US Presidential Election XII

[Headache in a Suitcase]

According to a new FEC filing, AlternativePAC, a super PAC formed by small government activist Matt Kibbe, spent $30,000 this week on “internet web memes” supporting Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.

Yup.

[BVS]

Let me get this straight; a "small" government pac spent 30,000 for something people do all the time for free on their lunch break?

Bright bunch


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[Diemen]

I'm just going to copy-and-paste this comment from Metafilter, regarding Hillary Clinton's "extremely careless" email practices:

The letter released from the FBI is from the FBI's Congressional liaison, not that lying political hack Comey and leaves a quite different impression. Let's summarize what we know, since there is still so much confusion of the subject.

As the FBI's representative concedes in the letter, it is highly unusual for the FBI to make a public statement about a investigation which does not result in a recommendation for prosecution. That role is the prosecutor's discretion, not the investigator's. (Hasn't everyone watched the first 20 seconds of Law and Order describing the proper roles of investigator and prosecutor?) That Comey went beyond his role indicates that this was a political decision.

The problem is that Comey took on the role of prosecutor and people swallowed Comey's prosecution presentation without cross-examination. Fortunately at least some semblance of cross-examination came when he later appeared before Congress. The results weren't pretty, but mostly ignored by the press.

A). How many people knew that the three emails at the heart of his prosecution were not sent by Clinton but were instead received. How many people tossed around the idea that Clinton was recklessly passing around secret information. Comey intentionally omitted the detail that Clinton did not send it.

B). Of the three emails he claimed were classified and marked classified in his public prosecution, it turns out that two were actually not classified. Under cross-examination Comey said that he did not realize that. Think about that for a moment. Comey had the audacity of accusing Clinton of being extremely careless because she failed to recognize that three of the 30,000 emails she received contained ambiguous markings, yet Comey, who had those emails in his possession for months, failed to even take the rudimentary step of checking if these emails were actually classified material. That you might call "extremely reckless" and misleading to the public.

(C). So that leaves just one single email out of 30,000 that Comey told the public was marked classified. Yet days later, under cross-examination he was force to admit that this email that Clinton received was not properly marked. It did not contain the proper header to indicate that it was classified. Here is Comey under cross-examination:
Question: So if Secretary Clinton really were an expert at what's classified and what's not classified and were following the manual, the absence of a header would tell her immediately that those three documents were not classified. Am I correct in that?
Comey: That would be a reasonable inference.

So here we have Comey admitting that he had mischaracterized the emails he claimed to be "marked as classified," keeping in mind that two of the three weren't even classified material. Without cross-examination, you never would have known that.

Oh, and by the way, did you happen to notice that the second paragraph above this was marked as Confidential with the C in closed parens? That was the indication that Comey led you to believe that Clinton was extremely careless in not spotting in the perhaps 15 seconds she spent scanning one email received out of 30,000.

D). And did you get the impression from Comey's statement that Clinton was compromising national security with this one email. He conveniently left out any description of the content of that email to allow your imagination to run wild. First off, the document was not Top Secret, it was not Secret, it was Confidential. It wasn't the nuclear codes, it wasn't about Russian spy networks, it wasn't secret military operations. It was about Clinton planning a phone call to a head of state. Such discussions are typically considered confidential because you don't want to embarrass a head of state by letting them think they should expect a phone call but for some reason the phone call is cancelled or postponed. Yep, the national security secret that Comey implied that Clinton was "extremely careless" about was the equivalent of arranging a date for the prom.


E). Finally, Comey's claim that he could find no evidence to support her claim that her private email account was approved. He cites "the" State Department IT manager as saying he would not approve it if he hand known about. But wait, who is "the" IT manager? It turns out that Comey only interviewed the 2016 IT manager, not the IT manager when Clinton was there in 2009. Of course Comey let it be implied that Clinton concealed it from that IT director (hence the quote "if he had known about it") but of course he didn't know about because he wasn't even there in 2009.

And of course the IT manager in 2016, seeing the recent shitstorm, would say he wouldn't make such an approval today. Contrary to the impression Comey left, from the separate GAO investigation we have testimony from two IT employees that said that Clinton email arrangement was approved by the current IT manager in 2009. Yet Comey apparently didn't even bother to interview that manager, once again misleading the public. You won't find any evidence if you don't look.

And of course, the IT manager in 2009 would have approved it because that was standard practice in the years before Clinton took office. The Bush adminstration had over 100 officials who used for their primary official business personal email accounts hosted on a private server located at the Republican National Committee headquarters. There has never been and there still is not any law, regulation or rule prohibiting the use of personal email for official business. In fact there are specific instructions indicating how to do so.

So the two big Clinton lies that everyone quotes, including questionable source like PolitiFact, fall apart after closer examination. She was not lying when she said she didn't send or receive classified information. She was not lying when she said her email arrangement was approved.

The lesson is to never accept the prosecution's case out of hand before cross-examination. Comey was obviously giving a one-sided and misleading picture, withholding half the truth, to bias public opinion.

The interesting thing about the FBI liaison letter is that its tone is almost apologetic about the embarrassing behavior of their FBI director.

Sorry to go on for so long but the truth is always more complicated than lies.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Oregoropa

That would be convenient for the liberal narrative that it's all our fault


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I can't argue with that. Facts are part of the liberal narrative.

[Axver]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Yeah, but that's got everything to do with the system and the huge importance of money in American campaigns. Everybody is afraid of the greatest evil, so it's all about defensive voting and there's no proportional representation either.

