[Observer] After years of holding herself above the law, telling lie after lie, and months of flat-out obstruction, HIllary Clinton has finally produced to the FBI her server and three thumb drives. Apparently, the server has been professionally wiped clean of any useable information, and the thumb drives contain only what she selectively culled. Myriad criminal offenses apply to this conduct.
Anyone with knowledge of government workings has known from inception that Hillary's communications necessarily would contain classified and national security related information. Thanks to the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community, it is now beyond dispute that she had ultra-Top Secret information and more that should never have left the State Department.
Equal to Ms. Clinton's outrageous misconduct is that of the entire federal law enforcement community. It has long chosen to be deliberately blind to these flagrant infractions of laws designed to protect national security--laws for which other people, even reporters, have endured atrocious investigations, prosecutions, and some served years in prison for comparatively minor infractions.
#1
If you or I had done this, we would have been hauled in front of a judge on Spoliation of Evidence, and Conspiracy, at a minimum as well as the relevant parts of the Title 18 U.S. Criminal Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. (f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Posted by: Steven ||
08/15/2015 1:52 Comments ||
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#4
They are turning on their own. There can only be one reason why the Feds have, at long last, been unleashed. The problem is much, much larger and pervasive than has previously been reported. She's gone totally off the reservation and it has become public knowledge. We may be seeing only the ugly fringes of corruption and wrongdoing.
#7
See lawerly lamp-throwing female
Who spins such a transparent sea-tale
Hit tempered-glass ceiling
By classified squealing
And wiping invisible email.
#11
I suspect it would take more selflessness, grace, and dignity than the Hildebeest could possibly muster.
Agreed, Besoeker. And of course, there are no Elders of Zion, either male or female, to argue the case. But it is a lovely fantasy that didn't merit a post of its own.
#14
Cough up for the Countess Hillary Duckess of Death
And pay for her every last breath
To finance your liege
And her noblesse oblige
Or she'll do you like English Bob Lady Macbeth.
#15
Back in the good old days, the SECSTATE or the SECDEF would have assumed everything they say or write down has some national security implications.
You can't conduct your business as SECSTATE without something in that business either being or becoming classified. That is the tough nut. What you talk about today may be FOUO but in a week or so after a couple of discussions, the TS curtain will have to drop as the discussion morphs and progresses.
NOTHING she said in her email can be considered "innocent" everything has an implication...and a good Intell specialist can take a bunch of unclassified stuff and piece it together and find out what is going on.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
08/15/2015 17:01 Comments ||
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#16
@#13 - Reduce the vowel count by one, and I'm with you.
The Good Men Project is a male feminist website, BTW. Summary: More government is good for you:
I am pro-gun, pro-constitution and anti-violence. I despise that innocent men, women, and children are losing their lives to this kind of mass gun violence in theaters, churches and schools. I despise that our inner cities are riddled with minority on minority gun crime. I despise that our second amendment rights are are (sic) justly being questioned, as most civilized folk are desperate to stop the cycle of gun crimes.
I also hated that the State of New Jersey engaged in a vicious campaign, to unfairly and improperly take my rights away. I am likely the only person you have heard of who fought hard, paid 100,000 dollars in the process all the way up to the Supreme Court with no help from the NRA or anyone. I fought hard and won.
The overwhelming majority of gun related crimes are committed with guns that have been stolen, and traded for drugs. Those guns are passed from criminal to criminal, sold and resold, and may very well be used in hundreds of crimes before they are recovered from someone accused of a crime. From gun blog: Here.
Some guns are "ghost guns," guns manufactured abroad (illegally) and smuggled into the U.S. and sold illegally to thugs and criminals.
A gun registry is a liberal "feel-good," knee-jerk approach to more gun control where politicians pass legislation to give the impression they are doing something when in reality they are doing nothing. A gun registry is another piece of legislation that is aimed at people who are law-abiding--just another piss-off piece of clap trap legislation heaped upon more of the same.
