U.S. Elections: American Hitler 2016

[Shryke]

11 hours ago, lokisnow said:

I largely love sanders positions, and thank god he has pulled the democrats left on social security, before this primary the morons of DC democrats wanted to prove how republican loyalist they were by cutting social security, for example. So I do like the effect he has had, but the underlying truth is that down ballot buildup is what we need, a class of 76, watergate babies sort of thing, but that is not what any democrat, even sanders is doing. i like the way he has comported himself as a senator more than the way he has campaigned. Idealism counts for very little and position purity of holding out for the perfect over the good can be a disasterous policy approach.

Actually Clinton is pushing down ballot stuff alot.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/clinton-moves-forward-50-state-strategy
 

Quote

 

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign will maintain staff in all 50 states during the general election with an eye toward overwhelming Republicans in the fall and rebuilding the Democratic Party’s infrastructure thereafter. […]
 
Many states in which Clinton will be employing staff and spending resources will almost assuredly vote against her anyway. She could end up wasting money that is needed to win swing states. But her staffers say the investment is well worth it.

 

 

And some recent polling does suggest even the House might be in play. Maybe. Possibly. Slimly.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

23 hours ago, ants said:

The kicker for me was the last one. In 30000 emails, they found three which had classified information. For all three the classification wasn't in the header, but was for particular paragraphs within the emails, all were the lowest level of classification, and the designation was (I think) <C> to indicate it. So in 0.01% of her emails she missed that within the body there was a <C>. That is the extent of her "crime". I think its pretty obvious from that that Clinton's assertion she did not use classified material on that server is pretty much true.

 

23 hours ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

Not that I've seen. But thanks, ants, for.pointing out how incredibly stupid this has been.

I honestly can't believe these posts have been sitting around for almost a full 24 hours with nobody bothering to point out how utterly wrong they are.

Here's a link to the most thorough New York Times articles on the FBI's findings (as expressed through Comey's testimony to Congress) that I could find. 

It is not the case that only three emails sent through Clinton's private server had classified information. In fact, it was at least 110 emails that were marked classified at the time they were sent:

Quote

At least 110 emails sent through her server contained information that was classified at the time it was sent, he said, meaning it should never have been sent or received on an unclassified computer network — not hers, not even the State Department’s official state.gov system.

In addition, there were about 1,000 emails sent through Clinton's private server that were marked "sensitive but unclassified" at the time they were sent.

Quote

Other paragraphs in the note about Mr. Annan’s resignation were marked “(SBU),” for “sensitive but unclassified.” That designation appears in more than 1,000 of the 30,000 work-related emails that Mrs. Clinton turned over to the State Department, including some later “upgraded” to higher levels of classification.

When the State Department was forced to release Clinton's work-related private server emails, 2,000 of them were upgraded to higher levels of classification. 

None of the above should have gone through a private server system. None should have been sent through unsecured emails. 

It's important to note - this is not primarily about Clinton using her own server. It's about Clinton's gross negligence in failing to consistently utilize the State Department's internal system for distributing classified and sensitive information, which is a closed system specifically designed to prevent that information from being accessed by anyone who shouldn't be able to access it. 

Comey's findings also directly contradict claims that Clinton has made about her private email use.

She said she never sent any emails that were classified as Confidential at the time she sent them. This is not true. At least 110 of them were sent through Clinton's server on email chains that she was active on.

Clinton also said that her lawyers "went through every single email" to determine which were work related and which were not. Comey testified that this is not true - her lawyers used header information and key search terms in order to identify work related emails, and that it is "highly likely" that this process led them to omit some work-related emails. This is particularly significant because Clinton's lawyers are apparently the sole gatekeepers in determining what emails were even turned over to the government for review. Clinton's "team" has made it effectively impossible to verify whether or not all work-related emails have been turned over.

I am surprised at how not seriously this is being taken here. It seems quite possible at this point that some of Clinton's closest aides during her tenure of Secretary of State, who are likely to be involved in her Presidency, may NOT be granted security clearances necessary to do their jobs because of how poorly they handled this information. But for the fact that if and when Clinton makes her next request for security clearance, she will be the President of the United States, it's questionable whether she would be granted future security clearances under any other circumstances. And that really should be concerning to people. 

