Showing posts with label Hillary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary. Show all posts

Sunday, March 15, 2015

THIS IS WHY Hillary's email scandal captured the media's attention

Because President Jarrett wanted it that way.

Writing at The New York Post, Edward Klein reveals that "Valerie Jarrett leaked to the press details of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail address during her time as secretary of state."

But she did so through people outside the ­administration, so the story couldn’t be traced to her or the White House... In addition, at Jarrett’s behest, the State Department was ordered to launch a series of investigations into Hillary’s conduct at Foggy Bottom, including the use of her expense account, the disbursement of funds, her contact with foreign leaders and her possible collusion with the Clinton Foundation.

Six separate probes into Hillary’s performance have been ­going on at the State Department. I’m told that the e-mail scandal was timed to come out just as Hillary was on the verge of formally announcing that she was running for president — and that there’s more to come.

...“Obama and Valerie Jarrett will go to any lengths to prevent Hillary from becoming president,” a source close to the White House told me. “They believe that Hillary, like her husband, is left of center, not a true-blue liberal.” ... If she gets into the White House, they believe she will compromise with the Republicans in Congress and undo Obama’s legacy.

“With Obama’s approval,” this source continued, “Valerie has been holding secret meetings with Martin O’Malley [the former Democratic governor of Maryland] and [Massachusetts Sen.] Elizabeth Warren. She’s promised O’Malley and Warren the full support of the White House if they will challenge Hillary for the presidential nomination.”

And the media continue to pile on, almost as if they were taking orders from the White House.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION: State Department kept just 61,156 emails of more than 1 billion sent

By Kathryn Watson

EMAIL ISSUES: A new report from the State Department Office of Inspector General finds that hardly any of the 1 billion emails State Department officials sent in 2011, during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, were preserved.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — It looks like Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only one in the U.S. Department of State with email issues.

A new report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General found that employees only archived 61,156 emails out of the more than 1 billion they sent in 2011, a year that falls right in the middle of Hillary Clinton’s four-year tenure as secretary of state.

To put that disparity in perspective, if each email created by the State Department that year were a sheet of paper, the paper stack would be more than 63 miles high, well into the thermosphere layer of Earth’s atmosphere and far higher than any plane can travel. But the archived portion of those emails or papers would only reach about 20 feet high, roughly the height of a two-story building.

“Federal law requires departments, agencies, and their employees to create records of their more significant actions and to preserve records according to government-wide standards,” the report reads.

HEY, N00BS: Laws are for the little people, not the Clintons!

By Investor's Business Daily

Transparency: Hillary Clinton insists she did everything by the book, that she broke no laws and heeded all regulations. That book is obviously not the State Department records management handbook.

The government's book says that you don't get to keep materials, classified or unclassified, in your personal possession and then get to sift through them at your leisure to decide which ones the government that paid you gets to see.

All documents are the property of the government. The State Department determines which ones are returned to you.

As Shannen W. Coffin, a contributing editor at National Review and senior lawyer at both the White House and Justice Department under President George W. Bush, points out, a provision titled "Removal Procedures" requires departing federal employees to relinquish any classified materials at the time of departure and to clear the removal through records-management officials.

State Department employees, from the secretary on down, have to abide by this process.According to Coffin, the records management handbook says, "(The) departing official or a staff member must prepare an inventory of personal papers and non-record materials proposed for removal."

Then the departing official must "request a review of the materials proposed for removal."

On leaving, the official must sign Form OF-109, a formal separation statement, certifying under penalty of law the departing official has "surrendered to responsible officials all unclassified documents and papers relating to the official business of the government acquired by me while in the employ of the (State) Department."

The employee does not get to determine what is classified or not, personal or not, and Clinton's assertion that she never emailed classified material is, as they say in court, irrelevant and immaterial.

Friday, March 13, 2015

The Founders Didn't Fail. We Are Failing the Founders.

By Benjamin Weingarten

Conservatives are understandably depressed in the wake of Speaker Boehner and the Republican-controlled Congress’ predictable caving on executive amnesty.

Let me stop right there by emphasizing that I only said conservatives. Were our republic healthy, every single American would be depressed that President Obama’s amnesty—which on dozens of occasions he said he did not have the authority to enforce—will continue apace to the benefit of lawbreakers at the expense of American citizens.

Americans would be further demoralized at the notion that our president politicized the sovereignty of our nation represented by failing to protect its borders, all in a transparent attempt to win a permanent Democratic majority—which the shortsighted Republican establishment seem perfectly fine with, since they want immigration and the idea of “those racist Republicans” to become non-issues.

