Would I Call it Weaponization?

 

Somewhere, deep down, I feel like nothing is ever over with Republicans. Forget Benghazi or tan suits. They are going to get weird and bring up Chappaquiddick or Alger Hiss or Robert Byrd's Klan connections out of the blue.  So what do I think when Jim Jordan thinks maybe he'll target Hillary Clinton with a new investigation?

If Hunter Biden wasn't already done to death, why would the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy turning their lonely eyes to Hillary Clinton again hit any different?  I mean, Kevin McCarthy, the current and obviously temporary Speaker of the House explained out loud where people could hear that the email investigation hurt Clinton intentionally. And current crank James Comer admitted in the same vein that the investigation into President Biden's family members is supposed to help Trump. 

He still hasn't found what he's looking for, of course. The GOP can't keep track of their whistleblowers. To the extent they exist they are being paid by Trump insider Kash Patel who is a witness in the Mar-A-Lago document scandal and the first impeachment over the Ukraine president's being extorted. So that's not obviously sleazy as hell, right? 

But in the funny old round world kind of way, it comes out just now that the Trump DOJ was already investigating the Clintons via the Clinton Foundation, and they had nothing. See, unlike Trump's slush fund that he called a charitable enterprise which had to be shut down, and his kids had to go to mandatory don't run a charity as a slush fund school? The Clinton Foundation has been on the up and up. 

So--see how that seems like weaponization? And the thing where Trump get tried in courts and actually has done stuff is not weaponization? And how Durham had nothing, and most Republicans seem to be kind of distracting from 1/6 or the documents scandal by deflecting and whatabouting to other stuff? 

It's like they want to pretend "both sides" are equally as bad and they really aren't. And I would through very gritted teeth like to suggest the media report it that way, because sometimes, there are not two sides to everything (sorry current CNN management!) but one side is actually very bad, even seditious. And even undermines the very concept of rule of law via extreme partisanship. 

And what I mean by that isn't hard at all to see or hear if you're paying attention. 

TWGB: Just the Mob, Russia, Echoes of 2016 and 1776

 

Depicted above is Donald Trump, former president, with Skinny Joey Merlino, formerly, to the best of my knowledge, of the Philadelphia mafia, if that's a thing, about which I have little to say. Anyhow, Trump very recently crowed that he had information about every person who came down to Mar-A-Lago and should know who Merlino is and so I would be astonished if this was accidental. Please--he doesn't care. He didn't care about Nick Fuentes, and he doesn't care about Joey Merlino--he needs all the friends he can get. He has long depended upon the kindness of strange people. 

Why is this my lead-in into today's TrumpWorld Grab-Bag? Because this is a long and strange journey spurred by an echo of the 2016 campaign: a former head of FBI counter-intelligence in the NY office was arrested for taking money from a Russian oligarch with ties to the Trump Russia probe.  This is the outcome of an interesting story that gives us a little more about McGonigal back when this was in the grand jury stage. 

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York. 

Pretty flipping fascinating, no? Anyway, the NY office was described back in 2016 as TrumpLand and definitely leaked info regarding Anthony Weiner's laptop to various people, prompting James Comey's announcement of the reopening of the Clinton email case, which a lot of folks are pretty sure sank the election for her. And I don't know this for a fact and don't want to impugn the NYT's reporters on this, but even though the CI investigation of Trump in 2016 was based in DC, I would not be surprised if the front page news that the FBI found no connection to Russia in 2016 was leaked from that office. Funny how the folks not looking for it weren't finding it. 

TWGB: The "Raid" on Emperor Commodus

 

There's nothing like starting your damn dumb day out knowing you are going to have to post about your fucking Moby Dickless white supremacist whale, but when I cracked open yon internets this morn to finally unload about the weekend's vote-a-rama and how it demonstrates Republican fecklessness, I already knew I was committed to talking later about how the Trump presidency has gone down the toilet. Literally. 

It's been widely and accurately AFAIK reported that Trump tore up docs that were required to be preserved and may have even eaten docs he didn't care to be preserved, despite the presidential records act. For someone who derided and persecuted his 2016 opponent over records retention, it is astounding that this is the guy who presided over an entirely unaccountable wipe of DHS, DOD and Secret Service digital records. 

I mean, astounding for a value of being shocked when a chronic liar somehow does something the exact opposite of what he claims he finds important. 

What might get lost here is that today, the anniversary of Nixon's resignation announcement, Paul Manafort had admitted that yeah, he did give Trump Campaign polling data to someone he wants to pretend he didn't know full well was connected to GRU because why not? I mean, thanks, we have several volumes of Senate Intelligence Committee data on the various connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, but it's nice someone wants to skirt about copping to it in order to secret-boast about it. He's literally humble-bragging he does coups, you guys. Do you need an election fixer? Manafort is out here putting out feelers. He is broke and in need of the only work he knows-fuckery. Kilimnik, you guys, goes back to Ukraine shit, too. It all does.  Russia was always going to fuxxor Ukraine in Trump's second term, but they are fucked because they tried it in Joe Biden's first. 

