Andrew Sullivan — yes, I know, and I’ll get back to that in a moment — is live blogging the RNC for New York Magazine. His reaction on Day 2 to the Christie-led witch trial “lock her up” frenzy was as it should have been: it was vile and the mark of a neo-fascist campaign. That evoked a response from a reader Sullivan then posted to the blog, which argued, reasonably enough, that errors in office are not criminal offences. For example, that reader wrote and Sullivan published:
Politicians and presidents make serious ethical mistakes. Reagan/Bush 41 on Iran-Contra, Bush 43 on WMD intelligence/torture, Bill Clinton on perjury.
Let’s review.
Iran -Contra: trading with a reviled adversary to fund an illegal covert war that killed thousands of the most vulnerable, least powerful people in our hemisphere.
WMD intelligence/torture: launch a war on false pretexts that left thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, many more wounded, millions displaced, an ongoing conflict that has spawned attacks on innocents all over the world, and that has led the United States government at its highest level to countenance war crimes.
Perjury: lying about a blow job.
That one could write that sentence without a hint of irony is a measure of the damage done to US politics by the Republican party made as far back as 1968 to put power at all costs before all else. That Andrew Sullivan could disseminate it without comment reminds us of his own Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and his unreliability as any kind of moral arbiter.
Sullivan is a clever man, a fast and fluid writer, and does get some things right; certainly, for all his CDS, he’s got no illusions about Trump as anything more than a Mussolini wannabe.
But for all that, he’s a terrible thinker. Through the live blog (I’ve gotten through day 1 and most of day 2 so far) he talks repeatedly about the GOP’s focus on feeling at the expense of facts and reason — and he’s right of course. But when the issue strikes one or another of his standing emotional chords, he’s no better. I hope tomorrow to have the time to write up his stuff on Black Lives Matter. It is everything you’d expect, and the current debacle turns on his unwillingness to do the intellectual work needed to test his own assumptions.
OK — it’s over to you, and back to the problem of figuring out 17th century share prices from one end of a coffee shop to another for me.
Images: Fra Angelico, The Massacre of the Innocents, 1450.
James Sowerby, Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, plate 43, 1798.
Ito Jakuchu, Elephant and Whale Screens, 1797.
Keith P.
The preview for Trump’s speech leaked (not Rick Astley “dancing”)
MariedeGournay
Delurking just to say that the painting placement is perfect.
dmsilev
@Keith P.: Apparently, it’s being described as “the *full* Buchanan. Very very dark, dystopic. Straight up nationalism no chaser.”.
And that’s _the script_. As delivered…
Edit:
debbie
@dmsilev:
And yet Manafort just told NPR it would be a unifying speech.
dmsilev
@debbie: I’m sure most of the people in the convention hall will like it.
Percysowner
Oh, Andrew Sullivan! I found Sully around the time I found Balloon Juice. It was refreshing to find Republicans who were actually appalled by torture. As time went by, John Cole took the shock of the Republican Party sanctioning torture and used it to reevaluate their positions on other issues and found them wanting. He applied his compassion and decency to people in general and not on only one issue.
Sully, OTOH, remained and remains blinkered. If an social issue is good for Sully than it is good. If it hurts others,but does not hurt him, then it does not matter. If it helps others, but inconveniences him, then it is bad. Sully manages to clear the less evil bar, because he does have enough decency to condemn torturing others. But not totally evil does not equal good, and Sully has never made it past not totally evil. He’s one of the most self-centered people I have encountered, mostly because I avoid anyone more self-centered on general principles.
Mandalay
Surely there are more worthy topics? Sullivan has just done his slimy rendition of “All lives matter”….
So thoughtful! So perceptive! So even-handed!
So assholey.
Lee Hartmann
Good old Andrew (opponents of the Iraq war are a fifth colum) Sullivan.
not.
NR
Say what you want about Redstate (and there is plenty you could say about them), they have been on point with their criticisms of Trump this election season. This morning, they had an article about how Trump doesn’t have a crisis management team, he has a crisis creation team. The gist of it is that whenever the press is talking about his opponents, even if the coverage is negative, Trump always does something to get back in the news. He makes racist comments about a “Mexican” judge. He praises Saddam Hussein. Whatever it takes. He always wants to be the subject of passionate debate, not quiet reflection. He’s clearly decided that the only thing that matters in an election is feelings.
And the scary thing is, looking at the polls, he may be right.
Citizen Alan
I’m actually shocked that Sully isn’t down with the “Burn the Witch” tactics. He’s always been a raging misogynist with a visceral hatred of every woman in the public sphere except Thatcher the Milk Snatcher (the only “woman” he could ever love) and the Muslim girl whose name escapes me but who was killed (in Afghanistan, I think) for trying to vote or something. Of course, the latter entered the public sphere by dying a martyr and thus allowing Sully to project his own views onto her post-mortem. But I’d always thought that his Clinton Hatred was exceeded only by his Palin Hatred.
Tom Levenson
@MariedeGournay: ;-)
Always glad when someone notices the good ones.
Arclite
Republicans:
– Iran Contra
– Torture in violation of a signed and ratified treaty
Democrats:
– Lying about a BJ
– Setting up an legally questionable email server.
jl
From what details I’ve read about the FBI investigation into the horrid email crimes of HRC, it seems like total BS, even more than I suspected.
Fake scandal drummed up by the reactionary PR strike force that has longed seemed to rule the agenda of the US corporate media.
Total BS witch hunt, with character assassination the lone goal.
Is there any serious substance at all to it? I guess maybe. I haven’t seen details about the private server aspect yet. Maybe some commenters have good links.
Corner Stone
@NR:
Could you really just not? I’m asking.
piratedan
so All Lives Matter…. then how about we ask police to treat everyone as if they do, instead of just white folks? Or is that too much of a leap for some of us Sully?
Mary G
The NBA is moving the Allstars game out of N. Carolina due to the bathroom bill. Hahaha!