#4
To me, the biggest problem with gun registries is that it gives the government a list of gun owners so that it can go confiscate guns whenever it decides it wants to do so.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/15/2015 11:46 Comments ||
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#5
Hahahahhahahhahahahahhaa!
I suppose, since his recommendations will end all gun violence, that he would be happy repealing all other gun restrictions on the books in exchange for enacting his platform?
[DAWN] EVEN when compared to the recent string of errors and misjudgements by the MQM, the decision to quit parliament and the Sindh assembly stands out as a particularly unwise move.
The frustration and anger of the MQM leadership is apparent. There may in fact be some truth to the MQM allegations that the police and paramilitary crackdown on the party has led to unlawful actions against party members.
Illegal detentions and torture in jug are not unheard of in the country. But if that is really the reason why the MQM has decided to resign from the assemblies it surely does little or nothing to address the MQM's complaint.
The military-run operation against criminal elements in the MQM looks almost certain to continue. Once outside parliament and the Sindh assembly, the MQM will really have no platform from which to press its complaints. If anything, the party will be in an even worse position than it is right now.
Perhaps the MQM should also reflect on why it is unable to garner much public sympathy, especially outside its base.
The MQM is a legitimate political party with a genuine voter base, but the party does have a dark side. At various points in the party's history, its murderous Moslem wing has virtually eclipsed the political side.
the increasingly plumpAltaf Hussain ..The head of MQM in Pakistain, who has lived in London and hasn't laid eyes on Pakistain since Caesar made corporal. Judging from the size of him,he may be a Hutt... and senior party representatives have always denied all allegations of violence and extortion, but the denials are not really credible. The denizens of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... in particular are all too familiar with how the party has used violence and intimidation to perpetuate its control of the city.
Blanket denials did not convince anyone in the past and they are unlikely to now. Consider that at no point has the MQM actually helped or aided the state in its quest to track down and arrest those who have kept entire neighbourhoods in a state of fear for many years, perhaps even decades.
Yet, even with the MQM's non-cooperation and belligerence, it should not be allowed to needlessly destabilise national politics.
The federal government, possibly Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... himself, have done the right thing in not encouraging the speaker of the National Assembly to act immediately on the sudden move by MQM politicians. Just a week ago, it was the MQM that was trying to use its parliamentary prerogative to have the PTI ousted from parliament. That is hardly the sign of a party that finds assemblies to be pointless and irrelevant.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] EVENTS of national importance such as Independence Day or March 23 are marked by citizens in a variety of ways.
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the appropriation of these occasions by hard boy outfits is a troubling trend. While all groups should be allowed to freely express themselves, the line must be drawn when outfits believed to have links with militancy or that promote a violent worldview use national occasions and other platforms as a chance for a show of strength.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... is one amongst a number of such groups: over the last few years the organization -- which, as per the government's own admission, is on the 'watch list' -- has used national occasions to display its street power. This Independence Day was no different as JuD staged rallies in Lahore, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and other cities under the banner of the 'ideology of Pakistain'.
The Lahore event was addressed by JuD supremo Hafiz Saeed ...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat... . Other groups, most notably the ASWJ, a reincarnation of the banned SSP, and some rebranded 'jihadi' outfits, have also used national occasions to show their street power and 'patriotism'.
In a related vein, politicians in the Senate on Wednesday raised the issue of banned outfits re-emerging with new names and identities, including that of 'charity' organizations.
As the PPP's Farhatullah Babar pointed out in the upper house, this puts a cloud over the state's counterterrorism efforts while the space given to hard boy outfits also allows them to pressurise the government as well as parliament.
The JuD was specifically mentioned; for example the Falah-e-Insaniyat ...the current false nose and mustache of Jamaat ud-Dawa, which was the false nose and mustache of Lashkar e-Taiba... Foundation, a group linked to Hafiz Saeed's organization, is active in disaster areas, particularly the regions affected by the recent flooding. But if the state allows Death Eater groups or their fronts to rebrand themselves and freely organise, counterterrorism efforts will not deliver lasting results.
