October 31, 2016

Will the Weiner email cache revive the investigation of the Clinton Foundation?

I'm reading "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe/Laptop may contain thousands of messages sent to or from Mrs. Clinton’s private server" by Devlin Barrett at The Wall Street Journal. This is the long piece that Drudge is linking right now with the headline — in red — "FBI FOUND 650,000 EMAILS ON LAPTOP/DOJ BLOCKED FOUNDATION PROBE."

It's that second part that interested me the most. The discovery of the Weiner cache — and isn't it huge? — has overshadowed the Podesta emails, which contained what I thought was the October surprise: Chelsea Clinton's alarm over the pay-to-play structure of the Clinton Foundation. I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue.

And now here's the news* that the Department of Justice blocked the FBI's investigation into the Foundation.

New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.

Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case....
McCabe is Andrew McCabe, second in command at the FBI. He's the one whose wife ran for office — for the Virginia state senate — and got $467,500 from a Terry McAuliffe PAC. McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia,  used to be a Clinton Foundation board member. McCabe, we're told, only started overseeing the email investigation after his wife lost that election. But there are "other Clinton-related investigations":
Early this year, four FBI field offices—New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark.—were collecting information about the Clinton Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes or influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter....

In February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice Department, according to these people. By all accounts, the meeting didn’t go well. Some said that is because the FBI didn’t present compelling evidence to justify more aggressive pursuit of the Clinton Foundation, and that the career anticorruption prosecutors in the room simply believed it wasn’t a very strong case. Others said that from the start, the Justice Department officials were stern, icy and dismissive of the case.
But after Comey's statement in July that there should be no prosecution in the email controversy, the FBI refocused on the Foundation.
According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season....
The Justice Department official was “very pissed off,” according to one person close to Mr. McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant...

“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official replied, “Of course not,” these people said....

Others further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were given a much starker instruction on the case: “Stand down.”
______________________________

* The linked piece is long and so substantial that it makes me want to subscribe to the WSJ again just to reward the kind of journalism that I feel we've been starved of. You can get to this article from my link, I believe, and there are always work-arounds to get to WSJ articles. I would pay for the convenience of reading the site in my normal way, but I like reading what I can blog about, and the site doesn't, like the NYT, give subscribers links that will open particular articles for nonsubscribers.

136 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Clinton money grubbing and corruption is staggering.
It never ends.

You would think the democrat party would be ashamed and embarrassed.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Gems = Sharia Law School.

Achilles said...

"I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue."

Because every major press outlet is owned by people and corporations that want Hillary elected. Every news outlet loses money but the wealthy people that own them are buying something with their subsidy of the news.

You are smart enough to figure out what that something is.

David Begley said...

Andy McCarty, former Assistant US Attorney, has called the Clinton Foundation a RICO enterprise. James Kallstrom, formerly the head of the FBI in NYC, has said the Clintons are like the Mafia. These are two serious and experienced federal law enforcement people, but they are rarely on TV and mostly ignored.

The media covering for the Clintons was xpected. What wasn't expected was the DOJ going into full protection mode. Trump will have to drain the swamp at Justice.

damikesc said...

I don't get WHY the media loves the Clintons so much. It is truly baffling.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The Clintonopolis corporate press ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN are all tangled up with the Clinton's and their money schemes.

Jake said...

I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue.

Because it obviously is more damaging. But, it's also more complicated and the MM isn't interested in telling complicated stories when there are headlines to be written involving grabbing pu#$y and Dickileaks.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Obama's DOJ is corrupt. The corruption goes all the way to the top.

Bob Ellison said...

650,000 emails.

Let's assume the server had ten email accounts, and let's multiply that by two, since there were lots of cc:'s. Each person with an address on the server is emailing 365 days/year over Hillary's 4-year term.

That's about 22 emails per person per day for four years, every day of the year.

Nobody does that.

CStanley said...

The rallying cry of all anti-Clinton voters should be "We will not stand down."

Achilles said...

I read that article last night while it was whited out below the request for subscription.

I would pay for a service that I thought was bravely reporting everything they knew. Right now the press is just covering their ass after shilling for Clinton the last 6 months. They are only turning now when the gig is obviously up.

And thank to god we nominated Trump. Little Marco was telling us to stop reading the Wikileaks's. Jeb and the Bush clan have already demonstrated they wanted Hillary all along. Mitt outed himself as a globalist shill. Cruz might have stuck with it to the end but everyone in the country would have hated him. Half the people like me who started the campaign supporting him think he is a sleazebag. The press would have eaten him.

Bob Ellison said...

In fact, this is not the server. It's a client computer. How the hell does it get almost a million emails?

rehajm said...

I don't get WHY the media loves the Clintons so much. It is truly baffling.

It's easier to understand if you consider it might be a combination of love and fear.

Bay Area Guy said...

"I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue."

Sure you can. Obama's DOJ - led by Holder and Lynch - are slow-walking any investigation into the Foundation, because of their partisan politics, while a compliant " see no evil" LeftWing media is happy to play ostrich as well.

That's how the Left operates when they hold the levers of power. Investigate their opponents, tacitly support their allies. Don't be naive Althouse.

Gabriel said...

@Bob Ellison:Let's assume the server had ten email accounts, and let's multiply that by two,

Those ten accounts are emailing each other. Ten people who email each other is 55 pairs. If each pair communicates about once a day, you get 8 emails a day per pair for 4 years to get 650,000.

I'm a pretty obscure individual and I get or send many more than 8 emails a day in the course of my work.

Achilles said...

Blogger CStanley said...
The rallying cry of all anti-Clinton voters should be "We will not stand down."

Exactly. Trump was the only person we could have nominated in the primary that would refuse to accept the results of an obviously corrupt election. Every single career politician in the Republican Party chastised him for that.

Trump was the only one who would have forced this.

Curious George said...

"I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue."

This is frightening.

MaxedOutMama said...

I too think the pay-for-play structure of the Clinton Foundation and the subsidiary lobbying firms is a tremendous scandal. The press is not really discussing it. Teneo has gone global, so I assume that if Hillary Clinton becomes president, Chelsea is going to wind up being extremely rich indeed.

I'm amazed that anyone thinks this particular trove of emails outweighs the other self-dealings of which we are now cognizant.

Who uses the State Department as a fundraiser???

I could never, ever vote for Hillary.

Gabriel said...

@Bob Ellison:How the hell does it get almost a million emails?

Giant email chains that have lots of people on the address, most of whom are not paying attention.

Anyone who works in a largish organization knows what I'm talking about.

Again, I'm obscure, and I easily send or receive 20 emails a day at work.

wholelottasplainin said...

As the latest "Hitler Finds Out" video suggests:

"We should have made Lorena Bobbitt Surgeon General."

heh

Bob Ellison said...

Yes, Gabriel. Your analysis presumes that Huma and Anthony's kitchen laptop had the entire email archive.

No.

Humperdink said...

