The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    Hillary's Transcript Problem--transparency is a bitch.

    By jollyroger on Sat, 02/06/2016 - 4:55pm |

     

    I will confess myself to be late to this particular party.  Until the recent interchange at the NH Debate, I had frankly not given much thought to the actual content of the HRC  trick turning speaking engagements at various venues of high finance and good fellowship.

     

    For me, the mere instances of cronyism sufficed to bring bile up from my stomach.  Seeing her laugh in the face of the question is just an occasion for extra vomit.

     

     

     

    That said, with my attention now turned to the question of what, exactly, the transcripts will reveal, I am consumed, as it were, with a new curiosity.

     

    Not, mind you, in re:the details of her colloquy--I am consumed with curiosity over how she will navigate the coming rapids, and, as a subtopic, how her defenders (Mona, I'm talkin' to you...) will dance around this obvious, self inflicted public relations vulnerability.

     

    No shame in her game?

    Comments

    Here's a video of a 2014 speech--

    If they're all this innocuous, why the reticence?


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/06/2016 - 7:42pm

    Answer:(?) Because the transcripts she's withholding come from other appearances...Oct. 24, 2013, to its hedge fund and private equity clients, and again on Oct 29,

     


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/06/2016 - 7:46pm

    She just explains why she killed Vince Foster and how she got Bill to revoke Glass-Steagall so she could collapse the economy 10 years later and that she'll always have Goldman's back even as it drives Greece or another country to bankruptcy. 

    I know a fairly famous architect but not very wealthy who got invited to speak to Philip Morris or similar and instead of speaking about architecture he said "you know, you shouldn't smoke" which has for some reason lowered the number of times he's been invited to speak anywhere, which is sad because he's very talented but for a quiet guy he has a big mouth.

    Speeches are usually written to tell the audience what it wants to hear, even if it's a contrary tough love speech. Only so much codliver oil to pass around. And that's if they're not paying you $200k-$300k.

    People judge Hillary because this is more money than they make in a career. But her Rose lawyer/whitewater and travelogue and Monicagate lawyer costs were more than most people spend in a lifetime. (I think someone pushed travelogue as "non-official" so she'd have to eat the costs). Maybe if she changed her name to Klinton Kardashian they'd start to understand - being in the public eye has its costs. ("travelgate"  above - bad Android)

    But you got it, jr , now that she's released one, she has to release them all, because the truth is out there somewhere...else.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 4:27am

    I rhink that it's pretty clear the tone of her remarks will, as you hint in somewhat circuitous fashion, evidence a somewhat more restrained tone than she manifests when going toe to toe with Bernie.

     

    Remember how Obama got shit just for his "|I'll save you from the pitchforks remark"--oddly from both sides.

     

    I think that Eleanor Clift on McLaughlin had it right--she'llhave to release the transcripts sooner or later because the issue won't go away.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 12:38pm

    Nor will it go away when she releases them. People will pore over ever second looking for something that sounds bad - in context, out of context, mashed up, whatever. Will probably find foetus parts somewhere and Muslims cheering America's destruction and of course classified state dept emails on Benghazi.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 12:54pm

    The "bottom line", of course, is the bottom line.  It all goes back to Jesse Unruh--On lobbyists – "If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them you've got no business being up here"

     

    That was, of course, from a more "innocent" age of politics.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 1:15pm

    Why on earth should she have to "release" transcripts of her speeches?  What the hell?  Has any other candidate EVER had to do this?

    First it's her emails, now it's her speeches.  What's next?  Stool samples?


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 3:05pm

    Because a "stand up person" is expected to be proud of herself, not exhibit indicia of shame.

     

    Edit to add: Stool samples are the product of a private moment--a speech given to an assembled audience is qualitatively different, but, nice try, Mona.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 3:16pm

    You haven't answered the question.  Why should she have to provide transcripts for her speeches?  Has any other candidate had to do that?


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 4:53pm

    Any other candidate with a similar roster of eight figure emoluments from entities who have paid billions to settle outstanding federal fraud beefs will find themselves vulnerable to the same demands, yes.

     

    Would you care to list the ones you think are thusly defined? 

     

    Bear in mind, that the difficulties Mrs. Clinton faces arise, in large measure, from the disconnect between the stated goals of the Democratic Party, whose nomination she seeks, and the manifest interests of the entities in question.

     

    Likewise, if it turns out that Planned Parenthood invited Ted Cruz to speak in return for a $625,000 donation, he might have some splainin' to do...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:02pm

    Oh, my, a disconnect from the stated goals. . .what a rarity.  No other Democrat has ever veered from their platform. 

    Okay, several of her transcripts have been released.  Nothing there to fret about.  But will it be enough?  Not on your life.  She's hiding something.  How do we know?  Because she's Hillary.  There's that trust issue.  She's always hiding something.  Because she's Hillary.

     

     


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:16pm

    Y' know, Mona,having revisited this thread ( and may I, in passing, remark on my surprise, if not admiration, that she continues to "persevere") I find it interesting that you think it wise for a politician with her survey numbers in re: honesty to avail herself of any loophole whatsoever.

     

    You frame it as a " nothing burger ".

     

    Is it really?


    by jollyroger on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 2:07pm

    Carl Bernstein weighs in:

     

    she has had a difficult problem with the truth going back to the Arkansas years. It's not about outright lying. It's about obfuscation. It's about not being transparent. “

    His main thrust:  This issue, (like the emails) has a resonance (ed note:and a stank) that severely damages her candidacy and panics Obama, who sincerely wants her to win....

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 1:46pm

    That could be, but, going back to the Arkansas years, she has had to defend everything she's ever done, including her decision to stay with Bill after his scandal--and she's still under investigation over that one.  (How could she? Must be naked ambition.  What else?)

    Nobody on earth has ever been as scrutinized and dissected as Hillary.  Nobody has ever had to explain her every action like Hillary.  If she chooses to hide a part of her life she's trying to hide something.  As if the world has a right to pry into every moment, analyzing every decision, and woe is Hillary if she doesn't get it right, if she doesn't satisfy every person judging her.

    And here she is, asking for more, running for president, of all things.  What is wrong with that woman?  Doesn't she know she's opening Pandora's Box and whatever is inside is fair game?  What's it going to take to make her go away?

    That's part of the reason I support her.  She's the gutsiest person I've ever seen.  That, and I think she'd do a great job as president.


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:07pm

    “Yeah, you know, here’s another thing I want to say. Let everybody who has ever given a speech to any private group, under any circumstances, release them, all release them at the same time.

     

    Hillary (without attribution) offering a quid-pro-quo release plan which is NOT HELPFUL

     

    This is not a situation where ducking a dodging is a viable strategy...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 1:51pm

    Sure it is - polls show most folks don't give a shit, outside the socialist Republic of berniestan. While I care somewhat, I think horse trading occurs in a different venue than these speeches. Look at where they banked it in 2009 - hardly about a few speeches - full-court press. In any case, show me how Bernie will be effective on money - I was all for #OWS and it went nowhere. Middle America is more into waterboarding, so I pick my battles.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 2:00pm

    I was all for #OWS and it went nowhere.

     

    Wow.  Did you ever disqualify yourself as a socio-political observer...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 3:21pm

    "I think horse trading occurs in a different venue than these speeches."  I'm with PP here.  Clinton is a pretty shrewd operator so I doubt she said anything at GS as compromising as Mitt Romney's awed delight that $1/hour "girls" were fighting to work at a sweatshop in China.  By now, Hill and Bill are much more wink wink nudge nudge types. She probably gave three boring speeches, collected her $675K and moved on.  Understood was that in return for the money and other support, she'd be a firewall between Lloyd Blankfein and the unwashed masses calling for the heads of bankers.

    In a sense, therefore, the focus on the content of the speeches by Sanders supporters could be misguided.  At some point, Clinton may turn over a few dozen pages of dull as dishwater transcripts.  She can then say I told you so.  The real problem is that people look at how much GS (and other corporate malefactors) paid her ostensibly for doing so little and wonder what else did she or is she going to do to earn that money?

    Sanders by the way has handled this beautifully saying it's Clinton's decision but it might be a good idea for her to turn over the transcripts.  He is not fulminating about her hypocrisy claiming she is saying one thing to bankers and another to students, working people, and seniors.  Any such claim could bite him badly if the speeches themselves prove to be innocuous.


    by HSG on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 4:38pm

    The real problem is that people look at how much GS (and other corporate malefactors) paid her ostensibly for doing so little and wonder what else did she or is she going to do to earn that money?

     

    Just so.

    They did not become a financial collusus by spending their money on worthless projects.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 4:52pm

    They get other people to spend their money on worthless projects. But really, why are you being so silly? paying Hillary $600K is a teensy drop in the bucket for a company with $40 billion+ revenue, $12billion profit - how many people have bought Tesla electric cars, for fuck's sake - 100,000 at $100K each. It's just as easy to imagine her 2 speeches as marketing vs quid pro quo - they hand out free tickets to their 500 best customers or new hot prospects for each, and those customers are thrilled to be part of an exclusive event, hobnobbing with Hillary, and spend more millions with GS. Oh, and the $600K is tax deductible as marketing & advertising expense.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:31pm

    They've spent more than $675K.  I believe when you add up the contributions to the Clinton Foundation/CGI and to her campaign, the numbers begin to really add up.  But you're right this is chump change for GS.  Small investment likely to result in huge rewards.


    by HSG on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:01pm

    It's just as easy to imagine her 2 speeches as marketing vs quid pro quo

     

    fair enough

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:46pm

    Sure it is - polls show most folks don't give a shit, outside the socialist Republic of berniestan.

     

    Given how it all turned out, and in particular the public/private face Goldman Sachs fiasco, are you still of this opinion? (I ask informed by our back and forth on your (companion, as it were) thread.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/04/2017 - 3:39pm

    Hillary lost over terrorism/security, immigration, and the damn emails. Outside of Berniestan the transcripts were a klunker, but in Berniestan they remain pissed. Trump didn't even get very far on the borders thing in the debate - Hillary fact checked him on it.

    BTW, did you ever look at the list below of who she spoke to (aside from your BFFs GS)


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 01/04/2017 - 4:33pm

    I take it then, that it is your estimation that the generalized conflation of "crooked Hillary" "Clinton Cash" and the "public face/private face" meme was in no way empowered by the availability of tht third element?


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/04/2017 - 6:04pm

    Yeah, I've looked at the list.

     

    I don't have many friends on it, who are yours? (I am right there with the Girl Scouts, of course)  

     

    ETA: scrub that, I have for reasons probably best left unexplored, transformed the American Camping Association into The Girl Scouts of America...carry on)

     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/04/2017 - 5:49pm

    The full list is impressive:

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 1:58pm

    I would say she does have friends in high places. I have watched some of the speeches on you tube and they were more like pre campaign speeches. I am a women hear me roar type of pandering. 

    She is not in a good place with her closeness to the 1%, in a election year of anti establishment mood.  


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 4:30pm

    her closeness to the 1%

    This is really  the heart of the matter, and speaks, incidentally both to Mona's plea "other people get away with it" and PP's obtuse dismissal of ows, without whom the shorthand that we all now understand would be opaque


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:14pm

    Where did I say or even suggest that "other people get away with it"?  I asked how many other people were required to hand over transcripts of their speeches.  A question you, by the way, never answered.


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:19pm

    OWS was a dismal joke. All we got out of it was the shorthand "99%." Which is only great for the blabbers bloggers on the internet. The consensus decision making process doomed it to failure. It reminded me of all the things wrong with Rainbow Gatherings.

    Dumb ass kids don't know their history and learned nothing from the fights and successes of the Civil Rights era that gave them all the freedoms and rights they now take for granted.

    I don't give a shit about the paid speeches. I don't give a shit about the emails. But I do care about the large campaign contributions. I'm glad she taking them. Sanders plan to unilaterally disarm in the face of republican money just shows how naive he is.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:44pm

    I just note that OWS is pretty well dead - already a 5-year-old experiment that gave us the useful 1% meme and focus on inequality, with a mixed record of street action and overall not very significant results. For example, it could have launched a new generation of activist candidates at the grassroots level who would be occupying legislatures and the house, rather than banking it all on a 74-year-old Senator/presidential candidate. Call me skeptical - I can take it. But without a change in the Senate/House numbers, it's almost as futile as trying to get the White House to listen from that park across the way.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:46pm

    Below is Mother Jones' list of 90 speeches in 2013, 2014 (better formatting in the URL) of which 36 are listed as unpaid, a number of others doubtfully paid (like to Clinton Foundation) so maybe 30 paid total? 6 were for Wall Street, 4 were for health.  Further below is a list of 52 paid speeches for 2014, 2015 - 6 Wall Street, 12 in some way related to health industry, 34 other (from eBay/Cisco/Xerox to several conferences for women, to recycling association to publishers to higher education to Automobile Dealers to Behavioral Healthcare and colleges and boards of trade and international conferences and so on.

