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First off, Greg, Vern and Ricardo all agree that you should read this letter from Flint’s most famous native son:
“Do Not Send Us Bottles Of Water. Instead, Join Us In A Revolt.”
A Letter From Michael Moore
Many of you have contacted me wanting to know how you can help the people of Flint with the two-year long tragedy of drinking water contaminated by the radical decisions made by the Governor of Michigan. The offer is much appreciated by those who are suffering through this and who have not drank a glass of unpoisoned water since April of 2014.
Unfortunately, the honest answer to your offer of help is, sadly, you can’t.
You can’t help.
The reason you can’t help is that you cannot reverse the irreversible brain damage that has been inflicted upon every single child in Flint. The damage is permanent. There is no medicine you can send, no doctor or scientist who has any way to undo the harm done to thousands of babies, toddlers and children (not to mention their parents). They are ruined for life, and someone needs to tell you the truth about that. They will, forever, suffer from various neurological impediments, their IQs will be lowered by at least 20 points, they will not do as well in school and, by the time they reach adolescence, they will exhibit various behavioral problems that will land a number of them in trouble, and some of them in jail.
That is what we know about the history of lead poisoning when you inflict it upon a child. It is a life sentence. In Flint, they’ve already ingested it for these two years, and the toll has already been taken on their developing brains. No check you write, no truckloads of Fiji Water or Poland Spring, will bring their innocence or their health back to normal. It’s done. And it was done knowingly, enacted by a political decision from a Governor and a political party charged by the majority of Michigan’s citizens who elected them to cut taxes for the rich, take over majority-black cities by replacing the elected mayors and city councils, cut costs, cut services, cut more taxes for the rich, increase taxes on retired teachers and public employees and, ultimately, try to decimate their one line of defense against all this, this thing we used to call a union
The amount of generosity since the national media finally started to cover this story has been tremendous. Pearl Jam sent 100,000 bottles of water. The next day the Detroit Lions showed up with a truck and 100,000 bottles of water. Yesterday, Puff Daddy and Mark Wahlberg donated 1,000,000 bottles of water! Unbelievably amazing. They acknowledged it’s a very short-term fix, and that it is. Flint has 102,000 residents, each in need of an average of 50 gallons of water a day for cooking, bathing, washing clothes, doing the dishes, and drinking (I’m not counting toilet flushes, watering plants or washing the car). But 100,000 bottles of water is enough for just one bottle per person – in other words, just enough to cover brushing one’s teeth for one day. You would have to send 200 bottles a day, per person, to cover what the average American (we are Americans in Flint) needs each day. That’s 102,000 citizens times 200 bottles of water – which equals 20.4 million 16oz. bottles of water per day, every day, for the next year or two until this problem is fixed (oh, and we’ll need to find a landfill in Flint big enough for all those hundreds of millions of plastic water bottles, thus degrading the local environment even further). Anybody want to pony up for that? Because THAT is the reality.
This is a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. There is not a terrorist organization on Earth that has yet to figure out how to poison 100,000 people every day for two years – and get away with it. That took a Governor who subscribes to an American political ideology hell-bent on widening the income inequality gap and conducting various versions of voter and electoral suppression against people of color and the poor. It was those actions that led Michigan’s Republican Governor to try out his economic and racial experiment in Flint (and please don’t tell me this has nothing to do with race or class; he has removed the mayors of a number of black cities. This, and the water crisis in Flint, never would have been visited upon the residents of Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Pointe — and everyone here knows that). We have now seen the ultimate disastrous consequences of late-20th century, neo-conservative, trickle down public policy. That word “trickle,” a water-based metaphor, was used to justify this economic theory — well, it’s no longer a metaphor, is it? Because now we’re talking about how actual water has been used to institute these twisted economic beliefs in destroying the lives of the black and the poor in Flint, Michigan.
So, do you still want to help? Really help? Because what we need in Flint – and across the country – right now, tonight, is a nonviolent army of people who are willing to stand up for this nation, and go to bat for the forgotten of Flint.
