Iowa

What we have witnessed over the last week is an amazing rescue operation performed by the mainstream media on behalf of the Clinton campaign. It is similar to the effort that followed the first Democratic Party presidential debate last October when the mainstream spin cycle locked into high gear and created the impression that Hillary won a smashing victory.

For a pure, distilled form of this pro-Hillaryese, go over to FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver's ESPN-owned (The Walt Disney Company) outlet and read his "What Happens If Bernie Sanders Wins Iowa." Silver's argument goes something like this: Yes, Sanders might win in Iowa, and he will likely win New Hampshire, but it means nothing because there is no sign he can win in Dixie. Sanders is not doing enough to bridge his divide with black voters. So he will lose in South Carolina, and he will lose on Super Tuesday. And, oh, by the way, if Sanders can't win in Iowa, his candidacy is cooked, done, kaput.

Silver follows up that piece, which was published Friday afternoon, with one that appeared yesterday, "Hillary Clinton May Win Iowa After All," which argues that Sanders's momentum has stalled and Hillary maintains her lead in the final polls conducted before today's caucus. Silver attributes Clinton's strength to her organizational ground game in the Hawkeye State, and her enduring popularity among Democratic voters.

In other words, according to Silver, Hillary can't lose regardless of the outcome today, and she very well might knock Bernie out of the race. 

This is basically the same snake oil that is being peddled by Silver's former employer, "the newspaper of record," the august New York Times, which endorsed Clinton over the weekend, bizarrely dismissing the Sanders campaign as catering pie-in-the-sky to "alienated middle-class voters and young people," while simultaneously raising up Hillary as the most experienced politician to keep us safe from the Republican bogeymen.

The question comes down to whether there are enough Iowa Democrats willing to be duped; that, or enough caucusing Democrats who are actually pleased with the status quo. The answer to the second question is an easy one. I don't think there are many working-class voters who are ready to sing praises to the present state of affairs. Wages are stagnant. Housing and health care costs continue to rise. And job growth, despite a rosy picture that appears once every few months, has never really pierced a pervasive sense of gloom.

So the question comes down to dupes. Are there that many in Iowa? The polls say yes. But answering a telephone call is not the same as going to a caucus. There is no doubt that Bernie holds the edge in motivation. To this Clintonistas reply that Sanders' support is clustered in urban areas and around college towns, but it is thin in rural areas. 

What is being obscured by the mainstream media smokescreen is the intense revulsion voters feel towards Hillary. If Obama 2008 was a powerful collective hallucination that a better world was possible, Sanders 2016 is a shared gut feeling that the status quo with its huge banks, fraudulent justice and perpetual war is killing us all and therefore must be destroyed.

What is rarely if ever given any ink in the prestige press is that the Obama administration has been an enormous failure. Obama turned out to be a false idol, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is presiding over innumerable undeclared wars. Hillary, by wrapping herself in his mantle, is gambling that Democrats are still in love with Obama. I say no. And even if her gamble pays off and she advances to the general, she has boxed herself in. Obama is more unpopular with the opposing party than any president -- including W. -- going back to Eisenhower.

Bernie wins Iowa. I haven't said anything about Trump because I think he has separated himself from the field recently. Trump wins Iowa. The battle in the GOP then becomes one over who will the party coalesce around to take out Trump. A Rubio vs. Cruz battle is developing to see who will be the main contender.

Menendez is Going to Jail, Unless Hillary Rides to the Rescue

Sometimes it is hard to find a silver lining in the morning's Gray Lady. Not today. Right out on the front page is Matt Apuzzo's wonderful "Senator Robert Menendez Indicted on Corruption Charges." One can almost hear the assholes collectively puckering in Washington D.C.:

The charges revolve around Mr. Menendez’s relationship with Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye surgeon and political benefactor. Dr. Melgen resisted entreaties by the Justice Department to testify against Mr. Menendez and was ultimately charged alongside him.

Prosecutors described Mr. Menendez’s offices on Capitol Hill as a hub of corrupt dealings, a place where the senator used his chief of staff to solicit gifts from Dr. Melgen, find out what he wanted in return and make sure it got done.

