Phyllis Schlafly, RIP

Very late in her life, she developed an unfortunate enthusiasm for Donald Trump, but other than that, she was an impeccably go-to source for full-throated, three-pillared conservatism. She knew that God was God, male was male, female was female, the United States was a unique blessing to humankind, and that enemies to freedom and God's law abound and that one must therefore always be vigilant and ready to fight.

She never tailored her message to the times.

She just spoke for what is always, everywhere, without variation, good, true and right.

Put the onus on those who hire them

Two great pieces today that have essentially the same message: thinning the ranks of illegal aliens doesn't require a massive and inhumane yanking of them from "out of the shadows."

You just serve notice to post-America's employers that they're in big trouble if they hire them.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line:

 . . . the idea that getting rid of millions of illegal immigrants would require house-to-house searches, dedicated trains to the border, etc., is wrong. In fact, all the federal government needs to do is enforce existing laws relating to employment. If a few farmers, contractors and owners of lawn services are sent to jail, the others will take the lesson quickly, and jobs for illegal immigrants will dry up. Most (not all, of course) will then leave the country voluntarily, the same way they came. The government doesn’t need to do anything other than enforce existing laws. This is what Mitt Romney referred to as “self-deportation,” a term that some found offensive for reasons I don’t understand.

Kevin Williamson at NRO:

As I have argued for some time, we could do a great deal to reduce and reverse illegal immigration by taking five fairly straightforward steps that do not even require building a wall (though there are sections of the border that certainly should be walled). Those steps are: 1) Passing a law that forbids anyone who is or who has been an illegal immigrant from ever becoming a U.S. citizen, even if his current status is legal; 2) Passing a similar law that forbids anyone who is or has been an illegal immigrant from applying for a work permit, even if his current status is legal; 3) Carrying out robust workplace enforcement through mandatory E-Verify and the deployment of asset forfeiture against businesses convicted of employing illegal-alien labor; 4) Putting a citizen or non-citizen stamp on drivers’ licenses and requiring non-citizens to document their legal status when engaging in ordinary financial transactions such as cashing a check or booking domestic travel; 5) Passing a law that forbids anyone who is or has been an illegal immigrant from ever legally entering the United States. 

Remove the primary motivation for coming here.

 

The Most Equal Comrade insults the troops he commands

He not only goes the "Kaepernick-has-the-Constitutional-right" route, but gets into some kind of crud about how they have a cultural filter that makes it hard to really hear this noble young man:

"The meaning that that holds for our men and women in uniform, and those who fought for us, that is a tough thing for them to get past to then hear what his deeper concerns are," said Obama. "If nothing else, what he's done is he's generated more conversation around topics that need to be talked about."

Right up there with cops "act[ing] stupidly."

Post-America, the world's biggest, wealthiest banana republic

Supremely important piece by Jed Babbin at The American Spectator today.

How's this for a money line?

The differences between Obama’s America and Maduro’s Venezuela are defined only by degree.

His overall point is that the architects who have brought post-America to this point are Madame Bitbleach and the Most Equal Comrade. Each are driven by particular ratios of power-lust and a planned-decline ideology.

In Hillionaire's case,  the power-lust is predominant, and has led to corrupt behavior and a knack for intimidating impartial institutions we probably have never seen in this nation's history:

The newly-released FBI documents on the investigation of Hillary Clinton make it clear beyond argument that the fix was in and that the FBI never had any intention of recommending that she should be prosecuted for her crimes.

That is very hard to write. I have had very good friends among the agents of the FBI, men of unshakeable dedication to the fair enforcement of the law. But that is no longer the FBI’s goal, as just a few references to the documents published last week reveal.

First, you had to notice that the FBI agreed that there would be no videotape of its interview of Clinton. Not only would there not be a videotape, but no court reporter would be present to record a transcript. That itself is highly unusual, but there is far more, and far worse.

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, had to have participated in sending classified material to Clinton on her private and unsecured “clintonemail.com” email system. Yet when the FBI questioned Clinton, Mills was permitted to attend as one of Clinton’s lawyers. That is not only unethical under the Bar’s unenforced ethics standards, but obviously a huge violation of the most elementary of FBI procedures that requires witnesses — and possible suspects — to be questioned separately in isolation from one another.

Clinton told the FBI that she relied on others’ judgment in sending her sensitive information on the unsecured email system. She also claimed that as a result of a head injury she didn’t recall key events such as being trained by the State Department on handing classified information or retaining records in accordance with federal law.

Clinton, as a U.S. senator, served on the Armed Services Committee from 2003 to 2009. She was a member of three subcommittees, including the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. In that capacity, she would have been instructed on how to handle highly-classified information and a great deal of it would have passed through her hands. She would have had many occasions to handle it and to transmit it among her colleagues and staff and executive branch officials. Further training by the State Department would have been unnecessary for her to know how such information had to be protected against disclosure.

