In your honest opinion, who do you think has the best chance of becoming POTUS?

Started by Question Mark, March 02, 2016, 10:04:07 PM

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Cycle

So the U.S. Supreme Court split 4 to 4 today, on President's Obama's executive order to protect parents of children who are in the country legally and expand a program that benefits people who were illegally brought into this country as children.  As a result of the tie, the decision of the lower court stands (so Obama's order is blocked).

I think this is a bad development for Republicans.  The ads almost write themselves:  "See what is at stake in November?  The next president will get to fill at least one (and likely more) vacancies in the Supreme Court.  If that person is Donald Trump, we know he will pick someone that will block all efforts at immigration reform..."

Yeah.  There goes the Latino vote.


TheGlyphstone

Trump's already jettisoned the Latino vote with his whole thing about a wall across Mexico, and, you know, implying all Mexicans are rapists and thieves.

ReijiTabibito

The Latino vote is not as big and overwhelming as you think it is.  In terms of population percentage, the Latinos and blacks together only make up 30% of the US population.  Now, they have monolithically voted for the Democrats since I was a kid - tie that into the support that Democrats enjoy amongst the young and women in the white populace, and that actually becomes something - but the Latino vote in and of itself is not a hair-puller.

I once listened to an election analyst break down the 2012 contest between Obama and Romney.  I'll have to find the clip again later, but the analyst basically noted that the criticism of 'Romney lost the election because of the Latino vote' was a bit bunk.  From what I remember, Romney got about a quarter of the Hispanic vote - if he wanted to win, he would have needed to nearly triple that, garnering over 70% of the Hispanic vote.  On the flipside, if he had just gotten...I don't remember the precise number, but it was a single-digit number - of the white vote, then he would have won.  But, the analyst broke down, working class whites either voted for Obama, or stayed at home because of the ads run highlighting Romney's business history.

As much as the Fox & Friends moan about 'the end of white ethnic majority' in the US, it's all bull - maybe in a few generations that won't be true, but not now.

Oniya

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Cycle

From Pew Research concerning the importance of the Latino vote in 2012:
QuoteQ. How important is where the Latino populations are located? In what states can we expect Latino voters to play a big role this fall?

A. Though nearly half of all Latino eligible voters are in California and Texas, neither is a battleground state this year. States like Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado are all battlegrounds with significant Hispanic voter populations. Hispanics could play an important role in Virginia and North Carolina too. In Florida, Nevada and Colorado, Latinos make up about 15% of each state’s eligible voters while in Virginia and North Carolina, they compose less than 5% of both states’ eligible voters.

In Florida, about 1.5 million Hispanics are registered to vote, up from 1.4 million in 2008.

From the LA Times about the importance of the Latino vote in 2016:
QuoteIf the GOP nominee won 60% of the white electorate in 2016, the candidate would need 42% of the Latino vote to win the White House, the research shows.

If the GOP wants to write off the Latino vote, go right ahead. 

ReijiTabibito

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 03:55:48 PM
From Pew Research concerning the importance of the Latino vote in 2012:

FL - 15%.  For the massive Hispanic community that we keep hearing about within the state, that doesn't seem like a high proportion.

VA & NC - 5%.  What particular ethnicity do you think dominates the remaining 95% of the eligible voters within those states?

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 03:55:48 PM
From the LA Times about the importance of the Latino vote in 2016:

That article was written almost a year ago.  A more contemporary source would carry more weight.

Second, it notes that Latinos - on the whole - will consist of over 10% of all voters within the US.

Finally, it's worth pointing out the figures at the end.  60% of the white electorate means that 42% of the Hispanic electorate would need to vote for a candidate (most likely a Republican, as the black community has been in the Democrats' back pocket for the last 50 years) to secure victory.

If you drop the figure by 1% amongst whites, though - 60 down to 59 - then the Hispanic portion of the vote you need jumps by 5% - up from 42 to 47.  Now, we are talking about the same number of voters here - the number of votes you need is a fixed number - so whites carry more electoral punch than blacks, Hispanics, or Asians (who always seem to get left out of this discussion).  If you can only influence X% of the voters, then you're better off going for the whites, because there are simply more of them.

