This past week has been a milestone of sorts for those who closely follow the continuing saga of Hillary Clinton’s wrongful use of email systems during her tenure as Secretary of State. But the kind of milestone it was depends on where you stood when the week began.
For those of us who recognized from the outset that Ms. Clinton’s exclusive use of a personal email system for all her official business (not to mention her unprecedented use of a private server atop that) was a clear violation of the Federal Records Act (“FRA”), the findings of the State Department’s Inspector General (“IG”) to that effect in his May 25 report were no surprise. In fact, on the admitted facts of the case, no other conclusion was possible, and it was simply another “shoe waiting to be dropped.”
To us, knowing that there are no applicable penalties within the FRA (or in the FOIA, for that matter, which Ms. Clinton also blatantly circumvented), the primary significance of the IG report is that it so flatly and persuasively belies nearly every public “defense” that she has uttered on the matter, from her extraordinary news conference at the United Nations on March 10 of last year to even her initial stunned reactions to the IG report itself this past week.
No, her self-serving email set-up was not “allowed” under the State Department’s rules. No, she was not “permitted” to use a personal email system exclusively as she did. No, what she did was hardly just a matter of her “personal convenience.” No, there is no evidence that any State Department attorney (other than perhaps Secretary Clinton herself) ever gave “legal approval” to any part of her special email system. No, everything she did was not “fully above board” or in compliance with the “letter and spirit of the rules,” far from it. Yes, she was indeed required by the FRA to maintain all official emails in an official system for proper review, delineation, and retention upon her departure. Yes, her private server equipment was in fact the subject of multiple attempted intrusion attempts (i.e., hacks), including by foreign nations. The list goes on and on. (Note that this does not even include Ms. Clinton’s many serious “misstatements” about her handling of classified or potentially classified information.) (Read more from “Hillary Clinton’s Emails Now Might Finally Take Her Down” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/3114480676_1162c04150_b.jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 02:14:542016-06-01 02:18:20Hillary Clinton’s Emails Now Might Finally Take Her Down
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton only has a small lead over Republican candidate Donald Trump in New Jersey, according to a new poll, suggesting Trump may be putting another safe Democratic state in play for November.
The poll, conducted by Monmouth University, has Trump trailing Clinton 38-34 in New Jersey. Eleven percent say they plan to vote third party and 15 percent are undecided. Like other polls of the 2016 race, Monmouth’s poll shows a gargantuan gender gap, with Trump leading by nine points among men and Clinton leading by 16 among women. Trump leads 44-29 among white voters, while Clinton unsurprisingly leads 54-14 percent among all non-white voters. Notably, Trump has the support of just 1 percent of black voters, though 21 percent say they are undecided.
New Jersey has been a safe Democratic state in every election since 1992, so if it becomes competitive it’s a very bad sign for Clinton. For comparison, President Barack Obama crushed former Gov. Mitt Romney in the state by a margin of nearly 18 percentage points.
Trump’s enhanced appeal may be based partly on his life-long presence in the New York area, as well as the strong endorsement he received from Gov. Chris Christie.
The poll was conducted May 23-27 with a sample of 703 registered voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
Meanwhile, another poll released Tuesday, conducted by the Boston Herald and Franklin Pierce University, had Trump and Clinton tied 44-44 in the swing state of New Hampshire. Obama won the state by about 5.5 percent in 2012.
New Jersey isn’t the first blue state Trump has appeared to put in play. A Quinnipiac poll from early May showed Trump trailing by just a single point in Pennsylvania, which also hasn’t voted for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. (For more from the author of “Trump Trails Clinton by Only 4 in Blue State New Jersey” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Donald_Trump_by_Gage_Skidmore_2-2.jpg31684752Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 02:07:582016-06-01 02:07:58Trump Trails Clinton by Only 4 in Blue State New Jersey
Abortion supporters and opponents are attacking a bill Planned Parenthood claims is needed to protect abortionists and their patients from harm, but which its critics claim is an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech. Describing the Center for Medical Progress’s expose of the abortion industry as a “series of reckless and malicious videos as part of a national smear campaign to spread lies about Planned Parenthood,” the head of California’s Planned Parenthood chapters claimed the new bill would close the legal “loophole” that allows it.
The bill, called AB [Assembly Bill] 1671, does not mention abortion or abortionists but covers “health care providers,” which it defines broadly. It seems tailored to prevent pro-life investigators from engaging in the same tactics taken by undercover investigators of all stripes, including journalists investigating other industries. It passed a state committee 14-6, with all Democrats on the committee in support.