Emma
@Lee Hartmann: Yeah. My never-to-be-forgotten moment. As you say, not.
piratedan
@Arclite: both sides!
Starfish
@Percysowner: I think that is how I found them too or maybe a Sullivan link led me here. His treatment of all public figures who are women is pretty terrible. At first I followed his speculation about the parentage of Palin’s youngest child, but in hindsight it was really terrible; and he just would not let it go.
Corner Stone
Ivanka looks to be going with a blood red, figure hugging dress. Sorry guys, I really have no choice now but to vote Trump.
scav
@Mary G: Wonder if they’ll get a call and response moment of unity tonight.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
The talking heads are concerned that it will not feature Ronnie’s optimism based on the text, but they are trying to convince each other that his delivery can turn it into a more optimistic speech. While the base likes the message that 8 years of an incompetent black man has destroyed America and it must be saved from the abyss by Donald, the rest of the populous as ridiculous. The base hates Obama America doesn’t. Standing on a stage saying he’ll make America great again just by the force of his personality is not a winning argument.
Roger Moore
@piratedan:
All
animals are equallives matter, but someanimals arelives matter moreequalthan others.Miss Bianca
Is it just me or is there something…um…*quite*…phallic about one of those mushrumps in the second painting?
dmsilev
@hovercraft: Trump is good at playing off the mood of a crowd and amplifying it.
The crowd for this speech is going to be the same group of people who just spent the last three days chanting “lock her up” etc.
Yeah, I’m not seeing sunny optimism in the forecast for this evening. Angry, with a 90% chance of scattered spittle.
Tom Levenson
@Miss Bianca: I’ll never say.
Amir Khalid
Sully is a learned man but often a silly one. It’s fair to say that he’s a better writer than he is a thinker. I found his writing to be so much exquisitely crafted vacuity and gave up on him years ago.
I have to say, the big surprise in today’s news for me was not the ongoing fiasco of the RNC but the news that the US DoJ was investigating the 1MDB scandal, and had dug up more in a matter of weeks than the Malaysian authorities did over several months. Of course it must have helped that US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch doesn’t report to our PM unlike her Malaysian counterparts.
scav
@Miss Bianca: Only one? tsk. All phallus positions matter.
lollipopguild
@Miss Bianca: Yes, from 1798. Oh my!
Tom Levenson
@Arclite: You know what I like about your asinine comment? It actually heightens the point to be made: wanting to use a blackberry is or is not equivalent to racing to war on false pretences? The consequences of sending email on an imperfect server in a basement as opposed to an imperfect server in Foggy Bottom vs. the deaths, the injuries, the treasure shot down a rat hole and the destabilization of a region and more? Hmmmm. So hard to decide.
#Morans
Archon
Obviously those scandals aren’t anything close to what Clinton did BUT what he did was reprehensible. Having sexual relations with an intern then lying about it gets people fired from minor positions in small town governments. For the President of the United States to use his position in power in such a way is disgusting. Republicans might have overreached (especially since many of them forgot to look to their own similar sins) but for so many folks on the left to basically pooh-pooh Bill Clinton behaving like a scumbag is disappointing.
MCA1
@scav: Well, the title of the this is “Which of these is not like the other.” :^)
hovercraft
@Tom Levenson:
Tom you are missing the fact that there were indeed thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives lost during the Clinton administration. If he hadn’t been distracted by the blow job, he would have stopped the genocide in Rwanda, and he would have had time to get Bin Laden. And if he had got Bin Laden then September 11 would not have happened, and if it hadn’t happened then the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would not have happened. The deaths that occurred on 43’s watch were actually Clinton deaths not Bush deaths. Clinton may have deliberately not killed Bin Laden and may have known about 9/11 and allowed it to happen to sabotage Bush 43. This is an actual argument that has been made to me. In 50 years when the records are released the truth will come out and Bush will be exonerated.
hovercraft
@Mary G:
Good for them.
Corner Stone
WTF has happened to Dave Weigel? He looks like a third string local sports reporter that is a cast off from the movie Anchorman.
D58826
@debbie: well all the good Germans were unified at those big Nuremberg rallies. And the Italian trains ran on time
Starfish
@jl: There are some indications that there are gaps.
in June and July 2016, a number of news outlets reported that Clinton’s emails did include messages with classification “portion markings”.[88][89] The FBI investigation found that 110 messages contained information that was classified at the time it was sent. Sixty-five of those emails were found to contain information classified as “Secret”; more than 20 contained “Top-Secret” information.
hovercraft
@Starfish:
With the exception of Margaret Thatcher he has serious issues with women. His CDS extends to both of the Clintons, but his hatred of her seems much more personal.
D58826
@Archon:
The left isn’t excusing what Clinton did. They are making the distinction between public behavior and private behavior. My initial lefty reaction was I would have beaten him over the head and shoulders if I had seen him. Rather than impeachment I thought he should have spent a week in the stocks on the WH lawn. The taxpayers could throw rotten veggies at him. Just like in colonial times.
Mike J
@Archon: It never got a CEO fired from any company I ever worked for, at least back then.
Steve Case at AOL, Sergey Brin at Google, Charles Phillips at Oracle.
lamh36
One of speakers is a gay guy…and he plans to say in his speech, that he’s a proud gay man…
how many LGBTQ peeps will fall for okey doke.
EthylEster
AS is an ass.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
That was just for this afternoons walk through, you know she’ll change for tonight.
Baud
@lamh36:
All of them, Katie.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Trump’s speech: My friends, we’ve got trouble… Right here in Cleveland city. My friends, we’ve got trouble with a capital T which rhymes with B which stands for blahs… (And browns, yellows, reds….)
Corner Stone
@lamh36: It’s Peter Thiel. So, none.
Baud
@jl:
I agree with you. It’s the equivalent of hyperventilating over a speeding ticket.
Mandalay
@Archon:
This. I never understood the argument that it was nobody’s business what he did in his spare time.
