kscarbel2

Some of the John Deere lawn mowers and lawn tractor do/did use Kawasaki engines. Selling cheap throw-away MTD-produced John Deere-branded lawnmowers at Home Depot/Lowes was a huge mistake. It devalued the brand.

Kubota makes a versatile lawn tractor.

Back in the day, half the trucks that Mack sold were COEs. Back then, many thought the COEs, the F-model, Cruise-Liner and Ultra-Liner were for the real, professional drivers. Of course, if your COE had the Mack V-8, that nailed it. To each his own, but I'd rather drive a COE over a conventional any day of the week. I can "wear" an F-model like my favorite pair of gloves, whereas the Super-Liner is clumsy with its long nose and wheelbase that kills maneuverability. If you grew up within the confines of the R/U/DM cab, the F-model cab felt incredibly spacious. And the Cruise-Liner cab, my gosh, if you'd previously driven R-models, felt huge! I've never understood those drivers who sit on the floor.

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Owner/Driver / September 5, 2016 Trucks built across the last eight years affected by brake issues Volvo Group Australia has recalled 6,909 trucks across the Titan, Granite, Super-Liner, Metro-Liner, and Trident over brake pedal issues. According to an Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) notice, the defects could render the trucks’ service brakes inoperable. "Potential failure of the split pin, used to secure the brake pedal clevis pin, may cause the clevis pin to come loose, possibly causing the brake pedal to fall to the floor rendering the service brakes inoperable," the notice says. "If the service brakes become inoperable, there is the potential to cause an accident and/or injury to the user or others." The affected vehicles were sold nationally between 4 January 2008 and 15 January 2016. VGA says "consumers should contact their closest authorised VGA repairing dealer and book their vehicle in for repair as soon as possible." The huge recall is the third by the brand since June. The first affected Granite and Trident models from 2011 to 2014 and the second impacted the 2015 truck range. Related reading - http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/46574-2015-mack-australia-truck-range-recalled/#comment-343521

Radical Islamist handed 10-year jail term in Australia The Guardian / September 4, 2016 A Melbourne teenager who plotted to behead a police officer in an Anzac Day terror attack will spend at least seven and a half years in prison. Sevdet Ramadan Besim, now 19, pleaded guilty to a single terror-related charge over his 2015 plan to run down an officer and behead him in a rampage that would ultimately end in the teenager’s own death. Besim was handed a 10-year jail sentence in the Victorian supreme court on Monday and must serve at least seven and a half before he is eligible for parole. Justice Michael Croucher said Besim’s planned “putrid act” was aimed at advancing violent jihad, intimidating the government and striking fear into hearts of the wider community. The murder plot would also terrify every law enforcement officer in the country and their loved ones, he said. “To the vast majority of the community, it’s unfathomable an 18-year-old boy planned to kill a law enforcement officer, to crash into him with a car and then behead him with a knife,” Croucher said. Besim chose Anzac Day to “make sure the dogs remember this as well as there fallen heros [sic]”. He said he was “ready to fight these dogs on there [sic] doorstep”. “I’d love to take out some cops,” Besim said in online chats with a UK teenager, where he discussed his deadly ideas. “I was gonna meet with them then take some heads ahaha.” The court heard Besim was radicalised by older, influential extremists he met at the now defunct Al-Furqan Islamic Centre, including senior Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash. He was also greatly affected by the 2014 death of his friend Numan Haider and became alienated from mainstream society. Haider, 18, was shot dead outside Endeavour Hills police station after stabbing two counter-terrorism officers. Besim was with him in the hours before the attack. Corrections Victoria found a hand-drawn Islamic State flag in his jail cell last September as well as a collection of newspaper clippings about violent jihadis fighting overseas. One of the articles referred to Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who gained infamy after his young son was pictured holding a severed head. Croucher said he was not persuaded Besim had rejected his radical beliefs, and protection of the community was an important consideration. “I’m not persuaded to accept ... he has in fact renounced violent jihadism.” Besim pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to do an act in preparation for or planning a terror act. The charge carries a sentence of life imprisonment. Besim blew kisses to a large group of supporters as he was led from the dock. .

