The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Her Majesty’s Petard Getting Kinda Hoist-y Over This EmailGate Scandal

Posted on | March 6, 2015 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

Hot Air and Rick Wilson need to talk to some security professionals (not that I’m claiming to be such) emphasis mine:

This isn’t how it is supposed to be. The public’s interest in the scandal involving revelations that Hillary Clinton eschewed the use of a secure email address while serving as secretary of state, preferring instead a “homebrew” email server of her design against Obama administration and State Department guidelines, should be dissipating by now. None of the old tricks are working.

Clinton’s surrogates are failing to distract the press or explain her behavior away by noting that Republicans in high office had often done the same thing. Those Clinton allies who used to effectively scare reporters away from stories by growling at them and threatening their future access have failed to properly intimidate the media. Instead of dying down, this controversy has only grown more damaging as new revelations slowly leak out.

Setting up your own service on the internet is kind of a big deal. Witness all of the break-ins at, by now, a significant number of vendors in the last few years. Was any Republican as overtly stupid as Clinton? Petraeus may have used a private email account to line up some trim. That’s not the same thing as setting up a server, however.

it is a safe bet that some Republican soon will “pounce” and provide the press with ample opportunity to engage in a circular, wishful, pearl-clutching session over the fraught course ahead for the GOP should they “overreach” by daring to notice Clinton’s ethical lapses.

Now, as a political matter, Wilson may be correct. But there is still a point to be made from an Information Systems standpoint: Her Majesty was pretty much a bimbo about making sure she was staffed to go solo on IT infrastructure. And that’s just what’s publicly known. If one were to be so. . .cavalier as to blow off common sense, statute, and regulations and set up one’s own services, one had better staff that system with some 800lb brains. You’re only one zero-day vulnerability away from someone doing something naughty. Installing a spare admin account, for example. Then, later, say, making a  backup of the data.

Basically, you have to assume that every email she herself sent as SecState was compromised. Not just  the ones  to Blumenthal. Could it be that something she said, directly or indirectly, led to four deaths in Benghazi? Really, really hard to disprove that, especially when dealing with an ethical wasteland like Her Majesty. Likelihood that Vladimir is laughing himself silly at how trivial it was to make our foreign policy look like Vladimir and Estragon caught in an extended hangfire? You don’t know how likely. So you have to assume 100%.

There are reasons for the various security rules and regulations. FOIA is certainly important. But when you’re in a high profile, critical billet like SecState, you want that .gov address so that, should the fertilizer hit the air circulator, you know that there is a staff somewhere that will either stop the bleeding, or at least provide a throat to choke.

And we’re talking about a Clinton here. The family seemingly gifted with a “get out of laws free” card. The only way there could potentially be a prosecution would be if the Obama administration thought it expedient. However, Her Majesty, one presumes, has enough dirt on #OccupyResoluteDesk to nullify that threat.

So it boils down to the court of public opinion. If the American people are going to continue to tolerate the kind of third-world thuggery evidenced by these Democrats, then Doom. On. Us. If the GOP wants to go dark on the issue, then fine. But blogs and social media need to keep reminding people that this is how Her Majesty rolls. If eight years of the no-talent rodeo clown have been a creep show, I shudder to consider the rubble Her Majesty will make of Obama’s wreckage.

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Hillary Clinton

The #Pluggernaut Must Run

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

(Picture source)

Then we got into a discussion of appropriate music for the campaign.

Category: Democrats, humor, Joe Biden

Muslim Men Who Join ISIS ‘Attracted by the Entire Sexual Slaves Fantasy’

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 41 Comments

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is an academic elitist and therefore spews a lot of “gender roles” jargon before getting to the good part:

I know from reliable journalist sources in Turkey that many foreign fighters are joining ISIS attracted by the entire sexual slaves fantasy. In fact, a lawyer friend of mine who up until 2010 represented over 50% defendants in anti-terrorism cases confirmed to me that those arrested in the UK in anti-terrorism raids had over 90% of their hard drives filled with pornography. These are social misfits who are sexually frustrated.
But deeper than that is a lack of empathy and understanding: for these men, “females” are an enigma, a strange animal, which they fail to understand and thus must control and subjugate brutally. Which is why they engage in deviant sexual practices whilst at the same time forcing women to cover their faces and even hands in public.

Feminists . . .? Hello? No, not a peep.