Also, are these regular rallies and marches an indication that these groups wish to enter the political mainstream?
While some have contested polls, others have openly denounced democracy as being 'against the tenets of Islam'; there is thus a need for them to openly announce their intentions -- if they wish to enter politics, they should explain what led to the change of heart.
Secondly, it is valid to criticise hard boy groups for changing names and participating in philanthropic activities. But it is also true that politicians and civil society have helped cede space to these organizations by not taking the lead in relief efforts or charity work.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2015 00:00 ||
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And why not, as it's some of the best in the world?
All too often, though, the price we pay for it can't be measured in rupees, but in the number of times we have to dash to the toilet later. The reality is that our dhabas are among the filthiest anywhere. And it's not just the roadside food stands that are unhygienic, but also our upscale eateries.
These grim culinary facts have recently been placed under the spotlight after a series of raids in Lahore and Rawalpindi by inspectors from the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Food Authority led by its director for operations, the admirable Ayesha Mumtaz. She and her teams say they have visited some 5,500 food outlets in Lahore, shutting down 250, and issuing notices to another 2,500.
Some of the offending establishments include restaurants at some of Lahore's so-called five-star hotels. If you want proof that these expensive hotels in our part of the world can be lethal, just look at what's happened to the South African cricket team currently touring Bangladesh, where 10 players had to be hospitalised with food poisoning.
Delhi Belly is the name foreigners give to the diarrhoea many of them pick up while on holiday in India. When foreign friends are visiting, I warn them never to eat uncooked vegetables, or brush their teeth with tap water.
But how many precautions can you reasonably take and still enjoy our wonderful cuisine? Even if restaurants were to maintain spotless kitchens, they will still be using tap water to wash dishes, as well as utensils and ingredients.
And our water can be deadly: some 40pc of deaths occur due to waterborne diseases, with 100 million cases of diarrhoea being reported every year. According to experts, some 250,00 Pak kids die every year due to illnesses caused by polluted water. This is hardly surprising as only 8pc of urban sewage water, and 1pc of our industrial waste water is treated.
When I picked up a nasty dose of hepatitis in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... over 20 years ago, all I wanted to do was die. I have never been as miserable before or since. Weeks passed before I recovered. Later, on a visit to London, a doctor told me the disease was endemic in South Asia because many people did not wash their hands properly after going to the toilet.
As hepatitis is spread through faecal matter, it literally makes its way through the food chain since all too often, plates at restaurants are washed in cold, dirty water sitting in a bucket or a tin. Either the dishwasher or one of the diners can easily pass on their germs. And unsurprisingly, cooks in overheated kitchens sweat profusely. Guess where this perspiration ends up?
After decades of neglect of the infrastructure, many of our ageing sewage and water pipes are leaking their contents into each other. So the water flowing from your tap -- if you are lucky enough to get it, that is -- is laden with a cocktail of germs.
Many people who boil water do not do so for long enough; I am told it should be boiled for at least 20 minutes before the germs are killed.
Given all these unpleasant facts, the ongoing campaign against filthy eateries in Punjab is to be welcomed. But why isn't Sindh cleaning up its thousands of restaurants and street food joints? Surely they are as unhygienic as any in Punjab where the food authority has the chief minister's full backing.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] THE political class in Pakistain is a maligned bunch even where there is no justification but where it falters, people in general and commentators in particular swoop on it with vigour and glee as it is seen as a soft target.
Very few among our current crop of commentators trace the roots of the country's current travails to three to four distinct and mostly prolonged periods of military rule during which the corruption, patronage and terrorism that plague us today were institutionalised.
