The Hillary email saga continues
Fox reports that Hillary’s IT specialist could become a very damaging witness to her:
The source said Pagliano told the FBI who had access to the former secretary of state’s system ”“ as well as when ”“ and what devices were used, amounting to a roadmap for investigators.
“Bryan Pagliano is a devastating witness and, as the webmaster, knows exactly who had access to [Clinton’s] computer and devices at specific times. His importance to this case cannot be over-emphasized,” the intelligence source said…
A source close to Pagliano did not dispute the basic details of what was provided to the FBI, but said the highly skilled former State Department IT specialist had met with the bureau on a “limited basis” and was at best a “peripheral” player in the investigation.
I have long predicted that Hillary Clinton will not be indicted, unless for some reason the Obama administration decides that there is a more viable candidate that could replace her as the Democratic nominee (which I also don’t think is likely to happen). I strongly suspect that it doesn’t matter what evidence emerges or how “devastating” it is.
Loving these leaks.
Destoying the Rule of Law is Obama’s legacy.
Just wait until Russia or Israel leaks the emails to Drudge in October.
I’ve said it before: Some people get a kick out of seeing somebody be a crook. “frisson” is, iirc, French for “cheap thrills”.
And there are the folks who see flouting bourgeois convention as laudable.
Hillary wont be indicted, thats a clue to her class
Her husband was not, thats a clue to his class
Neil bush was not, another clue
Abrams was not.. a clue
the list is long…
but its a reason why the left can garner an army of such baddies, and even attract a lot of them, as they can get power, and be protected, just as long as their nasty evil serves the purpose of the others. its why they win, they can do what others would not, even if protected, and they get to keep doing if they do it for their group….
its kind of like hiring a sociopath sadist to be a guard in a camp..
forget the banality of evil
consider the power in a collective of evil
this works so well, we also dont care who associates with such and is just starting on that journey!! after all, we are all born clean, and it takes a long time before one day, things are different.
its much like socialism, you cant tell how bad it is until it grows up and is bad and becomes what it was always aspiring to be, but careful not to be until it could be that and not be removed or reversed.
its impossible to be with such associations and not turn, or be caught between things they put you between… it only takes one clever boy to turn a demure and nice girl into something else…
just remember, you cant turn a pickle into a cucumber… if you put a cucunmber in the brine, you may not notice when it changes till it changes enough to notice. and that takes time… denying the outcome cause it isnt always that way, is not a logical reality…
I’m sort of hoping she doesn’t get indicted and still tries to run. Then when a Republican wins because she appears to be a slimy criminal type, let all hell rain down on her.
I don’t want Obama to pardon her for a darn thing.
RE: Neo: “I strongly suspect that it doesn’t matter what evidence emerges or how “devastating” it is.”
I agree. The Law is dead. Long before the email scandal, there was plenty of evidence to show that the Clinton’s were gangsters. While she was Sec. of State they collected bribes in plain sight. If a majority of the American people had any moral, ethical, and legal standards, they’d both be in prison. The fact that she’s free is an indictment of us.
The rich and powerful do whatever they want. Rules are for little people.
RE: K-E: “Then when a Republican wins …”
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Now that the American people are accepting all-powerful government, now that most American’s don’t know enough of their own history, and now that the Ruling Class can operate above the Law, we may never see another GOP President again — under this Constitution.
We can hope that BHO doesn’t pardon her and that the next President has her fitted for an Orange Jumpsuit.
If she is indicted, it won’t happen until she has the majority of delegates locked up. That way Biden could be installed as the nominee at the convention without allowing Sanders to win outright before the convention.
In any case, I not only think she won’t be indicted, but the the decision will be held back until after the November election in an effort to prevent FBI blowback from a decision to not indict.
Any prosecution of Hillary under a republican administration will incessantly be declared to be a vindictive political trial and, will make of her a martyr.
