Muslims on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, DC- an attack that this administration did nothing to either prevent or provide any level of defense for the four Americans killed in that raid.

• When the Tsarnaev brothers perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing in April of 2013, the Obama Administration went out of their way to minimize the influence of Radical Islam, despite the fact that the Tsarnaev brothers both admitted that they were motivated by Radical Islamic Ideology and their resentment of America’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• When fourteen people were killed, and twenty-two people were critically injured in the San Bernardino attacks in December of 2015, the perpetrators of the attack, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, were undeniably influenced by Radical Islamic ideology and indicated they were acting on the behalf of ISIS/ISIL. Instead, the Obama administration blamed the attack on the lack of gun-control legislation, just as the Obama administration has put forth the idea that the Orlando attack was the result of a lack of gun-control laws, rather that Radical Islam.

On Sunday, June 19, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch toured the Sunday morning talk shows to discuss the redaction of the references that Omar Mateen made to ISIS and Radical Islam, because these references are not compatible with the anti-gun narrative driving the Obama administration in the wake of this, the latest attack by Radical Muslims on American soil, and the fact that this administration does not want the American people to associate these attacks with Radical Islamist ideology…

…and we are supposed to believe that this same Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, is going to allow FBI Director James Comey to conduct an unfettered, criminal investigation into espionage and racketeering on the part of Hillary Clinton and her surrogates, related to her use of a private e-mail server and her selling of favors for contributions by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation?

Yeah, right.

-Drew Nickell, 20 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Obama’s America – a House Divided Against Itself

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

– Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858

On being nominated to run as the Republican senatorial candidate, Abraham Lincoln delivered in what was then the Illinois State Capitol, the most important speech he would offer prior to his being elected the nation’s sixteenth president. He said so, indicating that the country could not “endure, permanently, half slave and half free.” Sadly, Lincoln’s speech proved to be prophetic. Within three years, the country was ripped apart by the bloodiest war ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly three quarters of a million men were killed in the American Civil War, and its ramifications reached well into the lifetimes of those born one hundred years later.

Never since that time, 158 years ago tomorrow, has the United States been so divided as it is today. While it can be argued that the seeds of this division reach back into the multi-faceted upheavals of the late 1960’s, the ugly truth is that the reason for this division lands squarely on the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.

Since his inauguration in 2009, Obama has intentionally divided America along racial, religious, cultural and partisan lines, like no other president ever has. The reason he has done this is quite simple, and his modus operandi can be traced back to King Philip of Macedonia who, in the fourth century B.C., first said, “Divide and rule.” This stratagem has also been known as “divide and conquer.” It has been used by Machiavelli, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler, Mao and a host of bad actors stretching back across the centuries, as a means to seize, solidify and sustain political power.

Never has Obama’s clear intent to divide the country been on display than it was yesterday, when he parlayed what was supposed to be an announcement by the Treasury Department to block funding of ISIS/ISIL, into a pathetic and partisan rant against Republicans, in general, and Donald Trump, specifically.

At the very moment the United States needed most, a message of reassurance and a call for national unity following the murder of forty-nine people in an Orlando, Florida nightclub, Obama instead went on a self-indulgent and petulant rant about the words “Radical Islamic Extremism” he stubbornly refuses to use when describing the nature of the terrorist threat he has helped to foment worldwide. With a condescending tone altogether fitting for an arrogant megalomaniac, he launched into an angry diatribe against critics who have taken issue with his reticence to use the phrase, saying that doing so would achieve nothing, and only worsen the situation unfolding around the world.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as it is axiomatic that an unnamed enemy cannot possibly be defeated, and history has borne this out, time and time and time, again.

What Obama presumably fails to understand is that the use of the phrase “Radical Islamic Extremism” codifies and identifies the precise nature of the threat the world faces from radical and fundamentalist Muslims who seek to wage jihad in order to achieve a caliphate of world domination, based upon strict interpretation of Sharia law as contained in the Qur’an. Comprised of 23% of the world’s population, roughly 1.7 billion people, it is estimated that 10-15% of Muslims ascribe to this radical interpretation which seeks to force its belief system on the entire world. Every single, despicable act perpetrated by these radical Muslims has been done in the name of Allah, and yet the president insists that such heinous barbarism has nothing to do with Islam, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Such is the lie with which Barack Obama seeks to divide this country at a time when national unity is needed most. After seven and one-half years of his feckless and tepid response to a plethora of militant Islamic attacks around the world, it has at long last been made painfully clear that Barack Obama is aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism. In heaping his infectious invective in such a manner, he is attempting to portray the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, as a far greater threat to America and the world, than the real threat of Islamic extremism. A simple comparison in the tone of his diatribe bears this out, and it has become duly and painfully obvious that he seeks America’s ultimate destruction as a result.

