A Fine Bunch - Clinton, Comey, Weiner, Abedin and Obama

FBI Agent : It's a slam dunk case. She was grossly negligent. If she wasn't, there's no such thing. We have to recommend indictment.

Comey : (Thinks silently for a several moments, then asks,) What's a good synonym for "grossly"?

Agent : Hmmmm....How about, "extremely".

Comey : (face brightens) Good. That's good. Now, another word for negligent.

Agent : Ummmm...."careless"?

Comey : (smiles broadly) Yes! Excellent! That's it. She was "extremely careless". And I don't see that wording in any of the relevant statutes. We'll go with "extremely careless".


Within the confined space of a WSJ op-ed, former U.S. AG Michael Mukasey presents the case for Hillary Clinton's indictment on multiple misdemeanor and felony counts and then goes on to bash FBI head James Comey and current AG Loretta Lynch for their dereliction of duty in not bringing the former Secretary of State up on charges.

...In July (Comey) 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 foreign nations -- a felony under another statute; and apparently had caused the destruction of emails -- a felony under two other statutes.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbi-directors-dishonorable-choice-1477863402

Retired CIA officer Charles S. Faddis has no patience for Clinton apologists. --

I have worked in national security my entire life. Most of that has been in the intelligence community surrounded by classified information. For twenty years, I worked undercover in the Central Intelligence Agency, recruiting sources, producing intelligence and running operations. I have a pretty concrete understanding of how classified information is handled and how government communications systems work.

Nobody uses a private email server for official business. Period. Full stop.

The entire notion is, to borrow a phrase from a Clinton campaign official, “insane.” That anyone would presume to be allowed to do so is mind-boggling. That government officials allowed Hillary Clinton to do so is nauseating.

(Faddis isn't quite correct here. Government officials, including Barack Obama, knew of the Clinton email arrangement and did nothing to stop it. Nobody actually "allowed" it. Saying it was approved was just one of Clinton's egregious lies).

Classified and unclassified information do not mix. They don’t travel in the same streams through the same pipes. They move in clearly well defined channels so that never the twain shall meet. Mixing them together is unheard of and a major criminal offense.

If you end up with classified information in an unclassified channel, you have done something very wrong and very serious.

Accidentally removing a single classified message from controlled spaces, without any evidence of intent or exposure to hostile forces, can get you fired and cost you your clearance. Repeated instances will land you in prison.

Every hostile intelligence agency on the planet targets senior American officials for collection. The Secretary of State tops the list. Almost anything the Secretary of State had to say about her official duties, her schedule, her mood, her plans for the weekend, would be prized information to adversaries.

It is very difficult, in fact, to think of much of anything that the Secretary of State could be saying in email that we would want hostile forces to know.

As we wait for more information on the latest revelations, let’s quickly note what we already know Hillary Clinton did.

While Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private email address for official business. Instead of using a State Department account, she used a personal email account, housed on a private server located in her home in Chappaqua, New York. The Department of State exercised zero control or oversight in this process. No government security personnel were involved in protecting them.

When the House Select Committee on Benghazi asked to see these emails, the Department of State said they did not have them. Clinton’s lawyers then went through all the emails on her server. They turned over 30,000 emails they decided were work related and deleted all of the rest.

How they made the decision as to which emails to share and which to destroy remains unknown. Active government officials were not involved in this process.

Hillary says she did not use the account to transmit classified information. This has been proven false. The FBI found over 100 messages that contained information that was classified when sent, including numerous email chains at the level of Top Secret/Special Access Programs. They don’t get any more highly classified, it’s the virtual summit of Mt. Everest. One theme pertained to the movement of North Korean nuclear assets obtained via satellite imagery. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this is extremely sensitive information.

The FBI found another 2,000 messages containing information that should have been classified at the time it was sent. How much more classified information may have been in the tens of thousands of emails, which Clinton’s lawyers erased, is completely unknown.

(Not completely. The Russians and Chinese certainly know. Possibly the Iranians and North Koreans too. Oh, and the British and the Israelis know for sure. Fortunately, the latter two are our friends).

Hillary Clinton supporters like to ask rhetorically, “Well, what about Colin Powell?” Nice try, but using your own private email address which received 2 emails determined to be classified later, is nothing like deliberately operating a home brewed server, and then see it handle thousands of classified e-mails.

It’s like asking, "what about the guy who received a stolen apple?" while equating his actions to those of bank robbers who stole $10 million.

What happens next we do not know. What we do know already is this. While serving in one of the most senior positions in the United States Government, Hillary Clinton was at a minimum, grossly negligent in the handling of classified information and when confronted with this practice, acted immediately to destroy information and prevent a full, fair and complete investigation of any damage to national security.

Anyone else who did such things in the government would long ago have been tried, convicted and sent to jail.

You decide if you want to send her to the White House instead.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/303499-hillarys-emails-matter-a-retired-cia-officer

Meanwhile, Ben Shapiro and Mark Steyn are both having a grand old time analyzing the circumstances of the Clinton scandal's latest revelations.

Shapiro --

http://www.dailywire.com/news/10355/5-reasons-fbis-new-email-investigation-hilarious-ben-shapiro

Steyn --

This passage is priceless --

Thursday's Wikileaks brought forth the revelation that, at the highest levels in the Hillary campaign, senior officials had been wondering what precisely is the difference between credibly accused sexual predator Bill Cosby and credibly accused sexual predator Bill Clinton. My post on the topic prompted Professor Larry A Feig of Tufts University to write to me:

Cosby drugged women you asshole
Larry A Feig, PhD
Professor of Developmental, Molecular & Chemical Biology
Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences
Tufts University

I'm not a PhD, but I think there should be a comma between "drugged women" and "you asshole".