What I find amusing throughout all the Fred and Hilma Clinstone's scandals is that seemingly intelligent people think they can climb into bed with these creatures and expect to escape untarnished. Go back to 1992 and start recounting the jailed associates, suicides, and reputations destroyed.

Now you have the #2 FBI's spouse sucking $467K for her campaign from Clinstone gang member Terry McAwful. Does McCabe not think for a moment this will not bite him in the posterior?

Wilbur said...

"I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue."

In the law game, we call this willful blindness. If the reasons are not as clear as clear can be, you aren't paying attention. And I know from reading this blog you pay close attention.

Bay Area Guy said...

"I don't get WHY the media loves the Clintons so much. It is truly baffling."

Not baffling at all. They went to the schools, share the same friends, and most importantly, share the same Left-Wing values.

You don't think George Stephanopoulos agrees with every position Hillary supports?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sadly, Trump blew most of his horrid campaign stepping on his own d*ck.

David Begley said...

If Peter Schweitzer - without the benefit of wiretaps and subpoenas - could write the damning book "Clinton Cash" imagine what the full force of the FBI could bring to the case.

Achilles said...

Blogger Gabriel said...

"Again, I'm obscure, and I easily send or receive 20 emails a day at work."

Do you keep them in a folder named "life insurance?"

Bob Ellison said...

20 emails/day at work, 365 days/year, all on your computer?

If you look at your emails, you'll probably find different numbers. Even counting the spam, the dick pics from Weiner, it's not gonna add up.

These numbers don't make sense.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Smells like the John Doe investigation in Wisconsin.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

This should fill the next 7 or so 24-hour news cycles quite nicely!

Tank said...

The Clintons are ALWAYS involved in something that is illegal, might be illegal, should be illegal or is immoral. This is because they are bad people. Bad. Liars, Con Men, bad people. Thoroughly corrupt. Thoroughly. Bad.

They are bad.

The most ironic thing re: the EMails is the legalistic discussion of whether setting up a private server was careless or reckless or really, really reckless. It was none of these things. It was a deliberate act, an intentional act, to facilitate selling influence via the Secretary of State's office. It was ... a bad act by bad people. They knowingly risked the security of the United States of America so that they could make a lot, a lot, a lot of money.

Tommy Duncan said...

The dealings of the Clinton Foundation are intentionally complex. There are many dots to connect, which is by design:

(1) Simple bumper sticker slogans like "Bush lied, people died" don't apply. It takes concentration and persistence to understand the schemes. The scandals are beyond the attention span of most voters and nearly all mainstream journalists.

(2) Because there are so many dots to connect there are many connections that can be challenged by Hillary's surrogates. Trying to get traction in exposing the truth is like playing "whack a mole".

The Clintons know the virtues of complex schemes.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The Clintons will be easily blackmailed. Think of all the favors they owe.

Sydney said...

One thing I am not clear about. What is the relationship between the Department of Justice and the FBI? Does the Department of Justice have some sort of rulership over the FBI? Can they tell them what to investigate and what not to investigate? I always thought they were two separate organizations, akin to the police department and the prosecuting attorney's office on the local level.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Left Bank, what the hell are you smoking?

WI John Doe was an abuse of power and an exercise in denying multiple parties' their first amendment rights under the color of a "secret investigation" that at heart had no underlying crime, and on the surface was not criminal in the least. That's what democrats in power do on OFFENSE.

Clinton Crime Inc. is an abuse of investigative power in the way the DOJ squelched investigation into what -- on the surface -- appears to be a clearly pat-to-play ethical and legal morass.

The power of the Democrat-DOJ alliance is to protect the guilty, not to go after the innocent like the WI John Doe idiots. These things look alike to you how?

Achilles said...

Blogger AprilApple said...
"Sadly, Trump blew most of his horrid campaign stepping on his own d*ck."

You simply refuse to accept reality.

Any of the "deep bench" would have been reacting to stories about how they cause cancer or torture dogs or get DUI's or knew about Iran Contra and lied about it etc. Every single campaign in the last 30 years we have literally had Hitler as our nominee. Romney was nearly a saint and they still managed to destroy him and defeat him.

The entire deep bench criticized Trump for refusing to accept the results. They were and are all wrong. They all get their money from the same people that are trying to get Hillary elected. Even Ted Cruz is owned by Golman Sachs. They would have played the dope in the rope a dope game with the media like every republican does.

Tommy Duncan said...

In fact, this is not the server. It's a client computer. How the hell does it get almost a million emails?

You need to ask a different question: How many 15 year old girls are there in the US?

Achilles said...

Blogger Tommy Duncan said...
In fact, this is not the server. It's a client computer. How the hell does it get almost a million emails?

You need to ask a different question: How many 15 year old girls are there in the US?

More like how many deals did Hillary and Bill make? Or how many corrupt dictators are there in the world?

traditionalguy said...

The news is the skill at deception of the media by constructing narrative bubbles. This was invented by Bill, enforced by Hillery, and carried out with the ruthlessness of a Communist by Obama.

They co-opt a trusted figure with GOP connections and appoint him to run Stand Down apparatus from the top of Federal Agencies. Like Gates in Defense. Petraeus in CIA. Comey in FBI. The Attorney General is just a consiglieri. The EPA is total war on America.

The entire government has morphed into a charade reinforced by a Media echo chamber of pretending there is a virtue. That is the SWAMP that Trump says he will drainfor the surviviors out here in the USA. There will be a lot of alligators and snakes running for the hills soon.

Hagar said...

The FBI is a subsidiary agency of the Justice Dept. which is an arm of the President's administration.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Then there's the irony of the whole mess, so stunningly theatrical!

IF the Clintons had kept their word to Obama and maintained an above-board organization, without foreign donors, the Clinton Crime Inc. foundation would have created a nice amount of wealth for the grifters and given their dumbass daughter a place to work without raising huge red flags over the honesty and integrity of the Candidate.

IF Hillary had not lied and tried to cover up her poor management of Benghazi then the 7th committee running oversight would not have eventually pulled that thread that led to the reveal of her secret unsecured server.

IF Carlos Danger had not reappeared with his dick in his hand, this other string would never have been pulled and we would not be treated to another public cluster-investigation.

BUT by now the Russians and/or Wikileaks would have generated enough curiosity by now that perhaps some real journalist would have gone after this story with gusto. Maybe. Probably the WSJ.

Hagar said...

And for the conspiracy minded: the laptop computer was not searched previously because it was Anthony Weiner's personal computer and was not suspected of having any of his wife's messages on it and Huma Abedin has stated she has no idea of how these e-mails came to be on it.
So, did the FBI - or "the Russians" - plant them there?

rhhardin said...

I say it's the video. That guy is going to jail.

Sydney said...

@Hagar- thanks for the clarification re: Justice Department and FBI.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Achilles- Your Trump is god worship is a turn off. Makes me, and others, want to vote 3rd party.

Matt Sablan said...

"So, did the FBI - or "the Russians" - plant them there?"

