Here’s my take on the wikileaks exposé of DNC emails: there was nothing illegal done (other than the hacking of private servers, that is). We’ve got a set of private communications that confirm that Hillary Clinton was the establishment candidate, and the establishment was working to skew circumstances to favor Clinton while trying their best to seem impartial, when they weren’t. It’s the politics of deception, saying you’ll do one thing while doing something different, and nobody should be surprised that politicians do that sort of thing. It does not invalidate the Clinton nomination, because every politician is working within an institutional framework, and is part of a team — Clinton just had deeper roots and a more effective team than Sanders.
But it still disappoints me.
One thing that Charles Pierce points out about it is that it was just plain stupid. If the establishment wants to support an establishment candidate, be forthright and competent about it. This makes the DNC look like a pack of babbling amateurs.
Further, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been exposed as a political hack, and not a very good one at that. She is an embarrassment too prominent to hide, and so has resigned as DNC chair…which is only appropriate. But then Hillary Clinton has immediately re-hired her to co-chair her election committee! If Clinton wanted to confirm that she was not running a fair nomination campaign, she couldn’t have come up with a more effective strategy. Appearances matter in politics, and that is one ugly relationship.
And then there is the reminder that not even the Democrats represent me, and that the Democratic establishment sees atheism as a useful tool for sliming candidates. This email is simply repellent.
It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.
It would also serve to highlight his Jewishness to the electorate: win-win!
Isn’t it nice to know that the citizenry of the USA are more bigoted against atheists than Jews, and that the DNC would consider exploiting that? And that now, thanks to the incompetence of their staff, the Republican party, which is even more bigoted, will be using this information against the Democrats?
I take it back. This is lose-lose.
They can’t. DNC is supposed to be neutral until after the nomination.
US voters are bigoted against atheists. Ref. It is reasonable for the DNC to want to know Sanders’ religious beliefs when it looked like he had a reasonable chance of winning the nomination because there is simply no chance at all that the Republicans would not attack him on the issue. They should want to know what his “vulnerabilities” are so that they can spin them in the “best” possible light*.
What isn’t reasonable is for them to try to confront him publicly about it when he’s unprepared. A frank private discussion with him about the numbers, what his actual beliefs are, and what he’s willing to say about god and religion in public to make protestant voters happy might be reasonable. Demanding he profess…something…in public during the primaries is not. I’m glad they got rid of Schulz, but I don’t know that that’s anything but a symbolic move anyway. This specific issue will die a natural death as more of the US becomes irreligious, but the problem of corrupt party politics? Not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
*Quotes are there because I am trying to present it from the point of view of the average voter, whoever she may be, not my own viewpoint of what is a good or a bad quality in a candidate.
One question I have, and this is not rhetorical, I legitimately don’t know this. How do we know the more damning emails are real?
The leak almost certainly came from Russians, seemingly hoping Trump will win and make good on his plan to dismantle NATO. And one of the pieces of evidence for that is meta-data from leaked documents showing they were “modified” by users with computers using Cyrillic language settings.
Based on this, how do we discount the possibility that while the tens of thousands of banal emails are legit, the tiny handful of problematic ones weren’t the creations of the hackers?
It’s always worth pointing out that Jesus would lose among Republicans if he were to run on the Gospels.
On a more political note, quite a few of the “problematic” emails are just…not. Not really.
Language analysis of the emails to determine if all those signed by the same person have the same linguistic pattern? Maybe it’s also possible to track last modification of a document? (I don’t know whether it is or not, just brainstorming possibilities here.)
I want the media to interview Tulsi Gabbard about the DNC and Shutlz. She quit the DNC earlier this year in disgust and endorsed Bernie due to these kind of behind the scenes machinations.
DWS always came across to me as just as slimy as any Republican operative. I really hope she loses her primary and her congressional seat. I too was very disappointed that Hillary immediately took her on as a campaign surrogate. WTF was she thinking?
I know that it comes as no surprise that being an atheist in the South is a tough sell. It can come back to bite you in the most unexpected ways. We had hired a cat sitter who was also an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where my wife teaches. (The fact that she found it necessary to supplement her meager salary by doing this kind of work is another story.) While we were away on a short trip a piece of mail from an atheist organization I support came to our home. It was addressed to me. Upon returning home the cat sitter told us in no uncertain terms that she could no longer work for us. I asked her why. She was hesitant to speak openly, but she finally admitted that she could not in good conscience work for someone who did not believe in god. I shook my head and thanked her for the work she had done. (She had no trouble accepting my check.) Not long afterwards my wife related to me that word was making the rounds of the department that we were atheists. For most of the faculty this was a non-issue. W&M is a pretty liberal place considering its geographic location. But there were some on the staff who became decidedly cool to my wife (Southerners can be very good at the passive-aggressive.) This attempt at impugning my wife’s reputation left a bad taste in my mouth, but my wife brushed it off. She was actually happy that she didn’t have to show any more false respect to a set of beliefs that she finds inherently silly. The story has a happy ending if you enjoy payback stories (I certainly do.) The time eventually came when it was my wife’s turn to chair the department. This was right after the financial crash of 2008 and the department’s budget was cut. An adjunct had to be let go. My wife agonized over the decision but finally decided the best person to terminate was the cat sitter.
Actually something illegal was done by the DNC:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/24/leaked-dnc-documents-show-plans-to-reward-big-donors-with-federal-appointments/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/4ugzqh/breaking_news_leaked_dnc_documents_show_plans_to/
@ #3
Numerous of the people implicated have confirmed the veracity of the e-mails. Donna Brazile confirmed hers were real, Jack Tapper his, the Politico reporter his, and the CFO (anti-atheist) also confirmed his. If you don’t believe me just google it. The damning e-mails have been confirmed by the very people who sent them….
