The New American Politics thread

[CaptainCrunch]

So I had to laugh, I played a political simulator game yesterday where you run for the president of the united states. You basically pick your party, do fund raising, debate in the primaries and then plan your appearances, and radio ads, you can do positive or negative campaigning.

At the start you pick your key 5 issues, and then you can pick a maverick issue that goes against your party.

I picked lower taxes, right to work, fighting terrorists internationally, government transparency and the rights of unborn children. Oh I forgot to mention that I ran as a repbulican. I picked gay rights as my maverick issue, that people had the right to marry no matter what the orientation.

I ran a gray campaign. I went after my democratic opponent because one of her key issues was voter reform, I also went after her because she was into nuclear dis-arming. I also hit the states where gay rights was a big deal, and managed to keep the normal repbulican states happy with my hard core stance on terrorism, lower taxes and government transparency.

I managed to swing California from a democratic fortress to a neutral state and won New York and kept texas which were huge fund raising states.

I think I won the election 280 something to 240

I think if I play it next time, I'm going to go completely negative.

[GGG]

Do you have a link for it

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Gozer

I'm sorry I'm not appreciating what you're trying to say.

What I am saying is that there was no transgression against the FRA as the records were provided as specified by the archivist.

The SoS did not retain or dispose of relevant documents in accordance with the FRA and appears to be intentionally circumventing the auspices of FOIA.

So long as the SoS has met the retention requirements of the FRA she is in compliance with the law. Retention schedules are very specific, and from my review of the facts presented in the media and through hearings, the SoS paper trail was never compromised.

Am I wrong? Is that a non-sensical claim, due to the nature of the FRA not being a criminal code? Is it possible to violate the FRA?

I don’t think your claim is non-sensical, just not completely accurate. This is a complex case because most people don’t understand the concepts of dissemination of information from a legal perspective. Look at the confusion in this thread, thinking that classified information is always classified information. When a label is affixed to information is where things become interesting, as it also changes the expectations of the FRA. Now having said that, the FRA is just a framework for records management. The biggest contravention, and the one you appear to be most fixated on, is the removal or destruction of records.

The penalties for unlawful removal or destruction of records vary. Title 18 identifies fines of $1,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, dependent on the value of the record. These are communications records, which hold very little value. The fact that they were originally disseminated as public records, prior to receiving a sensitivity label, leads me to believe the outcome would be a reprimand. The most severe outcome is probably a fine. Jail time would only be for the most egregious of violations, and there was nothing here considered egregious, according to the FBI. If the FBI says there is no grounds for charges, there is no grounds for charges. I’ve been across the table from Special Agents investigating an incident (self-reported), and they take their jobs very seriously and attempt to nail someone with each investigation.

The biggest thing to understand here is that the information on the Clinton server may not be the final repository of records. These records may exist in other systems, and the Clinton email server may have been set to send copies to the SoS servers, meaning the expectations of the FRA was met. Since the FBI looked into this I am going to assume that all aspects of the FRA were met, as this is low hanging fruit during an investigation or audit.

Finally, if she did receive information that had a label, or later had a label applied, it was her responsibility to delete those files from the insecure data store as expeditiously as possible. I’ve said this before, but you are not legally responsible for receiving emails that contain information. You are responsible for what happens next. Do you delete it or save it? Do you forward it or do you print it? This is where you can get into trouble. Receiving information is an act you have very little control over. You control is what you do with it. The FBI seems to believe that Clinton acted irresponsibly in that regard, which probably means her staff did not properly delete files, or she failed to self-report back to her department of something that was questionable. If there was more to it they would have laid criminal charges, which would have led to fines or jail time.

I don't mean to be unpleasant. It's clear that you have more thorough knowledge, but I don't know where I'm ignorant.

I don’t think you’re being unpleasant. I hope I am not coming off as unpleasant either. I’m just trying to correct an inaccuracy that I have noticed in the conversations. The rules for document handling can be very confusing, especially if you are not familiar with data classification and handling standards, nor their application. Your error, from what I am reading, is thinking that some of the issues with the Clinton case were illegal, when in fact they were not. I hope this explanation has helped. If not, please ask specific questions and I’ll do my best to be answer the question directly.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GGG

Do you have a link for it

Its made for schools, so I played at the high school level

https://www.icivics.org/games/win-white-house

If your doing negative, its important to target issues that your opponent feels strongly about one way and you feel strongly the other way.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Gozer

The standard that you are applying is so strict that every government official would be compelled to state "unknown" or "the 5th" to every question.

Such strict intrepetation would be detrimental to any inquiry or probe. There needs to be a charitable consideration of testimony. Was this an attempt to obstruct justice and deceive investigators?

It really isn't a strict interpretation.

Honestly, it is like the drug dealer saying that he didn't know what he was selling cocaine because this giant bag of white powder was only marked as "COCAINE" on the underside of the pouch. I guess he wouldn't be perjuring himself either.

