In yet another blatant attempt to get the whistleblower’s name into public so they can have more crazy people try to threaten him, the Federalist publishes this dreck (no link to the Federalist, fuck them):
Last Wednesday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, published the unredacted name of a man alleged to be the so-called whistleblower who helped launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
During HPSCI testimony, William Taylor, the charge d’affairs of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, was asked by a staff lawyer on the committee whether the name XXXXXXXXXXXXX was familiar to him.
“Does a person by the name of XXXXXXXXXXXXXX ring a bell for you?” asked Steve Castor, a committee staff counsel asked Taylor during a deposition on October 22.
Apparently, because the Schiff committee published his name WITHOUT mentioning he was the potential whistleblower, that means it is fair game to publish his name and accuse him of being the whistleblower. And why was his name brought up in the first place? Because Republican aides had been trying to get his name in the record FOR JUST THIS FUCKING REASON for weeks:
A top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes has been providing conservative politicians and journalists with information—and misinformation—about the anonymous whistleblower who triggered the biggest crisis of Donald Trump’s presidency, two knowledgeable sources tell The Daily Beast.
Derek Harvey, who works for Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, has provided notes for House Republicans identifying the whistleblower’s name ahead of the high-profile depositions of Trump administration appointees and civil servants in the impeachment inquiry. The purpose of the notes, one source said, is to get the whistleblower’s name into the record of the proceedings, which committee chairman Adam Schiff has pledged to eventually release. In other words: it’s an attempt to out the anonymous official who helped trigger the impeachment inquiry.
And just who is Steve Castor? This fucking guy:
Steve Castor is chief investigative counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC). He has served on the committee staff since 2005, and during his twelve-year tenure participated in a wide variety of high-profile oversight investigations. Prior to working for Congress, he practiced commercial litigation in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. He earned his law degree from George Washington University.
So yeah, the alleged whistleblower’s name was published. Just like you fucking wanted it to be Madeline (who is just way too young to be this indoctrinated and evil).
West of the Rockies
Didn’t Rand(cid) Paul out the purported whistleblower? I’m surprised we haven’t seen dozens of front-page column inches in the big dailies devoted to the guy.
MobiusKlein
Aren’t there a bunch of names mentioned in congressional testimony? What makes one name the subject of scrutiny, vs the 100 other names? Should Schiff have blocked out all names in all testimony?
I don’t even have a reason to believe the name is correct – but I suppose that is not the point. Any name would do, as long as harassment comes from it.
dmsilev
There’s a pretty good chance, all things considered, that the person they are “outing” isn’t actually the whistleblower. Since whoever they name is going to be in very real danger to life and limb, it’s doubly reprehensible.
Mary G
The title of the post says it all.
Mary G
Having a journalist held against his will, cutting up his body, admitting your subordinates did it IS A MISTAKE THAT SHOULD BE FORGIVEN?!?!
TaMara (HFG)
Speaking of evil and shameless. Way to stand for Veterans on Veterans weekend. And he’s marching with them tomorrow? They should all turn their backs on this fucker.
J R in WV
But really, we already knew all these fascists were despicable, stupid,and evil. So no big surprise here. Same old, same old.
After all, they work on destroying democracy every day, they work to keep racist, homophobic, hatred burning hot, they work for authoritarian rule, to preserve monuments to traitors who took up arms against the union of states comprising the United States of America.
So, who is surprised by this behavior? I’m not. They are despicable, and I despise them for their disgusting beliefs and horrible actions. They want to elect a pedophile to the US Senate, for dog’s sake!
Can’t get more despicable than activist modern Republicans, in competition with the German Nazis for horrible, all of them.
Mary G
Sorry satby, but your mayor’s off the rails:
Another Scott
@Mary G: Careful. Twitter doesn’t do nuance.
Cheers,
Scott.
lollipopguild
@Mary G: So, Mayor Pete is going to win the Dem nomination by crapping on President Obama?
