The one-sided nature of the leaks suggests that either Wikieaks has an agenda, or it is the willing accomplice of someone who has an agenda.
Welcome to the real world. Wikileaks has ALWAYS had an agenda, but that was fine for some people when Assange was targeting those they disagreed with. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it's suddenly a problem.
The prospect of powerful entities using Wikileaks as a way to dump information against enemies has always been a concern. It's to Wikileaks' benefit to avoid becoming the puppet of an unethical actor.
In any case, the failure to redact phone numbers and other personal information suggests that Wikileaks cannot really be regarded as a reasonable way to leak data.
You're kidding, right? If you're leaking data, you should redact it before you give it to someone else to do with whatever they please, because who is to say that the non-redacted data won't accidentally leak, much less purposefully?
Now you must be kidding.
Think of it this way, if a pedophile gave you kiddie porn and you published it, do you really think people would accept the explanation "it's not my fault, I never would have published the pictures if he hadn't given them to me!"
Wikileaks published the unredacted information. Therefore, Wikileaks is responsible for publishing the unredacted information.
The New York Times will post anything that makes a Republican look bad. Wikileaks handles the stuff NYT doesn't publish about Democrats.
The New York Times publishes anything that is news worthy, such as stuff involving the Clinton Foundation.
In general the Wikileaks stuff hasn't been that news worthy. What's the biggest scoop? The Wall Street speeches being less controversial than people thought?
The NYT also processes and sanitizes info, it doesn't just dump sensitive personal info out there for the world to see. That's the one thing Wikileaks has had wrong from the beginning, some information is supposed to be private.
No doubt Trump supporters are chuckling at your realization of this... the same thing Republicans have known for ages about most of the media.
Or are we to believe it was pure coincidence that an 11 year old Trump tape came out just 48 hours before the debate, and that just days later, several publications had interviews with some of the victims?
It will be interesting to see/hear what other bombshells both sides have been sitting on for all of this time.
Well no its not a coincidence.
Who knows exactly why the Trump tape came out when it did. NBC needed some time to figure out what to do with Billy Bush, maximize news impact, figure out if there was legal liability, not to mention when they found the tape to begin with, etc, etc. And yes, maybe the idea of having an NBC scoop being the turning point in the election was appealing.
As for the interviews with victims, well that's quite obvious. Any victim who came forward knew there would be a massive smear campaign against them, just look at the years of insults Rosie O'Donnell has experienced for criticizing Trump. Now look at the insults he's throwing at the women who came forward. Are you really so shocked that a woman would prefer to stay anonymous and not risk the wrath of a possible President Trump.
But when the tape came out they had Trump himself corroborating their stories. And then more victims have stepped forward and started getting media attention which gives other victims even more support.
It's the same thing that happened to Roger Ailes, one person finally comes forward and the damn breaks and everyone else comes forward. It's the same thing that happened to Bill Cosby too (though Cosby was a lot worse than Trump).
In California, the night before the primary election, there was an announcement on the news that Clinton had won. Guess what, turnout of Democratic electors was lower than expected. And the claim that Clinton had already won: false. Was that false claim an accident? I don't think so.
Why not? The primary was already over, the only possibility of Sanders being the nominee was an external force (scandal or health) forcing Clinton to step down, even if Sanders did great people would just assume it was because Clinton voters had prematurely assumed it was over, and she would still have a huge lead in pledged delegates to win the primary.
You really think the Clinton team is going to risk a campaign ending scandal over a meaningless primary?
Frankly that's why people don't take you seriously. You're convinced you see a conspiracy in every possible place even when some basic reasoning demonstrates that a conspiracy makes absolutely no sense.
I find it fascinating how people claim paid Hillary shills are a "conspiracy theory", while the shilling organization doesn't even attempt to hide... http://correctrecord.org/about/
The conspiracy theory is the idea that there's some vast army of paid Clinton shills, and that I (and anyone else who defends Clinton) is one of them.
Do you have any idea how many paid shills they'd need for you to have a shot at actually intersecting with one? $1,000,000 ain't gonna cut it. Russia has actual dedicated groups of dedicated posters and I'm still not convinced I've ever seen one in action.
If I really was a paid shill do you really think I'd give a crap about correcting Score:1 AC's reply to my Score:2 comment? I'd be more busy making a sock puppet to tell me how great my hair was.
Lack of intent may be why she should get a reduced sentence. It does not absolve her of the crime. An NSA contractor was just arrested merely for taking some materials home — that in itself is highly illegal and qualifies him for jail time. If the investigation also proves he wanted to leak/sell the information, the charges will be upgraded.
Seriously? Read the first paragraph of your source:
The F.B.I. secretly arrested a former National Security Agency contractor in August and, according to law enforcement officials, is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer code developed by the agency to hack into the networks of foreign governments.
He was arrested because they think he stole and released classified intel. So yeah. Something completely different than Clinton.
Oh and later on, the stuff he stole:
According to court documents, the F.B.I. discovered thousands of pages of documents and dozens of computers or other electronic devices at his home and in his car, a large amount of it classified. The digital media contained “many terabytes of information,” according to the documents. They also discovered classified documents that had been posted online, including computer code, officials said. Some of the documents were produced in 2014.
So
1) He obviously knew what he was doing (and that it was very not allowed).
2) A large portion of the stuff was classified, as opposed to a tiny fraction with Clinton. So he clearly targeted classified info.
