Unequivocally.

Attack the Republicans....Hell Yes!!

I'm kinda enjoying this for some reason.

Hillary Clinton says 'not there yet' on women's equality
Clinton will attend the UN conference on Tuesday to address the "unfinished business" of the Beijing gathering amid some controversy over donations that the Clinton Foundation receives from countries with poor rights records.

if she talks about that to the exclusion of something of real global interest, such as the 47 Senators letter on US diplomacy with Iran. Think about it.

Again, she is not at the UN in any official capacity for the US government.

I would not be surprised if during the interview she is asked about the open letter. If so, we will see what she says.

But at the meeting she should not speak out on an issue that is not about Women's Rights.

and the longer she is mute, the greater the uncertainty, and the greater the chances that her message is understood to confirm the worst case assumptions.

She will have all the world's media in front of her in a few minutes. She almost has a duty to do this as a Democrat and as the former leading foreign policy officer of the Obama Administration, and if she doesn't, she will likely be trounced for it. Silence will send so many awful messages.

Which I think is a bigger and more important topic than what Republican Assholes said in an open letter.

She is not at this time a member of the US Government nor working in any capacity for the US Government. She is there as a private citizen speaking on essential human rights. Using that speech as a platform to attack Republicans would be wrong.

Senate letter on diplomacy with Iran, and I will not sign it. No questions about this now. Thank you. On to the subject of email . . ." Simple. Direct. Over with. If she had decent advisers and instincts, that's what how would start the presser.

And this is a Conference on Women's rights, which she has championed from the beginning, and at that that Beijing Conference.

You should check out her News Conference, where she spoke forcefully on this issue. A proper venue, I might add, because it is a news conference and not a conference on Women's Rights.




http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/world/hillary-clinton-in-china-details-abuse-of-women.html

why the hair on fire crowd does this type of shit over and over is beyond me.

almost any other circumstance in today's world.

Eg, see Iraq and Afghanistan. The women of those two countries have had their rights, which they once had in both countries, totally destroyed by war. Once doctors, teachers, nurses, university professors, independent and in Iraq entitled to EQUAL PAY, they have lost almost everything.

Rape and abuse and death and imprisonment have replaced the lives they had, not so long ago.

In other nations ravaged by war, women become victims of rape, torture, enslavement and lose all human rights.

This is in fact a perfect opportunity for Hillary to condemn even the notion of a war in Iran which would so adversely affect women.

I hope she takes the opportunity to make it clear that anyone who supports women's right, is only paying lip service to that issue if they support one more unnecessary and women destroying war.

Your statement is inaccurate.

I think you have an issue with Clinton.

So, you think War is good for women? You think anyone who supports Women's rights also supports the devastating wars that have reduced them to a status where their daily lives are now consumed with simply surviving rape, poverty, abuse, torture and enslavement?

And which war did Obama start? I supported him OVER Hillary because he opposed the Iraq War which was consistent with someone who understands the consequences of war.

From what I have seen, he has attempted to avoid war in Syria, has been foiled constantly by the Neocons, tried to avoid war with Russia, still being foiled by Neocons on that, is trying to avoid War in Iran, and surely you see the blatant attempts to foil his efforts there also.

Women are the victims of wars to an extent that is unprecented.

If you are unaware of this fact, I suggest you do some research starting with the Women of Afghanistan, who are still courageously trying to end the use of their country as a chess board for International players. They are extremely clear on what these wars have done to them.

Then go to the women of DR Congo. And tell us that women fare well when warmongers decide to start wars for profit.

See Iraq, and study how they lived BEFORE the illegal invasion of their country, and how they are living now.

Like I said, anyone who promotes war is only paying lip service to any claims of concerns for women's rights.

That is what you said.

Women's rights is a critical issue. It is human rights. But it is separate from issues of foreign relations.

War is a terrible thing, however, simply because someone supports a war does not mean they support crimes committed during the acts of war by combatants.

In 2008, Obama ran on increasing our involvement in Afghanistan, and put huge numbers of troops in there. He owned that war. He supported pulling troops out of Iraq, but since President Bush could not get a status of forces agreement that gave jurisdiction of any crimes committed by US Troops to US commanders, ending our long war in Iraq was Bush's decision. Obama has led an intense use of drones to attack and kill combatants and some noncombatants in more than 20 nations.

And Obama committed us to Libya. He could not get support for US forces in Syria, so he armed the rebels. We are not bombing Syria and Iraq. He is now awaiting an authorization to use force against ISIS in any country in the world where they operate.