Sponsored by Los Angeles assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, a prominent Planned Parenthood supporter, AB 1671 adds to the existing law against eavesdropping a law making it illegal to “disclose or distribute the contents of the confidential communication without the consent of all parties to the confidential communication unless specified conditions are met” — including the consent of the person being recorded. It would also “make it a crime for any person to aid or abet any person in the commission of those offenses.”
The punishment for a first offense would be a fine of up to $2,500 and/or imprisonment for up to 3 years.
The Less Transparent Planned Parenthood
“For years, undercover journalists have documented Planned Parenthood employees covering up for sex traffickers, failing to report child sexual abusers and trafficking in baby body parts,” said Live Action founder Lila Rose, who has herself gone undercover to investigate abortion providers. “Rather than be more transparent with the public, Planned Parenthood wants to make it a crime for the media to publish evidence that it might be doing something illegal.”
AB 1671 is opposed by multiple media groups, with the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) calling it “an unconstitutional restriction on speech.” CNPA has been joined by California Broadcasters and the Motion Picture Association in its opposition. A pro-abortion investigative reporter described the bill as “an attack on all First Amendment rights.”
Rose said that since taxpayers provide nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenues, the organization should be subject to more, not less, transparency. The public “has a right to know that its money isn’t being used to break the law or commit abuses,” she declared. “This bill puts Planned Parenthood’s interests ahead of the First Amendment, its clients, and the public, and it would keep evidence of illegal or abusive activity hidden from nearly everyone’s view.” (For more from the author of “Planned Parenthood Wants to Make Pro-Life Undercover Investigations Illegal in California” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/6149265334_0d19d4eb34_b-1.jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 01:52:082016-06-03 02:40:54Planned Parenthood Wants to Make Pro-Life Undercover Investigations Illegal in California
Despite anti-gunnite talking points, most law abiding gun owners are not against background checks. We have no problem with making sure that the person attempting to purchase a firearm is not a bad person. But, do background checks actually stop Bad Guys from getting guns? For the most part, no. Hence, the NRA is not suggesting that we do away with the backgrounds check system, they just think it’s absurd to expand it, because it will almost never stop a bad character from getting a gun. And they are against the gun registration schemes of the anti-gunnites, because it is simply a big government control scheme. Furthermore, the government fails to enter those who are “adjudicated mentally incompetent into the National Instant Check System.” But, nothing will ever stop the gun haters from pushing their schemes
FOR more than 80 years, the United States has enforced a tough and effective gun control law that most Americans have never heard of. It’s a 1934 measure called the National Firearms Act, and it stands as a stark rebuke to the most sacred precepts of the gun lobby and provides a model we should build on.
Leaders of the National Rifle Association rarely talk about the firearms act, and that’s probably because it imposes precisely the kinds of practical — and constitutional — limits on gun ownership, such as registration and background checks, that the N.R.A. regularly insists will lead to the demise of the Second Amendment.
In speeches, publications and a steady stream of fund-raising literature, the N.R.A. rails against gun registration and gun owner databases. In 2008, the organization’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, claimed that photographing and fingerprinting gun owners was “the key gun control scheme” of the candidate Barack Obama, who, Mr. LaPierre predicted, would confiscate every gun in America before the end of his first term as president. The N.R.A. now says that the “real goal” of “gun control supporters” like Hillary Clinton is “ gun confiscation.”
But the longstanding National Firearms Act not only already mandated the registration of all owners of machine guns, short-barreled rifles, silencers and other weapons deemed highly dangerous at the time, it created a national database of those gun owners with their mug shots and fingerprints, and a detailed description of each weapon purchased, including its serial number. Purchasers of “N.F.A. weapons,” as they are known, must pass an F.B.I. background check, be approved by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and pay a $200 tax. Stolen weapons must be reported to the A.T.F. immediately — the sort of requirement the N.R.A. opposes for other gun thefts.
In other words, the article is about requiring registration, mug shots, and fingerprints, among others, of all guns and their owners. A woman who wants a small .9mm for protection? Take her mugshot and fingerprints, just like she’s a criminal. Yet, these same people who push to treat law abiding gun owners like felons want to turn around and make things easier on actual felons.
Mr. Folloder, a manufacturer and collector of machine guns and silencers, is no fan of the firearms act. He’d like to make machine guns more readily available, and lobbied successfully to repeal a requirement that N.F.A. owners be preapproved by a local law enforcement officer. But Mr. Folloder and the A.T.F. agree that registrants are rarely implicated in crimes. People with registered weapons who can pay $40,000 for a machine gun “bend over backwards to obey the law,” he says. “If you’re going to spend that much money and put that much effort into obtaining one of these, you’re not going to be holding up the liquor store.”
