So I stayed up late last night to finish one thing, and today got a reprieve – pushed back a week. Ah, well. Got my workout in late afternoon and just rolled with this particular non-punch. It’s almost a long weekend. Just enjoy it.
And it’s Movement weekend, i.e., the electronic-music festival that happens here every Memorial Day weekend. I told one of my nightowl friends I would attend the Movement afterparty of his choice. One option starts at 5 a.m., the other at 4:20 a.m. (ha ha). I intend to go to bed at 10, sleep a few hours, then rise at 3 to join the drugged-out masses at whatever sunrise show we end up at. I’m too old to stay up until 5 a.m. unless I have food poisoning or something.
I think stimulant drugs are coming back in a big way. Who the hell can stay up that late without them?
So I have to go to bed early tonight. Let’s keep this easy.
I’m not much for cat videos, but this is a great cat video.
We may have discussed the Jonathan Weisman case a while ago — can’t recall, too lazy to search. but it was egregious enough to prompt a piece coming this Sunday, and god, it’s so ugly. Key phrase, after explaining the blizzard of anti-Semitic shit that dropped on his head after daring to tweet an anti-Trump op-ed:
And still, we have heard nothing from Mr. Trump, no denunciation, no broad renouncing of racist, anti-Semitic support, no expressions of sympathy for its victims. The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday released what can only be described as equivocation as an art form: “We abhor any abuse of journalists, commentators and writers, whether it be from Sanders, Clinton or Trump supporters. There is no room for any of this in any campaign.”
Sheldon Adelson, perhaps the most prolific Jewish donor to Republican causes, has not only endorsed Mr. Trump but is also encouraging Jews to rally round him.
Unbelievable. And Trump has a Jewish-convert daughter.
OK, sorry for the thin content this week, but I’m working hard and exhausted. And now we’re at the real beginning of summer. Huzzah. It’s been a long time coming.
Dexter said on May 27, 2016 at 1:43 am
I am old enough to remember my parents’ generation calling this upcoming holiday Decoration Day. My aunt who died in 2014 at age 99 remembered how the whole town turned out, and led by the high school marching band, trooped to the cemetery to hear eloquent speeches praising the soldiers who were fighting in France…this was 1918. She was just 4 then, and later on in life she found out what the day was really all about. I am not sure when the policy of “no dead left behind” was initiated, but in WWI, they were buried “over there.”
Up until 2006 the Belle Isle Wolverine 200 24-hour bicycling marathon was held, then in 2006 it was changed to a 12 hour event. I have no idea if they still do that event. I never had the desire to ride any bicycle 24 hours straight, in a loop around Belle Isle.
Any of you folks go out picking morel ‘shrooms? How was the pickin’ this spring? We used to roam the free lands in the Lower Peninsula and some years struck it big, and some years maybe just a couple boxes, single layer on the bottom.
Stimulants in 2016 and before…we have all noticed how the sodas are hard to find and the energy drinks are out front now. Soda continues to decline and I know a few former daily users who now just drink water, but then we have the new addicts, the ones hooked on gas station drugs: energy drinks and other stuff. I was amazed to read a review of former Mets pitcher Ron Darling’s book about how the champion 1986 team got through the brutal schedule: white cross and black beauties, and when the lag happened, they’d run to the clubhouse and shoot a beer ( poke a hole in a can and pull the tab) to re-kick in the speed drugs. I had never heard of that and I don’t understand the workings of it, but it worked for those guys. That team was a speeded-up mess of drug abusers, and they won the World Series.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-drugs-and-alcohol-fueled-the-1986-mets-1459795793
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Jakash said on May 27, 2016 at 2:36 am
Well, it seems that the consensus here at nn.c is that the State Department’s Inspector General’s report about Hillary and her emails is no big deal. With the exception of the comment and link to WaPo that Jolene posted Wednesday, unless I missed something else. Personally, it pisses me off. Not the report — Hillary’s behavior.
For those scoring at home, I voted for Hillary in the primary. I wish Bernie would declare victory for his crusade, which by all rights has been far more successful than he could have hoped for, and tell his minions it’s time to back her (and the down-ticket Democrats wherever they reside) and focus on defeating the clear and present danger of Rump.
And, I’ll readily admit that I haven’t followed this email story very closely. But, from the moment I first heard about it, I just thought “Really, Hillary? Your #1 problem is that people don’t trust you and #2 is the R’s looking for any freaking thing they can possibly beat you up with, and you’re doing something screwy with your emails?” Whatever it was, that was an own goal. Period. And then, dodging and essentially lying about it once it inevitably became a big deal made it worse.
I feel sucker-punched the same way as I did with Mr. Bill and Monica. Yes, there IS a “vast, right-wing conspiracy.” Objective folks can tune it out, usually, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to avoid providing the conspirators with actual, valid material to work with.
Now, I feel like we progressives, or Dems, or whatever we are, are stuck. We have to circle the wagons and focus on the big picture — playing fast and loose with one’s emails as Sec. of State pales in comparison to the litany of outrageous lies and policies promoted by Rump. But, if we were on the other side, or even an objective observer, if there’s such a thing left in America? I think this report would be something one could justifiably use to make the case that this email “nonsense” actually matters. It ain’t Benghazi.
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David C. said on May 27, 2016 at 6:06 am
Rachel did a good job the other night explaining the the State Department’s antiquated e-mail system. It was bad, really bad. Colin Powell didn’t use it either, but with Hillary’s set up, things were archived and accessible. The State Department’s system to archive e-mails was to print it out and throw it in a box. That along with the recent report of the government’s ancient computer systems explains pretty well why Hillary did what she did. So I still come down on the much ado about nothing side.
