2016 Democratic Thread

[Buehrle>Wood]

Clinton exercised poor judgement in setting up the private server in the first place, but they've found no evidence of her intentionally and willfully breaking the law. The people shouting "the system is rigged!" don't actually have to show any proof of their claims, and it's a nice "heads I win, tails you lose" argument where either Clinton got indicted or she didn't and they get to say she absolutely should have and her not getting indicted it proof of corruption.

He made it pretty clear during his speech it didn't matter whether it was intentional or not.

 

Edit: Well I should say it mattered. Obviously, if it was intentional, it would have been an easier case. But being intentional was not necessarily grounds for their recommendation.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Buehrle>Wood

[StrangeSox]

He made it pretty clear during his speech it didn't matter whether it was intentional or not.

 

Edit: Well I should say it mattered. Obviously, if it was intentional, it would have been an easier case. But being intentional was not necessarily grounds for their recommendation.

 

That's true. Negligence isn't an excuse and can still be criminal, but it was always going to be a pretty big stretch to find a prosecutable case here. Right or wrong, if you're going after somebody that high up, you better have an iron-clad argument.

[shysocks]

Ha, I love that subject-verb agreement is the thing that caused you to post about that.

He's a nominee for POTUS. I'm past the point of being shocked at the things he says but he could at least say them correctly.

[Balta1701]

She absolutely should have not set up the server. It was not illegal, it was stupid and more of an office regulation issue.

 

Bill also should not have went to go talk to Lynch.

 

It is just classic Clintons.

What would also be worth asking out of this case would be questions like..."why is it we're spending $20 billion a year to record every phone call and email message on the planet but we can't afford to keep computer systems at major federal agencies up to date enough for a cabinet level official to be able to use a cell phone to send email". But again, that would require Congress doing something other than trying to campaign.

[StrangeSox]

Federal IT as a whole is a gigantic joke, and the fact that State ended up getting hacked anyway sorta shows that even if she had stayed with the federal system, it wasn't exactly secure.

 

That said, the operation to set up and manage her server was Trump Campaign levels of incompetence when it came to security, so no excuses there.

[bmags]

What would also be worth asking out of this case would be questions like..."why is it we're spending $20 billion a year to record every phone call and email message on the planet but we can't afford to keep computer systems at major federal agencies up to date enough for a cabinet level official to be able to use a cell phone to send email". But again, that would require Congress doing something other than trying to campaign.

 

"Are our classification processes too broad and opaque to ever actually prosecute anything except the most brazen examples?"

 

 

[Balta1701]

"Are our classification processes too broad and opaque to ever actually prosecute anything except the most brazen examples?"

It's not just that its broad and opaque...it's intent. When you have 2 million people with security clearances, you are going to have a lot of accidental leaks of classified material. When Petraeus gives classified material to his mistress they draw a line there because he's doing that on purpose, but when the system is this big you can't charge everyone who accidentally mishandles something because you'll put half a million people in jail.

[StrangeSox]

Gonna pull this in from the Rep thread:

 

Well I don't think he had a choice. He absolutely buried her for 20 minutes.

 

This line: "To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences." Have to think he included that intentionally.

 

His next line was literally that it'd be administrative sanctions, not anything criminal:

 

To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

 

i.e. you'd probably be stripped of your security clearances and then fired/transferred to another position because you can't do your job without said clearances.

[Buehrle>Wood]

I understood what he was saying. Just thought it was funny and probably intentional wording it like he did.

[bmags]

It's not just that its broad and opaque...it's intent. When you have 2 million people with security clearances, you are going to have a lot of accidental leaks of classified material. When Petraeus gives classified material to his mistress they draw a line there because he's doing that on purpose, but when the system is this big you can't charge everyone who accidentally mishandles something because you'll put half a million people in jail.

 

Right, but you throw intent out the window there. "I didn't know it was classified" is incredibly plausible and accurate. How are we enforcing anything at that point?

