I have no idea whether Petraeus should be indicted, but this is a good indicator:
Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, and the Republican senator John McCain told CNN Petraeus should not be indicted. Speaking to the same channel, Holder refused to comment on the case other than to say: “Frequently these things are linked to the media by people not in a position to know.”
I don’t know about you, but whenever DiFi and Walnuts agree on something, I take a damn good look at the other side of the story.
Lee Rudolph
But, but…
Shalimar
If your standard is all the other people that the Obama administration has prosecuted for this, then hell yes, he should be indicted. He pretty clearly broke the law.
If your standard is whether he or most/all of those other people leaked anything that actually mattered, then hell no, he shouldn’t be indicted. The law itself is written so broadly (given that the government classifies everything whether necessary or not) that it is basically a tool for whatever pointless witch hunt Justice feels like embarking on.
dedc79
@Lee Rudolph: Oh, right, I forgot about the “suffered enough” legal standard that applies selectively to government officials who commit crimes, but nobody else.
Nicole
From the Times article:
Barf.
Amir Khalid
If the Feds reckon they have Petraeus dead to rights, let them file charges. If Petraeus is not interested in a plea bargain, let hm have his day in court. Feinstein and McCain may be among Petraeus’ allies in Congress, but politicians trying to affect a prosecutorial decision is surely improper.
dp
Biggest tell ever.
I agree with Shalimar on the merits.
Peale
@Nicole: poor guy. Were it not for the indictment, he could be at Texas Pacific Group or Carlyle. But alas, he’s stuck at KKR.
Shalimar
I have a feeling that Feinstein and McCain’s position is that Petraeus is a very special and unique snowflake who shouldn’t be indicted even though all the other indictments of little people were perfectly justified. Which is just about the only position you could take that isn’t justifiable.
Villago Delenda Est
@dedc79: Certainly doesn’t apply to the family of Michael Brown, but by all means it applies to Darren Wilson.
DiFi can go find a fire to die in. Double that for Grandpa Walnuts.
The consequences for fuckups should be more severe, not less, for those at the top.
Howard Beale IV
Why wasn’t he brought up on charges under the UCMJ when the original incident happened?
Fuck. If this asshole walks….
mb
I find it amazing how quickly and acutely the “pain” of prominent people is felt when the misery of masses is so easily ignored. Surely the question of the day, maybe of every day, should be “has Petraeus suffered enough?” Shit, I cannot seem to locate my tiny violin.
WereBear
@Shalimar: Indeed. When it’s someone like them, they so easily understand how these things happen about national security and lives in the balance and all that. Whoopsie!
But if someone poor is riding their bike on the sidewalk, the law is the law.
smintheus
@Shalimar: Agreed. They didn’t just buy into the hagiography of Petraeus, they created it.
In better news, somebody in DC has noticed that voters don’t like dynasties and especially don’t want to see Bush and Clinton nominated. They also noticed that people across the board like and respect Warren.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shalimar: Well, it’s sort of like the infamous Artcile 134 of the UCMJ, the “General article” that can be tacked on to a charge sheet to toss a ham sandwich into the stockade.
Roger Moore
@Nicole:
It’s hard to listen to his wisdom when he can’t be properly informed because he can’t keep his lips or his pants zipped.
Cervantes
@Peale:
Yes, KKR was at the top of the heap, at one time.
smintheus
@Roger Moore: McCain couldn’t keep his pants zipped either while he was in uniform. And since he came from the military aristocracy, McCain knows it confers immunity to petty concerns about ‘rules’ and stuff.
Cervantes
These people can’t be trusted even when they’re disagreeing.
dedc79
@Amir Khalid: And note, neither Feinstein or Mccain are lawyers, nor do they claim to be offering a legal opinion on whether an indictment is justified. They are just blatantly seeking special treatment for their good friend.
Botsplainer
Actually, these high profile cases reveal something distressing about our two tier Justice system. At the top end, discretion and mercy are in superabundance; those lives are generally not ruined by “no harm to others” crimes (which is how I view Petraeus’ offense).
