Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, July 5, 2016
If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.
Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983
No one expected Barrack Hussein Obama to allow his Attorney General to indict Mrs., Hillary Clinton for anything, and apparently Bill Clinton knew how to get the message across to her that the FBI Director had to be the one to announce the all clear. It was duly done today. Since the Democrats will not allow any impeachment convictions, and the House Republicans are not willing to impose the power of the purse to defund any Executive or Regulatory Commission actions, it is clear that so long as the Democrats hold the White House, things will go pretty much the way they want. One more Supreme Court appointment and that will be certain for decades,
Well, that didn’t take long. I had been wondering how my read that Hillary was for the chop jibed with Obama’s commitment to campaign with her today. Short answer, I was wrong, likely involving wishful thinking.
20-20 hindsight, the correct analysis of Bill Clinton’s meeting with AG Lynch was the one with Lynch telling him to tell Hillary that whatever she did in her upcoming FBI interview, don’t lie (and thus insult the FBI beyond endurance while Martha-Stewarting her way back into jeopardy.)
Comey’s announcement was interesting. He made clear that felony exposure of classified material can be intentional or negligent. He made clear Hillary systematically exposed significant classified material for years on end. He stated the FBI couldn’t prove intent. He emphasized that what the FBI has here are facts. He dropped a strong hint that nobody else should try this. Then he announced no recommendation for prosecution.
Not exactly a resounding exoneration. (Nor a ringing affirmation of the rule of law.)
The immediate consequence I see is that the Reps week after next can decide whether or not to nominate Trump in the reasonably sure knowledge that either way, the week after that the Dems will nominate Hillary.
That’s reasonably sure, mind. Not sure. Based on these FBI facts, DOJ could still prosecute. It would of course be a purely political calculation, made if at some point Hillary becomes such a likely loser that parachuting in a substitute seems a lower risk to the legacy.
Cynical? Moi? It’s 2016 – the correct question is, am I cynical *enough*?
Porkypine
Hello Jerry,
Got this today from a local friend. Just to be clear, it was written BEFORE the FBI announced the obvious: Although Hillary had committed a series of RECENT prima facie felonies (not counting her serial lies and felonies since she burst on the scene in 1992), she would not be prosecuted:
Given what we KNOW about the behavior of Obama, Hillary, Bill, and the rest of the progressive elite, can you imagine them being prosecuted for ANYTHING?
Bob Ludwick
Dr. Pournelle,
Despite several areas in which I disagree with him, I still favor “all four stanzas” as described by Isaac Asimov: http://www.purewatergazette.net/asimov.htm
In a recent PBS News Hour panel discussion about the electorate’s apparent mistrust of Mrs. Clinton, I was absolutely amazed that no one at all referred to William Jefferson Clinton. For most of her husband’s political career they campaigned as a couple, even stating at various times that she was a co-governor, a co-president, or the equivalent of a cabinet member. I cannot believe that this learned group had forgotten Mr. Clinton, especially as several of the same panel were just days later quite conversant with him a few days later after he’d met the Attorney General in the Phoenix Airport. While I’m absolutely sure there is nothing to the latter story, are Mrs. Clinton’s supporters trying to forget him or just deliberately not talking about the elephant in the room?
As to the Benghazi investigation, I can’t understand how the determination that no laws were broken amounts to the same as a declaration of competence on the part of the President,his foreign policy, or the Secretary of State. I never thought there was any traction in the e-mail or classified information side shows, but the lack of criminality does not correlate to there being no negligence.
-d
Fall of the Republic
If I had any confidence in DOJ after Holder got his criminal contempt charge, Lynch nixed that. I thought maybe, just maybe, FBI had some of that Fidelity, Integrity, Bravery like it says on their little statue outside their little building in DC. I could have gone to the FBI building or the National Archives because I didn’t have much time, and I chose the FBI building. Now, I wish I had chosen to see the National Archives:
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There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.
Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States. In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no
sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook
I wonder what Sideshow Don will have to say about Comey the Clown’s latest skit — excuse me — press conference?
Did you ever see In Living Color? I hated that show, but I liked the Homey the Clown skits because I was a young boy and he hit people on
the head and yelled his catch phrase. Comey don’t play that!
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
The FBI Director described in detail how she broke the laws, several of them, and made it clear that anyone else would have been prosecuted. He described her lies to Federal Officers, far more than Martha Stewart’s denials of actions that were not criminal (but the denial was) which got her actual jail time. Then he said, But she meant well, meant no harm, and we will let her off.
