He couldn't even get a troop visit right

[Bob78164]

Donny posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five while they were (and as far as I know still are) deployed in Afghanistan and showing their uncovered faces without digital blurring. That is a terrible breach of operational security.

These are special forces and their faces are now known, so they can no longer confidently act covertly. Moreover, if any of them are ever captured, they'll be completely unable to deny that they are in fact special forces.

If anyone tries to defend this grievous lapse, I don't ever want to hear another word from them about Secretary Clinton's e-mails. --Bob

[BackInTex]

Donny posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five while they were (and as far as I know still are) deployed in Afghanistan and showing their uncovered faces without digital blurring. That is a terrible breach of operational security.

These are special forces and their faces are now known, so they can no longer confidently act covertly. Moreover, if any of them are ever captured, they'll be completely unable to deny that they are in fact special forces.

If anyone tries to defend this grievous lapse, I don't ever want to hear another word from them about Secretary Clinton's e-mails. --Bob

Clearly whataboutism Bob. Clearly.

[earendel]

It also seems that he might have been involved in campaigning while with the troops - someone provided them with MAGA hats and a patch that read "Trump 2020".

[tlynn78]

LOL - bless your hearts. Truly.

[Bob78164]

And Donny also lied to the troops about their pay raise. He claimed they were getting a raise for the first time in 10 years and that at 10% it's the biggest raise ever, and that he deserved the credit. In fact, our troops have gotten annual raises every year since 1983, this year's raise was 2.6% (calculated by a formula that was enacted into law a long time ago), and Donny's proposed pay raise was only 2.1%, which was smaller than the raise the troops would get by simply following the formula.

What commander goes to a war zone and lies to the troops' face about their pay? What human being does that? --Bob

[Spock]

I thank God that I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to go through life outraged every day by something that you really can't do anything about.

And people stereotype conservatives as angry?????!!!!!-I have never met anybody in real life that holds a candle to you Bob, and thank God for that-because they wouldn't have a place in my life for very long.

The funny part is (and somehow I find it sad for you)-you aren't even original in your outrage-you just grab shit off liberal websites and post them on a dying forum-Which you have done more than your share to kill.

[Beebs52]

I thank God that I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to go through life outraged every day by something that you really can't do anything about.

And people stereotype conservatives as angry?????!!!!!-I have never met anybody in real life that holds a candle to you Bob, and thank God for that-because they wouldn't have a place in my life for very long.

The funny part is (and somehow I find it sad for you)-you aren't even original in your outrage-you just grab shit off liberal websites and post them on a dying forum-Which you have done more than your share to kill.

Well said.

[Estonut]

Donny posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five while they were (and as far as I know still are) deployed in Afghanistan and showing their uncovered faces without digital blurring.

Liar. The tweet said, "@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!" The video has no captioning and Lee Greenwood didn't ID anyone. The identification of what may or may not be SEAL Team Five was done by Newsweek and other news outlets outraged by the "breach." If the video should have been edited (pixellated), that should have been done by whoever provided it to Trump. He didn't film it nor edit it. Who doesn't know that he's a Twitter-happy knucklehead? If this were such top secret information, why pass it on to him unedited? Why even let the soldiers be filmed in the first place?

That is a terrible breach of operational security.

Please enlighten us as to where you got your knowledge of SEAL Team protocol. The "expert" in your article stated, "The special warfare operators are dressed in full battle gear and wearing night vision goggles." Really? I'm pretty sure that "full battle gear" would include some type of weapon.

These are special forces and their faces are now known, so they can no longer confidently act covertly. Moreover, if any of them are ever captured, they'll be completely unable to deny that they are in fact special forces.

SEALs are Special Operations Forces, not Special Forces. Moreover, the right-wing propaganda site NBC disagrees with you.

However, the Office of the Secretary of Defense said in a statement that no rules were violated.

"The special operators voluntarily participated in this open press event," the secretary's public affairs arm stated. "There was no security violation."

A retired San Diego-area SEAL officer, who did not want his name used because he still consults with the Department of Defense and is not authorized to speak, said the episode was "much ado about nothing."

