That Washington Post story on the front page of today’s Las Vegas newspaper about an Iranian scientist being executed was trimmed before getting to a rather politically interesting aspect.
What you did not read in the local paper was that the scientist, Shahram Amiri, had been mentioned in an email on Hillary Clinton’s server and that email was made public this past year. The section left on the cutting room floor, the last two paragraphs, reads:
Amiri appeared to be mentioned in emails released last year by Clinton as part of investigations into her use of a private server while she was secretary of state. An email forwarded to Clinton on July 5, 2010 — nine days before Amiri returned to Tehran — apparently refers to Amiri’s case.
“We have a diplomatic, ‘psychological’ issue, not a legal one. Our friend has to be given a way out,” wrote Richard Morningstar, who was then a State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy affairs. “We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence.”
Apparently being a “friend” of the United States is a capital offense in Iran.
The Guardian story was more to the point:
The release of Clinton’s emails last year by the State Department appeared to have been damning for Amiri. A number of emails sent to the then secretary of state appeared to support claims that he was a defector. “Our friend has to be given a way out. We should recognise his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence. Our person won’t be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave, so be it,” wrote one senior official to Clinton, according to CNN.
“Following the reported revelations in the Clinton emails, Amiri was executed for spying,” said Dina Esfandiary, MacArthur fellow at the centre for science and security studies at King’s College London. “In the Iranian judiciary’s mind, it’s a necessary signal to the US that Iran is aware of their activities in Iran and that this is what is done to those who help the enemy. It’s a textbook spying case.”
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton accused Clinton of being reckless with such information, according to a Washington Examiner story:
Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed by Iran for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday.
“I’m not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman,” he said on “Face the Nation.” Cotton was speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about Iran’s nuclear program.
The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe.
“That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. And I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe,” he said.
But you’ll not read that in the local paper.
Shahram Amiri speaks to journalists after returning to Tehran in July 2010. (Reuters photo)
4TH ST8 
Except (1) the email was not classified; and (2) there is zero evidence that it was “hacked” by Iran.
Careless no matter what!
Had Clinton followed the same protocol my brother is held to, and used secured government servers for her official emails, none of the emails would ever have been released to the public and a friend of the USA would be alive and well today.
Classified or not, the email has been shown dangerous to the USA.
His blood is on her hands.
wait a minute — the information was released by the US government after a rigorous classification review.
Had Clinton followed protocol, the emails would never have come under any kind of scrutiny and a friend of the USA would be alive and well.
If my brother was found not following that very same protocol he would, at the very least, be disciplined and probably fired.
Due to Clinton’s own convenience demands, a friend of the USA is dead.
His death is due to her selfishness.
However you spin it, isn’t the email aspect newsworthy?
I suppose it is.
And the Review Journal could also have run the other Washington Post story about this matter:
“Clinton’s Email Server Did Not Lead to an Iranian Scientist’s Death”:
“[T]here’s no reasonable connection between the discussion of Amiri’s case on email by Clinton’s staff to Amiri’s eventual execution. There’s no evidence her server was hacked. 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.”
http://tinyurl.com/h2tftwn
That is an opinion….not a fact based news article, nyp.
Hmm, funny this.
nyp is the only one here trying to claim hacking was part of this story….then saying tries to use that claim to “defend” her!
Clinton is directly responsible for his death.
Huh?
Nyp, yours were the only words saying anything about ” (2) there is zero evidence that it was “hacked” by Iran.”
Nothing in Toms piece said that, no one else said it.
only you
Clinton is directly responsible for any of the actions resulting from the use of her private email server. Had she not used it, none of the emails would ever have been made public.
Hillary Clinton is directly responsible for the death of a friend of the USA.
huh??
what??
“The just-released emails, which were sent to Clinton back in 2010, seem to support what State Department sources have long maintained: that Amiri was not abducted, but a defector and paid informant who changed his mind about helping the U.S.” http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/02/politics/clinton-email-shahram-amiri/
So you maintain that Hillary’s Emails gave away information that the State Department has previously made public. Big deal!
