Since these threads are so much fun, just how long do you think it is appropriate for HRC to not address the email issue?
Is she waiting to let the Republicans go all in before responding? That is doubtful, since she already has her lawyers on the job:
But Clinton attorney David Kendall told the Select Committee in a statement Wednesday that she only used one email account while secretary of state, then switched to a new one after stepping down.
“Secretary Clinton used one email account when corresponding with anyone, from Department officials to friends to family. A month after she left the Department, Gawker published her email address and so she changed the address on her account,” Kendall said.
“At the time the emails were provided to the Department last year this new address appeared on the copies as the ‘sender,’ and not the address she used as Secretary. This address on the account did not exist until March 2103 [sic], after her tenure as Secretary,” he continued.
House Benghazi committee spokesman Jamal Ware responded by confirming that the committee has “records with two separate and distinct email addresses used by former Secretary Clinton and dated during the time she was Secretary of State. “
“Without access to the relevant electronic information and stored data on the server—which was reportedly registered to her home—there is no way the Committee, or anyone else, can fully explain why the Committee uncovered two email addresses,” Ware added.
At the White House Wednesday and Tuesday, Press Secretary Josh Earnest stopped short of saying definitively that Clinton had not violated federal records, but said it appeared she was in compliance. “If they did what they said they did,” he told reporters, “That would be consistent with the Federal Records Act.”
Is she just letting this soak up all the oxygen so the foreign donors/Clinton foundation brouhaha dies down?
With assets approaching $226 million, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation plays a prominent role in international development. It has battled HIV/AIDS, provided relief after tsunamis and earthquakes and helped farmers and entrepreneurs in developing countries.
“And we believe that together we can find solutions to the most daunting human challenges,” says the narrator in a promotional video for the foundation. “This is what we do. This is who we are. This is the Clinton Foundation.”
But another passage in the video oddly foreshadows a current controversy.
“We are entrepreneurs in human potential,” the video says. “We reject artificial boundaries between business, government and nonprofits.”
The Clinton Foundation eased those boundaries and has taken contributions, of $1 million to $10 million, from the governments of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi Arabian government has given as much as $25 million.
Those funds, and other huge gifts, have drawn scrutiny of Hillary Clinton and the foundation, as she moves closer to declaring — or perhaps declining — a bid for the White House.
Does she just not have an answer that she deems acceptable at the moment, or are they trying to figure out how to prove they did nothing nefarious?
Or are they already in bunker mentality, having gone through this for 30 years? One thing is for sure, they’ve reached into the asshole factory where they breed the Hillary diehards, and they are coming out swinging:
From: Philippe Reines
Date: Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 9:57 PM
Subject: Email
To: CJ Ciaramella, Keenan Trotter, Erik Wemple, Brian Stelter
Cc: Nick MerrillHi CJ. And hi JK.
Since this fundamentally comes down to honesty, transparency and accountability, I thought we’d go through an exercise together—with Erik Wemple of The Washington Post and Brian Stelter of CNN included as observers.
JK,
In your piece, which CJ references below, you wrote:
“‘Her top staffers used those Clinton email addresses’ at the agency, said the source, who has worked with Clinton in the past. The source named two staffers in particular, Philippe Reines and Huma Abedin, who are said to have used private email addresses in the course of their agency duties.”
That’s a pretty clear assertion by you through your source that they had firsthand knowledge of my having and using an email account on the clintonemail.com domain. You then wrote:
“We were able to independantly [SIC] [Ed. note: This word was never misspelled in the original article] verify that Abedin used a ClintonEmail.com address at some point in time. There are several email addresses associated with Abedin’s name in records maintained by Lexis-Nexis; one of them is [email protected]. An email sent to that address today went through without bouncing.”
A few questions:
1) Did you attempt to verify your source’s assertion of my use of such an email using the same creepy methods you did with my close friend and colleague Huma Abedin? Assuming you did, why doesn’t your piece note the results of your creepy methods?
2) Did you attempt to send an email to me at that domain, and if so did it go “through without bouncing”? Assuming you did, why don’t you note the results of your test?
3) If your lying liar pants on fire source worked with me at a federal agency as you and they contend, did you ask them to provide even a single email exchange with my using that account?
4) Better yet, in the off chance they don’t have every single email they ever sent or received, have you availed yourself of the same FOIA laws to petition the lying liar’s agency for any email between them and me that you have with our email?
I mean, you either naively or knowingly swallowed quite the whopper. Not sure which is worse. Actually, that’s not true.
They live for this shit.
Again, I am going to support HRC if she is the candidate, but I am just not in the mood to deal with this crap for the next decade. Just the constant drama, the wiggling up to the line of appropriateness and then having all out wars, etc. Clinton gets unfairly attacked for a lot of things, but criminy it seems like she brings it on herself.
And again, if you can not figure out why it is problematic for a Secretary of State to keep all her emails private and then have unnamed aides decide which ones to turn over while saying “trust us,” this is going to fall on deaf ears. If the Republicans did this, we’d all be freaking out. In fact, we did, before Clinton was even Secretary of State. Benghazi is a nothingburger that flamed out, and now this issue has dumped a barrel of kerosene on it. And while I don’t think there is anything incriminating on this issue in her emails, the wingnuts are right to demand access and point out this is a crazy way to do business.
This is usually where someone chimes in about Colin Powell, which is a ridiculous defense, because Colin Powell was not the Secretary of State after the archiving regulations were put in place. So don’t bother.
And no, it isn’t right that when Republicans do this, the media yawns. But reality is reality- unfair as it may be, the media treats the Clintons differently. You can rant and rave about it, but here in the reality, you deal with the landscape as it is, not as you want it to be. Not to mention, making it so the media can’t have access to legitimate FOIA requests because of things like this is no way to alter that hostile landscape. Nor is having folks like Philippe picking fights with every reporter on the planet when all many of them are doing is asking legitimate questions.
This Chris Hayes piece is well worth your time as a primer for what we are in for should Hillary run:
Meanwhile, Jon Stewart is skewering Clinton. This is not going away.
Can Obama run again in 2016?
*** Update ***
Ask, and it shall be delivered:
I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015
John Cole +0
In before one of the diehards calls me a sexist.
Rick Taylor
“This is usually where someone chimes in about Colin Powell, which is a ridiculous defense, because Colin Powell was not the Secretary of State after the archiving regulations were put in place. So don’t bother.”
According to this article, Clinton was not Secretary of State after the archiving regulations were put in place either.
