patrick.net

turtledove says

It's bad journalism.

I'll agree that journalism is not what it used to be, for many reasons. But having this type of opinion/analysis peice or the various columnists that are widely read these days that include opinions in their pieces, which are more like essays than news articles, are not examples of what's wrong with journalism. At least not in my opinion.

But the focus on people oriented gossip type news, even if well reported without opinions is an example (in my view ) of what's wrong with journalism. They don't spend money on good reporting, and "news" is treated as a business, where the stories that will get the most readership are what news organizations are forced to push for business/competitive reasons. But we still have have PBS, and NPR. But obviously they are driven by reality and have a commie agenda.

turtledove says

Claiming that a piece of evidence you are presenting is "the first knockdown," is telling the reader what to conclude from that evidence.

No. YOu have to read it in context.

The Bogus Nature of the State Department Inspector General’s Criticism of Her

A few months ago, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a nasty and poorly-documented report that got enormous publicity for its portions criticizing Clinton. Above all, it quoted supposed State Department sources who alleged the following, quoted here from the FBI Report, about a key documentation official, John Bentel. “According to the State OIG report, State employees alleged that John Bentel discouraged employees from raising concerns about Clinton’s use of personal e-mail.” This was treated both by OIG, and by commentators, particularly anti-Clinton ones, as the smoking gun, the bombshell, the fatal evidence, that Clinton, through Bentel, had stamped out criticism of Clinton’s emailing.

We can read the FBI’s glee at what it found. This part of the FBI report positively scorns the approach of the State Inspector General. Says the FBI: “When interviewed by the FBI, Bentel denied that State employees raised concerns about Clinton’s e-mail to him” – that’s the first knockdown – “that he discouraged employees from discussing it” – that’s the second knockdown – “or that he was aware during Clinton’s tenure that she was using a personal e-mail account or server to conduct official State business”—that’s the third knockdown. The FBI makes very, very clear, that it finds Bentel credible, and dismisses what the State Inspector General says as bull stuff.

I wish he had said bull shit.

That last sentence is either true or it isn't. THat the FBI makes it very clear that it contradicts all of what was used by many right wingers in claims against Clinton. We are free to read the FBI's report and see if he's lying. I believe it.

But I was more interested in the rest of the piece which considers whether Hillary was sending top secret info in emails or not.

I'm not going to go through his points one by one, but you obviously didn't comprehend the article.

turtledove says

He reports some of what the FBI recorded as Clinton's answers... but we already know that she's denying that she did anything wrong. These are cherry picked Clinton quotes from the FBI interview. If all a police report contained were the statements of innocence from the accused parties then no one would ever be indicted. That's not proof of innocence, and it isn't proof of trustworthiness.

Are you extremely drunk right now ? He mentions that Clinton was not concerned about highly classified info in emails , but the rest is the FBI backing that up based on scrutiny of thousands of emails. Maybe when you're sober tomorrow you should carefully read it. IT's still going to conclude what you don't want to believe, and you still won't except it, but maybe when sober you can at least almost understand it.

Well, in order for a person to be declared "trustworthy" one would assume innocence. That's hard to do given the trouble she went to deleting evidence. I would have totally bought that she didn't know. Heck, I might have made a mistake like that... Nah, scratch that... I hired an IT consultant and he told me it would be a HIPAA violation to keep all the patient data on my home computer in my bathroom... so I did NOT do that. However, I could see where a person might make that mistake if she didn't have access to professional IT experts... Oh wait! She had those, too. The effort that went into deleting things seems extreme coming from a "trustworthy" person. He should have focused on the elephant in the room. But he didn't. Why? He just called it "kerfuffle." I stand on my original opinion of very low level of investigative depth.

Really superficial. Answers all the questions, yet raises further questions in the process; deeper questions of more subtlety and portent.

This really goes to character. We must go beyond mere sublunary issues like "evidence" and "motive" and consider Hillary's potential crimes on a philosophical, probabilistic and metaphysical level.

It is clear the the Clintons are actual or potential criminals. That so many Republicans have investigated them - up to 7 times on some questions - is proof enough.

It is self evident that Hillary could - perhaps in future, perhaps already - commit crimes. It is also clear that she desires to commit crimes: you can see it in her eyes, and in the shape of her breasts. I submit to you that further investigations are irrelevant, as her crimes are already manifest or could occur in future.

turtledove says

Okay, fine. It's a brilliant piece. I'm sure a Pulitzer is in his future. Very serious investigative reporting. He said, she said, she's right. SOLID! Feel better, now?

