When the court said us from the Democrats dream of a benevolent dictator....

This from a column by Clarice Feldman here exemplified the Democrats unending dream of a benevolent dictator to make us mind our "P's and "Q's".

Probably the most important development this week is the effective end of the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), a power grab by Democrats led by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, which gives a single director who can only be fired for cause by the president (a structure designed to operate outside Congressional or executive control) power to regulate mortgages, credit cards, and retirement and pension investments -- in sum, all consumer financial transactions. Warren originally wanted to run this outfit, but when it was clear she’d never get Congressional approval, Richard Cordray became the one-man credit czar. Last October the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that placing so much power in a single commissioner not answerable to the president was unconstitutional.

The Obama Administration sought en banc review by the entire Circuit Court Panel.  In March, the new administration reversed the government’s position. The entire panel heard the case in May. While the decision in that case is still pending, Cordray this week resigned, and the president appointed in his place OMB chief Mike Mulvaney as interim head. Mulvaney strongly opposed the creation of this bureau. The President thus has now put in place someone who can be counted on to undo the Democrats’ machinations to control all our financial transactions by the fiat of a single man. By their own hands, they created a situation they are powerless to undo -- just as by tarring Judge Moore with suspect accusations they open themselves to the same treatment. 

State Department employees worked for Clinton Family Foundation...when did that become legal? Why would a Ukrainian oligarch $35 million to the Clinton's?

Hillary Clinton KNEW her aides were working with family foundation despite her pledge not to – and she even hosted dinner at her home for the charity when in office

Clinton's closest State Department aides were closely involved in projects with Clinton Foundation, according to emails released Tuesday

This was despite ethics agreements intended to create a firewall between Clinton's office and family's foundation

Emails released by Citizens United show aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were in regular contact with foundation officials

Topics of correspondence ranged from programming at Clinton Global Initiative events to Bill Clinton's public remarks

Clinton signed ethics agreement saying she wouldn't be personally involved in state department matters related to foundation

But State Department said her closet staffers were bound by no such restrictions 

By ALANA GOODMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 18:55 EST, 24 August 2016 | UPDATED: 08:52 EST, 25 August 2016

Hillary Clinton's closest State Department aides were closely involved in coordinating events, talking points, and projects with the Clinton Foundation, according to emails, despite ethics agreements that were intended to create a firewall between Clinton's office and her family's foundation.

Emails released by the watchdog group Citizens United on Tuesday show Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were in regular contact with foundation officials on topics ranging from the programming at Clinton Global Initiative events to Bill Clinton's public remarks.

While Clinton signed an ethics agreement saying she would not be personally involved with State Department matters related to the Clinton Foundation, her closest staffers were bound by no such restrictions, according to the State Department.

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Hillary Clinton's closest State Department aides were closely involved in projects with the Clinton Foundation, according to emails, despite ethics agreements intended to create a firewall between Clinton's office and her family's foundation

'Secretary Clinton's ethics agreement at the time did not preclude other State Department officials from engaging with or having contact with the [Clinton] Foundation,' said spokesperson Mark Toner during the State Department press briefing on Monday. 

Toner was commenting on phone logs from Cheryl Mills's office that were published this week, which showed Mills corresponded extensively with the Clinton Foundation's chief operating officer.

Clinton signed an ethics agreement before taking office in which she said she would 'not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which the William J. Clinton Foundation (or the Clinton Global Initiative) is a party or represents a party' unless she applied for and received a waiver under conflict-of-interest laws.

Although there are debates over what constitutes 'personal and substantial' involvement under ethics laws, emails from Clinton's aides indicate that she was aware of her staffer's involvement with CGI and Clinton Foundation matters.

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Emails released by Citizens United show Clinton aides Huma Abedin (pictured with Clinton on Monday) and Cheryl Mills were in regular contact with foundation officials on topics including the programming at Clinton Global Initiative events

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Phone logs from Cheryl Mills's office (Mills pictured left with Clinton last October) published this week showed Mills corresponded extensively with the Clinton Foundation's chief operating officer

In one email exchange, Abedin wrote to Clinton Global Initiative official Ed Hughes to discuss an upcoming conversation she had scheduled with a Clinton Foundation donor Abigail Disney. 