I really wish MAGA so-called patriots tried to suss out where in their Daddy fixations they decided Trump or Putin were real men. They are baby-nard projectionists. 

Anyway, today we also got a glimpse of what an anti-democratic, pro-Nazi shit Trump is with respect to his relationship with the military and entire misunderstanding of the history of American service, which includes thinking Nazi generals were al loyal and this was somehow great (ok, Operation Valkyrie, and also, this dope heard of the idea of the "good Nazi" and thought it was a compliment?) and also there was a confirmation of Adam Serwer's most salient observation of the Trump presidency--that the cruelty was the point. We also learned Trump didn't want disabled vets at his military pride parade because he thought it would look bad. 

He thought heroes who showed physical valor in the line of duty was a problem, you guys. That their physical ordeal wasn't a visible reflection of sacrifice to a higher cause.

So how would I be shocked if Mar-a-lago was "raided"? (For a value of "raided" that means subject to a lawfully executed warrant based on probable cause because of due process.) This former president took 15 boxes of apparently classified shit out from the White House with him. 

We're supposed to give a shit that MAGAs are mad about it. Of course they are. They are conditioned to be mad because of a steady diet of mad-fuel. They believe a free and fair election was stolen with no proof at all--of course they are mad about their little God King. They literally don't know what due process is or appreciate that Trump is not inviolate but is still just a citizen subject to the same laws as anybody else. 

Literally any day could be the day when MAGAs decide to explode. They did on 1/6. It looks like for some reason some /Donald peeps thought 8/8 was some kind of big deal.  (88 stands for Heil Hitler in some Nazi iconography.) Who cares? Democracy isn't about the feelings of losers and bigots. 

And justice isn't about politics either. Sometimes, your boy is just guilty as fuck and you need to acknowledge it. The GOP is having problems with the basic idea of right and wrong. But the pursuit of the evidence and the facts matters. 

This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag Has Security Issues

There are a couple of recent pieces of this TrumpWorld saga that interest me as being of a specific national security concern. One of those things is the knowledge that the Trump transition team was specifically looking for options for secure communications that were encrypted and opted for a program that enabled the record to be deleted. There's something about this that itches the back of my brain: like Jared Kushner's attempt to secure a backchannel with Russia using their facilities, it sort of looks to me like a way for communications to take place without intelligence agency scrutiny. I can think of reasons why the Trump Transition might have wanted something like that--they may have knowingly being having communications that were of an illicit nature, such as conspiracy to subvert federal elections regulations with respect to material aid by foreign governments or possible Logan Act violations, or maybe they just already knew that there was some potential that communications with actors on behalf of Russia might be subject to surveillance since they were already apprised that there would/could be investigation into any attempt of infiltration by specifically Russia into their campaign. 

It's tough to figure out what the Trump Transition team was after, but it does look like, soon after the Flynn contact with Kislyak, White House Counsel Don McGahn pretty much already suspected that what had taken place had serious legal ramifications.  I can't help but think he might have felt a duty to inform the principles in the White House transition--Trump and Pence. But Flynn was made National Security Adviser anyway. He wasn't cut loose when former Acting attorney General Sally Yates informed the White House that Flynn was very compromised, but weeks later when that story went public. And I am not clear on the timeline of when McGahn was checking out "how screwed" Flynn was--before or after Yates' heads-up. (That would be important to know, right?) But if it was before?

It would seem to me like more people knew what Flynn was about and he had consent if not authorization. From...?

You can see where this is going. Anyway, this kind of fascinating info is being unearthed while House intelligence committee chair Devin Nunes, who is supposed to be renounced from all things Russia hacking-related, is part of the push to investigate the FBI investigators.  This is the same cat who played run'n'tell with information obtained from the White House to obfuscate the House investigation which resulted in his recusal. And many people saw through it, anyway. And keep in mind--Nunes was part of the transition and has his reasons for wanting these investigations to go away. 

I also think Pence was in the loop. If nothing else existed to tell me this, I only needed to hear Pence's bizarre Trump adulation that bordered on blasphemy to wonder what kind of mortgaged-souled human talks this way. He might be relying on Trump's good mood--I think a lot of people in the White House sometimes feel insecure. 

Is a Deep State TrumpWorld Grab-Bag a Thing?

Fox News' very awful Jesse Watters had on the Trump Administration's even more awful KellyAnne Conway, and together they managed to perform a duet on the theme of there being a coup attempt on President Trump, and how, boo hoo, everything was rigged against Trump from the very beginning. I love this kind of argument. Trump was trying to soften the blow of his possible loss in the election all through October 2016 by crying "Rigged!' whenever he could. And then he won the electoral college despite losing the popular vote by 3 million votes, got sworn in, and is still in office. It doesn't seems all that "coup-y".

