It’s Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016…but before we begin, submitted for your perusal, the results of a weekend internet search for “pathological lying”:

That is, until Google changed the search parameters!  No bias to see here, folks…move along!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of the WSJ, former Attorney General and federal judge Michael Mukasey, a man who knows of what he speaks, details…

The FBI Director’s Unworthy Choice

Comey acceded to the apparent wish of Obama that no charges be brought against Clinton.

“I swear to tell Obama’s version of the truth and nothing but Obama’s version of the truth, so help me Barack!”

We need not worry unduly about the factual void at the center of the FBI director’s announcement on Friday that the bureau had found emails—perhaps thousands—“pertinent” in some unspecified way to its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails while she was secretary of state.

True, we don’t know what is actually in the emails of Huma Abedin, Mrs. Clinton’s close aide, but we can nonetheless draw some conclusions about how FBI Director James Comey came to issue his Delphic notice to Congress, and what the near-term future course of this investigation will be. Regrettably, those conclusions do no credit to him, or to the leadership of the Justice Department, of which the FBI is a part.

Friday’s announcement had a history. Recall that Mr. Comey’s authority extends only to supervising the gathering of facts to be presented to Justice Department lawyers for their confidential determination of whether those facts justify a federal prosecution.

Nonetheless, in July he announced that “no reasonable prosecutor” would seek to charge her with a crime, although Mrs. Clinton had classified information on a private nonsecure server—at least a misdemeanor under one statute; and although she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information such that it was exposed to hacking by hostile foreign nations—a felony under another statute; and apparently had caused the destruction of emails—a felony under two other statutes. He then told Congress repeatedly that the investigation into her handling of emails was closed.

Those decisions were not his to make, nor were the reasons he offered for making them at all tenable: that prosecutions for anything but mishandling large amounts of classified information, accompanied by false statements to investigators, were unprecedented; and that criminal prosecutions for gross negligence were constitutionally suspect.

Members of the military have been imprisoned and dishonorably discharged for mishandling far less information, and prosecutions for criminal negligence are commonplace and entirely permissible. Yet the attorney general, whose decisions they were, and who had available to her enough legal voltage to vaporize Mr. Comey’s flimsy reasons for inaction, told Congress she would simply defer to the director.

That July announcement of Mr. Comey, and that testimony by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, also had a history.

When the FBI learned that two of the secretary’s staff members had classified information on their computers, rather than being handed grand-jury subpoenas demanding the surrender of those computers, the staff members received immunity in return for giving them up. In addition, they successfully insisted that the computers not be searched for any data following the date when Congress subpoenaed information relating to its own investigation, and that the computers be physically destroyed after relevant data within the stipulated period was extracted.

The technician who destroyed 30,000 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails after Congress directed that they be preserved lied to investigators even after receiving immunity. He then testified that Clinton aides requested before service of the subpoena that he destroy them, and that he destroyed them afterward on his own initiative.

Why would an FBI director, who at one time was an able and aggressive prosecutor, agree to such terms or accept such a fantastic story?

The search for clues brings us to an email to then-Secretary Clinton from President Obama, writing under a pseudonym, that the FBI showed to Ms. Abedin. That email, along with 21 others that passed between the president and Secretary Clinton, has been withheld by the administration from release on confidentiality grounds not specified but that could only be executive privilege.

After disclosure of those emails, the president said during an interview that he thought Mrs. Clinton should not be criminally charged because there was no evidence that she had intended to harm the nation’s security—a showing required under none of the relevant statutes. As indefensible as his legal reasoning may have been, his practical reasoning is apparent: If Mrs. Clinton was at criminal risk for communicating on her nonsecure system, so was he.

That presented the FBI director with a dilemma that was difficult, but not complex. It offered two choices. He could have tried to proceed along the course marked by the relevant laws. The FBI is powerless to present evidence to a grand jury, or to issue grand-jury subpoenas. That authority lies with the Justice Department, headed by an attorney general who serves, as her certificate of appointment recites, “during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being.”

However, the director could have urged the attorney general to allow the use of a grand jury. Grand juries sit continuously in all the districts where an investigation would have been conducted, and no grand jury need have been convened to deal with this case in particular. If she refused, he could have gone public with his request, and threatened to resign if it was not followed. If she had agreed, he would have been in the happy position last week of having discovered yet further evidence that could be offered in support of pending charges. If she had refused, he could have resigned.

There is precedent within the Justice Department for that course. During what came to be known as the Saturday night massacre in 1973, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, resigned rather than follow President Nixon’s order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Indeed, on his own telling, Mr. Comey threatened to resign as Deputy Attorney General unless the George W. Bush administration changed its electronic-surveillance program, although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court later approved the feature to which he had objected.

Instead, Mr. Comey acceded to the apparent wish of President Obama that no charges be brought. There is precedent for that too—older and less honorable. It goes back to the 12th century when Henry II asked, “who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” The king’s eager subordinates duly proceeded to murder Archbishop Thomas Becket at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral. That choice—to follow the sovereign’s wish—left Mr. Comey facing only further dishonor if he did not disclose the newly discovered emails and they leaked after the election.

