A Wake up Call from the "Far-Right"?

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Sept 2017

In response to an editorial that appeared this date in the Hamilton Spectator.  Roe argues that the success of the AfG party in Germany is a frightening sign of rising neo-Naziism in Europe and in North America, and that good people need to close their minds and their ears to what the people beyond the moral pale are saying.

Editor John Roe needs to let his mind out of the small kennel in which he keeps it.  His editorial worrying about the success of the AfG (Alternative for Germany) party in the recent elections was entirely predictable, and could have been written by Angela Merkel’s stenographer.

Roe writes, “people….need to be aware of the far-right virus, to realize the danger is poses, and inoculate themselves against it.”  This little quote contains the hobgoblin of Roe’s little mind.

It is one thing to smear an alleged right-wing party in Germany as nascent neo-Naziism, and it is quite another to say that since right-wing makes you a Nazi in Germany, it makes you one in North America also.

You cannot suppress free speech forever by placing it under a ban of moral opprobrium.  Public matters of great moment need to be discussible, and if all major political parties refuse to discuss them, another political party will be created in which those matters are front and center of its discussion.

One political matter of great moment in Germany is Angela Merkel’s unilateral decision to admit more than a million young Arabic Muslims as refugees into Germany.  Germany was founded by the barbarian tribes which invaded the Roman Empire and brought on its collapse.  So the Germans understand something about invading tribes, and here is Merkel inviting the invasion of a completely foreign new tribe of barbarians into Germany to enjoy its largesse.

Curiously, the alarm felt in Germany at this is especially prevalent in the former East Germany.  The other countries of the former east bloc: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia are resisting relieving Germany of some of the problem that Merkel created in her unilateral action.  Brexit was helped across the finish line by the EU’s insistence that Britain take on some of these refugees, who wouldn’t have come to Europe but for Merkel’s welcome.  What do the Brits and the Slavs know that Merkel doesn’t?

The answer is not to suppress frank discussion of the problem.  But Progressives have got into the lazy habit of shutting down discussion altogether by simply dismissing their opponents as beyond the morale pale.  Since the major parties live in fear of progressivist smears and so won’t engage in frank discussion, other parties have arisen that frighten Progressives (like Mr. Roe) because they are not intimidated by the moral pale dismissal.

Merkel created this problem for Germany, and unhelpfully for the rest of Europe.  The Progressive method of suppressing discussion isn’t working in this matter, and the AfG is the product of Progressive debating tactics and the failure by the major German political parties to talk frankly about Merkel’s decision.

Roe’s editorial is simply a reprise of the tired, old Progressive technique of dismissing talk one doesn’t like as coming from people beyond the moral pale.  Donald Trump became president of the United States precisely because he was saying things fearlessly that an astonishing number of people wanted to hear.  (It is his fearlessness more than anything else that frightens progressives about Donald Trump.)

These matters are going to get thrashed out, eventually.  People like Mr. Roe are simply in the way.

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Boyishness and hate

RE:  What does ‘boyish’ mean?

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Sept 2017

In response to a column that appeared this date in the Hamilton Spectator, which column in turn was a response to a column by Thomas Froese that appeared in July 2017 in the same newspaper.

In asking what ‘boyish’ means, I guess it never occurred to Lynn Hunter to look in the dictionary.  Her criticism of a column by Thomas Froese contains an error in reasoning that explains why Hunter would never think of consulting a dictionary to answer her question.

Her error in reason lies in the statement, “We’re putting boxes around identities that alienate and designate as ‘other’ those people who don’t fit….”

This error is characteristic of modern social progressivism.  The qualities of boyishness and girlishness exist in our minds independent of any particular boy or girl.  Similarly, the qualities of redness and blueness exist in our minds independent of any particular thing that is blue or red, and indeed independent of any particular shade of red or blue.

Hence, it is perfectly sensible to qualify certain activities or actions as boyish or girlish without reference to particular boys and girls, and they remain such qualities even if a boyish thing is done by a girl or a girlish thing is done by a boy.  Thus, it is possible for us think the thought that ‘that girl is doing a boyish thing,’ or ‘that girl is tom-boyish.’  Without abstract concepts independent of material instantiation, we could not think these thoughts.

