FBI Director James Comey Sacked
The Washington Post reports that:
FBI Director James B. Comey has been dismissed by the president [...] a startling move that officials said stemmed from a conclusion by Justice Department officials that he had mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.
Previously:
Clinton Told FBI She Relied on Others' Judgment on Classified Material
FBI Recommends No Prosecution for Clinton
F.B.I. Director James Comey Is Fired by Trump
President Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey:
President Trump has fired the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, over his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, the White House said Tuesday.
[...] Under the F.B.I.'s normal rules of succession, Mr. Comey's deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, a career F.B.I. officer, becomes acting director. The White House said the search for a new director will begin immediately.
I never liked Comey (see this cluster of stories), but I doubt there will ever be an FBI Director I like.
Related:
We're Stuck With Comey
Earlier in the day...
FBI Director Comey Misstated Huma Abedin Evidence at Last Week's Hearing
ProPublica reports that most of FBI Director James Comey's testimony to Congress last Wednesday related to Huma Abedin's mishandling of classified emails was inaccurate, and that FBI officials are privately acknowledging the mistake(s) but are still considering their next move:
FBI director James Comey generated national headlines last week with his dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining his "incredibly painful" decision to go public about the Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop.
Perhaps Comey's most surprising revelation was that Huma Abedin — Weiner's wife and a top Clinton deputy — had made "a regular practice" of forwarding "hundreds and thousands" of Clinton messages to her husband, "some of which contain classified information." Comey testified that Abedin had done this so that the disgraced former congressman could print them out for her boss. (Weiner's laptop was seized after he came under criminal investigation for sex crimes, following a media report about his online relationship with a teenager.)
The New York Post plastered its story on the front page with a photo of an underwear-clad Weiner and the headline: "HARD COPY: Huma sent Weiner classified Hillary emails to print out." The Daily News went with a similar front-page screamer: "HUMA ERROR: Sent classified emails to sext maniac Weiner."
The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it. FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do.
[...] According to two sources familiar with the matter — including one in law enforcement — Abedin forwarded only a handful of Clinton emails to her husband for printing — not the "hundreds and thousands" cited by Comey. It does not appear Abedin made "a regular practice" of doing so. Other officials said it was likely that most of the emails got onto the computer as a result of backups of her Blackberry.
Also at Washington Post (alternate analysis), The Hill, The New York Post, and USA Today.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
Related Stories
Even as a European*, I find this of interest, because of the level of corruption it shows.
Headline: "Clinton Was 'Extremely Careless' With Email But Should Not Be Charged".
In his statement, Comey said that the FBI's investigation had found 110 emails on Clinton's servers that had contained classified information when they were sent or received, of which eight contained material at the highest classification level of "top secret." Noting that this information was being stored on "unclassified personal servers" less secure even than commercial services like Gmail and that Clinton's use of the private account was widely known, Comey said it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account." Said Comey: "Any reasonable person should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that kind of information."
So: The FBI knows that she mishandled classified information. When you receive your security clearance, you are informed of the rules and the penalties for breaking them. Storing Secret, much less Top Secret information on a civilian server outside the control of the government violates those rules.
Yet, she will not be prosecuted. She was just "careless", no big deal. Laws are for the little people.
*Full disclosure: I used to be American, but turned in my passport some years ago. Various reasons, not least of which are the US tax policies. But the politics (The Shrub, Obama, and now...possibly Hillary!) - it's like a banana republic, only with nukes.
Politico reports:
Hillary Clinton never received training on how to handle classified information. By her own admission, she had little ability to discern whether a document included sensitive information. And when she did handle sensitive materials, she relied on her subordinates to ensure that nothing important was compromised.
Taken together, her responses to questions from FBI [US' Federal Bureau of Investigation] investigators reveal a high-level government executive who apparently had little grasp of the nuances and complexities around the nation's classification system — a blind spot that helped allow classified communications to pass through her private email server.
While Clinton is clear that she never had any intention to mishandle classified documents, a fact that FBI Director James Comey noted as a factor in his decision not to recommend any charges against the former secretary of state, answers she gave to FBI agents during a July 2 interview are likely to reinforce the Republican characterization of her as having been reckless with government secrets.
Bloomberg reports that Clinton Used Eight BlackBerrys, but [the] FBI Couldn't Get Them:
In addition to the eight devices she used as secretary of state, the FBI said there were at least five additional mobile devices they sought as part of their inquiry. Clinton's lawyers said they could not provide any of the mobile devices she used. One person interviewed by the FBI said he recalled two instances in which Clinton's devices were destroyed by "breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer." The FBI released the summary Friday to provide context on its decision not to recommend prosecution of Clinton or her aides for using the private system. The Democratic presidential nominee was interviewed about her use of private e-mail by FBI agents and federal prosecutors for 3 1/2 hours on July 2. The bureau then recommended that the Justice Department not pursue criminal charges.
James Comey has been asked by President Trump to stay on as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Comey is three years into a ten-year term.
News at NYT (which broke the story), USA Today, Washington Post, CNN, and The Hill.
Here's the bulk of our extensive past coverage of FBI Director Comey's career (oldest first):
2014:
FBI Director Concerned about Encryption on Smartphones
F.B.I. Director Calls "Dark" Devices a Hindrance to Crime Solving
To FBI Director Comey: You Reap What You Sow!
2015:
F.B.I. Has No Doubt that North Korea Attacked Sony, says Director
FBI Chief Links Video Scrutiny of Police to Rise in Violent Crime
2016:
Apple Ordered by Judge to Help Decrypt San Bernadino Shooter's phone
FBI Unable to Decrypt California Terrorists' Cell Phone
FBI vs. Apple Encryption Fight Continues
New York Judge Sides with Apple Rather than FBI in Dispute over a Locked iPhone
Apple Lawyer and FBI Director Appear Before Congress
FBI Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker's iPhone
FBI's iPhone Hack Only Works on 5C and Older
Washington Post: The FBI Paid "Gray Hat(s)", Not Cellebrite, for iPhone Unlock
FBI Director Blames 'Viral Video Effect' for Spike in Violent Crime
FBI Recommends No Prosecution for Clinton
FBI Chief Calls for National Talk Over Encryption vs. Safety
Anxious to see FBI Director James Comey retire? According to the man himself, you're going to have to wait:
The FBI director has no plans to leave the post before the end of his 10-year term. "You're stuck with me for about 6 1/2 years," James Comey said at a cyber conference in Boston on Wednesday, urging conference organizers to invite him to speak again.
In recent days, NPR and other news outlets have reported Comey pressed the Justice Department without success to issue a public denial of President Trump's tweet that the FBI and President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said this week that Trump still has confidence in Comey's ability to lead the FBI. Comey, who served as deputy U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush and who was named FBI director by Obama, has demonstrated a nearly unique ability to draw critics from both ends of the political spectrum.
Comprehensive coverage of the Comey saga.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey appeared before a U.S. Senate panel on May 3rd to defend his agency's conduct under his leadership during the 2016 elections:
Comey acknowledged that the realization the bureau could have affected the election's outcome left him feeling "mildly nauseous." But, he added, "honestly, it wouldn't change the decision." Comey has been transformed into an unusual kind of political celebrity over the past year, his decisions coming in for sharp criticism from almost every point of the political spectrum.
News reports have cited anonymous sources within the intelligence community casting him as too fond of the spotlight, despite his repeated insistence to the contrary. Whether he sought it or not, Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing was yet another center-stage moment for the FBI director. Cable networks carried virtually uninterrupted coverage of his testimony from the moment he took his seat before a scrum of news photographers.
Comey explained his reasoning behind the decision to inform Congress about Clinton emails discovered during an investigation into Anthony Weiner, and said that he had made the right choice. One event that factored into the decision and his earlier July 2016 announcement about the Hillary Clinton investigation was Bill Clinton's meeting with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. At Wednesday's hearing, Comey faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike on topics including the FBI's delay in disclosing an investigation into the Trump campaign and the decision to not charge Huma Abedin for mishandling classified information. On the day before the hearing, Hillary Clinton blamed the FBI Director for her loss, while President Trump tweeted that "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!"
Comey appeared to confirm that the FBI is investigating whether its agents leaked information to Rudy Giuliani, a Trump ally. He also took the time to denigrate WikiLeaks by calling it "intelligence porn", and alleging that WikiLeaks acted as a "conduit for the Russian intelligence services or some other adversary of the United States just to push out information to damage the United States". Here's what Julian Assange had to say in response. Comey did not confirm whether or not the government is planning to charge Julian Assange with crimes related to his organization's recent activities. CNN reported in April that the U.S. is preparing to charge Assange with... something, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently called WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service".
Also at The Washington Post, CNN, and The New York Times (editorial).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:05AM
Last one out of the executive branch, please turn out the lights...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:16AM (56 children)
This is about Russia. Fucking up his testimony on Abedin's emails is just convenient cover.
Trump fired the guy in charge of the investigation that some believe will end with his impeachment.
That's not normal, though it's also not unprecedented. Another president fired the person in charge of investigating his administration: Richard Nixon. [mashable.com]
Just yesterday Trump changed his twitter banner [thehill.com] to one of his own tweets that said: "Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is 'no evidence' of collusion w/ Russia and Trump." Which is textbook Shakespearean, "the lady doth protest too much."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:23AM (17 children)
I doubt Trump can fire enough people to quash an unfavorable investigation. If he does, they will just leak the info.
