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Economy

Weekly-Jobless-Claims-Graphic

Weekly Jobless Claims Graphic. Number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits.

The Labor Department said the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 254,000 for the week ending July 2, a decrease of 16,000. The previous week’s level was revised up by 2,000 from 268,000 to 270,000.

The weekly jobless claims report came in lower than the median forecast calling for 270,000. While the report marks 70 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973, these numbers are highly influences by chronic long-term unemployment and labor force participation, both of which are also at their worst level since the 1970s.

A Labor Department analyst said were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims and no state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending June 18.

The four-week moving average was 264,750, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 500 from 266,750 to 267,250.

There were 7,215 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending June 18, a decrease of 233 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 13,212, an increase of 124 from the prior week.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending June 18 were in Puerto Rico (3.1), Alaska (2.9), Connecticut (2.4), Pennsylvania (2.4), West Virginia (2.4), Wyoming (2.4), New Jersey (2.3), California (2.2), Illinois (2.0), Massachusetts (1.8), New Mexico (1.8), and Nevada (1.8).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending June 25 were in New Jersey (+6,715), California (+5,163), Massachusetts (+3,248), Michigan (+2,704), and New York (+1,943), while the largest decreases were in Pennsylvania (-2,671), Wisconsin (-1,595), Florida (-1,107), South Carolina (-852), and Ohio (-660).

The Labor Department said the advance figure

Opinion

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch in Phoenix on Tuesday. A private meeting at the city’s airport between Ms. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton this week set off a political uproar. Credit Nancy Wiechec/Reuters

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch in Phoenix on Tuesday. A private meeting at the city’s airport between Ms. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton this week set off a political uproar. (Photo: Reuters)

Is it worth impairing the reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice to save Hillary Clinton from a deserved criminal prosecution by playing word games?

What has become of the rule of law — no one is beneath its protections or above its requirements — when the American public can witness a game of political musical chairs orchestrated by Bill Clinton at an airport in a bizarre ruse to remove the criminal investigation of his wife from those legally responsible for making decisions about it?

How hairsplitting can the FBI be in acknowledging “extreme recklessness” while denying “gross negligence” about the same events, at the same time, and in the same respect?

These are questions that now beg for answers in light of what can only be the politically motivated FBI report delivered earlier this week on the likely criminal behavior of Hillary Clinton.

The espionage statute that criminalizes the knowing or grossly negligent failure to keep state secrets in a secure venue is the rare federal statute that can be violated and upon which a conviction may be based without the need of the government to prove intent.

Thus, in the past two years, the DOJ has prosecuted a young sailor for sending a single selfie to his girlfriend that inadvertently showed a submarine sonar screen in its background. It also prosecuted a Marine lieutenant who sent his military superiors a single email about the presence of al-Qaida operatives dressed as local police in a U.S. encampment in Afghanistan — but who inadvertently used his Gmail account rather than his secure government account.

And it famously prosecuted Gen. David Petraeus for sharing paper copies of his daily calendar in his guarded home with a military colleague also in the home — someone who had a secret security clearance herself — because the calendar inadvertently included secret matters in the pages underneath the calendar.

Yet earlier this week, FBI Director James Comey — knowing that his bosses in the DOJ would accept his legal conclusions about Clinton’s failure to keep state secrets secure, because they had removed themselves from independently judging the FBI’s work — told the public that whereas the inadvertence of the above defendants was sufficient to justify their prosecutions, somehow Clinton’s repeated extreme recklessness was not.

It is obvious that a different standard is being applied to Clinton than was applied to Petraeus and the others. It is also now painfully obvious that the game of musical chairs we all witnessed last week when Bill Clinton entered the private jet of Comey’s boss — Attorney General Loretta Lynch — unannounced and spent 30 private minutes there with her at a time when both he and his wife were targets of FBI criminal probes was a trick to compromise Lynch and remove her and her aides from the DOJ chain of command regarding the decision as to whether to present evidence of crimes against either of the Clintons to a federal grand jury.

