This tweet that Anne Laurie found was right on the money:
My baseline assumptions for Debate 1:
—Pundits/reporters 60-70% likely to say Trump wins.
—Instant polls 60-70% likely to say Clinton wins.— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 15, 2016
I believe that one of the reasons the 2000 race was so close — instead of being the blow-out it should have been — was the media fixation on Al Gore’s sighs in the first debate. Not to get all Bob Somerby on your asses, but all that bullshit about how Al Gore was the nerdy hall monitor and W was the likable jock…that bullshit is the reason W became president. Thus it’s the reason for the Iraq War and at least 5 or 6 trillion extra in debt.
All that bullshit is starting to happen again in this election.. So if anybody tells you that Hillary shouldn’t have glared at Trump or raised her voice or whatever in tonight’s debate, tell them to go fuck themselves.
Update. THIS (h/t Jim)
Gore sighed, people died.
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) September 26, 2016
dexwood
I think I’m going to have many go fuck yourself moments in coming weeks.
Corner Stone
Note to Cole and fans of BFE WV cuisine options:
At 2:00PM ET today the Travel Channel is broadcasting an episode of Bizarre Foods from WV. On the menu?
Fresh deer organs after a hunt
Groundhog stew
Judging a roadkill cook-off
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
I’m warning everyone I speak to not to believe the media spin after the debate, because I know it’s coming.
Off topic — I got tickets for two Hamilton performances this morning for next July and I haven’t been this happy since I got Kate Bush tickets.
? Martin
@Corner Stone: Cuisine from when America was great. Fuck off with your fancy-ass liberal taco bowls.
Major Major Major Major
The good news is, many fewer people pay attention to what the media says about who won the debates than did sixteen years ago.
Botsplainer
@? Martin:
MAGA!!!!!
SiubhanDuinne
There was one particular look she used a lot during her 11-hour BENGHAZI!!! hearing — a kind of infinitely patient, long-suffering look with a tiny little hint of a smile. No overt eye-rolling or sighs, but you could tell she wanted to. I loved it, and hope she has it polished and ready to use tonight.
(Edited to put in smile stuff.)
Emerald
I’m not even gonna watch it. I’m going to see Tom Hanks in Sully and come home and read the BJ live blog and decide if I want to watch a re-run. Maybe I’ll catch it on YouTube after the election.
As to the election, never forget:
https://twitter.com/AlGiordano/status/780409671484051458
She’s winning, and that hasn’t changed. Trump has virtually no path to 270 electoral votes.
BR
Have you SIGNED UP TO VOLUNTEER? No? Why not? Seriously. Sign. Up. Now.
BR
@Emerald:
What Al and Plouffe are saying only applies if Dems organize and GOTV like in 2008 and 2012.
Villago Delenda Est
My nym. AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Wipe them out. All of them.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Why anyone would watch or listen to any of the cable stations when CSpan is available is beyond me. Their convention coverage was such an island of bullshit free broadcasting, not having one of these useless pundits moronsplainin’ to me what I didn’t just see and hear with my own lying eyes and ears.
SenyorDave
One moment I would love to see in the debate. Hillary Clinton telling Trump he owes two apologies from his birtherism escapades. One to Barack Obama and his family, and one to the American people.
RoonieRoo
Right now I am very grateful that we have class with our labrador tonight. I can wait until I get home and read the BJ thread. I’m genuinely starting to have some minor panic attacks related to this election.
Kropadope
C’mon, everyone knows that body language and stage presence are more important qualifications for a President than experience and plans.
smintheus
This piece by James Hohmann argues that Clinton is to blame for journalists’ willingness to let Trump manipulate them. Apparently Trump has demonstrated his cleverness by persuading the media to fawn over his BS, and Clinton her stupidity by not having a better class of pawns in the press.
Percysowner
@BR: I’ve offered my house to someone coming from out of state to sleep in.
John O
I think the needle between showing the utter contempt DT deserves and being personable and strong and for once in her life likable is going to be a very difficult one to thread.
So I won’t be watching, either. I’m not going to contribute to any legitimization of Donald Trump as a candidate to be the most powerful person in the world.
SenyorDave
@Major Major Major Major: The good news is, many fewer people pay attention to what the media says about who won the debates than did sixteen years ago.
IN 2008, the pundits loved Palin’s debate performance in the Biden-Palin debates. The public – not so much. From Wikipedia, the three polls they cited had Biden winning by 12, 15 and 25 point, with only 42% saying that Palin was capable of fulfilling duties of VP (Biden got 89%). Of course, Mark Halperin graded both candidates a B.
Corner Stone
@? Martin: A Roadkill Food Truck on every corner! They would literally never run out of supplies!
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Wonder if there is a way to score a predictive algorithm of the words that will appear in Chuck Todd “both sides” aphorisms? We could have a betting routine and predictions, and whomever gets closest can be the winner and not pay, the losers all contribute to BJ.
My entry: “His messaging was consistent and on point, and he was very assertive. He had a great night. Hillary, on the other hand, just spent a lot of time on facts and never really got in a solid shot. While he said a lot of things which don’t seem to be true, he did what he needed to do to move his campaign forward into the final stretch. Back to you, Andrea….”