The indictment also reveals how the rise of super PACs, unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and subsequent legal changes, have opened a new channel for the wealthy to trade campaign cash for official favors.

Through his company, Vitreo-Retinal Consultants, Mr. Melgen directed $700,000 in corporate contributions to Majority PAC, a super PAC intended to help Democrats retain control of the Senate. Mr. Melgen instructed the group to use those contributions to aid Mr. Menendez’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Among the favors for Dr. Melgen, the department said, Mr. Menendez encouraged the Obama administration to change the Medicare reimbursement policy in a way that would make millions for the doctor. Prosecutors said he also tried to push a port security deal that Dr. Melgen was involved in, and helped the surgeon’s foreign girlfriends obtain travel visas to the United States.

A bribery charge is among the most serious accusations of corruption the federal government can make. Prosecutors often opt to file a lesser charge of accepting a gratuity, which is easier to prove. A bribe amounts to the purchase of an official act, while a gratuity is seen as a way to curry favor with powerful officials.

Mr. Menendez is the first senator to face federal bribery charges since another New Jersey Democrat, Harrison A. Williams Jr., was indicted in 1980 as part of the federal corruption investigation known as Abscam [played by Jeremy Renner in David O. Russell's American Hustle; maybe Menendez can look forward to his moment on the silver screen]. In 2002, an ethics scandal deterred Senator Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, from a re-election bid.

To prove their case, prosecutors must show that Mr. Menendez’s actions and Dr. Melgen’s gifts were explicitly traded. The two men argue that they were longtime friends and that they exchanged gifts as part of that friendship.

“Prosecutors at the Justice Department don’t know the difference between friendship and corruption,” Mr. Menendez said on Wednesday.

The senator’s involvement in Dr. Melgen’s dispute with Medicare is the most damning element of the department’s indictment. Prosecutors cite emails showing that Mr. Menendez’s office was deeply involved in the dispute.

The DOJ indictment raises the possibility of putting the whole sordid, venal system on display. It is a pay-to-play scheme, and Menendez is a skilled, extroverted practitioner. He basically advertised his senate office as a fee-for-service enterprise, soliciting foreigners to bring him their visa difficulties. I have assumed that Menendez has been under investigation for years, if not decades -- but possibly Menendez and Torricelli morphed together in my understanding.

Now that the other shoe has dropped one wonders how long Zionist groups will continue to run their full-page ads extolling the courage and friendship of Senator Menendez.

Unless Menendez pleads out, he is going to jail. His "friendship" defense is ridiculous. Government business is not supposed to be guided by personal like or dislike. Public opinion towards the U.S. political class is at a historic nadir; the same thing goes for the ostentatiously wealthy. If the Menendez case goes to trial, a lot of bombshells are in the offing. That is why puckering beltway assholes are well-nigh audible.

During the Obama years we have seen the creation of a new system of politics. Citizens United was a knee-jerk response to Obama's successful crowdfunding during the 2008 campaign. The rich realized that their overwhelming advantage in a democratic system -- their wealth -- could be neutralized by millions of small donations made via the Internet. The plutocrats dreamed nightmares of Che Guevara riding to power on the World Wide Web.

But after Citizens United no longer is a politician with national aspirations guided primarily by the math of voting blocs. Now the most important math is found in the bottom line of donations made by the super-rich, what is publicly referred to as the "billionaire primary." Candidates trundle off to Palm Springs or Las Vegas and prostrate themselves at the feet of a David Koch or a Sheldon Adelson.

A long, contentious federal bribery trial puts this new system in the spotlight. Everyone knows it is corrupt, spotlighting it will generate calls for reform. The plutocrats would prefer not to have to deal with deflecting such calls. So this morning I am sure the conversation Menendez is having is whether to dig in and wait for a new chief executive in 2017 to spike the DOJ case -- I'm sure either Hillary or whomever the GOP nominates would be amenable -- or, after reaping as many pledges of financial consideration as he can muster, falling on his sword and pleading to a lesser charge, serving out his penalty time in a comfortable federal prison looking out on green hills.