This week, Hillary Clinton doubled down on the email scandal in a speech that appeared to mock the ongoing investigation of her use of an unsecured email system during her time as Secretary of State and dismissing questions over her use the system as pure politics. She even joked “You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves.” It is a great line but it is only funny for those who are entirely untroubled by the real danger that Clinton put national security secrets at risk by insisting on retaining control over her own emails and server. One group that is not laughing are former intelligence officials who have accused the government, again, of showing special treatment for powerful figures in the mishandling of classified material or current officials who are continuing to classify hundreds of emails from Clinton’s records. The number of Hillary Clinton emails now flagged for classification has grown to 300. The number is expected to rise even higher as the agencies plow through thousands of emails that remain after the Clinton staff erased thousands of others from the server.
Clinton again insisted that “I never sent classified material on my email, and I never received any that was marked classified.” The key of this spin is again the word “marked.” I have previously discussed why that explanation is less than compelling, particularly for anyone who has handled sensitive or classified material. As I discussed earlier, virtually anything coming out of the office of the Secretary of State would be considered classified as a matter of course. I have had a TS/SCI clearance since Reagan due to my national security work and have lived under the restrictions imposed on email and other systems. The defense is that this material was not technically classified at the time that it was sent. Thus it was not “classified” information. The problem is that it was not reviewed and classified because it was kept out of the State Department system. Moreover, most high-level communications are treated as classified and only individually marked as classified when there is a request for disclosure. You do not generate material as the Secretary of State and assume that it is unclassified. You are supposed to assume and treat it as presumptively classified. Otherwise, there would be massive exposure of classified material and willful blindness as to the implications of the actions of persons disregarding precautions. For example, there is not a person standing next to the President with a classification stamp in the Oval Office. However, those communications are deemed as presumptively classified and are not disclosed absent review. Under the same logic, the President could use a personal email system because his text messages by definition are not marked as classified. This is the whole reason that Clinton and others were told to use the protected email system run by the State Department. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to secure such systems. Even the Washington Post is now reporting that Clinton’s statements that there was no classified information on her server appear to be “untrue.”
Clinton told an enthusiastic crowd in Iowa that “It’s not about Benghazi. And you know what, it’s not about e-mails or servers either. It’s about politics.” Despite both the State Department and intelligence agencies now finding hundreds of classified emails, Clinton has portrayed the entire matter to be the work of political operatives. In an incredible spin, she has insisted that she is the one who is serious about national security and the protection of secrets in this controversy in refusing to answer questions:
“I won’t get down in the mud with them. I won’t play politics with national security or dishonor the memory of those we lost. I won’t pretend this is anything other than what it is: the same old partisan games we’ve seen so many times before. I don’t care how many super PACs and Republicans pile on. I’ve been fighting for families and underdogs my entire life and I’m not going to stop now.”
Those words are likely to leave many grinding their teeth in the intelligence agencies after Clinton refused for months to turn over the server and then turned over a server that had been wiped clean — unilaterally destroying tens of thousands of emails that were on the server but cannot now be reviewed.
The number of flagged emails is now over 300. Some 305 have already been sent to various agencies for review.
The steady worsening of the scandal stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric of denial coming from the Clinton camp. At the very least, the use of a personal server was reckless and clearly designed to allow Clinton’s staff to control her emails (few people are buying the spin that Clinton just wanted to avoid carrying more than one device). Many view the refusal to use the secured State Department email system as a signature Clintonian move to retain control over information. The decision clearly put national security secrets as risk and I would be astonished if foreign intelligence did not target the vulnerable server. What is striking is that Clinton continues to deny that this was obviously bad judgment and a bad practice for any high-ranking government official. She is not the first to commit such errors but the campaign is unwilling to alter its initial position of denial and mockery of the controversy. This is not a political hatchet job. I dealt with classified material for decades. This is a serious potential breach in my view and the view of people who worked with such material for a living.
In the end, the Clinton campaign may be calculating that denial will get her through the primary even if she will have taken severe damage for the general election. The campaign clearly views Bernie Sanders as no real threat and that the opposition in the primary is still incapable of challenging Clinton with the money and party leadership behind her. Nevertheless, her national lead has called from 40 points to 19 points nationally.
