It’s Wednesday, January 27th, 2016…but before we begin, we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for these news bulletins: first, from Fusion, the joint-venture between Disney and Univision aimed at millennial Hispanics:
“The FBI is investigating whether members of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle “cut and pasted” material from the government’s classified network so that it could be sent to her private email address, former State Department security officials say.
Clinton and her top aides had access to a Pentagon-run classified network that goes up to the Secret level, as well as a separate system used for Top Secret communications. The two systems — the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) — are not connected to the unclassified system, known as the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). You cannot email from one system to the other, though you can use NIPRNet to send emails outside the government.
Somehow, highly classified information from SIPRNet, as well as even the super-secure JWICS, jumped from those closed systems to the open system and turned up in at least 1,340 of Clinton’s home emails — including several the CIA earlier this month flagged as containing ultra-secret Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Programs, a subset of SCI.
...“It takes a very conscious effort to move a classified email or cable from the classified systems over to the unsecured open system and then send it to Hillary Clinton’s personal email account,” said Raymond Fournier, a veteran Diplomatic Security Service special agent. “That’s no less than a two-conscious-step process.”
He says it’s clear from some of the classified emails made public that someone on Clinton’s staff essentially “cut and pasted” content from classified cables into the messages sent to her.The classified markings are gone, but the content is classified at the highest levels — and so sensitive in nature that “it would have been obvious to Clinton.” Most likely the information was, in turn, emailed to her via NIPRNet.
To work around the closed, classified systems, which are accessible only by secure desktop workstations whose hard drives must be removed and stored overnight in a safe, Clinton’s staff would have simply retyped classified information from the systems into the non-classified system or taken a screen shot of the classified document, Fournier said. “Either way, it’s totally illegal.”…”
As regards Geraghty’s conclusion…
“If this is true, the Department of Justice should be spitting out indictments like a Pez dispenser!“
…we have two thoughts: (a) does anyone doubt for an instant the charges are true?!?; and (b) as we voted in our new poll, there’s not a snowflake’s chance in Hell of The Choom Gang’s most infamous member letting it happen.
“I don’ know nuttin‘ ’bout classified emails, Miss Scarlet!”
“The FBI is going straight to the source in its investigation of classified emails that crossed Hillary Clinton’s personal server, speaking with the intelligence agencies – and in some cases, the individuals – that generated the information, two intelligence sources familiar with the probe told Fox News.
Investigators are meeting with the agencies and individuals to determine the classification level in the emails. The step speaks to the diligence with which the bureau is handling the investigation, despite the former secretary of state’s claims that the matter boils down to a mere interagency dispute.
“This is not merely a difference of opinion between the State Department and the Department of Justice,” one intelligence source, who is not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News, referring to comments on the Sunday talk shows and by the Clinton campaign downplaying the FBI’s investigation. “The bureau will go directly to depose specific individuals in agencies who generated the highly classified materials.”
The source added, “At the end of the day it will be a paper case. Emails never disappear because computers never forget.”…”
The former Secretary of State and her staff’s best efforts to the contrary notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, Hillary continues to obfuscate her enormous ass off:
Note the parsing:
“I never sent or received any material marked ‘classified’.” Which we guess is technicallytrue when you closest aides have cut and pasted even beyond top-secret material from a secure government system and emailed them to you via an unsecured private server…but still a crime!
“…but I went ahead, testified for 11 hours, answered all their questions, and even they admitted there was nothing new.” Sure she went ahead; because she’d received a subpoena! As for the committee not uncovering anything new, it’s because she told the same lies as in her first appearance.
“And now, Senator Grassley shows up at a Trump rally in Iowa. He’s the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has…and his staff…have been behind, and, you know, pushing a lot of these stories, and announces he’s there for the simple reason to defeat me!” Talk about an underhanded conspiracy: a member of the opposition campaigning to defeat the other party’s likely candidate for President!
Which just goes to prove there’s lies, damned lie…then there’s Hillary. She’s Bill…minus the talent and charisma, both of which were lost on us.
In a related item, some very insightful thoughts from NRO‘s Andrew McCarthy on…
“…First, there is one other thing you should know about the designations “target” and “subject” — one of those things so obvious it is easy to miss. These are not just random words. They indicate that a suspect is a target or a subject of something.
That something is a grand-jury investigation.
In an ordinary case, that would not be a point worth making.The FBI routinely conducts major investigations in collaboration with Justice Department prosecutors — usually from the U.S. attorney’s office in the district where potential crimes occurred.That is because the FBI needs the assistance of a grand jury.The FBI does not have authority even to issue subpoenas, let alone to charge someone with a crime. Only federal prosecutors may issue subpoenas, on the lawful authority of the grand jury. Only prosecutors are empowered to present evidence or propose charges to the grand jury. And the Constitution vests only the grand jury with authority to indict — the formal accusation of a crime. In our system, the FBI can do none of these things.