"It’s no secret that SEAL Team 5 is in Iraq," he said. "You can ask anybody in Coronado" — one of the SEALs' bases, in San Diego County.

"There’s plenty of things to get upset about with Trump," he said, "and this was not one of them."

So, all in all, this outrage is all over NOTHING. Unlike Hillary's private server.

If anyone tries to defend this grievous lapse, I don't ever want to hear another word from them about Secretary Clinton's e-mails.

A grievous lapse would be when "the most experienced candidate in history," with some, what, 30 years in politics implements a private server on which to conduct her government business.

Right-wing propaganda site USA Today summarizes the story

Right-wing propaganda site Factcheck.org provides "A Guide to Clinton's Emails"

Notable Excerpts:
Was she allowed to use a private server?
No. As we wrote, the IG report said that it has been department policy since 2005 — four years before Clinton took office — that “normal day-to-day operations” be conducted on government servers.

Did Clinton seek government approval to use a private server for her personal email account?
No. The IG report said Clinton “had an obligation” to discuss her email system with the department, but it could find “no evidence” that Clinton sought approval for her unusual email arrangement. If she did, the report says her request would have been denied by the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Information Resource Management. Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesman, has told us: “It did not occur to her that having it on a personal server could be so distinct that it would be unapproved.”

No other secretary of state maintained a private server that was used for government business.

Did Clinton use any of the iPads to send and receive emails?
Yes. Clinton told the FBI that she set up her private server for convenience — “to avoid carrying multiple devices” — for personal and official business. However, as we reported, she used an iPad to at least occasionally send and receive emails, in addition to her Blackberry — a fact confirmed by Clinton and her former deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin.

When did Clinton delete her 31,830 private emails?
The FBI on Sept. 2 released a two-part summary of its investigation of Clinton that said the former secretary of state’s emails were deleted “sometime between March 25-31, 2015.″ That was about three weeks after the House Select Committee on Benghazi served Clinton with a subpoena on March 4, 2015, to produce any emails related to its investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi in 2012.

Did Clinton’s emails contain classified information?
Yes. More than 2,000 of the 30,490 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in December 2014 contained classified information, including 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received, Comey said. The FBI director said “a very small number” of the emails containing classified information “bore markings indicating the presence of classified information,” contrary to Clinton’s claims that none was marked classified.

To summarize, Hillary instructed her people to set up her own illegal server so that she could control what e-mails could be viewed and/or preserved. Had it simply been a "private e-mail account" with GMail, for example, it would have been more secure and all e-mails would have been subpoenable (from back-ups, if necessary). Hillary didn't want that, as it did not allow her to hide her dirty secrets. This is borne out by the fact that she not only deleted, but used bleachbit to do so, rendering 30,000 e-mails unrecoverable. She also had her people smash 8 to 13 cell phones with hammers, rendering them useless in investigating her doings. Of course, she was on the up and up as SoS and there was no pay-for-play in place. I wonder why, then, donations to the Clinton Foundation plummeted once she lost the election. Surely people understood she would now have MORE time to do her good works around the world. Why would the flow of money stop?

[silverscreenselect]

Hillary didn't want that, as it did not allow her to hide her dirty secrets.

For someone who is very quick on the trigger to accuse me of knowing what other people are thinking, your knowledge of Hillary's thought processes is amazing.

And the use of private email servers for government business has been widespread among Republicans as well:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... illary-did

Since these emails, especially those of Jeb Bush and other Federal officials, have never been recovered, it's impossible to say how many of them contained classified information.

https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/geo ... 97373.html

[Bob78164]

Donny posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five while they were (and as far as I know still are) deployed in Afghanistan and showing their uncovered faces without digital blurring.

Liar. The tweet said, "@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!" The video has no captioning and Lee Greenwood didn't ID anyone. The identification of what may or may not be SEAL Team Five was done by Newsweek and other news outlets outraged by the "breach." If the video should have been edited (pixellated), that should have been done by whoever provided it to Trump. He didn't film it nor edit it. Who doesn't know that he's a Twitter-happy knucklehead? If this were such top secret information, why pass it on to him unedited? Why even let the soldiers be filmed in the first place?

