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On January 13 2023 20:45 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2023 20:06 Gorsameth wrote:On January 13 2023 15:45 King_Charles_III wrote:On January 13 2023 03:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 13 2023 03:37 brian wrote:On January 13 2023 03:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 13 2023 03:10 brian wrote:
if it were SCI documents people should definitely be losing their clearances. if it was Biden himself, then we’re in a bind. is it impeachment worthy? probably not. The reality is that we can basically never know if there were SCI documents that disappeared/were passed along/stolen while in their possession. It's completely rational and sorta requisite to no longer give access to classified documents to someone that has demonstrably mishandled them. Because both leading candidates (and both recent Democrat nominees) fail to clear that basic bar of competence, people are stuck taking the position it's not disqualifying and whataboutisming their way to the next subject. Well, isn’t it a special use case for presidents in particular? competent or not, since it’s an elected position, they require clearance. for any other position at all, it’s no clearance get fired all the way, for sure. at least it should be. :: not an endorsement of the results of any election. That's why the career frequently goes away with the clearance. Mishandle classified documents, you get no clearance; you get no clearance, you can't have the job handling classified documents. Hence my point about people being stuck taking the nonsensical position that mishandling classified documents isn't disqualifying. It's also unclear whether it's accurate to say "Biden didn't know about these documents prior to his lawyers finding them." Biden had the documents (some top secret) for six years. Some in his garage, some in a locked safe here (knowledge of sensitivity?), some in a filing cabinet there. Normally, one doesn't randomly end up with classified documents in one's possession. It's entirely possible that his lawyers only "found" and returned them because Trump's documents case blew up. Of course Trump's case is much worse. Right? Imagine putting documents in a filing cabinet? Who even does that. /s Also in his garage next to his corvette. Clearly a lot of people seem to be certain of stuff they really have no way of knowing. E.g. confidently stating that Biden had these documents from his VP days and forgot to return them as opposed to taking them in boxes when he was leaving the White House. Or that Biden had these during his VP days and was using them for official business and then just forgot to return them and forgot they existed. Nobody here really is privy to the details. The biggest differences between the two are not the indisputable facts but instead the pretext that people want to assign, Trump stole documents for nefarious reasons and Biden just happened to have some that he forgot about. Basically one deserves the benefit of the doubt and the other doesn't, which I don't even entirely disagree with. No, the biggest difference is one returned them and the other refused and had them seized. A pretty indisputable fact.
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On January 13 2023 20:45 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2023 20:06 Gorsameth wrote:On January 13 2023 15:45 King_Charles_III wrote:On January 13 2023 03:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 13 2023 03:37 brian wrote:On January 13 2023 03:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 13 2023 03:10 brian wrote:
if it were SCI documents people should definitely be losing their clearances. if it was Biden himself, then we’re in a bind. is it impeachment worthy? probably not. The reality is that we can basically never know if there were SCI documents that disappeared/were passed along/stolen while in their possession. It's completely rational and sorta requisite to no longer give access to classified documents to someone that has demonstrably mishandled them. Because both leading candidates (and both recent Democrat nominees) fail to clear that basic bar of competence, people are stuck taking the position it's not disqualifying and whataboutisming their way to the next subject. Well, isn’t it a special use case for presidents in particular? competent or not, since it’s an elected position, they require clearance. for any other position at all, it’s no clearance get fired all the way, for sure. at least it should be. :: not an endorsement of the results of any election. That's why the career frequently goes away with the clearance. Mishandle classified documents, you get no clearance; you get no clearance, you can't have the job handling classified documents. Hence my point about people being stuck taking the nonsensical position that mishandling classified documents isn't disqualifying. It's also unclear whether it's accurate to say "Biden didn't know about these documents prior to his lawyers finding them." Biden had the documents (some top secret) for six years. Some in his garage, some in a locked safe here (knowledge of sensitivity?), some in a filing cabinet there. Normally, one doesn't randomly end up with classified documents in one's possession. It's entirely possible that his lawyers only "found" and returned them because Trump's documents case blew up. Of course Trump's case is much worse. Right? Imagine putting documents in a filing cabinet? Who even does that. /s Also in his garage next to his corvette. Clearly a lot of people seem to be certain of stuff they really have no way of knowing. E.g. confidently stating that Biden had these documents from his VP days and forgot to return them as opposed to taking them in boxes when he was leaving the White House. Or that Biden had these during his VP days and was using them for official business and then just forgot to return them and forgot they existed. Nobody here really is privy to the details. The biggest differences between the two are not the indisputable facts but instead the pretext that people want to assign, Trump stole documents for nefarious reasons and Biden just happened to have some that he forgot about. Basically one deserves the benefit of the doubt and the other doesn't, which I don't even entirely disagree with.
