This letter is great, fantastic and YUGE!

Bill Castronuovo brought my attention to this letter that ran on the editorial page of the Sunday editions of the Tampa Bay Times (which was previously known and lauded as The St. Petersburg Times, making it one of the few newspapers I can think of that have expanded their focus area in recent years):

letter

I don’t really see Trump as a letter-writer, or letter-reader for that matter. But if he did write them…

23 thoughts on “This letter is great, fantastic and YUGE!

  1. Bryan Caskey

    Funny stuff. It’s too bad that the GOP ran a clown instead of a serious person. Meanwhile, Iran executed a nuclear scientist for giving information to the US. His name had been openly discussed on Hillary’s e-mails.

    Yeah, I know; not really as funny, is it?

    1. Kathryn Fenner

      I don’t understand the whole story about the Iranian nuclear scientist. The media coverage is incomplete (unless I work my way through Spiegel, no doubt). He may have been kidnapped, he may have returned voluntarily. The timeline and circumstance just don’t make much sense to me as reported.

      1. Bart

        Dear Kathryn,

        I truly missed you. Welcome Back!!!!! Bradwarthen.com is once again whole.

        Bart

        1. Kathryn Fenner

          Aw, thanks, guys!

          My dad is back home and driving!!! after a serious fall this spring, so I have a bit more psychic space for y’all. Man, old age is definitely not for sissies, nor is navigating the care of old parents…

    2. Brad Warthen Post author

      First, as The Washington Post reports, “Clinton’s email server did not lead to an Iranian scientist’s death.”

      Second, you’re right — nothing like that should ever have been on an insecure server.

      And Kathryn, from everything I’ve ever read about espionage in the real world, we’ll probably never know for sure whether he was really working for us. It’s possible that even people who are cleared for such information don’t know for SURE…

      1. Kathryn Fenner

        But speaking as a hackee of the South Carolina Department of Revenue, how secure are government servers?
        Maybe we need to go back to sneakernet days. Having to physically carry documents around certainly makes for better spy movies…

        1. Tex

          If the data is encrypted and dual-authentication logins are implemented they’re almost guaranteed hack-proof. Nothing is impossible, but it could have taken them years to break the encryption to find out what kind of fish would have been served at Chelsea’s reception.

      2. Bryan Caskey

        I’m not saying this guy was executed specifically because his name was discussed on Hillary’s e-mails. I’m just saying that it probably wasn’t helpful to his defense lawyers.

        I’m just saying that openly dropping the name of a nuclear scientist from Iran who may or may not be interested in giving us nuclear secrets in your personal home network e-mail is oh…what’s the word…extremely careless.

        I’m so glad that a person who takes sensitive information so seriously is going to be our next POTUS. I’m sure everyone around the world in unfriendly countries who helped us during Hillary’s tenure at State is feeling real warm and fuzzy wondering if they were also mentioned in her e-mails.

        Oh, and I sort of enjoyed the last graph of the WaPo pice:

        “The Iranians knew all about Amiri well before the emails were released publicly. His kidnapping story never held water and his fate was sealed long before his sentence was carried out.”

        It’s kind of: Hey, this guy was a dead duck no matter if the Iranians found out about his name in Hillary’s e-mail or not. It’s sort of a variation on the “What difference does it make” motif.

        1. Brad Warthen Post author

          Again, the private server thing was completely wrong, foolish, insecure and indicative of probably Hillary Clinton’s greatest flaw — her chip-on-the-shoulder, Nixonian paranoia and urge to control everything around her. (Which would cause us to have serious doubts about her were she running against anyone the Republican Party has ever nominated in the party’s history other than Donald Trump.)

          BUT… this is not just a “what difference does it make?” thing,

          In this case, she was talking publicly about this guy. That means, it was POLICY to talk publicly about this guy:
          Clinton talked publicly about the case at the time. “He’s free to go. He was free to come. These decisions are his alone to make,” she said on July 13, 2010….
          All of that said, my concern would be this one you identified: All those OTHER people in “unfriendly countries who helped us during Hillary’s tenure at State,” or who might help us in the future.

          You want your future agents to know that the NOC list is going to remain secret.

          (Or, better yet, that there will be no NOC list. Whenever that is part of the plot in spy stories, I wonder: Isn’t it inherently insecure for such a collection of information even to EXIST?…)

          1. Bryan Caskey

            I’m starting to think of Hillary like Stalin in WWII.

            Yeah, he was a bad guy. Yeah he was a communist, and we weren’t super comfortable with the alliance. But faced with Hitler’s greater evil, an alliance with the Soviets was a necessity in the short run, and we were short on allies. However, it didn’t mean we had to like Stalin. And after the common enemy was defeated…we went right back to being adversaries with Stalin’s Soviet Union.

            I’m sorta coming around to that line of thinking with Hillary. I’m not saying I’m there, but I’m considering it.

            1. Kathryn Fenner

              Seriously, do you want Mr. Twitter-Fingers or Ms. Private-Server having the nuclear codes? Which one do you think will be more likely to give our allies heartburn? Whom do you think will not sit still and focus long enough to figure out who our allies are and which countries are more, um, cause for concern?
              POTUS is our international “face”….

        2. Scout

          “I’m so glad that a person who takes sensitive information so seriously is going to be our next POTUS.”

          FWIW Michael Morell who was director of CIA with Hillary said he had to share alot of sensitive information with her and never saw her misuse any or not treat it with the utmost care. I read an article that suggested that technology is a blind spot for her – that she is just not tech savvy. Not good for someone in her position for sure, but hopefully she is learning, at least to get better tech advice

          Here’s the stuff Morell said:

          http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-rudy-giuliani-michael-morell/story?id=41167698

          Here’s the article about Hillary’s tech trouble:

          http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/fashion/hillary-clinton-personal-technology.html

          1. Kathryn Fenner

            I’m confused about which candidate takes our sensitive information more seriously–the one who followed the same protocols her predecessors did, or the one who asked a foreign power to hack our elections?

            1. Doug Ross

              Will Hillary’s Secretary of State be allowed to use a private email server? I mean, that’s what the protocol is, right? I assume that Bill will be able to have sex with interns in the Oval Office as well because of the precedent he established.

              Usually, with children, the “he did it first!” excuse is not tolerated. With Hillary, it’s “Move on!”

  2. Tex

    Hillary goes blank again today, I tell you there is something medically wrong with her. She can’t walk long distances, she has trouble with steps, she loses focus easily and that’s just what we’re allowed to see. I think the stroke she had a year or so ago (remember the prism glass lenses) was worse than what they tell us. She’s refusing to debate Trump because I doubt she can physically stand or take the pressure. Will this be the first time two presidential candidates don’t debate each other?

    https://twitter.com/_AltRight_Anew/status/762718618249367552

      1. Tex

        This pretty much sums it up, not a flash in the pan video it has over 1.3 million views and includes interviews from major news sources.

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