Here's the transcript:
WALLACE: I -- I want to talk about one last subject with you congresswoman. You have dismissed the idea that Hillary Clinton could face any legal troubles over her private e-mail server as, quote, "ludicrous." How do you know that?If I may boil all that down: What's ludicrous is to think that at this point in the process of selecting a President, the email controversy can turn into a criminal matter that waylays the party's frontrunner.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I -- I'm simply confident that as the investigation continues that Hillary Clinton has made it clear and there are scores of individuals who are associated with the federal government that have indicated that it's clear that she conducted herself completely legally, that she was able to use private e-mail just like previous Republican and Democratic secretaries of state and I think that --
WALLACE: Well --
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: At the end of the day, this is going to amount to nothing more than an investigation when they take a close look. I think she's going to be fine.
WALLACE: Well -- well -- well, I -- the -- the reason I ask is, the FBI has dozens of agents who have been investigating this issue for months. And just this week, FBI Director James Comey said that this could go on well past -- or at least past the Democratic convention in July. You know there's got to be something there that they’re investigating. Are you saying it's all a waste of time?
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I'm -- I’m not commenting on it one way or the other, other than to say that it is ludicrous to keep raising --
WALLACE: Well -- well, wait a minute. You have. You said it's ludicrous.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yes, and I'm going to say it again, it's ludicrous to keep raising the -- the question of whether this plays out to an end -- an unfortunate end. She’s -- Hillary Clinton has released 55,000 pages of e-mails. She -- the -- it -- has provided the most transparency of -- of probably any previous presidential candidate in terms of the -- the conversations that she’s had as secretary of state, as a public official. It is completely available for perusal by the press and she was doing something and using private e-mail in the same way that previous secretaries of state have -- have done and that’s according to the policy that she was allowed to.
WALLACE: But, well, you -- well, well, well, you know that's not true. I mean Hillary -- nobody says that's true. Nobody --
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Other than the privates --
WALLACE: No -- no -- nobody --
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Other than the private server, right, with the exception --
WALLACE: Well, other than the private server is a big deal and nobody had 30,000 work e-mails on their private server or private e-mail, period. So, I mean, the comparisons to Colin Powell are -- I mean that's just not true, congresswoman.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: The compare -- you know, it certainly is true because Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry all used private e-mail to communicate with their staff. And Hillary Clinton --
WALLACE: Yes, and maybe -- maybe a dozen, not 30,000.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I -- I -- I'm not counting, but over the course of her -- of her term she used private e-mail and was allowed to use private e-mail. That's not in dispute. And she’s released 55,000 pages of e-mails. At the end of the day, this is a distraction because the American people are going to decide who they vote for, for president, based on who they believe is going to continue to move us forward and help everybody who wants to succeed have a fair shot to do so. And what they're not going to vote on is distractions like this one and they're certainly not going to choose any one of the Republican candidates who think that we should continue and go back to policies that focus on the wealthiest most fortunate Americans --
WALLACE: Right.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That -- that are extreme like Donald Trump suggesting that we're going to deport 11 million people --
WALLACE: All right, congresswoman --
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Or that we're going to ban an entire religion from coming into the country.
WALLACE: Congresswoman, we’re --
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That's the choice.
WALLACE: All right. I -- I thank you very much. We'll have you back --
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: You’re welcome.
WALLACE: And you can -- you can continue the conversation.
Posts
141 comments:
DWS clearly does not have her talking points straight. How is this lightweight the head of the DNC?
Also, should a sitting congresswoman be heading the DNC anyway? Shouldn't DNC head be a full time job? Couldn't there be a conflict of interest there?
The thing about the e-mail server issue is this--if Hillary had simply violated protocol by having business e-mails sent to a personal account (like gmail) when she was remote and couldn't access her State Dept. server, this would be understandable--if she assumed the e-mails had nothing classified and did this as a periodic convenience. It'd be a technical violation, but one which most people could sort of understand (cutting around red tape). But she went through the trouble of setting up a private server to do all her business through it--and obviously no other Secretary of State did anything like that. It took plenty of planning, thought and expense, so this wasn't an inadvertent ad hoc sort of thing--it boggles the mind that she would never check to make sure this was kosher, and thus we can only conclude that since she presented no legitimate reason to do this that she was up to something criminal.
That's what Hillary's grappling with and that's what this country is about to put into the White House.
Hillary, please tell us about all the deals you made, as Secretary of State, using your private server, with big international corporations who seek business with the US government. Any secrets?
Matt Lauer, Katie, Diane, Brian, Lester, Scott, MSNBC - Do you have any questions for Hillary?
@ Brando
.. But she went through the trouble of setting up a private server to do all her business through it--and obviously no other Secretary of State did anything like that.
And we notice the MSM, right along with Hillary, conveniently mix up the terms "private server" with "Private e-mail." "Everybody does it", they explained in unison.
Really? Hey media - Please name for us the others who set up PRIVATE SERVERS.
If DOJ wasn't hopeless corrupt, Hillary would have been indicted months ago. That's the real scandal..
If Condi Rice had given away our national security secrets in a similar fashion the NYT would be calling for the death penalty. Seriously.
She doesn't have to be coherent. She needs only to fill the space between the questions asked and the commercial break with obfuscation. Gibberish will do fine.
Mission accomplished.
It's all a cover up of her crooked scheme to industrialize Clinton Bribery run while she alone could sell arms deal approvals to the Arab world in a middle east she had obviously schemed to become a war chaos zone needing arms to resist Jihadists.
Desperately in need of a teleprompter.
As if we need more evidence that Left trumps Right (and even Dem-Lite Donald) in asinine incoherence.
Blah blah blah at the end as she gets into the talking points. Why did the Fox guy let her blather on like that?
I could not have a government email if I did what Hillary did. Rules are for little people like me.
Hillary Clinton has released 55,000 pages of e-mails. She -- the -- it -- has provided the most transparency of -- of probably any previous presidential candidate in terms of the -- the conversations that she’s had as secretary of state, as a public official.
Most transparent, my ass. If it weren't for Guccifer hacking into Sid Blumenthal's email account, we STILL wouldn't know why a congressionally ordered search of the State Department's email server for Hillary's emails had come up completely empty.
Prediction: Althouse will vote for her in the general anyway.
"And we notice the MSM, right along with Hillary, conveniently mix up the terms "private server" with "Private e-mail." "Everybody does it", they explained in unison."
Exactly--they're using an apples to oranges comparison. Many federal officials will have email improperly forwarded to a private account for convenience (which they should not do) but that is a whole different thing from setting up a server to make that the regular way of sending and receiving emails. In the former case, you could picture say Powell saying "I couldn't get onto my State account and my deputy said the e-mail had no classified info, so I asked him to forward it to my personal account so I could read it" but in the latter case this is saying "I want all e-mails, at all times, routed through this server only I control."