Except … not really. The position of “honorary chair” is an empty gesture, having neither honor nor responsibility. It serves merely to boot Wasserman Schultz to a fictional “upstairs,” like the crazy aunt in the attic. It’s the political equivalent of wanting to spend more time with the family.
To be honest, the DNC has always looked that way (at least to me). I see them as the poster child for bungling organizational incompetence.
#11 / Zeno: So it’s the worst of both worlds. They keep their association with her but don’t really get any benefit out of having her on board. Really a boneheaded move.
… Hillary Clinton has immediately re-hired her to co-chair her election committee!
The Good Ol’ Boys Club works just the same when the “boys” are named Hillary and Debbie.
Last night I went to bed knowing only that the DNC had dumped DWS, and thinking that this nicely illustrated how quickly the Clintons abandon their allies for political expedience (e.g., Lani Guinier, Joycelyn Elders).
Now it seems that HR Clinton wants to reassure all her other flunkies that personal loyalty does get repaid, at least for a few months, and to hell with all that silliness about party rules or
concessionsminimal respect to those dirty hippies who briefly interfered with her March into History®.I can only hope that Wasserman Schultz will work so hard at her new position (actually just a change of title and paycheck-signature) that she loses her primary next month and has to go back overtly to her previous role as a paid shill for the synergistic grouping of payday loan sharks and prison profiteers.
Ye dogs, sometimes I hate living in a swing state where my vote has to be directly strategically rather than by personal preference.
Today I read in our media tha Trump has surpassed HC in polls. This will no doubt help him.
Fascists already gain power all acros the Europe, and I expect they will gain power in USA as well.
I am trying my best to mentally prepare for Trump victory this year. And for WW3.
This years events do not bode well for my peace of mind.
Re my # 14 – pls read, “… living in a swing state where my vote has to be directed strategically …”
Thanks for making it even more obvious that this is nothing but a big “lesser of two evils”-fest, because you’re all despicable, the Democrats just less so.
Historically, candidates get a bump during their conventions. This is Hillary’s week to get a bump that should put her back ahead.
Seneca the younger said:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
In some other translations “common people” are replaced by “the ignorant” or “the uneducated” .
With the current political situation this quote is perhaps even more meaningful today.
I’m asking this as a Canadian with no horse in the race here and with nothing against Sanders, but so what if the DNC worked against him? He’s been sitting as an independent in the senate for so many years now, and only joined the Democratic Party last year to run for president under their banner. I’m not surprised and it doesn’t bother me to see them being so loyal to the long-time Democrat.
What, a political party rejected the hostile takeover of an Independent whose entire career was based on saying loudly how much he hates said party and its ideals, but tried to parasitize their resources for his failed Presidential run anyway?
HOW DARE THEM
Nonsense. Stop trolling, applehead.
Does anyone know who’ll be gaveling in the convention? Last night on TV they were saying it would be Rep. Marcia Fudge, but this morning they all seemed to be talking about why it’s a problem that DWS will be doing it, so I’m confused.
With this bone-headed move of hers, I’ve given up on figuring out what she’s thinking; but as a Californian who has voted Democratic for 50 years, I have been thinking with some sense of relief that I wouldn’t really need to vote for her, because CA is a true-blue sure-thing. But I see that Nate Silver’s probability graph still shows her lead not just hemorrhaging, but bleeding out at an ever-increasing rate. And in the state-by-state stats, even California is slipping. I figured I’d vote for her only if the chance of California swinging the election rose to 1.0%. Today, it’s at 0.4% and rising, just below Maine (0.6%) and Illinois (0.7%). By November, we may all be living in either red or purple states.
re Tabby Lavalamp wrote re. Sanders @20,
Sanders is still in office until 2018. hasn’t filed for re-election yet, but I hope he does; keeping a rational voice in the Senate, pushing beneficial results forward.
let me go at this a little differently. I agree with what has been said generally and it does give another example that the republican smear and spin machine can use as if they needed any real data as a starting point. What shows to all is that there are a sizable portion of the electorate that wants something different from the establishment is pushing for. It took them all by surprise it is larger than they thought, it is wider than they thought and it is more enthusiastic and energetic than they thought. It got their attention. They got discovered because they used modern information technology (e-mail) and not the old style analog telephone so there are records, they ain’t going back to the old days how ever.
Neither are those independent voters on the left going to go away nor are the issues going to fade.
The voters and issues are there in a situation not that different from that point when the moral majority became a thing.
my take is in that sense positive the left has been recognized and is seen as threatening and the DNC establishment has been exposed all good.
I do not think it will help the republican establishment very much.
uncle frogy
So I’ve seen calls for Schulz to resign immediately. I’ve seen calls for Clinton to let Sanders take the nomination. I’ve seen calls for Clinton to fire Schulz from her purely symbolic position. What I have not yet seen is Brad Marshall, the CFO who wrote the email that PZ and everyone else is pulling out as offensive, to resign. He apologized and apparently that’s that. No calls for his resignation, no further criticism of him, nothing except how awful Clinton and Schulz are.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Brad’s a guy.
The symbolism of this looks bad, but the article said she’d be in an “honorary” position – i.e. “she won’t have any real power”. Maybe they offered it to her as a way to get her to resign faster from the DNC Committee (or it could just be the Clintons once again schmoozing in an inappropriate and tone-deaf manner).
The internal deliberations of any organization make it look like a pack of babbling amateurs. That’s why they’re internal, and that’s why the Democratic Party never “weaponized atheism.” Would you denounce the entire party for the email of one man, making a suggestion that was never taken up? Leaks always serve an agenda.