-- What I heard this weekend, though not necessarily true, is it was not Weiner's. It was a shared device that had auto-synch enabled, meaning that everytime Huma Abedin signed in, it synched her email accounts.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Achillies- Ted is not owned by Goldman Sachs.
Did Cruz ever write a big stinky check to the Clinton Foundation?

Trump did. Funny - you have no problem with that. "It's just biznis" right?


Trump's ads in CO are terrible. I have no idea who he is trying to target. why go after the people who are already fans?

Why won't Trump make ads reminding everyone of the Clintons corruption? It's so bizarre.

Comanche Voter said...

Some pigs are just more equal than others; Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch just love their pet pigs. And of course Farmer Obama told Eric and Loretta to leave the pigs alone.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Democratic nominee - Hillary Clinton - has 2 significant people in her life: (1) Bill Clinton and (2) Huma Abedin.

Bill, her husband, is: (a) an admitted adulterer (Gennifer Flowers), (b) an admitted sexual harasser (Paula Jones $850K settlement), (c) an admitted liar ("I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky") and (d) a likely rapist (Juanita Broaddrick)

Huma, her chief of staff, is (a) married to a sexting pervert, former Dem Congressman Anthony Weiner, who (b) uses the handle "Carlos Danger" and is (c) being investigated on child pornography changes by the FBI.

And somehow 650,000 of Hillary's State Department emails, some of which were classified, landed on Weiner's laptop?

And, oh yeah - the Clinton Global Initiative is their Multi-million dollar shakedown organization which serves as their base of operations.

You want these people to run our country?

Vote Trump-Pence in 2016

David Begley said...

LOL. HIllary has rolled out an ad featuring the Daisy Girl from LBJ's ad.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

At the very least, the appearance of top secret emails on Carlos Danger's laptop shows that Hillary and her staff (Huma do you look good in orange?) were ALL extremely careless (to coin a phrase) with national security. Can some loyal democrat please explain to me how "the smartest woman in the world" who is "the most prepared to be president ever" can be such a dumbass? Is it an arrogant lust for power that blainds her? Is it a weird paranoia that causes secretive actions when everyone around you is asking for transparency? WTF Hillary?

And when oh when will any journalist ask her relevant questions about all of this:

Will Hillary's admin continue to employ any staff that took the 5th in FBI interviews?

What was Hillary's part in crafting the secret side deals with Iran?

Why is Hillary's ability to recall facts and factoids so strong at "debates" and so piss poor when under oath?

What specific parts of the TPP changed between the "gold standard" tag Hillary gave it and last year when she turned against it? Yes be specific.

What does it say about an administrator's management abilities when she cannot follow the rules she is supposed to enforce, never fires someone who does wrong, skates right along the line of legality, and continues to employ people who obstruct investigations?

Todd said...

Hagar said...

So, did the FBI - or "the Russians" - plant them there?

10/31/16, 8:02 AM


Nothing quite so complicated. It is called insurance. Huma did not want to turn out like Vince Foster after Hill didn't need/trust her any more.

PB said...

Emails from a Yahoo account don't just end up on your computer merely by access their web email portal. A client program had to be configured with her email account name and password using the POP protocol and set to not delete from server. From that time on, the email client program remained active and retrieved emails every 15 minutes (default) or so. Even if Huma later only used the web interface or accessed by one of her mobile devices (usually configured with IMAP), anything she thought she was deleting from her account would never have been deleted from the client email program using POP.

I suspect as a wealthy liberal, it was an Apple laptop. Then the email client is automatically started when the computer boots up and only suspends when the computer suspends. It could easily have been collecting these emails for years even if Huma stopped using it. This would have survived laptop replacements as Apple's Time Machine app makes transferring everything from an old machine to a new machine painless and the email client is always active collecting emails.

Or Weiner could have set up the email client to collect Huma's email to keep track of her and know what she was doing.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

She set up the private server to hide her secret Clinton Foundation money-stuffing extravaganza. All that world-traveling she did on the tax payer dime? Most of it was for her personal enrichment tour.

David said...

John Hinderaker speculates that Weiner had Huma's password(s) and was pulling emails to protect/empower himself without her knowledge. It's possible. But in this world nearly anything is possible, especially where you have hateful little turds like Weiner involved. You have to remember that, before the sex scandals, Weiner was the most vicious slimy attack rat the Democrats had.

Brando said...

Makes me almost miss the days of independent counsels. The FBI cannot be free of partisan pressure.

Of course, when we had independent counsels they were still criticized for partisanship but at least then you could argue that the DOJ initiated them.

If Congress could stop stepping on its own feet it could investigate this, but if Benghazi is any indication we shouldn't count on that.

Big Mike said...

@Mike, let's go back a step further. If the Democrats in the Senate had voted to convict Bill Clinton then ...

Al Gore would have been the incumbent president in 2000 and probably would have won. Therefore no George W. Bush as president.

Probably no Senator Hillary Clinton and certainly no Secretary of State.

A high likelihood of winning the presidency and retaking the Senate this year.

Sebastian said...

"You don't think George Stephanopoulos agrees with every position Hillary supports?" Whatever "position" it happens to be.

Of course, the most baffling aspect of this whole episode is why all these people aren't in prison already. Starting with Hill, they knowingly participated in a system that was bound to misplace confidential and top secret information, which the SoS is bound to handle as a matter of course.

Matt Sablan said...

"How the hell does it get almost a million emails?"

-- We're up to that much? I remember when news broke I was being told: "It is just three emails, and none of them even went to Clinton!"

Mary Beth said...

McCabe, we're told, only started overseeing the email investigation after his wife lost that election.

This reflects poorly on those who put him in charge of the email investigation. It's hard not to feel indebted to someone who has given you (or someone close to you) a large amount of money. That she failed to win the election might make the McCabes feel it even more.

Was this considered before appointing him to the case? Or was that a feature rather than a bug?

PB said...

650k emails is a lot, but not out of reach for an active user who also gets lots of junk mail.

Someone like Huma probably got 250-300 emails a day from all sorts of people, plus at least 100 junk emails, too. Try stopping junk email going to a Yahoo account!

250 emails received + 50 sent + 100 junk emails = 400 emails/day x 365 days/year = 146,000 emails/year x 4 years = 584,000 emails/year.

MayBee said...

When I watched Clinton Cash, the first thing I did was start googling around for information to show why it was all a bunch of baloney. There wasn't. I think the most the Hillary said about it was during the debate with Bernie when she said the author was discredited.

I have yet to hear any Democrat rush to the microphone to denounce Clinton, to demand an explanation, or to separate themselves from her. Democrats are so much better at not doing the dance. (or as Clarice at Just One Minute says of the Republicans, the always need to keep their togas clean)

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

EIGHT more years of this, People. Is that what you want?

Are you better off now than you were two Clintons ago?

Brando said...

