Fiddling While Rome Burns

Well, today is the big day! It will be interesting to see of the cheater will prevail or not. At this point, the country is waiting with its collective breath held to see if we will have a republic or not – and if we can keep it, to paraphrase some famous old white guy.

Meanwhile, in my little world they local GOP is fiddling while they watch Rome burn. What follows is my sad tale of how I wasn’t really able to make a difference. It all started with an email from my district Chairman. 

Now to put that in perspective, the Virginia GOP has this confusing organization for the party. Basically you have the Chairman (or Chairwoman in this case) of the county organization. That woman is Dottie Miller. I’m not sure when she took over, but it was fairly recent. The previous chairman was Bill Card. Bill was a nice guy that everyone liked and had been in the position for years. He made of point of knowing everyone, and I’d say he could probably call every member by name. I suspect he probably retired due to health problems. Prior to my recent foray, I had never met Dottie, but I think that she is sincerely trying to do a hard job.

Below Dottie, the county is divided into ‘Magisterial Districts’. It has a grand ring to it, doesn’t it? Wikipedia says:

Magisterial districts are defined by the United States Census Bureau as a minor civil division that is a nonfunctioning subdivision used in conducting elections or recording land ownership, and are not governments

So for the Prince William county GOP, there are 7 district chairmen, each with a vice-chairmen. My district chair is Ted Kirkpatrick. The next district over chair is Billy Gallagher. I don’t know Billy, but I have interacted with Ted a few times prior to now. He struck me as a sincere guy. He has held the chair as long as I have been involved in the party. He is retired, and I think running the district ‘machine’ (such as it is), is something of a hobby for him. He is very effective in freezing out anyone he views as a threat. Do you hear the violin tuning up? 

So, as I was saying, I got an email from him that he rebroadcast to his ‘machine’ – i.e. everyone on his mailing list about training for people that wanted to be Party Observers on election day. He’s not real adept at email. Instead of using BCC to avoid flooding everyone’s email from people asking questions or commenting on his email and hitting ‘reply all’, he just sticks them all in the ‘to’ line. Of course this gives anyone a ready mailing list for additional copying and pasting every stray thought that crosses anyone’s mind. Yeah – it is a bit of a mess.

In any case, I responded to this email by replying the originator of the email he forwarded, RSVPing as it requested. Here’s what that email exchange looked like:

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 2:43 PM, Mike C wrote:

I'd like to attend the poll watching and election officer training on Thursday. Please let me know if space has run out.

From: "Candace
Date: Oct 18, 2016 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: Rsvp for Thursday training
To: "Mike"

Great!  So glad you can attend.  Yes there is still room. We'll look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

So I was in! Great! I was kind of looking forward to this, since I would have a chance to see the polls from the inside and get a valuable insight as to how poll cheaters might be gaming the system. Since Ted had sent out the original message, and since I thought I would be working in one of the polls he managed support for, I emailed Ted and this exchange ensued:

From: "Mike
To: "TED"
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 7:11:30 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: "IMPORTANT" Oct 20th, 7-9:00 pm Poll Watching and Election Officer Training

Sorry I haven't been as active this year.. I've been swamped at work. Despite that I RSVPed to Candace and got her confirmation. I am planning take off election day to help at the polls and I'd like to work inside as either as an observer or official? Let me know what your needs are.

From: "TED"
Date: Oct 19, 2016 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: "IMPORTANT" Oct 20th, 7-9:00 pm Poll Watching and Election Officer Training
To: " Mike"  

Where do you vote?  Depending on where that it is it might be better to work outside and talk to voters.  My precinct is well run so while I'll be going in and out I'm going to concentrate on talking to voters.

Well, that was surprise! I had been working some pretty long hours at work trying to complete a critical part of the project I was on working. So, I wrote Candace, and this exchange took place:

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 11:37 AM, Mike wrote:

Candace,
When I informed my district chairman (Coles District, Ted Kirkpatrick) that I was planning on going to this training and would be available to work inside the polls, he informed me the polls in our district were 'well run' and he wasn't intending on placing anyone inside the polls.

