2016 Democratic Thread

[greg775]

I'd just like to point out again that the idea that Clinton is under any sort of criminal investigation at all was a complete fabrication by the NYT.

So you are denying the FBI is currently examining this issue and even as we speak wanting to speak with some more Clinton aides?

[Brian]

So you are denying the FBI is currently examining this issue and even as we speak wanting to speak with some more Clinton aides?

 

This argument is still going on? Yawn.

 

When is W being investigated for his war crimes?

[StrangeSox]

So you are denying the FBI is currently examining this issue and even as we speak wanting to speak with some more Clinton aides?

The FBI is not specifically investigating Clinton, and their ongoing investigation is not criminal.

[StrangeSox]

The rise of American authoritarianism

[greg775]

The FBI is not specifically investigating Clinton, and their ongoing investigation is not criminal.

Good article, but I'm most interested with the first 2-3 paragraphs of that article.

 

"As the 2016 campaign heats up, so too the clarion calls for Hillary Clinton to be charged with a federal crime stemming from her use of a personal email server while serving as Secretary of State.

 

Last week, former U.S. Attorney General and Judge Michael Mukasey amplified his call for her head on a criminal platter. This week, The Hill reports that the FBI investigation “isn’t letting up” and former House Majority Leader Tom Delay became the latest conservative to predict that the FBI would soon recommend she be indicted (and he certainly knows a thing or two about the criminal justice system)."

[StrangeSox]

I am shocked.

[cabiness42]

The FBI is not specifically investigating Clinton, and their ongoing investigation is not criminal.

 

That story is a month old.

[StrangeSox]

That story is a month old.

And? What new information has come out since February 1st indicating that Clinton is now a target of a criminal investigation?

Edited March 2, 2016 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

Link

[Chicago White Sox]

Link

That's hilarious as me and my wife semi joke about that all the time.

[caulfield12]

Greg, if Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell were running for president this year, would you be making the same accusations towards them, since they basically did the exact same thing she's accused of? (Actually with Secretary Powell, he also---unknowingly, since he was obviously lied to---lied to the United Nations on behalf of the president, so you can add that as well.)

 

As soon as you can find ONE Democratic official crossing sides and pushing for a criminal indictment of her, that's when your argument will actually have some traction.

 

Otherwise, you won't find more than a handful of "reasonable" Republicans like John McCain arguing she SHOULDN'T be indicted. A lot of them were probably lining up to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 as well.

 

 

I guess I am also curious if, to your knowledge, you've been able to change the mind of one person or more about Hillary Clinton...or are you actually having a counter-effect of forcing those who don't have a strong opinion one way or the other (maybe some independents or moderates) to support or defend her?

 

People will believe whatever they want to believe, and nothing will convince them any differently. Any of us who talk about politics here could come up with a LONG list of pages and pages of quotes and comments from Donald Trump and present it to a Trump supporter and surely none or very few would be convinced to change their vote...in fact, they'd probably be even more likely to dig in, accuse you of being part of the Republican establishment and pledge to go out and bring in more voters on his behalf.

 

In South Carolina, a CBS News exit poll found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States. A PPP poll found that a third of Trump voters support banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves. Would you honestly rather join ranks with THAT group? Because that's likely to be the choice, unless you write-in a candidate or vote 3rd party.

Edited March 3, 2016 by caulfield12

[greg775]

Greg, if Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell were running for president this year, would you be making the same accusations towards them, since they basically did the exact same thing she's accused of? (Actually with Secretary Powell, he also---unknowingly, since he was obviously lied to---lied to the United Nations on behalf of the president, so you can add that as well.)

 

As soon as you can find ONE Democratic official crossing sides and pushing for a criminal indictment of her, that's when your argument will actually have some traction.

 

Otherwise, you won't find more than a handful of "reasonable" Republicans like John McCain arguing she SHOULDN'T be indicted. A lot of them were probably lining up to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 as well.

 

 

I guess I am also curious if, to your knowledge, you've been able to change the mind of one person or more about Hillary Clinton...or are you actually having a counter-effect of forcing those who don't have a strong opinion one way or the other (maybe some independents or moderates) to support or defend her?

 

People will believe whatever they want to believe, and nothing will convince them any differently. Any of us who talk about politics here could come up with a LONG list of pages and pages of quotes and comments from Donald Trump and present it to a Trump supporter and surely none or very few would be convinced to change their vote...in fact, they'd probably be even more likely to dig in, accuse you of being part of the Republican establishment and pledge to go out and bring in more voters on his behalf.

 

In South Carolina, a CBS News exit poll found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States. A PPP poll found that a third of Trump voters support banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves. Would you honestly rather join ranks with THAT group? Because that's likely to be the choice, unless you write-in a candidate or vote 3rd party.