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 03:55:48 PM
If the GOP wants to write off the Latino vote, go right ahead.

White, black, Latino - percentage of voting population by race or ethnicity is irrelevant.  For as repugnant a statement as it was, Romney was right in one aspect of his 47% comment - there will be people, regardless of anything, who choose to vote for their party.  Die-hards, right now, do not win elections in and of themselves.  The swing voters, in battleground states, are who matters.  Identifying who they are, and what they care about, is the number one priority for both parties in order to achieve victory.  If 80% of Hispanics are die-hard Democrats, will never consider voting Republican, then the GOP is right to write off the Latino vote and go somewhere it is more likely to have success and gain votes.  (I'm just using this as an example, I know it's actually not true.)

Ignoring a specific group of voters within the US boundaries is not a sin, especially when it's clear that they would rather put a ham sandwich in the Oval Office than you.

Cycle

*shrugs*

In 2012, Obama beat Romney by 4% total.  (Source.)

In 2012, the Latino represented a total of 10% of the votes.  Obama won 71% of those, Romney got 21%.  In other words, 7% of the total votes for Obama came from Latinos, and 2% of Romney's total came from Latino.

Subtract 2% from 7%.  What do you get?  A number bigger than Obama's win margin.

Virginia is a battleground state.  In 2012, Obama beat Romney 51% to 48%.  (Source.)  That's a margin of 3%.  If Latinos represent 15% of the Virginia vote, and Trump can't win more than a third of them, he'll lose that state by 5% in just that demographic.  So 15% is pretty significant.

Florida is another battleground state.  In 2012, Obama beat Romney 51% to 49%.  That's a 2% margin.  So a 15% Latino voting block is even more significant.

Percentages that appear to be "small" are not necessarily so in tight races.  Indeed, while you contend that the Latinos do not matter, many analysts disagree with you:
http://peoplesworld.org/studies-reveal-importance-of-latino-vote-in-201/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/latino-vote-2016/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/latino-vote-hispanic-presidential-elections-cuny-study/
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/20/407954553/the-ballooning-importance-of-the-latino-vote-in-three-charts
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/09/17/121325/top-6-facts-on-the-latino-vote/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-vote-2016-here-are-5-takeaways-n507611

But really, I don't care if you agree with me or not.  And I'd be perfectly happy if the GOP thinks the way you do and ignores the Latino vote.

ReijiTabibito

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 05:33:20 PM
*shrugs*

In 2012, Obama beat Romney by 4% total.  (Source.)

In 2012, the Latino represented a total of 10% of the votes.  Obama won 71% of those, Romney got 21%.  In other words, 7% of the total votes for Obama came from Latinos, and 2% of Romney's total came from Latino.

Subtract 2% from 7%.  What do you get?  A number bigger than Obama's win margin.

True, but in order for Romney to have won, he would have needed to flip those totals, assuming you hold everything else constant.  So he would have needed to essentially triple-plus his ratings amongst Hispanics.  Nobody has been able to do that - even Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio only sport marginally higher numbers than Romney did (his 21% vs Bush's 27% and Rubio's 25%).  The highest rating in recent memory is 2004, when Bush managed to win over 40% of the Hispanic vote.  The kind of voting shift being asked for here is nigh-on impossible as it stands now.

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 05:33:20 PM
Virginia is a battleground state.  In 2012, Obama beat Romney 51% to 48%.  (Source.)  That's a margin of 3%.  If Latinos represent 15% of the Virginia vote, and Trump can't win more than a third of them, he'll lose that state by 5% in just that demographic.  So 15% is pretty significant.

Doublecheck your math here.  First you said that Hispanics were less than 5% of the vote in the state, and now you're saying they're 15%.  Which is it?  Or has the demographic changed in the last 4 years?

