COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Breaking that policy would be “really bad,” Comey said. But he said the only other choice, “concealment,” would have been “catastrophic.”
ReplyDelete...
He said he made the decision even though a deputy said that might help elect Trump. Comey said he couldn’t consider that when making the call.
“Down that path lies the death of the FBI as an independent institution in America,” he said.
Hillary certainly deserves jail, but at this point I wonder whether it's worth the trouble and turmoil to try to put her there.
ReplyDeleteShe's a dead duck politically now and maybe that's enough.
Sure, the law was broken multiple times, but the FBI ultimately dropped the matter.
ReplyDeleteIn defending his decisions, Comey offered some new details about what FBI agents found last fall, after they realized a laptop belonging to former New York congressman Anthony Weiner (D) contained thousands of work emails involving Clinton. At the time, Weiner was married to Huma Abedin, who was a senior aide to Clinton. Agents were looking at Weiner’s laptop because he was under investigation for possibly inappropriate communications with a minor.
“Somehow, her emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information,’’ Comey said, adding later, “His then-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him to print out for her so she could deliver them to the secretary of state.”
After Comey notified Congress of the Weiner laptop issue on Oct. 28, the Justice Department got a search warrant to examine some 3,000 messages that were work-related, Comey said. Of those, agents found a dozen that contained classified information, but they were messages investigators had already seen.
Abedin and Weiner were investigated for the potential mishandling of classified material, but the FBI ultimately dropped the matter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-director-james-comey-begins-testimony-to-congress/2017/05/03/9e3244bc-3006-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html?utm_term=.335e7b55dcd1
Sure I was drunk and killed the whole family, officer, but I didn't know I was doing anything wrong!
"“Really the central problem we had with the whole email investigation was proving people . . . had some sense they were doing something unlawful. That was our burden, and we were unable to meet it,’’ he said."
I remember Judge Jeanine Pirro making mockery of that last statement.
DeleteOn camera, on the mean streets of NYCity, she tried and tried to smash a computer to parts with a five pound hammer, the kind we are told was used by the HillaryFolk.
'This is a hard way to destroy evidence' she says....
"THIS SHOWS INTENT !!" she says.
Both Comey and Hillary deserve jail.
Intent to do what?
DeleteMaybe they had a strong desire to see that each individual component was properly recycled.
Here 'tis -
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ROnyvpg-Nc
Destroying Blackberry.....Judge Jeanine using four pound hammer....
"Jim Comey if this ain't intent then there's no such thing !"
he he he
Make that
DeleteHeh heh heh
Looks like an extremely odd way to see that each individual component was properly recycled, to me.
DeleteAuthorities say a drunk driving suspect who was chased by police from Maryland into Pennsylvania identified herself as Hillary Clinton.
ReplyDelete...
Donahoo doesn't have an attorney. Her preliminary hearing is set for May 9.
It's unclear why she identified herself as Hillary Clinton.
She's running from the law....that's Hillary for ya....what more proof is needed ?
DeleteI am disappointed that some combination of the FBI and the DOJ did not hold Hillary Clinton to the same standards all other federal government employees must meet. But the ultimate judge in a democracy is the electorate.
ReplyDeleteThe American people, including those in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, made a moral choice to put an end to the Clinton legacy and avoid all the associated scandals that would have metastasized during the next four years.
There are many victims of the excess of Clinton Inc., but it is baffling that Hillary Clinton’s pride and ego are not among them. After all, there are so many speeches still to charge for, another autobiography to be written, and others still yet to be blamed.
Take Responsibility
It is not Comey's place to be deciding about intent.
ReplyDeleteHe is the investigator.
That is all he is, period.
He is not the prosecutor, or the grand jury, or the jury.
It is not his place to be blabbering about intent.
Comey is a danger to the Republic, and should be in jail, along with his gal pal Hillary.
DeleteHe usurped the prerogative of the prosecutor, of the grand jury.
For more on this subject see:
DeleteQuirk's Legal Codes: Prerogatives of Prosecutors, Grand Juries, and Investigators in Legal Proceedings and How To Use The System In Legal Defenses
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Donald Trump: James Comey ‘the Best Thing’ That Happened to Clinton
DeleteBy Geller Report Staff - on May 3, 2017
President Trump on Tuesday said that FBI Director James Comey was the “best thing” that ever happened to his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
“FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!” Trump tweeted.
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony...
7:51 PM - 2 May 2017
17,897 17,897 Retweets 70,751 70,751 likes
“The phony … Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?” he continued.
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
...Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?
8:06 PM - 2 May 2017
16,844 16,844 Retweets 73,212 73,212 likes
From the Hill:
The president’s remarks came after Clinton earlier Tuesday blamed her loss in the 2016 election on Comey and WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic party emails.
