It never ends with our media:
To some, the comparison to Clinton’s case may appear strained. Clinton has said none of the information on her server was marked classified at the time. In many cases, it was marked as unclassified when sent to her by people in the State Department more familiar with the issues involved.
By contrast, sailors are trained early on that the engine compartment of a nuclear sub is a restricted area and that much information relating to the sub’s nuclear reactors is classified.
Still, it’s far from obvious that the information Saucier took photos of is more sensitive than information found in Clinton’s account. Court filings say the photos were clear enough that they reveal classified details about the submarine that could be of use to foreign governments, such as the vessel’s maximum speed.
However, the Navy says the photos are classified “confidential,” which is the lowest tier of protection for classified information and is designated for information that could cause some damage to national security but not “serious” or “exceptionally grave” damage.
Intelligence agencies claim that Clinton’s account contained 65 messages with information considered “Secret” and 22 classified at the “Top Secret” level. Some messages contained data under an even more restrictive “special access program” designation.
Clinton and her campaign have disputed those findings, calling them a result of “overclassification” and urging that the messages be released in full.
However, Clinton’s critics and some former intelligence officials said she should have recognized the sensitivity of the information. They’ve also noted that about 32,000 messages on Clinton’s server were erased after her lawyers deemed them personal.
“The DOJ is willing to prosecute a former sailor to the full extent of the law for violating the law on classified material, in a situation where there was no purposeful unsecured transmission of classified material,” conservative blogger Ed Morrissey wrote last year. “Will they pursue Hillary Clinton and her team, at the other end of the power spectrum from the rank-and-file, for deliberate unsecured transmission of improperly marked classified nat-sec intelligence? Will they pursue the same kind of obstruction of justice charges for Hillary’s wiping of her server as they are for Saucier’s destruction of his laptop?”
From the fever swamps of wingnut blogs to Wolf Blitzer’s mouth. Seriously, how long before this is on CNN?
WereBear
Without a press who are grownups with a feeling of responsibility… we have to develop alternative authorities to trust.
This is part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (HRC was sooooooo right about that) which infiltrates pillars of authority, corrupts them, and then uses them as propaganda arms.
dedc79
My life has spanned CNN’s entire existence (with a few months to spare). I can’t tell you how many times I hear people say things like “What’s happened to CNN? It used to have standards?” or “Cable news has gotten awful.” The implication is always that there was a glorious period of cable news journalism back in the distant past, and that things went off the rail only recently. This is a convenient lie. The truth is that cable news was trash right from the very beginning. There was never much interest in doing investigative journalism – they just glommed on to whatever reporting the NY Times and other newspapers had done. Cable News was always about finding out what brought in the most viewers and showing that around the clock.
EZSmirkzz
Off to listen to Frank Zappa’s “Slime.”
If half the crap the national media lays of on Hillary was laid off on themselves we’d have nation full of Kenneth Starrs wouldn’t we?
I’m somewhat surprised they haven’t tied her or Bill to Charlie Manson, after all they were listening to the Beach Boys back then and Brian knew Charlie, and Charlie listened to Beatles who listened to the Beach Boys and “God Only Knows’ and Helter Skelter something something.
It all makes sense John.
D58826
The sailor took photos in a place that he was told before hand was off limits. Hillary is being criticized for having e-mails on her server that were classified AFTER the existence of the server was made public. To equate the two requires logic more twisted than Lombardi street in San Francisco.
I have seen in several places that you can not send classified material from a classified server to a non-classified server. If that is the case then how did this ‘obviously classified’ material escape the classified system and wind up on a non-classified server.? I recently read that there are 800k employees, contractors, consultants and assorted hangers on with top secret clearances in th DC area. Not hard to imagine a few of them with lose lips.
moonbat
@dedc79: Beg to disagree. When CNN started they had actual correspondents all over the world and reported on the actual news in other countries as well as our own. They would even show footage from local news networks in other countries. Then they figured out that the fate of missing blond women was more lucrative and bit by bit they fired most of their foreign news bureau people. Today I think they have one guy covering all of Europe and the Middle East. It’s a joke. Just like NBC, If it wasn’t for Richard Engel I don’t think they’d have any foreign reporting they couldn’t snag off of Google.
EZSmirkzz
@dedc79: It’s gone from Chicken Noodle News to biting bubbles in the bathtub.
dedc79
@moonbat:
I agree on this one point (and actually was thinking about acknowledging that in my initial comment). And this is basically the only remaining redeeming quality of NPR news – they still have actual correspondents stationed around the world, and they even keep them places the rest of the news media has already lost interest in.
EZSmirkzz
@dedc79: The rest of the media hasn’t lost interest in those places, the rest of the media is governed by bean counter economics, and news is a cost center so the stock holders win is the informed public’s loss. No one could have predicted this in 1998 when the media consolidation was going on. Wait! They did.
dr. bloor
Probably happened before you finished the post. But more to the point, they’ll be covering a missing white blonde girl by sundown. It’s all churn, all to be forgotten by the end of the news cycle.
moonbat
@dedc79: Which is why CNN dropped the James Earl Jones intoned tagline: “We bring you the world.” He probably couldn’t say it without laughing.
dedc79
@moonbat: Now it’s “We bring you the fancy electoral map hologram”
MattF
@D58826: One thing to bear in mind is that classification of information is governed by a published ‘Classification Guide’– whose contents are determined, in turn, by the specific government agency that ‘owns’ that particular information. And that agency has the authority to change the Classification Guide whenever it wants to. I’m not saying that classifications can be changed at the drop of a hat– there’s committees and sub-committees and whatever– but bureaucracy and politics can and do interact in complex and mysterious ways.
JMG
I have both regular CNN and CNN International on my cable, and the difference is amazing. There is some overlap, but CNN International does actual on-location reporting from much of the world on a daily basis. Regular CNN operates on the theory that Americans are overemotional dopes afraid of just about everything. In short, they’ve been aiming at the Trump voter before Trump even ran.
kindness
Worse yet I’ve already been barraged on FB by BernieBros parroting the worst of Fox’s pitches. God damn I’m getting to really not like my fellow libs.
Mike in NC
Back in the day wingnuts complained all the time that CNN stood for ‘Clinton News Network’ so they felt the need to become FOX Lite. Politico and the other media hacks are determined to revisit the greatest Village Idiot hits from the 1990s: Whitewater, Vince Foster, Monica, etc.
D58826
@MattF: I’m sure it does. And settling old scores can’t be ruled out
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@kindness:
They aren’t liberals, they’re “progressives”, a word I never want to hear again after this primary season.
burnspbesq
Imagine that it was Colin Powell running for the Democratic nomination.
Would his use of a private, unsecure email account to conduct official business even be a thing?
WarMunchkin
@burnspbesq: I’d imagine that the sustained campaign of lying the entire world into Iraq would be slightly less endearing to much of the Democratic base. Not “voting to allow”, for the people who are going to draw a false equivalence, but leading for the purpose of lying.
nellcote
so still no mention of those millions of Bush-era emails on the rnc server that went missing?
D58826
@Mike in NC: I get a newsfeed called daily 202 from WAPO on my e-mail and there isn’t a link but this is a long clip from the one i got today;
read that again from Karen Tumley
.
And what are we talking about today: the Clinton scandals, how corrupt the Clintons are, etc. With all of those investigations, committees, witch hunts all they found was a blue dress and a blow job between consenting adults.
\Since Ken Starr seems to be under-employed at the moment maybe he can take a peek at Trumps past or Jane Sanders’s involvement in the Burlington College adventure. I’m not saying that the Clintons walk on water but given the number of trees that have died and the electrons excited covering these ‘scandals’ and all they have is that blue dress.
shortribs
I thought all the secret and top-secret emails were classified that way after the fact?
hitchhiker
@Mike in NC:
Bill Clinton’s approval ratings went up after his impeachment. The Dems picked up seats in the House in 1998 after a full year of scandal-round-the-clock. There’s something about both Clintons that makes the press go crazy and the right go crazier — like, they hate those two so much that they rush right on past the zone of “this needs looking into” and deep into the swamps of loserville.
