Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Everybody saw this coming.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Breaking News: Director Comey Again Clears Secretary Clinton. Please reset to ScandalCon 5!

Breaking News: Director Comey Again Clears Secretary Clinton. Please reset to ScandalCon 5!

by | 154 Comments

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Well that didn’t take as long as some unnamed and named sources seemed to think it would take.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled conspiracy theorizing.

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  1. 1.

    Trentrunner

    Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ. Soooo angry.

    Let’s see if the media runs the exoneration with the same verve as the vague “indictment” 11 days ago.

    Also, any Chaffetz tweets yet? Remember, he was the one who actually broke it with the “reopening” investigation tweet.

    Soooooo angry right now.

  3. 3.

    GrandJury

    All this does is give the media more fuel to talk about Hillary’s emails for a few more days. This is all part of the plan if you ask me.

    It doesn’t matter if the news is that it was all a nothingburger. They have already baked in the bias that anything to do with Hillary emails = Hillary is bad.

    As far as Comey. He is just trying to cover his tracks. This gives him more political cover. Damage is already done so this letter (in a just world) does not absolve him.

  4. 4.

    Fair Economist

    So will this get blared on BREAKING headlines and lead off the national news?

    Edit: I also suspect some Republican-leaning FBI agents and managers are afraid for their jobs.

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Trentrunner: Yep, Chaffetz tweeted it out. John put up a post a minute or two before me with Chaffetz’s post. My guess is that the Trump folks are pulling their hair out because Trump is likely to lose his head over this. He went full grievance politics last night in Denver.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @Trentrunner: It never should have happened in the first place. But I’m glad it takes away the “she’s under federal investigation” talking point before election day. You and I know the “investigation” was always bogus, but in the abstract, it’s objectively not a good thing to have over one’s head.

    This, plus the final predictions that Hillary will win, will hopefully diminish Trump’s turnout just enough for us to maybe capture an extra Senate or House seat.

  9. 9.

    GrandJury

    @Baud: But it doesn’t take away the talking point. It gives the bobbleheads an excuse to keep talking about it. The context of what this letter says doesn’t matter.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    @GrandJury: Well the media can lie, but the cake is baked. The only issue is the incremental benefit on turnout, and I think this is good rather than bad.

    Do you not think the media would be talking about emails anyway?

  12. 12.

    satby

    Repeated from below, I think almost universal condemnation had an effect on Comey. He fancies himself an ethical man, and probably thought he’d be lauded for his transparency. I hope his desk is cleaned out and he’s unemployed by Friday.

  13. 13.

    Rommie

    From all the ads I’ve seen today in the football game, and where the candidates are finishing up on Monday – Trump really thinks he can win Michigan like Bernie did. I won’t put it past my state to be that stupid, but I don’t think so.

  14. 14.

    RepubAnon

    Typical trajectory for a Clinton “scandal” – blaring accusations gain headline news, eventual revelation of the accusations as nothingburgers on page 12 below the fold.

  15. 15.

    PPCLI

    @Fair Economist: I have this picture in my mind of Guliani’s active agent contacts sitting around at a poker game with Guliani on the news that fateful night when he spoke of “having some big surprises coming up” because he “talks to active agents all the time”, and everyone around the table looking at one another in horror, realizing that that cackling, gloating braggart had just dumped them into boiling water.

    Hope you enjoy the cigarette-smuggling detail in the North Dakota office, boys! New York City can get so tiresome…

  16. 16.

    James E Powell

    @GrandJury:

    Sadly, I am forced to agree with you. Any story that includes the word “emails” is bad. Any story that includes “emails” with “FBI” is worse. I expect the cable shows to feature a parade of Republicans criticizing Comey for his failure to prosecute what are clearly the worst crimes in the history of the country.

  21. 21.

    Trentrunner

    Pete Williams:

    1) This investigation is DONE (sr. law enforcement official source).

    2) Nearly ALL emails on Weiner’s laptop were duplicates and personals.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    @James E Powell: Maybe. But this could also be the trigger that propels Hair Furor out of his padded playpen to say something so incredibly unhinged that even Brett Baier blanches. A girl can dream, right?

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: It held up his coming off his plane to speak to a rally in Minnesota on the tarmac. So lets see how quickly he turns on Comey and the FBI.

  26. 26.

    scav

    @gf120581:

    Comey’s desperately trying not to get fired.