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 05:33:20 PM
Florida is another battleground state.  In 2012, Obama beat Romney 51% to 49%.  That's a 2% margin.  So a 15% Latino voting block is even more significant.

That depends on what the split was in 2012 - for every segment of the population, not just Hispanics.  I'm 99.9% sure that this didn't happen, but what if Romney had won every last single Latino voter and still lost?

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 05:33:20 PM
Percentages that appear to be "small" are not necessarily so in tight races.  Indeed, while you contend that the Latinos do not matter, many analysts disagree with you:
http://peoplesworld.org/studies-reveal-importance-of-latino-vote-in-201/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/latino-vote-2016/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/latino-vote-hispanic-presidential-elections-cuny-study/
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/20/407954553/the-ballooning-importance-of-the-latino-vote-in-three-charts
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/09/17/121325/top-6-facts-on-the-latino-vote/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-vote-2016-here-are-5-takeaways-n507611

But really, I don't care if you agree with me or not.  And I'd be perfectly happy if the GOP thinks the way you do and ignores the Latino vote.

I never said that the Latinos do not matter.  I said that the influence of the Latino vote is often overestimated and played up - not the same thing - and the main reason for that has been every single election since 2000 has been a nail-biter.  The real importance of the Hispanic vote is that they are one of the few ethnic groups within the United States who are expanding at a rapid rate.  Figures from the US Census Bureau report that in 2000, Hispanics made up 12.5% of the US population - Blacks made up about 12.3%, so roughly equal segments of the population.  Census projections for 2020 say that Hispanics will have grown to 19% of the population, compared to only 13% for blacks.  By 2050, they'll be 28% of the population - twice that of blacks, who will only be at 14%.  And the numbers just keep climbing from there.

To whit - both parties, if they survive that long (I don't think they will), need to have a long-range plan to win Latino voters.  Most of the plan shouldn't be too difficult - second-generation Hispanics more frequently identify as conservative compared to their parents; Hispanics overwhelmingly support conservative education programs like school vouchers (Hispanics have a +47 support for voucher programs, compared to only +42 for Republicans in general); 75-80% of Hispanics believe that the two-parent family is the traditional building block of society; two-thirds believe that if a woman is pregnant and not ready to be a mother, adoption is a better choice than abortion; more Hispanics identify themselves as religious (primarily Catholic) than whites...list goes on.

There are 2 key things that have been driving Hispanics away from conservatives.

1 - the Republican Party itself.  Looking at the Party's history, the GOP has increasingly become a party that represents: wealthy business interests, who want to cut working-class welfare but support corporate welfare (like how Goldman Sachs made $39 billion last year but got a tax break from the Feds); an increasingly hysterical religious right (who would rather adopt out babies to poor straight people rather than middle-class gays, as example); and people exercising irrational discrimination against anyone without their skin tone.  People have said that if Trump is elected, it will destroy the Republican Party - and in contrast to "Trump destroys America," I actually seriously believe that - and my response is that the Republican Party needs some demolishing.

2 - immigration, immigration, immigration.  Half of all Hispanics are worried about the current government laws when it comes to immigration; 2/3s of them believe they have a responsibility to show hospitality to strangers and immigrants - both strong cultural values in the Hispanic community.  80% of Hispanics say illegal immigrants should not be deported.  The Democratic Party has been able to make boatloads of hay with this single issue, and any attempt to win the Hispanic vote on the part of Republicans must tackle this issue.

Cycle

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on June 23, 2016, 07:07:35 PMI never said that the Latinos do not matter.

You said:

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on June 23, 2016, 03:43:45 PM
The Latino vote is not as big and overwhelming as you think it is.  In terms of population percentage, the Latinos and blacks together only make up 30% of the US population.  Now, they have monolithically voted for the Democrats since I was a kid - tie that into the support that Democrats enjoy amongst the young and women in the white populace, and that actually becomes something - but the Latino vote in and of itself is not a hair-puller.

