The FBI, DOJ & Hillary; Black & Blue Lives; Weekly Terror & The Women's Candidate?

Bill & the AG, DOJ & FBI, and Hillary’s Email & Server Web of Lies

William Sapphire (NYT): “Hillary Clinton is a congenital liar.”

This was borne out in FBI Director Comey’s testimony before Congress – especially Trey Gowdy’s questioning that directly contrasted several of her false claims about her emails and servers to the contradictory findings of the FBI investigation.   Despite all the evidence of “extreme carelessness” at least, the FBI recommendation to the Justice Dept. was to not recommend indictment.  Supposedly “gross negligence” is the legal standard (outside of intentional misconduct).  Sounds like a fine nuance, if any, between extreme carelessness & gross negligence. 

Comey said there was no evidence they knew what they were doing was wrong.  But as the saying goes, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and the standard is gross negligence, which doesn’t require the knowledge/intent.  And she was properly briefed & signed papers indicating so, and should have known – especially seeing portion-marked documents the FBI found, and other obviously SCI-level material, whether marked or not. 

Comey seemed to bend himself into a pretzel to let Hillary off the hook, but make it clear that lest anyone else get any similar ideas, the typical consequences for such actions would be at least administrative – revocation of security clearance, firing, etc.  So then, unless Hillary is above the law, why not invoke those actions – at least revoke her clearance?  At least through the campaign (I understand the candidates typically get classified briefings during the campaign so as to prepare them if they should win) – if she wins maybe she could be granted the clearance the president requires after she’s properly repented & been adequately cautioned & re-committed. 

She’s shown she can’t be trusted with classified information and state secrets – some of which put lives of people & effectiveness of our costly intelligence efforts in jeopardy.  I feel that alone (irrespective of all the other disqualifiers) disqualifies her from the presidency.

But there is more here than meets the eye at first glance.   Within 1 week, if I recall, Attorney General Lynch met with Bill Clinton, then the FBI interviewed Hillary, then, 2 days later, the FBI released its recommendation to the AG.  An interesting sequence & timeline.  Lynch later acknowledged the impropriety of meeting with Bill while her dept. had a pending case for Hillary.  Hard to believe it was a totally chance meeting, and that they only discussed grandchildren for half an hour – and no one else was allowed in the mtg.  Hillary’s 3 ½ hr. FBI interview was held on a holiday weekend, and we now know she was not under oath.  Then, 2 days later, hardly enough time to really digest and objectively evaluate Hillary’s 3 ½ hr. interview, the FBI issued its recommendation to DOJ.  And the FBI director seemed to stretch the law beyond credibility in order to reach his recommendation. 

One could easily believe, as Trump stated, that “the fix was in.”  That these facts and events are related.  The Bill-Lynch mtg. almost forced Lynch to either recuse herself or accept on its face the FBI’s recommendation.  The FBI, in turn, interviewed her, not under oath, almost as an afterthought to the entire investigation, and their recommendation seemed already formulated, quickly made 2 days later.  One former FBI official describes how in the course of an investigation, typically the DOJ & FBI are in constant 2-way communication.  And the FBI is getting signals, however subtle, from DOJ on how a case should be going, and how they think and want it disposed.  And even career FBI & DOJ are not without bias – one statistic shows that the vast majority of both are Democrat & Democrat donors.  We’ve seen how biased the IRS could be in that scandal.  Of course the head of the DOJ is a Democrat appointee.  So after Lynch’s statement that she would accept FBI’s recommendation, all the political pressure was on the FBI.  And while Director Comey was comfortable in the past in recommending indictments of less political figures like Martha Stewart, a Democrat presidential candidate would have been totally out of his league.  So he got rid of that hot potato just as quickly and neatly as he could possibly do without going against his president who was already out on the campaign trail with Hillary.  Just like the SCOTUS Roberts ruling on Obamacare. 