All Presidents will fight wars that hey see as in our national interest. That does not make them opposed to human rights, and in the world Hillary Clinton, "Women's rights are human rights."

Women's rights are a separate issued, and one Hillary Clinton has championed for decades. The fact that you don't agree with her on many issues does not mean that there are no issues that you agree on.

the world even knew what they were up to there. The US was dragged into that disaster which also has destroyed the female population in that country also. Libyan women had a very high status in Libya also, but not anymore.

Not one war we have 'fought', though that word doesn't really apply to an Empire destroying some small nation with their WMDs, more like a slaughter, was in our NATIONAL interests since WW11. All of our 'wars' have been for RESOURCES and for PROFIT for a small group who have pushed this country and are still pushing this country into even more of them.

I totally disagree with returning to Iraq and opposed strongly the arming of the same thugs in Syrian that were armed in Libya, now part of ISIS.

And again, the women in all these regions are losing rights long fought for and for NO REASON other than neocon policies to destroy any and all Arab and Muslim nations and enslave their people.

So yes, it most certainly does make anyone who is condoning these massive crimes, hypocrites if they claim to care about Women's rights, or Human Rights.

What would have happened to this country if we had never gone to Iraq? Mushroom clouds, WMDs? Please even teenagers I knew at the time knew better than to believe those lies.

And anyone who cared about women then and now, would never have condoned that egregious, mass murder of human beings leaving its female population in ruins.

We were not dragged. It was a war that not even Republicans wanted, though probably only because a Republican was not in the White House. They did much the same thing with Clinton and his on Easter European military adventure in the 90's.

They are not Neocon policies. These countries are moving to reassert themselves after several centuries of western imperial control. Some of them are religious fanatics willing and happy to return their country to what they see as the golden age of the First Caliphate.

Iran under the Shah instituted quite a few human rights and women's rights. Since the revolution, women's rights have steadily deteriorated.

Afghanistan, before Russian involvement enjoyed some rights for women. Once the Taliban took over, those rights disappeared. Some of those rights returned with the current government but the Taliban and its folk have murdered women for demanding their rights.

Look at Pakistan where religious extremists are trying to remove women form power through murder.

And how about Boko Haram in Africa.

What is happening in the middle east with women's rights has nothing to do with Neocons.

Neocon ideology is a failed attempt to reassert and intensify American Imperialism. Everything they have tried has come back to hurt us.

Personally, I think it is a signal that the US is about to fall off its perch as the supreme world power. It is going to be a rough ride to the bottom, while other countries fight to get to the top of the heap for a while.

47 people going outside of the President and executive branch to influence foreign policy.

I am not sure another non-executive-branch person trying to influence foreign policy is an improvement.

Besides, she was invited to sign the letter, so she needs to address that. Here's her opportunity to take care of the issue and to support the Obama Administration. She will fall off the tight rope today if she fails to go on the record about something so important.

the letter says all that needs to be said?

If she had an offer to sign the letter and did not sign it, that says all that needs to be said. It would be redundant to grandstand about it. She has already show she does not support the letter.

With some people, she is damned is she does and damned if she does not. If she does say anything, they will say she is campaigning when it is inappropriate to campaign. If she doesn't, we get people saying she should make a big stink over things. Either way, the ones who are going to complain are going to complain.

And then she didn't do it?

she did address it.

which will not leave her open to criticism.

If she does though, I don't think that she will
go into the diplomatic policy issue; she might
just state that foreign policy issues belong
to the WH.

Again that means nothing, and leaves it up
to her should she win the election.

Very good!

would have something to say about that. Here's her chance.

of course after consulting Kerry and the white house.......... she will make news or not today.

I guess people not only forget we are STILL at war in Afghanistan, but that THIS issue could hurt our soldiers in the field! Last time I checked...Iran was right next to Afghanistan. And gee...I dunno about you but I am SICK AND TIRED of watching the GOP get away with CRIME!

I hope she says this:

'As President Obama stated, "It's somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran, it's an unusual coalition."

I don't think anyone, including Hillary Clinton, could say it better.

I might even cut her some slack on the email.

Better quick move the goal posts.

given the magnitude of the implications of GOP's Iran letter.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you think childhood is finished, maybe you didn't do it right the first time.
Start over.[/center][/font][hr]

You should know that, by now.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

You'd have been better off not responding.

You look worse with your #33 reply.

That's praise, right?

She still needs to release her personal emails!

The servers need to be handed over to the very vultures that wrote the fucking Iran letter!

That makes sense, right!

