Democratic Nomination Thread

Most crimes require some form of general or specific intent,

 

Just out of curiousity, what have you done that's gotten you to be so much smarter than everybody else?

I mean, last week you were complaining that Obama's policies are borne of his inherent belief that he's smarter than everyone else and he knows best.

But now you are saying most people are stupid anyway.

Why don't you just be honest and say that you have a rooting interest for one team over the other and the relative intelligence of anybody, least of all you, has nothing to do with it?

 

This is true, however some crimes just require that your actions had a specific effect without any intent involved at all.

Going fast in a car is not accompanied by any intent to commit vehicular manslaughter as an example.

Hillary Clinton's clear intent here was to have her own private e-mail server so she could continue to use her own private unsecured blackberry to send and receive e-mails. If she wound up doing illegal things accidentally as result of that, like exposing secure information (up to the level of top Secret), well that sounds like a criminal act to me, albeit possibly not one deserving of prosecution.

Can you have a Top Secret Misdemeanor and what effect should that have on the person's candidacy for the most secure office in the land?

 

We all know by now that the Benghazi investigation was purely 100% motivated by politics and was a complete and total crock of shit along with a waste of taxpayer money and Congress' time (not that this do-nothing Congress would have done anything with that time anyway). Even Ambassador Stevens' family have come out and said that they do not blame Clinton, but blame Congress for the severe underfunding (by Republicans) of the State Department and foreign embassy security.

It is amazing that all this effort and scrutiny is placed on one event that led to 4 deaths and the debacle that was the Iraq War, from the lying that led to it, the billions spend to fund it, and the hundreds of thousands lives lost, including over 4000 American lives, is just ignored or defended by conservatives. The Iraq war may have been the single worst political and military decision made by American in the the past 100 years and we are still paying for it in dollars, lives (it gave birth to ISIS ), and geopolitics.

 

I don't have a problem with his statement because, as I said above, it wasn't a surprise. One thing pisses me off, though. And this has nothing to do with Hillary, but it's a reason to be pissed off about law enforcement, generally. It's a point that should have Black Lives Matter (just one example) activists pissed off: When is the last time the FBI (or any law enforcement agency) has come out and made a statement like: "Although there is evidence of potential violation of statutes, no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case"? Never happens. How is that his job? I have two problems with this. First, prosecutorial discretion is the job of the prosecutors, and I'm all for them using MORE of it to prosecute less. But, if this case were handled straight, the FBI would have investigated, generated a report and then delivered it to DOJ. DOJ then could have done any number of things - present it to the grand jury, file charges, request a special prosecutor appointment, or done nothing at all. Since when does the FBI get to decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't? Bad precedent. Probably doesn't help future criminal prosecution for similar crimes a whole lot.

My second problem is the statement itself. This ticks me off more. I only know James Comey from what I read, and I have no doubt that he's an honest guy, his investigation was thorough and the outcome correct under the circumstances. If he had come out with a statement that, "I have referred this to DOJ for prosecution", I'd be saying the same thing. Not his job. Shitty way for law enforcement to do business and anyone who values civil liberties should hate this. She either committed a crime or she didn't. There's no good purpose of a law enforcement statement that assassinates someone's character in the process of announcing no criminal charges. There's also no good purpose of a law enforcement statement assassinates someone's character in the process of announcing that charges will be filed. It taints the jury pool and slants the playing field. File them or don't file them. He can certainly make recommendations for prosecute or not, but his place isn't to be the public face of prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutors are held to a different standard. They're held to a higher ethical standard in their public statements; law enforcement, not so. But nobody should be indicted in the press. Not even a dishonest cunt like Hillary Clinton. File charges or don't. Either way, shut your yaps. That its Hillary makes it easier to accept. I just don't think we should ever accept it.

