patrick.net

bob2356 says

Many (actually all) of the things I don't like about Hillary is her willingness to put her own self interest and self importance before any and all other considerations including the best interests of the US.

One flaw with this observation, is that we haven't seen her as POTUS. What you are referring to are the many of things she's done in an effort to get to that role, while in a world dominated by republican controlled congress, Fox news, all the lobbyists etc. It's not so easy to filter out all of that context to look at what kind of President she would actually be.

Mind you, I haven't started deciding yet. I like Bernie Sanders, but doubt he can beat a republican, let alone win the nomination. I'm just not as close minded about Hilary as most. Partly I'm kind of fond of the idea of Bill Clinton back in the WH, even if it is as first gentleman.

thunderlips11 says

Again, a tough decision doesn't end up being the right decision.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you and I aren't as qualified to have an opinion as we might think we are. Drone strikes were in part a way to be tough on Islamic Terrorism without attacking entire countries. When you have large political factions pushing you to go to war, doing surgical strikes is a way of avoiding that while being tough. As for the strength of ISIS, or Boko Haram, are you implying that their strength is a consequence of drone strikes ? Really ? Rather than being a consequence of the same things that necessitated drone strikes ? The difference between you and I on this, is that I know I'm not qualified to reach such conclusions, but I do understand that often a decision is made because it is the least bad option, rather than because it's clearly a good thing.

marcus says

One flaw with this observation, is that we haven't seen her as POTUS. What you are referring to are the many of things she's done in an effort to get to that role, while in a world dominated by republican controlled congress, Fox news, all the lobbyists etc. It's not so easy to filter out all of that context to look at what kind of President she would actually be.

I don't need to see her as potus. The history of the billary twins since law school is uninterrupted secretive insider wheeling and dealing that was just, barely just, on the legal side of the line. It started a long, long time before she was running for potus and a long long time before they were in the fox crosshairs. With a 40 year history of scandals and near scandals I for one think enough is enough.

bob2356 says

With a 40 year history of scandals and near scandals I for one think enough is enough.

But how much of that history is relative bullshit ? Forget the 40 years, maybe just tell me the very worst 2 or 3 things they've done which really stand out in your mind to illustrate the kind of dirt bags they are. I would think there must be a couple that just really stand out, and make the case.

marcus says

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you and I aren't as qualified to have an opinion as we might think we are. Drone strikes were in part a way to be tough on Islamic Terrorism without attacking entire countries. When you have large political factions pushing you to go to war, doing surgical strikes is a way of avoiding that while being tough. As for the strength of ISIS, or Boko Haram, are you implying that their strength is a consequence of drone strikes ? Really ? Rather than being a consequence of the same things that necessitated drone strikes ? The difference between you and I on this, is that I know I'm not qualified to reach such conclusions, but I do understand that often a decision is made because it is the least bad option, rather than because it's clearly a good thing.

Here's a crazy idea: Get Saudi Arabia to stop terror financing and spreading Wahabism.

Here's the dirty little secret: Until Obama was shamed into doing so by Putin, we really weren't interested in ISIS, but in getting rid of Assad. And we studiously ignored that the 'moderate rebels' were mostly AQ, Muslim Brotherhood, and other Salafi-Wahabi orgs backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf States.

Just like we are working with AQ in Afghanistan to try to reign in the Taliban, who are resurgent .

Thing ARE complicated. But I certainly AM qualified to have an opinion because I am well informed and don't limit myself to the Western media. I also read the Persian, Indian, Asian, Russian, and Alt Media as well as listen to actual experts on the region.

Somebody said last week, the difference between State Run Media in Russia and the MSM in the US is that in Russia, everybody knows which outlet is state run, and only read it to learn what the government intends to do. Otherwise they get their facts from the multitude of independent outlets in Russia and the World, where the Overton Window is the size of 3-story building, whereas in the US it's the size of a porthole in a hobbit's den.

thunderlips11 says

Here's the dirty little secret: Until Obama was shamed into doing so by Putin, we really weren't interested in ISIS, but in getting rid of Assad. And we studiously ignored that the 'moderate rebels' were mostly AQ, Muslim Brotherhood, and other Salafi-Wahabi orgs backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf States.

I call bullshit on this. But it is complicated.

www.youtube.com/embed/NKb9GVU8bHE

marcus says

I call bullshit on this. But it is complicated.

Evidence?

You have to explain why one year of bombing resulted in ISIS expanding, but then after 3-4 months of Russian bombing, ISIS is on the run and crippled by the deliberate targeting of their oil smuggling operation. In the entire year of US bombing before Putin got involved, the US only attacked the ISIS oil trade ONCE.

Sy Hersch's story makes more sense than just "Uh, nobody knows why it didn't work."

