This Is Just Spiffy...

[Lord Jim]

in this election I have supported Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Hillary Clinton for president, in that order.

The exact same path that I traveled...

And given how close The Most GodAwful Presidential Candidate In The History Of American Politics is making this race, it is now beyond dispute that any of the first three candidates on that list would be trouncing the 4th...

Hell, if John Kasich were the nominee, the discussion would be about whether the Democrats were going to lose California, not whether the Republicans are going to lose Texas...

Even Ted Friggin' Cruz would have had a good shot...

Over a year ago, I said Hillary Clinton was an extremely weak and vulnerable candidate, and man oh man has this general election campaign proven me right in spades...

How flawed do you have to be for even a grotesque repulsive joke like Donald Trump to still have a shot at beating you this close to election day?

[Econoline]

How flawed do you have to be for even a grotesque repulsive joke like Donald Trump to still have a shot at beating you this close to election day?

You've got to remember that the Republican party has been campaigning against Hillary Clinton for a quarter of a century, most of that time in a hall of mirrors that shows nothing but flaws--some real, mostly imaginary. That's a deficit that no other presidential candidate has ever had to overcome. (Throw enough shit and some will stick; the longer you do it, the shittier the outcome.)

[BoSoxGal]

Exactly! An entire segment of the youth vote has been raised to loathe her just because she is she.

[Big RR]

Exactly! An entire segment of the youth vote has been raised to loathe her just because she is she.

Even if that is true, how many youth carry forward the politics of their parents. My father was a goldwater (64) and Nixon (60, 68, 72) Supporter (I don't recall before 1960, but I do know he also spoke highly of Joe McCarthy), and I drifted away early (Bobby Kennedy in 68, then Eugene McCarthy (also in 72) and afterwards McGovern, etc. My sisters did likewise, only later; my brother, I'm not sure but I could see him hook up with the Freemen (something my father would never do). I would think raising kids to hate Hillary would only make her more attractive (kind of like pot ).

And oldr, Nixon suffered a lot of the same hatred/detesting since the 40s, yet he won in 68 (and 72). I knew families that said (and not joking) that he was the antichrist. trashing politicians for decades is a long tradition, but recently few of them put up with it for as long as Hillary or Dick did.

[Econoline]

"Worse than Watergate?" Hmm, yeah, maybe so.



Gee...tell us how you REALLY feel, Keith!

[Econoline]

From a Facebook post by Adam-Troy Castro:

• Look, I'm not saying Hillary is without flaw. I'm saying that, if you have an off-stage chorus scream invective every time somebody's name is mentioned, and do this for THIRTY GODDAMNED YEARS, then even those who should honestly have no reason to react to that name with revulsion will start flinching every time it is spoken.
  
  So, yeah. We may end up owing the fall of American Democracy to the Frau Blucher effect.

[Big RR]

We may end up owing the fall of American Democracy to the Frau Blucher effect

Hilarious and sad at the same time.

[Sue U]

Even if that is true, how many youth carry forward the politics of their parents.

I dunno, but I descend from a long line of pinkos, and I don't know of anyone in my extended family who isn't left-leaning.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I do have a question for one of our legal seagulls - if you get a search warrant to pursue evidence re crime A and you stumble across evidence of crime B, are you allowed to follow it up? I had an idea that this might be inadmissible.

[wesw]

...or, since the weiner dog voluntarily gave the fbi the 'puter, do they even need a search warrant at all/

[Guinevere]

I do have a question for one of our legal seagulls - if you get a search warrant to pursue evidence re crime A and you stumble across evidence of crime B, are you allowed to follow it up? I had an idea that this might be inadmissible.

Yes, so long as the search warrant was validly issued and the execution of the warrant was validly performed. Interestingly, the Commonwealth is litigating this case right now, on an administrative search warrant I had issued and executed in a civil case. In doing the permitted inspection under the administrative search warrant, the town official and police noticed and gathered evidence of theft of electricity from a neighboring property (provided by a town electric plant), prosecuted, and the thief was prosecuted convicted. He is appealing, claiming it was a bad search warrant, and/or not within the scope. He tried the same argument at trial, seeking to have the evidence suppressed. He lost, and I expect he will lose in the Appeals Court, too. The ADA handling the appeal tells me it's as good/supported search warrant application as she has ever seen!

ETA - I apply for and get administrative search warrants somewhat regularly as part of my practice enforcing state and local regulatory schemes. Even if a local inspector has a right under a particular state or local law or regulatory scheme to enter private property to conduct an inspection or code compliance, unless permission is given to enter, good practice in MA requires a search warrant be issued because of the strictures of the fourth and fifth amendments. So, I have to establish probable cause, as in any criminal case. And although there is MA case law that the level of probable cause required is lower for an administrative search warrant than a criminal warrant, as a practical matter the process to get the warrant is the same, and the magistrates want probable cause they can understand (and they mostly deal with the question in the criminal context), so you better have a similar level of supported facts.