Abedin said that Disney, who has contributed between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation, wanted to discuss getting Clinton involved in an effort to highlight women's issues at a CGI event.

'I wish I could delay [Disney] but the problem is she keeps emailing [Clinton] directly and is quite anxious to talk so I don't think I can push her an entire week,' wrote Abedin on July 23, 2012. 

'Also, was talking to [Clinton] about note in [another CGI official's] memo about integrating womens issues throughout the week.'

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While Clinton signed an ethics agreement (above in part) saying she would not be personally involved State Department matters related to the Clinton Foundation, her closest staffers were bound by no such restrictions, according to the State Department

In a follow-up email, Abedin added that Clinton's role in the CGI event 'hadn't even been discussed yet' and that Disney was going to respond to her with a 'clearer proposal for what they want' in terms of Clinton addressing women's issues at the function.

In another June 11, 2012 message, Clinton Foundation aide Dennis Cheng – who is currently the finance director for Clinton's presidential campaign – emailed Abedin a list of attendees at a foundation dinner, indicating that it was going to be brought up during the secretary of state's briefing the next day.

'Attached is a list of attendees for tomorrow night's Clinton Foundation dinner,' he wrote. 'Let me know if you need anything else for HRC's briefing.'

Abedin forwarded the message to other State Department aides with the message 'For her book tomorrow. Dinner at her house.'

The names on the guest list included long-time Clinton confidante Terry McAuliffe, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk

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The Associated Press published a report on Wednesday that showed that over half of Clinton's meetings while at the State Department were with donors to the Clinton Foundation

Trump calls for special prosecutor to investigate Clinton

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Pinchuk, a billionaire industrialist, has contributed between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation through his own charitable group.

In another email from 2012, a Clinton Foundation official reached out to Mills and Abedin for advice on what Bill Clinton should say in a press release for a project for the Clinton Climate Initiative, an offshoot of the foundation. 

The project was being carried out with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, an initiative launched by Hillary Clinton at the State Department.

'What would you like us to say or not say?' asked Clinton Foundation aide Amitabh Desai in a June 18, 2012 email to Abedin and Mills.

The emails were released by Citizens United on Tuesday. 

The group obtained them as part of a public records lawsuit against the State Department. 

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Bill Clinton said earlier this month that the foundation would no longer accept foreign donations if Clinton is elected president

Previously this week, Citizens United published phone logs from Mills that showed she received more phone messages at the State Department from the Clinton Foundation's chief operating officer than any other individual between 2010 and 2012.

The Associated Press also published a report on Wednesday that showed that over half of Clinton's meetings while at the State Department were with donors to the Clinton Foundation. 

Republicans have criticized Clinton's involvement with the charity, with her opponent Donald Trump calling on the presidential candidate to shut it down. 

Bill Clinton said earlier this month that the foundation would no longer accept foreign donations if Clinton is elected president.

The Democrats have corrupted the entire political bureaucracy. Authoritarianism, crony capitalism and perhaps even murder the makings of a despotic state.

Newly released Clinton emails shed light on relationship between State Dept. and Clinton Foundation

By Daniella Diaz, Pamela Brown and Elise Labott, CNN

Washington (CNN)Newly released emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state raise questions about the nature of the department's relationship with the Clinton Foundation.

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, released 296 pages of emails from the Democratic presidential nominee, including 44 that Judicial Watch says were not previously handed over to the State Department by Clinton. The emails, many of which are heavily redacted, raise questions about the Clinton Foundation's influence on the State Department and its relations during her tenure. 

In one instance, top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band lobbied Clinton aides for a job for someone else in the State Department. In the email, Band tells Hillary Clinton's former aides at the department -- Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin -- that it is "important to take care of (redacted)." Band is reassured by Abedin that "Personnel has been sending him options."

