My granddaughter is beginning to think I'm not lost

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK now I'm thinking that this O'Malley creature looks better than Bernie. Too much hand-waving Bernie - although your staff tried to tell you to grip the podium after the break, you just couldn't do it. And Hillary - what was that? She took second place in a sack race?

Yes, O'Malley is looking better than either of them. I dismiss the Republicans now - unless Kasich runs. Sorry Reps, ya lost with your 16 person say-nothing-but-insult-each-other road show

I'm no Dem but at the moment, what choice do I have but to pick the best of three?

[Lord Jim]

O'Malley is running on the "If Hillary get's indicted, I'm the guy who's not a Communist who's signed up for all the primaries and can get delegates" ticket.....

[wesw]

yes, o malleable is just who meade will vote for..... (eye roll)

then he will move next door to rubato..., or me....

[MajGenl.Meade]

Mebbe so, LJ. Do I care? At this moment, I reject any of the 60,000 republican candidates other than Kasich who stands no chance of being selected. Their debates, compared to last night's, are nothing but hot air skating on thin ice - they sound like petulant first graders and mean to boot.

Last night's debate was, for all that it lacked, substantive and on point. O'Chooseme looked and sounded like presidential material - of the other two, one is a dangerous hangover from the 1920s and there is no way on earth I vote for any Clintone and this one in particular.

[wesw]

the last repub debate was actually pretty good. blitzer did well.

the moderators have a great deal to do with how a debate goes, but I too am unbelieving as to how willing the repubs have been to destroy each other

eta- and the repub debate, on Fox Business was pretty good too.

[Lord Jim]

What Trump has done to this process is an enormous tragedy, especially from a party point of view...

(It's also an enormous tragedy from an overall political dialog and best-interest-of-the-country point of view, but that's another subject...)

Hillary Clinton was ( you'll notice I'm using the past tense) a very vulnerable and beatable candidate...(all of the head-to-head general election polling backs me up on this; hell head-to-head in the polls, even Ted Cruz is competitive...)

But at this point with Trump's toxic presence in the race, only three things can happen, and all of them bode ill for The Grand Old Party:

1. Trump gets the nomination, and a HUGE percentage of life-long Republicans take a walk (including your humble correspondent, and well known RINOS like Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard honcho who has already announced that he wont vote for Trump) That combined with a Latino vote in the low teens, will bring Hillary a 40 plus state landslide...

2.Trump isn't nominated and runs third party. (That probably works well for GOPers down ballot in Senate and House races, but again, a 40 plus state landslide for the Presidency. The only thing that could even the tables in this scenario is if Sanders bolts and takes the Green nomination)

3.Trump isn't nominated, doesn't run third party, but snipes from the sidelines, and discourages the Trumpanzees from turning out to vote for the nominee...(Probably not a 40 state landslide, but still a Hillary win)

All and all, very bleak...

A real opportunity pissed away...

If I'm working for Team Clinton at this point, looking at the dynamics on the Republican side, I'm thinking, "Gee if she just doesn't get indicted, and Bernie doesn't run Green, we've got this thing knocked"...

[wesw]

4. bush -Kasich run third party and all hell breaks loose

5. sanders runs third party, and all hell breaks loose

6. both of the above happen and trump wins easily

[Guinevere]

Your repetition of the phrase "if Hillary gets indicted" is as fanciful and delusional as wes' "when Hillary drops out" thread.

As for your conclusions, there is nothing set in stone in politics, something HRC supporters know better than most. I'm still working hard for my candidate, and won't stop until all the votes are counted in November.

[Lord Jim]

"if Hillary gets indicted" is as fanciful and delusional as wes' "when Hillary drops out"

No it's not...

Her situation is very analogous to what John Deutch was indicted for...

There's an ongoing FBI investigation, and the FBI Director does not serve at the pleasure of the President...(FBI Directors are appointed for fixed, non-fireable 10 year terms.)

Of course the FBI does not indict anyone; they just recommend that charges be filed...

Where this would get really interesting, is if the FBI recommends charges and then the Obama Justice Department, (where the Attorney General does serve at the pleasure of the President) has to decide whether or not to indict...

Talk about a hot potato...

[Guinevere]

I know you and the republicans are drooling over the idea of a criminal investigation of HRC, but it's fantasy. As are any so-called facts that you allege make this similar to Deutsch.

[Lord Jim]

Yeah, well I guess we'll see...

Once the FBI concludes its investigation and issues its findings...

[Guinevere]

Indeed we will. If such an investigation focussed on criminal activity by Secretary Clinton exists...

[Lord Jim]

You figure the FBI seized her server and is now reconstructing everything on it and interviewing numerous people for shits and giggles?

