Race for the White House 2016 Volume 30

The past week has seen much continued media attention on Donald Trump, as the celebrity businessman continues to make news by outlandish statements and actions. This week, he got into a dustup with fellow GOP candidate Lindsey Graham, after the South Carolina Senator referred to him as a "jackass." Trump retaliated by reading Graham's personal cell phone number to a crowd and television cameras. That of course prompted Graham to have to get a new phone, an he made the most of the situation by making a humorous video in which he employed several methods to destroy the old phone. All attention is probably the best thing to ever happen to the little recognized Graham Presidential campaign.

In the meantime, Trump continued to threaten to run as a third-party candidate if he is not afforded the appropriate "respect" by the GOP. I believe whether he will eventually take that route or not has already been decided, but what amounts to "political terrorism" will continue.

Hillary Clinton did not really have a good week. In addition to "feeling the Bern" on her left flank, there was a pretty shocking poll out earlier this week in which she is now trailing the three leading GOP candidates, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker in the key battleground states of Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia. Those surveys showed that Clinton's honesty and trustworthy numbers have taken a big hit. Time will tell if these polls were maybe a bit too pro-Republican, but they certainly have raised some question about her electability. Will it inspire other Democrats, such as Joe Biden to look further into entering the race?

Yesterday morning saw a bombshell story in the New York Times, where it was originally reported that two Inspector Generals from the Obama Administration had asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of personal email. The left and the Clinton campaign pressed back hard behind the scenes and the Times eventually changed their story to deflect away from Hillary Clinton personally. Later, the Justice Department released a statement contradicting what they had earlier said and said a criminal investigation was not asked for. Nonetheless, it is clear that classified email was found among the samples of those that Clinton had turned over from her personal server to the State Department, after insisting that nothing classified would be included. Whether the investigation is criminal or not at this point, it is hard to deny that an investigation into wrongdoing on behalf of Clinton is underway, and those sorts of things could theoretically become criminal, such as what happened to David Petraeus. Still, I think it would be pretty darn shocking if the Obama Justice Department were to indict the Democrat Party frontrunner for President during a campaign.

So, for now, Clinton supporters claim the New York Times reported something falsely and that this should be a non-story. Nonetheless, it is clear that statements Hillary Clinton made this year about what was on the email was false, and these sort of things will continue to have a cumulative effect on how the public perceives her honesty and trustworthiness. Questions about her putting American national security at risk would only add to those problems. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out in October, now that she has agreed to testify one time, in public, before Select Congressional Committee on Benghazi. Until that happens, Congressional Republicans will continue to call for Hillary Clinton to immediately turn over her email server to government investigators. All of this should receive a lot of coverage on the Sunday news shows tomorrow morning.

Finally, I just want to speak briefly towards something else that is becoming a factor in the Democrat primary process and that is how the candidates in that are now allowed to believe or say that "all lives matter." Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley had to apologize this past week for saying "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter." Several weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was also criticized for saying "all lives matter" and Bernie Sanders has been confronted by leftist protestors over the matter as well.

This all goes back to the episode in Ferguson, Missouri (putting aside the actual facts of the case) and the cry from civil rights activists and other various leftists to adopt "Black Lives Matter" as a slogan on social media and elsewhere. I certainly agree that "black lives matter" and to the extent that injustices have been done by the police (which was not the case with Michael Brown in Ferguson as it related to his death), then changes need to be made, but certainly black lives should be included among all lives. Is that not what equality is all about? Is that not what Dr. King and many others fought so valiantly against? These days, loud and influential voices on the left demand that their candidates refer to "black lives" as separate than any other kind of life and get very angry for trying to assert that African-Americans should be treated equally.

I just do not understand this kind of political correctness and in fact of course feel it is quite counterproductive, but that is the reality that Clinton, Sanders, and O'Malley are facing as they run as Democrats. Republicans, such as Jeb Bush, have taken issue with that, and said nobody should apologize for saying that "all lives" matter.

So, that is just one of the reasons why I am proud to be a Republican. I want to be part of a party and a country that honors and protects all lives, even those that include people that might be very different than me. Every life around world has value. Every white life. Every black life. Every Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or atheist life. Every native-born American life, every immigrant life, both legal and illegal. Every straight life and every gay life. Every police officer's life and the life of everyone incarcerated. The life of everyone who has been born and the lives of those pre-born. All Lives Matter.