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#152 Jul 05 2016 at 5:14 PM Rating: Decent
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Timelordwho wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
So basically she did a bunch of illegal stuff, but everyone else was doing it too, so she isn't going to face any punishment? That has to be about as close to a 'worst possible outcome' as you can get without someone dying. Smiley: glare


What she did was not illegal, it was just a total disregard for security that would have been adequate reason to fire or restrict clearances for any gov't or ancillary contracted employee, and in no way absolves other employees from participating.


The problem is that there are two parts of the statute. One involving intent, the other involving "gross negligence". The director called her actions "extreme carelessness" (which is more or less synonymous). He effectively said that she did, in fact, violate the law, and fell back to the idea that a "reasonable prosecutor" would not move forward with a case. Um... For actual legal reasons? Or for political reasons? I think a heck of a lot of people are going to think the latter, and not the former. Others have been indicated for far less. CIA director John Deutch was convicted for more or less the same thing Clinton did (and was, ironically, pardoned by then president Clinton before he served any time). He also had no intent to disseminate classified information, but merely made a "mistake" by storing them on his personal computer which was connected to the internet (so, more or less the exact same thing Clinton did, only back in 1996, when one might be more easily forgiven for making such a mistake).

To not even charge her sends a massively negative message about our legal system and raises the idea of protected political classes and corruption to the forefront.

It was also, at the least, an "odd" statement (she's guilty, but we don't think anyone will want to prosecute? Really?). And while I'm sure the usual wagon circlers will do what they do, I suspect that in an election cycle where the opposition is more or less running on Washington being "broken", this is going to add fuel to that fire. The whole setup over the last week just looks fishy. Lynch conveniently pre-stating that she'd abide with whatever the FBI recommended (which, let's face it, she would not say unless she already knew what the recommendation would be), making any DoJ inaction appear to be just following an appropriate lead (recall that the DoJ is not limited to pressing charges only when the FBI recommends doing so). The timing of the whole thing over the holiday weekend. The statement by the FBI immediately followed by a freaking massive political rallly by Clinton, with Obama in attendance (and long, with a silly amount of coverage today). It all seems very well designed to limit the degree to which the masses will be exposed to any analysis of the FBI report itself (great smoke screen in other words). I would not be surprised at all to see some other timed media event in the next day or two just to add to the muddle, in fact.

It's pretty obvious that the Clinton and Obama knew this was coming, scheduled the timing of the release of the information, and planned other media events around it to minimize the damage. Which speaks volumes to the point I made above. A large percentage of people are not going to see the FBI results as a clearing of Clinton's name, but an example of corrupt and unequal justice in our legal system. So anything they can do to distract the masses from it is their best plan. If they really thought everyone would cheer at Clinton being cleared, they'd have made the FBI statement the focus of everything, and moved on it massively. They aren't. They're doing everything they can to just move past it, declare it old news, nothing to see here, etc.

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However, as she has already left the post there is no way to sanction her, as again, it isn't considered criminal negligence, or intentionally treasonous. The report also says it was highly likely that the server was hacked and read by foreign spies. It's basically fine in the same way Zimmerman did nothing wrong. Accidents just happen and there is nothing you can do about them.


That's not true at all. The report merely states that there's no conclusive evidence that it was hacked. Not proving it was hacked is not the same as proving it wasn't. You also have to understand that it's often impossible to tell if a system has been hacked months or years after the fact. Actually, it's pretty much always impossible. Doubly so, when the owner of said server intentionally doesn't keep backups of the data, and also intentionally deleted a ton of information off said server along the way. It's not like a file tells you that it's been copied by someone else who wasn't supposed to copy it. And datalogs of network activity would long long ago have been rotated over and lost to the bit bucket (typically, such logs rotate out after 7 days). And that's assuming anyone was actually running even moderate network/firewall logs.

Again. Absence of proof that her server was hacked is not proof it wasn't. The running assumption is that it almost certainly was. Many times over. There's just no way to know for sure how many times, and by whom. Um... Which is kinda precisely the reason why you're not supposed to keep classified government data on a private home computer. The crime isn't her handing over data to those who aren't supposed to have it, but in handling the data in a way that put said data at a high risk of being accessed by those who aren't supposed to have it. This idea that if she didn't intend for data to get outside classified circles, or that we can't prove that her careless handling of the data resulted in it getting outside classified circles, is a pure straw man. Neither of those are absolutely required to convict, much less indict her for the crime in question.

