FBI director James Comey’s announcement that Hillary Clinton would face no criminal charges regarding the emails actually was something of a relief. I didn’t expect her to be indicted, and I’m damn tired of the children on social media eagerly anticipating the indictment that wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t help that clickbait sites and hacks like H.A. Goodman continued to exploit the last, best hope of Bernie Sanders die-hards by promising them an indictment.
Charles Pierce has a good analysis of the email issue. Once again, Hillary Clinton used absolutely terrible judgment. This is from FBI.gov:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails). None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government or even with a commercial service like Gmail. Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.
To which Pierce comments,
Let us also state plainly at the outset that what Comey is describing above is a more than legitimate issue in the presidential campaign, and that “Hoorah! I’m Not Indicted!” isn’t exactly an inspiring Message Of The Day for your first appearance on the stump with the president.
It’s inspiring enough for Clinton supporters, who remain supremely confident that Their Glorious Candidate did absolutely nothing wrong. But in a normal election year, this would have been a serious, damning blow to Clinton’s presidential hopes, indictment or no indictment.
However, it’s not a normal election year, and Donald the Doofus is ignoring the serious issue of Clinton’s terrible judgment and is instead arguing that Clinton wasn’t indicted because the system is rigged. Well, the system is rigged, but in this case there are legitimate reasons to argue she shouldn’t have been indicted. Pierce goes into those, too.
It’s inspiring enough for Clinton supporters, who remain supremely confident that Their Glorious Candidate did absolutely nothing wrong
I am not sure if this is the true sentiment of her supporters. She isn’t very popular even among her supporters. I think this is more of a “You Lost” than anything else. I don’t think anyone believed there was any malicious intent on her part (that doesn’t mean what she did was right).
Ajay — the core of Hillary Clinton’s supporters — mostly well-to-do middle-aged and older white people — consider her to be a goddess. She does nothing wrong. She is the most supremely gifted and prepared and qualified statesperson in all of human history, and her administration will usher in a Golden Age of something or other (details are vague). I am not exaggerating.
As soon as Trump is the official nominee, he will begin to get Top Secret daily briefings from the CIA, as will Clinton when she is the official nominee.
This means that Trump will have to hold his tongue and not even tell his family, much less the public, what he is learning each day.
Anyone want to start any office pools on the day that he leaks something from one of these briefings? Hillary can keep her trap shut, I think. But The Donald will have a very difficult time keeping all that juicy stuff bottled up inside.
How will Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh come to his defense? Perhaps we will find out. Memories of Clinton’s bad judgment will evaporate like ether on a hotplate.
I’m glad for the fact that the repugs don’t have an indictment as ammunition against Hillary. But she surely needs to get her nose rubbed in her disregard for security safeguards. I don’t know what State Department officials are taught pertaining to basic security measures but, I would assume they’d be taught about secure communications.
To me, and I’m sure a lot of other people are getting a message that Hillary somehow thinks that rules don’t pertain to her; that she’s above us mere mortals who are shackled to the burden of accountability.. This whole incident doesn’t speak well for Hillary.
” Let them eat e-mail?”
I’m glad for the fact that the repugs don’t have an indictment as ammunition against Hillary. But she surely needs to get her nose rubbed in her disregard for security safeguards. I don’t know what State Department officials are taught pertaining to basic security measures but, I would assume they’d be taught about secure communications.
To me, and I’m sure a lot of other people are getting a message that Hillary somehow thinks that rules don’t pertain to her; that she’s above us mere mortals who are shackled to the burden of accountability.. This whole incident doesn’t speak well for Hillary.
” Let them eat e-mail?”
Oh, doubles again. Boy they weren’t kidding when they said this FIOS is quick.
Ajay, there are a lot of supporters who are REALLY into Hillary, mainly, you know, people of a similar demographic.
Anyway, Chait wrote a piece called “The Most Corrupt Candidate Ever Is Donald Trump,” which, well, I will read it before the night is over, but it seems like a reasonable point that ought to be made more.
OK, I read it. It’s pretty good.
Oops, sorry, I thought I’d posted the link.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/most-corrupt-candidate-ever-is-donald-trump.html
Someone on another blog posted something that made me think “by george, I think he’s got it” The Trump can’t read. That’s why he goes off track so often. He memorizes a few talking points but then starts winging it. The teleprompter is for show. So … not to worry about CIA briefings. He won’t be able to read them anyhow.
tRUMP is too undisciplined a doofus to take advantage of this, which a normal GOP candidate would beat to death.
Maybe the conservative powers-that-be can find a group to do that for him:
‘Swift Internet Users for Truth,” or something along those lines…
Luckily, when Trump starts blabbing secrets he hears in CIA briefings, the info won’t be of any use to any of our “enemies”. His Signal-to-Noise ratio is so low (negative?!) that it’s impossible to extract useful data from anything he says, outside of the framework of primate dominance games.
And the CIA might even feed him some imaginary Secrets, just to see what happens. But they had better be damn careful with that, to keep Russia and/or China from attacking us NOW, before we perfect the Death Ray That Only Kills Bad People (or DeRT-OK-BaG, in Pentagonese).