Here’s what you and I need to do:
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Demand the removal and arrest of Rick Snyder, the Governor of Michigan. When the police have an “active shooter” situation in a building, they must first stop the shooter before they can bring aid to the victims. The perp who allowed the poisoning to continue once he knew something was wrong — and his minions who cooked the evidence so the public and the feds wouldn’t find out – must be removed from office ASAP. Whether it’s via resignation, recall or prosecution, this must happen now because he is still refusing to take the aggressive and immediate action needed. His office, as recently as this past Thursday, was claiming the EPA had no legal authority to tell him what to do. You know the EPA — that federal agency every Republican politician wants eliminated? Governor Snyder is not going to obey the law. He has covered up the crime, and I submit he has committed an act of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. Last month I posted a meme of me holding a pair of handcuffs with the hashtag #ArrestGovSnyder:
It went viral, so I posted a petition (link) to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking her to arrest the Governor – and asking President Obama to send help to Flint immediately. As each day brought a new revelation of the Governor’s corruption or incompetence, and with Rachel Maddow on a nightly tear, the momentum built. MoveOn.org and Democracy For America joined me in circulating our petition. We are now on our way to having a half-million signatures! Then Bernie Sanders became the first candidate to call for the Governor’s removal. That same day, President Obama issued his first emergency order for Flint. The next night, Hillary Clinton fiercely called out the racist actions of the Governor.
You want to help? Sign the petition – and get everyone you know to sign it. Now. Another half-million signatures could become the tipping point we need. All eyes are on Flint.
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Make the State of Michigan pay for the disaster that the State of Michigan created. The Governor wants the President to declare Flint a federal disaster zone and have him send federal money to fix the problem. Not so fast. All relief aid for Flint currently coming from the federal government to Michigan is going through the Governor’s office to disburse. That is literally paying the fox to fix the chicken coop he destroyed. As a Michigan resident and voter, I think that the people who elected Governor Snyder must show some of that personal responsibility they’re always lecturing about to the poor. The majority of my fellow Michiganders wanted this kind of government (they elected him twice), so now they should have to pay for it. This year the state treasury posted nearly a $600 million surplus. There is also another $600 million in the state’s “rainy day fund”. That’s $1.2 billion – just about what Flint’s congressman, Dan Kildee, estimates it will cost to replace the water infrastructure and care for the thousands of poisoned children throughout their growing years.
And before there is any talk of federal tax dollars being used (and, yes, they will be needed), the state legislature must remove the billion-dollars’ worth of tax cuts the Snyder administration gave the wealthy when he took office. That will go a long way to helping not just Flint but Michigan’s other destitute cities and school districts.
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The Federal Government must then be placed in charge. The State government cannot be trusted to get this right. So, instead of declaring a federal disaster zone, President Obama must declare the same version of martial law that Governor Snyder declared over the cities of Flint and Detroit. He must step in and appoint a federal emergency manager in the state capitol to direct the resources of both the state and federal government in saving Flint. This means immediately sending in FEMA in full force. It means sending in the CDC to determine the true extent of not just the lead poisoning in the water, but also the latest outbreak that has been discovered in Flint – a tenfold increase in the number of Flint people who’ve contracted Legionnaires Disease. There have now been 87 cases since the switch to the Flint River water, and ten people have died. The local hospital has also noted sharp increases in a half-dozen other toxins found in people’s bodies. We need the CDC. The EPA must take over the testing of the water, and the Army Corps of Engineers must be sent in to begin replacing the underground pipes. Like the levees in New Orleans, this will be a massive undertaking. If it is turned over to for-profit businesses, it will take a decade and cost billions. This needs to happen right now and Obama must be in charge.
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Evacuate any and all Flint residents who want to leave now. They’ve suffered long enough and, until the water is truly safe, no one should have to stay there who doesn’t want to. The state and FEMA should move people into nearby white townships that are still hooked up to Lake Huron water.
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For those who choose to stay in Flint, FEMA must create a temporary water system in each home. One idea that has been suggested is to deliver two 55-gallon drums to every home in Flint. Each day water trucks will arrive to fill them with fresh clean glacial water from Lake Huron. The drums will have taps attached to them. People can’t be expected to carry jugs of water from buildings that are miles away.
In the end, we will need to create a new economy and bring new employment to this town that created the middle class, that elected the first black mayor, and that believed in and created the American Dream. They deserved more than to be poisoned by their own Governor — a Governor who thought that, because the people in the town were politically weak, he could get away with this unnoticed and without a fight. He figured wrong.
A crime against humanity has been committed against the people of Flint, making them refugees in their own homes. Tell me honestly: if you were living in Flint right now, and you learned that your children had been drinking lead-filled water for two years, and then you discovered that the Governor knew this and the state lied about it – tell me, just how fast would your head be spinning? With your children now poisoned, and with the poisoning continuing… is the word “nonviolence” dominating your thoughts right now? Are you absolutely, stunningly amazed how peaceful the people in Flint have remained? Are you curious how much longer that can last? I hope it does. If you want to help Flint, sign the petition, demand that the federal government take action, and then get involved yourself, wherever you live, so that this doesn’t happen to you – and so that the people we elect know they can no longer break the law as they rule by fiat or indifference. We deserve much better than this.