That is a terrible breach of operational security.

Please enlighten us as to where you got your knowledge of SEAL Team protocol. The "expert" in your article stated, "The special warfare operators are dressed in full battle gear and wearing night vision goggles." Really? I'm pretty sure that "full battle gear" would include some type of weapon.

These are special forces and their faces are now known, so they can no longer confidently act covertly. Moreover, if any of them are ever captured, they'll be completely unable to deny that they are in fact special forces.

SEALs are Special Operations Forces, not Special Forces. Moreover, the right-wing propaganda site NBC disagrees with you.

However, the Office of the Secretary of Defense said in a statement that no rules were violated.

"The special operators voluntarily participated in this open press event," the secretary's public affairs arm stated. "There was no security violation."

A retired San Diego-area SEAL officer, who did not want his name used because he still consults with the Department of Defense and is not authorized to speak, said the episode was "much ado about nothing."

"It’s no secret that SEAL Team 5 is in Iraq," he said. "You can ask anybody in Coronado" — one of the SEALs' bases, in San Diego County.

"There’s plenty of things to get upset about with Trump," he said, "and this was not one of them."

So, all in all, this outrage is all over NOTHING.

So Donny's not responsible for the consequences of his idiocy because everyone already knows he's an idiot.

And no rules were broken because some press flack in Donny's Administration says no rules were broken.

And NBC engaged in both-sides-ism by finding someone to say that it's not a big deal.

Got it. --Bob

[flockofseagulls104]

Donny posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five while they were (and as far as I know still are) deployed in Afghanistan and showing their uncovered faces without digital blurring.

Liar. The tweet said, "@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!" The video has no captioning and Lee Greenwood didn't ID anyone. The identification of what may or may not be SEAL Team Five was done by Newsweek and other news outlets outraged by the "breach." If the video should have been edited (pixellated), that should have been done by whoever provided it to Trump. He didn't film it nor edit it. Who doesn't know that he's a Twitter-happy knucklehead? If this were such top secret information, why pass it on to him unedited? Why even let the soldiers be filmed in the first place?

That is a terrible breach of operational security.

Please enlighten us as to where you got your knowledge of SEAL Team protocol. The "expert" in your article stated, "The special warfare operators are dressed in full battle gear and wearing night vision goggles." Really? I'm pretty sure that "full battle gear" would include some type of weapon.

These are special forces and their faces are now known, so they can no longer confidently act covertly. Moreover, if any of them are ever captured, they'll be completely unable to deny that they are in fact special forces.

SEALs are Special Operations Forces, not Special Forces. Moreover, the right-wing propaganda site NBC disagrees with you.

However, the Office of the Secretary of Defense said in a statement that no rules were violated.

"The special operators voluntarily participated in this open press event," the secretary's public affairs arm stated. "There was no security violation."

A retired San Diego-area SEAL officer, who did not want his name used because he still consults with the Department of Defense and is not authorized to speak, said the episode was "much ado about nothing."

"It’s no secret that SEAL Team 5 is in Iraq," he said. "You can ask anybody in Coronado" — one of the SEALs' bases, in San Diego County.

"There’s plenty of things to get upset about with Trump," he said, "and this was not one of them."

So, all in all, this outrage is all over NOTHING.

So Donny's not responsible for the consequences of his idiocy because everyone already knows he's an idiot.

And no rules were broken because some press flack in Donny's Administration says no rules were broken.

And NBC engaged in both-sides-ism by finding someone to say that it's not a big deal.

Got it. --Bob

Wallowing in your outrage.

[Estonut]

Hillary didn't want that, as it did not allow her to hide her dirty secrets.

For someone who is very quick on the trigger to accuse me of knowing what other people are thinking, your knowledge of Hillary's thought processes is amazing.

You took one line out of context. I explained why I felt she did it, and how her subsequent actions basically proved what her intent had been.

