Hillary Not in the Clear Yet: The Scrubbed "Private" E-mails

Remarkably, Putin need not even have Clinton’s emails. Putin’s army of “information technologists” (propagandists) can release professional fabrications through clandestine sources throughout the world. Clinton cannot disprove these narratives. Putin supposedly has the evidence in black and white. She has wiped exculpatory evidence clean. Both Putin and Clinton know that repeated unrebutted narratives become the truth. Even his lies will seem more credible than her denials.


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What Russia's DNC Hack Tells Us About Hillary Clinton's Private Email Server

The Post seems on board with the benign nature of the attack: “The intrusions are an example of Russia’s interest in the U.S. political system and its desire to understand the policies, strengths and weaknesses of a potential future president…”

The Post admits that such hacked information could prove of operational significance to Russian policy makers. For example, Russia might use Donald Trump’s foreign investments “to indicate where it can get away with foreign adventurism.”  In other words, the greater concern is not Russian hacking but whether Trump may place his business interests above national interests as President. In reality, the exclusive indirectly speaks to a more sinister aspect of Russian cyber spying.  

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What If Vladimir Putin Has Hillary Clinton's Emails?

Those who follow Kremlin propaganda understand that it is not necessary for Putin to have Clinton’s e-mails to cause serious damage to a Clinton presidency. All he needs is that many believe he has Hillary’s e-mails.


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Where Is the Outrage? The Mugging of the Five Mortgage Lenders

I try to watch Fox News’ The Panel every evening. Charles Krauthammer usually gets things right. That is a comfort.

Today’s big news was Obama’s announcement that the U.S. Attorney General and 49 states’ Attorneys General had strong armed five large mortgage lenders into a $25 billion settlement. In effect, the $25 billion blackmail will be used to rewrite the terms of mortgages of underwater homes and pay penalties to owners who have already lost their homes.

My big disappointment: Krauthammer did not express outrage but, in effect, credited Obama with a significant political victory. He did not see this as an attack on free enterprise or the rule of law.

Obama, in his announcement to the press, preened that he stands on the side of social justice and for the little man and against the villainous banking industry. He is single handedly leveling the playing field.

I guess the Obama administration expects the $25 billion bailout to pump up home prices and lend new life to the housing market. The principal relief and reduced interest payments will only keep underwater homes off the market a little longer. They will not raise home prices. Instead of the home market clearing, it will continue in disequilibrium who knows how much longer.

Most “good deeds” of the Obama administration carry with them unanticipated consequences. The $25 billion blackmail plus the threat of potential criminal prosecution of lenders send a rather chilling message to mortgage lenders. The best way to stay out of trouble is to make no mortgage loans. In the absence of home loans, housing prices will not recover. The housing industry lives from credit. Without it, it is dead.

The public will not realize that this lies in store for a year or two. By then the election is over, one way orthe other.

If we play this game out, a second Obama administration would have to coerce reluctant lenders to make mortgage loans with threats, quotas, and additional repression.

By the time we see this, we are stuck with another four years.