Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Ken B]

http://www.wpr.org/walker-john-doe-restrictions-are-win-free-speech

So secret inquiries are like recusal?

[Pat B]

So secret inquiries are like recusal?

My point was a little more broad than that. However, I don't remember many Republicans complaining about blatant conflicts of interest when the WI Supreme Court shut down that investigation into Walker (and ordered the evidence destroyed!).

[Ken B]

My point was a little more broad than that. However, I don't remember many Republicans complaining about blatant conflicts of interest when the WI Supreme Court shut down that investigation into Walker (and ordered the evidence destroyed!).

Because a court ruling on a legal matter is like an interested party meeting privately with the person making a ruling about him? This just won't cut it as an analogy. If Walker had partied with judges, that would on point.

[kishnevi]

My point was a little more broad than that. However, I don't remember many Republicans complaining about blatant conflicts of interest when the WI Supreme Court shut down that investigation into Walker (and ordered the evidence destroyed!).

If it's the one I am thinking of, the GOP didn't complain about ending the investigation.  They complained about the investigation itself, which appeared to be a politically inspired fishing expedition that took liberties with free speech rights and due process.

[Pat B]

Because a court ruling on a legal matter is like an interested party meeting privately with the person making a ruling about him? This just won't cut it as an analogy. If Walker had partied with judges, that would on point.

Walker and the Republican Legislature eliminated Wisconsin's process for investigating political corruption (which has been used in the past to catch crooks on both sides of the aisle) altogether. I think most people can see the relationship between that action and an allegation of corruption on the part of another politician, regardless of the scheme of alleged corruption.

[Pat B]

If it's the one I am thinking of, the GOP didn't complain about ending the investigation.  They complained about the investigation itself, which appeared to be a politically inspired fishing expedition that took liberties with free speech rights and due process.

We're getting off-topic, but:

At least two of the justices had obvious conflicts of interest. Of course the GOP didn't complain about that: they were on the same team.

You may be thinking of that Walker aide who claimed the investigator told her she couldn't talk to an attorney. The audio of that encounter was eventually released. She was straight-up lying. The initial National Review article is pure fiction. It's pretty funny, for those who can find humor in egregious lies by public officials.

This "politically inspired fishing expedition" was sanctioned by a bipartisan board and led by Francis Schmitz, a Republican who voted for Walker.

[Pat B]

More generally, I view the recent Republican interest in Free Speech as a path to legalize, for all practical purposes, quid pro quo exchanges. The line on determining that has always been very blurry, but now the line has been moved so far away that its blurriness no longer matters.

The Clinton-Lynch meeting was characteristically clumsy, but in this context, I question why we pretend to care about corruption at all.

[Todd]

More generally, I view the recent Republican interest in Free Speech as a path to legalize, for all practical purposes, quid pro quo exchanges.

That would certainly make running the Clinton Foundation much simpler.

[Todd]

So, Obama's going to start officially campaigning for and with Hillary.  I would think he should wait until the Justice Department concludes its investigation into Hillary Clinton. 

The US is almost like a Latin American democracy now.  El Presidente is out rustling up votes on behalf of the candidate of his own party while a criminal investigation is going on.  Meanwhile, a billionaire populist-cum-huckster is rousing the rabble.  Either way, the people win, right?

[André]

Could be worse. Check the Philippines...

[(poco) Sforzando]

Asshole does it again:

http://tinyurl.com/j2nc8tm

Not an apology of course, because he never apologizes, but at least an attempt to cover his tracks. (Of course, "the Jews love me.")

[Todd]

She's in the clear.  (I'm sure the FBI's timing is in no way related to Obama's campaigning, nor is it likely the President knew of the outcome ahead of time.)

So, that means Trump will claim whitewash.  Maybe Whitewater, I don't know.

[Brian]

Trump should be pleased he got quotes like "extremely careless" out of Comey, and of course there's the part where she did send 8 classified emails....and the part where they said that hackers probably saw some of her personal emails.

