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[sangreal]

Um, what? Internal office communications aren't part of the official duties of Secretary of State? I don't even... wha... in any case, there were discussions with other diplomats among the emails turned over.

There were classified emails among the 30,000 that were turned over. And we don't even know that the emails from the privately-owned, privately-administered server were turned over in their entirety. We do know that the server was insecurely managed, for a certainty.

No, they are not which I assumed you knew since you already made the distinction with regard to Powell and Rice who used personal email for the exact same purpose. Official State business is conducted through letters, cables, personal meetings and phone. Not email

Classified emails were also sent to Powell and Rice so again -- you are the one trying to draw a non-existent distinction here which you have not explained if you don't see the difference between official correspondence and the emails in question. The situations are exactly parallel. What is it you think Powell was using his email for?

 

[Laevateinn]

I'm sure the DoD does plenty of dumb shit. Private industry does a lot of stupid shit too. One thing though with this scandal that makes it particularly egregious is the ownership of the private email server. When you do stupid shit inside your organization, you should be held responsible, but ideally some of your controls are still in place. But when you do stupid shit through your own server, on behalf of your organization, you've taken all liability upon yourself. It's very likely that we will never be able to know if there was even a breach on Hillary's email server.



Um, what? Internal office communications aren't part of the official duties of Secretary of State? I don't even... wha... in any case, there were discussions with other diplomats among the emails turned over.

There were classified emails among the 30,000 that were turned over. And we don't even know that the emails from the privately-owned, privately-administered server were turned over in their entirety. We do know that the server was insecurely managed, for a certainty.

I may be wrong I believe there was nothing in the emails individually that would be considered classified. I work in a place that requires clearance and anything that is released requires clearance. One thing that we're made of aware of is that if you collect a bunch of things that are individually non-classified, that doesn't mean that what has been collected is also unclassified. In fact, collecting a bunch of unclassified material is a quick way to make something classified.

The emails themselves didn't matter. As others have said, there's no way the State Department isn't restricting business that matters to channels that are more secure than email. But, compiling all of the emails into a witch hunt is an easy way to get the reviewers to mark things as classified, a fact that I'm sure the Republicans in Congress were aware of and wanted to take advantage of politically.

 

[ApharmdX]

No, they are not which I assumed you knew since you already made the distinction with regard to Powell and Rice who used personal email for the exact same purpose. Official State business is conducted through letters, cables, personal meetings and phone. Not email

Classified emails were also sent to Powell and Rice so again -- you are the one trying to draw a nonexistant distinction here which you have not explained if you don't see the difference between official correspondence and the emails in question.

We have very different definitions of official duties. Any communication done for the position of SoS, including that by and between staff or other State Department personnel, should be on a properly-secured federal server, unless there are exigent circumstances or something like that. That would be like me saying, "hey, I'm going to use my organizational email to communicate with external press releases but my Gmail account for everything else." That holds no water.

"Powell and Rice did wrong too" is a terrible excuse, by the way.

I may be wrong I believe there was nothing in the emails individually that would be considered classified. I work in a place that requires clearance and anything that is released requires clearance. One thing that we're made of aware of is that if you collect a bunch of things that are individually non-classified, that doesn't mean that what has been collected is also unclassified. In fact, collecting a bunch of unclassified material is a quick way to make something classified.

The emails themselves didn't matter. As others have said, there's no way the State Department isn't restricting business that matters to channels that are more secure than email. But, compiling all of the emails into a witch hunt is an easy way to get the reviewers to mark things as classified, a fact that I'm sure the Republicans in Congress were aware of and wanted to take advantage of politically.

Some were marked classified and were released heavily-redacted. The real crux of the issue is that, ultimately, we don't even know that these were all of the emails from the server. It was totally outside of State Department control. So there may have been a ton of classified material that wasn't released. There's no way to know, and we don't conduct information security on the honor system.

 

[sangreal]

We have very different definitions of official duties. Any communication done for the position of SoS, including that by and between staff or other State Department personnel, should be on a properly-secured federal server, unless there are exigent circumstances or something like that. That would be like me saying, "hey, I'm going to use my organizational email to communicate with external press releases but my Gmail account for everything else." That holds no water.

"Powell and Rice did wrong too" is a terrible excuse, by the way.

I'm not interested in arguing the definition of official duties, I am simply following your lead because you (not me) stated:

The "Rice and Powell did it too" defense is probably the second-worst defense of the email scandal. You do realize that Rice and Powell used official email to conduct business as SoS, right?