Commercial Motor TV - sponsored by DAF Trucks / September 2, 2016 .

The video looks great..........the audio sounds terrible. Why the use of loud obnoxious "bang your head" music, rather than a respected voice like Steve Brooks talking you thru the introduction ?

Kenworth Truck Company Press Release / September 2, 2016 .

Kenworth Truck Company Press Release / September 2, 2016 . .

Fleet Owner / September 2, 2016 Meritor has expanded its MFS Series of front non-drive axles to include a deep-drop axle option. “Our MFS Series already offers linehaul and vocational fleets a wide range of options, and the deep-drop feature represents an expansion that will help customers spec their vehicles,” said Joe Muscedere, general manager, Front Drivetrain. The option, which includes deep axle drops of 4.76 and 5 in., is ideal for auto hauling and refuse applications where lower vehicle ride heights are needed, according to Muscedere. The deep-drop axle, which includes a new universal knuckle compatible with Meritor EX+ air disc brakes and Q+ drum brakes, improves brake serviceability and vehicle packaging, he added. “The deep-drop axle design complements the MFS Series product line, which is known for its proven durability, superior vehicle control and longer lifetime,” Muscedere said. The axle features a one-piece forged knuckle design for improved reliability and longer service life. MFS Series axles also optimize performance such as sharper wheel cut to increase maneuverability. The deep-drop MFS non-drive steer axle is available in standard and wide track with gross axle weight ratings (GAWR) of 13,000 to 14,600 and 18,000 to 22,800 lbs.

Heavy Duty Trucking / September 2, 2016 Component supplier Accuride has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Crestview Partners, a New York-based private equity firm. Accuride’s board of directors unanimously approved the Crestview buy out and agreed to recommend that shareholders should vote to adopt the merger agreement. The company will be given a customary 35 day period during which it is allowed to solicit alternative proposals. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016. Accuride will operate as an independent business within Crestview’s portfolio of companies. Accuride also recently sold Brillion Iron Works, a subsidiary of Metaldyne Performance Group, a provider of powertrain and suspension components. “Accuride will serve as a platform for further growth and consolidation in the global wheels and wheel-end sectors as we expand to serve our customers’ needs worldwide,” said Rick Dauch, president and CEO of Accuride. “We are confident that under Crestview’s stewardship, Accuride will receive the resources and support needed to realize our vision of becoming the premier supplier of wheel-end system solutions to the global commercial vehicle industry.”

http://www.gerhartmachinery.com/about/gerharts-all-mack-truck-event/

Trump "would find it very, very difficult to throw out a family that has been here for 15 years and they have three children, two of whom are citizens. That is not the kind of America he wants." Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani On Sunday, Giuliani said that all 10 of Trump's immigration policies are largely directed only toward "criminal" illegal immigrants. [Apparently, they don't view entering the U.S. illegally as being a crime. I do.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First of all, in my vision, any children born to illegal immigrants in the United States should NOT be granted citizenship. Second, that any illegal immigrants can remain in the United States without being caught for 15 years is not only damning regarding the will and capabilities of U.S. authorities, but also begs the question of whether or not it is intentional.