Two points to Professor Feig:

1) You should have sent your response to Hillary campaign official Ron Klain, senior foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan and campaign chair John Podesta, who were the ones trying to agree to a line on this particular topic.

2) Still, thanks for giving us the view from one of America's most prestigious safe spaces. If I understand Professor Feig correctly, the critical distinction is that it's totally unacceptable to sedate your victims so they wake up afterwards wondering what the hell happened, as opposed to ensuring they remain conscious for every violent, traumatic moment of the rape. "Zzzzzz" means "no", but "no" means "sure, go for it, just make sure I stay awake." You might want to put some ice on that theory, professor.*

http://www.steynonline.com/7577/occam-weiner

*I'm at risk of ruining the line by explaining it, but here Steyn is alluding to the Juanita Broaddrick rape allegation against Bill Clinton. "Put some ice on that", he told her after chewing up her lip.

And lastly -- From Time magazine (!!) -- Unless this is a parody, and I don't think it is, the writer is irredeemably stupid. And insane. Between the lunatic left and the alt-right, it's clear why we get the candidates we do.

http://time.com/4551711/hillary-clinton-emailgate/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

What Can One Say But...Obama!

Salieri : Mozart, it was good of you to come!
Mozart : How could I not?
Salieri : How... Did my work please you?
Mozart : I never knew that music like that was possible!
Salieri : You flatter me.
Mozart : No, no! One hears such sounds, and what can one say but... Salieri!

Another happy Obamacare customer (At least the notice is honest. "...Open access POS")--

The repercussions of Obama's "smart" power --

                  Syria bombs school ; 35 dead, including 20 children

Across Russia, 40 million civilians and military personnel just finished up emergency drills aimed at preparing the general population for nuclear or chemical-weapons attacks --

         Soldiers dressed in hazchem gear carry victims of an attack away from the scene

Another Obama "legacy" -- The Iran capitulation --



















The Obama administration disclosed to Congress that it transferred a total of $1.7 billion in cash through Swiss banks to Iran around the time American hostages were released this year, about four times the amount originally disclosed to the public.

...Between January 2014 and July 2015, when the Obama administration was hammering out the final details of the nuclear accord, Iran was paid $700 million every month from funds that had previously been frozen by U.S. sanctions.
A total of $11.9 billion was ultimately paid to Iran, but the details surrounding these payments remain shrouded in mystery, according to Mark Dubowitz, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
In total, “Iran may have received as much as $33.6 billion in cash or in gold and other precious metals,” Dubowitz disclosed. 

Ah, money well spent...

...Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are believed to be behind a series of incidents this month that saw surface-to-surface missiles fired at the USS Mason on at least two occasions.

And Obama loses...the Philippines?!

Rodrigo Duterte, a self-proclaimed socialist with close links to communists, announced in Beijing the Philippines' 'separation' from the United States, throwing into doubt a 70-year alliance that is anchored on a mutual defense treaty

..."America has lost now. I've realigned myself in your ideological flow," he told business leaders in Beijing on Thursday. "And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It's the only way."

With Australia and Japan next ?! --

Australia has slipped into neutral gear in the South China Sea, saying it won’t participate in any joint naval exercises there. Japanese officials worry that U.S. weakness in dealing with China will mean Beijing’s plans for turning the East China Sea into a Chinese lake may be unstoppable.


But at least Obama is "saving the earth" -- 

Earlier this month, employees of the Environmental Protection Agency, acting in their official capacities, caused one of the largest waste spills in recent history.

For almost a week, a torrent of toxic sludge, the color of hot mustard and rife with poisonous metals — has been flowing through Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.

(Not) For the birds -- "sustainable" energy

And next in line -- HRC and her gang.

Kevin Williamson --

James Comey, the contemptible bureaucrat who apparently is running the show at the FBI these days, just informed Congress that the agency plans to reopen its investigation into the question of Mrs. Clinton’s covert e-mail system, the classified information that passed through it, the contents of e-mails that were improperly kept from investigators, and more. “The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote to Congress, which means that the FBI is finally catching up with the gentlemen in Moscow and Buzzfeed. Hurrah for the feebs.

The recent WikiLeaks release is hugely entertaining reading. Vexed by the Clinton circle’s lack of e-mail security, Clinton aide Cheryl Mills wrote to John Podesta — in an e-mail, for pete’s sake! — “We need to clean this up.” Clean what up? “He” — President Barack Obama — “has emails from her. They do not say state.gov.” You’ll recall that President Obama, whose dishonesty is at least as instinctive as Richard Nixon’s was, said that he knew nothing about Mrs. Clinton’s e-mail shenanigans until he learned about the situation on the evening news. “I first heard about it on the news” is his standard line on practically everything. If, God forbid, the man should one day come down with testicular cancer, he’ll learn about it from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at 7 p.m. on a slow-news Wednesday on CNN.

Remember that this mess started with the invasion of an e-mail account belonging to Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton sycophant. If you and your gang were in hot water because you could not keep your secret e-mails secret, what on earth would possess you to put a such a confession — a confession of what looks for all the world like conspiracy to obstruct justice – into an e-mail?