Frankensteinbeck
@WarMunchkin:
Yes, but the hypothetical was meant to solely address whether Hillary Clinton is held to an absurd standard no one else ever is. That Powell is wildly unsuited to being a Democratic candidate for other reasons is understood, but waved aside for this topic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@burnspbesq: the thing that galls me when Colin Powell’s emails are waved away with the argument that the rules were different. So was the fucking history. Powell was helping to lie this country into a war. Anybody think there might have been some important information in those emails? maybe more important than self-important wannabe amateur spying from Sidney Blumenthal?
as for OP, is there a context in the original story that makes those three paragraphs seem less like a rockslide of non-sequiturs?, also too, Ed Morrisey cited as an authority?
Roger Moore
@dedc79:
NPR has one other redeeming feature: they routinely do longer-form reports. Most of the reporting in TV and radio is at most a minute or two, which isn’t even close to enough time to get into the details of a complex issue. NPR regularly focuses on fewer, more in depth items rather than a quick, superficial look at as many things as possible.
Mike J
@shortribs: A lot of what got classified was open source too. Put clips from two different NYT stories together in the same email, presto, it’s classified even though you could go to the Times web site and read both stories.
benw
@nellcote: both the Bush WH and our shitty media deserves a lot of Plame, er blame.
MomSense
@burnspbesq:
I think Mitt Romney destroyed all the hard drives on the computers he and his team used while he was governor and I don’t remember much being said about it. Jeb used private servers and then in an effort to be transparent published constituents’ social security numbers and private information. Then during the W administration Rove and some others used RNC servers and I think took them with them or destroyed them or something. Again, there wasn’t breathless coverage of it.
Personally I think government officials should use their government provided emails, servers, computers, etc exclusively. Clinton has said it was a mistake and she regrets it. The media won’t be fair. They will hold her to a much different standard than Republicans.
Ayn Randy
Why is Ed Morrissey being quoted?
Mike J
Let’s also not forget that Clinton’s email server was secure. The media tried to make a big deal out of attempted intrusions, but people have no idea how common it is. If you have an always on internet connection, you are almost certainly being probed at least a half dozen times per day.
Meanwhile, back at the State Department they were the victims of the “worst hack ever.”
D58826
There is totally non-controversial SOP in Washington when a gooper does it. There is a scandal when a democrat doesthe same thing. When a Clinton buys a coffee and danish at the local Starbucks it is THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. GRAB THE FAMILY JEWELS AND RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
Xboxershorts
As a US Navy vet who lived on a guided missile destroyer I am pissed as fucking hell that the prosecution demanded a felony conviction. This guys life is fucked now for who knows how long simply because he took pictures of his motherfucking home. I took hundreds of pictures of my home on USS Lawrence. Including our missile systems and more. No one ever said a word. We had Officers doing the same….Now all our pictures are splattered on faceCrack in our US navy FB groups…
Sauciere Never shared em with anyone.
Never intended to share them with anyone
And Politico even published the goddam pictures which have now been declassified.
This fucking prosecutor deserves a solid groin kick.
Oh, and trying to compare actively capturing classified data even by mistake, and an email server that doesn’t know spam from classified stuff…is laughable at best
Mike J
@Ayn Randy:
Because he had something negative to say about Clinton.
Eric U.
everyone reading this probably knows some classified information, we just didn’t get it from classified sources. That’s probably where the classified information on the email server comes from. If it wasn’t derived from a classified source, then it’s not a violation of any law. It’s possibly more complicated than that, but my understanding is that a lot of the classified stuff came from a journalist who may or may not have gotten the info from a classified source. I don’t see how getting an email from an outside source that contains classified information is something that Clinton could have stopped. And it would have been a problem had she used only DoS servers
The government did go through a big declassification effort back in Reagan’s administration. It’s the sort of thing only a Republican get away with, “Nixon to China.”
Marjowil
nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/big-problem-with-coverage-of-clinton-emails.html
Clinton is pummeled by the NYT and Wapo for bending or breaking the rules. But I guess Trump never ever breaks any rules, cheats on taxes, lies, or does anything “crooked” because, well, he’s just Trump, and we are all getting used to his bull shit.
Anoniminous
@JMG:
They operate on that theory because it is accurate.
Amir Khalid
Obama noted months ago that Hillary’s use of a private email server was a mistake but no laws had been broken. Everything I’ve read since has borne him out. Unless Mulder and Scully perp-walk Hillary out of her campaign HQ over it, I shall consider the matter at an end.
Ruckus
@D58826:
I had a top secret clearance in the navy. Me. No reason I shouldn’t have had it, someone in my work group needed to have one and I was the highest ranking enlisted in the group. We had equipment in spaces that were able to have nuclear weapons and had to have access. Processing the clearance took about a week. That this is a secretive government, much of that necessary, should not be a surprise. That people cover their asses and classify things as secret that have no need should not be a surprise either. That several hundred thousand people have secret clearances may be an issue. That ship had 300 people on it, I’d bet that way less than 30 needed/had a clearance.
Bex
@burnspbesq: And what about St. Condoleezza?
Mnemosyne
Well, ladies and gents, we knew this was going to happen, but we’re just going to have to roll up our sleeves and shovel it out of the way. I honestly think we’re in a better position to handle it after 8 years of No-Drama Obama.
guachi
I am a sailor. I work in classified spaces. You don’t take a picture if a classified source unless it’s a) sanitized and b) approved.
It’s basic training.
Emails, on the other hand, – it’s just not obvious that an the information in an email is classified just by reading one. Especially when it’s someone referencing an artice in the newspaper.
Marcolin
Yeah, you’re behind the curve if your twitter feed isn’t full of people quoting Shaun King posting Joe Scarborough links about how the email scandal dooms Clinton.
You guys say the 2008 campaign got nastier but I didn’t feel like I was taking crazy pills back then.
joel hanes
@EZSmirkzz:
Off to listen to Frank Zappa’s “Slime.”
Take it away, Don Pardo!
youtube.com/watch?v=RWoxUvWHtB4
Germy
@burnspbesq:
If he ran as a Democrat, yes. If he ran as a Republican, no.
WarMunchkin
@Frankensteinbeck: Sorry, I get prickly because lots of people seem to consider Powell an honorable person and a “good Republican”. No. Absolutely not. For the record, the idea that Hillary would be held to a stupid-as-hell double standard also seemed obvious to me.
Also, yes, reporters at the start of their careers, young reporters, have absolutely no idea about the context of 1990s politics. But they should be educated and shown the way by their editors and supervisors, and that isn’t happening, clearly.
Matt McIrvin
@D58826: I have to admit, part of the appeal of Hillary Clinton to me is that, after seeing the American right build this woman up into their central nightmare for a quarter-century, I would really like to rub their faces in it.
Which is what makes it so strange when a chunk of the American left insist that she’s really a Republican, as much like them as two peas in a pod, and then cite smears of Republican origin to prove her untrustworthiness.
D58826
@Ruckus: My first job out of college was with a defense contractor. I had a top secret clearance. Nice pink badge with my mug shot. Never used it to look at classified information. Truth be told you could have dropped a classified brick on my foot and I would not have recognized it as classified.
I can remember back to the dead tree days of the Drew Pearson/Jack Anderson muckrakers talking about over classification and using the top secret stamp as a CYA get out of jail free card.
But the GOP has already used up the blue dress so they need something else
D58826
@Matt McIrvin: Heck if she can withstand 25 years of the GOP slime, dealing with Putin will seem like a day at the beach. And one thing that it took Obama awhile to learn is that there is no honorable GOP anymore, Hillary will know from day one in the Oval Office
redshirt
@Germy: This was going to be my reply, word for word.