The class differences are striking.
Peale
@smintheus: I wonder if that is part of his concern. Mistresses are not wives, you see. If we started prosecuting every time someone inadvertently shared a secret with a spouse, that might be petty, but limited. They probably seldom talk with spouses anyway. But with mistresses, we’d bring down most of the senate.
Mike in NC
Petraeus needs to spend some quality time inside Fort Leavenworth, maybe 3 to 5 years at a minimum.
In her syndicated column today, wingnut WaPo pundit Kathleen Parker identifies the reason police around the country are shooting unarmed black men: it’s all because of Al Sharpton.
KG
@Shalimar: well DiFi is and always has been a member of the Establishment Party. And nobody circles the wagons like
the Buffalo Billsthe Establishment PartyMattF
‘Suffered enough’ from a couple of adoring Senators is enough to persuade me that he should be indicted. It’s really just disgusting.
Comrade Dread
The aristocracy takes care of its own.
If Petraeus weren’t part of their group, he’d be in jail already or hanging out with Snowden.
Howard Beale IV
@Comrade Dread:
Fixed it fer ya.
Frankensteinbeck
If he is indicted, expect the Villagers to flip their shit. Petraeus is their Great Hero who proved that Bush’s bitchin’ Iraq war was a total success and everybody deserves a medal.
BrianM
@dedc79:
Untrue. Also applies to responsible gun owners whose children have just killed themselves with a loose firearm.
Villago Delenda Est
@BrianM: Irresponsible gun handlers, on the other hand, should be shot down on sight.
But only if the have excess melanin, of course.
smintheus
@Botsplainer: Ancient Rome had a sort-of principle of equality under the law. But under the Empire disparity of treatment for the elites became so routine that it developed into a legal principle with different levels of punishment specified for the upper classes (honestiores) and for everyone else (humiliores).
feebog
I have seen speculation that because Broadwell also had a security clearance complicates the case. I can’t imagine that a reserve officer would have the same level of security clearance as the Director of the CIA, but who knows, it could be a factor.
Ruckus
@mb:
You’d need an electron microscope to find the violin the proper size for how much I care that a person a the top of the food chain is suffering from his own wrong doing.
MattF
@feebog: You have to have a clearance and a need-to-know.
Omnes Omnibus
@feebog: Just because one has a clearance doesn’t mean that one can access everything. Need to know comes into play as does the level of clearance.
pseudonymous in nc
@BrianM:
Also Responsible Gun Owners™ who have just killed their children while out responsibly hunting deer in the woods with an AR-15 and a .50 revolver.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: actual possession of guns optional, of course, in these cases. Fear / discomfort / unease experienced by any qualified person of delicate ‘mercan tinge nearby is enough cause for termination without consequences. So there again might be that tender care for the princess in the pea like extreme suffering of the chosen trickling down the immutable ladder of being to the hoi prole.
smintheus
@Peale: You’re probably right. Call it the Bucky Turgidson rule.
dedc79
@BrianM: Very true. I shouldn’t have framed it as an absolute. There are notable exceptions, like the one you mentioned.
Villago Delenda Est mentioned cops as another exception.
rikyrah
I already knew this, but some folks need it to be studied
……………….
White Americans who don’t finish high school have better job prospects than black Americans who go to college
The Great Recession might be over (in the US, at least) but it has left behind widened racial inequality in unemployment and wealth.
The unemployment rate for white Americans over 25 who had not finished high school was 9.7% in 2013. The unemployment rate for black Americans who went to college but didn’t graduate, meanwhile, was 10.5%. That’s an increase from 2007, before the recession:
This same trend can be seen among recent college graduates. Unemployment for black graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 was at 12.4% in 2013, compared to 5.6% for all college grads in that age range, according to a May report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (pdf). The number was even lower for white college graduates in the age range—4.9%, the study’s co-author told the New York Times.
