I can’t say for sure, but I have no reason to doubt you on that.
See also: Patraeus, David.
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Can we talk about how Sheeple are taking over the earth? How is an honest Reptiloid supposed to hold down a decent job with all these Sheeple moving in from those places.
Hail Satan!
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Employees yes. Executives no. I get all kinds of training (sexual harassment, workplace violence, ethics) that the people above me rarely or never have to undergo. I’m surprised that Clinton even knows how to use email, rather than have her assistant print out hardcopy and dictating replies.
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Seriously, I’ve enjoyed bashing Clinton for a few months as much as the next guy, but enough is enough. Comey should put up or shut up, and no, dick pics are not relevant, even if they were from Bill himself.
There is a bit of schadenfreude seeing these friends of the military-NSA complex hoisted by their own petard, though.
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It is probably not reasonable to expect to find a previous case that is like the Clinton issue in every way. Especially when we are speaking of relatively new technology. I just grabbed those names from a quick web search. My knowledge of the potential penalties for mishandling classified information come from years of personal experience. I can speak pretty confidently about the ways that it is difficult to accidentally mishandle such documents, and I think I covered that pretty thoroughly.
You might think that, but you’d be wrong. The number of incidents of classified data being accidentally sent over unclassified email systems is staggering, and if Americans knew how often it happens they would probably cut Clinton a lot more slack. There are lots of reasons why (including going back and classifying older data as now classified) but it’s a common event with government and its contractors. The systems get cleaned, everyone goes back to work, life moves on. People do not get fired, let alone prosecuted. At best they may have to do remedial training. Clinton got a harsher punishment than most actually when Comey made his statements because generally folks aren’t called out like that.
The only time people get in real trouble is when it’s done with intent to leak the information to folks with no clearance or a need to know the information.
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[Satan waves back from the other side of the street, excited to see you!]
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Reducing the blowout against downticket Republicans.
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Hillary Clinton didn’t store data on non-secure non-approved storage media, and that is why she isn’t being charged. We also have no idea what level of classified what she had on her server was, if the paperwork audit passed, etc. All we do know is that there is evidence that she could have violated the law but not evidence of it - and that is the single biggest difference between Hillary’s emails and every single other example anyone has ever brought forward in comparison. The alt right downplays how badly these people violated the law and how the ones with trumped up charges got trumped up charges. If you are going to talk about legal technicalities being important realize that Hillary dotted every i and crossed every t through an investigation that has more resources dedicated to it than any other case like it before.
I will agree she knew what she was doing (IIRC part of the FBI investigation was to falsely label non-confidential information from her server confidential and ask her if she recognized it, and she said she did and that is was mislabeled as classified), and I agree that she got special privileges beforehand that almost no one else could get - and was even a bit blasé about it. I have seen no evidence to point to her actually violating the law, just that she put herself at risk to.
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If Hillary is elected, do you think that at the end of her first term she and Bill will be:
(a) Richer
(b) Poorer
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Interesting story on a non alt-right website:
For the tl:dr crowd -
With all that taken into consideration, I think the WikiLeaks releases furnish us with an opportunity to observe the upper reaches of the American status hierarchy in all its righteousness and majesty.
The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work: financial innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving children. Foundation executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic achievement.
Certain industries loom large and virtuous here. Hillary’s ingratiating speeches to Wall Street are well known of course, but what is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that. In one now-famous email chain, for example, the reader can watch current US trade representative Michael Froman, writing from a Citibank email address in 2008, appear to name President Obama’s cabinet even before the great hope-and-change election was decided (incidentally, an important clue to understanding why that greatest of zombie banks was never put out of its misery).
