2016 Election - Clinton: The Hillary Clinton Thread

[tidegrandpa]

[
Tide Grandpa, Serious question... is that a picture of Ambassador Stevens after the Benghazi attack?

Parading him through the street

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Off topic, but a Russian oligarch was recently asked why he flew around on a private plane and his response was "my dog does not feel comfortable flying business class."

Maybe not so far off topic...

 

[seebell]

Was Steven paraded throught the streets or taken to the hospital by Libyans while still alive?

http://www.snopes.com/POLITICS/military/stevens.asp

[FONT=&quot]A Libyan doctor who treated Stevens said he died of severe asphyxiation, apparently from smoke. In a sign of the chaos of during the attack, Stevens was brought alone by Libyans to the Benghazi Medical Center with no other Americans, and no one at the facility knew who he was, the doctor, Ziad Abu Zeid, told The Associated Press.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]CNN obtained a [/FONT]video[FONT=&quot] which, contrary to accounts that Ambassador Stevens was murdered by the U.S. consulate's attackers, is said to show a group of Libyans attempting to rescue a still-alive Stevens from the burned-out consulate building: [/FONT]

http://jacksonville.com/reason/fact...tory-about-ambassador-stevens-death-benghazi-
really

 

[Crimson1967]

So, Charmin, what do you think about Benghazi? What about Hillary's e-mails?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CharminTide]

So, Charmin, what do you think about Benghazi?

I think I've already stated my view on Benghazi, but I'll reiterate. It is, obviously, terrible that Americans died. In hindsight, could things have been arranged differently in a way that might have been able to prevent those deaths? Probably. But is Hillary, through some negligence, personally responsible for their deaths? Absolutely not.

That isn't my conclusion, rather the conclusion as determined by 8 Republican-led congressional investigations as well as the FBI. The Benghazi story has been dead for months. It'd be far more productive if we'd spent this time discussing how to prevent the next Benghazi rather than flailing for years and burning tax dollars trying to pin blame on a single person.

What about Hillary's e-mails?

This issue is a more relevant one.

I agree with Hillary's own confession that setting up a private email server was a mistake. It was obviously poor judgement to do so. I believe her when she says it would never happen in her administration, if for no other reason than the guaranteed press spotlight on how she and her cabinet would handle e-mail.

Where I probably differ from most people is that I don't jump to the conclusion that she set up this private server for any sort of nefarious purpose (i.e. to sidestep FOIA requests). She's basically said that she did it for convenience, and there being no evidence to the contrary, it's actually very easy for me to believe this. I've had to deal with federal email servers when I worked at the VA, and the IT restrictions were mind-boggling. In their system, email couldn't be accessed remotely. You had to physically be sitting on a VA campus and at a VA computer to access your account, which is obviously absurd in 2016. There was no mobile access, and there was no remote or web access so you could manage email at your home computer. Now, I'm not suggesting that hers was quite this restricted, because I have no idea; but the idea of absurd inconveniences inherent to the official email system is not hard at all for me to accept.

Federal computing systems have the biggest aversion to change I've ever experienced. In my department, the program we use to write patient reports is an 8-bit DOS screen. Seriously. It was coded in the 80s and never updated to include a GUI. For a system I use continuously throughout the day, that's simply absurd. It takes me 10 times longer to do anything while using a VA system compared to any other hospital simply due to the inherent inefficiency. And that's hardly an isolated example. So it's actually quite easy for me to believe that the email system afforded to even top officials like the secretary of state are antiquated and of poor design. The fact that the last 3+ people who had her job did the same exact thing makes me more inclined to believe the problem is with the system rather than with Hillary. Of course, if that's the case, the obvious solution would have been to fix the email system instead of setting up a private server. But with federal systems, that's far easier said than done.

So again, she screwed up and has admitted it. I believe it won't happen in the future. And I, from personal experience, am inclined to buy her repeated explanation that she did it out of convenience rather than assume some nefarious intent.