We're seeing the legal goalposts moved right in front of the public eye, and then watching most of the media falling over themselves to convince the public to just ignore the man behind the curtain. I'm not sure that's a great strategy this time around though. And frankly, I'm not sure which I'm more concerned with. A massive public outrage that results in anger-voting for Trump, or Clinton effectively getting away with it, and emboldening the next politician to do more of the same, and making the media less likely to report it or push on it, given that the bar has now been moved and they may be called hypocritical if they appear to be inconsistent in their future coverage of a similar event.

It's a bad thing anyway we go.

Edited, Jul 5th 2016 4:25pm by gbaji
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#153 Jul 05 2016 at 5:25 PM Rating: Excellent
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Comey stated that he did not tell anyone in advance about the findings the investigation. And given that the rally was planned in advance, that's be some trick to plan it around the results.

You're welcome to call Comey a liar, I suppose.
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#154 Jul 05 2016 at 5:47 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Comey stated that he did not tell anyone in advance about the findings the investigation. And given that the rally was planned in advance, that's be some trick to plan it around the results.

You're welcome to call Comey a liar, I suppose.


He may not be lying. He may not have told anyone, but we can assume that there were many people on staff who wrote up the report itself, any one of whom could have let various other parties know what was coming. Certainly, a week's heads up is not unreasonable to manage.

The optics of the timing of the statement by Lynch last week (Friday I think?), is extremely bad. Given that up until that point, the concern was over Lynch refusing to follow the FBI recommendation (and that fear based on the idea that the FBI might recommend indictment, and Lynch would refuse to do so), it makes it very suspicious that suddenly, out of the blue, more or less one (business) day before the FBI recommendation came out, she said she'd abide by it. Whether there was anything going on behind the scenes or not, it's going to look to most people like there was.

Add to that the timing of the political rally with potus? Hmmm... I have no clue how far ahead the rally was planned, or how far ahead Obama's attendance was planned, but the earliest press I could find (admittedly with minimal googling) was June 29th (rescheduled from an earlier planned event). So, um... last Thursday? I'm sure it's all just a coincidence though.

Either way, it's going to provide massive fodder for the Trump campaign. It just reeks of dirty corrupt politics that treats the people like they're just pawns to be used when convenient by an increasingly distant ruling class. Fair or not. True or not. That's going to resonate with a lot of people. And the problem is that the more the media tries to downplay it (and they certainly will), the more that will only convince those people that the corruption extends so far and so wide that it has to be fought that much more strongly. To be fair, I don't see a better way the Clinton's and Democrats could have handled this. Downplaying and distracting is pretty much their best strategy. And in a normal election cycle, it would work just fine. I'm not sure if it wont backfire this time though. It's just too much for many people to accept.
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#155 Jul 05 2016 at 5:49 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Comey stated that he did not tell anyone in advance about the findings the investigation. And given that the rally was planned in advance, that's be some trick to plan it around the results.

You're welcome to call Comey a liar, I suppose.


He may not be lying. He may not have told anyone, but we can assume that there were many people on staff who wrote up the report itself, any one of whom could have let various other parties know what was coming. Certainly, a week's heads up is not unreasonable to manage.


So you are accusing Comey of lying by omission?
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#156 Jul 05 2016 at 7:10 PM Rating: Decent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
A government that collects large amounts of data on people, and is also horribly negligent with securing information, is really a perfect storm of a problem waiting to happen.

For what it's worth, the departments usually associated with collecting large amounts of data on people (FBI, CIA, NSA) aren't the State Department.
Would still feel better if it wasn't such an important department. While the state dept. may not be the ones collecting and storing that data they're likely going to be involved in actions involving parts of it. Suppose it is small solace at least though. I'll go stick my head back in the sand for a while.


Yeah. Smaller total quantity of data, but arguably much more sensitive on average as a result.
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#157 Jul 05 2016 at 7:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Certainly, a week's heads up is not unreasonable to manage.