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Connie said on May 27, 2016 at 6:09 am
Dexter just described my hometown memorial day. Parade downtown, everyone follows to the cemetery for wreath laying, brief remarks at a small park on the way. My dad always came home from the cottage so he could go.
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alex said on May 27, 2016 at 6:52 am
If Hillary hadn’t given them the e-mails to work with, they’d have found something else to seize on, and no doubt the right wingers will manufacture many more silly scandals in the years to come, the particulars of which neither Hillary nor we nor anyone else can anticipate.
Meanwhile, Sheldon Adelson is just fine with anti-Semitism as long as it’s coming from dolts who will vote for the politicians in his pocket. Too bad there’s no hell because he has more than earned a special place in it.
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Jill said on May 27, 2016 at 7:10 am
Dexter, my friends who hunt morels report an excellent season.
And from yesterday, congratulations to Jeff (tmmo), Mrs. (tmmo) and Junior (tmmo). Eagle is a very big deal. I get to work with the ones doing their projects to benefit our food pantry and am always impressed. I tell them that seeing Eagle on a resume gets my attention every time.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 27, 2016 at 7:27 am
Thank you, Jill! I tell our young Scouts that there’s really only one thing from your high school days that you will still be putting on resumes into your fifties, and that people will still care about reading your resumes at that point, and that’s having earned the Eagle Scout award. It’s proven true again and again. Grades? Eh, yeah, but I haven’t put NHS on my resume since 1980.
I’ve read some smart and fairly accurate IMHO pieces recently about how “unlikeable” is code for sexism when it comes to Hillary, which I’d agree with sideways by saying she has a problem the Trumps and Rubios and Cruzes (sp?) don’t. She comes across as having no real life, no interests, no depth or context to who she is other than the pursuit of higher office, and to be fair to some who just can’t like or trust her, that sense pushes people’s button on the question of whether or not she would in office do anything if it helped her keep it. The whole “what are her core values?” question. And when asked that question, she and her core supporters cite her resume, which is liberal-ish: I’ve got plenty of progressive friends who, on hearing I’m planning to vote for her, say “well, I guess we’re both going to be voting Republican this year.” Many liberals just don’t think Hillary Clinton has a progressive set of core values.
Meanwhile, I think that’s what meant that Cruz and Rubio had nowhere to go — for conservatives, there’s that unease that they are also simply vote-collection machines, and they are conservative-ish. They stand for conservative values because they think they can glean a plurality of votes with them. All of this leaves open the question of who Trump voters are, and what they’re looking for. I still think there’s an eerie parallel, if not high potential overlap, between Trump and Sanders voters, who want less a particular program than they’re looking for a Hulk to take the Loki of today’s political games and gridlock, and to smash him back and forth into insensibility, walking away sneering to mutter “puny politicians.”
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Connie said on May 27, 2016 at 8:01 am
Jeff, I have all kinds of things that were once a big deal that I have removed from my resume because they are now antique things. I have barcoded not one but two libraries from scratch! Who cares!
A lot of it has to do with many years of managing technology.
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alex said on May 27, 2016 at 8:07 am
Jeff, I’ve heard the criticism of Hillary that she doesn’t reveal enough of herself, her hobbies and interests, etc., and that her life therefore must consist of nothing else but white hot ambition.
I think most people don’t realize that she was a lawyer by profession, and if you don’t know anything about lawyers’ habits of mind, you don’t realize how thoroughly engaged they become in their work. They tend to be deep in thought and engaged in problem-solving most of the time and don’t know how to shut it off. Not bad qualities to have in a president. Just look at our current one, also a lawyer. And nobody faulted him for not having any hobbies and interests, although his photo ops may have given the impression that he spends all of his time shooting hoops with black folks and playing golf with the whites. The right-wing media would have you believe that’s all he ever does while the country is roiling with crises.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 27, 2016 at 9:06 am
Which, Alex, is where the sexism comes in. And I suspect Hillary does have interests and a deeper interior life that she’s simply intent on keeping private, given the roasting she’s already been through. My wife, also planning to vote for Secy. Clinton, says she’s put off by the sense that running for President has been her only goal from when she decided to start dating Bill from Arkansas, but that’s perhaps unfair. I lean more to seeing her as someone who said in the 70s “hey, my life can be focused on the political process just like guys can choose to,” and like any politician, male or female, she’s moved from each opportunity to the next, with an eye to the next ideally being up, not down. I have an acquaintance in this area who is about my age, and he’s a life-long pol who’s not a bad guy, overall, but he’s notably ill at ease because he really has no “up” left. I’d think a solid career in the Statehouse could be a life plan for someone who simply wants to see political activity as a means to improving one’s community, but it’s clear to me that there’s something about the “lifestyle” that makes a comfortable straight-on approach hard to embrace. My other close political friend is of that ilk, but he’s more motivated out of local and personal interests, with no desire to be governor, let alone a congressional player. At any rate, none of them are judged by locals as being empty suits who have no life other than their political pursuits, even though that role largely defines them. Hillary is not given that pass.
Speaking of women in politics, albeit 1872, I sat down (and walked around) to give about an hour of filmed interview for a documentary about our local gal, Victoria C. Woodhull. It will probably be thirty seconds in the finished product, but they told me I “give good quote.” It’s already Kickstarted into life, although I’m sure they’d take more donations. My favorite moment was when one of the sisters making this, sitting off to one side of the camera where I was supposed to look, suddenly got a very quizzical expression, leaned in, and asked me “why would a — forgive me — pretty basic white male, and excuse me for assuming, but straight, Christian, everyday kind of guy actually go out on his own to learn so much about a woman like Victoria Woodhull?” It was the MMO manifesto in the form of a question?