Feminists never criticize America’s enemies. Feminism shares with ISIS a profound hatred of Western civilization. Today’s headline at EverydayFeminism.com: “5 Things You Should Know About Being Genderqueer.” That’s an issue feminists care about. Porn-crazed Muslims joining ISIS to make their sex slave fantasies come true? Feminists don’t care about that. Meanwhile, CNN reports:

A 17-year-old Virginia student has been charged with helping recruit for ISIS, federal law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
The teen, whose name was not disclosed, was taken into custody last week, the officials said.
Prosecutors are seeking to charge him as an adult but currently have charged him as a juvenile, one of the law enforcement officials said.
The case remains under seal. It was first reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday.
The Post, citing officials and neighbors, reported that investigators spent more than a month watching the teen and his home before he was arrested.
The teen, who lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, is accused of helping a slightly older adult travel to Syria. The adult is believed to have joined ISIS there, a separate law enforcement official said.
The teen is also accused of distributing ISIS messages to a network of contacts, one of the officials said. . . .
More than 20,000 foreigners have gone to fight for ISIS, the radical Islamist group that controls portions of Iraq and Syria, experts have told Congress.
National Intelligence Director James Clapper said 180 Americans have tried to go to fight in Syria. . . .
In February, three men from New York — Abdurasul Juraboev, 24; Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19; and Abror Habibov, 30 — were arrested and charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization. An unsealed criminal complaint accused one of the men of discussing a potential attempt to assassinate President Barack Obama. One had discussed hijacking a flight and handing it over to ISIS, the complaint said.

Authorities warn this is a “growing trend”:

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a joint warning to law enforcement across the country about the concern over a growing trend of girls and boys wanting to fight with ISIS in the wake of the detention of a 17-year-old Northern Virginia teen last week, according to a law enforcement official who has read the report.
The source says law enforcement is tracking “lots of cases” like that around the country and they’re growing increasingly concerned about the issue. The warning was sent out over the weekend.
The warning lays out motivations for boys and girls. For boys: they tend to be older going over to fight and be a part of foreign fighters, or they want to attack in the U.S. (like the Brooklyn case). For girls: they tend to be younger and have a fanciful notion of what life is like in Syria. They often want to go over and be Islamic brides.

Should parents be concerned? I’ve got two teenage sons. Somehow, though, I don’t think they’re interested in joining ISIS.

Maybe there is some other “motivation” involved here . . .

 

Category: Islam, Terrorism

All Dates Are Morally Equivalent; Questions Are Raaaaacist: Shut Up

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

This week came word that the Obama Administration had actually begun implementing his executive amnesty plan well before he claimed to. In fact, his administration claimed that the amnesty plan would not be implemented until mid-February.
A few days before the start of implementation, a federal judge in Texas issued an injunction against the implementation based on the Obama Administration’s claims on when implementation would begin. It is clear now that the Obama Administration misrepresented the start date and had already begun implementing his plans before the court’s injunction.
This morning, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a “Motion for Early Discovery.” The motion requests the court grant Texas permission to start delving into the implementation of Expanded DACA to date.”

At what point do we start to wonder if the 4th quarter of the #OccupyResoluteDesk debacle isn’t just an extended troll, begging for impeachment?

After the recent display of incontinence on DHS funding, the rodeo clown could pretty much snort coke in the Rotunda without a word said, as far as I can tell. Lot of pissed veterans out there, who’s sworn to support and defend the Constitution, only to see it dissolve into idiocy.

via Baseball Crank

Category: Barack Obama

Liberal Feature; Conservative Bug

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 27 Comments

by Smitty

Asymmetries seem to abound these days:

Already Walker has been dogged by alleged improprieties regarding campaign finance laws during the recall campaign and a lack of transparency as county executive
“This is a guy who has literally been in elective office his entire adult life,” said a strategist for one rival campaign. “He has made his living off the government sector, the taxpayer. He has never really, to my knowledge, had any kind of serious existence outside of the public sector.”

Are you also old enough to remember when, say, Her Majesty’s existence as either a public creature or a lawyer was totally a feature? Demoness you know, and all.

Thought experiment: make a reality show where serious candidates have to demonstrate actual problem solving skills. I want to see candidates demonstrate actual:

  • literacy
  • imagination
  • general knowledge
  • leadership
  • stamina
  • stewardship
  • wisdom

The more I think about it, the more some kind of a “Survivor”-style winnowing seems like it could be useful. Not that there is any hope of improvement over the current morass.

The concern about Walker peaking early is well-founded, but I think it’s a feature to get him out there in an early sprint, identify some areas to polish, and see if he is serious about the marathon. Sad to say it, for a variety of reasons, Sarah Palin does not seems to have had the needed  endurance.

