Republican Defecters, Reconsider : America and the US Presidency Deserve Better than Hillary Clinton

Republican defecters are emerging, saying they're helping Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. These Republicans have boosted Hillary's campaign and helped focus attention on a GOP in which the rank-and-file Republican voters are increasingly separated from the party elite. Republicans for Clinton include top GOP fundraiser and former tech executive Meg Whitman, former Michigan governor William Milliken, former MGM CEO and GOP donor Harry Sloan and retiring Representative Richard Hanna of New York. A Clinton aide told TheHill that each defection could cause a domino effect of sorts, allowing for other rank-and-file Republicans to endorse Clinton. One Clinton ally said the GOP defections have less to do with an affection among GOP voters for Clinton, and more about distaste for Trump : “We don’t have to do much. Donald Trump is doing all the work for us.” The Clinton campaign is running an ad that criticizes Trump -- featuring former Republican office holders and conservative commentators -- a clear sign that Team Hillary thinks it can win over GOP voters. Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, who hasn't endorsed Trump yet, never thought he’d see the day when solid-red Republicans were committing to Clinton. But he says Trump : “hasn't made the case that he will take the governance part seriously.” However, Bonjean and other Republicans still think there’s a chance that Trump can stop the defections : “If he begins to right the ship and focuses fire on Hillary Clinton instead of interparty fighting or picking on Gold Star families, that may convince some Republicans to give him a chance.” TheHill cites historians who say it’s unclear how many Republicans will jump ship and whether the Democratic nominee will be able keep their support in the long term. Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, says : “We will see how much of a shift there is." Katherine Jellison, a professor of history at Ohio University, predicts that Clinton’s support from Republicans will be short-lived : “We may see it one election cycle and then never see it again, since it’s largely a reaction against Donald Trump." Bonjean also said he doesn’t see a trend : “I don't think Republicans are thinking she'll be a phenomenal President but....these Republicans who are breaking away from Trump would rather have the devil they know than the devil they don't know." TheHill says : "It’s also not clear whether rank-and-file Republicans will follow in the footsteps of office holders who have backed Clinton -- especially with bigger-name Republicans such as Colin Powell, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others not offering an endorsement so far." Zelizer says : “While we have seen some high profile Republican elites who have said they would vote Democratic, it’s unclear how many voters will switch from red to blue especially in such a polarized age. The electorate is much more rigid than it was even in the 1980s, so it's unclear how many will vote for her as opposed to not voting at all.” ~~~~~~ First, fellow conservatives, let us be clear. Any Republican who would consider voting for Hillary Clinton was never a Republican in his or her principles or conviction about the American constitutional form of government. They may have been Republicans because they were in business and wanted to follow their peers. They may have been Republicans because their parents and families were Republican and they followed the pattern. They may have been Republicans because they lived in GOP heartland states or counties where voting Democrat was a waste of a vote because the Democrat never won. They may have been Republicans because they liked Ronald Reagan and joined the GOP because of him without really understanding what he stood for. BUT THEY WERE NEVER COMMITTED TO REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES : rule of law; small federal government exercising only those powers granted to it specifically in the Constitution; citizen self-responsibility; congressional control of the budget with an emphasis on not driving up the national debt through deficit spendiing; military preparedness but without going to war over issues not related to American interests, especially not to undertake foreign regime change; freedom of speech and religion and the right to bear arms guaranteed under the Bill of Rights; and, equality under the Constitution and law of all American citizens, with no preference or discrimination because of race, sex, or religion. Any Republican who favors voting for Hillary Clinton has the absolute right to do so -- but he or she is no longer a Republican and probably never has been. ~~~~~~ Consider a few of the latest quasi-criminal revelations circling around Hillary Clinton. ~~~~~~~ While FBI Director James Comey ripped Hillary Clinton's credibility and honesty apart for her "extremely careless" handling of classified emails while she was Secretary of State, he didn't recommend criminal charges against her. But, Ed Klein says that a source close to Comey told him Hillary is still the target of an active FBI criminal investigation. Comey's agents have been looking into Hillary's relationship with foreign businessmen and governments who donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and are suspected of having received favors from Secretary of State Hillary in return. Klein says : "Such pay-to-play behavior falls under the category of 'public corruption,' and Comey's agents are trying to determine whether Hillary conducted a series of secret meetings with foreign donors while Secretary of State." Klein quotes a source who says several people interviewed by the FBI have confirmed that Hillary did just that on numerous occasions while she was at the State Department : "There are a sizable number of agents on this case. I don't know exactly how many. It's fewer than were assigned to the email case, but it's still dozens of agents." Klein calls it a major investigation, in which Comey is taking every precaution against leaks while the investigation is ongoing, ordering all the agents on the case to sign nondisclosure agreements and submit to random lie detector tests. While this public-corruption investigation is going on, the FBI is also looking into new information that, as a result of Hillary's carelessness, hostile states like Iran hacked into her email system and compromised US intelligence sources and personnel. We can believe Ed Klein's facts, but whether Hillary will ever face justice is another matter. The same President Obama who protected her from criminal charges because of her email activities will undoubtedly protect her again. But, it should make any estwhile Republican who is thinking about voitng for Hillary reconsider. ~~~~~~ Supporting Ed Klein's disclosure of an ongoing FBI investigation of Hillary's pay-to-play activities at State, newly