From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton-Scandal Primer David Graham, The Atlantic / September 2, 2016 The FBI has released its report into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, providing the most detailed account yet of why and how she used the system. In a classic Friday news dump, the FBI on Friday afternoon released the results of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and private email address. Unsurprisingly, the findings track closely with what FBI Director James Comey said when he announced the findings in July. The report, released in two chunks, offers the most complete narrative of Clinton’s email system. But they do offer a few of what a computer technician quoted in the investigation might refer to as “oh shit” moments. The original “oh shit” moment concerned an out-of-date server that was housed at a facility in New Jersey. In December 2014, Clinton aide Cheryl Mills asked someone to delete the old messages. Apparently he didn’t do so. Then, in March 2015, The New York Times reported the existence of the email setup. The next day, a House committee on Benghazi requested the preservation of any records. Despite that, an unnamed staffer, realizing he had not followed Mills’s instructions, deleted anyway: View note Mills and Clinton said they were unaware of the move. Unawareness is a common thread throughout the report. Clinton seemed to have only a faint understanding of the process of classification and what was and was not classified, nor was she apparently trained when she joined State from the U.S. Senate: View note She also said she was unaware of the requirement that she turn over her emails when she left office, which she said might be due in part to a concussion she suffered in 2012: View note Some of the classified messages in Clinton’s emails dealt with “SAP,” special access programs, generally believed to be a reference to drone strikes carried out by the U.S. overseas. Through a peculiarity of classification, these strokes are widely known about and reported on, but the government still treats them as a secret. Some of Clinton’s discussions involved material that had been reported in the public but still was technically classified. On the one hand, that seems pointless, but on the other hand Clinton told FBI investigators she understood the importance of SAP secrecy. In another case, Clinton said staffers were handcuffed by the lack of a protocol for discussing classified information at holidays when people were traveling, meaning aides had to “communicate in code or do the best you could to convey the information.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell doesn’t come off well in the report. While Clinton said she had already planned to use a private email address, some advice that he gave her seemed geared to circumventing public-records laws: View note Many of Clinton’s aides apparently had no understanding of the fact that Clinton—and in some cases the aides themselves—were using a private email server. Clinton used a remarkable 13 mobile devices to access her email account, including eight separate BlackBerrys during her time as secretary of state. None of the 13 could be located for inspection, her lawyers said. (Clinton apparently often got new BlackBerrys and then decided she liked the old ones better.) She also used five iPads to access her account. In sum, the report portrays Clinton as generally unaware: unschooled in the rules of classification and not especially concerned about getting trained; but also technologically dependent on aides in the way that many 60-something executives likely are, with little understanding of how the technology they use every day fundamentally works. Reading the report, it’s surprising that more classified information was not accidentally sent than the FBI found. One important remaining question is whether Clinton’s server and email were ever hacked. When Comey announced the findings he stated, in essence, that they had found no direct evidence; that they would not expect to find such evidence; and that there was good reason to suspect she might have been hacked. The report fleshes that out. There were numerous failed attempts, which Clinton aide Bryan Pagliano knew about because they appeared as failed login attempts. Pagliano considered but did not implement security protections like a virtual private network or two-step verification. There was an onslaught of attempts after the Times story first publicly revealed the server, once again none of them apparently successful. There were also several cases of what sound like standard phishing and spear-phishing attempts, where Clinton and others received malicious messages with dangerous links. In one of the more peculiar notes, the FBI reports that an email address belonging to a staffer was compromised by someone using Tor, a software that allows masking and anonymity: View note It’s too soon to know what sort of effect the FBI report could have on Clinton’s presidential campaign. It certainly does not paint a flattering view of Clinton, but it also mostly fleshes out information that was widely known about her email system. The emails represent something of a classic Clinton scandal. Although the House investigation turned up no evidence of wrongdoing on her part with respect to the attacks themselves, it was during that inquiry that her private-email use became public. This is a pattern with the Clinton family, which has been in the public spotlight since Bill Clinton’s first run for office, in 1974: Something that appears potentially scandalous on its face turns out to be innocuous, but an investigation into it reveals different questionable behavior. The canonical case is