When the President and his A.G. obstruct justice by a refusal to follow the law and enough people shrug, the Constitution provides no remedy.
The founders presumed that “we the people” would consist of a “moral and religious people”.
Secularism, by definition rejects a morality dictated from a source that supersedes any ephemeral consensus of men’s opinion. It thus philosophically elevates the rule of men above all.
In doing so, secularism inescapably leads to tyranny. The rule of men leads to the tyranny of the mob, which in turn is followed by the demagogue. Who they elevate as their ‘maximum leader’, which inevitably destroys “the consent of the governed”.
“Useful idiot” George Lucas was right about one thing, “this is how liberty dies…with thunderous applause.”
Just as Lincoln opined, liberty is thrown away by those frightened by the very prospect of personal responsibility.
Being an atheist, Id have to disagree with George in that we have to have a God that dispenses morals before we can have them but agree with him in that whats wrong with this nation is that we now disagree more now with what those shared morals should be or whom it is we can think of as our moral authority which is why our two top front runners almost completely lack them.
I think we as a nation will eventually regain some sense of a shared moral and ethical unity, but only after this country arises out of the ashes of a second civil war in which this nation descends into a soviet style tyranny. I have a friend who likes to refer to this as “the reset”, but I dont think anything resembling the old nation will ever arise again.
Harry The Exremeist,
Just to be clear, the point that I am making isn’t dependent upon whether there actually is a creator or not.
My point is that without a consensus, that a society’s moral premises extend from a source above mankind, you are reduced to mere opinion.
In a democracy, it is majority consensual opinion but what some men may agree to, other men may later rescind. Which means you have no basis for asserting any right to be unalienable, i.e. a ‘natural’ and therefore irrevocable ‘right’.
Harry The Exremeist Says:
“Being an atheist, Id have to disagree with George in that we have to have a God that dispenses morals before we can have them…
Harry, this George is also an atheist (for 54 years).
Take the last 6 Christian commandments, the ones that don’t involve god but deal with how to treat others, reword them into more modern language, scramble the order: Don’t commit murder, don’t steal from others, respect mom and pop, be faithful to your SO, be satisfied with what you have, tell the truth, et al.
Then hand them out to a committee of reps for all the major religions (excluding Islam, but including secularism and atheism) and I think you’d get pretty broad agreement that these are very good rules to order a successful society by, regardless of what deity you worship, or don’t.
Sociologists have come up with theories that if there was no religion, atheists would develop morals, too. Even if they’re right, so what? Do you really think anyone can intellectually design a better set of morals than those the great religions (excluding Islam) have evolved over thousands of years that helped take us from barbarism to civilization?
Some guy back in the 1850s believed he could invent a better economic system, too. How’s that working out for the human race?
‘I strongly suspect that it doesn’t matter what evidence emerges or how “devastating” it is.’
So why then is the FBI wasting all those resources on it?
Do you really think anyone can intellectually design a better set of morals than those the great religions (excluding Islam) have evolved over thousands of years that helped take us from barbarism to civilization?
Do you really think anyone can intellectually design a better physics than those the great religions (excluding Islam) have evolved over thousands of years that helped take us from barbarism to civilization?
I meant to say:
Do you really think anyone can intellectually design a better physics than those the great ancient scientists (excluding Plato) have evoked over thousands of years that helped take us from barbarism to civilization?
To Harry and Geoffrey and others: let’s give Natural Law a moment or two.
That would be the Ten Commandments. All cultures recognize them without any missionary input. It doesn’t matter if you were born and raised in Borneo, Liberia or Manhattan. Which is why they are Natural.
Sure, Steve, because how particles, elements, black bodies, galaxies and even chemicals interact is analogous to how those also utterly predictable human thingies interact with each other.
If human relationships were totally chaotic, civilization would never develop, but physical laws would still be precisely the same. It’s a reasonably orderly society that provides the stability and framework for intellectual development and study of science, and it’s morals that help order society, not the other way around.