Instead he is intending on placing people outside, like he always has. I've done that before and I think it's a relatively useless gesture. In any case, I am not sure of what the point of doing this training is if the leadership isn't intending on using the people you train.

I realize there may be other district chairman who have a different philosophy. If I can be of use to them, then the training will be useful. I also am curious if the leadership is aware of what is going on at the district chairman levels. Please advise.

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 11:42 AM, Candace wrote:

Please come to the training.  The decision to place people inside the polls is not only up to the District Chair.  Dottie, your Chairman will be providing letters of authorization and the campaign will be placing people inside the polls where we need them.  I am copying Donna and Dottie on this email. 

From: "Mike"

Date: Oct 19, 2016 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: REMINDER POLL WATCHER TRAINING 10/20 from 7-9
To: "Candace"

Sure.. I will be attending. I mainly didn't want to waste the seat in the class if I was not going to be able to help in a meaningful way.

So I attended the training on the 20^th. It was crowded. The meeting location they had chosen was a side room to a bar in Manassas. I got there just on time, but by the time I got into the room, there was standing room only. On top of that I was pretty tired as I had already put in over 60 hours that week. I managed to stay awake and the training was helpful. The main point was to make sure the people watching the polls understood the laws governing their behavior, and the behavior of the officials running the polls.

The weeks drifted on, and I still had not had any contact from Ted, Candace, or Dottie. As I was driving back from my bike ride Saturday (November 5^th), I noticed that the ‘absentee in person’ voting location at the government center was still open. Since I still believed that I might be called on to poll watch, I decided that I would go ahead and vote. It was a relatively painless process. The main thing was you had to sign a form saying why you were doing early voting. In my case, even if I wasn’t going to poll watch, I was doing OT at work and probably would not be able to vote on the 8^th. I filled out the form, and voted. I also made a point to see what was going on around me. 

Sunday rolled around, and still hadn’t heard from Ted. The night of the meeting, I had briefly met with Dottie and Candace, and they had assured me that even if Ted couldn’t use me, they could place me in the Occuquan district. In retrospect, I was too late. There was no way I was going to be placed at this late date. But, hind sight is 20/20, right? I sent this:

From: "Mike"

To: "TED", "Dottie Miller", "Candace"
Sent: Sunday, November 6, 2016 9:05:33 AM
Subject: No word from Occuquan

Ted,
I realize you are busy with lots of issues I just thought I'd check to see if you had gotten any word from Occuquan people as to me working as an observer?

Dottie, Candace,
I did early voting yesterday at the government center since if I am not going to be working the polls Tuesday I am working an OT schedule at work. It's too late to do anything about it now, but for next time..

I noticed there were no observers (Dem or GOP) present where by the setup should have had at least two people there - one at check-in, one in the voting room. There probably needs to be someone handling staffing there for inside and outside - the Dems had a guy outside. In general I suspect most of the voters there Saturday were Dems..

What I saw.. The officer who checked me in asked for my name and address, while the lady next to him wasn't doing that. There was a person sitting at the machine connected to the scanners.. I could not tell what they were doing.. the lady in the voting room asked me what district I was in and would have handed me any district ballot, when my district was clearly noted on my sign in sheet - place there by the sign in officer(?).. Anyway, that's what I saw.. HTH..

Thanks,
Mike

Probably because I had included Candace and Dottie on the email, Ted felt that he had to act. To my knowledge, he was never going to do anything with a volunteer who wanted to work inside the polls; in his district or anywhere else. This exchange happened:

On Nov 6, 2016 3:07 PM, "TED" wrote:

Billy,
Mike Campbell would like to be a poll watcher and Dottie suggested Occoquan so if you think you can use him please contact him asap.
Mike,
Please send Billy and myself your phone number.

From: "Mike"
To: "TED"
Cc: “Billy”
Sent: Sunday, November 6, 2016 4:28:04 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Poll watching volunteer for Occoquan

Ted, Billy,
Thanks for the quick response, especially as I am sure you are extremely busy right now. I can be reached at XXXX.