To conclude from the existence of abstract qualities that, in assigning them, we are thereby ‘alienating and designating as “other” those people who don’t fit’, is clearly a far-fetched leap of logic.  To reach her conclusion, Hunter has to add a premise or two that she fails to state.  That premise is that she knows the minds of others, and those minds she knows work in hateful ways.

The judgment that the possession of a quality by a thing is evil is separate and distinct from the judgement that that thing possesses a certain quality, period.  To get from the judgement of possession to the judgment that that possession is evil requires another premise; and that other premise Hunter applies without consciously thinking about it.  She would rule out as evil the very making of certain judgments.

I hope this brief exemplification of logical reasoning is not offensive on account of its whiteness and maleness.

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Canadian Tax Fairness??? Yeah, right.

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Sept 2017

cf Should the loudest voices prevail on tax reform?  by Michael Wolfson as published this date in the Hamilton Spectator.  Wolfson is "an expert adviser with EvidenceNetwork.ca and a member of the Centre for Health Law, Policy, and Ethics at the University of Ottawa.  He was a Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa." 

After reading Michael Wolfson’s eye-glazer of an opinion piece, two things stand out.  First, he is quite free imputing immoral motives to other people; second, for all his numbers, he really doesn’t understand what he is talking about.

The federal government has been in a financial squeeze since the collapse of oil prices.  In a desperate search for more money, the Canada Revenue Agency has been beating the bushes for every dime it can find – to the point of being counter-productive.  The Trudeau government got elected with an expansive spending program, and it is being cramped by lack of revenue.  The Ontario economy is not delivering the revenue it ought, on account of madcap provincial Liberal policies hostile to business large and small – as the late Jim Flaherty used to complain about.

To capture more revenue, the Trudeau Liberals are going to change the tax code which was put in place by his Dad, back in 1972.  What was deemed good by one Trudeau is deemed “unfair” by another.  Unfairness is the pith of Wolfson’s argument, echoing the Trudeau-Morneau-Liberal line.  If there is a misdirection here (of which Wolfson complains) it is the use of unfairness and the correction thereof to justify a tax grab.

The issue of tax fairness was decided back in 1972.  For forty-five years, farms, family businesses, and small enterprises worked under a tax code as it was, and that had been determined politically to be fair by Pierre Trudeau himself.  The sole purpose of the changing the rules in the middle of the game is plain and simple to capture more revenue for a government desperate for money.

If, in a fit or morality, the government decided to be fairer to all taxpayers, why doesn’t choose to spend less?  Why doesn’t it choose to lighten the burden across the board?  Why doesn’t it redistribute less?  In short, why in the name of fairness does the screw always have to tighten?  Why can't it be loosened for the others who aren't getting the benefits the Trudeau Liberals now find unfair and immoral?  Why can't it try a revenue-neutral change - eliminate so-called "loop-holes" and lower the rate in accordance with the expected gain?  We are talking about fairness aren't we?

(I know - stupid questions!)

Never mind the bright, shiny thing Trudeau and his friends are excitedly pointing at that they call fairness.  Fairness has nothing to do with it.  Fairness is based upon an ethical system which they aren’t about to explain.  What Trudeau and Morneau are after is a fast buck that will get them through the next few years, and they want to cover themselves with glory in the process.

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Re-Post: North Korean missiles and Canadian missile defense

What This Navy Needs is a Capital Ship!

Vincent J. Curtis                                                                     19 December 2012

Despite being a thoroughgoing land-lubber, I’ve conceived the idea that the main effort of the Canadian Forces should lie in the navy.  But I need some help from the sailors out there in figuring out what the navy needs by way of equipment for it to fulfill the strategic role it can truly play in defense of Canada.

With the experience of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is unlikely that the United States or NATO are going to get themselves involved in another prolonged land war in Asia or Africa.  Typically, Canada gets involved in foreign wars on account of the distress of our allies; and since our allies are going to stay out of land wars for a while, so will Canada.

Nevertheless, the threats of terrorist states and of transnational terrorist organizations will remain for a while.  Any strategic defense review will typically name Iran, North Korea, and a few other countries across the ocean as sources of threats to western security.  Now, we hope that no one around the world wants to make little old Canada a target of terrorism or of some other kind of military strike; but it would be wrong and foolish of DND and the government to count on that hope.  Hope, as they say, is not a strategy.