The other take away is this--whether this new stuff is enough to swing the election, there's going to be a lot of self-kicking from the non-delusional. That is, if Hillary loses, Dems will have to ask "knowing what we knew a year ago, that this woman's foundation and practices were corrupt, do we really want to risk letting her run basically unopposed? Are we that cocky of victory?" If she wins, Republicans will have to ask "knowing how vulnerable Clinton was, does it really make any sense to pick the one guy she could beat?"

Of course, the delusional will still tell themselves that Trump didn't fail, he could only be failed, and it is all somehow the Bush family's fault (Billy Bush being a sleeper agent) or that Hillary lost because sexism or something.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Nothing is funnier than the press reacting to an October Surprise that didn't come from them.

The ever-witty Iowahawk on Twitter LINK

Gusty Winds said...

Let's hope. Hillary and Obama sold the country to the highest bidder. Pay for play to Qatar and Saudi Arabia to topple Assad. They were outplayed. Ransom payments to Iran ended up in the hands of the Russians. Millions of people have been dislocated, and tens of thousands have died. Now the Democrats are willing to risk war with Russia to double down on the scam.

If Hillary wins, the constitutional crisis begins the day after she is elected. If Trump wins perhaps there is a chance to expose the dirty international games our country's elite have been playing for self enrichment.

The only reason the DOJ blocked the investigation into the Clinton Foundation is because Obama and Lynch have made it corrupt.

There is something significant in those emails. It will be bigger than Watergate.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Brando I don't understand the "pick a better candidate" reference to Republicans. How exactly would that happen? We don't rig the game like the D's do.

MayBee said...

Huma should do a press conference.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

I'll bet poor Huma is getting the old stink eye treatment from Hillary this morning.
One can just imagine the interrogations now going on inside the Clinton crime syndicate.




Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

A song for the occasion.

Molly said...

The career prosecutors who argued so strongly that there was not a prosecutable case here (here being the Clinton foundation investigation) --- Is this is the same public integrity section that sued the Republican senator from Alaska, causing his loss at the polls, and then was excoriated by the judge for unethical prosecution and through the case out? (I may not have all the details precisely correct, but I think people will know what I mean.) And if this is the same group of lawyers, doesn't calling the "career professionals" unfairly imply that they are apolitical, when in fact they are strongly pro-Democrat and anti-REpublican?

Wince said...

damikesc said...
I don't get WHY the media loves the Clintons so much. It is truly baffling.

Aside from everything that's been said above, Democrats believe the Clintons are popular and winners, and that trumps all other considerations.

If that perception is replaced by the sense of mercenary betrayal there will indeed be a steep fall for Clinton, Inc.

David Begley said...

The most amazing thing about this campaign has been the willful blindness by the MSM and 40% of voters to the crimes and corruption of the Clintons.

Molly said...

Oops "threw the case out".

Amadeus 48 said...

Everyone, including me, hated the special prosecutor law. Everyone applauded when it died.

Now we see why we need it when the press (other than the Murdoch press) is completely in the bag for the Dems. I laugh every time I read some tool with a byline talking about "the remarkably scandel-free Obama administration".

Vote Trump to return accountability to our government.

By the way, I have come to see the Achilles is right about the other GOP candidares. They would have rolled over in the face of united press criticism.

Althouse, the WSJ deserves your patronage.

Michael K said...

t was a deliberate act, an intentional act, to facilitate selling influence via the Secretary of State's office. It was ... a bad act by bad people. They knowingly risked the security of the United States of America so that they could make a lot, a lot, a lot of money.

Yes and the Clinton Crime Family is the worst thing that has happened to this country since The Civil War. Even ALger Hiss and the communists in the Roosevelt Administration did less harm

April Apple, your hatred for Trump is interesting as you seem willing to help Hillary by voting third party. You are not the only one and all you people deserve her if she should slither in.

rehajm said...

Someone like Huma probably got 250-300 emails a day from all sorts of people, plus at least 100 junk emails, too. Try stopping junk email going to a Yahoo account!

Remember too, Huma is/was a gatekeeper at State and the Clinton Foundation. Likely it's not just her communications but Hillary and other key players as well.

Brando said...

"Brando I don't understand the "pick a better candidate" reference to Republicans. How exactly would that happen? We don't rig the game like the D's do."

I'm thinking more the voters' pick. Trump did win a plurality.

And while the DNC did what they could for Hillary, the bigger issue for them was all top tier Dems deciding to sit this one out and let Hillary have it. With the voting itself, most Dems simply preferred Hillary to Bernie (not that I agree with their choice, but that's clearly what they opted for).

It's one thing to blow an election when the opposition isn't "that bad"--as in, we could live with him/her as president for four years. But while a lot of the apocalyptic talk about both of them is hysterical at times, they really are a substandard couple of candidates.

William said...

Both the Republicans and the Democrats have done a 180 turn on Comey. The Democrats have commenced dumping on him for this. The Dems just don't have a megaphone, they have staidium speakers and surround sound. Comey has a good chance of going the way of Ken Starr before this is over. An example must be made of him........It's like with all these women coming out with horror stories about Trump's gropings. These women are celebrated and sympathized with. I believe that there's an even larger number of women who have been exposed (heh, heh) to Clinton's moves, but you know that none of these women will ever come forward. Monica Lewinsky's tale does not have a happy ending..... You would think that Comey would have learned something from the example of Ken Starr, but apparently not. Even as I write this, I know reporters are writing deep think pieces about how the FBI Director is staging some kind of coup d'etat and must be removed and must be removed from office. Thank God we have brave women like Loretta Lynch who are willing to stand up to dictatorial whims.

Matt Sablan said...

From what we've seen of Clinton's emails, she also uses email like a telephone conversation, lots of short, one line emails back and forth. "Print pls" and the like.

William said...

I wonder how many of these items are part of Anthony Weiner's porn stach. The guy's probably got a primo collectection.

tcrosse said...

It's not that Hillary's fans love Hillary herself, but they love the character she plays on television. That is, they love the idea of Hillary, but not necessarily the reality (which they deny). In much the same way they love the liberal's idea of Canada, which is not the same as the reality of Canada.

Dr Weevil said...

Aren't political candidates allowed to keep campaign contributions they don't spend? If so, how much of hers did Mrs McCabe spend and how much did she have left over after she lost her state Senate race? And is it even taxable income?

dreams said...

"Sadly, Trump blew most of his horrid campaign stepping on his own d*ck."

You continue to underestimate Trump.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"It's that second part that interested me the most. The discovery of the Weiner cache — and isn't it huge?"

You're a bit of an imp, aren't you Althouse?

Wince said...

"Will the Weiner email cache revive the investigation of the Clinton Foundation?"

The Weiner cache -- or crotch -- "at this point what difference does it make?"

MayBee said...

Aren't political candidates allowed to keep campaign contributions they don't spend? If so, how much of hers did Mrs McCabe spend and how much did she have left over after she lost her state Senate race? And is it even taxable income?

This has been my own personal bugaboo. Campaigns should have some sort of taxation, $675,000 the McCabes had at their command. That's bigger than a lot of small business, who have to pay taxes.

Brando said...

"Aren't political candidates allowed to keep campaign contributions they don't spend?"

