The 2016 US American Election Thread

[GirlySports]

I see no bullying here, it's a discussion thread.

I probably lead the league in posing dumb questions.

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by photon

"James Comey fails to follow Justice Department rules yet again"

This letter not only violated Justice rules on commenting on ongoing investigations but also flew in the face of years of precedent about how to handle sensitive cases as Election Day nears.

Justice traditionally bends over backward to avoid taking any action that might be seen by the public as influencing an election, often declining to even take private steps that might become public in the 60 days leading up to an election. For an example, in one case of which I am aware, the FBI opened an investigation into a high-ranking public official shortly before an election but delayed sending any subpoenas until after the election for fear that they might leak and unfairly tarnish the official. Indeed, that investigation ultimately concluded with no charges.

Comey’s subordinates have argued through anonymous quotes to reporters that he felt compelled to update Congress because of his previous explanations to them. But that just exposes how ill-advised his earlier statements were. Furthermore, even if he felt compelled to update Congress at some point, he could have followed Justice guidelines and done so after the election.

Supporters of the FBI director also argue that he would have been criticized had he withheld this information until after the election. But he didn’t actually provide Congress or the public with any substantive information. Instead, he provided just enough detail to allow Republicans to make speculative charges about Clinton, but not enough to allow her to defend herself. In fact, in the hours since Comey’s letter was released, media outlets have reported often-contradictory details about what the FBI is actually examining, another inevitable result of his actions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...048_story.html

I think this is what bugs me the most about this. Why send a letter like that if you have no substantial information yet?

[photon]

Liberal media is so biased, only every column is devoted to something where:

-FBI has not reviewed new emails
-No way can review before vote
-We don't know what's in emails
-Not from Clinton

[Drak]

I agree with Nate Silver, that Weiner insulates a lot of the damage to Clinton on this.

[Azure]

So it was about a whole lot of nothing.

[photon]

Originally Posted by troutman

Lanny Davis: Comey’s actions improper, irresponsible and possibly illegal
http://64.147.104.30/opinion/lanny-d...ssibly-illegal

Interesting read!

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by Azure

So it was about a whole lot of nothing.

So far, yea. The fact that this could possibly sway the election in Trump's favor is a pretty scary thought, considering the FBI doesn't even know if they have anything substantial. If Trump gets elected and the investigation finds that there's nothing there? Yikes. The sh-- would hit the fan for sure.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Alpine Fisher

I have been doing more research on Hillary Clinton, and now I think she is criminal.
I want to say Pro Trump things in this thread, but I am now afraid I will be Banned by Pro-Hillary Mods.
Alot of bullies in this thread, bullying Illuminaughty.
Please don't ban me by posting this.

I would be interested in your case that Hillary is a criminal. And assuming she is a criminal why this criminal version of Hillary is a worse choice for president than trump?

[photon]

Another take on the letter which tries to bring differing perspectives into view.

Let me share a few thoughts on the latest on the emails front.

We have two contending points of view on the case. One group says Comey flagrantly violated longstanding DOJ policy (through multiple administrations) by sending this letter to the Hill. Indeed, we now have multiple reports that Attorney General Lynch told Comey he was acting outside of DOJ policy. In this view, whatever his motivations, he recklessly interfered in a national election based on little more than an effort inoculate himself from future Republican criticism. This view seems backed up by numerous former federal prosecutors from both parties.

The other group says Comey was in an impossible position. He had testified at length defending his decision not to recommend charges and said that the probe was over, if not officially closed. Based on new information, he had no choice but to supplement his testimony. Beyond this legal obligation, Comey knew there was a good chance information would leak and force his hand or that he would be blamed after the election for withholding information.

I put myself largely in camp one. But I think both sides have decent arguments on their side. One point that seems clear to me from the totality of what we've seen is that Comey is more sensitive to avoiding present or future criticism than addressing the equities behind the DOJ and FBI protocols that counsel against what he did. He's been under non-stop attack - ref-playing - from congressional Republicans for over three months. I've heard unconfirmed reports that Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT) may have gotten wind of this new email cache and pressured Comey write the letter. Whether or not that is true, the broader point remains. Comey felt he would face Republican criticism either now or in the future if he didn't send this letter.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/...rse-on-day-two

[direwolf]

Some pretty good points made in this article, basically saying this latest email scandal will actually end up being a positive for Clinton, and will only further galvanize her supporters. It might just be wishful thinking on the writer's part, as it's obviously a pro-Dem website. But he does make a decent argument. I guess we'll see if he's right once the next batch of polls are released.

