In Christ Alone

Fernandez de Kirchner, Maduro, Rousseau....all washed up and no place to go, but further down

Populations of the South American Nations

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                           2014             /     2015

Brazil                 202,033,670       / 203,657,210

Colombia             48,929,706        /  49,529,208

Argentina             41,803,125        /  42,154,914

Venezuela                  30,851,343   /  31,292,702

Peru                     30,769,077         /  31,161,167

Chile                    17,772,871        /  17,924,062

Ecuador               15,982,551        /  16,225,691

Bolivia                10,847,664         /  11,024,522

Paraguay               6,917,579         /    7,032,942

Uruguay               3,418,694          /    3,429,997

Guyana                   803,677          /       807,611

Suriname                543,925          /       548,456

French Guiana       255,455           /       261,729

Falkland Islands        3,052             /          3,058

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South America

        410,932,389    /  415,053,269

      It is a scene akin to Pompeii, or perhaps a combination of Hiroshima and Dresden in 1946, and south Chicago, with two cups of blended brains of Nancy Pelosi.  Three of the top four names on this list of South American nations, Brazil / Argentina / Colombia are in veritable shambles.   They have been reduced, after several years of rule by marxist demagogues, to crumbling reminders of the decay of Cuba during the past 50 years.

     Mrs. Fernandez de Kirchner used her two terms to drag Argentina, predictably, into a morass of currency collapse, coupled with massive inflation, steady deterioration of public facilities, pointless lectures and blame casting, demonization of the productive sectors, and general corruption.  Argentina was number three in the Americas in 1960, behind places with funny names like The United States of America, and the Dominion of Canada of Her Majesty's Commonwealth.  The Republic of Cuba followed Argentina in an near tie for that third place position.
     We are speaking not so much in gross national product terms, but rather in the level of general education, per capita income, medical availability and practice, consumer and product availability and quality.   Now Argentina speeded up its decline to presently find itself well down on the list, as does Cuba, Haiti, and others of the workers' paradises so ardently hoped for by Bernie's and (Sir Edmund) Hillary's zombiecrats.
     It is well to remember that the La Sen~ora Cristina Fernandez was a member of the marxist guerrilla (preceding word pronounced gae - REE - yah ) known as "Los Monteros.  That group was a 1st cousin to the Sendero Luminoso and the visions of Ernesto (Che') Guevara  in "her time", but reformed to "work within the system" (sedicion en ves de guerra {sedition instead of war}).  Working "within the system" was never anything more than a phrase to Cristina....a girl with a German grandmother with the name of Wilhelm.   She was another of the white leftists who abound in the New World who feel compelled to save the masses with free food, housing, medicine, in return for servile servitude and worship.

     One dirty secret, do not tell anybody, but Barry, and (Sir Edmund)Corkscrew, and even Bernie the Pinko all want what Cristina wants.....access to wealth by taxation....not just to high wages...but wealth.   The labouring classes who happened to have set-aside pensions similar to 401s and State Employees' Pension plans etc., learned and could not believe it was true.  But there were active plans, and implementation was beginning with the preparation of legislation in the lap-dog Congress to begin a taxation.  That levy would be of instruments, certificates of deposit, savings accounts, bonds of medium and long term, foreign "insertions" and deposits, precious metals and jewels, collections of paintings and firearms and antiques and properties and the like.  In short, take from the rich and give to the politicians to buy votes with other people money and property.
     The problem is that many union workers learned fairly quickly that they were part of the "rich".   Frequently a long-term worker might find that he/she might have 53,000 +/- USD on deposit in a pension fund that is titled in his/her name....as it should be. That is the was of the  Texas State Employees and Texas State Teachers' and Education Employees' Retirement System.   It should be done this way, and not as the American style Social Security System Ponzi-scheme.
      But, fear not!   Cristina only seemed to want something "reasonable" like four per cent per annum.   But, fear....and be very afraid!   Cristina had become frumpy and damaged in the cranium, apparently (sound familiar?...with a name that rhymes with 'Billary'?) She thought she was the re-appearance of Evita and the people would love her forever and drown her plumed and ribboned black horses drawing the black and glazed carriage with her silver coffin with roses thrown of a thousand colours by the adoring masses.    But not so much.   Even the downtrodden labouring masses came to hate Cristina.....not Evita....but Cristina.
     Where does sin, avarice, self-indulgence, and greed end and Shirly Temple begin?  Cristina wanted the people's money, and Evita wanted to be gazed upon and cherished.  Both were deranged, and if forced, were I to be an Argentine, to choose one or the other....it would be Evita.  All of them...Jane Fonda, Frida Kahlo, Barbra Streisand and a thousand other thrippets who think they are the first ones to worry about the poor and peace....who pretend to equality to that poor, self-deluded girl....Evita....are not qualified to drink muddy water from her slipper.   Hillary care about "the poor"?   Can we be very serious for a moment?