Jay
@Mary G:
Uber deliberately turned off all of the Manufacturer’s road safety features on their test cars, for “real world” testing. The only remaining pedestrian safety feature was Uber’s, which only recognized pedestrians on the roadway, if they were in a crosswalk.
So of course, their test car killed a pedestrian.
What kind of horrible world will we leave outlr children if the 1% and Corporations are held accountable and unforgiven for their “mistakes”?
piratedan
@Mary G: i expect that statement will effect his numbers with POC in ways that will play well in Iowa and with the Morning Joe crowd, but for the rest of us, will essentially kill me seeing him as a viable candidate. 44 saved us from a global financial meltdown and Pete was to say that there’s a direct correlation to his failures that led to Trump… what failure was that Pete, that he wasn’t White?
TaMara (HFG)
@Another Scott: That’s a direct quote in the LA Times from Mayor Pete.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
Support the troops?
Kent
Out here in Portland we had a RWNJ radio shock jock Lars Larson (our local Rush Limbaugh clone) try to out him on the air on a FOX news radio station. This being Portland he (the radio shock jock) is getting all kinds of death threats and harassment as a result. This thing is flying way out of control. wweek.com/news/2019/11/08/portland-talk-radio-host-lars-larson-thought-it-was-no-big-deal-to-name-th…
Another Scott
@Mary G: From the LATimes story:
That’s where the story ends.
1) Beware the ellipsis.
2) The “Obama era” is 2009 – 2017. Lots of things happened then that were thwarting of what Obama wanted to do.
It’s not clear what Mayor Pete meant from the story. Is he blaming Obama? Does he want people to think that he’s blaming Obama while being able to say that he wasn’t if called on it?
Dunno.
It seems too click-baity to me to get riled up about it.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
@TaMara (HFG):
Pete is a not-ready-for-primetime player. He should run for a House seat, build his resume, and stop bad-mouthing others.
Kent
@TaMara (HFG): Can the president do that? What are the protections for active duty military? Are there any similar protections to the civilian civil service? I have no idea.
Mary G
I subscribe to the LAT and read the article. Here’s the context:
YMMV.
Jay
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
Pete has been saying this for awhile. It’s a lame attempt to appeal to Wall Street donors and the Morning Blow/Chuck Toad set who hated Obama.
sdhays
@piratedan: The single failure of the Obama era that I think did directly contribute to the Dump Presidency was the failure to prevent the Republican landslide in 2010. That had far-ranging consequences that has ultimately partially crippled the nation. I don’t know all of what needed to be done, but part of it was Democrats needed to be more aggressive in tackling the recession. I don’t put that on Obama, but fewer of those the red state Democrats who lost their seats trying to be “fiscally conservative” would have lost their races if the economy had heated up faster.
Renie
Anyone know if this suppose “bombshell” report Barr is going to release by Thanksgiving have any legs to it? Does anyone but RWNJ think Barr has any credibility left or will our media report what he says as true?
Jay
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sdhays: I think you’d find wide agreement here that the stimulus should have been larger, however Obama had trouble even getting that amount though Congress. Also, quite a few of those red state Dems, were like “Obama, can’t say I know the guy” back in 2010.
Villago Delenda Est
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: He’s a fuckin’ DINO.
Kent
@Renie:
They will probably redact the hell of out if for “national security” and then leak distorted tid bits to keep the media titillated.
Jay
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Did the Federalist x out the name, or did you do that when you quoted from their shitty site? I’m guessing they spelled out the whole name, and you hid it, because that’s the decent thing to do, so why would the Federalist bother to do it?
piratedan
@sdhays: I have a hard time laying that at Obama’s feet when the DCC made the decision to run away from the President instead of embracing the ACA and the economic recovery, ymmv. Gotta believe that POC saw that abandonment and perhaps that had a chilling effect as well in voter turnout. Also too, the apparent election of a Black Man to the highest office in the land also apparently triggered 45% of all white people to lose their collective shit, just for existing.
sdhays
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Exactly. But it was a failure of “the Obama era”. And there was whining (I always find it difficult to tell how much is fair criticism or ass-covering) that Obama didn’t take the mid-terms seriously enough. I do seem to recall he even acknowledged at some point focusing too much on governing and not enough on the politics.