Why do we stand for this?

The criminal case against Mrs. Clinton would have been overwhelming. The FBI acknowledged that she sent or received more than 100 emails that contained state secrets via one of her four home servers. None of those servers was secure. Each secret email was secret when received, was secret when sent and is secret today. All were removed from their secure venues by Clinton, who knew what she was doing, instructed subordinates to white out “secret” markings, burned her own calendars, destroyed thousands of her emails and refuses to this day to recognize that she had a duty to preserve such secrets as satellite images of North Korean nuclear facilities, locations of drone strikes in Pakistan and names of American intelligence agents operating in the Middle East under cover.

Why do we stand for this?

Comey has argued that somehow there is such a legal chasm between extreme recklessness and gross negligence that the feds cannot bridge it. That is not an argument for him to make. That is for a jury to decide after a judge instructs the jury about what Comey fails to understand: There is not a dime’s worth of difference between these two standards. Extreme recklessness is gross negligence.

Unless, of course, one is willing to pervert the rule of law yet again to insulate a Clinton yet again from the law enforcement machinery that everyone else who fails to secure state secrets should expect.

Why do we stand for this?

Napolitano: Is it worth impairing the reputation

Opinion

Juno arrives at Jupiter. Image credit: NASA / JPL

Juno arrives at Jupiter. Image credit: NASA / JPL

Reports of NASA’s Juno spacecraft’s entering the orbit around Jupiter lit a sparkler in this American heart — on the Fourth of July, no less. It showed that Americans still have what it takes.

To keep spirits orbiting, let’s note another recent American feat that few could have imagined a couple of years ago. The United States is now gaining, not losing, factory jobs. This glad trend has some sobering asterisks attached, but there’s no denying this:

There are now nearly a million more factory jobs in this country than there were in 2010. Many of them are coming — surprise, surprise — from China. China, meanwhile, has lost about 6 percent of its factory positions from four years ago.

Why do Americans seem to know more about Jupiter’s 67 moons than about the turnaround in factory employment?

Reason No. 1 is politics. From Donald Trump on the populist right to Bernie Sanders on the left, trade agreements have become the obsession, the all-purpose villain behind U.S. factory closings and “movings” to low-wage countries.

In documenting the brutal departure of U.S. factory jobs, the candidates’ rearview mirrors have been quite accurate. We’re still down over 7 million manufacturing jobs from a peak of about 19.5 million in 1979.

But any serious plan to address the future of blue-collar America must focus on what’s actually happening now. What’s happening is automation. Robots enable manufacturers to make lots of stuff with relatively few workers. The ability to do the job with far fewer humans goes far in canceling the advantage of low-wage countries. (Lower U.S. energy costs have helped, too.)

This is how General Electric could move 4,000 jobs from China and Mexico to a new appliance plant in Louisville, Kentucky.

“We have (only) two hours of labor in a refrigerator,” GE CEO Jeff Immelt explained, “so it really doesn’t matter if you make it in Mexico, the U.S. or China.”

Another reason many don’t know about the improved outlook for factory work is that most of the new manufacturing jobs are in the South — especially North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The rattling job losses occurred in the industrial Midwest. Conditions are better there, too, but many of the region’s laid-off workers still suffer.

The asterisks:

–The technology that lets U.S. companies slash the labor content of their products is something anyone can use. Foxconn, a supplier for Apple and Samsung, recently replaced 60,000 Chinese workers with robots.
–The new factory jobs require more training. The workers must be able to program and oversee fancy machinery. They need to be flexible, to move to another task as orders change. Happily, the pay is much higher.
–Advances in automation seem destined to reduce human workforces even more, here and everywhere.
–Brexit chaos has made the dollar stronger. That makes U.S. products more expensive on the global market.

We should probably abandon hope that a Trump stump talk on U.S. manufacturing will delve in reality. That U.S. factory output and employment have been trending upward is something Trump may not even know. In any case, it’s not useful information for his purposes.

