HIT MAN STARR BITES THE DUST

One of the most shameful episodes in contemporary American history, Kenneth Starr’s outrageous attempt at a bloodless coup d’ etat of an American President has had a dramatic ironic sequel. Starr was special prosecutor who recommended the impeachment of Bill Clinton on the basis of his lie where he denied a consensual sexual relationship with an intern.  Starr a self styled, self righteous, sanctimonious, prissy arbiter of public morality, but himself an amoral jurist, has now been disgraced by the fact that under his watch complaints of serious sexual assaults were discouraged and ignored so as not to interfere with the performance of the football team at Baylor College. These incidents occurred when he was President of the prestigious religious Baylor College in Texas. For those who don’t even know what Jay H. Ell is alluding too, and sadly there are so many that are so young nowadays, Starr for practical purposes served the ends of those whom Hillary Clinton once described as “A vast right wing conspiracy that was out to get her husband”. 

So lets begin at the beginning.

 CLINTON SANCTIONS A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE THE CLINTONS

From the word go the Clinton’s have engendered a visceral response from the right which has carried on to this day. It’s genesis is not necessarily rational and the underlying thesis behind it is that the pair of them are the worst felons and crooks that have ever hit the political scene. What irks these critics most is that they maintain that the Clintons are “so shrewd and bent” that they always get away with their skulduggery. Swirling around The White House in the dawn of Clinton’s Presidency was that there had to be scandals galore that this Democrat Southern sleeze and his all too clever by half shrew of a wife had perpetrated while running their second rate backward State like a banana Republic. (Remember that for over the previous twenty years the Presidency had been under the aegis of a Republican for sixteen).

 It did not take long for the bloodhounds to focus on a failed investment that the Clintons’ were party too, a land development project named Whitewater Development Corporation. There were other smears thrown in as well like a cattle futures deal and a Savings and Loan Company, but the one that dragged on, largely because of the persistence of  Clinton adversary David Hale, a convicted felon, was Whitewater. Previous investigations into the scandal had exonerated the Clintons but that wasn’t enough. It was never enough with the Clintons. So Bill Clinton took the unusual step of instituting a Special Prosecutor, who has unbridled power and reach, to investigate the matter once and for all. He obviously did this confident that he and his wife had not indulged in criminal wrong doing.

THE RIGHT WING JUDICIARY TAKE OVER AND APPOINT STARR

The Justice Department appointed a known Republican jurist Robert Fiske as Special Prosecutor and after his extensive investigation he was just about to exonerate the Clintons when his appointment was up for renewal. The latter should have been a formality. However a three Judge Panel, which consisted of known Republican activists, appointed Kenneth Starr who had strong Republican conservative credentials. The Democratic Senators went ballistic in the full knowledge that Senator Launch Haircloth, the leader of “The Remove Special Prosecutor Friske" campaign had lunched with the head of the Judicial Panel, Judge Senelle, who hailed from North Carolina. Also present was Republican Senator Helms a friend and fellow North Carolinian, who apparently had facilitated the meeting between the two. Helms was believed to be very influential in the Judge’s appointment by President Reagan.  Furthermore Starr had already opined against Clinton in the Paula Jones litigation and consequently his appointment was a major conflict of interest.

STARR’S “INVESTIGATION” INTO WHITEWATER, VINCE FOSTER’S ALLEGED MURDER BY THE CLINTONS AND TRAVELGATE

The zealous prosecutor re investigated the Whitewater controversy, the alleged murder of Clinton aide Vince Foster and Travelgate and anything he could find on alleged wrongdoing by the Clintons in the 12 years Bill had occupied office in Arkansas, initially as Attorney General and for ten years as Governor. In addition his wife served in several positions in State affairs and as a lawyer. He resorted to tactics that might have been questionable in going after murderers and bank robbers. In his relentless venture Starr’s central uncorroborated witness was David Hale who was getting payments from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. The latter financed “The Arkansas Project” which had invested over two million dollars to discredit Clinton. This fact was common cause and by ignoring it Starr risked being labelled a co conspirator in Scaife’s endeavour. 

During his scorched earth inquisition he found multiple felonies unrelated to the Clintons by those involved in finance and politics in Arkansas. All in all he laid criminal charges against fourteen individuals. Some of these prosecutions were nothing short of scandalous and were naked attempts to force evidence from individuals who claimed that they were locked up for contempt because they refused to “lie” and tell Starr what he wanted to hear. Most notorious of these persecutions was that of Susan McDougall who claimed that if she answered Starr’s questions honestly she would be charged with perjury by the intrepid public servant.

 (McDougal was vindicated in the end. After eighteen months in jail, eight of which were in solitary confinement and having been subject to “Diesel Treatment” being schlepped from prison to prison across the country, she was retried for contempt of court and obstruction of justice. She maintained that she would answer questions to anyone other than Starr. Although by definition her refusal to answer questions to a Grand Jury was contempt, the jury acquitted her by using the rare stratagem of jury nullification. By so doing they implicitly maintained that the law was being wrongly applied to the defendant).

