The Republican Convention ended in an uproar over the failure of Ted Cruz to make an endorsement of Donald Trump.  The Cruz speech has been roundly criticized by nearly all commentators, simply because it did not contain a ringing endorsement of Trump.  The speech itself was not critical of Trump, indeed, it was quite inspiring.   Ted Cruz talked about freedom. “Freedom means free speech, not politically correct safe spaces.  Freedom means religious freedom, whether you’re Christian or Jew, Muslim or atheist. Whether you’re gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.  Freedom means the right to keep and bear arms and protect your family.  Freedom means that every human life is precious and must be protected.”  He told the delegates,  “The case we have to make to the American people, the case each person in this room has to make to the American people, is to commit to each of them that we will defend freedom and be faithful to the Constitution.  We will unite the party, we will unite the country, by standing together for shared values by standing for liberty.”  It’s hard to understand how an appeal for freedom, liberty and faithfulness to the Constitution could so anger Republicans, most of whom at least pretend to be in favor of those things at least once every four years.  What really set off the crowd was this, “If you love our country, and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”  Cruz took heat for advising people to vote their consciences without specifically endorsing Trump.  Now, you can’t vote your conscience and vote for Hillary Clinton, since she has no conscience; but that wasn’t good enough.  On one level, you have to wonder exactly what Trump and the crowd of Trumpeteers in the audience expected, and why they apparently think a Cruz endorsement was so important.  After all, the Trumpsters, and the Republican establishment, like to keep telling us that Ted Cruz is the most hated man in the Senate.  If nobody likes him, and his policies are all wrong, then why would Trump want his endorsement?  Cruz had good reason not to endorse Trump.  Trump’s surrogates attacked Cruz’s wife.  Trump himself accused Cruz’s father of complicity in the JFK assassination.  On May 3, Ted Cruz described Trump as “utterly amoral,” a “narcissist,” a “serial philanderer” and a “pathological liar.”  Against that backdrop, had Cruz done a 180, come in and kissed Trump’s ring (or some other body part), what would that endorsement be worth, and what would Ted Cruz’s word be worth?  After all, just a day earlier, Melania Trump (or was it Michele Obama, or IceT?), told us that your word must be your bond.  I guess the Trump crowd doesn’t care if it destroys the value of Cruz’s bond.  Ted Cruz does care, but that’s not to say I think he did himself any good.  Don’t get me wrong.  I admired Ted Cruz before the speech, and I admire him now, but even I have to wonder if he isn’t simply too honest, and too pure for his own good.  I’m not a fan of the “purist” label. A friend of mine once asked why I opposed Obama.  I gave him a list of unconstitutional actions taken by Il Duce.  My friend concluded, “You’re a purist,” as though that was a flaw.  I always considered adherence to the supreme law of the land to be a virtue.  Go figure.  But politics is a dirty business, and I have to wonder whether Ted Cruz may just be too honest to be a successful politician.  Ted Cruz seems to follow Nelson Mandela’s view.  Mandela said, “Success in politics demands that you must take your people into confidence about your views and state them very clearly, very politely, very calmly, but nevertheless, state them openly.”  That’s very noble.  Then again, they threw Mandela in prison for 26 years.  The familiar quote is that “politics is the art of the possible.”  It has been suggested that the “possible” is a code word for what vested interests will permit.  Ain’t that the truth?  Donald Trump seems to come closer to the view of politics set forth by Groucho Marx, who said, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”  I really think that the heart of Ted Cruz’s problem is that he is an honest man.  I don’t think he’s the only honest man in politics, but he is one of the few brave enough (or foolish enough) to speak the truth even when honesty will not benefit him personally.  The word of Ted Cruz is his bond.  The problem is that absolute and brutal honesty doesn’t seem to be the key to success in politics.  Another honest man, Harry Truman, described the traits he thought were necessary for a person to be a success as a President.  Truman said, to be a good President, one had to be a combination Machiavelli, Louis XI of France, Cesare Borgia and Talleyrand, “a liar, double-crosser and unctuous religio, a hero and a whatnot.”  Therefore, he concluded, “I guess I won’t be.”  Ted Cruz is none of the things Harry Truman listed as requirements for a good President.  In the end, being an honest man of sterling moral character, who steadfastly adheres to principle may be an insurmountable obstacle.  If so, it’s a damn shame.