 

The simplest one would be the one that almost everybody here has done at least once in their life: speeding accidentally with their foot on the gas downhill and not getting caught. Suddenly you're doing 81 miles an hour in a 65 but luckily there was no traffic cop around to pull you over. This one also has the "smokey decided to give you a warning instead of a ticket" option attached to it.

Then there's the speeding to the hospital with your pregnant wife in the car and the cop who pulled you over giving you a flashing lights and sirens escort at approximately the same speed instead of a ticket.

I don't think Hillary's issue here qualifies, particularly given that we don't know for sure what the damage that it caused was. Anybody who thinks an unsecured server in somebody's basement didn't get hacked by somebody once it was discovered is just naive.

 

There is no denying it was a terrible decision on her part. However, I choose her over that racist, egomaniac, narcissistic, self absorbed, maniac she is running against without hesitation. A Trump presidency would ruin this country for a long long time.

 

If I swing a golf club to try it out and don't know you are behind me and I hit you, it is not assault and battery because I had no intent to hit or harm you. If I swing the same club with the intent to hit you, it is assault and battery. Just an example.

 

So, I agree with most of this but I'm wondering if you believe that the FBI presents every case that it investigates to the DOJ and AG for review, even if they've concluded that no charges are warranted based on their investigation?

What was Comey supposed to do in this very high profile case if the FBI concluded that there was lots of smoke but no clear fire, which is what it appears they concluded?

Should he just have had a one sentence statement: "The FBI has determined that there's not enough evidence to present to the DOJ/AG for potential prosecution?"

Should he have just not said anything at all? Would that have worked given the time constraints involved and the fact that a political campaign was running alongside the investigation?

I'm thinking what he did was done precisely because somebody under investigation was also (somehow) running for President and he had no other way to end the investigation without doing additional harm to the public interest.

The idea that a Special Prosecutor should have been appointed was ludicrous on the face of it because those always turn into highly partisan witch hunts and are always used for political advantage by one side or the other. What do you do in the absence of that though other than rely on the good judgement of the candidate herself not to run while she is so encumbered?

 

It could easily be reckless endangerment if you should have known that there was a chance that somebody could be behind you and you swung anyway and they got hurt. It could also be an accident but that would be in the eyes of the victim and maybe the prosecutor if the victim didn't see it that way. It's not assault and battery, which is a crime of intent but it is potentially a crime.

 

I was just trying to give an example.

 

I don't know what the point of this post is. Wow big shock that a person has a particular rooting interest. I lean conservative so I think Obama has been bad for the country. When I speak about Hillary it is a different discussion. Sure I think her views suck but I don't even get there because she is so corrupt. I have said I think Trump is terrible too.

As far as intelligence goes I know Obama is a smart guy but being smart doesn't mean you are right or unbiased. As far as most people being stupid I mean it in the context of not researching things and just believing what the media tells them when it comes to politics. Not sure how either of those judgments implies that I think I'm smarter than everyone.

 

Ok, I see that now. The point I was making is that your example was "this guy is not guilty of assault and battery" when the crime could also have been something else entirely.

One of the things about the e-mail server fiasco that has bothered me the entire time is that we've all been dwelling mostly on whether a criminal act was committed or not. It's quite possible that no criminal act was committed but Hillary shouldn't be running for President based on "reckless endangerment of state secrets" anyway.

 

If Obama was a smart guy he wouldn't have run for President in the first place. Nobody wins leading a confederacy of dunces and while that might not quite describe the country at large at this point it certainly describes the GOP congress of the last 6 years.

 

I'm kind of hoping Hillary is down in the polls in a week before the conventions. It'd certainly make the Democratic Convention a lot more interesting.

 

Okay. Basically, swap out "conservative" for "liberal," "Republican" for "Democrat," "Bush and Cheney" for "Obama," and "any Republican running this election" for "Hillary" and I agree with your post 100%. As you said, not a big shock.

I've never thought you were smarter than everyone else, just to be clear.

 

Well I know it's kind of silly to think there should be a good judgement litmus test given the two candidates this year but I think there probably should.