English is going to need a stronger word for stupidity.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441586/hillary-clinton-corruption-fbi-investigation-election-outcome

Go Blue!

Some good news for a change. Apparently, there's been a positive reaction to Kaepernick's deplorable stunt.

Liars Lie

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."
White House web page, 2009

Barack Obama repeated some variation of this 37 times while campaigning for the ACA. The left-leaning fact checker, Politifact called this the "Lie Of The Year", 2013.

On October 29, 2013, NBC News reported that 50 percent to 75 percent of the 14 million Americans with individual healthcare plans would receive a cancellation notice in the next year.


"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."
Barack Obama, 2008

"Not only are premiums lower than they were, they're lower than the most optimistic predictions."
Barack Obama, 2013

"The average premium for a family in an employer-sponsored plan in 2008 was $12,680. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, for 2016, annual premiums for an average family are now beyond $17,500."
Jim Geraghty, 10/2016

"Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Barack Obama's health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday.
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVARBefore taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services."

Associated Press report, 10/24/2016

KW with a primer on why Obamacare didn't work --

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441432/why-obamacare-doesnt-work

The Contemptible, Loathsome, Hateful, Detestable, Reprehensible, Abhorrent, Heinous Candidate

And Donald Trump is not any good either.

How Hillary Clinton treats the people sworn to protect her life with theirs. Deroy Murdock documents a few examples.

“I’m not voting for Clinton,” Air Force staff sergeant Eric Bonner posted on Facebook in July.

“It’s because she actually talked to me once. Almost a sentence,” wrote the Air Force K-9 handler. “I got to do a few details involving Distinguished Visitors.”

“One of my last details was for Hillary when she was Secretary of State,” Bonner continued. “I helped with sweeps of her DV quarters and staff vehicles. Her words to me?”

According to Bonner, Clinton told him, “Get that f***ing dog away from me.”

“Then she turns to her security detail and berates them up and down about why that animal was in her quarters,” Bonner added. “For the next 20 minutes, while I sit there waiting to be released, she lays into her detail, slamming the door in their faces when she’s done. The Detail lead walks over, apologizes, and releases me. I apologize to him for getting him in trouble. His words, ‘Happens every day, Brother.’”

“Hillary doesn’t care about anyone but Hillary.”

“Stay the f*** back, stay the f*** away from me!” the then-–First Lady screamed at her Secret Service agents. “Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f***ing do as I say, okay!!?” Clinton demanded, according to former FBI agent Gary Aldrich’s Unlimited Access, page 139.

“If you want to remain on this detail, get your f***ing ass over here and grab those bags!” Hillary yelled at a Secret Service agent, as Joyce Milton reported in The First Partner, page 259. The officer explained in vain that he preferred to keep his hands free, in case a threat arose.

“Good morning, ma’am,” a uniformed Secret Service officer once greeted Hillary Clinton.

“F*** off!” she replied, as Ronald Kessler documented in First Family Detail, page 16.

“Put this back on the ground!” Hillary Clinton screamed at the pilot of presidential helicopter Marine One. “I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need my sunglasses! We need to go back!” Clinton so abused the chopper’s crew that they christened it Broomstick One.

Also in Dereliction of Duty, its author — Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson (Ret.), who carried the “nuclear football” — recalled hearing “volleys of expletives” erupting from Hillary’s mouth. He also lamented “the Nazi-like edge that emerged when she was around.”

“Where is the goddam f***ing flag? I want the goddam f***ing flag up every f***ing morning at f***ing sunrise,” Hillary snapped at state trooper Larry Patterson at the Arkansas governor’s mansion on Labor Day 1991, according to Ronald Kessler’s Inside the White House, page 246.

“Good morning,” an Arkansas state trooper said to Clinton, according to American Evita, by Christopher Andersen, a former contributing editor with Time magazine.

"F*** off!” Hillary told him and his fellow bodyguards. “It’s enough I have to see you s***-kickers every day! I’m not going to talk to you, too! Just do your goddam job and keep your mouth shut.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441367/hillary-clinton-security-detail-curses-foul-mouth

The Continuing Outrage

Since this cannot be repeated often enough...

Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies during her tenure as Secretary of State and escaped prosecution only because the current president is as corrupt as she is.

Andrew McCarthy with yet another devastating critique of our next president, comparing her treatment with that of the recently prosecuted General James E. Cartwright.

Here's an extensive excerpt, but the entire piece should be read.

...Compared with Clinton, Cartwright is a piker. As the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin reports, Cartwright appears to have been a “confirming” source. That is, reporters from the New York Times and of Newsweek already had the Stuxnet intelligence (from some other leaker whom the administration has not prosecuted). Cartwright merely acknowledged the information’s accuracy — and, he says, only after it had appeared in published news reports. His claimed purpose was to prevent additional intelligence from being published to the detriment of our national security. This does not excuse his conduct, but it may go a long way toward explaining why the Justice Department charged only a felony false-statement count, not a classified-information offense.

Clinton, by contrast, willfully set up a homebrew e-mail system. Given that the secretary of state’s duties preponderantly involve intelligence matters, this made it inevitable that classified information would unlawfully be transmitted and stored on non-secure servers (i.e., outside the multi-layered protection of the government’s classified communications system). Thus did the FBI find, for example, that of the 110 e-mails on Clinton’s non-secure system that were — contrary to her claims — classified at the time she sent or received them, eight involved top-secret information.

