Yves here. The last few evenings, Lambert and I have been arguing over what I call the “Clinton decay path” which I’ve analogized to the runup to the crisis in 2008. Then, the officialdom very much thought they could keep things together till after the Presidential election. We know how that movie ended.
As of late 2007, I was assessing the odds of a really bad outcome (which I did not see as a massive financial blowup, but a Japan-style bumping downhill over a period of years) as 20-30%, which I regarded as uncomfortably high. I told Lambert I thought the Clinton train wreck odds were in that range. He thought it was more like 30% than 20%.
This post indicates the odds are even higher than that. I see two implications in the Bernstein official messaging beyond those that Gaius describes. One is that the Obama Administration has been blindsided by how bad the underlying fact set is, and they recognize that even worse is likely to be exposed. Someone as image-conscious as Obama would be particularly put off by that.
But the panic is also a clear indication, and perhaps as important, another message, not just to Clinton but to Team Dem, that the Administration can’t, or won’t but is making it seem like can’t, do what it takes to save Hillary’s bacon.
And I suspect it really is “can’t”. The FBI has enough autonomy that if they find real dirt on the Clintons, they will leak like crazy if the DoJ does not pursue the case in a serious way. That would make the Administration complicit, and Obama does not want his final months in office tainted by his Administration touching the Clinton tar baby any more than it has to. In addition, the Judicial Watch cases are proceeding, and the judge, having had the Clinton side deal with him repeatedly in bad faith, is not going to cut it any slack. The fact that there is an independent effort, completely outside the Administration’s control, pursuing the server mess, also makes it riskier for the DoJ to do nothing if Judicial Watch exposes damning documents.
By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. Originally published at at Down With Tyranny. GP article here.
The White House delivers another message via Carl Bernstein
The last time I featured former Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein on these pages, it was to showcase his delivery of messages he received from the White House, to the effect that the “White House” thought Clinton was blowing it with her Wall Street speeches stance, and because of that, the “White House” was freaking out (to put it colloquially) — at least as Bernstein tells it.
Here’s part of what Bernstein — a Clinton supporter — said last February (my transcript and emphasis; video at the link):
Bernstein: There is a huge story going on. I’ve spent part of this weekend talking to people in the White House. They are horrified at how Hillary Clinton is blowing up her own campaign.
And they’re worried that the Democrats could blow — they are horrified that the whole business of the transcripts, accepting the money — that she could blow the Democrats’ chance for White House. They want her to win. Obama wants her to win.
But Sanders has shown how vulnerable she is. These ethical lapses have tied the White House up in knots. They don’t know what to do. They’re beside themselves. And now, you’ve got a situation with these transcripts a little like Richard Nixon and his tapes that he stonewalled on and didn’t release.
Note the insider tone and access. I’m not writing a hit piece on Clinton; I’m showing this to make a more general point — that Carl Bernstein carries messages from the White House to the public, from Valerie Jarrett perhaps, or someone else just a step removed from the president, and Bernstein is clearly speaking with Team Obama’s permission (and likely encouragement). Which has to mean, with President Obama’s permission.
In other words, this isn’t reportorial digging-and-revealing; this is White House messaging delivered via an intermediary. Read Bernstein as the White House speaking.
In that context, listen to the current “White House” message about the Clinton campaign via Bernstein and video at the top (my italics):
Bernstein: The implications of all of this [the email server issue] are that Hillary Clinton did not want her emails subjected to the Freedom of Information Act or subpoenas from Congress. And that’s why she set up a home-brew server.
I think we all know that. People around her will tell you that in private if you really get them behind a closed door.
I was in Washington this week, I spoke to a number of top Democratic officials and they’re terrified, including people at the White House, that her campaign is in free fall because of this distrust factor. Indeed, Trump has a similar problem, but she’s the one whose numbers are going south.
And the great hope in the White House, as well as the Democratic leadership and people who support her, is that she can just get to this convention, get the nomination — which they’re no longer 100% sure of — and get President Obama out there to help her, he’s got a lot of credibility, it’s an election that’s partly about his legacy.
But she needs all the help she can get because right now her campaign is in huge trouble…
Bernstein goes on to pivot the message against Trump, but we can leave it there.
Bernstein Carrying White House Water
This is at least the second time Bernstein has carried White House messaging about Hillary Clinton’s campaign to the public (see link above for the first), and both times, the message is the same — again colloquially, “we’re freaking out” (Bernstein is nearly as vivid). What freaks them out this time? That “her campaign is in free fall” and they’re “no longer 100% sure” that she can get the nomination.
Wow. Wow that they think it, and wow that they’re leaking to the public that they think it.
Makes you wonder what the White House and other “top Democratic officials” know that they didn’t tell Carl Bernstein, or at least, what he’s not telling us. Maybe this story explains the plan all the networks are alleged (by Chris Matthews no less) to have agreed to — that they will declare Clinton the overall winner the minute the East Coast polls close in New Jersey, even though (or especially because) the West Coast polls are still open in California, the largest state and one which Clinton could well lose.
Put these two things together and it’s clear there’s now just one goal for “top Democratic officials” including the White House — to get Clinton across the finish line despite the fact that her campaign is “in free fall” and she’s limping to get there. In White House terms, to get her into the convention and get her the nomination, no matter how or under what condition.
Two takeaways — one is that top Democrats know how precarious Clinton’s position is. They’re not fooled any more than you are. That’s worth noticing. And second, the White House and Bernstein are not blaming Sanders. Whoever crafted this message for us is blaming the Clinton campaign only, and by extension, Clinton herself.
Again, makes you wonder what they know and if they really know it.
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I like the last sentence. Ms Clinton and her husband are the only ones to blame. If the home server had remained invulnerable, it wouldn’t be as big an issue, but the fact is, at least one person hacked it from the outside. Her technical support was inadequate. Secrets are hard to hide, if you are a prominent target.
and, not only are they the ones to blame, the white house is blaming them, using the more credible journalist from watergate.
shorter Dem honchos : ‘that bus about to run us over has huuuuge nobbie tires ……
….. and that’s a Big F*ckin Deal’
Hmm. Does make one wonder.
If “they” are so worried about Hillary flubbing her “inevitable” nomination as presidential candidate, and “they” are apparently not so worried about Hillary loosing to Trump in the run for president later, one does wonder about the possibility of “they” having some good quality dirt on Trump (or a backdoor to the voting machines).
Really Good Quality Dirt!
It is a *big* issue to mishandle classified information – normal people will be prosecuted and may go to jail even by coincidence; like a selfie in front of equipment they didn’t know was classified and which was not labelled as such. Then on top of that comes the sleaze-factor with avoiding the FOIA requirements, destruction of evidence (which means that certainly Hillary was up to *something* crooked, because why else bother with all the work? it’s very *easy* to hand over a verified duplicate of a hard disk compared to everything Hillary tried to not do this!) and of course the blatant incompetence + arrogance shown by Hillary by running a private business, a crooked one at that, from work?!
A street level dope dealer can manage to compartmentalize their real business from the one they report to the IRS. But not Hillary.
The Democrats don’t have any dirt on Trump the Republicans didn’t have. Trump is a referendum on the establishment. The establishment can’t attack him, and any attacks too similar to the very publicized establishment attacks will be dismissed.
The simple problem is Republican voters selected him over the GOP establishment. All the Republicans will line up because Trump is now their rightful leader. Maybe not Mittens and Bill Kristol at this point, the GOP elites will show loyalty because anything less will risk their own position. The base will remove GOP elites over certain sins. The Teabaggers cleaned the GOP caucus of TARP voters.
The secret weapon is to be a generic tax and spend Democrat, uninterested in colonialism.
I was being unclear: If there is a secret stash of good dirt on Trump it will be the professionals like the NSA who has it, not the political parties. They will have records of – or ways to get hold of – all bank accounts, “treasure islands”, tax havens, whatever there may be.
If it’s digital, someone in the global community of spooks will have access to it.
It’s quite possible that “they” did the full search and didn’t come up with more than the gossip press has already splurged over the internet. It’s just odd (to me) that “they” worry so about the nomination, but not about after – or maybe “they” are in “deal with immediate concerns”-mode.
Maybe the real fix is that Trump having got the nomination withdraws for “health reasons” (“they” will have medical records too).
Or it’s possible “they” simply are too locked into their own conviction that a Trump win is impossible. Which it ought to be, if the public had any real education, the establishment wasn’t corrupt as hell, on top of a mix of greed and incompetence to an extent that beggars the imagination.
Do you know who Jeb Bush’s father and brother are? 41 was the CIA director. If it’s out there, they had it.
Indeed, this may have something to do with Eric Holder’s clumsy defense of Snowden: performing national service while indulging int a traitorous act. Its timing is uncanny. Would they want to use him/his network of Wikileaks to reveal dirt on Trump once Hillary is nominated? And possibly paedon him after Hillary’s win, but before she is installed as President?
Yes, the intelligence establishment has dirt the two leading candidates (Trump and Clinton). This can be used in what ever way is expedient, but most of all to maintain the status quo. Like the mafia, you have committed a crime so you have to promote our crimes or you will be exposed/deposed. Which is why the race to the bottom of the hogs wallow is being actively promoted. Likely, no dirt on Sanders, which is why the MSM and even some parts of social media are enlisted to create the appearance of dirt because blackmail/graymail of Sanders will be difficult or impossible.
“Trump is a referendum on the establishment.”
That’s the best one-sentence explanation for his success that I’ve seen.
That is certainly the narrative Trump wants. What I find the height of black, despairing comedy is that anyone believes it. In addition to being completely untrustworthy and self-centered, Trump has little to gain by overthrowing the status quo, and has given many signs that he will continue business as usual, only with a slightly different crew of low-rent elites in charge at the top.
No matter what he says, Trump is not leading some sort of revolution to abolish the Empire and replace it with something else, much less something better. He just wants a shortcut to being Emperor.
That he may end up being so bad at the job the entire edifice burns down is not, IMHO, any sort of positive. I don’t like where we are or where we are headed, but neither do I want my family trying to survive in some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I’ll repeat the tin-foil hat level thought that keeps crossing my mind with Trump: his job is to discredit any sort of opposition to the establishment from the right for a generation or more.
With any revolution, $27 per person or otherwise, there is always the possibility that the entire edifice burns down, and its own children devoured.
I think you’re underestimating Trump. As you note, he does want to maintain current establishment, and he could be successful at this for awhile (e.g. ramping up spending and not worrying about deficits).
The establishment (Clinton types not aggressively calling out Republicans and proposing credible alternatives) has brought us to this point.
So is Sanders, but from the non-crazy side of politics.
Then on top of that comes the sleaze-factor with avoiding the FOIA requirements …
That’s it, right there. She purposefully conducted the business of the State in such a manner to avoid scrutiny by the citizenry. That is a breach of the public trust that cannot be countenanced, cannot go unpunished. She’s gotta go, and if “everybody’s doing it,” then they all gotta go too.
Chimpy & Cheney got away with it, so it wasn’t unreasonable for Clinton to assume that she would too.
Is all this really because she didn’t want to have 2 e-mail addresses like everyone else: one for work, one for private, and carry two Blackberries – oh the humanity!? Why not difficult have seperate e-mail accounts for grifting and stateswomaning. Surely it was clear that subsequent FOIA requests would inevitably turn up that she hadn’t been using state mail at all and was thus circumventing the regulations?
The mind boggles at her arrogance/stupidity.
What does the e-mail address of a private server look like? Would it not be obvious to everybody who encountered it that it was something – say – non standard? But hush hush.
The private server did have a different extension-mainly ‘.com’ instead of ‘.gov’. And yes everyone who got her emails-a slew of people in State-would have seen that on the address bar. Go look at your emails and notice how many are ‘.org’ and how many are ‘.com.’ I suspect HRC was not amenable to questions about how she was doing business. Even less so inside of an official capacity then she is on the campaign trail . And that’s pretty bad.
I’m under the impression that if not for the Benghazi investigation, the home server would not have been discovered. However, maybe someone else can confirm that I’m correct.
Which, if you think about it, does not actually make sense.
The NSA should have known all along. Why on earth she supposed that she could get around the NSA is simply… words fail me.
Morning Joe is saying that Trump is polling as ‘more trustworthy’ than Clinton.
If the White House isn’t in a panic at this point, they’re somnambulant.
The Washington elite still labor under the delusion the sycophants are the general population and everything will return to normal any time now.
I thought it was strictly due to Benghazi-related FOIA requests from Congress that brought her server to light, but this article indicates it was discovered as a matter of routine housekeeping when John Kerry became SoS, and they finally filled the position of Inspector General at State.
Something Clinton didn’t get around to doing . . .
My tin foil hat has always told me Clintonistas may not have worked overly hard for Kerry in 2004, even offering bad advice. Every Winner and Loser column from after the election listed on clear winner, the front runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton. Clinton Inc was operating out of crummy digs in Harlem because they couldn’t raise money, but the money poured in after the Kerry loss.
If this election was about whether the country wanted a fourth term of the Kerry Edwards Cantwell? (She makes the most sense for a Vice President to Edwards 2012 running mate) teams, where would Clinton Inc be?
My only fear re: how Clinton could win in November would be if she and Bill had the juice to help throw 2000 and 2004 to keep the path clear for her. Unless she can steal in the General, she isn’t going to be President. That would also explain Obama’s focus on caucuses in 2008 — he went after her soft, less stealable underbelly. (I realize there are also less CT explanations for this.)
But watching the primary play out suggests to me that there are limits to election theft capability. I don’t think there’s anyway she wanted to drag this out this long. The theft in Kentucky was pretty obvious and clumsy, too. That plus the Republican Party doing its thing rallying around its nominee gives me hope that at least we won’t get President Clinton.
It feels a bit like clinging to a ice floe in the North Atlantic, though.
Why shouldn’t she have expected to “get around” the NSA? They’re grossly incompetent at anything resembling actually doing their jobs.
And how is it that everyone in the Obama Admin. (how many?) not know that they were communicating with an “illegal” system?
But there’s another point here too which is out in the open and yet no one is talking about it much except to note that her emails were not part of the National Archives. She had a private server for that very Orwellian reason-she planned to control the historical record by having a whole parcel of it hidden and not available until she decided to release it, if ever. I see the reference to Orwell as particularly apt . Remember in 1984 our besotted hero, (depressed with the horror of what he was doing), spent the livelong day erasing or changing the archival records related to key events that Big Brother needed changing. His needs, like Hilary’s, kept changing from day to day so the censorship was endless.
Clinton has always been in charge of a Ministry of Truth-yesterday she stood for practice ‘A’ but now today opposes practice ‘A’. The private server is just another facet of MiniTrue.
The domain name was clintonemail.com, so the email addresses would be HRC@clintoemail.com etc. etc. Anyone receiving these emails *could* see that if they looked, but if the sender is in your address book it may just come in as that person’s name or nickname as you have it in own your machine.
While it may be that most recipients wouldn’t bother to drill down to the actual originating address, there are offices and agencies that would definitely be tuned to this sort of thing. For instance, State’s in-house IT security people seem to have twigged, not that it helped.
What I wonder is, aren’t there 16 some-odd agencies who scan and analyze email traffic? In this case, the metadata alone would have told much (as it so often does).
That is the official excuse and it is arrogant and lazy enough to be plausible.
However, she was clearly conducting personal business out of State. There was no clear demarcation with her between professional and personal. You can bet lots of e-mails that were State business were shared with Bill and Chelsea and other Clinton Foundation types.
Illuminating. She was jealous of Obama who only had one Blackberry.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/hillary-clinton-blackberry-security-envy-nsa-no-go/
Hillary’s server released more top secrets than Wikileaks and Snowden in the Clinton -Corleone drive for power. The number 1 issue is to prevent the Estate Tax going to 90% for estates over 12 million per beneficiary for them and the bouffant con man and their 1% cronies to accelerate the rush to debt slavery for the middled-to-death class.
suddenly, i’m feeling optimistic again. obama might be many things, but he is a very good politician, and he protects his legacy like an enraged bear protects cubs. throwing clinton under the bus to do that? no problem, if doing so results in less damage to his image, and i trust him to be able to judge that well.