Loviatar
@John Cole +0:
Its ironic, in the Ferguson thread, there is a mini discussion on how a racist coworker who didn’t realize he was racist was shocked and angry when called upon his racism.
I guess you’re shocked and angry.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Rick Taylor:
Not to mention that most people chime in about Condoleezza Rice, Hillary’s immediate predecessor, who still has not been mentioned in any of the New York Times stories that I’ve seen.
Culture of Truth
Of course Morning Joe and Jon Stewart are all over this. This sort of non-story is utter catnip to them. You’re right, it’s not going away. Speaking as an Obot, still waiting for Colin Powell and Condi Rice to address their e-mail issue.
No, you’re not a sexist, but do you think this is an actual scandal, or a problem because it gives ammunition to critics?
Boots Day
To take this in a little different tangent, what amazes me about this story is that the House Committee investigating Benghazi asked for all these emails back in 2012, apparently got nothing from the Secretary of State’s office – and nobody said a word. Did anyone notice? Did anyone read any of the documents they collected?
Fox News must have an entire bureau staffed with people whose job it is to destroy Hillary Clinton. And no one said a word to them about the SoS having no government emails available? This story doesn’t say much good about Hillary – but it makes the Republicans look like total stooges.
RaflW
So who else is gonna run? When can I give them money?
(I will note that, should Ms. Clinton be the nominee, that’ll just mean I have more available funds to give to other Dems in other races. I contributed to Mr. Obama’s campaigns. I will not give a dime to Ms. Clinton’s effort – she’ll be awash in centrist corporate cash so she won’t need my modest gifts)
TaMara (BHF)
Damn, and I’m all out of popcorn.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Also, since I’m bored with talking about Hillary, I will say I’ve discovered one downside of having the “Batman” Blu-Ray disks: Frank Gorshin’s balls are really visible in this episode.
Culture of Truth
This all about ethics in archiving regulations.
TaMara (BHF)
@Loviatar: How are any of John’s concerns about Hillary sexist? Because she’s a woman? I’ve read most of his stuff about her and no where do I get the impression his issue is with her genitals.
I’m genuinely interested in what you see that I missed.
(This question coming from someone who nailed him for being ageist for his comments about JLo at the oscars)
PhoenixRising
@Rick Taylor:
But she should have realized. Because the Clintons can time travel to learn what the executive branch guidelines for archiving emails are going to be in 18 months, then retroactively choose to disregard them because they’re arrogant line-pushers.
@Cole: If you can’t see why this is a double bind–she should have known, it might not even be illegal but she ought to realize that people in the press hate her and will literally lie their faces off to damage her, which is why she’s a terrible candidate–well…as a canny TX legislator once explained: Son, I can explain it to ya, but I can’t unnerstand it for ya.
Hunter Gathers
I say let ’em go crazy. Let ’em rant, rave and foam at the mouth. The only people who give a shit about this kind of thing are White people, and our vote no longer fucking matters in POTUS elections. All of the Clinton Conspiracies in the world aren’t aren’t going to convince minority voters to vote for the party that wants them dead or deported. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.
Only White people have the luxury of worrying about proper e-mail procedures, stains on blue dresses, and the opinions of multi-millionaire comedians.
gwangung
This just shows how slickly competent Obama’s been; this is typical politico foulup…even the ablest politician are going to have this kind of non-issue crap stick to them.
Not the most adult guy in the room…
Jane2
It’s not a non-story, and public officials should not be conducting public business via private emails. If there isn’t a law governing this, there should be.
And I don’t give a crap that it’s a Democrat….Clinton shows her tone-deafness over and over, and a barely-acceptable Democratic candidate is not good for the country’s future.
matt
Romney deleted all of his and his staffs’ emails when he was governor. Not really a peep out of the press or anyone else about it being an impropriety when he was a presidential candidate three years ago. Did anyone even ask him about it?
WaterGirl
Unforced error. It says a lot about Clinton that either she doesn’t have anyone on staff who could draw the dotted lines for her OR that she doesn’t listen to people who know enough not to do down a path with very predictable negative results.
I’m sorry, but if you have so many critics and so many people out to get you that you feel you have to manage your own mail server so you can protect yourself, I think that pretty much disqualifies you as a good candidate for president of the united states.
I hope to god that we get some other candidates out there, and soon.
And yes, I will vote for her if she is the democratic nominee, but I won’t be happy about it. I do not want to face 4-8 years of this. How disheartening it is to even contemplate.
Culture of Truth
I’m not even a Clinton supporter, but citing Jon Stewart is a ridiculous defense; almost as much as every media story which seem required to mention that back in 2001-2009, during Voldemort’s brief rise to power, e-mail was a scary and confusing concept, known only to a few shamans.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Hopefully some other better candidate steps up and cleans her clock like Obama did.
BBA
Welp, better gird your loins for 8 years of Jeb Bush, and then 8 years of Scott Walker, and then George P. Bush will be old enough to run…
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Condoleezza Rice was mentioned in the Today Show coverage of this story this morning. I think they said she didn’t use email.
jl
@Rick Taylor:
Your link does mention one regulation that seems to have been in effect while HRC was at Dept of State:
[Is it true that] “her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act”? That is an important question.
I’m still suspending judgment. So far the reporting has been sloppy, and the first crap (I think that is clear now) is from the NYT, which has a record now. And the new charges are by the GOPer in charge of Benghazi.
I agree it is not the best that the HRC is the most prominent, and strongest, Democratic 2016 candidate. I would prefer that someone else would be close in terms of (as of recently at least) polling against potential GOP candidates.
If she has preserved the records and can produce on legitimate request, then this will mean nothing by 2016. Partly it is out of her control, since depends on how much scandal mongering GOP wants to do.
I’m not sure it would be better if she had a government account, since seems to me then Obama administration would be more directly drawn into the BS Benghais investigations.Unless somehow the GOP operatives were given the run of her account, and think of the psycho drama we would have then! John Cole would be even more thrilled.
Culture of Truth
@gwangung: Very True, expecially when you consider how desperate his enemies are to find a scandal, any scandal….
WaterGirl
@BBA: Don’t be dancing on the democratic grave just yet.
jl
@jl: ‘and the first crap’ should be ‘and the first crap article’ .
Cacti
Cole seems to have never let go of his knee jerk anti-Clinton hysteria from his days as a winger.
