August 12, 2015

Wondering, on Wednesday (v39)

Two Clintons (not related) are among the things I'm wondering about this Wednesday.

First, now that Hillary Clinton has turned over her personal server to the FBI, will the Republican-controlled Congress worry more about Benghazi, the email investigation, or something much less important such as, oh, funding the government?

This is going to be a massive cluster, I think. Instead of being out on the hustings, I expect HRC will be hustling her way from one lawyer to the next, or from one hearing to the next just with the Benghazi issue. Assuming Congress wants to look into the email issue in detail (and it's hard to imagine they won't want to), they might let it sit on the back burner for a while, and let her stew in it a bit. Not to worry about that, though, because we can rest assured the press will have lots to say about this. Or at least, lots to ask. "Mrs Clinton, have you heard anything about the investigation? Do you know when you will hear about the investigation? Can you tell us anything about the investigation? FBI sources told us today that there's no news, did you hear the same thing?"

What I find interesting about this investigation is that there are concerns with the security of the Clinton server. We have the concern about security, you see, because a now-classified email was released, for all to see:
One of the emails containing since-classified information was released to the public, prompting the intelligence community to ask the FBI to investigate the possible compromise of classified material. The State Department now has a team of analysts from the intelligence community to review Clinton's emails before any more are released to the public.
Of course, the people who are concerned about the Clinton server are the same ones who cannot even secure the State Department's own communication system, or the federal personnel records, or other high-level communications. You don't need to be a rocket scientist (or a hacker) to discover the irony in that.

And, by the way, the State Department is investigating use of  "personal communication hardware and software by five secretaries of state and their immediate staffs." I'm wondering if anyone can name the other four?

Here's another question for you.  Pretend you were a prisoner in an 'honor block' of a maximum security prison, and you just minded your own business the whole time you were there, and then two other folks in the same block escaped, but you had nothing to do with it. Would you think it was fair if you were subsequently shipped to solitary confinement in a different prison, or stripped of your personal belongings and all of the rewards you earned for years of good behavior? Or maybe interrogated with a bag over your head, or threatened or beaten by guards?

These are the kind of things that are being alleged by dozens of prisoners at the Clinton Correctional Facility, according to an investigation by the New York Times. Fortunately, the allegations are being taken seriously; some prisoners indicate they've already had discussions with folks from the Corrections Department's Office of Special Investigations.

I admit to having a healthy bit of skepticism back when the escape happened, and wondered how other prisoners wouldn't have heard the noise or noticed debris - Richard Matt and David Sweat cut through cement walls and metal, for heaven's sake - so it's hard to imagine that someone didn't know something was going on.  However, given what's come out in the Times and other outlets about the lack of attention on the part of some of the guards, it seems possible now that maybe no one did know, other than Joyce Mitchell, the love-struck prison employee who recently pleaded guilty to assisting in the escape.

And finally tonight, I'm wondering what be the next to join selling loose cigarettes and now, vandalizing a car dealership, in the list of capital crimes?

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