What does “top secret” mean? Under the executive order signed in 1995 by Mrs. Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, it is information the mishandling of which “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” With such an enormous level of threat, extraordinary restrictions on access are imposed to limit the possibility of exposure. That’s why the government generally comes down like a ton of bricks on offenders, or at least offenders not named Clinton.

Even these extraordinary measures, however, are deemed insufficient when the information is designated as “SAP” (“special access program”) — as seven of Mrs. Clinton’s were. Because mishandling top-secret SAP programs could expose either intelligence-gathering efforts that are critical to protecting American lives or intelligence sources who gravely imperil themselves in order to acquire life-saving intelligence for the United States, access to such information is on an even more extremely limited “need to know” basis. Yet, Clinton made them vulnerable to everyone.

Fully 36 of Clinton’s e-mails fell into the “secret”-information category. That designation applies when information “could be expected to cause serious damage to national security” if transmitted or stored in an unauthorized manner. “Serious” is not as weighty as “exceptionally grave,” but it is, well, serious. That’s why people usually get prosecuted for compromising it. Unlike Cartwright, Clinton did not just communicate with a couple of reporters who already knew the information in question. She made previously concealed intelligence massively vulnerable to capture by foreign intelligence agencies and hackers.

...That brings us back to “(C),” the designation that applied to at least seven of Clinton’s e-mails at the time she sent or received them, and that now covers thousands more because government intelligence agencies adjudged them too sensitive to disclose publicly. Again, “(C)” does not really stand for “Cartwright” or indicate alphabetical ordering. It is, instead, the designation for “confidential” information that, if mishandled, could “cause damage to the national security.” This means its mishandling is a significant offense, even if the damage is not likely to be “exceptionally grave” or “serious.” That’s why its compromise often results in prosecution, or at least severe sanctions such as termination of employment or loss of security clearance.

In light of General Cartwright’s prosecution for lying about his mishandling of classified information, it is worth revisiting Mrs. Clinton’s representation to the FBI that she did not know what “(C)” meant.

For four years, Clinton was secretary of state, a job in which classified information is stock-in-trade. On starting her tenure, Clinton signed a document acknowledging that she had “received a security indoctrination concerning the nature and protection of classified information.” In the last paragraph, right over her signature, Clinton acknowledges that she has been provided with the aforementioned executive order signed by her husband in 1995 — the one that explains, in painstaking detail, what classified information at the confidential level is.

Naturally, when later asked about it by the FBI, Clinton denied any recollection of this security indoctrination. Yet in her memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton vividly recounts receiving thorough training to guard against the omnipresent danger of espionage. Indeed, she recalled that, when she traveled, she and her staff would leave “BlackBerrys, laptops — anything that communicated with the outside world — on the plane, with their batteries removed to prevent foreign services from compromising them.” Further, based on the training she’d gotten, she took to reading intelligence information

"inside an opaque tent in a hotel room. In less well-equipped settings we were told to improvise by reading sensitive material with a blanket over our head."

These mountains of documents she scrutinized involved such matters as the Snowden leaks, the NSA program, the Libyan civil war, Mubarak’s fall and the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise, the Saudi role in 9/11, the Iraqi nuclear and missile programs, the Benghazi siege, the arming of “rebels” in Libya and Syria, the deterioration of Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and on, and on. And that’s not the half of it. Before heading the State Department, she spent eight years in the U.S. Senate, most of that time as a member of the Armed Services Committee. It was wartime, and the major national controversies centered on classified information. She therefore had to pore over intelligence that, for example, supported the Iraq invasion, was derived from interrogations, measured the success of the “surge,” and so forth.

If there is one thing Clinton has emphasized in her presidential campaign, it is her “readiness.” Whether she was on Capitol Hill or at Foggy Bottom, she wants you to know, she was never the phone-it-in type. She did all her homework, and then some.

If there is one thing Clinton has emphasized in her presidential campaign, it is her ‘readiness.’ Well, in those classified documents she studied lo those dozen years, the “(C)” designation is ubiquitous. It often appears numerous times in a single document — even on a single page. Yet, despite spending a decade-plus as a daily, top-level consumer of classified information, Clinton looked a room full of FBI agents and federal prosecutors in the eye and told them she didn’t know what the “(C)” designation meant.

Mrs. Clinton has told many preposterous lies, but that has to be the most outrageous of the lot.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441358/hillary-clinton-secretar-state-emails-classified-information-fbi-justice-department

Principled Conservatism

Jonah Goldberg at his best...

Facing a skeptical, if not quite hostile, crowd at Hillsdale College (no less), Jonah forcefully defends his Never Trump position with passion, clarity and humor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNbXqQ1IeIs

A more relaxed Goldberg discusses What Is Conservatism? as part of a panel. Listening to this, (and the Hillsdale video), I realize that he is the person closest to being my philosophical guru.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL7ilna67Ws&spfreload=5

The Obama-Clinton Criminal Conspiracy

Andrew McCarthy reviews the appalling failure of the FBI and the Obama DOJ to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for her felonious activity as Secretary of State. This is a summation of McCarthy's numerous writings on the subject. Consult those for more detailed discussions.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016-10-24-0100/hillary-clinton-fbi-obama-administration

From NR Editors -- The latest revelations from the Obama-Clinton email scandal.