    To hear the common version, Hillary just talked to banks and big pharma for heavy fees - no mention of the free speeches, no mention of the extremely diverse audiences she's had. (shame couldn't get the formatted Excel sheets to paste in right)

    ========================================================

    National Multi Housing Council

    Fidelity

    Atlantic Council

    Little Rock Airport

    Pacific Council On International Policy

    Women Deliver

    Spirit Of Helen Keller Gala

    Economic Club of Grand Rapids

    KKR

    CFDA Fashion Awards

    Clinton Global Initiative

    CURE Epilepsy

    Society for Human Resource Management

    Unique Lives & Experience

    American Jewish University

    Clinton Presidential Center

    Central Arkansas Library System

    Bryn Mawr University

    Delta Sigma Theta

    The Global Business Travel Association

    National Association of Chain Drug Stores

    American Bar Association

    ASCP 2013 Annual Meeting

    Carlyle Group

    National Constitution Center

    St. Andrews University

    Chicago House Speaker Series

    American Society for Clinical Pathology

    ASTA Convention

    HRClinton for McAuliffe

    Children's Defense Fund

    Hamilton College

    Chatham House

    HRClinton for McAuliffe

    National Association Of Convenience Stores

    HRClinton for McAuliffe for

    VA Center For American Progress

    University of Buffalo

    Goldman Sachs

    Colgate University

    Beth El Synagogue

    Goldman Sachs

    Haim Saban

    Oceana’s Partners Award Gala

    Pennsylvania Conference Of Women

    Learning 2013

    International Medical Corps

    Producers Guild of America

    Clinton Foundation Millennial Network

    National Realtors Association

    Mexican American Leadership Initiative at USC

    Malaria No More

    The East Harlem School 2013 Fall Benefit

    National Defense University Foundation

    U.S. Green Building Council

    Advancing Afghan Women

    Press Ganey National Client Conference

    World Jewish Congress

    Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Gold Medal

    Gala Kennedy Center

    Brookings Institution

    Women for Women International

    Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDs Foundation

    Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice

    VA Govenor Inaugration Presides over New Castle inauguration

    National Automobile Dealers Association Convention & Expo

    HiMss2014

    University of Miami

    Long Beach Boys & Girls Club

    Corporate Luncheon

    Vancouver Board of Trade

    UCLA Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership

    Telus Convention Centre

    Montreal Board Of Trade

    American Jewish Congress

    Association of American Publishers

    Globalization of Higher Education Conference

    Women in the World Summit

    World Affairs Council

    The Marketing Nation Summit

    Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries

    Unique Lives & Experiences

    Western Health Care Leadership Academy

    Clinton Foundation - No Ceilings Conversation

    Simmons' Leadership Conference (Simmons College)

    Edmund Fusco Contemporary Issues Forum - UConn Foundation

    United Methodist Women Assembly

    Annual Convocation of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois

    the American Jewish Committee Global Forum

    1stBank Center

    ========================

    GE, National Automobile Dealers Association, Premier Health Alliance, Salesforce.com, Novo Nordisk A/S, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, A&E Television Networks, Association of Corporate Counsel - Southern California, The Vancouver Board of Trade, tinePublic Inc. (events), Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies, Xerox Corporation, Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, Academic Partnerships, Marketo Inc., World Affairs Council, Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc., Let’s Talk Entertainment, California Medical Association, National Council for Behavioral Healthcare, International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association, Let’s Talk Entertainment, United Fresh Produce Association, tinePublic Inc., tinePublic Inc., Innovation Arts and Entertainment, Biotechnology Industry Organization, Innovation Arts and Entertainment, GTCR, Knewton, Inc., Ameriprise, Corning, Inc., Nexenta Systems, Inc. , Cisco, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Commercial Real Estate Women Network, Canada 2020, Deutsche Bank AG, Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, Salesforce.com, Qualcomm Incorporated, Massachusetts Conference for Women, tinePublic Inc., tinePublic Inc., Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Watermark Silicon Valley for Women, eBay Inc., American Camping Association


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 4:45pm

    One fact leaps forth from the variegated interests represented by her grateful audience members.

     

    She could have skipped, as a categorical matter, any entity involved in precipitating the financial meltdown without suffering penury as a reault.

     

    As Carl Bernstein is quoted, woulda' been prudent.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:06pm

    Yes, it woulda' been.  On that we can agree.  She hasn't yet learned to analyze beforehand how everything she does will appear to those watching and waiting to catch her in the act.  I wish she hadn't done it, too.  I find it difficult to defend but that doesn't make it indefensible.

     


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:23pm

    Oh sure, let's just run against Wall Street - put up a wall and don't talk to them (that was the suggested Iran and Cuba strategy as well, right?) So if she wants to pass any legislation later, they're so pissed off they stonewall every move she tries to make. I guess she can forego any speaking fees, and instead charge the Epilepsy Fund and universities instead, or she can rely on Bill's income (but they don't like his speaking list either), or ..... she can crawl under a rock and die, which I'm sure is the only acceptable choice for many. Really, I just don't care. Wall Street at this point is one of her strengths, and while it's a mixed bag, it will be useful. People can whine - I'm glad I'm not a politician.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:39pm

    She hasn't yet learned to analyze beforehand how everything she does will appear to those watching and waiting to catch her in the act.

    On the contrary, she's been learning very well over many years - which is why she's called calculating, defensive and secretive.


    by barefooted on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 5:46pm

    She hasn't yet learned to analyze beforehand how everything she does will appear to those watching and waiting to catch her in the act. 

    Mona, what does it mean to say that "she hasn't yet learned?" Hillary has been playing this game since Bill was elected governor more than thirty years ago. If she hasn't learned it by now, she's not going to suddenly clue in at the age of 68.

    This to me is the most worrisome part. Same as with the emails. She knew that she was likely going to run for president. She surely could have anticipated that people would object to the Wall Street speeches or that running her own mail server might not look so kosher. But she did it anyway. For all this talk of how "cautious" she's supposed to be, she is often quite reckless and shows poor judgment.

    I'm less worried about the election than I am about her presidency. Yes, the GOP will take advantage of any opportunity to savage her, and we will all be sympathetic, but she will probably also continue to do dumb things that make her supporters feel a little icky. Just like Bill did.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:04pm

    If she loses the nomination, I can't wait to see how smooth and dumb-mistake free the Sanders candidacy will be. But if he hits some possibly election losing bumps along the way, we can forgive because he just didn't know any better?

    PS- Go Cats! ;-)


    by barefooted on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:21pm

    Ah yes, here it's cattin' around after midnight. That stripped ball wasn't too swift - have to do better.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 7:10pm

    I don't think you can compare the "ick" factor with Hillary and Bill. Many of Bill's problems were icky. I accepted him as the best we could get but I never liked him. 90% of Hillary's problems weren't in my view problems at all and sometimes I was cheering her on.

    She's held to a different standard. All these people had private email servers before her and at the same time as her. Never or barely was it an issue. Somehow she was supposed to anticipate that what looked kosher for everyone else for years wasn't going to look kosher for her. That's a lot to expect a person to anticipate.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:27pm

    1. Hillary is the only one with her own server which she used for all her state communications. The others were careless. Hillary was deliberate. 

    2. The others aren't running for president

    3. FOIA has applied to email since the 1990s when Bill was president. Hillary knows the rules. Everyone in Washington knows the rules. She chose to ignore them. 

    Is it the worst sin in the world? No

    Was it poor judgment? Yes


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 8:34pm

    Colin Powell had the same set up as Hillary. When asked about his server he gives the same answers as Hillary. When he was asked why he deleted everything on his server he said, paraphrasing, All my work related emails were sent to state department accounts and were captured by the state system so I complied with all FOIA regulations. When questioned about several classified emails on his server he claimed none were classified at the time and that he wants them released. He then complained about the reclassification process.

    Yes, he's not running for president but I bet if he was no one would be picking through straws to try and find a pin to stick him with.

    Jeb had a private server for most of his emails and has flat out announced that he will not release any emails sent or received during the Schiavo situation and during the Bush/Gore recount.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 12:32am

    Ocean-kat - we've been through this before on this very topic.  I am cutting and pasting an exchange we had on another blog here.  You'll note that you never responded to my reply.  Perhaps, you'll do so now.  Otherwise, I ask you in the service of intellectual honesty to stop claiming that Clinton's email server setup isn't seriously problematic.

    -------------------

    Hillary did not violate any law or regulation that was in effect during her time as SoS. Use of a private email was common at that level of government. Numerous Bush officials had private accounts including Colin Powell and Condi Rice. When Powell was asked what he did with the emails after he left office he said, "I just erased the whole thing." Kerry is the first SoS to exclusively us a government account. Even Jeb Bush had a private email he used during his time as gov of Fl. Of course it's only a scandal when Hillary does it.

    I believe government officials should all use a government account. I'm glad the regulations have been tightened up to enforce that. But there is still no evidence that Hillary broke any law or regulation and she shouldn't be condemned for what was fairly common before her.

    by ocean-kat on Sun, 01/31/2016 - 4:39pm

    The regulation in effect on October 2, 2009, just after she took office and after Powell and Rice had served their terms, provided:

    Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.

    36 CFR 1236.24 (Oct 2, 2009) (emphasis supplied).

    Did Clinton preserve her emails in the appropriate agency's record keeping system?

    by Hal Ginsberg on Sun, 01/31/2016 - 6:24pm

    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:24am

    While I'm willing to spend a bit of time pushing back against what I see as nonsense there's a limit to the amount of time I'm willing to waste on a bullshit issue I don't care about. I'm not a lawyer but there are numerous articles by lawyers who have looked at this issue. I've posted a couple of articles previously. Here's another from Dan Abrams that details the legal aspects. His conclusion:

    It is also indisputable that it was neither a crime nor even a violation of State Department procedure for Clinton to have used personal email for government business at that time. 

     

     


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 2:20pm

    Dan Abrams is correct and also a good parser of language.  It was not a crime or a rules violation for Clinton to use a personal (non-government) email address for government business.  The rules clearly allowed this.  The violation was that she did not maintain the government emails on the State Department's record-keeping system.  Instead, she maintained them on a private server in her home. 

    If she 1) forwarded her emails contemporaneously to the State Department via auto-forward or some other software application and 2) had a process in place for wiping the hard drive of her personal email server after the emails were mirrored to State, her system would have been in compliance.  But she did neither of these things.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 2:40pm

    As both Colin Powell and Hillary have said, all my work related emails were to or from state department accounts and saved on the state system therefore I complied with all FOIA regulations.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 3:14pm

    That is not what Hillary Clinton has said and Colin Powell is not germane to this conversation as he is not running for President and the rule was changed after he left office.  Through hillaryclinton.com, Clinton says this: "More than 90% of her work or potentially work-related emails provided to the Department were already in the State Department's record-keeping system because those e-mails were sent to or received by "state.gov" accounts."

    So by Clinton's own account, not all of her government-related emails were preserved at the State Department and she therefore violated the pertinent regulation which is based on the Federal Records Act.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 4:38pm

    "Unless she violated a rule dealing with the handling of classified or sensitive but unclassified information, I don’t see how she violated any law or regulation," said Bass, who is now executive director of the Bauman Foundation.

    Funniest thing about all this is we've got people who have bitched for years about a lack of transparency in government suddenly saying all government documents should be considered secret by default until a decision is made. My problem with what I've been reading is that documents are being classified by one organization of the government that other agencies thinks should be unclassified. This is for me another story of the over classification of government documents. Story after story on this just illustrates how stupid the classification system is and how it results in a lack of transparency. I want more and more and more and more documents released from every government agency. I don't give a shit about Hillary's server and I'm done discussing it.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 5:05pm

    You keep trying to move the goal posts.  The rule required her to maintain all of her government-related emails on the State Department recordkeeping system.  She didn't do that.  Ergo, she broke the rule.  Now, if you want to argue it's a stupid rule and she didn't do any harm - fine.  I don't think it's a stupid rule but probably there was no harm.  But come clean. 

    My biggest problem with Clinton here is that she keeps wordsmithing and parsing language and so do you.  "It was not against the rules to use a private email address."  "Everybody knew my email address wasn't @state.gov."  "My emails to my State Department colleagues were all preserved." "The bigger problem is the classification system."

    That's all beside the main point.  There was a rule.  She violated it.  It's that simple.  All she had to do, as I argued eleven months ago, is admit the violation but for some reason she can't do it.   That is a much bigger problem than the underling venial sin.

    Okay, you're done talking about it.  Ramona won't explain why she thinks it's wrong to raise questions about Clinton administration misdeeds when discussing Hillary's candidacy.  Fine, close your ears and eyes.  That's your call.  But refusing to respond directly and honestly to facts that don't comport with your preferred narrative raises huge questions about the legitimacy of your commentary.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 5:39pm

    Many many people, lawyers and investigators, disagree with you. Since you're nakedly partisan and have consistently distorted both Hillary's views and in the most insulting way distorted the views of her supporters you have absolutely zero credibility on this issue.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 5:42pm

    I cite specifically to the regulation she broke.  There is no factual dispute in that she did not maintain her emails on the State Department system and therefore violated the rule. 