And what of the future? Mr. Comey reportedly wrote his letter to Congress over the objection of the attorney general and her deputy. Thus, regardless of what is in the newly discovered emails, the current Justice Department will not permit a grand jury to hear evidence in this case. And because only a grand jury can constitutionally bring charges, that means no charges will be brought.

Which is to say, we know enough to conclude that what we don’t know is of little immediate relevance to our current dismal situation.

That…and the fact after selling out his country for personal profit, Comey is now attempting to redeem the reputation he himself ruined with a cynically meaningless gesture he knows will accomplish nothing.  Which was the same conclusion we reached immediately upon hearing this modern-day Benedict Arnold was “reopening” the investigation into the Horrid Harpy’s emails.

And remember, as Rich Lowry so eloquently observes in his latest commentary at NRO entitled…

Hillary and Her Enablers Have Made Their Bed, and Are Now Lying In It

The only one Hillary and the Democrats can blame for this mess is Hillary herself.

“Before Democrats burn James Comey in effigy, they should think about how the FBI director came to have an outsized influence in the election in the first place…”

Yes, indeed: from Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Donna Brazile, Harry Reid to Barack Hussein Obama, the Dimocrats, quite literally, ASKED for this!!!

Since we’re on the subject of the most corrupt creature ever to darken the door of American politics…at least since LBJ, BHO and WJC, i.e., her husband….in a related item, also writing at NRO, former U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy wonders…

Why Weren’t Clinton’s Lawyers Prosecuted for Failing to Report Mishandling of Classified Information?

“…There has been a good deal of commentary about the fact that Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, former State Department officials under Secretary Clinton, should not have been permitted to represent Clinton as lawyers in the e-mails investigation: They were subjects of the same investigation; as former government officials, they were disqualified from advocating on Clinton’s behalf; they were barred from representing Clinton by ethical rules applicable to lawyers; and the arrangement was illegal under federal criminal law.

But let’s put all that aside for the moment. There is no doubt that Clinton willfully provided Mills and Samuelson with her e-mails, at least 110 of which (the FBI tells us) were classified at the time they were sent or received. Those include e-mails classified as top-secret and designated as “special access program.” Even if Mills and Samuelson had security clearances, the transmission of such highly classified information to them would have been illegal unless they were read into these limited-access programs and had a government-certified need to know the information.

The same is true of Clinton’s principal criminal defense lawyer, David Kendall. He reportedly has a security clearance, but that is not sufficient to make one an authorized recipient of this kind of intelligence.

On this subject, my column raises a little-noticed provision of federal law that I want to flesh out a bit more. It is not only a criminal offense for government officials to mishandle classified information willfully or with gross negligence. It is also a felony for a persons trusted with security clearances to fail to report to the government that they have learned classified information has been removed from its authorized, secure location and transmitted to an unauthorized person or stored in an unauthorized setting.

When Clinton, Mills, Samuelson, and Kendall reviewed Clinton’s emails – beginning in mid-2014, at the State Department’s request – did they immediately report to the government that classified information had been removed from its proper government repository and stored on non-secure, non-government servers, laptops and thumb-drives?

I’m betting they didn’t. Indulge me for a moment as we consider how a failure to do so would be prosecuted…”

A bet on which we’d willingly place the McKee family fortune; though it’s an amount, thanks to decades of Dimocratic tax increases and almost eight years of Uncle Barack, that is considerably less than it might otherwise be!

Meanwhile, as The Daily Caller reports, for Hillary, the Wikileaks hits just keep on coming:

Hillary’s Two Official Favors To Morocco Resulted In $28 Million For Clinton Foundation

“What’s $28,000,000 between friends?!?”

“Hillary Clinton did two huge favors for Morocco during her tenure as secretary of state while the Clinton Foundation accepted up to $28 million in donations from the country’s ruler, King Mohammed VI, according to new information obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

Clinton and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Lisa Jackson tried to shut down the Florida-based Mosaic Company in 2011, operator of America’s largest phosphate mining facility. Jackson’s close ties and loyalty to the Clintons were revealed when she joined the Clinton Foundation’s board of directors in 2013, just months after she left the EPA. Jackson is also close to John Podesta, Clinton’s national campaign chairman.

Morocco’s state-owned phosphate company, OCP, would ostensibly have benefited from Jackson’s move to shut down Mosaic. Mohammed donated up to $15 million to the Clinton Foundation through OCP.

Clinton also relaxed U.S. foreign aid restrictions on Morocco, thus allowing U.S. funds to be used in the territory of Western Sahara where OCP operates phosphate mining operations. The aid restrictions stemmed from Morocco’s illegal occupation of the territory since 1974.

Morocco is repeatedly condemned for seizing the territory and for unilaterally extracting the country’s valuable minerals, impoverishing what’s left of the local Sahrawi Arabs. No nation recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara and the United Nation’s Security Council legal office and the International Court of Justice both demand that Muhammed withdraw his claim over the territory and end illegal extraction of minerals.

