This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Government Incompetence

  • Yet Another Update About That “Private” Email . . . .

    Well, this should be no surprise.  Remember the other day that I mentioned the release of 725 pages of email from Clintoon confidante Huma Abedin?

    Well, they were indeed released.  Sorta

    I say “sorta” because it appears that roughly 250 pages “released” – or over 1/3 of the total – were heavily redacted.  Heavily redacted, as in “100%”.

    Why, you ask?  Good question.

    But maybe we can discern a few possibilities by looking at the 7 July exchange between the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Mr. Charles McCollough, IG for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, concerning some of the Clintoon “private email” that the ODNI IG had been asked to review prior to its release to Congress.  Here’s a quote from that exchange, with a bit of emphasis added.

    Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, generated the response by asking McCullough if he could provide the committee, in a secure format, the classified emails transmitted over Clinton’s private email server.

    “I cannot provide a certain segment of them because the agency that owns the information for those emails has limited the distribution on those,” McCullough explained. “They are characterizing them as OrCon, ‘originator control,’ so I can’t give them to even Congress without getting the agency’s permission to provide them.”

    “Which agency?” Chaffetz interjected.

    “I can’t say that in an open hearing sir,” McCullough replied.

    . . . .

    “This is the segment of emails that I had to have people in my office read-in to particular programs to even see these emails,” McCullough responded. “We didn’t posses the required clearances.”

    Hmm.  Remember:  McCullough and his office are the freaking IG for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  Those individuals are routinely cleared for TS-compartmented access.  Yet at first they didn’t have the requisite clearances to view the material.

    Remember, this is material that was formerly stored on Clintoon’s unsecured “private” email server.  That system was NOT authorized to store anything classified – or anything that was even Sensitive But Unclassified.  It wasn’t supposed to be storing official government information at all.  But it was.

    Nevertheless, two days prior to that exchange between McCullough and Chaffetz, FBI Director James Comey publicly declared that charges were “not appropriate”.  And even in light of the above later relevation by the IG for ODNI, the FBI has declined to prosecute anyone for anything related to this matter since that announcement.

    Wonderful.  Just freaking wonderful.

    Sheesh.  IMO this photo sums up the Administration’s (and Clintoon’s)      obviously and transparently absurd “party line”       “official position” concerning this whole convoluted mess perfectly.

     

    But you wanna hear the really sad part? I’m not sure she’s any less intelligent or competent than the current Occupant, 1600 Penn Ave, Wash DC.

    Oh, and in other news:  Clintoon apparently has a new supporter.  The California Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, Will Quigg, has endorsed her.  Further, he’s also publicly announced that Klan members have donated over $20,000 to her campaign this year.

    I’m guessing those donations haven’t been returned, either – and I’m guessing there’s a good chance they won’t be.  After all, money is money.  And the Clintoon Foundation certainly isn’t choosy regarding those from which it accepts cash.

     

     

  • More “Iran Nuclear Agreement” News

    Remember that “Nuclear Deal” with Iran that was negotiated by the current        gang of fools who want to give away the farm      Administration?  You know, the one that was going to “put the brakes” on Iran’s nuclear program and ensure they never developed a nuke?

    Well, it seems that Iran has announced the construction of two additional nuclear plants.  They’re going to spend a total of $10 billion to do so – of which, 17% ($1.7 billion) was recently paid to Iran in cash by the US as       ransom for US citizens held by Iran       a “settlement” of outstanding financial issues dating back to the Iranian revolution.  In effect, we provided Iran the down payment for this nuclear expansion.

    So, the current Administration is aghast at this development – right?  They’re pulling out all the stops to keep Iran from doing this?

    Hardly.  In fact, the US Administration approves of it.  They say that the two new plants are permitted under the agreement.

    The Washington Free Beacon has an article giving more details.  Their story is IMO worth a read.

    Yeah, that “nuclear agreement” is really a great deal.  For the Iranians, anyway.

  • About that San Bernardino “Valor Award” . . . .

    A few weeks ago, Jonn wrote about Irene Martinez – chief of an USICS office in San Bernardino – being nominated to receive the DHS “Award for Valor”.  However, at the time USICS was reluctant to disclose precisely what it was that Ms. Martinez had done to merit nomination to receive the award.

    Well, now we know.  Apparently DHS has finally responded to a FOIA request concerning the matter.

    During the San Bernardino terrorist shootings that occurred about a mile and a half away from her facility, Ms. Martinez first “warned [her] employees to be very careful and to be vigil (sic) about their surroundings”.  While the facility was on lockdown, she then went out to the parking lot and fetched one of her employees who was sitting in his car after returning from lunch, bringing him inside.

    She afterwards “soothed members of the public who were temporarily stranded in the building.”  According to the paperwork nominating her for the DHS Award for Valor, her actions that day “demonstrated not only her professionalism and exceptional leadership, but also her compassion and caring for her employees and the public we serve.”

    Yes, I’m serious.  That’s really why she was nominated.  The material in quotes above are reportedly direct quotes from the award nomination paperwork.

    Now, I don’t know about you – but something strikes me as a bit odd here.  Previous recipients of the same award apparently received the award for actions such as confronting armed criminals, or for rescuing persons from sinking ships or burning cars.  You know, for situations in which actual honest-to-God bravery was required.

    Ms. Martinez, in contrast, was apparently nominated for the award for nothing more than taking those routine actions any supervisor would be expected to take during a facility lockdown.  In short:  she was nominated simply for doing her freaking job.