Now Comey's deputy Andrew G. McCabe is in charge. Is he going to stop the investigation(s)?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:31AM
A cornered rat will attack anything within reach.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:48AM (14 children)
Now Comey's deputy Andrew G. McCabe is in charge.
Only until trump appoints his own man.
At which point he can shut down the investigation.
That traitor McConnell is already calling for a quick confirmation process [thehill.com] and trump hasn't even named anyone yet.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:09AM (13 children)
Only until trump appoints his own man.
Wanted: New FBI director. Primary qualification: Complete lack of interest in investigating Russia. Everything else negotiable.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:43AM (3 children)
So who will be the replacement? I nominate Stacey Koon or David Duke.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:02AM (1 child)
Big Al Brown. Works at Burger King in Billingsley, Alamaba. Thinks Russia is a city in upstate New York, pootin' is what you do after too many refried beans, and knows when to do what he's told. He's just what Trump wants for the role.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:49PM
However, that makes him still perfect for the job.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:29PM
Sally Yates.
(Score: 2, Troll) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:00AM (8 children)
While Democrats are busy manufacturing consent for a nuclear war with Russia, rational people wish you fauxgressives would just take a long walk on a short pier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:12AM (4 children)
???
Where did you get the idea that Dems are trying to blow everything up? Bush-2 & Cheney are the case study of making up "facts" to support his war against Saddam.
(Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:19AM (3 children)
Are you kidding? Democrats are practically orgasming every time they hear Rachel Maddow say RussiaRussiaRussia. And while GWB was an evil fuck, Obama just doubled down on everything he did. If you don't know this, you are paying attention only to hagiography and not to facts. The entire Democrat establishment is a bunch of pro-war, corporatist, bankster loving, surveillance creeping, prison building cretins. Literally the only difference between the DNC and GOP, is abortion and bathroom access. Other than that, they're the same lot of mother fucking assholes destroying the middle class and blowing up random people around the world for the profit of a few.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:08PM
Haha, wow. Are you trying to say that Trump doesn't want nuclear war with Russia?
Don't give me any horseshit about his campaign promises. He's been a politician since he descended the golden escalator, and he's been routinely demonstrating that our usual method of observing that a politician's lip motion is strongly correlated with his use of outright deceit remains accurate.
Wake me up when you Republicans have an actual plan that at least all of you can agree to for healthcare
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
If there's no difference then why has Trump spent the first four months in office repealing stuff?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:09AM
The difference is simply which subset of the 0.1% each party caters to. Republicans push the agenda of old industries, plus war, surveillance, prisons, and unfair free trade. Democrats push the agenda of Banksters/tech venture capital mostly, plus war, surveillance, prisons, and unfair free trade. Republicans rely on gun lovers so they tend to (at least mouth) support for the 2nd Amendment. Democrats are a little smarter and fearing a new French Revolution, especially the red necklace part, are devising ever more clever ways to make the 2nd Amendment irrelevant. Both support policies to depress wages -- Republicans by crushing unions, Democrats by importing labor (though Democrats aren't all that union friendly either).
I hope that is nuanced enough for you. In either case however, their constituents are a subset of the ultra-wealthy and they couldn't care less about workers or the middle class.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:15AM
While Democrats are busy manufacturing consent for a nuclear war with Russia
Don't buy it. Nuclear war is beyond third rail for them. It's unthinkable. They're just using Putin as a bogeyman because he's not well liked by most of the US. This might work in the long run too, because well, there is something weird going on there.
As to Comey, he did indeed greatly mishandle the Clinton email investigation and I think he did so at the behest of Obama (and then did that October surprise in passive-aggressive protest). And of course, his opinions on privacy and similar issues are abominable. But I don't see that latter part improving under any new appointee to the position.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:51AM (1 child)
Democrats are busy manufacturing consent for a nuclear war with Russia,
More proof your grip on reality is no better than the AM talk radio crowd.
You make it sound like there is only one choice, nukes or nothing.
Which is ridiculous. There are a lot of possibilities for retaliation.
Nukes are a last resort and nobody is going to shoot them off over election meddling or even Ukraine.
We didn't nuke russia over south Ossetia, or even Crimea.
So chill out with the hysterics already.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:28PM
Because "conventional war with " is shorthand for nuclear war.
"War with Russia" IS "nuclear war".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @12:52AM
I doubt Trump can fire enough people to quash an unfavorable investigation.
Trump: "Ready, Fire, Aim!"
The guy just straight-up admitted it was because of Russia:
“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’”
Trump said he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey [washingtonpost.com]
He really is the idiot-in-chief.
I'm sure his handlers will come up with some non-explanation for how Turmp is the most trustworthy president in the history of all presidents but you shouldn't believe his own words.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BK on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:33AM (12 children)
I'm going with dude just likes firing people. It's like his trademark move or something.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:35AM
I wanted "You're fired!" to be the department line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:36AM (6 children)
'You're *FIRED*!'
Like he used to do on the Apprentice/IRL?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:25AM (5 children)
There are many videos:
* Anand, you're fired. Go! [youtube.com]
* Bredford, you're fired. [youtube.com] Jean, you're fired. [youtube.com]
Some notes. Anand obviously broke the rules badly. Almost felt like the rest of the group were going to do a facepalm.
What's up at 0:48 [youtube.com] with the welcome party? groupie sex as a reward?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:44AM (1 child)
Some notes. Anand obviously broke the rules badly.
Holy shit! You actually watched The Apprentice?
Explains so much.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:44AM
Obviously you're an idiot for not paying attention to the contents in the links.
Nor can your explain what that "so much" is so your post just stinks of ad hominem and your opinions on that sole fact is just trash.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:39AM
Du bist gefeuert! [youtube.com] ("You're fired!", German snippet from Drawn Together, "The one with the big twist" [wikia.com])
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lx on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:59PM (1 child)
The great thing about al this is that the headlines after impeachment will write themselves.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:46AM
How close is he really to be "relieved" of his position either by his own decision or by others?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:57AM (1 child)
I'm going with dude just likes firing people. It's like his trademark move or something.
That was an act for the tv show.
He's on the record saying he doesn't like firing people, multiple times.
Probably because its an admission that he failed to hire the best person in the first place.
http://lifebeyondsportmedia.com/Donald-Trump [lifebeyondsportmedia.com]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/15/the-two-words-donald-trump-hates-most-you-re-fired.html [thedailybeast.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:53AM
> He's on the record saying he doesn't like firing people, multiple times.
"on the record" seems to have no matching record within Trump's memory. He could say the opposite on any given day.
Maybe gamma rays flip the bits?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Friday May 12 2017, @03:06AM (1 child)
Heh heh, I wonder if it played out like an episode of The Apprentice. Trump sitting in a room behind a menacing desk as Comey walks in, the slight breeze from the door causes the orange mane to flutter ever so slightly as the Don creases his lips to expose his signature pout. Slowly but surely a pair of tiny tiny hands reach out from under the desk to rest on top of it. A moment of silence cuts across the room before the right hand of the God Emperor lifts off the table, balled into a gun shape figure to point at Comey followed almost instantaneously by the apocalypse of a trillion bacteria in the vicinity of the black hole that spurts forth the words, "You're FIRED!!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @06:48AM
Heh heh, I wonder if it played out like an episode of The Apprentice.
The Apprentice was just a fantasy. In real life Don the Con is a coward.
He sent his former bodyguard to deliver a plain manila envelope containing the letter to the FBI offices in Langley while Comey was in California.
Yeah, that's right, he didn't even have the balls to tell Comey himself.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reports-keith-schiller-hand-delivered-termination-letter-to-comey [talkingpointsmemo.com]
Reports are that sending minions to fire people rather than look them in the face himself is standard trump behavior.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
Anyone interested in the AP feed on this topic? It's here (probably other places too):
https://start.localnet.com/article.php?category=topstories&article=33a167fff9884b7ea7e1afe074ca2295 [localnet.com]
Many small snippets/summaries, comments by pols and others.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:49AM
Thanks.
Gotta love the theatrics of it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:49AM
No... Not really.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:11AM (2 children)
Even (republican) Representative Justin Amash thinks the firing is hinky. [twitter.com] He hasn't gone against trump in public before. Maybe now it won't just be McCain and Lindsey Graham who put country over party.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:37AM
Well, if all the liberals in this two-minutes' hate would stop for a second and quit behaving like hysterical Nancies, then maybe they'd figure that it would be a good idea to wait and see who takes over before resuming their chirping and squawking.
Comey's a partisan crook and even though he made those comments about Hillary, he did so because the true patriots forced his hand. He was totally in on the Chicago Politics lawlessness of the Clinton/Obama crime syndicate with the HSBC nonsense and whatnot. We shouldn't be surprised if they find him dead of suicide by 3 shots to the head with a bolt-action rifle.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:45AM
Another republican representative, Carlos Curbelo, stands up:
“Today’s extraordinary decision raises many questions all of which must be answered. Congress and the American people need a transparent explanation as to how this decision was reached and why it was executed at this time. It is critical that the FBI can continue all of its pending work with independence and integrity – especially the investigation into the Russian government’s efforts to influence our last election and undermine American democracy. Today I reiterate the need for Congress to establish a Select Committee with full investigatory powers to thoroughly examine this matter.”
http://curbelo.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1457 [house.gov]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:11AM (2 children)
The whitehouse just announced that tomorrow turmp is meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. [reuters.com]
Say what you will about the guy, but he's got giant balls.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:00AM
Not so much "giant balls" as "memory of a goldfish" with a dash of "self-awareness of a toddler" :/
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:00PM
Trump luxury is to have a gift to welcome a guest ...