    You say there are many many people who disagree with me.  Presumably, you're including Dan Abrams whom you cite for support for the claim (which I've never disputed) that Clinton was allowed to use a personal email address.  Here's some of what Abrams wrote that you didn't cite:

    "It should be clear to any objective observer that it was an enormous error for Clinton to use a home made server for all of her emails while she was in a position that regularly handles and assesses the most sensitive of government secrets. She had admitted as much (although now she appears to be backtracking from that initial mea culpa.)"

    Abrams concludes that no evidence has yet been adduced to support a criminal charge against Clinton but he acknowledges such evidence could be forthcoming.  He also does not argue that she did not violate any federal rules.  Instead he notes "there is a colossal difference between “wrong,” “improper” or even a regulation violation, and a federal crime."

    You also quote somebody named "Bass" for the proposition that there was no violation.  It turns out Bass is Gary Bass who was opining to Politifact on whether it was proper for Clinton to use a personal email for government business.  Bass concluded, as we all have, that the email address was not the problem.  What was the problem as Politifact notes somewhat circuitously was Clinton's use of a private email address without preserving her emails at the State Department.

    "Using a personal email account exclusively is a potent prescription for flouting the Federal Records Act and circumventing the Freedom of Information Act," [Daniel] Metcalfe said. "And there can be little doubt that Clinton knew this full well."

    The Politifact article, from which you cherrypicked out-of-context one statement that supports your claim, notes "she didn’t break a rule simply by using a personal email to conduct business. Rather, by using personal emails exclusively, she skirted the rules governing federal records management, [Douglas] Cox said." 

    Skirting the rules sounds kinda okay.  It's not exactly breaking them. But she didn't skirt the rule she broke it as Daniel Metcalfe said "it would have been a violation of the NARA's rules in the Code of Federal Regulations for Clinton to use personal email exclusively[.]"

    Finally, all of these experts are ultimately wrong.  Clinton violated the rules because she did two things: 1) She didn't use a "state.gov" email address.  (If she had all of her emails would have been preserved automatically by the government.)  2) She didn't take steps to preserve at State Department the emails she sent and received on her private server.

    You claim I'm biased.  But when one looks objectively and dispassionately at how critically your experts judge your candidate, the only reasonable conclusion is that you have a terribly pro-Clinton bias that is blinding you to the fact of her email server setup violated Federal rules at the time.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 6:35pm

    I post links by experts and lawyers that state unequivocally that there was no violation of law or regulation. You post the opposite. We could play the link trade game for days.

    the only reasonable conclusion is that you have a terribly pro-Clinton bias

    If I was as partisan as you I'd be endlessly writing blogs about Sanders slimy rape fantasies. I'd follow that up with his pandering to gun nuts in NH and his lies about it. But I'm just not into mud slinging and bullshit like you are.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:45pm

    There was no battle of the links.  I used your sources and they most certainly do not state what you say they do.  I used the exact same sources as you did and quoted at length from the Factcheck article.  Its conclusion is that Clinton almost certainly did violate the regulation that I have repeatedly demonstrated she violated - first last March.  More proof you're biased - 1) Sanders never published any rape fantasies (I have no idea what he writes in private). 2) I have already acknowledged his votes on guns were wrong and he has failed to justify them . 3) You feel the need to throw an obscenity into your comment as though that makes it more persuasive.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:06pm

    But of course he did. It was all over the internet. I'm not going to post a link because I don't want to spread the the meme. It's likely you saw it so why lie? If not I'm sure you can think of the appropriate keywords to find it. If it was Bill or Hillary who published such offensive shit you'd be all over it. You feel free to mud sling and slime Hillary. The Hillary supporters here refuse to sink to your level and make those sort of attacks on Sanders. So don't pretend I'm anywhere near as partisan as you. I've been holding my fire for months.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:47pm

    Michael, I learned that Barack Obama has over $800K in campaign debts from 2012. Almost 4 years now. You remember what a screaming outrage it was that Hillary hadn't retired her (much larger) debts, but even in March 2008 it was supposedly a scandal that her suppliers would wait for $25K payments. For a month. It was a fierce issue in a fierce campaign. Yet will anyone scream about Obama's debt? Hardly.

    Look at the list of speeches Hillary's given - for free and for pay. Which ones should she have dropped? And she would be attacked anyway - Planned Parenthood? ACORN? a health provider? an IT firm working overseas, maybe with connections to TPP or Chinese factories - read "sweat shops"/killing manufacturing in America"? Hell, Hal & others attack her for giving a speech in Singapore because it's a "center of sex slavery and human trafficking". 

    Being Hillary, she probably realizes that *everything* will be blown up or turned negative, so it's more trying to figure out what actually matters. She got endorsements from unions representing 18 million workers - and that's presented as a negative, that it's only the establishment heads that like her while Bernie love runs deep. 

    I feel the constant attacks on her are pretty "icky". She says something obvious, that if she's elected president, it's a major milestone for women - just like Obama's was a major milestone for blacks - and suddenly there's an internet fury about how wrong it is for women to vote their "vaginas". Jesus, you'd think Irish never voted Irish or Hispanics never voted Hispanic, Southerners never voted for the southern-balanced ticket - but we get the talking/voting vulvas as an image to keep voting pure, not let identity politics enter the matter for *that* woman (hisssss). BTW - I don't recall John Edwards' wife being trashed for enabling his embarrassing tryst, even though she described the other woman as a "pathetic parasitic groupie". Clinton rules - gotta love 'em.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:50pm

    Goldman, obviously. You don't have to be a political genius to know she should have declined that one. 


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 8:52pm

    Every one of them does "dumb things", but what I see is that Hillary is held to a double standard and isn't allowed her share of dumb mistakes.  You see it as reckless and showing poor judgment and reason enough to worry about a Hillary presidency.  You even bring Bill into it.  I see it as a part of a whole, and when I look at the whole picture I see someone whose career is far more than just mistakes or poor judgment. 

    None of the good she's ever done is used as a temper against the person she's perceived to be.  It's never even mentioned, except by those of us who have looked beyond the notoriety and have seen a much broader picture.  There will always be those two sides where never the twain shall meet. 

    When Obama ran against her, I was on his side and wouldn't have even considered Hillary.  Obama was supposed to be the change we were looking for, but it turned out he wasn't.  Am I disappointed?  Sure.   Am I disillusioned?  Not really.  Do I think Hillary will be the change we were looking for?  No.  Do I think Bernie would make it happen?  No.

    My motivation with Hillary is her ability to stay standing when so many people are trying to knock her down.  That's a primary asset when we're still having to deal with Right Wing nut jobs.  Hillary's added value is that she just knuckles down and does her job and to hell with the ruckus around her.

    Works for me.


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 7:02pm

    I never suggested that Hillary's mistakes outweigh her positives. But she has made dumb mistakes, and I fear she will continue to do so, and I won't hesitate to call her on them. And I mentioned Bill because he also had a habit of dumb mistakes. It was a serious drag on his presidency and embarrassing to his supporters. Not just Monica and the other women. Also the pardons, the celebrity White House visits, scandal after scandal.

    I believe that Hillary's administration will also be scandal prone. Partly bc of the GOP hate. And partly bc of her own judgment. I don't look forward to it.

     


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 8:49pm

    I don't look forward to it.

    I look forward to the gop scandal machine, cuz it means we have a Dem adminstration....I will confess to harboring a least a smidgen of anxiety in re:the outcome of the coming election....(Sorry for the implicit insult to my fellow voters)


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 8:52pm

    The GOP scandal machine was much more effective against Bill Clinton than Barack Obama. Why was that?


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 8:53pm

    They don't call him "no drama" for nothing.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 9:10pm

    Of course you won't hesitate to call her out on whatever it is she has done.  But can we please dispense with the connection-at-the-hip?  Her husband?  She is running; he isn't.  No.  He isn't.  He may be a part of her life and even a part of her campaign, but he is not running for president.  What an insult to keep making Hillary an appendage of Bill.  Shades of the old days when women had no names beyond "Mrs. Husband's Name".

    I'll take my chances on a Hillary presidency.  I'd be more afraid of a Bernie Sanders presidency.  And of course any one of those Republicans in the White House would be terrifying.


    by Ramona on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 11:11pm

    Mona, they've been married for 40 years and have worked together for most of that time. He is one of her most trusted advisers, if not the most trusted, and vice-versa. Are you seriously suggesting that we cannot discuss Bill's presidency when taking the measure of what Hillary's will be like? Worse, are you implying that my doing so is driven by sexism?


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 11:51pm

    Is it possible to consider that she may have disagreed in private with her husband on some issues, but for obvious reasons supported him publicly? Would you expect Michelle Obama to be excoriated for every decision her husband has made should she ever decide to run for office?


    by barefooted on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 12:37am

    All reports from the time claim she was much more liberal than Bill and was constantly pushing for more liberal policy positions. You can't expect her to publicly disagree with the president's policy any more than she could publicly disagree with Obama's policy when she was SoS.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 12:46am

    She could easily now renounce their 1990s policies that are causing so many problems for us today.  She has not spoken out against 1) media consolidation, 2) Glass-Steagall, 3) the war on drugs (she said at last debate she supports keeping pot illegal at the federal level), 4) welfare reform, 5) triangulation, and 6) free trade.

    On 3 strikes and you're out, Bill has expressed regrets.  To my knowledge Hillary has not - certainly not with any degree of clarity.  So yeah it's totally fair to blame her for what happened in the Clinton White House.

    Since she's been on her own, she's gone farther to the right on some issues.  In 2002, she supported the bankruptcy bill that Elizabeth Warren excoriated and Bill vetoed.  Whatever else I say about BIll's eight years, I don't believe he was reckless when it comes to using the American military.  By contrast, Hillary voted for war on Iraq, keyed disastrous regime change in Libya, and now supports stepped up military involvement against Syria/Russia/ISIL.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:43am

    The sameness to your specious arguments suggests that's all you 've got.  They've been answered.  It's all here.  I'm not going over it again.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:51am

    Ramona - everything I wrote is fact.  I don't call your arguments specious I engage with them.  The commenter to whom I responded argued that it's not fair to blame Hillary for Bill's mistakes.  I explain why I think it is.  The criticisms that I have leveled at Hillary in the past are directly relevant to my argument.  If you disagree, feel free to explain your reasoning.


    by HSG on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:49am

    No.  Think I'll pass.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 1:29pm

    Michael, what's insulting about your insinuations is that you seem to be suggesting a woman proven as strong and as tough as Hillary will somehow cave to her husband's influence if she gets in the White House.  Did Bill run her when she was senator?  When she was Sec'y of State?  She is her own person and has proven that time and time again.  Bill's presidency, his weaknesses, his strengths, his scandals, his successes. . .they're his, not hers.  She has built a career in her own right and the constant inclusion of her husband diminishes it.

    So, yes, It seems like sexism to me.  Maybe you can explain why it isn't?

     


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:28am

    People, stop projecting other peoples' arguments onto me. I have never suggested that Bill "runs her" or is a secret power behind the throne. If anything, I think she may have had more influence on him than he has on her. But they aren't two unconnected individuals who just happen to be married. They have worked as a team for decades and share many of the same advisers--the same circle. Hillary was an active part of Bill's administration, and I expect that he will be an active part of hers, if only as an unofficial adviser.

    So while it would be a mistake to assume that Hillary will govern exactly like Bill, it's silly to pretend that there is no substantive connection between them or to rule out any discussion of their similarities.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:47am

    If the connections between Hillary and Bill were on the sidelines, I might agree. But there seems to be a concerted effort to put Bill out front in her campaign, and not in a good way.  All of Bill's worst moments are projected onto Hillary, as if there isn't enough dirt in her pile already.  This is not accidental or even incidental.

     Of course there is a strong connection, both connubially and politically, but I'll keep repeating that Hillary's strengths and weaknesses are her own.  Dwelling on Bill diminishes Hillary and suggests that he'll have undue influence over her.  That's simply not the case.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:14am

    I didn't dwell on Bill. I wrote three paragraphs about Hillary and added as an afterthought "just like Bill" because they both have a history of poor political judgment, and I suspect that it's related. For this, I was accused of the sexist implication that Hillary is nothing more than Mrs. Bill Clinton.

    That is a serious charge to be throwing around so lightly, and honestly, it really pissed me off.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:25am

    I'm sorry that you're feeling pissed off.  You can probably sense from my answers that I am, too. But I did not call you "sexist".  I said it seems sexist to me.  That's not an accusation, it's giving you the benefit of the doubt.

    But again you're connecting the two in your comment here:  "they both have a history of poor political judgment, and I suspect that it's related."    So how does Hillary prove her own worth if, even after years of leadership in her own roles, she is still connected to a past that is more about Bill than it is about her? 


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:41am

    That's a fine line, Mona, and an uncharitable interpretation that I would not call giving me the benefit of the doubt.