Using your definition, this is demonstrably false. So again, what is your understanding of what Powell and Rice (and the entire senior GWB admin) used their unofficial email servers for?

(The answer is for the same matters we are discussing in relation to Hillary. Hence the only way to reconcile your statement is to assume you are distinguishing between those matters and official correspondance)

 

[ApharmdX]

I'm not interested in arguing the definition of official duties, I am simply following your lead because you (not me) stated:


Using your definition, this is demonstrably false. So again, what is your understanding of what Powell and Rice (and the entire senior GWB admin) used their unofficial email servers for?

(The answer is for the same matters we are discussing in relation to Hillary. Hence the only way to reconcile your statement is to assume you are distinguishing between those matters and official correspondance)

They did use official email to conduct business. They didn't solely use official email. Some of their email done through personal email was marked classified (in the single digits per). Of Hillary's turned-over email, something like 5% of email was marked classified, and two dozen were marked top secret.

As I said in a previous post, there's a lot of wrong to go around. None of these people followed best practices. But Hillary was furthest outside of them by using a personal email server. This is even worse than using a Gmail or Microsoft email account.

Your defense of her here boils down to previous SoSes also doing it. I have no problem saying that they were also wrong, and any official business done with Secretary should have gone through State Department email, with classified communications done through the classified email. It was a poor policy, combined with irresponsibility by all parties involved, that led us here.

 

[gutter_trash]

Bernie supporters call Hillary a neo-liberal Republican

Cruz supporters call Trump a North-East Progressive Liberal
Purity extremists in a nutshell.

 

[Box of Kittens]

Yea, no. I mean in the UK you've got the Conservatives, or whatever they're called, trying to dismantle the UHS. The only reason they haven't is the entire country threw a bitch fit.

I'm a little confused here. You say "yea, no" but then the rest of the post seems to be supporting my position.

Perhaps my wording wasn't clear. By "fight an attempt to implement single payer tooth and nail" I probably should have worded it "fight against" to make it more clear that they would oppose the implementation of the system that exists in Canada and they ostensibly support (because outright opposition would be political suicide).

 

[uncelestial]

No she didn't. She called Bernie's plan of implementing single payer unrealistic. She supports UHC.

Uh, no. Not a single proposal on her "health care" page would get us to UHC.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

So whatever she means by "support" is meaningless. More from Slate on this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...al_plan_or_any_plan_at_all_for_achieving.html

And frankly, since she has no replacement plan for single payer for achieving UHC, pointing out that she was "only" calling single payer unrealistic is also pretty meaningless. She used to support it in the 90s, saying "we'll be Canada in the year 2000." She's never proposed any other way of getting there. So...

...But I am glad that she wants to expand coverage and make it more affordable and defend/expand ACA. I'll take it over the alternative.

I mean, a single payer healthcare system isn't the only way to UHC. Ask Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Switzerland, Israel, South Korea, etc.

No lies here. I'll take whatever plan is viable in the US political climate. Costa Rica (I think) has a system where it's achieved through the private industry but the industry uses a national risk pool and cannot make a profit from the baseline UHC services, only through supplemental insurance. FINE, whatever. As long as we end the system where health events bankrupt people.

 

[fantomena]

Bernie supporters call Hillary a neo-liberal Republican

Cruz supporters call Trump a North-East Progressive Liberal
Purity extremists in a nutshell.

Ok.

 

[digdug2k]

Uh, no. Not a single proposal on her "health care" page would get us to UHC.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

So whatever she means by "support" is meaningless. More from Slate on this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...al_plan_or_any_plan_at_all_for_achieving.html

And frankly, since she has no replacement plan for single payer for achieving UHC, pointing out that she was "only" calling single payer unrealistic is also pretty meaningless. She used to support it in the 90s, saying "we'll be Canada in the year 2000." She's never proposed any other way of getting there. So...

...But I am glad that she wants to expand coverage and make it more affordable and defend/expand ACA. I'll take it over the alternative.

No lies here. I'll take whatever plan is viable in the US political climate. Costa Rica (I think) has a system where it's achieved through the private industry but the industry uses a national risk pool and cannot make a profit from the baseline UHC services, only through supplemental insurance. FINE, whatever. As long as we end the system where health events bankrupt people.