The imbalance is so blatant, so pervasive, and even 8 years of Dem leadership has done nothing to change it. Will another 8 years? Probably not.
The funniest/saddest part is the Right Wing nutjobs still sincerely think the media is biased towards liberals. They literally think Fox News is too liberal. They’re insane.
Partisan Cheese
If Sanders had a equivalent email scandal you guys would be saying it should disqualify him for the nomination every single day. It’s Clinton though, so of course it’s just a massive conspiracy. Continue on, you oh so rational observers. No epistemic closure here! That is only a republican thing!
Miss Bianca
@WarMunchkin: Yeah, but even Powell – and Condoleeza Rice – knew this was bs, and said so. You’d think that would shut the noise machine down, since the MSM seems to love them both, but no…it’s a Clinton, therefore it’s Wrong, Wronger, Wrongest all the time. Jaysus.
Betty Cracker
@Marcolin:
That was true as recently as a month or so ago. It’s not anymore. We’re in Cloud Cuckoo Land now.
germy
@srv: Ha! We got her now!
dww44
@burnspbesq: Yes, as long as there was a “D” after his name.
Ruckus
@D58826:
I never saw one piece of classified anything, paper or object. Of course I didn’t want to know either.
But the GOP has already used up the blue dress so they need something else
Think how simple that is, as an idea. A blue dress (not as clean as one might imagine) and it gets a president impeached. I’m glad that our political adversaries are so simple. Also amazed and horrified because it’s obvious that a way too large portion of the voters are even simpler.
Miss Bianca
@Partisan Cheese: an “equivalent email scandal” for Sanders would be just as full of bs as this one, so…no.
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, but at least in Cloud Cuckoo Land we’re supposed to get all kinds of free food and stuff. I’m still looking for the pigs that are running down the streets begging to be eaten! Instead all I’m getting is Republicans and BernieBros squealing about emails and Whitewater. I feel ripped off!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
So the DOJ prosecutes those who expose classified material. None of the material on Clinton’s server was classified. None of the material on Clinton’s server was exposed. How do you get from “nothing went wrong, no classified information was exposed” to “the DOJ should prosecute her”? Yeah, she violated State Department procedure. I work for a federal Agency and there are all kinds of internal procedures that get waived all the time for expediency. I’ve been here for 2.5 years and have yet to see a rulemaking done according to procedure once since I’ve been here. Nobody gets in trouble for it.
opiejeanne
@D58826: Anyone quoting Shaun King is immediately disqualified from having a meaningful opinion, because they are a ninny.
D58826
@Partisan Cheese: If Bernie had a similar e-mail set up as S-O-S it would be as big a nothing burger as it is for Hillary. Most Hillary supporters have said over and over that if Sanders is the nominee they will vote for him. Jane’s college issues, his honeymoon in Moscow and love affair with the Castros and Sandinistas not withstanding. They have pointed out, however, that as this knowledge, whither it is relevant to 2016 or not, becomes common knowledge due to the GOP slime machine his positive image might be tarnished a bit.
Poopyman
@srv: srv will do what srv does, and the NYT will do what the NYT does, which in this case is associating HRC to an S&L failure in the 80s in the hopes that most readers forget or never knew that most all S&Ls failed in the 80s. ZOMG!
Innuendo! It’s what’s for lunch.
ETA: Come to think of it, srv has helpfully added another example of the puke funnel. Thanks, srv!
Ruckus
@Partisan Cheese:
That’s funny. You’re a funny person. In this post alone there are references to actual republicans who have done the exact same thing as Secretary Clinton and no one here has called for them to be punished. They have been used for evidence that no one should be disqualified in any way for all doing the same legal thing.
Do you just believe that as you assume Clinton was wrong that Sanders would be considered wrong as well?
D58826
@Ruckus: It has been said over and over that the Clintons give thanks to the FSM every day for the quality of their enemies.
Peale
Since this is a press bashing thread and a CNN bashing thread more specifically, what the hell is going on with Travelgeddon all of a sudden. 15 years into taking off our shoes and jackets and suddenly its an issue of discussion on CNN every time I go into the break room or on CNBC when I go into the lobby. Was there some memo that went around that the the fact that TSA lines are long during holidays is now a crisis of some sort and needs serious commentary?
Ruckus
@D58826:
That is true that the quality is low, very low indeed. But the quantity seems to make up for that.
WereBear
Not to mention Romney doing it as Governor. They will not mention that!
Betty Cracker
@opiejeanne: That’s true. He was a fraud and a huckster long before he jumped on the Bernie Bus, so it’s unsurprising that he’s spouting Republican talking points now. Maybe he admires Trump’s ability to pull off the grift long-term.
WarMunchkin
@Partisan Cheese: If Sanders had an equivalent e-mail scandal, it would be spun as DWS implanting fake emails into a computer he was in the same state as once in order for the establishment to put him in jail so that Hillary could unfairly steal the election.
Ruckus
@Peale:
Is it possible that someone on CrappyNewsNetwork has been traveling and has had to stand in line for more than 1 minute and so this is now a big story? The, it affects MEEEEEE side of the media.
Ruckus
@WarMunchkin:
Nice.
D58826
@Poopyman:
The Clintons were in Little Rock at the time. They lost money on the Whitewater deal. MCDougal was a crook. And the S&L scandal was the result of legislation signed by St Ronulus the Unready and it actually blew up under Bush 41.
But yes I can see why the Clintons are to blame. And if Bill hadn’t hidden the binoculars the lookouts on Titanic would have seen the iceberg sooner and the ship would not have sunk.
Frankensteinbeck
@WarMunchkin:
Ah, exactly what happened when one of Sanders’ top campaign operatives stole Hillary Clinton’s campaign data.
Mnemosyne
@Partisan Cheese:
Bernie has lost. He got fewer votes than Hillary. Get over it.
NonyNony
@Peale: Long story short – Congress cut TSA’s budget on TSA’s recommendation a while back because TSA rolled out this new “pre-check” framework where frequent travellers are supposed to pay TSA a chunk of money up front to be “pre checked” for flying. If you pay the pre-check fee you basically get to be in an express line and you get to keep your shoes on (do ask me to explain how exactly this is supposed to be worth the hundred dollars you pay to get your pre-check clearance or how it helps with security – it’s nonsensical).
Anyway – nobody wanted to pay for pre-check and so TSA’s budget is smaller (because it was cut in anticipation of all the phat loot they’d be rolling in from everyone wanting those sweet pre-check perks). So TSA pre-emptively sent out a bunch of “it’s not our fault” press releases in March and April to explain that long lines and wait times were not their fault but everyone should plan on getting to the airport 3 hours early and waiting in line for their screeners. Basically as a mechanism to freak people out into paying for pre-check and/or freaking out legislators to pass some money onto TSA to beef up their budget. The press is fulfilling their role as stenographers by dutifully repeating back those press releases to the public and getting people to freak out and either sign up for pre-check or scream at their Congressman.
It’s likely to be worse this year than a normal summer because TSA is putting the screws on to get their budget increased one way or another. So even if you’re used to normal holiday travel, expect this year to be worse.
sherparick
@guachi: One of the reasons Clinton would like the few dozens e-mails released that are the subject of the FBI investigation I expect is that what she and her aids were Wikileaks releases being published by the Guardian and NY Times. We were advised at the time in DoD not go to the newspapers web sites, not download any material in the articles to an unclassified computer system, and that even reading the articles or discussing it in an e-mail in an unclassified system could be considered a security violation. In other words insanity since what ever classification those materials had, the cat was out of the bag. Its pretty hard to show intent under these circumstances.I
schrodinger's cat
I sometimes miss not having cable but what I don’t miss at all are CNN and MSNBC.
Xboxershorts
@Poopyman:
What is always conveniently left out is that the Clinton’s Whitewater documents were used to prosecute their once friend who helped guide them into their Whitewater investment in which they actually lost 6 figure monies…and completely ruled out any kind of illegal activity on their part.
