A Cancer of Corruption that Knows No Bounds

 

Anyone who has been following the Clintons for more than three decades knows that they are inherently corrupt, and that there are no bounds when it comes to the level and depth of their corruption- a corruption that is as pervasive as it is contagious. 

We all knew about Hillary Clinton’s cattle futures, Whitewater, Travelgate, “Foster”-gate, how she handled the so-called “bimbo eruptions,” her e-mail and private server, Benghazi, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Thanks to the WikiLeaks release of the e-mails she ordered deleted, we have also come to know about the Democratic National Committee’s collusion to rig the nomination for her (sorry, Bernie Sanders), and how the one-time CNN commentator and now DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile gave her the heads up on questions prior to her debates with Sanders, and why Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) was forced to resign her DNC Chair, only to become Hillary’s 50-state campaign chairwoman. 

We have also come to know that the Clinton corruption has metastasized, and this “cancer of corruption” has spread into the Obama administration and has permeated the State Department, the Department of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation- an agency which once prided itself from being immune to political contagion, but has become stained by political corruption at its highest levels. 

The “cancer of corruption” has overtaken most, if not all, of the mainstream media in both print journalism and television broadcasting. Even Fox News- once thought to be “fair and balanced,” has largely become her surrogate as well, with few exceptions, namely Sean Hannity. Any Fox News broadcast hosted by Shepard Smith or Megyn Kelley bears this out, beyond any doubt, whatsoever. This corruption has even spread to much of the presidential polling, where oversampling of Democrat voters has been engineered to deliver pre-determined results, and it has been reported that many of the touch-screen balloting in Texas and elsewhere has been tampered with to the extent that early ballots cast for Donald Trump are being surreptitiously switched to Hillary Clinton, despite the denials of Texas election commissioners and Clinton’s allies in the mainstream media. 

We also have learned that the Clinton Foundation has effectively become a conduit to enrich the Clintons (once “dead broke” when they left the White House, according to Hillary) beyond imagination, and even Clinton insiders are horrified that the foundation has been used to fatten Bill Clinton’s wallet, and has become nothing more than a conduit of influence by foreign governments to gain access to State Department favors, in exchange for cash contributions. 

It is no stretch to say, as Donald Trump has said many times, that the entire election process is rigged beyond any and every doubt, and all of the derision he receives for saying so does not change the fact that our government and its institutions are now captive to a level of corruption that knows no bounds. Worse, unless Trump can manage to win this election, all of this corruption will become institutionalized and permanent with the election of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President of the United States… 

…all of which makes this Hallowe’en of 2016 the scariest of all. 

 

-Drew Nickell, 28 October 2016 

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved. 

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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The Changes Needed- Trump Lays Out his Contract with the American People

Not that the mainstream media would ever report on something as substantive as actual issues in this election of 2016- especially when it comes to Donald J. Trump. After all, why would the mainstream media risk the election of their queen, Hillary Clinton, by reporting anything to do with substance when it comes to her opponent, who they despise even more than the idea that he might actually be elected president? Besides, it’s much more fun harping on unsubstantiated allegations by a dozen of her female supporters, that they were sexually assaulted by Trump years ago- allegations that have never surfaced prior to the last two weeks.

Nevertheless, it was Donald J. Trump who unveiled a substantive twenty-eight point plan to bring change, real change, to Washington, DC that would fundamentally change the relationship that government has with the people they are supposed to serve. In his Saturday address delivered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump laid out a specific (did you get that, major media, specific ? ) agenda that he promises to initiate during the first hundred days of a Trump administration:

FIRST, Trump will propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress- 3 two-year terms for the House of Representatives and 2 six-year terms for the Senate;

SECOND, Trump will institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);

THIRD, Trump will institute a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;

FOURTH, Trump will institute a five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;

FIFTH, Trump will institute a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;

SIXTH, Trump will institute a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections;

SEVENTH, Trump will announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA, or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205;

EIGHTH, Trump will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership;

NINTH, Trump will direct his Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator;

TENTH, Trump will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers, and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately;

ELEVENTH, Trump will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal;

TWELFTH, Trump will rescind the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward;

THIRTEENTH, Trump will cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use this money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure;

FOURTEENTH, Trump will cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama;

FIFTEENTH, Trump will begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia from one of the 20 judges on his list, justices who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States;

SIXTEENTH, Trump will cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities;

SEVENTEENTH, Trump will begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country, and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back;

EIGHTEENTH, Trump will suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered “extreme” vetting;

NINETEENTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Middle Class Tax Relief and Simplification Act, an economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate. It will suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur.

