Musta been a lotta heat.

After FBI director Comey let Hillary off last month, it must have taken a hell of a lotta heat to make him change his tune, in public, so close to the election. I've heard that a lot of FBI people are still mad about letting Hillary off.  Maybe something really juicy turned up, and Comey had to fess up or they would leak it.  Certainly most Republicans, especially the ones in Congress, were unhappy about letting Hillary off.  The ones in Congress can make trouble for the FBI when budget time comes around. 
   There is talk that what ever it was turned up during the investigation of Anthony Weiner for sexting a teenage girl.  Weiner clearly has some kind of psychological hangup.  Some how, Huma Abedin, Hillary's close advisor, married the guy, and even had a child with him.  Make you wonder about Huma, how smart is she really, if she couldn't figure out that Weiner was a screwball.  And how smart is Hillary to rely on a woman who isn't very bright as a close advisor?
   And how did the FBI get their hands on what ever it is?  On Huma's computer?   Hillary should have given Huma some lessons about wiping hard drives clean.  Let's guess that "it" is an email from Hillary.  A lot of the stuff Hillary wiped off her server must have been emails to Huma.  And the FBI found them still on Huma's computer?  
   Come on FBI, let us see the dirt too.  It's selfish to hog all the mud to yourselves. 

Russians hacked the DNC?

I'm hearing on NPR, Fox, and the 'Net a theory that the Russians hacked the DNC emails and released them on Wikileaks to help The Donald.
Why in the world would they do that?
    Hillary is a known quantity.  She is not very smart, she can be bought, she won't make waves.  She has had four years as Secretary of State to demonstrate her incompetence in foreign affairs.  If I was Putin, that's exactly the kind of person I would like as president of the only surviving superpower. 
   Trump on the other hand, might do anything.  America is an exceptional country, and with imaginative leadership it can do almost anything.  Under mediocre leadership (Hillary) nothing much will happen.  But under charismatic leadership America won WWII, developed nuclear weapons, traveled to the Moon, eliminated polio, and gave its people the best standard of living in the world.  Under Trump, America could be an irresistible adversary to Russian expansion worldwide.  Why risk that?  Far better to have a mediocrity who will let things slide as they have been doing.   
   So I don't believe the Russians wanted to help Trump.

Weak Tea from The Economist

Cover story this week "Can She Fix it?"  Cartoon on cover shows Hillary, dressed in mechanic's coveralls, holding a monkey wrench, studying a beat up engine hanging on a chain hoist.  Said engine's outline is the lower 48 of the United States.  Of course no mechanic has used a monkey wrench since WWII, real mechanics all use Snap-on socket wrenches.  But that's all right, the guys who write for the Economist were never hot rodders. 
    The think piece article goes on for three quarters of a page laying out the woes of the American economy, low growth, growing unemployment, stagnent wages, and all the rest.
    But the Economist doesn't suggest any serious fixes for all this woe.  They call for "slashing unnecessary regulations" without naming a single regulation in need of slashing.  "Ensuring big firms no longer operate in protected markets"  without naming a single protected market or big firm wallowing in one.  And they call for more government bailouts to companies going down the drain.  And retraining for workers in down the drain companies. 
   Some how I had expected better from a newsmag named "The Economist".
   

Democratic TV Debate last night

It came on late, 9 PM.  We are down to Hillary, Bernie, and O'Malley.  Due to the Paris massacre, they opened up with foreign policy.  All three tried to sound tough without talking about sending US forces to deal with ISIS.  No one mentioned Obama's troop withdrawal from Iraq that turned the place over to ISIS. O'Malley wanted more and better intelligence.  He failed to mention that intelligence does us little good without the will to act on it, to strike the enemy.  All three were four square for doing something, but they all avoided promising real action.  Everyone was in favor of having the locals, Turks, Sunnis, Saudis, Egyptians, anybody except Israel,  get in the fight.
  After the first commercial break, they changed the subject to free stuff, how much each candidate would furnish, how high they would set the federal minimum wage ($15 vs $12), and how a few harmless soak-the-rich taxes would pay for it all without raising the national debt.  Right.
  I went to bed before it was over.  God help the United States if any one of those turkeys becomes president.   

It's easier for the guys, Follow on

They did a roundup of democratic party presidential possibles.   One of those "whose on first" stories. For Hillary, they had some lady guru discuss her hair style.  They showed every do Hillary has ever worn, going back to when she was working on Watergate in the '70s.  She critized  Hillary's color choices, her pants suits, and I forget what else. 
   None of the guy candidates had their wardrobe and hair styles trashed.  It's easier for guys, we have a uniform we are expected to wear, and it takes no fashion sense to figure that out.