Sunday, July 16, 2017

Opuscula

Inside info:
Ignore it?

OTHER THAN “INSIDER trading” there is nothing illegal about acquiring information about your competitor, be the competitor business or politics.

So what’s the big deal about Trump Junior agreeing to meet with someone who might provide new information about Hillary Clinton?

Certainly there was plenty of anti-Clinton information already out there:

    Her illegal email server on which there were, according to the FBI, many “sensitive” emails

    Her handling of Benghazi where a well-planned “spontaneous” attack on the consulate ended with the death of four Americans — simply because she was too slow to act.


THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE between “Russia” — Putin, his followers, or simply Wiki leaks copycats — offering competitive information about a political candidate and the “Russians” trying to tamper with American voting machines — s situation, according to the FBI, that did NOT happen.

Looking g at Clinton — an Obama follower — and Trump — a known hardnosed negotiator — WHY would the Russians want Trump to be president?

Compared to Trump, Clinton is an indecisive pussy cat just like her former boss. SHE never said she wanted to make America great again. Not on her agenda.

Trump, on the other hand, made it clear that he would not let other nations dictate to America; his promise was to “Make America Great Again.”

Industrial espionage is legal as long as there are no B&Es. Paying an insider for information about a developing product is not nice, but neither is it illegal.

In any event, real spies will admit that most of their intelligence gathering is from the media and public records and, not surprisingly, the internet. Not exciting “007” stuff, but the facts of spy life.

OK. Trump Junior owned up to meeting with Russian agents who claimed to have more “dirt” on Hillary — not that there wasn’t enough already (ibid.). He would be remiss if he rejected the Russian overture. (There apparently is zero evidence any Trump associate initiated a contact.) True, there had been talks with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. — hardly illegal. Perhaps the Trump people were apprising the ambassador of what to expect in the event The Donald won the election. I’m certain his “Make America Great Again” promise was not well received in the Kremlin.

Of course the United States NEVER would interfere in another county’s politics.

If anyone believes that, there is a bridge in New York for sale; give me a call.

The last time America tried — and failed — to influence an election was when Trump’s predecessor sent U.S. taxpayer dollars to Israel in an attempt to defeat the incumbent prime minister with whom he had an obvious dislike. (The prime minister didn’t like the president, either.) It was money ill-spent; the incumbent PM won handily.

Under Trump’s predecessor, the U.S. was caught bugging the phones of leaders of allied nations. Not the phones of suspected Islamic extremists, but heads of state.

President Trump calls the media attacks a “witch hunt,” and indeed they are. Although Salem MA murdered a number of “witches,” there really were no witches then, so “witch hunt” has to be an empty exercise. No witches then and nothing in Trump’s contacts with the Russians that is illegal.

I once had a brief correspondence with an Iranian. Does that make me an “enemy of the state”? The subject was risk management, not then and not now a controlled subject. I also once was invited to speak on risk management in an African nation not an especial friend of the U.S. I did not accept, but even if I had, no violation of any U.S. laws.

It is a pity that today’s “journalists” don’t know history beyond yesterday’s headlines (never mind the copy beneath the heads) and are too lazy to consult — or, hard to believe — look up Constitutional law before attacking the president.

 



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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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