From Pine View Farm

School for Scamdal category archive

“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.

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If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0

Seth Meyers dissects the disparate treatment.

Via Raw Story.

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Chris-Crossed, the Exemplar Dept. 0

Headline of the day: Analysis: Why people don’t trust politicians, in one Chris Christie interview

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There’s a New Clinton Scamdal Come to Town 0

People asked for favors. (Guess what? They didn’t get them.)

Via Noz.

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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:

Chairman Schultz’s sudden resignation yesterday, prompted by the hacked release of DNC emails that showed a committee tilt toward Clinton’s candidacy, was not the best way to launch a convention. The DNC had claimed that it was neutral in the Clinton-Sanders fight, but some of the emails confirmed what we generally suspected anyway, that party headquarters looked more favorably on the candidate who had spent 40 years doing spadework for the party – as opposed to the guy who wasn’t even a member of the party. Shocking.

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.

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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.

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News from the Troll Booth 0

Picture of Trey Gowdy waving Benghazi report and saying,

In a sane world, they’d be hiding under a bridge somewhere.

Via Juanita Jean.

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So You Think You Know Something . . . . 0

Barry Ritholtz discusses the mechanics of misinformation.

However, there is a disconcerting trend that has gained strength: agnotology. It’s a term worth knowing, since it is going global. The word was coined by Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor, who described it as “culturally constructed ignorance, created by special interest groups to create confusion and suppress the truth in a societally important issue.” It is especially useful to sow seeds of doubt in complex scientific issues by publicizing inaccurate or misleading data.

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?

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/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):

This was no covert operation, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like Clinton was secretly selling arms to Iran and funding the Contras. The Clintons paid out-of-pocket for a few techies to work in their basement keeping this server humming and free from cyber breaches. Staffers from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security inspected the email system, looked at the logs and communicated with these people on a regular basis. The bureau even refused to help fix it when Hurricane Sandy disrupted power “because it was a private server,” according to the report.

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.)

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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):

She’s too guarded. You would be a little circumspect about what you said and how you said it, too, if you had suffered 25 years of brutal verbal abuse, lack of respect and outright degradation by the opposing party. If I were she, I’d be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Wouldn’t you prefer a president who thinks about the ramifications of her statements before she speaks, rather than someone who blurts out what is expedient at the moment, then changes his stance, so that you can never rely on what he says?

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.

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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:

I would be “dead rich”, to adapt an infamous Clinton phrase, if I could bill for all the hours I’ve spent covering just about every “scandal” that has enveloped the Clintons. As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising.

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?

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“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.

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One’s Attire Must Suit the Occasion 0

Republican Benghazi Committee to Hillary Clinton, as they indicated a witch's costume:  Could you put it on before the hearing.  It would make things simpler.

Via Job’s Anger.

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The Scam Cycle 0

Noz explains the workings of the eternal exercise wheels of Republican scamdals. A snippet:

Republican in pilgrim outfit:  Persons say our Benghazi hearings are a witch hunt.  That's not true!   (Holds up torch) We've already found the witch.

We have seen this over and over again recently. The GOP comes up with some line, they try it and it flops. But they can’t ever acknowledge that the line was no good so they blame someone else for the flop (often the “liberal media”) and they try it again. Even if it flops again, they will try it over and over, and they will continue trying it even when it becomes clear that the line is becoming a liability.

Aside:

Noz misplet “librul media.”

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Lies and Lying Liars 0

Jay Bookman uncovers the real Benghazi scandal.

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Deja Vu All Over Again 0

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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.

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“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:

There are congressional hearings and investigations galore trying to determine whether there was any wrongdoing, and those will play out on the political schedules of others. (For some reason, I keep thinking Whitewater and other conspiracies that never happened when I think of congressional investigations by Republicans). We may one day know for sure that there is no “there” there when it comes to all the allegations being bandied about. But, until that day comes, shouldn’t we be entitled to hear her vision for America and her plan to help us fulfill the promise that is the United States?

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.

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If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0

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Chartering a Course for Disaster 0

John Romano has a strategy for dealing with school-yard bullies.

How do you deal with troublemakers in the classroom?

You know the type. The ones who refuse to listen, and the ones who are slow to learn. The ones who don’t care about the disruptions they cause, or the hours they waste.

As another school year winds down, I have a humble suggestion for dealing with those schoolyard agitators who want to take over every classroom:

Stop electing them to the Legislature.

Details at the link.

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