DNC Hacker Releases Trump Opposition File (gawker.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Following the report that Russian hackers penetrated the DNC's database and stole research on Donald Trump, a 200+ page Democratic anti-Trump playbook compiled by the DNC has leaked online. In the book, Trump is called a "bad businessman" and "misogynist in chief." The document was created on December 19th, 2015, and was sent to Gawker by a hacker calling himself "Guccifer 2.0." (Guccifer is a popular Romanian hacker who hacked various American political figures, most notably Hillary Clinton and her private server.) The hacker said in an email to Gawker that the package contains a variety of donor registries and other strategy files, "just a few docs from many thousands I extracted when hacking into DNC's network," adding that he's in possession of "about 100GB of data including financial reports, donors' lists, election programs, action plans against Republicans, personal mails, etc." His motive is to be "a fighter against all those illuminati that captured our world." The "Donald Trump Report," as it's called, appears to be a summary of the Democratic Party's strategy for delegitimizing and undermining Trump's presidential aspirations. There's a section titled "Top Narratives" that describes a seven-pronged attack on Trump's character and record. The hack was first revealed Tuesday by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, linking the hack to Russian intelligence. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says later this year it will publish enough new information about Hillary Clinton to indict her.

Comments

Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

From perusing the table of contents, it looks like almost all of this is already well known (see the last couple weeks of NYT for articles about what a horrible real estate business man, husband, father, uncle, and University executive Trump has been).

Indeed many of the items listed are actually marketed as Trump himself and his followers as selling points (offensive and demeaning attitude to foreigners, for example).

But in the end, none of it matters. His followers are willing to forgive any behavior, no matter how crass, ignorant, or even downright evil. Trump literally would be able, as he pointed out, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still get elected president. They just don't care. And in fact will see this "oppo" research as more proof that the establishment is "out to get him" and so therefore must be elected.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Dunbal]

Trump's mouth is almost as big as his ego. Newsflash. Also water is wet.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Z80a]

Most trump "supporters" would immediately switch if an actually good candidate appeared, but trump is all they got.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

The States have a paradox.
Both Hillary and Trump are corrupt beyond measure.

Their mainstream media will look the other way with Hillary or any other member of the DNC.
But if a Republican or third party candidate is elected they will be held accountable for anything that happens even if they had nothing to do with it.
The world would be a better place if the States pulled their collective heads out of their butts and elected a third party candidate.

Re: Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. When the time comes for Satan to retire, I'll definitely vote for Hillary to take his place.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Darinbob]

For bad business, check the last decade of news about Trump. He always aims big, bigger than he should, and sometimes he wins big but very often he loses big. Often when he loses he's just putting his name on someone else's product (his ego forces him to say that his name is his biggest asset) and is just a minor partner, so when a big Trump Brand loses big he's not losing much money. And with America's short term memory he's not losing much popularity when he loses big. His followers probably think anyone suing him is a damn democrat or a damn mainstream republican or is just trying to get rich by suing hard working patriots.

Probably some people think he's the smartest person on reality TV, which may actually be true, and therefore he's smart enough to be president. Others think he has a lot of money therefore he works very hard (the American myth that if you work hard you will get rich and if you don't work hard you will be poor); or because he's rich he knows how to balance the US budget; or becuase he's got a self serving book about how how to make a Deal that he can negotiate with Putin or Li Keqiang.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Darinbob]

The Republican race started with at least 12 candidates who were better than Trump. (hedging here because there were a tiny number who were probably worse)

Re:Doesn't Matter

[rworne]

There is a precedent for voters electing a candidate like Trump winning the general election. Just look to the state of California electing Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor back in 2003.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Darinbob]

Arnold had actually done some political work before then. Not a lot, but... Compare too: Arnold gets to be governor of California, and doesn't do a bad job. Jesse Venture becomes governor of Minnesota and does not do very well at all, $4 billion surplus to $4 billion deficit. Of course it may not be his fault, but if it had gone the other direction I'm sure he'd have taken credit for that, it's how politics works.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[MightyMartian]

Whatever Schwarzenegger is, he's no Trump. Most of his platform was fairly reasoned, though he did have to give the odd policy nod to the Republicans.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets not forget that awesome letter he sent back with Bill 1176
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2...

Re:Doesn't Matter

[jandersen]

Now, gnetlemen, there's no need to start playing the race card here. Just because Republicans look different and seem a bit dim, they are still human beings. (- *JOKE* *JOKE *JOKE*)

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Aighearach]

Governator was a moderate with a lot of Democratic supporters. "If I'm paying a lot of taxes, I must be making a lot of money."

No comparison at all. He's even a Kennedy by marriage.

Re: Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of thinking is exactly why it is taking the country too long to get out of the 2008 financial crisis. Guess what - in a depressed economy, reducing Government spending coould actually significantly decrease future revenues, while smart investments (infrastructure, education, etc) are actually increasing long-term fiscal prospects. Economy is not zero-sum! It's governed by complex feedback loops, not at all simple arithmetic.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[jafiwam]

From perusing the table of contents, it looks like almost all of this is already well known (see the last couple weeks of NYT for articles about what a horrible real estate business man, husband, father, uncle, and University executive Trump has been).

Indeed many of the items listed are actually marketed as Trump himself and his followers as selling points (offensive and demeaning attitude to foreigners, for example).

But in the end, none of it matters. His followers are willing to forgive any behavior, no matter how crass, ignorant, or even downright evil. Trump literally would be able, as he pointed out, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still get elected president. They just don't care. And in fact will see this "oppo" research as more proof that the establishment is "out to get him" and so therefore must be elected.

If your opinion already has some of the Trump platform in agreement, this document is more of an advertisement of Trump than anything else. The DNC thinks he's going to do this stuff too!

That said, there were OTHER documents taken that are rumored to be attack plans along the lines of "start a riot here by doing XYZ"

It's going to be a long summer. Arm yourselves, democrats are out there.

Re: Doesn't Matter

[TheRaven64]

Balancing the budget is simple arithmetic - don't spend more than what is available.

And that works perfectly, as long as nothing that the government spends money on will have any effect on the size of the economy and therefore on the amount of available tax revenue.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[OakDragon]

Most trump "supporters" would immediately switch if an actually good candidate appeared, but trump is all they got.

They had 15 people (more?) to start with. It ended up Trump anyway. Whatever you want to say about them (partisan-wise, intelligence-wise, etc.) you probably would agree that early on, most would seem to be better candidates than Trump. But it turned out Republican primary voters weren't interested in traditional candidates.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Pascoea]

Republican primary voters weren't interested in traditional candidates.

The Republican primary was more akin to a Reality TV competition than an actual democratic process. If you could smash together an episode of Jerry Springer, Celebrity Apprentice, and American Idol you'd have a pretty close representation of the Republican primary process. And, like every other reality TV show, American sheep are just lapping it up.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

Yes, and the Democratic race started with at least 4 other candidates, all of whom were much better than Hillary.

As is usual in our primaries in both parties, one of the worst, if not the very worst, candidate is the one who gets the nomination. It was exactly the same in 2008: there were many better candidates than Obama, in fact probably all of them except for Hillary. Yet Hillary and Obama became the top two, with Obama finally narrowly defeating Hillary (thankfully; Obama sucked but it would have been 100x worse with Hillary).

I have an idea: we need to institute a second primary election, after the first round of primaries is done. This way, everyone gets a chance to change their vote. All the original candidates should be listed on the ballots, and all the states should vote on the same day. It'd be really interesting, at the very least, to see if the results are significantly different. Of course, the thing they really need to do is institute a ranked or approval voting system. For the Democrat primaries, I'd probably vote 1. Bernie, 2. Chafey, 3. Webb 4. O'Malley 5. Hillary. But really, they should just dump the primaries altogether and make a single ranked voting system for the general election, with all the candidates running at once, from all parties. Then I'd be able to rank Carly Fiorina higher than Hillary (though still way down the list, only higher maybe than Cruz and Santorum). Carly helped run two big companies straight into the ground, but she's still a far, far better choice than Hillary.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

12??? Probably more like 2.

Trump sucks, but the Republicans in this cycle were all really awful. I'll take Trump any day over Cruz, for instance, or Santorum. Even Carson would have been worse: that guy is a religious nut. There really weren't many "moderates" on the Republican side this time; Kasich tried to paint himself that way, but he really wasn't. Carly was probably the closest to a typical moderate, big-business, non-religious-nut Republican, but she was also provably incompetent at leadership (she ran HP and Lucent into the ground). Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about Jeb, but he really is forgettable... plus he's tainted by association with his dumb brother and the wars he got us into. Unfortunately, with Hillary looking like the next prez, we can look forward to some more big wars, since she's proven herself to be a big warmonger. Why do liberals love war so much anyway? LBJ, and now Hillary both epitomize this.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Cajun Hell]

Ok, I have a question for all Republicans: Why are you voting against Gary Johnson?

I'm not asking "progressives" why they don't like him. I know why y'all don't (though I still don't get why you didn't choose Bernie). I'm asking Republicans. Trump isn't any more Republican than Johnson, unless it really is just about the party trademark rather than politics.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

you probably would agree that early on, most would seem to be better candidates than Trump.

No, I'd have to completely disagree with that. You're going to have to explain yourself on that one. (I'm a Bernie voter BTW.)

Maybe I've forgotten about some of the candidates, but here's a list of ones I thought might (*might*) have been better than Trump: Carly, Christy, and Jeb. That's it. Cruz was far, far worse, Carson was an idiot and religious nut, Santorum is a religious nut, Marco was a puppet, etc. The GOP candidates were just awful in this cycle. The Dem candidates have been pretty bad too, except Bernie (IMO of course).

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

It's too bad we can't just have him as President. He'd probably be a pretty good President, unlike Trump or Hillary.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[OakDragon]

You're going to have to explain yourself on that one

Sure thing.

When you were quoting me, you left out this part : Whatever you want to say about them (partisan-wise, intelligence-wise, etc.)

I said that because I know a lot of the people that would be reading my comment would not find ANY of the Republican candidates acceptable, for ideological reasons or whatever. That is, I suspect that very few Slashdot regulars are Republicans.

However, you can still evaluate a candidate's suitability in the Republican primary, at least I hope you can if you use your imagination. By that criteria, surely you could see the appeal of various candidates to Republican voters, right? Nevertheless, Trump trounced them all pretty handily.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Darinbob]

Democrats are painted as the anti-war party too often, associations from the 70s with leftist leaning peaceniks, protests against American intervention in socialist movements in South America, and so forth. I think that encourages a lot of Democratic politicians to not appear too weak. Meanwhile there's a strong pro-military branch of the Republicans, always accusing Democrats of favoring diplomacy or wait-and-see attitudes instead of quick responses, or accusing Democrats of trying to pull out too soon, and that leads a general public association of Democrats being the anti-military party.

I don't think liberals love war more. Most wars, conflicts, and adventtures we've gotten into have been broadly supported across the political spectrum in congress, and widely represented across presidents in the last century.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[david_thornley]

A second primary would have had no effect. The Democratic nomination has been a two-horse race from the start, with delegates going to only Sanders and Clinton. The result was pretty decisive: Clinton led by hundreds of pledged delegates. In the Republican race, Trump has a majority of the delegates. In primaries and caucuses with multiple candidates, he topped out at about 40% of the vote. When it was down to Trump, Cruz, and Kasich, Trump started winning majorities. If Trump merely had the largest number of delegates, but not a majority, a second primary might change the result, but that's not the case.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[david_thornley]

Why do you think she'll get us into big wars? She did vote for the Iraq invasion, but so did many other people, who were deceived by the White House. She didn't get us into any boots-on-the-ground shooting commitments, as far as I noticed.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[JustSomeProgrammer]

I'm pretty sure our voting system favors popularity contests over actually credibility. Trump wins because everyone knows his name. Hillary wins a lot for the same reason. We have a generally uneducated electorate and many of our news channels don't help with this.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[david_thornley]

Some of them were clearly incompetent (Fiorina, Carson). Some of them were far to the right of the Republican Party, which isn't primarily composed of far-right-wing religious fanatics (although it's got more than its share of them). You've got a point in that what mainstream candidates they had did poorly (like Bush), but there were a lot that were less acceptable to the Republican rank and file than Trump. (You may find that frightening. I do.)

Re:Doesn't Matter

[david_thornley]

Ventura wasn't that bad a manager, and the surplus-to-deficit change was largely not his fault. Minnesota relies heavily on its income tax for revenue, which means its revenue is more affected by the economy than usual. I'm not calling him a good governor, but he wasn't as bad as some people think.

The day after he was elected, I heard person after person say "At least it wasn't", followed by one of two names.

Re: Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Smart investments, yes, but we already spend a whole lot of money on education. We've been spending more and more, and not getting anything more out of it - there are certainly problems with American education, but by and large, the amount of money going in is not the problem. Where that money is actually going is far more likely to be the problem. In addition, dumb government spending during a recession can also significantly reduce future revenues - not all government spending is good.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

I'm not so sure about that, especially if you include my suggestion about having ranked voting in the second primaries. Now (in my hypothetical reality) that people know who won the first primaries, and now that they have the ability to vote in order of preference with a ranked system, I think you might see some really different results.

For one thing, a lot more people might manage to get registered and vote (let's suppose the second primaries allow instant registration or something otherwise pretty easy, plus easy party affiliation choice), who didn't manage to vote in the first round. The number of actual votes in the primaries this year wasn't that much really; a new raft of voters could really change things all by itself, even without my ranked voting proposal.