SiubhanDuinne
Is this the first time in Balloon Juice history that John has taken down a Bigfoot post? ?
? Martin
@Corner Stone: Genius. Maybe we we require they be coal powered to save real American mining jobs.
Kropadope
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I wrote a program that could be modified to do that. I’d need some samples in text format, though.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@SiubhanDuinne:
Saw that.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@BR: I signed up to volunteer ages ago, and all I got were repeated donation solicitations.
Jeffro
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: congrats on the tickets! We are debating whether or not to go in 2025 or 2035, lol
Emerald
@BR: Agreed. And they are. Hillz has been building on Obama’s organization and expanding it, in fact.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep ourselves geared up into panic mode and GOTV like mad. Contact the campaign and hit those phones if you can’t hit the pavement.
I have no doubt at all that she’s gonna win this election and by a wide margin. But I fully expect Our Failed Media Experiment to continue to plumb the depths of mendacity and depravity (in this election those words fit) and do everything they can to spit-polish Herr Drumpf, starting with Lester Holt tonight. I just don’t want to watch.
Edited for slightly increased clarity
Major Major Major Major
Just got this from my local NPR affiliate.
Sigh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Brian Beutler is a fellow unworthy of a dinner invitation
JMG
I haven’t watched a campaign debate in years. I know who I’m voting for, so why bother? Wish something better than Falcons-Saints was there as an alternative, though.
Aleta
There’s more than this at the Cracked blog: 5 Signs NBC Is Unofficially Endorsing Trump For President
Lurking Canadian
@Emerald: A few weeks back, the story was that the Clinton team had basically declared victory in Colorado and pulled their money out. Does anybody know if they’ve moved back into Colorado now that the polls are closer, or are they still thinking it’s in the bag?
Barbara
Not to mention hundreds of thousands wounded or dead Iraqi civilians, the birth of ISIS out of the dissolution of the Iraqi army, and no progress at all on climate change. I don’t care about the national debt. A more fraudulent issue has never been stoked by the punditocracy.
kd bart
She best not cough once or they’ll have her dead by sunrise.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
I have it on reliable authority that Chuckles reads the comments here for his main talking points. Stop enabling the man. ;)
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Major Major Major Major:
That is why I stopped giving money to NPR a dozen years ago and stopped listening to them in 2013. Two decisions in life I don’t regret.
BR
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
The link I provided is different — here you are in control, because it’s about signing up for events rather than generically to volunteer. You can look for an event in your area, RSVP, and show up. No need to wait for the campaign to contact you (which is a bad way to go about it, because they are busy). And you won’t get a bunch of donation requests.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ZOMG we’re all gonna die!
and I’ll repeat what I said earlier, all polls just mean that turn out is really fucking important
and everyone in a “safe blue state” self-indulging in the “Hillary will win New York/ California/Oregon, so I’m going to vote to make myself feel special” thing? Go fuck yourselves.
Love,
Jim
Major Major Major Major
Where did the other posts go?
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Jeffro: The trick was to keep trying after it looked like the only tickets left were a handful of reseller tickets with insane markups. Tickets get thrown back occasionally — people change their minds and cancel transactions, credit cards get declined, etc. It took a few minutes, but I found available tickets at regular venue prices three different times.
RaflW
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe she can whip out her Blackberry and sunglasses too.
I think along with everything else that has been cast into the gulf of America’s great divide is how people react to Hillary as a human being. I thought she did great in that Between Two Ferns video, and I don’t ever watch those. But I am liberal and ironic enough to see her doing well in it.
Conservatives (and I’d daresay a few stick-up-their-rectum press folks) thought she looked so uncomfortable. #duh
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Why are assumptions being made by pollsters (2004 turnout model) that the people who Trump and his supporters hate the most, with the most to lose, won’t show up to vote?
Kropadope
@kd bart:
OMG, one of the most disturbing conversations I ever heard was between my pharmacist and her friend about how HRC continuing to campaign with the pneumonia and not disclosing the diagnosis before she decided to take some time off is proof that she’s not healthy enough to serve and, more importantly, proof that she can’t be trusted.
I was gobsmacked and the young man I was helping at the time looked pissed. To hear some people talk about it, one would think that no one has ever been sick before.
Baud
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
What else would you expect from a Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class?
Hal
You gotta love that one of the criticisms of Al Gore was that he was too much of an intellectual. Who wants to hang out with Professor Smarty Pants when you can have a beer with a dimwit?
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@BR: I hadn’t seen that one before. Very helpful. Thanks!
Garm
Here’s my fear: The moderators are giving up on doing their job beyond keeping time. If Hillary corrects Don or rebuts his statements, she’s going to be called all the names under the sun (shrill! etc) and it will be spun as her getting “desperate” even tho’ she’s just pointing out the truth.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
My local NPR station is interviewing someone who won’t vote for either because “Hillar’s a crook and Trump’s an egomaniac.”
Baud
@Kropadope:
Pneumonia would have knocked me on my ass for two months. I’m impressed with her stamina.
Keith G
“Oh my god, It’s going to be terrible. Terrible!! Oh my god, It’s going to be terrible. Terrible!! Oh my god, It’s going to be terrible. Terrible!! Oh my god, It’s going to be terrible. Terrible!!.”