 

[Bodhisattva]

I agree with Hillary's own confession that setting up a private email server was a mistake. It was obviously poor judgement to do so. I believe her when she says it would never happen in her administration, if for no other reason than the guaranteed press spotlight on how she and her cabinet would handle e-mail.

Where I probably differ from most people is that I don't jump to the conclusion that she set up this private server for any sort of nefarious purpose (i.e. to sidestep FOIA requests). She's basically said that she did it for convenience, and there being no evidence to the contrary, it's actually very easy for me to believe this. I've had to deal with federal email servers when I worked at the VA, and the IT restrictions were mind-boggling. In their system, email couldn't be accessed remotely. You had to physically be sitting on a VA campus and at a VA computer to access your account, which is obviously absurd in 2016. There was no mobile access, and there was no remote or web access so you could manage email at your home computer. Now, I'm not suggesting that hers was quite this restricted, because I have no idea; but the idea of absurd inconveniences inherent to the official email system is not hard at all for me to accept.

Federal computing systems have the biggest aversion to change I've ever experienced. In my department, the program we use to write patient reports is an 8-bit DOS screen. Seriously. It was coded in the 80s and never updated to include a GUI. For a system I use continuously throughout the day, that's simply absurd. It takes me 10 times longer to do anything while using a VA system compared to any other hospital simply due to the inherent inefficiency. And that's hardly an isolated example. So it's actually quite easy for me to believe that the email system afforded to even top officials like the secretary of state are antiquated and of poor design. The fact that the last 3+ people who had her job did the same exact thing makes me more inclined to believe the problem is with the system rather than with Hillary. Of course, if that's the case, the obvious solution would have been to fix the email system instead of setting up a private server. But with federal systems, that's far easier said than done.

So again, she screwed up and has admitted it. I believe it won't happen in the future. And I, from personal experience, am inclined to buy her repeated explanation that she did it out of convenience rather than assume some nefarious intent.

If your justification for Hillary's actions are true .... Hillary is a standard bearer for all things Big Government. She wants to give the government more than a trillion dollars in new taxes. Yet she (again, if your rationale is true) admits the government can't even do email with any kind of competence. It's so FUBARed she has her own system set up, risking that her correspondence become the playground of the Russians and Chinese and anyone else who's taken Hacking 101. And yet she's for more big government. We've had numerous threads about government waste and stupidity. I see it everyday. I understand not voting for Trump; that's easy. But, how anyone (who's not a professional user and welfare slug) can be pro-Hillary or claim that she is deserving of the presidency is crazy. Makes no sense to me.

 

[CharminTide]

If your justification for Hillary's actions are true .... Hillary is a standard bearer for all things Big Government. She wants to give the government more than a trillion dollars in new taxes. Yet she (again, if your rationale is true) admits the government can't even do email with any kind of competence. It's so FUBARed she has her own system set up, risking that her correspondence become the playground of the Russians and Chinese and anyone else who's taken Hacking 101. And yet she's for more big government. We've had numerous threads about government waste and stupidity. I see it everyday. I understand not voting for Trump; that's easy. But, how anyone (who's not a professional user and welfare slug) can be pro-Hillary or claim that she is deserving of the presidency is crazy. Makes no sense to me.

I think it's overly simplistic to make statements like "government = inefficient = bad." To use another example, the US post office is not as efficient as, say FedEx; we all loathe having to wait in a USPS line on Saturday. But on the other hand, I grew up in a rural area with a mailbox beyond several miles of dirt roads. FedEx wouldn't deliver packages. But the USPS would, because they're forced to do financially inefficient things in order to make sure all taxpayers have access to a basic level of service.

I could make the same case with healthcare. I'm not even able to count the number of veterans I've seen who are unemployed, yet not eligible for Medicare/Medicaid. Before Obamacare, no private insurer would have touched them with so many pre-existing conditions -- it absolutely wouldn't have made financial sense. But the VA cared for them, because they had to. The private sector would never have touched these patient unless forced by congress or the courts. You'll get no argument from me that there are definite downsides to federal inefficiency, but I think painting with so broad a brush obscures the good things that government programs do.