Yeah, they had to use “veiled” references because she was using a non secure server!
If she was using the approved secure server, NONE of this would be an issue!
It will be interesting to see if the usual apologists for HRC will mount a defense to this latest revelation, and if so, what? At some point it has to be indefensible to continue to defend the indefensible.
“[T]here’s no reasonable connection between the discussion of Amiri’s case on email by Clinton’s staff to Amiri’s eventual execution. There’s no evidence her server was hacked. 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.”
http://tinyurl.com/h2tftwn
At some point, the right wing will learn that their best candidate is Hillary Clinton.
Oh wait, some of them know that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/24/charles-koch-suggests-that-another-clinton-in-the-white-house-would-be-better-than-trump-or-cruz/
Nyp reposts the OPINION piece as if it’s hard news!
laugh
Today’s Washington Post:
“Truly, this is among the stupidest claims made so far in this campaign.
“[T]he defection and then return of Amiri was widely covered in the news media in 2009 and 2010. Iranian officials could have learned everything they needed to know about Amiri’s defection from reading The Post. Moreover, Iran first publicly raised questions about his disappearance. There was little to be learned from the cryptic messages in Clinton’s emails, even if Iran had somehow gained access to Clinton’s server.”
http://tinyurl.com/jganyc2
Yup, totally explains how he went from Iranian hero to defector…..the post is showing its “lean” again.
So prove it, Steve. What information was in her Emails that was not already in the public domain?
Silence speaks like thunder.
When all else fails…follow the links. The Guardian spells it out, Rincon….
I reread the Guardian story. Nothing from Hillary’s Emails that wasn’t already public knowledge. In addition, the only way the Iranians saw the Emails was that Republicans pressured the State Department to release them. One could blame the Department for not figuring out that this was damaging (if in some way it was), but pressuring the release of 30,000 Emails to and from the Secretary of State runs the risk of something slipping through. The Republicans though, decided that politics was more important than security. The State Department had little choice because it needed to maintain its credibility with the American people.
“the only way the Iranians saw the Emails was that Republicans pressured the State Department to release them.”
Precisely my point. At the risk of repeating myself: “If she was using the approved secure server, NONE of this would be an issue!”
And;
“If my brother was found not following that very same protocol he would, at the very least, be disciplined and probably fired.”
(He works for the federal government, in a secure capacity.)
Derp
it really stretches the imagination to believe that Hillary’s emails were not hacked by foreign countries, both friendly and not friendly, before the American public even became aware they existed. As the FBI stated,
“With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”
It is clear that Sec. Clinton had a total disregard for the security of this country. She clearly wanted to hide her communications, and if not for a court order obtained by Judicial Watch, the American public would still be in the dark.
We have already agreed that it was a poor decision which calls her capability of holding the Presidency into question. The part you refuse to see is that the Republicans and the media are just as irresponsible as Hillary (or more). They took material that was insecure for which there was no evidence of a leak and insisted that because the server MIGHT have been hacked, most contents should be made public, making absolutely sure that all of it was leaked. .That compounded the security problem a hundred fold!
If you feel the need to discipline Clinton, then several of her predecessors need to be disciplined as well. Details matter, and few are available because news reporters aren’t interested in supplying information. Their job is to sell stories and make them interesting. Details get in the way.
NYP
US nonfarm productivity declined 0.5% this quarter, down three consecutive quarters. This is the longest negative stretch since 1979. It’s the great Obama economy stupid!
“United States Nonfarm Labour Productivity
Productivity in the United States decreased to 106 Index Points in the second quarter of 2016 from 106.20 Index Points in the first quarter of 2016. Productivity in the United States averaged 62.01 Index Points from 1950 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 107 Index Points in the third quarter of 2015 and a record low of 27.60 Index Points in the first quarter of 1950. Productivity in the United States is reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Since 2008, Productivity in the US has surged from a low of 96 index points, to it HIGHEST POINT IN US HISTORY, during the 3rd quarter of 2015 of 107 points.
It’s the great Obama economy stupid.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/productivity
Rincon, you said…..