For a better world,
Michael Moore
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THAT was actually posted earlier this week as a comment, but we didn’t want it to fall through the cracks. Same story with this video of Professor Robert Reich taking on all the main arguments against Bernie Sanders’ electability:
Talk now. Go ahead, don’t be shy. About this, that, or just about anything, within those familiar bounds of decency and decorum.
Two really excellent pieces to start off the weekend. Thanks, Ricardo and Vern!
I’ll add some more later when I have time.
With regard to Bernie, I must inform everyone that I’m a Hilary guy. Me and Lil’ Clumski and James Robert Reade are going over to Anna Drive right now for some carne asada and tough love for those Latonos who refuse to register to vote and whose backs keep getting in the way of police ammo.
That governor should be thrown in jail. This bone head move is a criminal act and should be treated as such.
*There is a light at the end of the tunnel however: Just yesterday the City of Ferguson, Missouri agreed to a Consent Decree with the DOJ that they would
change their training, hiring and other practices….over an unknown period of time. How long did that take? Two years or more? The Flint scenario is a total outrage……time for the peasants to storm the bastille and get out those scum.
I’m not certain if I already mentioned this. But it’s of such significance that I will error on the side of caution and say it again.
There was a news story that indicated the Michigan State officials purchased unusually large container quanities of purified drinking water for their State gov employees (in the Flint region) to drink (as opposed to tap water) while telling the ordinary citizens in Flint that the tap water was perfectly safe to consume and would not cause any undue harm or health problems.
IMO that is diabolical and somebody(ies) should be facing a man in a black robe with an independent mind to learn the date and time of their next required appearance in a court of law.
Hat-tip to Dr. Don McCanne, San Clemente’s tireless single-payer warrior, who sends out e-mails every day to those like me who are on his list. Since we had Professor Reich debunking Bernie debunkers, here’s a little more debunking of the debunkers of Bernie’s health reform plan:
Huffpost Politics
January 29, 2016
On Kenneth Thorpe’s Analysis of Senator Sanders’ Single-Payer Reform Plan
By David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler
Professor Kenneth Thorpe recently issued an analysis of Senator Bernie Sanders’ single-payer national health insurance proposal. Thorpe, an Emory University professor who served in the Clinton administration, claims the single-payer plan would break the bank.
Thorpe’s analysis rests on several incorrect, and occasionally outlandish, assumptions. Moreover, it is at odds with analyses of the costs of single-payer programs that he produced in the past, which projected large savings from such reform (see this study, for example, or this one).
We outline below the incorrect assumptions behind Thorpe’s current analysis:
1. He incorrectly assumes administrative savings of only 4.7 percent of expenditures, based on projections of administrative savings under Vermont’s proposed reform.
However, the Vermont reform did not contemplate a fully single-payer system. It would have allowed large employers to continue offering private coverage, and the continuation of the FEHBP and Medicare programs. Hence, hospitals, physicians’ offices, and nursing homes would still have had to contend with multiple payers, forcing them to maintain the complex cost-tracking and billing apparatus that drives up providers’ administrative costs. Vermont’s plan proposed continuing to pay hospitals and other institutional providers on a per-patient basis, rather than through global budgets, perpetuating the expensive hospital billing apparatus that siphons funds from care.
The correct way to estimate administrative savings is to use actual data from real world experience with single-payer systems such as that in Canada or Scotland, rather than using projections of costs in Vermont’s non-single-payer plan. In our study published in the New England Journal of Medicine we found that the administrative costs of insurers and providers accounted for 16.7 percent of total health care expenditures in Canada, versus. 31.0 percent in the U.S. – a difference of 14.3 percent. In subsequent studies, we have found that U.S. hospital administrative costs have continued to rise, while Canada’s have not. Moreover, hospital administrative costs in Scotland’s single-payer system were virtually identical those in Canada.
In sum, Thorpe’s assumptions understate the administrative savings of single-payer by 9.6 percent of total health spending. Hence he overestimates the program’s cost by 9.6 percent of health spending — $327 billion in 2016, and $3.742 trillion between 2016 and 2024. Notably, Thorpe’s earlier analyses projected much larger administrative savings from single-payer reform — closely in line with our estimates.
2. Thorpe assumes huge increases in the utilization of care, increases far beyond those that were seen when national health insurance was implemented in Canada, and much larger than is possible given the supply of doctors and hospital beds.
When Canada implemented universal coverage and abolished copayments and deductibles there was no change in the total number of doctor visits; doctors worked the same number of hours after the reform as before, and saw the same number of patients. However, they saw their healthy and wealthier patients slightly less often, and sicker and poorer patients somewhat more frequently. Moreover, the limited supply of hospital beds precluded the kind of big surge in hospitalizations that Thorpe predicts. In health policy parlance, “capacity constraints” precluded a big increase in system-wide utilization.
