Someone Explain Why Anyone Should Care About Hillary's Emails

We're 11 days away from an election that could determine the course of the United States, and the world, for decades to come. In one corner, we have the chosen candidate of white supremacists everywhere, a man who has admitted to sexual assault, a man who has conned hundreds of people out of their hard-earned money, a man who has never done one act of public service in his entire life. In the other corner, you have a career politician who OMG EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS!!!!!

EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS!!! WOWSERS!  OH NO!!! #$%@^!!!!

Honestly, why is this even an issue? You have one reason to not vote for Hillary: you are a Republican when it comes to social issues, and you want abortion banned, the gays back in the closet, and the minorities to shut up. This is not debatable, because it is literally all Trump brings to the table. If you want a Supreme Court packed with Scalias, Trump is your man. In fact, if you're not particularly bigoted or racist, you have a pretty compelling argument to vote for Hillary.

So why would EMAILS EMAILS EMAILs cause you to say, "Fuck Hillary, I'm a Trump guy?"

More of Hillary's emails have been read, studied, picked apart and agonized over than the works of Shakespeare. There is no person on Earth who can claim to have released more emails to the public than her. George W. Bush, who suspended civil liberties, rewrote the constitution, slept through 9/11 and embroiled us in two costly wars-- well, he "lost" 22,000,000 emails. We will never see them. They were on the private server of the Republican National Committee.

Despite this unprecedented scrutiny, this magnifying glass over every quip from a low-level Democratic party campaign worker... literally NOTHING illegal has been found. NO emails of her plotting to kill Americans in Benghazi. NO emails of her sharing Monica Lewinsky nude pics. NO emails of her promising Iran she'll give them nukes as soon as she's elected. NOTHING. NADA. ZILTCH.

The FBI, the RNC, Wikileaks, the press, Russia, even the right wing conspiracy media... not one of these entities has found any email that surprises and shocks us. Oh, politicians are calculating? They try and speak out of both sides of their mouth? Their staff can get petty and catty? OH MY GOD!!!!! TELL ME something I don't know.

It's within your rights to be sick of politicians. But lets not pretend these things are great crimes. Let's not pretend they're worse... or even equivalent... to the very real crimes Donald Trump has been getting away with for years-- things that have been proven in a court of law and recorded on videotape. Let's not pretend that being a politician is worse than inviting a white supremacist to help run your campaign.

Did Hillary erase emails in which she discussed taking bribes from the Saudis? The Republicans would say, "YOU BET!" But there's no evidence of this. It's all speculation. Hillary could have erased an email revealing she's really Emperor Zod of the Planet Kylophon, here to enslave the earth and steal the world's reserves of Beanie Babies. That email MIGHT EXIST!!! But it doesn't, and that line of thinking should also have you wondering what things might exist in Trump's email, right? After all, we don't have any of his messages. Not one. We don't even have his tax returns.

Was Hillary careless with classified information? Well, it depends whether you think the state department email system, WHICH WAS HACKED, is safer than Hillary's own email system, which is apparently so secure that no one can find her Emperor Zod emails. It also depends whether you give a damn if she accidentally revealed that a general's favorite soup is split pea, which is the kind of ticky-tacky shit the government slaps "CLASSIFIED" on ever since the Bush administration.

All of this hand-wringing, all of this "HILLARY BELONGS IN JAIL!" bullshit... WHY? Every single telescope, microscope and endoscope has been focused on her for close to 30 years... and nobody has found absolutely anything to imprison her for! What's the charge? What's the evidence? And... WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Imagine someone pitched a movie with Hillary as the villian: "You see, the bad guy, she's this woman who, well, she used her own email server. And MI-6 has to send James Bond to take her down." This is not compelling stuff.

By all means, if you have ideological differences with the Democratic Party, vote Republican. I'll point out that Trump is not a Republican, and you should worry about him destroying your party, but at least I'll understand why you're voting the way you are.

But if you're a so-called fence-sitting independent? Can you really not tell the difference here?

Enough About Hillary's Damn Speeches!

Somewhere, in the transcripts of Hillary's speeches, is a line so damning, so deplorable, that it would immediately sink her candidacy for President. What could this line be? Did she swear on a stack of Bibles to give the execs at Goldman Sachs their own suite in the West Wing? Did she express her genuine desire to give tax breaks to CEOs and pardon white collar criminals? Perhaps she even said something like, "I hate poor people, if only we can wipe them out." Now that, that would be devastating!

Except... all this is imaginary. It's what Bernie Sanders wants you to think when he hits Hillary, time and time again, with the same repeated lines. Hillary gave speeches to Wall Street. They gave her money. Therefore, she must intend to screw the poor, feed the rich, and ride off into the sunset with her pockets full of gold.

