Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Durandal]

moreover, he's not even doing it for Hillary's sake, he's doing it to preserve Trump's potential credibility!

To be honest, I wouldn't feel safe walking outside if everyone held me responsible for Trump's presidency because of my indictment of Clinton, especially knowing how everyone on every level is divided on this matter.
But all of this is just guesswork anyways.

[atheistgod1999]

.

[BryanM]

it can't be the obvious reason

The obvious reason is that James Comey made a shitload of money in the private sector. And that he would like to continue to make a shitload of money in the private sector after he leaves his post.

If he recommended indictment, he would not make a shitload of money. That he did not, means not only will he make a shitload of money, but they're going to give him an additional bonus truck full of money for doing what he was told to do.

This is not complicated. You understand how money works, right? You pay for something, and then you get it.

Your weird fetish in believing in Santa Claus and Spider-Man is weird.

AIK is that thanks to the majority of people in my country (none of them are on this forum, though), I will have either a giant douche or a turd sandwich running my country when I reach adulthood.

"What we've got here is a shit sandwich, and everyone's gonna take a bite."

[BulletMagnet]

Your weird fetish in believing in Santa Claus and Spider-Man is weird.

Just pretend for a moment that Comey is "Santa Claus" and actually tried to do his job - what do you think he could have done within the boundaries of the law beyond the rebuke he issued in regards to Clinton's conduct? We're still trying to pin down some means he might have used to press charges; have you already found one, and not told us?

[BryanM]

We're still trying to pin down some means he might have used to press charges; have you already found one, and not told us?

18 U.S. Code § 641
18 U.S. Code § 793 subparagraph F
18 U.S. Code § 798
18 U.S. Code § 952 ("I'm the boss so I had authority!!" This law is pretty much the definition of authoritarianism - it only applies to peons. Astonishing it would work that way, eh.)
18 U.S. Code § 1924 maybe

She's guilty of things that should entail a $10,000 fine minimum. Or in relative terms, a 0.0000001% pay cut.

Or in relative terms, a 0.0000001% pay cut.

Flat fines in and of themselves are unjust bullshit. A $70 speeding ticket is something you can really feel as the working class. To royalty, it's less than nothing.

She's guilty of things that should entail a $10,000 fine minimum.

"We spent five million dollars of your tax money to collect $10k."

Just another example why this farce was such a huge example of government waste.

Why bother to pretend. That's the problem with these plutocrats - they try to do juuuuust enough to convince us to keep the guillotines in our storage shed for one more year. Republican voters might not be the best humans on the planet on average, but they can smell the condescending insincerity as strongly as if it were dog shit. It repulses them at a visceral level.

We're plebs. The emperor does what he will. It's better to have one that doesn't pretend to be anything else. One that doesn't pretend to care. Between a pretty lie and ugly reality, a grownup must choose to embrace reality. Trump 2016.

[BulletMagnet]

Well, I'll have a crack at it, let me know if I miss anything relevant:

18 U.S. Code § 641

Link here, for anyone else who wants to peruse it. Off the cuff it sounds like a stretch, as this puts the crime in question in the context of theft, embezzlement and other such terms, which would mean that Clinton intended to somehow personally profit off of the information she had access to; at the very least this sounds like a separate (and hard to make) case from the fact that she used a private server in and of itself.

18 U.S. Code § 793 subparagraph F

Link here. This is the same segment that quash linked earlier, which includes the phrase "gross negligence" - as said earlier, to bypass that legal roadblock you'd have to for some reason assume that because the term was used earlier in the document it somehow doesn't apply to that specific section.

18 U.S. Code § 798

Link here. Two potential issues with this one: first, right at the beginning we're talking about "knowingly and willingly" making information available to unauthorized entities, which would itself run afoul of the need for malicious intent to be proven. Second, the focus here appears to be on specific types of information, such as codes or blueprints, which to the best of my knowledge didn't pop up in any of the documents Clinton had - especially since, as the afore-linked writeup by Fred Kaplan stated, there was nothing, even in the "classified" emails, that anyone could have actually made any use of.

18 U.S. Code § 952 ("I'm the boss so I had authority!!" This law is pretty much the definition of authoritarianism - it only applies to peons. Astonishing it would work that way, eh.)

Link here. First off, unless I'm overlooking something really obvious, I'm not sure where you'd infer that only lower-level individuals would fall under this regulation. Second, we're talking about "willfully publishing or furnishing" diplomatic documents to foreign entities, so unless you believe that Hillary used the private server because she actively arranged or hoped for it to be hacked (which puts you squarely in the "Benghazi stand down order" club when it comes to fact-independent demonization), that didn't happen.