I thought there were rules that you couldn't spend it on personal things (e.g., buying yourself a new car for personal use) but could spend it on future campaigns or donate to another person's campaign. Might be different under state law though.

John henry said...

Finally someone may be looking at Huma. For the wrong reasons, perhaps, but at least they are looking at her. Not that the wrong reasons aren't also good reasons on their own. (Emails, corruption, etc)

What the FBI should really be looking at is Huma's background and the possibility that she is a Saudi Arabian (or other entity) mole who has wormed her way into the highest levels of govt (COS to SOS) and obtained the highest security clearance.

Huma was born in the US so is a US citizen. Her mother is Pakistani so under Pakistan's nationality law, Huma could be a Pakistani citizen. It may not be automatic so she might not be.

Huma lived from age 2 to 18 in Saudi Arabia.

Question: Is Huma a citizen of any other country than the US? Does she hold any non-US (Pakistani, Saudi Arabian, other) passports?

Huma went to pricey Georgetown University. Who financed this?

While a low rent intern and staffer in a high rent city, Huma got a reputation for fancy dressing ($2,000 dresses, $1,000 handbags and so on) she was once featured on the cover of Vogue(?) for her stylishness. Where did this money come from to support this lifestyle?

While still a staffer she bought a Georgetown townhouse for north of $400,000, cash. Where did she get the money. Neither her mother or father had any money.

Huma's mother was and is a professor at a university in Jeddah SA. Living in SA. When one has a close relative living in a country like that, one does not get a security clearance. Huma would have been susceptible to blackmail ranging from "Oh, gee, sorry. We had to cut funding and your mother is out of a job." to "Your mother has been consorting with underage boys and is subject to the death penalty."

"If you could just get us this info we could make her problems all go away."

Crooked Hilary relies heavily on Huma by all accounts. Was she taking Huma's advice on mid-east matters? For example, after Saddam was pulled from his hidey hole looking like a hobo having a bad night, Khaddafy saw the light and became our new best friend. He turned over many tons of nuke material, we sharing intelligence on Al-Queda, keeping a lid on mass emigration to Europe. Crooked Hilary had him killed and then laughed about it. Why?

I could go on but you get the idea. Suppose Huma was a mole planted by someone (govt or other) who wanted to stir up trouble in the mid-east. Perhaps to bring on the Caliphate, perhaps for other reasons.

I've been questioning Huma's allegiance for 10-12 years and just pissing in the wind. Maybe this will cause someone to start doing a deep dive into her background.

John Henry

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said... I cannot understand why the Clinton Foundation hasn't been a much bigger issue.

Respectfully, yes you can, Professor. You know why people don't care--why people on the Left don't care. It's an unlovely thing to admit, but the Left doesn't care about this kind of corruption when the people and institutions that benefit are on the Left. Combine that with the fact that the Media is so strongly Left themselves (and so cozy with/involved in corruption with the Clintons in particular) and you get this predictable outcome: not much coverage, and not much care.

The Clintons, as usual, get away with staggering corruption. This is why the Left gets to paint the Right as "obsessed" with the Clintons--we people on the Right genuinely cannot accept that the American people as a whole are indifferent to these kinds of crimes & abuses of Government power. We keep thinking "the next revelation will be the one that opens everyone's eyes up and finally sinks these crooks" so we keep pushing and pushing to get the facts out there. Turns out, though, that the facts don't matter. The Left cares about power. Adherence to some code (be it legal, moral, etc) is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with the Left's power. The moment it does--whoosh!--there goes the code. The check on that happening is supposed to be the outrage of the common citizen. But, again, no one cares.

You understand it, Professor. You don't like it, and you shouldn't, but you understand it.

Fabi said...

Maybe we should update the lyrics of Iko Iko to RICO RICO!

Anonymous said...

Wiener was a protege of Schumer before he went to the House. Wonder what Chuckie knows about his former partner in the Senate and her foundation. Someone needs to follow ALL of the many money paths. When you're good to mama, mama's good to you.

Achilles said...

10/31/16, 8:23 AM
Blogger Brando said...
If she wins, Republicans will have to ask "knowing how vulnerable Clinton was, does it really make any sense to pick the one guy she could beat?"

Of course, the delusional will still tell themselves that Trump didn't fail, he could only be failed, and it is all somehow the Bush family's fault (Billy Bush being a sleeper agent) or that Hillary lost because sexism or something.


This is pathetic. Zero critical thinking skills employed. This is just as stupid as April and the other stupid GOPers that have been caving in to Obama the last eight years. Trump got more votes in the primary than any republican in history. He was more like Reagan than any candidate since Reagan. The same dopes in the GOPe were bashing Reagan the same way you people are now. They are the same revisionist turds you are now.

Let's review some history for you jerks.

Bush I: Won because of Reagan, lost because he was a loser.
Dole: Perfect GOPe choice. Loser.
Bush II: Lost the popular vote to a hack. Only won the second time because he was president during a popular at the time war. Proceeded to pass a brand new entitlement with a republican controlled house and senate. Proceeded to sell out all of the veterans who fought that war. Lost the house and senate in 2006 and gave us obama in 2008. Historic loser.
McCain: Definition of loser.
Romney: Passed Obamacare before it was cool. Lost to a sitting president during a recession.

Who in the "deep bench" was any better than any of these people? Every one of them was part of the problem just like these losers were. The Republican Party is not going to be held hostage by people that want to lose gracefully anymore. For every one of you pouty losers that leave we are picking up 5 more that have not had a good reason to vote and we are picking up people who used to vote democrat to boot.

John henry said...

Blogger AprilApple said...

A song for the occasion.

Thanks April. Made me smile.

Especially because they bashed the bejabbers out of the computer but as far as I could tell left the hard drive intact. Then walked away, leaving the hard drive but with Crooked Hillary carrying the power supply. Cuz everyone knows that without the power supply you can't read a hard drive. Right?

Uhhh... Ms Clinton, the only dangerous part of that computer was the hard drive. And you left it in a field for anyone to find and come back to haunt you with.

Are these folks really that stupid? Or is is just a video?

As we are learning: Yes, they really are that stupid.

And they want her to be our president.

John Henry

John henry said...

To repost AprilApple's link that I discussed above

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FECIYlo3KRY

Video of the song "Damn it feels good to be a Clinton"

John Henry

Brando said...

Shorter Achilles--anyone who doesn't think Trump is a brilliant mastermind is a dupe and secretly supports wimps who cave to the Left on everything, because reasons. And anyone pointing out that Trump has until a year ago been a leftist celebrity hack with no understanding of anything he's talking about, is also a deluded GOP establishment loser. My faith in Trump is enough to make me believe he will fix everything because he told me so and his long record of lies and frauds are just the liberal media, which was against him for thirty years because they knew some day he'd be the GOP nominee.

Achilles, I guess it'd be cruel for me to poke a hole in your little balloon. You need it, to sleep at night and keep believing you didn't hand the country over to the Clintons. You need it, to keep believing you aren't the latest in a long line of people tricked by Trump.

