Earmarks and the Urge to Drain the Swamp

Are There Dual Tracks for Mishandling Classified Information?

 During the Vice Presidential Debate, Republican Vice Presidential nominee Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) impeached his opponent Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) on how mishandling of classified information is administered.

Both of the VP nominees have sons on active duty serving in the Marines (as advertised by Sen. Kaine's lapel pin), so Pence's analogy of how the Pentagon would not suffer fools gladly should have hit home.  


However, as a good soldier to his boss Democrat Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Kaine reiterated that FBI Director Comey claimed that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton. Of course, that begs the question whether a prosecutor should reinterpret 18 US Code Sec. 1924 to require intentionality or if a Law Enforcement Officer ought to informally adjudicate a case in the first place.


During her first Presidential Debate, Hillary Clinton  kept urging viewers to fact check what her opponent says.  It would only be just if inquiring minds would apply the same principle to Sen. Kaine's   unequivocal denial that the military would decline to court marshal someone under their jurisdiction who handled classified information in what FBI Director Comey characterized as an "extremely careless" way.

One suspects that it would be more fruitful to wait for Tim Kaine to let Mike Pence finish a sentence. Of course, people could save time fact checking and just ask General Petraeus. 

Netanyahu: "UN has become a moral farce"

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the United Nations General Assembly, he neither minced words in mealy mouthed diplomatic-speak nor pandered in progressive platitudes.  

Netanyahu called out the numerous ironic admonishments from the United Nations.  Nevertheless, Netanyahu expressed optimism that the General Assembly will change because Israel is on the right side regarding Iran and ISIS and eventually this understanding will trickle down to Turtle Bay. 

Robert Heinlein on Armed Societies

A Somali Muslim stabbed eight people at the Crossroad Center Mall in  St. Cloud, Minnesota before being fatally shot three times by Jason Falconer, an off duty law enforcement officer.  The assailant shouted Allahu Akbar (Arabic for "God is Great") and asked one stabbing victims if they were Muslim before he was felled by the legal concealed carry permit holder. There were several mall cops on duty but they were unarmed.

Once again it seems that guns don't kill people as much as gun free zones kill innocent people. Thankfully, a trained concealed carry citizen could mitigate the madness at the mall.

For Hillary Clinton, What Does "C" Stand For?

The FBI's pre-Labor Day document drop of notes regarding Democrat Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) interview about the Clinton offical e-mails on a private server contained an incredible conceit.

The notes revealed that the former Secretary of State told her FBI interviewers that that she did not realize that a "C" marking of a paragraph in official messages indicated "Classified".  Wags wondered what Mrs. Clinton thought the "C" stood for.

Ambassador John Bolton: Vote for Hillary-- Not Indicted Yet

 

Obama's Leverage with Iran?

After months of claiming that the Iran Nuclear Deal was on a separate track to the negotiations with Tehran about the four American hostages, now the Obama White House takes a different tact.

The ironically named Obama White House Spokesman Josh Earnest does not deny that the $400 million in cash to Iran served as leverage to release the hostages.

It is telling that now the Obama White House is wearing weakness with the Islamic Republic of Iran as a badge of honor of keeping the "peace", getting deals done and allegedly saving American taxpayers money. 

Yet it seems that President Obama has things inverted, as hostages and cooperating to participate in farcical Farsi conceits seemed to be levers to get Mr. Obama to acquiesce to dumb demands which America will later regret

Angus King Exemplifies the Artifice of Independent Politicos

Senator Angus King ("I"-ME) sought to be coy about with whom he would caucus when he was elected in 2012.

King's rationale supposedly was that he wanted to get the most for Maine.  So it was understandable that he would align himself with the majority Democrats after the Presidential election.  King played the same fan dance in the run up to the midterm elections, claiming that he might caucus with the GOP if they won. 

 Yet even after the GOP wave victories, King still announced that he would caucus with the Democrats.  Either King does not understand the way things work as a minority member of the Senate or his non-aligned words were of wind. 

Some non-conformists have hailed third party candidacies as it opens up choice and may stop the merging of parties.  However, Angus King's revealing rhetoric on MSNBC's "Morning Joe exemplifies that an independent is at best a subterfuge or more likely indicating lacking the courage to stand up for a label which  he or she will later embody.

Pat Caddell's Prophetic Predictions Against the Political Class

[Even though Pat Caddell's caustic philippic from CPAC 2013 was targeted at the GOP Establishment Class, the charges of mixed messaging and poor expenditures of paid media still rings true for Donald Trump in 2016]

One of the most striking speeches at CPAC 2013 were Pat Caddell’s remarks on the “Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?” panel.  Caddell indignantly observed:

When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $152 million at the end of the campaign for the “fantastic” get-out-the-vote program… some of this borders on RICO violations. 

Rush Limbaugh was so impacted by Caddell’s caustic comments that he spent nearly twenty minutes of airtime reading the excepts, because El Rushbo could not get his hands on any audio.  

Serendipitously, Politichicks TV Michelle Moons caught Caddell’s emphatic indictments against Mitt Romney and his reliance on self-centered political consultants on video.  Unfortunately, it was shot at an unfortunate angle and has spotty audio quality.   Still, the damning appraisal deserves to be heard by anyone interested in public policy and good governance, so listen again with earphones in necessary.

With this in mind, this animation attempts to put a better face to Caddell’s prophetic condemnation of the Cocktail Party’s Political Class.   Since Caddell often would make asides during his remarks, the audio was slightly edited to keep focused the corrosive effect of crony capitalism among the GOP establishment.




h/t: Breitbart
h/t: Politichicks