The Iowa State Fair is drawing a lot of attention this week, and not just for champion hogs, corn dogs and a butter cow. About a hundred candidates for President descended on the fairgrounds. Most arrived by automobile, but one literally descended, in a helicopter. Yes, it was Trump.
The one who got the most attention was Hillary Clinton. The FBI confiscated her infamous email server last week, months after she had it scrubbed clean. (She apparently did not want the public to see any video clips of her doing yoga exercises in her bedroom.) She was asked again if her emails contained any classified documents. She denied receiving or sending any emails marked ‘Top Secret.’ Of course, the State Department has already identified five percent of a sample of her 30,000 emails as ‘Top Secret’.
She’s getting into a quite a bind; she was supposed to turn in the server the day she left office as Secretary of State in 2013. Well, that’s not exactly the truth; she was not supposed to use her private email server for government business. But she did anyway. Maybe she should recall a couple of things I wrote 85 years ago, “If what they call you is hitting at the truth and kinder getting you in your weak spot, why you start hollering and denouncing at once.” (DT #1370, Dec. 14, 1930); and “The truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that could happen to you,” (WA #470, Dec. 27, 1931)
If the FBI and Congress want to know what all was on her email server, they may have to call Vladimir Putin. According to Secretary Kerry, he probably has all her emails. For the right price, Putin might give ‘em up. He’ll probably insist on keeping the yoga videos.
Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
(Will Rogers died 80 years ago, Aug. 15, 1935, at Pt. Barrow, Alaska. Here are highlights from his final three daily newspaper articles.)
“This Alaska is a great country. If they can just keep from being taken over by the U.S. they got a great future. (Fairbanks) is the greatest aviation-minded city of its size in the world. There is only 30,000 white people in Alaska and there is seventy commercial planes operating every day, in winter on skis… There may be some doubt about the Louisiana Purchase being a mistake, but when Seward in 1868 bought Alaska for $7,000,000 he even made up for what we had overpaid the Indians for Manhattan Island.” DT #2815, Aug. 13, 1935
(from Anchorage) “Well, we had a day off today and nothing to do, so we went flying with friend Joe Crosson, Alaska’s crack pilot, who is a great friend of Wiley’s, and Joe Barrows, another fine pilot. In a Lockheed Electra we scaled Mount McKinley, the highest one on the American Continent. Bright sunny day and the most beautiful sight I ever saw. Flew right by hundreds of mountain sheep, flew low over moose and bears down in the valley. Now out to visit Matamuska Valley, where they sent those 1935 model pioneers.” DT #2816, Aug. 14, 1935
(from Fairbanks) “Visited our new emigrants [the Matamuska Colony was set up to give a new start for destitute farm families, and continued to thrive into the 1970s]. Now this is no time to discuss whether it will succeed or whether it won’t, whether it’s farming country or whether it is not… As I see it, there is but one problem now that they are here, and that’s to get ‘em housed within six or eight weeks… it’s just a few weeks to snow and they have to be out of the tents… It’s houses they need right now… You know after all, there is a lot of difference in pioneering for gold and pioneering for spinach.” DT #2817, Aug. 15, 1935