18 U.S. Code § 1924 maybe

Link here. Not sure why you put the "maybe" in there, because this one, for whatever it's worth, strikes me as vague enough to possibly light a bit of a fire under Clinton, mainly because it doesn't mention ill intent, just someone moving materials to an unauthorized location for, ostensibly, any reason (hence why the penalty is also less than the others). Again, though, if the designation really is as clear as it may appear offhand, why did, to the best of my knowledge, neither Comey nor any of the Republicans at the hearing yesterday reference it? Again, any illumination you may have on the subject would be appreciated; if Clinton truly is legally liable for her actions it deserves to be known, but for that to happen we have to move decisively beyond the realm of conjecture and/or wishful thinking.

We're plebs. The emperor does what he will. It's better to have one that doesn't pretend to be anything else. One that doesn't pretend to care. Between a pretty lie and ugly reality, a grownup must choose to embrace reality. Trump 2016.

At this point I'd say that very few people, even among her supporters, have a particularly rosy mental picture of Hillary, or most politicans for that matter; hell, if anything most of Clinton's camp fall squarely into the "yeah, we prefer her to the opposition, but there's a lot we don't agree with her/trust her on, so she'll need to have pressure kept on her" category, as opposed to Trump Nation, most of whom eagerly gulp down every simple-minded excuse for a solution (or even just a vague suggestion of a solution) to vastly complex problems that he tosses together without question, and at least from here seem to be perfectly willing to just turn him loose on "the establishment" (and anything else that happens to be in the way), then sit back and let him simply wreak havoc as he sees fit. Yeah, what he says may sound crazy now, but he'll totally get it done, he's playing the long game. Just let him work his magic. He gets it."

And all of that is itself independent of the fact that, whether she "means it" or not, Clinton's proposals, almost across the board, make infinitely more objective sense for the vast majority of the population than anything Trump has put forth. But somehow it's the "grown-up" choice to just say "screw it" and rally behind the irrepressible ignoramus because at least he's a genuine ignoramus, and we get to turn up our noses at all those silly idiots trying to actually make democracy work, and instead detachedly wallow in our own self-satisfied, snarky fatalism. You and the rest of the "grownups" have fun with that.

[quash]

Link here. This is the same segment that quash linked earlier, which includes the phrase "gross negligence" - as said earlier, to bypass that legal roadblock you'd have to for some reason assume that because the term was used earlier in the document it somehow doesn't apply to that specific section.

The end of each section (a)-(e) is marked with the word "or", meaning it is all-inclusive. Whether it was intentional, malicious negligence or unwitting negligence, you can still be charged with mishandling of classified material.

Second, the focus here appears to be on specific types of information, such as codes or blueprints, which to the best of my knowledge didn't pop up in any of the documents Clinton had - especially since, as the afore-linked writeup by Fred Kaplan stated, there was nothing, even in the "classified" emails, that anyone could have actually made any use of.

SCI by definition is compartmentalized; unless you have all pertinent pieces related to a piece of information, you are not necessarily privy to the significance of said information.

As for whether or not it could have been damaging, that is not for some retired intelligence analyst with a comfy job as an editorialist to judge. Things are classified based on how much they can potentially cause harm to US national interests, which is usually determined by the NSA. Are things sometimes needlessly over-classified? Sure. But that doesn't necessarily mean that was the case here. The only people who could ever really know would be those who were granted full access to the entire scope of information (SAP material, which they also found on Hillary's server).

And all of that is itself independent of the fact that, whether she "means it" or not, Clinton's proposals, almost across the board, make infinitely more objective sense for the vast majority of the population than anything Trump has put forth.

Back to this religion of objectivity and pure reason, as if there is such a thing as either.

But somehow it's the "grown-up" choice to just say "screw it" and rally behind the irrepressible ignoramus because at least he's a genuine ignoramus, and we get to turn up our noses at all those silly idiots trying to actually make democracy work, and instead detachedly wallow in our own self-satisfied, snarky fatalism. You and the rest of the "grownups" have fun with that.

Making democracy work is allowing the candidate with the backing of the banking establishment and an entire nation's media shilling for her campaign to do whatever she pleases?

I was just joking before. Now I really do have to wonder if you're not taking pages from the COINTELPRO playbook.

