Friday, February 5, 2016

FLASH UPDATE: THE "SAME NEWS DIFFERENT STATION" EDITION

ANOTHER NATIONAL POLL, THIS ONE BY A MAJOR NEWS/POLLING COMBINE, ALSO SHOWS THAT HILLARY CLINTON HAS LOST HER NATIONWIDE LEAD OVER BERNIE SANDERSREUTERS/IPSOS POLL SAYS LATEST SPLIT: CLINTON'S 48% to SANDERS' 45% IS WITHIN THE MARGIN OF ERROR -- MEANING A VIRTUAL DEAD HEAT NATIONALLY GOING INTO THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY NEXT TUESDAY, WHERE SANDERS IS MAINTAINING HIS LOCAL LEAD

According to a report in Newsmax based on a Reuters/Thomson feed, "Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has erased Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's wide lead for the Democratic presidential nomination since the start of year, putting the two in a dead heat nationally, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.... Cl inton leads Sanders 48 percent to 45 percent among Democratic voters, according to the poll of 512 Americans, conducted Feb. 2-5 following the Iowa caucus. The poll has a credibility interval of 5 percentage points.... Democrats had been supporting Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin at the beginning of the year. Sanders has narrowed that lead considerably over the past several weeks.... (See "Reuters Poll: Hillary's National Lead Has Vanished, In Dead Heat With Sanders" by Newsmax Staff from Thomson/Reuters, 2/5/16, Newsmax [http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Reuters-Poll-Hillary-Clinton-Bernie-Sanders-dead-heat/2016/02/05/id/712984/]).

The original story that appeared on the Reuters home page is virtually the same as what appeared on the Newsmax internet posting (See also: "Exclusive: Presidential hopefuls Sanders, Clinton in dead heat - Reuters/Ipsos poll" by Chris Kahn, 2/5/16, Reuters/ U.S. [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSMTZSAPEC253J02S1]).

UPDATE: THE "E-MAILS ARE STILL A VERY BIG PROBLEM FOR HILLARY & HER CAMPAIGN" EDITION

BOTH THE NY TIMES AND THE WASHINGTON POST POSTED ARTICLES LATE ON FRIDAY, WHICH SHOWED THAT CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ON HILLARY'S E-MAIL SERVER IS A VERY IMPORTANT PROBLEM --- AND IT ISN"T GOING AWAY ANY TIME SOON

CENTRAL TO BOTH THE NYT AND THE WA-PO ARTICLES IS THE FACT THAT THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT AND THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AGREE THAT THERE WERE/ARE AT LEAST 22 "TOP SECRET" E-MAILS ON HILLARY CLINTON'S NON-SECURE PRIVATE SERVER -- AND THAT IS NOT ALLOWED UNDER THE LAW AND AGREEMENTS SIGNED BY MRS. CLINTON

The article in the Washington Post by Clobert I. King is the most provocative. It opens like this: "The Hillary Clinton email issue is developing into a real whodunit, complete with Clintonesque legal semantics. 'I never sent or received any material marked classified,' she said with respect to the discovery of classified information on her private, unclassified email server. That surface denial nearly rivals Bill Clinton’s classic: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'... But this is no laughing matter.... There is nothing trivial about a secretary of state having top-secret information on an unsecured computer in her home. That appears to have been the case, based on the State Department’s announcement last week that 22 emails, across seven email chains, containing top-secret information were on Hillary Clinton’s private email server...." And it closes with this: ".... It's chilling to think of what a breach of Clinton’s email account might mean to national security.... Presidential election year or not, the Clinton email issue must be resolved. Just a thought: As a precaution, the manager in the White House dugout might consider telling the bullpen to start warming up Joe Biden." (See "Clinton email scandal: Why it might be time for Democrats to draft Joe Biden" by Colbert I. King , 2/5/16, The Washington Post/ Opinion [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/clinton-email-scandal-why-it-might-be-time-for-democrats-to-draft-joe-biden/2016/02/05/cd69dfea-cc18-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html]).

[THIS COMMENT IS CONTINUED IMMEDIATELY BELOW ON THE COMMENTS THREAD FOR THIS POST]

[CONTINUATION OF THE COMMENT IMMEDIATELY ABOVE ON THIS COMMENTS THREAD]

UPDATE: THE "E-MAILS ARE STILL A VERY BIG PROBLEM FOR HILLARY & HER CAMPAIGN" EDITION

On it's face the NY Times article, mentioned above, would seem to be more favorable to the former Secretary of State than the one in the Washington Post, but even the Times article contained several poison pills for Mrs. Clinton and her apologists. According to the Times, "Some of the nation’s intelligence agencies raised alarms last spring as the State Department began releasing emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server, saying that a number of the messages contained information that should be classified 'top secret.'... The diplomats saw things differently and pushed back at the spies...." ( See "Agencies Battle Over What Is ‘Top Secret’ in Hillary Clinton’s Emails" by Steven Lee Myers & Mark Mazzetti, 2/5/2016, NY Times/ Politics [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/us/politics/agencies-battle-over-what-is-top-secret-in-hillary-clintons-emails.html]). However, this is the stunner --- ".... Nonetheless, 22 emails on Mrs. Clinton’s server were held back from a tranche made public last week. Those 22 emails were deemed so highly secret that State Department officials in this case agreed with the intelligence agencies not to release them even in redacted form.Nonetheless, 22 emails on Mrs. Clinton’s server were held back from a tranche made public last week. Those 22 emails were deemed so highly secret that State Department officials in this case agreed with the intelligence agencies not to release them even in redacted form...." In other words, there is no dispute that they should be and are "TOP SECRET". Also devastating for Mrs Clinton in the NY Times article is this: ".... The handling of classified information on Mrs. Clinton’s server is now the subject of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the State Department’s security and intelligence bureaus. According to the law and security procedures Mrs. Clinton agreed to follow when she became secretary, such material should not even have been sent over the State Department’s official but unclassified state.gov server...."