Ah shit. I am weary from the bed wetting.
Trump will likely get through tonight without announcing that he wants “Imperial Grand Dragon” to be a new cabinet post. In this he is like Reagan in 1980. Being attacked as the ol crazy/angry ex actor, all Ronnie had to do was to appear pleasant and seemingly coherent. Trump might be able to pull off pleasant, but coherent is rather doubtful.
Still, media or Trump notwithstanding, this ball is in Hillary’s court. If she is thoughtful and firm (and does not utter a single lawyerly evasion), all will be good.
So please fucking stop blaming folks for that which has not happened. That’s almost wingnutty.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: They search out those people.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@SiubhanDuinne:
How many stories have you heard from enthusiastic Hillary supporters, out of curiosity? I haven’t heard any, even at the DNC convention. It’s really remarkable.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You left out Washington and Massachusetts, as states with special snowflake purity ponies.
Kropadope
@Hal:
Except Bush didn’t drink anymore, but you could have a beer next to dimwit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G: The head bedwetters are at the DCCC, which cannot stop screaming “the sky is falling unless you send us $10 right now!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
Posts plural? I think John had an attack of conscience (inorite?) and took down his one-minute bigfoot post, probably after several of us commented.
He cited a terrific article, and I hope he’ll put it up again after a suitable amount of time has passed.
raven
News flash, no fucking body cares if you watch the debate or not. Nobody.
BR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
They will do stories about them if you complain. The media responds to angry people flooding their twitter feeds and phone lines. Rabid GOP voters do this all the time.
kd bart
@Kropadope: Trump with his weight and fast food diet is a walking time bomb for heart disease.
Hal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m optimistic Clinton is going to win, and I’m more and more convinced Trump is not going to break 43% in the general election. That’s still too many people willing to vote for him, but I 57% of voters saying no to Trump, even if they vote for Stein and Johnson, is a little more comforting to me than say 49% to 51%
BruceFromOhio
Drinking game for the debates? Sorry, I’d rather be drinking with wolves, and then eaten by them as a grand finale.
@SiubhanDuinne: The nutpicking is sublime this cycle, and it seems to ebb and flow depending on whether or not there is something else about which to hyperventilate.
“I’m a lifelong dem/rep/green/communist and I’m voting/not voting for Hills/Stein/Libertarian/dumpster fire because reasons!”
@raven: bwahahahahahahaha tell it like it is, man.
Patricide
OTOH, in America it’s legal to openly carry military grade firearms, but illegal to posses feathers and marijuana.
Is this a great country or what?
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: I thought I saw an open thread for a second.
BR
Who else hasn’t signed up to attend a volunteer event? How about I match you? You sign up for a volunteer shift, and I’ll sign up for an extra one. And this is with a newborn at home — we decided this election is too important to sit out.
SiubhanDuinne
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I don’t know about the Convention. Seems to me POTUS, FLOTUS and SPW were among some pretty enthusiastic speakers on her behalf. But it’s true that there seems to be very little affirmative support for Hillary out there, and much more of the “at least she’s better than Trump” stuff.
I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by the NYT‘s full-throated endorsement of her. I recall only one little nod in the direction of “while she has her flaws….” By the same token, the litany of Trump’s disqualifying drawbacks was unsparing, again with almost no “on the one hand/on the other hand” bullshit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hey Michael Steele, the people who fired your ass replaced you with this Kenosha political operative, then rehired him twice. So keep on shilling for them on the TV
You gotta wonder, when he sees shit like this, if Steele fumes and stews in bitterness, or shakes his head in bemusement and goes back to weighing the money he makes lobbying with Lanny.
SenyorDave
@Garm: If Hillary corrects Don or rebuts his statements, she’s going to be called all the names under the sun (shrill! etc) and it will be spun as her getting “desperate” even tho’ she’s just pointing out the truth.
As little regard as I have for the media, I don’t see this scenario as very likely. If he outright lies I think people and even the media expect she will call him out. I believe he will do a minimum of lying, I think he will talk in generalities. Her job will be to pin him down.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
How many stories have you heard from enthusiastic Hillary supporters, out of curiosity? I haven’t heard any, even at the DNC convention. It’s really
remarkablepredictable.Fixed that for ya. The whole “both candidates suck” is just another flavor of NPR’s hidebound “both sides do it” mentality since, oh 2000.
raven
Huston shooter was a lawyer.
gwangung
@BR: Liberals hate working the refs. And liberals have short attention spans. That’s why it’s not likely to work; it’s a long term project (the right’s been doing for four decades) that many liberals (who don’t have religious fervor) are not likely to engage in.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal: The thing is, “national polls” mean nothing in terms of who wins the presidency. Al Gore got more popular votes than the deserting coward, and it did not matter at all.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Kropadope:
“McCain needs Hillary to run because that’s what keeps the Republican coalition together. She helps unite the Republican base.”
“The more there is scandal and corruption in Washington, the better it is for McCain, so he`s at a high point right now.”
“Voters definitely believe Washington is corrupt – but most think its bipartisan.”
“We’re all living under the threat of violence and terror these days.”
