[Cyberyeti]

mike777, on 2016-July-06, 11:41, said:

Not sure why you think 14 years...it only has to be a minute and you are a citizen if you were born here.

OF course he is also eligible to run for VP and be just a heartbeat away from the top spot.

From wikipedia https://en.wikipedia...ity_legislation

Article Two, Section 1 of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

[kenberg]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-July-06, 11:49, said:

From wikipedia https://en.wikipedia...ity_legislation

Article Two, Section 1 of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

This leaves me out. I was not natural born, either here or elsewhere, at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution.

[kenberg]

So the Rs will hold hearings and have Comey, and Lynch, testify. They think Comey is stupid? Or they think he was paid off?

At some point enough is enough. A thorough investigation was conducted, overseen by someone whose integrity is, by all accounts, unquestioned. Until now, I guess.

Guys. Things do not always roll the way you want. Obama was born in Hawaii, climate change is real, and the evidence in the e-mail case did not warrant prosecution. I don't think an adamant refusal to accept reality will make you look very good. Maybe think this through, maybe?

[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2016-July-06, 16:32, said:

I don't think an adamant refusal to accept reality will make you look very good.

Oh yes. It has worked well for them for decades.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2016-July-06, 14:51, said:

This leaves me out. I was not natural born, either here or elsewhere, at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution.

Most of my searches for discussion of that clause focused on the meaning of "natural-born citizen", which was raised by the "birther" conspiracy theorists during Obama's campaigns. But I did find one 2-decade-old newspaper article that suggests that the second comma was an error.

http://articles.balt...tion-article-ii

Quote

Should texts be read literally, or should we also bring reason, history and experience to bear in interpreting them?
...
Surely the authors meant "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" to modify only the phrase "Citizen of the United States." But a strict reading of the text cannot ignore that second comma, which suggests the Constitution requires a president to be not just a natural born citizen, but someone who was a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2016-July-06, 09:27, said:

I have not yet seen a formal statement from HC, maybe it got buried in what everyone else is saying. I suggest:

The conservative news channels, as well as late night comedy programs, have been having a field day with a montage that intercuts her claims with the report's findings that directly contradict them. But she didn't make those statements during official testimony, just stump speaches, so she can't be accused of perjury. Lying during campaigns may not be required by law, but it's a practical necessity.

It's amazing that in this day and age, when everything anyone says in public is saved for posterity, they still think they can get away with such blatant misstatements. But I suppose if you didn't put this possibility out of your mind, you'd be totally hamstrung, since admitting failures is probably not the way to win elections, either. When you're between a rock and a hard place, you still have to choose one of them.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2016-July-07, 08:39, said:

The conservative news channels, as well as late night comedy programs, have been having a field day with a montage that intercuts her claims with the report's findings that directly contradict them. But she didn't make those statements during official testimony, just stump speaches, so she can't be accused of perjury. Lying during campaigns may not be required by law, but it's a practical necessity.

It's amazing that in this day and age, when everything anyone says in public is saved for posterity, they still think they can get away with such blatant misstatements. But I suppose if you didn't put this possibility out of your mind, you'd be totally hamstrung, since admitting failures is probably not the way to win elections, either. When you're between a rock and a hard place, you still have to choose one of them.

There are many things I find distressing about all of this.

For starters, it was all so unnecessary. Analogy is always dangerous, but I think of the way I, as a prof, was to handle student grades, handle conversations with parents, and so on. I just learned what the rules were and I followed them This is for simplicity and for self-protection. I went outside the rules once to help a very distraught and very sane mother track down her druggie son, but other than that I just did what the rules said I was to do. Whether we are speaking of rules for handling grades or rules for handling classified material, you just follow the rules. It will probably be best, and if the system fails someone else can be explaining why they set up the system in such a poor manner. Why would anyone go off the reservation on this?

Now, from what I have read, HC is completely avoiding the subject and going on about Trump. We know about Trump, good grief we know about Trump. This does not make her look good. Yes Hillary, Donald may have made a bigger mess, but we are talking right now about your mess. Yelling loudly about someone else to divert attention from your own errors is something we associate with ten year olds.

And then, of course, there are the R's who are going to hold no doubt endless hearings. Do these guys actually ever work? They need some 12 step program to wean them off this hearing addiction.

Never mind about DT and the rigged system. DT has nothing to say, he just says it loudly.

It is all very depressing.

[cherdano]

I have a different take on the email controversy.

