Texas Progressives say: Her name is Kate Cox

On behalf of Kate Cox, fuck the Texas Supreme Court.

With more, Off the Kuff writes about the emergency lawsuit that would have allowed a Dallas woman to get an abortion before Ken Paxton stuck his nose in.

 

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Austin City Council votes to allow denser housing in single-family residential zoning. But, "votes to allow" doesn't mean it will actually happen. There's a whole raft of issues behind this one, nationally. That said, the two opponents and the constituents they represent aren't necessarily "right."

The Texas Historical Commission seems to be following the Texas State Historical Association in having problems with wingnuts.

Kenny Boy and DPS head Steve McCraw continue to hate on Uvalde families.

 

DosCentavos offers up another Thoughts on Viernes. This one is about the latest on COVID and DPS absolving itself.

Fort Worth Diocese Bishop Michael Olson fighting an order of nuns? And Amon G. Carter's granddaughter? Bring it on! I was broadly familiar already with the front story, and also with Bishop Olson's reputation. And, per the story, will Francis the Talking Pope move him on at some point? As of now, hurdling Catholic bureaucracy seems to be an issue.

SocraticGadfly notes how the vaunted Texas economic miracle still really isn't.

 

Genocide Joe's really desperate if the Clintons are going to become a bigger part of his campaign. 

 

And, with a Biden impeachment inquiry started, will BlueAnon like Adam Schiff stop lying about Trump's first impeachment not being political when it clearly was?

Democrat State Sen. Nathan Johnson gets primaried. Good; we need more ConservaDems to face the music.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said that the Houston Police Officer's Union each day has the opportunity to side with candidates and elected officials who fully support democracy. 

 Evil MoPac mourns a tragic day in Austin.

The Dallas Observer talks to abortion supporters about the battles ahead. 

The TSTA Blog closes the door on a wasted year at the Capitol.

And, sorry, Kuff, but this outpost of Texas Progressives doesn't worship at the cult of Fuck You the Beaver. Nor do we run religiously based reflections on Hanukkah that are as much mythical as would be the typical religious leader's reflection on Christmas, especially given the Israel-Hamas war.

Texas Progressives talk this and that

Lots to talk about on various issues, so let's dig in!

State

Texas Monthly discusses what all is behind all the recent American and Southwest flight cancellations. Job loss, pre-vax mandate, is a fair chunk of it. Southwest's workforce is down 10 percent pre-pandemic and American's is off 20 percent. BUT? The Monthly ignores United. Per what I've read elsewhere, Southwest, at least, seems to have a just-in-time crew scheduling software, like the just-in-time scheduling managers that have employees not wanting to go back to restaurants and retail stores.

Off the Kuff discussed the first two gubernatorial polls of the fall.

Not so fast on that one Beto-Abbott poll, the first of Kuff's two links. The Trib has another, discussed in that second link, showing Strangeabbott with a comfortable lead. It also shows a lot of people distrust Matt McConaughey. It also shows that, within Rethuglicans, Strange has little to fear from Don Huffines, Allen West or the two of them combined, even. West is, interestingly, ahead of Huffines, with nearly double his support. Guess the wingnut-squared types recognize Huffines as "all hat no cattle" on claiming to be an outsider. Kenny Boy Paxton has little to fear from Pee Bush, too. Pee is well ahead of other challengers in the AG race. On the Dem side, R.F. O'Rourke well outpaces none of the above; nunya leads the Lite Guv and AG races.

That said, Pee Bush also continues to face flack over Alamo issues. Not noted in that piece is that, in the light of a new book by Chris Tomlinson et al, Lite Gov Danny Goeb felt the need to name a special Alamo protection commission. Among its members is Bush's predecessor, pistol-packing Jerry Patterson.  

DosCentavos recaps the 2021 local election results.

The federal Department of Justice is suing Texas over its special session SB1, the one that lead Dems in the Texas Lege to temporarily flee, but doing nothing else. This might have a chance. The suit is targeted and selective, and focuses on how certain provisions in the bill would affect the elderly and disabled. They arguably affect minorities, too, but in a post-Holder world, that's a tough angle to win.

CD Hooks takes a look at the one state lege special election, and Virginia and New Jersey, on what they might portend for Texas next year.

Another Texas death penalty case is in the news.

About 100 people a year die in Texas jails. Many of these were preventable, often easily preventable. The Observer takes a look, a deep look, including at the lack of enforcement when problems are found.

The Railroad Commission doesn't even make a pretense of being ethical.

The now illegal-in-Texas (under arguably dubious grounds by DSHS) delta-8 is being replaced by delta-9. 

Margaret Spellings and Tim Kopra call for a Lone Star space plan.

The Bloggess talks about depression and smiling.

Therese Odell brings you the best food TV episodes that feature Houston cuisine.

Angela Wilkins explains the health care inequity problem. Lisa Gray writes about the AstroWorld tragedy.

National and world

Hillary Clinton apparently Russiagated herself. One of Christopher Steele's flunkies has been indicted by the FBI, and among Danchenko's contacts and sources was Charles Dolan Jr., an old Friend of Bill. He appears not to have any direct tie, though. Danchenko is the main problem, or co-main problem along with FBI sloppiness, per National Review. The second sloppiness is the likes of Steele relying on a guy like this.

Red states have started criminalizing and prosecuting miscarriages.

Take a deep dive on "separation payments" and Status Quo Joe's fuzzy-headedness on the issue, whether another sign of aging-related mental health issues, ConservaDem political scrambling, or a mix of both.

A Sinclair reporter, whether honestly or via a slip, spills the beans and admits, re the Virginia election, that critical race theory is NOT taught in schools there.

The truth about Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize winner far worse than Dear Leader Obama, and arguably the worst and most megalomaniac since Kissinger.

Zhang Zhan, a Chinese journalist who reported on the truth of Xi Jinping Thought's early response to COVID was convicted and imprisoned in December. She's now on a hunger strike and reportedly close to death, even with forced feedings.  

Latest estimates are that Brexit will cost the UK 4 percent of GNP.

 

Rod Rosenstein blasts James Comey into bits

Former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein has turned both barrels on former FBI Director James Comey, calling him a "partisan pundit" who trampled "bright lines that should never be crossed."

The specific target of his ire is how Comey handled reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails adn server after then-AG Loretta Lynch had had her conflict-of-interest inducing meeting with Bill Clinton on the Phoenix tarmac.

Rosenstein is totally right. It was grandstanding, as I said at the time, and not SOP, either. Then-Deputy AG Sally Yates, Rosenstein's predecessor should have been contacted by Comey and she should have been asked to get Lynch to officially recuse herself, then take over. If Yates refused to act, then it's out of Comey's hands (other than leaking to the press).

That's why I said, in reviewing it, that Comey's book should have been called "A Higher Loyalty to His Self-Image."

Rosenstein said he would have handled Comey's firing differently had it been just him, not Trump, but that Comey deserved to be fired.

He did.

Period and end of story, Donut Twitter and Resistance.

Rosenstein's 12 Russians, Seth Rich, et alvs Trump, Putin Did it and Democrat nuttery

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, acting on the all things Russia investigation of special prosecutor Robert Mueller, has nailed 12 Russian coonskins to the indictment wall.

Mueller has indicted 12 Russian nationals, all alleged GRU employees, as announced by Rosenstein. Indictment claims one or more of them stole the credentials of a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee employee. From there, they allegedly got in the DCCC computer network, installed malware to keep their access open, etc., transmitted info from that network to a server computer in Phoenix, got into the DNC network via the DCCC network, implanted the same malware, and sent info from DNC computers to a server in Illinois.

(We now have a 13th indictee, Mariia Butina, in a separate part of the investigation. She reportedly was under the handling of Alexander Torshin of Russia's central bank and working with NRA member Paul Erickson as a go-between. Exactly what she allegedly did wrong seems a bit murky at this time.)

Also addressing the download speeds issue, it seems, per Nathaniel Freitas mentioning the use of cloud computing, it is alleged that the 12 Russians got access to other DNC docs that were stored on cloud computers.

There are a number of things we should note, while eventually getting to "Deep Throat" Mark Felt's advice to "Follow the money."