“Donald Trump does not stick to Republican orthodoxy, which, you know, and this is always supposed to have been his downfall. Maybe it’s his strength.”
BR
@gwangung:
I just don’t tune in — that’s my answer. And I think more and more younger voters like me are doing the same.
Mister Forkbeard
@BR: I hate seeing these reminders from you, because I honestly can’t. We just moved into a new house, we have a 2-year old and we’re expecting another daughter around Halloween. Meanwhile, the new house is about a 60-minute drive from work, so I’ve got less time than I used to.
I hate seeing your reminders to volunteer because damn it I want to but I literally do not have the time. Instead, I’ve donated the money I can to Hillary, the DSCC, and a few other races. But I still feel like I should do more.
BR
@Mister Forkbeard:
I’m sorry — my goal isn’t to disappoint. I would say that if you want to at least do a tiny bit of phonebanking, you can do it from home — 15 minutes here and there. Even 15 minutes a week is something. It adds up. Here’s the link to the phone calling tool.
Iowa Old Lady
One of the interesting aspects of this election is how it tests conventional practice on things like GOTV and debate prep. I hope we get some intelligent study of that after this is over.
Kropadope
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Long form. I didn’t count but I bet that’s fewer than 100 words.
maurinsky
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
I kind of hate you. I was trying but couldn’t find anything but resale.
Feebog
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This. The poll numbers are going to go up and down. NR is in a panic over a couple polls in CO and PA showing the race tightening in those two states, while at the same time ignoring states, like VA, that have shown amazing stability over the past few weeks. And please, ignore the LA Times/USC poll; they are polling the same 3000 people over and over, and measuring turnout based on how “enthusiastic” each nominee’s supporters seem to be in any given poll.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Kropadope:
How many words do you need? There’s a lot of Chuck Todd quotes laying around out there – I can probably come up with about 500.
Mnemosyne
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Woot! You’re going to see it sooner than I will — my tickets in LA are for November of 2017!
Kropadope
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I’m looking up transcripts right now
Redshift
@Feebog: Yeah, I looked up the LA Times poll when it came up a couple of weeks ago, and they’ve been showing Trump ahead most of the time since around early July, if I remember right.
Aleta
@Kropadope:
and never had a sick friend who “has to go in today to finish some things the boss or secretary needs,” never seen a person coughing while they operate a cash register, never said “I can’t get sick now” and went to work
Redshift
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Me, too! (Also for July.) Got the email, jumped right on it, and actually got through for once!
Kropadope
@Kropadope: The more words the better. The algorithm finds two word pairs and the word following them. It was originally written to mimic someone’s writing style, but getting it to spit out the frequency of groups of words someone uses together should be pretty easy.
Mister Forkbeard
@Garm: I’m less worried about this, because media fact-checking is going to be fucking awful. If Hillary says something like “the simple fact is that the government and the FBI have ALL the e-mails so nothing was lost, and the server was never hacked. No information was stolen, unlike the official servers”, the media will fact-check it with something like the below:
“This is a lie, because Hillary can’t prove she wasn’t hacked” or “Does the FBI really have all the emails? Why can’t we look at all them right now?”. Meanwhile, Trump’s attacks on her will get a “his assertion that she’s brain damaged is just too hard to call, since we haven’t seen an MRI of her brain. He might very well be right.”
Renie
A little OT – I came home yesterday from upstate NYS and we were on the Taconic Pkwy and I saw an awful sign. Evidently there is a park in NY named Donald J Trump State Park. As a taxpaying NY resident, I find this offensive, here’s the backstory
Another example of one of his scams. I hope this election puts some traction into changing the name.
Redshift
@Kropadope: The thing that poised me off about it was all the pundits knowingly talking about how she should have told everyone she was sick, as if that’s a normal thing candidates ought to do. They apparently can’t conceive of the idea that other candidates have gotten sick and didn’t announce it, and they never knew about it because they weren’t that sick.
piratedan
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: because it’s the only way they can shoe horn their horse race narrative into the public consciousness. Hey, twiddling the numbers is a feature not a bug.
Pogonip
@kd bart: I guess you’re not familiar with the pools going around where you try to pick the exact minute where she faints, collapses, or has a coughing spell. There’s also at least one where you try to pick the exact minute where Trump first says “huge.”
I conclude from these pools that I’m not the only citizen who doesn’t take these debates too seriously.
Redshift
@Mister Forkbeard:
You’re doing what you can; that’s all any of us can do. I’m not giving as much money as usual, because apparently I’m going to have to get a substantial part of my bathroom rebuilt, but I go out and knock doors every weekend. It all balances out.
Brachiator
Gore was a shitty candidate who ran away from the Clinton Administration and came across poorly in the debates.
Gore also won the election. But unfortunately, that didn’t matter in the end.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Posters here have noted encountering enthusiastic Clinton supporters when they have volunteered for GOTV efforts. I’ve heard similar remarks from other people.
Some newspaper endorsements coming in are not just “Oh, well, might as well vote for Hillary,” but “Hillary. Fuck Yeah! And Trump is Evil. You Better Not Vote for Him.”