 

Good post Caulfield. I may be having the counter effect, but it angers me to see her berate that African American woman today who asked her a couple questions. "Why don't you run for something?" And then she had a wicked laugh. I mean, again, that is WAY WORSE than anything Adam Eaton did in his tweet. She was condescending and mean and wouldn't answer the person's question. Then I read Meghan Kelly is gushing about how Hillary is destined to make history in November over and over.

 

I don't understand why somebody like this guy I know, who WORKS FOR the government says he'd be in jail and fired long ago if he breached security like Hillary did with her emails. And Hillary doesn't get in trouble at all. Caulfield you are a political mastermind, please answer that question for me.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Good post Caulfield. I may be having the counter effect, but it angers me to see her berate that African American woman today who asked her a couple questions. "Why don't you run for something?" And then she had a wicked laugh. I mean, again, that is WAY WORSE than anything Adam Eaton did in his tweet. She was condescending and mean and wouldn't answer the person's question. Then I read Meghan Kelly is gushing about how Hillary is destined to make history in November over and over.

 

I don't understand why somebody like this guy I know, who WORKS FOR the government says he'd be in jail and fired long ago if he breached security like Hillary did with her emails. And Hillary doesn't get in trouble at all. Caulfield you are a political mastermind, please answer that question for me.

 

To be fair, nobody who is reading articles from Washington Post, NY Times or anywhere else knows if what Hillary did was illegal. It was not law at the time she was Secretary of State to use a state.gov email address, and in terms of classified material out - there is nobody out there who can say if something illegal happened that would say it in terms of Hillary willfully distributing classified material in a nonclassified manner. Chances are, any such transmission would not have been willful or knowledgeable, based on what we know right now - and a criminal trial would be very difficult to pursue, because intent and gross negligence would be a big reason why something is being mishandled.

 

If Petraeus only got charged with a misdemeanor for giving actual code names and intelligence target information to his biographer and lying about it - and if Richard Armitage didn't get charged for leaking the identity of a spy in an effort to politically embarrass her husband - this is probably a big old nothingburger.

 

That being said, the guy who built the server was offered immunity to speak with the FBI today. He previously refused to testify before Congress on the issue - so that's something - but if its not a criminal probe, and there's no evidence to suggest it is, it could just be an assurance to get the interview in and wrap up the investigation by May.

[caulfield12]

Kelly and Fox News would love to have Clinton in office for four years, it means much higher ratings (and revenues) for FOX than when a Republican is in office.

 

 

Comparing Adam Eaton and Hillary Clinton isn't going to get us anywhere. A lot of that incident was staged as an "ambush" at a private fundraising dinner, it was more or less a calculated stunt meant to provoke a confrontation and not a legitimate attempt at real dialogue.

 

As always, there's a double standard for what a Clinton, Trump or Bush can get away (heck, anyone on Wall Street the last decade), compared to a normal, middle class American.

 

[greg775]

Kelly and Fox News would love to have Clinton in office for four years, it means much higher ratings (and revenues) for FOX than when a Republican is in office.

 

 

Comparing Adam Eaton and Hillary Clinton isn't going to get us anywhere. A lot of that incident was staged as an "ambush" at a private fundraising dinner, it was more or less a calculated stunt meant to provoke a confrontation and not a legitimate attempt at real dialogue.

 

As always, there's a double standard for what a Clinton, Trump or Bush can get away (heck, anyone on Wall Street the last decade), compared to a normal, middle class American.

Great posts Caulfield. You are a political maestro IMO. I like your last paragraph here as it points to yet another story I found suggesting that Bill and Hillary feel entitled to do anything they please. Here was another atrocity IMO.

 

http://observer.com/2016/03/no-shame-for-b...-no-boundaries/

[Buehrle>Wood]

The FBI is not specifically investigating Clinton, and their ongoing investigation is not criminal.

Who knows what will come of it but the investigation is definitely criminal.

 

The Justice Department has granted immunity to the former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Clinton’s private email server as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.

-Washington Post

 

A federal law enforcement official said that barring any unforeseen changes, the F.B.I. investigation could conclude by early May. Then the Justice Department will decide whether to file criminal charges and, if so, against whom.

-New York Times

 

The big news is someone was granted immunity. That person is presumably singing to investigators right now. Sounds like we'll find out in a couple months if anything will happen.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Greg, if Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell were running for president this year, would you be making the same accusations towards them, since they basically did the exact same thing she's accused of? (Actually with Secretary Powell, he also---unknowingly, since he was obviously lied to---lied to the United Nations on behalf of the president, so you can add that as well.)

Just for the record what they were doing was not the same as Hillary. They had their own state department emails.