Clinton was fortunate that the Republicans overplayed their hand. Had they been more deft they might have turned the country against him rather than transforming him into a sympathetic victim.
D58826
@Citizen Alan:
well one out of two an’t bad:-)
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: You know who else sounded like Buchanan but without the religion?
@Tom, I’m surprised that Sullivan wouldn’t at least note the false equivalency on torture, that being one of his hobby horses and all.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: It may not matter. It’s like an imprint at this point.
cokane
I do think liberals/dems sometimes understate the Lewinsky issue. Behavior like that DOES expose the president to blackmail. Of course it’s not as bad as Reagan or Bush scandals. However, in comparison to the kind of leaders we clearly are capable of electing — Obama — it reveals certain significant shortcomings of the Clintons.
Corner Stone
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!!!
Cacti
@scav:
Sieg Heil?
Vhh
@hovercraft: Er, some weeks/months before 9/11 Bill Clinton gave a speech in Australia (where I was living) that talked about the then unknown Bin Laden as a new sort of threat. I read it in The Melbourne Age. Pls also note that the GOP Congress tried to sabotage the US intervention in Bosnia and did sabotage US intervention in Africa. So much for your non facts.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
That’s what I said to Adam last night, whatever speech is in the prompter will probably be delivered in that stilted manner of his, the crowd will not be into it, so he’ll probably go off script to rev up the room, and then they’ll feed off each other and the pitchforks will come out.
Baud
@cokane:
You think Hillary was subject to blackmail over the email server?
Corner Stone
@cokane:
You mean like JFK sharing a twist with a mobbed up honey?
Get on with your self.
Emma
@Starfish: Except that during Comey’s questioning, he admitted a lot of them were marked classified only by a small symbol in the body of the message, not with the usual classification markings. AND State has also stated some of those were marked incorrectly.
cokane
@Citizen Alan: True, but Trump is exactly the kind of boisterous, coarse Republican Tory Sully can’t countenance. Sully’s always had a love affair with the phony wonky Paul Ryan types. If it’d been Ryan v Clinton, we’d probably see him back to carrying the conservative water by the bucketful.
D58826
@cokane:
Which was a good reason for Starr to not go near the entire issue. And remember when talking about Hillary, her server, and the FBI, Cormy was one of Starrs inquisitors. He has been waiting 20 years to give that press conference.
Trollhattan
@debbie:
Terror is something we can all gather around. I’m buying my visqueen and duct tape tonight, losers!
cokane
@Baud: @Corner Stone: And right on cue, the kneejerk team blue at all costs squad.
Splitting Image
I quit reading Sullivan during the Elena Kagan hearings. One (1) person on the internet said that Kagan was a closeted lesbian, and he wrote about 20 columns saying that the gay rights movement couldn’t risk having a self-hating lesbian on the court and loftily demanded she decline the nomination. While Sullivan was doing that, a closeted churchman got caught vacationing with a baggage-handler he picked up on rentboy.com. Sullivan praised himself for not commenting, saying he understood what the guy was going through.
Bjacques
@D58826: Speaking of Nuremburg 1934, at least Leni Riefenstahl made sure all the stadium seats were filled.
Major Major Major Major
@Vhh: your snark meter, it is le broken.
Emma
@cokane: The Clintons? In which fashion does Bill’s infidelity reflect badly on Hillary?
Baud
@cokane: You’re awfully defensive.
Mike J
@hovercraft: Have you read the text Politico leaked?
Baud
@Emma: Welcome to kneejerk team blue!
lamh36
@Corner Stone: OMG…I saw him on MSNBC too and when I saw the name, I was like..what the hell…it’s funny, he basically looks like a “fuller” faced version of his twitter avatar.
Trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Now they know how not to get caught. Gee willikers!
Blackmail. Too bad somebody couldn’t blackmail Dumya into doing his damn job.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
Here is the text of the speech from politico
Corner Stone
@cokane: Piggie squealing?
Baud
“Donald Trump reminds me of my late husband.”
singfoom
Why did Bill Clinton let his penis massacre all of those poor poor people in the middle east?
MuckJagger
Sullivan’s a lot less dangerous when he’s offering up his opinions in Batman v Superman.
D58826
@Vhh: ah I think that was meant to be sarcasm
singfoom
Why did Bill Clinton let his johnson (FYWP) massacre all of those poor poor people in the middle east?
So unlike the other examples. Logic fucking fail Sully.
cokane
@Baud: It’s actually you who rushed to defend
lamh36
@Baud: The thing to look for is the reaction from the crowd…if they notice
ETA: @Corner Stone: I honestly have no idea who is his…I had to google him
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: ooh! I want to join! Let me try.
“Most presidents have done questionable things!”
Or maybe “a woman isn’t defined by her husband!”
“Yeah, but Donald Trump would literally usher in the apocalypse!”
hovercraft
@lamh36:
It’s Peter Theil the billionaire who destroyed Gawker. Glibertarian jackass.
Trollhattan
@Emma:
In that she simultaneously should have left him/ should have stayed with him. Schrödinger’s first lady.
Baud
@cokane:
I asked a question. You mentioned blackmail and the Clintons, but never explained how Hillary would be blackmailed. Your analysis was deficient.
Major Major Major Major
@lamh36: we know who he is. He is not well regarded.
lamh36
Ugh… Steve Schmidt is not as much an idiot as Nicole Wallace, but he def full of as much shit
Trollhattan
@hovercraft:
Being a “three comma” man washes away all the ghey sins. (“Silicon Valley” ref.)
rikyrah
@RadioFreeTom 6m6 minutes ago
@andrewmichta The full text of Trump’s speech is at Politico. To call it Nixonian is an insult to Nixon. It’s like Chavez or Putin.
lamh36
@Mediaite
Lawsuit: School Officials to Require Transgender Students Wear ‘Bright Green Wristbands’
D58826
@Baud: FDR had a mistress and managed to beat the depression and win WWII. Presidents getting a little on the side is as old as the republic.