Secondly, considering how unpopular both Hillary and Trump are, I think the ranked voting system would give very different results, with many voters ranking those two rather far down, and ranking other candidates much higher. Even with the Hillary and Trump lovers voting those two as their #1 picks, they'll also pick the other candidates for their #2, #3, etc. picks. With a proper ranked system, you may very well end up with someone like Jeb or Kasich or O'Malley winning the nomination in their respective party, because they were the least-hated candidate overall. This is the problem with first-past-the-post elections with lots of candidates: all the not-so-bad candidates split the votes among themselves and you end up with a really bad candidate who attracted the nutters, who are a minority but manage to outnumber the supporters for any single one of the less-bad candidates.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

Even Washington Post (the HIllary-shilling news outlet) points out that she's historically pushed for more military interventionism than Obama. She wants to establish a no-fly zone in Syria.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

I think the problem is that you have certain assumptions about what appeals to Republican voters. Trump has proven you, all the pundits, and the GOP party, very wrong. Your assumptions include things like 1) they have a huge bloc of ultra-conservative, gay-hating Christians, 2) they love interventionist wars like W Bush's Iraq War, and 3) they love big business, lowering taxes on ultra-rich people, etc. All these things are certainly true of some Republicans to some extent, but not nearly as much as previously thought. The ultra-conservative evangelicals are apparently not nearly as numerous or powerful (or at least as dedicated to their position) as assumed, for instance, or else either Santorum or Cruz or even Carson would have done far better. While a lot of GOP voters certainly are big fans of Bush and his wars, apparently they're not as numerous as previously thought, because those guys didn't vote for Trump (who called the Iraq invasion stupid, and trashed W in general, much to Jeb's annoyance). And #3 doesn't seem to be quite as true as believed before. From what I recall, Trump's tax plan seems to talk about eliminating income taxes on lower-income people altogether (combined with a tax cut in general--how this is supposed to actually work out is a mystery though).

In a nutshell, Trump's base is disaffected, white, mainly lower-income voters who feel betrayed by the Republican establishment, and see absolutely nothing on the Democrat side to identify with. Their jobs are disappearing, or have disappeared, they don't have a college education, and things just aren't looking too good for them. The establishment Democrats keep telling them "the economy is doing great!!! The Dow Jones has recovered!!!", but that doesn't help them when they don't own any stock, and don't have a degree and a highly-paid programming job. Basically, they're being left behind, and they're doing something about it. And of course they're blaming some of it on convenient scapegoats too (Mexicans). But the reality is that they're right to blame the establishment politicians, on *both* sides, because they haven't done anything for this very large voting bloc, and instead of have pursued globalist policies which have really hurt the lower middle class. It's just too bad they couldn't have been persuaded to registers as Democrats and vote for Bernie, since growing income inequality has been a central pillar of his campaign all along.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[jandersen]

Also, I don't recall seeing any dramatic announcements od "startling" revelations about mr Trump - surely he isn't as innocent as that? Everyone who has lived, has sinned, as they say; and somebody who has amassed huge wealth despite being rather modestly gifted, must have some dirt hidden away. Why don't we hear about it here on slashdot? Is it because there is an editorial agenda somewhere? Nothing wrong with that, but in the name of honesty, please reveal yourselves for what you are.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[houghi]

Vote an Austrian in a foreign country in time of economic stress would be a good thing. What is the worst that could happen?

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Coren22]

I would vote for Arnold for pres, even though he isn't a natural born citizen.

He would be much better than Hillary or Trump.

Re: Doesn't Matter

[Coren22]

Also, it is much harder to balance a budget when the income is unknown. The reason Clinton was able to run a surplus was a thriving economy. He handed off the bubble popping to Bush, and a looming crisis in the housing industry to Obama.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Doesn't Matter

[david_thornley]

Obama is trying to stay peaceful. There's lots of room between "more hawkish than Obama" and "going to get us into a major quagmire-style war".

Re:Doesn't Matter

[david_thornley]

I'd say that ranked-choice voting would be much more significant in changing results than a second primary. I'd like to see that in place, but I seem to be a minority in that.

Ranked choice would have made no difference in the Democratic primaries, but IIRC the Republicans have some winner-take-all states, and it might have had a big impact there.

Re: Doesn't Matter

[TheRaven64]

The reason that Clinton was able to balance the budget was that he classified a load of expenditure as not-really-expenditure-honest.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Grishnakh]

We don't need primaries with ranked-choice voting. Just put all the candidates on one ballot. There'd probably still need to be some kind of "weed-out" process so there aren't dozens of candidates, but having 2 or 3 from each major party is not too many. So maybe there could still be some kind of "primaries" to do some weed-out of the really weak candidates (basically a popularity contest to show which candidates just aren't getting any votes before trying to spend all the money needed to go to the general election, and also to build momentum), but no obligation for there to be a single nominee, or any nominees at all: any candidate who doesn't drop out and gets enough signatures by November can get on the ballot.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "for treason" sarcasm is one of the more challenging type of sarcasms. Misuse of words is such a popular sport these days.

This is a gift...

[Bartles]

...to Donald Trump. Who wouldn't want to know the other team's strategy and the information they are going to use to attack you?

Re:This is a gift...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter. It is difficult to impossible to defend yourself against actual facts. Trump will open his mouth and fortify Hillary's position.

Re:This is a gift...

[Bartles]

Yes, if Hillary is known for anything, it's truthfulness and correct statement of fact.

Re:This is a gift...

[phantomfive]

It is difficult to impossible to defend yourself against actual facts.

I see this is your first presidential election.

Re:This is a gift...

[swb]

Or is it?

If the facts and narrative of the files are legitimate, then they are bound to be bad for Trump. It may not matter if they're used strategically for so-called maximum impact -- releasing them at once may be like bomb, wounding Trump badly enough he can't regain momentum. And unlike carefully timed releases, the whole "stolen files" publicity may give the information the kind of self-perpetuating dynamic that keeps it in the public's eye longer than it would have on Meet the Press.

On the other hand, what if it's a plant? Just slander we already knew, served up on a different plate, by shadowy forces of "hackers" or "Russians" or some other ill-defined entity wanting to "ruin it for Hillary", with the DNC squealing all the way to November in righteous indignation? That kind of thing is just the sort of political theater you might expect and it can't help Trump, either, if he seems to be using it to his advantage.

I think generally speaking it's helpful to Trump if the leak is legitimate and represents their actual strategy. But none of it means they can't tweak their strategy, and if the information is damaging, well, it's still damaging.

Overall, I'd say very slight Trump advantage but with low-margin risks of serious blowback.

Re:This is a gift...

[Bartles]

It's all possible. But then Hillary goes and does an interview like this. The irony.

Re:This is a gift...

[NaCh0]

It's best that the docs went public. If the docs were sent to Trump privately, when Trump calls out their propaganda narrative, the media will spin it like a conspiracy theory. Hillary will of course deny anything Trump says to bolster the media stories. Low information people won't know who to believe and the 24 hour news cycle repeats itself.

Having the documents public shows everyone how specious and premeditated the attacks against Trump are. The media already prints an endless stream of garbage so the playbook will instantly be spun as "old news." Having the donor lists released will be a much bigger deal.

Re:This is a gift...

[Boronx]

The comparison in honesty between Clinton and Trump is pretty stark. Trump has never felt the need to verify anything he says, but the contents of this oppo book are pretty thoroughly researched, and not just by the DNC.

Re:This is a gift...

[Boronx]

There's nothing here that trump didn't already know that they knew. What this does is get people talking about Trump raping Ivana without any Democrat having to bring it up.

Re:This is a gift...

[quantaman]

If the hackers did it to benefit Trump, why not send it to his campaign secretly?

Trump's campaign is a mixture of... unconventional people who came with Trump and career RNC operatives, many of whom despise Trump and may prefer Trump lose and go away.

Chances are that secret file doesn't stay secret long and everyone quickly finds out that Trump has secret DNC documents given to him by Russian hackers.

I don't think even Trump could brush that scandal off.

Re:This is a gift...

[rtb61]

Politically speaking knowing their strategy doesn't provide any real benefit. What does real benefit is, taking there strategy book and presenting it to the public as the lies the opposition intends to tell. You get in first, you show no fear of the information and you demonstrate the scamminess, the scumminess of the opposition, fuck policy, those losers want the very worst of politics, they want pathetic gutter talk as they hide behind holier than though attitudes.

Trump has just gone through that, with the masters of it, the Republicans and it just shows the gross incompetence and exactly how like the Republicans the corporate pseudo democrats are. This campaign is going to drive a huge number of people to the third and fourth political parties, the Greens and the Libertarians, those who wish to escape the PR bullshit of marketing agencies and corporations, people who treat lies as superior to the truth because it is more profitable, this election is going to be a hilarious mess, at least from the outside.

What will be interesting is the vote scams that will be going, neither side shows complete indifference to cheating the public, voter purges, closed polling stations, cooking electronic votes, losing millions of votes. I wonder if this time around the winner will be the one who simply is better at cheating the voting process (the most fake election in US history).

Re:This is a gift...

[MightyMartian]

It's not very hard. Trump basically gives them a whole new load of attack pieces every fucking day. I'm not even sure why they have a secret strategy to go after him at all. It's like having the GPS coordinates of a bullseye 10 miles wide.

Re:This is a gift...

[MightyMartian]

He's already made it clear he thinks Putin's a good guy, so I think he's insulated himself even against that. I don't think Trump could do anything that would sway his supporters.

The problem being his supporters are a minority, so in a way, it's irrelevant what they think.

Re:This is a gift...

[quantaman]

He's already made it clear he thinks Putin's a good guy, so I think he's insulated himself even against that. I don't think Trump could do anything that would sway his supporters.

The problem being his supporters are a minority, so in a way, it's irrelevant what they think.

Being friendly is one thing.

Conspiring with hackers from a rival nation, possibly even an intelligence service from that nation, I think that's the end of Trump's campaign. Hell, he might not even get the nomination at that point.

Not only would it severely undercut the "protect the nation from outsiders" narrative of his campaign, but he'd potentially be subject to blackmail by a rival government.

Even if the offer was made to send it to them I wouldn't be shocked if his own campaign refused it knowing how dangerous it would be to posses.

Re:This is a gift...

[AmiMoJo]

I'm more interested in the Russian security services angle. There have been allegations that Russia is campaigning for the UK to leave the EU too, as a way to weaken the EU. I would imagine they would see electing Trump as a way to weaken the US too, and the security firm that the DNC hired to investigate the hack claims it was Russian security services.

Re:This is a gift...

[AaronW]

Hillary Clinton:
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
True + Mostly True: 51%
False + Mostly False + Pants on Fire: 27%

Donald Trump:
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
True + Mostly True: 9%
False + Mostly False + Pants on Fire: 77%

And just for comparison, Bernie Sanders:
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
True + Mostly True: 51%
False + Mostly False + Pants on Fire: 30%

Re:This is a gift...

[Nostalgia4Infinity]

Ivana Trump: I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign. Incidentally, I think he would make an incredible president.

Re:This is a gift...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine they would see electing Trump as a way to weaken the US too

Not specifically weakening the US but to weaken the US ties with other countries.
Russia doesn't want US and other countries exchanging intel or have defense alliances.
When Azerbaijan or whatever gets a lot of problems with "not Russians" that just happens to split of a chunk of their country they want the US response to be "Not our problem, we are going to build a wall against Mexico."

Re:This is a gift...

[Anonymous Coward]

Politifact is biased.

  "By levying 23 Pants on Fire ratings to Republicans over the past year compared to just 4 to Democrats, it appears the sport of choice is game hunting - and the game is elephants."
http://editions.lib.umn.edu/smartpolitics/2011/02/10/selection-bias-politifact-rate/

The Tampa Bay Times just endorsed Clinton for President. Why is this relevant? They own Politifact.
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/45ml0p/the_tampa_bay_times_just_endorsed_clinton_for/

Re: This is a gift...

[jmac_the_man]

And you don't see anything suspicious about the fact that Hillary Clinton gets a positive rating for True plus Mostly True?

Politifact is well known for using a double standard where they treat you with kid gloves if you have a D after your name.

Re:This is a gift...

[loonycyborg]

They use Russia as political scapegoat, always blaming it for any possible geopolitical snafus. The same strategy was used by Soviet government before. They really liked to blame slightest setbacks on capitalist aggressors from US. In fact abusing such easy solution to internal problems will backfire. Not only people will refuse to believe at some point, but also internal problems from which that trickery distracted attention will not be solved. And abuse definitely happens. Like even Snowden was forced to stay in Russia, only because that was the most "geopolitically advantageous" country for his stay, to maximally discredit him.

Re:This is a gift...

[OakDragon]

From the summary, I could have guessed their opposition tactics in my sleep. "Dur, dur, he's a racist! Dur, dur, he's a homophobe and a misogynist!"

Re:This is a gift...

[drinkypoo]

I wonder if this time around the winner will be the one who simply is better at cheating the voting process (the most fake election in US history).

The winner will be the corporatocracy, which owns both Clinton and Trump. The loser will be The People. They already know who will win this election. The RNC is not going to cheat on behalf of Trump, but the DNC will cheat on behalf of Clinton. Then we will have a Clinton victory, because that's what's in the script.

Re:This is a gift...