 

 

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

 

I honestly can't believe these posts have been sitting around for almost a full 24 hours with nobody bothering to point out how utterly wrong they are.

Here's a link to the most thorough New York Times articles on the FBI's findings (as expressed through Comey's testimony to Congress) that I could find. 

It is not the case that only three emails sent through Clinton's private server had classified information. In fact, it was at least 110 emails that were marked classified at the time they were sent:

Ah, reading the link ants put out I see the issue. Comey was saying how the FBI reviewed 3 emails and how they had the <C> marking. Which makes it sort of a middle ground here. It's not that they had giant banners of doom saying classified; it's that the ones that existed had <C> in them. Even when you're talking about 110 emails over 30k, this is still a pretty easy thing to miss, especially reading them on a blackberry. 

That doesn't make it justified what happened, mind you. Only that it's pretty reasonable to understand why. 

4 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

It's important to note - this is not primarily about Clinton using her own server. It's about Clinton's gross negligence in failing to consistently utilize the State Department's internal system for distributing classified and sensitive information, which is a closed system specifically designed to prevent that information from being accessed by anyone who shouldn't be able to access it. 

It's not really about that at all, honestly. The vast majority of the 'classified' information and, as far as we can tell, every single Secret/TS information, would have still been a problem when discussing it over the email system. The idea that it has something to do with distribution of classified material has already been shown to be incorrect several times. It did happen in 110 of 30k+ emails, but the overwhelming majority of the classified data was due to discussing information in classified documents (IE, talking about the information, but not forwarding it or copying it) over email. 

And the issue there is that this was the general policy done throughout the state department, and had been done that way for a long time there. 

4 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

I am surprised at how not seriously this is being taken here. It seems quite possible at this point that some of Clinton's closest aides during her tenure of Secretary of State, who are likely to be involved in her Presidency, may NOT be granted security clearances necessary to do their jobs because of how poorly they handled this information. But for the fact that if and when Clinton makes her next request for security clearance, she will be the President of the United States, it's questionable whether she would be granted future security clearances under any other circumstances. And that really should be concerning to people. 

I'm not sure how 'serious' one should take it. What is the appropriate level of seriousness? I ask that in actual seriousness.

Because the thing I'm personally taking from this is that Clinton had specific requests about how she wanted email to be handled and I suspect was given assurances that the email was being handled in a reasonable way. And then she likely went about her business. There's no evidence or indication that she was doing this so that she could spread classified information in a way that she believed to be insecure. There's no evidence or indication that she was doing this so that she could later hide information or keep it out of FOIA hands. There's no evidence or indication that it was malicious. Heck, there's no real indication that she specifically desired to have a private email server on her premises or directed anyone to do that herself. 

My suspicion is that this is very much like @lokisnow said before - this is a person who wanted something, requested it (probably pretty forcefully), did not understand major ramifications of what she was asking (and no one else informed her) and then it didn't come up again. I could be wrong; perhaps she specifically requested that she have a server on her own premises, perhaps she demanded that she could talk on it and was told no, and did it anyway. There's no record of that that I could find. What I got from the overall thing is that she didn't really care that much about the email and assumed that as long as her server was physically protected and that she did not get told directly that her server was bad, that things were fine. 

I think she can do better, but at the same time it does not strike me as absolutely egregious that she did not know the fundamentals of IT work and was not massively interested in how to set up a secure email server or why what she wanted did not make sense from a security perspective.

[Shryke]

That article is from before his congressional testimony and doesn't seem to include clarifications given there.

You are also making alot of assumptions about the nature of "classified data" and how it's handled within the government that don't seem to match how it's ever actually talked about.

Like, from what it seems from his later testimony, while 110 contained "class information" only 3 were marked classified. And what "classified information" can mean here is something like, say, discussion of a drone strike happening in Pakistan that is reported on in the NYT.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

13 minutes ago, Shryke said:

That article is from before his congressional testimony and doesn't seem to include clarifications given there.

You are also making alot of assumptions about the nature of "classified data" and how it's handled within the government that don't seem to match how it's ever actually talked about.