    Are you sure? His actions viewed as a whole seem deliberately designed to achieve exactly that end goal under any and all administrations of either party.

  28. 28.

    PPCLI

    @Rommie: There were a couple in the Michigan-Maryland game too. Though I think they were all from 3rd-party PAC’s. Pretty crappy ads, I must say. Lousy production, and hard to imagine them convincing anyone that wasn’t already a dittohead.

  29. 29.

    GrandJury

    @Fair Economist: They should be. They should all be ferreted out and given their walking papers. It is the FBI after all. If they cannot find out who in their own organization leaked info then they are incompetent.

    For starters, it should not be hard to track down who used that dormant FBI twitter account.

  30. 30.

    GregB

    I think this breathes life into Democrats and will likely cause Trump to corkscrew into further insanity during one of his final campaign stops.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Most likely. Where this will make a difference is in the places like Pennsylvania that don’t have early voting or by mail voting. It’ll get play today and tomorrow and may bring some people back home/raise some flagging spirits by Tuesday. And remember, the gold standard poll for Ohio came out this AM and had Clinton leading in Ohio by 1. This may help there.
    http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/11/06/dispatch-poll-finds-presidential-race-too-close-to-call.html

    As the bitter 2016 presidential campaign lurches into its final crucial days, the nation’s leading bellwether state remains ripe for plucking by either side, the Dispatch Poll found. The survey shows Democrat Hillary Clinton leading by 1 point, 48 percent to 47 percent, over Republican Donald Trump heading into the final days of the raucous race.

    Since that figure is well within the poll’s margin of sampling error (plus or minus 2.9 points), get-out-the-vote efforts will be especially important this year.

    The poll results indicate that if the Clinton campaign can get young and minority voters to the polls, she almost certainly will win. And a victory in Ohio would almost certainly end Trump’s hopes for the presidency.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @aimai: Agreed. He felt free to go off script in July and offer his personal opinion of Hillary’s IT practices. Now that the FBI is showing us its full ass, you would think it would be appropriate to say something along the lines you suggested.

  36. 36.

    Trentrunner

    Dana Bash & other CNN anchor just agreed that it’s STILL bad for Clinton because “people” will be talking emails 48 hours before the election.

    I’m going to start drinking…

  38. 38.

    tobie

    @Trentrunner: For crying out loud: couldn’t he have said in his letter that nearly all the emails were duplicates?!?!? Vagueness and innuendo are his m.o. with Clinton even when he has nothing on her. Makes me want to scream.

    BTW: re things that make we want to scream, just about everyone I’ve called when phone banking who identified himself or herself as a Bernie supporter is still playing hard to get…’oh, i dunno, she’s so corrupt.’ A pox on Bernie for having run such a negative campaign against HRC and the Democratic Party.

    P.S. It doesn’t do a damn bit of good to remind these voters that Bernie’s endorsed and is campaigning for HRC. They’ve got their religion and they are sticking to it.

  39. 39.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    She said basically what Kellyanne said the other day, it’s too late it’s already in voters minds.
    So even if as Pete Williams says that the investigation is done, there were no new e-mails found, those found were dups. it doesn’t matter because people don’t trust her. So ignore the facts, vote your feelings and attitude. The NBC/WSJ word cloud says she can’t be trusted, it’s too late.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Yes he can. It is rare, only happened once. President Clinton had to fire Director William Sessions on the recommendation of Attorney General Reno. Sessions had gotten himself into a variety of ethical and, as a result, political problems. Unfortunately, President Clinton then picked Louis Freeh to be the director. Freeh immediately turned around and opened multiple criminal investigations into President Clinton and his administration while at the same time having the Robert Hanson problem at the same time. And its important to remember that Freeh and Hanson were friends. I think they attended the same Opus Dei group together.

  43. 43.

    Patricia Kayden

    Shorter FBI: “We looked really hard but couldn’t find any dirt on Killary. Sorry Republicans.”

  44. 44.

    gene108

    @srv:

    He’s still a Russian agent. He just wants to keep those nice Federal employee retirement benefits. ?

  46. 46.

    Geoduck

    @Major Major Major Major: Someone already answered, but to add on… yes, in strict technical terms as a member of the executive branch he can be fired by the President at any time for any reason. Obviously there may be a political price to pay.

  47. 47.

    Mary G

    Hopefully, this may depress some Republican turnout. Why bother voting, if it’s all going to be rigged?