David, I’m waiting to hear from you at which point you think the unborn embryo/fetus should be granted personhood.
I. Annie wrote: “David, I’m waiting to hear from you at which point you think the unborn embryo/fetus should be granted personhood.”
When the baby is breathing air, he should be recognized as a person.
“…neglecting to notice I didn’t bring up the subject”
Oh, pish posh. Take credit where credit is due!
Also, instead of talking about illegal email servers, can’t we focus on what horrible racists the Repubs are?
Here’s how you handle the #BlackLivesMatter issue, Hillary style:
“Hillary to BLM: “If that is your position then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with the very real problems.”“
davidm1575
This is where there is a problem. The society determines what is a life, or not. One extreme is to abstain and not to take birth control. This is a society induced control over men as well as women. Abortion is not just a woman’s right but it is the woman who is the central character, especially early on. It is not a question of right or wrong to recognize the rights of the woman and no one else, however, when a choice has to be made, however slim the margin, the woman is the pivotal character. With much that is argued between society and the individual, this is not something where one side wins in an overwhelming fashion.
If abortion were to be made illegal, those women who wanted to obtain one would and the result would be increased danger to the woman, of criminal charges, social stigma, and even death. This is not one of those win win situations. This is one of those lose lose situations.
issac wrote: “The society determines what is a life, or not.”
Nature determines what is life or not. Society simply works to understand nature.
issac wrote: “If abortion were to be made illegal, those women who wanted to obtain one would and the result would be increased danger to the woman, of criminal charges, social stigma, and even death.”
Roe v. Wade determined a kind of sliding rights for the unborn, recognizing fully the right of the unborn at viability. Therefore, they allow States to regulate abortion in the third trimester. I don’t have a problem maintaining this standard; although, we should recognize that with advances in science, the time of viability will be moved further back toward the time of conception.
The important thing is that our culture develops a respect for life and extols virtue upon pregnancy and motherhood. If we can be a society where abortion is taboo without having to change the law, that would be ideal.
david – Roe v. Wade was predicated on Roe lying about being raped. She said this at the advice of her attorney because they thought it would get them more traction with the courts.
Now, think back. If Roe v Wade had a truthful plaintiff who said she was impregnated by her boyfriend, do you think the Supreme Court would have decided in her favor?
Kudos to Pogo for once again neglecting to notice I didn’t bring up the subject. Now please admonish David and Paul for discussing abortion and personhood too. Just so you don’t appear hypocritical.
Ross wrote: “Are any candidates talking about restoring the Glass Steagal Act, it’s destruction which was largely responsible robbing every American with a 401K plan – we lost real money out of our pocket but nobody is talking about it. It was the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression.”
Yes, right you are “nobody is talking about that.” Republican and Democrat pols have both sold the American people down the drain for their own financial benefit.
Sooner rather than later the middle class will disappear leaving wealthy oligarchs and the poor.
So Paul, if you believe life begins at conception, what would YOU do about Fertility Clincs routinely destroying fertilized eggs?
Fertility Clinics have a fiduciary duty to hold the eggs forever.
Kudos to Annie for once again diverting attention from the possibly criminal actions of Our Blessed Hillary (PBUH) and onto a topic we Progressives are far more comfortable with.
Until science creates a way in which a man can carry a baby and give birth, it’s the woman’s prerogative.
Inga – I think life begins at conception and abortion is the killing of life. That is not a prerogative, that is selfishness.
I. Annie wrote: “Until science creates a way in which a man can carry a baby and give birth, it’s the woman’s prerogative.”
Wrong. It is the duty and obligation of a woman to carry the baby for the man. That is what marriage is all about. The man needs the woman to carry his baby and give birth for him. The woman needs the man to get pregnant. The sexual relations create duties and obligations between them that must be recognized and honored by the parties involved.
It is the DUTY and obligation to carry and give birth for the man?? I hate to break it to you but there are plenty of women who are getting pregnant out of wedlock. What about infertile couples? Is their marriage a sham? What paternalistic nonsense.
I. Annie wrote: “I hate to break it to you but there are plenty of women who are getting pregnant out of wedlock.”
Yes, this is a problem and it needs to stop. Thank feminism and homosexuality for thrusting our society into this morass of immorality.