But, regardless, I somehow don’t get the feeling that this is what Mayor Pete is alluding to. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what he’s alluding to, which seems intentional.
Another Scott
@Renie: Presumably they found Hillary’s e-mail server under the Chernobyl sarcophagus, so Donnie is innocent and the greatest president in all of human history.
Or something.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@TaMara (HFG): I was curious about this. According to TPM he was removed from his NSC position which doesn’t really mean he was fired. It just means he’ll be sent back to the Pentagon for reassignment.
Still, it is a really bullshit move. Although after his testimony I’d guess he was pretty done there anyway, at least in the Trump administration.
sukabi
@Mary G: makes me wonder how many people the Uber CEO is responsible for killing…
Cheryl Rofer
From the Tweeter-in-Chief:
This is maybe more bizarre than usual, but that’s a hard judgment to make.
People in the State Department have been working to get Robert Levinson back continuously. Iran now knows that Trump wants him back, which ups his value to them considerably, if he is still alive, which seems to be the operational theory. Trump has just made the negotiators’ job considerably harder.
“Upon information and belief”? Where is that from?
We know Iran has been enriching uranium, because they have said they are, and the IAEA inspectors have confirmed that. What may have stirred Trump up is that Iran has said they are increasing the level of enrichment, and the amount of uranium enriched. They are also starting uranium enrichment at Fordow, which was supposed not to have any. All this is in response to the increased sanctions. Iran has said so. All the steps they have taken are easily reversible if the US returns to the nuclear agreement.
I figure this fits with the theme of “stupid, evil, and shameless.”
sdhays
@piratedan: Yep. Like I said, I don’t lay that on Obama.
Another Scott
Reuters:
People need to take the time and show up to vote. When they do, good things happen.
Cheers,
Scott.
sdhays
@Cheryl Rofer: But special emphasis on “stupid”, because now it seems just lazy spit-balling after the evil and shameless pulling out of the nuclear agreement.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
They’ll send Eric to pick it up.
J R in WV
@Jay:
Well, if he wasn’t in a crosswalk, he was jaywalking, it was his own fault !! /s
More realistically, sounds like Uber management who participated in that decision are guilty of voluntary manslaughter at least, if now 2nd degree murder. They’re bright guys, running a billion dollar scam, they had to know that was dangerous to people that weren’t working for them…….
Shakti
@Mary G: I don’t understand how Pete can say the failures of the Obama era lead to Trump and then endorse the most milquetoast centrist non status quo rocking platform you can. For example, are we really better off now than in 2009 that we didn’t take the position like Iceland did with the too big to fail banks? I don’t see Mayor Pete promising to deal with the banks or the megacorps or the plutocrats.
James E Powell
@Renie:
Democrats and their cable TV heads need to begin attacking Barr every day in advance of that report. They saw what he did with the Mueller Report and it was totally effective. He set the narrative and the Democratic response never really took hold outside the Democratic base.
Jay
@Shakti:
It helps to read what Mary G. wrote, rather than the articles she cited to make her points.
piratedan
@sdhays: agreed, I just do NOT see any benefit to even implying that 44 was to blame, oodles of mitigating factors, so Mayor Pete could have felt free to cite them.
Jay
@J R in WV:
In Canada, pedestrians have the right of way. Period. Jaywalking, where it is a civic violation, does not absolve the vehicle operator from the responsibility to stop.
The Uber Guys came up with an amazing multilevel scam that’s going to buy them yachts and mansions for at least another decade. They are no Juiceria, Wework or Theranos.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m thinking more about this, and it looks to me like he is getting desperate for some sort of success. So maybe he’s suggesting that if Iran would send Levinson back, maybe we’ll be okay with their enrichment? Yes, it’s a stretch, so maybe that isn’t it. Maybe he just hopes that all caps will force them to bend to his will, even though maximum pressure has not succeeded in that.
