The new Clinton emails and the Osgood election
The FBI has announced the discovery of 15,000 heretofore undisclosed Hillary Clinton emails from her tenure as Secretary of State. That’s a lot; half again as many as the 30,000 to which Clinton has previously owned up:
The documents were found during the course of the FBI’s investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee’s use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of State. The number is almost 50 percent more than the 30,000 work-related documents that Clinton’s lawyers turned over to the State Department in 2014.
The agency has pledged to release the approximately 14,900 documents and State Department lawyers told District Judge James E. Boasberg on Monday that the agency is “prioritizing” the appraisal of the new emails.
But it remains unsettled whether the full set will be out before the presidential election on Nov. 8. Lawyers for the conservative watchdog group that has demanded the release have accused the agency of slow-walking the production.
“FBI found almost 15,000 new Clinton documents. When will State release them?” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted Monday morning…
State Department lawyers said Monday that they expect the agency to begin releasing the documents in batches every week beginning Oct. 14.
Now, there’s an October surprise. Or is it? Is anyone surprised at any of this anymore? Do Hillary supporters care?
My impression is that—just as many of Trump’s supporters are so anti-Hillary that it wouldn’t matter if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue—so many of Hillary supporters are so anti-Trump that nothing she has done or will ever do matters. I’ve heard people refer to this campaign as a race to the bottom, and I agree. It’s just a question of who reaches the lowest low, and when, as well as which candidate has the highest number of supporters with strong stomachs.
In the title of this post I call 2016 the “Osgood election,” and the reference is to the Joe E. Brown character, “Osgood,” in that wonderful last scene of the movie classic “Some Like it Hot”:
[ADDENDUM: See this. By the way, Judicial Watch has earned a great big “thank you.” They’re the ones whose lawsuits led to the Hillary email disclosures.]
I often “joke” that Hil could be clubbing baby seals on live TV, and the tribe would be making excuses for her. That’s just what they do. I truly want to believe that Democrats can think for themselves, but even of they do, they will act as a block. They’re seem to be simply conditioned to do so.
Unless there are actual health issues that manifest in the next couple of months, she’s likely to be coronated, and we’ll be dealing with the consequences for a very long time (if we even survive intact; I have real doubts to that).
However…
I would like to think that, despite the probable coronation, the drip-drip-drip of this stuff might eventually cause an upheaval in their party not completely unlike the current upheaval in the GOP. The factors seem to be there; we saw plenty of evidence around the time of the convention that all was not necessarily well in DNC land.
If it did, would/could they actually learn from it, unlike the GOP?
(I would like to think that a pair of healthy parties are good for the republic overall, even if I might not agree with their policies. We have anything but that today.)
“…the agency is “prioritizing” the appraisal of the new emails.
The FBI under Comey continues to self-destruct, diminish and tarnish its until-recently stellar reputation.
The investigation into Hillary was over long ago and with Trump doing his own self-destruction they must feel safe in announcing this “find”, more evidence that both Clinton and her lawyer lied, that wasn’t even in Comey’s recent testimony before the House.
They’ve had months to examine, sort and prioritize these emails already, yet it’s nearly two months until the first batch will be released. Since these are in email format, any half-competent data-miner should be able to dump them in a database with all the earlier 30,000 emails and eliminate all the duplicates in a day.
No doubt their “prioritization” of the release prior to the election will be 100% exonerating for Hillary, with anything problematic released after the results are in.
The weaponization of the Justice Department on behalf of the Collective continues apace.
I changed “shot” to “murdered” because shooting someone is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, shooting a rapist in the act might garner Trump additional votes. Attempted rapes on 5th Avenue are not unheard of:http://abc7ny.com/news/police-young-woman-attacked-in-greenwich-village-rape-attempt-/1450589/
I agree that the motivation of many of those who support Trump is anti-Hillary i.e. anti-Left. I can’t agree that the primary motivation of Hillary’s supporters is animus toward Trump. If Cruz or Rubio was the GOP nominee, democrats would still en mass, vote for Hillary. Trump just provides a ‘safer’ excuse to do what they would do anyway.
Hillary supporter’s animus toward Trump is based in his threatening the foundation of their self-worth, which is allegiance to political correctness. The same applies to Cruz and to a lesser degree, to Rubio.
Among democrats, you can’t be accepted as a ‘good’ person, if you don’t subscribe to the narrative and memes of the Left.
We should just shut the government down, except for military and border security. Then examine it and decide what necessary functions the government should do. This should be done slowly and deliberately to decide what should be the federal government’s role is and what should be left to the states. I think that the federal government is way too big in intrusive in our lives. Maybe this way we can fix what is wrong.
Ron:
The guidelines for doing what you recommend were written in 1787, adopted by a majority of the states in 1789, served as the basis for building the greatest nation the earth had ever seen for the ensuing 219 years, after which they were abandoned.