TWENTIETH, Trump will submit to Congress the End the Offshoring Act, which establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers, which enables them to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free;

TWENTY-FIRST, Trump will submit to Congress the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral;

TWENTY-SECOND, Trump will submit to Congress the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act, which redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kids to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. This ends common core and brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and makes 2- and 4-year college more affordable;

TWENTY-THIRD, Trump will submit to Congress the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral;

TWENTY-FOURTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act, which fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and allows the states to manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications;

TWENTY-FIFTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act, which allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-site childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families;

TWENTY-SIXTH, Trump will submit to Congress the End Illegal Immigration Act, which fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first;

TWENTY-SEVENTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Restoring Community Safety Act, which reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a task force on violent crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police, increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies, authorizes federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars;

TWENTY-EIGHTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Clean Up Corruption in Washington Act, which enacts new ethics reforms to “drain the swamp” and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.

Whether or not a President Trump can be successful in implementing any or all of the above is an open question, but at least he is offering a substantive plan to fix what has ailed our government for the past seven decades, and seeks to place our elected leaders under scrutiny of the American people.

Then again, voters who think that change, real change, is not needed in Washington DC still have the option to vote for Hillary Clinton, whose programs explicitly promise to continue the same-old, same-old strategies which have landed our country in the circumstances with which we find ourselves, today.

But don’t expect to hear about these differences from the mainstream media, who would much rather concentrate on sex, instead.

 

-Drew Nickell, 25 October 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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Viva Las Vegas – the Third and Final Debate of 2016

Not even the savviest of odds makers are able to predict what can and will occur in any debate featuring Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and such a maxim was substantiated last night, in the third and final debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump was so thorough, so focused and, yes (dare we say it?) so presidential last night, that the mainstream media and the politically-correct classes united against his candidacy had to scramble, just to find one thing they could use, to once again slam his performance. In the end, they all had to resort to lying about what “the Donald” actually said when answering a question as to whether or not he would accept the outcome of the election on November 8^th.

“I will look at it at the time,” Trump said. “I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time.”

When pressed for further clarity on this issue, Trump said, “We’ll find out on November 8^th,” and added, “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”

Despite what was clearly meant to be a “we’ll wait and see” response, it was the media, starting with the anti-Trump host of The Kelley File, Megyn Kelley of Fox News, who indicated that “he would not accept the outcome of the election, regardless.” This meme was seized upon, by the forces allied against Trump, as an absolute repudiation of the electoral process, and an unprecedented and un-American response to a simple question, as if such a challenge never happened before.

Apparently, they all conveniently forgot the election of 2000, when Al Gore challenged the election results in a court of law, and that election was not conceded until just before Christmas, that year.

This “press prevarication” aside, the anchor of Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace, did a comparatively good job in moderating the debate, asking probing questions of both candidates, while seeking answers on their own respective controversies. Donald Trump addressed these concerns ably, while Hillary Clinton seemed somewhat astonished that a member of the media would actually challenge her in such a debate, and sought to spin her way, and in some cases, outright lie, to avoid addressing the challenges put forth.

Trump was focused and forthright, taking his case for change to the American people, and fully explaining where he and Mrs. Clinton differ on a host of issues relating to immigration, foreign policy, judicial appointments, gun rights, late-term abortion, ISIS and the economy. To this, it was Mrs. Clinton who merely reiterated the primary focus of her candidacy- that she is more qualified to be president, and that Trump is unfit to be president. She did this knowing that her own policy positions, which seem to play ping-pong on a continual basis, can neither be accurately ascertained (abortion excepted), nor accepted by the majority of voters. Worse, she completely dodged the issue that her campaign channeled money through the DNC, to pay protesters upwards of $1,500.00 apiece, to cause violent disruptions at Trump campaign rallies, and provoke fist-fights at these same events.

To everyone’s shock, it was Donald Trump who kept his composure, in the face of such adversity, and it was the all-too-practiced and robotic Hillary Clinton, who seemed to be on edge at times, as even she could not contain the nervous perspiration which otherwise belied her superficial iciness.

