John Kasich To Drop Out, Leaving Trump as GOP Nominee (vox.com) 605
Multiple outlets are reporting that Ohio Gov. John Kasich plans to suspend his run to be the GOP presidential nominee. The move, if happens, would make Donald Trump the presumptive nominee for the GOP. The report comes hours after Kasich abruptly cancelled a planned press conference (could be paywalled; alternate source) in Virginia on Wednesday morning. LA Times reports: Kasich, the Ohio governor, had pledged to continue campaigning as a Trump alternative who could deny the billionaire needed delegates. But on Wednesday, he canceled a news conference in Washington and planned an announcement for later in the day in Columbus, Ohio, to drop out. Vox has more details.
Kasich dropping out meant nothing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cruz dropping out handed the race over.
Kasich could have won every delegate from Tuesday night to convention time and still would not have caught Trump. How he could have gotten any at all much less all of them, when he has no cash and won only his home state is a great question. Other than symbolically not causing a ruckus up to the convention, it means nothing to the race.
Re:Kasich dropping out meant nothing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kasich could have won every delegate from Tuesday night to convention time and still would not have caught Trump.
If that unlikely event happened, then there would have been a contested convention. So there would have been a chance of Trump not becoming nominee. Now, with all candidates gone, only Trump remains to get the remaining delegates.
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Re:Kasich dropping out meant nothing... (Score:5, Informative)
"Suspending" the campaign is the normal way people drop out.
As I understand it, it has to do with election finance laws. The money people donated wasn't given to you personally, it was given to your campaign. So if you quit the campaign completely, you lose access to the remaining donated funds. If you "suspend" your campaign, though, you still have access to any remaining funds. While technically the donated money must be spent on campaign-related causes, in practice there's a lot of discretion people have in spending the money. For example, you can "campaign" by spending money for party ads during the general election. Or use it for your Senate reelection campaign two years from now. (The interests of "Cruz for President" [in 2020] are served by the success of "Cruz for Senate", after all.)
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yeah, this, i wish i had upvotes
Re:Kasich dropping out meant nothing... (Score:5, Informative)
Right, but didn't Cruz "suspend" his campaign and not just outright quit? So technically he's out with one foot still in the race; specifically to keep Kasich in check as I understand it.
Candidates generally always "suspend" their campaign to legally keep the ability to raise money and receive any federal matching funds. If they officially dropped out, they would not be able to raise money for the office, nor receive any federal matching campaign funds. These funds can be used to pay any campaign debts, retain/pay staff (e.g., future cronies), and can be carried over for future campaigns.
As a bonus, the parties allow you to keep you delegates if a candidate doesn't officially drop out, so they get more influence on the party planks.
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I know what you mean, and you're technically right, but the only way we get a contested convention at that point is that all the delegates for people who dropped out still try to deny the race to someone who has 8 times the number of delegates that the next closest candidate has, and is pushed off by someone who, at this point, has fewer delegates than Rubio who dropped out 2 months ago.
Once Cruz dropped out the die was cast. There's no way that Kasich could soldier on and claim any kind of legitimacy. At
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It's good that Kasich stopped Cruz, the far more dangerous candidate.
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I doubt there is a whole lot of crossover between the semi-moderate Kasich (accepted Obamacare-funded expansion to Medicaid, told the more conservative state assembly in Ohio to stuff it on their "reforms" to education, tried to raise fees and taxes on oil and gas extraction in order to pay for essential services) and the ultra-conservative Cruz. Just about the only two things they are in lock-step on is abortion / defunding Planned Parenthood, and not being Trump.
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I do not disagree with you. Being a resident of Ohio, most people here do not understand the danger of Cruz. Many people I've spoken with who vote only Republican cannot stand Trump.. He's been vilified by everyone (rightly so) but Cruz has largely been ignored. I believe most Ohio voters for Kasich would have gone to Cruz. Winning Ohio delegates could have changed the momentum.
All speculation, of course. Personally, my top 3 would have been Kasich, Bush, Trump.. sadly.
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Cruz dropping out handed the race over.
Cruz dropped out because anyone with math skills knew that the race was already over; Trump will have more than half the pledged delegates no matter what Cruz and Kasich do.
Kudos for "could be paywalled" (Score:5, Interesting)
And to linking to an alternate source. Kudos to the editors.
An interesting election cycle is coming... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess the question now is whether Trump will be willing to tone down the rhetoric, make some comprehensive, real-world arguments on important stuff like foreign policy, and basically be more presidential. Also, he'll have to pick an amazing VP candidate and show himself as open to selecting people who can fill in the experience gaps he has.
Like her or hate her, Clinton was the Secretary of State. Anyone actually watching the political side of this (debates, etc.) and not voting based on stump speeches and commercials can see there's an experience gap, and I think that'll be clear in a general election debate unless Trump does some serious studying between now and then.
