Comments

1
It matters to me because I'm in IT and I would have been so pissed at the notion if proposed to me.
3
Excellent example of the Appeal to Common Practice fallacy, Matt!
4
I don't care if she eats cats. Raw. She's still better than Trump, and that's all that matters to me.
5
What @1 said.
6
It matters because it's an example of poor judgement, unethical, and possibly illegal behavior that Clinton has demonstrated throughout her career and will repeat in the future. Duh.

Also, it's a prime example of our two-tiered "justice" system, in which rules and laws are for the little people, not the Clintons. I once worked with sensitive client data for an employer that reserved the right to fire me for sending a personal email from my encrypted work computer. I'd be having my fingernails ripped out in Guantanamo Bay right now for even suggesting flouting the rules like Clinton did for years. Double duh.
7
The fact that she did it at all demonstrates poor judgement — either not understanding and evaluating the risks, or not caring about them. Then you throw in the notion that paranoia was likely one reason for her decision to do so, and she somehow missed the irony that this is exactly the kind of misstep to be paranoid about the Right Wing Hate Machine uncovering and Benghazi-ing the shit out of. And now finally the justification that "other people did it, so it's fine" is the kind of excuse I expect from a five-year-old, not a potential leader of the free world.

The worst part? I still have to vote for her. Matt, in typical broken-clock fashion, is right about one thing — she's still 50x better than Trump.
8
@4: That's NOT the point. Take the election out of it; Hillary must be treated like anyone else and that includes full prosecution. The Attorney General should not hesitate to indict her if so recommended by the FBI director.

It would be far better to have another candidate step in for the Democrats if that happens.
9
As we all grit our teeth to vote for another lesser of two evils, let's all just take a deep breath and remember that one time Donald Trump got a "Stone Cold Stunner" from Steve Austin:

http://45.media.tumblr.com/e48c2c361c7e6…

I mean, if he can't stand up to Steve Austin, how can he stand up to terrorists?
10
You forgot to mention that she refused to cooperate with this investigation and that the report reveals that while she's been saying that this was done strictly for "convenience" the real reason was to protect "the personal" (obscure transparency). So she's spent the last several months flat out lying to us about why she even did it.
11
" did something illegal in an attempt to hide their actions from FOIA requests (or we can pretend she was just incompetent), so what?"
12
Whup, comment excluded a tag.

"(my candidate) did something illegal in an attempt to hide their actions from FOIA requests (or we can pretend she was just incompetent), so what?"
13
I still can't understand what she thought was the advantage of conducting her official government work on her personal email account. I can understand her wanting a personal email account under her control for her personal stuff. However, it doesn't take a genius to understand that when you are a highly scrutinized public figure, and you don't want your personal emails to be archived/examined, then DON'T MIX THEM WITH YOUR WORK EMAILS. Like, what the fuck.
14
I doubt she'll be held accountable for this, but I still hold onto a tiny grain of sand sized hope that the DOJ will do its job. They seemed pretty pissed at her characterization of their investigation as a "security review" and went out of their way to say they don't even know what the fuck that is. That they investigate crimes. They don't "review security."
16
@13, You might as well ask why Bill had an affair with an aid when he had so much to lose. Hillary either had a huge lapse of judgement, or didn't think the rules should apply to her, or some combination of the two. Neither qualities make me particularly excited to have her as president.
17
Kind of amusing how ready and eager elements of the fringe left are to hyperventilate over the dubious products of the right-wing scandal-mongering machine when it suits them.
18
But, Matt, I thought Hillary was the most trustworthy candidate ever. I thought she was rated even more honest than Bernie Sanders by Politifact! How could she be lying to us? Why would you say she's the not very trustworthy one?
19
@17: So you are saying that the entire Obama State Department is part of a vast right wing conspiracy to deny Clinton the nomination by fabricating this scandal?