And the use of private email servers for government business has been widespread among Republicans as well:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... illary-did

Since these emails, especially those of Jeb Bush and other Federal officials, have never been recovered, it's impossible to say how many of them contained classified information.

https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/geo ... 97373.html

Your article showing "use of private email servers" by Republicans to be "widespread" shows 1. Until you learn the difference between private e-mails and a private server, there is no point in discussing this further with you.

Bush did nothing against the rules. He also did not have access to the President, to foreign governments and to a billion dollar foundation. I can't find a definitive source that he even used a private server to store his private e-mails.

[Estonut]

Donny posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five while they were (and as far as I know still are) deployed in Afghanistan and showing their uncovered faces without digital blurring.

Liar. The tweet said, "@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!" The video has no captioning and Lee Greenwood didn't ID anyone. The identification of what may or may not be SEAL Team Five was done by Newsweek and other news outlets outraged by the "breach." If the video should have been edited (pixellated), that should have been done by whoever provided it to Trump. He didn't film it nor edit it. Who doesn't know that he's a Twitter-happy knucklehead? If this were such top secret information, why pass it on to him unedited? Why even let the soldiers be filmed in the first place?

That is a terrible breach of operational security.

Please enlighten us as to where you got your knowledge of SEAL Team protocol. The "expert" in your article stated, "The special warfare operators are dressed in full battle gear and wearing night vision goggles." Really? I'm pretty sure that "full battle gear" would include some type of weapon.

These are special forces and their faces are now known, so they can no longer confidently act covertly. Moreover, if any of them are ever captured, they'll be completely unable to deny that they are in fact special forces.

SEALs are Special Operations Forces, not Special Forces. Moreover, the right-wing propaganda site NBC disagrees with you.

However, the Office of the Secretary of Defense said in a statement that no rules were violated.

"The special operators voluntarily participated in this open press event," the secretary's public affairs arm stated. "There was no security violation."

A retired San Diego-area SEAL officer, who did not want his name used because he still consults with the Department of Defense and is not authorized to speak, said the episode was "much ado about nothing."

"It’s no secret that SEAL Team 5 is in Iraq," he said. "You can ask anybody in Coronado" — one of the SEALs' bases, in San Diego County.

"There’s plenty of things to get upset about with Trump," he said, "and this was not one of them."

So, all in all, this outrage is all over NOTHING.

So Donny's not responsible for the consequences of his idiocy because everyone already knows he's an idiot.

I didn't say that. I said you are a liar because you said that Trump "posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five." He did not identify Seal Team Five. The Newsweek writer, James LaPorta, did that. I said that Trump didn't take the video and didn't edit the video. We don't even know that he requested the video. I only said that the video should have been pixelated, if necessary, before it was forwarded to him. I doubt he even watched it prior to posting it.

And no rules were broken because some press flack in Donny's Administration says no rules were broken.

But rules WERE broken because a cryptographer who was never a SEAL and left the Navy in 2001 says they were?

How about this guy's opinion? Let's hear why you don't believe him.

Here's his bio and why he knows more about this than James LaPorta or you EVER will.

And NBC engaged in both-sides-ism by finding someone to say that it's not a big deal.

At least NBC is trying to look at all sides to get to the truth, unlike you.

Got it.

You might get it now that Newsweek has retracted their assertions.

Pentagon: Donald Trump's Iraq Trip Video Revealing Special Operations Unit Did Not Violate Security Protocols

Perhaps you won't believe the Pentagon about this, either.

[silverscreenselect]

Until you learn the difference between private e-mails and a private server, there is no point in discussing this further with you.

I do know the difference. I just cited the first article of many than I came across when I googled "Republican use of private email servers" Here's another:

https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinto ... ght-493120

The fact is that Republicans, from George W. Bush to Trump to Jindal, like their private servers and could not care less about preserving emails, and in fact have actively worked to evade transparency over and over again.

The point is that Republicans have violated the laws and policies regarding e-mails and their preservation over and over again, but their outrage is directed at one person only, Hillary Clinton, to whom they ascribe all sorts of sinister motives. And Republican violations continue:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... al-201774/

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170 ... unts.shtml

And, in the case of the RNC accounts, it's also a possible security issue.