As Hillary has not provided a convincing explanation for it, I can only assume she wanted that sort of control because she had something to hide--maybe doing private business through her position, maybe illegal donations, who knows--but the presumption is something crooked.
Someone like this has no business being president, and it's pathetic that by default she will likely be elected.
...whether this plays out to an... unfortunate end.
An unfortunate end to this would be Hillary not in federal prison.
It's good to be a Clinton, because you don't get to know what they do.
Lap dogs in the press keep their mouths tight.
The 9-11 Committee has released all but 28 pages! Move on already.
Nixon released all but a few minutes. Move on morons!
Hillary is experienced in her corruption. That's why we need her.
Fast and Furious only withheld a couple hundred docs. IRS only destroyed a small number of hard drives under subpoena. Move on moron!
FNS is consistently the best of the Sunday shows.
She is right though. it is ludicrous to think the press will cover it. She knows as well as us that they are all Democrats.
This of course demonstrates how crucial it is for the GOP to hold the Senate and House this fall. Imagine Hillary (already heavily favored) wins the White House, then next year evidence is leaked that she set up the server to illegally raise money in exchange for favors via her foundation while at State, and her DOJ crushes the investigation and forces a lot of resignations. Can we trust Pelosi's House to impeach, or Schumer's to convict?
Hillary is up over Trump by 3.
I have yet to see a poll that shows Trump beating Hillary. She's so horrible, any candidate should be beating her by 5-10 points. This, in my opinion, is due to Trump's high negatives, (his own doing) and the total press-ignore over anything to do with Hillary's life-long string of scandal, lies and corruption.
I just hope James Comey is careful crossing streets. It is all going to come down to his sense of duty and integrity,
The pressure on him must be awful.
I have not seen one IT Security expert interviewed on a news program about the email server. Just political schlubs like DWS. Being in the IT field, I would have at least a dozen questions for her. Of course SHE wouldn't have the answers, but it's telling that the questions aren't being asked.
Hopefully, the FBI is asking the same questions I have.
"This, in my opinion, is due to Trump's high negatives,"
I think the polls are not showing the real picture about him but you could be right.
If only one of the others with lower negatives gad adopted one or two of his issues, but they didn't.
There's also the fact that she DELETED the remaining emails that she deemed to be personal. This woman is no dummy. She's a Clinton, a lawyer, and a politico with decades of experience in the ways of scandals and investigations. If, in fact, those deleted emails were really nothing but inconsequential private chatter, she wouldn't have deleted them. With investigations looming, she'd have set them aside in some private form so that, if she had to, she could allow some neutral party to read them to vouch for the fact that they were personal. The only reason to delete them was to protect herself because they WEREN'T personal -- they were proof of something she needed to hide.
If Hillary doesn't get the nomination or loses to the GOP nominee I expect Obama to grant her some kind of general pardon for all acts she took while Secretary of State. The excuse will be that the GOP will be using the email server as an excuse to attack her just because they are vindictive, sexist, racist aholes and the country needs to move on.
If Congress and/or the FBI continue to investigate in order to identify co-conspirators and document her misdeeds the MSM will proclaim Obama to be correct.
Its all about the sexism and racism baby!
And of course while she is smart enough to not say so, she knows that if she was caught on 5th Ave. selling state secrets to China while simultaneously giving preferential treatment to businesses willing to pay her extravagant amounts of money in order to listen to her drone on for 30 minutes at a time, and also shooting skeet using live babies as the targets, her supporters would still defend her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU6ebNd9v-w
If Hillary had an R behind her name, the press would have buried her in non-stop aggressive coverage that would have forced any other candidate to exit the stage.
Mrs Whatsit said: There's also the fact that she DELETED the remaining emails that she deemed to be personal.
And because this was her primary method of communicating this violates FOIA rules, which was her actual plan all along, to keep "her" trail hidden and under her total control. Once again the old adage is made clear: If you want a true investigative press to hold politicians accountable you can ONLY vote for ones with an R after their name. Who can dispute the proposition that we would have heard from dozens of IT experts and national security experts detailing how "dangerous" and "insecure" her server was. Hell, the public might even know who the hell Guccifer is by now.
[corrected a spelling error]
Is she brain damaged? Perhaps, she should have a "Wasserman Test".
A burning bag of poo should be beating Hillary in the polls.
As for Wasserman-- rehajm summed it up perfectly @ 7:49.
Mrs Whatsit has it! Come on Chris, she released 30K e-mails in 55K pages. That represents only half of the total number on the server. Has the FBI retrieved any of those deleted e-mails? Of course, they were deleted because they were incriminating. What a farce.
Oh BTW, her successor, the pompous ass, is hiding money overseas! Never mind, everybody does it!
Exactly--they're using an apples to oranges comparison. Many federal officials will have email improperly forwarded to a private account for convenience (which they should not do) but that is a whole different thing from setting up a server to make that the regular way of sending and receiving emails. In the former case, you could picture say Powell saying "I couldn't get onto my State account and my deputy said the e-mail had no classified info, so I asked him to forward it to my personal account so I could read it" but in the latter case this is saying "I want all e-mails, at all times, routed through this server only I control."
And, the thing is, a reporter could easily point out the difference. "Gmail is personal email. You do not own the email service nor do you control it. What YOU did, Hillary, was set up an email service YOU personally own and completely control"
Nixon released all but a few minutes. Move on morons!
The absolute PERFECT comparison. Nixon released all but 18 or so minutes. What's the big deal, right?
Remember, Hillary was personally working to impeach him over that. It's the most perfect possible comparison.
"Hillary, why did you feel impeaching Nixon over an impropriety that you've personally committed yourself was needed?"
Oh BTW, her successor, the pompous ass, is hiding money overseas! Never mind, everybody does it!
He was the same guy who parked his yacht in a different state to avoid MA taxes.
If not for double standards, Progs would have no standards.
Many federal officials will have email improperly forwarded to a private account for convenience (which they should not do) but that is a whole different thing from setting up a server to make that the regular way of sending and receiving emails.
I know of no agency which configures to allow forwarding out of a Federal system. This would violate a bunch of rules on security because it would take FOUO and SBU data and expose it.
I do have my contractor staff working on Federal sites that forward their firm email into the Federal system, not the reverse.
Hillary Clinton has released 55,000 pages of e-mails.
Transparency my a$$. State, Congress and several Federal Judges demanded that Hillary provide State with State's property, which she was never supposed to steal, and State released those emails...
There's been a lot of progress since the Rose Law Firm billing records disappeared.
