The NSA offered to give the FBI Hillary Clinton’s lost emails but James Comey turned them down
It has been a rough week for former FBI Director James Comey: first we learned that he actually drafted his letter exonerating Hillary Clinton for her role in the email scandal months before interviewing key witnesses–including Hillary Clinton–and now we are finding out that the National Security Agency is in possession of copies of her emails and offered them to the FBI, but James Comey turned down the offer.
Here is more:
Clinton’s emails, which were stolen by the Russians, have never been found. But as I’ve mentioned numerous times, the messages are still in the possession of the National Security Agency (NSA), which offered to give them to the FBI.
Comey turned down that offer, according to a source who has been very reliable.
First I disagree with the assertion that the emails were stolen by the Russians. Russia might have stolen the emails but the truth is we still do not know for certain at this time, but let that go…
Between James Comey drafting his exoneration letter months before the investigation was complete and now with this, if it is true, it certainly looks like the fix was in from the beginning.
Jeff Sessions? Jeff Sessions? Paging Jeff Sessions…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump to end DACA…in six months
It is pretty clear to me that Donald Trump is torn on ending Barack Obama’s DACA program. I believe he personally wants to keep DACA in place however he made a campaign promise to end it.
It is now being reported here that Donald Trump’s “solution” is to announce he is ending DACA but delaying the implementation of the Executive Order for six months in order to give the Congress time to act.
The Theist versus the Free Thinker: The Battle between Faith and Reason
I have wanted to write a post about first philosophy, or metaphysics, for quite some time so against my better judgement I have decided to go for it. I intend to write a philosophical post about the difference between the so-called “free thinker” and the theist.
I am stepping way beyond my comfort zone because I do not feel I am up to the task, many others much better and more versed in theology and philosophy than I am have broached this subject, but this is a post I have been thinking about writing for quite some time so here goes.
This is basically a post about faith and reason, or faith versus reason, and their relationship, or contradiction, to one another.
Sunday, September 3rd open thread: ‘The Last Day of Summer’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, September 3rd. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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Well, Labor Day is here and most people consider this to be the unofficial end of Summer so here is The Cure performing “The Last Day of Summer” live from 2000.
frui diem
Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security labeled Antifa’s activities as ‘domestic terrorist violence’
When Donald Trump condemned the violence on both sides in the wake of the Charlottesville riot he came under intense fire from the Democrats, the mainstream media, and some Republicans for trying to put the blame on both sides while not strongly enough denouncing white nationalists and the KKK.
This eventually led to all Trump supporters being labeled as white supremacists and Nazis. All the while the violent actions of Antifa have been ignored; Antifa was engaged in violent activities before Charlottesville and it has continued since but it came to a head last week when Antifa attacked a wheelchair bound veteran. This was so egregious that even Nancy Pelosi, in an effort to distance the Democratic Party from the violent hate group, actually came out and condemned them.
James Comey decided to exonerate Hillary Clinton months before interviewing key witnesses
According to this story James Comey decided to exonerate Hillary Clinton months before interviewing key witnesses in her email scandal. One of those key witnesses of course was Hillary Clinton herself.
Here is more:
According to new transcripts released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday afternoon, former FBI Director James Comey made the decision not to refer then Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for prosecution long before ever interviewing key witnesses. Members of the Committee allege Comey made the decision months before FBI agents were finished with the criminal investigation into her mishandling of classified information during her time as Secretary of State.
“According to the unredacted portions of the transcripts, it appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton. That was long before FBI agents finished their work. Mr. Comey even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior FBI leadership. The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts,” the letter, signed by Chairman Chuck Grassley and Committee member Lindsey Graham states. “Conclusion first, fact-gathering second—that’s no way to run an investigation. The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy.”
According to the letter and an ongoing investigation into the matter, Comey started drafting a statement exonerating Clinton in April or May of 2016. At this point, he had not interviewed Clinton herself or her closest aides. This included Bryan Pagliano, who set up the personal server where Clinton hosted and shared top secret information, and Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, who was granted immunity.
This was shortly before the infamous Clinton/Lynch tarmac meeting. Not that we did not know this already but the fix was in from the beginning, this is just more proof.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Harry Reid asked Obama’s White House to interfere in Robert Menendez corruption scandal
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez is going on trial next week on corruption charges along with one of his donors, Salomon Melgen. Here is more on that:
Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, faces a corruption trial next week with Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor and close friend accused of bribing him with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and lavish trips in exchange for his help on government disputes.
Now we are learning, from the same story linked above, that back in 2011 reached out to Harry Reid asking him to pressure the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reverse its ruling that Melgen owed $8.9 million for overbilling Medicare. Harry Reid obliged him by reaching out to Barack Obama’s White House.
Nancy Pelosi denounces violent Antifa protesters
It seems like for weeks the media has been trying to paint Antifa as non-violent protesters despite their proclivity for violence. (And despite their moniker they tend to use fascist tactics to shut down opposing views.) Last week Paul Ryan felt the need to be politically correct when he defended Antifa–siding with the violent group over Donald Trump.