    And of course I'm connecting the two. I have spent many paragraphs arguing that drawing a connection between the two is neither unreasonable nor sexist. They are connected. Bill's past relates to her. Her past relates to Bill.

    Being connected doesn't make them the same, however. Hillary has already proven her own worth many times over. She is her own person and will be her own president. She will always share a past with Bill, and as long as they both live and confide in one another, she will always share a present. That does not prevent her from being her own person and her own president, but it does by definition entail a connection.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:59am

    Well, it's your interpretation, not mine.  I object to the constant connection, but I've already said that.  Many times. We'll have to disagree on the impact.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:07am

    Disagreeing on the impact is fine. Suggesting that someone who disagrees with you may be sexist because they disagree with you is not fine.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:18am

    I think you made your point, Michael.  I did NOT call you sexist.  I said your remark seemed like sexism.  But I apologize for making it seem personal.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 1:06pm

    OK, apology accepted


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 3:34pm

    I tend to agree with you on this, because my husband and I discuss database programming often, and we help each other through our programming issues... as I am really good at certain things and he is really good at certain things. He isn't a DBA, but he builds them for certain analysis. And you really can catch us at work sometimes, on the phone with each other, working out some programming issue. We do rely on each other for that, and because we know each other well, it's easier to understand what the other person needs.

    And everything that went on in Clinton's Admin wasn't bad, in fact there was a great deal of legislation was really good and helped minority populations begin to get a foothold again in government contracting etc and really was targeted at perhaps erasing some of the destruction the Wilson years wrought on African Americans. Of course that was erased almost immediately when Bush came into office.  


    by tmccarthy0 on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:18am

    Many couples work together on projects and in politics.  I'm sure Barack and Michelle have those sessions, too.  But what I'm seeing with Bill and Hillary is the "Billary" syndrome.  That they're joined at the hip and can't be separated.  And shouldn't be separated.  To which I call BS.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:27am

    Sure, but the fact that some people have "Billary" syndrome does not make everyone who compares Hillary to Bill a Billaryist.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:29am

    I agree with you. Much of what Bill Clinton did was very good, and I believe that Hillary deserves some credit for his achievements. I bet that Bill would same thing.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:27am

    Okay, I'll bite - I don't know specifically what we learn from the Clinton years, aside from 1) Bill was hugely messy, Hillary much more organized, 2) Hillary was more to the left, as OceanKat repeats, though still "pragmatic" - i.e. she's not going to claim abortion for Immigrants as a priority in healthcare, 3) she learned to shut down and dig in due to the "great right conspiracy", 4) it's a question to dig out which 90's Bill policies Hillary would claim as her own, and how she would carry them out (e.g. it's not just the concept, but the implementation), though 5) she definitely led on healthcare matters - early 90's, SCHIP, et al.

    Kosovo, welfare reform, universal healthcare, more blacks in government, , 3 strikes, DOMA, don't ask don't tell, Glass-Steagall, midnight basketball, balanced budget, million cops on the streets, NAFTA, etc.

    Yet it's hard to have these conversations anyway, because there are just different views of reality. Liberals are complaining that the anti-crime bill passed was the most anti-black ever, even though it had been designed with black leaders supporting. Don't Ask Don't Tell was seen as a liberalization of policy that didn't go as easy as hoped (thanks to Colin Powell & other army types). NAFTA is alternately too weighted towards Mexico and too weighted towards Americans in the same breath, usually ignoring Chinese taking over manufacturing completely. 3 strikes and cops on the streets had a backdrop of the highest crime rates ever, so a "something must be done" crisis mode drove something/anything. Welfare Reform and its long-term intractable not-very-escapable reputation was another offshoot. Balancing the budget would have freed us to pursue and pay for liberal policies if we hadn't let Al Gore be equated to the same as George Bush, to disastrous results. DOMA was a disaster in the making with huge majorities in both houses from 1996 - there was little Clinton could do different that would have mattered. Repealing *parts of* Glass-Steagall was largely seen as well overdue on both sides.

    So a) where would Hillary have differed from Bill? b) which policies in retrospect were effective and which misguided? and c) if misguided, what different should have been done? (rather than "stick thumb up ass/do nothing" typical responses)

    One thing I'm rather shocked doesn't get mentioned is that as Secretary of State, Hillary's policy of introducing same family benefits for gays took the lead well before other Obama Administration's loosening of the rules (well before the 2013 repeal of DOMA). It seemed entirely in keeping with her attitudes, and I figured she was much faster at implementing this than Obama would be. But now she's regarded as a dinosaur on gay rights, and Bernie is the thought leader - rather pisses me off.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:52am

    This is fair speculation. I'm betting that there were more differences in priority than policy, but in some ways, it's moot. Even if Hillary supported some policy 20 years ago, she may not support it now. Times change. Ideas evolve.

    Wrt to this thread, the judgment lapses are a little more relevant. Obviously, H had nothing to do with B's biggest, dumbest failure of judgment. As far as the imprudent pardons, there's no way to know. She does seems to be involved in "travelgate" and "filegate," though the latter is mostly b.s. And then, of course, there's Whitewater, which she was definitely connected to. I'm not saying that she and B did anything wrong, but their involvement with (and B's pardon of) the McDougals and others who were convicted does once again suggest poor judgment.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 6:00pm

    Hillary didn't handle Bill's sex problems as well as people on the outside might wish. That's unfortunate but typical. I had a friend whose husband committed adultery. She hated the other woman more than her husband. It's a painful and complicated situation especially when played out on the national media.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 6:28pm

    I would never judge her for that. Everyone must deal with such breaches of trust in their own way, and how she dealt with it is really none of our business. 


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 9:24pm

    My motivation with Hillary is her ability to stay standing when so many people are trying to knock her down.  That's a primary asset when we're still having to deal with Right Wing nut jobs.  Hillary's added value is that she just knuckles down and does her job and to hell with the ruckus around her.

     


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 3:43pm

    One is tempted to refer to the inimitable Don Juan (Carlos C's, not Mozart's)

     

    Be impeccable....


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 6:49pm

    Better analysis:

     

     

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 7:37pm

    Alex Pareene puts it succinctly:

     

    Bernie Sanders’ critique of Clinton is not that she’s cartoonishly corrupt in the Tammany Hall style, capable of being fully bought with a couple well-compensated speeches, but that she’s a creature of a fundamentally corrupt system, who comfortably operates within that system and accepts it as legitimate. Clinton has had trouble countering that critique because, well, it’s true. It’s not that she’s been bought, it’s that she bought in.

    As evidence, he references her incredibly tone deaf name dropping of Henry Kissinger (!)


    by jollyroger on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 11:32pm

    Oh my gawd!  She said Voldemort  Henry Kissinger!  That's it then.  Game over.

    And the rest of that piece is equally over-wrought:  "Cartoonishly corrupt in the Tammany Hall style, capable of being fully bought with a couple well-compensated speeches. . .blah, blah, blah."

    Then there's that word, "establishment".  Don't forget establishment.  Because it's a revolution, don't you know, and we can't storm the walls until we get the establishment out of the way. 

    How is that different from the anti-government types on the other side?  And how do you keep from looking like you've joined them? 

    Poor Bernie.  He saw a revolution (and good for him) that includes and celebrates the common good.  And now he has to beg his peeps not to go negative.  It's as if they've started their own revolution without him.  This doesn't bode well.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:46am

    Wow!  You are really deep in the tank.  

     

    Do you find her kvelling over a compliment from a war criminal utterly anodyne?

     

    Put another way, if she were to offer as a point of pride the fact that Vladimir Putin told her he keeps his "reset" button on a shelf in his office as an indication that she endorses his foreign policy , would you call that a smart political posture?


    by jollyroger on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 12:10pm

    Pile on all you want, JR.  I can take it.


    by Ramona on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 1:15pm

    Bernie Sanders voted for the Clinton crime bill.

    http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026757168

     


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:22am

     incredibly tone deaf name dropping of Henry Kissinger (!) (Jolly Rogers above)

    Kerry has remarked on his amazement at finding himself benefitting from his meetings with Kissinger. IMHO if Kerry hadn't done that he would  have failed in his duties as Secretary of State.

     

     


    by Flavius on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 11:41pm

    I thought watching the Republican Party destroy itself would be the most entertaining part of this years election extravaganza but the Democrat Party couldn't allow someone else to hog all the insanity. Old elite Liberals, with some help from younger Party minions are displaying their complex mature thinking by attacking the young 'twitter educated Kids' along with all the other not so young people who are so deluded as to believe that democracy can be a participatory sport not a ceremonial changing of the guard among the  entitled  elites and seasoned if incompetent managers.

    When i see someone branding the Bern as the 'Gatekeeper of Progressive Ideas'  at the same time they released the Big Dog to lead their attack on him along with agent provocateurs called Bernie-Bros  you begin to realize just how much contempt these Liberal elites have for their Party followers along with everyone else.

    Trying to portray HRC as a feminist icon while using Slick Willy, a Sexist Pig, as her point man is beyond disturbing but this is what identity politics has degenerated into today.

     

     


    by Peter (not verified) on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:32am

    Please explain what makes Bill Clinton "sexist" - that he likes to fuck? Actually I don't know if he fucked anyone - did he? Did he exceed the typical extramarital dabbling of an average American? Or was it something he said? (schlong?) Somehow I haven't seen near enough ugly behavior to qualify as Sexist Pig. Hard to believe we're still trodden over this well-worn topic in 2016 - with a Democrat?

    40-50% of marriages end in divorce. 22% of men and 14% of women cheat in marriage (in relationships much more). 1/3 of men and women have sex with officemates.http://www.statisticbrain.com/infidelity-statistics/


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 12:36pm

    Peter - what makes Bill "sexist"? (facts, please)


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 1:09am

    Absent any other response, let me help you out.

     

    Bill Clinton was not sexist in the technical use of the term, which linguistically denotes one who regards the talents of one sex (race, nationality, age group) as inherently and categorically likely to be inferior to the standard of the hypothetically favored, as in "I wouldn't put a (blank) in charge of that project, a (blank) would surely fuck it up."

     

    He was a sexual predator, which is loathsome (hey Paula, kiss it!) but different.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 4:48pm

    Paula just announced her support for Donald Trump.  I expect in some circles that's big?


    by Ramona on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 5:03pm

    Cue up schlong jokes.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 5:36pm

    Well, you pretty well ignore the testimony of Danny Ferguson, the unproven Paula claims about Clinton's distinguished member, the proven lies of Kathleen Willey that got her rejected as witness for investigators, etc., etc. Thought you did some lawyering for a living - very sloppy. There's really almost nothing to the the Paula Jones story except that she was brought to his hotel room - presumably willingly enough - is that "sexual predator" to you?


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 5:35pm

    Here is what Carl Bernstein had to say today.  Not good news for Hillary.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQVtTJqN564

     


    by guest (not verified) on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:54pm

    Well, there goes the election.


    by Ramona on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 8:38am

    Talk about desperation, " maybe I am a wall street whore, but your DSCC money makes you one too!". Give me a fuckin' break, Hil. 


    by jollyroger on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 1:01pm

    I love the smell of flop sweat in the morning...it smells like....victory


    by jollyroger on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 1:08pm

    And yet Bernstein says in that interview that Hillary would make a great president. I understand the regret he feels about the way she hurts herself.  And she does hurt herself.

    I have to agree, for the most part, with Bernstein about her mistakes, some of them egregious, and the public perception.  It's a big problem and the Hillary camp has to stop treating it lightly.  She need to explain, apologize, do whatever it takes to make us understand that she gets where the concerns about her are coming from. 

    And she needs to drop any hint of Wall Street coziness and bring into her fold bunches and bunches of social reform advocates.  She knows them.  They know her.  They've all worked together at one time or another.

    I'll be honest--I think she would make a great president, too, but those of us who believe that can't keep on doing her bolstering for her.  She has to do that herself.  And soon.


    by Ramona on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 1:35pm

    No, please - that's one way Gore lost and Bush won in 2000. Gore ran against the successes of the Clinton Administration, walked away from the high-tech sector and environmental work and tried to be some kind of union anti-corporatist candidate.

    Oddly enough, if you look at a Gore-Bradley transcript, it looks like Clinton-Sanders: reparations, gun laws, health care plan (with "magic wand" accusation), police abuse of blacks, et al.

    Forget it - Hillary is what she is, with a bit of evolving. She chose to get on the Armed Services committee to be a Democrat who was serious about security. She dealt with health care, she's dealt with economics, banks and finance. Let her take a bit of abuse over the next few weeks - she's going to win in the end unless they knock her off her perch, get her to lose her focus. She doesn't have to be perfect, just better than the rest.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 2:05pm

    I don't expect her to be perfect.  That's for those other guys.  But I do want her to address the problems even her supporters have regarding the real or phony scandals constantly dogging her.  They're the elephants in the room and they can't be ignored.

