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Sunday, February 28, 2016

With Sarah Palin and Chris Christie having endorsed Donald Trump, which do you suppose might have a place in a Trump cabinet?

No followup to the headline. It stands alone. Yes, Clinton did win South Carolina. Yes, it might end up a Trump vs Clinton final. Yes, Mainstream Marco is marketed; but if as it looks he will trail Trump in Florida, lights out.

UPDATE:


Wapo: "Rubio, Cruz release past five years of tax returns"

Okay, lady, add that to the public's right to see your frigging Goldman-Sachs and other speech transcripts. Be as open and above board, as Ted Cruz. How badly bought and owned; beyond what you and Brian Fallon say? It's obscene to stonewall. Pure and simple. Obscene. Meaning disclosure likely would be more obscene?

Regardless of where delegate nose counts stand by the Ides of March: Why don't we keep asking?

FURTHER: Simply saying the equivalent of "Madelaine Albright also enriched herself big-time on the post-cabinet speech circuit, and I am no different," will not get it done.

FURTHER: Beyond Trump being the target of the Cruz/Rubio [coordinated?] tax return release; there is Trump University. Did John Kline get Trump campaign money while in Congress, and is he on record one way or the other on Trump University as part of the for-profits he's endorsed?

Bernie seems the only above reproach candidate in terms of money corrupting or at least influencing things; and curiously, he's getting plowed under by the establishment. A victim of the John Klines of this world, the Citizens United beneficiaries. The established way of doing things in our current US of A.

Bless Strib and their editorial endorsement; (a process apart from Glen Taylor's ownership of the outlet?).

FURTHER:

"Powerful case." Wanna bet?

An expectation, buyer's remorse this cycle for Norman Braman equal to that of Nasser Kazeminy. Rubio at least is well positioned next cycle, for mayor of Miami.

FURTHER:
WaPo, here, click to read names
Remember that Trump is suing TV outlet Univision. May the circles be unbroken unraveled.

Extortion in the eye of the beholder? Huh? What's happening?

One big Gordian Knot?



FURTHER: End with a hoot. Our Utah friend, Orrin Hatch, in discussing the Rubio candidacy had his senior moment, forgetting the Quayle - Benson exchange, Hatch quoted by Newsmax:

"Democrats can run a younger person like John F. Kennedy because the media is with them," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who has endorsed Bush. "Republicans will have a more difficult time because if somebody's young, they're going to get beaten up like never before by this biased media."

It was either a senior moment, or Orrin as a Bush backer was more subtle than I'd have ever imagined, in deliberately trashing Rubio's aura, but so indirectly. Yes, and despite the neocon posing business, Kennedy was somewhat more a war hero than Rubio, there is that.

FURTHER: Was it collusive litigation from the start; an indirect way a Trump campaign might be financed outside of donations and campaign finance law? Trump self finances, then settles the Univision suit after the anti-Latino commentary made it appear as a real case and controversy? Terms of settlement? Not publicly announced. Links saying that and little of substance beyond "we settled;" here, here and here.

That's Entertainment.

It has a miasma to it, filed back when, settled before Super Tuesday. The name Haim Saban is interesting, as to Univision, also, politics.

Art of the Deal?

FURTHER: Supporting an earlier WaPo link. But look at the opening image. Youngsters, like Rubio now, looking for what comes along.

Names here, for those liking to sift through a haystack, looking for a needle. But short of that; lots of names. First page, Bronfman booze participates. What else?

FURTHER: Opinions can differ on the BDS proposals for containing Israel and reforming some of that nation's greater abuses against Palestinian occupants of it and occupied territory; and with that preface, there is Alternet on the Clinton position, tied to money; via linking to Clinton affiliated PAC cash, here and to a Clinton letter to Haim Saben. That letter was written on Clinton campaign letterhead, footed as it is (the letter itself stating it was soliciting only "thoughts and recommendations" as well as "perspective and advice").



There is a Feb. 2016 item to like effect, Salon, here. This websearch with regard to Trump on Israel-BDS questions. Same websearch, substituting Rubio for Trump. Two "first ten return" items, here and here. First return item from the Rubio search; Norman Braman mentioned. This item in first ten returned items; Rubio search. Last, same websearch, "Ted Cruz" substituted for Rubio.

Interestingly, that websearch with "Bernie Sanders" substituted for "Ted Cruz" seems to return top hits with a common theme of concern being a common thread. That about raps up front runner search; and now, who cares what the search with "JEB!" would yield?

Truthdig juxtaposes two items, here and here (the latter citing the Alternet item on Clinton-Saban matters), the former quoting and linking to a Guardian item.

Some judge Middle East interventionist wars in our recent history as failures; others might, sub voce, be itching for more of the same. In Marco Rubio's case, sub voce is not the governing term.

It is almost an obligation, given the headline and beginning of the post: same websearch per "Chris Christie," and per "Sarah Palin." That said, returning to the Guardian item, absent its links, it begins:

As Bernie Sanders has risen in the polls, he has been taking increasing heat for some of his apparently vague foreign policy positions and the fact that his campaign does not have a team of establishment foreign policy advisers, unlike typical front-running candidates.

Instead of just questioning Sanders’ choice, we should really be questioning why any of the candidates of either party are employing the same old foreign policy advisers – many of whom not only supported the Iraq war but every disastrous military intervention since. These are the same people who now think that yet another regional war will somehow fix the chaos in the Middle East.

After a series of disastrous wars overseas, we should be looking for someone who has better “judgment” rather than candidates who have “experience” but are calling for more of the same policies in the Middle East that have led us into the mess we’re in now in the first place.

Nothing exemplifies this more than Hillary Clinton seemingly bragging about her foreign policy credentials at Thursday’s Democratic debate by citing her friendship with Henry Kissinger, who Christopher Hitchens called a war criminal. The former Nixon and Ford administration national security advisor and secretary of state is revered in DC foreign policy establishment circles but reviled just about everywhere else for his role in building or perpetuating multiple atrocities in east Asia during the late 1960s and 70s.

As Gawker editor Alex Pareene remarked during the debate: “Never say ‘I was flattered when Henry Kissinger said I…’ unless the end of that sentence is ‘finally made him pay for his crimes.’”

[10:15 AM 2/29/2016: All for now, this post, anything else shall be via a new starting headline-post (except after writing that, the screenshots of the Clinton-Saban letter were taken and then inserted above)]