I’m a fan of the scientific method, and I fought the creationist loons for years who tried to twist “science” to fit the bible.
It’s like trying to design a computer model to take into account all the relationships between all the myriad compounding factors and feedbacks, even the ones we don’t even know about, to predict the climate and sea levels hundreds of years from now. Attempting to intellectually design a better system to get billions of individuals acting in their own self-interest to cooperate in a civil society that works better than the one that evolved naturally (w/o killing off the ones that resist) is just monumental hubris.
Maybe in another 100 millennia…
Ted Cruz promised to take up this case if Lynch declines:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/11/cruz-as-president-id-prosecute-hillary-on-e-mail-server-if-lynch-takes-a-pass/
Cruz won’t be dissuaded by a bunch of dishonest media hacks. In fact, he’ll make them look like fools for supporting a criminal, and he’ll do it publicly.
That’s what you get with a president who knows how to defend conservatism.
To venture an opinion, nature, or as its discoverers the Greeks termed it (and it’s probably fine to put quotes around “the Greeks”), phusis, wasn’t a matter of divine revelation in the Torah. The term first shows up in all of western literature in Homer’s Odyssey, bk. 10 if I recall correctly (and be that as it may) where Hermes gives Odysseus the moly root to help him ward off the powers of Circe the sorceress. In any case, as the concept developed with the Greeks, nature was understood as an inborn principle of the living, a term of distinction with or from nomos, custom or human devised law. As this was explained to me so long ago for example: dogs bark by nature, or women menstruate by nature, whereas one human community will bury its dead and another human community will burn their dead on a funeral pyre. There is no term for nature understood as such in the books of the Hebrews. Whether the Greeks look upon nature as somehow bestowed upon the world by the Gods is most probable. But the Greek gods, right?
Moreover, we can keep for useful purposes a distinction between natural right and natural law, the one concerning justice originating in human nature, and the other a term devised by Roman Catholic theologians synthesizing Aristotelian teachings with Revelation as doctrine in the Middle Ages and beyond.
Modern natural right teaching (as embodied in the Declaration of Independence for example) was fashioned primarily by Thomas Hobbes as a theoretical matter, though modified significantly by others (Locke, for one) as time passed. It certainly does not appear to have been a Thomistic business following Aquinas, but a rather more secular business in order to escape the Schoolmen and free politics from the clutches of the Church.
Thanks for all the replies. To geokstr, I feel those commandments are universally acceptable to a wide range of the worlds population, including to atheists liken myself as they just make plain common sense; Dont take from people or harm them. You don’t need a deity for that.
Unfortunately it appears what people need today, and what it will require for people to start recognizing that other peoples rights are sovereign and to take them seriously, is a huge amount of blood and suffering over the course of the next…oh, maybe another couple of hundred years of state run tyranny and fragmentation, until the people doing the oppressing are violently overthrown and the people who are left all agree in a universal set of morals and ethics and respect for others stemming from the horror that came before. Thats pretty much my take on things.
I go back and forth on the question of whether it matters or not how much evidence the FBI gathers against Hillary Clinton. That they could gather a Mount Everest (Hillary is named after the first man to climb Everest, you know, despite the fact she was born a few years before he became famous for that, sez the Lioness of Tuzla) of evidence against her and Obama still won’t let his lapdogs at the DoJ indict her.
The obstacles to an indictment are obvious, of course. The FBI can bring pallet loads of evidence against Clinton and the decision is still going to be made by rabid Democrat partisans with no concept of ethics or concern for national security.
But then I also think the FBI and the intel community may have more leverage than we may give them credit for. They know where the bodies are buried. I don’t think the Obama administration would much enjoy and could even be seriously damaged by the leakfest that would follow a decision not to indict.
Not that I expect the FBI or the IC to wait for them to make a decision to start leaking, since there’s no time limit on the DoJ to make that decision. The more likely scenario is that the DoJ will try to pretend they’re weighing the decision, endlessly thinking about it, and run out the clock until the election. So to force the DoJ’s hand the leaks will start as soon as the FBI delivers its recommendation.