Slate's being obtuse. There's plenty on that exact web site about things she's proposed to implement that move toward that. i.e. All of:

• Make premiums more affordable and lessen out-of-pocket expenses for consumers purchasing health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. <ways to do that follow>
• Support new incentives to encourage all states to expand Medicaid. <ways to do that follow>
• Invest in navigators, advertising and other outreach activities to make enrollment easier. <ways to do that follow>
• Expand access to affordable health care to families regardless of immigration status. <ways to do that follow>
• Continue to support a “public option” <ways to do that follow>

have the potential to move the number of unwillfully-uninsured down to near-zero. Most of them are aimed at getting new people into Medicare/exchanges who weren't there (i.e. that's what "expand coverage" means). Heck, just getting people who can sign up for Medicaid right now to actually sign up gets us pretty darn close.

If your definition of UHC is nobody can be uninsured, then its probably not going to get there. Nothing short of compulsary insurance can do that. Heck, even that probably fails. Bernie's plan probably requires at the very very least a social security card of some sort, which (surprise!) there's crazy people out there who refuse to get, but more likely registering periodically, which people will undoubtedly refuse/forget to do. Does he not believe in UHC unless he puts them in jail for that? Or is (the already law) "A hospital can't refuse to serve you" enough to be called UHC?

 

[Laevateinn]

Some were marked classified and were released heavily-redacted. The real crux of the issue is that, ultimately, we don't even know that these were all of the emails from the server. It was totally outside of State Department control. So there may have been a ton of classified material that wasn't released. There's no way to know, and we don't conduct information security on the honor system.

Again, I haven't been following this super closely because I think it's a meaningless sideshow but were the emails marked classified individually or were they redacted and marked classified due to their release in aggregate? I can guarantee you that any bulk dump of info from a high level office like hers will have bits marked classified and redacted on release. Republicans know this which is why they saw red meat when this issue came up.

Look, I don't know what your agenda is but I'm a Bernie supporter who will vote third party come November. This is the wrong issue to dwell on.

 

[ugaboga232]

Slate's being obtuse. There's plenty on that exact web site about things she's proposed to implement that move toward that. i.e. All of:

• Make premiums more affordable and lessen out-of-pocket expenses for consumers purchasing health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. <ways to do that follow>
• Support new incentives to encourage all states to expand Medicaid. <ways to do that follow>
• Invest in navigators, advertising and other outreach activities to make enrollment easier. <ways to do that follow>
• Expand access to affordable health care to families regardless of immigration status. <ways to do that follow>
• Continue to support a “public option” <ways to do that follow>

have the potential to move the number of unwillfully-uninsured down to near-zero. Most of them are aimed at getting new people into Medicare/exchanges who weren't there (i.e. that's what "expand coverage" means). Heck, just getting people who can sign up for Medicaid right now to actually sign up gets us pretty darn close.

If your definition of UHC is nobody can be uninsured, then its probably not going to get there. Nothing short of compulsary insurance can do that. Heck, even that probably fails. Bernie's plan probably requires at the very very least a social security card of some sort, which (surprise!) there's crazy people out there who refuse to get, but more likely registering periodically, which people will undoubtedly refuse/forget to do. Does he not believe in UHC unless he puts them in jail for that? Or is (the already law) "A hospital can't refuse to serve you" enough to be called UHC?

This all sounds good and all on a birds eye view, but many of her proposals are untenable or simply won't do that much regarding state based public options. UHC is as much about the % insured as much as it is about the quality of the insurance (underinsurance is a HUGE problem).

These are good, incremental advances but won't really fix the healthcare system in any meaningful way (not that Bernie could either) so lets not be fooled by fancy formatting and bullet points. She provides basically one idea per bullet point including some that realistically won't be able to be passed or won't work the way you want it to and does little to fix deductibles and drug costs as is or even begun the necessary steps toward treating healthcare as a utility instead of a commodity which is really what UHC is all about. It doesn't matter if its 100% public (though there are probably some slight efficiency benefits one way or another) or 100% private if the legal structure of healthcare is designed with the right philophy.

Bernie's problem is not so much a shitty plan (its not perfect but the Thorpe analysis everyone turns to is pretty flawed) but rather no political capital so its not like either side has great options but at least he is willing to speak towards the paradigm shift that every UHC country has taken.

 

[ApharmdX]

Again, I haven't been following this super closely because I think it's a meaningless sideshow but were the emails marked classified individually or were they redacted and marked classified due to their release in aggregate? I can guarantee you that any bulk dump of info from a high level office like hers will have bits marked classified and redacted on release. Republicans know this which is why they saw red meat when this issue came up.

