An Accurate and Cunning Observation of the American Political Theatre

Dialogue of the Self in Modern Times

Article produced and published by the Anglican Curmudgeon,

A. S. Haley (click on the "Dialogue" title just above.....etc. link to go directly to his site.)

Q. Is Donald Trump crude, and coarse, and pompous?

A. Indubitably.

Q. But we knew that about him already, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. So what is “new” in regard to a tape of his crude and coarse
remarks made in 2005?

A. Nothing.

Q. So how can the left [sc. the Democrats and their camp-followers]
claim this development as “news”?

A. They can’t. But that doesn’t stop them from doing it anyway, since
they see a political advantage.

Q. And just what is the political advantage they see?

A. That they can trumpet [pun intended] how crude, and coarse,
and pompous Mr. Trump is.

Q. Wait — we already knew that, right? [See first question.]

A. Right. Just as we already knew that former President Clinton used
his position to exploit women, and on occasion to assault, batter and
even rape them -- with no fear of reprisal.

Q. So what possible advantage can they gain from raising as “new"
something that everyone already knew, and that is hypocritical of
them, to boot?

A. Ah, now you’ve gotten to the heart of the matter.

Q. I have?

A. Yes. The God of PC [Political Correctness] demands from His
devotees incessant sacrifices of the same thing over and over again.
Thus the left can once more (ad nauseam) profess and show how
much they adore their God of PC: they kneel and prostrate themselves
before His altar, but are careful to offer only their political opponents
(and never one of their own) for sacrifice. Those on the right, on the
other hand, are left [pun intended] — with a quandary.

Q. What quandary?

A. They don’t relish worshiping the God of PC — but they will, and 
will sacrifice even their own chosen candidate if that’s what it takes to 
get themselves re-elected. And that’s why so many of the right have
chosen this particular moment to abandon their previous
[albeit lukewarm] support of Mr. Trump.

Q. And just where does that leave Mr. Trump?

A. Just where you now find him: gazing in the pool, admiring his
own reflection, and not caring a fig for what anyone else may
think -- all the while that his erstwhile “supporters” desert
him in droves.

Q. That’s not a very pretty picture.

A. It’s not. But politics is never pretty. If you wanted Mother Teresa
for a candidate, you could never have gotten her, because half
(or more) of the electorate would have rejected her just for what she stood for,
namely the welfare of everyone else but herself. The majority of this
motivated to go to the polls today ask only: "What will this (or that)
candidate do for me?"

Q. Well, even if that's so, what's wrong with that? Shouldn't
they vote based on which candidate can deliver the most for them?

A. That approach renders them incapable of placing themselves in
anyone’s shoes but their own. Consequently they end up with
candidates whose vision likewise cannot extend beyond their
own selves, e.g., Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In short,
they get just those whom they have asked for, and whom they
certainly deserve.

Where Glen Beck leaves the rails and crashes.....

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     Glen Beck is, by any measure, a loose and rolling cannon.  Perhaps he and his would consider such a declaration to be a complement.   But we on the outside of the asylum are left with a view of a six-street intersection blocked by a collision involving vehicles driven by Beck and his crew, the Marx Brothers, Amos and Andy, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Curly, Larry, and Moe.

     The recent interview by Glen Beck of Senator Ted Cruz left about a third of what is left of Beck's morning radio audience stunned into disbelief.  To be brief, Beck essentially threw Cruz into the trash bin due to Cruz's tepid declaration that he would vote of Trump.   Several million, arch-conservative, hard-right incurable Conservatives had arrived at that point, especially during the past 96 hours.

     Most of us who listen to Beck do so because he and his posse have humourous (yes, Virginia, it is okay for Brits to spell humourous thusly, just for the pointless point of trying to preserve a bit of useless, inefficient antiquity) satiracle episodes, usually making fun of people who desperately need to be ridiculed.

     Senator Cruz explained correctly that reality had presented a binary circumstance.  To be quick, it essentially boils down to a variation of the "lesser of two evils" argument or position.  In this case, however, there is a decent cherry atop the parfait.   The parfait we are being served is not as pretty or pleasant as the one pictured here, but it does have a cherry on top.  That cherry is not an illusion, nor is it a consolation prize.  It is something remarkably valuable.

