Lock Her Up!!

Most of the nation awaits the inevitable conclusion of the Show Trial underway in the Senate and it ain't pretty at all. Honestly, it's as if Al Capone had stacked his tax fraud trial jury with members of his own crime organization, and stifled the prosecution by not allowing documents or witnesses. In fact, The Defendant-in-Chief yesterday felt confident enough to remark at a Davos presser that the trial will be a big zero because "honestly, we have all the material. They don't have the material." Yes, he said the whole Obstruction of Congress impeachment amendment thing out loud, and doesn't care. Why should he when he knows he'll be acquitted, no matter what.

(It's also worth noting that Red State Republican Senators represent a majority of the Senate, but only 18% of the U.S. population. Hmmmmmmm.... that's the core of MAGA-land right there.)

But no matter. Today we're positing what would have happened to Hillary Clinton if her 3 million popular vote majority made her President! Or even, if the 80,000 combined votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania hadn't gone to the T-monster, thus making her an Electoral College winner, too!

It's quite a "What If?" But with a high degree of confidence I can say that Clinton would have been impeached before the 2018 mid-term election.

Now before we go any further, don't expect this to be a Hillary love letter. I voted for her because the alternative, as we now know, was too awful to contemplate. True, many of her positions on certain issues were aligned with my own. However, she exhibited prior questionable judgments that made me an unenthusiastic supporter. (Exhibit A: the sudden appearance of the Whitewater investigation Rose Law Firm billing records. Exhibit B: her claim to be under sniper fire when she landed in Bosnia, 1996. Exhibit C: her dreadful 2016 campaign.)

Overall, I think she would have been OK as Chief Executive. But she would arrive at the White House with heavy baggage from the campaign that the GOP House and Senate would be investigating with full force from Day One. Here are the subjects they'd be pushing for impeachment, and they were all red meat for the "LOCK HER UP!!" chants at Trump rallies:

Uranium One.

The Clinton Foundation. 

More Benghazi More.

The Mishandled and Missing Emails. 

Let's take a look at each of these!

The sale of Uranium One was a real hot ticket back in 2015 and early 2016. When the book "Clinton Cash" came out, it put this topic square up front. I had friends claim that Clinton made millions off the deal and that she was going to be exposed and pull out of the race within a week or so. Well, that didn't happen. But it didn't keep GOP-heads from insisting that Clinton was single-handedly  responsible for the sale of this proud company to the Russians. And that Russia got all this yuuuuge chunk of American-mined uranium for its own weapons. And Clinton put the profits into her foundation and pocketbook! And Clinton was a traitor! RRRRRRR!!

As you might know, passions still run high. There were donations made to the Clinton Foundation that were, well, awkward. Bill did receive $500,000 for a speech to a group friendly to the sale. But in the end, as Secretary of State, H Clinton was one of nine officials who signed off on the vetted  deal, and only the President could have stopped it. As for the rest of the "Clinton Cash" BS reaction that surrounded Uranium One, it all fell apart in the end. The Trump Department of Justice quietly  announced it was dropping its investigation into this mostly baseless canard.

Ha Ha Ha HA HA HAAA HAAAA HAAAARRR OH HA HA HAAAA!

The Clinton Foundation has always been seen by MAGAites as a slush fund cash cow for Bill and Hillary. As written in "Clinton Cash" and promulgated by multitudes of right wing media platforms, the Clintons have used their foundation as an access-to-power scheme. Donate, and you get what you want from the then-Secretary of State and friendly influence from the past President. Again, my conservative friends were agitated by the blatant disregard for the law! These Clintons, RRRRRRR!!

Except, of course, that the charges set forth in "Clinton Cash" and subsequent accusations from the GOP fever swamp have crashed and burned. Yes, after more than two years of effort, the Justice Department announced it's closing down its probe and expects no charges. It's very hard for many to accept, including the conservative National Review, which when reporting on this development, stated that the Clinton Foundation was defunct. (It isn't.)

As for the oft-stated corrupt nature of the Clinton Foundation, the gold-standard charity watchdog, Charity Navigator, has consistently given it high marks. (In severe contrast, the Trump Foundation was recently forced by New York courts to close shop because of its fraudulent operations. The Trump family, being its Board of Directors, was fined $2 million dollars.)

Benghazi. Or, BENGHAZI!!! If you were in a coma between September 12, 2012 through H Clinton's epic 11-hour House testimony on October 22, 2015 you would have missed an enormous amount of partisan BS spun by both parties. The deaths of 4 Americans, including the Ambassador to Libya, at a CIA operations base that had been clumsily designated as a "consulate" was a real fustercluck. Plenty of finger-pointing and hysterics to go around. Republican rhetoric rose to accusing Clinton of accessory to murder and treason. Democratic rhetoric spun a series of stupid CYA defenses that failed to satisfy.

In the end, the House launched 10 separate investigations on what went down in Benghazi. 107 witnesses were called to testify, and did. The Executive Branch produced over 100,000 document pages in compliance with House requests. There were 33 individual hearings. Hillary Clinton emerged as blameless for the four deaths, but not so blameless in the subsequent spin. Because she had slipped through their fingers yet again, Republicans ratcheted up their fury toward her. GRRRRR!!