First, while the indictment alleges conspiracy between the 12 and a U.S. Congressional candidate (page 15) and a state-level lobbyist (page 16), no collusion is alleged with the Trump campaign. And even those two do not rise to criminal collusion unless the persons involved had a good idea they were interacting with Russians for nefarious purposes.

Second, in muddying the waters, they allegedly stole Black Lives Matter info, then released it to a reporter while the 12 were in Guccifer 2.0 persona (page 16). The reporter contacted them back. This would seem to indicate the 12 were in the business of throwing shade on the U.S. electoral process in general. And, tho Rosenstein most certainly will not name him, who IS that reporter?

Third, also on page 16, who is the "person in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump"? Off the top of my Nixon-tattooed back, that sure sounds like Roger Stone.

Fourth, "Organization 1" sure sounds like WikiLeaks, of course.

Fifth is the use of cryptocurrency to pay for much of the needs of this operation. (This is going to make intelligence and national-level police agencies not just in the US but around the world increase their monitoring of cryptocurrency systems.)

Sixth, while there may not be any new collusion evidence (probably because there was none), the indictments clearly fuel obstruction of justice issues vis-a-vis Trump himself, per Lawfare. (It must be remembered that Lawfare is basically the left-hand side of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.)

Seventh, and "Follow the money" time, outside of the Rosenstein indictments and the ongoing Mueller investigation, I feel pretty confident that Donald Trump did not collude with Vladimir Putin or anybody employed by the Russian government to get elected.

Has he, though, for some time before his election, "colluded" with Russian oligarchs to be a washing machine to launder their ill-gotten money? Quite possibly, per Adam Davidson. Has he used the power and office of the presidency — and did he hint at this while campaigning — to enhance this? Also quite possibly. Is this an Emoluments Clause issue? Maybe, but likely impossible to prove.

Also, as David Klion and many others have noted, Jared Kushner and other Trump family members and allies also face money-laundering scrutiny. And, those Russian oligarchs got their money and their power, as Klion notes, because the neoliberal capitalists behind the bipartisan foreign policy establishment set them up.

Thom Hartmann agrees that Trump probably has been doing mega-grifting from Russian oligarchs. He can even quote Eric Trump on this:

"We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia."

Hartmann goes on to speculate about what would happen if Putin told his oligarchs to do a "margin call" on Trump. It could explain at least some of Trump's behavior — not just fear of another bankruptcy but fear of being exposed as the emperor with no clothes.

Dave Leonhardt notes Don Jr. said the same way back in 2008. (Sidebar: Among major developed countries, only the US and UK allow anonymous purchases of real estate through LLCs and the like. Where do the Mafiyya hold property?)

Hillbots, the bipartisan foreign policy establishment and others will say, Russian oligarchs all answer to Putin, so surely this proves Trump-Putin collusion. (Per Hartmann's three options for why Trump acts as he does toward Putin, this would also let the semi-sane ones drop the Manchurian Candidate angle.)

Tosh and tommyrot.

Putin has more than enough money. Beyond that, he's about power, not money. Beyond that, he's about being a Russian patriot and restoring Russian hegemony and superpower status.

Before the election, while we know that they disliked Hillary Clinton, we also know that Kremlin insiders — career bureaucrats of political operations, not oligarchs — preferred her to Trump because of her experience and stability. And, as far as we know, Putin has signed off on this.

To phrase this one another way, while Russian oligarchs may do Putin's bidding, Putin doesn't do their bidding. Bill Browder's history shows that.

And, Putin himself, before his meeting with Trump, noted:

"Where did you get this idea that President Trump trusts me or I trust him? He defends the interests of the United States of America. I defend the interests of the Russian Federation."

Indeed. And if oligarchs don't align with those interests, Putin moves on. So, Putin would indeed use Trump's indebtedness as a weapon. But any groveling by either Trump or the oligarchs to help the oligarchs out would go nowhere if Putin wasn't interested.

In short, as Ryan Cooper notes? The 2016 election issues were about AMERICAN corruption. And, no, TrumpTrain riders, other wingnuts, and fellow travelers, no Deep State involved.

Eighth, as far as everything the GRU agents allegedly did, the U.S., and the rest of the West, hoist itself by its own petard in 2009. Whether Putin would have honored an international cyberconventions treaty may be debated, but one could have been in place. Thanks, Obama.

Ninth, none of this should be construed as giving credence to the fevered brainstorms of either David Corn and Jon Chait or the Kossacks Marcy Wheeler and Bmaz, unless the reporter she references happens to be the same one as in Rosenstein's filing.

Tenth, it should also not should it be construed as giving credence to every bit of handwaving and whataboutism at Consortium News. At Consortium News, I presume Joe Lauria is doing this because Ray McGovern is unavailable, or else exhausted from fellating Darrell Issa.

To answer some of Lauria's whataboutism:

Russia doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US (and doesn't extradite Russian nationals in general), so, of course, we will have things that never see the light of day past these indictments. Duh. And, the fact that material facts presented in the indictments are not legal evidence does not at all mean that these things don't exist as empirical evidence, contra what Joe seems to imply and presumably wants most readers to infer.

As for the timing of the indictments? I'm glad Joe is a mind-rider. Joe, do you read crystal balls at Renaissance festivals? Also, last I checked, Great Britain, where Trump was at yesterday, is not Russia. Yes, Trump is meeting Putin on Monday. But, the idea that these indictments would change the meeting is laughable. For them to have that effect, if timing were deliberate and being done in an effort to restrain Trump, Rosenstein should have announced them before GOP Congresscritters went to Moscow a week ago.

And, derp? Rosenstein offered Trump the option of a pre-Helsinki or a post-Helsinki announcement and Trump chose pre-Helsinki.

Also, directly contradicting and undermining Lauria, Lawfare, at the obstruction of justice link above, notes:

But, to be clear, Mueller was not trying to make a press statement. We know that not merely because that’s not the way Mueller operates but also because Rosenstein said specifically at his press conference that he had briefed the president on the matter before Trump left town—days before the Strzok hearing yet also mere days before Trump has a scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Double derp.

As for the FBI and bias? Garrett Graff, in a guest column at the NYT, is the voice of reason, saying the problem is NOT Peter Strzok, but the NY office of the FBI leaking, that undercuts both the whatabouters and the wingnuts.

 The office has long been a source of meddlesome leaks, in part because of the intermixing of F.B.I. agents and New York Police Department officers who have close relationships with the city’s press corps. 

More derp.

Related, specifically, to Consortium News' old reliance on Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity's split decision reliance on "The Forensicator" for claiming that download speeds precluded Russkies from doing much of this? Old Forensicator, as of Sunday, had not posted anything about the indictments.

(Update, Aug. 6: Forensicator, if Computer Weekly is right, is a front man for a British self-described black hat hacker and pro-Trumpist Tim Leonard. And, Duncan Campbell says that Bill Binney, at least, within VIPS, flipped his stance on the "impossible to download internationally claims" after taking a second look at the files, with Campbell. But Binney claims that Campbell misinterprets him. But, Binney himself misinterprets the VIPS statement. Per the "minority report" linked above, it's clear that not all of VIPS accepted that this had to be a hack, not a download.

(Update, April 8, 2021: Until reading Glenn Greenwald's "No Place to Hide," I didn't know Campbell's background. Well, Duncan Campbell, as the man who first exposed the GCHQ by name and the "Five Eyes," knows his shit. As a man earlier targeted for prosecution under Britain's Official Secrets Act, he has no love lost for the national security state or its smears. So, his pronouncements re the Seth Rich case, and his skill in getting the information, should be taken with the utmost seriousness.)

And, as for Disobedient Media lamenting a "smear" of Leonard/Carter? Good for the goose, good for the gander — Bill Binney apparently believes in microwave mind control weapons. And, the person whose show he is on thinks this is a plot to remove gun rights.)

Eleventh, per the above, it should most definitely not give any credence to any wingnuts, and any spinning by them needs to be challenged.

I'll stand on the take of James Risen, who is not a total friend of an alleged "deep state," over both the whataboutism above and the wingnuts below. And, re both groups, I'm going to quote:

It wasn’t Seth Rich, the murdered young Democratic staffer whose name has been dragged through the mud by countless fringe theorists, and whose parents are now suing Fox News for propagating such lies. 

It wasn’t an inside job by the Democrats themselves, as a group of out-of-touch former intelligence officials tried to convince themselves and the world.  The Mueller investigation isn’t a “witch hunt,” as Donald Trump and his loyalists have repeatedly claimed.

