Friday, July 08, 2016

Ashe Schow's 11 takeaways

Pixie-ish conservative columnist Ashe Schow writes an article titled "11 Takeaways from FBI Director James Comey's Testimony." Of particular interest to me are #1, #4, and #6, all blockquoted below.

1. A new investigation of Hillary Clinton is imminent

Rep. Jason Chaffetz asked FBI Director James Comey if presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had lied under oath when she testified to Congress about her email server. Comey said he would need a recommendation from Congress to investigate whether Clinton lied under oath to Congress.

Chaffetz said Comey would have that recommendation within hours.

4. Clinton lied multiple times to the American people

Rep. Trey Gowdy ran through a list of statements Clinton made to Congress and the American people and asked Comey whether they were true or not. With each question, Comey indicated they were false.

Gowdy asked if it was true that Clinton never sent or received classified information over email. Comey said it was not true. Gowdy asked if it was true that nothing was marked as classified on Clinton's emails when she sent or received them. Comey indicated that was not true. Gowdy asked if it was true that Clinton used "just one device" for emails. Comey indicated that was not true. Gowdy asked if it was true that Clinton turned over all work-related emails to the FBI. Comey indicated that was not true. Gowdy asked if it was true that neither Clinton nor her team deleted work-related emails. Comey indicated that was not true. Gowdy asked if it was true that Clinton's lawyers read all of the work-related emails they turned over. Comey indicated it was not true.

6. Democrats don't seem to care about what Clinton did

Rep. Carolyn Maloney and other Democrats asked Comey softball questions that boiled down to "Do you have integrity?" Suddenly, something as obvious as not using personal email accounts on unauthorized servers is a learning moment. Democrats in the committee, such as Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, made it seem as though this was a "whoops, now we know" situation.

But that's not the case. The idea that the secretary of state would not have known she would be receiving classified information strains credulity. Democrats on the committee focused on Comey, but the fact of the matter remains that even though he didn't recommend Clinton be criminally prosecuted, he certainly indicated that she should be punished. Democrats just wanted to keep that away from the cameras.

Point #1 piques my curiosity, but I'm not optimistic that it's going to go anywhere. Point #4 is interesting because it turns out that Clinton was not under oath during her entretien with the FBI, which I suppose means she lied but didn't perjure herself in that context. Point #6 is my main reason for thinking that HRC might win the presidential election, or that if Trump wins, it'll be by a nose. In the comments to my previous post, King Baeksu begs to differ, and he confidently predicts a landslide victory for Trump. I'll believe it when I see it.




9 comments:

  1. My takeaway from Comey's testimony is that he dissembled it. I don't know if dissembling (if it can be proved) would constitute perjury. Does obscuring one's motives constitute lying under oath?

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  2. Henry,

    Your guess is at least as good as mine.

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  3. Kevin,

    I would think that obscuring one's motives violates telling "the whole truth" part of the oath. But I am not trained in legalese.

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  4. Dude, this thing is just getting started. The whole point of her having a private server was to shield from public scrutiny and government oversight the fact that she was pimping out her office on behalf of the Clinton Foundation. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, easily. This week she escaped with a few survivable flesh wounds. When the results of the FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation come out, which should be soon, she's as good as dead. And if they refuse to indict her even then, the public will likely storm the White House and demand not only Billary's two scheming, rotten heads, but also that of Obama himself.

    After all, the American people cannot survive on bananas alone!

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  5. Read the comments of "bTgVpkEd," supposedly an insider with intimate knowledge of the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation::

    https://i.sli.mg/WuG4nP.png

    This individual writes: "If we do not recommend, it will look like a cover-up and Trump will use the perception to bolster his message. I did work in PsyOps once, and Trump's use of confirmation bias is legendary."

    I was in Osan last night and one service member advanced the theory that the recent police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, and possibly even the mass shooting in Dallas, were a PsyOp intended to push Comey's recent damning comments about Clinton off the front pages. I am not saying I agree with such speculation, but simply noting that the narrative is out there and being circulated among the armed forces, it would seem. Several other service members were not at all happy about the idea of Hillary Clinton being Commander in Chief, given her rather cavalier attitude towards national security. One individual, who was of Latino heritage, even admitted that she would probably vote for Trump as a result, despite her considerable reservations about him.