But what I want to know is why they are trying to work from the top down rather than the bottom up. Win some local councils, achieve the balance of power in state legislatures, etc. Establish a reliable supporter base and use it as the foundation to attain higher office. This is Electioneering 101.

OK, I'm aware they have a handful of councillors, and maybe here I have the problem of looking from a distance, but I have the impression that the US Greens by and large do a presidential electoral drive-by every four years and are otherwise missing in action, even at midterms.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by BVS

Let me get this straight; a "small" government pac spent 30,000 for something people do all the time for free on their lunch break?

Bright bunch


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I don't get the criticism...?

[martha]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

I can't argue with that. Facts are part of the liberal narrative.

Funny you should mention facts as a part of the liberal narrative.

When Trump came to California for the primary, he told the farmers of the Central Valley that there was no drought. They went ahead and voted for him anyway.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

I don't get the criticism...?

It's useless spending. It's pretty ironic coming from a "small" government super pac. Most "small" government folks are hypocrites anyway, everything is "frivolous spending" if it's a program that doesn't benefit them, yet they frivolously spent $30,000 on something they could have gotten for almost free. All they had to do was hold a contest among fans and used the best ones.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by BVS

It's useless spending. It's pretty ironic coming from a "small" government super pac. Most "small" government folks are hypocrites anyway, everything is "frivolous spending" if it's a program that doesn't benefit them, yet they frivolously spent $30,000 on something they could have gotten for almost free. All they had to do was hold a contest among fans and used the best ones.

It's a super PAC, not a branch of government. Libertarians believe in free enterprise, volunteerism, and voluntary contribution.

There's nothing ironic here.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

It's a super PAC, not a branch of government. Libertarians believe in free enterprise, volunteerism, and voluntary contribution.

There's nothing ironic here.

Would you find any irony if I was part of an organization that was always railing against government accusing them of being intrusive in our private lives, and then you found out I was a hacker?

[PhilsFan]

Originally Posted by Axver

But what I want to know is why they are trying to work from the top down rather than the bottom up. Win some local councils, achieve the balance of power in state legislatures, etc. Establish a reliable supporter base and use it as the foundation to attain higher office. This is Electioneering 101.

OK, I'm aware they have a handful of councillors, and maybe here I have the problem of looking from a distance, but I have the impression that the US Greens by and large do a presidential electoral drive-by every four years and are otherwise missing in action, even at midterms.

People vote party in local elections, they don't study the candidates.

[PhilsFan]

Trump turning his campaign over to Breitbart is fucking amazing, by the way.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by BVS

Would you find any irony if I was part of an organization that was always railing against government accusing them of being intrusive in our private lives, and then you found out I was a hacker?

It's not the same thing at all. A Super PAC is a group of people pooling their money together. It's effectively a private entity. That's what libertarians believe in.

If you spoke out against the government because you thought their surveillance was against the greater good, but you were a hacker and did that for your own benefit, those are two different things. And no need to make it so black and white. Countless "hackers" exist for the sole purpose of their political means. That's sort of what Julian Assange and wiki leaks does.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

It's not the same thing at all. A Super PAC is a group of people pooling their money together. It's effectively a private entity. That's what libertarians believe in.

If you spoke out against the government because you thought their surveillance was against the greater good, but you were a hacker and did that for your own benefit, those are two different things. And no need to make it so black and white. Countless "hackers" exist for the sole purpose of their political means. That's sort of what Julian Assange and wiki leaks does.

Nevermind, sometimes I think you take things to the most literal level.

[BEAL]

Originally Posted by PhilsFan

Trump turning his campaign over to Breitbart is fucking amazing, by the way.

Makes zero sense, but then so does a Trump Presidency.

I don't even want to watch/check the news over the next few months. It was ugly to this point, and will be getting a lot worse.

[BVS]

I mean haven't they already been doing so? Now they're just getting paid to do it...

[BEAL]

Just more "Yes Men" for The Donald.

They are going all in on the crazy and conspiracies.

Maybe Trump will become the first candidate to get <10% of three separate voting blocks: Women, Blacks, and Hispanics.

Gotta triple down on that old white male demographic.....

[Oregoropa]

Originally Posted by BEAL

Just more "Yes Men" for The Donald.

They are going all in on the crazy and conspiracies.

Maybe Trump will become the first candidate to get <10% of three separate voting blocks: Women, Blacks, and Hispanics.

Gotta triple down on that old white male demographic.....

Getting excited aren't we ?


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[BEAL]

No, disgusted.

Wouldn't it be nice if the GOP threw someone on the stage who could debate policy, not penis size ?

Have meaningful conversation rather than 5 year old talk of making things the best, the greatest?

Hillary is not a great candidate. She has plenty of warts, and those could be discussed in a reasonable manner.

Instead it'll be all hyperbole and attacks that overreach.

It's embarrassing, and going to be a train wreck.


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[Oregoropa]

Originally Posted by BEAL

No, disgusted.

Wouldn't it be nice if the GOP threw someone on the stage who could debate policy, not penis size ?



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Maybe do some homework and watch on YouTube Trump's speech Monday and yesterday's speech in Wisconsin. A republican has never addressed the needs of African-Americans in the terms he laid out last night. The LA times daily poll today showed an 18% spike in African-American support for Trump just today from a steady flatline of under 5% for the past 3 weeks.

If you burst into flames of disgust after 30 Seconds after listening to Trump then you can turn it off. I challenge you to listen objectively and come back with a critique on policy and presentation. That goes for anybody reading this post

It's not about who's nuts are touching the floor.

On that note. #DicksOutForHarambe


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