Emma
@Baud: Pleased to be with you!
burnspbesq
Holy moly: Fifth Circuit affirms District Court decision striking down Texas voter ID law.
Yeeeeeee-HAAAAAAA!
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Yay gays!
Corner Stone
Chuck Todd and all of MSNBC have now agreed. The Cruz speech last night has unified the R party for Trump.
This is such fucking garbage analysis.
Baud
@burnspbesq: Nice. I assume they’ll take it en banc, given the 4-4 court.
Trollhattan
@lamh36:
Too bad Trump ruined the star badge for everyone. Who thought this was a good idea, now?
Omnes Omnibus
Clinton did not commit perjury. Perjury requires knowingly lying under oath about a material issue. The Monica issue was not material to the case in which Clinton was being deposed.
Now to go read the thread.
Mnemosyne
@Archon:
There’s a difference between acting like a scumbag and breaking US and/or international law. One of these things is not like the other.
Do you seriously think that flouting US law by selling weapons to Iran was no more serious than one consenting adult giving another consenting adult a blow job? Lewinsky was 23 years old, not a high school student.
Emma
@D58826: Powerful men in general have had women on the side since the beginning of human history. Power is one hell of an aphrodisiac. Bill should have told Starr to go pound sand and make a very different public speech. It was his attempt to cater to middle-class morality that sunk him.
debbie
@lamh36:
I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t booing should he actually state he’s a proud gay man. Last night seemed to really embolden the delegates.
hovercraft
@Vhh:
I don’t believe that bull, I was passing on a deranged conspiracy theories that is out there.
Baud
@Emma:
Some even get hit Broadway musical made about them.
singfoom
@lamh36: Why are school administrators so damn stupid? It seems like a defect of the position or something. Making a teenager wear a special wristband, how could that go wrong?
How do you run anything if you lack the common sense to see the problem with that, much less a school?
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Fucking Kenosha. Notice how unsurprised I am.
jl
@Starfish: Thanks for link. I should have thought about looking for a Wikipedia article on it.
Sorry that I don’t have the news story links at hand, but some of those instances are, IMHO, BS. They involve issues like classification of public information that parallels classified documents, stuff that other agencies decided should be classified and lack of coordination between agencies. Some of it was sloppy staff work with little bits of discussion of ‘classified topics’ far down in an email chain.
There is a lot of BS in the US national security classification system, and I thought some of the stuff that the FBI dug up were examples of that, not any serious culpability by HRC.
An interesting question is what would previous Secretaries of State look like if given the same microscopic examination that HRC went through. I am not an HRC fan. I preferred a certain other candidate who I will not name right now on most issues. But BS is BS, and that is what I’ve seen so far when I dive into the specific details of the BS persecution of HRC on the emails.
I am keeping an open mind where I have not read the minute details, like the server issues.
I may be prejudiced because I had some jobs that involved security clearances and dealing with classified material. I think it is humanly impossible to do every little thing strictly by the book and get anything done.
Emma
@Baud: Oh yeah! I could have fallen for him easily.
Major Major Major Major
I skimmed Trump’s speech. Here’s a choice nugget.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
I believe I heard he funded Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, mostly because he hates that people can be outed by sites such as Gawker.
cokane
@Emma: Bill wasn’t sunk tho
Frankensteinbeck
@Emma:
And so have powerful women!
jl
@Emma:
” In which fashion does Bill’s infidelity reflect badly on Hillary? ”
Everything reflects badly on Hillary. That is a fundamental axiom in certain political quarters.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Aren’t the first two inconsistent with the third?
Mary G
The crowd at the convention tonight has way more energy than the past three days. The delegates were dancing to “Rock the Casbah” next the band broke into “Sweet Caroline” and lots of them were singing along. When the song cut off in the middle and Reince came out, he wasn’t received that enthusiastically.
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: Even by Chuck Todd’s standards, that’s remarkably stupid.
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: The funny thing is, he wasn’t even in the closet when Gawker ‘outed’ him. He just had a couple of business contacts whose minds it hadn’t crossed to think about.
Peale
@Archon: Thankfully, the presidency isn’t equivalent to a minor low level government job in some municipality. And no she was not an intern, and no there wasn’t much extra scummy about it. Looking back on it, it was actually handled appropriately before the investigator was involved. The sex was consensual. Monica was not “fired” but was transferred to a new position, which is how it would be handled at my own company when two adults go about it. And yeah, it would have be handled quietly because the new transferree doesn’t need the baggage of a memo going around stating “We welcome our new employee who admitted to having sex with the boss.” In this case, it was Monica who needed to be transferred because it is not possible to transfer the president of the US to the Pentagon. Thankfully, the federal government is similar in size to a large business where there are ample equivalent job openings. Sucks to be Monica, I suppose, as she may have liked her old job. But the investigators, try as they might, couldn’t find evidence that she had been harassed, Bill had promised to promote her, had threatened to fire her, or had made her feel like if she didn’t have sex with him her security was in danger. A lot of companies have a “no harm, no foul” policy, and this definitely would have fallen under that were it in the private sector. Was he prudent. Hell no. But yeah, it falls under “not my businesses” as the affair does not seem to have impacted the public business until Ken Star got wind of it.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
Ah, then he did it because he could. Very Trumpian!
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
At least he added that he unified the arena, but not necessarily the tv audience.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: When I watched the other night, he was talking about how Christie’s speech had a bunch of call-and-response, and everybody agreed that yes, it did indeed have a lot of call-and-response. So did some of the other speeches! Then they wondered if future speeches would have a lot of call-and-response. Will the Democrats do a call-and-response thing?
Nobody mentioned that the call-and-response portion of the speech involved chanting for jailing your political opponents, naturally…
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: I like how he said that there weren’t any lies at the RNC Convention.