What has happened, though, is a recent obfuscation campaign on the part of Trump associates and supporters to detract from the Special Counsel's investigation, claiming that the FBI investigation that it follows on was tainted by partisans.  This strikes me as really weird. Comey was a Republican, Mueller's a Republican, as of a year or more ago, we understood that the FBI has a lot of people who were not Friends of Hill. Since when was the FBI or law enforcement in general a hotbed of subversives who want to overthrow a Republican president?

Except when that president is engaged in a potential criminal conspiracy to undermine national security. See, I can get why law enforcement professionals would deeply care about that.

Part of this kerfuffle seems to have to do with the thousands of Trump transition emails that SC Mueller seems to have quite lawfully obtained. The GSA basically got a nice polite request for them and handed them over, because they are already government property. To the chagrin of Trump's lawyers, who seemed to have tried calling executive privilege on these emails when I'm not sure they could even necessarily do so even once Trump had become president (the executive), but most likely couldn't assert before he was sworn in. 

I don't know. I majored in lit, not law. But, as with claims that Don Jr. could stay mum about a conversation with his Pops and call it attorney-client privilege just because the Trump's were in the room with lawyers, I think an executive privilege argument might really need to have someone involved who was actually the President. It seems a little dodgy. Also, I think the problem with the trove of emails Mueller and his team got is that whole lines of inquiry may have been obtained by knowledge gleaned from those emails, and Trump's lawyers would very much like those to be thrown out as if they no longer were any good because the emails themselves weren't lawfully obtained, but I'm not even sure that applies for the purposes of this investigation. I am mostly tickled that a campaign that had so much to do with Clinton's emails, has an email problem of their own, like the actual details of record retention and government access were never issues they cared about at all.

Anyhow, in other news, we learned that the FBI warned Trump during his national security briefing in August of 2016 that Russia would be trying to infiltrate his campaign to gather information (this would be a period of time, as when isn't it? that Trump was denying the Russians hacked the DNC or were responsible for trying to break into the election process at all). But as for the "being told" part acting as a warning for the Trump Team (as if everyone involved was already simple enough not to know you don't accept baggage from foreigners and carry it onto a national campaign) well, that ship had already, based on the time-line, probably well and truly sailed.  

Anyway, maybe things will be a bit clearer after Trump's crack legal team talks to Mueller and his folks.  All I know is, all hell is fixing to break loose if Trump fired Rod Rosenstein, who Trump did appoint, and is not a Democrat, as a segue into getting Mueller fired. No, I am not advocating a violent kind of all hell breaking loose. But it would look as very much like more (yes, I said "more") obstruction of justice than has already been tried.  And that will put feet on the street.  

Blogging Trump's Tantrums Feels Cheap

I guess I should feel a little cheap for deciding to throw another string of Trump's whaargarble up on my blog for examination, but the fact of the matter is, Blogger and Twitter are not cheap, but free. And the funniest thing about Trump's tantrums is that he sometimes goes ahead and tells on himself.

You take a look at "the lack of investigation on Clinton made fake dossier". Hillary Clinton did not make the dossier. She didn't know about it. It isn't fake. Some of it has been, indeed, corroborated. And the Trump/Russia investigation does include looking into the dossier--and whether it's true. Whether it was paid for by the Free Beacon or the DNC really doesn't matter as much as how compromised the sitting POTUS might be because of a relationship with Russia that could lead to things like not carrying out sanctions that were passed into law against that nation.

The "33,000 deleted emails" is a funny old thing to bring up, since it kind of looked like he was publically called for a foreign power to hack an opponent last year over those very emails. The same ones an associate of Gen. Flynn tried to get a hold of.  And that the Mercers wanted to help organize. If, for some reason, they thought WikiLeaks might have them. I don't know why.

One investigation is being run by Robert Mueller, who is independent, and the congressional investigations are, well, congressional. Both houses of Congress are GOP-led. It's hard to see how this is a Democratic witch hunt.

I don't know. It just feels like he might be flailing a little. And since the investigation into whether Russia interfered with the 2016 elections has been going on for sometime, why yes, everything happening during Trump's presidency seems to coincide with some degree of an investigation! Many people find Trump being president at all and the Russian interference as being more than coincidental.

I'm not sure who he's exhorting to "DO SOMETHING!" I am only sure he is not asking me to do anything, because all I've got is snarky blog posts and rude hand gestures.

But Their Emails!

I guess it's bad enough that Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, seems to have done government business on private email.  (OMG! He's new at this people--are we supposed to believe he knew this was even a thing he shouldn't do...like as if there was a whole Presidential campaign where the biggest slight against one of the candidates was, um, private email use, or something?) And wouldn't you know it? It turns out a handful of other Trump Administration folks, some gone, like Steven Bannon and Reince Priebus, and some still there, like Stephen Miller and Gary Cohn, definitely seem to have used private email for government business too.

