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September 2016

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Yes, the Fix Was In Why else were Mrs. Clinton and her aides so willing to submit to FBI questioning? By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on September 13th, 2016

With concerns about Hillary Clinton’s health intensifying, Congress is poised to revisit the FBI’s investigation of her e-mail scandal. As the Washington Examiner’​s Byron York reports, the House Government Oversight Committee chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) will begin hearings this week.

The committee is especially troubled by the facts that (a) unbeknownst to Congress, the Justice Department gave immunity to a key witness; yet, (b) prosecutors and the FBI indulged that witness’s refusal to answer critical questions. Specifically, Paul Combetta, a technician at Platte River Networks (the Colorado firm retained by the Clintons to handle the private e-mail system), is the person who destroyed Clinton’s e-mails despite the fact that they were under congressional subpoena. Nevertheless, he was permitted to invoke attorney-client privilege — not his own, mind you, but Mrs. Clinton’s – in declining to discuss any instructions he received before (and after) carrying out the mass deletion of tens of thousands of Clinton e-mails, a task for which he used the “BleachBit” program in an effort to ensure that the deleted e-mails would be irretrievably lost.

For months, in the course of pointing out that only the Justice Department, not the FBI, has authority to confer immunity on witnesses, I have been raising questions about (a) who in the investigation has been given immunity, and (b) exactly what kind of immunity — statutory? transactional? conditional? I have also tried to highlight the dubious basis (to be charitable) for claiming attorney-client privilege. These remain important issues, and it’s good that the committee plans to probe them.

I also hope, though, that the committee will investigate a more fundamental matter: Why was Hillary Clinton so willing to speak with the FBI?

Why were her aides, deeply implicated in Clinton’s conduct, so willing to submit to FBI interviews? Even Cheryl Mills, who reportedly had refused to cooperate in a State Department inspector-general investigation of the Clinton e-mail system’s undermining of federal law, was entirely comfortable answering the FBI’s questions — at least to the extent the Obama Justice Department allowed questions to be asked.

Mrs. Clinton, Cheryl Mills, and other members of the Clinton inner circle knew about the unauthorized e-mail set-up and its inevitable flouting of government classified-information, recordkeeping, and public-disclosure laws. They took actions that exposed them, at least theoretically, to the very real potential of criminal prosecution. Yet, they all appear to have spoken voluntarily with the FBI.

This virtually never happens in a federal criminal investigation.

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Is Deference Really Safer than Deterrence? Beware international affairs the next five months, a dangerous period for America. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on September 13th, 2016

Deterrence is a nation’s ability to discourage aggressors by instilling in them a credible fear of punishment far greater than any perceived gain that could be achieved by an attack.

Deterrence is quite different from deference, which is a courteous accommodation to the will of another, often one deemed superior.

Deterrence is ultimately enhanced by the possession of overwhelming military force, but it is unfortunately not thereby ensured.

France, the Low Countries, and the British expeditionary force had a combined larger army, more tanks and comparable air forces, when Germany nevertheless attacked in surprise fashion and destroyed them in six weeks in May and June 1940. What the Allies lacked were not the guns and soldiers but the credibility that they would use them with dispatch, skill, and determination.

Unfortunately, after eight years, Obama and his staff seem still confused over what deterrence is. The president believes that calm can be maintained through either apology and assurances or occasional tough but empty rhetoric — apparently on the premise that because the United States has overwhelming military force, aggressors would never logically cross it.

In contrast, the Neanderthals of the world assume that U.S. force is now becoming irrelevant and that the president is entirely predictable: occasionally eager to compromise and lecture, usually full of braggadocio, and always without credible follow-up. To be blunt and cruel, they find Obama the proverbial freshman loudmouth whom bullying seniors for sport enjoy separating from his lunch money.

Beware the next five months, perhaps our most dangerous period since the lame-duck Carter presidency of 1980.

The host Chinese rudely first ignored and then insulted the presidential entourage when it landed for the G-20 summit. The Chinese wish to remind us that they have established a global precedent that any nation can build an artificial island in the middle of commercial routes and thereby declare that new sovereign air and sea territorial rights emanate from it. They also remind the world of that achievement by juvenile taunts to a visiting American retinue. Does anyone think that one such island will not soon lead to an entire archipelago — or that a peaceful world can operate on such laws of the jungle?