N.F.A.-classified weapons do show up at crime scenes. But nearly all of them were unregistered, so the simple act of possession was a crime. According to A.T.F. analysis, among N.F.A. weapon owners there were only 12 felony convictions between 2006 and 2014, and those crimes did not involve an N.F.A. weapon. If that conviction rate were applied to the owners of the other privately owned firearms in the United States, gun crime would virtually disappear.
The idea here is to make it so damned expensive and burdensome to own a firearm that only those who can afford them will get them, and it won’t be people who will use them for crime. In essence, only people with money will be able to get them, people who tend to live in fancy pants neighborhoods, which rarely see crime, leaving the lower and middle classes un-armed, easy prey for criminals who do not get their guns legally.
Who will be most in danger? Women. Way to support women being able to defend themselves, Liberals.
The case for licensing and registration is stronger now than ever. Yet to today’s N.R.A. such measures are an existential threat to the Second Amendment. If that is true, why hasn’t the government used the N.F.A. database to confiscate weapons? Why has it failed to move against the holders of hunting licenses and concealed carry permits who readily submit to milder forms of gun licensing and registration?
Because they are a tiny number of weapons. But, let me turn the question around: why is it that anti-gunnites constantly push for schemes that make it harder for law abiding citizens to purchase and carry firearms? Why do they constantly push for more burdensome registration schemes for law abiding citizens? Why do them want things like registration, mug shots, and fingerprints for law abiding citizens? Why are they not pushing for measures against the criminals that use them and obtain them illegally? Why is it that the cities and states with the most burdensome gun schemes, areas run by the Democratic Party, tend to have the high amount of gun play?
I have a compromise: if law abiding gun owners agree to having their fingerprints and mugshots take for gun ownership, how about doing the same for an official voter ID card, which would be necessary to place a vote? Would that be acceptable to the anti-gunnites? (For more from the author of “The New York Times Super Excited About Massive Gun Registration Schemes!” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Houston_Gun_Show_at_the_George_R._Brown_Convention_Center-1.jpg22473356Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 01:32:292016-06-01 01:32:29The New York Times Super Excited About Massive Gun Registration Schemes!
Analysts at a D.C. based think-tank are predicting that ISIS will attack the West in the next 45 days, as the Muslim world begins celebration of Ramadan, The Washington Examiner reports.
The Institute for the Study of War’s forecast says that the terrorist group “will likely attack the West” during Ramadan, which begins on June 6 and ends July 5. The Islamic State traditionally uses the annual religious observance to increase the number of attacks and tweak its strategy, the report said.
Europe faces the greatest threat of attacks on sporting events in crowded public venues, including a Euro 2016 soccer tournament between June 10-July 10, according to the report. But attacks against the U.S. are also possible, especially around July 4.
The State Department has issued a travel warning for Europe, saying summer tourism will provide radical jihadists with ample opportunities to strike. They warn American citizens to remain “vigilant.” (For more from the author of “Experts Say ISIS Attacks ‘Likely’ in June” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/462598238_0ee05a9f87_b.jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 01:12:282016-06-01 01:12:28Experts Say ISIS Attacks ‘Likely’ in June
At a press conference Tuesday, Donald Trump announced he raised $5.6 Million for veterans and blasted the “liberal media” for dishonest reporting about the timing and veracity of his donations. Speaking on Mr. Trump’s behalf, New Hampshire state representative Al Baldasaro blasted the liberal media’s reporting on Donald Trump.
“I would never ever in a million years put my name on a candidate that did not from his heart, look me in the eye, and tell me he’s concerned about veterans. I met him over a year ago. That’s Donald Trump… There are many scam artists out there. He did the right thing by vetting these groups there. If you look at some of the groups that give 20 cents, 40 cents on the dollar and they’re spending the rest for, you know, their nice lavish trips. He gave 100%. The liberal media is the only ones that have been calling me on the foundation, all right? I’m the former chairman. I have been dealing with this stuff for years. Stop using veterans as political pawns…. I think the liberal media, need to get your head out of your butt and focus on the real issues.”