Whitewater, a failed real-estate investment Bill and Hillary Clinton made in 1978. Although no inquiry ever produced evidence of wrongdoing, investigations ultimately led to President Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice. With Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for president, every Clinton scandal—from Whitewater to the State Department emails—will be under the microscope. (No other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated by partisans as George W. Bush—have fostered the creation of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.) Keeping track of each controversy, where it came from, and how serious it is, is no small task, so here’s a primer. We’ll update it as new information emerges. The Clintons’ Private Email Server What? During the course of the Benghazi investigation, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt learned Clinton had used a personal email account while secretary of state. It turned out she had also been using a private server, located at a house in New York. The result was that Clinton and her staff decided which emails to turn over to the State Department as public records and which to withhold; they say they then destroyed the ones they had designated as personal. When? 2009-2013, during Clinton’s term as secretary. Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; top aides including Huma Abedin How serious is it? Very serious. A May report from the State Department inspector general is harshly critical of Clinton’s email approach, but Loretta Lynch announced on July 6 that the Justice Department would not pursue criminal charges, removing the threat of an indictment that could be fatal to her campaign. But the scandal will remain a millstone around her neck forever. Comey’s damning comments about her conduct—“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information”—will reverberate throughout the campaign. Also unresolved is the question of whether Clinton’s server was hacked. You can read the FBI report here. Clinton’s State Department Emails What? Setting aside the question of the Clintons’ private email server, what’s actually in the emails that Clinton did turn over to State? While some of the emails related to Benghazi have been released, there are plenty of others covered by public-records laws that are still in the process of being vetted for release. When? 2009-2013 How serious is it? Serious. While the contents of emails revealed so far has been more eyerolly than scandalous, the bigger problem is the revelation that dozens of email chains contained information that was classified at some level. Meanwhile, some emails remain to be seen. The State Department, under court order, is slowly releasing the emails she turned over, but there are other emails that she didn’t turn over, which have surfaced through court battles. State also says the FBI found 30 emails related to the Benghazi attacks that Clinton did not turn over. Benghazi What? On September 11, 2012, attackers overran a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Since then, Republicans have charged that Hillary Clinton failed to adequately protect U.S. installations or that she attempted to spin the attacks as spontaneous when she knew they were planned terrorist operations. She testifies for the first time on October 22. When? September 11, 2012-present How serious is it? With the June 28 release of the House committee investigating Benghazi, this issue is receding. That report criticized security preparations at the American facility in Benghazi as well as stations elsewhere, but it produced no smoking guns or new accusations about things Clinton could have done the night of the attacks. Although some conservatives will likely continue to assail her, the biggest damage is likely to be iterative—the highly damaging private-email story was revealed during the course of the House inquiry. In late August, the State Department announced that the FBI had found 30 new emails related to Benghazi that Clinton did not hand over. The content is as yet unknown, but the revelation will extend the story. Conflicts of Interest in Foggy Bottom What? Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four months while also working for New York University, in which capacity she negotiated on the school’s behalf with the government of Abu Dhabi, where it was building a campus. In June 2012, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin’s status at State changed to “special government employee,” allowing her to also work for Teneo, a consulting firm run by Bill Clinton’s former right-hand man. She also earned money from the Clinton Foundation and was paid directly by Hillary Clinton. In a separate case, ABC News reports that a top Clinton Foundation donor named Rajiv Fernando was placed on State’s International Security Advisory Board. Fernando appeared significantly less qualified than many of his colleagues, and was appointed at the behest of the secretary’s office. Internal emails show that State staff first sought to cover for Clinton, and then Fernando resigned two days after ABC’s inquiries. Judicial Watch released documents that show Doug Band, a Foundation official, trying to put a donor in touch with a State Department expert on Lebanon and to get someone a job at Foggy Bottom. Who? Both Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin are among Clinton’s longest-serving and closest aides. Abedin remains involved in her campaign (and she’s also married to Anthony Weiner). When? January 2009-February 2013 How serious is it? This is arcane stuff, to be sure. There are questions about conflict of interest—such as whether Teneo clients might have benefited from special treatment by