If this counts as a win for Hillary, it's a bloodily Pyrrhic one, and the Trump campaign would be wise to recognize this and press on with the attack, rather than whining about the FBI being wrong.

[Brian]

Hah - Trump of course tweeted that "the system is rigged" and #RiggedSystem. Shows what I know.

He also said Petraeus got in trouble "for far less," which as I recall is not true.

[Madiel]

(I'm sure the FBI's timing is in no way related to Obama's campaigning, nor is it likely the President knew of the outcome ahead of time.)

There is no time in this entire calendar year where someone wouldn't point at the timing and link it to the timing of something else. The American political system is a never-ending circus of events.

[(poco) Sforzando]

There is no time in this entire calendar year where someone wouldn't point at the timing and link it to the timing of something else. The American political system is a never-ending circus of events.

And we wouldn't have it any other way.

[Madiel]

And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, apart from when people complain about the vast amount of money that gets poured into keeping the circus running, and then folk wonder why people with money have so much influence.

Of course, this investigation is no different any number of other investigations where people who aren't investigators decide beforehand they know the correct outcome.

[Todd]

Trump should be pleased he got quotes like "extremely careless" out of Comey, and of course there's the part where she did send 8 classified emails....and the part where they said that hackers probably saw some of her personal emails.

I'm sure he is, and he will and should capitalize on these salient facts, and he should also blab on about how the system is rigged.  Some people like that sort of stuff.

There is no time in this entire calendar year where someone wouldn't point at the timing and link it to the timing of something else. The American political system is a never-ending circus of events.

But the timing is beautiful.  The political argument is easy: either Obama is out of touch and didn't know what was happening, or he knew ahead of time and planned accordingly.  I assume the latter.  (He may also have influenced the outcome directly - whisper, whisper, whisper.)  I really don't care except that it will provide for more partisan rancor.

The rather sad thing about the whole email thing is that it is a byproduct of the Benghazi fiasco.  Benghazi itself is not particularly relevant.  The actually relevant issue - Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, helped formulate a policy where the head of state of a sovereign nation was forced from power by the US and its allies without so much as an AUMF or Congressional oversight and the result was and is ongoing chaos - has been lost in the shuffle.  That's because reckless, destabilizing foreign policy in the region is sort of a bipartisan thing.

[Madiel]

But the timing is beautiful.  The political argument is easy: either Obama is out of touch and didn't know what was happening, or he knew ahead of time and planned accordingly.  I assume the latter.  (He may also have influenced the outcome directly - whisper, whisper, whisper.)  I really don't care except that it will provide for more partisan rancor.

Given that a considerable number of people who weren't rabid Republicans have been saying for a very long time that it was unlikely that Clinton had a case to answer, timing doesn't have much to do with it. Obama could've decided to campaign for Clinton not on the basis of inside knowledge, but on the basis of having a brain and knowing the likely outcome the same way that a somewhat cynical Australian obsessed with the music of Vagn Holmboe could figure out the likely outcome.

This won't prevent the political argument of course. But the political argument only exists from the same twisted viewpoint that has been pursuing Clinton doggedly all this time. The viewpoint that starts with the conclusion of guilt and then tries to find the evidence to reach that conclusion.

[Todd]

But the political argument only exists from the same twisted viewpoint that has been pursuing Clinton doggedly all this time. The viewpoint that starts with the conclusion of guilt and then tries to find the evidence to reach that conclusion.

Not strictly true.  Representative Kevin McCarthy stated explicitly that the Benghazi hearings - and by extension everything that came after - was designed to hurt her polling numbers, and thereby make her a weaker candidate.  Actual guilt or non-guilt is largely irrelevant.  (You are not cynical enough.)  Had the Republicans selected a better candidate, this could have been more useful. 

I think the probability of a Hillary victory just went up from about 81%, as projected before the weekend, to somewhere north of 90%.  To put a personal spin on it, that means my taxes are probably going to go up a little bit in 2017.