Texas vs. California Update for September 14, 2016

September 14th, 2016

Time for another Texas vs. California update:

  • Vance Ginn makes the case that Texas is still kicking California’s ass:

    After descending into a deep valley during the recession, California’s economy has recently grown at a faster rate than in Texas, where the drop in oil prices and higher value of the dollar have negatively affected the mining and manufacturing sectors. However, during the last decade, the productive, real private sector growth has increased by 13.6 percent in California compared with a robust 29.1 percent in Texas.

    This growth translates into output per person in Texas increasing almost four times more than in California in that period, meaning economic output has far outpaced population growth.

    Although contemporary economic growth in California has led to a higher annual job creation rate than in Texas since April 2015, this only tells part of the story.

    Since December 2007 when the last national recession started, total civilian employment increased in California by 1.2 million while it increased by 1.7 million in Texas, with a labor force two-thirds the size of California’s. This increase in employment in Texas constitutes about one-third of all jobs created nationwide — truly remarkable given recent headwinds!

    This phenomenal job creation contributed to Texas’ unemployment rate (4.6 percent) being at or below California’s rate (5.5 percent) for 121 straight months, or since July 2006. But the official unemployment rate only accounts for those actually looking for work, a better gauge of labor force health would be the share of the population employed, which has been higher in Texas than in California since at least 2000.

    More economic output and job creation over time in Texas has contributed to less poverty. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ supplemental poverty measure, which accounts for the local cost of living, shows that Texas’ rate matches the national average while California has the nation’s highest poverty rate

    Income inequality has also been higher in California than in Texas for years. For example, the average of total income held by the top 10 percent of income earners from 2000 to 2012 was 49.9 percent in California compared with 48.8 percent in Texas.

    The results are pretty clear that California’s progressive policies of having the highest marginal personal income tax rate, cumbersome regulations, huge unfunded pension obligations, an out of control lawsuit environment, and other policies reduce economic opportunity.

    (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)

  • High earners are leaving blue states like California for red states like Texas:

    For generations, the Golden State developed a reputation as the ultimate destination of choice for millions of Americans. No longer. Since 2000 the state has lost 1.75 million net domestic migrants, according to Census Bureau estimates. And even amid an economic recovery, the pattern of outmigration continued in 2014, with a loss of 57,900 people and an attraction ratio of 88.5, placing the Golden State 13th from the bottom, well behind longtime people exporters Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Louisiana. California was a net loser of domestic migrants in all age categories.

    Snip.

    Much of the discussion about millennial migration tends to focus on high-cost, dense urban regions such as those that dominate New York, Massachusetts and, of course, California. Yet the IRS data tells us a very different story about migrants aged 26 to 34. Here it’s Texas in the lead, and by a wide margin, followed by Oregon, Colorado, Washington, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine, Florida and New Hampshire. Once again New York and Illinois stand out as the biggest losers in this age category.

    Perhaps more important for the immediate future may be the migration of people at the peak of their careers, those aged 35 to 54. These are also the age cohorts most likely to be raising children. The top four are the same in both cohorts. Among the 35 to 44 age group, it’s Texas, followed by Florida, South Carolina and North Dakota. Among the 45 to 54 cohort, Texas, followed by South Carolina, Florida and North Dakota.

  • California just raised your food costs.
  • And agricultural producers are not happy:

    The Governor signed this ag overtime bill in the same year that minimum wage legislation was also passed that will take California to the highest minimum wage as well as legislation forcing California to adopt additional greenhouse gas regulations for businesses in California.

    California is the only state in the country subject to such regulations. Today’s signing occurred despite numerous requests by the agricultural industry to meet with the Governor to discuss our concerns. The message is clear. California simply doesn’t care.