Let me start with one quote from the statement by Comey:

Quote

While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

Lots of people think that way too many documents are getting classified as "secret" or "top secret". I would expect many people in the state department to agree with that statement, but very few among the FBI. Hence I would expect that state department official might occasionally slip and discuss "top secret" matters over a communication system that is not classified to discuss "top secret" matters. I would expect someone from the FBI to get outraged if he found out about that. Seems to me that this is exactly what happened. I mean, let the FBI comb through 60,000 emails by any top government official who isn't themselves from a law enforcement or military background, and I'd expect the FBI to find 52 that are officially classified "top secret" and would not be allowed to discussed on the given systems security classification. (Also note that on this part, the private email server is a bit of a red herring - it would have been equally against regulations to do that on the department email servers.)

I find the following two quotes in combination self-righteous and outrageous:

Quote

there is evidence that they [Secretary Clinton and her colleagues] were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

Quote

Opinions are irrelevant [...] Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way.

With all respect to the director of the FBI, which information is "very sensitive" is a political judgement that he shouldn't be making without presenting us the evidence. It may also be a matter of opinion what constitutes "extremely careless" handling of information. I mean, just consider the fact that we know that the state department email servers got hacked, and there is no evidence that Clinton's email server got hacked.

With a little less respect to the director of the FBI, I think he is overstepping his role. His role was to determine the facts, and to decide whether to bring an indictment against Clinton. It wasn't to make a political judgement on her behaviour. And if he really wants to make such a judgement, he at least should provide us with the evidence. He is a Re

Secondly, I would bet that email systems provided by government agencies at the time were completely unusable for anyone sending a large amounts of email per day. I mean, I certainly always tried to avoid using University-provided email servers back then when that was possible and allowed! "Convenience" is a completely sufficient explanation for why she decided to do that.
(Of course, that does not make it a wise decision!)

Finally:

barmar, on 2016-July-07, 08:39, said:

The conservative news channels, as well as late night comedy programs, have been having a field day with a montage that intercuts her claims with the report's findings that directly contradict them. But she didn't make those statements during official testimony, just stump speaches, so she can't be accused of perjury. Lying during campaigns may not be required by law, but it's a practical necessity.

Can you give an example of such a lie, where it is clear that it was an intentional lie?

[cherdano]

kenberg, on 2016-July-07, 15:37, said:

For starters, it was all so unnecessary. Analogy is always dangerous, but I think of the way I, as a prof, was to handle student grades, handle conversations with parents, and so on. I just learned what the rules were and I followed them This is for simplicity and for self-protection.

Obviously these are important rules, and everyone I know would make an effort to follow the rules on this matter.
But if you don't mind me asking - when did you retire? The amount of rules we have to follow seems to increase by 10% every year. I realise you know enough mathematics to realise this means they double much sooner than every 10 years! I bet that today, a determined FBI director would be able to find a few rules and regulations that you didn't follow to the letter.

I was once told (in a previous job) that it would be incompatible with state law to use any google service for work - say, to write a committee report via google documents. The alleged reason was that google's terms of service would be technically incompatible with the state's FOIA laws. Yeah right. A few months later the entire university started rolling out google email for all students and staff. I doubt google changed its terms of service for a single university...

[kenberg]

cherdano, on 2016-July-07, 16:39, said:

Obviously these are important rules, and everyone I know would make an effort to follow the rules on this matter.
But if you don't mind me asking - when did you retire? The amount of rules we have to follow seems to increase by 10% every year. I realise you know enough mathematics to realise this means they double much sooner than every 10 years! I bet that today, a determined FBI director would be able to find a few rules and regulations that you didn't follow to the letter.

I was once told (in a previous job) that it would be incompatible with state law to use any google service for work - say, to write a committee report via google documents. The alleged reason was that google's terms of service would be technically incompatible with the state's FOIA laws. Yeah right. A few months later the entire university started rolling out google email for all students and staff. I doubt google changed its terms of service for a single university...

I retired, sort of, in 2004. I taught a couple of classes last fall, a colleague became ill. I am working on some mathematics with a friend, that's just for the fun of it. It's a realized enough situation so that I don't have to worry about hidden rules. Or do I? There are various e-mails that come out about paperwork to file. In the first couple of years after I formally retired I would ask, and was always told that they don't apply to me, even if I was teaching a course. So I stopped reading this stuff. Oops. Last fall there was some new stuff and I was expected to do it. But it was so screwed up no one could do it right anyway and anyway I eventually got the word. And I was involved in a grant that dispersed a fair amount of money in various places. But there was an assistant who knew about such things. As I explained at a gathering celebrating her promotion to a higher position, I would come home and say "Rhyneta said I should do such and such. So I did such and such."


Rules can be confusing. I have two examples, pointing in different directins.


