US Election: Saint Bernard the obstinant

[Kalbear]

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Yeah, she has trouble providing convincing answers to basic questions like why did she set up her email server?  Her answer was that it was for the sake of convenience, that she didn't want to carry another device.  That's laughable.  Who really believes that?  It would have been trivial to set up her government phone to have both a government account and a personal account.  This is something many, many people are directly familiar with.

That would make sense if every other SoS and a ton of other State department employees have basically done precisely what she did, and have done so precisely to do what she said. 

Remember, the government didn't want her to use a phone to access email, private or otherwise. That was kind of a big sticking point. Especially since only some phones are allowed as your phone. I mean, seriously - I'd totally agree with you except we have evidence of every SoS doing this since 2000. Including John kerry, who has done it when he transitioned from senate to SoS and actually continues to do it now and then. 

And the not turning over emails - it's still unclear that this is the case, or that she simply didn't turn them all over in 2014. As to why it's difficult, that seems obvious - it's because she mixed work and personal email together for convenience, and almost certainly messed up now and then with which account she sent things on. 

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, Shryke said:

"It's more convenient" does not seem laughable at all and certainly one of the most believable answers to the question.

 

Shit, this is the standard answer you hear in almost any job for this type of shit.

"Why do we have to set up our secure email system so it works on iPhone again?"

"Because the boss has an iPhone and doesn't want to carry 2 phones."

She used a Blackberry, which is a standard government phone.  There would have been no issues setting that phone up to have both a work account and a personal account.

[Mudguard]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That would make sense if every other SoS and a ton of other State department employees have basically done precisely what she did, and have done so precisely to do what she said. 

Remember, the government didn't want her to use a phone to access email, private or otherwise. That was kind of a big sticking point. Especially since only some phones are allowed as your phone. I mean, seriously - I'd totally agree with you except we have evidence of every SoS doing this since 2000. Including John kerry, who has done it when he transitioned from senate to SoS and actually continues to do it now and then. 

And the not turning over emails - it's still unclear that this is the case, or that she simply didn't turn them all over in 2014. As to why it's difficult, that seems obvious - it's because she mixed work and personal email together for convenience, and almost certainly messed up now and then with which account she sent things on. 

No SoS has set up their own personal server, and only Powell used personal emails exclusively.  Also, the rules for preserving emails sent and received on personal email accounts were updated in 2009, when Clinton started as SoS.  

Clinton used a Blackberry, which is a standard government phone.  There would have been no problem setting it up to have both a work account and a personal account.  I think it's pretty obvious Clinton set up the server to have more control over her emails, and not for reasons of convenience.  

It's clear that the emails that she turned over is incomplete.  It's missing the first 4 months of her tenure as SoS and some emails from Petraeus.  It's possible that the emails from Petraeus are also from that 4 month period though.  This was determined after she turned over everything she had.

[Dr. Pepper]

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has done some great analysis on Trump's seemingly compulsive bullying behavior, especially how he attacks women. I'm posting from my phone so excerpting is difficult, but it is definitely worth a read. Midway through the piece, Marshall also links to a column he wrote in January called "Triumph of the Will," which was one of the first things I read that zeroed in on his "dominance politics." Also worth a read.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-trumpian-song-of-gender-violence

 

I just wanted to pull out this quote from that article for a moment:

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The simple fact is that there's no evidence or logic to the idea that anyone who doesn't already hate Hillary Clinton with a passion will believe that she is culpable in some way for her husband's acts of infidelity against her. Even if you think Clinton is not simply a chronic philanderer but some sort of sexual abuser - a claim for which there is really little or no evidence, that's Bill Clinton, not Hillary Clinton. Holding her responsible for her husband's acts, for which she is if anything a victim, is as logically ridiculous as it is morally sickening.

As so often happens with this topic, the author here is missing a big point.  The problem Hillary is facing is that she's is an advocate for victims of sexual violence.  She strongly supports believing victims of sexual violence.  Except, of course, when it comes to her husband's victims.  One can have sympathy for Hillary as an embarrassed or wronged wife while also acknowledging that her using a national stage to continue to silence victims of sexual assault while keeping an accused rapist front and center is highly problematic.  For whatever reason, too many seem to think that they can't look at this both ways, and so you get horrific things like this author jumping on board the 'silence/shame the victim' train by claiming there is little or no evidence which implies that the author also thinks victims should never be believed unless there is a semen stained dress or something.   Fuck that fucking noise.  

