Why NOT to vote Republican

[iris lilies]

Alan, you clearly haven’t been reading what the serious folks have to say about the ‘president can declassify whatever the hell he wants’ concept. But I’m not surprised.

I suspect that in all things like this I could spend a couple of hours reading the respected opinions about this issue of declassification, and I would come up with the end result being “it depends. “


I realize that trying to get an objective summary from you JP is not realistic, so I will not try. And that’s OK, here we communicate in two or three sentence soundbites that don’t adequately summarize these complex issues in any realistic way.

I haven’t decided if I want to go down the rabbit hole of spending time reading about the concept of the president being able to declassifiy documents. Mainly I would like to know what DJ T‘s motivation is in taking the documents and maybe we will learn that and maybe we won’t

[ApatheticNoMore]

I listened to a bit of talk radio on a long drive. The program commentator was saying that a man's home is his castle and that none of us can feel safe when the long arm of the government can raid even an former president's home on a whim. That there was no evidence of the FBI finding anything of significance and the descriptions of the documents were vague and not specific. They were playing the fear, anger, and evil government card pretty hard. It made little sense to me, but that's maybe the sort of talk a significant portion of people are buying.

It's one of these wow, have those people ever held a job things? They don't grasp confidentiality at all (and that's the types that can come with ordinary jobs, not having access to top secret government documents). I mean yes whistleblower protections exist for some things, illegality going on that one exposes, there are some rights. But you can't just steal any old documents from your current/former employer just because. I've worked in just about every industry that it was understood for, medical, legal, financial. And so this "one's home is one's castle" stuff comes across as laughable nonsense. I don't see how anyone can buy it.

[frugal-one]

I rest my case.

Yes. You support trump and his shenanigans. What you say and what you do are not congruent.

[jp1]

I suspect that in all things like this I could spend a couple of hours reading the respected opinions about this issue of declassification, and I would come up with the end result being “it depends. “


I realize that trying to get an objective summary from you JP is not realistic, so I will not try. And that’s OK, here we communicate in two or three sentence soundbites that don’t adequately summarize these complex issues in any realistic way.

I haven’t decided if I want to go down the rabbit hole of spending time reading about the concept of the president being able to declassifiy documents. Mainly I would like to know what DJ T‘s motivation is in taking the documents and maybe we will learn that and maybe we won’t

Sure, I'll give a three line summary. It's not the documents themselves that are classified, it's the specific individual facts in them. When something gets declassified the paragraph of the document that states that fact gets stamped "declassified, MM/DD/YY". All other documents that contain that specific fact get similarly stamped. A document that contains multiple classified facts that have been pulled together may well have multiple stamps on some of the facts declassifying those facts at different times. The president can't just claim randomly to have declassified something at some point in the past. There's a process and documentation required. Also, defense related secrets, most especially those related to nuclear weapons, cannot be declassified by the president alone.

[frugal-one]

Sure, I'll give a three line summary. It's not the documents themselves that are classified, it's the specific individual facts in them. When something gets declassified the paragraph of the document that states that fact gets stamped "declassified, MM/DD/YY". All other documents that contain that specific fact get similarly stamped. A document that contains multiple classified facts that have been pulled together may well have multiple stamps on some of the facts declassifying those facts at different times. The president can't just claim randomly to have declassified something at some point in the past. There's a process and documentation required. Also, defense related secrets, most especially those related to nuclear weapons, cannot be declassified by the president alone.

Show the documentation....otherwise another of trump's lies.

[LDAHL]

Yes. You support trump and his shenanigans. What you say and what you do are not congruent.

Only if I accept your bizarre one drop of blood standard. If I prefer, on balance, a Trump-endorsed candidate over the opposing democrat, I don’t see that that makes me a Trumpist. If I disapprove of some Trump actions but not others, I don’t see that that makes me a Trumpist.

It’s true that I am not a fanatically committed Orange Man Bad zealot. I see it as conceivable that I can view both Trump and many of his enemies as equally ridiculous while still making political judgments in an imperfect world. The world is more complicated that your Manichaean bubble.

[bae]

Sure, I'll give a three line summary. It's not the documents themselves that are classified, it's the specific individual facts in them. When something gets declassified the paragraph of the document that states that fact gets stamped "declassified, MM/DD/YY". All other documents that contain that specific fact get similarly stamped. A document that contains multiple classified facts that have been pulled together may well have multiple stamps on some of the facts declassifying those facts at different times. The president can't just claim randomly to have declassified something at some point in the past. There's a process and documentation required. Also, defense related secrets, most especially those related to nuclear weapons, cannot be declassified by the president alone.

Pretty much every page of this document I have from Los Alamos contains stamps, dates, and such:

[JaneV2.0]

Every page in a declassified document must be similarly stamped. Trump's hubris is over the top--he still seems to think he is king.
I bet there are a few of these rattling around in Putin's safe, as well.

[herbgeek]

I bet there are a few of these rattling around in Putin's safe, as well.

Who's to say if some of his guests happened to get pics on their cell phone? Some of the documents were oh so conveniently kept in a storage area next to the pool.

[frugal-one]

Only if I accept your bizarre one drop of blood standard. If I prefer, on balance, a Trump-endorsed candidate over the opposing democrat, I don’t see that that makes me a Trumpist. If I disapprove of some Trump actions but not others, I don’t see that that makes me a Trumpist.

It’s true that I am not a fanatically committed Orange Man Bad zealot. I see it as conceivable that I can view both Trump and many of his enemies as equally ridiculous while still making political judgments in an imperfect world. The world is more complicated that your Manichaean bubble.

In this case you chose THE trump loyalist (and traitor) who tried to get fake electors to Pence. The purpose was to keep trump in power. How does this NOT make you a trumpist? You yourself stated, you like to see the world through rosy glasses. Enough already.