2016 Election Thread

[Mike Sixel]

 

That's not science, that's marketing.

 

by scientists....you've read those articles, right?

[DaveW]

 

The divide between rural and urban......how do you close it?

It will come with time, my generation and the one(s) after mine are all moving from the rural areas and "burbs" to the cities anyways. Apparently Minneapolis is expecting 500,000 new residents downtown within the next 15 years. As people move more and more into the cities they are instantly exposed to other cultures, people, ideas etc and the melting pot does it's thing.

As much as we like to rail on some of the dummies in the far right who think all muslims are terrorists etc, it is important to note that a lot of those people in those rural areas probably haven't met a single muslim person their entire life, their exposure to any other races etc are well....very limited as well.

Of course that never excuses someone for racism/narrow mindedness/ naiveness etc, but you see how it happens. Especially when you have a very vocal minority of the GOP (Cruz, Trump, Bachman, etc) spewing out how Muslims are the enemy, "radical Islam is the blame", we need to ban them all etc.

[Craig Arko]

 

by scientists....you've read those articles, right?

To be brutally honest, I do not read much in the medical or biological sciences, no. Although Ecology has some interesting aspects.

[DaveW]

I don't think I saw anyone cheering on the death of old people in this thread, it's just a reality that needs to be taken into consideration. People over the age of 65/70/75/80 (whatever number you want to use) die at a much higher rate than those younger than those ages. If they didn't then our economy would be in even worse shape than it is!

[TheLeviathan]

 

Political thought is cyclical.  Yes some are more willing to change then others but some have been around the block long enough to know what they stand for.  55 is an awfully young threshold BTW.  I see what your saying in some sense but people the generation behind you might not agree with you, it's always been that way and it's not always in one direction.

 

It has always been that way.  Those 55 and older, at one point, also probably felt that the upper age voting bloc needed to get out of the way of progress.

 

Am I excited about the need for that to happen?  No.  I just accept the reality of the situation.  If you want me to get excited, tell me how to change their minds and get them on board with the future.  If you can't....then what choice do any of us have but to wait for their ideas to go with them?

[TheLeviathan]

 

I can't believe people just ignore the necessity of criminal intent.  There just never was any, and if corruption would have played a hand it would have been with an indictment.

 

To be fair, the nebulous problem of proving intent is probably the only thing that saved her.  The FBI basically blasts her incompetence and recklessness.  She shouldn't have been indicted, but this report is hardly saves much face for her.

 

It reinforces all of the negatives people have about her.  Even among those of us rational people who aren't hyponotized by decades of right-wing attacks.

[PseudoSABR]

 

To be fair, the nebulous problem of proving intent is probably the only thing that saved her.  The FBI basically blasts her incompetence and recklessness.  She shouldn't have been indicted, but this report is hardly saves much face for her.

 

It reinforces all of the negatives people have about her.  Even among those of us rational people who aren't hyponotized by decades of right-wing attacks.

She's not getting off on an technicality, and that's how your post makes it sound.   Having intent is huge part of what makes one thing a crime, and another an act of negligence.  Here, the FBI didn't even have evidence of gross negligence (a pretty high bar to be fair), much less intent.  We may not like that she was sloppy, but her behavior fell well short of criminality.  

 

For the people that already buy the Hilary-hate, it reinforces the position.  For everyone else, it just keeps the waters muddy.  The results of this report, even as full-fledged endorsement of her behavior, would not have cleared up the perception that Hillary Clinton is in fact a career politician. 

 

 

[ashbury]

I hardly can see how she could have come any closer to an indictment. What additionally might she have done that still wouldn't have been prompted legal action? You don't show up with classified material on your private server connected to the Interwebs, you just don't.

 

Those of us who have ever had a security clearance probably feel pretty assured that lack of "intent" to violate procedures wouldn't have saved us from legal action. The guys involved with clearances have remarkably little sense of humor about their jobs, trust me.

