Hillary Clinton's E-mail Fiasco-Sort Of

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One of the few things that make the GOP happy--or used to make them happy, until they realized that the alternative was Trump--was the scandal-and-a-half that involved e-mails.  One scandal revealed that at least certain members of the Democrat National Committee were interested in sabotaging Bernie Sanders's candidacy.  The more important scandal involved Hillary Clinton and the fact that she used a private e-mail server instead of the official Department of State (or whatever) server that was highly secure, and the one she was supposed to use.  Now, kids, you're not fooling anybody.  Listen up.

First of all, the FBI looked into it, and declared that they do not think it appropriate to prosecute the issue.  This could mean any number of things.  For instance: (1) it could be a huge waste of time, after which Ms. Clinton would get a slap on the wrist, but the FBI is mad, and they feel that not prosecuting her would mean that the Republicans would create such a stink that it would be actually worse for her.  (2) It could mean that other members of the government have abused the communications system so much more, that the embarrassment would be too widespread.  We actually know that this is true, since Dick Cheney is said to have deleted far more e-mails than Hillary.  I don't know the facts, and I'm guilty of spreading hearsay.  (3) It could mean that if the details of the e-mail misadventure got into the wrong hands, it could make government communications still more insecure.  I'm at best an amateur when it comes to computers, but I know this much: half the battle in cracking a security system is knowing certain procedures.  (4) Perhaps it is the case that if Hillary Clinton were to release the e-mails, the e-mails themselves would compromise certain aspects of security.  So, saying that the e-mails were security-sensitive would put the FBI in a bind, because, of course, the Republicans wanting to compromise the Obama Administration, would insist on the e-mails being made public, but the FBI doesn't want that to happen.  So the FBI says: "Trust us, it was not security sensitive."

A lot of it is semantics.  What do we mean by sensitive?  Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there was an agreement that if $1 was deposited in a certain account in a bank in Atlanta, that something was to happen.  If an e-mail referring to this were to be made public, it could jeopardize that whole system.  This example is patently absurd, because such a system is too clumsy and slow to be useful.  But the ways of the State Department are screwy and devious, and unfortunately, probably not devious enough.  Suppose it was something as simple as the phrase girl scout cookies.  If the simple-minded GOP talking heads insisted that the e-mails be made public, it could scare the daylights out of girl scouts across the country, and Hillary Clinton could lose a lot of girl scout votes.  Or it could have been some inside jokes about how small some people's hands were.

The problem for the GOP is that Hillary Clinton has so much experience in government that it shows Donald Trump up as a completely inexperienced outsider.  Of course, he was flown around to several foreign countries and offended a number of people in record quick time.  But Hillary Clinton has represented the US at inter-governmental meetings.  The GOP wants to capitalize on any idea that suggests that Hillary was clumsy in how she conducted herself as Secretary of State, and the GOP attack dogs and attack hyenas cannot afford to drop the tired old "Hillary is a liar and a thief" ball, so they're going to stagger around with it until it gets deflated in late October.

In contrast, Donald Trump has so many weaknesses that Democrat apologists and Democrat attack dogs (and hyenas, if you must have it) simply cannot find one that is truly suitable.  Almost anything you say about Donald Trump sounds like harping on the obvious.  It all boils down to: What has he done for anyone lately?  It appears that his plans are so fantastically good that he doesn't want to make them public, and risk Hillary stealing them.  So the only concrete plan he has described--no pun intended--is to build that wall, which Mexico was to pay for, and it appears that it was a figurative wall all along.

Boys and girls, electing Hillary Clinton to office is the easy part.  We have to elect competent democrats (or, if absolutely unavoidable, independents) to Congress in the Fall.  And we must keep putting pressure on Congress to pass certain laws.  Warren Buffett suggests a few:

Abolish pensions for Congressmen.  Make them join Social Security.
Abolish health care for Congressmen.  Make them buy private insurance.  (The Insurance lobby will be only too happy to make it available for cheap to them.)

He suggests a lot more, but these were the big winners for me.

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