All in all, a fun political season is coming. You've got the establishment that wants things as-is, angry workers who have no jobs because they've been offshored, outsourced or automated, angry conservatives who want smaller government, and angry liberals from the Sanders camp who want more. Personally, I'd be amazed if Trump could pull off a trade war with the rest of the world. Coming from the Rust Belt, it would be great to see factories running 3 shifts of thousands of workers again, but I doubt that can be pulled off.
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Trump's problems are obvious at this point. If he tones down the rhetoric, starts talking like someone seriously interested in the White House, he risks undermining what has been his core constituencies to this point. It's a catch-22, because if he can't convince enough people he was just foolin' around a little bit, and isn't as absurd as he played up at being, and yet still starts to lose support in his base, then his chances of winning go from rather low to all but impossible.
Re:An interesting election cycle is coming... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah, Trump will pivot towards the center so fast his hair will leave an afterimage, like the Picard Maneuver. Not only will nobody care (because the cult of personality has taken over at this point), even if they did care, what are they gonna do -- vote for Hillary instead?!
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even if they did care, what are they gonna do -- vote for Hillary instead?!
Exactly this! Trump knows now he can just middle finger all the folks that bought the outlandish act. He's now the GOP guy and there's nothing that can be done about it. The guy is so all over the place I wouldn't put it past him to just start saying crap like, "Oh, wal!l? Nah, that's just a good idea but we're not really going to do that." In this guy's mind all those promises made are gone since that phase of the election is over, then only thing he needs to do is promise his way to a Clinton defeat,
Re:An interesting election cycle is coming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump has never served in the armed forces or in any sort of elected capacity. He seems to think government consists of two people at a table dealmaking all day. He'll be very surprised how the world works if elected (that last part made me shudder)
Hillary was also a Senator. She was not just appointed, but ran an election and ran an office.
Even China is shrinking their manufacturing worker rolls. Anyone that wants to use manufacturing jobs as a step to a great economy is delusional at this point. The jobs were great, and it's a great idea, if the world would just comply and shift back to the 1970s. You're seeking a rise to greatness for buggy whips and horse collar manufacturers.
Re:An interesting election cycle is coming... (Score:5, Informative)
She didn't serve a full term as a senator
False, she was elected in 2000 and reelected in 2006.
You are confusing Hillary with Sarah Palin, who didn't serve a full term as governor, which is why you refused to vote for Palin, right?
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Or go the opposite route.
Imagine their first debate. Clinton makes a statement. Trump's rebuttal is that he pulls some pages out of his pocket and starts reading, what he claims, is one of her speeches to Wall Street.
It wouldn't even matter if it was real or something his people found on the Internet. Alt
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Like her or hate her, Clinton was the Secretary of State.
So? If her tenure there is characterized by a string of terrible mis-steps, embarrassments and deaths, and her demonstrably lying about them even as she also deletes half of her official records while illegally running all her official correspondence through a home computer and turning none of it over to State's archivists as she left office, as required ... is her tenure in that office supposed to be an example of "experience" that makes her a better candidate for an even more sensitive job?
One step closer (Score:2)
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Who Said It: Presidential Hopeful Donald Trump or ‘Idiocracy’ President Camacho? [flavorwire.com]
This is the state we're in (Score:5, Interesting)
He and Bernie Sanders are the only ones even CLAIMING they'll take on H1-B's, outsourcing, and big business. Is it likely that Trump will actually follow through with this? Nope. Is it likely that he's going to represent the same interests of his rich business friends just like ever other politician? Yep.
But is there any other choice that's even POSSIBLY going to stand up for the little guy? Not on the Republican side.
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"He and Bernie Sanders are the only ones even CLAIMING they'll take on H1-B's, outsourcing, and big business. Is it likely that Trump will actually follow through with this? Nope. Is it likely that he's going to represent the same interests of his rich business friends just like ever other politician? Yep."
H-1B is one of those things policy makers can't seem to wrap their heads around. Businesses are funneling tons of lobbying resources basically begging Congress to let them import as many workers as they w
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I'ts not H1B, its not outsourcing, it's not even globalization. It's capitalism
The secret about capitalism that people don't think about - it REQUIRES growth. As people/companies engage in "creative destruction" something must be built to compensate. But what if the economy isn't growing? what if it's just satiated? You still have the destruction, and you still have the cost-cutting. Do you want to have your cost cutting as H1Bs? Or as prison labor? or as call centers in India? it's all just symptoms
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I'ts not H1B, its not outsourcing, it's not even globalization. It's capitalism
No. It's a failed response to globalization. We'll see this in your next paragraph.
The secret about capitalism that people don't think about - it REQUIRES growth. As people/companies engage in "creative destruction" something must be built to compensate. But what if the economy isn't growing? what if it's just satiated? You still have the destruction, and you still have the cost-cutting. Do you want to have your cost cutting as H1Bs? Or as prison labor? or as call centers in India? it's all just symptoms of the same root need.
While it isn't true that capitalism requires growth, let's consider the problem at face value. You imply that there isn't growth and hence, capitalism is the problem. But why isn't there growth? "it's just satiated".
But do we have satiation? Is every need of humanity being met? Are we living as long and as healthy as we want to? Do we have all the stuff we want? Do we have the opportunities or the society we want? No, we d
Help us Obi Wan Sanders (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad his chances at this point aren't much bigger than a womp rat.
Scary shit (Score:5, Insightful)
ANATOMY OF FASCISM - Robert Paxton
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."
The Five Stages of Fascism
1) Intellectual exploration, where disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor
2) Rooting, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
3) Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite the movement to share power
4) Exercise of power, where the movement and its charismatic leader control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates.
5) Radicalization or entropy, where the state either becomes increasingly radical, as did Nazi Germany, or slips into traditional authoritarian rule, as did Fascist Italy.
You can read the full thing here
https://libcom.org/files/Rober... [libcom.org]
Re: Scary shit (Score:4, Insightful)
You say many dumb things, but this really takes the biscuit: "Just because Trump wants to revive some of the American pride, that doesn't make him a facist"
No-one thinks that what makes Trump a fascist is that he wants to revive some of the American pride. They think he's a fascist because he wants to do to Muslims and Mexicans what Austrian fascists did to my grandma: put her on a national register because of her religion and deport her from the country as undesirable. And plenty of fuckwits thought that was just great when it happened in the 30s and plenty more fuckwits think it's great Trump is suggesting doing it now.
Life imitates Art (Score:3)
Theory (Score:2)
This just supports the theory Kasich was in it only to suck off some points from the other candidates like Cruz, in exchange for a vp position from Trump. All the Rubio-Kasich deal was BS all along.
Running mate (Score:3)
I just hope Trump doesn't now announce Cruz or Fiorina as his running mate.
So, the last sane GOP candidate has left the room (Score:3)
Agree - and I don't know how they get out of this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. But also entirely predictable - look at how things have turned out for recent, more typical GOP candidates. McCain and Romney were exactly the sorts of candidates we might expect the GOP to field, and they ended up not only losing, but being demonized by their own party. If you were the a reasonable, conservative leaning guy with some relevant experience - the next McCain or Romney - why would you step up right now? 2/3rds of your own party hates you because you won't accept all of their conservative purity vows - and you're still too far right to have any hope in a general.
So of course they aren't getting good candidates.
Trump/Sanders 2016? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is crazy I know, but would you put it past Trump?
what's worse (Score:4, Insightful)
not voting for trump and getting hillary, or voting for trump and getting trump?
Plurality voting got us here, Condorcet would fix (Score:5, Insightful)
We've known since at least the 1700s that first-past-the-post plurality voting is a totally broken system. It's irresponsible to conduct any election with more than two alternatives in this fashion.
In many places, especially early in the election cycle, Trump would have lost any single head-to-head matchup. But his opponents were always split, and plurality voting is tremendously vulnerable to this kind of problem.
Process matters. If our elections were conducted using a Condorcet method [wikipedia.org] like Ranked Pairs, Maximum Majority, or Schulze, we would have had less irrationality and extremism from both parties throughout the years, and the existing parties would not have become so entrenched.
Here's a popular-audience explanation by a couple of Nobel winners [nyti.ms].
How not to play Prisoner's Dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
If one of them had decided to drop out much earlier the other one might have been able to stop Trump from getting enough votes to lock in the nomination and steal it away from him at the convention. (This makes it slightly different from regular Prisoner's Dilemma in that cooperating involves the two players choosing different actions.) Given that going by the number of delegates the one who probably should have dropped out early was Kasich, it's kind of pathetic that he drug his heels long enough to quit _right_ after Cruz. Good job you two! Your arrogant electoral mutual suicide pact has all but guaranteed a Trump nomination!
(I wonder if there were any backroom negotiations going on to try and convince Kasich to drop out in exchange for a vice presidential slot? That's not something that's usually done but this was a pretty unusual case.)
It's the beginning... (Score:5, Funny)
The Beginning Of The End.
I'm going to make a comment and my comment will be so great, unlike those other comments which are awful. When you see my comment you'll know how great it is, it'll be so great that you'll actually get tired of how great it is. And my comment will win. It'll win and win and win. It'll win so much you'll get tired of it winning, that's how much it'll win and how great it will be. And no one else will have comments as great as my, I guarantee it, there is no problem with my comments, everyone knows that and they agree that my comments are great. I'll build a wall around my comments and I'll make Slashdot pay for it, you'll see. And it'll be a great comment, a beautiful comment, a comment like no other comment before it. And there will be a Reply button in my comment, a big, beautiful Reply button. And those who want to reply can do so after they've been vetted. Nobody builds Reply buttons like me. Trust me, my comment will be great and it will win.
Bernard or Bernie? (Score:3)
My only question is, should I write in "Bernard Sanders" or "Bernie Sanders" on my ballot?
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Provided the DoJ doesn't indict her for mishandling of classified information.
*fingers crossed*
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Provided the DoJ doesn't indict her for mishandling of classified information.
Don't count on it. These manufactured scandals never go anywhere.
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I agree with don't count on it.
But the only person who "manufactured" this scandal is one Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The reason that she isn't being indicted isn't because she's some innocent little angel, but because she has the leverage over the current administration and the so-called "independent" attorney general has given her a get-out-of-indictment free card.
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I agree with don't count on it.
But the only person who "manufactured" this scandal is one Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The reason that she isn't being indicted isn't because she's some innocent little angel, but because she has the leverage over the current administration and the so-called "independent" attorney general has given her a get-out-of-indictment free card.
In addition, government officials form both parties have used private email addresses as well, so there is no upside for either side to drag this into court.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
Email addresses on servers they did not control. The difference, which people like yourself want to minimize is that it was HER server (not AOL, Not Hotmail, not Yahoo!, and not Google. It was her private email server. And it was clearly designed to get around the Open Records requirements that were passed because of Republican versions of private email addresses that happened previously.
And, you're functionally saying "Two wrongs make it okay", rather than addressing the real concerns.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Funny)
Man, y'all been trying to pin some nefarious shit on her since she was back in Little Rock, and all it's ever done is make you look silly. You've bounced around from Whitewater to the assassination of Vince Foster right up to Benghazi and now ServerGate. There have been more congressional investigations into Hillary Clinton than any human being in history. I mean, seventy-two weeks worth of investigations into Benghazi alone, with millions flushed down the crapper. All to prove...nothing.
Now I have no interest in seeing Hillary Clinton become president, but got damn she's made your ilk look like Wile E Coyote falling off a cliff onto a wood chipper for decades now. You might want to think about getting a hobby.
Donald Trump is going to crush Hilary (Score:3, Insightful)
This race is about truth vs. the oligarchy and its lies.
Re:Donald Trump is going to crush Hilary (Score:5, Insightful)
The party collapsed around him. Donald Trump is like a polar bear on an ice floe that's been set adrift.
Look man, you want the truth? Donald won't be president. I don't really have anything against him. He's a little bit like an uncle of mine. A sweet guy with some issues, but always entertaining at Thanksgiving. Wears a little too much cologne, jewelry and dates a Russian girl the same age as his daughter. I dig the whole scene, you know? Calls black people "schvoogies" and always has an extra cuban cigar for me. I was 40 before he stopped slipping me a C-note when he saw me, "to take out my girl someplace nice" (even though I'd been married for years). Moved to Las Vegas and is now working on his short game and a case of skin cancer.
But Donald Trump won't be president. Forget what's been said. And the only ones who have been predicting Trump's demise have been other Republicans, and they've never really been the brightest bulbs. They're the same people who predicted Romney would win in a landslide. Democrats have been expecting Trump to win all along, because that's how bad the GOP has become. No Democrat or Leftist is surprised that the GOP voters rejected constitutional conservatism and voted for the reality TV guy. You look like a big man when everyone around you has fallen, you know?
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Reminds me of a jury panel I was on. We were all convinced the defendant was not guilty, except for one juror. He said "maybe he's technically not guilty of this crime, but he's probably guilty of something!"
And so there are tons of people out there that feel because Hillary has been accused of so many things that one of them at least has to be true.
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False, so much so that only people still making that claim are either members of the Clinton campaign or it's most braindead supporters.
Sounds almost like something we've (falsely) heard from Hillary herse
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
government officials form both parties have used private email addresses
But have they deliberately and willfully had markings stripped from classified information and transmitted it over public networks?
there is no upside for either side to drag this into court
So you're saying it's only illegal if you or I do it, but if you're high enough in the government it suddenly becomes legal?
Good to know.
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there is no upside for either side to drag this into court
So you're saying it's only illegal if you or I do it, but if you're high enough in the government it suddenly becomes legal?
Good to know.
No, just that both political parties will make a cold calculated political decision on the benefits independent of the legality or illegality of the act. Right or wrong ha nothing to do with it, it's about winning and losing.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition, government officials form both parties have used private email addresses as well
There is no comparison. Nobody at her level of authority (fourth in line to the presidency, the nation's top diplomat, someone who handled highly classified material as a regular part of her job) has previously completely skipped using secure email services for official business, electing instead to handle ALL of her official email through a personal account served up on a computer in her residential home. Really, try to find another example of that. Then take into account the fact that inspectors general from multiple intelligence agencies have said that she trafficked in classified (even way-above-top-secret) material on her unsecured home computer ... and never turned over ANY of it as she left office, as required to. And when hounded by FOIA requests and subpoenas - which she dragged out for YEARS - she deleted tens of thousands of those messages before grudgingly handing over some of it as printed-out hardcopies stripped of all header information.
Cite another top government official who has even approached that level of deliberately hiding ALL OF THEIR OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE from scrutiny.
there is no upside for either side to drag this into court.
Sure there is. People who worked under her were subject to losing their careers and even their liberty for doing FAR less than she did. The "upside" to indicting her is to demonstrate that despite the long history of her and her husband's abuses of power, she's not above the law.
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Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't understand. A pardon is irrelevant for the campaign. It could even be worse than an indictment. It's not about whether she goes to jail or not, it's whether she can get elected with her credibility broken by an indictment which would then have been nullified by a pardon, without answering the actual charge.
And it would prove the charge that she will have gotten away with something that nobody who worked for her could have gotten away with, just because she is who she is. A pardon would be as close to political suicide as she could get without actually going to jail.
Pardons (Score:5, Informative)
You don't seem to know how pardons work. She doesn't have to plead guilty; Nixon for example was pardoned without ever having been charged. Accepting a pardon, however, is an admission of guilt. [wikipedia.org] There would be no faster way to lose an election. Republicans would be calling for her head on a plate before the ink on the signature dried.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Interesting)
She won't need a pardon.
The office that has the final decision on what state department information is or is not classified is the secretary of state who, at the time, was Hillary Rodham Clinton. I know this almost sounds like Nixon's reasoning 'If the President does it, it's not illegal', but not quite.
As long as Hillary didn't send anything that could be truly treasonous (like sending terrorists secret pass codes to sneak into government facilities and blow them up), she can just declare that the information in her emails was not classified at the time she sent it, and 'poof' it's not classified. Since the executive branch has consolidated so much power to itself and its cabinets throughout the 20th and 21st century, there is not really much that congress can do about this except whine and pout.
The only solution is for we, the people, to re-allign the power balance between the branches by electing congressmen and senators who will do their jobs and lead the country. The houses of congress should be our governmental leadership. The president should really be considered more like the head butler, the chief public servant.
We have made our presidents into de facto kings, when we should be treating them as hired help. Respect them, treat them well, but remember that they work for us.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Interesting)
She could classify or declassify information that was initialized by the State Department but that's not what this whole mess is about.
There are relatively few State Dept. emails that the IGs sited as being a problem, there are however several dozens, if not hundreds, of emails from outside intelligence agencies as well as foreign governments which have been identified as being classified at various levels. As SoS she had no authority to modify the classifications of those emails.
The State Dept. itself has spent the last couple of years begging other agencies to change the classifications of data contained in her emails and not because they believed it was truly non-classified but purely out of a need to ass cover (both hers and theirs). It's the same reason they've been brought to task repeatedly by federal judges for dragging their feet and making blatantly false statements about how some data is irretrievable (which they later found could be retrieved by simply looking for it) or they simply don't have the ability to do something by court mandated deadlines (while at the same time doing complete reviews of former SoS emails in their 'spare' time).
It's the IRS all over again. "We lost all of Lois Lerner's emails and can't possibly retrieve them!!" Meanwhile years later it turns out they were just sitting on the back up server, exactly where they should be just no one bothered to look.
what if no one get's 270? (Score:2)
what if no one get's 270?
Re:what if no one get's 270? (Score:5, Interesting)
what if no one get's 270?
That's an extremely unlikely scenario based on the 2016 electoral map, which is identical to 2012 and 2008. Hillary needs 28 electoral votes to win. Trump will need 168 electoral votes to win.
And here's the underlying math. If Clinton wins the 19 states (and D.C.) that every Democratic nominee has won from 1992 to 2012, she has 242 electoral votes. Add Florida's 29 and you get 271. Game over.
The Republican map — whether with Trump, Cruz or the ideal Republican nominee (Paul Ryan?) as the standard-bearer — is decidedly less friendly. There are 13 states that have gone for the GOP presidential nominee in each of the last six elections. But they only total 102 electorate votes. That means the eventual nominee has to find, at least, 168 more electoral votes to get to 270. Which is a hell of a lot harder than finding 28 electoral votes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/02/republicans-have-a-massive-electoral-map-problem-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-donald-trump/ [washingtonpost.com]
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Does your underlying math say that a large percentage of young and old Bernie supporters have continually said they hate Hillary and will stay home or vote for Trump??