“Nothing from Hillary’s Emails that wasn’t already public knowledge. In addition, the only way the Iranians saw the Emails was that Republicans pressured the State Department to release them.”
Already public but only because she did something we are always told we shouldn’t do.
Don’t you get it? She is culpable for everything that followed because none of it would have happened had she not broken the rules in the first place.
Course, as most wage earners know, in spite of working longer hours, and producing far more than at any time in history, and in spite of being told for years by “free marketeers” that the only REAL way their wages could be increased, without creating inflation, would be to increase productivity, their wages stagnated, all the while businesses profits have set records.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/productivity
So, wages for most middle and lower income workers have remained almost no hanged since the early ’70s and yet workers are nearly 250% more productive today than they were back then. Guess who reaps the windfall? Right, the wealthiest billionaires on the planet. Course, their “income” has reached historic proportions, all the while, due to the cosy relationship the right has with these billionaires, their taxes have DECREASED, and, as a special added bonus (thank you Ronald Reagan) they take most of their income now as “capital gains” which are afforded even more favorable treatment according to the tax laws because…well, you know.
You don’t really believe a CEO of McDonalds REALLY gets paid $1 a year do you?
What the Republicans and the media did was the equivalent of finding a bunch of oily rags that someone left (which is a legitimate fire hazard), and then throwing a match on it in order to demonstrate just how awful the supposed perpetrator was and then having the gall to blame the perpetrator for the fire. Yes, Hillary deserves sharp criticism and perhaps more. The Republicans and media though, have been orders of magnitude worse.
If our national income had stagnated since 1974, there would probably be a revolution. Since it stagnated only for 90% of us, the Conservatives think it’s just dandy, but get all excited if they find some little economic blip that affects the rich. And they blame whoever the President happens to be unless, of course, he’s a Republican. The fact that every recession since 1972 has been preceded by a sharp increase in oil prices escapes them completely. These hedgehogs selectively pick whatever information will demonize liberals.
Yeah, but you peeps keep saying “if you aren’t breaking the rules, you have nothing to worry about”, right, Rincon?
Well, look what happens to rule breakers….in her class, nothing but a few bad days of news coverage.
But you want to hang the “police” for doing their jobs!
Longest Losing Streak Since 1979
The Wall Street Journal reports U.S. Productivity Fell for Third Straight Quarter.
“Nonfarm business productivity, measured as the output of goods and services produced by American workers per hour worked, decreased at a 0.5% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the second quarter as hours increased faster than output, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
It was the third consecutive quarter of falling productivity, the longest streak since 1979. Productivity in the second quarter was down 0.4% from a year earlier, the first annual decline in three years and just the sixth year-over-year drop recorded since 1982.
Productivity growth started to slow before the 2007-2009 recession and has all but stalled in recent years.”
Rincon – get off the liberal vs. conservative blame game. There are very few conservatives serving in Congress, and they certainly don’t control legislation. Both parties and the Fed are responsible for our debt, regulatory structure, and big government expansion. There are just as many (maybe even more) fat cat millionaires and billionaires supporting Democrats.
“But you want to hang the “police” for doing their jobs!”
Nah, your thinking I’m a dyed in the wool Liberal. I think the whole recent flap about our police is a product of the media once again trying to create controversy – at the cost of peoples’ lives. The Ferguson episode was especially ridiculous. There was no credible evidence that the officer acted improperly and plenty that the perpetrator who was killed assaulted him. Even cops are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, aren’t they?
The bottom 90% hasn’t seen a raise in more than 40 years, even though their productivity has doubled and we hear nothing, but productivity drops a little for three quarters, and suddenly you’re wringing her hands, Barb. I have to conclude that you’re concerned about the top 10%, but not so much about the bottom 90.
BTW, this is just my idea, but is it possible that productivity has dropped some because employers are hiring more marginal employees due to the high employment rate? I can testify that marginal job candidates are usually less productive than the good ones. That could easily drag down the average. I can also testify that in my area, good job candidates are much harder to find than they were a few years ago.
Rincon ignores the analogy.