One of them found the documents on their own and returned them unprompted.
The other got caught with them, refused to return them and had to have them seized by the FBI.
I wonder why one of those gets the benefit of the doubt sooner than the other.
How you can not see those two are objectively different in the indisputable facts even before any pretext is assigned is beyond me.
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One had an FBI visit to get the documents, then had an FBI raid beacuse there was a lot more documents, the other self reported and handed them over
Like we didn't all forget that there was a Raid on Trumps home right?
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Biden's (at minimum) negligence should be disqualifying regardless of how people spin it. Democrat supporters should embrace that, not cower from it.
If DeSantis runs, being the only guy in the race not to mishandle Top Secret classified SCI documents will be such an absurd flex. If Trump drops out, the whataboutism will be even more irrelevant.
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On January 14 2023 01:09 Sermokala wrote:
One had an FBI visit to get the documents, then had an FBI raid beacuse there was a lot more documents, the other self reported and handed them over
The federal government had been aware of Trump's retaining of his documents already, they were in contact with his attorneys/team and disputing whether presidents can retain things when the decision to conduct a raid was made.
Biden seems to have been unaware (despite chastising Trump on video how anyone could be so irresponsible - whoopsie) so "self" reporting again here refers to aides/attorneys finding something by chance and reporting it. So the ones they've reported so far are the only ones we know about. We don't know how many others were sold in the interim 6+ years to Ukraine or China, possibly through Hunter or other associates. And like Trump's case, everything is so secret that we plebs don't get any hint of the content, but if the FBI or CIA or NSA classified it then you KNOW you can trust it's important to national security. Ha. Notice the federal government seems not to be able to track its own documents when they're missing - maybe this is a symptom of classifying anything and everything possible. One of the documents by the way was in Joe's library, and not the secure garage that held his Corvette and the rest of the docs. How'd it get there? Who had access to these sites? Extremely troublesome development as he already admitted he has a habit of taking things home.
On January 14 2023 01:09 Sermokala wrote:
Like we didn't all forget that there was a Raid on Trumps home right?
We didn't forget, it's interesting being president, who is the only one with actual executive authority, and keeping some documents for 2 years gets you raided but being only VP and keeping them for 6 or more doesn't.
They raided the former president and took his passports and other stuff not related to the warrant, despite being in contact with his attorneys and team already, and having met in June and directed them to secure where the documents were stored more. And that was a raid in which folders were posed and the photos given to the media - no such treatment here. Clinton - Nothing. Reality Winner - Raked across the coals. Manning - Hero. Snowden - Deluded Russian asset. Interesting how disparate the standards are.