The RNC email system, according to U.S. intelligence, was hacked during the 2016 race.

And there's insecurity on top of insecurity. A hacker spoke with CNN after discovering Trump and his administration are running several accounts -- both Gmail and Twitter -- without using the most basic of security settings: two-factor authentication. Correction: The hacker actually criticized their failure to use a security setting that requires password resets to be requested with an email or phone number. Twitter responded suggesting that two-factor authentication and additional security protocols are in place on White House accounts, but would not comment on these specific accounts.

WauchulaGhost says he found the likely email associated with Melania Trump's handle within twenty minutes. He said the email associated with Vice President Mike Pence was easy to guess once you saw the redacted version: vi***************@gmail.com, which WauchulaGhost pieced together as vicepresident2017@gmail.com. It has since been changed, but the president and first lady's email addresses remain the same. (And the VP account still doesn't have the extra layer of security.)

And today, there are even more detailed reports, showing that the @POTUS account is secured with a gmail address.

So, what we get is that Republicans violating e-mail laws and leaving sensitive information vulnerable to hackers and deleting millions of e-mails isn't as bad as what Hillary did, well, because, it wasn't exactly what Hillary did. That's like criticizing Hillary for jaywalking across Madison Avenue and defending Republican jaywalkers because they didn't cross Madison Avenue at the same spot that Hillary did.

[Bob78164]

Liar. The tweet said, "@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!" The video has no captioning and Lee Greenwood didn't ID anyone. The identification of what may or may not be SEAL Team Five was done by Newsweek and other news outlets outraged by the "breach." If the video should have been edited (pixellated), that should have been done by whoever provided it to Trump. He didn't film it nor edit it. Who doesn't know that he's a Twitter-happy knucklehead? If this were such top secret information, why pass it on to him unedited? Why even let the soldiers be filmed in the first place?

Please enlighten us as to where you got your knowledge of SEAL Team protocol. The "expert" in your article stated, "The special warfare operators are dressed in full battle gear and wearing night vision goggles." Really? I'm pretty sure that "full battle gear" would include some type of weapon.

SEALs are Special Operations Forces, not Special Forces. Moreover, the right-wing propaganda site NBC disagrees with you.

So, all in all, this outrage is all over NOTHING.

So Donny's not responsible for the consequences of his idiocy because everyone already knows he's an idiot.

I didn't say that. I said you are a liar because you said that Trump "posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five." He did not identify Seal Team Five. The Newsweek writer, James LaPorta, did that. I said that Trump didn't take the video and didn't edit the video. We don't even know that he requested the video. I only said that the video should have been pixelated, if necessary, before it was forwarded to him. I doubt he even watched it prior to posting it.

And no rules were broken because some press flack in Donny's Administration says no rules were broken.

But rules WERE broken because a cryptographer who was never a SEAL and left the Navy in 2001 says they were?

How about this guy's opinion? Let's hear why you don't believe him.

Here's his bio and why he knows more about this than James LaPorta or you EVER will.

And NBC engaged in both-sides-ism by finding someone to say that it's not a big deal.

At least NBC is trying to look at all sides to get to the truth, unlike you.

Got it.

You might get it now that Newsweek has retracted their assertions.

Pentagon: Donald Trump's Iraq Trip Video Revealing Special Operations Unit Did Not Violate Security Protocols

Perhaps you won't believe the Pentagon about this, either.

The Newsweek story is not a retraction. It says the Pentagon says Donny didn't break the rules. That's probably true. It's probably true because in his current job he can declassify anything he wants. Just like he probably didn't break the law when he revealed highly classified information regarding the location of our nuclear assets directly to the Russian government. But the Pentagon conspicuously refrained from commenting on the effect on operational security, just as it conspicuously refrained from confirming that the people in the picture were in fact Seal Team Five.

The bottom line is that a commander, any commander, is responsible for stuff like this. If he doesn't know how to do it right himself it's his responsibility to have people around him who do. Donny screwed up, and that's his responsibility. And when you try to defend crap like this all you do is make it clear that to apologists like you, Donny can literally do no wrong.