I especially like his take on VIPS. (The link is to the Aaron Mate piece at The Nation that I've blogged about.)

I'm not following Risen down the collusion road, though, and I'll note that, per Wen Ho Lee, he's not a total enemy of the intelligence establishment, either. The GRU folks had started the hacks long before the July 27, 2016 callout by Trump. And, per some people who are not whatabouters or wingnuts who still don't see collusion.

For example, as for claims by H.A. Goodman that "no DNC servers" and "no Russian hacks" have been found. It is true that, ever since its original denial to James Comey, the investigation has used mirrors and information from the servers from CrowdStrike, per the Hill. That said, CrowdStrike is probably not competent enough to successfully fudge DNC servers. And, yes, we still need the word "alleged," H.A., but the Russian hacks IS the indictments.

Update, Nov. 22, 2019, related to that and Crowdstrike:

Well put on Crowdstrike, & a  I didn't think of before that at least partially refudiates #TrumpTrain riders, #SethRich #conspiracytheory mongers like Ty Clevenger, and their fellow travelers in the VIPS world over #Forensicator. There was/is no single server to "hand over." https://t.co/pOZOehl5ZL

— reallyDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) November 22, 2019

Back to the original.

That said, Goodman, who probably never really was a Berniecrat in 2016, just an anti-Hillary Clinton wannabe, and who is now a gun nut as part of being a Trumper, has low credibility on this. (And, I called him out on Twitter about "never really a Berniecrat.")

Disobedient Media claiming Guccifer 2.0 never leaked anything damaging to Clinton is absurd if one assumes he/they was the main Wikileaker as well as setting up DCLeaks. The claim that it leaked info damaging to Trump is even more laughable.

More laughable yet is its making insinuations because certain things aren't detailed in the indictment when in reality that's how indictments work. It also, in the piece I'm reading but will not link, says what I see as deliberately confusing, and deliberately rhetorical, questions about timelines, like "Why didn't X say this in January 2017?" Because that was 18 months and much less research ago? Derp.

I've fired another shot across the Twitter bow indicating that left-liberal and leftist friends of mine who I follow there primarily for US political reasons should stop retweeting DM without good warrant.

Here's what MediaBias FactCheck says:

Disobedient Media is a news and opinion website with a right wing bias in story selection and reporting. Disobedient Media uses moderate loaded words and tends to source well to credible information. Occasionally they will source to some pretty far right sources. 

So, stop retweeting them just because they have blog posts that involve data dump shitstorm blizzards. They're not the worst; they reject QAnon type nuttery, for example. But they're not the best, either.

Twelfth, there ARE legitimate, non-wingnut critiques of some of the indictment. Already in late 2016, Jeffrey Carr cautioned about not reading too much into Yandex email accounts, other than that smart Russians wouldn't use them.

I also wrote myself about Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear in early 2017, based on Carr and other people. Maybe what Carr said then about the Yahoo hackers will be true about the GRU 12: They were independent Russian actors, even if working for the GRU. (That's a sort of plausible deniability that Beijing also uses — as does Washington, D.C.)

I want to specifically reference a Carr link inside there. He's right that we need a disinterested bipartisan look at such things. Disobedient Media and H.A. Goodman aren't disinterested. That said, I'd go beyond Carr to say, Hire people who we know are connected to the Green Party or Libertarian Party as part of that look.

And, he doesn't blog a lot, but I am waiting for what Carr might have to say on the indictments.

Jonathan Turley, whose legal insight is generally of high quality, is not drinking the Kool-Aid, either. And Glenn Greenwald has not one, but two parts, of transcripts of a debate with a think tank leader over what's good, bad and ugly in the Trump-Putin summit. (I largely agree with Glenn while saying he misses Trump's egotism in wanting a 1-on-1 with Putin, and that if he doesn't trust his conventional GOP foreign policy advisers, that's ultimately on Trump for bad hirings kowtowing to the GOP half of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.)

It's "interesting" that a fair chunk of Fox News people not named Sean Hannity are taking the "conventional" line on the summit. More evidence there that Faux isn't quite as monolithic as many —occasionally me, too — like to believe.

Thirteenth, this is not the last I'll have to say here. I'll probably have brief updates in the next week or so if Forensicator, Clevenger or others, either others of note for connections to all this, or others of note for insight into all of this, weigh in.

Fourteenth? (Breaking update, July 9: A new Yahoo News bombshell says Russian intelligence, specifically its foreign intelligence agency, the SVR, was behind the Seth Rich conspiracy theories.)

Kennedy retiring, Dems whip out "Oh the SCOTUS"

They're already doing that in comments at places like Splinter. I told all the GFY-ing Hillbots that I was a gentleman and they should therefore go fire.

First, beyond the GFY, my vote for Stein was not a vote for Trump. Somebody on Twitter I had friended in the last month and didn't appear to be "one of them" made that claim. I quote Tweeted him to say no, and that if he persisted, I had no problem unfriending.

Second, "librulz," this leftist knows that the librul four on the Supreme Court aren't all they are made out to be.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg? The "Notorious RGB"? Notorious for calling Colin Kaepernick "dumb and disrespectful." And for saying the same about flag burning. Don't forget Hillary Clinton wanted to selectively criminalize flag burning even after SCOTUS said that a general ban on flag burning was unconstitutional. More on this and related issues at my blog post.

Stephen Breyer and the new alleged lion of high court liberalism, Sonia Sotomayor? Both squishes at times on the Fourth Amendment. And Elena Kagan is a half-breed of half neoliberal, half neoconservative.

So, yeah, Tony the Pony Kennedy was the swing(ing dick) justice. Others aren't necessarily always that much better. Hell, even Thurgood Marshall, who as an African-American should have known better, wasn't always pristine on the Fourth Amendment.

That's why Dems' "Oh the SCOTUS" never has, and never will, persuade me to vote Democratic for president barring major changes in the party. There are many more civil liberties and civil rights issues before the court other than reproductive choice and LGBT rights.

Riffing on Ginsburg, there's the freedom of assembly portion of the First Amendment. Riffing on myself, there's freedom of religion as freedom FROM religion on the First Amendment. And, re Michael Newdow, Breyer and Ginsberg, along with Tony the Pony, were squishes there. (The other three sitting justices, with Scalia having recused himself, were also squishes on 1A, but not on whether or not Newdow had legal standing.)

And, there's issues in the past, too. The lauded Thurgood Marshall was sometimes a Fourth Amendment squish, most notably in Terry v. Ohio. Especially as Terry involved a police search, that Marshall as an African-American would uphold its undercutting of the 4th never ceases to perplex me.

So, Hillbots, with her right-wing lite religious guru and all, as a secularist, there is NOBODY on the current court who I trust on part of the First Amendment.

Because of things like this, no, I won't join Democrats-only activist groups like PFAW, whether alone or in their alliance with the shape-shifting Indivisible cohorts, in anti-Kavanaugh lobbying.

Also for the Hillbots, Bill and Hillary encouraged Donald to run. So, STFU, along with GFY, until you own that, too. The "Oh, the SCOTUS" is ultimately on you anyway. Beyond THAT:

More srsly, as Neera Tanden is a lawyer, woman, #neoliberal par excellence & wld check a box as first Indian-American #SCOTUS justice I have no doubt she wld have been on Hillary Clinton short list. Right .@HillaryClinton? .@NeeraTanden? .@TedRall #Hillbots? #Berniecrats #Greens? https://t.co/5YPZBQp5up

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 1, 2018

C'mon Hillbots, you know that beyond snark, Hillary might have tried something just like this. And, after the obligatory Senate GOP bashing, including a few emails-related questions, she would have been confirmed.

A more serious issue is that we need to get beyond the idea that the best Supreme Court justices are to be found off U.S. appeals courts.

Earl Warren had no judicial experience at all. Neither did Thurgood Marshall. Nor Bill Douglas. Hugo Black was briefly a municipal judge and that was it.

Sadly, but not really surprisingly, Popehat Ken White thinks the appeals background is A Good Thing, all while pretending that libertarian-leaners on First Amendment issues (ie "money = speech" folks) don't practice results-oriented jurisprudence while others do.