    "bTgVpkEd" also notes that Lynch herself donated to the Clinton Foundation and has deep ties with the Clintons. He (or she) essentially argues that the FBI has its hands tied because they would effectively have to indicate the entire government over this thing, given the breadth and depth of the rot. Meanwhile, the plebs are all in a huff over "racism in America," and of course the mainstream media are doing all they can to fan flames of racial division (as are Obama and Hillary, of course, with their recent pandering comments about the shootings). This is all to the benefit of the establishment status quo, and the underlying interests of the powers that be.

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  6. Scott,

    You'd think that, if the Clinton machine is as monstrous and as widespread as they say, Hillary could have gotten elected in 2008, and/or that she could get elected this cycle. What, in 2008, could have been bigger and badder than the Clinton Machine? Something as simple as "the will of the people"?

    Anyway, the link you gave has made for some morbidly fascinating reading, although the source seems too cagey to be trusted. I have to be honest, here: I'm skeptical. At the same time, the source does make specific claims that can be tested in the near future, such as that Trump possesses some of Hillary's server files, and that he plans to leak them at the right moment.

    The source also claims that Russia definitely has Clinton's files and will likely "leak all of the info they have to the world." That, too, is a testable claim, and my own intuition is that it's very likely, especially as an October Surprise. And come October, it'll be too late to wheel out Uncle Joe Biden as a replacement for Hillary.

    As I said in my post, though, Russia's possible revelation is a mixed bag: a blessing insofar as it would bring Hillary down, but a curse insofar as it would prove how compromised our national security is.

    Anyway, thanks for linking to this exchange. Interesting and frightening.

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  7. The Clinton Foundation was only established in 2009 and up to that point, Shillery's record as a New York Senator was unmemorable and undistinguished. Moreover, she is simply unlikeable as far as great swathes of the electorate are concerned, and in contrast Obama was just too strong a rival to shake off. He was a blank screen onto which voters could project all their fantasies about a reborn "postracial" society, and thereby feel good about themselves again (recall how shaken the U.S. was about itself as the "indispensable nation" amidst the financial crisis that began in September 2008, and the continuing mess in Iraq and Afghanistan). In retrospect, this turns out to have been all quite delusional, as fantasies so often are.

    Since then, however, Clinton has accrued vast geopolitical influence and power as Secretary of State, and co-conspirator in the great Clinton Foundation scam. (We might also recall the words of Noah Cross in "Chinatown": "Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.") I think that because of the email scandal in particular, Shillery is seen as a liability to the Democratic Party in its quest to hold onto the White House, and in an ideal world they would jettison her and wheel in good ole Uncle Joe as a replacement (indeed, he would do much to neutralize Trump's advantage with the white-male working-class vote). What seems to be the case, however, is that Billary now either own so many people in Washington, DC, or have so much dirt on their rivals, including possibly even Biden and Sanders, that her nomination as head of the Democratic ticket is effectively a fait accompli.

    As I have already predicted, Trump will win in a landslide, as Hitlery's scorched-earth greed and ambition implodes the Democratic Party (which as far as I'm concerned, is nothing but a good thing as it sold out the working-class long ago, essentially embracing capital and spurning labor). Expect President Trump to send "Lyin' Crooked Hillary" to jail if he wins the election (or at least have the DOJ throw an entire library of books at her), which again is just more reason to vote for him. Mark my words, the Trump Train is unstoppable.

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  8. A classic indictment of Shillary from twenty years ago (from a rag that now blindly supports her at all costs, for obvious reasons):

    "Blizzard of Lies"
    http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/08/opinion/essay-blizzard-of-lies.html

    Anyone see a pattern?: "a congenital liar," "web of deceit," "abuse of Presidential power," "juicy patronage," "obstruction of justice," "ruin the lives of people standing in the way," "sham land deal," "in the longtime habit of lying."

    William Safire was a man who chose his words carefully, almost to a fault. When he talked about a "blizzard of lies," he really meant it.

    You really have to wonder why Obama would appoint such an ethically and morally flawed individual to the post of Secretary of State. Does she own him, too? Or is he just as craven and corrupt as she is himself?

    It's hard to know for sure, but what's not in doubt is why she hasn't held a press conference since literally last year:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/07/heres-how-long-it-has-been-since-hillary-clinton-held-a-press-conference/

    I think it's great that she won't field unscripted questions in public from the press. When Trump finally confronts her at the debates, she'll be so out of practice at the fine art of ducking and dodging questions that she won't even know what hit her.

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