Check out the Assange piece the other day for full on McCarthyism. It begins with an unverifiable assertion, attributed to unnamed Very Important Officials. It makes almost no attempt to offer contrary information, and it's written by a guy who wrote torture apologetics and was the NYT White House go-between during "Cablegate".
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/weekinreview/ideas-trends-there-are-ways-to-make-them-talk.html

The other byline is a guy who is a member of Ditchley Foundation, which is set up like Bilderberg, but on an ANZAC scale. No members but Warmongering Politicians and Multinational Bigwigs.
http://www.ditchley.co.uk/the-foundations/the-ditchley-foundation/the-governors

It's pure speculation, a bold editorial piece masked as "investigative journalism", and was on the front page of the physical paper with multiple columns.

One thing is very clear: We need diversity of opinion in DC. On certain issues, despite a record of clear failure, there are no alternative voices in officialdom - regardless of Party.

No one made her lie. She's the one telling the whoppers about "sniper fire" and "I had only one device" and "I always thought gays should marry." Maybe if she'd stop giving people reason to question her they wouldn't question her so much.

I wonder if she has a valid birth certificate ?

marcus says

Does she have a valid birth certificate ?

Well..... you may have to tune into Fox News to find out for sure.

Hannity is on it!

marcus says

I wonder if she has a valid birth certificate ?

That's the land we're in now.

Trump bribes a state attorney general to drop a Trump U investigation, then pays a fine to make the bribery investigation go away. Trump also does business with the mob. Trump lies about watching huge crowds cheer the 9-11 attacks.

His followers believe that has no bearing on the likelihood of his keeping his promises.

Hillary's sniper lie is regarded by those same people as proof positive that she committed treason/crimes.

No report will exonerate her, in their eyes. She's guilty by declaration.

Down the rabbit hole we go. This may look like moon-landing conspiracies before we're done.

One of my favorite anti-semitic arguments is "Look how many other people hate them!"

Clinton investigations are now 1-for-22, with the win being the blowjob lies. Somehow that's enough to condemn both of them.

This would be a much better example of a news article practicing actual journalism. Same topic. Evenly covered. The focus is facts. Obviously, writers cannot be completely unbiased. Clearly their life experiences affect how they interpret information. But looking at the facts, the title of this thread's article is an absurd conclusion and fails to consider the larger issue, which is the destruction of government property. That server, those emails stopped being hers when she used that server and email account to conduct official government business. And deleting them even after the subpoena is, in fact, criminal. That isn't a matter for opinion. It is, in fact, illegal. Yet, to Charles, a few statements back and forth are proof positive that there's nothing to see, here.... Judging by several of the posts above, he's in good company.

===========================

F.B.I. Papers Offer Closer Look at Hillary Clinton Email Inquiry

WASHINGTON — F.B.I. officials questioned Hillary Clinton extensively about her judgment in using her private email system to discuss classified drone strikes and in allowing aides to destroy large numbers of emails, before ultimately deciding she should not face criminal charges, according to investigative documents released Friday.

The documents provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton’s private server, including what appeared to be a frantic effort by a computer specialist to delete an archive of her emails even after a congressional committee had requested they be preserved.

In a 3½-hour interview with the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence officials on July 2, Mrs. Clinton defended her handling of the private email system by repeatedly saying she had deferred to the judgment of her aides, an F.B.I. summary of the interview showed.

Mrs. Clinton’s use of the private server has shadowed her presidential campaign for a year and a half. And the newly disclosed records, while largely reinforcing what had already been known about the F.B.I. investigation, provided Republicans more ammunition to attack the Democratic nominee’s judgment and honesty as she heads into the final, post-Labor Day phase of the campaign.

Among the other key findings in the F.B.I. documents:

■ Mrs. Clinton regarded emails containing classified discussions about planned drone strikes as “routine.”

â–  She said she was either unaware of or misunderstood some classification procedures.

■ Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state, had advised her to “be very careful” in how she used email.

The F.B.I. documents show that an unnamed computer specialist deleted the archive of Mrs. Clinton’s emails weeks after the existence of the private server became public in March 2015.

Days after The New York Times first reported that Mrs. Clinton had used a private email system exclusively as secretary of state, the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, asked that her emails be preserved and subpoenaed those that were related to the attacks.