While the Democrats, the Clinton Campaign, the mainstream media and the establishment, never-Trump Republicans will all spend today, and the coming weeks, focusing on the lie that Donald will not accept the election results on November 8^th, those who were watching and paying close attention to what actually took place at the University of Las Vegas Thomas & Mack Center, will know what Donald Trump really said, and that it was Donald Trump who won the debate, hands down.

There are even those who still maintain that Trump’s campaign is not a serious quest for the presidency- those who are astounded that the “not-so-serious” candidate has refused to concede the election, a little less three weeks before it takes place…

Go figure…

 

-Drew Nickell, 20 October 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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Overcoming the Odds and the Obstacles – On the Eve of the Final Debate

Despite the odds which were most assuredly stacked against them- a rebel force who took on the world’s most powerful army- it was on October 19^th 1781, in Yorktown, Virginia, that the British army, under Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to the Continental army, under the command of George Washington. Cornwallis, a mastermind of military strategy, but with an Achilles heel of his own ego, could not stomach the thought of tendering his sword to this upstart rebel. So, he sent one of his senior officers to surrender His Majesty’s forces to General Washington, instead. As the ceremony occurred, the British army’s band played a familiar tune of its time, The World Turned Upside Down, noting the sheer irony and shock of that which was taking place on the shores of the York River. No one at the time had given the Continentals the slightest chance of winning, for everything seemed to be going against them, and yet…

*                                                        *                                                     *

Two hundred thirty-five years later, Donald Trump will be trying his best to defy all of the forces set against him, namely:

The mainstream media, who so overtly and blatantly do all they can to destroy his own candidacy, through coordinated “revelations” of women supporting Hillary Clinton who, suddenly on the same day, allege sexual improprieties on the part of Trump (never mentioned before, going back decades), and then protect their queen, Hillary Clinton, from any bit of news (WikiLeaks) that would otherwise call her into question;

The Clinton Campaign, who coordinates the attack on Trump by the mainstream media, utilizes key operatives in Obama’s State and Justice Departments, and even the FBI, to illegally inoculate Hillary Clinton from any legal repercussions for her actions while serving as Secretary of State, and thereafter;

The recalcitrant Republicans who would sooner see Hillary Clinton president, than to honor past pledges, and unite behind their only chance to save this country from Clinton-appointed justices, the threat of ISIS, the financial as well as medical disaster that is ObamaCare, or any hope of border security, all because of their own allegiance to a Bush-Clinton-Obama agenda, towards increasing globalization and one-world governance.

Into such maelstrom strides a lone, albeit brash, tour-de-force that is Donald Trump, with no one at his side to take up his cause, save for the tens of thousands who regularly show up at his rallies and the many millions of supporters who will be watching, on Wednesday night. The debate, ironically set in Las Vegas given the odds so heavily weighing against Trump, is to be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday. Wallace, the son of longtime CBS News reporter Mike Wallace, offers the only real chance of fair and unbiased moderation in any debate between Clinton and Trump, given the fact that Lester Holt, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz all went after Trump as though they were Hillary’s running mates, in the first two debates.

He only has one thing going for him- the one thing that might just enable him to accomplish, in Las Vegas, what Washington once accomplished at Yorktown.

That one thing is the truth- the truth of Clinton corruption, the truth of mainstream media collusion, the truth of an election being hijacked by a triad of government, mainstream media and the Clinton campaign, all working in lockstep with one another. If Trump can hammer this home, and put the whole issue of Hillary Clinton’s quest for the presidency to such a test, then he can win the debate and, quite possibly, turn the world upside down, by winning the election which follows in three short weeks.

Stay tuned…

 

-Drew Nickell, 18 October 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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The Story That Mustn’t Go Away- Media Collusion with the Hillary 2016 Campaign and the Obama Justice Department Confirmed

Media bias in this year’s election is practically self-evident, and has come to be taken for granted by most of the voters paying attention to the news from the major networks and print media, because such bias has been traced back to the early 1930s and the Roosevelt presidency, and has steadily increased since then. For the last year, we have been writing about our assertions that much of the mainstream media was not only in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and also offered our suspicions as to outright collusion with her campaign and the Obama administration, as well.

It’s no secret that the media controls the outcome of elections, as we discussed September of last year (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=312 ). Yet, to be honest, our assessment fell short of a formal assertion that this was a coordinated effort between the media and a specific candidate’s campaign.

In the following month of 2015, we noted that something in the way the debate was moderated suggested over-the-top antipathy towards Republicans in general, and Donald Trump, specifically (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=374 ).  Again we had no idea that, at that point in time, there was actual coordination between the moderators and the Clinton campaign, in efforts to marginalize all of the Republican participants, especially Trump.