Who knows, you may get to hear my answer in the final version of this: https://vimeo.com/142937107
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Bruce Fields said on May 27, 2016 at 9:22 am
Wait, so wanting a job badly, and sacrificing other interests and putting in the years to prepare for it, is now a negative?
Well, that certainly explains the popularity of Trump….
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Heather said on May 27, 2016 at 9:51 am
Surely Ivanka and her husband have already been on the receiving end of anti-Semitic attacks? Are they protected from them or maybe they don’t take them seriously (yet)? I guess when you have staff and lots of money, threatening tweets and emails aren’t as immediately alarming as they are for us regular folk.
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Deborah said on May 27, 2016 at 9:53 am
My father called it Decoration Day his entire life, and he died in 1990 on that day.
I’m back in Santa Fe, where the weather is heavenly. Today we go up to Abiquiu to see the progress on our project there. Our garage in Santa Fe is full of wood right now because the shop that’s making the doors and windows had taken up a lot of space with just our stuff. We can’t get the car in the garage but it will only be for a few weeks. The doors are 8+ feet tall and about 30″ wide with a tall glass panel in each of them, there are 14 of these doors in the small place so you can open up nearly the whole first floor to the outside. They’re made out of Spanish red cedar and they’re gorgeous, if I do say so myself. I haven’t seen anything for about a month because I was in Chicago (moving) so it will be cool to see how far along it all is now.
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Julie Robinson said on May 27, 2016 at 10:27 am
Deborah, you’ve got to start sharing pictures so we can all indulge in a little architecture porn.
As a Hillary voter, I’m more than a little disturbed by the latest explanation on the emails; that she was uncomfortable using a desktop computer and wanted to read everything on her Blackberry. It opens her to more ridicule and incredulity. She can’t use a computer, yet she’s smart enough to run the country? Cue SNL.
Memorial Day is still celebrated the old-time way in my small hometown too. We band members used to take bets on who was going to faint in their marching uniforms of wool, vinyl overlay, and vinyl hats. Today they march in shorts and Tshirts, which just makes sense.
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annie said on May 27, 2016 at 10:41 am
“Movement weekend”? That reminds me of the giant BM you can see on the hill as you drive toward Battle Mountain, Nevada.
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Mark P said on May 27, 2016 at 11:03 am
David Brooks seems to be the original source of the criticism that Hillary Clinton does’t have any hobbies and therefore is unfit to be President. I didn’t read Brooks’ column, but I did read Slate’s response http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/05/26/david_brooks_says_hobbies_makes_us_interesting_but_what_counts_as_a_hobby.html
So Brooks says HRC doesn’t have any hobbies. Does anyone? I know for a fact that David Brooks doesn’t have any hobbies, or any internal life. I have never once seen him working with his model trains, playing golf or building birdhouses. And, as far as his internal life is concerned, I picture it as a vast, dry, dusty plain populated with sun-bleached bottles, rusty bean cans and tumbleweeds. Since Brooks has never had an original or accurate thought and couldn’t recognize one if he saw it, when a tumbleweed blows up against his leg, he mistakes it for an idea and runs with it. He doesn’t bother to check whether it’s true or makes sense. Maybe that’s his hobby: ignoring facts.
And Hillary must have done something wrong, right? I mean, after all, the Republicans have been accusing the Clintons of everything from murder to bad real estate dealings for more than 20 years. Where there’s smoke there must be fire, right? It doesn’t matter that all the smoke has been generated by the Republicans. Smoke! Fire! Just like there used to be doubt about whether cigarettes caused lung disease, and there’s still doubt about whether global warming exists. If people say it long and loud enough, even reasonable people might begin to wonder.
But none of that matters. All you have to do is look at the Republican nominee and the choice is obvious.
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Mark P said on May 27, 2016 at 11:14 am
Julie Robinson — I worked with quite a few federal government employees and contractors. They all used government-issued Blackberries for work-related email. They were often out of the office or otherwise unable to use a desktop computer for email, so a great deal of their email was read and sent on Blackberries. To me, that’s entirely reasonable and even expected.
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 11:57 am
So many of the “unlikeable” criticisms of Hillary seem ex post facto criticisms to me. People don’t like her, but they don’t want to admit to themselves that it’s because she’s a strong woman, or because they were influenced by all of the shit flung her way by the concerted effort to find or make up anything that might stick. She was never going to be “liked”, not in her situation. Women like her are never liked.
As for whether a politician should be looking to move up, I’d say as in any other field, it depends on the person. A career in the statehouse helping people is indeed a good plan for someone who wants that kind of scope and focus. Other people want a larger scope and focus, and the leverage it provides. That’s true in fields other than politics. My husband was reluctant to move into management, but was frustrated at the limitations that being an individual contributor placed on his influence on projects, so he did. That was separate from whether he could get promoted or not (tech companies often have promotion tracks for non-management engineering types that go way up), but especially having done a startup, he wanted more influence and a wider scope that just the technical aspects of the project. He also went through a period of restlessness not too long ago as it become apparent with not that many years left in his career, he had probably gone as far as he was going to go. And he’s not someone you would think of as excessively ambitious. When you’re very passionate about what you do, and your passion has been rewarded, it’s hard to think of that ending.
We accept passion and monomania about work from men better than we do from women. Hillary was supposed to be working on something outside of politics (she did), raising Chelsea (ditto), and evidently developing the appropriate hobby for a politician to have to make them seem relatable to David Brooks. Golf, I guess, so she could schmooze with Congressmembers, never mind that there were still clubs that wouldn’t allow women to become members or play except by invitation of male members during the time she was supposed to have developed this hobby.
Hillary is an introvert. Her hobbies are quiet ones that allow her recovery time. She does better in smaller groups. If we spent less time evaluating how candidates made us feel and more time looking at what they had done, we’d probably have better government, but we are human.
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Julie Robinson said on May 27, 2016 at 11:59 am
Mark, sure, but to claim she was uncomfortable even using a computer seems disingenuous. Again, I’m a Hillary voter, and I fear this as ammunition.
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Deborah said on May 27, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Mark P, great Brooks screed.
I heard Hillary speak at a pro-choice rally Little Bird and I went to in DC a few years back. I thought she was a good speaker, she came across warm and caring, but above all, smart. And progressive too, why she’s being touted as conservative is beyond me.
I used to wonder how Italy could have elected Berlusconi, it seemed very strange to me, but now that Trump has made it this far, it’s not surprising or strange that something like that could actually happen in the 21st century.
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 12:20 pm
On the email server.
It’s a mixed bag. From what I can tell, reading a variety of sources, the State Department email system is so bad that it actively hinders doing your job, so using a personal email account is not unusual. As David C said, the fact that the archiving system relies on printing out emails and sticking them in a file is one sign of the archaic system and how that archaic system could be friction in the way of getting your job done. I’ve also read that (probably because it was stored on paper) each individual was responsible for determining what was to be saved and what was to be destroyed (given guidelines).
As to the not wanting to use a laptop, maybe she wasn’t used to using a laptop, or maybe she didn’t like the interface for accessing email on the laptop and didn’t want to take the time to learn how to do the things she already knew how to do on her Blackberry. I’m very computer-savvy, have used probably dozens of different email interfaces over the last 30 years, and I hate having to switch to a new one. I avoid using browser based interfaces, because I just don’t like so many of them.
As for the security of her server, no, it wasn’t particularly secure, except for it being generally unknown. The State Department computers aren’t as secure as they should be, and are under attack more often. The classified email stuff seems to be nothing; many things are classified after the fact, but were not classified at the time they were sent. There has been no evidence uncovered that there was any intent to expose classified material, which is necessary for criminal prosecution.
So, two separate issues: use of a personal email account for public business , and maintaining a personal email server. Both are against policy, both broke rules, neither broke laws. If you examined everybody in the State Department with the degree of rigor applied here, you’d probably find most people had done the first. The second is unusual, to say the least. At first I thought maybe she did it to avoid FOIA, which would be bad, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I now believe she did it so that she could continue to use the setup that she was comfortable with; not a good enough excuse, to be sure, but not nefarious.
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Suzanne said on May 27, 2016 at 12:23 pm
As an introvert myself, I keep thinking that campaigning must be absolute hell for any introvert. But as an introvert, I understand that in American culture, being one is not very well accepted. The loudest and most animated voice in the room usually wins out, which in this election year, would be Trump.
I am beginning to lose hope for this election that we will be listening to POTUS DJT. Ugh.
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nancy said on May 27, 2016 at 12:32 pm
I read this in the middle of the night last night — damn insomnia — if you want to get an idea of how the right is eating its own. I never thought it possible that I’d sympathize with the man once known as “the Virgin Ben,” but I do. Fucking Breitbart. The devil must have wanted that guy bad.
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Suzanne said on May 27, 2016 at 12:33 pm
The comments on the David Brooks piece are excellent. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/opinion/why-is-clinton-disliked.html?_r=1
As for Mr Brooks, all I can say is he, like many other political pundits, obviously is still completely mystified by the rise of Trump,the Conservatives responsibility in it, and the political climate that has arisen. Voters aren’t embracing Hillary because she doesn’t seem very personable and doesn’t have hobbies? Really?
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MichaelG said on May 27, 2016 at 12:33 pm
I also think that the email thing was an own goal. She’s been at this for a long time and had to know that it would cause a shit storm.
Yes, Deborah. Pictures please – of both Chicago and Abiquiu.
What ever happened to Chelsea? Did she move to an ashram in Tibet or something?
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nancy said on May 27, 2016 at 12:44 pm
I believe Chelsea is gestating her second child, and doing some appearances on behalf of her mother. The WashPost did pretty good profile of her a while back, entirely without her cooperation, because she is a pretty-pretty princess who does not cooperate with the media. By that I don’t mean to criticize her choice — no one has to cooperate with the WashPost if they don’t want to — but rather, the way she seems to still think she’s 13 and to be shielded from all media attention she dislikes. Keep in mind, this woman has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and campaigned for her mother and still thinks she qualifies as a private citizen and shouldn’t have to answer any question she didn’t pre-approve. She’s 36 years old. It’s time for her to grow up.
And the next person who suggests she run for public office is getting on the fighting side of me. I dislike that idea worse than Caroline Kennedy’s own political ambitions. At least C.K. went to law school.
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 1:14 pm
Not that I’m promoting Chelsea as a potential candidate, but her lack of a JD is hardly disqualifying, given a master’s and a PhD in international relations from Oxford and a master’s in public health from Columbia.
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Jakash said on May 27, 2016 at 1:15 pm
alex,
“If Hillary hadn’t given them the e-mails to work with, they’d have found something else to seize on” That’s largely my point. Yes, the R’s manufacture whatever “scandal” they can conceivably push — e. g., Swift-boating Kerry, birth certificating Obama, tinfoil hatting re: Vince Foster — which is why it’s disturbing to me when Ms. Clinton actually willfully does something that results in a non-partisan criticism like that report.
Sherri,
“maybe she did it to avoid FOIA, which would be bad, but that doesn’t seem to be the case” That’s what I assume, and I can certainly appreciate her not wanting every email available to be pored over by anybody who cares to find something to gripe about, but it goes with the job. How would we know whether that were the case, or not?