No Justice Department, no grand jury.No grand jury, no case — period.As a technical matter, no matter how extensively the FBI pokes around on its own, no onecan be a subject of a real investigation — i.e., one that can lead to criminal charges — unless and until there is a grand jury.That does not happen until the Justice Department hops on board.
Alas, regular criminal-justice procedures have been suspended by the explosive politics of the Clinton investigation. The FBI is doing its professional, apolitical best to investigate the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States. The high stakes rattle not only the Clinton campaign but also the Democratic administration in which Mrs. Clinton worked when she engaged in the work-related conduct being investigated. On the one hand, the Obama administration does not want to be seen by the public as obstructing the FBI; on the other hand, President Obama does not want to be seen by his base as tanking the Democrats’ best shot at retaining the White House — the likely fallout if the Obama Justice Department signals that a formal, very serious criminal investigation is underway.
So Obama is hedging his bets.He is letting the FBI investigate, but on its own, without Justice Department prosecutors and the grand jury.This frees the administration and the Clinton campaign to be, by turns, ambiguous and disingenuous about whether there really is a formal investigation going on.As long as it is only the FBI doing the digging, everyone can play along with the farce: The investigation is very “preliminary,” it doesn’t even have “subjects,” and it may even be a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy sabotage (in which, somehow, the saboteurs are Obama appointees and non-political law-enforcement agents).
I don’t think it’s going to work…”
It’s well worth reading why McCarthy, who worked with and knows James Comey well, stands in stark contrast to the prevailing common wisdom.
Since we’re on the subject of a system which, at least prior to the arrival of the Clintons and Obamas, generally applied equally…at least to Richard Nixon…there appears to be some justice left in America:
“The University of Missouri communications professor caught on video scuffling with a journalist during a November campus demonstration was charged with third-degree assault Monday morning, the Columbia city prosecutor’s office confirmed to FoxNews.com.
…Click has since issued an apology and resigned a courtesy appointment at the Missouri School of Journalism. That appointment allowed her to serve on graduate panels for students from other academic units, the Columbia Missourian reported. But she retained her primary position at the school, though the UM Board of Curators called for her firing just last week.
“While the University of Missouri seems to have no accountability, the judicial system in Missouri does,” Columbia State Representative Caleb Jones toldABC17.“
We’ll see.
Next up, an interesting take on Trump from Steve Berman writing at The Resurgent:
“…We say we want conservative changes, but we also want our Sugar Daddy Uncle Sam to foot the bill, so we keep running back to first base. Every conservative candidate wants to focus on securing our borders, keeping us safe from terrorists, restoring religious liberty, and dealing with taxes.
Ted Cruz wants to abolish the IRS, but then who will collect federal revenue? When President George W. Bush set up the Department of Homeland Security, there was great fanfare–it’s easy to create new agencies. The EPA, Department of Education, Department of Energy, DHS–none of them existed before 1973, and the government was still big even then.
It will take a generation to kick the habit of agency addiction, and no president can do more than cut some fat and slow the growth. Even that will hurt someone who depends on their fix of federal services. They will have to learn to do without, and when babies lose their pacifiers, they cry. Congress hates crying babies (who vote them into office).
I don’t think the country has the stomach for the kind of change it will take to actually beconservative. I think this is the reason Trump is so popular. He talks about all these things, but he doesn’t really mean it. He makes everyone feel better, but everyone really knows–wink, wink, nod, nod–it’s all just talk.”
That…and the fact a significant number of Trumpeters have allowed their feelings and frustrations…
…to override their reason.
Which brings us to the B-9 Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot Memorial…
…segment, and two warnings of fast-approaching peril. First, courtesy of Townhall.com, John Hawkins explains…
“…Since when do conservatives engage in this type of blind loyalty towards ANY politician?
Similarly, Donald Trump talks incessantly about polls that are favorable to him, but the polls have also consistently shown that he loses to Hillary Clinton. Worse yet, his favorable/unfavorable ratings are 33/58. That’s the same as Jimmy Carter in early 1980. It’s WORSE than Walter Mondale. Trump even has a higher unfavorable rating with the general public than Nixon AFTER Watergate. It would be easier to rehabilitate Enron’s image than to make Trump President with those poll numbers.
