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Why is anyone still talking about Hillary Clinton? Donald Trump is the man in office. Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with anything. However Clinton may or

Why is anyone still talking about Hillary Clinton? Donald Trump is the man in office. Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with anything. However Clinton may or may not violated the Constitution is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether Trump is violating it now.

flukus 10y ago
> Why is anyone still talking about Hillary Clinton? Because we're trying to ascertain if the complainers are genuinely principled or partisan hacks. I've a feeling most of them would be turning a blind eye if it wasn't trump.
- iamdave 10y ago
  Complainers can't prosecute and convict. Courts can. That's a difference I'd recommend coming to terms with as it's the crux of this discussion at a level that's intensely germane.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    In this case particular, actually, it's the legislature that can prosecute and convict. Still not random people on HN, though :-P
- umanwizard 10y ago
  Why does it matter? The complaints are either right, or they're wrong. The complainers' motives for making their complains have no bearing on that.
  - loafa 10y ago
    Maybe, but for those of us who aren't experts on constitutional law, it's difficult to ascertain exactly who is in the right, we have to decide which self-proclaimed experts to believe. For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument. I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this person still be saying the same thing?" If the answer is no, I ignore that person. This cuts out about 97% of all political discussion and saves a lot of time.
    - g00gler 10y ago
      Right. I didn't like either of them, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I just think it's odd to say that Trump should be impeached for something his opponent did while in office.
    - baddox 10y ago
      I don't think that rule can apply for anonymous Internet commenters listing objective claims. You probably don't have enough information to determine the partisanship of the commenter, and even if you did, their claims are either true or false, and debating that is almost certainly a better use of time.
shostack 10y ago
I've noticed this a lot in Reddit too. There I feel it is A distraction tactic. Posters seek to make a comment about very in every Trump thread and it is always some distracting sound bytes about the emails or something. Totally irrelevant to the thread at hand. Seems to work like a charm to derail conversation about the real topic at hand.
- TheGirondin 10y ago
  Because it show the duplicitous nature of people like you. Clearly this wasn't an issue Hillary, so it's obvious that is all political nonsense.

flukus 10y ago

> Why is anyone still talking about Hillary Clinton? Because we're trying to ascertain if the complainers are genuinely principled or partisan hacks. I've a feeling most of them would be turning a blind eye if it wasn't trump.

iamdave 10y ago
Complainers can't prosecute and convict. Courts can. That's a difference I'd recommend coming to terms with as it's the crux of this discussion at a level that's intensely germane.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  In this case particular, actually, it's the legislature that can prosecute and convict. Still not random people on HN, though :-P
umanwizard 10y ago
Why does it matter? The complaints are either right, or they're wrong. The complainers' motives for making their complains have no bearing on that.
- loafa 10y ago
  Maybe, but for those of us who aren't experts on constitutional law, it's difficult to ascertain exactly who is in the right, we have to decide which self-proclaimed experts to believe. For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument. I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this person still be saying the same thing?" If the answer is no, I ignore that person. This cuts out about 97% of all political discussion and saves a lot of time.
  - g00gler 10y ago
    Right. I didn't like either of them, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I just think it's odd to say that Trump should be impeached for something his opponent did while in office.
  - baddox 10y ago
    I don't think that rule can apply for anonymous Internet commenters listing objective claims. You probably don't have enough information to determine the partisanship of the commenter, and even if you did, their claims are either true or false, and debating that is almost certainly a better use of time.

shostack 10y ago

I've noticed this a lot in Reddit too. There I feel it is A distraction tactic. Posters seek to make a comment about very in every Trump thread and it is always some distracting sound bytes about the emails or something. Totally irrelevant to the thread at hand. Seems to work like a charm to derail conversation about the real topic at hand.

TheGirondin 10y ago
Because it show the duplicitous nature of people like you. Clearly this wasn't an issue Hillary, so it's obvious that is all political nonsense.