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    Now, comes Venezuela.  The weeping masses, learning of the death of Father Hugo Chavez, the military dictator of Venezuela who gave so that the masses could have.   They wailed and bewailed when he died of all kinds of 'social' diseases.   He went for treatment to Cuba, because Cuba has the best medical system in the world, and it's all "FREE".  There were even thrashing and gnashing of teeth in the streets among the professionally poor in the streets of Caracas when Saint Hugo died.....people howling, "Who is going to take care of me????  Oh! Who will give me what I need?"   It was a beautiful send-off to a jerk who knew that there are enough people who are stupid and ignorant enough to believe in the phrases, "Hope and Change" and "A cada quien lo que necesita! (to each what he/she needs)."

   The political godfather of the present president was Hugo Chavez, a totally deranged egomaniac.   Hugo's successor, Nicolas Maduro, is equally deranged, not quite as smart, and pitifully unskilled in the arts and science of governance.   Within two years since the demise of Chavez, Maduro has managed to give away all hope of normalisation of the economy or society.   In short, things were desperate because of Chavez's "print and spend" economic philosophy, coupled with his continuing harassment of the productive sector.  When the price of oil fell, Maduro became a useless Nero presiding over a country in total ruin.
     Food riots....can the OROG imagine a food riot in Venezuela...basic supplies, toilet paper, pampers, canned goods, even tropical fruit and vegetables, even fish and shellfish....unavailable.  But, the blame, as is the case with all marxists, is laid at the feet of the businesses and persons who provided what once was a bounty of food, drink, and product.   Venezuelan currency is all but worthless at this point.  People have turned to using deposit-bearing soft drink bottles as a form of currency in rural areas, in lieu of bolivares.
     Food and currency and banking and supply riots, along with daily (and day long) demonstrations by people who grew accustomed to Chavez's largess, still want their free ride, and they want it now!   Oddly, this time they are blaming Maduro, and not the "rich people".

     In Venezuela, a military take-over should be anticipated and is probably necessary by this point.

      As far as Brazil is concerned, this story is terribly and boringly complicated.  Thankfully, it can be closed, at least temporarily, with the knowledge that Dilma Rousseau has been impeached, and like her sister-in-crime, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, she is being convicted and further charged with all nature of massive fraud, theft, and misrepresentations.   She has been removed from office.
   Rousseau, Fernandez de Kirchner, and Maduro....all phoneys, all marxists, and hopefully all washed up. 

More later.
El Gringo Viejo

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The Anglican Curmudgeon nails it again.....must reading for OROGs on the Right

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    We urge all to review this entry into Mr. Alex Haley's excellent blogline found by clicking here:

 "Anglican Curmudgeon".