Or was he afraid that Lavrov would come with a gift for his host?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:42AM (12 children)
Could someone explain the Russia conspiracy theory?
It seems to be anointed queen in waiting lost because she sucked and the electorate hates her although the elites love her, therefore someone is to blame, and it can't be her and it can't be the D party leadership, so obviously it was gremlins or space aliens or ... I know, Russians!
Is there anything to it beyond "argh matey here be tinfoil internet pirate hats"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:17PM (10 children)
Not so much a conspiracy theory as what should be a non-partisan opinion: Foreign Governments Shouldn't Fuck With Our Electoral Process
Hacking only one political party is clear interference.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:05PM (2 children)
That famous photo of Flynn at the same table with Putin [dailykos.com] had another famous face too -- Jill Stein. Anyone who thinks Putin did the US a favor by hacking the democrats can't see beyond their own dick - the republican party could be the target in the next election cycle if it suits Putin's objectives.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:33AM (1 child)
Bullshit: https://theintercept.com/2016/08/08/dems-tactic-of-accusing-adversaries-of-kremlin-ties-and-russia-sympathies-has-long-history-in-us/ [theintercept.com]
Let us not forget, it was HRC that sold out US uranium supplies for multi-millions in donations. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/23/us/clinton-foundation-donations-uranium-investors.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @02:22AM
Let us not forget, it was HRC that sold out US uranium supplies for multi-millions in donations.
Yes. Let us not forget that baseless accusation and let us not forget how it reflects on your objectivity.
A key fact ignored in criticisms of Clinton’s supposed involvement in the deal is that the uranium was not — nor could it be — exported, and remained under the control of U.S.-based subsidiaries of Uranium One, according to a statement by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-uranium-russia-deal/ [snopes.com]
Hemo, stop being a fucking tool. Your hate for hillary is based on lies and conspiracy theories.
It is hard as fuck to admit that someone tricked you, but you've been tricked.
Please, be an adult and stop letting people with a political agenda manipulate you into believing obvious falsehoods.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:26PM (6 children)
Well, that's kinda my point, first of all we as a nation never, ever follow that guideline so IF THEY DID, which I'm not agreeing with, why should the Russians, and secondly what did they actually do other than Hillary lost and the only possible reason could be hacking?
Its a weird definition of hacking. I don't like it that its cloudy outside right now, must be Russian Hackers. The neighbors cow died, must be Salem style witchcraft, err I mean Russian Hackers!
I'm just asking for an explanation deeper than "Hillary lost therefore Russian Hackers". Thats asking for a heck of leap of faith. Why isn't the mantra "Hillary lost therefore Salem style witchcraft". Maybe because Hillary was a witch; OK then substitute in any of the historical inquisitions in Europe, it don't matter much which (oh the pun)
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 10 2017, @09:22PM (5 children)
Its a weird definition of hacking.
Breaking into multiple email servers and stealing all their data is not a weird definition of hacking.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @09:51PM (4 children)
Then you end up with "why Russians" why not Chinese or Canadians or whatnot. This isn't an episode of CSI you can't just click the "trace" button.
Then there's six layers of "Russian".
1) Seth Rich stole the emails and was execute by ... someone. He wanted to frame the Russians and stuffed the logs with Russian IP addresses but being a kid he Fed it up and paid the ultimate price.
2) Some North Korean was told to frame the Russians or his family will be executed by anti-aircraft gun so the logs are full of Russian addresses and being a semi-pro he didn't F it up as much as Seth Rich. Or maybe he did F it up, and nobody's talking about it.
3) Some Chinese dude cracked a server physically located in Russia and used it
4) Some Chinese dude sorta kinda had the cooperation of a server in Russia, or willful lack of interference lets say, and used it
5) Some private citizen in Russia broke a variety of Russian laws by doing it as a private citizen.
6) Some Russian agent operating under orders from the Russian government did it.
I'm mystified how some private citizen here on SN can figure out which of the six it is.
Finally there's the fascinating issue of "does any of this matter". You have to be realistic. I wasn't voting for Hillary until suddenly I saw some emails. Its kinda a reefer madness claim that everything was going perfectly and then the truth about Hillary came out and suddenly everyone stopped loving her. She was always hated by most of the population. And the great injustice, assuming any of the narrative is true, is that once people really know Hillary, really know who a candidate is, they hate her and won't vote for her, so again, IF the Russians hacked, or more likely the Chinese or our own NSA or wtf, whoever did it DOES deserve a Nobel Peace Prize... don't they?
Think this thru very carefully in the propaganda plan... the end result of Putin personally showed the world what kind of woman Hillary is, and she's not liked... wouldn't the vast majority of the american public high five that bro and say thanks and share shots of vodka with him, if he did it?
I mean he didn't "steal an election" in the sense of stealing gold bricks out of a bank "Oceans Eleven" style. He saved us from a madwoman for which he's a bro and we owe him one. And the key insight, the most important fact of all... this is the absolute worst possible case, if I fall for every ridiculous narrative and gullible believe the craziest most ridiculous conspiracy theory. The absolute worst case outcome for the Trump / Republicans / Right is Putin is a bro and our nation owes him one. Think about that when you push the narrative, if the right collapses and you "win" what you "win" is a majority of Americans think Putin is a hero. Has the D party sunk so low thats considered a "win"?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 10 2017, @09:53PM (2 children)
This isn't an episode of CSI you can't just click the "trace" button.
Edward Snowden thinks the they can do exactly that.... [salon.com]
(Score: 2) by gottabeme on Thursday May 11 2017, @12:08AM (1 child)
Salon is a heavily left-leaning outlet (and therefore anti-Trump), and Snowden is a Russian puppet (and therefore untrustworthy).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:31AM
I can tell if you are pulling a Poe's Law or not.
But if you are not, how do you square that circle of snowden being a russian puppet who is pushing the trumputin 'conspiracy theory?'
(Score: 2) by gottabeme on Thursday May 11 2017, @12:06AM
Make no mistake about it: Putin is a nasty, ruthless guy. Anything he does is because he thinks it's ultimately in his own interest. And sometimes that includes merely causing chaos, not necessarily anything more targeted than that. If (and it's a big if) he was behind the leaked DNC emails, that doesn't mean we should be grateful to him. He's playing a long game, and focusing on this small stuff is missing the big picture and playing into his hands.
It seems bizarre to me that anyone would claim Trump is more favorable to the Russians than Clinton. Clinton is the one who approved the sale of 20% of American uranium (!) interests to Russia. What has Trump ever done for Russia or Putin? I've never seen anyone explain this. Claims that former members of his campaign team and advisors had Russian business connections are not damning, as 1) many people had business interests in Russia after the collapse of the USSR, and 2) Democrats are just as guilty of this as anyone else. That this is unique to Trump or his team is a lie perpetrated by the media. And, in fact, Democrats are historically (and currently) the party with ties to Russia, Communists, etc. (Don't believe it? Look up Ted Kennedy for one very prominent example.)
I think you're right about the attribution issue. I remember seeing supposed screenshots (of Windows machines) of files left behind as evidence, which had names in Cyrillic characters. That anyone would think that proves anything is nuts to me; anyone could use Google to find Russian names and copy-paste them into anything. And IP addresses don't prove anything either; any attacker worth his salt could (and would) hide his tracks and misdirect his victims by launching the attacks from machines in whatever nation he wanted. Supposedly the FBI, NSA, etc. have more evidence than IP addresses and Cyrillic filenames, but I guess that evidence will never see the light of day (if it exists), and even if it did, how could we verify it? There's no way to verify the provenance of digital information. It can be manufactured at the click of a button.
More useful, I think, is to consider the general evidence that Wikileaks is a front for Russian intelligence. If that's true, then it's more likely that Russia was involved in leaking the emails, but even that is not conclusive, as Wikileaks has published leaks from non-Russian sources. And even if they did, that doesn't make Trump guilty of anything, except perhaps being lucky enough to run for president against Clinton, coming off 8 years of Obama, with rising efforts to push globalism everywhere. It was like a perfect storm.
Regardless of what actually happened, the media will keep pushing their anti-Trump, Russia-did-it narrative, virtually no-matter-what. Their sole objective is to get Trump impeached, and they will do whatever they can get away with, including lying through their teeth. That might be the worst thing about this whole mess, that it's very difficult to know which sources can be trusted (if any can be).
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday May 10 2017, @10:19PM
Could someone explain the Russia conspiracy theory?
It seems to be anointed queen in waiting lost because she sucked and the electorate hates her although the elites love her, therefore someone is to blame, and it can't be her and it can't be the D party leadership, so obviously it was gremlins or space aliens or ... I know, Russians!