  • Ca;ifornia companies have a hard time attracting workers:
  • More than two-thirds (70 percent) of organizations in California indicated that they have had difficulty recruiting for full-time regular positions in the last 12 months, similar to 68 percent nationally.
  • California organizations were more likely than organizations nationally to report competition from other employers (56 percent), qualified candidates rejecting compensation packages (28 percent), qualified candidates not being able to move to their local area (21 percent), or a relocation or a relocation package not being competitive or not being offered (12 percent) as top reasons for hiring difficulty.
  • Why California can’t build more housing. “Labor unions—which ostensibly stand for working class interests—will not stand for new construction unless it is accompanied by carve-outs and cronyist regulations that artificially boost their compensation.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “California’s unfunded pension debts may be larger than acknowledged.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • “The biggest problem faced by the State of California is not ‘climate change’ or ‘poverty it is the overreaching power of California government itself, namely the California Legislature and Administration, and the threats that this Democrat establishment poses to California’s future, particularly with regard to the economy and individual liberty. California Democrats are celebrating the passage of new climate change legislation that provides California government with broad, sweeping new powers to drastically curb greenhouse gas reductions without regard to economic impact or the basic rights of businesses and individuals.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • Palo Alto decides that they hate, hate, hate that golden goose.
  • Maybe that’s why some observers are telling people “If You Own A Home In Palo Alto, CA; Sell It Now.” As the median price of homes has actually started dropping, though from admittedly already insane heights…
  • “Case Study: How Politicians Motivate Companies to Leave California.”
  • Orange County clerk took bribes to make charges disappear.
  • Corrupt Oakland police sentenced. There are all sorts of real winners in this story…
  • “LAX Police Assistant Chief Resigns Amid Corruption Allegations.”
  • University of California hires India-based IT outsourcer, lays off tech workers. “The layoffs will happen at the end of February, but before the final day arrives the IT employees expect to train foreign replacements from India-based IT services firm HCL. The firm is working under a university contract valued at $50 million over five years.” This might be a good time to throw in a “How’s that $15 minimum wage working out for you, San Francisco,” but there’s another factor at work: “Joe Bengfort, the CIO for the UCSF campus, said the campus is facing ‘difficult circumstances’ because of declining reimbursement and the impact of the Affordable Healthcare Act, which has increased the volume of patients but limits reimbursement to around 55 cents on the dollar, he said.” So San Franciscans IT workers are losing their jobs thanks to ObamaCare.
  • “Texas has proven it’s possible to have both much lower crime and a lower rate of imprisonment. Indeed, Texas’ FBI index crime rate, which accounts for both violent crime and property crime, has fallen more sharply than it has nationally, posting a 29 percent drop from 2005 to 2014, the latest full year for which official data is available.”
  • “It turns out that the average property tax bill required to support BART’s proposed $3.5 billion bond measure on the November ballot could be as much as four times what the transit agency claimed…That’s because legal language in Measure RR allows BART to issue bonds at up to the state limit of 12 percent interest.” 12%? With 30 year U.S. Treasuries running under 2%? The fact they think they may have to go that high to attract investors suggests how worried bond traders are about the future of California’s economy…
  • Some are less than enthused about BART’s bond proposal:

    BART officials want voters to trust them with another $3.5 billion of taxpayer money. But they’ve done nothing to earn that trust.

    Instead, they have recklessly spent what they have, grossly understated how much their ballot proposal would raise property tax bills and devised plans to use money from the measure, intended for capital projects, to indirectly cover inflated labor costs.

    Voters in Alameda County, Contra Costa and San Francisco should say no — hell no. They should reject Measure RR on the Nov. 8 ballot.

    Despite the problems facing the transit agency, it makes no sense to approve five decades of extra taxes when Measure RR lacks a logical budget, a timeline for service improvements and provisions ensuring taxpayers and riders get what they’re promised.

    The measure would authorize the district to borrow $3.5 billion through bond sales as part of a larger plan to upgrade BART’s infrastructure. The ballot wording conveniently omits that the district would tax property owners for 48 years to pay off the debt.

    (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)

  • Speaking of California bonds: Proposition 53 explained.
  • California’s legislature passes extension of sexual assault statue of limitations mainly over Bill Cosby. Combine this with the trend of colleges redefining rape to “any sex a woman later regrets,” and suddenly the state has the ability to prosecute anyone who ever had sex in California…
  • Leprosy Scare in California Elementary School. “There are approximately 6,500 cases of leprosy in the United States, and 90 percent of the cases are immigrants from countries where leprosy is endemic.With the increase in illegal immigrants and refugees in recent years, diseases thought to be eradicated in this country — like tuberculosis, polio, measles and leprosy — have unfortunately reemerged in the United States.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Image Comics to move from Berkeley to Portland.
  • “Cow Fart Regulations Approved By California’s Legislature.” No, not an Onion piece.
  • Follow-up: Pacific Sunwear exits bankruptcy.