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Roger Kimball Kurosawa on the US Election : Roger Kimball

By on September 13th, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s health had long been an issue, but chiefly amongst those who have long maintained she is unfit in more than a physical sense to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Her latest episode has makes it a mainstream fixation
I’d wager that everyone reading this knows about Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1950 film Rashomon. Even if you haven’t seen it, you know the story—or at least you know the story of the story: that the Japanese director told the same tale from several points of view. The story the woodcutter told was not the story the bandit retailed, which was not what the wife said, which was not what the dead samurai, through the courtesy of a medium, propounded.

I said that Rashomon told the same story from different perspectives. That’s how the film’s distinctiveness is usually summarised. In fact, Kurosawa was more radical. He told several different stories on the same set with the same characters so that disparate narratives appear like facets on a unifying jewel whose existence is stipulated but unreal.

Less well known is that Kurosawa, through the same medium that brought us the samurai’s version of events, has weighed in on the upcoming American presidential election. The transmission is garbled in places and the denouement is lacking, but the fragments that exist make for an engaging montage. I am pleased to be able to share a precis of the great director’s hitherto unknown tableaux with you now.

Scenario One: Reverberations in the Echo Chamber. All unfolded as was foretold from the beginning. It was always going to be Hillary Clinton in 2016. The campaign of Bernie Sanders, we now can see, was just a distraction, mildly irritating to team Clinton, but no match for the zeitgeist, which the first female president of the United States has clearly embodied.

On the other side of the aisle, it was Snow Don and the sixteen dwarves, Sleepy, Grumpy, Happy, Dopey, and the rest.

The dwarves were euthanised one after the next, much to the surprise of the punditocracy. (Aside from your host: I certainly shared in that surprise.)

This is Kurosawa, not Disney, however, and so the poisoned apple was not proffered by Evil Queen Hillary but was brought along by Donald Trump himself in his lunch pail. He ate it in public, for all to see, and then exploded, in slow motion, as Hillary scooped up an astonishing victory almost as robust as what Ronald Reagan enjoyed in 1984.

There was some drama along the way. There was, for example, the Dukakis Feint. In mid-August, it was pointed out by some observers that, back in 1988, Michael “Tank Commander” Dukakis was seventeen points ahead in the polls against George H.W. Bush. As all the world remembers, Dukakis then went on to trounce Bush in the election, served two terms, and helped prop up the tottering Soviet Union for another twenty years while … Oh, wait: that was from a rejected script.

What actually happened, as all the world really does remember, is that Dukakis (who?) imploded in a surrounding sea of titters after his appearance, avec combat helmet, atop an Abrams M1 tank. He hasn’t been heard from since. Is he still with us? I frankly do not know. I’ll look it up when I finish this column.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sweden: Who Do Christian Leaders Serve? by Nima Gholam Ali Pour

By on September 13th, 2016

In Swedish Christianity, Jesus has been reduced from being the son of God, to an activist fighting for multiculturalism and open borders. According to Archbishop Antje Jackelén of the Church of Sweden, Jesus has clear political positions on both migration and integration policies.

According to a senior official in the Church of Sweden, the call to wear a cross to show solidarity with persecuted Christians is “un-Christian”.

One might describe the Swedish Christianity as a new religion that worships multiculturalism and leftist values in general.

“The leadership of the Church of Sweden no longer wants to lead a Christian community; they want to lead a general ethical association for humanistic values.” — Ann Heberlein, doctor of theology and lecturer at Lund University.

One can have different interpretations of what Jesus did or what opinions he had, but we can all agree that he did not serve the Emperor or other earthly rulers. Too many Christian leaders in Sweden have become the servants of earthly rulers by conveying the message of the political establishment in Sweden.

Christianity is a universal religion, therefore Christianity in Sweden should have many similarities with Christianity in other countries.

If Christianity in Sweden begins to embrace a doctrine that has nothing to do with the universal world religion of Christianity, Sweden has then invented a new religion.

If you look at how Christianity has developed in Sweden today, it seems that this is what Sweden is about to get.

Stefan Swärd is an influential Christian pastor in Sweden with a background in the Evangelical Free Church in Sweden. In an op-ed from September 2014, Swärd describes Christianity the following way:

“When congregations in Sweden meet in diversity and integration and integrate Africans, Chinese and Latin Americans, they express the very essence of the Christian community’s being.”

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South Sudan Leaders Accused of Profiting From War as Humanitarian Disaster Grips Nation Real estate in Kenya, Uganda and Australia are among destinations for financial transfers by president, former vice president, report says By Matina Stevis

By on September 13th, 2016

JUBA, South Sudan—South Sudan’s leaders have transferred millions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth outside the country while waging a civil war that has left nearly half the country’s people homeless or in urgent need of humanitarian aid, an anti-corruption group said Monday.