That’s a gap of 7.5 percentage points. Compare that to 2007, before the recession, when the gap still existed but was much smaller—1.4 percentage points. Black Americans with college degrees then had a 4.6% unemployment rate, while white Americans with undergraduate degrees were at 3.2%, the Times notes.
……………….
Why are white Americans recovering from the recession so much better than black Americans?
The CEPR study points out that the recession made it difficult for all young people to get jobs, and racial prejudices have always skewed the labor market against black applicants in the US—employers are less likely to call back applicants with names that sound African American.
Additionally, black US graduates who do work are more likely to be overqualified than other Americans. Of the recent black college graduates (age 22-27) working in 2013, 55.9% did not require a four-year degree for their jobs, up from 45% in 2007. For all recent college grads, that number has hovered around 44% for the last decade, and was at 45% in 2013, according to the report.
http://qz.com/318356/white-americans-who-dont-finish-high-school-have-better-job-prospects-than-black-americans-who-went-to-college/
Ruckus
@feebog:
There are so many levels of clearance that it probably has no bearing. For fucks sakes, I had a top secret clearance when I was in the navy at 21. There wasn’t any reason not to give it to me, but still. And I still didn’t have access to any information or much equipment, it wasn’t that type of clearance.
Howard Beale IV
According to Stars and Stripes, the prosecutors have been locked and loaded, they’s just waiting for Holder to sign off.
Heliopause
Yes, of course, there is bipartisan agreement amongst people who are all in the same country club together.
Funny how “suffered enough” never seems to apply to those not in the country club.
Cervantes
@Howard Beale IV:
Article appears in Stars and Stripes but was reported by folks from the (Chicago) Tribune.
Ruckus
@Heliopause:
Funny how “suffered enough” never seems to apply to those not in the country club.
Oh it does. But it’s always prefaced by the word hasn’t. As in – Hasn’t suffered enough to keep them in their place.
Mike in NC
@Heliopause: McCain, Feinstein, and Petraeus are 1% club millionaires who must run into one another frequently on the Georgetown cocktail party circuit.
Pongo
I don’t think Feinstein or McCain give two shits about Petraeus or his alleged ‘suffering.’ They are probably far more worried about what might be revealed in an actual court proceeding against this guy that might not be particularly flattering for them.
When is Holder done again?
askew
Interesting focus group results on Hillary and Bush from Dem pollster.
Maybe the general public isn’t as excited about Hillary and Jeb as the media and their boosters have been saying they are.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Pongo: Holder is AG until Loretta Lynch (or someone else) is confirmed by the Senate.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cervantes
@rikyrah:
Another sign for those who will see, another bridge to cross.
@Mike in NC:
By (financial) net worth, Feinstein ($26M) and McCain ($10M) are in the top 1%. Petraeus ($2M) is not. McCain barely crosses the threshold — but on the other hand, his wife’s net worth is ten times his.
raven
Ewwwww, football.
max
@dedc79: Oh, right, I forgot about the “suffered enough” legal standard that applies selectively to government officials who commit crimes, but nobody else.
It also applies to rich bankers and whatnot. After all, nobody at the top wants the FBI/CIA/NSA turned on them – that’s for little people.
They decided to spike the thing awhile ago, but the investigation rolled on and the guys who worked on it want it, and the folks who back Petraeus want to know if the thing is coming down or not.
There’s their answer.
max
[‘Burnsie’s going to owe me a fiver.’]
Kay
@Botsplainer:
They are. The recklessness regarding the credibility of the system itself is striking too. It isn’t a given it remains credible. That wasn’t an eternal guarantee. They could piss it away and it’ll be hard to get it back. They should probably disabuse themselves of the notion they don’t have to earn credibility every day. They do.
Cervantes
@max:
Holder’s “quote,” as reproduced, is slightly (but obviously) incorrect. Here’s what he actually said:
Not that it’s any more helpful — or coherent.
Kay
Did they say why, or is this yet another instance of how he’s the smartest person in the world, the one essential human being, and we’ll all perish without him?