Please let me know as soon as possible if I am needed as I need to let my boss know soon if I will be taking the day off.. something I am glad to do if needed, but since I am working paid overtime, that represents a not insignificant loss of income and not something I will do on the off chance my contribution might be needed.

Sorry to put it in such bleak terms, but I thought I need to let you know of my limitations.

From: “Billy”
To: "Mike"
Cc: "TED"
Sent: Sunday, November 6, 2016 5:21:40 PM
Subject: Re: Poll watching volunteer for Occoquan

Ted/Mike,

Thanks.  I am not using poll watchers or observers.  I have about 14 hours of 182 not covered for handing out sample ballots.  However, there is a good chance that when people see the blank spaces on the final schedule, they will volunteer to cover them.  I do not want to deprive anyone of a loss of a day's income.  I do not know the hours Mike is working, but I have  blank spot at Rockledge Elementary from 5-7, and Mohican from 1-7.  David Rogers is by himself all day at York (Ebenezer Baptist) and I'm sure would not mind being relieved early.  Again, please do not lose money.
Billy

On Nov 6, 2016 5:52 PM, "TED" wrote:

Mike,
I am not using inside observers either (although my people will be going in occasional to spot check and get numbers for how many people have voted).  

While I have a few gaps also I agree with Billy--there's no need to lose income for this, although if you can work 6-10 at Hylton that would certainly help, but again, don't lose any money over it.
Ted

I send a (very) short email back to Ted, saying ‘OK, thanks’. I considered leaving things there. The way that I read the above emails is Ted and Billy had no intention of doing anything to protect the GOP votes in their districts. I had to wonder, was it just arrogance, or were the just going through the motions because they really didn’t like Trump? In the end, I guess their motivation really doesn’t matter as the end result is the same.. in at least two out of the seven districts in the 2^nd or 3^rd largest county in Virginia, there are no GOP observers ensuring that the votes cast are counted. After thinking it over, I thought I really should let the county chairwoman know what her chairs were up to. This is the email exchange from that:

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 8:21 PM, Mike wrote:

Dottie, Candace,
I know you all are pretty busy. I respect that Billy and Ted are doing their best, and appreciate their honest assessment that my assistance is not needed. To be honest, I am a little confused by the brush off. I am not sure what I have done to be excluded, but I understand it's politics (duh). Perhaps it's for the best.  I wish you all success.

On Nov 6, 2016 9:21 PM, "Candace" wrote:

Mike,

So sorry for all this confusion for you.  If you want to work as a poll watcher, you took the training and we can use you all day, 1/2 a day or whatever you can do.  I am helping the state election day operation and there are plenty of openings for poll watchers.  What precinct to you live in and tell me what hours you can work and we will get you assigned.

I still had some hope that Candace might be able to do something. It’s important to understand Candace and Dottie were (and probably are) running on fumes at this point, dragged in a dozen different directions by 100s of details, mine being a minor point. So I wrote:

From: Mike C
Date: Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 6:33 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Fwd: Poll watching volunteer for Occoquan
To: Candace

Candace,
I can do all day if needed. I vote at Marshall, but would prefer to watch at a location like Chinn or Lake Ridge which has a large Dem turn out, and potentially, uh, issue.

It's important to me that I actually do poll watching. I am not a conspiracy theory nut job. I am concerned about the reliability of the voting system and have been for several years. Back in 2013 I did a little statistical study on PW County:

http://oftgoawry.blogspot.com/2013/11/election-shenanigans-waiter-theres-fly.html?m=1

Even though my interest have moved on and I never really did much post-election analysis after that, it remains an issue that still bothers me. The whole reason I went to the training was I thought this would be a chance for me to see up close how the system worked (or didn't). 

As I noted to Ted and Billy, volunteering will cost me, as I'm sure it will a lot of volunteers who work and aren't retired.. in my case about XXX-YYY. I am willing to make that sacrifice, but not to stand outside a poll or in a poll where operations have a very low probability of success, if that makes sense.