That said, polls still indicate an enthusiasm gap and relatively high unfavorability ratings for both Clinton and Trump. And yeah, we can argue all day about how Hillary has been treated unfairly since the dawn of time. The only interesting question is whether enthusiasm gappers will still come out and vote.
Pogonip
@Redshift: I think punditry should be exempted from the First Amendment and the pundits should all be put to useful work such as picking up dog poop on streets and in parks. George Will, the worst of a bad lot, should be given the Walter beat.
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope: 2-gram Markov generator, eh? I wrote one for Palin a while back, it was pretty decent.
I’ve got a tweet-mining python script if you wanna borrow it.
Pogonip
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: my union (obviously) endorses Hillary as the lesser evil. Does that count?
Mnemosyne
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Because they think black people only voted for Obama because he’s black.
No, seriously, that’s what it is.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major: That’s right! I keep forgetting the term for it, but yes, I would be very interested to see that. I haven’t worked with Python and am interested in the technique for mining tweets, so I’m in for the learning experience alone.
Brachiator
@Mister Forkbeard:
It’s hard for Clinton to get anywhere on the email issue, because it just plain looks bad to the average person.
If I were a moderator, or Trump, I’d ask, “Mrs Clinton, as president, would you allow your secretary of state to set up a private email server?”
NorthLeft12
I hate to say this about the unthinking pundits and reporters that fixated on that and all the other minutiae that made Gore unelectable in their eyes, but I doubt they knew those people and I doubt even more that they have the self awareness to connect their high school gossipy antics with that horrifying result. NOT.THEIR.JOB.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Major Major Major Major:
Sweet – some of Chuckles’ most inane shit pops up on Twitter.
Shame he has me blocked.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator: and she could respond that she would push the government to create secure communications channels so that secretaries of state, both republican and democratic, would not need to use private servers to avoid security risks
different-church-lady
Well, at least that much will be different from 2000.
Redshift
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
It is. I get ’em every time I go out knocking on doors, people who are are excited to be voting for her, or who give me a “Hillary all the way!” And the fact that she got a really big convention bounce, but the media didn’t manage to put anyone on the air at the convention who was enthusiastic is really telling.
“The Narrative” really sucks. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to influence reality that much.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
So, what color were all the other presidents they voted for in large percentages?
Kropadope
@Brachiator: When I’m at the office, I know I never delete emails, no matter how much I’m yelled at by IT or how cumbersome picking through the useless and inane emails becomes.
Redshift
@Steve in the ATL: And push Congress to fund the government adequately so their IT infrastructure isn’t twenty years behind the times.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Brachiator:
“Lester, it is an important job requiring ‘real time’ access to people both inside and outside the State Department. The regular system came with unacceptable delays which impacts the ability of a Secretary of State to do the job appropriately. I would have the Secretary be granted a system like my own, so that it wouldn’t be necessary to have a private server set up in order to do vital government business. And by the way, you know whose email wasn’t hacked? Mine.”
(Drop mic, walk off stage)
Major Major Major Major
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: @Kropadope: Here you go. You’ll need your own API credentials and the twitter library (pip install twitter). The rate limiting is built into the script, and don’t forget to change the username unless you want Cole’s tweets.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne:
So have they only supported the Clintons because their souls are black?
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@maurinsky: I’m sorry. Keep trying, though — they might pop up.
@Redshift: Congrats! Mind if I ask what day? I got both shows on the 12th — I bought tickets for the matinee for me and my husband, but then thought my niece might like to go. So I looked for more tickets for that week, and the only ones I found were for that evening’s performance. So I’m going twice in the same day. I’ll take it.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major: Thank you kindly. I’m off to class now, but I’m definitely gonna check this out when I get back.
NorthLeft12
@Pogonip: Really? A union thinks that Hillary is just the lesser evil when it comes to support of unions and working people in general?
Maybe you guys have more information and are closer to the issues than I am, but perhaps you might remind your union buddies that a Democratic President is probably all that stands in the way of a national right to work law.
If the left wing narrative on Hillary is that terrible, maybe you guys might have a clue as to why you are in this tight of an election. Maybe the left did learn something from the right……as far as smearing Hillary Clinton goes.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Redshift:
The other big story of this campaign is how irrelevant the press has become, and the extent to which they’re caping for white supremacy. The Paul Manafort Ukraine connection and the hiring of Steve Bannon, White Supremacist should have been disqualifying, but instead the media beneficiaries of white supremacy yawned. It shouldn’t be, but it is rather shocking to see it manifest out and loud.
Timurid
This is the election I thought would happen 20 or 30 years from now, when whites were poised on the brink of becoming a minority. Based on their own behavior and a not completely illogical understanding of history and human nature, they elect some strongman who would reach inside the machine of democracy and start ripping out wires… believing that was their only alternative to a grim future in which all of their past misdeeds are re-enacted, this time at their expense. Where they would become the new n****rs.