The much awaited FBI decision on Hillary Clinton’s criminal investigation concerning her use of a private email server to receive, send and store classified documents ended with a puzzling, and to most, infuriating performance by FBI Director James Comey.  Comey provided a recitation of the evidence which was far from flattering to Ms. Hillary, and indeed, which sounded much like the prosecution Memo which precedes an indictment.
Comey said that “although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information;” “any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation;” “None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government – or even with a commercial email service like (Google’s) Gmail; and that “even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”  Comey added that Clinton’s system was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information that is found elsewhere in the government.  He found that hostile actors gained access to private email accounts of people with whom Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account, and that Clinton’s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent.
Even more disturbing, the FBI found that Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries who could have gained access to the information.  As Secretary of State, Hillary made 2 trips to China, a country notorious for hacking into protected government and industrial computers.  The White House she served demanded that China provide better answers regarding a Chinese cyberattack against Google.  Since Hillary’s server had far less security than Google’s, what are the odds the Chinese didn’t steal everything she had? Yet, in the face of seemingly damning evidence, Comey concluded that no reasonable prosecutor would charge Hillary with a crime.  He said that cases that had prosecuted before involved a combination of “clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information,” or “vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct.”  Comey relied on his assessment that there was no evidence of intent to mishandle classified materials, while concluding that Clinton’s email practices put America’s secrets at risk and her actions constituted the “definition of carelessness.”  It is a crime to willfully, i.e., intentionally mishandle classified documents.  But the same law that criminalizes such conduct also makes it a crime to do so by means of “gross negligence.”  This is the puzzling and infuriating part of the statement.  One who is negligent, by definition, does not act intentionally. Now, gross negligence exists when a person exhibits willful and wanton misconduct, and implies that a person has acted with reckless disregard for the safety of others.  Where an ordinary reasonable person would understand that a situation poses dangerous risks and acts without regard for the potentially serious consequences, the law holds him, or her, legally responsible.  Members of the military have been prosecuted and convicted of gross negligence for keeping classified documents unsecured at home. An email is just as much a document as a piece of paper.  In 2010, State Department officials warned of the risk of Clinton’s private server.  They were ordered, by a supervisor in Clinton’s office “never to speak of the Secretary’s private email system again.”  Hillary was warned of a risk, and acted with reckless disregard for the consequences of her actions.  That sure sounds like gross negligence to me.  Even more disturbing, was Comey’s warning that other government employees better not follow Clinton’s example, as they could face sanctions.  But Hillary beat the rap – for now. She’s not out of the woods though.  Comey later testified before Congress that Hillary told a series of lies about her conduct, not to the FBI mind you, just to the unsuspecting public.  She claimed no classified material was received or emailed, and that was a lie.  She also claimed that she turned over all work-related emails.  That was a lie too, as the FBI found thousands of work-related emails that were not returned. Hillary’s next problem is that she told some of her lies in Congressional testimony, and lying to Congress also is a crime.  Do I think the Justice Department will act on this.  No.  Delegates at the Republican convention, and many Bernie supporters at the Dem convention chanted, “Lock her up.”  The Dem convention then made Hillary, a now documented chronic and habitual liar, its presidential candidate.  All the damning evidence aside, I really don’t care if she goes to prison.  At the same time, I’m more convinced than ever that she never should step foot in the White House ever again.  She should go away and play with her grandchildren.   Comey said that an FBI employee who did what Hillary did could be fired and “walked out” of the building.  In November, we can walk Hillary out once and for all.