A little bit of deterrence would go a long way toward making that hope secure.  We have no quarrel with Iran or North Korea, but Canada did embarrass the Islamic regime by the rescue of the American diplomats in 1980 and a rickety missile fired from North Korea aimed at Seattle could land on Vancouver, instead.

The army does not have, nor can it reasonably be expected to have, the ability to project force overseas, unaided.  The United States maintains force projection capability independent of any other country, but Canada relies on the United States and NATO partners to project military force beyond the borders of Canada.  The RCAF lacks the range to deliver a blow anywhere around the world.  Costs and diplomatic issues render it improbable for the RCAF to acquire that “strike anywhere, anytime” capability before of the outbreak of a real war.

Which brings us to the navy.   A blue water navy inherently has the capability to “strike anywhere, anytime.”  No diplomatic surprise there.  The current construction program of the RCN, however, seems to me to lack an essential element: a capital ship.  The mere existence of an operational capital ship at sea represents a threat and deterrence to any foe.

A capital ship these days commonly means some behemoth aircraft carrier.  Big gunned battleships such as the USS New Jersey are widely considered obsolete by modern standards of naval combat.   But the military capability of Canada’s potential foes have no naval capability to speak of.  They have no aircraft carrier, or aircraft.  Consequently, for the potential foes in mind a battleship is not obsolete and, properly designed, might be useful indeed.  The New Jersey would have a role today, but for its age.

Here is where I need help from the sailors out there.  The development of cruise missiles means that the striking range of a ship can be quite long, 2500 km.  A battleship would provide the deck space and storage space for a lot of cruise missiles, and a few Harpoon missiles.  For shore bombardment, old fashioned naval gunfire with big, old fashioned guns having a range of 40,000 m or so seems reasonable, based on World War II standards.  Since this ship is meant for Canada’s navy, it should be smallish - 15,000 tons displacement.  This would limit the number of guns to six in two turrets and a caliber of 12” approximately.  These dimensions are about the size of the German heavy cruisers of the Hipper class.  Speed should be in the order of 33 – 35 knots, and I’d like the vessel to be nuclear powered since this would give it unlimited range.

The reason for the guns is that a lot of the potential threats to Canada have ocean coastlines with port facilities and large cities within a few kilometers of the coast.  Shells are much cheaper than guided missiles, and modern shells can be nearly as precisely placed as a missile can.  The sheer moral effect of a heavy cruiser with big guns loitering offshore can be profound.

Sailors, help me out.  What do you think of this potential design?

The Khadr Decision

Vincent J. Curtis

25 July 2017

I am long familiar with the Khadr case and the matter of Gitmo, having written about both beginning in 2008.  My piece entitled “The Most Famous Canadian in Cuba”, for example, appeared in the June, 2008 edition of Esprit de Corps. (Vol 15.5)

Permit me to shed some unwelcome light on the Omar Khadr matter, as none of the opinions published that I have seen appear to have taken into account the laws of armed conflict and, in particular, the third and fourth Geneva Conventions.

The purpose of the Geneva Conventions is to minimize destruction, death and suffering in war by placing legal boundaries.  One of the boundaries is meant to clearly identify who is a combatant and who is not, and therefore who are attackable and who are not.  Monte Cassino in Italy, for example, would not have been destroyed by the allies but for the (erroneous) impression that the Germans were using it as a defensive post.  Being a defensive position made Monte Cassino attackable, despite its being otherwise protected by the Convention.  Chiselling with the Convention on the margins is no small matter.

Even by the generous standards of the fourth Geneva Convention Omar Khadr was not a lawful combatant, though combatant he was.  This does not make him a “child soldier” because he was not a soldier in the first place.  Khadr in Afghanistan was a foreign national, and a civilian at the time he threw the grenade that killed Sgt Chris Speer on the battlefield.  Khadr’s violating the Convention endangered the lives of lawful non-combatants.

By rights, Khadr could have been summarily executed on the battlefield, as some Germans were in WWII.  He was not, because of the intelligence value he might possess.  His intelligence value was all his life was worth until he was transported to Gitmo, where he fell under a different legal regime.  The detainees at Gitmo were called “detainees” and not “prisoners of war” because they did not qualify as POWs under the Geneva Convention.  They were all either unlawful combatants or war criminals of some sort, but that they were all alive is due to the decisions of President George W. Bush.  There were no legal precedents for fighting this kind of conflict.

