School for Scamdal category archive
“Just the Facts, Ma’am” 0
In related news, the Inky endorsed Hillary Clinton. That is no surprise. I call your attention to the endorsement for the skillful way it skewered the Republicans’ Hillary Clinton scamdals (emphasis in the original).
What about the emails? An exhaustive investigation by the FBI concluded that Clinton had carelessly risked national security by using a private server at her home to read emails that at times included classified information — but that her actions were not criminal. That conclusion upset Republicans who had lavished praise on FBI Director James Comey, himself a registered Republican, before he announced his decision. Some continue to call for Clinton’s arrest each time more emails are released. But their tirades smell more like political gamesmanship than a genuine search for truth.
No one knows how many previous secretaries of state mishandled classified material. Colin Powell reportedly used an AOL account to correspond with foreign officials on his laptop. Who knows what John Foster Dulles, Cyrus Vance, Dean Rusk, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, or James Baker did when they wanted to take their work home? Email didn’t exist. The point isn’t to excuse Clinton’s behavior, which she has admitted was a mistake, but to put it into perspective.
Follow the link for the complete editorial.
“A Field Guide to Lies” 0
Thom and Dr. Daniel Levitin discuss how to separate the “wheat from the digital chaff.” The substantive portion of the discussion starts at about the 3:24 mark.
Chris-Crossed, the Exemplar Dept. 0
Headline of the day: Analysis: Why people don’t trust politicians, in one Chris Christie interview
That Other Email Scamdal 0
I’ve been considering how to address the DNC email leak but the gelatin has not yet completely set.
I was going to make two main points.
- As with most of these things, there’s no there there. There is no indication that the thoughts and musing were ever turned into action. Politics can be a dirty business (Donald Trump’s entire campaign q. v.); that political operatives might consider dirty tactics even to discard them should surprise no one but the naive and the stupid.
- In a fact that has been too often ignored by the corporate media, Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. He joined the party only to run for its nomination. That his deciding to join to party for that reason alone might have engendered some resentment among those who have been laboring long and wearily in the Democratic Party vineyards should also surprise no one but the see above.
Fortunately, Dick Polman decided to write the post so I don’t have to. Here’s bit of his piece; the excerpt opens with a reference to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s sudden resignation from the chair of the DNC:
Yes, it was abhorrent that some staffers suggested making an issue of Sanders’ religion – or lack of religion – in a few southern primaries, but two quick points: (1) the staffers made suggestions that were never acted upon, and (2) these were just DNC staffers, not Clinton campaign staffers.
The Next Looming Scamdal 0
Prepare for the coming scamdal about the fact that there is no there, there in yet another Clinton scamdal.
The fact that the mud has not stuck will not keep Republicans, Fox News, and their dupes, symps, and fellow travelers, from continuing to throw the mud.
After all, it’s their mud. They created it out of lies and innuendo, they sustain it, it’s all they got.
So You Think You Know Something . . . . 0
Barry Ritholtz discusses the mechanics of misinformation.
Follow the link, where he analyzes the role of “agnotology” in Britain’s Brexit vote. Left unanswered is this question:
How the hell does “agnotology” differ from propaganda or, for that matter, a plain old lie, and why did we need a new word with more syllables for it?
/dev/null 0
I haven’t paid much attention to the Hillary Clinton email scamdal because I knew from the git-go that it was yet another Republican lie in a long parade of lies about the Clintons, a parade reaching back to and beyond the Republican fever dream that the Clintons somehow murdered Vince Foster.
One does not have to be a fan of the Clintons to be disgusted by the Republican lies.
Now Cynthia Dill has sacrificed her time to plough through the bureacratise of the report on Hillary Clinton’s email scamdal so we don’t have to. Her findings come as no surprise. As with an email sent to /dev/null, there’s no there there.
Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
Clinton reasonably believed her private server was allowed because the bureaucrats in charge of security allowed it. This present-day conviction for violating rule 12 FAM 544.2 after the fact means nothing of any consequence. Nobody was hurt. No security was breached. Who cares?
I think one reason that this particular scamdal has had some staying power is that, to most persons, an email server–hell, a computer–is a dark magic box, mysterious and alchemical.
An email server is, actually, nothing more than a program that relays mail from the persons who write it to the recipients over a network and from a network to the recipient(s).
You too can have your own email server, if you wish. I know folks who do. It’s a bit complex, but it’s not magic, it’s not alchemy, it’s not voodoo; it’s just a computer program. (If you think government servers are somehow magically more secure than other servers, think again. Governments don’t do security better than anyone else, except possibly Sony.)
(Be sure to check your ISP’s terms of service before setting up your own mail server; most US ISPs forbid public-facing servers–news, web, database, mail–unless you have a business-class account. That’s why I don’t run my own mail server–my ISP’s TOS forbid it for my level of account. Otherwise I’d set one up just to see whether I could make it work. I like crossword puzzles too.)
Nattering Nabobs of Negativism, Republican Style 0
Coleen Carlstedt-Johnson considers the complaints about Hillary Clinton and decides that there’s no there there. Here’s her take on one of them (emphasis in the original):
Follow the link to see what she said about the others.
Remember, the Clintons have been targets of a quarter-century of conservative calumny. It’s effective to the extent that the lies have been repeated so relentlessly that folks who don’t pay close attention have come to accept them as true.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
A newspaper editor who has spent two and a half decades covering the Clintons delivers her judgement on the Hillary Clinton scamdals. A snippet; follow the link for the full story:
Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.
Remember that Republicans have spent 25 years lobbing made-up dirt at the Clintons.
When you find yourself thinking, “Hillary Clinton can’t be trusted,” ask yourself, are you basing your statement on facts or on what Republicans said?
“Just the Facts, Ma’am” 0
Wait. No, we meant our facts, not real facts.
As my two or three regular readers know, I’m not a big fan of Hilary Clinton, but I freely admit that that has more to do with style than with substance; her substance is pretty damn substantial and her making peace with President Obama after the 2008 nomination race showed a lot of class (on both their parts, I must add).
In the case of the Benghazi Republican scamdal, I must agree with John Cole.
The Scam Cycle 0
Noz explains the workings of the eternal exercise wheels of Republican scamdals. A snippet:
Aside:
Noz misplet “librul media.”
Lies and Lying Liars 0
Jay Bookman uncovers the real Benghazi scandal.
Lies and Lying Liars 0
Republicans make stuff up.
It’s what they do, because the facts lean left.
The narrator’s faith that
you can’t win the argument if you don’t have the facts
is touchingly heartwarming.
“You’ve Got Mail” 0
Brian Greenspun, owner and publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, thinks that, as regards Hilary Clinton’s email, it’s time to move on. A nugget:
Anyone who has been paying attention knows that this kerfuffle over email is much ado about nothing whatsoever; neither policy nor law was violated. Furthermore, no one who understands how email works, not even the most right-wing geeks I know, thinks that there is any there there.
The answer to Greenspun’s question, though, is simple. Republicans can’t afford to focus on stuff that matters, because the facts lean left. Therefore, they must make stuff up.
Follow the link for the rest of his article.