[caulfield12]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/clinton-stil...--election.html

 

What will happen to Sanders' millenial supporters should he lose the nomination?...a big opening for Trump to exploit, more in the sense of dampening their desire to get out and vote for her rather than getting them to cross to another candidate.

Edited March 3, 2016 by caulfield12

[Rex Kickass]

I love Bad Lip Reading.

 

[bmags]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/clinton-stil...--election.html

 

What will happen to Sanders' millenial supporters should he lose the nomination?...a big opening for Trump to exploit, more in the sense of dampening their desire to get out and vote for her rather than getting them to cross to another candidate.

 

Remember all of the Clinton supporters that sat out 08 and caused Obama to lose the election?

[NorthSideSox72]

It's funny to me, that on this Clinton email thing, everyone seems to either be in the "it's nothing, ignore it" court, or the "illegal and she should go to jail" court. Both of these are missing the fact that, regardless of whether or not it was illegal, it certainly showed a stunning lack of good judgment. One does not need to be tech-savvy to realize that perhaps conducting government business at the cabinet level over private email is not a good idea for a myriad of reasons. To me it clearly displays poor decision-making, whether it was intentional or due to just plain stupidity.

[bmags]

It's funny to me, that on this Clinton email thing, everyone seems to either be in the "it's nothing, ignore it" court, or the "illegal and she should go to jail" court. Both of these are missing the fact that, regardless of whether or not it was illegal, it certainly showed a stunning lack of good judgment. One does not need to be tech-savvy to realize that perhaps conducting government business at the cabinet level over private email is not a good idea for a myriad of reasons. To me it clearly displays poor decision-making, whether it was intentional or due to just plain stupidity.

 

Oh, I do think it was lack of judgment. But it's hard to know when to pay attention to Clinton scandals after 25 years of things like cattle futures trading, whitewater, vince foster, etc that are constantly thrown around her neck. There's been no new information for over a year, and the email dumps haven't shown anything remotely controversial.

 

But, it's also not like this was a secret. This is dumb to allow different people to handle their government work differently (even if there are guidelines to follow that were not), it needs to be some agencies job to make sure this is happening because for the last decade this continues to happen.

 

OR

 

If there is some legitimate need here, regulate it with guidelines and procedures to follow if you are using your own server.

 

Do I think it's a lack of judgment, yes. A "stunning" lack of judgment, not really. This isn't a Petraues situation of openly passing code words etc to her friends.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

I liked this bit from Romney's speech:

 

[Trump’s] tax plan, in combination with his refusal to reform entitlements and to honestly address spending would balloon the deficit and the national debt.

 

All of the Republican tax plans are ridiculous.

 

eta: bonus laughs for this

 

We will only really know if he is the real deal or a phony if he releases his tax returns and the tape of his interview with the New York Times.

 

Mitt Romney is actually criticizing someone for not releasing tax returns.

 

Many of the criticisms Romney leveled at Trump apply just as well to Rubio and Cruz.

Edited March 3, 2016 by StrangeSox

[NorthSideSox72]

I liked this bit from Romney's speech:

 

 

 

All of the Republican tax plans are ridiculous.

 

eta: bonus laughs for this

 

 

 

Mitt Romney is actually criticizing someone for not releasing tax returns.

 

Many of the criticisms Romney leveled at Trump apply just as well to Rubio and Cruz.

 

Definitely some hypocrisy in play here. Though I'm pretty sure Rubio at least already released his tax returns, I'm not sure about Cruz. And neither of those two have such a well-documented history of playing both sides on nearly every policy point in discussion, so some secret tape is just more proof I suppose.

 

[StrangeSox]

Oh the tax return thing was purely just hypocrisy from Romney. His refusal to release anything but the bare minimum in 2012 was a campaign issue for a while.

 

But there were several other policy issues he criticized Trump on:

 

-Trump wants to repeal-and-replace Obamacare, but his plan to do so is "flimsy at best." That's been the GOP plan for six years now. It applies to pretty much everyone in the party.

 

-Trump's foreign policy is bombastic. "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." No nuclear deals. Obama isn't bombastic enough and that's why strongman Putin can take Crimea. Bomb major civilian centers to get ISIL. The rest of the GOP's foreign policy is no less bombastic.

 

-Trump calls for torture. So do Rubio and Cruz.

 

And for more Romney hypocrisy:

But wait, you say, isn’t he a huge business success that knows what he’s talking about? No he isn’t. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create i

The guy who founded an equity firm and made an enormous fortune off of "restructuring" businesses that often led to bankruptcies and mass layoffs making this criticism is pretty special. And, of course, Romney was also born into substantial wealth and numerous important political and business connections.