[drinkypoo]

And just for comparison, Bernie Sanders:
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
True + Mostly True: 51%
False + Mostly False + Pants on Fire: 30%

Not only is politifact biased, but your reporting of their reporting is shit. The most interesting thing about these ratings is not true+mostly true vs. false+etc. It's the pants on fire ratio. Politifact gives bernie a pants on fire score of zero but you've managed to conflate it there to make it look like he's a deceiver... because you're attempting to deceive. Luckily, I saw these charts this morning, so I know exactly what kind of nefarious bullshit you're up to.

Re:This is a gift...

[Sir_Eptishous]

Yes, I thought the same things mulling over the Russian connection.

But like any complex political scenario(like Iran) I imagine there are different "camps" in the power structures of Moscow(regardless of Putins hold over things), with some wanting Trump as you describe and others wanting Clinton for their own reasons.

Re:This is a gift...

[firewrought]

drinkypoo,
It seems to me that AaronW is summarizing rather than "attempting to deceive" the Slashdot audience with "nefarious bullshit". In context (observe Bartle's joke), he is simply trying to show that Clinton is more honest than Trump. Bernie was mentioned just for completeness.

However, AaronW did make a significant mathematical error by excluding the 32% "mostly false" category for Clinton. Her net false rating is 59%, not 27%. That significantly weakens his implicit claim that Clinton is significantly more honest than Trump, at least until you delve down into the more fine-grained ratings.

Moreover, PolitiFact percentages don't add up to 100% (nor close enough to reflect rounding). Their about page implies that each claim can only be assigned to one category, so quite possibly there's an error in how they are calculating percentages.

At any rate, let's try to conduct these conversations without personal attacks. Well, excluding obvious Microsoft shills anways, because, heh... we're Slashdot after all. :-)

Cordially,
firewrought

Re:This is a gift...

[david_thornley]

If they were that prejudiced against Republicans, why did Kasich do so well on Politifact? He was rated as about as honest as Clinton and Sanders.

The reason Politifact seems biased against Republicans right now is that there are a lot of Republicans who are lying. Religious fanatics tend to say things based on what they want to be true rather than what's true, and Trump of course is a liar. The Republican party in general is anti-inconvenient-science, currently more so than the Democrats.

I'd like to see the Republican Party come back to where it was some time ago, but it seems determined to attain irrational ideological purity at the expense of anything else - at least until the voters rebel and pick a candidate who isn't a hard-line conventional ideologically driven Republican.

Re:This is a gift...

[AaronW]

The mostly false rating is 15%. 32 is the number of claims, not the percentage.

Re:This is a gift...

[AaronW]

Here is the data for John Kasich:
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
True + Mostly True: 53%
Mostly False + False + Pants on Fire: 32%

Re:This is a gift...

[golodh]

@MightyMartian

As far as I can see, the problem indeed isn't in finding facts that demonstrate Trump is spiritually, ethically, intellectually and temperamentally unsuited for office, it's convincing a few million voters that voting for him is stupid. People don't vote rationally, they vote emotionally.

This is one of the few things mr. Trump has got right, as shown by his public statement that he could kill someone in front of the camera and not suffer a significant loss of popularity.

The current economic adversity, the fact that large numbers of people are financially struggling, that the prospect of automatically having a good life as long as one works diligently and happens to be an American has dimmed.

Over the last 16 years voters have listened to various presidents and countless lesser politicians who have campaigned by delivering upbeat messages about "Aaaahhhhmerriikaahhh" in all its forms. Only to find that reality still fell short of their expectations: their personal financial situation didn't improve as they had hoped, their position in the job market wasn't all that good and doesn't look like it will improve soon. In facts, it looks like it's not going to improve substantially unless something changes dramatically.

People have also been bombarded for decades with news that as a matter of fact focuses on what went wrong rather than on what fraction of things went wrong (shock news sells a lot better than balanced news with a perspective) and insofar as non-local news got through to them, it was negative news that seemed to imply they were somehow falling short in a million ways that require intense effort to even understand, let alone address. In addition, there's the powerful (if erroneous) emotion that they can survive if they're not dependent on anyone else, specifically as regards personal safety (i.e. a constitutional right to have one or more guns). And now they're getting disquieting messages that "people" want to question, qualify, if not abolish that right.

To many people this feels like err ... betrayal. And it generates a lot of undirected anger.

Then suddenly there is this slugger who minces no words, is always ready to lash out at some "others" who are imperiling us, reflects that anger and seems to promise a way to a better future ("Make America Great Again"). Moreover one who never uses any complicated words, and in fact, whose entire thinking is very very uncomplicated, but who nevertheless seems able to be successful (billionaire and all; nevermind he inherited a fortune and would have done just as well if he had invested in stock market index trackers and retired when his inheritance came through). He looks different from all those other politicians who take such obvious care to be smarmy and to attract votes.

Wow ... that guy is easy to relate to, right?

The problem is in showing to those people that this oh so uncomplicated slugger with his brazen simplemindedness and his appeal to people's anger isn't the best way forward. Only ... people who feel attracted to him aren't receptive to rational argument. They're receptive to emotional ones. You just need to find which ones exactly. It's a bit like being a psychiatrist and a trial lawyer in one.

People that follow mr. Trump have minds like a lock that will admit only a limited number of keys. Figuring out which key to use in what state of the debate is why you do opposition research. If you tell the opposition which key's you've found so far, they will try to deny and deflect your arguments, change the subject, outshout you, and line up flashier talking points of their own to sway people.

Since mr. Trump only recently hired political insiders to get the technicalities of his campaign right, having access to a file like this works to his advantage: part of his people's work has been done and they can focus on shoring up his weaknesses and coming up with ideas for offense rather than analysing mr. Trump's weaknesses from the bottom up.

Re:This is a gift...

[dywolf]

yes actually she is.
she currently has the highest factual accuracy rating of any presidential candidate this election, and one of hte highest of any politician ever.
you're thinking of Trump, who currently has the lowest accuracy of any politician ever.

"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Okian Warrior]

There's a really obvious reason why Trump is so popular.

A lot of people are facing complete ruin and are scared, holding their breath hoping that something will change.

Trump is the candidate for "change", and Clinton is the candidate for "stay the course".

I'm not a Clinton supporter, but I don't think that statement about Hillary is particularly controversial even among her supporters. She's definitely a political insider, is funded by moneyed interests, and her website has a list of issues that give a sense of "direction" without promising anything concrete. Typical of politicians for the last 50 years - nothing bad or unusual about that.

Trump has a list of 7 things that he will change, with a concrete list of changes for each. All of his proposed changes are aimed at making peoples' lives better.

People who are secure in their position, who have a job and don't see themselves being laid off or expect to find a new job quickly if they are laid off, should vote for Hillary. There are a lot of these people in the country, and "stay the course" is the least risky choice for them to make.

People who are unemployed, struggling, or in fear of losing their situation should vote for Trump, because he's proposing to make changes.

As the theory goes, when you're doing well you should minimise risk - don't do anything that could change your situation. When you're doing poorly, you can tolerate more risk in the hopes that it might help.

So it really all boils down to the proportion of people in the country who are at-risk and scared, versus the proportion who think the current situation is "pretty good".

We're presented with a never-ending stream of depressing news about this here on Slashdot, and you really can't trust the MSM any more, so it's easy to believe that majority of the country might be shivering in fear hoping for something to change, but that might not be an accurate view.

"Change" or "stay the course"? The voters will probably decide this November.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[PopeRatzo]

There's a really obvious reason why Trump is so popular.

The reason Trump is so popular is that he's actually not popular at all.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...

It's like a zen koan for morons: "He's so popular that 70% of people can't stand him."

Gamergate logic.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst interpretation of the current standing of both candidates I've read today. Are all of Trump's supporters 12?

Trump can keep his fat greasy fingers off of the constitution thanks. Give me the "usual politician" any day. This is not the comeback of the morons you were waiting for.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. Part of me actually hopes Trump wins, just so I can witness the disappointment of his supporters.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[phantomfive]

Typical of politicians for the last 50 years - nothing bad or unusual about that.

Being typical doesn't mean it's "not bad!"

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[peragrin]

Except unless trump manages to get the Republicans on his side he can't do anything. Look how effect Obama has been without congressional approval. Trump unless he string arm Republicans will be even worse. And if trump does strong arm Republicans expect mafia like responses to everything. All media companies but his chosen pets will be banned, all disent will not be tolerated.

My hope is that Bernie and Graham Do the unthinkable and throw their support behind Gary Johnson. Graham for fiscal conservative policies, and Bernie's for moderate and progressive attitude.

The USA is the Titanic, there are two icebergs ahead one on the left and one on the right, steer us in-between the two, and we just might survive.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Anonymous Coward]

I despise the GOP. Trump is just another version of their evil. But every time someone criticizes Trump's supporters, every time they call Trump names, I move a little bit closer to voting for him.

I'd rather stand with the "fat greasy fingered" candidate and the "morons" that support him than people that cant refute their views without personal insults.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump has a list of 7 things that he will change [donaldjtrump.com], with a concrete list of changes for each. All of his proposed changes are aimed at making peoples' lives better.

Leaving aside that it would hardly be likely for him to propose worsening people's lives, your definition of concrete seems off.

Pay for the Wall? Proposal that relies on Mexico doing something and yet does nothing in itself. Wow, that's...kinda not concrete, when you look at it with a discerning eye. Sure, it seems like he's going to do something, but heck, just the issue of setting the borders is a complicated matter, let alone constructing anything along it.

Same with Immigration reform. Triple the number of ICE officers? That seems concrete, until you realize how much work it'll be. You can't just wave a wand and hire people. Same with his detention plans. Let's do it! Oh wait, how much will that cost? And you won't see any real proposals to make enforcement of E-verify a reality.

China? Oh, let's bring them to the bargaining table. As if they weren't already being negotiated with. Oh oh but he's going to have a zero tolerance IP policy. Durp, apparently we don't have any talks about that already. Oh but wait, he's going to be vigorously eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the Federal government, ending redundant government programs, and growing the economy to increase tax revenues. How specific is that? Not at all, perhaps?

Healthcare? The only thing it gets right is that simple repeal isn't going to do shit. Unfortunately, it doesn't give us more than "Hey, Block Grants, let the states solve it" and "No more blocking drugs, let the pharmaceutical companies solve it!" and other stuff that won't help people's real problems.

VA? Oh my, going to any Medicare provider. But that assumes there are existing providers who can do the job. But he's going to INCREASE funding. Wait a second, I thought throwing money at problems was a bad idea? But wait, he's going to Transform the VA to meet the needs of 21st century service members! Is that supposed to be concrete?

Tax Reform? It claims to be revenue neutral. No numbers are shown. It can't even avoid talking about the estate tax as the death tax.

Gun Rights? Oh my, he says he's going to enforce the laws on the books. Yeah, that's very specific. Oh wait, he's going to make right to carry nationwide. IOW, he's going to tell states that they have to accept anybody with a gun that some state says is ok, with no safeguards. But he thinks that the right to travel isn't a right, and that recognizing that automobiles are used for that travel? What the fuck? Does Trump not know the Constitution at all? Or does he just buy into the empty NRA-style rhetoric without thinking about it? And the military doesn't want firearms uncontrolled on their bases. This is a deliberate and intentional choice to control the very serious danger of firearms. They have enough accidents in areas where they to have people armed, they aren't going to want to change that just because some idiot thinks it needs to be changed.

Sorry, but I see a blow-hard promising all sorts of shit, but actual delivery? That's another story.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Anonymous Coward]

More like Trump is the candidate of "my 7 ideas that will actually make things worse" while Clinton is the candidate of "realistic improvements that will actually have the intended effects". I don't think anyone on the left thinks things are "pretty good" currently, so you are just putting up a straw (wo)man. We are still recovering from some pretty serious mismanagement of international relations and the tax code, healthcare system, and infrastructure are all in a shambles because of the policies right along the lines of what Trump says.

And of course everyone is scared, the media and Trump has worked very hard to stir up that panic.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Anonymous Coward]

All of his proposed changes are aimed at making peoples' lives better.

Yeah, go look at the healthcare 'proposal'. It's just 'not Obamacare', with nothing real to replace it.
Trump has said he'll somehow cover people with pre-existing conditions, but hasn't mentioned anywhere how he'd pay for it (and no, selling plans 'across state lines' doesn't fix that).

Your post reads like it was written by a political consultant. Are you getting paid to shill for the Trump campaign, or are you just cutting-and-pasting from their emails?

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[scatbomb]

Interesting that politicians appeal mostly to people's fears and insecurities. Fear of criminals, mass murders, fear of losing your job, xenophobia, fear of any number of disasters which each claims the other will bring if you don't elect the opposite as leader. Terror is just another word for fear, and one who uses terror to achieve political goals is a terrorist. Break the cycle, vote for somebody who doesn't need to scare you to get your support.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[ArsonSmith]

I feel the same way, except I want to witness the disappointment of his detractors when the country actually does just fine.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Darinbob]

Except that no president can "fix" the economy. It's the responsiblity of the entire government not just whatever clown is in the oval office. Even then the entire government still has to rely on a good deal of luck. The government is basically able to nudge things in certain directions and provide for buffers against downturns. We've got one party who's mantra is to cut taxes when times are good and also cut taxes when times are bad, and we've got another party who is scared to do much at all for fear of spooking the middle class so they mostly just make big speeches.

There really isn't an option for positive change this time around. When you're down to your last dollar you dont put it into a slot machine at Vegas unless you're stupid.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Darinbob]

"It's so crowded that no one goes there anymore."

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Boronx]

Unless you're Muslim or Hispanic or ....