The Clinton e-mail scandal is also the Obama e-mail scandal. Because the president’s e-mails would be admissible as evidence in the event of a Clinton prosecution; because it would then become clear that the president himself had sent classified information over a non-secure e-mail server, the communications of high-level executive officials with the president being presumptively classified; and because the president could not formally invoke executive privilege without tacitly admitting Clinton’s guilt — the president could not let any prosecution go forward. Huma Abedin’s requesting a copy of a Clinton–Obama e-mail exchange from investigators suggests she was canny enough to grasp the point at once.

It will be years before the details of this tangled saga are fully known; they may never be. But we know enough to predict that a Clinton administration would be like an Obama administration: rotten from the top down.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441187/wikileaks-podesta-emails-obama-administration-clinton-email-scandal

Jonah Goldberg --

In a normal election year with a normal GOP nominee, the WikiLeaks revelations might prove fatal to Clinton’s candidacy. Instead, it seems almost a sure thing that they will poison Clinton’s presidency for years to come. The allegations of pay-for-play between her foundation and the State Department, her speeches to Wall Street, the animosity of some of her closest advisers for Catholics: All of these things will have a long half-life. As will her manifest lies about the use of her private server.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441184/wikileaks-emails-hillary-clinton-revelations-presidency

The big takeaway from the final Trump-Clinton debate is that Trump continued to refuse to say that he would concede defeat if the voting didn't go his way. "I'll keep you in suspense", he said. This is, of course, an egregious affront to the legitimacy of the electoral system, and a not so subtle call to violence by supporters so inclined. But aside from that, there is probably a significant cohort of undecided voters who are intrigued by Trump's threat to "keep them in suspense" and would vote against him just to see if he'd follow through.
What a moron.

The aforementioned Andy McCarthy is one person who thinks that the outrage over Trump's ambiguity about accepting the election results is being blown way out of proportion --

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441272/accepting-election-result-much-ado-about-nothing


Jim Geraghty --

Trump wasn’t fueled to the top of the GOP presidential primary by his ideas and agenda. He was fueled by his decades of status as a celebrity and reality-show host, a long history of appearances on Fox News, enthusiastic support from figures like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Matt Drudge, and the decision of the cable-news networks to cover a lot of his campaign events live, something they never did for any of his rivals. (He was also helped by the fact that the GOP primary electorate never faced a binary choice between Trump and one of his rivals, because John Kasich really, really, really needed to demonstrate that he could be elected president of Ohio.)

James Kirchick (Daily Beast) lists who he considers the top 25 collaborators enabling Donald Trump's rise to the GOP nomination. Kirchick includes some groups (e.g. - the 14 million Trump primary voters) and institutions (e.g. - the RNC) on his list. Two blameworthy candidates not mentioned are Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/19/the-unforgivables-trump-s-top-collaborators.html

Mona Charen is listing on Twitter some of the good guys - conservative writers and politicians who fought against a Trump nomination from the beginning and who've held firm throughout the campaign. Here is my compilation. I'm sure I'm leaving out many deserving others.

Writers and Commentators -- Jonah Goldberg, Kevin Williamson, Stephen Hayes, David French, Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro, Jay Nordlinger, Mona Charen, Jim Geraghty, Leon Wolf, Charles C. W. Cooke, Caleb Howe, Erick Erickson, Stephen Miller, Dan McGlaughlin, John Podhoretz, Ian Tuttle, Rich Lowry, Bret Stephens, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Noah Rothman, John Ziegler, S.E. Cupp, Glenn Beck, James Kirchick, Matt Walsh, Charlie Sykes, Guy Benson, Katie Pavlich, Jay Cost, Ross Douthat, Richard Epstein, and the King of Twitter, David Burge.

Politicians -- Mitt Romney, Lindsay Graham, The Bushes - George H. W., George W., and Jeb, Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, Mike Lee, Mark Kirk, Susan Collins, Larry Hogan, Carly Fiorina. There are others who have wavered somewhat but remain mostly opposed. A fuller list (as of June) is linked here --

http://www.dailywire.com/news/6472/heres-your-full-list-republican-politicians-who-aaron-bandler

John Kasich is a special case. Though he has consistently and resolutely refused to endorse Trump, his failing to exit the primary race long after it was clear he had no chance, did much to help Trump secure the nomination by splitting the anti-Trump vote.

One prominent conservative writer who backs Trump over Hillary is Mark Steyn. As usual, he presents a strong case --

http://www.steynonline.com/7564/laws-are-for-the-little-people

And another (who Steyn quotes in his article) is Victor Davis Hanson --

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441126/donald-trump-conservatives-should-vote-president

It is understandable that quality thinkers like Steyn and Hanson would support Trump when one considers the horrendous alternative. I understand, I just don't quite agree, that there would be an appreciable difference in negative consequences by electing either Trump or Clinton. They're both awful in different ways. However, saying that Trump is the lesser of two evils is far different than saying that he was a superior, or the superior candidate in the GOP field. The short, understated response to that argument is, No.

The Anti-Defamation League has identified the most frequent targets of anti-Semitic tweets this year and leading the pack by far is the estimable Ben Shapiro with 38% (!!) of the total, about four times his nearest competitor. Shapiro is justly proud of his achievement, knowing that he's annoying the right people.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/10064/6-thoughts-being-1-journalistic-target-jew-hatred-ben-shapiro

In another article, Shapiro predicts that whoever is the GOP's next presidential candidate will be stigmatized as "worse than Trump". This is undoubtedly true.

He is the worst major-party candidate in history.