That's outstanding. (I'm leaving Ivanka Trump off the hook for her private email use for what might be considered WH business because she wasn't in the job yet, and I don't know that she recognized this as being a part of her job, even--but she probably did have a transition-team email at this point.)

What makes this email use a little more suspect to me, anyway, is that this was done with a very particular knowledge that use of private email would be considered suspect (again, that whole 2016 election thing) and that, because of little things like some Trump campaign and White House staff having had Russian connections that were revealed after they did things like not mention them in confirmation hearings or on security clearance applications...eh, that might look like they were going off state-comms for reasons.

The "for reasons" part being the same exact thing that exculpated Hillary Clinton from her long email debacle (except for the bit where it got opened up again in October of 2016). We just can't be as sure that Kushner and all them aren't using private emails for specific "reasons" (cough--Russia--cough).  As it is, the Trump Administration is playing a game of "follow the leader" in being too fond of their personal devices, and not nearly as careful of digital security as they ought to be. Combine that with the tendency of the Trump Admin to fail to fill key roles in security positions, and you have a recipe for a potential Trump Administration hacking crisis.

It looks bad, as I have been saying, because it is bad. They need to create some kind of on-the-job information technology security and ethics training for executive department use, if they haven't one already, or something. Because after all the news about emails--they really ought to, at the very least, know better.  Or at least, make like they do.

Firing Comey Feels "Sudden", Right?

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey citing his handling of the investigation into Clinton's emails. Here's what he said in 2016. pic.twitter.com/xJiGylkfgt

— FRONTLINE (@frontlinepbs) May 10, 2017

There's one thing I think we can all agree on--Trump is not firing former FBI Director Jim Comey over his handling of the email investigation. I don't think the president cares what it looks like. He was apparently casting about for reasons for a little while to rid himself of this guy, but for all people want to talk about whether Comey was failing to win friends and influence people in Washington with his clay-footed approach to handling investigations with a political angle, he himself was caught off-guard by the news, reportedly.

I feel like that's some kind of failure to notice details on Comey's part.

I'm not going to defend Comey's job performance, because I've suggested that he probably should be thinking about tendering his resignation over his October Surprise. I understood why Obama didn't force him out (it would look like politics) and basically thought the same thing would stay Trump from doing it (because it would look seriously Nixon/Watergate-ish). And yet...

Dana Bash reported WH people were saying they didn't think this would be that big a deal.

Source w knowledge of wh discussions tells me senior officials did not think firing james comey would be a big political explosion.

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) May 9, 2017

Really? Are they out of their minds? They just didn't notice how people responded to the firing of Sally Yates and Preet Bharara? Or to be more truthful--they are lying, because this is what everyone around Trump just automatically does now?

See, I think the second choice is the right one. I know I don't trust Kellyanne Conway when she says something like "This is not a coverup." Mostly because, when a thing looks like a coverup, you call it something else and don't just say "This is not a coverup." This is not a Jedi mind-trick. Call it a quilt, a bedspread, or a security blanket. Don't repeat the word "coverup"! (God! She is so awful!) And I feel like Sarah Huckabee Sanders is playing it very close to the line when she says that this means it's time to end the Trump/Russia investigation. Obvious flack is obvious, much?

Since many of us can pay attention to more than one thing at a time, I am going to suppose this had a little more to do with a sense that maybe current events suggested the Trump investigations were going places he preferred they did not, and he was sending a message. After all, he sent his bodyguard to deliver the letter (wrapped around a fish, reports do not add, much as I would dearly like them to) giving Comey the axe, and it is a predictable trip to read things written by Trump in his own voice, such as the gratuitous reference to assurances three times (before the cock crowed, dear?) that Trump wasn't under investigation himself.

Somehow, this may actually result in an independent investigation--and I surely do hope so. Being this obvious might be Trump's cry for help.

Well, Clinton Was Asked a Good Question

There's no two ways about it--people who thought Hillary Clinton should have won definitely need to understand how she lost. The answer certainly isn't monocausal, and I think that when Clinton answered Christiane Amanpour's questioning about it, Clinton took responsibility for her campaign, but allowed that other events came into play:

“It wasn’t a perfect campaign, there is no such thing,” Clinton said,“but I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28, and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off.” She added that she believes misogyny was also a factor in her defeat.

Nate Silver asked right before the election whether Comey's letter had a dramatic effect, and I was skeptical that the change would be decisive, but there was already a good possibility that it would have an effect, and in the aftermath, I don't think we can count out that it could have being one of the deciding factors. I do not see how Clinton and her campaign could have reasonably mitigated that. I just don't.

I also saw how misogyny had played a role in the campaign.  There are some biases that run deeper than the ability of a single campaign to overcome.