Is there anything to it beyond "argh matey here be tinfoil internet pirate hats"
Regardless of whether the outcome would have been the same, the Russians continue to use active measures [wikipedia.org] (as they have for decades) to influence public opinion in countries of interest for them. This includes the US, UK, France, much of the former Soviet bloc and FSM knows where else.
The rise of social media and the ridiculous conspiracy theories* of the right in the US have primed the public to accept fake news (that is, lies intended to pollute public discourse) as long as it comports with their existing biases. That, and demonizing political opponents has weakened our political system and allowed folks like the Russians to muddy the waters and make it more difficult for us to work together to address the issues we all face.
It's appropriate that we all stand together to identify and understand how our public discourse and political system are being affected by those who wish to weaken, destabilize and/or harm the US.
*Partial list of right-wing conspiracy theories. Feel free to add any left-wing ones you think appropriate.
Pizzagate [wikipedia.org]
Birtherism [wikipedia.org]
Jade Helm [wikipedia.org]
Common Core will turn your kids gay [msnbc.com]
Agenda 21 [newsweek.com]
Sharia Law coming to your town [snopes.com]
Plans for firearms confiscation [adl.org]
FEMA Concentration Camps [wikipedia.org]
Clinton death squads [snopes.com]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
you democrats are pitiful. all you're going to get is a civil war with you dead. i've seen no evidence of any illegal collusion with russia. just a bunch of socialist scum running their mouths. i want the government cooperating and improving relations with russia. there's no good reason to be trying to start a fight with them. there's no win for anyone.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:34PM
i want the government cooperating and improving relations with russia.
IF, for the sake of argument, the Russians thought Hillary was going to start a nuclear war with 30% probability, and they figured they could use Salem style witchcraft, or voodoo, or "hacking" to prevent her election at a cost of less than 10% chance of nuclear war if discovered (and good luck explaining why our guy on the button would launch, LOL) then even if all the insane witchcraft rumors or hacking rumors were true, then the Russians saved planet earth and we should take Obummer's peace prize away from him and give it to Putin or split it 50:50 with him and Trump or WTF.
So lets play the extend and amplify game. Fine the Russians "hacked" the election. You make that sound like a problem, or that they did something wrong?
Don't we hack elections all the time using CIA death squads and coups? We're a hell of a lot worse and the Russians don't punish us and we don't punish the CIA. So a fair punishment against Trump or the Russians would be a nice wrist slap?
We'll play the extend and amplify game some more. OK the Russians hacked the election, whatever the F that means, now what do we do? Nuke them? I'm sure mutually assured destruction will really teach the entire northern hemisphere a lesson, considering that 99.9999% of the victims were completely innocent of any decision. So we... hack the Russian election? Seriously, you think we haven't before? They don't have candidates as insane as Hillary so they don't care?
The whole topic is just bizarre.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:02PM
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/12/politics/harry-reid-james-comey-election/ [cnn.com]
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Monday FBI Director James Comey was "heavily involved as a partisan" in the weeks leading up to the election and that Comey's actions handed the presidency to Donald Trump.
The retiring Nevada Democrat said Democrats "would have won the majority in the Senate and would have won the presidency but for Comey."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:01AM (78 children)
Comey lost the reputation for being an honest lawman and the moral authority to remain as FBI Director the day he failed to recommend action against HRC for painfully obvious violations of national security. Everything after that has been his attempts to survive, but if you throw yourself on your sword to save a higher up you have to actually take the fall for them, you can't have it both ways and he is now beginning to pay the price for Hillary's sins that he willingly accepted upon his own head.
Odds are Trump will, for his own reasons, allow him to go quietly and he should be smart enough to accept that. Should he resist he should be forced to pay the full price for his sins. In a sane world, him, Lynch, Abedin and both Clintons would be wearing orange for the remainder of their miserable lives as examples to others that some government corruption crosses lines that simply can't be allowed to be crossed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BK on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:11AM (32 children)
Consider this before down-modding jmorris on this one: If Comey had done his job (as jmorris has explained it anyway), he'd now be dealing with a President Sanders.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 4, Informative) by epitaxial on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:23AM (12 children)
The democrats themselves didn't want Bernie. Bernie won't take corporate money.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:54AM (11 children)
Correction, The DNC did not want Bernie. They wanted Hillary, and with her anointment, many democrats could register as republicans during the primaries to stuff the ballots with Trump votes to clear the way for the Queen. Backfired pretty good, didn't it? Hee hee. They got what they deserved, and so did the voters for falling for it.
Bernie won't take corporate money.
Not directly, no. But the defense contractors in his state find a way to feed him.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:28AM (10 children)
"The DNC did not want Bernie."
That may not be the most accurate characterization. Remember, Wasserman-Schultz resigned in disgrace. I don't think anyone can say for certain what the DNC "wanted", because W-S was Hillary's attack dog, and W-S was in control of the DNC.
I agree, though, that the DNC got what it deserved. Had the Democrat voters had their way, it most likely would have been a Bernie-Trump contest. And, I kinda think that Bernie would have won. I'm certainly not a Sanders fan, but I think that Sanders was the better qualified candidate between the two. I MIGHT have voted for him, myself, had he been on the ballot. Maybe.
I didn't make up my mind who I was voting for, until I sat down at my polling station, and skimmed over the ballot. At that moment, I decided to vote for Johnson. I already knew that I was voting against Hillary, but it was a tossup between Johnson, Stein, or just possibly, Trump.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:24AM
Voters tend to reward aggression. Further, the more aggressive one tends to seize the initiative. Then the other party is on the defensive, reacting to attacks rather than putting their own message out, which is a poor way to run a race.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:52AM (8 children)
Sanders was the better qualified candidate
For... being a senator yes. He has tons of legislative experience. "Bernie for speaker of the house" etc.
However his only executive experience was being mayor of some podunk 30K town 40 years ago. It took a long time but we finally had a presidential candidate who made Sarah Palin from '08 look dramatically overqualified.
Another problem Bernie had was the typical "never done anything but sit on the government gravy train" AFAIK he's never earned an honest dollar in his life. I donno if Trump's antics are a blueprint for America but he certainly didn't sit in the ivory tower his whole life.
Having basically zero executive experience he's not really qualified for even a cabinet level position, but he might be able to grow into it and use his legislative branch skills. He would have made a good deputy director or lower level functionary of HUD or Ed in the Trump admin, perhaps.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:32PM
This is only because uvory is too expensive for the Trump tower.
Otherwise, I don't know what reality show I'm watching today: MAGA or The Apprentice. Not that it would matter, both are equality crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:01PM (3 children)
If you're counting cabinet positions as "executive experience" it looks like we've had 12 presidents with none of {vice president, governor, cabinet}. That's slightly over a quarter of the total.
Andrew Jackson - senator
William Henry Harrison - senator
Zachary Taylor - military
Franklin Pierce - senator
Abraham Lincoln - representative
Ulysses S. Grant - military
James Garfield - representative
Benjamin Harrison - senator
Warren Harding - senator
Dwight D. Eisenhower - military
John F. Kennedy - senator
Barack Obama - senator
So it seems pretty reasonable to elect presidents based on their Senate experience only. I mean hell, we just had Obama for 8 years and he was "only" a senator.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:06PM
Drat, forgot to source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_previous_experience [wikipedia.org]
That only lists the last 3 positions but I would think that would include the most important ones.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:08PM
Er, 13 counting Trump.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:35PM
Yeah and 'bama was ... great, yeah just great. History is not going to be kind to that human paperweight, that placeholder.
Its kinda important that Grant, Ike, and JFK had a significant amount of wartime military commander experience either at high levels or on the front line. So its not like they had never been in charge of anything. Likewise I gave Trump a pass based on his extensive business experience.
My favorite eras of history don't involve these dudes. Maybe Harrison was his eras equivalent of a billionaire or I forgot he was a naval admiral or something like that. Probably not, but maybe. Its very unusual but I have occasionally made mistakes. Anyway, weasel words aside, if you take the list and cross off the ex-mil leaders and ex-business leaders, you're pretty much stuck with, um, "they're not sending their best" is the phrase? When even wikipedia has lines describing a Democrat, a Democrat mind you, like "Pierce is viewed by presidential historians as an inept chief executive" ... whoa feel the burn. If he were a Republican given wiki-politics that line would be the usual "literally hitler" stuff.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:14PM (2 children)
The same can be said about Trump. He's lost more money than he's made and has only been able to hide it because of shady accounting, tax law abuse, and daddy's money.
Why do you think he is hiding his tax information? There's only one conclusion that makes sense: releasing his taxes would prove that he's not the multi-billionaire he claims to be and is actually nothing more than a sleazy used car salesman and a mediocre one at that.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:39PM (1 child)
Trump sounds like America, doesn't he? I think thats great. Actually he sounds like Hollywood. Or Detroit. Or the military industrial complex. He's just America in a bottle, that guy...
Also I'm talking revenue you're talking profit or maybe balance sheet or maybe life long balance sheet.
I guess the best analogy I can come up with is I'm saying that over the life of the site "AC" has gotten a crapton of upvotes and you're arguing that at the same time the only thing that matters is GNAA raids result in the NET karma of AC, were AC to be a real account, it would likely be somewhat negative. So we're carefully talking about completely different interpretations of the same data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:56PM
Sounds like something that would wreck the plumbing when you dump it down the toilet.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:46AM (16 children)
And a first lady being investigated for fraud?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:04AM (15 children)
> And a first lady being investigated for fraud?