J R in WV
Back when I still worked, at a state government job, I would routinely use my personal email to make dinner dates with friends, remind others of personal events, chat with distant cousins, etc.
I also always used my professional email account for all official communications with the public, other state and federal employees, etc. Of course, everything I did was available to the public, my agency was (wonderfully) nearly completely open to the public. When I received a FOIA request I just did what was necessary to fulfill it, while CCing the PR folks on the executive floor. I was never even slowed down in that process.
Elizabelle
Ah, but CNN can not take all the
glorypuke funnel pride. The WaPost weighs in: complete the blurb that is on their website this very moment.(a) that Senator Hatch is a duplicitous hack who had no intention of giving Judge Merrick an honest hearing.
(b) the Democrats’ lack of leverage in the Senate when it comes to getting a vote on the president’s Supreme Court nominee.
(c) that we at the Post don’t got no editorz no more who catch this kind of stuff.
And the answer is ….
germy
@srv: I question his judgement if he takes Trump at his word.
WarMunchkin
Also, does anyone remember that long, long time ago when Hillary was a murderer for voluntarily letting all those people die in Benghazi? Oh, that’s how we got a bogus e-mails scandal, you say? This wasn’t about the principles of information security or ethics in gaming journalism? Who coulda thunk.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
No wammies no wammies no wammies…
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: So true. It’s like not being covered with ticks and lyme disease anymore, or something.
Buh bye, CNN and Mostly Scarborough News Before Coffee.
NR
It’s okay, I keep hearing around here that Hillary’s email issues won’t matter in the general election because reasons.
Just like her astronomically high unfavorable and dishonest numbers won’t matter because reasons.
It’s all good. Hillary has reasons on her side. She can’t lose.
singfoom
Fuck this garbage. If they’re going to investigate / prosecute HRC for what she did, can we get some prosecutions for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their fucking gang?
Mass murder, war crimes, torture, criminal conspiracy, etc, etc?
It really does come down to IOKIYAR. If you’re a democrat, well, you’re not actually legitimate.
All cable news is fucking garbage and always has been. CNN International is establishment fare for the world and relatively ok like the BBC but still has a rightward tilt. God it’s fucking tiring reading enough different sources to find the “truth” minus the spin.
opiejeanne
@Betty Cracker: Shaun King announced a few days ago that he was leaving the Democratic Party, in a manner that could be called “flouncing”. I noticed that the response was to wave “bye-bye” and to tell him we wouldn’t miss him.
father pussbucket
It’s worth remembering that a major progenitor of this ecosystem was ABC’s Nightline, which in turn was essentially a continuation of AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE: DAY xxx (i.e, the Iran hostage crisis).
singfoom
@NR: Concern-trolling troll is concerned.
redshirt
@NR: Unfavorable numbers! Drink!
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: completely o/t, but were you saying you were planning to join RWA? And possibly take a draft to their convention this year/next?
@Frankensteinbeck: You can’t blame Bernie Sanders for that! He has absolutely NO CONTROL over the enthusiastically law-breaking behavior of his campaign staff or his delegates, can’t you see that? It’s so unfair of you to point stuff like this out when Bernie Sanders is the REAL victim here!
NR
@singfoom:
Obama said no back in 2009. We have to look forward and not backward, dontcha know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: still the strongest Dem candidate in the race
Betty Cracker
REDACTED
D58826
@Xboxershorts: I just hate it when you go all reality and fact based.
As to the billing records. (sigh):
1. any one who has moved knows things get lost or misplaced.
2. the ‘scandal’ was Hillary had over-billed at the Rose law firm
3. So for two years the Clinton said they could not find the documents or stonewalled Congress take your pick
4. The documents finally showed up
5. Since they proved that Hillary had not over-billed the GOP reaction was – the usual cricket chorus
6. After two years of ‘scandal’ if the documents HAD been incriminating they never would have been released.
7. Since the documents were exculpatory why didn’t they release them in the beginning?
Ah maybe they got misplaced in the move?
But it worked so well in 1994 the GOP rolled out the same movie in 2009 with Obama. It seems there was a committee that he and Bill Ayers served on at one time. The documents from that committee would show that Ayers wrote Obama’s books, Obama was the son of a well know communist, he was born in Chicago and Kenya at the same time and worst of all he was a closet Cubs fan. Well the documents were released AND crickets. they proved absolutely nothing.
germy
@father pussbucket: I remember in the 1970s, watching the old SNL when the original cast was still on. Chevy Chase was doing the news. He did a take off on the old Johnny Carson “Carnac” routine, where Carnac would hold an envelope to his forehead, give an answer, then open the envelope for the question.
Chevy Chase held an envelope to his head, sang the calypso tune “Day Oh! Day ay ay Oh!”
Then opened the envelope and read “The day before the Iranian hostage crisis.”
Mike J
@Xboxershorts:
In other words, yes there was a crime associated with Whitewater, and they were the victims.
Poopyman
@Betty Cracker: Well that was sweet indeed, but assumes a fact not at all in evidence, namely that NR is anything more than a Republican troll.
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not according to every single poll taken in the last six months, but hey, who needs data when you’ve got feelings, right?
NR
@Poopyman: Yes, only Republican trolls could possibly see Hillary’s glaring weaknesses as a candidate.
oldgold
This reminds of when they f’d over Gore in in 2000 over Asian contributions and the controlling legal doctrine and all that baloney. It is what they do. And, we got W. Hopefully, we do not end up with Trump over this damnable nonsense.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I did join the RWA, but the conference I’m looking at is the one held by our 4 local chapters, not the national conference. Baby steps.
Xboxershorts
@NR:
Well, 90% of Hillary’s glaring weaknesses are actually republican political media exaggerations.
Don’t think you aren’t being played.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: you have local chapters? Hmmm, wonder if *I* have local chapters out here…I will have to investigate!
singfoom
@NR: So what are you going to do about it? What do you think should be done about Hillary’s weakness as a candidate?
Let’s play a hypothetical. Bernie concedes and HRC is confirmed as the Democratic nominee. Now if the goal is for her to beat Trump, what do you think should be done?
What are you going to do? I would suggest something other than bitching about how shitty she is repeatedly. I don’t think that’s going to be effective (if your goal is to beat Trump).
I know what I’ll do, I’ll see what I can do with my local Democratic party and try to help to register people to vote and see how I can help with the GOTV effort. What about you?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Really? Every single poll for the last 6 months has shown Hillary losing to Trump?
Perhaps you might want to provide a link to, say, 6 or 7 of those so you don’t look like a serial exaggerator.
D58826
I have a solution. Since Bill is still polling in the 60% favorable range and the 22nd amendment seems to apply only to back to back terms, have Bill run at the top of the ticket and pick Hillary as his VP. The day after the inauguration he retires to spend more time with his grandkids and Hillary become president. Hillary can then appoint Chelsea as her VP to keep it in the family and Obama to the next open seat on SCOTUS. There will not be one GOOPER heads left unexploded.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Oh, and in case anyone was in any doubt, HuffPo’s poll aggregator says you’re a liar. Trump has never led Hillary, much less done it consistently for the past 6 months.
Mnemosyne
@singfoom:
NR is the charter member of the He-Man Hillary Haterz Club. He will whine about her today, tomorrow, and forever.
As I’ve said, at this point there aren’t any Bernie dead-enders, only Hillary haters. They never loved Bernie nearly as much as they hate Hillary.
D58826
@Xboxershorts: The problem is so much of the public never gets past the ‘Clinton scandals’ and the mud has stuck. Most folks in this country are not the political junkies that BJers and other political bloggers are.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Peale: Follow the money. This is a union-busting issue, plain and simple.
Miss Bianca
@singfoom: Aaaaand…crickets.
