Is Hillary Toast?

[Cow Poke]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/0...-batch4-213164

The State Department has deemed roughly 150 more of Hillary Clinton's email messages to be classified, a move certain to fuel the roiling controversy over her use of a private email server instead of an official government account when she served as secretary of state.

The new classifications will more than triple the previous total of 63 classified messages on Clinton's account, but State Department spokesman Mark Toner stressed that the information was not marked classified at the time it was sent several years ago. He also said the decisions to classify the information did not represent a determination that it should have been marked or handled that way back then.

"That certainly does not speak to whether it was classified at the time it was sent, or forwarded, or received," Toner said during the daily State Department briefing on Monday. "We stand by our contention that the information we’ve upgraded was not marked classified at the time it was sent."

Nearly all the information officially classified by the State Department in prior email releases involved diplomatic strategy or information provided by foreign governments. Toner batted away questions about whether State Department policy dictated that Clinton and other agency employees treat as classified information obtained in confidence from foreign officials or diplomats.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/0...#ixzz3kR4YyNmT

[Starlight]

As much as I would like to see Hillary go down in flames and drop out of the race, I just don't think this email 'scandal' is going to do it.

[Cow Poke]

As much as I would like to see Hillary go down in flames and drop out of the race, I just don't think this email 'scandal' is going to do it.

Just out of curiosity, why would you like to see her "go down in flames"?

[Sam]

"Is Hilary toast?"

Not from this, no. If she goes up against Jeb!, he used a private e-mail, too. If she goes up against Walker, he's got that whole "secret network" thing. If she goes up against Trump, she could light a kitten on fire and still win.

[Starlight]

Just out of curiosity, why would you like to see her "go down in flames"?

Because she is an incredibly corrupt Wall St/corporate sell-out who's up to her eyeballs in favors-for-donors both in the US and internationally, way too pro-war and pro-establishment and pro-wealth, and who's expressed views on other issues change so often that I have no clue what she truly actually believes or stands for on most issues...

As president she seems highly likely to do absolutely nothing like Obama, and like him to just wring her hands and say "oh those nasty Republicans stopped me from doing anything. Oh well, I tried. It's a good thing I didn't actually want to do anything anyway, and the Republicans gave me an excuse to not make the changes I'd promised but never actually wanted to implement, because I'm actually way more right-wing and corporatist than I pretended to be to get elected. Oh wait, did I say that out loud? Hmm, let's start another war to distract everyone! Who can we invade today..."

[Jaecp]

Just out of curiosity, why would you like to see her "go down in flames"?

Team Sanders ftw

[Cow Poke]

"Is Hilary toast?"

Not from this, no. If she goes up against Jeb!, he used a private e-mail, too.

Ah, "the other guy did it too" argument. Perhaps you missed that this isn't just about "using a private e-mail", and the nature of her office vs. his?

If she goes up against Walker, he's got that whole "secret network" thing.

Must be pretty secret - I don't know anything about that. (Really haven't been following Walker at all)

[seer]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/0...-batch4-213164

[box]The State Department has deemed roughly 150 more of Hillary Clinton's email messages to be classified, a move certain to fuel the roiling controversy over her use of a private email server instead of an official government account when she served as secretary of state.

We can only hope!


th.jpg

[Sam]

Ah, "the other guy did it too" argument. Perhaps you missed that this isn't just about "using a private e-mail", and the nature of her office vs. his?

Secretary of State v. Governor isn't going to make too much difference; the part that's not about using a private e-mail instead of the State e-mail is more complex than most voters will care about. People opposed to Clinton will continue to be opposed, people supportive will continue to be supportive.

Trump is making sure that 2016 ends up being a policy, rather than personality, election. But, in either case, "the other guy did it, too" is fairly well-worn and effective in politics. All Clinton has to do is turn it around by saying that Jeb/Walker/Powell/etc did the same thing and let the other candidate explain why that situation is different than this situation. And when you're explaining, you're losing, as the saying goes.

Must be pretty secret - I don't know anything about that. (Really haven't been following Walker at all)

Like the Clinton e-mail story, you've got to be a political junkie to really care about the "scandal," let alone have a working grasp of the merits. Here's a read-up.

[Sam]

Because she is an incredibly corrupt Wall St/corporate sell-out who's up to her eyeballs in favors-for-donors both in the US and internationally, way too pro-war and pro-establishment and pro-wealth, and who's expressed views on other issues change so often that I have no clue what she truly actually believes or stands for on most issues...