Nope. I'm expecting Republican voters to stay home if their favorite candidate isn't in running. Democratic voters will come out in droves as they always do during a presidential year.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
But they're not going to do anything to Hillary. Not because she's not guilty or there isn't a case to be made, but because having that on her gives them control over her. She's just a puppet for the wealthy and powerful.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
But they're not going to do anything to Hillary. Not because she's not guilty or there isn't a case to be made, but because having that on her gives them control over her. She's just a puppet for the wealthy and powerful.
Probably more because if they indicted everyone who ever mishandled classified information they'd put most of the govt and lots of private contractors in jail. They only indict when someone either:
* Tries to give classified data to someone they shouldn't
* Mishandles data so badly that someone else gets it
Clinton did neither. And this is all beside the point that most of the "classified data" was classified after it went through her server, or was classified by the State Dept so the Secretary of State can tell anyone she wants.
I'm always amazed how many people fall for the manufactured Clinton scandals from the right. "Oh, a Clinton is accused of something terrible. The last 10 turned out to be faked or overblown, but sure, I'll panic over this one too, because the right-wing is known for careful application of facts and logic!" Don't fall for these, please, or the next eight years will be terribly stressful for you.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
Her lawyer had a copy of the emails on a thumb drive, and I don't seem to recall hearing news that he was cleared to have access to the emails.
It continues to amaze me that people keep repeating this easily proven false talking point. The date/time something is stamped 'classified' is irrelevant! Plenty of content was 'born' classified or so obvious that it was regardless of marking. Should we also ignore her asking a subordinate to strip the classified header from a document for sending?
There were things so sensitive in her email that the DoJ Inspector General investigating initially lacked a high enough clearance to read some of the content.
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The constitution has this little clause called ex post facto. Look it up.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
Her lawyer had a copy of the emails on a thumb drive, and I don't seem to recall hearing news that he was cleared to have access to the emails.
If I understand you correctly, the most clearly illegal thing she did was to give a backup copy of stuff to her lawyer. My god, she's worse than Aldrich Ames and Benedict Arnold combined!!!!!!!
This would be why non-idealogues don't take this case seriously. People who intentionally leak the names of current spies to enemy countries are traitors and should be heavily punished. People who give a thumb drive full of 2 year old schedules of no-longer-secret diplomatic trips to their lawyer should probably not be treated the same way.
It continues to amaze me that people keep repeating this easily proven false talking point. The date/time something is stamped 'classified' is irrelevant!
So by your logic, Obama can decide that something Trump tweeted last week is classified, so clearly Trump should be put in jail. Sigh.
There are so many valid reasons to dislike Hillary; why do you have to make shit up to hate her? I rather dislike Paul Ryan, but to convince you that he is bad I don't concoct elaborate treason fantasies. I may point out the elaborate fantasies he puts into his budgets, but I don't claim he is secretly trying to destroy America.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
Not being a lawyer I'm not going to go into which offenses committed by her is the 'most clearly illegal', but it does represent another consciously negligent act for which she can be charged.
Your attempts at mockery say otherwise.
Don't you ever get tired of "But... Bush!!!" ?
Except there was a whole bunch of classified info in there, which is why the FBI came asking for the thumb drive later and why so many emails released have had some level of redaction.
That's a mighty big stretch, doubly so when Trump hasn't been authorized to receive classified information.
Exactly what have I made up?
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Provided the DoJ doesn't indict her for mishandling of classified information.
Or the grander charges of "Pay to play" with the Clinton Foundation, which basically is criminal political corruption of the highest kind.
That, and there is a certain class of (D) voters who would vote for mass murdering puppy/kitten killer, just as long as s/he had a (D) after their name. I estimate that to be around 35% of the D voters. I don't put it past the DNC and their sycophant supporters to do anything but circle the wagons around Clinton once that bomb drop, and the big guns in the press go full t
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You're just might be retarded. That's okay, I'll try to help you out - again. He's been a politician ON THE NATIONAL STAGE for ages. To call him a newbie is downright stupid. As for politics, well... I hate to pull the authority card but I'm willing to bet that I not only know far more than you but I'm far more involved than you - more so considering that I'm running, as in officially running and having turned in the required number of signatures, for an elected office at the State level.
In fact, you're rea
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Interesting)
Im a liberal/progressive/whateverTheyCallMeThisWeek. Im reluctantly supporting Hillary. Bernie "wins" only if he denies certain Democratic voters as illegitimate. The fact that the groups he needs to deny tend to be black should make you cringe a bit. Besides, his platform is too unclear, and depends on "and then a miracle happens" a bit too much (yeah, i'll get flamed for all that, but it's my opinion). Hillary doesn't promise the moon, but she's more likely to get her agenda done.