The David Brooks column is ludicrous, as usual. The NYT readers’ comments eviscerating him are ALWAYS more entertaining and thoughtful than the column they’re attached too, IMHO. I don’t know what Mitch McConnell’s hobbies are, either, but that’s not why I think he’s an SOB and a sorry excuse for a Senator. He’s not even “likeable enough” for crying out loud — good thing he’s not a she, or Brooks would need to mansplain HIS lack of appeal.
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alex said on May 27, 2016 at 1:19 pm
I’ve been an unswerving Hillary fan since seeing the Frontline documentary “Hillary’s Class,” about the Wellesley class of ’69, when it came out in 1994. It’s well worth viewing if you’ve never seen it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/twenty/watch/1305_1_hi.html?wm
I’m surprised that it doesn’t get more attention given that it provides such a revealing look at her personality and her formative years.
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nancy said on May 27, 2016 at 1:22 pm
Granted, Chelsea is highly educated. But what has she DONE? So far, as near as I can tell, she’s been a professional dilettante, flitting from one hand-crafted-for-Chelsea job to the next. First she’s a consultant (consulting on what?), then a journalist, then a toiler for her family’s own foundation. Sorry, I don’t deny that she’s smart, but she’d also give George W. Bush a run for his money, career-wise. She doesn’t seem to have had any major screwups, but then again, how would we know if she had?
And I fully acknowledge that this sort of career is probably all she could have, given her upbringing. Although all the Ford and Carter kids have managed to be independent and autonomous adults, right? I guess the Bush twins are the closest equivalent to them; what are those gals up to these days? Jenna I think is another “journalist,” but not sure about not-Jenna.
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Brandon said on May 27, 2016 at 1:32 pm
What “Not-Jenna”, or Barbara Pierce Bush, has been doing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Pierce_Bush#Career
http://www.today.com/series/morning-routine/former-first-daughter-barbara-bush-reveals-her-productive-morning-routine-t85021
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Jakash said on May 27, 2016 at 1:38 pm
Nancy,
If I may be so bold as to directly address the proprietress… No thoughts on the email nonsense? Or simply not even worth bothering with?
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adrianne said on May 27, 2016 at 1:46 pm
Ahem. For some perspective on the email thing, this, from Eric Boehlert, on Media Matters:
Even for a Republican White House that was badly stumbling through George W. Bush’s sixth year in office, the revelation on April 12, 2007 was shocking. Responding to congressional demands for emails in connection with its investigation into the partisan firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the White House announced that as many as five million emails, covering a two-year span, had been lost.
The emails had been run through private accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee and were only supposed to be used for dealing with non-administration political campaign work to avoid violating ethics laws. Yet congressional investigators already had evidence private emails had been used for government business, including to discuss the firing of one of the U.S. attorneys. The RNC accounts were used by 22 White House staffers, including then-Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who reportedly used his RNC email for 95 percent of his communications.
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nancy said on May 27, 2016 at 2:02 pm
I don’t have strong feelings on HRC’s email. I think, in this and so many things, that she’s her own worst enemy, for many of the reasons the rest of you have discussed above; when you know they’re aiming at you every chance they get, don’t give them a target. That said, many of the explanations of why she wanted her email to be a certain way ring true to me. The way we use technology is highly personal, and it changes so quickly that some people evolve well beyond the institution that provides access. I had a boss who *hated* updating software; once he got comfortable with something, he *never* wanted it to change. I, on the other hand, love embracing the new (most of it, anyway). If we both still worked in the same office, we might have to adapt.
Speaking as a journalist in a state where private emails are being dumped by the terabyte (Flint, natch), you see the dangers of being too forthcoming, either on the page or via your security. And finally, politicians have been doing this for a while now (cf. Palin, Sarah). You want the secretary of state to be smarter about this, but I doubt she dumped any state secrets along the way.
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Jakash said on May 27, 2016 at 2:03 pm
Fine, adrianne, good point. And I think that’s outrageous and that Karl Rove was, and is, a scoundrel. But I’m supposed to think it’s okay if Hillary does it?
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Jakash said on May 27, 2016 at 2:24 pm
Thanks for the reply, Nancy. I can empathize with preferring particular ways of utilizing rapidly-changing technology, but when one is the Sec. of State, it’s a little different than being a regular person.
“I doubt she dumped any state secrets along the way,” too, but the reason for rules and regulations is that we don’t just expect the best intentions from our public servants to be a given. And basing one’s behavior on SheWho’s example is an awfully low bar, IMHO. ; )
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 2:50 pm
Alex, if she had done it to avoid FOIA, then those emails would be gone, instead of still be available to hand over. I think she wanted to use the email interface she was comfortable with, was told that State wouldn’t accommodate it, was also told (or was worried) that putting it on a commercial server like Google would be too vulnerable to hacking, much less the fact that Google trawls through everybody’s emails, so she got somebody to run a server for her. It wasn’t the best advice, she didn’t hire the best technical support to run it, but she probably didn’t have anybody around here that she trusted capable of evaluating of those decisions.
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 2:53 pm
Heimlich performs the Heimlich maneuver, for the first time: http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/96-year-old-heimlich-uses-namesake-maneuver-on-choking-woman/
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adrianne said on May 27, 2016 at 2:59 pm
Jakash, false equivalence. What Hillary did with her email is far from the Republican meddling in 2007.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 27, 2016 at 3:02 pm
I hate updating software. There, I said it.