Clinton’s obvious lie was one of many she told the FBI. Let’s remember that on at least one occasion, she told her State Department staff to remove the classified markings on some material and send it “in the clear” on an unsecured channel — her private email system.

The FBI found that Clinton had used a multitude of Blackberry and other personal devices while she was secretary of state. Thirteen of them are missing and have never been recovered. Anyone who has used a Blackberry or other personal email device can testify that they last for years. Clinton, while she was secretary of state, apparently got a new one every six or eight weeks. All of those devices, given the frequency of her communications, would have had classified information on them.

How compromised was the FBI in its balancing act between its actual mission and the hot breath of the Clinton machine on its neck?

 . . . in his July statement, FBI director Comey said that of Clinton’s State Department emails, “…110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. “

Comey’s statement included the fact that, “Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.” Clinton knew or should have known that the subject matter of those emails was classified because, for example, some discussed coming drone strikes against terrorists.

For all of Clinton’s lies, and there are far too many to recount, the worst lie of all was Comey’s. He said that there was no precedent for a prosecution of someone who had behaved as Clinton had and that no responsible prosecutor would bring charges. (Former CIA directors John Deutch and David Petraeus each pled guilty to mishandling classified information. Deutch was pardoned in 2001 by Bill Clinton.)

Comey also said that there was evidence that Clinton and her staff had handled classified information in an “extremely careless” way. Title 18 Section 793(f) says that anyone who is “grossly negligent” in handling classified information is guilty of a federal felony.
If we cannot trust the FBI to enforce the law, and we cannot, America is now characterized by one of the two facts defining a banana republic.

As a parting shot, the FBI also found that several email accounts that Clinton had communicated with while secretary of state had been intercepted (hacked) by hostile foreign actors, but that they couldn’t determine if Clinton’s email was hacked.
Russia, China, Iran and al-Qaida will have intercepted Clinton’s emails as a matter of policy. If she isn’t guilty of the federal felony described by Title 18 U.S. Code Section 793(f), I’ll eat her classified emails.

And, oh, by the way, Clinton sent classified information on her private email system after she left the secretary of state job. (That’s a separate crime, but who’s counting?) The bad guys surely have those emails as well.

In the Most Equal Comrade's case,  we're looking at a man with a more coherent core ideology than that of Hillionaire (although, to be sure, her Alinskyite roots still shape her way of operating). The MEC is and always has been focused on the Great Leveling Project, both domestically and abroad. He wants to hobble post-America's energy robustness, and thereby its economy (and is willing to sherd the Constitution to do so) and he wants to knock it down a peg on the world stage, even if it means a mortal enemy gets a nuclear arsenal:

The other revelation last week was David Albright’s report on President Obama’s nuclear deal.

Mr. Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (not to be confused with the other ISIS) reported that the international commission running Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran has, in secret, allowed Iran to pretend to obey the deal’s conditions while violating them.

Albright’s report says that by the deal’s effective date, Iran was obligated to perform certain tasks in order to qualify for relief from the international sanctions that had been imposed. Among them was the disposal of low-enriched uranium (LEU), a limitation on its “hot cells,” and the shipment out of Iran of “heavy water” (deuterium oxide).

Iran didn’t dispose of, by shipment to another nation or otherwise, the required amount of LEU, leaving it more than enough to further enrich it to produce nuclear weapons. The “hot cells” — which can be used to produce plutonium, another key ingredient of some nuclear weapons — hadn’t been reduced in size to prevent the plutonium production. And the heavy water had been shipped to Yemen, where it remains under Iranian control.

Under the awful Corker Amendment (more fully discussed here) all side agreements, secret or not, were required to be disclosed to the senate. As a couple of senators have said publicly — and one to told me directly but privately — they weren’t.

Over the weekend, Obama signed the latest economy-killing global warming deal. Both the BBC and the Washington Post reported the event as U.S. ratification of the deal. Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution provides that only the Senate can ratify a treaty.

Which results in the definition of Obama’s Iran deal being precisely concurrent with the other factor defining a banana republic. Obama’s autocratic foreign policy has been conducted in secret, and in opposition to our national security interests.

The two most powerful figures in post-America's Freedom-Hater party.

Makes it a little trickier for us individual citizens to maintain some kind of control over our fate, doesn't it?

The fruits of 1953's inconclusiveness

Not too far from where the G-20 summit is taking place, this is occurring:

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea's military said, as the leaders of the Group of 20 major economies held a summit in China, the North's main diplomatic ally.

The missiles were fired from a region south of the capital Pyongyang just after noon local time (0300 GMT) and flew about 1,000 km (600 miles), hitting Japan's air defense identification zone, the South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

"We are still analyzing details but this is a grave threat to our nation's security, and we express deep concern," the Japan Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The missile launches were the latest in a series of launches by the isolated North this year in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, supported by China, that ban all ballistic missile-related activities by the North.

