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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Breaking: FBI Director says no intentional misconduct…

Breaking: FBI Director says no intentional misconduct…

by Betty Cracker|  July 5, 201611:12 am| 364 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, General Stupidity

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FBI Director Comey is holding a news conference on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email survey. He says there was no intentional misconduct in the handling of Hillary Clinton’s email (ergo, indictment dreams by Bernie or Busters and the Trumpenproletariat will not pan out, it appears).

He also says there is evidence that Clinton and others were “careless” in handling emails and that a reasonable person should have known better. Bottom line: “No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.”

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Previous Post: « Accounting for His Operating Error
Next Post: Follow up to BettyC’s Post: Full Video and Transcript of FBI Director Comey’s Press Conference and Statement »

Reader Interactions

364Comments

  1. 1.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:14 am

    Now you see why Bernie stayed in?

    ” “any reasonable person should know better” than to handle top secret emails as she did.”-Comey

  2. 2.

    JPL

    July 5, 2016 at 11:16 am

    Not good, but maybe she won’t be prosecuted.

  3. 3.

    Loviatar

    July 5, 2016 at 11:17 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    No reasonable prosecutor would take this case

    No I still don’t see why Bernie stayed in.

  4. 4.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:18 am

    Hillary 2016-Not Criminal, Just Extremely Careless.

    There’s a slogan for you.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 11:18 am

    Damn cable is out again..grumble.

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 5, 2016 at 11:18 am

    @JPL:

    but maybe she won’t be prosecuted

    Maybe? Where do you get maybe?

  7. 7.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 11:18 am

    End of story.

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    July 5, 2016 at 11:19 am

    @Reggie Mantle: No one outside the Fox bubble expected an indictment.

  9. 9.

    germy

    July 5, 2016 at 11:19 am

    Wouldn’t a Bernie fan nym himself “Jughead” rather than Reggie Mantle? Reggie was more of a Trump supporter, wasn’t he? Reggie was the guy doing Indian war whoops at Elizabeth Warren. Jughead was the guy going door to door for Sanders…

  10. 10.

    Ella in New Mexico

    July 5, 2016 at 11:19 am

    Fucking-A. Now fix how we fund and run our communications, internet and computer systems government-wide so this never happens again.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 5, 2016 at 11:19 am

    The only thing that matters is that there is no indictment. Everything else will disappear in the haze of whining that has been directed at the Clintons for decades.

  12. 12.

    D58826

    July 5, 2016 at 11:19 am

    I just wonder sometimes if any one could survive the level of ongoing scrutiny into their official conduct? People are busy, they have a job to do, they cut corners. If every piece of paper was handled with the idea that the FBI would spend a year investigating it, nothing would get done

    Which doesn’t mean I’m happy about all of this

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:20 am

    Guardian is spinning this very negatively: “hard to imagine worse news for Clinton”. Just from reading that line I’d expect that she’s going to jail, because obviously people imagine that all the time.

  14. 14.

    Loviatar

    July 5, 2016 at 11:20 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    I actually prefer the slogan “I’m with Her –> President Hillary Clinton”

  15. 15.

    Knight of Nothing

    July 5, 2016 at 11:20 am

    Is there anything in the wikileaks dump of Clinton’s emails? Or is that just a right-wing circle jerk?

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 11:20 am

    Unskew the emails!

  17. 17.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 11:21 am

    Our two political parties are so stupid, so tone deaf and so stuck in the past we are stuck with two candidates so flawed that the election will only further stoke fires of cynicism and doubt. HRC looks like such a dolt as a result of this investigation and I will never forgive her or the Democratic Party if Trump ends up as our President as a result. And the fact that Sanders was the only credible alternative to Clinton is equally disturbing. Bernie isn’t the answer. Fuck you Hillary, for being so stupid, so careless, and so full of hubris that you would act as though you are above it all.

  18. 18.

    schrodinger's cat

    July 5, 2016 at 11:22 am

    @Matt McIrvin: Guardian is Bernie (and Corbyn) Central.

  19. 19.

    Chyron HR

    July 5, 2016 at 11:22 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    KILL THE WHORE WHO STOLE THE NOMINATION FROM OUR [email protected]!!!

    There’s a true progressive vision of a better future for you.

  20. 20.

    rikyrah

    July 5, 2016 at 11:22 am

    He also says there is evidence that Clinton and others were “careless” in handling emails and that a reasonable person should have known better. Bottom line: “No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.”

    Yeah, ok.

  21. 21.

    Soprano2

    July 5, 2016 at 11:22 am

    Wow, I wondered what that loud explosion was. I thought it was left over fireworks being discharged, but instead it was the explosion of millions of wingnut’s heads all over the U.S. in response to the totally predictable outcome of this investigation.

  22. 22.

    RoonieRoo

    July 5, 2016 at 11:23 am

    Now contrast what you hear with what RedState is reporting. Their headline is:

    BREAKING: FBI Director – FBI is Referring the Clinton Investigation to DOJ for a “Prosecutive Decision.” (LIVE FEED)

    The difference between left sites vs right sites on watching the exact same news conference is always a trip.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    July 5, 2016 at 11:23 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: DOJ could disagree. I know that I’m being a nervous nelly.
    Comey is a real bastard, in that he outlined this case that made Hillary look awful, and then says btw, no charges. He only touched lightly on the fact that State had antiquated systems. Did he say what she had done, was acceptable before?

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 11:24 am

    @Irony Abounds: Ironically, it seems that both sides really do do it.
    Thank you, Mr. Fournier.

  25. 25.

    raven

    July 5, 2016 at 11:24 am

    @RoonieRoo: CNN has the “extremely careless” banner.

  26. 26.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 5, 2016 at 11:24 am

    @rikyrah: Is that last quote directly from Comey? This one:

    “No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.”

  27. 27.

    sinnedbackwards

    July 5, 2016 at 11:24 am

    Love my nothingburger with all the fixin’s: medium rare thin air on an onion roll with pepperjack, bacon, heirloom tomato, arugula, and fried egg. Tres Gaudy you might say.

  28. 28.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:25 am

    @Chyron HR:

    Still lying about what people said.

    No I’ve never supported Trump.

    No, I’ve never said I’d vote for him.

    No, I’ve said I didn’t think The Queen would be prosecuted.

    But if you don’t think “extremely careless” doesn’t hurt you, you’re more delusional than Drumpf.

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:25 am

    @Irony Abounds:
    Tell us what you really think.

  30. 30.

    Patricia Kayden

    July 5, 2016 at 11:25 am

    Good. Now we can focus on defeating Trump. The email nonsense was never a scandal in the first place.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:25 am

    @JPL: Could have been worse: he could have not made the “no reasonable prosecutor” statement, which would have pinned the blame entirely on Lynch for not prosecuting.

  32. 32.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 11:25 am

    As pissed as I am at Clinton, any comparison to Petraus is just stupid. He deliberately and knowing provided classified information to his mistress/journalist. Our stupid political parties may be exceeded in their stupidity by brain dead journalists.

  33. 33.

    raven

    July 5, 2016 at 11:25 am

    @Reggie Mantle: You are a fucking moron. Full stop.

  34. 34.

    Burnspbesq

    July 5, 2016 at 11:26 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    any reasonable person should know better

    That’s your lovely parting gift. Take Director Comey’s hint, and git.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 11:26 am

    @JPL:

    Comey is a real bastard, in that he outlined this case that made Hillary look awful, and then says btw, no charges.

    I couldn’t watch it but from what I read at The Guardian, the live blogging sure make him seem like a mealy mouthed bastard. Why Obama put a GWB retread in that job is still beyond me.

  36. 36.

    gvg

    July 5, 2016 at 11:26 am

    @Reggie Mantle: And Bernie’s plans to get Congress’s votes and implement his ideas he has been thinking about for decades were SO careful that it would reassure us to vote for him instead? Do you even understand that we have compared and preferred Hillary? It’s always a choice of imperfect and that isn’t all that terrible. One of the reason’s Obama beat Hillary was how impressively more planned and thorough his campaign was. we thought it implied he would be better in action and I think he was. Hillary learned and copied and now looks much better. Bernie COULD have taken notes too but for some reason he didn’t. That right there is a strike against him. Not learning. Bad trait.
    Now about you……you need to learn some things too. About people and practicality. why the heck are you still misunderstanding? Why are you such a Bernie supporter when he has screwed up some important things?

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    July 5, 2016 at 11:26 am

    @Chyron HR: Please stop doing that shit.

  38. 38.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:26 am

    @Soprano2:

    Nope, it’s a torpedo going in below the waterline on the Good Ship Hillary.

    Whether the ship will sink is clearly an open question. But you’ve taken damage. That’s a fact, no matter how loud you yell “troll!”

  39. 39.

    Chyron HR

    July 5, 2016 at 11:27 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    STOP BLASPHEMING AGAINST BERNIE AND HIS HOLY FOLLOWERS!

    Let us know how that works out for you and the rest of BernOrg in November.

  40. 40.

    BlueDWarrior

    July 5, 2016 at 11:27 am

    @Ella in New Mexico: That would require man-hours and money, we’re lucky the Republican Congress doesn’t tell ever Federal Department to go back to pen, paper, and telegraphs.

  41. 41.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:27 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    @Chyron HR: Please stop doing that shit.

    Why? He’s the perfect Clintonista.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:27 am

    @Knight of Nothing: Some Bernie-supporter friends of mine were getting very excited about the Wikileaks dump, figuring it would lead to Sanders’ nomination by default.

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 5, 2016 at 11:27 am

    @JPL:

    DOJ could disagree.

    And monkeys could fly out of my butt.

  44. 44.

    scav

    July 5, 2016 at 11:28 am

    @Soprano2: Well, it might have been extra loud because there were others who had anchored their dreams and aspirations on same. Certain pure gases are extremely inflamable and might provide extra boom.

  45. 45.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 11:29 am

    @Corner Stone: Christ Almighty, I’m not saying Democrats are at the same level of dumb as Republicans, or that Trump and Clinton are equal, but when the parties nominate two such unpopular people, both of whom would enter office with everyone on the other side hating them there is plenty of reason to say pox on both your houses.

  46. 46.

    hovercraft

    July 5, 2016 at 11:29 am

    Reposted from downstairs.

    @raven:
    Can someone check in on the HAHA Goodmans of the world and the Young Turks, are they okay?

  47. 47.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 11:29 am

    Well, I’m shocked. No charges, but Comey felt the need to smear Clinton (to justify the investigation).

  48. 48.

    Emma

    July 5, 2016 at 11:30 am

    @Reggie Mantle: FBI protected its funding by threading the needle. DOJ is going to go with their judgment: No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.

    Live with it. Or not.

  49. 49.

    JPL

    July 5, 2016 at 11:30 am

    @Corner Stone: I assume that President Clinton will ask for his resignation, and then he can have a show on Fox.

  50. 50.

    schrodinger's cat

    July 5, 2016 at 11:30 am

    I see that St. BedHead’s choir is in attendance. Should be 500 plus comment thread!

  51. 51.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 11:30 am

    Three key paragraphs from Cmey’s statement:

    In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

    To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

    As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.

    (Complete text at Guardian liveblog).

  52. 52.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:31 am

    @Emma:

    I can live with “extremely careless”. Can Clinton’s campaign?

  53. 53.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 11:31 am

    @JPL:

    DOJ could disagree

    FWIW, as a federal defense attorney — I don’t believe DOJ will bring charges, even though IMO, Comey is trying to smear Clinton.

    ETA: Fixed — per Raven

  54. 54.

    D58826

    July 5, 2016 at 11:31 am

    @JPL: Well he is a republican and if he has any future aspirations after the FBI he has to throw them some bones. Just so he doesn’t look like he is in the tank for Hillary.

    The thing is you have antiquated systems and people being pressed to get things done, often with lives on the line, and now they are being second guessed, often by the same people who won’t fund the system upgrades.

    Kinda funny though given the number of hacks into government servers, that hers was more secure.
    That being said she should not have used the bl;asted server.

  55. 55.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:31 am

    @Reggie Mantle:
    TROLL!
    Loud enuf?

  56. 56.

    Felonius Monk

    July 5, 2016 at 11:31 am

    FUCK ANDREA MITCHELL WITH A RUSTY FARM IMPLEMENT.

  57. 57.

    raven

    July 5, 2016 at 11:32 am

    @LAO: Will not?