Some are lamenting the cowardice of our representatives, and to that I quote a former NFL Coach: “They are who we thought they were!

I have even seen one article arguing that the Constitution itself has failed. But the Constitution and our Founders did not fail. Human nature has not changed between 1787 and 2015. There were undoubtedly plenty of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century booze-swilling, cigar-smoking iterations of John Boehner lumbering around Capitol Hill.

What has changed is the size and scope of government, the number and composition of people who are voting, and the public’s general indifference to and acceptance of the greed, graft, lying, and all matter of corruption that have become commonplace in public life. There is also a heck of a lot more bread and circuses to keep us fat, happy, and distracted from what our supposed leaders are doing.

FORMER DOJ DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Hillary Clinton Broke The Law. Period.

Transcript via Real Clear Politics

MEGYN KELLY: Shannen, good to see you tonight. So, let's start with the broad brush, which is she followed all the rules, all the rules and she didn't commit any crimes whatsoever. You've been maintaining all along that's not necessary -- it's not true on the rules and it may not be true on the law if she concealed or destroyed federal records.

SHANNEN COFFIN, FORMER COUNSEL TO VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: It's demonstrably not true on the rules. She didn't comply with the Federal Records Act. And she clearly did not comply with her own records management handbook for the Department of State which sets out a very specific process about how you remove records from the department control.

PIC: One of her neighbors trolls Hillary

It would be funnier if a felony wasn't involved.



Hat tip: BadBlue News

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Why Obama freaked out when 47 GOP Senators sent a letter to Iran

By Sara Noble

The Hill reported today that the Republican letter to Iran has backfired. They said it jeopardizes the alliance Democrats and Republicans have formed to pass the Iran sanctions bill, a bill that might prove worthless in the end. Once this deal is through, Barack Obama will impede and delay any efforts by Congress regardless of the bill. What the hill failed to consider is the letter successfully sent the message to the Mullahs.

It is what is being lost in all this.

The letter infuriated Barack Obama because it told the Mullahs that any deal must include Congress and the president is not the sole decision maker. It infuriates Obama personally and ideologically to have his power limited.

Forty-seven members of the Republican senate united to make a point and the other seven are uniting to throw them under the bus along with the media.

The seven Republicans who did not sign the letter to Iran are out ripping it along with the Wall Street Journal. It plays into the president’s power over Democrats. The Corker-Menendez bill might now be in danger of not getting the 60 votes needed to pass but the message in the letter is arguably as important.

The Republicans should consider doing what the Democrats and a Hillary Clinton might do – dismiss the attacks and diminish the opposition. Instead of defending themselves, they need to use the opportunity to talk about the seriousness of this lousy deal. They need to make that case and not be distracted.

It’s understandable that some would not want to sign the letter but it is not understandable that they would then attack 47 of their colleagues and give support to the president’s case. If they think siding with the Democrats will get votes, they’re mistaken. They just gave them a platform.

Democrats are now insisting the Republicans denounce the letter on the Senate floor but the letter was 100% accurate.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

No one in the federal government has the slightest idea how to use computers except for Hillary Clinton!

By Yaël Ossowski

Yet again, Americans can rest reassured their government officials don’t really know how to use email. Or technology for that matter. Save for Hillary Clinton, of course.

This has been made more clear after revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her private email address, hdr22@clintonemail.com, during her tenure to conduct State Department business, bringing the topic of email and Internet security back into the national limelight.

It’s claimed Clinton hosted her own email server at home, a practice endorsed by privacy enthusiasts as one of the best ways to avoid the government snooping on your private emails. The irony being, of course, Clinton was one of the country’s most powerful government officials and using this practice.

This set-up allowed Clinton to keep her emails far away from the prying eyes of the Federal Records Act, which requires government officials to keep digital records of their email correspondence. Her staffers only recently disclosed her emails to the State Department for review, according to the Associated Press, and only upon request.

A public probing of Clinton’s email set-up has revealed a staggering ignorance on the part of government officials when it comes to email specifically, and technology more generally.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, declared on national television on Sunday he’s never sent a single email.

BECAUSE, CRUSADES: Kerry, State Department Agree That any Iran Deal Would Be "Non-Binding"

By The Tower

Over the past two days, both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki have admitted that the current nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran is “non-binding.”

Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Kerry said that the deal is not “legally binding.”

“We’ve been clear from the beginning we’re not negotiating a legally binding plan. We’re negotiating a plan that will have a capacity for enforcement,” he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We don’t even have diplomatic relations with Iran right now.”

Kerry made his remarks in the context of addressing what he called the “misconceptions” contained in the open letter released earlier this week that was signed by 47 Senators.