It’s like one of those philosophical brain teaser things.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
“I say little, you say fingers.”
Emma
@Frankensteinbeck: Well, of course.
Emma
@cokane: Sunk him in the sense of having to go through all the impeachment bs.
Villago Delenda Est
Priorities, people! Priorities!
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: FTW!
Peale
@dmsilev: Actually he said “leis” but mispronounced it. Technically true. The Hawaiian delegation is sick with the norovirus and hasn’t been seen yet in prime time.
Trentrunner
@Peale: Wait, Monica wasn’t an intern?
What was she?
lamh36
@Mary G: Joy Reid…posted on instagram about them playing “Rock the Casbah” and she inquired if they realized you need to have Muslims to truly “Rock the Kasbah“
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
Maybe he should have checked past convention speeches before making that stupid remark. I think call and response is a time-honored convention tradition. How else to keep the delegates awake?
Peale
@Trentrunner: An employee.
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: Mostly he just didn’t like Sam Biddle’s reporting in Valleywag, so he/his shadow attorneys plaintiff-shopped until they found Hogan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Peale: The affair with Monica was quite literally the only thing the GOP had on Bill. They’d tried everything else, and Starr was more or less officially given the word that he “should find something, anything” to pin on Clinton.
liberal
@Corner Stone: LOL. JFK makes Bill C look like a quoirboy.
lamh36
sinnedbackwards
@jl: Most of the details are that Hillary asked for a truly secure com system and NSA turned her down. That alone leaves me pisky-mazed.
So she turned to the Condoleeza Rice workaround, and set up a parallel system.
And wowser-bowser, it wasn’t noticed while the “official” SD system she eschewed was hacked. So, post facto, we know she made the right decision.
But, since there’s a couple of ambiguities in the rules about e-mails, the reich wing carries on like security might have been at stake. Which it was not. But you know, both sides and all that. It is disgusting.
Trentrunner
@Peale: Thanks, but where did the canard that she was an intern come from? Was she an intern when she first had sex with Clinton?
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
What is it about money that makes billionaires so spiteful?
D58826
@Omnes Omnibus: They spent many a night on cable arguing the finer points of perjury law.
liberal
@hovercraft: his political views are much more revolting than glibertarianism.
Major Major Major Major
@sinnedbackwards: Hillary Clinton sent out unsecured emails with classified information!
translation…
Hillary Clinton failed to conform to a byzantine IT standard written a long time ago for internal communications and also nothing bad happened and it was probably a good idea!
It’s, like, a using-an-extra-semicolon-in-javascript level screwup we’re talking about, computer-wise.
@debbie: money.
hovercraft
Hey drump may win New Jersey, who knew he was going to win 48 states.
Tom Levenson
@lamh36: Colored six pointed stars weren’t available?
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
Lovely “slut-shaming” (photo)
raven
These goofy motherfuckers are “dancing” to Rock the Casbah. Jesus, Strummer is rollin in his grave.
Corner Stone
Manafort thinks Trump is competitive in NJ and PA.
James Franks
@Archon: My biggest issues with the whole mess is how the Republicans cheapened what should be a very serious matter. The President lying under oath should be a really big deal for a nation ruled by laws.
Omnes Omnibus
@D58826: Yes, and at the time I read all the law review articles about it. The Monica stuff had nothing to do with the case, per a ruling by the trial court judge. Not material, not perjury. It had the same effect as if Clinton lied about his eye color.
Kathleen
@dmsilev: Or the whimsy.
Archon
I’m no fool, of course powerful men have had mistresses including U.S Presidents (although I do find the argument that Presidents having secret affairs makes them susceptible to blackmail persuasive) My main issue was that she was, in effect a subordinate. For Bill Clinton to take advantage of that makes him a scumbag and while he didn’t deserve to be impeached, he didn’t deserve to be defended as vigorously as he was by a lot of Democrats.
Mary G
@raven: Now it’s AC/DC. Even the 80-year-olds. Kill me now.
Omnes Omnibus
@James Franks:
He was asked a very intrusive question that had nothing to do with case. It also had nothing to do with his job. I have no problem with him acting like anyone else would and lying in that circumstance.
Kathleen
@debbie: And didn’t NPR just lap that up like the Nice Polite Republicans they are? Although one reporter actually committed real journalism yesterday. He reported Trump campaign’s lie that Hillary’s camp accused Trump of plagiarism. But get this! The reporter actually pointed out that it was a reporter, not Clinton campaign, who first reported the similarities. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
Arclite
@Tom Levenson: Exactly. We’re all human, we all make questionable judgments. It’s just that the Repubs tend to fck up in ways in which thousands of people die, and the media gives them a pass. The Dems fck up in ways in which no one dies, and are hounded by the media for decades.
jl
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Pence keeps his boobs covered up, all nice and lady like. So, why can’t the others? Huh?
liberal
Sully’s biggest crime was promoting that racist tome
sinnedbackwards
@debbie: They know they stole it by buying Congress so they can pay lower taxes than, you know, very HIGH income people like you and me.
If everyday people ever found out how they have bought the Congress to reduce their taxes, they would be back to Eisenhower taxes and maybe hanged.
(i’m a high level frequent flyer. I often sit next to wealthy folks. You’d be amazed (maybe not) how many of them, when I ask if they’d rather go back to Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, or Bush tax rates, pick Ike. Well over half. For all their bloody money they are remarkably ignorant. I just wish I could somehow enforce their choice.)
Van Buren
@Emma: This was my conversation with a 50ish professional woman today:
Her: I could never vote for Hillary. I have no respect for a woman who didn’t leave her her husband after he cheated on her!
Me: So, you support the guy who cheated on 2 wives instead?
Her: That’s different! Rich men always cheat! If you’re a trophy wife, you know that sooner or later you’ll be replaced by a younger model!