the State Department while Abedin worked for both. To a great extent, this is just an extension of the tangle of conflicts presented by the Clinton Foundation and the many overlapping roles of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Sidney Blumenthal What? A former journalist, Blumenthal was a top aide in the second term of the Bill Clinton administration and helped on messaging during the bad old days. He served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and when she took over the State Department, she sought to hire Blumenthal. Obama aides, apparently still smarting over his role in attacks on candidate Obama, refused the request, so Clinton just sought out his counsel informally. At the same time, Blumenthal was drawing a check from the Clinton Foundation. When? 2009-2013 How serious is it? Only mildly. Some of the damage is already done. Blumenthal was apparently the source of the idea that the Benghazi attacks were spontaneous, a notion that proved incorrect and provided a political bludgeon against Clinton and Obama. He also advised the secretary on a wide range of other issues, from Northern Ireland to China, and passed along analysis from his son Max, a staunch critic of the Israeli government (and conservative bête noire). But emails released so far show even Clinton’s top foreign-policy guru, Jake Sullivan, rejecting Blumenthal’s analysis, raising questions about her judgment in trusting him. The Speeches What? Since Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, both Clintons have made millions of dollars for giving speeches. When? 2001-present Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; Chelsea Clinton How serious is it? Intermittently dangerous. It has a tendency to flare up, then die down. Senator Bernie Sanders made it a useful attack against her in early 2016, suggesting that by speaking to banks like Goldman Sachs, she was compromised. There have been calls for Clinton to release the transcripts of her speeches, which she was declined to do, saying if every other candidate does, she will too. For the Clintons, who left the White House up to their ears in legal debt, lucrative speeches—mostly by the former president—proved to be an effective way of rebuilding wealth. They have also been an effective magnet for prying questions. Where did Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton speak? How did they decide how much to charge? What did they say? How did they decide which speeches would be given on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, with fees going to the charity, and which would be treated as personal income? Are there cases of conflicts of interest or quid pro quos—for example, speaking gigs for Bill Clinton on behalf of clients who had business before the State Department? The Clinton Foundation What? Bill Clinton’s foundation was actually established in 1997, but after leaving the White House it became his primary vehicle for … well, everything. With projects ranging from public health to elephant-poaching protection and small-business assistance to child development, the foundation is a huge global player with several prominent offshoots. In 2013, following Hillary Clinton’s departure as secretary of State, it was renamed the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. When? 1997-present Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; Chelsea Clinton, etc. How serious is it? If the Clinton Foundation’s strength is President Clinton’s endless intellectual omnivorousness, its weakness is the distractibility and lack of interest in detail that sometimes come with it. On a philanthropic level, the foundation gets decent ratings from outside review groups, though critics charge that it’s too diffuse to do much good, that the money has not always achieved what it was intended to, and that in some cases the money doesn’t seem to have achieved its intended purpose. The foundation made errors in its tax returns it has to correct. Overall, however, the essential questions about the Clinton Foundation come down to two, related issues. The first is the seemingly unavoidable conflicts of interest: How did the Clintons’ charitable work intersect with their for-profit speeches? How did their speeches intersect with Hillary Clinton’s work at the State Department? Were there quid-pro-quos involving U.S. policy? Did the foundation steer money improperly to for-profit companies owned by friends? The second, connected question is about disclosure. When Clinton became secretary, she agreed that the foundation would make certain disclosures, which it’s now clear it didn’t always do. And the looming questions about Clinton’s State Department emails make it harder to answer those questions. The Bad Old Days What is it? Since the Clintons have a long history of controversies, there are any number of past scandals that continue to float around, especially in conservative media: Whitewater. Troopergate. Paula Jones. Monica Lewinsky. Travelgate. Vince Foster’s suicide. Juanita Broaddrick. When? 1975-2001 Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; a brigade of supporting characters How serious is it? The conventional wisdom is that they’re not terribly dangerous. Some are wholly spurious (Foster). Others (Lewinsky, Whitewater) have been so exhaustively investigated it’s hard to imagine them doing much further damage to Hillary Clinton’s standing. In fact, the Lewinsky scandal famously boosted her public approval ratings. But the January 2016 resurfacing of Juanita Broaddrick’s rape allegations offers a test case to see whether the conventional wisdom is truly wise—or just conventional. On May 23, Donald Trump released a video prominently highlighting Broaddrick’s accusation.