In an exchange with reporters at yesterday’s daily State Department press conference, Psaki was asked how the deal could be non-binding if the United States does not trust Iran. The video is embedded below the transcript.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

20 Funniest Reactions to Hillary's Catastrophic Email Press Conference

Maybe her illegal email server -- which explicitly violates the Federal Records Act -- will turn up in the White House someday like those infamous Rose Law Firm files?



Monday, March 09, 2015

Life Under the American Umbrella

By Caroline Glick

South Korea lives under a US security umbrella. Both on a conventional and nuclear level, South Koreans are dependent on the US to deter North Korea from attacking them and overrunning their country.

Last Friday, US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman scolded South Koreans for being too nationalist. In her words, “Nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy.”

The South Koreans interpreted her remarks as criticism of their President Park Geun-hye for her refusal to reinstate reunification talks with North Korea due to Pyongyang’s refusal to discuss the dismantlement of its nuclear program.

Sherman negotiated the US’s nuclear pact with North Korea in the 1990s. The North Koreans used the deal as a smokescreen behind which they developed nuclear weapons while receiving financial assistance from the US which paid off the regime for signing the deal.

Once Pyongyang was ready to come out as a nuclear power, it threw out the nuclear inspectors, opened the sealed nuclear sites, vacated its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and began testing nuclear bombs.

Sherman is now the US’s chief negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran.

12 Questions Iran Refuses to Answer About its Nuclear Weapons Program

By The Tower

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has questions about twelve aspects of Iran’s past nuclear weapons research that the Islamic Republic has failed to satisfactorily answer, according to an analysis that appeared in The New York Times on Sunday.

These twelve areas of past Iranian research include computer simulations, detonation experiments, and delivery systems for nuclear warheads. While the analysis lists one of the areas of questions as having been discussed and two as “being on the table,” the other nine have not been discussed at all.

The one listed as having been discussed was research into electrically-fired detonators, which Iran explained as having applications for peaceful mining purposes. But experiments involving such detonators are believed to have taken place in the military base at Parchin, and Iran has not allowed a thorough investigation of the site. It has also paved over areas where the experiments are believed to have taken place.

According to the analysis, there is an ongoing debate among Western negotiators over how much weight to give to Iran’s failure to abide by past agreements (including the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action) and come clean about its illicit military nuclear program.

That inner debate, as one European official in the midst of the negotiations put it, turns on “whether to force Iran to explain its past” — especially before 2003, when American intelligence officials believe Iran operated a full-scale equivalent of the Manhattan Project — “or whether to focus on the future.”

American officials are vague when pressed on how fully Iran will have to answer questions it has avoided for years from United Nations inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna. To date, Iran has dodged all but one of the agency’s dozen sharp questions on bomb design.

Sunday, March 08, 2015

OBAMA'S FORMER DEFENSE INTEL CHIEF: Uhm, Of Course Obama Lied About Al Qaeda Being on the Run to Get Reelected

By Sara Noble

People shouldn’t be surprised that Barack Obama continually lies to us. He lied to get elected and the lies were obvious, such as his lie that al Qaeda was on the run.

He’s been selling us snake oil.

To most of us, this is not big news.

Gen. Michael Flynn, who served under Barack Obama as his defense intel chief, was interviewed by Bret Baier of Special Report this past week and it was clear to him that what Barack Obama was saying was diametrically opposed to all we knew was taking place on the ground.

Bin Laden, at the time of his death, was actively running al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was not on the run. “The lines were thicker and the organizations were more robust”. Gen. Flynn said.

Saturday, March 07, 2015

The Death of the American Dream in 22 Numbers

By Michael Snyder

We are the generation that gets to witness the end of the American Dream. The numbers that you are about to see tell a story. They tell a story of a once mighty economy that is dying. For decades, the rest of the planet has regarded the United States as “the land of opportunity” where almost anyone can be successful if they are willing to work hard. And when I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone was living the American Dream. I lived on a “middle class” street and I went to a school where it seemed like almost everyone was middle class. When I was in high school, it was very rare to ever hear of a parent that was unemployed, and virtually every family that I knew had a comfortable home and more than one nice vehicle. But now that has all changed. The “American Dream” has been transformed into a very twisted game of musical chairs. With each passing year, more people are falling out of the middle class, and most of the rest of us are scrambling really hard to keep our own places. Something has gone horribly wrong, and yet Americans are very deeply divided when it comes to finding answers to our problems. We love to point fingers and argue with one another, and meanwhile things just continue to get even worse. The following are 22 numbers that are very strong evidence of the death of the American Dream…

#1 The Obama administration tells us that 8.69 million Americans are “officially unemployed” and that 92.90 million Americans are considered to be “not in the labor force”. That means that more than 101 million U.S. adults do not have a job right now.