The problem with things like the WikiLeaks/Comey news is that there is barely a clear, effective way to publicly address them to counter them without 1) acknowledging them and looking like an attempt to wave away or cover up and 2) furthering discussion of them. It's the damn "Streisand effect", except with the added handicap of "Clinton rules."  

I do think a legitimate post-mortem of how Clinton lost should be a priority discussion for Democrats, but I think it would be stupid to fail to take into account how various forms of "Swiftboating" behaviors exist on the right and are abetted by the mainstream media, how big money creates an artificial (fake news) echo chamber that distorts good attempts at messaging, and how Democratic messaging can take what gets labeled as "identity politics" head-on by not actually sleeping on call-outs. Generalizing about "deplorable" was seen as a possible gaffe by the Clinton campaign--I don't think they broke that rack of billiard balls hard enough. I think they could have taken aim more specifically at how harmful bias language was being used to specifically aggravate hostility regarding groups.

That conversation needs to exist alongside of questions about how money was spent, how campaign personnel were concentrated, and how the candidate herself was deployed to message in swing states. It just can't be ignored, and Clinton's acknowledgement that these factors existed should not be seen as a cop-out on her behalf by any means. The factors of Comey's letter (and the Benghazi/email investigations beforehand, which I will insist were also geared to this effect) and Trump campaign messaging highlighting misogyny existed, and the Clinton campaign had no answer for these damaging factors, even if they could have been anticipated. These things can all be true.  And we can acknowledge that and just argue about the degree to which each was a factor.

I don't think Clinton brings up the Comey letter and WikiLeaks to deflect from campaign failures, but for completeness' sake. And we could look at it that way, as well--to be scrupulously honest. And also, yes, that means looking at how the media covered the campaign--horserace? Gossip-mongering over investigation? Relating instead of explaining?

It's never too late to start looking for the crap-colored lining on Clinton's cloud.

But it's Okay if You're...

Pence and Trump repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for using a private server and email for official business. https://t.co/9fWAB4Vkse

— NPR (@NPR) March 3, 2017

So, then-Governor Mike Pence used private email for state business and got hacked, huh?

Some of Pence's emails were deemed too sensitive to release as part of the Star's public records request. Security experts told the paper that hackers were likely able to access Pence's inbox and sent emails, which could have included those same sensitive documents.

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Pence and Trump repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for using a private server and private email for State Department business. On Meet the Press in September, Pence said Clinton used the email setup to keep her communications "out of the public reach, out of public accountability." During the vice presidential debate in October, Pence alluded to the security concerns of using unofficial email systems, claiming that Clinton's email server "was subject to being hacked by foreign governments."

Pence's own email had been hacked earlier that year.

That's the most interesting thing I've read about Pence's emails since hearing about his fight to hide them.

Really. No further comment.

It's a damn shame, huh?

It sure is awful when folks leak information to the public with some kind of political agenda. It just makes people look bad, right?

Trump and Putin

Sometimes the snark isn't even necessary because the hilarity is not subtext but text. In this instance, it sort of looks like the actual electoral college winner of the 2016 Presidential contest is claiming that the president of another country is very smart in the way he is reacting to sanctions against his government because of--the intelligence operation that may have accounted for the President-Elect even being the President-Elect. This shows the least amount of interest possible for a situation in which US national security might have been breached by a foreign power and should be deeply concerning.

Some people might suspect that Putin has no need to retaliate because he is already confident that a Trump Administration will treat him more "fairly". Word might be that this is because Trump is, in fact, compromised. He doesn't have to confirm it with his cavalier behavior. But he simply doesn't seem to care.

So, What Was Director Comey Even Doing Here?

It feels a little out of place to still be aggrieved over what is now a fait accompli, but seeing that the warrant to investigate emails found on a device owned by Anthony Weiner in connection with the Clinton email investigation doesn't seem to have had any probable cause still, well, aggravates. It seems correct to me that James Comey should explain his thinking here a bit further.

Will it change anything? You can't retroactively undo whatever was done (it's kind of hard to even determine how big an effect the Comey emails to-do had overall). But there are some things I think I'd like cleared up--for one thing, former Mayor Giuliani's bragging about what he knew and from whom he knew it still bothers me. And of course, the difference in how the email investigation was handled and how the Russian hack investigation was handled--both by the FBI and the media covering the investigations--that grates.

I don't think "getting over it" is actually the healthy response here, at all.

I Think We Knew, Right?

Sure, if you were to ask me whether I took claims about the DNC hack seriously when it was first discussed, I'd have said...

Oh wait. I did say something about it--I just didn't think it would work. I also kind of thought more people would find the connections between several of Trump's advisors with Russia to be troubling. Somehow that story never really developed that way I hoped it would. I mean, wouldn't it just seem apparent that Putin and friends would put a thumb on the scale for a President whose intention seemed to be dismantling what the US has achieved in the last eight years both at home and abroad? Wouldn't he want a political newcomer who didn't understand the system he was trying to wrest control of and thought that the problems the US faced boiled down to...bad "branding"?