Of course once the current military leadership decided that militancy, at least of the denominations it didn't or couldn't control anymore, had to be rooted out, there could be no discussion on how and why terrorism bedded down in the country.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] ON July 22, the Supreme Court admitted Aasia Bibi's appeal against her conviction and death sentence for blasphemy under Section 295-C of the Pakistain Penal Code. The court's decision to hear the case is welcome; even more welcome would be a hearing, scheduled as soon as possible.
Even if the SC now goes on to acquit Aasia Bibi, she has already spent six years (and counting) in prison (four years on death row); Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti have bit the dust for advocating for her release; and her family has been subjected to continuous threats and harassment, only because of their relationship with someone accused of blasphemy.
This is the truth of how the blasphemy law operates in Pakistain: the accused have to suffer prolonged periods of pretrial detention as they wait for their case to be heard, which in some instances is followed by years in death row cells before their appeals are decided. Delays in trial are common for a variety of offences across the criminal justice system; however, since blasphemy allegations come with a very real danger of extrajudicial killings and attacks in and outside of prison, the anguish of blasphemy accused is further enhanced because of the fear for their lives and their family's safety. Additionally, since more than 95pc of blasphemy accused are eventually acquitted, the prolonged periods of detention mean innocent people are deprived of their liberty for many years.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2015 00:00 ||
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Just the first (and funniest) of a half dozen.
[DAWN] Batman
After his wealthy parents are bumped off in a tragic murder outside a cinema in Bloody Karachi and he inherits an empire, the Pak version of Bruce Wayne commits to a life of crime fighting.
Recalling his days of playing cricket when certain batsmen would hit his bowling for enormous sixes, he resolves to put the same fear in the heart of criminals and becomes the Batman, hitting the villains of Pakistain on the face with his massive bat.
As a wealthy businessman, Batman owns several corporations in the country, including K-Electric, and uses the electric supply company to schedule scheduled power outages in areas where he wants to operate in the cover of darkness.
Initially, Paks welcome Batman for his promise to bring change, peace, and prosperity to the nation, and appreciate his activity on the streets. But eventually the citizens grow a little weary of Batman when they notice that he is as nutty, if not nuttier than the villains he is claiming to put away. Upon hearing these concerns Batman scoffs, "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain!"
During the Justice League elections, Batman loses to Superman 4-3, after which he begins to throw wild accusations of rigging, "I am the hero Pakistain deserves and needs right now."
When the Justice League members disagree, Batman throws a tantrum and resigns from the organization claiming he will go forever, only to sheepishly return later a few days later. Here, he is enraged to find a pacifier at his table. Finally, a reelection occurs, where Batman embarrassingly suffers an even bigger defeat of 6-1 (clearly losing supporters thanks to his madness). Batman's humiliation is compounded when his partner, Robin is caught trying to rig the election in his favor.
Batman is at further odds with Pakistain when the powerful super villain Darkseid launches terrorist attacks across the country. While the other Justice League members are intent on counterattacking Darkseid, Batman insists on negotiations with the evil ruler, claiming that Pakistain's drone attacks are why 'good' Darkseid became 'bad' Darkseid.
The Justice League is further sickened by Batman when after marrying the ambitious Catwoman, he quietly allows her to campaign for a spot on the team.
Batman primarily fights a widespread gang of villains across Karachi, whose leader having fled the city decades ago, now commands his men in melodramatic tones from London, England. He, of course, is most popularly known as The Joker. Naturally, the writer left out the most powerful of them all.
[SultanKnish] We live in a strange world in which the weather is a subject of furious political debate. People have been arguing about the weather ever since the first rainstorm caught the first man without the umbrella that he did not yet know how to make, but they didn't hold political debates over it.
For the last fifty years, the anti-weather side has been insisting that the world is headed toward a Frostean apocalypse of ice or fire. The calm biblical assertion that "Seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" was replaced by the terrifying certainty that the planet would soon turn into Mars or Venus; either too hot or too cold.
