A View from the Beach: Laboring Away at Clinton.com

Now that the Labor Day weekend is here, with the suspiciously timed FBI release of their information on the Clinton email investigation, the government is all shut down (at least the "nonessential" part, and no further official word is likely until Tuesday. So this post will mostly feature reactions, and summaries of the release, as well as a few new gems discovered among the bullshit.

Sometime yesterday afternoon, after my post, Ace got out of bed, looked at the news, and reacted: Prepare Yourselves: Hillary Clinton, Get This, Lied About Whether She Received a Security Briefing

She filed paperwork stating she had (as the law required), but then, to evade the implications of her actions (that is, so she could play dumb about Criminal Intent), she told the FBI she hadn't attended them.

One of these two statements is false.

The contradiction makes one of the two statements perjury under the law. He goes on: « Oh, My: Hillary Claims She Never Realized "(C)" Indicated (C)lassified Information; Claims She Thought (C) Only Indicated Alphabetical Order CLAIMS COULD NOT REMEMBER SECURITY BRIEFINGS DUE TO CONCUSSION. Unlike Insty, Ace rarely shouts. He accompanied this with his patented flaming skull, in triplicate! To be technically correct the (C) means Confidential, but still. . . and he concludes with Impeach James Comey:

For the sake of the nation, to preserve the Rule of Law, the corrupt crony-protecting cover-up apparatchik James Comey must be impeached. Even if he cannot be removed from office, his reputation should be blackened forever with an impeachment from the House.

First: James Comey knows full well that the "I didn't know breaking the law was illegal" defense is most often bullshit, and even where it is not bullshit, ignorance of the law is no defense.
. . .
Does James Comey believe it's plausible that the CEO of the State Department did not know that "NOFORN" meant "NO FOReigN exposure"? Or that "(C)" means classified?

And she's claiming she can't remember the details of her security briefings, which covered all this, because of a convenient patch of brain damage which arrives to grant her an alibi but then departs in time to permit her to be Commander in Chief?

That is not plausible. That is a clear lie.

Ashe Schow assembles Ten takeaways from the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server: "1. Hillary Clinton is really incompetent (Part 1), 2. Clinton is really incompetent (Part 2). . ." Key Hillary Claims to the FBI Don't Pass the Straight Face Test. That she wanted "transparency" while she and her crew worked vigorously to delete the evidence after knowledge of it became public. I think the word she's looking for is "invisibility." What Hillary Clinton Said About Email in 2000

"As much as I’ve been investigated and all of that, you know, why would I —- I don’t even want -— why would I ever want to do e-mail?" she's seen on tape telling Peter Paul on home video captured at a fundraiser. "Can you imagine?" she said.

Polizette compiles 26 Times Clinton Told the FBI She Couldn’t Recall Key Details. Sure, let's elect a brain damaged President. Powerline: Hillary Clinton is a Big Fat Liar. The Observer observes (nope, not yet) Hillary is either dishonest or dumb—there is no third choice. Embrace the power of "and." Clinton told FBI she didn't understand classified intel. Then what the hell was she doing as SecState beside stuffing Clinton.com wallets? Absolute, Categorical Lies

However, as you might imagine the Hillary friendly, Trump hating Washington Post projects a different opinion (in a "news" article of course):

The materials, which include a summary of the FBI’s entire investigation as well as Clinton’s hours-long interview with agents in July, contain no major revelations. But they offer new details that Clinton’s political opponents will be able use in the months leading up to the November election. The summary shows that Clinton’s account to law enforcement was generally consistent with what she has said about her email situation publicly, but she repeatedly told agents she could not recall important details or specific emails she was questioned about.

I wonder what "generally consistent" mean in their eyes. She only lied when it helped? Of course, the focus is that opponents will use it against her. Damn well sure we will!

Some news did manage to emerge later yesterday, like Someone using Tor breached email account on Clinton server apparently not Clinton's, but a woman. Huma? But there was no danger of a security breach, right? FBI Says a Laptop That Held Clinton’s E-Mails Has Gone Missing. It's not clear from the report whether it was lost in Clinton.com hands or FBI hands, although some reports seem to suggest it was in the FBI's possession:

A personal laptop computer used to archive Hillary Clinton’s e-mails when she was secretary of state went missing after being put in the mail, according to the FBI’s report on its investigation into her use of a private e-mail system.

How often do you lose a computer in the mail?