I once listened to an election analyst break down the 2012 contest between Obama and Romney.  I'll have to find the clip again later, but the analyst basically noted that the criticism of 'Romney lost the election because of the Latino vote' was a bit bunk. ...

As much as the Fox & Friends moan about 'the end of white ethnic majority' in the US, it's all bull - maybe in a few generations that won't be true, but not now.

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on June 23, 2016, 05:04:31 PM
FL - 15%.  For the massive Hispanic community that we keep hearing about within the state, that doesn't seem like a high proportion.

VA & NC - 5%.  What particular ethnicity do you think dominates the remaining 95% of the eligible voters within those states?

whites carry more electoral punch than blacks, Hispanics, or Asians (who always seem to get left out of this discussion).  If you can only influence X% of the voters, then you're better off going for the whites, because there are simply more of them.

White, black, Latino - percentage of voting population by race or ethnicity is irrelevant. 

Your position has been that Whites matter more than Latinos or Blacks or any other minority group.  And on that, I believe you are dead wrong.  There may be more Whites, but that does not mean the minorities cannot prove decisive in the upcoming election.  They will.

As for Virginia, yes, the Pew Research piece had noted the Latino population in that state is 5%, not 15%.  But since you asked, I looked up more recent numbers and that group is now up to 7%.  (Source.)  Even at 7%, that is significant since Romney's margin of loss was 3%--i.e., according to Fox, Trump is losing the Latino vote 26% to Clinton's 62%.  So at a population of 7%, that's 5.1% for Clinton, 1.9% for Trump,  a spread of 3.2% which is Romney's margin of loss.


ReijiTabibito

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 07:44:21 PM
Your position has been that Whites matter more than Latinos or Blacks or any other minority group.  And on that, I believe you are dead wrong.  There may be more Whites, but that does not mean the minorities cannot prove decisive in the upcoming election.  They will.

Minorities have been able to wield influence disproportionate to their numbers because they have largely acted in concert - an easier thing to do with smaller groups of people - whereas the White vote is split.  Consider the 1860 election of Lincoln - Lincoln gained the office with only 40% of the vote, because the other 60% were eaten up by 3 candidates: Stephen Douglas and John Breckinridge of the Democrats, and John Bell of the Constitutional Union party.  If the Democratic party hadn't been divided, then they would have won.  Douglas took only 1 state - Missouri - but he carried the second-most vote total, at close to 30%, having represented the Northern Democrats.  Breckinridge won 11 states in the South, but only had 18% of the vote.  In contrast, the Republicans - who were a strictly Northern party - united entirely behind Lincoln and thus won the election.

Or, if you want a more modern-day example, take the 1992 election - Bush v Clinton v Perot.  Conventional political analysis says that the 20% of the vote that Perot wrangled - mostly in conservative states - cost Bush Sr the election, despite not having actually won any states.

Whites of the non-Hispanic variety may be the single largest voting bloc in the country at this time, and for some time after, but the fact that they don't all vote the same way is what makes victories possible for candidates like Clinton who largely win the minorities.  My personal take is that the more of a country's population a certain group contains, the more important winning them politically becomes.  Because whites consist of (As of 2010) 64% of the population, that makes them the most important bloc - you can win all the others put together, but if you don't have at least some of the white populace on your side, you cannot win.

Quote from: Cycle on June 23, 2016, 07:44:21 PM
As for Virginia, yes, the Pew Research piece had noted the Latino population in that state is 5%, not 15%.  But since you asked, I looked up more recent numbers and that group is now up to 7%.  (Source.)  Even at 7%, that is significant since Romney's margin of loss was 3%--i.e., according to Fox, Trump is losing the Latino vote 26% to Clinton's 62%.  So at a population of 7%, that's 5.1% for Clinton, 1.9% for Trump,  a spread of 3.2% which is Romney's margin of loss.

7% of voters, not necessarily 7% of the population.  That's not the same thing.  Now, it's not been clear to me whether or not the numbers we're citing are just strict population, or voters, but which is it is irrelevant as the point is that the numbers favor Democrats over Republicans.

