THOMAS SOWELL: Grim Choices

[DiogenesLamp]

He has the power to do that does he?  He will decree arrests and sentences?

He doesn't need such power.   All he needs is the power to stay out of the way of the normal turnings of the wheels of Justice.   He has the power to *GET IN THE WAY*,   and he has the power to *STAY OUT OF THE WAY*.   Obama is currently using the power to *GET IN THE WAY*  of normal Justice.   


All Donald Trump has to do is order the Justice department to proceed along their normal means of operation before O'bunghole showed up and turned us into a Banana Republic. 


If the President stays out of the way,   I see huge swaths of this current administration going to prison,   and I dare say that if any investigator pulls on the slightest thread of wrongdoing in this Administration,   it will lead all the way up to Obama himself.   All they have to do is keep prosecuting the lower ranks,  and they will turn on and sell out their Idiot leader in the end.   They will keep providing evidence and testimony of further wrong doing by Obama. 

What proof do we have Trump will even pursue such an effort and by what mechanisms will he seek to do so?

I haven't heard.

That is my big concern.    I very much worry that Trump will order the Justice department to ignore all the broken laws and abuse of powers,  in the interest of "Unity"  or "Healing"   or some other such worthless and pointless sentiment.   


What the nation now needs most desperately is the restoration of the rule of law,  and the imprisonment of everyone in this administration (and the Democrat Party which supported it)   who abused power and broke laws.   


But I very much fear Trump will let him get away with it.   

[DiogenesLamp]

I wish we could count on Trump to do that, but I am a bigger Cynic than you are.  I don't think Trump is honest enough to be interested in retributive political justice for those who have raped our Constitutional Republic.

It is something I worry about as I outlined in my previous message.   I think Cruz would have been less likely to bend on this issue,   but i've been saying for more than a couple of years that the only way this current administration stays out of jail,  is if the next President intervenes to keep them from going to jail.   


Will Trump let the wheels of Justice turn?   It is far more likely that he will,   than that Hillary will.   

[DiogenesLamp]

The attorney general has the power to prosecute.  He can proceed after Hillary as well as Obama's totalitarian use of the IRS to attack Conservatives.  Will Trump do so?  We do not know.  What we do know is that Hillary as President will make no effort to do so and will continue to use Executive Orders  and Government power to violate the Constitution.

That is exactly my point.   It is within the powers of the next President to interfere with prosecutions,  or let them proceed.   We know Hillary will stop all investigations or prosecutions of herself or Obama and his minions,   but we don't know for sure that Trump will do this.   


He may,   he may not.   But still the odds are better of Hillary going to jail if Trump wins,   so i'm going to be supporting Trump.   


I might as well get something  out of this fiasco. 

[DiogenesLamp]

@DiogenesLamp  I was with you, until you wrote that.

What is wrong with that?   Do you think for a moment that Hillary is going to prosecute herself?   Or the Obama minions who have broken the law?   


The only way they go to jail (where they belong)   is if Trump wins.   


Why would you be opposed to Justice being served?   

[DiogenesLamp]

Trump won't put anyone in jail.  Least of all Clinton.  If it comes to it, there will be a pre-emptive pardon from Obama on Jan. 20th, 2017.

There is a better chance that he will do it than that Obama will do it.    From what I've been reading,   the FBI investigators of Hillary are in near mutiny mode about the Justice department's refusal to indict.   


They say they have enough evidence to convict her several times over,  and that the only reason she isn't being prosecuted is because Obama (through Lynch)   is protecting her.   


Jan 21,  that Protection disappears,   and It would require a concerted effort on the part of the Next President to prevent the head of the Justice department from pursuing the normal path of prosecution for such an egregious lawbreaker.   


If Trump appoints anyone remotely honest or ethical,   he'll have to lean on him heavily to stop a Hillary prosecution.   (And all the subsequent Obama personnel prosecutions for all the individual cases of law breaking which have occurred in this administration)   

 
I'm making my prediction now.   If Trump wins,   we see lots of people going to jail.   Lots of people who *NEED*  to go to jail.   Maybe not the big two,   but a lot of little underlings will be seeing the inside of sing-sing. 