No comment, by the way, about his lie directly to the troops about their impending pay raise? --Bob

[SportsFan68]

I didn't say that.

Esto quoted me!

[Estonut]

Until you learn the difference between private e-mails and a private server, there is no point in discussing this further with you.

I do know the difference. I just cited the first article of many than I came across when I googled "Republican use of private email servers" Here's another:

https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinto ... ght-493120

The fact is that Republicans, from George W. Bush to Trump to Jindal, like their private servers and could not care less about preserving emails, and in fact have actively worked to evade transparency over and over again.

How Juchy of you to post links which you either didn't read or didn't understand.

Here are some other quotes from your article that you have conveniently ignored:

Between 2003 and 2005, the George W. Bush White House “lost” around 5 million emails, including messages related to the firing of federal prosecutors who didn't adhere to Bush’s conservative agenda. A federal judge ruled that the White House didn’t have to look for them.

Those emails were among some 22 million messages that the Bush administration “lost” during its time in power, most from right around the period that it was crafting a scaffolding of lies to sell what turned out to be the greatest American foreign policy debacle in a generation: the Iraq War. The emails were eventually found in 2009, when Bush and Dick Cheney were safely back at their ranches, but long after thousands of young Americans were dead and maimed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were dead, and as Islamists were mustering to eventually capture swathes of lawless, war-ravaged turf for their hideous “caliphate.”

Hillary, in contrast, ensured that her missing e-mails could NEVER be found.

Colin Powell ... used a personal email account

Not a private server.

Jeb Bush used a private server as governor of Florida and then scrubbed it before releasing his correspondence.

So Hillary's level of savvyness is on par with Jeb Bush. Shouldn't a polititian of Hillary's experience set herself a higher bar?

Scott Walker, when he was Milwaukee County chief executive, used a private email system

Not a private server.

The list of public officials who use private email is encyclopedic: Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Rick Perry,
Bobby Jindal and Martin O’Malley are among them.

Accounts, not servers.

The fact is that Republicans, from George W. Bush to Trump to Jindal, like their private servers and could not care less about preserving emails, and in fact have actively worked to evade transparency over and over again.

None of these listed here by your "expert," Nina Burleigh, implemented private servers.

The point is that Republicans have violated the laws and policies regarding e-mails and their preservation over and over again, but their outrage is directed at one person only, Hillary Clinton, to whom they ascribe all sorts of sinister motives. And Republican violations continue:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... al-201774/

“It’s much different than a private server and really destroying documents – I see no evidence of that,” Republican Mark Meadows, a member of the House Oversight Committee, tells Rolling Stone.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170 ... unts.shtml

And, in the case of the RNC accounts, it's also a possible security issue.

The RNC email system, according to U.S. intelligence, was hacked during the 2016 race.

And there's insecurity on top of insecurity. A hacker spoke with CNN after discovering Trump and his administration are running several accounts -- both Gmail and Twitter -- without using the most basic of security settings: two-factor authentication. Correction: The hacker actually criticized their failure to use a security setting that requires password resets to be requested with an email or phone number. Twitter responded suggesting that two-factor authentication and additional security protocols are in place on White House accounts, but would not comment on these specific accounts.

WauchulaGhost says he found the likely email associated with Melania Trump's handle within twenty minutes. He said the email associated with Vice President Mike Pence was easy to guess once you saw the redacted version: vi***************@gmail.com, which WauchulaGhost pieced together as vicepresident2017@gmail.com. It has since been changed, but the president and first lady's email addresses remain the same. (And the VP account still doesn't have the extra layer of security.)

And today, there are even more detailed reports, showing that the @POTUS account is secured with a gmail address.

That's why we tend to steer clear of partisan arguments here at Techdirt. This isn't a post about Trump being more wrong than Hillary Clinton. They're both wrong.

So, what we get is that Republicans violating e-mail laws and leaving sensitive information vulnerable to hackers and deleting millions of e-mails isn't as bad as what Hillary did, well, because, it wasn't exactly what Hillary did. That's like criticizing Hillary for jaywalking across Madison Avenue and defending Republican jaywalkers because they didn't cross Madison Avenue at the same spot that Hillary did.