He’s not a very good politician. Too much of a phoney.
Politician, not Statesmen.
“Too much of a phoney” sounds to me like the kernel of the prototypical modern politician.
I don’t think he gives even one f**k about his image or legacy. He cares about being wealthy and having high status. He’s only cutting Clinton loose if his owners that previously told him he had to help her now tell him to toss her over.
Well said, aab. They’re all in it together; they’re not separate entities. They do as the owners (the 1% billionaires, corporations, Wall Street) tell them to do. Puppets on a string.
That statement is hard to square with Obamacare. He may be good at being a politician, but not at the expense of servicing his “donors”, and good PR can’t turn a turd into gold.
One problem on the horizon may be that Obama (among other) has knowingly sent and/or receivei emails to the clintonemail.com address. This may jeopardize his legacy as making him also culpable as sending or communicating classified info to an unsecured network. I think that Clinton’s mess has snared many people in as accomplices due to her power and forcing them to go along, regardless of the legality.
How many ambassadors communicated to/from that ensecured network? This will be a test to see if the law for politicians is the same for the masses.
Obama may very well have known (though not agreed with) the non-gov email use. This would prove very bad for him, as that also shows compliance with allowing this to happen.
I still have my doubts that any indictments are forthcoming. Maintaining a homebrew server could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal matter. The punishments for that are administrative (loss of job, loss of security clearance), which don’t really touch her. Having classified information in those emails, unless it’s really egregious, probably won’t result in any criminal charges, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is rather common among senior government officials. If they go after Clinton for that, a lot of other people could be put under greater scrutiny. My guess is that there is institutional pressure in the government to not charge one of their own for that.
If any charges are filed, it will probably be for something else that they’ve stumbled upon, possibly related to the Clinton Foundation. That’s why I find it interesting that the news about Terry McAuliffe broke when it did. If they are pursuing something, there will be pressure to resolve it before the election. At the same time, they won’t want to rush it, because they’re only going to get one shot at this – you don’t want to take a swing at the Clintons, and miss.
“Maintaining a homebrew server could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal matter. ”
Given the last 15 years of brutal, if selective, prosecutions for mishandling materials less sensitive than some of the material on Clinton’s servers, I don’t think many people will buy that.
They may not buy it, but that feeds directly into my other point – senior government officials are rarely held accountable for those types of actions, unless they’re really egregious. People much lower on the food chain are held to a higher standard. Because of that, I think that there will be resistance to prosecution from other senior officials, simply because they don’t want to be put in jeopardy as well.
The elephant in the room is not the private server per se, but the use of it to circumvent any exposure to FOIA requests. The pay-for-play activities of the Secretary with regard to the Foundation can certainly be inferred, and if proven are grounds for an indictment leading to prosecution for treason, and the incarceration (if not the death penalty) for the entire Clinton family. The tons of circumstantial evidence regarding the timing of payments and the goodies granted, would be sufficient for a Grand Jury indictment; the “smell’ test is overwhelming.
All well and true, but when do citizens say enough is enough. Creating and maintaining a two tiered justice system is not the foundation on which democracy is built. How egregious does lawbreaking have to become before support is withdrawn from these people?
IMVHO, that is exactly what we are seeing play out.
And trying to equate what Hillary did with Colin Powell’s early use of email is simply beyond the pale: I’ve seen no credible evidence that Powell ever set out to evade the NSA or the FBI. For Hillary to conflate the two is flagrantly dishonest, and it pisses me off.
We may be at a ‘tipping point’ of the public finally fed up with a two tier system. Add in income inequality, and things tip even more.
Equating Hillary to a war criminal makes perfect sense.
That’s for the FBI to show – hard evidence of intention evasion…a memo or a witness, while Clinton, on the other side, will argue computer/internet illiteracy.
Clinton has already been planting seeds of computer illiteracy, through her subordinates, who claim Clinton “didn’t even know how to access email on a desktop!” My lands, what’s a pretty little thing to do? Why, a lady such as Hillary must rely on the kindness of strangers, or gentleman such as Bryan “Nowhere Man” Magliano, her IT Manager, to convey her electronic missives to others in a timely manner.
People seem to forget that Clinton served on the Committee on Armed Services from 2003 to 2009 and on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities … you know, the Subcommittee that has jurisdiction over Department of Defense policies and programs to counter emerging threats, information warfare and special operations programs.
If it were possible, I’d go back through the Sub committees minutes or transcripts to see how involved ole’ Hillary got when the subject was attempts by foreign governments or agents to hack into U.S. government employees’ emails.
It’s possible that some of the information was only accessible by computer. She couldn’t have had any aides helping her ’cause they probably were not cleared to read such info.
From Jim Haywood on today’s cooler:
Probably more display of illiteracy.
Or, no unlike some college teachers – no practice experience, thought they sound impressive in theory.
Intent is not a bar to a charge of gross negligence. “No intent” is a Clinton talking point.
Perhaps her intent is to negotiate gross negligence to just negligence.
From there, it’s ‘everyone does.’
LS: Little rides on the fact that Mrs Clinton may be guilty of
stupidity, ignorance, or evil intent. The primary fact is that
Mrs Clinton is, was, and probably has been guilty of duplicitous
conduct for the majority of her life. She’s no beginner or social
climber, but a real mountaineer.
well…support IS being withdrawn , from them, in real time !!! That’s why people, increasingly, will vote scorched earth …. for Trump, if Sanders gets cheated out of the nom. They’ve had it with the two-tired JUST US system, and the corrupt pols and corporate slugs who’ve benefited by it !!
Agree. It’s hard to know how many, but a significant number of people certainly are sensing the depth of this morass, even if the particulars remain vague, and are reacting as best they can given the choices. Since reasonable choices have been crushed to an amazing degree, as Matthews – under orders no doubt – made clear, and this is part of what people sense is wrong, scorched earth is what remains.
In my case, it has already been withdrawn.
Hell, if Bonnie Prince Snowden were to land on the US equivalent of Eriskay…I would like as not put on fatigues and go to join him, along with whatever other ragtag band of ‘jacobites’ rallied to the cause.
Yes, it would likely end as miserably as ‘The Forty Five’ did, but I am long past believing that ANYONE in a position of power in the Federal Government – any branch – really ‘gets it’ that We, The People, are sick and damned tired of the crap they are up to, and the lengths they are willing to go to pander and enrich their fellow power mongers.
The ‘Just Us’ system, indeed.
Maybe a little whiff of grapeshot might wake them up.
I know its either that, or someday the guillotines will be set up by a starving rabble with far less of a sense of humor about these things then I.
What is interesting to me is the quality of what happens next as an exemplar: either Obama doubles down on the Patraus treatment for the elite and everyone who’s ever had a security clearance is formally notified that the rules only apply to little people, or D O Justice acts on this in the same spirit they have acted on Assange, Manning, Snowden, Stirling etc.
For those implicated at the heart of the security establishment, either decision will have crystal clear implications. If it is the latter, the National Security State lumbers on in its more or less current form which isn’t exactly great and embroils our “presumptive” nominee in a criminal investigation. If the former, things could get very interesting as those feeling betrayed will be uniquely positioned to do something about it, particularly in the prospect of spooks foreign or domestic having dirt with which to blackmail a sitting President.
Another great example of a status quo that, however you support it, sucks.
“Maintaining a homebrew server could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal matter. The punishments for that are administrative (loss of job, loss of security clearance), which don’t really touch her.”
Could she be denied top security clearance were she to be elected president? Or, is it given no matter what to whomever is elected?
Also, it seems from the article that there are many people now privy to just how badly she managed her email situation (others things as well? And are there actual hard copies? More tapes?) and that could make her independence as president, well, simply no there there. Sounds like the PTBs and/or their minions have her by the short hairs. And if she had any tendencies whatsoever to not serve the Corporatists fully, that is no longer an issue: She would be totally controlled.
So, Hillary would now more than ever be the Corporatists very best bet to consolidate their control, in the US and globally. Trump, second but could possibly be “uncooperative.” Bernie? Never allowed to be voted on as the Dem nominee.
Oooh … Dear! Good Point: Hillary being so terribly bad that she’s absolutely perfect for everyone who needs to buy influence.
The excitement is seeing the market value of “The House of Clinton’s Services” dropping from hard currency to small favors and protection and now this once-in-a-century opportunity to get in at the bottom may go away!
Have you read this? from march and linked on 5/29 in the cooler. they’ve stumbled on a few things…
https://informedvote2016.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/do-i-really-need-to-worry-about-hillarys-emails-yes-she-will-be-indicted-full-form/
and as pointed out here the administration can’t bury judicial watch in the same way they let the banksters off by telling DOJ to let ’em go. And fajensen points out above, classification violations get little people in big trouble, and letting clinton off, which they can’t seem to do, will upset a lot of gov employees…but maybe it’s just more eleventy dimensional chess
Lurking in the background is the likelihood that the Russians scooped up everything on Hillary’s server, and the certainty that the NSA knows what they know.
This will not sit well with a lot of people.
Hillary will soon be down to her paid hangers-on and diehard loyalists. Even the bankers will have to start recalculating.
–Gaianne
It seems clear that being hacked by the Russians rated pretty low on the Clinton totem pole of priorities. What concerned her more was the optics of whatever emails she was sending and how the American public would react to seeing them. All her actions point to that. The Secretary of State would rather have Russians read her emails than comply with the FOIA and other laws and risk American citizens see the business she conducted on our behalf and at our expense.
I mean, for all I know senior gov’t officials just blanket assume other countries have full access to everything done on a computer, what do they care what the Russians know, the Russians are corrupt too. But when it comes to a bad headline? Panic button time.
Meanwhile, in another space time continuum:
Oops.
Isn’t trying to evade FOIA criminal intent?
“There’s no criminal intent, and with no criminal intent there’s no indictment.“
That would be true if it was true.
I don’t blame just Hillary. I blame the Clintons in their entirety. Bill was just as squirmy with the truth (what’s YOUR definition of the word “is”? Then there’s his whole, “I did not have asexual relations with that woman”). Their slimy slipperyness is genetic. They can’t help but lie, obfuscate, prevaricate. Bill is Hillary, Hillary is Bill.
As to wanting to avoid FOIA and subpoenas on her emails, I am sympathetic in broad strokes. I too would want to keep my PRIVATE and PERSONAL emails and other communications private. I believe strongly in the right to privacy and that is why I vehemently oppose NSA spying and corporate spying via metadata. Our private lives BELONG TO US ALONE. The difference between Hillary and I is in the nature of private communications. Unlike the Clintons, I am not a money grubbing greedy bastard who will lie, cheat, steal my way to wealthy. I have NO sympathy for anyone seeking to keep that crap secret and private. That said, if she’d been above board and simply had a private email for non-official communications and kept the official State Dept stuff on the official account, there would be nothing here. I served 20 years in the military. We kept official and confidential communication strictly on the official network and via the official email accounts. Personal use of the official email was discouraged and limited. You NEVER used your personal civilian email for official communications. Never never never. I can’t give her a pass on that because we in the military wouldn’t get a pass. We’d get an investigation and likely lose our security clearance (career ending that is).
I did not have security violations with that server…
when $hillary was out of town…
$he liked to watch…
because all is well in the garden…
so you go tell rafael that I aint takin’ no jive….
I too would want to keep my PRIVATE and PERSONAL emails and other communications private
…
if she’d been above board and simply had a private email for non-official communications and kept the official State Dept stuff on the official account, there would be nothing here.
Exactly. How hard can it be?
The work mail belongs to the workplace, we can basically expect that the PHB or the PFY in tech support will read through it and it will be stored forever. Same with web-traffic. “Work” may read, store and analyze it – so we visit naughty pages at home, strictly on our own time.
That is some of the reasons why we peons always use a private domain for private mail and the work email for work email. Another one is to limit the ownership of work and ideas to those that “work” actually does pay for.
Same here, Praedor!
I commented a day or two ago that when we were downrange, you risked your career putting so much as an USB into the computer.
Clinton chatted it up on her black berry straight from the offices of Special Ops Command!
I’m sympathetic to most of your argument, including your characterization of the Clinton’s obsession with personal gain. The Clinton Foundation is a money-making machine fueled by graft, pure and simple.
But it’s ironic that you criticize Bill for lying about personal affairs in one paragraph, which only happened because Ken Starr actively sought to violate his personal privacy, and state later that “our private lives belong to us alone.” The only reason I have a shred of sympathy for Bill is because Starr and his ilk trampled on his right to privacy. That judgment is shared by most Americans, as reflected in public polls.
And as for “we in the military wouldn’t get a pass” consider the by-the-book punishment of David Petraeus – which never happened. The military doesn’t have any special claim to legal fidelity or consequences. As always, the enforcement of laws in this country varies according to the power of the accused. That’s why Hillary isn’t and never will be in prison.
While generally sympathetic to LootersParadise’s argument, I would point out that when Bill Clinton was Commander-in-Chief, young military drill sergeants were being court martialed and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for consensual sex with female trainees. The legal premise was that the disparity in their rank and authority made any sexual relations “tantamount to rape”. Clinton’s behavior with a young intern was worse than bad judgement, it was predatory, and no military commander or drill sergeant would have been excused from such conduct with the argument it was merely a “personal affair”.
You keep your private business private by using separate equipment. 2 smartphones. 2 laptops. Tons of people in DC do this, starting with Congressional staffers and assistants to people in Federal agencies. This isn’t rocket science. She just wasn’t willing to bother.
Isn’t it also possible, though, that since her State business really was private business, in that she and Bill were working together to sell influence at State to enrich the “Foundation,” this wasn’t merely entitled laziness? Maybe they made the decision that the best way to limit the paper trail was to just send all State Department correspondence through the server and thus directly to Bill, making it harder to track and prove when they were explicitly collaborating. I can totally see them thinking this was quite clever.
Entitled also works, of course. I do think a big reason for the Blackberry is that she refused to allow the guy who “ought to be carrying her bags” to have a goody she didn’t have.
Apparently that one doesn’t fly either, from the horse’s mouth via Slate.
Money quote: “I’m like two steps short of a hoarder. So I have an iPad, a mini iPad, an iPhone and a Blackberry.”
The case can be made that the known hacking was of someone she had a correspondence with (troubling as that was) not of her server. While I don’t believe her server was secure, and I’m pretty damn sure the IG and the FBI don’t think it either, the public can still be spun on this. That is not the problem.
No, what has become crystal clear is that she didn’t have permission to set up her email this way, that the NSA and State did not sign off on it, that she was told that and because she didn’t want any public oversight of her actions she blew off federal regulations regarding FOIA and the collection of records for the State Department both in setting up the server itself AND in not supplying any documents not in government possession upon leaving office (not two years later). Because she did handle classified material on that email server, she did put herself in jeopardy legally – regardless of her intent and whether the material was hacked or not. And people who do have to follow Security guidelines or face dismissal, fines or worse are pissed as hell about it and are not going to let it go. So it can’t just be played off as a right wing conspiracy – no matter how much they try. These guys aren’t Judicial Watch, and their credentials are better than Podesta’s.
On the public level, except for the Clinton sycophants and tribal Dems who desperately want to believe this really is a nothing burger, what this means is that Clinton had no intention of allowing public oversight into her actions if she can avoid it by any means whatsoever, regulations and the law be damned. And that she does not consider herself a public employee even if she is one and being a public employee is where her power lies. Now those of us who distrust her and her husband and child just outright assume that this is because her real business is selling access to government and its monies or services to those with the funds to afford the Clintons. But most people are reacting to the sheer arrogance of the “law doesn’t apply to me” attitude and the lies about it so far. But the longer this stays around the more it will become ‘what DID she have to hide’.