Pagliano got immunity. Stop me if I’m wrong, but the FBI couldn’t give him immunity on their own. The DoJ would have had to agree to that. The FBI may have to drag the DoJ kicking and screaming toward an indictment, but it appears to me they’re doing exactly that.
Steve57. Good point about immunity for P. However, there are more lawyers with that authority in the DoJ than just Lynch. So perhaps some cube-dweller with that authority did a fait accompli. Probably just hit the lottery or something, so losing his pension won’t hurt.
Still, that doesn’t mean the political hacks further up the chain will do anything with the information.
Anybody who looked at the Clintons and the Travel Office sleaze should have known then.
Frog at 9:16 pm,
Thank you for a fine example of an opinion. It’s a rationale, well reasoned opinion. In fact I share it. But… it’s an opinion and, no matter how many agree with it, it’s remains an opinion.
Which means of course that it can be overturned. ‘Natural rights’ premised upon opinion, are rescindable. Any ‘right’ whose premise is based in opinion, cannot logically be claimed to be “unalienable”.
In response to those who speak of ‘natural law’, implying that since almost all prior cultures have accepted them that it forms the basis for a secular morality, I would point out that biological gender once was accepted by all as definitive.
Not any more.
“This month, Facebook started allowing users to self-identify as something other than male or female. Facebook offers 56 options. You can use up to 10 of them on your profile. Fifty-six sounds like a lot, but actually many of them are variations on a theme–”cisgender man” and “cisgender male,” as well as “cis man” and “cis male.” In terms of broad categories, there about a dozen.”
So much for shared opinion.
Cornhead Says:
March 11th, 2016 at 4:56 pm
Loving these leaks.
Destoying the Rule of Law is Obama’s legacy.
Just wait until Russia or Israel leaks the emails to Drudge in October.
&&&&&&&
Thread winner.
Preach it.
I don’t know how it can be overlooked or ignored that to indict Hillary Obama would be indicting his own administration. She was his Secretary of State, running his State Department. And then, bringing her down when she is on the verge of being the Democrat nominee to the presidency. Historically, this would become the mother of all presidential political scandals, surpassing Watergate, and a tarnishment on Obama’s legacy. And that’s not even getting to the fact that an honest investigation would lead to his doorstep too. He was supposed to be supervising her. How much did he know, and when did he know it? And so on. Why would he do any of this to himself? He has more than ample incentives to not indict. I don’t think he will. Maybe the question is, will he issue blanket pardons on the way out?
He’s already assured her that he will never permit a trial.
Hence, her recent ‘blow-off’ statements WRT the whole matter.
Ted Cruz has to know that Barry Soetoro will pardon Hillary the day before he leaves office.
To severely, wretchedly even, reduce by abstraction G. Joubert’s good writings there to its evident subjects alone [and for which I beg forgiveness]: ” . . . Hillary Obama his [administration] she his [Secretary of State] his [State Department] her she Obama’s [legacy] his [doorstep] he her he [know] he he himself he he he . . .”
And yet, we are, we do remain, the sovereigns of this nation. Or so we say. What though, if some even small number of persons in either the FBI (charged with investigations of wrongdoing) or the Justice Department (charged with bringing cases of wrongdoing to court) properly view themselves as members of this same sovereign, and with that view set out to stand as members of this sovereign (just as Jean-Jacques Rousseau described himself in his great work, “The Social Contract”) to do right, to do justice? What of these, and what of their potential acts of right? Are those potential acts now come to nothing, to be presumed to be nothing? That, it appears to me, is the question to which we have as yet no answer; for these willing, self-directed flesh and blood persons have not acted (that we observers — who have no powers to act in their capacity, which powers we surrendered that they may act as our representatives — know). But upon which answer so great a matter of right will sit: Do we have justice under law or not? Rightly acting will determine an answer “yes”, where not acting or a wrong action will determine the answer “no”.
