[ExI] s&p 500 growth, was: RE:

Tue May 10 04:54:46 UTC 2016

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
…

>>…That is what Inspectors General and special prosecutors do: investigate and prosecute.  Bill Clinton’s blowjobs were as much his business as Nixon’s audiotapes were the damn business of Archie Cox and his staff in 1974.

>…Hmm, maybe the Nixon scandal and the Clinton scandal really are the same, burglary is against the law and in the 1990's oral sex was against the law…

John, it isn’t the blowjob.  It really isn’t, they don’t care about that.  The crime was trying to cover it up by not reporting it to the security people, and when legitimately questioned, perjury.  A top level security clearance holder had placed himself in a position to be blackmailed.  When questioned, he lied, which is perjury, which ja is illegal, was then, is now.  If the security people know a clearance holder did something for which he could be blackmailed, they set up a team to watch and listen to the girlfriend.  They make sure she doesn’t attempt blackmail.  They would probably tap her phone, hack into her server, watch everything incoming and outgoing.  In her case, they would have caught her, for she actually did try blackmail, but the security team didn’t know about that until later, for she confessed it under oath.

Chronology: blowjob.  She talks.  Story makes it back to security, they ask about it, Clinton lies, they drop the matter.  Later she attempts blackmail.  He refuses to see her, she carries out the threat, produces the evidence.  Now they know Clinton perjured himself.  Ken Starr is assigned as special prosecutor.  Hell how could he fail?  He had sworn testimony, with the infamous is-is comment, he had the DNA evidence.  What could Ken Starr have done, assuming he wanted to let this go?  Think about it: he is hired to prosecute a crime, and he had incontrovertible evidence.  What could he do?  Just look the other way?  In what sense would this not be fraud and complicity on his part?  Can we seriously say it was none of his damn business?  That was his only business.  That was his assignment.  What could he do?

>…As I understand it you think Ken Starr should be interested in presidential blowjobs because it could lead to blackmail, but blackmail will only work if bad things would come if something is revealed…

No, Ken Starr was interested in perjury, not blowjobs.  Something was revealed, by Monica’s blue dress.  There is no way Ken Starr or anyone could have suppressed that.  Oh how the press had a field day with that.  It was like kids getting out of school for the summer, oh the joy of newfound freedom.  Suddenly all these news people were free to write stories with all kinds of words they never thought they could ever use in the line of duty.  They did so, cheerfully, repeatedly.  That must have been a fun time to be a news writer.  The stories had such irrational exuberance. 

>… So if it became public what would the negative consequences be for the president and from whom would they come from? From the president's wife demanding a divorce? 

No, from the senate demanding impeachment for perjury.

>…The truth is the only person Bill had to fear if the blowjob became known was Ken Starr himself… John K Clark

Ja, he definitely had Ken Starr to fear.  But it isn’t lawman’s fault if he actually catches the bad guy.  Ken Starr did the job he was hired to do.  But it wasn’t the blowjob John, it was perjury he was looking for.  Blowjobs are legal.  Perjury is big big trouble.  That causes anyone else to lose their clearance.  We didn’t know (and still don’t) what happens when a president does something that would cause anyone else to have his clearance suspended (such as perjury.)  Presidents need a clearance.  Otherwise his own military brass may not legally brief him.

The weirdness persisted, until the senate finally decided perjury about a blowjob is kind of a special-case minor-league perjury that doesn’t really count.  Since the vote went along party lines, we set up a worrisome precedent: any attempt to prosecute Bill became part of a vast right wing conspiracy, a story Hillary is still holding to this day, a story she stuck with even after the blue dress.

OK so are there any other kinds of perjury that doesn’t really count?  And if the person on the giving end of that blowjob commits or attempts blackmail, does it not count?  Another side note: Kennedy misbehaved while in office, the nude swimming and so forth, but the security people knew about it.  Johnson boned a secretary in the oval, but the security people knew of that one too.  In both cases, they watched and made sure those cases didn’t get out of hand.

So then, what if we go ahead and say we need some special rules for the president in these matters?  What about the VP?  The SecState would not need those special considerations, since he or she is appointed by the president and can be replaced if they lose their clearance, for such things as… carelessness.  But the VP cannot be fired by the president.  So those who need security briefings would include at the least: the president, the VP, the SecState, the senate majority leader and the speaker of the house.  Of those, the president can only remove one: the SecState.

By my reasoning, we have a situation where the POTUS should have known the SecState was doing wrong.  He is responsible for that position, since he can fire a SecState.  We know Barack sent email to Hillary on the unsecured server.  We don’t know if he was aware she never used a secured server.  But that question will eventually be answered perhaps.  It raises another interesting pair of questions: how could a SecState possibly do her job if there was no legal means to communicate classified information?  Who in the State Department knew of this situation?

We might end up with yet another odd logic loop.  What if evidence suggests Barack knew Hillary was handling State Department business on an unsecured server.  We could end up in a situation where Barack issues a Ford-style pre-emptive pardon to Hillary in exchange for a promise that if she gets elected, she issues a pre-emptive pardon to him for complicity in mishandling State Department messages.  That would be a hell of a note.  Sheesh, had the Republicans chosen aaaaaany reasonable candidate, even recruiting the blank stare guy (Lincoln?) and convincing him to switch to Republican, this case would likely have been over by now.  But the way things turned out, our nation is in peril.  Our next leader is being chosen by the FBI.

But while we are on the topic of special considerations for the SecState, does it apply to her staff?  If we find out who was getting messages across the gap to an unsecured server, what happens to him or her?  Does the staffer go to prison for passing sensitive information to an unsecured server?  If so, do we go ahead and extend a blanket pardon to a group of conspirators?  Wouldn’t there be plenty of people in the State Department who either knew or should have known?  Do they all get pardons?

In the end, the question can only get messier.  I must conclude that ours is a nation of laws, and our government officials are obligated to follow them, as are the citizens.  In any case, it is possible our wager will be settled before 8 November. 

spike

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