I. Once they were doing some roadwork and some traffic cones laid out. I and several other drivers did what we thought was correct. We all got tickets. A judge later asked what the ticket was for and she cut forth my lengthy explanation and asked for a simple answer. "It was for disobeying a cone". This answer was acceptable.

II. I once got stopped in Virginia for speeding. I was speeding, the stop was totally legit. But I had also had a previous ticket in Virginia that I thought was unfair and so I didn't pay it. uh oh. They handcuffed me, thoroughly searched me (and I mean thoroughly), and hauled me off to a holding cell. There is a line from an old song "My chick came down and made my bail, and got me out of that rotten jail". Except that the "chick" was my daughter.


The first was an honest mistake, the second was a serious lapse of judgment on my part. I see Hillary's actions as being much more like II than like I.

A good faith effort to stay within the rules can be recognized. So can a willful action ignoring the rules.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2016-July-07, 15:37, said:

Whether we are speaking of rules for handling grades or rules for handling classified material, you just follow the rules. It will probably be best, and if the system fails someone else can be explaining why they set up the system in such a poor manner. Why would anyone go off the reservation on this?

Just to be clear Ken, the rules at the time HC took office were that she needed to turn over official correspondence to the government. There was no rule at all about using a personal account. Many other public figures, such as Colin Powell and Jeb Bush, also used personal email accounts for official business. The rule regulating that private emails be "preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system" came in a little under a year later. So if she had followed your example and found out the rules initially and then paid less attention, the result would have been precisely what happened.

When you look into the details of what happened, the report from Comey looks to be about as critical as could possible be justified. There is no possible way of spinning her actions into a criminal prosecution and everyone knows this. Except the public, which is rather the point. That you seem to have your doubts is proof that the Republican strategy is working. Think how much more effective it is likely to be on less educated voters.

[blackshoe]

PassedOut, on 2016-July-02, 09:05, said:

I've talked with people who actually believe that a beginner might beat a chess master by confounding the master with unexpected moves.

When I was a kid, I used to play chess with a friend of my mother's. I dunno about "master", but he was a pretty smart guy - chem engineer, MIT grad, etc. Once in a while I would beat him. He told me once that the reason was that I would do things that didn't make sense. :-)

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on 2016-July-07, 17:57, said:

Just to be clear Ken, the rules at the time HC took office were that she needed to turn over official correspondence to the government. There was no rule at all about using a personal account. Many other public figures, such as Colin Powell and Jeb Bush, also used personal email accounts for official business. The rule regulating that private emails be "preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system" came in a little under a year later. So if she had followed your example and found out the rules initially and then paid less attention, the result would have been precisely what happened.

When you look into the details of what happened, the report from Comey looks to be about as critical as could possible be justified. There is no possible way of spinning her actions into a criminal prosecution and everyone knows this. Except the public, which is rather the point. That you seem to have your doubts is proof that the Republican strategy is working. Think how much more effective it is likely to be on less educated voters.

Is this correct? It seems astounding. There were no rules regarding the e-mail discussion of classified material? I assume you could not post it on Facebook. Or could you?Some of the material, a small amount but still some, was classified as Top Secret. If what you say is correct then it sounds as if more caution was expected for how I handled student grades than what was expected of the Secretary of State for handling Top Secret documents.
I do realize that some classifications are outlandish. I seem to recall tables of the trigonometric functions once being classified. But the fact that some classification is nuts does not justify a cavalier attitude toward all classification.


Do you have a source for what you say? I completely trust your intent here, but I find it bizarre that there would be no rules governing e-mail communication of classified material. I have never heard this before."At the time HC took office". That was sometime in this century, was it not? I'm speechless. Well, not really.

[mike777]

Zelandakh, on 2016-July-07, 17:57, said:

Just to be clear Ken, the rules at the time HC took office were that she needed to turn over official correspondence to the government. There was no rule at all about using a personal account. Many other public figures, such as Colin Powell and Jeb Bush, also used personal email accounts for official business. The rule regulating that private emails be "preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system" came in a little under a year later. So if she had followed your example and found out the rules initially and then paid less attention, the result would have been precisely what happened.

When you look into the details of what happened, the report from Comey looks to be about as critical as could possible be justified. There is no possible way of spinning her actions into a criminal prosecution and everyone knows this. Except the public, which is rather the point. That you seem to have your doubts is proof that the Republican strategy is working. Think how much more effective it is likely to be on less educated voters.

Sorry Zel but clearly you are showing your bias when you claim no possible way her actions are a criminal prosecution and everyone know this.