Last May we discussed at length, the death of the Fourth Estate of journalism (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=767 ), and yet failed to notice that Hillary’s campaign and the Justice Department were bearing the final remains of what was once a free press, to its very grave with the media complicit in its own innate bias.

A couple of months ago, we railed about the disgusting level of advocacy in the coverage being served up by the mainstream media at Hillary Clinton’s behest (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=961 ), but we had no idea that it was being engineered by the Clinton campaign.

Yesterday’s release of WikiLeaks documents, which confirm beyond doubt a year-long, three-point triad of the mainstream media, the Clinton campaign and the Obama State and Justice Departments, and their coordinated mission to bring down Donald Trump and place Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. We now know that our entire national political system has been seized by, and is in the hands of, a hostile and dangerous alliance consisting of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the minions in the mainstream media who do their bidding. DNC Chairman Donna Brazile (who was then working for CNN) provided questions to Clinton’s aides, in advance of Clinton’s town hall tete-a-tete with Bernie Sanders, with one question pertaining to the death penalty being asked, word-for-word. Ultimately, it would be Brazile who would succeed Debbie Wassermann-Schultz, when the latter was ousted for her own collusion with the Clinton campaign.

We have also learned that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been given copy-editing privileges with New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich, who actually asked for permission from Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, to use specific portions of an interview with Mrs. Clinton. Leibovich even allowed Palmieri to offer extensive editing suggestions as to how the news covering Clinton should be written, and was thus told by Palmieri that “it was a pleasure doing business” with him.

There are several more examples of this collusion between many of the media outlets and the Clinton campaign, including the coordination of attack against Trump by CNBC correspondent and New York Times contributor, John Harwood, when he moderated the Boulder debate in October of last year, and it was Harwood that actually gloated about his successful attack on Trump to the Clinton campaign, afterwards.

To complete the terrible triangle of treachery, it turns out that the Obama Justice Department gave Mrs. Clinton several instances of advanced warning, when certain actions on her part might lead to inconvenient investigations into her own wrong-doing.

Now, as it seems, all three of these collaborators (the media, the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign) have been in coordinated cahoots to bring down the Trump campaign, since it appeared he would ultimately win the Republican nomination.

All of this, in and of itself, is frightening for lack of a better word.

Worse, in August when we offered up a prescription for that which ails the Republican Party, who presumably- if not certainly, seeks to address the crucial issues- the Supreme Court, border security, ISIS, ObamaCare and prevent the re-introduction and permanent installation of Clinton corruption, at the highest levels of our government (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=951 ), they ditch Trump entirely. If that were not enough, they offer up more stupidity by telling voters to vote “down ballot” so that they can serve as a check on Hillary’s presidency, instead.

Yes, the establishment Republicans led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, have been an absolute wall of marshmallow cream against Obama’s overreach, and have thus puffed out their chests, in abhorrence to the crass things that Donald Trump has said over the years. It would seem they even have the nerve to tell us, “Forget Trump, but vote for us and we’ll keep Hillary hemmed in.”

So, for lack of a better way of saying the obvious, it is the Clintons, the Obama administration and their co-conspirators in the mainstream media- along with the compliant establishment Republicans, who are seeking to defeat Donald Trump and thus ensure that Hillary Clinton wins the election, country be damned.

What Hillary did while Secretary of State, in selling favors to foreign governments vis-à-vis the Clinton foundation, was merely practice scrimmage compared to what she can do as president, rest assured.

Whether liked or not, whether supported, or tolerated, or absolutely detested, Donald Trump is going against all of the above, and spending a fortune of his own money to offer an alternative to the globalist, open-bordered, ISIS-subjugated and constitutional disintegrating agenda of Hillary Clinton and, in so doing, may represent the very last vestige of representative government in the United States.

With less than a month to go, our very survival as a republic thus teeters in the balance.

 

-Drew Nickell, 12 October 2016

 

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

 

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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Try As They All Might – The Ship That Hasn’t Foundered

In the fortnight since their last encounter at Hofstra University on the 26^th of September, the mainstream media has tried their level best to convince the American people that Donald Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton is all but lost, just as they have repeatedly tried to do so, for the last fifteen months. Given his own lackluster performance at Hofstra, and the collusive spin that the media has coordinated with the Clinton campaign, particularly in the two weeks since, it appeared that all of the breaks were indeed going against the Republican nominee.