[Bitter Almonds]

It was very disappointing to see Bernie Sanders capitulate to the status quo and that lowlife.

[EmperorIng]

Maybe he could have dragged it out by one or two more weeks (convention is soon right? what a snoozer that will be!), but I knew he would eventually do it. To paraphrase Cardinal Mundelein: he'd come into the Hillary camp, feet first, or head first! (I suspect the latter)

Now let's make sure Gary Johnson gets on that debate stage folks!

[Bitter Almonds]

Gary Johnson voter over here

[BryanM]

It was very disappointing to see Bernie Sanders capitulate to the status quo and that lowlife.

It's okay.

The following years when he's still using his mailing list to fight Trump's inevitable support of the TPP, etc.

That's assuming Trump isn't going to accept a big bribe to bow out.

[Ed Oscuro]

Gary Johnson voter over here

I'm not exactly a libertarian, but I want to hear more about this guy. Also, "don't hurt people - and don't take their stuff" are pretty okay rules in my book.

Circling further out before coming back home, it's been interesting to hear the ongoing comparisons to the Brexit campaign and the anti-establishment vote in America. Since the Brexit vote thread seems to have fallen into oblivion, I'll just note here that wow - out of the whole pile of smoking cinders a diamond is peeking out - shyly, I suppose - I don't much care that Theresa May doesn't have children, but Britain seems quite fortunate to have her leading the charge. I'll vote Clinton with an easy conscience but if you guys ever want to swap, we'll take it. May might be a Tory but she almost makes it palatable: "The Government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours [...] When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you, when we pass new laws, we’ll listen not to the mighty, but you, when it comes to new taxes we’ll prioritise not the wealthy, but you."

Almost makes one forget about austerity and the collapse of British trade for a moment, but eh, one thing at a time. Rome wasn't burned in a day, isn't that how the saying goes?

[BulletMagnet]

The end of each section (a)-(e) is marked with the word "or", meaning it is all-inclusive. Whether it was intentional, malicious negligence or unwitting negligence, you can still be charged with mishandling of classified material.

I'm honestly having a hell of a time figuring out where you're trying to go here; as you say, everything from A through F has an "or" joining it with the rest, so presumably they're meant to be grouped together, perhaps summarized as (correct me if I'm wrong) "list of intelligence breaches you can be legally liable for". A through E all mention some variation on "intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States", which wouldn't, at least in Comey's conclusion, apply to Clinton; F, the one you originally referred me to several posts ago, instead uses the term "gross negligence", which, based on everything I've been reading, is also understood to describe a more serious, malicious, and thus potentially lawsuit-worthy, offense than the "extreme carelessness" Comey used to describe Clinton's conduct. I'm simply not seeing any disclaimers for "unwitting negligence" here, unless you believe that you can, in the eyes of the law, still be "grossly" negligent even without ill intent; what am I still missing?

But y'know what? Go ahead and put all that aside, and assume something in the provision does allow Hillary to be accused criminally for her behavior. Now, I'll ask you for the third time: even if you believe that the Clinton Mafia (or an overwhelming desire to take a bullet for democracy ) got to the likes of Comey, what about the scads of salivating Republicans who, again to the best of my knowledge, haven't seen fit to go after Hillary on these grounds? Who got to them, to once again prevent justice from being done?

As for whether or not it could have been damaging, that is not for some retired intelligence analyst with a comfy job as an editorialist to judge...The only people who could ever really know would be those who were granted full access to the entire scope of information (SAP material, which they also found on Hillary's server).

If it's that big of an inscrutable question mark, should we both just drop this particular point entirely?

Back to this religion of objectivity and pure reason, as if there is such a thing as either.

Uh oh, someone's attempting to rely primarily on provable facts, as opposed to personal gut feelings ("I just know I'm somehow being oppressed for being a white male, I just know it!"), when making an important political decision; Skynet's on the loose again!

You know, what's most amusing about this is the fact that the Trump crowd are the exact same ones who, for years, have tirelessly berated all those hippie-dippie liberals for having no set standards, no guiding principles, evoking the cockamamie excuse of "everything is subjective, maaan" to scramble out of any ridiculous corner they'd paint themselves into, while the level-headed, logical, feet-on-the-ground types could only throw up their hands in exasperation and get back to the hard work of making a living in the real, solid, rule-bound world. Now that they've got a candidate who abjectly refuses to base his campaign on anything but wishful thinking, man oh man is the hand-made, naturally-sourced, flower-patterned sandal on the other foot.