The far-sighted innovators of Silicon Valley are also here in force, interacting all the time with the leaders of the party of the people. We watch as Podesta appears to email Sheryl Sandberg. He makes plans to visit Mark Zuckerberg (who, according to one missive, wants to “learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action”). Podesta exchanges emails with an entrepreneur about an ugly race now unfolding for Silicon Valley’s seat in Congress; this man, in turn, appears to forward to Podesta the remarks of yet another Silicon Valley grandee, who complains that one of the Democratic combatants in that fight was criticizing billionaires who give to Democrats. Specifically, the miscreant Dem in question was said to be:
“… spinning (and attacking) donors who have supported Democrats. John Arnold and Marc Leder have both given to Cory Booker, Joe Kennedy, and others. He is also attacking every billionaire that donates to [Congressional candidate] Ro [Khanna], many whom support other Democrats as well.”
Attacking billionaires! In the year 2015! It was, one of the correspondents appears to write, “madness and political malpractice of the party to allow this to continue”.
Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which petitioners for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely appeal to Podesta – the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite – for a solicitous word whispered in the ear of a powerful crony.
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of bank reform should “come from the industry itself”. And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another’s careers, constantly.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.
But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it’s all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don’t have John Podesta’s email address – you’re out.
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Did I ever say Hillary wasn’t also a far from ideal choice? Because if I did, I apologize and would like to correct myself.
I’m merely saying that Trump is not a man of the people who will fight for the interests of the common joe. As far as I’ve seen, he has one goal, and it’s all about him. Hillary, I can at least conceive that she does occasionally care about other people and want to improve some things (while enriching herself in the process)… I may be wrong about that, but I’m firmly convinced that at the very least, Trump’s no better.
And when the choice is between a corrupt self-interested sociopath who might occasionally be moderated by others and at least desiring the appearance of looking like a caring person, and a corrupt self-interested sociopath who’s also an admitted sexual assaulter and actively fanning the flames of racism… yeah, it’s still not that difficult a choice.
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Any Bernie Sanders supporters out there might want to check out this email from Eric Schmidt at Google:
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Oh, I hear what you are saying.
It’s just that if we do wind up with a President Trump, a lot of the responsibility lies with the Democrats, who let the Clintons and their long term cronies deal with the party’s machinery much as a parasitic wasp deals with a caterpillar.
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In what ways is Hillary:
- Corrupt
- Sociopathic
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If no one can present examples of people going to prison for doing something similar to what Hillary Clinton is accused of doing then it’s not credible to say “anyone else would be in jail for this,” which is the oft-repeated claim of Trump supporters.
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Note that I said “if” there. (Edit: Well, actually, I said “when” but it was a hypothetical when that meant if.)
My value judgement was “I think Hillary’s better than Trump, though still not ideal (I mean, there are a few shady-looking things going on in her history… maybe they’re trumped up by the opposition and I didn’t look closely enough, but I’d say at least a little corrupt, to the degree that you may arguably need to be to be successful in US politics). But, IF I’m wrong, and they’re both corrupt self-interested sociopaths, then she’s still the better one to root for.”
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It’s a long winded bit of nothing opinion piece written by a smug Republican who has not faltered in supporting the GOP since college. It proves nothing new, it offers nothing new, and it is so generic it could be about any political party or platform. And that’s what the Podesta emails are - incredibly boring communications between people trying to get face to face with an important person. There’s no magic solution to that, and using charity is probably the best place for rich and powerful people to meet since it requires donations to a cause that is tracked pretty rigorously.
What here offends you so, and what do you feel is the solution?
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For all I know, cases concerning state secrets might be prosecuted without public disclosure of the details of the case. Or perhaps there is a huge database of similar cases. I have no idea.
I do know for sure that the penalties for mishandling classified information are taught to those tasked with handling such materials and acknowledged as part of the vetting process. You might make the argument that those laws are not to be taken seriously, and put into the code of law as sort of a joke. You could ask Chelsea manning about that.
Personally, I handle classified materials absolutely by the book. Because of that, I will likely never find out what price I would personally pay for passing classified materials to anyone unauthorized to receive them. Since those laws exist, I have to assume that I would be punished for breaking them.
Here is one such law, 18 USC 793 (f,g).
(f)
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code
book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in
violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(g)
If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and
one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.
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There’s a big difference between “it’s possible lots of people have been secretly prosecuted for things similar to what Hillary is accused of doing” and “any ordinary person would be in prison if they did what Hillary is accused of doing.”
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