So this tells me something different. It isn’t really about how big a threat Clinton is to the ‘Obama legacy’ and how terrified they are she is blowing this. Or rather has blown this since it stems from actions from seven years ago, although later choices have compounded it. No, this is about how much bigger a threat Sanders is to that legacy and how close her blowing this gets HIM to the nomination. Otherwise why is this about her getting the nomination. Her getting the nomination and then Obama getting out on the road and saving her butt only works if the threats from the investigation disappear BEFORE she gets the nomination officially. It really blows up while he is campaigning for her and his legacy is also blown.
Of course, this presupposes that he WILL get out there and campaign for her beyond a few cursory appearances. If the President is suddenly too busy to campaign, I will admit to being wrong and it is all about Clinton’s threat to him, even if I think a better strategic choice would be to find a way to torpedo her outright if that is the concern.
this may be one of the initial signs of the torpedo. “captain, it looks like something is moving toward us underwater”. he wasn’t required to broadcast his concerns like this. you make some excellent points. meanwhile, i’m successfully controlling my impulse to attempt to do a cartwheel. so far.
Pat — excellent analysis, thank you.
And Yves, great post. As you point out, the use of Bernstein as White House messenger — if true — makes that a pretty explosive little interview.
I note the lawyer twisting himself into knots trying to say that Hillary didn’t “lie” about the server.
– And that she does not consider herself a public employee even if she is one and being a public employee is where her power lies.
That may be the right twist that puts the optics in focus. Arrogance and petulance are tolerated in politics (‘he’s got a Blackberry, I want one!’) But the Clintons are cunning enough to not risk the appearance without reason. They need to be smarter than their customers, and just one bad email from a dunderhead could prove a quid pro quo link from the Clinton Foundation to the State Department.
Obama knows better than anyone her tendency to collapse. His campaign was ‘Change,’ and that she does not do.
“Getting her to the nomination” allows the D establishment, after she is forced to step down, to replace her with Biden/Warren or some other “anyone but Sanders” ticket with less trouble (party disunity, bad optics, turnout suppression) than if she implodes before the convention and the HRC delegates + superdelegates outright steal the nomination from Sanders.
IMO, it’s utterly impossible in this climate for anyone other than Sanders (or whoever Sanders signs off on, like Warren) to become nominee if HRC implodes.
I agree. The optics would be off the charts terrible for the party. They are in a rock and a hard place. I think their best non-Sanders bet (if they continue their double downs and selfish folly) is to stay with Clinton. If she implodes, so be it, have her impeached (if she wins) and be done with it. Pass as much of the responsibility off on her and what she did wrong. “The party did not know! We are victims!”
actually, the back-door candidate could be Warren. She endorsed neither, has clearly anti-WS policies, but is not as “radical” as Sanders. She would likely be acceptable to a number of Sanders people (incomparably much more so than HC), she’s woman (so still a first woman president message) etc.
She’s better debater than Sanders I believe (and incomparably better than HC), and could (assuming there are no bombs in her backyard) deal with Trump pretty well.
So, if the plan in Dem circles is to get past primaries and then shoot HC and fend off Sanders, I’d say Warren is about their only reasonable choice.
Warren is a threat to the courtesan class as much as Sanders. Saturday design and Warren threaten every Democrat who has ever said “the dopes would vote for for If they just understood how smart we were and had better messaging,” just by existing.
Warren is a very specific threat to WS. She’s a less of a generic threat than Sanders is – say look at her education proposals. If it looks to Dems like a choice between HC enabling Trump, Sanders changing the party entirely, or Warren as a compromise, they only reasonably safe bet is Warren. HC getting nomination and then losing to Trump kills the Dem party (as we know it) as well as Sanders would if he won. The difference is that one (Sanders) is a certainty, while the other (HC losing to Trump) is still just a probability. But one raising every day so far.
Coming up with somoene like Warren, even HC can look statesmanlike in pulling it off (say blaming it on bad health, but giving a chance to another woman), in exchange for a deal that Warren focuses on WS. Chances of Warren winning against Trump are very high, possibly higher that Sanders.
That said, I doubt this would happen.
But the question of the day is – are they smart enough to know this? All the chatter I hear from the beltway is that they don’t. That once the nomination is “decided”, Sanders will lose his clout and things go back to normal.
Whole thing hinges on Sanders’ concern for his reputation among the elite, and how much he buys the “Trump-means-the-end-of-civilization” garbage. His only leverage is his base, and frankly if he tries to make nice with the Dem establishment after she is nominated, he loses a lot of his cred with that base.
He’s going to get very little from them – at most, Warren as VP, which isn’t much. No way she gets to be Treasury Secretary, for instance. And why would they give Sanders anything? At bottom, the DNC types believe the left will have nowhere to go come November. Thus Sanders has one job: GIVE HIS BASE SOMEWHERE TO GO. Doesn’t matter if he only wins 8%, either as a Green or (far less likely) an independent. He’s got the invitation from Jill Stein sitting out there. Earn matching funds, raise tens of millions a year, and run candidates across the country in two years. In four years, mount strong outsider candidates for major offices including president.
But I don’t think Sanders has it in him. Too “constructive,” as Chuck Schumer called him.
Does Sanders try to make nice with the Dem establishment, or, as Bubba_Gump at 8:58am below writes, he’s too inflexible to make the right friends?
I still don’t know what he’s doing with the D establishment like Schumer.
Voters will vote him no matter where he goes.
Sanders will lose his clout and things go back to normal.
He won’t lose his list, and he now has more followers than any politician in America. He can run his project sitting in the Senate, using that list and his follower base to influence policy.
IMO. This is far from over.
GP
The Internet will save Bernie just like it was envisioned by DARPA in the dawn of the Nixonan Age, built to survive thermo-nuclear annihilation like the ClinTrumpocalypse.
I don’t think she’ll win (the presidency) even if she DOESN’T implode. She has no message. She’s banking on identity politics. That won’t work in a change election.
It’s just a question of degree. If she does get indicted, the Dems lose BIG under every possible scenario except Sanders. If she doesn’t, she still probably loses, but at least it won’t be a wipeout downballot.
Downballot the Democrats have already been wiped out, for 22 years running.
Republicans hold 31 governorships to the Democrats’ 18. Republicans hold 56% of all statehouse seats (Democrats 43%), and they control the lower house of 33 state legislatures (compared to 16 for the Democrats). It’s difficult to even view the Democrats as a party, but if they are, they certainly have no depth of talent.
Add a highly disliked business-as-usual politician to the top of the ticket in a “change” election? Democrats won’t have a prayer in the fall.
As one who believes Clinton ought to withdraw before inflicting or sustaining any more damage in the certain knowledge that her candidacy has been hopelessly compromised, I would argue that Sanders is the one candidate now able to pull other contests along with is own. Sanders could swing it from a Republican Congress literally impaled by a lethal lack of talent to a Dem Congress with new faces and new marching orders for long-entrenched types. He really could go all the way in my opinion.
The voice of reason, which is why the choice you suggest will be the very last one ever taken – we won’t see it. This isn’t merry ‘ol England, ok UK, where they still goof by letting votes get counted sometimes (Jeremy Corbyn).
The Democratic Party’s working priority list apparently putting control over the Party above winning elections, I imagine they are very interested in doing the “impossible”, if the benefits to the collaborative nexus of interest (i.e. the Party) of blocking Sanders — neoliberal “purity pledges” with other countries, State selling more Americans’ labor abroad like cheap cord wood, inducing despair among the left (a favorite of the Israeli wing of the Party, who sees leftists like unto Hamas) — to the Party outweigh the loss of one election or even the ballot line. With a post-Citizens United machine and its “non-coordinated” universe of nomenklatura, ready to pick right back up where it left off with a New (Improved) Democrat Party (Same Great Taste!) or somesuch, constituted specifically to exclude popular participation, it’s relatively cheap.
And obviously the reason for the all out push by the media and the Clinton campaign to have Sanders throw in the towel before the convention which, of course, reached fever pitch the same week the IG’s report came out.
This string of comments looks on target. I think this is the unstated reason why the primaries are STILL important.
If Bernie were to get swept on 6/7, he might fold. Every time he looks like he’s losing steam, he gets a string of rallies with 10s of thousands of people and realizes that he CANNOT stop. There’s too many people counting on him to save us from a Clinton/Trump nightmare.
If Bernie sweeps her on 6/7, the writing is on the wall at that point and she’ll look like she’s toast. FBI will get the green light and Dem elite will have to bite their tongues and deal with him.
My guess is that he wins 4/6 primaries on 6/7 and NM and NJ are losses, but somewhat closer than anticipated. Clinton will continue to act like it’s over and the FBI will continue to dither and the convention floor ends up being a fight (prob won by Clinton).
A key question is, “When do the rank and file FBI agents lose patience and start leaking bad details to the media?”
Or do FBI agents start resigning in protest at the dithering of their superiors.
Obama/Clinton may have the top brass at FBI and DOJ on board, but if the rank and file decide to mutiny, then they can’t save this sinking ship that is the SS Clinton!
You have to have tremendous admiration for Sanders to stick it out with what is obviously a physically and mentally grueling ordeal at the age of 74. I’m 65.
Of course both Trump and Hillary aren’t much behind him in age, but Sanders is doing it imho out of principle and ideals, as well as respect for the public that has backed him. He must think back to himself as a young man in the 60s, and realize that this is a chance he could only have dreamt of 50 yrs. ago, and just can’t turn his back on that.
Good observations. This has to be brutal, even for a veteran politician – particularly one who has kept scruples alive all these years.
If they do this, the Dems will lose in November. And badly. They won’t get more than a handful of Sanders voters after this kind of a backstab, and the party will be (rightfully) perceived as a bunch of clueless clowns who thought a potential criminal would make a suitable nominee. Independents will strongly swing to Trump.
The question is, do the Democrats care? I can easily see the Dem establishment taking one for the bipartisan consensus beltway team in order to keep Sanders out of the White House. They never did much to support Gore and Kerry in the wake of their questionable defeats — and both of them were much more harmless to the establishment than Sanders.
NSA did not give Hillary permission to use her own server? That is a known fact or surmised? Did she even run it by the NSA, other pertinent agencies?
Bcz, if I were in charge of the NSA I’d damn well make sure the agency knew exactly what she was doing with that server….
What would the e-mail address of a private server look like? Would it be apparent to anybody who encountered it to be something – say – non standard? But keep your mouth shut.
Well, her official email address as SecState would have ended in @state.gov. The address she actually used was @clintonemail.com. It was obvious to everyone what she was doing. If you work in the State Dept, do you question your boss over something like that? Maybe not, you might assume it was cleared somehow. It looks like IT and Security people were appalled.
hdr22@clintonemail.com
The IG report found no evidence she had permission from anyone to use her own email server nor any record of her even asking for permission. Which contradicts statements she made elsewhere.
Has Clinton ever actually said that the State Department allowed her to have a private server at home and that everyone knew about it? What I’ve heard her say, and what I took away from the little bit of the Mills deposition that I’ve read so far, is that the State Department knew she had her own email account; that use of a personal email account was allowed, and that others before her also did it, most notably Colin Powell.
Anyone can buy a domain using their last name plus “email.com,” or whatever variation thereof is available. However, most people (presumably) use a hosting service. It seems obvious to me that there’s a huge difference between having a personal email account and storing said email on a server in your basement, but Clinton appears to have succeeded in conflating the two in the public’s mind. Her supporters certainly seem satisfied, particularly since she has apologized and openly admitted to a lapse in judgment. I’m not a techie, so maybe I’m meowing up the wrong telephone pole. Tech people here, what’s your take?
If I’m right about the distinction and what they’ve actually said, Clinton and Mills could well be telling the truth that many people at DOS knew she was using private email, and that it was allowed, even for official government business. It’s unlikely that her clintonemail.com address raised many eyebrows, even among those who noticed – and many might not have, because once her address was in their contact list, the extension probably wasn’t displayed. The big exception was at the very beginning, when her clintonemail address was getting stuck in DOS spam filters and had to be put on a safe sender list, or something to that effect.
Of those who noticed she wasn’t using a .gov address, how many would have thought about the server she was using, and how many of those would have imagined that her office hadn’t gone through proper security procedures? It’s quite plausible that the only people knowledgeable enough to be concerned were the IT security people, and when a couple of them eventually did raise questions, they were told to keep quiet about it.
Pat
June 1, 2016 at 7:06 am
Nicely said!
‘what DID she have to hide’.
At some point, some of the substance of what was hidden will be revealed – it is terribly hard to believe that it will be that she donated a kidney to a Syrian refugee….(Oh look, she looks sickly because she is SOOOOO Noble!!!)
The problem is that the “Clinton sycophants and tribal Dems” are a large part of the Democrat base and an even larger part of the Democrat establishment.
I don’t see how they get talked off the ledge (absent Clinton “discovering” new medical problems (or even Bill, maybe)).
Not mentioned in this item, but relevant to Obama’s legacy, is that he left the State Dept IG post unfilled by a permanent appointment throughout HRC’s tenure as Secy State. The acting IG was a career State Dept official, and did not rock HRC’s boat. Obama is implicated in HRC’s misdeeds in the sense that he left the barn door open for her. There’s a sense in which the HRC email scandal may become part of Obama’s legacy, whatever he does now. As Yves sometimes puts it, this has been an unnecessary “own goal”.
Interesting! good catch.
Are you sure it wasn’t hillary who, as head of state dept., was tasked with appointing an IG?
I think you’re right.
That raises another question – conflict of interest for her (any future secretary) to make that appointment.
A third question is if there is a time limit to have the office filled. Otherwise, the way to get around it is to delay and run the clock out.
No. The IG’s of major agencies are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Here is an interesting article which hints that using acting-IG’s makes them less independent and is being done intentionally by the Obama Administration. They have the longest vacancies of any recent President.
http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2015/06/senators-obama-fill-inspector-general-vacancies/114412/
thanks for that, here’s a tidbit, I notice the ex-im bank and international development are (not likely there’s any double dealing going on there, no, nothing to see here as long as you don’t look) unmanned, among others
“Currently, said Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department IG who chairs the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, IG slots are vacant at seven major agencies: Interior, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Veterans Affairs Department, the General Services Administration, the Export-Import Bank and the CIA. All but the CIA’s have been empty a year or more, he said, and the Obama administration has submitted nominations for only three.”
and also this
“{“When IG positions remain unfilled, their offices are run by acting IGs who, no matter how qualified or well-intentioned, are not granted the same protections afforded to Senate-confirmed IGs,” said Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “They are not truly independent, as they can be removed by the agency at any time; they are only temporary and do not drive office policy; and they are at greater risk of compromising their work to appease the agency or the president.”}”
Are you sure that he didn’t nominate anyone, or did the Senate just refuse to give them a hearing, as in the SC situation now?
I browsed through the Cheryl Mills deposition yesterday (which was mainly the lawyers arguing about the scope of the discussion it seemed) and some of the coverage today. It seems that Mills claimed that HRC’s use of the private email was not kept secret and lots of Admin officials knew about it. (Note that people had to make a special request to be able to use her email.) But Obama claimed he only learned of it “like the rest of you, in the news reports”. So Obama and Hillary never emailed each other while she was SoS?
I don’t find it surprising that they did not communicate directly. Plausible deniability. What we have is a career civil servant intent on influence peddling and a figurehead interested only in legacy burnishing. They are a perfect fit … as long as they stay out of each others way.
To your last comment: I suspect not. They never were chummy esp. after all the heat of the campaign: “You’re likeable enough, Hillary”. Obama has plenty of staff to wrangle correspondence for that, and his aides being middle-persons (and likely being of a generation that put a lot more trust in technology at the time) likely didn’t think that hard about it…
They never were chummy esp. after all the heat of the campaign: “You’re likeable enough, Hillary”. Is there any confirmation of that besides rumors?