Amy Chozick puts Peter Principle of MSMon full display with 'Chasing Hillary'

Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling by Amy Chozick
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book had hit the one-star level WELL before the finish line, but I slogged through so you don't have to. This is going to be an extended version of what I originally posted on Goodreads.

First, no index? Any nonfiction book, other than something like a self-help manual, without an index, even one written as breezily as this, without an index? Automatic loss of a star. That's in part because I do that in general with no-index books, but here in particular, the lack of an index undercuts the book's claims to seriousness.

Second, that breeziness. (And, that doesn't count the personal bias in political reporting, nor the way that personal bias is waved like a wet dishrag. Nor does it count that [although the title should have given this away, I guess in hindsight] that this is part of the book being about Chozick as much as Clinton.)

Now, let's get to the real mistakes, and the biggies, that torpedoed this baby.

First, her "Berniebros"? I'm not saying Chozick didn't get some of the Tweets she claims. BUT! ... She makes it look like about EVERY Sanders backer was one of these strawman stereotype Berniebros. Beyond that, post-election at least, donut Twitter has enough vileness in it that it probably doesn't have much to learn from the alt right.

All of this, in turn — the reality vs. Chozick's framing — gets back to the bias above.

Second, a clearly proven error. In chastising Robbie Mook for being a tightwad, she claims on page 152 that the Clinton campaign gave some of its leftover money to Jill Stein's recount effort.

This made me say "huh?" in part because I'm a Green voter and had never heard of such a thing.

I checked around with Green friends, and sure enough, untrue. Clinton's campaign had talked about sharing some data/data crunching, but I'm not sure it did that. NEVER gave money.

And, really, couldn't give much anyway.

Federal Elections Commission says that one political campaign CANNOT give another more than $2,000. Amy, took me a 30-second Google to find that.

Third, the Clinton Foundation has had actual ethics problems, and even more than other people at your paper have reported, Amy.

Fourth, yes, incomes for the middle class as well as the upper class did go up under Bill Clinton. But, income inequality still increased. Hell, middle class incomes went up under Shrub, too. And income inequality increased, and more than under the Slickster. This is also easily verifiable, and the way Chozick made her statement came off as PR first, journalism distant second. (At least, real journalism.)

Fifth, Chozick has several cover-ups by omission on foreign policy issues. She has no mention that Bill Clinton broke the promise of Poppy Bush, Helmut Kohl and other NATO members not to expand NATO eastward. She also doesn't mention Clinton's interference in Russian elections. (Sidebar: Perhaps, and far more subtly than with sacks of money, Shrub Bush and Obama did more of the same that we don't know about yet.)

Sixth, nothing but a brief mention of Clinton's emails, and nothing of her private server. Related? Chozick takes her paper's default stance on "Russiagate."

Seventh is the "reveal" by Chozick of how the Times was in the tank for Clinton, despite Bill claiming an anti-Clinton conspiracy by the Times. The "reveal" is keyed by the Times holding a story about the clusterfuck of our intervention in Libya until after the South Carolina primary. (Nothing new there, though; remember, it held a story about Shrub Bush's snooping on Americans until after he was re-elected.)

The reveal itself is nice. There's no real critical take on this bias by Chozick, though. Nor does she critically examine her own bias, starting with fawning over the idea of the "FWP," as she routinely abbreviates First Woman President.

As for her claim to be an agent of Russian intelligence by reporting on hacked emails? First, the first emails were likely stolen by Seth Rich or someone else inside DNC, not hacked by Russians. Second, per a good piece by Jack Shafer, any Russian activity was only background noise. Plus, the NYT reporters who got the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg weren't agents of North Vietnam or whatever, Shafer notes.

My take on this point? Chozick's trying to extend her Warholian 15 minutes of fame. Of course, that's the big picture point of the whole book, isn't it?

With all of those major, and minor, errors, it was easy to one-star.

That said, she does give us an occasional look at the NYT background, like the snooty arrogance of people at the home office seeming to assume that there's only one time zone in the US.

As for my subhead? Per the likes of Charles Pierce at the Esquire, plenty of real journalists, reporters and editors at newspapers out in the heartland, could do a better job than Chozick, and probably than several others, at the Times. I am personally sure of this.

Anyway, it's clear that that the Beltway/Acela Corridor MSM has problems. This is a good illustration but still the tip of an iceberg.

And, The Slickster and Failed Would-be President (Chozick's FWP) still think the Times hated them? When they had a Hillary-token feminist reporting? (Chozick is smart enough to recognize that Hillary's feminism, like that of most her Hillbot supporters, is selective. She also notes the Slickster deliberately went Sister Souljah on Black Lives Matter. Must give credit for something. She gets half credit for noting sexism and even sexual harassment on the Clinton campaign trail by the "guys" who ran her campaign; misses full credit for not reporting it in live time. Not reporting it because she believed in Hillary as FWP, even while noting Hillary tolerated this, cuts it to one-quarter credit.)

Meanwhile, the Times panders to Clinton supporters, then to counterbalance that, foists the likes of Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss on all of us.


View all my reviews

#MuellerTime — one year on

For months now, versus not only the MAGA-heads and their leader, Donald Duck, but people who should know better, like:
The two-siderism that Ray McGovern mouths at Consortium News and elsewhere (though he's not as bad as the MAGA-heads)
2. The deliberate handwaving obfuscation of ShirtLost DumbShit Zach Haller, self-appointed top disciple of Actual Crapulus, I mean #ActualFlatticus, who I'm getting more and more ready to simply call a MAGA-head and call bullshit on him being a "progressive," as I've already called BS on H.A. Goodman;

I have been contending that claiming Robert Mueller has taken way too much time on his probe is simply not true. I have specifically mentioned Watergate, Iran-Contra and Whitewater of Ken Starr infamy.

And now, Five Thirty Eight has a great deep dive on precisely those issues. Complete with that nice timeline graphic.

Update, June 13: And now, one year and one month in, Mueller may have landed his biggest fish to date, as reports say Michael Cohen is flipping.)

Note how short the Mueller frame is compared to Watergate, let alone the other two? So, to say that Mueller needs to wind things up because he's taking way too long is BS. The case at hand is certainly more complicated than the Valerie Plame leaks (which ended with Pat Fitzgerald refudiating Elizabeth Loftus in the Scooter Libby trial) or the Michael Deaver perjury cases.

The piece also has some instructional notes from the past. Once it looked like Lawrence Walsh would not pursue his investigation up to President Reagan, thanks in part due to gaslighting by Reagan's new chief of staff, Howard Baker, and once it became even more apparent that Congress, allowing itself to be gaslighted by old senatorial colleague Baker, would not pursue impeachment, Iran-Contra fizzled out. (One even wonders if Oliver North's conviction being overturned, even though it seemed that Congress and prosecutors had both framed well the "no dual use" on his Congressional testimony, was sabotaged deliberately on the Hill.) Devin Nunes is playing the role of a dumber, less suave, more partisan Howard Baker in this case.

At the same time, Watergate also offers parallels. Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox during the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, which also saw the name of Robert Bork first rise to infamy.

And, as the Five Thirty Eight piece notes, the special counsel law was changed in 1999. Basically, Republicans pulled the ladder up after then when Ken Starr's best, or worst, fishing expedition got nowhere. Typical action. Like Clarence Thomas. So, Mueller can't come close to going on a Ken Starr fishing expedition.

Now, that said, so far, he's found nothing that proves Trump colluded with Putin to have the election thrown to him. Russiagate in that sense is stupid.

That said, if it turns up pay-to-play about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton, that's certainly within Mueller's scope. Emoluments Clause-related stuff involving Russia is too, as I see it.

'A Higher Loyalty' — to his own self-image?

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James Comey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Four stars for the center Clinton-Trump material; loses a star for other items.

A few introductory notes.

First, at the presidential level, I did my "duopoly exit" at the start of this century. Related to that, I dislike a lot of the structure of the national-level American polis, above all, the whole strong-presidential system that is wrapped up with the modern electoral college having pushed America to a two-party system. (The civil liberties of our constitutional amendments are great, except that we need a few more like an explicit right to privacy; the body of the constitution is largely anachronistic dreck.)

