Sleepless in Midland

But her emails - Hillary Clinton's fund raising hat

With her new cap Hillary boasts about escaping any serious DOJ treatment for her shenanigans regarding the emails and smashed computers. Let's not forget about the wiped hard drive as she played dumb with the quip “Like with a cloth?”

It's as if a thief released by one of those soft on crime prosecutors thumbs her nose at those miscreants who are jailed in jurisdictions that doesn't subscribe to the “catch and release” program.

Hillary's fame comes from her marriage to a smart, politically astute politician who dodged scandals that sunk a lot of politicians in the past. But there are not a lot of people who share her pride in this particular accomplishment.

Michelle Obama -- I need an honest man

That's not a direct quote, but it works better to highlight the absurdity.

The real headline was Michelle Obama: ‘We Need Someone Who’s Honest and Plays by the Rules’ as President. Duh, as the kids say.

It's safe to say that George W. Bush was honest and played by the rules, and that factors in the fiction invented by Democrats about lies about Iraqi weapons. The problem is that we haven't had an honest president in almost eight years. I'll leave it to readers to do their own searches for the long list of Obama lies which, of course, would be incomplete if it didn't include that whopper about being able to keep your doctor or insurance plan.

Could Ms. Obama have been making a pitch for Hillary Clinton? HA HA! That's too absurd to even contemplate. Leftists have to lie to get their agenda passed. No one in their right mind would vote for it if they understood what it involved. So they lie about lying.

The choice in November is between a loud mouth show boat or a bald faced liar.

Clinton had disdain for State Dept -- if they marked a document wrong, not her problem

Having known people like that I can sorta see Hillary's stance, though not approve of it. She kept repeating the mantra that the emails in question were not marked "Classified." Hillary's position was that they weren't marked correctly. Therefore it was State Department's problem, not hers.

We've all known or maybe worked with people like that. If someone else made a mistake, that was that other person's problem. She was not going out of her way to point it out or modify her behavior based on what that other person should have done.

She wanted to show her intellectual superiority so much she simply took what the State Department sent to her and applied her own standard. If they didn't mark it in the correct manner -- tough luck. Not my problem. Stupid State Department.

Of course, what makes the State Department stupid is that they went along with it. There was also the fear factor, of course. Employees there were probably scared to death of her.

If looking for a presidential role model and you think sexism is worse than dishonesty then Hillary is your person

I was listening to progressive talk radio (NPR) and heard a woman proclaim that she hated to think that her sons might be influenced by a president like Donald Trump who seemed to have such disdain for women. That's not what she wanted for her sons. She wanted her sons to grow up respecting women.

Listen to conservative talk radio and one is likely to hear about how Hillary Clinton lied, raked in millions in pay-for-play schemes, and attacked women who claimed to have been assaulted by her husband. No one would want their daughters growing up with her as their role model.

But you know what? If the parties were reversed: Hillary was a Republican and Donald was a Democrat, it would be a mirror image. We would be hearing the same complaints but with the parties reversed. Democrats would be shocked at what Hillary had done and defensive of what Donald had done. Republicans the opposite.

It's all partisan politics. It's hard to take any of them seriously any more.

But of course, my one vote is committed to Trump. He's the only one who might possibly appoint a supreme court justice who won't bend the bill of rights to fit a progressive agenda.

If Republicans were serious about Clinton's skirting the law, they would try to pass laws outlawing that behavior -- same with Dem's outrage at Trump's tax loss carry forward

Hillary Clinton did some things that normal people wouldn't do but could have done great harm to the nation. But they weren't deemed illegal enough by FBI Director Comey to recommend prosecution. Thus the Clinton Defense was born. It would be easy to toughen the law. So here we have Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe proposing the "Classified Information Protection Act." Source: GOP bill kills the 'Clinton defense' for violating classification laws. Seems simple enough.