Andrew McCarthy, The National Review / September 2, 2016 The FBI-302 report of the interview of Hillary Clinton, along with the other notes of investigation released today, make for mind boggling reading. Most bracing is the fact that Mrs. Clinton had her server wiped clean sometime between March 25 and 31, 2015, only three weeks after the New York Times on March 3 broke the story of the server system’s existence. David notes that, at the same time the Democrats’ Janus-faced presidential nominee was outwardly taking the position that she “want[ed] the public to see my email,” she was having her minions frantically purge her emails behind the scenes. I’d add that this was five months before she feigned ignorance when Fox News’s Ed Henry pressed her on whether she’d “tried to wipe the entire server … so there could be no email – no personal, no official.” Henry finally asked, “Did you wipe the server?” Famously, Clinton scoffed, “Like with a cloth or something?” But we now know, as the FBI notes recount, she had the server purged with a sophisticated software program, BleachBit, which eventually made it extraordinarily difficult for the FBI to recover her emails, several thousand of which were successfully destroyed. And remember: We’ve just learned that 30 emails related to Benghazi were on the server Clinton purged – emails that she never turned over to the State Department despite claiming repeatedly that she’d surrendered all of her government-related emails. I would thus note that the March 2015 purge right after public revelation of the server’s existence occurred long after Mrs. Clinton was well aware of several official government investigations of the Benghazi massacre – one by the State Department, several by Congress, and a judicial proceeding involving the one defendant who has been indicted for the terrorist attack. There were also, quite obviously, several relevant Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigations. From what I’ve been able to glean so far, it is not clear from the FBI’s notes (and it was certainly not clear from Director James Comey’s press conference and House testimony) whether any consideration was given to indicting Mrs. Clinton for obstruction of justice and of government investigations – and if not, why not. Among the most eye-popping claims Clinton made to the FBI was that she was unfamiliar with the markings on classified documents. Yes, you read that correctly: one of the highest ranking national security officials in the United States government – an official whose day-to-day responsibilities extensively involved classified information; who had secure facilities installed in her two homes (in addition to her office) so she could review classified information in them; and who acknowledged to the FBI that, as secretary of state, she was designated by the president as “an Original Classification Authority,” meaning she had the power to determine what information should be classified and at what level – had the audacity to tell the interviewing agents that she did not know what the different classification symbols in classified documents signified. For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol “(C)” – meaning “confidential,” a designation ubiquitous in classified documents – Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, “could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.” This is a response so absurd as to be insulting (the interview notes do not tell us if the FBI asked her to find (A), (B) and (D) notations that would be necessary to have the “alphabetical order” story make sense – assuming, for argument’s sake that one would indulge the possibility that this could be a truthful answer from a classified information consumer as high-level as Clinton). Mind you, Mrs. Clinton was not just secretary of state for four years. She was a United States senator for eight years, during nearly all of which she was assigned to the Senate Armed Services Committee (and such Armed Services components as the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities). Reviewing classified information, including highly sensitive national defense secrets, is a routine part of that committee’s work. Clinton also claimed that she “did not pay attention to the ‘level’ of classified information.” The interview notes do not explain how the FBI squared this with, for example, (a) Clinton’s acknowledgement that top-secret “special access program” (SAP) information was delivered to her by paper in her office and she knew it was supposed to be handled with extraordinary