[Clinton] committed obstruction of justice. Trump did, I think, in worse fashion, but, you know, I mean, smashing up your phones and your hard drives

Which is standard procedure for making sure someone can't pull any classified or sensitive data off your device once you're done with it.

It pisses me off every time someone uses that talking point.

It's more of a drooling point.

Following SOP to smash a hard drive..... server in Trump Tower connected directly to Russian bank.... potato, potahto.

She poured bleach on her emails!

No human being in history has ever been as smart as Bill Maher thinks he is.

Ben Shapiro would like to "debate" you on this particular topic.

Or Trump. Narcissists.

He's a bully, too.

Or Dennis Miller.

That is true.

Not the overall point of the post, but still.

Clinton. Did. Nothing. Wrong. In. Destroying. The. Hard. Drives.

Standard policy during my entire government career was to make damn sure there would be no chance of any data being recovered from a hard drive. Degaussing was an option, but if that was not available, a 10 pass erasure followed by physical destruction of the drive wad acceptable. Physical destuction was usually taking a drive outside to a patch of concrete and smashing the fuck out of it with a sledgehammer then gathering the pieces and dumping them into an active burn barrel.

That was just for the unclassified drives. The controls for destroying classified drives were more in depth.

Also, too fuck Bill Maher.

With one of those aforementioned wads ; )

Fixed. Fucking autocorrect.

Let's take Maher's position and game it out, shall we. His mother's prior pregnancy was difficult, and she was advised that a subsequent pregnancy could be fatal. Fine. Now let's assume that, instead of having a choice in the matter, there is no abortion. That merely changes his mother's choice to, is she going to have sex *ever again* under the possible resultant penalty of death.

Men are never faced with this kind of choice. Not ever. The idea that having sex might have life-ending consequences is utterly foreign to almost every man alive and most certainly Maher.

Is there something about how kids were taught in Maher's day that makes it impossible for them to comprehend how others circumstances might not be like their own?

Maher was conceived prior to the development of the Pill. And in a time when it was unthinkable that a woman would ever refuse her husband. And when no self-respecting man would ever wear a rubber with his own WIFE, for God's sake. So it was only a matter of time before his mother was pregnant again.

Very well said! Yet another area where men don't even understand the problem/consequences well enough to properly check their privilege.

Complete sidebar, but I'm unsure about the utility of the phrase "check your privilege"; it reminds me of the phrase "read a book" in reaction to ignorance. I'm like, "which book asshole, there's a lot of them." And there's a lot of ways privilege blinkers us: simply stating that we are goes nowhere.

Oh, I agree! But it is short hand for something that is useful in certain circles. I never use it IRL. But it fits in this case. Among the more close-minded, it would be like telling somebody to calm down. It would almost certainly have the opposite effect.

The funny thing is that it's actually impossible to do. The best we can hope for is an awareness that we do not have the life experiences to appreciate events or opinions in their full context. Instead of checking one's own opinions, maybe it would better just to listen to other people's.

Unfortunately boys are raised as super special in our culture instead of just special like all the other kids, including girls. Even girls get that message.

I say that as someone who helped raise two daughters and sometimes got pissed that their cousins - boys - got more accolades, even though they weren't any better in academics, or as good human beings, but weren't athletes.

My mother was told the same thing after the birth of my younger brother.

What did my dad do?

He got a vasectomy. Problem solved.

This was 61 years ago.

"...just rub one out in the shower, you've also potentially "deprived" the world of the next Bill Maher."

See? I'm doing everyone a favour.

Thanks, Onan.

Barbarian.

Yeah, but inheritance is not as intrinsically funny as masturbation.

Unless you combine them.

Hmmm...

Which is staggeringly obvious, but somehow "everyone" reads it wrong. 🤦‍♂️

I also am doing everyone a favor, but not in the shower.

In the shower? Really? Not really the most comfortable place...

"I'm pro-choice, but ..."

The "but" invalidates the premise.

Yep. One is either pro-choice or not. You can't say women should have the choice but they SHOULDN'T have the choice if the outcome will make you "squishy". Either we have the choice or we don't. Enough with the rightwing interference.

Mr. TK likes to say that you can just ignore anything that comes before the "but".

I'm pro-choice, but, if you're going to choose chocolate ice cream, it's not likely going to actually taste like chocolate, and I am going to lose respect for you. Maybe I shouldn't have said this . . .

Sent to me today.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

I'm not sure about this. I'm pro-choice, but I think that women would benefit from a full range of reproductive health options that are readily and privately available in order to make abortion less necessary. I don't think that that is so bad.

I'm pro-choice AND I think etc. It doesn't need a "but" in there.

Right? There’s no reason we can’t agree that women aren’t slaves but also feel the need to build better support structure for those who choose to have children.

Most people who have abortions already HAVE at least one child. IIRC, the stat from Guttmacher was something like 2/3. And that was one of the main reasons given for why they're having an abortion: they're already struggling to take care of the children they HAVE.

There’s an abundant lack of support for the domestic labor force that the species relies on to continue living and prospering. The only excuse for it is greed. Today’s babies are tomorrow’s workers and leaders. So why can’t women get social/governmental support that works? Why’s it always got to be called ‘entitlements’ or implied that women who can’t pay for all the kids must be bad parents? It’s cuz some people like the idea of slavery and feel that some people are utterly disposable. Cheap labor is better than good labor and loyal workers, healthy citizens, etc.

Yes. And that’s part of what it should be. As long as the decision for whether or not to have an abortion is not in the hands of those who are not pregnant. Women have children (or not) and it affects all of society, so there should be a bigger investment in supporting that act.

"I'm not a racist but..."

I'm in favor of wearing pants, but...

"Here, hold my beer."

I don't normally like canned clams, but...

I'm not racist but..
I'm not homophobic but..