Geoffrey Britain:
I wrote “many” Hillary supporters. Certainly not all—nor do all of Trump’s supporters feel that way vis a vis him.
But MANY on both sides most definitely do. And it is my personal observation among my MANY Hillary-supporter friends that a great many of them detest her and only can bring themselves to hold their noses and vote for her because her opponent is Trump.
Trump supporters would like to think that Hillary supporters would never have voted for a GOP nominee other than Trump, but from my observation this is not true at all. I’ve been over this ground before on the blog so I won’t belabor it here again.
However, there are two related and huge differences between Hillary and Trump that make it easier for reluctant Hillary supporters to vote for her than it is for reluctant Trump supporters to vote for him. The first is that she is experienced in political office and the second is that when she has held office she has been reliably liberal, which fits in with the political philosophy of most of the Democrats I know. So their only objection to her is personal and character-driven. For Trump and voters in the GOP, there are more objections than Democrats have to Hillary: he is unpredictable and impulsive and a loose cannon, he is politically all over the place and not really a Republican or on the right, and his character is objectionable.
I believe that that is a summary of why Hillary will win and he will lose. It is easier for Democrats to vote for her than it is for Republicans to vote for him. And neither appeals particularly to Independents, so there’s no reason Trump would get more of them than she does, either.
Kinda OT, but Hillary and fashion related:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/whats-wrong-hillary-wears-heavy-coat-black-pants-nantucket-fundraiser-august/
This really struck me as odd. Could there be barely hidden health problems? That definitely is a Fall outfit.
Back on topic – I’m somewhat surprised that more of the Dems aren’t interested in Trump due to his past as a Dem and his continually ‘walked back’ positions.
neo,
I strongly suspect that almost all of those Hillary supporter’s whom you know are kidding themselves and thus, you as well. I imagine that their disgust with Hillary is genuine and that they are indeed appalled with Trump. Wherein I think they kid themselves is in their assumption that, if the GOP had only nominated someone ‘reasonable’, that they could cross party lines. Oh, they would consider it and then… reluctantly vote for Hillary. For the good of the country you see…
On the other hand, independents are an entirely different demographic and I think your analysis fully applies to them.
Geoffrey Britain:
I disagree, and I’ll tell you why (although I believe we may have gone over this ground before): these people are extremely anguished right now, and they express it often and openly. Their anguish feels nearly as great or as great as that of the anguished people on the right who are in a quandary. These Democrats I know (not all, of course, but quite a few, and they’re the ones I’m referring to) have mentioned often that they are in a powerful vortex of conflicting emotions and ethical turmoil. Some have said things like “For the first time in my life, I have no candidate.”
I recognize the feeling well.
The prospect that you may well be right about them gives me hope neo for if so, then they are not completely in the thrall of the left.
On the other hand, if their objection to Hillary is strictly an objection to her character and corruption, then they will continue to happily vote away liberty in favor of politically correct ‘solutions’… whenever they have an acceptable candidate.
Geoffrey Britain:
Some of them are not unlike me before my change. They just don’t pay that much attention to politics, and they’ve been reading MSM sources all their lives and are mostly surrounded by like-minded people, so no real reason to question what they believe.
But Hillary upsets them. That is why I had high hopes for this year. It was clear that many of them were seriously unhappy and ripe for desertion, at least during this election cycle.
And that’s one of many reasons why Trump’s nomination is a tragedy and an outrage, and why I fought so long and hard against it. In my opinion, it was throwing away the best chance we had.
Geoffrey Britain:
Plus, I believe that everyone who supported Trump in the primary was “happily voting away liberty,” because Trump is no defender of liberty. There are only a couple of points on which I’d say he’s better on liberty than Hillary, and I’m not at all sure he intends to follow through on those points.
And in some ways I think he’s more anti-liberty even than she is. Again, I’ve written about these things at length, so no need to repeat myself here.
But both sides are throwing away liberty.
I wrote about liberals’ differing attitudes towards liberty here. In that post I mention that there are statists on right AND left, but that there are far fewer on the right. I wrote that post two and a half years ago, and I hereby revise my opinion on those relative numbers of statists on each side. At this point I still think there are fewer statists on the right than the left (that’s the liberal left I’m talking about, not the far left, who are pretty much all statists). But only a bit fewer, and Trump and about half of his followers (and many of his early followers) are among those statists. They like big government as long as they think it will compel people to do and to think what they want them to do and think.
Neo, thanks for the praise of Judicial Watch. I have been a supporter of J.W. for several years now. Eric talks about being an activist. Well, J.W. is an activist organization and deserves support from those of us who want to fight the progressive agenda.
Election after election I have listened to die hard Democrats admit that their candidates are deeply flawed, however, they invariably convince themselves that the Republican candidates are even more onerous and therefore they are justified in voting their party line. I quit believing their arguments because the result is always the same regardless of who is running. In my opinion the mostly just post-decision dissonance reduction.