I appreciate your understanding, and I am really not trying to cause problems. After this is over, perhaps there will be some sort of retrospective where we can talk about how to improve things. I would like to be in on that. I guess I will need to get my registration up to date for that :-)

That email got forwarded I got this email trail from Dottie and Donna. I believe Donna was one of the ones teaching the poll watching class that I attended:

On Nov 7, 2016, at 9:02 AM, Donna wrote:

Hi Dottie,

Please contact the gentleman below by the name of Mike to see if he can be used in one of the more problematic precincts in PWC as a poll watcher.

Donna

From: "Dottie Miller"
Date: Nov 7, 2016 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: Poll watching volunteer for Occoquan
To: "donna "
Cc: "Tim",  "John" (trump.com address), "Ted", (me), "Candace"

Will do !

That seemed to spark another series of emails. I got an email from ‘Luisa’ with a rather odd email URL of ‘election day ops’. Here’s how that went:

On Nov 7, 2016 1:19 PM, "Luisa" wrote:

Mike,
I understand you have been trained but not yet assigned.
Can you please provide you full name, cell, and city and zip so I may assign you? I cannot do so without this information.

I responded to her email with what she asked (even though I had previously done this at every meeting, and numerous other emails). I waited, and waited, but got no response. These people are extremely busy. I get that. On the other hand, as I pointed out in my emails, I was busy also. I was not going to forgo getting additional pay just because they weren’t organized enough to place me. Alternatively, I doubted they were going to try. I suspect, given the ‘mis-communications’, my name was getting forwarded to Ted, who would ignore it, having already dismissed me. At 4:30 it came time for me to leave work. If I was going to take the day off, I had to send my boss an email by the end of the day, and now it was here. I sent this to Luisa (yeah – I was getting just a little bitter at this point):

From: "Mike"
Date: Nov 7, 2016 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: Poll Watcher Assignment
To: "Luisa"

Luisa,
Not your fault, but I have been waiting two weeks to be assigned a polling place. I was not going to take the day off from work unless I was needed.

At this point I am past the time that I can notify my boss that I am taking the day off. That unfortunately means that I am no longer able to help out tomorrow. Yeah, I am disappointed about that, but it looks like district chairs got exactly what they wanted: one less observer at the polls.

Mike

So there you have it. To her credit, Dottie called me as I was driving home, though I never have my phone out while I am driving and it went to voice mail. She noted that she was still working on trying to place me. When I got home, I called her back and left her a message letting her know that I could not help. She called back while I making dinner and I missed her call again. I finally called her back and spoke with her explaining the ‘mis-communication’. 

She said a funny thing in that conversation that I am still mulling over. She noted that Ted was ‘protective’. Now that can be taken two ways. Either she meant that he was trying to keep anyone he viewed as a threat out of the inner circle, so to speak, or he was trying to keep ‘crazies’ like me out. Since I blogging this experience, I guess that makes me the latter. 

From a larger perspective I think there is a sickness in the PW County GOP organization. There seems to be a preference of fiefdom over substance. Sadly, I think this is representative of the GOP in general. Perhaps some of these people need to step back, take a breath, and ask themselves why are they involved in this process? If the real answer is anything but ‘to try to better my county, state, and country’, then perhaps it time for them to move on. I would suggest a gardening club.

Pic Of The Week - 04/02/16

Buzzard Rock - looking up the valley toward Fort Valley, VA

The Average Aspiring College Graduate's (AACG) Guide to Chalk

I noticed there has been a plethora of items in the news about college students being frightened by chalk. Since the best disinfectant for fear is the bright light of knowledge, I thought it was about time that someone perform a public service and provide a guide for these frightened youngsters about chalk. After all, they are the generation that grew up with white boards and expo markers. Erasers cleaning and clouds of white residue that you don't want up your nose is a strange thing to them. As a well known expert on nothing, I thought “Hey! With the help of Google and the power of Gaia, Goddess of the Earth, I can do that!” So here we go.

