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Anyone who follows American politics will have heard of Hillary Clinton's email server. Rather than using an official State Department address, she chose to use a private server for her official email. Federal law requires all official email to be archived on government servers. Armchair lawyers have pointed out that it doesn't require the use of government servers to send and receive the email, but the archival requirement is clear. This requirement was clearly violated in this case: in response to a subpoena, Hillary Clinton's private staff extracted emails from her private server and turned them over to the government. The contents of the server itself were never made available to the government, and now she has had the server erased:
Hillary Clinton wiped “clean” the private server housing emails from her tenure as secretary of state, the chairman of the House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi said Friday.
“While it is not clear precisely when Secretary Clinton decided to permanently delete all emails from her server, it appears she made the decision after October 28, 2014, when the Department of State for the first time asked the Secretary to return her public record to the Department,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement.
As Popehat tweeted:
@Popehat
I ask you, who among us hasn't wiped a server clean after its contents were requested by subpoena?
I naively wonder why she isn't in jail, but that's just me. Comments and views from those interested in American politics?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @10:37AM
Why did Obama have to start the idiotic trend that the president must be the flavor of the decade? Black male, white female, who's next, gay male?
Anyone care about the potential candidates' policies? Anyone? Anyone?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday March 30 2015, @12:15PM
For the most part, the reason Obama was elected was that unlike Hillary Clinton and John McCain, he opposed the complete idiocy that was the Iraq War. His community organizing roots also got him a lot of support from the left-wing base because he did the same kind of thing in Chicago that they'd been doing in other places.
So yes, it was about more than just "he's a black guy", and at least partially about his actual policies. Remember, his toughest election battle by far was against Hillary Clinton, who would have been the first female president (at least in name - I suspect Bill will be important if she ends up winning this time). Indeed, there's a fair amount of evidence that he was elected and reelected despite his blackness, not because of it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 30 2015, @02:32PM
Bingo. My vote was cast for the candidate whom I felt LEAST LIKELY to start another war in which my sons might be killed. I didn't like anyone's policies very much, so I fell back on "Which one of these clowns is most and least likely to start a new war?" I did NOT vote for or against a black man, or a white man, or even a white woman. The policies dictated my choice among several poor candidates.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday March 30 2015, @03:21PM
And that seems to have been a wise choice, based on your motivations: A lot of people who wanted to become POTUS would have already sent your sons to fight in Iran.
Although I suspect Dennis Kucinich, had he been any sort of factor and not just an also-ran, would have also kept your sons safe - his campaigns were defined by his opposition to the Iraq War and an attempt to impeach Cheney and Bush for starting it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:37AM
Dennis Kucinich, isn't he actually left wing with libertarian tendencies? Totally un-electable. http://politicalcompass.org/images/usprimaries_2008.png [politicalcompass.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 31 2015, @11:38AM
He's very left-wing, but frequently found himself on the same side of an issue as Ron Paul for entirely different reasons. I lived in what used to be his district for quite a while, have met the man and heard him speak, and his basic vision of America looks something like this:
1. Equal rights for all adults, and reasonable protections for children. That also means punishing those with power who break the law.
2. A very strong social safety net that ensures that nobody starves or is homeless or dies because they can't pay for health care.
3. Strong unions and workplace protections. A much higher minimum wage.
4. A military that is dramatically smaller than it is now. US foreign policy focused on peaceful dealings with foreign governments rather than threatening them with war.
5. If cuts to the military are not sufficient to cover the strong social safety net, tax the rich to get the money.
6. Government programs can and should compete with private corporations in providing services, because citizens can often get better service and pricing from the government entity.
Points 1 and 4 are very compatible with libertarianism. Points 2, 3, 5, and 6 are decidedly not.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GlennC on Monday March 30 2015, @03:02PM
... unlike Hillary Clinton and John McCain, he appeared to oppose the complete idiocy that was the Iraq War
FTFY
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @12:27PM
> Why did Obama have to start the idiotic trend that the president must be the flavor of the decade?