#2 One recent survey discovered that 55 percent of Americans believe that the American Dream either never existed or that it no longer exists.

#3 Considering the fact that Obama is in the White House, it is somewhat surprising that 55 percent of all Republicans still believe in the American Dream, but only 33 percent of all Democrats do.

Friday, March 06, 2015

White House Takes Out Two Democrat Critics of its Insane Iran Deal in One Week: Hillary and Menendez

It would appear that the Obama back office is far more competent than its front office.

Lee Smith asks a logical question: "We’ve Known About Hillary’s Email for Years. Why the Hoopla This Week?"

...the public first became aware that Clinton was using her personal email two years ago, in March 2013, when a Romanian Internet activist using the nickname Guccifer hacked into Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL account and uncovered a trove of work emails between the two from and to her personal account...

So, why did it take the Obama Administration two years to admit to what was already known and to then suggest that Clinton’s behavior was reckless and may have even been criminal? And why did it take so long for a major news organization like the New York Times to come up with the big “scoop” it published earlier this week?

Or to put the question another way, why did Hillary Clinton become the Obama Administration’s bête noire this very week, the same one during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled all of the world’s focus onto the issue of the administration’s negotiations with Iran?

The answer is that the two are related: This week’s tarring of Hillary Clinton is part of the White House’s political campaign to shut off debate about its hoped-for deal. It’s not hard to see why they’re anxious. With Netanyahu’s speech forcing lawmakers and editorial writers to face up to the proposed agreement’s manifest problems, the administration fears the prospect of Democrats jumping ship and signing on to Kirk-Menendez sanctions legislation that also would give Congress oversight on the deal. So far, the White House has managed to keep Democratic lawmakers in line, no matter how much they seem to question the wisdom of the proposed deal. Hillary Clinton, gearing up for a 2016 run in which she is likely to put some distance between herself and Obama’s dubious Middle East policies, is the one major national Democratic figure who can give Democrats in Congress cover.

Did someone say "Menendez"?

Thursday, March 05, 2015

CARUBA: Why Hillary Will Abandon Her Run for the Presidency

By Alan Caruba

The revelations, reported initially in the most left-wing newspaper in the nation, The New York Times, that Hillary Clinton used her own private emails to conduct public business, suggests that there are forces within the Democratic Party that do not want her to be its candidate for President in 2016.

It’s not like Hillary did not know she was supposed to use the State Department’s email system for reasons of national security; her private emails could have been hacked by forces unfriendly to the U.S. All government employees are routinely briefed on the laws that require this.

For the record, I am no fan of Hillary Clinton. On September 18 of last year, I wrote a commentary titled “Go Away, Hillary” in which I asked “Other than earning her law degree, name one thing that Hillary Clinton has accomplished on her own. Her accomplishments—slim as they are—have been achieved on the coattails of either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.”

Beyond Hillary, what I object to is the necessity to raise millions with which to secure either Party’s nomination and a billion to run for the presidency. We are electing someone who has literally bought the election courtesy of donors who have made the selection for the rest of us. There is something fundamentally undemocratic about that.

That said, I don’t think Hillary Clinton will run in 2016.

That may surprise you, but it surprises me as well. And, yes, I could be wrong, but the revelations about her patently illegal email use while Secretary of State suggests that there are forces within her Party that want to end her candidacy now rather than later. They are sending her an ominous message.

CLINTON CRIME FAMILY CHRONICLES, PART 7 BAJILLION: Hillary's brother gets exclusive gold mining permit from Haiti after State Dept. gives it billions in your money

Runner-up headline: "How to go from 0 to a $100,000,000 net worth in no time flat":

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a self-described mining company that in 2012 received one of only two “gold exploitation permits” from the Haitian government—the first issued in over 50 years.

The tiny North Carolina company, VCS Mining, also included on its board Bill Clinton’s co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

The Rodham gold mine revelation is just one of dozens featured in a forthcoming bombshell investigative book by three-time New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer, according to a Thursday statement from publishing giant HarperCollins. The publisher says the book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, is the culmination of an exhaustive one-year deep dive investigation into the nexus between the Clintons’ $100+ million personal wealth, the Clinton Foundation, and the decisions Hillary made as Secretary of State that benefited foreign donors, governments, and companies.