It was reported last January that there were eighteen emails between Clinton and Obama that State was not going to release for security reasons. So yes, they did email each other. It would be interesting to know what security instructions Obama received regarding using his email. Did anyone ever caution him to check the sender’s email address as a caution against phishing? Her email address was clintonemail dot com. Even a technical neophyte has to know that means either she or some other entity was hosting the site; and, if a separate entity, did that entity have security clearance for handling those emails? Obama knew darn well that she was using an unsecure system. He is equally guilty of enabling her risk-taking.
Maybe the FBI can investigate just how many people have mishandled classified information.
10,000 government workers?
100,000?
If one can be in trouble for taking a selfie before a classified equipment, that one wasn’t aware so (as fajensen wrote above), can one be in trouble for opening a letter, a disk or a laptop (mistakenly delivered or left behind) containing classified information?
Within the perimeter of a secure environment, you bet you can!
Any paper, CD, computer, phone, …. left alone in the open is already a violation. At the place I consulted at, there are prominent red+white background with the 3-digit number to call for security in *all* cases. Everything has to be locked away, even if one is going for coffee or toilet, one must leave all electronics at the gate. “No mistakes are possible, only conspiracies” the thinking goes.
If one picks any abandoned device / media up, well, it’s kind of the same situation as when you find a gun on a park bench: Pick it up “for safety”, but now your finger-prints are all over it. And now the police shows up because someone reported the gun …
The very minimum price is a really tedious debriefing by security and punitive training from HR in the handling of classified material. Maybe some Gender Diversity or Cultural Awareness on top because you cursed at the debriefing.
Maximum … about 30 years.
Outside the classified zone, it’s easier.
If you find an unsecured laptop or briefcase that – per long-standing British security tradition – was left on the London Tube, you are probably not in trouble, you can even hand it over to The Daily Mail or whatever for a “reward” since the HMG doesn’t pay any. Don’t sell it on eBay though. China and Russia may buy and then … it’s espionage.
I had the exact same thought. How do the POTUS and SOS not have any record of electronic communication between them, zero?
For important stuff, they use “The Cone of Silence”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1eUIK9CihA
“because her real business is selling access to government and its monies or services to those with the funds to afford the Clintons. But most people are reacting to the sheer arrogance of the “law doesn’t apply to me” attitude and the lies about it so far. But the longer this stays around the more it will become ‘what DID she have to hide’.”
Good point. Proceedeing to conduct the public’s business in private is the smoke. Many suspect the donations to the Clinton foundation by various entities with business beefier the state dept, could be the fire…
That’s it. A point being skirted by just about everyone in the MSM. Smoke here, smoke there, and a black hole in the middle.
They (DOJ) don’t have to charge/indict her with anything to Hindenburg her campaign. RICO the Foundation and it’s over.
I’ll bet that’s why the FBI is taking so long- the email investigation has spread to the Foundation. The media isn’t going there and the FBI had already leaked that they are looking into it.
The “real business” of the Corporatist Dems is –ta dah!– creating more wealth for the Big Whatevers and making sure they donate enough of their wealth to get the right Corporatist Dems elected. And, of course, making sure that those who serve the Big Corporations and Big Whatevers well are granted true wealth once out of office.
And with more wealth comes even more power
it is stunning how very wealthy (as far as we know) the Clintons have become in such a short time. But it somewhat stunning how very wealthy Corporatist Dems in general become….
Here is a liberal publication clearly suggesting this same point last year:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/hillary-clinton-foundation-state-arms-deals
The public doesn’t do nuance; it requires in-your-face visuals: “little girl + the daisy, Willie Horton, blue dress.”
I wonder what the reaction would be to a montage, with the caption, “I would never let campaign contributions influence my decisions.”
First, Hillary collecting $675,000+ for a couple of Goldman speeches……..”They offered it”………cackle.
Then, Bill, with a photo of the “Lolita Express” flying overhead (poetic license:)
Repeatedly requesting permission from State to travel to Africa to meet with Joseph Kabila, the murderous Dictator of the poorest country on earth, the Republic of Congo. The butcher had offered Clinton $650,000 to give a short talk, and have his picture taken with the Ex-President. The request was so outrageous it was, of course, summarily turned down. Not to be deterred so easily, the Big Dog persisted, telling an aide to try again, this time making sure the decision maker at State knew it was B.C. personally making the request. Turned down again, Willie shifted gears, “what if the fee was paid to the Foundation (or, GCI, not sure,) and not directly to me?”
We should be thankful intermediaries had the good sense to , diplomatically, tell Bill to, basically, get-the-F- outta here with this request. But, naturally, it’s the optic of this Ex-President even requesting such an inappropriate meeting that, so perfectly, illustrates how far down the sleaze ladder the Clintons have descended.
Oh, you can toss in that, “we came, we saw, he died”……….. extended cackle video for good measure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y
Considering that Obama sees Clinton as part of his legacy, I think there will be some limit to how far he (his people) will go to protect her. A thoroughly tainted Hillary doesn’t serve his interest. I read the Bernstein statements as first step away from HRC, and not a tiny one either. “… no longer 100% sure of …” implies “we don’t guarantee it”.
And the Obama and Clinton teams never warmed to each other, even during her tenure at SoS. (Team) Obama is certainly upset about the prospect of a Clinton failure, but they’re not shedding any tears.
The first step may have been his ‘jokes’ at the WH correspondents’ dinner.
What I don’t really get is the motivation for allowing stories like this to leak out, if its not to undermine Clinton?
The way I see it, if Obama was truly, deeply invested in Clinton winning (and I’d be surprised at that, given that we know he doesn’t really like her), he would be working hard behind the scenes to shore her up. Get her over the finishing line of the convention, and then deal with things after that as they arise. This sort of leak can only weaken her significantly and maybe even encourage a few superdelegates to start thinking Sanders is a safer option.
The only motivation I can think is to lay the groundwork for a coup against her (and, by definition, Sanders). I’m no expert on internal Dem rules and what is possible legally, but it always seemed to me that the logical and route for Obama to preserve his legacy and ensure a Dem win is to make private calls to senior Dems and say ‘trust me, I’ve seen the legal documents, Clinton is finished, I know she can’t get out of this’, and then parlay a face saving climbdown (glass of whiskey, gun, private room, medical cert) for Clinton in order to put forward a ‘safe’ ticket at the convention (Kerry/Biden?). Is it possible for her to transfer her elected delegates to AN Other?
well, that would likely tear the party apart. i think they would rather trump win than sanders, but imposing biden/kerry or some such is a risky strategy in the present environment. i think the natural impulse of these people is to be risk averse, and in their bubble they might not be able to gauge the risk.
I don’t think it would tear the party apart, it would just upset the Dem consultants and vendors. Sanders reliance on small donations completely upsets their economic model, which is based on a revenue stream from big donors. Big donors aren’t interested in supporting populist goals, ergo populist goals are not money-makers.
On the other hand, a Sanders general candidacy would expose all the Hillary supporters currently making the “party loyalty” and “not another Nader” arguments to be completely specious if they didn’t pitch in. Some might have the stomach for that, but most are herd followers to begin with. And the threat of Trump is completely real, regardless (unless the Reps manage to pull a fast one at their convention… which would completely sever that last leg Clinton is standing on).
Not to mention a Sanders win would render the DNC, their networks, their influence, and yes, their ability to fundraise, irrelevant.
They would no longer be gatekeepers. They would not be necessary for a candidate to win.
Someone else put it best. The DNC does not fear that Sanders will lose. They fear Sanders winning.
Exactly this. Like vampires, the DNC must find a way to cannibalize the energy of Sanders’ supporters in order to re-invogorate a moribund Party, while not losing influence over it.
But the two fundraising models cannot live comfortably in one party for long, certainly not if the corp/elite funding continues to determine the Party’s direction.
Sanders is risking a historic misstep in staying within the Party too long. He’s right to stay so long as Clinton is capable of imploding, but the moment he’s pressured to go full sheepdog in support of Clinton, he has to step away and use the funding structure to build a truly left/populist party.
I doubt he will. He wants her to win instead of Trump, and the DNC types will outmaneuver him because of this. I fear all of the concessions he wins in exchange for his cherished email list will be for nothing once the real game begins.
Ah yes. The ultimate snatch of defeat from the jaws of victory. The Dems have always been performance artists extraordinaire.
Not to forget. “The Blob” doesn’t like Sanders.
Is it really a risk of tearing the party apart? If managed right, it could be sold as a ‘unifying’ move to heal the wounds of the nomination process, etc., etc. Especially if a genuine left winger was added as vice prez. The leadership is risk averse, but they can also be ruthless, and they may see the risk of a catastrophic Clinton meltdown as a greater risk.
DNC is desperately hoping for a knockout blow on 6/7. Wins in states like CA for Sanders would only rile up his supporters even more.
If they dare to push a Biden/Kerry ticket, it’s going to been seen as a “coup”. Tensions are already visibly raised after the NV debacle. DNC tried playing hardball and smearing him and his supporters and he didn’t fold. It seems like the Dem elite might be backing off on these tactics.
A Biden/Kerry ticket would really escalate things and probably make Sanders bolt to the Green Party for the general election. Under those circumstances, he’d bring a TON of voters with him. He’d even bring Clinton sympathizers that don’t like the DNC’s bait-and-switch tactics.
They need Sanders to fade away and fall in line. Every state he wins, every rally with 10s of thousands showing up make it harder and harder to make that happen.
Given that the mood of the electorate both left and rightwing is “anti-establishment”, I don’t see why on earth the Dems would choose Biden/Kerry… how much more establishment could one get?
At least offer Warren (and get the “first female president” too boot) and throw Sanders a bone — he’s too old for VP but could have a cabinet post. Or Senate Majority Leader? (That is probably too critical a post for the Schumer/Feinstein axis though.)
There is no genuine left winger to put on as VP. Or rather, they would NEVER put a real left winger in, given Clinton’s possible impeachment or death.
Now that Elizabeth Warren is being a good girl and playing footsie with Schumer, I can see them thinking putting her in as VP would work well enough. I don’t think so (in my neck of the progressive woods, there seems to be a general understanding that she sold out), but more importantly, I can’t imagine Hillary stepping away only to see Liz moved in.
Their smartest real play would be to let Bernie have the nom and bide their time, hoping they can work in the background with Republicans to taint and undermine him. But I suspect that they’re exactly smart enough to know that probably wouldn’t work.
Exactly right! In their bubble, in their world where they manufacture their own reality, can they gauge risk? I highly doubt it. The establishment needs an establishment candidate. That’s why Sanders will never get the nomination. Given the freak out on the republican side just over speculating stealing the nomination from Trump, I think it comical anyone could believe the democrats could airlift Biden in and get away with it. Such an act would simply be establishment desperation – the only Plan B they could come up with.
Given the vote rigging Sanders supporters believe has been going on, I doubt any will vote for Clinton. How many would vote Trump and how many would sit out is open for speculation. However give the nomination to Biden and i think you’re guaranteeing a landslide of Sanders supporters pinching their noses and voting Trump. They’d be just angry enough.
Clinton or Biden? it doesn’t matter as Trump wins in a rout. Sanders would be a close call but he’ll never get the nomination. The establishment must have skin in the game until they finally get what they deserve in November.
I’ll also add that i’m not holding my breath that Trump is the instant panacea to save America. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see him cutting deals like crazy with the establishment behind the scenes or after elected. He won’t need the unwashed masses after November. Doesn’t mean he does that and even if he cuts some deals he’ll still do more good than any establishment candidate. More and more American voters see him as the only non-establishment option. It’s never really been about Trump. It’s about American voters lashing out at the elites. Trump was simply clever enough to present himself as the great non-professional politician for people to turn to.
People keep saying this about Sanders voters but I know five (three in my family) who will without fail vote for Clinton over Trump because they hate Trump, see him as a bigot and a fool, and expect Clinton to be Obama’s third term, which they can live with.
I don’t agree with them, but this endlessly repeated meme that Sanders voters will NEVER vote for Clinton is, I think, wishful thinking.
Guilty as charged! Wishful thinking indeed. Guess I can’t condemn those for thinking an Obama like 3rd term would be a better result. I suppose any kind of thinking falls flat when confronted with the people who live in a highly materialistic and superficial society. Trump optics are very unPresidential and that counts for a great deal in a society(not just the US) that has been conditioned to rever the president of the USA.
Won’t even touch on the Left and the Culture War because I’ve made that point previously.
my rich friends (lifetime republicans included) will vote for hillary, my poor friends won’t. The PTB have created more poor people tha they have wealthy so the numbers won’t work for hillary unless a lot of republicans vote for her, which is not a stretch because she is a republican. But since we talk about nader costing gore (really it was dinos for bush) by taking 500 odd votes the sanders deserters (including me, i will not vote for hillary under any circumstances, and not because I think trump is good in any way, hillary is worse IMO) will exact their revenge even as their more comfortable peers who have and continue to benefit from the rigged game go for hillary. We really have no idea how this will pan out. So yes, some sanders supporters will be badgered into clinton, but I think that’s a small percentage, people inclined to support hillary already support her, most of sanders voters are the castaways. Sorry, can’t go along with the endless drone strikes of the 5th term of GWB. Hillary is not the peace candidate.
Clinton voters – those not in the establishment, that is – seem to be the silent type.
You don’t see them here or hear them on radio often (just yesterday, on the local public radio, almost all the callers were for Sanders – it made me wonder if Hillary would lose 0 to 100 in the upcoming California primary).
Clinton voters are the small amount type.
She has only “won,” even in the states she did did “win,” by massively suppressing the vote. She hasn’t even held onto her own voters from 2008, even in conservative states. Her “big wins” in the South were with much smaller numbers of votes cast.
There are people who genuinely want to vote for her. They were not enough to win the Democratic primary without massive suppression AND theft.
Some will, some won’t. How many is to be decided.
If Sanders gives his list to the Democrats, I will certainly vote for Trump. I would rather have Götterdämmerung immediately, then have it play out.
The problem for Hillary is there is no indication the email scandal narrative will ever improve to the point of improving her untrustworthy numbers. The best she can hope for is the FBI stating it will not recommend an indictment which will merely confirm the public’s correct perception that the power elite are treated better than the rank and file. Hillary cannot unring the Inspector General’s conclusion she circumvented FOIA and federal record keeping laws. She cannot undue the fact she maintained thousands of classified records, along with 22 top secret documents on the private server. She cannot change the fact she hid her use of the private server from the public and only disclosed it when caught by the Senate Committee investigating Benghazi. Everyone who pays attention to the facts is disgusted by her misconduct in this matter.
Loyal Hillary supporters are the only ones willing to buy into the unbelievable rationales floated the past year. For the rest of us, everything we learn merely confirms what we previously thought. That Hillary cannot be trusted, wants to avoid public scrutiny and believes she is above the law. Everything we learn about the email scandal is much worse than initially portrayed by Hillary.
As the article states–this is all on Hillary who for over 1,200 days intentionally used a private email basement server despite being told not to do so. She had numerous opportunities to right her wrongs, but insisted on doing what she wanted to do because that is always how the Clintons operate. There is no way Hillary, Bill and her team of misfits should be allowed within a hundred miles of the oval office. Sadly, Donald will win if Hillary remains the Democrats candidate of choice.
I believe we can plainly chart the “decay path” (lovely phrase BTW), of Hillary Clinton’s failed attempts to secure the highest office of the land just by looking at pictures of Monica Lewinsky from 1998 until today.
The true decay path would have been the trajectory Bill Clinton’s baggage would have taken, from the White House to the South Lawn, had Hillary Clinton thrown the bum out in 1998.