But Trump’s thundering vows to bring factory work back to this country by the container shipload do everyone a disservice. Robotics are upon us. Peddling a dated vision of U.S. factories humming along with thousands and thousands of workers is just another con. China won’t be able to have that soon.

To restore prosperity to blue-collar America, we will need a moonshot program to retrain and rebuild. A country that can send spacecraft spinning around Jupiter should be able to pull that off.

Reports of NASA's Juno spacecraft's entering the

Economy

service-sector-hospital-nurse-reuters

Service sector employee, nurse at a hospital. (Photo: REUTERS)

U.S. service-sector activity increased more than expected in June. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Non-Manufacturing Report on Business purchasing managers index rose to 56.5 in June from 52.9 in May, the highest reading since November.

The median economic forecast called for the index to increase to 53.6. Key components of the index also gained ground. New orders registered at 59.9, up from 54.2 in May. Employment grew to 52.7 from May’s 49.7. The ISM doesn’t disclose the date its survey closes, so it isn’t clear if the latest report fully captures uncertainty in global markets generated by the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union.

A separate ISM survey released Friday showed that almost one-third of service-industry businesses thought their firm would be negatively or slightly negatively affected by the Brexit.

SERVICE SECTOR INDUSTRY PERFORMANCE

The 15 non-manufacturing industries reporting growth in June — listed in order — are: Mining; Arts, Entertainment & Recreation; Management of Companies & Support Services; Retail Trade; Health Care & Social Assistance; Utilities; Real Estate, Rental & Leasing; Accommodation & Food Services; Transportation & Warehousing; Wholesale Trade; Information; Public Administration; Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting; Construction; and Finance & Insurance. The three industries reporting contraction in June are: Educational Services; Professional, Scientific & Technical Services; and Other Services.

ISM® NON-MANUFACTURING SURVEY RESULTS AT A GLANCE
COMPARISON OF ISM® NON-MANUFACTURING AND ISM® MANUFACTURING SURVEYS*
JUNE 2016
Non-Manufacturing Manufacturing
Index Series
Index
Jun		 Series
Index
May		 Percent
Point
Change		 Direction Rate
of
Change		 Trend**
(Months)		 Series
Index
Jun		 Series
Index
May		 Percent
Point
Change
NMI®/PMI® 56.5 52.9 +3.6 Growing Faster 77 53.2 51.3 +1.9
Business Activity/Production 59.5 55.1 +4.4 Growing Faster 83 54.7 52.6 +2.1
New Orders 59.9 54.2 +5.7 Growing Faster 83 57.0 55.7 +1.3
Employment 52.7 49.7 +3.0 Growing From Contracting 1 50.4 49.2 +1.2
Supplier Deliveries 54.0 52.5 +1.5 Slowing Faster 6 55.4 54.1 +1.3
Inventories 55.5 54.0 +1.5 Growing Faster 15 48.5 45.0 +3.5
Prices 55.5 55.6 -0.1 Increasing Slower 3 60.5 63.5 -3.0
Backlog of Orders 47.5 50.0 -2.5 Contracting From Growing 1 52.5 47.0 +5.5
New Export Orders 53.0 49.0 +4.0 Growing From Contracting 1 53.5 52.5 +1.0
Imports 54.0 53.5 +0.5 Growing Faster 5 52.0 50.0 +2.0
Inventory Sentiment 62.5 60.0 +2.5 Too High Faster 229 N/A N/A N/A
Customers’ Inventories N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 51.0 50.0 +1.0
Overall Economy Growing Faster 83
Non-Manufacturing Sector Growing Faster 77

* Non-Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® data is seasonally adjusted for Business Activity, New Orders, Prices and Employment Indexes. Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® data is seasonally adjusted for New Orders, Production, Employment and Supplier Deliveries.