I had no idea that might happen now, long before any such doomsday scenario could be realized, even in theory. Everyone from the stereotypical Rust Belt ‘deplorables’ to the Village and other clusters of the nebulous ‘White Establishment’ are in the tank for Trump. They’re thinking “All I’ve got is a 4-9 off-suit, but I’M ALL IN. Gotta go, gotta go NOW. Last chance!” Even though they’re still holding plenty of chips. Enough to last them another two decades or more of conservative play. I’m still not clear just what’s going on this year to make them desperate enough to bluff and then bet their whole stake on a hand as crappy as Donald Trump…. Blacklivesmatter? A couple of small-scale terrorist attacks? White people are acting like Zombie Nat Turner and his army of Afrobots and laser dinosaur tanks are coming to grind their precious country into dust ANY MINUTE NOW! NOVEMBER 8 MAY BE TOO LATE!!!1!
Months and months of this shit, and I’m still dumbfounded.
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope: :)
That script eats up your whole hour’s worth of API calls, BTW.
ETA: We should start a BJ github repo. Me, you, Roger Moore, whoever else.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
The average person shops for new kicks and tweaks fantasy football lineups on the work computer. I really don’t see how “it just plain looks bad” for something something other kind of computer something something. The whole “scandal” makes no sense and is impossible to explain.
Brachiator
@Steve in the ATL:
Pretty good answer, although I don’t know that she has ever claimed that she set up a private server to enhance security.
Hal
Always remember:
And
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/10/gore200710
Hal
I always end up in moderation when I post a comment with a link. Can that be fixed?
Major Major Major Major
@Hal: Use the link button, it wraps it in an anchor tag (a href) for you and doesn’t go to spam.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig:
As evidenced by the hard time HRC has had explaining it.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig: RE: It’s hard for Clinton to get anywhere on the email issue, because it just plain looks bad to the average person.
I like the line in the movie Philadelphia. “Now, explain it to me like I’m a four-year-old.”
During the veteran’s town hall, a vet with a security background claimed that if he had set up a private email server he would be doing jail time. He could easily imagine how what Clinton did was both wrong and illegal. On the other hand, her explanations were long winded and filled with legalistic rationalizations.
This thing looks to the average person as though Queen Hillary deliberately flouted rules for her own convenience. She also exposed herself to the lazy, easy (and totally unproven) implication that she could control the flow of secret messages, delete uncomfortable messages and otherwise hide information, you know, like Nixon did.
People I know with deep knowledge about the State Department defend Clinton to the hilt about Benghazi. They don’t even try to explain it to me like I’m a 4 year old about the emails. They note that it was stupid and move on.
For the most part I avoided news about the email stuff because no one ever said exactly what was unethical or illegal. And the FBI kinda mostly cleared her, or did not find anything that merited a criminal charge. And I give less than a rat’s ass what f@rts come out of Congress over this.
But here is Politifact:
This looks pretty simple to me. One can argue that the policy was old and outdated. But it also looks like a clear violation of the rules. Again, not necessarily criminal, but a violation. Do we chalk this up to a desire to just want to get things done? Or arrogance and a sense that the rules just don’t apply to a Clinton?
And I also note the irony that Bill and Hillary seem to work hard to be honest, while Trump easily works hard to enrich himself even at the expense of others.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Or, y’know, because Donald Trump is an open white supremacist who started his political career with the racist claim that Obama wasn’t really an American citizen.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
If you haven’t seen it, John Oliver had a very clear explanation of the whole emails thing on his show last night. As he said about both of her “scandals,” they’re things that sound very simple on the surface but actually are not, and when you look below the surface, there’s really nothing there.
Brachiator
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
From Politifact:
I don’t know whether Clinton would have been allowed to set up the private server had she broached the idea openly. She might be able to get some traction out of the claim that she is a security trailblazer.
catclub
@Brachiator:
Except Condoleeza Rice also did not follow those rules, nor did Colin Powell. So as far as we can tell, the first SOS to actually honor those policies is John Kerry.
So how ironclad are those rules?
Some policies get implemented, some don’t.
catclub
@Brachiator:
useless tautology about any networked system. If the Russian can dump a trove of her actual(*) emails on October 20th, then she got hacked.
Otherwise, she is correct that she did not.
(*) It is likely that someone could dump a trove of made-up emails if there is not enough time to check them for authenticity.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I think the Politifact article also lays it out pretty clearly. I will take a look at Oliver’s take on it later today.
D58826
Or as Prof. K has said – Hillary is being Gored!
Mister Forkbeard
@Brachiator: If I remember right, wasn’t the 2005 policy not actually implemented until after Hillary left office? Can’t remember, but I seem to remember something to that effect.
Basically: Policy says to do something a certain way. But until IT actually tells people how to implement that policy, it’s not actually in effect.
D58826
Well I do hope that Hillary spends her entire time talking about the e-mails. The fact that the middle east is in flames, the global average temps keep rising, our infrastructure is falling apart, Trump is a crook a racist and owned by Putin are of absolutely no consequence. BUT the e-mails, which resulted in 0 deaths, 0 hacks and while maybe stupid do not raise to the level of stupidity of the Iraq invasion is the most important topic on the face of the planet.
In my 70 years I’ve seen the US and it’s leaderrs make many mistakes and do many stupid things that have caused death and destruction across the globe. Hillary’s e-mails do not even qualify as a flea on the tail of the dog they are so insignificant.
I hope every one enjoys the President Trump years.