"And, the thing is, a reporter could easily point out the difference. "Gmail is personal email. You do not own the email service nor do you control it. What YOU did, Hillary, was set up an email service YOU personally own and completely control""
The media has been pathetic on this issue (among others). They're missing the forest from the trees by focusing on "technical" legal issues and giving weight to her poor excuses. Anyone with a bit of sense should be able to break this down and put her and her surrogates on the hot seat.
"I know of no agency which configures to allow forwarding out of a Federal system. This would violate a bunch of rules on security because it would take FOUO and SBU data and expose it."
I think that depends on the system--where I work, you can forward an e-mail with an attachment to any outside e-mail. But even if there was blocking, I could see a case where an official asked another official to compose and send them an e-mail entirely via gmail, say, as they didn't have a work blackberry handy and figured no big deal. But as I said, it's an ad hoc thing--not right, but understandable. The private server is a completely different animal. The analogy would be speeding while driving periodically vs. having a radar detector so you could speed whenever you want.
Is there a major thing that Hillary has legitimately told the truth about in years? She claims Iraq was based on a lie so that's out.
And saying "look at all the e-mails she turned over!" is such a dumb excuse I'm surprised any breathing human being would think that would work. John Wayne Gacy could point out all the kids he didn't murder--why doesn't he get credit for that?
The media has been pathetic on this issue (among others). They're missing the forest from the trees by focusing on "technical" legal issues and giving weight to her poor excuses. Anyone with a bit of sense should be able to break this down and put her and her surrogates on the hot seat.
I love the constant "We're not sure it's illegal" thing. She has emails telling her people to remove the classified markings and then send it to her. What do they think she is doing there, abiding by the law?
If she is elected, I say Congress should propose to remove all Sunshine laws. Since they won't be followed anyways.
Did any Sec State (or other Cabinet official) else, ever, set up a private email server? No, no one ever did before Hillary Clinton. Every time the "everyone else did it, too!" crap comes up that's all you have to say.
Why would Hillary Clinton go to all the trouble and expense of using her own private email server for her Sec. State business? I really don't think she can answer that--the only answer that makes any kind of sense is "so that she could control access to her emails" but that of course is a big violation...
No other explanation makes sense, though--either so she could control access (delete/hide what she wanted) or to get around some security restrictions/hassles...both of which she can't admit.
Is Bernie still needling her about releasing her speech transcripts (to Goldmans Sachs & others)? If so the whole "most transparent candidate" line seems a bit off, no?
And saying "look at all the e-mails she turned over!" is such a dumb excuse I'm surprised any breathing human being would think that would work. John Wayne Gacy could point out all the kids he didn't murder--why doesn't he get credit for that?
Hitler: Look at all the Jews who are still alive!
Stalin: I didn't kill ALL of my political rivals.
Pol Pot: Some intellectuals survived my reign.
I don't know why the media isn't like this, but if I hear somebody turned over about half of the emails, and the ones she turned over are pretty damaging, then what the hell was in the ones she DIDN'T turn over? Why do they still buy "I was emailing about yoga" or nonsense like that? She said none of the emails she turned over had classified information which is patently false (of course, she can lean in and say the word "classified" doesn't appear --- which it wouldn't since the classification process has its own labeling)
Hell, why does nobody ask why she sent pages instead of just, you know, the actual emails? That would've been way quicker.
The reason this investigation is taking so long is that the government bureaucracy (owned by Democrats) is still seeking a political solution. They need to strike a balance. They must determine it was a serious breach of conduct but not so serious that it damages her campaign. They want to give themselves the appearance of legitimacy while still keeping their thumbs on the scales. It's a fine line to walk. I'm sure they understand the media will play along. The question is, will the rest of us?
Looking at Hillary, it's pretty clear Nixon's biggest fault was having some shame. If he was more shameless, he'd have beaten Watergate easily.
Let that sink in. It's really depressing.
Brando said...I think that depends on the system--where I work, you can forward an e-mail with an attachment to any outside e-mail.
I misunderstood I guess. I am talking about auto-forwarding. My guys can have my IT admin put a rule on their corporate account to auto-forward a private acct to a Federal acct. I thought you were suggesting (which I have Never seen allowed) a Federal acct auto-forwarded to a private system.
The FBI is not happy to be told its work is Ludicrous. Great job Debbie.
There are some onerous tasks rational adults will not do. One of them is listening to Debbie Ding Dong Wasserman Schultz. She is a shameless airhead.
FBI: Let me see your emails.
Wasserman-Schultz: [with a small wave of her hand] Ludicrous! You don't need to see her emails.
Public: It's ludicrous. We don't need to see her emails.
Wasserman-Schultz: These aren't the emails you're looking for.
FBI: These aren't the emails we're looking for.
Wasserman-Schultz: She can go about her campaigning.
Public: You can go about your campaigning.
Wasserman-Schultz: Move along.
FBI: Move along... move along.
Hope I'm not getting meizled
"Is Bernie still needling her about releasing her speech transcripts (to Goldmans Sachs & others)? If so the whole "most transparent candidate" line seems a bit off, no?"
In the last debate she said she'd release them after Bernie released his tax returns (a dumb non-response that, surprise, the moderator let her get away with after only one followup--after all, the question was "if there's nothing bad in those transcripts, why not release them and remove doubt"). He released his tax returns a few days later, and surprise again, she still hasn't released the transcripts. So now we can assume that whatever's actually in them is worse than what we assume is in them.
We're in for a fun four years.
What amazes me isn't Clinton's criminality or brazenness, that is too be expected. What is amazing is Obama's acceptance of it. I can't see any upside for him in allowing this and nothing but grief in doing so. At the end of the day this happened on his watch with his acceptance along with failure to stop this and that makes him an accessory to the felonies.
Obama presumably could pardon Clinton but to make the whole thing work he would have to pardon every official who received and replied to the emails and failed to take measures as proscribed by law and that would include Obama himself. Again I fail to see why Obama would set himself up by Clinton for no worthwhile reason. Unless there is a hidden payola for Obama somewhere in all of this and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this assertion (its the only somewhat believable reason I can think of for Obama allowing this, no other reason has any plausibility) it's simply mind-blowing as to why the Administration allowed this.
DWS
The public's going to ignore it. Hillary is going to be President. Corruption can continue and even increase without penalty to the USA. This was the position the Democrats took in Detroit about the same issue - the most transparent corruption in America.
And that worked out how for the people of Detroit? But the Democrats don't care what they do to the people; it's obvious; they support the Clintons who are the most transparently corrupt liars in the history of America.
In the transcript it's Wallace who does the spluttering.
