[Washington Examiner] James Comey, the former FBI director who oversaw the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unlawful handling of official emails, has been chastised by the Justice Department for his improper handling of official memos.
The irony is so thick that it’s hard not to laugh. But there’s a serious problem here: Comey’s and Clinton’s actions reflect an arrogance of power and a gross disregard for the rule of law. The work that public servants produce belongs to the public. It doesn’t belong in one’s study at home or on one’s homebrewed server.
Comey, according to the Office of the Inspector General at the DOJ, brought home his memos summarizing his conversations with President Trump. He kept them in a safe at home, rather than at DOJ. When he was fired, he didn’t return the memos to the FBI. Instead, he kept the memos and then shared them, through friends, with reporters.
But these memos weren’t Comey’s to do with as he pleased. They were, quite obviously, official FBI work product, even though Comey claimed to believe otherwise. The IG wrote that "Comey's characterization of the Memos as personal records finds no support in the law and is wholly incompatible with the plain language of the statutes, regulations, and policies defining Federal records, and the terms of Comey's FBI Employment Agreement."
Federal records include "all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a Federal agency ... in connection with the transaction of public business."
Comey wasn’t meeting with Trump as an old friend or to talk real estate. Their meetings were clearly part of Comey doing his job. Some of the material was classified. "As Comey well knew, classified information is never considered personal property; rather, it is the property of the U.S. government."
#2
The FOIA Act is to be selectively applied. In the same manner as members in the Deep State™conspiring (*cough*) "privately communicating" with NGOs to use the legal system to enact new law without the input of the elected branch.
[YouTube] Slim Newton - Redback on the Toilet Seat Because I'm so damn tired of boarding up other people's windows (all for nothing it currently seems) I needed a laugh..
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/03/2019 05:57 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
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h/t Instapundit
[NewNeo] I have to say right upfront that I doubt it.
It just seems to go that way. The state agencies are reluctant to charge their own bureaucrats, no matter what the violation, and the higher up the person is the less likely that person is to be prosecuted, no matter how shocking and blatant the violation. Lois Lerner and Hillary Clinton, cases in point.
And yes, it seems to be mostly Democrats who skate. The two-tiered system of justice described by Andrew C. McCarthy here is very real.
However, some people feel that Comey and company will ultimately be indicted (for example, see this). I hope they are right, because if it is possible to get away with what they tried to do, then we are far far far down the road to banana republicdom.
#3
Depends. If the Left provokes the civil war they are running to, I suspect a lot of 'pay back' in the process or at the end. See - post WWII war crimes tribunals.
#6
I will only be happy if the halftime show at the SuperBowl is AL Gore announcing gerbil warming is a scam and then using his fifth of Jim Beam rye and single round in a Colt Python to "do the right thing."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/03/2019 11:08 Comments ||
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#7
How many still think that we will vote our way out of this situation?
#8
SR-71, that doesn't seem to be working. Let's see what happens in the 2020 voting.
On September 5, 2018, during Day 2 of the Senate confirmation hearing for SCOTUS nominee Judge Kavanaugh, Graham (R-SC) asked Kavanaugh a series of questions that seem to make a case for American citizens being subject to military tribunals. At the time Kavanaugh responded in the affirmative that this was possible.
#10
SR-71. Well, I feel the same way many days. Some days I think the Left and Deep State just need a can of whup ass put on them to put a stop to all their b.s. Other days my patient side comes through.
[Daily Caller] Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro believes there’s a "plot to remake America," which is the theme of her new book "Radical, Resistance and Revenge."
Pirro told the Daily Caller’s Stephanie Hamill that she’s very concerned about the direction that America is going.
"You can see everything is upside down: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, law and order, respect for authority," said Pirro.
She went on to say that she’s worried about the "anger" coming from the left and what she sees as an effort to silence conservatives. (RELATED: We Talked To The Journalist Who Say He Was Roughed Up By The Bodyguard Of CNN’S April Ryan.)
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐Joe Biden recently made a strange claim: that 2+2=5. He was ridiculed for his gaffe after making the statement while speaking at an elementary school. The kids all said, "Hey, dummy! The answer is 4, not 5!"
But the crack squad of fact-checkers at Snopes quickly got to work on Biden's incredulous claim. Their findings? Biden's statement was actually "mostly true."
