There were too many factors that contributed to the outcome of the 2016 election to identify just one overriding cause, IMO. You can count them off like stone weights of varying sizes that, combined, sunk the SS Clinton: sexism, racism, Russian interference, Comey’s overweening self-regard, the “change” election dynamic, a click-driven-Clinton-hating Beltway media, celebrity culture, etc.
But a case can be made that one key pivot-point for the 2016 election was the oft-photographed contents of Anthony Weiner’s underpants. Via WaPo, Weiner’s latest round of legal trouble, which unearthed irrelevant emails that nonetheless upended the election, will be resolved today:
Former congressman Anthony Weiner is expected to appear in federal court Friday to plead guilty in a sexting case, according to a representative with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan said Weiner will appear at 11 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska but declined to release further information. The New York Times, citing an unnamed source, reported that as part of a plea agreement, Weiner plans to plead guilty to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor. He has reportedly turned himself over to federal agents, according to the Times.
The contemptible shit-stain will probably get probation and community service for sending dick pics to a 15-year-old girl. I guess that’s roughly commensurate with the magnitude of the crime.
But even if the judge throws the book at him and sentences him to 10 years, it would feel inadequate as payback for what Weiner set in motion. The orange fart cloud that engulfs the planet did not emerge from Weiner’s shorts. Still, how ironic, nauseating and infuriating on every level that the nasty little pervert played a role at all.
History turns on small things. Sometimes very, very small things.
Baud
I’m glad he never got a chance to get a leadership role in the party.
Eural Joiner
OK, I’ll bite – I see what you did there ;)
japa21
I will beat some folks here. They would, of course, say this is the biggest reason, although it isn’t. Clinton’s campaign did make some mistakes. They were minor and would have made no difference without the other factors. But, let’s add that to the list of reasons. After all, she did.
Patricia Kayden
To be fair, who cares about Weiner except that he had no business sexually harassing a 15 year old child? Certainly, if you didn’t vote for Secretary Clinton because of Weiner’s indiscretions, you better not have voted for the p*ssy grabber.
Baud
@japa21: Let’s not and say we did.
SiubhanDuinne
Voter suppression has to be added to that list (yeah, I know you didn’t mean it to be exhaustive).
oldster
“The orange fart cloud that engulfs the planet did not emerge from Weiner’s shorts.”
Betty, Betty, Betty. That is simultaneously one of the best things that I have read and one of the worst things that I have read. I really wish you hadn’t, but I cannot deny its brilliance.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I can’t wait until he’s done with whatever sentence he gets and then runs for office again. I fear we’ll never be rid of this guy. What do we have to do to get him to turn conservative and become a Republican?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ah, I remember when Wiener was the emo-prog hero because he had (no pun intended) balls! He shouted things!
dnfree
Does staying with Weiner indicate anything about Huma Abedin’s judgment, especially given her high position in Hillary’s official life and campaign? (I do still fault Hillary for the decision to house her email on a private server and to sort through it the way she did to determine personal from political. You’d think those close to her could have warned her about how that would look. I know some of her advisers after it came out were appalled.)
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
I don’t think very meany people did, the problem was his laptop with Huma’s e-mails on it, that gave Ghouliani’s friends the opening to start leaking and force that self righteous prick Comey’s hand to “re-open” the “case” against Hillary. As Nate Silver has said, it’s right there in the polls, from the moment he said the case was being re-opened and the media went 24/7 on her exposing national security secrets to a pedophile and who knows who else, she went from a sure thing to a probable winner. Remember that many of his fans at that point were saying they wouldn’t bother voting because there was no point, this gave them new hope and turned unlikely voters into hell yeah, I’m gonna vote.
pat
I also think that voter suppression played a huge role in the outcome, and that weasel-face Sessions is going to make sure it is even more prevalent in the future. This is the only way the republiscum can hold on to their seats.
Baud
@dnfree: No. SATSQ.
SatanicPanic
Weiner is one of the (several) Democratic dudes who have taught me to be wary of Democratic dudes who are known primarily for their True Progressive rhetorical skills.
Jack the Second
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
The traditional path for a Democratic divorcee is to find Jesus and marry a (rich) born-again Republican woman.
I’m not sure whether being Jewish complicates things.
ruemara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shouting things does seem to be the low bar of Real Progressive™. Accomplishing things is the sign of a real sell-out.
@pat: Absolutely. They will only be satisfied until the criteria to vote is land-owning white males, preferably over 60 and republican.
@dnfree: Yes. It must be Huma’s fault. Plus her emails.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O, for a billion dollars with which I could hire a small team of girls and boys with dragon tattoos to find out exactly what that vile fucking fuck did during 2016, and in collusion, witting and unwitting, with whom.
hovercraft
Speaking of turning on small things.
How Al Franken Unleashed A Special Counsel On Donald Trump
Small things indeed.
SatanicPanic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This. And every last one of these dudes had something in their history that was highly questionable, if not outright criminal. At least Alan Grayson left us with a great tagline.
PJ
@dnfree: who knows what kind of relationship Abedin and Weiner (who has always seemed like a raging egotistical asshole) had, and I know they had a kid(s?) but staying with him was clearly a huge error in judgment. Abedin also reportedly kept a lot of negative news from Hillary during the campaign, which might have changed things had she known about it. One thing is for sure, if Abedin had worked for Obama, after the first “indiscretion”, he would have advised her to dump Weiner, and if she didn’t want to, he would have asked her to resign. O made sure his ship was squeaky clean for a reason.
aimai
Really–no. The enormous machinery arrayed against Clinton from the get go meant that the election was more like a series of wave like attacks on an island, eating away at many points of potential weakness. If it hadn’t been Weiner it would have been something else. They were masters at manufacturing crimes and openings–one rose to the top but it could have been something else. It could have been many other things. Comey was fucking up nicely all on his own and could easily have been led to decide to “investigate” Lynch for having the tarmac meeting with Bill, or investigate the murder of the Clinton staffer, or investigate anything, or announce anything. Or if not Comey then some other pretext would have been whipped up.
germy
@hovercraft: Best episode of Columbo ever.
Jonny Scrum-half
Nothing substantive to say – just want to comment that this is a really, really well-written post. It still amazes me that people with actual writing talent and analytical skills will write blog posts that I can read for free that are so much better-written and insightful than anything authored by pundits like Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, etc., who are paid millions to publish forgettable crap.
Thanks so much.
DougJ
Love the title.
I’ve always hated Weiner, and if Hillary had to lose the election, I’m glad to be able to blame it on such an asshole.
aimai
@PJ: Yeah, also no to that. Obama defenestrated Shirley Sherrod instantly out of fear of what would happen. That was not a good thing. Loyalty among women, and to women who are in fucked up marriages, is a thing. Are you suggesting that Hilary Clinton should have fired her quasi daughter, long time fired and colleague because of the actions of her husband?
schrodingers_cat
@aimai: Word, sister friend. If not Weiner there would be some other shit. Most of the Clinton scandals were made up.
Yarrow
Anthony Weiner is so disgusting. Makes my skin crawl. I sure hope he doesn’t jump back into politics and we have to deal with him some more.
Does this plea deal mean he’s labeled a sex offender?
PJ
@aimai: yep. If she had done that, we would not have Trump now. At that late stage in the game, the Republicans had thrown all the shit at her they had. Weiner/Comey gave them the opening they needed.
Another Scott
@SatanicPanic: This.
Nobody likes a well-turned phrase more than me, but I always try to remember (and wish I had learned much earlier) that, e.g., the kind of language we speak largely determines the kind of thoughts we have.
Pretty words are wonderful. But they’re also extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, and counter-productive in the hands of the “good guys” when they’re mis-used. (Insert example of beautiful, extremely moving, language from notorious tyrant here.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@PJ: So out of consistency, do you agree that Bernie Sanders should split with his wife, who is being investigated for bank fraud, in order to save the Revolution?
Felonius Monk
I hope they sentence him to a dickectomy. This would save everyone a lot of grief in the future.
PJ
Ha. As if Bernie matters now to anyone except the voters in Vermont and the Clintonistas here who are certain it was his lack of deference to the anointed one that “stabbed her in the back” and caused her to lose.
hovercraft
@dnfree:
Can we stop this shit FFS, she did what they all did! As a black woman who has to live her life knowing that everything I ever fucking do is judged by a different standard because I have to go out my way to prove I’m not an angry black woman, I’m sick of this shit. She fucking asked for the set-up that they gave Obama so he could keep his blackberry, the NSA SAID NO. She not being a neanderthal wanted technology from this century, she knew her husbands system was pretty secure so she decided to use that. EVERY FUCKING PERSON at the senior level of government gets to decide for themselves what is a personal e-mail and what is not. Just because she is Hillary Clinton and people hate her doesn’t mean that she gives up the right to some privacy, she is the most scrutinized person in America, we know more about her than anyone else but it’s never enough. If you don’t like her fine, but please stop blaming her for not always anticipating just how much Hillary derangement is going to twist what are normal actions just because it’s her. It’ the fucking derangement that makes her so cautious in the first place. When State asked all the former SoS’s for their records, who the fuck do you think sorted through them to determine which ones to send to State? I can only be so vigilant to make sure that people don’t jump to conclusions about me, I’m only human ad sometimes I do happen to be an angry black woman, just like sometimes Hillary forgets that every moment of every day, she has to prove that she’s not the amalgamation of Medusa and Lady Macbeth.
Jacel
@hovercraft: Good catch. Franken did well.
hueyplong
@Baud: I would say yes except I think the Revolution was Prince’s band and Wilmer’s thing is a bot-supported fraud.
ThresherK
@hovercraft: That fellow from Minnesota keeps impressing me.
Baud
@PJ: Thanks. I wanted to confirm whether we were in Clinton Rules territory here. And we are.
Baud
@hovercraft: Thank you.
GregB
I think I am going to create a fake account and become a troll on right wing sites.
First mission to convince the wingnuts that FBI investigation is a fraud because the man leading the investigation is a Muslim..
Just like Judge Curiel Gonzalez shouldn’t hear a case for Trump, there is no way Bob Mullah can be impartial.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: You are on fire, now as always. Huzzay for hovercraft and her insights!
Baud
@GregB:
Not much of a challenge. Starting small?
Yarrow
@GregB:
Can’t speak to the second half of your sentence, but the first half is already done. They’re convinced the FBI investigation is being run by a Democrat and the entire investigation is a plot by Democrats to throw out Trump. Also that his ties to Russia are made up.
