Slate has an interesting article that asserts that more irony (at least in its original definition) may be exactly what we need to save us from people like Donald Trump. The (ironic) title of the article is “What Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand About Irony“.
The article claims that irony defines what it means to be cool. So be cool and go read the article. Then read the comments, which are hilarious!
The biggest loser because of the letter announcing that the FBI is looking into Clinton’s emails seems to be the man who sent the letter, FBI Director James Comey. And the criticism is non-partisan.
Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under Dubya (and needless to say a Republican), has filed a complaint against the FBI for violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government workers from unnecessarily influencing an election. Painter says that Comey abused his power.
Indeed, according to Fox News, Comey admitted publicly that he felt he had to send the letter because Clinton was running for president. It sure looks like he was deliberately trying to influence the election (and note that you are in violation of the Hatch Act even if you weren’t deliberately trying to influence the election).
Three former attorney generals, including two who served George W Bush, have condemned Comey. Comey was the deputy attorney general under Alberto Gonzales in the Bush adminstration. Gonzales said Comey’s actions were an “error in judgement” and that he is “somewhat perplexed about what the director was trying to accomplish here.” Comey’s actions were also criticized by Michael Mukasey, who served Dubya after Gonzales.
Obama’s former attorney general Eric Holder said Comey’s actions were a “stunning breach” of law enforcement protocol:
I served with Jim Comey, and I know him well. This is a very difficult piece for me to write. He is a man of integrity and honor. I respect him. But good men make mistakes. In this instance, he has committed a serious error with potentially severe implications. It is incumbent upon him — or the leadership of the department — to dispel the uncertainty he has created before Election Day. It is up to the director to correct his mistake — not for the sake of a political candidate or campaign but in order to protect our system of justice and best serve the American people.
Comey was also condemned by former prosecutors and Justice Department officials. One former US attorney said “Director Comey acted totally inappropriately. He had no business writing to Congress about supposed new emails that neither he nor anyone in the FBI has ever reviewed.” At least 100 former Justice Department officials signed a letter condemning Comey’s actions, and more than 30 former state attorneys general (from both parties) signed a similar letter, saying that Comey had made a “serious mistake”.
Probably the most surprising condemnation of Comey came from Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, who is a former prosecutor, judge, and Republican elected official from the state of New York. Pirro said on her show that Comey “disgraces and politicizes the FBI and is symptomatic of all that is wrong in Washington.”
Comey’s actions violate not only long-standing Justice Department policy, the directive of the person that he works under, the attorney general. But even more important, the most fundamental rules of fairness and impartiality.
Pirro’s anger comes from personal experience. When she was running for NY attorney general in 2006, the FBI and the Justice Department announced that they were opening an investigation of her. Pirro says it was “mean-spirited and, of course, nothing came of it, except the adverse publicity cost me at the polls. What was done to me in 2006 was wrong, and what happened to Hillary Clinton [Friday], was equally wrong.”
But it could even be worse than that. The FBI may have violated the constitution by conducting an illegal search:
If the laptop was “seized” by the FBI, it’s unlikely that either Weiner or Abedin voluntarily turned over the emails. That means the agency needed to get a search warrant, by swearing to a judge there was probable cause to believe that data on the laptop contained evidence of the suspected “sexting” crime. Under the Constitution, the warrant should have specified exactly the information to be seized and searched, and thereby limited the FBI from looking through the entire contents of the laptop.
Indeed, why were federal agents looking at any emails belonging to the suspect’s estranged spouse? Surely the FBI didn’t think Abedin was involved in the alleged sexting crime.
There are other curious things about the letter that make it look deliberately partisan. For example, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) tweeted about the letter even before Democratic congresspersons received it. Why would Comey favor Republicans by giving them a heads-up?
Not only that, but while the FBI director has made public announcement about their investigation into Clinton, they are also conducting an investigation into Trump’s relationship to Russia, but they have not made any public announcements about that. According to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV):
In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and co-ordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity.
Indeed, Comey himself argued against disclosing the Russian investigation because it was too close to the presidential election, and removed the FBI’s name from the report. So why did the FBI feel it had to publicly talk about the Clinton investigation, but not about a far more serious investigation into Trump? Why is the FBI being partisan?
And in the end, there is evidence that the release of the letter isn’t actually changing many votes. So the only loser may be Comey. I suspect that he may soon resign.
I recently reported about the utter hypocrisy of the religious right. Here’s another blatant example:
This blog has reported repeatedly on the Kansas Experiment. With the backing of the Koch brothers (whose headquarters is in Topeka), governor Sam Brownback, and a legislature so far right that after they got rid of most of the Democrats, they also got rid of most of the moderate Republicans, Kansas became a wet dream for trickle down economics. They slashed taxes and got rid of all those pesky regulations. And then their economy collapsed, while all the surrounding states were doing much better. You can’t have a more obvious failure.
