Gail Collins, "Call Me Mister Trump": The Noose Tightens Around Hillary's Neck

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In headline news, Bryan Pagliano, who set up Hillary's home server in 2009 and later took the Fifth when appearing before the House Select Committee investigating Benghazi in September, has been granted immunity by the Justice Department as part of the FBI's criminal investigation of classified information which passed through the server. As reported by Adam Goldman in a lead Washington Post article entitled "Justice Dept. grants immunity to staffer who set up Clinton email server":

"As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents are likely to want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.

. . . .

Clinton and the State Department have said that none of the material was marked classified at the time it was sent. However, it is the responsibility of individual government officials to properly handle sensitive material."

Now have a look at how The New York Times is treating the story. If you currently go to the homepage of the Times, under a lead story entitled "Trouble Lurks Beneath Clinton’s Victories," you will see a link in smaller letters to "As Campaign Unfolds, So Do Clinton Email Inquiries." Clicking on this link brings you to a story entitled "As Presidential Campaign Unfolds, So Do Inquiries Into Clinton’s Emails" by Steven Lee Myers and and Matt Apuzzo, which informs us:

"The bureau’s investigators have already interviewed Bryan Pagliano, a former aide who installed the server Mrs. Clinton had in her home in New York and used exclusively for her private and official email while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Mr. Pagliano, who last year invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before Congress, has cooperated with the investigation, according to the law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Mr. Pagliano’s lawyer declined to comment."

Mention of a grant of "immunity" to Pagliano in the article? None.

The Times article goes on to say:

"Federal law makes it a crime to mishandle classified information outside secure government channels when someone does so 'knowingly' or — more seriously — permits it through 'gross negligence.' Mrs. Clinton has correctly pointed out that none of the emails on her server were marked as classified at the time."

Fascinating. However, as observed by Marc Thiessen in a January 25, 2016 Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Clinton’s email excuses are falling apart":

"Lash out as she might, Clinton’s constantly changing email story is rapidly falling apart. First, Clinton claimed there was 'no classified material' on her private server — which turned out to be untrue. Then she claimed none of the intelligence on her server was 'classified at the time' — which also turned out to be untrue. Now, in a National Public Radio interview last week, Clinton said there was no information that was 'marked classified.'"

Moreover, 18 U.S. Code § 793(f) - Gathering, Transmitting or Losing Defense Information does not premise criminal liability for the removal of information through "gross negligence" from its proper place of custody upon a document being marked "classified."

Today, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Call Me Mister Trump," Gail Collins lambastes Donald Trump ("Just remember that this will be an administration where all millionaires, whatever race, creed or color, will be given equal opportunity"), Chris Christie ("Now he’s just Donald Trump’s sidekick — his Robin, or maybe more appropriately, his Chewbacca"), Ted Cruz ("If there’s a derrick on the horizon, Cruz can’t lose"), and Marco Rubio ("I am wondering what the bidding will be for 'An American Also-Ran,' the inspiring story of the man who won the Minnesota caucus"). There is no mention of Mrs. Clinton in Collins's opinion piece, other than a passing reference to a speech in which Donald said that he "looked forward to taking on 'Hillary.'"

Okay, if it comes down to a race between Donald, who should not be allowed to have his finger anywhere near America's nuclear arsenal launch button, and Hillary, who has merely threatened the rule of law in America (Jerry Zeifman, a Democrat who oversaw Hillary's work on behalf of the House Judiciary Committee when it was investigating the Watergate scandal, said that Mrs. Clinton "conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality"), I prefer Hillary. At least Hillary doesn't appear to pose a threat to life on planet earth, unless, of course, she goes off her diet. But don't you think, Gail, that Hillary's burgeoning email scandal deserves even a passing mention?

Please, Joe, reconsider before it's too late.

The New York Times, "Americans Attracted to ISIS Find an ‘Echo Chamber’ on Social Media": Little in Common?

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In a lead New York Times article entitled "Americans Attracted to ISIS Find an ‘Echo Chamber’ on Social Media" by Scott Shane, Matt Apuzzo and Eric Schmitt, we are told of an "online community of [Islamic State] sympathizers in the United States" (my emphasis in red):

"As the Obama administration takes on the multidimensional challenge posed by the Islamic State after the killings in San Bernardino, Calif., the online community of sympathizers in the United States is a critical focus. They number in the hundreds, experts say, and fit no single profile. Among those whose flirtations took a serious turn and led to criminal charges are a trio of teenage siblings from Chicago, a former Air Force mechanic in his late 40s from New Jersey, and a mother of two from Philadelphia.

In fact, they have little in common except one thing: the weeks or months spent marinating in the rhetoric and symbolism of the Islamic State, courtesy of Twitter and other Internet platforms."

"Little in common"? They're not mostly Muslims (I recommend going to the link if you want a laugh)?

Timothy Egan, "Trump Is the Poison His Party Concocted": And Hillary Isn't?

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In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Trump Is the Poison His Party Concocted," Timothy Egan writes of Donald Trump:

"The adults patrolling the playpen of Republican politics are appalled that we’ve become a society where it’s O.K. to make fun of veterans, to call anyone who isn’t rich a loser, to cast an entire group of newly arrived strivers as rapists and shiftless criminals.

Somewhere, we crossed a line — from our mothers’ modesty to strutting braggadocio, from dutiful decorum to smashing all the china in the room, from respecting a base set of facts to a trumpeting of willful ignorance."

I agree, but is Hillary any better? As reported by in a New York Times article entitled "Hillary Clinton Emails Said to Contain Classified Data" by Michael S. Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo:

"Government investigators said Friday that they had discovered classified information on the private email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used while secretary of state, stating unequivocally that those secrets never should have been stored outside of secure government computer systems.

Mrs. Clinton has said for months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house so she would not have to carry both a personal phone and a work phone. Her campaign said Friday that any government secrets found on the server had been classified after the fact.

But the inspectors general of the State Department and the nation’s intelligence agencies said the information they found was classified when it was sent and remains so now."

It sounds like Hillary could well be facing a criminal investigation by the Justice Department while she runs for president. But why should this bother Democrats or interfere with her $2.5 billion campaign? "Incredibly hazy with flowing ice"? No, not a description of Hillary, but rather of Pluto, following the New Horizons flyby.

And then there was the "alteration" of the wording of  a prior New York Times article on the subject of a DOJ investigation at the behest of the Clinton campaign.

Trump versus Hillary in 2016? Might this be an instance where America gets what it deserves? Bottom line: I don't envy anyone who stands to inherit the global (Middle East bedlam) and domestic (some $20 trillion of federal debt) mess that Obama will be leaving for his successor.