STARR MOVES ONTO SEX, MORE SEX AND SALACIOUS SMUT

Having collected a lemon in his investigation into Clinton malfeasance Starr hit the jackpot when a Linda Tripp surreptitiously taped the outpourings of a friend and confidant who was a Whitehouse intern and who had been having a protracted sequence of oral sex with Clinton. Tripp then contacted the Special Prosecutor’s office and fed him the tapes that she had secretly and some argued illegally made. Starr then reinvigorated his reign of terror attempting to get all the sexual goods on Clinton subpoenaing dozens of civil servants and individuals in order to rake up dirt on the President. Those targeted racked up massive legal bills in an attempt to avoid landing up where Susan McDougal had. The media covered the processions that had to give evidence to the grand jury. 

Starr persisted, at tax payers’ expense to pry into all Clinton’s extramarital sexual exploits and heavens knows he had ample material. He included all in his final report barely mentioning the Whitewater scandals he had been appointed to review. For example he discussed Katherine Willey who had alleged that Clinton had groped her in the Oval Office and banally opined that no one knew who was telling the truth Clinton or Willey. All this when his chief snitch Linda Tripp had reported to him that Katherine Willey had discussed with her, (Tripp), Willey’s, desire to have an affair with Clinton. Willey’s lack of credibility was further in evidence when a WhiteHouse aide accused her of wanting her to produce a false affidavit which would have indicated that Willey had told her of Clinton’s alleged groping. Starr instead of leaving it at that charged the WhiteHouse aide with making false statements!  Willey was, to put it kindly, not a credible witness and the case was dismissed. In addition Clinton released letters from Willey that corroborated Tripp’s version of her state of mind. Yet Starr saw fit, in his judicial report,to introduce this tenditious gossip that wouldn’t have passed muster for publication in the National Enquirer.

It was not until Clinton was entrapped by the special prosecutor in a deposition in the Paula Jones litigation that Starr finally hit pay dirt. Starr colluded with the right wing Jones legal team and fed them what Tripp had told them about Lewinsky. Clinton, for practical purposes, denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky. That “lie” proved to be the basis of Starr’s 336 page referral to the Republican controlled House Judicial Committee for Clinton’s impeachment. 

A storm of criticism was showered on Starr that significantly included the legal community. The acknowledged guru of the American bench, Chief Justice Posner of the Seventh Circuit, maintained that to entrap a target in this fashion was outside the accepted norm. He went further adding that the gratuitous sexual detail he went into his report was plainly just to embarrass the President. The motive for this approach was likely because Starr detested the President. Posner concluded “We expect better from our prosecutors - they are not to hate their quarry”.

Jay H. Ell believes that regardless of the motive of the Special Prosecutor’s vilifying behavior, the result was the same - to provide the weaponry needed to axe Clinton as President. Short of assassination impeachment was the only option to effect this end. He had diverted from his original mandate and went into the gutter and exposed behavior that where not illegal was none of anyone’s business as was reflected by society giving Clinton a seventy percent approval rating following the Republican attempt to remove him following impeachment. 

THE SEQUELS

The only positive outcome of Starr’s controversial exercise, which had cost eighty million dollars, was that he had shown himself to be so partisan and biased that no Republican Administration could ever nominate this former Federal Judge and Attorney General to the Supreme Court. Back in the civic world he flirted with litigation but then went into a succession of academic positions, the most recent being the President of Baylor College. 

In the past two weeks Starr has made the national news on two separate occasions. The first related to a damning report by an independent legal firm investigating him as College President and the football coach for their handling of sexual assault allegations against members of the football team. The report concluded, Inter alia “ The University’s student conduct processes were wholly inadequate … and in some cases the University failed to take action”. Even more damning was the statement, “ That unnamed Baylor Administrators directly discouraged complainants from reporting and in one instance retaliated against a complainant who had alleged rape”.  “All in all rather than eliminate a hostile environment they accommodated or created one”, the investigators found. The Baylor football team was characterized as a “rogue state” beholden to no one. In spite of all the publicity surrounding the scandal including outcomes of criminal trials, Starr claimed ignorance. The University Regents removed him as President but to date have allowed him to remain as Chancellor.

The second instance of Starr’s recent national prominence involved his remarks in Philadelphia on the launching of a book, “The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History  where he had contributed a chapter on Reagan.But it was not Reagan who he opined on, rather it was Bill Clinton. He regretted that Clinton’s legacy was viewed through the “legacy of unpleasantness”.  (“Unpleasantness is the euphemism Starr has utilized to reference the whole sordid episode and outcome of his notorious intervention). He continued that Clinton had been the most gifted politician coming out of the baby boomer generation. The former President had “remarkable gifts and a genuine empathy for human beings”, he informed. The now disgraced University Administrator lauded the work of the Clinton Foundation. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

In a sequel to the sequel Starr lamented the “Utter decline and erosion of civility and discourse in current American politics”. What he omitted to say is that he wrote the playbook and while he praised the Clinton Foundation as “redemptive” there is nothing that the man, who has been called a Sleezeball, can do to undo the havoc he has wreeked, the lives he has ruined, including that of naive consenting young intern and the legacy of polluting American politics with salacious pornography and by dignifying rumor and smear with  an eighty million dollar investigation that proved nothing but provided material for the innuendo to live on. 