Two can play the game. Democrats are trying to hurt Donald Trump with assertions that he hasn't paid taxes in a while, and for evidence the publish what they say is a portion of one of his previous returns which claims a large loss which he carried forward to cut his future taxes. See Donald Trump's Billion-Dollar Tax Loss Is a Diversion From More-Serious Matters. From all accounts, Trump got good tax counsel and did nothing illegal.

But if Democrats are that upset about it, they would pass laws abolishing the tax loss carry-forward. Well? What are they waiting on?

FBI and Hillary Clinton -- not the 1st time FBI opted for expediency over enforcement, see Whitey Bulger case

I listened to an NPR podcast this morning featuring the authors of a book about Whitey Bulger. The name of the book is "Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice," written by Boston Globe reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy. Download the MP3 here.

According to the authors' account, John Conley was the FBI agent who was Bulger's closest FBI contact and to whom Bulger parlayed information about other gangsters for a get-out-of-jail pass for crimes involving his own criminal enterprise. When the excrement hit the fan, Conley was the fall guy, and he went to prison. But according to the authors, many others in the FBI had to know about it and concur with it for it to have continued so long.

Trey Gowdy is right to get animated about the FBI's lenience to Hillary Clinton. But he says that is not the FBI he knows. Maybe the office he worked with was on the up and up. But he should listen to that podcast just so he can hear of at least one other instance in which the FBI opted for expediency over enforcement.

Tim Carney tries to scare one issue voters away from Trump, but what's the alternative?

This will sound like a broken record to anyone who has read my previous posts about why I'll vote for Trump. I'm a one issue voter -- future Supreme Court nominees.

There's a lot at stake here: It's the U.S. Constitution. The First and Second Amendments are acknowledged targets of Hillary Clinton. And the conventional wisdom is that her nominees will be far left of center.

Even the adherents to the "Living Constitution" theory would have to acknowledge that many Americans own guns and would keep them even after a law ruling them unlawful. And the "Living Constitution" should protect that right since the so called living constitution is supposed to fit existing attitudes.

But a far left justice would be worse as the existing attitude he/she would want to enshrine in the law of the land would mirror leftist ideology.

Anyway, Tim Carney casts a vote against Trump in The 'but judges!' argument for Trump, and why it fails. He makes a valid point that Trump can't really be trusted to do anything he says whether about judges or anything else. But after calling Trump a con man and us his latest mark if we believe his promise about conservative judges, he does say this:

After examination, the "judges" argument is eroded down to this thin reed: It's possible Trump will nominate conservative judges, while it's certain Clinton will not.

Yeah, it's "possible." Thanks for that, Tim. Yet a possibility beats a certainty, especially if that's all we've got.

Hillary repeats trickle down fiction

It was at about the 27 minute mark in debate #1 that she began. By minute 28 Clinton was blaming the 2008-2009 recession on this thing progressives call "trickle down." By that she means that her opponent only wants to help the rich, and maybe a tiny bit will trickle down to the poor folks.

"Trickle down" is supposed to be a pejorative, and progressives have been using it off and on for over a century. It's a fiction invented to convince voters that a politician wants to help the little guy and hurt the big guy. We all would like to help the little guy. That particular trait is built into the American character. But it takes a certain type of person to want to hurt the big guy, i.e., the rich. Unfortunately, that trait is common to a lot of Americans, too. And politicians tap into that. They try to turn it into a good trait by combining the two. Sneaky.

Back to the point. Thomas Sowell mansplains how progressives have it exactly backwards in Trickle Down Theory and Tax Cuts for the Rich. Here's a key part:

The very idea that profits “trickle down” to workers depicts the economic sequence of events in the opposite order from that in the real world. Workers must first be hired, and commitments made to pay them, before there is any output produced to sell for a profit, and independently of whether that output subsequently sells for a profit or at a loss. With many investments, whether they lead to a profit or a loss can often be determined only years later, and workers have to be paid in the meantime, rather than waiting for profits to “trickle down” to them. The real effect of tax rate reductions is to make the future prospects of profit look more favorable, leading to more current investments that generate more current economic activity and more jobs.