** Number of months moving in current direction.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Non-Manufacturing

Opinion

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, followed by aide Huma Abedin, second from right, walks on the tarmac as she arrives to board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, July 5, 2016. President Barack Obama and Clinton are traveling to Charlotte, N.C. to campaign together. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, followed by aide Huma Abedin, second from right, walks on the tarmac as she arrives to board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, July 5, 2016. President Barack Obama and Clinton are traveling to Charlotte, N.C. to campaign together. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

So there you have it. We now know the results of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices while serving as secretary of state: No charges even though the FBI director himself said she was extremely negligent with classified information, including special compartmental access information, and there is a high likelihood foreign entities accessed this data.

As a former military officer who once possessed a Top Secret Special Compartmented Information clearance, I can tell you the response of the FBI is shocking. If I had negligently taken TS SCI information out of secure environment and opened it up to possibility of theft by a foreign adversary, I can guarantee you I would have been thrown in jail for years.

The Obama administration simply let Hillary Clinton off the hook for criminal behavior. They did this because they are criminals themselves, through and through.

Today I realized that the America I knew is no more. It is gone. It has been stolen, corrupted by the largest organized crime syndicate ever known to man, the Democratic Party.

President Obama has used agencies of the federal government to attack and suppress the political opposition. He has used the Department of Justice (DOJ) to go after adversaries. Now we have a criminal gang openly flouting the legal system, backed by a corrupt, cheerleading media. An elite oligarchy is in charge, that is above the law and has destroyed trust in our rule of law. We are no better than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where this type of thing is commonplace, where freedom and democracy are only a sham, to be trotted out for pictures. This is no less threatening than the South seceding from the Union. This is sedition.

This cannot stand.

In the late 18th century, we fought a revolution over much worse—a tax on tea, taxation without representation. This is no longer about partisan politics. This is no longer about conservatism. This is about what is right and wrong. This is about freedom. This is about the entire notion of America itself.

America is dying.

All of you so-called, self-righteous conservatives out there who are saying never Trump. You had better get your heads out of your backsides. So-called “conservatives” have allowed this to happen over the last two decades. They have expanded government and entitlements, and turned our education system over to Washington. If Hillary Clinton is elected president, we will no longer have a country. We will have a totalitarian oligarchy.

This can no longer be fixed by the system. This can only be fixed by the American people, themselves. We fought a revolution for less.

Rome is burning.

This article first appeared on The Washington Times.

[mybooktable book=”motherland” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

So there you have it. With the

Politics

FBI Director James Comey briefs reporters at a press conference in Washington D.C. (Photo: AP)

FBI Director James Comey briefs reporters at a press conference in Washington D.C. (Photo: AP)

FBI Director James Comey has been called to testify Thursday morning before the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to explain his decision not to prosecute former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, Director Comey said Mrs. Clinton, despite the FBI finding she was “extremely careless” in mishandling top secret and classified information on a private email server, would not face criminal charges.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the decision not prosecute Mrs. Clinton “defies explanation” and “sets a terrible precedent.”

“While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation,” Speaker Ryan said in a statement. “No one should be above the law. But based upon the director’s own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent.”

“The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment.”

The presence of the emails on her private server–whether it be intended or negligence–is alone a crime, despite the Bureau’s announcement.Rudy Giuliani, who spent 15 years at the Justice Department, said he would not only have brought charges in this case but would’ve easily got a conviction from a jury.

While Director Comey uncharacteristically did not take questions after the announcement or mention the separate investigation into possible public corruption relating to the Clinton Foundation, he will have to answer lawmakers’ questions. In the very same press conference when he made the bombshell announcement, Mr. Comey laid out a strong case that Mrs. Clinton committed multiple felonies by violating multiple federal statutes.

That led to key lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., scratching their heads and assuming the worst. Director Comey, as some have suggested in the wake of the decision, applied an “intent” standard that is not necessary to bring charges, assuming that Mrs. Clinton did not have intent behind her motive. Sen. Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Director Comey hours after he held his 13-minute news conference.

As Sen. Johnson pointed out in the letter, the FBI director said the Bureau had concluded Mrs. Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling sensitive government emails, which they assume was hacked by “hostile actors.” The legal definition of gross negligence, the standard in the statute, is “extreme carelessness.” While Mr. Comey said the Bureau could not be sure the presumptive Democratic nominee’s server was hacked, they are operating under the assumption it was. In normal instances, an individual would see their security clearances revoked by government agencies, let alone be eligible to serve as president.