Second, re the candidates of said duopoly? Beyond having little regard for their parties, I have even less regard for the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that were foist on us. Trump is a boor who has a history of racism that provoked a suit by HUD over racism in housing. He also has a history of mafia ties, which also include the further hypocrisy of him hiring illegal immigrants, as many believe he still does today.. Clinton has a sense of entitlement and a willingness to manipulate Democratic Party leadership and actions to that end. Both have long histories of corruption. Trump in his housing and other properties, his 4x bankruptcy, and his willingness to play footsie with foreign leaders, or yet more shady characters — that link above talks about his connection to Russian as well as American mobsters. Clinton has a history that goes back to her and WJ Clinton's Whitewater; you have to really be a died-in-the-wool "Hillbot" to believe it was just luck that led her to a $100K killing in cattle futures. The pair's corruption has continued through some of the less ethical activities of the Clinton Foundation.

Third, while I do believe in some sort of "deep state," I don't believe it is some sort of massive, unified apparatus out to "get Trump." Even worse are wingnut Members of Congress like Nunes et al playing with this. (And, about as bad are the likes of Ray McGovern, trading on his CIA knowledge to tout Nunes as a truthseeker rather than denounce him as a political hack, even as McGovern plays two-siderism on this issue. Worse yet, McGovern voted for Stein, and knows what two-siderism is.)

Fourth, I do not believe Vladimir Putin caused Trump to win. He may have orchestrated some meddling, but even there, the first round of DNC emails was likely stolen by Seth Rich or somebody else inside the DNC, not hacked. Even if most alleged Russian-related meddling was actually caused by Russia, its effects were minuscule. The Facebook groups' spending was a drop in the bucket. Also related? I highly resent "Hillbot" insinuations that third party candidates were tools of Vladimir Putin. And also related? Whatever meddling Putin did officially or semi-officially do is less than the US did in two 1990s elections in Russia, let alone elsewhere in the world.

I felt all of this introduction was necessary to background my review of what is certainly a contentious book. I see a lot of "two-siderism" in a lot of reviews, and I'm telling you there's more than two sides in American politics and thus in reaction to the book.

OK, the book!

First, James Comey himself. He comes off as a generally straight shooter. But not always and not totally; more on that below. Sometimes, it seems like the letter of honesty but not the spirit. However, he also comes off as sometimes sanctimonious, perhaps strongly so at times. I think this backfired on him after AG Loretta Lynch met Bill Clinton on the Phoenix tarmac. The title of this book attests to that. More on that below. Another s-word, besides sanctimonious, also comes to mind. Comey can be smarmy at times. And, often, these two s-words intersect with a "by the books" version of honesty and nobody is served well.

I think this is a largely accurate view of what happened in the 2016 election vis-a-vis James Comey's part in it, from the Clinton emails and server issues, through post-election Trump trying to get mafioso-type loyalty from Comey. (See what I said above about Trump's long history of mob ties, some of which Comey surely knows about, beyond Comey's own investigation of non-Trump mob cases.) George Will, recalling a sick suck-up event last June, supports this. I think Comey's personal assessment, and his assessment of DOJ assessment, of just how penalizable Clinton was, is also correct. That said, I do agree with Comey, despite the fact that the FBI can nail anybody for lying to it, that Petraeus should have been specifically charged with this, and should have done jail time.

At the same time, Comey is not totally write about Trump's personality. Per Quora, I am reminded that, if the roasting Obama gave Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner pissed Trump off, he still laughed about it in public. More here.

Comey is right that Hillary Clinton's issues were largely her fault. As for the "Colin Powell used private email," Comey responds — maybe the first time I've directly read this – that Powell and others who did this never sent classified material over a personal email account, but Hillary Clinton did. And, that's not to mention the private server, which Hillbots generally avoid like the plague.

I think the investigation was generally decently handled, per two paragraphs above, until the Phoenix tarmac. Lynch had already started showing her cards before that with the insistence on the word "matter." Comey did the best he could with that — or at least presents himself that way, but he should have kept that in mind post-Phoenix and acted differently. If he felt this was like Lynch dumping something in his lap, he should have told her so, and then asked that she have Deputy AG Sally Yates take over as the DOJ public face. He should then have talked to Yates directly. Or he should have asked for a special prosecutor. He should NOT have assumed this was "his baby." That's the sanctimoniousness. If the apparent lack of communication between Lynch and Yates became bigger, that too should have been kept as purely their baby, not his.

Yates, not him, then would have (presumably) spoken to Congress. Ditto on Yates deciding what public communication was needed when new Clinton e-mails popped up in the Weiner-Humedin chain.

If Yates refuses? And Lynch won't "person up"? You either resign on principle or leak about this on principle right then.

Trump probably still would have fired Comey soon enough. But, Comey's hands would have been even cleaner than they actually are.

Speaking of things Trump, the New York Times gets Bureau and DOJ staff on background saying Comey mishandled the early Russia and Trump campaign ties investigation that started in 2016. They say he should have used different agents from the Clinton investigation, and shouldn't have consolidated them in general and let alone at headquarters. What led to that?

And, was Comey's refusal to announce the investigation a form of bet-hedging? What would have happened had he not announced the late re-opening of the Clinton investigation? Even more, what if he had, as noted above, punted back to Lynch in summer 2016?

Comey also carefully phrased that what he did that he details in the book after the firing wasn't a leak. More recent discussion, and not just by Trump Trainers, says maybe so, maybe not. The fact that Comey insists on this comes off as sanctimonious, doubly so since he claims his memoranda about each Trump meeting is personal, not government, property, but doesn't include them in the book. Some other of his Trump-scenes paintings look smarmy.

Other matters? Comey is too nice to Lynch on the Phoenix tarmac issue. She should have known the optics were horrible, especially when the meeting stretched to 30 minutes. So, too, should have the Slickster. Did Lynch have an ulterior motive? Who knows. Bill surely did, even if it was not the one of creating a conflict of interest; it may have been one of strong hubby Bill fighting to protect Hillary.

In any case, Comey drops a smug, smarmy hint that Lynch might have problems in general on the investigatin, then says, "It's classified," on his source for that.

The book, outside of Trump-Clinton, is weak in other ways. In talking about a new post-Ferguson wave of minority distrust of cops, and the FBI's difficulty in recruiting minorities, Comey never mentioned COINTELPRO. Nor did he mention that FBI several arrests of alleged terrorists, in the minds of many, were entrapments. Nor – beyond the fact that many people will pay for it — does he make any real effort to understand the side of Apple et al on smartphone encryption strength. No discussion of the possible wrongs of the Patriot Act and related law.

The sanctimoniousness on the leak-or-not is more than just that, though, and ties with this. It's a bit of "the ends justify the means" stance. Comey makes that clear with phone encryption; on the things not mentioned, he probably believes alleged terrorists were never "really" entrapped; the FBI just did what it needed to. Ditto on COINTELPRO.

Above all, so is Comey's Al Haig-like "I'm in charge now" on the last months of the Clinton investigation. How much of that was in Comey's older cultural DNA and how much is him as FBI director, I am not sure.

Update, June 8: Related to all of this, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has reportedly found that Comey disobeyed lines of authority at times; the word "insubordinate" is allegedly used in a draft report. Horowitz's report also allegedly rebukes Lynch.

And, the story of White Boy Rick points out the real FBI, not Comey's PR bullshit.

June 14: More information and details from the Horowitz report.

First, rank elitism, not Deep State conspiracy theory blather, is a good explainer about many FBI agents, if Peter Strzok is representative of others in saying Bernie Sanders "is an idiot like Trump." (Related: As that link reminds us, per the FBI that Comey wants to turd-polish, Strzok and Lisa Page were having an extramarital affair. That's not only unethical, but in any investigative agency, leaves one open to blackmail.

The report also reveals that Comey made his public announcement about the October re-opening of the Clinton case not out of selflessness, but out of job security CYA, per Atlantic. And, per my SOP comments above about talking to Yates, apparently he, or someone in his circles, DID tell Yates this. And, the NYT also jumps on his smugness.

And Comey himself still doesn't get it, or doesn't want to, as far as Horowitz's calling him insubordinate, as his June 14 NYT column indicates.

That said, for both the Trumpers and Clintonistas who have worshiped the ground he has walked on at various times, the idea that he's ultimately a typical FBI director never comes to mind, apparently. That said, now that Trump is proving to be more a warmonger than in the election, and Clinton was always that way, and both have sometimes more similar than dissimilar stances on parts of their domestic background that is related (the Patriot Act came from materials already under discussion in Bill's presidency), this is probably something that both say is a credit rather than a demerit. But, that's yet another reason I did my "duopoly exit."