Going to have to ask for some proof on that one, it is a pretty insane claim.
19
@17 Apparently the right-wing scandal-mongering machine is in Obama's Department of Justice? This wasn't a Fox News report, this is a report from the DOJ which is filled with people chosen by the President who is a member of the Democratic Party.
20
Oops, I meant State Department. Argument still applies.
21
@19 The Obama State Department is shrieking about how improperly sending emails is the crime of the century? Oh I forgot, that indictment is coming down any day now. But in the extreme unlikelihood that it somehow fails to come down (really really extremely unlikely) I expect the Bernie Sanders Suicide Squad to docilely accept this. Of course right? There will be no conspiracy-theorizing about the secret nefarious DNC/Clinton/Obama manipulation/infiltration of the FBI. None whatsoever!
23
@4/raindrop: Hillary must be treated like anyone else and that includes full prosecution." Lord, raindrop, that position surely went by the boards when Bush pardoned six for their involvement in the Iran Contra scandal, which lets be serious, was far more troubling than HRC's e-mails.
24
She broke the rules and compromised the security of the nation.
There were not just attempts, there were successful breaches of her security (she was hacked).
She knew it was wrong and instructed government employees to hid the fact that she was subverting security protocols.
She met with people responsible for security about using her blackberry was told no and did it any how because she didn't want to carry two phones (wtf).
She did so seemingly because she thinks rules, sensible rules for security reasons do not apply to her (John Deutch got pummeled for taking a laptop home and using it on an unsecured server). What other rules does she think doesn't apply?

Your shoulder shrug is some mealy mouthed bullshit.
25
"After 14 months of public scrutiny and skepticism over Clinton's motives in keeping her emails secret, new questions emerged Thursday. They centered on her apparent failure to turn over a November 2010 message in which she worried that her personal messages could become accessible to outsiders, along with two other messages a year later that divulged possible security weaknesses in the home email system she used while secretary of state." http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/U…
26
"The existence of these previously unreleased messages - which appear to have been found among electronic files of four former top Clinton State Department aides - renews concerns that Clinton was not completely forthcoming when she turned over a trove of 55,000 pages of work-related emails."
27
@23: If convictions, justice, and the law, are always juxtaposed with the severity of prior transgressions, then as a society we've lost our morality.
28
@21 what is it like not to have a fully-developed understanding of nuance? I imagine on the plus side, you get to feel right all the time, but on the downside, any sort of storytelling based on ethical or moral ambiguity must seem wholly unrealistic and pointless to you.
29
@23 Bush did it so it's okay for Obama to do it? Great argument! Fight fire with fire! An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Why don't we just let our elected officials do whatever the fuck they want all the time. Automatic pardons daily for every elected official!

I hope Obama is able to pardon himself for the 1000s of civilians who have been killed from him drone strikes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/civi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_c…

We don't know yet if Hillary did anything illegal, but if she did she needs to be held accountable. Committing a crime and saying "Hey, other people did far worse things than me and got away with it!" is no excuse.

I'd rather elect someone who is willing to acknowledge their wrongs than someone who calculates everything to the exact political moment when it will have least significance against them. Own up to your shit!
30
Those three emails must have fallen behind the file cabinet with the billing records from the Rose Law Firm.
31
All are equal in the eyes of the law must not mean shit anymore. The rich and politicians are allowed to do whatever they like by mere fact that they all break the law. Even Bernie (no evidence necessary here folks)

This realpolitik is great stuff. The revolution of 1776 failed, the bourgeoisie has failed. We're back to aristocracy.
32
@28 I'm having a hard time following you. The Clinton scandal manufacturing industry has an appreciation of 'nuance'? Tearing one's hair out about mishandling communications and dubious email security is an example of a nuanced perspective?
34
I'm with @1 & @7 on this. As a tech grunt who would get his ass shredded for a major security breech, having our top diplomat thumb her nose at the Foggy Bottom IT staff is personally offensive. That said, I understand perfectly why she made the choice, and it completely underscores my problem with a Hillary Administration. Her enemies have been after her for 40 fucking years! The House GOP will do absolutely nothing other than Obamacare repeals and Hillary impeachment bills for 4 years. The obstructionism of the past 8 years will seem like pure harmony in comparison.
This election will be a choice between jumping off a cliff or jumping into quicksand.
35
@15 Thank you! Baume and the Stranger shilling for Hillary makes me want to take a shit on my own god damn phone I've stupidly decided to read this on.

