It seemed like old times: a touchy and unforthcoming Hillary Clinton being deposed.
“In Tense Deposition, Hillary Clinton Denies Knowing Epstein or His Crimes” is the New York Times headline:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday denied ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein or knowing anything about his crimes during a more than six-hour, closed-door deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee, which briefly devolved into chaos after a Republican lawmaker leaked a photograph of the proceedings to a right-wing blogger.
Mrs. Clinton arrived to testify under oath at the Center for Performing Arts in Chappaqua, N.Y., defiant about being compelled to participate in the panel’s investigation into Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.
The photo was furtively snapped and leaked by Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert. Podcaster Benny Johnson was the recipient. It is against the Oversight Committee rules to do this. Angry Dems (and Ms. Must) came away wondering if maybe Rep. Boebert could use more oversight herself:
“I really admire her blue suit, so I wanted to capture that for everyone,” Boebert, a member of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters in Chappaqua, New York. When a reporter asked why she sent the picture to Johnson, Boebert responded, “Why not?”
She also told reporters that she had “just returned to my hotel room and installed the BleachBit software,” referring to a disk cleaning program for Windows, adding, “So I guess in regards to taking photos, I do not recall.”
You will be happy to learn that years of exile from political power have not turned Hillary into a sweet little old lady. She was her combative old self, demanding that President Trump be brought before the Committee to testify under oath about his relationship with late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
I don’t think the Committee laid a glove on her, but she did skedaddle when a reporter asked her why Epstein procurer Ghislaine Maxwell—with whom Hillary said she had “no relationship”—was a guest at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Maxwell, however, appears to have been deeply involved with the kickoff of the Clinton Global Initiative. PJ Media’s Stephen Kruiser was not favorably impressed with the Oversight Committee’s decision to call Mrs. Clinton. “A Pox on Everyone Who Keeps Hillary Clinton in the News,” says Kruiser.
Former President Bill Clinton will testify about his relationship with Epstein before the same Committee today. He did not come willingly.
“Vance Tightens the Fraud Spigot” is Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel’s headline this morning. Washington will withhold Medicaid reimbursements from the state of Minnesota. Strassel observes:
This is unprecedented—and different from the administration’s moves to pause grant disbursements to high-fraud states. Minnesota is already on the hook for these Medicaid services. The federal check now in deferment limbo was supposed to reimburse the state for the federal government’s share of that spending. Mr. Oz made clear that “we will give them the money” after “they propose and act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem.” Future payments are also at risk. If Minnesota dawdles, it “will rack up $1 billion of deferred payments this year,” the CMS head said.
Substantively, this is a powerful approach, since it attacks the key structural flaw in the current system. Medicaid is a joint federal-state program, but states make all the decisions and send the feds a bill. States have little interest in policing fraud—in making sure that a “nonprofit” they send money to is real, qualified or successful—since the federal government “matches” at multiples. For some Medicaid populations, every dollar a state pays brings $9 from federal taxpayers. Spend more, get more. This is how you get an estimated $9 billion in fraudulent Minnesota claims.
If Vance is trying to end fraud in Minnesota, Democrats in Virginia are trying to end VMI (Virginia Military Institute) as we know it. Two bills now under consideration by the state’s legislature could damage the country’s oldest military college. An editorial calls it what it is:
Don’t think this is about saving money. It’s about progressive hostility to VMI’s martial values. As part of its review, the new panel (made up of 11 delegates, two of whom served in the military) would “thoroughly audit” whether the school has made “substantial changes” to reduce “racist, sexist or misogynistic” actions in the student body and whether the school “possesses the capacity . . . to end celebration of the Confederacy.” Possesses the capacity? The outcome seems preordained.
Does California possess the capacity to elect a Republican Governor? “Republicans Have a Rare Shot at Winning the California Governorship” announces a Washington Examiner headline. It’s because so many Democratic candidates have emerged. All candidates run against each other, regardless of party, in the primary. It would be astonishing if Steve Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco replaced Gavin Newsom.
Maybe “public servants” in the Golden State would then rake in more realistic salaries. Meanwhile, four-termer Senator John Cornyn of Texas is struggling for re-election, and Politico wonders if there is still a place in the GOP for traditional Republican such as Cornyn. Call Him Daddy: Also in Politico, Rep. Nancy Mace, who is running for Governor of Sooth Carolina, talks about her personal traumas and why President Trump is a “father figure” for her.
Did President Trump’s economic message in his State of the Union address improve GOP chances for the midterms? Longtime political consultant David Winston answers:
It was the first step in a long-term case he needs to prove. The economic data of the past few months has generated more questions than answers as we wait for more reporting. People are just as confused as the economists, wondering if the glass is half empty or half full.
What about the tariffs? AEI Research Fellow David Hebert writes that the tariffs have made the U. S. so unpredictable that other countries are trading without us. Meanwhile, Salon’s Jason Kyle Howard writes the SOTU exposed his party’s biggest problem: they don’t know how to fight Trump. This is so unfair—the anti-Trump dancing frogs brigade was magnificent.
And Now—Bad Samaritans. The Marylander Condominiums are in a precarious situation after a nearby homeless encampment allegedly vandalized the boiler, leaving residents without heat. While residents have fled or soon will be evicted, the Washington Free Beacon reports:
The encampment, though, is still going strong. And unlike the moribund condominium, it is getting plenty of help from private charities.
The Washington Free Beacon identified nearly a dozen church groups, activists, and local businesses that deliver food to the camp on a regular basis. The meals are distributed at the entrance of the encampment, in the parking lot of a nearby McDonald’s, without any pushback from the county, which runs its own on-site delivery program through the Department of Social Services.
The victims of that humanitarian free-for-all have been the condo’s law-abiding residents, many of them low-income minorities.
If you are in the market for a fun book on progressive doing good deeds, may I recommend Lionel Shriver’s A Better Life? A progressive mom takes in an illegal under the fictional “Big Apple, Big Hearts.” All the right people are angry with Shriver.
“What Would the World Look Like Without Trump?” Martin Gurri asks this question at City Journal. It’s a rather dazzling essay but too complicated to summarize. It deals particularly with global mass migration and concludes:
Trump is the decider in this war of worlds. Should he self-detonate into nihilistic chaos, the old regime will triumph by default, and the window on an era riven by revolts from below may close. But should he achieve his objectives and pass the baton to a successor, the transformation of the system will accelerate to warp speed.
The times would be defined by an immense horizon of possibilities, including, for example, a reconfiguration of government along lines shaped by the capabilities of artificial intelligence. Whether, at the end of this process, anything resembling our current dreams and ideals will remain may be the most consequential question we can ask—and one for which there is, at present, no answer.
Happy Friday!