 

Of course few of us have been Secretary of State, so it may be that there's some necessary leeway accorded to high office. You're dealing with a lot of information throughput, and minor mistakes are going to be inevitable.

 

OTOH it doesn't require being an information sciences professional to know the importance of staying behind one's firewall.

[TheLeviathan]

 

She's not getting off on an technicality, and that's how your post makes it sound.   Having intent is huge part of what makes one thing a crime, and another an act of negligence.  Here, the FBI didn't even have evidence of gross negligence (a pretty high bar to be fair), much less intent.  We may not like that she was sloppy, but her behavior fell well short of criminality.  

 

For the people that already buy the Hilary-hate, it reinforces the position.  For everyone else, it just keeps the waters muddy.  The results of this report, even as full-fledged endorsement of her behavior, would not have cleared up the perception that Hillary Clinton is in fact a career politician. 

 

Not a technicality, but as ash says....she basically did a whole host of absurdly stupid, dangerous things.  If Joe Bagadonuts does even half of the negligent things she did with information half as important - they never work in government again.  Might spend jail time too.  What she did was gross negligence in every reasonable use of the term.  Hell, he even said your average, reasonable person would have found many things she did absurd.  

 

And I agree, nothing in this report could have possibly redeemed her image with many.  It's too far gone and for those people nothing would make a difference.  That doesn't change that she just got skewered for incompetence and many of her subsequent explanations of what she was doing don't hold up to the facts.  

[PseudoSABR]

 

I hardly can see how she could have come any closer to an indictment. What additionally might she have done that still wouldn't have been prompted legal action? You don't show up with classified material on your private server connected to the Interwebs, you just don't.

I take the FBI Director at his word when he said no reasonable prosecutor would have brought the indictment. And I'd rather not speculate on what kind of evidence would have garnered an indictment, because I don't really know.  But there's plenty more facts that could have better demonstrated criminal wrongdoing.  For instance, evidence of actual harm as a result of the supposed leaks or evidence of her benefiting financially or otherwise from the private server.

 

I'm sure many agree with and would have the law hold mere negligence as criminally liable in matters of national security, but the FBI are bound by the statutes that codify the actionable law (and admittedly, I don't know the full details here); but in all criminal proceedings that mens rea element matters a great deal, whether the outcome protects national security or not. 

 

The culpable party in my opinion is the slow-to-change regulatory system that should have had clear rules of procedure set up long before Clinton in 2008 occupied the office.   I don't agree with the decision Clinton made to set up a personal server, but its somewhat preferable to using a yahoo account.  Clinton should have gone through official channels to safeguard an alternative, "personal" account, but that by itself without evidence of actual harm or some kind of culpable mindset makes prosecution seem unworkable to me.

[TheLeviathan]

Just because a prosecutor wouldn't take the indictment doesn't mean you didn't act criminally, negligently, or just plain dishonestly.  It just means it's not a case you'd entertain in court.  Those aren't the same thing.

 

Everything in this report is an indictment of Clinton's decision making, even if nothing singularly or collectively amounts to a criminal indictment.

[ashbury]

I take the FBI Director at his word when he said no reasonable prosecutor would have brought the indictment.

I do too. I'm just saying that Hillary could hardly have cut it closer.

[jimmer]

If any normal person who had access to classified material had done what she did they'd go to jail.  If in the military, you'd get court martialed for sure.  You see, people who have access to classified get training on how to deal with classified material. When someone does what she did it IS a crime. Saying you didn't know better isn't an excuse.  One should expect even more from someone in her position with the levels of classified she has access to and possibly will in the future.

 

On the bright side, anyone who does the same thing can point to this situation and say, 'Hey, apparently doing what I did isn't a crime because, hey, you didn't prosecute Mrs. Clinton for doing the same thing.'