  58. 58.

    oldgold

    July 5, 2016 at 11:32 am

    The FBI, after recommending no indictment, had to give the GOP some red meat to protect its funding. So, Comey made his critical statements – mostly BS.

    That is how the game is played along the Potomac.

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:33 am

    @Soprano2: No wingnut or Bernie-or-Buster heads are going to explode, because Comey (a right-winger appointed deputy AG by Dubya, but now working for a Democratic administration) threaded the needle such that pro- and anti-Hillary factions can both spin this as a victory.

  60. 60.

    Emma

    July 5, 2016 at 11:33 am

    @Reggie Mantle: If you think that Middle America will rise en masse against Hillary because she fvcked up her email, you’ve got peas for brains.

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:33 am

    @LAO:

    I don’t believe DOJ will not bring charges,

    Is the double negative intentional?

  62. 62.

    Knight of Nothing

    July 5, 2016 at 11:34 am

    @Matt McIrvin: I don’t doubt it – HAHA Goodman was begging the FBI to win the primary for Bernie.

    I can’t find anything about the content of those emails, so I’m guessing it’s yet another nothingburger (over one million served!). But wondered if anyone had actually seen anything…

  63. 63.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:34 am

    Drumpf can now do a couple of things:

    1) He can go with “extremely careless” and hit Clinton over the head with it from now til November; or

    2) He can ignore the obvious opening this gives him and continue to rant that the FBI was pressured or bought off.

    1) would be way more effective. but fortunately for Hillary, he and the other wingers probably won’t be that bright. Their history suggests that they’ll overreach, ignore the obvious flaws that they could use to their advantage, and go full out tinfoil hat.

    Like Obama, Clinton is blessed in her opponents.

  64. 64.

    Loviatar

    July 5, 2016 at 11:35 am

    Here is the thing on this latest “Clinton scandal” and my vote.

    DON’T FUCKING CARE.

    They could have found intentionality on her part and I still wouldn’t have cared. I’ve gone full fucking tribal on the Republicans, paraphrased from a noted wordsmith “she could could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t give a damm.”

    DON’T FUCKING CARE.

  65. 65.

    cmorenc

    July 5, 2016 at 11:35 am

    @RoonieRoo:

    Now contrast what you hear with what RedState is reporting. Their headline is:

    BREAKING: FBI Director – FBI is Referring the Clinton Investigation to DOJ for a “Prosecutive Decision.” (LIVE FEED)

    The Fox News website announcement is: “BREAKING NEWS: FBI director will not recommend criminal case against Hillary Clinton in email probe.” Although I wouldn’t go nearly so far as to say the Fox News website is “fair and balanced”, nevertheless it’s interesting that by contrast with their broadcast TV network, their website comes miles closer to that purported standard (or at least miles less far away from it) and the website tends to bury overtly political commentary much further down the main page, as opposed to the TV broadcast network’s practice of tightly interweaving political propaganda and commentary with purported “news” presentation.

  66. 66.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 11:35 am

    @raven: I went back and fixed it. I guess I should read my comments before posting. Oops!

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    July 5, 2016 at 11:35 am

    @Reggie Mantle: Because you don’t need any help to look like an idiot.

  68. 68.

    LesBonnesFemmes

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    Of course Comey came out with his non-recommendation on the very day that Obama hits the trail with HRC.

    I really did not mean that to be as cynical as it sounds.

    Time to literally move on, and take down Drumpf, take back the Senate, and maybe the House.

    As for the Bernie or Busters? Well, the Hillz train’s is making that final “All aboard!” call. Whatchawantado?

  69. 69.

    germy

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    Meanwhile…

    Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump met with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa on Monday, feeding speculation she could be on the short list for consideration as his vice presidential running mate, Fox News reported.

    Ernst told the network that she and the New York real estate mogul had a “good conversation.”

    (rawstory)

  70. 70.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    @trollhattan: No — apparently, I’m just a moron, with reading/writing difficulties. I would bet my apartment, no charges.

  71. 71.

    Tracy Ratcliff

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    @Reggie Mantle: since we can reliably predict that Mr. Trump will say or twitter something outrageous within 24 hours from now that will pull this off the front pages, I’m good.

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    @Knight of Nothing: Apparently the FBI did find a single-digit number of email threads that contained classified material at the time they were sent. If you squinted really hard I imagine you could consider that indictable in itself, though Comey said he didn’t.

  73. 73.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    People blaming Comey should recognize that if he hadn’t said anything it all would have come out in leaks anyhow and then it would look like a cover up. In that regard, he may have done Clinton a favor since the worst news in all this is out before the convention and hopefully will be forgotten. Nonetheless, Clinton fucked up, why is that hard to admit? If anyone doesn’t think Dems would jump on the Republican nominee under the same circumstances they are just blindly tribal.

  74. 74.

    Kryptik

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    So this politically changed nothing.

    The assholes will still cling to the “Historically most corruptest monster in the history of ever!!!” bullshit and this will become Hillary’s Whitewater: whole lot of smoke, no fire, but still enough to make people accuse her of arson.

  75. 75.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:36 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    If the Clintonistas had a point, they wouldn’t need to lie to try and make one.

  76. 76.

    raven

    July 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    @LAO: Just checkin!

  77. 77.

    Ella in New Mexico

    July 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    @Amir Khalid: exactly. Kind of thing a lower level employee could have been reprimanded or even lost security clearance for, but not charged. I really would like to know WHY she did things like she did. It would be important in finding ways to fix a really outdated, unsecure Government system, particularly at STate and DOD. It’s a dirty little secret how crappy our “secure” communications are for Civilian employees and appointees-just a terrible accident waiting to happen and it’s thanks to our friends in Congress “starving the beast” and corporate welfare that keeps buying half-assed technological and computer systems that just get patched, not re-engineered.

  78. 78.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    Thank you Pete Williams for bringing some clarity to the comparisons with Petraus.

  79. 79.

    sinnedbackwards

    July 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    @BlueDWarrior: Telegraphs did not exist when the State Department was set up. Any good originalist will tell you they are unconstitutional.

  80. 80.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    @Reggie Mantle:
    None whatsoever. Idiots were whining about every breath Clinton took before, sure she’s a criminal, and will continue to do so. This has been going on 30 years. If the FBI had praised her as a paragon of virtue, it would change no one’s mind. Only an actual indictment, which was never in the cards, would matter.

    @Soprano2:
    Alas, no. This really will change no one’s mind. They need no evidence, and still believe it was proven that Obama and Clinton deliberately abandoned the Benghazi ambassador to die.

  81. 81.

    germy

    July 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    @Knight of Nothing: Every time HaHa Goodman’s name is mentioned, I feel obligated to point out that he was a Ron Paul supporter.

  82. 82.

    Burnspbesq

    July 5, 2016 at 11:38 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    But you’ve taken damage

    Which will be forgotten by Wednesday, except by dead-enders and obsessives. It’s been obvious for months, to anyone who understands even a little bit about criminal law, that no properly instructed jury would ever convict Clinton of any crime involving emails if the mental state was “intentional,” “knowing,” or “reckless.” You’ve repeatedly shown your ignorance, and now you’ve had your comeuppance. Just. Shut. Yer. Pie-hole.

  83. 83.

    Chyron HR

    July 5, 2016 at 11:38 am

    @Emma:

    If you think that Middle America will rise en masse against Hillary because she fvcked up her email, you’ve got peas for brains.

    Just wait, Bernie’s got over three weeks to hammer her on this and win the nomination. NOW DO YOU SEE WHY HE STAYED IN THE RACE?

  84. 84.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 5, 2016 at 11:38 am

    There is so much pie in here that it’s splattered all over the walls.

    @germy: Don’t even start on Ernst.

  85. 85.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:38 am

    @Loviatar:

    DON’T FUCKING CARE.

    You need to put your hands over your ears and preface this with LALALALALALA to get the full effect.

  86. 86.

    hovercraft

    July 5, 2016 at 11:38 am

    @Irony Abounds:
    Um no she doesn’t she looks like a paranoid privacy freak who was trying to be too cut by half and got caught. She has over two decades of her every utterance being analyzed and dissected and she did this to maintain a measure of control and privacy. Privacy that simply does not exist at that level of government for anyone named Clinton. She has never been given the benefit of the doubt for anything, and that has an effect on a person. Was she wrong to do this, yes was it criminal no. The media and her detractors will attribute nefarious ‘reasons’ for the private server, but what benefit was there for her since most of the e-mails went to .gov addresses, inquiring minds want to know.

  87. 87.

    cmorenc

    July 5, 2016 at 11:39 am

    @raven:

    @RoonieRoo: CNN has the “extremely careless” banner.

    That’s because CNN’s approach to news is the national analogue to local TV news focus on car crashes, murders, and fires – focus on the sensational aspects so as to draw eyeballs and clicks. That’s also why CNN so relentlessly focuses on mysterious plane crashes like the Malaysian jetliner that went down a couple of years ago, probably somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

  88. 88.

    Kryptik

    July 5, 2016 at 11:39 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They’re just pivoting to ‘the process is rigged! Hillary shows she could get away with murder!’ bullshit. Despite, you know, Trump being the guy who boasted that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and have no repercussions because he’s that loved.

  89. 89.

    AnotherBruce

    July 5, 2016 at 11:40 am

    Reggie Mantle, where have you been lately? Who is this Bernie of which you speak?

  90. 90.

    JPL

    July 5, 2016 at 11:40 am

    @LAO: Comey imo, gave the news conference, in order to smear her, and give the repubs material to make an ad. The ads could be devastating.

  91. 91.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 5, 2016 at 11:40 am

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    I really would like to know WHY she did things like she did.

    Because it is basically what Powell and Rice did.

  92. 92.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:40 am

    I came back just to watch the orgy of denial, misplaced rage, and of course Bernie bashing this was going to create.

    I have not been disappointed.

  93. 93.

    gvg

    July 5, 2016 at 11:40 am

    @Irony Abounds: no there isn’t. The other sides hatred of Hillary has very little validity. I’d say none, but there are sincere people who are anti choice and Hillary isn’t so they can hate her. I think they are wrong and don’t understand biology but whatever. The rest is all a long term set of lies to brand Hillary and in fact all democrats as bad and it’s worked on many people even some democrats. Its aimed at Bill and Hillary specifically but the nasty liars have shown the ability to smear every democrat anywhere so I no longer think there is any point in trying to pick some one “that won’t be hated so much”. There is no such person that believes anything close to what I think is moral. Therefore there is nothing to do but keep on going forward.
    I didn’t used to hate them. Dislike some and most of their positions yes. Now, yes I hate. The torture corruption is unforgivable. The shut down of government, threat to default hurts the whole country and in my book is close to treason and the dismissal of black lives being snuffed and apparently seeing a different reality as documented by cell phones everywhere angers me so much. there are other issues, some even more personal but those 3 are really personal lines in the sand.

  94. 94.

    Hoodie

    July 5, 2016 at 11:41 am

    As expected, Comey’s words get twisted beyond all recognition. This guy is a lawyer, everything is parsed carefully. He said “There is evidence that they were extremely careless,” which means that there is some evidence — however insignificant or ambiguous– that they were extremely careless. That’s all it means. The fact that he said that also means they looked at every piece of evidence that could possibly be incriminating and are not hiding anything. His statement “our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case” implies that the evidence is so weak and so inconclusive, only an unreasonable prosecutor would bring charges. That’s not prosecutorial discretion. Rather, it means there is no prima facie case for anything.

    Irrespective of all of this, the wingnuts and berniebusters will never let go of this particular ragdoll because, well, it’s Hillary. God forbid we start talking about Trump’s connections to Russian mobsters, because State Dept. email protocol is so much more important.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:41 am

    @Irony Abounds:

    People blaming Comey should recognize that if he hadn’t said anything it all would have come out in leaks anyhow and then it would look like a cover up. In that regard, he may have done Clinton a favor since the worst news in all this is out before the convention and hopefully will be forgotten.

    So, the “ripping off the Band-Aid” moment.

    If there’s a moral to the story for people in government, it’s that going along with the status quo can get you in big trouble later on, even if it seems like the easiest course of action now. Clinton screwed up, but it was by doing what her predecessors had done without getting any heat for it. But the collective understanding of how the Internet works and how you deal with it was changing.

  96. 96.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 11:42 am

    In the Twit-place, The Donald is taking the #RiggedSystem line. No link.

