That is the only conclusion one can draw from the presentation by the FBI Director today. The mishandling of the e-mails was a strict liability offense, no mens rea required. In other words no criminal intent need be shown in regard to Hillary Clinton which would make the prosecution much simpler. Former Federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online explains how Director Comey in effect rewrote the applicable criminal statute to get Hillary off the hook:
There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services. Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.
He headed the investigation and laid out all the ways she did wrong, but said no charges… Was the prosecute/not prosecute decision Lynch’s or Comey’s?
Lynch would have had the ultimate decision. After her meeting with Clinton she indicated that she would go with the recommendation of the FBI, which suggests to me that she knew what the FBI was going to recommend.
“Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi” really means:
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“What is permitted for Jove, is not permitted for the cow.”
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To apply to this to that witch, it should say:
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“Quod licet Herae, non licet bovi.”
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“What is permitted for Hera, is not permitted for the cow.”
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“Licet” goes into our English word “licit.” Rome’s Hera – Livia Drusilla Augusta Caesar – would be right at home in modern day America. For her, what she desired was always licit. People died to make it that way.
Now you have done it LQC!
“Feudalism: You have two cows. The lord of the manor takes some of the milk. And all the cream.
Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of your cows and gives it to your neighbor. You’re both forced to join a cooperative where you have to teach your neighbor how to take care of his cow.
Bureaucratic Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as its regulations say you should need.
Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
Pure Communism: You have two cows. Some of your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk, including with the neighbors who would sooner die than take care of cows.
Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You are sad. Vodka makes you forget all about the milk.
Communism: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for your share of the milk, but it’s so long that the milk is sour by the time you get it. The hard currency stores that you are unable to enter have the fresh milk.
Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Militarism: You have two cows. The government drafts you and the cows.
Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
American Democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair “Cowgate.” The cows are set free and go on welfare.
Democracy, Democrat-style: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being so successful. You vote politicians into office who tax your cows, which forces you to sell one to pay the tax. The politicians use the tax money to buy a cow for your neighbor. You feel good. Barbra Streisand sings for you.
Democracy, Republican-style: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You move to a better neighborhood.
Indian Democracy: You have two cows. You worship them.
British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains and they go mad. The government gives you compensation for your diseased cows, compensation for your lost income, and a grant not to use your fields for anything else. And tells the public not to worry.
Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
Anarchy: You have two cows. You set them free and they are promptly eaten by wolves.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You start a dairy and end up filthy rich.
Singaporean Democracy: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.
Hong Kong Capitalism (alias Enron Capitalism):
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute an debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows.
The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Isands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows’ milk back to the listed company.
The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.
Environmentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them. The cow population explodes and you are taxed to pay for cow contraception.
Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
Foreign Policy, American-Style: You have two cows. The government taxes them and uses the money to buy a cow for a poor farmer a country ruled by a dictator. The farmer has no hay to feed the cow and his religion forbids him from eating it. The cow dies. The man dies. The dictator confiscates the dead man’s farm and sells it, using the money to purchase US military equipment. The President declares the program a success and announces closer ties with our new ally.
Bureaucracy, American-Style: You have two cows but you have to kill one of them because the government will only give you a license for one of them. The license requires you to sell all your milk to the government, which uses it to make cheese. The government pays lots of money to store the cheese in refrigerated warehouses. When the cheese spoils, the government distributes it to the poor. The poor get sick from the cheese, go to the emergency room, and are turned away because they have no health insurance. The President declares the program a success and reminds us that we have the finest health care system in the world.
American Corporation: You have two cows. You sell one to a subsidiary company and lease it back to yourself so you can declare it as a tax loss. Your bosses give you a huge bonus. You inject the cows with drugs and they produce four times the normal amount of milk. Your bosses give you a huge bonus. When the drugs cause one of the cows to drop dead you announce to the press that you have down-sized, reducing expenses by 50 percent. The company stock goes up and your bosses give you a huge bonus. You lay off all your workers and move your production facilities to Mexico. You get a huge bonus. You contribute some of your profit to the President’s re-election campaign. The President announces tax cuts for corporations in order to stimulate the economy.
Japanese Corporation: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You teach the cows to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Your cows always get higher test scores than cows in the U.S. or Europe, but they drink a lot of sake.
German Corporation: You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year and are very expensive to repair.
Russian Corporation: You have two cows. You have some vodka. You count your cows and discover you really have five cows! You have more vodka. You count them again and discover you have 42 cows! You stop counting cows and have some more vodka. The Russian Mafia arrives and takes over all your cows. You have more vodka.
Italian Corporation: You have two cows but you can’t find them. While searching for them you meet a beautiful woman, take her out to lunch and then make love to her. Life is good.
French Corporation: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want another cow, more vacation and shorter work weeks. The French government announces that it will never agree to your demands. You go to lunch and eat fabulous food and drink wonderful wine. While you are at lunch, the airline pilots and flight controllers join your strike, shutting down all air traffic. The truckers block all the roads and the dock workers block all the ports. By dinner time the French government announces it agrees with all your demands. Life is good.
Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is an outdated symbol of your decadent, warmongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender. They get married and adopt a calf.
Counterculturalism: Wow, dude, there’s like . . . these two cows, man. You have got to have some of this milk.
Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.”
Distributism: You name one of your cows Chesterton and one of them Belloc, and argue with them about what distributism means. Nothing much else ever gets done.
Thank you for that, Don.
Terrific! Thanks indeed.
TAC, Brilliant comment. It will be amply shared and passed on.
The classic version is “Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.”
This explains how Jupiter accomplished his seduction of Europa. It does not permit the crooked Mrs. Clinton’s covering for Bill after his sexual assaults.
“Distributism: You name one of your cows Chesterton and one of them Belloc, and argue with them about what distributism means. Nothing much else ever gets done.”
Perhaps a variant is: You have two cows. A person who really, really understands Catholic Social teaching (as opposed to you) takes one of your cows and gives it to a person who knows nothing about cows, has no interest in cows and rather keep his job at the local Walmart. The second cow dies though social justice is obtained. Its your fault for not understanding love and mercy.
“Its your fault for not understanding love and mercy.”
Then Mark Shea writes a post blaming “the right wing noise machine” for the death of the cow.
🙂
Indeed. 🙂