3) This involves way more classified info than Clinton.
4) There's a real suspicion that he deliberately published the classified information.
Lets try a metaphor. Someone is shopping, buys $200 of groceries, walks out of the store, and it turned out they have a $1 candy bar in their pocket.
They claim the cart was overflowing so they just stuck it in their pocket with the intent of taking it out at the till... and they forgot.
Now there's no real motive to doubt them, they obviously don't care about the $1 so there's no motive to steal, but they could be a kleptomaniac so you never know.
Later someone comes in the dead of night when the store is closed, smashes a window, tosses a bunch of groceries into their truck, and drives off.
Now, they're both guilty of stealing, but do you really think both are both deserving of arrest and jail time? Because that's the essential argument you're making.
Anyone who doesn't believe that the media and this administration is corrupt after the head of the FBI admitted under oath that Hillary Clinton committed multiple crimes, from storing classified information on an unsecured private server
Not a crime when done unintentionally.
to destroying evidence (both digitally and physically)
The requested change in retention policy that led to the deletion of the emails came last October, before a subpoena was issued and after they delivered what they thought were all the work emails.
The actual deletion happened in March, after the subpoena. It's hard to know exactly what happened but it seems most likely that the contractor was just being lazy, found out about the subpoena and figured he screwed up, and then figured he could get away with deleting the subpoenaed emails because the request had come in first.
That's probably why the contractor wanted an immunity deal.
and lying repeatedly under oath...
Only if you assume Clinton knew she had classified emails on the server.
but the big issue we are supposed to care about is Trump and Billy Bush comparing who gets the most groupies?
You mean bragging about how he goes up and just starts groping women, aka sexual assault. Yes, I think that is a very big deal. And I think a President bragging about assaulting women and showing no remorse is a terrible terrible thing (among all the other terrible things he's backed).
And frankly, even if Clinton did toss in a few lies to try and lessen the impact of her email scandal I'm fine with that. I mean I'd vastly prefer someone who was more honest but you don't get perfect candidates. I have absolutely no doubt Trump would be far less honest if put in the same position, nor do I doubt he would be a vastly inferior president.
The fact he's going to lose in a landslide is absolutely fantastic.
I refuse to watch any "NEWS" and am very selective about the Radio stations I listen to.
I.e. you create an information bubble.
The media in the US today is at the same level of propaganda we made fun of with the Pravda in Russia back in the 80s (sorry folks, I'm a hardened old cynical bastard, much worse than your ordinary cynical bastard).
You're also terrible at judging bias.
The latest hysteria about Trump for example: Trump said very clearly that he would ask his Attorney General to assign a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Clinton's.
He also said "You'd be in jail". And at the RNC convention, where he and his team made the program, Chris Christie held a show trial where he convicted Clinton and there were multiple chants of "lock her up" with zero pushback from the speakers.
It is quite likely that prosecuting Clinton would be a prerequisite of anyone getting the job of Trump's attorney general.
Sounds reasonable to most of us considering the amount of corruption that surrounds them (worded intentionally, so read what I wrote instead of what you want to see).
What corruption? The Clinton Foundation? It is by all appearances a very effective and very legitimate charity. And there's no evidence that donor's got preferential access, much less treatment.
Trump's charity on the other hand has multiple documented instances of benefiting Trump financially.
Media report: Trump is going to randomly jail people.
No. The media report is that Trump will convict a political opponent in the media, and then instruct his AG to do the same.
He's also threatened to send regulatory agencies after Amazon because the Washington Post, opened by Jeff Bezos, gave him harsh coverage.
He's a dictator, he's a this, he's a that.
Well he's repeatedly praised dictators for their authoritarian actions.
I have taken hundreds of hours to read transcripts and watching full speeches to validate context. I can find almost nothing the media says that is true. Nearly every allegation with the exception of McCain is over hyped bullspittle which requires a complete lack of context and cherry picking.
Don't read the speeches, watch them, Trump is interacting with the crowd and they understand exactly what he says, what he implies, and the parts they're supposed to take seriously.
Meanwhile, potentially real crimes are being buried under the same hype and hysteria. Perhaps the FBI is investigating the DNC, the Media, and the Ultra wealthy responsible for some things. The Media won't report it even when there is a finding, like why is either Comey or Hillary not up on perjury charges? One of them flat out lied to the US Congress.
Because they didn't. There's no reason to think that Clinton realized that classified emails were on her server.
One thing the US desperately needs is a anti-trust case to break up the media monopolies so that we can get out of the damn echo chamber. We were warned by real journalists when they started allowing monopolization that this would occur, and dang if those people were not right.
Did you consider the fact that your alternative media sources are their own echo chamber?
I see a lot of people who follow the same alternative media sources that you do, and frankly, I find events surprise me a hell of a lot less than they surprise them.
CBS was waiting for the right moment for maximum effect... just like the KGB and wikileaks.
Maybe, though we don't actually know what the circumstances behind the timing were, it could simply be that it took a really long time for a) someone to remember the tape existed and b) to find it.
Either way I'm sure Ted Cruz wishes it would have come out a couple weeks ago!
This. If this was in any other normal election cycle against a normal opponent, this would be hugely detrimental to Clinton and would cost her supporters and party investment. However, against Pussygate headlines and an imploding Republican party, it's not even enough to crack front page news.