  97. 97.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 11:42 am

    I checked HAHA’s YouTube channel: he hasn’t made his reaction video yet. Probably still too stunned and disappointed to react.

  98. 98.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 11:43 am

    @Irony Abounds:
    I hate to admit it but I tend to agree. I hate hearing the word “sloppy” thrown about.

  99. 99.

    LesBonnesFemmes

    July 5, 2016 at 11:44 am

    And, the short fingered vulgarian is probably tweeting as fast he can, even though he should save his breath to cool his porridge.

    He has his own REAL legal problems to deal with.

  100. 100.

    scav

    July 5, 2016 at 11:44 am

    So somebody explicitly came back to revel in the delusion it’s really all about his feelings and opinions. There is the internet.

  101. 101.

    randy khan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:44 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    I understand that you see everything in the worst possible light for Clinton, and it’s certainly worth considering worst case scenarios. However:

    (a) “Extremely careless” isn’t remotely as bad as a recommendation of prosecution.

    (b) It’s not really a great attack line. I suspect Trump will use it in his speeches, but unless he suddenly gets a whole lot of money for ads, it won’t get a lot of play after the first few days.

  102. 102.

    Burnspbesq

    July 5, 2016 at 11:45 am

    @D58826:

    future aspirations after the FBI

    I have it on good authority that five times a day, New Jersey Republicans turn toward Washington and pray that Comey will resign, return home, and run for Guv.

  103. 103.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 11:46 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    “No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.”

    So I assume Trey Gowdy and friends are searching high and low for unreasonable prosecutors.

  104. 104.

    Knight of Nothing

    July 5, 2016 at 11:46 am

    @germy: oh, I know. I suffered through more of HAHA’s articles than I’d care to admit. I take my hat off to every writer who made a meal of his nonsense.

  105. 105.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 5, 2016 at 11:46 am

    I didn’t watch Comey. From the quote I read here, it’s not clear who “they” is in “they were extremely careless.”

  106. 106.

    Stardus614

    July 5, 2016 at 11:46 am

    @Betty Cracker: Except the Berniebots (see Susan Sarandon).

  107. 107.

    cmorenc

    July 5, 2016 at 11:48 am

    This is where that boneheaded meeting between Bill Clinton and AG Loretta Lynch proves especially problematic – without that fuckup, Lynch would be on unassailable ground to hold a presser this very afternoon announcing that the Justice Department had decided to follow the FBI’s recommendation. But against the background of that meeting, she will have to turf the decision to career subordinates, who will need to wait a day or two for appearance’s sake to make that announcement, and it will not be as clean an end to the matter in public perception as it should have been

  108. 108.

    japa21

    July 5, 2016 at 11:48 am

    @Irony Abounds: I don’t think anyone is denying that Clinton screwed up. Even she has admitted she screwed up. There is a difference between saying she didn’t screw up and this is totally a nothingburger.

    And one question. Why do all the Bernie supporters assume that if HRC had been indicted he would have been handed the nomination? I would say there would be a good chance it would go to someone else, say Joe Biden, someone who has shown they really care about the Democratic party.

  109. 109.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    July 5, 2016 at 11:48 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    Comey could have showed secretly recorded video of Hillary boiling and eating live kittens, and I’d vote for her over Trump. There is nothing she could do at this point that will make me not vote against Trump. Why is that so fucking hard for all of you Bernie idiots to grasp?

  110. 110.

    raven

    July 5, 2016 at 11:50 am

    @cmorenc: I never was going to be “clean”.

  111. 111.

    hovercraft

    July 5, 2016 at 11:50 am

    @Emma:
    Exactly, the voters who care about this enough for it to affect their votes were never going to vote for her in the first place. There is another contingent out there who had heard something about the FBI investigating and thought this must be serious, for those voters the fact that the FBI recommended no charges will make it okay to vote for her. The gop and the busters can stew all they want but for most people it’s over. Prosecutors are loathe to bring cases they can’t win, and experts have been saying for months there is absolutely no sign of intent here.

  112. 112.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:50 am

    @randy khan:

    As I said, it appears Drumpf is too dumb to pursue it, so we may never know.

    But “Careless Clinton” could give him some real ammo if he was bright enough to use it.

  113. 113.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 11:51 am

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    I really would like to know WHY she did things like she did.

    eleventy seven dimensional chess, planned in 1989, to distract from the real bad things(TM) she needs to hide!

  114. 114.

    randy khan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:51 am

    This announcement is about as good as we could have expected for Clinton:

    1. No indictment, not that I ever thought there would be one. The DoJ referral is just a formality – we got the tip-off when he said no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.

    2. The chastisement is that she was sloppy, not that she did something affirmatively wrong. Contra our good friend Reggie Mantle, I think Comey could have said much worse things about the use of the server, but he did not.

    3. The timing tells us that they never really had any reason to indict her – it’s literally the first business day after her interview, the soonest he could have made the announcement.

    4. The timing also is a gift, even if unintentional, because there are weeks to go before the conventions. This will be drowned out not just by the Republican convention, but by whatever silliness comes out of the Trump camp between now and the conventions, so it’s not something that will be top of mind even for media types when the Democratic convention comes along.

  115. 115.

    VOR

    July 5, 2016 at 11:51 am

    @Matt McIrvin: Remember the classification process. Say an external party, like Blumenthal, sent Hillary a link to a month-old New York Times article about drones. Hillary forwards the email. Because the NYT article mentions drones, it was ruled to be classified despite the plain fact that anyone in the world with an internet connection can simply read it off the NYT site.

  116. 116.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:52 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

    HTH.

  117. 117.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 11:52 am

    @Felonius Monk:
    I’m looking around in my shed.

  118. 118.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    July 5, 2016 at 11:52 am

    @japa21:

    If Uncle Joe had gotten a whiff that Clinton was in any way legally compromised, he would have run. If Hillary were to drop dead or otherwise become incapacitated, the party would turn to Joe, not Bernie, and rightly so.

  119. 119.

    randy khan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:52 am

    @Reggie Mantle: We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

  120. 120.

    Emma

    July 5, 2016 at 11:53 am

    @Reggie Mantle: Christ. He’s already using “crooked Hillary,” and it’s not sticking except among his dead-enders. And to top it all off, “bright enough to use it”? The man who congratulated Scotland on leaving the EU when they had voted to stay in?

    If my aunt had wheels and a small kitchen, she’d be a camper.

  121. 121.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 5, 2016 at 11:53 am

    @cmorenc:
    Public perception will be divided between the people who forget this fifteen minutes from now and the people who were going to believe she was criminally guilty no matter what the FBI said.

  122. 122.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 11:54 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    1) He can go with “extremely careless” and hit Clinton over the head with it from now til November; or

    Man, on the one hand, you have a candidate who trucks in white supremacist propaganda. On the other, a candidate who was careless with email.

    I can see minorities and women being deeply conflicted over this. /s

    If she were running against Jeb or Romney, this might be a serious blow. Unless they started shitposting alt-right memes from 4chan.

  123. 123.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 11:54 am

    @cmorenc: I don’t understand why people don’t get the fact that the FBI’s work has been finished for some time now? They were just waiting for the final report on Benghazi to be released because they knew there was nothing there. The WJC/LL “scandal” was complete hokum as everyone knew it was long over.

  124. 124.

    Bill

    July 5, 2016 at 11:54 am

    @cmorenc: Over at Free Republic it’s an unending stream of: “Of course she can get away with treason! Everything in DC is corrupt!”

    If only there were a German word to describe how I’m feeling…

  125. 125.

    japa21

    July 5, 2016 at 11:54 am

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Pretty much the way I viewed it as well.

  126. 126.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:54 am

    @Emma:

    And if Hillary hadn’t been lucky enough to have Trump to run against, she’d be toast.

  127. 127.

    raven

    July 5, 2016 at 11:55 am

    Michael Steele is a pretty good tap dancer.

  128. 128.

    TS

    July 5, 2016 at 11:55 am

    @Irony Abounds:

    If anyone doesn’t think Dems would jump on the Republican nominee under the same circumstances they are just blindly tribal.

    Republican nominees NEVER get investigated in this fashion – only if your name is Clinton does every last step you take get investigated by congress and/or the FBI.

  129. 129.

    AnotherBruce

    July 5, 2016 at 11:55 am

    @Reggie Mantle: Good for you, but there hasn’t been much bashing of Bernie since you’ve been gone, most of us just don’t care, he lost, time to move on.

  130. 130.

    WarMunchkin

    July 5, 2016 at 11:55 am

    SATSQ to “Will this scandal die now?”. A: No.

  131. 131.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 11:56 am

    @Technocrat:

    Man, on the one hand, you have a candidate who trucks in white supremacist propaganda. On the other, a candidate who was careless with email.

    CLASSIFIED e-mail, and, according to the report, classified at the time it was sent on an unsecured server.

  132. 132.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 11:57 am

    A bit more from the Guardian’s liveblog:

    A Bernie Sanders spokesperson tells ABC News that Sanders’ decision to stay in the race will not be affected by Comey’s announcement of a recommendation of no charges against Clinton.

    What race is Bernie still running in? The primary ended weeks ago.
    ETA: Not that I’m bashing Bernie or anything …

  133. 133.

    Betty Cracker

    July 5, 2016 at 11:57 am

    My poor kiddo is at a car dealership waiting for her car to be serviced, and they have Fox News playing in the waiting room. She’s texting me quotes, which include “Nixon was forced to resign for a whole lot less than this.” Christ, what a bunch of delusional jackholes. Not surprising since they’ve been pimping an indictment for a solid year and thus have to act surprised and outraged.

  134. 134.

    Xboxershorts

    July 5, 2016 at 11:58 am

    @Reggie Mantle:

    If the Clintonistas had a point, they wouldn’t need to lie to try and make one.

    I’ve read the entire thread. And I’ve been phone banking for Bernie and voted for him. I’m also very much full throttle about kicking these fucking republicans to the curb in Congress and elsewhere. I want down ballot to sweep…

    Now…I’ve been in IT for 30 years, have run email systems big and small for corporate groups, and ISPs, fomr a few hundred accounts to 10 million users. Nothing I’ve read about the email things has struck me as leading to indictment. I fully predicted HRC would get scolded for recklessness but no indictment.

    Now, I also don’t entirely buy HRCs claims of doing it this way for convenience either. I watched Whitewater unfold and then collapse in real time, I know James Comey was an investigator on Kenn Star’s team, I remember the rise of American Spectator and the rumor mill they directed at the Clintons. And they still have powerful enemies in DC. I always thought HRC had used her own server because she didn’t trust that State would keep some of those prying eyes away from her work.

    Yes, there really was a vast right wing conspiracy directed at undermining the Clintons. It was oringinally financed by Richard Mellon Scaife. And it remains alive and well and has flourished in the passing years. And they still hate the Clintons.

  135. 135.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2016 at 11:58 am

    @LAO:
    Didn’t want to assume, as I’m frequently lapped by clever commenters in these heah parts.

  136. 136.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    July 5, 2016 at 11:58 am

    @japa21:

    Obama said he’d never campaign for someone who the NRA supports too. So, no Obama, no Bernie.

  137. 137.

    The Thin Black Duke

    July 5, 2016 at 11:59 am

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Why bother? Bernie Sanders is a Dead Candidate Walking. Nobody cares anymore.

  138. 138.

    dr. bloor

    July 5, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: Your case would be stronger if you didn’t have the shit-stirring first post in the thread.

  139. 139.

    Chyron HR

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    Yeah, Clinton can only beat incompetent losers like Trump and what’s-his-face from the primary, right?

  140. 140.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    What race is Bernie still running in? The primary ended weeks ago.

    The race to see who the most embarrassing and biggest sore loser of all time is, and Bernie’s winning.

  141. 141.

    dr. bloor

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    @catclub: Exactly. Haven’t heard Vince Foster’s name even once this morning.

  142. 142.

    Xboxershorts

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    classified at the time it was sent on an unsecured server.

    Correction: classified at the time it was sent TO an ALLEGEDLY unsecured server.

    These rumor mongering dip shits are counting on the fact that 99% of the public has no clue how email systems actually work.

  143. 143.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    Mrs. Greenspan is so verklempt by the no indictment announcement she can’t even read her teleprompter lead-in for her show!

  144. 144.

    amk

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    so, bs conceded yet?

  145. 145.

    eric

    July 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    @randy khan: yes, yes, and yes.

  146. 146.