The end of weather was here. Instead of stable rhythms and cycles that might last for months or centuries, there was a runaway weather apocalypse that would culminate in unlivable conditions.
The doomsday predictions roll out daily without any regard to scientific or experiential reality. The more the predictions fail to match up, the more urgently Warmists insist on immediate action. The harder it snows, the more articles appear warning that snow may soon be a thing of the past.
Never mind the weather; the end of weather is almost here.
There is a fearful logic to the Warmist creed. Of all the planets, minor planets, moons and assorted rocks drifting through our solar system, only one is inhabitable by man. It is very easy to assume that, but for the grace of random chance, the Earth might be just as uninhabitable as Mars or Venus and to worry that one day it will be. Some people call it circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ): but what do they know.
Mars and Venus inspired more than a series of bestselling books about gender relations. They also convinced the Warmists that Mars and Venus are what the Earth would become.
"Venus is too hot. Mars is too cold. But the Earth is just right a heaven for humans. After all, we evolved here. But our congenial climate may be unstable. We are perturbing our poor planet in serious and contradictory ways. Is there any danger of driving the environment of the Earth toward the planetary Hell of Venus or the global ice age of Mars? The simple answer is that nobody knows," Sagan wrote in Cosmos. I stopped taking Sagan seriously after reading his SF novel with a message from aliens hidden in the value of pi---just one more moron who rote memorized holy physics, and thinks he's omniscient.
The insistence that Mars and Venus were variations of Earth, rather than entirely different planets, was a false assumption that predated Sagan. This geocentric fallacy insisted that Mars and Venus were teaching us about our world, rather than about those worlds. Their unlivable atmospheres reinforced the neurotic obsession of doomsayers who treated them as failed Earths.
...Socialist science fiction had become a booming field in the late 19th century. Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward had envisioned time travel to a Socialist American utopia in the year 2000. It was a bad book, but a popular bestseller because it used the frame of pseudoscience to depict Socialism as both a practical model and inevitable. Likewise, Lowell's Mars allowed Socialist theorists to depict the Martian Socialist utopia that Earth could become.
Novels such as "Politics and Life in Mars", "Unveiling a Parallel", "To Mars via the Moon", "A Prophetic Romance" and "Red Star" envisioned culturally superior Martians demonstrating their advanced Socialist societies with income equality, planetary labor unions and pacifism to the human race.
In the Russian "Red Star", the Lowellian canals are a Communist triumph over inhospitable nature anticipating the USSR and Communist China's disastrous dam projects. The German writer of "Two Planets" envisioned the advanced Martians invading Earth to impose their superior Socialist society on human beings. Prompting EBR to write "Moon Men"?
#1
Mother nature favors the successful and not those that fail to adapt in life. Socialist follow the opposite system of rewarding failure and punishing those who are successful. Nature favors a chaotic system of change often spiked with variations in environmental stimulation challenging those in its environment. Socialist try to impose the strictest order securing the environment to maintain their ascendancy and position. Obviously someone has a different definition of science.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Observer] After years of holding herself above the law, telling lie after lie, and months of flat-out obstruction, HIllary Clinton has finally produced to the FBI her server and three thumb drives. Apparently, the server has been professionally wiped clean of any useable information, and the thumb drives contain only what she selectively culled. Myriad criminal offenses apply to this conduct. 
[DAWN] WE Paks love our street food.
Some of the offending establishments include restaurants at some of Lahore's so-called five-star hotels. If you want proof that these expensive hotels in our part of the world can be lethal, just look at what's happened to the South African cricket team currently touring Bangladesh, where 10 players had to be hospitalised with food poisoning.
[DAWN] ON July 22, the Supreme Court admitted Aasia Bibi's appeal against her conviction and death sentence for blasphemy under Section 295-C of the Pakistain Penal Code. The court's decision to hear the case is welcome; even more welcome would be a hearing, scheduled as soon as possible.
After his wealthy parents are 
Naturally, the writer left out the most powerful of them all.
