US Elections 2016: Why we can't have nice things

[Boris the Blade]

6 minutes ago, StepStark said:

If you think that Hillary Clinton had the same treatment any other citizen would have under same or similar accusations, then your view on the US legal and political system is too naive for my taste, sorry to say.

Ah, assumptions. I love them. I can say that Clinton was treated differently than white politicians in her place, specifically male politicians. Bush had 10 embassies attacked under his watch that resulted in 60 deaths. No investigation like what Clinton went through. Bush and Cheney and their administration committed war crimes, no investigation. Same administration used private servers, no investigation. 

 

[Boris the Blade]

2 minutes ago, StepStark said:

I wasn't conflating the two. We were discussing judgement. He said that Trump's judgement is poor. And maybe it is. But I wanted to point to great many other people whose judgement is never or seldom questioned, even though their judgement is certainly not less problematic than Trump's. With regards to emails, I'm not a US citizen so I'm not personally invested in the issue, but speaking as an outsider, if there really were 30.000 emails that were erased then it's a big problem for which someone has to answer. If nobody answered for 30.000 missing emails, then the investigators failed at their job. It's really simple as that. Public officials shouldn't be allowed to lose or erase public documents like that. Those emails are public documents. Not public like ready to be published, but they aren't personal either. If I were a US citizen, I would be very upset that someone destroyed public documents and nobody was found accountable for that.

Trump's judgement is very poor. He lost nearly billion dollars in one year and has claimed 4 bankruptcies as well. That alone is enough proof to show the guy has terrible judgement. Do we have to go through a list of his failed businesses to solidify it? 

[DanteGabriel]

Bush's administration wiped out 22 million emails from their own shadow email servers while there was suspicion that he'd fired federal prosecutors who refused to trump up charges against Democrats, and no one suffered any consequences.

But these impartial foreign observers who truly have no investment in the issue but have deep knowledge of all of Clinton's misdeeds somehow never remember that when they make these specious claims that Clinton skated while anyone else would have been locked up. Did I get that all right?

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, StepStark said:

I wasn't conflating the two. We were discussing judgement. He said that Trump's judgement is poor. And maybe it is. But I wanted to point to great many other people whose judgement is never or seldom questioned, even though their judgement is certainly not less problematic than Trump's. With regards to emails, I'm not a US citizen so I'm not personally invested in the issue, but speaking as an outsider, if there really were 30.000 emails that were erased then it's a big problem for which someone has to answer. If nobody answered for 30.000 missing emails, then the investigators failed at their job. It's really simple as that. Public officials shouldn't be allowed to lose or erase public documents like that. Those emails are public documents. Not public like ready to be published, but they aren't personal either. If I were a US citizen, I would be very upset that someone destroyed public documents and nobody was found accountable for that.

The FBI investigated Hillary and found no evidence of her committing a crime. But judgement on her part is a different matter, with respect to the email thing.

If it were a crime to delete emails, you might have a point. But, evidently it wasn't.

Maybe it should be a crime for a public official to delete any email. But, evidently that wasn't the law. 

Also, your claim that Hillary's judgement has never been questioned by her supporters isn't true. Maybe you don't know that. But, aside from the email issue, many within Hillary's own party have questioned her actions in Libya (and not the Benghazi bullshit). And many are a bit uncomfortable to her approach to foreign policy. 

But the fact of the matter is between the two Hillary and Trump, Hillary wins hands down in the judgement department.

[StepStark]

9 minutes ago, Daniel Plainview said:

Yea I totally think a corrupt fuck with multiple law suits against him, one of which is for raping a child is the one to help fix the fucking system. The same person that thinks an american judge of mexican decent is incapable of being objective and only was going after him for that Trump university fraud case because of what he said about mexicans. The same one that paid off Pam Bondi to not investigate him for Trump university fraud down in Florida. 

If you don't know if Trump is biased and vindictive in his personal life, you must have been living under a rock. And his remarks are hypocritical and laughable given the legal history against him in the past and currently. 

I also think the director of the FBI would know the law better than some orange fucking hack businessman and know what he can and can not prosecute. 

Are you one of those whiny Benghazi types? 

I don't know why are you upset and angry, but that shouldn't give you the right to call names on anyone without any reason. No I'm not one of those Benghazi types, but even if I were, you don't seem like a person who would have the right to criticize me for that. For my taste, it is whiny to obsess over Trump and his misdeeds but fail to see anything wrong with Hillary Clinton, whose actions were inevitably worse and more tragic than Trumps simply due to the fact that she was directly involved and responsible for some of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time.