This isn't an "oops, my mistake" fuck up of ignorance by Hillary that should be 'yadda-yadda-ed' over. Using a private email server was a conscious decision to hide her correspondence and went against all protocol of national security, which was compromised when she was hacked multiple times.

Do some fucking research as a journalist, this post and this publication is an embarrassment.
36
@21: I don't think anyone is shrieking, but you do realize that the State Department's report stated explicitly that she violated multiple provisions of the Federal records Act?

Please try to keep up with the news.
37
obviously, SHE'S HISTORY'S GREATEST MONSTER.

@10: if you were being investigated by the FBI, would you voluntarily cooperate with an investigation? would your staff?
38
Other that your AGEIST implication that your parents' generation are not computer savvy & likely to click on bad links (I'm 67 and I know better too), I agree hardily with your opinion about "who cares?"
39
I find it ironic that many of our most beloved fictional characters are never afraid to break or ignore the rules when it comes to doing the right thing yet when Clinton makes what in retrospect was a poor decision on the paperwork part of her job, and despite it causing no identifiable problems of any kind, her critics are outraged by the mere thought of someone so craven and dishonest as to break a rule at the huge government agency they worked for. Tsk tsk.

My guess is that dealing with the "information technology" staff at the State Department was about as much fun as getting a root canal from a dentist who talks too much and too long. And so to get the job done, and for her sanity, she went rogue, thinking that nobody would notice. Oops. I say no harm, no foul. Dirty Harry could shoot the wrong guy and they'd only take away his gun for awhile, although he always had another one anyway. This is nothing like that.

I think of as Hillary as a short and pleasingly plump version of Catwoman, who never plays by the rules, is a little dark, a little sneaky, but always stands up for the little guy, even if she has to fuck with the paperwork to get it done. An anti-heroine.
40
@39 Yea! I can totally see Halle Berry saying, “They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘superpredators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

Really standing up for black youth.
41
I stopped reading at the cut, and all I have to say is: Fuck you and your fatalistic apathy.
42
The only think more ZZZzzzz inducing than this slog post is this comment thre...

ZZZZZ
43
No mention of how hypocritical this whole affair makes Clinton look especially considering that she wants to see snowden tried for treason and jailed. I suspect all of this though is far less damning than the contents of these emails she tried to keep hidden... What was her correspondence regarding TPP, the coup in Honduras, and weapons sales to despotic regimes, etc etc???
44
It's gnarly because all communication/data/identity is sealed in encrypted manners of mathematical proportions- she doesn't trust the government any more than most foolios.
45
Your choice:

Hilllary or Trump.

and for those still whining they want Bernie, remember he said he's sick of hearing about her damned emails. Even he doesn't care.
46
I don't care about emails and that she doesn't want to share them with the government. Or that a successful influential woman, god fuckin forbid, paid to speak to wallstreet execs. Or that her husband is a shitty womanizer because I normally require a woman to answer and suffer for the crimes of her husband. Or that she would be the first female president and better be the most transparent pious angelic spotless politician on earth or I will have to crawl in a hole and die of shame.

Bernie lost, Warren didn't run, and its Trump vs Clinton.

Who. Cares.
47
Her total disregard for persons, lives and property of the USA eliminates this POS as far as I'm concerned, she lies as much or more than Obama.....
48
@39: Well, typically when a fictional hero breaks a rule or cultural norm, they are up front about it and did so for the greater good.

While Clinton lied about it repeatedly and did it solely because she though it would be more convenient for her at best, or did so to hide things from the American people at worst.

Some people would call this "nuance."

But the greater issue is that this is just another example of a Clinton feeling that laws and rules are for other, lesser people, certainly not for them. Cheat, lie, distract, repeat. Over and over.

Some voters have grown tired with the same old politicians doing the same old dance.
49
@47: since she's going to be the nominee, how is she "eliminated"? because you're going to pout and refuse to vote, or because you were always going to vote GOP regardless?