About three weeks later, however, the unnamed specialist “had an ‘oh shit’ moment” and realized that he had not destroyed an archive of emails that was supposed to have been deleted a year earlier, according to the F.B.I. report.... cont

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi.html?_r=0

That is a lot more detailed and it's similar in content to a Washington Post article. There is of course a big difference between focusing on bullet points versus the details. one example:

turtledove says

■ Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state, had advised her to “be very careful” in how she used email.

THen later (in the same article) the expansion of that summarized tidbit, which shows the bullet is more than a little misleading.

In its summary of the investigation, the F.B.I. said that Mrs. Clinton had emailed Colin Powell, a former secretary of state, a day after she was sworn in to office about Mr. Powell’s use of a personal email account when he was the country’s top diplomat. Mr. Powell warned Mrs. Clinton that if she used her BlackBerry for official business, those emails could become “official record[s] and subject to the law.”

Mr. Powell, apparently implying that he was cautious in his use of a personal email account, added: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.” According to the summary of her interview, Mrs. Clinton said that she did not know exactly what Mr. Powell was saying in that email and that his message “did not factor into her decision to use a personal email account.”

Just one other observation. A lot of the typical right wing idiots that don't understand this story don't get this:

turtledove says

Days after The New York Times first reported that Mrs. Clinton had used a private email system exclusively as secretary of state

The use of the word *exclusively* is a little misleading.

While secretary of state she had a special system in her office and at home (in a special room) for secure secret messages. It's a different protocol called SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network). A lot of fools think she just willy nilly did everything through her home email server.

This is not to suggest that it wan't a mistake. Just that the magnitude of the mistake is widely misunderstood and exaggerated.

marcus says

A lot of fools think she just willy nilly did everything through her home email server.

A misunderstanding that some in the press are happy to perpetuate. She would have been much better off with two non secure email addresses. One for official stuff, and another for any messages she wanted to send huma of the record.

turtledove says

If only I could be a moneyed, lying sacks of osteoporotic bones... (I'm now making a jerking off motion with my hands and my imaginary penis, which is YUUUUUUUUGE

If you could do THAT you would be qualified to win the Republican presidential primary.

turtledove says

in fact, criminal

It's clear that both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice handled their email similarly while serving as Secretary of State, and that the Bush Administration frequently did government business on RNC or other private accounts, and also deleted between 5 million and 35+ million emails, possibly after a subpoena had been served.

With the exception of the latter above, little of this has been investigated to any level anywhere near Hillary's email server; in the case of Powell and Rice, not at all.

Should justice only apply when the suspect is a democrat running for office? That does not resemble anything I have ever read or heard about our legal system.

You clearly have exacting standards as to the handling of email by public officials. It is fair to say that you believe no one should be above the law. Whatever Powell and Rice did may have been legal at the time, or not. We should have an investigation to determine this, yes? Particularly because, at whatever time, sloppy handling of classified material is never legal.

Yet you only apply your energy to the details of Hillary's case, and take an attitude of "no grey areas; no exceptions - this is about national security, character, and public trust." Yet wouldn't those considerations apply regardless of party? Shouldn't criminal behavior be punished regardless of affiliation? But I have seen little or no analysis of Powell, Rice, or Bush's practices from you? Why is this?

YesYNot says

One for official stuff, and another for any messages she wanted to send huma of the record.

Shit! That's exactly what I've been saying. Had she just maintained a separation between personal and State email accounts/servers then she either wouldn't have had to delete personal emails.... OR, alternatively, the intention to unlawfully delete State property would be clear. Which makes me think that's exactly why she may have muddied the two. Obviously, that's just speculation. But I give her enough credit to know how to blur lines... And by mixing the accounts/servers, you have to admit, it gave her an out. "Oopsie Poopsie! I inadvertently bleached State email when all I meant to do was bleach the yoga ones."

Being lazy about stuff like that myself, I actually can understand the urge to simplify everything... I sometimes send personal email from my work account because that's the account I happen to be in and it's just easier than opening up a new browser, logging into another email account, and sending it from there. I will even admit that I've been caught unawares with a personal expense and only had the business checkbook on me, so I paid a personal expense or two out of my business account. I get that. But if I were being sued or audited by the IRS, I would just simply hand it over and admit I screwed up or deal with the embarrassment that the opposing counsel will read an email of me gossiping with my mother over work email. What's the big deal? I wouldn't go get myself some BleachBit.... Skirt a subpoena.... and risk portraying myself as having something sinister to hide. That is WORSE.

You have to ask, why a smart person like her would choose the path that LOOKS worse. She's a lawyer. She knows all about the significance of a subpoena. I just find it hard to believe that she couldn't anticipate that this could LOOK really bad. Which begs the question, why did she choose that particular path?