I think you and some of the others on this board are giving her way to much leeway because "emails". It's like we live in some world where we can be flippant with these confidential documents because they aren't physical objects in nature.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

It really isn't a strict interpretation.

Honestly, it is like the drug dealer saying that he didn't know what he was selling cocaine because this giant bag of white powder was only marked as "COCAINE" on the underside of the pouch. I guess he wouldn't be perjuring himself either.

That's a different standard and you'd need more information to prove perjury anyways. What if he actually didn't know?

I think you and some of the others on this board are giving her way to much leeway because "emails". It's like we live in some world where we can be flippant with these confidential documents because they aren't physical objects in nature.

You and others are also taking an incredibly complex issue and trying to make it sound like she decided she was using Gmail instead of her secure server.



Again, there's no way that meets the requirements for perjury. Maybe you don't like that, or think she's guilty of other things, but the perjury case is absurd

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

You and others are also taking an incredibly complex issue and trying to make it sound like she decided she was using Gmail instead of her secure server.

Funny you should say that, that might have actually made things better...

Comey also said that Clinton's mail server was "less secure" than Gmail. "Individual accounts might be less secure, but Google does regular security checks and updates," he explained. Clinton's mail server, set up by people working for former President Bill Clinton's foundation, sat in a basement of the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York.

Link

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by New Era

I hope I am not coming off as unpleasant either.

Not to speak for Gozer but not at all... quite frankly this might be the single most useful and informative post in the entire thread on the topic of Clinton's e-mails.

[peter12]

Most of those who met with Clinton as Secretary of State also were donors to Foundation.

But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.

I mean, the American people, for the first time, have an actual choice between a real donkey, and an elephant.

Brutal candidates.

[CaptainCrunch]

An idiot and a person with low personal integrity, glad i'm not voting down there. At this point they should pray for a populist revolution, followed by a over throw of the government.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by GGG

Do you have a link for it

Crushing Republican victory - 292-246.

[Gozer]

Sorry for the clumsy formatting, I'm on mobile.

New Era:
So long as the SoS has met the retention requirements of the FRA she is in compliance with the law. Retention schedules are very specific, and from my review of the facts presented in the media and through hearings, the SoS paper trail was never compromised.
/New Era

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...239_story.html
Quote from link:
The SoS' staff made no action to preserve the records on government servers.

The paper trail was compromised. There is no way to evaluate whether or not records were preserved properly because Hillary's staff (alone) made the determination of what records were private - and they (claim to have) used keyword searches to separate personal-from-professional. This is another layer of denialbility. Hillary destroyed the records she wanted destroyed. That's not good enough.

New Era:
The biggest thing to understand here is that the information on the Clinton server may not be the final repository of records. These records may exist in other systems, and the Clinton email server may have been set to send copies to the SoS servers, meaning the expectations of the FRA was met. Since the FBI looked into this I am going to assume that all aspects of the FRA were met, as this is low hanging fruit during an investigation or audit.
/New Era

You are deferring to the FBI, which is emminently reasonable, but I am not for two reasons.
1) the FRA and violations thereof, we're not under the purview of the FBI investigation. (See a The Hill link I posted previously)
2) investigations a) high-level officials and b) political candidates add additional layers of scrutiny to pressing charge, and rightfully so. Any charges that are levied against a Presidential nominee would be blown out of proportion by the press/public. While this does not pre-empt charges being filed, there is a disinclination to prosecute a relatively minor offense.
I think of it as comparable to the NHL needing a greater infraction to punish a superstar over a plug. (If Toews had crosschecked a ref, the league would be less inclined to proclaim it malicious) There are really good reasons for a double standard, but inaction of the league against a superstar is less exculpatory.

"New Era
I don’t think you’re being unpleasant. I hope I am not coming off as unpleasant either. I’m just trying to correct an inaccuracy
/new era

Not in the least. I'm very grateful to have such a well-informed poster to correct me and disseminate accurate information.
I was pre-apologizing because it can be difficult to explain things to stubborn donkeys that claim to know better than experts in the field.

I also want to address your comments on the time-sensitivity of markings, but I'm struggling to find my supporting evidence. It's an Intelligence official that placed the burden on the handler of the documents - classified is contents, not markings. I intend to amend this post when I have more time.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Funny you should say that, that might have actually made things better...



Link

Just for more clarification on the subject, Gmail is more secure than most corporate and government owned email servers. Using Google's Government Cloud, Google Apps for Government, is approved for housing federal data with labels up to secret. It should also be pointed out that Clinton is not the first to have used private servers or private services for government related emails. It became such a common practice (1 in 3 employees were using a third party from time-to-time) that the 2014 amendment to FRA explicitly prohibits the practice of using an external email provider. This has been a problem for a while and it was nice to see the amendment clarify the rules.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by peter12

The Clinton Foundation is purportedly a separate non-profit corporation, yet, its figureheads are leading members of a political party, and rulers of a country.