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    This Week in Clinton Corruption for September 13, 2016

    September 13th, 2016

    Yesterday was devoted to lies about Hillary Clinton’s obvious ill health (and her team’s blatant lying about it). Today is all about Clinton’s corruption.

    You mean you’d pick on a sick old woman?

    In this case: absolutely!

  • “Clinton Foundation Is Charity Fraud Of Epic Proportions.”

    When Ortel tried to match up the Clinton Foundation’s tax filings with the disclosure reports from its major donors, he said he started to find problems. That includes records from the foundation’s many offshoots—including the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the Clinton Global Initiative—as well as its foreign subsidiaries.

    “I decided it would be fun to cross-check what their donors thought they did when they donated to the Clinton Foundation, and that’s when I got really irritated,” he said. “There are massive discrepancies between what some of the major donors say they gave to the Clinton Foundation to do, and what the Clinton Foundation said what they got from the donors and what they did with it.”

    As previously reported, last year the Clinton Foundation was forced to issue corrected tax filings for several years to correct donation errors. But Ortel said many of the discrepancies remain. “I’m against charity fraud. I think people in both parties are against charity fraud, and this is a charity fraud,” he said.

    To be sure, Ortel’s efforts were to be commended: digging through the foundation’s numbers can not have been easy, considering that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put the Clinton Foundation on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits in 2015. Furthermore, the Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid. That’s because the organization spent the vast bulk of its windfall on “administration, travel, salaries and bonuses”, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

  • More: “An educated guess, based upon ongoing analysis of the public record begun in February 2015, is that the Clinton Foundation entities are part of a network that has defrauded donors and created illegal private gains of approximately $100 billion in combined magnitude, and possibly more, since 23 October 1997.”
  • How did Clinton toady Sydney Blumenthal get his hands on top secret NSA reports less than 24 hours after they were presented? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Hillary’s lackeys went on an email deletion spree after the subpoenas were issued.
  • Trump: “People who have nothing to hide don’t smash phones.” (Hat tip: Director Blue)
  • “Clinton Foundation officials repeatedly skirted or ignored federal laws and regulations while converting the non-profit from its tax-exempt purpose of building a presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas, into a $2 billion global machine selling political influence and access on an unprecedented scale, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.”
  • “FBI managers instructed to exonerate Hillary Clinton.”
  • If you want to restore the rule of law, you need to vote for Trump.
  • “‘Crooked Hillary’ nickname isn’t going away.”
  • ”A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”
  • Matt Lauer criticized for not being sufficiently deferential to Queen Hillary.
  • “A media organization demanding that other media organizations stop reporting on an obviously newsworthy story, exactly because it’s hurting the liberal Democratic criminal they favor.”
  • Obama’s Justice Department seems to be keen on giving Clinton’s IT people immunity…and then doing nothing with the information.
  • Random Slashdot comment on how in-the-tank for Hillary (and hypocrisy) “Public Citizen” is: “That’s right: a 501(c)(4) corporation made a movie with the express political purpose of protesting the Supreme Court decision that a 501(c)(4) corporation could make a movie with an express political purpose!”
  • A pre-collapse Hillary, enjoying smaller than expected crowds, walls off portion of room to give illusion of fullness.
  • What happens if Hillary drops out? However, I don’t think the DNC would actually try to foist Chelsea off on us as the Democratic candidate, for a host reasons too extensive to explicate here.
  • More on the same theme. Also, hats off to the New York Post graphics department for this:

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “The media elites are in a panic. They witnessed the meltdown of their candidate in broad daylight and can feel that shiver up their spine — except that this time, it is not the delight of victory they are feeling, but the dread of defeat.”

    • And as a bonus, here are a few more links about Hillary’s obvious ill-health:

  • “The most charitable reading of this timeline is that her campaign — presumably with the blessing and perhaps insistence of the candidate — fully intended to keep her illness a secret from the public. Let’s be clear about what this means: Her campaign intended to lie.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • They even avoided the ER just to conceal her medical treatment from the public.
  • Today’s spin on the why of the lie: It’s all her staff’s fault.
  • Clinton News Network is gonna Clinton News Network. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Longtime Huffington Post writer fired for questioning Hillary’s health vindicated. “It turns out Dr. Drew and I lost our media perches for simply sharing incontrovertible truth, which I knew at the time: Hillary Clinton’s health is not just bad. It’s not just allergies. Hillary Clinton’s health is horrific.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

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    How Sick Is Hillary Clinton?

