Category Archives: Cabinet
Guccifer
An unemployed Romanian taxi driver named Marcel Lehel Lazar goes by the handle Guccifer. In his spare time he hacks the email of famous people. In 2013 he read email sent by Sidney Blumenthal to Hillary’s home brew account. For his troubles Lazar has been arrested and extradited to the U.S.
In a recent prison interview he told Catherine Herridge, of Fox News, that he hacked Hillary’s server. “It was easy,” said Guccifer.
The thinking is if a Romanian cab driver can do it, maybe the Chinese, Russians, and others can do it too.
So, while “Lucifer in the Flesh” is out of the presidential race, Guccifer is still a factor.
Update 07/07/16:
FBI Director Comey testified to Congress today that Guccifer admitted to the FBI that he lied about hacking Hillary’s server.
Business Boat People
Business boat people are fleeing America for lower tax countries. President Obama ordered another change in the law to make them stay put. The U.S. has one of the world’s highest corporate tax rates.
Ayatollah Banking Behavior
IBD had an editorial and the WSJ had an op-ed on Ayatollah banking behavior. Zany authoritarians worth billions who aren’t Donald Trump – I thought it was worth a cartoon.
Now that the mullahs are getting their moola back, possibly 100 billion in frozen assets thanks to the Iran nuclear deal, they want to be able to move it through the U.S. banking system. That’s been a no-no in the past. Apparently it would make it easier to launder money for terrorism. On the other hand it could make it easier for U.S. intelligence to keep track of Iran’s money.
Ayatollah Banking Behavior
Anyway, last summer Adam Szubin of the Treasury Department told Congress, “Iran will not be able to open bank accounts with U.S. banks, nor will Iran be able to access the U.S. banking sector.” Now Treasury Secretary Jack Lew seems less committal saying the administration is trying “to make sure Iran gets relief.”
Since the Iran nuclear deal isn’t a signed treaty, Iran could walk away if it doesn’t get what it wants.
Siri Spy
Apple doesn’t want to let Siri spy on you.
The Guardian reports, “When Apple announced in 2014 that it would no longer be able to break into its iPhones even under a court order, law enforcement agencies reacted with rage.”
The government is citing the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to write code to open the iPhone of a dead San Bernardino terrorist.
Wired quotes Nate Cardozo of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation saying,”The FBI “chose this case very carefully”. The feds want backdoors built into devices so they can access information. He thinks this is the “perfect case” to push for “backdoor” legislation.
Siri Spy
Apple says that courts recognize computer code as a form of speech. Compelling the company to make speech against its will could be a first amendment violation.
Apple asks, “what’s to prevent the government from forcing a computer company to write code to turn on the microphone, or the camera to spy on a suspect?”
Nilay Patel explains the legal case in The Verge. He thinks it will go to the Supreme Court.
Democrat Establishment Melt Down
The Democrat establishment is worried about a Clinton campaign melt down.
Hillary says, “no worries.” She’s not the establishment. She’s “a woman running to be the first woman president.” Then, again, Bernie Sanders is a Jew running to be the first Jewish president.
The first woman lost New Hampshire to the first Jewish Democratic Socialist by 22 points.
Hillary wasn’t even the first woman to be Secretary of State. Madeleine Albright was.
Democrat Establishment
Albright says, “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help women.” Evidently, that’s where you’ll find millennial women these days. They’re voting like crazy for Sanders. That’s because “that’s where the boys are,” according to Gloria Steinem. Kathleen Parker says there’s a more likely explanation:
…young liberal women, like their male counterparts, are attracted to the cool old guy because he’s promising a dream in which the rich have less and the poor have more. Robin Hood is so awesome.
Maureen Dowd thinks Hillary “is establishment enough.” Her sense of entitlement is her problem:
She has long been driven by a fear of being “dead broke,” as she put it — and a conviction that she deserved the life and perks she would have had if she had gone into the private sector. That led her to do her suspiciously lucrative commodity trades while Bill was Arkansas attorney general and to make Wall Street speeches on the cusp of her 2016 campaign, even though she and Bill had already made more than $139 million between 2007 and 2014.
Dowd says “Hillary isn’t likable enough for the young women who were supposed to carry her forward as a Joan of Arc.” At least not compared to “chick magnet” Bernie Sanders.