-Drew Nickell, 15 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Justice Interruptus – the Arrogant Aristocracy of the Left

Despite the fact that presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton is the subject of two criminal (yes, criminal) investigations by the FBI- one for espionage as related to her illegal use of a private e-mail server, and the other for racketeering as related to multiple contributions to the Clinton Foundation being exchanged for State Department favors, and both during her entire tenure as Secretary of State, she insists that there is no chance that indictments will follow…none.

This insistence was repeated Wednesday night during her interview with Fox News Anchor Bret Baier, when she reiterated that there is no chance that she will ever face an indictment related to these investigations.

How can she be so certain?

It’s simple. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, has already assured Mrs. Clinton that he will thwart any attempt by the FBI and the Justice Department, to refer to a grand jury any indictment, regardless of evidence that would otherwise indicate that charges should be brought.

With President Obama set to announce his official endorsement of her presidential campaign, and his already-started campaigning at her behest, Obama will not do anything that would put her campaign in jeopardy, even if it means that justice will not be ultimately served upon Hillary Clinton. President Obama, who has shown on multiple occasions his selective use of law enforcement based upon political affiliation, has absolutely no problem with deciding who and who will not be subject to the laws that he is sworn to enforce.

Hence the announcement this week that all documents related to the FBI’s criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton will remain sealed until after the November election. Under the supposed aegis of national security, the public’s right to know is being subverted for the sole interest of getting her elected as Obama’s successor.

If Hillary Clinton is elected president, then any chance of her being eventually indicted will evaporate into the thin air of her own inauguration, as she will be in a position to ensure that such indictments will never follow.

If presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is elected president, President Obama’s final act on the morning of Trump’s inauguration will be to issue a full and unconditional pardon to Hillary Clinton, for any and all crimes committed related to these investigations, regardless of how egregious and felonious they may be.

Such is the arrogant aristocracy of the left- the idea that no crime is so wantonly serious, that any liberal politician would be held accountable for having committed such crime. Evidentiary to this supposition is that, according to recent polling, 52% of registered Democrats would support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, even if she were to be indicted prior to the November election.

Since the Republican-controlled House and Senate have already shown a complete lack of willingness to pursue impeachment against either Obama, or anyone else in his administration, Hillary Clinton is safe in the smugness of her own certainty that at the end of the day, when all things come to light, she and her husband are, and will remain, above and beyond the law.

Therefore, it is the exclusive purview of the American electorate to either condone or deny the election of such a criminal to the highest office in the land, and the most powerful position in the entire world. With the mainstream media so obviously and entirely in the tank for Hillary’s election, such a purview is the perilous place in which this nation finds itself.

God help us, indeed.

-Drew Nickell, 9 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

“Stupid Is as Stupid Does” the Hobson’s Choice of 2016

In the blockbuster movie Forrest Gump, the main character as portrayed by Tom Hanks, is best remembered for his iconic quote, “Mama always said, ‘stupid is as stupid does,’” recalling his mother’s wisdom in helping him deal with the name calling by others, attributed to his own learning disability.

Perhaps nothing could better describe the Hobson’s choice of the 2016 Presidential Election.

On the one hand we have a candidate, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, who has a penchant for saying stupid things. Most recently, he has been excoriated by members of his own party for questioning the ability of a judge who is ruling on a lawsuit involving Trump University, based upon the judge’s ethnicity (his parents are Mexican immigrants), in light of Trump’s stance on curtailing illegal immigration by proposing that a wall be built on the US-Mexican border. While it is true that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is an American, born in Indiana as the child of Mexican immigrants, it is also true that Judge Curiel is an avid supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has publicly supported open borders and was named to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California by President Barack Obama, all of which suggests that this particular judge may indeed hold some bias towards Trump, in adjudicating the class action suit against him. While Trump failed to mention these pertinent facts, and only mentioned the judge’s ethnicity instead, he deservedly fell prey to charges of racism from both Democrats and Republicans, alike…in a word, stupid…

On the other hand we have a candidate, the presumptive nominee of the Democrat Party, who has a penchant for doing stupid things. Such deeds include, but are by no means limited to, her laughing and bragging about getting a case dismissed against a man, one Thomas Alfred Taylor, who Mrs. Clinton knew had savagely raped a twelve-year-old girl in 1975. There would be many more stupid deeds to follow, including ignoring repeated requests by slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens for enhanced security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which directly led to the death of Stevens and three others, lying about the cause of the Benghazi raid to surviving members of their families when she knew better, insisting that all of her e-mails while Secretary of State, be routed through her own private server instead of the legally-required use of government-provided secure e-mails, and then ordering the destruction of over 30,000 e-mails in an attempt to evade subpoenas relating to the same…in a word, stupid…

Interestingly enough, we often hear about Mrs. Clinton’s “vast experience” as being an advantage over her Republican opponent. Yet, when such “experience” is comprised of a reprehensible record of abject failure upon abject failure, it remains to be seen whether her experience is an asset or a liability in the minds of American voters.