    September 12th, 2016

    In case you missed it over the weekend, Hillary Clinton collapsed in pubic.

    Here’s the video:

    “Her campaign later said that she was overheated and went to rest at her daughter’s apartment. She later came out from the apartment to demonstrate her condition to the media. She did not take questions.”

    Yup, nothing at all suspicious there. As Ace of Spades notes: “If someone was unsteady on their feet and needed to be propped up, then buckled and fell, wouldn’t you take that person to the hospital? You would — unless this was a fairly frequent occurrence you had just gotten used to dealing with in-house.”

    Team Hillary’s spin is that she just happens to be suffering from a number of completely unrelated health issues that all just happened to occur in a short period of time. The coughing? Allergies. The collapse? That was because she was “overheated.” No, wait, we mean she has pneumonia.

    And now she’s cancelled a planned campaign trip to California.

    You know what they call someone who suffers a bunch of unrelated illnesses in a short period of time? Sickly. Or just plain sick. If she was a character in a Gothic novel, they’d be asking “Will sickly Mrs. Clinton succumb to the baleful atmosphere of vast, chilly Kickback Manor?”

    Here’s a rundown of all Clinton’s numerous recent maladies. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

    Even the mainstream media has been forced to admit that it’s a real issue.

    Does Clinton have Parkinson’s Disease? At least one doctor thinks so:

    Among the Hillary emails released by Julian Assange was one by an aide (Jake Sullivan, if I remember right) giving her a summary on the effectiveness of a drug called Provigil — a drug often used to combat the mental lapses and lack of focus typical of Parkinson’s sufferers.

    The video does have a Zapruderish “back and to the left, back and to the left” quality to it. So be prepared to tighten or loosen your tin foil helmet, per your own comfort level.

    Nonetheless, much of it seems plausible.

    He explains the freeze in front of the crowd many have discussed at 11:15. He says this is a common Parkinson’s reaction to overstimulous — the brain freezes, and needs a sort of ‘reset” to get going again. He notes that she repeats the words her handler says to her during the freeze, which he claims is a common Parkinson’s symptom, echoing the last thing you heard to get your brain firing regularly again.

    He also explains the coughing fits. He says this is not bronchitis. Rather, he claims, Parkinson’s patients frequently have swallowing problems. They accidentally swallow food or liquid into their airways, their lungs. This aspirated food and water then causes pneumonia.

    He doesn’t say this, but it can be guessed out: Per his theory, Hillary has had this case of pneumonia for a long time because she keeps getting pneumonia due to this tendency towards aspiration pneumonia.

    It should be noted that aspiration pneumonia is a common symptom of Parkinson’s — indeed, it’s the leading cause of death among Parkinson’s sufferers.

    Here’s the video Dr. Ted Noel put together:

    And here’s that painful extended coughing fit she suffered earlier this month:

    That doesn’t sound like “allergies” to me. (Here’s Rush Limbaugh on Hillary’s coughing spasm.)

    Here’s more on the possibility Hillary has aspirational pneumonia:

    I raise this second possibility because of Hillary’s history of neurological illnesses (blood clot in brain, concussion), hints raised on the internet in Wikileaks documents and by others that she may have a neurological disease like Parkinson’s, and her by now well documented history of recurrent coughing fits. This second possibility is that she has an aspiration pneumonia.

    Aspiration pneumonia occurs when fluids and food particles that normally enter the esophagus instead enter the windpipe and lungs. It is commonly seen in neurological conditions like strokes and Parkinson’s disease or similar diseases where the nerves to the swallowing mechanism are not working properly. This is especially worrisome because it is likely to recur given the underlying, usually incurable disease process and because it can be a life-threatening event.

    I consider aspiration pneumonia to be the more likely cause because it unifies all the pieces of disparate information that are available on Hillary’s medical condition. A diagnosis of aspiration pneumonia raises profoundly troubling implications for her possible election as president.

    Remember Dr. Drew Pinsky expressing concern about her health and how Team Hillary got Google to hide search results on Hillary’s health. (And they’re still doing it. Even today, Google won’t auto complete “Hillary Health,” only “Hillary Health Care.” Of course, it’s a Pyrrhic victory, since the second search autocomplete result is now “hillary clinton seizure.”)