  48. 48.

    Latino J

    I hope Clinton’s policy becomes – unless we are legally bound to do so, no member of my administration will ever show up in front of a congressional group headed by Republucans.

    And just have her prsss secretary say ad nauseam, “The President owes it to the American people to keep her staff in the business of making the government work for the American people. History has proven two things 1) these investigations are baseless and will result in nothing and 2) they are driven by partisan political interest and not the best interest of the American people.” Go full Jed Bartlet/C.J. Cregg on them.

  49. 49.

    JMG

    CNN doesn’t ever think anything is good for Clinton. If she wins, their ratings go back into the dumper. Bash is a hard working reporter, although not a sharp one. She is probably just repeating what her Republican contacts on the Hill told her. I don’t see how Comey can stay on, having lost the confidence of both parties in a week.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: Nah, don’t fire him right away. Remove him from his role as Director of the FBI and then sideline him with some “special project” where he is assigned to filing or something equally humiliating so he completely loses face.

    Investigate him in every possible way that is reasonable – internal investigation, senate committees, etc. Then after two years of public humiliation, then they can fire him and take away his pension.

  52. 52.

    hovercraft

    @tobie:

    re things that make we want to scream, just about everyone I’ve called when phone banking who identified himself or herself as a Bernie supporter is still playing hard to get…’oh, i dunno, she’s so corrupt.’ A pox on Bernie for having run such a negative campaign against HRC and the Democratic Party.

    MSNBC had a clip earlier of some Bernie Bro who jumped up on stage and started spouting that same bullshit, I’m not sure if it was from this morning or yesterday.

  53. 53.

    Chyron HR

    That’s a whole lot of words just to say “Oh shit, Clinton’s still going to win. JUST KIDDING!”

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Not 100% sure on the Freeh/Hanson personal connections. I’ve not looked at that stuff in a while, but I know both are Opus Dei Catholics. Everything else is definitely correct.

  60. 60.

    WaterGirl

    @aimai:

    Comey should get his head on a platter on wednesday. That letter should have included an apology to Secretary Clinton and to the entire country.

    QFT.

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    @WaterGirl: Doesn’t work that way. The FBI directorship is a political appointment. It is for a single, non renewable ten year term in order to make it non-partisan by exceeding any two term presidency so as to preserve the independence of the director and the FBI and to avoid another J. Edgar Hoover. So he can’t simply be suspended and made to do filing while twisting in the wind. He is serving, resigning, or terminated. Those are the only three options here.

  63. 63.

    Patricia Kayden

    @aimai: Agreed. The letter doesn’t come close to addressing the interference his announcement of a new investigation posed for Clinton’s campaign. Nor did it acknowledge the bias in announcing the reopening of an anti-Clinton campaign while failing to mention any investigation into Trump’s association with Russia via Manafort.

    I don’t care how it may look to the other side. President Obama needs to fire Comey ASAP. There is no way President Hillary Clinton can work with him.

  64. 64.

    WarMunchkin

    @Latino J: Problem is that our job as Democrats and liberals is to manage both right-wing attacks and the institutions of government. Our argument to the nation and also to the world is that self government is a force for good in the world, and that includes standing for hearings even when the opposition party is in power as turds personified.

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    @hovercraft:

    it’s too late it’s already in voters minds.
    So even if as Pete Williams says that the investigation is done, there were no new e-mails found, those found were dups. it doesn’t matter because people don’t trust her. So ignore the facts, vote your feelings and attitude.

    Yes. All the early voting dips in down ballot races have happened. And now there’s Sunday NFL and Monday Night Football and life and all that shit. There is no new news cycle where this essentially FBI shart is going to be effectively walked back for any low info asshole voters.
    So fucking angry.

  66. 66.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    Exactly, everything is always bad news for Hillary.
    Kellyanne is on now calling Hillary a liar, reminding us of Comey’s testimony and his press conference, calls Hillary a hypocrite for calling Comey’s letter unprecedented, and now praising his new letter.

  67. 67.

    Bostonian

    Will the Weiner leaks lead to a pink slip for Comey?
    Was there anything of substance in the leaked Weiner material?
    Is Comey red-faced after mis-handling the Weiner case?

    I am eager to see tomorrow’s NY Daily News headline.

  72. 72.