No David feminists believe in using birth control. Unwed pregnancies are not the fault of feminism. Why did Bristol Palin get pregnant out of wedlock, TWICE? Homosexuals are to blame for women becoming pregnant out of wedlock? LOL. Oh my.
I. Annie wrote: “… feminists believe in using birth control.”
Right. They teach women to have sex without getting married or having any of the responsibilities that go along with sexual relationships. Birth control was one of the worst inventions in the 20th century. It led to devaluing the institution of marriage which eventually led to the end of the institution of marriage in America in the year 2015.
I. Annie wrote: “Why did Bristol Palin get pregnant out of wedlock, TWICE?”
She was irresponsible, as was the man who impregnated her. Our society has bombarded these kids with ideas that are contrary to the ideals taught by their parents. I was just telling two of my daughters this week how sorry I was for them that the young men growing up today are all inept and feminized wusses. Our culture has completely emasculated men. They don’t even know how to make good decisions anymore. A real man who understood duties and obligations would have married Bristol before ever having sexual relations with her.
Before we had emails we had fax. Still do. We had telephones. Those can be recorded. We had U.S. Mail service and we had and have the diplomatic pouch. Email, fax and phone seem to be a mistake– a suspect method. If a Secretary of State is communicating with another official about some serious matter then do it in person or by diplomatic pouch. Ben Gazi is a tailor up the street from me and he is wondering why they keep speaking about him. He says he knows nothing about Hillary or birthin babies. The birthin babies discussion brings to mind the problem in Gone With The Wind. I suppose there is a parallel here. Some would say that Hillary knew nothing about secret communication and Bill Clinton knew nothing about birthin babies. He tried to knock up Monica with a cigar. Nuff said.
Yes Issac, prevention of an unwanted pregnancy is the best way to stop an abortion, yet we hear all the pushback on birth control from Pro Life/anti abortion people. Why is this? I honestly don’t understand what these people want.
davidm2575
I knew a few girls/women whose lives were somewhat ruined as they went the route through delivery, adoption, and then the aftermath. It was their choice of have the baby or take a trip to another country and carry the stigma. There were in the fifties and sixties regular postings of botched abortions, women dying, doctors/whatever being incarcerated.
My attempts later in life to discuss this with women met with their ownership of the subject, to the tune of as a man I had nothing to say. The issue rests between the woman’s rights to have or not have a child if she becomes pregnant and societies moral position, whatever the majority decides. On the part of society it lies with slaughtering people in wars, or not, convenience and cost effectiveness in exchange for unnecessary deaths, and 30,000+ deaths a year to pay for some Constitutional mumbo jumbo, oh yeah to protect the citizen against the state, bears, lions, tigers, robbers, aliens, etc.
The question I think an anti abortionist should ask is how does all this fit together in the board room. We, as a society, put our thumbs up or down. In the case of abortion it is not a case of a robbery, faulty building codes, excessive speed, but a woman’s right, something much more than convenience and mumbo jumbo.
Perhaps it is like the issue of suicide. The act someone makes of destroying their own life is the greatest argument they can make against what they are supposed to do, what everyone else is doing. The only way to stop a suicide is to prevent its causes. The only way to stop an abortion is to prevent the pregnancy.
Perhaps this endgame is not where the conversation should be focused.
issac wrote: “In the case of abortion it is not a case of a robbery, faulty building codes, excessive speed, but a woman’s right, something much more than convenience and mumbo jumbo.”
This is where you go off in the wrong direction. Abortion is not just a woman’s right. That is the lie of feminism. The question of abortion involves the right to life of the unborn, the rights of the father, and the rights of the woman. More than that, the question of abortion involves the duty and obligations the woman has to the unborn child and to the man who fathered the child. Also involved are the duties and obligations of the father to the woman and to the unborn child. It is wrong to recognize only the rights of the woman and nobody else.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/mike-huckabees-bizarre-fetal-personhood-proposal-would-criminalize-miscarriages/
Huckabee wants to grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood, a legal theory so radical even many in the anti-abortion camp oppose it, Right Wing Watch reports.
If you liked the Huckabee video from the CNN interview, you’ll love this David. I wonder how would such a law deal with Fertility Clinics destroying fertilized eggs?