The “suddenly discovered” video of Trump yucking it up with NBC’s Billy Bush back in 2005, exchanging disparaging remarks about celebrity women in a “hot-mic” moment certainly didn’t seem to improve “the Donald’s” acceptability amongst the politically-correct classes. It didn’t help to mollify those recalcitrant “Republi-can’ts,” who never did give the Republican nominee their support in the first place, and who were jumping all over each other to try to out-condemn Trump for the oh-so-horrible things he said in the exchange- things that any man, any man has heard many times over in the confines of the locker room, the men’s room and just about anywhere else, outside the presence of women.

The hyper-ventilating over Trump’s coarse words even managed to overshadow the thorough trouncing of Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine, at the hands of Trump’s running mate Mike Pence, at Longwood College on Tuesday, October 3^rd, in Farmville, Virginia. Yes, there was even talk amongst the multitude of “Clintonistas” in the mainstream media and the rattlesnake Republicans who won’t admit that they really support Hillary Clinton, that there was a push to replace Trump with Pence as the nominee going into next month’s election.

And yet…

…at least one person wasn’t listening to all of the pundits excoriating Trump, who wasn’t listening to all of the expert advice that he lay off of the Clinton scandals and thus appear humble and contrite in his remorse, and who should offer up milquetoast parlay with Hillary Clinton so as to appear softer, kinder, gentler, etc.

The one person who was not listening to any of this was one Donald J. Trump, and in not listening, Trump not only managed to win the debate, but also breathed new life into a campaign the experts have tried their level best to write off, time and time again.

Immediately before the proceedings four women, who know first-hand the treachery of the Clintons, got together with Trump to tell their stories about the way the Clintons really treat women. Juanita Broaddrick who was raped by Bill Clinton, Kathleen Willey who was groped by Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, and Paula Jones to whom Bill Clinton indecently exposed himself, all told the same story of how, in each of their cases, it was Hillary Clinton who attacked them unmercifully for their accusations against her husband. Then there was Kathy Shelton who, as a twelve-year-old in 1975, was brutally raped and beaten by a man who Hillary defended in court, and who later was recorded laughing in an interview about how she was able to get the rapist off on a technicality, even when she knew her client was, in fact, guilty of the assault. These four women were also sitting next to Trump’s family at the debate, in a courageous show of unity that bared an undeniable truth…

…simply stated, that while Donald Trump has said disparaging things about women, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have done disparaging things to women, and have sought to ruin their lives, as a result.

Not even the anti-Trump tag-team of ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who regularly cut-off Trump in mid-sentence and who took turns in actually debating Trump on key points, in order to assist Hillary Clinton, were able to defeat Trump, in the end. It was Trump who expertly fended off the attacks of all three- Hillary Clinton, Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper, and it was Trump who deftly answered the questions from supposedly uncommitted voters- many of whom asked questions worded in a way to suggest actual support for Clinton. There was not a single question that was worded in a way to attack Hillary Clinton- not from the moderators, nor from the chosen audience questions, and yet…

…it was Donald Trump who prevailed over all, and it was Donald Trump who offered a promise to the American people- a promise to seek justice, final justice against his opponent, should he be elected the next President of the United States, and in doing so, prompted rare applause from the audience present at the debate in Saint Louis.

This is the Donald Trump who managed to trounce sixteen skilled politicians to win the Republican nomination. This is the Donald Trump who has the intestinal fortitude to take it to the Clintons in a way that George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole did not in 1992 and 1996, and in ways that John McCain and Mitt Romney could not take it to Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012. This is the Donald Trump, who brought millions of new voters into the Republican primaries and caucuses, and this is the Donald Trump who, above all other Republicans, realizes that when going up against the Clintons, it is the nice guys- like all those predecessors, who in the end, finish dead last.

So you think this election is over? Stay tuned, for it’s only just beginning.

 

-Drew Nickell, 10 October 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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Election 2016 – Five Weeks from Here to Eternity

The stakes could not be clearer and the ramifications could not be more certain. In five weeks, the most consequential election in our lifetimes will decide, once and for all, what kind of country we will be and what role this country will play in the world in which we live.

The world has turned over many times since the world was young for most of us, and the passage of time- ever greater in acceleration has brought some of us to what I will say is the autumn of our years. In that time period, we have seen a drastic and fundamental re-setting of the world order, and of our place in that world…both as a nation, and as individuals.