Look, I don't know what your agenda is but I'm a Bernie supporter who will vote third party come November. This is the wrong issue to dwell on.

I'm a Bernie supporter who will vote Hillary in November. I don't believe the Republican fantasy that she'll be indicted, but it speaks really poorly of her judgment, disregarding national security for convenience and the ability to weasel past the FoIA. It's not enough to stop me from voting for her in November, because her opposition on the GOP side is so terrible, but it's concerning, and it's not the non-issue that her blind supporters try to wave it off as.

Again, we don't even know if the emails released were all of them. That's the problem with doing everything through a server outside of the system. And without proper auditing, we'll never know if the system was compromised. The whole thing is indefensible.

Is material released in bulk also marked top-secret or only classified and redacted? I honestly don't know.

 

[Laevateinn]

I literally just got out of a meeting on this an hour ago. I could compile a bunch of printouts of wikipedia articles but it still has to go through a review if I were to release it publicly. If the reviewers believe that people could read between the lines with the collected information, it can be marked at any level of classification even if everything in there was already public knowledge.

 

[uncelestial]

Slate's being obtuse. There's plenty on that exact web site about things she's proposed to implement that move toward that. i.e. All of:

• Make premiums more affordable and lessen out-of-pocket expenses for consumers purchasing health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. <ways to do that follow>
• Support new incentives to encourage all states to expand Medicaid. <ways to do that follow>
• Invest in navigators, advertising and other outreach activities to make enrollment easier. <ways to do that follow>
• Expand access to affordable health care to families regardless of immigration status. <ways to do that follow>
• Continue to support a “public option” <ways to do that follow>

have the potential to move the number of unwillfully-uninsured down to near-zero. Most of them are aimed at getting new people into Medicare/exchanges who weren't there (i.e. that's what "expand coverage" means). Heck, just getting people who can sign up for Medicaid right now to actually sign up gets us pretty darn close.

If your definition of UHC is nobody can be uninsured, then its probably not going to get there. Nothing short of compulsary insurance can do that. Heck, even that probably fails. Bernie's plan probably requires at the very very least a social security card of some sort, which (surprise!) there's crazy people out there who refuse to get, but more likely registering periodically, which people will undoubtedly refuse/forget to do. Does he not believe in UHC unless he puts them in jail for that? Or is (the already law) "A hospital can't refuse to serve you" enough to be called UHC?

I mean, no lies detected man. I just see a difference between espousing policies that "move toward" UHC and actual UHC. And yes, my definition is that nobody can be uninsured (or, if insurance is not involved, then guaranteed health care by statue/some other compulsory legal construct). Those are good plausible -with-a-cooperative-congress proposals on Hillary's agenda. So I'll take em.

 

[Jack Remington]

One thing though with this scandal

It isn't a scandal.

Watergate was a scandal.

This is a lot of hot air from Republicans, and now Bernie supporters apparently.

 

[massoluk]

As Bernie Sanders once said... The American people are sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails. So follow in his footstep, may be?

 

[Neoweee]

It isn't a scandal.

Watergate was a scandal.

This is a lot of hot air from Republicans, and now Bernie supporters apparently.

It is a scandal. Most of everything related to Benghazi was a giant load of crap, but even as a Hillary supporter (and former Bernie donater), there are multiple questionable issues surrounding the email serve. I'd put a great deal of many on no felony charges coming from this, but there is potentially something here. It's just buried in a lot of hyperbolic crap and poor understandings of how and when information gets considered classified.

 

[ApharmdX]

It isn't a scandal.

Watergate was a scandal.

This is a lot of hot air from Republicans, and now Bernie supporters apparently.

scan·dal
&#712;skandl/
noun
noun: scandal; plural noun: scandals

an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage.
"a bribery scandal involving one of his key supporters"
synonyms: (outrageous) wrongdoing, impropriety, misconduct, immoral behavior, unethical behavior, discreditable behavior, outrageous behavior; More
shocking incident, shocking series of events;
offense, transgression, crime, sin;
skeleton in the closet;
informalbusiness, affair, -gate
"the sex scandal forced him to resign"
the outrage or anger caused by a scandalous action or event.
"divorce was cause for scandal on the island"
synonyms: shame, dishonor, disgrace, disrepute, discredit, infamy, ignominy, embarrassment; More
odium, opprobrium, censure, obloquy;
stigma
"unmarried motherhood at that time was fraught with scandal"
rumor or malicious gossip about scandalous events or actions.
"I know that you would want no scandal attached to her name"
synonyms: malicious gossip, malicious rumor(s), slander, libel, calumny, defamation, aspersions, muckraking, scandalmongering, smear campaign; informaldirt
"no scandal is attached to her name"

It is definitely a scandal. Unless you can explain to me how it's morally responsible to store state secrets on a privately-held email server, which we know was not properly secured.