Anyhoo, stupid, evil, and shameless.
Jay
Jay
@Cheryl Rofer:
The Iranians just announced the discovery of an easily exploited oil field that massively increases their oil reserves.
So Iran has a positive in the news, and wound up attracting Dolt 45’s limited attention.
Jay
joel hanes
@Cheryl Rofer:
“Upon information and belief”?
Where is that from?
I suspect it’s the traditional locution in applying for a search warrant.
Jay
How the sausage get’s made,
It ain’t kosher, halal, organic, or even real meat. It is Jack approved.
Jay
Jay
Kent
Says the woman who has been sharing the debate stage with Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson.
Leto
@Kent: Just wanted to address this, but the Lt Col being fired from his NSC job is effectively a career killing move. In the military officer world, they operate under the move up or get out principle. Yes, he might go back to the Pentagon but his career is now dead. If he has enough time in, he’ll do like so many other officers who have been fired and simply retire. If he’s close to 20, he’ll ride a desk until he qualifies. Either way, it’s a loss for our national security.
Jay
Jay
@Kent:
Tulsi is a Senator, Marianne is a sucessful big pitch woo salesperson.
Pete’s bonafides are closer to Nancy Smith of Oskaloosa, IO.
PJ
@Jay: Tulsi is one of two Representatives for Hawaii.
debbie
@TaMara (HFG):
Shouldn’t the firing serve as proof of guilt? Rethuglicans should be questioned about this.
David Fud
@sdhays: There was another item in my opinion. Obama did save us, but he listened to Geithner. Geithner preferred saving the banks to creating “moral hazard” by helping homeowners. We created an angry underclass when they lost their houses subsequent to losing their jobs. Had we bailed out individuals instead (to be realistic, it may not have been administratively possible), we would have saved the banks and the homeowners, not just the banks. YMMV, but to me, stirring an angry, deprived, newly-created underclass was a really bad thing in addition to your point about the 2010 election. And even that: yes, he took his eye off the electoral ball, but he was busy unfreezing the economy. I get that it would have been superhuman to do everything we demanded of him.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
Might not be true (Washington Examiner):
‘Still there’: Vindman not removed from National Security Council despite alarm over vengeful firing (Daniel Chaitin, November 10, 2019)
So let’s see what happens. (Would be surprised if he were not removed from that position soon; DJT is reliably vindictive.)
Mary G
Kent
@Jay:
She’s a back-bench congresswoman from a safe seat. I’m curious what experience you think that either of them have that make them MORE qualified than Mayor Pete.
I’m not a Buttigieg fan. I think he’s not ready and the only reason he (and Beto) were running is because they are popular Dems from red states who don’t have viable local or statewide options. Buttigieg really should be running for governor of IN but the state is too red anymore for that.
But the idea that Gabbard or Williamson are remotely qualified to serve as president is pretty ridiculous. We have had plenty of unqualified women running too.
TaMara (HFG)
@Mary G: Ha-ha. I honestly don’t think he’ll make it out of IA. Until then, I await how he continues to tell us how this is all Obama’s fault.
debbie
@Jay:
So much for the Trump–Kim Jong-Un love affair.
Millard Filmore
@Mary G: What Uber business venture in Saudi Arabia will be held up if the CEO had not made that statement?
Mary G
As as I can tell. Twitler’s story is that the NSC has gotten too bloated and he’s just trimming it back to a more manageable number of people. The fact that everyone he chooses testified against him is sheer coincidence.
Jay
@PJ:
Thank’s for the correction.
Still, small city Mayor vs. State Rep.
There’s a lot of mysoginistic MSM et al “fluffing” going on.
Mary G
opiejeanne
@Jay: Please, Jay, no apostrophe needed for plurals.
debbie
@Jay:
NPR interviewed the EVP of the American Farm Bureau Federation who, after talking about a 24% increase in bankruptcies, abominable spring weather, etc., said this about the trade war:
But it’s not them he’s fighting for, goddammit! He’s using them to help his corporate buddies get out of having to share their technology (which they agreed to do when they first approached China about trading).