@dianne
Well yeah, because the email is meaningless and had no effect on the campaign. It’s disclosure is only useful as a pretext for people to demand the things they’ve been demanding for months.
I suppose this isn’t surprising. As PZ says, we always knew that this election was a lose/lose proposition for marginalized groups, progressives and ethical human beings of all types. The critical point is to make sure that we get the option that causes us to lose less, and right now that is still clearly Clinton, though antics like this shows that the Democrat side are still working to narrow the gap with Trump and his flaming arsehole flying circus when it comes to screwing over the usual favoured punching bags of the US political class.
sigaba @ 28;
It says something about the culture and environment of a political movement that its functionaries are comfortable, even in the context of an internal discussion, to put forward using a person’s religious beliefs and lack thereof as an avenue of political attack, especially in a society that explicitly forbids religious tests for public office. Even if the tactic was never adopted, it is worrying that the Democratic party is the sort of environment where that kind of idea could be floated at all without the sponsoring party knowing ahead of time that they will get roasted for it.
Internal deliberations do not exist in an entirely separate pocket universe away from policy and campaign tactics; the culture of a party influences its every action and platform, and this kind of thing indicates that there is something rotten in the Democrat party, at some level. At the very least Marshall expected to get some sort of sympathetic hearing for this idea, or why bring it up at all? That is reason enough to be concerned.
It’s now being reported that DWS won’t be onstage. She’s announced that she won’t gavel in the convention, but I’m still confused because Marcia Fudge is the one who was going to be doing it anyway. DWS was going to hand Fudge the gavel, but she won’t even be doing that. Which is good.
I agree they share the same universe. But I think it’s important we make a fundamental distinction between the private and public sphere, between the private where people may freely speak about anything without fear of retribution, and the public, where speaking and political action are consequential. It would be really bad for society if every written record people left was politicized, or we conducted ourselves as if every conversation was a deposition in a lawsuit.
We’d be kinda sending the message to people that you could believe whatever they wanted but your interactions with everyone around you, not just in a speech or on TV but even private settings, had to be governed by language rules and that many topics were simply forbidden, and that the heaps of casual hypocrisy this would create was acceptable.
Of course a lot of groups would just go on having these conversations, they’d just get better email servers and would be better about scrubbing them, as the Bush White House did with their internal deliberations on their private email server.
If somebody thinks portraying Bernie Sanders as an atheist would “work” with voters that’s really something I think people should talk about, for a lot of reasons — simply declaring such a question off-limits doesn’t actually make the observation untrue, nor does it make it any less likely that that conversation won’t happen once the people who want to have it find a sufficiently discreet channel.
@dianne #6:
Depending upon the specific software system, it is to a greater or lesser degree. But because this is well known, it would likely be the first thing someone would target in order to cover their tracks. Document metadata and logs, server software logs, account logs, recent backups — it all comes down to how much time and effort you want to put into it and whether you need to just muddy your trail or hide whether there has actually been an exfiltration of data (until you’re ready to release it, if that is your aim). Once you’ve got a copy of the data, though, it could be quite hard to prove that you haven’t tampered with it — essentially, your target is the only one who can know that.
Ah, well, I think that there’s a reasonably good chance that in the future, this will be the week which historians will pinpoint as the moment when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 race. You can’t see me, but I’m golf clapping.
First we had Kaine’s appointment — congratulations, Democrats, you had a perfect opportunity to hammer Trump and Pence on their incompetence (Pence’s entire term as governor was basically a string of screw-ups, all of which made statewide news even if only one or two got into the national news, with nothing whatsoever in between to ameliorate them), and now they can attack you right back for being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banks, and they will be able to adduce evidence, and — in the minds of voters — the charges will stick. If Trump decides to be pro-choice this week, he can even attack Kaine on that, Pence notwithstanding. They may not be bright enough to do that, I suppose, but Trump has shown that he understands that an ounce of attack is worth a pound of defense, and now he has an issue to really sink his teeth into. Great job.
(And, of course, you also lost the chance to do as Obama did, and be able to say “if the right wing assassinates me, I will be replaced with someone whose policies they will hate even more”. After Christie’s speech at the convention last week, that’s actually something of a consideration.)
Then we got confirmation that those nasty Bernie Bros we’re all supposed to abhor were absolutely right all along that DWS was doing everything she could to throw the nomination to Clinton, which Trump has already jumped on. I guarantee you that even now swing voters are saying to themselves “gee, maybe I misjudged him, I wonder what else he was right about”.
And then Hillary Clinton goes and hires her! This is a typical Clinton maneuver: you can’t actually prove that this is a reward for DWS for being corrupt in Clinton’s favor, not in any way which would stand up in court, but what matters is not the courts but public opinion, and the more people hear about this, the worse it will be for not just the Clinton team but the Democratic Party as a whole. A monumental screwup. This reminds me of the Blairite faction of the Labour Party trying to undermine Corbyn immediately after the Brexit vote, even though his district turned out a higher “Remain” vote than many of their own. It is seldom surprising to see right-of-center leftists-in-name-only do things which must be either incompetence or malevolence, but it is surprising to see them do something which must be either incompetence or malevolence and which undercuts their own position with voters. They may be lousy at actually being good representatives, but they are supposed to understand politics. I had always thought Clinton fell on the side of malevolence, rather than incompetence, in her long string of support for monumentally bad policy, but this really makes me reconsider that.
@#3, Ruby
Well, you’re definitely a Clinton apologist worthy of her traditions: when caught doing something you shouldn’t by way of a leak, don’t try to fix the problem or apologize, cast aspersions on the whistleblowers! If there were nothing else wrong with the Democrats right now, their treatment of Snowden and Manning would be enough to make them profoundly untrustworthy.