Is he too big to fail? Or are they all embarrassed they treated him like some kind of war-god, so it’s more about their giant egos and credibility?
I think I’ll get along okay without him.
Cervantes
@Kay:
Perhaps they’re trying to spare Holly’s feelings?
(No, I didn’t think so, either.)
J R in WV
McCain is a coarse blundering fool who treats his wife like a servant. Only worse, servants can just quit, Ms McCain seems trapped by politics, and perhaps a crappy pre-nup.
The man called her a c**t in front of reporters, for crying out loud!! What a creep. And he can’t keep his bombs attached to his jet, either!
How many planes did he crash as a military pilot? How many does it take to wash out the normal (not son and grandson of Admirals) pilot officer?
I rest my case, a special cupcake since he was an incompetent junior officer in the USN.
As for General P. his lack of manners and discretion is so boldly public as to embarrass anyone with a grain of grain of good sense. When that lack of common sense extends to violating one’s oath of office and the laws and regulations controlling state secrets, he has to suffer the punishment indicated by law, in order to protect national security.
National Security was, after all, what his job was all about for all those years, right?
Right !!!
Botsplainer
@Kay:
Thing is, the well-off, well-connected are getting the prosecutorial restraint that should be baked thoroughly into the entire system, but isn’t. Our current system is punitive, not reparative – we’re too eager to impose sanctions that crush careers, wreck family relationships and destroy marriages for “no harm” events on petty crimes on the first offense.
raven
@Kay:
Got along without him
before I met him
I can get along without him now. . .
Kay
I like Holly Petraeus, his wife. She tried to rein in the fraud at for-profit colleges. She failed, mostly, but she tried.
Let’s promote her and turn him over the proper authorities :)
max
@Cervantes: Not that it’s any more helpful — or coherent.
Yeah, I figured. [Translated Holder: “We finished the investigation and we were going to bury the thing, but somebody blabbed – which they can persecuted for!’]
So. They’re going to spike it.
Meanwhile, NYT Headline:
At this rate, some descendent of the Bush clan around 2100 might just crawl onto land and become amphibious.
max
[‘Truly, a wonder to behold.’]
raven
@Kay: Those fucking schools are a scourge.
Kay
@Cervantes:
I don’t think so either, but, boy, I hope not. They can wander into any court in this country and see a lot of very sad wives and girlfriends. It isn’t a “factor”. Doesn’t matter at all.
I’m not even clear he’s “suffered” at all:
Howard Beale IV
@max:
Hell, he wanted to spot me a Benjamin.
It ain’t over ’till its over, tho.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Not to dispute the basic point that there are big disparities, but those numbers are a bit hinkey. It would be better to compare black high school dropouts to white high school dropouts of the same age and college dropouts to college dropouts. To compare high school dropouts to high school dropouts potentially includes confounding factors like how long they had jobs before the Great Recession started. Similarly, it looks as if they’re comparing only young college graduates today while comparing all college graduates before the recession. I’m sure the basic picture remains the same- the actual disparity between young graduates today is unjustifiable in any case- but I get suspicious any time I see comparisons between unlike groups.
dedc79
@max: the banker’s bar for what constitutes “suffering” is also lower than most.
Howard Beale IV
emptywheel has done a write-up on the latest hypocrisy on l’affaire Petraeus, secrets and leaks.
Valdivia
made the mistake of checking on twitter to get a sense of how the march was going in Paris and instead of that I am now told it’s a huge disaster for the Obama administration that only Holder was there for the US govt. I guess he is not ‘representative’ enough for the tastes of most Villagers. Can you imagine if Obama had gone, he would have hijacked a french moment just by being there. How can people be so effing blind to this?
Gah. I know. I am exasperated about something stupid.
Botsplainer
And in David Brooks land…
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/david-brooks-to-liberals-stop-donating-to-charity-and-make-police-the-central-anti-poverty-program/
Gin & Tonic
@Botsplainer: He has descended into self-parody.