The media and progressive voters are going to need to stop discussing it this way, especially when Bill's victims are giving interviews about the pain they continue to suffer due to their assaults as well as their voices being used in attack ads.  Twenty years ago it was a whole lot easier to mock and ridicule rape and abuse victims.  Today, it's thankfully a lot more difficult.  

 

[Kalbear]

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No SoS has set up their own personal server, and only Powell used personal emails exclusively.  Also, the rules for preserving emails sent and received on personal email accounts were updated in 2009, when Clinton started as SoS.  

Clinton used a Blackberry, which is a standard government phone.  There would have been no problem setting it up to have both a work account and a personal account.  I think it's pretty obvious Clinton set up the server to have more control over her emails, and not for reasons of convenience.  

 

Other SoS actually have used their own personal server as well as their own personal email system. This appears to be a falsehood. I do realize that the rules on keeping email were updated in 2009. The rules on receiving on personal accounts haven't changed - the only rule is that if you get them on a personal account, they need to be archived at some point before you leave the position. That's it. 

As to the blackberry, it is a standard issue phone; apparently due to some bizarre state department bullshit it doesn't handle getting mails from the state department well. This is what every SoS since Rice has stated. I know, this sounds completely stupid to me too - but again, every SoS for the last 16 years has dealt with this bullshit - including Kerry! This, IMO, is the real problem - how on earth do you explain to people that the State department's IT sucks ass and is hugely behind the times in a way that makes any kind of sense at all? 

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It's clear that the emails that she turned over is incomplete.  It's missing the first 4 months of her tenure as SoS and some emails from Petraeus.  It's possible that the emails from Petraeus are also from that 4 month period though.  This was determined after she turned over everything she had.

No, it's clear that the emails she turned over in 2014 wasn't complete. She has since turned over those emails. And she's been turning over more things since that time.

[Swordfish]

2 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

You're not stating facts though, you're shutting down a discourse surrounding the process with angry certainty--and it's far wider spread than this thread. I don't really care, I've accepted the outcome of this, and I know how I'm going to vote, but by disregarding a large portion of angry, working class voters with nicknames like "Berners," or comparing them to fanatics, as the media loves to do, isn't doing the Left any favors. These people are getting angrier.

When Bernie says something to the effect of a single parent should be able to support his/her kids and have discretionary income, that's a powerful message to people who are scraping by. I've been a public school teacher for eight years, and a single father, and I barely make it month to month. My retirement plan (PERA) is decent, and because of this it is constantly on the table for being raided (why, no one in the private sector has a good retirement, why should we?), and trying to save while saddled with massive debt feels impossible. Bernie's message is powerful to people in these oppressive life circumstances who feel like the last eight years haven't improved much.

I've come to accept this is just the way it is for now, but a lot of people are tired and want things to change now. They want Bernie to do it. You can't blame their desperation. And when it feels like the DNC, Hillary, Hillary supporters, etc., mock these general complaints--I don't see how many of these people are expected to show up on election day. A problem with Furor Trump on the horizon.

I don't see why you find this surprising.

The left has become so accustomed to this MO over the years that it's their default position toward anyone they disagree with.  Belittle, shout down, cry foul....  it's hardly surprising that these particular tactics are now being applied to candidates of their own that fail to fully fall in line.

Same thing for the Sanders  approach of trying to delegitimize the process, and crying 'cheater'.  Democrats in large numbers have been employing this tactic to explain their losses for almost two decades now.  After all, why else would so many dummies not make the same choices that educated, elite voters themselves were making?  it simply defies explanation, and therefor there must be something untoward going on.

 Why is anyone surprised that it's happening again?

I think what you are seeing is a good parallel to what happened to the GOP over the last ten years, in that the DNC created this monster, and now are  scratching their heads and picking up their torches when it turns on them.  

 

 

[Mudguard]

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Other SoS actually have used their own personal server as well as their own personal email system. This appears to be a falsehood. I do realize that the rules on keeping email were updated in 2009. The rules on receiving on personal accounts haven't changed - the only rule is that if you get them on a personal account, they need to be archived at some point before you leave the position. That's it. 