1 minute ago, Daniel Plainview said:

Ah, assumptions. I love them. I can say that Clinton was treated differently than white politicians in her place, specifically male politicians. Bush had 10 embassies attacked under his watch that resulted in 60 deaths. No investigation like what Clinton went through. Bush and Cheney and their administration committed war crimes, no investigation. Same administration used private servers, no investigation. 

I don't have a problem with investigating Bush and Cheney. In fact, I would love to see them answer for all of their crimes, that are certainly not less than Hillary's. And if Trump is guilty of what you are saying, he should answer too if a proper investigation proves him guilty. I don't want Trump to be above the law. But why do you want Hillary to be above the law?

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Knowing it, he is now behaving like a lame-duck candidate, intent on settling scores, going after the Clintons with a vengeance and scorching vacillating establishment types who are (in Trump’s view) knifing him to save their own corrupt hides. His campaign is expected to bring Bill Clinton’s accusers onto the trail and sources close to the GOP nominee indicate that more sordid allegations about the Clintons’ personal lives may be only days away.
“This campaign is going to be so terrible,” Caputo acknowledged, “we're all going to smell like it for the next seven to eight years.”

Trump, unbound
Deserted and detested, the GOP nominee feels free to tell people what he really thinks.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-republicans-229577

 

[The Anti-Targ]

31 minutes ago, StepStark said:

But if he comes up with a reasonable suggestion? Is that allowed? Like, if he sees that the prosecutor is failing at his job for some reason, and makes a suggestion who to investigate? Or perhaps because he knows some things and wants to report them. Shouldn't that be allowed, even for president?

Let's not talk in hypotheticals shall we? Candidate Trump has suggested he'd personally instigate a criminal prosecution of Hilary Clinton once he's president based currently on nothing but his personal hatred for her. This is just wrong. But you want to generalise it out to suggesting people are saying no failed presidential candidate should ever be investigated for anything and no sitting president who possesses relevant information to a criminal case pertaining to a former candidate should release that information to the prosecution.

Sheeeeeit! if Trump has hard evidence of criminality on the part of Hillary right now he should be handing that over to prosecutors today, not waiting until he's president. But he isn't doing that, because he's got no evidence. So his threats of criminal prosecution of Clinton would amount to launching a fishing expedition on a recently defeated candidate. How does one argue that this is not fundamentally wrong?

[Boris the Blade]

9 minutes ago, StepStark said:

I don't know why are you upset and angry, but that shouldn't give you the right to call names on anyone without any reason. No I'm not one of those Benghazi types, but even if I were, you don't seem like a person who would have the right to criticize me for that. For my taste, it is whiny to obsess over Trump and his misdeeds but fail to see anything wrong with Hillary Clinton, whose actions were inevitably worse and more tragic than Trumps simply due to the fact that she was directly involved and responsible for some of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time.

I don't have a problem with investigating Bush and Cheney. In fact, I would love to see them answer for all of their crimes, that are certainly not less than Hillary's. And if Trump is guilty of what you are saying, he should answer too if a proper investigation proves him guilty. I don't want Trump to be above the law. But why do you want Hillary to be above the law?

Why am I upset and angry? Because I am sick and tired of people like you that ignorantly spout off and do so thanks to right wing lies, smears and half truths.
Also, me focusing on Trump as a counter to the constant ignorant Clinton bashing is not ignoring the issues with Clinton. 
And who is saying Clinton is above the law? You admit you're not a US citizen, so maybe you don't know our laws. 
She was investigated, the FBI didn't half ass it because it was Clinton, if anything, they went harder knowing it was Clinton and knowing that there potentially could have been extremely secure files that were in private email server that was not secure. Even more so when the director of the FBI  is a republican. 

Also, there is no reason to have a dick measuring contest over what is worse, because that just minimizes the crimes Trump has committed, multiple of them being rape and sexual assault, and that is just really a dickish thing to do.

BTW, stop using straw man arguments. 

Also, did you ignore the shit Trump has said about how he would kill civilians that are terrorist family members or how he would torture terror suspects even if it didn't get info out of them just because they deserve it? 

[DanteGabriel]

4 minutes ago, StepStark said:

But why do you want Hillary to be above the law?

The FBI and a bunch of different hostile Congressional committees spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars investigating Hillary Clinton and turned up nothing. What evidence do you have that she's been treated as if she were above the law? That you, a non-American who professes not to be that interested, think she should have been busted?

[StepStark]

3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

The FBI investigated Hillary found little evidence of her committing a crime. But judgement on her part is a different matter.

If were a crime to delete emails, you might have a point. But, evidently it wasn't.

Maybe it should be a crime for a public official to delete any email. But, evidently that wasn't the law. 