And, of course, her emails. The disclosure that Clinton used a private server for her Secretary of State business was THE big catch of the Benghazi hearings. It can be argued that this revelation, with the tortured and defensive spin by Hillary, and its subsequent handling by the FBI, sank the S.S. Clinton on November 8, 2016.

The big question remains: why the hell did she do it? Hills insists it was for convenience. She was accustomed to it for her Blackberry. And that it's a practice that's not uncommon within government. This seems true, even, stupidly, amongst top-level Trump Administration nitwits.

But it always seemed to me that Ms. Clinton chose this route because of her 20+ years of being in the crosshairs of the GOP Hate Machine. I believe she decided that using the private email server would provide some extra insulation for her... a layer of privacy and obfuscation. As a result, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for such info by reporters, groups and individuals were stymied. State Department couldn't give them what it didn't have, officially. She had been sneaky.

But then, once outed, the problem compounded. Clinton lawyers separated her official emails from personal business ones, roughly 30,000 each. As was her prerogative, she had her personal emails sent to her email vendor, Platte River Systems, with instructions to hold for 60 days if they were somehow needed, and then delete afterwards. A doofus at Platte forgot to delete them after 60 days. And it was after this 60 day period that the House issued its subpoena for these personal emails. The doofus panicked and deleted them too late, and in apparent "defiance" of the House request. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "the missing emails!!"

Yep, a big dopey mess that would hang around Hillary's neck like an albatross. And if she had become President, it's guaranteed that it would be used in an Impeachment inquiry. Along with the ridiculous accusations from the Uranium One kerfuffle, the Clinton Foundation flat tire, and BENGHAZI!

Each and all of these wouldn't amount to impeachable offenses. But given how ham-handed Hillary was in getting in front and past these problems, I have every confidence that she and her advisors would have gummed everything up, leading to Obstruction of Congress/Justice charges.

So, she gets impeached and the trial happens in early 2018. Considering how many Democratic Senators were up for re-election in 2018, and how unpopular President Hillary Lightning Rod would probably be, it's not crazy to think that there would be enough Democratic defections to make a Senate conviction possible. Yeeesh, what an alternative timeline!

I will be very happy when our current President and his Administration take a spectacular fall within a few months after the Senate trial concludes. Even though he very likely will be acquitted by his Senate enablers, there will be more and more terrible stuff coming down the pipeline. You can bank on it. It's almost as if The Fates had decided that whoever emerged victorious in 2016 would be dashed and destroyed. What a time to be alive.

End of the decade, 12/31/2029

OK, fresh off of the block, 2020 already sucks. It's presenting as a deeply wild year, one that causes acid reflux regularly through next Inauguration Day and maybe beyond. We're riding a crazy roller coaster with no guardrails and no recognizable track path and no OHSA to close it down. If you ever wondered what it was like to live during the national crises of the 1770's or late 1850's or 1930's or even the 1960's, this is our own time of national existential crisis.

So... let's take a moment to clear our minds a bit. Let's think on what life may be like living in December 31, 2029 as we will turn the page towards a new brand new decade. What do you think will happen over these next ten years? What will it look like heading into the 2030's?

Who knows, right? However, allow me to present several topic points that would shape the things to come. I strongly believe these actions are necessary for a better common life going forward. Of course, this isn't necessarily a prediction page. These points may or may not happen. But it is a listing of items that we need to get closer to realizing if we are to survive with each other in this country and  on this planet. We might not accomplish these goals within our tumultuous decade ahead, but we could get much closer than we are now.

Movement towards Matriarchy. This heads the list because it is most important. It's my contention that our country and world need to turn further away from systems of patriarchy. While it has created immense wealth and privilege for a comparative few, and a comfortable lifestyle for many, patriarchy in general keeps an unfair world in place. It maintains power and control for those who operate through a top-down and zero-sum approach towards our fellow human beings. Patriarchy means men rule; might makes right. And in our country, it means the white men rule (although that has been slowly changing).

Now I'm not against white men, per se. I happen to be one myself. But our world and country is not homogeneous. And there are more women than men. Let's be reminded of Michelle Williams's words as she accepted a Best Actress award last week:

I know my choices might look different than yours, but thank God or whomever you pray to that we live in a country founded on the principle that I am free to live by my fate and you are free to live by yours. So women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote, please do so in your own self interest. It’s what men have been doing for years. It’s what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them. But don’t forget we are the largest voting body in this country. Let’s make it look more like us.

Right. Matriarchal values of cooperation and caring are essential towards achieving progress for the rest of my list. Without a greater rise of Women Power, we are stuck and screwed in a world where the "winners" are busy getting theirs and to hell with everyone and everything else.

Climate Crisis Mitigation. Oil and coal companies have known about where we have been heading since the mid 1970s. Their public approach has been to deny until they can't. There's just too much money to be made using their model than to make widespread energy source changes! So while we pass a tipping point that basically condemns our way of life from future generations, fossil fuel companies are busy getting their government representatives to de-regulate environmental restrictions on their businesses. And renewable energy continues to be poo-pooed at the highest levels.