“‘If the election had been on Oct. 27, I would be your president,’ she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at a Women for Women event in New York, referencing the day before Comey sent a letter informing Congress that the FBI had discovered new emails that appeared pertinent to an investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material.
“‘I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,’ Clinton said.
“‘And the evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling, persuasive. And so we overcame a lot. We overcame an enormous barrage of negativity, of false equivalency, and so much else,’ she added.
Comey will be back in the spotlight Wednesday morning, when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
Comey is due to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Russia’s election meddling later this week.
http://pamelageller.com/2017/05/donald-trump-james-comey-best-thing-happened-clinton.html/
After a prosecutor or a grand jury decides whether or not a trial is warranted, then of course a jury decides guilt.
DeleteOnly time will tell if a leader makes the right decision. All we can ask of him or her is to evaluate the data, consult with trusted people, and then pull the trigger.
ReplyDeleteOmitting any of these steps will be cavalier. And even then time will be the ultimate judge.
Strong leaders trust their judgments in tough circumstances. Those who do it best are well-remembered; those who fail take the heat.
Really Bad
House will vote on GOP Obamacare replacement bill on Thursday
ReplyDeleteThe vote will come almost two months after the aborted first vote on bill
The bill would repeal and replace key parts of the Affordable Care Act
Passage would send it to the Senate, where opposition may be stiff
Dan Manga
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a controversial Republican bill that would repeal and replace key parts of Obamacare, the GOP's majority leader said Wednesday night.
"We're going tomorrow, yes we are," said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Asked he if had the votes to win passage of the bill, McCarthy told NBC News, "Yes we do."
"We will pass this bill," McCarthy said. "I feel great about the [vote] count."
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said several days ago that he would not hold the vote without having those winning votes in hand....
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/house-set-to-vote-on-gop-obamacare-replacement-bill-on-thursday-nbc-news.html
Published on May 3, 2017
ReplyDeleteIt’s Time to Retire the Political Spectrum
by Hyrum Lewis
American culture is dominated by the idea that politics is a contest between two philosophies that occupy opposite sides of a unidimensional spectrum. People can be placed on either the “left” side (with “liberals” or “progressives” leaning that direction), or the “right” side (with “conservatives” leaning that direction). This paradigm rules in the media, scholarship, punditry, informal conversation, social networking, and virtually every other site of political discourse.
Here’s the problem: it’s completely wrong.
Humans create models to simplify and impose order on experience, but the models are only valuable if they improve, rather than distort, understanding of reality. Some theories—such as the germ theory of disease—are valuable and accurate, while others—such as the ‘four humors’ theory of disease—are harmful and inaccurate.
The political spectrum is one of the inaccurate and harmful models. Just as the four humors theory led doctors to bleed their patients to death in previous centuries, the political spectrum is bleeding our republic to death today in three ways.
1. Confusion
The political spectrum creates confusion. It tells us, for example, that both fascist Adolf Hitler and libertarian Milton Friedman are on the “far right,” yet Hitler advocated nationalism, socialism, militarism, authoritarianism, and anti-Semitism, while Milton Friedman advocated internationalism, capitalism, pacifism, civil liberties, and was himself a Jew.
George W. Bush’s big-government, militarist philosophy is considered “right wing” as is Rand Paul’s small-government, anti-militarist philosophy. We say that liberals believe in free speech and conservatives believe in free markets, yet moving to the “extreme left” means clamping down on free speech (as with Stalin or Mao) and moving to the “extreme right” means clamping down on free markets (as with National Socialism).
In short, the political spectrum teaches us that opposites are the same and the same are opposites. This is absurd....
2. Hostility....
3. Dogmatism....
....Conclusion
It wasn’t easy for doctors to give up the four humors theory of medicine and it’s not easy for us to give up the binary spectrum theory of politics. But discard the spectrum we must. If we really want to be on the “right side of history,” we should be in the forefront of letting go of this misleading paradigm. It will likely be ridiculed by our descendants for the same reasons we currently ridicule astrology and phrenology.
Philip Tetlock once said, “Partisans across the opinion spectrum are vulnerable to occasional bouts of ideologically induced insanity.”15 It’s time to stop the insanity. The vast majority of Americans agree on the basics of wanting a safe, prosperous, and peaceful country. Starting from these points of commonality, instead of from the divisions created by the left-right binary, might do wonders in getting fruitful action taken on today’s social problems and letting our political discourse heal.
http://quillette.com/2017/05/03/time-retire-political-spectrum/
Hear ! hear !
Army photographer captures her own death in mortar explosion
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/03/army-photographer-captures-her-own-death-in-mortar-explosion/
Too sad for words.
Delete