As to the blackberry, it is a standard issue phone; apparently due to some bizarre state department bullshit it doesn't handle getting mails from the state department well. This is what every SoS since Rice has stated. I know, this sounds completely stupid to me too - but again, every SoS for the last 16 years has dealt with this bullshit - including Kerry! This, IMO, is the real problem - how on earth do you explain to people that the State department's IT sucks ass and is hugely behind the times in a way that makes any kind of sense at all? 

No, it's clear that the emails she turned over in 2014 wasn't complete. She has since turned over those emails. And she's been turning over more things since that time.

Which other SoS had their own private email servers?  Albright and Rice didn't use email for work, and Powell used a commercial provider.  Maybe Kerry?  He's rich enough to afford one.   Regardless, no SoS before Clinton ever used a personal email server to conduct work.

From the OIG report, pages 23 to 24:

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NARA agrees with the foregoing assessment but told OIG that Secretary Clinton’s production of 55,000 pages of emails mitigated her failure to properly preserve emails that qualified as Federal records during her tenure and to surrender such records upon her departure. OIG concurs with NARA but also notes that Secretary Clinton’s production was incomplete. For example, the Department and OIG both determined that the production included no email covering the first few months of Secretary Clinton’s tenure—from January 21, 2009, to March 17, 2009, for received messages; and from January 21, 2009, to April 12, 2009, for sent messages. OIG discovered multiple instances in which Secretary Clinton’s personal email account sent and received official business email during this period. For instance, the Department of Defense provided to OIG in September 2015 copies of 19 emails between Secretary Clinton and General David Petraeus on his official Department of Defense email account; these 19 emails were not in the Secretary’s 55,000-page production. OIG also learned that the 55,000-page production did not contain some emails that an external contact not employed by the Department sent to Secretary Clinton regarding Department business. In an attempt to address these deficiencies, NARA requested that the Department inquire with Secretary Clinton’s “internet service or email provider” to determine whether it is still possible to retrieve the email records that might remain on its servers. 99 The Department conveyed this request to Secretary Clinton’s representative and on November 6, 2015, the Under Secretary for Management reported to NARA that the representative responded as follows:

With regard to her tenure as Secretary of State, former Secretary Clinton has provided the Department on December 5, 2014, with all federal e-mail records in her custody, regardless of their format or the domain on which they were stored or created, that may not otherwise be preserved, to our knowledge, in the Department’s recordkeeping system. She does not have custody of e-mails sent or received during the first few weeks of her tenure as she was transitioning to a new address, and we have been unable to obtain these. In the event we do, we will immediately provide the Department with federal record e-mails in this collection.

It's clear that the Inspector General found that Cilnton's email production was incomplete.  Clinton's representative (second paragraph of the quote above) has also admitted that they don't have the emails from the start of her tenure.  If you have some other citation that shows otherwise, I'd like to see it.  I find it extremely unlikely that such a link exists though, given that this report was just published and should be up to date.

[Kalbear]

But the emails from the beginning of the tenure weren't on the private server. It's actually unclear where they are at all. 

And the 55,000 pages of emails are what were delivered in 2014. They were not all that were delivered, IIRC. 

[Mudguard]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

But the emails from the beginning of the tenure weren't on the private server. It's actually unclear where they are at all. 

And the 55,000 pages of emails are what were delivered in 2014. They were not all that were delivered, IIRC. 

Her last production of emails was on Dec. 5, 2014.  Please provide a source for your assertion that Clinton provided additional emails after this date and that she provided emails from the first several months of her tenure as SoS.  The facts are clear.  Clinton's email production was incomplete.

Also, please provide a source for your assertion that other SoS had a personal server.  It's not in the OIG report, which contains a summary of each SoS email practice or lack thereof.

[Kalbear]

You appear to be right. She handed over those emails. What I was thinking about is which emails have been released to the general public - and that has been slower. But per her website she released everything in December 2014. I was also apparently thinking of her subordinates, who handed over emails much later that appear to have come from private and public accounts. (this is on page 24 of the report linked above too). 

As to SoS, you're also right. Rice and Powell both used private email accounts on google, not their own homegrown one. The person who most notably used their own private server was Jeb Bush. My mistake. Note that using a private server is not a violation of the rules in the state department either. 