    At the risk of offending Mr. Beck, who spoke in blasphemous and horridly profane terms on live national radio this past Monday concerning Sen. Cruz's explanation for voting for Trump, the episode revealed that Mr. Beck also thinks incoherently and hyper-judgmentally.   It was another of his many "Worst Moments".

     We have tired of his lecturing us about how we should "love" our way out of the mess the Republic now suffers.   We are, according to him, required to respect the socialist, the social justice warrior class, and others who will not rest until everyone in this nation will have a date issued by the  district  commissar to pick-up his/her annual allotment of clothes we are obliged to wear....by law.   I, for one, shall not join that madness.  The Red Left lives by the motto of "What is mine, is mine.  What is yours is negotiable.  Always assert, never deny!!!"

     Cruz's point is that we have a choice between two people, each of whom is worse than the other in many ways.   But, the un-spoken and obvious point is, should Donald Trump manage to win this ghastly election he will "rule" correctly by accident at times?   If his ego is fed only slightly, I truly believe that he will be inclined to appoint Constitutionalists and Constructionists thinkers to the Supreme Court's Bench.   Even judges at the Appellate Court level and at the important District Court positions would tend to be drawn from those disposed to follow the Common Law and the Natural Law concepts that serve to keep us somewhat removed from anarchy.

     With both the Lower and Upper Houses of Congress under the control of the Republicans it is possible that the "log-jam" so loudly condemned by the public, might well break.  It might be reasonably possible to  overturn the Obama Socialised Medicine Initiative.   It might be possible to enact a statute requiring a balanced budget and / or quickly beginning the process that would amend the Constitution so as to achieve the desired goal of a balanced budget.

     The trick might well be the act of allowing credit to be given to Mr. Trump, so that he can "trumpet" his great success in Making America Great Again, so to speak.    More than any other influences, the Republicans must disregard acting in reaction to the storms of protests, howling by the interminable stomachs and reproductive systems, government workers, Obsolete Press and marxist universities and "academics", and Solyndra Club members.

     A slow and steady rollback of regulations and "executive orders" and such contaminants to the rule of Common Law, and possibly even the dissolution of various useless Secretariats and Bureaus would also be on the menu.

     Therefore, Cruz's points were valid, and Beck's points ranged from absurd to asinine.

Thanks, as usual for your time and attention.
El Gringo Viejo

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The Case of the Turkish Hispanic....or "How to think in Liberal Democrat Terms all the time"

    This is a pleasant little blurb about the Obsolete Press rushing to classify the assailant involved in the murders of the folks in Macy's store as an "Hispanic".

     It also points up the obvious.  With Obama's immigration non-policy, and the restraints and restrictions placed upon the constabulary throughout the Southwest, including Texas, of course, it is certain that terrorists and unwanted, parasitical immigrants who are inclined to murder all Jews and Gentiles and people they opine to be non-compliant Moslems mix well within a group of Mexicans.  That is because of the Saracen Invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and much of southernmost Europe back in the 7th century.

     It is hard for some folks to imagine that the southeastern lip of Spain was still in the hands of the Knights of Mohammed even as Christopher Columbus was setting sail in search of a new seaway to India.  Seven hundred years of occupation left an indelible mark on southernmost Europe, and especially Spain.   It is well to remember that one-fourth of the Spanish language is composed of Arabic.

     But, who am I to complain, comment, or even observe?  We all know way down deep inside that what the world needs now, more than anything, is a good community organiser.   The following blurb was written by your humble servant as a comment upon an article in the alternative press concerning the overall ignorance, and at times even stupidity, of the social justice warriors and community organiser and the Black Occupation on Wall Street Matters Lives for Glass Ceilings crowd.

In any regard we wrote this little blurb and it had quite a few responses, all positive, oddly enough.  We eliminated almost all, but left enough of the endorsements to feed my ego and prove to the OROG community that we do "get around".   To wit:

David Christian Newton We owned and operated an excursion company for many years. One time I had a particularly obnoxious, commie-type professor on board, along with his pinko-quick-to-complain-and-be-offended wife. We had a couple of nights in Monterrey, and on the second night the folks were all pretty much in the hotel saloon...a very nice elegant place....conviviating.