So you can have your delusions. Sleep happy. Dream of what might have been.

Achilles said...

Blogger AprilApple said...
Achillies- Ted is not owned by Goldman Sachs.
Did Cruz ever write a big stinky check to the Clinton Foundation?

Nope. But Cruz has been a total bitch ever since he lost. He was a total bitch while losing. He ran a slimy campaign. The kind of passive aggressive crap using surrogates and weasely lawyer tricks to steal delegates we are all tired of. And Trump beat him badly. He even said Trump should focus on the issues and not engage the media. He lost to an outsider who didn't have a 10th of the resources Hillary had. He clearly would have lost to Hillary but he would have stuck to the issues!

John henry said...

Speaking of Huma, there was a great picture of her Friday night somewhere. I thought Drudge but could not find it again.

She and Crooked Hilary are both standing in front of some poor schlub sitting in a center row bulkhead seat on the campaign plane. One on each side. Not much of a caption but clearly berating the bejabbers out of the poor guy.

Huma's pic is priceless. She is bent over at the waist, arms akimbo, hands on hips leaning in. She looks like R. Lee Ermey berating Private Joker but without the kindness and cheerfulness that Ermey displayed.

You could take that picture, crop it and put it in the dictionary to illustrate the word "Shrew".

John Henry

mccullough said...

It's difficult to prove bribery in public corruption cases. The federal government lost its cases against Sen. Stevens, John Edward, and Gov. McDonnell. The public corruption prosecutors are right to be wary of prosecuting the Clinton Foundation case. The foundation is scummy as hell from a good government standpoint, but it would be almost impossible to prove criminal corruption.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Can Hillary actually be sworn in from a jail cell?

Achilles said...

Blogger Brando said...
Shorter Achilles-- ...

Do you realize that you posted absolutely nothing of value? Read your entire post again. You didn't deal with a single point I made. Your post was pathetic. Once Written has posted the same amount of information with far fewer words.

Achilles said...

Also @Brando:

I left out the projection. You project thoughts I have never had because you are not thinking critically. The GOPe and the progressives have this very much in common. You can't deal with the absolute failure you people have been.

John henry said...

And speaking of the picture of Huma I couldn't find, I leave here, find a link at Insty to Roger Simon talking about Huma and her connections.

In the comments is the picture I was thinking of

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fdeb54dd898f01e4ab2b86641afaec8679aba30604bf9c714ccf9fc279d9a091.jpg?w=600&h=429

John Henry

buwaya said...

To reiterate, Clintons are terrible, but they didnt create the system of corruption, its not unique to them, and they are old-fashioned small potatoes compared to whats really going on.

The press has been terrible because they are directed to do what they have been doing, it is obviously coordinated (as you all have noted at various times). To control the press in this way requires far more of an investment than what the Clintons have scooped up or hope to. There are much bigger pockets behind all of this and much bigger interests.

And this involves only certain organizations, and only parts of those - State and the DOJ. Consider the vast scale and reach of the rest of it, and consider that the level of ethics and competence we see here are typical of the rest.

Brando said...

"Do you realize that you posted absolutely nothing of value?"

And why bother? I read your posts to give you the courtesy of considering what you have to say, but you make so many unfounded assumptions (and pointless personal attacks) that it's clear you're not going to consider my responses in return.

You disagree that Trump is a fraud--understood, we'll not agree on that point. But then you go and assume that I (and any number of Trump critics on the Right) must therefore prefer "soft" candidates who will be afraid to confront Hillary. First, your assumption that any nominee would be soft on Hillary--or even softer than Trump has been, considering he has done more to help her than even I assumed last year--is completely unfounded. Second, you seem to think we saw Bob Dole's campaign and said "more of that, please!" Like I said, it's helpful to you to believe that because then you can dismiss us as "stupid". It's a good way to shut out inconvenient arguments, I suppose.

Fûz said...

[ This would have survived laptop replacements as Apple's Time Machine app makes transferring everything from an old machine to a new machine painless"

Which would also mean that copies of those emails live on in Apple's server farms. Given Apple's refusal to make a backdoor to enter the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, it would take Huma's credentials to get at those copies. As in a former MacHD?

Achilles said...

"To control the press in this way requires far more of an investment than what the Clintons have scooped up or hope to. There are much bigger pockets behind all of this and much bigger interests."

For example NBC is owned by General Electric. GE earns over 15 billion a year and what is their tax bill? If it was zero it would be better than the truth. They get money from the government in the form of mostly green energy credits.

NBC loses money every year. MSNBC loses money every year. CNBC loses money every year. But GE gets billions in crony dollars from republicans and democrats. GE gets a 100$ return from the politicians they keep in power for every dollar they lose on NBC.

JCCamp said...

According to the most recent leaks about the laptop, FBI agents found something 650,000 emails. They mirrored the drive, and then using software, did a search of the metadata, trying to find code common to, say, a profile for child pornography. They were supposedly surprised (doubtful) to find emails which were either sent to or received from Hillary Clinton's private email address, the one she used while Secretary of State. The number of emails which meet this criteria is supposedly "more than a thousand". which could cover a multitude of sins. Since they only had a warrant for Carlos Danger's content, they could only guess - perhaps an educated guess though - about some of the content and some of the exact addressees, etc. Now that they have a separate warrant for the emails so designated, they can actually read them, consider them, compare to those already in FBI custody from pervious batches, etc.

I assume that Huma's protestation she knew nothing about her emails being on this laptop are so much nonsense, and that she put them there herself. In her FBI (sworn) testimony, she claimed the did use the laptop for government business and emails, but only so she could "print up press releases from DoS at home." So the presence of these emails would seem to be a easy "Obstructing or providing false statements to FBI agents" which is a felony. I don't think at this stage Huma could admit to knowledge about the emails without serving up her own indictment and conviction.

And I cannot imagine having 650,000 emails on a laptop. Even if your received 50 or 100 emails a day, would you really save them and leave them on your hard drive? How could you possibly find anything within your emails?

I'm going to guess that Huma put these on her laptop at some point during the "hide the sausage game" played by the Clinton people, just in case they needed a secure back-up safe from prying eyes, and she just forgot or was too lazy to go back and delete them all.

It's not the crime...it's the cover-up. We have seen this so many times before.

JCCamp said...

I also suspect the supposed three week time gap between the discovery of the emails by agents and the eventual notification of the FBI brass was not because of bureacratic inertia, being blamed now. It was because the agents immediately recognized what they had, and knew if they revealed the contents to the FBI leadership, that thread would be shut down instantly. So they had to prepare some basis for further investigation, probably by "discovering" some of the content, by say, doing another metadata search for content that would be classified and got some hits. Only then, when they knew it could not be swept uder a rug, did they notify theoir chain of command.

Pretty gutsy I suspect, but effective. They painted Comey into a corner that was guaranteed to raise hell withthe Democrats.

Gk1 said...