Jay
@Kent:
Kobuchar’s not talking about “qualified”.
She’s talking about people being held to a “different standard” to make it to the debate stage.
Pete’s being “fluffed” by the ususal suspects in the MSM et al.
Kobuchar and Harris are being ignored and in her case, erased.
Woo salesperson Williamson is out despite her woo suckers doing their best.
Gabbard is in because of the ReThugs, Russians and deplorables.
There is a different standard for sucessful women.
There is also a different standard for the clickbait cantidates.
Millard Filmore
@Jay: 2 or 3 years ago NPR had a story about the takeover of a Long Island school board by Jewish Orthodox candidates. Most of the Orthodox children do not attend public school, so the goal of the school board was to drive property taxes, which funds the public schools, as low as possible. The school students sometimes end up with 3 useful classes, required by state regulation, and 4 study periods (plus lunch). No band, no gym, no music, no art, no nothing extra.
They also deserve to go to a school that is capable of teaching them.
theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/11/another-blow-to-one-of-americas-most-controversial-school-…
Butter Emails!!!
@Millard Filmore:
What’s your point? What does that have to do with an asshat bashing in the window of a school?
Citizen Alan
@Jay:
And yet, for some reason, I can’t bring myself to care.
Jay
@opiejeanne:
I’ve been working on it. Not yet up to the pedant standards all the time.
Being Canadian, our socialism gives us all the free apostrophes we want. We don’t have to pay for them like in the States, only to be denied them due to a pre-existing condition like dislexia.
NotMax
@Jay
That source should always be identified, especially for non-Twitter folk, as being a parody account.
@Jay
No she’s not a member of the Senate. She’s a member of the House.
Jay
@Millard Filmore:
Yeah, but this was a guy, with a gun, smashing windows at a Jewish school, because it was a Jewish school.
The one neat trick that’s kept Charter Schools here from being a grift, is that Private or Public, they all have to meet or exceed the exact same standards.
Only Private ESL schools for Foreign Students, get to try to run cons, but the same standards for ESL schooling apply. The con is to close mid or early semester and skip with the money.
Kent
@Jay: We started the 2020 campaign with over 20 candidates.
So far only one woman has officially dropped out (Gillibrand) while THIRTEEN white guys have failed to gain any traction and have dropped out or been ‘erased’ as you say (Ojeda, Swalwell, Gravel, Hinkenlooper, Inslee, Moulton, de Blasio, Ryan, and O’Rourke, Delaney, Sestak, Bullock, and Bennet).
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
Not an uncommon sentiment these days.
Jay
@NotMax:
Jay II was corrected upthread already.
Mary G
@Millard Filmore: I do not know for a fact but it is said that MBS provides a lot of money for Uber, which has never made a profit.
Here’re the first two paragraphs in a year-old article from Bloomberg (I don’t have a subscription,so this is all I read):
Insert gif of Cuba Gooding, Jr. shouting “Show me the money!”
And in other news from now: Uber CEO calls Saudi murder of Khashoggi “a mistake,” scrambles to backtrack:
Having these politicians and business magnates shown on HBO/Showtime once a week is a terrible idea.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Astronomy Alert!
Tomorrow morning Mercury will transit the Sun. Folk on the east cost will be able to see the whole 5 1/2 hour show, folk on the west coast will see the show already in progress, I don’t think NotMax will see any part of the show. You’ll need properly shielded binoculars or a telescope to see it, Mercury is quite small.
joel hanes
Who is the “Madeline” to whom Cole refers in the OP ?
NotMax
@Jay
Hey, I was charitable enough to let your creative spelling of dyslexic slide.