[TheLeviathan]

 

On the bright side, anyone who does the same thing can point to this situation and say, 'Hey, apparently doing what I did isn't a crime because, hey, you didn't prosecute Mrs. Clinton for doing the same thing.'

 

Good luck with that....

 

[PseudoSABR]

 

Just because a prosecutor wouldn't take the indictment doesn't mean you didn't act criminally, negligently, or just plain dishonestly.  It just means it's not a case you'd entertain in court.  Those aren't the same thing.

 

Everything in this report is an indictment of Clinton's decision making, even if nothing singularly or collectively amounts to a criminal indictment.

I just can't really draw many conclusions from the private server incident. I think she exerted too much control and did an end-run-around the department of state, but that seems typical career politician behavior, not necessarily a real indication of inept judgment.   

 

I have lots of issues with Clinton but I actually don't think she's some how inept, or makes frequent poor decisions.  

[TheLeviathan]

 

I just can't really draw many conclusions from the private server incident. I think she exerted too much control and did an end-run-around the department of state, but that seems typical career politician behavior, not necessarily a real indication of inept judgment.   

 

I have lots of issues with Clinton but I actually don't think she's some how inept, or makes frequent poor decisions.  

 

I'm not speaking at all generally right now, but on this issue the FBI director was pretty clear - she acted in a completely ridiculous way with high level information and many of her subsequent explanations were completely debunked.  

 

I don't understand why you'll take his word that she shouldn't be indicted, but not that she was "careless" and heavily implied to have handled things "unreasonably".

[Badsmerf]

I hate this election.

[PseudoSABR]

 

I'm not speaking at all generally right now, but on this issue the FBI director was pretty clear - she acted in a completely ridiculous way with high level information and many of her subsequent explanations were completely debunked.  

 

I don't understand why you'll take his word that she shouldn't be indicted, but not that she was "careless" and heavily implied to have handled things "unreasonably".

I fully endorse the idea that she acted 'carelessly.'  That's just a far cry from criminal misconduct or absurd errors in judgment.  But now we're just picking nits. 

[Mike Sixel]

People with power and money tend to play by different rules. As we see every day. I have no idea if she broke the law or not, but I am sympathetic to the argument I would not get the same treatment.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I fully endorse the idea that she acted 'carelessly.'  That's just a far cry from criminal misconduct or absurd errors in judgment.  But now we're just picking nits. 

 

Yeah, I guess I don't understand the distinction between "careless" and "absurd errors in judgement".  At best you're playing semantics and I don't understand why.

 

There are lots of times people aren't charged with crimes that I still find their behavior abhorrent or stupid.  Hers is more on the stupid end of things, but it was stupid with confidential information.  Anyone who wasn't in such a prominent position, with as much influence as she has, probably would be looking at jail time.  Or never being near a government institution again.

[mikecgrimes]

I don't have a huge opinion on Clinton.  It's not as if the Democrat party would have trouble finding a replacement candidate so politically this should be the best result for Republicans.  Of course so long as Trump is the candidate there is nothing to gain by defeating Clinton.  All this being said it looks awful for the FBI director when you go by his own words.  Why did they even have an investigation to begin with if they were going to let her destroy evidence?  I think people put way to much trust in these people because they happen to have or are able to pretend to have similar political views.  In this case we have clear evidence she made a very bad mistake.  Is she a really dumb person?  I know Donald Trump is both really dumb and corrupt so being dumb on it's own doesn't mean you don't have criminal intent.  If they can't prove it they can't prove it and in a criminal sense that clearly matters but we get to choose if she should be or shouldn't be our president, and clearly Donald Trump isn't the only choice if we truly are a free nation.

[Brock Beauchamp]

After mulling over the Clinton situation for a day, here are my thoughts:

 

Intent matters in a criminal case but that doesn't excuse negligence, incompetence, or whatever you want to call it. Clinton screwed up badly and should be called out for her mistakes.

 

On the other hand, I'm not too worked up about it, which is the saddest thing of all. Clinton is a cog in the political machine and at this point, I expect shady dealings disguised as incompetence.