I see the Clinton machine has wasted no time attacking Comey and the FBI in general. Is this a wise strategy? Comey has a 10 year tenure and will be around for a while. Seems kind of shortsighted if you ask me.

Achilles said...

You disagree that Trump is a fraud--understood, we'll not agree on that point.

Explain "fraud." Is it about being conservative? Is it about really believing what he says? Is it about his past statements, associations, and donations?

Is he more or less disingenuous than Mitt Romney? Romney ran as a republican but passed and implemented Obamacare and believes in cap and trade. Reagan was a democrat for most of his life. Politicians are not real people. They don't live real lives with consequences or required results. Trump did. Trump is a broken person and I fully admit that. He is also a million times more authentic than any career politician.

Second, you seem to think we saw Bob Dole's campaign and said "more of that, please!" Like I said, it's helpful to you to believe that because then you can dismiss us as "stupid". It's a good way to shut out inconvenient arguments, I suppose.

So make that argument. Who was better? Rubio? Seriously after the gang of 8? The base would have stayed home in the millions. Jeb? Kasich? Fiorina? Any other open borders shills you want to suggest? Any other WASP tools? We would have had amnesty and open borders in the first hundred days with any of them and probably another entitlement to boot. What would be the point of that? The base would have been in open revolt.

Cruz was the person I started this race supporting. Was there a more sleazy primary campaign run by a republican in modern history? By the end he had a campaign to get him primaries in 2018.

Bruce Hayden said...

Was watching Mook on Fox last night, and he reiterated the position of the Crooked Hillary campaign - that the FBI should release everything, put it all on the table. Of course, they know that is impossible, which is why they keep making that point. There is a decent chance that there is classified information, or information that should be classified, in Huma's emails. Maybe not target coordinates for drone strikes in Pakistan, but at least emails relating to Crooked Hillary's schedule (which is the sort of thing that ended up getting Gen. Petreaus). It took months for the security people to dig through 30k or so of Clinton's emails, and here we are talking 15-20x that number of emails. It is going to take months before they can release those emails, as they go through them, one by one, checking for potentially confidential information.

What is most likely in Huma's emails that stinks so bad? My guess, as was that of some above, is that it exposes the Clinton pay-to-play with their foundation, speaking fees, etc. Huma was the one at the center of that, setting at least some of it up. But, that doesn't mean that some of the routine State Dept. emails found on Crooked's server didn't lap over into Huma's email account, and, ultimately, Weiner's laptop.

Oso Negro said...

Not even a vagina can save Hillary now.

Bruce Hayden said...

I assume that Huma's protestation she knew nothing about her emails being on this laptop are so much nonsense, and that she put them there herself. In her FBI (sworn) testimony, she claimed the did use the laptop for government business and emails, but only so she could "print up press releases from DoS at home."

I think that I answered this above or elsewhere. The most logical answer to why the emails were on the laptop is that she had, at some point in the past, probably distant past, set up the email program on the laptop using POP3, and not the more modern IMAP, protocol to access her email. POP3 was, at one point, the default (now, at least in IOS, IMAP appears to be). With default settings, the email program will download all of the email it doesn't already have from the email server. And do so with some regularity. POP3 is essentially read-only, which means that deleting the email elsewhere doesn't affect it. It just keeps it, potentially forever. All she really had to do was to set up the email account on the laptop, and most of the rest was automatic. Stupid, but automatic.

Brando said...

"Explain "fraud." Is it about being conservative? Is it about really believing what he says? Is it about his past statements, associations, and donations?"

It is about everything to do with him--the way he conducted business, what he is claiming to be politically, and what he is claiming he'll do. Obviously you don't agree, and I don't expect to change your mind, but understand for a lot of us we take a critical look at him and see someone we cannot trust at all. Even by normal "all politicians are full of it" standards. And when you can't trust someone, you can't build anything off of that. That's been my original problem with him which colors everything else about him.

"Is he more or less disingenuous than Mitt Romney? Romney ran as a republican but passed and implemented Obamacare and believes in cap and trade. Reagan was a democrat for most of his life. Politicians are not real people. They don't live real lives with consequences or required results. Trump did. Trump is a broken person and I fully admit that. He is also a million times more authentic than any career politician."

As I noted above, all politicians are somewhat full of it--I believe deep down Romney was a moderate Republican, not a hard core conservative, but on some key issues he was conservative (taxes and entitlements). I don't excuse passing Romneycare, any more than I'm thrilled with some of the things Reagan had to do (tax increases) but I also know when in office these guys usually have to make compromises. THe parallel is that in business Trump had to do that too, and I don't fault a guy making compromises in business either (e.g., settling a case when you're in the right, or having to scuttle a deal for the sake of other stakeholders). To me it's more a question of degree, and what their circumstances were. Reagan and Romney were more trustworthy in my opinion than Trump.

"So make that argument. Who was better?"

There was a lot wrong with all of those people--name any of them and I can come up with a weakness that would hurt them in the general election. But no candidate is perfect, and you go to campaign with the nominee you have. The thing is with Trump there's a lot of things we wouldn't have to deal with normally--taking swipes at his own party, picking distracting fights with private citizens who have nothing to do with the campaign, building absolutely no ground game, remaining even slightly disciplined and letting Hillary's natural negatives sink her. Even a non-entity would be better than someone who seems to destroy themselves constantly.

You don't have to admit this to me, but ask yourself--do you ever wonder why on earth Trump has to do some of these things that can't possibly be helping? Where there's not even a negative tradeoff to doing it, like setting up a ground operation?

johns said...

Given some of the comments here that Wiener's computer was automatically saving all of the emails on its accounts, and given that Hillary probably cc'd Huma on a majority of her emails, then this cache of Wienermails may contain most of the deleted emails from Hillary's account. When they are all examined, we (or at least history) may get a pretty full picture of the whole crime family's operation.

Howard said...

Everything Hitlery ran through Huma

Bruce Hayden said...

@Johns - I think the better term than "saving" is "downloading". This is a technical nit, but I don't think that it was archiving, as much as making them available for her, should she want to read them on that computer. Which she probably forgot that she had set up, and probably didn't know that the emails wouldn't be deleted there, unless she did it herself.

Howard said...

For those of you suckers for conspiracy theories, has it occured to you that Trump is a CGI operative designed to destroy the republican party and to stand as the only candidate Hillary could possibly defeat? Trump is running hard enough to make it look good, but if he has a major gaff or the FBI reports on his cozy Russian connections, that might be the final clue that you have been played by America's Huckster-in-Chief

Gk1 said...

Howard, if you had read Assange of wikileaks fame he pointed out that Trump had very little success penetrating the russian market in any of his enterprises. Hence there has been nothing to leak or send to wikileaks. I do agree that it is not far fetched to believe Trump was a cats paw from the DNC (like a Todd Aikins on steroids) but the desperate huffing and puffing by Reid and the democrats that there is a russian connection and trump is not backed up by anything other than wishful thinking and bluster.

damikesc said...