So the WP story that there's consensus in the intelligence community that this is what actually happened doesn't really throw me. Nor am I shocked (!) at Senator Harry Reid's letter to FBI Director Comey that straight-up says that Comey had information that he didn't disclose. I mean, Mercy! You can't expect an FBI Director to drop possibly campaign-damaging info like that before an election! It's not like this was about something important, like, I don't know, Hillary Clinton's emails...

My eyebrows do raise a little when Donald Trump flat-out denies that it happened. Surely, a data breach by a foreign intelligence should be at least a concern to an incoming president? Because maybe (this time) next time it could be the RNC getting hacked? And who knows how that information might be used? Embarrassment? Leverage?

Of course it ought to be looked into.

Curious Standards

There is a reasonable possibility that Donald Trump is considering former CIA Director and general David Petraeus for Secretary of State--and for what it's worth, I really think I like him as a pick better than I do Rudy Giuliani (who I just see as a very bad fit all around--not a diplomatic guy!) or Mitt Romney (who, based on what KellyAnn Conway has been telegraphing, and the open idea that Romney should have to crawl a little bit in abject penitence for defying Team Trump--makes me want to yell at him: Run away Mitt! Run far away! They are coming for your dignity!)

But can we admit it's just a little bananas that Trump is considering someone who FBI Director Comey explained has violated the rules regarding handling classified information way worse than anything Hillary Clinton ever did?

Because I think this would be important. Hillary Clinton was the subject of chants to "lock her up", and calls from the RNC Convention demonizing her and making a case against her because of her email server, from people like Rudolph Giuliani and NJ Governor Chris Christie. But what Petraeus did is okay in Trumplandia--he is still fine for a sensitive cabinet role. And Gen. Michael Flynn, who was tapped for National Security Adviser, was also reckless as heck regarding "forbidden" communications. He's fine, too.

I bring this up because even though Donald Trump was, as some might term it, "gracious" about not prosecuting Hillary Clinton over her emails anymore (like this would actually be up to him?) it's still being held over her head as if he might take an interest. Call it the "potato peeler of Damocles", perhaps. At anytime, if he finds her dangerous, he'll consider using the Department of Justice to just skin her. (Which, I don't hesitate to add, isn't how a Chief Executive should be using the Justice Dept. at all!)

Is it because they are military men that they get the pass? Conservatives? Is it because there's just this something about HRC that makes what might be considered "bucking the rules" or "making mistakes" for Flynn and Petraeus, a federal case about shadiness when it pertains to Hillary Clinton?

I don't know--it just looks like one hell of a double standard.

Triumph of the Swill

Is it possible that fake news sites had a hand in deciding the election? It sounds sort of freakish, doesn't it? Could it really be that fake news sites like "abcnews.com.co", which spoofs the address of ABC News, actually were taken as the real deal?

In a word--maybe! Per an analysis by Buzzfeed, in the final months of the election, fake news dissemination on social media eclipsed news from legitimate news organizations. From the graphic above, which is a screen-cap from Eric Trump's Twitter, you can see he Tweeted a link to a fake story--and so did Corey Lewandowski and Trump superfan Ann Coulter.  It's a little puzzling to me to say whether they were actually duped by what seemed like favorable news to the Trump campaign ("if something seems too good to be true..." is the beginning of a well-known adage) or whether they knew it was bull but ran with it anyway.  See, voter suppression of known liberal demographic + mobilizing the anger of conservative voters seems to have been the strategy of the Trump Campaign, itself. And what would do that better than casting the Clinton campaign in a dodgy light?

And the creation of fake news and propaganda wasn't solely for the benefit of the Trump campaign--folks in, for example, Macedonia, made bank on it. (Although I do wonder--who did the paying?) To take it a step further, it seems that automated bot accounts on social media spread pro-Trump propaganda--who made them?

Regardless of which pro-Trump supporter(s) unleashed the digital flying monkeys, I think this activity probably did have an impact on last-minute and first-time voters, whose impact was greater this year than in 2012. That article make reference also to the FBI Director Comey's October surprise letter regarding Clinton's emails. There's reason to believe this too, had a strong last-minute impact. (The possibility that Comey reached out to Lewandowski, who does not seem, CNN notwithstanding, to have ever left the Trump campaign, is really odd, is it not?)

But what kind of actually galls me is that some of the fake news on which probably well-meaning people made their decisions was based on sheer cynicism. This interview with the writer of the fake paid protester story is sort of face-palmingly awful: the guy made things up for Trump fans just because he knew they would pass on anything, and admits that no one really needs to get paid to protest Trump. (Examine this interesting reflection by a site called True Pundit. Possible NSA pick Gen. Flynn spread one of their fake stories. I suppose one might meditate a moment on how likely it is that a) Democratic ops would go out of their way to spread negative disinfo about Dem candidates, even if fake, and b) whether it is probably more accurately said that, regardless of the source, one is responsible for one's own beclowning if passing on unsubstantiated bullcrap.)