THE HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN DECIDES THAT IT WON'T PROVIDE ANY TRANSCRIPTS OF HER HIGHLY PAID SPEECHES FOR GOLDMAN SACHS AND OTHERS

According to the NY Times, "In response to a question at Thursday night’s debate, Hillary Clinton said she would “look into” the possibility of releasing transcripts of her paid remarks to banking, corporate and financial services companies like Goldman Sachs.... But by Friday morning, it did not appear that much looking was underway.... Joel Benenson, Mrs. Clinton’s pollster, gave little indication at a Wall Street Journal breakfast with reporters that the transcripts would be forthcoming.... 'I don’t think voters are interested in the transcripts of her speeches,' he said... Whether they are made public is up to the Clinton campaign. Speaking contracts typically give the speaker the right to decide whether any material from a particular speech can be shared beyond the room. Goldman Sachs, for one, declined to make an on-the-record statement...." ( See "Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Resists Releasing Transcripts From Goldman Speeches" by Katherine Q. Seelye, 2/5/16, NY Times/ First Draft [http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/05/hillary-clintons-campaign-resists-releasing-transcripts-from-goldman-speeches/?_r=1]).

What's the big deal? What can Hillary have said to the Goldman Sachs crowd that she doesn't want everybody else to know about? She's doing this just like the E-mails, trying to keep something secret that in the end will have to come out anyway.

NO LEGITIMATE MECHANISM FOR HILLARY CLINTON TO HAVE KNOWN WHAT FBI IS LOOKING INTO AND/OR WHAT THE FBI WILL BE DOING, VIS A VIS ITS INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS -- THUS SHE WAS IN NO POSITION TO ASSERT WHAT THE FBI IS INVESTIGATING AND/OR THAT SHE IS 100% CERTAIN NOTHING WILL COME OUT OF THE FBI INVESTIGATION WITH RESPECT TO HER

According to a Catherine Herridge report for Fox News, "Hillary Clinton used misleading language in Thursday night’s Democratic debate to describe the ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private email server to conduct official government business while she was secretary of state, according to former senior FBI agents.... In the New Hampshire debate with Senator Bernie Sanders, which aired on MSNBC, Clinton told moderator Chuck Todd that nothing would come of the FBI probe, “I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested. It is being carried out.”(See "Hillary misleading about email probe during debate, former FBI agents say" by Catherine Herridge & Pamela K. Browne, 2/6/16, Fox News [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/06/hillary-misleading-about-email-probe-during-debate-former-fbi-agents-say.html]).

MOST DAMAGING FOR HRC & HER CAMPAIGNPerhaps the most damaging part of the Fox report for Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Campaign and her camp followers were the statements by "... Steve Pomerantz, who spent 28 years at the FBI, and rose from field investigative special agent to the rank of assistant director, the third highest position in the Bureau...." According to former Assistant Director Pomerantz, ".... They (the FBI) do not do security reviews.... What they primarily do and what they are clearly doing in this instance is a criminal investigation.” And then there was this: ".... Pomerantz emphasized to Fox News, “There is no mechanism for her to be briefed and to have information about the conduct, the substance, the direction or the result of any FBI investigation.”

Concerning the FBI investigation, Catherine Herridge also noted that >>> Fox News recently learned that one of the FBI's senior agents responsible for counterintelligence matters, Charles H. Kable IV, is working on Hillary Clinton's E-mail case. And Fox' s source in the intelligence community said that this is another indicator intelligence source said that the FBI probe is “... extremely serious, and the [FBI's] A-team is handling [it]....” And Herridge also said that still another source told Fox investigators that -- "it is no less of a violation of espionage statutes if any material was classified "secret" or "top secret"; and that all the anti-espionage law requires is "National Defense Information" or "NDI”. Also, that the last source said, "... [T]his is way past accidental spillage…. [It] is being investigated as intentional mishandling .... [And] in this kind of high profile investigation, the most damaging information takes primacy.”

I sense you are saying is the e mail stuff yestedays news?I think it is unless she gets indicted.Carl Bernstein was just on CNN saying White House sources (Valerie Jarrett)are furious with the way Hillary is handling the transcript issue.The transcripts are tomorrows news.

Our esteemed, but this time missing the mark, comment-maker said it this way: ".... White House sources (Valerie Jarrett)are furious with the way Hillary is handling the transcript issue.... The transcripts are tomorrows news."

About Me

I formerly have commented on various political blogs concerning Republican politics. Although the focus of my political commentary has been on the Brooklyn GOP and other aspects of politics in Brooklyn, I have also posted commentary about national matters.
If you wish to contact Galewyn Massey directly, please, Email to galewynmasban@gmail.com