Too bad they can't figure out that making it easier for people to make money will benefit everyone. The risk takers will be rewarded for their courage and skill. (For heaven's sake, Mark Cuban -- Shark Tank star, billionaire, and current Clinton favorite Trump hater -- should know that.) And the little guy will have more income opportunities. He may even want to become an entrepreneur himself. Hey, call Mark Cuban.

Rioters pick their spots -- Charlotte yes, Tulsa no

It's hard to miss the disparity between the responses to the police shooting in Tulsa and the police shooting in Charlotte. Charlotte is enveloped in riots, looting, and at least one killing amongst the rioters, all in the name of social justice. Tulsa erupted in peace and quite.

My own shallow assumption was that Tulsa was too far away. The people who were renting the mobs didn't want to foot the transportation bill.

Patricia McCarthy says there's more to it than that. See Charlotte riots, Tulsa doesn’t. Excerpt:

For inexplicable reasons, leftists believe that the violence wrought by angry minorities will benefit them, so they encourage it.  They subsidize it.  Obama has given his not-so-tacit permission to riot every time one of these tragic events occurs, from the Henry Louis Gates minor incident to the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and the Dallas officers.  And now BLM is rolling in money, $100M from "social justice" organizations. Soros gave them $33M.

What we see in Charlotte is what they pay for.  They are not wasting their money in Tulsa because Oklahoma is in the bag for Trump.

Makes sense. Hillary Clinton is probably worrying herself sick over the lack of enthusiasm for her in Obama's most loyal voting bloc, African Americans. Democrats' plan appears to involve pouring gasoline on the fires of racial strife to motivate that bloc to vote for Hillary.

It's a sick and cynical plan, but will it work? We can only hope it doesn't.

Meanwhile, as I've said previously, like Dr. Frankenstein, they were smart enough to create a monster. But they are not smart enough to control it.

Howie Carr takes the hand-off from Jeff Foxworthy -- you might be deplorable if ...

Hillary Clinton branding half the voters as "deplorable" was manna from heaven for bloggers. It was ready made for Jeff Foxworthy, but he didn't pick it up. Never fear, Howie Carr did! See Carr: Some Quick, easy steps to tell if you’re a deplorable. Some samples:

In case you’ve been wondering which side you’re on, you may be a deplorable if you stand for the National Anthem.

Or if you know all the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, especially, “under God.”

If you wake before noon, if you call Islamic terrorists Islamic terrorists, if you don’t have an Obamaphone and you don’t believe that global warming is “settled science” — can you say deplorable?

You may be deplorable if your passport, driver’s license and credit cards are all in the same name. ...

You may be a deplorable if all of your children have the same last name — and it’s your last name.

My favorite:

Or if when you go to Market Basket, you tend to buy generic products, because you’re using your own money, not an EBT card. ...

Hillary backtracked after being called out on it. Too bad. Bloggers need this sort of stuff from pretentious politicians.

Clinton's "You name it" comment was smug and condescending -- Dems eat that stuff up

Hillary listed the various "isms" her opponents are purported to display, and she ends with the condescending, "you name it." This was an honest-to-gosh gaffe, not that it was actually the truth, but that it was what Democrats believe to be true. Here's the whole quote:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables,’” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”

It's that smugness of the "you name it" that pulls like a fish hook under the skin of an innocent bystander. And Clinton's audience is all in.

As a commentator famously said, conservatives think liberals are stupid, and liberals think conservatives are evil. Seems that remark is proven to be true every time there's an opportunity.

Clinton validated her audience's own prejudices. It's not bigotry when Democrats do it, it's progress.

Meanwhile, Clinton is recuperating from an embarrassing spill and a bout of pneumonia. Get well quickly, Hillary. While we may find you disgusting, Donald Trump needs your name on the ballot. Oh, how he needs you.