Any way, you'd have to be a pretty poor judge of character to think that Trump is going to give you anything just because he promised it. That's not how the man operates.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Boronx]

Since Trump's MO is to promise the moon then walk away leaving someone else holding the bag, how good his proposals are almost doesn't matter.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[argStyopa]

Except you're missing the point, likely based on political bias. "Sorry, but I see a blow-hard promising all sorts of shit, but actual delivery? That's another story" IS EXACTLY WHAT EVERY OTHER POLITICIAN DOES, except insofar as in the last 40 years the trend has gotten to be even MORE mealy-mouthed about even making campaign promises. So at the worst, he's being like every other politician, but he's at least putting his points out there.

The last politician that I can recall that dared to make a categorical statement was Bush I, and I believe his "no new taxes" statement was used in pretty nearly every Clinton campaign commercial that season. He was crucified for it.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[argStyopa]

Except that personal security is the FUNDAMENTAL contract between the governed and the governing.

As a theoretical exercise in a 'State of Nature' you can feed yourself, clothe yourself, house yourself...but protecting yourself is an escalating challenge: it's invariably going to involve 'needing more friends' than the other guy(s) which is the root of social organization. These people can't just do whatever they want, and consensus becomes difficult in larger groups, thus "government".

So I believe that this is the core thing that people expect from government: am I and my family, and to a lesser degree "our stuff" safe?

This is why fear works so well as a political tool, and why when this compact between citizens and government is perceived to be breaking down (ie today) the voters become astonishingly skittish, willing to make what they even may recognize as a stupid leader choice IF that leader is otherwise believed to be bringing them more safety.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[AmiMoJo]

Oh oh but he's going to have a zero tolerance IP policy.

Yeah, and China is going to tell him to fuck off (in Chinese through an interpreter of course).

The man is clearly a terrible negotiator. He announced that he is going to get Mexico to pay for that wall, so now they know they can pretty much dictate terms to him because if he fails to get that deal it will do him immense damage. Well, Mexico will probably just decide to tell him to fuck off too.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Sir_Eptishous]

This is what I've been telling my pro-Trump friends and relatives.
He is promising a ton of shit that will never see the light of day(like Sanders)

Average people aren't good at thinking pragmatically, but that is almost always the only way to get things done, especially in government.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[dywolf]

More from the "up is down down is up" crowd.

Somehow Trumps "it'll be great, it'll be awesome, we're gonna win some more wait it'll be yuuuge" statements are "concrete".
While Hillary, a known policy wonk (ie, nerd) who gets down to nitty gritty details is "unfocused".

In other words, what you stated is pure BS.

Not withstanding your inability to actually grasp definitions, let alone policy, n matter how many times you say it, it's still not true.
Trumps statements are not concrete.
Saying "it needs to be fixed" is not concrete.
And Hillary laying out EXACTLY how it will be fixed is not "directionless" or "vague".

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Britz]

Your post is a narrative. Nothing more, nothing less. Obama also had a narrative very similar. He even made it his campaign slogan. "Change we can believe in." Did he change much? Did he try changing much? Was he successful? Hillary more or less shares a lot of political positions with Obama. Maybe she will be more successful? Who knows?

You can also change a lot of things for the worse. Why anyone would believe anything Trump says is beyond me. Trump university may be a good example of what a character Trump is. He basically scammed poor people with his big name, doing the exact opposite of what he promised. Why should President Trump be any different than what Donald Trump has been all his life? A rich kid that stays rich.

Trump said some stuff about Super PACs that was interesting. Now he promised to raise a billion dollars (donor money, guess from whom) for the RNC. He is already doing the very same thing Hillary does.

If Trump can implement any changes, which is doubtful, those would most likely not benefit unemployed or underemployed people. Anyone that believes different is very naive. Just like Sanders supporters in 2016 or Obama supporters in 2008. A president does not have all that much influence. Sanders himself said as much. He said that it matters if people talk about the issues he raises. At least that puts some of that stuff on the agenda. But that's about it.

Trumps policies will most likely benefit people like him, because he is an extreme narcissist. Everything he says and does point towards that.

So if you are rich and in real estate, you should vote for Trump. If you are none of the above, Trump won't be good for you.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Britz]

"change" is used, because it sells. People are very unsatisfied with Washington, which is why "change" sells very well. Any change. News Media sells itself using shocking or bad news, which is why a lot of people think their country is on the worst possible course. Which is wrong. It could be a lot worse. It could also be better, but if you want change, you should want change for the better, not any change, because there is a lot of money in politics that will influence any change their way. Trump is taking a lot of that money, despite saying he wouldn't.

The current estimate for total campaign spending 2016 is at about 7 billion dollars.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[JustSomeProgrammer]

Mexico already has. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[peragrin]

Trump has lied, and jumped positions so often he is making Hillary look like a straight shooter, and always honest.

Think about it. How can he make a deal when he can't even get republucans to follow? Trump is a well known back stabber, he has never paid contractors in full. He always steals from the cookie jar.

You don't become a billionaire without screwing people over.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[Gussington]

People who are secure in their position, who have a job and don't see themselves being laid off or expect to find a new job quickly if they are laid off, should vote for Hillary. There are a lot of these people in the country, and "stay the course" is the least risky choice for them to make.

People who are unemployed, struggling, or in fear of losing their situation should vote for Trump, because he's proposing to make changes.

This is politics 101, and is logical, but the gaping hole which the "changers" fail to appreciate is that change isn't always good for them. Sometimes, changes that look good for them on paper, are poorly thought-out and simply make everyone worse off. This was the flaw in Bush's invade Iraq campaign (ie nothing could possibly be worse than leaving Saddam in power, so change is the answer), and is a similar proposition for the Trump vote today.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[scatbomb]

No, actually I was suggesting that people not vote for Hillary or Trump. I think they both suck more or less equally. I'm voting 3rd party.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[scatbomb]

I totally disagree with your characterization. Government COULD protect we the people's interests without lying to us, without violating our civil liberties, and without concealing their true motives from us. They chose not to. There is an alternative that isn't anarchy and isn't what we have now. I'm currently supporting the Pirate party because I think they hold ideals similar to mine. As for anarchism - the amount of freedom turns out to be 0 since anybody can violate anybody's basic rights. That's my main problem with Libertarians, they try and take it too far.

Re:"Change", versus "stay the course"

[scatbomb]

I'm more likely to die from just about anything compared to "terrorism." Our response to this perceived threat is disproportionate to the actual risk, but politicians use it as a tool to erode civil liberties and increase spending on military. The government doesn't have money, that's YOUR money and MY money they are spending. They were able to take that money from us and spend it on weapons and bombs to KILL other people because we live in a completely irrational world where fear used more than logic in making decisions. That is the point I'm trying to make. Don't let fear rule your life. Use your head.

Re:what matters

[Dorianny]

You realize Hillary is responsible for probably over a million deaths and a good part of Europe being overrun ?

There hasn't been a Secretary of State without blood on their hands since the "Monroe Doctrine."

Re:Wow

[oic0]

Not sure if should moderate troll or funny... so nothing lol.

Re: what matters

[20oz]

They tend to have a little less American diplomat blood though

Re:nah

[msauve]

"that wasn't an intentional crime"

Intention doesn't matter when classified materials are inappropriately handled. She was informed of, and signed off on, what the relevant legal rules were. There's also the smoking gun email, where she wrote "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure" with regard to a classified fax, which does show intent.

Re:hijinks

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what exactly happened?

When the koch bros bought slashdot, did they just offer their paid trolls any unused low-uid account that you wanted, or did they let you make new accounts a re-use old ids?

Re:nah

[phantomfive]

Based on your incredible though psychotic devotion to her I imagine that if she shot you in the head you would support her

What makes you think I support her? I just don't think she's evil, or even particularly bad.

Gamergate logic?

[Okian Warrior]

There's a really obvious reason why Trump is so popular.

The reason Trump is so popular is that he's actually not popular at all.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...

It's like a zen koan for morons: "He's so popular that 70% of people can't stand him."

Gamergate logic.

Apropos of nothing, does your Gamergate logic explain why so many people voted for him?

Votes would seem to be a better measure, but then I'm not familiar with Gamergate logic.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apropos of nothing, does your Gamergate logic explain why so many people voted for him?

Votes would seem to be a better measure, but then I'm not familiar with Gamergate logic.

GOP primary voters.

Approximately 14 million of them, and well, maybe you esteem their judgment, but I can't say I do. And 7.7 million of them picked Cruz, 3.5 million picked Rubio, and 4 million Kasich. What does that say?

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

the majority

In the post-primary polls, Trump is getting crushed.

Re: Gamergate logic?

[cat_jesus]

Trump stole the zombie horde. But there aren't enough zombies to win ... this cycle. Americans are getting dumber and dumb people breed more than smart people. We will have our President Camacho someday. Idiocracy is in full swing. Trump, Cruz, Palin and Dubya are solid evidence of that.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

Apropos of nothing, does your Gamergate logic explain why so many people voted for him?

OK, let me unpack it for you, because I've studied this particular pathology in depth.

First, Trump has not really gotten that many votes, as a proportion of the total electorate, or even the Republican electorate. he's gotten about 13 million votes actually cast for him so far. In those same Republican primaries, there have been over 15 million votes cast against Trump. So a couple of million more Republicans voted against Donald Trump than for him. By the way, Hillary Clinton has also gotten over 2 million more primary votes than Donald Trump.

But here's the kicker: There are about 130,000,000 people who will vote in the next presidential election. Right now, Donald Trump has captured 10% of those votes. Do you think there are a lot of people who have been saying, "I'm going to wait to see what this Donald Trump is all about before I go out and actually cast a vote for him"?

This is why you hear about how "the demographics" overwhelmingly favor whomever the Democrats run in 2016. First, there are a lot more Democrats than Republicans in the US. Second, independents have actually been breaking against Donald Trump in the primaries. Third, even Republicans voted more often against Donald Trump than for him, and finally, the dude has a 70% disapproval rating since the end of the primaries. That means his disapproval numbers have jumped 10% in one month. His approval rating is at 29%, which is about the same as the approval rating of the mosquitoes that carry Zika virus.

It's time for you to start thinking of excuses for why Donald Trump got blown out in the general election. I suggest going with the, "they robbed him" excuse. That's a favorite of mine, and it's always been effective when my sports teams lose. Plus, it's almost certainly the excuse Donald will use because he seems constitutionally lacking in self-awareness. Come up with a good conspiracy theory and you'll be good to go for the next four long years that the unpleasant Mrs Clinton will be president.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

Clinton's numbers are slipping while Trump's are rising

Yeah, no.

http://www.bloomberg.com/polit...

Re:Gamergate logic?

[amiga3D]

Really I imagine he'll probably lose in the general election. I suspect further that it wouldn't matter which Republican was running they'd lose as well. In fact I think Trump has a better chance than any of the others in the field. The reason is that I know a lot of people who voted this time around who haven't voted in years. Many who have never voted and registered so they could vote for Trump. He is not a politician and all the people that hate the lying fucking whores like Hillary finally got someone else to vote for. Sure he's a blowhard and a dirty bastard but compared to a shit stain like Hillary he looks pretty damn good. She's going to continue fucking us just like the bastard before her and the bastard before him. They're all a part of the same machine they just market them differently. I have no doubt that if by some miracle Trump managed to win it'd be a very short term before his aircraft malfunctioned or some nut case shot him. Can't have someone fucking up the system.

Sorry for the rant....I'm feeling especially cynical tonight. Can you blame me? I get to choose between a Crazy Bastard and a Crooked Bitch. Democracy??????

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

I get to choose between a Crazy Bastard and a Crooked Bitch.

I'm pretty sure that "Crazy Crooked Bastard" applies in this case:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/3...

http://dailycaller.com/2016/06...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo...

"Crooked Crazy Bastard" is also appropriate. I'm not sure why you'd think this indicates someone who would shake up the corrupt system.

http://img2.timeinc.net/people...

Re:Gamergate logic?

[epine]

Sure he's a blowhard and a dirty bastard but compared to a shit stain like Hillary he looks pretty damn good.

There are thousands of things that don't look as bad as a shit stain—if you can see them at all—that will harm you far worse than a shit stain. An insecure, xenophobe blowhard in a post-nuclear world might very well be one of those things.

On the playground, being a shit stain is pretty much the ground zero of social comparison. In real life, the Mines of Moria couldn't contain everything scarier and deadlier than a shit stain. Definitely, Trump will do well among the playground electorate who show up to vote using their trusty shit-stain barometer.

The rest of the electorate will stop to ponder world problems that can't be resolved with a box of Tide.

Suds for Drugs

Re:Gamergate logic?

[quantaman]

Considering that Trump already has an 87% chance to win the presidency according to primary models

I don't think you're mathing right.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[thrich81]

Thanks for this. Well analyzed. Though I'm at the point of not bothering to discuss it. I just want to find a legal betting market and make money off the stupidity out there rather than just be appalled.

Re: Gamergate logic?

[MightyMartian]

By some counts, Clinton has opened up a two digit lead. Even Obama had a lot harder slog than against Romney than Clinton appears to be having against Trump. Coupled with over 2 out of 3 Americans actively disliking the man, and considering he's pretty much wiped out his chances in several battleground states with his absolutely moronic attack on a judge whose parents were Americans, where is it do you think his path to victory will come from? There's only so many ignorant racists out there.