All this is insinuation. Bernie loves when you ask the question, "If she has nothing to hide, why won't she release her speeches?" Because the question is all he's really after. If there was truly a smoking gun, something so horrible, it's unfathomable that all the reporters covering the campaign, all the people who attended her speeches, the Democratic party leaders, etc. etc. wouldn't have unearthed it yet. Of course, Bernie and his supporters would have you believe that the fix is in--that hundreds of unrelated people--including those who would just love to make their careers on such a scoop--have conspired to keep whatever it is under wraps.

So... why doesn't Hillary release those emails... I mean speeches?

Hmm. See what I did there? I mixed up emails and speeches. Because, well, Hillary was through this whole mishegoss once before. You see, the Republicans were sure--positive--that Hillary's emails had broken confidentiality laws. Or maybe not, but surely there was something in them that revealed she was actually working for the devil. Maybe she even caused Benghazi! Ok, so there wasn't anything there, but... that's just because she didn't release them all. What about those missing emails? Oh, she released even more? Nothing in those? Well there were some missing. Certainly. And how about those ones she released. That liberal commie reporter--Sid something. Was he advising Hillary on policy? Did she reveal something to him? Yeah there's nothing there, but there might be...

This shit went on for a year. More than a year. And the friggin FBI was combing through that shit.

All that came out of it was a steady drumbeat of nothing that slowly eroded her poll numbers. No criminal actions, no questionable ethics. Just more insinuations. More guilt-by-association tactics. More articles where people just skimmed the headlines and said, "Hmm, they're paying so much attention to this, maybe she is up to something." In the end, that release of emails was nothing--except a gift to her opponents, a way to extend the news cycle of articles "investigating" her communications.

This is the same goddamn thing. No... actually, I take that back. At least you could argue that maybe... just maybe... a law was broken with the emails. Which is why Hillary was compelled to release them. But in giving speeches, no laws are being broken, unless the transcripts reveal she was doing lines of coke with Lloyd Blankfein on stage. There's nothing to hide, except what is probably a business-friendly speech. Which isn't in dispute. I think we all know Hillary wasn't reading the Wall Street execs the riot act about their irrational gambling habits. We're smart enough to know that Hillary was probably lavishing some praise on these "wealth creators," and thanking them for helping rebuild the economy after 9/11, etc. etc. It was most likely the boringest shit you can imagine.

But if Hillary released those transcripts, you can bet that every phrase, every word will be parsed by the media, the Sanders campaign, and the Republicans. It won't matter that no promises were made, no illegal actions were revealed. They'll comb through looking for anything that could possibly be used to portray Hillary as a hypocrite. "See!" the Bernie supporters will cry to the heavens, "She is in bed with Wall Street!" As if all anyone needed as "proof" were a few meaningless lines from a speech to a firm that had paid her to be there. "Wall Street is the backbone of America," you can easily imagine Hillary saying. The same way every single politician ever has said, "Farmers are the backbone of America," or "Autoworkers are the backbone of America," or "The American Association of Chiropractors is the backbone of America." But you know Sanders will highlight that line and say, "Hillary says Wall Street is the backbone of America... well I say Main Street is the backbone of America!" And his supporters will cheer and yell "Fuck Hillary" and whatever they were chanting last night, and instead of focusing on the issues that face America and the policies needed to fix them, Hillary is spending her time defending herself over each new line that her opponents choose to trot out.

Why would anyone give their opponent more attack lines? It's not being honest and open, it's being stupid. I don't want a President who bows to pressure and releases something that can be used to stir up anti-American propaganda. And that's all this is--Hillary refusing to give her opponents material they want to use in attack ads. That is all.

Meanwhile, Bernie has been incredibly reluctant to release his tax returns. Unlike Hillary's speeches, tax returns can reveal illegal activity. They may show that Sanders, who claims to be the poorest man in Congress, actually has Wall Street money himself. Now that would be devastating. It's also in the public interest to see his tax returns. What matters more--what someone said, or what someone did? Tax returns can reveal Sanders didn't give a cent to charity. It can reveal that he's heavily invested with a Wall Street firm. It can reveal contributions he's received before his candidacy, which may have come from the very people he's condemning now. Maybe he even owns some flophouse rental properties that squeeze tenants for money. This is all speculation of course... but unlike the speculation surrounding Hillary's speeches, the release of Bernie's tax returns will show concrete actions, not vague verbal assurances.

If you're going to question, "Why doesn't Hillary release her transcripts?" you must, in good faith, also question why it's taking Bernie so long to reveal his taxes. Why is he on the same side as Donald Trump on this issue? What is he hiding?

I assure you, if he's hiding anything, he's not hiding words.

Honestly, it's all counterproductive for the Democrats when they stop discussing real issues and adopt the Republican strategy of slinging mud. It doesn't help anyone. Certainly not anyone who wants to make sure we don't end up with Trump or Cruz as President of the United States.

So Bernie Bros, enough about Hillary's damn speeches.

TL;DR: Hillary won't release her speeches because all it will do is provide quotes for attack ads. Bernie won't release his tax records for a similar, but potentially more damaging reason.