At least two reasons Hillary must not be president -- 1st amendment and 2nd amendment

The Citizens United case involved a corporation that made an anti-Hillary Clinton movie. And it took the U.S. Supreme Court to say it was OK to show the movie. It should have been a cut and dried 1st Amendment freedom. But Democrats and pro-Hillary people couldn't have those kinds of freedoms in the hands of ordinary people.

The Supreme Court held that a group of people pooling their money to make a movie are entitled to the same 1st Amendment rights of individuals acting alone. Democrats had a cow.

And Hillary Clinton has vowed to eliminate that right. If you have any doubts about that, see Hillary Clinton will push constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, Clinton pledges constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United ruling and her own website.

Then there's the 2nd Amendment. There has been little question on where Clinton stands on gun right. Oh sure, she boasted about hunting with her dad, but her remarks reveal her animus toward gun owners. Hillary Clinton goes on the attack over gun control.

Whether she relies on executive orders or Supreme Court rulings -- after her hand picked justices take their seats -- citizens are at risk of losing the rights they enjoy under the 1st and 2nd Amendments.

Vote in November as if your rights depended on the outcome.

Why Hillary is so popular among her progressive fan base

Listen to enough cable news shows and before long a Hillary backer will be spewing forth about how great Hillary is. But "Popular" probably isn't the right word. For most of her supporters, "acceptable" is a more appropriate descriptor.

Whatever we call it, there's a reason why Democrats are so tolerant of her misdeeds. The best we can tell, she never betrayed the progressive agenda, or if she did, she backpedaled as soon as it became expedient. She's proven that she's loyal to the movement.

The fact that she lies and covers up misdeeds isn't a bug, it's a feature. They don't mind that at all, and in fact they admire it. They hope she'll use these skills to hurt conservatives and accomplish the wishes of whatever special interest group they favor.

If there's nothing else we learned from Barack Obama it's that you can convince people to swallow a poison pill if you tell them a lie they can believe.

It's like the criminal who says he wants a crooked lawyer. He expects the lawyer to be loyal to him, but he expects the lawyer to dissemble, pay bribes, cheat, and do whatever it takes to defeat the other side.

It's that simple. Hillary Clinton is their crooked lawyer.

Where are the personal stories of people helped by the Clinton charities?

The main stream media love the personal stories. Their news items start with them -- it must be in that famous style book we keep hearing about.

Flip the channels often enough and you hear a talking head on the Clinton side proclaiming that millions of people have benefited from the Clinton Foundation.

We've asked this question before. If the Clinton charities have been so beneficial, where are the stories?

There has to be at least one. Where is it?

Huma and Anthony, divorce Islamic style

Islamists are nothing if not flexible. While some preach strict adherence to the Prophet and the Qur'an, they are quite nimble when it helps achieve an important goal.

Thus, Huma Abedin with her proximity to power can get away with marrying a man who claims to be a Jew, although there is some speculation that Anthony Weiner may have converted to Islam to placate Huma's parents.

Weiner pops up in the news from time to time after he gets caught with his pants up or down after snapping a selfie for a gal pal. Following the latest episode, Huma, in a very public announcement, says they are separating.

Will they divorce? We don't know the answer to that. But if they do, how will that work under Islamic law?

Further, is she Shia or Sunni? We can make an educated guess that she's Sunni due to her connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni organization.

It's easier for a Sunni man to get the divorce than the woman. In either event, there are three stages to the marriage dissolution: Initiation, Reconciliation, and Completion. The man initiates the divorce with talaq utterances -- saying "I divorce thee" or words to that effect, three times. Then there's a waiting period. When the required time has passed, the divorce is officially finalized. Here's what wikipedia says about it:

According to some Sunni schools of jurisprudence, each talaq utterance should be followed by a waiting period of three menstrual periods for women or three month (iddah or iddat), when the couple are supposed to try to reconcile with the help of mediators from each family, until the third and final ṭalāq. Some Sunnis who believe the practice of triple talaq in one is wrong; nonetheless accept it as final, especially the Hanafi schools of jurisprudence. ...