CuriousEyes

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on June 23, 2016, 08:11:59 PM
Minorities have been able to wield influence disproportionate to their numbers because they have largely acted in concert - an easier thing to do with smaller groups of people - whereas the White vote is split.

And the minority vote goes overwhelmingly to the Democratic party because Republicans have actively distanced them with rhetoric and/or disenfranchised them with action.

/shrug - Im late to the discussion, but I just don't understand your position. If Latinos are "only" a key demographic if they vote as a uniform block, and they then proceed to do that, then they are a key demographic. At which point the onus is on the party that can't get their votes to engage in real outreach/concession if they want to blunt their power.

Beguile's Mistress

The Republican leaders wouldn't be so concerned about Trump's xenophobic rhetoric if the groups (read minorities) he is disrespecting were purely marginal.  His attitude toward Latinos, Middle Eastern people and indigenous Americans along with his patronizing treatment of women is a clear signal that he'll be more than happy to paste anyone with a derogatory label simply because his arrogance and money speak louder than any vestige of intelligence he might have.  The Republicans are worried that rather than not voting at all the groups who are on Trump's unapproved list are going to get together and vote for the Democrat just to keep Trump out.  He is that uncle people wish they didn't have to invite to the wedding.

ReijiTabibito

Quote from: Beguile's Mistress on June 24, 2016, 08:38:23 AM
The Republican leaders wouldn't be so concerned about Trump's xenophobic rhetoric if the groups (read minorities) he is disrespecting were purely marginal.  His attitude toward Latinos, Middle Eastern people and indigenous Americans along with his patronizing treatment of women is a clear signal that he'll be more than happy to paste anyone with a derogatory label simply because his arrogance and money speak louder than any vestige of intelligence he might have.  The Republicans are worried that rather than not voting at all the groups who are on Trump's unapproved list are going to get together and vote for the Democrat just to keep Trump out.  He is that uncle people wish they didn't have to invite to the wedding.

The GOP has a lot of reasons to worry about Trump - I think the top one at that list is they realize they've lost control.  Lost control of their voters, lost control of the nomination process (a lot of people looked at the candidates the GOP decided to trot out for our selection this year and said 'Nope'), and potentially lost control of their party.  To be fair, this has been coming for a while, at least since they turned the Tea Party from a grassroots movement worried about average working-class Americans into a hyper-conservative faction that refuses to compromise with anyone.

And let's not pretend, here - both parties have been encouraging oppositional politics for at least my generation's time as voters; vote for our guy, because you can't stand the other one.  Trump is simply a continuation of that trend, albeit taken to a crazy extreme.  This election was the first election where I felt I could vote for someone rather than against someone.  (Of course, then the political establishment had to go and save their golden girl.)

Back to Trump, though.  Trump is a sign that things are changing in this country, and that it's time for both parties to start considering how they're going to handle the issues that most Americans think are important.  Otherwise, we're gonna see what happened here play out again in the future with the Democrats.

Devilyn Sydhe

This election has simply come down to who is hated more.  Both Trump and Clinton are corrupt as the day is long.  Neither have any real principles that can be identified. Both consider themselves above the law while each of their groups cheer on their intended destruction of the Constitution with blind glee.  I wouldn't trust either of them to name Supreme Court justices as their influence over the court will simply make it more irrelevant.  Obama has already taken us down the road where rule of law means nothing, the only thing being important is what one can temporarily get away with.  Neither Clinton nor Trump have any qualifications specific to them, only the rhetoric the extreme left or extreme right want to hear.

