It appears that the battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is over. Clinton is celebrating by having enough delegates through the superdelegate process to secure the Democrat nomination. That makes her the presumptive Democrat candidate for president.
Just as a reminder, she has accomplished another first. She is the first presidential candidate to be under criminal investigation while running for president. Furthermore, she is under not one, but two criminal investigations at the same time.
The first is her fairly well publicized email scandal where she chose to thumb her nose at federal law and use her own unsecured server for all of her emails. She then promptly deleted many of the emails. She has since maintained that there were no classified documents sent or received at that server, and none deleted. There have been enough emails released from other sources since then to show that as a blatant lie. Sadly, this is a federal investigation and as long as she toes the Obama line, the Justice Department will probably never charge her.
The second investigation is more obscure. It involves influence peddling by the Clinton Foundation, aka the Clinton slush fund. This foundation has been shown to be rife with reporting and fund-use violations. Again, at the federal level, she probably won’t be charged. This one, however, could also violate regulations in several states, and she could be charged there. We can only hope.
The Clinton family has a history tainted with corruption. The recent accusation of selling U.S. uranium reserves to Russia is one example. During the Clinton presidency rumors abounded, from the Vince Foster purported suicide and James McDougal death to the gunning down of Mary Mohane and C. Victor Raiser’s suspicious plane crash. Nothing has been proven, but these accusations have not been seriously investigated by someone not under Clinton control.
One of Hillary’s main themes is that of women’s rights. She recently said rape victims should be heard and believed. Really? If you ask Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, or Monica Lewinsky you might get a different take on her view of purported rape victims. For those of younger persuasion, these are three of 19 who publicly accused Bill Clinton of rape or unwanted sexual advances. According to these three and others, Hillary enabled Bill’s activities and set in motion actions to publicly destroy his accusers. So much for believing rape victims.
It is well known that Hillary is politically far left of her husband. She studied under Alinsky in college. Her views are similar to the socialistic ones of Bernie Sanders. She is just better at concealing them. She believes in climate change, wants ever-expanding government and supports the United Nations in wanting a one-world government.
Did I make these up? Hardly. It takes a few minutes of online searching to find these views from clips of her making statements to those effects. Don’t believe me, believe what she has said.
Of course, that does create some credibility problems. It has become apparent that she is a shifty liar who will say whatever she thinks her audience wants to hear. I refer you back to earlier statements in this writing. Bill Clinton ran a poll-driven Presidency, and changed his positions regularly based on those polls. Do you think Hillary is any different? Just look at her views on gay marriage, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), fighting ISIS and the Cuban embargo, among others.
Hillary Clinton has operated under the cover of a compliant media that ignores negatives, touts any positive there may be, and outright lies on her behalf. That may be changing as younger media types hear what went on in her husband’s administration.
Am I anti-Hillary? Absolutely. I am convinced that the single worst thing that can happen to this country is her as President. If her history is any indication, she could change this country in far more ways than Obama has. I believe she has the same views but is far more conniving and underhanded.
So if you want a proven liar whose history is tainted by accusations of cover ups and corruption, Hillary is your candidate. Otherwise, Trump needs your support. No vote is a vote for Hillary. We can’t afford that kind of government.
Tom Riggins’ column appears every other Friday. He may be reached at news@lahontanvalleynews.com.