What an empty criticism. The obvious corollary to that is the previous idiotic trend that the president must be one the flavor of the millenium.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by negrace on Monday March 30 2015, @01:13PM
It does not matter what the candidate's policies are. They are _promises_ that are promptly abandoned. Until the campaign promises are made legally binding or something like that, the whole system does not make much sense.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday March 30 2015, @06:16PM
Hell, awhile ago [maybe 15 years ago?longer?] the Liberal party put out "The Red Book", a book that they promoted during their election campaign about all the things they would do as soon as they were elected. They get elected, then it was "Oh, now that we're in charge, we realize we can't actually do ANYTHING that we promised [the primary thing was they were going to cancel the national GST [a sales tax].
Course, we re-elected them the following election as well.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:41AM
Considering the choices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @07:56PM
The bureaucratic machinery that surrounds the president seems to quickly convince new presidents that there is no bridge between the current state of affairs and the state of affairs envisioned in their campaign promises. People underestimate the monstrous political inertia that stymies the people nominally in charge of the government.
Generally the President can start new things, to an extent, but stopping something already in motion is more difficult.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday March 30 2015, @01:58PM
who's next, gay male?
Would an "in the closet" neoconservative republican count, or only if he's busted in an airport restroom before the election, not after?
It might be their only chance to ever win again, for various demographic reasons.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 30 2015, @02:46PM
But here you're getting to the heart of the matter: "flavor of the decade" is in fact part of the strategy of the Deep State. They figure by giving the rubes a President from the flavor du jour they're buying themselves more time to cheat, steal, & murder in 8 yr increments. It's because what a candidate says are his or her policies are totally irrelevant to what the Deep State ensures will happen. Bush Jr promised "compassionate conservatism." What we got was the Total Information Awareness program. Obama promised transparent government. What we got was the most secretive government in history.
It's obvious to the regular citizen who's paying attention to the news (ie., not news about celebrities) that there's an unbroken continuity in policy between Republican and Democratic administrations. In the last 15 years we have literally switched back and forth from total Republican control of the federal government in the US to total Democratic control of the federal government, and nothing has substantially changed in terms of policy outcomes. There remain some extreme denialists and shills who will argue up and down that "elections matter," but 99% of the rest of us trust our lying eyes and ears and know that they don't.
The conclusion is obvious, though timorous souls will shrink from it: in the United States democracy 1.0 has failed; it has been totally captured and subverted by nefarious forces. It must be broken down and re-made.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday March 30 2015, @05:34PM
the president is basically just a figurehead anyway. all they can do is give suggestions to congress, have the option to veto any extremely bad laws, and appoint some federal judges (if the seats are empty), thats about it. he can send out some of the military but that mostly falls to congress too. treaties are supposed to be a presidential thing but i think congress has mostly been taking care of that lately as well. executive orders are an option but can't congress easily veto or override those?
so presidential powers - appointments and suggestions, and limited warfare options. did i miss anything? the president is who matters the least and is more of a "check and balance" than anyone with power.
people who want to affect change in the US need to worry about their congressmen and not the president. congress has been bought pretty much in its entirety too, but thats because the same idiots keep getting re-elected (and now that its already been bought, swapping in new people probably won't change that).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 30 2015, @09:11PM
You know, tathra, I worked for a President of the United States. The top of the hierarchy under him was not, the "Know how to do stuff and get stuff done" department, but the press department. That is, they don't know how to actually do anything, nor do they know anyone who knows how to do anything. What they think constitutes "doing something" is talking about stuff, and getting the press to talk about the stuff you want them to. That's it, and that's all.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:51AM
You should come up to Canada if you want to see a secretive government. At least you know Hillary uses email, our government doesn't write anything down, little well use email in such a way that we'd know that they deleted stuff.
Things have got so bad that even America looks better.
(Score: 2) by glyph on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:16AM
Representation isn't exactly a trend. It's an old idea as old as democracy that's just been a bit slow to get going.