 

[bama_wayne1]

I think it's overly simplistic to make statements like "government = inefficient = bad." To use another example, the US post office is not as efficient as, say FedEx; we all loathe having to wait in a USPS line on Saturday. But on the other hand, I grew up in a rural area with a mailbox beyond several miles of dirt roads. FedEx wouldn't deliver packages. But the USPS would, because they're forced to do financially inefficient things in order to make sure all taxpayers have access to a basic level of service.

I could make the same case with healthcare. I'm not even able to count the number of veterans I've seen who are unemployed, yet not eligible for Medicare/Medicaid. Before Obamacare, no private insurer would have touched them with so many pre-existing conditions -- it absolutely wouldn't have made financial sense. But the VA cared for them, because they had to. The private sector would never have touched these patient unless forced by congress or the courts. You'll get no argument from me that there are definite downsides to federal inefficiency, but I think painting with so broad a brush obscures the good things that government programs do.

If we reform the VA to be like medicare/Medicaid and just pay private physicians to care for vets I believe that issue would improve greatly. I have sons who are vets, 1 is a purple heart vet and he uses his own private insurance in order to avoid the VA. He says it is terrible. So I say the government needs to get out of health care via the VA and just use the VA as a funding entity.

 

[Bodhisattva]

I think it's overly simplistic to make statements like "government = inefficient = bad." To use another example, the US post office is not as efficient as, say FedEx; we all loathe having to wait in a USPS line on Saturday. But on the other hand, I grew up in a rural area with a mailbox beyond several miles of dirt roads. FedEx wouldn't deliver packages. But the USPS would, because they're forced to do financially inefficient things in order to make sure all taxpayers have access to a basic level of service.

I could make the same case with healthcare. I'm not even able to count the number of veterans I've seen who are unemployed, yet not eligible for Medicare/Medicaid. Before Obamacare, no private insurer would have touched them with so many pre-existing conditions -- it absolutely wouldn't have made financial sense. But the VA cared for them, because they had to. The private sector would never have touched these patient unless forced by congress or the courts. You'll get no argument from me that there are definite downsides to federal inefficiency, but I think painting with so broad a brush obscures the good things that government programs do.

When discussing the government, it is not overly simplistic to accuse it of doing things that are almost totally unconstitutional, wasteful, abusive, and just plain dumb. Even if I agree with the two exceptions you list above (I don't), it doesn't alter my original statement. I'll say it again, Hillary (if her excuse is true) felt the need to play fast and lose with the law and national security because government can't do email in unretarded fashion. What does that say about how it will handle things like heath care?

For every example of where someone shows government doing something well (that person is usually wrong, but for the sake of argument ... ) there are scores of examples of government doing something stupid. And the waste is in the trillions of dollars.

One simple example .... Arlington National Cemetery basically has one job .... bury people ... in the correct plots. Shouldn't be that hard. They can't do that right.

The investigators found that these and other blunders were the result of a "dysfunctional" and chaotic management system at the cemetery, which was poisoned by bitterness among top supervisors and hobbled by antiquated record-keeping.

...

Some problems cited in the report "are a repeat of the deficiencies detailed in a 1997 inspection report . . . which currently have gone largely unaddressed for the past 12 years,"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061005638.html

 

[Bodhisattva]

I'd also like to point out that my email crashes several times a day almost every day, as does Microsoft Office. Only government tries to operate like this.

 

[CharminTide]

If we reform the VA to be like Medicare/Medicaid and just pay private physicians to care for vets I believe that issue would improve greatly.

I think ideas like this have a lot of merit.