I have always been confused by which woman Bill Clinton was lying straight faced about when the then President of the United States declared before the whole world: “I did not have sex with that woman.”
At the time of the scandal, Hillary Clinton was First Lady of the United States of America, the most powerful women in the free world. Imagine what her standing-up for women everywhere would have had, let alone upon the current states of “family values” (so-called)? Imagine the affect her standing up for herself would have had upon the women of the world?
Instead she used her power to play the “little woman,” when she could have assured herself two (2) terms as President of the United States, even guaranteed herself the title of being the first Empress of the United States of America if she had wanted.
As it stands, Bill Clinton’s legacy is not how he ruined one woman, but two (2).
I’m sorry, mate. I have to disagree.
Who Mr Clinton shags is his business and his wife’s*. Hillary came out smelling like roses. She got sympathy as devoted wife whose hubby screwed around and, in my view, damn near universal understanding for her decision to honour her marriage by staying with her hubby.
I think her problem is that, in routing official traffic through a private mail server, she’s tried to avoid records of her work (as a public official!) ever becoming available to the public. It looks, at the very least, like she’s trying to hide something and it’s a demonstration of breathtaking contempt for the very people whose votes she’s now asking for.
That the Democrat brains trust knew all this and still decided to try and coronate her leads me to suspect that they’ve become completely divorced from reality. Any halfway credible candidate would trample over whoever the R’s pick.
* How classy, not to mention politically astute, would it have been if the R’s could have kept their frothing to themselves and made a single public statement along those lines and got on with the business of serving their constituents.
If he shagged under the legal age limit girls, traveled on a jet which was used in slave trade of underage girls, etc; then it isn’t just his business, it’s a criminal matter. If Mrs. Clinton enabled, and/or aided and abetted, then she could be facing criminal charges.
The interesting thing is Jeffery Epstein has hidden cameras on both his plane and all over the US Virgin Island private pedophile reserve he ran for politicians and high level government officials.The overseas press is reporting he blackmailed his way out of Federal Charges. Was Bill part of that blackmail?
Only if his private business remains private.
In a word, no.
Bill is as sexual predator. His affair with Jennifer Flower was consensual. But starting from when he was Governor, there is a long list of credible allegations of him engaging in sexual harassment (extremely aggressive come-ons with women he had just met, often women who were state employees or Dem consultatnts), including a rape allegation by Juanita Brodderick. We’ve even had a reader in comments say that when Bill Clinton visited a friend, he asked their college aged daughter when he was alone with her if she wanted to ride in his car and give him a blow job. DC contacts confirm the city is rife with stories like that.
> Hillary Clinton was First Lady of the United States of America, the most powerful women in the free world
Most powerful woman in the world? Somebody’s wife? Lord I hope not. Surely there was a female head of state or a Supreme Court Justice or something with better claim.
Clinton’s… poster children for Flexians…
Disheveled Marsupial… at least the loon pond and wing nutters are open about their insanity… something about the inelasticity of beliefs…
If there were an equal rule of law in this country, we would not even be discussing this issue as Clinton would have already been indicted by now. The recent Wikileaks release shows exactly how complicit Clinton is, was, and will always be, a truly evil human being.
As strange a thing as this is to say, I find myself wishing that more journalists had experience in IT security. I do have such experience, and from what I can see most people really don’t appreciate just how totally, ludicrously irresponsible it is for that server to exist. Talk of it having been “secured” by some lone IT contractor is ridiculous on its face. I wouldn’t run a homebrew email server, and I am basically not worth hacking – very much unlike the US Secretary of State.
Seriously, think about it. The Secretary of State had a private email server which seems to have been widely known about within the State Department and other people in government who had dealings with Hillary Clinton. There’s really no question as to if that thing was hacked – you can absolutely bet your ass that multiple foreign intelligence services have been in and out of that thing.
That’s what’s really galling to me – even by Hillary’s own stated standards, what she did with her email is orders of magnitude worse than what Snowden did. But it’s Hillary Clinton, so it gets handwaved by the Democrats’ long practice at assuming a Clinton scandal is overblown nonsense.
To be fair, a large number of Clinton scandals have been overblown nonsense…I think Democrats have gotten so used to fighting off those attacks, that they just assume the same when something real pops up.
As for the irresponsibility of maintaining that homebrew server, I’ve tried to explain on other forums how it was actually worse than getting it through a commercial provider, or even what Powell did. The responses were usually along the lines of “it wasn’t hacked.” Sigh.
Agreed. But that’s the thing. These events aren’t about the substantive IT issues. They’re just part of concentration of wealth and power; the authoritarians in both major parties are control freaks who work together in bipartisan cooperation. Laws are for the little people. The ruling class is above the law. The role of the media is to enforce this system, not challenge it.
That’s why people like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, Joe Wilson, and so forth are persecuted by the government while people like Clinton (and Petraeus, Novack, Libby, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Biden, etc.) are protected. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of events.
Just as one example, here’s the ‘ole Gray Lady serving as dutiful stenographer for Nancy Pelosi herself, the Democratic Speaker from San Francisco, supposedly one of the most liberal parts of the entire country, explaining that the law doesn’t apply to people in power.
Agreed. I’ve worked in IT and software development for years and agree that her provision of that server doesn’t meet the most basic requirements for security. Also, I work for a rather large company with a sizable federal contract and, if you haven’t contracted with the government, you can only imagine the levels of security they impose upon their vendors. Two-factor authentication, encryption at rest, kernel hardening and on and on. Not only do you HAVE to do these things if you want to do business with the government, they bring in teams of their IT people to audit you. And it is not perfunctory in any way. They take InfoSec very, very seriously.
Rule no 1 of security: a system is only as secure as its weakest link. Imagine how anyone who abides by the strict security requirements necessary to work in or for government feels when learning about Clinton’s cavalier disregard for the law? Her arrogant refusal to play by the same rules as the people she is supposed to lead? In fact, her behavior put the entire system and people’s lives at risk.
She fails the most basic test of genuine leadership. Yet another important example of why she is unfit to be president.
The Clintons certainly do have a habit of pushing into that gray area between what is legal and what is acceptable.
It’s not the lack of IT security experience that’s keeping journalists from writing about it more critically.
Chuck Todd, of all people, gets this right (paraphrasing): “When I think of convenience, I don’t think of running an email server in my house.”
Even a WiFi router is too much…
Good article. The IG’s report was the crack in the dam and I believe soon the whole sordid mess that Clinton has created for herself will come flooding through. I think Bernstein’s messaging was to the Democratic party as a whole that its time to pursue other avenues. And there are other rumblings as well. Yesterday in the WSJ was this op-ed which made many of the same points that were made here, as well as discusses the fallout if Clinton loses the California primary. I also think that the Dems are not only just worried about the nomination now. The IG’s report clears a path for hearings by the Republicans against Clinton after the election.
What pisses me off to no end is the fact that the party and media are unwilling to pivot to Sanders. He could win the general, perhaps more easily that HRC. But Sanders is also to blame on this for being so completely inflexible that he can’t make the right friends.
That is a positive for him generally though. These people don’t want “friends” they want others who are willing to play ball. Sanders says GTFO, enough is enough.
The truth was never going to sit well with these selfish fools and their sycophants.
I agree. Sanders has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by “making nice” with the Dem establishment. Why make nice with them? They are the problem, not the solution. That’s a mainstay of Sanders’ campaign.
Sanders is the ranking member on the budget committee and has been the chair of the veterans affairs committee. Those are plum jobs which demonstrates the Democratic Party is not a political party by any normal standard because you don’t give the best jobs to people outside the party unless you need to.
The Clinton fanaticism isn’t about Sanders. They believe they need Clinton. An active DoJ might be a threat. A few have backwards ideas about politics. Some simply did the believe Sanders when he said Hillary was weak, but with a Gabbard in play, many Democrats can kiss their ambitions good bye if Sanders wins.
I’ve said it elsewhere: Sanders is unacceptable to the DNC because a Sanders win would render the DNC networks, influence and fundraising abilities irrelevant overnight. The DNC would no longer be gatekeepers. You can win without them.
Thus, Team D does not fear a Sanders defeat, and they can live with President Trump. In fact, that would represent an unprecedented fundraising opportunity.
But from the Team D perspective, a Sanders victory must be prevented at all costs.
How the hell could Sanders “make friends” with members of the Democratic Party elite? He is blowing up their revolving-door-greasing funding model. Running as effectively as he has with almost no lobbyist money? No major corporate donors to speak of? What can he offer them, except unpleasant changes that negatively impact their careers?
Depends on whom one includes in the elite, and what one means by negatively. Are the super delegates who aspire to be on the ticket in November running for their own amusement? If so, I suppose they don’t care whether they ride on Sanders coat tails or sail off the cliff on whomever the elite deem the nominee should be. Would you rather be the Senate minority leader, or the Senate majority leader. House minority leader, or speaker of the house? I have no idea where the power lies here, but I admit that am curious about Pelosi’s non stance, and Reid’s pivot, with almost unseemly hast, from saying Sanders needed to get in line, to that he would be more powerful when he returned to the senate, to saying: “hands off.” And sandwiched in between saying no way in hell would he tolerate a senate vp coming from a state with a Republican governor. Assuming he has any actual say in the matter, that would torpedo the preferred sop to the Sandernistas: Warren. Reid is of course gone either way, but Schumer is next in line is he not? What do I know, but it’s entertaining to speculate.
When Carl Bernstein opens with, “The implications of all of this are that Hillary Clinton did not want her emails subjected to the Freedom of Information Act or subpoenas from Congress. And that’s why she set up a home-brew server” he is only telling half the truth, and is framing the conversation around her supposedly innocent desire for a little privacy. Pretty good lying, Carl.
But this is definitely putting a lot of spin on the ball, because the other half of the story is the reason WHY she wanted to avoid FOIA and Congressional scrutiny. The answer is: so that between her and Bill she could sell her office to the highest bidders, which the FBI is quite prepared to prove, or if denied that chance, to “leak like crazy” to the media. Good Lord, the FBI is even considering treating the Clinton Foundation as a Racketeering Influenced Criminal Organization. There’s no chance this is going to just go away.
Given this likelihood of the full story going public in any case, given the completely independent Judicial Watch investigation, and given that the Russian media actually printed Clinton emails in their newspapers back in 2013 — and claim to have 20,000 of her emails in hand that they can release at any time — there’s no practical path for the White House or DNC to stonewall or to clamp a lid on this affair, and roll Hillary across the finish line to the nomination on a hospital gurney if that’s what it takes.
The same problem exists with pardoning her prior to prosecution — it won’t silence FBI leaks, or the Russians, or Judicial Watch, or whomever else wishes to leak the full truth to the morning papers. The public will be fed a steady discovery of exactly what Obama’s unconditional pardon actually covered. It will be a magical expanding pardon — starting out as a balloon but growing within months to the size of the Hindenburg before burning to the ground along with Obama’s legacy.
As to what the White House knows that they aren’t leaking — that would be the devastating damage Hillary’s loss of state secrets has done, none of which can ever be shared with the public. If covert CIA operations have been ruined, if agents have been exposed, arrested or killed, if someone’s name has gone up on that wall of heroes in the CIA lobby because of Hillary Clinton, the CIA will not forgive, ever. Nor will they tolerate letting her gain the Oval Office, where she can hire, fire and otherwise direct them. The NSA is known to be well aware of her public corruption of the SoS office, and of the wholesale money-laundering of the Clinton Foundation, which Charles Ortel is now meticulously publishing in the form of PDF files covering every separate arena of corruption ongoing over there. They don’t want her as their boss, either. Steps can be taken to prevent that from happening, with no risk of exposure.
Hillary’s got no way out of her legal troubles other than suddenly checking into a hospital and being declared terminal. Everyone will hold off, at that point. Until she fails to pass away by the weekend, at which point her legal nightmare resumes its course. So no, she’s got no way out of what’s coming, and no actual path to the White House.
All of which leaves the Democratic Party with only two options:
a) get her nominated at the Convention even if it’s by just one vote, but hand pick her VP for her so that person can be the real candidate when she drops out well before November. Problem: Hillary has spent several years scorching the earth for other Dem candidates. Nobody has any organization or resume to suddenly step into her shoes and expect anyone to vote for them in November. If Kerry is their only choice, please don’t bother.
b) induce Hillary to drop out before the Convention, and let the Convention be brokered. Don’t elect Bernie Sanders on the first round, and after that you’re home free — keep voting, round after round, until delegates finally accept your Hillary replacement which isn’t Bernie Sanders. Oh, it will be a raucous, riotous event, but it’s all above board, and by the rules. Caution: this course of action carries a high risk of nominating Bernie Sanders.
Just speculation, but by keeping quiet the NSA/CIA/FBI could be “investing” in blackmail futures. The ghost of J. Edgar may still be lurking somewhere in D.C.
If it is, it’s wearing a dress . . . he was fond of floral prints over tight girdles.
The Clinton Foundation, which controls billions in an opaque labrynth structure and funded by war profiteers, crass political operatives and those with corrupt cynical motives, functions like the treasury for a supra national shadow regime.
When this story finally unravels, and it will, it will make WaterGate, IranGate look like a kiddy party.
I am inclined to agree. Even the mere mention of RICO might mean the FBI is stalking bigger game – the Clinton Foundation? The Democratic Party itself?
The Libya correspondence between Blumenthal, a Clinton Foundation employee who also representes a security firm evidently poised to be contracted there and HC is an example.
Given all these wheeling and dealing interscections between SOS Hillary and the Clinton Foundation’s unwholesome donors
and the extraordinary lenghts to privatize correspondence (and not fully turn over Blumenthal’s hacked emails to her) there is no other way to reasonably explain the stunning depths.
Especially given HC’s interventions have resulted in lawless no man’s lands…… hugely profitable for donor defense contractors or those poised to acquire resources, weaponry (Lybia).
Cheney et al. got away with the no-bid ultra-corrupt Haliburton contracts in Iraq, so there is a precedent for this kind of naked thieving going unpunished.
The many examples of gross corrupt war profiteering facilitated by high office holders going unpunished or rewarded must be emboldening.
But in my view, setting up a foundation with opaque accounting and trotting around the world soliciting huge donations while SOS with a private server outside government channels and FOIA is a new level of organized criminal archetecture.
Rewarded or unpunished war profiteering facilitated by high office holders must be emboldening.
But in my view, setting up a foundation with opaque accounting then soliciting huge donations from donors specializing in political upheaval and military conflict while globe trotting as SOS using a private server outside of government channels to circumvent FOIA is a new level of criminal and is essentially a Clinton Foundation serving as treasury at the helm, with presumed HC POTUS subversively enforcing a shadow supra national archetecture.
To Code Name D – One can watch a program on Netflix about Hayden and the CIA realizing it has gone too far. What may you ask? Well well has the country done since JFK? Selling out to
the bankers affects intelligence too. It just takes awhile for our species to wake up.
And despite the self admitted overeach directed by corrupt politicians I do not find wasting (literally as in the slang term of the word) funny. This is an issue I have with bombadier Kissinger. Energy policies and struggles matter. But Clinton always would say “well that policy is ten years away” regarding energy policy. So when the Russians play a hot card (but overplayed its hand) because the West in its corruption didnt move faster, lets blame Russia.
These are the kinds of things that kill and cause increased casualties in intelligence. Think nobody woud notice?
As always, increase competitors in energy, alternative and others. Then Russia can fuck off as it tries to raise prices. But that requires the rule of law and not selling the country down the river. Just getting down to some brass tacks here. I get real pissed beause not only can this get my countrymen killed, along with me but the other reason is some of us have had to do the job that government is paid do to. I wont expand.
Ah, I am starting to see the “RICO mention” starting to go mainstream on you-tube. I am starting to think this was a preemptive leak to try and discredit the real charges should they come out later. We have yet to see any evidence that would support this and it doesn’t fit with the current noise.
