Hillary’s Laptop Lost in the Mail

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Sept 2016

From Shane Harris of the Daily Beast:

Hillary’s Clinton’s team lost a laptop full of her emails – in the mail!  A laptop containing Hillary’s emails is missing, the FBI just revealed.  A laptop containing an archive of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server was apparently lost – in the mail, as in USPS – according to the FBI report released on Friday.  Along with it was a thumb drive that also contained an archive of Clinton’s email has been lost and is not in the FBI’s possession.

According to the Washington Times these were lost shortly after it was revealed that Hillary had used a personal account for official government business.  The archives were created in the spring of 2013 by an aide, Monica Hanley, and were stored on an Apple MacBook laptop and a USB stick for the purpose of having the emails on file at both the Clinton residences in New York and Washington, D.C.

Ms. Hanley was provided the laptop by the Clinton Foundation and was instructed over the phone how to make the archives by one of Bill Clinton’s aides.  The FBI notes that Hanley forgot to provide either device after creating the archive, and didn’t work out a way to get the copy to Mrs. Clinton’s staff until early 2014, when she discovered the laptop inside her personal residence.

Because she could not remotely transfer the files, she shipped the MacBook in February 2014 to someone else who was able to back up the emails and transfer them to a server on behalf of the Clintons.  After the emails were uploaded the person who assisted in the matter said they deleted the emails from the laptop and shipped it to someone else in the Clinton team using either the USPS or UPS.

The intended recipient told the FBI that she never received the laptop.

If the material were turned over to UPS, there would be a tracking number, and the number of stations in area where Ms. Hanley lives are few.  Since we know the timeframe, it would not be hard for UPS to come up with the tracking number and follow up.  Considering the classified material on the laptop, you would think the FBI would be turning over the USPS looking for the MacBook.

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It’s Not Really a Lie

Vincent J. Curtis

5 September 2016

The alternative narrative is a technique of lying.  An alternative narrative is a story line that is offered in competition to a theory or a reason why something came about.

For example, the “blame the video” narrative completely flummoxed the investigation into the Benghazi fiasco.  It still balls things up.  Nobody can talk about how it came to be that an American ambassador was put into a defenseless diplomatic facility in a secondary city in Libya and wound up getting killed by an al-Qaeda affiliate without discussion the video.  The video had nothing to do with Benghazi, but with the cover-up.  But “it was the video” worked as a distraction and is still working.

Hillary Clinton has for more than a year now brought up the name of Colin Powell as a person who did the same thing she did in respect of emails.  But “Clinton indicated that she understood Powell’s comments to mean that any work-related communications would be government records, and she stated that Powell’s comments did not enter into her decision to use a personal email account.”

By raising the name of Colin Powell, a Republican, Hillary and her coterie of spokesliars drag red herrings across the trail that lead to a decision that she made, and that she accepted full responsibility for (except that she isn't).  Powell’s comment did not enter into her decision to use a personal email account.  That comment would include his warning that work-related communications on privately owned devices would be government records.

It takes some dexterity to raise Powell’s name as her working example, then to ignore his warning and then say that what Powell told her did not enter into her decision.  The image of Powell is first created, and then destroyed in the details.  But because the news media are, in general, not that mentally dextrous and are in the tank for Hillary besides, nobody presses the point.

Another example of the technique is the Democrats habit of accusing the Republicans of what Democrats would do if they were in the Republican’s shoes.  The Democrats pronounced themselves pleased that the FBI released all of their notes on Hillary’s interview because they didn’t want poor Hillary to be the victim of selective Republican leaks after those notes were shown the House Oversight Committee.  (The Democrats were undone by the release.  Nobody would have believed what the FBI found, and the Democrats would have been better of saying these were selective leaks.)

The technique of saying declaring a conclusion that the facts won’t support, indeed demonstrate the opposite, is a clear example of planting an alternative narrative.  Like Hillary saying that the FBI exculpated her.  Like saying that because the evidence is not conclusive – only smoke, no fire; no smoking gun – that Hillary committed no crime or did not do the thing of which she is accused.  The fact that James Comey thought that he could not obtain a conviction against Hillary for reckless endangerment of national secrets in order to hide her continued involvement with the Clinton Foundation doesn’t mean that Hillary didn’t recklessly endanger national secrets, or that she didn’t maintain an ongoing involvement with the Clinton Foundation while Secretary of State.

The fact that the FBI found no evidence that Hillary’s server had been hacked, doesn’t mean it wasn’t hacked, especially given that Hillary wiped the server and destroyed the emails before handing the server over to the FBI.  Hillary destroyed the evidence, and the absence of evidence is held up as indicting that the thing never happened.

