Clinton & Trump are criminals and should be in jail. /sarcasm

[Whiskey_Clear]

O.K., so the point is granted that there were no literal wire taps. Yet Trump continued to speak as if they were literal, as he did when Angela Merkel visited and he said, "As far as wiretapping I guess by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps." Around the same time he accused British Intelligence of tapping his phone, something the White House staff sought to play down since it had been completely debunked. Trump has never backed down from his charge that his phones were tapped.

Yes, I agree with you completely, Trump is a clown.

Trump is a clown. Lots of people would consider electronic surveillance of data as a wire tap though. Making such a big deal over the semantics of the words used to identify the surveillance seems to be an attempt to obfuscate the actual surveillance. Again, if the shoes were on the other foot liberals would be howling "worse than Watergate!!!"

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

A mod has to move the Trump / Hillary / Obama / Russia posts to this thread for it to work.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Questions posed? I confess that I find much of what is said is kind of a non-sequitar.

I have heard people alleging crimes against the Clintons for at least the last 25 years but whenever I have looked into it there was no "there" there. As someone brighter than I has pointed out, no President in history was more crooked than Nixon and no President in history received more partisan hatred than George W. Bush, but in either case neither one produced an entire multi-million dollar industry devoted just to attacking them. The movies made about Hillary, the bots that show up on your computer, the hundreds of books written, all are part of a very lucrative business that feeds right wing hysteria about Hillary. But, the problem comes when you ask for concrete proof of these crimes, you know, murder convictions, jail time, repeated court appearances, grand jury findings on so forth -the record is very sparse when it comes to these. The FBI director found no chargeable or criminal offense with Hillary. He said so publicly. There were 7 different Benghazi investigations into Hillary Clinton, led by Republicans, who found nothing criminal to charge her with.

Now, let me pause a moment. It is entirely possible that somewhere down the road there will turn up in a hidden email something that could bring criminal charges. But that has not happened yet and the pattern over the last 25 years remains the same. Hillary is far from perfect and, like all of us, she has her flaws. But I just don't see her as being the mega-monster that the hate industry that has grown up around her believes she is. I should modify that last statement just a bit. I honestly believe that some of the people who peddle conspiracy theories about her actually don't believe them but they make a lot of money off of it.

What is sad to me is that we never get to see the full picture with Hillary. With a little bit of research one can find many descriptions over many years of her Christian service. She is someone who prays every morning, around 5 AM, as I recall, and some of her spiritual counselors have written books about her deep Christian faith. In the denomination that she belongs to I have found at least 4 books by or about her that are shared in the faith community. Here is an example:

https://www.cokesbury.com/product/9...e-this/?rank=1&txtSearchQuery=Hillary+Clinton

So, I do not expect to convert anyone and, in fact, I am not even interested in that. I simply found that in the last election there were too many voters who saw Clinton as pure evil, something she is not, and yet at the same time seemed to give a blank check to a man who has never done a day of public service in his life. This is a man, mind you, that criticized or spoke down to veterans and war heroes, gold star families, people with handicapping conditions, immigrants, women, Mexicans, the two previous Presidents, most of the members of his own party, church leaders, the media and so many more I am probably leaving out. His criminal activity will be litigated, and, unlike Watergate, will probably not take four years. It certainly will not take the 25 years it has taken so far with Clinton with no results to date.

I like you too. Go Jackets!

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Lots of people would consider electronic surveillance of data as a wire tap though.

Well, here is the problem with that. Trump said it was his phone that was tapped. That never happened. There have been leaked stories that some of his CAMPAIGN workers were picked up in surveillance of Russian conversations. Those were not Trump conversations and that surveillance did not happen in Trump Tower.

So, his phone was not tapped. That is not splitting hairs, that is just stating a fact.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Those were not Trump conversations and that surveillance did not happen in Trump Tower.

So, his phone was not tapped. That is not splitting hairs, that is just stating a fact.

To be fair, half of your statement of fact is not factual. Susan Rice unmasked electronic surveillance before AND after the election emanating from the Trump Tower identifying members of Trump's inner circle's conversations. I'm not aware of any surveillance that Trump had being unmasked, however given the fact that he's a billionaire businessman it's unlikely that the only conversations exploited were direct associates and not the man himself. Rice has gone on the media & stated that she needed to unmask the names of the individuals to understand the context of the communications.

What transpired here is extremely unusual and unethical. It's like the medical records administrator at the hospital prowling around in the database to get personal secrets. That kind of crap normally gets you jail time. The fact that it happened at the highest levels of the previous administration is indicative of how pervasive and "acceptable" this culture has become in DC.

 

[awbuzz]

Lot of "Hot Air" about politics ... I.e. off topic. Maybe time to close this one down.

 

[MWBATL]

Threatening war over twitter is just stupid.

Actually, I think it is pretty meaningless.

I seriously doubt North Korea will do anything significant without China's blessing. China is masterful at saying one thing in public media whilst behind the scenes doing something totally different. They understand how meaningless twitter posts are. I wonder why more Americans, especially in the media, don't understand this?

North Korea is following the same pattern it has followed forever....take bellicose actions along with outrageously bellicose language in order rot extort settlements for the west for aid to keep the peace. Administration after administration of both parties has kicked this can down the road, so here we ar today. It would be refreshing not to yield to this form of terrorism by North Korea any longer.

Wake me up when some actual fighting takes place. The rest is all diplomacy.

 

[AE 87]

Here are some facts that are not in dispute, if I understand correctly.
1) Secretary Clinton used her own private server for business including State Dept business.
2) At the very least, this seems intended to avoid FOIA requests and is unethical if not illegal.
3) Some of the emails discovered on the unsecured server contained highly classified material, which is illegal (whether one decides it worthy of prosecution or not)

@Northeast Stinger, I have two simple yes/no questions: (1) do you dispute any of these 3 facts? (2) Would you have defended Vice President **** Cheney if these 3 facts were true of him?

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

To be fair, half of your statement of fact is not factual. Susan Rice unmasked electronic surveillance before AND after the election emanating from the Trump Tower identifying members of Trump's inner circle's conversations. I'm not aware of any surveillance that Trump had being unmasked, however given the fact that he's a billionaire businessman it's unlikely that the only conversations exploited were direct associates and not the man himself. Rice has gone on the media & stated that she needed to unmask the names of the individuals to understand the context of the communications.

What transpired here is extremely unusual and unethical. It's like the medical records administrator at the hospital prowling around in the database to get personal secrets. That kind of crap normally gets you jail time. The fact that it happened at the highest levels of the previous administration is indicative of how pervasive and "acceptable" this culture has become in DC.

The rampant unmasking, the leaks of same, and the executive order signed by Obama to make this intelligence info more widely dispersed and thus easier to disseminate widely through leaks; all show this was a coordinated effort by the prior administration, from Obama down.

These acts actually are equivalent to Watergate imo. But instead of burglarizing the DNC office they abused the power of intelligence agencies and FISA to essentially do the same damn thing Nixon's people did. Which is actually more nefarious. I think it's pretty clear these things were done for two reasons. One to get intel and possibly dirt to help Hillary win. Also to garner info to attack the Trump admin were he to happen to win.

There isn't much to prevent this from happening again in the next election cycles.

One might argue that the Obama admin abuse of the FISA court might cause that court to be less lenient in granting surveillance requests. Or maybe Congress will act to eliminate the FISA court altogether. If so it has harmed the ability of intel agencies to conduct legitimate surveillance, something Obama doesn't give a crap about but very dangerous potentially to us.

One could also argue however that all any administration needs is a sympathetic FISA judge to grant any damn thing they want all over again. Something that is clearly possible. This devastates the trust the American public has in the executive and the judicial branches. Which is also very dangerous and also something I don't think Hillary or Obama give a damn about. Their only concern is gaining political power and personal wealth for themselves.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

1.) Using private server is not a good idea but ironically not only is she not the only Secretary of State to have done so, when the state department was hacked her private server emails ended up being the only ones protected. I was far more concerned about Trump having Russian spies right in the oval office without any our security agencies present.
2.) An assumption which I do not share. I think it was merely for convenience. I personally do not know anyone who has not used their private computer for business time to time.
3.) This is in dispute. Some were only classified after the fact, according to what I have read in the past. Again, I agree that this is a bad practice but to single her out when others in the State Department have done this in the past (and as Trump continues to do!) seems hypocritical to me. Several times now Trump has tweeted and emailed top secret information. The argument from the White House has been that the President has the right to declassify anything he wants anytime he wants. While technically true, this strikes me as far more reckless than anything Secretary Clinton did.

Two simple answers.
(1) I dispute the interpretation of the facts, as clarified earlier.
(2) Yes.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Back to climate. Climate / weather has always been very consistent in a couple of things only. Change and chaos. It's pretty brilliant of the alarmists to cling to these two things and cite instances of both to raise climate alarm. It's lame that so many people appear to be so ignorant of the first two certainties and so easily manipulated.

When there is a drought...climate change...when there is flooding...climate change...when there is freezing...climate change....heat waves....climate change....hurricanes....climate change....mud slides....climate change....avalanches...climate change.....

The previous lull in major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. coast will see the playbook change slightly if alarmists have any sense at all. They will stop predicting altogether and just wait for each chaotic weather event to occur, then scream "See!!! Climate Change! We told you so!!" Even though these same events have occurred consistently through the ages.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

To be fair, half of your statement of fact is not factual. Susan Rice unmasked electronic surveillance before AND after the election emanating from the Trump Tower identifying members of Trump's inner circle's conversations. I'm not aware of any surveillance that Trump had being unmasked, however given the fact that he's a billionaire businessman it's unlikely that the only conversations exploited were direct associates and not the man himself. Rice has gone on the media & stated that she needed to unmask the names of the individuals to understand the context of the communications.

What transpired here is extremely unusual and unethical. It's like the medical records administrator at the hospital prowling around in the database to get personal secrets. That kind of crap normally gets you jail time. The fact that it happened at the highest levels of the previous administration is indicative of how pervasive and "acceptable" this culture has become in DC.

You can blame Devin Nunes for the confusion on this. In my opinion he did the President a disservice. When Trump made his false claim that his phones were tapped, Nunes rushed to the White House to share information that Trump claimed he already had. Bizarre does not begin to describe that narrative. Then Nunes said that Susan Rice had unmasked the names of Trump officials. Later he denied having said that. Nunes continued to hold classified security documents from the investigating committe of which he was chair so he could continue to be a mouth piece for Trump's claim of wiretapping, something that should have caused him to be removed immediately from the committee. Later, in March I believe it was, he took back his original statement in a CNN interview saying, "There was no actual unmasking of names but you could tell who the people were from the context."

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Editing and moving to other thread.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

1.) Using private server is not a good idea but ironically not only is she not the only Secretary of State to have done so, when the state department was hacked her private server emails ended up being the only ones protected. I was far more concerned about Trump having Russian spies right in the oval office without any our security agencies present.
2.) An assumption which I do not share. I think it was merely for convenience. I personally do not know anyone who has not used their private computer for business time to time.
3.) This is in dispute. Some were only classified after the fact, according to what I have read in the past. Again, I agree that this is a bad practice but to single her out when others in the State Department have done this in the past (and as Trump continues to do!) seems hypocritical to me. Several times now Trump has tweeted and emailed top secret information. The argument from the White House has been that the President has the right to declassify anything he wants anytime he wants. While technically true, this strikes me as far more reckless than anything Secretary Clinton did.

Two simple answers.
(1) I dispute the interpretation of the facts, as clarified earlier.
(2) Yes.

I agree the president has the power to declassify anything at anytime. Obama could have used this power to give Clinton cover but chose not to. I think Comey extended this executive privilege to Clinton when he chose to decline prosecution. It's the only reasoning to drop that investigation that makes any sense at all. I disagree with that dyecision and think it was a gross misuse of prosecutorial discretion.

I agree that Trump declassifying through tweets, or whatever, can be extremely harmful if not vetted thoroughly first from the intel agencies. If he does so I will condemn him and advocate replacing him in office.

To be honest though...that's an accountability leap I don't think liberals are willing to make to hold their own political leaders to.

 

[AE 87]

1.) Using private server is not a good idea but ironically not only is she not the only Secretary of State to have done so, when the state department was hacked her private server emails ended up being the only ones protected. I was far more concerned about Trump having Russian spies right in the oval office without any our security agencies present.
2.) An assumption which I do not share. I think it was merely for convenience. I personally do not know anyone who has not used their private computer for business time to time.
3.) This is in dispute. Some were only classified after the fact, according to what I have read in the past. Again, I agree that this is a bad practice but to single her out when others in the State Department have done this in the past (and as Trump continues to do!) seems hypocritical to me. Several times now Trump has tweeted and emailed top secret information. The argument from the White House has been that the President has the right to declassify anything he wants anytime he wants. While technically true, this strikes me as far more reckless than anything Secretary Clinton did.

Two simple answers.
(1) I dispute the interpretation of the facts, as clarified earlier.
(2) Yes.

Thank-you for the response.

I was aware that Colin Powell used private e-mail on an old Blackberry or something. When he used it to communicate with State Dept people, he sent e-mails to their State Dept accounts so that they were logged in the system. I am unaware of any other Secretary of State who set up their own server, with fellow State Dept folk having accounts on that server so that all communication was outside the Govt records collection. Could you provide a link in support of that claim?

No, I did not assert an assumption as being a fact not in dispute. Here's a link to Politico story. While it is couched in terms of protecting "personal" communication like Powell, Huma also had an account on her server and there was State Dept communication between them. Some of it showed up on Wiener's laptop.

The third point is also not in dispute. Here are links on this: politifact and factcheck

 

[LibertyTurns]

You can blame Devin Nunes for the confusion on this. In my opinion he did the President a disservice. When Trump made his false claim that his phones were tapped, Nunes rushed to the White House to share information that Trump claimed he already had. Bizarre does not begin to describe that narrative. Then Nunes said that Susan Rice had unmasked the names of Trump officials. Later he denied having said that. Nunes continued to hold classified security documents from the investigating committe of which he was chair so he could continue to be a mouth piece for Trump's claim of wiretapping, something that should have caused him to be removed immediately from the committee. Later, in March I believe it was, he took back his original statement in a CNN interview saying, "There was no actual unmasking of names but you could tell who the people were from the context."

OK, here's a far right wing article with her direct quotes. Now maybe the radical right wing CBS news is lying & that's not what she really said but given the context of the quotes it seems credible to me. Geez, the lady admitted to unmasking the surveillance although it wasn't in a court of law sworn under oath (like that amounts to anything as we saw from Comey). Perhaps she didn't understand the implications of what she was talking about but unless there's some weasel words I'm too dumb to recognize I say she did it.

Now she does go on to say, I'm the one who unmasked it but I'm not the one who leaked it. Obviously she and/or someone close to her that was reviewing the surveillance did or they were in Comey's words 'extremely careless" and allowed highly controlled Top Secret documents to be passed around without regard for compromising the collection methods involved. People are in jail for this & that's where these people belong.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/susan-rice-says-unmasking-of-names-wasnt-for-political-purposes/

 

[Northeast Stinger]

O.K., I see how this can get confusing.

The unmasking referred to is a different data collection point than the one Nunes was referring to and which he was using to bolster Trump's claim of his phone being wiretapped. Nunes himself later admitted this and Politifact agreed that Rice was telling the truth about not knowing what he was talking about in his original charge.

Unmasking of an American citizen can only be done, as I understand it, in cases that involve foreign espionage against our government or political system. I am foursquare in favor of such unmasking. People accepting bribes or offers of support to undermine our nation need to be identified within the intelligence community for surveillance purposes. Unmasking is an appropriate action and is not the same as illegally wiretapping or leaking information.

Here is what we do not know. Who leaked information that members of Trump's team were colluding with the Russians? Susan Rice says it was not her. We only have her word for that but no answer. I have my ideas about who did this but it is only speculation.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Thank-you for the response.

I was aware that Colin Powell used private e-mail on an old Blackberry or something. When he used it to communicate with State Dept people, he sent e-mails to their State Dept accounts so that they were logged in the system. I am unaware of any other Secretary of State who set up their own server, with fellow State Dept folk having accounts on that server so that all communication was outside the Govt records collection. Could you provide a link in support of that claim?

No, I did not assert an assumption as being a fact not in dispute. Here's a link to Politico story. While it is couched in terms of protecting "personal" communication like Powell, Huma also had an account on her server and there was State Dept communication between them. Some of it showed up on Wiener's laptop.

The third point is also not in dispute. Here are links on this: politifact and factcheck

This was a fairly comprehensive look at private email use at the time of the controversy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/us/clinton-emails-routine-practice.html?mcubz=1

My point about some things being classified after the fact, and I should have been more clear about this, was that it was the ones classified AFTER THE FACT that Republican investigators were making such a big deal of at the time. I honestly am not sure what their motivation was at the time, whether it was to pad their case or whether the ones later classified looked more damning, but that is what they did.

As to others using private email accounts here is a source I have never used before but it was the first one that caught my eye. What I was looking for was the old controversy that the Bush Administration had no record of millions of lost emails from private servers used all across his cabinet. I remembered the media not making much of it at the time and the democrats did not have the gall to push it the way Republicans are now. More interesting to me is the survey of government officials on their use of private emails for business.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/08/h...ory-using-personal-email-government-business/

 

[AE 87]

Sigh

There was no leak that members of Trump's team were colluding with the Russians because there was no evidence of that. The major leak under discussion is that of Flynn's phone call with the Russian ambassador Kislyak, which took place at the end of December, over a month after the election. Apparently, he talked about Russia's reaction to the sanctions and then lied to VP Pence as well as others by denying that they discussed this. The content of the phone call with his name unmasked was then leaked.

NPR reports that there was no evidence of criminal wrong-doing in the discussion.

 

[AE 87]

This was a fairly comprehensive look at private email use at the time of the controversy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/us/clinton-emails-routine-practice.html?mcubz=1

My point about some things being classified after the fact, and I should have been more clear about this, was that it was the ones classified AFTER THE FACT that Republican investigators were making such a big deal of at the time. I honestly am not sure what their motivation was at the time, whether it was to pad their case or whether the ones later classified looked more damning, but that is what they did.

As to others using private email accounts here is a source I have never used before but it was the first one that caught my eye. What I was looking for was the old controversy that the Bush Administration had no record of millions of lost emails from private servers used all across his cabinet. I remembered the media not making much of it at the time and the democrats did not have the gall to push it the way Republicans are now. More interesting to me is the survey of government officials on their use of private emails for business.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/08/h...ory-using-personal-email-government-business/

Thanks. The New York Times article comes from before the FBI report in July of last year that discussed the extent of classified information on the Clinton server. The DailySignal article is great and reveals that efforts which avoid FOIA by use of private email were widespread among those who were allegedly up to no good.

I'll take you at your word, but I find it hard to believe that if this was going on under a Bush or Trump administration that you would be so "business as usual." I know that I would be just as bothered by it.