"Sure, Biden got some key details wrong," said Bob Snopes, founder of Snopes. "But the central concept of what he was saying, that two numbers put together make another number, was completely accurate. Sometimes two and two make four. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. It is not easy to become sane."
The website's 6,000-word defense/fact-check of Biden's claim further pointed out that 80% of the answer was correct, and it's only the one additional number that was a mixture of truth and falsehood.
As the event neared its conclusion, Biden claimed there were five spotlights lighting up the stage even though there were clearly four. One bald man in the back shouted, "There are four lights!" but was dragged from the room for reeducation.
your choice on the menu is $11.95
her choice is $10.95
you and her share a bottle of wine for $12.99
appetizer is $4.99
tax is $4.15
you want to impress her so tip is $10.00
so basically 11+10+12+4 = 45
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/03/2019 14:42 Comments ||
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#8
swksvolFF, no, actually I heard it over 50 years ago when I was a STEM major.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/03/2019 17:13 Comments ||
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[American Thinker] Every society has always been controlled by a small portion of the population. These leaders of society have been called by many names; today, they are often called the elite. In modern free societies like the United States, there is more economic mobility so that some of the elite are individuals who were born in poverty, but there is still an elite even in societies that are founded on equality. There is still a small portion of society who have much greater influence than everyone else.
Historically, the elite in every nation have aligned themselves with the common people in their own nation. In the past, the most wealthy and influential people were among the first to enlist in time of war. The elite in each nation aligned themselves with the common people in their own nation and against the elite in other nations.
Today, there is globalism. This is the "new world order." The elite of today believe that it is in their best interest and everybody's best interest if they can end nationalism and come together as one big global family. This coming together has not been a global coming together of all people; it has been a coming together of only the elite in many different nations, and they have been joined by a shrinking portion of the common people who are still under their influence.
The elite of the U.S. and Europe have aligned themselves not only with each other, but also with the elite of China and the Middle East. They have intertwined the world economy to such a degree that decoupling seems impossible. They are promoting open borders. Since they believe that humanity is becoming one big happy family, it makes sense that they have never noticed any potential problem with the move of manufacturing to China. They facilitated this move. The working people in the West have been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs, and they are increasingly turning against the elite.
#1
Personal beliefs of elite decision makers seem to be not about integrating the world in any order, I think. It's more about consolidating financial hold over markets and resources.
Eastern nations offer the cheapest resource, labor and overheads because of their 'developing' status. Most of these 'elites' are pushing the fanatic persuasion that a carbon fueled rise to industrial independence and increased manufacturing be denied these nations, after building their own empires on the soot covered ashes of large tracts of earth.
There are other hypocrisies in the same vein, but the truth is it's not so much philosophy or inclination to fashion the world according to ideas, but economic convenience.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil:" - GawD
#8
Ref #1: There are other hypocrisies in the same vein, but the truth is it's not so much philosophy or inclination to fashion the world according to ideas, but economic convenience.
Yes indeed! Around here we refer to it simply as "following the money."
Sort of like the wealthy of earlier ages building private chapels for worship, or buying papal indulgences. Or like the left-wing social polices and posturing of our own billionaire tech monopolists: "ignore my rapacious greed, and look at how virtuous/PC I am."
Globalism includes a veneer of rhetoric about universal concern for distant poor people and a commitment (in principle if not in fact) to free movement of such people across borders.
[American Thinker] Once upon a time, long, long ago, public opinion polls may have reflected, however faintly, some generalization of public opinion. For a multitude of reasons, that is no longer true.
To demonstrate that point, compare the August 29 Rasmussen poll showing President Trump’s approval rating of 47 percent with the Quinnipiac reported approval rating of 38 percent. Even more irrational are the Quinnipiac poll result that whatever is left of Joe Biden would beat Trump 54 percent to 38 percent in a general election and the Economist poll number that asserts that 55 percent of the public thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction. It is a near certainty that none of those numbers reflects reality.
So, discarding the meaningless political polls, I went to the most accurate opinion poll I am aware of for my pre-quadrennial presidential forecast: the Washington County (Pa.) Agricultural Fair.