   This is the best commentary pertaining to Anglican / Episcopal / Orthodox Christian legal matters, as well as religious / philosophical / current cultural issues on a continuing basis in the English-speaking blogosphere.   (In my humble opinion, of course)

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What's Wrong with the Law, and in Particular, with Harvard Law School

     This is one of the more remarkable, blatant and contemptuous liberal screeds ever to appear on the Internet. I graduated almost fifty years ago from the school where this man now teaches, and to connect the dots from then to now is a task that is beyond my imagination. If you want to know how the left sees the law as a crude tool to get by judicial fiat what they cannot achieve through the legislatures, and if you want to know why the U.S. Supreme Court is no longer a court, but a Supreme Legislature that exists only to serve the left's political agenda, look no farther: 

Several generations of law students and their teachers grew up with federal courts dominated by conservatives. Not surprisingly, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness, looking for any sign of hope. The result: Defensive-crouch constitutionalism, with every liberal position asserted nervously, its proponents looking over their shoulders for retaliation by conservatives (in its elevated forms, fear of a backlash against aggressively liberal positions). 

It’s time to stop. Right now more than half of the judges sitting on the courts of appeals were appointed by Democratic presidents, and – though I wasn’t able to locate up-to-date numbers – the same appears to be true of the district courts. And, those judges no longer have to be worried about reversal by the Supreme Court if they take aggressively liberal positions. (They might be reversed, but now there’s no guarantee.)... What would abandoning defensive-crouch liberalism mean? ... 

1  A jurisprudence of “wrong the day it was decided.” Liberals should be compiling lists of cases to be overruled at the first opportunity on the ground that they were wrong the day they were decided. My own list is Bakke (for rejecting all the rationales for affirmative action that really matter), Buckley v. Valeo (for ruling out the possibility that legislatures could develop reasonable campaign finance rules promoting small-r republicanism), Casey (for the “undue burden” test), and Shelby County. (I thought about including Washington v. Davis,but my third agenda item should be enough to deal with it.) Others will have their own candidates. What matters is that overruling key cases also means that a rather large body of doctrine will have to be built from the ground up. Thinking about what that doctrine should look like is important – more important than trying to maneuver to liberal goals through the narrow paths the bad precedents seem to leave open.

So much for the traditional doctrine of stare decisis ("to stand with the things that have been decided"): decisions that one disagrees with are simply wrong from the start and need to be overruled at the first opportunity. Do you notice the one case that is not on this man's list? (Hint: it starts with "H" and rhymes with "Yeller", and has to do with the Second Amendment.) It's probably omitted because, after all, the man does not want to lay all his agenda out there for everyone to see. He continues: 

2  The culture wars are over; they lost, we won. Remember, they were the ones who characterized constitutional disputes as culture wars (see Justice Scalia in Romer v. Evans, and the Wikipedia entry for culture wars, which describes conservative activists, not liberals, using the term.) And they had opportunities to reach a cease fire, but rejected them in favor of a scorched earth policy. The earth that was scorched, though, was their own. (No conservatives demonstrated any interest in trading off recognition of LGBT rights for “religious liberty” protections. Only now that they’ve lost the battle over LGBT rights, have they made those protections central – seeing them, I suppose, as a new front in the culture wars. But, again, they’ve already lost the war.). For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who – remember – defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.) I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hard-line approach, while some liberal academics defend more accommodating approaches. When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war’s over, and we won.

You're welcome to what your victory will bring, I'm sure ("let thy will, not My will, be done..."). If this is what they teach at law school, can the seminaries be far behind?

Want more? How about a few hints for liberal judges (Judge Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit needs no lessons, since he wrote the book to begin with) on how to get around precedent without bothering to overrule it, or how to fashion doctrine to undermine one's political opponents: 

3  Aggressively exploit the ambiguities and loopholes in unfavorable precedents that aren’t worth overruling. Take Wal-Mart: Confine it to its unusual facts (a huge nation-wide class, a questionable theory of liability), and don’t treat it as having any generative power in other cases. Or Washington v. Davis,which said that disparate racial impact wasn’t enough to trigger strict scrutiny, but that sometimes such an impact could support an inference of impermissible motive: Play the “sometimes” for all its worth. Defensive-crouch liberalism was afraid to be aggressive about the precedents because of a fear of reversal by higher courts. That fear can now be put aside. (Judge Reinhardt’s essay on habeas corpus, in the Michigan Law Review, is an exemplary discussion of how liberals can exploit ambiguities and loopholes.) 4 Related: Remember that doctrine is a way to empower our allies and weaken theirs.Conservative decisions on class-action arbitration should be understood as part of a long-term project of defunding the left. Much of the current Court’s voting rights jurisprudence strengthens Republican efforts selectively to shrink the electorate. Similarly with campaign finance jurisprudence. I don’t mean that these doctrines are consciously designed by the justices to have those effects, but outsiders – academics and activists – should understand that that’s what they do. (Nor do I mean that the efforts always succeed – see Even welfare a failure.)