SiubhanDuinne
@hovercraft:
Thank you. Great rant, full of truth.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: If Weiner’s sick compulsion hadn’t provided the pretext, it’s very likely another excuse would have been found. Just noting the infuriating irony that it was Weiner.
mai naem mobile
I’m not blaming it on Huma but one of her conditions in staying with him was for hI’m to only use an old fashioned no camera cell phone. Shit, they said they used to look for old blackberries on Ebay for Hilz. They should have done the same with Weiner. I feel bad for us but I really feel bad for Huma who probably still wakes up everyday thinking about this and probably blames herself at least partly for the loss. I think she got a decent signing bonus for a book. At least she can live rich in revenge. I hope for her sake he’s not a labeled a se x offender because i am guessing he’s still involved in their kids life and housing will become a real headache for him if he’s labeled a se x offender(and therefore the kid.)
Humboldtblue
This is absolute fucking genius. I have never seen this show and I have no clue as to who any of these women are, but this is fucking brilliant.
Doug R
CROSSCHECK denied more voters the franchise than Twitler’s margin of victory.
Undervotes for president in Detroit and Flint.
Both were more than Twitler’s margin.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Of course, silly — women are always expendable. And women are always responsible for the actions of their husbands, which is why it’s Hillary’s fault that Bill cheated on her. It’s almost like you don’t want to understand the rules. ?
If Huma was my friend, I would have advised her to DTMFA long ago, but I think we all know at least one person who refuses to dump their crappy boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse no matter how bad they are. Humans are like that.
schrodingers_cat
This place is thick with BS bots and or Russkie trolls. They must be getting nervous.
Josie
@hovercraft: Thank you. This, times ten.
GregB
@Baud:
We all know Trump and Fox are dominated by the over age 60 and under IQ 90.
germy
@hovercraft:
They mocked her for taking bathroom breaks. Then she stopped drinking water (her staff had to beg her to hydrate) and she fainted, and they mocked her for that.
I agree, if it hadn’t been a weiner it would have been one of a million other things. They were gunning for her, aided by assholes like the one who runs NBC and feeds Matt Lauer questions.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
If Bernie doesn’t matter anymore, why does he keep showing up on my teevee scolding Democrats for being so horrible and corrupt? Why is he endorsing Democratic candidates?
Doug R
“Trump’s victory margin in Michigan was 13,107 and the Michigan Crosscheck purge list was 449,922. Trump’s victory margin in Arizona- 85,257, Arizona Crosscheck purge list- 270,824;. Trump’s victory margin in North Carolina was 177,008 and the North Carolina Crosscheck purge list had 589,393 people on it.”
http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/tle-pick/donald-trump-was-right-the-election-was-rigged-in-his-favour/15/11/
germy
@GregB:
Be careful. You might end up being hired by Fox as a guest expert.
Baud
@germy: Or FBI Director.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I get my Weiner sexts confused. Isn’t there a legitimate question (I think from Mensch ((yes, I know, Betty)) as to whether the 15 year old was actually a Russian troll that put the Weiner/Abedin laptop Clinton email investigation matter back at the top of Comey’s inbox, which generated the letter to Chaffetz which he couldn’t leak fast enough? Or is this about a real 15 year old?
Yutsano
@dnfree:
You can critique a person on many things, but it’s VERY difficult to discuss the dynamic of a marriage without intimate information regarding the people involved.
IOW, it ain’t our business.
germy
@Baud: Joe is eminently qualified and he’s just the right age. His judgement is sound.
Also, he’s his own man. He has a reputation for standing up to republican presidents.
Humboldtblue
Republicans in California state government have been pretty much neutered at this point and considering even Arnold was an avid supporter of renewable energy, news that California’s renewable energy programs are having a direct impact — in the face of much poo-pooing from the state GOP — should not come as much of a surprise.
mai naem mobile
@ThresherK: The Dems would be stupid not to have Franken on the ticket in 2020. I don’t think anybody who is going to get turned off by his SNL stuff or other R’ ish rated stuff would have voted for Dems anyway. He was on TV and had the radio show so he knows how to communicate with people and you don’t have to train him on teevee stuff. He’s genuinely smart and funny. He’s got a good story. He talks about how his wifes family survived on SS survivors benefits after the dad died. He went to Harvard and majored in math.
dnfree
@hovercraft: I never said I didn’t like her. However, I also don’t think she (or anyone else) is perfect, and I don’t feel obligated to pretend I do. One of the reasons I favored Obama over Hillary in 2008 (other than that I’m from Illinois and already had a lot of respect for him before he became nationally known) was that I didn’t want to rehash all the Clinton scandals again. (I underestimated the crazed attacks Obama would face.)
I admire and respect both Clintons for many things, but both of them are blind to how some of their actions appear, especially knowing the already-existing Clinton-derangement syndrome. As soon as I heard about the email arrangement (and the way she had it sorted through to delete personal emails), I knew it was a never-ending gift to the right. As I say, some of her associates who didn’t know about it were appalled. Every leader needs people around them who will point out potential flaws.
I know your tech explanation has been popular among some (she wanted more up-to-date technology and this seemed like a good idea), but I’m a tech person myself and it doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s more of a made-up-after-the-fact explanation. If the State Department’s technology was inadequate, then as Secretary of State possibly she could have made modernizing it a goal. At one point she even said she didn’t want to carry two devices as one of her excuses. Well, when I worked I had a personal device and a work device. Lots of people do. The NSA said “No” to Obama for a reason, and Obama reasonably complied with their concerns. (They probably also said “No” to Trump and he of course hasn’t complied.)
Baud
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I assume the guilty plea resolves that question.
Miss Bianca
@Doug R: Yes, can we please dispense with the narrative that ultimately, somehow, some way, the fault is HRC’s and her staff’s and her campaigns? Can we please focus on the shit that REPUBLICANS did to kneecap all the same? If for no other reason than the self-discipline involved in not reflexively presuming that Democrats are ipso facto fuck-ups who, in refusing to toe the lines that purists always demand of them. are responsible for self-sabotage? I mean, Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ, I can’t stand Republicans and their tendency to project, but can we at least, just for a change, borrow a page from their playbook and start blaming THEM, rather than ourselves? Can we all agree to focus on how it’s the fact that Republicans will resort to ANYTHING – anything at all, no matter how venal, despicable, loony, or just plain wrong-headed – to get and maintain power? And that our tendency to throw blame on Democrats for electoral losses just feeds that Republican beast/narrative?
It’s almost as if the vast right-wing consipracy were being joined by a vast left-wing consipracy – just as in that cartoon I saw one time which was captioned “Nature and Nurture both agree – it’s all Mom’s fault!”. Substitute HRC for “Mom” and you get the picture.
amk
@dnfree: emailz!!! is a piss poor fig leaf for hillary hatred.
The Moar You Know
@aimai: That’s a damn good question. I don’t know the circumstances of their lives, so cannot say. The closest I’ve ever had to come to such a thing was telling my last drummer that if his crazy girlfriend showed up at one more of our shows, he was fired. I was getting complaints back through our booking people and from venue managers/owners about her behavior; you can’t let that stand in the music business.
He ditched her shortly after, quit the band, moved to Floriduh and is now a pretty happy guy. I still get asked about her every now and then, which pisses me off.
Brachiator
I understand that he has to register as a sex offender. That’s a permanent stain, even if there is probation and community service.
I almost, but not quite, feel sorry for him. But it may be that I don’t understand how he could continue to engage in such reckless, compulsive behavior. He was inevitably going to be caught. Hell, it’s like he wanted to be caught.
It’s difficult to say what impact this had on the election. Indirect, but devastating. An unrelated, but distasteful, ugly distraction.
Bailey
@PJ:
Agree with you on this.
Obviously, I don’t know Huma–I think Weiner is a complete jackass, though–and have no idea how skilled she was at her job such that Hillary kept her around for so long. But man, at some point that just became a liability. Maybe Hillary had sympathy for all she went through with Bill, but still…. I agree that O would have made the quick decision to jettison anyone that was going to bring him down with distractions like this. He had to, he didn’t have room for scandal. If recent reports are to believed, Huma is back with Weiner and they are “working on their marriage.” The man sent dick pics to an underage girl. How on earth do you come back from that? What is wrong with Huma?
ruemara
@PJ: And, there’s the tell.
@hovercraft: Thank you. Plus, why didn’t black people fall as hard for this shit? There’s a good reason to question all of this blame the females narrative.
Nicole
@hovercraft: Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: He sure is happy to buy into CNN’s fight of the week with their “Debate Night” stupidity. First Cruz then Kasich. They’re happy to have him in there pretending to be a Democrat. He loves the attention.
I really hope the Russia investigation turns up ties between his campaign and Russia and that gets him to stfu.
Bailey
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
It’s a real 15-year old and Mensch is a loon.
SatanicPanic
@Yutsano:
This. Please everyone, critiquing Huma and Hillary’s life choices is gross. Let’s not do that.
Baud
@dnfree: You’re missing the point. No one can anticipate how perfectly innocent actions can be misused to slander. The problem isn’t Clinton, any more than the problem was Al Gore wearing earth tones or John Kerry not earning the respect of his men in Vietnam. The problem is, even now, lefties like yourself are making the email thing something more nefarious than using the work copier to copy a personal document. The right would never let their candidate be taken down by something so frivolous. Clinton’s “problem” is that a number of people accepted the argument that she wasn’t part of their tribe, and so the attacks on her weren’t attacks on all of us. Until that attitude changes, we can expect more GOP victories.
dnfree
@Baud: I know the “Clinton rules” in the Balloon-Juice comments section is that it can never be suggested that she ever made an error or even a slight misjudgment. She herself cannot do anything wrong; wrong can only be done to her. I am of the opinion that she, like any other human being, can conceivably have flaws or make decisions that don’t turn out as planned.
The Moar You Know
@mai naem mobile: I agree. He’d be formidable.
Baud
@dnfree: Everyone makes mistakes. The problem is that her critics lack the maturity and perspective to discuss the election and all of its causes rationally. So it’s better not to go down that road.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’d like to think that somebody in the area would take the moment to go to the building for his entry or exit, and either knock his teeth out, spit in his face, or both, depending on your choice.
Kay
I don’t have any love of Anthony Weiner but Anthony Weiner didn’t order all of political media to focus exclusively on Hillary Clinton’s emails for 16 months.