released emails from a top Hillary aide show evidence of contacts between the Clinton State Department and donors to her family foundation and political campaigns. The emails released last Tuesday by Judicial Watch included a 2009 exchange in which Doug Band, a senior staff member at the Clinton Foundation, told a Clinton aide at the State Department that it was “important to take care of” an individual, whose name was redacted. Huma Abedin, Hillary's top State Department aide, replied that "personnel has been sending him options." This apparent effort at job placement may renew criticism of the State Department for being too close to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, despite her and Bill Clinton's signed pledge to Obama not to take actions benefiting her family’s foundation. In 2011, Doug Band became co-founder of Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm with international clients. Abedin at times held overlapping jobs with the State Department, Teneo and the Clinton Foundation, an arrangement that Judicial Watch has questioned through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. In another 2009 exchange released Tuesday, Doug Band asked Abedin and Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury in touch with a State Department "substance person" on Lebanon. The Chagoury Group co-founder has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to a list of donors posted online. When asked about the emails from Band, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said in a statement that "it's not unusual for candidates to be recommended to the department through a variety of avenues" and that department officials "are regularly in touch with a range of outside individuals and organizations." Representatives for the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign have not commented. A lawyer for Abedin has declined to comment. Judicial Watch said it has now found 171 messages that were not included in the 30,000 e-mails Clinton turned over to the State Department. FBI Director James Comey has said that his agency found "several thousand" work-related emails that weren't turned over by Clinton's lawyers. Clinton has told the State Department she believes she submitted all work-related emails she had in her possession, the State Department's Trudeau said in a statement. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the latest group of messages "show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law." Fitton also said in a statement that the interactions "seem in violation of the ethics agreements that Hillary Clinton agreed to in order to be appointed and confirmed as Secretary of State." Will this make any estwhile Republican who is thinking about voitng for Hillary reconsider??? ~~~~~~ "What difference does it make" that Hillary used an illegal unsecured email server? Senator Tom Cotton told CBS "Face the Nation" on Sunday that Hillary Clinton's emails on her private server referencing the nuclear scientist who was recently executed in Iran for treason because of his contacts with the West show that she is "reckless," "careless" and "not suited" to be President. Cotton wants Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to take the conversation back to national security : "What is ultimately going to matter in the long term is not who won or lost a week in the campaign, but whether the American people are safe. I'm not going to comment on what [the executed scientist] may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton's private server, there were conversations among her senior advisers about this gentleman. That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server, and I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe." How about this -- will it make any estwhile Republican who is thinking about voting for Hillary reconsider??? ~~~~~~ Hillary Clinton’s Democratic National Convention acceptance speech was covered with such reverence by the mainstream media that the fact that Hillary delivered a boilerplate speech any hack politician could have written was lost for most Americans. If you weren’t part of the media -- or if you were a supporter of Clinton rival Senator Bernie Sanders -- Clinton’s acceptance speech was a lot less "historic" than the media said. Conservative blogs and analysts are showing pictures of empty seats in the Wells Fargo Center during Hillary’s “historic” speech. How many times did you see a picture of the empty seats in the media? If there had been empty seats at Donald Trump’s speech, it would have been a front page story in every major US newspaper. And it wasn’t just Hillary's empty acceptance speech seats. Despite the media calling the Republican National Convention a second-rate catastrophe, Donald Trump’s speech got 1.2 million more viewers than Hillary Clinton’s -- even CNN acknowledged this. And people still have to be turned away from Trump rallies all over the country because the venues are always full to capacity, while Clinton rallies are often so sparsely attended they could fit into one basketball court. Taking one look at how America is reacting to their campaigns makes it clear that Trump is way up on Clinton in terms of popular excitement. Will this make any estwhile Republican who is thinking about voitng for Hillary reconsider??? ~~~~~~ Dear readers, it has always been true that in politics you should believe nothing you hear and only half of what you read -- except when you read it here on Casey Pops. And, in the 2016 presidential race, the axiom is doubly true. Newt Gingrich is right when he says 95% of the media are full throttle out to destroy Donald Trump. They support the Progressive messages of the Democrat Party and are in bed with its agenda to drastically change America, making it a European-style socialist state. But, that is the very reason to support Trump loud and clear every chance you get. I know how hard that can be because I have to support Trump with Europeans who detest his conservative America First policies. But, I do it gladly. Any Republican who is worthy of his Voter Registration card should be doing the same thing. While the Republicans who are deserting the GOP for Hillary may not have deep enough beliefs or tough enough skin to get out on the stump for Trump, the least they can do is be quiet. Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment was not to speak negatively of any Republican. I add to that my 12th Commandment -- ANY REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT IS BETTER THAN ANY DEMOCRAT PRESIDENT. Why? Because his or her principles will be the right ones. So, to all Republicans who are turning to Hillary -- "What difference does it make?" It makes all the difference in the world. You wouldn't tell your children to be friends with a liar who has broken more laws than we can count. So, why would you, yourself, vote for one? Reconsider -- America and the US presidency deserve better than Hillary Clinton.