Why would her aide have so many more emails in regards to the Clinton Foundation than for her job in the State Dept?

Achilles said...

It is about everything to do with him--the way he conducted business, what he is claiming to be politically, and what he is claiming he'll do.

Trump is Infinitely more authentic than bush, dole, bush or Romney. McCain has an accomplishment but he has followed it up with a career of complete and total bullshit.

What is Trump claiming to be and do? That is why we support him. Whether or not he believes it is to be determined but he is saying what we want said and going after the people who have been lying to us for decades. He is actually listening to the republican voters. We will take that over patronage every time. He has at least managed to fake caring about what we think which is better than anyone Republicans have nominated since Reagan.

. I don't excuse passing Romneycare, any more than I'm thrilled with some of the things Reagan had to do (tax increases) but I also know when in office these guys usually have to make compromises.

But you do excuse it. You people keep pining for the same old losers. Romney was destined to lose because no amount of character makes up for being a totally empty choice. Obamacare was the issue in 2012. Trump would have outperformed Romney in 2012.

There was a lot wrong with all of those people--name any of them and I can come up with a weakness that would hurt them in the general election. But no candidate is perfect, and you go to campaign with the nominee you have.

When forced to it you finally come out with it.

You don't have to admit this to me, but ask yourself--do you ever wonder why on earth Trump has to do some of these things that can't possibly be helping? Where there's not even a negative tradeoff to doing it, like setting up a ground operation?

Trump is not a perfect or even good politician. But for fucks sake be honest about what we are dealing with.

Hillary is getting boatloads of money from wealthy people. An order of magnitude more than trump. It takes money to set up a ground operation. Trump has set records for small donations but that is not enough. On limited resources trump is going to do something we haven't done since 2004 and that had almost nothing to do with the candidate. Trump isn't the perfect candidate but he is the best one since Reagan. And it is the same republicans that were bashing Reagan that are now bashing Trump. Did trump set up an awesome ground game? No. But he is doing more with less than all of the losers you've cited. Most of the people complaining were just mad they didn't get a posh consulting gig.

Achilles said...

Blogger Howard said...
"For those of you suckers for conspiracy theories, has it occured to you that Trump is a CGI operative designed to destroy the republican party and to stand as the only candidate Hillary could possibly defeat? Trump is running hard enough to make it look good, but if he has a major gaff or the FBI reports on his cozy Russian connections, that might be the final clue that you have been played by America's Huckster-in-Chief."

Howard probably has an app on his phone that reminds him to breathe.

My name goes here. said...

"I'll bet poor Huma is getting the old stink eye treatment from Hillary this morning."

I bet Huma has seen Hillary's stink eye before.

StephenFearby said...

Assuming that the new warrant obtained by the FBI was based on the possible existence of improperly secured classified emails on the laptop, a separate warrant probably would have to be obtained to examine the emails for evidence of Clinton Foundation hanky panky, unless the new warrant was a two-fer.

Daily Caller, quoting Tom Fuentes:

'“In a sense, it’s almost turned into a one-stop shopping for the FBI as they could have implications affecting three separate investigations on one computer,” said Fuentes, who served as assistant director at the FBI during the George W. Bush administration.'

http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/30/former-fbi-official-fbi-has-an-intensive-investigation-ongoing-into-clinton-foundation-video/#ixzz4OgXNH2pe

Karen said...

Does the laptop even have enough storage to store 650,000 emails? Or were those emails stored on the cloud? Now there's a question!

Brando said...

"But you do excuse it. You people keep pining for the same old losers"

I'm not pining for them (though I think Romney lost due to a lot of things that even a better candidate would have struggled with--but that's another issue). But hell, if you've read my complaints you'd know I'd prefer an improvement from those candidates, not a step back. By "improvement" I mean more disciplined, better at expanding the base, etc. My problem with Trump doesn't mean "why can't we be more like McCain"--it means "why can't we do better than McCain?"

No Republican nominee in recent memory has gone up against anyone as weak as Hillary. This was a rare opportunity.

But as you gathered, our central difference is our measure of Trump. If I saw him the way you do I'd probably be in agreement over the rest of what you're arguing.

hombre said...

Blogger Left Bank of the Charles said...
"Smells like the John Doe investigation in Wisconsin."

Except in this case there is actually probable cause and more since Comey has already detailed Hillary's email crimes publicly while giving her a "get out of jail free" card.

You Dems are just pissed because Comey didn't stay bought in the face of the possibility that classified emails from Hillary's site may have ended up on the computer of a sexual deviant susceptible to blackmail. Let's see, could that qualify as "gross negligence?"

viejo loco said...

Copy the WSJ hyperlink to archive.is and follow the prompts. You can read any WSJ article you want.

Bill said...

damikesc said...
I don't get WHY the media loves the Clintons so much.


In a word, Abortion.

Kirk Parker said...


AprilApple,

"You would think the democrat party would be ashamed and embarrassed."

The hell you would!




Gabriel,

"Again, I'm obscure, and I easily send or receive 20 emails a day at work."

Piker! 20 is a slow day...


"If you look at your emails, you'll probably find different numbers. Even counting the spam, the dick pics from Weiner, it's not gonna add up.... These numbers don't make sense."

Ouch. Bob Ellison outs himself as a nobody.

David Begley,

[daisy ad]

And I've got friends-of-friends on Facebook (oh how I wish there were huge number of degrees' separation between us) insisting--INSISTING--that Trump is the one who is going to Get Us Into War With Russia.

William,

"Comey has a good chance of going the way of Ken Starr before this is over. "

GMAB. It's going the way of Vince Foster he has to worry about.

Kirk Parker said...

Bruce,

" There is a decent chance that there is classified information, or information that should be classified, in Huma's emails.... at least emails relating to Crooked Hillary's schedule"

Quite likely. But is there anything related to xer schedule that needs to stay classified after the fact?

DavidD said...

Mike said,

"Why is Hillary's ability to recall facts and factoids so strong at 'debates' and so piss poor when under oath?"

Thread winner.

Original Mike said...

"For every one of you pouty losers that leave we are picking up 5 more that have not had a good reason to vote and we are picking up people who used to vote democrat to boot."

Well, there you have it. Trump wins in a landslide. Don't know why I even bothered to make the effort to vote absentee.

Anonymous said...

Bob, I send and receive at least 100 emails a day. This despite being on very few lists.

If Anthony and Huma got less than 200 emails a day, each, I'll be shocked. That's not counting the ones they send, just the ones they get.

I just checked, my work email in box (not counting any emails I've filed, not counting any I've sent, just the inbox) has roughly 3,000 emails for each year I've been there.

That's not counting the ones I've deleted, or the ones I've filed. And unlike those two, I'm not a politician, my job isn't about talking with other people.

Sorry, for anyone with a clue, those numbers are easy to believe.

Todd said...

DavidD said...
Mike said,

"Why is Hillary's ability to recall facts and factoids so strong at 'debates' and so piss poor when under oath?"

Thread winner.

10/31/16, 6:51 PM


Ear piece...