Making democracy work is allowing the candidate with the backing of the banking establishment and an entire nation's media shilling for her campaign to do whatever she pleases?

Okay, this particular mini-mental meltdown is going to take me a bit of time to wade through, because boy is it a doozy.

Just to get this out of the way, if you want to criticize Hillary for having been "corrupted" by the sleazes on Wall Street, I'm not going to stop you, as that's a fair point to make (though the fact that you seek solace in one of the slimiest real estate moguls, not to mention "university" presidents, on the planet, especially when he, unlike "crooked" Hillary, refuses to even make his tax returns public, escapes me).

But asserting that the media is in the bag for Hillary? THAT is truly a monument to willful ignorance. Just in case you haven't been living in the same country - or on the same planet - as the rest of us for the past twenty-five years, Hillary has been endlessly piled on by the media (NOT just the right), for everything, both real and imagined (the pantsuits! the haircuts! the laugh! she's bitchy! she's a secret lesbian! she had people killed! she helped Bill rape other women! she wants to destroy America!) to the point that one of her most frequently-cited weaknesses across the spectrum is her "toxic" relationship with the press. Where in God's name have you been seeing all this shameless, fawning pro-Hillary coverage, when the so-called "Clinton News Network" now employs an on-air "contributor" who is not only legally barred from saying anything negative about Trump, but is still receiving severance pay from the campaign (how's that for being above the rules)? On the flipside of the coin, I've already typed far too much about how Trump, despite his petulant insistence on always being the victim (since apparently any criticism of anything he does is confirmation of rabid bias against him, and perfectly justifies insta-blacklisting ), has been graded on a massive curve throughout the campaign (which just means he, unlike Undeserving Media Darling Hillary, somehow, is simply skillfully manipulating the narrative ), and I'm in no mood to type it all over again for the whole mess to simply be conveniently ignored anew.

Conveniently segueing from there, the fact that you accuse me (and, presumably, Clinton supporters in general) of wanting to let Hillary do "whatever she pleases" shows just how purposely obtuse you're willing to be when it comes to this subject, because that's literally the exact opposite of what I was saying. I'll spell it out one more time: there's only one camp that's chomping at the bit to simply "turn its candidate loose" and let the chips fall where they may, and that camp is unequivocally backing Trump. No matter how vague or downright nonexistent his proposals are, no matter how little real-world sense any of what he says makes, no matter how crude and/or ignorant his actions and comments get, any possible misgivings are simply dismissed with a wave of the hand; "I'm not worried. He must have something brilliant planned. He's just too far ahead of the game for those idiots to keep up with. He's Against The Establishment, what else does anyone need to know? He'll totally follow through, I just know it. He just gets it, and that's more than enough for me."

Say whatever you want about Hillary, and there's plenty to say, but nobody is voting for her based on what she might do or what they hope she'll do; nobody is voting for Hillary because it feels right, because they intend to simply cast their ballots and leave the rest to the hands of fate. They're voting for her because of concrete plans she's actually put out there - if you don't like those plans, by all means don't support her, but sorry, you have absolutely no grounds to sneer that anyone who picks her over the likes of Trump are just itching to let her off the leash and blithely go about their business without a second thought. To be perfectly frank, that's projection of downright cosmic proportions, and one more indication that you're neither remotely interested in a substantive debate on the merits of policy nor anywhere near adequately prepared for participatory government.

Now let's make sure Gary Johnson gets on that debate stage folks!

Because when the "mainstream" candidate is too much in thrall to business interests, the only logical place to go is the Libertarian Party. You seriously can't make this stuff up.

[Mischief Maker]

Suddenly I feel way less conflicted about having to vote for Hillary thanks to this little trip down memory lane.

Yeah, let's not repeat this, America.

[BryanM]

If we could survive that, we can survive anything. We're cockroaches.

It's strange how so many of you don't think Donald Trump was already elected president on March 15, 2016. Your linear perspective of time is so very weird.

[BryanM]

I'm severely disappointed our vice president isn't going to be Ivanka Trump.

Low energy.

[Mischief Maker]

I'm severely disappointed our vice president isn't going to be Ivanka Trump.

Low energy.

Well at least we can put to rest the fantasies that a Trump presidency would be socially liberal.

I wonder if he went with Pence as a peace offering to the Koch brothers now that his campaign is running out of money?

[BryanM]

I wonder if he went with Pence as a peace offering to the Koch brothers now that his campaign is running out of money?