[Kalbear]

Though this from the report gets to a point I made earlier - the government IT program is completely fucked.

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In March 2009, after unsuccessful efforts to supply Secretary Clinton with a secure government smartphone, DS was informed that Secretary Clinton’s staff had been asking to use BlackBerry devices inside classified areas. The Assistant Secretary of DS then sent a classified memorandum to Secretary Clinton’s Chief of Staff that described the vulnerabilities associated with the use of BlackBerry devices and also noted the prohibition on the use of Blackberry devices in sensitive areas. According to a DS official, shortly after the memorandum was delivered, Secretary Clinton approached the Assistant Secretary and told him she “gets it.”

And she did it anyway, often absurdly famously. Maybe that's how she'd spin it and how she should - that while the regulations were sound, in the day and age of smartphones and the internet it is beyond absurd to think that people shouldn't have a smart phone access. They've eased this restriction since then, but seriously...what a horrible place to work. From what I've seen of people using their smart phones this appears to also be completely and willfully ignored all the time. Doesn't mean it's wrong, just that  I don't think a lot of people are going to feel horrible at her for wanting to use a smart phone.

[Martell Spy]

 

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Trump pledged $1 million to veterans then tried to get out of giving the money then attacked reporters who dared report it.

 

How many Republicans who had those ribbons on their cars will care?  A few, I hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't worry. He has "something terrific" planned for veterans once he's elected and takes office. Which is why you should hand him the nuke codes.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

Don't worry. He has "something terrific" planned for veterans once he's elected and takes office. Which is why you should hand him the nuke codes.

Of course. "Something terrific" means something that inspires terror. It's what the word means.

[Kalbear]

Well, this is interesting.

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Kimmel asked Trump if he'd be willing to debate Sanders, given that Hillary Clinton had turned her primary opponent down for a California debate. Trump declared he would -- as long as the proceeds go to charity.

As he accepted the hypothetical debate, Trump asked, perhaps jokingly, how much Sanders would be willing to pay him -- for charity -- then conceded that it would be fine if a network were willing to put up the money. Trump also said he has never met Sanders.

Sanders took to Twitter right away with his response:

Game on. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 26, 2016

There was no immediate reaction from the Clinton campaign.

 

 

[Kalbear]

Also of note: what can Trump legally do as president? Alternately, how to tyrant-proof the White House.

[Lightysnake88]

At this point, quite honestly? Fuck Sanders. This is just the most irresponsible move he's pulled yet.

[The Marquis de Leech]

10 minutes ago, Lightysnake88 said:

At this point, quite honestly? Fuck Sanders. This is just the most irresponsible move he's pulled yet.

Agreed. Sorry, Bernie, but unless you ran this past Hillary first (and I really doubt you did), this is the height of arrogance and irresponsibility. 

(To be honest, I'd apply the same reasoning to Hillary debating Trump at this point - it's irresponsible to effectively speak on behalf of your party like that while there is still competition for the nomination. Though at least Hillary would have the excuse of being the de facto nominee).

[Martell Spy]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/the-democrats-wasserman-schultz-problem-223589

 

The Democrats' Wasserman Schultz problem
Removing the DNC chairwoman might not be worth the headache.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Agreed. Sorry, Bernie, but unless you ran this past Hillary first (and I really doubt you did), this is the height of arrogance and irresponsibility. 

(To be honest, I'd apply the same reasoning to Hillary debating Trump at this point - it's irresponsible to effectively speak on behalf of your party like that while there is still competition for the nomination. Though at least Hillary would have the excuse of being the de facto nominee).

Are we trying to outlaw free speech now?  I see no legal prohibition against two men holding a public debate, and the arguments against appear to be purely partisan.

[mormont]

Just now, ThinkerX said:

Are we trying to outlaw free speech now?  I see no legal prohibition against two men holding a public debate, and the arguments against appear to be purely partisan.

Did anyone claim they weren't partisan? The argument RBPL makes appears to me to be explicitly so: that's his whole point, that this decision is harmful to the party Sanders claims to be representing.

And why is it that any criticism of a decision is somehow conflated with making that decision illegal? I mean, are you trying to outlaw RBPL's free speech now, by disagreeing with it? Am I trying to outlaw yours? This idea that criticising someone is anti-free speech is nonsense.