[StrangeSox]

I understood what he was saying. Just thought it was funny and probably intentional wording it like he did.

Ok, I've already seen that same line pop up in a couple of places taken as "he said anyone but Clinton would have been indicted over this!"

[bmags]

The administrative agencies clearly want a stop to this precedence of SoS and others picking and choosing around their equipment and server security (both the SoS report and FBI now came harshly as seen in that language, even though no criminal activity happened),

 

typically this is where a functioning legislature could act.

[Balta1701]

Right, but you throw intent out the window there. "I didn't know it was classified" is incredibly plausible and accurate. How are we enforcing anything at that point?

We're not. But this whole investigation was never about figuring out how to manage this system even at the Secretary of State level, it was about Congress wanting to make sure bad things about Hillary stayed in the news, and everyone knows that.

[StrangeSox]

Right, but you throw intent out the window there. "I didn't know it was classified" is incredibly plausible and accurate. How are we enforcing anything at that point?

 

It's not exactly an excuse. You should be able to recognize some information as classified or potentially classified or even "this should be classified even if it isn't" if you have security clearances.

 

Slippage does happen all the time though due to a combination of what both you and Balta are saying: there's tons and tons of classified information out there, there are millions of people with various types of security clearances, and there's no centralized control of everything.

[StrangeSox]

The administrative agencies clearly want a stop to this precedence of SoS and others picking and choosing around their equipment and server security (both the SoS report and FBI now came harshly as seen in that language, even though no criminal activity happened),

 

typically this is where a functioning legislature could act.

I would imagine a future President Clinton could put in place administrative rules strictly forbidding anyone from doing what she did while also directing the various agencies to accommodate high-level people with specific requirements. I think the NSA custom-built Obama a Blackberry that could handle multiple emails, Clinton wanted the same and was told no, so she went off and did her dumb server thing.

[southsider2k5]

Clinton exercised poor judgement in setting up the private server in the first place, but they've found no evidence of her intentionally and willfully breaking the law. The people shouting "the system is rigged!" don't actually have to show any proof of their claims, and it's a nice "heads I win, tails you lose" argument where either Clinton got indicted or she didn't and they get to say she absolutely should have and her not getting indicted it proof of corruption.

 

It is a funny transition of posts here on the switch from the Trump anti-semitism stuff, to the Clinton stuff. Mere posts ago we were being told to watch the pattern, and not necessarily the specific deed. The pattern of this stuff from Team Clinton can't be ignored, just like it can't be ignored from Trump. But then again this election seems to have boiled down to which con-artist are you going to believe, so...

[StrangeSox]

It is a funny transition of posts here on the switch from the Trump anti-semitism stuff, to the Clinton stuff. Mere posts ago we were being told to watch the pattern, and not necessarily the specific deed. The pattern of this stuff from Team Clinton can't be ignored, just like it can't be ignored from Trump. But then again this election seems to have boiled down to which con-artist are you going to believe, so...

lmao you just can't help yourself.

 

I'm being pretty openly critical of Clinton here, and I'm not a huge fan of hers. bmags called it "classic Clinton" with all that implies. We're talking about what rises to the level of criminal indictment in this case, and what the FBI said they found/didn't find. That has nothing to do with Trump retweeting unquestionably antisemitic memes.

[southsider2k5]

lmao you just can't help yourself.

 

I'm being pretty openly critical of Clinton here, and I'm not a huge fan of hers. bmags called it "classic Clinton" with all that implies. We're talking about what rises to the level of criminal indictment in this case, and what the FBI said they found/didn't find. That has nothing to do with Trump retweeting unquestionably antisemitic memes.

 

I can't help myself, that is true. The hypocrisy is so deep, it is hard to ignore.

[StrangeSox]

I can't help myself, that is true. The hypocrisy is so deep, it is hard to ignore.