Shalimar
@J R in WV: I don’t see how Mrs. McCain could possibly be trapped by a lousy pre-nup since it was 35 years ago and she is the one whose daddy had a ton of money. John McCain was born into a justifiably famous military family. He is almost like American royalty, but the McCain family wasn’t wealthy before he married Cindy and she inherited her father’s wealth. Even admirals don’t get paid nearly as much as beer distributors do.
Cervantes
@Kay:
Would you say he’s smart enough to know how thoroughly he humiliated himself?
Compared to someone like David Vitter, say?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Man, it’s irritating to find oneself in front of a TV rooting for the Packers.
Botsplainer
@Gin & Tonic:
It was even stupider than usual. I can occasionally utter stupid shit, but I’m not paid multiples of 6 figures to do it.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
I agree with you, but there’s always risk of bias when you introduce discretion. No one likes rigid rules but there’s always this assumption that if we loosen it all up we’ll see parity. We won’t.
Rand Paul has a whole riff on this. He’s under the delusion that if we just give local judges “discretion” in sentencing every 19 year old will get the George W Bush deal. No, they won’t. There’s a lot of things that are “baked in” and not all of them are laws. At least bad laws can be applied equally. “Discretion” in pursuit of equity seems like a bit of a pipe dream.
Heliopause
@Kay:
Fat semi-retirement in his early 60s to fake consultancies and teaching posts. Much younger women fawning all over and having sex with him. The poor blighter.
Cervantes
@Heliopause:
The presidency was in his sights.
It is no longer.
Not that I feel sorry for him — but perhaps he does.
ultraviolet thunder
And media personalities with gold microphones and hearing implants.
Bastard.
Cervantes
@Shalimar:
I imagine the thought was that because of “a lousy pre-nup” that did not do enough to protect her assets, she might feel trapped.
(Not my view, necessarily; just what someone might think.)
ultraviolet thunder
@Botsplainer:
Well, I 8% agree with this. Living near Detroit I see how crime hobbles populations trying to get ahead. But give to the cops’ pet causes and stop donating for bed nets, the cheapest solution to the most devastating tropical disease? What an asshole.
MattF
@Botsplainer: There’s confused, there’s deeply confused, and then there’s David Brooks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
McCain’s mother and grandmother were both oil heiresses, maybe not Hensley money, but plenty. I saw an interview with his mother and she actually seems like a lot of fun, like slightly loopy but witty society mother in an old MGM screwball comedy
Mike in NC
@MattF: Brooks grasps that most college students have way too much money on their hands. What a frickin’ tool.
Was he, like George H. W. Bush, driven to school by a chauffeur in his youth?
MattF
@Mike in NC: Well, just the notion that donating money to ‘law-enforcement organizations’ will encourage police to enforce the laws… Goes beyond idiocy.
Kay
@Mike in NC:
I love when he gets all straight-talk and main street on us.
Poor millennials. They get more stern lectures per pundit hour than any one group of people should have to bear. They can’t even give to charity right.
Roger Moore
@ultraviolet thunder:
Is it crime that’s hobbling a population trying to get ahead, or is crime the result of the population being unable to get ahead? It’s not at all clear what’s the cause and what’s the effect when it comes to crime and poverty. Even if you accept that crime is the cause rather than the result of poverty, it’s not clear that doubling down on our existing approach to policing is a good solution to dealing with it. If crime could be controlled by more of the same, you’d think that we would have gotten there already. It’s far more likely that we should ignore the policies advocated by the police and try something radically different.
raven
Watching the Pack stumble around like the Bears makes one warm inside.
WereBear
A pause for a brilliant comment.
Brendan in Charlotte
@Ruckus: I’ll see your electron microscope, and raise you the Hubble telescope.
ultraviolet thunder
@Roger Moore:
Well, both, clearly, but I’m talking about having observed people being seriously hampered in their lives by crime, and having little assistance from the cops (Detroit).
Poverty begetting crime is a different issue and there’s certainly a causal link there.
But in cases I’ve observed, giving money to cops’ charities would have zero effect. What is Brooks even thinking?