But Trump - no one really figured he'd get here. Im a bit wary. What people haven't realized up to now is it's not about Trump it's about the voters. The fact that we have a large number of people voting for Trump with no experience and no real plan (I bet Trump would hire a dude off the street with no experience but yuuuge hair for CEO in a second) just because of anger. It's making me rethink our electorate. Could he win? I thought there's no chance he'd be here. I thought that once we got away from Trump and the 16 dwarves where Trump dominated the headlines we'd back away from Trump. But no, he was strengthened once he got close. I really wonder.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In what way is bernie sanders denying black voters as illegitimate? I'm not even quite sure what that means.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Informative)
no, what he said was that the states Hillary won were primarily red states that she (and he) would not win in the general election. I think you need to work on your comprehension a bit
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
It would be hard to levy charges when there were two separate oversight processes, one in State one in the White House, based on an explicit memorandum specifying the ethical rubric to which Clinton signed.
If only she thinks it's okay, that's questionable, but not evidence of wrongdoing. If she thinks it's okay and an appointed overseer thinks it's okay, that's covered. If she thinks it's okay and an appointed overseer thinks it's okay and a second appointed overseer also thinks it's okay, that's responsible management of conflicts of interest.
I bet you read an article in International Business Times. Go read it again and pay attention to the part where they talked about these multiple layers of oversight.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to keep taking these claims seriously when panel after panel of people who REALLY want to hang Hillary for the slightest infraction can't find a single thing to even complain about.
I have a lot of problems with the Clintons, but the constant witch hunt is just crazy.
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I think what you meant is that they would rather vote for a candidate that is apt to destroy the country rather than get over irrational hatred they've harboured since Bill was in office. You can hate all you want, but rationally it's hard to call Hillary anything other than a Status Quo candidate. The going really isn't that hard for the political and corporate elite right now.
I have no doubt that the "we just want to watch the world burn" contingent has a candidate, and his name is Trump.
The wise words of Harry S. Truman (Score:4, Insightful)
"He'll sit here, and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Donald - it won't be a bit like his corporation. He'll find it very frustrating."
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I'd prefer Trump get elected for the sole reason that the House and Senate might finally start to put the brakes on the imperial Presidency that has been in effect for far too long (through both D and R administrations).
I'm not too worried about the big stuff because almost every plan of Trumps has no real basis in reality so would never be able to get the backing of real legislators. The big problem is with all the little stuff the legislative branch has pretty much just conceded to the Executive. All th
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
Hillary is a terrible candidate. She just lost another primary state. Bernie supporters hate her and after the DNC finally squeezes him out they'll hate her even more.
The thing about Trump is that your conventional wisdom doesn't work. He fights. He uses the ammo provided and makes more. And there is a huge supply of ammo to use against Hillary. By November "Crooked Hillary" will be a meme your children will know. Every turd the Clintons have ever made will be top-of-mind with every voter in the US. Bernie tried to expose her over the transcripts. Trump will pummel her daily for that, the email crimes, Bengazi, cattlegate, NAFTA, gender pandering, her establishment donors, the Clinton Foundation foreign slush fund and every other slimy aspect of her history and campaign, and he will make it stick. This is the guy that made Obama cough up a birth certificate.
Every coughing fit punctuated campaign event Clinton choreographs will see Trump fill three stadiums with rabid supporters. By November Hillary will be a quivering mass of regret.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
Some don't, but others do. As someone who supports Sanders because of the anti-Wall-Street, anti-corruption, and anti-DC-establishment facets of his platform, Hillary has nothing to offer me (except in cases where she's flip-flopped in response to Sanders, such as for the TPP -- but I don't believe for a second that she'll remain opposed to the TPP after the election).
I don't think I could vote for Trump, but going for Jill Stein (or maybe even the Libertarian candidate), or writing in Sanders, is a distinct possibility.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
Hillary is a terrible candidate. She just lost another primary state. Bernie supporters hate her and after the DNC finally squeezes him out they'll hate her even more.
The thing about Trump is that your conventional wisdom doesn't work. He fights. He uses the ammo provided and makes more. And there is a huge supply of ammo to use against Hillary. By November "Crooked Hillary" will be a meme your children will know. Every turd the Clintons have ever made will be top-of-mind with every voter in the US. Bernie tried to expose her over the transcripts. Trump will pummel her daily for that, the email crimes, Bengazi, cattlegate, NAFTA, gender pandering, her establishment donors, the Clinton Foundation foreign slush fund and every other slimy aspect of her history and campaign, and he will make it stick. This is the guy that made Obama cough up a birth certificate.