The only way the Big Two (Obama and Hillary)  stay out of jail is if Trump interferes with the Justice department. 

[INVAR]

All Donald Trump has to do is order the Justice department to proceed along their normal means of operation before O'bunghole showed up and turned us into a Banana Republic. 

How many Lifers and Career lawyers will Trump have to fire to get the Justice Department to resemble anything we would recognize as 'justice"?  Do you know how many lifetime Leftist Justices Obama has appointed in the last two years?  You think the Left is going to let him do what must be done?  The Ruling Class?

That may end up becoming Trump's Bay of Pigs or Waterloo.

If the President stays out of the way,   I see huge swaths of this current administration going to prison,   and I dare say that if any investigator pulls on the slightest thread of wrongdoing in this Administration,   it will lead all the way up to Obama himself. 

 That is a hope we all have, but not one rooted in reality.  How about the Republican leadership who looked the other way, played kabuki theater and empowered this dictatorship?  You think they are going to let Trump do what they refused to do?

All they have to do is keep prosecuting the lower ranks,  and they will turn on and sell out their Idiot leader in the end.   They will keep providing evidence and testimony of further wrong doing by Obama.

A people who now have little understanding of the rule of law, our Foundations or the Constitution are not going to support what promises to be a very ugly and public war that would turn very hot.  The Marxists and the Ruling Class will stoke their Dependent class of race pimps, EnviroNazis, PC nutters and perverts to rally wagons around their champions.  You think the army of government employees and purple-shirted union thugs are going to let their Masters suffer justice that has been deliberately thwarted by several regimes, especially this one?

That is my big concern.    I very much worry that Trump will order the Justice department to ignore all the broken laws and abuse of powers,  in the interest of "Unity"  or "Healing"   or some other such worthless and pointless sentiment. 

Well, you answered the above questions I asked.  I doubt a Northeastern Liberal is going to risk doing what is right in this case out of fear of what the Oligarchy and the Left will do to incite their base.

What the nation now needs most desperately is the restoration of the rule of law,  and the imprisonment of everyone in this administration (and the Democrat Party which supported it)   who abused power and broke laws.   

The genie is out of the bottle dear sir.

We cannot stop tyranny via civil means, and I do not think we have the stomach our parents and grandparents had to see something through and employ all measures to achieve it.

But I very much fear Trump will let him get away with it.

I'm resigned to that reality myself.

We're too far gone and we let the velvet coup become institutionalized.  Uprooting it is not going to come without violence and bloodshed.  Fact of history.

[Jazzhead]

But nuclear annihilation is one of the few prospects that are even worse — and a man with a runaway egomania may not have the finesse or the depth to steer through troubled international waters that include a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea.

 If a man in his sixties has not yet matured, he is unlikely to grow up in his seventies. This is not a question about whether Donald Trump is as evil as Hillary Clinton. He may well be the proverbial "lesser of the two evils" in that sense, and yet be the more dangerous President to have in the White House.

Some have argued that a President Trump could surround himself with experienced and savvy advisers to cover for his own shallow understanding of many national and international issues. But Barack Obama has already shown us that a headstrong egomaniac can ignore even unanimous advice from military advisers. That is how he pulled troops out of Iraq and set the stage for ISIS.

Those of us who are far more concerned about the fate of this country than about the fate of the Republican party face far tougher questions than how to get through this year's election. 

This is why I must vote to defeat Trump, even though the prospect of President Clinton is awful to contemplate.  As bad as she is,  we will more than likely survive the next four years.  Trump's threat is, by contrast, existential.   

[the_doc]

There is a better chance that he will do it than that Obama will do it.    From what I've been reading,   the FBI investigators of Hillary are in near mutiny mode about the Justice department's refusal to indict.   


They say they have enough evidence to convict her several times over,  and that the only reason she isn't being prosecuted is because Obama (through Lynch)   is protecting her.   


Jan 21,  that Protection disappears,   and It would require a concerted effort on the part of the Next President to prevent the head of the Justice department from pursuing the normal path of prosecution for such an egregious lawbreaker.   