Women can initiate talaq through delegation (tafwid), which can be made conditionally or unconditionally in the marriage contract or during the marriage.[3] Most modern Muslim-majority countries permit this type of divorce in some form.[3]

It is also possible for a woman to petition a qadi or qazi (judge of Muslim jurisprudence) for a divorce under certain conditions. This type of divorce is known as khula. The circumstances which are regarded as acceptable vary amongst the four Sunni groups of Islamic schools of jurisprudence.

For all we know, Huma may have already initiated the talaq and is in the waiting period. But as we do know, Islamists are very flexible when it comes to people in power, so she may decide to skip the whole complicated process altogether and go for the typical American no-fault divorce.

Or more likely, she'll be "separated" for the duration of the election period. After that, Hillary might free her from her indentured servitude.

Germany tries to close door to immigrants and advises locals to stock up on food just in case

Two interesting articles that need to be read together. First, Germany tightens Swiss border controls: Swiss minister which reports that "Germany has tightened border controls with southern neighbor Switzerland to choke off a flow of illegal immigrants."

That's probably a smart thing to do, although the barn door was left open too long. That brings up the second article: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks: FAS. If effect, the German government might not be able to secure your community if all those immigrants we let in go on a rampage. So hunker down and eat your sauerkraut.

Better advice might be to stockpile ammo. Unfortunately, the populace is largely unarmed. Unorganized and unarmed civilians beset by hostile mobs -- sounds absolutely medieval. But see Indiana Jones vs. the swordsman for an example of how that could play out with a satisfactory conclusion.

Here at home, Hillary Clinton wants to resettle thousands of Syrians. Donald Trump, on the other hand, wants to subject potential immigrants to some serious scrutiny. Smart.

How president Clinton would implement gun control

With Democrats declaring that the government is unworkable as long as Republicans control the House and/or the Senate, the president's executive order is the way laws get put into effect these days. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise us to see President Obama's executive order outlawing postings about gunsmithing.

With Hillary Clinton on a glide path to the presidency, we should probably expect her to do much of the same thing regarding gun control, and maybe even attempt gun confiscation. Some gun owners might comply, but many other will try to hold out.

How would the feds make it work without knocking on every door? Well, for starters, she could shift the burden to the states by putting a hold on all federal highway money to a state until the state collected all guns from residents therein.

Licensed firearm dealers would be required to turn over all their buyers' information to the ATF. The federal government would already know who possessed a license to carry. So known gun owners would be told to turn in all guns or face sanctions. Those sanctions would include the inability to register a car, get a license plate, renew a driver's license, obtain or renew any occupation license, or conduct any business with the state.

Pretty soon, fines will pile up on the hold-outs, and they would either face life as a fugitive or turn in the guns. Forget help from the Supreme Court. With a Clinton presidency the court will soon be packed with "living constitution" justices who decide cases not on what the constitution does say as honed by precedent but on what they think the constitution should say.

Meanwhile, for a sample of newly enforced gun control, see Venezuela crushes 2,000 guns in public, plans registry of bullets:

Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the event marked the renewal of efforts to disarm Venezuelans, through a combination of seizures and a voluntary program to swap guns for electrical goods.

Hmm. One wonders if the reason they don't trade food for guns is there isn't enough food.

Meanwhile, California has found a way to take grandpa's guns away from him. See New Gun Control Idea: Take Guns from Senior Citizens which explains how proponents of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders believe "the dangers posed by armed older citizens far outweighs any safety they otherwise gain by owning firearms." Yeah, take away that old man's guns and show him who's in control.

Did Joe Biden just cost the nuclear code carrier his job?

Apparently, there's a fellow whose job it is to carry the football -- the briefcase containing the code for declaring nuclear war -- wherever the vice president goes. And Joe Biden helpfully pointed him out to the audience while he was busy Trump bashing. See Biden Says Trump Can't Be Trusted With Nuclear Codes, Then Tells Crowd He Has the Codes 'Right Back Here'.