What's fuckin' hilarious is not having money is probably helping him, not hurting him. Every dollar Hillary spends shaves off her votes. Without the ability to remind people he's terrible, Trump just goes up and up. Strategery!

[BulletMagnet]

For anyone who's interested, this brief comparison between "emailgate" and Whitewater is worth a read.

[quash]

What's fuckin' hilarious is not having money is probably helping him, not hurting him. Every dollar Hillary spends shaves off her votes. Without the ability to remind people he's terrible, Trump just goes up and up. Strategery!

Dilbert man sees it, too. All he has to do is act presidential for the next few months.

[BulletMagnet]

Dilbert man sees it, too.

What he doesn't see (or, more likely, ignores, since he couldn't be nearly as snootily contrarian if he didn't) is that a) The FBI specifically said that Clinton did not do anything to merit prosecution, hence their "controversial" decision not to prosecute; b) The "classified" emails in question were literally .001% of the emails under investigation, a single-digit number; and c) That handful of emails was not properly labeled as "classified" when Clinton got them, a fact Comey (who, as we all know, took a bullet for democracy) didn't bother to mention until under questioning.

If that's "crooked" enough to sink her below Trump in your book, that's your business, but in a rational world Trump might actually have to do more than cruise to victory on the press's (and, apparently, Scott Adams') decades-long obsession with painting anything and everything remotely Clinton-related as, by definition, hopelessly corrupt, actual facts on the ground be damned. Like actually putting forth a single plan where the numbers actually add up...but that's not the real story here, of course. It never is. It can't be allowed to be, or else someone might realize what a humiliating travesty it is that a raggedy, crusty sock puppet like Trump's gotten as far as he has.

[quash]

I'm honestly having a hell of a time figuring out where you're trying to go here; as you say, everything from A through F has an "or" joining it with the rest, so presumably they're meant to be grouped together, perhaps summarized as (correct me if I'm wrong) "list of intelligence breaches you can be legally liable for". A through E all mention some variation on "intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States", which wouldn't, at least in Comey's conclusion, apply to Clinton

So far, so good.

F, the one you originally referred me to several posts ago, instead uses the term "gross negligence", which, based on everything I've been reading, is also understood to describe a more serious, malicious, and thus potentially lawsuit-worthy, offense than the "extreme carelessness" Comey used to describe Clinton's conduct. I'm simply not seeing any disclaimers for "unwitting negligence" here, unless you believe that you can, in the eyes of the law, still be "grossly" negligent even without ill intent; what am I still missing?

What are you reading that says gross negligence is different from extreme carelessness? We can always cite our good friend Webster to help clear this up.

But y'know what? Go ahead and put all that aside, and assume something in the provision does allow Hillary to be accused criminally for her behavior. Now, I'll ask you for the third time: even if you believe that the Clinton Mafia (or an overwhelming desire to take a bullet for democracy ) got to the likes of Comey, what about the scads of salivating Republicans who, again to the best of my knowledge, haven't seen fit to go after Hillary on these grounds? Who got to them, to once again prevent justice from being done?

Leaving Hillary out to dry would start a civil war within the federal government overnight. Not that we're very far from that, anyways, but that would have catalyzed it like no other.

I'm sure they could get her on lying to the FBI (especially if the latest batch of leaked e-mails do indeed incriminate her removing of classification labels) if they wanted to, but it's not a battle worth fighting at this point.

If it's that big of an inscrutable question mark, should we both just drop this particular point entirely?

Nope, because SAP material is the highest of TS material there is.

Think of it this way: SCI material are pieces of different puzzles, scattered throughout different boxes. SAP material is a sheet of paper telling you where all the pieces to each puzzle are and how to assemble them.

This is the kind of stuff even most people working in intelligence don't have a clue about. Stuff that is so closely held precisely because the slightest compromise in integrity can render all related information below it useless.

But asserting that the media is in the bag for Hillary? THAT is truly a monument to willful ignorance. Just in case you haven't been living in the same country - or on the same planet - as the rest of us for the past twenty-five years, Hillary has been endlessly piled on by the media (NOT just the right), for everything, both real and imagined (the pantsuits! the haircuts! the laugh! she's bitchy! she's a secret lesbian! she had people killed! she helped Bill rape other women! she wants to destroy America!) to the point that one of her most frequently-cited weaknesses across the spectrum is her "toxic" relationship with the press. Where in God's name have you been seeing all this shameless, fawning pro-Hillary coverage, when the so-called "Clinton News Network" now employs an on-air "contributor" who is not only legally barred from saying anything negative about Trump, but is still receiving severance pay from the campaign (how's that for being above the rules)? On the flipside of the coin, I've already typed far too much about how Trump, despite his petulant insistence on always being the victim (since apparently any criticism of anything he does is confirmation of rabid bias against him, and perfectly justifies insta-blacklisting ), has been graded on a massive curve throughout the campaign (which just means he, unlike Undeserving Media Darling Hillary, somehow, is simply skillfully manipulating the narrative ), and I'm in no mood to type it all over again for the whole mess to simply be conveniently ignored anew.