1) NO ONE, whether in government or business, should EVER mingle personal e-mails with work e-mails, just as they should NEVER commingle their finances.
2) What e-mail laws, exactly, have Republicans violated?
3) You are right that what the Republicans have done "isn't as bad as what Hillary did, well, because, it wasn't exactly what Hillary did."
• No Republicans have the vast political experience of Hillary Clinton.
• No Republicans implemented their own server, COMPLETELY under their own control, in their basement.
• No Republicans deleted 30,000 e-mails under congressional subpoena.
• No Republicans used BleachBit nor hammers to ensure that their e-mails would be unrecoverable.
• In an interview with ABC News, Hillary herself said, "As I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts. That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility." She can't even admit her mistake without lying. What she did was "allowed" only in the respect that no one at the State Department nor the White House stopped her.

[Estonut]

So Donny's not responsible for the consequences of his idiocy because everyone already knows he's an idiot.

I didn't say that. I said you are a liar because you said that Trump "posted a Twitter video identifying Seal Team Five." He did not identify Seal Team Five. The Newsweek writer, James LaPorta, did that. I said that Trump didn't take the video and didn't edit the video. We don't even know that he requested the video. I only said that the video should have been pixelated, if necessary, before it was forwarded to him. I doubt he even watched it prior to posting it.

And no rules were broken because some press flack in Donny's Administration says no rules were broken.

But rules WERE broken because a cryptographer who was never a SEAL and left the Navy in 2001 says they were?

How about this guy's opinion? Let's hear why you don't believe him.

Here's his bio and why he knows more about this than James LaPorta or you EVER will.

And NBC engaged in both-sides-ism by finding someone to say that it's not a big deal.

At least NBC is trying to look at all sides to get to the truth, unlike you.

Got it.

You might get it now that Newsweek has retracted their assertions.

Pentagon: Donald Trump's Iraq Trip Video Revealing Special Operations Unit Did Not Violate Security Protocols

Perhaps you won't believe the Pentagon about this, either.

The Newsweek story is not a retraction. It says the Pentagon says Donny didn't break the rules. That's probably true. It's probably true because in his current job he can declassify anything he wants. Just like he probably didn't break the law when he revealed highly classified information regarding the location of our nuclear assets directly to the Russian government. But the Pentagon conspicuously refrained from commenting on the effect on operational security, just as it conspicuously refrained from confirming that the people in the picture were in fact Seal Team Five.

The bottom line is that a commander, any commander, is responsible for stuff like this. If he doesn't know how to do it right himself it's his responsibility to have people around him who do. Donny screwed up, and that's his responsibility. And when you try to defend crap like this all you do is make it clear that to apologists like you, Donny can literally do no wrong.

No comment, by the way, about his lie directly to the troops about their impending pay raise?

"Probably" several times from you is far less convincing than the opinion of Robert_J._O'Neill. He actually knows about operational security WITH CERTAINTY.

Trump does plenty that is wrong, pretty much on a daily basis. I am not "defending crap like this," merely pointing out that you jumped on this before ANYONE verified the truth of these allegations. If this is such a "grievous lapse," why is NEWSWEEK the highest-profile media outlet carrying this story? You and your ilk would be better off whining about actual grievous lapses, rather than every little thing one of you deems a transgression.

I had no comment on his alleged lie directly to the troops about their impending pay raise because, if it indeed happened as reported, it was a really shitty thing to say. I don't presume to know enough about this to know whether or not it is true. I certainly do not believe everything I read. If this happened as reported, the troops should stand down until their pay reflects the raise stated by their commander.

[Spock]

Esto>>>"merely pointing out that you jumped on this before ANYONE verified the truth of these allegations.<<<

This will never happen, but I have long thought (well before the Trump years) that posters who bring stories such as the OP in this thread should follow a self-imposed 3-day waiting limit to let the dust settle. It would be much less confusing here as the original takes prove false or correct or whatever.