;)
Kent
@Millard Filmore:
One of the most horrible unanimous Supreme Court decisions in the past half century (I know there have been a lot) was Wisconsin v. Yoder which ruled that the Amish could ignore compulsory state education requirements and keep their children ignorant in their 1-room schoolhouses through the 8th grade where they are mostly taught by uneducated young Amish women. That was the decision that basically opened the door to the current wild west of homeschooling and charter school frauds and every other sort of miseducation and educational malpractice that has infected this country.
We hear people, even on this blog, bemoan the consequence of a US pullout of Afghanistan which would mean women would lose the right to education and so forth. Which is no doubt very true. But we have abandoned millions of American children to what are essentially American Taliban without lifting a finger or even a comment. The chances of an Amish girl in Pennsylvania or Ohio growing up to become a doctor are about the same as a Pashtun girl growing up in a Taliban village in Afghanistan.
Jay
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Big enough, though, that it qualifies as a mass transit.
:)
Kent
@Jay:
Yes the attack on the Jewish school was horrid racism. But, there’s still plenty of grift in NYC charter schools.
nypost.com/2018/07/14/charter-school-ceos-get-massive-paychecks-thanks-to-private-donors/
nydailynews.com/new-york/education/top-16-nyc-charter-school-execs-out-earn-chancellor-dennis-walcot…
NotMax
Last minute reminder that The Pagan, with Ramón Novarro, begins on TCM in just a few minutes.
Jay
@joel hanes:
Madeline Osburn, the Federalist author and Whistleblower outer.
Jay
@Kent:
I’m not in New York. I’m in Canada.
We have different values and standards.
Kent
@Jay: Sorry, I’m getting confused. I thought we were talking about a Jewish school in Brooklyn. I honestly don’t know a thing about charter schools in Canada or even if they have such a thing.
Jay
opiejeanne
@Jay: That’s pretty rich, you calling anyone else a pedant.
You think that makes you sound clever calling me a pedant, it shows that your English teachers couldn’t get through to you about the uses and abuses of apostrophes. “Thank’s” looks like you’re saying “thank is”, since the apostrophe is used either for a possessive or for a missing letter or letters, as in “it’s” for the missing “I”, which you manage to use correctly. Huh. .
Also, her name is Klobuchar. There’s an “l” right after the K. It would be nice if you’d try to remember how to spell her name correctly, since you spelled it wrong twice in the same post above. I
hope that’s not too pedantic for you.
Jay
@Kent:
The attack was at an “Orthodox” Jewish School in New York. There is no word if it is “Orthodox”, Hasidic Orthodox, and if it is or isn’t a “good school”.
The attacker probably didn’t know either, just attacked it because it was a “Jewish” school.
This lead to a anecodteal digression about a a Hadisic Charter School, that had nothing to do with the fact that a Nazi attacked a Jewish School.
dww44
@sdhays: I’m not sure that the Obama Administration was in any position to prevent the 2010 Republican landslide, which, I agree, did have lots of consequences leading to the 2016 election results. Albeit that it was evident that Obama was never very much interested in downticket political races (why did he replace Howard Dean, who was the very first national Democratic party leader who visited my red state in many decades? At least to an area outside of Atlanta.)
The 2010 GOP landslide was caused primarily by racism on the part of whites who were unable to handle the idea of a black man in the WH, passage of the ACA (Republicans have always been cruel), a Tea Party with no legitimate gripes other than that Obama was a Black man, and a press who provided legitimacy and outsized coverage to it and it’s minions who wanted to “take their country back”.
As a lifelong Southern Democrat, from the outset it was as obvious as the nose on one’s face, that this was fake populism, just as the populism that elected Trump was and is fake, but unfortunately backed up by Wall Street and its deep pocket supporters. As it is today. The Atlanta Journal reported that Trump raised “MILLIONS” for his few hours there on Friday. We have some truly sick power brokers in this country. Truly sick.
Jay
@opiejeanne:
Pedants gotta pedant.
Theres lots of things my teachers couldn’t get through to me in school.
Still, I graduated and went on to post secondary. So thats a win.