President Salva Kiir and some his top associates, along with Riek Machar, the country’s former vice president, have invested millions of dollars in real estate in Kenya, Uganda and Australia, according to a report by the Sentry, which investigates corruption and organized crime in Africa, following a two-year probe. The watchdog group was founded by Hollywood actor George Clooney and John Prendergast, a former official in the Clinton administration.

According to the report, these powerful political figures and their immediate relatives have large ownership interests in local oil, construction, security and gambling businesses—in violation of South Sudanese law barring officeholders from engaging in commercial activity.

The report accuses the two leaders of perpetuating conflict in South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, to amass personal wealth.

“The leaders of South Sudan’s warring parties manipulate and exploit ethnic divisions in order to drum up support for a conflict that serves the interests only of the top leaders of these two kleptocratic networks and, ultimately, the international facilitators whose services the networks utilize and on which they rely,” it says.

A spokesman for Mr. Kiir didn’t immediately reply to calls and messages requesting comment. A spokesman for Mr. Machar said he would study the report and respond to it later. Messrs. Clooney and Prendergast said Monday they would meet with U.S. President Barack Obama, State Secretary John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to present the investigation and lobby for the use of antiterrorism and anti-money-laundering rules to seize the South Sudanese leaders’ assets.

Mr. Kiir’s presidential salary is about $60,000 annually. Mr. Machar drew a government salary $54,000 annually until he was ousted in July after the collapse of a power-sharing agreement. He is now in neighboring Sudan.

Foreign donors sponsored South Sudan’s independence declaration in 2011 and have supplied billions of dollars in aid since the two political rivals pitted their tribes and armies against each other nearly three years ago, with the U.S. topping the list with $1.6 billion in assistance.

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Three Suspected ISIS Fighters Detained in Germany The three men, all Syrians, are believed to be the first group of foreign fighters taken into custody By Andrea Thomas

By on September 13th, 2016

German police detained three Syrians believed to be members of Islamic State who traveled to Germany last November, possibly to carry out an attack, officials said Tuesday, in what is believed to be the first arrests of a group of foreign fighters sent to the country by the Sunni Muslim extremist group.

More than 200 police officers carried out raids on homes of refugees in the states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein early Tuesday after receiving a tip from other asylum seekers, officials for the Federal Criminal Police Office and General Prosecutor said.

Three men—ages 17, 18 and 26—were arrested and documents seized, the prosecutor said. Identification of criminal suspects is barred under German law.

“The three accused are strongly suspected of having traveled to Germany in November 2015 on behalf of terror group Islamic State to execute an existing order or to be on standby for instructions,” said the prosecutor said.

The arrest is more bad news for Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose standing in opinion polls has dropped since she opened the country’s doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees last year.

Surveys show a majority of Germans are concerned about the influx and about potential attackers among the migrants.

Two attacks committed by refugees and claimed by Islamic State rattled the country this summer. Several of the attackers in last November’s deadly assaults in Paris are also known to have traveled to Europe while posing as refugees.

The prosecutor said the three men detained Tuesday were sent to Germany via Turkey and Greece by an Islamic State official responsible for foreign operations. The men were under orders to carry out an attack or await instructions, he said, adding that no specific details of a plan had been found.

The men are believed to have received passports and cash, as well as mobile phones with a preinstalled communication program, according to the prosecutor.

The raids come as recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels showed that Islamic State was planting fighters into the stream of migrants flowing to Europe, a spokeswoman for the Federal Criminal Police Office said. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NeverTrump for Dummies The nominee has more in common with Kanye West than with Steve Wynn. Bret Stephens see note please

By on September 13th, 2016

WHAT GALLS HERE BESIDES THE RIDICULOUS IDEA THAT WE CAN “RIDE OUT” A CLINTON PRESIDENCY IS THE TITLE “NEVER TRUMP FOR DUMMIES”….SO WE ARE NOT JUST “DEPLORABLE” WE ARE ALSO “DUMMIES”…..RSK

Q: How can you call yourself a conservative columnist when you’re rooting for Hillary Clinton in this election?

A: Because Donald Trump is anti-conservative, un-American, immoral and dangerous.

Q: And Hillary Clinton is a conservative who personifies all that we hold dear as Americans and has a terrific record in government?

A: Not at all. She’s conventionally liberal, politically opportunistic and ethically challenged.

Q: And you support her?

A: I wish it weren’t so. But what’s the choice?

Q: The choice is a Republican candidate who may disagree with Wall Street Journal orthodoxies on trade and immigration but otherwise wants to cut taxes and regulations, strengthen defense, appoint conservative judges, and take advice from people like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan.