Peter Van Buren adds that it would have been nice to hear more about the Bush-Ashcroft-Gonzales-Addington stuff. I agree; other earlier stuff might also have been nice, including more on Giuliani.

Even more than that, without him claiming "it's classified," beyond the bare bones of the Steele dossier, I would have liked to hear more of Comey's take on "Putin did it." To the degree that Vladimir Putin actually did interfere with the 2016 presidential elections, it was surely less than we interfered with 1990s elections in Russia. However, neither Hillbots nor MAGA-heads want an honest discussion of this issue, and I suspect that establishmentarian Comey wouldn't give us much of one.

As for the personal anecdotes about Trump's perma-tan, and not having THAT small of hands? Maybe Comey was trying to personalize the meeting. Maybe he was trying to look neutral by the variety of descriptors. To me, it wasn't a big deal, unlike some reviewers. I did find it mildly interesting, no more.

In any case, because the book gives us, unintentionally, a decent look at Comey the man as well as the Trump and Clinton incidents, it's still worth a solid three stars. Comey the person, at least on the issues in this book, may only be worth two, though.

Many of the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon give good examples of the two-siderism that has been the bane of America for two full years.

View all my reviews

Update, May 14: Former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein has turned both barrels on Comey, calling him a "partisan pundit" who trampled "bright lines that should never be crossed."

The specific target of his ire is how Comey handled reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails adn server after then-AG Loretta Lynch had had her conflict-of-interest inducing meeting with Bill Clinton on the Phoenix tarmac.

Rosenstein is totally right. It was grandstanding, as I said at the time, and not SOP, either. Then-Assistant AG Sally Yates should have been contacted by Comey and she should have been asked to get Lynch to officially recuse herself, then take over.

Rosenstein said he would have handled Comey's firing differently had it been just him, not Trump, but that Comey deserved to be fired.

He did.

Period and end of story, Donut Twitter and Resistance.

Rabid #Hillbots and the name #JillStein

Jill Stein wasn't the best Green Party presidential candidate in 2016. I've said that many a time.

I've also repeatedly said the GP isn't as good of a third party of the left vehicle as it could be by any means

But, both are what they are, and Jill Stein was better than Hillary Clinton and the Green Party is better than the Democratic Party where available.

That's why it's fun to watch rabid Hillbots / Clintonistas go even more rabid whenever Jill Stein's name is mentioned. The Mueller indictments last Friday (my take here) plus Twitter's feed on Sunday, are the latest proof.

That's why it's more fun yet to troll the #ImWithHer / #StillWithHer folks to point out Cynthia McKinney 2008, Stein 2012, Stein 2016.

The Hillbots, as this shows, practice a certain tribalist version of feminism and the leader of the tribe is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Elizabeth Warren could have been seeking the Dem nomination instead of Hillary Clinton and her Dem primary backers would have been attacked just as much as Berniecrats.

Suck on it, Hillbots. You know it's true.

Besides, with all the paid trolls of David Brock, you're in no position to complain.

Instead of knitting for Hillary Clinton, here are 12 other post-political jobs that #Hillbots should think are just great

Since Hillary Clinton won't go away — despite Al Gore accepting his much-more-cheated loss with better grace, and Mitt Romney, John Kerry, and John McCain moving on more smoothly — and writing a fictional memoir about why she lost, some people have been trying to help her.

But, for many Hillbots, any suggestion she move along is unacceptable.



So unacceptable that Clintonista wingnuts (sic — you're getting enough like the Right) Tom Watson, Peter Daou and others) claim Vanity Fair's "knitting" video is not just unacceptable, it's sexist.

(The reality, of course, is that the actual sexists are the vag-hat #StillWithHer folks. First, they ignore that a woman made the "knitting" comment. Second, they perpetuate a boatload of stereotype in insinuating that only women knit. Or sew. Or cross-stitch. Or quilt.)

But, we can do better than that.

And shall.

People who know the history of Hillary Clinton, sometimes solo, sometimes in tag team with Bill, should easily get the references. To help out those who do not, I've provided some helpful links, etc.

1. Commodities futures trader, preferably in cattle futures, as we know her skill there. (See "Luck be a lady.") Let the SEC thoroughly reinvestigate her former luck while she applies for licensing.

2. Certified nursing assistant, any rural clinic in Haiti. (See "Wiper of other people's bottoms," from "Monty Python and the Holy Cholera Clinic," as co-produced by Tony Rodham.)

3. Death penalty administrator, state of Arkansas. (See "Rector, Ricky.")

4. Post-coup Honduran peasant.

5. Libyan slave market participant. And, yes, you can take "participant" in that way. (See neoconservative + neoliberal combined intervention clusterfuck.)

6. Baker of cookies — for funerals of military children of Gold Star parents, or at the funeral of Honduran activist Berta Cáceres.



7. Uranium miner in the Southwest — with Frank Giustra, along with other grifting, having sold workers' protection to Rosatom so she could work like a 1950s Navajo.

8. Donald Trump's Citizenship and Immigration Services assistant commissioner, Kenyan births division.

9. Walmart third-shift floor stocker. (See "Rose Law Firm.")

10. Teacher's aide, majority-minority Little Rock school. (See "Arkansas education reform.")

11. Gas mask tester, Syrian White Helmet video outtakes.

12. Lena Dunham's bottom-line tour gofer.

A few quick thoughts on Uranium One re #TrumpTrain and #GOPTaxScam

Bill Clinton with Frank Giustra

I'm putting something up because the wingnuts are blathering about the DOJ's announced investigation of the Clinton Foundation getting money from international mercenary grifter Frank Giustra and friends in exchange for about 20 percent of US uranium production capability

First, the wingnuts aren't asking a word about the timing. To me, it seems classic "wag the dog," diverting the Trump Train from looking more at the massive locomotive that's the light at the end of the tunnel, aka, how a country with massive new debt in a decade has done nothing for them in the meantime.

Related to that, the fake leftists like ShirtLost DumbShit Zack Heller will use this to further their claims that Bill and Hillary Clinton are more corrupt than Donald Trump. Actual Flatticus might do the same, were he alive.

Related to THAT is some left-liberals to actual leftists on Twitter retweeting threads by people who either in the thread at hand or others go off into semi if not full conspiracy mode.

(That reminds me of the proper rephrasing of an old cliche, especially for Twitter. "Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, but a temporary ally of convenience and nothing more." And sometimes, they're not even that.)

Reality? This actual leftist has no doubt they're corrupt, but still sees them as less corrupt fiscally in particular, or on broad ethics in general, than The Donald. Put that in your pipe and puff it, Zack.

Reality to this issue, now that the preliminaries are at hand?

Yes, the Uranium One deal is corrupt. Ethically corrupt for sure. In my opinion, possibly criminally corrupt, but that's going to be hard to prove.

What is the real problem behind Uranium One is that it's a bright, shiny mirror of bipartisan corruption. Beyond using it as a wag the dog to divert attention from the #GOPTaxScam, Trump's probably also using it to divert attention from the Robert Mueller investigation, which will show nothing about Vladimir Putin hacking US elections but which WILL show plenty about his own seeming money laundering.

So, no, Mueller's not being fired tomorrow. He's being overshadowed today.

The third thing is that Trump is probably jealous he didn't think of something like this. He's probably also jealous that he's not smooth enough to pull it off. (And he's not.)

Let's also remember that the Giustra grifting, related to uranium issues in Kazakhstan, started when Shrub Bush was still president. And, enough of this was known in 2012 that Mittens Romney had the chance to make a bigger issue out of it with Barack Obama's re-election campaign than he actually did.

Again: the real problem behind Uranium One is that it's a bright, shiny mirror of bipartisan corruption. The related issue is that the corruption is never dealt with until it becomes a handy political cudgel for one half of the duopoly.

And Jeff Sessions' investigation won't change that one bit.

One sidebar from all this is that, although Trump himself remains an idiot, somebody, whether White House staff or RNC staff, is thinking smartly on tactics issues. As news outlets noted yesterday, Trump getting Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to agree on a short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown gave the Congressional GOP time to ram the tax bill home before Christmas. (And, assuming Doug Jones wouldn't be a total sellout, just a partial one, that time now appears to have been quite valuable.)