Now that the guy has been outed, is he safe? Will he have to be replaced? Does he get secret service protection, too? He needs it now.

BTW, it's probably a safe bet that Biden either never knew or can't now remember the password should it be necessary to access said football. Not quite as likely, but still in the realm of possibility in light of recent news is that foreign sources have hacked into the nuclear launch system, if it still works.

Did the Clintons neglect to spend ANY of their foundation money on actually helping anyone but themselves?

The mainstream media have been falling all over themselves trying to highlight Donald Trump's unwillingness to divulge his tax returns. Everywhere you look there's someone pointing that out. The dirty little secret is that his supporters couldn't care less.

But here's something that the Clintons could use to earn some points with the msm. They were too secretive about the Clinton Family Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, but the information came out in spite of their attempts to keep it under wraps. And if they really did try to carry out the pretense that the Foundation and the Initiative were in fact eleemosynary institutions, then surely someone other than the Clintons benefited from the largess of those two institutions.

But it's the dog that didn't bark. The msm are silent. There aren't any other beneficiaries. The dirty little secret is that her supporters couldn't care less.

Alternate history question for Hillary supporters -- if Richard Nixon were running against Donald Trump, who would you prefer?

The answer will probably be Richard Nixon, right? They hate Nixon but they hate Trump more.

That gives the game away. Between brash and dishonest, they would prefer someone proven to be dishonest.

And there you have it. Hillary Clinton is their current choice.

Strange fruit: Hillary's hanging Chad -- actually a hanging Iranian scientist

I wish I could draw cartoons. Picture Hillary Clinton gesturing over her shoulder to a hanging human body. It's the Iranian scientist, Shahram Amiri, referred to in Hillary's purloined emails* who was executed by the Iranians for spying.

She says, "Hey, Al Gore had a hanging Chad problem, too. Chad, Iranian, what difference, at this point, does it make?"

Reference: State Department dodges questions on Clinton emails about executed Iranian scientist.

*Apparently, she didn't actually use his name in the email. That was her effort to throw off any spies who were reading her emails. Clever girl.

Bill Clinton earned millions as honorary chairman of Sharia teaching company

Sharia law is mostly known for its incompatibility with the constitutional form of government practiced in the U.S.A. There's also that nasty part about the low place of women in a Sharia society, and the men's right to beat them, etc.

We've heard about the millions of dollars the Clintons raked in after they left the white house.

So it probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that he earned a boatload of money for himself and the Clinton Foundation from a company with a network of schools that teach Sharia law. See Bill Clinton Received Millions From Sharia Law Teaching Firm:

Former President Bill Clinton received $5.6 million in fees from a Dubai-based firm that teaches Sharia law through a network of more than 100 schools worldwide.

Clinton served as the honorary chairman of the company GEMS Education from 2011 to 2014, the Daily Caller reported this week, citing Clinton’s federal tax returns.

GEMS Education teaches Sharia law in over 100 schools around the world, including in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. One of the company’s schools, located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, taught 1,600 students in 2013. Saudi Arabia is known for enforcing Wahhabism, a fundamentalist view of Islam that strictly adheres to Sharia law.

But Bill Clinton, we were told, has a remarkable ability to compartmentalize.

Democrats have Trump's number

It should be easy for Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump. If I can figure it out, they figured it out long ago.

Everyone knows he's got thin skin, and it doesn't look like it's very hard to bait him into attacking some seemingly innocent person. The gold star dad, Khizr Khan, got a good jab in at the Democratic National Convention. And Trump's reaction put him in the news for days, and not in a good light.

Mr. Khan had some serious flaws which came to the forefront later, but it was too late. The low information voter got to see a preview of what President Trump would look like on their TV screens for the next four years. And they didn't like what they saw.

A few more of those before the election, and Trump's loyal supporters won't be enough to swing the swing states. And we'll be watching President Clinton prevaricate on our TV screens for the next four years.