    There is such a human side to Hillary, and such a long history of service, but it's being drowned out by her critics on the right and on the left and even in the middle.  She can do much to diffuse it all by showing that side of her that drew me to her in the first place.  I know she can do it.  Now she should do it.

     


    by Ramona on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 2:13pm

    In 2000, there was also the big "scandal" about the Buddhist Temple, that Gore had said "no controlling legal authority", that he seemed inauthentic, that he was a liar (creating the internet, discovered Love Canal, worked on a farm in Tennessee when he was raised in the Ritz Hotel in DC...)

    Screw 'em. Back to Hillary Antoinette - Let Them Eat Shit.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 3:32pm

    Another voice heard from.   So, yes.  #ImWithHer.


    by Ramona on Tue, 02/09/2016 - 2:48pm

    NEW YORK — When Hillary Clinton spoke to Goldman Sachs executives and technology titans at a summit in Arizona in October of 2013, she spoke glowingly of the work the bank was doing raising capital and helping create jobs, according to people who saw her remarks. Clinton, who received $225,000 for her appearance, praised the diversity of Goldman’s workforce and the prominent roles played by women at the blue-chip investment bank and the tech firms present at the event. She spent no time criticizing Goldman or Wall Street more broadly for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. “It was pretty glowing about us,” one person who watched the event said. “It’s so far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. It was like a rah-rah speech. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director.” At another speech to Goldman and its big asset management clients in New York in 2013, Clinton spoke about how it wasn’t just the banks that caused the financial crisis and that it was worth looking at the landmark 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law to see what was working and what wasn’t. “It was mostly basic stuff, small talk, chit-chat,” one person who attended that speech said. “But in this environment, it could be made to look really bad... The person who saw Clinton’s Arizona remarks to Goldman said they thought there was no chance the campaign would ever release them. “It would bury her against Sanders,” this person said. “It really makes her look like an ally of the firm.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/clinton-speeches-218969#ixzz401jyOY00

    by JR (not verified) on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 1:50am

    It's all about interpretation, isn't it?

    […]she spoke glowingly of the work the bank was doing raising capital and helping create jobs, according to people who saw her remarks. Clinton, who received $225,000 for her appearance, praised the diversity of Goldman’s workforce and the prominent roles played by women at the blue-chip investment bank and the tech firms present at the event.

    At another speech to Goldman and its big asset management clients in New York in 2013, Clinton spoke about how it wasn’t just the banks that caused the financial crisis and that it was worth looking at the landmark 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law to see what was working and what wasn’t.

    “It was mostly basic stuff, small talk, chit-chat,” one person who attended that speech said. “But in this environment, it could be made to look really bad..."

    What exactly is so different compared to what she's saying loudly and clearly on the trail now and over the past many years?


    by barefooted on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 4:11am

    I think the key issue is tone.

     

    " glowingly " ??

     

    I had frankly thought by now she would have done the smart thing, released the trasnscripts and moved on.

     

    I don't see how she hopes to benefit from ambiguity ( always the refuge of the artfull dodger).


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 11:06am

    The Clintons have effectively used the artful dodger theme  many times and except fot the impeachment it delayed and distracted long enough for the media and public to move on to newer shiny objects. HRC learned from these scandals and she went on to, as much as possible, take control of her public record including these speeches and more deviously her email history at State which would probably have been and actually was edited for public and historical consumption if it wasn't just erased.

    One thing the Clintons know is that their committed followers will reject any of this corruption as unimportant because some if not many admire this kind of behavior and its inherent power and  especially now when it comes from a woman.


    by Peter (not verified) on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 12:39pm

    That depends upon what the meaning of "is" is...


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 1:35pm

    For the millionth time, Paula Jones' lawyers gave a weird complex definition of sex for Bill to answer yes or no to, and in this case if he didn't grab her it wasn't sex. Which is why lawyers shouldn't be in the bedroom/oval office.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 1:41pm

    Wrong.  It turned on the distinction between " is" and "was". And it related to Monica Lewinsky

     

    Why do you make shit up? ( for the billionth time). Lying destroys memory in essence...


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 2:11pm

    Ah, you're a fan of that dumb vindictive motherfucker Ken Starr who must have never had kids. "Are you on that tablet again?" "I'm going to get ready for bed" which means I was on that tablet until I'm not. The real answer was "none of your fucking business, but he wasn't politically allowed to answer. Whatever - don't need to relive the 90s.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 3:29pm

    Wearing  costumes that look like typewritten pages, Sanders supporters plan to dog HRC at appearances beginning with tonight's town hall.

     

    They will be enclosed in a fake jail cell positioned at the events' entrances and will loudly clamor to be " released".

     

    "Let us out!  Free the transcripts!"

     

    This bit of agitprop has been planned because interlocutors, either through complaisance (Ifill and Woodruff) or careful screening, are evidently shirking their duty.

     

    pass the popcorn!


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 10:50am

    Yeah yeah, and those emails will show malfeasance on emailGate and Benghazi and TravelGate and Whitewater... 

    Hillary's been just 1 disclosure from jail for 25 years now. Ken Starr staked his career on it, William Safire died waiting for it, Dowd built a brand on it. Wonder where she ranks on the all-time FOIA list.

    Maybe they can wear "Free the Nipple" outfits too, to cover all millennial bases.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 10:54am

    She won't go to jail, she'll just go home.

     

    So far, at least Mona seems to have come over to understanding that in politics the appearance of mendacity is a handicap.  Your penchant for pulling facts outta your ass perhaps blinds you to how you appear in this act, as well as how Hillary appears when SHE stonewalls.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:30am

    Speaking of mendacity, I , of course, made up this story tho I posted it to Bernie's wall, so it could happen.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:32am

    Well gee, at least I deal with facts and a variety of analysis and attempted entertainment, no matter how fecal and boringly lengthy you find them - what's your contribution to the discussion - Trump & Ghostbusters? Ted Nugent cut-and-pastes? A hat-tip on ISIS' market rate for virgins?

    Maybe you'd be happier if I appeared in clown shoes, who knows, but the "appearance of mendacity" is a bullshit charge that's been leveled over and over again - sling shit and make up rumors, and then act like it's confirmed when a few people believe them or some op-ed repeats. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

    (PS - are you really hiding behind Ramona for validation?)


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:55am

    The two GS speeches are not RUMORED to have occurred.

     

    Clinton is not RUMORED to have laughed at the request for transcripts.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 12:04pm

    Yeah, but from your own words/rumours it's now the other 2 speeches that have the scandalous content. And if not those 2, something more. Keep pulling that string.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 12:26pm

    New NBC poll results highlight the persistence of the issue.  These respondents do not appears to share your insouciance. ( I guess PP stands for poo-poo)

    Asked what concerns them the most about Clinton, 22 percent of Democratic primary voters cite her ties to Wall Street and speaking fees,...


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 5:09pm

    To reiterate: "transparency, bitch!"


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 5:11pm

    Call me Karnak!  A nearly tearful questioner uttered this plea "transparency!" at the Nevada town hall( he left off "bitch").

     

    He didn't get shit from Hillary besides her duck and dodge.

     

    It won't go away, and the stank on this skank is a shonda.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:00pm

    Because every other politician in the world has put all their emails and speeches in searchable format on the Internet, right? I think I counted roughly half to 2/3 of Hillary's speeches for free, and Wall Street/financial firms maybe 1/10 of her paid gigs. But that kind of analysis isn't done by most - it's "hey kid, she made millions and you get minimum Wage, go ask her about transparency". I remember this homeless guy giving me a 1% dressing down because I had a rusted out Econoline van - to him a sign of huge wealth.

    I went to an industry party last year by HP, cost over $1 million, one of many similar events they throw. They're just one of hundreds of companies with such marketing budgets. Another brought in Duran Duran for an after-party. 

     Go read "Wolf on Wall Street" and see if you don't think Hillary should be asking for more money if she weren't a "Bitch" (who are after all supposed to be the entertainment, not the entertained)

    $10 mill/year doesn't crack the top 200 CEO list (perhaps around 250-300th place). This article notes 40-60 law partners making $10mill or more - http://m.americanlawyer.com/#/article/1202713086372/The-Big-Boys-Make-10...

    Of course Goldman Sachs could bring in Marco Rubio to speak, but repetition for an hour would be right boring, and I'm sure The Donald wants more than $200k to appear (he asked CNN for $5 mill and reportedly made $15m/season on The Apprentice, which is less than Roy Romano's astonishing $2million per episode of Everybody Loves Raymond). Of course Hillary can't compete with Kim Kardashian (who came be accused of lack of transparwncy) making $53 million last year and net worth $88 mill. 3 years ago Rachel Maddox was making $7mill a year and Megan Kelly $6mill - I'd guess those are over $10m at this point.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:50pm

    Oh, I'm sorry.  I didn't understand that you live in a universe where a candidate may be heard successfully to plead for fairness as a campaign strategy.

     

    Lotsa luck, suckah.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:29pm

    [my comment above updated]

    Certainly not - I don't expect any fairness in Hillary's world, and am not surprised that "Go fuck yourself" is sometimes the implied message.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:53pm

    Of course, if you hammer an issue, it will register in the polls. Trust fund baby Anderson.Cooper making $11 million a year from CNN for having doe-like bluish eyes will question a Yale lawyer/ex-senator/ex-secretary-of-state/leading contender for the White House/most recognized figures in the world whether $200k a speech isn't too much. I mean, she made almost as much money as him those 2 years, and she's a girl. Must be harsh.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 10:58pm

    The stench of mendacity swirls around that slimy sell out. See above.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:05pm

    And, yeah, we WILL hammer the fuck outta this issue, and we will drive it ( and her) into the ground until she comes clean.

     

    All of your inapposite obfuscation to the contrary notwithstanding (and not efficacious as a defense)


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:24pm

    Losing your cool, dude - get a grip.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:54pm

    I will confess to a low threshold for annoyance with unartful lies ( or the defense of same) the telling of which gives rise to the inference that the person speaking believes me to be  simple minded.

     

    Thus, " I will release my transcripts when everyone else does" shows a failure of imagination.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:10am

    And Bernie leading Hillary nationally doesn't show a huge amount of imagination? Wow, they polled 440 people total!

    Bernie has 1 week to convince black voters he's for real - good luck with that. If not, game over - we're headed to the big leagues/big states now. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_56c61282e4b0c3c550541904

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:19am

    Your rejoinder is not without merit; indeed the sample size means a rather large margin of error which actually makes the result a statistical tie, but I love the trend.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:45am

    Right, I asked 2 people and they disagreed, so it's a statistical tie.

    Whatevers.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 2:25am

    (Opencrotchgrab) I got your fairness right here Secretary Clinton (closecrotchgrab)

     

    Politics ain't beanbag!

     

    Sanders Takes National Lead Over Clinton For First Time In Major Poll

    Iahxcsgu9xlj2vqe3chy

    Conor Dinan

    FEBRUARY 18, 2016

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has overtaken former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as frontrunner in the national Democratic primary, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday.

    The Fox News poll showed Sanders beating Clinton by 47 percent to 44 percent. This indicates that the Vermont Senator has closed the 12-point gap separating them when the same poll was conducted in January, when Clinton led by 49 percent to 37 percent.

    This is the first major poll to suggest that he has taken the lead over the longtime frontrunner who came into the 2016 cycle as the presumptive nominee. Sanders has enjoyed a surge in support that has lasted for at least a month, as he won the New Hampshire primary and narrowly lost to Clinton in Iowa.

    No other polling has shown Sanders leading in nationwide support, and most has shown Clinton retaining a significant lead over Sanders, albeit a narrower one than she enjoyed a month ago. TPM’s PollTracker Average shows Clinton at 49 percent and Sanders at 42.1 percent.

    The Fox News poll was carried out Feb. 15-17 by live telephone interview. Pollsters surveyed 429 respondents, with a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

    COMMENTS NEXT ARTICLE 

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Conor Dinan

    Conor Dinan grew up in Falls Church, VA, and Paris. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Oxford University, and contributed articles to the student paper Cherwell and The Isis magazine. He is currently the polling intern at TPM.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 11:57pm

    Donald Trump mannerisms quoting Fox News polls - doing good, JR 

    Try the more believable polls - here's the collection: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-pr...


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:03am

    I'm from Brooklyn, that's how we roll.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:58am

    (Opencrotchgrab) I got your fairness right here Secretary Clinton (closecrotchgrab)
    And, yeah, we WILL hammer the fuck outta this issue, and we will drive it ( and her) into the ground until she comes clean.
    To reiterate: "transparency, bitch!"
    Call me Karnak! A nearly tearful questioner uttered this plea "transparency!" at the Nevada town hall( he left off "bitch").
    I do not find you amusing, jollyroger. I find you useless and juvenile; more interested in behaving as though nothing matters because you don't.