One has to wonder just how many red flags have to be waved in their faces for it to dawn on them that, hey, maybe Hillary Clinton isn’t – and never was – the right person to pass the baton to.
Seems to me that if there was some kind of bargain struck in 2008 (you concede and enthusiastically endorse me, and I’ll reward you with a plum job from which you can launch a presidential campaign, and I’ll throw in the full support of the DNC and the superdelegates), there were multiple points along the way where it was clear Clinton was putting all of that in jeopardy. She made some terrible decisions, and instead of pulling back, she doubled down.
Are we to believe that no one from “the White House” ever took her aside or suggested that while she may be living a life of entitlement, there was that little thing known as an election that was going to depend on public perception of her actions and decisions, and she might want to consider that, promises notwithstanding, she was playing a fool’s game if she bought into her own invincibility and inevitability?
But maybe “the White House” bought into it, too. How else to explain why, in spite of every kind of assistance it’s possible to get, some of it of questionable legality, the anointed candidate has done nothing but drop in the polls. A little-known, 74-year old Democratic Socialist from a teeny-tiny state enters the race polling within the margin of error, and a year and hundreds of millions of small-dollar donations later, is in a position to deny Clinton a pledged-delegate nomination.
How large does the writing on the wall have to be over there at “the White House?” How myopic are these people, anyway? Did their eyes all of a sudden just pop open and they can only just now see what has been obvious for some time?
I’d like to feel bad for them, but the phrase that comes to mind instead is “hoist on their own petard.”
This whole thing is such a massive exercise in selfish indulgence the only emotion these people deserve is our anger, which we should put to use by denying them the offices and power they seek.
What I don’t get here is, if the White House knows she’s such a terrible candidate, why do they want to put her in a real cat fight with Trump? Are they so sure (as Bernstein suggests) that Obama will be able to carry her across the finish line in November?
And that bring up another point for all you “feminist” Clintonistas. Wasn’t the whole point of the “first woman in the White House” thing to show that women can do it alone? That they don’t need men carrying them around all the time to be successful? Well what’s up with your candidate? I have never (in my 65 years) ever seen anyone (woman or man) need more help from other people (mostly men) to gain the success they seek. At every single turn in this campaign we have Ms. Clinton needing someone else, someone MORE, falling on their sword for her. Because left on her own, against a freaking socialist, for Christ’s sakes, all she has been able to do is F@ck up. A FIFTY POINT LEAD, gone. Wasted. Nothing to show. And this is what you want as feminism’s representative in the White House? Shame on you.
As others have pointed out, all that is required of Hillary at this point is to secure the nomination. Nothing else really matters. Once Sanders is removed from the picture, her job is done. A President Trump would be a minor setback from a partisan perspective and a Democratic Party in opposition to a bogeyman like Trump would experience an amped up version of the unifying effect it enjoyed in opposition to GWB. It really could serve to paper over the seismic ideological rifts widening within the current party. Four years in opposition would be a very small price to pay for averting what would be the existential threat to the party’s core that a President Sanders would represent.
I would think the prospect of a President Trump wouldn’t bother the party’s insiders much if at all. The prospect of a President Sanders on the other hand would or could be a crushing and final defeat for nearly everything the current Democratic Party stands for: a giant and hugely lucrative influence peddling racket making everyone near its center into extremely wealthy individuals with patronage jobs waiting for them and their families within the concerns of the people who are bribing them. President Trump by comparison would be a godsend.
Bingo! Nailed it.
Most of the DLC establishment could find it easy enough to “live” with a Trump Presidency. Just like Lil Marco Rubio, they’ll easily bend their knees to kiss Trump’s heiney and make deals with him. What’s it to them, after all?
Sanders? That’s a horse of a different feather. Sanders isn’t interested in them bending their knees and kissing his heiney. And THAT’s a huge problem for the 1%.
Dig it.
…..”fool me twice…I…I won’t get fooled again !”…..
the 2016 voter’s motto…..
the DLC is toast……Burnt toast !!
Money shot.
I agree with your assessment. Trump would play the game differently, but he could be counted on to place the game.
Sanders shows that he knows and respects some of the rules of the game, but more of the rulebook would be up for grabs and the outcomes perhaps less predictable for TPTB.
There are also wildcards–impeachments, assassinations, health issues, pardons, etc.
In that scenario Hillary wins the nomination and loses the election, Obama pardons her to head off (in his telling) partisan persecution and looks noble (to the credulous) standing up for her, clearing the way to elbow in on the Clinton network for the—haven’t you heard?—Obama Foundation. And the grift goes on.
Could be. We’ll never know, because we’re not at those tables. But could be.
Yep. Sanders is the real enemy, not Trump.
1. Somewhat tangentially. I don’t know how the 2007-2008 crisis looked to people on the “outside”, but to many of the guys in the trenches the world “blew up” on or about July 18, 2007, when the two Bear-affiliated subprime funds hit a wall and the credit bubble literally stopped the next day. Within a month, the SIVs got obliterated and it was downhill from there.
Yes, it took a while to get to Lehman/AIG. There was the Bear thing, the commodities super-spike in the summer of 2008, a few other notable items. But again, by the time Lehman came around the view in the trenches was that the world had already been blowing up for over a year, and now “main street” finally took notice. Really the one surprise was that the Fed let Lehman go (presumably as a live experiment, or perhaps simply out of stupidity), and then the CDS markets went haywire for awhile (hence AIG).
Not 20%-30% probability of “something bad happening”. Rather, 100% probability of “something bad” having already happened and now we’re just watching the explosion in slo-mo.
2. Incidentally, this is pretty much what we’re seeing with the Clinton campaign. You’ve already seen the campaign “blow up”, in a way, because Sanders didn’t go away in February, or March, or April, etc. Part of that was Sanders, part of that was general discontent – but part of that is also Hillary not being able to put away an opponent that is so way out of the Democratic party mainstream. Because the email thing, and the speeches thing, and the neo-liberalism thing, whatever. Bernstein’s “leaking” makes clear that as far back as February Obama’s guys in the trenches said – hey, we just saw the Bear funds blow up, and this thing is going to end badly one way or the other. We don’t know exactly how bad, but bad. Which is bad for us…
3. I actually think that this signalling is not about a specific thing. It’s a more of a general – you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do, and your messing up makes us look bad type of thing. Today it’s the emails, tomorrow it’s whatever else – there are so many issues with the campaign (and the candidate) that you could have Bernstein deliver a new speech weekly if not daily. The overall message seems to be, “you’re blowing up, do something, right now”, and I would bet they’ve been hitting that theme for months in private (the current leak to Bernstein being a sort of a – you don’t want to listen to us in private, here’s something in public, now pay attention).
4. Honestly, I would be shocked – shocked! – if the FBI or the DoJ did anything to Hillary Clinton on this email front. For one, let’s dispense with any talk of “autonomy”. Whom does the FBI director report to? Have there been any instances in the past when the White House “influenced” the direction of the FBI investigation? And what has this administration specifically demonstrated time and again vis-a-vis leakers (from the standpoint of intimidation)? Or compartmentalizing information to prevent such? I’m not saying they’ll necessarily get away with it, but certainly they can think that to themselves, at least through November.
The basic idea is that Obama and his people have put their chips on Clinton. For whatever reason – political, personal, does not matter. They probably did so with a heavy heart (or some such), but they did it. Now they’re freaking out, justifiably, because they literally cannot, cannot afford to have the Clinton campaign blow up right at this point (after November, sure, why not). You think these people won’t shut the FBI down if they feel they have to? Of course they will. It will look dirty, of course, but it’s – in their minds – probably better than the alternatives, unless they want to go out with a real bang blowing up both Clinton and the DNC and ending up as semi-pariahs among a good portion of the DNC donor base for the rest of their lives…which I doubt.
Eh. The train wreck continues to unfold in slow motion, except that I think this time she actually has a more than slim chance of making it to November and making it in November (after which point, let the scandals lottery commence, to the endless delight of Fox News and the like).
Tend to agree. Clinton will likely win in November. Trump’s potential voter base is less in number than Clinton’s. She has a built-in demographic that, unless she botches the debates totally, should ensure Trump’s defeat. BTW I despise the Clinton’s and everything they stand for.
The 2008 Financial Crisis narrative I tend to follow is that Bear and Lehman had the most enemies and so were the most convenient scapegoats/sacrifices to hand to an angry public. The reality of these big crises is that the banking system fails absent absent government intervention and so the saving of the others was a CHOICE.
Likewise, at some point the professional Democrats and the affiliated parts of the organism, including its funders, might at some point view cutting the umbilical cord to the Clintons as necessary for their own survival. I’d keep an eye out for that!
Well said.
FWIW, on the outside, it seemed like things were very bad, so bad that it felt like the political system was going out of its way to try to cover things up and tell people not to worry their pretty little heads and other almost comically defensive approaches. And not just in finance specifically, but all over our system, secrecy and ignoring reality seemed to permeate our public leadership. A willful blindness at a systemic level – because after all, most highly paid professionals depend upon the system; nobody wants to rock that officialdom boat much.
I have also been interested by some of the revisionist history that starts the GFC in 2008 with Lehman, rather than Bear Stearns in 2007, and more generally with the notion that the 2007-2009 crisis was a unique, isolated event rather than part of a multi-decade long process, that slow motion train wreck, as if the kind of inequality that leads to systemic crashes magically appeared out of nowhere in 2006.
To Washunate – I really appreciate the wise commentary, all of the time. The primary issue is who controls the currency. A private bank like the Fed who is the ultimate lobbyist or the the public, basically treasury. Our founders new both can and will fall prey to corruption but out of the two choices public currency (a form of energy of all our labor) is best.
Central banking model is a form of conquest. As an empire it succeeded globally. Now such have to own the empire and its fallacies. Including buying politicians. The rule of law must be restored and the currency restored to public domain (despite its flaws).
Thanks for the kind words. One of the things I really like about what Yves has done at NC is create a space for those inside and outside as panda put it to share directly with each other, without the filter of technocrats and pundits in the middle who portray an air of expertise, of rigorous intellectual curiosity about and understanding of the system, yet seem to possess neither detailed knowledge about things ‘in the trenches’ nor about the perception of those things by the general public on ‘the outside’ of the bubbles of affluence and power in our society.
The general public has known for some time to be leary of everything from bankster pronouncements to econ PhD jibberish to warmongering buffoons. But the Serious People of our system act like every problem is a big surprise. Because of course they are protecting the looting – or at least enabling it through various kinds of navel gazing triviality – rather than doing anything meaningful about it.
I heartily agree that rule of law isn’t some quaint notion, purity test, or luxury. It is the foundational element of a society that aspires for what are broadly held values (outside DC) like freedom, justice, mercy, and equality.
1. Economy: “Not 20%-30% probability of “something bad happening”. Rather, 100% probability of “something bad” having already happened and now we’re just watching the explosion in slo-mo. ”
Absolutely everyone I know who has established credibility with me in a wide range of spheres agrees with the 100% figure. Timing: late 2016, early 2017 at the latest. With more far-reaching impact than “usual” in a Great Depression or GFC.
> Honestly, I would be shocked – shocked! – if the FBI or the DoJ did anything to Hillary Clinton on this email front
The FBI is an independent power source because Comey has his own files, just like J. Edgar. Lynch is another matter.
Did you see by “something bad” I meant a Japan-level unraveling? I wasn’t talking about recession or a bear market. I was talking about a financial crisis, but a slower-moving one than we had.
And if you look at my posts from the time, I was very clear in chronicling the four acute phases of the crisis: July-Aug 2007, December 2007, Bear and Lehman, as Very Big Deals. I was particularly critical of the “Mission Accomplished” mode the officialdom went into in Feb-March 2008 and April-July 2008.
I think you’ve underestimated how bad the next “something bad” is going to be.
Yves – Time hss proved you wise. Japanafication is exactly what has been unfolding. And according to Forbes and the Fed, 48% of the population having less than a grand in savings means the US is near third world. One can buy Pop Tarts in third world countries also.
But there are wealth holders still spending (albeit less than two years ago) based on the stock market or real estate rentals. Both are subject to harsh correction and that will have some knock-on effects in labor. Not as bad as some may think but some.
The real danger is geopolitics. And this bitch that thinks she is queen has no issues literally seeing 1/3 of the global population dying to escape her crimes. Think of what a rapist does to a rape victim many times. Strangle that woman so she doesnt indict you. Yeah, it is that bad. But there are some form of tech that will end any world war quickly. Stuff of science fiction. America’s competitors should think twice, or such may dissapear. Literally.
But as Americans we do know the corruption stinks to high heaven and we are doing something about it. So pray, war does not escalate. Mankind is literally at the end of our evolution and defeating classic death. We need (some is happening and is great) more.of that focus and marketing of it and less global police, empire crap.
Regarding the Clinton Hairball (or, Dead Woman Walking)
Just read the Cheryl Mills transcripts and two things jumped out at me.
First, on pages 104-106, the Judicial Watch lawyers asked her about Platte River Networks and Datto, Inc. This McClatchy article gives a long version, but the short version of what the big deal is this:
Clinton Executive Service Corp. (CESC) had Hillary Clinton’s private email server physically moved to Platte River Networks after she left office in 2013. Platte River is an IT services company. They are headquartered in Colorado but also have a location in New Jersey, which is where Clinton’s server ended up. Platte River bought a backup device from another IT services company called Datto, Inc, specifically to back up Clinton’s server. CESC requested that Platte River do the backup on site, and Platte River thought that’s how they set up the Datto device. However – and this must have been Clinton’s worst nightmare x 10 — unbeknownest to CESC and Platte River, the backup server accidentally synced with another off-site server belonging to Datto for two years before anyone realized it. And here’s the kicker: this off-site Datto server had all of Clinton’s 30,000 or so work-related and 30,000 or so personal emails. And the FBI found out about it and seized that Datto server and hit the jackpot of all time! Now, in the Mills transcript, Judicial Watch dropped the questions to Mills about Platte River and Datto pretty quick, which suggests to me that they already have some other juicy witnesses to question and they merely tried a few quicky questions to Mills to see if they got lucky. But to me this is the nuclear bomb that has already gone off – the shock wave just hasn’t reached us yet. I would imagine that Hillary’s personal emails may be a treasure-trove relating to Clinton Foundation Activities and all the related shenanigans Ortel is investigating, as mentioned several times on Naked Capitalism.
On page 138, another item of interest in the transcript appears. Mills is asked about a July 26, 2011 email chain where Clinton jokes with a staffer named Nora Toiv that it was weird Clinton no longer had Toiv’s Gmail account and Clinton wondered, “so how did that happen. Must be the Chinese!” Here’s the email on Wikileaks.
Keep in mind, this is just a month or so after several warnings from the DS cybersecurity about private email accounts, including this June 28, 2011 cable, in Clinton’s name, warning of specific threats to Gmail accounts of U.S. Government employees. From page 34 of the OIG Report:
Granted, Clinton could have been just having a laugh in the email exchange with Toiv, but it doesn’t help her case. Especially since we know of at least 15 cyberattacks on Clinton’s email server just from publically available information, including attacks from IP address in China, Republic of Korea and Germany (and possibly Russia, if you believe the Guccifer story).
Sorry for being so long-winded.
TLDR: Clinton is a dead woman walking. And Abedin, Sullivan and others have yet to testify!
– the backup server accidentally synced with another off-site server belonging to Datto for two years before anyone realized it. And here’s the kicker: this off-site Datto server had all of Clinton’s 30,000 or so work-related and 30,000 or so personal emails. And the FBI found out about it and seized that Datto server and hit the jackpot of all time!
Needs more exclamation marks.
jackpot! of! all! time! ! ! ! !!!!!!!