Me: We’re doomed. (Googles: How to emigrate to Denmark)
Omnes Omnibus
@sinnedbackwards: Of course most of the really rich people have private planes or at least a NetJets membership.
lamh36
Frankensteinbeck
@Archon:
I would say you have an argument, except for one thing. There is a fallacy of priorities that I don’t know the name of involved. It’s not quite false equivalency. Bill Clinton’s behavior would be worth disapproving of, if disapproving of it did not feed an out-of-scale, vile and disgusting partisan witch hunt that dwarfs into insignificance any moral wrong of Clinton’s sexual misdeed. It is the same fallacy involved in ‘all lives matter.’
Kathleen
@NR: A Cincinnati sports reporter recalled an interview with Joe Morgan, who recounted his visit with Nelson Mandela and Mandela’s statement that (I’m paraphrasing) that your greatest impact on people is not necessarily your words or deeds but how you make them feel.
lamh36
the Trump advisor who said HRC should be shot for treason is on MSNBC now and saying it AGAIN!
raven
What a fucking idiot this Baldasaro dude is.
Major Major Major Major
@sinnedbackwards: Weren’t the high marginal rates under Ike for very, very high incomes (inflation adjusted) though?
Lizzy L
Re: Clinton and the blow job — I said when the whole mess was happening, and I’ll say again; the biggest mistake Bill Clinton made was to answer any, ANY questions about his sex life. He should have told them loudly and repeatedly to eff off.
Trump’s speech could be very powerful, if delivered as written. It confirms and reinforces everything Trump’s base already believes about the nation, the world, and about Clinton. I don’t think he can do it.
polyorchnid octopunch
I’d like to make a quick note about the Hillary email server hullabaloo. She wanted a blackberry. This means that what she had in her basement was a machine running an instance of Blackberry Server. The short version is that it’s entirely possible to buy Blackberry Server from (then) Research in Motion (now) Blackberry, and use it to manage blackberry devices. Blackberry Server is actually pretty easy to run, and esp. very easy to run in a secure manner, because the both the server and the devices default to encrypted communication… not to mention that I’m sure she hired an experienced blackberry server admin to run it for her.
Now, I’m quite familiar with RIM/Blackberry; they are a Canadian firm and I know folks who work there, including some at a very high level on the dev side (I myself run an email system with ~11 million clients on a large Canadian telco’s network that interfaces between internet messages and SMS, and I went to high school with one guy and uni with a couple of others), not to mention that there have been times at my company that I have ended up managing thousands of blackberry devices, albeit without the server from RIM/Blackberry… the server makes it a lot easier, but it is in fact pretty easy to manage that many blackberries because they were designed quite sanely from a device management perspective. Keeping their communications secure is easy as pie, because the devices don’t do insecure comm; when I did manage those devices I had to set up a certed SSL server to talk to the devices, but my firm decided to have me do that work by hand instead of giving RIM the money to buy the turnkey solution.
The Clinton server would have been managing one, maybe up to as many as three different devices. I bet that guy showed up at nine and left at five, and spent ~7.5 out of 8 hours of each day surfing the net for memes and pr0n because there’s no way that after the initial setup he had that much actual work to do.
I’d also like to remind the audience that Blackberry is one of the few companies that have never been cracked. They have coughed up information when served with court orders, but that’s not the same thing at all. Historically they’ve been so not crackable that several authoritarian regimes ban the devices in their country because they can’t listen in.
If she had an experienced blackberry admin, it’s entirely possible that her set up was more secure than the one at the actual State Department… and not a little bit more, a lot more. I’m sure the state department didn’t want to set it up because to run their entire operation on it would require paying significant licensing fees to RIM, and of course RIM is not a US company, plus, you know, cheapness and the usual inertia that accompanies government procurement.
The only possible flies that I can see is a lack of offsite backup for the system, which would result in serious downtime in the event of a house fire or other event of that nature… and if she had a competent admin even that would be easily remedied.
The whole scandal is utter bullshit cooked up for political gain.
raven
@polyorchnid octopunch: I’m glad you said “quick” and not “short”!
gogol's wife
@Corner Stone:
You should have heard Todd “analyzing” the Turkish coup as it was happening. It was deeply embarrassing.
Major Major Major Major
@Major Major Major Major: And only part of the complete picture. The effective rates, once you factored in everything else, were IIRC much lower than the toplines make them look. Pikkety covers this, I think.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Where do I sign up, does it come with a cool ID card?
debbie
@sinnedbackwards:
When one of my rat brothers slams Ike for the high tax rates, I remind him the taxes were high because back then, the GOP was responsible enough to know they had to pay off the cost of the war they’d just waged — unlike the GOP today who refuses to pay for anything they’ve done.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It comes with a sheriff’s badge, but you have to wear it everywhere.
Mary G
Between Tony Perkins and Jerry Falwell, Jr., the energy went down, but Joe Arpaio got a big hand. What a lineup. Ugh.
hovercraft
@lamh36:
Someone earlier was speculating that he might join the campaign.
Ferd ofthe Nort
Candidate for most futile job:
Donald Trump’s TelePrompTer operator
Rails? We don’t need no stinking rails!
Kathleen
@Corner Stone: And they will wax rhapsodic over his daughter’s speech. If we work really fast we could fax them their talking points!
polyorchnid octopunch
@dmsilev: Dunno, he might have a point. After all, it’s not like they’re not driving any sane people that are left out of the party with this display.
Unity through subtraction, as it were. Taking the intersection between the sets of sane principled people and the republican party and just making it disappear. Like Copperfield via enraged alienation.
Corner Stone
Can anyone explain Divergent to me? Briefly? The fucking interwebs has failed. mightily.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Might this candidate’s initials be BS by any chance?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Baud: Good lord… I wonder if Martin was thinking of Trump when he created that character. A wealthy whoremonger… it fits.
Corner Stone
@Kathleen: It’s going to be epic. She’s ready for primetime! She has shown another side/dimension to/of Trump! This was the pivot we were waiting on! HELLLLLOOOO FUTURE of the GOP!