As president she seems highly likely to do absolutely nothing like Obama, and like him to just wring her hands and say "oh those nasty Republicans stopped me from doing anything. Oh well, I tried. It's a good thing I didn't actually want to do anything anyway, and the Republicans gave me an excuse to not make the changes I'd promised but never actually wanted to implement, because I'm actually way more right-wing and corporatist than I pretended to be to get elected. Oh wait, did I say that out loud? Hmm, let's start another war to distract everyone! Who can we invade today..."

Clinton is old-guard but I think she'd be domestically left of Obama (not by nature but by opportunity). In foreign affairs, though ... ugh.

[Starlight]

Clinton is old-guard but I think she'd be domestically left of Obama (not by nature but by opportunity).

The trouble with politicians who hold positions by opportunity and not nature is that they give up at the first sign of resistance.

Hillary's opportunistic social-liberalism seems best summarized to me by her announcement of support for same-sex marriage a few months ago... she can look like she's socially liberal (but still within the majority of Americans) and she doesn't have to do anything at all. Back when it was actually a contentious issue, was she pushing for equal rights? Absolutely not.

In foreign affairs, though ... ugh

I'm beginning to think my view that "war is evil" is some sort of heresy in America these days...
After 14 years of perpetual war, surprisingly few US politicians are anti-war...

[Sam]

The trouble with politicians who hold positions by opportunity and not nature is that they give up at the first sign of resistance.

Hillary's opportunistic social-liberalism seems best summarized to me by her announcement of support for same-sex marriage a few months ago... she can look like she's socially liberal (but still within the majority of Americans) and she doesn't have to do anything at all. Back when it was actually a contentious issue, was she pushing for equal rights? Absolutely not.

I'm beginning to think my view that "war is evil" is some sort of heresy in America these days...
After 14 years of perpetual war, surprisingly few US politicians are anti-war...

Surprisingly few Americans are anti-war (or, at minimum, leery of it). The old lessons just aren't learned very well. Had a fellow arguing today that the Syrian refugee crisis was as bad as it because of a lack of US intervention ... last month, he was hell-bent on blaming US intervention for the situation in Libya. The contradiction didn't strike him.

Obama ain't great in this regard (and has gotten worse as time goes on) but he's likely the best we've seen in the Oval Office for a while.

I'm not saying that Clinton will be opportunistic and so take a more progressive domestic policy but that Obama's domestic policy was severely constrained by the recession and then by losing Congress in 2010. If the economy holds up, Clinton will have more space to move and will therefore adopt the more progressive policy of the Democratic Party in general.

[Jaecp]

You guys #feelthebern yet?

[Sam]

You guys #feelthebern yet?

Got my fingers crossed for Biden, all options considered.

[Starlight]

Trump is making sure that 2016 ends up being a policy, rather than personality, election.

That's an interesting way of framing it...

I was listening to an interesting analysis of Trump yesterday that was arguing he is essentially a European-style conservative, which makes him quite different to the other Republicans who are all American-style conservatives, because the kinds of policies and kinds of topics he is interested in vs not-interested in are common among conservative European parties. I personally think, having listened to a few of his speeches, that what has influenced him hugely is the amount of world travel he has done. American conservatives commonly hold dumb positions that make me think "if you knew anything at all about the rest of the world, you'd know that's a retarded position". And on those sorts of issues, Trump stands out from the Republican field by miles and his reply to questions on those topics is nearly always "when I was in country X they did it like Y and that was really good, much better than here". So he'll say thing like "Single payer healthcare works great in Canada" or "We need to spend more on infrastructure because when I'm in China they're building these amazing bridges and we're really behind" or "No, a flat tax system is dumb." And the issues that he really focuses on is immigration, and how international trade is structured, which are the issues that conservatives in Europe are often focused on.

Unfortunately it appears he gets his views on immigration and foreign policy from watching TV, and Fox in particular.


And somewhat interestingly, on Democratic side, Sanders is pretty much a run of the mill European-style liberal. He targets pretty much all the topics that liberals in Europe tend to focus on, and points to the most liberal countries in Europe as the most successful ones.


So, it would be interesting if the nominations came down to Trump vs Sanders, the entire US election would be conducted with references to other countries and constant (unfavorable) comparisons of the US to those others countries. It would be curious to see how that would interact with the "we're #1" psychology of the US masses...