Loviatar
@TaMara (BHF):
As I said in the earlier thread on this same subject; context and history. John has a history of making sexist comments towards certain women, particularly those he holds in disdain. John hates the Clintons, even he will admit it, put that in the context of his past sexist history and his propensity to go off on rants, I can easily see him slipping back into making sexist comments.
WaterGirl
@Cacti: You don’t have to be anti-Clinton or a former right-winger to think this was a stupid, predictable, unforced error.
I do not understand why so many people seem to think that disapproving of what Clinton has done means that you “hate” clinton or that you are anti-woman.
Ruckus
“The Neverending Psychodrama That Will Be the Next Ten Years (Should She Win)”
Has it been any different for the last 20? I didn’t think so. I see people constantly saying that President Obama is the worst president ever. If they get asked why it’s mumble, mumble, mumble. How is this really different? It’s not. Now you think she’d be not the best candidate, if you think this email thing is a piece of why, I’d agree with you. But the only way this story has any real gas is if we keep pouring it on.
So that brings me to my punch line.
Who you got that’s any better?
WaterGirl
@Loviatar: Repeating that about Cole again and again does not make it true.
Do you seriously think that saying the same thing over and over will convince anyone who doesn’t see it that way?
Cacti
@WaterGirl:
Cole is the high priest of the BJ church of the combustible hair.
Mandalay
Considering you just created a six page OP on the subject, nobody lives for this shit more than you.
cokane
Cole
i think you might be a little spoiled by how clean obama has been in his presidency. have to remember this is politics and the people who get ahead are a little dirty and like to bend the rules. im not saying your concerns are warrantless, just a friendly remind of how good dems have had it lately
Morzer
President Gore appreciates the staunch support and party unity shown in this thread.
No wonder Democrats can’t win elections consistently when they spend so much time rubbishing their own, while whining about how unfair the Republicans are and how corrupt the media are and how the world really ought to be kinder to special snowflakes.
Jane2
@Loviatar: Huh?
Ruckus
@Loviatar:
But he didn’t make any sexist comments. In this post or any others on the same issue. He’s voted for lots of republicans in his life, should we burn him at the stake for that as well? Or are you the thought police and are going to hold him responsible for comments that you just know he’s going to make?
Violet
@gwangung: Yeah. I’m really gong to miss the lack of drama. I wish Obama could run for a third term. He’d win too.
Cacti
@Morzer:
A few months ago, Cole was fapping about Chris Christie, and what a formidable, straight talkin’ son of a gun he was.
His political acumen is…questionable.
Loviatar
@WaterGirl:
nope.
just want to get my statement on record. so when it happens and it will I just want be able to say HEH. not told you so, just HEH.
Culture of Truth
@Mandalay: Heh. Indeed. Cokane also makes a good point that Cole, less used to liberalism, has been spoiled by Obama. twas not always thus.
Morzer
@Cacti:
I just wonder what anyone but Cole gets out of repeated threads that rubbish Clinton despite no evidence that she’s broken the law. Is it just Cole trying to gin up a bit more traffic a la Drudge?
WaterGirl
@Loviatar: hahahahaha
Just like the VICTORY guy. Or maybe you are the VICTORY guy. that worked out well for you last time.
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Is that moron still around?
TaMara (BHF)
@Loviatar: Well that’s about as good a word salad as Ms. Palin. Without evidence or examples, I will disregard your accusations.
@WaterGirl: or what you said.
Cacti
@Morzer:
I’m half expecting Cole to “reluctantly” endorse Rand Paul in 2016 after his brain (aka Glenn Greenwald) does.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (BHF): Yeah, I don’t do the pie filter, but he’s one to skip over.
TaMara (BHF)
@WaterGirl: I was caught by troll. My bad.
cokane
@Morzer: dude, infighting and self-critique is not why democrats fail to consistently win elections. was there ever more infighting in a recent election than 2008? get a clue. democrats fail to win consistently for the same reasons republicans fail to win consistently — the parties have polarized along racial, economic and age lines. the youth, minorities and low income folks do not vote in high enough numbers in midterms. that’s not the only reason, but it’s the biggest, most salient reason. lockstepping behind a prez candidate isn’t going to change this because prez elections are not the issue for dems.
Davebo
John Cole is no sexist!
He’d vote for Hillary even if Terry Schiavo was a man!
But seriously, while John has a tortured history his concerns aren’t irrelevant. By the time Hillary was SOS this was already a big issue and there’s no excuse really for the unforced error.
And Terry can be a guys name after all right?
Morzer
@Cacti:
No, we’ll get a series of threads in which Cole rants about how awful the GOP are and expresses innocent amazement that the Democrats can’t win against them. After all, there’s nothing like trashing your own party to give other people confidence in electing your candidates.
Emma
@Morzer: Yup. “Of course I will support her if she’s the candidate” comes with unspoken proviso “after I have thrashed her as much as I can.”
Oh well. I am nearly retirement age, have no children, and can retire to somewhere where the Republicans won’t be the ruling party.
John Cole +0
@Cacti: For chrissakes, I said that people will gravitate towards a guy like Christie who is loud and in your face. They ike the illusion of a straightforward guy. And every time I said it, I said Democrats should keep an eye on him because I want a Democrat to win. I wasn’t “fapping” about him. I’m as pleased as anyone he has blown up.
@Cacti: Why the hell would you think I would vote for Rand Paul? Have you seen me trumpeting him anywhere?
And Loviator, you still have not found any hint of sexism. If you had, you would have posted it eight times.
Like Obama, I am fortunate that my critics are so fucking stupid.
Morzer
@cokane:
Dude, you should try looking at reality sometimes. In the real world, people vote on name recognition consistently. Your approach is to trash your own party and its candidates and then to stand around with your thumb up your ass saying “Now why didn’t they vote for us? It’s a mystery, sure it is!”
Morzer
@John Cole +0:
Would that be the Obama you compared to Cosby not so long ago?
cokane
@Morzer: idiot
Mandalay
@Morzer:
Ah, the old “full compliance with the law” defense. One of Clinton’s lackeys tried that shit on Tweety’s show tonight and got rag dolled.
If you think that this issue only has legs if laws were broken you are very mistaken.
Ruckus
I think I need a BJ break.
ETA. 2-3 more comments, Yep, confirmed.
wasabi gasp
You are sexiest.
JordanRules
@Morzer: Come on now, he cleared that Cosby comment up quickly.