This week Nancy Pelosi, of all people, called out Antifa for their violence, here is more:
Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a statement late Tuesday denouncing violent left-wing “Antifa” protesters, saying they deserve “unequivocal condemnation” — a move that marks a significant shift away from a Democratic narrative that attacked President Trump for highlighting violence from the “alt-left.”
Pelosi released the statement in the wake of the latest bout of left-wing violence in Berkeley, California, over the weekend. “Antifa” protesters jumped barricades and assaulted peaceful demonstrators at a right-wing event on Sunday.
“Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The violent actions of people calling themselves Antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.”
“In California, as across all of our great nation, we have deep reverence for the Constitutional right to peaceful dissent and free speech,” she said. “Non-violence is fundamental to that right. Let us use this sad event to reaffirm that we must never fight hate with hate, and to remember the values of peace, openness and justice that represent the best of America.”
Of course she could not help but take a shot at Donald Trump and the right…
Some of us have been speculating that the left was going to take the resistance movement too far and it would eventually backfire on them and last weekend in Berkeley Antifa crossed that line to the point where Nancy Pelosi had to speak out against them. Will other Democratic leaders follow her lead? Elizabeth Warren, where do you stand on these violent protesters?
I am still waiting for Paul Ryan to retract his previous statement…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The FBI claims a ‘lack of public interest’ in Hillary Clinton’s emails justifies withholding information
The FBI has rejected a FOIA request for documents related to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal by claiming the public does not care about it. Here is more:
Hillary Clinton’s case isn’t interesting enough to the public to justify releasing the FBI’s files on her, the bureau said this week in rejecting an open-records request by a lawyer seeking to have the former secretary of state punished for perjury.
Ty Clevenger, the lawyer, has been trying to get Mrs. Clinton and her personal lawyers disbarred for their handling of her official emails during her time as secretary of state. He’s met with resistance among lawyers, and now his request for information from the FBI’s files has been shot down.
“You have not sufficiently demonstrated that the public’s interest in disclosure outweighs personal privacy interests of the subject,” FBI records management section chief David M. Hardy told Mr. Clevenger in a letter Monday.
“It is incumbent upon the requester to provide documentation regarding the public’s interest in the operations and activities of the government before records can be processed pursuant to the FOIA,” Mr. Hardy wrote.
I am going to take a different approach than usual here, we can break it down logically like this:
Salon: the National Anthem is a ‘neo-confederate symbol’
I thought the left jumped the shark on the whole “all Donald Trump supporters are either white nationalists, Nazis, white supremacists, racists, or KKK members” meme a couple of weeks ago. I felt as if their hatred of the President, which they have somehow re-branded as love, has left them not clear thinking and has actually begun to get to the point where nobody could take them seriously any more.
But just when I thought they could not surprise me any more I realized I was selling them short because now Salon is claiming the National Anthem is a neo-Confederate symbol, I kid you not, here is more:
The Star-Spangled Banner hasn’t quite made it on the chopping block like other symbols of our nation’s dark history with slavery, but it’s next in line.
Making sure of that is Salon staff writer Jefferson Morley whose latest article dives into the patriotic song’s origins and concludes that the anthem is just “another neo-Confederate symbol.”
Without calling for an outright ban on singing the song at national events or before ball games, Morley lands just shy of that suggestion:
Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner,” with its lyrics deriding black people who took up arms to gain their freedom in the War of 1812, became a point of pride for Southerners.
In the decades following the Civil War, the defeated South strove to establish rituals such as Memorial Day, which honored the veterans of northern and southern armies equally, implying equality of respect for their causes.
Honoring “The Star-Spangled Banner” was another such ritual. In 1914, on the centennial of Key’s writing the song, supporters launched a campaign to designate “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the one and only national anthem. At the time “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “America the Beautiful” were also considered national anthems, especially in the northern states.
The campaign to elevate the “Banner” was, as one Boston magazine noted in 1914, “a sectarian movement.” That sect was the white supremacist South.
Eventually, Morley notes, “The Southerners won the war in March 1931” when President Herbert Hoover made The Star-Spangled Banner our national anthem.
“Those who wanted ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ to serve as the national anthem could not have been more explicit in their politics,” Morley continued. “The Confederate flag… was also a star-spangled banner.”
“In short,” he concluded, “neo-Confederates elevated ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ from patriotic tune to national anthem as a way of honoring southern slave owners’ rebellion.”
So there you have it, even the National Anthem is racist. People who hold this position point to the third verse of The Star-Spangled Banner as proof because it supposedly calls out slaves who fought for Great Britain in return for their freedom, but they are failing to separate The Star-Spangled Banner from the National Anthem. The third verse is never included as part of the National Anthem so if the South won, as this article states, I fail to see how.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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