SiubhanDuinne
I’ve seen a rough schedule of tonight’s speakers, but no times, even notional ones. Does anyone have a clue what time Drumpf is scheduled to make his address? I’m not interested in hearing Fran Tarkington or Frankin Graham, but I’d like to follow along with the transcript (go to Politico for the link) and see how early and often, and to what extent, the nominee goes off script.
If Adam or someone is planning to put up a link … That’d Be Great!!
Kathleen
@Baud: I say “Zeig”. You say “Heil”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Emma: “If she can’t control her husband, how can she be Commander In Chief of the US Military”; I saw a bumper sticker with that on it. Seriously.
Corner Stone
@SiubhanDuinne:
I also need to know. I’m not sure when to get Popeye’s tonight.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That’s one long bumper sticker.
Kathleen
@raven: My dad always joked that Republicans clapped at least a half a beat off the rhythm.
polyorchnid octopunch
@raven: Given the technical issues involved, that’s pretty quick. Trust me, the overall thrust is correct; there’s a very real possibility that her system was significantly more secure than the one that was actually run by State.
SiubhanDuinne
@jl:
Absolutely. About 98% of those rules and regs are there only so that, if an employee proves unsatisfactory, there is something, anything, in writing to haul out and use as a rationale for disciplinary action.
They got Al Capone on income tax evasion.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
There are 5 types of people I think, judicial, defense, administrators, farmers, engineering types, everyone is tested at a certain age and then they join their group, the people who cannot be categorized or who fall into more than one category are divergent and are put out of their realm. Order is the priority. The leader Kate Winslet is corrupt, and the divergents are fighting to expose her. It’s in the same genre as the hunger games, a futuristic society where they have a caste system. This is a very broad strokes summary from watching one of the movies a yea ago.
RaflW
Josh Barro can Godwin pretty effectively:
raven
@polyorchnid octopunch: I’m witcha
burnspbesq
@Baud:
Abbott, Texas’ asshat AG, says they are considering all their options. The actual disposition is a remand to the district court to (1) come up with a remedy and (2) reconsider its findings of fact on intent (if that part of the district court opinion had stood, Texas would be back into pre-clearance).
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: And he died in the Federal slammer on the South Side of Atlanta.
hovercraft
So a theme this week is angry black preachers who rail against BLM and the black president. How very inclusive of them.
Kathleen
@lamh36: Are the “reporters” at AMessNBC guffawing and shaking their heads in thieir best “boys will be boys” demeanor?
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
Sure, but listen to the lyrics. It may take place in a Muslim country, but it’s all about the people disobeying the authorities to listen to rock music. It’s definitely pro-Western rather than pro-Muslim.
raven
@Kathleen: He wasn’t joking.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Everyone knows I was a Baud! 2016! person from day one. He would have won, except, when the weather got warm, all that ice cold beer was just so damn good.
Edit: and yes, BS does stand for ‘Baud’s Swell”. Everyone knows that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Corner Stone:
Pope, yes?
schrodinger's cat
When is Herr Trump’s speech? I am going to make myself hear it, as a civic duty.
hovercraft
BW describes the speech as aerobic and says the peacher now needs to go take a shower.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: There’s kind of random Israeli stuff in there too. I don’t think Joe Strummer even knew what it was about.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
Hey now!
“Say no to this . . .” You opened the door, bucko!
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Their waffle cut fries are awesome! Its been a while since I have had them.
hovercraft
@RaflW:
He’s not wrong.
Sad.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Casbah == market, nothing particularly Muslim about that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: So many people don’t pay attention to lyrics. I knew a guy in law school who was RWNJ and a Billy Bragg fan. “What the fuck do you think ‘Waiting for the Great Leap Forward’ means?”
hovercraft
@schrodinger’s cat:
In the 10 o’clock hour, it is the last speech of the convention.
raven
Fucking Tarkenton up there now.
schrodinger's cat
Katie Kay schooled a Republican Senator on BBC this evening, Giggle sisters can learn a thing or two from her and Laura Trevelyan.
Kathleen
@Corner Stone: She’ll engage the Yootz and the wimmenz, which will demoralize Hillary’s already apathetic followers. “Dems in Disarray, Brian”. “And Dems in Disarray to you, Chuck.”
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: What do they think “got into a little hometown jam” or “they sent me off to Vietnam on my senior trip” mean?
schrodinger's cat
@hovercraft: Thanks!
hovercraft
Halpern says the speech will be a state of the union speech, and it will humanize him. Huh?
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Inorite?
Gelfling 545
@singfoom: it is not uncommon for people who have become teachers and suck at it to try to save the situation by getting admin certification. Generally, they suck at that too.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
Don’t be discouraged! Baud didn’t lose the nomination, he staged an early general election. Since only Baud supporters knew about it, he won 5-4, and is now the duly elected President of the United States! There will be an inauguration as soon as Judge Roberts stops looking confused and administers the oath.
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: C-SPAN has a countdown clock to Trump’s speech. Right now it says 1:52:46.
Kathleen
@raven: He thought it especially amusing when he observed them clapping to the Mike Curb Congregation at the 1972 Republican Convention.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s clearly intended to be set in a Muslim country. The chorus is about how “Shareef don’t like it”, there are Bedouin, and the king orders his jet fighters to “drop your bombs between the minarets/down the Casbah way”.
hovercraft
@Kathleen:
The fact that a bunch of middle aged white men find her young and attractive does not mean that she will be appealing to women and the yuutes. The media is just as dumb as the gop, they really think that the young, minorities and women vote for democrats because of identity politics, it’s policy. Alan Keyes, Micheal Steele, Sarah Palin, and now Ivanka will not change votes because of who they are, it’s the policy stupid. Drool all you want wankers, we aint buyin it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: It was a Yuuuuuugggee bumper sticker.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Was just commenting about the word, casbah not the song, which I have never heard.
sukabi
@Van Buren: so the take away from all of this is her objection to Clinton WASN’T the cheating, it was his “class”.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: he also says “shareef don’t like it (thinks it’s not kosher!)”