    You're the supporter no one wants.


    by barefooted on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 1:40am

    I am not Bernie Sanders and he did not approve this message.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:25pm

    I have to disagree Barefooted. I think behavior like this from Bernie's bros is definitely going to help a candidate win. And it has to be ok because none of the other Bernie bros here think it's a problem. It's good to know where a candidate's support is coming from.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 2:06am

    I favor Hillary for president above any other candidate except Sanders.  If he is not nominated I'll work my ass off for her, so you might call me a Hillary supporter .


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 2:31am

    I know that Jr. You're already doing quite a bit to help her win the nomination.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 2:49am

    It is precisely because I recognize the likelihood that she is destined to be my candidate that I am driven smooth insane by her unforced errors.

     

    Reference my rejoinder to unverified Peter praising her Benghazi hearing performance.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 2:59am

    http://iwilllookintoit.com/ Its always bad when they start a clock


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 10:47am

    No, it's simply a tactic - can be a cheap trick, a futile gesture or effective pressure. I'm sure there's been a clock running on closing Gitmo for how many years, and it hasn't made a bit of difference. But somewhere someone's probably saying, "a Gitmo clock! Effing brilliant!"


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 11:33am

    Of course it's a tactic.

     

    And your point is?...


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:26pm

    The young Turks rated Hillary's transcript release answer as worst of the evening, and suggested a variety of less disingenuous and damaging alternatives.  Watch the interchange itself if you haven't yet seen it:


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:23pm

    Sanders has accepted the terms and released his speeches. .http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/19/calling-clintons-bluff-sande...

    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 1:37am

    Please proceed Mme. Secretary...

    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 1:41am

    They're already scanning the mails to if she's been naughty or nice, said something bad about Joe Biden or whoever. Gives them a chance to look for gossip, good fun. FOIA is like this wonderful fishing expedition.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 1:51am

    Clinton's staff reportedly combing the transcripts.  Huh?

     

    The good news: she is surrendering to the inevitable, will put the matter to rest and move on.

     

    The bad news: she doesn't remember what she said, or wants to plan in advance how to spin the atrocities.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 1:52am

    Hillary is  a loathsome toad.

     

    No, wait, you can lick a toad and get high off the bufotenine.  Toads, my apologies.

     

    The occasion for my opprobrium?  

     

    " Why should I be subject to a double standard?  Let the Republicans disclose THEIR transcripts ".

     

    Meanwhile, the email noose tightens, and Jesus save me, I can't suppress my (politically counter productive) glee.

     

    I want to see her go down in the flames she deserves.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 10:30am

    Trump will carve her like a turkey.

     

    If we want to win, we better get Bernie, who can hold up his head.

     

    The shit is swirling round her and she will be drowning in it just as the general takes off.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 10:36am

    Watch the train wreck:

     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 10:48am

    Imagine this :

    Trump:" You are bought and paid for and you know it.  I haven't taken a dime from Goldman Sachs I'm rich, bitch!"

     

    He's already using it on the other pugs.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 11:25am

    Hillary:

    "If I'm your bought and paid for bitch, why are you running against me? You must be one sorry a-- pimp."


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 12:07pm

    ;-0 - HIllary goes street.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 12:10pm

    He will run his traitor to my class bullshit.  And because she is drenched in shame, it will work.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 12:41pm

    Trump will do his class traitor  stuff

    Hillary will do her 

    Trump bankruptcy $4.5 billion stuff

    Latinos are rapists stuff

    We need to take our country back from the blacks stuff

    Women who do not agree with me are bitches stuff

    We will build a fence paid for by Mexico stuff

    we will get China to kill the North Korean leader stuff

    Putin and I will be best buddies stuff

    And so on.

    Trump would irritate Bernie and Bernie would walk away from the podium in anger. Bernie has never come under real direct political fire at the national level., Hillary has and survived.

    Edit to add

    Trump is a target rich environment.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 1:57pm

    You might be right.  I hope so.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 1:57pm

    Trump is dumb enough to say racist and ignorant crap in public. His base loves it. When it comes to the general election, he will deny saying said racist and ignorant crap, The ads from Hillary's campaign and outside support groups will broadcast his nonsense, Hillary and her surrogates will ask the press why they let Trump off the hook by ignoring the obvious contradictions in what he is saying now and what he said in the past.

    Trump will say, "I was joking". The Hillary response will be "how can you tell when he is lying or being truthful. As I said, target rich environment. Trump loves the poorly educated like the Hispanics who voted for him

    http://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/donald_trump_lets_slip_the_truth_i_love_...

    The gift that keeps on giving

     


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 2:26pm

    Here is a blast from the past. Trump telling some columnist how Trump stole and had carnal knowledge of the guy's girlfriend.

    http://thedailybanter.com/2016/02/this-ladies-and-gentlemen-is-your-fron...

     


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 5:00pm

    Benza missed the operative competitive advantage.

     

    Trump is a nothing but a trick and his bankroll ( not his dick) is bigger.

     

    None of those beautiful women would put with his loathsome advances if they did not come wrapped in cash, so to speak.

     

    Whether that will be deconstructed with sufficient granularity to impact his electoral success is problematic, but I would bet on Bernie to do it better (and more explicitly) than Hillary.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 5:47pm

    I'm certain the  Hispanic professionals, men and women, who voted for Trump in NV, and I just read quotes from,  will appreciate your characterizing them as 'poorly educated' even if they are successful.


    by Peter (not verified) on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 6:48pm

    OTOH, I might be underestimating her...


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 1:47pm

    The NY Times devotes front page (!) editorial space to the plea for transparency in today's edition. The noose tightens.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 10:40am

    Of course, the editorial itself is becoming a story and is currently #10 of 10 in the " trending" section.  

     

    We shall track its rise.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 11:26am

    I looked but I can't find it. You mean the piece on Sarah Palin's facial hair? Or the fact checking on last night's debate?

    Oh finally found it - have to scroll down a bit.

    Yeah, whatevers, dude - I'm sure she excised the trilaterlist ode and the homage to the Masonic temple, and the ritual cutting designed to show obeisance to the Cult of Isis.

    Meanwhile, my takeaway from the last email releases was that she had trouble keeping Bill on message - a truly significant release of national import affecting our security and the reason we have the FOIA in the first place.

    In short, I don't give a shit. Unless she put a gun up against someone's forehead and pulled the trigger, I just can't be bothered with all the kindergarten innuendo that's gone on for *25 FUCKING YEARS*. Yeah, one more email or transcript release and we'll find the smoking gun, right? Bullshit on that. Get a life.

    Same for the NY Times - it now makes the National Enquirer look respectable. Maybe they should make Modo Editor-in-Chief just to make it official.

    Update: forgot to address "superpredators" - yeah, it's really horrible to call scumbag crack gangs that are murdering people and holding old people hostage in their public housing "predators" - my heart does break. Glad we could address one important issue this election cycle. Bring on all those old emails & dancing horses - a lot of air to clear.

     

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 12:08pm

    This is all pretty ridiculous.  I have been to dozens of these types of events.  The speakers are entertainment.  All of the conspiracies to control the world happen behind closed doors.  This is just what you do before the free booze and snacks so that the next day you can go to your clients and tell them how connected you and your bank are because you got to see Hillary talk.


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 12:27pm

    The problem is that if you're making money as an entertainer on the lecture circuit you don't spend your time on stage telling the audience that they're all evil assholes whose business model is fraud and that they should be strung up on the nearest lamp post. You tell them how happy you are to be here and how they're all a bunch of nice fellows. These speeches are all a bunch of meaningless blah blah blah but both Sanders and the republicans will spin it into a big political crisis.

    Don't release the transcripts.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 1:20pm

    Meanwhile, I know people on Wall Street who are saying anyone in the biz who votes for her is voting against their livelihood...


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 1:54pm

    She outta play up those remarks if she could get attribution permission... Why dont you broker it and , who knows, you could be the next white house press guy


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 2:04pm

    I would be the WORST White House press guy.


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 2:06pm

    Andrea Bernstein puts an interesting spin on it: its a stall only to get past the primary, and the transcripts will be released once the general is on.

     

    At least as a tactic with a limited time horizon there is some coherence


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 2:01pm

    I was out with a friend tonight who'd been dragged to 4 days of UBS boondoggle in Monaco, all this Formula 1 and Princess Caroline  and mansions, gigs in tens to hundreds of millions. Yes, Hillary's the entertainment, and for people paying in the thousands per night on hotels or what Wayne Newton makes in a night or Donald Trump in a season... What was Sony paying Kesha?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 2:20pm

    I think you are right that the speeches are just entertainment and pep talks but the lucre handed to the star performer are payoffs for past and future access and the power that buys.

    The paymasters certainly put their photos with the star on their trophy walls to show their friends who they have in the bag and who answers their calls promptly.

    HRC even has the aura of someone who has been captured, stuffed with money and gazes out through empty taxidermy eyes.


    by Peter (not verified) on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 2:54pm

    Right, everyone who does a selfie with Hillary has a backroom deal for $1 million coming. I mean, it's the same with Aerosmith and Jennifer Lawrence and Anderson Cooper and Cam Newton and Michael Bloomberg, because no one's ever had a photo of themselves with a star without it meaning big bucks and strings attached.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 3:12pm

    What's imagined here is not likely true.  The value in paying HRC to speak to your managing directors is not that you have her in your back pocket for a favor later.  It's so your MDs can go out to clients and tell them, "When I tell you it's a good idea to invest in a pipeline in Afghanistan, I want you to know that I heard from the former Secretary of State that conditions there are not as bad as you might believe..."


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 3:38pm

    Maybe it's not the inconvenient truths (" chill, my plutocratic pals,I got your back") but the convenient lies she told.

     

    The gratuitously mendacious eulogy that has exploded in HRC's pasty face makes me wonder if the real problem presented by the sequestered transcripts is the plenitude of whoppers.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 1:18pm

    The gratuitously mendacious eulogy that has exploded in HRC's pasty face makes me wonder if the real problem presented by the sequestered transcripts is the plenitude of whoppers.

    Ever thought of writing scripts for the Coen Brothers?  I can see John Goodman standing, hand on chest, delivering that line in a perfect southern drawl.  Lol.


    by Ramona on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 8:09am

    From your mouth to Joel's ears!


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 9:23am

    The Bern abides...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 9:26am

    Mika B. says explicitly that she knows reporter who has hard copies of the actual transcripts.

    To be fair (ed. note: "you??") This is a while ago, and still we don't have them, but its provocative.

     


    by jollyroger on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 8:07pm

    A transcript of one of Hillary's speeches has just been released. It''s pretty much exactly what you and Hal expected.

    I invoke you, ye holy one! Regal and majestic! Glorious splendour! Mighty arch-daimon! Denizen of chaos and Erebus, and of the unfathomable abyss! Haunter of sky-depths! Murk enwrapped, scanning mystery, and guardian of cults! Flame-fanning terror darter! Heart-crushing despot! Satanachia of daimons! Invincible Lucifer!

    domine deus meus in te speravi conlitebor tibi domine in toto corde meo quem ad modum desiderat cervus ad fantes aquarum. Ouver! Chameron! Aliseon! Mandousin! Premy! Oriet! Mayorus! Esmony! Estiot! Dumosson! Danochar! Casmiel! Sadirno! Eparinesant! domine meus Lucifer!

    I conjure thee spirit to come and show thyself in fair and comely shape without guile or deformity by the name of Casmiel! By the name of beloved Lucifer! By the dread day of final judgement! By the omen! By the changing sea of glass! By those beasts having eyes before and behind, and having one hundred hands!

     Je renonce ? tous les biens tant spirituels que corporels qui me pourraient estre conferez de la part de Dieu! De la vierge Marie! Et de tous les, oui, les saincts du Paradis! Pareillement de mon patron saint Jean Baptiste! Saint Paul! Saint Pierre! Et Saint Fran?ois! Et de me donner de corps aaaaaaaaaaaa Lucifer!

    Astrachios asach abedumar silet scigin lord of all, Lucifer, whose glance searchest the abyss, grant me the power to conceive in my mind, and the power to execute that all which I desire to do! Oh Lucifer! I give unto thee my soul! My inward parts! My desires! And my entire being! Sweet lord Lucifer!

    I am the daughter of fortitude and ravished every hour from my youth. The heavens address me! They covet and desire me with furious appetite! I am shadowed with the hot circle of stone, and encovered with the crimson warning clouds! I am deflowered and yet a virgin! Behold! I will bring forth children unto you, oh my husband, Lucifer!

     

    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 11:17pm

    Looks to me like a hoax..nothing about the walrus or Paul being dead.

    by jollyroger on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 11:32pm

    Also, where is " resistance is futile "?


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 12:02am

    They edited out the Secret Order of Maltesian Knights and Rothschchildz, though I have it on the q.t. she left of the Temple of Isis on purpose - tough love for Wall Street, tough titty for the rest. Hail Eris.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 1:21am

    Curiously, in conversation with Rachel she sounded like a normal human being, without the strident, hectoring tone

     

    I think she might be compensating for intense stage fright!