According to Google and Wikipedia, the chalk that the average aspiring college graduate (AACG) is most likely to encounter is something like this:

From Amazon

Just a little scary no? I can imagine that when encountered in the wild, it can be quite frightening. So let's break it down a little. The average chalk that you get from Amazon or your street corner dealer is mostly Calcium Carbonate. What exactly is calcium carbonate? The dorks over in the chemistry department actually call it Carbonic Acid Calcium Salt (CCaO3). Its molecule (very tiny piece of it) looks like this:

Courtesy of NIH

Now most of the AACGs reading that will think, “cool! Acid and a Bath Salt.. I bet we can get a good buzz off of that”. <Sigh> No, it really will won't do anything for you. In fact here's another image if CCaO3 you might be more familiar with, given your perchance for late night debauchery:

Amazon Again!

Now I realize all this hard science might be scaring the AACGs right now. After all, there is a reason they went for an Ivy League PhD in Interpretive Dance. So let's talk a little about where chalk comes from. Like most natural occurring compounds, it mostly is dug out of the ground in big holes :

UK Geo-Hazards

By burly man like this:

Sugar Bear from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo - yes - he works in a chalk mine - Google It!

That's no reason to be scared of it. Beyond big mining raping mother earth to give color sticks to small children who write horrible things on the sidewalk just outside your dorm! And scary redneck uneducated white men!

Ok, ok. Let's move on the what Chalk isn't.

First of all it is not this:

Yep! Amazon Again!

While you found those tasty in your “AUD4 – Regressive Toddler Experiences” course, they are not crayons. If you do decide to eat chalk, it will not leave you wanting more, nor will it satisfy that empty place inside you because your mommy loved your daddy more than you. No, chalk is definitely not a consumable.

That's not to say that there are not edible things that look like chalk. Take these for instance:

Amazon! Who Knew!

Unlike e-cigs all your friends are smoking, you can be really scary (and ironic) and pretend to smoke those. They look like evil tobacco, yet when examined up close, resemble the terrifying chalk. That's as bad-assed as a nipple pierce.

It also is not sentient. Unlike guns, chalk will not jump out of the box on it's own and maim and kill bystanders who are unwise enough to glance in it's direction in a death dealing spray of of pure evil. Now how do I know this? I conducted an experiment. I took a piece of chalk and laid it out on my porch. Here's a picture:

I left it there until the next day. Here's a picture of it the next day:

Yep! It's still lying there. Unmoved. Like a rock. No – that is not the same picture just reversed. I am a lauded self-certified blog writer. How dare you question my integrity! So what did we learn from this experiment? First off, I should have gotten a government grant before doing this. If the government is willing to pay half a million dollars to study shrimp on a treadmill:

who am I to turn down a few bucks to determine if big rocks, that are ground down, colored, and smushed into sticks turn into intelligent entities.

Secondly, we see that chalk when left alone will lie around and do nothing. That's something that the average ACG can get behind! So see, you have more in common with chalk than you realized. As you learned from that 'ABN3 – Staring at my <nether regions>' course you took to fulfill your Empathy requirement, “togetherness starts with being you”.

On that note, I will wrap this up. After all, I am not getting paid to write this and most of the AACGs stopped reading up there where I mentioned 'bath salts'. For those still reading, I hope this will help you be just a little less frightened of chalk next time you encounter it in the wild. With a little understanding, and a lot love, we all can coexist! Peace On! No.. Peace Out!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Why I Didn't Vote For Trump

(http://www.wnyc.org/story/how-realistic-is-donald-trumps-immigration-plan/)

Let me start this out by saying that Trump seems like a good guy (as all of the Republican candidates appeared to be). He will probably win the nomination and if he somehow manages to beat the democratic machine of dirty tricks and slimy vote manufacturing in the general election, he will be like a breath of fresh air compared to what the Bamster has done in the last 8 years.

I thought of writing this up just before Super Tuesday here in Virginia. Work schedules and other things kept me from putting figurative pen to paper until now. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.. Dr. Ben, Jeb, and Rubio are gone, and then there's that whole Sturmabteilung in Chicago thing that closed down the Trump rally. These were followed by the various (disappointing) response by Cruz and Rubio that have tempered my beliefs a bit. However, I still feel the following needs to be said.