You mean the revelation that one of Clinton's aids called her daughter a "spoiled brat"?
It's not on the front pages because it's irrelevant. Not every leaked email contains a discussion of how they planned 9/11.
This came to mind while observing the explosion of outrage over Trump's "Grab 'em by the pussy" video.
1. Take all the people who were outraged by Bill Clinton's sexual pecadillos and thought they made him unfit for office; make them equally outraged about Trump.
Bill Clinton isn't anymore and our understanding of consent has changed significantly since the 90s, if he did run again I expect that would be a much bigger issue.
2. Take all the people who took the position that Bill's behavior was a matter of "personal character" having no relation to his ability to perform as President; make them adopt the same attitude towards Trump.
Now, re-draw the electoral map. What do you get?
There are really only two convincing misdeeds by Bill Clinton. First the affairs, which were bad but not that big a deal. Second was the alleged rape, but that was over 40 years ago and not proven.
Trump's rape allegations are much more recent, and his sexual assault allegations much more numerous and recent.
Moreover he's completely unrepentant about any of it and his misogynist comments have never really ceased.
With Trump there was also the possibility that the public persona was just an act and he was actually a decent rational person in private, and this decent rational person would be the one in office. The tape offer additional evidence that the decent rational Trump is the facade, and a President Trump would be just as pretty, vindictive, and abusive as he seems.
When he started getting called out for his hypocrisy on his blog, he shut down comments citing "racism". But the fact is that he was getting called out left and right for his stupidity and just couldn't take it so shut down dissent.
When did this happen?
During the primaries I tried leaving comments on his blog a few times just to see how Trump supporters dealt with some of the more obvious lies.
Basically the moment you posted the mildest criticism of Trump you'd get a bunch of defenders spewing really racist stuff and proudly identifying as "white nationalists". These folks experienced absolutely no pushback from the other Trump supporters.
I was really curious how Adams himself felt about his comment board, because it was a very nasty place.
Since he's already endorsed Clinton, Trump, and Johnson, I look forward to Scott Adams' inevitable endorsement of Jill Stein. One of the most important things about being a "Master Persuader" is saying enough conflicting bullshit that you can point back to the time you got it right!
-------
Pay no attention to the man behind the comic strip...
Ahhh, but that's what the Certified Genius Master Persuader Scott Adams wants you to think!
You've fallen right into his trap! While you're playing checkers he and his six pack are playing 15th dimensional Go Chess!!
This exactly. He explained it in a Stephan Molyneux interview. He was getting threats for supporting Trump so he changed it and the threats stopped. He lives in the People's Republic of the Bay Area where it is dangerous to health and property to support Trump. His fans know who he supports but it threw the stupid people off the trail.
You don't really buy this to you? Absolutely no one bought Adams' endorsements of anyone but Trump. Just look at absolute lack out outrage from the Trump supporters at his blog when he "switched" his endorsement.
I have no idea of people actually threatened Adams, or if those threats stopped at some point, but it has nothing to do with his fake endorsements.
At every turn Trump's supporters keep saying "After this point, he'll start behaving properly," and every time that point is reached, he continues behaving erratically, obnoxiously, and ultimately in a self-defeating way. Even his commitment to throw Clinton in jail tonight is absurd, almost as if he doesn't actually understand how the justice system works. He clearly seems to think the Oval Office is some sort of throne from which an Emperor shall reign.
I think they're assuming he won't be allowed to President without adult supervision.
the Russians aren't out to get us, and our ideologies are more similar than they are different.
There are some differences: 1. In Syria, America and Russia support factions that are ideologically at least several centimeters apart.
Russia has been gleefully supporting the brutal dictator from the start.
The US has been desperately looking anyone decent to support, but that fell apart when the brutal dictator deliberately released a bunch of jihadists to turn the resistance into an extremist group.
2. In Ukraine, Russia supported the democratically elected government, while America supported the military coup.
If you don't want mass protests to turn into a coup then don't start shooting protesters. Don't blame the Americans for Yanukovych being a dumbass.
3. In Crimea, Russia only had the support of 90% of the people, while America supported (with words but not actions) the other 10%.
That figure is about as convincing as Donald Trump's hair.
4. In America, Russians tell American voters the truths that American politicians were trying to hide.
Only the American politicians Russia doesn't like.
1. In this case it is possible to tell that the same group (or groups, there seem to be two Russia agencies at work) had committed previous hacks. They often used the same tools, the same control IP, and even the same encryption keys.
2. These other hacks included attacks on the German parliament, as well as a French TV station. Things that make more sense for Russia.
3. When they hacked the French TV station they claimed to be ISIS.
4. Guccifer 2.0 looks a lot like a committee. He claims to be Romanian but can't really speak Romanian (only Russian) and he's fluent in English when talking politics but not technology.
Is it absolute proof? No. But it's a pretty damn convincing case.
Trump's tax returns, from what we can gather, would show that he had smart accountants who took ever deduction and exemption possible. Everybody who pays taxes does that. Or is the Clinton Foundation ready to ship off a check for $2,000,000 to the Treasury? They can do that, you know.
The shrill ninnies on the Left sound like complete idiots to the American Public when they screech that Trump should have paid more taxes. Any voter who pays taxes knows that you take every exemption and deduction you can.
I agree they'd likely show he paid almost no taxes, and I don't have a big deal with that, it just means the tax code is broken (though it questions the wisdom of his plan to give himself further tax cuts).
But the question is what else would they show. A lot of his reputation is built on his wealth, what if he isn't nearly as rich as he says and mostly makes money by licensing his name? Is he still impressive if he's basically just a popular brand?
Or what if a lot of his assets are tied up in Russia? Is that why he's being so friendly with Putin?
It even reveals if he's really been donating to charities like he's claimed.
Funny how the media acts like Donald Trump's tax returns should be open records, but when it comes to important speeches Hillary Clinton delivered to Wall Street, they're cool with her treating those like state secrets.
Tax returns are a form of disclosure done by every Presidential candidate. And in Trump's case there's a very good reason, they shed light on possible conflicts of interest.
If Trump invested heavily in coal he may be tempted to push US energy policy in a certain direction.
If he invested heavily in Russia then Putin might have the ability to push him into bankruptcy (or make him and his children vastly wealthier).
Speeches on the other hand aren't traditional disclosures. Many candidates have given paid speeches, I'm not aware of any others who have been asked to release them. It's similar to Obama's long form birth certificate. Sure there's nothing to hide, but to grant the request is also to legitimize the question.
These Wikileaks releases do seem pretty one-sided. Is it just a function of what they do and don't have (it's surprising they didn't have that Trump recording)? But it's hard to believe the timing is completely coincidental, given how it seems to happen soon after Trump either says something particularly stupid or we learn about something damning from his past. However it's not surprising there's lots of skeletons in either candidate's closet... but again, why doesn't Assange have any of Trump's?
Problem is, from what I've seen over the past few months on Slashdot - it's obviously going to be hard to have a rational discussion on these questions here right now. People are way too ready to overlook their preferred candidate's foibles.
Part of it is the fact that Wikileaks is dependent on leakers. If someone gave them Trump's tax returns they'd probably post them, but no one has so they can't.
As for the pro-Russia angle, I suspect Assange realizes that Russia is their source but he still needs the data. And since he's dependent on Russia for the leaks he's fairly amendable to their requests on how to release them.
It may be a poor long term strategy though, the more Assange allows himself and Wikileaks to become associated with Trump and Russia the more other leakers will turn to alternate publishers.
I am a bit surprised by the lack of actual bombshells in the Clinton/DNC leaks however. My first response to this leak in particular is to wonder why Clinton didn't release the transcripts in the first place.
This exactly. We already know that Hillary has lied to congress (said she turned over all her emails while holding thousands of classified, work emails back; that's a felony)
a) I don't know where you get thousands of classified work emails, there were thousands of deleted work related emails, but there's no reason to believe they were classified.
b) It's only a lie if she deliberately held them back, I see no reason to assume so. In fact I'm not even certain she meant for them to be deleted. The contractor who carried out the deletion did so because the retention policy was changed to 60 days (and those emails were older than 60 days). But they were previously told to preserve the emails from that time period. The contract might have simply misunderstood.
and now, a disenfranchised DNC member (Seth Rich) leaked information to Wikileaks showing how Hillary stole the primary from Bernie Sanders and when Hillary found out about it she or someone else at the DNC had him murdered.
... and here comes the crazy talk
(and the DNC dumps didn't even show anything particularly bad!)
or vote for a libertarian like Gary Johnson who actually wants to protect the constitution and the freedoms that it gives us.
And who is a non-serious goofball who's dangerously ignorant of foreign affairs (ie the place where the President actually has a ton of power).
The two party system only works until we stop voting like lemmings for one or the other and pick the best candidate.
The two party system works if you pick the best of the two candidates, to do otherwise is shooting yourself in the foot.
If you actually want to fix the system reduce the division of powers that gives veto power to unaccountable legislators.
The Republican congress has spent the last 8 years sabotaging the government because they know that a dysfunctional government creates an anti-incumbent backlash and the non-Presidential party is perceived as the opposition. It's about as bad an incentive structure as you can imagine.
Gawd man, do you ever take a break? If this happened to the GOP, the Press would use it against Trump all day long, and three times during the debate. In fact, they are already trying to blame Trump for it.
Because Trump has not only been weirdly friendly with Putin but has spoken supportively of the cyber-attacks.
Instead of trying to blame Trump, they should be looking right at DWS (who was in charge) and Hillary, and trying to tie it to Hillary's Homebrew basement dwelling server.
And quite frankly, it shouldn't matter the "who" did it. The fact that it did happen, and everything looks so awful for the DNC and Clinton Campaign because of it, it should be news all day long, but somehow it doesn't matter as much as some chick from 20 years ago that Trump said "mean things" about.
Why? Because emails exposed that people in the DNC perferred Clinton but never really did anything about it?
Seth Rich a DNC staffer was murdered soon after the leak. Seth is a more likely person responsible for the leak. The Obama regime is not likely to blame a Democrat for the leak.
Who needs evidence when you have wild speculation?
Slashdot Mirror
The one-sided nature of the leaks suggests that either Wikieaks has an agenda, or it is the willing accomplice of someone who has an agenda.
Welcome to the real world. Wikileaks has ALWAYS had an agenda, but that was fine for some people when Assange was targeting those they disagreed with. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it's suddenly a problem.
The prospect of powerful entities using Wikileaks as a way to dump information against enemies has always been a concern. It's to Wikileaks' benefit to avoid becoming the puppet of an unethical actor.
In any case, the failure to redact phone numbers and other personal information suggests that Wikileaks cannot really be regarded as a reasonable way to leak data.
You're kidding, right? If you're leaking data, you should redact it before you give it to someone else to do with whatever they please, because who is to say that the non-redacted data won't accidentally leak, much less purposefully?
Now you must be kidding.
Think of it this way, if a pedophile gave you kiddie porn and you published it, do you really think people would accept the explanation "it's not my fault, I never would have published the pictures if he hadn't given them to me!"
Wikileaks published the unredacted information. Therefore, Wikileaks is responsible for publishing the unredacted information.
The New York Times will post anything that makes a Republican look bad. Wikileaks handles the stuff NYT doesn't publish about Democrats.
The New York Times publishes anything that is news worthy, such as stuff involving the Clinton Foundation.
In general the Wikileaks stuff hasn't been that news worthy. What's the biggest scoop? The Wall Street speeches being less controversial than people thought?
The NYT also processes and sanitizes info, it doesn't just dump sensitive personal info out there for the world to see. That's the one thing Wikileaks has had wrong from the beginning, some information is supposed to be private.
No doubt Trump supporters are chuckling at your realization of this... the same thing Republicans have known for ages about most of the media.
Or are we to believe it was pure coincidence that an 11 year old Trump tape came out just 48 hours before the debate, and that just days later, several publications had interviews with some of the victims?
It will be interesting to see/hear what other bombshells both sides have been sitting on for all of this time.
Well no its not a coincidence.
Who knows exactly why the Trump tape came out when it did. NBC needed some time to figure out what to do with Billy Bush, maximize news impact, figure out if there was legal liability, not to mention when they found the tape to begin with, etc, etc. And yes, maybe the idea of having an NBC scoop being the turning point in the election was appealing.
As for the interviews with victims, well that's quite obvious. Any victim who came forward knew there would be a massive smear campaign against them, just look at the years of insults Rosie O'Donnell has experienced for criticizing Trump. Now look at the insults he's throwing at the women who came forward. Are you really so shocked that a woman would prefer to stay anonymous and not risk the wrath of a possible President Trump.
But when the tape came out they had Trump himself corroborating their stories. And then more victims have stepped forward and started getting media attention which gives other victims even more support.
It's the same thing that happened to Roger Ailes, one person finally comes forward and the damn breaks and everyone else comes forward. It's the same thing that happened to Bill Cosby too (though Cosby was a lot worse than Trump).
In California, the night before the primary election, there was an announcement on the news that Clinton had won. Guess what, turnout of Democratic electors was lower than expected. And the claim that Clinton had already won: false. Was that false claim an accident? I don't think so.
Why not? The primary was already over, the only possibility of Sanders being the nominee was an external force (scandal or health) forcing Clinton to step down, even if Sanders did great people would just assume it was because Clinton voters had prematurely assumed it was over, and she would still have a huge lead in pledged delegates to win the primary.
You really think the Clinton team is going to risk a campaign ending scandal over a meaningless primary?
Frankly that's why people don't take you seriously. You're convinced you see a conspiracy in every possible place even when some basic reasoning demonstrates that a conspiracy makes absolutely no sense.
It's covered probably a half dozen times in the thread that, even if done unintentionally, what she did is a crime. Some have supplied references.
The plural of wrong is not right.
(bad references or not)
I find it fascinating how people claim paid Hillary shills are a "conspiracy theory", while the shilling organization doesn't even attempt to hide... http://correctrecord.org/about/
The conspiracy theory is the idea that there's some vast army of paid Clinton shills, and that I (and anyone else who defends Clinton) is one of them.
Do you have any idea how many paid shills they'd need for you to have a shot at actually intersecting with one? $1,000,000 ain't gonna cut it. Russia has actual dedicated groups of dedicated posters and I'm still not convinced I've ever seen one in action.
If I really was a paid shill do you really think I'd give a crap about correcting Score:1 AC's reply to my Score:2 comment? I'd be more busy making a sock puppet to tell me how great my hair was.
Lack of intent may be why she should get a reduced sentence. It does not absolve her of the crime. An NSA contractor was just arrested merely for taking some materials home — that in itself is highly illegal and qualifies him for jail time. If the investigation also proves he wanted to leak/sell the information, the charges will be upgraded.
Seriously? Read the first paragraph of your source:
The F.B.I. secretly arrested a former National Security Agency contractor in August and, according to law enforcement officials, is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer code developed by the agency to hack into the networks of foreign governments.
He was arrested because they think he stole and released classified intel. So yeah. Something completely different than Clinton.
Oh and later on, the stuff he stole:
According to court documents, the F.B.I. discovered thousands of pages of documents and dozens of computers or other electronic devices at his home and in his car, a large amount of it classified. The digital media contained “many terabytes of information,” according to the documents. They also discovered classified documents that had been posted online, including computer code, officials said. Some of the documents were produced in 2014.
So
1) He obviously knew what he was doing (and that it was very not allowed).
2) A large portion of the stuff was classified, as opposed to a tiny fraction with Clinton. So he clearly targeted classified info.
3) This involves way more classified info than Clinton.
4) There's a real suspicion that he deliberately published the classified information.
Lets try a metaphor. Someone is shopping, buys $200 of groceries, walks out of the store, and it turned out they have a $1 candy bar in their pocket.
They claim the cart was overflowing so they just stuck it in their pocket with the intent of taking it out at the till... and they forgot.
Now there's no real motive to doubt them, they obviously don't care about the $1 so there's no motive to steal, but they could be a kleptomaniac so you never know.
Later someone comes in the dead of night when the store is closed, smashes a window, tosses a bunch of groceries into their truck, and drives off.
Now, they're both guilty of stealing, but do you really think both are both deserving of arrest and jail time? Because that's the essential argument you're making.
Oh fuck... Another Astroturfing paid Hillary troll. How much do you guys make? Is it per hour or per post?
So not only an ad hominem, but you need to a dumb conspiracy theory just to reach the ad hominem!
Maybe I should just call you an FSB agent and call it a day.
Anyone who doesn't believe that the media and this administration is corrupt after the head of the FBI admitted under oath that Hillary Clinton committed multiple crimes, from storing classified information on an unsecured private server
Not a crime when done unintentionally.
to destroying evidence (both digitally and physically)
The requested change in retention policy that led to the deletion of the emails came last October, before a subpoena was issued and after they delivered what they thought were all the work emails.
The actual deletion happened in March, after the subpoena. It's hard to know exactly what happened but it seems most likely that the contractor was just being lazy, found out about the subpoena and figured he screwed up, and then figured he could get away with deleting the subpoenaed emails because the request had come in first.
That's probably why the contractor wanted an immunity deal.
and lying repeatedly under oath...
Only if you assume Clinton knew she had classified emails on the server.
but the big issue we are supposed to care about is Trump and Billy Bush comparing who gets the most groupies?
You mean bragging about how he goes up and just starts groping women, aka sexual assault. Yes, I think that is a very big deal. And I think a President bragging about assaulting women and showing no remorse is a terrible terrible thing (among all the other terrible things he's backed).
And frankly, even if Clinton did toss in a few lies to try and lessen the impact of her email scandal I'm fine with that. I mean I'd vastly prefer someone who was more honest but you don't get perfect candidates. I have absolutely no doubt Trump would be far less honest if put in the same position, nor do I doubt he would be a vastly inferior president.
The fact he's going to lose in a landslide is absolutely fantastic.
I refuse to watch any "NEWS" and am very selective about the Radio stations I listen to.
I.e. you create an information bubble.
The media in the US today is at the same level of propaganda we made fun of with the Pravda in Russia back in the 80s (sorry folks, I'm a hardened old cynical bastard, much worse than your ordinary cynical bastard).
You're also terrible at judging bias.
The latest hysteria about Trump for example: Trump said very clearly that he would ask his Attorney General to assign a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Clinton's.
He also said "You'd be in jail". And at the RNC convention, where he and his team made the program, Chris Christie held a show trial where he convicted Clinton and there were multiple chants of "lock her up" with zero pushback from the speakers.
It is quite likely that prosecuting Clinton would be a prerequisite of anyone getting the job of Trump's attorney general.
Sounds reasonable to most of us considering the amount of corruption that surrounds them (worded intentionally, so read what I wrote instead of what you want to see).
What corruption? The Clinton Foundation? It is by all appearances a very effective and very legitimate charity. And there's no evidence that donor's got preferential access, much less treatment.
Trump's charity on the other hand has multiple documented instances of benefiting Trump financially.
Media report: Trump is going to randomly jail people.
No. The media report is that Trump will convict a political opponent in the media, and then instruct his AG to do the same.
He's also threatened to send regulatory agencies after Amazon because the Washington Post, opened by Jeff Bezos, gave him harsh coverage.
He's a dictator, he's a this, he's a that.
Well he's repeatedly praised dictators for their authoritarian actions.
I have taken hundreds of hours to read transcripts and watching full speeches to validate context. I can find almost nothing the media says that is true. Nearly every allegation with the exception of McCain is over hyped bullspittle which requires a complete lack of context and cherry picking.
Don't read the speeches, watch them, Trump is interacting with the crowd and they understand exactly what he says, what he implies, and the parts they're supposed to take seriously.
Meanwhile, potentially real crimes are being buried under the same hype and hysteria. Perhaps the FBI is investigating the DNC, the Media, and the Ultra wealthy responsible for some things. The Media won't report it even when there is a finding, like why is either Comey or Hillary not up on perjury charges? One of them flat out lied to the US Congress.
Because they didn't. There's no reason to think that Clinton realized that classified emails were on her server.
One thing the US desperately needs is a anti-trust case to break up the media monopolies so that we can get out of the damn echo chamber. We were warned by real journalists when they started allowing monopolization that this would occur, and dang if those people were not right.
Did you consider the fact that your alternative media sources are their own echo chamber?
I see a lot of people who follow the same alternative media sources that you do, and frankly, I find events surprise me a hell of a lot less than they surprise them.
The trump tape is over a decade old
When he was but a wee 59 year old.
and occurred when he was a democrat.
Which is relevant how?
CBS was waiting for the right moment for maximum effect ... just like the KGB and wikileaks.
Maybe, though we don't actually know what the circumstances behind the timing were, it could simply be that it took a really long time for a) someone to remember the tape existed and b) to find it.
Either way I'm sure Ted Cruz wishes it would have come out a couple weeks ago!