 

[Suikoguy]

It is definitely a scandal. Unless you can explain to me how it's morally responsible to store state secrets on a privately-held email server, which we know was not properly secured.

What state secrets?


Also, it's very amusing watching ugaboga232 argue that Clinton's plan has no chance of being passed, when that applies Sanders's entire platform. In some ways at least it's progress, sorta.

 

[Jack Remington]

Morals? We're talking about morals now? Morals?

:mjlol

Might as well get morally outraged about what brand of toilet paper someone uses.

 

[Suikoguy]

Morals? We're talking about morals now? Morals?

:mjlol

Might as well get morally outraged about what brand of toilet paper someone uses.

What makes the discussion almost impossible to have or actually go anywhere is we have no idea what they now consider classified. It could be what the President asked to be brought for lunch for the SoS meeting or something.

Saying it's State Secrets make an assumption that is not provable since we don't know what was made post-classified. Since we do know that classified material was sent via other channels (cables, phone, etc), that unless the person has an agenda, would be the more likely explanation. Especially after hearing experts talk about how the whole classified system is so very convoluted.

Edit: Oh, and Hillary never gets the benefit of the doubt on anything from some people. Even though every post-investigation nothing ever turns up.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

Team Political Revolution looks like the Houston Rockets.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Where's that immoral cracker eating girl? Eating her crackers of avarice. Her crackers made of the tears of children.

 

[ApharmdX]

Morals? We're talking about morals now? Morals?

:mjlol

Might as well get morally outraged about what brand of toilet paper someone uses.

Messed up on my post a bit, because this goes beyond morals to simple responsibility and judgment. Can you lead our national security apparatus, the most powerful in history, without these things?

Does Hillary's convenience and avoiding accountability from public information requests outweigh the very real possibility of putting lives at risk?

You've got to be deep in the tank for a candidate to defend them on this. I'll vote for Hillary, with reservations, but I won't excuse this. I hope she uses better judgment in the future if she's going to be president.

What state secrets?

We don't know, and won't ever know, but we do know that top secret material was stored on a server which Hillary owned, and that server was improperly secured.

 

[ugaboga232]

What state secrets?


Also, it's very amusing watching ugaboga232 argue that Clinton's plan has no chance of being passed, when that applies Sanders's entire platform. In some ways at least it's progress, sorta.

Thanks for reading my post I guess? I even said there is no political capital for bernie's plan but that doesn't change anything about Hillary's plan being not really all that.

And I argued that parts of her pan will be allowed under ACA but will be limited by cooperating states (and it seems some states really wanna cut off their noses to spite the face) and other parts won't be passed easily.

 

[rjinaz]

It isn't a scandal.

Watergate was a scandal.

This is a lot of hot air from Republicans, and now Bernie supporters apparently.

only the bitter ones.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Messed up on my post a bit, because this goes beyond morals to simple responsibility and judgment. Can you lead our national security apparatus, the most powerful in history, without these things?

Does Hillary's convenience and avoiding accountability from public information requests outweigh the very real possibility of putting lives at risk?

You've got to be deep in the tank for a candidate to defend them on this. I'll vote for Hillary, with reservations, but I won't excuse this. I hope she uses better judgment in the future if she's going to be president.

We don't know, and won't ever know, but we do know that top secret material was stored on a server which Hillary owned, and that server was improperly secured.

Clinton had secure lines of communication for any information marked classified like every other Secretary of State before her. The state.gov email account that she would have otherwise used would not have been a secure line of communication regardless. It would have still been an unclassified system; this system has been regularly attacked and breached before. There is a classified system, which is also regularly attacked, but Clinton would be under no obligation to use that either - because the Secretary of State doesn't have to use email as a channel for classified information.

Any information now deemed classified has been done so post-hoc, by a different agency, often at the protest of the agency she ran.