Because of lack of precedents, the U.S. Congress enacted The Detainee Treatment Act, 2004, and the Military Commissions Act, 2006, which established military tribunals as a means of disposing of the cases of some of the Gitmo detainees.  These Acts were consistent with the Eisentrager decision of 1950, which held that U.S. Courts had no jurisdiction over the handling of German POWs.  The price of Khadr’s release to Canada was that he admit that he killed Chris Speer; we ask for nothing less from murderers under Canadian law before parole.  Khadr admitted his guilt, and so was released to Canadian custody to serve out the sentence he received from the legally competent tribunal.  That Khadr now recants his admission while safe in Canada impresses me not at all.

Regardless of what the Bush haters say, Khadr was not tortured – if that word is to have real meaning.  He was not waterboarded, the most extreme practice, which was retrospectively determined by the Obama Administration to be torture.  Khadr says he was heavily interrogated and frightened in order to deliver what intelligence he might possess, but that intelligence was why he was still alive.  (The Manchester Document makes me skeptical of his claims.) That strong measures were employed during his interrogation is a sign to me that he resisted answering questions.  His treatment would have been different had he been forthcoming with answers.

The business of Khadr’s receiving $10 million from Canadian taxpayers is connected to the Supreme Court of Canada’s distaste for Gitmo and that Khadr was interrogated there by CSIS agents.

The Supreme Court of Canada weighed in on the Khadr matter in a way that demonstrated fatuousness in my eyes.  It opined that Khadr’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were violated.  I’m sorry, but Khadr was in the custody of Uncle Sam, who is under no obligation to uphold Canadian rights.  One reason for using Gitmo was to prevent the American legal system from meddling in these military matters per Eisentrager, and as the U.S. Supreme Court largely upheld in its Hamdi v. Rumsfeld decision of 2004.  (Hamdi was a U.S. citizen, which gave U.S. courts some jurisdiction, and a condition of his Habeas release was that he renounce his citizenship and accept deportation to Saudi Arabia.  Hamdi departed without money or apology.)

As for Khadr’s interrogation by CSIS agents, under what conditions could the Canadian government ascertain for itself Khadr’s condition in Gitmo?  Khadr, a Canadian citizen who committed an act of war against America, represented a delicate diplomatic matter between the Bush Administration and the Chretien government, and demanding he be visited by a Canadian diplomat would have been unproductive.  The CSIS route was workable because it did not impugn the Bush Administration.  Khadr’s prior treatment at American hands immediately before he was questioned by CSIS does not make Canada complicit.

The Nuremburg trials gave the legal profession the idea that war ought to be brought under the jurisdiction - of the legal profession.  We saw in Yugoslavia and the Kosovo campaign how disastrous meddling lawyers can be in war.

In his Boumediene dissent, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia complained of “an inflated notion of judicial supremacy”, and mocked the majority’s worry about “areas in which the legal determination of the other branches will be (shudder!) supreme.”

Inflated notions of its importance is what led our Supreme Court to favor Khadr.  That meddling, and our political branch’s craven apology and pay-out in the face of it, is leading to diplomatic issues because Canada is seen as officially unmindful of Khadr’s illegal act of war.

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A version of this appeared in the Sept 2017 edition of Esprit de Corps magazine.

NDP needs more than a fresh face?

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Sept 2017

This is some inside baseball for Canadian readers.  James Laxer was a member of the old Waffle wing of the New Democrat Party, and challenged for the leadership of the party in 1971.  He failed, and found himself a job in academe.  He is an out-and-out socialist.  He had an article published in the Hamilton Spectator of this date, in which he argued that in current NDP (which is in the throes of a leadership campaign) needs to adopt a policy of 1970s socialism in addition to getting a new leader if it seeks to win the government of Canada.

My reply:

In comparison to other academics the Spectator publishes, the work by York University Professor of Political Science James Laxer was a model of clarity.  He did not hide behind specious technical jargon, and the reader could clearly understand where and why he agreed, or disagreed, with the argument being advanced.

That said, it is a wonder that James Laxer is still employed as a professor.  It is as if a university still employed a professor of chemistry who taught the phlogiston theory of heat!  Laxer seems to have learned nothing since before the 1974 recession.