After she leaves office, possibly after she dies.

Her private emails will remain private and the witchhunt to read her private emails will be over soon.

The irony is even if she had two email addresses people would be claiming that the second email address needed to be scrutinized because who knows what Clinton was sending on her private address.

In other words, people would be complaining that she had a second email address and we don't know what was sent on it, so clearly it must be verified by an independent party.

And if you don't think the Archivist doesn't have Republican vultures sitting in the wings greedily hoping to get access to those private emails, you have got to be kidding me. The Republicans are the ones calling for this scrutiny. That is their plan. They want to go over her private emails and get inside her head and possibly cause another scandal.

The nativity is astounding.

Clinton is making sure to keep everything close. No bullshit, no room for error.

because she thinks she's too important to be called on it or bother to take the effort to be compliant. She describes it as not wanting to carry a second Blackberry. An error called hubris.

out of this email mess, and appears to have dug herself in deeper by claiming the server is hers and in her admission that 30,000 emails were "private" so she feels justified in having deleted them before anyone (even the State Dept or Archivist) could inspect them for official content. That was a bad mistake on HRC's part.

She never addressed the deletion aspect at all.

She said they were private.

That's it.

Her point about official content is simply that all official correspondence went to .gov addresses, so it should've been archived automatically. What you think is reasonable is that Clinton's emails should be gone over with a fine tooth comb and looked at until each and every piece of email is proven by a group of people going over her personal information that she wasn't writing anything official to some non .gov address.

And then you would still have the conspiracy that she deleted the emails before they were able to go over the emails.

So it's a non-starter.

She should have backed up Clintonemail.com on .gov servers, and had the Secret Service take care of setting the whole thing up. But, that way her email would have been a public record, and we wouldn't be having this conversation

If we didn't care about fake scandals then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I personally am happy that Clinton addressed the Iran letter first thing, as it shows she is not, in fact, the neocon hawk that people claim she is.

If anything, their skepticism seems to have increased. Particularly when she said 50% of her 60,000 email was personal, and that fully half that she characterized as cake recipes were deleted. If you were listening, she said the server is hers, and she's not handing it over. Now, that only drags this thing out into the general, if it gets litigated - THAT isn't smart.

this is getting fucking ridiculous.

thank you fox democratic commentator.


And I thought she should and she did.

tickled my funny bone for sure.

it seems she has fulfilled your wish as well as going further than I thought she would.

Never give an INCH to the GOP and their poodle press.

And the rest were turned over. I also thought she said the server had been set up by her husband, in a house under Secret Service protection, before she was Secretary.

I tried to get IT at work to put my work email on my phone, and the phone wouldn't work for a few days. It never got the email transferred there. So I don't find it terribly surprising she thought she needed two devices. I have to go to the web browser to check my work email, and it takes too long.

withheld without any review by the State Dept. The email was set up on the server the day of her confirmation hearing.

So what you have heard before was not from her. She also made clear that State Department regulations leave it up to the employee as to which emails to preserve. That is the case regardless of the email account. That isn't impacted by whether she used state.gov or Clinton.net email accounts.

I might have misinterpreted the comment, but she said something about the private server in regard to a system that had worked for her husband.

federal records, which she acknowledged, included any emails of an official nature. We have her word for it that she generated 30,000 personal emails during her four years (that's @ 1400 days) as SOS, with an equal number of emails of an official nature. We now are told that she deleted about half her email.

As someone in an office that receives hundreds of emails to the top people each day, I believe she exchanged at least 30,000 emails during that period. But, where did she get the time to exchange an equal number of wedding cake recipes?

Relating to work.

If it didn't back up deleted files, it's clearly not intended to be a Federal Records Act compliant storage device.

And therefore would automatically be recorded.

I don't know wtf you're on about.

That was bound to inflame questions about this, and it has, and it will. She looked a bit shaken at the end.

Non .gov addresses?

In that case how could they be official business?

She wasn't shaken at the end, the reporters were getting extremely aggressive, repeating the same nonsensical questions.

My significant other remarked that Hillary looked shaken up, and she likes Hillary. I used to like her a lot, too. Maybe, I still want to.

I wish she wouldn't do stupid stuff like deleting 30,000 emails. More fuel on the fire for GOP bastards to twist around until real events lose all meaning.

I thought that was a lot of personal email myself, but who knows. Her personal life, or that of any other government employee, isn't regulated by law.

Why did she do this, all of two months ago, after the failure to release email to the Committee became an issue? Nobody can be that stupid, unless there's a lot more at stake here than yoga and recipes.