    Emma

    July 5, 2016 at 12:02 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: Bullfeathers. All she would have to do is hammer on the fact that THE PREVIOUS TWO SECRETARIES OF STATE DID THE SAME THING.

    Nice ad: pictures of her predecessors. “Both Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice used private email accounts. It was established procedure in the Department of State to bypass the antiquated email systems and it was recommended I do the same. The FBI cleared all of us of any criminal action. Why are the Republicans still going on about this? Because they are afraid that a Democratic president will address the issues they have spent so many years trying to ignore. Inequality. Poverty. Decaying infrastructure. Immigration. These are real issues that affect all Americans.”

  147. 147.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 12:02 pm

    @randy khan:
    All good points. I just wish we could have had more coverage of Trump’s “star” tweet….knocks that out. Also, I would have preferred all day Obama campaigning with Clinton coverage. Wish Comey had waited a few days.

  148. 148.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 12:03 pm

    @Corner Stone:
    Yep.

  149. 149.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    July 5, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I hate waiting in car dealer rooms, because they all have FOX Not-News on and I’m sitting there with at least one old person who’s rapt watching it and I got no way of changing the damn channel to something politics-neutral like Cartoon Network. /headdesk

  150. 150.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    @Technocrat:

    from 4chan

    88chan

    fixxed for ya.

  151. 151.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016: Nope, just speak up.

    “Do you mind if I turn this off? It annoys me.”

  152. 152.

    germy shoemangler

    July 5, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016: I just turned on my local noon TV news, and the anchor intoned “She’s not out of the woods yet” over the famous photo of sunglasses Hillary staring at cellphone.

  153. 153.

    lol

    July 5, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    The Comey press conf could be maybe be spliced into damaging ads… if Trump was ever going to bother to run any.

  154. 154.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 12:07 pm

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    It would be important in finding ways to fix a really outdated, unsecure Government system, particularly at State and DOD

    Good systems cost money to build and resources to maintain. They’re beating the curve if they patch it regularly.

  155. 155.

    El Caganer

    July 5, 2016 at 12:08 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: Do you really believe there are 5 people in this country who had planned on voting for Hillary Clinton and have decided not to because she was careless with email? If you’re going to go look for them, you’d better pack a lunch.

  156. 156.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 5, 2016 at 12:08 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016: If the remote is in reach, I just change the channel and chirp about how much I want to watch my shows. Sometimes being a little old lady is an advantage.

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 12:08 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: As far as I know the NRA doesn’t support Bernie; he’s just a little squishier than Clinton on guns.

  158. 158.

    hovercraft

    July 5, 2016 at 12:10 pm

    @Betty Cracker:
    Burglary, bugging and the like are lesser crimes than Hillary has committed. She has withstood 25 years of smears from them and yet is still not only standing, but beating them. Will no one rid them of this meddlesome…. sorry I got lost there, of this bitch who we hate. They’ve tried everything to destroy her but she just keeps coming back, of course she’s worse than Nixon, he retreated but she won’t.

  159. 159.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    July 5, 2016 at 12:10 pm

    My facebook page is going to get filled with “BUT… BUT… INDICTMENTS! BERNIE WILL WIN!” messages.

    sigh.

  160. 160.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:10 pm

    @Xboxershorts: IF someone knew they had classified info, they should also know that the Dept Of State
    unclassified email system is not the place for that. Clinton would be blamed for receiving THAT email on an unclassified Dept of State email server,
    too.

    Actually, this is a better solution, since if the classified info was on the Dept of State email servers, then spillage cleanup rules would apply.

  161. 161.

    Miss Bianca

    July 5, 2016 at 12:12 pm

    @Technocrat: Reading the news that this nothingburger might finally be scraped into the trash is one thing. But reading this news with the Office Kitties wrasslin’ in my lap and knowing that my work server is almost cleared of its burden of 30 million useless cached files? PRICELESS.

  162. 162.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    CLASSIFIED e-mail, and, according to the report, classified at the time it was sent on an unsecured server

    How many adjectives do you need to balance “white supremacist”? Just toss ’em all out there now.

    Also, I’d need a link for that report. I have a clearance, and I’ve been appalled hearing all the crap that passes for “reporting” about classification.

  163. 163.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    She’s texting me quotes, which include “Nixon was forced to resign for a whole lot less than this.”

    Even back when Watergate was recent news, I remember many, many people insisting that all Presidents did what he did and Nixon was just the guy who got caught. Some of them were liberal Democrats.

    This kind of cynicism is really corrosive because it eats away at people’s ability to make distinctions. When it comes up in my own head I think of it as the “Evil Robot Santa” impulse: everyone is EQUALLY AS NAUGHTY.

  164. 164.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    July 5, 2016 at 12:14 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They support his stance on gun manufacturer liability, and they supported him over a rival for his first run for Congress. Not that any of it matters, since he lost to Clinton, and deservedly so.

  165. 165.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 12:15 pm

    @trollhattan: It was a fair comment — I often speak in lawyer double negatives (i.e. “I don’t disagree”) which is a bad habit I’m trying to break. And it took away from my point that anyone familiar with the federal criminal justice system expected this outcome.

  166. 166.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    July 5, 2016 at 12:15 pm

    @Xboxershorts: This times eleventy million.

  167. 167.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 12:15 pm

    This attempt by an RNC spokesman to shoehorn the word “indictment” into a statement about Comey’s statement is just lame.

  168. 168.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 12:16 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: A sop to the hate Hillary crowd. Like you, jackass.

  169. 169.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    @Amir Khalid: And the thing is, it’s the best these sad motherfuckers can do.

  170. 170.

    Barbara

    July 5, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    @VOR: Right, this is the most infuriating part of the process. The justification here is that even though the article is public the fact that the Secretary is interested in the subject means that it should have been classified. This is a standard without a standard. If I receive something and then forward it, somehow the sender should have known not to send it or the sender should have headed it off? It’s simply crazy and unworkable.

  171. 171.

    Kryptik

    July 5, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:
    “When everyone is to blame, nobody is.”

    Same old “both sides, same thing” bullshit, and it only ever excuses GOP venality.

  172. 172.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:19 pm

    @hovercraft:

    She has withstood 25 years of smears from them and yet is still not only standing, but beating them.

    This. This. This.

  173. 173.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    @Barbara: The secret bombing of Cambodia was not secret to the Cambodians.

  174. 174.

    nastybrutishntall

    July 5, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: Bernie needs to stay in until he gets the most votes! oh, wait.

  175. 175.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    That’s cold, MB. Way to remind a man he works in a kitteh-deprived environment!

    Where’s OSHA on this??

  176. 176.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016:
    Reinforcing my daily decision to not get around to signing up for Facebook just yet.

  177. 177.

    Ella in New Mexico

    July 5, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Because it is basically what Powell and Rice did.

    And I think Kerry was also doing many of the same things up until a few months ago. But this whole thing pisses me off because it could have been avoided if government was functional.

    I just want to know the obstacles these really smart, saavy people are dealing with. There’s absolutely ZERO evidence they are personally “careless” or “negligent” or in any way, shape or form wanted to expose the US to any threat. Yet they felt they had to do things this way.

    Why in the 21st Century when we have Elon Musk designing rocket ships headed to Mars do these people still have to deal with two pound, error prone Blackberries and multiple email accounts in order to accomplish their work– and how do we fix it? THAT’S the underlying scandal here,

  178. 178.

    Cermet

    July 5, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    @RoonieRoo: The difference is the left side states the truth and the right lies. Really, if the FBI says no criminal intent than is the Justice department going to prosecute on the grounds she has original sin? Works for christians …

  179. 179.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    July 5, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    @catclub:

    You see, the problem is I won’t say that.

    I’ll say something along the lines of “are you intentionally warping your brain watching that crap? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU GETTING NEWS FROM THOSE SHILLS AND LIARS.”

    At which point I’ll be asked to wait outside and away from the air conditioning.

    This is what I get for living in Florida.

  180. 180.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    IMO, it’s reprehensible for Director Comey to say, “it’s possible” hackers gained access to the HRC server.

  181. 181.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    July 5, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Well, on the bright side I get pictures of cats from my friends. So Facebook’s not ALL bad.

  182. 182.

    Barbara

    July 5, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    @catclub: This is the big joke. If the email were classified it couldn’t be sent on anything except the State’s own secure system. So the decision to use her own server is not really the issue here, but whether the information was classified AT THE TIME it was sent.

  183. 183.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 12:23 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: That pretty much sums it up. The haters (like the lower life form Reggie Mantle) will continue to hate, without regard to any fact. Fuck them.

  184. 184.

    scav

    July 5, 2016 at 12:23 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: My mom talks about the unbelievable powers of the white hair helmet.

  185. 185.

    GregB

    July 5, 2016 at 12:23 pm

    Benghazi! Whitewater! Travelgate!

    Turn those machines back on!

  186. 186.

    Emma

    July 5, 2016 at 12:23 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016: I loaded the Audible app on my phone and play it whenever in public spaces that have radio or tv going. Florida is the capital of “we can’t have silence!”.

  187. 187.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    @Corner Stone: “It’s possible” that I am the true heir to the Iron Throne, too.

  188. 188.

    Bobby Thomson

    July 5, 2016 at 12:25 pm

    “Extremely careless” will be a tremendously effective attack line from the guy who routinely retweets neo-Nazi memes.

    P.S. I am not a crackpot.

  189. 189.

    les

    July 5, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    but when the parties nominate two such unpopular people, both of whom would enter office with everyone on the other side hating them there is plenty of reason to say pox on both your houses.

    Please to name a Democrat who would not be hated by the other side. Do you prefer we just give up?

  190. 190.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 5, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    If Steele wants to equate this to Trump’s Star of David tweet, he should feel free. Trump will do an equivalent thing three times a week until November.

  191. 191.

    Miss Bianca

    July 5, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    @Technocrat: well, I just got a “password fail” on my primary marketplace interface and I’m on hold in tech support hell and now the kitties are sticking their tiny claws in me. Does that help? ; )

  192. 192.

    encephalopath

    July 5, 2016 at 12:27 pm

    Outside of whether anything criminal was done, who cares what Comey thinks about anything? He’s just armchair quarterbacking and his opinion doesn’t mean anything more than what the Secretary of Agriculture thinks about professional email practices.

    I have no problem with anything Hillary Clinton did with having or using a private email server. I’ve used antiquated computer systems to work remotely. Given the option to use current technology to get stuff done, fuck yeah, I would do exactly the same thing.

    I don’t think the server was a mistake. I don’t think the optics were bad. I don’t think she somehow should have known better. The whole scandal from beginning to end was artificially manufactured bullshit.

  193. 193.

    ericblair

    July 5, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    @Xboxershorts:

    Now, I also don’t entirely buy HRCs claims of doing it this way for convenience either. I watched Whitewater unfold and then collapse in real time, I know James Comey was an investigator on Kenn Star’s team, I remember the rise of American Spectator and the rumor mill they directed at the Clintons. And they still have powerful enemies in DC. I always thought HRC had used her own server because she didn’t trust that State would keep some of those prying eyes away from her work.

    I’m familiar with the mobile systems on the DoD side of the house. At the time she was Sec of State, the mobile email solution was pretty much unusable unless you were POTUS (and apparently she inquired about the White House systems and got told no). Now there are secure Blackberry and Android/iOS systems. It was a difficult problem for the government, since the regulations had to be changed and commercial technology developed to handle sensitive traffic, plus the fact that, until recently, by the time the security guys had OK’d a certain commercial system it had been long enough that the system was then end-of-life and useless.

    Up to quite recently, you often had a choice of following security regulations or getting your communications in and out in a timely manner, and there was no good option. This problem wasn’t restricted to State. So it wasn’t convenience, it was either this or fly blind. Comey is being unfair, either to kiss up to the repugs or justify all the time and money that went into this bullshit.

  194. 194.

    sigaba

    July 5, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    @Irony Abounds: “If anyone doesn’t think Dems would jump on the Republican nominee under the same circumstances they are just blindly tribal.”

    Well, we know that the Bush White House had a very similar arrangement for its emails — everyone carried two blackberries and did most of their work in their “gop.com” email accounts. Also, a prominent Secretary of State by the name of Colin Powell used his own email server for correspondence. In both cases an FBI investigation was not pursued, indeed it was treated as business as usual for Powell, which it was.