FBI steps up interviews in Clinton email probe

Even as Hillary Clinton tries to put questions about her private email server behind her, the FBI has stepped up inquiries into the security of the former secretary of state's home-made email system and how aides communicated over email, POLITICO has learned.

The FBI’s recent moves suggest that its inquiry could have evolved from the preliminary fact-finding stage that the agency launches when it receives a credible referral, according to former FBI and Justice Department officials interviewed by POLITICO.

“This sounds to me like it’s more than a preliminary inquiry; it sounds like a full-blown investigation,” said Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI. “When you have this amount of resources going into it …. I think it’s at the investigative level.”

The FBI declined to respond to questions about the scope of its ongoing work.

But POLITICO learned that around early October, the FBI requested documents from a company involved in the server arrangement after Clinton left State. It also interviewed a former high-ranking policy official at State about the contents of top Clinton aides’ emails.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/h ... z3uspvYU1z

[rubato]

Oh look, yet another bullshit email "scandal":

http://www.ibtimes.com/ash-carter-email ... se-2232318

The U.S. Department of Defense has released the first batch of emails sent from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s personal email account to department and armed forces officials, in a situation that closely mirrors the email scandal that has engulfed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In all, 27 emails were sent during a period in April, two months after the Pentagon chief assumed control of the country’s defense.

Government officials are not supposed to use personal email when corresponding for official purposes.

The released emails, which are in response to a New York Times Freedom of Information request, do not cover the entire period in which Carter used his personal email for work purposes. It’s expected the Pentagon will release more emails once they have been security cleared, Defense News reported Friday.

The newly released emails focus on logistical arrangements and speaking engagements, but some do allude to future appointments in the department. One email sent to “Fanning,” who is likely Eric Fanning, secretary of the Army, is titled “Paying for Dinner” and contains just one word: “How?”

Or is it that these are busy people and which email account they use something of a detail?





yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yeah that must be it. Busy people... rules... optional.

Sounds a bit elitist to me. Are these people at all affluent and breastfeeding in public?

[rubato]

Yeah that must be it. Busy people... rules... optional.

Sounds a bit elitist to me. Are these people at all affluent and breastfeeding in public?

Hostile and flailing. Really pathetic.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Hostile and flailing. Really pathetic.

Yes, indeed you are...

Oh look, yet another bullshit email "scandal":

The "bullshit" of course, is the idea that this case and the Clinton case are in any way comparable. What Carter did was wrong and stupid, (he's said as much) especially in light of the controversy surrounding Clinton's flagrant violation of Administration rules and legal requirements. But what he did was use a private account to send a relative handful of emails to staffers.

What Clinton did was to systematically, for four years, send and receive every single official email (including communications that are automatically assumed to be classified) from a private account on a private server kept in a closet in Colorado.

In Clinton Explanation 1.0 last April, she asserted that she fully knew all the rules and laws pertaining to classified material. Since then she's tried to backtrack, disingenuously parsing her answer saying she didn't send or receive emails "marked" classified when she knows damn well that doesn't make any difference. But she has to say this because she knows quite well that she did in fact send and receive classified information on this improper account on an unauthorized, insecure server.

Clinton knew very well what the laws and administration rules were. She just didn't believe (as is so often the case in so many areas with her) that they applied to The Great Hillary....

She arrogantly believed that she was entitled to do whatever the fuck she wanted to do, rules be damned...

Rube if you can't see the glaring night and day differences between these two cases, you clearly still haven't gotten a handle on that whole shit/shinola thing, and I don't have the patience required to teach the difference to such an incredibly slow learner as yourself. Anyone who genuinely cared about facts would easily see the difference.

BTW, rube having any luck figuring out a "plausible" explanation for how you managed to "accidentally" falsely attribute a foolish statement made by somebody else to me?

Yeah, didn't think so...

Gawd, what a lying little weasel...

[Gob]

I find that very offensive Jim!!!









Weasels are nice creatures...

[Guinevere]

And about Colin Powell, who also used a personal email account for official State Department business and when asked to turn over said emails, was not able to produce any of them. Do "the rulz" apply to him too?

[Lord Jim]

Well again, not really the same thing:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday he used two computers while leading the department, one for transmitting sensitive material and another for emailing “housekeeping stuff.”

“I had a secure State Department machine for secure material and I had a laptop that I could use for email. I would email relatives, friends, but I would also email in the department,” Powell explained on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“But it was mostly housekeeping stuff -- what’s the status of this paper, what’s going on here.”

Powell, a Republican who served in the George W. Bush administration, has spoken before about his two computers, and said he wrote an entire chapter about it in his book.

http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk ... s-at-state

However, if you would like, both of them could be indicted...

Would that work for you?