The 1000s of trucks going in and out of Turkey from Eastern Syria everyday in broad daylight over open desert looks like a trail of army ants crawling across a white tile floor. It is impossible to miss. It is even more impossible to miss all the tank farms and oil wells and truck parks.

Trying to post video. There got it. Strange behavior of things preventing video from posting. I guess you may be right that going after Assad, an ISIS enemy was a higher priority than killing ISIS. And there may be some dirty secrets there.

It's a mess. We know that. I believe that Obama and Clinton understand the mess better than you or I do. I agree about Saudi Arabia. But I don't claim to fully understand the strategic reasons we go along with their bullshit.

marcus says

It's a mess. We know that. I believe that Obama and Clinton understand the mess better than you or I do. I agree about Saudi Arabia. But I don't claim to fully understand the strategic reasons we go along with their bullshit.

Okay, cool.

For me, it's Occam's Razor. Saudi Arabia dumps tons of money to think tanks, Presidential Libraries, Lobbyists, and Politicians' campaigns and foundations. Elections are expensive. US Energy Companies have a lot of political points and money invested in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

thunderlips11 says

For me, it's Occam's Razor. Saudi Arabia dumps tons of money to think tanks, Presidential Libraries, Lobbyists, and Politicians' campaigns and foundations. Elections are expensive. US Energy Companies have a lot of political points and money invested in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

IF true, being pro green enrgy, nuclear etc, is the best way to turn this around. I sometimes think that Saudi is prparing for a future time when their energy dominance is over and they will be playing scumbag black mail games against the developed world using Islamic terrorists as pawns in some sort of criminal enterprises.

Or maybe they ( Sunni Whabi Muslims) even want Armageddon and some kind of reset on the game, since they feel they have have essentially lost to the western Christian world. All they have going for them is a finite amount of oil. They know they can't compete.

All valid strategies. In the mean time, keep Saudi Arabia down by talking to Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

BTW, notice that most of the states we have a hard time with just so happen to be Saudi Arabia's competitors with large oil reserves? And Nigeria also has extensive oil reserves and "poof", Boko Haram? Just a thought.

marcus says

It's a mess. We know that. I believe that Obama and Clinton understand the mess better than you or I do. I agree about Saudi Arabia. But I don't claim to fully understand the strategic reasons we go along with their bullshit.

The strategic reasons are very,very simple, money.

marcus says

bob2356 says

With a 40 year history of scandals and near scandals I for one think enough is enough.

But how much of that history is relative bullshit ? Forget the 40 years, maybe just tell me the very worst 2 or 3 things they've done which really stand out in your mind to illustrate the kind of dirt bags they are. I would think there must be a couple that just really stand out, and make the case.

Email for a start. She set up her own server to sidestep the freedom of information act plain and simple. She wants the power, but doesn't want to be held accountable to the public. Which is not acceptable for someone who is a public official.

Clinton trust. The conflicts of interest, potential or real, are so huge and glaring I find it hard to believe even hillary and bill aren't ashamed or embarrassed. Apparently not.

Health care task force. Again set up to avoid accountability to the public. I believe the dc circuit court was just plain wrong in their decision that hillary was a government employee not a civilian adviser freeing her from having to comply with FACA reporting regulations.

The bottom line is the billary twins feel the rules don't apply to them.

bob2356 says

Email for a start. She set up her own server to sidestep the freedom of information act plain and simple. She wants the power, but doesn't want to be held accountable to the public.

I took it as probably indicative of paranoia on her part. That she didn't want prying eyes of super high clearance people in NSA, CIA, or whereever reading her emails. Remember she was married to a previous 2 term POTUS. Maybe she understood exactly why there was a reason to be paranoid about the privacy of emails on govt servers.

She wasn't the only Secretary of State since the existence of email to use non fed servers for email. She's just the last one to do it. Not only do I have no problem with it, I see it as an indication that she is not simply a puppet of TPTB.

bob2356 says

Health care task force

Big deal. The President, who is certainly allowed to come up with a health care proposal (all by himself in private - before selling it to the public and congress) put his wife in charge of a panel to come up with a proposal. Yes, republicans were outraged. A woman no less. His wife,...OMG. If the president had had a academic group that was far removed putting together a policy proposal it would have been no problem. I never did understand the problem. IT certainly was not shady. IT's not like they were planning on bypassing congress or the public, after coming up with their proposals.

Sure, it was a mistake. A political bunder. But it wasn't slimy or underhanded. She's a hgh powered smart lady. He thought (they thought) maybe she could do something more meaningful than figuring out what the drapes should look like in the Lincoln bedroom.

bob2356 says

The bottom line is the billary twins feel the rules don't apply to them.

Okay, so we can both agree you don't have any even slightly meaningful examples ? " 40 year history of scandals" and those were the worst ones you could think of ? It seems to me it's one of those hand waving "just because" kind of arguments.

