FRIDAY ON MY MIND

FRIDAY ON MY MIND

Scott Johnson, Powerline

Late this past Friday afternoon the FBI conducted its second document dump in the Clinton email case. To those paying attention it has become clear that the case has compromised the FBI and destroyed the reputation of FBI Director of James Comey. These Friday afternoon document dumps come straight from the scandal management playbook perfected under the (Bill) Clinton administration. They remind us, in case any reminder was necessary, of how much we have to look forward to in the event the Clintons return to the White House. I nevertheless find it shocking that the FBI itself has now adopted the routine, acting as a party with much to be ashamed of. I collected early pieces and a few related revelations presenting a first take on the 190 pages of interview notes in “Scandal management with the FBI.”

In the New York Observer John Schindler explains “The FBI investigation of emailgate was a sham.” Subhead: “We now have incontrovertible proof the Bureau never had any intention of prosecuting Hillary Clinton.” Andrew McCarthy’s NRO column similarly argues “Obama’s conflict tanked the Clinton email investigation.”

Among the revelations reported over the weekend in the first pass at the documents was President Obama’s use of a pseudonym in email correspondence with Clinton on on the private email account maintained on her insecure server. Now Jonathan Allen reports for Reuters: “Clinton server tech told FBI of colleagues’ worries about system.” Excerpt:

“… The newly released interview summaries from the FBI investigation show government employees undercutting other aspects of the public accounts given by Clinton and senior State officials. 

“A State Department employee, whose name was redacted, told investigators they believed senior department officials interfered with the screening of Clinton’s emails for public release …

“The employee, who worked on the screening process, said there was pressure to obscure the fact they were finding classified information in the messages. …

Clinton repeatedly said last year she never sent or received classified information …

“The State Department has said that Clinton did not include any of her emails with Petraeus when her lawyers screened and returned what they said were all her work emails in 2014. A single conversation of about 10 emails later emerged last year after the Defense Department provided it.

“The employee also said the Defense Department told the State Department last year it had found about 1,000 emails between Clinton and David Petraeus in its records from his time as the director of the United States Central Command.” …

At PJ Media Debra Heine expands on that last bombshell regarding the deleted Petraeus emails in “FBI Docs: Hillary Deleted Nearly 1,000 Emails With David Petraeus.” Excerpt:

“A potentially explosive nugget from the FBI’s Friday document dump of investigatory notes from the Clinton email probe has been all but ignored by the media. And that is the revelation that Hillary Clinton deleted 1,000 work-related emails between herself and General David Pet[r]aeus from his time as the director of the United States Central Command. …

“In August of 2015, she signed a statement to a federal judge declaring “under penalty of perjury” that she turned over all work-related emails. …

“Petraeus started out as the leader of U.S. Central Command and then became the director of the CIA during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State, so not only were those emails obviously work related, they very likely were highly classified. The implications here are staggering.

But it gets worse.

The FBI summary also revealed that top State Department officials were actually putting pressure on employees to hide the fact that they were finding classified information in Clinton’s emails.” …

Today Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne report “FBI doc dump on email case reveals role of ‘confidential’ Clinton aide.” It is an article replete with evidence of additional criminal misconduct in the Clinton email scandal.

Hillary Clinton Would Rather Blame Free Speech than Islam for Terrorism

Hillary Clinton Would Rather Blame Free Speech than Islam for Terrorism

David Harsanyi, National Review

The words of our politicians are not the cause of terrorism. 

It’s one thing to watch liberals euphemize “Islamic terrorism” into a vacuous, politically correct word salad. It’s quite another to hear them blame free expression for Islamists’ actions. And they do it often. When Hillary Clinton accuses Donald Trump of giving “aid and comfort” to ISIS and other extremists because of his crude rhetoric about Muslim immigration, that’s exactly what she’s doing. And she’s not the only one. 

For one thing, the idea that an average Muslim can be driven to purchase a pressure cooker and blow up Chelsea in Manhattan, or massacre infidel children, because a U.S. candidate says unkind things about Muslims, inadvertently concedes a terrible truth about the state of Islam today. 

