October 15, 2016

"The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton."

"What John Podesta’s emails from 2008 reveal about the way power works in the Democratic Party," by David Dayen in The New Republic. (Podesta was a co-chair of Obama’s transition team.)

221 comments:

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damikesc said...

I'd argue the biggest concern is that Dems seem fine with the way it works.

I don't see any part of this story that is surprising. The DNC is a brutally top-down organization and the views of their voters mean less than nothing to them. And they know they can get away with it because their voters will always return to the fold. It is depressing that having such ardent voters means they can safely ignore them, but it does.

Making your vote not up for grabs is a poor strategy.

David Begley said...

Yeah. Big news. Wall Street, the MSM and the Dems are all in bed with each other. A sick threesome that screws America.

sane_voter said...

Why is this surprising? Of course they are thinking of potential cabinet members ahead of the election. What a nothing burger.

damikesc said...

I remember getting heat in political science classes in college for simply noting "Why would a Republican help a black person? It does them, literally, no electoral good. And why would a Democrat help a black person? They have your vote no matter what they do."

Today, I'd be up for microaggressions or something.

sane_voter said...

So Podesta had a binder full of women and a binder full of minorities. Shocking.

traditionalguy said...

No wonder Elizabeth Warren gets no jobs from the Wall Street Cabal that owns Obama and the part of the Clinton foundation not owned by the Saudis.

Trump is actually the only pro American running. And like John Parker on Lexington, he says, "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want war, let it begin here."

rhhardin said...

You'd think they'd be more subtle in emails, not that it wasn't happening.

Maybe somebody thought it wasn't happening. Women perhaps.

rhhardin said...

All the speculative room is in what women will do.

So nothing rational is going to work.

robother said...

Why, it almost seems like these Democrat primaries are just pantomimes, staged to create the illusion of democracy for the suckers. Kind of like the way the anti-war protests of the Left just vanish completely when Obama escalates in Afghanistan or drone attacks the Middle East.

Chanie said...

You forgot the Hillary tag. Notwithstanding the articles title, the point is democracy is being subverted as we speak by the pay to play party. All while the country obsesses over sex allegations. We get the government we deserve.

tim maguire said...

I was all set for a piece discussing cynical strategizing. But no, how power works in the Democratic party is they plan ahead and choose carefully.

Thanks, there's a pulitzer in there somewhere.

Caroline said...

House of Cards, people. NExt season will be the reality show.

Michael K said...

The Democrats and the Big Banks are a team. Who has benefited from ZIRP ?

A pretty good piece by a professor who supports Trump.

I guess I should have bought Citibank stock when it was a penny.

Sydney said...

The most important story of the Wikileaks is the collusion between the media and these power brokers of the Democratic party. They are all one.

Robert Cook said...

Anyone who persists in thinking this is a Republicans are the Good Guys/Democrats are the Bad Guys dichotomy (or vice versa) is simply deluding themselves, living in make-believe land. This is how power works, and both parties are in it up to their necks. Both parties, collectively, (as opposed to the rare individuals in Washington who do see their roles are to serve the people), are lackeys to the financial elites who run this country.

There's no salvation to be had in electing Trump.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

Give them their due, the oligarchs are devious and well organized.

Any system of government in which virtually all political power is held by a very small number of wealthy but otherwise unmeritorious people who shape public policy primarily to benefit themselves financially through direct subsidies to their agricultural estates or business firms, lucrative government contracts, and protectionist measures aimed at damaging their economic competitors — while displaying little or no concern for the broader interests of the rest of the citizenry. “Oligarchy” is also used as a collective term to denote all the individual members of the small corrupt ruling group in such a system.

Famous Original Mike said...

Keeping the retinue of cretins that surround the Clintons like Podesta, Sid Blumenthal, Phil Reines, and Cheryl Mills away from the White House is as good a reason to vote for Trump as any. Oh, that and the fact that she will appoint four, 40-year-old Ruth Ginsburgs to the SCOTUS.

mockturtle said...

Cookie, I certainly agree with the first part of your post. Both parties are equally entrenched in the power & money game. But while electing Trump may not be 'salvation', letting Hillary become President is complete capitulation.
'

Wince said...

The interesting discussions now likely revolve around the "succession plan" if Hillary checks out without resigning.

Etienne said...

It is amazing to me that people keep so much historical data in the clear.

Everyone I know who has a computer now runs Ubuntu Linux, and encryption is built-in. If they lose their encrypted drive, or the laptop is stolen, then they lose nothing but the hardware. The information is secure.

Also, in addition, you can encrypt your user directory. So unless you log in, the data is secure. If other people log in to the same computer, they can't see your files in the clear.

Of course if you have a weak password you throw all this security away.

So, it is a requirement to have both good credentials, and good basic encryption to build on.

Yes, Windows sucks in that regard. I did use Truecrypt when I had Windows, but it turned out the encryption had a backdoor for the government use.

Archive your mail, and keep it encrypted. Don't be stupid.

So, what if someone hacks in to your computer. They will want to be an Administrator.

But you can see, if they get Admin privs, then your encrypted drive is not secure over the network. It's only secure if its stolen.

But with your home directory encrypted also, then even the administrator can't see your files.

Security. Build it in.

320Busdriver said...

More interesting is Suskinds book Confidence Men which details the disarray of the first half of Obama's first term. When all the big things like Ocare and DF were passed.

Imagine a WH with Summers and Emmanuel running the show.

It was a hot mess. Obama had no idea what he was doing.

Bad Lieutenant said...

There is no need to read the article, it was written as an excuse to head and disseminate under this message which was the whole point: "The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton." That's all they wanted to get across.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Leftists, when caught with their corrupt leaders in the bank vault, always always always repeat the same "They are all bad" BS.

NO - Democrats are especially corrupt.

Achilles said...

Anyone who takes educating themselves seriously and votes for Hillary Clinton is a detestable human being.

Anyone who knows even a fraction of this information and fails to vote for trump is a moral coward.

Trump has finally in the depths of necessity started speaking the truth of what is happening to the world.

Sebastian said...

"And if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late." By liberals he means leftists.

The emails I want to see are David Kendall's. Except he's probably the one snake clever enough not to use it.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

You guys are aware that the writer would have liked to see much more regulation of Wall Street, harsher penalties for Wall Street, more power for Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Protection Bureau (with her as head) and a bigger bailout.

Obama more or less stuck to the middle ground in dealing with the financial crisis.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

AprilApple said...
NO - Democrats are especially corrupt.


This is why April will always be disappointed with life.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

It's all smoke and mirrors. Elizabeth Warren is as fraudulent as Hillary.

Kathryn51 said...

The whole point of the article is to warn the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders wing that they are probably being shut out right now and should not wait until the Hildebeast is elected before lobbying for their position in the WH.

Etienne said...

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government.

Information, knowledge, is power.

If you can control information, you can control people.


Tom Clancy

Hmm, looks like Podesta is not a very good despot, as he has no skills in controlling information.

Another poor choice the Clintons have made. How many poor choices before they are ruled ineligible?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

ARM-
So Hillary didn't set up a private server while at State to stuff her Family Foundation?

All these documents prove the media are in bed with one political party.

Big banks (the very one you and Elizabeth rail against ) paid huge sums of money to tell Hillary they want her to cut social security. Hillary says one thing to the big banks, then the opposite to you. You like being lied to?


Best to keep your head in the sand, ARM. It's probably better than way.

Etienne said...

The United States is not ready for a female running the executive branch.

We don't have the systems in place to create powerful women like Angela Merkel, or Theresa May. The schools are not equipped to empower women.

The reason America will never have a women executive, is because of the billions spent on football by our universities. A game which has manly locker rooms, and women who can only peep in through the windows.

buwaya said...

Coupe,
If you have information worth hiding, dont use email.
Better, dont use electronic means of any sort.

Podesta, Clinton, and the rest of this crew are arrogant and old; they havent absorbed the implications of technology.

Thats why they got hacked and leaked, no less than Palin did with her Yahoo email account.

Things of substance really are out of their hands anyway. A different crew stands behind them with the real dough.
It takes far more than electioneering funds to control the mass media year in and year out, thats an expensive system that needs massive subsidies to stay up. Add to that the funding for the masses of functionaries and hangers on that need to be taken care of always. These dont come cheap.

Its not their money, and their fund raising is meant mostly for their own rather penny-ante status games.

Robert Cook said...

"Leftists, when caught with their corrupt leaders in the bank vault, always always always repeat the same 'They are all bad' BS.

"NO - Democrats are especially corrupt."


1) The Democrats are not leftists.
2) Yes, Democrats are especially corrupt.
3) Republicans are also especially corrupt.

buwaya said...

Coupe,

Clinton is a figurehead. She isn't in charge and wont be. No more than Obama is.

Michael K said...

Both parties, collectively, (as opposed to the rare individuals in Washington who do see their roles are to serve the people), are lackeys to the financial elites who run this country.

There's no salvation to be had in electing Trump.



You are half right, Cookie. Trump is not "salvation." He is just disruption of the machine. Maybe while they are reassembling it, we can get hold of a few parts and throw them into the ocean.

He is the man who pulls the cord to stop the train.

rhhardin said...

Hillary may be part of the dark matter that makes up the universe.

Scientists are foolishly looking for tiny things.

buwaya said...

Cook is right.

The Republicans would be just as corrupt, if they were embedded in the system as thoroughly as the Democrats. They arent superior in character. Power corrupts, etc.

The Republicans simply arent in power and wont be, because the structure of power, its meat and bones, is Democrat, they are the party of government, of the employees and the functionaries and the whole society that supports and feeds off them.

The Republicans are perfectly willing to snap up whatever crumbs are tossed to them from the table.

Sydney said...

In Catholic World, the biggest revelation was the plot to start a Catholic Spring.

MayBee said...

James O'Keefe says he has some big tapes dropping Monday and Tuesday.

buwaya said...

The Catholic Spring thing is the same-old same-old.
Bismark tried this 150 years ago. China has been doing it, or trying to, for 66 years so far. The KKK tried over and over, back when it had influence. The communists, the nazis, the fascists, everyone has done something.

Anyone who can't stand an independent institution with political influence will try. Its all about removing obstacles to absolute power.

Original Mike said...

"Hillary may be part of the dark matter that makes up the universe.

Scientists are foolishly looking for tiny things."


Hillary's a MACHO?

mockturtle said...

Anyone who can't stand an independent institution with political influence will try. Its all about removing obstacles to absolute power.

Amen to that, buwaya!

EsoxLucius said...

I have a question: if ladyfingers thinks the election's fixed, and he wins, does he then prosecute himself? Just asking...

garage mahal said...

1) The Democrats are not leftists.

One thing liberals have convinced me of - that conservatives never could - is that liberals are completely full of shit. I can't stand these fucking people.

MayBee said...

Hi garage.
Do you feel this elections is as dire as I do?

MayBee said...

ps. good to see you again

Sebastian said...

@MK: "Trump is not "salvation." He is just disruption of the machine." Sorry, no. He assures its continuation.

EsoxLucius said...

And what if the Republicans had nominated someone who wanted to build a wall, nominate conservative justices, kick out the muslums, etc., but wasn't such a boorish, thin skinned creep? They would be winning in the polls.

YoungHegelian said...

@garage,

One thing liberals have convinced me of - that conservatives never could - is that liberals are completely full of shit. I can't stand these fucking people.

Yes, welcome back!

Do you & I share the same FB feed? Yes, it's really sad.

From a recent exchange: [YH], this quote sounds like it came from you talking about post Marxist left! "The intellectual left ....has often remained trapped in a “school” attitude, refusing a priori to consider or debate ideas and traditions that start from different premises than its own. It’s a very damaging attitude. One finds oneself dealing with people who’ve practically never read the intellectual founding fathers of the political ideology they’re supposedly attacking! Their knowledge is often limited to a few reductive commonplaces."

My response: While I would most certainly agree with the excerpt you quoted, I would be even bolder to say that what surprises me is how little is often known about the historical classics of the left, & indeed, about contemporary post-Marxism [itself]....

One needs political power to put one's ideas into practice, but the pursuit of power for its own end shorn of guiding principles leads to oligarchies that jealously guard their privileges. That's about where we are now.

buwaya said...

Esox,

I was wondering this myself, more than a year ago.
Luntz was also, at that time, it was all coming out in his focus groups. The candidates saw, could not fail to see, what the public was about. They arent stupid and their advisers are smarter than they are. A normally motivated set of politicians would have seen where the parade was headed and run off over there to get to the head of it. That is the natural behavior of politicians.

But they wouldnt go there. That was a revelation. Who even these people were answering to.

Under present conditions only an eccentric billionaire is a free man it seems.

MayBee said...

Whoever told the 2012 post-election GOP that the only way to win elections was to win over open-borders hispanics, should be out of the business forever.

damikesc said...

Anyone who persists in thinking this is a Republicans are the Good Guys/Democrats are the Bad Guys dichotomy (or vice versa) is simply deluding themselves, living in make-believe land. This is how power works, and both parties are in it up to their necks. Both parties, collectively, (as opposed to the rare individuals in Washington who do see their roles are to serve the people), are lackeys to the financial elites who run this country.

I don't doubt that. However, hedge fund guys seem to like Hillary WAY more than they like Trump.

Obama more or less stuck to the middle ground in dealing with the financial crisis.

President Goldman-Sachs got bought and stayed bought.

In Catholic World, the biggest revelation was the plot to start a Catholic Spring.

And Catholics will vote for Hillary anyway. Because Trump is rude.

hombre said...

TNR wakes up from a very long nap. So!

YoungHegelian said...

@damikesc,

In Catholic World, the biggest revelation was the plot to start a Catholic Spring.

And Catholics will vote for Hillary anyway. Because Trump is rude.


No, they'll vote liberal because far too many Catholics want a "Catholic Spring" because they're so goddamn sure that once they let the government into the churches to make life all cushy for gays & other causes of social justice, the government will only do the things they want it to for the remainder of its stay at the altar.

madAsHell said...

is that liberals are completely full of shit. I can't stand these fucking people.

Who are you?....and what have you done with Garage??

damikesc said...

No, they'll vote liberal because far too many Catholics want a "Catholic Spring" because they're so goddamn sure that once they let the government into the churches to make life all cushy for gays & other causes of social justice, the government will only do the things they want it to for the remainder of its stay at the altar.

Very likely.

They need to read more Kipling

"Once you pay him the Danegeld, you'll never get rid of the Dane."

The Catholic Church killed itself by putting a borderline Marxist in as Pope. Progressive churches shrink and die and Catholicism is heading down that road (my Methodist church has been shrinking for years and I'm basically about to leave to join a Southern Baptist congregation).

damikesc said...