    How bad would Clinton’s health have to get for Democrats to consider replacing her? And would it even be legal to do so at this point? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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    LinkSwarm for September 9, 2016

    September 9th, 2016

    A short LinkSwarm for a short week…

  • Trump up by two in CNN poll.
  • Democrats on the verge of panic. Usual WSJ hoops apply. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • In the course of mocking Gary Johnson for not knowing which Syrian city is which, New York Times actually ends up making a worse mistake, eventually making a correction to their correction’s correction.
  • Conservative State Senator Andy Biggs wins his race for Arizona’s 5th Congressional District by 9 votes over more liberal GoDaddy executive Christine Jones, which will trigger an automatic recount.
  • NHS Rations health care to obese people and smokers. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Muslims in Buffalo, NY Say “F**k America!” After Being Arrested for Food Stamp Fraud.”
  • Muslim immigrants and the decline of Buffalo.
  • Dr. Paolo Macchiarini is an expert in regenerative medicine. And by “regenerative medicine” I mean academic fraud and killing patients. And that’s not all! He’s also a liar of such epic proportions he convinced his girlfriend that they were going to be personally married by the Pope…
  • The Swiss watch industry is doomed. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Nuclear ant colony hell. (Hat tip: Moe Lane)

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    Welcome Empower Texans To The Blogroll

    September 8th, 2016

    Here’s another link I’ve been meaning to add to the blogroll for a while: Empower Texans. Michael Quinn Sullivan’s group (a companion organization to Texans for Fiscal Responsibility) does a good job of covering Texas political news and drawing attention to government abuses.

    Well worth checking out.

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    Houston Jury Smacks SEIU With $5.3 Million Award

    September 7th, 2016

    Here’s a rare thing: A union actually being held accountable for breaking the law:

    A Harris County jury on Tuesday awarded a Houston commercial cleaning firm $5.3 million in damages, finding that a labor union’s aggressive organizing campaign went too far when it maligned the reputation of the company. It opens the door for more employers to sue unions over hardball tactics often used in membership drives and contract disputes.

    The jury, by a 10-2 vote, found for Professional Janitorial Service in a suit the company brought nine years ago against the Service Employees International Union, which targeted the company as part of its “Justice for Janitors” organizing campaign and wrongly claimed Professional Janitorial Service had violated wage, overtime and other labor laws.

    The case was the first time that a jury has found against a union in a business defamation or disparagement case, according to a search of legal records by the company’s law firm, AZA of Houston.

    “The jury found what PJS and its employees have known for more than a decade,” Brent Southwell, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement. “The SEIU is a corrupt organization that is rotten to its core.”

    Snip.

    The trial, which lasted four weeks, represented the first time the SEIU, which has nearly 2 million members nationwide, has had to defend its tactics in front to a jury. Other cases, including a federal racketeering lawsuit filed by the international food, maintenance and cleaning company Sodexo in 2011, were settled before they ever got before a jury.

    Empower Texans has more background on SEIU tactics:

    One of the tactics many unions use to access potential members is “salting,” and the SEIU is no exception. Salting is the tactic of sending a union-affiliate to a targeted employer to apply for, and then accept a position working for the company. Since unions are often prohibited from contacting employees at work, salts do it for them.

    Two of the salts used against PJS were Adriana Menchu and Eleanor Parada; both have been reoccurring figures during the SEIU trial.

    The union used Menchu’s name in various campaigns, lawsuits, and fliers. In one flier she was quoted saying, “They don’t give us gloves or masks to clean. I know a woman who brings her own cleaning supplies from home just so she can protect her health.” Which PJS refuted with their longstanding policy prohibiting the use of any outside cleaning agents unless supplied by the company.

    SEIU fliers claimed that PJS failed to pay Menchu for hours worked, but internal union emails contradicted that statement saying that PJS was trying to “buy” Menchu off by giving her a raise. More evidence that they knew the information they were releasing was false.

    One press release read, “Mostly immigrant janitors were instructed to work ‘off-the-clock’ and had pay withheld by the city’s largest locally-based cleaning company, Professional Janitorial Service (PJS), according to a new lawsuit filed today.”

    Never revealing that SEIU was the party behind the lawsuit, or that the union planted the “janitors” they were referring to.