    This has always just been a Clinton Shiny Thing for the press to obsess over. Democrats don’t attack their enemies in this way because Democrats actually care about getting people who break the law convicted– for Republicans an FBI investigation is a substrate for a media smear campaign FIRST, wether a crime was actually committed or not is immaterial.

  195. 195.

    Gelfling545

    July 5, 2016 at 12:30 pm

    @JPL: Except didn’t Lynch say just recently that she would follow the FBI’s decision?

  196. 196.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    July 5, 2016 at 12:32 pm

    but….. but…. Susan Sarandon guaranteed an indictment!?!?!

    “there’s going to be. There’s going to be. I mean, it’s inevitable,”

  197. 197.

    The Thin Black Duke

    July 5, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    @encephalopath: Exactly. And the Usual Suspect’s attempts to equate this fiasco with, let’s say, Donald Trump’s Star of David bullshit is offensive.

  198. 198.

    Mike in DC

    July 5, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    It’s only Tuesday, and Hillary Clinton wins the week politically. This was the most potentially damaging issue out there for her, and the bottom line result reduces it to the level of a major embarrassment, but one with minimal strategic impact on the race. The damage is done and now she can move on. Maybe Bernie can endorse on Friday and make it a grand slam week for her.

  199. 199.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 5, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    I have to go write. Deadlines approach and I’m starting to panic. Everybody have fun.

  200. 200.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    July 5, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    I just hope the Democratic Establishment has the real email servers stored in the same secret vault as the real Benghazi Files and the Whitey Tapes. You can’t be too careful these days.

  201. 201.

    The Dangerman

    July 5, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    I think I’m going to go buy a click counter and keep track of the number of times I see a commercial this Summer/Fall that has a variant of “FBI DIrector says Clinton extremely careless”.

    Seriously, today isn’t a win for Clinton; it isn’t a loss, but it’s not exactly great news.

  202. 202.

    Immanentize

    July 5, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    @LAO: Waving to LAO!! I agree here. Comey is giving as much to his ass masters as possible while stating the minimally ethical thing — no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.

    As you know, extremely reckless pretty much equals “knowing” in the “willful blindness” world. But I actually see no evidence of extreme recklessness (adverting to a risk that is commonly understood and proceeding in the face of that risk — extremely).

  203. 203.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 12:37 pm

    @encephalopath:

    Outside of whether anything criminal was done, who cares what Comey thinks about anything? He’s just armchair quarterbacking and his opinion doesn’t mean anything more than what the Secretary of Agriculture thinks about professional email practices.

    After the Bill Clinton airport incident, AG Lynch publicly said she’d follow the FBI’s recommendations on prosecution. If Comey says no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case, it gives Lynch the opening to put this to bed without it looking like just her personal decision to protect Clinton.

  204. 204.

    tsquared2001

    July 5, 2016 at 12:38 pm

    @encephalopath: Tell that!

  205. 205.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    @Immanentize: Hey back at you! (Can you believe, I still haven’t argued before the 11th Circuit, yet!!!)

  206. 206.

    Immanentize

    July 5, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    @Gelfling545: What she actually said was that she personally would stay out of it and would accept her line prosecution team’s recommendation. The DOJ (prosecutor) should never just accept the FBI’s (police investigator’s) recommendation. That is the purpose of prosecutorial discretion….

    In this one way, Comey helped his DOJ prosecution friends by using the “no reasonable prosecutor” line.

  207. 207.

    Immanentize

    July 5, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    @LAO: And it is the summer — that court slows WAY down in July and August. Are you considering a motion for appellate severance?

  208. 208.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    July 5, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    @Betty Cracker: She can’t get them to change the channel? I always get laughs from the customer service people when they ask me what to change it to and I answer “Anything but Fox.”

  209. 209.

    dr. bloor

    July 5, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: She and HA Goodman are currently out shopping for a convertible to drive off a cliff.

  210. 210.

    Bob Munck

    July 5, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    We have the technology to give thousands of high-level government employees completely secure smartphones on which they could safely do their email, send instant messages to each other, make voice and video (skype) calls to each other, etc. If Clinton had had one of those, she would never have felt the need for a better way than the government provided to get her email.

    Unfortunately, the federal government has shown itself incapable of doing that level of computer system development. They would spend hundreds of millions of dollars for many years and likely never get it to work. The way to do it would be a small agile team of young contractors working away from government interference and with no pointy-haired managers “managing” them. This is the way that the SECOND release of obamacare.com was created, and it was a resounding success. The entrenched bureaucracy would fight such a development tooth and nail.

  211. 211.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    @Immanentize: I called the Clerk’s office and they told me not to bother. LOL. The new date is sometime in the week of September 12th. I am waiting for one of my co-counsel to object and if that happens (again), I’ll file the motion even if I know it will be denied.

    Also — I agree with your prosecutorial discretion comment, I’ve found that DOJ usually agrees with a non-pros recommendation but it is sometimes possible to get the non-pros from DOJ where the FBI recommends prosecution.

  212. 212.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The haters (like the lower life form Reggie Mantle) will continue to hate, without regard to any fact. Fuck them.

    LOL. You just don’t see the hypocrisy here, do you?

    Yep, just like the wingnuts you claim to despise. Hypocrisy, vicious hatred, and a total lack of self-awareness.

  213. 213.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 5, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @LAO: In this case, though, Lynch has publicly said she’d follow the FBI’s lead (in her appearance after the Bill Clinton airport incident).

  214. 214.

    Rheinhard

    July 5, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    The high pitched screeching suddenly being reported from the sensors on the Juno probe now in orbit around Jupiter has been traced back to the offices of Fox News.

  215. 215.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 12:53 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    from what I read at The Guardian

    I think I see the problem there…

  216. 216.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 5, 2016 at 12:53 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: Dude, she is not going to be indicted. It’s over. Done. The End. Fin. Deal with it.

  217. 217.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    July 5, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    well, yeah, that’s you. that’s why I can’t as a middle-aged male. :(

  218. 218.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    @The Dangerman: This is the actual text:

    Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

    So Clinton was careless, or her colleagues were careless, or both Clinton and colleagues were careless.

    “FBI Director says Clinton extremely careless”

    so this is not quite what he said.

    Now whether that evidence was clear and complete, partial evidence, or flimsy evidence, he did not clarify.
    Lots of things for lawyers to parse and find holes in.

    There could also be evidence that I committed a murder, even if i did not actually commit any murder.

  219. 219.

    LAO

    July 5, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: I agree — I stated earlier, IMO as a federal defense attorney, no charges would be filed against Clinton. My earlier comment was a general comment my experience of the CJS — not specific to the “great email scandal of 2016.”

  220. 220.

    Miss Bianca

    July 5, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: “I came here to point and laugh at HRC supporters, and now everyone’s pointing and laughing at me! VICIOUS HATERS, just like their Queen!!”

    What a maroon.

  221. 221.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: You’re projecting again, jackass.

  222. 222.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:
    This won’t do Bernie any good, you know. The FBI arguably has reason to criticise Hillary, but even its Republican director will not recommend indictment. AG Lynch has said she will follow the FBI’s recommendation: that means no charges. No charges means the presumptive Democratic nominee’s spot is not vacated, so there’s still no chance for Bernie to run in November.

  223. 223.

    tsquared2001

    July 5, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    POTUS is about to do his first campaign stop with Secretary Clinton. I’m sure that Mrs. Greenspan will show his take no prisoners speech in full.

  224. 224.

    ? Martin

    July 5, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    Here’s the bottom line:

    Email is not secure to national security standards and cannot be secure to national security standards.

    The only way to do this right is to not use email. Period. Any debate about this needs to start from that point – if Clinton refused to use email, how would she do her job? What would she use for communication? What did the State Department offer up?

    It needs to be noted that they did have a solution, which Obama uses, and which was ungodly expensive and ungainly to implement. There are some better solutions now, but none of them involve email.

  225. 225.

    amk

    July 5, 2016 at 12:58 pm

    wonder who is crying the most today, the wingnutz or the loony left?

  226. 226.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Dude, she is not going to be indicted. It’s over. Done. The End. Fin. Deal with it.

    Once again, I’ve never said she was going to be indicted, in fact I’ve said just the opposite. “Deal with it.”

    But a half-bright Republican would take “extremely careless” and run with it. It remains to be seen if Trump is even half bright.

  227. 227.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: This is why I would ask them to turn off the TV, not that I have a competing preference. But Paul told the real reason he cannot try the polite approach. Self control is hard.

  228. 228.

    Mnemosyne

    July 5, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    And if Hillary hadn’t been lucky enough to have Trump to run against, she’d be toast.

    Really? You think Jeb Bush could have beaten her? Marco Rubio? Ted Cruz? Rick Perry? Which one of this year’s Republican candidates do you honestly picture winning over enough minority voters to break the Obama coalition?

    I’m sure there’s some imaginary Republican Savior Daddy who could theoretically have won over Hillary, but there’s not a single one of the actual candidates who could have done it.

  229. 229.

    TriassicSands

    July 5, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Everything else will disappear in the haze of whining that has been directed at the Clintons for decades.

    I don’t need to point out what’s wrong with this statement — you’ve already done it.
    The fact is that none of this stuff ever “disappears.” It becomes just one more piece in the endless tale of Clintonian corruption, illegality, entitlement, etc. that the Right and the media dwell on. Truth and reality aren’t important. I’ve spoken with people who despise Clinton and asked them to specify precisely why they think she is so dishonest. If they can come up with anything at all, they simply spew a laundry list of events, all of which resulted in no criminal charges, but which continued to make HRC’s “rap sheet” grow.

    In this case, the Clinton haters will simply assume that irresponsible and criminal are synonyms and that makes Clinton guilty.

  230. 230.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    @amk:

    the loony left?’

    A phrase straight from the wingnut rhetorical toolbox.

  231. 231.

    nonynony

    July 5, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    @The Dangerman: Clinton is extreme careless, so vote for Trump? The thrice divorced, multiply bankrupted white suprmacist stooge? A man whose brand is basically recklessness? A man who lost money running a ca sin o?

    I think the propensity for hair-on-fire from Democrats is coming out in this thread. It was a screw up that the State Department had been doing for a decade. Everyone knew that, and Clinton already copped to it. The only open question was “did it rise to the level of indictable act” and the answer to that question was known to be “no” months ago – but the FBI had to do a full, expensive report because it’s an election year. Will there be ads? Sure – but there would have been ads anyway. This is American politics – ugly TV ads are part of how it gets done. The next race that has polite ads on both sides of the aisle will be the first I’ve ever encountered. I don’t think these ads will even rise to the level of Dukakis on a tank, much less the ones impugning Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam.

    I would assume that the fact that the Clinton team has been buying up ad time at good rates in swing states while the Trump team and the RNC bicker will only help them run these ads in September as well…

  232. 232.

    Keith G

    July 5, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    HRC looks like such a dolt as a result of this investigation and I will never forgive her or the Democratic Party if Trump ends up as our President as a result. And the fact that Sanders was the only credible alternative to Clinton is equally disturbing. Bernie isn’t the answer. Fuck you Hillary, for being so stupid, so careless, and so full of hubris that you would act as though you are above it all.

    Really?

    Look, it is possible, in the universe of all possible outcomes, that Trumps wins the presidency. Rest assured that such a probability is less than 50% and sinking. The stupid email choices and the even stupider reactions to the reaction will not be a factor.

    The “behind the scenes” metrics seem all to be in Hillary’s favor and as of now there does not seem to be much happening to change this. Most of these metrics are pretty boring shit and much of them are not all that comprehensible to journalists, let alone to the public that said journalists are trying to entertain. Therefore, not much is said about them. The public get fed the dramatic, if usually quite unimportant, stuff.

    It’s quite alright to chide and other wise acknowledge the mistakes that the Clinton’s make, as it is in regards to Obama, but calm down. The real show begins after the conventions and involves a few televised debates.

  233. 233.

    nonynony

    July 5, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    Dammit. I forgot about the FYWP filter on ca sin os and forgot to misspell the word and now I’m in moderation. I blame Hillary Clinton – it must be her fault somehow.

  234. 234.

    Reggie Mantle

    July 5, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    Just another day at the center-left version of Breitbart.

  235. 235.

    Emma

    July 5, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    @TriassicSands: Yes, and? The deranged cannot be argued with or won over. All we can do is ignore them and move past them.