JMV Pyro
I think Betty said it best in one of the previous Hilary threads: this whole thing is basically becoming a conformation of existing feelings on Clinton. The people who are wary of her are pointing to this as a perfect example of why, the people who like her see this as an example of how the media piles on her, and the people who are neither of those things are just waiting to see how this plays out.
JordanRules
I’m not real well versed in baseball. Can we get a hoop or gridiron equivalent to ‘unforced error’? LOL
Aaron S. Veenstra
I would love to have garbage like this dominate the news for the next 10 years if it means everything else in American politics is like the 90s, too.
Elie
@WaterGirl:
THIS THIS THIS (Unfortunately-sigh)
Violet
Well, that’s good.
wasabi gasp
@John Cole +0:
Hard to fathom folks hanging here being oblivious to that attraction.
Mandalay
@Morzer:
Of course they do. That’s why Obama’s losses to Clinton, and then to President McCain, in 2008 were inevitable.
Elie
@Violet:
I’m with you–wish O could run for a third term. We will miss him sorely. I look to Michelle who I suspect is going to be activist and VERY opinionated… donno why, but I just think she is taking good notes and won’t be shy…
Redshift
@Culture of Truth: I don’t know about previous nights, but tonight Jon Stewart was all about what an incredible nothingburger this is. Translating the oh-so-juicy “may have broken the law” to “possible violation of federal records retention regulations.” Zzzzzzz.
wasabi gasp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-yIi6s6m8c
Culture of Truth
It is indeed the height of desperation that somone accused of a technical violation of the law would defend themselves by pointing out what they did is technically legal.
Culture of Truth
Can we also get all of Colin’s and Condi’s audio and other communications on torture and the Iraq invasion? If not, why not?
piratedan
@Mandalay: well to be fair, when has the GOP ever needed facts to stir the pot? These are the same bastards that scream family values while fucking their office staff. Baby Jeebus has freed them from moral restraint and ethical actions because they sleep with a Bible under their pillow and sit in a church pew once a week. Their idea of original sin is the first one that they committed at the age of two.
Elie
She’s gotta know that this is just going to be normal. Please please, make up your mind soon and then get about getting yourself organized to do it right. She doesn’t have to have O’s level of organization, but she had to tune in and engage a bit more that she has. Lord only knows what other skeletons await but as long as she is undeclared, she is not in a good position to refute or frame the discussion. Lord, please let her have the energy for this. People underestimate the energy it takes to do this. I sure hope she wants it enough to give her the energy.
Culture of Truth
@Redshift: Is that how it seemed to you? It seemed to me that the spent a lot of time on this “scandal,” strongly suggesting there was some there, there. But maybe I’m wrong.
Cervantes
This you wrote:
And this you quoted:
Any comment on the juxtaposition?
Elie
@piratedan:
That said, does that mean she/we should throw any caution or good sense to the winds? Hell yes, we know they will be spinning shit, but do we have to give them stuff easily or stupid shit? I getcha but surely, she of all people knows the extra long knives will be all out for her, right?
tom
The best thing to come out of this inevitable email drip/dump is it will add a few more thousand pages to the GOP’s outrage generating machine, further diluting their ability to stay on message. They won’t be able to help themselves, every little thing will be the next Hillarygate, and they’ll generate a new one every week.
kuvasz
SCOTUS, SCOTUS, SCOTUS, SCOTUS.
Forget about the next ten years, I worried about the next 20 years with a conservative SCOTUS.
Citizen Alan
@Jane2:
I’m sorry, but people keep saying this like it’s received wisdom but that doesn’t make it true. She was the Secretary of State, America’s most prominent diplomat! Why the fuck should her random emails to coworkers venting about the fact that is a dick be subject to FOIA requests from any god-damned GOP ratfucker?!?
kc
Surely you know the only to avoid never-ending psychodrama from the right is to elect a Republican.
different-church-lady
Chew toys will be chewed.
Ford Powers
I just. Can’t even.
I feel like her campaign is trolling right now.. Dan Rather style.
Ugh! The thought of Clinton as cic makes me physically ill. I wish every day for her not to run.
I like none of the current choices. I could be half way interested in Rand Paul for the no war/yes weed track but not the racist/straight up dumb parts.. Warren could save us all but she’s scared + c.r.e.a.m. Soooo…Ya. I’m pretty sure we’ll be doomed by whatever gutless, neohawkish, corporate whore we end up with.
Hard not to be cynical…..
pseudonymous in nc
The seriousness, it burns.
@JMV Pyro:
I have entirely different reasons for having doubts about Clinton, specifically the way that she tried to scrabble primary delegates from white Appalachia. This is just a matter of principle, and had it been Elizabeth Warren, I’d feel no differently. You can whine about antiquated technology in government (and if you whine, demand better) but government business needs to be automagically archived, not volunteered after the fact.
piratedan
@Elie: well so far, we think that maybe she violated one part of one law that was being implemented on her way out of the office, that doesn’t even appear to have been in effect during Benghazi. We have the NYT indicating that she screwed the pooch and counterclaims that the NYT is misrepresenting the facts. As for the Clintons, I would prefer a different candidate that isn’t as beholden to corporate interests, but if she’s nominated, she is still an easy choice when placed beside whatever the GOP has to offer.
I tire of leaping to the conclusions that go down the rabbit hole when the hint of scandal around any Dem rears it’s head while the GOP is busy burning the town down around our ears. As a citizen, if she fucked up, then yeah punish her but lets be realistic, if she committed a faux pas of the discretionary nature do you think she will be treated better or worse by the press than a certain four star general?
Citizen Alan
@Mandalay:
It is hilarious that you think Barack Obama, who in 2008 was arguably the most famous black man in the world, lacked name recognition.
Violet
@Citizen Alan: If the Secretary of State is venting in emails about someone being a dick to “coworkers,” which in this case, unless it’s the President, would be subordinates, fhen that Secretary of State is an idiot.
Mandalay
@Citizen Alan:
That is not the issue. The issue is that Clinton, rather than the State Department, ultimately determines what emails are available. There are surely emails Clinton wrote as SoS to foreign governments and organizations that nobody else in the State Dept has seen. Now if she chooses not to hand those emails over to the Dept of State who is going be any the wiser? That’s the problem.
Regardless of how honest, diligent and scrupulous Clinton may actually be, and regardless of how great the security on her email server may be, she has laid herself wide open to allegations of secrecy and cover-up. And that is entirely her fault. The email system she chose to adopt – personal private email – is inherently a bad system for the SoS to use.