Emails are sent and received. According to Comey there were many people sending and receiving these emails containing classified material, including many in the State Department who knew a personal server was involved. If Hillary should be prosecuted so should these others. Right.
But so much for fun.
The thing which most worries me about the prospect of HRC as President is the possibility that she will drag us into war against the best interests of our country.
Maybe she’s just been playing the Game, proving that a woman can be just as ruthless as the Big Boys, and cuddling up to the Israel Lobby to get enough Money and good press to win the election. But the evidence is that she would continue to promote Neo-Con PEOPLE (Victoria Nuland, etc) into positions of importance. That’s an under-appreciated aspect of the way those bastards got us to invade Iraq (trace Elliot Abrams and others back to Reagan’s war on Nicaragua).
“Progressives”, “Liberals” – or whatever we are – need to make it clear that we prefer HRC to Trump, but that we will NOT sit idly by if/when she starts another war. And we need options beyond “singing songs and carrying signs”. I won’t/can’t advocate violence; and it would only make the militarists job easier anyway. There are powerful options well short of that kind of idiocy, but they will require better organization than the American Left has generally been able to muster.
General Strikes? Nah, Labor wouldn’t/can’t go there.
Civil Disobedience? probably part of the solution, but if States de-criminalize pot, there will be a lot of prison cells to fill up.
What else have we got?
I’ve got two small ideas leftover from 2003 which I never got off the ground. Both are related to automobile use, which would be more effective against another War for Oil:
1. Radical Civil Obedience: Stick to the Speed Limit. Actually Stop at Stop signs. Wait for other drivers. This is quite dangerous, personally, but could actually slow down the US economy.
2. Buy gas $1 at a time (or less), and charge it. FU to both the Gas companies and the FIRE sector.
These sound trivial now, and they are less likely to be relevant as action against the kind of war HRC would be likely to start (the Energy sector will never side with HRC, and vice-versa). Anybody got any better ideas? We need to start talking & organizing soon, so HRC knows that she’d better be careful about choosing her Cabinet & ancillary personnel.
I don’t like the idea of leadership not having to be accountable. I was never much of a “trickle down†guy, except for the idea that when leadership sets bad examples, they can trickle down into the common culture helping to poison it.
Well, when you look at the alternative Hillary looks good. Sorta like the saying..The girls all get prettier at closing time.
Let’s see:
Clinton – handful of classified ideas as secure as can be on private server because of continuous political assaults
Bush – outing a critical Middle East asset/program for political spite
Hmmm, no wonder the Repugs are self-righteously up in arms…
[/snark]
Swami: Is that why that song says: “I went home at 2 with a 10 and woke up at 10 with a 2. Poor guy.
grannyeagle …Yeah, desperation can cloud the vision. When I look at Trump as a potential president, Hillary becomes a flawless candidate. What a horror show Trump is..Sometimes I wonder if God is testing us as a nation to see if he/she should abandon us on grounds of stupidity.
Speaking of poor guys…The lacivioius old stud muffin got shot down. Makes the skin want to crawl. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/business/media/gretchen-carlson-fox-news-roger-ailes-sexual-harassment-lawsuit.html
Roger Ailes has had a sexual harassment suit filed against him. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
It appears that someone is being willfully ignored. The FBI Won’t Charge Hillary Clinton, So Edward Snowden Did This… http://www.trueactivist.com/the-fbi-wont-charge-hillary-clinton-so-edward-snowden-did-this/
Maha sez: “the core of Hillary Clinton’s supporters — mostly well-to-do middle-aged and older white people — consider her to be a goddess. She does nothing wrong. She is the most supremely gifted and prepared and qualified statesperson in all of human history, and her administration will usher in a Golden Age of something or other (details are vague). I am not exaggerating.”
I think your characterization of Clinton supporters–and I am one myself only in the sense that I will heave a big sigh and then vote for her in November–is questionable in both racial and class terms:
–We know that Hillary Clinton received a large majority of votes from African Americans; I think the same is probably true for Latino voters.
–Clinton received large overall majorities in a number of states. Yet the percentage of the population that is “well-to-do”–I’m going to guess by that term that you mean, roughly, upper middle class or higher–is what? Perhaps 15%?
I’ve read in more than one place that the actual base of the Democratic Party consists of African American voters who turn out to vote in every election, unlike, say, young white voters. And yes, I’m familiar with the claim that they fail to turn out in midterm elections because they don’t feel motivated by Democratic candidates. It’s a lame excuse in my opinion, especially since by failing to turn out, they wind up with wingnuts like Scott Walker calling the shots.
As for Clinton’s supporters considering her to be infallible, all I can really say is that that’s a bogus statement when it comes to Clinton supporters that I’ve spoken to (relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers). Perhaps you should take the advice you once gave me and get out more, talk to more people.
JDW — I stand by what I wrote. African Americans and low-income voters may vote for her, but the people who support her with beaming, jewel-bright intensity are over 50, white and upper income. I bump into them a lot.
Unfortunately political circumstances are such that I’m compelled to vote for Hillary. But for the life of me I can’t understand why anybody would actively support her. The closer I look at her the more I see characteristics approaching those of Leona Helmsley.
You won’t find me singing — ♫ I’ve got a joy joy joy down in my heart, down in my heart ♫ — on the way to the polling precinct this year.