Of course, these are only issues for a conservative. At the worse-is-better end of the spectrum, the liberals seem to come up with new to paganisms. On the one hand, I hope somebody duped Her Majesty’s email queue. On the other hand, finding out just how criminal she really was is likely to be TMI by half. I love my country, and finding out about new whoredoms isn’t to be relished.

via HotAir

Category: Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Republicans, Scott Walker

Server, Serve Her: Clinton Crumbling

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 29 Comments

EmailGate is reminding Americans of the scandalous Clintonian habit of deception and corruption. Ed Morrissey scoffs:

Hillary Clinton violated the Federal Records Act for four years, hid all of her e-mails as Secretary of State for nearly six years, and only began giving some of those communications to State a couple of months ago. Now that the FOIA dodge has been exposed, Hillary wants everyone to believe that she’s a paragon of transparency.
No one’s buying this, are they?

No, Ed. Nobody ever expects the truth from a Clinton. The question is whether she can get away with this particular lie:

Democrats and outside allies of the Clintons read that as an invitation to deride the investigation. Media Matters and Correct the Record, two of David Brock’s organizations—one that occasionally defends Hillary Clinton, and the other that does nothing but—have repeatedly called the e-mails story “false” and an extension of the “Benghazi hoax.”

Right: This is the familiar Vast Right Wing Conspiracy defense, wherein the question is not whether Clinton broke the law, but whether defeating Clinton’s enemies is of greater value to Democrats than enforcing the law. Every Democrat is expected to become a Clinton co-conspirator, so that the core principle of the party becomes Getting Away With It.

Is it time for Democrats to start hedging their bets?

Democratic primary voters are about to be reminded on a semiweekly basis of what left a lot of them so ambivalent about Hillary in 2008 — namely, the perception that the Clintons are like an unregulated industry within the party, impervious to scrutiny and contemptuous of anyone who would get in their way.
And this is why, if I were Joe Biden, and if I still harbored designs on the Oval Office down the hall, I’d be inclined to ignore what the insiders were saying. I’d run, and I’d run now.

You know the Democrats must be in a pretty desperate bind when they’re counting on Joe Biden to rescue their party.

(Via Memeorandum.)

 


 

Category: Corruption, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Scandal

Sympathy For The Prodigal Chief Justice

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

That leaves Chief Justice John Roberts, who was uncharacteristically quiet. If I had to guess, Roberts is less than pleased to find this political hot potato back in the lap of a court he devoutly wants the public to see as nonpartisan. Further, having been identified, and assailed by conservatives, as the late-deciding fifth vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act last time around, Roberts wanted to avoid any soupçon of hand-tipping.

Dude, as long as Progress has wrought Politics in Everything, having the SCOTUS reduced to Colonel Nathan Jessup meets a Commie babysitter seems mostly inevitable.

Is JohnnyRob going to find a way to reject what his lyin’ eyes tell him? Will the Lefty bimbo squad on the Court get him to do some more mental gymnastics? Can he find some way to legislate creatively again? Did the last election have consequences, but not “consequences” consequences? Has this godforsaken ObamaCare farce not gone on long enough?

One hopes Roberts takes this opportunity to un-soil himself.

Prediction: no matter what the verdict, the ObamaCare zombie is still going to be staggering about, groaning for “Brainz”. It’s time for actual, no-kidding, voter-mandated reform.

via HotAir headlines

Category: Health Care, Progressivism, Republicans, Supreme Court

The Flap Over EmailGate Makes No Sense

Posted on | March 5, 2015 | 33 Comments

by Smitty

Her Majesty wasn’t any more cavalier in offering a Bronx cheer to the spirit and letter of the law concerning official business than she has been at any point in her Hillustrious career. The only surprise is that any peasant scum out there on the plantation are surprised.


No.

Update, as Jazz put it:

I agree with Allahpundit, at least in as far as saying that the Clintons don’t *think* they are above the law. They know it. And as long as the public is willing to look the other way and conclude that anything bad said about Hillary is a media mountain created out of a molehill, they’re not going to change their vote. In order to make this stick in a meaningful way which might result in Hillary either dropping out or losing the election, she would need to be personally brought up on charges. And really… who can be bothered to do that?

The legal system is impotent in the face of this. The only place to do anything about it is the court of public opinion. The only time is 2016. The plaintiffs are the voters.

Category: Hillary Clinton
« go back — keep looking »