    Peale

    @GrandJury: what…you mean that all those supposed “libertarians for Bernie” that were loudly running around the Internet in the Spring wouldn’t have been around in the Fall when it came time to vote? I thought they were sincere. I thought that they represented an untapped pool of tens, if not hundreds, of potential gotv volunteers.

  73. 73.

    Corner Stone

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Agreed. The letter doesn’t come close to addressing the interference his announcement of a new investigation posed for Clinton’s campaign.

    That letter 11 days before the election is *still* driving media news cycles. To think this POS “Ouch! My Balls!” retraction/clarification announcement ameliorates the damage done is fucking BS.

  74. 74.

    Trentrunner

    It is, empirically, not an exaggeration to say that Comey’s original letter cost the Dems any chance at the House and may very well cost us the Senate.

    Ezra Klein just tweeted that “FBI Exonerates Clinton Over Emails” is not a good closer for Clinton.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    oh good, Trump is finishing his remarks in Minnesota by attacking US senior military officials.

  77. 77.

    FlipYrWhig

    On one level I wish he would have reiterated what that earlier conclusion was, which was that there was no there there. On another level I feel like he’d fuck that up too and produce still more breathless speculation.

  78. 78.

    hovercraft

    Kellyanne has a new bugaboo, something about a housekeeper printing out Hillary’s e-mails for her at home, probably in the basement next to the server. This new letter won’t change their campaign because they have not made this the centerpiece of their campaign. They did not focus on ant of this people, you were all dreaming. She’s now rehashing their greatest hits. They never criticized him, they never came down on him. So today changes nothing they are still going to win.

  79. 79.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Corner Stone: Hopefully, Secretary Clinton banked enough early votes so that Comey’s announcement wasn’t as detrimental as it could have been.

  80. 80.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Betty Cracker: Y’know, I write imagined dialogue as a part of my living, and I am perplexed that I cannot figure out what Trump could say at this point that would turn his voters against him.

  81. 81.

    WarMunchkin

    @GrandJury:

    For starters, it should not be hard to track down who used that dormant FBI twitter account

    That’s already been solved. It was a scheduled software update that fixed a broken thing regarding documents that were slated to be released but queued instead of tweeted. (Source)

  83. 83.

    hovercraft

    @hovercraft:
    Since I’m not permitted to edit, they are in better shape this year than Romney was in 2012. They are forcing Hillary to campaign in the “blue wall states”. I wasn’t aware that candidates who are ahead spend the last few days of the campaign in their headquarters or at home. You know she is the first ever to go to PA or NH or MI or NC or FL.

  84. 84.

    D58826

    from politio –

    Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a chief surrogate for Donald Trump, accused FBI Director James Comey of caving to political pressure in his announcement on Sunday that the agency is standing by its conclusion that no case against Hillary Clinton is warranted.

    Two days before the election, Comey threw another curveball, telling lawmakers that recently discovered evidence did not change the agency’s decision in July that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton for her handling of classified material through her private server while at the State Department.

    Story Continued Below

    .

    .
    “Comey must be under enormous political pressure to cave like this and announce something he cant possibly know,” Gingrich wrote on Twitter
    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/newt-gingrich-james-comey-fbi-clinton-230845#ixzz4PGXfJBM4
    Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

    Newt may be right that Comey doesn’t now any more now than he did a week ago. Which of course is the argument for why the original letter should never have been written.

  85. 85.

    NickM

    Trump ranting against generals and the FBI should really help him with Minnesota wavering voters.

  86. 86.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig:

    On another level I feel like he’d fuck that up too and produce still more breathless speculation.

    Can you imagine the stupid shit he could have possibly said? “While our initial investigation showed HRC was reckless and put the country at risk, these follow on emails only indicate she was a danger to all Americans. But not chargeable. At this time, that is.”

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Trentrunner:

    Dana Bash & other CNN anchor just agreed that it’s STILL bad for Clinton because “people” will be talking emails 48 hours before the election.

    Yes, if only there was some kind of organization that would inform citizens of the facts about news stories. I wonder what that would be like?

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    @hovercraft: Is the Trump campaign really so stupid that they don’t understand the concept of trying to increase turnout so we could maybe, just maybe, also win the house? Or win by a big margin so even if they cheat we still win? etc etc etc

  90. 90.

    Corner Stone

    Even the very liberal MSNBC is going with Democratic hypocrisy re: Comey. This is fucking pathetic.

