Presumptuous Politics

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Colin Powell warned Clinton aide 'not to get me' into email scandal

Love Lost ?

Love Gained?

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell issued an unmistakable warning last year to senior Hillary Clinton aides not to drag him into the burgeoning scandal involving her use of a private email server, according to an email released Friday by WikiLeaks.
“Cheryl, Good talking to you. See link. You really don't want to get me into this. I haven't been asked nor said a word about HRC and won't unless you all start it,” Powell wrote to Clinton’s personal attorney Cheryl Mills.
Mills then forwarded the March 7, 2015 email to Clinton's now-Campaign Chairman John Podesta and other associates with a suggestion to “see below as reminder of early conversation.”
The email, hacked from Podesta's personal account, included a link to a Breitbart report on attempts to protect Clinton by stoking an email scandal for Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The article noted it is a “trick attempted with carping about former Secretary of State Colin Powell” and his use of a personal email account when he was secretary of state.
The warning from Powell came at a time when the Clinton campaign and State Department were struggling to respond to the revelation that Clinton had used a private server in her residence for official business.
Clinton would make her first formal comments on the scandal in a March 10, 2015 press conference at the United Nations.
A day later, Powell declined to comment on the Clinton controversy, telling ABC News’ George Stephanopolous that it “would be inappropriate.”
Campaign Manager Robby Mook noted that same morning that Powell’s no comment “strengthens our case.”
While the Powell warning note had not been published before, it is no secret he did not want the Clinton campaign to drag him into the email controversy by equating his use of personal email with her use of a special private server.
The Intercept previously reported that in an Aug. 28, 2016 email, Powell wrote to a friend that Clinton “could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.”
“I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton’s [sic] party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields,” Powell added.
Powell had previously accused Clinton of trying to “pin” the scandal on him after Clinton told authorities in July that Powell had detailed to her his email practices as secretary of state under George W. Bush, according to a New York Times report in August.
The paper cited a passage from a book about Bill Clinton’s post-presidency that read, "Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer."
But Powell did not have a private server -- and officials would later find hundreds of emails with classified material from Clinton's server.
Despite the tensions between them, Powell nevertheless endorsed Clinton in October. (Idiot)

Washington state elector says he won't vote for Clinton

A picture is worth a thousand words :-)

A Democratic elector in Washington state said Friday that he would not cast his Electoral College vote for Hillary Clinton if, as is likely, she wins the state in Tuesday's election.
Robert Satiacum, a member of the Puyallup Tribe, supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, which the Vermont senator won by approximately a 3-to-1 margin. He said he believes Clinton is a "criminal" who doesn't care enough about American Indians and "she's done nothing but flip back and forth."
He said he has wrestled with what to do, but feels that neither Clinton nor Republican Donald Trump can lead the country.
"She will not get my vote, period," he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
Satiacum said he believes Sanders did a better job of reaching out to Native Americans. "She doesn't care about my land or my air or my fire or my water," he said of Clinton.
Americans vote for the president on Election Day, but they're really casting votes for each state's electors, who will decide the next president on Dec. 19.
In all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), the winner of the state's popular vote gets all of the state's electors. There's nothing in the Constitution that says the electors are required to vote for a particular candidate, but some states have penalties for so-called "faithless electors." Satiacum faces a $1,000 fine in Washington if he doesn't vote for Clinton, but he said he doesn't care.
"I hope it comes down to a swing vote and it’s me,” he told The Seattle Times. "Good. She ain’t getting it. Maybe it’ll wake this country up."

Satiacum is one of 12 Democratic electors in Washington, which has 12 electoral votes and has not gone for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Satiacum said he has gotten a lot of criticism since he told media outlets last month that he might not vote for Clinton. But he said he has also heard from electors in other states who thanked him for speaking out. He said he hopes some of those electors follow his lead.
At the time of of Satiacum's initial statements, the Puyallup Tribal Council issued a statement saying that he had pledged to support the winner of the state's popular vote Nov. 8 and "risks dishonoring himself" if he does not do so.
According to the National Archives, 99 percent of electors through U.S. history have voted for their party's candidate, and none of the dissenters has ever changed the result of an election.

Clinton sent daughter material that was later classified

WASHINGTON – The State Department on Friday released a 2009 email chain that shows then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton forwarding to her daughter material that the department classified last year.

At issue is a December 2009 email that President Barack Obama's trade adviser, Michael Froman, sent to senior White House and State Department staff members. After it made its way up to Clinton, she sent it to "Diane Reynolds," an email pseudonym for Chelsea Clinton.
"See below," Clinton told her daughter. The entire email chain has been blacked out on confidential grounds, the lowest level of classification.
The chain was among the State Department's last release of documents from Clinton's private server before Tuesday's presidential election.
The department classified portions of two other emails released Friday.
They concerned phone calls Clinton had planned in November 2010 with the United Arab Emirates' crown prince and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. At the time, WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables was roiling U.S. relations with governments around the world.
The emails were written by Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. The department designated portions of each "confidential." State Department spokesman Mark Toner said neither document was marked classified when it was sent.
Friday's release, four days before Election Day, included 74 emails totaling 285 pages. The FBI provided the emails to the State Department after uncovering them as part of its investigation of Clinton's email practices.
Many emails are near duplicates of documents the department released after receiving 55,000 pages from Clinton in 2014.
Some reflect minor additions, such as Clinton asking an aide to print out the exchange on paper.

Newt Gingrich: Bigger than Hillary -- The establishment cesspool of dishonesty and corruption

WikiLeaks documents expose media collusion with Clinton camp

Crooked Hillary


She should be in Jail.

The only precedent in American history for the mess we will be in if Secretary Hillary Clinton wins on November 8 is the election, investigation, and resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The parallels struck me when Callista and I visited the Nixon Presidential Library two weeks ago. We were signing our new books (Treason by me and Hail to the Chief by Callista).
The Nixon Library has undergone a remarkable renovation. Touring it is a powerful educational experience. Since my first congressional race was in 1974 as Nixon was forced from office, the Library brought back many memories. (I lost that year in a Republican collapse over the scandal.)
The process of investigating Watergate and within 21 months of his reelection forcing President Nixon to resign (August 9, 1974) is the only precedent for the problem we will face if Secretary Clinton wins.
In some ways this is an unfair comparison.
Unlike Clinton, Nixon had a great foreign policy record. Working with Henry Kissinger as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, President Nixon opened up our relationship with China and balanced our relationship with the Soviet Union. His diplomacy with Beijing was an astonishing and totally unexpected breakthrough.
Nixon entered office with millions of Americans bitterly opposed to President Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. Nixon and Kissinger developed a policy to free South Vietnam and establish peace in the region. They ensured the return of several American prisoners of war including John McCain.
Domestically, President Nixon worked hard to achieve a sweeping reelection victory in 1972. He learned from 1960, when he lost so narrowly that only vote theft in Illinois and Texas enabled Kennedy to win. Nixon won very narrowly eight years later in 1968, in a three way race with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Governor George Wallace.
In 1972, Nixon carried 49 states. That number has only been equaled in modern times by President Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection. What most Americans don't realize is that President Nixon actually won reelection by a greater margin than Reagan (60.7 percent for Nixon compared to 58.8 percent for Reagan).
After the massive victory in 1972, Nixon might have expected a very successful conclusion to his then 26-year career in public life as a Congressman, Senator, Vice President and President.
Yet the overwhelming victory was not enough to protect him from the mistakes of his team and himself.
Looking back, the Watergate scandal was about a burglary of the Democratic Party headquarters located in the Watergate Building. This was one of the most self-destructive acts in American history. Nixon was going to win by a landslide. There was no point in breaking into the Democratic headquarters.
Nixon should have repudiated the burglary. If he had allowed the burglars and their immediate bosses to pay for their enthusiastic stupidity everything would have ended. Nixon would have served out his four years and history would have been very different.
However, Nixon's loyalty to his team and his deep paranoia about his political enemies, including the news media, led him to obstruct justice.
America is a hard country in which to sustain dishonesty and corruption because there are simply too many people with consciences that compel them to report illegality and the betrayal of the rule of law. By lying to government officials and plotting to hide the truth, Nixon placed himself at the center of much bigger scandal than the original break in.
Nixon found himself drawn deeper and deeper into a cover up. It was discovered that he had maintained an audio taping system in the Oval Office. Then it was discovered that 18 and a half minutes had been deleted. The tapes are available today at the National Archives (they are public property just like Clinton's emails).
For 18 months the American government was increasingly paralyzed by what Nixon's own former White House counsel, John Dean, called “a cancer on the Presidency.” It was clear that Nixon would be impeached and he chose to resign rather than face a bitter fight for survival.
Ironically Hillary Clinton knows this history well because as a young lawyer she served on the House Judiciary Committee as it established the groundwork for impeaching President Nixon.
Why did she ignore it? Why has she ignored it for virtually her entire public career going back to Arkansas over 30 years ago?
Lord Acton warned nearly 200 years ago that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
More than two thousand years ago the Greeks warned that hubris preceded Nemesis. Greeks believed hubris occurred when someone was too proud and that the goddess Nemesis would punish them for their arrogance.
From Whitewater to 33,000 deleted emails to the corruption of the Clinton Foundation to all the problems exposed by Wikileaks, the Clintons personify the Greek model of hubris and Lord Acton's warning that power corrupts.
Now Nemesis may be intervening in Hillary Clinton's career.
We now know that the FBI has stumbled on to some 650,000 emails on the Abedin-Weiner computer.
This must be something like the intervention of a Greek goddess. Who else could imagine that former Congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina would lead the FBI to a computer that may have over 650,000 emails from Hillary's closest aide, Huma Abedin (Weiner's wife).
As a novelist, I wouldn't have the nerve to suggest such a wild plot.
Now the FBI has reopened the email case.
The FBI also has five field offices looking into the corruption of the Clinton Foundation. The memo by Bill Clinton’s closest aide, Doug Band (written to convince Chelsea he was making money for her parents), has been described as the Rosetta Stone of the Clinton criminal operation.
Andy McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who tried the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, has suggested the Clinton system is a classic RICO crime case. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, himself a very successful federal prosecutor before becoming mayor, has outlined count after count in a variety of federal statutes which he believes would prove criminal behavior by the Clintons.
President Obama sent a clear signal when Josh Earnest, his spokesman, said the President retained great confidence in FBI Director Jim Comey. This endorsement of Comey directly undercut the Clinton campaign’s effort to undermine and delegitimize him. It may be the first sign that continuing disclosures about the Clintons are forcing Obama to distance himself from a very flawed candidate.
The Nixon precedent is very sobering and relevant.
If carrying 49 states and getting 60.7 percent of the vote couldn't protect Nixon from an 18-month ordeal leading to his resignation, what defense would a narrowly elected Hillary Clinton have?
Compare Nixon's 18 and a half minute tape gap with 33,000 deleted emails.
Remember that for Nixon there were no charges of personal corruption, personal enrichment, or conspiracy to exploit public office for financial gain.
On every level, the Clintons have greater vulnerabilities, greater exposure to investigation, and greater legal liabilities than Nixon.
Will Americans really vote to send a criminal family to the White House?
Will Americans vote to have a presidency drowning in investigations and crippled with constant legal assaults?
How could a President Clinton ever achieve anything with her time and energy focused on legal survival?
Why would the Congress cooperate with someone it thought was a liar and a crook?
Why would the anti-Clinton half of America ever cooperate with a president they believed should be in jail and not in the White House?
These are very serious concerns and this is why voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton is a vote for four years of corruption, investigation, and gridlock.
Newt Gingrich, a Republican, was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He is the author of the new novel "Treason" (Center Street, October 11) and co-author, with his wife Callista Gingrich, of "Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future" (Center Street, May 17, 2016).

Friday, November 4, 2016

Wikileaks Web Address

https://wikileaks.org/

Self Research into crooked Hillary Clinton before it's to LATE.

Hillary Political Cartoons

Fox News Electoral Scorecard: Key states tilting toward Trump after FBI's October surprise

The FBI’s October surprise appears to have improved Donald Trump’s overall standing in the electoral map, with the latest Fox News Electoral Scorecard showing several states shifting in his favor since last week.
The Fox News Decision Team announced updates to the scorecard Thursday afternoon, reflecting the following changes based on recent polling and other factors:

New Hampshire moves from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up”
Ohio moves from “toss-up” to “lean Republican”
Indiana moves from “lean Republican” to “solid Republican”
Missouri moves from “lean Republican” to “solid Republican”

Despite the changes, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton maintains the clear advantage, and Trump’s path to victory remains a tight one.
But the latest ratings show Clinton’s advantage diminishing.
If Clinton were to win all the states leaning toward or solidly in the Democratic column, she’d have 283 electoral votes – more than the 270 needed to win.
If Trump were to win all the states leaning toward or solidly in the GOP column, he’d be short at 192 electoral votes. But winning all the toss-up states would put him just 15 electoral votes shy of 270.
One more win in North Carolina, Michigan or Pennsylvania could get him to victory.
The updates and fresh polling comes in the wake of the FBI’s decision Friday to revisit the Clinton email investigation after new messages were found on the laptop used by ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
The Clinton campaign and its allies have downplayed the significance of the messages while questioning the FBI’s announcement so close to Election Day.
Trump, meanwhile, has seized on the news as well as other developments to press his case in the final stretch.
Speaking Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla., he cited reporting by Fox News that an FBI investigation regarding the Clinton Foundation has become a “high priority.”
He also touted new polls in Ohio and elsewhere showing him ahead.
Clinton and President Obama have, for their part, made an impassioned case to voters to not elect Trump.
“You want a voice who’s bragging about how being famous lets you get away with what would qualify as sexual assault, and calls women pigs, and dogs, and slobs?” Obama warned voters Thursday in Miami. “And when he pays attention to women, it’s because he’s grading them on a scale of one to ten. What kind of message are we sending if that’s our voice?”
In the latest states to shift, Ohio is the most highly sought prize. Trump has been leading there for weeks and his recent national bounce moves the state back into his column. Early ballot requests also suggest a Republican advantage.
The Electoral Scorecard also recently moved Florida and Nevada from “lean Democrat” into the “toss-up” column as well, while North Carolina shifted from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat.”

Illegal immigrants surging to US-Mexico border in race against Election Day

Border Patrol: Surge in illegal immigrants ahead of election

Americans aren’t the only ones motivated by Tuesday’s election. The presidential race has immigrants from around the world racing to the U.S.-Mexican border, as the cartels exploit a powerful narrative: get into the U.S. while you still can.
“Smugglers are telling them that they need to come across now while there’s a chance,” said Art Del Cueto, a Border Patrol agent in Tucson, Ariz., whose views were echoed by another agent in Texas.
“People think if one candidate wins, certain things will happen, like a giant wall being built and then they can never get through,” said Chris Cabrera, an agent in the Rio Grande Valley. “Another faction believes that if the other candidate wins, they’ll get amnesty if they’re here by a certain date.”
Those two competing narratives – triggered by the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, respectively -- are driving immigration numbers the Border Patrol hasn’t seen in years in some sectors.
“We are overwhelmed,” said a veteran agent in McAllen, Texas. “We are seeing 800 to 1,000 apprehensions every night.”
In fiscal 2016, the Border Patrol apprehended 117,200 immigrants from Central America, almost one-third of all apprehensions border-wide -- and 5,000 more than during the so-called surge of 2014. The agency also apprehended 5,000 Haitians, up from just 700 last year. The number of immigrants claiming to be from Africa and Asia also is up.
"There are always going to be push and pull factors that influence an individual’s decision to make that trek," said Tucson Border Patrol Sector Chief Paul Beeson.
The poverty and violence plaguing many of these countries helps push immigrants north, Beeson said. Pull factors include available and good-paying jobs in the U.S. and immigration policy that provides work permits and freedom for immigrants while the courts adjudicate their ‘asylum’ claim.
“When you stop somebody, you ask their name and the first thing they tell you is – ‘I’m here for asylum, I can’t go home because they’ll kill me.’ … When it takes a good five or six minutes just to get their name out of them, they have a rehearsed story,” said Cabrera. “Once they get those papers saying they can pass through our checkpoint, we’ll never see them again.”
Del Cueto said the agents are “not getting any backing” from D.C. and “we need to start enforcing every single immigration law we have on the books.”
Del Cueto and Cabrera belong to the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the Border Patrol’s 18,000 field agents who are prohibited from talking openly to the media.
While Central American immigrants have posed the biggest resource challenge for Texas, they say a surge of Haitians are pouring into ports of entry in California and Arizona.
Last year, the U.S. saw a 500 percent increase of Haitians admitted to the U.S., double that in San Diego where right now 2,000 are waiting outside the port in San Ysidro. According to Homeland Security sources, another 2,000 are in Mexicali and several hundred are in San Luis, just south of Yuma where Del Cueto says immigrants are sleeping in a church parking lot. Further east in Nogales, Mexico, 150 are waiting to cross into the U.S. They are camped next to the border fence, waiting for Customs and Border Protection officers to process them as refugees.
Some had jewelry and one woman had an iPad. The men surrounded the women, who huddled around a pile of boxes containing water and food.
“We’ve been in Nogales 20 days,” said one middle-aged man in a striped shirt in broken English. “We need help crossing the border.”
He said each immigrant paid a $4,000 to $6,000 smuggling fee. Once here, he said the Mexican government had given each a number based on their arrival.
“We are seeing an uptick in the number of Haitians that are looking for an immigration benefit,” said Beeson, who admits the surge is taking agents off the front lines.
Following the earthquake several years ago, Haitians were allowed to immigrate and stay in the U.S. under a program known as ’Temporary Protected Status.’ Earlier this year, the U.S. ended that protection, leaving some Haitians in the pipeline traveling through Mexico, where according to officials there, roughly 8,000 are on their way to the border.
While Trump and Clinton have very different visions of immigration reform and border security, Stratfor’s Cott Stewart doesn’t see the border threat changing until conditions do south of the border.
“There’s really no easy answer to it because there are just deeper issues,” said Stewart, from the defense and security think tank. “You have pervasive corruption where you see all levels of government are involved in, you know, drug dealing and other criminal activity. … So these things all tie together and make it a very difficult place for people to live and survive and because of that it’s very understandable why people would want to migrate from those conditions up to the United States.”