Last Friday CNN reported that:
The FBI has not yet interviewed Clinton as part of its investigation. As CNN first reported, investigators have not found evidence to support criminal charges against Clinton and none are expected, but no final determination will be made until that interview has taken place.
This was the fifth paragraph of a longer report dealing with emails about the US drone program. The context was of State Department officials emailing Secretary Clinton about the drone program, which is classified, during the Winter holidays (Christmas to New Years) in 2011 while on leave, away from the office, and unable to access the classified email systems, but still having to conduct their work. It is also spillage – the information was sent to her, she did not go and take classified information and purposefully place it into an unclassified email. This CNN report got lost in the shuffle over the weekend, for obvious reasons, but its important to highlight it nonetheless.
Baud
FBI: Is this all bullshit?
Clinton: Yes.
FBI:. Ok, we’re done. Thanks for stopping by.
JPL
Even though Director Comey is a conservative Republican, he will be labeled as an Obama appointee, who just followed orders.
Major Major Major Major
…why?
WaterGirl
@Baud: Thanks for that. Appreciate the giggle in a tough week.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Autoposting to FB is working. My echo chamber is complete.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Because our long national TCP/IP nightmare is almost over.
jl
@WaterGirl: But, Baud! 2016! just adapted a transcript of the one and only media interview he ever had on his campaign.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Because there is a persistent drumbeat that she’s going to be indicted, that she’s under criminal investigation, that she’s done something criminal. None of that is true and the reporting to the contrary has been few and far between.
rachel
@Major Major Major Major: Because there are still a number of idiots insisting that the FBI wants to haul her away in handcuffs and would do so any minute now if it weren’t for the Obama cover-up. I don’t know if those other idiots are still claiming she was sending out drone strikes.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: And, from HRC interviews I have seen, the media news divas still have to ask BS emgailgazzi questions every single time, and then smirk that HRC wasn’t really responsive, no matter what she says. Edit: or what the facts are.
hovercraft
@Baud:
You are a paid shill and a liar Baud, I know you are colluding with Hillary. I have it on the best authority from Hugh Hewitt that she is under criminal investigation. Or did Obama get to Comey ? Plus ‘real progressives’ tell me she will be indicted and Bernie will be the nominee.
schrodinger's cat
Why was Jake Tapper upset with Obama’s speech? I saw a tweet, that didn’t make sense.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: ahh.
I went with your ‘game’ ‘idea’, by the way. (Tested with chrome on my Mac. Yes, it’s dumb and small but it was good practice.) https://balloon-juice-adventure.5apps.com/
hovercraft
D.C. with 41 % in Clinton 78.8 Sanders 21
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Because he’s Jake Tapper.
maryQ
@hovercraft: yeah, but the super delegates could flip any minute now. An-y minute.
Villago Delenda Est
Nothingburger remains nothingburger.
Film at 11.
Origuy
I don’t know if anyone posted this here; Louis CK’s take on the election:
Villago Delenda Est
@maryQ: Today he was tweeting that the Superdelegate system needs to go.
After they’ve all flipped to him, of course…
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est: No. Now it’s a nothingburger with fries.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: Obama has photos of Comey eating argula with dijon hotdogs.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t mind getting rid of supers in the context of other reforms, particularly getting rid of caucuses.
Or maybe say the supers get to vote only if the pledged delegates are withim a certain percentage of each other.
jl
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m not sure how to link to the tweet machine, but I see that Tapper called Obama’s speech a ‘tirade’ and did so not on his personal account but on his show’s account.
And he is giving some ex-House GOPer Mike Rogers, who has been given a CNN show, a platform to rave incoherently against Obama, for which Tapper provides misleading titles and summaries.
I’ve disliked they way Tapper does his job for a long time, by the way. I don’t know why, but his brand of corporate hackery and self-promotion bothers me more than most. Maybe because he is better at covering it with a fake journalistic sheen. But, maybe I am just biased against him.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
That indictment will come riding in on the back of the Whitey Tape, waving a copy of Trump’s Hawaii birth certificate investigation report. “Yee-haw! Now lemme just whip this out.”
schrodinger's cat
@jl: I saw Obama’s speech, he has to call out Agent Orange because the MSM can’t or won’t do it. All they do is giggle and snicker when they talk about Trump.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: Tapper needs to get a new job. One more fitting his skills and temperament. One where he asks “do you want fries with that?”
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan: You remember the 90’s? When Ken Starr was saying “indictments are just around the corner” at least once a week? And they never came?