Pyongyang rejects the ban as infringing its sovereign right to pursue a space program and self defense.

Shortly after the missile launches, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of the G20 summit and agreed to cooperate on monitoring the situation, a Japanese statement said.
The South's military said the missiles were medium-range Rodong-class, launched as a show of force timed to coincide with the G20 summit.

Proving once again that wars are never really over until one side has won and the other has lost.

And thus does the 1960s counterculture arrive at its natural nadir

The irony is rich indeed. The founders and original attendees of the Burning Man "festival" in the 1980s fancied themselves as offering humankind a viable alternative to bourgeois decadence, but the foundation they established was nothing but.

And now, as with every other supposed "struggle against the power" in post-American society, it crashes and burns in a cacophony of clashing factions and feral-animal behavior:

It is supposed to be a utopian vision of peace and love but this year's Burning Man Festival has been marred by "hooligans" carrying out a "revolution against rich parasites".

The festival plays out each year in Nevada's Black Rock Desert where 70,000 people build a city in a week, burn a giant wooden effigy of a man, and then restore the arid playa to its original state.

In recent years it has become popular with Silicon Valley millionaires, and billionaires. Luxurious so-called "plug-n-play" camps have sprung up which use hired staff like cooks, builders and security, and allow international jetsetters to drop in for quick visits.

Many traditional "Burners" claim that is a betrayal of the spirit of "radical self-reliance" that is a cornerstone of the festival, which began in 1986.
As anger boiled over one camp called White Ocean, which hosts high profile DJs on a state-of-the-art stage, became the focus of anger.

The camp first made an appearance at Burning Man three years ago and its founders included the British DJ Paul Oakenfold and the son of a Russian billionaire. 

While the camp was holding its "White Party", at which revelers dress all in white and listen to techno music, it was attacked by vandals who flooded it with water and cut power lines.

In a dismayed post on Facebook camp leaders said: "A very unfortunate and saddening event happened last night at White Ocean, something we thought would never be possible in our Burning Man utopia.

"A band of hooligans raided our camp, stole from us, pulled and sliced all of our electrical lines leaving us with no refrigeration and wasting our food, and glued our trailer doors shut.

"They vandalised most of our camping infrastructure and dumped 200 gallons of potable water flooding our camp."

Of course, all of this modern-era "festival" stuff has its roots in the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which showcased the hippie bands of the San Francisco Bay area as well as up-and-coming second-wave British Invasion acts, and also represented the full flowering of folk-rock.

The organizers of that event, record-label impresario Lou Adler, publicist Derek Taylor, and Mamas and the Papas leader John Phillips, thought the time was ripe for rock and roll to have festivals similar to the models provided by the jazz and folk festivals that had been presented at Newport for many years.

And they did a good job, at least relative to the clogged highways, downed fences and sanitation debacles that characterized subsequent festivals.

Still, as James Miller points out in Flowers in the Dustbin - still, for my money, the most grown-up take on rock history yet written -  the real action was at the bar backstage, where eager execs from Warner Brothers, Columbia and the other big labels of the day clamored to sign any acts that did not yet have contracts. Rock was from that moment on going to be much more of a corporate affair.

A notable Monterey moment was blues guitarist Michael Bloomfield's exuberant address to the audience right before the set his band at the time, The Electric Flag, played.

Here, I have to tread carefully, as I still hold Bloomfield in the highest regard. A Jewish kid who'd had a pampered upbringing in a northside suburb of Chicago, he was introduced to the blues  - in person, at the clubs on the south side, by his family's black maid - about the time of his bar mitzvah, and he immersed himself in it. He became real friends with Muddy Waters and Big Joe Williams, and by the time he had become a recording artist, his playing reflected an exquisite combination of genuine feeling - soul, in the richest sense of the term - and a scholarly understanding of the lineage to which he had hitched himself.

Still, on that stage at Monterey, in his customary over-heatedness (he was a speed freak), he got a little too gooey in his hyperbole about how groovy it was to see his generation coming together in such a loving way.

Of course, he was at the epicenter of the Summer of Love, so perhaps he deserves some slack.

But, as I say, he consciously chose to plunge himself into the world of barbecue joints and high-rise tenements, which his hippie audiences were not wrong to perceive as imparting an air of authenticity to his artistry. But he was actually a product of the upper-upper-middle class.

Sort of a microcosm of the hippie path, one might say. And therein lies a truth that must be examined: The hippie ethos, with its tribalism, mysticism and prioritization of a "laid back" approach to the human condition, has never been able to sustain itself. It's  somewhat cliche way to put it, but every wave of hippies has come up against the need to pay rent and the gas bill, to think through - or choose not to think through - the societal issues of the day, to grapple with the appearance of love, marriage and children in their lives.