I bet if the party names were reversed and the ones “policing” the offender did not take any action, Rincon would be as irritated as he seems to be now.
The Congress was doing it’s job…it didn’t break the law, it tried to enforce it.
You ignored my analogy. No harm was done until the Emails were made public.
Which wouldn’t have happened had she followed the rules…and that negates your analogy too.
The difference is that I agree Hillary was in the wrong. You refuse to say the same about the Republicans and the media.
They were the police doing their jobs.
But you want me to hang them in effigy for doing what they are paid to do.
I will not try and give a cop a speeding ticket for chasing down a speeder.
I don’t believe it was Congress or any politician that revealed Hillary’s private email account and server. This information came to light through a court order in response to a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch. Once the information was out there, it was apparent that Hillary had concealed information previously requested by private organizations and by Congress.
As far as the wealth inequality, we just disagree on the facts.
“It turns out that wealth inequality isn’t about the 1 percent v. the 99 percent at all. It’s about the 0.1 percent v. the 99.9 percent (or, really, the 0.01 percent vs. the 99.99 percent, if you like). Long-story-short is that this group, comprised mostly of bankers and CEOs, is riding the stock market to pick up extraordinary investment income. And it’s this investment income, rather than ordinary earned income, that’s creating this extraordinary wealth gap.”
See: https://4thst8.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/all-the-news-that-fits/#comment-66887
You don’t understand Barbara. Modern Liberals hold the power and are the establishment.
In the modern liberal mind, for each and every one of their faithful members scratched, fifty conservative heads must roll.
After all, tyranny cannot abide thought.
Yeah. The Koch Brothers and all of those other plutocrats are liberals.
You ante with Koch I raise with Bloomberg
Since the 1% and the 10%, and not the bottom 90 that are far well off than they were 40 years ago, I find it hard to imagine that any sane person can truly feel that Modern Liberals “hold the power and are the establishment”. This is actually compelling evidence for the converse.
“And it’s this investment income, rather than ordinary earned income, that’s creating this extraordinary wealth gap.”
Since the CEO to worker pay ratio is up 1,000% since 1950, I find that statement hard to believe. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio_n_3184623.html
I also have to wonder why investment income is tax favored (capital gains) compared to labor, when investment income has supposedly been far more lucrative. Does anyone really need an incentive to invest? After all, what’s the alternative, a mattress?
Maybe it’s not so hard to believe after all. If you’re a billionaire, why bother working a CEO job? It’s so much easier to have your money work so that you don’t have to.
Ah yes, and Hillary. Lemme see here….the complaint is that Hillary was careless to have put the Emails where unwanted eyes might find them, so the solution was to release them so that ALL unwanted eyes could see them. Sounds like normal conservative logic to me.
Rincon:
Indeed. It would be akin to suggesting that a spy had stolen American secrets, and putting the spy on trial, and the “conservatives” intervening and demanding that the secrets be released to the public, then blaming the spy for that release.
Crazy is the norm when it comes to these people.
I mean, seriously? Barbara suggesting that in the face of 7 years of incredible, historic gains in worker productivity, which were not shared in AT ALL by the workers actually doing the work, that three quarters of de minimus decreases is somehow worth “blaming” the president and implying that the economy is bad because of these historic gains?
I mean seriously crazy.
So those on the right swore that the Obama administrations economic policies would make unemployment worse, weaken the dollar, increase interest rates, cause gasoline prices to go up to $10 a gallon, drive up the budget deficit, and increase inflation to Weimar Republic levels.
Economists, and democrats tried to explain that all these politically driven “predictions” were nutzo crazy, and here we are 7 years later and Forbes is telling us just what the democrats tried to say way back then; the country NEEDS some inflation.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/08/14/us-producer-prices-down-no-sign-of-that-inflation-the-federal-reserve-wants/#29447e9610ea
Happened in spite of Obama not because of Obama.
So let’s see if I’ve got this right. The recovery is slow, so it must be because of Obama, since his influence was so powerful, but none of the predictions of the Conservatives came true because Obama’s influence wasn’t that powerful. Got it.