Saying that a candidate with those poll numbers couldn’t win an election without a miracle is something that anyone who knows something about elections would normally agree on. Yet, with Trump, many people seem unfazed.Basically, they think he’s going to use some kind of “Trump magic” that will guarantee a victory.
…Getting beyond that, early on, I was willing to give Trump an opportunity to flesh out his policies and prove he’s a conservative. Unfortunately, he never did that and there’s little reason to think that a man who has switched political parties 5 times in his life and has never voted in a Republican primary suddenly became a diehard conservative in his mid-sixties. People who wouldn’t buy this from any other politician are swallowing it hook, line and sinker with Trump even though his positions on some issues have switched from week-to-week.
Keep in mind that the most consistent political position Donald Trump seems to have held over the last 15 years is that we need a full government takeover in healthcare, which incidentally, would be WORSE than Obamacare. Trump was still pushing that less than six months ago, but now says he supports a free market plan.Do you believe him? If so, why?
…In 2013, Ted Cruz was leading the fight against Marco Rubio’s gang-of-8 amnesty bill while Trump was talking up amnesty, the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform. Nobody with half a brain in his head would believe any other politician claiming to be tough on immigration if he was fighting for amnesty three years ago. So, why believe Trump?
After having read several of his books, I can tell you that Trump has core principles that he believes in personally and in business, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with politics. Since Trump is first and foremost a dealmaker, what makes you think you’d like the deals someone who doesn’t share your principles would cut on your behalf any more than you liked the deals John Boehner made? What makes you think Trump would be any different than another celebrity like Arnold Schwarzenegger who talked a good game and then ended up governing from the left-of-center once he was in office?
Also, as entertaining and successful as Trump may be, he doesn’t have the right temperament to be President.It’s a serious, sober job and even if you like him, you have to admit that he’s crude, mean-spirited, narcissistic, unpredictable and conspiratorial…”
He left out juvenile and amoral.
Second, writing at NRO, Ian Tuttle pens this alarming announcement to the Trumpeters:
“…Oh, dear heart! We know this is painful. After all, we know how this began. There was Mitch and John (you remember? from Ohio?) and Paul (with the health-care plan!), and those on-again/off-again relationships. But they began ignoring you, you said. They used you, you said, stopped caring about you, were contemptuous of you!And you weren’t wrong.
But you said things with Donald would be different.
Darling, they’re worse! Paul and Mitch and the others wandered, to be sure. But they had plans and principles. And they knew you might walk away.
But Donald, he thinks you’re too foolish! Too weak! And he’s saying it to your face! Your Beloved has declared that he could go on a homicidal rampage through midtown Manhattan and you would still support him. At least when Barack Obama was contemptuous — when he said some people “cling to their guns or religion” — he was talking about the people who didn’t like him!
And, really, how much do you even know about this man? He told supporters just this weekend, “When I’m president, I’m a different person. . . . I can be the most politically correct person you’ve ever seen.” Wasn’t it consistency you wanted — the same, combative man in office as on the campaign trail? Do you think it’s possible he’s been lying to you all this time? Maybe he just wants to get in the White House. You can give your vote away only once. Are you willing to trust him with something so precious?
Look, we know it’s hard. Maybe you don’t know where you will go. Maybe you don’t know who you’ll be without him. Maybe your iPod is in his jet. But it’s okay. There are other candidates out there. We can find one for you. Or you can take a break and stay uncommitted for a bit (like, say, through November).
These relationships happen. Bill Clinton had his swooning ladies and Barack Obama his swooning hipsters. If Hillary Clinton baked live kittens into pies on The Rachael Ray Show, feminists would still support her.
But we think you’re better than that. Dump Trump.Anyone who would treat his voters this way is a loser.“
Unfortunately, as John Heywood so eloquently observed back in 1546, “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know!”
Which brings us to The Lighter Side…
Finally, we’ll call it a day with a little pat on the back to ourselves, courtesy of this comment from an earlier column…
“…But consider the logical extension of Jada Pinkett “We Wouldn’t Know Her Dead in a Ditch” Smith’s Black boycott: after the Academy guarantees Negros a certain number of nominations, who and what’s next? Hispanics? Asians? Indo-Asians? Pacific Islanders? Aleuts/American Indians? What about LGBTs?!?“
“…Under our present racial spoils system, 12 percent of all Oscar nominees each year apparently must be African-American — although so far Latino and Asian groups are not talking of boycotting the Oscars for real under-representation.
Perhaps instead of only Best Actress and Best Actor Awards, we should update and expand those rubrics to better represent our diverse society: Best Black Actress, Best Mixed-Race Actor, Best Latino Gay Actor, Best Transgendered Supporting Actor/ess?“
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