I prefer to comment on people’s posts, rather than pick on spellings, typo’s, etc.
opiejeanne
@joel hanes: I was wondering the same, since I couldn’t find a Madeline mentioned in his post.
opiejeanne
@Jay: Typo’s what? Was does the fucking typo own?
Still say, you’ve got a lot of gall calling anyone else a pedant.
Kent
@Jay: Millard Fillmore’s divergence about the schools in the district in Long Island weren’t about charter schools. They were about ordinary public schools in a town where the majority of residents are Hasidic Orthodox and control the local school board where they starve the local public schools (attended mainly by Hispanic immigrants) of money because they don’t want to pay taxes for schools their children don’t attend. It has nothing at all to do about charter schools. Its about normal public schools in a district taken over by Hasidic Jews that is deliberately depriving all the local non-Jewish children of an adequate education.
Jay
Kent
@dww44:
It was also the result of Citizens United which was decided in January 2010 and opened up the fire hose of right wing dark money just in time for the 2010 mid-terms. And don’t forget, the whole tea party movement was also a dark money project from the beginning.
Jay
@Kent:
Doesn’t happen here because schools are funded and regulated at the Provincial level, not the City, County, District, Village level. As a result, all schools are good, many are exceptional.
While School Boards are local, they either meet or exceed Provincial standards or they are replaced.
Letting Talibangelists et al control education, or using local taxes to support education is just asking for trouble.
Jay
Jay
Redshift
@dww44: My one big complaint was that Obama turned his campaign organization into an issue advocacy group instead of a down-ballot organizing group. We had as major chance while so many people were part of the campaign and when more focused on it, to sell people on the idea of starting involved, voting in every election, and he didn’t. Especially frustrating because of his background in community organizing.
That kind of thing, driven now by Trump, is what is producing a lot of our successes. We could have had some of it then, and blunted the backlash. I hope if we get a Democratic president in 2020, they understands that.
Jay
lgerard
Odd that The Federalist insists on outing the whistleblower’s name when they steadfastly refuse to identify their own financial backers, and resist any attempt at transparency as to their ownership and it’s agenda
Jay
smike
@Jay: @opiejeanne:
Hey, you two, get a room already.
:)
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: So Uber murdered Jamal Khashoggi? Interesting. Yet another reason to tell Uber to Eat Shit Bob.
Walker
@Jay:
One of the responses in that twitter thread is from someone in Bolivia, and it is really interesting. He tells a story of how Morales’ base has turned on him because of corruption and being worried that he is turning into another dictator. Supposedly Morales had to invalidate part of the Constitution to even run again.
It is hard to tell what the right side is in all this without more information.
Jay
Jay
@Walker:
Twitter comments, are always suspect. Far too many people make a living spreading propaganda on twitter, so knowing the twitteratti, is critical, blue checkmark or not.
Jay
Jay
Sebastian
@Jay:
That is tactically smart but strategically stupid. Individuals can be targeted and neutralized with repercussions. See Massacre of Wagner Mercs in Syria
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
I was talking about this a few days ago regarding another candidate. What posses candidates and supporters/surrogates to think they can win votes by attacking the most popular person in the party.
They can’t just say something positive about their campaign. No. In order to build themselves up they feel they have to cut Obama down. Instead it just turns off voters who would walk on hot coals to vote a 3rd time for Obama.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
joel hanes
@Redshift:
[Obama] turned his campaign organization into an issue advocacy group instead of a down-ballot organizing group.
For this, I have always blamed Rahm Emmanuel, who observably despised the grassroots, and still does. And it was worse than you say; Howard Dean invested in local party structures, with the intimation that the national party would stay engaged, but after the election, those local groups were asked for their contact lists by the national party, and then pretty much abandoned.
Of course, Obama chose Rahm, and the buck stops, etc.
Amir Khalid
@Jay:
People pick on your spelling and punctuation not to trample on the Jayness of you, but because your poor spelling and punctuation are needlessly annoying, cause confusion, and hinder your own efforts to communicate. You take pride in withstanding your teachers’ efforts to teach you to spell and punctuate, but the rest of us are not impressed. Getting all huffy about the criticism just makes you look petulant.