JordanRules
@Citizen Alan: Is that what the Mandalay said? That he lacked name recognition?
JordanRules
@kc: Heh indeed! Gotta work 2 times harder, run 2 times faster with the (D).
different-church-lady
FIGURE ONE: Understand the procedure now? Just
stopput a story on a few of their machines and radios and telephones. . . . and then just sit back and watch the pattern.FIGURE TWO: And this pattern is always the same?
FIGURE ONE: With few variations. They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find . . . and it’s themselves. And all we need do is sit back . . . and watch.
KG
@Violet: technically, the VP is also her superior.
Up until 2008, the Clintons had been pretty lucky in who their political opponents had been. But when put against an above average politician, they’ve been less than stellar. Lots of unforced errors, and this feels like another one.
NotMax
@kuvasz
An argument which can be made for most any presidential election. FSM knows I repeated it ad infinitum to anyone who would listen in 2004, for example, but the vast majority of folks don’t (or refuse to) either make the connection or grant it proper import.
Having lived thus far under 12 presidencies, have concluded it is a perfectly valid point but also one which sways almost no one.
Citizen Alan
@Violet:
Sorry, that comment got truncated somehow and I didn’t catch it in time to edit. I was referring to remarks about foreign leaders. I would be amazed if there weren’t comments in private emails from HRC to whomever that discuss, say, Netanyahu or Putin or the Vice-President of Burundi in terms far more frank and direct than any diplomat would ever want revealed in a public format. My suspicion is that that’s what this is all really about — the GOoPers know perfectly well that there’s no smoking gun about Benghazi, but there may well be comments about foreign leaders that she never imagined would be subjected to public scrutiny because this fucking rule wasn’t in place at the time.
Cervantes
@KG:
They made a number of unforced errors in the ’90s as well, some of them by now quite infamous.
Redshift
@Culture of Truth: It really was like that. When the segment started, my reaction was “ugh, not more both-sides,” but I was pleasantly surprised.
KG
@Cervantes: true, but again, they were lucky in their political opposition then… for the most part
Citizen Alan
@efgoldman:
Then, I guess it’s a good think that the election wasn’t held until 2008, by which point he was, as I said, one of the most famous black men in the world.
Mandalay
@Citizen Alan:
If you think Obama had higher name recognition than Hillary Clinton when he ran against her for the nomination then you are very much mistaken.
Citizen Alan
@JordanRules:
He was responding to a claim that “people vote on name recognition” with the insinuation that Clinton and McCain had greater name recognition and so should have beaten him, to which I replied that by the time of the election, Obama’ s name recognition was more than sufficient to match that of his opponents.
TEL
This is the third (at least) thread you’ve done in as many days about how lousy Hilary Clinton as president (candidate?) will be, and how this email brouhaha proves it. You’re sounding a lot like Andrew Sullivan did when he wrote about Clinton. You sound so over the top in reacting emotionally that I’m wondering whether you’re capable of being cooler-headed and reasonably assessing what sort of candidate Clinton will actually be. Not what sort of candidate you want her to be – that’s never going to happen, she’s not Obama.
Some things you should think about:
1. As Obama’s presidency has proven, it doesn’t matter who the Democratic candidate is, Republicans will do everything in their power to take them down, and if a Democrat get elected, block their ability to actually be president. Republicans don’t seem to care if the world burns around them, so long as they take the Democrats with them. Hilary/Not Hilary won’t change that.
2. Jon Stewart? Seriously? I enjoy watching The Daily Show, but I don’t go to it to figure out how big a deal some scandal is.
While I think it would have been wiser if she’d used a regular .gov email address, I’m having a hard time seeing this as being as big a deal as you’re making it out to be. It doesn’t appear to have been illegal, and was similar to what previous Secretaries of State did. They’re in the process of turning over the emails to Congress. If, as you fear, this is part of a pattern of behavior that she’ll continue doing, then I’ll reassess my opinion of her.
I HATE having to state this, because it really doesn’t matter, but I want to be clear about my own opinion about this… I unequivocally want a contested Democratic primary. I think it will force Hillary Clinton to either sharpen up her game or sink (like she did vs. Obama). If she wants the nomination, she should have to earn it, same as any other candidate.
Citizen Alan
@Mandalay:
I think he definitely had enough name recognition to blunt any name recognition advantage HRC had, particularly since some of her name recognition (fairly or not) was negative in nature. Speaking personally, there was, for example, that brief period where any mention of HRC invoked the image of a horrible old woman shrieking into a camera about an “inadequate black male.”
JordanRules
@Citizen Alan: I just don’t think Obama’s run, as exceptional and successful as it was in 2008 at least (him being black and all) competed with McCain and Clinton’s decades of name recognition. I would bet Michael Jordan still was the most famous black man world wide in 2008, even after retiring fully and finally 5 years earlier*.
I think the inevitability sheen was still very present at that point.
*It’s gotta be the shoes! LOL
Mandalay
@Citizen Alan:
Heh – I see you are now moving the goal posts after realizing that you were spouting shit.
The other poster asserted that “In the real world, people vote on name recognition consistently”. I pointed out that Obama beat Clinton despite having lower name recognition:
This is a golden example of the candidate with lower name recognition winning, but there are many others. Yet you found the claim “hilarious”. You might want to be aware of the facts before you display pomposity and condescension in future, you clueless fuckwit.
Anne Laurie
@John Cole +0:
Yeah, that works well enough for political blogging, if your ambitions are easily satisfied…
Cole, you’re not “a sexist”, but some of your biases are extremely sexist. You have demonstrated a particular animus against women who make decisions of which you don’t approve — whether that’s Shanesha Taylor not making the “right” choices with her crowdsourced funding, or Jennifer Lopez wearing a dress that strikes you as inappropriate for a woman of her age. Some of the shit you wrote about Sarah Palin drew a collective hairy eyeball from us women, and we hate Caribou Barbie.
You’re going to bitch & whinge about Hillary Clinton for as long as she’s on the public stage, plus a series of memorial posts for years after she’s dead, assuming you live that long. And if it turns out that Elizabeth Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand or Uma Thurman or Imani Gandy is the first female president instead of HRC, you will bitch & whinge in blatantly sexist ways about them, as well.
Change it or own it, but stop the charade about how wronged you are whenever you’re called on it.
NotMax
@JordanRules
Michael who? Nelson Mandela and/or Desmond Tutu, by a mile.
JordanRules
@Anne Laurie: Cole you are not a sexist but….