A: You seem to think we elect a policy menu. My fundamental objection to Mr. Trump is that he is unfit, as a person, to be president.

Q: Oh, please. I’ll grant he’s a bit rough around the edges, but that’s because he’s a nonpolitician. He’s also a brilliant businessman who made billions of dollars.

A: I might believe that claim if he would release his tax returns, or if six of his businesses hadn’t gone bankrupt, or if he hadn’t been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, or if he didn’t routinely shortchange his suppliers or stiff his charities. blah, blah, blah…….DON’T BOTHER TO READ ANY MORE….

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NFL Players Protest National Anthem on 9/11

By on September 13th, 2016

Several NFL players followed in the footsteps of San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick and protested the National Anthem on 9/11, either kneeling during the song, raising their fists, or interlocking arms with their teammates.

Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters raised his fist, four Miami Dolphins players knelt, and players from several other teams interlocked arms or raised their fists as an apparent sign of unity with Kaepernick, who began his protest last month during the NFL’s preseason over what he said was the oppression of “black people and people of color.”

Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters raises his fist in the air during the national anthem before an NFL football game against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, in Kansas City, Mo. (John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star via AP) Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters raises his fist in the air during the national anthem before an NFL football game against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, in Kansas City, Mo. (John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star via AP)

Peters said Kaepernick’s protest is a “great cause.”

Peters — who is black and told the press Friday that he salutes Kaepernick, calling it “a great cause” — raised his fist in protest at the start of a home game against the San Diego Chargers today. As he did, many of his teammates locked arms in an apparent show of solidarity.

Meanwhile, in Seattle, Miami Dolphins players Arian Foster, Michael Thomas, Jelani Jenkins and Kenny Stills knelt during the national anthem at the start of their game against the Seahawks.

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Report: Clinton Avoided Bellevue ER to Conceal Details of Her Medical Treatment By Debra Heine

By on September 13th, 2016

Did Hillary Clinton avoid going to the emergency room following her fainting spell Sunday to avoid exposing her medical treatment to other doctors who might have leaked the news to the public? The New York Post made that shocking claim today based on tips from unnamed (likely law enforcement) sources.

According to the Post, Clinton was on her way to an emergency room, but detoured to her daughter Chelsea Clinton’s apartment instead “to keep details of her medical treatment under wraps.”

Secret Service protocol called for the Democratic presidential nominee to be rushed to a state-designated Level I Trauma Center in the wake of her Sunday mn “overheated.”orning health crisis, sources said.In Manhattan, that would be Bellevue Hospital.

But a campaign operative decided to change course to avoid having Clinton seen by doctors, nurses and other medical workers who could leak details to reporters, according to a source.

In addition, Clinton’s van was supposed to be escorted by an NYPD protective detail, but the Secret Service whisked her away from Ground Zero before cops could accompany her, another source said.

The former secretary of state had told police officials that she didn’t want the escort at all, but the NYPD overruled that request, the source added.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller said Clinton’s “early departure was transmitted in real-time by the Secret Service to the NYPD.”

Clinton’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

LESSONS UNLEARNED: JED BABBIN

By on September 13th, 2016

We’ve enabled political correctness to decide our anti-terrorism strategy.
Fifteen years after 9/11, we show no official signs of caring to defeat Islamic terror.

Yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that murdered 2,977 Americans. We have been at war since October of that year when we first struck the Taliban in Afghanistan after President Bush gave them the choice between surrendering Osama bin Laden and war.

In those fifteen years of war, we haven’t achieved victory over Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else. The threats of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the other terrorist networks remain almost undiminished. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda, used the anniversary of 9/11 to issue more threats.

Where have we gone wrong?

We began with President Bush’s address to Congress on September 20, 2001. He said, “Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

But it quickly became clear that the president wasn’t willing to enforce that choice against Saudi Arabia, which has funded terrorism around the world, or against any nation other than Afghanistan or Iraq that harbored and funded terrorists. Mr. Bush led us into a confrontation-cum-engagement strategy that existed until Mr. Obama became president, when the confrontation part of the strategy was eliminated.

Mr. Bush made two cardinal mistakes. The first was his insistence that we could win the war without attacking the ideology of the enemy. He thus began to raise a generation of military leaders dedicated to that strategy. Thus crippled in their derivation of strategy, none of our generals has been able to produce victory.

Donald Trump’s statement that our generals have been reduced to “rubble” is unfortunate not because it is inaccurate but because of his terminology. Our generals and admirals cannot craft a strategy that leads to victory because, as I have written many times, we cannot defeat the terrorists unless we defeat them kinetically and at the same time defeat their ideology.

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