Dear Jerry,
Some random thoughts on recent posts by your correspondents-
BREXIT
Those voters in Northern England sending a message to the London elite that they want the Foreigner Off Their Backs? Hmm, what was that about the Dane and his Dane geld? “What a shock, that the very same Northerners that booted the Dane out are now telling their elite Once Again that Britain is an island off the coast of Europe.
Whatever happened to that hoary old SFnal concept of an “Anglic Union”?
Seems the English speaking nations have at least as much in common as cheese eating wine swilller s, sausage gnashing beer guzzlers and potato chewing vodka imbibers.
Germany and the EU-
In 1989, when Germany reunified, I reminded everyone I could talk to about such matters what one prescient French politician said about Germany in the fifties, when asked if it was possible, considering history, for a Frenchman to “love” Germany: “Oh, I do love Germany! Why, each and every day I thank the Good Lord that there are TWO of them!”
Once the Germans reunified, I was certain that the German dream of a commercial empire the length and breadth of the Danube valley under the domination of Good German Burgers was next on the agenda.
Well, how long did it take for the “nation” of Yugoslavia, after 1989, to fall apart like a cheap pair of Russian shoes in the first spring rain? About two years, if you were not paying attention.
Given that, and the collapse of the Warsaw pact along with the USSR, all barriers to the EU becoming a German tool for the economic combination of Europe under Good German Management, with France as a junior partner a la Scotland’s relationship to England in the British Empire, with Belgium fulfilling the role as a good Non-Nation in search of a job of being a Safe house and supplier of faceless bureaucrats for this racket, were gone. Fait accompli. Done Deal. Forget About It!
If you take a look at the ca. 1961 classic work by Fritz Fischer on German war aims in the First World War, you will notice that the BRD has achieved them, and all without a single German soldier buying the farm.
As for “democracy”: Ortega y Gasset said it all in that quote you posted a few days ago. The New Class of the EU are believers in aristocratic ideals, not any form of so called democracy. Unfortunately, they are the aristocratic ideals of the continent, not the considerably less self-interested set of such ideals evolved by the British upper-classes, largely in response to the challenge of the French Revolution. The ideals of Brussels are Ancien Regime, with a Crony capitalist High Tech gloss.
I don’t find any of this particularly surprising. Anyone with a basic understanding of European and German history can see the culmination of centuries long trends in all of this. The long decline of France, which two hundred and fifty years ago was home to forty per cent of the European population, the long rise of Germany, and the stagnation of Russia and Eastern Europe, leading that region to be little more than a rather recalcitrant commercial colony of Germany has all been predictable.
Solution? I don’t see any. Only suggestion I have is a la Mr. Heinlein.
Get as many people off this world and living on others as widely dispersed and far away as possible, because this one is just too crowded, too full of old wounds and unhealed hurts, and “Blowups Happen”!
Anglic Union, and Per Aspera Ad Astra, anyone?
Petronius
I got distracted and sent too soon as my wife was reading and we got talking. I have a few things I noticed about this article that I think deserve mention:
Donald Trump tweeted: “The only people who are not interested in being the V.P. pick are the people who have not been asked!”
So, first reaction, wanting the job would seem to be requite to having it and I would not expect him to offer the job to an unqualified person, until now. And, he suggests that he’s asking anyone who might be interested in the job, which suggests desperation.
That he posted this random outburst on Twitter at all shows you that it’s on his mind and he wants to create some buzz about it. And that brings me to my second point.
The New York Times seems to have writers have gone, well, look:
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It is unusual in recent history for a presumptive nominee of a major party to tease out the process for choosing a running mate in such a public way, but it is in reflective of Mr. Trump’s approach on his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/us/politics/joni-ernst-trump-vp.html
Yeah, that must be it. Sideshow Don is just putting on a show and enhancing his brand, which of course he is but that’s not all he’s doing. While the NYT sees Sideshow Don, I see a man gathering intelligence and building rapport and moving the sale down the line to the close while overcoming objections and building need and urgency.
This public display affects poll numbers, creates feedback, and may engender useful comments from allies and equally useful emotional outbursts from enemies — all of which further those goals. The comments build rapport even if they mean nothing. The outbursts offer intelligence and opponents would probably shut their mouths if they knew that. But they don’t and they won’t and “the beat goes on” as you say. It’s growing on me…. 😉
The most important things I’ve noticed:
LTC Ernst is a combat veteran and she will lend gravitas to Trump on foreign and defense policy simply with her background alone.
LTC Ernst is speaking in a presidential way and she’s on a tour like Palin’s.