For chrissake, I'd argue that hasn't been a presidential election in over half a century were someone like Trump could win, but there's no way he's going to find a path in 2016. Even the Republicans know it. They hoped he'd start behaving presidentially after the primaries, but he's made it clear he intends to continue being ten kinds of crazy bigot.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[MightyMartian]

With Trump as the Republican nominee, I'm having a hard time envisioning the Democratic candidate who couldn't beat him. I guess maybe a clone of Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin might not be able to overcome the Donald, but I think you could have literally picked anyone from the Democratic slate and they would beat him. He is one of the worst candidates a major political party has ever fielded.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[MightyMartian]

The worst thing about the Trump University fiasco isn't that he's a scam artist, it's that several years worth of work by Republicans working on the ground in battleground states to build support among the Latino community have literally been wiped out. I really do feel sorry for those people. I just can't imagine putting your heart and soul into trying to build support for your political party to have its presidential candidate, its leader, nuke the whole damned thing from orbit because he's pissy about a lawsuit.

Re: Gamergate logic?

[MightyMartian]

Whose parents were "Mexicans", I mean.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Aighearach]

His approval rating is at 29%, which is about the same as the approval rating of the mosquitoes that carry Zika virus.

That does at least make him more popular than Congress.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Aighearach]

This was the one chance to get Gary Hart elected, and we let it pass!

The one Democrat that could lose to Trump: Anthony Weiner.

Good news for Weinie though, his wife can get him into the White House parties.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[chill]

That's setting the bar low. I would be surprised of the Ebola virus polled higher than Congress!

Re:Gamergate logic?

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

But here's the kicker: There are about 130,000,000 people who will vote in the next presidential election. Right now, Donald Trump has captured 10% of those votes. Do you think there are a lot of people who have been saying, "I'm going to wait to see what this Donald Trump is all about before I go out and actually cast a vote for him"?

If that is so, shouldn't the polls show a much wider spread? Surely those 130 million people are represented in the polls, or aren't they? Are polls historically that inaccurate in US presidential elections? (Yes I realise that the election is still far away, but that's not really what I'm asking here).

(All this said as a Swede who's somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders, and doesn't have a real dog in the Trump vs. Clinton race, nor would---hopefully---be that affected by the outcome.)

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote your fucking conscience. If you have a bad taste in your mouth after voting, you're fucking doing it wrong. There's plenty of other political parties. The only reason they don't stand a snowball's chance in hell is this stupid "choose one of two" kind of artificial thinking. Politics in the US is the ultimate false dichotomy.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Stuarticus]

How can it be wrong when there's a percentage in there? Percentage = Fact, everyone know this, or at least 51% anyway.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

There is no empirical data to support this assertion.

Of course there is. We know exactly how many votes were cast. Here's a handy spread sheet.

http://www.realclearpolitics.c...

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

If that is so, shouldn't the polls [realclearpolitics.com] show a much wider spread?

As we've learned from statistician Nate Silver, not all polls are created equal, so a simple average like the one Real Clear Politics does is always going to lag trends, which turn out to be crucially important.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[coinreturn]

LOL, you used (((Bloomberg))) as a source?!!!

That would be better than the source of {empty set} used by you and the GP anon.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[drinkypoo]

The worst thing about the Trump University fiasco isn't that he's a scam artist, it's that several years worth of work by Republicans working on the ground in battleground states to build support among the Latino community have literally been wiped out.

You misspelled "best" there. I have always been fucking appalled that Hispanics tended to vote republican, it was seriously embarrassing. I assume it's been based on their views on abortion, and fuck everything else because Catholicism. Fucking Catholics ruin everything they touch, pun intended

Re:Gamergate logic?

[drinkypoo]

LOL, you used (((Bloomberg))) as a source?!!!

LOL, you're an anti-semite? Just see how many people agree with you now! Hilarity ensues.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Sir_Eptishous]

You know I read your posts and sometimes you sound like a smart guy.
Then you say something like this:

Apropos of nothing, does your Gamergate logic explain why so many people voted for him?

Wow... really?
Do you understand or pay attention to the recent political events over the past few months?
The voting you refer to is Republican Primary voting.
Not a general election.
Do you understand the types of voters that show up to vote in primaries?
It has been well established that the fringe and more extreme voters of either party are more likely to vote in primaries.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

OK, so you're saying the changes are recent enough to not show up yet. I'll keep my eyes glued to the polls then... :-)

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Britz]

That is the thing I don't get. People are tired of politicians f"Â%$ing them, so they vote for someone who is going to f"Â% them so much worse.

How logical is that?

Trump is very much part of the establishment. So who would sabotage him? And who would shoot him that wouldn't have shot Obama already?

Re:Gamergate logic?

[amiga3D]

Nobody will shoot Obama, Joe Biden is VP. Even the fucking Klan prefer Obama to Biden.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Grishnakh]

First, there are a lot more Democrats than Republicans in the US

Where'd you get this crazy idea? If this were true, then the Democrats would control Congress. And if you're going to pull the silly "gerrymandering!" card, you need to go study how Senatorial elections work.

Additionally, you seem to have forgotten the 2014 election, where Republicans totally stomped the Democrats. Even if there supposedly are more Dem voters, it doesn't count if they don't bother to vote. And the fact that they don't bother suggests that they aren't Dem voters at all, but rather independents who didn't feel the Dem candidates were worth the trouble of making time to go to the polls. Considering how unpopular Hillary is, the same may very well happen this year.

Basically, your whole theory (and that of all the pro-Hillary people) rests on the assumption that so many people will be so scared of the prospect of a Trump presidency that they'll do whatever it takes to get to the polls and vote for the (D) candidate, whoever that is, and because of that Hillary must be a safe choice. That's a pretty big assumption. Voter apathy has been a long-time problem in this country, and this year we're now faced with two presumptive nominees (neither is official just yet) who are *both* extremely unpopular among the general population. Personally I think that's going to result in very, very low turnout, and with very low turnout there's no telling which way a race will go.

I won't be surprised at all to see Trump eke out a win in November. And if that happens, I'm laying the blame at the feet of the DNC for giving us such a horrible candidate. (This is nothing new; they've been giving us terrible candidates for quite a while -- Gore and Kerry for example -- but this one really takes the cake.)

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

Where'd you get this crazy idea?

There's been about a ten point lead in the number of Democrats/Lean Democratic for the past few decades. There have been more Democrats than Republicans since WWII.

http://www.people-press.org/20...

If this were true, then the Democrats would control Congress. And if you're going to pull the silly "gerrymandering!" card, you need to go study how Senatorial elections work.

First, there are two houses to Congress. In the past several House elections, there were more votes cast for Democratic candidates than for Republican candidates. Yet, Republicans control the House. If you have an explanation besides gerrymandering, I'd like to hear it. (Hint: the explanation is gerrymandering).

Republicans took back the Senate thanks to the cyclical nature of six year terms and elections every 2 years. Last time, there were a lot of Democrats in Republican-leaning states that had to defend their seats. This year, there are 24 Republican senators (many in Democratic states) that will have to defend their seats in a year with a guy with 70% disapproval ratings leading the party. The Democrats only have to pick up 4 seats to take back the Senate. Next January, there will be a Democratic president and a Democratic senate being sworn in. Why do you think there are so many Republicans, conservative ones at that that are puckering up their asses about having Trump as the candidate?

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Grishnakh]

I'm sorry, I think you're delusional.

Gerrymandering is something every party does when they're in power, to hold onto that power. The incumbents get to draw the district lines, so of course they do it to benefit themselves. Republicans are not magically far better at it than Democrats.

As for more Dems since WWII, that's just plain crazy. If that were true, Dubya would never have been elected twice, HW wouldn't have been elected, Reagan would have lost to Carter, Nixon would have lost to Humphrey, etc. Gerrymandering doesn't affect Presidential elections.

You may very well be right about Dems taking over the Senate this November thanks to Trump, but we'll see. But that isn't proof of there being more Dems at all. From where I stand, it looks like the numbers of dedicated Dem and Rep voters are really about equal, which is why every Presidential election ends up coming down to swing voters.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

Gerrymandering is something every party does when they're in power, to hold onto that power. The incumbents get to draw the district lines, so of course they do it to benefit themselves. Republicans are not magically far better at it than Democrats.

More and more big Democratic states are going to a "fair" map that is NOT drawn by legislators, but are drawn by an independent, bipartisan commission. New Jersey and Washington are two such states.

If you look at the top 10 most heavily-gerrymandered districts in the US, you'll see that 7 of them are in Republican states (mostly swing states like Florida and North Carolina).

Gerrymandering is a real thing. It's been going on since James Madison was president. The states that still allow it (Republican states for the most part) have really gotten good at it.

Read this next line carefully: In the past few Congressional elections, more votes were cast for Democratic candidates than for Republican candidates. Let me repeat that: More Americans voted for Democratic congress people than Republican congress people. Yet, the Republican controlled the House.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Grishnakh]

Read this line carefully: George W Bush won two terms in a row. Where did all those votes come from? I guess all those alleged Democratic voters aren't bothering to show up for Presidential elections.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

George W Bush won two terms in a row. Where did all those votes come from?

I thought we were talking about control of Congress.

Anyway, in 2000, more Americans voted for Al Gore than George Bush anyway. Over half a million more, in fact. But you already knew that and are just playing stupid. Very convincingly, I might add.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Grishnakh]

No, we're not talking about control of Congress at all, that's just a side-effect. Your allegation is that there's a significantly larger number of Democrat voters than Republican voters. I'm disproving it by pointing to the Presidential elections.

And according to Wikipedia, yes, there were approx. 550k more Gore votes than Bush votes, that's out of 50 million votes on each side. The percentage was 47.9% to 48.4%, a 0.5% difference.

If you want to believe that 0.5% more Dem voters is some kind of huge difference in numbers, then go right ahead. To everyone else, it's statistically insignificant. Like I said before, the numbers are roughly equal, which is why the elections keep swinging back and forth.

And if you think 0.5M votes is so much in 2000, that still doesn't explain 2004: Bush clearly won that race with over 2 million more votes than Kerry. That's 4 *times* as many more votes. And the turnout was much higher too: ~62M for Bush, 59M for Kerry (2.4% delta). That's approx. 21M more votes total than the 2000 election 4 years prior. The nation's population didn't expand *that* fast.

Now look at the 2008 and 2012 elections: in 2008, Obama won the popular vote with about 9.5M more votes (7.2% delta), but then in 2012 with only about 5M more votes (3.9% delta), which is just a bit more than Kerry lost to Bush by in 2004. Let's go back farther: in 1996, Clinton had a 8.2M vote lead over Dole (8.5% delta), and in 1992 a 5.8M vote lead over HWBush (5.6% delta) (note that Clinton had a pretty lousy 43% of the popular vote overall, not a majority at all). In 1988, HWBush had a 7M vote lead over Dukakis (7.8% delta), and in 1984, Reagan had a whopping 16.9M vote lead over Mondale (18.2% delta).

Face it: your claim is completely wrong. The biggest lead in the last 20 years was Obama's 2008 election with a 7.2% lead, but that totally pales in comparison to 1984's re-election of Reagan with an 18.2% lead. There is simply no evidence at all that this nation, for the last 50 years (you claimed all the way back to WWII), has had a significant majority of Democrat voters. It just doesn't. If it did, we'd at the very least see a Democrat-controlled Senate for that whole span, plus a Democratic president. We don't. Things keep flip-flopping every now and then, and for the most part, incumbent Presidents get re-elected no matter what their party. The only exceptions to that off the top of my head are LBJ (deeply unpopular because of Vietnam), Ford (wasn't even elected by anyone, only President with that "honor", though considering the miserable quality of the ones we've had since then he was probably one of the better ones ironically), Carter (unpopular because of economy and Beirut attack), and HWBush (unpopular because of breaking campaign promise not to raise taxes, and lost lots of votes to Perot). Nixon, Reagan, and WBush were all re-elected by a popular majority, and overwhelmingly so in the 1984 election.

Finally, claiming more Democrat voters since WWII isn't even something to be proud of. Before LBJ pissed off the Southern Democrats with his passage of the Civil Rights Act and drove them to the Republican party, the Democratic Party was largely the party of racists.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

Your allegation is that there's a significantly larger number of Democrat voters than Republican voters. I'm disproving it by pointing to the Presidential elections.

It is not my allegation. The data, going back over a decade and right up until last week, shows this. Go down the list and count how many months more people claimed to be Republican than Democratic. Compare that to the number of months that showed there were more Democrats. Now look to the right at the numbers for people who "lean" one way or the other. The difference is either more striking.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/153...

Because I'm a decent guy, I'll give you a talking point on the house: You can say that really there are more Republicans, but a significant number of them are too ashamed to admit it. That could work. You could also say that Gallup is rigged against Republicans. That's always a good look and goes to the "it was rigged" excuse that Donald Trump and his supporters will definitely be using come November.

But really, there is a structural advantage that the Dems have. There are simply more of them.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Grishnakh]

I'm not going to go back and dig up what you wrote before, but I'm pretty sure you claimed there were more Democrats much farther back than "over a decade". And finally, it really doesn't matter what people claim to be; all that matters is how they vote. 12 years ago (just over a decade), Dubya won his re-election bid over Kerry, plain and simple. Polls are interesting and all, but they're flawed in one way or another. They don't count all the people in the population, and frequently have questionable methods for picking their samples (such as only counting people who have landline phones--WhoTF still uses those things? Of course, a poll like that would favor Republican voters anyway, I'm just making a point.) In the end, the only thing that really counts is how people vote in the actual elections.

I'm not saying there are more Republicans. Did you not actually read what I wrote? I said there were roughly equal numbers, and it's been like this for a long time, proven by how the White House (and also the Senate) have flip-flopped between the parties over the years. I said the elections are really decided by the swing voters, because the data fits that. That's why Dole loses in 1996, it's basically a tie in 2000, Bush wins in 2004, and McCain loses in 2008 and Romney loses in 2012. Who knows, maybe you're right and there's more die-hard Dems than Reps, and the swing voters were swinging (R) more back in the 70s-80s and now are swinging a bit more on the (D) side except for 2000-2004. I'm not saying Gallup is rigged, but the Presidential election results speak for themselves. Gallup doesn't get to poll every single voter, and is limited by their methodology. The elections are not: the elections are what decide who wins.

If you want to believe there really are more Dems, go ahead. But that's pretty worthless if it doesn't translate into election results. And you can't blame gerrymandering for the Senate or Presidential races, nor for gubernatorial races, state senates, etc. New Jersey for instance is usually considered a "blue" state, yet Chris Christy is the governor. Explain that one. "Liberal" Massachusetts elected Romney as their governor. Michael Bloomberg was the mayor of "liberal" NYC until recently. You can't blame that stuff on gerrymandering, and those places are all considered Democrat strongholds. California elected Schwarzenegger. Michigan I believe is usually blue, yet they have a Republican governor who's been directly instrumental in poisoning people in Flint.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[Grishnakh]

You yourself point to the 1984 election, but again I point to it: the Dems lost that election in a landslide!!! If there were so many Dem voters, why did they re-elect Raygun? I'll take your word for the Dems winning the House that year, but in that case, with the huge difference from the Presidential election (10M as you say), that points to gerrymandering being used by the Dems in that year, not the Reps.

As for the Dems and the KKK, I wasn't claiming the modern-day Dems are like that at all, I specifically pointed out that all changed with the Civil Rights Act and the whole Southern Strategy. After that point, the GOP became the go-to party for Southern racists. The parties are completely different now than they were in the 40s or 50s or even 60s, so how many Dem voters there were back then is really irrelevant to now.

My whole point is that you can use the Presidential elections as a rough approximator of the relative number of Dem vs. Rep voters at any given time (and specifically, the popular vote totals, not the stupid electoral votes). Because those group all Americans together, and every vote is counted the same no matter which state it's in or which congressional district. And these totals do not show a clear Democratic lead at all; they change over time, sometimes very significantly in just 4 years (such as 2004 to 2008). Of course you can also argue that voter turnout is better some years than others (Obama famously got a lot of normally-apathetic young people out to vote for him), but again, that really doesn't matter: the only thing that matters is who wins the race. People who don't vote don't count. And this holds a lesson for this election and others: if your party pushes a crappy candidate and people who supposedly identify more with that party are so disgusted or at least uninspired they don't bother to vote, then your party is going to lose.

Re:Gamergate logic?

[PopeRatzo]

I'm not going to go back and dig up what you wrote before, but I'm pretty sure you claimed there were more Democrats much farther back than "over a decade".

I did. But I only could find hard data going back a decade.

And finally, it really doesn't matter what people claim to be; all that matters is how they vote.

That's right, and more Americans vote for Democratic candidates for Congress each election than for Republican candidates for Congress. And since 2000, there were more Democratic votes for President in 3 out of 4 elections (including the first Bush term).

I'm not saying there are more Republicans. Did you not actually read what I wrote? I said there were roughly equal numbers

Did you look at the data? There are not "roughly equal numbers" unless you're willing to round Republicans up and Democrats down in every single year for the past 10. Hell, if you're willing to round numbers far enough, the Chicago Bears have won as many games as the New England Patriots for the past 25 years.

If you want to believe there really are more Dems, go ahead.

It's not a belief if I have data. Would you like even more citations to the data? I can keep giving them. I've already given Gallup, so here's Pew:

http://www.people-press.org/to...

There are more if you'd like. You keep saying that these are allegations I'm making, and I show you data and you keep saying, "but there's no data".

I know, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I found a great video of her reminding us all how truthful she's always been to us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI

Re: I know, right?

[Bartles]

linky

Re: Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad, but a president must be able to send their people to die. It's part of the job. It's a qualification, not a liability.

Re:Wow

[FlyHelicopters]

You need her as President, to 'break the glass ceiling' as it were. To make the majority of you folk realize that a woman can lead.

By that logic, Sarah Palin would be the perfect President...

He's a different kind of jackass, a Hillary donor

[raymorris]

> I despise the GOP. Trump is just another version of their evil.

The vast majority of Republican commentators and elected officials don't like the guy at all. He's a donor to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Trump really isn't the republicans guy, though with the less-informed public voted, the sane candidates did split the vote, leaving him with all of the crazy vote and therefore a win.

Primary vs. General Election

[Goonie]

Being extremely popular with 30% of the Republican primary electorate in a divided and frankly weak field got him the nomination, but that's not enough to win him a general election.

Your guy is disliked by a far bigger proportion of the population than the proportion that like him. He is disliked far more than Hillary Clinton, according to the polls.

Your guy has little acquaintance with facts in his public rhetoric, but that doesn't make them go away. Trump will lose the general election to Hillary. The remaining question is whether his negative impact on the Republican vote will cost the GOP the House and Senate as well.

Redneck Liberal

[rsilvergun]

This is why Trump is popular.

Nice post

[Okian Warrior]

Interesting that politicians appeal mostly to people's fears and insecurities. Fear of criminals, mass murders, fear of losing your job, xenophobia, fear of any number of disasters which each claims the other will bring if you don't elect the opposite as leader. Terror is just another word for fear, and one who uses terror to achieve political goals is a terrorist. Break the cycle, vote for somebody who doesn't need to scare you to get your support.

Damn! Nice post.

It's rare to find an actual flash of insight on this subject. Keep up the good work.

I'd vote you up if I had points.

Re:hijinks

[Darinbob]

One of the Koch brothers has said he'll vote for Hillary over Trump.

Re: Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone please hack Assange and release it earlier?

It's easy

[rsilvergun]

Google search the phase "Swiftboating". Then look up the stuff Karl Rove does.

Re: It's easy

[Boronx]

Except that they weren't there.

Re: It's easy

[MightyMartian]

And they weren't telling the truth.

Re:It's easy

[dywolf]

-Karl Rove created the swiftboating campaign.
-Kerry never said it before congress.
-when he did say it, it was as and with a profound sense of shame, and as part of his motivation to denounce the war, throw his medals away, etc.

in America we believe in redemption, and Kerry has more than redeemed himself.
yes, he is a hero.

It is you who have no shame, trying to spin things so disgustingly.

Re: It's easy

[amicusNYCL]

Let's find out, instead of relying on your memory.

The term swiftboating (also spelled swift-boating or swift boating) is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (SBVT, later the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) because of their widely publicized - and later discredited - campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry.

Since the political smear campaign that the group conducted against Kerry, the term has come into common use to refer to a harsh attack by a political opponent that is dishonest, personal, and unfair.

I like this one:

Charges of "swiftboating" were made by supporters of both major candidates in the 2012 presidential election. Republican Party strategists compared attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital to swiftboating, saying that, "It's very clear they are trying to re-create and take a page out for the 2004 Bush campaign".

"Hey that's not fair, they're trying to do to us what we did to them."

Re:It's easy

[Kreplock]

He didn't throw his medals away. He threw away someone else's. He kept his own. Sincerity. Yeah.

Re:hijinks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, and the kochs have been all over the press lately saying that there is too much money and influence in politics, funding science-y research and even throwing money at NPR (and getting full-on puff pieces on them in return).

It in no way detracts from their persistent spending of hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades buying tax breaks, spreading 'think tanked' legislation and corrupting the American political process for their own benefit.

If a person has mugged you repeatedly, do you question it when he finds the Lord and wants you to trust him again?

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are being sincere, answer me this batman- What is the bodycount? Surely we don't know all the details, and the number of deaths and rapes attributable to this could be anywhere from 0 to a million. Aren't you curious about the number before you make a final judgement?

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[amiga3D]

It all depends on your definition of the word "Treason." In the US today that is defined as opposing Queen Hillary. She is above the law as you very well know and can not be bothered with trivialities such as rules and regulations.

RNC Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucktard libertarian hackerss are effectively RNC hackers.

Guccifer Never Hacked Clinton's Server!!!

[quantaman]

Guccifer isn't a hacker, he's a dumbass who guessed password reset questions then dumped the contents for lulz.

Yet suddenly he claims to have actual "break into a server" hacking skills, uses those skills to crack into one of the biggest profile politicians on the planet, but suddenly thinks the contents are boring and doesn't dump anything??

He's just attention whoring as usual, when he was free he got attention by releasing dumps of emails that he has. But now he's in jail he can claim to have other super-duper important emails and he'd totally show them to you but he's in prison.

Stop feeding the damn troll!

Re:Guccifer Never Hacked Clinton's Server!!!

[quantaman]

This is Guccifer 2.0, totally different guy. Guccifer 1.0 is in FBI custody right now, and certainly didn't do this. Seriously, I am being serious.

I wasn't talking about Guccifer 2.0. The original Guccifer's made-up Clinton hack is included in the summary and treated as an established fact.

(Guccifer is a popular Romanian hacker who hacked various American political figures, most notably Hillary Clinton and her private server.)

This is the second time slashdot has fallen for this. I don't know if the editors are just clueless or they're getting flooded by political trolls who find the Guccifer claim to be a good attack against Clinton.

Re:Guccifer Never Hacked Clinton's Server!!!

[Gussington]

Guccifer isn't a hacker, he's a dumbass who guessed password reset questions then dumped the contents for lulz.

That still qualifies as hacking. As much as nerds try to create some super mastermind association to the word 'hacker', hacking simply means attempting/gaining unauthorised access.

Re:Guccifer Never Hacked Clinton's Server!!!

[quantaman]

Guccifer isn't a hacker, he's a dumbass who guessed password reset questions then dumped the contents for lulz.

That still qualifies as hacking. As much as nerds try to create some super mastermind association to the word 'hacker', hacking simply means attempting/gaining unauthorised access.

Though in this case it's a critical distinction since the only intrusion method Guccifer used would not have been available on Clinton's server. The technical competence required to pull it off was far beyond anything he demonstrated.

Re:Wow

[Boronx]

I remember a certain political party thought she was qualified.

Re:Outcome will be the same

[Boronx]

Too young to remember G.W. Bush? I think Clinton will give him a run for his money. Trump should easily surpass him.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[MightyMartian]

If she's so fucking bad, then why did the GOP's two top nominees for her challenger represent the two most backward and unelectable factions of the party?

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[MightyMartian]

It's irrelevant, really. Trump has absolutely no chance of winning. Christ, even the GOP knows it, and the number of senior Republicans who are either starting to say "No comment" a lot or outright stating they won't vote for him themselves is growing every day. At this point, I can only assume it's either Trump's utterly delusional fanbase or grumpy GOPers who still think that if they just attack enough times, somehow Trump will win.

I honestly hope the Republicans finally excise the lunatics from the party. They're going to have to, because the demographic war is not in their favor, and the more they cater to grumpy old men and Libertarian fruitcakes, the worse their long term fortunes will get.

Re:Wow

[MightyMartian]

Briefly. By the end of the 2008 campaign, even John McCain realized just how freakishly unqualified she was.

Re:He's a different kind of jackass, a Hillary don

[MightyMartian]

So they've basically wasted their vote, because they've picked a candidate that cannot win. How exactly is that taking on the Establishment?

And really, how is Trump not the Establishment? He's a semi-successful property tycoon (we may end up finding out just how semi-successful he really is when the Trump University case wends its way into a full trial).

Pray tell...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just WHAT are her much touted qualifications?

Worked as young lawyer on Democrat congressional team handling Nixon impeachment? - yes, but she was ejected by Democrats for being too unethical

Married a governor? So is Chris Christie's wife.

Married to a president? Ok...so was Nancy Reagan (both married to a governor and married to a president).

Given a safe senate seat? Very few are given such a safe seat, and she was not the first choice. The Democrats in NYC made no secret that they were holding other viable democrat candidates off from that race in the hopes that JFK jr would take it. Then he crashed his plane and the Democrats gave the seat to Hillary where the only thing of note that she did was to vote for the Iraq war.

Given the Sec State position? Sure. What was her training for that job? More importantly: what did she DO with that power? That "Arab Spring" worked out real well, right? The Russian "Reset" button? The woman practically lit the world on fire. Steve Erkel couldn't have done worse.

Instead of continually repeating the mantra from her campaign about being "the most qualified..." her supporters need to come up with a single example of what actually qualifies her to be president more than the nearest bus driver or public pool lifeguard most of whom have at least done SOMETHING useful with actual success.

Re:Pray tell...

[Crashmarik]

There isn't a school for politicians. She's a lawyer, she has served as a Senator and served in Cabinet. That seems a perfectly applicable set of qualifications to me.

So you don't consider having actually done something useful or beneficial to the country a needed qualification ?
Or perhaps not being under criminal investigation a needed qualification ?

Re:Pray tell...

[MightyMartian]

She's done as much as some fairly well respected presidents. Lincoln was lawyer and a legislator before he became president. By the same token Grant lead the Union to victory and was a fairly shitty president. Frankly your objection is spurious, and I susoect you know if.

Re:Pray tell...

[Crashmarik]

It makes me sad you can actually post in public comparing Hillary Clinton's early life to Lincoln's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Just up top there Lincoln was an abolitionist, inventor, and soldier.

Hillary Defended Pedophiles, and married a draft dodger.

Re:Pray tell...

[Crashmarik]

Oh forgot Hillary's story of how she tried to join the marines LOL.

