Monthly Archives: October 2016

What Happens Next?

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You’ve all heard that the FBI has reopened the criminal investigation into Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; her use of a private, unsecured email server to conduct State Department official business; and the passage through that system of classified emails, some of which she received copies of, some of which she relayed, some of which she originated, and with at least one of which—after a classified fax transmittal attempt failed—she instructed the originator to strip off the markings and send the thing unclassified through her unclassified system.

What happens now?  Some possibilities occur to me.

  • President Barack Obama (D) instructs his Attorney General Loretta Lynch to halt the renewed investigation
  • Obama pardons Clinton in advance soon, as in before the election in a few days
  • Clinton gets elected with the FBI’s investigation still running, and then Obama instructs Lynch to halt the renewed investigation
  • Clinton gets indicted, likely after the election since even a renewed investigation will take time to run to completion, and Obama pardons her
  • In the unlikely event the investigation survives the interferences and continues until after President-elect Clinton is inaugurated, Clinton has Lynch (her minion rewarded with continuation as AG) halt the investigation, or she pardons herself

Most likely, though, this investigation will peter out with a sham conclusion, just as the original investigation did.

If that last is the case, though, then why would FBI Director James Comey reopen it at all?  My speculation: all those “angry FBI agents” who were disgruntled over the handling of that earlier investigation answered Comey’s “‘twarn’t me” memo with a letter back to Comey containing words to the effect of, “Reopen this investigation and let us do it right, or we’ll resign.  Loudly.”

Which lets the investigation go forward, but leaves Comey, Lynch, Clinton, and Obama in position to quash it at a suitable later time—and with a Clinton administration in place, little recourse for the rest of us.

Clinton’s Emails and Anthony Weiner

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The FBI appears to have no search warrant with which to search the laptop and cell phone(s) that Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s senior aide and close confident Huma Abedin shared with her (now estranged) husband Anthony Weiner (at least as I write this Sunday).

The FBI still must dicker with Loretta Lynch (D) and her Department of Justice:

As of Saturday night, the FBI was still in talks with the Justice Department about obtaining a warrant that would allow agency officials to read any of the newly discovered Abedin emails….

“We do not have a warrant,” a senior law enforcement official said. “Discussions are under way [between the FBI and the Justice Department] as to the best way to move forward.”

The best way to move forward.  Which, of course, includes whether Lynch will allow the FBI to move forward at all.

There’s another item here that comes to mind, though, that stems from this aspect of the investigation of Weiner over his sexting escapades.

Did Weiner have access to any classified government documents on his laptop and iPhone[?]

It seems all too likely that these emails that Abedin has on the shared laptop (if not also on the iPhone (or iPhones—might Weiner have had more than one?)) include emails that have Clinton as a CC (or BCC) addressee, emails TO Clinton, emails FROM Clinton, or some combination of those alternatives.

Whether Clinton-involving emails are present or not, it’s all too likely, also, that at least some of Abedin’s emails that don’t include Clinton in distribution contain classified information.  In either case, it now seems imperative that the FBI include steganographic analyses of the imagery Weiner sent (and received?) on his iPhone(s), and on the shared laptop.

Update: Instapundit is reporting that Bret Baier is reporting that Weiner is cooperating with the FBI, so warrants aren’t needed.  Additionally, the Washington Examiner is reporting that the FBI has obtained two warrants for searching the Abedin/Weiner laptop.

She Lied, and She Abused

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Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lied to the families of the terrorist-murdered Benghazi fallen when she told them they died as a result of a movie-prompted riot, and she lied to the American people when she repeated that lie in more public remarks.

Now she’s planning to abuse the family of a man killed by police in New York City.  Here’s Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, the slain man, on revelations exposed in Clinton campaign emails:

I’m troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed “using” Eric Garner…. Why would you want to “use my dad?”  These people will co-opt anything to push their agenda. Police violence is not the same as gun violence.

And Clinton, through her staff, also targeted the daughter, Erica:

I’m vey [sic] interested to know exactly what @CoreyCiorciari meant when he said “I know we have an Erica Garner problem” in the #PodestaEmails19[.]

Both of these—the lies and the planned abuses—are done solely for personal political gain by a purely political person.

Do we need this in our national government?  Or in any level of our governance?

No Wonder Chelsea Was Upset

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In a newly released memo written by Teneo CEO, President Bill Clinton senior advisor, Clinton Foundation consultant Douglas Band, Band spent 13 pages outlining how he

raised money for the Clinton Foundation from top-tier corporations such as Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola that were clients of his firm, Teneo, while pressing many of those same donors to provide personal income to the former president.

And [emphasis added]

The memo, made public Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department. It describes how Band helped run what he called “Bill Clinton Inc…..”

Bland’s term, “Bill Clinton Inc,” not mine.

This is the level of integrity and the depth of conflicts of interest we can expect if Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is elected in a short couple of weeks.

A Protest for Free Speech

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On Wednesday, the Young Conservatives of Texas club at the University of Texas at Austin held an “affirmative action bake sale” offering cookies at different prices based on the race and sex of the buyer.

A cookie cost $1.50 for Asian males, $1 for white males, and 50 cents for African-American and Hispanic males. Cookies for American Indians of both genders were free of charge.

[The affirmative action link is in the original of the above quote; I included it so readers can see Instagram’s complicity at the time of my writing (27 Oct) in censoring this bit of news.]

That pricing is a direct reflection of the nature of UT Austin’s affirmative action programs, which similarly varies accesses to the school based on ethnicity and not merit.

But never mind that.  The school objected to having its racist policies so blatantly illustrated.  Gregory Vincent, the school’s Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement, had this on the matter:

[F]ocusing our attention on the provocative nature of the YCT’s actions ignores a much more important issue: they create an environment of exclusion and disrespect among our students, faculty and staff[.]

Such dialectics are at the core of freely conducted debate, though.  This university’s management plainly does not understand actual freedoms acknowledged in the First Amendment.

Embarrassingly, Vincent went on, and unable to form a coherent argument on the matter, stooped to attacking the protestors and not the protestors’ argument.

He…questioned the club’s motive behind the bake sale.

This is what our State’s tax dollars are buying, and it’s not education.