[Big RR]

I think the only caveat to that is that warrants are fairly explicit in what can be searched and what is being sought. So looking for a stolen car would not permit the police to look through someone's desk or computer absent a pretty good reason to do so (like looking for the keys, e.g.)--I think this is what Guin is referring to as "validly performed"; I've seen cases where he results of such searches are thrown out even if they do show evidence of an unrelated crime.

[Econoline]

• BOROWITZ REPORT
  COMEY SAYS F.B.I. INVESTIGATING
  HILLARY’S TIES TO BILL CLINTON
  By Andy Borowitz , 01:44 P.M.
  
  WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Dropping a bombshell less than a week before the Presidential election, the F.B.I. Director James Comey revealed on Wednesday that the Bureau was investigating Hillary Clinton’s ties to Bill Clinton.
  
  The announcement, which Comey made in a letter to members of Congress, provoked immediate howls of protest from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
  
  “To say that they are investigating so-called ties between Hillary and Bill Clinton while offering no specifics about what those ties might be is unconscionable this close to an election,” Podesta told CNN.
  
  Comey, however, stood his ground, telling reporters that there was no way the F.B.I. could divulge the results of its Clinton-Clinton probe before Election Day.
  
  “We have reason to believe that the ties between these two individuals go back to the nineteen-seventies,” he said. “This is going to take some time.”
  
  On the campaign trail, Donald Trump praised Comey, whom he called “my favorite person in the world right now.”
  

  ---

  Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report for newyorker.com.

[/font]

[Guinevere]

I think the only caveat to that is that warrants are fairly explicit in what can be searched and what is being sought. So looking for a stolen car would not permit the police to look through someone's desk or computer absent a pretty good reason to do so (like looking for the keys, e.g.)--I think this is what Guin is referring to as "validly performed"; I've seen cases where he results of such searches are thrown out even if they do show evidence of an unrelated crime.

Yes big RR that's what I mean by "validly performed". You still have to stay within the scope of the original warrant, but if you see evidence of a crime while executing that warrant it doesn't matter that you don't have a warrant related to that other crime. So in my case, we had a warrant to inspect the outside of the property, and while walking around looking at the condition of all the hoarded material, the police and the building inspector saw the wires that indicated the homeowner had tapped in to the electricity lines from the house next-door. If they had gone inside the house, which wasn't in the scope of the warrant, and seen evidence of a crime in the house, that search would probably be invalid. If they had seen some crime evidence of crime inside the house from the outside, I believe they would still be able to gather that evidence. YMMV, every situation is going to be different, and going to be very factually specific. There are also certain exceptions that allow warrantless searches, mostly exigent circumstances.

[Big RR]

Yep, no argument there.

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

This was nice to see:

FBI director to Congress: Still no charges recommended after latest Clinton emails reviewed

FBI Director James Comey wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders Sunday that the agency has not found anything new that would warrant charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton,” Comey wrote Sunday, in a letter sent to members of Congress and released by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California).

This summer, the FBI announced that after a full investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server, it was not recommending criminal charges against her.

However, in a surprise move, Comey wrote to Congress on Oct. 28 -- barely ten days before Election Day -- to say that the agency was taking steps to review new emails relating to Clinton’s case. That news was then leaked by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and the letter began to circulate more widely. The new emails came from the laptop of former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

That announcement upended the 2016 race between Clinton and GOP nominee Donald Trump, with the Trump campaign praising Comey’s actions and Democrats expressing concern that the FBI would make such an “unprecedented” move so close to Election Day.

“Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation,” Comey wrote on Sunday. “During that process we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State … I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time.”

Speaking to reporters aboard the campaign plane, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters they are happy the issue has been “resolved.”

“We have seen Director Comey’s latest letter to the Hill,” she said. “We were glad to see that as we were -- that he has found as we were confident that he would that he has confirmed the conclusions that he really -- reached in July and we’re glad this matter is resolved.”

Trump, too, responded to the news at a rally in Minneapolis.

“You have to understand, it’s a rigged system,” he said. “And she’s protected.”[wow...didn't see that coming...]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-directo ... o-charges/

[BoSoxGal]

Comey NEVER should have released that letter October 28 - if he knew he could rally the manpower to complete the review before Tuesday (and he should have known that), then it was entirely reckless. He should be ashamed and he is personally responsible if Herr Drumpf is elected.

[Econoline]

From Jim Wright on Facebook:

Trump should be a hipster, because everything about that guy is ironic.

The advisor working to craft Trump's speech in response to last week's FBI email announcement literally had his pants catch on fire.

Literally, pants on fire.

h/t to Buzzfeed news. Full story here in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/us/po ... .html?_r=0

[Lord Jim]

I have to admit, it does seem to raise this question:

"Uh, Jim, if this is something that you were going to be able to determine in one week, why not wait rather than send the first letter?"...

But this:

he is personally responsible if Herr Drumpf is elected.

Really strikes me as a bridge too far...

The bottom line on this remains what it has always been...

Neither Jim Comey, nor any "vast right-wing conspirator" put a gun to Hillary's head and forced her to set up an unauthorized server that stored classified information, nor did they force her to lie repeatedly about it to the American people...

That's all on her....

If Herr Drumpf is elected, she will deserve a heaping helping of the responsibility...