Oh, and let us remember the moment that the original wave of rock festivals was doomed to peter out: when the Hell's Angels beat a young man to death with a pool cue right in front of the stage while the Rolling Stones played, grimly appropriately enough, "Gimme Shelter," at the Altamont festival in December 1969.

Subsequent waves signaled the increasing descent of the counterculture into factions. Perhaps most notably, the "womyn's festivals" that were a big deal in the 1970s and 80s found themselves dealing with squabbles between lesbians and straight feminists, as well as meat-eaters and vegetarians.

And now, we have a "techno village" ransacked at Burning Man.

We might have seen this coming. Here is an account from 2014 of just what flower power had morphed into in the twenty-first century:

Sex between ‘Burners’, as festival-goers are known, is known variously as ‘dust love’ or ‘tent trysts’, and old hands suggest it is simply ‘selfish’ to stick to monogamy. Public nudity, especially by women, is actively encouraged, while orgies — or at the very least partner swapping, if not threesomes — have become just as much a feature of Burning Man as the ceremonial torching of a huge wooden effigy of a man to celebrate the summer solstice.

Group sex is actively encouraged at so-called ‘theme camps’ — giant tent complexes where free bars encourage visitors to loosen up and participate. A popular venue is the so-called ‘Orgy Dome’, run by a group calling itself And Then There’s Only Love, though conventional notions of love are hardly what’s fostered inside its giant dome tent.

It bills itself as a 24-hour ‘sex positive consensual space where all can love and be loved’. Helpfully, the Orgy Dome offers free towels and sheets, but asks visitors to clear up after themselves in line with the festival’s ‘no waste’ eco-credentials.

As well as old-fashioned orgies, it offers classes on sadomasochism and group erotic massage. Thursdays are Unicorn Night, for couples seeking a threesome, while Saturdays are Scream, which invites the courageous to ‘join a room of moans — prizes to the loudest’.

The Orgy Dome is hardly alone. There is also a ‘Group Sex Bus’, the ‘Sex Libido Lounge’, and a Canadian-run club with an unprintable name where judges give points to amorous couples for ‘style’ and ‘inventive poses’.

But perhaps the richest symbolism of all is the icon for the entire gathering. For the entire existence of this spectacle, the point has been to burn down the humanity that distinguishes our species from those without souls.

It just takes on its most concentrated form in the Nevada desert every summer, but one can find the phenomenon everywhere these days.

The Most Equal Comrade out-totalitarians President Xi of China

The matter in question is an utter fiction, of course - that the global climate is in some kind of trouble - but still, at least Mao's heir goes through the legislative channel to get his country on board:

The Communist legislature of China voted to ratify the Paris climate accords yesterday, leading to President Xi declaring the agreement now in effect in China.

Meanwhile, President Obama also declared the ratification of the climate deal – but sort of forgot to take it to the Senate to get its approval.  He just waved his scepter, and ratification came into being.

Did you ever think you'd see the day when Communists would teach America a lesson about the democratic process?

Washington Times:

In a ceremony in Hangzhou, China, Mr. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping deposited each country’s official “instrument of acceptance” with U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon to join the agreement.
Separately, Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi agreed on a side deal aimed at curbing other pollutants in the U.S. and China. They committed to “freeze” the production of hydrofluorocarbons, the chemicals often used in air conditioning and refrigeration, and cut aviation emissions by an unspecified date, possibly as early as 2021.
The U.N. climate-change pact cannot take effect until 55 nations representing 55 percent of worldwide carbon emissions formally ratify the agreement. The U.S. and China, the world’s two largest emitters, represent about 38 percent of total global emissions.
With the formal entry of Washington and Beijing into the deal, the agreement now has been joined by 25 nations representing slightly more than 40 percent of total emissions. Mr. Obama is hoping to push the agreement to completion by the end of this year as one of his prime legacy goals.
White House climate adviser Brian Deese said Saturday’s action is intended to “provide confidence to other countries” to join the pact. He said there are commitments from more than 55 nations, including Brazil, Argentina and South Korea.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said he would cancel the agreement if elected. Mr. Deese said despite opposition by Mr. Trump and by many Republicans in Congress, there is “broad support” among the public and the business community for an international climate agreement.
“We’re quite confident the United States will continue to be a part of this agreement going forward,” he said.
Environmental groups hailed the move. Greenpeace East Asia’s senior climate policy adviser Li Shuo said “political ambition must keep up with rising sea levels faced by vulnerable communities around the world.”
The agreement forged by 195 nations last December in Paris sets non-binding targets for the reduction of carbon emissions that most scientists blame for rising temperatures and sea levels.
The Obama administration is not calling the pact a treaty, thereby avoiding the step of taking it to the Senate for a ratification vote — and likely rejection.