In general, I feel the government's role has been more effective when regulating the market rather than directly entering the market. Forcing insurers to stop excluding people based on pre-existing conditions was, IMO, an overall good thing for the country despite upsetting private insurers. I tend to disagree with the laissez-faire proponents.

For instance, I'd be quicker to support the government forcing insurers to remain in the ACA marketplace if they want continued access to the enormous pool of publicly-inured people (i.e. Medicare/Medicaid). Permitting insurers to simply pack up and leave the ACA markets if that cohort is even slightly too costly is fundamentally no different than their past practices of cherry picking patients. Congress could also throw subsidies at the insurers rather than expand Medicare/Medicaid. This would reduce premiums a bit with the aim of getting younger and healthier people to enroll, thereby driving down costs for all participants. Of course, these kinds of things require a functioning congress and would be difficult given the power we've allowed lobbyists to accrue, but I think a little market regulation might be a more effective and efficient use of money than just blindly expanding Medicare/Medicaid.

I believe both are ideas that Hillary has floated, btw.

One simple example .... Arlington National Cemetery basically has one job .... bury people ... in the correct plots. Shouldn't be that hard. They can't do that right...

They still keep written records and have no incentive to update to electronic records. That's true of most outdated government systems, and I relayed a similar example in my initial post.

However, I don't support your generalization that, since many current governmental systems are inefficient, all future governmental interventions must be as well. Only Sith deal in absolutes.

 

[Bodhisattva]

They still keep written records and have no incentive to update to electronic records. That's true of most outdated government systems, and I relayed a similar example in my initial post.

No incentive is right. No incentive to do anything well. There are no competitive forces pushing quality change, efficiency, good stewardship of public funds, etc.

My office has been in the process of going paperless for five years. And we're an IT program office. That should be telling.

However, I don't support your generalization that, since many current governmental systems are inefficient, all future governmental interventions must be as well. Only Sith deal in absolutes.

I'm not dealing in absolutes. I'm making true statements about the overwhelming majority of government activities. Most are unconstitutional; most are wasteful on many levels.

I've attended many meetings where there is the talk of creating an efficient government. The first was when I started working for the government. There was a push to hire MBAs. Well, none of the skills I learned in b-school have been adopted by the command. They sent us to Lean Six Sigma training. We all have the certificate. None of those lessons have been adopted by the command. The PTBs recognize things aren't going as well or as fast as they want. The solution is to add more layers of bureaucracy. And so on and so on. You see how dumb this is?

So, where is this magical efficiency going to come from? Not from market forces; there are none. Not from internal pressures; they have it all backwards. And even if they could get it right, there's still no way to get everyone pulling in the same direction. It took my office six months to get printers. There are so many people from multiple offices scattered all over the country who have to approve the dumbest thing that six months was considered acceptable. No one batted an eye at that timetable (except the MBAs with Lean Six Sigma training that no one listens to.)

And to circle back to Hillary .... She is not proposing to eliminate poor government. She just wants at least a trillion dollars more of it. That kind of mentality is one of the many reasons to disqualify her for being president.

 

[seebell]

If we reform the VA to be like medicare/Medicaid and just pay private physicians to care for vets I believe that issue would improve greatly. I have sons who are vets, 1 is a purple heart vet and he uses his own private insurance in order to avoid the VA. He says it is terrible. So I say the government needs to get out of health care via the VA and just use the VA as a funding entity.

Seems like a good idea to me. That is actually an idea that Trump has proposed. Just let the vets go to the doctor or clinic VA Certified?) of their choice.

 

[crimsonaudio]

I could make the same case with healthcare. I'm not even able to count the number of veterans I've seen who are unemployed, yet not eligible for Medicare/Medicaid. Before Obamacare, no private insurer would have touched them with so many pre-existing conditions -- it absolutely wouldn't have made financial sense. But the VA cared for them, because they had to. The private sector would never have touched these patient unless forced by congress or the courts. You'll get no argument from me that there are definite downsides to federal inefficiency, but I think painting with so broad a brush obscures the good things that government programs do.