Hillary was so proud of herself she could barely keep from crying in her convention speech

Watching the Fox News Sunday rerun I was struck by Hillary Clinton's throat choked remark that she had a difficult time keeping herself from crying during her speech. The reason? She was so proud of what she had accomplished, i.e., becoming the first woman nominee of the Democrat party. Oh, give us a break.

Emotion is fine for a normal person. But it comes across as disingenuous from Hillary. And really -- it's because of that? After what she did to Bernie? Not that I'm a Bernie fan, but she should not be crying of pride but for guilt for stabbing him in the back.

She has embraced Otto Abbadabba Berman's famous slogan, "It's nothing personal, it's business."

Problem with a criminal in the White House is her people won't cooperate with future FBI investigations

Who could have seen this coming? The FBI has a difficult task protecting the nation and the government from cyber espionage. The least we can do is help them when they ask.

Unfortunately, the Democrat nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, has her own problems with sloppy or no precautions against cybercriminals. And she is understandably shy about any new FBI inquiries. But this? Hillary refused to cooperate with the FBI investigation into her campaign being hacked:

The FBI warned the Clinton campaign that it was a target of a cyberattack last March, just weeks before the Democratic National Committee discovered it had been penetrated by hackers it now believes were working for Russian intelligence, two sources who have been briefed on the matter told Yahoo News.

In a meeting with senior officials at the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters, FBI agents laid out concerns that cyberhackers had used so-called spear-phishing emails as part of an attempt to penetrate the campaign’s computers, the sources said. One of the sources said agents conducting a national security investigation asked the Clinton campaign to turn over internal computer logs as well as the personal email addresses of senior campaign officials. But the campaign, through its lawyers, declined to provide the data, deciding that the FBI’s request for sensitive personal and campaign information data was too broad and intrusive, the source said.

Yeah, I guess she has a right to remain silent. But it's disturbing that this is the person so many Americans want to be president.

This might be good news -- Trump's presidential plan includes turning the important stuff over to someone else

Jonah Goldberg probably did the most to get this story into the mainstream with Trump’s Inclination to Outsource Policy.

The most dramatic headline came from Greeleegazzette blog: Bombshell: Trump Would Delegate Presidency to Vice-President if Elected, According to Kasich.

But Dispatch.com got the scoop in Trump's offer to Kasich to be running mate: Be in charge of both domestic, foreign policy.

If the anonymous sources can be trusted, Donald's son made overtures to John Kasich's people to persuade Kasich to run as Trump's vice president. The "bombshell" was that Kasich would be expected to basically run everything while Trump jet-setted around the world making America great again.

The Trump building empire is impressive. And there had to have been some serious work involved in getting it done. However, Trump is the guy who hires the guy who hires the guy who hires the contractor who hires the subcontractors and on and on. Donald Trump probably never picked up a tool except for a photo op. That's OK. We haven't really expected to see hard work on a prospective president's resume in quite some time. And we don't really expect him to know where every nut and bolt went. But the Trump empire is there, nonetheless.

Goldberg thinks it's a bad thing that Trump wants to farm out the hard work. On the contrary, it's a good thing that Trump is contemplating with whom to surround himself to get the best ideas and advice. The alternative is Hillary Clinton who surrounds herself with people who are afraid to disagree with her.

If that's what the KGB released on Hillary, is that their best shot?

The Wikileaks disclosure of the DNC emails is telling. Krauthammer says on FOX news this is the kind of intrusion into local politics that Russia does in the countries the West doesn't care about. Yet here it is in the USA. That's scary enough.

But if they're playing the email card against Hillary now. Are they telling us that's the best they can do considering what they must have purloined from that infamous private server?

Most of us thought they would hold the best stuff back until Hillary got elected then use it to blackmail her. That seems to be wrong. Those KGB guys are smart. So there has to be something they think would serve them better with a Trump administration.

Krauthammer thinks it's the diminution and possible dissolution of NATO. Boy. This international intrigue is so much more entertaining when it's a trained CIA agent up there on the TV screen wrecking havoc all over the Russian empire.  Instead we've got a sloppy former Secretary of State more concerned with FOIA than the KGB.