You might need to own that. Which is okay. I don’t necessarily agree. But you make some good points.
I’m finely tuned to the old screed….Hey you’re not a racist but….let me tell you hella racist shit you do.
askew
Lordy, her tweet was obnoxious. She made it sound like State was the reason for the hold up when in fact it was her team circumventing the government system in the first place. That’s Hillary for you. The buck always stops with someone else with her. Nothing is ever her responsibility.
And again, how do we know that her aides are turning everything over to State? Oh, that’s right we don’t.
Mandalay
@Culture of Truth:
Well an enterprising reporter contacted Rice about this. Apparently she only used a .gov email account for all government business. So the State Department better stop claiming that Hillary Clinton was simply following Rice’s example. The spokesperson for the State Department got blindsided with that news, and didn’t handle it very well at all.
Valdivia
I do think it is a testament to how absolutely no drama Obama we have been for 6+ years that the sharks in the media are not going to let this one go for anything. They smell blood of Scandal! and will not stop until they have a nice juicy bite of it.
I am not very well disposed towards Hilary but do think that as usual with the msm and technical stories the reporting is unraveling just hours after its printed. Nonetheless it was very tone deaf of her people to not expect this. She didn’t start doing self vetting until very recently. I do feel that there is a political instinct that is lacking in her about how things look. It worries me. I want us to win in 2016. Like her, Obama has been subjected to the most unfair most nothing burger stories, its how the media is, so you have to be above squeaky. I guess she thought after her stint as SOS she didn’t need to worry that she was now cool and above it. No such thing when running for president. I hope she gets with the program soon.
askew
@Rick Taylor:
You are mixing up the regulations. There is the 2009 reg. and then there is the 2014 law. She violated the 2009 reg is appears and she definitely violated the Obama WH’s express wishes to do all government work on government emails.
And State had to walk back the statement that there is no classified info in her email. That is not good.
JordanRules
@NotMax: Jackson then?
Unfortunately I know far too many Americans who barely know Mandela and don’t know Tutu at all. Sigh. But yes world wide is different.
Mandalay
@askew:
Exactly. The Clinton smokescreen:
The Reality:
askew
@Mandalay:
The State Dept and WH are peddling away from this pile of shit as fast as they can. It’s clear they don’t want to be tainted by it.
And Senate Dems are the same way. Reporters were chasing them all over Congress looking for comments and outside of Boxer they got no serious comments.
I think Dems are sick and damn tired of cleaning up the Clintons’s messes. They never learn from their mistakes and it is never ending with them.
askew
@Mandalay:
Yep and AP has said they are considering lawsuits against her as well. They asked for info back in 2010 and are still waiting for it.
The guy from Media Matters who just left the Hillary PAC has been spinning this all day and he even went so far as to accuse the WH of knowing exactly what Hillary was doing. I’ve got to say if it comes down to fight between Obama and Hillary over this, Hillary is going to get her ass handed to her. She is surrounded by morons and is too undisciplined to come out of this unscathed.
hitchhiker
No, Obama can’t run for a 3rd term.
What is it, exactly, that you hope will happen?
NotMax
Got video documentary?
Quest for the Holy Foreskin scheduled for March 26 on NatGeo channel.
NotMax
Heh. Wrong thread.
John Cole +0
@Anne Laurie: Sexist way… So is that how you call someone sexist without pointing to anything exactly sexist that they have done?
I went through every post I have made on the matter, and replaced the name HRC with Rick Perry, and it read like a straight up critique of Perry were he doing what HRC is doing.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Mandalay:
Well, if a right-wing “news” site says it, it must be true. You did read other parts of that site to see the other articles they publish before taking them at their word, right? I especially liked the one about Obama’s plan to take away our freedoms with executive orders.
John Cole +0
BTW- Lost in the fact that she tweeted to have all her emails released by State is the fact that this means prior to 11:35 last night, HRC hadn’t done so…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Mandalay:
So do you read anything other than right-wing sites, or do they just have the best anti-Clinton news?
I can’t imagine why Judicial Watch would be pursuing baseless crap against Clinton. Oh, right, because they were CREATED to try and gin up baseless crap about the Clintons. But I’m sure this time Larry Klaymore is on the side of Truth and Justice and not just continuing to pursue his 20-year-long vendetta against the Clintons.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
For the kiddies who missed Judicial Watch in their heyday (and I misspelled the founder’s name above — it’s Klayman, not Klaymore):
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#History
But, hey, I’m sure this nuisance lawsuit against a Clinton is totally legit, unlike their dozens of previous lawsuits dating back to 1994.
magurakurin
@John Cole +0: Here is a bit from Ed Kilgore you might find interesting if you haven’t already seen it. He’s more worried about what a shit job the Times did
I tend to agree. And also too Bob Cesca
this is the 2009 “regulation” that the mysterious posters who only show up to bash Democrats are talking about above.
but you know, whatever wiggles your waggle.
askew
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
How about the one AP is going to file? Care to address that one?
askew
@John Cole +0:
It took her years to turn over those emails and only did it at the request of State.
fuckwit
@Mandalay: It was Karl Rove, during the US Attorney firing scandal, who was using personal email for government business (and for his own sleazery too).
Zinsky
I’m with you John. I am not a big HRC fan nor do I think America was founded so that we could set up our own “royal” families like the Clintons or Bush clans. I suppose I will vote for her if it comes down to that, but the Democratic Party really needs to look at itself and start cultivating new, young talent. It’s out there! If HRC gets elected, and I have grave doubts that she will be, it will be eight years of playing defense again, when the Democrats should be going on offense and keeping the GOP back on their heels!
Kay
“We are entrepreneurs in human potential,” the video says. “We reject artificial boundaries between business, government and nonprofits.”
Artificial boundaries like elections, democratic representation, public participation in the decisions made on their “behalf”, and transparency.
BruceFromOhio
@different-church-lady: I remember that one. Scary.
So… who are the aliens in this episode?
Kay
@RaflW:
There is no one else, with the exception of Martin O’Malley who could not get his own successor elected in a dark blue state..
Democrats have no field, because they have so few governors, which is a huge vulnerability and probably will add to the feeding frenzy because if they damage Clinton early Democrats are done.
Democrats decided they didn’t want to compete in states. They’ve lost MI, OH, FL, WI and now IL. Next I guess they work real hard to lose Minnesota.
Kay
@RaflW:
You’d think Illinois alone would trigger some reflection among the political professionals in the Democratic Party with the governor and then Rahm Emanuel, but no.