Well, it didn’t take long.  The very first day of the Republican Convention in Cleveland and there was a controversy.  In truth, it’s a controversy that only could be contrived by a media that is so frightened by the prospect that Donald Trump actually might be elected, that they are grasping at any straw.  Ms. Hillary, a/k/a Madame Defarge, did not have a good week leading up to the GOP Convention.  The small lead she had in the polls slipped away.  Some polls actually had Trump ahead of her.  Say it isn’t so!  The first night of the convention was a continual procession of speakers, each of whom drove home the message that Hillary Clinton is weak, dishonest, reckless, untrustworthy, and likely responsible for the deaths of some good people who she left to swing in the wind, and then lied about.  But the media didn’t contest any of that (How could they?).  No, what became the scandal of the day was the notion that Melania Trump plagiarized part of her speech (really two sentences out of a good 30 minutes of remarks) from, of all people, Michelle Obama.  Really?  Does any thinking person actually believe that Mrs. Trump was looking around for someone to emulate, and chose Michelle Obama?  The whole mess concerns a couple of references.   Melania said,  “From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect.  They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life.”  Michelle said in 2008, “And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values:  like, you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, that you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.”  The passages are very similar, but the idea of plagiarism is absurd.  No one could seriously contend that Michelle’s words were original material.  “Work hard” and “tell the truth” are hardly platitudes that we learned at the knees of Barack and Michele Obama.  They are, in fact, part of the Golden Rule.  Treat people with with respect even if you don’t agree with them?  It’s a shame that Il Duce Obama doesn’t practice what Michelle preached.  When Melania Trump was accused of stealing the phrase, “my word is my bond” from Michelle Obama, it occurred to me that I had heard that phrase somewhere before 2008 when Michelle apparently said it.  I say apparently, because I never hear anything said by any Obama.  For eight years now, whenever one of their faces appears on the screen, I change the channel.  I don’t care what they plan to say.  Obama could be coming on to warn us that the Iranian missiles are on the way.  I won’t find out until I see the flash.  I can’t abide either one of them, but I digress.  I did some checking.  The phrase, “My word is my bond” has appeared in literature since at least as far back as 1748, when it appeared in James Heidegger’s The Congress of the Beasts.  In 1762, it appeared in Samuel Foote’s The Comic Theatre: Being a Free Translation of All the Best French Comedies, Volume 4.  “My word is my bond” also appears in an 1840 Nantucket newspaper article entitled, Reflections of a Reformed Drunkard.  These references are too remote, you say?  Well, in 1923, “My Word is My Bond,” from the Latin, “Dictum Meum Pactum,” became the motto of the London Stock Exchange.  Really.  They had a coat of arms and everything.  Now, given the well known Obama disdain for all things British,  I seriously doubt that Michelle stole the motto from the London Stock Exchange.  There are more recent, and more plausible sources of the phrase.  In 1988, rapper Ice-T released the “song” My Word Is Bond.  That little ditty also was made popular by the hip-hop groups House of Pain in 1994 and 5th Ward Boyz in 2003.  The phrase also is the most popular saying among members of something called the Wu-Tang Clan, which in 2003, five years before Michelle Obama’s speech, penned those uplifting words, “That nigga Shamiek just got bust in his head two times, guy.  Word is bond.”  So exactly who has plagiarized whom, boyeee?  Ain’t nobody copped nuthin.’ (please excuse my descent into urban patois, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that last lyric).  The allegation of plagiarism might have some legitimacy if the Democrat party actually stood for any of the things Michelle Obama mentioned in 2008.  “Work hard for what you want in life” from the party of 50 million on food stamps, and free college for everyone?  “Tell the truth” from the party of a President who rarely feels the need to do so, and which offers as its 2016 candidate, a woman who the FBI has documented to be a chronic and habitual liar?  It’s ludicrous. (The adjective, not the rapper).  If this is the best the media can do, then Trump has nothing to fear.  You know?  Now that I think of it, every speech ended with “God bless America.”  Maybe the Republicans plagiarized Irving Berlin, or Kate Smith.

As I write this from New Jersey, the land of the fee, with the roads badly paved, our Legislature has reached an impasse on a plan to increase our gasoline tax by 23 cents a gallon.  For many years, New Jerseyans have had the privilege of paying “only” 14.5 cents a gallon. We never actually had an opportunity to enjoy this uncharacteristic gesture of government largesse, however, because New Jerseyans struggle under the crippling load of the highest overall tax burden of any of the 50 States.  Let’s recap. New Jersey’s income tax is double the national average, and one of the highest in the nation.  The corporate tax is 33% higher than average, and the 2nd highest in the nation.  Our property taxes are twice the national average, and the highest in the nation.  Our sales tax is 27% higher than the average sale taxes in other States.  Our cigarette taxes are the 2nd highest nationwide. Then there are the estate and inheritance taxes.  That’s right, New Jersey is one of only three States that has both. Adding insult to mortality, New Jersey’s estate tax exemption is the lowest in the nation at $675,000.  Given Jersey home values, that means that, if you own an average value home and some furniture, you’re over the limit.  What’s more, the estate and inheritance taxes each top out at 16%.  New Jersey is the most expensive place to die in America.  Put another way, when it’s cheaper to do anything in New York, you know you’re really getting screwed.  One way to look at it is that the exorbitant cost of death motivates New Jerseyans to keep living, so that they can keep paying all the other taxes. Insidious.  The burden is so bad that New Jerseyans with money are leaving the State in droves.  Think the rich don’t pay enough?  The recent departure of a New Jersey billionaire for Florida put the entire State budget at risk.  Against the above-detailed tax landscape, our leaders repeatedly told us that it was only fair that the gas tax should be raised.  Why you ask?  Well, because New Jersey’s gas tax was not the highest in the nation.  A prime example of government logic hard at work. So, back to the gas tax.  This year there was near unanimous agreement that the gas tax had to go up.  Why so urgent?  The Transportation Trust Fund, from which NJ spends $1.6 billion a year on road projects, is empty.  Why is it empty?  Maybe because New Jersey spends over $2 million per mile on road construction, maintenance and administration.  That’s three times more than the next highest state, and 12 times the national average. Wow!  Since New Jersey spends so much on roads, we must have the best roads in the country, right?  Wrong.  New Jersey roads are tied for 48th out of 50 for the worst urban roadways.  The solution?  Raise taxes, so that we can spend $2 billion a year on the roads.  Where does all that money go?  Mostly to unions and road contractors, then back to politicians.  The unions and contractors are paid top dollar to produce some of the worst roads in America, then the unions and contractors send “contributions” to the politicians, who approve more road spending.  An elegant means of keeping the graft equally spread around.  And so, it came to pass that New Jersey politicians, led by Governor Christie, concocted a plan to raise the gas tax.  In the name of “tax fairness” (a little known concept in New Jersey) while the gas tax was to go dramatically up, this was to be offset by tax reductions.  Oh, the horror!  The plan would eliminate the estate tax over a four-year period; increase the Earned Income Tax Credit from 30 percent to 40 percent of the federal level (because those who pay no tax at all deserve a raise); exempt retirees from paying state income taxes on up to $100,000 of retirement income; and allow the deduction of charitable contributions to New Jersey charities from state tax returns.  Tax fairness is where the plan ran into trouble with Democrats.  The Legislature failed to pass the proposal by July 1. One Democrat legislator even was quoted as saying, “Tax fairness? We don’t need that.”  At this writing, no solution has emerged.  The Governor has closed down all road projects.  The unions, contractors and politicians can go only so long without a fresh infusion of tax dollars, so I expect they will break the logjam.  Even had the bill passed, the tax increase was immediate and the reductions were phased in over several years.  Sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it?  At the end of the day, I’m quite sure that the beleaguered taxpayers are in for one more good hard screwing.  Fairness?   We don’t need no stinkin’ fairness.

Our local newspaper, a periodical to which I cancelled my subscription long ago, is called the Newark Star Ledger.  Given its editorial policy I, some time ago, suggested that its name be changed to the Red Star Ledger.  The Red Star over Jersey chose July 4th to propose that it was high time to change the U.S. Constitution.  According to the Editors (Commissars?), this would be a perfect opportunity to get rid of those parts of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to which the Editors, and by implication, all reasonable people, should object.  The Constitution, which all committed liberal comrades consider to be an obstruction, rather than the font and guarantor of our precious liberties, is flawed you see.  Were it not fundamentally flawed, our government would not be suffering “the constipation of gridlock.”  Putting aside the observation that all liberals rightly ought to be committed, the Ledger is wrong again.  As support for their proposition, the Editors quoted Thomas Jefferson’s 1789 letter to James Madison, to wit, “Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years.”  Surprising me not all, the Editors overlooked some important things in that letter.  The bulk of Jefferson’s 19 year sunset proposal argued that current leaders should not impose public debt upon future generations.  “But with respect to future debts, would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare, in the constitution they are forming, that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself, can validly contract more debt than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years?”  I certainly agree with Jefferson on that. The so-called Progressives that the Editors seek to benefit by discarding the Constitution certainly do not.  You think the Constitution is out of date?  Jefferson derived his 19 year limit from French life expectancy tables of 1789, which provided that half of all persons above age 21 would die within 18 years 8 months.  Average life expectancy for males was then about 34 years.  Clearly, the Editors failed to notice that that number is now around 80 years.  The Editors also cited to Jefferson’s 1816 letter to Virginia lawyer Samuel Kercheval, in which Jefferson criticized those who opposed amendments to the Constitution.  Jefferson was indeed opposed to what he termed a “fossilizing” of our founding document. In his 1789 letter, Jefferson had considered the then brand new Constitution too difficult to amend.  In the letter to Kercheval, he had reconsidered his earlier opinion, writing of constitutional provisions, “I do not think their amendment so difficult as is pretended.” Perhaps Jefferson changed his opinion because he noticed that the Constitution had been amended 12 times between 1789 and 1804. The point is that the Founders did not give us a perpetual or “fossilized” Constitution.  Article V provides the means for amendment, a process we have exercised successfully 27 times.  The Founders didn’t make the process easy, because they knew that exposing our fundamental freedoms to every passing whim or crisis could put our republic in the hands of a tyrant, which is what the Ledger Editors prefer.  If, as the Editors suggested, and I agree, the Congress is too gridlocked to accomplish the amendment process, those men in powdered wigs and silk breeches didn’t tie our hands.  They anticipated the problem by permitting the State Legislatures to propose amendments.  Of course, now that more than 30 State Legislatures are controlled by Republicans, I’m sure the Red Star Editors did not have that part of Article V in mind.  What would the liberal masterminds like to change?  One suggestion was that it’s just not fair that California has the same two Senators as a small State like Wyoming, although it has 65 times the population of Wyoming.  Really, what good would imbecile progressives be if they were just reckless and not stupid as well?  The Constitution created two bodies in the Legislature.  The membership of the House of Representatives is apportioned by population.  That’s why California gets 55 members and Wyoming only one.  The Senate was designed to ensure that the small States would have a voice and not be at the mercy of the large States.  You see, what the Editors, and all progressives choose to ignore is the fact that the States created the federal government, not the other way around.  For 125 years, the Senators were chosen by the State Legislatures.  The House was the voice of the people, and the Senate was the voice of the States.  Without such an arrangement, there never would have been a Constitution in the first place.  Federalism, hence the name, the federal government.  The progressives managed to water down this constitutional safeguard with the 17th Amendment, which provided for popular election of the Senate.  Under the original system, with 30 State Legislatures now in Republican hands and 8 split, there now would be 64 Republicans in the Senate.  There would be no gridlock then, but the Red Star Editors don’t want that.  You see, the liberal masterminds really aren’t upset that there is gridlock, instead they are upset that Republicans have anything to say on any issue at all.  So, liberal know-it-alls, if you want to amend the Constitution, Article V provides the means.  Have at it.  But if you want to make changes, choose wisely.  The words of the 4th Amendment, which protects us from illegal searches, were written in 1791 and have never been changed.  Despite this, those 18th Century words have been interpreted to protect succeeding generations from illegal searches involving the tapping of telephones, thermal imaging, global positioning tracking and internet monitoring.  Those supposedly obsolete words, written by white men, some of whom owned slaves, have saved members of every racial and ethnic group from unjust conviction.  The wisdom of the Founders had no expiration date.  Thomas Jefferson did have a number of opinions that were at odds with the Constitution.  For instance, in his 1816 letter, Jefferson told Samuel Kercheval that he opposed life tenure for judges. I’ll sign up for that right now.  The Editors won’t.  If the superior minds at the Red Star Ledger seek to apply Jefferson’s ideas to today’s problems, they be should be careful what they wish for.  Jefferson also told James Madison, “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing.”  Maybe he had something there.