He’s a gaffe machine. He’s an evil racist who wants to return black people to slavery. He’s a brutal sexist who wants to return women to the subservience of the 1950s.

He’s a nasty warmonger who doesn’t get the fundamental intricacies of modern foreign policy, with the Manichean worldview to match. He’s an old homophobe with a history of cruelty to workers.

Think we’re talking about Donald Trump?

No, we’re talking about Mitt Romney circa 2012. That’s how the media painted one of the most honorable men ever to run for the White House, the creator of Romneycare, a northeastern Republican with a penchant for compromise and negotiation. Mitt Romney, the left claimed, was no John McCain — that halcyon of moderation and decency.

Now, of course, the media tells us that Donald Trump is a massive departure from the legacy of John McCain and Mitt Romney. He’s beyond the pale! He panders to racists! He’s a vicious sexist and sexual assaulter! He’s uninformed, unstable, ignorant, stupid! Why, compared to Mitt Romney, the man’s a monster!

Much of this may be true in a way it simply wasn’t about Romney. But by 2020, Donald Trump will be the new standard of civility and decency according to the Left. If Republicans nominate a real conservative, Democrats in the media and politics will immediately label that candidate far more extreme than Trump. They’ll pine for the wonderful days when a career Democrat such as Trump could win the Republican nomination — a man who said he liked Planned Parenthood, wanted to expand entitlement programs, backed government-sponsored maternity leave, wanted to close tax loopholes, didn’t care if men used ladies rooms! That Trump — boy, was he a moderate. But this New Guy — what a terror! What a horror!

...Such cries will be replayed and amplified in 2020 no matter who Republicans nominate, because presumably Republicans won’t repeat the mistake of nominating a Democrat. Democrats in the media would prefer two Democrats battling it out for the White House. This is their favorite election ever: not only do they get a Democrat running against a Democrat posing as a Republican, they get to castigate the Democrat posing as a Republican as a racist and sexist, then smear other Republicans with him.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441232/donald-trump-media-least-favorite-republican-until-2020

And last, but far from least...Kevin Williamson penned a letter to the future President Clinton with recommendations regarding the 2nd Amendment. Kevin routinely writes brilliantly. This piece surpasses that high standard.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441229/hillary-clinton-gun-control-advice-prosecute-straw-buyers

Testing A Vow

Lost amidst the continuing Trump trainwreck are the truly devastating revelations forthcoming almost daily from the WikiLeaks release of Hillary Clinton's and her cronies' e-mails. Andrew McCarthy's latest in his series of detailed analyses of these damning documents shows that Barack Obama's involvement in the scandal precluded any serious attempt make a criminal case against the former Secretary of State.

Among the most noteworthy of the hacked e-mails from John Podesta’s accounts is an exchange in which Podesta consults Clinton consigliere Cheryl Mills about the private e-mail exchanges between President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As readers may recall, I have long maintained that the principal reason why Mrs. Clinton was not prosecuted, despite a mountain of evidence that she committed felony mishandling of classified information, is the fact that Obama engaged in the same kind of misconduct. The president’s use of a private, non-secure channel to discuss sensitive matters with high level officials may not have been systematic, as Mrs. Clinton’s was. (Obama’s disturbing use of an alias, however, suggests that Clinton was not the only one he was privately e-mailing.) Nevertheless, the fact that the president was e-mailing Clinton means he not only participated in her misconduct but also that the Obama-Clinton e-mails would have been admissible evidence in any criminal trial of Clinton.

For the parties to prove such culpable conduct on the president’s part in a high-profile criminal trial would have been profoundly embarrassing to him, to say the least. Therefore, it was never going to happen. As I’ve noted before, after exclaiming, “How is that not classified?” upon being shown an Obama-Clinton e-mail by the FBI, Hillary’s confidant Huma Abedin asked agents if she could have a copy of the exchange. She obviously realized that if Obama had been communicating on Clinton’s non-secure server system, no one else who had done so was going to be prosecuted for it.

...Try this for a theory: Since President Obama had used an alias to discuss sensitive matters on Clinton’s private, non-secure e-mail system, had then falsely denied knowledge of that system, and had decided to conceal his e-mails with Clinton from the public, the Justice Department knew that no one was ever going to be prosecuted anyway. The Justice Department and the FBI could rationalize cutting otherwise inexplicable deals that they would never cut in a case they were actually trying to make because they knew there was not going to be a case — not against Mills, not against Clinton, not against anyone.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441115/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-emails-wikileaks-john-podesta-concern

Also -- How about this from John Podesta, writing, in private of course, about the Iran nuclear deal...

"This agreement condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf… This is the greatest appeasement since Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler."

This is a remarkable statement coming from one of Obama's most trusted advisors. "...nuclear war in the Persian Gulf."!!!! And publicly, Obama is still claiming the agreement is a great success.

Another remarkable revelation from the FBI Clinton investigation --

A top State Department official offered a bribe — a “quid pro quo” — to an FBI official in an attempt to declassify certain emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server that were previously deemed classified, according to FBI documents released Monday.

The documents allege Patrick Kennedy proposed the deal in exchange for the FBI being allowed to operate in countries where they’re currently banned.

David Burge tweets --

"The most amazing thing about this: one executive branch department offering bribes to another executive branch department."

The Obama-Hillary (Bill-Chelsea-Mills-Abedin-Podesta-Holder-Lynch-Comey-Kennedy-Lerner-Koskinen-Gruber, etc, etc, etc) Regime is rotten to the core, making it damn hard to remain NeverTrump.