You can take some sort of moral issue against a Secretary of State wanting to avoid an often politicized FOIA to an extent, which the legislative branch is for some reason not subject to I suppose. It's a strange "moral" issue, given any emails she sent or received by work colleagues are captured in the state.gov system regardless. But none of this has anything to do with classification.

 

[Jack Remington]

Any information now deemed classified has been done so post-hoc, by a different agency, often at the protest of the agency she ran.

You wouldn't believe how many redditors have very strong moral convictions about original classifying authority though.

 

[danm999]

Uh, no. Not a single proposal on her "health care" page would get us to UHC.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

So whatever she means by "support" is meaningless. More from Slate on this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...al_plan_or_any_plan_at_all_for_achieving.html

Whether Slate thinks her plan isn't going to work is besides my point. She doesn't think UHC is unrealistic, just single payer. That is a mis attribution on your part.

 

[ApharmdX]

Clinton had secure lines of communication for any information marked classified like every other Secretary of State before her. The state.gov email account that she would have otherwise used would not have been a secure line of communication regardless. It would have still been an unclassified system; this system has been regularly attacked and breached before.

Any information now deemed classified has been done so post-hoc, by a different agency, often at the protest of the agency she ran.

You can take some sort of moral issue against a Secretary of State wanting to avoid an often politicized FOIA to an extent, which the legislative branch is for some reason not subject to I suppose. It's a strange "moral" issue, given any emails she sent or received by work colleagues are captured in the state.gov system regardless. But none of this has anything to do with classification.

I am aware of this. Do you have an issue with the outcome that they are classified, and some are now considered top-secret?

The other part of this, is that outside of Clinton and her staff, no one can be absolutely certain of what emails were sent on the system, and whether the system was compromised. The system was outside of State Department control and could have been altered by Clinton or anyone, including attackers.

I do take issue with the SoS skirting the FOIA. If other, less-insulated government workers tried to do that we'd be fired out of hand.

Again, I've never seen an adequate defense of Hillary's email scandal, because there isn't one. The question isn't "was this right or responsible or in-line with best practices/policy?". It's "how serious is this and what kind of damage was done?". That's the real question. It's not a non-issue, it's not just some politicized garbage from opponents, though it has been politicized, of course.

 

[LUFTRAUSER]

You wouldn't believe how many redditors have very strong moral convictions about original classifying authority though.

Given how much reddit loves Snowden this is pretty ironic, too.

 

[Volimar]

Where's that immoral cracker eating girl? Eating her crackers of avarice. Her crackers made of the tears of children.

 

[shinra-bansho]

The legislative branch skirts the FOIA wholesale though as far as I'm aware. No one can FOIA Sanders or Cruz.

And one doesn't actually have to use email at all. Which would also bypass.

Given the revealed nature of some of the "top secret" emails - press clippings about the top secret drone strike program, no I don't think interagency arguing post-hoc about classification is particularly scandalous or shocking.

It remains that were she using internal email it would not have necessarily been any more secure. And information on her unclassified state email could have and would have still been post-hoc classified if reviewed by a more draconian agency.

There is no question of department policy. There was no directive about this she had to adhere to.

 

[Suikoguy]

Again, I've never seen an adequate defense of Hillary's email scandal, because there isn't one. The question isn't "was this right or responsible or in-line with best practices/policy?". It's "how serious is this and what kind of damage was done?". That's the real question. It's not a non-issue, it's not just some politicized garbage from opponents, though it has been politicized, of course.

It's not serious since it was the policy of that office of SoS to use other methods for sending classified information.

Your entire argument is predicated on things being classified after the fact by a process that is convoluted and confusing where various departments often disagree if something should be classified. Email was used purely as a convenience for things that were not classified to improve the efficiency of the office of the Secretary of State. There has been zero evidence of email being used to send classified information. Unless someone with clearance can indicate the seriousness of the post-classified information, you are making the assumption that there was or could have had leaked information from an email server run by the SoS that would cause damage.

 

[uncelestial]

Whether Slate thinks her plan isn't going to work is besides my point. She doesn't think UHC is unrealistic, just single payer. That is a mis attribution on your part.

Slate isn't commenting on whether her plan would work. They, like myself, are pointing out that her plan is not a UHC plan. And we are correct.

Edit: Maybe you mean that she "supports" it, but doesn't propose it (because she knows the opposition to it would be insurmountable), which Slate is hereby theorizing. I don't really care either way; it's just not a UHC plan. Which is a shame, but it's trying to move in the right direction, so as I've said, I'll take it, compared to the alternative.