Now on to my point. See that picture up there at the top of the page? That right there is the reason that I didn't vote for Trump. Here's another view:

http://www.newsbusters.org/

Yep, it's the hat. Now some would say that it is reminiscent of this hat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_cover

Yes, in a way. Like the way a poodle is reminiscent of a wolf. That hat (the green one) is only worn by those who have earned it. The other one? There is a bit of a different qualification for that. So lets look a little more deeply into this hat. What is it? Wikipedia notes that this hat style:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucker_hat

is a called a 'trucker hat'. It is distinguished from the average ball cap by a high foam crown, with a logo or message printed on it. I can remember getting this type of hat back when I was a kid when I played baseball. The name of the team sponsor would be prominently printed on the crown. They have a plastic strip in the back where that snap into another plastic strip so they could be sized to any head that would want to wear them. Despite the 'trucker' monicker, grown men generally do not wear this type of hat. In my experience, it is worn by the pre-teen who take there drinks strong (i.e. 'suicides' which are a ballpark concoction of every flavor of soda available at the the drink stand all mixed together), and their double plays rare.

I am not a hat snob. Much to my family's chagrin I have worn a hat to work and play almost every day of my life. Mostly the same hat. Until it comes apart. In pieces. I take my head-wear seriously, since I know I will be wearing it quite a bit. The man doesn't pick the hat, the hat picks the man, and thus it defines him.

So let's look at the other candidate's hats. First off, I could not find a single picture of Cruz or Rubio wearing any kind of hat. What the hell? Even the Bamster has pictures wearing a hat. It's bicycle hat, and he is riding a little girl's bike, but it's still a hat:

http://www.thedailyrash.com/ny-times-calls-obama-bicycle-photos-rugged-masculinity-gone-wild

It also tells us a little bit about the man, no? Then there is this picture from way before he became the leader of the free world:

www.telegraph.co.uk

Uh, yeah.. that says a lot too.

On to the candidates. First there is Dr. Ben:

www.woodlandsjournal.com

Nope, that hat does not make your head look big. You can tell he knows that. On the other hand, he does have the guts to try. I like Dr. Ben for that kind of self depreciating humor. While he is obviously not a hat wearer, he knows it and doesn't pretend to be something he is not. A very admirable quality.

Then there's Kasich:

https://politics.concordmonitor.com/2015/10/gov-federal/day-on-the-trail-energetic-john-kasich-takes-it-all-in/

He is not a hat wearer either. He looks like he is putting the hat on here to try to appear that he is. Hat wearers can tell he is faking it. We don't really like being sucked up to. I guess there is a reason he is loosing in the polls.

Finally there is Jeb:

http://www.politico.com/gallery/2016/02/jeb-bush-funny-faces-photos-002199?slide=4

Ugh! I am not even going to comment here. The picture speaks for itself.  Unlike his brother:

www.crawford-texas.org

There he is wearing a hat he has probably worn for years surrounded by guys wearing hats they have probably worn for years doing real work in the hot Texas sun where a hat is just a part of the mandatory equipment. Been there, Done that. Sweated buckets. That's all you really need to know about the character of the guy.

So that brings me back to the Trump hat. I understand why he has it, and what he thinks he is saying to the electorate. He is one with the hard working, hat wearing, constituency. But we know a cheap knockoff when we see it, and the hat wearing electorate is not fooled. By pushing this hat, he has disappointed the male hat wearers, and that a real shame.

You will note that I haven't said anything about Hillary and hats. Personally, I can't really remember seeing any pictures of her wearing a hat. There is something disconcerting about that. Women and the hats they wear have always been a bit of a mystery to me. It's something I don't know anything about nor do I wish to. I will, however go ahead and comment on it.

From what I know there are two types of woman’s hats. The foofy kind that you see runway models wearing that men never see as there eyes are turned elsewhere; and the foofy kind that you see nominally southern women wearing at the Kentucky Derby. I have no idea how to tell anything about a women by the hat that she chooses to wear (or not), as women wear hats for reasons that are different than men. Those reasons I think have less to do with how one feels about oneself, and more about how they want to be perceived. It's not a knock on women, but more an observation. On the other hand, a women who's job it is to appear in public and almost never wears a dress tells you something else about how she wants to be perceived. I really don't think it's very flattering to her or the men in her life.

