The Next American President Thread (2016)

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  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Agreed. It's just fear monger bullplop.
  • Murdock wrote: »
    Agreed. It's just fear monger bullplop.
    Better watch out there, @Murdock. Some of our beast friends believe that plop. ;)
  • Does it matter from where the leaks come? If it's Russia so what, does it make it any worse than if it was Belgium, Australia or Switzerland?
    What matters is that the content of the mails could be altered. If Russian hackers have their hands on it, they could make it read like anyfershlugginerthing if it suits their purposes.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Does it matter from where the leaks come? If it's Russia so what, does it make it any worse than if it was Belgium, Australia or Switzerland?
    What matters is that the content of the mails could be altered. If Russian hackers have their hands on it, they could make it read like anyfershlugginerthing if it suits their purposes.

    True.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Murdock wrote: »
    Agreed. It's just fear monger bullplop.
    Better watch out there, @Murdock. Some of our beast friends believe that plop. ;)

    I don't believe what I read in the papers or shady online news mediums anyway. ;)
    bond-tomorrow-never-dies-e1362969781636.jpg
  • Murdock wrote: »
    Murdock wrote: »
    Agreed. It's just fear monger bullplop.
    Better watch out there, @Murdock. Some of our beast friends believe that plop. ;)

    I don't believe what I read in the papers or shady online news mediums anyway. ;)
    bond-tomorrow-never-dies-e1362969781636.jpg

    "Consider him slimed!" "Let the mayhem begin!" The time is ripe for a reassessment of TND...
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    My assessment is, it's bloody brilliant and fun. Very underrated. :D
  • Posts: 4,617
    There are ways of ensuring continuity with captured data, the FBI are not idiots and wont take the content of emails at face value
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Murdock wrote: »
    My assessment is, it's bloody brilliant and fun. Very underrated. :D
    Quite.
  • TripAcesTripAces Universal Exports
    Posts: 4,585
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Does it matter from where the leaks come? If it's Russia so what, does it make it any worse than if it was Belgium, Australia or Switzerland?
    What matters is that the content of the mails could be altered. If Russian hackers have their hands on it, they could make it read like anyfershlugginerthing if it suits their purposes.

    True.

    Hmm. Well, well, well. This sort of response to hacking is EXACTLY why I believe SF is the best Bond film and why I defend its supposed plot holes. Once it's established that the hacker can get INTO anything, all bets are off. Did Silva really have everything planned? No. But he's made everyone paranoid enough to think so--even the audience. It's bloody brilliant.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    FLeiter wrote: »
    It's so sad that sex has played such a sideshow. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Anthony Weiner all have problems that are hard

    to ignore.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Sex Sells, Drama Sells welcome to the wonderful S*** show they call the 2016 Presidential Elections. Where corrupt politicians win and America loses. Brought to you by Booze. "Drink up and drop out."
    y3dbq.jpg
  • Posts: 4,619
    The timing of this October surprise couldn't have been more perfect for Trump. Anone still believes Hillary has this locked down? :))
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    The timing of this October surprise couldn't have been more perfect for Trump. Anone still believes Hillary has this locked down? :))

    Not shaking in the boots, no, but it's also not a laughing matter for those of us paying attention instead of cackling.
  • Posts: 342
    Genuine question - how would you define moving forwards and good things? In other words, what are you hoping from her?
  • Posts: 4,617
    Shift in odds for Clinton from 1.2 to 1.34....this is getting very interesting
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2016 Posts: 12,480
    I think what's interesting is turning out to be this actually being done (FBI statement, which is very vague) now. Clarity in that statement (or in Comey's 2nd statement, for that matter) would have been nice. For everybody.

    As far as what is of interest in the emails (which so far seem to be not from Hillary according to some sources - but you all have probably heard this already today). And it seems to be not much at all ... yet. It is still all vague. I am speculating when I say I think there will not be something very detrimental to Hillary Clinton in this - because there is something that was found, we just do not know what that is or how it involves Clinton. I'd rather we had details than a vague idea that something is wrong, but apparently does not directly involve her. Just too vague. The way leaks happen, perhaps more will come out to clarify what this is actually about.

    So ... it was just thrown out there for everybody to speculate wildly about; which is, in itself, interesting.


    Like it says at the end of this article:
    But we just don’t know. And by the way, the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaigns are both demanding to know more information about what Comey found, as is Judicial Watch, the conservative legal organization that has long pursued the Clintons. So this isn’t a partisan demand.

    This is an absurd mess. Comey should do whatever he can to clean it up as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, if the FBI cannot get immediate access to the emails, he may not be able to. Which calls into question the original decision to release such a vaguely worded letter in the first place. Even if it was in some ways understandable, the current outcome it has produced surely is not.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    Troy, I would hope the same thing for any president: those things we say such as providing protection for our people (all people), and protecting/cleaning up the environment, etc.; improving national healthcare, strengthening the economy, having positive foreign relations, improving education ... all those things that concern citizens every presidential election.
  • Bernie was right long ago: he was tired of the emails and America is tired of the emails too -- all except the desperate Repubs who keep hoping in vain for a smoking gun with Hillary's fingerprints on it. The vast majority of American voters long ago decided they don't care about this non-story. We all ignore many of the emails we get in our own in-boxes and we're pretty much ignoring these emails as well. This particular iteration of the story is especially meaningless -- the relevance to Hillary herself is nil. As an October surprise it's kind of a dud. Sorry, Panchito, you can keep hoping but your orange overlord is still going down in flames.
  • Posts: 1,631
    I wouldn't call this "non issue", as there have been people in the government who have had their careers and lives ruined for doing far less. Against a normal Republican candidate, there would be reason to worry for the Democrats, but given that the party can't even rally around its own nominee, Clinton should still be able to pull this thing out, and probably rightfully so, as this is the ultimate of the "lesser of two evils" elections this nation has ever seen.

    Regardless, we're going to be inaugurating a lousy president come January 2017. It truly is a shame, watching Joe Biden on the campaign trail, that we couldn't have had him as the Democratic nominee.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2016 Posts: 12,480
  • edited October 2016 Posts: 3,566
    @dalton: please note that I didn't say "non issue" -- I said, "non-story." I trust you recognize the difference. Yes, in a normal election this would be an issue of substantial importance, but this is no normal election. The narrative of Hillary's emails just hasn't caught the general public's attention, and at this point people have already made up their minds how they feel about the issue. The majority of the American electorate is far more interested in which Galore from Donald's past grasp is going to be surfacing next, than they are in the details of what inside-baseball gossip Wikileaks is going to be releasing next. The most interesting question on this topic to my mind is wondering what Comey's intentions were when he released that cryptic statement on Friday. Does he think that, at the end of the day, the Democrats deserve a kick in the chops for running a candidate that he can't charge but wishes he could?
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2016 Posts: 12,480
    Here, @BeatlesSansEarmuffs (and everybody):
    (bolding is mine)
    ...
    The issue is not the propriety of Comey’s letter. The issue is the propriety of Comey’s letter and the leaks that followed it. It is worth noting, at the outset, that Comey’s letter said only, “I­n connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.” Within moments of the release of Comey’s letter, though, government sources leaked that the “unrelated case” was that of Anthony Weiner, who is being investigated for sexually explicit correspondence with an underage girl. Weiner, of course, is the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, a close aide to Hillary Clinton, and the leaks suggested that the new evidence consisted of e-mails found on computers that Weiner and Abedin may have shared.

    But what was the actual evidence that prompted Comey’s letter, and what do the e-mails say? The answer depends on the news source. “The emails were not to or from Clinton,” according to the Los Angeles Times. But the Washington Post said, “The correspondence included emails between Abedin and Clinton.” And, according to the New York Times, “Senior law enforcement officials said that it was unclear if any of the emails were from Mrs. Clinton’s private server.” This muddled issue is crucial, because if none of the e-mails were to or from Clinton—who is the person running for President—then this new chapter of the investigation amounts to very little. (If the e-mails are duplicates of e-mails that the F.B.I. has already seen, or if they are simply irrelevant personal e-mails, then the story may also amount to little.)

    No one likes to talk about law-enforcement leaks. Journalists (present company included) rarely discuss the issue for fear of burning existing sources or discouraging future ones. If asked, Comey would no doubt affect to be shocked that leaking was taking place at the F.B.I. But the issue is critically bound up with the current controversy. The journalistic follow-up to Comey’s bombshell letter was predictable, even inevitable.

    Even if Comey did not specifically make or authorize the leaks himself, he had to know that they would take place—and he must take responsibility for them. In other words, Comey wasn’t just releasing a letter. He was beginning a process that was certain to include many more disclosures from the F.B.I., but in the haphazard and deniable form of leaks. The F.B.I. can keep secrets when it’s in its interest to do so. There are almost never any disclosures from the bureau’s national-security investigators, who deal with terrorism and related matters. But when it comes to criminal investigations, especially high-profile political matters like this one, the bureau has long been a semi-open book.