The White House argument for why Obama doesn't need to get Senate approval is that the climate deal requires "an executive decision" rather than advice and consent of the Senate.  If this is true, why did the Chinese president get his parliament's approval for ratification?  Why are most nations requiring a vote from their legislative bodies?

Now, does the US House of Representatives have the stones to say, "not one dime"?

She's either so desperate to be president that she'll feign severe mental sloppiness, or her cognitive abilities really are a mess

The notes from the FBI's interview with Hillionaire are now public. They don't paint picture of a sharp individual:

Hillary Clinton repeatedly told the FBI she couldn't recall key details and events related to classified information procedures, according to notes the bureau released Friday of its July interview with the Democratic presidential nominee, along with a report on its investigation into her private email server. 

Clinton told the FBI she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling classified information," according to the bureau's notes of their interview with Clinton. The documents indicate Clinton told investigators she either does not "recall" or "remember" at least 39 times — often in response to questions about process, potential training or the content of specific emails.

Much of the report reiterated what FBI Director James Comey testified in open hearings before Congress, including that more than six dozen email chains contained classified information at the time they were sent and that there appeared to have been hacking attempts on her server, though there is no evidence they were successful. Still, the report added fuel to the criticisms of Clinton and the narrative that her team acted "extremely careless," as Comey said.

GOP nominee Donald Trump and other Republicans have stepped up their attacks connecting the emails to questions over whether Clinton gave preferential treatment to donors to her family's foundation. The release of the documents Friday comes as Clinton's lead over Trump has been cut in half since her post-convention bounce last month, according to CNN's Poll of Polls released Thursday.

The bureau is making the information public in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, including from CNN. 

"Today the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure," the agency said in a statement. "We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter."

Would that be her excuse if Armageddon occurred on her watch as dictator of post-America? "Was that the suitcase that contained the nuclear codes? I don't recall anyone telling me that. I left it in the hallway and put a post on Huma's Facebook page asking her to pick it up."



UPDATE: Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard  list three occasions last year on which Hillionaire flat-out lied about her emails: March 10 (“absolute confidence that everything that could be in any way connected to work is now in the possession of the State Department", August 8 ("Clinton submitted a signed declaration to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., swearing 'under penalty of perjury' that she'd directed all emails that 'were or potentially were' work-related be turned over to the State Department"), and October 22 ("I provided the department, which has been providing you, with all of my work-related emails—all that I had.") Then there was this statement from May of this year: "I have provided all of my work-related emails, and I've asked that they be made public, and I think that demonstrates that I wanted to make sure that this information was part of the official records."

The actual ten points were good, but further reflection solidifies my observations of this morning

This morning, I made the point that Squirrel-Hair's Arizona speech was so mired by histrionics, hyperbole and policy reversal that those elements negated the good done by his visit with President Pena Nieto earlier in the day. I quoted from a Caleb Howe piece at RedState to make the thrust of my assertion.

Not everyone sees it that way. A number of observers think that his ten-point immigration plan was the takeaway. I think it's an argument with merit.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line summarizes the ten points and then substantiates his position that it was a good speech. The points:

1. Build a wall along the Southern border; 

2. End catch and release;

3. Zero tolerance for criminal aliens;

4. Block funding for sanctuary cities;

5. Cancel unconstitutional executive orders;

6. Suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur;

7. Ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported;

8. Complete the biometric entry-exit visa tracking system;

9. Turn off the jobs and benefits magnet;

10. Reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers.

Ben Shapiro at Daily Wire liked it, too.

Here's the thing, though. As David French at NRO, like Howe at RedState before him, says, the medium through which the list was transmitted was unfortunately true to form:

Last night, Donald Trump outlined the core of a sensible, responsible immigration policy . . . and then promptly obscured that policy in an avalanche of over-the-top rhetoric, inane flourishes, and extravagant promises. He threw raw steaks at an audience hungry for red meat, and in so doing squandered a chance to persuade. 

Or, as my sister put it in a phone conversation today, "I bailed before he finished. I couldn't take being screamed at."

I said I had the same reaction.

 

Think about how hard you work for the money you turn around and pay in taxes; then think about this

You toil away to keep America's most elite crime family in its regal lifestyle:

Bill Clinton's staff used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family’s foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife’s private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found.

Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment — including servers — housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access scandals dogging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

This investigation, which is based on records obtained from the General Services Administration through the Freedom of Information Act, does not reveal anything illegal. But it does offer fresh evidence of how the Clintons blurred the line between their nonprofit foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department, and the business dealings of Bill Clinton and the couple’s aides.

The thousands of pages of newly uncovered records reveal sometimes granular detail about how Bill Clinton’s representatives directed the spending of taxpayer cash allocated by the GSA under the Former President’s Act.