Seriously? Jesus.

Cheezits, is right.

even bringing up Benghazi

It's like in the old Westerns where the townspeople stormed the jail so they could get the defendant and hang him without the niceties of a trial...

But unlike some of the posters of this board they had the intestinal fortitude (almost used a sexist term but I'm learning) not to cloak their lust for blood under the guise of "concern'.

you are also calling her a fucking liar......also without one shred of evidence.

good god man!

Maybe in awhile you'll actually live up to the claim in your post!

Since you changed the topic to emails.

Pathetic.

People get mad at her when she speaks, people get mad at her when she doesn't speak.

If you all only knew what you really sounded like. Hey, but that's good for our side.

voting for Clinton. Who knew such a large percentage of the American public were corporate stooges?

Who knew America was doing so damn good!

It still stands out in my mind as one of the ugliest and most idiotic comments I've seen through all of this.

Luckily sane people like you saw right through it.

coming? I await your well crafted words.

Praise, but! But what about the other emails!

when the OP assumed she would not speak about it, then when proven wrong the OP seems to find the statement to be of no importance at all. This says much about the original intention of the OP itself.

I said if she and her aides were smart, she would address the Iran letter first. She did that. I applaud her #33 in first response afterwards. What is the problem - I didn't applaud vigorously enough? As John Stewart said, is this North Korea, now?

The email is different matter, and she has not satisfied me -- and apparently didn't the MSNBC people I heard afterwards -- so, I don't feel like I have remain completely quiet about that. I didn't promise I would, nor would I.

This quiet response, by the way, is cutting her a break on the email angle.

of course not. Never has a poster been more direct, less furtive, there is not even a whiff of the double standard about your work here today. Everyone can see that you gave equal weight to her actual statement to that given to the prognosticated silence in your OP. It's not only fair, it's fair and balanced.

I have said, I would praise her. That's the first thing I did after the speech. See #33. By addressing that first, she made that one go away, right way, and I am elated. Made me remember why I liked her, once upon a time, and still sorta want to like her.

Now, am I supposed to say she also cleared things up on her private email? No, she didn't do that, and it appears from the comments on MSNBC after the presser, there are others who have drawn the same conclusion.

Sorry, North Korea applause rules don't apply.

What is more telling is that the OP thought she would not even mention such an important and powerful issue, because, apparently, the Republicans have made Clinton out to be a "pro-war" neocon fascist that it's impossible for people to think she'd be for peaceful policy and diplomacy!

It's odious to the core.

and we need to go back to the email thing again.It is odious.

Or do North Korean applause rules apply?

You weren't genuine when you said she should be praised. The dozens of posts of yours in your own thread are proof of that.

Only I don't recall giving a standing ovation 50 times.

I'll borrow Stewart's description, and call these the "North Korean applause rules."

Not sure how you can even apply that to applause.

In a thread where you claimed she should be praised you spent the vast majority of your time condemning her. Why not just start another thread where you condemn her. Oh, right, you got people attracted to this thread, so screw the original claim for praise...

Where did I obligate myself to praise more than I did? Or should I simply stifle myself about the other issue (email) Hillary (still) faces? If nothing else, listening to what my critics are saying about "faint praise" brings John Stewart's joke about "North Korean applause rules" to mind.

And, this thread has make me intent on listening for any substantial information that has been absorbed about the emails. What I hear is more denial of what was said by Hillary herself about the number of emails (60,000), the claim that half were personal (that sounds excessive), and yes, that the email her aides thought were personal were deleted (permanently, if that's how the server was set up). I heard the word deleted from the press and from her. She also said the server is her private property, and won't be released. I hope I misheard that, because that means this issue is going to get dragged out in the courts through the General. That's the last thing any Democrat would want to happen.

You literally used a BS conjecture to start yet another Hillary email thread.

I'm done here.

on that topic. Sorry if I can carry more than one thought in my head. HRC impressed and disappointed on the same occasion.

Cheezits.

Now that she has-- and quite forcefully, I believe we should damn her with faint praise before we begin searching for the next inflatable albatross to hang from her neck.

figures

I thought about changing the OP, but decided not to change a word.

She acted intelligently and did the right thing about the Senate 47 letter. She addressed it up front and in no uncertain terms. I immediately applauded her for that at #33, as I said I would. Apparently, I didn't applaud loudly enough for some.