I cannot hop into her brain and know for sure, but I know if I were scrambling to destroy all traces of something, it would only be because I have something worth hiding. I wouldn't waste the appearance of deception (especially when running for President) unless what I was trying to hide was worth it. What doesn't fit is that she says she risked all this over supposed yoga and wedding emails. It doesn't make sense. Who obstructs justice over yoga and wedding emails? Who destroys State property over yoga and wedding emails? It's too ridiculous to contemplate.

Ironman says

Wow, I didn't know Rice and Powell were Nominees for President. I must have missed that part.

Hurr, durr: Then you should read it again.

The point is that potential criminal activity should be investigated, with no consideration as to whether the party is a nominee for president.

Ironman says

How many times did Rice and Powell LIE about their email setups??

They haven't been investigated yet.

Let's investigate them each several times, and see whether or not they lie or misremember, or claim to have forgotten details. Condi said the pre-9/11 briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" was "historical in nature," so she should be fun to watch on the subject of her own off-the-books email practices.

You clearly believe this to be among the highest of crimes a government official can commit. Why aren't you calling for a multiple investigations of all who have maintained private accounts and servers for government activity? Isn't sunshine the best disinfectant?

turtledove says

She's a lawyer. She knows all about the significance of a subpoena.

COnsider Cheney's meetings, deleted emails, or Halliburton's role in Iraq ? Maybe you were deeply bothered by him back then ? Hillary's supposed corruption can't hold a candle to what at least seems to be serious conflicts of interest on Cheney's part. And there we are talking trillions of dollars spent on a questionable war and thousands of Americans killed, as well hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

He had his own email scandal that never got off the ground.

http://harpers.org/blog/2008/01/the-emails-that-dick-cheney-deleted/

I'm not saying that two wrongs make a right. But Cheney's clear implied reasons for deleting his emails smells a lot worse than Hillary's. Hillary has an understood paranoia about people trying to find something they can nail her on.

I wonder why ?

marcus says

But Cheney's clear implied reasons for deleting his emails smells a lot worse than Hillary's

Yes, that wasn't good. Sigh.... Maybe you should just run... I could be your campaign manager. As long as you understand my aversion to un-audited spending, we're all good. I can be such a persnickety little bitch about those kinds of things. You should see the email I just sent our LabCorp representative. They made $2,600 in erroneous charges on our client billing (charges on patients outside of insurance) since April. This shit has to stop. We are a small boutique practice, if you will. If it's happening to us, God can only know how big it is happening in primary care where they probably order 100 tests to our 1.. How much are insurance companies spending reimbursing this crap? Do they have people looking through the thousands of lines of tests to find where LabCorp billed improperly? I doubt it. For example, we have an agreed to STAT fee of $15. I found 27 separate examples where they charged us $34. We do infectious disease panels. Then they charged us for individual tests that are already a part of those panels. I go apoplectic when I see this kind of crap. So we do an infectious disease panel for an agreed upon rate of $312. This covers all the FDA infectious disease concerns. Then they charge us an additional $200 for a Hep B test. That's already a part of the panel! Gee, I wonder why our premiums are so high? You know these insurance companies don't have the time or OCD that I have to go through it line by line. This is ONE example of many.

marcus says

Actually this might shock you, but editorials and articles that include opinions have a very very very long history.

She did say she studied journalism, so I doubt it would be much of a shock. I think she said that even regular articles nowadays are often little more than opinion pieces.

I would think you are old enough to remember when journalism was about reporting the news and not some form of entertainment.

I can't believe anyone would vote for soemone who claims she didn't know C is for classified. I mean, you wnat this nut for a president?? Sigh..

I can't believe anyone would vote for someone who claims he didn't know who David Duke is. I mean, you want this nut for president?? Sigh..

But there's more. He didn't know:

If Rubio was actually a citizen and could run for president.
Why he (Trump) supported the Iraq war.
Obama is an American
Samuel L. Jackson
Foreign policy
The appearance of the disabled reporter he mocked on national TV.
Christians ask for forgiveness.

lostand confused says

she didn't know C is for classified.

It's not: C stands for "confidential".

Trump claims not to know that the C on rental applications to Trump apartments stood for "colored."

Ironman says

Yep, please give us the list of all the government employees that set up private email servers in their basements

The basement location isn't the issue. It's the use of any server not behind a .gov firewall.