If Trump appoints anyone remotely honest or ethical,   he'll have to lean on him heavily to stop a Hillary prosecution.   (And all the subsequent Obama personnel prosecutions for all the individual cases of law breaking which have occurred in this administration)   

 
I'm making my prediction now.   If Trump wins,   we see lots of people going to jail.   Lots of people who *NEED*  to go to jail.   Maybe not the big two,   but a lot of little underlings will be seeing the inside of sing-sing. 


The only way the Big Two (Obama and Hillary)  stay out of jail is if Trump interferes with the Justice department.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.   

I confess that I will not be elated if the next President leads the charge to prosecute all of the conspiratorial Socialist Dems except Obama. .   

[DiogenesLamp]

Thanks for your thoughtful response.   

I confess that I will not be elated if the next President leads the charge to prosecute all of the conspiratorial Socialist Dems except Obama. .   

My thinking is that a clever man would first get the weakest underlings.   Start rolling them up.   Roll up the next layer.   Keep making it public.   When finally you have thrown some seriously high officials in Jail,   you start releasing evidence of wrongdoing from Obama himself.   


Eventually the thing snowballs,   and it becomes harder to stop it than it does to let it go.   People will have become familiar with corruption and lawbreaking in the Obama administration,   and the natural assumption would become that the Fish rotted from the head first.   


At that point,   events will force everyone to do the ugly thing that must be done.   Build public sentiment and speculation for the idea,   and when the time is ripe,   the continuation of it becomes inevitable. 

[Half Vast Conspiracy]

Why would you be opposed to Justice being served?

@DiogenesLamp I'm saying Trump won't do a thing about Hillary.

[Mechanicos]

Odds are Obama will issue a Pardon on her before he leaves office.

[DiogenesLamp]

@DiogenesLamp I'm saying Trump won't do a thing about Hillary.

Oh.  Sorry.  Sometimes a thing can be read in more than one way.   Yes,  I share that concern,   but I think the probabilities are far greater for Hillary getting prosecuted under a President Trump than I do  under a President Hillary. 

[DiogenesLamp]

Odds are Obama will issue a Pardon on her before he leaves office.

I would refuse to respect any pardon Obama granted to Hillary.   Or himself.   Or his staff.    He does not deserve the respect we would give a real President.   


Apart from that,   I think the Clinton foundation is up to it's arms in so many illegal activities,   that the law breaking will continue past the Pardon date.   


She will eventually get snared in something. 

[Bigun]

What is wrong with that?   Do you think for a moment that Hillary is going to prosecute herself?   Or the Obama minions who have broken the law?   


The only way they go to jail (where they belong)   is if Trump wins.   


Why would you be opposed to Justice being served?

Do you not know that Donald Trump and the Clintoons are all neck deep in the biggest criminal enterprise this country,  and probably the world, has ever seen?  Trump will not touch the Clintoons ever!
 

[Norm Lenhart]

And that puts us back into the lesser than x number of evils game.

Honestly, I'm not sure Johnson is more Conservative than Trump.  They are about equal on social issues.  He agrees with Hillary on abortion being legal up until the point that the "fetus" is viable outside of the womb!

 That NAFTA BS that Johnson loves is hard for me to swallow as I have seen how awful that is up close and personal.

The Pot company that is traded on the stock exchange as "HI" ??? 

Remember the "No waterboarding" and get out of Afghamistan immediately at the 2012 debate?  I remember thinking the guy is a complete nutbag while watching.

I can't vote for him either.  There is no viable Conservative candidate on my ballot.

Define lesser evil. If you have a conservative in most areas that doesn't completely choke on big issues, I wouldn't call it evil just out of disagreement. He'd have to hold some genuinely bad positions  and thus be disqualified anyway. I'd use someone like Santorum. If I HAD to, I'd have voted for him as at the time he didn't have any evil bad whatever positions or history. But no way did I want him as first choice.

If you got a Romeny type, thats evil.

Then barring the ability to write in, leave it blank and vote for downticket conservatives. There is never a good reason to empower evil. We live the result of empowering lesser evil every day.