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On January 14 2023 04:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 01:09 Sermokala wrote:
One had an FBI visit to get the documents, then had an FBI raid beacuse there was a lot more documents, the other self reported and handed them over The federal government had been aware of Trump's retaining of his documents already, they were in contact with his attorneys/team and disputing whether presidents can retain things when the decision to conduct a raid was made. Biden seems to have been unaware (despite chastising Trump on video how anyone could be so irresponsible - whoopsie) so "self" reporting again here refers to aides/attorneys finding something by chance and reporting it. So the ones they've reported so far are the only ones we know about. We don't know how many others were sold in the interim 6+ years to Ukraine or China, possibly through Hunter or other associates. And like Trump's case, everything is so secret that we plebs don't get any hint of the content, but if the FBI or CIA or NSA classified it then you KNOW you can trust it's important to national security. Ha. Notice the federal government seems not to be able to track its own documents when they're missing - maybe this is a symptom of classifying anything and everything possible. One of the documents by the way was in Joe's library, and not the secure garage that held his Corvette and the rest of the docs. How'd it get there? Who had access to these sites? Extremely troublesome development as he already admitted he has a habit of taking things home. Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 01:09 Sermokala wrote:
Like we didn't all forget that there was a Raid on Trumps home right? We didn't forget, it's interesting being president, who is the only one with actual executive authority, and keeping some documents for 2 years gets you raided but being only VP and keeping them for 6 or more doesn't. They raided the former president and took his passports and other stuff not related to the warrant, despite being in contact with his attorneys and team already, and having met in June and directed them to secure where the documents were stored more. And that was a raid in which folders were posed and the photos given to the media - no such treatment here. Clinton - Nothing. Reality Winner - Raked across the coals. Manning - Hero. Snowden - Deluded Russian asset. Interesting how disparate the standards are. You really are just going to pretend that Trump didn't refuse to return them and was actually out there claiming the government had no right to them even after the raid...
bold move.
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On January 14 2023 04:30 GreenHorizons wrote:
Biden's (at minimum) negligence should be disqualifying regardless of how people spin it. Democrat supporters should embrace that, not cower from it.
Ideally yeah, but as long as Trump can be impeached twice, be all but confirmed to solicit Russian interference in his election, be caught stealing boxes of classified documents and forcing the FBI to take them back, and who knows what else...
I don't think ideals are what we're gonna get. It's shit. And I agree with you that as long as we're tied into being a capitalist system, it's going to remain shit. That doesn't mean the shit's all the same.
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to be clear GH, you think mishandling secret information is impeachable?
I understand you think it should be disqualifying in the eyes of the electorate from even being voted in, and I do agree, but now that we’re here, and the people have spoken and Biden is the president, mishandling the same sensitive information should undo that election?
that part i don’t think I agree with. that’s why i thought the president in particular was sort of a special case- he’s not a hired professional (though he should at least be a professional..), he’s an elected position. i feel like his clearance is just… what it is. for better or for worse.
re: your reply below to Sunshine- i mean certainly there could have been better nominees and better results of the election. that’s been true since … man i don’t even know. but i’m trying to separate the abysmal election options from the issue at hand.
i’m not interested in using this stance as a means of protecting Biden, though i understand that will be a natural result of my opinion. I was more interested in whether this coming to light now constitutes a reason to remove a president from office. Biden, Trump, whoever.
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On January 14 2023 04:50 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 04:30 GreenHorizons wrote:
Biden's (at minimum) negligence should be disqualifying regardless of how people spin it. Democrat supporters should embrace that, not cower from it. Ideally yeah, but as long as Trump can be impeached twice, be all but confirmed to solicit Russian interference in his election, be caught stealing boxes of classified documents and forcing the FBI to take them back, and who knows what else... I don't think ideals are what we're gonna get. It's shit. And I agree with you that as long as we're tied into being a capitalist system, it's going to remain shit. That doesn't mean the shit's all the same.
Democrats have more than enough time to nominate someone who hasn't mishandled Top Secret documents if they took
mishandling Top Secret documents as seriously as Biden pretended to.
It's too early for the "we have no choice but to support him" rationalizations.
Instead it's the faux accountability of "I'm not giving him a pass, other than the only one he wants, my vote" and naked whataboutism with "it's a nothingburger because someone else did something worse".
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On January 14 2023 04:54 brian wrote:
to be clear GH, you think mishandling secret information is impeachable?
I understand you think it should be disqualifying in the eyes of the electorate from even being voted in, and I do agree, but now that we’re here, and the people have spoken and Biden is the president, mishandling the same sensitive information should undo that election?
that part i don’t think I agree with. that’s why i thought the president in particular was sort of a special case- he’s not a hired professional (though he should at least be a professional..), he’s an elected position. i feel like his clearance is just… what it is. for better or for worse.
re: your reply below to Sunshine- i mean certainly there could have been better nominees and better results of the election. that’s been true since … man i don’t even know. but i’m trying to separate the abysmal election options from the issue at hand.
Yes, of course mishandling Top Secret documents is impeachable?