I. Annie, I do not agree that a person exists at the moment of conception. Therefore, I would not agree with Huckabee on this new law he proposes.
Well David, that is refreshing. So at what point do you think that personhood should be given to the unborn?
Remember that famous clip from Senate hearings w/ the pompous Lady Macbeth, “At this point what does it matter” when asked about Benghazi. Well, she’ll be eating those words.
Being Machiavelli is complicated. Obama hates the Clinton’s. Obama knows Biden is loyal and will do the best to protect his legacy, whatever the hell that might be. So, for that reason Obama could just have the DOJ actually do its job and conduct a straight investigation of the emails. That would be novel. However, the emails that are potentially the most damaging are the thousands of deleted emails from around the Benghazi attack. Remember, the lies perpetrated involving that fiasco were to protect Obama, not Hillary. That was just a few weeks prior to the 2012 election. Lot’s of cross currents and riptides.
I suspect if Vice President Biden enters the race there might be a change of approach by the justice department against Hillary Clinton.
Darren – what makes you think the DoJ is going to change with Biden in the race? They have been play hopscotch for the last 6 years.
Believe me, they don’t need my help to “muddy” this one. If you want “muddy”, wait until the investigation gets so convoluted that nobody can figure out just what law was broken, if any. At that point, expect a desperation charge to get a week’s headlines, but then be totally forgotten by the time she accepts the nomination. But thanks, Nick, for boosting my price.
BFM, There are Clinton operatives scanning the airwaves and internet, spinning, lying, and just plain muddying the waters. The muddy water operatives are told to sound “Golly gee” and low key. That’s Michael Scott’s role. I give him/her a B-. Fairly good performance. I hope they’re paying him/her.
davidm2575
I find myself caught between the pro choice and anti abortion stances. However, a woman’s right over her own body seems to take precedence. Given the horrors of the times when abortion was illegal and could only happen with great risk and that if abortion is again made illegal there will be a return to those horrors, I can only side with a society that accepts it. If it were up to me I would include mandatory sex education and absolutely free and available birth control. I would make sex education in all schools mandatory and strive to erase the social taboos which are, in part, responsible for unplanned pregnancies.
It seems that those that are anti abortion are also among those that make similar board room decisions that indiscriminately take lives, of all ages. There is a certain hypocrisy to be found in those who are willing to pay the price paid by others so they can enjoy their ideologies: the right to have guns with no restrictions-paid for by a death every twenty minutes, the right to drive at high speeds at the cost of innocent lives, the right to lower taxes at the cost of deaths due to deteriorating infrastructure, the right to pay less for substandard construction that routinely causes deaths, the distance between voting for and cheering on our military as it decimates foreign populations, etc.
There is something close up about an abortion. It is as if one has a choice, but the only choice is the one forced on the woman. One sees the beginning of life. Yet those same people, not everyone but most, that will force a woman to carry a pregnancy through to create life will, given the comfort of distance, stand by and vote for higher highway speeds, place parenting alone in sex education, etc.
It is another board room decision. They are made every day. The CEOs of corporations maintain worker squalor to compete with lower prices and Americans demand those prices.
Abortion is a flagship of morality that can make one feel better in light of all the rest of the hypocrisy of which one partakes. It is simple. One does not have to understand that lower building codes due to the influence of developers risks and takes innocent lives. One does not have to do the math that ranting and railing against taxes that might go to save lives elects puppets that will enact regulations that will cost lives, and so on. Place it in perspective.
However, a woman’s right over her own body seems to take precedence. Given the horrors of the times
If that was true then Prostitution would be legal!
issac wrote: “Given the horrors of the times when abortion was illegal and could only happen with great risk and that if abortion is again made illegal there will be a return to those horrors, I can only side with a society that accepts it.”
How many people did you know when abortion was illegal that faced horrors? It seems to me that most of all that horror stuff is fabricated melodrama from the feminists who want to escape their female obligations.
My concern is not so much with the law on this issue as it is with the importance of a culture of life. If making abortion illegal is the only way to get there, then so be it, but I would hope we could get there without making abortion illegal. All it takes is a society willing to agree that abortion is an immoral choice.