(yes SNARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Brachiator
@catclub:
Let’s look at Politifact again.
RE: So how ironclad are those rules?
Good question. I don’t know that Powell having a private server in his office rather than at home is a significant difference. So we have both Clinton and Powell bending the rules. And some haters may want to pile on Hillary more. Neither life nor politics is fair.
And yeah, Clinton can thank her lucky stars that her private server was not hacked. She has not yet made the bold claim that she set up her private server precisely because she knew that it would be more secure.
Brachiator
@Mister Forkbeard:
I do not think that this is correct
@D58826:
Absolutely agree. Cyber hacking is a big issue, and Hillary could quickly deal with the faux scandal part of the email bullshit, not that what we know now is that all government operations need to be re-evaluated in the light of new cyber threats, and then move on to other stuff.
But I also note that to a lot of Americans, the only thing they care about foreign relations is that we be magically kept safe from terrorists. Most other stuff is too abstract. But they can easily imagine Evil Hillary hiding and deleting emails, like Nixon. If Trump brings it up, she will have to deal with it, however briefly. Because the debates are not really about people dryly taking about policy and issues. They are selling themselves. And they have to deal with negative perception (unless you are Trump, who believes that he was born with a silver boot up his ass).
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Oliver’s take has some slightly different facts in it and, frankly, I trust Oliver’s researchers more than Politifact’s. At least Oliver is pretty open that he’s not that fond of Hillary and doesn’t add weight to the scale to prove that he’s “objective.”
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I have not watched Oliver long enough to form an opinion on his accuracy, and so right now have no reason to value one over the other. But I am more curious now to take a look at Oliver later on this.
Keith G
@Brachiator:
You may also want to scan the Vox piece, What Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is really about, explained with a cartoon
When it comes to shifting through wonkish-level details, I tend to put a lot of stock in the people over at Ezra Klein’s place. I mean. they are not comedians writing for an Emmy Award winning comedy show and all, but despite that limitation, the Vox folks seem to do alright.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
Unless I’m mixing up two pieces of bureaucratic policy, Clinton has said — and IIRC it was in response to that veteran’s question to which you alluded — that she always used the requisite secure system for classified information. See the Daily Howler discussion of same.
It seems like the small but significant point of contention is that some people _other than _ Hillary Clinton _sent_ stuff _that wasn’t labeled accurately_; and then there’s the “did she adhere to the letter of internal State Dept. policy?” issue, which isn’t at all the same thing as the “did she mishandle classified information?” issues.
JR in WV
@Corner Stone:
I missed it, bwaaahhhhhhahhahah !!!
I don’t care for liver, it gags me. But once I was invited to a deer hunt way back in the eastern mountains, and one of the guys killed a deer for the camp. I volunteered to fry the liver, rolled in flour, salt and pepper, in 4 big iron skillets on the propane stove.
It was maybe two hours out of the living deer, so maximum fresh. They ribbed me into tasting my cooking, with fried potatoes and onions. It was wonderful. Only liver I have ever eaten. Will ever eat, probably.
The roadkill cookouts aren’t actually roadkill, just the sorts of animals you see as roadkill, they trap and hunt what they serve up. Though I know biologists who will build a small fire for especially good road kill they some across, but they’re professionals.
The best of all are the spring ramp fests. Tons of ramps are dug out of the steep mountains, cleaned, and fried with bacon and potatoes, raising money for VFDs all over the state. Wonderful green onion herb of spring.
Bill Arnold
Does anyone know what, if any, networks will be doing a real-time fact-check crawl during the debate? Would be journalistic malpractice not to have one.
JR in WV
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I was calling into Ohio and talked to a number of people who were solid Hillary votes, and happy about that. Wife spoke to one woman who said “I’m wearing my Hillary Button right now. I’m so happy to get to vote for her!”
I talked to one woman who was very positive about her vote. When I asked her if she was interested in volunteering, she said “I’m 87, and past working on elections, but I’m for sure going to vote for her.” and I said “Those are the magic words we’re hunting for, you enjoy voting for her!”
We both spoke to people who had just been called by another volunteer, and we said to them it just shows how many people have volunteered to help her running in Ohio.
So there are lots of people with stories and anxious to vote for her.
Brachiator
@Keith G:
Of course, the Politifact people won one of them fancy Pulitzer Prizes, for good journalism and all that.
But the Vox piece is quite good. As I noted, I discount any gas coming from a Republican Congress, and even most news stories that talk vague nonsense about “trust” and “transparency” without larger context. I was looking for something unethical or criminal. However, I think it reasonable that others look at this as an ethical lapse and failure of judgment that violated existing rules without first seeking to change them or to get formal consent to set up a private server. It’s much ado about little.
JR in WV
@Patricide:
You need a special license to even possess military grade automatic weapons, which I think costs $10K. I guess you could carry one around town if you had a spare $10K, per weapon. But I’ve never seen that happen.
There are a ton of rifles built to look like military weapons, but almost none of them are actually assault rifles, just built to look like them. And the only feathers you aren’t allowed to have are from protected birds, like eagles and herons and owls.
I have lots of feathers I’ve collected walking around the farm, the biggest are turkey tail feathers, the cutest are from cardinals and blue jays. Hummer feathers are too small to see on the forest floor.