      The professor actually signaled me over, which was strange, because our excursions were based on a conservative's lecture point of view and analysis. He asked me, ''Why do so many of these Mexicans have white skin? What do they use to remove their native colour?'' At first I genuinely thought he was joking. But he insisted, "No! There must be an explanation!!" 

    At that point I explained to him that all Mexicans are not like all Mexicans....bunches of them are similar....and lots of the them are different. I explained it in general terms but he would not accept it. He wanted specifics.

      So I told him, that the north of Mexico was historically White Mexico because the preponderance of the people who finally settled there during the colonial period were Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and other southern and western European peoples. That by 1700 the northern half of what is now Mexico was probably 60% Caucasian 35% Mestizo and 5% whatever. I also allowed that the Spanish were most numerous and they had all Caucasian backgrounds but melded various amounts of Hebrew, Arab, two major groups of German, Celtic, Latin, and other strains. Some of the more Arabic and Jewish had Phoenician antecedents.

     In the South of Mexico, at one time commonly referred to as "Red Mexico", I advised him, the Indian presence is much greater there and that there were still several different broad ethnicities within that race of Mexican, many of whom still did not speak Spanish,  I further informed him that  most of the white and mestizo grouping in that extensive and tropical area would be found in major cities, speaking in the most general terms. I finished with the proviso that exceptions to the "Red and White" rule were numerous and it would take most of a semester to simply list the various blood lines and mixtures that predominated any particular section of Mexico.

      We reached the ending with the point that the founders of Saltillo and Monclova, Cerralvo, and Monterrey were very Semitic and much of the population of those places descended from those people who were 3/8ths, and up to totally, Hebraic in terms of their ethnicity within the White (Caucasian) race. After procreating for 400 or so years in the same place....there were all awful lot of people with Jewish (but Roman Catholic) ancestry.

        The "enlightened liberal" professor, (head of the department of Human Sciences), finally, with a mouth opened  gaze, looked at me and said, "You are insane. The lightness in skin colour can only be because on the Americans who come over here because of prosititution being legal." The wife was actually a Brit....and had been a Labour Party official and, of course, a professor of "Modern and Post Industrial Literature" at the same university, that shall remain un-named.

Like · Reply · 2 · 2 hrs

Timothy Shea Wow. That's industrial-strength reality denial!

Unlike · Reply · 3 · 1 hr

David Thiel I'm not surprised in the least.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Don Sherman Maybe we would be better off CLOSING all Liberal Arts studies at colleges and universities, so these libtard professors can't brain wash the gullible young students in their courses any longer.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 29 mins

Thanks for your time and attention!!!

El Gringo Viejo

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A motion to enter into the record by El Zorro comments, evidence, conclusions concerning Senator Cruz

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     It is really not my desire to kibbutz and comment on the material of our main contributors.   But!....I did want to point out the path followed by El Gringo Viejo and the path followed by El Zorro were not intertwined....with two guys slumped over the bar surrounded by empty bottles, having come to a conclusion forged by emphatic, "Yeah!!! That's right !!!" and "You've got a great point, man!!!"

     If anything these have been serious moments for us both.  Both of us have had somewhat serious physical challenges during the past 60 days especially.  And, both of us have independently looked at the map of the United States of America, and wondered...."Then it really has come to this.....two narcissists, both leftists....both promising things that cannot be delivered, but which if delivered with securely seal the coffin into which the Republic is being delivered.

    Neither of us has wished to bother the other, but both of us at the same moment were moved by the well-stated reasoning of Senator Cruz to rejoin the battle at least by voting for the lesser of the obnoxious two contenders.  It was noted early on that the supposed alternative....the libertarian candidate, was as big or bigger an interventionist as the other two  (domestic interventionist) and that his campaign statements were so vapid that no good sense could be made of them.  Jabberwocky on steroids.

Below is the message from El Zorro.   Remember that we are both, like many, honourably discharged, El Zorro more honourably than I....we take our nation and our Texas very seriously.   As is said at times such as these, "If not the reason, Then the Force!!  :

Greetings and Salutations:

I will open one eye and come slightly out of hibernation to offer a position from one who is terribly discouraged by the predicament we are in.

Ted Cruz deserves a few words in his favor even though, quantum mechanics notwithstanding, what is said here makes no ripple anywhere.