It is laughable, truly, for the American public to believe two of the wealthier people in the nation, each so tied to the supposedly hated corporate and banking system, are actually concerned about everyday Americans.  Sanders versus Cruz would have at least been a clash between ideas and honestly held beliefs, regardless of how one feels about them.  Clinton v Trump is simply a contest of which one can tell the gullible what they want to hear with no intention of doing anything but lining their and their special interest group's pockets on the backs of the hard working majority.  One candidate wants to attack the rest of the world while the other wants to stand by and allow the US to be endlessly attacked.  Either way, the country is destroyed and most should be seeking a way out.  In the end, I believe Clinton will win due simply to the blind following the Democratic party maintains.  While the Republican party is tearing at the seams as people with conscience and concern for their country struggle to understand how their party has been hijacked by a sideshow barker, the Dems only seem to care about winning no matter how despicable their candidate is.  I do believe objective thinking Dems will eventually begin to rise up, Sanders supporters being a good start, but it won't happen this election cycle.  The only potential light I can hope for now is that Trump comes to his senses and claims the last year to be an elaborate prank before stepping down.  One can at least dream...

ReijiTabibito

Quote from: KalebHyde on July 08, 2016, 04:32:59 AM
This election has simply come down to who is hated more.  Both Trump and Clinton are corrupt as the day is long.  Neither have any real principles that can be identified. Both consider themselves above the law while each of their groups cheer on their intended destruction of the Constitution with blind glee.

In that, you are largely correct, but there are three things I would like to point out.

1 - This is what you get when you spend the last 50 years encouraging identitarian politics, when you invert JFK's great statement about asking not what you country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

2 - the FBI just released their findings into the Clinton e-mail scandal.  If you read the findings, and listen to the speech that the FBI director gave, he practically says that Hillary broke the law through extreme recklessness and negligence...but that there are to be no charges against her.  Trump might think he is above the law, but this just proved that Hillary is.

3 - With Trump, there is quite simply one criticism of Clinton that applies to her that doesn't equally apply to him.  Whatever his faults, what he did, he did as a private citizen of the United States - I would no more expect him to stand up for the citizenry of America than the guy who lives three houses down from me.  Hillary, on the other hand, has spent...well, that depends on whether or not you credit her time as the First Lady of both Arkansas and the US.  I'll be generous and just use her time as a Senator and Secretary of State - she has spent the last 15 years as a public official.  Every decision she made during that time should have been to serve the people of the country, not her own self-interest, nor the interest of the party elites (or elites in general).  Not only has she not shown that, she's shown quite the opposite.

Are they both corrupt?  Yes.  But Hillary's corruption is worse, because she was supposed to be someone standing up for us in DC.  Trump, at least, has a chance to prove that he will divest himself of corrupt practices when he reaches the White House - because he's never served in an elected capacity before.  Her?  She's been there for the last 15 years and showed that she doesn't care about representing the people who elected her.  She'll just go on, business as usual.

Beguile's Mistress

In other words we are to trust someone who has shown he is not trustworthy and expect him to put aside the rhetoric and actually pay attention to what is going on when he can't even keep track of the Constitution and its Articles or tell the difference between them and the Amendments.  We are to elect a man who has never done anything but promote himself and is now showing that he wants to control Congress and the Supreme Court because he thinks that is the province of the President.  He spent yesterday lambasting three Senators who don't support him calling them losers and worse and telling the RNC that he basically owns Illinois.  Honestly, in my opinion he is not to be trusted with even the shopping list for the White House kitchen let alone the welfare of this country and its citizens.  He's read all the wrong books and learned all the wrong lessons and believes his own hype to the point where he is ridiculous.  It doesn't bother him that the Republican Party doesn't support him because he thinks like the financial tyrant he is.  I imagine him cozying up to Putin and North Korea and doing handshake deals with China.  The very idea of him as President is frightening. 

For Trump to succeed he would have to do so many 180s he'd look like the possessed child from "The Exorcist."

Cassandra LeMay

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on July 08, 2016, 07:11:38 AM
2 - the FBI just released their findings into the Clinton e-mail scandal.  If you read the findings, and listen to the speech that the FBI director gave, he practically says that Hillary broke the law through extreme recklessness and negligence...but that there are to be no charges against her.  Trump might think he is above the law, but this just proved that Hillary is.

It's a bit more complicated than that (as so often when legal matters are involved). There have been a number of fact checks on politifact, factcheck, and in major newspapers, but one that I think makes a good starting point is this fact check at politifact that compares the Clinton and Petraeus cases.