The Act authorizes the GSA to fund the pensions, correspondence, support staff and travel of ex-presidents. It was passed in 1958 to “maintain the dignity” of the presidency by helping former commanders in chief avoid hard times like those that befell Harry S. Truman. He complained that, without help from Uncle Sam, he would be forced to “go ahead with some contracts to keep ahead of the hounds.”

The Clintons did not have this problem.

After leaving the White House “dead broke”, in the words of Hillary Clinton, they quickly raked in tens of millions of dollars from book deals, speaking fees and consulting gigs. At the same time, Bill Clinton was relying on his connections to some of the world’s deepest-pocketed donors, corporations and governments to seed a global philanthropy operation that overlapped with his consulting work and speaking fees and his wife’s work as secretary of state — and served as a jumping-off point for her presidential campaign.

But even as the Clintons got rich and grew their foundation into a $2 billion organization credited with major victories in the fights against childhood obesity and AIDS — while paying six-figure salaries to top aides — Bill Clinton continued drawing more cash from the Former President's Act than any other ex-president, according to a POLITICO analysis. The analysis also found that Clinton’s representatives, between 2001, when the Clintons left the White House, and the end of this year, had requested allocations under the Act totaling $16 million. That’s more than any of the other living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush — requested during that span.

The program supplemented the income of Clinton’s staff, while providing them with coveted federal government benefits, alleviating the need for the Clinton Foundation or other Clinton-linked entities to foot the bill for such benefits. Similarly, Clinton aides got the GSA to pay for computer technology used partly by the foundation.

An analysis of the records provided by GSA, combined with Clinton Foundation tax returns, found that at least 13 of the 22 staffers who have been paid by GSA to work for Clinton’s personal office also worked for the Clinton Foundation.

So what becomes of this foundation should Hillionaire get her grip on post-America's throat come this winter? You're not the only one asking. Even the Grey Lady now wonders how it can go on existing in anything like its current form.

But we are talking about the Clintons, let us remember.

Focusing on free speech with regard to Colin Kaepernick is a smokescreen

Derek Hunter at Townhall nails it:

Supporters such as NBA hall of famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaun King, New York Daily News’ resident Rachel Dolezal who uses a urinal noted for charity, um, issues, rushed to his defense. 

“He has a right to do it,” was the gist of their cries, and they’re right. So what? And who cares? If a moron, backed by a moron army, wants to protest whatever they want, good for them. But I don’t have to give a damn. And I don’t. 

Kaepernick's ingratitude, much remarked on all over the punditsphere,  isn't even the main issue. It's his narcissism, which is a microcosm of the narcissism that makes this kind of behavior a virtue in post-America:

In the end, the problem isn’t a spoiled 28-year-old has-been millionaire, nor is it a hall of famer, or an alleged plagiarist. It’s the culture so full of excrement it fertilizes lies like “Hand up, don’t shoot” so long that the lie grows unchallenged like bamboo in the minds of the ignorant. 

So full of “fertilizer” is the culture that every celebrity gathering is punctuated by a bizarre game of one-upping the previous claims of support for the latest big lie. Cheered by drones, Democrats and a knowing media, award shows celebrate drug dealers and thieves as innocent victims. It’s a sickness. 

And this narcissism leads to a willful blindness to the urban holocaust occurring in post-America:

Meanwhile, more people have been murdered in Chicago this year than in New York and Los Angeles combined. Chicago has 2.7 million people, compared to a combined population of New York and Los Angeles of 12.2 million. But Chicago has had 487 homicides this year, compared to 222 for New York and 176 for Los Angeles. 

And that's because Chicago's gang-investigation unit has shrunk, and because gangs are no longer afraid to confront cops when they do arrive at a scene.

So don't hand us this distraction about Kaepernick's right to sit out the anthem. The point is that he is perpetuating violence and anarchy by being a jackass in the particular manner in which he has chosen to be a jackass.

Byron York misses the big picture on the kind of day Squirrel-Hair had yesterday

His Washington Examiner reportage on the meeting S-H had with President Pena Nieto is as journalistically lame as anything I've read in some time. It's a glowing account of mutual respect and constructive dialogue.

Only problem: It entirely leaves out what S-H did upon arriving in Phoenix later in the day:

The betrayal of Nieto was complete when Trump flaunted his wall plans, teased Mexico with them, put the wall on his shoulder and walked around the room daring Mexico to knock it down. After his muted, docile, lamb-like failure to stand by his wall when facing the Mexican president, he, like any chastened bully, laid his bravado on twice as thick when out of range. His "tangible, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall" as he effusively described it.

And what's more, in response to his erstwhile diplomatic partner with whom he had so recently bragged he would be working closely and called a friend, he shoved the bill in Mexico's face again. 