It’s an old technique in politics to say, “I am be bald, but you are fat.”  The Democrats lack even this creativity.  If Hillary is a liar, Trump is a liar.  If Hillary has Russian and Saudi connections then so does Trump.  This technique works because the poor, half-attentive listener gets bewildered by the cross-accusations that are identical.  Accusing Trump and Republicans of the same thing of which the Democrats are guilty is a means of making smoke, or squirting ink, and obscuring who is guilty to the inattentive observer.

This last Sunday provided several examples of the use of alternative narratives as a means of defending Hillary’s rudderless, powerless derelict of a campaign adrift on the winds and tides.  These defenders are like destroyers trying to ward off danger to the capital ship of the fleet.

Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace interviewed Rep Gregory Meeks (D-NY) who is head of the Congressional Black Caucus.  He contended that Trump’s outreach to the black community was “not real.” 

Wallace began with, “Do you  give Donald Trump any credit at all for going into an inner city and meeting with African-Americans?”

Meeks replied, “No.  Because it’s not real….” And the he launched into a talking point on a tangential matter.

“Do you hear anything in the very different Republican ideas about school choice, about enterprise zones, about renegotiating trade deals that are taking jobs out of America’s inner cities?  Do you hear anything in those Republican ideas that you think may be kind of an interesting alternative?”

“No…..” And then he launched into an alternative storyline.

Isn’t the crime bill of the 1990’s part of the Clinton record?

“I think, if you put this in perspective of what was taking place at that time….Much of that was taken out of context….”  Never once a yes or no.

Neerra Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, was a most hateful guest panelist on FNS.  You have to wonder what she was doing there, being a known Clinton spokesliar from an organization known for its vicious spokeslying.  Her technique that she used on Chris Wallace was to lie, defame, and filibuster Chris’s interruptions and attempts to regain control of the discussion.

The method of an alternative narrative often reduces to: lie, interrupt, filibuster, and defame.

A bare description of this method has taken up so much time and space, that I shall have to return to it later to give it justice.

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Whitewater: When Hillary First Couldn’t Recall

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Sept 2016

Courtesy of prorev.com:

In the mid-1990s, federal special prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s investigative team in Little Rock was headed by a veteran of the courtroom, Hickman Ewing Jr.   Grilled by Ewing before a grand jury on July 22, l995, Mrs. Clinton used the words "I can’t recall" in answer to 50 questions.   Later, Ewing told Starr that he rated Mrs. Clinton’s testimony as deserving an F Minus, and he wanted to indict the nation’s first lady.

He was contemplating a number of counts, headed by two major lines of enquiry.  First came her handling of the commodity trades and her failure to report her profits to the IRS.  Second came her conduct amid the collapse of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, owned by Jim McDougal. Relevant to this affair were Hillary Clinton’s billings as a legal counsel to Madison Guaranty. These were germane to the question of whether Hillary was being truthful in denying she’d done any legal work for the bank.

After many adventures, the records finally came into the hands of Starr’s team and showed that Hillary Clinton had billed Madison Guaranty at the rate of $150 an hour, with a total of 60 hours of supposed work on the Castle Grande deal.

The prosecutors had the billings but were never able to look at Hillary’s time sheets. Her secretary removed them from the Rose Law Firm in 1992, and it’s generally assumed the first lady destroyed them.

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What Hillary Couldn’t Recall

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Sept 2016

With thanks to Lifezette.com:

Below is the list of things Clinton could not recall in the FBI interview:

·         When she received security clearance

·         Being briefed on how to handle classified material

·         How many times she used her authority to designate items classified

·         Any briefing on how to handle very top-secret "Special Access Program" material

·         How to select a target for a drone strike

·         How the data from her mobile devices was destroyed when she switched devices

·         The number of times her staff was given a secure phone

·         Why she didn’t get a secure Blackberry

·         Receiving any emails she thought should not be on the private system

·         Did not remember giving staff direction to create private email account

·         Getting guidance from state on email policy

·         Who had access to her Blackberry account

·         The process for deleting her emails

·         Ever getting a message that her storage was almost full

·         Anyone besides Huma Abedin being offered an account on the private server

·         Being sent information on state government private emails being hacked

·         Receiving cable on State Dept personnel securing personal email accounts

·         Receiving cable on Bryan Pagliano upgrading her server

·         Using an iPad mini

·         An Oct. 13, 2012, email on Egypt with Clinton pal Sidney Blumenthal

·         Jacob Sullivan using personal email

·         State Department protocol for confirming classified information in media reports

·         Every briefing she received after suffering concussions

·         Being notified of a FOIA request on Dec. 11, 2012

·         Being read out of her clearance

·         Any further access to her private email account from her State Department tenure after switching to her HRCoffice.com account.