@#11, Zeno
It’s sad there’s no safe anonymous way to place bets over the Internet, because I would be perfectly willing to bet money that, should Clinton still win the election despite the last few days, DWS will end up with a position in the Clinton administration. Clinton rewards loyalty, not ethics.
In other words, no matter what she chooses, you’ll find a way to make it reflect badly on her.
@#32, sigaba
1. Clinton is unabashedly pro-NSA-spying-on-absolutely-everyone, and anti-effective-encryption. (And no, I’m not talking about the e-mail server she got investigated for; she has made public statements saying that we need more surveillance and that there should be back doors for the NSA in absolutely everything.) What’s sauce for the goose, people, is sauce for the gander.
2. People have already come forward and said that both the (Bill) Clinton and Obama administrations told people not to put anything which might be regarded as scandalous in writing in order to leave a paper trail. Trust me, these people were aware that this stuff might leak. That being the case, it really makes me wonder what sort of things they were saying but not writing down.
The Vicar, #34
I thought you were opposed to her because you feel she’ll be bad for the country/world.
@#37, Saad
Ever read Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad?
OK, I think I understand. Someone gavels it in and then hands the gavel to convention chair Marcia Fudge. It will be the mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
@The Vicar-
The goose here is the American people, and the gander is the DNC. So you do you suppose is doing the cooking? I appreciate the civil liberties concerns but these are beside the point, these leaks were targeted by particular individuals in furtherance of a political agenda, they were not done in the interests of any kind of public accountability or transparency. Random dudes on the Internet, or Russian hackers, or whoever, hack what they want to hack and release what they want to release to hurt the people they want to hurt.
Doxxing doesn’t further the cause of openness and neither does this. This is exactly the sort of corruption and ratfucking opponents would accuse the NSA of committing, and would try to prevent, and now you would have me cheer it on, just because of the choice of victim this time?
@applehead, #21
“What, a political party rejected the hostile takeover of an Independent whose entire career was based on saying loudly how much he hates said party and its ideals”
The Democratic Party has ideals?
This circular relationship built on cronyism described in the OP certainly hurts the reputation of the DNC. I’ve stopped donating to national organizations, no matter how many good deeds they do, if they support, directly or indirectly, manipulative and untrustworthy people and their concomitant destructive campaigns. Perhaps at one point the powers that be were well-intentioned, but it is obvious this cronyism approach only continues a never ending destructive cycle. Instead, I support those like Bernie and crew, down ticket, who are trying to clean up the corruption created and reinforced by others.
The leak almost certainly came from Russians
Based on what?
Attribution is really hard. And, besides, the source of the leak is irrelevant, if the messages are real. We can be fairly confident the messages are real because if they were fake there would be howls of outrage and it would be very easy to tell if they were fake. You’d just correlate a few of the message-IDs from the SMTP envelopes in the alleged messages with the system logs of the machines that allegedly sent them. If you’ve got a message in your alleged inbox from “mjr@ranum.com” it’s going to be in my out-box, in my server’s logs, in your server’s logs, and probably some intermediaries as well. Fake messages oughtn’t fool anyone unless, you know, you’re looking for reasons to attack Iraq.
I believe the reason “it’s the russians” came up is because for a while there were a few cybergangs from there that were really good with the Exchange exploits. If the DNC was using Exchange (stupid) on an internet-reachable machine (doubly stupid) and wasn’t very careful with its security, then it wouldn’t take a russian gang to break into it, it’d be a hack-bot. Nothing fancy there at all.
Then there’s the question of “Russian gangs” versus “Russian government” – FSB is like FBI in that they’re willing to use useful idiots like ‘Sabu’ to do their bidding. Believe the fuck me, if FSB was behind it, you’d never pin it on them – they are way ahead of FBI and most of the US government, in terms of computer security (which is why the US’ response has been: whinge)
I guess someone has to mention that this is why people having private servers that are internet-connected and not managed carefully – is a bad idea: whether it’s the Secretary of State or the DNC. FWIW I imagine the guy who did Hillary’s mail was pretty competent, or we’d have seen Hillary’s mail and the Secretary of State’s email on pastebin ere now.
@#40, sigaba
It’s interesting that you gloss over my point: the NSA is not, and cannot be, trustworthy to have surveillance powers, because they are secret and responsible to nobody, and thanks to Snowden we know they are both politically motivated in a rightward direction and willing to do both illegal and unethical things. We are told not to fear them because “if you are innocent you have nothing to fear”. Well, if the DNC were innocent, there would be nothing to leak in the first place. There is no ethical difference between the NSA and Russian hackers. (If you haven’t been following the issue, the NSA does not merely apply existing hacking methods, but also has gone a long way to create new ones, and even forcibly install them in commercial products. We are all actively less secure because the NSA exists than we otherwise would be.) If the Democrats didn’t like the idea of people getting a hold of their electronic messages, then maybe — just maybe — it was a massively stupid, utterly unforgivable, truly horrifying move to ask for more surveillance and back doors.
It is always deeply satisfying to see poetic justice punish someone who deserves it, even if you see it from the bottom of the gutter you’ve been pushed into in order to make the punishment apt. I’ll tell you another piece of poetic justice which may be coming soon: the Democrats who are in the pockets of Wall Street, which is nearly all of them these days but particularly the DLC crowd (i.e. the Clintons and their allies), have been resisting meaningful regulation of the derivatives market, pretending that Dodd-Frank is all we need and there is no new bubble. There is, in fact, a new bubble, and even the Wall Street Journal — which is generally overoptimistic about anything which helps skin the suckers who are the average citizens — is nervous about it, because it’s already estimated to be a few times bigger than the one which burst in 2008. If that one bursts, we’re all in the soup, and it is pretty much undeniably the Democrats’ fault — but as long as it absolutely, irretrievably, unquestionably bankrupted people like the Clintons (and their son-in-law the hedge fund manager) I would still laugh and laugh and laugh.