Bill Clinton's real problem was being the most effective politician and a highly effective President we've had in recent decades. That's the kind of thing you need a lot of full time people working to tear down (such as Ken Star and his team).

marcus says

bob2356 says

Email for a start. She set up her own server to sidestep the freedom of information act plain and simple. She wants the power, but doesn't want to be held accountable to the public.

I took it as probably indicative of paranoia on her part. That she didn't want prying eyes of super high clearance people in NSA, CIA, or whereever reading her emails. Remember she was maried to a previous 2 term POTUS. Maybe she understood exactly why there was a reason to be paranoid about the privacy of emails on govt servers.

She wasn't the only Secretary of State since the existence of email to use non fed servers for email. She's just the last one to do it. Not only do I have no problem with it, I see it as an indication that she is not simply a puppet of TPTB.

If you can't see any difference between colin powell sending some emails, that he says were of housekeeping nature, using a commercial email service and hillary setting a totally private email server in her house controlled only by her to conduct ALL of her business as secretary of state then either you are too partisan or not intelligent enough to have this conversation.

It doesn't matter what hillary thinks about prying eyes. It's PUBLIC RECORD. There is NO privacy for any correspondence in her official capacity as secretary of state. She is a PUBLIC official. If she wanted privacy she shouldn't have taken the job. But she thinks she can have it both ways. The federal records act and the freedom of information act are clear, there is no interpretation to be had. All correspondence in an official capacity is PUBLIC RECORD. It MUST be archived and available for searching/viewing. Period. Hillary claiming that sending it from her private email to peoples public email means it's archived isn't good enough. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA),rules state that outboxes and in boxes are separate records that must both be archived even if it's the same letter. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/mar/12/hillary-clintons-email-did-she-follow-all-rules/

marcus says

bob2356 says

Health care task force

Big deal. The President, who is certainly allowed to come up with a health care proposal (all by himself in private - before selling it to the public and congress) put his wife in charge of a panel to come up with a proposal.

He certainly does. As long as she follows the FACA regulations. No, once she is involved it can't be all in private, there is that inconvenient matter of obeying the law .Not to worry about the minor detail however. Bill simply set her up as a quasi government official (not a private citizen subject to FACA) solely to sidestep this. It wasn't a political blunder, it was a carefully thought out move to avoid being accountable to the public. Exactly the same as the private email server.

Seems pretty amazing that there are so many things involving the clintons that come down to lengthy convoluted explanations of how they technically didn't violate any rules/laws or actually become long hard fought court cases.

I find it very hard to believe you can possibly be so ignorant of the laws governing public officials or the responsibilities the go with being a public official. Are you serious or trolling for hillary?

marcus says

Okay, so we can both agree you don't have any even slightly meaningful examples ?

Are you high?

bob2356 says

If you can't see any difference between colin powell sending some emails, that he says were of housekeeping nature, using a commercial email service and hillary setting a totally private email server in her house controlled only by her to conduct ALL of her business as secretary of state then either you are too partisan or not intelligent enough to have this conversation.

Ahh, the old you're an idiot argument. Very compelling. I didn't say I couldn't see any difference. I said I thought maybe she was paranoid (maybe with good reason). I really don't think it was nefarious. Does it piss of people because of risk of security breach ? Or it it because they think and hope that they might have something on her.

bob2356 says

He certainly does. As long as she follows the FACA regulations. No, once she is involved it can't be all in private, there is that inconvenient matter of obeying the law .Not to worry about the minor detail however. Bill simply set her up as a quasi government official (not a private citizen subject to FACA) solely to sidestep this. It wasn't a political blunder, it was a carefully thought out move to avoid being accountable to the public. Exactly the same as the private email server.

I get that you find this outrageous. I don't.

bob2356 says

I find it very hard to believe you can possibly be so ignorant of the laws governing public officials or the responsibilities the go with being a public official. Are you serious or trolling for hillary?

Ah, there it is again. The you're an idiot argument. They were coming up with policy proposals that would have eventually been scrutinized to the nth degree. Bill was using her as an extension of him. They're wonks that were going to be having dinner together every night, and she was going to be discussing everything with him through the entire process. So I don't get it. If it were advice that was going to be used for an executive order that would be different. The fact that it at some point is not accessible to the public (during early meetings or whatever) is a far cry from it being pushed all the way through to law without ever being accessible to the public. IT was going to be public long before the congress was voting on it, if it were allowed to proceed.

I see this as ignorance on Clinton's part (at worst), and yes a political blunder. But only someone looking to take him down, or pissed off that he won the election would be outraged.

Let me guess. You didn't vote for CLinton in '92. I'd bet anything on that.

Probably just a coincidence.

IT's amazing what people can get outraged about, when they don't have anything to sink their teeth in to.