When the Kansas Experiment started, Brownback asked his Council of Economic Advisors to prepare a report quarterly on how the experiment was doing. He specifically asked the council to hold him accountable through rigorous performance metrics.
Well, apparently Brownback didn’t like that the reports were holding him accountable for what was turning out to be a massive failure. So he just cancelled the reports. The best part is that a spokeswoman for Brownback said the report was cancelled because “a lot of people were confused by the report”.
But according to major newspapers in Kansas, the abandonment of the reports is evidence not only of policy failure, but as an attempt to hide that fact from the public.”
First up is that we finally have an example of that voter fraud that Trump keeps whining about. And of course the perpetrator voted twice for (who else) Donald Trump. What’s also interesting is that this case (and two others, also both trying to benefit Trump) were caught almost immediately (showing that actual voter fraud is very difficult to get away with) and are reportedly the first cases of voter fraud found in Iowa in 12 years (showing that it is very rare).
But the big story is a new report by David Fahrenthold, who is quickly showing up most of the media by making it look easy to be a real investigative reporter. Fahrenthold’s new report looks into Donald Trump’s charitable giving, and finds that there virtually isn’t any there there. That’s right, Trump’s “foundation” is a sham.
Indeed, the largest donation ever made by the Trump “foundation” was $264,631 to fix a fountain outside one of Trump’s own hotels.
But my favorite example is when Donald Trump crashed a charity event unannounced. I just have to quote the whole story, it is so unbelievably outrageous:
In the fall of 1996, a charity called the Association to Benefit Children held a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for a new nursery school serving children with AIDS. The bold-faced names took seats up front.
There was then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) and former mayor David Dinkins (D). TV stars Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, who were major donors. And there was a seat saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had given generously to build the nursery.
Then, all of a sudden, there was Donald Trump.
“Nobody knew he was coming,” said Abigail Disney, another donor sitting on the dais. “There’s this kind of ruckus at the door, and I don’t know what was going on, and in comes Donald Trump. [He] just gets up on the podium and sits down.”
Trump was not a major donor. He was not a donor, period. He’d never given a dollar to the nursery or the Association to Benefit Children, according to Gretchen Buchenholz, the charity’s executive director then and now.
But now he was sitting in Fisher’s seat, next to Giuliani.
“Frank Gifford turned to me and said, ‘Why is he here?’ ” Buchenholz recalled recently. By then, the ceremony had begun. There was nothing to do.
“Just sing past it,” she recalled Gifford telling her.
So they warbled into the first song on the program, “This Little Light of Mine,” alongside Trump and a chorus of children — with a photographer snapping photos, and Trump looking for all the world like an honored donor to the cause.
Afterward, Disney and Buchenholz recalled, Trump left without offering an explanation. Or a donation. Fisher was stuck in the audience. The charity spent months trying to repair its relationship with him.
“I mean, what’s wrong with you, man?” Disney recalled thinking of Trump, when it was over.
Sorensen also has some commentary to go along with the comic:
Ever since the first debate between Hillary and Trump, many have remarked on the “ugliness” of this election season. It sounds so nice and bipartisan to call them both clowns and loftily pronounce yourself to be above the fray, but this is flagrant false equivalence. While I haven’t always agreed with Hillary on everything, relative to Trump she’s been a model candidate.
It’s worth noting that throughout history, people have said women can’t be president because they are too emotional, but Hillary has admirably demonstrated how a female candidate can have much greater self-control than her male opponent.
UPDATE: Bill Maher makes an excellent point about false equivalency:
I’m sure everyone heard the news that the FBI is once again looking into Hillary Clinton’s email problems. But the real question is, which news did you hear?
As Wired points out, most of the reporting on this has been misleading at best.
In one huge example, if you believed that the FBI was re-opening their investigation into Clinton’s email you could be excused, because even NBC News got that wrong. The FBI did NOT announce that they were reopening the investigation. NBC changed their story moments later, but on the internet, by then it was too late. Other, more right-wing news sources are still reporting misinformation.
Or you could believe that they found more missing emails. Nope. Or that the emails they found were from Clinton’s private server. No again. Or that the emails contain classified information. Wrong. Or even that the emails are related to the closed Clinton investigation. Negative.
And if you were listening to Donald Trump, you might believe that the FBI was admitting they were wrong when they cleared Clinton of any wrongdoing back in July. But (big surprise), Trump was misrepresenting reality.