So whom do liberals want to have sitting on the Supreme Court?

Take a guess: 

5  Our models are Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, not David Souter or John Marshall Harlan. With some ambivalence I’d add Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the list, the reluctance arising from the fact that her work as a judge has been shaped more than it should be by defensive crouch constitutionalism, particular in her sensitivity to the possibility of backlash. Still, when the votes are there, she’s been much like Brennan and Marshall (personality aside). Famously, Brennan said that he’d been around long enough to know what it was like to win, and what it was like to lose, implying that “this too shall pass,” though it’s taken a long time. (Or, channeling Sophie Tucker [or Mae West, or Beatrice Kaufman], he'd been a winner and a loser, and winning is better.)

And he has saved his worst for the last (though I, too have lost all respect for his next target, after the unbelievably awful opinion he wrote in Obergefell v. Hodges): 

6  Finally (trigger/crudeness alert), f[*** -- this is a blog for churchgoers--Ed.] Anthony Kennedy. I don’t mean that liberals should treat him with disrespect. But defensive-crouch liberalism meant not only trying to figure out arguments that would get Kennedy’s apparently crucial vote (not so crucial any more), but also trying to milk his opinions – and more generally, obviously conservative opinions – for doctrines that might be awkwardly pressed into the service of liberal goals. (Think here of how liberal constitutional scholars treated Kennedy’s [truly silly] concurring opinion in Parents Involved[“You can deal with the consequences of segregated housing patterns by locating new school construction carefully” – in districts that are closing rather than building schools], or his “views” about affirmative action, or recasting the Court’s federalism cases as actually good for liberals.) There’s a lot of liberal constitutional scholarship taking Anthony Kennedy’s “thought” and other conservative opinions as a guide to potentially liberal outcomes if only the cases are massaged properly. Stop it. (See agenda items 1 and 3 for how to treat those opinions.)

His parting shot may, alas, be the truest thing Prof. Tushnet wrote in his entire screed: 

Of course all bets are off if Donald Trump becomes President. But if he does, constitutional doctrine is going to be the least of our worries.

Have at him in the comments -- but please keep things on the Christian side of civil.

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    We urge all OROGs and visitors to this site to please use the Mr. Haley's site to review this article and other pertinent observations by this brilliant Pen - to - Mind combination.   Mr. Haley invites competent commentary on his screed, while I do not.  My preference is for the readers to email their critique and applause so that I can enter into a dialogue between friends (or countervailing opinions) due to my here-again / gone again business schedule.

El Gringo Viejo

We Discuss Press and Mexican Myopic Reaction to Trump and American Political Process

TUNE IN HERE TO-MORROW FOR A FIRST-HAND ANALYSIS OF PECULIAR THOUGHT PROCESSES AMONG THE MEXICANS CONCERNING TRUMP AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCENE.   HYPOCRISY, CONTRADICTIONS, LACK OF UNDERSTANDING ABOUNDS....ON BOTH SIDES....AND IT HAS BECOME A BIT BORING, QUITE FRANKLY.   BUT, THE OROG COMMUNITY WILL HAVE A TRUE REPORT....SHORT AND SWEET.... ABOUT THE MATTER.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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It is best to simply state that we have a double dichotomy.

  
     On the one hand we have a blowhard who begins by speaking off the top of his head, stating that the Mexican Government is sending people who ".....are all prostitutes, rapists, and criminals."   It does not matter what Trump actually says or said, because in the function of all good "identity politics" the aggrieved group hears what it wishes to hear and the blowhard group says what it wishes to say, little difference that both sides are wrong on almost all counts.   Days, hours, or minutes later Mr. Trump will assure whoever has been listening to him that the listener did not hear correctly what had been said correctly.  Mr. Trump will assure the world that he never said any such thing even as the video is replaying it in the background.

