Also, not actually true!
There were claims that she received debate questions weeks in advance, which are a complete and total fabrication by a probably-not-innocent prank website.
There were separate claims that she received debate questions shortly before the town hall debate. And there was an effort to do so from someone outside of her campaign - but the questions that were provided were not the ones asked, so.... It's false to say she received some debate questions in advance.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-received-debate-qu...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/31/ha...
Oh come on, the 2016 election is in the past, you don't have to spin it. The questions asked were similar enough and it can't be denied that Clinton got the questions in advance, but not Sanders.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donna-brazile-wikilea...
> An email later obtained by POLITICO showed that the text of the question Brazile sent to the Clinton campaign was identical to a proposed question Martin had offered CNN. (A similar, though not identical question, was ultimately posed to Clinton at the town hall).
> In the newest email, sent one day before the March 6 Democratic primary debate in Flint, Michigan, Brazile tells senior campaign staff that “One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash. Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint.”
> The next night, a woman named Lee-Anne Walters asked both candidates a very similar question.
Honestly I'm confused why people are so hot and bothered about the questions asked. Are any of you seriously surprised by the questions asked? Of course the candidates prepared to answer these questions. If they weren't prepared their prep team should be fired for being woefully incompetent. Seriously, all the questions are about the most popular topics. I honestly would have been shocked if Flint wasn't brought up considering it being part of the national conversation.
Should she have gotten them? No. Is it cheating? Yes. Is it a big fucking deal to detract from actual issues? No. It is just another example of minor cheating that they are doing constantly. But this is like cheating on a test where the teacher pulls questions from the homework and changes a few numbers and you already memorized how to do all the homework problems.
I think its a big deal when candidate keeps on cheating or lying. It establishes a pattern of dishonest behaviour which the other candidate can easily make a soundbite by calling her crooked.
> In an email released Monday morning by WikiLeaks, Brazile provides details to top Clinton aides about what Clinton would be asked at a CNN debate March 6 in Flint, Mich., by a woman whose family had lead poisoning.
> “One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash,” Brazile writes in the subject line of an email to Jennifer Palmieri and John Podesta. In the body of the email, she adds: “Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint.”
I hate Trump. But acting as if people are so stupid that you can just deny that this even happened? You're only hurting Democrats at the ballot box.
Was there dishonesty from the DNC? Yes! But it's important to say what happened. Someone did a bad job of trying to supply her with a couple of questions. Instead the only thing they managed to provide her was a hint about two of the subjects that would be discussed. So to the point I responded to - Did she "receive some debate questions ahead of time" - nope! She didn't! Just some things that were close.
Did that give her an unfair advantage? Maybe! But I doubt it - if Bernie's campaign didn't expect a question about the Flint water issue, then they're idiots. And I don't think they're idiots. The help offered to Hillary was inaccurate and of dubious worth.
The emails [0] show pretty clear strategizing with Clinton campaign staff over preparing answers to the exact questions being proposed at the CNN town hall. That the CNN town hall ultimately chose to go with similar questions worded slightly differently does not in some way absolve the Clinton campaign.
If you buy a gun and then rob a bank with it -- except the bank teller laughs at you because there's water dripping from your "gun" -- it doesn't diminish the fact that your intent was to rob a bank while yielding a deadly weapon. Just because you're ineffective and can't tell a water pistol from a Glock doesn't mean the intent doesn't, or shouldn't, count.
Yes, here is the first google result.[1]
>Who decides whether a crime has occurred?
This is complicated and why there is a preference for whistleblowing to occur through official channels rather than through journalists. However sometimes there is a level of corruption that can't be dealt with any other way besides going public with it. In those instances, it is up to the whistleblower and journalists initially before eventually the court decides. Snowden was good in this regarding by trying to limit what was leaked. Manning did a poor job here.
>I would say that Snowden exposed a crime (perjury) by James Clapper. Manning (IMO) exposed war crimes.
No disagreement here. Snowden and Manning fit a clear definition of whistleblowers. Assange is the one who is not on the same moral footing as those two.
>Similarly, I think that it was in the interest of the public to report when it was discovered that Trump only paid $750 in taxes (despite not committing a technical crime!) or that Hillary Clinton received some debate questions in advance (again, not a crime!).
Trump's taxes likely did reveal numerous potential crimes. He reported different numbers to the government and lenders which would likely indicate he committed fraud.[2] He both employed his daughter and paid her as an external consultant which isn't allowed[3]. He regularly claimed things as business expenses in questionable ways.[4] I'm sure there are many others too, those were just the first three I remembered.
[1] - https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/first-us-t...
[2] - https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-never-b...
[3] - https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/politics/ivanka-trump-donald-...
[4] - https://theintercept.com/2020/09/28/donald-trump-taxes/
So you would have supported Twitter blocking all mentions of the Panama papers until this conviction last month? Or would Twitter judge ahead of time that a crime has occurred and thus permit the hacked materials to be released?
> In those instances, it is up to the whistleblower and journalists initially before eventually the court decides.
But only journalists of a certain political bent? You seem to be advocating adding Twitter, FB, and other for-profit corporations into the conversation here.
> Assange is the one who is not on the same moral footing as those two.
Assange was the journalist who published Manning's releases. This seems incoherent to me.
> Trump's taxes likely did reveal numerous potential crimes.
The NYPost article revealed the crime of crack possession. It was not so long ago that the FBI did a sting operation to get the same sort of footage they used to convict my city's (DC) mayor. And the FBI clearly thought they had some information about a crime, which is presumably why they were subpoenaed.
Obviously, that's a stupid argument - but that's the point. You are just going to set up arbitrary thresholds for what is a crime and what isn't post-facto to justify blocking what you don't want and allowing what you want.
Similarly, I think that it was in the interest of the public to report when it was discovered that Trump only paid $750 in taxes (despite not committing a technical crime!) or that Hillary Clinton received some debate questions in advance (again, not a crime!).
This standard that Twitter is applying appears to have no clear line of enforcement, nor does the principle you've put forth.