     

    A beta blocker (ed note: always with the drugs...) might be just the ticket.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 9:32am

    Actually, this transcript is exactly the opposite of what I expected as my earlier post on this blog shows:

    In a sense, therefore, the focus on the content of the speeches by Sanders supporters could be misguided.  At some point, Clinton may turn over a few dozen pages of dull as dishwater transcripts.  She can then say I told you so.  The real problem is that people look at how much GS (and other corporate malefactors) paid her ostensibly for doing so little and wonder what else did she or is she going to do to earn that money.

    How could I have been more wrong?  It turns out Clinton's speech to GS was actually an ode to Satan.  Wow.  When people screw up this badly, they should probably think three times before posting - especially when they attack folks with a good track record, right Kat?


    by HSG on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 12:06pm

    When you are thinking three times be sure to spin widdershins and call for guidance upon  the powers of darkness....our plans ripen...wait, what?


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 1:10pm

    Warrern' s reticence itself makes news.    Variously reported as "refuses to call for release"  or "fails to give cover,"  predisposition of reporter depending

     

    http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/03/17/question-elizabeth-warren...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/20/2016 - 2:03pm

    Headline: "News Orgs Make Sound Bite Out of Warren Refusing to Give Sound Bite"

    Someone's happy with this piss-warm outcome, but I'm not sure who.

    Here's a hint for y'all - Warren probably knows better than anyone that a) dealing with Wall Street isn't boiled down to 1 or 2 speeches, and b) the only relevant issue is specific policies and how they're enforced (or not).

    Bernie's bet his wad on Glass-Steagall, Hillary's pushing a more diverse portfolio - at this point aside from a certain ex-stripper and a couple outraged probably-usual-suspect-columnists, the issue's gone rather cold. (not "issue du jour" as your columnist hopefully plies).

    I know it's a valiant plea, as in "please help my dying campaign by giving me fresh grist for the media/campaign mill", but in the real world, grown politicians don't try to commit Hara-Kiri, and understand requests for "transparency" as none-too-veiled searches for cannon fodder/"please insert this blade into your gut and turn slowly" requests.

    Considering the "predator" bit pulled out of context from 20 years ago to make a few headlines, Hillary's got every good reason to just ride it out. If Bernie wants to publish letters he wrote to Fidel and Daniel Ortega, bully for him, but I'd think he's an idiot if he did. And yes, I thought his column about gender differences et al pulled out from ages ago was misused and misinterpreted and wasn't helpful at all.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/20/2016 - 2:31pm

    Here's the relevant part of the interview 

     

    https://grabien.com/file.php?id=83291&searchorder=date


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/20/2016 - 2:12pm

    "Mrs. Clinton refused to release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street, and made the threadbare excuse that she’ll do it when “ M rs. Clinton is highly vulnerable on those paid speeches. Release the transcripts." NYT


    by jollyroger on Sat, 04/16/2016 - 2:11am

    The debate appearance of the transcripts has reverberated on outlets as diverse as pbs newshour, o' reilly. et al.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 04/16/2016 - 2:14am

    Hillary is universally being adjudged her own worst enemy on this point.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 04/16/2016 - 6:24pm

    Shaun King has been brooding "Clinton's refusal to release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Her indignant and irrational excuses made no sense — particularly in light of the reports stating that the transcripts would ruin her campaign and made her sound like an executive at the company." from today's farewell to the Dem. party.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 05/20/2016 - 11:42pm

    Wow, he's lost #BLM and the Bernie black stand-with-Cornel stint & the Dem party? Where's his next 15 secs fame gonna come from? #ShaunSoSad


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/21/2016 - 2:05am

    I am beset, here in the autumn of the Bernie-sads, with an urge towards charity for Hillary.  

     

    Having elsewhere conceded that she may have understandable urgings towards the guardedness and orwellian  word usage that makes us grind our teeth, and surveying the present lay of the land, one could posit the following scenario which would weaponize the continued secrecy of the transcripts:

    HRC-you see my transcripts, we see your tax returns 

    AND, since we all know you to be a deadbeat and a welsher, the information is lodged in escrow with a third party before any release.

     

    It will convey his lack of trustworthiness and her use of leverage simultaneously.

     

    This manuever, of course, is available only because she stonewalled.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 09/08/2016 - 11:37pm

    Well, Guccifer seems to have obviated the trade value of the transcripts, we've move way beyond Trump's tax return problems, and it's become painfully obvious why the transcripts would have posed a primary contest problem.

     

    Perhaps we should now turn our attention to the perplexing question:

     

    Who still thinks they can keep email archived yet confidential?

     

    Snapchat, idiots, and delete the web residing archive of your old stuff.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 4:46pm

    The Times has it right: She should'a pre-empted

    ​

     

     

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/opinion/a-wikileaks-lesson-for-mrs-cli...


    by jollyroger on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 4:52pm

    Very good, JR, thank you for highlighting why the New York Times among other press outlets are a bunch of disingenuous fucktards and why Hillary was right to withhold her transcripts and other mails.

    NY Times version: "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future." Please note the inserted period in that sentence.

    Actual line from Podesta's email:

    *Hillary Clinton Said Her Dream Is A Hemispheric Common Market, With Open Trade And Open Markets. *“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” [05162013 Remarks to Banco Itau.doc, p. 28]

    And the thing is, Hillary announced this in the debate, and still The Old Grey Lady pretended Alzheimers and still fucked it up. One can only surmise on purpose.

    These people are assholes, JR - they don't give a shit about the truth - they don't even want to pursue a good story. They just want to keep digging into petty grudges like fucking 11-year-old junior high school students except they're in their forties and fifties and sixties and they're still absolute pathetic morons.

    Overall, the Wikileaks posts weren't that bad, but they're going to keep twisting it like the CIA quid-pro-quo that wasn't actually a quid-pro-quo, it was rejected.

    Fuck them all. Hillary was right, she smelled douchery from the get-go, and played it like a pro. Kudos, lady.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 5:14pm

    Pericles, can I post this EVERYWHERE?  (Giving you credit, of course). It is, as usual, brilliant and succinct. 


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 7:20pm

    Pericles, can I post this EVERYWHERE?  (Giving you credit, of course). It is, as usual, brilliant and succinct. 


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 7:20pm

    Thanks, you can post it with or without attribution. (pseudonym, of course  - not real name)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 7:45pm

    Thanks,  Will Do, but with PP attribution only!


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 8:40pm

    it's only a pro play when you don't get burned by leaving second hand transcripts around to be hacked, con respetto.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 7:24pm

    You mean the assumption that it's okay for Hillary's mails to be illegally hacked and publicized and misquoted but no one else's? More douchery. Really "unprofessional" for her to discuss campaign matters with her close inner team, eh? So the NY Times published Daniel Ellsberg's doctor record cause hey, it's all news no matter how we got it, eh?w will we get anything done with live mic on and everyone petrified to go on record with anything not totally sacharin?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 7:55pm

    No, it is unprofessional to stonewall a set of files that cannot in the remotest stretch of imagination be considered any longer confidential.

     

    If a repository of the subject data is to be hacked, the data should be preemtively released at the best possible time (in this case, just after the convention...)

     

    All of your bluster is inapposite to the outcome as it in fact occurred.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 8:23pm

    And if she had done these things it would have been PROOF that she was wrong all along..  You know that it is true.  No one else has had to publish their speeches.  It would have been a new, and ridiculous standard (and since Trump never cared about standards, it would only have applied to Democrats).


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 8:38pm

    Eh,, she coulda' faked a reason after the convention.  I'm jus' sayin that , eg, the elision committed by the Times and justly condemned by  PP could not have happened if she controlled the tex from jump by being the releasing party.

     

    The value of stonewalling, it seems to me, is MANIFESTLY undermined by the random deposit of archival IED's, which, being cognizant of, one ought well to call the close ones in favor of preemptive release so it doesn't drip out every fuckin' day till the election, ya feel me?


    by jollyroger on Sun, 10/23/2016 - 1:25am

    I was attempting to direct your attention to the meta issue;  sorry for my failure.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 10/22/2016 - 8:24pm

    Way too much meta, decades of it. I'm with Hillary Antoinette - "Let them eat shit".

    BTW, McClatchy has an article up bemoaning what a wasted leaky opportunity it's been, and horrible Hillary pivoted onto how the mails got leaked - find it in the RealClearPolitics daily rundown. Sad their October Surprise party fizzled just like the Dodgers and Trump himself. "Four whores and 7 queens ago..." he lamented at Gettysburg... "our country club put forth the proposition that all bitchez are created equal down there, if you know what I mean, also lots of blood..."

    II it makes you feel any better, Bernie'd be beating Trump by bigger numbers if he were the nominee - maybe 103 to -7 or something...


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 10/23/2016 - 2:25am

    Is there a final irony when it  seems  that the campaign's review of the transcripts to formulate defensive strategies occasioned their transmission via Podesta's  subsequently compromised email account?

     

    A guilty conscience (well founded, btw...) caused HRC to obscure the transcripts, in the first place, and a guilty conscience prompted the actions that created their vulnerability.

     

    Too bad it was not in time to change the nomination.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 2:58pm

    Yes, there are several ironies.

    That Hillary's advisor actually saved the thieves trouble of reading the transcripts, instead summarizing the likely most controversial.

    That we can use stolen material to judge the ethics of the person stolen from without worrying about the ethics of who did the stealing.

    That a candidate who only released a single year of tax records with little time in the national/international spotlight is considered by some to be more transparent and honest than someone who spent 25 years being interrogated by the media, legal system, releasing tax records, filing public audited statement of her foundation, grilling by Congress, and even having private materials stolen and made public to reveal a private thought process largely the same as the public one.

    That a candidate who was regularly predicted to be ripe for defeat based on unscientific national polling has managed to open a wide gap over her opponent in more timely relevant polls, yet the nostalgic fans of her well-beaten opponent still yearn for the untested theoretical version.

    That transcripts which were immediately deliberately misquoted by the nation's most admired newspapers prove the mendacity of the candidate but not the newspapers or their journalists/opinion writers.

    That said candidate *KNOWING* the media, political opponents and other usual suspects would deliberately twist and misuse and rip out of context or just baldly distort any bad sounding tidbit of data would instead of being recognized as correct in that accurate paranoia, instead would be seen as "a guilty conscience" rather than shrewd, experience-laden logic that urged her to keep her private affairs, ehm, private.

    That a candidate who is largely winning the electoral race easier than any Democratic nominee in decades has her party members shitting themselves and pining for her earlier trounced opponent as somehow possibly faring better, all over some leaked email discussions that didn't even manage to gain significant press notice or public interest.

    Ironies, JR - to invoke Whitman, you are large, you contain multitudes.

    Oh yes, the biggest irony - you somehow practiced law somewhere, yet you still think the candidate's job is to do her opponent's work for her - presumably you would never make it easier for an opposing attorney to beat your client, yet you approach politics in a completely naïve, arbitrary and idealistic fashion assigning the players with roughly the depth and complexity of characters in "Avatar".

    PS to add - there is no "guilty conscience" that "created" her campaign's emails "vulnerability" - they were simply hacked by muckrakers. Perhaps you are more a believer in "Intelligent Design", deus ex machina and divine intervention. Recognize this?

    "Do, do, and do again! THe greatest mistake is to think that something can be done. People never stop thinking of what they are going to do, and always ask what they should do. In reality no one ever does anything and no one can do anything, please get this once and for all into your head! ... While man remains a machine, things only happen to him. Everything that goes on in and around him, happens. All that he supposedly does, happens. Even when he thinks that has originated something, it simply happened while he wasn't looking."


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 4:43pm

    Where to begin to mine so rich a vein of wounded advocacy.

     

    For the first, as you implicate the adversary system  to give lie to my purported apologia for volunteering information, I  perhaps failed in our earlier exchanges on the topic  to bring you to the understanding that I thought the material impossible to protect ad infinitum, this militating for preemptive, (albeit not "voluntary") dissemination.

     

    The same echoed in various quarters, cites furnished (above) at the time.

     

    You demurred as I recall; correct me if in error.

     

    I put it to you, sir, in the event as it unfolded, would it not have been better to control the timing and framing of the disclosure, rather than be subject to the current drip-drip-drip?


    by jollyroger on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 5:15pm

    What, you quote Carl Fucking Bernstein?

    No, she wouldn't have controlled the timing and the framing, you idjit - the New York TImes and WaPo of record would have ripped it out of its womb/vagina like one of Trump's abortions and made sure it was spinning upside down and all bloodied up, dragging it out for weeks. That's what they do every fucking time, and those are the supposedly *liberal* papers of record. Remember summer 2015 when the NY Times had to *rescind* an article? about Hillary? highly speculative, like Comey's, and all wrong, how the FBI was carrying out a criminal investigation, etc. And more exaggerating re: the Clinton Foundation, dragged out over months, including the untrue "quid pro quo" bandied about?

    As noted, the Times recently put a period in the Wikileaks "quote" so as not to reveal "open borders" was followed by "energy", giving Trump seeming confirmation on his spin/slander. Cocksuckers - special place in hell and all that. I assume the big focus on Goldman Sachs is they want to ratfuck her, and they will find anything in the transcripts to do it with, even the words "and", "or" and "the". Really, why are you still fighting the obvious?