Like I said, I don’t think Joe Strummer even knows what it’s about.
Kathleen
@hovercraft: The media are just as vile as the Rethug slime that they enable. Robin Young on Here and Now (NPR) swooned over how beautiful the Trump family was yesterday. But they will deliver the script to make Trump “lovable” and kiss up to the ‘Thugs. I have no hope or respect for them.
Retr2327
@polyorchnid octopunch: which brings up a related issue that’s often overlooked: the official State Department system HRC was supposed to have used wasn’t supposed to be used for classified info in any case, so the whole issue of the private server is a bit of much ado over nothing, IMHO.
raven
@Major Major Major Major: He’s sort of been dead for about 14 years.
Emma
@Van Buren: That reminds me of a family legend, which quite by accident, I found out was true. One of my most favorite aunts-by-adoption found out that her sister’s husband had been keeping a mistress for nearly 40 years. She was all gung-ho to tell her sister until her son sat her down and pointed out a lot of people knew, including her sister. She couldn’t believe it until they proved it to her. Turns out the sister wasn’t much interested, he had a big libido, they loved each other still but “not that way,” and they had lived contentedly for 53 years.
Which is a long way of saying no one has the right to pass judgment on someone’s private life unless a real crime is being committed. Get your nose out of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Sort of? Isn’t being dead like being pregnant? One either is or one isn’t, right?
schrodinger's cat
@Kathleen: David Brooks of all people has the most scathing criticisms on Trump on the entire Snooze Hour panel. Giggle sisters are annoying and Jowls Shields just sputters along in a useless manner adding nothing to the discourse.
Mary G
Marsha Blackburn just came out and said “Hello Tennessee” and “we’re tired of watching our 401k’s go down.” Marsha, the Dow’s at 18,517, and has more than doubled in Obama’s terms. How do these morons get and stay elected?.
Major Major Major Major
@raven: Which I noted via verb tense the *first* time I commented about it :P
Besides, that just makes it more true!
Emma
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That’s an interesting question *rolls eyes*
schrodinger's cat
@Kathleen: David Brooks of all people has the most scathing criticisms on Trump on the entire Snooze Hour panel. Giggle sisters are annoying and Jowls Shields just sputters along in a useless manner adding nothing to the discourse.
Stupid moderation is stupid
Davebo
@burnspbesq: Abbot’s the governor.
Paxton, under indictment now, is the Texas AG.
Uncle Cosmo
Jeebus frackin’ cripes, Cole, are you letting Joe Lieberman post here now???
@Archon: Go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw, whatever you are.
Citizen Scientist
@polyorchnid octopunch: Yeah, the funny thing is, when military personnel i work with get issued secure mobile phone devices, they get BBs.
RandomMonster
There’s a juvenile joke right there…
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: They were playing “Rock the Fuckin’ CASBAH”?
Oh, Joe Strummer…if you weren’t already dead, that information shit-nugget might have killed you.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
The reason they think that is because they know a majority of white voters vote on the basis of identity politics, so everyone else must do it, too.
Kathleen
@schrodinger’s cat: I know I sound like a broken record but I am so angry with the media for their aiding and abetting a fascist. I don’t expect them to be better, but seeing them in action still makes me froth at the mouth. Never thought I would say this, but good on Brooks. I love your description (“The Giggle Sisters”).
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: I hear Mick Jones is currently in an ICU.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major:
What nobody will say, ever, in “response” to this “call” :
“What, you mean a call-and-response calling for the jailing and execution of their political opponents? Gee, I don’t know – do you think the Democrats should do that?”
And see, this is where some of those blond bombshell techniques that were so lavishly, nauseously described in a thread the other night, might help to get it to go down: The Fox Thing, with some cute young thing gets to slip the knife in like that…turn from the dark side to the light with that particular Force.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Before this, or because of this?
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: You fall for these things every time.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
@RaflW: Dayum.
usually he’s pretty cool customer with his cerebral shtick.
Trump has driven him over the edge.
Dadadadadadada
@Lee Hartmann: Not that I rush to defend him, but one of his last posts on The Dish was “The War,” and it was all about how wrong he was about Iraq. He’s capable of some amount of learning.
Aimai
@Archon: No.
Villago Delenda Est
@Archon: The catch is Bill Clinton’s enemies have always been infinitely more loathsome than Bill could ever be.
Starfish
@jl: I thought that classified emails were on special servers and were never to mix and mingle with unclassified emails on other servers. Does that rule only apply to DoD? If it applies to Department of State, I am confused how this happened.
I know that the classification system is crappy, but this seems really sloppy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: Roberts is never going to not look confused. Baud will have to wait for a long time.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: He’s projecting. AGAIN.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Goddammit, I *knew* you were joking. I’m *not* as dumb as I look!
Do I need to add the ‘snark tag’? //
Mnemosyne
@Starfish:
IIRC, there were no emails marked “classified” on her server, but there were a few instances where classified matters were discussed, such as when they discussed a New York Times article about drone strikes. Apparently, since drone strikes are classified, discussing a newspaper article about them is also classified even though you’re only discussing publicly available information that’s in the article.
Yeah, it’s that convoluted. I think the other instance they found was a few off-the-record remarks about the head of government of a small Eastern European country (can’t remember which one) because, again, any comment whatsoever about another country’s leader, even if it’s public information, is technically classified.
And that’s leaving aside the stuff that was not classified at the time, but became classified a few years later.
J R in WV
@James Franks:
Bill Clinton, a southern man, tried to protect Hillary and Monica from the results of his error, by denying it.
Bill Arnold
@Emma:
There is also the minor matter that it has been reported that the official State Department unclassified email system was compromised by Russians from at least 2007 (maybe earlier) until 2014. That is, if she had used the official unclassified email system, she would definitely have been hacked.