In other words, it's a charity run in part by politicians. It's hardly the only such case.

There was absolutely no transparency or clear-cut lines as to how those roles would be separated. If in her role as Sec. of State, she is required to meet with certain officials, billionaires, world leaders etc... who are also major donors to her personal foundation (which has made her MILLIONS of dollars), then that is corruption.

It's not her personal money. It's a charity.

So unless you have evidence that the Clintons are pilfering money from their own foundation for personal use, what you're suggesting is that Hillary Clinton sells her political power for money that is then used to "improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for women and girls, reduce childhood obesity and preventable diseases, create economic opportunity and growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change."

Truly a monster.

(Note that I'm not saying that they're not doing that. But there is no evidence for it, and the article doesn't even touch on that. So in other words: As far as we know, Hillary Clinton does not personally benefit in any way from the donations to the Clinton foundation.

Btw, the current personal wealth of Bill Clinton is estimated to be 80 million USD. That's 20 million less than his post-presidential public speeches alone. It seems just as likely that the money is flowing from the Clintons to the foundation and not the other way around.)

Plus why are you claiming that there was no clear-cut lines? There seemed to be a rather clear line between Band and Abedin, or in other words the line between the Clinton Foundation and the White House.

They are oligarchs, plain and simple, who have used their time in office to benefit financially, and politically.

The personal wealth of Clintons can all be traced to books they've sold, salaries they've made, speeches they've held and investments they've made with that money. They've filed enough public tax returns to show that. In other words, no they have not used their time in office to benefit financially. Unless you count selling memoirs and using the title of ex-president.

That's not oligarchy.

Also, politicians using their time in politics to benefit politically? What's that accusation about?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by peter12

Most of those who met with Clinton as Secretary of State also were donors to Foundation.

If we had an article saying "Clinton mostly met with people who had donated to her (failed) presidential campaign", would anyone claim this is anything special? Politicians meet with their donors. It's how the establishment works.

Clinton meeting mostly with people who donate to her charity seems to me obviously less bad than the above.

So if the first example is the normal and what Clinton is doing is at worst the same, why is Clinton "brutal"?

[GreenLantern2814]

Someone needs to explain how the Secretary of State's handling of emails is more of a threat than Donald J Trump having nuclear codes.

These are not equal scandals. If anything, it's showing Clinton is pretty good at keeping a secret when she wants to. Which I'd vastly prefer to President @realdonaldtrump.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by peter12

If in her role as Sec. of State, she is required to meet with certain officials, billionaires, world leaders etc... who are also major donors to her personal foundation (which has made her MILLIONS of dollars), then that is corruption.

The Clinton Foundation is a charity, Hillary was on the Board of Directors of that charity which means, by definition, she couldn't make money from that charity.

If you want to argue she used her position as Sec. State to advance the profile or causes of the charity, that's a totally legitimate question, but to claim she personally made millions from the charity on who's board she sat is false.

If she did take money from the Foundation while a board member, then that is a very serious issue.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Someone needs to explain how the Secretary of State's handling of emails is more of a threat than Donald J Drumpf having nuclear codes.

I think everyone's on board with this. It seems more a conversation about how corrupt Clinton is and whether it's worse than the average politician. I think it is; I don't think the average politician has this many skeletons in this many closets.

But the conversation is long over with respect to whether she'd be a worse President than Trump because of these sorts of scandals. That's not even up for discussion at this point. Trump must lose, and it appears all but certain that he will lose, so the discussion moves to "what kind of a President is about to take office", and that's where people are understandably not impressed with these revelations.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I think everyone's on board with this. It seems more a conversation about how corrupt Clinton is and whether it's worse than the average politician. I think it is; I don't think the average politician has this many skeletons in this many closets.

But the conversation is long over with respect to whether she'd be a worse President than Trump because of these sorts of scandals. That's not even up for discussion at this point. Trump must lose, and it appears all but certain that he will lose, so the discussion moves to "what kind of a President is about to take office", and that's where people are understandably not impressed with these revelations.

The average politician hasn't had approximately 50,000 hours of coverage dedicated to them over a 20+ year period. Analyzing Hillary relative to anyone else is virtually impossible, save, well, Bill pretty much. I'm guessing if the average politician had been under media scrutiny at Hillary's level, we'd probably view them almost exactly the same as we do Hillary.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

It's possible that you're right, I just struggle to believe it. Obviously she's been subjected to an unprecedented level of scrutiny and years of negative campaigning. I just have difficulty believing that if you picked a politician at random and subjected them to this level of scrutiny, they'd actually find so much shady stuff. Especially if they were well aware the magnifying glass was going to be on them.