     So, now we have the spectacle of two different ex-Presidents of Mexico, Vincente Fox Quezada and Felipe Calderon Hinojosa trundling forth to take advantage of "the situation".   It is all made immensely worse because both Fox and Calderon are National Action Party people....or the Mexican equivalent to what we know to be the the Republican Party in the United States.   Fox has been more outspoken, being uselessly over-the-top with the worst possible profanity and expletives, in English.   It seemed to me that his eyes were going to pop out and the top of his head was going to go volcanic.   He was sputtering and stammering so much, it left the impression that he was either having a seizure or he was trying to do a bad imitation of Trump.

     Calderon, on the other hand, was calmer although equally "injured" to hear and see an American presidential candidate call all Mexicans prostitutes, rapists, and murderers.  While speaking in English during a visit to the United States to speak at an international trade convention of some sort he avoided the profanity and really bitter recrimination employed by his predecessor, Fox.
   Both of these men referred to Trump's statement as a clear sign of Trump's racism.   One big problem?   There is no Mexican race, per se.  There are Mexicans who are racially Negroid, Mestizo, Indian, or Caucasian, and there Mexicans who are a mixture of any and/or all  of the above or of no mixture at all.  In that sense, Mexicans and Americans share many similarities.
   
     Ill-defined phrases, and melodramatic over-reactions are the rule.  All sides strut around like winners, few if any really know what is being discussed, but they all know....all of them....that their own side is right.
     Mexican professorial marxists, Hombre-en-la-calle, housewives, labourers, industrial magnates took offense at the specific spin of ".....they are all (degenerates and criminals) and they are being sent over by the government."

     Fast forward to some later moment.   Six guys at the saloon in Mexico...and they are discussing the "situation".  Each is recounting how he or a close friend or relative who lives in the United States somewhere...usually in or near a sanctuary city....has been assaulted or suffered some offense of a substantial nature.   And almost always it is at the hands of a member of the criminal element that used to practice his or her trade in Mexico, or Central America.

     Even, or especially, the Mexican commercial or recreational tourist has to keep his eye peeled and practice a caution that was all but unnecessary 40 years ago.  One is tempted, when the conversation pauses at that table, to turn and say, "I am not a Trump supporter, my lot was with Cruz, but perhaps you see what we deal with in the Southwest, in the bigger cities, and almost anywhere now.  Most of the people causing problems are repeat entrants who have been deported , and yet come back to their old criminal haunts at the first opportunity.  Most are either habitual criminals, violent criminals, or both.  Some are children of unmarried women who bore a child on American soil, thereby qualifying for public assistance.   Frequently there is no father in these homes....only an occasional "boyfriend".  He stays around until he is run off or arrested because his profession is crime, or because he is in Texas or the United States illegally.   This is not something made up.  It is real.  And once again, it did not exist before the extreme amplification of the public assistance programmes."

     To be sure, few of Trump's proposals will function, but only as anticipated by this observer.   Each, even if implemented will have unintended consequences that are easy to predict but difficult for a doltish, self-absorbed portion of the electorate to understand.   Most of Trump's proposals are simply the ravings of a man who is waving his arms and pointing to the sky, bellowing pseudo-aphorisms, repeating himself incessantly, and promising the moon.   Those vote for "Make America Great Again" will stumble into the dustbin of History that is adjacent to the "Hope and Change" dustbin.  The Moon that was promised yesterday will be to-morrow's moldy, fungus laden cottage cheese.

     Until the United States of America's running budget is cut in real terms by 20%, and all public assistance, subsidies, and taxes design to promote "social democracy" are abolished....there will be no "America Great Again" just as "Hope and Change" became "I hope I have some change to buy one last lottery ticket". 

We shall resign for the night and start back in saving the world to-morrow, sometime.
El Gringo Viejo

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Bits and Pieces, Observations, and Clarifications.....

