Post-Hearing Clinton.com

OK, I've let this lie too long again, and a great mass of Clinton.com material has come out in the last couple of days since I summarized it last, particularly Clinton's testimony to the Benghazi committee and the inevitable clash between two sides of the media trying to make points out of it, on the left hand, liberals trying to put out the message that Hillary had a "drop the mic" moment, settling once and for all that Benghazi was nothing but a  foreign policy triumph that conservatives have used to falsely attack their hero, and on the right hand, conservatives trying to point out the lies and contradictions in her testimony.

Although I didn't watch the proceedings (I have a life, albeit a quiet one), it appears that Trey Gowdy was as good as his word on keeping the Republicans focused on Benghazi and not on the email issue. Democrats, of course, were free to focus on their efforts to lionize the presumptive nominee of their party.

Foremost among the questions the panel tried to address was when did Hillary know it was a terrorist attack and not a spontaneous demonstration, and why did she continue to push the video as an excuse?

Hillary Email to Chelsea On the Night of the Benghazi Attack: You Know, It Was an Al Qaeda-Like Terrorist Group Who Attacked Us - Hillary to Egypt's PM: Attack Had Nothing to do With Video

This email sent by Hillary even as the Administration was coagulating behind her "YouTube Video" lie.

Hillary Clinton sent an email to her daughter, Chelsea, on Sept. 11, 2012 in which she asserted that an al-Qaida-like group was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, it was revealed on Thursday during the former secretary of state's testimony to the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
...
In the email cited by Jordan, Clinton responded to daughter Chelsea, who emailed under the pseudonym Diane Reynolds.
"Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like [sic] group," Clinton wrote.

By the way -- why is Chelsea using pseudonyms? Likely for the same reason EPA heads use them -- to defeat FOIA requests and court-issued subpoenas.

Like mother like daughter.

That's not all -- Hillary also sent an email to the PM of Egypt stating "We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest."

She sent that within 24 hours of the attack -- and yet five days later, she had Susan Rice go out and peddle her YouTube video lie.

Video and transcript of the exchange of the second link.

So Hillary knew, when she was blaming the attack on the video when she told the victim's families that she was going to get the video producer  prosecuted, the one thing she made good on.

Mother of Benghazi Victim Erupts at Hillary Clinton: ‘She’s Lying!’



Sore loser.

I'll let The Daily Caller sum it up: Lying Is America’s Biggest Political — And Media — Problem

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was bluntly exposed during Thursday’s House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing, so where did these headlines come from?

“Clinton emerges unscathed from high-stakes Benghazi hearing.” — The Washington Post
“Clinton largely unscathed by GOP Benghazi hearing.” — The Hill
“Hillary Clinton defends actions in Benghazi hearing.” — The Wall Street Journal
“Clinton seeks high ground during Benghazi panel’s 11-hour grilling.” — The Los Angeles Times
“Benghazi hearing concludes: Dems say panel uncovered ‘nothing new'” — USA Today

The digital front page examples above from the Post, Times and The Hill are actually editorial statements masquerading as news headlines. The Journal headline is accurate, but boring. The USA Today headline parrots the Democrats’ talking points. Unfortunately, these headlines capture the mainstream media’s dominant conclusion about Clinton and the Benghazi hearing.

The reality is that something new and quite significant was learned at the hearing: Within hours of the attack on the U.S. facility, Clinton told the Egyptian prime minister “we know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest.”

But two days later, while standing before the flag-draped coffins of the four Americans killed in the attack, grieving members of their families and millions of Americans watching on TV, Clinton attributed the tragedy to protests of “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.”

I’m sorry, folks, but that circle cannot be squared. If “it was a planned attack, not a protest” and “had nothing to do with the film,” it could not have been caused by “an awful Internet video.” Yet Clinton — and President Obama, his spokesman Jay Carney, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and others in the White House — repeated the video lie over and over again for days thereafter.

Four Americans died, then Clinton, Obama, Rice, et. al. lied. And we wonder why nobody believes anything said by the government these days, and why the mainstream media has a profound credibility problem. Americans in flyover country know that liars cannot be trusted.

Happy fun times: Hillary fondly remembers Chris Stevens’s sense of humor in trying not to be murdered



Hillary: My Team and I had a 'Great Time' at my House after Benghazi hearing:

Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that she and her team had a “great” time “eating Indian food, and drinking wine and beer” at her house after her testimony before the Benghazi Select Committee in an interview broadcast on Friday’s “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC.

When asked what she did after the hearing, Hillary said, “Well, I had my whole team come over to my house, and we sat around eating Indian food, and drinking wine and beer. That’s what we did. … We were all talking about sports, TV shows. It was great, just to have that chance to, number one thank them, because they did a terrific job, kind of being there behind me, and getting me ready, and then just talk about what we’re going to do next.”