  236. 236.

    sherparick

    July 5, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    Another investigation into a Clinton, millions of dollars spent, and pfft. She did something stupid, but not anything that any prosecutor in his or her right mind would prosecute over. I am with Scott Lemieux on this: “behavior deservedly worthy of criticism, but massively overblown [by MSM].” http://www.apd.army.mil/ProductMaps/EForms/DAForms.aspx

    An educated guess, the TS information e-mails were sent about or contained newspaper and other news articles that contain WIKILEAKS information. Just because it was in the Guardian or NY Times, did not cause information that was classified TS to lose its “Classified Status).”

  237. 237.

    Karen

    July 5, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    @Quinerly:

    That “star” tweet made me sick to my stomach and terrified me.

  238. 238.

    hovercraft

    July 5, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    Make of this what you will, there will be defenders and attackers, so this will never end. Untill January 20th, 2024 that is.

    Matt Miller’s Twitter

    Matthew Miller ‏@matthewamiller · 40m40 minutes ago

    Comey says “it is possible” Clinton’s email was hacked. Since when does the FBI publicly speculate about things it doesn’t know/can’t prove?

    57 retweets 62 likes

    
     Matthew Miller Retweeted

    POLITICO Magazine ‏@POLITICOMag · 1h1 hour ago

    The real Clinton email scandal? Our ridiculous classification rules. From August 2015:

    31 retweets 30 likes

    Matthew Miller ‏@matthewamiller · 1h1 hour ago

    Comey’s statement appears to violate DOJ rules for comments about ongoing matters. https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-1-7000-media-relations#1-7.530 …

    78 retweets 48 likes

     Matthew Miller Retweeted

    Christopher Hayes ‏@chrislhayes · 1h1 hour ago

    Christopher Hayes Retweeted Matthew Miller

    Miller is a former DOJ spox, and will be on @allinwithchris tonight.

    Christopher Hayes added,

    Matthew Miller @matthewamiller Absolutely outrageous presser by Comey. DOJ/FBI is supposed to speak in court. If it won’t make statements in court, it shouldn’t make them.

    65 retweets 79 likes
    Matthew Miller ‏@matthewamiller · 2h2 hours ago

    Once again, Clinton gets worse treatment than anyone else would. I can’t remember an FBI press conference like that when charges declined.

    182 retweets 171 likes

    Matthew Miller ‏@matthewamiller · 2h2 hours ago

    Absolutely outrageous presser by Comey. DOJ/FBI is supposed to speak in court. If it won’t make statements in court, it shouldn’t make them.

    99 retweets 106 likes

    Matthew Miller ‏@matthewamiller · 2h2 hours ago

    Whatever Comey’s recommendation, this presser is so inappropriate. Complete departure from FBI/DOJ standards.

  239. 239.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    @Immanentize:

    As you know, extremely reckless pretty much equals “knowing” in the “willful blindness” world.

    But Comey did not say “reckless”, he said “careless”. I bet there is a reason he did not choose to use the word reckless.

    I have heard of “reckless endangerment” and “reckless disregard”, as things that people get charged with, but I have not heard
    ‘careless endangerment’ or ‘careless disregard’.

  240. 240.

    amk

    July 5, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: sure, whatever floats yer boat, ‘reggie’.

  241. 241.

    hovercraft

    July 5, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    Can someone please free me from moderation, thanks.

  242. 242.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: Nope, Cole is alive and Breitbart is still dead.

  243. 243.

    Cermet

    July 5, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    For anyone that thinks this isn’t critical I have this news: Hillary wins come Nov – period. tRump is a joke. This was the wing nuts very last chance; indictment meant Hillary might (more than likely) lose. No indictment and she is a shoe in. Case closed. The majority of the voters have decided (between 80 and 85%) and Hillary has a clear advantage in those. The remaining independents – the majority (around 52%) say Hillary is Presidential material and the rump isn’t. Only a small minority of 38% of these voters say rump is. Election over no matter what the media gas bags blow out their a$$’s. Game over and match Hillary.

  244. 244.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    @Karen:
    Lost in the holiday weekend news cycle, now lost in light of the 20 solid minutes of Clinton bashing by Comey. I’m sick to my stomach. Sheriff’s star my ass….Trump’s behavior is becoming mainstreamed.

  245. 245.

    dmsilev

    July 5, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m sure there’s some imaginary Republican Savior Daddy who could theoretically have won over Hillary, but there’s not a single one of the actual candidates who could have done it.

    Generic Republican could win. You know, late middle aged White Guy in a nice suit, lightly graying hair and good teeth, makes all the vaguely responsible centrist noises, but really wants to cut taxes and Social Security.

  246. 246.

    Mnemosyne

    July 5, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    I’ve been told that the unimpeachable way to get the channel changed is to ask, “Anyone mind if I turn on the game?” and switch to ESPN before anyone answers. Because sports always takes precedence over politics.

    I’m not sure that always works for women, but it might work for a young adult like Betty’s daughter.

  247. 247.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    @? Martin: This.

  248. 248.

    Shell

    July 5, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    “Extremely careless” will be a tremendously effective attack line from the guy who routinely retweets neo-Nazi memes.

    No tweets from Trump yet? He’s probably waiting till after the Obama/Hillary campaign stop today so he can get it all in at once. He’s already bitched at who’s paint for the AF1 plane ride to NC.

  249. 249.

    germy shoemangler

    July 5, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    H. A. Goodman @HAGOODMANAUTHOR
    I respect the FBI’s decision but in a bizarre way I feel vindicated. Sad day for America and Democrats, and rule of law. BERNIE STILL FIGHTS

  250. 250.

    germy shoemangler

    July 5, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @Shell: He’s been tweeting non-stop. His latest one said Petraeus got in trouble for far less, or something like that…

  251. 251.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    @Bob Munck: You do realize don’t you that almost all Federal Government computer systems are designed, built, and operated by private industry contractors right ? Very few are “in house” designed and build systems. Most Federal IT folks are contract management etc. It was after all private industry that built the ACA website debacle in the first place.

  252. 252.

    dmsilev

    July 5, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    @germy shoemangler: Was just about to post that. Bernie still fights, and in related news, Generallisimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

  253. 253.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    But a half-bright Republican would take “extremely careless” and run with it.

    They wouldn’t use that phrasing. Because, frankly, it sounds like your mom scolding you. No one can deliver the phrase “extremely careless” with any gravitas.

    Maybe Morgan Freeman.

  254. 254.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @Cermet:
    I sure hope you are right. In other news, Kasich is surging!http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-clinton-leads-trump-how-would-november-look-without-him-n603496

  255. 255.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @dmsilev: Jon Thune is either very smart ( in knowing that he is very dumb), or missed his chance.

  256. 256.

    Xboxershorts

    July 5, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    @Bob Munck:

    Unfortunately, the federal government has shown itself incapable of doing that level of computer system development.

    Not true at all. The feds do have this know how and the people with the commitment to do well.

    The issue is…Congress and tax cuts and the follow on budget cuts.

    Doing it right and securely is down right expensive.

  257. 257.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    July 5, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @germy shoemangler:

    Fights what? Bernie’s the Black Knight without any arms and legs, demanding that Democrats come back so he can bite their legs off. The guy totally lacks any self-awareness.

  258. 258.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    @hovercraft:

    Until January 20th, 2024 that is.

    actually that would be year 2025. election would be in november 2024. Jan 2024 would be final State of the Union of a president’s term.

  259. 259.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: That you lend credence to every time you post.

  260. 260.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    @Xboxershorts: Should have added to my reply to Bob as well. This is the single biggest issue with Federal IT, terrible funding, both the levels and not being able to get long term commitments from the Republican controlled Congress, see IRS.

  261. 261.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @germy shoemangler:
    Only two days ago HAHA Goodman posted a video on his YouTube channel citing FBI/DoJ sources to say Hillary was so going to be indicted …

  262. 262.

    Immanentize

    July 5, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: True — careless not reckless. Point well taken. Even a bit more weazley I think — the “extremely” bit says culpability, the “careless” says negligent.

  263. 263.

    Mnemosyne

    July 5, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:

    “Extremely careless” will be a tremendously effective attack line from the guy who routinely retweets neo-Nazi memes.

    P.S. I am not a crackpot.

    I love you, man.

  264. 264.

    My Truth Hurts

    July 5, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    I hate Clinton and will not vote for her in my safely blue state but this was always a nothing burger. Wing nuts will still bring it up as if it means something but for the rest of us we can put this nonsense behind us and focus on her neo liberal war mongering and cozy relationship with Wall Street. Also her tone deaf tuition forgiveness policy. Jesus how out of touch can she be? It’s amazing how a candidate six years older than her is better on every issue that matters.

    Anyway, good for you.

    Stein 2016!

  265. 265.

    Xboxershorts

    July 5, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    Just another day at the center-left version of Breitbart.

    Participation is voluntary and many knowledgeable people are currently participating.

    Open your closed mind and consider the possibility that you have 1 or 2 things wrong.

    Or leave, because you post here and you open yourself to their criticism.

  266. 266.

    Calouste

    July 5, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @Loviatar:

    No I still don’t see why Bernie stayed in.

    Besides an ego that now can no longer can fit within the boundaries of Vermont and is slowly oozing into New Hampshire? No, me neither.

  267. 267.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @My Truth Hurts: I noticed your girl blamed the Clintons for Donald Trump being a thing. You’re a shithead and so is she.

  268. 268.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    @sherparick: But at that point the classification is a joke…because it’s in the public domain.

    The temptation to classify shit to make it seem important is absolutely pervasive in the DoD/DoS realm. The other problem is that the only secure computer is one in the original, sealed shipping container…and even those are suspect.

  269. 269.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 5, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    @Calouste: He’s looking at buying Montana for some ego leg room.

  270. 270.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Technocrat:

    No one can deliver the phrase “extremely careless” with any gravitas.

    Maybe Morgan Freeman.

    Thank the FSM that Mr. Freeman is on HRC’s side.
    Otherwise, she would be fucked. Game over, man! Game over!

  271. 271.

    Kay

    July 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    But “Careless Clinton” could give him some real ammo if he was bright enough to use it.

    He could try but people don’t think Clinton is careless. Even people who hate her think she’s ruthlessly calculating every move. People already think he’s racist (rightly- he is racist) so everything he does will be put in that context.

    I still wonder about whether people care about this. I don’t, but that’s not a measure of anything. I think they needed to find something in the emails- it’s a “crime” without a motive. It’s like the (alleged) cover-up on Benghazi. To me, they kept screaming at us that the Obama Administration was hiding something and they just kept saying it after they found nothing. There has to be something behind these stories- they don’t lead anywhere. They’re dead ends.

  272. 272.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Generic Republican could win.

    Yep. ‘Generic Republican’ does very well, right up until he stops being generic and people get an actual look at the kind of asshole who represents the Republican Party. I don’t think Trump has even hit this stage yet, amazingly. I think there are still a whole bunch of people who have heard ‘something something Trump foolish’ and ‘something something Clinton corrupt’ and we have two months before the general election process forces them to see who the candidates actually are. The media always tries to slow that down, but there’s just too much exposure in a national presidential election. It happens anyway. It certainly kicked Mitt ‘Most Generic Republican Ever’ Romney’s ass.

  273. 273.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:

    Most Federal IT folks are contract management etc.

    I wonder if Edward Snowden is aware of this.

  274. 274.

    Calouste

    July 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:

    Stein Half a vote for the neo-Nazi enabling racist 2016!

    FTFY.

  275. 275.

    Chyron HR

    July 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    That’s okay, he’s now claiming to be vindicated because Hillary was indicted IN OUR HEARTS.

  276. 276.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 5, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:

    neo liberal war mongering

    Huh?

  277. 277.

    Shell

    July 5, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    Stein 2016!

    Who?

  278. 278.

    germy shoemangler

    July 5, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Only two days ago HAHA Goodman posted a video on his YouTube channel citing FBI/DoJ sources to say Hillary was so going to be indicted

    Doesn’t matter how wrong he is… he’s a republican operative. He’s a college republican ratfvcking. His goal is to murk the waters with dark clouds of squid ink. That’s the feeling I get from him… YMMV.

  279. 279.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    @different-church-lady: I think he was a contractor, not a GS employee.

  280. 280.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    @germy shoemangler: ‘But ‘vindicated’ is my very very favorite word’.

  281. 281.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    July 5, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    @Xboxershorts: Not only that, but State is a world-wide organization that has to operate in places that make Pine Ridge, SD look like a space station. They did what they needed to do to satisfy their mission, even if it meant going around official channels sometimes.

