Don't Put A Fork Into Hillary Clinton---Yet!

In an interview, she said she and her husband were dead broke when they left the White House. Hillary said things were so bad, the two of them needed to share a bedroom...Conan

• With the absolute disaster of a roll-out of her book, many are now wondering whether Hillary Clinton''s ship has already sailed. She's sold about 129,000 copies to date. To put it in perspective, one issue of a Batman comic book sales range from about 100,000 to 115,000 copes a month.
• In the past, I've summarized her pathetic record as both NY State Senator and Secretary Of State (refer to the 3/25/13 post entitled, "The Fairy Tale That Is Hillary Clinton" and the May 13, 2014 post entitled, "Hillary Clinton: The Perfect Progressive Politician--Good At Nothing; Bad At Everything."). In short, her accomplishments are conspicuous by their absence. In her defense---as her enablers often remind us---she traveled a lot. In all that travel, she produced no major diplomatic breakthroughs nor did she have any major foreign policy success. This was even substantiated in recent interviews with her own supporters.They couldn't think of one major accomplishment by Ms. Bubba. Keep in mind she was Secretary of State for four years. You can read about her legacy every day with what is currently occurring in places like Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya, N. Korea, and Iran to name a few. And for those anti-war folks out there who support her---she voted in support of military action in Iraq.
• But even with this pitiful and unimpressive record, don't be surprised if she runs and actually wins in 2016.
• For one reason, 2016 is still two years away. Americans have short memory life spans when it comes to supporting politicians. Allow me to just throw out a few names of politicians with poor track records who continue(d) to get re-elected:  Charlie Rangel (censured by the House for not paying his taxes and failing to report $660K in income. He won yesterday), Ted Kennedy (Mary Jo ring a bell?), Marion Berry (caught on video smoking crack coke in a hotel room), Barney Frank (in 1980 reprimanded by Congress for abusing his office in fixing 33 parking tickets for his former boyfriend, an acknowledged male prostitute who was driving Frank's car). I can list countless others, but you get the picture.
• Another reason, half the country is now dependent on the government. Any wonder Pres. Obama was re-elected with such a poor record? Many of these same voters will support a progressive politician who promises them more government goodies.
• She certainly has name recognition. In addition, she'll forever be associated with her husband whose favorability ratings remain high.
• And there are many American voters who want to see the first female president even if it's someone like Hillary Clinton.
• So don't put a fork into Hillary Clinton, not yet anyway. She most certainly has a lot of baggage but American voters are fickle. And many are just plain stupid.

Economy Contracts: Another Progressive Bitch Slap Across The Face Of Most Americans

How ironic is it that since Barack Obama became president, every community in the world seems a little less organized?...WH Press Secretary

• When I first started publishing the Political War Zone, my intent was to post perhaps 3-4 times a week. But that's been almost impossible with the jokers we have in D.C. I feel like Pacino's character in "Godfather, Part III"--- "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
• It happened again today. As most of you know by now, the gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a 2.9% annual rate. It was revised from the 1.0% reported last month. It's also the worst performance in the last FIVE YEARS.
• Those of us who pay close attention to the economy have been saying for years reports of the economy improving has been a myth perpetuated by the administration and the media. This report confirms that claim.
• It also confirms another claim I've been making about the progressive political class for many years now. Their policies have not only been a disaster, but they enjoy flipping us the bird. 
• We've witnessed this behavior time and time again. Just yesterday, Charlie Rangel, the poster boy for what is wrong with the political system in Washington, won his 23rd term in office. This is the guy the House Ethics Committee found had engaged in a "pattern of indifference or disregard for the laws, rules and regulations of the United States and the House of Representatives." (It also sounds a lot like Pres. Obama to me). Yes, it's true he was elected by the people. Well, so was Pres. Obama and the progressive leadership of most of the failing cities in America. In fact, I wrote about it last year in a post entitled, "Progressives Enjoy Waltzing With The Devil." In other words, it should come as no surprise to anyone even when these slugs like Rangel "surrendered their dignity" a long time ago (phrase borrowed from Bob McManus in the NY Post)
• But those are not the only things that should cause every American concern. What should cause Americans concern is that this dereliction of duty by the progressive political class continues to harm the nation. And yet, we've seen a complicit media and political class fall in line even in the face of the current IRS scandal, the VA scandal, a failed economy and a disastrous foreign policy. Yes, the polls show the administration's numbers are tanking. But they also show that about 1/3 of Americans still support the policies that have caused great pain, misery and harm to many Americans. It's almost as if a third of the nation are a bunch of masochists. This take me back to a piece I wrote about Hillary Clinton.  I referred to her as the perfect progressive politician: Good at nothing; Bad at everything.
• Jonah Goldberg recently wrote that the "managerial class" (progressive political class for me) are bent on protecting their own interests at the expense of the public. I'd like to define it as their taking pleasure in bitch slapping the American people even when many of those same people appear to enjoy it.