Clinton, aides told FBI conflicting stories about email use

Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators last month that she did not have a personal computer inside the area within her home designed for viewing classified information known as a SCIF.

But three different witnesses told the FBI Clinton did indeed use personal computers inside the SCIFs at her Washington, D.C., and Chappaqua, N.Y., homes.

The contradiction in Clinton's statements was just one of many that was exposed in the scathing 58 pages of notes released by the FBI Friday from its investigation of Clinton.

In another, Clinton told the FBI agents who interviewed her in July that State Department employees were well aware of her private email use because she contacted them frequently from her personal address.

"However, some State employees interviewed by the FBI explained that emails from Clinton only contained the letter 'H' in the sender field and did not display her email address," the FBI wrote.

I wondered about that; most people don't go to the trouble of clicking on the address to find out where it comes from unless they're suspicious of the source.

Evidence Clinton Was Speared In Phishing Attack - FBI report details "multiple" attempts to breach accounts One is more amusing than the rest.

At one point, Clinton aide Huma Abedin wrote to an associate indicating that Clinton was concerned about someone “hacking into her email” since Clinton had received an e-mail from a “known...associate” containing “a link to a website with pornographic material.”

"Here, I think Anthony sent this to me by mistake!"

CNN Stunned When Fact Checkers Confirm Clinton Phones Destroyed With Hammers

Any criticism of the Clinton Foundation is reflexively met by democrats praising its great works, but THE CLINTON FOUNDATION’S PROBLEMS ARE DEEPER THAN YOU THINK - Critical scrutiny has focused on the Foundation’s fundraising. But there are equally troubling questions about its actual work.

It’s hard to keep track of all the “commercial propositions” the Foundation is engaged in, because it operates in a highly unusual fashion. Ordinarily, charitable foundations make grants to outside organizations. But only 15% of the Clinton Foundation’s spending is on charitable grants. Instead, it spends most of its money on its in-house programs, whose efficacy can be far more difficult to track. The task is made even more difficult thanks to the Foundation’s ongoing allergy to transparency.

Partly because of that, Charity Navigator, a watchdog group, at one point added the Clinton Foundation to its watch list of problematic charities, and for many years did not rate the organization at all because its “atypical business model. . . doesn’t meet our criteria.” The Clinton Health Access Initiative has refused to allow the charity evaluation organization GiveWell to analyze its outcomes, and the Better Business Bureau has listed the Clinton Foundation as failing to meet the basic standards for reporting the effectiveness of its programs.Bill Allison of the pro-transparency Sunlight Foundation has gone much further, and said that the organization operates as a “slush fund for the Clintons.”

Indeed, certain Foundation expenditures have appeared unduly lavish, and difficult to justify. The Foundation spends $8 million in annual travel expenses (the Clintons fly on private jets), bought a first-class plane ticket to bring Natalie Portman (and her prized Yorkie) to an event, and funds a “glitzy annual gathering of chief executives, heads of state, and celebrities.” Some costs are outsourced to others, and universities that invite Bill Clinton to speak can find themselves hit with unexpected invoices for $1,400 hotel phone bills and $700 dinners-for-two.

But hate about Haiti? We're always told about their heroism is Haiti.

A publicity-oriented approach to charity has clear human consequences. In the Clinton case, we can see these in Haiti. After the devastating Haitian earthquake in 2010, both Clintons were heavily involved in the recovery. Bill was given such large and nebulous authority that Haitians dubbed him “Le Gouverneur,” fearing he would become a sort of colonial administrator. The Clintons raised millions of dollars, including 30 million dollars through the Foundation, to assist the Haitian people.

But all of this money produced very little. Multiple expensive initiatives went nowhere, and the gleaming new industrial park the Clintons touted for Haiti brought few jobs and was largely unused. Instead of housing, the Clinton-led recovery built needless new luxury hotels. Indeed, Adam Davidson reports that the Clinton Foundation is not a major force in Haiti, and is not making any significant progress there. Journalist Jonathan Katz says it’s “hard to find anyone who looks back on [the recovery] as a success.” The Clintons themselves have simply stopped discussing Haiti publicly, though Haitians have occasionally showed up at Hillary Clinton’s office to protest the disappearance of millions of dollars in recovery funds. As one Haitian official who worked with Bill Clinton put it, “There is a lot of resentment about Clinton here. People have not seen results. . . . They say that Clinton used Haiti.” (More details on the Haiti debacle can be found in Doug Henwood’s My Turn, as well as my own book on Bill Clinton.)