    I wish people who tut-tut about how stupid the federal government is would recognize that the people in the trenches who are trying to get the job done aren’t the people who write the procurement rules, aren’t the ones who set the budgets, aren’t the ones who pick the hardware and the software, and aren’t the ones who are sending thousands of lobbyists to Capitol Hill to try to get their way.

    How many decades behind the rest of the world is our vaunted private sector on point-of-sale credit card security??.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  282. 282.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    Luke Russert is positively giddy. “Republicans united!” Oh, that liberal MSNBC is at it again!

  283. 283.

    Aleta

    July 5, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    Perhaps the FBI could now investigate whether Trump could even pass the background check for an upper level security clearance.

  284. 284.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Yes. That was my point.

  285. 285.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 5, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    Has Hillary resigned yet? My sources tell me Congress is going to impeach her.

  286. 286.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Bear in mind that actual voters chose Trump over sixteen other candidates. If Trump was the right choice for them, the wrong choices couldn’t have been all that great.

  287. 287.

    FlipYrWhig

    July 5, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    @Kay:

    I still wonder about whether people care about this.

    I still wonder how many people can even explain what the problem is supposed to be. Hillary Clinton sent or received emails containing classified information and then… ? Hillary Clinton set up a private email server and then…? I feel like the story is, essentially, “Hillary Clinton something something shady and secretive like usual, based on that thing I think I remember having happened.”

  288. 288.

    catclub

    July 5, 2016 at 1:34 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Another crowd hoping for Fitzmas!

  289. 289.

    Aleta

    July 5, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @Aleta: From wiki:
    “A Secret clearance, also known as Collateral Secret or Ordinary Secret, requires a few months to a year to investigate, depending on the individual’s background. Some instances wherein individuals would take longer than normal to be investigated are many past residences, having residences in foreign countries, having relatives outside the United States, or significant ties with non-US citizens. Unpaid bills as well as criminal charges will more than likely disqualify an applicant for approval. However, a bankruptcy will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and is not an automatic disqualifier. Poor financial history is the number-one cause of rejection.”

  290. 290.

    Betty Cracker

    July 5, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I told him flat out that his page views and clicks are funding distribution of Hillary swag and the stamping out of people’s revolutions worldwide, but still he views and clicks. I hate to say it, but sometimes I question his commitment to SparkleMotion.

  291. 291.

    Amir Khalid

    July 5, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:

    I hate Clinton and will not vote for her

    Yes, we know. You say it every time you comment here. But you know and I know that Jill Stein will not draw enough voters to win even one state’s electoral-college votes; voting for her, even in your deep blue state where everyone else will vote for Hillary, will not help keep Donald Trump away from the Oval Office. Trump in office, not Hillary, is the existential danger to America and the world. You need to vote more directly against him, for a candidate who will defeat him, and the way to do that is to vote for Hillary.

  292. 292.

    Quinerly

    July 5, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:
    And the good doctor, by her own admission, agrees with the racist 41% of the time!https://mobile.twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/742450334556028928

  293. 293.

    Tripod

    July 5, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    It’s good news if the ad hominem trolls are out in force.

  294. 294.

    Davis X. Machina

    July 5, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: She withdrew months ago — after the unrecoverable “Say nice things about Nancy Reagan” and Charleston gaffes.

    Surely you remember….

  295. 295.

    Gimlet

    July 5, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    @Loviatar:

    I still don’t see why Bernie stayed in.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160703_Sanders__Party_platform_still_needs_work.html

    We need to have very clear language that raises the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ensures that the promised pensions of millions of Americans will not be cut, establishes a tax on carbon, and creates a ban on fracking. These and other amendments will be offered in Florida.

    Further, one of the most important amendments that we will offer is to make it clear that the Democratic Party is strongly opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

    In my view, the Democratic Party must go on record in opposition to holding a vote on this disastrous, unfettered free-trade agreement during the lame-duck session of Congress and beyond.

    Frankly, I do not understand why the amendment our delegates offered on this issue in St. Louis was defeated with all of Hillary Clinton’s committee members voting against it.

  296. 296.

    FlipYrWhig

    July 5, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    @Amir Khalid: And because the biggest possible Hillary Clinton victory is a way to Send A Message ™ about Trump, Trumpism, and what both white people and the Republican Party (but I repeat myself) have become.

  297. 297.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    @different-church-lady: I get really tired of reading how bad Federal IT is when, most of it is privately contracted out, and it is woefully underfunded. So all the “experts” you read that tell you these things, are the same ones telling you that Hillary’s emails blah blah blah. Journalists don’t know shit about shit, especially concerning large scale Enterprise IT. They think computing is Excel, Windows, and iPhones.

  298. 298.

    bemused

    July 5, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    It has to be hard enough (biting tongues, etc) to be an adult liberal living in an area loaded with rightwingers. How does your teenage daughter who sounds like very bright young lady and quite informed manage to cope with adults and her peers who are far right?

  299. 299.

    Gimlet

    July 5, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    @Loviatar:

    Loviator “I still don’t see why Bernie stayed in.”

    http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160703_Sanders__Party_platform_still_needs_work.html

    We need to have very clear language that raises the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ensures that the promised pensions of millions of Americans will not be cut, establishes a tax on carbon, and creates a ban on fracking. These and other amendments will be offered in Florida.

    Further, one of the most important amendments that we will offer is to make it clear that the Democratic Party is strongly opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

    In my view, the Democratic Party must go on record in opposition to holding a vote on this disastrous, unfettered free-trade agreement during the lame-duck session of Congress and beyond.

    Frankly, I do not understand why the amendment our delegates offered on this issue in St. Louis was defeated with all of Hillary Clinton’s committee members voting against it

    If both Clinton and I agree that the TPP should not get to the floor of Congress this year, it’s hard to understand why an amendment saying so would not be overwhelmingly passed.

  300. 300.

    randy khan

    July 5, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    @hovercraft:

    I normally would agree that Comey’s presser would be inappropriate, but in light of the craziness around this, it makes sense to me that he would feel it was necessary.

  301. 301.

    patroclus

    July 5, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    Legally, there was never a case because of the lack of intent and today is good in that it has finally been confirmed. And it will now fade away like all the other faux scandals. That said, the way our SoS’s have using e-mails is a legitimate concern and I’m sure that this will serve as a precedent for better behavior by all subsequent SoS’s.

    Politically, Bernie was smart never to even engage in any discussions about it; his strategy has been vindicated – if he had made it an issue, today would have exploded in his face. FBI Directors rarely give press conferences – normally there is no announcement or if there is it would be from a SAIC. Comey apparently did it because it’s so high profile and his presentation was designed to protect the FBI from political criticism (or from more than it’s gonna get anyway). Normally, also, the FBI doesn’t exonerate anyone, the DOJ does, so Comey did Clinton and the DOJ a favor by taking responsibility. His “careless” comments are an embarrassment for Clinton, but we already knew she was careless, so this isn’t anything new. This will fade as a political issue after the initial brouhaha.

    It’s good to get this over with before the conventions. Despite the length of the investigation, it seems as if it was handled fairly well and resolved prior to the meat of the campaign season.

  302. 302.

    Redshift

    July 5, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    I think I’m finally going to have to stop reading Billmon, at least for the next four or eight years. He can still be great on other topics, but his Clinton Derangement Syndrome is just too severe. He’s talking about the Loretta Lynch meeting, and how a NYT story over the weekend about how Clinton is likely to keep Lynch means the fix was in.

  303. 303.

    dogwood

    July 5, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @Calouste:
    I suppose one reason Bernie is staying in because his wife is on the campaign payroll. Once he concedes, the money stops flowing into the Sanders family accounts. His Vermont campaigns supply supplemental income to his family, but this presidential campaign has produced a real windfall.

  304. 304.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    @Redshift: Clinton Derangement Syndrome, both sides actually do have it.

  305. 305.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 5, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    @Davis X. Machina: Go ahead and joke but many take email something something arglebargle gate very seriously.

  306. 306.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Sorry, but Ted Cruz is probably the only sure loser among the vapid bunch of clods that polluted our airways as candidates for the Republicans. I think Kasich would have clobbered Hillary – not because he’s a good guy or even that great of a candidate. He doesn’t come across as a crazy and his unfavorables are not that high. Even smary Rubio, the pretty boy with zero intellect would have been very tough for Hillary to beat. Hillary’s unfavorable rating, whether or not justified, are a huge drag on her, and would be a huge problem if not for the fact that her opponent is one of the world’s biggest asshats and viewed even more unfavorably than her.

  307. 307.

    Miss Bianca

    July 5, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    @My Truth Hurts: Is that the same Jill Stein – *Dr*. Jill Stein – who says such asinine things about vaccination?

    Hell, I wouldn’t trust her with her first chosen profession, much less with her second.

  308. 308.

    kindness

    July 5, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    Just another day at the center-left version of Breitbart.

    So why are you here then? I assumed it was to stroke your own ego but it’s sounding more and more like you are stroking something else.

  309. 309.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    @patroclus:

    That said, the way our SoS’s have using e-mails is a legitimate concern and I’m sure that this will serve as a precedent for better behavior by all subsequent SoS’s

    I wouldn’t be surprised if this episode has sprouted a dozen new rules that no one has the resources or money to follow. The likely net effect being an even greater gap between expected and actual behavior. 100% serious.

  310. 310.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    I think Kasich would have clobbered Hillary – not because he’s a good guy or even that great of a candidate. He doesn’t come across as a crazy and his unfavorables are not that high

    He looks like Dana Carvey’s slobber-lipped impression of Jimmy Stewart. With a bad cowlick and an even worse asshole temper.

  311. 311.

    Redshift

    July 5, 2016 at 1:57 pm

    @Quinerly:

    And the good doctor, by her own admission, agrees with the racist 41% of the time!https://mobile.twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/742450334556028928

    Oh, my! Her tweet from some online issues quiz shows she agrees with Bernie 99% (so revolution!) but also agrees with Clinton 91%. The replies to that tweet insisting that cannot possibly be real are quite entertaining.

  312. 312.

    Kay

    July 5, 2016 at 1:59 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I like what my politically disinterested daughter said : “I hear ‘server’ and tune out”. A lot of us are like that. I get it, I really do- the emails could be a way to hide something but to keep my attention they have to find something. That’s crucial. “Could have found something” is just not enough for my interest meter. These scandals are ultimately frustrating to the scandal-seeking public, I must say. There’s no meat on the bones.

  313. 313.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    @Corner Stone: enjoy your life in the left’s bubble. But then I guess that’s just what us Ron Fournier types would say.

  314. 314.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    July 5, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    @Irony Abounds: My god you are the most awesomey awesome political wisdomer around.

  315. 315.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    @Aleta: Never. There’s bankruptcies and there’s significant flow of money to Trump from Russian oligarchs. A security disaster.

  316. 316.

    D58826

    July 5, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    @patroclus: Saw a comment from Paul Ryan about needing to ‘get to the bottom’ of the FBI decision. Fortunately Trey is available so he can lead the next witch-hunt,

  317. 317.

    patroclus

    July 5, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    @Technocrat: At the lower levels of government, I agree with you. At the SoS level, they will all have the resources and staffing to do things differently – I suspect that future SoS’s will be far less careless about their e-mail servers. (Not that it will materially impact national security though).

    Politically, Hillary’s exoneration will ultimately benefit her. The proto-Fascist doesn’t really have any other issue under-current even remotely comparable to it. But there are a multitude of ongoing issues about the Republican candidate that the media has barely begun to delve into. The idea that “both sides do it” is utterly ridiculous in this campaign.

  318. 318.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    Hillary’s unfavorable rating, whether or not justified, are a huge drag on her, and would be a huge problem if not for the fact that her opponent is one of the world’s biggest asshats and viewed even more unfavorably than her

    I think “unfavorability rating” has been memed into a big problem, when clearly it is not a problem. Out of 19(?) potential candidates, the pair that won are the people with the highest unfavorables. They both beat people who were looked on much more “favorably”. Clearly favorability – in this cycle – is not positively correlated with anything that means a damn. It may be negatively correlated – maybe people are just picking the other side’s worst nightmare.

    Worrying about favorability is like talking about the 1st and 2nd place winners in the Kentucky Derby, and lamenting the fact that they’re the “least hippity hoppity” horses on field. Who cares?