Thorpe bases his estimates on what has happened when a small percentage of people in a community have had copayments eliminated or added. But in those cases there are no capacity constraints, so it tells us little about what would happen under a system-wide reform like single-payer.
Thorpe does not give actual figures for how many additional doctor visits and hospital stays he predicts. However, his estimates that persons with private insurance would increase their utilization of care by 10 percent and that those with Medicare-only coverage would increase utilization by 10 to 25 percent suggest that he projects about 100 million additional doctor visits and several million more hospitalizations each year – something that’s impossible given real-world capacity constraints. There just aren’t enough doctors and hospital beds to deliver that much care.
Instead of a huge surge in utilization, more realistic projections would assume that doctors and hospitals would reduce the amount of unnecessary care they’re now delivering in order to deliver needed care to those who are currently not getting what they need. That’s what happened in Canada.
3. Thorpe assumes that the program would be a huge bonanza for state governments, projecting that the federal government would relieve them of 10 percent of their current spending for Medicaid and CHIP — equivalent to about $20 billion annually.
No one has suggested that a single-payer reform would or should do this.
4. Thorpe’s analysis also ignores the large savings that would accrue to state and local governments — and hence taxpayers — because they would be relieved of the costs of private coverage for public employees.
State and local government spent $177 billion last year on employee health benefits – about $120 billion more than state and local government would pay under the 6.2 percent payroll tax that Senator Sanders has proposed. The federal government could simply allow state and local governments to keep this windfall, but it seems far more likely that it would reduce other funding streams to compensate.
5. Thorpe’s analysis also apparently ignores the huge tax subsidies that currently support private insurance, which are listed as “Tax Expenditures” in the federal government’s official budget documents.
These subsidies totaled $326.2 billion last year, and are expected to increase to $538.9 billion in 2024. Shifting these current tax expenditures from subsidizing private coverage to funding for a single-payer program would greatly lessen the amount of new revenues that would be required. Thorpe’s analysis makes no mention of these current subsidies.
6. Thorpe assumes zero cost savings under single-payer on prescription drugs and devices.
Nations with single-payer systems have in every case used their clout as a huge purchaser to lower drug prices by about 50 percent. In fact, the U.S. Defense Department and VA system have also been able to realize such savings.
In summary, professor Thorpe grossly underestimates the administrative savings under single-payer; posits increases in the number of doctor visits and hospitalizations that exceed the capacity of doctors and hospitals to provide this added care; assumes that the federal government would provide state and local governments with huge windfalls rather than requiring full maintenance of effort; makes no mention of the vast current tax subsidies for private coverage whose elimination would provide hundreds of billions annually to fund a single-payer program; and ignores savings on drugs and medical equipment that every other single-payer program has reaped.
In the past, Thorpe estimated that single-payer reform would lower health spending while covering all of the uninsured and upgrading coverage for the tens of millions who are currently underinsured. The facts on which those conclusions were based have not changed.
Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler are professors of health policy and management at the City University of New York School of Public Health and lecturers in medicine at Harvard Medical School. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of those institutions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-himmelstein/kenneth-thorpe-bernie-sanders-single-payer_b_9113192.html?1454092127
Debunk the debunkers all you want, but here’s the reality on the ground…
This sort of wonkish statistical information flies over the heads of about 99% of the American population. After the debacle that was the launch of Obamacare, the cause of single-payer must be fought on a much simpler, “is the government even capable of administering such a thing” level.
Banished US veterans lean on each other south of border
TIJUANA, Mexico – They served the United States on battlefields from Korea to Iraq, but now they live in the shadow of the nation they once served, deported to Mexico for offenses as minor as getting caught with marijuana.
While many U.S. veterans find adjusting to civilian life difficult, writing a bad check, possessing marijuana or getting into a bar fight are enough to get some veterans banished from the nation they fought to protect. That’s because they were not citizens when they donned the uniform and took up arms for America. Any U.S. obligation to them ended when they got in trouble with the law.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/31/banished-us-veterans-lean-on-each-other-south-border.html
Another answer to those like Sheriff Hutchens who claim that nobody gets in trouble for small amounts of marijuana.
Strange story. The serfs are getting mixed messages. Who knows what to believe today? So the gov has a hard time deporting felons and violent criminals who are illegally in the country and never served a day in the military -but this story claims that foreigners who served in the US military are deported for marijuana possession for personal use – which is only considered an ‘infraction’ by most legal standards? Something’s amiss. Really. This makes no sense. No wonder we’re so confused on Main Street.
According to California’s TRUST ACT local jailers are prohibited from transferring illegal foreigners in jail for crimes unrelated to immigration violations over to the Federal authorities for deporation UNLESS they’ve been convicted of violent felonies. And in sanctuary cities (as we know in the Kate Steinle murder case) even violent felons who are illegally in the country are released back onto America’s streets after they complete their jail time for offenses unrelated to immigration law. Go figure. Sorry, I don’t believe American MSM resports any more. I let my common sense be my guide.
Btw, when I was in the military decades ago we had recruits at reception center (point of arrival during basic) who couldn’t put together 2 consecutive comprehensible sentences in English and who weren’t US citizens. They weren’t rejected. They were whisked off to remedial english language classes as an adjunct to their basic training. Even at that time one did not have to speak or understand English to join the US military. This shocked me. But I saw it with my own eyes.
Also, in the middle of the reception center room there was an “amnesty” basket (No joke. “Amnesty” was the termed used). We were told if we had any illegal items (drugs, weapons, illegal paraphernia, etc..) on our person we could drop it into the container with no questions asked. One guy got up and dropped what appeared to be a Bowie knife with an 8″ blade into the container. Others dropped in plastic baggies containing what appeared to be green vegetable matter and white powdery substances. And then they were given buzzcuts and issued a set of fatigues. 🙂
Fast forward to the Twenty-First Century. I have no idea what the recruiting standards are today. But I can only imagine based on the evolution of our social norms in America. 🙂
*All true Ziggy…..all true. Been there and saw all you saw in the Military. You had to Swear to Defend the Constitution first…of course. Today, the military has taken on an Air Force flair at times…which is certainly never that attractive. Regs, Regs, Regs and a bunch of tattletails to back it up. The E-8’s are the enforcers and each one bantying about to get that next “plum assignment” on how many people you turned in. You can see it in the Bergdahl case pretty easily. “In the day” we took care of our own….the good ones and the bad ones and certainly didn’t testify infront of a Congressional Committee to report how badly one of our own behaved. The Cadry for the CO’s for each Battalion seems to be the “The current Vacuum of Error”. Sad to see the demise of the Fraternity System in the Military.
Lou Correa on this topic (@ LOC) –
Junior, as Americans, we have a moral responsibility to take care of all our veterans. And, I will address and write and support such legislation as well, if I get elected.
I believe that Veterans that have served our country, have earned the opportunity to become an American Citizen, not deportation.
As a Sacramento legislator, I authored a resolution asking Congress to grant U.S. Citizenship to a young Marine posthumously, Jose Angel Garibay. Jose Angel was O.C.’s first Marine to die in Iraq (O.C.R. March 25, 2003). He came to this country undocumented, and made the ultimate sacrifice for our great country.
Thank you Junior for your comments.
POSTHUMOUS CITIZENSHIP! WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
(Don’t play with that junior fellow, by the way. He’s bad news.)
Fight the Washing Machines! (or whatever.)
Hey, did you read about the lawsuit filed against Disney? Apparently 200-300 former Disney IT workers were laid off in January 2015 and replaced with foreign H1B workers. The claim says that the former U.S. IT workers were ordered to train their foreign H1B’s prior to their layoffs! Looks like about 30 of the laid off workers hired an attorney and sued Disney under a civil RICO claim. It’s alleged that one condition of bringing the H1B’s on board was it could not adversely affect the U.S. workers. I sure hope the laid off workers prevail. Enough of this nonsense. Those U.S. workers paid big bucks for their IT educations only to get washed out by foreign workers who work for lower pay. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Fully agreed.
Michael’s Flint petition has reached, as of today at 8:00 PM, 555,419 signatures. At 3:00 PM today it was 545,121. More than 10K in 5 hours!
People who I have talked about this, and did not know the details and effects of this crisis, can not believe what has happened and have signed the petition.
Thanks for keeping track of it, Ricardo! Keep on reportin’!
Like I’ve mentioned, I’m not a huge Sanders fan but if Bernie upset Hillary in Iowa it would make my day. Bernie needs to stop playing Mr. Nice Guy and start talking about the emails. Political campaigns are political war. You do what you have to do to win (within reason). And the emails definitely fall into that green light territory. Come on, Bernie. Don’t wimp out. Lower the boom! Don’t let your supporters down!
“Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders .. said Sunday it’s a “serious issue” — and that his past statement that he was “sick and tired of hearing about [her] damn emails” doesn’t mean he thinks she did nothing wrong.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-emails_us_56ae254be4b077d4fe8e7023
Still not strong enough. If Bernie is serious about leaving Iowa with a win he needs to stop playing softball. Time is running out. If Hillary was in Bernie’s place she would have pulled the email trigger long ago. I have no idea why Bernie’s being so darn polite to Hillary. Nice guys rarely win elections.
Yeah – like Romney
Romney is old news. Let’s talk about current events and not deflect with fingerpointing. That solves nothing.
The emails are not a huge issue. The destruction of the middle class is a huge issue.
Emails would be a big deal if some low level military grunt with a security clearance took classified documents home with him or used his computer to send or received classified documents. Trust me on that. It would be an automatic court martial, and after time served in Leavenworth it would be a dishonorable discharge and loss of all benefits.
Either one believes in ‘equality under the law’ or one doesn’t. That’s a choice we make as individuals. I was raised and educated on the belief that America prided itself on ‘equality under the law’. That’s what made us different from 3rd world banana republics. When Nixon went down it showed us that no one is considered above the law. But boy, have things ever changed.
I don’t want America to become a 3rd world banana republic. I want to remain that shining city upon the hill. I want to leave this Nation a better place than when I arrived. However, if people like Hillary Clinton are too big to jail (or prosecute) and still have an opportunity to become our next President after her classified email scandal – we’ve taken a huge fall from grace.
The email scandal should one of the primary discussions during this campaign season. Megyn Kelly jumped all over Trump for his alleged sexist behavior. The mishandling of classifed documents could put the nation’s security in grave danger. Why should that be off limits?
“Either one believes in ‘equality under the law’ or one doesn’t.”
No, it’s not a black-and-white “either-or” situation. The Secretary of State is not the equivalent of a “low-level military grunt.” She has a substantial role in policy-making and he does not. She can legitimately receive some accommodation to make her work more effective, so long as it is within the scope of her authority. It’s not clear that her using a private account or a private server goes beyond that.
That brings us to what is probably really going on with her not using a government server, although I doubt that she’d ever say this out loud: she probably didn’t want to use one because in her case it would be insecure. I’m no Hillary fanboy, but I think that it’s fair to say that persons within the government have been absolutely willing to break the sorts of privacy and security laws you’re talking about in order to get dirt (or even non-dirt that can be characterized to the public as dirt) on the Clintons. I can well imagine that she believed that she had a better fighting chance at keeping things private — including from the NSA/CIA/FBI that had no business knowing the contents of her private emails OR security secrets to which they were not entitled — with a private server rather than a government server.
That, of course, it both conspiratorial AND a very sad commentary on our government — but I get the sense that you’re not likely to be dissuaded as a matter of principle from either, right?
Everyone has a right to his opinion. Mine is everyone should be held to the same standards mandated by the Laws that protect classified documents and the security of our Nation. Whether you happen to be the Secretary of State or a Specialist 4th Class in the US military. This is particularly true when it comes to the secure handling and dissemination of classified secret documents. It matters not whether those documents are intercepted by an unfriendly nation from the SoS or a Spec 4 – the damage is the same – therefore, the punishment should be the same. In fact, the SoS would have access to a much higher level of classified document than a Spec 4 – and should be held to an even HIGHER standard. You are claiming part of the privilege of being SoS is being subject to a LOWER STANDARD under the law. I disagree. I believe the SoS and like officials should be held to a HIGHER STANDARD under the law.
It’s much easier for an enemy nation to intercept classified documents from a unsecured home server than from a secured government server. Those with security clearances inside the US government should not be a threat. And there should be internal checks and balances to ensure those who are threats are exposed and appropriately held to account. The claim that Hillary’s home server was more secure from outside intrusion than the government servers is flawed IMO. 22 of the classified documents found on Hillary’s server cannot even be released to the public after redaction. The sensitivity of the information was that significant. Hillary needs to be held accountable.
My position on this issue is based upon the facts that have been exposed to the general public. No conspiratorial involvment. And one thing that makes America so special is that we citizens have the moral and legal rights (some would say ‘obligation’) to criticize the actions of our top government officials. To be dissauded from that would be unamerican.
I’ve said my piece. Maybe some Hillary partisan will come here and defend her.
The point is not whether Ms. Clinton could legitimately send and receive classified information, but whether she protected that information according to legal requirements.
She had no business conflating her family’s business (read – Clinton Foundation links to foreign policy) with her job as the county’s number one diplomat, for any reason.
If she thought having a “private” server in a broom closet in Denver was secure for her family secrets then I advance the notion that she was too stupid to be Secretary of State, let alone President.
Bernie could have so easily thrown the knockout punch on Hillary when the email scandal came up in that first debate. But he wimped out. It makes me wonder whether Bernie is really in the race to be our next President or whether he’s just playing along as a Democrat patsy to make it appear as if Hillary has competition? The media needs a competitor in the race to make money. Without Sanders the media ratings on the Democrat coverage would be at rock bottom levels. They’d have to create a crisis to stay in business. The older I get when people tell me that the President elect has already been chosen I’m starting to take them seriously.
No he didn’t. It’s not a “knockout punch,” at least among Democrats. She was prepped for that attack and would have made him pay among primary voters. Instead, he turned it back to the issues that DO matter to Democratic primary voters. Seriously, Ziggy, you can’t argue with success!
“.. he’s just playing along as a Democrat patsy to make it appear as if Hillary has competition?”
Drop the question mark – make it a statement of fact.
He’s just playing along as a Democrat patsy to make it appear as if Hillary has competition!!
I appreciate your opinion. The reason I added a (?) is because I don’t know the answer for a fact. But all the evidence appears to point in that direction. Let’s face it. There’s a tremendous amount of back room bargaining that goes on in elections, even at the local level. even at the bottom feeder Council level. The intensity of those ritual practices increases exponentially as the stakes move higher. Many enter the race not to actually win – many enter the race to manipulate the vote in favor of another candidate and, in return, likely receive ample consideration in one form or another for going to the trouble of helping an undisclosed political bedfellow. There are probably a dozen reasons why candidates enter political races in which they have a 0% chance of being victorious. And most are for selfish reasons.
On the GOP side do you really think Lindsey Graham, Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee or Chris Christie really thought they had a snowballs chance of winning the nomination.
Or how about on the Democrats side of the aisle? Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb, Larry Lessig or Lincoln Chafee?
Next question: Do you think they made or lost money by entering into a race that they knew they had absolutely zero chance of winning? Come on. These aren’t stupid men. Give them a little credit, ok?
Let’s all think clearly and like adults.
Some (Huckabee, Christie, Kasich) did have a pathway to victory — until this year turned screwy. So far, no good.
Some (Newt Gingrich is the best example) run to promote their writing and raise their speaking fees.
Some (Chaffee, Webb, Lessig, maybe Santorum) run to promote particular issues or perspectives.
The rest are running for the VP slot or a Cabinet position. No real shocker there.
Look, I don’t know if you folks are staying current with the election news. But the Clinton-Sanders race in Iowa was so close that 6 precincts had to resort to coin flips to determine the winner.
Did you happen to know that Hillary won all 6 coin flips? 🙂 🙂
Do you know the probability in percentage terms of getting 6 consecutive coin flips to go in your favor? 1.6%. 🙂 🙂
Come on. Let’s all be adults.
Now do you understand what I mean when I tell you it’s all baked in the cake?
Following the elections is a choice. Some people like TV sports. Some people enjoy reality TV. Some people like to watch skin flicks in the privacy of their homes. But please….don’t take any of it very seriously. Political elections fall into the same category. It’s all entertainment.
That story about the coin flips turns out not to be entirely true, as I understand it. But it sure is a weird way to run a railroad. And because these were county-level delegates rather than state-level delegates, it doesn’t matter as much as people think. (I say that as a Sanders supporter. We have enough real things to talk about that we don’t need to talk about fake things.)
You know what “Pascal’s Wager” is, right? My wager is that politics — as rigged and fixed as it seems to be at times — is not inherently so. There’s only one way that things are going to change for the better — and that’s if people think that it’s possible. So that’s going to be my article of unprovable, untestable, faith. One’s holding that view doesn’t do anybody any harm.
If it was a horse race – from the very start – Huckabee, Kasich and Christie would have been at minimum 20 to 1 longshots. Few took them seriously. After ‘Bridgegate’, Christie was toast. He knew it. We all knew it. The other ‘also rans’ had no business even showing up to the starting gate. Like fish out of water.
You didn’t answer my most important question:
‘Do you think they made or lost money by entering into a race that they knew they had absolutely zero chance of winning? Come on. These aren’t stupid men. Give them a little credit, ok?’
RE: the Dems. Running for POTUS is not a cost effective way to push an agenda for someone who has no chance of a victory. There are many other more effective ways to promote an issue or perspective than by entering a very expensive race when the candidate is guaranteed to get washed out. And it’s a great way to alienate contributors (and future potential contributors) who were fed the impression that the candidate had a fighting chance.
They made money. They spent other people’s and they raised the price of their speaker’s fees.
None of the Dems who ran had “no chance” of victory. I was surprised, for example, that Webb flamed out so early. They were all sort of depending on a Hillary collapse — which was hardly impossible.
Don’t ask me what Jim Gilmore was doing in the race, though.
Once the smoke clears we’ll probably get the truth about the Iowa coin flips. It’s not really something that can be buried. Initially the media reported 6 coin flips consecutively won by Hillary. Naturally all the special interests are jumping in head first to control the damage. The waters have been muddied. This is politics, after all. But in my experience when it comes to matters political the initial reports generally contain a healthy dose of truth. The ones that follow generally try to close the wounds. Let’s see what happens here.
Politics has never been a clean business. Ever (at least not in my lifetime). But it has become increasingly dirty in the last 15-20 years as the decline of the empire matures. This should be apparent to the casual observer who takes an interest in these things. The evidence is overwhelming. I am a realist.
Hope and trust work well in personal relationships unless things really go south. As Stevie Wonder told us “All is fair in love”. I would always recommend for everyone to stay positive in their personal relationships. Mostly, it’s advantageous to overlook the weaknesses of those who form our intimate networks. It comes with practice. 🙂
However, in the affairs of the world and politics it’s best to remain cynical and suspicious. Never give up but never assume that things will change for the better. IMO the only thing (at this point) that will turn the ship around is a sharp jolt of one sort or another – be it economic or social in nature. But it could be a double-edged sword as well and sink the ship. No one can escape risk. All we can control is what goes on inside our minds (well, most of us).
You should check out the more recent reports.
Cynicism and suspicion have their place, but so does openness to new data.
I guess you didn’t fully read my comment. In my experience follow-up reports (especially fresh ones after the initial hit) are generally attempts to control the damage and close the wounds. It will take some time before the truth is known. Donald Trump no doubt has his people working on it as we chat. Let’s be patient. But it is very suspicious. Did you read the tweets sent out by the Cruz campaign at about 7pm Iowa time on Caucus day at about the time the voting process began? You should research it. Tweets by the Cruz campaign and letters signed by Cruz campaign managers on Cruz letterhead don’t lie. 😉
I did read that. Experience is a guideline, not a determiner. In this case, as I understand it, more coin flips were reported over time and as a whole they were not nearly so one-sided. This is the kind of “follow-up” that is to be expected — as opposed to the “tut-tut” kind that you are correct often occurs — and so it doesn’t ping my radar the same way.
If you mean the Cruz tweets falsely alleging that Carson was dropping out of the race, I read about them. My first take: not illegal, but nevertheless reprehensible. I think that they’ll hurt him substantially, largely because Trump will make them do so.
Oh, my response re: Cruz also applies to the Hillary coin flips. Let’s wait. The verdict is not yet in. But I generally trust the initial reports more than the follow-up damage control reports, based on my life experience. The truth will surface here. Too many witnesses.
Yes. It took Trump a full day to respond to the Cruz campaign tactics. In Iowa after the results were in Trump was very cordial, if you noticed. But after his people investigated the Cruz matter Trump pulled the proverbial trigger. Read about his reaction. Totally different attitude. Trump does not act prematurely. But once he does act – watch out.
Well, it’s been disclosed that Ted Cruz has apparently apologized for what he termed “a mistake” but what other people are calling funny business.
At the Iowa caucuses the Cruz campaign apparently spread the false rumor that Ben Carson was going to suspend his campaign. Carson said it was not true. Yet the Cruz campaign failed to correct the inaccurate message. Many believe that this swayed Carson supporters to throw their votes to Cruz. Some say this was highly unethical while others say it constitutes election fraud and misconduct. Again, let’s wait for the final verdict since this is all fresh information. But if this is true – that the Cruz campaign floated false information to elevate Ted’s vote count I pledge the following:
Should Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders square off as the final nominees in the POTUS race – I will vote for Bernie – provided that Bernie stays clean. Otherwise I will abstain.
Finally, something funny from Yahoo that may also be useful ? Viewed the video, haven’t tried it yet. FWIW.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/dial-number-next-time-telemarketing-195800798.html
“There’s a bee on me!”
“I just woke up from a nap.”
Sounds like a County Supervisor.
Ah ! Super Bowl approaches, and I’m not the only one who immediately thinks of Stadium economics-
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/super-bowl-host-cities-always-lose-the-money-game-2016-02-05?siteid=rss&rss=1
No new conclusion here, but some fresh data revealed.
“. Back in 2014, the NFL declared that if a city wanted to host a Super Bowl, it had to sacrifice a home game and play it in London instead. That’s a full game’s worth of tax and business revenue lost by an NFL host city, which has already spent ridiculous amounts of money to give a team a place to play eight regular-season games a year.”
London ? What happened to “Made in America” ? Oh, this is the same folks that were discovered to be CHARGING the (taxpayers) Military for “patriotic” half-time tribute ceremonies –
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/11/4/9670302/nfl-paid-patriotism-troops-mcain-flake-report-million