    Below are the numerous organizations that HIllary spoke to over the years, many for free. What, no one interested in *those* transcripts? well certainly not to praise her for her diversity, her comfort with policy and engaging audiences, the fact that many of these groups found her "likeable" enough....

    National Multi Housing Council

    Fidelity

    Atlantic Council

    Little Rock Airport

    Pacific Council On International Policy

    Women Deliver

    Spirit Of Helen Keller Gala

    Economic Club of Grand Rapids

    KKR

    CFDA Fashion Awards

    Clinton Global Initiative

    CURE Epilepsy

    Society for Human Resource Management

    Unique Lives & Experience

    American Jewish University

    Clinton Presidential Center

    Central Arkansas Library System

    Bryn Mawr University

    Delta Sigma Theta

    The Global Business Travel Association

    National Association of Chain Drug Stores

    American Bar Association

    ASCP 2013 Annual Meeting

    Carlyle Group

    National Constitution Center

    St. Andrews University

    Chicago House Speaker Series

    American Society for Clinical Pathology

    ASTA Convention

    HRClinton for McAuliffe

    Children's Defense Fund

    Hamilton College

    Chatham House

    HRClinton for McAuliffe

    National Association Of Convenience Stores

    HRClinton for McAuliffe for

    VA Center For American Progress

    University of Buffalo

    Goldman Sachs

    Colgate University

    Beth El Synagogue

    Goldman Sachs

    Haim Saban

    Oceana’s Partners Award Gala

    Pennsylvania Conference Of Women

    Learning 2013

    International Medical Corps

    Producers Guild of America

    Clinton Foundation Millennial Network

    National Realtors Association

    Mexican American Leadership Initiative at USC

    Malaria No More

    The East Harlem School 2013 Fall Benefit

    National Defense University Foundation

    U.S. Green Building Council

    Advancing Afghan Women

    Press Ganey National Client Conference

    World Jewish Congress

    Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Gold Medal

    Gala Kennedy Center

    Brookings Institution

    Women for Women International

    Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDs Foundation

    Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice

    VA Govenor Inaugration Presides over New Castle inauguration

    National Automobile Dealers Association Convention & Expo

    HiMss2014

    University of Miami

    Long Beach Boys & Girls Club

    Corporate Luncheon

    Vancouver Board of Trade

    UCLA Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership

    Telus Convention Centre

    Montreal Board Of Trade

    American Jewish Congress

    Association of American Publishers

    Globalization of Higher Education Conference

    Women in the World Summit

    World Affairs Council

    The Marketing Nation Summit

    Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries

    Unique Lives & Experiences

    Western Health Care Leadership Academy

    Clinton Foundation - No Ceilings Conversation

    Simmons' Leadership Conference (Simmons College)

    Edmund Fusco Contemporary Issues Forum - UConn Foundation

    United Methodist Women Assembly

    Annual Convocation of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois

    the American Jewish Committee Global Forum

    1stBank Center

    ========================

    GE, National Automobile Dealers Association, Premier Health Alliance, Salesforce.com, Novo Nordisk A/S, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, A&E Television Networks, Association of Corporate Counsel - Southern California, The Vancouver Board of Trade, tinePublic Inc. (events), Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies, Xerox Corporation, Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, Academic Partnerships, Marketo Inc., World Affairs Council, Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc., Let’s Talk Entertainment, California Medical Association, National Council for Behavioral Healthcare, International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association, Let’s Talk Entertainment, United Fresh Produce Association, tinePublic Inc., tinePublic Inc., Innovation Arts and Entertainment, Biotechnology Industry Organization, Innovation Arts and Entertainment, GTCR, Knewton, Inc., Ameriprise, Corning, Inc., Nexenta Systems, Inc. , Cisco, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Commercial Real Estate Women Network, Canada 2020, Deutsche Bank AG, Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, Salesforce.com, Qualcomm Incorporated, Massachusetts Conference for Women, tinePublic Inc., tinePublic Inc., Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Watermark Silicon Valley for Women, eBay Inc., American Camping Association

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 6:25pm

    Let's define "framing" and "timing", shall we?

    Framing-pick one: "You can't see my transcripts--you are merely haters" (frame:shame)

                                     "Knock yourself out" (frame:no shame)

     

    Timing:  pick one a. just after the convention, all at once, in a dump, with months to go before the election

                                  b. when the impact is greatest,and in small daily doses (granted the transcripts seem to have come out all in one tranche, but who knows for sure?

     

    Pick either and explain why the options were not within HRC's control regardless of how your hypothetical hostile media would proceed from there.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


    by jollyroger on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 8:14pm

    Maybe you explained it but I don't understand what the line of "HRC control" means in this context.
    Are you saying now or back then?


    by moat on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 9:31pm

    She had the power to choose either to release or stonewall the transcripts, and by choosing the latter she permitted  (encouraged?) observers to draw the inference that she conceived of the material as more likely than not to give her public relations problems.  (As I said, I kinda agree, but one can get hella milage by just refusing to manifest caution--see, eg, Trump)

     

    As to the timing, thematter is even more stark--once the proposition is internalized that the matters CANNOT be kept secret, it then falls to her to decide how and when to release.  Like I said, I think the current schedule is (not by happenstance....) calculated to produce the maximum electoral damage--I argue, with room for amendments, that the best time would have been the soonest possible after the primary, during which they would have been potentially fatal.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 11:55pm

    But Sanders and his voters were playing hard to get up to the convention, so could have provoked a mutiny. So again, you're just second guessing. Trump won't release his tax returns with few repercussions, and that's normal election release (nor did Bernie release more than one) - why don't they have to work with the assumption their smartphone will be hacked? another double standard.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/02/2016 - 1:16am

    Framing: Hillary should know her colleague's emails would he hacked, any and all colleagues, so every negative in those emails (or any and all emails - truth just wants to be free, yay!, should have been divulged earlier.

    Framing 2: despite countless examples otherwise, Hillary should presume all info released will be dealt with responsibly by the politico-media sphere, or somehow different if Hillary divulges than not.

    Framing 3: Hillary should have known Wikileaks would drip out revelations rather than its usual traditional data dump, so should have retroactively released every matter that had somehow been discussed in email by any colleague past, present or future.

    Timing: the FBI usually pauses news releases during an election, but Hillary should know the Director would choose 11 days before election to reveal non-critical innuendo on a colleague's husband's computer, and not say after election when Congress is actually in session or when said Director has had time to read a few emails to see if any new info, circumstance or otherwise relevant distinguishing characteristic.

    Timing 2: JR's candidate lost 6 months ago and he still has a saddy.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/01/2016 - 11:51pm

    It is fair to argue against preemptive exposure of every email from every account, because, "hacking" (although the Sony hack was cautionary on the entire email issue.)

     

    One might have established a delete at end of day protocol with some profit, but who among us practices good internet hygeine

     

    That said, the transcripts, (which are a special form of improvised electoral device) were early a focus of intense interest, and one might be forgiven for having spilkes at the proliferation of potential smartphone files just waiting for the twitter..

     

    Granted the leaky vessel turned out to be vulernability to a rather unsophistiated "phish", the underlying principle that a strategy which turns for its success upon maintaining precarious confidentiality is fundamentally flawed, and it's better to find some kind of acceptable public relations workaround.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 11/02/2016 - 12:03am

    They did. Waiting. Transcripts with Goldman Sachs are less a problem now than in a heated campaign with Bernie. Short of posting all private emails pre-emptively to Facebook, I don't see any actual practical suggestion, just second guessing.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/02/2016 - 12:30am

    For  perhaps the third time, I agree that the strategy of waiting out the primary campaign proved both prudent and (more importantly) doable.

     

    I have urged day one post convention as the best time to release, assuming (as it in fact ensued) the impossibility of total concealment.

     

    BTW, vis a vis Trump's returns, he sure did get "hacked' , or perhaps "Ex-ed" (as in wife...)


    by jollyroger on Wed, 11/02/2016 - 1:55am

    Considering it was a 30 or so year old release, probably "ex-ed". Potentially they whoever might have revealed all of his tax returns, so should Donaled have pre-emptively released all? Guess he still dodged the bullet by not.

    Should Hillary have pre-emptively released transcripts to all other banks or other establishment-focused or somehow-tainted-to-the-left organizations? (because certainly 3 transcripts wouldn't be the end of it when there are more to speculate and salivate over) Will this be a demand as well for Democratic candidates in 2024, or will it be like the 2000 Supreme Court decision, a "use once, not to be taken as precedent" requirement?


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/02/2016 - 2:31am

    I missed this when you posted--how poignant it all is now.

     

    The fact is, nothing IN the transcripts counted one tenth as the fact that the speeches occurred.

     

    The casual assumption that "public service" at a salary of low six figures will naturally be assumed to be parlayed into millions at the end of said service (or worse, simultaneously) is at the heart of the "corrupt whoever" argument, and unless you are Bernie,( who really has so few assets that Trump made fun of him for it) you are manifestly profiting from inside info, conflicts of interest, slush funs, honoraria, blah blah blah, and it is normal and it should not be.

     

    In the end, the transcripts and the tax returns mattered less than a passive aggressive husband who couldn't resist fucking up the critical email investigation by producing a situation where the friendly AG had to recuse, and aggravated by bad campaign tactical resource allocation.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 11/18/2016 - 7:10pm

    Oh, transcripts didnt matter. WHY THE FUCK DIDNT YOU SAY SO AT THE TIME. yes, your whining hurt her, one of a million echoes, a million drops of whine taken together like the steady erosion of a canyon. Hope you're happy with the results.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/19/2016 - 5:36am

    Alas, I have, (ed note:not the first time) failed to bring you to an understanding of my point.

     

    The content of the speeches was radioactive, and their epistamological impact was catastrophic.

     

    I endorsed, somewhat belatedly, her appropriately shameful response to the pressure during the primary, given that 

     

    a. she succeeded in maintaining the cloak of shame intact

    b. they exposed, in fact, disgusting and disqualifying sentiments

     

    Her handling of the matter, however, was ultimately shown to be inept.  I would have released immediately after the convention.

     

    That said, whe would have suvived if either 

     

    a. Bill Clinton had kept his stupid ass in his own stupid plane, meaning James Comey would have reported to Loretta Lynch only, and not the people at large.

    b. The campaign hadn't played cute with Penn-Wis-Mich focused  resources.

     

    As you may know, after the convention I supported HRC, albeit with trepidation

     

     

    I GOTTA BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS...

     

    In conclusion,

     

    Bernie would'a won.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 3:39pm

    Wow, trepidation. They would have beat him like a drum.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 5:14pm

    Face facts. All the polls that said Hillary would win and were wrong were right when they said Sanders would win. It's just not possible they were wrong both times.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 5:47pm

    I just found this back-and-forth.  I agree with Peracles that Bernie would have been hopeless in the general.  I know plenty of Democrats who aren't crazy about having a socialist who could never get one single thing past Congress (he only had two Senators endorse him).  Trump would have scared more than half of the voting population to death about this America-hating guy:  Just watch what he said in Communist Cuba --> video roll...

    But even though she shouldn't have had to produce her transcripts on principle, I believe it would have been a smart post-primary move to put out the transcripts of EVERY TALK SHE EVER GAVE, including the ones to the American Camping Association, and others, and to include what she was paid, including when she wasn't paid.  Wolf Blitzer would have been in a dither about the 2,000 transcripts, which all had to be read and scrutinized.  

    Then she should have re-released those 30 years of taxes because a mistake was found on one of them, and dared the networks to find the error.

    I wish she had a hacker like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to hack into Trump's conversations with Russia as well as his taxes, plus family communications...That would be rich!!!!

    Oh, well.  At this point everything is moot 


    by CVille Dem on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 6:14pm

    The majority of voters cast votes for Hillary. Those who voted for Trump knew that they were voting for a racist, a con man, and a misogynist. That reality concerns me more than a hypothetical about Bernie winning the election. Steve Bannon, Beauregard Sessions, and General Flynn are the clear and present dangers with more to come.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:19pm

    Agree completely. Although Hillary of course won more votes than Trump by 2.4 million or so when all are counted. Her vote count will exceed the total for any white male presidential candidate in history. A Jewish 'communist' who promises to raise taxes wouldn't have a chance against any GOP candidate.


    by NCD on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:53pm

    I agree, but many Bernie supporters do not accept a loss as fact. We don't have time to argue with them. We have an incoming First Lady who posed nude. We have a racist President, senior advisor, and Attorney General. My family is at risk. I can't waste time on Bernie. Bernie lost. A significant number of Americans want to see harm done to ethnic minorities. Bernie is a distraction I can't afford.

    Trump would have clobbered Bernie. Face the current threat.

    BTW

    Trump is tweeting about Saturday Night Live and the Broadway play Hamilton. Be very afraid.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 10:37pm