He has failed to reconcile his belief in socialism with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, of the Soviet Union, of the transformation of Communist China into a capitalist giant, or of the causes of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  He has not noticed the failure of socialism in Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.

The economy of North America is no longer dominated by heavy industry and labor unions.  Instead, the largest corporations today are named Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.  None of these success stories of wealth creation would have occurred in a country that did not respect private property – as socialism does not.

What would the nationalization of these companies actually accomplish, except the destruction of wealth?  The pension plans of many workers today are invested in the stocks of these large companies, and the destruction of wealth that nationalization would entail would ruin the retirement prospects of people of humble means.

The ivory tower in which Professor Laxer resides does seem to have windows, and no one has obliged him to reconcile his theory of 1971 to the facts of the 21^st century.  To a researcher trained in the hard sciences, the slackness of academic discipline in the Arts Departments and the soft sciences is a wonder, and a disgrace.  The only justification for keeping an avowed socialist teaching in a university would be as a museum specimen of an extinct species – like an animated dodo bird.

The NDP does face a conundrum.  It embodies the politics of socialism in an age when everyone (except academics) realizes that socialism is a disaster in waiting – as is being played out before our eyes in Venezuela.  The NDP cannot profess outright socialism today and remain serious politically, and yet aspects of socialism is all it really represents.  Until it can find a new left-wing cause, the NDP will remain a parking space for the discontented.  (viz Alberta.)

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Trump, Regime Change, and North Korea

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Sept 2017

Kim Jong-Un is a psychopath – with enemies.

If there is a classic case of a Clausewitzian center of gravity, the person of Kim Jong-Un is it.  The North Korean state exists for the purpose of worshipping the Kim dynasty.  There are strong religious overtones in the reverence of his two dead predecessors, to whom are ascribed miraculous powers in death; and Kim plays to the inherent miraculous powers and legitimacy of his dynasty.  If Kim died tomorrow, -without a successor – North Korea would collapse almost immediately.  Thus the people at the top have justification for keeping him around because it secures their position.

But Kim also has a responsibility to make sure those at the top get their back scratched.  That is why Kim needs money from abroad, and some foreign trade.  (You can only get Cuban cigars from Cuba, and good single malt scotch from Scotland.)  For living on top of a volcano with Kim, there has to be something in it for you too.  Hence, Kim to some extent purchases the loyalty of those at the top of the North Korean military by prestige and creature comforts.

Kim learned from his father that the U.S. can be rolled.  Starvation among the peasants can be combined with grotesque military threats to get money and supplies that ease the pressure.  This technique was used on Clinton, Bush, and Obama.  But it isn’t working with Trump, who is calling his bluff.  Kim is responding with greater stridency of what worked before, because, he thinks, he may not have been demonstrative enough.  He doesn’t understand why Trump isn’t folding.

I don’t think Kim wants unification with South Korea on peaceable terms because it would destroy his regime.  The wealth and attitudes of modern day South Korea would destroy his regime.  He would destroy South Korea and occupy the ruins, but not peaceably reunify.

Trump is going for regime change.  The cleanest way is a military coup, and asking to see Kim in a place like Beijing is clearing the way for a bloodless coup.  Causing Kim to lose face might spark it, as forcing Kim not to attack Guam could have been spun as his losing face.  Squeezing off trade could spark the coup as Kim could no longer scratch the backs of those whose loyalty he requires.

Another technique is have the Chinese invade, and negotiate a reunification of Korea with an American withdrawal.  Korea would be prosperous and democratic, which China many not want.  But who knows, maybe the Chinese will go for that as the lesser of two evils.  (The other evil being a catastrophic collapse of North Korea and a refugee problem on their border.)

Then, there is the military option.  One moonless night, an Ohio-class Trident nuclear submarine surfaces in the middle of the Sea of Japan, and launches three or four nuclear missiles that in less than ten minutes crash into Pyongyang, the missile construction facility, the nuclear facility, and where Kim happens to be sleeping at that moment.  The submarine quietly submerges and moves on.  With the regime decapitated and its unconventional power destroyed, the Nork military leadership has to decide whether to make war and be destroyed, or ask for terms.