EVERY. POLITICIAN. LIES. Trump lies every time he opens his fat conman mouth. grow the fuck up.
50
@32 don't make me explain the joke!

Okay, fine... your partitioning of people into the 'fringe left' and the 'Bernie Suicide Squad' and the 'Right-Wing Scandal-Mongering Machine' leaves very little room for people who think her decision was a bad one on its own merits. Not everyone is so beholden to an agenda. I support Sanders and am pretty sure that if I was a diehard Clinton supporter, I would still be criticizing what she did. There is no perfect candidate, but when you throw around terms like that, it sure seems like you think there is. That's an unrealistic way to engage with the world.
51
Lies! Lies I tell you! All the lies the lying liar told!

Listen children, and I do mean children: there are yuuge, very real things at stake in this election. I don't mean dismantling large banks (whatever the hell that might achieve, probably not what you think). The Trumpmeister just plainly stated yesterday he would roll back the meager progress the Obama administration has made toward addressing climate change. The Supreme Court. Your half-baked 'revolution' is not going to mean squat when New York City and half of Florida are underwater.

Do any of you even know what Bernie Sander's policy proposals are? Can any of you explain how the candidate who is going to 'take away your health care' and raise taxes on the middle class (and surely won't back down from these positions) is going to prevail?

No 'die-hard Clinton supporter' here. A realist. You know reality? There is one outside of this hermetically sealed city in case you were unaware of that.
52
@49: So the bar is Trump? That is a real shame.

@51: We are talking about Clinton's actions here, why even bring up Sanders or Trump?

Well, unless you want to deflect attention away from one person's shitty actions by demanding everyone only look at the shitty actions of other people.
53
@52 I don't know, maybe because the very reason that the vast majority of the crew around here are outraged (or faux outraged) about Clinton's email, is because she is running against their preferred candidate for the Democratic nomination? I don't think there are even too many enthusiastic Clinton supporters who believe that using personal email for State Department business was exactly a brilliant idea. They might even agree that she probably deliberately did that in a clumsy effort to keep control of any disclosures of her email's content. Interesting that I have never seen anyone anywhere bring up another real possibility: she saw herself as 'participating' or 'assisting' in the Obama administration, not really as fully part of it.

Misconduct, sure. A massive, criminal, career-ending scandal? Completely ludicrous.
54
@53: Misconduct was the only argument I ever made.

And of course it is not going to be career ending. She is a Clinton. She would have to eat dozens of babies on live television and shit on the US flag while shooting a puppy and screaming racial epithets to get liberals and establishment democrats to admit that maybe she was in the wrong, much less any kind of criminal charges.
55
What a nightmare. Do you vote for the FOIA corporate lapdog, or do you vote for the Republican?
Jill Stein will no doubt see a bump in her share of the popular vote this year.
56
FOIA dodging, that should have read.
57
The Bush Administration deleted 22 million official emails. They could not be recovered. The administration was using a private domain run by the RNC. There were no prosecutions in the case, but for some reason Hillary deserves to be prosecuted?
58
Ain't 20/20 hindsight wonderful? Where were those State Dept IG clowns while Hillary was in office? Didn't have the guts to speak up then, but now it's pile on time!
59
I really can't get excited about the emails From what I've read, the rules weren't as cut and dried as some of the anti-Clinton people would have us think. And as for the idea that her email server was hacked - really? where is the evidence? anyone who hacked the server would be bragging like crazy.

I remember reading an article by someone who was not in favor of Clinton initially - but after they read all 55,000 pages of emails, they were in favor of her, because of what the emails showed about her support of friends and employees.

anyway, the email server wasn't criminal. If you want to talk policies, fine. But no, the email server is not something to hang your negative hat on.
60
@58 - excellent point. her email server wasn't a secret. Anyone who received an email from it or who sent an email to it knew it existed. Why wait till now to complain?
61
Enuf about the damn emails

Talk about how she's right of center on all the issues instead
62
@57 yes, and bush too

Please wait...

and remember to be decent to everyone
all of the time.

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.