Sidebar Note:

The Great Pretenders: The Elite Progressive Political Class

Nation's Poorest Now Controls Two-Thirds Of The U.S. Soda Can Wealth...The Onion

• Before the Berlin Wall came down, I made many visits to Eastern Europe to visit my relatives. It was in Eastern Europe where I witnessed the damaging effects "economic equality" had on the population. That's right: economic equality. Under Communism, almost everyone had a job. There was only one problem. Wages sucked. In addition, most of the stores had empty shelves. For example, if you wanted to purchase some meat, you would have to wait on a long line for hours to get a quarter pound of meat---if there was any left by the time you approached the counter. If you needed a pair of shoes, there were some in the shoe stores---if you wore size 13 and liked your shoes the color brown.
• But even Eastern Europeans understood capitalism. As an American, I was able to get almost anything I wanted as long as I paid with American dollars. And only a dummy would go to the local bank to exchange dollars for the local currency. It was known---if you wanted better exchange rates---you dealt with the "black market," usually young guys on street corners who would bump up the exchange rate significantly. While it was illegal, the authorities would look the other way because every Commie country wanted American dollars. Since the fall of Communism, I often exaggerate that many former Easter European Block countries skipped capitalism and went directly to highway robbery.
• The point of all of this is that economic "equality" has never worked anywhere---at any time. And as soon as the chains of that economic system are removed, they learn quickly the rewards of hard work and talent often---of course, not always---but can often lead to a better lifestyle. Under systems like Communism only the elite prosper.
• And that brings me to my point. The elite progressive political class (Democrats and Republicans)  keeps proselytizing about the need to attack economic inequality---this most recently from people like Hillary Clinton and the Occupy Wall Street hypocrites.  They pretend not to be wealthy. They want us to believe wealth is a bad thing when they actually reside in the "upper stratosphere of wealth" to quote Rich Lowry.
• But it's actually even more disingenuous than that. The progressive political elite are always trying to sell an illusion. In fact, as the War on Poverty taught us, poverty won the war.  The more progressives targeted inequality, the poorer more people became. As I pointed out in an earlier post some months ago, their "redistribution" scam only subsidized poverty. In fact, this progressive administration---after all the proclamations about economic inequality---has presided over the largest widening of the economic gap in American history.
• Yet, we rarely hear the progressive political class target the wealthy who support them. When was the last time you heard any of them criticize any Hollywood actor making $10-20-30M for one film? For that matter, when was the last time you heard any of them taking their own to task for somehow becoming millionaires while on government salaries of about $175,000 a year? When was the last time there was any real criticism of the Obama administration's hiring of so many Wall Street and banking veterans? And allow me to make myself clear. I have no problem with any individual's wealth. I do have a problem with those in the elite political class who are selective about whom they target for their wealth. The attack on Mitt Romney by the Democrats comes immediately to mind.
• Ed Morrissey in Hot Air made some interesting observations about this and the recent bumbling by Hillary Clinton: "She's the poster child for economic inequality...Her mediocrity and cluelessness will expose the hypocrisy and demagoguery of the Democratic Party's class warfare..." 
• It's become increasingly clear the elite progressive political class are the great pretenders. The question remains: will Americans continue to be sold on this illusion? They have before so what's not to believe they will again.

Postscript: Since this was posted, Hillary Clinton announced she's running for president---running toward  a $2B+ campaign after proclaiming she's for the middle class. ---another illusion. In addition, the Clinton Foundation is under scrutiny for its practices. Oh, and Hillary Clinton, champion of the middle class charges up to $300K for one 90 minute speech. In addition, we're finding out more about those emails on her private server. Her poll numbers are tanking especially when it comes to her trustworthiness. Get the fork read.

The Obama Administration Is A Reflection Of The Creepiness Of Progressive Ideology

It's a beautiful thing when the IRS can destroy all evidence of wrong doing, then use as a defense that there's no evidence of wrongdoing...WH Press Secretary Tweet (formally Jay Carnie)

• I often ask myself how creepy does one have to be to still support the policies of this administration as well as those of progressive politicians. After all, even though the Obama administration's poll numbers are in the toilet, anywhere from 37% to 45% of the American population still show some support for the administration albeit much softer support in the last year. Nowhere was this was this more apparent than in the most recent Gallup Poll. It showed that former Pres. George W. Bush is now six points higher in favorability than Pres. Obama. Ouch!!!
• There is no doubt that all the scandals of this administration are now eating away at even Obama's favorability. And I suspect two scandals are largely responsible. Namely, the VA and the IRS scandals reached that threshold of tolerance for most reasonable Americans. By and large, Americans still hold the military and veterans in high regard. As Jonah Goldberg pointed out in a recent piece: "The VA scandal can be boiled down to the fact that VA employees are the agency's most important constituency." In other words, many in the VA have forgotten who they are suppose to serve. And the same can be said of the IRS. With the IRS it's just as disturbing. Their sins show they are more prone to target Americans purely for political reasons in addition to protecting their own interests. 
• At the fringes (even though these are not fringe issues) the pervasive lawlessness from changing the health care law on numerous occasions to the most recent issues surrounding our immigration policies have awakened more Americans to the realization: this shit has to stop.
• Yet, for me and I know for most other Americans, it's creepy to know that there are actually people living near or around us who don't appear to have problems with an administration and Congress that don't follow the laws of the nation---laws they've created. For that matter, the oath of office all presidents take stipulates they "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Along with a complicit media, many of these people blindly follow an ideology maintained and supported by the use of lies, deception, identity politics, intolerance, political correctness and openly defying the separation of powers under the United State Constitution. 
• And mind you, these people have profited from all of these transgressions. After all, the Obama administration was voted into office---twice.  Of course, it's more difficult to rely on a justice system to make corrections considering the pervasive odor of corruption that emanates from those government bureaucracies. 
• And while the current polls show promise that Americans appear to be fed up, I can't shake the thought that there remain so many Americans who continue to allow themselves to be conned. That's creepy.

Postscript: since this was posted, Gruber showed us yet again how the Obama administration conned its supporters with Obamacare. In addition, the Obama administration decided to by-pass Congress again re: immigration. Iran, Russia and China keep flipping the Obama administration the bird.