WaPo: the media’s email reporting ‘is out of control’

According to the Washington Posts‘ Aaron Blake at The Fix, Hillary Clinton’s email server is why this race is still close:

Hillary-Clinton-textingThe email story is absolutely killing her — and ruining what might otherwise be a coronation.

A new CNN/ORC poll (.pdf) demonstrates it pretty clearly. While polls at the start of the 2016 race showed Americans were basically split about whether her use of a private email server gave them pause about voting for her, it’s now clear that it’s a significant hurdle for a strong majority of Americans in voting for Clinton.

The poll shows fully 62 percent of registered voters agreed with the statement that her use of the server is “an important indicator of her character and ability to serve as president.” That number has risen steadily this year, from 46 percent in March 2015, to 55 percent in October, to 58 percent in June 2016, and now to 62 percent today.

Just 36 percent say the email server is “not relevant to her character or her ability to serve as president.” That’s down from 52 percent at the start of the campaign 18 months ago.

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At this point, it’s hard to point to basically any other major explanation for Clinton’s declining poll numbers and the tightening overall race. She’s run a largely quiet campaign until this past week and has been content to let Trump make the news. The one constant story about Clinton has been new revelations about her emails and the Clinton Foundation (which the new poll, by the way, shows 60 percent say should be shut down either now or if she becomes president). And if you look closely, perceptions about her email server track closely with her overall image and her perceived honesty and trustworthiness.

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FBI Director: ‘no reasonable prosecutor’ would prosecute Clinton over email server

The media villagers all had their panties in a bunch over the weekend because the F.B.I. Interviewed Hillary Clinton Over Private Email Server. Oh noes! Begin the uninformed wild speculation and conjecture to fill air time and column space.

Hillary-Clinton-textingThis useless media exercise over the weekend was a waste of time. It was clear from the beginning that the FBI was wrapping up its investigation, and that no grounds existed for charges to be filed, despite what that orange Oompa Loompa with the road kill on his head posts on Twitter (and the media villagers gratuitously report as if it is news). All the experts had said that there was no violation of law and that Hillary Clinton was not in legal jeopardy.

Today the FBI confirmed it. F.B.I. Director James Comey Recommends No Charges for Hillary Clinton on Email:

F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said on Tuesday that the bureau would not recommend criminal charges in Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information, lifting an enormous legal cloud from her presidential campaign, hours before her first joint campaign appearance with President Obama.

But Mr. Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton as being “extremely careless” in using a personal email address and server for sensitive information, declaring that an ordinary government official could have faced administrative sanction for such conduct.

To warrant a criminal charge, Mr. Comey said, there had to be evidence that Mrs. Clinton intentionally sent or received classified information — something that the F.B.I. did not find. “Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he said at a news conference.

This is exactly right. But the GOPropagandists of the right-wing noise machine who dwell in the fever swamps of conspiracy theories and the fact-free world of FAUX News will no doubt assert that there is a “cover up” and that “the fix is in” from the Justice Department — there is always another conspiracy theory to explain the conspiracy theory that fell apart under examination. It’s all they know. And for the “Hillary Haters,” nothing less than burning this witch at the stake will suffice, to hell with the rule of law and the evidence.

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Benghazi!!! witch hunt is a bust

The House Select Committee on Benghazi!!! (aka the “Get Hillary” Partisan Witch Hunt Committee) has finally concluded, the longest congressional investigation in U.S. history — longer than the Kennedy Assassination, COINTELPRO, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9-11, all of them — and it is a bust. House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton:

BenghaziEnding one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.

The 800-page report delivered a broad rebuke of the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in Benghazi, and especially for maintaining outposts there that they could not protect.

Everyone but Congress itself for failing to adequately fund the security needs of State Department posts. What a convenient oversight.

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State Department’s inspector general criticizes Clinton for private emails, but does not allege any breach of national security

The media villagers were all in a lather yesterday over the Inspector General report regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails while she was Secretary of State. The New York Times reports, Hillary Clinton Is Criticized for Private Emails in State Dept. Review:

Hillary-Clinton-textingThe State Department’s inspector general on Wednesday sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying that she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had.

The report, delivered to members of Congress, undermined some of Mrs. Clinton’s previous statements defending her use of the server[.]

The inspector general found that Mrs. Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business” with department officials but that, contrary to her claims that the department “allowed” the arrangement, there was “no evidence” she had requested or received approval for it.

And while other senior officials had used personal email accounts for official business, including Colin Powell when he was secretary, the rules made clear by the time she became the nation’s top diplomat that using a private server for official business was neither allowed nor encouraged because of “significant security risks.”

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Clinton, Trump, and Stein in early leads in Arizona PPE

Unofficial results from the Arizona Presidential Preference Election (PPE) from Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s website: http://apps.azsos.gov/election/2016/PPE/Results/PPE2016Results.htm. Only top two vote getters are being reported. Democratic Party:         Hillary Clinton  58%      Bernie Sanders  40% Republican Party:   Donald Trump  47%    Ted Cruz  25% Green Party:   Jill Stein  81%      Kent Mesplay  19% … Read more