So has Trump lost the real hat wearing demographic with his 'Make America Great' hat? Well, I suspect there aren't that many of us, so in the end it really doesn't matter. Those of us that wear real hats don't really give a damn about that kind of thing (other than being mildly offended by his choice of symbolism). We are probably more concerned about real things, like the border, the second amendment, and getting government out of our lives. In the general election, when we are faced with the Bengazi liar, the socialist, or a guy who made a bad hat decision, who to pull the lever for will be a relatively easy decision.

Hillary's Other Email Problem

DuPont Tychem TK Level A Protective Suit

I have been reading a lot about the state department putting Hillary's emails online as a result of FOIA request. I thought “hey – wouldn't it be fun to see what was in there?” I thus decided to go and take a peek. It was very enlightening! I also had to give my eyeballs a full DECON as there was much in there that you wouldn't want to see or even think about.. Read on to see what I found.

First off some general observations about the emails and their presentation. In the State Department website (found here). The documents, as has been reported elsewhere, are not in chronological order as one would expect. Instead I surmise they are in whatever order they were in when they were extracted from the email server. This means that if you start scrolling through them, you will see globs of emails that kind of look chronological, but then they will skip. At the top of the list you will see tabs that appear to sort them by date (Don't click on that!) It will sort them, but the State Department didn't index all the documents by date. That means that if you hit that button and look at a particular date to see what emails were being sent back and forth, you won't see all the applicable emails. For example, if you sort and look at say September 11, 2012 (when the Benghazi attack took place), you won't find any emails relating to the attack.

Secondly, the way the Hillary used this email account was both a little funny and sad. My guess is that her eye sight, like many of us older people, is probably not good enough to read the tiny little screen her phone. Because of this, whenever she found the contents of a email interesting, she would direct her assistant to “Print this”, presumably in a large font she could read at a later time at her leisure. This is of course just speculation on my part, but in scanning through the emails, it happened enough that it got me to thinking that's what was going on. This is not very flattering and just a little hypocritical for the tree huggers.. just think how many trees had to die in a sacrifice to Hillary's eyesight! The good thing is since many of the emails were classified, the paper was hopefully shredded in an approved government shredder to render then unable to be reassembled and easily composted. Unless they were really highly classified, in which case the shredded paper would have to be burned too – what's the carbon offset for that?

After discovering the indexing problem noted above, and sampling enough of the documents that I began to understand how the flow of them worked, I resorted to scrolling through all of the pages of documents, looking for emails on or around September 11, 2012. As I found really interesting ones, I made a note of the page, date, and subject (if there was one). What follows is what I found for what was going on before, during, and after the attacks. It's not a clean list of all of the documents for that time, but it's what I had the patience to wade through. I downloaded the documents and have links to my copy of them. You can find the documents by searching the State Department link for the document number I provide with the link to my copy.

I went about this search with the now very established notion that the attack on Benghazi was not started as some protest to a video, but a concentrated attack, planned and executed by a military force. Given that, the administration and the State Department conspired to fool the American public into believing the attack was spontaneous. As Hillary said in the hearings, “What difference does it make?” Here's why: With the presidential election coming in 2012, it was imperative that Obama look competent on handling Libya. After all, they had just killed Qaddafi and were touting the 'Arab Spring' as a their brilliant foreign policy coup. I decided to try to find out what role Hillary played in this deception. To wit: what did she know, when did she know it, and what did she do about it.

First is the question of what she knew and when she knew it. I found this rather chilling email (C05739901) where on the night of the attack, Hillary's aide, Cheryl Mills forwards her a memo from the State Department Comm Center stating that the Embassy in Benghazi is under attack from mortar fire and more comm center personnel have been injured. Beyond the implication that there were previous emails indicating injuries and an attack; the mention of the use of mortars in the attack indicates to most reasonable people that this just wasn't a gang of angry people jumping the gates and swinging swords and chopping heads, but a real fighting force engaged in a military action.

