A Dream and a Song

Saturday morning I awakened early with some anxiety. After dawn I finally got back to sleep. That is usually when I have the most vivid dreams.

Saturday I dreamed that I was back in my college town, and my parents were there to visit me. We were staying in a motel room, and my parents were young like they were when I was in college. I remember at one point in the dream realizing that my father was there (he passed away about eight years ago now), and I hugged him like I never hugged him before. I could feel his soft brown hair on the back of his neck whisking across my face. I didn't want to let go, but soon realized I was waking up and the dream was fleeting away.

There was a song drifting through my mind as I awakened, and tears in my eyes. The song stayed with me through the day, cycling over and over again. I can't remember the tune now, but if you're my age you may identify with my emotions.

I'm so very glad you're here.
I'll be so sorry when you're gone.

That's it, just those simple words. Life is so short and family is so valuable. If you still have parents in this world they're a treasure. If you have kids, let them treasure you while they can. My parents were a gift I did not deserve, but a gift I will never forget, and for which I will always be grateful.

The Misconception of Mrs. Clinton

I would like to comment on a misconception regarding Hillary Clinton. The recently concluded FBI investigation found evidence that she and her colleagues "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." Mrs. Clinton said that this was a mistake in judgment she made for the sake of convenience while running the State Department.

The misconception is that Mrs. Clinton is careless and naive concerning her handling of government secrets. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Reckless disregard for the security of the nation" might be a more accurate description of her conduct. Both she and her husband are extremely intelligent and careful people regarding legal matters, and she took extraordinary measures to keep her communications outside of government purview. Remember that she had months of stalling before turning over the servers that had "somehow been wiped" and had "hard drive failures", so basically the FBI was dealing with only the information she allowed them to see.

The Clintons are Masters of Misdirection. In this case, the misdirection was the embarrassing but not quite incriminating revelation that she compromised top-secret government communications by using personal email servers. That was an enticing bone to throw to the investigators, but it also threw them off the trail of the more important case involving the use of her position in government to solicit donations from foreign sources that would create dangerous conflicts of interest as a top-level cabinet officer and possible future president of the U.S.

Before the more important investigation could occur, the press and the public will lose interest, partly because it is a more complicated story, partly because the real cover-up has been much more effective in this case, and partly because the public and the media will simply become "fatigued" by the constant investigations.

These are the active ingredients in the slick legal coating that covers the Clinton family. Just as the salacious Lewinsky scandal misdirected the media from the story of abuse of executive power to focus on the naughty details of Bill Clinton's personal life, even so the email scandal has been used to change the narrative from corrupt and dangerous liaisons with foreign officials to a so-called careless handling of government emails.

Please understand that if elected, these donations will affect Mrs. Clinton's decisions regarding energy policy and our handling of terrorism and national defense, among a host of other important national issues. And with one pending Supreme Court appointment and possibly two others arising during the next presidential term, along with her husband's earlier federal court appointments, the Clinton family will have complete legal cover for their future actions in the White House.

This next election is NOT about whether we should have the "first female president in American history", or even about electing someone with a better presidential resume. This is about protecting the integrity of our federal government and the future of the republic for which it stands. Our children deserve to inherit a functional democracy as our founders intended, not one that is rigged and corrupted by a family of professional lawyers who know how to dance around the edges of the law.