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For no particular reason, we show all concerned
the bacon / egg / lettuce / tomato on whole
wheat the Old Gringo made for himself
during his stay this time down.
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Alvaro was surprised at these variations
of tropical gladiolas.    These and others
are being planted around the Quinta's
garden areas

     As one might note, we are returned from the Mexican interior, after spending some time at our little hideaway in the middle and muddle of Nowhere, State of Tamaulipas, Mexico.   Some considerable rain, very cool nights (low 50s several nights and early morning in a row), lots of birds (mainly old, but some new), and still a little bit of business percolating.   We would like to cover some points of interest, both for the OROG community and for those visiting our sites for the first time.   They are as follows:

A typical view from the Quinta, including the
 colours of the season....Flamboyan red,
 and Esperanza yellow, and Plumeria
in Hawaiian pastels

(1)     Clarification:   Our last posting had a title of "Should Ted Cruz lose the  primary..." etc.    This might have been interpreted reasonably as an interrogative, but please note that no question-mark ends the title.   The word "should" was used in the conditional and declarative sense.  

     We were certainly not suggesting a question.  And, alas, Senator Cruz was vanquished after considerable collusion between FOXNews including almost the entire staff and Mssrs. Ayles and Murdoch,  along with every organ of the Obsolete Press.  The group we have chosen to style as "The Appropriate Outsiders" who are found on the Right side of the political theatre decided that our chosen one was too loose a cannon.....an ideologue.....a man of narrow appeal, incapable of beating the likes of (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corksrew.

This is the first "summer bloom" of our
 daughter's haleconia,  This plant is

essentially the original banana .

     We remain convinced that Senator Cruz was and is, by far and away, the best candidate to field for these times.   Likewise, we are convinced that Donald Trump is woefully unqualified person for the position of the presidency of the government of the United States of America.   His personal history, his temperament, his depth of knowledge and understanding, and his irrational explosions speak to this conclusion on my part.

This is Alvaro showing relative size
 comparison
with the Flamboyan tree.
   They bloomed about a month early
 throughout the region this year.
  Lots of rain, chilly nights, hot
 days were the secret medicine

     Among his most troubling characteristics is the ridiculous repeating of phrases and words as he speaks, as if picking up things from the ground that he has dropped as he trundles through his Garden of Undeveloped Thoughts.  These things, along with his tendency to employ mendacity as a debate weapon have always troubled us.   His businesses and political inclinations are as muddled a his thought processes.

      In our opinion, Trump was the worst of all the alternatives.   Save for the exception of Governor Christi, we in this household would probably been able to vote, finally, for any of the other of the Cast of Thousands who postulated their candidacy.

       Finally, about this point, the title "Should Ted Cruz lose the Primary...." should have better read, "We are leaving for our Hideaway in Nowhere,  Tamaulipas, Mexico, and Should Ted Cruz Lose the Primary, It could well signal the end of the Republic....But We Shall Return".

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(2)    Bits and Pieces - Part A:
     
     We had clients fairly recently who drove all the way from coastal North Carolina down to our place in Mexico, and then on all the way to the border between Mexico and Guatemala.   They travelled in a large vehicle, known as a ''conversion van".   They are pleasant folks, disassociated from "the herd" in a way, very convivial.  They were very much the kind of people who fit perfectly at the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre both as clients and guests.

      Among other things they kept a nice dairy about their Odyssey throughout much of eastern and southern Mexico.   All of the photography ranges from very good to high-level professional work.   The commentary has a bit of dry wit and considerable valuable observations.   It tends to be a bit lengthy due to the numerous very excellent bird and other photographs, but it is a pleasant, very worthwhile investment of time for any of our readers.   The OROG will appreciate the visits to famous as well as out of the way and off the beaten trail stops during their 40 day passage, all on the ground, save for a bit of boating.

            

     We place this web-page linkage for the OROG's use in accessing the commentary and imaging of these valued clients.

  http://lookingforchorty.blogspot.com/

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     Part B:    In the matter of (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corkscrew vs. the Mean Old Server 

     This is a case composed of  all the worst parts of a bad Broadway theatre offering.   It would be a dark and perverse tragi-comedy, with MacBethian themes and plots.    But, it would also be far too improbable to be considered plausable even as a farce.

    One thing is for certain however.  Were El Gringo Viejo to have done what Miss (Sir Edmund) has been demonstrated to have done AT THIS POINT in the "FBI investigation", he or almost any other person would have been in prison already.   The sentence would have been at least three years.

     The waste of time known as the supposed "FBI investigation" has already involved the "suspected perpetrator" in the need to "walk-back" numerous "explanations" which were made try her to bend facts into pretzel-like, out-and-out lies.   Sworn depositions have already been made by a person...the installer of the computer server(s) of interest...who testified with the guarantee of immunity.  The facts have been clear for months.

      General Petraeus, for a matter of much smaller import, was witheringly shamed, demoted, and variously punished for having committed an absurdly stupid crime.  Although his transgressions were far fewer in number and of much lesser scope, his punishments were relatively swiftly processed and enforced.   There was considerable leakage of information about the case and  considerable official commentary before, during and after the scandal and associated legal processes.

     (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corkscrew however, will not.....and we repeat...will not be processed, charged, interrogated in any serious way, placed before a Grand Jury to testify, or other exigency.    We request that the readers remember that she escaped charges over the holding over 1,000 FBI raw data personnel files.   Charles Colson, Special Assistant to President Nixon spent three years in prison for having had one (1) raw data file in his desk, still under seal and un-openned.
     She escaped charges in the illegal firing of the employees of the White House Travel Office during the first days of the Clinton presidency.   She escaped charges for having order the Defense Department to release Linda Tripp's raw data personnel tile.
     She escaped charges for any number of serious criminal acts during the time of the construction of "HillaryCare" (the forerunner of ObamaCare), she escaped charges for having ordered her staff to empty out Vince Foster's White House Office of any and all records and documents after Foster's "suicide", and she escaped charges....numerous charges....in the horrid and death ridden Whitewater and Rose Law Firm Billing Frauds.    This is the short list.   Her dishonourable acts and lies surrounding the Benghazi matter and other of her many debacles during her  time at the State Department remain an Open Book of Shame.
     So, please remember that the FBI has a long record of measuring the above named miscreant with toy microscopes and kid gloves. Even her peripheral involvement, along with "Attorney General" Janet Reno in the Mt. Carmel disaster  where scores of men, women, and children were immolated escaped perusal by the FBI (or any other press or police group).

     After re-reading the above material it seems truly astounding to this writer that this woman has not been either housed in a psychiatric facility or a prison as an Habitual.   Just the matter about the "corkscrewing into Kosovo while under sniper fire would have been enough, had Reagan said such a thing, to have his bones dug up and burned.   It is truly saddening.

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(3)     Observations:

     In the matter of Trump and the Mexican people and government, there are many, many observations that we could make.  For one, Trump's fat mouth and badly wired brain with an abundance of burned out synapses managed to bring on a useless conflict with a Mexican populace and body politic just itching for a topic they can demagogue with glee.

     Next, the building of a wall, after all the environmental, imminent domain, ACLU defense "free association and family separation" issues, etc. would tie up the actual building for years.  Such is the nature of things in these times.   The environmental freaks and frauds would be throwing themselves in front of bulldozers in order to save the Gila Monsters.   Little matter that the government has raised the "acceptable level" of bald eagles to be killed by the blades of the "eco-friendly" electricity-generating windmills to over 4,000 per annum.  But, the point is that there are scores, even hundreds, of detours and delays and obstacles that even a bully like Trump cannot, could not, avoid.

     Next, the saw about Free Trade concepts causing job losses is quite weak.   In Texas, we have essentially a free trade operation going on and employment, along with business development has been explosive for over a generation now.   The solution to predatory abandonment of Terra Firma Americana by businesses could and should be the prohibition of any form of "corporate income tax" or even direct taxation of any form of business.