And how about this whopper from HRC...

"I am not going to add a penny to the national debt"

I'm currently taking bets. Anyone? I'll give you 10-1 odds. Make it 20-1. 50-1?

And finally -- The battle to retake Mosul in Iraq from ISIS has reportedly begun. This is the same Mosul that GW Bush had won nearly a decade ago and Obama gave back in return for being able to falsely claim, during his re-election campaign, that he ended the war in Iraq.

Oh, one more thing -- Jonah Goldberg with the Quote of the Week --

I honestly can’t get my head around the fact that Hillary Clinton’s closing “argument” in this election is sexual harassment. Bill Clinton’s lifelong enabler has managed to turn this topic into a deadly weapon against a Republican nominee. This is like Godzilla turning public safety into a winning issue in the Tokyo mayoral race.

She SHOULD Be In Jail

Far from "criminalizing politics", Donald Trump's call for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton's disregard of federal law was the highlight of his campaign (admittedly a low bar to clear). It is the politicized Obama justice department that deserves the Banana Republic label.

Andrew McCarthy (who else?) sets the record straight. --

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440917/donald-trump-special-prosecutor-hillary-clinton-debate?target=author&tid=900151

And Jim Geraghty (NRO) reports that the vast majority of FBI career agents investigating the Clinton email case concluded that she should be prosecuted.

Assuming that this is true, the country would be well-served if these figures came forward and said this publicly. If that act causes these career prosecutors and agents to be fired, then those of us who want the truth need to find a way to support them and give them other career options. If, as these career agents and attorneys on the case are alleging, the FBI is no longer capable of investigating allegations of crimes committed by high-ranking elected officials, the public needs to know and the crisis in the rule of law needs to be solved.

The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.

The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General’s office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys from the DOJ’s National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.

“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute — it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.

A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, “It was unanimous that we all wanted her [Clinton’s] security clearance yanked.”

“It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted,” the senior FBI official told Fox News. “We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said ‘but we are doing nothing,’ which made no sense to us.”

Isn’t this precisely the sort of situation that whistleblower protection laws are created to address?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441037/it-safe-say-vast-majority-felt-she-should-be-prosecuted

The real tragedy of this election is that Republicans were this close to achieving a once-in-a-lifetime governance monopoly - House, Senate, President, Supreme Court and large majorities in state governorships and legislatures. All lost because one ignorant, dimwitted, racist, sexist, narcissistic, childish Democrat convinced a bunch of uninformed fools, fellow racists, ranting pundits and washed-up politicians to buy into his celebrity and con man act.

Now we're consigned to four or eight more years of the world that Obama-Clinton-Kerry made, with headlines like these (and worse to come) --

"Fiscal crisis warning as deficits rise, debt set to hit $20T next year"

"Fail: Expert Says Obamacare Might Be on the Brink of Total Collapse"

"U.S. Seen on Wrong Track by Nearly Three-Quarters of Voters"

"Islamic State Expands as Libya Descends into Chaos"

"Russia deploys nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad"

"Iran deploys warships off Yemen after US, Houthis trade fire"

"Chinese newspaper threatens 'military confrontation' with US in South China Sea"

"Report on Syria conflict finds 11.5% of population killed or injured

Syrian Centre for Policy Research says 470,000 deaths is twice UN’s figure with ‘human development ruined’ after 45% of population is displaced"

And with scenes like this --

Don't worry, BO's got it covered

And his successor is waiting in the wings

...ready and anxious to implement destructive policies, such as the recently concluded (and not ratified by Congress) Paris Climate Agreement.

Bjorn Lomborg --

At a cost of between $1 trillion and $2 trillion annually, the agreement, recently ratified by China, is likely to be history's most expensive treaty. It will slow the world's economic growth to force a shift to inefficient green energy sources.

This will achieve almost nothing.

...Even if every nation were to fulfill all their carbon-cutting promises by 2030 and stick to them all the way through the century -- at a cost of more than $100 trillion in GDP -- global temperature rise will be reduced by a tiny 0.3°F.

An exemplary "progressive" project -- Spend lots of money benefitting the left's sponsors (in this case the "green" industry), producing no positive results, while doing great damage to free markets - the engine of human advancement.


Added 10/15 -- Andrew McCarthy reiterates his support for prosecuting Clinton and chastises Charles Krauthammer for siding with the "Trump is criminalizing politics" crowd. McCarthy states the case even better here than he did in his original article.

Mrs. Clinton appears to have committed serious crimes that undermined both national security and recordkeeping rules designed to promote accountability in government. If you want to talk about a truly profound threat to democratic norms, that’s the place to start. Obviously, these offenses are not just relevant but essential to the political case that should be made against Clinton, and would be by any opponent, not just by the unconventional, undisciplined Trump. Also pertinent is the fact that government officials who engage in Clinton’s type of misconduct do go to jail — to refrain from stating this would be to diminish the gravity of the crimes.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441105/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-jail-prosecutor-debate-fbi-emails

Krauthammer's article -- http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441054/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-lock-her-up-threat-democracy

Glass House

Donald Trump is garbage, but as Mona Charen points out, Democrats have no standing -- None. What. So. Ever. -- to criticize his misogyny.



Hillary Clinton --

Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed and supported.

This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president.


Juanita Broaddrick --

I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73….it never goes away.