  91. 91.

    Doug R

    The emails were just an excuse for anyone with mild to moderate CDS syndrome to stay home.
    This should bring a few fence sitters to the polls,anybody else wasn’t really reachable by now anyways.

  92. 92.

    Corner Stone

    @Trentrunner:

    It is, empirically, not an exaggeration to say that Comey’s original letter cost the Dems any chance at the House and may very well cost us the Senate.

    Not to go too far into CT territory but I certainly think this softened support for some down ballot Senate D’s like FL, NH and maybe IN.

  94. 94.

    Barbara

    @D58826: They isolated the ones with the right metadata and put them through deduping software and reviewed the rest and found things like “remember to pick up my dry cleaning.” Newt knows jack shit about computer forensics and is wholly and totally wrong.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @liberal:

    I love the commenter in there who’s all #NeverHillaryOrTrump. I’ll bet they’re still pissed that the Minnesota Twins (59-103) weren’t declared the winners of the World Series by acclamation and instead the teams who actually qualified by winning their league’s pennants played the series.

  99. 99.

    gene108

    @Smiling Mortician:

    I think we should all get along.

    America is a nation of immigrants. My grandfather was an immigrant from Germany, my very own mother came here from Sctoland, and we should welcome people from all over the world.

    You never know, when a hardworking immigrant like my grandfather and his son, my dad, will be build a successful business and make this country great again.

    Whether you are from Mexico, El Salvador, Nigeria, India, Canada or wherever, everyone deserves a chance at the American dream.

    **************

    The above will turn off Trump voters.

  103. 103.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:
    He has law enforcement and the FBI, but everyone keeps saying the military and the intelligence community are very anti-Trump, so of course they suck. If only they were interested in serving their country, they would be on board with the Trump movement.

  106. 106.

    Smiling Mortician

    @tobie:

    For crying out loud: couldn’t he have said in his letter that nearly all the emails were duplicates?!?!?

    That’d be nice, but couldn’t he have at least included what the actual conclusions were in July? Y’know, for those medium-low-info voters who haven’t been keeping accurate track of which set of conclusions came out when?

  107. 107.

    Patricia Kayden

    @hovercraft: Kellyanne can go take several seats somewhere. No one cares about her bugaboo theories. We’re busy voting and getting our friends and families to vote. Her candidate is going to lose and hopefully badly.

  108. 108.

    gene108

    @Doug R:

    But it dampens support for her.

    There are a lot of people, who want to support something like the Democratic platform, but are hesitant to fully back Democrats because they keep hearing and reading all these terrible things about Democratic leaders, like Hillary’s e-mails, Solyndra, how all the problems with our healthcare system are now squarely Obama’s fault for passing the ACA, etc. and with their busy lives just do not have team to sort through and debunk these reports on their own.

    They just take it as given that both parties are corrupt and ineffective, with the Democrats being the lesser evil, at best.

    There are reachable people out there, if there was less noise.

    Comey’s letter just added to the noise factor.

  110. 110.

    Corner Stone

    @debbie: “In a world, where Republicans and the GOP have tried everything known under the sun to stop her to no avail. Comes the brazillionth and one attempt. Clinton Impeachment 2: The Electric Comey Boogaloo”
    /movie trailer narrator voice

  113. 113.

    James E Powell

    @JMG:

    She is probably just repeating what her Republican contacts on the Hill told her.

    I get that impression from Bash and from most CNN talking heads. I wonder, does she have Democratic contacts on the Hill? What are they telling her? We seem to hear it only when it’s a “Democrats in disarray” story.

  114. 114.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone:
    Ever since the 1st letter this has been a major meme, how can the democrats be critical when they were all so gushing before when he announced there would be no indictment. Nevermind that you can praise a person and criticize their actions, or you can change your mind when facts change. We are doomed, flip flopping is the worst sin in politics. Changing your mind is just too confusing for our media.

  118. 118.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone:

    this softened support for some down ballot Senate D’s like FL, NH and maybe IN.

    Charlie Cook has us winning NH and losing those other two, but he says NC and MO are too close to call, so at least that gives us the senate, maybe this will push Ross over the top. Missouri is it’s own thing so I have no idea what happens there. IN was always going to be hard once they put Pence on the ticket, and the millions the Kochs spent there.

  119. 119.

    James E Powell

    @Doug R:

    Who is actually listening to Conway at this point?