But how can we know that Powell, Rice didn't have a basement or other unapproved server if we don't investigate? And the deletion of north of 22
million emails by the Rove administration surely deserves 6-10 investigations by both congressional and criminal authorities, yes?

One would think that a staunch advocate of sound email practices as yourself would be eager to know what they knew, and when they knew it.

Ironman says

Is Rove the Presidential nominee right now

No one is above the law. Many wingnuts told me this during the Clinton years. Candidacy or lack thereof should have no bearing.

What was the nature of Powell's and Rice's email setups? All good Americans will demand broad and repeated investigation of these questions!

Ironman says

Is Rove the Presidential nominee right now and did he have a personal foundation he was soliciting donations for while under employment by the government?

Were HALF, HALF his meetings with non-government officials composed of his Foundation's donors when he held a major Cabinet Position?

Ironman says

All of the other names above maintained both a private and a government-issued email address. That alone doesn’t make her guilty. But it does make her unique

1 versus 2: a telling difference, highly significant.

We don't know enough about them without an investigation.

turtledove says

Shit! That's exactly what I've been saying. Had she just maintained a separation between personal and State email accounts/servers then she either wouldn't have had to delete personal emails.... OR, alternatively, the intention to unlawfully delete State property would be clear

I think it proves there was no mal-intent on the server. Deleting an email is of no real use, because the gov has the sender's copy at least. Plus, if there were two systems, then it would provide a clear of the record channel as long as both parties were on private emails. If i were working out a system to hide certain info, that is what I'd do. Plus, bleach bit is not some super secret tool of criminals. Using software like that on deleted drives is standard practice at universities. I'd imagine it is also standard practice at corporations and gov as well. It's funny how the Republicans mis-explain what bleach bit is to mislead a few voters.

Maybe Hillary thought that the C stood for Crooked, Corrupt, or Crippled?

thunderlips11 says

Ironman says

Is Rove the Presidential nominee right now and did he have a personal foundation he was soliciting donations for while under employment by the government?

Were HALF, HALF his meetings with non-government officials composed of his Foundation's donors when he held a major Cabinet Position?

Did he have cankles and wear pantsuits? Durr.....

thunderlips11 says

Were HALF, HALF his meetings with non-government officials composed of his Foundation's donors

If wager a bet that more than half were people who gave money to some campaign or superpac rove was associated with.

YesYNot says

Using software like that on deleted drives is standard practice at universities. I'd imagine it is also standard practice at corporations and gov as well.

I use similar software on any drive I'm selling or disposing of. The way OS's cache content, any document may well exist in 20 places on your drive, and "deleted" files often aren't. It's smart practice.

If you've ever seen an ASCII dump of hard-disk, it's sobering. I was looking for a deleted file: I found it, dozens of times.

turtledove says

I cannot hop into her brain and know for sure, but I know if I were scrambling to destroy all traces of something, it would only be because I have something worth hiding.

Could be.

It could also be that for the past 25 years, the GOP has gone through her garbage, scrutinized lists of who drank coffee or stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, investigated a colleague's suicide 3 times over, examined billing records of a law firm she worked at BEFORE she became first lady, and held 140 hours of testimony on the White House Christmas Card list. (I am leaving out a number of other investigations of Hillary during that time.)

And when the records show no wrongdoing - Huma gets request for favor; favor not granted - the conclusion from the GOP and the press is "this raises troubling questions, casting a shadow over the Clinton campaign."

There is no incentive to keep records. Powell acknowledges as much, and he's a Republican.

Meanwhile, Bush used an Enron jet for campaign travel, and that was no problem.

It's strange: Bill Clinton "lacked the character to enter the White House" (an interesting contention, when you observe its other inhabitants); Gore was an incredible liar and shifty; Kerry faked his Vietnam war wounds; Obama wasn't even born here, and is too stupid, weak, authoritarian, communist and fascist (all at the same time!) to be President. Plus, although the entire GOP refused to work with him starting on inauguration day, he is "divisive."

Now Hillary is profoundly, unprecedentedly corrupt.

Quite a coincidence, how the Dems always pick the very worst members of society.

YesYNot says

If wager a bet that more than half were people who gave money to some campaign or superpac rove was associated with.

Rove wasn't Secretary of State.

HydroCabron says

Obama wasn't even born here, and is too stupid, weak, authoritarian, communist and fascist (all at the same time!) to be President. Plus, although the entire GOP refused to work with him starting on inauguration day, he is "divisive."

"YOU LIE"

thunderlips11 says

Rove wasn't Secretary of State.

"Says Who?"