Especially if you have a time machine seeing as how the FBI interviewed Clinton over the weekend.

See, this is where the GOP trips over their own dicks every time. You have a perfectly good and legitimate story here but it's not good enough unless you can screw that tinfoil on tighter and start building things that aren't there. Then you just look stupid in the process and everyone forgets the original legitimate story.

Edited, Jul 5th 2016 8:26pm by Jophiel
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#158 Jul 05 2016 at 8:06 PM Rating: Good
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Gbaji wrote:
Others have been indicated for far less.


And others have been perfectly fine, even when they did, what could charitably considered intentionally treasonous acts against the United States. I mean, HRC didn't actively negotiate with terrorists to not release american citizens in order to help her politically, in exchange for funding and supplying terrorists with money and guns in direct opposition to an explicit ban by Congress, and then destroyed documents containing information relevant to a investigation by the justice dept.
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#159 Jul 05 2016 at 8:18 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Timelordwho wrote:
However, as she has already left the post there is no way to sanction her, as again, it isn't considered criminal negligence, or intentionally treasonous. The report also says it was highly likely that the server was hacked and read by foreign spies. It's basically fine in the same way Zimmerman did nothing wrong. Accidents just happen and there is nothing you can do about them.


That's not true at all. The report merely states that there's no conclusive evidence that it was hacked. Not proving it was hacked is not the same as proving it wasn't. You also have to understand that it's often impossible to tell if a system has been hacked months or years after the fact. Actually, it's pretty much always impossible. Doubly so, when the owner of said server intentionally doesn't keep backups of the data, and also intentionally deleted a ton of information off said server along the way. It's not like a file tells you that it's been copied by someone else who wasn't supposed to copy it. And datalogs of network activity would long long ago have been rotated over and lost to the bit bucket (typically, such logs rotate out after 7 days). And that's assuming anyone was actually running even moderate network/firewall logs.

Again. Absence of proof that her server was hacked is not proof it wasn't. The running assumption is that it almost certainly was. Many times over. There's just no way to know for sure how many times, and by whom. Um... Which is kinda precisely the reason why you're not supposed to keep classified government data on a private home computer. The crime isn't her handing over data to those who aren't supposed to have it, but in handling the data in a way that put said data at a high risk of being accessed by those who aren't supposed to have it. This idea that if she didn't intend for data to get outside classified circles, or that we can't prove that her careless handling of the data resulted in it getting outside classified circles, is a pure straw man. Neither of those are absolutely required to convict, much less indict her for the crime in question.


I explicitly stated the opposite of what you said I stated. I agree with you that "yeah, data security was likely violated more than a low class w****". But one of those factors (mens rea, or explicit gross, criminal negligence) ARE required to convict, criminally, in the same way you needed to prove the same in the Zimzam case in order for it to be criminal manslaughter or criminal negligence rather than just errant stupidity.

But again, there is nothing you can do about it. We just accept that people will do dumb things that cause real and lasting harm, and there is no way this can be prevented. It's just unlucky really.

Edited, Jul 5th 2016 10:19pm by Timelordwho
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#160 Jul 05 2016 at 8:51 PM Rating: Decent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Comey stated that he did not tell anyone in advance about the findings the investigation. And given that the rally was planned in advance, that's be some trick to plan it around the results.

You're welcome to call Comey a liar, I suppose.


He may not be lying. He may not have told anyone, but we can assume that there were many people on staff who wrote up the report itself, any one of whom could have let various other parties know what was coming. Certainly, a week's heads up is not unreasonable to manage.


So you are accusing Comey of lying by omission?


I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm merely pointing out that the stated fact that he personally did not tell anyone about the reports findings prior to today's official release does not mean that others did not find out about the reports findings prior to release via other sources involved in the report. Whether he personally knew about this or not is irrelevant. You get that Comey wasn't sitting alone in a room hemming and hawing over what to say in this report for a few months, and then just yesterday made a decision on what to say, then wrote his own statement, and the report, in some furious late night session, or something, right?