  319. 319.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    @D58826: Right– Trey needs a job now.

  320. 320.

    amk

    July 5, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    All those clowns couldn’t get to the first base even with their own ‘base’ and they were somehow win with the rest of GE voters? Nutz.

  321. 321.

    Librarian

    July 5, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @Shell: Frank N. Stein.

  322. 322.

    Technocrat

    July 5, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @patroclus:

    Fair enough. I’ve never moved on that level, so I’d only be guessing.

  323. 323.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    @MattF: You are forgetting something. Those actual voters were actual Republican primary voters. All that happened was the same types that allowed Sharon Engle, Christine O’Donnell and Todd Akin to win primaries for Senate seats finally infected the Presidential primary. On the one hand it’s great it happened, since Trump is such a loser even HRC can beat him. On the other hand, any possibility that Trump becomes President is a frightening prospect.

  324. 324.

    MattF

    July 5, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @Irony Abounds: I’m not approving– just saying that Trump’s opposition was very weak. The argument that some establishment Republican (e.g., Jeb!?) would easily beat Clinton is false.

  325. 325.

    Chyron HR

    July 5, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @Gimlet:

    And that relates to the FBI announcement, how? Just for fun, try using your own words for once!

  326. 326.

    Kay

    July 5, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    @D58826:

    It’s like they took that saying “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” literally. No, there really has to be a crime or the cover-up doesn’t mean much. Nixon could have been really secretive and paranoid and not committed crimes. It was the crime that got him.

  327. 327.

    Cat48

    July 5, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    You’re right. Pete Williams said as much. He shot down Andrea Mitchell’s theory that Comey had to act for Lynch bc Tarmac. Pete said the decision for Comey to do it was made earlier bc he told the press as much. He felt he had to give his opinion before referring for weeks bc inv had taken so long. Love when Pete shoots down Andrea’s theories!)

  328. 328.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @Irony Abounds: Because I believe Kasich has no chance on a national scene? That’s how I am in a left bubble? He won how many events in the R primary again? And you’re going to somehow transformograte his getting blown out of the fucking water into a somehow “what if” scenario where he “clobbers” HRC?
    I see the man and I think of a slobbery, cowlicked Jimmy Stewart with a Chris Christie mean asshole streak. He ain’t winning shit. Pace, your alternative universe theory.
    And no, RF would have said, “The right may have chosen a fascist, know nothing asshole but the extreme left also has their flawed candidate in the extremist left, neoliberal, Wall Street beholden, godless whore Hitlery Clonton.” Kind of what you said above about how much you hate HRC.

  329. 329.

    Kay

    July 5, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    “where there’s smoke there’s fire”. Except we didn’t find any fire. Let’s just act like we did, because..same thing.

    Ari Fleisher is going with “reckless and careless”. Is there anyone who really believes Clinton is “reckless and careless”? Maybe we’ll luck out and Donald Trump will accuse Hillary Clinton of “recklessness”.

  330. 330.

    satby

    July 5, 2016 at 2:32 pm

    @Xboxershorts: This. Triple x.

  331. 331.

    Kay

    July 5, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    BILL Clinton was sort of reckless, but they’re not the same person. At all.

  332. 332.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Kay: But really. Doesn’t “extremely careless” = “reckless”?
    Hmmm?

  333. 333.

    vhh

    July 5, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Bill: There are actuall two German words for how one deals with situations like this. First, the well known Schadenfreude (joy at another’s misfortune) and the much less well known dual of that, Glückschmerz (pain at another’s good fortune).

  334. 334.

    chromeagnomen

    July 5, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: jeebus, reggie, jovian-sized butthurt much?

  335. 335.

    Irony Abounds

    July 5, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    @Corner Stone: Gee, I called Clinton a “dolt” and you read that as “extremist left, neoliberal, Wall Street beholden, godless whore Hitlery Clonton.” What an utter horse’s ass you are. As for your take on Kasich, given that the top two candidates in this year’s Republican primary were Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, I don’t think getting blown out of those contests is a badge of dishonor. He’s popular enough in Ohio, so not everyone shares your opinion, and frankly I wouldn’t take your opinion as anything close to majority of the American electorate.

  336. 336.

    Calouste

    July 5, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @dogwood: Good point about the amateur grifting operation that is the Sanders family. The Sanders campaign is so much more professional at grifting, would be interesting to see how many of those $27 donations end up in the pockets of Devine and that other grafter.

  337. 337.

    Corner Stone

    July 5, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    As for your take on Kasich, given that the top two candidates in this year’s Republican primary were Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, I don’t think getting blown out of those contests is a badge of dishonor. He’s popular enough in Ohio, so not everyone shares your opinion, and frankly I wouldn’t take your opinion as anything close to majority of the American electorate.

    I apologize, but this is your refutation about my analysis of Kasich? Getting blown out of the water by Trump and Cruz is a badge of honor? And he won his home state and is popular in the nationwide representation that is OH is…? Did he compete in the South? The Northwest? The Southwest? Anywhere but OH? And that’s your fucking argument?

  338. 338.

    Captain C

    July 5, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    @Reggie Mantle: If you really think these are equivalent, that explains a lot.

  339. 339.

    chopper

    July 5, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    @Kay:

    where there’s smoke there’s fire. or somebody blowing smoke up your ass. but also fire. or not.

  340. 340.

    Trollhattan

    July 5, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    @Captain C:
    Set aside “think” and you’re at the right conclusion. I have no lingering doubts he/she is a Republican faux Berner. Too many tells in the occasional posting spasms (with equally telling long silences in between).

  341. 341.

    Bob Munck

    July 5, 2016 at 3:09 pm

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:

    You do realize don’t you that almost all Federal Government computer systems are designed, built, and operated by private industry contractors right ?

    Yeah, some of them by me. For example the AN/UYS-2 EMSP and the standard executive for the Navy line of minicomputers. In the course of my career I worked for DARPA, DoE, NRL, Unisys, MITRE, and SofTech so yes, I know how the government develops computer systems.

    Private industry contractors building systems for the government DO SO UNDER THE GOVERNMENT’S RULES. Those rules don’t work for software and computer hardware development. The first attempt at obamacare.com followed those rules and was a horrible failure; the second one was made exempt from most of the rules and was successful.

  342. 342.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    Please remember folks, it’s gonna be psych-ops and trash talk from now ’til November. Plan accordingly.

  343. 343.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    @Kay: It’s almost as if they’ve never heard of the invention of the smoke machine.

    @Kay:

    Maybe we’ll luck out and Donald Trump will accuse Hillary Clinton of “recklessness”.

    At that rate and direction we should be at “poor dental hygiene” by the end of August.

  344. 344.

    redshirt

    July 5, 2016 at 3:22 pm

    @dogwood:

    I suppose one reason Bernie is staying in because his wife is on the campaign payroll. Once he concedes, the money stops flowing into the Sanders family accounts. His Vermont campaigns supply supplemental income to his family, but this presidential campaign has produced a real windfall.

    Must be pretty sweet to have a free Secret Service detail too. Who’d want to give that up?

  345. 345.

    Captain C

    July 5, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    @les:

    Please to name a Democrat who would not be hated by the other side. Do you prefer we just give up?

    I’m guessing the answer is actually ‘yes.’

  346. 346.

    Captain C

    July 5, 2016 at 3:39 pm

    @Trollhattan: I suspect your interpretation is correct.

  347. 347.

    Uncle Cosmo

    July 5, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @germy shoemangler: “Bernie still fights”–the same fight he’s been fighting since Super Tuesday: With his head jammed a country mile up his arse, he’s fighting for air…just like his micro-minion Drudgie Mumble & for the same reason. (Yeah, FUCK OFF & DIE, Drudgie!)

  348. 348.

    Uncle Cosmo

    July 5, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    @Stupidity Rebounds: Thanks for demonstrating once again that opinions are like arseholes–everyone has one & it usually stinks. Yours being one of the truly oderiferous. Now FOAD & take Drudgie Mumble with you so Adam & the hazmat team can decontaminate the joint.

  349. 349.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    July 5, 2016 at 3:59 pm

    @Bill:

    If only there were a German word to describe how I’m feeling…

    …it would have 40 syllables and be unpronounceable in every language except Vogon…

  350. 350.

    JaneE

    July 5, 2016 at 4:01 pm

    I have only been on one jury in a criminal trial. It was a shoplifting case, and the judge, the prosecutor, and the defense attorney all made very clear to us that the defendant could only be found guilty of the crime if he had the intent to steal. The basic facts of his actions were uncontested, and most of the prosecution’s case consisted of testimony intended to demonstrate and document his criminal intent. The defendant testified to make his case that he did not intend to steal. Our jury hung, because some thought his intent to steal was evident, and the some did not. It came down to interpretation and credibility, and not everyone saw things the same way.

    I don’t expect anyone to change their opinion on emailgate. Trump will say it proves she is crooked, and Clinton will say it exonerates her. Until all the facts are presented publicly, most likely 50 years from now or later, there will be no possibility of a definitive answer one way or another. Even then it is doubtful that more than 70% of the citizens will agree with the consensus verdict.

  351. 351.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    I think Kasich would have clobbered Hillary…

    Yes. Certainly. How unfortunate for him he couldn’t first crack fourth place in his own party’s primary.

  352. 352.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    July 5, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    @Reggie Mantle:

    I came back just to watch the orgy of denial, misplaced rage, and of course Bernie bashing this was going to create.

    I have not been disappointed.

    This.

    But what else are Clinton fans supposed to do? They idolize their cult like figurehead and dismiss every allegation of wrongdoing as a NOTHINGBURGER, which gets my vote as Word of the Year.

    Clinton gets subpoenaed for her emails; she deletes half of them. That’s obstruction of Justice.

  353. 353.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    July 5, 2016 at 4:16 pm

    @Calouste:

    @dogwood: Good point about the amateur grifting operation that is the Sanders family. The Sanders campaign is so much more professional at grifting, would be interesting to see how many of those $27 donations end up in the pockets of Devine and that other grafter.

    This is why the neoliberal, warmongering faction of the Democratic Party is so afraid of what Bernie has demonstrated. A party run by the people and not corporations.

  354. 354.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    July 5, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    Good Talk, Becnel :)

  355. 355.

    J R in WV

    July 5, 2016 at 4:48 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    That is so funny! Especially the tiny claws and tech support hell at the same time !!!

    ;-)

    I was lucky and avoided being the contact person for tech support almost 100% of the time.

    I did that by not being the person who opened and installed software for the very first time… even if I did the paperwork to buy it, I would hand it to a drooling-wants-it-right-NOW coder, who then got to be contact person for tech support…

  356. 356.

    J R in WV

    July 5, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    They find implanted black ice code in machines from the factory today! I always take a new machine and wipe the OS and install something different. Sometimes we pull the hard drive and put a different brand in and then install an OS on it. What does a Windows root kit in the BIOS do when it sees a UNIX-based OS start up? It dies…

    Would the government contractors do that? Heck no! that takes time, and they get 500 new boxen a day when a new release comes around.

  357. 357.

    redshirt

    July 5, 2016 at 5:06 pm

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Pat yourself on the back. I’m sure you’ve swayed many today.

  358. 358.

    Plantsmantx

    July 5, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @Irony Abounds:

    As pissed as I am at Clinton, any comparison to Petraus is just stupid.

    Yes, I’m glad he did that. He immediately overplayed his hand.

  359. 359.

    FlipYrWhig

    July 5, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    Jonathan Holland Becnel
    Juxtaposition: A Data Assemblage
    (mixed message, 2016)

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    They idolize their cult like figurehead

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    This is why the neoliberal, warmongering faction of the Democratic Party is so afraid of what Bernie has demonstrated.

  360. 360.

    redshirt

    July 5, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Poetry clap.

  361. 361.

    different-church-lady

    July 5, 2016 at 5:19 pm

    @redshirt: More like he forgot to change to his sock-puppet handle.

  362. 362.

    FlipYrWhig

    July 5, 2016 at 5:23 pm

    @redshirt: He contains multitudes.

  363. 363.

    Mutaman

    July 5, 2016 at 5:45 pm

    @oldgold: Bingo!

  364. 364.

    Calouste

    July 5, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    This is why the neoliberal, warmongering faction of the Democratic Party is so afraid of what Bernie has demonstrated.

    You mean that Sanders, or more accurately Tad Devine, has demonstrated that you can run a grifting campaign on the left as well as on the right?

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