I think the thread winner is The Elder said...@0951
Debbie Obi-Wan
I find it astonishing the casualness with which Democrats are playing with fire in this election. What a sad statement. How could they possibly think it worth the risk? Are they so sure they control the outcome?
Rae @ 8:31: "Being in the IT field, I would have at least a dozen questions for her."
Can you share?
DWS is a documented, shameless liar. In the 2012 election cycle she claimed that Israeli Ambassador Oren said that Republican policies hurt Israel. He denied he ever made such a claim. Then she denied that she made the statement, except it turned out she was on tape making the statement. When confronted with the tape of her making the statement, she denied yet again that she said it.
Generally, we get the politicians we deserve. She's the exception to that rule.
"What is amazing is Obama's acceptance of it. I can't see any upside for him in allowing this and nothing but grief in doing so."
The mistake here, on your part, is assuming that the Democratic party is in any way a "legitimate" organization. They aren't. They are a criminal racket of tremendous scope and extreme resilience.
The other mistake is assuming that the "public" is in a position to do something about it through normal political-legal means. They aren't.
Fixing this will require a mass movement outside the usual political-media channels. I have seen this situation before. You all have a long way to fall into the pit before such a thing can be organized.
@Owen
I'm in the IT field and my first question would be how did she end up using the IT company she did for hosting the server.
There are plenty of IT companies that provide custom email domains that could have provided way more reliability and ensured that her email was backed up, probably for a cheaper price. But she wouldn't have physical control over the server and the administrative duties would not be done by someone who worked for her.
The question kind of answers itself.
Next question, does it concern you that it appears that the server was improperly setup and that it could be accessed from the Internet? That no firewall was setup between it and the Internet? That remote control software was running on it with known security vulnerabilities?a
How much thought did you give to bandwidth capacity? Backups? Availability planning?
Did you perform due diligence on the IT company you selected?
Why didn't you just let the professionals with lots of experience in this at the State Department take care of all this highly technical, specialized tasks? After all, you are a politician who attended law school, not an IT professional. Why would you think you and your advisors would be better suited to provision email rather than the IT professionals at the State Department?
If Kerry had parked his yacht out of state that would have been one thing, but he registered it out of state but kept it in state to avoid a half million in taxes to the state he represented in the Senate by voting for every tax increase he could.
That's just off the top of my head. And there are professionals who specialize in auditing failed IT projects so as to allocate fault. (Usually called in when a joint project between two companies fail and the suing starts.) One of those guys could really put the screws in.
What method did you use to select the server's administrator? What certifications did they possess? Relevant work experience? Education? If you delegated the selection to someone else, what qualifications did they possess to evaluate the administrator's suitability for the position?
Did you ever have anyone audit the server so as to see if the administrator was performing his duties properly?
These are the kind of considerations an IT professional is going to know about. A bunch of politicians and brown nosers? Not so much.
Blogger tim in vermont said...
If Kerry had parked his yacht out of state that would have been one thing, but he registered it out of state but kept it in state to avoid a half million in taxes to the state he represented in the Senate by voting for every tax increase he could.
4/26/16, 10:56 AM"
Leona Helmsley was convicted and imprisoned for the very same thing-sales tax evasion. It pays to be a Democrat official. Hillary Clinton will be interviewed by the FBI. I doubt that she will be imprisoned as was Martha Stewart.
I think that the absurdity in my mind at this scandal is that so many people knew, and no one did or said anything. President Obama apparently even got email from her at her personal email server. They all went through most of the classes that she had to take (see apparently had to take some additional classes as a primary classifier), and no one batted an eye when they got email from her at her personal email server. And, a lot of them sent her email that they should have known held classified information at her personal email server. This was apparently such a great idea that several of her closest aids got their own email accounts on her personal private email server and sent and received classified information from/to such. After all of those involved, all those sending email to and receiving it from her, had taken the required security courses, etc. Everyone there knew that this was highly illegal, yet it went on for her entire four years as Secretary of State.
As a note - it was blindingly obvious from the day the first printed email showed up, that the reason that they were printed out, instead of just sending them electronically, is that the electronic versions have all of the metadata, and that is removed by printing. The metadata shows the real origin of the email, along with all of the hops that the email made, plus some other stuff that can be at times incriminating. By now, presenting printed instead of electronic email in response to a court order (or probably even discovery) should be actionable as contempt. It wasn't accidental, but an intentional action to hide information ordered delivered by a court.
A lot of people sputter when faced with a brazen liar pissing on their leg and calLing it rain. It would not surprise me if Wallace sputtered.
@Owen:
What was the physical security situation of the server itself?
Who in the building had physical access to the server?
Did whoever set it up use a proper firewall?
What antimalware precautions were taken?
Did whoever administer the server follow industry standards and make regular backups, which were kept offsite?
If offsite backups exist, where were they kept, and who had access to them?
Were security audits regularly performed on the server?
Did anyone install remote desktop software on the server?
If I remember rightly, the operating system the server was running was Windows Server 2008. Which can be made secure, but you have to have an administrator who knows what they are doing. I know the FBI made a deal with that Pagliano guy, but I don't know his credentials other than he was a political hire.
Someone who doesn't know what they are doing can set up a home email server, and easily leave it wide open. We know one hacker had access to her emails (through Sydney Blumenthal).
By now, presenting printed instead of electronic email in response to a court order (or probably even discovery) should be actionable as contempt. It wasn't accidental, but an intentional action to hide information ordered delivered by a court.
I would be surprised if it hasn't been. I have had to provide server logs in response to discovery and court orders when I was an administrator. If I had printed them out instead of just copying them to electronic media I am sure the company lawyers would have corrected me.
@ Bruce Hayden @ 11.10 good, smart summation and probably why the FBI is still on it. There are a lot of fish to be hauled in this net including more than one big one. As I said earlier Obama is up to his neck in this but for no known worthwhile reason.
What was the physical security situation of the server itself?
Who in the building had physical access to the server?
Good questions. When I was an administrator I did not ordinarily have physical access to many of the servers I was the system administrator for. Limiting physical access to servers is a security fundamental.
I think that the absurdity in my mind at this scandal is that so many people knew, and no one did or said anything. President Obama apparently even got email from her at her personal email server.
I'm sure this is one of the reasons that Obama has tried to interject himself by declaring Hillary innocent. He doesn't want anyone asking the questions that Bruce Hayden is.
To think that Obama and other high ranking officials didn't know what she was doing is ludicrous. Anyone that received an email from her knew the game she was playing. And they all went along with it. Of course they also knew the media would never hold them accountable. And so far, they have been right.
They are on paper to foil automated discovery. Not easy to search or thoroughly cross reference.
Whoever reads a document has to recognize a connection or it is missed.
