American Wasta

In his thinking person's spy thriller, I Am Pilgrim, author Terry Hayes discusses the wreckage (economic, intellectual, and cultural) that is the Muslim Arab Middle East when he writes about Saudi Arabia. As an example, he uses wasta—an Arabic word that means corruption within and around the government, its bureaucracies, and its people. It implies bribery but also connotes more widespread influence peddling. Hayes writes:

"In the absence of democracy and efficient bureaucracies, wasta is the way the Arab world works—it means connections, influence, a web of old favors, and tribal history. With wasta, doors—even to palaces—open. Without it, they remain forever closed."

When I read those sentences, I couldn't help but think about the direction our country is moving with the likely election of Hillary Clinton—call it American Wasta.

Kim Strassel reports on the latest Wikileaks bombshell revelations (read the whole thing) with a summary statement:

In an election season that has been full of surprises, let’s hope the electorate understands that there is at least one thing of which it can be certain: A Hillary Clinton presidency will be built, from the ground up, on self-dealing, crony favors, and an utter disregard for the law.

This isn’t a guess. It is spelled out, in black and white, in the latest bombshell revelation from WikiLeaks. It comes in the form of a memo written in 2011 by longtime Clinton errand boy Doug Band, who for years worked simultaneously at the Clinton Foundation and at the head of his lucrative consulting business, Teneo.

Strassel goes on to describe the unethical and near-criminal self-dealing that enriched the Clintons from the very big money interests that Hillary sanctimoniously condemns on the stump. Early in this campaign I asked how the Clintons—a couple with no private sector jobs and no company ownership went from broke to a $100+ million net worth in 15 years. Now we know, and it isn't pretty. In fact, it stinks to high heaven!

The Wall Street Journal writes:

This excerpt [Band's description of the inner workings of The Clinton Foundation]and all the potential conflicts it describes, plus Chelsea’s warning about business “hustling” at foundation events, would seem more than ample cause to trigger an IRS audit of the foundation. For that matter, why aren’t the IRS and prosecutors already on the case? Any normal foundation has to keep records to show it is separating its nonprofit activity from any for-profit business.

But, of course, the IRS has been compromised by the Obama administration and is now weaponized to attack only the opponents of Obama, Clinton and the progressives. And if you think its bad and corrupt now, just wait.

With Clinton's likely victory, the elites will have triumphed—their connections and influence remaining safely intact; their horrendously bad decisions and policy unassailable. The web of old favors will remain as solid as ever. The "friends of the Clintons" will have access while others will have little or none. Bribery—in the guise of donations to a sham charity along with excessive speaking fees for the Charity's directors—will flourish, and the "tribe" made up of the Democrats and their media sycophants will vanquish all others.

America Wasta—get ready for it. It's coming on January 20th.

UPDATE:
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The Wall Street Journal writes in the same editorial noted above:

It’s also worth noting that in the vast digital trove of Mr. Podesta’s stolen emails we haven’t noticed emails from Mrs. Clinton. Perhaps they don’t exist. But American voters shouldn’t worry merely about the emails released before the election. What emails or memos exist that these hackers, Russian or not, could be withholding for leverage after the election with another President Clinton?

The Clinton campaign has suggested that Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putin because the Russian has something on the Republican. The question is what do any number of possible bad actors know about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s mixing of business, charity and politics?

Looks like the WSK editors have finally caught up with those of us who have been concerned that Hillary's 33,000 missing emails (you know, the ones about "grandchildren and yoga") have been hacked (a 100% certainly, given the Wikileaks evidence) and will become fodder for blackmail from very bad actors. They write:

It’s also worth noting that in the vast digital trove of Mr. Podesta’s stolen emails we haven’t noticed emails from Mrs. Clinton. Perhaps they don’t exist. But American voters shouldn’t worry merely about the emails released before the election. What emails or memos exist that these hackers, Russian or not, could be withholding for leverage after the election with another President Clinton?

The Clinton campaign has suggested that Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putin because the Russian has something on the Republican. The question is what do any number of possible bad actors know about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s mixing of business, charity and politics?

Hillary has already demonstrated she will do anything to stay in power. If blackmailed (a very real possibility) with hacked email written in her own words and indicating criminal wrong-doing or explosive dishonesty (say, about Benghazi), I have no doubt she would sell-out her country to stay in power.

UPDATE-2
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After discussing the main stream media's continuing attempts to protect Hillary Clinton from the awful implications of the Wikileak's document by suggesting the Julian Assange and the Russians are the bad guys in all of this, Timm Amundson writes:

... a paradox exists that cannot be ignored. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the mainstream media are all telling us that Putin and Assange are the bad guys. Bad guys they might be, but in effect they are providing information to the American people that Clinton and Obama do not want them to have, because if the American people have this information, they would not approve of what Clinton and President Obama have done.

Color me reactionary, but I don’t think Putin and Assange are the folks we should be most concerned about right now. They are only influencing the election based upon larger disclosure of the facts. Clinton, Obama, and the media are influencing the election based on attempts to suppress and distort the facts.

Clinton and her trained hamsters in the media are desperately trying to run out the election clock. But the wrong doing described in the Wikileaks documents will dog Clinton well into her presidency.