care; and (b) Clinton’s admission that she made use of her Original Classification Authority at times (though she couldn’t say how often). That means she had to have assigned to some information the very classification levels with which she portrays herself as scarcely familiar. We also learn in the FBI documents not only that Mrs. Clinton frequently lost her Blackberry devices, but that the FBI failed to account for some thirteen of them, most if not all of which she used while transmitting the over 2,000 classified emails the FBI identified. Clinton aides told the FBI that her devices – loaded with stored emails – would at times disappear and their whereabouts would become unknown. Interestingly, in the notes of Mrs. Clinton’s interview, the FBI says she told them that her BlackBerry devices would occasionally “malfunction”; when this happened, “[h]er aides would assist in obtaining a new BlackBerry.” I have not yet found indications that the FBI asked her about lost rather than malfunctioning devices. We do learn, though, that on February 9, 2016, the Justice Department asked Clinton’s lawyers to turn over all 13 mobile devices that the FBI identified as having potentially transmitted emails. Almost two weeks later, on February 22, the lawyers told the FBI “they were unable to locate any of these devices.” As a result, the notes recount, “the FBI was unable to acquire or forensically examine any of these 13 mobile devices.” Finally, something else about those lawyers. I nearly fell out of my chair upon reading the very first paragraph of the notes of Clinton’s interview, which identifies the lawyers for Clinton who were permitted to be present for the interview. Among them is Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s longtime confidant and chief-of-staff at the State Department. Readers may recall that I suggested back in May that “the fix” was in in the investigation of the Clinton emails. The reason was that the Justice Department was allowing Cheryl Mills – a witness, if not a subject, of the investigation – to invoke attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mrs. Clinton in order to thwart the FBI’s attempt to inquire into the procedure used to produce Clinton’s emails to the State Department. Mills was a participant in that procedure – and it is the procedure in which, we now know, well over 30,000 emails were attempted to be destroyed, including several thousand that contained government-related business. When she worked for Clinton at State, Mills was not acting in the capacity of a lawyer – not for then-Secretary Clinton and not for the State Department. Moreover, as Clinton’s chief-of-staff, Mills was intimately involved in issues related to Clinton’s private email set up, the discussions about getting her a secure BlackBerry similar to President Obama’s, and questions that were raised (including in FOIA requests) about Clinton’s communications. That is to say, Mills was an actor in the facts that were under criminal investigation by the FBI. Put aside that she was not Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer while working for the State Department; as I explained in the May column, Mills, after leaving the State Department, was barred by ethical rules from acting as Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer “in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public officer or employee.” There is no way Mills should have been permitted to participate as a lawyer in the process of producing Clinton’s emails to the State Department nearly two years after they’d both left. I thought it was astonishing that the Justice Department indulged her attorney-client privilege claim, which frustrated the FBI’s ability to question her on a key aspect of the investigation. But it is simply unbelievable to find her turning up at Mrs. Clinton’s interview – participating in the capacity of a lawyer under circumstances where Clinton was being investigated over matters in which Mills participated as a non-lawyer government official. According to the FBI’s report, Mrs. Clinton had four other attorneys (one whose name is deleted from the report for some reason) representing her at the interview. She clearly did not need another lawyer. And it is Criminal Investigations 101 that law enforcement never interviews witnesses together – the point is to learn the truth, not provide witnesses/suspects with an opportunity to keep their story straight, which undermines the search for truth. Why on earth was Cheryl Mills permitted to sit in on Hillary Clinton’s FBI interview?