 

[danm999]

Slate isn't commenting on whether her plan would work. They, like myself, are pointing out that her plan is not a UHC plan. And we are correct.

I mean they are specifically saying she has no practical road map and that you couldn't pass a plan under the next likely Congress which is not analysis I disagree with. But they stress this is also true of Sanders.

So if both have plans unlikely to achieve UHC under the 115th Congress, I'm a little unsure how they're not in it together regarding wanting UHC but not having a clear away ahead at the moment, and a little unsure as to how that gives one of them UHC bonafides while the other does not.

They have the same end goal, essentially. I don't see how they both can't be called proponents of UHC.

 

[uncelestial]

They have the same end goal, essentially. I don't see how they both can't be called proponents of UHC.

One candidate has it in his platform, which officially expands Medicare to a single payer system covering everybody: https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

The other isn't proposing anything that gets us to 100% coverage.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

Realism/pragmatism aside, I don't think you can really claim to be a proponent of something that you omit from your platform.

I realize all of this is moot; Hillary has won, Congress isn't going to go for UHC, etc. etc. So. (shrug) meh.

 

[danm999]

One has it in his platform, which officially expands Medicare to a single payer system covering everybody: https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

The other isn't proposing anything that gets us to 100% coverage.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

Realism/pragmatism aside, I don't think you can really claim to be a proponent of something that you omit from your platform.

I mean, it specifically says she's fighting for UHC. If she's full of it (a possibility as always with politicians) that's not really something we can determine at this point.

So unless we go back to the objection she can't get that passed because of the Slate's article's reasoning (Congress, lack of practical road map), which also applies to Sanders and his plan, we're kind of at an impasse.

Or let me put it this way. The conversation about how the United States should proceed to UHC, through single payer, a two tiered system, or extending the insurance mandate under the ACA, is a much more interesting and relevant conversation than simply one which says anyone who doesn't agree with Bernie's plan for single payer isn't for UHC.

 

[LudicrousSpeed]

I mean, it specifically says she's fighting for UHC. If she's full of it (a possibility as always with politicians) that's not really something we can determine at this point.

So unless we go back to the objection she can't get that passed because of the Slate's article's reasoning (Congress, lack of practical road map), which also applies to Sanders and his plan, we're kind of at an impasse.

Or let me put it this way. The conversation about how the United States should proceed to UHC, through single payer, a two tiered system, or extending the insurance mandate under the ACA, is a much more interesting and relevant conversation than simply one which says anyone who doesn't agree with Bernie's plan for single payer isn't for UHC.

You're missing the mark on this. The objection doesn't have to do with whether the plan could pass Congress, or how we get there. The objection is that she says she's for UHC, but when pressed for details on how to get there, she doesn't have any plan that does that.

There are ways to press for UHC that don't involve single-payer. She hasn't put forward any such proposals. All of her proposed policies are focused on improving the coverage that the 90% of Americans who have insurance receive and not on how you get the final 10% covered. She acknowledges that the problem exists, and she says "We need to get everyone covered", but she presents no solution for doing so.

If I told you I was for ending the drug war and you asked me how I was going to do that and got back a policy proposal for ending global warming, you'd be right in saying that I haven't proposed any policy that would actually achieve my goal.

 

[danm999]

You're missing the mark on this. The objection doesn't have to do with whether the plan could pass Congress, or how we get there. The objection is that she says she's for UHC, but when pressed for details on how to get there, she doesn't have any plan that does that.

Well, yes it does. That's her impetus for calling the single payer plan "unrealistic". That's the crux of the discussion I'm putting forward. That is not what was said about the goal of UHC in itself by either candidate.

Now, if you want to parse "support" meaning having a plan that is articulated but totally politically unviable vs. not having an articulated plan as some sort of litmus test about how serious a candidate really is, we'd have to be at an impasse.

Using your drug war analogy, how does Bernie plan to get incarceration levels below that of China given most US inmates are in State or Local prisons that are outside his control? But do I believe he actually wants to achieve that goal? Well it's a YMMV question, but for me the answer is yes.

My gut feeling is that neither Democratic candidate can pass anything healthcare related in their first term, but that left to their own devices both would pass something to achieve UHC (Sanders single payer, Clinton a two tier system with a public option).

 

[LiquidSolid]

It's not just Europe though is it. Countries like Canada, New Zealand, Costa Rica etc might agree. I'd say it's more of an international interpretation if anything.

