US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3920

On June 02 2016 00:40 xDaunt wrote:

Except she didn't act the same. The Bush SOS's private email servers were always in federal custody.

On June 02 2016 00:48 Plansix wrote:

Have experts weighed in on if that made the server more or less secure? Or if who has physical custody of it would matter?

On June 02 2016 00:57 xDaunt wrote:

I don't believe that any information has been publicly released regarding the security of the private server, but I highly doubt that it would be as hardened as it would be if it were in federal custody. The bigger issue (at this time, anyway) is that Hillary used the private server to circumvent FOIA and other public records laws.

Every time we have a presidential election, I (and many others) find ourselves marveling at the way much of the news media settles on a narrative, and holds to that narrative no matter how much evidence accumulates that it’s wrong. In this campaign so far, the settled narrative is (1) American public full of rage at established figures (2) Hillary in trouble. Initially, actually, this was “public fed up with Bush and Clinton dynasties”, but had to be modified once it turned out that younger, fresher GOP establishment faces were equally hapless.

But what if none of this is true?

If Americans in general are full of rage, why does President Obama have a better approval rating than Ronald Reagan at this stage? This is actually amazing given the “negative partisanship” that ensures that Republicans will never express approval for a Democratic president.

As for Clinton, if you read the papers or, worse yet, watch cable, you’ve seen her doomed at least three times — last fall, before the Benghazi hearings, after the NH primary, and during the Sanders string of caucus victories before the New York primary. Strange to say, however, she’s about to win the nomination — and if the demographics-based projections are right, which they have consistently been, she’ll end up with about four times the delegate lead Obama had in 2008 and with a 4 million popular vote lead (as compared with the 2008 tie).

So how about a “counterintuitive” take — we’re supposed to love those, right? (I know, but not if they favor a Clinton.) Maybe a majority of Americans, while not full of joy about the aftermath of financial crisis, think pretty well of Obama, and are reasonably willing to support a continuation of his policies. Maybe the Trump phenomenon is about the rage of angry white Republican men, a rage not shared by voters at large. Maybe Clinton is a much better candidate than she’s given credit for — her main problem is not lack of “authenticity” or whatever, but the unremitting hostility of the media, which have given her far more negative coverage than they’re given anyone else.

There’s still the question of what Bernie Sanders and his diehard supporters may do. But assuming that they don’t decide to go full Nader, this year is likely to be a big victory for continuation of Obama policies, in the person of Hillary Clinton. Of course, I look forward to a day or two after the election, when we begin reading stories about how the Clinton administration is in freefall.

On June 02 2016 01:00 Mohdoo wrote:


Isn't one of the fundamental issues with this ordeal the fact that tons of people didn't do their job? Many security people in government did not do their jobs here.

On June 02 2016 00:15 xDaunt wrote:

Presuming that the Bush administration did something wrong, it's a moot point when you're not caught. Hillary's problem is that she's been caught.

On June 02 2016 01:12 xDaunt wrote:

I believe that the allegation is that Hillary hid her private server from the authorities (ie they didn't know about it).

On June 02 2016 01:12 xDaunt wrote:

I believe that the allegation is that Hillary hid her private server from the authorities (ie they didn't know about it).

On June 02 2016 01:28 NukeD wrote:
Why cant both be big deals?

If you are sending information such as US sattelite locations through unsecure networks and then get hacked multiple times I would say thats a big deal aswell. Actually, it wouldn't be such a big deal if she just said; yes, I did that and i f***ed up. The way how she handled the situation once discovered is what greatly exaggerated things to todays "scandal". Instead of just straight up telling the truth and taking the blame she tryed to avoid responsibillity in every way possible, which ended up throwing a huge shade over her personal and political integrity, and rightfully so.

On June 02 2016 01:33 Mohdoo wrote:


I will go ahead and speak well beyond my realm of expertise: When I was young and worked in IT, we were expected to be the annoying parents regarding network security, network access, etc. Granted, this is many levels below the people who manage a secretary of state's cyber security. However, I would *imagine* the same philosophy applies.

The philosophy is essentially: Your boss will kick and scream, but you must do your job. You need to actively look for ways your senior people are being shit heads. In a way, network security people are like auditors or oversight committees.

However, I will admit that if Clinton told me to leave her alone, I would apologize and never say another word to her again. If she told some IT people to go eat a dick, I bet they ate 5 dicks.

On June 02 2016 01:47 KwarK wrote:
My understanding regarding the breaches is that you basically cannot prove a negative. If someone shows up with data from your server then that proves a positive, you were hacked, but if nobody shows up that doesn't prove a negative, you may still have been hacked. Isn't that why they forced the spokesman to backtrack when he said there were no breaches?

On June 02 2016 02:11 Vin{MBL} wrote:
The scary thing about the emails is what it means in the bigger picture. Why go through all this trouble to hide her emails? How can anyone believe that this would not have become public knowledge when FOIA requests were inevitably made? She is definitely hiding something bigger in all the other emails that she deleted. Why else wouldn't she just say she messed up and hand over EVERYTHING and move on?

On June 02 2016 02:20 zlefin wrote:

because the republicans have a VERY long history of making mountains out of molehills. that's at least a plausible reason.