Tell me, which news outlet (in this election cycle) hired 20+ people specifically for the purpose of digging up everything possible on Hillary Clinton? Which news outlet chose their head anchor to hit her during the party debates? Which news outlet cherry picks their sample sizes for polls that skew the results in Trump's favor?

Conveniently segueing from there, the fact that you accuse me (and, presumably, Clinton supporters in general) of wanting to let Hillary do "whatever she pleases" shows just how purposely obtuse you're willing to be when it comes to this subject, because that's literally the exact opposite of what I was saying. I'll spell it out one more time: there's only one camp that's chomping at the bit to simply "turn its candidate loose" and let the chips fall where they may, and that camp is unequivocally backing Trump. No matter how vague or downright nonexistent his proposals are, no matter how little real-world sense any of what he says makes, no matter how crude and/or ignorant his actions and comments get, any possible misgivings are simply dismissed with a wave of the hand; "I'm not worried. He must have something brilliant planned. He's just too far ahead of the game for those idiots to keep up with. He's Against The Establishment, what else does anyone need to know? He'll totally follow through, I just know it. He just gets it, and that's more than enough for me."

There's a distinction to be made here. Hillary is very well connected to many foreign parties and has a majority congress lined up after the midterms. Trump is not befallen to any foreign interests and is begrudgingly cooperating with the GOP because he can't win otherwise.

Say whatever you want about Hillary, and there's plenty to say, but nobody is voting for her based on what she might do or what they hope she'll do; nobody is voting for Hillary because it feels right, because they intend to simply cast their ballots and leave the rest to the hands of fate. They're voting for her because of concrete plans she's actually put out there - if you don't like those plans, by all means don't support her, but sorry, you have absolutely no grounds to sneer that anyone who picks her over the likes of Trump are just itching to let her off the leash and blithely go about their business without a second thought. To be perfectly frank, that's projection of downright cosmic proportions, and one more indication that you're neither remotely interested in a substantive debate on the merits of policy nor anywhere near adequately prepared for participatory government.

Projection my ass. When was the last time Hillary had a press conference? When was the last time she openly admitted she wants to start a war with Russia? When was the last time she directly answered a question about her connections to investment bankers and foreign interests?

Her "concrete plans" are anything but, precisely because she isn't the one behind the wheel. That's the thing that should be keeping us all up at night.

[quash]

Look, I've said before that Trump isn't perfect. He definitely made some mistakes with his businesses in the past, and I don't particularly care for his stance on torture.

Let's even say he's literally the worst businessman in the history of the world. Trump sues people who cross him instead of causing them to mysteriously disappear, isn't in bed with the Saudis (he's infact called them out numerous times on Twitter), and doesn't want to start a war with the second strongest military in the world. If you really want to stretch it, he's also a racist (but everyone is, so that's kind of whatever).

Do we really need to go down the rabbit hole of Hillary's seedy past?

[quash]

In all seriousness, I hope everyone living in or near a major city in the US stays safe over the coming months. Expect BLM "protests" to ramp up across the country.

For that matter, those of you in Europe need to be careful, as well. You already have journalists telling you otherwise.

[BryanM]

It's an inevitability by this point. Swing states are largely decided by what white voters feel (so-called "swing voters"); losing California or New York by another 10% has zero outcome on the presidential race. Current polling puts them in a tossup. Current polling in those states show people trust pathological liar Trump more than sociopathic liar Clinton, by a non-insubstantial margin. Historical trendlines have the republican polling worse at this time than they actually end up performing.

The naive me in Aug, 2015 thought Hillary was going to walk right in. The more worldly and experienced me of Oct 2015, post first debate, realized that was a grotesquely incorrect idea.

The FBI specifically said that Clinton did not do anything to merit prosecution

No, what they said was they've never prosecuted someone with power under the applicable laws, so they shouldn't prosecute someone powerful under the laws which don't apply to them. But do apply to us.

