FBI: No charges for Clinton

[KevinM1]

It's weird to me that the FBI essentially said "She royally fucked up, but we're not going to recommend charges because there's no guarantee of successful conviction."  That strikes me as incredibly political from a body that should be politically agnostic.  The decision to bring forth charges shouldn't be impacted by the probability of conviction.  At the very least, the judiciary should decide whether or not to throw it out, not the investigative body.

The optics of it are, of course, terrible.  It simply reinforces the notion that the rule of law is meant only for us peasants, not the ruling class.  That, ultimately, Hilary was determined to be too big to fail.  And it also reinforces the rather obvious fact that the DNC simply wanted to hand her the nomination on a silver platter (note the lack of any real competition outside of Bernie, who took the DNC establishment by surprise and the various ways the establishment tried to undermine him (shenanigans at various caucuses and voting centers being the most egregious)).  At least Drumpf had an actual, legitimate fight on his hands from the outset.

Ultimately, our representative form of democracy is so fucked that the oligarchs don't even care about maintaining an air of honesty about it any more.  And Drumpf isn't the answer because:

1. He's a gibbering idiot
2. He's at least as shady as Hilary, IMO moreso
3. He'd have to deal with this little thing called Congress, which hates him
4. Oh, yeah, he's a fascist

We're basically fucked.  On one side, we have a legit fascist who would think nothing of going to war simply because he was irked.  A just-short-of-Nazi.  On the other side, we have a less bloodthirsty (but still bloodthirsty), obviously corrupt option with die hard supporters entrenched in other positions of power.  She's smart enough to not do anything to threaten her own power base, but she's certainly not someone who cares about the people.

And part of me, regardless of who wins, wants to see it all burn.  Because it's not working.  It's getting worse.  And I can't, in good conscience, vote for either candidate.  I simply can't.  Even if it means Drumpf wins.  So, I'm voting 3rd party.

[Spirian]

Did anyone actually think the government would be honest? Anyone?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Fucking Comey, I feel like all he did was make it more likely for Trump to win. At this point, I don't even care how guilty or "not guilty enough" she might be. I just don't want to see Trump running this country. Anything is better than Trump. A rock. A rock is better than Trump. God...lets nominate God.

Trump won't win. He has displayed a great ability to take fine ingredients amenable to the polity's taste -- loathing of the system, America First!, "strong on defense" -- and make a shitty dinner of them by his inveterate tendency to speak out of ignorance on matters like social equality, race, gender, and immigration. He has (irremediably, in my opinion) alienated women and minorities. Even if he were to tamp down on his bomb-throwing at this point, which of those groups might re-extend true enough to vote for him?

Add to that his fund-raising woes, and staff disarray and inexperience.

He will not win. If he shuts up, he might narrow the margin, but shutting up is not his style, nor his brand, and will alienate those who like him for "saying it how it is."

He's painted himself into a corner. Hillary has many negatives, but hers are abstract and legal, which the American public doesn't weigh as much as public foolishness.

Trump should be happy, he's gotten farther than Pat Buchanan, the most recent predecessor of this sort of foolishness. But Trump, too, will fail to win the contest.

[Losty]

I hope you're right.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's much easier to predict a defeat than a victory.

[Aractus]

It's not a strawman.  You said she should have gone for a peaceful, diplomatic solution, and I'm just wondering how someone is supposed to go about that when a murderous dictator is involved.

I refer you to this commentary on the Chilcot report:

Defenders of the Iraq invasion invoke all kinds of justifications – and some have a certain logic.

But here's the thing – if those justifications were the benchmark for must-do, morally or humanitarian-based interventions around the globe, we could be invading a different country each month. Chilcot make the point that were that the rationale to be applied, the assessment at the time of British intelligence was that Iran, North Korea and Libya were greater threats than Iraq, in terms of the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

[Minimalist]

Their job is to investigate.

And they did.  And you can whine about the result until you are blue in the face.  You sound like a kid who just had his favorite toy taken away.

[Aractus]

And they did.  And you can whine about the result until you are blue in the face.  You sound like a kid who just had his favorite toy taken away.

Me? Min, what I am outraged about is not that your country has lame-duck leaders up for President. My complaint is that your democratic process is fundamentally flawed, you have had widespread incidences of electoral fraud, you allow candidates who are being criminally investigated on espionage charges to run for president, you talk about "race" as if it's a real, tangible thing, and on top of all that your country is the world's leading terrorist organisation.

[Brian37]

I am fucking sick of this shit, the guy who made the announcement was a Bush appointee. On top of having top level education in law enforcement and a career long before even Obama was president.

[Faith No More]

I refer you to this commentary on the Chilcot report:

Defenders of the Iraq invasion invoke all kinds of justifications – and some have a certain logic.

But here's the thing – if those justifications were the benchmark for must-do, morally or humanitarian-based interventions around the globe, we could be invading a different country each month. Chilcot make the point that were that the rationale to be applied, the assessment at the time of British intelligence was that Iran, North Korea and Libya were greater threats than Iraq, in terms of the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

You seem now to be dancing around the point you were trying to make. Not only does that not demonstrate your claim, it's irrelevant, because we didn't invade Libya.

So, I ask you again, how does one go about a peaceful, diplomatic resolution when a murderous dictator is involved?