Hillary: I Didn't Know The Spymaster on My Payroll Was Providing Me With the Intelligence I Was Paying Him to Get

Here is the background.

Tyler Drumheller, former CIA clandestine service head of Europe, was providing intel for a private intelligence service called "The Osprey Group."

He was feeding Sydney Blumenthal intelligence.

Blumenthal passed this intelligence on to Hillary.

Hillary then passed this on to other people, who were not cleared to receive the intelligence.

Crucially, some of this intel was about the actual names of CIA assets in Libya-- information of the highest classification level.

Drumheller had gotten the names -- illegally, as he was not cleared to have the names either -- from unidentified (Democrat leaning, I'm sure) CIA sources.

Then Hillary passed these names on.

If you could prove that Hillary knew she was passing highly classified information, she'd be guilty of knowingly violating the Espionage Act.

That's why, I think, she's making the (to me, ludicrous) claim that she didn't know that Sydney Blumenthal's information was coming from Tyler Drumheller (and his information, in turn, came from current CIA officers). Because she wants to claim she thought this information just came from some friend/journalist, so she's claiming she did not know the actual origination of the information, so she didn't know, I guess, that it was "marked as classified."

So we now have Hillary denying what seems undeniable -- that she knew where Syd Blumenthal's top-secret/SCI classified tips were coming from.

I don't know if she'll get away with this. Obviously, with the Clintons, they always claim they didn't know that crucial thing that would make their actions illegal; their defense is always that they didn't knowingly know what they doingly did.

The New York Times actually does a credible job of comparing Hillary's initial responses to the email issue with the "final", or at least current results. One example:

INITIAL STATEMENT

March 10, 2015“There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements.” — Hillary Rodham Clinton

LATER COMMENTS

July 2015The F.B.I. had determined that Mrs. Clinton had received “Secret” information in her account, the second highest classification of government intelligence. In response to that disclosure, her campaign said that sensitive national security information was sometimes upgraded to classified at a later date if the State Department or another agency believed its inadvertent release “could potentially harm national security or diplomatic relations.” The campaign insisted that none of the materials were classified at the time she received them. — Clinton campaign statement

The only thing new is the New York Times bundling the truth.

More CEOs donate to Clinton than to any GOP candidate

The GOP is often considered the party of business — but it looks like the nation's CEOs may not agree.

Hillary Clinton has received more donations from CEOs than any Republican candidate so far this year, according to a Big Crunch analysis of the last complete batch of individual Federal Election Commission records.

More than 760 people have given to Clinton's campaign and identified their occupations as "CEO" or a variation of "chief executive" — that's about as many CEO backers as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz combined.

Clinton Library Funded by Offshore Tax Haven

Hillary Clinton is repeating the Democrat trope about “offshore tax havens” that immorally divert profits from workers and the taxman. Closing these is a central plank of her promised agenda as President, she explains in an op-ed laying out her economic agenda.

Setting aside the economic merits of her plan, the proposal is a little rich coming from Hillary Clinton.

Just ten years ago, when she and Bill were building the Clinton Presidential Library, they received a critical short-term loan from a supporter’s “offshore tax haven.” Like most everything else with the Clinton family, the rules and policies they promote are for other people.

Or, it’s possible that the Clintons focus their policies on particular abuses and unethical actions because, having benefited from them, they have a unique perspective on how these actions work. . . 

End game: Gallup poll shows NRA is 50% more popular than… Hillary Clinton

We’ve been hearing a lot about this subject in the last few weeks. Among the list of the “enemies” that Hillary Clinton is most proud of having made, the National Rifle Association is right near the top of the list. This led one of her prominent supporters to declare that the demise of the organization was not only at hand, but it was inevitable. But before they begin ordering funeral wreaths for the NRA they might want to take a quick peek at how the rest of the nation is feeling about it. (Fox News)

A new poll shows The National Rifle Association is more popular than the Democratic party’s two most prominent members, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
According to the Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans surveyed said they have a favorable view of the gun rights group, while 35 percent said they have an unfavorable view.
“In a year plagued with mass shootings, including a recent tragedy at a community college in Oregon, there has been a national debate as to whether the NRA, with its ardent support for gun rights, is somehow complicit in these shootings,” Gallup points out.
“Gallup’s survey shows that, even after shootings nationwide, Americans overall still have a favorable opinion of the NRA, as they typically have, suggesting that the public may not be specifically blaming the organization for the crimes of those who commit mass shootings.”

Even the media seems to be a bit confused about this. Suggesting? Is it really so shocking to think that rank and file citizens don’t blame a gun rights and gun safety training organization for the actions of a handful of madmen? Here’s a quick clue for the strategists in Hillary’s camp. The NRA broke the five million member mark in 2013 and that was after the Newtown shooting. And even people who aren’t paid members see the group in a favorable light.