 

What hypocrisy do you think you're seeing here? Where's the contradiction between "Clinton did a really dumb thing with this server, was sloppy, the security was a joke, but it wasn't criminal" and "Trump retweeted an antisemitic image and doubled down on it"

[southsider2k5]

What hypocrisy do you think you're seeing here? Where's the contradiction between "Clinton did a really dumb thing with this server, was sloppy, the security was a joke, but it wasn't criminal" and "Trump retweeted an antisemitic image and doubled down on it"

 

The part where we are supposed to recognize a pattern of behavior from the Trump campaign, but minimize this to an isolated incident that wasn't really a big deal in Clinton's case where there is a long history of intentional deception there, just like with Trump.

[StrangeSox]

The part where we are supposed to recognize a pattern of behavior from the Trump campaign, but minimize this to an isolated incident that wasn't really a big deal in Clinton's case where there is a long history of intentional deception there, just like with Trump.

 

These are not arguments I'm seeing anyone make in this thread re: Clinton? In fact bmags "classic Clintons" would be the exact opposite of what you're saying?

 

eta: I think I've been pretty clear that my vote for Clinton in November is primarily about the Supreme Court nominations and secondarily federal and executive appointments that won't destroy the liberal gains over the past decade, not because I think Clinton will be a phenomenal President or doesn't have her own flaws.

Edited July 5, 2016 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

These are not arguments I'm seeing anyone make in this thread re: Clinton? In fact bmags "classic Clintons" would be the exact opposite of what you're saying?

 

eta: I think I've been pretty clear that my vote for Clinton in November is primarily about the Supreme Court nominations and secondarily federal and executive appointments that won't destroy the liberal gains over the past decade, not because I think Clinton will be a phenomenal President or doesn't have her own flaws.

It's rather funny that as he tried this version of declaring a pattern as at the same time I was just reading an article that called the media's tendency to treat things that would be minor for other politicians as huge major incidents if they involve the Clintons as "the Clinton Rules".

[bmags]

I would imagine a future President Clinton could put in place administrative rules strictly forbidding anyone from doing what she did while also directing the various agencies to accommodate high-level people with specific requirements. I think the NSA custom-built Obama a Blackberry that could handle multiple emails, Clinton wanted the same and was told no, so she went off and did her dumb server thing.

 

Is it better to be executive action to allow flexibility? Congress is just so inept right now that it's scary how much has to go to the executive to function.

[bmags]

It's rather funny that as he tried this version of declaring a pattern as at the same time I was just reading an article that called the media's tendency to treat things that would be minor for other politicians as huge major incidents if they involve the Clintons as "the Clinton Rules".

 

Although I was thinking in the shower how plagiarism took down Biden's presidential campaign in 88. I'm trying to think where that would rank right now or if it would even be covered.

[greg775]

Today is one of the worst days in modern American history (excluding violence and deaths, of course). During a time in history in which Americans are sick of politicians and their bulls***, the FBI acknowledges inappropriate activity by Hillary yet recommends no charges. Just a few days after the attorney general visits with Bill Clinton on a fricking tarmac of all places.

Oh my gosh, what has this country come to?? At least the NY Post says it all.

FBI's double standard here is outrageous, the paper reports! I am ashamed of America today. If Americans are dumb enough to actually vote for this person, I don't know what to say. Wait I do know what to say. Just as Kansans voted in Brownback for a second term despite his actually being even a worse government official than Hillary, a majority of Americans will actually vote for this woman. Unfricking believable.

Where's the pride in our country?? Thanks FBI for one of the worst decisions of all time. It's not what you know, it's who you know, pepole and never ever forget it. And it's all about the elite and their privelege. Hillary should get good n drunk tonight. This FBI decision deserves the best wine money can buy. ... Inexplicably, some of the poorest Americans, the ones with the least in common with Hillary and what she believes in, are her most ardent supporters. Unreal. I'd ask America to do the right thing and have her stand trial on perjury charges in this email case, but those charges also would be thrown out by the corrupt government.

 

http://nypost.com/2016/07/05/fbi-boss-outr...-hillary-skate/

Edited July 5, 2016 by greg775