Re: Pray tell...

[jmac_the_man]

she has served as a Senator and served in Cabinet. That seems a perfectly applicable set of qualifications to me.

Yes, she held those jobs. But she was shitty at both of them. In the real world, just holding a job isn't enough to merit a promotion. You have to be good at it.

Re:Pray tell...

[dywolf]

this is the same ignorance that insists on demanding that muslims denounce terrorists, claiming they don't.

here.
LMGTFY

* Graduated from Yale Law School
* Worked as staff of a U.S. Senate subcommittee
* Staff of the Presidential Impeachment Inquiry Commitee,
advising the U.S. House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment proceedings.
* Faculty, University of Arkansas Law School
* Part-time chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, appointed by President Carter.
* Member of the Rose Law Firm
* National Law Journal named her twice one of the 100 most powerful lawyers in America
* Co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Family
* Chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee
* First Lady of Arkansas for 12 years
* First Lady of the United States of America for 8 years
* Chaired President Clinton's National Task Force on Health Care Reform
* Elected United States Senator from New York; served for eight years
* Served for five years as President Obama's Secretary of State, fourth in line of succession of the Presidency

http://addictinginfo.org/2015/...

Even though her major initiative, the Clinton healthcare plan, failed (due to Republican obstruction), you cannot deny that it laid ground for what we have today, the Affordable Healthcare Act, something Clinton supports and would continue.
She played a leading role in the development of State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides the much-needed state support for children whose parents cannot afford nor provide them with adequate healthcare coverage.
She was also instrumental in the creation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the Foster Care Independence Act.
Successfully fought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and asthma at the National Institute of Health (NIH).
She spearheaded investigations into mental illness plaguing veterans of the Gulf War; we now have a term for it – Gulf War Syndrome.
At the Department of Justice, she helped create the office on Violence Against Women.
She was instrumental in securing over $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center redevelopment.
Took a leading role in the investigation of health consequences of first responders and drafted the first bill to compensate and offer the health services our first responders deserve (Clinton’s successor in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand, passed the bill).
Was instrumental in working out a bi-partisan compromise to address civil liberty abuses for the renewal of the U.S. Patriot Act.
  Proposed a revival of the New Deal-era Home Owners’ Loan Corporation to help homeowners refinance their mortgages in the wake of the 2008 financial disaster.
Was a major proponent of sensible diplomacy which brought about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and brokered human rights with Burma.
Oversaw free trade agreements with our allies such as Panama, Colombia, and South Korea.
Was the most traveled Secretary of State to date.
The Clinton Foundation, founded by her and her husband, has improved the living conditions for nearly 400 million people in over 180 countries through its Initiative program.

These are not all of her accomplishments. Her activism on behalf of women a children across the world is renowned. Her activism for raising the minimum wage and combating climate change is stellar. You do not have to support what she does or stands for. But do not say she doesn’t have any accomplishments. The conservatives who say this are the ones who are pushing for Ted Cruz – who brought on a $24 billion shut down. That, to them, is an accomplishment?

Yes, Hillary Clinton has accomplishments. You don’t have to like them, but they do, in fact, exist.

Besides, after the abomination of Bush the Lesser...now you're worried about qualifications?

Re:Pray tell...

[dywolf]

oh, and about that Watergate comment:
http://www.snopes.com/politics...

A pair of articles published during Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency in 2008, one by Northstar Writers Group founder Dan Calabrese and one by Jerry Zeifman himself, asserted that Zeifman was Hillary's supervisor during the Watergate investigation and that he eventually fired her from the investigation for "unethical, dishonest" conduct. However, whatever Zeifman may have thought of Hillary and her work during the investigation, he was not her supervisor, neither he nor anyone else fired her from her position on the Impeachment Inquiry staff (Zeifman in fact didn't have the power to fire her, even had he wanted to do so), his description of her conduct as "unethical" and "dishonest" is his personal, highly subjective characterization, and the "facts" on which he bases that characterization are ones that he has contradicted himself about on multiple occasions.

Re:Pray tell...

[drinkypoo]

Hillary [...] married a draft dodger.

Still not sure why so many Slashdotters are slavers. Why do you support slavery?

Re: Pray tell...

[dywolf]

Bad at her? spoken like a deluded fool for whom up and down and down is up.
IE, typical conservative.

no less a person than Madeleine Albright stated that "Hillary’s Greatest Accomplishment at State Was to ‘Restore America’s Reputation"
And if you ask people in other countries, yes, contrary to the popular conservative myth, our standing in the world IS improved over Bush.
Obama didn't make us a laughingstock.
Bush did.
And Obama, with Hillary's work as Sec State, fixed it.

As senator she consistently fought for healthcare for the 9/11 responders, even as the bills were sidelined multiple times by the GOP.

Know how conservatives like to bash muslim countries by pointing out how (some of them) treat women and LGBT (while ignoring how poorly conservatives treat them)? As Sec State she spoke for womens and LGBT rights worldwide, even right in oppressive nations leader's faces, on their own soil.

She got expanded healthcare and leave benefits for military families.

That ceasefire between Isreal and Hamas? She negotiated it.

Know those islands China keeps claiming in the south sea? It's her actions that interjected the US into the dispute over concerns of keeping navigation of the oceans open.

She oversaw and was responsible for the New START Treaty.

Yes, she was a good Senator and good Sec State. Yes she wasn't perfect, as seen in the Libya bombing campaign. But no one is perfect, and for all the work she did do that never makes the front pages, all you idiots can focus on is one or two things and then claim she did nothing else. I mean seriously, this is the same old Hillary Derangement Syndrome that ignores reality. its worse and even more intractable than ODS ever was. She could literally cure cancer and you idiots would say she's putting doctors out of work.

More food for thought:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:Pray tell...

[Grishnakh]

Yep, back in the old days, our Presidents and other leading politicians (like Ben Franklin) were frequently polymaths. Jefferson was also an inventor, a businessman, and philosopher, for instance.

These days, our politicians are just lawyers who have no other skills or interests whatsoever, and somehow think that qualifies them for leadership positions.

Re:Pray tell...

[Coren22]

http://thefederalist.com/2016/...
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06...

If she thinks an FBI investigation is enough to remove people's rights, perhaps she should lose the right to run for president while she is under investigation.

Re:Pray tell...

[Crashmarik]

Spot on,

Re: Pray tell...

[jmac_the_man]

New START is a failure. Israel and Hamas remain at war. The shitty places in the world continue to oppress women and minorities despite Clinton's speeches. All you havesis "Madeleine Albright, who got a job from Hillary Clinton's husband, says Hillary Clinton improved the US's reputation in some nebulous manner."

A successful foreign policy means that your allies can trust you, you enemies have to fear you, and everyone wants to trade with you. The Obama foreign policy is a failure, and it's one for which Hillary Clinton is partially responsible for.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Captain Splendid]

To paraphrase the great Walter Sobchak:

Trump! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Hillary Clinton, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

Re:Wow

[SuricouRaven]

To be VP, and as a token. She had a purpose: McCain had very little appeal to the over-religious social conservative faction, a major player within the Republican base. They would still have voted for him, just because he was the Republican candidate, but they didn't see him as one of their own and wouldn't have supported with the enthusiasm you need to run get-out-the-vote campaigns and grassroots efforts. Palin was selected to win their full support by putting someone who was undoubtedly a true social conservative as VP. It backfired instead: While the social conservatives did adore her as planned, to everyone else she appeared as an inept fool.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[fustakrakich]

:-) Thank you for that value judgement!

South Park

[EEPROMS]

When I look at the US presidential candidates I can help but think of the South Park episode where they had to choose between a douche and a shit sandwich.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:what matters

[Plammox]

Oh, it's just ketchup.

Download link ...

[seksi-seppo]

Quite typically when there's some news on a leak I tend to be disappointed to not find a decent download link for the original leak/dump/etc for the noble purpose of mirroring the information. It seems that media isn't always too eager to publish the sources of their news which could be considered as relevant part of investigative journalism, which makes me sad.

Still, one can for i in $(seq 1 211); do wget https\://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2861555/pages/1-p$i-large.gif; done [had to add backslash to escape the URL and display it correctly].

Would still appreciate valid download link for originals though.

Re:hijinks

[whipslash]

Is this a knock on trump? Are you upset?

Re:Give Me a Hit Off That Smoking Gun

[Aighearach]

The specifics is, the technology wasn't working, she was traveling, she needed to communicate normally-secure travel plans, and they used a non-secure channel. None of it was classified at the time, it gets a classification afterwards. But it was sensitive information, because it affects her security. But those are decisions you have to make when traveling and the "secure channel" is broken. If you just hunker down whenever that happens, that also creates a security risk.

None of the "accusations" involve documents that were classified at the time.

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[Cederic]

The fact they had classifications explicitly makes them classified.

Stop deflecting from the point: She told them to remove classifications so that she could leak information.

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[Nostalgia4Infinity]

Clinton aid Jake Sullivan writes, "They say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it." Clinton responds "If they can't, turn into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure." Not sure how you can spin this as not converting a classified document.

Re:what matters

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Yeah, I also live in Europe, and I'm not seeing anywhere that's being overrun.

In fact, the only real danger we're facing is the rapid rise of new nationalistic extreme right-wing political parties, due to the general escalation of hatred and mistrust in western society, caused by the FYGM policies enacted by our shitheel politicians.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Walter White]

It's irrelevant, really. Trump has absolutely no chance of winning. ...

Trump has absolutely no chance of winning the Primary.

Or so I thought. And I was wrong, along with a lot of others. I would like to agree with you but I am not so certain.

Both Trump and Clinton are widely disliked. That will suppress voter turnout. With fewer votes it is easier for the election to tip one way or the other. This election may be decided more by who does not vote than those who do. Those of us who agree that a Trump presidency would be a Bad Thing(tm) can only hope that Trump is disliked more on election day than Clinton.

Re:what matters

[XxtraLarGe]

None of it matters. Her followers are willing to forgive any behaviour, no matter how crass, ignorant, or even downright evil. Hillary literally would be able, as he pointed out, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still get elected president. They just don't care.

Back in the 90's, when Hillary was First Lady, a friend of mine said she could tap dance on a box of puppies with stiletto heels and her supporters would find a reason to blame the puppies.

Re:what matters

[XxtraLarGe]

You realize Hillary is responsible for probably over a million deaths and a good part of Europe being overrun ?

There hasn't been a Secretary of State without blood on their hands since the "Monroe Doctrine."

You realize "yeah, but everyone else did it" doesn't make it okay that she did it as well? Whatever you need to do to rationalize your support though...

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[will_die]

So who is calling for them to be killed?
lets have a source.
BTW you do know that Hillary tried to get a law passed preventing muslims from owning various companies in the USA and that Trumps call for banning muslims was until Congress would come up with a better plan. Trumps plan basically comes from what former President carter proposed, but with a lot more ways in.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Yunzil]

Is that you, Alex Jones?

Re:what matters

[Yunzil]

Sure. And she's also responsible for the Black Death, the Challenger disaster, and the Santorini cataclysm.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[dywolf]

the koolaid is strong with this one.

Re: Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[dywolf]

No, it just takes someone who lives in reality.
reality being the acknowledgement that bush had ~60 benghazis and you twits don't even acknowledge that.
reality being that you shouldn't get your talking points frm Michael bay movies.
reality being that no one was "left to die"

Re:nah

[Yunzil]

Except there's no indication that classified materials were inappropriately handled. Try again.

Re:what matters

[dywolf]

bwahahahaa

Re:what matters

[dywolf]

you're what's known as delusional.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Captain Splendid]

Oh yeah...I've really gone out on a limb there.

Thanks for the data point that you're humour-deficient on top of all your other personal failings.

Re:He's a different kind of jackass, a Hillary don

[drinkypoo]

So they've basically wasted their vote, because they've picked a candidate that cannot win. How exactly is that taking on the Establishment?

Trump could not win against Bernie Sanders, but it is potentially possible for Trump to win against Hillary Clinton because of all the people who will not vote for her.

Re:nah

[drinkypoo]

She can afford lawyers to tell her how to stay exactly within the law.

Why didn't she hire some, then?

I don't think Hillary is a particularly bad person.

Not worse than the average member of congress certainly, but they are a shitheel so that's not saying anything positive. Check out her voting record or a list of her "accomplishments" vis-a-vis keeping the plebes down while running state.

Re:Give Me a Hit Off That Smoking Gun

[drinkypoo]

The specifics is, the technology wasn't working,

[citation needed]

I have seen absolutely zero support for the idea that the same secure phone that literally everyone but the president was already successfully using would not be adequate for her needs. Put up or shut up.

None of it was classified at the time, it gets a classification afterwards. But it was sensitive information, because it affects her security. But those are decisions you have to make when traveling and the "secure channel" is broken.

And she deliberately chose to ignore the classification potential and handed the whole mess to her staff to sort out, which was illegal. And we know this because she told us. Well, accidentally, through an email we found.

Re:what matters

[drinkypoo]

There hasn't been a Secretary of State without blood on their hands since the "Monroe Doctrine."

So, she's evil like everyone else who has been selected to do her job. That's still an indictment, not an excuse.

What this election is about

[Sir_Eptishous]

The 2016 presidential election isn't about who will be elected POTUS.
The 2016 presidential election is about who won't be elected

Re:What this election is about

[david_thornley]

And this would be different from other presidential elections I've lived through in what way? You stated a near-truism and plugged 2016 in where it said $YEAR.