This. If this was in any other normal election cycle against a normal opponent, this would be hugely detrimental to Clinton and would cost her supporters and party investment. However, against Pussygate headlines and an imploding Republican party, it's not even enough to crack front page news.
You mean the revelation that one of Clinton's aids called her daughter a "spoiled brat"?
It's not on the front pages because it's irrelevant. Not every leaked email contains a discussion of how they planned 9/11.
This came to mind while observing the explosion of outrage over Trump's "Grab 'em by the pussy" video.
1. Take all the people who were outraged by Bill Clinton's sexual pecadillos and thought they made him unfit for office; make them equally outraged about Trump.
Bill Clinton isn't anymore and our understanding of consent has changed significantly since the 90s, if he did run again I expect that would be a much bigger issue.
2. Take all the people who took the position that Bill's behavior was a matter of "personal character" having no relation to his ability to perform as President; make them adopt the same attitude towards Trump.
Now, re-draw the electoral map. What do you get?
There are really only two convincing misdeeds by Bill Clinton. First the affairs, which were bad but not that big a deal. Second was the alleged rape, but that was over 40 years ago and not proven.
Trump's rape allegations are much more recent, and his sexual assault allegations much more numerous and recent.
Moreover he's completely unrepentant about any of it and his misogynist comments have never really ceased.
With Trump there was also the possibility that the public persona was just an act and he was actually a decent rational person in private, and this decent rational person would be the one in office. The tape offer additional evidence that the decent rational Trump is the facade, and a President Trump would be just as pretty, vindictive, and abusive as he seems.
When he started getting called out for his hypocrisy on his blog, he shut down comments citing "racism". But the fact is that he was getting called out left and right for his stupidity and just couldn't take it so shut down dissent.
When did this happen?
During the primaries I tried leaving comments on his blog a few times just to see how Trump supporters dealt with some of the more obvious lies.
Basically the moment you posted the mildest criticism of Trump you'd get a bunch of defenders spewing really racist stuff and proudly identifying as "white nationalists". These folks experienced absolutely no pushback from the other Trump supporters.
I was really curious how Adams himself felt about his comment board, because it was a very nasty place.
Since he's already endorsed Clinton, Trump, and Johnson, I look forward to Scott Adams' inevitable endorsement of Jill Stein. One of the most important things about being a "Master Persuader" is saying enough conflicting bullshit that you can point back to the time you got it right!
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Pay no attention to the man behind the comic strip ...
Ahhh, but that's what the Certified Genius Master Persuader Scott Adams wants you to think!
You've fallen right into his trap! While you're playing checkers he and his six pack are playing 15th dimensional Go Chess!!
This exactly. He explained it in a Stephan Molyneux interview. He was getting threats for supporting Trump so he changed it and the threats stopped. He lives in the People's Republic of the Bay Area where it is dangerous to health and property to support Trump. His fans know who he supports but it threw the stupid people off the trail.
You don't really buy this to you? Absolutely no one bought Adams' endorsements of anyone but Trump. Just look at absolute lack out outrage from the Trump supporters at his blog when he "switched" his endorsement.
I have no idea of people actually threatened Adams, or if those threats stopped at some point, but it has nothing to do with his fake endorsements.
At every turn Trump's supporters keep saying "After this point, he'll start behaving properly," and every time that point is reached, he continues behaving erratically, obnoxiously, and ultimately in a self-defeating way. Even his commitment to throw Clinton in jail tonight is absurd, almost as if he doesn't actually understand how the justice system works. He clearly seems to think the Oval Office is some sort of throne from which an Emperor shall reign.
I think they're assuming he won't be allowed to President without adult supervision.
the Russians aren't out to get us, and our ideologies are more similar than they are different.
There are some differences:
1. In Syria, America and Russia support factions that are ideologically at least several centimeters apart.
Russia has been gleefully supporting the brutal dictator from the start.
The US has been desperately looking anyone decent to support, but that fell apart when the brutal dictator deliberately released a bunch of jihadists to turn the resistance into an extremist group.
2. In Ukraine, Russia supported the democratically elected government, while America supported the military coup.
If you don't want mass protests to turn into a coup then don't start shooting protesters. Don't blame the Americans for Yanukovych being a dumbass.
3. In Crimea, Russia only had the support of 90% of the people, while America supported (with words but not actions) the other 10%.
That figure is about as convincing as Donald Trump's hair.
4. In America, Russians tell American voters the truths that American politicians were trying to hide.
Only the American politicians Russia doesn't like.
Is there any actual evidence that "the scary russians" are to blame for this?
Disregard everything else. Is there any evidence?
Yup. The main points are:
1. In this case it is possible to tell that the same group (or groups, there seem to be two Russia agencies at work) had committed previous hacks. They often used the same tools, the same control IP, and even the same encryption keys.
2. These other hacks included attacks on the German parliament, as well as a French TV station. Things that make more sense for Russia.
3. When they hacked the French TV station they claimed to be ISIS.
4. Guccifer 2.0 looks a lot like a committee. He claims to be Romanian but can't really speak Romanian (only Russian) and he's fluent in English when talking politics but not technology.
Is it absolute proof? No. But it's a pretty damn convincing case.
Trump's tax returns, from what we can gather, would show that he had smart accountants who took ever deduction and exemption possible. Everybody who pays taxes does that. Or is the Clinton Foundation ready to ship off a check for $2,000,000 to the Treasury? They can do that, you know.