[DiogenesLamp]

Do you not know that Donald Trump and the Clintoons are all neck deep in the biggest criminal enterprise this country,  and probably the world, has ever seen?  Trump will not touch the Clintoons ever!

The odds that he will throw them in prison are greater than the odds that she will throw herself in Prison.   Let us hope sufficient proof comes forth to convince him that he must allow prosecutions to go forward. 

[OldSaltUSN]

Once again we're stuck with a choice between...

The answer to that riddle is to starve.   Fasting is good for the soul, particularly when you're limited to those choices.

Heck, even vomit is better .... 

 

[OldSaltUSN]

Tom is not wrong.   He is precisely accurate in his statements and predictions.   Like it or not,   we need to keep that witch-hag out,   and we are now faced with this unpleasant means of doing it. 


Never the less,  our duty is clear.    Prevent the Hag Witch from continuing the Obama legacy of government abuse and corruption.   


At least Trump will put Hillary (and probably most of the Obama administration)   in Jail.

What evidence do you have of that?   Trump is far more likely to run an Arnie "the Teddy Kennedy Republican"  Schwarzenegger, than be a man of his word.  Trump is a long time FOB, Democrat donor, pseudo reformer, narcissist, as well as a $Billonaire, just like H. Ross Perot.   He'll care just as much as ol' Ross did, after he put Clinton in the White House.

Expecting Trump to do ANYTHING conservative is, based upon what he has actually done in his life, blind faith, or trusting hope over experience.

Trump could unite the GOP and beat Hillary in a week, if he could just be honest that long, and convince the majority of the GOP and conservatives that he would actually govern consistent with the conservative principles he claims are his.

He doesn't, he can't, conservatives won't vote for him because if that, and neither will Democrats.  Trump will lose 50 states to any Democrat put up against him, and he doesn't really care.

Hell, he's on vacation now.... in the middle of a Presidential campaign.

[OldSaltUSN]

The only choice I have is Gary Johnson who is not my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination.  It would be quite a stretch to call him Conservative.

He's not my candidate either, but he'll get a chance to make his case with me, if he has a case to make.  I'm not all about Libertarian party buildling, which is what I expect Johnson's candidacy will be about.  If he can be truly Presidential, he's got a chance of breaking into a three party race.   Can you imagine Reagan taking on Clinton and Trump in a three person race?   The difference would be so stark that not even all the robots out there could fail to notice.

I am not willing to squander my suffrage on a meaningless vote.  I will make my own decision on who will damage the country worse, and vote against that candidate.  In my mind, electing a man to represent me who is as unstable, untrustworthy, and dishonest is more risky than voting for the woman who left four men to die in Benghazi.  Just barely, so, however.

Trump could unite the GOP, and in particular, conservatives within the GOP, even at this late date.  He won't.  He has no desire to do so.

[OldSaltUSN]

The attorney general has the power to prosecute.  He can proceed after Hillary as well as Obama's totalitarian use of the IRS to attack Conservatives.  Will Trump do so?  We do not know.  What we do know is that Hillary as President will make no effort to do so and will continue to use Executive Orders  and Government power to violate the Constitution.

As a military man, the single most bone chilling statement Trump made during the campaign was his statement about issuing an illegal order.

“They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me. … If I say, ‘Do it,’ they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about. … When I say they’ll do as I tell them, they’ll do as I tell them. And that’s very — it’s very simple. It’s very simple.” - Donald Trump

That's Trump's attitude towards the Constitutional authority of the President.  Every Academy, ROTC, and OCS graduate knows the difference between leadership, lawful authority, and unlawful authority.  I am convinced that this man would run roughshod over the Constitution, using the Military, DHS, and other levers of raw authority.  Here I'm sounding like a wacky progressive, but Trump made the statement, not I.   

I took two oaths in my lifetime:  One, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.".  Two, to my Lord Jesus Christ, and not in that order of precedence. 

I have never repudiated either.  I won't violate those oaths for my personal comfort, safety, or welfare.  I won't violate them because of the "boogieman" that is <insert any Democrat> or <insert any RINO>.  I won't violate them for Trump.