This is the summer rerun season, but geeze, this is not TV Land!
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud:
FTFY.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Somebody should track down now-unemployed Ken Starr and kick him in the desiccated yarbles, just to let him know we remember.
jl
@schrodinger’s cat: More than anyone on non-Fox News media, I intensely distrust and dislike the way Tapper does his job. Only guy I can think of who comes on and I literally want to start yelling and throwing things through the video screen.
I actually trust and respect the likes of Fox Newsers Megan Kelly and Shephard Smith more.
JWR
@hovercraft:
Yes, but in your heart of hearts, you know that in the GE, Sanders! is by far the stronger candidate to take on Il Donaldo!
PS to Bernie!, Go away!
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: Normally a sitting President doesn’t call the presumptive nominee of the other party dangerous. What Tapper didn’t say is the presumptive nominee is dangerous.
James E Powell
@Adam L Silverman:
You may recall that in the late 90s, for like two or three years, nearly every guest on the Sunday shows would advise us that the indictments against Hillary Clinton would be coming any day.
They hate her. If things go right, they will be saying stuff like this for the next eight years.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I hate the idea of superdelegates, but I do like the idea that if the democrats were crazy enough or deluded enough or had been misled enough to vote for our version of a donald trump… that the superdelegates would be there for a course correction.
OT, if Donald Trump has a breakdown or some other crazy thing happens and is no longer a viable nominee, can the republicans just vote someone else in at the convention?
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: The presumptive nominee might as well be on Daesh’s payroll. He’s doing everything Daesh wants a western politician to do.
JPL
@jl: Were you around when Jake was whining on this site about us being mean to him. It was before CNN, but I bet he still checks periodically. It was hilarious.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I take that personally.
NotMax
@hovercraft
Pace those Sandersnistas hanging on to the fringe of reality by their fingernails, voters in D.C. are, by definition, Washington insiders and therefore shouldn’t count.
;)
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. I’m flattered, mortified, or both.
JPL
@Villago Delenda Est: No kidding. Replace the word kidding with whatever phrase you want.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Eyeroll. As goes John Yoo so goes Amurka.
James E Powell
@schrodinger’s cat:
What you say about the press/media is true. I’ve noticed that when they are introducing a story about Trump they anchors smile at each other – like they are introducing a story about Santa Claus or a bear in the swimming pool – and then they toss it to the reporter who is also smiling. This is how they handled Arnold’s first run for governor – as if it were a story about a film opening or a celebrity’s appearance at a public event.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I recall the President taking some major swipes at CNN at the WHCD. I don’t recall if he actually named Jake Tapper, but I think he might have.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
“How many
divisionsvoting members of congress does Washington D.C. have?”Adam L Silverman
@jl: Rogers was the House Homeland Security Chair in the previous Congress. The on screen lede, not the chyron/crawl, whenever CNN reports on the President’s remarks has included “tirade”. That’s how they’ve decided this should be framed. Its an editorial decision and they’re going sticking to it.
jl
@JPL: I don’t remember that. Must have been before my time, or I didn’t know who he was and didn’t notice.
So, Tapper bothered to loiter around almost top 10,000 political blogs and whine about anonymous commenters being mean to him? Figures.
Jeff Spender
Bernster refuses to concede.
Everyone else: “Bernie who?”
WaterGirl
@Baud: Don’t take it personally. If I weren’t so terrified by Donald Trump, I might just write in Baud!
In fact, if I weren’t so lazy, I would get my ballot, write you in, take a photo with my phone and then go out, say I spoiled my ballot and ask for a new one, and vote for Hillary Clinton. I got tired just writing all that. :-)
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Life imitates art:
http://greenlantern.wikia.com/wiki/Larfleeze
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Wonder why CNN is such a laughing stock, then.
Will Tapper keep slapping misleading titles on his segments with Rodgers?
JPL
@jl: Yup.. Who would have thought that Tapper was thin skinned. lol
Amaranthine RBG
@WaterGirl:
“Jake Tapper left journalism to join CNN” was the line, I believe.
Will R
@Adam L Silverman: I posted this over at the old man’s site a few days ago. He didn’t address it. Most there feel she is guilty and that Obama is behind the lack of an indictment.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: If he does not drop out in such a case, the rules of the convention can be changed by vote during the convention to release enough delegates bound on the first ballot (even then, the vote of some would not be affected dependent on applicable state rules) to deny him a clear win.
All hypothetical, as it ain’t a-gonna happen.
Uncle Cosmo
Time to update Upton Sinclair: “When fascism comes to America, it will be crowned by an orange combover & carrying a grudge.”…
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Good point, but I bet the Republicans never thought they would be in that position, either.
I come from an IT background where it’s said that “we wear belts and suspenders”. You always need to be prepared for the unexpected and have a backup plan.
Edit: maybe superdelegates need to be kept under some sort of “break in case of emergency” glass.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: It wasn’t just Tapper’s show. It was also Blitzer’s and the annoying brunette that’s on around 7 PM EDT. I was at the gym and could see the tv between sets.
jl
@Uncle Cosmo: And very highly leveraged.
SFAW
@JPL:
Actually, during their closed-door meeting, Hitlary said to Comey, “So, do you remember what happened to Vince Foster? Do you think that you have better bodyguards than he did? If you want to find out — the hard way — you just TRY pressing for an indictment.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Zero Fucks to Give
(photo)
SFAW
@hovercraft:
I think you misspelled “canoodling.”
Villago Delenda Est
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Linky broken.
Never mind, now fixed! Yup, no more fucks to give, fer sure.
raven
@efgoldman: Abbie Hoffman was anything but crazy.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: What conventions have the media and the GOP followed regarding a sitting President, in Obama’s case?
jl
@Adam L Silverman: I think ‘tirade’ is misleading. But i was referring specifically to Tapper putting a title and summary of the Rodgers interview that did not accurately represent what he said, and what his criticism of Obama was.
But I can see how Tapper’s misrepresentation would ‘Trumpify’ the link, and maybe get more clicks, so Tapper figures, ‘what the heck, go with it’. Or Tapper is deeply deeply biased himself, in an almost juvenile way, if he thinks he is accurately representing what Rodgers said.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Villago Delenda Est: (photo)
NotMax
@efgoldman
Ugh. That’s unlike you.
Wracking.
Racking a brain is perhaps handy to let it dry out after a brainwashing. :)
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Um … that might be a little tough.
Adam L Silverman
@Will R: I’m aware. He’s linked to John Schindler’s commentary and op-eds on the matter. This would be the same guy suspended from his professorship at the Naval War College for texting pictures of his genitals to women that didn’t request pictures of his genitals:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/28/too-late-to-pologize-for-nsa-revenge-porn-leak.html
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/navy-professor-resigns-after-racy-photo-inquiry-1.297789
Not exactly a credible source…
What’s interesting is when she was Secretary of State he spoke and wrote highly of her. He felt she was outperforming his expectations.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: It’s all about the clicks. Tapper is a creature of the MSM’s addiction to ratings, clicks, whatever, because it translates into revenue, and Tubmans are the only thing that matter to his paymasters.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
.
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
That no Demon-rat President, especially a blackity-black black one, shall be allowed to govern?
raven
Kill the gays preacher.
“But these people all should have been killed, anyway, but they should have been killed through the proper channels, as in they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed. Because, in Leviticus 20:13, God’s perfect law, he put the death penalty on murder, and he also put the death penalty on homosexuality. That’s what the Bible says, plain and simple.”
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: He was furious.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I had no idea. I was thinking of the herbicide used in Vietnam.
JPL
@SFAW: Vince Foster should be off limits. Use another name. Many years ago, I saw President Clinton on the Larry King show speaking about his friend, and not being able to protect him from the vicious opinion pieces. It was one of his greatest regrets.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: It was a punk band too.
normal liberal
@WaterGirl:
He did – something about Tapper giving up journalism by going to CNN.
The audience tittered, then went quiet as they thought it through.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
First time Jake Tapper crossed my radar was his YUUUGE! BREAKING! SCOOP!!!! that first-term President Obama was occasionally sneaking smokes. I may not have been the only person whose first impression of Tapper was of a self-dramatizing narcissist who interpreted all “news” only as it related to his own extremely trivial concerns…
redshirt
@efgoldman: <<<>>>
Anne Laurie
@NotMax:
Maybe Tapper’s brain racks like a shotgun, before he ejects tiny pellets scattered in a wide pattern?
Tom Q
@efgoldman: When I thought about this, the best I could come up with was Jerry Springer — who, of course, long ago was an elected Democrat as mayor of Cincinnati. (Though that alone makes him more strongly qualified than Trump.)
maryQ
@WaterGirl @but I do like the idea that if the democrats were crazy enough or deluded enough or had been misled enough to vote for our version of a donald trump… that the superdelegates would be there for a course correction.”
That IS the idea of super delegates. You can’t hate the idea of super delegates and love what they are for. Sanders has promoted the idea that they exist for nefarious purposes. They exist for course correction, and would only override the majority a sure loser had a slight majority of pledged delegates.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Here’s his oath:
Joel
@Uncle Cosmo: although he never actually wrote that, that quote is attributed to Sinclair Lewis.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
I liked G’nort.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Mogo doesn’t socialize.
SFAW
@JPL:
Spare me. Has Hillary been accused (by wingnuts) of murdering anyone else? Jim McDougal? Ron Brown?
OK, so do the following ones meet with your approval?
“So, do you remember what happened to Moe Greene? Do you think that you have better bodyguards than he did? If you want to find out — the hard way — you just TRY pressing for an indictment.”
“So, do you remember what happened to Emilio Barzini? Do you think that you have better bodyguards than he did? If you want to find out — the hard way — you just TRY pressing for an indictment.”
“So, do you remember what happened to Iosef Tarasov? Do you think that you have better bodyguards than he did? If you want to find out — the hard way — you just TRY pressing for an indictment.”
… and so forth
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: This looked like material for one of your posts.
Caught an article this morning, from the LA Times. (But first, a link to the original Harvard report, which is much more hard-hitting, because some of the LA Times’s narrative struck me as both nonsensical and self-serving):
Shorenstein Center Report (from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government): Pre-Primary News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Race: Trump’s Rise, Sanders’ Emergence, Clinton’s Struggle
author: Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press
Now, the LA Times recap. News coverage of campaign greatly aided Trump and hurt Clinton, study finds
[Elizabelle: Calling bullshit on that; the press is lazy and would feed us Kardashian stories 24/7 if it pulled money into media owners’ pockets. Plus, news staffs have been decimated. They go for what’s cheap and easy and looks controversial. Further, I suspect media owners are all about favorable tax treatment for themselves, and less serious about their “watchdog”roles. Lapdogs, more like it. Trump figured that out but good.]
[Elizabelle: Some of the LATimes take sounds like bullshit too. Hillary’s problem is her record and stand on the issues? Hell no. Issues are barely covered. It’s that “email” and “scandal” was inserted into just about every story or broadcast I ever saw, for months upon months upon months. And lots of pearl clutching about how untrustworthy and unlikeable she is. I really thought MSNBC might have issued an edict: but for the 3 hours of libtard programming in evenings (Maddow, etc.), every time you bring up HIllary, you have to bring up the emails.]
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders could hardly get press attention, although when it finally turned to him, it was the most positive of any candidate’s.
Over to Adam, who is way better at condensing this stuff.
The Shorenstein report sounded worth discussion.
The for-profit media helped the GOP build their Frankenstein monster, and don’t let them off the hook for “doing what they naturally do.” They’ve become toxic. Some of the foreign press has covered the 2016 election and its issues far more accurately and fairly than the careerist lapdogs/buckrakers here.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Hadn’t seen the article or the report, but I’d heard and seen similar analyses.
Carl W
@Major Major Major Major: Cool. One strange thing. If you go to the back yard, type “look at rosie”, and press Enter, nothing happens — it’s like it just doesn’t recognize that you pressed Enter.
Miss Bianca
My God. Will there ever be an end to the fucking email saga?
MisterForkbeard
@shomi: I’m pretty sure emailgate is a nothingburger, but I believe this particular article is talking only about a set of mails related to drones. If that set of mail constitutes all of Hillary’s classified mails on the subject, she’s in the clear. If there are other mails in question, then the article doesn’t necessarily say anything about the legality of those mails.
Again, I think it’s all crap and she clearly didn’t do anything wrong, but I’m trying to read the article as literally as I can.
Cat48
Malcom Nance, my favorite terror expert, was asked about the investigation a few months ago and he said it was nothing but it had been highly politicized for: Reasons.
ok?
sm*t cl*de
@jl:
Do not be fooled, that’s rectal mucus.
lol
@Baud:
The best solution I’ve seen is to prohibit superdelegates from voting on the first ballot. Gives you the fail safe against someone like Trump winning a plurality of delegates but makes it impossible for them to override a majority of voters.
It also preserves the prestige and status of being a DNC delegate who automatically gets to be on the convention floor which is almost certainly 90% of the reason we have superdelegates in the first place. Elected officials hate losing privileges like this and preserving their delegate status will eliminate one huge reason they’d oppose reform.