Those lemmings were off the cliff before he showed up. I know, I know, so don’t even tell me- it’s HER FAULT that her server management was not up to par – STIPULATED :)
They had Donald Trump sleazing around backstage at Miss Teen USA which for some reason was deemed immaterial. NONE of this makes sense and jamming it into cause and effect is fruitless. You may as well ponder the butterfly wingflap and the tsunami.
Everyone and everything failed, at the same time. It’s still failing. Mueller is the current Great Man who will Save Us All and that ain’t gonna work either. The ambulance isn’t coming. We’re on our own.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Not just black people, of all the immigrants I know, and I know many, no one fell for this shit. Not even the white ones from mother Russia.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
BTW – 3 am Sydney time. Wide awake. Had a VERY busy day from the moment I arrived, but by 6:30 pm slammed into a wall and had to sleep.
Miss Bianca
@dnfree: And you, dude. You are the type of dude I am talking about. Fuck “Clinton Rules” – how about you just say, “Gee, maybe blaming the woman just isn’t the best look right now?” All this “golly gee shuckers, aren’t we allowed to continue criticizing Clinton and her campaign and all because EVERYONE HAS FLAWS” meeping makes you look like a troll, even if you aren’t one. Maybe “Clinton Rules” around here actually means. “most of us recognize how much goddamn effort went into bringing her down, including so-called “allies” on the left who just absolutely cannot stop with the bullshit about how “flawed” she is.” Enough. Jesus Christ, enough.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Just about every minority group came close to or exceeded the 27% test.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
I’m still waiting for William Maher SUPERGENIUS to murder Weiner.
amk
@Baud: you mean underperformed the 27% test?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Rs don’t do that well among naturalized citizens of all hues. I remember when the W was beating Iraq war drums, in the mechanical eng lab I worked, the only ones who did not buy the BS that W and his media cronies were shoveling by the barrel was me and a white South African grad student. Everyone else was rah rah about the war.
Baud
@amk: I suppose it depends on one’s perspective. You all know what I mean.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
Intriguingly, I made a couple of minor anti-Bernie slams on Twitter recently. I now have no fewer than 30 howlingly outraged Berner replies and mentions on how corrupt Dems are and how they need to be listened to.
Very few of them even bothered with attaching names to profiles.
germy
schrodingers_cat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If he gets a Dem opponent, I promise to go to Vt and canvas for him.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Even I have trouble believing that one.
PJ
@Baud: Hillary has known since the 90s that Republicans would use unscrupulously use anything and everything to denigrate her and handicap her politically (even when they, and the media, give themselves a pass for much worse behavior). This is not fair or right, but it has been the status quo for 25 years. Obama understood this, and understood that, as a black man, they would go after him even harder if there was even a whiff of potential scandal, which is why he kept such a tight ship. If you are going to run for President as a Democrat, you cannot make the mistakes that would get brushed off or ignored or (in the case of Trump) celebrated by a Republican. I’m not blaming Hillary or any Democrat for this environment, but it exists, and while it exists anyone running for office has to understand it if they want to get elected.
ruemara
@germy: He deserves it. Arrogant asshole. He could have been a statesman, instead he decided to be pervert.
@schrodingers_cat: The Dem party of VT has had an agreement to not run people against his sainted majesty.
Another Scott
@aimai: You make good points about not getting railroaded into firing people, but:
I doubt that Obama demanded the resignation himself. That sounds out of character to me. Gibbs said:
But, to your larger point, yes Obama’s administration panicked and threw her under the bus in a decidedly stupid and unprofessional way because they were afraid of the optics. Whether Obama said something like “cut, and cut cleanly” with a wink and a nod to Vilsack, who knows. But it sounds out of character. Obama generally delegated things like that to his secretaries and let them run their Departments, I think.
Abedin and Weiner separated last August. I think that was enough (maybe even more than enough) as far as the Clinton campaign was concerned. The RWNJs were after Abedin for years and years prior for absolutely no reason…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@PJ: Again, Clinton Rules. You can either blame the Clintons for them, or you can blame the right, or you can blame ourselves (or a portion of ourselves) for accepting Clinton Rules instead of fighting it tooth and nail when everything was on the line.
I choose the latter two options.
Yarrow
What time does Trump leave on his trip today? Or has he already left? I expect some juicy news to drop while the plane is in the air.
schrodingers_cat
BTW I hope Ossoff is ready for BS and his shitty purity ponies because they are going to come at him for not being pure enough. Check out the last thread if you want see what I mean.
Gindy51
@Brachiator: Good, he should have to register as a se x offender and that means he will NEVER be elected to anything ever again.
pamelabrown53
@hovercraft: #33.
Righteous rant, hovercraft, righteous rant!
amk
@PJ: The rethugs attack the dems relentlessly with lies because they know the dem base is fickle and can easily be swayed.
eta: bad baud said it better.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: She is a high profile Dem woman and Muslim to boot. Plenty for winguttia to go bonkers over. Plus she has a killer sense of style unlike the Sarah Huckabees of the world.
Baud
While we’re on the topic, I also wish Susan Rice and Valerie Jarrett had acted better so the right-wing couldn’t have used their actions to rile up their base.
Anyone else I’m forgetting to blame?
Ian G.
@Humboldtblue: Sure, it works for California, but a large dynamic economy like West Virginia’s can’t function on the renewable pipe dream. Dig more coal.
dnfree
@Yutsano: Huma’s marriage is only our business because of her job. I guess this is a two-part question. 1) Knowing that compulsive sex offenders are likely to continue to offend, should she have left Weiner? That part, as you would indicate, is between them. 2) If Huma decided to stay with Weiner, should she step away from Hillary’s campaign? I guess I could go further and ask why HUMA’s blackberry was being backed up to WEINER’s laptop in the first place, or why she would send HIM emails to print off rather than someone associated with the campaign. Those actions also could raise questions about her judgment.
Roger Moore
Who are both uninterested and incapable of serious policy discussion. The media’s complete inability to grapple with serious policy issues is the key thing driving the modern political scene. The modern Republican party can only exist because the media doesn’t point out that their policy ideas are complete bullshit, and the 2016 campaign is the ultimate example of what happens when policy is treated as an afterthought.
LongHairedWeirdo
@dnfree: It actually doesn’t look bad *at all* if you assume that she was a dedicated public servant trying to do her damn job.
She wanted to use an e-mail server she already had – just like Colin Powell did with his AOL account. So she did. She complied with all public records requests and tried to ensure all proper government records were preserved – that’s her job and her duty and that’s the end of it.
Now: it is true that, if the Republicans learned of her private server, and that she wasn’t storing every e-mail in government archives, they would make political hay over it. But the fact of the matter is, if she farted loudly in a meeting, they’d accuse her of chemical warfare, and if she didn’t, they’d claim she thinks she’s too good to fart like normal humans. They were going to make political hay out of anything they could find, and, it would have a ready made audience – whether it was “OOOH! CLINTON! CLICKBAIT!” or whether it was actual “I bet she really *is* up to something, maybe we’ll catch her this time”, the media was going to report any old baseless crap.
And let’s not forget: her real mistake was being in office when there was a terrorist attack that the GOP decided to use to damage her electoral chances. The GOP did their Benghazipalooza, and found out, incidentally, about her e-mail server, and dropped the whipped-to-pieces dead horse and started in on another topic. The FBI started an investigation – NOT about criminality but about “what happened and what information might be endangered” and it was turned into a witch hunt. Whether Comey was a GOP loyalist, or cowed by what might happen if he didn’t play along, he played along. Rather than pointing out the simple facts: “we have no evidence of criminal intent, and thus, absolutely no evidence of a crime having been committed” he decided to blast her for being “careless”.
The shame is not in what she did, but in what was done to her. Hillary Clinton is not my favorite person in the world, but she’s nowhere near any form of devil, and as the old saying goes, the devil should be given every protection of the law, not for his sake, but for ours. Clinton was denied the protection of the law and of common decency.
And even if you think it’s a self-inflicted wound, in normal times, it would have been a non-issue. These are not normal times, and we have to remember that. Just because the Republicans have been crazy for 25+ years now doesn’t mean that they haven’t gone crazy.
amk
@Baud: Aren’t ya forgetting the main culprit? the kenyan?
zhena gogolia
@LongHairedWeirdo:
EXCELLENT COMMENT. I wish it would put an end to the whole matter, but . . . people don’t read.
Baud
@amk: Do you think it reflects badly on Michelle Obama’s judgment that she stayed with him?
cynn
@Kay: I wonder how much the email revelations actually soured dems on Hillary. I was an unenthusiastic Hillary voter, and after Comey pulled his stunt I was sympathetic and more positively inclined toward her. So you had Weiner’s dick and Comey’s dick move, throwing even more crap at the poor woman.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Bailey: @PJ:
No, no, and HELL NO.
First, no one can know what the inside of a marriage looks like from the outside. Abedin and Wiener are legally competent adults who both have a right to make their own decisions about a private relationship and they are the only people on the planet who have all of the information on which to base those decisions. Suggesting otherwise – and especially suggesting that leaving the marriage was the only right or possible choice – is, among other problems, denying Abedin agency.
Second, I think it’s incredibly unlikely that Obama would ever advise someone to leave her marriage – that kind of interference in deeply personal matters seems totally out of character, and he most certainly knows better than to mix the personal and the political in such a wildly inappropriate way. He could ban Wiener from the West Wing, but not from his own marriage bed.
Finally, the underlying assumption in both your comments is that the validity or viability of a marriage involving politicians or public figures should be evaluated primarily based on its effects on other people. NOPE. We’re free to speculate, point and laugh, sympathize, or anything else, but we can’t claim that our interest in their marriage or its continuation or breakup supersedes their own.
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
Sure, but what’s more important to talk about moving forward: nitpicking Hillary’s past mistakes, or reversing the massive voter suppression operations that prevented Democrats from voting?
CindyH
@hovercraft: Standing ovation! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Eggs?
pamelabrown53
@Betty Cracker: #44.