Every coughing fit punctuated campaign event Clinton choreographs will see Trump fill three stadiums with rabid supporters. By November Hillary will be a quivering mass of regret.
The thing is that Trump needs more than "three stadiums" worth of supporters, he needs half the electorate.
Trump was invulnerable to primary attacks for the same reason as Sanders, he represented the base.
Clinton couldn't attack Sanders on policy because she'd have to attack from the right, that's one of the reasons why Sanders sailed through the primary so unscathed.
Trump had the same benefit. While he differed on policy the Republican party is built on identity more than policy. Republican's could attack Trump where he was vulnerable because that would involve making arguments in favour of equality and against crony capitalism, attacks that come from the left.
Come to the general election and the Democrats are capable of hitting Trump where it hurts, it won't hurt his base, but he's going to have a lot of trouble with everyone else.
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"Every coughing fit punctuated campaign event Clinton choreographs will see Trump fill three stadiums with rabid supporters. By November Hillary will be a quivering mass of regret."
You might be right, but it'll never matter because no matter what he does to Hillary's reputation, the damage he's done to his own reputation amongst a majority of voters (females, latinos, muslims etc.) is worse than anything he can do to Hillary.
It doesn't matter how corrupt Hillary looks, an extremely corrupt and damaged Hilla
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I still think she will eeek out a win but you do know that she is polling 2 points behind Trump nationally right?
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polls can't always be right. They have margin of errors. A single poll doesn't mean much.
Re:And the election was handed to Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
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This site always has been partly about US-american politics.
Re:Simple question (Score:4)
How is this news for nerds, stuff that matters?
Oh, maybe because Trump is a conservative populist who would think it a good idea to ban strong encryption, abolish net neutrality, increase the surveillance powers of the security services, ... the list goes on. I'm also pretty sure that a large portion of the US ner community is either hispanic, female or both and we all know what Trump's opinion is of people belonging to those groups.
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Oh, maybe because Trump is a conservative populist who would think it a good idea to ban strong encryption, abolish net neutrality, increase the surveillance powers of the security services
And you think Clinton is any different? You're not paying attention.
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Re: Simple question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simple question (Score:4, Informative)
How is this news for nerds, stuff that matters?
Short answer: It isn't.
Whipslash, et. al, I like a lot of what you've done with the site since you took over, but can we please have less political news that is not directly connected to technology? If I wanted political discussions, I'd go elsewhere. I come to /. for "news for nerds," and too much that isn't tech news is highly likely to drive away readers.
I second those who don't want to see /. go any further toward being a Reddit clone.
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Political discourse is something that nerds need to pay attention to, and it's something that matters.
I come to slashdot for the fact that it does have relevant news that isn't entirely technology based, all the time.
Re:Simple question (Score:4)
How is this news for nerds, stuff that matters?
Try answering these questions:
Is news for nerds? Yes/No.
Is it stuff that matters? Yes/No.
If you get one or more yes's then the condition is satisfied.
Re:Simple question (Score:4, Insightful)
So...the condition is not satisfied then.
It's definitely not news for nerds. Is it stuff that matters? I think that depends up on whether or not you believe there is any real difference in the candidates. Politics is theater for the masses. Its meant to keep us divided over petty, stupid, and unimportant things; while everything that is not accurately described that way is settled behind closed doors. As a registered voter for the last 25+ years, and someone who makes less than $5 million/year, I have yet to see a presidential nominee I felt really represented my interests.
So it definitely doesn't matter to me anyway. Of course, you may feel differently. But to that point I would argue that many, many things do matter. Slashdot cannot be the forum for all of them. I think Slashdot's greatest strength is the community of people working in the fields of science and technology that bring their opinion to bear on those same subjects.
Every asshole on the planet has an opinion on politics (including this asshole), and they are generally not working in the field of politics, so that opinion actually means very little.
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The Republican party hates, hates, hates Hillary Clinton with a passion to the point that you'd think she was a black Muslim illegal immigrant performing abortions with the guns she just got done taking away from everyone. Some Republicans might not like Trump (or whatever other candidate might have been the nominee) but they will still show up to vote against Hillary because the
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Can Don still pick Hillary as his running mate?
No. The P and the VP cannot be from the same state. They are both New Yorkers.
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That would be awesome but she is so power-crazy she wouldn't ever let go, even if she had less votes than Kaisch had.
Re:Trump most "Uncle Sam" like of the contenders (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, picture the old Uncle Sam character — wearing tall head, the blue jacket and striped pants. Now try to imagine other contenders — from both major parties — in the outfit.
Trump is the only one, who can possibly fit.
So...Trump is a fictional caricature whose sole purpose is to appeal to people on an emotional level to earn their support and get money from them?
*Looks at Trump's campaign to date*
Yep, sounds about right actually