The Land of the Frauds

Very sad. I sit here in front of my computer just one day after Independence Day and I've come to the realization that my country has become the land of the 4 F's. That would be Fakers, Fixers, Falsifiers, and Frauds.

Here are a couple of reasons why:

Last night the annual PBS' show, "A Capitol Fourth," which broadcasts Washington, D.C.'s fireworks every Independence Day turned out to be "A Capitol Fake Fourth." When it came time for the big firework spectacular in the sky PBS re-ran old footage from last year's show. The reason? The sky over Washington was cloudy and overcast, so show producers decided to simply replay the stock footage from last year, when the sky was clear.

But no disclaimer was made; they never told viewers that they were in fact watching last year's fireworks. It wasn't until after many viewers complained that the show posted an apology on Twitter "for any confusion this may have caused." Smart viewers figured out something was fishy when the fireworks on the screen, bursting against a clear sky, didn't match those in the cloudy, overcast weather outside. And some of the shots showed the Capitol dome, which is under renovation, without its current scaffolding.

In PBS's "oops, my bad" apology, the network admitted that the "live" show was not live at all. Because of the weather conditions the decision was made to broadcast "a combination of the best fireworks from this year and previous years... It was the patriotic thing to do," the show's Twitter said. Yup, it's always patriotic to lie to the people. And speaking of which…

Even though Hillary Clinton has now been proven beyond any doubt to be a liar, a crook, and an irresponsible incompetent, she once again has gotten away with it all. FBI Director James Comey laid out all the ways Clinton broke the law, then weirdly announced that the bureau is recommending that no charges against Hillary Clinton be pursued for her use of a personal email account to handle government business.

Comey went on and on in great detail how Clinton and her people deceived the public and put people at risk by their gross negligence. They were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," he said. Clinton received and sent classified information over several unclassified private servers during the course of years. Comey said 110 emails in 52 email chains were classified at the time they were sent. Of those:

• Eight email chains contained "top secret" information.

• 36 chains contained "secret" information.

• Eight email chains contained "confidential" information, the lowest classification level.

"None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system," Comey said. "There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."

And remember, this doesn't include the thousands of so-called "personal" emails that she had deleted from her server when she was first caught. Comey said that in this process, it is "likely that there are other work-related emails that they did not produce ... that are now gone because they deleted all emails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices." The FBI could not recover these.

Comey said there was no "direct" evidence Clinton's email was hacked, but other people she corresponded with were hacked, and her use of a private email system was well-known. She also used her email while traveling "in the territory of sophisticated adversaries." Thus, he said, "It is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account."

Comey said, "Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." But then went on to say, "To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now."

In other words, if you or I did what Hillary Clinton did, we would be in prison in a heartbeat, but because she is rich, powerful, and running for president, she gets to skate. The fix was in all the time. I knew it last year. What once was the land of the free has become the land of the falsifiers and the phonies. Our leaders are no better than PBS's phony baloney fireworks show. Fakes and frauds that make a lot of noise but in the end do nothing except fool the public.

Don't get me wrong, I love my country. I just don't happen to like the brand of people who are running it right now.

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's been a JWR contributor since 1999.