He, in my humble opinion, did the right thing by announcing he would vote for Trump, not support, but vote for.  He had to do that for the obvious reason that we cannot have her majesty take the throne under any circumstances.  However, he could have made his point a little more strongly so that his supporters, yours truly included, would get the message loud and clear.  Most of us know what he said and what he meant.  The thing is, it has to be undoubtable and absolutely clear to everyone who holds Ted in esteem that the hag cannot be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Ted Cruz was and is my choice for any position to which he might aspire.  That being said, it is important that he be in the running for one of potentially four Supreme Court Justice positions that could become available during the next term. Should Trump prevail it is not likely he would pick Ted.  That is probably not a probability but one can be optimistic.  (We could support Mike Lee as was suggested by Cruz and we have that to possibly look forward to.)

Ted Cruz was ambushed and beaten by a rude, crude, nasty individual who has no sense of humanity for anyone.  Under any circumstances, Trump will never again gain our respect.  Ted is a man of honor.  He did not stoop to respond to Donald at his demise but he is a much better person and so far above Trump in that regard.  There is so much more to be said that has already been said by most everybody who is honest and compassionate for their fellow man.

I have ordered a book that might be of some interest if it is not too simple and that is Armageddon by Dick Morris.  I am hoping he has some inside information on Hillary and Bill that we don’t already know.  Just FYI.

Back to my comfy cave…

El Zorro

Si no la Razón, la Fuerza!!

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Some are asking, commenting, opining about Senator Ted Cruz's Decision

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     There has been a great deal of comment about Senator Ted Cruz's advisory, issued yesterday formally, concerning his opinion that he must join those voting for Donald Trump for the Presidency of the United States.   Diana and I have argued (in an academic sense) this matter back and forth for lo! these many weeks.   Our opinion was reached and we "inter-agreed" that it would be a distasteful but necessary thing to do.   We have voted for Gerald Ford in the General Elections, as well as G.H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney....all certain losers....all 'liberal lite" candidates.  We voted for those men with slight to nil enthusiasm, and never in the primaries.

   We are now presented with the re-incarnation of General Juan Peron....the quintessential leftist-rightwinger, the aristocratic common-man, the conservative Progressive,  and his nouveaux Evita from Slovenia.   Even that spectre is better than turning over the keys to the White House to a nouveaux Lady MacBeth.   It does bode ill when one considers that the best thing that can be said about Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she is a socialist elitist.
     The Facebook page we have was and is full of Cruz-type people such as us. We were surprised, but not so terribly much, to see that Cruz's choice was pretty nearly unanimously seen as a positive thing, perhaps even necessary.  However,   one individual, whom we shall not identify was in a horrible uproar, speaking of treason, back-stabbing and such.  At first I thought that there were many anti-Cruz commentaries, but it turned out that most of them ,  almost all, were from that same person.   So, we wrote this entry, and it became quieter on the Potomac after we submitted it to the Cosmos.

  To wit:
         Your point is made. You take things personally. The rest of us are choosing to fight the battle as it has evolved. Neither do we sacrifice ourselves uselessly like the Mexican Cadets at Chapultepec, nor do we flee like the cowardly 5th Maine Infantry when Longstreet launched upon them at New Salem, Virginia on 3 May 1863 as he began moving his four divisions to some sleepy little place called Gettysburg. We who continue with Ted are making our way to San Jacinto, and as was done there, so shall we do again.

And we shall leave it at that.
EL GRINGO VIEJO

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News about Mexico and the Peso and the American Elections Impact on such matters

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  Mexico is never quite what it might seem to be.  Then, on the other hand, newcomers will frequently say, "It's a lot like America in a lot of ways."   True enough.  Gravity functions frequently.  The sun usually comes up somewhere east of here.  Logic in terms of politics and cultural movement is totally out of whack.

     We recall that the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, recently invited the two candidates with the most probability of victory in the coming election for the Presidency of the United States of America to be his and Mexico's guests.  To be clear, he invited Trump and Frumpie.  

       The handlers for Frumpie wisely decided to follow the advice of her advisors, the ex-Mrs. Wiener and the Planned Parenthood Board of Directors,  to avoid going to Mexico.   This would  avoid the necessity of exposing her to seas and oceans of funny-looking little brown people who might come close enough to her to be seen....or worse....(shudder) touched.  Would the HOA at Chappaqua even let her back into that Island of Normalcy should that have happened?