They’re staying the course!
It’s as if they sat down and listed every Great Lakes state and said “let’s get out there and lose these!”.
brantl
It amazed me that she did something this stupid. It’s just so freaking tone deaf. She might just as well have said, “Surely, these regulations are for the little people, not for me!”. Just too stupid for words.
brantl
@WaterGirl: A thousand times THIS.
brantl
@John Cole +0: A thousand times THIS, too.
msdc
@Rick Taylor: From the article:
So the Times once again gets played by Republicans.
Which great political thinker was it who said “Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice… won’t get fooled again?”
D58826
The campaign hasn’t even begun and I have Clinton scandal fatigue. (sigh)
msdc
@Anne Laurie:
To be fair, this is what progressives do about every single Democratic president.
Bartkid
Sorry to be so late to the game, but I thought I had read, through all this broohaha that 55,000 pages worth of HRC State Department emails had already been released.
And, given the never-ending Benghazi! investigations, if there was any there really there, it would have been proclaimed from the mountaintops.
re: unforced errors: Keep in mind there are even today, dozens, if not hundreds, of opposition researchers waking up every morning with the sole motivation of finding something, anything to attack HRC and Bill and Chelsea. Could any of one of our lives survive such withering scrutiny?
Cervantes
@brantl:
Which regulations are you talking about (that she disregarded)?
WaterGirl
@Anne Laurie: I don’t agree with your premise that Cole has demonstrated a particular animus against women who make decisions of which he didn’t approve.
I think Cole has demonstrated a particular animus against PEOPLE who make decisions he didn’t approve of.
Some of Cole’s screeds have been about women, but that doesn’t mean that it’s because they are women. That’s the difference. To assume that it’s because they are women is making a huge leap that I don’t think is supported by the facts.
Michael57
Anyone who wants to understand the context of this “scandal” should revisit Gene Lyons’ “Fools for Scandal,” which is about how the media created a nothing-burger called Whitewater. Just as today on the Clinton email story, it was the august NY Times that gave the non-issue legs and respectability through sloppy reporting, and the NYT kept beating the drums of scandal despite no evidence, just so they wouldn’t have to retract. If you like what happened next–impeachment, Florida recount, Iraq–keep piling on Hillary on this email “scandal”–you’re doing the Republicans’ jobs for them. I say all this as a total Obot but also as an Old who lived through this bullshit the first time.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
likewise, saying something stupid about j lo doesn’t mean that any criticism a person has regarding clinton is based in sexism.
it may be hard for clinton fans to understand sometimes but a lot of dems don’t trust the clintons. and they don’t trust bill any more than they do hills, and it isn’t woman-hating that makes that so.
Bobby Thomson
Just repeating that, because Cole appears not to have read it.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: Brown ran a crappy campaign. His being nominally in charge of the bad Obamacare rollout in MD, and not having an effective answer for its problems, didn’t help.
WP interview with O’Malley:
Brown apparently thought he would win because he had (D) behind his name. That’s not good enough. And that’s not O’Malley’s fault.
Cheers,
Scott.
the Conster
@Anne Laurie:
I think you’re completely off base. As a woman of a certain age, if John’s comments were sexist I’d sniff it out, and would have stopped coming here years ago. He’s an equal opportunity critic and I appreciate that. He says things that I myself think about women – not just because they’re women. Women do and say a bunch of stupid fucking things. I guess you could say I’m sexist against myself, but good luck with that. I think you and several other BJ regulars have blinkers on when it comes to Hillary. She’s deeply deeply flawed and makes poor, tone deaf political decisions – maybe not illegal decisions, but really really tone deaf in a way that only someone who lives in a bubble of their own making would make. That’s not good.
rikyrah
this is why I love No Drama Obama.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I was going to say that I think there is an issue here of accountability which is only possible with transparency that doesn’t have anything to do with sexism. Is the reason the media make a bigger deal of this when it concerns Clinton as opposed to Rove or Bush because of sexism? I don’t know. Generally I think the media hold Democrats to a much different standard than Republicans. I have issues with some of what John has said on other topics but not with this one.
Shakesville is a site that has received much scorn in the past here at balloon-juice but I don’t think anyone here would say that Melissa McEwen hates Hillary or has a record of sexism. She has also been very critical of this Clinton email issue.
MomSense
@Bobby Thomson:
Therein lies my concern. Pretty big if at the beginning of that statement.
Bobby Thomson
@MomSense: If you didn’t murder anyone, you shouldn’t be convicted of a capital crime. Should I just assume that you’re a murderer because the potential consequences are great if you are?
chopper
@rikyrah:
yes, returning to the non-stop drama that was the clinton years is really gonna keep the blood pressure high.
i can only hope that hills doesn’t follow bill’s lead and spend the better part of 8 years kicking liberalism in the nuts repeatedly.
Bobby Thomson
@PhoenixRising: THIS
Bobby Thomson
@TEL: I agree completely with your entire comment, but especially this:
There are certain Democrats who bring out the Pavlovian conditioning in reformed/lapsed Republicans. They just can’t help themselves.
msdc
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Yeah, running away from Democratic ideas and Democratic policies is always a terrible idea for Democratic candidates, especially ones who expect to coast into office as the successor of the Dem incumbent they’re running away from. Just ask Al Gore.
Agreed about Brown’s terrible, terrible campaign, but a recent Gallup poll casts some doubt on the media narrative about the failed Obamacare rollout. Apparently Maryland had the ninth biggest drop in the uninsured rate, putting us at something like sixth lowest overall in terms of the uninsured. Much like Obamacare and healthcare.gov in general, the state exchange actually did the job everybody says it didn’t do.
And much like the national Dems and Obamacare, it would be nice if Brown actually said so.
msdc
@Hunter Gathers:
Ignoring state, local, and midterm races while writing off 70% of the electorate: the progressive path to victory!
I can’t wait for the left to kick this habit of performing white guilt and self-loathing as prerequisites for establishing our progressive bona fides. I just hope we get over it before 2016. I mean, people will be paying attention then.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
I’m with others. O’Malley is not responsible for Brown not winning. When one out of THREE voters in Maryland is BLACK…
and YOU are BLACK…..
Losing an election like this in a Blue State is your own fault. I’ve written before on Brown’s problems, and his loss still fills me with anger because of his crappy incompetent campaign.