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Hillary’s Empty Head

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Sept 2016

“I can’t recall.”

Where have I heard that statement before?  I can’t recall.

Oh, yes I can!  It was Bill Clinton in his deposition in the Starr investigation!  It has also been used by every Clinton acolyte since the halcyon days of Bubba’s Administration whenever one of them was deposed before an investigating body for one of their many transgressions of righteousness, propriety, and decency.

It’s a great lawyerly expression because it commits you to nothing.  And no lawyer follows up the answer with, “why can’t you recall?”  when that answer is given by another lawyer.  It’s a professional courtesy, you understand.

Hillary is lawyer.  So are the FBI agents who questioned her.  Hillary used the “I can’t recall” formulation a lot in her three and a half hour interview on July 2^nd.  The lack of follow-up, followed by a recommendation not to indict, means that the FBI didn’t just drop the ball in this case, they spiked it.

The emptiness of Hillary’s head thus goes unexplained.  The reason Hillary did not understand the security markings or know the proper handling of secure documents is either:

(a)    She once knew, and forgot;

(b)   She never knew.

By saying that she can’t recall having received training in understanding security markings, she leaves both options (a) and (b) open. 

Hillary told the FBI that she could not recall having received training in handling secure documents, an arduous process if done in three hours.  And the FBI simply accepted that as an answer.  Never mind that Hillary signed a document saying that she had received training, and that she understood how to recognize and handle classified information.

Apparently, Hillary didn’t recall that, and the FBI never brought it up.

Hillary claimed that she paid no attention to the level of classification, even though Special Access material was delivered to her on paper in her office she knew it had to be handled with extraordinary care.  She said she treated it all the same - carefully.

Hillary was named as an Original Classification Authority by President Obama, and admitted to having used that authority on occasion.  That means that she personally assigned a level of classification to some documents or information as Secretary of State, despite not knowing anything about levels of classification!

Hillary was not only Secretary of State, but had for eight years been a Senator serving on the Senate Armed Services committee, which receives and handles classified material on a routine basis.  When asked what she thought a (C) marking meant at the beginning of a paragraph in a document containing classified material, she said she thought it was part of a series of bullet points, such as (A), (B), and (D) – despite there being no (A), (B), and (D) at the beginning of the paragraphs above and below the one marked (C).  And the FBI didn’t follow up.

Hillary said that she did not consider whether or not emails exchanged on future U.S. drone strikes should be classified.

She said no one ever raised concerns with her about her use of a private, unsecured email server.

She lost her Blackberry and had it replaced at least 13 times.

Hillary said she received no direction or instruction from officials at the State Department regarding the preservation or production of records as she departed the position of Secretary.

Hillary said that she relied on the judgement of the permanent officials at the State Department concerning whether or not the content of an email sent to her private, unsecured server was classified properly or not.  She claimed that her use of a private, unsecured server was “public knowledge.”  (Aside, the proper term is ‘common’ knowledge among those who emailed her.  If it were ‘public’ knowledge, then the public would have known about it, including President Obama.)

The question of how permanent State Department officials were supposed to use their judgement concerning emails they did not know existed was never asked by the FBI.  The question of whether Hillary told those officials of the unsecured nature of her private server and to be cautious therefore, was never asked by the FBI.

The question of how Hillary expected these trusted officials to assume the responsibility she delegated to them – whether they knew it or not – when they lacked vital information to discharge that responsibility properly was never asked by the FBI.

Because of the “I can’t recall” formulation, we cannot be sure whether Hillary’s empty head is due to having a memory like a sieve or that she is utterly lacking in diligence – diligence in filling gaps in knowledge she has in order to perform her job up to standard.  You can have “people” to perform routine tasks, but you have to be able to blow your own nose.

So, is Hillary that mentally addled or is she that incompetent?

What Hillary is counting on in this election is that her supporters assume that she is simply cleverly lying to the FBI to avoid an indictment.  She outsmarted the FBI.  Therefore, she is neither mentally addled nor incompetent.

And she is hoping that her supporters never think more deeply than that, such as what kind of character does it take to do all that?  Can I trust this person with my safety as president?

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The Adult in the Room

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Sept 2016

Donald Trump’s meeting on Wednesday with Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto demonstrated, if anything could, Trump’s fitness and capacity to be president of the United States.

Trump began his speech that evening in Phoenix with these gracious remarks:

“I have just landed having returned from a very important and special meeting with the President of Mexico – a man I like and respect very much, and a man who truly loves his country. Just like I am a man who loves the United States.  We agreed on the importance of ending the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns and people across our border, and to put the cartels out of business.

We also discussed the great contributions of Mexican-American citizens to our two countries, my love for the people of Mexico, and the close friendship between our two nations.  It was a thoughtful and substantive conversation. This is the first of what I expect will be many conversations in a Trump Administration about creating a new relationship between our two countries.”

These high remarks are the sorts of diplomatic gestures intended to convey good will and good intentions that one would expect from a serious individual in high office.

Trump then delved into the heart of his remarks, the details of his immigration policy.  The speech was delivered to an audience of 15,000 people and was telecast simultaneously.  He cautioned his audience that he was now going to deliver a raucous rally speech, but a substantive speech, and so he might be a little tedious for them.  But he would do his best not to disappoint.

The speech was delivered with great energy and power that was sustained for over an hour.  In it, Trump presented his ten point plan for dealing with illegal immigration, from Mexico particularly but also principles for immigration and refugee settlement from other parts of the world.

In summary, the plan was to build an impenetrable wall along the border with Mexico, and then enforce the immigration laws on the books.  Trump would prioritize the removal of illegal aliens with criminal records, followed by a re-assessment of aims and methods after the completion of phase 1.  Sanctuary cities would be pressured to comply with federal law.  Trump would also use his discretion as President to adjust immigration quotas under the law to favor those people most likely to succeed in integrating into American society.  In general, he would reduce the flow of immigrants at the bottom rung of the economic ladder to enable American workers to get jobs.

Trump would also repeal all of Barack Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional Executive Orders that are effectively granting amnesty to millions of illegals who seem to like the Democrat Party.

How radical: build a wall to keep the problem from getting worse, and then enforce the law!

All the talking heads in the media were either impressed or distressed at the reasonableness of Trump’s immigration policy.  But when it comes to Trump, the talking heads have to find fault.

The narratives of objection concerned either Trump’s style of delivery, or focussed on a n alleged “softening” of the position he seemed to take in the primaries.  The latter criticism carries the implication of rank hypocrisy in this case.

On the matter of style, it seems that Trump took common sense and made it seem extreme (in the words of NRO commentator David French).  After being so serious and presidential in Mexico, Trump comes to Phoenix and then reverts to bombastic mode again, spoiling the effect of his previous seriousness and presidentialness.

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer couldn’t let go of the fact that the speech amounted to a softening of Trump’s position, indicating that Trump was weakening, or was being hypocritical, having disposed of his primary rivals for holding the very position that he now advances.  He observed that Trump was wasting his time delivering the speech in Phoenix, Arizona, since Trump already was going to win the state and should be giving the speech in a battleground state, like Ohio.

You would hope that professional commentators would be knowledgeable on matters of communication, yet they apparently know nothing about the art of rhetoric and seem to forget the boilerplate wisdom they themselves offered less than five months ago.

In front of 15,000 enthusiastic supporters, Trump was supposed to deliver somnolent, TV-style remarks in a calm, bland manner  suitable for a TV audience.  Just as Hillary Clinton would.  The TV-types wanted a TV presentation at a rock concert!  (There is a reason Hillary speaks to small, carefully selected audiences, and it is because she can’t deliver a rock-concert performance, and when she tries, her fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice comes out.)

The reason the speech was given in Arizona and not Ohio is that Arizona is greatly affected by illegal immigration, and Arizonans are quite hostile to it.  Trump was guaranteed an enthusiastic audience who would like his remarks, and since it was carried live on television, people in Ohio and other battleground states could watch it if they wanted to.  The energy and enthusiasm of the audience in front of Trump would be carried through the presentation, and people at home would understand that Trump was speaking before a huge audience, requiring a lot of power in his delivery.  Not weakening in over an hour of powerful delivery was a sign of strength and health in Trump.

The softening business is a dream of a hostile media.  The boilerplate wisdom among the commentariat is that candidates move to the left or right in their parties to gain the nomination and then tack to the center during the general election.  If Trump is tacking to the middle, he is following exactly the received wisdom of the commentariat, but to a hostile media, following media advice or the well-beaten path of successful candidates is weakening, softening, and rank hypocrisy.  They wanted Trump to announce a Nazi-style deportation force so that they could denounce him for his inhumanity.  He didn’t, and so they complain about his “softening.”

But Trump is not weakening, and their hostility prevent them seeing from the logic of Trump’s policy.

Trump said at the beginning of his speech that the government doesn’t really know how many illegals are actually in the country.  The figure of 11 million is bandied about, but no one really knows.  So, until the true dimensions of the problem are fully known, Trump prioritized deportations.  He was going to concentrate on the criminal element, and then reassess the situation after that part was completed.  Trump made clear that he would be humane in that re-assessment, but that the only path to citizenship for an illegal was to leave the country and re-enter properly under immigration law.  The rule of law was going to be upheld, however bad the law may be.

In addressing the issue this way, Trump demonstrated a more mature handling of the problem that the commentariat are capable of seeing, given their anti-Trump prejudices.

Trump showed that he is the adult in the room, and the hot-house plants of the Washington commentariat have yet to pick up the resonance Trump is developing outside of DC, and tailor their remarks accordingly.

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The Duke Visits Mexico

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Sept 2016

Donald Trump visited Mexico yesterday and met the Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto.  At the press conference afterwards, Trump towered over Mr. Nieto like Duke Wayne in one of his classic westerns.

The president of Mexico offered to meet with both presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and Trump accepted immediately.  He was in Mexico within forty-eight hours of the invitation.  By all accounts, Trump was taking a big risk.  No preparations had been made, and if he looked unsteady at the meeting or at the press conference, then Hillary’s charge that Trump can’t represent the United States abroad would be established.

By all accounts, Trump pulled it off big time.  He looked decidedly presidential, he was diplomatic, the meeting was cordial, and he dominated the press conference afterwards both by his stature and his command presence.  Hillary’s campaign, a rudderless, powerless derelict adrift on the winds and tides, just took a torpedo beneath the water-line.

Trump critic Charles Krauthammer was impressed:

“He took a risk, and he pulled it off.  Look, the big negative about Trump, the thing that the Clinton campaign plays on, is the fact that it's hard to imagine him as president,” Krauthammer said, adding, “Now, here he is standing on the world stage with a world leader. This is a big step.”

Krauthammer went on to say that Trump took control of the joint appearance and “spoke well.”

“He not only held his own, I think, in some ways, he sort of dominated… At the very end when they took questions, it was Trump who took charge,” Krauthammer said. “He's sitting in the palace of the president of Mexico. This never happens. Normally, it's the host who picks the journalist. Trump took charge naturally, walked off the stage as the dominant guy.”

He added that Trump’s behavior in Mexico could pay dividends for the candidate.

“I think he really helped himself,” he said.  (courtesy of Fox News.)

The folks at National Review, the geometric center of the #neverTrump movement were likewise impressed.  This from Rich Lowry,

“I can’t imagine that Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto intended to give Donald Trump his best political moment since the GOP convention, but that’s what he did. That Peña Nieto reportedly said that Mexico won’t pay for the border wall in their private meeting and diplomatically dissented from Trump on other matters in public don’t compare to the priceless platform he gave Trump to look presidential on the international stage, and in Mexico no less. The trip carried risks for Trump–Peña Nieto easily could have embarrassed him–but it paid off.”

Hillary’s attempt at damage control sounded like this:

“It’s more than a photo-op.  It takes consistency and reliability. Actually, it’s just like building personal relationships: People have to get to know that they can count on you, that you won’t say one thing one day and something totally different the next,...And it certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again. That is not how it works. American leadership means leading with our values, in pursuance of our interests in protection of our security.”

In her “Alt-Right” speech Hillary said, “The last thing we need in the situation room is a loose cannon who can’t tell the difference — or doesn’t care to — between fact and fiction. And who buys so easily into racially tinged rumors.  Someone so detached from reality should never be in charge of making decisions that are as real as they come. And that is yet another reason why Donald Trump is simply temperamentally unfit to be president of the United States.”

Hillary also claimed that Trump simply didn’t “understand” America’s place in the world.

Comparing these words with the actual facts, one is forced to choose between what Hillary says and your lying eyes.  Given Hillary’s growing reputation about truth-telling, these words look like another Clinton lie.

Trump’s trip to Mexico shows how nimble his campaign is.  Hillary has yet to accept the invitation, and the odds are that she won’t, except as an act of desperation.  Hillary cannot face the press, and a press conference is the usual way a diplomatic event finishes.

Hillary’s attempt to portray Trump as unable to handle American diplomatic affairs just got blown sky-high.  The business of Trump being temperamentally unfit to be president was demonstrated yesterday to be manifestly false.

Suddenly, the reasons to fear a Trump presidency evaporated.

Having a Duke Wayne in charge of America may not be such a bad idea after all.

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