==

Damn, I forgot that I blogged about the Clintons, Giustra and Kazakhstan way back in 2008.

What Happened? Hillary Clinton tried to write a book and wrote a novel

My review of "What Happened":

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My 2 cents, or 2 stars worth

I didn't rate it 1 star for two reasons.

First, in a few rare instances, like discussing sriracha sauces, Hillary Clinton does allow peeks at what is presumably her real self.

Second, it deserves a second star because it reflects what Hillary Clinton believes about the 2016 campaign, and its backstory.

That said, much of what she believes, especially related to "Putin Did It," is simply wrong. (Note, I am writing from a leftist, not a GOP let alone Trumpist, angle. That said, many of the "Putin Did It" claims have been either PROVEN wrong or else withdrawn or modified. So, let's dig in!)

Here's a list of the major problems, by page number.

20. Did Hannah the Wisconsin election worker later / elsewhere get mad about Clinton not visiting the state?
35. Tries to triangulate between Obama as previous Dem president and Obama’s sluggish recovery.
47. Well-respected Clinton Foundation doesn’t mention Frank Giustra/Russia/uranium, nor does it mention Haiti and its less than totally reputable operation there
72. Calls emails — without mentioning a “server” — “one boneheaded mistake.” No deliberation, especially on server, not just account, mentioned.
74. Blames Bernie for not exiting the campaign sooner. Doesn’t mention parallel with her slow withdrawal in 2008.
112ff. Never mentions, in discussing her childhood, that she was a “Goldwater Girl.”
226. Falsely claims Bernie’s a socialist. She knows better.
229. Repeats stereotypes about BernieBros online harassing people. Never mentions online harassment of likes of Peter Daou.
229. Claims Bernie’s not a Dem. He is, de facto; Dem party has “cleared the field” for him since second House run. He is also, in a sense, de jure a Dem.
234. Obamacare is “universal” only on paper. For many, they can’t afford to buy anything other than the cheapest plan, and then they can’t afford to use it except in catastrophic cases.
239. Clinton claims that, deep inside, she favored a financial transactions tax and even basic income. Yeah, right. No post-election news stories about that.
254. Obama claimed that nobody in history was more qualified than her for White House. Reality? Setting aside Washington, there’s Adams, Jefferson, Quincy Adams, Van Buren, Buchanan, FDR, and Poppy Bush, on paper, at least.
289. Narrative about personal email >>account<< doesn’t mention server until 297, and then only in passing.
328. On matter of Putin’s being upset about NATO expansion, doesn’t mention that hubby Bill broke Poppy Bush’s oral pledge to Yeltsin that, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, NATO wouldn’t move east.
338. Wrong on Guccifer 2.0. Wrong on citing Crowdstrike as primary evidence.
341. Wrong on Russia hacking DNC emails vs a Dem insider stealing them.
352. Repeats the rejected “17 agencies” claim on Russia hacking DNC emails.
354. References the Steele dossier, now pretty much discredited, AND knows to have been paid for in part by the DNC, which Clinton also doesn’t mention
363. Many of the “21 states” she claims had state elections agencies that were Russian hacking targets now say that not only were they not compromised, as faras they know they weren’t targets.
411. Takes Jill Stein out of context, ignoring that the Obama-Clinton semi-coup in Ukraine that now has neo-Nazis in power is something that Stein rightfully complained about.

==

And, in a big picture on all of the “Putin Did It” claims, ignores that Crowdstrike either ignored or was unaware of poor security of NGP VAN, didn’t catch the DNC emails theft, as theft it was, and missed the Podesta phishing for months.

View all my reviews

Addendum to the review, for this blog post.

I feel kind of sad for her, and not in a patronizing way. I think she really believes most of what she (and one or more ghostwriters?) put in this book, even and especially the stuff about a Tobin tax and basic income. (Feel free to let me know if she's actually given speeches or anything about this.)

In reality, of course, this, along with her triangulating off Obama, shows that even by modern American political standards, there's no "there" there. Hillary Clinton is the Oakland of the Democratic Party, to riff on Gertrude Stein.

But, the modern Democratic Party seems to kind of like presidential candidates like that. Barack Obama didn't have much more "there" in 2008 than Clinton. And, post-presidency, banksters are paying him even more than they did her. But, many "resisters" who dislike, or even loathe, Hillary Clinton still fellate Barack Obama any chance they get. The reality is that they projected a lot of hopes and dreams on him. You didn't have to be a Green like me, or Green-leaner, to know that. All you had to do is note Obama's flip-flip on warrantless spying and giving a free pass to telecommunications companies in the summer of 2008.

The Slickster, of course, started the idea of triangulation, at least in modern form. He, of course, perfected the idea of "punching down" inside the modern Democratic Party.

Jimmy Carter was by no means perfect. He was the first neoliberal Democratic president, in many ways. (In some ways, JFK was.) But, in a number of cases, especially environmental issues, he was willing to take stances. Of course, his own party rick-rolled him in Congress for his pains.

Donna Brazile runs the bus over Hillary Clinton — on the way to the bank

Who left the tire tracks on Hillary?

No, former temporary Democratic National Committee interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile did not find some new fount of honesty when she spoke to Politico and left tire tracks over Hillary Clinton and her campaign. If she had, she would have said something a week ago about the hacks that Tom Perez selected to various DNC positions last month.

Instead, in politics, the first rule is always follow the money.

And the money is, in this case, sales of the book she is flogging, in part through a pseudo tell-all.

(Speaking of, feel free to vote in one or both of the "biggest sheepdogger" polls at upper right of this post.)

In that sense, Brazile is simply being true to the Democratic Party that she briefly helped steer into presidential defeat.

I mean, this is the person who admitted to getting advance information about questions for a Democratic primary town hall, and a second debate, and passing that on to the Clinton camp. And, it took her 5 months after Wikileaks said that for her to admit it. Sure, it's possible she's a truth-telling horse whisperer driven by the highest ethics values.

Or, it's possible she's still just another grifter. Or Just.Another.Politician.™, non-elected division.

Also note that her March admission date on the questions tip-off? Her book was surely already in progress by then.

Another "tell"? She said she started crying AFTER ending the phone call with Sanders. Ergo, nobody to deny.

As such, she did drive that bus over Hillary.

And, given new Hillbot pushback, who deserves a bus to be driven over her more?

That pushback includes this self-contradicting piece from NBC.

Alex Seitz-Wald, adding to reputation as a Clintonista hack, claims that the agreement only went into place for the general election. However, lower in the story, it says the DNC had to hire a communications director from one of two Hillary-vetted candidates no later than Sept. 1, 2015. That's LONG before the general. (And, I'm sure that somebody in the upper circles of Hillary 2016 sent him the memo behind the piece as soon as they saw Prima Donna's Politico interview.)

Points two and three in the full memo of the agreement between Hillary for America and the DNC specify further Clinton control over other DNC hirings, without any "general election" timetable. There's more there to refudiate Seitz-Wald.

Point 4 would appear to indicate that state Dem parties getting an offer to partner with Hillary Fucked America had to do so on an exclusive basis. If Bernie had decided to sign off on a similar agreement it would have been for crumbs only, even if the Clinton one was not exclusive.

As for Seitz-Wald claiming to have a smoking gun undercutting Prima Donna? There's Mack truck-sized loopholes in this paragraph.

Nothing in this agreement shall be construed to violate the DNC's obligation of impartiality and neutrality through the Nominating process. All activities performed under this agreement will be focused exclusively on preparations for the General Election and not the Democratic Primary.

Oh, sure ... forcing a Hillbot communications director down the DNC throat, and giving Team Clinton vetting over other hires? No "construing" that the barn door is being shut after the partiality horses have already been stabled inside, to twist an old cliche.

Julian Assange lovingly confirms timeline issues.

Kein Silverstein confirms that Bernie got no such offer himself, along with other details.

Who dat? It's Donna and the cash bus, schooling Hillary.

Given that she's far and away from the first to drive it over Debbie Wasserman Schultz, no photoshopping needed there, for Brazile to run her over.

However, Prima Donna's head-fake "tell all" does raise one question.

We know Dear Leader thought Dancing with the Schultz was little more than bupkis. Brazile may really think so, personal pecuniary reasons aside.