Given physical access to a Windows 2008 server and enough time and I could easily bypass its security and clone the drive. It wouldn't even be a challenge. You can download tools from the Internet to do that for free.
So another good question would be, "Do you know if the servers disk drive was encrypted to prevent unauthorized people from accessing the data stored on it if it was lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised?"
Best practices these days is to encrypt the drive if it contains any sensitive data.
"Nixon's biggest fault was having some shame. If he was more shameless, he'd have beaten Watergate easily."
Actually, his biggest mistake was making an enemy of Mark Felt who wanted to be FBI Director. Felt orchestrated the Nixon coup d'etat "All the President's Men was fiction.
Stratfor.com has a very important discussion of the Watergate story today. We now know that Mark Felt, who died last week, was the “Deep Throat” source for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their coverage of the Watergate scandal. Felt was the number #3 man in the FBI hierarchy at the time J. Edgar Hoover died. He expected to be named as Hoover’s successor but Nixon appointed an outsider, L Patrick Gray. Gray had had an outstanding career but was vilified in the Watergate story. He never spoke of it again until he commented on Felt’s admission of his role three years ago.
Cubanbob:
I've been assuming for a while now that Clinton and Obama have some sort of MAD thing going on via blackmail material. Either one can destroy the other with the evidence they uncovered during their campaign in 2008, and probably even more acquired since. Obama knows that if he takes her down, she will take him with her. And vice versa.
As to how long the investigation is taking, I am seriously hoping it's a deliberate play by the FBI to delay indictment until after January so Obama can't pardon her.
What was the physical security situation of the server itself?
Who in the building had physical access to the server?
In the end, it doesn't matter. Even if Bill was personally camped in the bathroom guarding the server, you have to assume everything on it was compromised.
Nixon's biggest fault was having some shame. If he was more shameless, he'd have beaten Watergate easily.
No chance. The negative media downpour would have been relentless.
What was the physical security situation of the server itself?
Who in the building had physical access to the server?
Did whoever set it up use a proper firewall?
What antimalware precautions were taken?
Did whoever administer the server follow industry standards and make regular backups, which were kept offsite?
If offsite backups exist, where were they kept, and who had access to them?
Were security audits regularly performed on the server?
Did anyone install remote desktop software on the server?
The first two are easy - the server was apparently protected physically by the Secret Service. At least much of when she was Sec. of State (moved into the bathroom here in CO after that). That was one of her first excuses why she thought that it was safe to store classified emails on her own personal server (at their family home). Of course, that ignores all the rest of the questions, and it appears that they weren't adequately addressed, at least initially. But, to some extent, it really doesn't matter, and falls into the Dem party line, which ignores that it would have been just as illegal to send or receive classified emails on a private server if it had the best private security available. Of course, it didn't, as maybe evidenced by some of the things that Guccifer has said about it.
I am seriously hoping it's a deliberate play by the FBI to delay indictment until after January so Obama can't pardon her
Does he have to have a specific indictment? I always assumed the POTUS could pardon people for any acts committed between certain dates or related to their duties, that an actual indictment or conviction wasn't needed.
But, to some extent, it really doesn't matter, and falls into the Dem party line, which ignores that it would have been just as illegal to send or receive classified emails on a private server if it had the best private security available.
True, but I think demonstrating just how feckless her behavior was has value too.
Yeah, in the political context it doesn't matter, but to a certain extent knowing the answer to those questions lets you estimate the amount of the damage.
Thanks for that image of Bill "camped in the bathroom." No wonder Hillary thought that you wiped a server "with a cloth."
Bruce Hayden said...
I think that the absurdity in my mind at this scandal is that so many people knew, and no one did or said anything. President Obama apparently even got email from her at her personal email server.
I'd first want to grill the State IT security guy about why he completely failed in his obligations to safeguard material, by not reporting this massive security breach to the State IG and the NSA Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), which ensures availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation of national security and telecommunications and information systems (national security systems).
My question is how she managed to extract her personal email from the rest, since she of course knew that a private citizen has no right to possess or examine government property. A supernatural talent like that surely qualifies her to be president.
Obama set the standard when he illegally fired that IG in San Diego who was investigating Stimulus fraud by one of his supporters. Not a peep. Crickets.
Who does her hair? Yikes!
Steve Uhr said...
My question is how she managed to extract her personal email from the rest,
I think the court required her to certify that what she provided was all her official emails. Her response was weasel lawyerly, "to the best of of my knowledge and belief..."
In fact, she tasked her lawyers to screen the emails and they did it with a bunch of key words, if there were no official key words in an email, it must have been on yoga routines and was deleted...
Actually, his biggest mistake was making an enemy of Mark Felt who wanted to be FBI Director. Felt orchestrated the Nixon coup d'etat "All the President's Men was fiction.
Stratfor.com has a very important discussion of the Watergate story today. We now know that Mark Felt, who died last week, was the “Deep Throat” source for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their coverage of the Watergate scandal. Felt was the number #3 man in the FBI hierarchy at the time J. Edgar Hoover died. He expected to be named as Hoover’s successor but Nixon appointed an outsider, L Patrick Gray. Gray had had an outstanding career but was vilified in the Watergate story. He never spoke of it again until he commented on Felt’s admission of his role three years ago.
Oh, a lot of things hurt. The revelation of the tapes was, for me, the most damaging. Killed everything dead.
However, imagine if Nixon was Hillary. He'd have his minions attack Felt as a bitter agent who wanted too much power and tried to blackmail the President with scurrilous charges. They'd then focus on minutiae instead of the problems. He could've pinned EVERYTHING on Dean. He could've erased ALL of the tapes and blamed a technical glitch.
If he was Hillary, he'd have done way more to defend himself.
But Nixon felt some shame.
No chance. The negative media downpour would have been relentless.
Even in the 1970's, a campaign against the corrupt media could've worked. Ask "Why were you so disinterested in the financial dealings of the Johnsons? How about Kennedy's health?" The media would've been unhelpful, but Hillary, successfully, managed to pin the blame of her husband splooging on a girl's dress on a "vast right wing conspiracy" and a lot of their adherents bought it. Attack enough and find the right line of attack.
Does he have to have a specific indictment? I always assumed the POTUS could pardon people for any acts committed between certain dates or related to their duties, that an actual indictment or conviction wasn't needed.
Ford did that for Nixon (keeping that comparison alive).
In fact, she tasked her lawyers to screen the emails and they did it with a bunch of key words, if there were no official key words in an email, it must have been on yoga routines and was deleted...
Still "shocked" none of her lawyers have been brought up on illegal handling of classified material.
I am sure Hillary never used a code word for anything questionable, so it sounds like a solid plan. Move on moron.