In fact, depending on your agenda, you can make of this story almost anything you want:
Are you a Trump supporter looking for a smoking gun? Here you go. Or maybe you’re a different kind of Trump supporter, the kind who thinks this is a conspiracy to distract from the real issues coming out of Wikileaks? Hot-take reactions accept all kinds! Are you a Bernie Sanders-type who’s sick of hearing about her “damn emails?” Well, then you might view this as the FBI being overly cautious.
If you doubt any of this, just read the original (short three-paragraph) letter from James Comey.
My big question is, given that Comey isn’t really saying anything that significant and isn’t offering any details at all, why did he feel the need to reopen this can of worms just 11 days before the election? As Electoral-Vote points out, there is no good answer to this question:
Indeed, it’s difficult to conceive of an explanation here that doesn’t make Comey look at least a little bit bad. He’s Republican, and maybe he’s trying to help the Republican candidate? Or, maybe he’s smarting from the criticism he received when deciding not to prosecute, and is trying to throw a bone to Congressional Republicans? Or maybe he’s trying to prove that he does his job as he sees fit, and politics be damned? In any of these scenarios, he would be giving top priority to his own needs, or to his own image, or to his agency’s image.
And if Comey wasn’t aware that he was throwing a monkey wrench into the presidential election, then he is incompetent.
Some people don’t seem to understand that freedom of speech applies to everyone, not just people they agree with. Two examples:
In Colorado, a student-run high school newspaper decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for president. What happened next was shocking. Local Trump supporters exploded in anger, demanding that the paper give equal space to Donald Trump and saying that the paper’s staff should be suspended from school. One of the paper’s student editors said “Some of the stuff we’ve seen on Facebook is quite disgusting. There were a lot of personal attacks that seemed out of bounds. It almost borders on bullying.”
The English teacher who is the faculty advisor for the paper was called a “communist” and a “socialist”, and accused of indoctrinating students. They demanded that he be fired. That’s right, they wanted the school (a governmental entity) to punish him for not censoring the students.
The second example involves a billboard in Nebraska put up by a local organization of atheists. The billboard read “The Good Life without God? It’s possible.”
Apparently, stating that it is possible for atheists to have a good life is not acceptable in Nebraska. There were so many complaints that the billboard company took the sign down almost immediately. Of course, this is not a case of free speech rights, as no governmental entity was involved. But it does show massive intolerance towards freedom of religion.
High-powered lawyers like Lawrence Tribe are stepping up. Tribe and others have offered to defend — for free — anyone who has been threatened with a lawsuit by Donald Trump. This includes the women who have accused Trump of sexually assaulting them (and Trump has said he would sue after the election), but also includes reporters and others. He is even offering to defend the bar association, who was threatened with a lawsuit by Trump and as a result backed down from releasing a report on him.
Recently, John McCain suggested that Republicans would block anyone Hillary Clinton attempts to appoint to the Supreme Court. Almost immediately afterward, he tried to deny that’s what he had said. But I just knew that some Republican politician would take up McCain’s idea. You know, someone a bit crazier than McCain.
So it was hardly a surprise when Ted Cruz started suggesting that having eight members of the Supreme Court would be just fine. You know, until some far-away day when a Republican (like himself) would be elected president.
What happened to the Republican assertion that we should let the voters speak and defer to the next elected president? I guess that promise only held until it became obvious that they were about to lose.
Indeed, Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is threatening all kinds of other abuses of power will be committed by the Republicans if Clinton wins. Like blocking all of her nominees (not just Supreme Court justices), and lots more investigations of Clinton (like they did for Benghazi and emailgate). Yup, the Party of No and the Do-Nothing Congress will live on.
If the Republicans do this, then I think it is only fair that the Democrats pull a few tricks. Electoral-Vote explains:
Needless to say, after pleading with the Senate to do its job for a few months, Clinton’s patience might run out. There are things she could do on her own to get some things decided, however. For example, suppose she issued an executive order saying that no undocumented immigrant who has been in the country for at last 5 years, has no criminal record, and who has paid federal income taxes will be deported, nor will any members of that person’s family. The Republicans would immediately sue her. She could probably successfully argue that the case should be heard in D.C. and the resulting appeal should be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. There are currently 11 active judges on the D.C. Circuit Court, of whom Merrick Garland is the Chief Judge. One of the judges was appointed by George H.W. Bush, three were appointed by Bill Clinton, three were appointed by George W. Bush, and four were appointed by Barack Obama, giving Democratic appointees a 7 to 4 majority. If they decided this case (or any other case about executive orders) in favor of the President, the Republicans would appeal to the Supreme Court, which would likely split 4 to 4, leaving the D.C. Court ruling as binding.
Needless to say, running a country by executive order would be a dangerous precedent, but what is the alternative if the Republicans keep their pledge to bring our government to a screaming halt?
The Republicans not only appear to be in a death spiral, but they are intent on taking our country down with them at all costs.