    Oh, and in case anyone’s forgotten:  Ms. Martinez also apparently has a rather odd view of what consititutes “doing her job”.  It turns out that Ms. Martinez was quite uncooperative when 5 DHS LE personnel came to her facility the next day looking for a person of interest in connection with the previous day’s terrorist shooting.  That person of interest – Enrique Marquez – was believed at the time to have supplied the two terrorist bastards who’d perpetrated the previous day’s attack the weapons they’d used.  Marquez was scheduled for an appointment at Ms. Martinez’s facility, but was a no-show.

    Ms. Martinez delayed those 5 Federal LE agents for approximately 1 1/2 hours in the performance of their duties, apparently for bureaucratic “turf war” reasons.  She then outright lied to DHS IG investigators about her actions that day when the matter was later investigated.

    It seems to me that both of those later actions by Ms. Martinez may well qualify as crimes – the former possibly as interfering with a Federal investigation (18 USC 111, or 18 USC 1512(b)3) and the latter as giving a false statement to Federal investigators (18 USC 1001).  But it doesn’t seem as if anyone at DHS much cares about that.

    But they sure seem to want to give the lady an award for doing nothing more than her job.  Go figure.

  • $20 Million for Art? Pfft. Merely Peanuts.

    I suppose everyone’s heard the recent news about the VA spending $20M on art.  Well, as far as VA “management excellence” goes, it turns out that’s peanuts.

    During the period 2010-2013, the VA began implementation of 15 solar energy projects.  They were projected to take on average of 7 to 12 months, and to all be completed by now.

    I suppose you can guess what’s coming.  And if you guessed “another sterling example of the VA’s excellence in managing the use of its resources” – you’d be right.  (I trust the sarcasm in the previous sentence is obvious.)

    Instead, the projects are taking an average of 42 months to completion.  Further, most aren’t yet fully operational.

    In aggregate, the projects were projected to cost $95M.  So far, the VA has spent approximately $408M – which is “only” 329+% over budget.  And some of the projects haven’t even begun to produce electricity, let alone reach full operating capacity.  In fact, of the 15 projects investigated by the VA OIG only two were operating at design capacity by March of this year.

    The Washington Free Beacon has a good article giving more details.  It’s worth a read.  So is the VA OIG report on the subject (PDF format).  Be forewarned:  both just might p!ss you off.

    “Saving the environment”? Yeah, right.  IMO “political payback using tax dollars” sounds more like it.

  • Can You Say, “Ransom?” Sure. I Knew You Could.

    And apparently, so can the current Administration.  From the Wall Street Journal:

    U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed

    Predictably, the current       gang of naive tools in DC       Administration says that there was no “quid pro quo” involved.  It was merely a “coincidence” that $400M worth of cash procured by the US government from European central banks was airlifted in an unmarked cargo plane to Tehran at the same time 4 Americans held hostage by Iran were released.

    The article linked above gives more details.  IMO you should read it.  Prepare to get angry.

    I really wish the current Administration would quit insulting our  intelligence by peeing on our legs and claiming it’s raining.  I can’t speak for others – but I can certainly tell the difference between the two, thanks.

    This wasn’t rain.

  • Just More “Turkish Democracy”

    I wrote the other day about the     boneheaded idiocy exhibited by the current gang of fools in DC     current Administration’s reaction to the recent failed Turkish coup and its aftermath.  Well, it looks like the other shoe is about to drop.

    Turkey is continuing in it’s support for “democracy”.  It appears that the Turkish     Sultan     President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has decided to order 130 media organizations shut down.  Among those ordered closed were 45 newspapers, 23 radio stations, 16 TV stations, 15 magazines, and 3 news agencies.

    But not to worry, friends.  We’re merely “supporting the democratic government” of Turkey via supporting     Sultan     President Ergodan!

    That must be the case.  Our POTUS said so!

  • About That Bomber in Germany . . . .

    Remember the low-life bastard in Germany that Jonn wrote about the other day?  The guy who bombed the Ansbach music festival? You know, the guy from Syria who’d been denied asylum in Germany, but was allowed to remain (presumably temporarily) due to ongoing hostilities in his home nation?

    Yeah, that guy – the guy who blew himself up with a suicide vest at the festival’s entrance.  He ended up killing himself and wounding 12 others in the process.

    Well, guess what. According to the Bavarian state’s top security official:

    Syrian who wounded 12, killed self in Germany
    bombing pledged allegiance to ISIS chief

    But don’t worry, folks.  Something like that can’t possibly happen here.  We oh-so-thoroughly check out Syrian and other “refugees” attempting to enter the US.

    Why, we vet them almost as well  as we vet foreign-born spouses of US citizens who are applying for a visa.

  • So, We “Supported Democracy” In Turkey? Yeah. Right.

    Headline pretty much says it all:

    Turkey seizes more than 2,200 institutions
    as post-coup crackdown intensifies
     
    Many of the institutions seized were “social, educational or health-care institutions and facilities”.  The stated reason for seizing them?  “National security.”In a related matter, Turkey has announced it will hire 20,000 teachers to replace those fired in purge which followed the coup’s failure.  During that purge, a total of 13,000 have been jailed; more than 50,000 have been fired from all fields of employment because of being suspected “coup supporters”.

    Oh, and did I mention that 62 of those arrested for treason in Turkey are schoolchildren between the ages of 14 and 17? Or that they’ve issued arrest warrants for 42 journalists linked to a Turkish expatriate living in the US who opposes the current Turkish regime? Well, yeah – both of those are true too.

    But don’t worry.  According to the current      gang of feckeless, naive idiots running US foreign policy      Administration, that’s just the Turkish democratic process at work. Hell, it must be – the President publicly pledged to “support the democratically elected government of Turkey” after the coup failed.

    Meet the new boss
    Same as the old boss

    “Democractic process” my ass.  Here, the “old boss” referenced had the title “Sultan”.