    Parada was another salt frequently used in lawsuits, and was quoted in an SEIU press release about the unfair labor practice suit they filed saying, “We work hard, but PJS thinks they can treat us however they want…That’s why PJS janitors are taking a stand today – so we can have some basic protections.”

    It’s worth noting that until the SEIU came to Houston to unionize janitors PJS had never faced labor violation allegations, had not been investigated by the Department of Labor or National Labor Relations Board, and had not had unfair labor practice lawsuits filed against them. Also, out of the 20 ULPs the union filed against PJS, 19 were dismissed with the last being rectified by simply having the employer post safety signs in the workplace.

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    Posted in Texas, unions | 1 Comment »

    This (Half?) Week in Clinton Corruption for September 6, 2016

    September 6th, 2016

    So right after I put up two separate posts on Hillary Clinton’s corruption, the FBI drops the full (and by “full” I mean “heavily redacted”) summary report on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server. Jim Geraghty summarizes salient points from the FBI report in Monday’s Morning Jolt:

    1. The FBI investigation began because of a referral from the U.S. Intelligence Community Inspector General. This is not the vast right-wing conspiracy or one of Hillary Clinton’s partisan foes; the IG’s office is staffed by those whose professional duty is to protect our nation’s secrets. Looking at the evidence, they grew concerned that a crime may have or is likely to have been committed. The inspector general, I. Charles McCullough, III, is career law enforcement: FBI, Department of the Treasury, NSA.

    2. The FBI cannot prove conclusively that hostile foreign actors accessed her server; but they did find that “hostile foreign actors successfully gained access to the personal e-mail accounts of individuals with whom Clinton was in regular contact and, in doing so, obtained e-mails sent to or received by Clinton on that personal account.”

    3. As we all know, Clinton claimed she used the private server for “convenience” because she only wanted to use one device. The FBI found 13 total mobile devices used to send e-mails; they asked for them and Clinton’s lawyers said they could not locate any of those devices. The FBI identified five iPads used by Clinton; three were turned over to the FBI. Hillary’s Blackberry phones were off-the-shelf from AT&T stores around the Washington, D.C. area. Apparently Clinton didn’t like upgrades; “According to Abedin, it was not uncommon for Clinton to use a new Blackberry for a few days and then immediately switch it out for an older version with which she was more familiar.”

    No one knows where the old phones are; in two instances, her phones were destroyed with a hammer. This means there are eleven or so mobile phones with God knows how much classified information on them effectively missing.

    4. Clinton was obligated to get permission to use her personal device; at no time did she do so. Everything she has said about her use of the personal device being permitted is completely false.

    5. “State employees alleged that John Bentel, [a senior State Department official, handling IT for senior officials] discouraged employees from raising concerns about Clinton’s use of personal e-mail.” When interviewed by the FBI, Bentel denied anyone raising any concerns, that he had discouraged anyone from raising those concerns, or that he was aware she was using a personal account for State business. This seems implausible. As Clinton herself said to the FBI, it was common knowledge among State Department employees.

    6. This should be thrown in the face of any Clinton defender who cites Colin Powell as an exculpatory witness:

    7. “In 2011, a notice to all State employees was sent on Clinton’s behalf, which recommended employees avoid conducting State business on personal e-mail accounts due to information security concerns.” Clinton said she didn’t recall sending that notice or ever getting any advice on using personal accounts.

    Clinton told the FBI she could not recall or not remember 39 times.

    Here’s the really galling part, considering the screams of outrage that greet any comment about Clinton’s age or health in this election cycle:

    CLINTON stated she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from State during the transition out of her role as Secretary of State in early 2013. However, in December of 2012, CLINTON suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot. Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received. CLINTON did not have any discussions with aides about turning over her email records, nor did anyone from State request them. She believed her work-related emails were captured by her practice of sending email to the state.gov email address of her staff. CLINTON was unaware of the requirement to turn over printed records at that time. Her physical records were boxed up and handled by aides.

    In other Clinton Corruption news:

  • Also interesting about the FBI report is what was left out: “There is no indication that in the course of the interview, FBI agents once asked the former secretary of state about emails to and from Clinton aides regarding Clinton Foundation business.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Did Team Clinton destroy evidence? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • “I consider the Clinton Foundation to be a charity fraud network. I base this conclusion on my review of extensive data about its operations including the activities of the Clinton family and their friends in Haiti, a nation that has suffered many disasters, both natural and manmade.”
  • “There are only two things I can identify at which the Clinton Foundation excels: putting cash in the bank and spending it.”
  • How can former State Department employee Cheryl Mills be Hillary Clinton’s counsel during the investigation when she was also a material witness and participant in the crimes being investigated? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Ashe Schow notes that you can’t keep track of Clinton scandals without a scorecard. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Hillary Clinton does not sound at all well. No, really. She has like a five minute coughing fit she tries to talk through. The last time I heard someone cough that much, they died at the hopsital later that week.
  • Inside Bill Clinton’s $18 million phony baloney job as “honorary chancellor” of for-profit Laureate International Universities. $18 million is a whole lot of “honorary.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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    LinkSwarm for September 2, 2016

    September 2nd, 2016

    Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone!

  • Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are in a statistical tie.
  • Ditto Rasmussen: Trump 40%, Clinton 39%. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • 538: Don’t Assume The Electoral College Will Save Clinton.
  • Let us celebrate the fall of Alan Grayson with a look back at his greatest hits.
  • Huge food stamp fraud bust in Baltimore. More than half those arrested have names like “Mulazam Hussain.”
  • How the New York Times lies about red state vs. blue state prosperity.
  • Milo Yiannopoulos decries the Islamicization of London and declares he’s leaving.
  • “After a lengthy period of deliberation, the Brazilian parliament has formally removed from office President Dilma Rousseff, the corrupt left-wing populist who has been trying to do for Brazil what Hugo Chávez and his epigones did for Venezuela.” This is at NRO, which has recently installed an AdBlocker blocker, so good luck reading it. If it’s a choice between turning off my AdBlocker or giving up on reading NRO, I’ll give up on reading NRO, even though I subscribe to NRODT. Though I am still trying to figure out which combination of RefControl, GreaseMonkey and cookie deletion that will block the AdBlocker blocker…
  • Would you bite the hand that feeds you? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Is this Indonesian man really 145 years old? He does sort of look it…
  • Lefty science fiction writer John Shirley (who I workshopped with at a Turkey City many moons ago) has penned a piece on why science fiction needs conservatives at Tangent Online. And I’m accurately quoted. The big caveat is that Shirley doesn’t understand modern conservatism at all, doesn’t know what they’re trying to conserve, and doesn’t make mention of constitutional rights or limited government. But at least he’s recognized how Social Justice Warriors are poisoning the field.
  • “Alabama ACLU sues government, claiming pro-Muslim discrimination.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Are Austin’s red light cameras illegal?
  • The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
  • Newly hired woman explains how she got screwed out of her paycheck by a Silicon Valley startup. She also ignored several early warning signs…
  • Great story from Charles James II on how he made the Texans. “If you need a story to give you hope, I want you to lean on mine. As long as your most valuable measurable is your work ethic, there’s no reason you can’t be successful at whatever you wish to do.”
  • “Everyone was loving Montreal’s family-friendly puppet festival until the prison rape part.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Looks like your creepy Halloween stories are starting a little early this year: “At the edge of dark, dark woods in South Carolina, children have been telling adults that a group of clowns have been trying to lure them into the cluster of trees. They say the clowns live deep in the woods, near a house by a pond.” (Hat tip: Althouse.)
  • Workers tear up sidewalk to free a dog. With heart-tugging photo.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Clinton Bilked Taxpayers To Pay for Illegal Email Server

    September 1st, 2016

    This story broke today just after my weekly Clinton Corruption roundup went up, and I don’t want to wait an entire work for it to appear in the next one. (Besides, I’m sure there will be no shortage of Clinton scandals between now and then to cover.)

    Bill Clinton’s staff used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family’s foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife’s private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found.

    Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment — including servers — housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access scandals dogging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

    Snip.

    Even as the Clintons got rich and grew their foundation into a $2 billion organization credited with major victories in the fights against childhood obesity and AIDS — while paying six-figure salaries to top aides — Bill Clinton continued drawing more cash from the Former President’s Act than any other ex-president, according to a POLITICO analysis. The analysis also found that Clinton’s representatives, between 2001, when the Clintons left the White House, and the end of this year, had requested allocations under the Act totaling $16 million. That’s more than any of the other living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush — requested during that span.