G Joubert @3:40pm, nobody is ignoring any of those things. But if you’re going to mention Watergate then you must also remember it was the cover-up and obstruction of justice that turned Watergate into the scandal that brought down Nixon.
So if you’re going to draw a parallel with Watergate, it isn’t allowing the DoJ to indict Hillary Clinton (and there is no doubt she’s guilty as sin of multiple felonies; the only question remaining is how many statutes she violated and how many times she violated each) that will turn this into “the mother of all presidential political scandals, surpassing Watergate, and a tarnishment on Obama’s legacy.”
Obama would achieve that by preventing the DoJ from indicting Clinton.
You’ve got to understand some events surrounding Hillary Clinton’s email server are spinning out of the Obama administration’s control.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-federal-court-grants-judicial-watch-discovery-on-clinton-email-issue-2/
This is going to be awfully awkward for Hillary Clinton as Judge Emmet G. Sullivan was appointed to his current position, United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, by her husband.
blert said:
“Ted Cruz has to know that Barry Soetoro will pardon Hillary the day before he leaves office.”
If Obama issues a pardon and Clinton accepts it she loses the presumption of innocence. Accepting the pardon establishes the fact she’s guilty. Per the Supreme Court decision in Burdick v. United States:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/236/79/case.html
“…This brings us to the differences between legislative immunity and a pardon. They are substantial. The latter carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.”
If Clinton accepts the pardon, that is a confession on her part that she is in fact guilty as charged. People can reject a pardon before conviction, and have, for precisely that reason. They’re innocent of the charges and want to have their day in court to establish their innocence, rather than accept the pardon and by doing so admitting guilt.
So if Ted Cruz is elected President he can still pursue the issue and go after former high government officials who endangered national security by sending classified/NDI to Clinton’s unsecured private server even if Obama pardons her. It just means she’ll be the star witness in those trials. And she can’t plead the 5th because after she’s pardoned she has no risk of being prosecuted for those crimes. And she can’t protest her innocence because by accepting the pardon she’s already admitted guilt. And she can be prosecuted for other crimes such as perjury if she tries to lie her way through those trials like she did during the Benghazi hearings.
Actually if Obama fails to pardon her for that then Clinton can be prosecuted for lying to Congress. Which is a crime whether one is under oath or not. Actually if Obama fails to pardon her for any crime the FBI investigation supports she can be prosecuted. So if the FBI does a really thorough job of investigating all aspects surrounding Clinton’s unsecured private server, and it looks like the FBI is, the legal spectacle won’t end if Cruz is elected President whether she’s pardoned or not.
The good thing is it will expose the entire Democratic party as a criminal conspiracy against the United States.
Hillary will be indicated the day after Trump gets the nomination, since he will beat her like a dusty rug. If he doesn’t get it, Hillary won’t be indicted, unless there are threats of mass resignations in the FBI and the Intelligence Community, with Comey at the top of the list. As between the damage to his “legacy” from a Saturday Night Massacre and Hillary, she doesn’t stand a chance.
Natural Law? Natural Law? You think “Natural Law” generates some kind of universal good that most people agree with? Here’s your Natural Law — Thucydides explained it 2500 years ago: “The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.”
Richard Saunders, I believe there will be mass resignations from the FBI, intel, and the national security communities. Refusing to indict Hillary Clinton may well prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. And it’s a huge straw; more like a log.
50 intel analysts at CENTCOM complained to their IG that their intel reports were being altered. Instead of their honest assessments (I’m hazy on the details as I haven’t done a search for them, so I’m unclear if the analysts themselves were being made to alter their reports or if their seniors at CENTCOM were altering them after the analysts submitted them; I believe it’s the latter) to present a rosier picture of Obama’s success in fighting ISIS. In other words, to fit Obama’s narrative. And the narrative is a lie, naturally.