There are two emails that are somewhat in conflict that establishes what she knew and when she knew it. First there is this one (C05447452) from a 'C&O Report' which was forwarded to Hillary on September 16^th, 2012 that indicates the attack was 

“carried out by an al-Oa'ida affiliated group which planned the attack for the 9/11 anniversary in retaliation for the death of Abu Yahya al Libi, al-Qa'ida's deputy commander.” 

C&O refers to C&O Resources, an “International Consulting and Resources Group” according to their website. Apparently they are a private intelligence group which provide their customers info on an as needed basis. That means someone, apparently either on Hillary's staff or an outside benefactor (Sid Blumenthal), paid them to generate this report. What follows is that if this private group could obtain this information, then surely the vast intelligence gathering network of the US Government could too. In any case, this email establishes that as of September 16^th, she knew the full truth. So let's look at the timeline on this. The attacks happened Tuesday – Wednesday on 9/11/2015. We know that Hillary got this open source collected email Sunday morning on the 16^th. That's the same day that Susan Rice went on TV exposing that the attacks were all due to a video. Yet the above report indicates that these attacks had been planed.

So where did the idea of the video being the spontaneous trigger come from? Probably this memo (C05795493) which appears in numerous emails and is dated 12 September 2012. It's a fairly dense intelligence report produced the day after the attack that indicates interim Libyan President Magariaf has been told by his security people that the attacks could have been as a result of a video. It also notes that Magariaf was worried about possibly being cast as an tool of the Americans based on papers that were seized by his opposition when Qaddafi was killed. He (Magariaf) indicates that he thinks this campaign by his opposition is as much to blame as the video. There are two things to take away from this email. First, we can see where the idea to blame the video originated – from Magariaf's security staff. Secondly, it is notable that this report was generated not to establish the basis of the attack, but to give the State Department a window into what was going on with the leadership of Libya in the aftermath of the attack. As the previous emails established, the US intelligence machine probably knew it was a military attack, and knew where it came from.

The next question is what role did Hillary play in the cover up and deception? The Susan Rice appearance on “This Week” is the initial lynchpin in establishing the video as a reason for the attacks. This email (C05794431) indicates that the Rice interview went exactly as planned. That doesn't mean that they weren't, even at this point, trying to cover their posteriors in case the deception went south. In this email (C05739754) sent to Hillary from Jake Sullivan, he notes that Rice wasn't asked if they had intelligence before the attack, then goes on to note that she did make a troubling statement about how the investigation might turn up some other cause for the attack. Why was this such a concern that he felt compelled to preface the transcript of the interview with that statement? I think it was because everyone involved knew the video was a red herring.

There were numerous other emails where the staffers indicated that Hillary's team were deeply involved in the coverup. In this one (C05796991) her aides are working the angles of why the video are a plausible story. In this one, (C05793287), they discuss how to keep pushing it and the parts of the narrative that need shoring up. That doesn't mean that Hillary wasn't aware that the video deception might come back to bite her. In this email (C05739610) from September 24^th, Jake Sullivan has apparently been asked to compile a list of all the utterances that Hillary has made about the video and the attack. He notes “You never said spontaneous or characterized the motives”. It makes one start to wonder 'what the meaning of is is', and why Hillary felt she might need to deny something she and her staff had orchestrated.

So why did they do it? One theory is that it was a callous move before an election to throw off criticism of Obama's foreign policy weakness. Another clue as to why lies in this email (C05796495). In that one, Jake Sullivan, in discussing a conservative hit piece on the 'Satanic Video' by Ben Keller, notes that by blaming the video on the protest, and denouncing it, they were able to get help shaky governments say 'look – the American government doesn't like disrespecting Mohammad'. Thus they can quell the radical's attempting to take over those governments. He goes on to cite Tunisia as an example. Of course, in hindsight, this assertion is so much fluff, given this attack and this one, not to mention to morass that currently is Syria.

That brings us back to Hillary's question of “What difference does it make?” While Hillary may escape going to jail and will possibly go on the be the Democrat's great white hope for the current election, I would hope that the electorate not let her or Obama forget that the responsibility for Benghazi lies squarely on her and Obama's head, and vote accordingly. That's what difference it should make.