Roger Moore
@Brendan in Charlotte:
Sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. The Hubble is no good at looking for tiny things; it’s most useful for looking at huge things a long way away./pedant
In any case, this raises the question of which is smaller: the violin on which we should play sad songs for David Petraeus or Dick Cheney’s heart?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Lee Rudolph:
Proof that out of the CA Senate contingent, DiFi should have been the first to hit the bricks.
Roger Moore
@ultraviolet thunder:
I would think it’s obvious: whatever happens, the right solution is to give more support to the establishment. The more other people question establishment solutions, the more important it is to back up the establishment.
Chris
@Botsplainer:
So Brooks is saying that the American Mafia is all in our imagination? Or just their bank accounts?
Cervantes
@ultraviolet thunder:
Of his own bottom line, as always.
Chris
@Kay:
I’m still not over the McCullough “you’re not special” speech and the fawning, adoring treatment it got from all over. I mean, I know that blind, entitled douchebags like him are a dime a dozen, as are their groupies, but I was still surprised to see quite a few of my fellow college students praising his StraightTalkyness on the Book of Faces. Have some minimal amount of self-respect, you fucking serfs.
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Co-signeth
Violet
@raven: Ugh, no. Cowboys. Do not like.
WereBear
Yes, at my income level, being the cause of a security breach while director of an organization that’s all about security is referred to as a “massive screwup and they’ll be lucky to keep the house.”
Violet
@WereBear: But the poor General has suffered terribly because somehow his infidelity became public knowledge and that’s horribly embarrassing to him and he had to deal with the fallout. Such suffering. Poor man. How could we want to add to that? I mean, it’s almost like his pen1s jumped out of his pants all on its own. How could he be responsible for that?
max
@Howard Beale IV: It ain’t over ’till its over, tho.
Whomever leaked the recommendation was trying force Holder’s hand. I’m just not perfectly clear which way. (I suspect it’s a joint operation.) We’ll see.
@Valdivia: made the mistake of checking on twitter to get a sense of how the march was going in Paris and instead of that I am now told it’s a huge disaster for the Obama administration that only Holder was there for the US govt. I guess he is not ‘representative’ enough for the tastes of most Villagers. Can you imagine if Obama had gone, he would have hijacked a french moment just by being there. How can people be so effing blind to this?
Yeah, Obama should have TOTALLY gone and hung out with Orban.
max
[‘They maybe should have added some torches to the precession.’]
scav
@Roger Moore: Well, maybe we can use the Hubble to identify the black hole of a size sufficient to compress the violin to a scale appropriate for playing the Petraeus condoling dirge. Or maybe one of these possibly bendy-time watching ones might be up for the task and could spare a few cycles.
Peale
@Botsplainer:I…I mean…I don’t know where to even start. Please someone help me. I need an angle. I need a set up for a punchline…I can’t even think of one…I think I might need more help than David Brooks at the moment.
Mike G
Yes, clearly Petraeus has “suffered enough”.
It’s the Village double standard, where they are precious little buttercups who deserve coddling and second chances because they are So Very Special, while it’s the steel-fist Security State for the little people. And the only person in jail for America’s torture is the guy who blew the whistle on it. Fuck them all with a rusty chainsaw.
MomSense
@Kay:
This is one of my pet peeves. We have completely screwed this generation in so many ways and yet they are trying to make the best of it only to have us constantly judge them.
Ruckus
@Valdivia:
Wouldn’t be so exasperating if it wasn’t so stupid. But the if they weren’t so stupid they might actually think things through. OK, so fat chance of that.
GregB
@Botsplainer:
Let’s call it the Pinochet Fund for an Orderly World.
Mike in NC
@max: A shame that nobody was treated to seeing Putin ride his horse bare-chested down the Champs D’Elysee.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer: The reasons that the universe will be a better place the day when the broken body of David Brooks is found in an alley somewhere continue to grow.