I'd first want to grill the State IT security guy about why he completely failed in his obligations to safeguard material, by not reporting this massive security breach to the State IG and the NSA Information Assurance Directorate (IAD)
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he did, but was ignored.
This should be a massive scandal since it reveals astounding amounts of corruption and incompetence at the highest levels of the U.S. Government, but its Hillary and Obama and Democrat aparatachiks, so the MSM is just not going to cover it.
What Nixon did is piddling in comparison. Of course his real crime was getting the U.S. out of Vietnam. A Democrat was supposed to do that.
"if Nixon was Hillary. He'd have his minions attack Felt as a bitter agent "
Nobody told Nixon who it was. Woodward and Bernstein and Bradlee kept his identity a secret,
They were equally culpable,
Ron Winkleheimer: I bow down. What great questions and comments. Without meaning to detract from your expertise, I have to think that similar questions and comments could have been assembled by the "journalists" who purport to cover this question, and who could have used them to shape their inquiries. They weren't assembled or in any case the inquiries were not made.
Sound of crickets.
Going forward, I am not optimistic that anybody will be nailed for this. But I thank you all the same.
An analogy:
Hillary Clinton leads cops on a high-speed chase thru 3 counties, endangering hundreds. The authorities investigate.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "Investigating her is ludicrous because Colin Powell once ran a stop sign."
damikesc:
"Is there a major thing that Hillary has legitimately told the truth about in years? She claims Iraq was based on a lie so that's out."
Indeed, based on the law and the facts, Senator Clinton's vote for the 2002 AUMF and President Bush's decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom were correct.
To set the record straight on the grounds for the Iraq intervention that Clinton's vote and Bush's decision were based on, see:
Answers to "What were President Bush’s alternatives with Iraq?" & "Why did Bush leave the ‘containment’ (status quo)?";
Answers to "Was Operation Iraqi Freedom about WMD or democracy?" & "Was the invasion of Iraq perceived to be a nation-building effort?";
Answers to "Did Bush lie his way to war with Iraq?" & "Was Operation Iraqi Freedom legal?".
Also see Recommendation: How to talk about your Iraq vote (advice to Hillary Clinton).
DWS is dumber than a box of rocks. The only explanation for her is the Peter Principle...but I can't really imagine her being successful at any level beyond high school student council.
@Owen
I have to think that similar questions and comments could have been assembled by the "journalists" who purport to cover this question, and who could have used them to shape their inquiries.
I think so too. All they would have to do was consult with someone who has expertise in IT and security. Since many journalists work for large corporations I would think they could have found that expertise in house.
ganderson said...
Who does her hair? Yikes!
--
Hey now..Top Dems have informed us she's cute and has a great smile.
Bernie settled the email bit..Americans are tired of all that.
How is this lightweight the head of the DNC?
Nobody else wanted the job?
:)
The thing with her lawyers is interesting. Her head lawyer apparently did get a security clearance to deal with this, and maybe a junior lawyer too. Might not have been that hard for him, having represented the Clintons since their White House days. Which was a good start. However, the emails (including at least 2'000 containing classified information) were stored in their offices on a non- approved medium. And it turns out that they weren't cleared for at least maybe 20 of the emails. In their defense, that might not rise to the grossly negligent standard required for a felony - why would they assume that she was turning over compartmentalized intelligence to them? Further, when the excrement started hitting the rotating blades, they turned their (electronic) copies over to the Feds very quickly. On the flip side, I think that they should have realized up front that using key word searching to differentiate between work and non-work emails would be both non responsive to a court order, as well as (likely grossly) under inclusive, which probably translates into the illegal destruction of national defense (I.e. Classified) information.
Bernie is right, America is tired of it; the hag should get off the stage. Until she does, it's a legitimate issue.
Wallace was sputtering because he was trying to fashion a civil response while his brain was screaming, "Liar liar, pants on fire!"
Democrats are tired of defending her, but Bernie doesn't even speak for all of tiny Vermont.
What is so frustrating to me is that tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans just don't care. Tens of millions are apparently willing to vote for her, despite more likely than not, that she committed probably thousands of federal felonies. One of my brothers last week (who is, I believe still registered as a Republcan) told me that it isn't that bad. He didn't see why we were making such a big deal about her emails. They all listen to DWS, and nod their heads - no harm, no foul. Their eyes glaze over when you point out that Guiciffer apparently claims to have read her emails over breakfast every day (which is probably a good part of why he was extradited to the US from his native Romania). And, if he were reading her email, what about the Ruskies or the ChiComs? The Iranians? Or even the French? No one seems to care that she opened up our foreign policy, at the highest levels, to hackers worldwide. And, early on, it appears that they didn't even need to be that good as hackers. And, all just to prevent anyone to see what she was doing while running foreign relations for our country. Not Congress, and not conservatives with their inconvenient FOIA requests. I don't really mind that she thinks it is fine to be driven around the country at 90 mph in her Scubie van. But her flagrant disregard for national security, just to protect herself from the VRWC (vast right wing conspiracy) is extremely worrisome to me. And just as worrisome is that so few care that she may just get away with it.
One of my brothers last week (who is, I believe still registered as a Republcan) told me that it isn't that bad. He didn't see why we were making such a big deal about her emails.
That is the power of the MSM. Like most people he probably has a life and is not a news and politics junkie like we are. So he relies on the MSM to tell him what to be concerned about because he trusts it to be honest and impartial. If the MSM isn't making a big deal out of the emails then they must not be a big deal.
"What is so frustrating to me is that tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans just don't care. Tens of millions are apparently willing to vote for her, despite more likely than not, that she committed probably thousands of federal felonies."
It shows two things--first, that the Clinton tactics work to some extent. They made this about a "what harm done?" question, argued that communications are often overclassified (they often are) and this may have been a technical violation but isn't the equivalent of intentionally or negligently sending lists of covert agents or blueprints of missile sites to enemy governments. It obscures that even aside from the illegality, there's something smelly about the whole server setup because again, there's no legitimate reason for that. This is a matter of honesty and trust, and this is the latest example of Clinton failing at that. She can't come clean about this, so what does this say about her character? What risks are we taking giving this gang power?
But second, it's also true that for many people they can overlook lies, corruption and incompetence if one candidate is more politically in step with them. They're saying "Clinton may be a liar, but she will fight the Republicans" or "Clinton may not be trustworthy, but she's better than Trump" or "Clinton may be a crook, but she'll be a crook for us."
Bruce Hayden said...
Further, when the excrement started hitting the rotating blades, they turned their (electronic) copies over to the Feds very quickly.