Ella in New Mexico
Hubby was a Submarine Sailor in the 80’s. At no time, not now or ever, was it ok to take pictures of any parts of the engine compartment of their sub. Dining compartment, bunks and rec areas were ok, but not equipment. Much of the Clinton stuff I’ve seen was retro-classified, and never in danger of exposing “State Secrets”.
I’m not familiar with the case in point here, but really, when you’re in the Navy or any other branch of the military, you are under a completely different standard than a civilian for strict adherence to rules and regulations. Why they’re making this comparison is anyone’s guess…
Gene108
@Marcolin:
Despite the close primary, there was excitement on both sides about a Democrat making history.
Bernie’s not a Democrat and has no interest in the Party or getting his supporters into the Democratic tent. At this point Bernie’s just a bitter bomb thrower looking to burn shit down, because it ain’t him on top.
I do not see it getting better. I do see it getting worse.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: nobody’s ever run against Bernie! buy hey who needs to worry about running a pro-teen sex, child nudity advocate who called for the abolition of the US military and wants to raise your taxes (for your own good!) when you’re a bitter little troll who likes to pretend that the American electorate has no influence in politics.
divF
IOW, the usual partisan hacks, disguised as “some people say …”. And they are credible how ?
germy shoemangler
@Mnemosyne:
I know this is true, but a different scenario is being repeated all over the radio and TV. This morning I came home and my wife had NPR (or PRI or whatever the fuck it was) and a gentleman with a British accent was explaining that “some polls show Trump ahead of Hillary.” He also said “Hillary needs to stop lying about the email scandal.” I asked my wife “Is that Andrew Sullivan?” but she didn’t know; she’d been half-listening to the radio, just likes to have it on as background noise (which annoys me to no end, but that’s a different story).
And when I tune into my local TV news, and they do their national election coverage, they repeat the story that “Trump is ahead in some polls.”
Paul in KY
Sec. Clinton was a ‘Classifying Authority’. That means that with a few restrictions, she can either classify or declassify documents at her behest.
Gene108
@D58826:
I can live with the public not getting past the “Clinton scandals”, but it is fair to say the media has not gotten past it and/or clings onto it for dear life.
As much drama as there was during Bill’s Presidency, what abuses of Executive power occurred?
I cannot think of any, but the media was determined to have a “both sides do it”, with regards to Presidential corruption because it would not be “fair” to say only recent Republican Presidents were corrupt because of Watergate and Iran-Contra.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Yes it would. Because he’d be running as a Democrat.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@EZSmirkzz:
“…and Brian knew Charlie…”
I think you mean Dennis. Brian was trying to record Smile at the time, and slipping into the big nervous breakdown.
D58826
@Gene108: At the beginning of the cycle I thought that Bernie would do what Hillary did in 2008. Now I have my doubts. Some of the stuff over the past couple of weeks – debating Trump!!! – seems off the rails
To repost what I said on an earlier thread and it is speculation but:
Just speculation but –
1. he has been given a bigger role in the platform process,
2. he pushes his ideas into the platform, some of which like Palestinian statehood are unpopular in large sections of the more conservative US,
3. the platform alienates voters who may be ‘getable’ with Trump as the GOP nominee
4. party platforms are pretty much ignored after the convention
5. the price for the platform concessions is Bernie will campaign for Hillary
6. BUT will he campaign for Hillary using her talking points or HIS?
I don’t think it is a stretch that he will continue running on his campaign talking points in the general and Hillary’s be d****. After all he keeps saying that he has no plans on giving up fighting for HIS agenda so given a platform in the general why would he support Hillary’s. People who know him in Congress say he is not a team player
I think Bernie is going to be a liability right thru November.
Paul in KY
@Xboxershorts: I assume the gentleman took pictures in areas where Russians would normally never be. Pictures of the outside of any portion of a ship are generally OK, as the Russians have photographed all that stuff time & time again.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Perhaps you should read the comment I replied to. Every single poll in the last six months has shown that Hillary is not the strongest Dem candidate in the race. The polls have consistently shown Sanders doing better against Trump.
Chris
@burnspbesq:
If he was running for the Democratic nomination, much less as the Democratic candidate? Hell yes it would. The reverse principle of IOKIYAR.
D58826
@Paul in KY: In which case – what is the crime? Other than being a Clinton and a democrat
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So because the Republicans might be able to make the country hate Bernie Sanders, we should nominate the candidate who the country already hates. That’s some great logic there.
Mike J
@D58826: 15 people on the platform committee. 5 from Bernie, 6 from Hillary, 4 from DSW. There’s a two thirds majority to prevent anything too egregious from getting in.
Captain C
@Miss Bianca:
Sounds kind of like apologists for Reagan with regards to Iran-Contra.
Paul in KY
@D58826: Man, that would be sweet!
hovercraft
I was watching Tweety last night, ( I know, why? – sometimes I’m a masochist) anyway when someone brought up Trumps lack of transparency, and the lack of criticism, the response was that well it’s Trump and he’s different. Yesterday all the villagers were in a tizzy about whether she technically was lying about who knew what when, yet every other word out if his mouth is either contradictory or a lie. Enough with the double standards
It’s going to be a long 6 months, I’m not sure my TV will survive.
Miss Bianca
@NR: And as others here have repeatedly pointed out to you, even if that’s true, history shows that polls at this point in the race have just two things in common with the eventual outcome: jack and shit.
Yet you keep coming here dribbling “polls say -” out of your cake hole like Eeyore on crack because…reasons, presumably.
NR
@singfoom: I’ll vote for her in November, but that’s the extent of it. I think her campaign is largely a lost cause. Our only hope is for Trump to self-destruct. If he does, Hillary will win, if he doesn’t, she’ll lose.
My focus is going to be on the downticket.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: He’s talking about favorability polls. He only talks about favorability polls, and is amazingly blind to how weak a candidate Sanders is.
Paul in KY
@D58826: I think they are intimating that she never declassified any of them, so they were still technically ‘classified’. Plus Democrat, etc. etc.
There is a burocratic process for declassifying something.
redshirt
@NR: Do you see any reasons at all Sanders favorability would plummet if he were the Dem nominee?
Mike in NC
USA Today has come up with a list of dreamy running mates for Drumpf:
Bob Corker
John Kasich
Jodi Ernst
Nikki Haley
Marco Rubio
and last but not least (drum roll), Newt Fucking Gingrich!
Know nothing about Corker, but the other five are terrible, evil people.
D58826
@Mike J: I know but since the price of Bernie’s co-operation is getting a platform to his liking they still might throw some things in there that the GOP can use. No sense in giving the GOP a Hanging cure to swing at. And if he doesn’t get the platform to his liking then what does he do?
singfoom
Redacted, he did respond.
Bob In Portland
Pour this:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: “might”. My god, your stupidity is limitless, isn’t it? You’d be funny if you weren’t so obnoxious.
I’m sure those candidates are thrilled to have you trolling on their behalf on an obscure blog.
D58826
@Paul in KY: ah. Still seems like a lot of legal hair splitting that would be ok if t she was a gooper.
Gravenstone
@NR: Those goal posts won’t move by themselves, damnit!
singfoom
@NR:
Then you’re a concern troll. If you really were interested in defeating Trump, you’d deal with the fact that she’s not your ideal candidate and actually do something beyond just voting for her.
Just identifying that there is a problem and doing nothing about it is shitty. It is not useful for me to continue to engage with you as you’re not actually serious, you’re just here to bitch. Good day to you sir.
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, “might.” In the real world, which is different from the fever dreams of most BJers, people like Bernie Sanders, and there is no guarantee that an effort to make the country hate him would be successful. Meanwhile, the country already hates Hillary Clinton.
Gravenstone
@Mike in NC: As was noted here a couple of days ago I believe, Newter is actively lobbying for the position. Let your inner primal scream ponder that pairing.
SFAW
@Chris:
INOKIYAD?
IBIYAD?
ITWTEIYAD?
redshirt
@NR: But we all have come to hate Bernie Sanders. Why wouldn’t America?