I'm obviously speculating, but I can't imagine that Lynch would have stated publicly that she'd abide by the recommendation of the FBI report, unless she already knew what that recommendation was going to be. I mean, maybe she's just that rock dumb, but I don't think so. No one in a position like her's would commit to such a thing, regardless of what we think of that person and their politics. So yeah. She knew at least as early as late last week. Almost certainly. And if she knew, Obama knew. Draw a freaking line from there.
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#161 Jul 05 2016 at 9:15 PM Rating: Good
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#162 Jul 05 2016 at 9:22 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm merely pointing out that the stated fact that he personally did not tell anyone about the reports findings prior to today's official release does not mean that others did not find out about the reports findings prior to release via other sources involved in the report. Whether he personally knew about this or not is irrelevant. You get that Comey wasn't sitting alone in a room hemming and hawing over what to say in this report for a few months, and then just yesterday made a decision on what to say, then wrote his own statement, and the report, in some furious late night session, or something, right?

I'm obviously speculating, but I can't imagine that Lynch would have stated publicly that she'd abide by the recommendation of the FBI report, unless she already knew what that recommendation was going to be. I mean, maybe she's just that rock dumb, but I don't think so. No one in a position like her's would commit to such a thing, regardless of what we think of that person and their politics. So yeah. She knew at least as early as late last week. Almost certainly. And if she knew, Obama knew. Draw a freaking line from there.


I disagree.

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions that aren't logical.


Edited, Jul 5th 2016 8:23pm by stupidmonkey
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#163 Jul 05 2016 at 9:45 PM Rating: Excellent
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I sure hope Comey wasn't hemming and hawing for several months because the investigation ended this weekend. And, yeah, as director of the FBI, it was solely his choice to make, not something he needed to clear with some underlings first.

Obama and Clinton were supposed to have their first joint campaign appearance a couple weeks ago in Wisconsin but they canceled it after the Orlando shooting. So, you know, if this was a big plan to cover up the FBI story they sure weren't doing it right to plan their big event a couple weeks before the FBI statement they all knew was coming or something.
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#164 Jul 05 2016 at 9:52 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Obama and Clinton were supposed to have their first joint campaign appearance a couple weeks ago in Wisconsin but they canceled it after the Orlando shooting. So, you know, if this was a big plan to cover up the FBI story they sure weren't doing it right to plan their big event a couple weeks before the FBI statement they all knew was coming or something.


Well, obviously they planned the Orlando thing to push gay rights and take your guns away. (And apparently planned it to push out their planned event to make it fall on the FBI announcement time, to make it look like their planned event wasn't actually planned to be around the same time as the FBI announcement).

Edited, Jul 5th 2016 11:59pm by TirithRR
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#165 Jul 06 2016 at 7:08 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
See, this is where the GOP trips over their own dicks every time. You have a perfectly good and legitimate story here but it's not good enough unless you can screw that tinfoil on tighter and start building things that aren't there. Then you just look stupid in the process and everyone forgets the original legitimate story.

Meanwhile, the House GOP says that they need to hold hearings on Comey's investigation and findings. Just sayin' is all.

In other news, the GOP convention keynote speaker will be Scott Walker, the guy who was first to drop out of the GOP primary and said he hoped it encouraged others to do the same so they could consolidate against Trump becoming the nominee.

Edited, Jul 6th 2016 8:20am by Jophiel
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#166 Jul 06 2016 at 7:29 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
To not even charge her sends a massively negative message about our legal system and raises the idea of protected political classes and corruption to the forefront.
Guilty until proven conservative.
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#167 Jul 06 2016 at 4:16 PM Rating: Decent
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Timelordwho wrote:
I explicitly stated the opposite of what you said I stated.


Oh crap. I totally misread that as "unlikely to have been hacked", and thought you were arguing a different point. My bad!

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I agree with you that "yeah, data security was likely violated more than a low class w****". But one of those factors (mens rea, or explicit gross, criminal negligence) ARE required to convict, criminally, in the same way you needed to prove the same in the Zimzam case in order for it to be criminal manslaughter or criminal negligence rather than just errant stupidity.


Sure. Again though, the statute requires "gross negligence", and Comey described her actions as "excessive carelessness". So... Kinda splitting hairs here IMO.

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But again, there is nothing you can do about it. We just accept that people will do dumb things that cause real and lasting harm, and there is no way this can be prevented. It's just unlucky really.