     In these times, however, almost any larger business is going to try to re-establish itself to some degree or another in foreign countries in order to gain market share.   Hence, the large Toyota plant in San Antonio.   No State Corporate Income Tax, no labour union sorrows, large local markets, and huge regional markets.....bingo.

     Protectionism of, for, and by labour and businesses is what caused the world-wide economic collapse during the late 1920s through the early 1940s.   The only thing that extracted America and certain other protectionist countries as they moved deeper into the decade of the 1940s is World War II,   Every one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his cadre of socialist economic "shovel ready" planners and economic experts' plans failed.   It is a sad joke when people knowingly repeat the horribly fallacious saw that "Roosevelt's New Deal save America from starvation!"

     But, it feels good to say "America First".   The problem is, when that is said, it places America in a the position in which it steadily loses the ability to compete in the world marketplace.   Where we should be putting the collective American foot down is in the highly specific markets and populations that practice extreme and illegal predatory industrial and commercial espionage and sabotage.   That is fairly easy to do....starting with Red China, the world's most criminal and dangerous economic predator and destructor.
    And Red China is in not the most major trading partner of the United States, in various ways.  To wit:

Rank	Country	Exports	Imports	Total Trade	Trade Balance
-	World	1,620,532	2,347,685	3,968,217	-727,153
-	European Union	276,142	418,201	694,343	-142,059
1	Canada	312,421	347,798	660,219	-35,377
2	China	123,676	466,754	590,430	-343,078
3	Mexico	240,249	294,074	534,323	-53,825
4	Japan	66,827	134,004	200,831	-67,177
5	Germany	49,363	123,260	172,623	-73,897
6	South Korea	44,471	69,518	113,989	-25,047
7	United Kingdom	53,823	54,392	108,215	-569
8	France	31,301	46,874	78,175	-15,573
9	Brazil	42,429	30,537	72,966	+11,892
10	Taiwan	26,670	40,581	67,251	-13,911

     The above chart shows almost up-to-date rankings of America's import and export partners.   These figures make up about 90 per cent of all international trade affecting the United States directly.  All the importing from Red China that we do, and all the exporting to Red China as well, could be redistributed to other, more agreement-abiding trading partners.

     We like to point out that Canada, Japan, and Mexico have a combined population of less than 230,000,000, and yet their activity with the United States substantially exceeds Red China's.    Another interesting, perhaps even astounding fact is that those three countries' combined GNPs exceed by 35% the GNP of Red China which has six times the combined population of Canada, Japan, and Mexico.      Another interesting point is that each day about 1,000,000 Mexicans and Canadians enter the United States.   Also each day, about 1,000,000 Mexicans and Canadians leave.  Most Mexicans enter on a permanent (10 year) nationwide visa, while a large minority have the convenient 72 hour pass which I believe is now issued for three years.   The figures concerning how much Mexicans buy, for instance, during their visits along the frontier, or during other shopping excursion, beach stays, etc. is unknown.  What is known is that McAllen, Texas reasonably estimates that Mexican commercial tourism from Monterrey and other places in Mexico amounts to 3,000,000,000 USD per year in McAllen (pop. 130,000) alone.
   The problem we have with illegal immigration is easily solved simply by (1)   eliminating all public welfare assistance for everybody and (2)   enforcing our immigration laws as they now stand, and (3) abolishing any notion that a baby born atop American soil is an American citizen, and by vigorously prosecuting, punishing, and deporting illegal and legal aliens who have been convicted of felonious activity.     Any political entity (township,town, county, city, parish, State, Commonwealth, or Indian lands) would be prohibited from granting any form of Sanctuary, especially for convicted or wanted criminal aliens, in the United States legally or illegally. 
     America needs, desperately to take the control away from the ethnic and racial demagogues and the Democrats and "Progressives" by reforming public assistance into a purely private, Salvation Army style social service operation.   Government operated systems invariably turn into active and/or passive vote-buying schemes.

We depart now for a night of watching the weather radar, and getting some sleep.  More to-morrow!
El Gringo Viejo

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