Since it broke in March of 2015, the email story has been covered in major news outlets for SIX HUNDRED DAYS.
We’re talking big media outlets, not blogs or local papers: AP, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. And more often than not there were multiple mentions across the national media on each of those days.
A Monmouth poll conducted in August found that 63% of Americans are tired of hearing about the issue. I suspect that number has only increased.
In the aftermath of a widely-panned NBC forum, the Washington Post said this:
Judging by the amount of time NBC’s Matt Lauer spent pressing Hillary Clinton on her emails during Wednesday’s national security presidential forum, one would think that her homebrew server was one of the most important issues facing the country this election. It is not.
The American people have a sense of proportionality. 600 days on emails to the exclusion of issues that affect their daily lives makes them more inclined to support Hillary Clinton, not less.
FBI Director James Comey may be under fire for dropping a cryptic letter about the emails 11 days before the election, but the letter is more likely than not a gift for the Clinton campaign.
Trump and the GOP are sure to overreach. The jolt of a new round of unhinged attacks against her will further energize her supporters to go to the polls. And if 600 days of relentless email coverage didn’t derail her, 10 more days won’t do it either.

http://shareblue.com/email-story-a-g...llary-clinton/

[troutman]

Callan: Time for FBI director Comey to go
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/opinio...pinion-callan/

[killer_carlson]

Comey was in a no win position. If he does not investigate it or investigates this but does not disclose it he gets skewered from the right. The fact that he does do it sees him skewered from the left.

To that point:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mepage%2Fstory

[octothorp]

The media's reaction here feels a bit like a referee who's just realized that he may have gotten suckered into calling a game-changing penalty on a dive. They're pissed off about their initial knee-jerk reaction and trying their damnedest to minimize its effects. It makes it all the worse that it comes from someone they should be able to trust to avoid partisan politics.

While I do think that he was in an unwinnable situation, he could have used much stronger language to avoid the appearance of influencing the election. 'Cannot yet assess whether this material may be significant' makes it sound like a toss-up, 50-50 chance of this being really serious. Language like more along the lines of 'no basis at this point to think that it will change my original recommendations' would have done more to avoid the appearance of influencing the election, and would have been just as factually accurate.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Illuminaughty

He's a dice roll, who knows, he could do everything he's been saying he's gonna do or completely go the opposite, he wouldn't be the first.

Well considering half the things he says are the opposite of the other half, I suppose this is pretty likely.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Some people crash weddings, others crash charity events where they donated nothing to pettily upstage someone actually charitable.

In the fall of 1996, a charity called the Association to Benefit Children held a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for a new nursery school serving children with AIDS. The bold-faced names took seats up front.

There was then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) and former mayor David Dinkins (D). TV stars Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, who were major donors. And there was a seat saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had given generously to build the nursery.

Then, all of a sudden, there was Donald Trump.

“Nobody knew he was coming,” said Abigail Disney, another donor sitting on the dais. “There’s this kind of ruckus at the door, and I don’t know what was going on, and in comes Donald Trump. [He] just gets up on the podium and sits down.”

Trump was not a major donor. He was not a donor, period. He’d never given a dollar to the nursery or the Association to Benefit Children, according to Gretchen Buchenholz, the charity’s executive director then and now.

But now he was sitting in Fisher’s seat, next to Giuliani.

“Frank Gifford turned to me and said, ‘Why is he here?’ ” Buchenholz recalled recently. By then, the ceremony had begun. There was nothing to do.

“Just sing past it,” she recalled Gifford telling her.

So they warbled into the first song on the program, “This Little Light of Mine,” alongside Trump and a chorus of children — with a photographer snapping photos, and Trump looking for all the world like an honored donor to the cause.

Afterward, Disney and Buchenholz recalled, Trump left without offering an explanation. Or a donation. Fisher was stuck in the audience. The charity spent months trying to repair its relationship with him.

“I mean, what’s wrong with you, man?” Disney recalled thinking of Trump, when it was over.

For as long as he has been rich and famous, Donald Trump has also wanted people to believe he is generous. He spent years constructing an image as a philanthropist by appearing at charity events and by making very public — even nationally televised — promises to give his own money away.

It was, in large part, a facade. A months-long investigation by The Washington Post has not been able to verify many of Trump’s boasts about his philanthropy.

Instead, throughout his life in the spotlight, whether as a businessman, television star or presidential candidate, The Post found that Trump had sought credit for charity he had not given — or had claimed other people’s giving as his own.

The charity that Trump has given the most money to over his lifetime appears to be his own: the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

But that charity, too, was not what it seemed.

The Trump Foundation appeared outwardly to be a typical, if small, philanthropic foundation — set up by a rich man to give his riches away.

In reality, it has been funded largely by other people. Tax records show the Trump Foundation has received $5.5 million from Trump over its life, and nothing since 2008. It received $9.3 million from other people.

Another unusual feature: One of the foundation’s most consistent causes was Trump himself.

New findings, for instance, show that the Trump Foundation’s largest-ever gift — $264,631 — was used to renovate a fountain outside the windows of Trump’s Plaza Hotel.

Its smallest-ever gift, for $7, was paid to the Boy Scouts in 1989, at a time when it cost $7 to register a new Scout. Trump’s oldest son was 11 at the time. Trump did not respond to a question about whether the money was paid to register him.

At other times, Trump used his foundation’s funds to settle legal disputes involving Trump’s for-profit companies and to buy two large portraits of himself, including one that wound up hanging on the wall of the sports bar at a Trump-owned golf resort. Those purchases raised questions about whether Trump had violated laws against “self-dealing” by charity leaders.

In advance of this article, The Post sent more than 70 questions to the Trump campaign.