All his effort was to be capitalized on by an intellectually bankrupt opportunistic Presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, who is an avid student of the book that Professor Starr wrote.Trump is doing him the ultimate honor by putting it all into practice. By so doing Starr’s legacy has been kept alive. History will show that it was he that dramatically paved the way to the “decline and erosion…. in American Politics”. In defense of his protege, Donald J. Trump, unlike his mentor, he has never claimed respectability. 

NETANYAHU PROVOKES ISRAELI POLITICAL AND ETHICAL TURMOIL

While the United States media is solely focussed on the  Presidential elections soap opera it is ignoring all else that is going on the rest of the world. Under other circumstances the turmoil that is reverberating around and through Israel would have been followed with gusto by a public that has strong emotional and political ties to what is generally accepted as America’s only real ally in the Middle East . But on the world stage the Israeli and Palestinian conflict is far from forgotten. The French have persisted with an initiative to go ahead with multinational talks to process a Palestinian Israeli two state solution. US Secretary of State John Kerry has stated he will be there together with eighteen other interested countries, mainly from the Middle East. Netanyahu is not interested and has told the French as much. He would be well served to go as that is what Egypt's Sissi and his other newest best Arab friends would like - but that issue will have to wait for another day......

More significantly in Israel there have been seismographic internal political convulsions. So as a public service and as a diversion from the campaign trail here goes: 

INTERNAL  WRANGLES GO TO THE HEART OF ISRAEL’S CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY

The international pressures are a backdrop to feverish maneuvering that is rocking Israel. There are two key inter related issues that are at the center of the Israeli internal political storm. The contretemps, as will be seen, are at the very heart of the ethical foundations of the Jewish State and the role the Israeli Defense Force, (IDF), plays in Israeli society. The sequela of these cause celebes resulted in Prime Minister Netanyahu having to battle to put together a governing coalition. In the upheaval he has had a fall out with his well respected Minister of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who he forced to resign. Ya’ alon’s involuntary exit from Netanyahu’s government and his defiant statement that he is not abdicating public life and will be returning as a candidate for national leadership ensures that there will be a shake up in the brittle labyrinthine political structure of government in Israel. This whole turn of events may result in another alignment in the Knesset where parties come and go in the space of an election cycle. 

Ya’alon’s resignation just does not only signal a change in personnel but a change by Netanyahu in direction and policy as well. Ya’alon’s replacement is Avigdor Lieberman who is an extreme right wing populist who has been likened in the Israeli Press to Donald Trump. To add insult to injury his Defense Ministry credentials are on a par with The Donald’s foreign policy know how. The comparison with Trump is real and Lieberman is responsible for such irresponsible statements as that Arab Knesset Members are traitors and he would assassinate Hamas leaders. 

Netanyahu to shore up his rule had been having negotiations with the left of center Labor Party. These broke down and instead he courted Lieberman’s tiny far right party which merely gives him six votes, but enough to govern. The Israeli press’s almost unanimous interpretation of all this supports Ya’alon and others’ observation that Netanyahu has made a conscious decision to move to the right and abandon Israel’s traditional liberal societal values.  

THE YA’ ALAON AFFAIR AND DEMOCRACY AND MORALITY IN ISRAEL

Firstly, in a country that has been in constant war ever since it’s establishment nearly seventy years ago, Moshe Ya’ alon follows in the long tradition of warrior statesmen and politicians that have occupied key positions in Israeli politics either in the central portfolio of Ministry of Defense or as Premier or even President. Before going any further it is important to point out that in Israel the armed forces assume such an importance that their right to intervention in political discourse is fiercely defended. 

Ya’ alon, a combat hero dating from the Yom Kippur war and a former Chief of Staff of the IDF, was a member of the Netanyahu’s right wing Likud party and cannot by the furtherest stretch of the imagination be labelled a “bleeding liberal”. Besides other considerations his recent dispute with Netanyahu is focussed on two issues: The first relates to Ya’alon’s vigorous support and encouragement of the Armed Forces brass to speak their minds and “ignore political winds”. The Minister of Defense had already backed the IDF Deputy Chief of Staff, Yair Golan another battle scared heavyweight, who had likened certain trends in Israeli society to those in Germany pre holocaust. Following upon Netanyahu’s attack of Golan, Ya’alon addressed the IDF leaders and opined that they had a duty not only to be brave on the battlefield but also in the briefing room when they believed ethics were not being taken into account. 

The other flare up that involved Netanyahu and Ya’alon related to the prosecution of an IDF soldier for manslaughter for shooting an unarmed Palestinian. Once again military authorities, the Israeli justice system and the besieged Defense Minister were ad idem believing that the alleged criminal behavior of the soldier, who had received widespread support, was totally contrary to the values of Israel’s society. Netanyahu’s position against prosecution evoked a sharp response from former Prime Minister and yet another war hero, Ehud Barak, who had also served in Netanyahu’s cabinet in the past. Barak, who besides registering his general disgust with the turn Netanyahu has taken also supported the societal values behind the prosecution. 