Schneider is right -- Voters lean toward Trump but remain silent

Matt Schneider is probably right. There's a good probability that there are millions of potential Trump voters out there who won't speak up. They'll vote, but anticipating the inquisition that would follow any overt support of Trump, they remain silent. See Matt Schneider's October Surprise! Why ‘Silent Majority’ Won’t Reveal Trump Support Until Last Moment!:

In a media environment that every day finds new ways to report on “trumped-up” allegations that Trump is racist, misogynistic, homophobic and any other unflattering characterization one could imagine, is it any wonder that most people in polite society rush to publicly declare their disdain for the Republican presidential candidate? What they believe privately, I’d argue however, is an entirely different issue.

I'd argue that Hillary Clinton's supporters should be the ones who have a right to remain silent. Strangely, they don't seem to be phased by any public exposure of her shortcomings. The rallying cry is that there were no indictments. Maybe that's the way of the left. Let nothing interrupt the movement.

Government should apply the same standard of guilt they applied to Hillary Clinton to everyone

Aside from die hard Hillary Clinton fans, just about everyone who watched this unfold thought she was guilty of something. But now we learn that FBI Director James Comey has given her a pass because of lack of intent. We should all be so lucky.

Books have been written about the myriad of laws ordinary people violate without even knowing it. But Hillary Clinton was given a pass because there was no intent to harm the United States.

OK. She lacked a criminal mind. So let's apply this standard to all laws and do away with those that don't require intent.

P.S. Ms. Clinton seems to have pleaded ignorance of those complicated computers, servers, and all that confusing software and jargon. How many of her fans buy that? In particular, how many of those who will vote for her because she's a woman buy that? There's this pesky stereotype out there about women and computers. But surely most women know their way around technology these days. Hillary is the exception. Isn't she?

up in smoke -- Hillary's burn bag

Before you pile on me, yes, I understand there are more important issues here than the actual physical means of destroying evidence. That said, I didn't realize Secretaries of State had "burn bags."

Anyone who has ever worked in an office has seen those ubiquitous, locked, trash bins destined for shredding. But burn bags must be the province of the muckety mucks.

They're talked about in Huma Abedin admits that Clinton burned daily schedules. To wit:

“If there was a schedule that was created that was her Secretary of State daily schedule, and a copy of that was then put in the burn bag, that . . . that certainly happened on . . . on more than one occasion,” Abedin told lawyers representing Judicial Watch, the conservative organization behind the emails lawsuit.

Abedin made the surprising admission in response to a question about document destruction at the Department of State.

Whose job was it to toss those bags into the incinerator? Or were they pitched into a pile in the back yard at Chapaqua? Anyone having read Tim Weiner's excellent book, "Enemies: a history of the FBI," will be reminded of the line about the back yard bonfires that occurred immediately after J. Edgar Hoover departed the bureau. I can't see Bill or Hillary personally doing it, but it's very easy to envision some eager underlings doing it, knowing that's what the masters wanted.

We'll likely never get the answers to these questions, and admittedly, few besides me are really interested.  But it's fun to imagine.

Hillary should have referred son in law to that Arkansas commodities trader instead of Sidney Blumenthal

This seems like bad news for Hillary. And under normal circumstances her email inquiries as Secretary of State on behalf of her son-in-law's hedge fund might seem like insider shady dealings.

Hillary has a sordid history, and the Arkansas commodities trade in which she made a hundred grand is long past, ancient history, i.e., the statute of limitations has past.

Her recent email experiences regarding classified information, personal servers, and what have you, were the subject of FBI inquiries. And we can only guess at this point where the FBI will go with that.

But this business about the son-in-law's hedge fund and possible insider information seems important. I suppose they could say that since the investors lost their money then it shouldn't matter. But it still looks suspicious.

But this is Hillary, and these are the Clintons. Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.