"Mexico will pay for the wall," he boasted to his cheering choir. "One hundred percent. They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for it. And they're great people and great leaders, but they're going to pay for the wall."

Take that, guy who I said would be working with me closely to improve both our nations in the spirit of good will and cooperation.

He took his morning win, crumpled it up, set it on fire, and danced about on its grave, retroactively turning morning Trump into a jerk. You can watch the video here.

That's how S-H rolls!

Two iconic former Squirrel-Hair supporters bail after last night's immigration speech

They're all done carrying his water:

Last night, he was back to spouting the same nonsense that worked in the primaries to a mind-numbed crowd and for those Hispanics who have stepped forward to show support, it may have been a bridge too far.

Two of those supporters are Jacob Monty and Alfonso Aguilar.

Monty had served as a member of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council.

Not anymore.

“I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump when I believed he was going to address the immigration problem realistically and compassionately,” said Monty, a Houston attorney who has aggressively made the Latino case for Trump. “What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate.”

He withdrew from the board following Trump’s speech in Phoenix, which was heavy on calls for border security and emphasized that all immigrants in the country illegally were subject to deportation.

“When we met [earlier in August] he was going to approach this issue with a realistic plan, a compassionate plan, with a plan that was not disruptive to the immigrants that were here that were not lawbreakers,” said Monty, one of the Latino leaders who met with the candidate at Trump Tower recently, a gathering at which Trump reportedly softened his tone toward undocumented immigrants already in the country. “He didn’t deliver any of that.”

Don’t worry, Mr. Monty. There are still several months until the election. By November 8th, he may very well be back to a policy you like.

Aguilar, a Hispanic conservative, was a critic of Trump who began to give him consideration, and earlier in the summer, joined with other Hispanics to write a letter of support for the candidate. He’s since made appearances to support Trump’s candidacy.

“It’s so disappointing because we feel we took a chance, a very risky chance,” Aguilar said. “We decided to make a big U-turn to see if we could make him change. We thought we were moving in the right direction … we’re disappointed. We feel misled.”

That’s because you were misled, Mr. Aguilar. Trump’s stances will shift to whatever he feels will benefit him most in the moment. The people involved don’t matter.

He went on to add, “I can tell you there’s a real possibility we will withdraw support from Donald Trump because of that disappointing speech.”

Neither Monty or Aguilar plan on supporting Hillary Clinton after this, but they echo the sentiment of many who were duped by the orange menace.

Just dandy, Squirrel-Hair. A key demographic that Pubs have needed to court, and you turn a big chance to do so into a, to use a bit of S-H vernacular, disaster.

The giant "Please kill us off" sign that Western civilization wears around its neck

So keen on a legacy of ushering in an era of unicorns and rainbows were Secretary Global-Test, Wendy Sherman, and the other P5+1 pointy-heads that they let this happen in the final days of patty-cake leading up to the "agreement":

The United States and its negotiating partners agreed "in secret" to allow Iran to evade some restrictions in last year's landmark nuclear agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief from economic sanctions, according to a report reviewed by Reuters.

The report is to be published on Thursday by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said the think tank’s president David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and co-author of the report. It is based on information provided by several officials of governments involved in the negotiations, who Albright declined to identify.

Reuters could not independently verify the report's assertions.

"The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran," Albright said. 

Among the exemptions were two that allowed Iran to exceed the deal's limits on how much low-enriched uranium (LEU) it can keep in its nuclear facilities, the report said. LEU can be purified into highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.

The exemptions, the report said, were approved by the joint commission the deal created to oversee implementation of the accord. The commission is comprised of the United States and its negotiating partners -- called the P5+1 -- and Iran.

One senior "knowledgeable" official was cited by the report as saying that if the joint commission had not acted to create these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the deal by Jan. 16, the deadline for the beginning of the lifting of sanctions.

But what can you expect from a pathetic clown who in recent days has said this?

Secretary of State John Kerry suggested the media should stop covering terrorism so much in a press conference in Bangladesh, saying the media would “do us all a service” by intentionally not reporting the news.

“Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much,” Kerry said, after lamenting how easy it is to terrorize people. “People wouldn’t know what’s going on.”

The suggestion plays into the Obama administration’s oft-repeated talking point that responding to the Islamic State in full force actually plays right into their narrative and only helps the group recruit more jihadis for their global war. President Barack Obama’s strategy is to instead downplay and “degrade” the group by ignoring it as much as possible and taking a significantly measured military approach.

But Kerry’s suggestion the news media intentionally keep people in the dark seems to be a new tactic.

Because the pen for the cattle-masses should be kept as dark as possible. Keep the "agreement" exemptions secret. Don't report on ISIS attacks.

The portion of our taxes paying this chunk of dog vomit's salary should be refunded to us and he should resign yet this morning.

But, given that post-America is a banana republic, it won't happen

Hillionaire won't face criminal charges, that is.

Yesterday, I put up a cursory post about the discovery of 30-plus Benghazi emails as the story broke.

Andrew McCarthy spells out the grim significance of it:

As Ian reports, it has now come to light that Hillary Clinton attempted to destroy about 30 emails related to the 2012 Benghazi massacre. They were recovered by the FBI, notwithstanding the use by Mrs. “Like With a Cloth or Something” of an advanced software program – “BleachBit” – in a willful effort to erase the contents of her servers so thoroughly that no one would be able to recover her emails (many of which were government records, which it is a felony to hoard and destroy).

Obviously, these emails were kept from the congressional committees that investigated the Benghazi massacre. Mrs. Clinton was also clearly trying to shield them from discovery by defense lawyers in the prosecution of the lone terrorist the Obama administration has thus far charged (in connection with an attack that involved scores of jihadists whom Obama promised to “bring to justice”).

The depth of Mrs. Clinton’s misconduct regarding the unlawful e-mail system and the obstruction of investigations into a terrorist attack in which four Americans were killed is breathtaking – as is the media’s indifference to it. As I’ve repeatedly argued, Clinton ought to be impeached. How much more contempt for Congress does she need to exhibit before some dim memory of self-respect moves lawmakers to take some action? 

Nearly as reprehensible, however, is the Obama administration at large. Evidently, it has just today gotten around to telling a United States court that these 30 emails have never been disclosed, even though they have been sought for years, the Justice Department has known the FBI had them for months, and the State Department, too, has to have known they were in the possession of the administration as it litigated Freedom of Information Act claims yet said nothing.

Just as astounding: In making their grudging disclosure today, administration lawyers claimed that they needed another month (until the end of September) to review the emails so that classified information could be redacted before they are disclosed.

Mind you: Mrs. Clinton told us there were no government-business related emails on her servers and certainly no classified information. It turned out there were tens of thousands of government-related emails, with thousands containing classified information. Clinton lawlessly withheld these emails for years, and the executive branch has known about them for months. Indeed, the FBI director told Congress and the public that the FBI went through a painstaking process with intelligence agencies to determine which of the recovered emails had classified information in them. And yet, despite all that, the State Department has the audacity to tell a federal judge that it needs another 30 days to review less than three dozen emails? Seriously? 

This kind of rottenness isn't sitting well with the post-American cattle-masses:

Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, putting her on par with Donald Trump among registered voters.

The latest findings solidify their positions as the two most unpopular presidential candidates in polling dating back more than 30 years.

Among all adults, 56 percent now view Clinton unfavorably, up 6 percentage points in three weeks, compared with 63 percent who say the same about Trump.

Among registered voters, the two candidates have nearly identical unfavorable ratings: 59 percent for Clinton versus 60 percent for Trump.

 But she is still on track to succeed the Most Equal Comrade as dictator of this dark land.

The sewer of nonsense that is post-American higher education - today's edition

So much for the idea that the college or university classroom is a place for open examination of a full panoply of ideas:

Three professors co-teaching an online course called “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs recently told their students via email that man-made climate change is not open for debate, and those who think otherwise have no place in their course.

“The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,” states the email, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix by a student in the course.

Signed by the course’s professors Rebecca Laroche, Wendy Haggren and Eileen Skahill, it was sent after several students expressed concern for their success in the course after watching the first online lecture about the impacts of climate change.

“Opening up a debate that 98% of climate scientists unequivocally agree to be a non-debate would detract from the central concerns of environment and health addressed in this course,” the professors’ email continued.

“… If you believe this premise to be an issue for you, we respectfully ask that you do not take this course, as there are options within the Humanities program for face to face this semester and online next.”

The professors also note this ban on debate extends to discussion among students in the online forums. Moreover, students who choose to use outside sources for research during their time in the course may select only those that have been peer-reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the email states.

Think about this: the course policy is that you must subscribe to an utter fiction in order to take the class.

And at Champlain College, they've established a pin system to perpetuate another utter fiction:

A small college in Vermont is kicking off the new school year by encouraging students to wear special pins declaring their pronouns, so nobody accidentally uses the wrong one.

The pins on offer at Champlain College in Burlington are quite numerous, and go well beyond the widely-used “he” and “she.”

“Hello, my pronouns are Xe/Xem/Xyrs,” one button declares. Another expresses a preference for “They/Them/Theirs,” even when referring to a singular person. There’s even a pin declaring “Hello, my pronouns are fluid. Please ask me!” available for those whose gender identity and accompanying pronouns allegedly change over time.

The many pins on offer are a result of administrators rejecting the so-called “gender binary,” in which people are exclusively classified as either male or female. 

Down is up and up is down in post-America.