That Cato is so eloquent. Almost as eloquent as the donald.
These Democrats I know (not all, of course, but quite a few, and they’re the ones I’m referring to) have mentioned often that they are in a powerful vortex of conflicting emotions and ethical turmoil. Some have said things like “For the first time in my life, I have no candidate.”
This should be entertaining. How many of them will listen to the voice of God vs how many will listen to Lucifer in cursing the world based on victim empowerment?
The usual excuse of Democrats and sympathizers, is that “they are just misguided, they don’t know that what they are doing is evil, they don’t know that those they support are evil”
Well, I’m here to tell them that it is evil, and then what are they going to say?
Ignorance is no excuse under human laws. But under divine laws, ignorance of evil may indeed be an excuse. So I stripe that excuse from them.
Back on topic — I’m somewhat surprised that more of the Dems aren’t interested in Trump due to his past as a Dem and his continually ‘walked back’ positions.
Would you be interested in a relative that went overseas to join a cult to kill people, then came back?
Because that’s equivalent to a Democrat becoming a republican, in the eyes of the faithful. It’s a visceral, emotional, denial of reality. Much like when Catholics have to deal with people converting away from Roman Catholicism. Same for Southern Baptists. When the religious hierarchy becomes the same as your family identity, your culture, and your politics, few people can tolerate “apostates” and “betrayers”.
They like big government as long as they think it will compel people to do and to think what they want them to do and think.
-Neo
Which is why Cruz’s line about having a “conscience” was problematic to the Alt Right or Trum backers.
Even for the people here, who fight heartily against being called “Trum supporters”, have arguments against that line.
Yet without a conscience, why would humans even fight against a totalitarian regime? The whole point of totalitarian religious and government is to get rid of unnecessary things such as having a conscience or individual will. People only need to Obey, Jump on the Bandwagon. You don’t need to think about your orders, Just Obey Your Orders.
Those liberal whom I know (and this is basically every single person I know or have any contact with) will vote for Hillary no matter what. This is their team, their allegiance, end of story right there. They’re not going to “think” about anything. This is their team, it has always been their team.
Maybe, maybe, maybe if someone more reasonable or likeable than Trump — and I don’t include Ted Cruz here — was the opponent, they might give it some thought. Rubio, or Scott Walker — it would go totally on personality and how telegenic they were. Oh,, and how hardcore they were about religion.
But as things stand, forget it. We are in for whatever we’re in for. Survival mode is all that makes sense. Good luck to America.
Cap’n Rusty Says:
August 22nd, 2016 at 4:14 pm
Ron:
The guidelines for doing what you recommend were written in 1787, adopted by a majority of the states in 1789, served as the basis for building the greatest nation the earth had ever seen for the ensuing 219 years, after which they were abandoned.
* * *
I have a list of amendments I would like to repeal, but that’s not the same as throwing away the original, which is what we were doing for quite a while before the process accelerated in 2008. At least as far back as the Other Roosevelt, IMO, but Wilson and FDR and then LBJ really greased the skids.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is an old-time Democrat. He was active in local politics, and was a county committeeman years ago. He’s totally depressed. I asked him, “What kind of Democratic candidate for President goes to Kentucky and tells the coal miners she’s going to put them out of work? What the hell kind of Democrat loses the cop union?”
He said, “It’s not the Democratic Party anymore. It’s the Social Democrat Party.” Then he sent me a column by Peggy Noonan!
Election after election I have listened to die hard Democrats admit that their candidates are deeply flawed, however, they invariably convince themselves that the Republican candidates are even more onerous and therefore they are justified in voting their party line.
And that’s the beautiful thing about Trump. He validates every negative impression Democrats and non-Republicans have that the Republican Party is really a front for the worst and dumbest people in America.
Every e-mail sent or received on the Evil Empress’s server which contains “information relating to the national defense” (NDI) earns her up to 10 years in jail. Having the server at all earns her up to 10 years in jail. Sending each e-mail with NDI gets her another 10 years. Each e-mail marked TS/SAP which contained SIGINT gets her up to another 10 years.
Failure to return any e-mails with NDI is up to 10 years. Removing classified information to an unauthorized location gets you one year. Removing any of the e-mails, whether classified or not, that related to government business earns up to three years in the pen.
Last but best, anyone removing, concealing, or destroying a government record or information gets up to 3 years, and fined (all of these carry fines) and — the best part — “shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
So, Hillary is disqualified from holding office, owes huge fines and about 150,000 years in prison.
What?
What’s that you say? She won’t do a minute’s time? She won’t pay a nickel? She won’t be barred from office?
“Where there is no justice, the people perish.”
Face it. Hillary Clinton could march on down to the national zoo and slaughter every single endangered animal and her fans would show up for the BBQ. And ask for seconds.