This isn't even to go into whether the impact that the possible hack by Russian agents of the DNC as "leaked" by Wikipedia (and whether any of that was spoofed or altered in any way) had any especial effect--although I agreed with Senators Graham and McCain that the hack itself is worrisome and should be investigated.  It's to say that social media sites and we "internetizens" need to do a better job of weeding out and not passing on utter fabrications. (It appears that Facebook may have an algorithm that guards against fake news--but didn't deploy it because it disproportionately effected conservative-leaning sites--they have been burned by claims of bias before.)

Anyway, you might recognize my blog title is a play on Leni Reifenstahl's movie Triumph of the Will, which is acknowledged to be a masterpiece of propaganda. The "swill" is that practically anyone can, faithlessly, throw any crap against a Facebook wall, and see if it sticks. And some of it does. A crap-based politics is not good for democracy, though.

Emails Story-Not a Bang but a Whimper?

So, despite the "bombshell" that was heralded as "the FBI is re-opening the Clinton emails case!" that was cacked out last Friday, before any of the emails in question found on Anthony Weiner's laptop had even been looked at, it turns out there was an awful lot of nothing turned up.

Well, of course there wasn't. The email thing is quite possibly the most boring thing that has ever been prodded about as a potential scandal. "She violated workplace guidelines because she was the boss and found carrying two phones inconvenient, hur dur..." Yeah. Well. That's actually it. It doesn't actually rise to the standard of treason, does it? The sort of wild things like hammers being taken to devices no longer useful or the info retained being extracted by a program like BleachBit, which Trump likes to go on about (although I don't think he understands it in the least since he calls it "acid wash") are actually not at all dodgy but recommended.

I think the funny thing though, is that Trump and his surrogates are bummed that FBI Director Comey is now saying they investigated those emails and there is no dropping of any further shoes. Thus, the Tweet above from General Michael Flynn, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who does not seem to know that this investigation could have been achieved quite rapidly with computers.  Yeah, with time to spare. Like, before making the announcement eight days ago that there was new information, he could have totally obtained the warrant, had the new information gone through, and cleared it out without ever casting suspicion on a presidential candidate.

Just like that!

Now, there is some anecdata evidence that Comey's original letter (yeah that timing is not satisfactory to say the needle truly didn't move based on the date--you needed to see where we were a few days later) did not actually move the needle that much, or maybe actually motivated people to vote for Her (it sure did make me hot!) But this additional move?

Please. Like Senator Sanders said--enough with her damn emails! This isn't impeachable--and if it is, when does anyone address all the other officials who have had separate servers, private accounts, and deleted emails? Because this frankly isn't rare and in practice, what Clinton did is really just a mistake--not disqualifying. As with the Benghazi hearings, that were admitted to being about "getting" Clinton, I don't feel these investigations are about truth--but politics. This is why politics has the shabby reputation is has. This kind of stuff needs to end for people to get back the kind of approval of and belief in our civic institutions we need for democracy to work. There is a good reason for the low approval the American people have for Congress, and this kind of fuckery is it.

Don't just vote the top of the ticket, and if you don't love Hillary Clinton--don't let this stop you from coming out for the lower ticket offices. We need to vote out witch hunters and get people who want to work for their constituency.

This Makes Me More "With Her", You Know.

The funny old thing about Comey's tripping over Weiner's dick to potentially cover Trump's ass is that I am so already over the email scandal and all of that that I could not care less what shakes out. Fuck it. Trump wants to be a whiny little bitch about what he calls "rigging", but the fix against Clinton having a smooth glide-path to a White House landing was for real and no one expected anyone would make it easy for her. The fix against Hillary Clinton started at birth when her birth certificate was marked female and you know what?

She isn't a liar (not for her line of work and especially not compared to Trump she isn't)  and she isn't corrupt. She's human, and not- perfect, and she sometimes doesn't do things 100% right--but at the end of the day, she gives a shit. She always has. She has always seemed to know that her business on this planet is give-a-shitting.  She cares about war and she cares about women's right to decide our health outcomes and the rights of gay and trans people and tries to talk social justice into the public discourse whenever she can. So she had a little fuck-up with her emails--sorry? I didn't know that ephemeral details were supposed to impress me into not liking a candidate who shares my values. And has done so as her life-long practice.

And she does.

I despise and show all due contempt at the effort to smear this woman, the capable  and trustworthy woman I have long-endorsed, because I know the detractions against her are expressed in air or water, not stone.

I remain with her, and think many right-minded people will.

Of Boners and Weiners.