Kim is rational, but he is a crazed psychopath.  He knows how to survive, but all of it involves keeping the status quo.  He needs something soon, but that something is to preserve the status quo in North Korea.  I don’t think he grasps the power of the United States.  If he does launch a missile that hits anything, or even is generally in the direction of Guam, then it’s game over for him.

If China squeezes him as they promised in the UN Security Council resolution on sanctions, it’s game over for Kim, and North Korea.  If he makes war on the US, its game over.  If he does nothing, it may take time, but it will be game over for him due to the internal pressures of keeping his regime.  His only way out is to get a deal from the US for money and supplies, or to export his technology to Iran and others.

Kim is the center of gravity of North Korea.  If he goes, the whole country collapses.  That is why China is invested in his preservation.

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Comey’s Early Exoneration of Hillary

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Sept 17

It was revealed last week that FBI Director James Comey began drafting his statement of exoneration of Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing in late April and early May of 2016.  This was before 17 key witnesses were interviewed by the FBI, including Hillary’s inner circle of advisors and Hillary herself.  These facts are cited as a case of the fix being in for Hillary, and of evidence that Comey may have perjured himself in his June, 2017, testimony before congressional committees.

For those keen followers of this blogspot, Comey’s early drafts would come as no surprise.  In a July 5, 2016 posting – the day Comey announced his exoneration – headlined “Why Comey Recommended Against Prosecuting Hillary” I described why Comey would not recommend prosecution, and these were reasons Comey did not announce.

“If Obama was the one with whom Hillary was having these conversations that Comey condemned as ought never to have been had on unsecured means, then Hillary's defense would be that the president knew and approved it since he was a part of it.  In addition, the email chains containing these TS-SCI matters would likely have to be entered as evidence at trial.

That the president knew and approved, and that he ought, therefore, also to be in the docket with her, would constitute a difficult defense to overcome.  The risk of the secret material being entered in evidence at trial would clinch the matter for the "reasonable prosecutor."

Obama denied knowing about Hillary's secret server, but we now know that he did correspond with Hillary on a few occasions on her private server, at least 22 times.  Obama knew the danger of being complicit, and that's why he denied knowing about it, and why Hillary did not turn over those emails to the State Department because they could be so damaging to her possible protector.

Find out who Hillary was having the TS-SCI conversation with, and we'll understand why Comey recommended against prosecution.”

By the time Comey began drafting his exoneration remarks, Hillary’s deleted emails had been recovered – as far as they were going to be.  Comey could see that Obama had corresponded with Hillary using an alias, and that being the case, Hillary’s reasonable doubt defense was obvious.  In the course of interviewing Huma Abedin, the FBI confirmed that the alias they thought was the one used by Obama to correspond with Hillary on her secret system was indeed that one.

The real question is, why Comey did not come clean with his reasons?  Why would he suppress the fact that Obama was Hillary’s get out of jail free card?  Why would he want to protect Obama’s reputation at that time?  Why did he not toss the “matter” to Attorney-General Loretta Lynch who, despite her meeting with Bill on the Phoenix tarmac, had NOT recused herself from Hillary’s email investigation?  If the whole thing stank that bad, why was he willing to take one for the team?  Did he think he was part of “the team”?  Did he think he could save his job?

Did he think he would save the country from a certain Trump victory if the depth of the corruption of the Obama administration – extending to the President himself - were kept suppressed?  Certainly, his answers to the Senate Intelligence committee in June, 2017, appear much more lawyerly and opportunistic now, in light of this new information, than they did at the time.

Andrew McCarthy of NRO is also on this track.  At the link below:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/451053/not-comeys-decision-exonerate-hillary-obamas-decision

McCarthy describes the various pressures that Obama applied publically to Comey to find cause not to prosecute.  There is much in what McCarthy says, and he does hit on the fact that Obama did communicate with Hillary via an alias on her non-secure server.  I hold this to be THE reason Comey found that “no reasonable prosecutor” would indict Hillary – but this is the reason Comey withheld from the public.

The question now is, why did Comey withhold the real reason?  Was is to withhold from the public information that might throw the election in favor of Donald Trump?  What does this say about his subsequent conduct as FBI Director after Trump was inaugurated?

In any case, it comes as no surprise to this blog that Comey was planning his exoneration statement so early. 

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