    Because of Comey’s announcement, the days leading up to the election will now feature piecemeal disclosures of fragments of the investigation. If Comey heeds the calls from both the Clinton and Trump campaigns to elaborate on his cryptic letter, he will likely succeed only in generating more leaks, as reporters seek to answer the central questions of whose e-mails are at issue and if they incriminate anyone, especially Clinton. The inevitability of leaks is one reason why the Justice Department (of which the F.B.I. is supposedly a part) has a formal policy of avoiding public law-enforcement activity on the eve of elections. As my colleague Jane Mayer wrote, this policy exists because the activity itself—like the issuance of indictments or even subpoenas—can affect the outcomes; but it also exists because the activity sets off a process that amounts to even greater interference than the official actions themselves.

    On Friday night, Comey sent a peculiar and unusual memorandum to F.B.I. employees, purporting to justify his decision to write to Congress on the eve of the election. Alternately self-righteous and self-pitying, the message portrayed Comey’s decision as obligatory under the circumstances. He wrote:

    Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood . . .

    Comey says that he didn’t “want to create a misleading impression,” but that’s precisely what he did. He had to know that his vague letter to Congress virtually demanded elaboration from “senior government officials,” who would apply their own gloss, in the form of leaks. The responsibility for the confusion sown by these leaks, if not for the leaks themselves, belongs only to Comey. If the outcome of the Presidential election turns on Comey’s action, that’s his burden, and the nation’s, too.
  • Posts: 1,631
    Comey was in a no-win situation regardless of what he ended up doing. He's getting pounded by the Democrats now, because this isn't good for Hillary. Had he not said anything and then it got out after the election that the FBI had reopened the case prior to November 8, then he would be getting pounded from the other side, and rightfully so had that turned out to be the case. I think he probably looks better in this set of circumstances, where the worst that can be insinuated about his motives is that they were political and an attempt to sway the electorate. In the other case, where he sat on this information until after the election, the insinuation would have been, and rightfully so I think, something a bit more sinister, that there was some kind of cover-up underway. And, also, the last thing that anyone in the government should want to do is give the Trump supporters any ammunition to further press the claim that this election has been rigged.

    Regardless of what he did, it was going to be politicized. I, for one, think it's better to have this information out there now so that the public can decide on its merits rather than having the news come later that she was under further investigation while the public still had a chance to decide her fate at the ballot box but were not told of it until after the fact.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2016 Posts: 12,480
    He is getting pounded by Dept of Justice people, longstanding Republicans, too.
    If they can give us actual details, yes bring it out now. But ... so far ... that is not happening.
  • TripAces wrote: »
    I don't have cable, so even if I wanted to watch Fox News I couldn't, but I share the pessimistic outlook. When you have to pay $15,000/yr as an individual for insurance premiums (catastrophic plan), something is wrong...
  • edited October 2016 Posts: 572
    This is why we need to turn out and VOTE DEMOCRATIC, not just at the top of the ticket but all up & down that ticket.
    Wow, just wow... I take the responsibility to vote based on what I can learn of each individual, not blindly based on a partisan logo. I hate it when people DON'T do their homework to study candidates that they're voting for. And for the record, including this year, I have voted across the aisle.
  • edited October 2016 Posts: 6,601
    Troy wrote: »
    Murdock wrote: »
    With Trump as president we all suffer.
    Maybe, but Clinton will be doing her best to provoke Russia, and now China by trying to control her shipping lanes

    Add in blindly supporting Saudi and Israel in the Middle East

    And you have an extremely dangerous cocktail that scares me more than Trump's boorish behaviour

    Thank you. That People still dont See this clearly is beyond me. So incredibly ???
    Just because Trump is an idiot makes you Chose to ignore the Danger of Killary. Thank you America for trying to bring this war maker into Office. The world can deal with Trump idioties, but I am Not so sure about hers. Then WE are blessed with Merkel and Clinton. Holy shit. Two female nutcases trying to Eule the world.

    @4ever - you choose to Not believe any of the conspiracy theories? Why not? You believe all the other crap.
  • JamesStock wrote: »
    This is why we need to turn out and VOTE DEMOCRATIC, not just at the top of the ticket but all up & down that ticket.
    Wow, just wow... I take the responsibility to vote based on what I can learn of each individual, not blindly based on a partisan logo. I hate it when people DON'T do their homework to study candidates that they're voting for. And for the record, including this year, I have voted across the aisle.

    For the record, in the past, I too have voted across the aisle. This year, entirely because of the Supreme Court foot-dragging (and the threat of even more) I have made the decision to follow the partisan bias already instituted on the Republican side of the aisle. If that decision on my part makes you say "Wow" then I'd suggest you're a little behind the curve here...
This discussion has been closed.