“If the evidence that the FBI collected about Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server did not constitute gross negligence, what set of facts would cause the FBI to recommend criminal charges under the gross negligence standard?” Johnson wrote.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Loretta Lynch was already scheduled to testify next Tuesday at a House Oversight Committee hearing where she will be questioned about the email investigation, as well as her secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton just days before her department dropped the email case against the former first lady.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, met with Director Comey following the press conference Tuesday at FBI headquarters. Obviously, he didn’t get an adequate answer to dispel everyone’s suspicions.

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing,” Chairman Chaffetz said in a statement. “The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI’s investigation.”

FBI Director James Comey has been called

Economy

GDP-Shipping-Cranes-Trade-Portland-Oregon

File photo: Shipping-cranes-in move containers at a port in Portland, Oregon. (Photo: REUTERS)

The Commerce Department said Wednesday the U.S. trade deficit widened to $41.14 billion in May, more than the median forecast calling for it to expand to $40.0 billion. The trade deficit in April was revised slightly lower to $37.38 billion.

Exports to the European Union (EU) fell 4.2%, with exports to the United Kingdom tanking 15.6%. Goods shipped to Canada and Mexico–the United States’ main trading partners–also fell in May.

The politically-sensitive trade deficit with China ballooned 19.4% to $29.0 billion in May, fueled by a surge in imports (+13.8%) and another decrease in exports. China bought fewer U.S.-made goods in May, and exports fell by 1.7%.

The U.S. trade deficit widened to $41.14

Video

[brid video=”52137″ player=”2077″ title=”FBI Director James Comey Makes Statement About Hillary Clinton Email Scandal FULL SPEECH FNN”]

FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday held a press conference to discuss what was found during the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Director Comey suggested no criminal charges be filed, despite spending most of the press conference explaining how she misled the public and broke the law.

Comey’s Full Remarks:

Good morning. I’m here to give you an update on the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.

After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.

This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.

I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case. Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts.

So, first, what we have done:

The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection with Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State. The referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system.

Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal e-mail server by any foreign power, or other hostile actors.

I have so far used the singular term, “e-mail server,” in describing the referral that began our investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways. Piecing all of that back together—to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal e-mail was used for government work—has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort.

For example, when one of Secretary Clinton’s original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013, the e-mail software was removed. Doing that didn’t remove the e-mail content, but it was like removing the frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping the pieces on the floor. The effect was that millions of e-mail fragments end up unsorted in the server’s unused—or “slack”—space. We searched through all of it to see what was there, and what parts of the puzzle could be put back together.

FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”).

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.

With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”

I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department.

It could also be that some of the additional work-related e-mails we recovered were among those deleted as “personal” by Secretary Clinton’s lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her e-mails for production in 2014.

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.

It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.

We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.

And, of course, in addition to our technical work, we interviewed many people, from those involved in setting up and maintaining the various iterations of Secretary Clinton’s personal server, to staff members with whom she corresponded on e-mail, to those involved in the e-mail production to State, and finally, Secretary Clinton herself.

Last, we have done extensive work to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the personal e-mail operation.

That’s what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found:

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

So that’s what we found. Finally, with respect to our recommendation to the Department of Justice:

In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect. Although we don’t normally make public our recommendations to the prosecutors, we frequently make recommendations and engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence. In this case, given the importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order.

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.

I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear.

I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation—including people in government—but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of this organization.

FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday held

Opinion

Gary-Johnson-AP

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks to supporters and delegates at the National Libertarian Party Convention, May 27, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (Photo: John Raoux/AP Photo)

It took me years to figure out that markets work better than government.  I started out as a typical Ralph Nader-influenced consumer reporter, convinced that companies constantly rip us off. To me and most of my fellow left-leaning reporters, the answer was always: more regulation.