So given the propensity of “the Donald” to say stupid things, and the propensity of Hillary to do stupid things, we are left with a Hobson’s choice as to whether or not stupid words, on Trump’s part, equal stupid deeds on Hillary’s part.

In such a dilemma, we are reminded of the old maxim that “actions speak louder than words,” and it is the sticks and stones of Hillary’s stupidity that potentially pose far greater danger to America than the words of Donald Trump, at day’s end.

-Drew Nickell, 7 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Selective Scrutiny – The Death of the Fourth Estate

When the British Parliament first opened its House of Commons to press reporting in 1787, famed orator and Member of Parliament Edmund Burke described the press as the fourth estate, the other three being (in that country) the Church, the ruling classes in the House of Lords, and those representatives in the House of Commons, itself. Since that time, it has been deemed essential in representative democracies that a free press be the watchdog of all things governmental, so that the people remain informed of the powers they elect. In the United States, this notion was codified in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, indicating that freedom of the press shall not be infringed upon.

In order for a free press to properly keep the people informed, a covenant of trust must exist between the press and the people it serves – essentially that, in its reporting, impartiality takes precedent to the personal opinions of its reporters. The degree to which this covenant of trust is violated is directly proportional to the deterioration of the people’s right to be informed, and when this violation extends into the extreme, the fourth estate of a free press dies under the weight of its own excess.

This week has witnessed the final throes of death for the free press as we know it.

On Wednesday, June 1^st, State Department spokesman and former rear-Admiral John Kirby admitted that the footage of former spokeswoman Jen Psaki, conceding that the State Department under President Obama makes it a policy to occasionally lie to the press in order to conceal secret negotiations with regimes such as Iran, was intentionally excised on orders of an unnamed senior official with the State Department. Kirby also indicated that the individual making this decision will remain unnamed, and that investigation into this decision will not take place. Can anyone imagine the outrage the press would voice if these were the actions of a Republican administration?

Compare for another instance the draconian degree of scrutiny that the major media has unleashed on Donald Trump, regarding the $ 5.6 million he raised when he skipped the debate on the eve of January’s Iowa caucus, to the complete and total lack of scrutiny on the financial dealings of the Clinton Foundation and its related Clinton Global Initiative. On the one hand, the desire to raise money for the veterans comes under the microscope of insinuation and aspersion when, in the end, 100% of the money raised by Donald Trump has been itemized and distributed to twenty-two organizations, having been thoroughly vetted since that time, who serve the needs of wounded and disabled veterans across the country. On the other hand, the most charitable and favorable reports have indicated that only 10% of the money contributed to the multi-million dollar Clinton Foundation has actually been given to the organizations it claims to support. Add this revelation to the growing scandal associated with Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State, and the two ongoing FBI investigations related to this, as well as Hillary’s suspected selling of State Department favors to contributors to the Clinton Global Initiative, and one easily can see the hypocrisy of the major media when it comes to the comparative coverage of the two presumptive nominees to the presidential election.

The message? The media will rake a Republican nominee over the coals in attempt to de-legitimize his candidacy, regardless of who he happened to be, while a Democrat nominee can violate the law, peddle influence on a massive and felonious scale without a peep from the major media.

In a September 22, 2015 essay entitled The Gotcha Game- How the Media Controls Elections ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=312 ), we elaborated how the media plays an active role in determining the actual results of elections across the country in its practice of excessively-biased reporting. Label this effort to bring down Trump, from all supposed sides of the major media, “Exhibit A” as proof of this reality. 

Perhaps Donald Trump has been less than artful in describing the media in his diatribes against what has become increasingly partisan and preferential to Hillary Clinton, but in these inartfully-stated diatribes lies the truth that the major media is largely nothing more than a sleazy slate of reprehensible reporters, all in the tank to elect Hillary Clinton president of the United States, and also cover-up the considerable corruption that exists in the Obama Administration.

Hence, the death of the fourth estate of a free press, as we have come to know it.

-Drew Nickell, 2 June 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.