I've already set the bar much lower than impeachment (way too low imo) with "not nominating someone Democrats know mishandled Top Secret documents", but so we're clear, impeachment doesn't undo the election. The same election selected the person that would take his place in such an instance.
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On January 14 2023 04:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 01:09 Sermokala wrote:
One had an FBI visit to get the documents, then had an FBI raid beacuse there was a lot more documents, the other self reported and handed them over The federal government had been aware of Trump's retaining of his documents already, they were in contact with his attorneys/team and disputing whether presidents can retain things when the decision to conduct a raid was made. Biden seems to have been unaware (despite chastising Trump on video how anyone could be so irresponsible - whoopsie) so "self" reporting again here refers to aides/attorneys finding something by chance and reporting it. So the ones they've reported so far are the only ones we know about. We don't know how many others were sold in the interim 6+ years to Ukraine or China, possibly through Hunter or other associates. And like Trump's case, everything is so secret that we plebs don't get any hint of the content, but if the FBI or CIA or NSA classified it then you KNOW you can trust it's important to national security. Ha. Notice the federal government seems not to be able to track its own documents when they're missing - maybe this is a symptom of classifying anything and everything possible. One of the documents by the way was in Joe's library, and not the secure garage that held his Corvette and the rest of the docs. How'd it get there? Who had access to these sites? Extremely troublesome development as he already admitted he has a habit of taking things home. Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 01:09 Sermokala wrote:
Like we didn't all forget that there was a Raid on Trumps home right? We didn't forget, it's interesting being president, who is the only one with actual executive authority, and keeping some documents for 2 years gets you raided but being only VP and keeping them for 6 or more doesn't. They raided the former president and took his passports and other stuff not related to the warrant, despite being in contact with his attorneys and team already, and having met in June and directed them to secure where the documents were stored more. And that was a raid in which folders were posed and the photos given to the media - no such treatment here. Clinton - Nothing. Reality Winner - Raked across the coals. Manning - Hero. Snowden - Deluded Russian asset. Interesting how disparate the standards are.
So you agree the two situations were completly different and that Trump knowingly was holding onto Top secret documents while Biden handed them over freely without a request for them back?
"Others were sold" implying that the documents were sold and not just sitting in a fileing cabnet or unknowingly on the property of someone, nice jump there. Making a bizzare tangent into the ammount of documents that are considered classified is supporting biden here. If there are so many that are classified and they can't keep track of them then why should Biden be chastised for not keeping track of them, that is what you're saying right?
And are we equating Mar a lago who Trump entertained world leaders and common citizens to the office of the vice president, the home of the vice president? Trump was storeing classified documents in the basement of his resort and in the offise storage garage. These are not comparable things.
Trump was raided beacuse he didn't hand over documents that were requested the first time he was visited by the FBI. Biden handed over documents that the FBI didn't even know he had and never requested them back.
Are you trying to construct the wildlest whataboutism by comparing different cases and different results? Like I don't know my guy but handing classified documents to the government instead of leaking them to the press and to the russians are different things.
Between this and gas stoves being something sacred to conservatives I'm glad that we're covering important topics to american people.
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Yes we should accept that dems have to be held to a much higher standard and that republicans can break laws as much as they want and never face consequences. Thats a great way to run a country.
Gh doesn't give a shit about the documents he just wants to delegitimize organized government as much as possible. Its been his shtick for years and nothings changed.
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The key takeaway here seems to be that politicians in general suck at handling sensitive documents compared to career government officials.
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On January 14 2023 04:30 GreenHorizons wrote:
Biden's (at minimum) negligence should be disqualifying regardless of how people spin it. Democrat supporters should embrace that, not cower from it.
If DeSantis runs, being the only guy in the race not to mishandle Top Secret classified SCI documents will be such an absurd flex. If Trump drops out, the whataboutism will be even more irrelevant.
I don’t believe that and I’m surprised you do. Since when rigorous maintenance of the classified information system so important to you?