An email WikiLeaks made public last week illustrated how Clinton, while acting as secretary of state, negotiated an additional $12 million donation to the Clinton Foundation from Muhammed in return for holding the 2015 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in Marrakech, Morocco. Another $1 million payment came from OCP to cover the expenses of the CGI meeting.

The regulatory assault against the U.S. phosphate industry began in earnest when Jackson launched a barrage of intimidating regulatory initiatives against Mosaic. Environmental concerns about phosphates date from 1979 but the EPA did little to address concerns related to phosphate mining until Jackson’s 2011 moves.

The regulatory assault on the U.S. phosphate industry encompassed several agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS aircraft flew at low altitudes over Mosaic’s central Florida operations in search of environmental problems. The EPA also threatened large Superfund penalties, which could have bankrupted Mosaic.

Phosphates are essential ingredients in fertilizers used in American farming. Closing or reducing Mosaic’s output would have cost tens of thousands of American jobs and injured the country’s agricultural productivity.

It also would leave the U.S. dependent upon foreign phosphate producers, but particularly Morocco’s OCP. The only other countries that mine phosphates are Russia, China and Saudi Arabia…”

Allow us to summarize the facts of the case: Morocco: whose Sovereign donated $28 million to the Clinton Retirement Fund in return for invaluable phosphate concessions in Africa; Russia: the country to which Hillary okayed the sale of U.S. uranium reserves…in exchange for sizable contributions to the Clinton Retirement Fund; China: the nation to which Hillary’s husband sold military secrets in exchange for campaign contributions; and, Saudi Arabia: an utterly misogynistic, homophobic dictatorship from Hillary and Bill eagerly accepted donations for their grandchildren’s trust fund.

Any questions?  No, SERIOUSLY…ANY QUESTIONS?!?  Even Helen Keller could connect THESE dots!

But despite what’s to us glaringly obvious, for those hoping any of this will make a difference next Tuesday, we’re forced to acknowledge the good news/bad news via PJ Media:

New Poll: 45 Percent Say Clinton Email Scandal Worse Than Watergate

First, the good news:

“A new poll from Politico and Morning Consult found that nearly half of Americans consider Hillary Clinton’s email scandal worse than the controversy which destroyed Richard Nixon (a scandal Clinton herself worked on and learned from).“

Now, the bad:

Forty-five percent of voters said they agreed with Trump’s claim that emailgate is worse than Watergate. Despite this powerfully negative view of Clinton’s email scandal, the Democratic nominee did not lose her lead on Trump in the poll, which was conducted after the latest FBI announcement of new evidence last week.

…The 45 percent of voters who see Clinton’s scandal as worse than Nixon’s represent less than the full amount of Trump’s support, even in a two-way race. Perhaps more revealing, voters ranked Clinton’s email scandal as equally bad as Trump’s sexually aggressive comments about women. This suggests that, rather than being influenced by such scandals, voters have made peace with the negativity of the race.

Thirty-nine percent of voters said the latest FBI bombshell would not affect their vote in November, while 33 percent said it made them much less likely to vote for Clinton. Most of those voters are already aligned against the former secretary of State, however.

Among undecided voters, 42 percent said the news made them less likely to pull the lever for Clinton, including 30 percent who said it made them much less likely to vote for her. Nevertheless, a full 41 percent said it made no difference either way…”

Folks, it may well be there’s nothing Hillary could do or has done…be it giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Iran, acting as Kermit Gosnell’s nurse or kidnapping the Lindbergh baby…which would dissuade a significant segment of the population from voting for her…not to mention the MSM and Dimocratic Party from defending her.  Let’s face it: free sh*t and the unfettered slaughter of unborn babies is THAT important to them.

Think about it: were any Dimocratic candidate for public office suddenly to back an initiative under which live raccoons were subject to unanesthetized vivisection, The Left would rise up in revulsion.  Yet anyone running for any level of American governance who should dare to take a stand for any reasonable restriction on the “right” for mothers to slaughter their unborn babies can kiss their political careers goodbye!

On the other hand, as pollster Pat Caddell notes…

…and the WSJ‘s Holman Jenkins emphasizes, a dramatic shift may well have taken place in which, at least in the eyes of the decisive segment of the American electorate…

Hillary Clinton Just Became the Unsafe Hand

In the last few days, she’s traded places with Donald Trump as the high-risk candidate.

“It’s hard to generalize about Hillary Clinton’s email situation except that she tried to afford herself an extraordinary privilege as a high-ranking official, and then caused for herself exactly the problems (and worse) that she presumably was trying to avoid.

It’s the White House Travel Office, the Rose Law Firm billing records, the Seth Ward option (don’t ask), the health-care task force, etc., all over again.

Mrs. Clinton is a screw-up. And when a trait takes such trouble to announce itself, note must be taken…”

As for The Donald?

To Americans intent upon tearing down a hopelessly corrupt system, he’s looking better by the day!

Which brings us to The Lighter Side…

Finally, this photo from Jeff Foutch serves to combine two two of America’s most timeless traditions:

Magoo