Those questions covered the individual anecdotes and statistics contained in this article, including the tale about Trump crashing the ribbon-cutting in 1996, as well as broader questions about Trump’s life as a philanthropist.

Exactly when, before this spring, did Trump last give his own money to charity?

What did Trump consider his greatest act of charity in recent years?

Trump’s campaign did not respond until Saturday afternoon, after this article was published online; it sent a written statement saying that Trump “has personally donated tens of millions of dollars . . . to charitable causes.”

Trump officials did not respond when asked to provide evidence of the tens of millions of dollars in gifts.

As it rose again, the Trump Foundation continued to be used to benefit its namesake.

The best illustration of that was the charity to which the foundation gave its two largest gifts of the 1990s. The Trump Foundation gave $50,000 in 1995, and another $50,000 in 1999, to a nonprofit called the National Museum of Catholic Art and History.

Those gifts, not previously reported, seemed like an odd choice for big charitable dollars.

The museum was housed for much of the 1990s in a former headquarters for “Fat Tony” Salerno of the Genovese crime family in East Harlem. It had few visitors and little art. A Village Voice reporter, visiting in 2001, said the collection included a photo of the pope, some nun dolls bought from the Home Shopping Network, and — just off the dining room — “a black Jacuzzi decorated with simmering candles, gold-plated soap dishes, and kitsch angel figurines.”

Trump is not Catholic.

But he and the museum had a mutual friend.

Ed Malloy, who was then the chairman of the museum’s board, was the head of the powerful labor group, the Building and Construction Trades Council. News reports from the time indicate that he was a business ally of Trump’s: Union members worked on Trump buildings, and Malloy helped Trump line up vital financing from a union pension fund.

“Contributing to this museum — you know, it only made sense in the context of relationships,” said Wayne Barrett, the Village Voice reporter, in a recent interview.

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment about these donations.

Malloy died in 2012.

The Catholic museum shut down in 2010.

“I cannot give you a comment. I don’t want to be quoted on anything,” said Christina Cox, the museum’s former director, when The Post reached her by phone.

At times, Trump seemed to make light of others’ expectations about his generosity.

In 1997, for instance, he was “principal for a day” at a public school in an impoverished area of the Bronx. The chess team was holding a bake sale, Hot & Crusty danishes and croissants. They were $5,000 short of what they needed to travel to a tournament.

Trump had brought something to wow them.

“He handed them a fake million-dollar bill,” said David MacEnulty, a teacher and the chess team’s coach.

The team’s parent volunteers were thrilled.

Then disappointment.

Trump then gave them $200 in real money and drove away in a limousine.

Why just $200?

“I have no idea,” MacEnulty said. “He was about the most clueless person I’ve ever seen in that regard.”

The happy ending, he said, was that a woman read about Trump’s gift in the New York Times, called the school and donated the $5,000. “I am ashamed to be the same species as this man,” MacEnulty recalled her saying.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...mepage%2Fstory

[Coach]

^^^

Isn't that charity stuff grounds for arrest? It must be. And haven't we known about it for a while? How can people stand for calling his opponent crooked and a criminal with no real basis, all the while he actually is one?

[Flamenspiel]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Comey was in a no win position. If he does not investigate it or investigates this but does not disclose it he gets skewered from the right. The fact that he does do it sees him skewered from the left.

To that point:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mepage%2Fstory

That's a great write-up. The fact is that HRC still has the odds heavily in her favor. If they would have covered this up and let it come out after the election, it would have been an ongoing scandal hampering the new administration, the republicans would have had a field day.

Its certainly not nothing, because the exact quote is "..emails that were pertinent to the investigation.." It'll probably be just more evidence that Clinton was sloppy and unprofessional rather then anything criminal. I wonder what level of clearance Huma had and whether that will be an issue.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Flamenspiel

Its certainly not nothing

It could very well be nothing, at the time Comey wrote the letter all he was aware of was their existence. Many different articles suggest that they would need a court order to examine the emails, which makes sense I assume the FBI has to follow the law for gathering evidence, and they didn't have the laptop for anything related to Clinton. Other sources have suggested the emails aren't from Clinton's private email server and aren't even from Clinton.

So there's every possibility that there is nothing, and that's the point. You're right on one hand if there is something and they didn't report it then they'd be in big trouble, but Comey made his own bed so now he should have to lie in it. The other way is arguably worse, if they announced this giving Republicans a gift 10 days before the election, Trump wins, and then it ends up being nothing, the FBI has interfered with an election.

Which is why they have the methods they do to prevent this kind of thing. Methods Comey ignored.

If the FBI said "We're investigating the Trump campaign for links to the Russian hacking and leaking of emails to Wikileaks" (which they most likely are), and just left it at that, how many people would assume that where there's smoke there's fire and assume that Trump has Russian connections? TONS. It'd be nuts. It would also be completely irresponsible of the FBI to do that.

[photon]

Lol Trump and Pence talking down Evan McMullin, saying he's a puppet and Pence says nobody ever heard of him.

McMullin's response: "Yes you’ve never heard of me because while you were harassing women at beauty pageants, I was fighting terrorists abroad."

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Ouch. I am starting to like the cut of this McMullin fellow's jib....