USSR Honeymoon!
bemused
@D58826:
Out of all the Clintongates, I don’t really remember any that were prosecution worthy, much ado about nothings. Yet, it doesn’t stop average Republicans from believing the Clintons have been getting away with all sorts of dirty works for decades. Then there are those and I know a few, who totally believe in the Clinton body bag conspiracy theory. They think the Clintons are being protected, a big coverup, in every Clintongate. Logic should tell anyone that something would have definitely been revealed by someone or a few someones that would have sunk them. As the number of conspiracies mount up and the number of people involved in those conspiracies increase, the odds of those secrets staying secret decrease. Logic doesn’t make a dent with the Clinton haters.
NR
@Gravenstone: Pay attention. The comment I replied to was about who was the better candidate against Trump. The goal posts were never moved, you just didn’t know where they were in the first place.
Chris
@WarMunchkin:
Yeah. Having come to political awareness in the early to mid 2000s, the narrative of the time was basically “Colin Powell, last of the good guys,” that he was an honest and honorable career soldier who got screwed and hung out to dry by his colleagues in the Bush administration, probably because he was so honest and honorable that he couldn’t conceive that they’d be so perfidious…
… and, well, no: the more I learned about his actual record, the more I’ve come to hate that narrative. Powell was always a fucking weasel and a right wing stooge, all the way back to his My Lai days. The fact that he got dragged through the mud by the Bush administration actually gives me some small satisfaction: he spent all these years paying his dues, thought he’d become a made man, only to be used as a prop and tossed aside with his credibility destroyed as soon as it was convenient. A very well deserved fate; I can only hope it tortures him to realize that all that work he put into climbing the political ladder ultimately counted for nothing.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
And yet Hillary is not only polling just fine against Trump, she won more Democratic votes than Bernie did.
Your weird obsession with “likeability” is not being supported by the polls showing who people will actually VOTE for. Hillary may not be Miss Popularity this year, but against Trump, she will be President.
Paul in KY
@D58826: To me, I didn’t like it when the GOP did that (use the private servers, email, etc.). I guess she thought there were practical/political reasons for doing that. Should have known though (IMO), that the fact that numerous Repubs did the exact same thing would not insulate her in any way from them shrieking about it.
cckids
I know this is late (damn west coast time), but Michelle Wolf, on the Daily Show last night, absolutely KILLED on the whole Hillary’s “likeability/trust” BS.
She references the “Texts With Hillary” pic & says that Hill’s “The Boss we Need”. It’s pretty good. Enjoy.
ETA: Don’t get thrown by the cutesy stuff at the beginning, it gets better fast.
“She eats enemies and shits policy” is probably my favorite line.
Paul in KY
@Chris: He was only good when compared to the rest of them. Sorta like how Meyer Lansky would be ‘good’ when compared to Albert Anastasia, Pretty Boy Floyd, Jack the Ripper, and Ramsey Bolton.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
They may say they hate her, but every poll except a few outliers says they’re going to vote for her anyway. Which is, you know, kind of the fucking point of elections.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
except for the ones that actually know him. They don’t have to make people “hate” him (I know it’s hard for you to let go of hate, given your sad life story, you breathe it and wallow in it, you unhappy little person), they just have to make some people think that he’s a squirrelly nutcase, and other people see that he’s a sloganeer who hasn’t thought through the mechanics and consequences of his proposals (also known as an ’emoprog’, like you!), many of which people already don’t support when presented with specifics.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Tied in the polls before Trump has even really started attacking her is not “just fine.”
This is going to be the nastiest campaign in recent memory, and while there is a non-zero chance that Trump’s tactics will backfire and he’ll flame out in spectacular fashion, absent that, I don’t think Hillary has much chance. The opposition party has the advantage after the incumbent party has had two terms in the White House, Hillary is massively disliked, and the mood of the country is overwhelmingly anti-establishment and Hillary is as establishment as it gets.
We’ll see how it plays out.
Amir Khalid
@NR:
Bernie has been treated with ktid gloves so far. Neither Hillary nor the Republicans have brought up anything embarrassing to Bernie, of which there have been quite a few as mentioned above. Hillary has her reasons; she has been careful not to alienate his supporters, whom she will need in November. The Republican party would prefer to face Bernie in November precisely because their own assessment is that he is the weaker Democratic candidate.
redshirt
@NR: I wish I could take this bet. You’re so wrong. Hillary will win in what amounts to a landslide by modern standards.
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, and if they did all that, maybe they could make 56% of the country dislike Bernie Sanders and two-thirds think he’s a liar.
You know, where Hillary is right now.
D58826
@bemused: From what I remember they got Clinton’s successor on corruption charges but Bill and his successor where not political allies. There criminal charges filed against Hillary’s law firm partner Web Hubble for over billing. Whither there was anything really there or just hyped up threats that lead to a plea deal, I don’t remember. Star bragged about the number number of people he prosecuted (persecuted might be a better term) but most of them were small town lawyers or accountants with sloppy paperwork habits. They copped a plea because they could not affords to fight the feds. A friend of Kathleen Willey’s was charged after she recanted her support of Whilly’s statements about Bill. That was about it. The charges that were filed were to try and get incrimination evidence on the Clinton. Most were so minor that even a local DA would not have pursued them. But Starr had an unlimited budget., all of the resources of the federal government and a deep hate of the Clintons combined with his own self-righteousness.
D58826
@Amir Khalid: beat me to it.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Indeed. No one on other side has any reason to attack Sanders. From the Republican side because they want him to be the nominee, and Hillary, like you say, because she wants to appeal to his followers and already has won.
It should be noted as contrary evidence of this theory, however, that in 2008 the Right Wing was very positive towards Obama until the day it was obvious he’d be the nominee. Then the attacks started and his favorability ratings went down and have remained down ever since.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: so when do we see the new you, Sparky? all your positive posts about those down ticket races you’re focusing on and all the good and hard work you’re doing to get them elected? let go of some of that rage about your childhood and look for things to be positive about. I might do you some good.
El Caganer
@Gravenstone: I don’t see The Donald picking somebody whose ego rivals his.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I’ll take that bet. $50 says that Hillary will beat Trump by Obama’s margins at a minimum. Pony up.
D58826
@El Caganer: Since I don’t see Trump picking any one with an ego that leaves a , a corpse, a door mat or Chris Christie (but I repeat myself) . Since the Constitution seems to require a living breathing person then I guess it will be the door mat, oh I mean Christie.
SFAW
@NR:
Because that’s apparently all that matters in an election.
To you.
Trump doesn’t have to make the electorate hate Bernie, he just has to get the electorate to realize that Bernie, for all his talk about revolution etc., has zero — or damn close to it — legislative accomplishments. The BernBots will ignore that, but the 15-20 percent of non-tribal voters will start paying attention. Add the Burlington College fiasco into the mix, and Sanders becomes something less than a shoo-in.
Of course, Bernie won’t have to release his taxes, because Trump won’t release his, so it’s even up on that count.
But the less-politically-aware would look at that race and say: “Hmmm … two New York assholes, but one is a stunningly successful businessman who’s fighting for ME!” It would matter not that Trump is, in reality, none of those things — thanks to the MSM, among others.
ETA: And, just to be clear: the lack-of-legislative-accomplishments-thing would only be the start. I’m sure there’s plenty of oppo that would target other areas of weakness for Sanders.
PatrickG
@redshirt:
Good god redshirt, that kind of drinking game will kill you. Put the shot glass down!
El Caganer
@D58826: I was figuring maybe Rick Perry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@D58826: I agree, Gingrich can’t even pretend to be subservient like Christie, and Trump– as nutty as he may be– seems to be able to read people well enough to see that Newton Leroy thinks he’s gonna Cheney the Yam. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Newtie publicly humiliated for his temerity
Did you happen to see the footage on the Hayes show last night of Christie rolling his eye when Trump blew up his cell phone? He forgot I guess that there are cameras in the studio where he does his regular call in spots.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, you may not have won the Intertubez for today, but you’re in the running.