     Trump apparently overrode his advisors and decided to do AirTrump 007 to Mexico City.

Clinton Digs in Chapeau

  Amazingly he actually acquitted himself pretty well, at least for the American audience.   He had already committed the offense of saying anything, after having declared, officially, that he was going to be, officially, a Republican.  In spite of the fact that he his not a Republican, and because of  the fact that he is running as a Republican, anything he does or says will be carpet-bombed by the American Obsolete Obsolete Media and much of the Mexican and International Press.

     But, strangely enough, this is and is not about the Clintons.  Or the Trumps.  The problem begins when the people in Mexico hear and see that Donald Trump landed in Mexico, talked with the President, and left without being arrested, held for three days, and then deported as an undesirable.

     He opened a topic with extremely harsh and pointless words that were not accurate, although they had an element of truth, and Tom'd to the crowds who know nothing about our historical and present day entanglements with Mexico but who know that they don't like any of it (Mexico or Mexicans).   These are the people who gave us Trump in the primary.   These are the people who are correct about their topic but who are not correct, wholly correct, or anything near correct about said topic.

     Hillary is happy to have "them" come over from wherever and procreate so as to make more dependent people who will forever be able to elect enlighten'd people such as Shiela Jackson Lee, the Castro Brothers (the ones from San Antonio), and Harry Reid.  But to conviviate or come within touching range?   ( n-e-v-e-r )

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The OROGs and other frequent visitors will remember the MITOFSKY Poll that we posted a couple or three days back:

Driving through this gate requires

seasoned professionals.  Do

not try this at home. Or at

this home (or else).

     One can notice that there is a decidedly pro-Hillary response to the MITOFSKY Poll.  We lament to say that this is not an error of intent such as many of the polls taken during these hours in Gringolandia.   The sympathies and the wishes and the  good feelings of many Mexicans during these days lie with the the ''nice lady from the North who wants to give us things and everything.''

     On the one hand, they voted in their present President who was a mediocre, at best, as Governor of the State of Mexico during his political formative years.   He was mainly known for being a pretty boy and he had a second wife who WAS a beauty queen of antiquity....(Mon Dieu! -  plus de 40 annes!!??).  She is also a revered relic of the industry of the Mexican Telenovela (Soap Operas).
   The electorate threw over the PAN female candidate because she looked like a "cara de changa" (monkey face) or whatever.    In Republican Democracy one must trust the "will of the electorate".   The only other choice was A.M. Lopez Obrador (AMLO) whose idea of solving the problems of Mexico was to tax the rich at 90% and nationalise your great-grandmother's mustache comb.
     We learned quickly why the Mexicans prevented women from voting until 1952. At this point, we can prove by testimony under oath that not one woman voted for Pena Nieto anywhere in Mexico or the known Universe, during this or any other century.

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     So now we enter into the true meat of this matter.   Mexico has at its Central Banking helm the very best "gnomes del Banco de Mexico" and Latin America.  The board of governors of the Bank of Mexico truly are better than our "Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America".   They wait for our Dumboes to receive orders from the Wizard of Whatever in Switzerland or Yellowknife, and then they adjust to make a counter-punch.

     The number one objective is almost always to keep the value of the peso at some point of advantage in relation to the American dollar.   This is a tactic of countries with a complex tourism industry and with a major league, value-added, industrial export business.  Some countries have a trifecta, with a huge agricultural sector that also exports billions of dollars of high-quality fresh vegetables, fruit, and things like mangoes and avocados.

     In the above paragraph, of course, we have identified Mexico, tied for 10th place with Canada and Texas in terms of Gross National Product on Planet Earth.

     So here we are again.  The supposedly sophisticated and super-powerful super power-house United States entering into a quarrel....disagreement....with a neighbour about something that neither has been willing to discuss for the past 40 years.   I know, for instance, that the Tratado de Libre Commercio (NAFTA) has nothing to do with the "loss of jobs" in the United States.  We know, as citizens of Hidalgo County, Texas, that the increase of the population of McAllen, Texas from 32,000 to 140,000 from 1960 to 2015  came from the Maquiladora industries in Reynosa and other places on the nearby frontier.