YA’ ALON  THROWS DOWN THE GAUNTLET

The former Minister of Defense signaled the tectonic shift that had taken place in Israeli politics by claiming that, “Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants”. This is heavy stuff from the former number two of the Likud Party and his statement was front page news in all Israeli media including the internationally syndicated Times of Israel. He elaborated further on the key legal and moral issues that he believed were at stake, “But to my great regret, I have found myself lately in deep disagreement over professional and ethical issues with the Prime Minister, a number of ministers and a few members of Knesset. I have fought with all my strength against radicalization, violence and racism in Israeli society, which threatens its resilience and percolates also into the IDF”. He further argued, “I have fought with all my strength against attempts to harm the Supreme Court and Israel’s judges, processes whose result will cause grave damage to the rule of law and could be disastrous for our country”

Ya’alon then outlined the Israeli society that he supported, “In general, Israeli society is a healthy society, and the majority here is sane and seeks a Jewish, democratic and liberal state, a state that accepts each person as a person, without distinction of religion, race, gender, ethnic origin or sexual orientation, a tolerant and accepting country for the weakest and the minorities, who we have a duty to embrace and not to incite against, a country that fights unequivocally against the marginalization of women, sexual harassment toward them, or turning the woman who comes forward into the accused,” he proclaimed. “But to my great regret, extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants”.

The former Defense Minister harkened back to some of the founding fathers of Israel’s Likud Party, Jabotinsky and Begin who mainly differed from Weizmann and Ben Gurion’s Labour Party in defining what constituted the boundaries that would make up the fledgeling Jewish State that had been founded amongst the ashes of the holocaust. These divergences did not extend to fundamental human rights. 

WHAT NOW

Jay H. Ell has criticized Bibi in the past. Besides his provocative settlement behavior and irrascibility, he appears directionless in solving Israel’s key problems. (BLOG: Rabin Twenty Years Later: So What is Netanyahu’s End Game?”). Bibi has been at odds off and on with his security and armed forces establishments, especially over the danger of the Iran nuclear deal, but never has the cleavage been so fundamental. It is fair to say that a large section of the Israeli society are disillusioned and are shattered at the direction that Netanyahu has taken. For the Deputy Chief of Staff of the armed forces to make Nazi allusions about the government’s direction and then be supported by the Minister of Defense is earth shattering  in itself. 

Much comment has also centered around long time Military Correspondent Rori Daniel who on Israel’s most well watched TV Channel openly verbalized what has been discussed increasingly, in private, in many Israeli households. Commenting on the Netanyahu machinations he uttered, “I am not so sure  I want my children to remain here”. 

Ya’ alon has spelt it out that he is not going to stand by and has the potential to gain a strong foothold on the political scene especially bearing in mind the current ineptitude of the Israeli opposition. The position is fluid except for Netanyahu who is bereft of any ideas and has chosen a path that if successful would negate the very moral and ethical basis that Israel was founded on. He has endlessly, on the international stage, used in argument and as a justification for support that Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East, that it has an impartial Judiciary and that all its citizens are equal and can participate, Ya ‘alon is now leading the movement that says that isn’t so. 

Notwithstanding the importance of the US elections Jay H. Ell believes that the media need to inform its following that America’s greatest ally in the Middle East, that purports to represent the American value system, is going through an existential crisis. Also to let the supporters of BIbi know that a large section of Israeli society maintain he has finally jumped ship. He will face his sternest challenge to date as forces martial against him to attempt to put Israel back on course. Also he has weakened Israel on the International scene. Presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders, who is critical of the 
U. S. Administration's partiality towards Israel, will certainly argue that these events have bolstered his case for "evenhandedness" in the Middle East.

BERNIE’S DANGEROUS GAME AND HOW THE DNC SHOULD RESPOND

It is obvious to all that the ossified and stagnant political scene has been revolutionized this election cycle. (BLOG: America Spills its Guts in a Bloodless Revolution). On the one hand a lone destructive iconoclast has gutted the Republican Party. (BLOG: Trump’s Hostile Takeover of the Republican Party). On the other the Democratic Party has received a gigantic jolt to force it to put its money where its mouth is by a solitary single - minded, self - styled and socially conscious revolutionary. While both have much in common, (BLOG: Compare and Contrast The Donald and The Berne), Bernie does not quite get it, (BLOG:  What is it About Politics that Bernie does not Understand?). In stark contrast The Donald has succeeded in taking over the GOP narrative, (BLOG: Trump’s Revolting Revolution), but Bernie isn’t even close in winning the Democratic front spot. In some ways these outcomes reflect that the GOP standard bearers were totally disconnected from their electorate while the Dems front runner is at least on the same page. Bearing in mind the way the Founding Fathers constructed the American democratic process, neither Bernie or Donald would get anywhere with a legislative agenda if elected American President. (BLOG: What Could a Trump, Cruz or a Sanders Achieve as President?).

GAME CHANGERS AND THE RNC AND DNC RESPONSES

In an election that was going nowhere two events have changed the picture dramatically. Reince Priebus, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, declared Donald Trump the presumptive nominee even though he was, at the time, far short of the 1237 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination. His rationale was that no way could Trump be beaten in the field. By so doing he axed as far as possible a chaotic Convention where an attempt could be made to unseat a candidate who had won the popular vote. The other dramatic event played out in the Democratic campaign when a rampage erupted at the Nevada State Democratic conference. Frustrated Sanders supporters, who were won't to blame their candidate's hopeless position on a rigged system rather than accept that he could not win, resorted to violence. To date the Democratic National Committee, (DNP), unlike their Republican counterparts, has not intervened and declared Clinton the presumptive nominee. 

 Priebus realizing that necessity was the mother of invention, officially handed the Party over to Donald in an effort to prevent Hillary becoming President. As he explained his first priority was to halt, among many other calamities, any chance of a hundred years of a liberal Supreme Court. In so doing he halted the futility of Cruz and Kasich looking for a “narrow path” to victory. This has given Trump the opportunity to focus on “crooked Hillary”. Notwithstanding the barrage Clinton is facing from Sanders and the paralysis of the DNP, the Democratic leader has laser like focussed on Trump thereby allowing the media to wax on about the phantom contest in the Democratic Primaries that Bernie is relentessly waging.

WHOSE SIDE IS BERNIE ON - BERNIE'S?

So  Bernie is still running hard against Hillary attacking her personally claiming that he has a “narrow path” to victory. Of course he generically says that everyone agrees that Trump should not be President. Hillary and her PACS are spending all their resources on the General Election while Bernie proceeds full throttle against her. Bernie then relishes in his pyrrhic victories usually in Caucus States and almost only in open contests where non Democrats can vote. Most of his successes are in red States that the Democrats can never win. The possible cross over vote is thus said to be not significant as the Republicans are only to happy to register in the Democratic Primary to register a vote against Clinton. The hype aside the GOP would just love to run against what some of them have alluded to as “The Communist”. But Bernie has put his head down and is in it till the end and is gearing up for a great fight in California and even at the Convention in Philadelphia. 

Hillary and the Democrats cannot really afford this sideshow that cannot change anything. Trump is gleefully quoting Bernie on the stump while empathizing with him that the game is rigged against him. Morning Joe, a former Republican Congressman, who hosts the most popular morning political talk show waxed long and hard on Sander’s inexplicable behavior. The participants harked on the “real” damage he was doing by “assaulting” Hillary Clinton. One liners hot from Sander’s campaign are given endless air time as The Donald repeats them. They include “Hillary has poor judgement”, that she is the “establishment” and “she is in the pocket of big business”. Enough already! The inescapable conclusion is that Bernie is more in this for himself than the cause of change. 

BIG DANGER 

Both Trump and Sanders believe that they represent  “revolutionary “movements and have not been careful enough in their rhetoric to clarify what they mean. The presumptive Republican nominee unabashedly forecast violence should he be “robbed” by the Republican Establishment to be the party chief. Needless to say political leaders have an incredible responsibility to define boundaries for their supporters. Sanders has issued a number of statements that have done nothing to prevent his struggle degenerating into a ruckus . When confronted with instances of his supporters’ violence at previous Clinton meetings he has first and foremost supported their right to protest and of course condemned fighting. All this violence is taking place, he claims, in the context that the Primary that is rigged in favor of Hillary by the Democratic National Committee, (DNC). While he wants the super delegates to switch in his favor he still from time to time believes they shouldn’t be super delegates but all delegates should be voted for in the Primaries where he is losing handsomely anyway.

All this while focussing on Hillary as the enemy and vilifying the DNC as rigging the contest for Hillary and against him who is the “victim”. For good measure Bernie desperately quotes the polls that forecast that he has a better chance against Trump, head to head. When all this is falls like water of a duck's back he claims that the battle is not over and he may even continue at the Democratic Convention. This can lead to a situation, as will be seen, that can reel out of control. 

THE RED FLAG OF THE NEBRASKA DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

The Democratic Nebraska Convention spelled out what might happen on a grand scale should this insanity continue. Hillary won the Nebraska Primary narrowly and when the subsequent meeting was moving to award her a few more delegates than Bernie all hell broke loose with cries of foul play. Chairs were thrown by The Berne’s supporters while they screamed curses. This was followed by death threats to the local Democratic chairman and her family and she had to change her telephone number. Nevada Senator Reid, who is the Democratic leader in the Senate, criticized the Sander’s supporters for causing the bedlam and he hoped that the maverick Sanders would  condemn the incidents. Instead the Sander’s spokesperson and Bernie himself hit back provocatively with, “The Democratic Party would be doing itself a favor if it could find a way to embrace the millions of people who have been energized by Bernie’s campaign and want to participate”. While eventually Sanders condemned violence the Sander’s campaign upped the ante by maintaining that the Democratic Party was using this violence to support Clinton. They even forecast that this turmoil could extend to the Philadelphia Convention. This had to have stung Hillary who, to date, when shown clips of The Berne’s frenzied exited mobs has cheered them on and said how positive this was for the forces of progress. 

Nebraska should be a foreboding for Sanders to step in and tell his supporters to cut it out. He needs too to spell it out in no uncertain terms - he needs to spell out the obvious - he has lost and it is time to move on and support the “presumptive” nominee. He needs to learn to chanel the anger he has awoken constructively and not destructively. Even the broken Republican Party are coming to terms with the fact that internecine fights at this stage are a no no. Cruz and Kasich threw in the towel when it was obvious that they just couldn’t win. It is ironic that the non party may well be more united against Clinton than the party that had no deep divisions till Sanders joined is not as ad idem against Trump. To date Sanders has not been forthcoming and Ms. Schultz has stated that Sanders has not condemned the violence and has "added fuel to the fire". 

So Bernie unless you want to do a Nader and give Trump a leg up stop it. The national polls are seeing a narrowing of the gap between Trump and Clinton. Clinton needs to wipe the floor with Trump so that the agenda of change that Bernie has propogated has a chance of being a reality.

WHAT THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE SHOULD DO

Deborah Wassermann, DNC Chairperson has not as yet intervened in the race in spite of Clinton’s overwhelming lead. A Democratic nominee needs 2383 delegates to clinch the nomination, Before the Oregon and Kentucky Primaries, Hillary had  2268 while Bernie had 1490. After those Primaries she is even closer to the magic number. In Clinton’s column there are 524 super delegates.  As matters stand Sanders cannot win. The only crowd that go and on about who wins or loses in these remaining contests are the media. Even Sanders recognizes that his only hope is if the super delegates would switch to him. He cannot overtake Clinton in the popular vote. As his behavior gets more and more off the wall the less and less likely that becomes anyway.  

The DNC Chairperson, Ms Wassermann Schultz, should take a leaf out of RNC Reince Pierce’s playbook and go on the offensive. Debbie Wassermann Schultz needs to urgently poll all the super delegates with a view to obtaining their final vote. If Clinton is still ahead by a mile she should declare her the Democratic presumptive nominee. If she is not then it would be worthwhile to wait till all the Primary races are over. As might be expected Sanders would go ballistic if the internal caucus tells as it is and some of his supporters will threaten not to vote for Clinton. The alternative to not settling this issue is worse as the violence will escalate, out of frustration, in a milieu where Sanders just cannot win and where he is all but justifying his supporters’ behavior. (Remember regardless what allegedly happened at the Nevada meeting it was merely formalizing the delegate count apropos of Clinton’s winning of the Nevada State Primary). 

Those most likely to carry through with the threat to abstain in November are most likely the Independents that would only vote for Sanders or not at all. If the Republicans can begin to amalgamate around Trump so as to keep Hillary out, after what he has said and done to the sixteen other candidates who, combined, attained the majority of the Republican electorate, then surely anyone who truly opposes everything Trump stands for is not going to stand by and let him win because Bernie is a poor loser. He is not being robbed he has lost. 

Most of the damage of such a move could be eradicated if Senator Elizabeth Warren was nominated by Clinton as her Vice President and she accepted. This may already be on the cards as she is engaging in a highly publicized tweet war with Trump. She has not publicly refuted such an option and is, also most importantly in this context, the Democratic Left’s first choice. She was bombarded with requests to stand and had she done so Bernie would not had a prayer in this race. 

So the back room boys and girls of the Democratic Party should get to work and legitimize reality. This might give Bernie something really to moan about. All Hillary’s soft talking and non confrontative approach has been unsuccessful and met with abuse. The only concession Sanders has offered was not to attack her on her e mails. He is veering out of control and if this goes on much longer he will be giving Trump a run for his money as to who is the most irresponsible leader on this madcap stage.  

Bernie sadly will not make the adjustment and has fixated  his campaign to attack the Democratic Party. Although he hasn't a prayer at winning the nomination he tells his adoring crowds that before Trump can be defeated Clinton must be eliminated. Furthermore, he is not making any attempt to condemn the violence he has spawned. This is not leadership it is rabble rising with no plan in mind. He is insulting the very electorate that elected the first African American President twice. He needs to be taken on now and told the facts of life that simply he has lost the nomination badly and is undoing all the positivity his campaign promised. 

DOES TRUMP WALK ON WATER?

There is a myth that Donald J. Trump, Plato’s original snake oil salesman, is unstoppable on his path to being the next President of the United States of America. The conventional wisdom is that this freak show is on its way to the White House as he is invincible. If you don’t believe Jay H. Ell just ask the Donald and he would confirm that he is the greatest blessing to mankind in two thousand years since, dare one say it, you know who walked on water.  

This myth is being reinforced by the media who wax on and on with maps and meaningless  polls….

The process which Trump will utilize to be able to relocate from Trump Towers to  public housing is unclear. At the end of the day Trump will rely not on policy but on demagoguery using smears and personality attacks against Hillary on a level unimaginable. The latter tactic is the only election metric whose outcome cannot be measured and has been his successful modus operandi up till now.

WHY THE BELIEF IN TRUMP’S IMPREGNABILITY

The reason for this sad fatalism originates from the unbiased assessment of The Donald of himself and what he claims are his past miraculous achievements. More recently the fact that he predicted and won the Republican nomination when all pundits and the GOP mavens unwisely characterized him as a joke and a carnival barker, who had no chance of emerging triumphant, has sealed this perception. To this minute some still magically hope that he will go away, does not exist and refer to him euphemistically as the “nominee”. 

Trump is the greatest communicator and the most persuasive salesman around. (Jay H. Ell is beginning to believe that Mexico will pay for that beautiful wall).  He is an icon in business and in entertainment. His name recognition is up there with there with the President, Warren Buffett, Tom Brady and Bill Cosby. He literally is, as he has proved, “The greatest show on earth”. 

The media moguls are really only interested in ratings. They are as interested in politics as McDonald’s is in hamburgers. If fishburgers became the rage McDonald's would make them their centerpiece. Both are just interested in making money. So they swarmed to The Donald like bees to honey giving him billions of dollars of free publicity and turned the Republican Primary into the Republican Derby to the ching ching of ratings. This ongoing coverage really helped Trump secure the nomination. 

Then The Donald intuitively read the Republican voter mind that has long ago been disconnected with the Republican Establishment. (Blog: America Spills its Guts in a Bloodless Revolution). Ironically they are more in sync with the erratic billionaire plutocrat than the middle class public servant and policy wonk, Paul Ryan. They want social security, Medicare, and jobs. They hate no action Government and corporations who have nation state status over their lives. The millennials don’t share the social values of their grandparents. The electorate has inner dark fears about “the others” which Trump gleefully and irresponsibly exploits in nationalistic and xenophobic fashion. There is also a section of the citizenry that are crying out for an authoritarian figure, a leader that “tells as it is” and shows the finger to the overlords. In so doing he promises to make America Great Again even if he has to waterboard and "even more" to get there.  

So with his overbearing personality, the media’s sycophantic support, the fossilized GOP, and the disgruntled body politic, Donald predicted and won the Republican Primary. Added to all this he is prepared to say or do anything it takes to become President. He will contradict himself even on the same day, deny statements that are on tape, change policy at a bewildering pace so that it is impossible to rationally argue against him. All this seemingly makes no impact on his support.

He now predicts annihilating Hillary and who are those who belittled and laughed him off to argue? In fact if he claimed that after shooting the guy on Fifth Avenue he escaped by walking across the Hudson River who would disagree? 

But Jay H. Ell still does not know, using conventional metrics, how he could be elected President. Because, unlike the petrified Republicans, his ecstatic supporters and the media who discuss him like he is for real, he knows that to become President one needs two hundred and seventy electoral votes.

WHY CONVENTIONAL ELECTION  CAMPAIGNING WILL NOT WIN TRUMP THE PRESIDENCY.

There are several conventional approaches that are available for any prospective candidate. The Donald for better or worse will not or cannot use them effectively. Those include the following offensives:

Plan A is to get the Republican Party and its vast electoral machinery behind him to bring out the vote. In spite of all his bravado Donald J. Trump is very thin skinned and once offended goes ballistic. He also is a very mean man. He is a bully. His people skills, unlike his salesperson’s skills, suck. He is authoritarian and all this is not a recipe to weld a Party which consists of disparate groups which, with his nomination, are metastasizing into more and more power and interest centers.  

Whatever happens with the hyped up negotiations to unify the party in their life or death struggle against Hillary the damage has already been done. (Blog: Trump is King - What Now?). In all probability by the time the election comes around the party will be "united" but in name only. In addition the maverick has made it clear that he isn't about to change his destructive winning stategy.

To run a Presidential campaign you need an infrastructure that is beyond Trump’s imagination. There are fifty two States with four hundred and thirty eight congressional seats all of whom who have several offices and office bearers and volunteer workers. All these tiny bureaucracies have office bearers who have loyalties and relationships that go back way back when. All the Congressmen, that are the leaders of these constituencies, are running for reelection and a large number of them need Trump like a hole in the head. Some together with their Senators will in fact make it a point to distance themselves from The Donald. It is fair to say that the loyalty to this Johnny Come Lately amongst the movers and shakers, that are needed to get the vote out, is zilch. This antipathy to him is reflected in the fact that he could have lost the Presidency on second ballot as the delegates, the worker bees of the Party, preferred anyone but Trump. (Blog: Incompetent Trump's Victory at Risk).

Trump is unlikely to surround himself with a strong team to see his way through the election. He confided, in a moment of endearing humility, that the secret of his success was to surround himself with mediocrity. The reason for this Trump confessed to the crowd, that admired and looked up to him, was that he needed to be admired and looked up to. Presumably his administration will come from that crowd because those who are prepared to serve in the unlikely circumstance that he is elected are far and few between. He will have a shortage of prospective candidates to fill leadership positions as he has systematically disengaged himself from anybody who is anybody in the GOP. He is down to a few mediocrities - Sarah Palin, who when it was suggested that she could be his Vice Presidential pick, in a rare moment of insight, conceded that she wanted to do him no harm, Chris Christie, a sad almost pathetic opportunist who has crossed all his bridges and other “losers” such as Huckabee and Perry will be on the list with of course the shambolic Newt Gingrich.  As he mentioned he has everything covered accepting politics,(sic), there are two female possibilities to cover another of his glaring weaknesses - Senator Joni Ernst and Governor Mary Fallin that have to be in the reckoning. (The most effective "lady" candidate would be Governor Nikki Halley from S. Carolina who has indicated that it would be over her dead body. So too have John Kasich and Ted Cruz who are both tipped by the bookies to be distinct possibilities. If either the latter accept Jay H. Ell will give up his faith in person kind).

So Trump who should have been making overtures to every section of the Party has told them, almost in so many words, he doesn’t see the need. He is the boss now. In addition if he gets to close the "Establishment" his support might dwindle. 

Plan B, also favored by The Berne, is that their personalities represent a “movement”. Implicit in that argument is that their king size crowds who pitch up in their thousands and rah rah rah till kingdom come will translate into about sixty - five million voters rushing to the polls without an infrastructure to orchestrate it. As Eliza Doolittle said, “Not bloody likely”. Where these votes are going to come from is uncertain as The Donald’s unfavourability rating is at sixty - five percent. 