Hillz allegedly, while being kinder to her than Barackabama, didn't hang the moon on her either.

So why the hell was she running the DNC that long? I mean, Dear Leader kept her there 5-plus years. Barack and Hillary, as well as Donna, all three, will probably keep lips zipped.

The Intercept offers part of the answer. Dear Leader had Organizing for America, his own grifting HQ, so with both Kaine and DWS, he kicked the DNC to the curb.

So, I don't totally blame Hillary for actually wanting to help the DNC.

However, as Ken notes, there were other ways of doing that. Like, No. 1, scheduling more debates.

So will the pious Democratic factota now lining up to join in at running that bus over Dancing with the Schultz as well as Clinton. That's even though, between her and Barackabama, Congressional Dems, after going  over a cliff in 2010 under Dear Leader plus Tim Kaine at the DNC, made but a slight recovery in 2012, and slid lower than 2010 in the 2014 midterms. Maybe Barackabama kept her there as an easy scapegoat.

Update, and speaking of them and Clinton-Kaine? Prima Donna also sez that she contemplated a coup of sorts, replacing them with Biden-Booker. First, who had the power to try to do this? Second, the idea that this could even be seriously contemplated should be instant ammo for the appeal of the DNC fraud lawsuit. Third, Booker probably would have tried to poison Biden.

Irony alert: The Hillbot pushback against "Patsey the Slave" claims that Brazile got bamfoozled by Putin propaganda.

And she is right that Dear Leader, along with Ms. Cattle Futures and Dancing with the Schultz, were three "titanic egos."

At the same time, per that new link, the idea that Prima Donna took over the DNC "reluctantly"? Uh, sure. Second rule in politics? "Follow the power after you follow the money."

Speaking of? Per Ken, Brazile retweeted this Tweet that claims the insider deal between HFA and the DNC had zero election effect. Upshit? If she's in it for the book money, she'll get it. If she's in it for the power, she's burned too many bridges in too many directsions with insiders now.

Sidebar: Hillary Clinton not only ran a suck-ass campaign, she had with her a suck-ass former DNC head as her Veep nominee. And, as much an insider eminence as Stanley Greenberg talked about the suck-ass campaign in as much an insider spot as The American Prospect. I mean, older members of the party establishment should have looked back to Hillarycare in 1993-94 to see she had a tin ear for retail politics.

And, yet, this all went on. The Democratic Party is both inept and corrupt at the national level. Kaine/Barackabama let slide the 50-state strategy of Howard Duck Dean, to the degree it was successful. And, Pelosi and lieutenants in the House didn't pick up the ball when it was clear that Preznit Kumbaya was doing his own mellifluous version of triangulation. Plenty of blame to go around.

OK, we're done with questions and commentary?

Wait, another question.

How did Elizabeth Warren not avoid getting semi-pinned down by Jake Tapper? Oh, this is a two-parter. How did Tapper not ask her if her answer wasn't talking about the horses after Tom Perez opened the barn door last month?

Speaking of, Tom Perez sure learned well from his former boss, Barackabama. Almost word for word, "moving forward not backward," when asked about Dancing with the Schultz.

And, one other question.

If Hillary's campaign had THAT BAD of a burn rate, doesn't this reinforce just how "lucky" she got with her cattle futures?

Actually, one other question.

"Shattered" was a fake tell-all, but as told to, not by a player.

"Hacks" is now a fake tell-all by an insider. Sorry, Stan Greenberg, but it didn't go that much deeper than what the MSM already had, and the authors started with the Putin Did It line.

Will we get a more real tell-all at some point?

And, if you don't believe me on "Shattered"?

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign by Jonathan   Allen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Inside baseball book strikes out in first at bat.

That strikeout occurs at the end of the introduction.

The authors talk about a "Kremlin-based campaign" against her and the failure of the media to get Trump's tax return while it "scrutinized her every move."

The first is factually incorrect. The second is narratively incorrect.

The most we know the Kremlin did right now was to try to hack into Iowa and Arizona state voting offices. Other activities believed to have been done by Russian individuals have not been tied to the Kremlin. As in, could be individual hackers, etc. More important, yet, the best intelligence indicated the DNC email leaks given to Wikileaks had their physical transmission done in the US and not over the Internet. More than that we can't say for certain, but it seems pretty clear no Russkies were involved.

The media? Wrote plenty of stories about Trump's taxes. Remember David Cay Johnston? I do. Wrote plenty of other stories about him. That said, it's not a CRIME for a presidential candidate to hold tax returns and, if it were, the media is not a grand jury or a district attorney.

The rest of the book generally slouches toward Gomorrah from there. The first time Bernie's "white liberal" backers is used of him, it's semi-sneering. The book doesn't cover either Clinton's OR Sanders' failures in foreign policy issues. The problematic nature of the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary Clinton's lies about donors to it — including lies to President Obama — get unmentioned.

And, even the inside baseball doesn't have that much new stuff for regular campaign watchers, especially those who saw a moderate variant of 2008 repeating itself.

The book in general reads as clearly coming from an inside-the-Beltway pundit duo.

==

And, don't believe a fake-reform, fake-improve-all book, either. Especially not when it comes from a guy who set up a totally non-transparent think tank, foundation, and likely eventual lobbying shop. Instead, take note that some of his fakery was called out 30 years ago.

Add in that real Democrat Bernie became part of a suit against the state of Arizona for not running a primary well — which theoretically hurt Republicans, too — but refused to sue the Iowa Democratic Party for putting its thumb on the scale for Clinton in the Democratic caucus.

Oh, and that fake-reform book? Reviewed it for you too.

Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In by Bernie Sanders
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Don't get sheepdogged

Several problems with this book.

One is that Bernie's a real Democrat, and has been a real Democrat for 25 years, despite the "I" that comes after his name on paper on a ballot line. And, he'll never tell you that. Nor does he support true options in general. There's no index, but I can tell you that you won't find a phrase like "Green Party" in this book.

Second is that, speaking of that, this book is all about domestic issues. Yes, ALL. Every chapter is about a domestic issue.

Why? Yes, he voted against the Iraq War. So did other Democrats, even if they were a minority. That said, Bernie in general, and the duopoly in general, have supported most American imperialism and American interventionalism. Bernie's no real friend of the Palestinians, for example. And, some of us know that. And we know that if he wrote enough about foreign policy, he eventually couldn't hide that.

Third is that, contra most 1 and 2 star reviews, while he called himself a "social democrat," he's not an actual socialist.

Fourth is that this is not a well-written book. It's the print version of Bernie's one-note trumpet, which eventually does become tiresome. And, as noted above, it was a quick-enough knockoff that there's no index.

(Update from original review: I think it was hastened to print to function as a lead-in and promo for the kickoff of the Sanders Institute. Once again, follow the money.)

The "Our Revolution" organization, at least from what I can see at the state level in my state, appears to be targeting entirely Dems on the left hand of the state Democratic party. Greens, Socialists, left-liberal independents need not apply. The book was written to further that; hence my headline.

Hence the header. (Combining points 1 and 2 above, in the one Dem debate, when Bernie discussed coups, he only mentioned Republican-sponsored ones. He ignored Diem in Vietnam, Hillary Clinton's coup against Honduras, and the semi-coup against Ukraine, for example.)

I don't like being lumped with disgruntled Hillbots and wingnuts, who make up all the 1- and 2-star reviews. But, Bernie could have done something different than he did from June on.


View all my reviews

==

Finally, a pro tip. With that big of a "get" in the Politico interview, I can guarantee you the rest of Brazile's book will be thin soup. And, per the title, a fair chunk of that thin soup will be "Putin Did It" BS. We probably won't even get either John Podesta's risotto tips or Putin's borscht with wild boar recipe.

Pro tip 2: Per Hank Kissinger, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." After money, it's what to follow next in politics. Brazile isn't yet done with the Democratic world, and she's triangulating into a post-Hillary future. For the same reason, I suspect "Shattered" didn't deliver as much deep dish as promised, and what it had wasn't any tastier of deep dish than Papa John's. Tipsters didn't want to burn too many bridges, or to destroy piers along with the bridge crossings.

Pro tip 3: If we want to see the money game, let's see how many copies Hillz, Prima Donna and Bernie the not so Socialist sell in a year's time.