But, that's a separate issue from the email matter, which she has apparently doubled down by refusing to release the server and admitting that fully half of her 60,000 emails were deleted by her aides as "private." That was less smart, and now this seems likely to get dragged out into the General. That's bad news, and that can't be denied.

that moving goalpost is pathertic. Trying so very very hard to make a point that you dislike HRC. I actually uderstand that, but your methods don't do much for your credibility.

She deserves praise, yes, but not exclusively. Actually, she shouldn't have waited this long to make her position known about the Iran letter, and shouldn't have set up this dramatic episode that left the world hanging on a thin wire about that.

The goalpost moves as I respond to other comments, and rethink positions and statements. It just moved again. I'm now less sure she really deserves praise for how she handled that. Maybe, relieved is a better way to describe it. Yes, thank you Hillary for keeping us guessing about these things.

your OP was all about ....well here lets just look at your OP and you can please point out where your op had anything to do with HRC and her emails?

That, upon discussing this, has led me to be somewhat less than ecstatic with how this was done. She did keep us all wondering about what she would come down on negotiations with Iran. Now, I feel like we've been played, a bit.

I'm not back-peddling, just reconsidering my thinking in light of the entire spectacle, which very much revolves around her email problem along with questions about her ambivalent attitudes toward war and peace.

this is getting ridiculous. You SHOULD be embarassed.

Last edited Tue Mar 10, 2015, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)

The Democratic Party is deeply ambivalent about any opening to Iran. We've been conditioned by years of being told that Iran presents an existential threat, which when events catch up and conclusions have to be stated in a CIA estimate, the specific nuclear threat is continually denied in published intelligence documents. Continuous resets about Iran's program, always projected another 7 years in advance, leads to ambiguity and doubt that we really have a policy and that Iran really has a nuclear weapons program. Such fundamental uncertainty has some nasty, long-term effects on policy and politics.

Ambivalence is right at the heart of Israel's nuclear policy, and like its predecessor, this Administration seems to be playing a game of good cop-bad cop with Netanyahu, always with a view toward imposing lines in the sand around Iran. That is ironic, in view of the fact that Iran originally came by its incipient nuclear program because of CIA policies of winking and nodding as AQ Khan sold old, broken-down Pakistani centrifuges and defective bomb plans to Iran, Iraq and several others during the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Ambiguity is very much a touchstone of Israel's policy of its threats against Iran - is this another bluff by Bibi or maybe he really will drop all those bunker busters we've been selling them, always with the threat of escalation and triggering of Israel's always deniable nuclear capability?

Reflecting on this, and the present soon-to-be-completed, maybe not, negotiations, I see Hillary's own ambiguity about her views toward current diplomacy to be entirely in keeping with this larger policy of bluff and ambiguity. This is actually a form of blackmail, disturbing for America because we actually fear the use of Israel's large arsenal of nuclear weapons far more than anything Iran might have cobbled together. This has created uncertainty about a nearly existential issue - will America be brought into yet another meat grinder in the Persian Gulf if Hillary is elected? That's a serious question, and one that Hillary the candidate played upon in arranging her grand spectacle today. We've been manipulated, again. Expect more like it, as further episodes of this world-straddling 13-episode political drama is unveiled.

That's what's been bugging me about this -- Hillary's politics of ambiguity and spectacle -- and why it has taken a bit of working through to see some order and meaning in all this.

You understand how to read the USA tea leaves, find substance in the timing of announcements, notice who's missing from the tomb during the May Day parade, and the information conveyed through semiotics and omission, leveyMG. I stand in, in a Richard Harris as English Bob kind of way, awe.



Going from your writings on DU, I see you are hoping Ms. Clinton is sincere, intelligent and capable of balancing many maddening issues simultaneously and addressing them successfully. Were it not so, you wouldn't have taken the time to defend her and the good players in the administration by explaining things from her perspective and why she has to send positive signals to groups on either side of the street in order to maneuver downfield these past months.

I cannot get past what I have seen Ms. Clinton say and do since stepping into the public arena running for Senate and in her years as Secretary of State. She has not done one thing to disappoint CIA and Wall Street's raison d'être: wars without end for profits without cease. So, from what I can tell, she's just another Hawk sending signals she is one who can be trusted to do business for Big Oil, Wall Street and Israel, even to the point of supporting more war. WikiLeaks are so hot, government employees have been barred from looking at the documents, let alone comment on them. What they showed me was her interest in advancing the interests of the powerful and well to do, not so much the little people. Perhaps she was forced into cracking down, per Russell Tice.

As for the meat grinder: They're getting worried we are noticing them heading for Paraguay and the high seas. Thank goodness MOSSAD and the IDF are run by people who've worked up through the ranks.