As I was born twenty-seven months before the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, my most remote and earliest memories remember the elation of my parents, that a Catholic could be elected president of the United States. John F. Kennedy, in his speech that cold afternoon, of January 20, 1961, said that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

In that time, despite waging an intense cold war with the Soviet Union, the United States was largely looked to, and regarded as, the inspiration for the entire world.

Yet, the seeds of anti-Americanism started to foment in the nascent rumblings and communist revolutions from the Middle East, to Southeast Asia, to Africa, and even into South America and the Caribbean- just off of our shores. In the coming decades, America would sacrifice great treasure and countless lives, in the jungles of Southeast Asia, in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq, in the ragged slopes of Afghanistan and other places, as the result of pursuing with all her might, to take this world to a better place.

Many of us know, first hand, the soldiers and sailors, the airmen and guardsmen, and all of the brave marines who so valiantly fought and served in these conflicts, and particularly those who made the supreme sacrifice in pursuit of defending freedom in a world, which sadly and all too often, neither sought nor appreciated, the liberty and freedom we offered her, in the end.

Since 1960, the world’s population has more than tripled, and is now knocking on the door of seven billion persons. Since the dawn of man so many eons ago, the world’s population did not reach one billion until 1900, when all four of my grandparents were very young. It took another sixty years for the world’s population to double.  Then, it only took twenty-five years for it to double, once again, and it will double, yet again, when I turn ninety. So in essence, should I live so long, the world’s population will have increased five-fold in the course of my own lifetime, when it once took all of sixty years, just to double…that’s ten billion people projected to inhabit the earth in the year 2048, just thirty-two years from now.

This is an acceleration of the world’s population our good earth is ill-equipped to sustain, and in those times, the struggle to merely find nourishment and clean water will make these essentials the ultimate commodity and the very source of economic and political power.

But what kind of country stands even a chance of survival, in a world where most go without? Would a United States, drowning in the same socialism that besets and cripples much of the world, have the vibrant strength, and sense of purpose, requisite to survive in such a world?  Or, will a United States, having re-sparked and re-kindled the spirit of independence  and free enterprise, that spirit which once made our nation the envy of all of the rest of the world, develop the innovation and technical means necessary to confront these challenges, head on?

Can we honestly say, that ours is a country that, today, would indeed pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty… given the leadership we have at the highest levels of our government, who seek not the altruistic ideal of a world blessed with freedom, and steeped in our power to lead it, but rather sustained political power for the mere sake of retaining such power, itself?

If this does not change, and on the quick, then we are doomed to suffer the consequences of our own undoing, and subject our children, and their children, to a defenseless nation beset with all of the world’s ills, at our very own doorsteps.

We have the power to choose, and not the politicians in charge, not the major media that tries to manipulate our minds, and not the pollsters, nor the politicos of both parties, nor even the powers that be can make such a choice, for ours is still the power to decide whether or not, to change the course we have been on…a course seemed bent towards defeat and destruction.

So, this election is going to say much about the direction this country will take, as it speeds closer to the times which I have just described. My grandchildren, who will be coping with such a world, will literally live or die, based largely upon the decisions we make today, and in the subsequent direction our country takes, when we go to the polls in November.

This is why all of us should think long and hard about the votes we will cast, and the repercussions of those decisions and their impact on our progeny. The question is simply this- What kind of country will we bequeath to our children, and do we want this country to once again regain its pre-eminence and strength, in a world seemingly hell bent on our own demise ?

One way, the old and the tired and the all-too-staid, offers more of the same old, same old, where problems don’t get fixed, where distrust grows rampant, and where division and discord further alienate us from one another. If what we seek is more of what we have had, then Hillary Clinton offers such continuity.

There is, however, another way. This way seeks to throw out the textbooks of political correctness, to toss aside the march towards globalism and one-world government, and break free from the box of impotence and resignation to seek new solutions and reincarnate the can-do attitude that once was America’s gift to a world grown tired and weary. Donald Trump may or may not succeed in this endeavor, in the end, but at least he is willing to try…

…so it comes down to this. Are we willing to try? Do we have the courage to try? And if we fail to do so, at this critical convergence in our history, will we be able to explain to our grandchildren why we failed to do so when, at long last, we once had the chance? For our children, and for their children, we must learn from the mistakes of our past and protect for them the legacy of freedom, self-sufficiency and independence that will secure their future, for this and for all time.

 

-Drew Nickell, 3 October 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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