I know. And as an aside, another fact that has been glossed over repeatedly is that Hillary’s personal email server apparently wasn’t new when she had it installed in her basement. Oh no, the server had already been in use as President Bill Clinton’s personal server before that. God only knows what kind of incriminating stuff is on there belonging to him. No wonder he suddenly looks like he’s aged about 30 years!
When did the FBI seize it?
No indictment since then? Why the delay with the jackpot of all time!!!!!?
Can’t be that hard to go through 30,000 emails.
Probably because it is the Yellow Brick Road winding its way through years of Clinton relationships with the richest, most powerful and influential people in the world. And we will probably never, ever catch more than a fleeting glimpse of whatever is behind the curtain.
Just reading that thousands of subpoenaed e-mails went missing from Bill Clinton’s server in year 2000 – personal emails from Monica Lewinsky – that kind of thing. Supposedly.
depositions are still underway, why give away your leverage
Searching ‘Pagliano’ in the trove of emails at Wikileaks only brings up one response for October 26, 2012. It’s a Happy Birthday wish. Shouldn’t there be more emails either to or from Pagliano and at an earlier date than 2012, at minimum one test email to make sure the server was working when it was first set up?
Still surprised that if her server was hacked, those emails have not be given to Wikileaks.
Many questions linger, don’t they?
Such as, why didn’t Bryan also wish her Happy Birthday for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013?
What I don’t get is how/why he is pleading the 5th and refusing to answer questions. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/01/politics/bryan-pagliano-hillary-clinton-email-server/index.html
That same story says he has an immunity deal and was cooperating with the FBI. I guess it’s possible he only got limited immunity and is concerned about something else but…
What is the over/under on the likelihood of an “accident”? My money would be on someone with an axe to grind against Killery.
I’ve heard reports that an attempt was made in late 2012. Not the incident in Israel, but on a secret trip to Iran to meet with Ahmedinejad. What I heard (not on the internet–other channels) is that one of her SEALS on the small plane with her had a vision of what she would do as president, and took it into his own hands to stop it. He shot her (the cause for her much-reported-on hospital stay–with her recovery in question in early days) and he was killed by the rest of the SEAL team. His death was then said to have occurred in Afghanistan. There’s supporting tangential info about this event that’s findable.
Whether or not this story is accurate, I believe there’s more to her hospital stay than the official story. I do not think it was a routine medical event.
What was the “official” reason she left SOS?
The only “reason” I’ve found stated is that she supposedly “always planned” to step down after Obama’s first term.
Tom
June 1, 2016 at 9:40 am
Thank you very, very much for that elucidating synopsis – its hard to read EVERYTHING so getting just a slice of the prime cut keeps me up to date on an onslaught of info!
I sure hope you do more of these!!!
Thank you very much. After writing that, I have even more respect for how much work Yves, Lambert and others put into this site each and every day. Same for the contributions of the many informed commenters. Naked Capitalism is truly an exceptional resource.
Yes. Thank you.
Agee. Nice work Tom and to all who are restoring the Republic. Make sure you go have a drink and some fun now and then too. A phase of this has passed for me but now another one is looming in a different way than educating.
But for can be happy with gains for a moment.
Hear, hear! Great reporting by Tom.
I had seen references to the Datto server and the online backups but there hasn’t been much discussion of them or the FBI’s getting ahold of them. If they did, it truly is a nightmare for HRC.
There is a new poll saying 48% of the public think her server was “illegal” and another 24% or so thought it was “unethical”. She and her staff are stonewalling and doubling down on their excuses. I guess she is just hoping to make it through the convention but it all depends on the FBI report at this stage.
If the Datto server debacle checks out — and it sure looks like it does — I have read in several places that it pretty much is a no-brainer violation of 18 U.S. Code § 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, specifically Section (f):
If you have classified info on your server and all that data is being sent to another server for two years, without your knowledge, that’s pretty much the definition of “gross negligence,” I would imagine.
And keep in mind, before we even get to the Datto debacle, I’m already giving Clinton two giant free hall passes:
1. That it didn’t constitute gross negligence to have the server in her basement in the first place, and
2. That it wasn’t gross negligence to move the server to Platte River Networks. (From what I gather, even if this was an approved server, the U.S. government would have questions like: Who physically picked up the server, put it on a truck or in a car, who transported the server, who had access to it before, during and after the move?” Also, questions like, “Who owns Platte River Networks? What is their security set-up? Who vetted the employees at Platte River? Who had access to the server while it was there?”)
So wait. You’re telling me that the half of the email Clinton retained as “personal” wasn’t all about Clinton’s yoga sessions and Chelsea’s wedding?
On ” Platte River bought a backup device from another IT services company called Datto, Inc, specifically to back up Clinton’s server,” I don’t think that’s quite right. First, the issue is not a device, but backup to the cloud from a device. Second, the Platte River didn’t know the backup to the cloud was taking place. From the McClatchy story:
What a mess, but no more messy than IT generally.
I like the overall picture, though, that the bomb has already exploded, but the shock waves have yet to reach the public. Regarding FBI director Comey, this from William Gibson: “I would say that our Mr. Swain has recently come into possession of a very high-grade source of intelligence and is busy converting it into power.”
Yes, you’ve clarified some points that I mangled in trying to sum up the story. Thank you.
There are many more tangents to just this Platte River/Datto story that are worth following up, but it takes so much time to try to piece together even a seemingly small story like this. I can’t even imagine the complexity and confusion facing the FBI investigators as they try to make sense of all the fallout from Bill and Hillary Clinton’s public/private activities through the years.
The server for the Datto cloud that was backing up the Clintons’ server would have also had its own backup.
One can hope that Obama handles Clinton the same way Nixon handled his vice-president, Spiro Agnew.
Spiro Agnew was the corrupt politician of the hoi polloi, as he was known as “The only politician you could bribe with a bag of groceries.”.
The Clinton Foundation and the Clintons sure put the Agnew efforts to shame as they raised the price of buying politicians and access by many orders of magnitude.
Nixon, busy with his own scandals may have been distracted, but his justice department let Agnew plead “nolo contendere” (no contest) to the charges of corruption.
One can wonder if Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon installed this dual USA justice system that we have seen in effect since his time.
The Kennedy Library honored Ford for his courage(?) in granting the pardon (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Events-and-Awards/Profile-in-Courage-Award/Award-Recipients/Gerald-Ford-2001.aspx)
So one Democratically connected organization signed onto this separate justice system for the politically connected.
Possibly the concern Obama has for his unfunded $1Billion Presidential Library will force him to burnish his legacy by NOT rescuing HRC with some dubious legal maneuver.
It is somewhat ironic that Nixon was brought down by a private electronic system (his tape recording system) while Clinton may be brought down by her own private electronic email system.
The also share a common advisor, Henry Kissinger, and both have/had phlebitis.
She probably won’t borrow Nixon’s “I am not a crook.” line..
I get the tone of alarm and concern of scandal coming from Team Obama shown in this article – I’m just not seeing it in Hillary supporters. Maybe Obama’s ego is a bit too fragile. Regardless my experience with talking to Hillary supporters is that no amount of scandal of outright criminal lawbreaking affects their views about Hillary. They revert to “she’s been scrutinized and tested for decades by her enemies and she’s survived.” They are people on the margins who will be affected. How many are the Dem establishment? It’s going to take a whopper to get them to tank Hillary IMO.
That’s what I see from Clinton supporters on the Twitter. Some of them good people I’ve known for years. “Nothingburger” was the favorite phrase, at least for awhile.
Reminds me of the defenders of Elizabeth Holmes at the WSJ, who kept insisting that all the attacks were from journalists who were jealous of the success of a brilliant young woman and only knew how to tear down not build.
Their ranks became thinner over time as their view was increasingly less plausible.
Timbers – You know, a close friend since grade school loves the Clintons. He even buyed the Bill Clinton collector doll. He stole close to $60,000 from his employer Midas, has mistresses and has done a of very unsavory things. And I am not a saint but these people know but do not care. Probably 1 of 3 people are sociopaths.
There is a detail that is being universally missed both in the MSM and alternative press: it is a virtual certainty that the NSA has a copy of every email sent or received by that server. Does anyone who has read what has been published about Snowden’s revelations doubt that? Therefore the Whitehouse knows precisely what the dirt is. Furthermore, what do you suppose the chances are that the FSB didn’t hack her jury-rigged server? This potential leak path is also well known to the white house. Don’t forget the mayhem when the FSB (who else) posted Nuland’s little chat with Pyatt over an insecure line. Let no one forget that HRC is strongly connected to the neocon project to undermine Russia’s return to strength.
Just ask yourself: What would Vladimir Putin do?
Just ask yourself: What would Vladimir Putin do?
Putin would do a deal. A “small favor” done in return for something else. Any mobster can understand that.
Trouble is that Hillary represents the US so very well. Any offer would be perceived as a sign of weakness, therefore, righteous bullying and threats from the US will be the only possible response.
So, the leaks would start – have started perhaps.
Stephen – Glad your bringing up this point in regards to geopolitics. Russia, overplayed its energy hand. But that said, they have gotten the memo. In any event, I was so hoping the US wold have done the Apollo program of energy instesd of spending $9 trillion on bankster graft. Some did happen and that on energy independence so give .gov a -C minus grade.
Before reading your commentary, I posited that you always want to be able to tell an important vendor to fuck off. All the graft created an opportunity for Putin by retarding energy policy. Still, the Russians want to sell and pulling back a bit and negotiating is a wise idea. Humiliation as with the Olympics as a power play was just stupid. So was Ukraine in 2004, Georgia and again Ukraine. And Bidens son gets put in place for example over there? Retarded, corrupt people get many killed.
Just because the NSA has it does not mean the WH has it.
Might this “leak” be a signal to Clinton to get out of the race? She cannot be unaware that Bernstein is carrying Obama’s water.
Obama will likely have plenty of drama before he slinks out of the White House to his $1 Billion Library. Future historians will sift through the detritus of his hollow reign and might eventually find out how he got pwned. Maybe Bernstein could have a journalistic draft underway about that to put in his two cents?
That book’s been written. Apostles of Power / Coup de Twelve by David E. Martin, who has first-hand knowledge about some of the most important facts.
It’s called fiction but only some of the names and dates/sequences were changed. Cheney’s name is left in on purpose.
if you read it keep in mind the reason it was written–specifically to avert a major disaster involving a nuclear reactor explosion in the US in 2012, to enable a major electronic financial heist. He had to reveal enough of what he knew to stop the button from being pushed. This was successful. Only the preliminary “earthquake” at Santa Ana nuclear reactor occurred, as the charges had already been set, but after the book came out (initially distributed on Amazon for free, so it could be tracked to who downloaded it) then the full plan could not be carried out.
Sorry. Not buying works of fiction with the names changed (unless we’re talking serious roman a clef a la Primary Colors.
Read the book before judging it. It will be obvious why names cannot be given. And consider my comment above about why the book was written. It was not written to be a best seller, it was written to prevent a major catastrophe. The author has given a number of extended interviews dealing with the events described and confirming his first-hand participation. (He was offered, twice, to join the 12 shareholders in the purchase of the 2008 presidency, without a financial contribution because of his unique big data algorithms. He declined and experienced some very disagreeable effects–but he’s not someone who can be bought or intimidated.)
TheCatSaid – Interesting book recommendation. Mitigation of casualties is an important goal. It is not set in stone mass casualties will occur because of sociopathic behavior. Some can play a role to minimize the damage. Yves does this directly regarding lawlessness. Others play some different roles.
Now at the end of human evolution, there is nothing more important and realistic to end classic death. But far too few have gotten the memo yet. But that is changing. For what good is it to gain the whole world when you get old, shit your pants, lose your memory when now that is no longer necessary? But absolutley, the wolves must be pushed back and the Republic restored to accelerate such a lofy but now doable goal.
In Feb, per Bernstein, people at the White House were worried and horrified.
Now, they are terrified, again, per Bernstein.
To me, it seems to be about same.
That was my counter-suggestible thought: The White House panicked once, and the Clinton campaign shrugged it off, successfully.
I don’t think the two cases are comparable, though. The Wall Street transcripts are a Sanders campaign thing, and to every right-thinking member of the political class that spells “not serious.”
But this terror is from the heart of the establishment; “serious people.”
At some point the White House and the Democratic party “leadership” are going to realize that if they have to work this hard to get Clinton the nomination, they are going to have worse troubles winning the election with her at the head of the ticket. They are going to have to choose the lesser of two evils – 1. Let the Republicans take this election, or 2 – Let the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party take this election.
From the point of view of the Democratic Party establishment, Trump and the Republicans are clearly the lesser evil. Despite his apparent appeal as an outsider, Trump is very much an insider. As a billionaire, he is one of the very small number of people who own the United States. He’ll ruffle the feathers of some of his fellow plutocrats, but the “right people” will remain in charge, and he will continue most of the billionaire friendly policies of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.
if nothing else they must have realized that Sanders and his millions of supporters have effectively blocked off their – parachute drop Biden – escape route from the Clinton disaster. I think this is the key to why “they’re freaking out”. They never really had any planB ‘cos those Dems and their trained MSM toadies who “create their own reality” never for a moment thought they’d ever need one.
There was Biden speculation early on for a reason, but I think people in New Hampshire (I’ve never been to Iowa) take the primary seriously and force the candidates to answer tough questions. Hillary and Obama had a celebrity following and were protected, but any other Democrat would have to have a point. Private prison, charter school, and war supporters would be weeded put early. Biden might be the VP, but he has been at this for years and achieved nothing except to not be as egregious as Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. No one will go out to see Biden unless he had a point.
The modern Democratic elite can face their voters directly. They need a celebrity wall to protect them. Many of these thugs hid behind Obama a day expected Hillary to do the same, but who else is a celebrity and can hide behind Katie Perry or Oprah? They might be protected by the sycophants in their own district, but the sycophants outside the district have their own objects of devotion. They simply can’t go to Iowa and New Hampshire and be taken seriously.
I take it that
“… can face their voters directly.”
should have been
“… can’t face their voters directly.”
^
?
Several weeks ago my daughter had a dream.
She witnessed Bernie Sanders accepting the democratic primary nomination
because Hillary Clinton was disqualified by a technicality.
Three years ago during a lengthy Vipassana meditation retreat I experienced
myself sitting on a divan in a long lanai. People were milling around a
banquet table set with fruits salads flowers. There were birds flying in and out
up above us and I became aware that I could understand them and that they were excited and had decided to have a race. Quickly the race began and was over. The winner was a little brown bird…like a sparrow. The other birds were incredulous. How could this happen? A green parrot kept flying up to the little brown bird asking how did you do that? But the little brown bird kept laughing and flying away so fast the parrot could not stay with him.
The next day, continuing the practice in my room with the curtains drawn, I heard
tapping at the window. I acknowledged the sound and continued practicing but
the tap tap pause continued. Finally I had to see. I got up pushed aside the curtain and there was a little brown bird.
When I saw the little bird land on the podium while Bernie Sanders spoke I thought of the little brown bird I’d experienced. And when Bernie in the moments said wistfully something to the effect…it could have been a dove
representing peace. I thought oh no, that little bird is a metaphor for the people
who want and claim their humanity and the natural world resonates with that.
I too think bernie will pull it out, the other choices are terrible. I’m looking for aspirational latinos to flock to bernie in california and it’ll be a rout that can’t be ignored. I hope that’s what happens.
That reminds me of the dove who landed on Fidel Castro’s shoulder during his Jan. 8, 1959 speech.
Once Clinton regrettfully announces her decision to suspend her campaign for presidency (due to mounting health concerns and after consulting with her doctors and family) and returns to private life, she can always count on giving a speech now and again to “replenish the old coffers,” right?
Cut to the kitchen in Clinton’s residence:
“What do you mean Blankfein isn’t returning my calls? Someone find my BlackBerry so I can call him myself!!”
Sounds like the ending sting in a segment of Clintonsomething – “The Campaign Years” from the excellent Le Show by Harry Shearer.