After my 2016 visit to the fair, I reported that Trump was going to win Washington County big. Why? Enthusiasm was enormous. Trump hats were everywhere. People were wearing Trump shirts and Trump pins. These were not all registered Republicans, either. There was a large booth selling Trump merchandise and doing a land office business. There was no similar Clinton enterprise. The parking lot really told the story. Literally thousands of pickup trucks, gun racks behind the seats, many with Trump stickers and campaign messages on bumpers and tailgates. Mixed in were Mercedes and Lexus, many with similar stickers. If Mercedes and Lexus made gun racks, they would have had those, too.
The County Fair Poll was pretty accurate. Washington County turned out big: nearly 75 percent of its registered voters went to the polls, and they voted for President Trump with 60 percent of the vote. That means a lot of registered Democrats voted for President Trump.
What does the early forecast for 2020 look like based on the 2019 Washington County Fair? It looks as if President Trump will do even better than 2016. I have never seen such enthusiasm, especially so far before an election. More than 75,000 people attended the fair, and the crowd was a sea of MAGA and KAG hats, Trump shirts, Trump pins, you name it. This was Trump country, no doubt about it.
#1
The Democrat of today has destroyed their party. Just as the media has destroyed themselves. Given all the airtime.They have shot themselves in the foot and several other places.
#2
It's not just in America. Democracy everywhere is actually being made to work for a change. A clash of an hitherto idealized model of administration with real governance.
Living off past accolades, lazy legislation aimed at convenience for bureaucrats, a Bohemian disconnect with the realities faced by the common citizen and complete wastage of public monies. The Democrat party has it's image and likeness in every major country by now, since everybody aped it and found the sops for votes, pro-group theatrical politics very successful in the beginning. After a few decades everywhere, the model began to expose itself as a giant con.
The time has come when the model of politics practiced by the liberal democrats is being challenged by models that feature real work, instead of words and newspeak to obfuscate laxity and corruption.
It's not just with Trump, new majoritarian leaders with a will to bust bumbledom and their respective deepStates everywhere are replacing the dandy-fops and bourgeoise autocrats that once held sway over their populations with just PR and promises.
The con is up. And real change is being seen with leaders like Trump, with a positive result on their economies, with immediate reliefs and advances for real people. As opposed to the earlier hand outs for fake people, leeches and pipelines for criminal diversion of funds.
Donald Trump, criticized the world over by entitled brats of the new Economy and sedentary experts on sociology to space colonization, is a beloved symbol for the everyman's inclusion in the life-and-death business of governance that was an ambition-game for the politicals, and an assembly line for their officers until now. I reckon more leaders like him will appear in the near future, maybe even better ones, but the final demise of the left seems to have begun with a Trump.
#3
The polling business has become a cargo cult affair. Like gerbil worming "science" the process is "pick a result and go find proof of that result." My cell phone lights up daily with calls from obviously spoofed numbers. I ignore these calls. I have no doubt some of them are polling robocall and I also have little doubt their methodology is "no answer = result we were already looking for."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/03/2019 4:17 Comments ||
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#6
G, I think just as the left has been melting down about this and that while Trump and McConnell make the federal courts more conservative for decades to come, the right people who should know better are worrying about McCabe, Comey, etc al while Barr puts the pieces in place to shut down the ballot box stuffing game. Imagine how surprised the usual suspects will be when all the "found the day after the election" ballots are seized and disallowed.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/03/2019 7:08 Comments ||
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#7
"Don't get cocky, kid"
Be assured the Left will do its best to keep us agitated pi**ed off through election day.
#9
The polls do not reflect reality - not even close - because in most parts of urban America, we no longer have free and open speech.
If they wish to hang on to their livelihoods, Americans working in any of a dozen or so major US institutions located mainly our largest cities cannot express anything other than disdain for this president.
In this climate of fear, real thoughts and preferences go unexpressed. People develop two selves: a covert one known only to their families and to secret sharers, and a confirming public self.
Trump's support is at least 10 points higher than the RCP polling average would suggest.
#13
Trump showed that the polls were corrupted during the 2016 election. The left buys the results it wants and then a corrupted MSM hypes the story. A part of the election-rigging process. Except it didn't work last time and the Dems had a huge letdown which they still haven't gotten over...a case of the sound of their own wheels driving them crazy.
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.
Will anyone behind Russiagate be prosecuted, 
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐Joe Biden recently made a strange claim: that 2+2=5. He was ridiculed for his gaffe after making the statement while speaking at an elementary school. The kids all said, "Hey, dummy! The answer is 4, not 5!"
