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2016 American Presidential Campaign

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My college aged daughter told me her and her friends,who are Bernie supporters,think Hillary should be in jail. They still have hope(ahh,youth) but barring Comey growing a spine they're voting Trump. Hildo will be lucky to win California and the North East and chances are still good that she will become a guest of the Federal Correctional System.
 

You're quoting an email that was sent more than a year into the war...

The rebellion in Syria has now lasted more than a year. The opposition is not going away, nor is the regime going to accept a diplomatic solution from the outside. With his life and his family at risk, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's mind.

You may not agree with support of Israel in the region, but the significance of Israel in the Middle East, as the article touches on, is that Israel is the only regional power with nuclear weapons. The US has been very firm on Iran not getting nuclear weapons, and with good reason.

The Obama administration has been understandably wary of engaging in an air operation in Syria like the one conducted in Libya for three main reasons. Unlike the Libyan opposition forces, the Syrian rebels are not unified and do not hold territory. The Arab League has not called for outside military intervention as it did in Libya. And the Russians are opposed. Libya was an easier case. But other than the laudable purpose of saving Libyan civilians from likely attacks by Qaddafi's regime, the Libyan operation had no long-lasting consequences for the region. Syria is harder. But success in Syria would be a transformative event for the Middle East. Not only would another ruthless dictator succumb to mass opposition on the streets, but the region would be changed for the better as Iran would no longer have a foothold in the Middle East from which to threaten Israel and undermine stability in the region.

Logically, this isn't a bad policy. Like the Libya conflict, the US involvement didn't come until well after the outbreak of hostilities. Assad had at this point proven himself to be a brutal dictator with no respect for human rights just like Gaddaffi. Far from starting the Syrian Civil War, Clinton was advocating for earlier intervention in Syria, which in hindsight was probably the better solution than waiting as Obama ended up doing. Obama ended up authorizing the CIA to give weapons so some rebel groups much later when the situation had devolved to the extremism that we are familiar with today. When Clinton was advocating this, the idea was that it was to preempt the radicals from influencing the other rebel groups (which clearly ended up happening).
 
Trump is a villain, but at least criticise the truly bad things he says and not attention seeking jokes.
walking back a problematic statement with "i was joking" is something i expect to hear from teenagers and loungefailers, not from a presidential candidate...

alasdair
 
How is it a threat to national security if there is nothing to hide in those 30,000 emails?

It would be a shame if the truth actually came to light.... It's almost as if the democrats walked right into a trap. I'm looking forward to more lies from Hillary being exposed as this election moves forward.
 
The election has been stolen in a conspiracy masterminded by the candidate and involving the DNC, MSM, and who knows what else, but this is the only thing Dems can talk about. Are they putting something in the water in the US?
walking back a problematic statement with "i was joking" is something i expect to hear from teenagers and loungefailers, not from a presidential candidate...

alasdair
 
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don't drink the kool aid bro! ^

in other news, they just overturned the voter id thing in a few places. apparently they are ready for dems to start being able to vote in the general now. seems convenient. the hillary networks are running with this now. democracy has been restored!

 
It's late, I can't sleep, I'm tired, this post will be brief and probably a rambling mess of irrelevant drivel.

But I'm seeing a lot of superficial nit-picking on both sides (not just here in CEP, but in the real world as well). As I've said time and time again, we're not electing a king. Do we want the belligerent, untactful man who incites and exploits fear or do we want the other lying millionaire borderline psychopath? Neither of them will represent you or I, there is a socio-political machine at work here, and both candidates and both of their parties are perpetuating this machine via soundbites and really shallow political pandering to keep the machine oiled up and running.

My advice would be to vote for a party or candidate that truly represents your interests. There are more than two to choose from. I always get the "you're throwing your vote away" routine when I bring up pluralism, but if you vote for either Trump or Hillary aren't you throwing your vote anyway anyhow? Are either of them ideal leaders? Do we deserve a better government, or are we getting the government we deserve?
 