It's fascinating that Hillary and State played a two stooges routine for Two plus years after Benghazi (Sep 2012) being non-responsive to FOIA, Committee and Federal lawsuits regarding her emails. State says, we don't have any. Hillary says, I wasn't the one asked for MY emails...
Bruce, IIRC you are a Patent Lawyer, as such you must know the Federal Court rules at some level. As part of a commercial contract dispute, I was recently baptized in those rules, so here is my question for you acting as a surrogate for the David Kendall firm...
"During the fall of 2014, Secretary Clinton’s legal representative reviewed her hdr22@clintonemail.com account for the time period from Jan. 21, 2009, through Feb. 1, 2013," Kendall wrote. "After the review was completed to identify and provide to the Department of State all of the secretary's work-related and potentially work-related emails, the secretary chose not to keep her non-record personal emails and asked that her account (which was no longer in active use) be set to retain only the most recent 60 days of email
1. Judicial Watch files a FOIA Request in Nov 2012.
2. In Feb 2013, they file a Federal Lawsuit for the emails.
3. By the Fall of 2014, when Kendall deletes the emails (alleged private ones) it had been 18-24 months since it was apparent that Clinton emails are sought in Federal Court.
Question, Doesn't Kendall and his firm face possible sanctions for not telling his client about "Hold Order" rules and also protecting those records themselves? I'm talking about the emails that they discarded...
there's something smelly about the whole server setup because again, there's no legitimate reason for that
Exactly, there is no plausible answer to the question of why did you use a private server that makes her look good.
One time when I was in what is now called middle school a teacher told one of my classmates who was walking around with a lock pick visible in his back pocket that possessing burglary tools was against the law. The student arrogantly asked the teacher if he was going to report him to the cops. The teacher replied no, but if something turned up missing and the cops asked him if he had any relevant information he would have to tell them that he had seen the student in possession of burglary tools.
The private server exists as a means to commit crimes. There is no other reason for it to exist.
Don't forget, she turned over thumb drives to Kendall which contained hundreds of classified emails -- including several that were Top Secret -- and neither he nor his firm were cleared to receive them; had the need-to-know; and lacked the proper facilities to store such material.
I had a TS/SCI clearance. There is a completely separate network for this communication. You can't forward off of it. You can only put files on it in approved forms like a CD that has been scanned. Hard drives are removed at the end of the day and put in a safe. If you plug a thumb drive into that network alarms would literally go off in IT and a serious physical and network investigation ensued. They got pissed obviously because it was a lot of work.
We went to great lengths to protect this information. If I did what hillary did I would be in jail for life. Specialist Bradley is in jail for life and he did less. We are past analogies. Hillary is a traitor for several different reasons. This is just one.
Drill Sgt: what is my first name private?
Private: Drill Sgt, your first name is drill Sgt, drill Sgt!
Drill sgt: What makes the green grass grow private?
Private: drill Sgt, __fill___in__the _blank_, drill sgt!
We have a glorious future.
Don't forget, she turned over thumb drives to Kendall which contained hundreds of classified emails -- including several that were Top Secret -- and neither he nor his firm were cleared to receive them; had the need-to-know; and lacked the proper facilities to store such material.
It appears that Kendall (and maybe one other atty) had been given security clearances for handling Hillary's emails. But, but other than that, I think that you are correct. Some, maybe more, was above their security clearance (esp. the compartmentalized information), and it doesn't appear that they had the proper facilities to store it. Not clear if they did indeed break the law (gross negligence or intentionality is required for some of the associated federal crimes), but I do think that they may have crossed the line in regards to discovery and the like. And, the deletions for the emails that were claimed to be not work related, but actually were, are maybe more problematic legally (I would consider that the possible unauthorized destruction of national security/classified information).
Question, Doesn't Kendall and his firm face possible sanctions for not telling his client about "Hold Order" rules and also protecting those records themselves? I'm talking about the emails that they discarded...
I think so, but am no expert there. Patent attorneys are very rarely responsible for the court side of patent litigation. Rather, they provide the technical (and patent law) expertise, which means that you typically have a litigator sitting first chair, and the patent attorney sitting second chair. We need someone like Beldar here who appears to be a litigator to give you a better answer.
Bruce,
I know you are not a litigator, but in your job, I assumed you'd have a lot of experience with hold orders regarding info relevant to the dispute.
David Kendall must have the most amazing mental partitions. In Cubicle A1, what he knows about Rose Law Firm. In Cubicle A2, his knowledge about Monica. Cubicle A3 is what he knows about $ for arms. And A4, A5, A6...A(N) are devoted to subsequent fun and games.
Psychopaths are good at this. It almost defines their condition.
Bruce Hayden -- There was some level of clearance in the office, but not the ultimate levels, caveats, and need-to-know. I'm sure it will be swept away, but those are significant violations.
Fabi said...
sure
They had a couple of staff with clearances of some sort, They sure didn't have storage at any level, nor AIS processing authority, much less a SCIF :)
It is absolutely maddening to me that supposedly top journalists like Wallace do not listen to answers and follow up. They simply are not trained to listen to answers. They are focused only on what is their next question.
She said there are "scores of governments officials" who have said she did nothing wrong. The obvious question - name X of them.
Oh Dear Lord are they corrupt.
Corrupt-o-crats. Dumb-o-crats.
Nothing-crats.
They just need to go already.
I'm a liberal of sorts. But that doesn't mean that the Democrat party has any use for me under Wasserman-Schultz and a Hillary administration.
I don't have any use for them, either.
As far as I'm concerned, they're the Boss Tweed wing of the party. I'm the FDR wing.
These wings seem to be evenly matched this year. Though they stand for completely different things.
I hate what they stand for and have more respect for conservatives, quite frankly.
I didn't always realize how unprincipled half of the Democratic party was. But at least the truth has been revealed to me.
Maybe that sounds schizo but I think it's just the common phenomenon happening on both sides. The establishments of both parties have more in common with each other than they do with either of their bases. And nothing in common with any kind of constructive agenda for the country.
Ok, I admit it. I'm sick. I'm turning myself in.
I read 2 hours worth of crappy comments looking for Laslo's take on the incomparably delectable DWS.
In vain.
I was sick before.
Now I'm just stupid. I confessed my sickness.
The establishments of both parties have more in common with each other than they do with either of their bases. And nothing in common with any kind of constructive agenda for the country.
Tea Party and Occupy have been kept apart by cultural differences exploited by the elite. It is so much fun for each side to ridicule the other though, so there you have it.
It's like that Far Side where the lions are sitting around a kill and one of them says "I laughed so hard at that last cheetah joke I got a bone caught in my nose."
Ridicule of "the other" is a deep well, and the elite use it freely.