Gradually, I figured out that regulation causes many more problems than the occasional rip-off artist does. Companies that served customers well prospered, while market competition meant cheaters seldom got away with cheating for long.

Regulation, by contrast, lasted forever. It punished innovation, making it harder for good people to offer better alternatives.

How do I spare people the long learning process I went through?

A former producer of mine, Todd Seavey, has written a book called “Libertarianism for Beginners.” It lays down a few basic principles that make it easier to understand what a free market is — and how everything government does interferes with that market.

“Your body, like all your property, should be yours to do with as you please so long as you do not harm the body or property of others without their permission,” writes Seavey. That means government can’t tell people what to do unless those people threaten harm.

Seavey didn’t come up with that idea himself, of course. In the book, he describes the history of philosophers and economists who’ve urged people to follow that rule for some 200 years.
That rule helped make America the most prosperous and productive country in the world.

Unfortunately, while those libertarian ideas allowed innovation to flourish, government and regulation grew even faster.

A century ago in the U.S., government at all levels took up about 8 percent of the economy. Now it takes up about 40 percent. It regulates everything from the size of beverage containers to what questions must not be asked in job interviews.

How can people be expected to keep up with it all?

Seavey points out that it’s backwards to expect them to try. Instead of just looking at the complicated mess government makes, we need to review the basic rules that got us here.

Instead of the rule being “government knows best” or “vote for the best leader,” says Seavey, what if the basic legal rules were just: no assault, no theft, no fraud? Then most waste and bureaucracy that we fight about year after year wouldn’t exist in the first place.

To most people, it sounds easier to leave big policy decisions — about complex things like wages, food production and roads — to government. Having to make our own decisions about everything and trade for everything in the marketplace sounds complicated.

But Seavey argues that the “hands off other people’s stuff” rule would feel like second-nature if we were more consistent about enforcing it. “Even chimpanzees are capable of being outraged if other chimpanzees take their food so the basic impulses to defend property and to resist assault,” he writes, “no doubt predate human history.”

It’s when politicians convince people that those simple rules aren’t enough that voters decide to let bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians make the decisions instead. Then the public loses track of the complicated rules. Even the full-time media can’t keep up with all the trickery.

We can — and should — keep reporting on government’s broken promises and endless scandals. But to teach people they shouldn’t count on government to produce good things in the first place, they need some basic philosophy.

Seavey’s book may help, which is why I wrote the foreword to it. I like that the book has cartoons, making it more fun than dull economics textbooks. I hope it provides a model for looking at the world to people confused by stupid things government does.

But Seavey is too much the open-minded intellectual. He writes, “It may turn out that the system of control and redistribution that we thought was working to solve our problems was the real problem all along.”

No. There’s no “may turn out” about it. Forty-five years of watching government “solutions” go bad has taught me that state control rarely works, and it usually makes problems worse. Government control and redistribution is definitely the real problem.

[mybooktable book=”no-cant-government-fails-individuals-succeed” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

John Stossel explains his evolution from "a

Politics

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, at a press conference during the Republican Party of Wisconsin 2016 State Convention at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Saturday, May 14, 2016. (Photo: AP)

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, at a press conference during the Republican Party of Wisconsin 2016 State Convention at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Saturday, May 14, 2016. (Photo: AP)

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., slammed the decision by FBI Director James Comey to not prosecute Hillary Clinton for “extremely careless” mishandling of classified information. While the speaker said he has “respect the professionals at the FBI,” the announcement “defies explanation” and “sets a terrible precedent.”

“While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation. No one should be above the law. But based upon the director’s own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent,” Speaker Ryan said in a statement. “The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment.”

The presence of the emails on her private server–whether it be intended or negligence–is alone a crime, despite the Bureau’s announcement.Rudy Giuliani, who spent 15 years at the Justice Department, said he would not only have brought charges in this case but would’ve easily got a conviction from a jury.

House Speaker Paul Ryan slammed the decision

People's Pundit Daily
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