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 3:44 pm
Jeff(tmmo), I don’t blame you. There are two kinds of updating, though: updating the current version of your software, and updating to a new version. You should always update the current version (i.e., where the first number doesn’t change) as soon as possible, because that’s the most important way to stay ahead of malware and security breaches. Updating to a new version is a harder call, and I never do it immediately even if it has features I want; I give it some time for others to shake out the initial bugs and problems. Once upon a time, I used to live on the bleeding edge (once upon a time, I used to live ahead of the bleeding edge!), but now I like my systems more stable.
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MichaelG said on May 27, 2016 at 5:44 pm
You’re all gonna love Windows 10.
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David C. said on May 27, 2016 at 5:52 pm
I think 10 is an improvement over Windows 8.1, MichaelG. I installed it about 6 months ago and I haven’t had any problems although I know plenty who have. I’m lucky, I guess.
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Julie Robinson said on May 27, 2016 at 7:10 pm
Still on Windows 7 here, which I loved from day one. When this laptop dies I will kick and scream my way to 10. From what our daughter tells us, both 8 & 10 were made for touch screens, and suffer without them
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 7:26 pm
It’s possible to set Windows 10 up so that it looks just pretty much like Windows 7. It was sort of possible with Windows 8, but harder to do so, and with a few glitches that unexpectedly would throw you into the modern interface. (Modern is the Microsoft name for the touch-heavy interface, not mine.) Because of the complaints that Windows 8 was too focused on touch screens, Windows 10 made it easier to get away from the touch interface.
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 7:29 pm
Dahlia speaks wisdom: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/fellow_liberals_stop_doing_this_stuff.html
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 7:35 pm
Most articles I’ve read on the Peter Theil vs. Gawker Media fight have tended to decry Theil’s attempt to secretly fund a third party attempt to sue Gawker out of existence while conceding that Gawker is trash. This article defends Gawker’s place in the media world: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/05/peter_thiel_just_proved_why_silicon_valley_needs_gawker_and_valleywag.html
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Sherri said on May 27, 2016 at 9:00 pm
Remember the Hillary Victory Fund? This is what it is buying: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/rnc-staff-state-republicans-223642
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brian stouder said on May 28, 2016 at 1:08 am
One quick note; not to seem obsessive (like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, who could connect anyone back to Greece – and could cure anything with Windex) – but I recorded President Obama’s speech at Hiroshima, and watched it this evening, and it reminded me (generally speaking) of Lincoln at Gettysburg.
He touched on the unfinished business (for humanity) of reigning in nuclear weapons, and invoked our Declaration of Independence (‘All men created equal’ and all that), as the 16th president did in South Central Pennsylvania, in the aftermath of that horrendous clash.
If the Declaration of Independence is indeed a universal truth*, then invoking it at Hiroshima is altogether fitting and proper.
*as a fragment from Lincoln’s musings on the Constitution, and America’s founding, with regard to America’s Declaration of Independence, and the statement that “All men are created equal”:
All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all” — the principle that clears the path for all — gives hope to all — and, by consequence, enterprize, and industry to all.
The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed, people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.
The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple — not the apple for the picture.
So let us act, that neither picture, or apple shall ever be blurred, or bruised or broken. That we may so act, we must study, and understand the points of danger.
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Suzanne said on May 28, 2016 at 7:34 am
FWIW, I upgraded to Windows 10 & hate it. I loved Windows 7 and wish I had stayed with it.
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Deborah said on May 28, 2016 at 10:23 am
I finally watched that cat video and it is hilarious. If you haven’t watched it yet, do it.
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MichaelG said on May 28, 2016 at 10:39 am
I also liked Windows 7 and hated 8. 10 insinuated itself into my computer through a subterfuge. For months a big box would appear on the screen urging me to install 10. One day it presented two choices. Install now or get back to me later. I clicked on get back to me later without really thinking about it. Sure enough, one day it suddenly started installing itself. It is better than 8 but I still dislike it a lot.
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Jakash said on May 28, 2016 at 1:31 pm
Brian,
I don’t know if you saw this, or will care to, but CBS Sunday Morning had a nice, 8-min. profile of your favorite cable news host a couple weeks ago:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rachel-maddow-storyteller/
Deborah,
Given your appreciation for architecture and design, you might be interested in this exhibit. Plus, the article makes multiple references to your building and signs off with a mention of Marina City, which you referred to recently, musing about the “Playboy pleasures that still, perhaps, go on inside.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-playboy-architecture-kamin-met-0515-20160513-column.html
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brian stouder said on May 28, 2016 at 3:29 pm
Jackash – that is a marvelous piece, regarding Ms Maddow, on your link; thanks for sharing!
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Joe K said on May 28, 2016 at 5:47 pm
Brian,
I’ll see your Maddow and raise you a Kennedy on Fox Business.
Pilot Joe
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brian stouder said on May 28, 2016 at 9:04 pm
I’ve seen that Kennedy on Fox, and she is indeed something special. Also – Megyn Kelly is flat-out marvelous; the real-deal.
When there’s BREAKING NEWS happening, and things are unclear – I often hit Fox, as I’ve noticed they’re quicker to pass along what ‘the word’ is.
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Brandon said on May 28, 2016 at 11:31 pm
I remember when Kennedy, and Alison Stewart (now an anchor at PBS), were MTV VJs.
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Deborah said on May 29, 2016 at 12:01 am
Jakash, interesting link, thanks for that. I do now live in one of the buildings they described, but I’ve heard the stories a bit differently. The original developer of the buildings 860 | 880 LSD was often in conflict with Mies, and many architects who live there now have tried to return the units to Meis’s vision, not the developer’s. But it’s unclear both ways. Most people could not care less. Many architects think developers are shits, they would never say that because develpers sometimes pay the bills, but developers are usually mostly interested in the bottom line, how much money they can make. Trump is a quintessential developer, he talks like one, he acts like one, his world revolves around real estate development.