Not sure what law school you went to or where you practice law but many who did indeed attend law school, practice law, were federal prosecutors and worked in the justice department disagree.

With that said fair minded people may indeed feel no possible way her actions were criminal just not all or close to all. Once you say fair and reasonably educated people could never find her criminally liable you close your mind.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2016-July-07, 20:44, said:

Sorry Zel but clearly you are showing your bias when you claim no possible way her actions are a criminal prosecution and everyone know this.

Not sure what law school you went to or where you practice law but many who did indeed attend law school, practice law, were federal prosecutors and worked in the justice department disagree.

With that said fair minded people may indeed feel no possible way her actions were criminal just not all or close to all. Once you say fair and reasonably educated people could never find her criminally liable you close your mind.

Why aren't these people being looked at as potential criminals then? From March 2016

Quote

ABC News detailed a final State Department investigation which concluded that past secretaries of state, including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice's immediate staff, "handled classified material on unclassified email systems."

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2016-July-07, 19:20, said:

When I was a kid, I used to play chess with a friend of my mother's. I dunno about "master", but he was a pretty smart guy - chem engineer, MIT grad, etc. Once in a while I would beat him. He told me once that the reason was that I would do things that didn't make sense. :-)

He wasn't.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2016-July-07, 21:10, said:

Why aren't these people being looked at as potential criminals then? From March 2016

The short answer is that if we never prosecuted someone for doing something wrong if someone else previously had gotten away with it then we would never prosecute anyone for anything.

A longer answer would be that it depends on exactly what was done and exactly what the rules are or were.

Defenders of Richard Nixon often pointed to misdeeds of Lyndon Johnson. At the more personal level, in my youthful days my friend Roger and I were shopping at Montgomery Ward. When we left, we had to get back to my car, parked on the far side of University Avenue. Even back then University was a high traffic road running between the state capitol in St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. We crossed in the middle of the block, dodging cars. We were sixteen, no further explanation required. The (previously unseen) cop on the other side called me over, completely ignoring Roger. Why? Beats me. Roger went on to become a Methodist minister, perhaps a higher power was watching over him. But even sixteen year old me had enough sense not to tell the cop he was doing his job wrong by just focusing on me. (When I was twelve, I did tell a cop who was lecturing me that he was doing his job wrong. I try hard not to make the same mistake twice.)

If high level people in the State Department or elsewhere routinely discuss Top Secret material on an e-mail server that has only routine security features, I think that they need to stop doing that, and I mean like now. It seems to be stupid beyond belief. I guess part of the Comey argument for not prosecuting was indeed that there are others in the government who were just as stupid as she was, even if she was routinely stupid and they were, perhaps, only occasionally stupid. It's not a great argument, but I guess it's an argument.

[Al_U_Card]

kenberg, on 2016-July-08, 06:57, said:

The short answer is that if we never prosecuted someone for doing something wrong if someone else previously had gotten away with it then we would never prosecute anyone for anything.

A longer answer would be that it depends on exactly what was done and exactly what the rules are or were.

It's who you know.

The fact that we have no more power than one vote in elections leads us to believe that others in positions of power and influence are also thus limited. That helps them continue to pull the strings and take advantage of our naivete.

[olegru]

PassedOut, on 2016-July-05, 10:08, said:

Poor judgment is not a crime

PassedOut, on 2016-July-05, 10:08, said:

Clinton could turn out to be a good president.

Person with proven poor judgment borderline to crime? Seems like our expectations are so low that it is not even funny.

[kenberg]

Al_U_Card, on 2016-July-08, 07:10, said:

It's who you know.

The fact that we have no more power than one vote in elections leads us to believe that others in positions of power and influence are also thus limited. That helps them continue to pull the strings and take advantage of our naivete.

It is true that I am naive. This I acknowledge. But life consists of choices between unbridled naivety and unbridled cynicism. People sometimes get away with a lot because of who they are or who they know. More often, perhaps, they get away with things because they have a legal team that keeps them technically on the right side of the law while engaging in actions that clearly dodge the law's intent. The principal effect of some tax laws seems to be to create well paid jobs for tax lawyers.

With the e-mail issue there is plenty to be cynical about. It seems pretty clear that the R interest in the matter is how it can be used to damage HC rather than any concern about national security. An interest in the latter might prompt hearings to determine needed revisions in cybersecurity. An obsession with the former prompts hearings to berate Comey for not being on the Get Hillary team.

But while there is much to be cynical about it appears to me, no expert on national security or the laws governing it, that Comey took his job seriously and came to conclusions based on serious investigation. I would like to believe that is true, which might be naivety. Or not.