Like, from what it seems from his later testimony, while 110 contained "class information" only 3 were marked classified. And what "classified information" can mean here is something like, say, discussion of a drone strike happening in Pakistan that is reported on in the NYT.

1. I'm not sure what clarifications you are referring to. The only exculpatory statements about Clinton that Comey made at the hearing had to do with the (c) markings on three of the emails that went through Clinton's servers. I haven't made any issue about those specifically, because I agree that they really are not the biggest deal. I don't believe there is any dispute that only three of the emails were marked as classified. That doesn't change that 110 emails contained information that was classified at the time it was sent. That Clinton was sending and receiving classified information without markings is not exculpatory - it's just further proof that she and her entire staff were, as Comey alleged, grossly negligent with how they handled this information. 

2. I'm not sure what "assumptions" you are referring to, or how my "assumptions" supposedly differ from "how it's ever actually talked about" - whatever that's supposed to mean.

3. I welcome you to provide some substantiation to your apparent insinuation that, of the 110 emails sent discussing materials classified at the time, they were really just talking about stuff that had already been printed in the New York Times, with no more detail than what the Times had printed. 

[lokisnow]

I don't think I said that. I think what I said is that the Clinton team knew just "enough" to think they were being super vigilant about protecting their privacy from all the Republican spies or British journalists or government payroll IT guys doing a Snowden harvest or whomever it was they were paranoid about spying upon them and then publicizing it.

I think they were just being paranoid ass coverers and knew just enough about email to know it isn't "secure". My personal and totally wrong understanding of email circa 2008 was that copies are kept at every server involved in touching email, and all a Hollywood hacker in a bad movie had to do was just take those server copies, not even bother trying to guess your password.

I think creating the server in the first place was just paranoia built on top of bad information, nothing nefarious, rather they thought it was self preservation. Ironic.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, lokisnow said:

I don't think I said that. I think what I said is that the Clinton team knew just "enough" to think they were being super vigilant about protecting their privacy from all the Republican spies or British journalists or government payroll IT guys with Clinton derangement syndrome or whomever it was they were paranoid about spying upon them and then publicizing it.

I don't think they were just being paranoid ass coverers and knew just enough about email to know it isn't "secure". My personal and totally wrong understanding of email circa 2008 was that copies are kept at every server involved in touching email, and all a Hollywood hacker in a bad movie had to do was just take those server copies, not even bother trying to guess your password.

I think creating the server in the first place was just paranoia built on top of bad information, nothing nefarious, rather they thought it was self preservation. Ironic.

I was more referring to it being something like Veep. Clinton herself (not her team) theoretically took a look at the shitty State Department system and said 'nope'. Or perhaps she simply told her team that she wanted to be able to use the same email for personal and professional replies, wanted to be able to use a blackberry, and make it happen. And then they did. They came up with this system, didn't think it very well through and that was probably about it.

So yeah, I don't think it was anything nefarious. There is zero evidence that Clinton even thought she was doing anything particularly wrong, either, nor was anyone able to inform her that this was seriously bad. I think she thought that so long as she didn't take any mails or documents from the state department server she was likely in the clear, even if she was discussing secure things on her own email. 

Basically, I ascribe this nothing more than an IT request coming in and not being vetted well enough, and a set of IT guys who wanted nothing more than to please their requests and get their job done and happy to do it. I don't even see the paranoia here. 

[lokisnow]

Oh yeah veep, I thought you were referring to a comment I made a long time ago about why she'd even have the server in the first place.

When in doubt though, assume a veep scenario. It is usually the simplest and best explanation. 

[BloodRider]

On 7/9/2016 at 10:53 PM, Shryke said:

And some recent polling does suggest even the House might be in play. Maybe. Possibly. Slimly.

I'll believe that when it happens, and not a moment before.

[Fez]

Its official: Evan Bayh is mounting a comeback. He's replacing Baron Hill as the Democratic senate candidate in Indiana just ahead of the July 15 deadline.

Bayh goes with the wind at all times (most famously, dropping out of his re-election in 2010 to avoid the possible blemish of losing an election) so if he's willing to commit himself (and that $10 million campaign account that he's been sitting on for 6 years) he must really think he can take the seat back.