SFAW
@srv:
Interesting. I think I saw a poll re: Most Trusted Newsperson of All Time, and Judy finished either second or third. Cronkite was first, of course, but I don’t recall if Edward R. Murrow was second or third.
I think Jimmy O’Keefe was in the mix, too.
NR
@SFAW: So voters are going to be outraged about Burlington College, but they’re not going to care one whit about Hillary’s emails. Got it.
Because reasons, of course.
Mike J
@D58826: Christie is also only 53. He got nowhere running for pres as governor of New Jersey, but a term or two as henchman to a right wing strongman would put him next in line in the Republican party. I can see how Trump would believe that having a bully like him as his capo could cement his reputation as a great leader.
Peale
@NonyNony: Yeah. O.K. My company paid for my pre-check so I am one of the few, the proud, the shoe-wearing. But it was a pain in the butt if your credit card, frequent flyer program and passport names are all different. Mine were. My passport has my middle name spelled out and of course none of those other sources use anything but my middle initial. Ergo, I had to change my booking profiles and whatnot to have my full middle name. At one airline it was easy, but another airline wanted some kind of affidavit or name change form faxed it with proof of the name change, which makes me feel for people who need to change their name on everything after marriage. It treats the simplest change like an alias.
Cat48
@NR. Trump really needs help, per NYT, he has quite a shitshow going on at Trump Tower. He doesn’t have any ground game & not sure he needs won since he gives racist speeches daily. The small number of campaign staff suffer from paranoia because they think their work rooms are bugged.
It’s just to early to continually criticize Hillary,as the Media has. Remember when she was going to be criminally indicted a year ago? Give it a break until after Labor Day.
Xboxershorts
@srv:
As an IT person with 3 decades + of experience, who has operated email systems large and small (couple hundred to 10 million + accounts) I feel safe in saying….Media people who push the email security scandal are counting on dweebs like you who have no clue how email works to keep this nothing burger alive.
That server only listens. It cannot discern the security classification in the body of the message. All it can do is listen. And if the destination account exists on the server, it has no choice but to deliver.
Judy Miller (and others in the media) is playing on the ignorance of easily swayed people to keep this going.
Mnemosyne
@Peale:
It gets worse — some states with voter ID laws are refusing to let women vote if they changed their names after marriage, because their name doesn’t match their birth certificate and their marriage certificate doesn’t count as an official name change document.
I mostly didn’t change my name out of sheer laziness, but all of this post-9/11 security bullshit is making me very glad I didnt.
Bobby Thomson
@NR: one is pocket lining, the other is the HR department chewing people out for internet use.
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: firebaggers don’t work downticket.
Psych1
Some really bizarre comments here – defending the indefensible . This email stuff is bad and it is hurting her now and likely to get worse. Something seriously wrong with you people.
redshirt
@Psych1: How is it bad? Explain it to me.
Soylent Green
Were Bernie the nominee, the Republicans would capably brand him as an ill-informed and doddering old commie atheist who wants to raise your taxes, and the media would pile on. His favorability numbers would plummet.
He did surprisingly well in the primary, exceeding all expectations, but it’s game over, man, game over.
Either support the party’s actual nominee, or rusty chainsaw etc. That applies to Bernie as well as his dead-enders.
Bob in Portland
Nice to see that the villagers here have no comments about who’s putting together the planks for the Democratic Party:
SFAW
@NR:
Bobby Thomson beat me to it, but, yes, people will be more outraged over Jane gaming the system — if it was as benign as that — than over Hillary following the same “policy” that Powell and Rice did. Unlike the Rethug perpetual-outrage machine, most people won’t get too upset over the e-mails — not that the MSM won’t do their damnedest to “fix” that.
As with just about every Clinton “scandal” the MSM has tried to puff up over the last N years, this will end up being a non-issue. Of course, I’m a little surprised that the MSM hasn’t tried doing the Vince Foster thing 24/7, but there’s still five months for them to work on it.
But, thanks so much for your concern.
D58826
@srv: She still getting her news leaks from the ‘Iraq is a cake walk’ crowd I see. If she said the sun was coming up in the east tomorrow, I would set the alarm early just to check
Grumpy Code Monkey
Irrespective of whether classified material made it to an unsecure server or not, Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica describes why this is a real issue:
Emphasis added.
This is not nothing, folks. There wasn’t a technical reason why she couldn’t have used a PC in the SCIF for classified business. There’s wasn’t a technical reason why her staff could not have used a secure server for government business. This wasn’t a workaround to deal with any kind of severe access issue.
She wanted to use her goddamned Blackberry, and at the very least she violated policy and good sense to do it. And she compounded that sin by having her staff use that server.
This isn’t going to stop me from voting for her in November, but it’s going to be goddamned hard to convince other people to do so; this was an own goal on her part, and it’s gonna play right into the puke funnel.
SFAW
@Bob in Portland:
How many times you gonna post that? Until you get someone to say “Gosh, Bob, thanks for posting that! I had no idea! And am now righteously outraged!”?
OK, fine, consider it said.
Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Ivanov approves, too.
LanceThruster
@Bob in Portland:
Re: Howard Berman –
D58826
@SFAW: Bernie belonged to or publicly supported a Trotskite party in 1979 that praised the Iranian hostage takers. It doesn’t really matter what his relationship was, the GOP will run ads – ‘Bernie supported hostage takers in 1979’.
The GOP tried to link Obama with Bill Ayers and the weather underground but the link was so tenuous it never gained any traction. The hostage taking has a greater emotional punch to it.
As for Hillary and her e-mails. Scratch the surface and there is nothing there. The GOP will run an ad saying ‘you didn’t like it when Target was hacked; do you want a POTUS who let the Russians hack her e-mails’. It doesn’t have to be remotely true but as long as Hillary and e-mails are in the news the GOP will find a way to make it look like she is a traitor. They succeeded in making Bush, who could not even fulfill has draft dodging National Guard commitment, into a war hero and John Kerry into a coward. They will try with Hillary. How well it works remains to be seen. 25 years of mud slinging and they may catch a break on this one.
D58826
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Agree with what your saying but that all gets pretty deep into the grass and only political junkies will care. Her problem is the GOP will make it sound like state secrets were compromised just like the target credit card accounts. It’s not true but if they can convince people that John Kerry and Max Clelland were unpatriotic then they can sell most anything. It is an own goal, no doubt. They already took the Tammy Duckworth doesn’t care about veterans out for a spin.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
You know we are trying to separate Bill Clinton’s political life from Hilary’s. Attacking Bernie Sanders for Jane’s crap seems to be the same to me. It is trying to attach blame to him (or her) for the spouse’s issues. That’s not to say that spouses are not tied together in some way. They may very well be. But just blaming someone for their spouses issues with no connection other than a wedding ring seems to be problematic to me.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@D58826:
If she were any other candidate, I’d be inclined to agree.
Gotta say, this has a good chunk of the techie crowd agitated, mainly because it recapitulates the bullshit IT staff always goes through when the CEO wants something done their way, policy and law be damned. It has me agitated, both as a software professional and someone who’s held a clearance in the past. I’ll still take her over Bernie as the nominee, and I’m still going to vote for her in November, but I’m more resigned than excited.
We’d better flip the goddamned Senate.
Weaselone
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Wait a second. All the stuff on her private server was classified after the fact, which means she must have been handling classified business and materials in some other manner and not over the BlackBerry.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Xboxershorts: It’s the blind leading the blind.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
I was talking about how the MSM and RNC will treat it.
I don’t know a ton about Jane, but, from what I’ve seen so far, it seems like Bernie may not be the only asshole in the marriage. But whether she’s an asshole is immaterial (to me, vis-a-vis Bernie’s campaign), except when she feels it necessary to trash Clinton, just because she wants to (or whatever).