Moreover, this thinking dangerously underestimates the power of ideology and religion in the world. It’s hard to quantify the depth of self-importance it must take to believe that your patronizing words are more powerful than someone’s faith. This trivialization of the problem is reflected when the administration offers an idea as simplistic as “When it comes to ISIL, we are in a fight, a narrative fight with them, a narrative battle.” 

Also, Islamists are fully capable of ferreting out propaganda whenever they want, anyway. Anyone who’s paid five seconds of attention to the Israeli–Arab conflict understands that the Islamic world is saturated with conspiracy theories and institutionalized hate that makes what we actually say largely irrelevant. The problem is that you’re an infidel, not that you’re a rude infidel. ISIS is no stronger because Trump got into an argument with a Gold Star father (although supporting policy that made Libya an anarchic state might be a different story). 

Yet, intimating that Americans should watch what they say is now embedded into the Left’s response to every terror attack. I remember the repulsion liberals felt when former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told Americans they should mind their opinions. I guess chilling speech is awful, depending on the topic. 

It’s also not new. You’ll remember when President Obama and Clinton blamed a promotional trailer for that obscure anti-Islam film rather than admitting that extremists used our liberalism as a pretext to gin up mobs across the Islamic world, and cover their coordinated attack on Americans. 

The administration didn’t go onto Pakistani television and defend American values by saying, “Since its founding, the United States has been a nation that respects free speech, and unlike illiberal regimes (some of which we support), America allows all viewpoints.” Instead, Obama decided to, in essence, apologize for our obnoxious habit of allowing free expression: “Since our founding the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate religious beliefs of others.” This is not only debatable but also completely irrelevant. The Founders were concerned about religious liberty, not hurt feelings. 

Then again, Democrats generally have been more likely to blame Republicans — or the Second or Fifth Amendments — for terrorism than they have been to blame Islam. Senator Chris Murphy (Conn.) is far more disturbed by the National Rifle Association than he is by Islamism. This allows him to accuse Republicans of “selling weapons to ISIS,” and Clinton to praise his efforts. 

 This is just one way the Left uses terrorism to chill speech. Anyone who’s ever brought up the entrenched violence and illiberalism of Islam is to be immediately scolded for being “Islamophobic.” If the terrorists use a firearm, blame the NRA. If the terrorists use an improvised explosive device, blame Republicans for being mean. 

Above all of that, Clinton has just accused the GOP nominee of treason because he says things she dislikes. Referencing U.S. law, she said that anyone who gives our enemies “aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere” is “guilty of treason.” Those guilty of treason may “suffer death.” 

One ISIS propaganda expert claims that the group “talks about [Obama) more” than Trump. Should we accuse the president of giving aid and comfort? 

Clinton loves to say that “words matter.” So surely, as well versed as she is in law, and as important as accountability is to her, she couldn’t have merely been throwing around this specific language, right?

Remember when Trump blamed Obama for the Orlando, Fla., shooting? You should. Understandably, every major news organization covered it. We were plunged into a national conversation about the irresponsibility of the Republican candidate. Do you remember how Republican National Convention attendees chanted “lock her up” when Clinton’s name was mentioned? You should. Afterward, a very serious discussion about civility in politics ensued. I wonder whether we’ll be allowed to have another one.

— David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi. © 2016 Creators.com

A Hard Rain Is Going to Fall

A Hard Rain Is Going to Fall

Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

World events seem relatively calm, but repeated appeasement has built up pressure across the globe, and someone has to be there when crisis erupts.

This summer, President Obama was often golfing. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were promising to let the world be. The end of summer seemed sleepy, the world relatively calm.

The summer of 1914 in Europe also seemed quiet. But on July 28, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip with help from his accomplices, fellow Serbian separatists. That isolated act sparked World War I.

In the summer of 1939, most observers thought Adolf Hitler was finally through with his serial bullying. Appeasement supposedly had satiated his once enormous territorial appetites. But on September 1, Nazi Germany unexpectedly invaded Poland and touched off World War II, which consumed some 60 million lives.

Wars often seem to come out of nowhere, as unlikely events ignite long-simmering disputes into global conflagrations.

The instigators often are weaker attackers who foolishly assume that more powerful nations wish peace at any cost, and so will not react to opportunistic aggression. Unfortunately, our late-summer calm of 2016 has masked a lot of festering tensions that are now coming to a head — largely due to disengagement by a supposedly tired United States.

In contrast, war, unlike individual states, does not sleep.

Russia has been massing troops on its border with Ukraine. Russian president Vladimir Putin apparently believes that Europe is in utter disarray and assumes that President Obama remains most interested in apologizing to foreigners for the past evils of the United States. Putin is wagering that no tired Western power could or would stop his reabsorption of Ukraine — or the Baltic states next. Who in hip Amsterdam cares what happens to faraway Kiev?

Iran swapped American hostages for cash. An Iranian missile narrowly missed a U.S. aircraft carrier not long ago. Iranians hijacked an American boat and buzzed our warships in the Persian Gulf. There are frequent promises from Tehran to destroy either Israel, America, or both. So much for the peace dividend of the “Iran deal.”

North Korea is more than just delusional. Recent nuclear tests and missile launches toward Japan suggest that North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un actually believes that he could win a war — and thereby gain even larger concessions from the West and from his Asian neighbors.

Radical Islamists likewise seem emboldened to try more attacks on the premise that Western nations will hardly respond with overwhelming power. The past weekend brought pipe bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey as well as a mass stabbing in a Minnesota mall — and American frustration.

Europe and the United States have been bewildered by huge numbers of largely young male migrants from the war-torn Middle East. Political correctness has paralyzed Western leaders from even articulating the threat, much less replying to it.

Instead, the American government appears more concerned with shutting down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, ensuring that no administration official utters the words “Islamic terror,” and issuing warnings to Americans not to lash out due to their supposedly innate prejudices.

Aggressors are also encouraged by vast cutbacks in the U.S. defense budget. The lame-duck Obama presidency, lead-from-behind policies, and a culturally and racially divided America reflect voter weariness with overseas commitments.

It would be a mistake to assume that war is impossible because it logically benefits no one, or is outdated in our sophisticated 21st century, or would be insane in a world of nuclear weapons.

Human nature is unchanging and remains irrational. Evil is eternal. Unfortunately, appeasement is often seen by thugs not as magnanimity to be reciprocated but as timidity to be exploited. 

Someone soon will have to tell the North Koreans that a stable world order cannot endure its frequent missile launches and nuclear detonations.

Someone could remind Putin that the former Soviet republics have a right to self-determination. 

Someone might inform the Chinese that no one can plop down artificial islands and military bases to control commercial sea lanes.

Someone might make it clear to radical Islamic terrorists that there is a limit to Western patience with their chronic bombing, murdering, and destruction.

The problem is that there is no other “someone” (especially not the United Nations or the European Union) with the requisite power and authority except the United States. But for a long time America has done more than its fair share of international policing — and its people are tired of costly dragon-slaying abroad.

The result is that at this late date, the tough medicine of restoring long-term deterrence is almost as dangerous as the disease of continual short-term appeasement.

Obama apparently assumes he can leave office as a peacemaker before his appeased chickens come home to roost in violent fashion. He has assured us that the world has never been calmer and quieter.

Others said the same thing in the last calm summer weeks of 1914 and 1939.

War clouds are gathering. A hard rain is soon going to fall.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2016 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

If They’re Not Paying Attention....

Not again!

If They’re Not Paying Attention, the Left Could Be Surprised In November
Mathew Continetti, National Review

Why Democrats should be worried

‘This shouldn’t be close, but it’s close,” President Obama told the audience at a fundraiser this week in New York. “The presidential race, we should win. But Donald Trump got the nomination, so weird stuff happens.”

How weird? The president’s approval rating is at 51 percent, unemployment is at 4.9 percent, incomes rose in 2015, Democrats lead the generic ballot, and the Republican presidential nominee is historically unpopular. Yet Donald Trump is closing in on Hillary Clinton, narrowing her lead to two points in the Real Clear Politics average. The battleground states are tight as well.

The odds favor Clinton. But the fact that she is not running away with the election in the final weeks should worry Democrats. At the very least it should inspire them, and Republican opponents of Trump, to ask why she is underperforming. Here are some theories.

Hillary Is a Terrible Candidate

Clinton’s problems are legion. Ask yourself what her message is. Stronger together? Please. That’s not a reason to elect her president. It’s not even true. Sometimes we’re better off alone.

She’s unpopular and distrusted. Until recent days she has benefited from being less disliked than Trump. That is changing, however. The bump in favorability she experienced after her successful convention is eroding.

Her medical episode on 9/11 makes things worse. The trouble is not that she’s ill. It’s that she’s a liar. The muddled stories of what happened at Ground Zero — allergies, dehydration, pneumonia — combined with the visual evidence reinforce the Clinton stigma of opacity and deception. Another coughing fit or stumble won’t just call into question her physical condition but will remind the public that it desperately wishes it had another choice for president.

The demographics that Democrats believe guarantee victory are not saving Clinton. NBC News reports that “Clinton is underperforming among key parts of the Obama coalition: Latinos and young voters.” NBC points to Nevada where Clinton’s lead among Hispanics is shallower than Obama’s four years ago. This lack of enthusiasm opens a space for Trump supporters, leading to close races in Nevada, Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. Obama inspired a country. Clinton inspires revulsion.

Trump Is Getting His Act Together

One of the most extraordinary developments of the campaign has been Trump’s recent performance. Since replacing his campaign team in mid-August, a candidate known for making unforced errors has committed hardly any. He’s taken on the semblance of the presidency, visiting flood victims in Louisiana, minority communities in Michigan and Ohio, the president of Mexico. Remarkably he has stuck to script. He has not attacked the parents of a fallen warrior, hasn’t said ethnicity prevents a judge from ruling impartially, hasn’t even insulted a woman’s appearance.

I understand that’s a low bar. What matters in politics, though, isn’t where the bar is set. It’s whether the candidate steps over it.

The law of averages says that one of these days Trump will trip up. His authentic self will be revealed, distracting the media from Clinton and sending his campaign into defense. Yet Trump has an incentive to follow the path he is on. He cannot help noticing that his numbers have improved as he has listened to Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, and Roger Ailes.

This creates a positive feedback loop. Trump loves nothing more than touting polls. And Trump’s braggadocio is self-reinforcing. There is a bandwagon effect where Trump’s discussion of winning encourages more voters to help him win. It worked in the primaries. Might it work for him now?

The GOP Might Not Be In As Bad Shape As We Thought

Trump’s campaign does not extend past Fifth Avenue and 56th Street and the RNC headquarters in Washington. But he might not need it to.

Why? Because the two weeks since Labor Day have been good not only for Trump but also for congressional Republicans. Democrats are likely to pick up seats but not control the House. Meanwhile Senate Democrats have all but conceded Ohio. Marco Rubio is ahead in Florida. Pennsylvania is a jump ball. Republican Joe Heck has a slight lead in Nevada. Limiting Republican losses to Wisconsin, Illinois, and one or two other contests would be an incredible feat, maintain a slight GOP majority, and provide Trump the “ground game” he lacks.

The Poles of Global Politics Have Reversed

For decades, politics has been divided over the question of the size of government. Liberals expand government to alleviate inequalities. Conservatives empower markets to preserve freedom. The consensus was for a Goldilocks state: neither Leviathan in scope nor small enough to deprive citizens of entitlements.

So Bill Clinton said the era of big government was over. George W. Bush promised compassionate conservatism. Barack Obama faced resistance when he sought to put America on a “new foundation.”

In 2014 something changed. My thesis is that the child migration on our southern border and President Obama’s expansion of his executive amnesty to the relatives of minors brought here illegally — despite his repeated insistence that he lacked any such authority — reversed the poles of American politics.

No longer are our debates about government. They are about the nation. Do we have one? What are its interests? Who benefits from it? This political pole reversal, like its magnetic counterpart, is incredibly disruptive. Both parties experienced populist insurgencies. Neither nominee invokes the Constitution or limited government. The fiercest supporters of Trump are voters who feel abandoned or harmed or scared by the demographic and socioeconomic transformation of America. “The rise of Trumpism in the past year,” writes George H. Nash in The New Criterion, “has laid bare a potentially dangerous chasm in American politics: not so much between the traditional left and right but rather (as someone has put it) between those above and those below on the socio-economic scale.”

Donald Trump has benefited from this reversal more than anyone else. He understood its implications. He seized its opportunities. His Republican opponents played by the old rules. He had no rules and he won. Clinton? She hasn’t learned the lesson. As Joshua Mitchell of Georgetown University puts it:

On each of these issues — borders, immigration, national interest, the spirit of entrepreneurship, federalism, and PC speech — Hillary Clinton responds with ‘globalization-and-identity-politics-SPEAK,’ the language that has given us a world that is now exhausted, stale, and unredeemable. It is against this sort of world that citizens are revolting.

Be cautious, however. It remains unlikely the revolt will succeed. Eight weeks is a long time. Trump screws things up.

Yet he is also picking up speed exactly when it matters. How will Clinton slow him down? The debates? Everyone expects her to do well. Expectations for Trump are so low that he may “win” just by confounding them. More advertising? She’s already spent $100 million and her lead is dissipating. Investigating the Trump Foundation? The double standard is obvious.

Liberals are showing signs of panic. They’re saying the New York Times is biased for Trump (!), calling at least half his voters racist, urging Clinton to “talk about herself,” debating poll samples, announcing a “national emergency.” They are right to be alarmed. It was only in the last week that the nation’s capital began to understand it could wake up the morning of January 21, 2017, to unified Republican government under President Donald J. Trump.

— Matthew Continetti is the editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, where this column first appeared. © 2016 All rights reserved 

The Donald versus NATO: He’s on the Money

Sebastion Gorka, PFD, Gorka Briefing

For full disclosure: I know more than most about the intersection between the Republican presidential candidate and national security.

No, I don’t work for Mr Trump, nor am I part of his campaign staff of advisors. But last summer, long before anyone outside of his own family took his candidacy seriously, Donald Trump reached out to me for advice on national security issues.

We met twice in his Manhattan office to discuss broad questions to do with national security, and I wrote him a selection of policy papers (the details of which fall under an NDA. Sorry!).

Now he is the official presidential candidate of the GOP, much to the surprise of many a RINO and the chagrin of a certain Texan senator who refused to endorse him (after pledging to endorse whoever became the GOP candidate).

Mr. Trump has successfully outwitted all the bookies and establishment grandees by speaking plainly and riding the wave of serial controversies that do far greater damage to his detractors than his own standing among the voters.

The latest storm was generated by the NYT interview he gave yesterday. When asked about coming to the aid of NATO nations under attack, Trump answered that that depends upon how they have fulfilled their obligations to us, and if they had done so, he would aid them, adding that “Many NATO nations are not making payments, are not making what they’re supposed to make. That’s a big thing. You can’t say forget that.”

Well with that the chattering classes were off to the races. From Chris Matthews on down (or is it up?) the cries went out: “How can Trump say this?” “He’s endangering our allies.” “He’s emboldening Putin!” “Doesn’t he know we have treaty obligations?!”

Now I am not a Trumpster (I grew up under, and was formed by, the leadership of Maggie Thatcher, a very different kind of leader), but can we just stop for a moment and look at what the presidential candidate actually said?

He said: it if our allies keep to their commitments (hear an echo Senator Cruz?), we will defend them. How outrageous of Donald Trump! Or was it?

At the moment, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has 28 sovereign members, from the mighty America, to the lilliputian Estonian. Of the almost 30 countries, only 5 reach the consensus requirement for NATO members to dedicate just 2% of their GDP to their own defense (Estonia, interestingly being one of them).

The other 23 countries have decided for decades that they don’t want to pay for their own protection. They’ll just freeload on America’s good will. (I mean the yanks saved Europe from self-destruction twice, so they’ll do it again. Right. Right……??)

I cut my teeth on NATO issues when I still lived in Europe, and from experience can confirm that the majority of European nations have taken American goodwill – and our dollars – for granted.

Yes, NATO is an alliance based on values and not just parochial interests. But it is not a US-funded charity, and that is how it has been treated since the end of the Cold War by the majority of its members.

The Gray Lady’s follow-up piece today on the Trump kerfuffle is entitled: “Donald Trump’s Remarks Rattle NATO Allies and Stoke Debate on Cost Sharing.”

I can personally attest that Mr. Trump has a long way to go when it comes to being au fait with the intricacies of national security, but on this one he is 100% correct. And I, for one, am glad that after taking America for granted for so long, the freeloaders are “rattled” and talking about “cost-sharing.”

And I am quite certain that, should Donald Trump be elected the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America, they won’t just be “talking” about it.

First published in Breitbart National Security in July 2016