@donkey I do plan to respond to some responses of yours to me with all due seriousness, but one thing is really burning in my mind: do you actually support "your" candidate with any degree of real genuine enthusiasm for her, rather than lesser-evilism?

I don't vote and don't really have faith in the electoral process and in pure ideology or perfect world terms I'm not really a big fan of democracy, although pure ideology and perfect world terms are irrelevant and the famous quote of Churchill's (of whom I am not a fan) may still apply, although less so in this era.

although obviously I'd prefer Trump, but with enthusiasm only lying in the defeat of Hilary and at least symbolically a refutation of what they stand for. And I say "they," purposefully; Hilary Rodham Clinton is certainly a strong and intelligent woman but a vote for her is a vote for Bill as as vote for Bill was a vote for her, which is going to play into some of my responses to you (but anyway …) I don't really know you or your politics but you come off as perhaps a genuine enthusiast in which case I'm pretty much gobsmacked.

A lot of the more long minded people, of course, throw their full enthusiasm into one or the other mainstream candidate because of SCOTUS appointments; and if so you are right to do so and this is certainly part of why I fear a Hilary presidency, although somehow I doubt that Trump will be all that much better; I doubt the genuineness of the change in his convictions on abortion, for instance.
 
SCOTUS does have a history of voting in such a way that you wouldn't expect. The gay marriage legalization occurred while Scalia was still sitting in his chair. Ideally, they're supposed to be a non-political branch of government designed to interpret the constitution. Practically though.....

Churchill's (of whom I am not a fan) may still apply, although less so in this era.

If capitalism is supposed to function based on educated and well informed individuals making rational choices, so too does democracy. The trouble is, the majority are misinformed and superficial in their decision making.

Though I can't argue against democracy. I sure would like to be counted and to have the ability to have a voice in government, even if a bunch of mouth breathers also have the same opportunity.

Real democracy though, (I believe) doesn't happen at the ballot box. It happens in the political consciousness of society, in the streets, through independent media, a democracy isn't a democracy if no one participates and no one is willing to put their neck on the line for something they believe in.
 
^^^ How on earth is requiring an ID to vote discriminatory to black ppl? In my state you are required to carry a state ID, without an ID you can flood the polls with fraudulent voters.
https://electionfraud2016.wordpress.com/




You may be on to something there

It might not be as much as an issue in north eastern modern cities but in the south a lot of poor people are black and have no access to an ID then the state does shit like raise prices on ID's and makes it more difficult to get the ID's by limiting online services and closing down offices. Same with the gerrymandering and redistricting. On its face no it isn't racist and you're right it is reasonable but when you look at the facts absolutely it is being done for racist reasons, when you stop minorities and the poor from voting conservatives win.

Lets work on getting everyone free access to an ID before you pass a law like this, better yet have free places you can enroll everyone to vote and hand them an ID in any government place like DHS or a library year round with no restrictions as long as they can prove they are legal and elgible. Then absolutely I say pass your law saying you need ID but not before we do this.

It's all misdirection anyways voter fraud has never been an issue. Why would someone risk a felony to vote for someone when you can hardly get people to vote that can legally? Show me the stats on voter fraud most of the time its people who are trying to prove how "easy" it is for an online newspaper or blog or something and they get caught or just older people that get confused about where to vote.

Now election fraud there's a whole nother animal that is not going to get solved ever, that's where the establishment rigs the system and it is mainly a conservative tactic.
 
I don't have a government issued ID at least as the term is intended here (driver or non-driver ID) It is a complex reason why and involves a literal Catch-22 between two different states neither of which wishes to issue the identification until a DUI is resolved by the other. There are certain documents that I could provide to get an alternative sort of ID but it is still problematic particularly because there are any number of other Catch 22 such as the difficulty in procuring a birth certificate (from yet a third state) without photo identification and the difficulty of procuring photo identification without proving a date of birth.

I also fear the DMV office because I fear potential old warrants. All of this however is entirely my fault and you should have no sympathy on me. With a bit of skill in social engineering it is by no means difficult to get on without one, I've managed not one but three professional licenses, a government job and a pistol permit in perhaps the most restrictive locale in America, nor is it difficult to procure false identification from the states which put lesser effort into fraud proofing their physical IDs. Even what are known in criminal parlance as real fakes or fulls are not prohibitively expensive if you are engaged in criminal enterprise but perhaps so if you are 18 year old college student looking to get drunk. During the course of my criminal career I was at least three different verifiable people, down to accents and knowing my Middle School Math teacher, four if you count the one known to my parents, such to the extent that there are times that I forget which one I am.

Beyond this anecdote however let's look into the supposedly racial undertones of voter ID laws. Certain projects such as allowing welfare cards as voter ID and mass registration of welfare recipients are clear to advantage the Democrat Party; others perhaps clear to advantage the Republican Party. And there is no account for gerrymandering. So let's just abandon any pretense of this about being social justice and say that all's fair in love war and politics and figure that it all evens out in the end.
 
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And there is no account for gerrymandering. So let's just abandon any pretense of this about being social justice and say that all's fair in love war and politics and figure that it all evens out in the end.

Getting as many people as possible to vote who want to vote is what America is about even if you disagree with who they vote for.

Gerrymandering is just plain slimy and underhanded "no account of gerrymandering" yeah, sure: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...ngressional-districts-to-elect-gop-lawmakers/

"Lets redraw the maps and boundaries until I win" a ok because the guys you want in are doing it, it's somehow equal to giving people easy free access to voting :\
 
Gerrymandering is older than the current two-party system and I'm pretty sure is not going away and it is not something that really benefits one party above another in the long run so it's something we live with. Just as mass registration of welfare recipients and voter ID restrictions go one way or another things even out in the end. That is, the fix is still in, an establishment or eventually more or less easily corruptible candidate wins.

I'd almost rather wish we never minded the bullshit and had a King or Führer. Part of me almost feels like there would be less corruption, and there are actually halfway decent arguments for that. All I know is that as a wise man once said, the average man traces today's problems to World War II, the educated man traces today's problems to the Great War, and true student of History traces them all to the French Revolution.
 
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@donkey I do plan to respond to some responses of yours to me with all due seriousness, but one thing is really burning in my mind: do you actually support "your" candidate with any degree of real genuine enthusiasm for her, rather than lesser-evilism?

You know, the more I research her, the more I gain a degree of comfort with her. Initially, during this campaign season, I didn't have a strong opinion of her and assumed she would be the nominee as did everyone else. Then came the Bernie campaign and we saw the way that the DNC and mainstream media tried to manipulate the voters into voting for Hillary. I think that it was around this time that I started taking Bernie seriously and noticed that I did agree with a lot of his points, though I still took issue with certain aspects of his campaign, especially the reluctance to move away from the socialism tag, and a bit of an ill-defined approach to Wall Street reform. Much of my unhappiness toward Clinton at that time was a result of the media and the DNC and their attempts to manipulate voters into voting for Clinton. Now that Clinton is the nominee and I'm taking a fresh look at her, I'm finding that she was not a terrible Secretary of State. It seems that there were two main points of divergence from Obama's foreign policy during her tenure, and they were regarding the point in which to intervene in Syria, and how to handle the Iranian nuclear situation. Clinton is undoubtedly more hawkish than Obama in that she pushed for earlier intervention in Syria and opposed negotiating with Iran, but in the former case at least, it seems she was probably correct in that earlier intervention in Syria would have been more effective.

I don't fully agree with everything she does, but I feel she will generally continue the policies of Obama, which I do fully support. No candidate is perfect though, and when it comes down to protecting the vital interests of the nation, I think she is the only candidate capable of doing so.
 
Gerrymandering is older than the current two-party system and I'm pretty sure is not going away and it is not something that really benefits one party above another in the long run so it's something we live with. Just as mass registration of welfare recipients and voter ID restrictions go one way or another things even out in the end. That is, the fix is still in, an establishment or eventually more or less easily corruptible candidate wins.

Except it seems to be happening more and more on the conservative side and they're not even hiding it's their plan to mass get elected as a party, it's one thing for individual politicians to do it, it's another when it becomes the mantra of the entire party.

I'd almost rather wish we never minded the bullshit and had a King or Führer. Part of me almost feels like there would be less corruption, and there are actually halfway decent arguments for that. All I know is that as a wise man once said, the average man traces today's problems to World War II, the educated man traces today's problems to the Great War, and true student of History traces them all to the French Revolution.

I have to commend you for being honest. I know deep down most people who are conservative want a fascist authoritarian to deal with the slaves, at least you admit it.

Also a true student of history knows this all started when man first crawled out of the slime and will continue on indefinitely.
 
Lets work on getting everyone free access to an ID before you pass a law like this, better yet have free places you can enroll everyone to vote and hand them an ID in any government place like DHS or a library year round with no restrictions as long as they can prove they are legal and elgible. Then absolutely I say pass your law saying you need ID but not before we do this.

Sounds reasonable, in my city homeless people are required to have ID, which is given for free, I too want everyone that can vote, to vote.


Clinton earns Four Pinocchios for mischaracterizing the FBI director's remarks about her email setup.




Fact Checker
[h=1]Clinton’s claim that the FBI director said her email answers were ‘truthful’[/h]
“Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
—Hillary Clinton, interview on “Fox News Sunday,” July 31, 2016
Clinton made these remarks after “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace played a video of her saying: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials. I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time. I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified.”
As Wallace put it, “After a long investigation, FBI Director James Comey said none of those things that you told the American public were true.”
After Clinton denied that, Wallace played another video of an exchange between Comey and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi:
GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails either sent or received. Was that true?
COMEY: That’s not true.
GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” Was that true?
COMEY: There was classified material emailed.
So what’s going on here?
[h=3]The Facts[/h] Clinton is cherry-picking statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server. This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation
For instance, when Clinton asserts “my answers were truthful,” a campaign aide said she is referring to this statement by Comey to Congress: “We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.”
But that’s not the whole story. When House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked whether Clinton had lied to the American public, Comey dodged: “That’s a question I’m not qualified to answer. I can speak about what she said to the FBI.”
At another point, Comey told Congress: “I really don’t want to get in the business of trying to parse and judge her public statements. And so I think I’ve tried to avoid doing that sitting here. … What matters to me is what did she say to the FBI. That’s obviously first and foremost for us.”
Comey was also asked whether Clinton broke the law: “In connection with her use of the email server? My judgment is that she did not,” Comey said.
As for retroactive classification of emails, Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified. But he also said that some emails were classified at the time — and Clinton and her aides should have been aware of that.
Here’s how Comey put it in his lengthy statement when he announced the completion of the investigation: “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.”
Comey said “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.”
He added: “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.” He noted that “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.”
In her response to Wallace, Clinton at one point appeared to deflect responsibility to her aides: “I relied on and had every reason to rely on the judgments of the professionals with whom I worked. And so, in retrospect, maybe some people are saying, well, among those 300 people, they made the wrong call.”
Testifying before Congress, Comey said it was possible Clinton was not “technically sophisticated” enough to understand what the classified markings meant. But he said a government official should be attentive to such a marking.
[h=3]The Pinocchio Test[/h] As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy, she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public — which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.
And although Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified, he also said that there were some emails that were already classified that should not have been sent on an unclassified, private server. That’s the uncomfortable truth that Clinton has trouble admitting.
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[h=3]Four Pinocchios[/h]
pinocchio_4.jpg
 
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