*Raises hand* New Zealander here. Leave us out of your childish, self righteous argument, Obama and Hillary would easily fit in with Labour, NZ's major centre-left party.

 

[Suikoguy]

*Raises hand* New Zealander here. Leave us out of your childish, self righteous argument, Obama and Hillary would easily fit in with Labour, NZ's major centre-left party.

You have more than 2 major parties right?
So it would be logical for them to fit in your center left party.

In a 2 party system, things tend to settle to a center left and center right party.
What has killed Republicans is they have unintentionally, to some degree which is up for debate, created a schism in their own party that is extreme right that has shifted the entire party right. Which is why they are becoming increasingly non-viable at the national level. They did this by resorting to fantasy based rhetoric and promises, putting blame on the wrong people, and demonizing the other party and their policies so much that the remaining people of the Republican Party no longer want to compromise.

 

[NeoXChaos]

wrong thread.

 

[LiquidSolid]

You have more than 2 major parties right?
So it would be logical for them to fit in your center left party.

In a 2 party system, things tend to settle to a center left and center right party.
What has killed Republicans is they have unintentionally, to some degree which is up for debate, created a schism in their own party that is extreme right that has shifted the entire party right. Which is why they are becoming increasingly non-viable at the national level. They did this by resorting to fantasy based rhetoric and promises, putting blame on the wrong people, and demonizing the other party and their policies so much that the remaining people of the Republican Party no longer want to compromise.

Two major centrist parties (Labour on the left, National on the right) and then a few smaller parties of various size who they form coalitions with to form a majority. The smaller parties currently in parliament are: ACT (far right, with 1 MP lol), the Greens (far left), the Maori Party (Maori interests, which is typically centre left), NZ First ("centrist" nationalists, basically pander to old people with anti-immigrant bullshit) and United Future (Christians).

Whether they form coalitions doesn't entirely depend on what side of the centre they're on. For example, the Greens were thrown to the curb by Labour (led by Helen Clark, current UN General Secretary nominee) in the 2002 elections when the Greens were being idiots over GMOs, and Labour instead formed a coalition with United Future and the (now defunct) Progressive Party. There was also the time National formed a coalition with the Maori Party because the Maori Party wanted to have an influence in the new government and it was seen as a betrayal in Maori circles because outside of the Maori Party, they overwhelmingly vote Labour and hate National (hence the dildo thrown at a National MP you probably saw on Last Week Tonight). So yeah, it's not an exclusively left/right divide (hell, the 1984 Labour government had very right wing economic policies).

And yeah, I watched the Daily Show from around 2003 up until Jon Stewart left and paid enough attention online, so I witnessed a fair amount of the descent of the Republican Party into the shitheap it is now. To be honest, I wouldn't wish your political system on my worst enemy but still, I think you guys are moving in the right direction and just have to keep at it. Throwing a tantrum like TYT and some Bernie supporters are doing isn't going to do shit for anyone and if they seriously think accelerationism works, they're idiots (I should know, I was an idiot at one point too).

 

[Suikoguy]

Interesting stuff LiquidSolid, thanks for sharing. It's easy for us in the US to be isolated from how other political systems work too. Must be interesting watching the Daily Show from outside the US. They sometimes cover world stuff, but it's heart is US politics.

 

[LiquidSolid]

No problem. To be honest, aside from the odd incident (like dildo face), NZ politics is pretty boring (not that that's a bad thing), but when they pull stuff off like legalising prostitution and same-sex marriage, it's a point of pride. We like to think of ourselves as forward thinking, however true it may or may not be at times.

Yeah, it's interesting watching all that happen through the Daily Show's lenses but at the same time, I try not to rely on those kind of sources. I think that's where some people outside the US go wrong, they see things like the Daily Show and assume that's the full picture, hence the smug self righteous rubbish we sometimes see (all while conveniently ignoring that their countries have their own issues).

 

[Kite]

I never fucking thought I'd see the day where progressives are spamming Fox News and Breitbart bullshit stories just because they are salty Bernie is losing.. I never want to hear anyone post that liberals are smarter and more educated. People who I agree with 90% of the time fall for the same nonsense as religious hicks from the south.

 

[Cerium]

Time is a flat circle.

 

[BanGy.nz]

(hell, the 1984 Labour government had very right wing economic policies).

Good ol' Rogernomics followed by Nationals Ruthanasia. Man the 80's and 90's were weird.