The George W Bush administration courted the religious right, but then pretty much ignored them. At the time I concluded that Dubya was playing the religious right for fools.
But watching how the “religious” right fell in line behind Trump is changing my opinion. Just look at Trump. Can you imagine anyone less religious? When was the last time he even attended a church?
He may be the least religious person imaginable. He breaks the ten commandments for breakfast, and then brags about enjoying the seven deadly sins after lunch. Graven images? check (of himself of course). Stealing? check (from his subcontractors). Adultery and coveting his neighbor’s wife? check and check. Bearing false witness? only when his mouth is moving. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride sound like Trump’s tweeted version of his resume. Trump spent the 1990s throwing large parties featuring cocaine, older men, young girls (as young as 14 and 15), and “sex, a lot of sex”.
It seems like it is the leaders of the religious right — people like Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tony Perkins, and Pat Robertson — who have been playing their followers for fools all along.
Even conservatives have noticed this. Conservative site Townhall has an interesting article titled “How the Religious Right Embraced Donald Trump and Lost its Moral Authority“.
Townhall points out the obvious hypocrisy of Ralph Reed, who during Bill Clinton’s impeachment declared that “we will not rest until we have leaders of good moral character”. Reed now chairs Trumps religious advisory board, and dismissed the tape of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women as not an “important concern”.
And Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, who endorsed Trump saying “Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught”. Even Donald Trump wouldn’t believe that.
In 2011 a poll asked white evangelicals if they agree that immoral politicians can still fulfill their duties. Only 30% said yes. But the same question was asked last month of the same people, and 72% said yes.
Hopefully, the rampant hypocrisy of the religious right will bring about their own demise. Already a civil war has broken out between supporters of Trump and the growing contingent of “Never Trump” religious leaders, as evangelical voters are starting to ignore their leaders and reconsider their support for Trump.
I mean, what is a religious voter to do when faced with “a thrice-married, epically greedy, congenitally dishonest serial adulterer who exalts the rich while heaping scorn upon the vulnerable.” And who is clearly playing the religious right for rubes.
I’ll just be happy if we get back to the old days when religious leaders kept out of politics most of the time.
A powerful political ad created by Joss Whedon for Save the Day:
Retired Supreme Court justice David Souter, back in 2012, reminds us of the biggest danger to democracy. His words are prescient given our current election.
This clip starts near the end of his talk, but the whole talk is very interesting.
[Jokes from Oct. 11, 2016]
“Trump is still under fire for the lewd and offensive tape that was released last week which he referred to as ‘locker-room talk’. Well now pro athletes are speaking out against this, saying that’s not how they speak in the locker room. While Tim Tebow said, ‘I don’t even like to say ‘Billy Bush!'” – Jimmy Fallon
“A new national poll found that Democrats now have a significant lead over Republicans in the congressional races. Republicans said, ‘And there’s only one man to blame for this,’ and Donald Trump said, ‘Exactly: Billy Bush.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump lashed out at a number of Republicans on Twitter today, the ones who have been distancing themselves from him. He called Speaker of the House Paul Ryan a weak and ineffective leader. He called John McCain foul-mouthed. He also tweeted, ‘It so is nice the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.’ This is how he’s been behaving with shackles ON?” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Donald Trump tweeted earlier today, quote, ‘It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.’ What shackles are you talking about? The only thing that ever shackled you was the 140-character limit on Twitter.” – Seth Meyers
“A number of cable news outlets called it a tweet storm. During this terrible tweet storm I think we should take a moment to acknowledge Donald Trump’s thumbs because those chubby little baby carrots have been working so very hard lately, they’re worn down to the nubs and I applaud them for doing so much work.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“And NOW you’re going to fight for America? Hey buddy, you’re not Rosa Parks. You know how I know? People LIKED what Rosa Parks said on the bus. Huge difference.” – Seth Meyers
“The Cleveland Indians yesterday completed their sweep of the Boston Red Sox and will move on in the ALCS. ‘I hate the Indians,’ said Donald Trump, who wasn’t talking about baseball.” – Seth Meyers
“Happy 41st wedding anniversary to Bill and Hillary Clinton! Yep, they celebrated with a quiet dinner. A really, REALLY quiet dinner. ‘Did you say something?’ ‘No.’ ‘Good.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Hillary Clinton campaigned in Florida today with Al Gore. You’re making Al Gore go back to Florida? That’s so cruel. That’s like making Joe Frazier go back to Manila.” – Seth Meyers
“In a new MTV documentary with Macklemore, Obama says that when he was a teen he drank and did drugs, adding, ‘I pretty much tried whatever was out there.’ When asked what made him stop, Obama said, ‘Stop?'” – Jimmy Fallon
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