Like it's a great shock there's no historical precedent of prosecuting a secretary of state for squirreling away classified information in an open server in their basement, when computers have only been around for a few decades and the number of government officials even in a position to do something like this doesn't crack double digits. Astonishingly rare events by their very nature don't always have precedent.

Why are you still talking about this resolved issue.

[BulletMagnet]

What are you reading that says gross negligence is different from extreme carelessness? We can always cite our good friend Webster to help clear this up.

First things first, you are very well aware that dictionary definitions are a very different thing from legal definitions, so quit being willfully daft, you're not doing either of us any favors. Second, feel free to peruse this laundry list, albeit an incomplete one, of Clinton critics who insisted (and, in some cases, continue to insist) that "gross negligence", specifically, is what Comey really meant.

Leaving Hillary out to dry would start a civil war within the federal government overnight.

So the bunch which has been willing to repeatedly shut down the government when they don't have the votes to get what they want "took a bullet for democracy" too? You're beyond delusional.

This is the kind of stuff even most people working in intelligence don't have a clue about. Stuff that is so closely held precisely because the slightest compromise in integrity can render all related information below it useless.

If this is the case, where does Kaplan get off insisting that the Top Secret/SAP stuff found in her emails is all public knowledge, and mostly only labeled as it was for diplomatic reasons? If the information is so sensitive you're not even supposed to release it after the fact, how does he claim to know the specific nature of their contents? Is he making it up out of thin air? Should he be sued for libel?

Tell me, which news outlet (in this election cycle) hired 20+ people specifically for the purpose of digging up everything possible on Hillary Clinton? Which news outlet chose their head anchor to hit her during the party debates? Which news outlet cherry picks their sample sizes for polls that skew the results in Trump's favor?

The middle complaint in particular is right up there in "blood coming out of her whatever"-land. But seriously, whatever spates of legitimate "bias" Trump has endured (and the fact that he's gotten where he has, mostly without having to spend a dime, with so little of substance to offer, not to mention an openly contemptuous attitude towards any non-fawning coverage he gets [my favorite is how he simply says "we don't talk about that anymore" whenever the "investigators in Hawaii" boondoggle comes up, and everyone just does what he says and stops asking], indicates that it really hasn't been much, unless you're a professional victim), I'm afraid he has a long, long way to go before he's anywhere near Whitewater/Vince Foster/Benghazi territory.

There's a distinction to be made here. Hillary is very well connected to many foreign parties and has a majority congress lined up after the midterms. Trump is not befallen to any foreign interests and is begrudgingly cooperating with the GOP because he can't win otherwise.

First off, dude, Hillary was Secretary of State, and also runs an international foundation - yes, she is "very well connected" to a whole bunch of "foreign parties", and frankly it'd be a huge strike against her if she wasn't at this point. The insinuation you're making, of course, is that she's somehow beholden to these "foreign parties", and is willing to disregard American interests to please them; if you want to dig up decisions she's made that didn't work out so well for the USA I'm sure you'll have little trouble finding them, and the same goes for anyone who's been in a position like hers, but making the leap to "she might as well be a foreign agent" takes a special type of conspiracy theorizing, in which any and all evidence that she might not be a mindless Saudi puppet must have been fabricated to keep the truth under wraps. Tell me, outside of bursting into Riyadh Rambo-style and gunning down the royal family, what would convince you that she might actually be acting in something resembling good faith for the country? On the flipside, what would Trump have to do to convince you he isn't?

EDIT: Anything like this, maybe? Anything in there that concerns you just a little?

Speaking of Trump, in case you hadn't heard (or didn't care to take into consideration), not only has his promise to run a self-funded campaign on the domestic front turned to dust in spectacular fashion, he's also openly sought foreign donations in direct violation of federal law. Not to mention the whole tax return thing once again, though I might as well be talking to a wall.

By the way, a Democratic majority in Congress apparently looming on the horizon? Where the hell did you hear that?

EDIT 2: And as for "begrudgingly cooperating", howzabout that VP nomination, where we now have to put up with the possibility of a bona fide born-again lunatic as Trump's right-hand man? Introduced with the telling line "I don't want to be an outsider" on top of that?

Her "concrete plans" are anything but, precisely because she isn't the one behind the wheel. That's the thing that should be keeping us all up at night.

There it is again, folks: if you can't accept the obvious explanation for why someone has done things you don't approve of (hint as to the press conference thing specifically: I just noted that the media openly hates her), then there must be a larger conspiracy at work. It's never enough.