This is something the Bernie Bros can't grasp.
Bernie never had to endure the spotlight.
As a senator his constituency is tiny, 600K people mostly rural.
Clinton pulled her punches because she did not want to alienate his people in the general.
But if Bernie had won the primary, Trump would have been relentless, ginning up anything and everything.
His wife's problems with the school were already being reported on back then, trump would have gone nuts with it.
And who knows what other flaws are in Bernie's closet? We don't, because nobody ever looked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:02AM
Thanks for Correcting the Record.
Wait, are you just doing this as a hobby now?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:07AM (13 children)
Bernie isn't to blame for Clinton's horrific record which left her exposed to the spotlight. Honestly, I can't comprehend why Republicans hate her so much, because she's a natural for that party. Reference: list of 25 major policy issues in which HRC is just another Republican: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-belville/the-problem-with-hillary-clinton_b_9349590.html [huffingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:12AM (12 children)
> Bernie isn't to blame for Clinton's horrific record
Don't try to make this about Clinton.
It is about Bernie's actual viability in a general election.
Trump would have shredded him too.
Especially because Trump's appeal was primarily racial anxiety, not economic anxiety. [vox.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:22AM (11 children)
Get real. Clinton -- one of the most loathed politicians of all time from all sides -- came within inches of beating Trump. In other words, Bernie would have pulped him. But you know who would have been saddest about that? Democrats because it would thwart their Republican agenda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:37AM (10 children)
Your entire analysis rests on the assumption that Bernie could survive the spotlight.
As his wife's problems show, he's got problems too.
Furthermore, he regularly underperformed with minorities.
Clinton absolutely thrashed him in southern states.
And that's because his message of economic populism sounds just like the same old white people shit that never did anything good for brown and black people.
Non-white turnout for Bernie would have been worse than Clinton.
And I'm tired of arguing with you. Your clinton derangement syndrome makes you impervious to logic. Not unlike all the pepes that smell of mayo.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:42AM (9 children)
I know Trump voters who would have voted for Bernie.
The DNC intentionally frontloads all the Southern states, minimizes debate opportunities, colludes with the media to suppress information about Bernie and despite all that, and only manages to coronate Clinton by purging voter roles and reversing popular opinion with Superdelegates. If ever there was a party more deserving of a good ass fucking, I can't think of it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:04AM (5 children)
> reversing popular opinion with Superdelegates.
Your delusions are hardcore dude.
Clinton won the primary by a margin of almost 4 million votes. [wikipedia.org]
That's more than her popular vote margin in the general out of like 1/5th the total voters.
No superdelegates were necessary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:42PM
Must have been all those illegal votes Trump is always talking about.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:49PM (3 children)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/16/clinton-does-best-where-voting-machines-flunk-hacking-tests-hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders-election-fraud-allegations/ [counterpunch.org]
Basically all the superdelegates pledging for Clinton early also had the obvious effect of tilting support to her from the bandwagon.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:13PM (2 children)
Basically all the superdelegates pledging for Clinton early also had the obvious effect of tilting support to her from the bandwagon.
If that were the case it would have caused voter suppression during the primary - why vote if it won't make any difference?
And yet they were only marginally down from the 2008's historically high numbers (easily explained by Obama's popularity) and more than double the 2004 primaries.
Yours is the logic of conspiracy - any fact in isolation that "proves" your predetermined outcome is highlighted, everything else is ignored.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:01PM (1 child)
If that were the case it would have caused voter suppression during the primary - why vote if it won't make any difference?
Oh really? You're sure? People vote for lots of different reasons, not all of them rational. Maybe the set of people who didn't bother to vote were balanced out by a different set that were driven to vote for some other reason.
Yours is the logic of conspiracy - any fact in isolation that "proves" your predetermined outcome is highlighted, everything else is ignored.
I know it must be really difficult for you when somebody disagrees with you. So much easier to just call them all haters and conspiracy theorists. After the DNC got caught blatantly throwing Bernie under the bus in their own leaked communications, it's hardly inconceivable that there was indeed collusion in regards to primary votes. Next you'll say that Snowden and the repeated admissions that they still kept doing it after being told multiple times to stop is no reason to distrust the NSA that they've stopped domestic spying.
As I've pointed out before, you don't have a leg to stand on with slinging mud about people being "conspiracy theorists" when you won't even put a pseudonym behind *your* words. Anonymous Coward indeed.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:35AM
After the DNC got caught blatantly throwing Bernie under the bus in their own leaked communications,
Yet another example of your conspiracy logic. They did no such thing. A couple of people were talking shit about Bernie in what amounted to office gossip. JFC, if that qualifies as "throwing Bernie under the bus" then you have never seen a bus.
Quite acting like a hysterical little girl.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:19AM (2 children)
I know Trump voters who would have voted for Bernie.
No doubt you helped convince them to vote for Trump too.
Clinton wasn't the problem. Your enthusiastic collusion with the republican party to smear a run-of-the-mill centrist democrat as being the devil incarnate is to blame.
Not you alone, you had a lot of other hyperbolic buddies doing the same thing, making her out to be worse than trump.
But if any one poster on soylent is culpable, its you and your useful idiocy. What a freaking tool.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:42AM (1 child)
Clinton wasn't the problem.
Are you serious? She supported mass surveillance, voted for the Iraq war, supported the TPP countless times, likely supported all the other nonsense like the TSA, and so on. Trump may have been the same on many of those issues, but that doesn't make any of those positions okay; it just makes them both evil, even if Clinton was less evil. Many of those issues are 'strike one, you're out' to me, so obviously I didn't vote for Clinton or Trump.
While many people may exaggerate Clinton's evil, you understate it. Being a partisan hack isn't going to get you anywhere.
Your enthusiastic collusion with the republican party to smear a run-of-the-mill centrist democrat as being the devil incarnate is to blame.
I would say the blame lies squarely on people who voted for Clinton in the primaries and the DNC for being biased against Bernie (even though that alone didn't result in his loss). Stop putting forth run-of-the-mill centrist democrats (i.e. evil scumbags) and maybe people could be more enthusiastic. Sure, you could say that anyone who didn't vote for Candidate A is to blame for Candidate A losing, but if Candidate A is terrible, not voting for them is justified, so just assigning blame is meaningless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:22PM
Are you serious? She supported mass surveillance, voted for the Iraq war, supported the TPP countless times, likely supported all the other nonsense like the TSA, and so on.
Don't magnify your personal issues. None of that, not even the Iraq war, matter all that much to the average voter. Sure its a big deal to the hyper-motivated. But the fact that Clinton got more votes in the 2016 primary than there were total votes in the 2004 primary says that all of those things weren't such a big deal to a large number of voters. Your'e just doing exactly what I accused hemo of, hysterical exaggeration.
Stop putting forth run-of-the-mill centrist democrats (i.e. evil scumbags) and maybe people could be more enthusiastic.
Don't fool yourself. The energy might be with the progressive wing of the democrats. But the majority of the party is still with the centrists.
This election was about trump, not the democrats.
Being a partisan hack isn't going to get you anywhere.
I voted for Bernie. I just don't have my head in the sand about how and why the rest of the party voted.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:38AM
What makes you so sure?
Hillary already had a VP pick and the Democratic establishment made it clear Bernie, or any other outsider candidate, would not be their pick. It would have been another boring Biden-like neocon like or some such nonsense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:13AM
How does that, in anyway, reflect on the honesty of jmorris's interpretation of events?
What, we should mod up jmorris because he advocates for something that, purely incidentally, would have produced a goal that we like?
Jmorris has absolutely nothing to lose by indicting Comey like that, Sanders ain't getting elected.
But jmorris absolutely does have something to gain by portraying Comey has a democratic tool - further reinforcement of his pro-trump narrative.
So no, do not consider what-ifs that will never happen. Consider the honesty of what jmorris wrote. It sure looks dishonest to me, and you are on the same train with your non-sequitur defense of his bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:19AM (5 children)
If I could be bothered to log in, I'd give you an up mod. There's a first time for everything I guess. You still owe me a new irony meter for blowing up my last one though.
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:00AM (4 children)
You know, they invented these things called "cookies" a while back. We hand them out free with every login. They make it so you don't have to log back in again for up to a year. If you're worried about tracking, don't. We don't even run access logs for apache unless we're actively debugging something. That's how serious we take your privacy. We affirmatively want to be able to tell the government or lawyers "fuck if we know, we don't log that" if they come asking questions. It would in fact make my entire year to be able to tell them precisely how they could suck it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Wednesday May 10 2017, @08:40PM (3 children)
But you do store the IP for anonymous posts, right? When I post anonymously, the mod-option is not available. When I switch network (arrive in my workplace, switch to wifi) and get a new IP, I get the mod-options
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 10 2017, @10:50PM (2 children)
Nah, we store salted hashes of the IP address and subnet. If not directly asked for both the salt and the hash, we're under no obligation to mention that's how we roll and can simply say we do not log IP addresses except in the Apache error log. And even then it's on them to build their own rainbow table for that salt, keeping in mind that if you're coming in over IPv6 there's no way in hell they can build a rainbow table that big in the foreseeable future.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:38AM (1 child)
Nah, we store salted hashes of the IP address and subnet.