That's like saying that since drunk driving can't ever be 100% prevented, there's no point in punishing people who drink and drive. The statute, as written, exists for a reason. Any argument against prosecution on the basis of the applicability of the statute itself more or less requires re-writing it from what it actually says to something else entirely (requirement for intent, for example). I think it's far more likely that the recommendation against prosecution was not based on the wording of the statute, or the actions Clinton took, but were instead purely political. No "reasonable" prosecutor would move forward with the case? Why? Certainly not because the evidence wasn't sufficient. I'm reasonably certain that if we were talking about anyone other than a prominent Democrat currently running for president (and with significant political connections beyond that), we'd see a prosecution moving forward right now.


Again I'll point out again that it's strange that Comey claims that there's no example of someone being prosecuted for this crime with just this set of circumstances, given that the John Deutch case is virtually identical. CIA director, kept classified data on his home system, got caught with them. No evidence that he intended to leak them. Just pure negligence on his part. Was originally swept under the table, until someone blew the whistle. Then, unlike now, the DoJ did conduct a criminal investigation and moved forward with prosecution. He attempted a plea agreement to a misdemeanor charge, but then president Clinton decided to pardon him, making the entire thing moot.

Um... He did, however lose his security clearances despite not technically being convicted of a crime. The point here is that there is a clear case of nearly the exact same scenario from someone similarly highly placed in our government. Why the difference in result? I mean, I suppose that the DoJ could proceed with the legal process, and then Obama could pardon her just to make the parallel perfect. Not sure the optics would look so great though.
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#168 Jul 06 2016 at 4:24 PM Rating: Good
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Y'know, gbaji, this rant would seem more sincere if you'd argued the book be thrown at Rush Limbaugh and any other number of right wing criminals, but you didn't, did you?
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#169 Jul 06 2016 at 4:39 PM Rating: Good
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That's like saying that since drunk driving can't ever be 100% prevented, there's no point in punishing people who drink and drive.


Yes. I was being facetious. I thought I was laying it on thick, but uh, maybe not.
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#170 Jul 06 2016 at 4:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I think it's far more likely that the recommendation against prosecution was not based on the wording of the statute, or the actions Clinton took, but were instead purely political. No "reasonable" prosecutor would move forward with the case? Why? Certainly not because the evidence wasn't sufficient

No one was reasonably expecting an indictment because, as previously cited, indictments for this sort of case don't typically happen. The previously linked article mentions a review of multiple previous instances and no indictments were made. Were they all Clintons? All prominent Democrats? I mean, that's the only possible reason, right?

Heck, the article even references the Deutch case:
Quote:
“The Deutch case was quite a bit more egregious in terms of, by day, he would approve covert ops and this and that and at night go home and write a diary, a detailed recitation of his day, to include covert programs and the identity of covert operatives,” said Bill Leonard, former director of the federal Information Security and Oversight Office, a clearinghouse for classification standards and disputes in the U.S. Government. “He was actually creating these documents.”
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#171 Jul 07 2016 at 8:02 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
So... Kinda splitting hairs here IMO.
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#172 Jul 07 2016 at 8:29 AM Rating: Excellent
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I notice Gbaji is getting closer to just outright saying that Comey is corrupt. I mean, saying that he only let Clinton go because of her political connections would, in fact, be corruption.

At least he's openly getting there faster than these milquetoast politicians saying "I really respect the FBI and Comey is great but..."
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#173 Jul 07 2016 at 10:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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Comey is currently informing the House Republicans that Clinton did not lie about her email, did not break the law and that there was unanimous agreement among those involved in the decision making process that there were no grounds for indictment.

Damning.
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#174 Jul 07 2016 at 10:46 AM Rating: Good
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Better light the pitchforks and sharpen the torches, anarchy is a'comin'.
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#175 Jul 07 2016 at 10:57 AM Rating: Excellent
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Trump just had a meeting with the GOP Senate in which he told Flake (R-AZ) that he would lose his election (Flake isn't on the ballot this year) and called Kirk (R-IL) a "loser" and vowed to win Illinois.
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#176 Jul 07 2016 at 11:38 AM Rating: Good
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Crap, I forgot anarchy was already here.
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