By the way, I'm sure she's just chomping at the bit to go to war with Russia, since that's apparently what criticizing the latter's actions in Crimea must indicate, at least to Trump's fellow fearmongering crybaby Putin. And before you mention that scary no-fly zone over Syria, she specifically said that Russian aircraft would not be targeted, so move on to the next "sure sign" of her suicidal anti-Russian belligerence, please. Oh, and a list of all the people she's had murdered.

Do we really need to go down the rabbit hole of Hillary's seedy past?

I'm willing to bet that a sizable percentage of the rundown you'd present has few, if any, bearings in reality outside of Alex Jones' studio (another major Trump shill himself, just in case you weren't aware), but at this point it's clear your mind is made up that she's an Illuminati or something, so you'd just be pleasuring yourself (and I'd just be bashing my head into my computer screen) by doing so.

If you really want to stretch it, he's also a racist (but everyone is, so that's kind of whatever).

1) For the record, I personally doubt that Trump is a dyed-in-the-wool racist; I'm inclined to believe that he's just as inclined to rip off a white person as a black one, or any other, without a second thought. I'd align him more with Prescott Bush; he might not actually identify with the white supremacist groups he has dealings with, but when there's some manner of profit to be made he'll shake hands with the very worst humanity has to offer and never stop smiling while he does it. Whether that makes him better or worse than someone who's genuinely "all in" I'll leave to the individual to decide.

2) Everyone is not racist, or even "racist", the way Trump is. If you insist that they are, I'm afraid you're projecting again.

In all seriousness, I hope everyone living in or near a major city in the US stays safe over the coming months. Expect BLM "protests" to ramp up across the country.

For that matter, those of you in Europe need to be careful, as well. You already have journalists telling you otherwise.

So not only are blacks upset over unequal treatment by police actually using it as an excuse to kill whitey, but the Jews are attempting to make us complacent in the face of Islamic terrorism. I'm not even going to try addressing these, I'm just going to hope they're preserved for posterity.

No, what they said was they've never prosecuted someone with power under the applicable laws, so they shouldn't prosecute someone powerful under the laws which don't apply to them. But do apply to us.

Got an actual quote or the like to back this up, or is this just One Of Those Things Everybody Knows?

[BryanM]

RNC tomorrow, hope quash is hypuu for his guy.

Trump held a 51-32 percent advantage over Clinton with likely voters under age 50.

Ominous. These numbers were flipped for Obama/Romney.

Which begs the question....

There is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information.

If even James Comey here admits Clinton broke the law, there's nothing stopping Trump's attorney general from prosecuting her.

I think Trump promised to prosecute? If this turns out to be a lie, I'd be heartbroken but not surprised.

Any of his other lies, fine we know what to expect ("fuck you, got mine"). But this one. This one's sacred.

[EmperorIng]

I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be the bizarre shitshow to end all bizarre shitshows. Primetime baby, all week long!

Imagine the painful DNC that will transpire. I bet there will be moments twice as cringe-filled as the GWB dancing along with the reggae dudes thing that Mischief Maker posted. They need to make Hillary hip, fast, because the people who run these things are absolutely clueless. A self-destruction marathon, weeks in a row, all for American TV!!!

[quash]

Am I going to have to be the one that mentions how Obama managed to push a NATO member into Russia's sphere of influence?

The somewhat puzzling events of the past few weeks all line up now. Erdogan made good with Putin because he knew the coup was happening or was planning it all along. That was the canary that should have told the US to hold off, but for some reason didn't register.

Putin could have very well retaliated for that jet shot down over Turkey last year, but he knew better. Either he knew about the coup, didn't want to hasten a seemingly inevitable conflict with NATO, or perhaps both. It's a crazy time to be alive when the Prime Minister of Russia is looking out for the best interests of the US more than our own President (although I think he just wants to embarrass Obama more than anything).

At least Obama had the tact to go through another member of NATO; Hillary won't even bother with maintaining appearances if she sees the opportunity.

[BulletMagnet]

The somewhat puzzling events of the past few weeks all line up now. Erdogan made good with Putin because he knew the coup was happening or was planning it all along.

Putin could have very well retaliated for that jet shot down over Turkey last year, but he knew better. Either he knew about the coup, didn't want to hasten a seemingly inevitable conflict with NATO, or perhaps both.

At least Obama had the tact to go through another member of NATO; Hillary won't even bother with maintaining appearances if she sees the opportunity.

It's never enough.

Off to the side, you couldn't make this up either.