That's easy AF to reverse, the salt is no secret and the IP address space is tiny,
If not directly asked for both the salt and the hash, we're under no obligation to mention that's how we roll and can simply say we do not log IP addresses
Ah, the internet lawyer! The most expert of all lawyers. Sounds like you would like a trip to jail.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:19AM
Not if you're coming in on IPv6 it's not. Even governmental TLAs can no way in hell store or process enough data to build/use a rainbow table of that size.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @01:36AM (19 children)
In a sane world, him, Lynch, Abedin and both Clintons would be wearing orange for the remainder of their miserable lives as examples to others that some government corruption crosses lines that simply can't be allowed to be crossed.
Oh please. In the alternate universe you inhabit, sure. But in reality it wasn't even close. I'm not going to bother trying to argue about the facts of the case against Clinton because those facts have never changed anyone's mind (well they changed mine, but I don't count). But the your decision to put AG Lynch at the head of that list indicates just how delusional you are. She freakin recused herself from the decision to prosecute in order to avoid even the appearance of corruption.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:38AM (16 children)
"I'm not going to bother trying to argue about the facts"
The facts. Funny how facts work. All of us weigh facts. Some of us decide that this fact or that fact is unimportant, and dismiss it. Others of us consider those same facts to be very important. All of us weigh the facts. What's REALLY funny is, those weights are generally assigned along partisan lines. A progressive is eager to dismiss the various lies put out by the administration after Benghazi, while a conservative assigns a lot of weight to every word uttered by the lying bastards in the aftermath.
Facts. You're no different than any of the rest of us. You have decided that some facts are unimportant, and it appears that those facts that make Hillary and the DNC look bad are unimportant.
I don't think that any veteran can dismiss all the lies and bullshit regarding Benghazi. But, that's an entirely different class of people.
Meanwhile - Trump fans are just as ready to dismiss any fact that makes The Orange One look bad.
How about those of us who aren't D or R?
Both choices looked like shit. The D shit had a worse stench to it than the R shit, but they both reeked.
Facts. Facts are often in the eyes of the beholder.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:55AM (15 children)
Ok, you want to argue about facts?
Tell us how many clinton emails had *any* classified markings.
And then tell us what the content of those emails were.
The emails in question have been published, so you can find them.
But you don't know the answers to those questions because you haven't bothered to dig beyond the surface,
I have. And I encourage you to do the same. You won't though. Because, as you said, "all of us weigh facts" and those facts are not ones you prefer to examine.
Spoiler: Only two emails had any markings, the markings were human error, left behind after the information had been officially declassified. Both were lists of people she was going to call.
> Benghazi
NINE congressional investigations and none of them found jackshit.
In fact, after the last one, the most dedicated Clinton attack dog of them all, Trey Gowdy, couldn't name even one specific failing on Clinton's part.
The best he could do was, "read the report yourself." [washingtonexaminer.com] If there had been anything to condemn her for, that guy would have been shouting it from the rooftops.
Keep weighing those "facts" bud.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:12AM (14 children)
http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/06/document-completely-undermines-hillarys-classified-email-defense/ [dailycaller.com]
They didn't need to marked. The fact that you have fallen for this bullshit propaganda by the Clinton team, explains why you're too much of a coward to even post under a pseudonym so all could remember how much of a moron you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:19AM (13 children)
I signed the exact same agreement when I received my security clearance.
The key fact you are ignoring is intent. You can not be held criminally liable if you do not know the information is classified. During my stint working on classified projects I witnessed two cases of people unwittingly distributing classified information. They were not criminally prosecuted. They weren't fired. They weren't even demoted. They had an entry made in their permanent record. And that was it. Clinton was treated no differently than my two co-workers. Well, she was treated different because they didn't have the FBI digging through their lives.
Between you and me, you are the only one who has been brainwashed by bullshit propaganda.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:38AM (2 children)
So when HRC was writing emails about State topics, she was too much of a moron to know she was writing classified info? Good thing she lost, we don't need people THAT stupid in government.
Secondly, intent is not an element. Distribution is the element. Intent is only brought up in the context of HRC, who is totally above all laws being the queen of all goodness and light.
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/05/washington-has-been-obsessed-with-punishing-secrecy-violations-until-hillary-clinton/ [theintercept.com]
Thirdly, here's an email that WAS marked classified: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/11/despite-clinton-claims-2012-email-had-classified-marking.html [foxnews.com]
Finally, an email server doesn't just appear magically - she intended to set it up and divert work product belonging the US and the American people. They aren't "her" emails -- she intercepted them, stole them, and destroyed them. Thankfully, her paranoid Nixonian subterfuge bit her ass hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:55AM
So when HRC was writing emails about State topics, she was too much of a moron to know she was writing classified info?
No, she didn't write it. It was sent to her from civilians. Of course there was no investigation into who gave the information to them.
Secondly, intent is not an element.
The intercept's reporting is misleading. The Kristian Saucier was not prosecuted for mishandling, he was prosecuted for lying and trying to cover up the mistake. Nishimura absolutely had intent, he knew the documents were classified when he copied them off the classified network.
As I said before, I personally know two people who inadvertently distributed classified information. Intent is absolutely, 100%, a requirement for criminal prosecution. And, with millions of people with clearances, it is a frequent occurrence. People fuck up. Nobody wants to fuck up. But shit happens. If everybody who fucked up was prosecuted there would be thousands of examples for the intercept to cite. Instead they could only find two that were only apples to oranges.
Thirdly, here's an email that WAS marked classified:
As I said originally, the marking was in error. The fact that fox links to a copy of the messages is proof that it the message was not classified, the government could never have released it unless it was not classified.
You are way out of depth here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:49PM
Having worked with classified material for over thirty years it is obvious you haven't the slightest idea how the classification system works.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:19AM (9 children)
Nope. Because intent is so hard to prove, it is explicitly not an element of any of the crimes under discussion. All that matters is that the classified information in her care was not properly handled. Screw up and leave the wrong filing cabinet unlocked? Even if it is in a secured location with armed soldiers marching around the building? You can still get boned. Feelz and intentions have nothing to do with national security, you either DO or DO NOT, there is no try, no "I didn't mean for Ivan to get that folder while I was boning that hot babe... who now that I think of it was probably a plant working for Ivan... oh crap." If nothing else it would be all too easy for a traitor to 'accidentally' leave a folder in the wrong place and claim 'oopsie' if caught.
And HRC can't claim setting up an entire mail system, complete with (sometimes functioning) malware and spam scanning and a backup regimen was a careless mistake. The entire thing was outside the government firewall, never certified by the government IT people charged with ensuring a system is properly setup to handle classified information, the outside vendors she used were Party loyal but had no clearance to process classified information. She can't claim she didn't know she was violating the laws on retention of official government records when she ordered it wiped. She lived and worked in and around the government at the highest levels for decades, she had underwent mandatory training and signed off on forms swearing she had received the instruction, had read the regs and that she knew them and would obey. She lied.
We will probably never know how many people died as a result of essentially all high level State Dept traffic being open on a Goddamned Microsoft Exchange Server for her entire tenure. We can guess at some of the crimes covered up but may never prove them. But we do not have to, we have her open confession to possessing classified information on a system that she knew, or should have known and it makes no legal difference, was not certified to process it, we know from her own mouth she ordered it wiped in the full knowledge it contained the only known (to her) copy of much of her work product while Sec State, and that is a crime.
Lock. Her. Up! Lock. Her. Up!
And Lynch knew all of these things and after his investigation so did Comey when he did that bizarre press conference where he announced most of the facts above and then declared the matter closed. If we can't lock him up he is at least fired in disgrace. That probably isn't enough to discourage the next crooked Democrat though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:32AM (8 children)
Nope. Because intent is so hard to prove, it is explicitly not an element of any of the crimes under discussion.
Hhhm. Do you intend to lie your ass off?
Or is it just wishful thinking based on ignorance?
Intent is the key, deciding factor.
Comey literally said that the reason there were no charges is that "there was no criminal intent." [dailycaller.com]
Furthermore, he wasn't just making up out of the blue. Literally everybody with experience in the law wrt to mishandling of classified documents is in agreement.
https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/why-intent-not-gross-negligence-is-the-standard-in-clinton-case/ [warontherocks.com]
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/11/01/clinton-mails-and-test-intent/PREmFjWAqwtl4amw2nZNvJ/story.html [bostonglobe.com]
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/08/25/gowdy-the-fbi-didnt-ask-hillary-clinton-about-her-intent-during-email-interview-n2209977 [townhall.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/federal-prosecutors-in-virginia-assisting-in-clinton-email-probe/2016/05/05/f0277faa-12f0-11e6-81b4-581a5c4c42df_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.politico.com/blogs/james-comey-testimony/2016/07/james-comey-clinton-criminal-intent-225235 [politico.com]
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-clinton-emails-legal-20150908-story.html [latimes.com]
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:51AM (7 children)
Yea, you can link to an unlimited number of MSM stories from the election trying to excuse Hillary since they all knew it was too late to replace her. The actual text of the U.S. Code says otherwise. But don't believe me, here is the first link to a left site I found, since you wouldn't believe it from anywhere else.....