A Good Woman
@Leto: I just finished reading George Kent’s deposition. He was Vindman’s interface at State. According to Kent, Vindman was on a 2nd year extension of a 1 year detail to NSC. He may have been well into his 2nd year at the time of the deposition. I haven’t read Vindman’s deposition yet to see if he addresses that. In any case, Kent treated that extension as not necessarily typical.
I have no doubt that Cheeto may have helped to push him back to the Pentagon, and I am well aware of the ‘up and out’ policy (I used to date a submarine Captain for whom that was going to become an issue and I have an AF uncle who retired when he reached full bird.) That said, why do you think this is a career killer on its face? I don’t know where Vindman is in terms of his career, but I am reluctant to assume he can’t get another assignment that carries some heft.
Sab
Jay: I am not an attacker. I mostly like you. I am also a woman.
I have not read every thread.
When you mis-spell misogynist as mysongist is it because you can’t spell, or because you have some alternative malign intention.
Just wondering.
Sab
@Sab: Also it wouldn ‘t let me edit: do you have some not malign intention.. As I said, I usually like you. This mis-spelling irks me a lot.
PST
I was highly suspicious of the Buttigieg quotation in the LA Times because no one else carried it, even though it was so inflammatory. Now the reporter has withdrawn it. He says that what Mayor Pete actually said was “failures of the old order,” not “failures of the Obama era.”
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
That’s a term often seen in an application for a search warrant, or a warrant to tap a phone, or an application for a FISA warrant. Trump has probably seen that term a whole lot i his long and “storied” career, in other words, but has no idea when and how it is properly used.
J R in WV
@James E Powell:
Actually, the MSM set their narrative, using Barr’s absurd and mendacious fabrication, and didn’t pay a bit of attention to anyone telling them that Barr was lying in his teeth.
J R in WV
@Jay:
Then, if the Uber autonomous car ran over and killed that pedestrian in Canada, it was at least negligent homicide on the part of whomever made the decision to disable any protective features of the auto, if not voluntary manslaughter.
But Canada’s rule of law isn’t relevant to a criminal incident that happened in Arizona!
Betty
@Mary G: I hope you all saw that this was a misquote. He actually said “old normal.”
Uncle Cosmo
@Jay: Two more fuckups with apostrophes in the post I’m replying to. Plus a misspelling of “dyslexia.” Really, you are such a clown.
And you do it just as lamely. Your extended demonstration of ignorance surrounding
TulsiQuisli Gabbard is proof: You called her a Senator, then a “State Rep”. (In fact a “State Rep” would be a member of the lower house of Hawai’i’s state legislature [note proper use of the apostrophes your Can-Eh-Jen authorities generously provide you to misapply] which is also officially known as the House of Representatives. (As are the lower houses of 40 other states of the Union. I didn’t know that but managed to discover it with the Google; read & be marginally informed.)Hard to believe you made it into “post-secondary education”. I guess Our Good Neighbors Toward The Pole provide (in addition to a generous helping of “apostrophe’s” [sic] :^p) hardship exemptions for poor souls (I think the generic term is “Knuckleheads Of The Frozen North”) whose hardship is the inability to process spelling, syntax, or logical reasoning.
You are cordially invited to c&p whatever Twitter dumps onto your monitor & post it second-hand here – like the proverbial blind pig, you do occasionally turn up a truffle among the trifles – but you really ought to eschew further comment, as it would only serve to further expose further reasons no one should take you seriously.
glory b
@piratedan: My (possibly faulty TBH) was that the POC vote was pretty much the same as any off year electipn, but the youth vote cratered that year.
glory b
@David Fud: Ya think?
Dev Null
@glory b: AA vote slightly higher in 2010 than in 2006, according to Pew.
Somewhat lower in 2016 than 2012 though. (also from Pew)