One problem in judging if what Clinton did was unlawful is how you define "extremly reckless" as Comey called her use of a private server. That's easy enough to say, but the question is, is this the same as the legal definition of "willful misconduct" or "gross negligence"? It is quite possible to talk about someone being reckless without that behaviour falling into the legal definition of a gross negligence that may be grounds for a prosecution. Comey might well say that he thought the actions of Clinton and her staff were utterly stupid, but doing stupid does not (normally) amount to a criminal offence.
ONs, OFFs, and writing samples | Oath of the Drake

You can not value dreams according to the odds of their becoming true.
(Sonia Sotomayor)

TaintedAndDelish

What was revealed by Comey though, is that Hillary either lied under oath when questioned by congress or else she lied to the FBI. Lying under oath is punishable by either a fine or up to five years in prison. The question is, when the FBI investigates her for lying under oath, will they come back with this "no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against her" bullshit,  or will they actually charge her before November?

Cassandra LeMay

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on July 09, 2016, 01:18:21 AM
What was revealed by Comey though, is that Hillary either lied under oath when questioned by congress or else she lied to the FBI. Lying under oath is punishable by either a fine or up to five years in prison. The question is, when the FBI investigates her for lying under oath, will they come back with this "no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against her" bullshit,  or will they actually charge her before November?
When did she lie about this under oath? I am aware of several statements she made to the media that have now been shown to have been false, but I wasn't aware she also made similar statements under oath. Also, is there a reliable source for what precisely she told the FBI? What's your source?
ONs, OFFs, and writing samples | Oath of the Drake

You can not value dreams according to the odds of their becoming true.
(Sonia Sotomayor)

TaintedAndDelish

Her testimony to congress prior to this was under oath. There, she stated that she did not send classified messages via an unclassified email system ( Comey later stated that she in fact did ),  that she turned over all email ( Comey stated she did not ), that she used one device ( Comey stated that she used multiple ) etc..

In the the second video, Comey is asked questions about Hillary's statements. It was here that he reveals that she lied - or that the answers she gave the FBI were inconsistent with prior answers given to congress. There are videos on youtube showing congress asking her these questions. It will take me a little time to find them.

At about 26:38 into video #2, Rep Chaffetz began his questioning about whether or not Hillary lied. Comey said that she did not lie to the FBI and that whether or not she lied under oath ( to congress ) was not within the scope of his investigation. Rep Chaffetz then told him that he would formally request that the FBI investigate whether or not she lied under oath. That investigation is next.

For reference:

Comey's full statement to the press:  ( 15 minutes long )
( At 4:35 he discusses the quantity of email returned )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghph_361wa0



Comey is questioned about Hillary by Congress: ( 1 hour long )
( at:36:38 he begins is line of questions about her lying )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ai1Z8OtEjU


This article (text) highlights the portion of Chaffetz's questioning where he asks Comey if Hillary lied:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/chaffetz-promises-fbi-director-referral-next-few-hours-investigate

One more link. This a transcript for the 11 hour long Benghazi Trial hearing.  The part pertaining to the email scandal is towards the end ( about 7/8 of the way through and is lead by Rep Jim Jordan. ( search page for keyword "JORDAN:" )

11 hour Benghazi Trail Hearing ( Text transcript )
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/22/transcript-clinton-testifies-before-house-committee-on-benghazi/

Here's one quote. The portion in red is a lie according to Comey's testimony:

Quote
JORDAN: I appreciate -- let -- and let's get into that.

Those 55,000 pages, there were 62,00 e-mails -- total e-mails, on your system. You have stated that you used a multi-step process to determine which ones were private, which ones were public, which ones belonged to you and your family, which ones belonged to the taxpayer.

Who oversaw this multi-step process in making that determination which ones we might get and which ones that were personal?

CLINTON: That was overseen by my attorneys and they conducted a rigorous review of my e-mails and...