Except the Weiner’s pretext was perfect because it involved “e-mailz!!!. It was so effective because the wingers and villagers pounded the public with that word until it became a catch-all for Hillary Hate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I know the answer! It’s nitpicking Hillary’s past mistakes. Right?
amk
@Baud: don’t you bait the trolls now.
lollipopguild
History is full of key moments when one person can make a huge difference. The officer in command of the U.S. navy dive bombers that were looking for the Japanese fleet at Midway kept looking (he was low on fuel) and a few minutes later 3 Japanese carriers were in sinking condition. If he does not make that decision maybe the Japanese win the battle of Midway. General Meade was in command of the Union forces at Gettysburg. The union forces had a commander who was not going to panic or do something stupid when General Lee’s army showed up. Another general in command might have lost the battle at Gettysburg and the south might have won the Civil war.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: And dissing Ossoff for not being the second coming of the love child of Karl Marx and Che.
amk
Ignoring the bs stuff and coming to real issues
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
Congratulations — you got snowed by the right-wing media. Neither of those things actually happened.
TenguPhule
@dnfree: The Clinton rules ignored that Rice and Powell BOTH DID THE SAME DAMN THING and nary a word was raised against either of those Traitorous fuckers.
IOIYAR, even if you happen to be black Republicans. Because the GOP always has need of Uncle Toms of either gender.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I’m more restrained on Twitter under my real name, haha (except for the names I call Twitler).
Anyway, another fun fact – a lot of the mentions seem to occur overnight, consistent wth the clock in Eastern Europe or Western Russia.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Of course they didn’t, we are all “others”, and we all know that no matter who they come for first it they’ll eventually get to us. Women of color also didn’t buy that shit, it was the married white women safely ensconced with their white husbands who bought his shit.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
I blame Baud. If Baud had sacrificed those chickens like he was supposed to, a flaming meteorite would have struck down Trump at the third debate.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Why can’t some liberal leaning techie create a program that counter-spams Twitter with pro-Dem messages?
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
Amen.
Sisters are kicking ass today ;)
glory b
@amk: I’m sorry, but that’s not the base. By definition, the base isn’t easily swayed. They can be cross checked into not being able to vote, they can be threatened into not voting, but the WATBs who are easily swayed are not part of anyone’s base.
Anyone who keeps saying that unless we run the perfect candidate with the perfect campaign and the perfect message they will vote for whatever mouth-breathing cretin the Repubs can stand upright, isn’t in the base!
Bailey
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Yeah, but from the outside it looks like some creep is constantly texting strangers pictures of his junk. She can leave the marriage or stay in the marriage–up to her–but it’s not beholden upon any politician to keep her in the picture. HRC was running for president, not chief marriage counselor.
I don’t suggest O would have demanded someone leave their marriage. He would have had them leave his campaign. Big difference.
People vote on these things all the time. Let’s not pretend we don’t. Part of the appeal of Obama was his rock solid marriage with Michelle and people undoubtedly voted on that. They voted on the fact that he didn’t have any lecherous hangers on. Part of HRC’s baggage was that she stayed with Bill. Again, her choice and entirely their decision, but to pretend it didn’t leave some lingering residue on voters would be a mistake. On the other hand, Trump was a giant mass of hypocrisy and misogyny. People wanting to turn away from Trump and his pussy grabbing looked to Hillary and saw….Bill. You can evaluate the respective nature of the various claims of assault, but those issues were still present, to varying degrees, in both candidates, if only by association.
Doug R
@Baud: Speaking of tribes, as a Senator from New York, Wall Street are among her constituents.
So she gives a couple of speeches saying don’t worry, we just want to regulate you so you can’t cheat people and we might raise taxes a tiny bit to pay for stuff. Then she gets paid and the purity pony patrol LOOSES IT.
Never mind the ‘bots that start it make sure they collect their Russian pension checks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004
Baud
@TenguPhule:
I was practicing pardoning turkeys. I’m sorry.
hovercraft
@Baud:
What are doing here, it’s the middle of the day, usually we use theses hours to plan our responses to your witticisms.
Baud
@glory b:
Hence the popular vote win.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
With respect to emails and servers, they didn’t do the same thing at all. Sorry, but they didn’t.
TenguPhule
@LongHairedWeirdo:
This, this, a thousand times this.
How the fuck did everyone let the GOP get away with blame Hillary for Bengazhi when the REPUBLICANS were the fuckers who cut the security budget for the State Dept?
TenguPhule
@Bailey: You’re right. Hillary used better security.
Baud
@hovercraft: Home sick.
Omnes Omnibus
@glory b: Exactly. The base is the base because it is the people who show up to at least vote in every election.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Not only that, but the rule that Hillary supposedly violated was put into place after she left office as Secretary of State.
Funny how many people keep getting that little detail wrong … ?
Monala
@PJ:
The problem with this as a standard is that it leaves us with virtually no one who can run for high office. Obama is singular in both having exceptional charisma and a squeaky clean life. How many other politicians have that? If we accept the standard imposed by the Republicans, no one would be left to run for office.
Turgidson
@Yarrow:
The only way Weiner makes a political comeback is if he switches parties and starts spewing unhinged filth about the right’s favorite targets. They’ll forgive anything as long as the person being forgiven hates the right people loudly enough.
PJ
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I’m not saying that’s they way it should be, I’m saying that’s the way it is. Bill’s sexual behavior was used against Hillary for decades. I personally do not care about what goes on in anyone else’s marriage; it’s none of my business. But Republicans will make an issue out of any Democrat’s sex or marital life. If you have a strong base in your district or state, like, say, Barney Frank, you can ride it out, but no one has that strong a base as President.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Forgiveness is going to require you to do unspeakable things to a goat in order to call up the Old Ones to destroy the RNC.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Also incorrect. The rules were put into place in 2005.
Uncle Cosmo
Indeed history can turn on small things. And small people. Ladies & germs, I give you one Lester Matz, “the engineer who had been paying off [Vice-President Spiro] Agnew since [his] days [as Baltimore County Executive] and who first implicated Agnew in the corruption investigation”.
Without Matz’s testimony that he had delivered the infamous white envelopes to Agnew in the Vice-Presidential office, the latter would likely not have been forced to resign (as part of the plea deal allowing him to plead nolo contendere to charges of tax evasion).
Agnew was Nixon’s human shield against impeachment (although that was still not a high-percentage prospect in October 1973): Democrats would have thought many times more than twice about going after Tricky Dick if it mean installing that sonofabitch in the White House.
As it was, Nixon cast about for a replacement shield, & thought he’d found one in Representative Gerry Ford, an amiable bumpkin of a Representative, well-liked by his Congressional peers (& thus easily confirmed) but widely considered an amiable bumpkin. Tricky Dick figured no Congress would risk putting the nuclear codes in the hands of a man whol LBJ once described as having “played too many games of football without a helmet.”
He of course was wrong. And the rest is history.
A little man. Small white envelopes, containing astonishingly small sums. (That Agnew was a grifter surprised no one who knew Baltimore County & Maryland politics of the era*. The wonder was that he was such a cheap one.)
Somewhere down the line, perhaps, the Democrats in Congress may face the agonizing question of whether to pursue Dolt45 if it means installing an avowed theocrat once considered “the stupidest member of the House of Representatives” in his place.
Paging Lester Matz…
—–
* I came home from the hospital to Baltimore County when Truman was President & didn’t move out until Tricky Dick had quit, so I know the lay of the land well. As a HS student I walked 10 minutes down the street to the dedication of the then-new North Point Area Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library by, among others, then-County Executive Agnew. who stood maybe 20 feet away. Probably my last chance to change the course of history…
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I have to say, as skeevy as Bill Clinton’s behavior sometimes was, there have been zero credible accusations that he went after underage girls. Even intern Monica Lewinsky was 23 years old when their affair started.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
Is there some indication that the State Department.gov was hacked? Doesn’t seem like this is really a very good argument.
Jacel
@germy: Lieberman will stand up to Republican presidents when they tell him, “Stand up!” And to jump when they say, “Jump!”
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: I think you mean that most of her “classified” emails were classified after she left.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@schrodingers_cat:
Dammit, I knew there was a reason same-sex marriage was a bad idea!
TenguPhule
@Bailey: State was hacked. Lots of files stolen. Hillary’s server was probed, but no penetration occurred as far as we know.
Baud
I really hope we’re not going to revisit the merits of the email issue. I’d rather discuss the merits of creationism.
dnfree
@Miss Bianca: If it makes any difference, I’m a woman, approximately Hillary’s age. And I’m a tech person, in the computer field since 1966, so the email issue is in my area of interest/knowledge.
Yes, a lot of effort went into bringing her down. Unfortunately, the emails are like a Greek tragedy in that she tried to avoid having them become public by setting up a private server and only turning over the ones selected by an inadequate method of sorting. But that very setup lent itself to the conspiracy theory. In the bigger picture, She had aides who recognized it as a mistake after the fact, but apparently none who pointed out the potential liabilities at the time.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-emails-2016-server-state-department-fbi-214307
SatanicPanic
Like Roger Ailes this thread has gone to hell.
glory b
@hovercraft: Aren’t we though?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
That would require a different set of trolls.
mdblanche
@hovercraft: I take it Sessions never watched The West Wing.
hovercraft
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Since I fell off the wagon last week, last night was the first time I was tempted to climb back on, I was enjoying all the Twitler detritus, and then Chris Hayes had to harsh my mellow by trying to make me watch Wilmer, fortunately I was behind so I was able to fast forward through the interview.
I find it funny how they all feel that it’s very very important to innumerate all of Hillary’s faults and all the ways she and the establishment screwed up, it is never okay to be even a little critical of Saint Bernard.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
Is there a link or some reporting on this? I’d be interested to see about State being hacked.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: When is the shift change in Russia?
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: Thank you because if people on the Left can’t figure out that the email server issue WASN’T A DANG SCANDAL, then we’re screwed in 2018 and 2020. Huge sigh.
martian
Mere weeks after Trump was revealed on video boasting of assaulting women, after woman after woman came forward to say, “Yes, he did it to me.”, after it was revealed that he would barge into dressing rooms to stare at naked teenagers, more than 60 million people went to the polls and voted for that sideshow carnie to be president rather than an extremely qualified woman. Millions more weren’t bothered enough one way or the other to even vote. However many other factors there are, I think misogyny probably dwarfs them all.
Anthony Weiner is small fry. I don’t cry for him, he deserves whatever he’ll get, but the entire thing with him weirdly reminds me of Martha Stewart going down for her penny ante stock crap during the time of the Enron collapse. Minnows, they’re just minnows amongst the sharks. If it wasn’t Weiner, there would have been some other reason Comey needed to write a letter.
hovercraft
@Baud:
Sorry to hear that, I hope you get well quick ;D
Gelfling 545
@hovercraft: I have a visceral feeling that Sessions will regret leaving his nice, safe Senate seat before too long.
Turgidson
@dnfree:
No one thinks that – she’s made tons of mistakes and made plenty during the campaign. But the actual mistakes she made in 2016 were small beer compared to the bullshit non-scandal “mistakes” that actually dented her reputation and gave Hair Furor the opening to squeak out that EC win.
The Clinton Rules are the inverse of what you said. The Clinton Rules are that she is automatically completely guilty of any and every fevered accusation from any source, no matter how deranged, until it is overwhelmingly proven otherwise, and even then the damage to her reputation remains. The MSM is compelled to cover even the most idiotic conspiracy theories that reference the Clintons. Fer fucks sake, the NYT contracted with the Clinton Cash asshole to help them “cover” HRC’s campaign. They ran what seemed like dozens of stories insinuating that HRC was a crook based on what turned out to be nothing. But even IF they followed up or corrected the record, they would still say the bullshit non-scandal they incorrectly reported “raised suspicions” or “was a shadow”.
It took some real Clinton Rules magic to make HRC’s polling on “honest and trustworthy” WORSE THAN DONALD FUCKING TRUMP. But they did it.
Baud
@hovercraft: Thank you.
El Caganer
BREAKING NEWS: WEINER GETS GRILLED; COMES UP SHORT!
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Bailey: I don’t know about reporting. I do know that my late sister, a Foreign Service Officer, and all of her coworkers got urgent communications through every channel from State in November 2015 that their personnel files had been hacked and stolen and a huge amount of personal and financial information was at risk. State offered technical and legal support to all of the affected employees. Among other things, my brother-in-law had to spend a significant part of my sister’s last painful days sorting through her many accounts and investments and changing passwords and contact info and telling family their info might be compromised, too.
Ian G.
@lollipopguild:
Hell, forget Meade. Chamberlain’s decision to have the 20th Maine do a bayonet charge down Little Round Top when they were out of ammo finally broke the Confederate assault on that position and allowed the Union to hold the high ground for Lee’s jihad-esque decision to destroy his own army with Pickett’s charge the next day.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
I think Republicans were created to make the rest of us suffer.
Thoughts?
Turgidson
@Bailey:
Yeah, they sure were different. Colin Powell used a fucking AOL account for his work email. An AOL account. Clinton had personal IT support.
Gelfling 545
@aimai: seriously. One of the biggest hurdles HRC had was showing that she was not her husband.
feebog
I am convinced, mostly on the factual evidence produced by Nate Silver at 538, that Comey’s “reopening” of the Clinton email investigation was the tipping point. It is the one factor you can point to and actually quantify the damage. I’m also convinced that Comey knew the New York field office was about to leak this information and was desperate to cut the leak off at the pass.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
.
Me too, but I gather Himself hand-waved away all this talk of Russia and trump, and whined about how he was getting pressure to stick to a unified message
If Hayes reads his mentions, he might actually diversify his Senatorial guest list in the future. As a few people pointed out, three women of color from large (or largish), diverse and electorally important states were elected to the Senate six months ago, the first since Carol Mosely Braun lost in ’98, and Hayes repeatedly turns to the old white man from a small, lily-white state to explain what’s really going on.
ruemara
@Baud: Why not. It seems to be the only thing for true progressives to be concerned about. After all her server wasn’t hacked, the rules were not in place until after Kerry took office due to the server issue, she at least used a private server rather than gmail and AOL. But let’s brawl about it. It’s not like there’s a neonazi fascist collaboration with a foreign government to topple democracies world wide going on. It’s not like the right to vote by the ONLY FUCKING PEOPLE WILLING TO COSIGN YOUR GLORIOUS PROGRESSIVE POLICIES is under attack. Let’s bring up Wilmer and his dumb rapey writings too and go for the full retro 2016 primary box set.
hovercraft
@Bailey:
Sources: State Dept. hack the ‘worst ever’
By Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz, CNN
New details emerge about 2014 Russian hack of the State Department …
Apr 3, 2017 – Over a 24-hour period, top U.S. cyber defenders engaged in a pitched battle with Russian hackers who had breached the unclassified State …
Significant Cyber Attacks on Federal Systems — 2004-present – Lawfare
May 7, 2012 – The list is alphabetical by agency/department and continues after the jump: … 7 weeks. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/ …. was hacked by unknown intruders, who gained access to state and …
Next question.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: Google 2015 State Dept hacking. It was in the news for a bit. And yes, the Russians were probably behind it.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
PLEASE tweet Christ and tell him this (again), if you can. He might see it – it’s worth a try. I know having Wilmer on is all about ratings, but I think Chris has some leeway.
Yarrow
@martian:
It seems to be the factor given some of the least attention by the media. Corporate media masters have little interest in exploring that issue.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
Okay, I know that, but I meant during HRC’s time in office since that is the relevant time period. For all we know, the Clinton server is being hacked left and right now–no one’s looking anymore.
MisterForkbeard
@mai naem mobile: Careful. As awesome as Franken is, you’re going to IMMEDIATELY get the media and conservatives involved in a “Both Sides Do It” by trying to equate Trump with Franken as both media figures.
Their complete difference in temperament, intellect and education isn’t going to matter to these idiots.
All that said, Franken is basically fantastic. He’s smart, charismatic, *real*, and can throw shade with the best of them. The other problem is that he’s currently a fantastic Senator, and we may need every Senator in their seats.
hovercraft
@mdblanche:
Wanna bet Franken did.
amk
Baud
@Bailey:
The absence of evidence is the most damning evidence of all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I haven’t seen Himself on TRMS or the O’Donnell show in a while, and their ratings are, I think, stronger than Hayes’, though his are also way up. His Millenials watch on line, if they watch, and his older voters are the type who tell you they don’t own a TV if you ask them what time it is, or how ’bout this weather.
(No, I don’t have a link on that last bit. I am snarking)
CindyH
@Baud: Perfect.
Baud
@amk: LOL. Like Trump can internalize six bullet points.
Bailey
@Baud:
Perhaps. Then again, she’s not running for anything, either.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good christ, as twitter Nixon might say
Gelfling 545
@hovercraft: ?
hovercraft
@Gelfling 545: I’m thinking a bunch of his cabinet members will. It’s not like they need the money, but most of them left very cushy positions that they can’t just go back to, I guess they’ll have to settle for going home to count all their millions as they cry about the fact that they didn’t quite manage to get all of the money those poor people are stealing from the job creators like them.
Brachiator
Did anyone watch that documentary about Weiner? I listened to an interview with the filmmakers and could only watch a brief excerpt from the film. Anthony Weiner seemed to court self-destruction.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this might properly belong in the last thread, but I flout bloggy etiquette. I am a disruptor
drip, drip, drip, tick, tick, tick– there’s all kinds of investigations that don’t need to wait for Mueller
TenguPhule
@Bailey:
Seeing as the server is off-line, that would require some impressive technological advancements to the point of magic.
Origuy
@Mnemosyne: OT, but as you’ve mentioned Lucy Worsley before, you might find this interesting. She wrote a book about Jane Austin, and tweeted an excerpt from the Amazon reviews. Apparently there is a Jane Austin truther named Nicholas Ennis who thinks that Jane’s cousin wrote her books.
ETA And he thinks the “Masonic estabishment” conspires to keep this a secret.
Mnemosyne
@Monala:
Obama was also lucky that Bill Clinton had already broken the barrier for past drug use by politicians. Ridiculous as the whole I didn’t inhale thing was, it defanged that kind of attack. Otherwise, Obama would have been crucified just based on what he wrote in Dreams From My Father.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Of course he can, have you seen his body mass? He could internalize a lot more then that. At least enough to double his weight.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
@hovercraft: I’m standing. I’m clapping. I’m standing and clapping.
Baud
@TenguPhule: Why did she take the server offline? What is she trying to hide? Documents relating to her Comet Pizza child trafficking ring?
It’s the only logical conclusion.
Gelfling 545
@martian: it’s clear that if HRC really wanted to win she’d have been prudent enough to be born male. Serious oversight on her part.
Doug R
@Bailey: You’re right. They were worse.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Impossible. Hell would have better company.
Major Major Major Major
@SatanicPanic:
We have a winner!
PJ
@Monala: and I think that is a problem now. There is a serious lack in the Democratic bench for national politicians under 65, and I have to think that part of the problem is that decent people don’t want to deal with the hassle of fending off attacks on their personal decisions which should be entirely private but which Republicans will make very public.
TenguPhule
@PJ:
This. You have to be a special kind of person to be willing to walk face first into that shitstorm.
And that’s why we can’t have nice things.
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ:
Both horse and bull shit.
Bailey
@Doug R:
How so? Reportedly Rice didn’t use email at all, so that is particularly a strange accusation.
hovercraft
@Bailey:
Just an FYI, Hillary Clinton ran to be the 2016 democratic nominee for president and then for president, during that time it was discovered she had work e-mails on a home server, there was an investigation, she was publicly excoriated by everyone and their mother. What do you think the odds are that any of those e-mails are on her current e-mail server? Now that she’s no longer running for president, there are no doubt some people out there who would love to hack her just to embarrass her, I doubt her server is a priority for the Russians now. She can have her server every day five times a day and it’s no ones business, she’s a private citizen, she no longer has access to classified information.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Wasn’t there an article the other that suggested Dwayne The Rock Johnson as our next nominee?
Major Major Major Major
I wonder how many of these people actually know what an email server is or does.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Rachel’ been # 1, Laurence # 2 in all of cable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I’ve heard it mentioned.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: It has to be something nasty.
SatanicPanic
@Major Major Major Major: It prints out your email and brings it to you, duh
Bailey
@Brachiator:
I saw it. If you like the really awkward, painful humor of, say, the UK version of “The Office” is was enjoyable. Otherwise it was maddening.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: RNC emails were used for government business. RNC then deleted all those emails in violation of the law.
dnfree
@Bailey: Thank you. It’s discouraging to see that many of those commenting about the emails/servers/ have mastered the left-wing talking points on the subject and haven’t paid attention to the facts.
Walker
@hovercraft:
Not for long. They are killing O’Donnell’s show. It is clear that O’Donnell is being sacrificed for a backroom deal to kill Net Neutrality. Remember, NBC = Comcast.
Bailey
@hovercraft:
Um, thanks for the PSA?
Baud
@Walker: I’ve heard that O’Donnell doesn’t want to stay. I hope he clear up his intent if he does leave. Not that I like the company, but I don’t like speculating about motivations.
Doug R
@Bailey: You’re just being lazy:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/politics/state-department-hack-worst-ever/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
hmmm…..
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That saying about never picking a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel, the one worse fight to pick, people who spend their life crawling through shit to find out shit about you that even you don’t know.
Trump Attorney Didn’t See Need For Him To Certify Financial Disclosure As True
Oh and those people ith ink aren’t letting up either
NYT: Kushner Asked Lockheed CEO To Cut Better Arms Deal For Saudi Arabia
A New York Times report out Friday, citing several unnamed administration officials, described a meeting between Kushner and a delegation from the Gulf nation on May 1.
“Let’s get this done today,” Kushner is quoted as saying of the more than $100 billion arms deal on the table, which both sides wanted to finalize before Trump’s visit to the nation this weekend as part of his first trip overseas as President. One American official raised the possibility that the Saudis add a Lockheed-made radar system to the bill.
From the Times:
Sensing that the cost might be a problem, several administration officials said, Mr. Kushner picked up the phone and called Marillyn A. Hewson — the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, which makes the radar system — and asked her whether she could cut the price. As his guests watched slack-jawed, Ms. Hewson told him she would look into it, officials said.
Omnes Omnibus
Troll tag team or sock puppets? Inquiring minds what to know.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
He’s thinking of running for office, because apparently anyone can run and win these days.
Of course, if he were to crush Paul Ryan’s skull between his bare hands, he’ll definitely get my vote!
dnfree
@Patricia Kayden: No. It wasn’t a dang scandal. It was a truly bad idea that no one on Hillary’s team apparently was able to tell her would be a bad idea, for both technical reasons and “Clinton derangement” reasons.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hmm. One mansplains and another pretends to be female. A floor polish AND a dessert topping?
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why not both?
Baud
@TenguPhule: I always thought he was a Republican.
Miss Bianca
@Monala:
Minor Emendation: If we accept the standard imposed by the Republicans only on Democratic candidates, but never on their own, no one would be left to run for office.
Which is what they want, of course. Republicans and lefty purity ponies seem to agree on this point, if on no other.
hovercraft
@Baud:
Someone ran a poll, and the Rock is beating Twitler. I think you’ll need to hit the gym if want to make it out of the primary next time.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s a great box to stand on to yell, “BUT HER EMAILZ!!!” at passersby.
Bailey
@dnfree:
Seriously.
Do I think HRC’s lapse was as serious as Trump disclosing top secret info in the White House to a Russian spy? No. Of course not.
But having a separate server was always a dumb idea that lead to a huge perception problem of conspiracy. The campaign’s methods of dealing with it were terrible. It was all avoidable. It may have even been avoidable had HRC kept her email/server and then also created a state .gov address that she cc’d on all communication–that would have at least fulfilled the records portion that she turn over all her communication in a timely manner which she also did not do.
I agree with Comey’s analysis (although his public statements were harsh) that the intent was not there to traffic in classified information. (And some was clearly classified retroactively.) But as a pure reading of the statute? Definitely a prosecutor could have made a case in the other direction.
It’s never been the high treason the right wing claims, but it was also never a nothingburger that the left claims, either.
Baud
@hovercraft: If they asked me, I’d vote for The Rock over Trump.
Anyone know the best place on the internet to get steroids?
Baud
@Bailey: It was a nothingburger. And any criminal charge would have been frivolous.
artem1s
@hovercraft:
thank you. these assholes did more than just engage in the usual Clinton Derangement Syndrome. They did everything in their power to de-legitimize the entire Obama presidency. Hillary was attacked in part because her history and her sex made her an obvious, easy target for the usual mouth breathers who convict people based on rumor and innuendo. But the initial object of their attack was how the Obama administration conducted foreign affairs. They jumped on the Benghazi thing because it was their 9/11 equivalency that proved Dems weren’t any better than W at protecting the country. They ended up at the emails because the hack of the State Department servers didn’t turn up the juicy smoking gun that would demonstrate that Obama, Hillary and the Democrats couldn’t be trusted with national security. They pulled this shit with Romney. He was just too inept to pull off a convincing lie that somehow Obama murdered those people in Benghazi with his bare hands because he refused to say the magic words ‘radical Islam’. The hacks began long before the general and long before the primaries. They began with the GOP paid stooges trying to find her personal communications so they could comb through it and use it to discredit the obvious front runner for the Dems. If it had been Joe Biden, they would have trotted out his personal info and troubled family history as well. Bernie would have been incinerated.
The GOP does this to everyone. They do it to each other. Look at the shit W did to McCain and every other candidate who dared stand in the way of the almighty Bush CABAL. Only Hillary is expected to have the magical foresight to evade all their shit. Only Hillary is expected to be the invincible evil mastermind who can anticipate and destroy all her enemies with her magic evil laugh. Only Hillary is expected to be unfailingly loyal and selfless to the whole world and simultaneously throw even a slightly suspect colleague under the bus if they might, at some mysterious future date, be a problem for her ambitions. Oh and she’s suppose to do those things without being ambitious or conniving or manipulative. /FFS
TWO YEARS. TWO FUCKING YEARS BEFORE SHE DECLARED. that’s when she combed thru the emails, at the request of State and the FBI. They fucking changed the rules for blood sport and nothing else.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
ZDNet says you’re wrong. Sorry, but I trust their word on tech matters much more than a Hillary hater like yourself.
Baud
Seriously, we need a new thread. Cheryl’s new. Shouldn’t she be on watch?
Bailey
@Doug R:
Oh, so two years after she left service? Good to know.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Somebody just posted and deleted… something…
Hildebrand
@PJ: Kamala Harris, Jason Kander, Pete Buttigieg, Chris Murphy, Deval Patrick, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Seth Moulton, Eric Garcetti – and these are just off the top of my head.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: Yes, because everyone knows that nobody ever keeps old emails on government servers.
If you’re gonna troll here you need to step up your game.
dnfree
@Turgidson: Yes, I know what the “Clinton rules” are outside of Balloon-Juice. I was referring to the rules that apply here, given that even a mild comment will bring down the wrath of some. (Someone even indicated above that it’s a bad idea to comment on this because of Hillary being a woman, and someone called me a dude.) I read and appreciate this blog and many of the commenters, but the few times I have commented (usually about computers/technology or something else I’m familiar with, in what I hope is a calm tone), this kind of response has dominated.
I supported Hillary, I think Trump is appalling, I know that Clinton derangement syndrome exists, and yet I think the Clintons by some of their avoidable decisions, have added fuel to that fire. In 2008 Hillary suffered because of the advisers she trusted, and the same was apparently true this time. She still won the popular vote, and there was suppression in key states.
Doug R
@PJ: Yeah, not much of a bench:
https://news.vice.com/story/up-to-1000-democratic-candidates-are-about-to-make-the-2018-congressional-primaries-completely-insane
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: I hope it’s about creationism. I could use the intellectual stimulation.
lollipopguild
@Baud: You looking to play in the NFL?
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Yes, I’m sure that after the Russians stole the fucking election using stolen emails, Hillary just left her server wide open.
I mean, I realize that’s what you would do, but we already know you’re a moron.
TenguPhule
@Baud: He’s registered as Republican. But if he’s willing to Game of Thrones his way through his own party to claim power, I can live with that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I think we need a Tbogg unit on 2016 before we move on for the day. Otherwise HRC might run again in 2016 2020
damn
hovercraft
@Omnes Omnibus:
Who cares?
I usually give them one shot and then move on, but that’s just me.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: You know, there are rationalists out there who can actually put up a damn good fight about how the earth is flat. As trolls, of course.
TenguPhule
@dnfree:
True.
But enabling an ass like Bailey tends to get you tarred by the same brush.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
And we almost certainly would know, because emails hacked from her personal server would have been far better election fodder than Podesta’s risotto recipes.
glory b
@hovercraft: Chris is trying hard to make Wilmer a thing.
Otherwise, it seems that he is on television less than he was right after the election.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Trump was specifically designed to prove that evolution is a cruel joke.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Although I believe in things like climate change and evolution, I could not successfully debate a creationist or a climate denier. I’m simply not well versed enough in either the truth or the lies that surround those particular frauds. It’s a skillset that has nothing to do with the merits of an issue, as we see with the GOP everyday.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
I dunno, I prefer eating risotto to eating emails. But that’s just me.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Its not that hard. Kansas managed to do it, after all.
MisterForkbeard
@Bailey: Of course “the Clinton server” isn’t being hacked left and right – it’s not RUNNING anymore and hasn’t been for years. Furthermore, the State Department server hacked in 2015 means that many of the past and archived emails (say, from Hillary’s time) would have been available for theft.
Just One More Canuck
@El Caganer: I relished that comment
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Interesting article. ZDNet states: “We have discussed Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server extensively here on ZDNet, including my own informal recommendation that she not run because of the possible security violations this practice may have caused.” That’s quite an endorsement.
So what I’m getting here is Rice was, indeed, not “worse” (which was alleged) for the simple reason that, like I said, she didn’t use email. Neither did Albright. Both totally in compliance. Kerry uses email and is also totally in compliance. Powell used AOL (private email but not server). He apparently didn’t turn over correspondence. No sense of how much or how little this might be.
And we know that HRC had both private email and private server and did not turn over correspondence until it was found by the Benghazi committee, at which point, she (or her lawyers) sorted through what they considered personal and deleted that which doesn’t look amazing to the public at large.
Mnemosyne
@Origuy:
There’s always a weirdo truther out there for every subject, isn’t there? Sheesh!
Now I’m almost tempted to google for the conspiracy so I can point and laugh. It would be more entertaining than Round 56,743 of Hillary was guilty of everything the Republicans said she was! that we’re currently undergoing.
Spanky
@Baud:
Howzabout this from the WaPo?
My favorite part where he channels Mussolini:
Moar…
ETA: Naturally, Cole squeezes off a quick one during my typing . {Rolleyes}
Bailey
@MisterForkbeard:
Okay, then whatever gmail account HRC is using. It honestly doesn’t matter to me whether it’s running or not. Presumably she is communicating in some digital way.
Dems are determined to find that HRC was actually insightful and brilliant for having a server in her house despite the fact it was a major drag on her election and she was out of compliance. Keep making that argument. Maybe someone will start buying it.
MisterForkbeard
@dnfree: Wait – were these the rules that were created in 2005 but weren’t actually implemented for State until after Hillary’s tenure?
Miss Bianca
@artem1s: yeah, but don’t worry…if the Republicans ever decide to let up on trying to convict Democrats on “national security” issues, we always have concern trolls who can tell us why exactly it is that the Republicans were right on this issue.
TenguPhule
I certainly do want these people to get what’s coming to them good and hard.
There are a lot of people in this country that I feel for because they don’t deserve what’s coming.
This guy ain’t one of them.
Miss Bianca
@dnfree:
And what we’re trying to say is that THIS is the salient issue, not whatever sins Hillary Clinton may or may not have committed. Get it now? Or are you committed to *not* getting it?
TenguPhule
@Bailey:
So the new goalpost is “Hillary Clinton is not allowed to use emails. Ever.”
And this is why, dnfree, you don’t want to consort with the likes of Bailey.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Speaking of Wilmer, Larry Wilmore has a new podcast, and one of his first guests?: Wilmer, on to talk about the future of the Democratic Party.
He’s. Not. A. Dem!
I swear to Jesus Hernandez Christ, I deleted that episode so fucking fast. Get Autnie Maxine or Ted Lieu or Kamala Harris on to talk about the future of the Dems, then I’ll listen. Fuck Wilmer.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: I saw one today about how people who voted for Trump because he sounded good on opioid issues, even over their strong objections to the rest of his face-eating leopard agenda, are shocked that the leopard is about to eat their faces.
MisterForkbeard
@Bailey: This is stupid. Beyond stupid. We’re not saying the email server was THE BEST IDEA EVER, we’re saying it’s basically normal practice that was made to look especially bad because of The Clinton Rule. Also, that people trying to insinuate that this was the Worst Idea Ever For Security are ignoring the actual fact that Hillary’s system was never hacked… while the one those same people insist she should have used was hacked, in spectacular fashion.
Get off your soapbox, dude. You’re not convincing anyone, and you’re just making yourself look like a contrarian ass.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
What? How do you derive that conclusion? Of course she’s allowed to communicate. My point was that whatever she is doing now, we have no insight into whether she’s being hacked or not because she’s not a public interest. Way to miss the point entirely.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@glory b: I’m a Hayes fan, but he is, at least in part, just the kind of hothouse progressive who oh-so-desperately wants this to be a country where Wilmerism can win elections…
@Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire): I was so excited when Wilmore got his own show, but I had to quit watching cause all his panels, which were pretty excruciating to begin with, became little more than self-congratulatory references to [Wilmer] followed by the “Whooooo!”s of the audience.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
in fairness, that is what s/he is working rather hard at
Mnemosyne
@Hildebrand:
Well, at least three of those people are women, so you can discount them immediate. White men only need apply, or the Berniebros will refuse to vote for the tainted vagina owners.
dogwood
@Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire):
Keeping Sanders and his “movement” alive is a high priority for Republicans and the Russians. It is crucial for Trump’s reelection chances.
dnfree
@Miss Bianca: And I’m agreeing with you on that (and numerous other external factors that worked against her) while still believing that she contributed to her own downfall, both in 2008 and 2016, by doing things that competent advisers would have advised her against. I do not know whether that means she had incompetent advisers or whether she had competent advisers but didn’t take their advice.
Bailey
@MisterForkbeard:
Yeah, but it basically isn’t the normal practice. Which is kind of the point.
Finding out retroactively that one server got hacked more than another is hardly justification for not following procedure. It isn’t as though HRC’s original argument was “I don’t trust the integrity of the State Department.” If that were the case, it might be an interesting discussion. Trying to make it retroactively fit as though it were a superior choice in hindsight doesn’t quite get around that basic conflict established though.
“Contrarian ass” = does not agree that HRC made a good decision, that it was a nothingburger, or that a prosecutor could not have made a case. Good to know.
martian
@Yarrow: They don’t even think it’s a story. Women are everywhere right? Just look at all these women up in here. It’s not the olden days. Reverse sexism, MRAs, now there’re some stories. The treatment follows the same pattern as racism. How anybody could ever say with a straight face that it doesn’t exist anymore is a marvel. But there also, society in general seemed to skip from being forced to acknowledge very uncomfortable realities, to a quick hop through remedies, and right back to how it’s not really a problem. Now there’s just an extra serving of resentment because, “Y’all are so ungrateful for the many accommodations you were blessed with, and those are really unnecessary now, also, too, time for society to be unburdened of all these irksome special privileges and voting rights and such.” I wish it were only a corporate problem, but it’s societal.
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
AND YET in all of these threads, at least two or three people show up to claim that Hillary lost the Electoral College not because of well-documented voter suppression, or because Comey put his thumb on the scales, or because of Russian meddling, but because of how Hillary ran her email server.
The reason you’re getting so much pushback is that you’re feeding the trolls who want nothing more than to encourage Democrats to blame themselves for 2016 and ignore, for example, the Russian meddling in House races.
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
Argh. I can’t edit my comment, but here’s the story about Russian meddling in House races in 2016.
Do you get why people are a little frustrated that you’re more interested in examining a single leaf on the tree rather than looking at the entire tree, much less the forest around that tree?
Peale
@Mnemosyne: Yep. Pretty much. I think we’ll lose again in 2018 simply because Trump will do nasty things that hurt people. That will inspire their base to come out asking for more. Our voters will blame Democrats for not stopping Trump, talk about how she would have been the same, find the root of all of his policies in mid-90s neoliberalism, and decide that since the Democrats aren’t doing a good job preventing Trump from doing things, they must be in cahoots with the GOP. And then bring up the e-mails.
glory b
@Spanky: I recall our own Adam Silverman saying this would happen.
Of course, he said that Assange would then be without diplomatic protection and then, well…
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
I was listening to a similar story about voters in some Illinois county that voted for Trump by a 20 percent margin over Clinton. These people were even echoing Trump that the controversy was nothing but a “witch hunt.”
These people are the best suckers the GOP could ever hope for. They won’t realize that they’re pockets have been picked and that they will get nothing from the Republicans until Trump is long gone.
gene108
Hillary should have used AOL like Powell and Rice before her. And deleted all her e-mails, like Powell and Rice before her, so there would be nothing to hand over, when the law got changed and she was required to hand over e-mails.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Ignored the part that said Rice’s staff — who sent emails on her behalf — were not in compliance, did we?
But, hey, giving yourself plausible deniability when your staff breaks the rules on your behalf is way better than bending the rules yourself.
Captain C
@Mnemosyne:
FTFY
Baud
@Captain C: Hope not. I think he’s going to MT to support our special election candidate for the House seat.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@hovercraft: Preach it!
Let me give you an Amen.
AMEN!
More seriously, this factor cannot and must not be ignored. It’s the weight on the rubber sheet of the political continuum, this judgmental insanity that creeps in on anyone who isn’t a white man. Unless, of course, that white man is Bill Clinton.
gene108
@Brachiator:
There’s a vast right-wing media machine dedicated to fluffing everything any Republican does, especially Donald Trump. Period.
If you only trusted them as your only reliable news source, you’d think Trump is the most persecuted President ever.
Every non-right-wing news site is a fever bed of liberal commies just waiting to destroy Trump, Republicans, God, Jesus, families and America.
There are places that make Fox News look “fair and balanced”.
El Caganer
@Mnemosyne: The two killers were 1. voter suppression (it was real and it certainly became obvious after Pew and other organizations analyzed the voting patterns) and 2. Our Liberal Media, which glorified trivia, preferred spectacle to substance, and in general did worse than a junior-high student newspaper. If OLM hadn’t sucked so much, the Russian interference would have been meaningless – what did they really get from hacking? Not much, but OLM made emails and weiners and risotto and a host of other irrelevancies into A Portrait Of A Nation In Crisis. Comey was a bigger problem, but – again – OLM squeezed all kinds of juice from his statement that any sort of responsible journalist wouldn’t have bothered with. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was fine; if she made any error, it was in trying to keep the campaign within established societal norms against a person who doesn’t recognize such things exist.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
You’re really reaching.
Whatever helps you sleep better at night, I suppose. If only it weren’t for that pesky inspector general report, or FBI investigation that didn’t agree with you.
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/ig-report-on-clintons-emails/
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
And they’ll blame the Democrats for not stopping him.
dnfree
@Mnemosyne: The “forest around that tree”, to me, isn’t just the email server. The email server, because of my field, is just the one I have the most awareness of (and I know that many of the excuses the left has come up with, listed in this thread, are false or misleading). What is the “forest around that tree”? I would say it is Hillary’s insistence, completely understandable, on being surrounded by loyal staffers, and what I perceive as an unwillingness to hear uncomfortable truths (or possibly the inability of the loyal staffers to perceive and convey those truths). The email server was a terrible idea from the perspective of how it would appear if for no other reason. That decision shows bad judgment, and judgment is one of the main things we look for in a candidate.
Certainly Hillary would have been infinitely more desirable than Trump is as president, but I think her inability to accept/deal with legitimate concerns would still have been a problem.
Being a person of retirement age, I found it appalling that in the final stages of the campaign we were down to three people (Trump, Hillary, Bernie) who were all around or above the age of 70. It’s not a job for someone that age. I wish the Democrats hadn’t just essentially rolled out the red carpet for Hillary (and then had Bernie leap onto it as well). I wish they had had a real primary where everyone younger hadn’t just stood aside. This time around nearly all of the Republican candidates were crazy, but at least they had a primary.
Bailey
@dnfree:
This. I agree with every word.
Brachiator
@gene108:
This is old news. It is also the case that Trump supporters look for anything which confirms their faith in Trump. And for the first time, they have their Fearless leader using media, Twitter, to talk to them directly. They don’t need Fox News if they can get a direct infusion of Trump craziness.
Some people want to be fooled.
gvg
@dnfree:
Boy are you mistaken as to what “Clinton rules” means here and elsewhere. Clinton rules mean the right wingers ALWAYS decide whatever Bill or Hillary do, it’s terrible, ignoring that others including themselves do the same thing. Ignoring evidence, and facts and making up new batshit crazy CT’s about minor stuff.
We try to defend but get buried in the river of s**t. Consequently, it does get hard to just stay matter of fact and see them for human because we know the anger junkies are going to twist everything.
I did prefer Obama partly because I knew the CDS would be a factor. After 8 years of attacks of nonsense on Obama, I was like f**k it, there is no satisfying these nuts, just pick the best candidate and get on with things. It hasn’t worked so well either and I notice that a lot of people old enough to have lived through the Bill derangement Presidency, seem to have absorbed some toxins about Hillary without realizing they have been bullied into hearing nonsense. It worries me. Seems like propaganda has been working and that isn’t safe.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: the post at the top of this thread was about Weiner being sentenced, and how Weiner’s stupidity/selfishness was one of the factors causing Trump to win. This is because the laptop (from which he presumably sent dick pics to teenagers) also allegedly contained emails from Hillary which Abedin had sent to/backed up on, which enabled Comey to say he was reopening his investigation into Hillary’s emails two weeks before the election. It’s the HillaryCanDoNoWrong people who keep bringing up the emails, and why are all these trolls talking about them, and why isn’t Sanders being investigated/excoriated for his crimes!!! They keep picking at the same sore and wonder why it never heals.
TEL
@dnfree: Golly gee, aren’t you just full of “reasonable concerns” about the terribleness of Hilliary, without actually adding anything substantial to back it up. When pushed on why Hillary’s emails were so terrible, instead of elucidating a reason, you fall back into claiming what an expert you are, and that all of the pushback you’re getting is “false and misleading”. Care to explain what you actually mean by that other than that this same pushback makes you look less than the knowledgeable expert you claim to be?
You then conveniently change the goalposts by whining how Hilliary had the red carpet rolled out for her, and how old she is. Concern troll is concerned.
Captain C
@Turgidson: Given the experience we’ve had with Trump voters, chasing and harassing underage girls might be a plus.
Captain C
@Baud: I won’t hold that against Quist. In fact, I’ll still send him (Quist) money.
Captain C
@Mnemosyne: I think Bush likely having done (possibly copious amounts of) blow helped on that end too, even if IOKIYAR.
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
Really? The forest around that tree is not Russian interference in the election, or Comey’s interference in the election, or deliberate suppression of Democratic votes? The only trees in your forest are things Hillary did wrong?
People like you are why Democrats lose, and why we will lose again in 2018. You’re so focused on apportioning blame for the last attack that you refuse to defend against the next attack by those very same forces that I just named. And you will come back here and be astonished that the Democrats lost because you won’t be able to figure out how it was Hillary’s fault.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
You sure do love to defend Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. But you only read right-wing websites for the articles, right?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I believe the technical term for this is “affinity fraud”: people are more likely to get duped by people who present themselves as part of their group. That’s why you have a lot of Mormons getting scammed by other Mormons, fundamentalists getting scammed by other fundamentalists, etc.
dnfree
@TEL: I said nothing about “the terribleness of Hillary”. I voted for her. My comments simply express that the decision to handle emails the way she did was not just a bad technical decision, but a bad decision in terms of “Clinton Derangement Syndrome”. Anyone could see how that might be used against her, but for some reason she didn’t perceive it, and her loyal staff either also didn’t perceive it or didn’t express their concerns to her. I don’t claim to be an expert, just a person who has worked in this field since 1966.
If you believe Clinton was the best possible candidate the Democrats could have fielded in 2016, you are welcome to that belief. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a “concern troll”.
Shalimar
@Mnemosyne: You’re watching the wrong shows. The only time I ever see Bernie is in clips advertising Chris Hayes’ show. I don’t watch Hayes, and changed the channel the few times he showed up on Maddow.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Exactly: Wiener’s stupidity and selfishness is what helped lead to this result.
What people are pushing back on is that Weiner’s stupidity and selfishness are not his own fault, but somehow the fault of Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin. They fucked up, they trusted him, and now his crimes are all Hillary’s fault.
This is why people are getting pissed — Weiner is getting a free pass for his creepy, stupid, and selfish actions because people are saying, Well, none of this would have happened if Hillary hadn’t done X, Y, or Z in the first place!
You know what would have made this not happen? Weiner keeping his fucking dick in his pants. Unless there’s some kind of proof that Hillary mind-controlled him into sending dick pics to a 15-year-old, he is solely responsible for this outcome, not Hillary or his wife. Him.
dnfree
@Mnemosyne: You are already predicting that Democrats will lose in 2018? And people like me will be the cause of that? I don’t think Hillary was the best candidate (and I don’t think Bernie would have survived the Republican buzzsaw, and I don’t think Biden would have been that great either). Not sure how that translates into me being the cause of defeat in 2018.
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
I will repeat for you what I just said to PJ above:
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
If Democratic voters in 2018 focus more on determining exactly what Hillary did wrong with her email server rather than focusing on the fact that Russia interfered in House elections then, yes, we will lose, because the Russians and Republicans will run circles around us.
But, hey, if you’d rather spend the run-up to 2018 deciding exactly who is to blame for Weiner’s dick pics since he’s been absolved of blame for them, have at it.
Shalimar
@dnfree: People are pointing out how stupid it is to focus on all the dents on the passenger side when the engine compartment got crushed in the accident. Yes, the Clinton campaign made mistakes. All campaigns do. The Trump campaign made much bigger mistakes that you’re ignoring because he won.
Dnfree
@Mnemosyne: very true about Weiner. But it wasn’t his first time. Huns kept him as husband (personal decision), Hillary kept Huma as side, Huma backed up her Blackberry on Weiner’s laptop and sent him emails to print. Where do you draw the line on bad decisions?
Mnemosyne
@Dnfree:
I draw the line at the person who made the bad decision.
Weiner is solely responsible for his own dick. No one forced him to take it out and sext a 15-year-old. He chose to do that, and we are all now suffering the consequences of his poor decisionmaking.
And the fact that you’re totally comfortable deciding that it was anyone else’s fault but the guy who owned the dick in question makes me kind of sick, frankly.
If a man gets into a drunk driving accident, do you blame his wife for not taking away the keys? What if he’s gotten into more than one — isn’t she now partly responsible for his actions because she didn’t take his keys away after the first DUI?
ETA: What if she refused to pick him up from a party where he got drunk and told him to Uber home, and he decided to drive anyway? I mean, she’s obviously responsible for the accident now, right?
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Your reductionist thinking is a marvel to witness.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Not quite affinity fraud, but perhaps a second cousin.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
I know — if right-wing websites are breathlessly reporting about Hillary’s pedophile ring that she’s running out of a pizza joint, then we have to admit that there has to be some kind of basis to the allegations since right-wing sites are making them and those dudes never lie.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@BettyCracker
Clinton lost because she couldn’t relate to ordinary workers.
Take it away, Johnny Allen:
AARON MATE: There are a number of revelations in your book, but I’ve got to say the one that I was most shocked by was your reporting that the campaign couldn’t come up for a reason for Hillary to run. That’s just shocking. Can you talk about how you found that out and what you found?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Sure. We talked to a lot of people that worked on her messaging and other parts of the campaign, and they said they too were surprised that after running for President for almost 10 years, she still didn’t have a clearly articulable reason … Funny I hesitated there on the word “articulable” but a clearly articulable reason for running for President. The sort of, “Why her, why now?” questions. One of her senior aides even said to me and my co-author, “I would have had a reason for running or I wouldn’t have run.”
TenguPhule
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
FTFY.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
The corollary of your absurd conclusion here is not that, say, the IG or the FBI is the equivalent of Pizzagate, no matter how much you want that to be true.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
The FBI found no indictable actions by Hillary. That’s exactly what Comey’s tantrum in front of the media was all about: he was forced to admit publicly that there were no grounds to indict Hillary.
And when the guys working on the Weiner case told Comey that there might be a Hillary connection, Comey got all excited and sent a letter to Congress saying that they might be re-opening the case against her, only to have to withdraw it a week later because, once again, it turned out that nothing she did was indictable.
The only person here who committed an actual crime was Anthony Weiner, but you’d rather ignore that and pretend that there was totally an indictable crime by Hillary here that the FBI just happened to accidentally overlook while going through her tens of thousands of emails with a fine-tooth comb.
Hillary is never going to go to jail. Sorry to disappoint you, but she has never committed an actual crime, so she will remain a free woman unless you get your dream and Trump jails her without charges.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
What a shock — Bechamel shows up to defend a guy who confessed to sending dick pics to a 15-year-old. It just had to be the wimmens’ fault!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
aren’t you a professional grad student? Like Diane Chambers, but without good writers to give you good one-liners?
dnfree
Most decisions don’t stand alone. There are a series of other decisions behind them, and other decisions made as a result. The topic of this post was the bad decision made by Weiner. This would not have affected Hillary if any one of several other things had been decided. 1) Huma could have decided to leave her husband. (I agreed above, her decision internal to her marriage. 2) Huma could have decided to leave Hillary’s staff. 3) Hillary could have decided it might be better for Huma to leave. 4) Huma could have NOT BACKED UP HER WORK EMAILS TO HER HUSBAND’S LAPTOP. Various points this chain could have been broken and I wish had been.
Mnemosyne
@dnfree:
So let’s say you’re called into your boss’s office one day at work and told that they know your husband got a DUI so, sorry, you’re being fired. Your husband’s actions just make you too much of a liability to the company.
And you’re fine with that, and accept that you are equally responsible for what he did? Clean out your desk quietly, take your final paycheck, and go home?
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
We have a thing called prosecutorial discretion in this country. Comey did not pursue this. That is not to say there was unanimous agreement by other prosecutors that a case could not be made. Another jurisdiction may have found a different result.
I doubt he thought he was suddenly going to indict her.
It’s very unfortunate that the FBI found even more emails while looking through Weiner’s harddrive. There’s not actually a good reason for them to have been there. In fact, that was easily avoided and I wonder why it wasn’t.
You are truly deranged in your analysis.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Well, good luck with your venue-shopping. I don’t think it’s going to have the results you think it will.
Dude, I’m not the one imagining that there’s a crime hidden in Hillary’s emails that just hasn’t been found yet, and as soon as the right prosecutor comes along, there will be charges. You are.
I will predict you a prediction: Hillary Clinton will never even be charged with a crime when it comes to her email server. Not because she’s a corrupt lawyer who wiggled out of it on a technicality, but because there was no crime.
Dnfree
@Mnemosyne: my spouse getting a DUI (not quite analogous to being a sex offender) would not have been likely to cause the downfall of the large corporations I worked for. In politics it’s much more common for prominent subordinates to resign rather than embarrass the boss. And again–if Huma’s Blackberry hadn’t been backed up to her husband’s laptop, or if she hadn’t sent him emails to print, we wouldn’t have had a Hillary email connection to Weiner.