The Donald will focus on this plan as the centerpiece of his strike come hell or high water. He has mocked the conventional election strategies and claimed that these mass meetings are where it is at - "If you win the pennant why change tactics for the World Series?".

Now The Donald is only ahead in one demographic, white males. Obama, (39%) lost the white vote by twenty percentage points to Romney, (59%) and the latter did not have a white woman problem. Even the majority of Republican women feel negatively about Trump. Obama,(55%), only beat Romney,(44%), by eleven percent in the women vote.  Trump cannot count on the same number of white women to support him as they did Romney. He will not exceed the 27 percent of the Hispanic vote that Romney registered. So for practical purposes most of his votes must come from white males.To win Trump needs round about sixty - five million votes. (Romney received about sixty million). The total number of male white voters is estimated to be about 40 million. In other words there are just not enough white males in America to make The Donald The Commander in Chief.

Plan C is forget about voters and look at States. As argued in the blog, “Trump is King - What Now?”, even if Trump wins all the States that Romney won his chances of winning three or four of Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin is a pipe dream. The North East and Mid West suburban Republicans are embarrassed by him. He hasn’t his sixty five percent unfavorability rating for nothing and again there aren’t enough blue collared white males to swing it his way in these States. It is far more likely, with the growing Hispanic vote, that Hillary picks up three or four States more than Obama did in 2012.

 Plan D is to abandon his self funded lark and collect money so as to be able to compete with Clinton organizationally and in the media. Besides all the implications of yet another flip flop to his persona, the big donors, other than Sheldon Adelson, are not falling over themselves to take advantage of this opportunity. Those with money have not only not come forward but even pulled back.

PLAN E - TRUMP’S TRUMP CARD - GET INTO THE GUTTER

Plan E is to change the narrative and concentrate on smearing Hillary off the face of the earth and is already in full swing. This is obviously the plan of choice together with the mass rallies.  Hillary isn’t too popular herself and has over thirty percent negative ratings. She has been around a long time and "stuff" occurs. His strongest argument, apparently, is Bill’s behavior twenty years ago and it is all Hillary’s fault. He has a ton to reveal about Bill’s dallying that Hillary enabled. 

This type of approach has really been The Donald’s m. o. throughout the Republican Primary why should he abandon it? Now if the birther campaign is anything to go by the truth is irrelevant. To date Trump has lied to the extent that the saturated public don’t even blink or even comment on the fact that seventy percent of his examined statements are proven lies. (Blog: Enter Lying Presidential Nominee Donald Trump). 

Trump’s genius is when proven wrong he just comes up with another lie. When all was lost on the drama he had created about Obama’s birth certificate he lied that his investigators had found stunning evidence that he would reveal to the nation. He unashamedly announced at the eagerly anticipated Press Conference that the investigators had found nothing but society owed him a debt for bringing up the issue. (Incidentally Trump promised, in 2011, to release his taxes if Obama produced his birth certificate.)

To this day he maintains that he is not so sure where Obama was born “but he doesn’t want to go there”. He deftly moves from lie to lie and the ratings seeking media rather than pin him on the most recent one fight to report the next ratings lifting outrageous lie. The media have failed society by not holding Trump’s feet to the fire and by treating his behavior as the new normal. In the teeth of all this mendacity they discuss his Vice Presidential picks!

This stratagem, which is magnified by social media, is novel to say the least. To conduct a two year campaign on literally no policy other than sound bites that change when they become counterproductive and rely on bad mouthing is to date unprecedented. When Kenneth Starr spent 80 million to find dirt on the Clintons and all he found was Monica, Jay H. Ell, is sure he wishes he could have just produced a tissue of lies. It will much be easier for Trump to try and smash the Clintons as he just makes it up. Hillary as yet isn’t even going there recognizing that this is a dangerous tactic and hoping that it will backfire. 

Now anything can happen between now and November but it might impact The Donald more than Hillary. He must still avoid an embarrassing flop at the convention, dodge a potential third candidate and fight an election with, at best, an as yet half funded half hearted army. The FBI has all but announced to the world that they can find no evidence of wrong doing in Hillary’s e mail saga. In contrast The Donald’s class action suits against him for defrauding students in his now defunct University are on track. (He had to have been short of money to try that stunt). 

He has not as yet produced his income tax filings and Romney et al are convinced it is because it might expose his well spun narrative, such as his wealth and charitable donations or even expose criminal activity. This coupled with the fact that he has not self funded his campaign, he has just loaned $35 million to it, and that he is not going to fund his Presidential run at all, is going to further dent his credibility. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

 So much depends on how Hillary adapts to this new form of electioneering. In all probability she will continue with her carefully crafted message and keep looking presidential. She will avoid answering his scandalizing as far as she can. The former Secretary of State will then contrast Donald as the "risky" alternative. Her Super PACS, meanwhile will pour on a ton of you know what onTrump. (Can you imagine what is out there over his sixty - eight megalomaniac life? In fact it has already started in the media. Hillary may get a reciprocal two billion in free attacks). 

Disgracing is a double edged sword. Bill Clinton, at the moment, is a respected leader. Two House speakers that impeached him landed in the gutter - Ken Livingstone and Newt Gingrich who together with Congressman Barr exited as their own smut was exposed.

As to the question whether The Donald can walk on water the answer is no. But he can swim in a sewer.