Re:nah

[drinkypoo]

What makes you think I support her? I just don't think she's evil, or even particularly bad.

Big Pharma is one of the greatest evils the world has ever known, killing people for money every day, and she works for them. Even if she had never done anything else bad (like basically everything she has ever done, but let's put that aside for now) that would be sufficient to despise her. Big Pharma is the money behind preventing Single Payer Health Care. In her case, the money worked on her directly; she started saying we'd never have single payer here immediately after taking millions of dollars of their money. Do the math. Clinton + Pharma = Evil.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[drinkypoo]

Trump! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Hillary Clinton, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

An Ethos of evil... which separates her not at all from Trump. They might as well be the same fucking person as far as the rest of us are concerned because both will do precisely whatever is best for making money and amassing personal power and everyone else can go fuck themselves.

Re: Wow

[Sir_Eptishous]

I am not opposed to Hilary because she is a woman. I am opposed to Hilary because she has a decades long record of making horrible decision, which often result in the unnecessary deaths of civilians and other non-combatants.

If that is your real reason you need to actually read some history of presidential decisions then, because they have all done that.

It's not just the quantity . . .

[PeeAitchPee]

. . . it's the magnitude of her lies. Having your own email server for the purpose of evading transparency laws and "reclassifying" classified documents is shady as fuck. These are things that would land any of us in PMITA Federal prison for many years. Add in the other scandals from Benghazi all the way back to Whitewater and it's easy to see why she's perceived as such a liar.

Re:It's not just the quantity . . .

[dywolf]

all of which were manufactured and amounted to nothing more than opposition bullshit generated for the express purpose of creating that very impression.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Captain Splendid]

An Ethos of evil

Well, yeah, that's the joke.

Then again, if you can't tell the difference between Hillary and Donald, or Nihilists and Nazis, maybe humour impairment isn't your problem.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[drinkypoo]

Then again, if you can't tell the difference between Hillary and Donald, or Nihilists and Nazis, maybe humour impairment isn't your problem.

The differences exist, but the similaries are more numerous. Neither one believes half the shit they say.

Re:what matters

[stealth_finger]

You realize Hillary is responsible for probably over a million deaths and a good part of Europe being overrun ?

When did a good part of Europe get overrun? I must've missed that part.

source matters

[micahraleigh]

DNC research is "truth" if you sign on to a bunch of other things, but it gets portrayed as 'oh yeah, this is a real discovery!'.

When Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump wasn't "qualified" to be president, the press made a big deal about it.

It was like, "Oh we just learned Trump isn't qualified to be president! This is news! This is impartial!"

Voters should be deciding this. The media is acting like it should get to pick the president just like last time.

If a business person who wasn't really known to be Republican or Democrat came out and said Donald Trump was bad at business, that might be newsworthy. If Rush said it it would be news worthy in a different way.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[fustakrakich]

Hey, you asked. There's lots more.. You seem to be plenty, judgmental... Easy to understand the denial when you're not even aware of it

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[Boronx]

She's worried about plausible deniability in case of an intercept. That doesn't mean that the document, presumably the days talking points to US diplomats, was classified in a legal sense.

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[Boronx]

Congress already has a better plan. Anti-terrorism not based on religious bigotry. Trumps plan is unworkable and would be ineffective. It will do nothing to stop terrorism, but will satisfy the racists who will be happy to see Italian Mathematicians harassed, but can't imagine the policy being applied to Muhammed Ali or any Indonesian.

Re:Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Captain Splendid]

Hey, you asked.

In a specific comment in a specific thread, but reading comprehension was never your strong suit.

But the best part is that you're using a joke where I compare Clinton to Hitler and the Democrats to the Nazis as evidence that I'm the one who's some sort of shill!

There's lots more

HAHAHAHAHAHA. You haven't even come up with one example yet. Fucking priceless.

Easy to understand the denial when you're not even aware of it

Please reread that sentence. Your word salad is approaching Trump-like levels.

Re:Wow

[Boronx]

To be VP to one of the oldest candidates in history.

Re:Hillary need not worry

[Yunzil]

She has already admitted to multiple felonies related to mishandling classified information.

No, she hasn't. In fact, nobody has yet been able to identify anything she did that was illegal. Ill-advised maybe, but not illegal.

Re:nah

[msauve]

LOL. There are lots of emails which weren't released because they contained classified material, which means they were mishandled by being on systems which were not approved for such material. There have also been official statements that classified material was present in the emails.

Take your head out of the sand, and stop being an apologist.

Re:nah

[phantomfive]

Big Pharma is one of the greatest evils the world has ever known,

Um, your evil measurement tool has serious issues and needs to be recalibrated.

Re:what matters

[amicusNYCL]

You realize Hillary is responsible for probably over a million deaths and a good part of Europe being overrun ?

That's not even the worst of it! I have it on good authority that she personally authorized the MURDER of over 12 billion people, and is DIRECTLY AND PERSONALLY responsible for the fact that Australia sunk into the ocean. She also created herpes.

Re:yup

[HeckRuler]

the testimony of the people who actually were there

Of the ~250 swift boat sailors who were part of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", exactly ONE actually served on Kerry's boat, Stephen Gardner, who wasn't there when Kerry earned his medals.

His other crew members disputed SBVT's allegations, calling them "totally false" (Drew Whitlow), "garbage" (Gene Thorson), and "a pack of lies" (Del Sandusky).

One other SBVT member, Larry Clayton Lee, was present when Kerry earned his silver star. Here's the interview with him. Even he admits that Kerry earned that medal, but he doesn't like what he said after the war.

Now, Kerry DID come back and he said it was a terrible war. And that pissed off a lot of people and earned him praise from other people. And that's the crux of the matter. It's politics. I think fighting Vietnam was a terrible idea, start to finish. But this group of SBVT group was funded, organized, and pushed by republican party insiders, and they spouted totally false garbage and lies.

Now stop spewing your partisan bullshit you coward.

Re: what matters

[david_thornley]

Okay, what did Clinton do wrong with Benghazi? She had limited resources, and Congress refused to provide the additional resources she asked for. She distributed her security forces in a reasonable way, and that's all she could do. Once the attack started, there was nothing she could do to affect the outcome. If you're accusing her of causing the deaths of diplomats, everything that happened after the attack is irrelevant.

She went through more than a dozen Congressional inquiries from a very hostile Congress, and none of them was able to pin wrongdoing on her.

It's things like the constant harping on Benghazi that make me slow to believe anything bad I hear about her, since so much of what bad stuff I hear is malicious lies and half-truths.

Re:what matters

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You're what's called a "useful idiot"

At least I'm useful, unlike you and your ilk :-)

Re:He's a different kind of jackass, a Hillary don

[Grishnakh]

And really, how is Trump not the Establishment? He's a semi-successful property tycoon ?

There's a whole bunch of billionaires in Silicon Valley. Is Elon Musk or Peter Thiel part of the establishment? Since they aren't at all involved with what's going on in DC and with politics, I'd say no. Trump isn't either.

"The Establishment" doesn't just mean "rich people".

Re:Give Me a Hit Off That Smoking Gun

[david_thornley]

The circumstance was that she couldn't get the document she needed through standard classified channels, and she decided that getting the document was more important than strictly obeying the classification laws.

At some point, rigid security procedures are going to hinder getting things done, and there needs to be ways, official or unofficial, to bypass them if the need is urgent. Clinton was the Secretary of State, and decided it was better to send the document to her through unclassified channels than not to send it at all. She may have not set things up right, but at the time she needed the thing it was too late for that. Diplomacy can be time-sensitive.

I'm not saying this because I'm a Clinton supporter. I'd support any other Cabinet-level official in doing the same thing on occasion, D or R.

Re:Clinton Intentional email instructions

[david_thornley]

Clinton had some authority in changing document classification, FWIW. I don't know how that applies here.

Also, legal or not, Clinton made a judgment call on what had to be done. Prosecute her for decisions like that and you run a large risk of crippling US diplomacy.

Re: Uh, Secretary of State is...

[Budgreen]

Built her bank account anyways.

Re:what matters

[The_Rook]

not unprecedented, dick cheney shot his friend, Harry Whittington, in the face and Whittington apologized for getting in the way of the buckshot.

Re: Anyone voting for Hillary should be tried...

[Time_Ngler]

Trump won the primary because it was good for liberal media to have an opponent they could demonize. Now that he has, public opinion of him will undoubtedly shift more negative.

Re:hijinks

[Coren22]

You mean exactly like the Unions and Soros?

Re:hijinks

[Coren22]

Whipslash for president?

I'd vote for you.

Deflection Party

[bobbutts]

You can tell the shills have taken over when there's no conversation, just one accusation answered with another. That's all that Trump supporters have, because his positions are either unidentifiable or indefensible. Queue the Clinton bashing in 3..2..

Re:ah, the old Kerry campaign talking points

[HeckRuler]

You dodge a great deal by announcing that only one of the 200+ was on Kerry's small boat.

Your talking point is: " the testimony of the people who actually were there".

Were these people "actually there"? Only one was in his boat, and he wasn't present for the events which SBVT dispute, and even he claims Kerry earned it fair and square. You stress how closely the guys in the boat know each other. THREE people in the boat who SAW Kerry earn his medal say that all these people who WEREN'T in the boat are full of shit.

They're free to have their opinions about how soldiers should talk about the war they were in. Their views on nationalism, patriots, and duty are as valid as anyone else's. But these fuckers claimed Kerry wasn't a war hero, just as you've done, and none of them were there. And they spouted lies just as much as you did when you tried to claim the swift-boaters were "actually there".

If SBVT claimed only "We disagree with his actions after the war", then they would not be liars. But that's not their story.

and then blasted all the other men in uniform as vile war criminals

I believe you'll find the bulk of his rhetoric at the time was directed against the policies of the vietnam war, and the leadership that send young men to die instead of painting all soldiers as war criminals.

He helped run the Winter Soldier Investigation. America didn't know the brutality that was happening over there. They asked soldiers to recount the tales of horror:

They told the stories of times that they had personally raped, cut off the ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

—John Kerry testifying before the U.S. Senate in 1971

...Are you going to tell me these things didn't happen? That all these veterans are all liars?

John Kerry IS a war hero. He fought heroically. He earned a medal for it. You can argue whether or not he deserved to get it, but you weren't there and you don't know jack shit. Neither were any of these folk in the SBVT. And then Kerry came back from the war and tried his damned best to stop the war. To show how wrong it was. He didn't try and prosecute any soldiers, he didn't throw his superiors under the bus, he wanted the leaders to stop the war. To withdraw. To end the policies which caused this sort of terror. That's not hypocrisy.

Support our troops, bring them home.

You would have preferred he engage in "quieter" activities in DC. Pft. He wasn't allowed in DC at the time. He wasn't a politician, he was a protester. But what got us out of the war? Was it a backroom deal between high-ranking muckity mucks? Or was it the unpopularity of the war? Who made it unpopular? Which was a more effective way of getting the USA out of Vietnam. (Which, sadly, lead to a whole fuckton of atrocities. We left our allies to get slaughtered.)

THEY are criticized with claims they were not all close personal associates with first-hand experience with Kerry

They are criticized for making claims about him not deserving his silver star, not being a war hero, and exaggerating events to which they did not witness. They were in the war. They saw parts of it. Many claim they never saw any war-crimes. And that's a very believable story. Many of them probably didn't. But Kerry compiled a very well sourced report tha

Re:what matters

[dywolf]

come back when you have something factual to say.
and btw, judge not lest ye be judged, cause i fought for those freedoms too.

Re:nah

[dywolf]

Compare for example the treatment Hillary is getting due to her private email “scandal” to that of General David Petraeus. Hillary has been accused of hosting a personal email server that “might” have made classified documents less secure, even though the documents in question were not classified as secret at the time she received and/or sent them. (Side note: some government documents receive secret classifications “at birth”, while other can be retroactively classified as secret.) In order for Clinton to have committed a criminal act, she would have had to knowingly and willfully mishandle material that was classified at the time she did so. After months of investigation no one has accused her of doing that, and it doesn’t appear as if anyone will.

General Petraeus on the other hand, while he was Director of the CIA, knowingly gave a journalist, who was also his mistress, a series of black books which according to the Justice Department contained, “classified information regarding the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions quotes and deliberative discussions from high level National Security Council meetings and [Petraeus’] discussions with the president of the United States of America.” Petraeus followed that up by lying to numerous government officials, including FBI agents, about what he had done. And lets not forget that according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, adultery is itself a court-martial offense. And I remind you that none of this is in dispute. Petraeus admitted to all of it.

Petraeus’ violations were significantly more egregious than anything Clinton is even remotely accused of. And yet Republicans and other Hillary foes are howling about her issue, wearing “Hillary for Prison 2016” t-shirts while insisting that this disqualifies her from public office. Meanwhile even after pleading guilty to his crimes Petraeus continued to be the recipient of fawning sentiments from conservatives. Senator John McCain stated that, “All of us in life make mistakes and the situation now, I hope, can be put behind him” Politico quoted a former military officer who worked with Petraeus as calling the entire situation “silly”. Prominent Republicans have already made it clear that they would call him back to work in the highest levels of government if they win the Presidency. And some are still attempting to convince him to seek the Presidency himself.

Why is Hillary Clinton being held to such an obviously different standard than Petraeus? Is it really only politics

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

Re:nah

[dywolf]

classified because it was classified after the fact.
big difference.

Re:nah

[msauve]

No difference. Things aren't "classified after the fact," they're classified when they are created, based on the type of information. Classified info is classified whether it's marked or not.