I've had a hard time finding ONE veteran over the years who didn't despite the VA. Literally just one. If the VA is the example of 'they get care because it's federally mandated', then that argument holds little water to the people that I know who are familiar with the VA.

 

[CharminTide]

No incentive is right. No incentive to do anything well. There are no competitive forces pushing quality change, efficiency, good stewardship of public funds, etc.

My office has been in the process of going paperless for five years. And we're an IT program office. That should be telling...

I'm not dealing in absolutes. I'm making true statements about the overwhelming majority of government activities. Most are unconstitutional; most are wasteful on many levels.

I've attended many meetings where there is the talk of creating an efficient government. The first was when I started working for the government. There was a push to hire MBAs. Well, none of the skills I learned in b-school have been adopted by the command. They sent us to Lean Six Sigma training. We all have the certificate. None of those lessons have been adopted by the command. The PTBs recognize things aren't going as well or as fast as they want. The solution is to add more layers of bureaucracy. And so on and so on. You see how dumb this is?

So, where is this magical efficiency going to come from? Not from market forces; there are none. Not from internal pressures; they have it all backwards. And even if they could get it right, there's still no way to get everyone pulling in the same direction. It took my office six months to get printers. There are so many people from multiple offices scattered all over the country who have to approve the dumbest thing that six months was considered acceptable. No one batted an eye at that timetable (except the MBAs with Lean Six Sigma training that no one listens to.)

Yeah, we're not in disagreement about the existence of federal inefficiency.

And to circle back to Hillary .... She is not proposing to eliminate poor government. She just wants at least a trillion dollars more of it. That kind of mentality is one of the many reasons to disqualify her for being president.

If that's your criteria, it clearly disqualifies both major parties. Which is fine. Honestly, if the current GOP implodes and is rebuilt largely in a Libertarian mold, I think the country would be in a better place.

 

[CharminTide]

I've had a hard time finding ONE veteran over the years who didn't despite the VA. Literally just one. If the VA is the example of 'they get care because it's federally mandated', then that argument holds little water to the people that I know who are familiar with the VA.

I've never argued that the VA is a wonderful system. But surely you'd agree that some basic level of care is better than absolutely none.

 

[MobileCrimson]

Has anyone else seen this commercial? It came on right after a Hillary commercial and had me laughing.

 

[Bodhisattva]

If that's you're criteria, it clearly disqualifies both major parties. Which is fine.

For me it does. I haven't voted D or R for the presidency since 1992 when I pulled the switch for Clinton.

Honestly, if the current GOP implodes and is rebuilt largely in a Libertarian mold, I think the country would be in a better place.

Absolutely agree.

 

[Bodhisattva]

I've had a hard time finding ONE veteran over the years who didn't despite the VA. Literally just one. If the VA is the example of 'they get care because it's federally mandated', then that argument holds little water to the people that I know who are familiar with the VA.

Several years ago I was visiting a former friend (Bob) who likes to talk politics from a severe leftist bent. The topic that day was health care and how Bob hated the private sector and individual investment accounts and anything else that wasn't government-run. His FIL, a veteran with his share of health issues, was in town. While debating the merits of government-run health care with Bob, his FIL would chime in with how horrible the VA was. Bob continued championing socialism to me. I finally said, "Are you listening to what your FIL is saying? To him, the government plan is not a utopian concept. He actually experiences it. And he knows it sucks. Why aren't you paying attention to reality?" Bob, without missing a beat, responded, "We can make it better." I never found out who "we" was. Probably the mythical elves that create this fantasy world of his.

 

[crimsonaudio]

I've never argued that the VA is a wonderful system. But surely you'd agree that some basic level of care is better than absolutely none.

Sure, if there is some basic level of care. The problem is the VA is riddled with problems whereby there are many who never get the treatment they need, which is the equivalent of having zero care at all.

Again, if the VA is your example of federally run healthcare, no thanks. It's horrible.