Something is wrong there: either emails are public documents, or they aren't. If they are, is they probably are because if not this wouldn't be an issue at all, then someone has to answer if they get deleted. Bush's emails, Cheney's emails, Hillary's emails, one day Trump's emails if he holds some public office. Someone has to answer for that. If the investigation didn't find who's responsible for that, then it was a failed investigation. For all emails, not just Hillary's. Simple as that.

3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Also, your claim that Hillary's judgement has never been questioned by her supporters isn't true. Maybe you don't know that. But, aside from the email issue, many within Hillary's own party have questioned her actions in Libya (and not the Benghazi bullshit). And many are a bit uncomfortable to her approach to foreign policy. 

But the fact of the matter is between the two Hillary and Trump, Hillary wins hands down in the judgement department.

That's logical fallacy, sorry to say. Hillary never ran a private business, so we don't know how she would prove herself in that field. Trump never held any public office, so we don't know how good would he be. We may guess, but we can't know for sure in either case. That's why I don't think you can say that anyone wins down on the issue of judgement. But we do know that Hillary has a terrible judgement when it comes to public offices. If they were running for a business position, maybe Hillary would be in advantage there, because we would know how bad Trump was at it. But they aren't. They are running for the president.

And speaking of judgement, she apparently doesn't know or doesn't care what the "no fly zone" over Syria would lead to at this point. How's that for a judgement?

[Boris the Blade]

1 minute ago, StepStark said:

Something is wrong there: either emails are public documents, or they aren't. If they are, is they probably are because if not this wouldn't be an issue at all, then someone has to answer if they get deleted. Bush's emails, Cheney's emails, Hillary's emails, one day Trump's emails if he holds some public office. Someone has to answer for that. If the investigation didn't find who's responsible for that, then it was a failed investigation. For all emails, not just Hillary's. Simple as that.

That's logical fallacy, sorry to say. Hillary never ran a private business, so we don't know how she would prove herself in that field. Trump never held any public office, so we don't know how good would he be. We may guess, but we can't know for sure in either case. That's why I don't think you can say that anyone wins down on the issue of judgement. But we do know that Hillary has a terrible judgement when it comes to public offices. If they were running for a business position, maybe Hillary would be in advantage there, because we would know how bad Trump was at it. But they aren't. They are running for the president.

And speaking of judgement, she apparently doesn't know or doesn't care what the "no fly zone" over Syria would lead to at this point. How's that for a judgement?

The only thing wrong here is that you have no clue what you're talking about and are another Trump apologist.  
Yea, one has actual experience in politics and actually has accomplishments. The other supposedly is this great businessman, but evidence shows he sucks at what is supposed to be his bread and butter, and I am supposed to think he can handle one of the biggest economies in the world when he fails at doing what he is supposed to be good at? Lol. 

[OldGimletEye]

3 minutes ago, StepStark said:

 

That's logical fallacy, sorry to say. Hillary never ran a private business, so we don't know how she would prove herself in that field. Trump never held any public office, so we don't know how good would he be. We may guess, but we can't know for sure in either case. That's why I don't think you can say that anyone wins down on the issue of judgement. But we do know that Hillary has a terrible judgement when it comes to public offices. If they were running for a business position, maybe Hillary would be in advantage there, because we would know how bad Trump was at it. But they aren't. They are running for the president.

And speaking of judgement, she apparently doesn't know or doesn't care what the "no fly zone" over Syria would lead to at this point. How's that for a judgement?

No what is a logical fallacy here is you writing that I wrote a logical fallacy. Fact of the matter is I have listened to Trump's policy statements and know for a fact he doesn't know what in the fuck he is talking about with regard to American public policy issues. And he seemingly hasn't bothered to try to educate himself.

And I have listened to Hillary's pronouncements and have concluded that generally she does know what she is talking about.

Nice try on your part. But, epic fail.

[StepStark]

4 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

The FBI and a bunch of different hostile Congressional committees spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars investigating Hillary Clinton and turned up nothing. What evidence do you have that she's been treated as if she were above the law? That you, a non-American who professes not to be that interested, think she should have been busted?

Is anyone found accountable for missing emails? Not just Hillary's, but also Bush's and Cheney's. Is anyone found responsible for the Middle East fiasco?

How can you then say that all those Committees did a good job?

As for me being not that interested, that's just about emails. I meant, US citizens should be a lot more interested in those emails than I am, because all those emails should belong to them at the end of the day. That is the nature of a public office. If I were a US citizen, I would be very upset over those and other missing emails. As for everything else, I am naturally very interested in US elections, because of the global influence they obviously have.

[Jasta11]

53 minutes ago, StepStark said:

What's disturbing for me is this idea that whoever loses the presidential race should never be investigated.

Well, she was investigated. Several times, if memory serves, and while she was said to have been extremely reckless, in this scenario recklessness does not translate into criminal charges. That requires malicious intent, which wasn't closed to proven.