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Dexter said on May 29, 2016 at 1:13 am
My go-to guy told me that my Vista-loaded Dell is too old to support 10 and no getting out of it, I’ll soon need a new computer. I just cannot get by with only a tablet. Already my Chrome browser warns me that soon support from Windows is ceasing, so I went back to trusty old Firefox and my man told me to keep using it until they aren’t supported and then I’ll be running out for yet another desktop.
I know…desktops and CDs and DVDs are supposed to be history, along with computer desks and other trappings…but NETFLIX sure isn’t holding up their end…every time I want to watch a fave old film, NETFLIX tells me it’s only on disc…well, damn it, I joined NETFLIX for the streaming, not to fuck around with mailing discs back and forth. Horseshit, I say.
May 29th, eh? On this calendar day many years ago I first saw this http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/kplu/files/201202/1228714_Banse_Rainier2.jpg
from the air, coming back from Vietnam via Japan. Damn, what a beautiful sight it was. For the record, nobody in my group kissed the ground at SeaTac. I thought about it, but it seemed corny to everybody else…bad movie stuff.
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Julie Robinson said on May 29, 2016 at 10:56 am
Dexter, I’m not that jazzed about my tablet either. It’s good for travel but I like my computers better. Especially right now when I need cataract surgery, the bigger the screen, the better.
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MichaelG said on May 29, 2016 at 11:15 am
Julie, as your resident cataract surgery salesman, I urge you to run, don’t walk, down to your doc and get the surgery done. The results are dramatic. Miraculous. Especially if, as it seems from your post, your cataracts are getting fairly advanced.
My eyes are fine now but I definitely prefer my big 23″ hi-def screen. My computer is an old fashioned tower type. It sits on the floor. I like it because it has tons of ports of all kinds, a gazillion USB ports and ports for every kind of memory card there is. Plus the controls are on top so I can reach down without even bending over. There are also two DVD drives which I never use and a huge solid state hard drive.
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Deborah said on May 29, 2016 at 11:26 am
We flew to NM behind a big fat blowhard who was loud and obnoxious. He made it perfectly clear that he was going to recline his seat and no one could stop him. He was in an aisle seat, in the row behind his I had the middle and my husband had the window seat. A large young man had the aisle seat next to me and I felt so sorry for him when the jerk in front of him reclined his seat. The jerk kept the attendant busy bringing him drink after drink, at least 4 or 5 with some kind of alcohol. By the end of the flight he was bellowing about politics and can you guess who he is a supporter for? Why Trump, of course. I could not wait to get off of that plane.
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beb said on May 29, 2016 at 1:41 pm
Dexter I feel your pain about using Vista. But, you know, I was reading just this morning about a conference for OS/2 fans. Now there’s and old, old, old operating system. There are also fans for BeOS, Commadore 64OS and AmigaOS. The latter is hard to understand because the OS was designed to get the most out of a very limited machine. Today’s hardware is so much better you don’t need software hacks to achieve the same results.
Microsoft’s approach to forcing people to upgrade to Win10 is so heinous that the company ought to be blacklisted as a malware site. My wife’s Win8.1 machine started upgrading unexpectedly and it was a nightmare getting the power line pulled, the battery pulled then rebooting into “Safe mode without networking” so we could turn off “automatic upgrades.”
While I’m happy enough with Win7 I’d much rather have XP because my library of perfectly fine 20 year old software conflicts with 7 in various mildly annoying ways but worked perfectly with XP.
A friend who was part of my father’s generation mentioned playing basketball in the university near Holland, MI. It was a religious school. He mentioned how closely the team was watched so that they didn’t drink, carouse, or otherwise misbehave. That seemed pretty terrible, pretty undemocratic. Then I read about this:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2016/05/28/pelicans-g-dejean-jones-dies-23/85092744/
A 23 year man is dead for busting into the wrong apartment. I don’t blame the apartment owner. It’s a clear example of self-defense. The team is saying that he thought he had been locked out of his girlfriend’s apartment. But busting down a door? Banging on the bedroom door? Sounds like anger management issues. Sounds like a man totally out of control. Why do people like this become sports celebrities?
Hillary’s emails are the closest thing the Republicans can get to a scandal. And even here it doesn’t hold water because people like Colin Powell used their own email system. Karl Rove used the GOP’s mail server when he was a White House employee, clearly in violation of the White House records-keeping law. Before slamming HRC on wanting to keep using her Blackberry, remember that BHO also wanted to keep using his Blackberry after becoming prez. There’s a reason they used to called Crackberry. So cut slack on that. And the fact remains that HRC claims she never received or sent then classified material from her phone. If someone could have proved her wrong about that they would have by now. This is just another baseless attack by Republicans. GOP = KKK.
Chelsea Clinton was hired as a special correspondent to generate fluff pieces. I recall hearing her narrate her first piece. She had no talent for narration. It was hard to know how or why she got hired. Idon’t think she did many (any?) reports after that. Yeah, Chelsea seems like an entitled child of wealth.
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David C. said on May 29, 2016 at 1:54 pm
If I was a flight attendant, I would strike until airlines installed non-reclining seats. I haven’t flown in a couple of years, but the two of the last three flights had a dispute about reclining. Neither was close to the pilot saying I’m going to turn this thing around and we’re all going back home, but voices were raised and the attendants had to calm things down. Better yet, a law should be passed to require airline seats accommodate at least a 95th percentile person which is about 6″3″ and 250 lbs. Right now, I understand it’s at about 70th to 80th percentile depending on how much the airline hates their customers.