A potential area of vulnerability re: Jane is that she seems to be the money person in the family — he has to wait for her to release his 1040s? GMAFB — which lends itself to people looking askance at the Burlington College thing (“one time is happenstance, two times is coincidence, three times is Jane cooking the books.”)
Anyway, I don’t disagree with you, I was just responding to the idea that Bernie’s numbers will remain just-so-fucking-good that he’ll win 480-plus electoral votes.
Ruckus
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Thing was, this was not illegal when she or the two prior SoS did exactly the same thing. It was not intended to be a classified email server, nor were classified emails sent to or from it. Emails were classified after they were on the server but not classified when they were sent to her.
SHE DIDN’T BREAK ANY LAWS, clearance or not. That has been checked and rechecked at the cost of millions to you and me and everyone else many times, by congress and by other branches of the government. That the law has since been changed is not in doubt, that she broke the law over this is not either.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Well, dammit, let’s find some laws she DID break!
I still say she’s hiding something regarding her involvement in the disappearance of Judge Crater. Maybe Trey Gowdy will address that in his hearings.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Hell she may be the brains in the family, let alone the money person. I don’t like her either and Bernie has caused some of the blame himself by using her as an excuse about the taxes. And there is some speculation that she is a paid spokesperson for his campaign. If true then she is more than his spouse, and has, IMO, opened herself up to criticism for her words and actions. But strictly as a spouse I think she should be off limits. I give Bill the same amount of leeway, and he has stepped on himself on her behalf on more than one occasion. Is he doing so as her spouse or as a paid spokesperson? To me that makes a difference.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Good luck with that. It seems that she’s been more investigated (and mostly by her political opponents) than just about anyone in my lifetime. With nothing sticking other than bullshit.
FlipYrWhig
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Uh, so, outside the “techie crowd,” the desire to keep using one device instead of learning another one is kind of what you call “normal” especially for “older people.” Anyone who’s ever said “I don’t even know what half these buttons do” probably reads your excerpt and says, “Hey, wait, is THAT what this is all about? Yeah, I can relate to that.”
Weaselone
@Ruckus:
There’s also a slant in nearly every story and article about this including the one grumpycodemonkey posted that Hillary hurt national security. That reality is that all the documents classified so far have been done after the fact and probably represent publicly available info. On top of that, all evidence points to Hillary’s server having remained secure unlike Powell’s email account and the State Departments own system.
FlipYrWhig
@Ruckus: On the other hand, I just about guarantee that Jane Sanders had the Burlington College gig at all because of her connection to Bernie, because apart from that, she’s super unqualified to run anything.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
But she has NEVER been investigated re: Judge Crater. And if Gowdy were an enterprising sort — as opposed to just being a gumshoe with good hair — he could possibly pin the Lindbergh baby kidnapping on her. I know Darrell
ArsonIssa could do it. Maybe they’ll bring him back.SFAW
@Ruckus:
I can’t tell if you’re trying to get me to argue with you. I’d love to oblige — as long as it’s the full 30 minute Argument — but I don’t think we’re in disagreement.
D58826
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I agree but having lived thru travelgate and filegate (as opposed to emailgate) and whitewater (that never had a gate, oh well) and every other gate it just seems like so much throwing mud at the wall. The GOP is quite happy to ignore the war crimes of Bush/Chaney and now The Donald and his university and planned bankruptcy but lets spend 6 months talking about the e-mails, which at this point seems mostly stupid and not criminal.
D58826
@SFAW: I agree that the spouse should be off limits but if she appears on TV as an official spokesperson/adviser/whatever that changes it. If she is the person he says is doing the taxes that can’t be released then that changes it also. I think his political leanings over the years, as well as the NYDN interview and the film clip of “i really don’t know anything about central America’ will give the gop all the ammo they need. They can let Jane stay in the kitchen and make brownies
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Bob in Portland: Like to see zero slots for Bernie’s people. No rewards for bad behavior.
Bob, I’m telling you, I cannot wait. I know you can’t either! January 23 or so, the first pocket nukes start falling on whatever hidey hole Putin’s squirreled himself away in. It’s not like we don’t know where the wannabe is 24/7, of course we do – we are talking about a country that STILL can’t make screw-off bottle caps or a working car.
It’s gonna be great, watching him cook to a blackened crisp slowly, just like a little piggy in a barbeque pit.
I’ll save you the dick for a souvenir. You can lacquer it up and finally, Putin will be all yours, forever.
D58826
@CONGRATULATIONS!: more bad behavior
nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/sanderss-scorched-earth-strategy-is-working.html
President Trump will give The Senator and his Misses a front row seat at the inauguration.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wouldn’t say it’s nothing, but in the big picture, it’s not (to me) much. I do think there are substantive and political problems to HRC’s understandable, even justifiable, but still problematic resistance to scrutiny, but the fact is (unless someone has more info than I) that there has been no harm to any persons or agencies or operations or anything else from Clinton’s email set up.
Being very much not a techie, I have a sense there are big problems with cyber-security, and separate questions with classification, but I think those are problems much bigger than this case.
@SFAW: thanks, but it reads dirtier than I meant it out of context. I guess anything involving Gingrich and Trump is gonna make you feel like you need a shower.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
This is complaints.
Arguments is down the hall.
Ruckus
@FlipYrWhig:
Certainly possible and quite likely IMO. However I was talking about hitting on a spouse of a candidate. We aren’t electing them and unless they are the brains behind the puppet I just think they should be off limits. Unless and it’s a big unless, they become involved professionally. I’d expect a spouse to be involved at least as far as backing their spouse. See Cruz, Ted and his family. Even if the entire family is being paraded about to show that a candidate appears normal. If they are getting paid and/or making decisions for the candidate all limits are gone. Just my opinion. And you know what they say about those.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: I haven’t paid much attention, but apparently Bernie and Jane arranged a loan from a millionaire friend!
I believe by Bernie Rules that’s a scandal in and of itself. Just having a millionaire friend. Shouldn’t he be roasted and fed to the sans-culottes?
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Plus he’s a Republican! (Seems like a fine old dude, pushing 100 years old to boot, but, yes, the sort of character who doesn’t usually get the benefit of the doubt from Bernie or his crowd.)
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Stupid git.
ETA: But I guess that’s better than getting hit on the head.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Mortally wounded there.
But guilty as charged.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Sure it’s not just a flesh wound?
My Truth Hurts
As much as I dislike Hillary, to the point that I will write in Sanders in the general election, this “scandal” is a nothing burger. I’m glad you still have an ounce of sense of recognize that, John, while the rest of your mind succumbs to insanity.
Hillary isn’t a crook or a criminal or a murderer or guilty of genocide. She is simply a horrible establishment candidate out of touch with the lives of people who work for a living.
SANDERS 2016!
john fremont
@D58826: I thought that was Obama and his time machine that did that? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Weaselone:
It’s not about whether she had classified materials on that server; it’s about evading federal oversight.
Carolyn Kay
@JMG: Yes, but even CNNI has taken to playing infomercials about restaurants and other businesses, as though they were news stories. And they also get some of the wreckage/oh-the-poor-families mania whenever there’s a plane crash or a terrorist attack.
But they’re still better than CNN.
pseudonymous in nc
@opiejeanne:
He can spend more time fapping to the smuttier bits of the Starr report. Dear me.
@Carolyn Kay:
To be fair, CNNi is 99% for SRS BSNS travellers with expense accounts in their plush hotel rooms who don’t want to have to discover Foreign for themselves, so that’s what you do for that audience.
Original Lee
@Marjowil: I remind as many people as I can that Drumpf ordered antiquities destroyed when he was building a hotel in Cancun. The Mexican government confiscated the hotel and left it standing half-finished for a very long time as a reminder to the other developers. I firmly believe this incident is at least part of the reason Drumpf is so negative towards Mexico.
Original Lee
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I thought she asked for a Blackberry and the NSA said no?
Carolyn Kay
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice?