My mistakes were not bringing a tape recorder and meeting you on your turf. Thanks for learning me on that. It's scary you were almost mayor. I've only lost 10 percent of my life essentially defending you from bogus pedophile claims...and all you did was harangue, lie, rage, prevent me from writing notes, turn tables on me, and make absurd claims about facts. Please get help. Please don't hurt your wife or child.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Democrats spin 'as if it were classified' into 'as classified'
Clearly, the phrases "as if it were classified" and "as classified" are not the same, however, as, Caitlin MacNeal reports at the liberal blog Talking Points Memo, "Noting House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) comment last week about the Benghazi committee's political success, Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Monday circumvented Republicans on the panel to release details from one of the committee's private interviews with a former aide to Hillary Clinton."
A correction was finally added to Rosenthal's column eight days after it was published, after I Tweeted Anna North - who "writes on cultural topics for the editorial page and is the editor of [The New York Times' editorial page editor's] blog": "When you edited @andyrNYT column with bogus Benghazi probe claim, did you fact-check? Will you fix? @annanorthtweets http://ronbryn.blogspot.com/2015/10/democrats-spin-as-if-it-were-classified.html". However, I still think the correction should contain an explanation, especially since it appears to be based on a Clinton 2016 talking point.
And now, this week, the campaign and friendly journalists and bloggers are effectively using McCarthy's assertion to push back on a scandal that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton apologized over, and the FBI is still investigating.
Look at the way TPM [Editor's Note: I originally called TPM "a blog connected to the Media Matters machine" based on memory, but I can't find any evidence TPM founder Josh Marshall ever worked there, just that both he and many Media Matters and TPM staffers were once on the controversial JournoList together. Also, TPM certainly isn't a blog.] handles this letter, compared to the non-partisan political website, The Hill: "Defying the orders of Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the Democrats on Monday released portions of a secret transcript containing the testimony of Cheryl Mills, a Clinton aide and confidante,"
Even though TPM linked to The Hill article, MacNeal didn't even quote the response that Julian Hattem obtained from a Gowdy spokesperson:
However, I pretty much agree that the Cheryl Mills and Sidney Blumenthal interviews should be released to the public, and any classified info could be redacted. Both sides are in the wrong and acting in a hyper-partisan manner.
"On September 29, 2015, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitted during a nationally televised interview on Fox News that House Republicans created the Benghazi Select Committee from the very beginning to wage a taxpayer-funded political campaign against Hillary Clinton’s bid for president. Obviously, this is an unethical abuse of millions of taxpayer dollars and a crass assault on the memories of the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi," the Democrats began in a letter to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the select committee, referencing the majority leader's statements last week.Last week, apparently without fact-checking, some members of the media - including The New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal - seemingly repeated the bogus (See The Hill) Clinton campaign assertion that Benghazi was the longest House Committee probe ever. Salon Deputy Politics Editor Sophia Tesfaye - who is also a researcher for Media Matters For America (who have defended the Clintons for a long time, as I reported with RAW STORY in 2006: "Senator Clinton made personal phone calls to raise money for ‘nonpartisan’ defender, employees say"), according to her LinkedIn resume - went further and compared it to investigations such as the Hurricane Katrina, Warren Commission, and Iran-Contra probes, without noting that most consider those probes too short or cover-ups of scandals. Ms. Tesfaye ignored tweets I sent her asking about this, but she - at least - updated her Salon story, while the Rosenthal editorial at The New York Times remains uncorrected.
In the letter, Reps. Elijah Cumming (D-MD), Adam Smith (D-WA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), said that the way Republicans on the committee went about their work shows how political their investigation has been."
A correction was finally added to Rosenthal's column eight days after it was published, after I Tweeted Anna North - who "writes on cultural topics for the editorial page and is the editor of [The New York Times' editorial page editor's] blog": "When you edited @andyrNYT column with bogus Benghazi probe claim, did you fact-check? Will you fix? @annanorthtweets http://ronbryn.blogspot.com/2015/10/democrats-spin-as-if-it-were-classified.html". However, I still think the correction should contain an explanation, especially since it appears to be based on a Clinton 2016 talking point.
And now, this week, the campaign and friendly journalists and bloggers are effectively using McCarthy's assertion to push back on a scandal that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton apologized over, and the FBI is still investigating.
Look at the way TPM [Editor's Note: I originally called TPM "a blog connected to the Media Matters machine" based on memory, but I can't find any evidence TPM founder Josh Marshall ever worked there, just that both he and many Media Matters and TPM staffers were once on the controversial JournoList together. Also, TPM certainly isn't a blog.] handles this letter, compared to the non-partisan political website, The Hill: "Defying the orders of Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the Democrats on Monday released portions of a secret transcript containing the testimony of Cheryl Mills, a Clinton aide and confidante,"
Even though TPM linked to The Hill article, MacNeal didn't even quote the response that Julian Hattem obtained from a Gowdy spokesperson:
"'Most Democrats on the Benghazi Committee have endorsed Clinton, and they are now running a protection effort for the former secretary,' said Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Gowdy.I'm publishing a key portion of the Democrats' letter, from this link, to show how it spins "as if it were classified" into "as classified", in a propagandistic attempt to defend charges that Clinton and colleagues were emailing information that was later marked classified through, to, and over a private email server.
'It is one thing to merely sit idly by while others do serious work, it is quite another to attempt to undercut that work with selective leaks in violation of House Rules.'"
However, I pretty much agree that the Cheryl Mills and Sidney Blumenthal interviews should be released to the public, and any classified info could be redacted. Both sides are in the wrong and acting in a hyper-partisan manner.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Former Senior Advisor to Obama calls Clinton email scandal 'gobbledygook'
Yesterday's Washington Times included a commentary I wrote called "A liberal take on the Clinton email scandal: Why the Huma Abedin controversy matters". It doesn't contain links to my sources, so here's the opening, as I originally wrote it:
Since Hillary Clinton has apologized for her use of a private email account, and turned over her server, from which the FBI reportedly has already been able to extract emails not turned over to the State Department to fulfill media FOIA and Congressional investigators' requests, it's probably a bad idea for her campaign - or anyone who supports it - to spin everything into a "vast right wing conspiracy". The Associated Press, VICE and Gawker all had unfulfilled FOIA requests, so it's not just Republicans who are on the hunt for emails. At the same time, much of the scandal really involves the White House and State Department, after Clinton left it, since there were plenty of emails on government accounts that should have been turned over before the former State Secretary sent her 30,000 emails late last year.
In today's Washington Post, former Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama Dan Pfeiffer - who is now a CNN contributor - pretty much insults all US voters, by referring to the email scandal as "gobbledygook". Clinton's polling numbers have taken a dive, mostly due to the emails, so this is a terrible attempt at spin.
"The [U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi] chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), has maintained that its work was a neutral examination of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks," Philip Rucker and Robert Costa report. "But ['likely next House speaker, Majority Leader Kevin' McCarthy (R-Calif.)'] told Fox News host Sean Hannity: 'Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s un-trustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought.'"
After promising "change" in America, President Barack Obama officially shut the revolving door on January 21, 2009, in his very first Executive Order (https://www.whitehouse.gov/21stcenturygov/actions/revolving-door).Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills was on the board of the Clinton Foundation from 2004 to 2009, and it doesn't make sense to me why I seem to be the only journalist asking this next question. But didn't she essentially break President Obama's ethics pledge every single time she exchanged an email mentioning the Clinton Foundation while she worked at the State Department?
"Every appointee in every executive agency" was asked to sign this "Ethics Pledge" which would make them "contractually committed...[a]s a condition, and in consideration, of [their] employment in the United States Government in a position invested with the public trust." Commitment to the "obligations" was "binding" and "enforceable under law."
While most of President Obama's Executive Order was devoted to curbing lobbying, there was also a "Revolving Door Ban" which affected "All Appointees Entering Government."
"I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts," all appointees entering government were asked to vow.
After serving as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, longtime aide Huma Abedin was quietly appointed as a "special government employee" on June 3, 2012. However, according to an email that conservative watchdog Judicial Watch recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Action lawsuit against the State Department, the very next day Abedin claimed that her "new position" would be "identical to [her] old position," even though that appears to be in violation of S.G.E. requirements (http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/new-documents-huma-abedin).
Since Hillary Clinton has apologized for her use of a private email account, and turned over her server, from which the FBI reportedly has already been able to extract emails not turned over to the State Department to fulfill media FOIA and Congressional investigators' requests, it's probably a bad idea for her campaign - or anyone who supports it - to spin everything into a "vast right wing conspiracy". The Associated Press, VICE and Gawker all had unfulfilled FOIA requests, so it's not just Republicans who are on the hunt for emails. At the same time, much of the scandal really involves the White House and State Department, after Clinton left it, since there were plenty of emails on government accounts that should have been turned over before the former State Secretary sent her 30,000 emails late last year.
In today's Washington Post, former Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama Dan Pfeiffer - who is now a CNN contributor - pretty much insults all US voters, by referring to the email scandal as "gobbledygook". Clinton's polling numbers have taken a dive, mostly due to the emails, so this is a terrible attempt at spin.
"The [U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi] chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), has maintained that its work was a neutral examination of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks," Philip Rucker and Robert Costa report. "But ['likely next House speaker, Majority Leader Kevin' McCarthy (R-Calif.)'] told Fox News host Sean Hannity: 'Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s un-trustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought.'"
With Clinton struggling to gain momentum in the Democratic nominating fight, McCarthy’s comments amount to a unifying force for the party to rally to her defense, as well as give her an opening to do what she is most comfortable doing: fighting back against Republicans.Wackadoo is one of my favorite words, since it's from a hilarious line in one of my favorite films, "The Pope of Greenwich Village", but "gobbledygook" is a pretty cool word, too, even when it's insultingly used.
“I think it will pull people together,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Obama. “The e-mail situation is a complicated one. . . . All of that is gobbledygook to the American people, but political motivation is easily understood.”
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