Bayh's one of the most conservative Democratic politicians still out there, but he'd still be far better than Todd Young, and this alone probably turns that race from Likely-R to Lean-D. He's still incredibly popular in Indiana, and somehow his lack of ability at campaigning or public speaking gives him an "aw shucks" persona that a lot of that state's voters seem to really like.

[The Fallen]

It looks like the real Hillary is emerging, now that she has sewn up the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Her supporters at the meetings for the Democratic convention platform have voted against fighting the TPP.

[Kalbear]

19 minutes ago, The Fallen said:

It looks like the real Hillary is emerging, now that she has sewn up the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Her supporters at the meetings for the Democratic convention platform have voted against fighting the TPP.

They have to. It would be party suicide to oppose something that the current POTUS who is a Democrat supports. This isn't news at all. Heck, the language is that this is the case:

Quote

It backed a measure that said "there are a diversity of views in the party" on the TPP.

And this is also laughable that this is the 'real Hillary'. The Democratic platform that has added a new free tuition option? Or one that added a $15 minimum wage nationally? 

Seriously, now I'm fucking angry. Oh no, it's a HORRIBLE THING that the democratic platform acknowledges that people disagree and there isn't common ground! OMG WHAT A HORRIBLE PERSON CLINTON IS despite this, ya know, being a nod towards Obama's project more than anything. Fuck that. This is not a problem. This is what we should want our politics to actually be more like. 

[Kalbear]

Here's a link to an actual article on the DNC transcript. And another one.

[James Arryn]

kal, you know I love you, so don't take this the wrong way but I was just reading fallen's post and saw '2 new replies' and I thought 'that'll be kal doubling down', no joke. 

Not a shot, and not about over-posting, as I'd be the last, obviously...just I know your triggers and how you get when angry.  It's like w/e there's a Pats controversy, we know pretty much exactly what Rock's gonna do. And it's glorious. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

kal, you know I love you, so don't take this the wrong way but I was just reading fallen's post and saw '2 new replies' and I thought 'that'll be kal doubling down', no joke. 

Not a shot, and not about over-posting, as I'd be the last, obviously...just I know your triggers and how you get when angry.  It's like w/e there's a Pats controversy, we know pretty much exactly what Rock's gonna do. And it's glorious. 

Now I'm curious what the trigger is that I have. I'm not at all saying you're wrong, just wondering what it was about Fallen's post that made you go 'oh yeah, that's kal catnip'. 

[James Arryn]

5 minutes ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

Now I'm curious what the trigger is that I have. I'm not at all saying you're wrong, just wondering what it was about Fallen's post that made you go 'oh yeah, that's kal catnip'. 

Just you and ty tend to come in hot and hard on any swipe at Hill, but you're quicker. Please, sincerely not a shot, I probably agree with you most of the time, and even if my reasoning was wrong, that's the thought that jumped into my head, followed by trying to remember your new handle. I was not sharing to mock you at all, more happy that I 'know' you, if you get me...I'm alone in an Airbnb room a continent away from home, feeling like crap, and probably wanted to celebrate a sense of community. Really hope I didn't offend. Or over share, now.

 

edit: maybe I'd have been better to pm it.

[Shryke]

Was anyone thinking the TPP wasn't gonna pass? By far the most likely outcome has always been that Congress was gonna pass it after the election and Obama was gonna sign it. Cause both of them think it needs to be done and Obama intends to take that bullet for his successor, so they can come out against it.

So yeah, the DNC is not gonna insert shit into it's platform that they know Obama is gonna do the opposite of right after the election. The party leadership are not that stupid.

[Shryke]

Also, looks like Trump is probably gonna go with Mike Pence as his VP:

ie - his running mate will probably be the guy who seems to be widely considered the dumbest person in Congress from the past many years

The timing is clearly meant to steal thunder from Sanders endorsement of Clinton.

[ThinkerX]

39 minutes ago, Shryke said:

ie - his running mate will probably be the guy who seems to be widely considered the dumbest person in Congress from the past many years

I thought Don Young held that 'honor.'

[Kalbear]

Didn't take any offense, @James Arryn. Was just curious. These are the sorts of things that people who are seeing you have a much better angle on than you do, at least most of the time.