VCS’s coveted gold mining exploitation permit was apparently such a sweetheart deal that it outraged the Haitian senate, since royalties to be paid to the Haitian government were only 2.5%, a sum mining experts say is at least half the standard rate. Moreover, the mining project in Morne Bossa came with a generous ability to renew the project for up to 25 years. Nevertheless, the fledgling company proudly touted its luck in landing the deal.


But I'm sure it's just a coincidence, like all of the other coincidences involving the Clinton family's amazing good fortune. Who needs cattle futures when you can buy a gold mine with the American taxpayer's money?


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

REPORTS: Hillary's Use of Covert Email System to Skirt Subpoenas May Constitute a Felony

Geriatric oligarch hacks hardest hit.

The Federal Records Act requires the preservation of any official “record,” which is defined functionally to require preservation whenever a record relates to the performance of a federal official’s duties. There is little question that Hillary Clinton was conducting official business on her private e-mail account...

...the law as it existed before Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, were codified by National Archives Regulations in 2009, which required that any records created on private e-mail accounts must be saved to the federal-records system. And Congress confirmed that in 2013, by adopting a prohibition on the use of private e-mail, unless the employee forwards to or copies an official e-mail account within 60 days of the record’s creation...

...Mrs. Clinton did something here that went well beyond occasional or incidental use of private e-mail accounts. She eschewed the use of an official account entirely, and deliberately established a private e-mail account, apparently maintained on a server in the Clintons’ New York home. As a result, her e-mails were at no time during her tenure in office subject to the Federal Records Act ...

[Despite scores] of Freedom of Information Act requests that would have implicated her e-mails[,] they were never searched, even though a reasonable search of all responsive federal records must be made in response to FOIA requests. And the records would have been relevant to congressional inquiries as well, including continuing investigations of the Benghazi attacks.

Why does that matter? Well, a federal criminal law makes it a felony when any custodian of official government records “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same.” The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison. And interestingly, Congress felt strongly enough about the crime that it included the unusual provision that the perpetrator shall “forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”

I suspect that Lanny Davis just let loose a little dinky in his trunks.

As Flyovercountry observes, "Her crime, my fellow gentle snow flakes, had little to do with email, although that was the vehicle which she used to commit her transgression. Her crime was establishing a subpoena-proof system to hide her dealings on behalf of a public which has a legal right to know what their servant is up to, even before she held the job for which said email was to be used. She committed a covert act, three days before her confirmation hearing to cover up a crime she hadn’t even committed yet, but clearly was planning on committing in the very near future. The holder of the Guinness Wold Book of Records most sleazy crook has witnessed the exploits of Hillary Clinton and declared, “Hell’s Bells, that’s some sleazy stuff!”


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Pro-Nuclear Iran Democrats Throw Temper Tantrums Over Netanyahu's Magnificent Address to Congress

Perhaps because it highlights the contrast between a leader and a community agitator with extremely questionable motives.

A senior administration official told CNN that Netanyahu’s address was “all rhetoric.”

“Literally, not one new idea,” the official told CNN. “Not one single concrete alternative. All rhetoric, no action.”

...The White House expressed its displeasure with the appearance by word and deed, dispatching Vice President Joe Biden on an overseas trip that meant he did not fill his customary seat behind the House rostrum during the speech. Nor did Netanyahu meet at the White House with Obama on his trip to the United States.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel was among those in attendance for Netanyahu’s speech.

The dessicated oligarch known as Nancy Pelosi also stormed out in a huff after a perceived affront, with her face following closely behind.

SCORCHING: Top 20 Quotes from Netanyahu's Address to Congress

Churchillian.

20. For those who believe that Iran threatens the Jewish state, but not the Jewish people, listen to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Iran's chief terrorist proxy. He said: If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing them down around the world.

19. Iran's regime is not merely a Jewish problem, any more than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem. The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were but a fraction of the 60 million people killed in World War II. So, too, Iran's regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also the peace of the entire world.

18. Just last week, near Hormuz, Iran carried out a military exercise blowing up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. That's just last week, while they're having nuclear talks with the United States. But unfortunately, for the last 36 years, Iran's attacks against the United States have been anything but mock. And the targets have been all too real.

17. Iran took dozens of Americans hostage in Tehran, murdered hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, in Beirut, and was responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

16. ...two years ago, we were told to give President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif a chance to bring change and moderation to Iran. Some change. Some moderation... Rouhani's government hangs gays, persecutes Christians, jails journalists and executes even more prisoners than before.

15. Last year, the same Zarif who charms Western diplomats laid a wreath at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh. Imad Mughniyeh is the terrorist mastermind who spilled more American blood than any other terrorist besides Osama bin Laden. I'd like to see someone ask him a question about that.

14. Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls itself the Islamic State. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire.