SUPER MOON, NOT SUPER STAR: Spectacular appearances, nonetheless. Bigger than Jagger. And the Geminid meteor shower.
Author Archive: Austin Bay
November 3, 2016
CHAOTIC INTERNAL CLIMATE: For a change The Guardian isn’t moaning about global warming/climate change. The climate chaos is within the FBI.
Current and former FBI officials…have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
Well, his decision outraged me. In July I wrote that Comey sold out the rule of law. And he did. I assuaged my chaotic internal climate with Manhattans. Yes, “assuaged,” not “assanged.” I’m guessing that the verb “to assange” means “to leak.” These current and former FBI officials are assanging rather than assuaging. But hey guys, the drinks are on Stephen Green.
OBAMACARE’S CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST: Check it out.
HER PANIC IS THE TORTURED PANIC OF A GUILTY SOUL: Comey’s one-eighty shattered Team Clinton’s mask of composure. (My latest NY Observer column.)
TURKS PROTEST POST-COUP PURGE: And well they should.
“We are facing a period worse than the coup,” said Tahsin Yesildere, head of a university teaching staff association. “In our country, which is being turned into a one-man regime through the emergency, all opposition resisting to this have become targets,” he told Reuters.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Just how pure is German beer?
CHINA AND DESERT STORM: Jim Dunnigan reviews China’s assessment of the 1991 Gulf War.
The bottom line:
China did try adding more officers selected for skills rather than loyalty but since 2010 have shifted back to the “loyalty first” model. This was necessary because of problems eliminating the corruption in the military and the realization that the military would more likely be needed to deal with an internal threat rather than an external one. It is easier to fake combat competence with new uniforms and weapons than to assure political loyalty when it is needed the most. The Chinese discovered that they had more in common with Iraq than their analysis revealed. The dictatorship that had run Iraq since the late 1950s learned to put a priority on loyalty when recruiting officers and avoid fighting an external foe.
Read the whole thing.
ISLAMIC STATE COMMANDANTE VOWS NO RETREAT FROM MOSUL: So ISIS jihadis will die in Mosul.
He called on his fighters to obey their leaders, warned Iraqi Sunnis of the consequences of turning against IS and appealed to IS’s far flung outposts to stay loyal to the group – from Indonesia to West Africa. Baghdadi rarely speaks publicly, but the last time he did so – in December last year – he delivered a similar mix of defiant insistence on ultimate victory combined with implicit acknowledgment of setbacks on the ground.
EMAILGATE HAS DESTROYED TEAM CLINTON: Let’s hope so. Hillary’s committed crimes.
FBI CLINTON FOUNDATION INVESTIGATION DRIP DRIP DRIPS: Cheryl Mills’ personal laptop wasn’t destroyed? The emails on Weiner’s laptop aren’t duplicates?
Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier reports:
“…an indictment is “likely” in the case of pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation, “barring some obstruction in some way” from the Justice Department.”
More:
“FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton’s server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information had been taken from it.”
The game’s afoot.
November 2, 2016
AN ARREST IN GERMANY: The Express reports German police arrested a Syrian immigrant who they believe fought for the Islamic State while living in Syria and was “undertaking surveillance on potential targets in Berlin” on behalf of the Islamic State. He had also recruited a fighter for ISIS. “Germany’s top prosecutor said this is the first prosecution brought against an immigrant suspected of planning an attack.”
According to the indictment:
“He scouted out potential attack targets during stays in Berlin and he helped send at least one person as a fighter to Syria. In addition, he made himself available as a contact person for potential attackers in Germany and signaled his fundamental readiness to commit an attack in Germany.”
AN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION COVER-UP OF HILLARY’S CRIMES?: The hacked Podesta emails indicate the State Dept “coordinated” its official statements about her email server with Hillary’s campaign. State is denying this, but the Wikileaks emails say otherwise. An Obama Administration cover-up? The RNC says so. I think Hillary’s obstruction of justice operation has been evident for at least a year. The House Select Committee on Benghazi report (the preliminary version that was released in late June) supports my assertion. Here’s Section IV: Compliance With Congressional Investigations.
HILLARY’S HUBRIS, WEINER’S PORN AND COMEY’S CONSCIENCE: My latest NY Observer essay. (bumped)
FRAGILE QUANTUM STATES IN WARM, WET HUMAN BRAINS: It’s Quanta Magazine picking up on speculation that human brains employ “quantum processing.” The idea is very controversial — but the article is informative.
MORE ON THE DEPT OF JUSTICE MOLE HUNT: Did DOJ’s Peter Kadzik work a quid pro quo with Podesta? It’s a possibility. (See Ed’s prior link.)
A Justice Department spokesman, though, downplayed the significance of Kadzik’s 2015 email, saying it was “about public information” and sent “in his personal capacity, not during work hours.” “He wasn’t communicating via official channels because it wasn’t official business,” Kevin Lewis told FoxNews.com. “He wasn’t emailing as ‘Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik.’”Lewis, who would not characterize the substance of the email, said officials in the department do not typically provide campaign advice. “It is not department practice to provide any strategic guidance to any campaign,” said Lewis, who did not answer when asked if Kadzik’s behavior was acceptable to the Justice Department.
JACUZZI OF DEATH: Great title for a fascinating article about an undersea brine pool.
November 1, 2016
HILLARY’S HUBRIS, WEINER’S PORN and COMEY’S CONSCIENCE : My latest NY Observer column. This one’s still relevant, too.
THE MARC RICH PARDON RETURNS IN 2016: The FBI has released information about Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of super felon Marc Rich. The Bureau released a heavily redacted file in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Team Hillary is livid and questioning the release and its timing. Well, of course. Hillary has no respect for the FOIA. She created her home-brew email server to evade record keeping requirements and avoid FOIA scrutiny.
That noted, the timing is a bit curious, but we don’t know when the FOIA request was made.
Politico published the article. A sample:
…the atmospherics in the records are unhelpful to the Clinton campaign. The records repeatedly refer to the probe being handled by the “Public Corruption Unit” and make clear that the FBI was examining claims that Denise Rich’s Democratic Party “donations may have been intended to influence the fugitive’s pardon.”…“It appears that the required pardon standards and procedures were not followed,” the internal FBI memos said.
Now a plot twist: James Comey took over an investigation of the pardon and didn’t “seek any charges in the case.”
Another quirky deep background connection: VP Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was Marc Rich’s attorney.
IT TAKES A BRITISH PAPER, I GUESS: The Daily Mail discusses five different FBI investigations into the Clintons, their inner circle of scoundrels and other associated crooks.
The extent to which Hillary Clinton’s key advisers are now the focus of major FBI investigations is becoming clear. The Clintons’ long-term inner-circle – some of whom stretch back in service to the very first days of Bill’s White House – are being examined in at least five separate investigations. The scale of the FBI’s interest in some of America’s most powerful political fixers – one of them a sitting governor – underlines just how difficult it will be for Clinton to shake off the taint of scandal if she enters the White House.There are, in fact, not one but five separate FBI investigations which involve members of Clinton’s inner circle or their closest relatives – the people at the center of what has come to be known as Clintonworld.
Added thought:
The FBI does not generally comment on investigations, so it is entirely possible there are more under way.
COMEY’S PROBLEMATIC JULY DECISION:
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and several conservative attorneys and legal scholars held a private forum last month in which they harshly criticized FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation just eight days before Comey sent a letter to Congress announcing his bombshell decision to review new emails in the probe. The event, billed as a discussion on “The Law after Comey’s decision,” featured several speakers including Mukasey, who served in the George W. Bush administration, hammering Comey over the legal precedent he set in concluding the email probe three months ago without charging Clinton with a crime.
Read the whole thing.