I missed that — thanks for the link!
Yeah last week’s segment was a classic. Thanks Harry!
From Yves:
“…..
As of late 2007, I was assessing the odds of a really bad outcome (which I did not see as a massive financial blowup, but a Japan-style bumping downhill over a period of years) as 20-30%, which I regarded as uncomfortably high. I told Lambert I thought the Clinton train wreck odds were in that range. He thought it was more like 30% than 20%.
This post indicates the odds are even higher than that. I see two implications in the Bernstein official messaging beyond those that Gaius describes. One is that the Obama Administration has been blindsided by how bad the underlying fact set is, and they recognize that even worse is likely to be exposed. Someone as image-conscious as Obama would be particularly put off by that.
But the panic is also a clear indication, and perhaps as important, another message, not just to Clinton but to Team Dem, that the Administration can’t, or won’t but is making it seem like can’t, do what it takes to save Hillary’s bacon.
And I suspect it really is “can’t”. The FBI has enough autonomy that if they find real dirt on the Clintons, they will leak like crazy if the DoJ does not pursue the case in a serious way. That would make the Administration complicit, and Obama does not want his final months in office tainted by his Administration touching the Clinton tar baby any more than it has to….”
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I am really thinking this is the most serious issue about whether this country operates within the confines of equality before the law since Watergate. I think the financial crisis revealed a level of corruption that is eye opening, but that was mere pecuniary corruption.
If Hillary goes unprosecuted, we decide to let the facade collapse and no longer put the effort into pretending that there is any relationship whatsoever between the law, justice, and the running of the state.
In this imagined history, the Clinton’s see their return to the WH thwarted by an upstart junior senator. As things start to crash around them, in 2008, a light bulb goes off. The junior senator is still pretty nervous about the Clinton’s and Clinton has leverage to make a deal with him. She can through establishment support behind Obama. Obama takes the deal. Then, with a Clinton at State and a future presidency on the horizon they will be able to enrich themselves and their foundation for millions upon millions. The future value of a Clinton presidency will sell itself. Money will pour in from everyone in the world who needs a regulatory break or weapons a deal. So, they cut the deal to go in on an Obama presidency. What they get is eight years of uninterrupted money making, because a Clinton will be president again, and you might as well get in on the ground floor. In this imagined scenario, the Clinton’s must get the presidency, because they have essentially promised weapons buyers and regulation skirters that they will get their return on investment coming in 2017.
Yes, most likely, at least in part. A lot of influence peddling went on, and that’s for sure. It’s something that eludes most Clinton supporters that I know personally. They see Hillary as this shining beacon of something something and something else. They have excuses for everything, and somehow don’t see influence peddling, selling arms and the like as all that bad. IOW: IOKIYAD. I don’t agree with that, myself, but many do.
Lesser evil… is still evil.
It sound like you’re encountering the tribal mentality, which is a drag.
Sounds like the game.
Note its not just the CIA who would be (or is already) furious that some of their agents may have been compromised/arrested/executed. The FBI also has agents working abroad undercover. What if the FBI found info in the backed up emails showed one of their own had been blown ? The vengeance would be frightening and there’s nothing Comey or anyone else could do that would stop it.
I’m not sure the media’s current focus on Hillary’s email server is warranted. There are definitely indications that she violated email policies, but there don’t seem to be specifics about what these actions were trying to hide. I think her very questionable family ties to corporate money are a more meaningful topic in determining her suitability for the U.S. presidency:
http://nypost.com/2015/05/12/us-approved-most-bill-clinton-speech-requests-within-days/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-hillary-clinton-and-boeing-a-beneficial-relationship/2014/04/13/21fe84ec-bc09-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html
http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/despite-walmart-ties-support-free-trade-hillary-clinton-touts-commitment-2323480
There’s been some recent focus on 2013-2015 speeches given by Bill Clinton, and donations to the Clinton family foundation over this time period. What about speeches and payments during the earlier time period when Hillary was Secretary of Sate (January 2009 – January 2013)?
Jeez Louise. The focus on her email server is, in major part, driven by the issue of the deleted emails and HRC trying to keep her communications secret and unobtainable through FOIA. One obvious reason is to hide the connection between Bill’s speeches and Clinton Foundation activities with Hillary’s decisions as SoS. Email and corporate money is all one big hairball.
I see. Thanks for connecting the dots.
They are deluding themselves. Getting Obama out there will push Trump to success.
Gee, the internet told me just this morning that Obama is champing a the bit to hit the 2016 campaign trail for Hillary (or maybe just against Trump?)
After reading this post and comments, I’m further disabused of the Clintons, and think more and more that Saunders is hanging in there just waiting for the dam to break.
Or, more precisely, waiting for somebody else to break the dam for him (since no Clinton voter will ever vote for him if he does the deed himself).
The Clinton Machine (in other words the political operation of the Bill and Hillary, and potentially Chelsea) has always operated on the basis the money and connections will fix everything. It has, after all, gotten them this far. However, as a core operational mode, it also accumulates cynicism and tends to value loyalty over performance, leading to degradation over time.
The Clinton primary 1992 campaign broke new ground (at the time) by putting the (two-way) sharing of fundraising lists on the table when soliciting endorsements from office holders. This was already commonplace among Republicans, who were already being consolidated by ideologically or business focussed fundraising organizations (long before PACs became an common acronym, but already organized under 501(c)(4) or 501(c)(6)) and often shared these donors. But the Democrats, at the time, were more driven by fundraising lists, which were often closely guarded assets.
But by offering to share (as in, swap) donor lists with endorsers, the Clintons, without actually breaking any laws (although improper development and use of these lists could violate FEC regulation), were putting financial power squarely on the table, and up front (the list share offer was frequently mentioned on the initial approach to the potential endorser, I have first and second hand knowledge of this).
And the swap would involve the endorser sharing their list, as well as receiving one, which would be more than a public endorsement; it would be an endorsement to donors. Reaction in 1992 was mixed. But with Bill political success and popularity as a president (among moneyed Dems), the Clinton Machine became a major player in Dem politics, cultivating a “deep” door list. And what do donors pay for? Consultants, and media and data products. The Machine accumulated a network of loyal consultants and vendors across the country; loyal, because they were certain of getting paid (not always a sure thing in politics), and because of the large and diverse (and at least nominally vetted) network of Machine operatives and vendors. This network also shares strategic methodologies and technologies; essential commodities, but ones whose shelf life (effective expiration of value) can be hard to gauge (especially by lazy/uncommitted people who feel little pressure to actually win anything, as long as they can put on a good show and maintain their stature by… feeding the Machine). And of course, associated (and implicitly grateful/beholden) elected office holders (at State and local levels, not just Federal) are collected along the way.
The reliance on this Machine is one of the reasons the Clinton campaigns have displayed such frequent tone-deafness. Not only is there a sizeable echo chamber of like-minded advisers only to glad to support the current (but often calcified) rationals, but the approach to voter opinion is “they’ll forget if we divert them” (and also “poor people don’t vote, so their opinions are strategically irrelevant”). The Clintons were relying on a combination of news-cycle turnover and the chorus of their social and MSM channels (repeat-until-true, repeat-until-true, etc). Both of these tools are at least somewhat outdated in the social media age, where articles/posts/images/memes can circulate and resurface independently of MSM news cycles, and where multiple groups can pool opinion and effort as soon as they notice coincidence/convergence.
One can say what one will about Team Obama, but they have always been aware that they rode to power on a populist idea (Black President) and the social media arena that amplified its force. All political groups tend towards tone deafness, but Obama’s people have newer ears. They may not feel very beholden to anyone operating in the social media, but they disinclined to completely ignore the potential impacts of opinions in circulation.
BTW, the donor-list swap message has changed over the years. Now the intro message for endorsement solicitations is more like: “We’ll mention you to our donors”. Which is a double-edged sword; that mention may also be “such-and-such did not endorse, just so you know”. Again, leading with this message exerts (by implication, not by direct statement) a powerful financial consideration on the potential (And often acquiescing) endorser. Beyond that common element, solicitations are likely to say whatever might appeal to the particular target.
Dk – Very interesting point about the data. I am in that space in a nutshell. By referral, did some work with both Jeb Bush and Dean. I was hired for market intelligence for fundraising. I remember the Time mag about Dean the Money Machine. Social media was a big deal for donors. Webbies dont make the best door to door activists however.
Anyways, I like Jeb Bush. Dean is an asshole of a human being. So as I was managing Bush constituent list for a time I called his office to suggest them doing market intelligence for donors.
The attorney for Jeb called me back. He told me that if I sent over a plan to not expect to get paid for it. I thought to myself it was no wonder the Clintons could easily win – They paid people.
Jeb did look at an idea for a political social media platform I suggested to connect voters to politicians, a debate platform. He said to call Pete Peterson for funding. Pete wouldn’t give me a meeting, his secretary said I wasnt in the club.
So for Jeb he has learned the hard way it is the company you keep. But his other issue was hiring his own Mexican friends his wife and continued amnesty. His campign staff like any tribe, only wanted fo hire Mexicans. Of course, it is the immigration issue where Trump ate his lunch. In the end he wasn’t ready to be POTUS. But innovation wise and on monopoly issues he was a Teddy Roosevelt.
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts tonight Yves. You know, I appoached you as a different user at one time and asked to consider joining in the political social media platform I was building. But even if it was a right idea, I came across too strong. I apologize. Wish I hadnt done that your message would been amplified a lot more by now. You are a personal hero of mine. Keep at it, please, the we are clearing a hump in ways but much work left to do.
Cackling at the demise of intelligence assets is not a joking matter. Neither is it a joke, right or deposing dictators and joking about it. Fortunately, the rule of law is being restored. But there is a lot of domestic and geopolitical clean up. With Russia, they are about energy sales. Yes, they got uppity with monopoly but it has gone to far.
You never want to make Putin a Geronimo with the bomb. The Chinese were made promises never to be kept. They know a good customer when they see one so they will get over it.
The only job of government is a security racket. An unfortunate, necessary evil. When the Clintons
are well lets call it what it IS – treason. Enough is enough.
Trump is a Democrat. He is for single payer. Not so sure why some are so freaked about his nationalist campaign rhetoric. Either him or Bernie will make a good president but Bernie has the experience and Trump does not. It matters.
Trump is not for single payer
Mary – Competition is part of Trumps plan for private insurers. A lot of countries have single payer government but also private insurers. It tends to work althogh I wish it all could remain private, free market what have you. Health is like money, it is so important you have to have the awful taint of government one way or the other.
But when pressed Trump has responded he will not let anyone die in the streets. Not arguing to vote for the man just suggesting reading beween the lines. He is a Democrat in drag, what I would call a moderate in policy except immigration. He is duplicating the Eisenhower playbook, on immigration, bond holder haircuts and telling certain bankers to play ball or ELSE. This does work. But as I mentioned Bernie has more a lot of real experience. So dealmaking as Trump claims indeed has a lot of human psychology involved but experience is a major plus.
It woudnt surprise me if so much of this is all political theatre. Trump is the friends of Clinton after all. Could even be with Berniw But that said, rather even if such speculation true better than false flags to right the country. Besides, it has been fun theatre… Besides, the momentum on policy is turning in the right direction.
Countries that provide universal healthcare using private insurance (the Bismarck model) do so with highly regulated, not-for-profit insurance providing legally defined coverage. Competition and profit-taking are at the margins for elements not included in the defined coverage, such as cosmetic surgery or a private hospital room. Trump’s published healthcare plan is the same gibberish Republicans have always offered.
There are too many comments to read through right now but is almost 250 comments a record? Has anyone mentioned this might be a trial balloon for Biden to step in?
It’s interesting to ponder the various possibilities. What I don’t get is why Obama’s IT security people didn’t notice that Clinton digitally engaged and communicated with the *White House* in a way that could have compromised both parties, and beyond.
fwiw, I think we are all at least *somewhat* impacted by confirmation bais re: the competency of persons we are mostly in agreement with, even in areas outside their domain. When it comes to senior executives and IT security (unless they are IT experts), we see these mistakes over and over again in political and business domains. One can look to any number of well-known political, scientific, or cultural figures who made stupid gaffs within their sphere of influence in this way. We always seem surprised by this, but it’s really not a surprise.
Most well-known political persons (I have known a few) are so busy and so immersed in what they are trying to accomplish that their over-trust in operational personnel – and/or belief that they can maneuver out of or overcome almost any problem – creates scenarios like Clinton’s.
Bernie is my guy; I would love to see him take on Trump, but the powers that be appear to want something else. I can’t stand Trump, but when looking for other perspectives I will put on my long-buried blue collar roots persona; then, I hear a guy (Trump) who “talks the talk” in a way that is almost mesmerizing. I hate to admit that, but it’s true – and when I connect with old buds from way back, they reinforce this impression.
When you get enough people (in this case, Americans) scared and worried, they are no different than any other group of human beings; they want to be “saved”; they want to “blame”; they want to throw out the “chief”; they want to “follow a new leader”; they are not concerned (in this case) with whether Trump can “walk the walk”; they are susceptible to someone who is very adept at “talking the talk” (a demagogue) in a way that allays their fear and desperation – leading them to grab onto the nearest piece of flotsam (screw the other guy!) that will keep them from drowning. I’m beginning to worry.
Seems to me that except in a relatively few corners and local settings, and now very frankly via our mostly collective embrace of the Neo geist, “America” has always and only been about “screwing the other guy.” And Tocqueville noted how happy we are to be boiled frogs, or to find ourselves in deep water and only too happy to stand on the other guy’s shoulders, by guile or force, to try to gain a little buoyancy to keep our own noses above water, even knowing somewhere in our guts that we ought to cooperate to find the valve and turn off the water, or to go after the pirates that threw us off the ship…
I don’t believe “foaming one more runway” (read: having your DOJ, FBI appear helpless) wouldn’t bother this administration.
A Loyalist are those unengaged (or too engaged) whom choose willingly to believe the disastrous economic and political experiment, that attempted to organize human behavior around the dictates of the global marketplace, has been a splendid success…or worse, blindly, my tribal leader is in accordance with all that is good.
Haiti. Look at film of the Clintons in Haiti to see how they work. & Haiti is one place where also the elites own the deeds. Haiti Is America, only sooner.
Wilmington Coup. C.S.A. methods used again, and again.
Giving the people of the US, the reinsurers of the reinsurer the USPO Service banking they paid for and pay for is the concrete thing that can be done to “Change the Conversation” as Mad Men’s guy Hamm? no, his character would say.
Opening there.
Don Draper, or Matthew Weiner and he common trope? Meme? “Change the Conversation”.
Yes, I see the window for the USPO Service Banks as put in Sanders & Clinton’s mouths before Trump picks it up as a promise lie since he is that kind of guy.
For what it’s worth, Jonathan Turley suggests Hillary still has friends in high places in his discussion of former Clinton IT advisor, Bryan Pagliano, who is taking the fifth amendment in deposition on email scandal,
https://jonathanturley.org/2016/06/02/former-clinton-it-advisor-to-take-the-fifth-in-deposition-on-email-scandal/#more-99459
I kept the link in the above paragraph active as it is interesting reading.
For those curious as to why Pagliano would take the fifth (rather than go straight for a quart :-)) when he already has immunity, one of the comments to Turley’s post explains (from Tin at 1:42 am):
Those e-mails don’t alarm me anywhere near as much as the $200,000 plus speaking fees from Wall St. NO speech by anyone is worth anywhere near such an amount. These were clearly bribes, there’s simply no other way of looking at it. I have no interest in seeing the transcripts of those speeches because the money counts far more than the content, and speaks for itself. No way would I vote for someone so clearly in the pocket of the oligarchy.
Indeed, bribery is now called speaking fees/campaign contributions.
Electing Hillary is to admit that this is now a third-world country.