I'm getting more and more irked that Bernie Sanders gave into Hillary so thoroughly. He got fucked, six ways from Sunday, by the DNC and the only people who seem upset are his followers. And it's sad because if he really wanted Socialism to be a thing, selling out his supporters wholesale seems like an exceedingly more mechanism in doing so.

I don't care how "bad" he thinks Trump is...Trump didn't shaft him or his supporters and smile the whole time he did so. Hillary did so.

garage mahal said...

Do you & I share the same FB feed? Yes, it's really sad.

My FB feed is void of politics completely. I culled everyone but photographers. I just a tweet from Podesta gloating about his lobster risotto, and how much better it must compared to what Assange is eating. Like or hate Assange, it's the dripping bourgeois condescension that is off-putting.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"The Rubin school dictated the Obama administration’s light-touch policy on bank misconduct (which resulted in no serious legal or fiduciary consequences for the major players) and its first-term approach to the financial crisis (which was defined by a stimulus package that even at the time was criticized for being woefully inadequate, as well as a premature turn to budget-cutting)."

Poor lil Obama gets dictated.

HE IS NOT AT FAULT FOR ANY OF HIS DECISIONS AS THEY WERE DICTATED TO AND FOR HIM.

Also, at $20 with how many zeroes ... 000000000000 ... of acknowledged debt owed of course the only logical and rational opinion, in fact the only belief not deeply bigoted and racist, is FUCKING MORE NOW!

All "budget-cutting" is premature, racist, hateful, and in existence only because of the desire to starve cute kids, like yours if ya got 'em.

Are you gonna sit there and let them starve your kids because of their prejudiced sadism?

buwaya said...

The article has more than its share of silliness.
Zero interest rates and a Fed deficit of 8-10% of GDP for three years was an absurd amount of "stimulus". If that wasnt enough its hard to imagine what would have been. The "stimulus" was not simply what they packaged and legislated as "stimulus", which was of course largely a mass of crony- political payoffs. But that was stimulating in an economic sense of driving demand. It matters who you hand government money to, but in theory anyway, not all that much.

cf said...

I believe what can only be called the scriptwriters @NPRNews could be prosecuted for Treason, along with many of their zealous brethren. (Lois Lerner and Koskinen, 14,000 top others heading the IRS; FBI Comey and folks at Justice; anyone tainted by association with the Clinton apparatchnik. )

Damn them all.

it is inconceivable to me that we let this rotten-to-the-core Psych-Ops take the country, and so many are infected by the unexamined assumptions planted by these podestas of our Citadel -- affective on our amygdulas, so creepy.

Evil incarnate, these Progressives.

And Clinton, queen cunt of the Serene Police State. come on, America, say you won't do it!!!

(i reclaim Liberal for myself, believing in old fashioned, wide-open range of belief and debate. A fearless, friendly "Come. Let us argue it out."

these Freedom-loathing totalitarians should be dragged into a ditch out of town for besmirching the title of Liberal.)

i just don't know what to say to those that are going along with this.

{[drunkblogging]}

YoungHegelian said...

@Garage,

I just a tweet from Podesta gloating about his lobster risotto, and how much better it must compared to what Assange is eating.

Yes, the Podesta brothers are revolting human beings in general. You know what John does. Here's what his brother, Tony, does. Imagine what gangbusters business they'll do once HRC gets in office! Loads of contacts & influence to sell!

n.n said...

Religious/moral philosophy to guide honest people. Competing interests to keep others from running amuck.

That said, whether by choice or force, there will be a reconciliation of moral (i.e. individual dignity, intrinsic value), natural (e.g. chaotic or evolutionary process, finitely accessible and available resources), and personal imperatives, with principles that are optimally internally, externally, and mutually consistent.

rhhardin said...

We'd be doing a lot better if bribes to politicians counted in the GDP.

Etienne said...

buwaya puti said...If you have information worth hiding, dont use email.
Better, dont use electronic means of any sort.


Not very practical. Even B-2 bombers with nukes are networked and have email.

Hacking should be harder than physical theft. That's my main point. You'll never be able to prevent a Snowden, but some Soviet in his pajama's ought to have infinite problems breaking in.

garage mahal said...

Here's what his brother, Tony, does.

(Under "Wins") "Developing Creative Funding Strategies to Secure Federal Dollars" "Winning Key Government Projects for a Major Defense Company"

I'm in the wrong business.

buwaya said...

The Catholic Church was once quite fond of Kipling.

Catholic schoolboy that I am, Im nostalgic for our old Catholic school readers (Cathedral Press I think, most of them).

Chock full of the good stuff, and by modern standards absurdly advanced for their grades. Kipling, Frost, Poe, Thurber, Longfellow, Walter Scott, even Heinlein. Plus a huge lot more.
And that was from the third grade on.

buwaya said...

Imagine, if you will, a class of 50 little brown boys listening to a little brown teacher explaining "If".

That simply does not happen here and now.

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...

My FB feed is void of politics completely. I culled everyone but photographers."

No fisherman?

tim in vermont said...

Funny how Podesta owns so much stock in Russian energy companies that stand to benefit from putting the kibosh on Keystone.

Where is Unknown to inveigh against the evil Russians when you need her?

buwaya said...

Coupe,
You are not considering the human factor. Communicate, and you have no idea where your message will go, not with the best content controls available. And if circumstances move in such a direction, there will be a human with an opportunity and decisions to make.

tim in vermont said...

Be interesting to figure out at what price he bought that stock, and where the money came from. But the Clintons learned long ago that destruction of evidence always pays off.

buwaya said...

Imagine 50 little brown boys listening to a little brown teacher explaining "If".

Under a mango tree.

I was a lucky kid.

tim in vermont said...

At the end of civilization as we know it, the 20 year olds flying the bombers to drop the nukes are going to be watching cat videos to kill time on the way.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"The Catholic Church killed itself..."

They, and it as you like, might respond that your diagnosis is premature because they are not dead. Dead means not having the ability to respond to accusations of your death, so I hope you can see that from their point of view they are as alive as you. Maybe more alive even.

Funny, some think, with all the land and art and power the Catholic Church commands, they are the rulers behind the ostensible rulers.

They have evidence too.

This reminds me of the talk about all manufacturing jobs having already left America, when we as a country actually manufacture quite a bit. We aren't number one, so per Ricky Bobby some conclude we are last, as if there were no such thing as second/third/fourth.

Vince Lombardi's "winning is the only thing" quote was the set up.

garage mahal said...

No fisherman?

Yea I kept that.

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...
No fisherman?

Yea I kept that"

My place up nort' burned down. Complete loss.

garage mahal said...

My place up nort' burned down. Complete loss.

Aww man. That's terrible. What caused it?

buwaya said...

Btw, 45-50/teacher was our class size.
The US struggles with @21 on average.

And yet your high school kids read like we did in the fourth grade. And we were foreigners, English was not our first language.

You are so, so, messed up. Its incredible, its absurd.
I walk through this all like Alice in Wonderland.
Senselessness, foolishness in every direction.

If you want a reason for all the silliness of this election and the perversity of the system, start there.

tim in vermont said...

You guys are aware that the writer would have liked to see much more regulation of Wall Street, harsher penalties for Wall Street, more power for Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Protection Bureau (with her as head) and a bigger bailout.

What difference does that make? Seriously. Oh, you are one of those people who doesn't read words or look at facts unless they come from an approved source? Is that reasonable? That you reject everything you hear from somebody who draws different conclusions than you might as obviously false?

Is this some ultra-sophisticated form of three dimensional chess that none of us plebes understand?

Hint to ARM, the above is all sarcasm. I doubt you get it.

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...
My place up nort' burned down. Complete loss.

Aww man. That's terrible. What caused it?"

They're not sure but probably an ember from the fireplace. My sisters were up. I wasn't there.

Original Mike said...

Jesus - Even worse than I imagined when they passed this abortion.

And I imagined a lot.

rehajm said...

The main thing article misunderstands is that these lists aren't created in anticipation of a Democratic winning the election. Rather they exist ALL THE TIME, though informally like the social register or a high school clique. Every prominent Democrat has a sense of where they fall in the pecking order. Sure, the players will change according to what happens at the top (sorry all you Wassserman Schultz rumpswabs!) and there are different versions of the order, much like AP vs. the coaches poll. But for the most part the list always exists and is always being refined.

It's also MUCH longer than the Podesta leak suggests, stretching to media and prominent donors. Those ambassadorships need to be sorted out too you know.

Michael K said...

"Trump is not "salvation." He is just disruption of the machine." Sorry, no. He assures its continuation.

Sebastion, you prefer to take no chances and vote Hillary ?

That should work well. :)

buwaya said...

The only outfits doing reasonably well out of the Obamacare disaster are large corporations, who have limited cost increases for corporate plans. It costs them much less than it does small business or individuals, even with "gold plate" penalties.

I get mine, family coverage, "goldplate" and all, for $1500/mo or so including what the company pays. But I am in the corporate world.

The only real option for the farmers in the example is to just take the tax penalty and accept the risk. In a catastrophic situation they are ruined and go on Medicaid. This insurance really isnt insurance at those prices.

tim in vermont said...

Hospitals have been doing better under Obamacare. They are actually getting paid. It's just coming out of a lot of other people's hides.

Original Mike said...

"This insurance really isnt insurance at those prices."

It was never insurance in the traditional, economically viable sense of the word.

rehajm said...

Like or hate Assange, it's the dripping bourgeois condescension that is off-putting.

More proof the inequality meme is dead under The Clintons. They thrive on the liberal as superior being meme.

walter said...

damikesc said...
I'm getting more and more irked that Bernie Sanders gave into Hillary so thoroughly. He got fucked, six ways from Sunday, by the DNC..
--
I still find it interesting how little attention he got for running for the top post of the Dems, then formally leaves the party immediately after getting boned...then still endorses her. Guess he REALLY don't care about no damned emails..
In this lesser of two evils scenario, most of the Berners have calculated Hil's the greater of the free stuff with the added bennie of a SJW score...in a tortured sense...especially against a guy whose brand has been the rich, succesful playboy. They will certainly avoid voicing support publicly...

richardsson said...

The Catholic Church killed itself by putting a borderline Marxist in as Pope. Progressive churches shrink and die and Catholicism is heading down that road (my Methodist church has been shrinking for years and I'm basically about to leave to join a Southern Baptist congregation).

Yes, while Podesta was planning his coup, evidently the College of Cardinals were planning their coup. The Pope is a product of Argentine politics where the great promise of 19th Century visions of progress were killed off by every stupid political ideology of the 20th Century. The Pope is a product of that toxic political culture. The Leaders of the Catholic Church followed the same path to hell as the Anglicans. It's almost as if Monty Python wrote the script.

Humperdink said...

@Original Mike

I posted on the North Carolina Obamacare collapse elsewhere. My point was the baby boomers who blindly supported this fiasco will be the first ones to get rationed (out) when single-payer is implemented. Which was the plan all along.

Humperdink said...

Here another juicy headline from US News:

"Yellen: Slow recovery confounds economists' expectations"

Trillions later. And Obama babbles about "progress being turned back". Gag me.

cubanbob said...

I get mine, family coverage, "goldplate" and all, for $1500/mo or so including what the company pays. But I am in the corporate world. "

What a deal! $18,000 a year for "gold plate" family coverage. And tell us about your deductible. I have similar crap from Aetna for about the same money, thanks Democrats!

Writ Small said...

MayBee said...
Whoever told the 2012 post-election GOP that the only way to win elections was to win over open-borders hispanics, should be out of the business forever.


You can read excerpts from that report here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/what-you-need-to-read-in-the-rnc-election-autopsy-report/274112/

The way you have characterized it suggests your take on it comes from its critics on talk radio. Regardless, the Trump nomination is proof we followed the advice of the report's opponents, not its authors. Given what we're going through right now, what is the motivation of attacking those who advised a different path?

damikesc said...

You are not considering the human factor. Communicate, and you have no idea where your message will go, not with the best content controls available. And if circumstances move in such a direction, there will be a human with an opportunity and decisions to make.

If it's work-related, I demand email for everything. I'm not playing the game of "I didn't say that".

rehajm said...

"Yellen: Slow recovery confounds economists' expectations"

If you look back at the assumptions and forecasts Obama's economic advisors made regarding the impact of Obama's policies, Obama's policies failed to meet expectations in every instance, in every aspect.

buwaya said...

Deductible=0 with a couple of associated incentives.
It is "gold plate" as these things go.

MayBee said...

Given what we're going through right now, what is the motivation of attacking those who advised a different path?

Because it convinced good senators like Marco Rubio to work on "comprehensive immigration reform" which hurt him- and boosted Trump- in the primaries.

David said...

Is there anything surprising at all about this? Nothing new, and not just how the Democrats operate.

n.n said...

We don't need immigration reform including the refugee crises. We need emigration reform to address the causes and motivations for mass exodus from second and third-world nations. The cause and motivation to leave progressive war zones is self-evident. We need human rights reform to end the bloodletting through abortion rites, Planned Parenthood, and the moral decay these industries represent.

walter said...

Blogger Humperdink said...
"Yellen: Slow recovery confounds economists' expectations"
---
But..we've had repeated recovery summers...damn Bush..

buwaya said...

nn,

Emigration is perfectly easy to explain.
The cause is poor(er) economic prospects at home than in the destination country. The fix is ultimately not a fix at all as it will require some sort of uniformity of economic conditions. That is very unlikely to ever happen.

There is the whole branch of development economics, devoted to figuring out ways of improving the lot of poor countries, finding some public policy formulas to fix them. There has been a huge lot of money thrown at this, with many institutions created for this purpose. I used to do some work for one of the, the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Not a lot of progress on that frankly.

buwaya said...

As for economists - much of the problem is that they are limited to looking for policy options inside their playpen.
They have a very limited aporoach to things, I suspect because like most such specializations they have defined their field too narrowly.

buster said...

"There's no salvation to be had in electing Trump."

Except avoiding damnation by electing Hillary.

Sebastian said...

"Sebastion, you prefer to take no chances and vote Hillary ? That should work well. :)" Of course not. But I have no illusions and the point stands: Trump's loss will be so huge that it will solidify the machine's hold on the government apparatus.

buwaya said...

To expand on economists - especially I think macro economists - its like the old joke, that to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. They think only of hammers and nails, interest rates and money supply, fiscal policy and suchlike.
If the problem is not suitable for that toolkit, it will "confound expectations".

A nail may not be the best way to attach things together. You may consider pegs, adhesives, screws, bolts, staples, wedges, ropes, baling wire, welds. Real life is like that.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The article ends with:
The rank and file can actually have a voice in this, to make it known what personnel decisions would be acceptable or unacceptable.
Hillary does not give a flying f*ck what the rank and file finds acceptable and unacceptable. Hillary takes her orders from Wall Street, not writers for the New Republic.

buwaya said...

Yes, the article is a curious mix of the aware and the naive.
It has found the trail of the monster, finally, and its path of destruction, but it fails to recognize the monster itself when its in plain view.

tim in vermont said...

Transcripts released! Worst suppositions about Hillary confirmed!

So the problem for the US and the
Europeans has been from the very beginning: What
is it you -- who is it you are going to try to arm?
And you probably read in the papers my view was we
should try to find some of the groups that were
there that we thought we could build relationships
with and develop some covert connections that might
then at least give us some insight into what is
going on inside Syria.
But the other side of the argument was
a very -- it was a very good one, which is we don't
know what will happen. We can't see down the road.
We just need to stay out of it. The problem now is
that you've got Iran in heavily. You've got
probably at least 50,000 fighters inside working to
support, protect and sustain Assad. And like any
war, at least the wars that I have followed, the
hard guys who are the best fighters move to the
forefront.
So the free Syrian Army and a lot of
the local rebel militias that were made up of


14


pharmacists and business people and attorneys and
teachers -- they're no match for these imported
toughened Iraqi, Jordanian, Libyan, Indonesian,
Egyptian, Chechen, Uzbek, Pakistani fighters that
are now in there and have learned through more than
a decade of very firsthand experience what it takes
in terms of ruthlessness and military capacity.
So we now have what everybody warned we
would have, and I am very concerned about the
spillover effects. And there is still an argument
that goes on inside the administration and inside
our friends at NATO and the Europeans. How do
intervene -- my view was you intervene as covertly
as is possible for Americans to intervene.
We used
to be much better at this than we are now. Now,
you know, everybody can't help themselves. They
have to go out and tell their friendly reporters
and somebody else: Look what we're doing and I
want credit for it, and all the rest of it.
So we're not as good as we used to be,
but we still -- we can still deliver,
and we should
have in my view been trying to do that so we would
have better insight.


It's kind of hard to understand some if this stuff because of the "word salad" aspects of her rambling and imprecise way of speaking. Maybe it is the transcriptionist, IDK.

Hagar said...

People can be curiously resistant to behaving the way academics think they ought to behave.

tim in vermont said...

The only question for Hillary was "who do we arm?"

traditionalguy said...

N.B.:There is one sine qua non in the chance at success in dealing with World Empire Redux. It is the strength of the Military of the USA under a pro-American leadership of its Commander in Chief. That is what has been missing in spades for 8 years.

tim in vermont said...

In Libya we didn't have that problem.
It's a huge place. The air defenses were not that
sophisticated and there wasn't very -- in fact,
there were very few civilian casualties.


Until law and order broke down and the "shit show" commenced. I bet that the farce that launched a thousand refugee ships never loses a wink of sleep thinking about those capsizing ships full of refugees fleeing her little chess match with Putin and Iran.

tim in vermont said...

And then you add on to it a
lot of the air defenses are not only in civilian
population centers but near some of their chemical
stockpiles. You do not want a missile hitting a
chemical stockpile.
We have a big set of issues about what
is going to happen with those storehouses of
chemicals since a lot want their hands on them.
The Al-Qaeda affiliates want their hands on them,
and we're trying to work with the Turks and the
Jordanians and NATO to try to figure out how we're
going to prevent that.


Remember when all of those right wing whacko birds were braying about WMD leaving Iraq for Syria in convoys?

https://pjmedia.com/blog/satellite-photos-support-testimony-that-iraqi-wmd-went-to-syria/

tim in vermont said...

Well, you up the pain
that they have to endure by not in any way
occupying or invading them but by bombing their


17


facilities. I mean, that is the option. It is not
as, we like to say these days, boots on the ground.


Bomb bomb bomb, bomb Iran! - HRC

Remember that it is Trump who can't be allowed near "the button!"

Michael K said...

The Leaders of the Catholic Church followed the same path to hell as the Anglicans. It's almost as if Monty Python wrote the script.

I still don;t know why Pope Ratzinger resigned. All I see are excuses.

Benedict resigned on February 11, 2013, at the age of 85 (he actually stepped down two and a half weeks later, on February 28.) The ensuing conclave elected Pope Francis two weeks after that, on March 13, 2013, now three and a half years ago. Benedict is now 89.

Following the publication of this interview, the world’s press for two days has been asserting that we now have the truth about Pope Benedict’s resignation:


I wonder why the Marxist replaced him. No explanation that makes sense.

Bob Loblaw said...

My FB feed is void of politics completely. I culled everyone but photographers.

Same here, except for the photographers part. FB is for baby pictures, hobbies, and catching up with people you haven't seen in decades. I don't want to talk politics with family or friends, especially this year.

Bob Loblaw said...

I still don;t know why Pope Ratzinger resigned. All I see are excuses.

He felt he wasn't healthy enough fulfill his obligations. Isn't that a good reason to resign from pretty much any job?

n.n said...

buwaya puti:

Sure, in some nations the cause and motivation can be traced to economics. My point is that immigration reform ignores the cause, and likely causes, of emigration, especially mass emigration. Perhaps a "wall" will be the impetus to overcome avoidance, in the best case.

buwaya said...

Most (nearly all) Popes died in the saddle.
This is an ancient tradition at this point.
Almost all have had to deal with old age and fading faculties.
The last few years of any Popes tenure have been on auto pilot.
This should not have been a cause for resignation.

There is almost certainly some other factor involved.

buwaya said...

Hi nn,

Not in just some cases, but all of them, it is economics. Very few Germans or Swiss or Japanese immigrate to the US. The Koreans have nearly stopped coming and if anything the flow has reversed.

Dr Weevil said...

Popes can resign, but they cannot be removed from office by anything except resignation or death. That means that a Pope who thinks he's in danger of losing his faculties to senility should resign while he is still fully capable of making the decision: otherwise there's a danger that the Church might be effectively leaderless with a Pope who was incapable of doing his job but also incapable of resigning. I've always assumed that Benedict XVI's doctor told him he was showing signs of Alzheimer's and he didn't want to wait and see and risk waiting too long and turning into a zombie Pope. Of course, even a zombie Benedict XVI would be a better Pope than some who have had full possession of their faculties.

n.n said...

Then there are the perverse incentives for immigration, including: democratic leverage, class diversity, economic misalignments (e.g. progressive debt), perpetual smoothing functions (e.g. welfare), gender confusion and conflict, and dodo dynasties including: abortion rites, planned parenthood.

Michael K said...

He felt he wasn't healthy enough fulfill his obligations. Isn't that a good reason to resign from pretty much any job?

So, "World Youth Congresses" are a reason to put a Marxist in to replace a pretty conservative Pope ?

OK.

n.n said...

buwaya puti:

People are not mass emigrating from African nations solely for economic causes. The corruption is overwhelming and touches on every part of their lives including material needs and wants.

My family did not emigrate principally for economic causes.

Lydia said...

The German journalist Peter Seewald has done four books of interviews with Ratzinger/Pope Benedict, and the fourth and last one, Last Testament, will be published in English in November; it's already been published in German. Here's some of what Benedict had to say about his resignation in the book:

In the years after Benedict resigned, conspiracy theorists have suggested the German pontiff had been blackmailed or somehow pressured to leave his office. His retirement came after his butler was convicted of passing on his private documents to a journalist and after he was presented with a mysterious red binder that reportedly outlined the many problems facing the church. But Benedict says he wasn’t pushed out.

“It was not a retirement made under the pressure of events or a flight made due to the incapacity to face them,” he says. “No one tried to blackmail me. I would not have allowed it. If they had tried, I would not have gone because it is not right to leave when under pressure. And it is not true that I was disappointed, or anything like that.”


I think the man was simply utterly worn out -- his photos before the resignation certainly showed that. Anyway, I take him at his word.

buwaya said...

People are mass emigrating out of African countries because they can, and because they know they can. That is the other factor. There are routes out that were not popularly known to exist before. They are well known now because the trickle of early immigrants that followed the modern transport routes and found the legal loopholes told the folks back home that this was a possibility.

Africa was always poor, corrupt, living largely on subsistence agriculture, often starving or threatened with war and massacre. This was as true in 1898 as today. The difference is it was not possible or perceived to be possible or desirable then.

I am here purely because of economics, that is the entire truth. I would have gone elsewhere if a better opportunity had come up at the time. The course of lives is more contingent than planned, much more so than many want to think.

chickelit said...

@garage mahal: Good to see you back. I've enjoyed all of your bird photos. Keep up the good work.

Tim said...

And yet your high school kids read like we did in the fourth grade. And we were foreigners, English was not our first language.

45 years ago, I got French, German and Latin in 9th grade in a small (300 kids) North Dakota highschool.
Standards have disappeared. The kids can't add/subtract without a calculator.Definitely can't speak proper English.

garage mahal said...

They're not sure but probably an ember from the fireplace. My sisters were up. I wasn't there.

Sorry to hear dude. Fires are so traumatic to everyone involved.

garage mahal said...

@garage mahal: Good to see you back. I've enjoyed all of your bird photos. Keep up the good work.

Heh. Same to you. I can assure you that you haven't seen them all. The shutter count on my camera is startling.

JPS said...

garage mahal:

"My FB feed is void of politics completely."

Smart. I wish my more angry and bitter Facebook friends (on both sides) would have the sense to do what you've done. Think they prefer to be upset.

Anonymous said...

"It's kind of hard to understand some if this stuff because of the "word salad" aspects of her rambling and imprecise way of speaking."

Speaking of word salad....I bet you understand Trump and Palin perfectly.

buwaya said...

Unknown - creature of darkness, manifestation or manikin of the Prince of Lies. Greetings.

Michael K said...

Everybody understands Trump and Palin perfectly. That is why they must be destroyed.

tim in vermont said...

Speaking of word salad....I bet you understand Trump and Palin perfectly. - Unknown

This is the best they got folks. Bernie supporters who are holding their nose to vote for Hillary take note.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Is "unknown" admitting that she can't understand Trump or Palin?

Lewis Wetzel said...

Taking the wayback machine to April of 2009 . . .
“These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market.”

But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.

http://www.politico.com/story/2009/04/inside-obamas-bank-ceos-meeting-020871

The article doesn't mention Obama stuffing their pockets with taxpayer money. The Politico writer was such an Obama fanboy he seemed to believe Obama would actually sacrifice the interests of Wall Street to benefit Main Street.


Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Wow. So these Pedesta creeps are behind some of the worst lobbying disasters of the decade. Check out another one...

Challenge

One of the world’s largest banking firms came to the Podesta Group seeking help with their opposition to the White House-proposed “Volcker Rule” that would ban banks from investing in or sponsoring hedge funds and private equity funds as part of the politically charged Wall Street reform agenda –


Influence peddling at its finest.

These people are cretins and scum. A total, all-out PR campaign against them is what people should be spending their time combatting. Everything that's needlessly wrong with the government - right there. Occupy Podesta Garbage!

garage mahal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
garage mahal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
garage mahal said...

Smart. I wish my more angry and bitter Facebook friends (on both sides) would have the sense to do what you've done. Think they prefer to be upset.

Life is too short. Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished on Facebook. :/

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta facilitated meetings between Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and key Clinton players Robby Mook and Cheryl Mills in 2014, according to hacked emails released by WikiLeaks.

Schmidt also quietly funds a data company that provides services to the Clinton campaign.

Podesta wrote to Schmidt on April 3, 2014, saying he would like him to speak with Robby Mook, now Clinton’s campaign manager, and Cheryl Mills, a longtime Clinton aide.


BTW, Google News is introducing a "fact check" feature. I am sure it will be totally impartial!

I am going over to the liquor cabinet and getting hammered. Because you know what? None of this will make the news tomorrow. Trumps purloined tax returns? Front page news! Podesta's hacked email? We can't print this stuff because it was "stolen."

tim in vermont said...

Cheryl Mills, Clinton Foundation and Slush Fund employee, BTW.

Achilles said...

Bonus time for leftists: if Hillary is elected we will be in a proxy war in Syria within the year. We will be at war in the Middle East full out to stave off corruption investigations.

Bank on it.

rehajm said...

I like the bird pictures, too, Garage!

narciso said...

well recall that client no 9, had attacked aig about three years before, forcing hank greenberg out,

narciso said...

well there's a bourbon strike coming up, so stock up,

so the administration which promised to get money out of politics, did so by hoovering up every spare red cent,

narciso said...

yes, the writer doesn't understand the crisis was created by govt demand for subprime financing, something that was left intact with sutton dillinger, my name for dodd frank, since they were perhaps the largest cheerleaders,

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Tim in Vermont

None of this will make the news tomorrow. Trumps purloined tax returns? Front page news! Podesta's hacked email? We can't print this stuff because it was "stolen."


Yep. If the hacked e-mails embarrassed the GOP, front page news! - stolen or not.

buwaya said...

Yep, Hank Greenberg, (aka Maurice, or Morris, oh well, the man changed preferences in names quite bit. In my day, Maurice).

My old boss, when I was at AIG for a few years. Little known fact, AIG began as an American "Hong" - an expat company in Asia. In my day his message down the system was that we were after an underwriting profit - a profit on actual insurance operations, not off financial trading and investment.

A great man. It was criminal what they did to him, and the fallout of that was a significant reason for the crash of 2008. It was the characters behind the insane London trading operation (messing with Credit Default Swaps) that engineered this coup against Greenberg with client 9, and that was no small part of the crazy bubble.

This was not Greenbergs doing. It was an act of the corrupt system.

narciso said...

were you a part of that, yes it was started by c.v. starr who served for a time in the oss, in the china theatre, see they never get to the reason for the crisis, so they can't stop the next one, and I've become cynical enough to believe they have no interest in doing so,

narciso said...

now the story about lehman bros doesn't pass muster either, if one read the valukas inquest, and that's quite a tome, two interesting details, they were the most pro gop bank even they provided danegeld to biden and obama, and unlike goldman sachs, their bet was that oil would go down,

YoungHegelian said...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta facilitated meetings between Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and key Clinton players Robby Mook and Cheryl Mills

Ahhh, Eric Schmidt. Another fine & very wealthy gentleman with a strong, strong penchant for the ladies, which he can now afford & which the separated Mrs Schmidt tolerates, because, no doubt she'd be hard pressed to find a better deal elsewhere (10.8 billion dollars can buy a lot of spousal tolerance).

I'm sure that Schmidt is much happier with the much more sexually permissive atmosphere of Google/Alphabet as compared to the buttoned down Mormons who ran Novell. I mean, you can screw multiple women if you're an old-style Mormon, but ya gotta marry 'em! None of this wifey & a gaggle of mistresses on the side business!

What is it with Democrats & outsized sexual appetites, anyway?

buwaya said...

No, I was in AIG in the 80s, in Asia. Left when I came to the US.
I liked AIG.
Unlike many conglomerates and multinationals, in there you knew who the boss was, be he ever so far away.

narciso said...

I meant that organization, yes the founding generation leaves a certain impression, one of the reasons that time has strayed, for example, is it's utter contempt for what luce believed,

walter said...

NY Times just offered me "expert presidential debate coverage at 50% off".
Now if they could just give a price discount as well...

show me one socialist success in world history said...

Why is Valerie Jarret so invisible in all of this? She is to Obama as Karl Rove was to Bush, no? But nothing, ever. She is the insider's insider. Her fingerprints never show up yet she is the gatekeeper and muse for the smartest man evah? What gives?

narciso said...

well one would have to explain why she holds such a position of authority, and what beliefs she holds, one little complaint teresa ghillarducci wants to confiscate all 401 Ks and give us a pittance in it's stead,

Birches said...

Heartbreaking loss for the Badgers tonight.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Podesta's UFO obsession gives us a fascinating insight into his worldview.
There is, after all, no physical evidence of life anywhere in the big, wide universe other than on the Earth -- and that evidence only shows that life exists in its atmosphere and its oceans. a thin skin about ten miles thick between 4,000 miles of rock and Billions of light years of mostly empty space.
Why would a person believe, not only in life that did not originate on the Earth, but in beings that are like us and take an interest in us? There is as much evidence that we are visited by ghosts as there is that is that we being visited by LGM.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"I just a tweet from Podesta gloating about his lobster risotto, and how much better it must compared to what Assange is eating."

Tarring and feathering would be too good for Podesta. What a dirtbag.

walter said...

show me one socialist success in world history said...Why is Valerie Jarret so invisible in all of this?
--Yes....

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Wikileaks has replied to Podesta's snide tweet:

"Yes, we get it. The elite eat better than the peasants they abuse."

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"Why would a person believe, not only in life that did not originate on the Earth, but in beings that are like us and take an interest in us?"

He wants to invite them to move here so he can register them as Democrats.

tim in vermont said...

The Democrats have become the party of people who are better than you. There is a commenter on Insty whose handle is '100% Non Deplorable.' They want to import the Indian caste system here, I guess, even as India attempts to throw it off.

tim in vermont said...

Subject: Fw: Talking points for President Clinton and the Sheik > >

Unless Sheikh Mo has sent us a $6 million check, this sounds crazy to do. > >


LOL Ha ha ha! Aren't these Democrats funny! Nothing in these Wikileaks at all! Nothing about Google meeting with Cheryl Mills and Mooks in my Google news feed, oddly enough! Go figure!

If they don't cover the emails, they didn't happen! BTW, it doesn't take the Russian intelligence service to guess somebody's email password and download his mail, just sayin'.

MayBee said...

Considering the title of this post, here's an interesting wiki:

From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: Anna.Burger@seiu.org, amy@fundforamerica.net Date: 2008-05-28 07:43 Subject: Steve phillips

Wants to join ffa board and go see obama donors to raise $. Quid pro quo is that some resources go to his c4/527. Thoughts?
---------------------------
Here we have John Podesta, the, SEIU, The Fund for America (tax exempt 527), and a guy from Center for American Progress all talking about joining together and raising money for their incestuous tax exempt groups .

Rusty said...

Blogger Caroline Walker said...
House of Cards, people. NExt season will be the reality show.
Nope. After Hillary any semblance of a constitutional republic will be gone. We will essentially be no different than Russia.


Nice to see you, garage. I hope all is well with you.

Rusty said...


"Best to keep your head in the sand, ARM. It's probably better than way."

Wait a minute. Then we have to look at his fat ass.

MayBee said...

In today's dump, as the San Bernadino shooting unfolded:

From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: kfinney@hillaryclinton.com Date: 2015-12-03 01:05 Subject: Re: Tweet | NBC reports a shooter's name

Better if a guy named Sayeed Farouk was reporting that a guy named Christopher Hayes was the shooter.

Achilles said...

Hillary by 4 in WAPO.

Not mentioned is the very last question on party identification. Scroll to the bottom.

Hillary leads by 4 in a poll with 33% democrats, 25% republicans, 33% independents.

Full Stop.

Dr Weevil said...

Why does Podesta think he's eating better than Assange? Assange is an honored guest at an Ecuadorian embassy. Maybe he's eating with the servants, but if he's eating anything like what the ambassador is eating, it's likely better than what Podesta cooks for himself. Ambassadors, even of less wealthy countries, tend to eat very well.

pst314 said...

David Begley "Yeah. Big news. Wall Street, the MSM and the Dems are all in bed with each other."
Amazingly, many liberals still believe that this is not the case, and that it's only the eevil GOP that is supported by big business cronies.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Keep in mind - this is precisely the kind of human refuse that commenters like "Unknown" want to keep in business and helping to implement policy over the next 4 years.

Just keep that in mind.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Podesta isn't fit to eat fungus off of Assange's toenails.

Achilles said...

Meanwhile provider networks on those plans will shrink, and almost all the plans will put caps on the number of total customers they accept.

We are already at rationing in Minnesota.

There is no way a decent human being with even a shred of intelligence could vote for Hillary.

Theranter said...

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails//fileid/11112/3092

Althouse needs lo read #11.

MayBee said...

This is interesting. Offering to give Illinois more delegates if they move the primary to a time that will more hurt a moderate republican:

Overview: >>> The overall goal is to move the IL primary out of mid March, where they are currently a lifeline to a moderate Republican candidate after the mostly southern Super Tuesday. IL was a key early win for Romney in 12. >>> Our preference would be for them to move all the way to May, but if they at least move to April 12 or April 19 they will have the day to themselves and presumably garner a lot of coverage. They will also be influencing a big northeast primary day on April 26. >>> They will receive a bonus of 10% extra delegates if they move to April and 20% if they move to May. Mapes has said repeatedly they don't care about that.
As we discussed, they don't really care about being helpful and feel forgotten and neglected by POTUS. The key point is that this is not an Obama ask, but a Hillary ask. And the Clintons won't forget what their friends have done for them. It would be helpful to feel out what path, if any, we have to get them to yes. This will probably take some pushing. >>> Thanks again for doing this!

Achilles said...

Blogger Rhythm and Balls said...
"Keep in mind - this is precisely the kind of human refuse that commenters like "Unknown" want to keep in business and helping to implement policy over the next 4 years.

Just keep that in mind."

If Hillary wins the Election either they committed enough voter fraud to steal it or there are enough people willing to flush their soul down a toilet and declare complete amorality.

First step jury nullification. Between trump supporters, Bernie supporters, and BLM supporters we have enough people left out of the spoils game. If the rule of law only applies to us that is unacceptable.

Achilles said...

@Theranter

Sorry but I don't like people getting off with laziness.

"11. Transcripts: “Yes, I would be happy to – I just want to make sure there is not one standard that applies to me and another for everyone else, Democrats and Republicans.” Don’t wiggle!"

Yeah. She may even believe it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Nah. She'll win it fair and square. Trump always had his built-in unfavorables, being one of the few even more disliked (though not by much) than even Hillary - so that's not the issue.

But women are very gullible voters. They actually think the "experience" argument is her asset. Here's what the studies show when correlating experience to presidential greatness. Topsy-turvy. Inverse proportionality.

Experience in government usually translates into survivability - but at the cost of selling out every true and important ideal. (Which probably appeals to them). It shows you how little American women understand about these things that they don't get this. I suppose getting psychological vengeance against the Mad Men years of 5 decades ago really must be worth falling on this sword to them.

Help us and the future generations who will suffer because of it.

Matt Sablan said...

One of the worst things about this is that a lot of the conspiracy theories are... well, they're right. The DNC/Media complex really IS in collusion to screw over and silence their political opponents while protecting their friends.

It makes it very hard to accept any story put forward.

tim in vermont said...

Love this one, from Goldman Sachs #1

But it was
clearly a minority that sat on top of a majority.
And the uprisings when they began were fairly mild
in terms of what they were asking for, and Assad
very well could have in my view bought them off
with some cosmetic changes
that would not have
resulted in what we have seen over the now two
years and the hundred thousand deaths and the
destabilization that is going on in Lebanon, in
Jordan, even in Turkey,


https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11011

Compare to this:

“Why not throw Bernie a bone and reduce the super delegates in the future to the original draft of members of the House and Senate, governors and big city mayors, eliminating the DNC members who are not State chairs or vice-Chairs. (Frankly, DNC members don’t really represent constituencies anyway. I should know. I served on the DNC first as Executive Director and then as an elected member for 10 years.)

So if we “give” Bernie this in the Convention’s rules committee, his people will think they’ve “won” something from the Party Establishment. And it functionally doesn’t make any difference anyway. They win. We don’t lose. Everyone is happy.”


Put some ice on it Sunsong!

tim in vermont said...

So the problem for the US and the
Europeans has been from the very beginning: What
is it you -- who is it you are going to try to arm?
- HRC

How about nobody Hillary? Maybe then the hundreds of thousands of deaths and the regional destabiliztion wouldn't have happened!

Inconceivable.

tim in vermont said...

We need more people at podiums at the next cycle debates, and the only way to get that is to vote third party. That is the only vote that is not wasted, IMHO.

Matt Sablan said...

"1) The Democrats are not leftists."

-- Only if you re-define the center from what politicians, analysts, historians and every day people use to measure things. This is one of the most intellectually bankrupt statements that people make because it smuggles in various assumptions/assertions.

Achilles said...

@R&B

I mentioned and think it is a possibility that enough people are amoral enough to vote for Hillary to elect her. That is the worst scenario.

Either way a Hillary presidency means we are serfs who serve at the point of a gun a group of people who put themselves above the law. Whether or not a plurality of voters thinks that is the best plan that system must be torn down.

Achilles said...

Blogger tim in vermont said...
"We need more people at podiums at the next cycle debates, and the only way to get that is to vote third party. That is the only vote that is not wasted, IMHO."

Coward.

MayBee said...

Here's George Soros paying 5 million to SEIU and union -backed 527s via John Podesta:

From: Vachon, Michael [mailto:Michael.Vachon@soros.com] > Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 04:13 PM Eastern Standard Time > To: Andy Stern > Subject: Re: Re: > > GS has put 2.5 in so far of 5 commit. Not earmarked assumption was that > FfA would make the allocation 50-50. But we are flexible. I agree we > need to hit Mc hard, yesterday. Tom feels under-resourced, I know. > > I would support front loading money to campaign to defend. So long as we > did not starve AV. I think money will flow more easily after primary is > settled. > > I don't think George will have a strong view on the allocation, beyond > sharing your general pref for ground--because he doesn't like TV > advrtsing. > > If you ask him to think about additional funds stress that the message > operation is multiplatform. Not primarily broadcast TV.

------------
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9050

In 2008

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"If Hillary wins the Election either they committed enough voter fraud to steal it or there are enough people willing to flush their soul down a toilet and declare complete amorality."

I don't know who I'm angrier at - the evil ugly feckless crooks in both parties, the lying media stooges, the Wall Streeters and tycoons who are greasing the wheels - or the idiots with Hillary signs in their yards because grrrl power and hey, we can't have a grabby creep like Trump in the WH so let's put the Clintons back in there. The Hill signs I see are all in nice middle class neighborhoods. These supposedly highly intelligent, highly educated people imagine they are part of the elite. They're very obviously being manipulated and they don't care.

The nation is like a cancer patient who is being advised by his doctor that swallowing a whole bottle of cyanide capsules will cure him. The bottle is clearly marked "POISON" and yet the patient is getting ready to down them.

tim in vermont said...

Sorry you think that. I sort of agree that Trump would be a kick in the teeth to the establishment, a kick in the teeth that they richly deserve, and that does make me consider voting for him. But change has to start somewhere and our two party system has failed.

tim in vermont said...

If Hillary were Scott Walker, there would be a pre-dawn raid after a revelation like that one, Maybee.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

They're not voting for Hillary because they're "amoral" - (though certainly some are; certainly she and her most powerful and trusted advisors are).

They're voting for her because:

1. Trump is a PR nightmare (even if that's precisely the reason you/others like him)
2. Trump takes his PR nightmare to being a bit of a buffoon (POWs are bad warriors, China invented AGW, Bill Maher should be sued for making a joke that got under his skin, etc.)
3. Trump's PR nightmare extends to very questionable if not outright boorish or worse behavior issues with women
4. Women are ticked off (esp. old women, who vote in greater numbers) and very swayed by the gender "argument" and this idea that they relate to her and all the suffering that she claims that life as a female has brought upon her
5. They are low-info voters who generally don't know/care about the issues and relate to a personality in her that they fear would be called "irritating" if they were to express it in themselves
6. Because of reasons 3,4 and 5 they relate to her careless overreach of power as a vengeance strategy, rather than properly abhorring it.
7. At least as many people feel that experience in government is an asset as people who think it isn't - especially when the one without it is as reckless as Trump has been
8. They are not impressed with Trump's 4 bankruptcies, the fact that he outsources American labor as much as the people he criticizes for doing it, and generally doesn't "walk the walk" on his core campaign issues
9. His economic proposals show that he is wishy-washy on using his anti-Wall Street talk to promote the general welfare
10. This whole Russia thing
11. A celebrity reality tv star is difficult to take seriously

The list goes on.

tim in vermont said...

The only Hillary signs I have seen, I mean mulitples, have been in wealthy areas of Vermont and in Cambridge, MA, where I hang out sometimes. Just had dinner at Craigie on Main, didn't see Titus.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh yeah... Reason #12:

They actually think that her husband Bill Clinton was a "good" (i.e. effective) president.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

tim in vermont said...
"We need more people at podiums at the next cycle debates, and the only way to get that is to vote third party. That is the only vote that is not wasted, IMHO."

Sure. Hillary and her stooges will give Trump voters the back of her hand, but I'm sure these scumbags will be very attentive to the wishes of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein voters.

I am not fond of Trump but any third party vote is in effect a vote for Hillary.


tim in vermont said...

If nobody had armed the rebels in Syria, there would never have been a war there. If we hadn't pulled out of Iraq, maybe we could have kept the arms from flowing to Syria. We could have denied ISIS territory.

Obama's job as president was to play the ball where it lay, which was in a sand trap. Not take a mulligan and pretend that the war never happened. That was wishful thinking. The war shouldn't have happened, but we didn't elect Obama some kind of dungeon master who could case time reversal spells.

We all know that Hillary voted for the war "with conviction," whatever. What is unforgivable was her then repeating the mistake in Syria and Libya. That takes the cake for stupid.

And you should really read the Goldman Sachs transcripts yourselves, not just look at outtakes. The Goldwater Girl really shines through.

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