Sharyll Attkission, a very reliable and tenacious reporter, which is of course why she was forced out by the Obama sycophants at CBS and why her personal computer was hacked, reports that Obama absolutely refuses to listen to intel briefers (or read their analysis) if they attempt to report on any group other than what Obama personally acknowledges to be terrorist groups. It doesn’t matter if the US has designated them foreign terrorist organizations, Obama personally refuses to acknowledge the fact these groups are terrorist groups.
Retired LT GEN Flynn, former head of DIA, has been making some explosive and damning statements about the Obama administration. Judicial watch was able to get a 2012 DIA intel report through their FOIA lawsuits. It’s heavily redacted but still revealing.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
“8.
(C)The effects on Iraq:…C. If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian Regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).
D. The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as folows.
…1. This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic State through union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.
…3. The renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi arena.”
Since these portions of the report have been declassified Flynn is now free to talk about certain things. Such as, the Obama administration was warned about how its troop withdrawal would facilitate exactly what DIA predicted would happen. DIA predicted the rise of ISIS, the return of the terrorists groups to their former Iraqi stomping grounds where they’d be welcomed by the Sunni tribes who hate the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, that they would take Mosul and Ramadi, etc. Flynn also told Obama personally that if the US aided the opposition he would be aiding Al Qaeda, as there was no “moderate” opposition to speak of. And that the opposition to the Syrian government were jihadists (Salifis) who consider the fight in Syria part of a global holy war.
Flynn said Obama and his administration ignored all this because it didn’t fit their narrative. So you can’t really say Obama lied to the American public when he said his administration would be arming, equipping and training “vetted moderates.” There were no vetted moderates to arm, equip and train.
Apparently those close to the President believed the intel. Joe Biden is a gaffe machine. And we all know what constitutes a gaffe in Washington D.C.; accidentally telling the truth. Subsequent to these intel reports Joe Biden was speaking at Harvard and admitted there was no “moderate middle” in the Iraqi opposition, directly contradicting his boss.
And I suppose you can’t say he’s lying now when he argues that the Iraqi opposition is just a local phenomenon that will melt away if Bashar Assad is forced out. That’s delusional, but then Obama is among other things completely deluded about just how Islamic the Islamic State (and the rest of the barbaric opposition groups) truly is. He sees everything through his leftist anti-American anti-Western Civilization prism and refuses to acknowledge reality when it conflicts with his ideology.
Consequently there are a lot of people in the IC and in national security circles who are entirely fed up with Obama. It’s not a partisan thing, either. There are a lot of lefty Democrats who agree with Obama on domestic issues. But everyone who works in those fields are infuriated about being dismissed, ignored, and worse having politicized types altering their work to fit Obama’s narrative rather than the facts on the ground. It’s especially galling that rabid, partisan Democrats accusing these people of being partisan since the investigation into Clinton’s server threatens to bring her down.
The projection and the complete lack of self-awareness of these people are amazing. It really shouldn’t surprise me at this point yet somehow it still does. Rabid, drooping, partisan Democrats are circling the wagons around the rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth partisan felon they want to put in the oval office and since the IC and FBI aren’t helping with their number one political project they accuse those non-partisan professionals of partisanship.
And they are non-partisan, at least when it comes to national security and their intel analysis. That they take too seriously. What’s going on at CENTCOM is unprecedented. I’ve never heard of so many intel analysts at a single command protesting the political interference with their analysis. I can also guarantee they aren’t all Republicans. It may well represent the first glowing embers of the peasant rebellion against the administration which has demonstrated so much contempt for them. Refusing to indict Hillary Clinton for what everyone with a TS/SCI clearance knows are multiple and extremely grave violations of national security laws could be like pouring gasoline on those embers and turning it into an inferno. I think that amount of contempt for national security and their work (I’m including the FBI now) could prove too much for them to take.