So it all works out very nicely – Lynch doesn’t get accused of bias or undue influence by Bill Clinton – just accepted the FBI’s recommendation.  And the FBI ostensibly did its job.  Or did it?  In the hearing it came out that the FBI didn’t consider any of Hillary’s statements under oath, like before Congress – i.e., perjury which is prosecutable, as Bill Clinton found out, and cost him his law license at least.  Of course her lies to the public were well known as detailed by Trey Gowdy.  But Trey pointed out something very interesting – a legal term I don’t recall – about how a pattern of lies can be used as evidence or indication in itself of wrongdoing, and cover-up to show intent and guilt in a prosecution.  And certainly Hillary illegally destroyed much more evidence than Richard Nixon who suffered much more severe consequences. 

Hillary the Women’s Candidate?  

For all her claims of supporting women’s rights, she and Bill have accepted millions of dollars from countries where women have few rights in the Middle East.  She has attacked, smeared & dismissed women who were victims of Bill’s sexual harassment & even rape.

Madeline Albright, speaking of the need to support Hillary at a rally:  “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”  Yes, by that standard, after Hillary’s aforementioned actions, that place is for Hillary.  And is gender the main criterion for president?  How about helping all the great GOP women – Carly Fiorina, Michelle Bachman, etc.?  Oh, that’s right, they’re probably considered sellouts or traitors, just like Black conservatives.  Liberal tolerance for diversity only goes so far.

Black & Blue Lives

12 ambushes of police officers so far this year across the country (after Dallas & Baton Rouge), already outpacing the eight ambushes of law enforcement that occurred last year.  26 killed this year – 8 in the past week in 2 ambushes following an upswing due to Black Lives Matter.  

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/07/08/nationwide-police-shooting-deaths/86861082/

Heather MacDonald’s book, The War on Cops, documents the factual statistics of white police killing Blacks.  Apparently, statistically police are twice as likely to kill whites in a given situation, despite the several times higher crime rate per capita of Blacks.  Likely due in part to over-caution against appearing racist.  And 40% of police killed are by Blacks – much higher than Blacks’ percent of the population.  These would tend to argue for racism, alright – in the other direction.

Amazon summary/review of The War on Cops:  https://www.amazon.com/War-Cops-Attack-Order-Everyone/dp/1594038759

“Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993. The reason is what Heather Mac Donald first identified nationally as the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened. 

“This book expands on Mac Donald’s groundbreaking and controversial reporting on the Ferguson effect and the criminal-justice system. It deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement: that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate. [not to mention the high incidence of Black abortions]

“The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the concept of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department. 

“Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race. 

This is backed up by a Harvard professor’s research that surprised him, showing there was not a bias leading to police shooting Blacks – they tended to use non-lethal force instead.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?_r=0

I’ve blogged earlier about the poisonous, lethal myths of the Black Lives Matter movement.  They are either ignorant of the facts, and/or have no respect for due process – a lynch mob mentality, no better than the Ku Klux Klan they say they so much disdain.  If it was merely Black lives that mattered, they’d focus on the many thousands of victims of Black-on-Black inner city shootings, and Black abortions, rather than the very rare but highly publicized officer shooting of an “unarmed” Black man.  Typically one who resists arrest, even assaulting the officer, sometimes going for his weapon to use it against him.  So it’s not really about the Black lives, but hate and rage against police, and any possible hint of racism. 

Complicit in keeping these myths alive, and therefore with blood on their hands, are the Black activist leaders, including Sharpton who perpetuated the Ferguson myths after they were found factually false, and the liberal media who feel it their duty to headline any perceived racial animus (unless it is Black on white), and ignore the much greater Black on Black or even Black on white killings.  And yes, even national leaders in Congress and our president, who was supposed to bring racial harmony, but has by his statements shown great sympathy to the Black Lives Matter movement, and thereby given them encouragement.  Even invited them to the White House & praised them there.  In fact, I’m tempted to think that his old pastor Wright’s philosophy of “America’s chickens have come home to roost” (speaking of 9/11), has manifest itself here -- that Obama thinks this is just retribution.  Hence he doesn’t get very agitated or upset over police deaths – as much as where there’s a high-profile Black victim he can make political capital off of to bolster the Democrat base.  That’s what community organizers do, after all.  And he has the hutzpah to lecture us about avoiding incendiary political speech.  The only reason it’s become political because of the Black activists and Democrats.  It should be just about law and order. 