I’m not gonna talk about the weed, you go ahead. It is legal in several states now… maybe more after the election. I’ve decided I may live to see the end of prohibition. My Republican doctor thinks it’s no else’s business what people ingest, as long as they’re watching their health, speaking of liver damage there.
Bill Arnold
Renie at 89 (reply button broken for your post):
I have to drive by that sign during a daily commute. And loath it. The man is a scammer through and through.
Bill Arnold
@Major Major Major Major:
I did a Palin Perl script about a day before the Palin-bots on the web appeared. (Looking for it.)
Miss Bianca
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: wow, that is cool. I got the “Hamilton” soundtrack from the library last week and I have been binge-listening to it. It just gets better every damn time. OK, I admit it – I am on the band-wagon now, and I won’t be falling off it any time soon…
Miss Bianca
@John O:
Oh, Jesus Chicken-Fried, Deep-Batter Christ. I don’t even know if I hope that this snark. But if it’s not…please. Just go crawl into your hole and pull it in after you, Please.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
Russian intruders were within the official state department unclassified email system from 2007 (maybe earlier) to 2014
(direct NY Times link, but you need to read the whole thing to spot it.)
JR in WV
@Mnemosyne:
That’s why I voted for him, I just wanted a Black president to see the republican heads assplode!!! And it worked!!!
Mitch McConnell said IN PUBLIC that they were going to make sure Obama was a one term president – how did that work out for turtle? NOT!
Seriously, I picked/voted for the best, most qualified guy in the race, and he really worked out. Twice!
The fact that he’s also a great African-American leader is just gravy. I say that as an older white guy!
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
There is this:
The FBI may have rescued Clinton by a very understanding look at what she did because there was no intent to mishandle classified info. However, the veteran has a point that someone who was not as famous and powerful would not get the benefit of the doubt.
And I don’t know if it was actual testimony, but I read an article in which Clinton was supposedly asked what a big C on the cover of a document meant, and that she replied that she thought that this referred to section C of the document, and not “Classified.”
Really?
By this time, I had totally tired of something that seemed to be minor and which did not rise to the level of a criminal offense. And it became clear that the Republicans wanted to keep digging to see if they could discover or manufacture something.
But here’s the sad thing as far as I’m concerned. Devoted Clinton followers want to pretend that there is no problem here at all. But what I see is this.
Civil political society has broken down. At one time, Clinton would have been able to say, “I fucked up. Sorry.” And the opposition would have said, ‘Yep. OK, Forgiven” and everyone would have moved on. But now the Republicans are set on neutralizing Clinton, the Clintons, and the Democratic Party, and they are trying to force everyone else to play along in their ritual persecution and to always take a side defending or attacking their chosen target. So Clinton cannot be honest even if she wanted to be.
But I am tired of being sucked into this nonsense.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
There are a number of good podcasts that deal with Hamilton, from all kinds of angles.
Hamilton the Podcast and Pod4Ham are a couple that come to mind.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: I don’t remember the “Big C on the cover of a document” story.
At any rate, there’s a difference between “classified emails” and “emails containing classified information,” as well as between Hillary as _sender_ of classified email or email containing classified information and as _recipient_ or _cc_ of either of those. It seems like the worst case scenario is that a user of the Hillary Clinton server who was not Hillary Clinton sent emails containing classified information that was not marked as such or correctly marked at all. That’s already not much of a story. It would be a story if information had by this manner gotten into the wrong hands. Otherwise it’s a story about email rules and work computers, which are flouted every second at every workplace. If it’s sloppy, it’s sloppy in a customary and unavoidable way. It’s only a story because of the surrounding meta-story about avoiding FOIA requests and/or covering up Benghazi and/or SO SECRETIVE IS HILLARY CLINTON. I object to that.
pattonbt
Always late..but whatever. And as with all my predictions, probably worth nothing. But, Trump will win this debate in a landslide in TV land, because the bar is set so low and he will bring the fireworks TV wants. Clinton will do great and, on substance, destroy Trump, but, alas, that’s not what TV wants.
Chances Trump gets asked about his charitable foundation / bankruptcies, etc.? 0%. Chances Clinton get asked about Bengazi, emails, foundation, Bill’s “exploits”, etc.? 100%.
Thankfully I am right now going to do my online Colorado ballot for Clinton.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s really not what is at issue here. Nor is it a simple matter of everybody breaks the rules.
Hell, I worked for a company where somebody broke the rules, work product got infected with a virus and hundreds of thousands dollars in damage resulted. People got fired.
And some situations where lax habits resulted in the theft of important company material. And at one company stupid practices still continued.
Clinton’s violations may have been minor, but they were not just nothing, that’s just the way things are, nothing to see here at all.
Debbie1
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Have you tried calling a local HRC
office? Maybe your message got misplaced,or person you sent it to has moved on. I mean, try again. Democracy demands that we all get active, not wait passively. I mean no offence, it’s just… Trump!
The Lodger
@Brachiator: And how many of those 113 messages had been retroactively classified? I expect it was just about all of them.
Brachiator
@The Lodger:
Addressed in the FBI summary noted above. And not really at issue.