LTC Ernst’s presence is consistent with the tradition in this country that our presidents are, mostly, career politicians or generals. I know, she’s a light colonel but most of the political prostitutes are not really politicians so I think we can make allowances, don’t’ you?
The only person on the left that I can see that could hold a candle to LTC Ernst would be MAJ Tulsi Gabbard, currently serving the Military Police Corps through the Army National Guard.
But, Clinton’s people likely won’t think she needs Gabbard and she probably wouldn’t help much from their point of view but, should we get stuck with a Clinton presidency, Gabbard might make it livable.
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
Multiple posts on front page of his blog
Record Warm 2016? What a Difference One Month Makes
July 1st, 2016
With the rapid cooling now occurring in the global average tropospheric temperature, my previous prediction of a record warm year in the satellite data for 2016 looks…well…premature.
UAH Global Temperature Update for June 2016: +0.34 deg. C
July 1st, 2016
Second largest 2-month drop in global average satellite temperatures.
Largest 2-month drop in tropical average satellite temperatures.(The global anomaly for May was +0.55 deg. C)
J
Interesting that June took a cooling turn. Especially given that 12 out of the 30 days in the month, the Sun was spotless on the near side, and for about half of that time, apparently spotless on the far side as well.
There are now teeny-tiny little spots starting to show back up. But the one that’s currently numbered on the near side is so small I can’t even see it. And they seem to spring up and then decay a day later.
Stephanie Osborn
“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com
The uncertainties continue. The consensus has come apart on CO2 Global Warming although there is nor a lot of agreement on what is happening. It is important to note that the Earth has almost certainly been both warmer and colder than now in historical times: the Viking period warm, which is corroborated by Asian records, and the Roman Warm period were warmer, and it was certainly colder in Revolutionary War times.
Jerry:
I note that all 5 volumes of The History of England, from the Accession of James II are available on Amazon as Kindle editions – free of charge.
So many books – so little time.
Best Regards,
— Lindy Sisk
Incompetent Governence
The madness continues; the first paragraph — while not very informative — sets the tone and pace for the final paragraphs. It’s a nice piece:
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Yet the president has relied on the outdated authorization passed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to validate his multiple air and drone campaigns, as well as deployment of trainers, advisers and special operations forces. Obama almost certainly does not believe that the old AUMF (Authorization of Use of Military Force), directed against those who plotted the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, has any relevance in today’s world. But he may fear that Congress would make a bad situation worse.
If H.J. Res. 84, “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Islamist Extremism”, is any indication, Obama would be right in that assumption. Sponsored by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and cosponsored by Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) and Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), the bill creates a long list of target “organizations that support Islamist extremism”, many of which have done nothing against America. It is a strikingly foolish piece of legislation.
First of all, a country normally declares war against entities, not philosophies. Usually the enemy is another nation. In today’s world, that might be applied to a group. But war involves destroying states, dismantling organizations and killing people. It does not entail criticizing ideologies or theologies. What matters is not whether a group is Islamist, but whether it endangers America.
Secondly, the threat to America and other nations is violent extremism, not extremism itself. It doesn’t particularly matter if people have kooky ideas if they do not kill, maim, kidnap, torture and otherwise harm others. One best avoids rather than executes them. Had Adolf Hitler remained a deranged street artist in Vienna, the United States would have had no cause to target him despite his hideous views. War became necessary when Hitler became Germany’s chancellor and put armored divisions, and more, in support of his opinions.
Lastly, war should be reserved for responding to threats to America, not cleaning up messes in other nations’ neighborhoods. During World War II, Washington declared war on Japan and Germany, then later on Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. All were fighting against America or its allies; Congress did not pass a resolution against fascism. Spain chose not to enter the conflict, despite dictator Francisco Franco having received support from Germany and Italy during its civil war. The Franco regime might have been evil, but it posed no security threat to America. Other governments might have been considered fascist, but Washington had no cause to attack them.
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http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/declaring-war-islamist-extremism-nonsense-16652
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
Elite School Teaches White Kids They’re Born Racist.
Now hear this! The doctrine of original sin has been updated to suit the social justice paradigm. Now, only white people shall be born in original sin and they will atone to the colored people who may grant indulgences!
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An elite Manhattan school is teaching white students as young as 6 that they’re born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from “white privilege,” while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers.
Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it.
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http://nypost.com/2016/07/01/elite-k-8-school-teaches-white-students-theyre-born-racist/
“Even liberal parents aren’t buying it”. It’s too nutty, even for them. Maybe in a couple more election cycles? Maybe then we’ll be voting between the Grand Dragon of the KKK and Reverend Farakhan (however you spell his name)?
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