Mr. Twister
All B.S. reported by 1) villagers who hate the Clintons, 2) morons in the press who don’t understand a f’ing thing about the Internet, email servers, or any thing else having to do with computers.
http://thedailybanter.com/2015/03/aps-bombshell-hillary-clinton-email-story-fails-prove-existence-homebrew-server/
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44398_Did_Hillary_Clinton_Really_Use_a_Homebrew_Email_Server_-A-_Very_Probably_Not-
Cris (without an H)
Did the media yawn when it came out that Sarah Palin was doing state business through a Yahoo! address? It’s hard for me to remember, because so much of the outrage was focused on the fact that somebody social engineered their way into her account.
Tripod
@Elie:
Team Clinton has always been sloppy. It’s what they do. The more vexing part is they invariably take the wrong lessons from their fuck ups.
MomSense
@Bobby Thomson:
I have no idea why you are talking about murder. This is nuts. Clinton’s personal advisers are providing emails to the state department. We are just supposed to trust that they did what they said they did without any way to verify.
the Conster
@Mr. Twister:
Then she should be able to shut everyone up and make them look like the haters and morons that they are. I would suggest to her that she do this today.
Mr. Twister
@the Conster: Funny, you think the truth has anything to do with any Democrat deflecting this kind of stuff. Please, look at the IRS “scandal”. It’s out there now, whether it has an effect or not remains to be seen, but everyone knows Hillary had an email server in her closet at home, or something. The ratf*ckery has done its job. More to the point, I would like to see someone tell us why the NYT decided that this is news now, considering it was reported by Gawker 2 years ago.
Tripod
@chopper:
That’s not her MO. Bill goes along to get along, even if it meant ratfucking his core constituency (white, blue collar butternuts in the Mississippi and Ohio valley). Hillary’s inclination is to wade in head down against her opponents and not stop regardless of the score. There’s good and bad in that – I think she’ll go to the wall to defend Obama’s domestic legacy, but pulling an LBJ in some stupid brush war would not be out of character.
the Conster
@Mr. Twister:
She’s been the subject of ratfuckery for 20 years, so she needs to deal with it. She wants to be President, fine – her path goes through the sludge pool. She’d better be ready, and she’d better be smart about it, clear headed about it and clear eyed about it, and give them nothing. I’m not feeling good about it, at all.
Gex
I wish Mark Dayton were readier. Although I have no idea if he aspires to the position.
Aaron Morrow
The right-wing media has always been pushing attacks on Democrats. The mainstream media has always been more likely to repeat attacks on the Clintons than Obama. Therefore, people who think that the Clintons are more scandal-prone are ignoring the affect the mainstream media’s biases have on them.
Back in the 90s, Joe Klein, Mark Halperin, Matt Drudge, and WashPost Editorial convinced everyone in the mainstream media that the Clintons are “rubes who don’t belong here,” but it had no effect on the voting population at large, except perhaps to make 1998 a statistical anomaly with Democratic gains in Congress.
Unless an “unforced error” is when an opponent trips you and you actually fall down before you get up again, I’ll need to find some other metaphor. Perhaps something from professional wrestling, as it will be a never-ending psychodrama for the next ten years should any Democrat win the Presidency. (Cheers to Cole, who unlike Sullivan has always been willing to call a racist a racist and blocked out the crap of the past seven years.)
kabiddle
Oh fer fuck’s sake. She does this now?
Aaron Morrow
@the Conster
File this under Calm Down, She’s Got This, then:
: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-05/democrats-see-a-familiar-pattern-in-the-clinton-email-story
At this point, it’s Tea Party-related stuff.
chopper
@Tripod:
I haven’t gotten that impression at all from hillary. she’s certainly not as shrewd and backbiting and liberal-balls-kicking as bill, but who is?
kabiddle
@Aaron Morrow: No I’d actually like to know.
InternetDragons
I completely disagree with Anne Laurie’s take on John, and don’t care to be included in her “us women” group that supposedly sees John in some bizarre category of “not a sexist but some of your biases are sexist…” or predicts that he’ll “bitch and whinge…in blatantly sexist ways”. What? What kind of BS sidestepping is that, anyway?
I’ll hold my feminist/activist credentials and history up to the light any day. I may not always agree with John, but I wouldn’t be a regular reader here if I experienced his opinions or even his rants as being tinged with sexism. As a feminist of a certain age, some folks seem to think I’ll be overwhelmed with joy at the chance to vote for ANY woman as President, and I feel like that stance is threaded through some of the defensiveness about Hillary’s tendency to tone-deaf and clumsy missteps. Though it’s taken me awhile to get to this point, there’s not a corner of my feminist heart that feels any joy at the idea of voting for her. I’m a little shocked to articulate this, but I actually may NOT vote for her. I have a lot of thinking to do about it.
In the meantime, putting “blatantly sexist” and Cole in the same category – even in the weird indirect way it was done here – is asinine.
chopper
@InternetDragons:
exactly. criticism of clinton is not indicative of some underlying character flaw. that’s puma talk.
David Koch
BWHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
Oh dingbat Hillbots, your tears of unfathomable sadness are so delicious.
Bottom line: your very own hero Glenn Greenwald says it’s a scandal.
Ha!
David Koch
Cole has taken cheap shots at Obama (recently comparing him to rapist Bill Cosby), and in the eight years I’ve been on this site I’ve never called him a racist. Never. Not once.
Yet the Hillary’s supporters are so weak and Hillary’s actions are so indefensible that their only refuge is to smear Cole as a sexist.
In other words, they can’t rebut the law, they can’t rebut the facts, so they desperately call the other side names and hope to confuse the jury.
J R in WV
@David Koch:
I don’t know who you think holds Glen Greenwald up as a hero, but they aren’t here on this blog. And the fact that Glen G. thinks that Hiliary isn’t presidential timber is so meaningless that photons weigh more than that opinion.
I don’t know where you’ve been hiding, nor why you popped up here suddenly after years of blessed absence, but go back there, please, immediately.
G’bye!
David Koch
@J R in WV: Don’t know what you’re babbling about, I’ve been long time commentator, here’s 304 posts from last year, alone.
mclaren
I don’t give a flying fuck about Hillary’s emails.
There are a lot of reasons to criticize Hillary Clinton, but keeping her emails private is not one of them.
You’re right about the next 8 years being non-stop psychodrama. The Republicans have it in for the Clintons. A magnesium burning bar at 8000 degrees fahrenheit pales before the searing intensity of Republican hatred for the Clintons.