Baldasaro serves as the chair of Veterans for Trump. He is an advisor to the Trump campaign on veterans affairs. (For more from the author of “Watch: Veteran Rips Into Liberal Media at Trump Presser” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-66.jpg7201280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 01:06:582016-06-01 01:06:58Watch: Veteran Rips Into Liberal Media at Trump Presser
Syndicated talk radio host Chris Plante often says on his show “if it weren’t for double-standards then liberals would have no standards at all.” Unfortunately, Plante is right. The increasingly hostile far-left is becoming more and more brazen about their disdain for the rule of law and common standards. This is deeply troubling because even young children are capable of understanding the benefits of rules and common standards. When a group of kids get together and form a club or play a game, they usually agree on a set of “club rules” or the rules of the game before they begin playing. These commonly agreed upon rules prevent cheating and preserve a sense of fairness and equity. By agreeing on “the rules,” kids understand that the winner of the game they are playing will have won on merit and, in the case of the club, all of those agreeing to be members of the club agree to forfeit absolute control over their decisions within the club for a collective decision making process defined by the agreed upon process.
If kids can agree that rules and standards matter, why can’t liberals do the same? How can we continue to move forward as an ideologically-diverse yet ultimately cohesive and respectful nation when one side of this perpetual ideological struggle writes one set of “rules” for itself, and another set of rules for others?
Here are just a few examples of liberal double standards which will shed light on this problem:
1. The Withholding of Federal Tax-Payer Dollars to States and Cities. The recent transgender bathroom battle in North Carolina has emboldened the divisive Obama administration to start yet another fight over what they loosely define as “discrimination.” Putting aside for a moment that women who prefer to use the bathroom with other women are now being defined as “bigots” by the hostile far-left and their wily and calculating White House allies, President Obama outrageously threatened to withhold taxpayer money from taxpayers in North Carolina to make sure that men can use the women’s bathroom. Let’s use logic to walk through their calculation on this issue.
Liberals who supported this since withdrawn Obama administration threat to withhold tax payer money from North Carolina are doing so because they believe that President Obama’s questionable presidential edicts are the “rules” and if North Carolina doesn’t follow “the rules” then the federal government should punish the citizens of North Carolina by keeping their money out of their state. Keep in mind, this entire sad story is based not on a new federal law prohibiting North Carolina from keeping men out of the women’s bathroom which President Obama is enforcing, but an edict from a President who prefers his pen and his phone to law and order. Now, contrast this with the clear cut violations of easy-to-understand federal immigration laws in the many sanctuary cities in the United States. Again, using the liberal’s own standards against them, that the rules matter, then why aren’t the same far-left activists and Obama administration officials pulling tax-payer money from sanctuary cities? If kids can understand the importance of rules then why can’t our liberal friends?
2. Guns vs. Gay Marriage. As our own Daniel Horowitz recently pointed out in his piece titled “D.C. Attorney General Refuses to Issue Gun Permits, Why is He Not in Jail?,” the hypocrisy of far-leftists who celebrated the jailing of Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis for refusing to sign gay marriage certificates is now on full display as they ignore the conduct of Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine. Let’s use logic again to walk through this and demonstrate the far-left’s disrespect for the rules and common standards.
Liberals who celebrated the jailing of Kim Davis did so proclaiming that she is a public servant and that she should do her job and sign the gay marriage certificates in violation of her religious beliefs because, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage, those were the rules. And, although the words “gay marriage” are absolutely nowhere to be found anywhere in the Constitution, many liberals were adamant that Davis should follow the rules or go to jail. Now that the shoe is on the other foot regarding an issue liberals oppose on ideological grounds (the right to bear arms which is actually written into the Constitution) , and with Washington D.C. repeatedly losing in federal courts in their efforts to prevent their residents from protecting themselves, I haven’t heard a peep from a liberal calling for any D.C. city official to be jailed for not following the rules.
The reasons for this blatant hypocrisy on the part of liberals is obvious to many who have studied the history of far-left ideology. The far-left cannot exist within a set of rules which limit its power. While conservatives passionately fight to limit the power of government using the Constitution, the far-left insists on erasing any objective standards of conduct for government. The far-left’s core focus has always been acquiring an ends using whatever means necessary to do so. And if reaching an ends means changing the rules or ignoring the rules then so be it. I’m proud to be a conservative because I believe in a set of rules that will limit conservatives in power too from breaking the rules we all agree to live by. Liberals who insist on double-standards and winning the game, while sacrificing the integrity of the game, should hang their heads in shame knowing that they did so only by cheating and throwing their morals out of the window. (For more from the author of “Without Double Standards, Liberals Would Have No Standards at All” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/24527808392_0ab1d639a4_o.jpg10881920Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-01 00:58:362016-06-01 00:58:36Without Double Standards, Liberals Would Have No Standards at All