I recall attending an Electric Utility demonstration back in 1984. There was a PR guy who explained how we got our power, how it was distributed, etc. He showed how fossil fuels were the primary source for electricity. He mocked solar energy, saying that if you expanded it by 100% it would only account for 1% of power needs. So I raised my hand and asked, "what if we raised it by 1000%? How about 100,000%? You're suggesting there's some sort of ceiling, and there isn't." The PR guy looked at me and shut down the presentation.

Today we have an oil-friendly Senator from Oklahoma bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor as an example of the Global Warming fallacy. And we have Australia burning, and its Great Coral Reef dying, and fish species expiring from warming waters all around the world. We need to create stronger cooperative international programs that ensure radical changes in energy sources. Otherwise our children and theirs will be facing life with routine killer drought, floods, unlivable heat, enormous refugee movements from uninhabitable lands, disease spread, and socio-economic collapse. Our species has become endangered. We need healers.

Fixing Democracy. To say that our system of governance needs updating is an understatement. Too often whole classes of people are restricted from voting, either by registration purges or reduced number of polling places or gerrymandered districts or signature challenges or felon records or funky paper-less voting machines or other corruptive stifling methods. Voting rights need to be enacted like what New York State is doing - when one turns 18, one becomes automatically registered! Why make it hard? This should be the easiest thing in the world.

But there's so much more. The entire Electoral College needs to be reformed or rejected - as currently structured, Red States will win close Presidential contests 65% of the time despite losing the national popular vote! This plays against "majority rules" of course. It represents Patriarchy at its worst. In addition, we need non-partisan panels that draw up fair and objective representational districts. "Citizens United" needs to be overturned so unlimited amounts of toxic Dark Money can be drained from the system. And let's reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and put Fox State News and Hate Radio out of business!!

Additionally, we will need to codify restraints on the Executive Branch and create much stronger Checks and Balances. The Trump Adminstration and the GOP Senate demonstrate how Bad Faith actors and their pursuit of power and control can ruin democratic representative government -- something our Founders never envisioned (their view was that men of the highest character would invariably rise to the top).

Capitalism Undergoes Some Changes. Yep, we need more Naomi Klein and less Milton Friedman. More Barbara Ehrenreich and less Steve Mnuchin. More Jane Addams and less Ayn Rand. More business behavior based on research and development planning and less reacting to quarterly statements. Let's end off-shore and Swiss accounts where corporations, billionaires and crime bosses park their tax-free fortunes. Let's put an end to international transactions that mask immense money-laundering schemes.

All thought systems evolve, and Capitalism is no exception. Its current direction is toward the way it was at the turn of the 20th Century. No regulations existed at that time, no oversight, no worker rights, no protections, nothing more than the ruthless pursuit of profits. Then reformers like Jane Addams and Upton Sinclair emerged. Unions formed. Teddy Roosevelt presented his trust-busting and anti-monopoly policies. It made a big difference.

But not enough to prevent the economic collapse of the Great Depression. Policy and legislative changes made by FDR during that time helped create the remarkable and sustained Post-War Boom that lasted, more or less, until 2008. It ended when specific safeguarding regulations had been removed. Today, even more economic guardrails have been removed, with more being recommended. We need to reverse this trend. We need to end the egregious income and wealth distribution model of today. It's unsustainable.

Health Care Becomes A Human Right. Well, this should be a given; however, it's still more of an economic right, if you can afford it. The nature of American health care system is conflicted. It can provide the best care in the world. But it cannot provide such care to many of its citizens. And the structure of health insurance that subsidizes this model corrupts an efficacious delivery of benefits, makes fraud an endemic problem, and creates a major and too often debilitating economic weight on people's lives.

America continues its anomalous role as an under-performer with health care delivery in relation to other "first world" nations. Its system of service distribution needs significant revamping. It's corrupt and inefficient. The administrative and operating costs far exceed other nations. Don't believe it? Check out this comprehensive and quite damning report:

https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2019/07/how-does-the-us-healthcare-system-compare-to-other-countries

Everybody Needs an Education. Having a good education is the best answer for the challenges of the next decade. No one disagrees with that. It gets contentious with what "good" means. And the debate usually revolves around public cost. And private profit. And even religion. There can be no argument that the U.S. position in elementary and secondary education is tops, because it is not. In fact, it's kinda embarrassing, according to this Pew Research Center study on our position in the world:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/

Significant changes need to be made in what is taught, how it is taught and who it is taught to. The cost for future education will need to be determined by a simple maxim: The resources for a public education received by the richest student is required by the poorest student. Hoo boy, that represents a huge societal mindset roadblock. But it's necessary. And a more matriarchal and egalitarian society will pursue this. The result will be a true meritocracy.

Let Diversity Bloom. All these aforementioned topics will take time to transpire and transform our society. Certainly, we will need every bit of the 2020's to work on gaining traction. The 2030's will require a sea change surge in how our society operates. A generational upgrade. A huge shift in consciousness and self-awareness. All of these topics, and other institutional reforms, are dependent on the decline of the patriarchal mindset. It all may be achieved through our own pro-active choices, or by having painful circumstances dictate our lives to come.