So sometimes we chuckle about a "Friday news dump", but thanks to the internet and the 24/7 news-cycle, this is actually kind of jokey anymore, right? Like, if someone just casually dropped a sketchy information-grenade on a Friday afternoon like "Hello, there is more to a story on which you've already obsessed", we could still imagine the news folks to be all over it like ants on a spit-out Jolly Rancher, right?

And so it came to pass that FBI Director James Comey loogied a watermelon Rancher (this is a thoughtful and not-biased reading of what happened, but I'm an angry partisan, so...) at the House GOP, who just freaking ant-swarmed. (Because they would.) Their line: The case is reopened (that's not how that wor....) because new evidence about Hillary' Clinton's server (that's Secretary Clinton's, wait, it doesn't even have to do with her serv...) had electronic congress with the devices once owned by (drumroll) Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin who might have had stuff forwarded to his laptop because it was hooked up to a printer because for some godforsaken reason, olds like stuff printed out on paper to read.

But what we do know is that the additional emails weren't stored on Clinton's server nor did she send them, and wow! I really don't find myself as interested in the story here, as in the timing. Like Senator Shelby, I'm all like:

"While I am pleased that the FBI is re-opening this case in light of new information, it is imperative that the Bureau immediately evaluate the material to complete this investigation," Sen. Richard Shelby wrote in a letter to Comey on Friday. "The American people are electing their next Commander-in-Chief only days from now, and they deserve to know the conclusion of your review prior to Election Day. Let me be clear: This should be your utmost priority."

As the kids say-- "This. Exactly this." This is a story too close to the election for them to dawdle--there is either a "there, there", or there isn't. Now, there is some argument that protocol would have actually suggested slow-walking this one until after the election--and it looks like Comey really struggled with what to do here:

Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.  At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.  In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.

So--notifying Congress this minute wasn't an urgent issue in black and white, and even though the investigation has turned up nothing that seems objectionable, they decided this was the right time to drop it like it's hot.  For... reasons. (M'kay, Comey, but that seems a little "muh virtue" from you.)

Oh. I have questions. Now, I'm already decided for Herself. And I don't know who this intel would prejudice for or against out of people already voting or decided. And the way I see it, you wouldn't really sway indies with this kind of thing--they are maybe political skeptics so you just suppress them and leave us with the base of each group.

Which I think favors Clinton. This feels like so much work for so little payoff that I can't imagine Comey was trying on some kind of political strategery, maybe in violation of the Hatch Act. It looks more like he's just really stupid at messaging, because he presumably understands the relevant law. But that is definitely a form of incompetence at his level, and doesn't reflect organizational best practices. But anyway--his handling was a boner, but we can blame this on the Weiner. 2016 is a year that might just be blank pages in the history books. What do we tell the daggone children?

Eating KFC on a Plane, As One Does

When Donald Trump Tweeted a picture of himself eating KFC on his private plane, the fact that he was eating it with a knife and fork pretty much became the joke. Was he trying in some weird way to be one of the common folk with his fast food fare? In the picture above, Gov. Mike Pence demonstrates the way us common working bastids do it--with your fingers. Thus, the finger-licking goodness. But Ha! I have appended a meme--yeah, there a gross misogynist Hillary Clinton joke available on hats, stickers, tee shirts, in several variations, basically describing her as chicken parts: two fat thighs small breast, and a left wing. Hur hur hur.

Are Mike Pence and Donald Trump telegraphing this stupid thing as an in-joke? Christ, I just don't know. But what I do know is, that level of sexist crap (along with racist crap and conspiracy theory crap) seems pretty welcome among the people who are working on this campaign, based on an investigation of their social media.

Now that probably isn't that surprising for people surrounding anti-PC Trump. I mean, his honorary co-chair in NY, Carl Paladino, has gotten flack for that sort of thing in the past regarding his emails of a sexist and racist nature. Kellyanne Conway, the current babysitter campaign manager has a history of making some pretty special comments:

And she's going to be the one who tries to clean up The Donald? Yeah. Ok. (And Steve Bannon isn't going to be any help on the messaging front either.)

With this level of message discipline and professionalism on display, can we be shocked that in one CO county, the Trump HQ office is being run by a 12-year old? I mean, what harm can a kid do, well there were threatening calls to some delegates during the primaries, but you know.... kids will be kids. (You guys, if my mom was the official field coordinator and she caught me doing that, I would be so grounded from campaign stuff, seriously!) He should have made his threats like Carl Paladino, alleged adult....by email. No one ever looks into those.

So do I really think Mike Pence and his momma are eating KFC like "take that, you pear-shaped liberal hag"? I have no way of determining whether anything this campaign does is ever unintentionally gross. I'm getting to where I assume grossness. (Although I don't want to think Mike Pence's momma is in on the joke.)

This is a disgusting campaign, and I hate looking at it. No one wants to toast marshmallows over a tire fire.