 

But when put into context, Clinton's email situation is rather unremarkable.

 

Lil Bush, either through incompetence or flat-out lies, manufactured a war we shouldn't have been in (almost surely at the prompting of his VP) which directly led to the creation of ISIS (shocking, I know) and got thousands of Americans killed, including one of my three best friends in the world. Oh, and he literally spent trillions of dollars we didn't have in the process.

 

Clinton got a hummer in the Oval. On its face, not a big deal to me... but the dude straight up perjured himself in front of Congress. That's... Not cool, man. And it's a pretty big deal.

 

Reagan... Oh, Reagan. Where do I start? Oh, that's right, Iran-Contra. Congress expressly forbade (via law) the American government from helping the Contras and obviously, it's illegal to deal weapons to an enemy state 100% of the time. Well, Reagan did both. It was, at best, borderline treason.

 

Running through this trip down memory lane, it reminded me of three things:

 

1. I have no faith in the honesty of most American politicians and at this point, I expect the worst of nearly all of them.

 

2. Obama has received enough flak for five administrations yet his administration is the cleanest in recent memory (out of eight year presidents) and it's not close. Conservatives have been so bloody unfair to the guy (who, in my opinion, will go down in history as a thoroughly adequate president).

 

3. I'm having a hard time getting too worked up about email servers.

[Mike Sixel]

There is a reason I dropped out of politics, despite the urging of many to run. I lost faith the more I worked within the system. It's probably even worse then you know....

[Craig Arko]

 

There is a reason I dropped out of politics, despite the urging of many to run. I lost faith the more I worked within the system. It's probably even worse then you know....

My wife has a similar story. You want to talk about 'Total System Failure?' Oy, vey.

[mikecgrimes]

Good to see Trump is more worried about defending a tweet he flt the need to delete rather then Clinton's problems or the charges she's fired back his way.  The convention is two weeks away and he's still nothing more then an adult child, I sure hope the delegates get this right.  Today was one of the few days I felt like maybe I could vote for Trump but he just can't even pretend to be a real candidate.  Maybe the convention will compromise by selecting the VP candidate for Trump and then we can rely on the threat of impeachment if he can't follow the rules.

[Bark's Lounge]

After doing much research, soul searching and leaning on the voices I believe in... I believe that the vote should go to Clinton.

 

She is definitely not the best, but she is the best that we have.

 

Saying this, I have never supported Trump or even liked him one bit: He is a snake oils salesman, he will say anything to appeal to the masses. Snake oil is offensive!

 

If Trump was a character in "One Flew Over The Cucco's Nest", he would have been the first to have a frontal lobe lobotomy.

 

H

 

With Clinton, it will be politics as usual, nothing much will change... and that sucks big time

[Craig Arko]

[Badsmerf]

I listened to the interrogation by Congress today and am disgusted by it. The right called this an emergency meeting, and have slapped their dicks the entire day. We get it, she shouldn't have had a private server. I'm sure rules will be put in place so this doesn't happen in the future.

 

This type of charade is what misleads people and has caused the Republican party to be wrapped in conspiracy theory followers and anti government nonsense. I might need to delete Facebook because it shows how ignorant people are and frustrates me.

 

There was no classified material in 30000 emails examined. Out of the 100 in question, only 3 had a symbol: © that represents confidential information. None had a classified header, which is required in order send classified material. There is no case here.

 

C'mon guys and gals. Evidence matters. If you don't have any, you can't prosecute. This topic is stupid. Put protocols in place and call it a day.

[Mike Sixel]

Even if she had sent classified material.....who cares, really? How did this effect the world at all.....compared to a scam university and paying attorney's general contributions right before they decided not to litigate.....just as an example that might matter more.....

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

The process worked.

 

Sanders endorses Clinton

 

Makes his tough campaigning all the more satisfying. The fight still continues.