I’ve been watching interviews with DNC protesters who support Bernie Sanders and looking at the Bernie for President subreddit. I’m astonished at the extent to which Hillary Clinton has been demonized, to the point that many comments say things like “we have to do whatever we can to keep this witch from getting elected.” They don’t seem to have any recognition of the danger Trump represents, even considering Clinton more dangerous (“Everything Trump threatens to do, Hillary has already done, and worse” – they’ve just lost all connection to reality). I think they might be beyond reasoning with. I hope Bernie Sanders will be able to get through to some of them tonight, but it will be a struggle. Rather than listening to the person they claim to support and respect, they’re ignoring his words and some are calling him a sellout. Some of them still believe he’ll take the stage tonight and rescind his endorsement. (I know this isn’t the case with the majority, but this one group seems unmovable.)
@41
Well, sure. A healthy commitment to neoliberalism and giving vocal support to liberal policies without actually making an attempt to enact them.
You’re a fool.
I’m reading Klaus Mann’s Mephisto (1936). Here’s a description of Germany in the months leading up to Hitler’s seizure of power:
Exactly my point. Is hacking right or wrong? Or is hacking mostly wrong, but it’s okay for the NSA or a foreign government to hack someone, just as long as the victim has failed to live up to Vicar’s moral standards? If the NSA hacking people’s emails is wrong, what exactly makes the hacking of the DNC’s email fair, let alone funny?
Exactly how many governments and private individuals would you “laugh” at, in the instance the NSA or some other entity disclosed their emails?
I mean it’s not even really “punching-up,” the actual victims are the people who will be hurt by a Trump Administration. Why the fuck do they deserve to be punished for some email someone at the DNC wrote? Laugh and laugh and laugh at that.
Vivec, you’ve posted repeatedly about your family in Turkey and how you support a military coup or other extreme means of removing the autocrat from power. Now you’re not only devoting a good deal of time to denigrating the only realistic opposition to a fascist candidate, but openly celebrating that candidate’s potential victory. It’s completely irrational.
Oh, sorry – I was confusing you with The Vicar. Never mind.
What a horrible thing to say. You’re so full of spite towards the Clintons and “people like them” that you would be amused by another global financial collapse* as long as it hurt them. You’re really an unbelievable asshole.
* Which will come – it’s in the nature of capitalism. And no, it will hurt rich elites far less than the rest of us, as history has shown.
I think it bears repeating (as stated in a comment above) that the DNC did not attack Sanders on religion. This CFO guy suggested the strategy, but someone in control didn’t allow that approach to be used. I hope it was because they accept that religious belief should not be a requirement for office.
I’m sorry, didn’t the the disastrous DNC “All you Dems run away from the quite popular President and campaign as Republicans-Lite” strategery of the 2014 midterms prove that rather conclusively?? She should have been fired then.
No. It’s the fault of the banks, almost the entire political class, the judicial system, the corporate media, and corrupt “intellectuals.” Until capitalism is overcome, meaningful and effective reforms will be increasingly difficult to pass or enforce. (Which isn’t to say they’re not important to fight for, to keep the damage and the power of capital as minimal as possible.) Your irrationally putting the blame on the Democrats exclusively is just indicative of your hateful fixation.
it was just plain stupid
My accountant once said, “there are only 2 kinds of people in hell: those who were caught in the act, and those who kept records.”
@51
No worries. For the record, I’m 100% in the “Vote Hillary if only to prevent a Trump presidency” camp.
meta-data from leaked documents showing they were “modified” by users with computers using Cyrillic language settings
By the way, pretty much _all_ the hackers I know fart around with their language settings because it’s super funny when the FBI gets all up in North Korea’s face based on such a simple head-fake.
Click “start”
Enter “intl.cpl” in the search bar and hit return
Scroll down to the country that you wanted
Total time: 4 seconds
I am typing this with my keyboard in “Kazakhstan” settings. Since my keyboard is a US keyboard and is only sending codes for the character-set we’re all using on this blog, it doesn’t affect anything.
Last time the FBI’s stupid attributions came to a full boil, a few of us even bought Tshirts from Spreadshirt announcing that we were members of the North Korean hacking unit. And we sure looked like it, for a bunch of white guys in Los Angeles. Half the fun is knowing that they’re going to use Google translate to interpret what you write, so if you quote Korean from Google translate, the reverse translation will be most excellent.
Trump either taking credit for the hack, attributing it to allies in Russia, or making a joke. You’re free to choose your own adventure!
I wouldn’t have imagined it yesterday.
Whoever was responsible for the hack, one thing that’s apparent to me, as I said on an earlier thread, is that Wikileaks, for whatever reason, has calculated these leaks to do maximum damage to the Clinton campaign (and thus necessarily help the Trump campaign*). This is shown in the timing of the release; the intentional manipulative misrepresentation of some of the emails; the glee with which they’re presenting them; and the fact that they’re tweeting them selectively to Bernie supporters, Trump, Richard Dawkins,** and others for maximum effect.
* They don’t seem to be considering quite how opposed to free journalism and free speech Trump and Putin are. Trump would move to hurt Wikileaks in a second if they hacked him.
** (the one described in this post, which is pretty much the only one people seem to be talking about today)
As “honorary” chair, she still gets to draw a salary. No doubt, it will be a very generous one. So basically, Schultz is being repaid for helping to throw the nomination to Clinton, in a way that gets around all those pesky contribution limits by disguising a series of fat donations as pay for services rendered. Which, when you think about it, is almost certainly correct.
Another relevant report.
From the article I just linked to:
Marcus @56: I’d add a third kind; those who have accountants ;-)
@7 ah58
Tulsi Gabbard would be an ideal replacement for DWS. Gabbard’s background is one Democrats cold take pride in.
@PZ
Ah, no. It’s way too early to proclaim that. There will be investigations and litigation aplenty, we’ll see.
It’s certainly corrupt, unethical, immoral and very undemocratic like, which is ironic given the party’s name. But at least it’s not “illegal”. Seems like turd polishing to me, If the best thing that can be said is that it’s not illegal, sounds like celebrating the fact that it was wrong but at least there is no accountability. Which I find interesting because you’re usually pretty cynical and anti-authoritarian.
Smells like apologetics. damage control for the (D) party. Allow me to make the case that it’s not simply bumbling incompetence. The DNC is supposed to support Democrats, not one Democrat over another, until a candidate is selected. The DNC’s core mandate is to build the Democratic party by reaching out to all left demographics in ways that help all Democratic candidates including congress and governors. This then allows us to select those who best represent our ideals.
Take for instance the DNC’s and Debbie Wasserman Schultz refusal to to support Democratic challengers to Republican congressional positions in 2014. Despite the DNC’s core mandate, which I stated above is to promote all Democratic candidates. This was catastrophic to the Democratic party and significantly contributed to 2014 midterm losses and undermining the Democrats ability to legislate. This was not bumbling incompetence, it’s an agenda.
Rolling back Obama’s 08 restrictions to limit federal lobbyists in elections was a repudiation of getting big money out of politics. Not was not bumbling incompetence either.
The DNC and DWS deliberately cut back the presidential debates from around two dozen back in 2012 to 6 in 2016. The strategy is simple and straightforward. What it did was protect Clinton from debating Sanders. Clinton can glide by on her name recognition and people can assume whatever they want about her positions. The point being to reduce the progressive message as much as possible. It didn’t matter that it was Sanders in particular, just any progressive message. But more importantly cutting back those debates, though it helped Clinton, hurts the Democratic party by limiting the Democratic candidates to national audiences. What was good for Clinton was also good for the Republican side. This was not bumbling incompetence.
This goes far beyond incompetence. DWS, the DNC, support for moderate conservatives like Clinton. The Democratic party is the new Conservative establishment. There has been an inversion of the Democratic party’s principles, from beating Republicans to becoming the moderate Republican wing. The best way to control the opposition is to lead it. The future choice for progressives isn’t taking back the Democratic party. The choice is starting a new party or continue to be unrepresented.
If you want to call that a conspiracy, it is. What is a political party but a conspiracy against the rest of the nation? Neoliberals have had success for decades turning the Democratic party against progressive candidates. When a progressive candidate emerged with enough popularity, which we haven’t seen in decades, the Democratic party and it’s leadership were forced to kick the party’s core mandate to the curb in order to favor a moderate conservative whose policies they endorsed. They felt Sanders was that much of a threat that pretenses were set aside. This was a necessity, not incompetence. (On a side note, despite popular belief. I think that nobody was more surprised by the Sanders campaign’s popularity more than Sanders was. Not in a good way either. I think he went into this fully expecting to be a minor player who would hand over his support to Clinton from the start. But that’s another conversation)
This brings us to the significance of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC’s supposed unethical betrayal. Which is a very subjective point of view. Who did they betray, their own principles? Their vision of a moderately conservative neoliberal Democrati party? I think not.
Until this Email leak that “betrayal” was the worst kept secret in Washington, everyone accepts the Democratic party’s march to the right for decades. But actual evidence that the DNC betrayed it’s core mandate was scant, there was always plausible deniability aplenty. But no more, they done fucked up. Leaving an Email trail was not incompetence, it’s a sign of arrogance.
Thiswas not “Ho hum it’s politics what can you do”, it’s not incompetence. It’s neoliberals moving the Democratic party right and getting caught red handed doing it. It’s the recipe for boiling frogs laid bare.
azkyroth @ # 35: … no matter what she chooses, you’ll find a way to make it reflect badly on her.
Yeah, I’m just not a turn-the-other-cheek kind of person when it comes to corrupt war criminals.
Clinton looks bad from almost every angle – and I have no responsibility for that.
As others pointed out, DWS was a problem for a long time, first shown by the 2014 and 2012 elections when she incoherently pushed for weaker, more conservative Democrats.
An insider has a comment on the internal workings of what happened now and over the last year or two:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2016/7/25/111341/355
@#49, sigaba
It is fair because they have ceased to be in favor of equal justice. If there can’t be equal justice, then I am completely in favor of equal injustice.
If all of us private citizens are going to be monitored and spied upon and hacked? That sucks. But it sucks less if the people in power are also being monitored and spied upon and hacked.
Injustice is rooted in inequality. The Clintons, and the people they represent (who aren’t, and never will be even if they are elected, you and me), are de facto dictators. Trump said he could shoot someone and not face any penalty, and that was (rightly) booed, but Obama had at least one innocent American citizen killed without trial (even if you think Anwar al-Awlaki deserved to die, his son definitely did not) and faced absolutely no penalty whatsoever, not even from the Republicans who hate him. Clinton and her bosses and buddies (and relatives-by-marriage) on Wall Street may not be committing legal theft, but that’s in part because they write the laws.
Every single one who had previously said they supported the NSA in its hacking. I thought that was reasonably obvious. Anyone who cheers on injustice when it happens exclusively to other people has no right to complain about it when it happens to them.
I won’t. But that will be okay, because if that happens I’ll be laughing and laughing and laughing at Clinton failing to become president again, which she completely deserves.
@#50, SC (Salty Current)
(Yes, I saw that you had us confused. But:)
Yeah, how dare anyone complain about Erdogan and also complain about Clinton! It’s not like Clinton has consistently been in favor of dictators around the world!
…oh, wait, yes she has. In fact, she wrote that Erdogan is “the key to Turkey’s future” and supported him as Secretary of State. Anyone who doesn’t like Erdogan ought to be opposed to Clinton on principle.
@#48, SC (Salty Current)
Yeah, yeah, scary scary Trump is Hitler over again.
You know what? There’s a definite way the U.S. in 2016 isn’t like Germany in 1933: in 1933 Germany there was a fairly strong left which actually sometimes stood up to the right. Hitler only succeeded because they both thought they would be “strategic” (like Clinton with choosing Kaine, in fact). Whereas in 2016 America, the left is mostly people like you, who go screaming back to right-of-center pols like Clinton.
@#52, SC (Salty Current)
You’re permitting your absolute terror of Donald Trump to hurt your comprehension. I will be just as hurt as everyone else by the bubble bursting. Probably more than some on this board. But if the bubble destroys the people who permitted the bubble to form, then it will make me considerably happier.
Besides, if an economic doomsday is coming No Matter What, shouldn’t we endeavor to be cheerful in the face of it? It won’t help us to be extra-gloomy after it happens, when there’s nothing to be done. It could help to be upset right now, but we can’t do that if we’re busy trying to protect Clinton, who is knee-deep in guilt, from her self-inflicted wounds.
@#55, SC (Salty Current)
Sure, right, I’m the one who’s fixated, but you’re the one replying multiple times to the same message. Project much?
I blame the Democrats more than the other parties involved because they trade on their status as being “on our side”. Nobody pretends the banks are trying to look out for citizens at large. Nobody seriously says the corporate media is looking out for the little guy. But the Democratic Party not only claims they’re trying to save us but had the power to do so. (I have said before: Obama betrayed us all by refusing to make breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks in 2009 and instead bringing in “healthcare reform” as a red herring. I know because I asked my local party representative in 2009 that the ACA was the excuse used to not do anything productive on any other topic.)
As for overcoming capitalism: yeah, sure, right. That sounds awfully funny coming from someone championing Hillary Clinton.
(Yeah, I read your excessive verbiage on the other post about how you’re not a Clinton supporter but actually an anarchist etc. etc. etc. I think you’re delusional; if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck. You claim not to be a Clinton apologist but you sure do a lot of quacking in her support, Daffy.)
@#60, SC (Salty Current)
Why should they show any consideration for Clinton whatsoever? She wants Snowden killed or jailed, and would gleefully do the same to anyone else involved. Maybe if Clinton were even remotely similar to a champion of transparency and justice like she pretends to be, she wouldn’t have made enemies who can hurt her.
It’s hilarious; you are absolutely terrified of Trump. You’re peeing in your virtual pants in your posts here, to a degree greater than anyone else. The right-wing loons who think Clinton is a blood-sucking banshee who will break in through their trailer windows at midnight aren’t as scared of her as you are of him.
Trump knows his supporters don’t care about contradictions and will cherry-pick whatever they like out of what he says, so he says everything. I’ve been assured by Trump supporters, in the same thread of the same online forum, in posts made less than an hour apart, that Trump will start wars with three different countries — China, Russia, and Mexico — and that he is more anti-war than Clinton and will cut military funding.
The thing is: you are just as bad as they are. You’re so desperate to be afraid that you pull out all the worst of his random babbling and take it as a 100% accurate portrayal of his plans, just like his supporters take the things they regard as best as being his plans. And you’ve let it turn you into a coward. And that is actually a great selling point for Donald Trump — he hasn’t had to make a single actual plan yet, and he can already say, entirely truthfully, that he makes Clinton supporters scared. Grow up and get a grip, already.
@#63, SC (
Scaredy CatSalty Current)Yeah, yeah. How terrible. Did you know the KGB funded anti-smoking campaigns in the 1980s? Obviously the cancer studies were just an excuse for the forwarding of INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM!!!1!one! Quick! To the guns! Guard the women! If the Russians say that exercise and healthy food is good for you, then we must become completely sedentary and live on a diet of Quarter Pounders and chocolate shakes, because we can’t possibly agree with them on anything or it will be the end of the world!
(Wow, typos galore. I blame the sleep I haven’t been getting. Let me untangle what seems to be the worst part I wrote above:)
That should be:
(I have said before: Obama betrayed us all by refusing to make breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks the top priority of his administration in 2009 and instead bringing in “healthcare reform” as a red herring. I know because I asked my local party representative in 2009 when they were going to act on the actual campaign promises Obama made, and the ACA was the excuse used to not do anything productive on any other topic.)
*whoosh* (And I’ll note that, as Vivec pointed out above, he’s voting for Clinton to stave off Trump.)
The point is that Clinton is running against someone closer to Erdogan. This really isn’t that difficult.
No, that’s not accurate with regard to the present or the past. I’ve dedicated a significant portion of my life to trying to understand how people could come to support fascist movements (my recent reading has included Artists under Hitler, Inhumanities, Complicity in the Holocaust, and Studying the Jew). The vast majority of people here are not recommending “going screaming back” to anyone, but, with the benefit of hindsight and historical knowledge, recognizing the danger and choosing, as a defensive measure, the option that gives the best chance of progress rather than catastrophe and generational destruction.
Again – that’s foolish and masochistically assholish.
No. Nor should we endeavor to be cheerful in the face of AGW. A callous and stupid question.
There’s still plenty to be done.
We can absolutely advocate for reforms that will contain or avert or ameliorate the worst harms to the greatest extent possible while (as part of) working to move beyond capitalism.
