Category: Miscellany

Word fail, and I’m reduced to repeated *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* … “Huma Abedin, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff, forwarded a summary of a high-level Sept. 2009 meeting to Clinton in which she detailed the “embassy security issues” that were discussed.” Sending the details of the embassy security problems we’ve identified but not fixed over an unsecured network. Swell! *headdesk* “Now-retired Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns sent Hillary an e-mail with data that was classified during the review of her cache. Burns apparently sent it on a web-based e-mail service, because the footer has an ad for Free Credit Report. An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! Clearly, this is not a secure method of communications, and yet Hillary replies to it while also tossing in sensitive information, now classified, as an afterthought at the end of the reply.” *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

Classified Hillary e-mail contained embassy security issues

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, sensitive diplomatic discussions via http://ift.tt/1U4avRt

Ruh-roh. Narrative fail… —————————————— In the small fraction of emails made public so far, Reuters has found at least 30 email threads from 2009, representing scores of individual emails, that include what the State Department’s own “Classified” stamps now identify as so-called ‘foreign government information.’ The U.S. government defines this as any information, written or spoken, provided in confidence to U.S. officials by their foreign counterparts. This sort of information, which the department says Clinton both sent and received in her emails, is the only kind that must be “presumed” classified, in part to protect national security and the integrity of diplomatic interactions, according to U.S. regulations examined by Reuters. “It’s born classified,” said J. William Leonard, a former director of the U.S. government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). Leonard was director of ISOO, part of the White House’s National Archives and Records Administration, from 2002 until 2008, and worked for both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. “If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence, by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it’s in U.S. channels and U.S. possession,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that for the State Department to say otherwise was “blowing smoke.”

Exclusive: Dozens of Clinton emails were classified from the start, U.S. rules suggest via http://ift.tt/1LmzkAE

Two serious questions for my left-leaning (D) friends: 1. Can any of you honestly say you don’t believe a felony has been committed here (violation of 18USC1924 regarding handling of classified material)? And if so, can you explain the logic to me? I am *not* interested in argument by analogy (i.e. “when are you going to ask about [insert (R) politician/public figure]’s [insert dubious action here]). 2. What’s your honest opinion of Hillary’s capabilities as a political candidate? Because even trying to view it without bias, in my assessment her performance at the presser linked below was just… appalling. She’s had months to prepare for these questions; she knows they are coming… and this is the best she can do? Forget right/wrong, policies, etc.: do you think she’s good enough at the actual game of politics to win?

5 things Hillary Clinton did wrong in her latest e-mail press conference via http://ift.tt/1E4C85K

So whether my friends to my left believe it or not, I wasn’t opposed in principle to negotiating with Iran. But the deal arrived at seems a very, very poor one. I’m still educating myself, but the lack of anytime-anywhere inspections, and the un-freezing of over a $100B of funds (producing a massive influx of cash for a regime everyone agrees is the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism) just doesn’t make sense to me. If the frozen assets were decoupled (and perhaps tied to commitments on better behavior in terms of funding terrorism) and there were anytime-anywhere, remote-monitoring allowed inspections, I’d have to think hard about whether the deal was better than the alternatives (all of which suck). But with that said, here’s a POV from someone who may not be a policy expert, but who can’t be argued with having quite literally put himself in the firing line of Iran’s proxies. And full disclosure / warning: I wouldn’t presume to call Chuck a close friend, but he’s part of the circle of military folks that tolerate me as their unofficial civilian mascot, so if you choose to criticize him, don’t be a jerk about it, because given what he has gone through I will not take it well.

Wounded Vet says Don’t Trust Iran via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdjcKActAKM

Been a while since I worked with Jim and his gang (which was an honor and a pleasure) but SoA remains one of my favorite charities. Short version (in my own words): they coordinate donations to micro-charity projects in areas the US military is involved, with the projects being requested by our troops. Simplistic example: A sergeant in Afghanistan observes that the men from a local village are joining the Taliban and shooting at him and his guys because all their farm equipment got wrecked. Solution: buy them some farm equipment so they can (literally) pick up ploughshares as opposed to guns. Check ’em out…

War, Peace, Philanthropy | Excellence in Philanthropy | The Philanthropy Roundtable via http://ift.tt/1M2oaCK