The shrill ninnies on the Left sound like complete idiots to the American Public when they screech that Trump should have paid more taxes. Any voter who pays taxes knows that you take every exemption and deduction you can.
I agree they'd likely show he paid almost no taxes, and I don't have a big deal with that, it just means the tax code is broken (though it questions the wisdom of his plan to give himself further tax cuts).
But the question is what else would they show. A lot of his reputation is built on his wealth, what if he isn't nearly as rich as he says and mostly makes money by licensing his name? Is he still impressive if he's basically just a popular brand?
Or what if a lot of his assets are tied up in Russia? Is that why he's being so friendly with Putin?
It even reveals if he's really been donating to charities like he's claimed.
Funny how the media acts like Donald Trump's tax returns should be open records, but when it comes to important speeches Hillary Clinton delivered to Wall Street, they're cool with her treating those like state secrets.
Tax returns are a form of disclosure done by every Presidential candidate. And in Trump's case there's a very good reason, they shed light on possible conflicts of interest.
If Trump invested heavily in coal he may be tempted to push US energy policy in a certain direction.
If he invested heavily in Russia then Putin might have the ability to push him into bankruptcy (or make him and his children vastly wealthier).
Speeches on the other hand aren't traditional disclosures. Many candidates have given paid speeches, I'm not aware of any others who have been asked to release them. It's similar to Obama's long form birth certificate. Sure there's nothing to hide, but to grant the request is also to legitimize the question.
These Wikileaks releases do seem pretty one-sided. Is it just a function of what they do and don't have (it's surprising they didn't have that Trump recording)? But it's hard to believe the timing is completely coincidental, given how it seems to happen soon after Trump either says something particularly stupid or we learn about something damning from his past. However it's not surprising there's lots of skeletons in either candidate's closet... but again, why doesn't Assange have any of Trump's?
Problem is, from what I've seen over the past few months on Slashdot - it's obviously going to be hard to have a rational discussion on these questions here right now. People are way too ready to overlook their preferred candidate's foibles.
Part of it is the fact that Wikileaks is dependent on leakers. If someone gave them Trump's tax returns they'd probably post them, but no one has so they can't.
As for the pro-Russia angle, I suspect Assange realizes that Russia is their source but he still needs the data. And since he's dependent on Russia for the leaks he's fairly amendable to their requests on how to release them.
It may be a poor long term strategy though, the more Assange allows himself and Wikileaks to become associated with Trump and Russia the more other leakers will turn to alternate publishers.
I am a bit surprised by the lack of actual bombshells in the Clinton/DNC leaks however. My first response to this leak in particular is to wonder why Clinton didn't release the transcripts in the first place.
This exactly. We already know that Hillary has lied to congress (said she turned over all her emails while holding thousands of classified, work emails back; that's a felony)
a) I don't know where you get thousands of classified work emails, there were thousands of deleted work related emails, but there's no reason to believe they were classified.
b) It's only a lie if she deliberately held them back, I see no reason to assume so. In fact I'm not even certain she meant for them to be deleted. The contractor who carried out the deletion did so because the retention policy was changed to 60 days (and those emails were older than 60 days). But they were previously told to preserve the emails from that time period. The contract might have simply misunderstood.
and now, a disenfranchised DNC member (Seth Rich) leaked information to Wikileaks showing how Hillary stole the primary from Bernie Sanders and when Hillary found out about it she or someone else at the DNC had him murdered.
... and here comes the crazy talk
(and the DNC dumps didn't even show anything particularly bad!)
or vote for a libertarian like Gary Johnson who actually wants to protect the constitution and the freedoms that it gives us.
And who is a non-serious goofball who's dangerously ignorant of foreign affairs (ie the place where the President actually has a ton of power).
The two party system only works until we stop voting like lemmings for one or the other and pick the best candidate.
The two party system works if you pick the best of the two candidates, to do otherwise is shooting yourself in the foot.
If you actually want to fix the system reduce the division of powers that gives veto power to unaccountable legislators.
The Republican congress has spent the last 8 years sabotaging the government because they know that a dysfunctional government creates an anti-incumbent backlash and the non-Presidential party is perceived as the opposition. It's about as bad an incentive structure as you can imagine.
Gawd man, do you ever take a break? If this happened to the GOP, the Press would use it against Trump all day long, and three times during the debate. In fact, they are already trying to blame Trump for it.
Because Trump has not only been weirdly friendly with Putin but has spoken supportively of the cyber-attacks.
Instead of trying to blame Trump, they should be looking right at DWS (who was in charge) and Hillary, and trying to tie it to Hillary's Homebrew basement dwelling server.
And quite frankly, it shouldn't matter the "who" did it. The fact that it did happen, and everything looks so awful for the DNC and Clinton Campaign because of it, it should be news all day long, but somehow it doesn't matter as much as some chick from 20 years ago that Trump said "mean things" about.
Why? Because emails exposed that people in the DNC perferred Clinton but never really did anything about it?
Hell, Priebus has openly said that never-Trump'ers might not be allowed to run again if they don't fall in line. Why isn't that worse than the things people in the DNC speculated about doing.
So far the content of these DNC leaks really have been non-stories.
Seth Rich a DNC staffer was murdered soon after the leak. Seth is a more likely person responsible for the leak. The Obama regime is not likely to blame a Democrat for the leak.
Who needs evidence when you have wild speculation?