JORDAN: These are the folks sitting behind you there, Mr. Kendall, Ms. Mills...

CLINTON: Yes, that's right.

JORDAN: ...Ms. Danielsen (ph)? All right.

And you said rigorous. What does that mean?

CLINTON: It means that they were asked to provide anything that could be possibly construed as work related. In fact, in my opinion -- and that's been confirmed by both the State Department...

JORDAN: But I'm asking how -- I'm asking how it was done. Was -- did someone physically look at the 62,000 e-mails, or did you use search terms, date parameters? I want to know the specifics.

CLINTON: They did all of that, and I did not look over their shoulders, because I thought it would be appropriate for them to conduct that search, and they did.

JORDAN: Will you provide this committee -- or can you answer today, what were the search terms?

CLINTON: The search terms were everything you could imagine that might be related to anything, but they also went through every single e-mail.



( edit: minor grammatical correction )

Cassandra LeMay

Thanks for the links and videos, TaintedAndDelish. While I have not watched all of it yet, I must say that I have the highest respect for Director Comey after watching the first 30 minutes or so of the second video. If I were in his place I would have run screaming at the top of my lungs from the hearing if I had to suffer through those politicial speeches for more than two minutes.

Now, what I take away from this (so far, as I said I haven't watched it all yet) is that there is (as almost always) a marked difference between ... let's say the way the regular dictionary and everyday speech use a term and how the same (or a very similar term) might be used in legal statements.

Personally I am very inclined to agree with Comey that what the FBI investigation turned up is probably not good enough to assume a prosecution will be successfull. That might well be grounds enough to not force the point in a court of law, as it may be difficult to establish anything "beyond reasonable doubt".  That does not mean I think what Clinton (and her staff, because she sure didn't set up that server all alone) did was the right thing to do. In fact I think she acted pretty darn stupidly. But I also seriously hope this will not turn into another Benghazi; criminal investigations are one thing, politically-motivated spending of taxpayer money is another.

All in all, right now I am inclined to believe that Clinton made a serious mistake, but that said mistake was not a criminal act in the sense the law would define it.
ONs, OFFs, and writing samples | Oath of the Drake

You can not value dreams according to the odds of their becoming true.
(Sonia Sotomayor)

Beguile's Mistress

In a case such as this I doubt there will be an indictment for criminal activity without ironclad, hide-bound, irrefutable evidence of heinous wrong doing.

Bringing an indictment or attempting to and failing is going to leave egg of the rotten sort on many faces.  There are probably few if any people in the Justice Department willing to fall on their sword for this.

The State Department is going to investigate because it is going to look negligent if it doesn't.  Paul Ryan indicated that the GOP is also going to investigate but they are more than likely weighing the chances that they'll be accused of piling on and playing political games.  They are running out of credit with the voters after the mess Trump is making for them.

After all this time I would hope that the FBI was capable of doing their job properly and finding evidence of treason or activity that contributed to actions against the US by foreign powers as a result of them acquiring confidential and top secret information.  We haven't seen any yet.

There are a lot of people who hate (yes hate, like all the rest of the hate thrown around these days) Clinton and would love to see her taken down.  The spirit of revenge is alive and well in America.  Of course, the lily-white members on the Republican side of the aisle have nothing to worry about.  However, paranoia runs rampant in the halls of government. 

What I want to see is the final bill for all of this and how much of the taxpayers' money has been used up.

CuriousEyes

So Sanders has officially endorsed Clinton.

Maintain my original position - Clinton is likely (hopefully going) to win. It won't be the prettiest election, but inching forward.

Warlock

Quote from: CuriousEyes on July 12, 2016, 11:27:40 AM
So Sanders has officially endorsed Clinton.

[Silently screaming, clawing out his eyes]

...

Not that surprising, he's maintained that he would support the chosen candidate from the beginning. Not quite sure about why now, however. They still have the convention before Clinton is offically chosen and Sanders seem to have kicked down the pillars he stand on by doing it now, weakening his position unnecessarily moving forward.