Saturday, September 03, 2016

Nixon was a piker

This revelation should be the end of Hillary Clinton's campaign and career, but it's not:
A number of Hillary Clinton’s private emails were erased weeks after The New York Times published a story reporting on her use of a private email server while secretary of State, according to notes from the FBI’s investigation released on Friday.

The notes include an entry that says that someone mistakenly deleted Clinton’s archived mailbox from her server and exported files.

The deletion took place between March 25 and March 31, the FBI learned in a May 3 interview. The name of the person who deleted the emails was redacted from the FBI’s notes.
"Mistakenly" my ass.

Would you have found this out if you'd read the Star Tribune this morning? No, because they ran with the soft-pedal version which leaves that detail out. Although the soft-pedal report is damaging, too:
 Hillary Clinton told the FBI she relied on her staff not to send emails containing classified information to the private email server she used as secretary of state.

The revelation came Friday as the FBI, in a rare step, published scores of pages summarizing interviews with Clinton and her top aides from the recently closed criminal investigation into her use of a private email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, New York, home.

The Democratic presidential nominee told the FBI she never sought or asked permission to use a private server or email address during her tenure as the nation's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013. A prior review by the State Department's internal watchdog concluded the practice violated several polices for the safekeeping and preservation of federal records.
So the lead isn't destruction of evidence, but that Hillary is really Blanche DuBois, always relying on the kindness of strangers. Got it. The following paragraph reveals the true dilemma:
The latest developments highlight competing liabilities for Clinton. Either she made a conscious effort to prevent a full public accounting of her tenure at State or she was nonchalant about decisions with national security consequences and risks. The first scenario plays into Republican arguments and voter concerns about her trustworthiness and transparency, while the second casts doubt on her pitch as a hyper-competent, detail-driven executive.
So the issue isn't what she did. Rather, the issue is perception. Got it. Don't make the MSM's job more difficult.

This isn't difficult, folks. This is Rose Mary Woods level corruption. There's no way in hell that Hillary Clinton should be anywhere near the White House. But instead of a dogged determination to ensure her corruption is made known to the public, we get crap like this:
Advisers to Hillary Clinton’s campaign have identified so many paths to an Election Day victory they are now focusing not only on the one or two battlegrounds that would ensure a win but on opening up the possibility of an Electoral College landslide.

“Hillary Clinton has many paths to 270 electoral votes, more than any candidate in a generation,” said Jeff Berman, a paid consultant to her campaign.
What a depressing election.

25 comments:

Gino said...

#nevertrump. like you said.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Trump is painted as being dangerous, but there's a lot more evidence that Hilary is the dangerous one. What kind of damage could she do to us as she pursues her own interests? What would she be willing to do to cover up such corruption? And she'd have the power of the U.S. government to do it. That should terrify people.

jerrye92002 said...

Sorry, but I am not buying the usual Democrat/media blitz about Trump. If I believed what THEY told me about him I wouldn't vote for him either but I do not. Start with not believing the Democrats on anything-- a well proven axiom as it is again here-- and realizing that the major media are just Democrats with a liars license. Then figure it out for yourself, by reading the actual speeches, IN CONTEXT, and making your own judgment.

Then you take what the Democrat-media propagandists tell you about Hillary, and subtract from that lying overhype anything and everything you know cannot be true. You will end up with a negative, making #NeverHillary the better proposition by far.

Mr. D said...

#NeverTrump and #NeverHillary are not mutually exclusive. The moral imperative of #NeverHillary is pretty damned compelling.

jerrye92002 said...

Please help me understand, because to me it has always been a binary decision. Despite Libertarian Party claims that the "two party system has failed" (I happen to believe the opposite) it is what it is for the moment.

3john2 said...

The FBI released the report. On a Friday. Before a 3-day weekend. Move along.

Mr. D said...

Jerry, I am not going to move you off your position. And that's fine. We have four candidates on the ballot, including the LP and the Greens. All of them stonk in their own way. I sill don't see a way to vote for Trump in good conscience. That's just how it is.

Gino said...

#NeverTrump and #NeverHillary are not mutually exclusive. The moral imperative of #NeverHillary is pretty damned compelling.

its a two party system, you will have one or the other. you remind me of Geo Will who spent all the past year telling everybody how much his party's eventual nominee sucks and is now lamenting Hillary's lead in the polls.

two choices. pick one.

Mr. D said...

Make that "stink," although they may stonk, too.

Mr. D said...

Sane thing, Gino. I'm under no obligation to pick either. If I remember correctly, you have abstained from voting in the past. That may be what I do for the top line.

jerrye92002 said...

Mr. D, I'm sorry to ask you again to explain your logic, if you deign to do so. I'm not going to change your mind about Mr. Trump's odor, only to say that I find such character assassination more a Democrat/liberal/media creation than anything of real substance. But the presence of other candidates (there are always 10 or more choices) does not mean it becomes anything other than a binary choice. However tightly one needs to hold their nose to do so, one needs to vote against the person pledged to making the problems worse, even if one can't stomach a vote for the person pledged to making things better.

I assure you, Hillary supporters have no such compunctions and will vote for her regardless of felony indictments or dodged felony indictments, or anything else. Do you really want the kind of person who would vote for Hillary deciding who becomes President, or do you want at least a vote in the matter?

Mr. D said...

We've been through this before, Jerry. And again, it's a matter of conscience. I've watched how Trump has conducted his campaign and I've come to my conclusions about his odor without even considering what the Democrats and their minions have to say. No one in the DNC or the MSM made Trump suggest that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the Kennedy assassination. He did that all on his own.

Hillary is a monster. Trump is a different sort of monster. I don't have to explain my views. If you wish to promote your candidate, go right ahead, but tell me why he's good. The binary choice argument does not work.

jerrye92002 said...

I wasn't trying to persuade you, but merely trying to understand how you can say it is not a binary choice or, in your words, why "the binary choice argument does not work." I find it entirely sufficient, and I note that every Democrat campaign in the last 10 years or so has been based almost entirely in the negative side of that argument, trying to convince the public, and particularly Republican voters, that the Republican is a terrible person and would do terrible things in office. The only difference I see is that Trump has given them something to work with, rather than their having to make #$%^ up.

But you make a good point; we should be better than that (not laying down the club but picking up an additional, positive one). There are a number of reasons I like Trump as a candidate, though I started out as a strong Cruz supporter. I was attracted by his ability to use and abuse the media. They have it coming because of their blatant bias, and his outrageous statements (at least as the media saw them) got him millions of dollars worth of free press. When he wouldn't back down, he always got ANOTHER round of free press. He fell down by not using Newt Gingrich's trick of "saying the same thing in better words" the next day, but words that the average voter thought made sense while still outraging the press. Trump proved you don't have to be politically correct to win votes and that is a necessary change to our society, long overdue. And he casts himself as a "hope and change" guy when the last hope and change guy gave us a disastrous status quo that sorely needs changing. Hillary is Obama's 3rd term and we can't afford that.

Trump has been criticized for not being specific about policy, but of course candidates have long made a virtue out of emotional appeals and nebulous responses to such matters. Trump has at least produced a list of potential SCOTUS nominees that conservatives hailed (another important, positive factor in that binary choice matrix). He has made great, reasonable, common sense, specific policy speeches about foreign policy and immigration, so far and I expect more. [Note how the media keeps after him to be specific and positive and not off-the-cuff, but then when he does we hear.... crickets.]

I may be the only one who notices, but I read between the lines of his words and actions and find two more totally desirable parts of his personality. First, I recognize in him the same drivers as other obscenely rich old men like Ford, Rockefeller, Mellon, and Carnegie. That is, at a certain age and having more money than they can possibly spend in their shortening lifetime, they set out to "give back" to society through philanthropy of some sort. With Trump, that takes the form of "fixing" all the things he sees wrong with our government today, and he is right; that is sorely needed. The second, evident from so many speeches at the RNC convention, is that he has a "collaborative" leadership style that will serve him, and us, very well. He actually talks to the people directly involved and listens, looking for the "better way." He's had talks with family values people on that subject, black pastors about race, Mexico's president about immigration, Paul Ryan about legislation, and a large panel of economic advisors, among others. Somebody a few days ago suggested they weren't so much voting for Trump as they were for "the 3000 people he is going to bring with him." Does any of this help?

Gino said...

" but tell me why he's good."

its a big slap upside the head to the status quo. your America might be working good in your world, but its devastating to my people. we need a man who will challenge the assumptions. its the first step in what may become a long process, but a step that needs to be made if there will be any chance for an America for the lower 80%.

tell me why you think the status quo is so good and needs preservation.