    Me neither. I stopped watching any of the shows a while ago. I’m guessing it’s mostly people who already agree with her. That is how propaganda works.

  120. 120.

    Adam L Silverman

    @hovercraft: Actually I think the anti generals stuff is from Flynn. He was relieved for cause in his last command and made to retire early. That wasn’t solely because he pissed off the White House. He pissed off a lot of his colleagues and peers as well. And from what I know of him, he was right, they were wrong, and they’re 1) not as smart as he is and 2) don’t know what he knows.

  121. 121.

    James E Powell

    @debbie:

    For the bazillionth time, their tricks have failed.

    If they hold the senate, their tricks have worked perfectly.

  122. 122.

    hovercraft

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I concur, the GOP always does, but this year if they could say so publicly, I bet the vast majority of the commissioned officers will vote for Hillary.

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: You’re welcome. I may clean it up and put it up as a real post at some point. Or not. You could just print out copies of the House Select Committee on Intelligence’s report and put them out at each place setting for between courses reading for your guests.

  127. 127.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Peale: @Omnes Omnibus:
    Those numbers look about what I’d expect. I further expect that if you broke the general officers/flag officers out you’d find more support for Clinton. I can’t prove that, just a hunch.

  129. 129.

    Smiling Mortician

    @gene108: Yeah. But it’s against the rules to write dialogue that goes against the known character. So if he said those things, his supporters would (rightly) assume that he’s tricking that crooked bitch Hillary and hoovering up all her votes.

    I do think, though, that he could lose them through a stage direction: Trump crosses the stage and has a long, slow, passionate kiss with a dude.

    And, scene.

  131. 131.

    Smiling Mortician

    @different-church-lady: Right. I forgot there was a difference between “the [actual] conclusion” and Comey’s conclusion. Gee, wonder if that was a part of the problem in the first place.

  135. 135.

    The Pale Scot

    @ Patricia Kayden comment 112,

    That poll is worthless

    The survey, while not a scientific poll of military voting preferences… Taken May 3-6

  138. 138.

    The Lodger

    @JMG: Gary Larson: What Dogs Hear – “bla bla bla GINGER bla bla bla bla GINGER bla bla bla…”
    Dana Bash: What Voters Hear – “CLINTON bla bla EMAILS bla bla bla FBI bla bla bla bla…”
    Unfortunately, she’s right.

  141. 141.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Adam L Silverman: I think I’ll just take your condensed 10-paragraph version from last night, format it a little better and print out a small brochure entitled “Benghazi: This is ridiculous, please stop making an ass of yourself” and leave it anonymously in the mailboxes of a few people I know.

    That’s sufficiently non-confrontational and persuasive, right?

    More seriously, I’d love to see it made into a single article/post on this site or elsewhere, with a link to the house intelligence report upon which it is based. Since we’re going to be hearing about it for the next 4-8 years, I’d love to have a simple, ready-made “You’re full of shit” article to send people for those oh-so-urgent internet arguments.

  144. 144.

    LurkerExtraordinaire

    Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met I met in the military.

    Some of the dumbest as well. So it goes….

  146. 146.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Nah, don’t fire him right away. [. . . A]fter two years of public humiliation, then they can fire him and take away his pension.

    Have to disagree. He needs to be on the streets holding a tin cup and some pencils by the end of this week. Any longer, and nobody will associate his departure, however ignominious, with his egregious interference in a presidential election.

    You might as well watch the puppy soil the carpet a couple of times but wait two or three weeks before smacking him with a rolled-up newspaper* or rubbing his nose in his shit.

    *(Not that I would, of course.)

  148. 148.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @hovercraft:

    Kellyanne is on now calling Hillary a liar can go fuck herself sideways and repeatedly with that rusted, dirt-besmirched, unrecognizable, chicken-shit-encrusted agricultural implement discovered this morning by Betty Cracker

    HALOFFTFY

  151. 151.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gelfling 545:

    Yeah, between he says what he thinks and he doesn’t really mean it, his supporters are prepared for anything.

    It occurs to me that if a President Trump (spit!) gave an address to a joint session of Congress and someone yelled “You lie!!” his response would be “You bet your sweet pussy I do!”

  152. 152.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: Adam said my fantasy is not possible. Either he stays in his position, he resigns, or he is fired. I say fired first thing in the morning after the election is settled.

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