How do you feel about Cheney and the Halliburton connection relative to the Iraq war ? Would you put Clinton having the gall to put Hillary to work on a policy proposal as being almost as bad as that ? Worse perhaps ?

marcus says

bob2356 says

If you can't see any difference between colin powell sending some emails, that he says were of housekeeping nature, using a commercial email service and hillary setting a totally private email server in her house controlled only by her to conduct ALL of her business as secretary of state then either you are too partisan or not intelligent enough to have this conversation.

Ahh, the old you're an idiot argument. Very compelling. I didn't say I couldn't see any difference. I said I thought maybe she was paranoid (maybe with good reason). I really don't think it was nefarious. Does it piss of people because of risk of security breach ? Or it it because they think and hope that they might have something on her.

Ahh, the avoid the point argument. Paranoid is irrelevant. Everything she wrote as secretary of state is public record. It's the law, Would you like me to type that more slowly? She worked long and hard on skirting the law, staying (once again) maybe technically legal. Maybe, because we'll never know since DOJ isn't going to touch it. She thought she could get away with it. She almost did.

marcus says

They were coming up with policy proposals that would have eventually been scrutinized to the nth degree. Bill was using her as an extension of him. They're wonks that were going to be having dinner together every night, and she was going to be discussing everything with him through the entire process. So I don't get it. If it were advice that was going to be used for an executive order that would be different. The fact that it at some point is not accessible to the public (during early meetings or whatever) is a far cry from it being pushed all the way through to law without ever being accessible to the public

It was a far cry from bill and hillary sitting around discussing things at dinner. Large numbers of people were involved. Most of them with a great financial stake in the outcome. At some point being accessible to the public isn't good enough.Eventually scrutinized isn't good enough. The law, FACA like FOI, is clear. The information MUST be in the public domain. Sidestepping (does anyone see a pattern here?) the law by declaring hillary a government employee then fighting it through the courts isn't the same as obeying the law.

Having someone that would repeatedly go to such great lengths to avoid the spirit of not the letter of the law becoming president may be ok with you, but it's not at all ok with me.

marcus says

Let me guess. You didn't vote for CLinton in '92. I'd bet anything on that.

Probably just a coincidence.

IT's amazing what people can get outraged about, when they don't have anything to sink their teeth in to.

How do you feel about Cheney and the Halliburton connection relative to the Iraq war ? Would you put Clinton having the gall to put Hillary to work on a policy proposal as being almost as bad as that ? Worse perhaps ?

Define anything for your bet, then make really sure you can afford to lose it. I have posted many times about cheney and his outrageous conduct. No, I don't have anything to sink my teeth into other than small matters like public officials on either side of the political spectrum not following the law. If you really think, which you certainly seem to, your elected and appointed officials work in your best interest when working in secret with large and powerful interests without public scrutiny or oversight then I have some really great swampland in florida I want to talk to you about. Don't bother with the eventually it will be available for scrutiny bullshit. How many people read obamacare before it was voted on?

I wish everyone here would ignore/block me so I wouldn't have to spend so much time trying to educate the ignorant on Patnet.
roflmao

jazz music says

Has patnet policy changed such that the kids were blocked from trolling this thread???

no policy change.

say whatever the fuck you want. post boob pics. troll away, it's good exercise both in trolling and in recognizing and ignoring trolls.

marcus says

It's a mess. We know that. I believe that Obama and Clinton understand the mess better than you or I do. I agree about Saudi Arabia. But I don't claim to fully understand the strategic reasons we go along with their bullshit.

The strategic reasons for America's bullshit since 1945 are the following:

1. O-I-L, OIL!
2. irrational fear of communism
3. irrational desire to keep the working man down
4. supporting crony capitalism in all its forms
5. a complete willingness to support, and do the dirty-work of any murderous dictator supporting objective number 1 to 4
6. a level of moral sense that would make any schoolyard bully look good

Remember during Whitewater when she claimed she couldn't find records, and then somebody found them lying directly on the table in her office or library?

She lost money on Whitewater, but boy did she obsfucate the whole way through. Filegate as well, when Livingstone took the fall: Hillary is widely believed to have requested and received FBI files on Goverment Civil Service Employees she had no right to obtain.

jazz music says

Has patnet policy changed such that the kids were blocked from trolling this thread???

Everyone I have on ignore can't even see this thread (if they are logged in) . I think that at this point CIC can't even post to this thread using the "work around" that used to work ( i.e. read thread in other [logged out browser] and then copy and paste URL in to logged in browser - and then post comment ). I believe that Patrick has now made even that impossible.

thunderlips11 says

Remember during Whitewater when she claimed she couldn't find records, and then somebody found them lying directly on the table in her office or library?

Let's hope that doesn't happen when president hillary has to keep track of the nuclear launch codes.