The emails were obtained by the group through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the State Department in 2015. The group did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

The Trump campaign seized at the new batch of emails, citing them as evidence of Clinton being corrupt. The prolonged investigations into her use of a private email server while at the State Department has fueled public distrust of her and plagued her presidential bid. But the Justice Department declined to press charges against Clinton for her handling of classified information related to the server earlier this year, with FBI Director James Comey saying while she was "extremely careless," it was his judgment that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

In a 2009 email, Band directs Abedin and Mills to put Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor, in contact with the State Department's "substance person" on Lebanon.

"We need Gilbert Chagoury to speak to the substance person re Lebanon," Band wrote. "As you know, he's a key guy there and to us and is loved in Lebanon. Very imp."

"It's jeff feltman," Abedin responded, referring to Jeffrey Feltman, who was the US ambassador to Lebanon at the time. "I'm sure he knows him. I'll talk to jeff."

Feltman told CNN Wednesday that he never met with Chagoury. 

"I have never met nor spoken with Mr Chagoury. I was not aware of the proposal that he speak to me until this email exchange was released, but in any case we never spoke," he said.

Judicial Watch President Tom Filton said in a press release that Clinton "hid" the 44 emails on purpose.

"No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress," he said in a press release. "They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law."

Clinton defense

Clinton's campaign said the emails didn't relate to her work at the Clinton Foundation.

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"Neither of these emails involve the secretary or relate to the Foundation's work," said an emailed statement from Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin. "They are communications between her aides and the President's personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary's former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation."

The Clinton campaign said Wednesday that Chagoury only wanted to offer insights on the then-upcoming Lebanese election and was not looking for any specific action from the State Department. 

"The right-wing organization behind this lawsuit has been attacking the Clintons since the 1990s and no matter how this group tries to mischaracterize these documents, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as secretary of state because of donations to the Clinton Foundation," Schwerin said in a statement.

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Kevin Williamson perfectly expresses my view of the SOTU address:

On the nauseating spectacle that is the State of the Union address The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live. 

It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention. 

It’s worse than the Oscars.

The national self-debasement begins well before the speech is under way. Members of Congress — supposedly free men and women serving as the elected representatives of the citizens of a self-governing republic — arrive hours early, camping out like spotty-faced adolescents waiting for Justin Bieber tickets, in the hope of staking out some prime center-aisle real estate that they might be seen on television, if only for a second or two, being greeted by the national pontifex maximus as he makes his stately procession into the chamber. 

When the moment comes and the sergeant-at-arms utters the sacred words — “Mr. Speaker! The president of the United States!” — the chamber will erupt, as though the assembled have entirely forgotten that the mysterious entity that is the object of this curious act of national worship only a decade ago was an obscure legislator in a destitute and corrupt state, a man whose most prominent legislative accomplishment was the passage of a bill requiring police to videotape confessions in potential capital cases — in a state in which there were as a practical matter no potential capital cases. (Illinois had not carried out an execution during the century in which the law was passed and was on its way toward abolishing capital punishment categorically.) 

But they will listen, rapt, and the media mandarins afterward will evaluate each promise with great sobriety, ignoring entirely that the central promise made during the same charlatan’s first State of the Union address was subsequently labeled “Lie of the Year” by the great man’s own frustrated admirers. That an entire class of people should be so enthusiastic about being lied to, serially, is perplexing. 

And then there are the human props. This year’s victim du jour is one Jason Collins, an aging professional basketball player boasting more than $32 million in lifetime earnings who has publicly affirmed his homosexuality. For this act of courage/oversharing, he is to be seated in the first lady’s box. That there is such a thing as the first lady’s box is lamentable in and of itself. There is a royal box at London’s Royal Opera, complete with a private, Victorian-style toilet. And while the antiquated royal toilet may be a perfect metaphor for the State of the Union festivities, this is a republic, not a monarchy, and honors and offices are not accrued through marriage. Michelle Obama is a currently unemployed former part-time hospital administrator and mother to two lovely daughters. That is admirable enough, but she is a figure of public importance through marriage only, which is to say, properly a figure of curiosity, not of policy. She is not a royal consort, and proximity to her in seating should not constitute a message about the direction of government. (Even Lady Macbeth was known to dispense with such pretensions when pressed: “Stand not upon the order of your going,” she advises her dinner guests.)

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369607/great-caesars-ghost-kevin-d-williamson