JustRuss
Doesn’t Brooks live in NYC? Maybe he hasn’t noticed that the NYPD’s recent slowdown has demonstrated that we’re paying for a lot more law enforcement than we need. I predict his next column will ask that we donate to the Pentagon so they can finally buy some much-needed F-35s.
debbie
@Botsplainer:
Or shot in the back of the body in Ferguson in daylight. Screw Brooks.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Violet:
Maybe it’s detachable and he didn’t realize what it was up to.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PYwiwbgMusY
Yes, the song is juvenile, but it cracks me up every time.
ETA: Forgot to say, that version of the video is quite NSFW.
Howard Beale IV
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Imus used to play this on the air when he was on WFAN back in the 1990s.
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Yes, absolutely. That must be it. His p3n1s just does things all on its own.
Valdivia
@max: Right! Even more infuriating was to see people tweeting that then complaining Obama wasn’t there//Head explodes.
@Ruckus: I know. Why do I even try?
Baud
@Valdivia:
So I don’t have to.
Howard Beale IV
@max: What is truly amazing is that with all of those leaders there it would have been a turkey shoot for Islamic State/AQAP et al.: – all of those folks in one spot at one time? It would have been the ultimate martyrs wet dream/sacrifice.
Valdivia
@Baud:
for you. I’ll sacrifice myself. :)
Cervantes
@JustRuss:
He does not. He lives in DC.
fuckwit
@Cervantes: DING.
That’s why Walnuts and DiFi are having a sad. They were looking forward to sharing the Sunday Morning green room yuks with him… and then stumping for his candidacy.
You just know this guy would have already formed his exploratory committee by now, were it not for this.
As for why Holder is sitting on it? Probably because he’s resigned and doesn’t want to pass this flaming turd on to his successor. Lynch or whomever can make the call if she wants to pursue it or not. Much more polite for him to wait, than to have him start the process and then hand the no-doubt controversial prosecution to her to finish.
I am very glad that everyone here seems to be calling shenanigans on the vast difference in punishments that get applied for, say, selling loosies on the streets of Staten Island (immediate summary execution on the spot without trial), jaywalking (immediate summary execution without trial), and sharing high-level classified information with your mistress (lucrative consulting and speaking gigs, maybe the threat of a prosecution and trial, and a damper on your presidential campaign).
There is no way that this society can survive, not only with this kind of income inequality, and political influence inequality (top bundler donors and corporate lobbyists versus the likes of us), but with this kind of “justice” inequality. This is full-on banana republic shit.
Cervantes
@fuckwit:
Or close enough.
MattF
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): That’s hilarious.
rikyrah
Back from seeing Selma.
It was powerful, from beginning to end.
There are moments where the tears choked up in my throat.
The film grabs you from pretty much the first five minutes, with the horrific 16th Street Bombing.
What was not to like?
I don’t know.
The casting was on spot.
David Oyelowo- ceased to exist and became Martin Luther King. I couldn’t see Mr. Oyelowo from about the first quarter of the movie gone, I really tried to see him, but he was gone.
Carmen Ejogo- captured the grace, elegance, pain and humanity of Coretta Scott King.
The young man who played John Lewis – He LOOKED like a young John Lewis.
The man who played Malcolm X – also a dead ringer.
I absolutely loved that they showed the different layers to the movement. I loved how they showed the different purposes of the different groups. SNCC was on the ground, down with the locals…..where as Dr. King and his group had an entire agenda, but that they had to work together.
I appreciated the reports from the FBI, and Dr. King and his fellow jailers talking about their jail cell being bugged – so GTFOH with this NSA whining, when THIS was going on in the 1960’s.
I LOVED the scene where they sat around and strategized about exactly what they wanted. They had to break down to its basic building block of what this voter suppression was about. I knew about Literacy Tests and Poll Taxes, but the whole ‘ you need someone to VOUCH for you when you registered to vote’ – I was like WTF?
The scene with Oprah’s character trying to register to vote, and had to recite the preamble to the Constitution, and then once she got over that hurdle, then there was another one, and another one. She was never going to pass. When I say that voter suppression is PERSONAL- nothing but personal. Which is why we know it when we see it, a mile away, no matter what kind of bullshyt you try and hide it as. WE KNOW someone who was told to tell how many bubbles in a bar of soap, so you can try and rationalize the modern day poll taxes all you want – we know it when we see it, and you can’t sell that bullshyt as anything other than what it is.
There are also little things that hit you. Watching the group assemble on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, carrying their suitcases, knapsacks, etc. Of course they did,because they knew that they couldn’t just stop anywhere and get accomodations – not for food, let alone a place to sleep. Things we take for granted.
The movie was powerful. The acting was top knotch. It grips you from beginning to end.
Bravo.
Cervantes
@rikyrah:
Not following this argument. Can you elaborate?
rikyrah
Watching ‘Selma’ with 103-year-old matriarch of the movement
January 9, 2015
Tuskegee, Alabama (CNN) – She was left for dead at the foot of Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge after the county sheriff declared: “Let the buzzards eat them.”
A photograph immortalized the moment — a black, middle-aged woman beaten unconscious by white state troopers in a 1965 civil rights march that became known as Bloody Sunday.
Now, on this day in December, 103-year-old Amelia Boynton Robinson is hosting a private screening of a new movie in which her role as a civil rights matriarch immortalizes her again.
She was too frail to travel to Los Angeles for a special advance showing of “Selma” that was attended by other giants of the movement. So Paramount Pictures decided to bring the movie to her, to her home near Tuskegee University where she has lived for almost 40 years.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/09/us/selma-civil-rights-matriarch/index.html
rikyrah
@Cervantes:
Unlike some, I was never outraged nor shocked at the NSA ‘revelations’. Dr. King, his Daddy and Granddaddy ALL had FBI files. I was never under the delusion that America was the place of ‘ privacy’, when Black folk have been spied on, well, for forever and a day.
COINTELPRO, anyone?
Another Holocene Human
@Nicole: Seconded.
Elizabelle
Spanking fresh thread ahead. Thank you, Anne Laurie!
Cervantes
@rikyrah:
Thanks for explaining.
Not being shocked I can understand. Not being “outraged” may be a matter of wording — but let me ask you this: was it OK that Dr. King et al. were denied their privacy so that government officials could keep tabs on —and in some cases frustrate — their plans?
Was COINTELPRO a legitimate use of government power? Would you have approved it?
Anyhow, re the current movie … I am glad they made it. Let’s hope for more and better histories.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: Except this has been true forever. It didn’t start with the recession, it just set the whole thing in starker contrast. You’d have a point if we didn’t already know what we know about this issue.
Another Holocene Human
@Valdivia: Holder is an Obama surrogate except when he’s not. Got it.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: It’s not discretion that is needed, okay it is needed, but much lower minimum sentencing for non violent offenses.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Thank You!
chopper
poor guy had to break up with his mistress. oh, is there any greater suffering than this?
mclaren
If you think Petraeus will be indicated, you’re too stupid to argue with. David Petraeus is one of our oligarch rulers. Ever since the 9/11 soft coup in which the military took control of policy and the budget in America, our military leaders have been firmly in charge.
Now Petraeus has joined KKR, one of the premier strip-and-rip vulture capital firms that capitalizes in hostile takeovers of companies which then get gutted and sold off for the value of their component assets. KKR is a whole company full of Gordon Geckos, and Petraeus will help these vampire squids extend their strip-and-rip scam to third world countries which have been victimized by America’s mercs.
Not only will Petraeus never be indicted, look for him to make his first billion within ten years and shortly thereafter become a highly-touted candidate for president. For Petraeus, war is a racket: first he did a strip-and-rip in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, now he’s doing it throughout the war-torn third world for KKR, and soon he’ll aspire to the real capo di tutti capo position, the perch from which Petraeus can do a strip-and-rip of the entire world…namely, the Oval Office.
Like Brigadier General Smedley Butler, Gen. David Petraeus can boast: