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.”
Friday, September 25, 2015
Hillary Clinton quote about Huma Abedin not necessarily a contradiction
A number of media outlets are implying that the leading 2016 Democratic presidential candidate lied or contradicted herself in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, but journalists are ignoring that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was responding to a double question.
Politico's Rachel Bade reported Thursday, "According to documents obtained by conservative group Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Clinton was the immediate supervisor who approved the title change that came with the new post on March 23, 2012, permitting her then-deputy chief of staff to work several jobs at once."
"Do you think he had a point in raising the question of whether it was appropriate for her [Huma Abedin] to be taking a State Department salary and also be paid by an outside company, closely associated with your husband, by you?" Mitchell asked Clinton on September 4th, referring to criticism by the leading 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"Well, you know, I was not directly involved in that, but everything that she did was approved under the rules as they existed by the State Department," Clinton responded, but it's unclear if she was referring to the job change, Teneo's hiring of Abedin, or both.
No one from the Clinton campaign appears to have argued specifically otherwise, yet, but they did pursue a different argument.
NY Times journalist Nicholas Confessore reported late Thursday night at 10:03 PM, "A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton declined to comment on the newly released document."
But, as Politico's Rachel Bade noted a few minutes earlier in a 9:58 PM update, "The Clinton Campaign argued Thursday that the document wasn't the actual approval of the SGE status but only approved the title change that came with Abedin's transition. The document states that the position was 'new' and an SGE job: 'The incumbent serves as a Senior Adviser, Expert-Special Government Employee.'"
Hours later, the New York Times, still hasn't updated the article to include the Clinton campaign's response.
Politico's Rachel Bade reported Thursday, "According to documents obtained by conservative group Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Clinton was the immediate supervisor who approved the title change that came with the new post on March 23, 2012, permitting her then-deputy chief of staff to work several jobs at once."
"Do you think he had a point in raising the question of whether it was appropriate for her [Huma Abedin] to be taking a State Department salary and also be paid by an outside company, closely associated with your husband, by you?" Mitchell asked Clinton on September 4th, referring to criticism by the leading 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"Well, you know, I was not directly involved in that, but everything that she did was approved under the rules as they existed by the State Department," Clinton responded, but it's unclear if she was referring to the job change, Teneo's hiring of Abedin, or both.
No one from the Clinton campaign appears to have argued specifically otherwise, yet, but they did pursue a different argument.
NY Times journalist Nicholas Confessore reported late Thursday night at 10:03 PM, "A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton declined to comment on the newly released document."
But, as Politico's Rachel Bade noted a few minutes earlier in a 9:58 PM update, "The Clinton Campaign argued Thursday that the document wasn't the actual approval of the SGE status but only approved the title change that came with Abedin's transition. The document states that the position was 'new' and an SGE job: 'The incumbent serves as a Senior Adviser, Expert-Special Government Employee.'"
Hours later, the New York Times, still hasn't updated the article to include the Clinton campaign's response.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Controversial firm linked to Clintons handles press for $17.7 billion Cablevision deal
Very little is known about Weiner's post-Congress lobbying firm, Woolf Weiner Associates, and he acts angrily when questioned about it. In May of 2013, I did a story called "Anthony Weiner company led by former board director for firm investors blasted as 'CROOKS'", which has a lot of information about his consulting, that no other journalist ever seems to probe.
In regards to this story, this is what Michael Barbaro reported for The New York Times on April 30, 2013:
Mr. Weiner has advised Covington & Burling as it seeks to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to relax its long-standing objections to major foreign investment in the broadcast industry. He has tutored the firm on the key players and their political sensitivities, using knowledge gleaned from his tenure on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.A controversial consulting firm connected to the Clintons scored a bigtime client under the radar recently. And even though Teneo was founded by two Hillary Clinton fundraisers - including CEO Declan Kelly who she appointed as Economic Envoy to No. Ireland while she was Secretary of State - the D.C. press ignores the news. The specific person handling the press for the multi-billion dollar international cable deal once worked for a firm whose owner consulted former President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Weiner said he had reached out to federal officials at the Energy and Agriculture Departments, as well as members of Congress, on behalf of his clients. But he insisted that the work did not meet the legal definition of lobbying, which he said his contracts made clear he would not do.
The executives who have worked with him said the raunchy online banter with women that cost Mr. Weiner his post in Congress posed no problem for their employers.
“Nobody said don’t do this,” Mace J. Rosenstein, a partner in Covington’s telecommunications practice, said of hiring Mr. Weiner. 'He’s got this thing he has to deal with and it appears he is dealing with it in his own way.'
The New York Times appears to have published a "scoop" they received from a public relations firm tied to the top presidential candidate - but omitted mentioning either in their article - just to get an exclusive a few hours early. And since it's related to the creation of what will be the "#4 cable operator in the US market", which affects millions of US voters, this omission of news might be disturbing to watchdogs. Teneo sometimes gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a month by clients, and both entities inherently have common ground to make each other look good to the public.
"Teneo is a senior-led advisory firm with deep collective experience working at the highest echelons of the public and private sectors," the Teneo Holdings website states. "Our team has a rich knowledge base and global network of relationships that we bring to bear on behalf of our clients every day."
If that "global network of relationships" includes New York Times reporters, then - in a sense - this rapidly growing international firm, which has been criticized for using government connections across the world to woo clients and accused of milking those links, controls the media on multiple levels. Teneo is especially secretive about their long list of clients - including "the CEOs of many Fortune 100 companies across a diverse range of industry sectors" and "senior leaders of many of the world’s largest and most complex companies and organizations" - and notorious for not commenting on controversies involving itself.
"Cablevision has agreed to sell itself to Altice, an acquisitive European telecommunications giant, for about $17.7 billion, including debt, people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday," Michael J. de la Merced, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Emily Steel reported for the new York Times on September 16. "It is the latest deal to reshape the broadband and cable television landscape. An announcement could be made on Thursday, these people said."
The story adds, "Talks between Altice and Cablevision began in June, weeks after the Suddenlink deal was struck and after bankers had deluged the European company with pitches for additional deals to pursue, according to the people who were briefed."
At 8:46 PM last Wednesday, @NYTimes tweeted a link to the exclusive article. A little over five hours later - at 2:08 AM - @M_delamerced bragged in a tweet, "As @andrewrsorkin and I reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/business/international/altice-in-deal-to-take-over-cablevision.html), Altice is buying Cablevision for $34.90 a share. Release: http://altice.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/20150917-ALT-Cablevision-Acquisition.pdf." The press release in Merced's tweet mentions that David Vermillion from Teneo is handling media relations, and lists his phone number and email address.
At 2:03 PM on September 17, New York Times journalist Michael J. de la Merced celebrated a huge link he received for a story that didn't mention that a PR firm tied to top Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was handling press for a $17.7B deal that will affect millions of Americans. "DRUDGE SIRENS GALORE," @m_delamerced tweeted.
"Teneo Strategy's David Vermillion is handling press for Altice, which has cable systems in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Switzerland, Israel, Dominian Republice and French Caribbean," Kevin McCauley noted at O'Dwyer's PR on Wednesday, which shows that New York Times journalists Merced and Sorkin almost certainly knew about Teneo, but left them out of their story.
Both Merced and Sorkin have ignored my tweets.
Last year, on December 8, 2014, Michael J. de la Merced, "scooped" the world on a story directly related to Teneo, reporting, "Teneo, a corporate advisory firm with an unusually broad array of businesses, has secured backing from the big private equity firm BC Partners, the company plans to disclose this week."
However, Merced's article doesn't make any reference to how he learned about the "company plans". The New York Times reporter doesn't mention a source, named or unnamed, which might be a violation of the paper's rules on journalism ethics.
Merced does paraphrase an exclusive quote he apparently got from one of Teneo's presidents, but, again, there are ethical concerns, if a top business journalist for - arguably - the most important paper in America is publishing stories - that omit key information - based on tips from a powerful P.R. firm. "The investment from BC Partners came about through friendships that some of the firm’s senior executives have with Teneo’s management, according to Richard Powell, the head of Teneo’s communications arm."
"Since its founding by two former FTI executives, Declan Kelly and Paul Keary, and a former Clinton administration aide, Douglas J. Band, the firm has garnered clients like Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical and the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group," Merced wrote in December, but didn't mention that both Kelly and Kerry were fundraisers for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was beginning to rev up her presidential campaign, at the time. It also didn't mention that former President Bill Clinton once consulted for the firm, but was reportedly pressured to stop earning money because it was damaging to his wife. So, he instead became a client, allegedly. There also isn't any mention of longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who controversially worked for Teneo, the Clinton Foundation, the State Department and Hillary Clinton, herself, from June of 2012 to February 1, 2013.
According to his LinkedIn resume, Managing Director David Vermillion has been working at Teneo since 2013, after a year as Executive Vice President for Edelman, and it notes, "In 2005, Dave played a central role in the landslide reelection campaign of New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, writing and producing all television and radio commercials and direct mail as well as serving as spokesman for her campaign." Vermillion also worked for Sheinkopf Ltd. as Vice President from 2003 to 2006, for former Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who consulted for President Bill Clinton on his successful 1996 re-election campaign. In 2004, Vermillion was the Treasurer and Chairperson for a 527 called Better Government Committee, with the stated purpose of which was to contribute to other political committees, but no contributions or expenditures were ever recorded.
The New York Times journalists also noted last Wednesday, "But the takeover of Cablevision — one of the last trophies of the American cable industry and the longtime province of its founding family, the Dolans — could also draw significant concern from regulators, particularly as control of the telecom market shrinks to fewer and fewer players."
In their rush to publish an exclusive a few hours early, the reporters didn't even apparently attempt to contact any critics of the deal. And a day later, any story already is in danger of becoming old news. Business journalists reporting on firms that have deep political ties and that will affect how many Americans receive their news should leave room for criticism in all their articles. But not quoting critics might have been a condition of the "scoop", as well.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Washington Post publishes another confusing story about Clinton email server
New spokesman hired by firm scrubbed the website for his own firm days ago to remove name of former President Bill Clinton deputy staff secretary who has been recently defending Hillary Clinton over emails on MSNBC
There won't be any - and certainly shouldn't be - Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the New York Times or the Washington Post for reporting on the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Both papers have made sloppy mistakes and it's hard to tell if their articles have helped or hurt the top 2016 presidential candidate, as opposed to her actual actions since leaving the State Department which have hurt her: deleting emails and taking too long to apologize for using a private account. And nearly one month to the day after publishing a confusing story about the Clinton email server that was seized by the FBI, three of the same four Washington Post journalists strike again.
On August 12, 2015, four top Washington Post journalists - Karen Tumulty, Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol Leonnig - reported, "The e-mail server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton when she served as secretary of state was turned over to the FBI late Wednesday afternoon from a private data center in New Jersey, according to an attorney familiar with the transfer."
The source for that story was "Barbara J. Wells, a Denver lawyer who represents Platte River Networks Inc., a small computer services firm that has managed the Clintons’ private e-mail system since mid-2013."
Also, the dateline was confusing, and the Washington Post journalists made no effort to explain it. Why were there multiple servers and did the FBI have the correct one? This couldn't have been the server Hillary Clinton staffers used to send emails to the State Department last winter, if it had been blank since June of 2013.
"Thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state have disappeared off the private server taken into custody by the FBI Wednesday evening, raising questions as to where that data presently resides," Sarah Westwood reported for the Washington Examiner on August 14, 2015. "Platte River Networks does not have any data from the old server that is available on any of the servers or devices that they currently have in their control," Wells told Westwood.
One possible explanation is that the server was transferred to Platte River in reaction to the hacking of Sidney Blumenthal's email account by the Romanian hacker Guccifer in March of 2013, or perhaps it was compromised shortly after, but the feds should be able to determine that. "Someone needs to ask Hillary Clinton or the FBI directly if the FBI has the actual computer that the emails were printed up from," I said to Westwood in a DM conversation last month, in reaction to her story.
"The revelation that Clinton never ordered the server wiped could bolster her statements that her actions have been aboveboard, suggesting that she did not take active steps to hide her e-mails," Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol Leonnig reported for The Washington Post on Friday, only there isn't any "revelation" in their article, just more confusion, perhaps intentional, and it's ludicrous to claim deleting emails isn't an "active step". It would be like arguing that the fictional serial killer Dexter only chopped up a body, and didn't use acid to properly dispose of it, so his "actions have been aboveboard."
The Washington Post journalists have ignored my criticism of other sloppy reporting they have recently committed in related stories.
On August 27, Helderman and Hamburger wrongfully reported, that Huma Abedin "has said little publicly about her multiple roles during that time, a personally tumultuous period following the birth of her son and a texting scandal that ended the political career of her husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)." But the timeline is completely off. Abedin's "multiple roles" - working for at least four different employers at the same time - were played from June of 2012 until she left the State Department on February 1, 2013, before Weiner ran for mayor. It wasn't a "personally tumultuous period", since Abedin hadn't started pretending, yet, that the Weiners had patched up their marriage issues and counseling had cured his sexting addiction. Abedin lost a lot of supporters when it turned out that interviews she gave to People and The New York Times were, at best, disingenuous.
In that same story, Helderman and Hamburger ignored that one of their sources, longtime Clinton supporter, "Niall O’Dowd, publisher of Irish America magazine" had claimed in a June of 2014 essay that "12 of us old-time Hillary supporters sat with her in a Dublin restaurant at a dinner hosted by businessman Denis O’Brien", as I reported in March, but now the less controversial American Ireland Fund director John Fitzpatrick was being fingered as the host instead of Teneo CEO Declan Kelly or O'Brien, who received bad press coverage in March.
And this line also seems to be ignorant of historical events: "As Clinton was preparing in late 2012 to leave office, Abedin also was considering her post-government career options." Even if her husband won the New York City mayoral race, it was always expected that Abedin would return to Clinton's side as she prepared to launch another presidential campaign that surprised no one.
On August 27, I reported that the same Washington Post article neglected to mention that banking executive Ken Miller was an advisor to the State Department when he contacted Huma Abedin for advice in July of 2012, before taking a job with Teneo. Also, Washington Post journalists ignored my exclusive reporting about Hillary Clinton's last trip to Ireland as Secretary of State which involved events with fundraisers and Teneo CEO Declan Kelly, and when it was confirmed in the emails Citizen United leaked to them, they flubbed the reporting and failed to note key information. The paper has also ignored that Huma Abedin's attorneys have deep ties to the State Department and Hillary Clinton, and never seems to challenge them on how long they've represented her or who is paying them.
"The company that managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server said it has 'no knowledge of the server being wiped,' the strongest indication to date that tens of thousands of e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered," Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol Leonnig reported for The Washington Post on Friday. "'Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped,'" company spokesman Andy Boian told The Washington Post. All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped."
But this is nothing more than a useless sound bite that raises more questions than it answers. Instead of definitively finding out if the server was wiped or not, the reporters based an entire story on a non-definitive statement. If no one connected to the Clinton server can give a straight answer on whether or not it was wiped, then the media should stop quoting them on that topic, and grill them about something else instead. A few weeks ago, Wells hung up on a Bloomberg reporter after asked for further details.
"Even if the e-mails could be restored, it’s unclear whether anyone would have the authority to do so," the Post reporters admit, before, adding, "Conservative groups have already been pressing in court for access to those e-mails, if they exist," which is another example of the paper, yet again, ignoring lawsuits by liberal leaning journalists at Gawker and Vice News.
On August 27, Rosalind Helderman reported claims by Platte River that it had received death threats, but didn't note if any police reports had been made by the firm ("Tom Hamburger, Karen Tumulty and Alice Crites contributed to this report") Their new source is "Andy Boian, a public relations manager brought on last week to help Platte River deal with its newfound fame."
Just days ago, Andy Boian's firm Dovetail Solution's website was scrubbed and Strategic Counselor David Goodfriend's name was removed. "His positions in government service have included deputy staff secretary to President Bill Clinton, professional committee staff to Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), and media legal advisor to FCC Commissioner Susan Ness. Goodfriend helped found Air America Radio and co-hosts “Left Jab” on Sirius-XM. He also is a regular political contributor to MSNBC, CNBC and Fox."
On MNSNBC, David Goodfriend has been blasting the media for its Hillary Clinton coverage, as Media Matters notes: "The second thing is, I saw some very interesting news about a federal judge saying there's nothing wrong with what Hillary Clinton did with respect to deleting personal e-mails. Where is the big coverage of that? Oh, wouldn't you know it, that's just buried, deep, deep, deep. I had to research and Google and try to find it. Oh, here it is! So come on. Don't tell me there's this even-handed treatment of Hillary Clinton -- everybody in the press corps seems to love the gotcha game."
As Google notes, this is "a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Sep 9, 2015":
On August 24, Breitbart.com's Patrick Howley broke the news, that Goodfriend worked for Dovetail Solutions. "Goodfriend took a class at Georgetown Law School with current Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, who was then in between shifts in the Bill Clinton White House," Howley reported. "Goodfriend is reportedly a member of a Hillary Clinton For President organization. His relationship with Podesta was documented."
On April 22, David Goodfriend contributed $2,700 to the Hillary For America presidential campaign. On August 28, 2008, Goodfriend contributed $1,000 to Friends of Hillary, and he gave $2,300 to her general and primary campaigns on October 18, 2007 and another $1,000 to the primary campaign on June 11, 2007.
There won't be any - and certainly shouldn't be - Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the New York Times or the Washington Post for reporting on the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Both papers have made sloppy mistakes and it's hard to tell if their articles have helped or hurt the top 2016 presidential candidate, as opposed to her actual actions since leaving the State Department which have hurt her: deleting emails and taking too long to apologize for using a private account. And nearly one month to the day after publishing a confusing story about the Clinton email server that was seized by the FBI, three of the same four Washington Post journalists strike again.
On August 12, 2015, four top Washington Post journalists - Karen Tumulty, Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol Leonnig - reported, "The e-mail server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton when she served as secretary of state was turned over to the FBI late Wednesday afternoon from a private data center in New Jersey, according to an attorney familiar with the transfer."
The source for that story was "Barbara J. Wells, a Denver lawyer who represents Platte River Networks Inc., a small computer services firm that has managed the Clintons’ private e-mail system since mid-2013."
"After she left government service in early 2013, the Clintons decided to upgrade the system, hiring Platte River as the new manager of a privately managed e-mail network. The old server was removed from the Clinton home by Platte River and stored in a third party data center, which are set up to provide security from threats of hacking and natural disaster, Wells said.After that story was published, I complained to the four Washington Post journalists on Twitter and in an email that their article was full of misinformation. That there was plenty of information and "useful data" that could be retrieved, even if the server had been wiped, and that constantly quoting Hillary Clinton and lawyers claiming that nothing had been emailed marked classified made no sense since the information itself could be classified. I even suggested that they read a Bloomberg news article to learn more about forensic server retrieving and an editor from Ars Technica retweeted me.
Platte River Networks has retained control of the old server since it took over management of the Clintons’ e-mail system. She said that the old server 'was blank,' and no longer contained useful data.
'The information had been migrated over to a different server for purposes of transition,' from the old system to one run by Platte River, she said, recalling the transfer that occurred in June 2013.
'To my knowledge the data on the old server is not available now on any servers or devices in Platte River Network’s control."
Also, the dateline was confusing, and the Washington Post journalists made no effort to explain it. Why were there multiple servers and did the FBI have the correct one? This couldn't have been the server Hillary Clinton staffers used to send emails to the State Department last winter, if it had been blank since June of 2013.
"Thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state have disappeared off the private server taken into custody by the FBI Wednesday evening, raising questions as to where that data presently resides," Sarah Westwood reported for the Washington Examiner on August 14, 2015. "Platte River Networks does not have any data from the old server that is available on any of the servers or devices that they currently have in their control," Wells told Westwood.
One possible explanation is that the server was transferred to Platte River in reaction to the hacking of Sidney Blumenthal's email account by the Romanian hacker Guccifer in March of 2013, or perhaps it was compromised shortly after, but the feds should be able to determine that. "Someone needs to ask Hillary Clinton or the FBI directly if the FBI has the actual computer that the emails were printed up from," I said to Westwood in a DM conversation last month, in reaction to her story.
"The revelation that Clinton never ordered the server wiped could bolster her statements that her actions have been aboveboard, suggesting that she did not take active steps to hide her e-mails," Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol Leonnig reported for The Washington Post on Friday, only there isn't any "revelation" in their article, just more confusion, perhaps intentional, and it's ludicrous to claim deleting emails isn't an "active step". It would be like arguing that the fictional serial killer Dexter only chopped up a body, and didn't use acid to properly dispose of it, so his "actions have been aboveboard."
The Washington Post journalists have ignored my criticism of other sloppy reporting they have recently committed in related stories.
On August 27, Helderman and Hamburger wrongfully reported, that Huma Abedin "has said little publicly about her multiple roles during that time, a personally tumultuous period following the birth of her son and a texting scandal that ended the political career of her husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)." But the timeline is completely off. Abedin's "multiple roles" - working for at least four different employers at the same time - were played from June of 2012 until she left the State Department on February 1, 2013, before Weiner ran for mayor. It wasn't a "personally tumultuous period", since Abedin hadn't started pretending, yet, that the Weiners had patched up their marriage issues and counseling had cured his sexting addiction. Abedin lost a lot of supporters when it turned out that interviews she gave to People and The New York Times were, at best, disingenuous.
In that same story, Helderman and Hamburger ignored that one of their sources, longtime Clinton supporter, "Niall O’Dowd, publisher of Irish America magazine" had claimed in a June of 2014 essay that "12 of us old-time Hillary supporters sat with her in a Dublin restaurant at a dinner hosted by businessman Denis O’Brien", as I reported in March, but now the less controversial American Ireland Fund director John Fitzpatrick was being fingered as the host instead of Teneo CEO Declan Kelly or O'Brien, who received bad press coverage in March.
And this line also seems to be ignorant of historical events: "As Clinton was preparing in late 2012 to leave office, Abedin also was considering her post-government career options." Even if her husband won the New York City mayoral race, it was always expected that Abedin would return to Clinton's side as she prepared to launch another presidential campaign that surprised no one.
On August 27, I reported that the same Washington Post article neglected to mention that banking executive Ken Miller was an advisor to the State Department when he contacted Huma Abedin for advice in July of 2012, before taking a job with Teneo. Also, Washington Post journalists ignored my exclusive reporting about Hillary Clinton's last trip to Ireland as Secretary of State which involved events with fundraisers and Teneo CEO Declan Kelly, and when it was confirmed in the emails Citizen United leaked to them, they flubbed the reporting and failed to note key information. The paper has also ignored that Huma Abedin's attorneys have deep ties to the State Department and Hillary Clinton, and never seems to challenge them on how long they've represented her or who is paying them.
"The company that managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server said it has 'no knowledge of the server being wiped,' the strongest indication to date that tens of thousands of e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered," Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol Leonnig reported for The Washington Post on Friday. "'Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped,'" company spokesman Andy Boian told The Washington Post. All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped."
But this is nothing more than a useless sound bite that raises more questions than it answers. Instead of definitively finding out if the server was wiped or not, the reporters based an entire story on a non-definitive statement. If no one connected to the Clinton server can give a straight answer on whether or not it was wiped, then the media should stop quoting them on that topic, and grill them about something else instead. A few weeks ago, Wells hung up on a Bloomberg reporter after asked for further details.
"Even if the e-mails could be restored, it’s unclear whether anyone would have the authority to do so," the Post reporters admit, before, adding, "Conservative groups have already been pressing in court for access to those e-mails, if they exist," which is another example of the paper, yet again, ignoring lawsuits by liberal leaning journalists at Gawker and Vice News.
On August 27, Rosalind Helderman reported claims by Platte River that it had received death threats, but didn't note if any police reports had been made by the firm ("Tom Hamburger, Karen Tumulty and Alice Crites contributed to this report") Their new source is "Andy Boian, a public relations manager brought on last week to help Platte River deal with its newfound fame."
"Last week, an attorney for the company said the server was 'blank' when it was turned over to the FBI. Attorney Barbara Wells also said that at one point, data from the server was 'migrated' to another server for the purpose of making the transition to Platte River.According to his online biography, Andy Boian has had a long career working in Democratic politics, and he was on the "transition teams for both the nation's forty-second president and a United States secretary of the interior." Bill Clinton was the 42nd president, and Boian's Linked In biography adds, "Andy has also been actively involved in politics at the local and national levels as a senior advisor, strategist, and speechwriter. In these capacities he has worked on numerous mayoral, gubernatorial and presidential campaigns for the past 21 years. He served on the transition team for the nation's 42nd President, and two cabinet nominees for two different presidential administrations."
But Boian, the public relations manager, said he could no longer be confident that Wells’s information about the server being blank had been accurate."
Just days ago, Andy Boian's firm Dovetail Solution's website was scrubbed and Strategic Counselor David Goodfriend's name was removed. "His positions in government service have included deputy staff secretary to President Bill Clinton, professional committee staff to Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), and media legal advisor to FCC Commissioner Susan Ness. Goodfriend helped found Air America Radio and co-hosts “Left Jab” on Sirius-XM. He also is a regular political contributor to MSNBC, CNBC and Fox."
On MNSNBC, David Goodfriend has been blasting the media for its Hillary Clinton coverage, as Media Matters notes: "The second thing is, I saw some very interesting news about a federal judge saying there's nothing wrong with what Hillary Clinton did with respect to deleting personal e-mails. Where is the big coverage of that? Oh, wouldn't you know it, that's just buried, deep, deep, deep. I had to research and Google and try to find it. Oh, here it is! So come on. Don't tell me there's this even-handed treatment of Hillary Clinton -- everybody in the press corps seems to love the gotcha game."
As Google notes, this is "a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Sep 9, 2015":
On April 22, David Goodfriend contributed $2,700 to the Hillary For America presidential campaign. On August 28, 2008, Goodfriend contributed $1,000 to Friends of Hillary, and he gave $2,300 to her general and primary campaigns on October 18, 2007 and another $1,000 to the primary campaign on June 11, 2007.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Joe Wilson invites Hillary Clinton to see 'Fair Game' via Sid Blumenthal
Everyone in the media seems to be mocking Sid Blumenthal's emails to Hillary Clinton from the latest batch released on Monday.
I searched for movie and found Blumenthal forwarding an October 13, 2010 email from former US Ambassador Joe Wilson inviting Hillary Clinton and Potus (ret) aka former President Bill Clinton to see the movie based on himself and his wife, Valerie Plame, "Fair Game". Wilson calls it "the film of our fight with the Bush administration."
Wilson offers the Clintons a choice of screenings to attend or suggests that he can arrange a private screening at their "home or elsewhere. Depending on the time, either Valerie or I would be delighted to attend and answer questions afterwards."
"Valerie and I think that the film tells the story of that time and are proud of it," Wilson adds. "I would be pleased to share it with you."
I reported on the Plame scandal ("Court filings shed more light on CIA leak" and "Jeff Gannon's 'Internal Government Memo' Lie" are two examples), love Naomi Watts, especially love Sean Penn, and Doug Liman's "Go" is a clever film, but this "Fair Game" was even worse than the one with Cindy Crawford and Billy Baldwin. I think the Rotten Tomatoes score of 79 is probably a partisan reaction against Bush and the lies that led to the Iraq war. It didn't even make $10,000,000 at the box office.
I searched for movie and found Blumenthal forwarding an October 13, 2010 email from former US Ambassador Joe Wilson inviting Hillary Clinton and Potus (ret) aka former President Bill Clinton to see the movie based on himself and his wife, Valerie Plame, "Fair Game". Wilson calls it "the film of our fight with the Bush administration."
Wilson offers the Clintons a choice of screenings to attend or suggests that he can arrange a private screening at their "home or elsewhere. Depending on the time, either Valerie or I would be delighted to attend and answer questions afterwards."
"Valerie and I think that the film tells the story of that time and are proud of it," Wilson adds. "I would be pleased to share it with you."
I reported on the Plame scandal ("Court filings shed more light on CIA leak" and "Jeff Gannon's 'Internal Government Memo' Lie" are two examples), love Naomi Watts, especially love Sean Penn, and Doug Liman's "Go" is a clever film, but this "Fair Game" was even worse than the one with Cindy Crawford and Billy Baldwin. I think the Rotten Tomatoes score of 79 is probably a partisan reaction against Bush and the lies that led to the Iraq war. It didn't even make $10,000,000 at the box office.
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