The classified information system is (imo) a bureaucratic mess, and constantly maintaining perfect compliance would be extremely difficult and a huge time sink. There are probably good enough reasons for it to exist in theory that it shouldn’t be abolished entirely, even if it usually just enables the worst excesses of the 3-letter agencies because they know their most heinous crimes will be determined classified for like a century. But on the ground level there’s room for judgment calls about what is and isn’t classified, let alone what *level* of classification it might be, and all kinds of shit gets a classification slapped on it even though it’s been publicly reported and it’s open knowledge.
Regarding Biden specifically, there’s good reasons all presidential records are supposed to be maintained and given to the national archive, but doing so is a huge logistical challenge and there’s people beneath the President, Vice President, etc. who are supposed to maintain all that. Presumably while he was in office they were maintaining filing cabinets of information wherever he was, and when he left office they took most of it back but they didn’t find everything. That’s not weird or surprising, and it’s fucking embarrassing to be talking about impeachment over it. At best you could accuse him of running a kind of sloppy organization that wasn’t able to keep track of what documents were stored where at all times. I mean if it comes out he was, like, selling it or something, sure! But in the meantime this is a ridiculous thing to get worked up about. In all likelihood “classified documents” doesn’t refer to anything remotely interesting or valuable, and they were only missed this long because nobody had a reason to look for them.
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On January 14 2023 09:52 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 08:49 Sermokala wrote:
Yes we should accept that dems have to be held to a much higher standard and that republicans can break laws as much as they want and never face consequences. Thats a great way to run a country.
Gh doesn't give a shit about the documents he just wants to delegitimize organized government as much as possible. Its been his shtick for years and nothings changed. Yes voters should hold their politicans to a high standard regardless of if other political parties do not even remotely. Im clearly not suggesting they should vote republican since in this case it's even objectively way worse, just pick a better dem to lead them.
That's not how reality works though. Holding politicians to a standard needs to be an equal standard or else you're just rewarding one side for having a lower standard. Why do republicans get to have such an advantage to you? What has taking the high road every time ever done for democrats in this nation other than losing elections?
We don't get to pick our leaders we only get to pick between two. There isn't an endless supply of better politicians or else they would be the one we could have voted for in the first place.
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On January 14 2023 12:18 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2023 04:30 GreenHorizons wrote:
Biden's (at minimum) negligence should be disqualifying regardless of how people spin it. Democrat supporters should embrace that, not cower from it.
If DeSantis runs, being the only guy in the race not to mishandle Top Secret classified SCI documents will be such an absurd flex. If Trump drops out, the whataboutism will be even more irrelevant.
I don’t believe that and I’m surprised you do. Since when rigorous maintenance of the classified information system so important to you? The classified information system is (imo) a bureaucratic mess, and constantly maintaining perfect compliance would be extremely difficult and a huge time sink. There are probably good enough reasons for it to exist in theory that it shouldn’t be abolished entirely, even if it usually just enables the worst excesses of the 3-letter agencies because they know their most heinous crimes will be determined classified for like a century. But on the ground level there’s room for judgment calls about what is and isn’t classified, let alone what *level* of classification it might be, and all kinds of shit gets a classification slapped on it even though it’s been publicly reported and it’s open knowledge. Regarding Biden specifically, there’s good reasons all presidential records are supposed to be maintained and given to the national archive, but doing so is a huge logistical challenge and there’s people beneath the President, Vice President, etc. who are supposed to maintain all that. Presumably while he was in office they were maintaining filing cabinets of information wherever he was, and when he left office they took most of it back but they didn’t find everything. That’s not weird or surprising, and it’s fucking embarrassing to be talking about impeachment over it. At best you could accuse him of running a kind of sloppy organization that wasn’t able to keep track of what documents were stored where at all times. I mean if it comes out he was, like, selling it or something, sure! But in the meantime this is a ridiculous thing to get worked up about. In all likelihood “classified documents” doesn’t refer to anything remotely interesting or valuable, and they were only missed this long because nobody had a reason to look for them.
This is the best post on the topic since it was reported. Thank you. People find the weirdest hills to die on.
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United States24788 Posts
Very senior people are given the most leeway for where they can have/read classified documents, and they are also the most incompetent when it comes to following the rules for safeguarding classified information. It's frustrating for people like me who are responsible for implementing these rules within our respective departments.
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EPT