Furthermore, the distrubing part is the President directing his AG to investigate on a particular person (not his power), on a particular charge (not his power), a charge on which he has already, and obviously, made up his mind (hopefully don't need to explain that). That throws both due process and the separation of powers to the dogs, and should absolutely not be tolerated in a democracy. Even moreso if said threat is made during a public debate. I thought this was the United States of America, not a freaking banana republic or Taiwan.

In fact, that was one of the charges leveraged againt Nixon. The President doesn't get to use the AG's powers as a political weapon against opponents.

[DanteGabriel]

I didn't say that the committees did a good job, because fuck if I know. I assume the FBI did a decent job investigating her, which I notice you left out of your hack job of specious reasoning. 

The legal system has done all it can to bring Hillary Clinton down and found nothing. She is not above the law. The law has judged her and found nothing illegal.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, StepStark said:

As for me being not that interested, that's just about emails. I meant, US citizens should be a lot more interested in those emails than I am, because all those emails should belong to them at the end of the day. That is the nature of a public office. If I were a US citizen, I would be very upset over those and other missing emails. As for everything else, I am naturally very interested in US elections, because of the global influence they obviously have.

Given that we have some deep economic issues, we have some troubling race and gender issues, we have some difficult foreign policy issues, I could give a fuck less about those missing emails. Particularly since there is no evidence that they contained any criminal subject matter, nor was the deletion of them criminal.

[StepStark]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Plainview said:

The only thing wrong here is that you have no clue what you're talking about and are another Trump apologist.  
Yea, one has actual experience in politics and actually has accomplishments. The other supposedly is this great businessman, but evidence shows he sucks at what is supposed to be his bread and butter, and I am supposed to think he can handle one of the biggest economies in the world when he fails at doing what he is supposed to be good at? Lol. 

Funny that you keep ignoring her plan for Syria, that will lead to the war with Russia.

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

No what is a logical fallacy here is you writing that I wrote a logical fallacy. Fact of the matter is I have listened to Trump's policy statements and know for a fact he doesn't know what in the fuck he is talking about with regard to American public policy issues. And he seemingly hasn't bothered to try to educate himself.

And I have listened to Hillary's pronouncements and have concluded that generally she does know what she is talking about.

Nice try on your part. But, epic fail.

You too keep forgetting her plan for Syria. But at least you're not rude and disrespectful like the other guy.

[Tempra]

29 minutes ago, Daniel Plainview said:

Ah, assumptions. I love them. I can say that Clinton was treated differently than white politicians in her place, specifically male politicians. Bush had 10 embassies attacked under his watch that resulted in 60 deaths. No investigation like what Clinton went through. Bush and Cheney and their administration committed war crimes, no investigation. Same administration used private servers, no investigation. 

 

Actually, Holder appointed a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of CIA torture, something Obama alluded to on the campaign trail.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/24/AR2009082401743.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-special-prosecutor-1476143987

 

[The Anti-Targ]

4 minutes ago, StepStark said:

Something is wrong there: either emails are public documents, or they aren't. If they are, is they probably are because if not this wouldn't be an issue at all, then someone has to answer if they get deleted. 

Looks at 3 shredding bins on my floor, which is one floor of 18 floors occupied by one govt department...hmm legal destruction of govt documents happens all the time. In addition, use of a private e-mail means probably a lot of e-mails that were not secState business and hence not govt property and hence not subject to any retention laws. Deleting an email of one e-mail account does not remove that email from existence, the email still exists on the sender's account and other recipients. Any e-mail sent from an official govt e-mail to HRC's private email or from HRC to a govt email will be permanently archived in the govt email archive, so it would be a simple thing to search for all emails sent to or received from HRC's personal email.

 

[Boris the Blade]

4 minutes ago, StepStark said:

Is anyone found accountable for missing emails? Not just Hillary's, but also Bush's and Cheney's. Is anyone found responsible for the Middle East fiasco?

How can you then say that all those Committees did a good job?

As for me being not that interested, that's just about emails. I meant, US citizens should be a lot more interested in those emails than I am, because all those emails should belong to them at the end of the day. That is the nature of a public office. If I were a US citizen, I would be very upset over those and other missing emails. As for everything else, I am naturally very interested in US elections, because of the global influence they obviously have.

Private emails are the least of my concerns. Making sure a failed rapist businessman that is capable of losing nearly a billion dollars in a year and claiming 4 bankruptcies that also wants to strip rights away from certain demographics, doesn't get into the white house is my biggest concern. Making sure a qualified person that actually knows what she is talking about that won't strip the rights of certain demographics gets into office is also a bigger concern.