First, this is convoluted. Second, I’m not arguing the Democrats aren’t partially responsible. Third, I’ve attacked Obama and Clinton for other policies at that time and since (while recognizing pressure from Republicans who you want to ignore). Fourth, that policy you put in scare quotes and call a red herring is currently changing my life.
Once again, *whoosh*
Yes. As is any humanist or leftist who knows history and is paying attention. It’s not humorous. It’s dead serious. I’ve explained in several threads where I know you were commenting how authoritarian rulers and parties harm and destroy progressive social movements. No rational person could possibly argue that these movements have a better chance under such a regime, or that Trump coming to power wouldn’t lead to immense suffering among the most vulnerable people. They can only say that they hate the center-Right and the “system” so much that they don’t care what happens, or will even revel in the destruction of the republic and the suffering of the population. As you have. Asshole.
It’s not random babbling. He’s shown a pronounced authoritarian streak for decades, and several of his expressed ideas and policy proposals are openly fascistic and appeal to white nationalists. He constantly contradicts himself because (he’s a clown and) he’s an opportunist, as was Hitler. We aren’t working currently without historical examples, so there’s no excuse for not recognizing the plain danger. Again, it’s recognized by Bernie Sanders (and the majority of his supporters), Elizabeth Warren, Noam Chomsky, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and a number of respected historians.
Read my blog. You’ll see how much of it is dedicated to criticism and critical analysis of the US government and its propaganda. Yours is not a response to what I posted. There are far too many critics of the US government and Western European governments historically who’ve failed to realize how they’re being used by the authoritarians of the Right. You’re plainly one of them. Or you’re a rightwing plant. Either way, I’m reminded of why I’d decided to stop responding to your posts last week. I’ll return to that policy.
Fuck you.
If I discounted every politician who supported a policy/politician I consider morally abhorrent, there would not be a single candidate I’d feel comfortable voting for.
For the record, I’m a vegan and animal liberation activist. The US government absurdly and harmfully presents us as a major domestic terrorist threat* and Russia, well…
The question is whether animals and activists have a better chance if Hillary Clinton is elected president or Donald Trump (or a Trump-Putin alliance) attains power. The answer should be obvious, but probably won’t be to you.
* Just incidentally, Cory Booker is a vegan and Bill Clinton is close.
@SC:
I get the fascist connections with Trump. However, I wonder about something. Trump doesn’t seem to have a base within the Republican party (unlike say Hitler who had a party). Is that a big distinction or not?
@ The Vicar
This is not grammar school and this is not a popularity contest. Voting for someone isn’t meant to be a compliment nor is it about protecting them at all, but society at large. You are not a consumer; this is not Coke v Pepsi and no one gives a shit whether you personally like the candidate you are or are not choosing. You cannot opt out of the world you help create when and when you do not vote. Fetishizing purity is pure ego-stroking and there is nothing constructive about it. Voting is tactical, but not the way you describe it at all and not in modern US politics.
HRC’s opponent has signaled that once elected he will hand over the bulk of his duties and privileges to his VP. Have you examined closely Mike Pence’s background and platforms? Are you aware of what he believes about environmental policies, unfettered access to medical care, and the prosecution of wars abroad? To abstain from voting HRC strengthens conservative influence across all politics. Progressive people will lose the coalition they are attempting to build and the leverage they currently hold within the left-most of the two most dominant US political parties
Voting special snowflake candidate when it matters, when SCOTUS is at stake, to feel better about yourself might be appealing, but it’s also narcissistic. You want a viable third party? Cool. Roll up your sleeves and start very downballot. There is literally no other way. Pretending this is about funneling money towards the Green Party for future elections is hilarious when more money could be raised putting forth seasoned, skilled politicians that have the talent and ambition to do something beyond posting test results online. Stein has eaten up a lot of money that could have actually served to help the communities from which her proponents come. Also, it’d probably be useful if your third party actually distinguished itself from its ideological cousin, rather than score a 91% match rate with that party’s nominee. I mean, again, why choose Green when Stein matches HRC almost exactly? And if the test means nothing, why post it in the first place?
Vicar,
It’s just that clapping at the idea of Hillary losing the election didn’t make sense if your opposition to Hillary is that she’s bad for the country/world.
I’m not sure what you mean. He’s the nominee of the Republican party.
snuffcurry:
Well said. Unfortunately, the Vicar has made it perfectly evident on this thread and others that they couldn’t care less about society at large. Delivering the country to a fascist; putting millions of people in peril; endangering progressive movements for generations; hastening environmental destruction;… – this is all a small price to pay for sticking it to the Clintons. I think the mistake many of us have made is having assumed that The Vicar’s passion and energy suggested a real concern about the world that would be responsive to reasoned arguments when all along it was really just evidence of petty and (self-)destructive spite ready to be exploited by the worst forces of the Right.
The Vicar:
So dishonest.
Several months ago, I would have paid attention to The Vicar’s posts. Now with the Democratic nomination locked down, they no longer have any importance.
When a choice is binary (like these elections), speaking against one choice is the same as speaking in favor of the other.
I think Hillary’s presidency will be Obama-ish. I wish I had a candidate to vote for I could feel more excited about, but there isn’t one.
For some reason, Wikileaks seems intent on destroying every last vestige of credibility and public good will. The Turkey document release I mentioned the other day was essentially a doxxing of millions of women in Turkey. And then there’s this bit of WTF.
Thank you, folks.
@SC:
Sorry for the late reply but what I mean is that unlike the other fascists, the Republican party is not Trump’s party. He was just an independent who ran as Republican and won. A few months ago, he did not have allies, or a foothold in the party. I don’t know how much of a distinction is this compared to other fascist leader who were among the leaders of their own party who ended up winning.