     We know that for all that comes across the border from Mexico in the tractor-trailer rigs....thousands per day...from Brownsville to San Diego, California, there are a similar numbers going South.   Mexico sends Ford Escorts and various types of Volkswagens and a score of other types of vehicles north, and the Gringos send Caterpillars, Cadillacs, and other costly things.   Twice a day, huge long trains cross at Brownsville....connecting Houston with Monterrey....and they lug their mile-long cargoes for supplying the heavy industry in the industrial hub of all Northern Mexico, the Monterrey metroplex.  The engines chug up the face of the Sierra Madre Oriental towards the Saltillo metroplex and its automotive industry. Then they go back to Texas and points north beyond that, waving at the fellows driving the trains that are heading into Mexico....twice a day....both ways....every day....8 days per week, 400 days per year.  It is an amazing excercise in  industry.

     These activities in and along the Frontier, here and in Laredo, Eagle Pass, and El Paso, and elsewhere in Arizona and California, billions of dollars moved by tractor-trailer and rail to and from the United States and Mexico.  They continue moving even as these letters appear upon the screen.

     Mr. Trump has painted himself into a corner, due to his familiarity and comfortability with union labour, by castigating the productiveness of the North American Free Trade Agreement / Tratado de Libre Comercio.  The union workers want high wages and little work and protection from being harassed for pilfering tools and "grabbies" from the assembly line.   They also want to have perpetual displacement compensation as well as permanent disability payments and somebody to blame for the "dis-employment".  This is all understandable.

     The industrial and auto workers in the North who "lost" their jobs and who really wanted to work,  went South.  The others who felt that  there had to be some reward and compensation for having been a "slave" for 40 years and receiving the abuse of the bossmen, stayed in their neighbourhoods and blamed Mexico and rich people.    But, there comes a time when even General Motors has to act as if it is broke so that it, too, can receive free money from Father Obamaham.

       But no one wants to point out that paying a person 76 dollars an hour (wages, health and life insurance, SS, and other benefits) for bolting a bumper onto a GM Slothmobile or Volt cannot be sustained.   Solyndra, anyone?

     All of the posturing...and wall-building threats....and hypernationalism will yield nothing but misery for both sides. The careful, yet somewhat threatening, observations of the Gnomes of the Banco de Mexico, and certain well-placed advisories in the Mexican press aimed at the "investing community" indicate that the Banco de Mexico is willing to let the peso slide down in value, at least for the moment.   They are suggesting that their Florence Nightingale  (Hillary) is in bad health and has other "issues" and if she loses the election, Mexico might have to put up with the blustering demagogue, which is their typification of Trump.

     Their reaction is sophomoric at best.   It is a reaction to a person who is sophomoric at best.  And in the shadows lurks something worse, and the people of Mexico are self-deluded into thinking that she gives half-a-snit about Mexico or the Mexicans.....much less the Americans.

We include the analysis, built around Carlos Loret de Mola's (one of Mexico's most admired and accurate economic analysts)  thoughts and deductions concerning why the Mexican Peso has sagged so quickly during the past few weeks.   We hope that we have, in our way, cleared things up a bit.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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(sourced from Associated Press)

     The Mexican currency reached the psychological barrier of 20 pesos per dollar, and analysts and commentators cited the role of the U.S. presidential campaign.     Banamex, one of Mexico's largest banks, listed the peso at 19.96, and other banks and exchange houses listed it even higher.

     A Banco Base analysis said the strength of Republican candidate Donald Trump influenced the peso's decline.   "The possibility that Donald Trump could win the Nov. 8 elections has made financial markets nervous and that has been especially reflected in the Mexican peso," the bank said. Trump has been critical of Mexico and the trade agreements that give it access to the U.S. market. The U.S. has an outsize influence on Mexico's economy, buying about 80 percent of Mexico's exports.

     Newspaper columnist Carlos Loret de Mola said Clinton's health problems are key.  "Speculation broke out against the Mexican currency last week due to the poor health of the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton," Loret de Mola wrote in the newspaper El Universal.  Clinton had to leave a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony early, and later revealed she had pneumonia.

     Mexico's Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment on the U.S. campaign's effect on the country's currency.     Oil prices were once cited in the peso's decline, but they have risen somewhat from this year's earlier lows. Concerns about a possible interest rate hike in the United States have also been a long-term drag on the peso.

     The peso has dropped almost 17 percent in value in the last year.

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El Gringo Viejo