Mr. D said...

tell me why you think the status quo is so good and needs preservation.

I don't. I would like a change agent, but I don't think he's the right one. And by the way, my world and your world are the same world.

Mr. D said...

I may be the only one who notices, but I read between the lines of his words and actions and find two more totally desirable parts of his personality. First, I recognize in him the same drivers as other obscenely rich old men like Ford, Rockefeller, Mellon, and Carnegie. That is, at a certain age and having more money than they can possibly spend in their shortening lifetime, they set out to "give back" to society through philanthropy of some sort.

Watch how he actually campaigns. He rents space to his campaign in properties he controls, then raises the rent once the money starts flowing in. That's philanthropy?

He actually talks to the people directly involved and listens, looking for the "better way." He's had talks with family values people on that subject, black pastors about race, Mexico's president about immigration, Paul Ryan about legislation, and a large panel of economic advisors, among others. Somebody a few days ago suggested they weren't so much voting for Trump as they were for "the 3000 people he is going to bring with him." Does any of this help?

Meetings aren't policymaking. And he's gonna need a hell of a lot more than 3000 people to fix what's wrong in Washington.

jerrye92002 said...

Apparently Trump greatly increased his rental space, thus requiring a higher rent. If he had simply donated the space, of course, the Democrats would be all over him for "corruption" of some sort. I'm not sure the [stupid] campaign finance laws would even permit it.

Meetings are the start of collaborative policy-making, as opposed to Royal decrees.

I don't know how many people it will take to inject some common sense into Washington. My belief is that Trump will involve more people, make bigger and better changes than Hillary would. But it must start with about 65 million voters.

Bike Bubba said...

Back to the subject, just shocking that Comey couldn't at least come up with an indictment recommendation for lying to investigators or destroying government records. Scooter Libby didn't do near this much, and his lies were, unlike Hilliary's, about things that were not prosecutable in themselves.

So often these days, I am powerless to explain what comes out of DC without sounding like Mario Puzo, if you catch my drift, from the Supreme Court decisions about Obamacare to this. Somebody is getting to key players and preventing them from doing their jobs.

Gino said...

I don't. I would like a change agent, but I don't think he's the right one.

its not about him being the change agent, its about us being empowered to make the changes. we dont have that now, and not another candidate was going to do that. not even that talking stiff from Wisconsin who's name i dont remember. what is needed a remake of one of the two parties. this is a start in that direction, and a peaceful one at that.
embrace this, or things may get uglier next time around. the anger is real.

Mr. D said...

embrace this, or things may get uglier next time around. the anger is real.

So now we're talking threats? Because that's what this is, good sir.

3john2 said...

Someone tried to take the Trump signs off of Gino's lawn:

blob:https://www.facebook.com/cd8cb879-e882-4743-b441-e2fd427cdfb1

Bike Bubba said...

So now we're talking threats? Because that's what this is, good sir.

One might call it a threat, and Gino might say alternatively that it's simply word from the shop floor, which it certainly is. I might add that it's historical reality, as it's not for nothing that corrupt Roman leaders resorted to bread and circii when they'd failed to create a plausibly just society.

Pandora's box has been emphatically opened, and it is my prayer that one of the two clowns running for the office accidentally stumbles into a way to put some of it back in again.

Bike Bubba said...

Watch how he actually campaigns. He rents space to his campaign in properties he controls, then raises the rent once the money starts flowing in. That's philanthropy?


Certainly not philanthropy, but rents increase in a building when vacancy is low. So if they didn't charge higher rent for more space, you'd expect the Obama FEC to come calling about it. Mess that Drumpf asked for, but a mess that more importantly derives from our insane election laws.

jerrye92002 said...

Is it appropriate to ask what each of us might be able to do to correct this appalling situation? Far too many of us, I think, have the mindset that if we only vote for the right person for president, all of our problems are solved. It has never been true, of course, and the two current candidates make that more apparent than ever, though I believe the myth still exists. Most of us will vote in November, then go home, plop on the couch and open a bag of Cheetos. To really get results you not only have to vote for the "right" candidate up and down the line, you have to pay attention to what they're doing, contact and correct them on a regular basis, and hopefully end their obvious befuddlement at what seem to be rather simple problems.

Gino said...

So now we're talking threats? Because that's what this is, good sir.

as you like to say: what cant go on, wont. and as Bubba says, I'm calling it as i see it. you knew that.