Daily Kos: Hillary Clinton's Felony [dailykos.com]
And they are going light on her, there is far more. You probably had to skip past several similar stories while collecting those links in fact, just setting the record straight for anyone else who is curious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:30AM (6 children)
Your citation is just some rando commenter on a forum, with zero actual domain knowledge, who can't even read the statutes they cite and who wrote their diatribe over a year before the FBI's investigation was complete.
Here are the subsections [cornell.edu] that theyu couldn't be bothered to quote in full.
I have bolded the parts that explain why the sections do not apply to clinton's actions:
(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe¹ could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust,² or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge³ that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
1) Synonym for intent
2) Documents were not entrusted to clinton, they were emailed to her by a civilian who had no clearance [dailycaller.com]
3) Synonym for intent
-------------------------------
As I said originally, facts won't change your mind. You use the logic of conspiracy - clinton is a witch so anything that proves otherwise is just lies by the MSM. But anything that confirms it, no matter how low-quality, is TRUTH!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @10:05AM (5 children)
You have confused the neglect of signed and informed obligations with criminal intent.
Every single person who is given access to US government classified information signs at least one statement that they understand and agree to comply with government-manded rules for handling such classified information. People who are given access to very sensitive information, such as Hillary Clinton was as SoS, are further "read in" to the classified programs via meeting and briefing on exactly what sort of information is contained within the special classified programs. As such, ignorance is no excuse, as there is no justifiable ignorance.
While simply receiving classified information in an improper fashion is not itself a prosecutable act, failure to report improper handling of classified information is a prosecutable act. THIS is what your blockquoted text is referring to, and it cannot be used to claim that "Hillary did nothing wrong", because either HRC was ignorant in spite of her signed acknowledgements on classified read-ins and therefore perjurious, or HRC neglected to report her knowledge of mishandled classified information and therefore is in direct violation of the blockquoted section of law you posted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:30PM (4 children)
are further "read in" to the classified programs via meeting and briefing on exactly what sort of information is contained within the special classified programs. As such, ignorance is no excuse, as there is no justifiable ignorance.
As someone who has been read on special access programs I can say from experience you are lying by omission. My obligations to the programs I was on did not apply to programs I was not on. To assume that the SecState is read on to every program in the Dept of State is specious, that's not how access works, its not hierarchical, its need-to-know.
The fact that she was not prosecuted is de facto proof that she was not a position to know that the information she received from civilian sources was classified. And at this point the conspiracy theory kicks in that no she really did know, she just got special treatment. Yeah, she got special treatment all right, Comey made an obvious effort to over-play her culpability when he was grandstanding and he later walked it back under specific questioning weeks later. But that wasn't headline news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:40PM
Yeah, bullcrap. Especially when you follow it with:
I'm another AC who claims to have been read-in to programs, and it's made quite clear what the specifics of the classified information are. To try to claim that the SoS didn't recognize relevant classified information (of which there were many many more than the one particular piece you seem hung up on) is to damn Hillary Clinton as either inept, or a liar.
The icing on the cake is your absolutely stunning claim that some highly-placed government muckity-muck not being charged with blatant violations of criminal law is proof of innocence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @01:05AM (2 children)
Frankly, as someone who has a SECRET clearance working for DoD, this seems a rather astounding claim. Are you actually claiming that you have no obligation to protect classified information for programs "that you are not on"? Seriously? Suppose, for example, that you come across a classified document at work that is not stored properly and not under positive control of someone with clearance and need to know. What do you do? Do you walk away, saying to yourself "I'm not on that program, so it's not my problem"? Where I work, the boss would not be at all happy if that were to come to light. In fact, I'm all but certain that would immediately trigger an investigation (if it came to light).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:41AM (1 child)
Are you actually claiming that you have no obligation to protect classified information for programs "that you are not on"?
No. And if you had a shred of critical thinking ability you would not have assumed that either.
I am saying that I have neither obligation to, nor expectation of being able to recognize unmarked classified materials from programs that I have no need to know.
You don't either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:04AM
Hillary Clinton, let's remember, was the Secretary of State. You also make a wild, unfounded leap that the SoS would be unable to recognize classified information that pertains to that job and/or the classified programs required for said job.
So, you're claiming that Hillary was innocent of criminal acts by way of her incompetence...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday May 10 2017, @03:28AM (1 child)
I was just working my way up the chain. Comey did what he did because Lynch got caught on that plane with Billy Jeff and had to recuse since it was so obvious she was dirty even the media wouldn't have been able to spin that one. So Comey because he actually did the abuse of office in refusing to recommend, Lynch because she got caught being bought, Huma because she is up to her neck in Clinton criminality. Bill for the airplane incident and Hillary because she was the one who knowingly broke pretty much every rule we have on the proper handling of classified material and retention of official government records.
And since he -had- to know, (he emailed her at the clintonmail.com address and even a moron knows the state dept ain't a .com address) extra points if somebody had the stones to toss the Lightworker's halfrican ass in a cell beside Hillary for a few years. Would at least keep him and TOTUS from hitting the paid speech circuit for a bit.
Everybody likes to get distracted by the mishandling of classified material, but that was only a treasonous side effect of her attempts to conduct her criminal affairs related to the funneling of billions through the foundation outside the reach of the Freedom of Information Act. That is the base crime, everything else gets loaded on the ticket because she committed the other crimes as side effects (the mishandling) or to cover up the others.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:51PM
jmorris, you're batting 1000 on this thread. It's dead on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:34AM (7 children)
"In a sane world, him, Lynch, Abedin and both Clintons would be wearing orange for the remainder of their miserable lives as examples to others that some government corruption crosses lines that simply can't be allowed to be crossed."
That's a "sane world" to you? If Clinton gets life imprisonment for mishandling classified information, does Chelsea Manning get shot with artillery weapons on live TV for leaking classified information to Wikileaks?
https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:33AM (5 children)
It isn't like 'life' is all that long for Hillary at this point, a ten year sentence (a slap on the wrist for what she did) would be a life sentence. Ok, Huma might someday breath free air in my 'sane world' because a) she isn't that old and b) was basically just a sidekick.
And Chelsea Manning didn't break any laws. Whatever you may think about his tranny life now, Bradley did the crimes. And yes in a sane world he (taxpayers wouldn't have spent good money surgically mutilating a prisoner to help his sexual confusion and general sadz problem) would have got a cigarette, a blindfold and a wall a long time ago. Anything else would be cruel and unusual and therefore forbidden. No sense keeping his sorry ass alive for however long it takes him to get the courage to make a noose from a bedsheet. Gotta make an example for the others charged with keeping the nation's secrets that they DO NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DECIDE TO RELEASE IT. That decision is above their pay grade, if they can't accept that they should resign.
And yes that also means we should capture or kill Snowden too, same reason. Some of Snowden's leaks were clearly of public benefit while other are clearly treason. If we could catch him I would recommend he get the Medal of Freedom right before executing him. (Civilian award because he clearly wasn't acting as a soldier.) Fair, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:38AM (4 children)
And Chelsea Manning didn't break any laws. Whatever you may think about his tranny life now, Bradley did the crimes.
WTF?
Are you trying to argue that her transition changed who she is?
JFC dude, you are a fucking idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @10:12AM
jmorris is likely referring to the fact that the person born Bradley Manning is a biological male [wikipedia.org], and even mutilation does not change that fact. Trying to present a biological male as a female is viewed as a form of fraud by some people, including those like myself, and as such, we refuse to participate in fraud by going along with the pretense that a biological male is a female.
If you're skilled enough at making yourself appear as a sex youto fool me
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @10:18AM (2 children)
jmorris is likely referring to the fact that the person born Bradley Manning is a biological male [wikipedia.org], and even mutilation does not change that fact. Trying to present a biological male as a female is viewed as a form of fraud by some people, including those like myself, and as such, we refuse to participate in fraud by going along with the pretense that a biological male is a female.
If you're skilled enough at making yourself appear as a sex you are not to the point where you fool me, and don't throw the fraud in my face so that I am forced to take notice, then there is no problem as you have successfully deceived me. Trying to force participation in a fraud is the foundational reason for the strenuous objections.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 10 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)
What happened, did you date someone who turned out to be non-operative or something? Look, I don't "get" the whole trans thing either, but I've got plenty of trans friends and every single one of them is doing better mentally since starting the process. They tell me it's like being let out of a dark dungeon, or not having to play an actor's role all the time any longer. I have no choice but to take them at their word.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:46PM
I thought my explanation was quite clear in the grandparent post. All I see in your post is some half-chewed ad hominem and emotional drivel spewed presumably as a justification to my clearly-stated objection to their attempted coercion to knowingly participate in their fraud.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:56AM
does Chelsea Manning get shot with artillery weapons on live TV for leaking classified information to Wikileaks?
Didn't Hillary suggest something like that during one of the debates? I've seen worse on the internet.
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:47AM (10 children)
> Comey lost the reputation for being an honest lawman [...] the day he failed to recommend action against HRC [...]
Oct. 31, 2016 — “It took a lot of guts. I really disagreed with him. I was not his fan. But I’ll tell you what he did, he brought back his reputation. He brought it back. He’s got to hang tough because there’s a lot of — a lot of people want him to do the wrong thing. What he did was the right thing,” Trump said, after Comey sent a letter to Congress saying that he was reopening the Clinton email investigation.
-- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-mixed-messages-on-ex-fbi-director-comey/2017/05/09/36b6e72e-3520-11e7-ab03-aa29f656f13e_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @10:21AM (9 children)
Mainstream media cheerleading for a corrupt government croney.
What, did you expect something else?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:47AM (8 children)
> Mainstream media cheerleading for a corrupt government croney.
Either you didn't notice that those are the words of Donald J. Trump, or you're insinuating that he was misquoted. Here are two other sources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuU66r8HSSY [youtube.com]
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/decision-2016/2016/11/1/trump-filled-with-praise-for-fbi-director-comey--who-he-slammed-months-ago-for-exonerating-his-opponent.html [ny1.com]
If you're saying he was misquoted: six months have passed. Before you, who else has come forth to correct the record?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @12:36PM (7 children)
You're trying to make the case that if Trump says it, everyone else should agree. You're wrong.
I don't care what Trump said about Comey. Comey blew his own reputation to smithereens when he held the pre-election press conference that outlined Hillary's black-letter law violations and in the same conference recommended against criminal charges. Pillow talk from Trump changes not reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @07:39PM (1 child)
You're trying to make the case that if Trump says it, everyone else should agree. You're wrong.
No, he's not.
He's making the case that when Trump contradicts himself it means he's lied at least once, probably even both times.
Your personal feelings about Comey's job performance were not a factor in Trump's firing of Comey.
Trump did what he wanted to do for his own reasons.
And the reporting that's come out in the meantime makes it pretty clear it had nothing to do with Comey's job performance and everything to do with Trump's frustration over the investigation into his Russian ties.
Behind Comey’s firing: An enraged Trump, fuming about Russia [politico.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @11:52PM
jmorris' personal feelings about Comey's job performance were not a factor in Trump's firing of Comey.
... which is what these replies were referring to [soylentnews.org] when affirming that Comey blew his own credibility to pieces when he detailed Hillary Clinton's crimes regarding the mishandling of classified information and/or failure to report the same, yet in the next breath recommended no criminal charges be pursued.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @12:02AM (4 children)
> You're trying to make the case that if Trump says it, everyone else should agree.
It sounds that way, doesn't it? Mostly I'm puzzled at Mr. Trump's and Mr. Comey's actions.
I want to correct something I quoted: the Washington Post said that Mr. Comey had reopened the investigation of Ms. Clinton. However it's been said that it wasn't truly reopened:
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/30/ny-times-floods-front-page-fbi-letter-stories-while-acknowledging-it-didn-t-reopen-clinton-server/214202 [mediamatters.org]
> [...] Hillary's black-letter law violations [...]
One definition of "black letter law" is
A principle of law so notorious and entrenched that it is commonly known and rarely disputed.
What do you see as those black letter violations? In his July statement, Mr. Comey said there wasn't a history of similar prosecutions:
The FBI, Comey elaborated, had found no example of a prior prosecution ever having been brought in a classified-information case that did not involve intentional mishandling of material, "vast quantities" of mishandled information, evidence of disloyalty to the United States, or efforts to obstruct justice.
-- http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/05/fbi_hillary_clinton_won_t_be_charged_in_private_email_server_scandal.html [slate.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:11AM (3 children)
"Extremely careless" being synonymous with "negligence" (or more specificaly, "gross negligence"): https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/07/05/1740217&threshold=-1&highlightthresh=-1&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&page=1&noupdate=1#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Just how many people who have signed their named on the government's NDA do you think have been stupid or arrogant enough to set up their own naked email system on the Internet which was used to send classified information? Here's a hint: not too bloody many.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:34AM (2 children)
> [...] how many people [...] set up their own naked email system [...] which was used to send classified information [...]
I agree that there aren't many, however Mr. Comey wasn't looking for something so specifically similar. The quote from Slate in my previous post #507818 paraphrases what he said in July, but here is a direct quote:
"clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information;
or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct;
or indications of disloyalty to the United States;
or efforts to obstruct justice."
-- http://www.cbsnews.com/news/heres-why-james-comey-didnt-recommend-prosecution-for-hillary-clinton/ [cbsnews.com]
> "Extremely careless" being synonymous with "negligence" (or more specificaly, "gross negligence"
It does sound synonymous, doesn't it? Gross negligence can be an element of a crime under 18 U.S. Code § 793 (f), which says:
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document [...] note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust [...] Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned [...]
-- https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 [cornell.edu]
CBS, in the article I quoted above, interviewed a prosecutor who had worked on the case against Gen. David Petraeus, asking him about that exact thing:
Theoretically, a felony prosecution could be based on this, but it's not likely, Melendres said. "It is exceedingly rare for the department or FBI to base a felony prosecution on that lower standard. I have no knowledge of it being used before."
The "lower standard" he's referring to is gross negligence. Another person they interviewed, a former federal prosecutor, said
"Just sending between Clinton and her staff might not meet the standard [...]
of gross negligence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:26PM (1 child)
If you're referencing mainstream news articles in good faith, then let me remind you of an apt quote by a great American philosopher: "It's a big club - and you ain't in it. [youtube.com]"
"All the big media companies" report on government events in the officially-approved manner, lest they lose their privileged access to governmental resources that make up the primary difference between them and Joe Blow, Internet blogger.
The scale and scope of the crimes Hillary Clinton committed in her mishandling of classified information and/or failure to report the same is literally without precedent. Previous instances of others mishandling classified data (of which there are many) differ primarily in that the classified information was mishandled on government-owned computers, networks, facilities, land, etc., all of which are subject to access controls, many with detailed logs. Damage could be assessed, and people who may have improperly viewed classified information could be "debriefed" and cautioned not to discuss the matter (as most such people would have also signed government NDAs, even if they were for lower classifications). Hillary's damage cannot be assessed, as the classified data was sent over the open Internet to an easily-crackable server which the FBI publicaly stated could not be evaluated in terms of discovering who might have broken in and now have copies of the mishandled classified data.
For that reason, the rule of law was declared dead (again) the day Comey publicly recommended against pursuing criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. There is (as should be no surprise to the observant), "one rule for thee, and another for me", in the "peoples democratic republic of the USA".
News articles and authority figures you find making claims to the contrary are not only lying, but "gaslighting" - a manipulation tactic used to try to trick people who have noticed a problem into not believing their own observations.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:15PM
The scale and scope of the crimes Hillary Clinton committed in her mishandling of classified information and/or failure to report the same is literally without precedent. [...] Hillary's damage cannot be assessed, as the classified data was sent over the open Internet to an easily-crackable server [...]
In the first sentence I quoted you seem to mean that she mishandled more secrets than anyone else ever has; in the second sentence I quoted you seem to say that we don't know what information she mishandled. I see those ideas as contradictory.
As I understand it, what she was supposed to do was to use the government's e-mail server for her official e-mail; e-mails containing secret information would go between her and other government employees without leaving the government's network. When she left office, the e-mails would be archived and--ostensibly--eventually become public. Instead, she set up her own server, from which tens of thousands of e-mails were deleted. So when she exchanged e-mails with other government employees--who presumably were using government computers--the government's only copies of those messages were the copies that existed in the other employees' mailboxes. The government has--or ought to have, if its e-mail systems were in good order--one copy, rather than two (the sender's and the recipient's).
Previous instances of others mishandling classified data (of which there are many) differ primarily in that the classified information was mishandled on government-owned computers [...]
Ms. Clinton's apologists drew a parallel to the way e-mail was used during the George W. Bush administration:
[...] the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails. “It’s about as amazing a double standard as you can get,” says Eric Boehlert, who works with the pro-Clinton group Media Matters. “If you look at the Bush emails, he was a sitting president, and 95 percent of his chief advisers’ emails were on a private email system set up by the RNC. [...]
-- http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/george-w-bush-white-house-lost-22-million-emails-497373.html [newsweek.com]
Later, many of those e-mails were found. No charges were filed against the Bush administration's officials.
If you're referencing mainstream news articles in good faith [...] "All the big media companies" report on government events in the officially-approved manner, lest they lose their privileged access [...] News articles and authority figures [...] are not only lying, but "gaslighting" [...]
Obviously a federal prosecutor (such as the one interviewed by CBS News) would be inclined to agree with the head of the FBI. And the press in the U.S. have often been little more than stenographers to government, fearing to lose access to official sources. In the last few months, some news organisations have indeed lost access, haven't they? I think I see less credulousness in their reporting, now. If you're asserting that the CBS News story I quoted is lying about Espionage Act prosecutions, other sources of information exist. Who else has been prosecuted under 18 U.S. Code § 793 (f)? A blogger critical of Ms. Clinton and Mr. Comey mentions the case of Thomas Drake:
http://rightwingnews.com/legal/espionage-act-clinton-emails-are-subject-of-fbi-probe-on-gross-negligence-provision/ [rightwingnews.com]
Mr. Drake, however,
[...] is one of four individuals in the history of the United States who has been charged specifically with "willful retention" of "national defense" information under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e). Most prosecutions are for "delivery" of classified information to a third party—something that Drake was not charged with.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake#Espionage_Act_and_whistleblowing [wikipedia.org]
Note: subsection (e) not subsection (f). That doesn't appear to pertain to what Ms. Clinton did. Here again is the link to the law:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 [cornell.edu]
There haven't been many Espionage Act prosecutions; a few others are mentioned in that Wikipedia article.