After the July 16 Baton Rouge killings of 3 officers, a week after Dallas, he finally made what sounded like a more unequivocal condemnation – but a bit too little, too late, at the expense of many police officers’ lives.  And it will be difficult to halt this monster he’s contributed to.  He helped let the genie out of the bottle, let’s see if he and all his articulateness and influence can get it back in.  At the Dallas funeral of 5 officers, he started out well, but then lapsed into an inappropriate professorial lecture about widespread racism.

After Dallas, while in Poland at a NATO summit, he had apologized for Black Lives Matter – “we can’t let the actions of a few define us . . . can’t paint with an overly broad brush.”  But previously he had said police misconduct is pervasive and systemic, and racism even in our DNA (sounds like a pretty broad brush to me), and he and Holder of DOJ set out commissions to investigate & prove it – in the wake of Ferguson.  Obama said “we’re not back to the 60’s” (you’d think we were given all the rhetoric and violence), but he’s been fanning racial incidents for political gain as if they were – playing Blacks like a fiddle. 

That follow his pattern with Muslim extremist terrorists – he apologizes for Muslim extremism by saying we can’t paint with a broad brush.  He named the 2 Black victims of police shootings, but not the police victims.  He couldn’t guess as to the motives of the Dallas shooter, though the Dallas chief clearly said what the shooter had said – he was in sympathy w. Black Lives Matter and upset w. police shooting innocent Blacks.  Again, this echoes the administration’s saying we may never know the motives of the Orlando shooter, despite him saying he was doing it in allegiance to ISIS, and because of our killing Muslims.  This political correctness to avoid offending certain groups only emboldens them and gains them sympathy in their larger ethnic or religious communities.

And speaking of terrorism, these police shootings are just that.  In fact, they’re doing the work of ISIS, who had on their to-do list the killing of our police officers.  So they’ve joined the war on terror – on the wrong side.  And instead of teaching their kids to appreciate cops for protecting them, and to respect them, and to not resist arrest which leads to escalation, they teach their kids to distrust and hate cops.  Reminds me of how the Palestinian kids are taught to hate Jews.  That way they think they’re doing a service to kill them.  In addition to teaching Black kids proper etiquette around police, they should probably also be taught how to consume news & social media, to think critically and not rush to judgment.

As Medved pointed out, literally 100,000+ Black lives have been saved in inner cities by more aggressive policing that’s cut the murder rate dramatically.  Perhaps a side effect of this has been some resentment by those innocents pulled over.  But clearly it’s a tradeoff.  If they resent the police that much, maybe they should be pulled out of the Black ghettos and let the gang-bangers have at it.  Then we’ll see if Black lives really do matter.

I like the Black Dallas police chief.  He said if you want to solve the problem, get off the street protests (Black Lives Matter) and join the police force – they’re hiring.  He also said it’s unfair to put all of the problems of society (fatherless homes, drugs,….) on the shoulders of the police to deal with.  I also like the Black Wisconsin County Sheriff Clarke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Clarke_Jr.)  who says the Black Lives movement needs to be put out of business, and that Obama has handled this abysmally.  Clarke also says we need to get tough on terrorism, and stop the political correctness.

Trump & Pence are saying they’re the law and order candidates, which, in addition to their stance on terrorism which has become a dominant issue, should further strengthen their case in the election.  Hillary can only promise more of the same on both fronts.

The Weekly Mass Terrorist Attacks

Too many to keep up with – Istanbul airport, Nice France (some 80 killed when run over during a Bastille Day street celebration), Normandy (a priest’s head cut off during a mass),….

Obama at the NATO summit in Poland: “In good times and bad, Europe can count on the United States.”  Oh, yeah?  Like Ukraine?  Obama always says we “stand with our allies.”  Well how about stopping just standing around and do something?  Something more serious than the pinpricks until now.  Obama seems to think we just need to absorb these slaughters, and get used to them.