When I was a kid, everybody used to tell "Pollock" jokes. The punch line always showed that "Pollocks" were stupid in some incredible way. There is even a "Pollock" joke in that movie Flashdance, told by her friend who wants to be a comic. Well the jokes are all considered too bigoted to tell now, which I agree with. I won't repeat any, but the psychic need to tell them still remains. For the mass culture Republicans and white country folk now fill the place once occupied by "Pollocks."
To be honest, I have a hard time hearing the things that the Bernie types have to say to, they seem so absurd, but deeper down there are legitimate gripes. We just disagree about the deep causes.
Oh look, Bernie agrees with me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/bernie-create-a-tea-party_b_9782006.html
For the record, I have been saying this for a long time, even on this blog.
a moderate pro-Wall Street, pro-militarism, pro-Netanyahu, and pro-U.S. imperialism candidate like Hillary Clinton, since she, unlike Cruz or Trump, is still likely to support basic civil liberties and human rights for the people of the U.S. and unlikely to jail her critics or incite racism, sexism or homophobia in the U.S.
LOL, Is this the same Hillary who put a filmmaker in jail that she knowingly wrongly accused of inciting Benghazi? The one that lied to the families of the dead right next to the four coffins? The one that promised the families to punish that artist?
Wow the depths of delusion are unfathomable.
What's really ludicrous is thinking that AG Loretta Lynch's Department of Just-Us is going to indict a fellow Democrat, no matter what the evidence of her guilt may be.
"Tea Party and Occupy have been kept apart by cultural differences exploited by the elite. It is so much fun for each side to ridicule the other though, so there you have it."
I've often thought of those two groups similarly--both feel (justifiably) that they played by the accepted rules of society (invest in a house, put money into accounts for retirement, invest in education) and got burned by a financial collapse in part caused by a government and business climate that encouraged over leveraging, and they also feel (justifiably) that the future economy was getting worse for them. The anger was justified, even if most of their demands were bad policy.
The only real difference between the groups is one was co-opted by the GOP and the other was co-opted by the Dems (as well as the age difference, of course, and Occupiers were more likely to confront police).
What's really ludicrous is thinking that AG Loretta Lynch's Department of Just-Us is going to indict a fellow Democrat, no matter what the evidence of her guilt may be.
My theory/prediction right now is that the FBI will refer the matter to the DoJ for prosecution, and Justice will study it until the end of Obama's term of office. Or, will drop the case(s) after the election. They have no legal duty really to promptly address the matter and bring indictments against Hillary and her minions. We are so late in Obama's last term, that it will be easy to run out the clock. There is a downside to dismissing the referral(s), in that the information will then be promptly leaked by the FBI and intelligence community, making both Hillary and the Obama Administration look corrupt. And, there is a downside to indicting her and her minions in that it would effectively end the Obama Administration on a sordid note. Therefore, my prediction of the DoJ running out the clock. And, yes, after the election, maybe on the way out the door, President Obama can pardon them all, since it was done in his name, AND, the Clintons have the wherewithal to make Obama's retirement much more comfortable financially.
The only real difference between the groups is one was co-opted by the GOP and the other was co-opted by the Dems (as well as the age difference, of course, and Occupiers were more likely to confront police).
My theory is a bit different. Tea Party is, and mostly continues to be, rather independent and organic. Sure, there has been a little cooption, but not that much, given the fate of the establishment candidates this election cycle. I think though that Occupy was mostly an AstroTurf operation from the beginning, started to counter the Tea Party. This was probably not more obvious to me when I visited DC in the midst of the Occupy demonstrations, and saw their encampment there. They had maybe a dozen tents, at most, and a couple people protesting. Contrasted to all those protesting esp. on Wall Street. Their complaints were more against the government than really at Wall Street, and it was the government that they wanted to change. But, they were not (really) protesting in DC, but rather almost everywhere else. Which said to me that they were acting as an arm of the Dem establishment, which is whom they should have been protesting against. I do think though that the Bernie movement is much more akin to the Tea Party, an organic, populist movement from the left, that picked up support from the Occupy useful idiots (obviously, my theory there is that the Occupiers who moved to Bernie had originally been coopted, but essentially moved away from the establishment, and moved Occupy away from the Dem establishment, with the Bernie movement).
Another reason that I think that the original Occupy movement was astroturfed, is that it essentially collapsed after it was no longer useful to the Dem establishment. What was interesting was that the left kept calling the Tea Party an astroturf operation, which is decidedly was not, given how badly it interacted with, and continues to work with (or, more not) the Republican party. Which, to me, is typical Dem/leftist projection - they knew that their operation was funded by their power brokers (Soros, et al), and just assumed (or hoped) that the same was going on on the right.
Still, I think that Brando does have a point here, about the fervor on sides being to a great extent the result of playing by the rules, as the political class, on both sides, rigging the game for themselves, creaming off a good chunk of the economy for their own use by controlling the government for their own use. (And, no one running today is more emblematic of this than Hillary). Frankly though, I have less sympathy for the kids coming out of college these days with huge student debt and a mostly useless degree (since they should have known better at the time - plenty of them do know better and act accordingly), as contrasted to those in the lower middle class where college was not really an option, and earlier in their lives, factory jobs were a good entry into the middle class. But, that is just me, and the leftists here are free to take the opposite view.
The frustrating thing, to me, about the Bernie supporters and their soft socialism, is that the solution to their problems is not more government, but less government. More government will just mean more money and power available to the insiders for their personal use. The establishment elites who run this country are not, for the most part, in it for the people, but rather, for themselves. Giving them more power, through a bigger government, just gives them more avenues to enrich themselves. I am reminded of the photo of a bunch of protesters meeting police in riot gear. The caption is that the protesters want more government, and the police represent more government (I would say that instead of government being what we decide to do together, it is what can be done legally at the point of a gun).
I've often thought of those two groups similarly--both feel (justifiably) that they played by the accepted rules of society (invest in a house, put money into accounts for retirement, invest in education) and got burned by a financial collapse in part caused by a government and business climate that encouraged over leveraging, and they also feel (justifiably) that the future economy was getting worse for them. The anger was justified, even if most of their demands were bad policy.
The only real difference between the groups is one was co-opted by the GOP and the other was co-opted by the Dems (as well as the age difference, of course, and Occupiers were more likely to confront police).
I'd argue there were some serious differences (Tea Party wanted less government, Occupy CLEARLY didn't) and their behavior was dramatically different. The Tea Party, though, has quietly started taking over the cogs of the Republican Party bit by bit.
Wasserman Schultz: "You know, I think that the impact of the [1994] crime bill has had some important effects and some detrimental effects. And so, you know, both of our candidates voted for the crime bill."
They did, huh?
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