Just wondering, how recently have you had an opportunity to drive the latest European tractors?

Bob, I don't see any European influence in the exterior and interior styling cues of this next generation Cascadia. It has no personality inside or out. Though the Actros is designed for superior aerodynamics, it also has attractive styling.

Get ready for it. At the G20 meeting in Hangzhou on Sunday, EU President Donald Tusk said the international community to do more to step up resettlement of refugees. "The practical capabilities of Europe to host new waves of refugees, not to mention irregular economic migrants, are close to the limits," he said. "In light of an unprecedented number of 65 million displaced people all over the world, the G20 community needs to scale up its share of responsibility," Tusk said. "Only global efforts supporting refugees and their host communities will be able to bear fruit." "That is why we want to encourage our partners to increase humanitarian and development aid, as well as refugee resettlement. We need to address the root causes that force millions of people to leave their homes and seek shelter elsewhere."

Hillary Clinton email investigation: FBI notes reveal laptop and thumb drive missing The Guardian / September 3, 2016 A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday. The phrase “Clinton could not recall” litters the summary of the FBI’s investigation, which concluded in July that she should not face charges. Amid fierce Republican criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate, the party’s nominee, Donald Trump released a statement which said “Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief” and added that he did not “understand how she was able to get away from prosecution”. The FBI documents describe how Monica Hanley, a former Clinton aide, received assistance in spring 2013 from Justin Cooper, a former aide to Bill Clinton, in creating an archive of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Cooper provided Hanley with an Apple MacBook laptop from the Clinton Foundation – the family organisation currently embroiled in controversy – and talked her through the process of transferring emails from Clinton’s private server to the laptop and a thumb drive. “Hanley completed this task from her personal residence,” the notes record. The devices were intended to be stored at Clinton’s homes in New York and Washington. However, Hanley “forgot” to provide the archive laptop and thumb drive to Clinton’s staff. In early 2014, Hanley located the laptop at her home and tried to transfer the email archive to an IT company, apparently without success. It appears the emails were then transferred to an unnamed person’s personal Gmail account and there were problems around Apple software not being compatible with that of Microsoft. The unnamed person “told the FBI that, after the transfer was complete, he deleted the emails from the archive laptop but did not wipe the laptop. The laptop was then put in the mail, only to go missing. [Redacted] told the FBI that she never received the laptop from [redacted]; however, she advised that Clinton’s staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been easy for the package to get lost during the transition period. “Neither Hanley nor [redacted] could identify the current whereabouts of the archive laptop or thumb drive containing the archive, and the FBI does not have either item in its possession.” Clinton’s use of a private email server while in office has dogged her presidential campaign. The FBI has been criticised by Democrats for taking the rare step of publishing its account of confidential interviews with Clinton and others from the recently closed investigation, which found her to have been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information. Hopes that this would draw a line under the issue, however, appear to have been dashed. The FBI identified a total of 13 mobile devices associated with Clinton’s two known phone numbers that potentially were used to send emails using clintonemail.com addresses. The 58 pages of notes released on Friday, several of which were redacted, also related that Hanley often purchased replacement BlackBerry devices for Clinton during Clinton’s time at the state department. Hanley recalled buying most of them at AT&T stores in the Washington area. Cooper was usually responsible for setting them up and synching them to the server. Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley “indicated the whereabouts of Clinton’s devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device”, the documents state. “Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton’s old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer.” The notes also contain a string of admissions by Clinton about points she did not know or could not recall: “When asked about the email chain containing ‘(C)’ portion markings that state determined to currently contain CONFIDENTIAL information, Clinton stated that she did not know what the ‘(C)’ meant at the beginning of the paragraphs and speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.” Clinton said she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential but “took all classified information seriously”. She did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She also stated she received no particular guidance as to how she should use the president’s email address. In addition, the notes say: “Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with her to state via reciprocity from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information.” Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again “could not recall how often she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined.” Nor could she recall any specific briefing on how to handle information associated with special access programme information. “Clinton could not recall a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike,” the notes say. According to the notes, on 23 January 2009 Clinton emailed her predecessor, Colin Powell, to ask about his use of a BlackBerry. In his response, Powell told Clinton that if it became “public” that she was using a BlackBerry to “do business”, the emails could become “official records and subject to the law". Powell wrote: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.” Clinton told the FBI she understood Powell’s comments to mean that any of her work-related communications would be records of the government and “did not factor” the comments “into her decision to use a personal email account”, the documents say. The release also includes technical details about how the server in the basement of Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, New York, was set up. Clinton’s critics seized on the latest revelations. Trump’s full statement read: “Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief. I was absolutely shocked to see that her answers to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to what she told the American people. After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution.” Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to Trump, said: “Hillary Clinton is applying for a job that begins each day with a top secret intelligence briefing, and the notes from her FBI interview reinforce her tremendously bad judgment and dishonesty. “Clinton’s secret email server was an end run around government transparency laws that wound up jeopardizing our national security and sensitive diplomatic efforts.” He added: “Clinton’s reckless conduct and dishonest attempts to avoid accountability show she cannot be trusted with the presidency and its chief obligation as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces.” The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said: “These documents demonstrate Hillary Clinton’s reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information during her tenure as secretary of state. They also cast further doubt on the justice department’s decision to avoid prosecuting what is a clear violation of the law. This is exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified information.” Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, said: “The FBI’s summary of their interview with Hillary Clinton is a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency. Clinton’s answers either show she is completely incompetent or blatantly lied to the FBI or the public. “Either way it’s clear that, through her own actions, she has disqualified herself from the presidency.” The Clinton campaign insisted that it was pleased the notes had been made public. Spokesman Brian Fallon said: “While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the justice department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case.”

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It's shocking how cheap (decontented) the U.S. truck cabs have become. It's so bad that the next generation cabs from the leading Chinese truckmakers, benchmarking the latest European trucks, will edge past the US trucks. The Pinnacle/Vision (CH) interior, like the cab itself, is ancient.