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Dexter said on May 29, 2016 at 4:53 pm
Damn it, it’s 2016 and when I was a kid I was promised I would have my own private jet plane parked beside my car in the garage…long distance, fly, grocery and errands, drive. Simple. But oh no, we’re enduring airport stress from TSA lines and then crammed into tin can cattle cars, sometimes with assholes like Deborah’s stress-building plane seat neighbor, sometimes with wackos, sometimes worse. Well, so I told by friends and family…I haven’t flown out for a vacation since 1996, but I watch TV. My wife is soon going back out west , to SoCal beaches and Las Vegas, partying with our eldest daughter. She’s so glad to be getting away from me she never complains about airports or airplanes, however. 🙂
Last summer our Columbus-based daughter flew to Savannah and on to Myrtle Beach via car , originating flight out of Rickenbacker International Airport, Columbus. Before, I thought it was an abandoned airfield…it’s never advertised as an alternative to Port Columbus International, at least up where I live.
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Dave said on May 29, 2016 at 5:13 pm
Allegiant flies out of Rickenbacker, Dex, the same airline that flies out of Fort Wayne. We’ve flown on Allegiant many times from Fort Wayne to Clearwater/St. Petersburg, and the only issue we’ve ever had is late flights a couple of times. However, they frequently are in the news with good reason in Florida, for the many flights that’ve been terminated or had some sort of issues. It’s been enough that we’ve decided to steer clear of them for awhile, even though it would be a nice way to travel from Clearwater to Knoxville, where our daughter is.
Chelsea made a few appearances on NBC and that was that. I imagine that Jenna Bush Hager got her position at NBC with the similar sort of pull but she does, at least, fill in on a regular basis, maybe more earning her (I’m sure) generous salary more than Chelsea did.
An example of Allegiant’s bad press: http://www.clickorlando.com/news/more-problems-for-allegiant-airlines
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Julie Robinson said on May 29, 2016 at 7:01 pm
MichaelG, I am ready now, very tired of seeing crappy.I thought I’d be getting a vitrectomy, like Nancy, but that condition has stabilized. I’m going to see if I can get corrective lenses implanted. Right now at the pool I’m very thankful for the thick blue line down the center of the lane.
Thanks Dave, we’re getting on an Allegiant flight Thursday.
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Dave said on May 29, 2016 at 9:27 pm
Julie, it’s going to be fine, I’m sure. As I said, we’ve had many pleasant flights with them and I’m sure you will, too.
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Judybusy said on May 29, 2016 at 10:01 pm
Because I’m short, it had never occured to me that reclining one’s seat was rude, or uncomfortable for the person behind me. Myopic, I know. However, thanks to someone here a couple years ago, I now check to see if the person behind me is my size before I recline. I am finding that reclining really doesn’t make things all that more comfortable.
When we leave on our European trip next week, we’re arriving at the airport 3 hours before our flight just to be sure we get through security in a timely fashion. I am very worried about Charles de Gaulle on the way home. However, I feel so fortunate just to be travelling that all this is just piffle.
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Sherri said on May 29, 2016 at 10:09 pm
I came down with a cold a few days ago, which is mildly annoying. The cold itself isn’t that bad, except that it has settled in my eyes, giving me conjunctivitis in both eyes, which is really annoying. I’m on day four of swollen, red, runny eyes. My vision is fine, other than my eyes being swollen and runny, and my eyes don’t really hurt, just feel a little irritated, but it’s a real pain. And, from what I can tell, there’s not much to be done about it other than to let it run its course, since it’s almost certainly viral not bacterial. So this is just me whining about it.
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Julie Robinson said on May 29, 2016 at 10:28 pm
We fly Allegiant at least three times a year to see our kids in Orlando. It’s not great but it doesn’t scare me. It’s a direct flight of two hours, when the alternative is two or three flights at two or three times the cost. Or driving to Chicago or Indy. So we’re gonna keep flying them.
Besides, if it’s my time, it’s my time. Death holds no fears for me.
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Deborah said on May 29, 2016 at 10:58 pm
Ugh, Sherri, my eyes get that way from time to time, it’s miserable, I feel for you. Also, I’ve said this before but I’m developing cataracts, but the weird thing is that my ability to read without glasses has actually improved because of it. My night vision is horrible but I have new glasses that help greatly with that. Getting old is the pits.
Today we went to a cookout with some friends who live in Taos, they’re architects and live in a house they totally built by themselves that is a type called “earthship”. There are a couple of communities of earthships in Taos all started by another architect we know, who makes buildings out of garbage, old tires and aluminum cans, etc. He’s a real character. The friends we met with today used to work for the garbage architect but they have branched out and have their own practice now. They are are all about sustainability, solar, passive solar, catching water etc. Here’s a link to the earthship Guy’s site, all the buildings look very Tolkien-esque to me. http://earthship.com/Designs/earthship-village-ecologies.
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Brandon said on May 30, 2016 at 12:37 am
I think Nancy, and many commenters here, will weigh in on this weekend’s Libertarian convention with the next post. #johnsonweld2016
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MichaelG said on May 30, 2016 at 1:09 am
Judybusy, CDG is a huge airport and you may have to do a bit of walking and even take a bus to get to your next flight but, as long as the French aren’t on strike I don’t think you have anything to worry about. It’s like walking through a big shopping mall. Just relax and go with the flow.
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Suzanne said on May 30, 2016 at 9:06 am
We flew Allegiant once from Ft Wayne to AZ. It was fine. The website to book tix is awful. There are so many ads you have to be on your A game to make sure you are buying only what you want. We did not fly back on Allegiant, though, as the only flight back leaves at 6:30 or 7:00 am from the airport in Mesa. Uh, no. If I am on vacation, I don’t want to have to be at the airport at 4am.
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