How many times must it be said? Actions speak louder than words. DT said bad things! HRC threatened me after BC raped me.

Hillary calls Trump's remarks "horrific" while she lives with and protects a "Rapist". Her actions are horrific.


What Bill Clinton did to Broaddrick was not merely "rape", but "Rape-Rape" (a ridiculous distinction made by Hollywood airhead Whoopi Goldberg regarding Roman Polanski's molestation of a 13 year old girl).

BROADDRICK: I was completely dressed. I had a skirt and a blouse. He tore the waist of my skirt. And then he ripped my pantyhose. And he raped me. It was very vicious. I was just pinned down... I did not know what to do. I was so frightened. I was only 35 at the time. And it was horrible. I just wanted it to be over with. So he would go away.

KLEIN: He got up?

BROADDRICK: No, he held me down for a long time. And then he did it again. I was so ready for him to leave me alone, when he started raping me again. And it was very brief... And he did get up and he straightened himself. And my mouth was bleeding and it was hurting. And he just straightens himself and goes to the door.

KLEIN: With you still on the bed?

BROADDRICK: Yes, crying. He straightens himself and he goes to the door. And puts on his sunglasses. And tells me to get some ice on that on my lip. And goes out the door... He would push down on my left clavicle and it hurt so much I thought my clavicle was gonna break. And my lip was just ballooning out four times the size that it should have been.

KLEIN: While he was raping you?

BROADDRICK: Yes.

Here's the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHh73fkDUIs


And hey, let's not forget the "Lion Of The Senate" (From Michael Kelley's, "Ted Kennedy On The Rocks") --

It is after midnight and Kennedy and (Christopher) Dodd are just finishing up a long dinner in a private room on the first floor of the restaurant’s annex. They are drunk. Their dates, two very young blondes, leave the table to go to the bathroom. (The dates are drunk too. “They’d always get their girls very, very drunk,” says a former Brasserie waitress.) Betty Loh, who served the foursome, also leaves the room. Raymond Campet, the co-owner of La Brasserie, tells [waitress Carla] Gaviglio the senators want to see her.

As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd’s lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. Kennedy, Dodd and their dates leave shortly thereafter, following a friendly argument between the senators over the check.


And, for some comic relief --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9FCSDo_t_Y

The World Obama Made

Ed Morrissey (Hot Air) --

"Deliberately targeting civilians by military operations is clearly a war crime, although one has to show intent in order for the charges to stick. Accidental targeting doesn’t count as a war crime, as the US has correctly argued in a couple of unfortunate incidents of our own. The campaign in Aleppo is very clearly intentional, and neither Bashar Assad nor Vladimir Putin seem terribly concerned about hiding that fact. Assad wants the rebels in western Syria out of Aleppo and to surrender completely, and he’s willing to commit mass murder to get his way. His father Hafez made the same point in Hama in 1982, and Bashar Assad more or less presaged this in Homs two years ago.

Why do the Syrians and Russians think they can act with impunity? Because the Obama administration made it clear that they could. Barack Obama drew a “red line” over the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military in 2012, warning that it would draw a military response from the US. Neither Obama nor then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did anything to bolster Congressional support for military action, and when the Syrians called his bluff a year later, Obama retreated. Faced with a revolt in Congress over potentially starting a war for what Kerry described as “unbelievably small” attacks on Assad and after claims that the military option was the only choice left, Obama suddenly turned to Russia to resolve the chemical-weapons issue. It didn’t help that Obama himself walked back much tougher language coming from Kerry in the confrontation.

As many warned at the time, Obama’s humiliating flip-flop not only destroyed his credibility abroad on Syria, it also signaled to Russia that they could eclipse us in the Middle East and elsewhere. Not long after this, eastern Ukraine and Crimea fell to Putin, and our NATO allies in eastern Europe began to wonder whether they’d be next. Putin cut deals with Iran to allow for the use of their bases to extend his military operations, and of course Putin has carved out his own large niche in Syria, which also benefits Iran. The red-line retreat was an unmitigated disaster.

So yes, Kerry’s correct that in a world where it would be possible, Russian and Syrian leaders would face consequences for their brutal war crimes. Unfortunately, that’s not possible in the world created by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry."

http://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/07/kerry-time-war-crimes-tribunals-assad-maybe-putin/

The Libertarian Case For A Strong Military

Kevin Williamson --
                                                      

"The American military presence around the world is the result of a set of policies that are neither self-sacrificing, as Trump imagines, or deviously self-interested, which is the usual criticism made by the Left. Ersatz nationalists of the Trumpkin variety and left-wing anti-Americans both are blinded to the actual nature of that policy, because both are blinded to the actual nature of the United States, which is this: It is good. Not perfect, but not merely better than the alternatives offered up so far by history.

The comparative claim is easy to make: A world in which the Allied forces prevail, led by the military and economic might of the United States, is inarguably preferable to a world in which Adolf Hitler and his imitators prevail. A world in which the United States wins the Cold War is preferable to one in which there is only stalemate, or — incalculably worse — dominated by the Soviet Union. A world dominated by liberal government and international cooperation is preferable to one dominated by totalitarian Islam or backward South American national socialism on the Chávez model.

But the United States is not merely representative of something better than those approaches; it is representative of something good. It is, irrespective of the alternatives, in and of itself a force for liberty, decency, human dignity, and human flourishing, and it has been for centuries."

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440710/trump-nationalism-diminishes-american-greatness

Thanks For This, BLM