    Well, the Clintons needed more money than all the other ex-Presidents combined because they’re more corrupt than all the ex-Presidents combined.

    using the GSA records, POLITICO pieced together a list of Clinton loyalists who at various times have had their earnings supplemented by federal payments of about $10,000-a-year using funds from the Former Presidents Act.

    The list reads like a field guide to Clinton World.

    It includes longtime Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper, who despite not having a security clearance, any apparent training in cybersecurity or a job at the State Department, in early 2009 helped set up the private email account that Hillary Clinton would use to send and receive classified information as secretary of state. Her use of that system has been dubbed “extremely careless” by the FBI director. Cooper continued working to maintain Clinton’s private email system — including advising her top aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, on attempted hacks — through at least 2012, according to emails released by the State Department.

    During some of that period, Cooper was on the GSA payroll, drawing a federal government stipend from February 2011 through 2013, according to the records obtained by POLITICO.

    At the same time, though, Cooper was working with Doug Band, a trusted Bill Clinton lieutenant, and Declan Kelly, a top Hillary Clinton fundraiser-turned-State Department official, to launch a global consulting firm called Teneo. It did lucrative work for foundation donors and entities with business before Clinton’s State Department. And it signed a contract reportedly worth $3.5 million with Bill Clinton to serve as a “honorary chairman” (though the former president ultimately kept only $100,000 of that, according to his tax returns and a source familiar with the arrangement). Teneo also paid Abedin as a “senior advisor.”

    All the while, Band and Abedin were working together to broker meetings between Secretary of State Clinton and donors to the foundation, where Band served as an official until 2012, drawing an annual salary that in some years exceeded $111,000.

    Yet, despite the profitable consulting business and his foundation compensation, Band continued drawing a taxpayer-funded stipend from the GSA until 2013.

    Also receiving a salary from both the GSA and the Clinton Foundation was Laura Graham, who remained in extremely close contact with Clinton’s top aide at the State Department, swapping emails about sensitive foreign policy issues. During most of her time on the GSA payroll, Graham was earning a six-figure salary from the Clinton Foundation, which topped out at $190,000 per year in 2014.

    Cooper, Band and Graham are no longer on the GSA payroll, nor are they working for the foundation. They all either declined to comment or did not respond to questions about the overlap between their taxpayer-funded work, the foundation and the State Department.

    Clinton corruption! You’re soaking in it! And paying for it…

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ and Jim Gegherty’s Morning Jolt.)

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »

    This Week in Clinton Corruption for September 1, 2016

    September 1st, 2016

    Another week, another Hillary Clinton corruption roundup. Remember, this is only what I had time to compile among all my other work, blogging, writing, etc. Cataloging Clinton corruption could easily be a full time job…

  • This week brought still more evidence that Hillary lied about her emails. (Clip and save that preceding sentence, as I’m sure you’ll be able to use it again.) “Approximately 30 of the 14,900 deleted emails recovered by the FBI from Hillary Clinton’s private email server may involve the 2012 attack on Benghazi, Libya, State Department lawyers said on Tuesday.”
  • She even sent out classified emails after she left office. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • The FBI is also gong to release the report that led to the Hillary non-indictment. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • 25 questions Hillary Clinton must answer under oath by September 29. This is another outgrowth of the Judicial Watch lawsuit. It being Hillary, I’m betting she finds some way to finagle out of it, or push it back after the election.
  • Legal loophole let’s state Democratic parties launder big money from federal donors over the legal limit right back to Hillary. Hillary’s the candidate of the fat cats, by the fat cats, and for the fat cats. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Hillary Clinton doesn’t discriminate: If you’re willing to give her large sums of money, she’s willing to take it, even if you’re on the terror watch no-fly list.
  • There were also at least five felons among Clinton Foundation donors.
  • Former Clinton campaign operative dishes the dirt. “She sleeps approximately 18 hours a day.” Usual anonymous source caveats apply. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “A record number of voters dislike Hillary Clinton.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Dr. Drew Pinsky’s show on headline News cancelled right after he says he’s gravely concerned about Hillary Clinton’s health. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • More Dr. Drew on Hillary’s health.
  • “Recent search engine results indicate Google, whose CEO is a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is suppressing negative search results about the Democratic party’s presidential nominee.” Indeed, the fervor with which Hillary’s backers and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) attempt to suppress discussion of Hillary’s health issues suggests there’s something deeply damaging there…

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections | 2 Comments »

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