Hillary Clinton Campaign Stays Steady In The Comey-Induced Firestorm

When I saw the news about Comey's letter the other night and the glee with which anchors descended on it like starving vultures, I switched off the TV and turned to Twitter where I found expression of outrage that Comey would say so much and yet so little so soon before a presidential election in a climate where millions have been whipped up into a frenzy of paranoia by innuendo and misinformation.

It's where I learned from the New Yorker that Comey was advised doing anything that could influence the election.

'Traditionally, the Justice Department has advised prosecutors and law enforcement to avoid any appearance of meddling in the outcome of elections, even if it means holding off on pressing cases. One former senior official recalled that Janet Reno, the Attorney General under Bill Clinton, “completely shut down” the prosecution of a politically sensitive criminal target prior to an election. “She was adamant—anything that could influence the election had to go dark,” the former official said. 

Four years ago, then Attorney General Eric Holder formalized this practice in a memo to all Justice Department employees. The memo warned that, when handling political cases, officials “must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship.” To guard against unfair conduct, Holder wrote, employees facing questions about “the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election” should consult with the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division.'

A tweet from Paul Krugman (always an excellent source of sanity) said it all:

The Washington Post printed "Justice officials warned FBI that Comey’s decision to update Congress was not consistent withdepartment policy":

'Justice officials reminded the FBI of the department’s position “that we don’t comment on an ongoing investigation. And we don’t take steps that will be viewed as influencing an election,” said one Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the high-level conversations. “Director Comey understood our position. He heard it from Justice leadership,” the official said. “It was conveyed to the FBI, and Comey made an independent decision to alert the Hill. He is operating independently of the Justice Department. And he knows it.”' 

A lot has been said about Comey trying to get ahead of a potential disaster. None of it amounts to a hill of beans. Whatever his motives were, he's not a stupid man and he knew what impact his actions would have. If, by some miracle, he'd somehow been oblivious, he was warned and advised not to act. He should be formally charged with interfering with a presidential election. And he should resign.

The hosts and anchors will hold onto this for as long as they can, twisting it all into another giant condemnation of Hillary Clinton, under the guise of "informing". Influencing the weak-minded, pandering to their lust for drama, assaulting the strong-minded.

But as she always has, Hillary Clinton will remain an example to us all; steady and strong, undeterred, a brilliant role model—as Barack and Michelle Obama have been for the past eight years—for anybody who struggles under the weight of persecution and the kind of double standards she's dealt with. The more this kind of hysteria happens the more I admire her, what she stands for, the way she's conducted this campaign, the people of towering integrity she's drawn towards her from all walks of life.

She brings people together, she stands up to bullies, she has never become bitter. She can still light up a room with her smile and her campaign is still about love.

It's been getting clearer and clearer since Barack Obama was elected, that there is a monumental fight in America between the sane and the sociopathic, between intelligence and tabloid mentality, between wisdom and recklessness, between everything that's decent, good, inclusive and generous and everything that's mean-spirited and bigoted. That fight has come to a head.

The noise made by the tabloid-mentality press and anchors' and hosts' frenzied attempts to whip up hysteria, and create dark drama and catastrophe where there is none is alarming. It's an assault on the senses and on the mind and spirit. But the challenge is to remember that although it casts a dark shadow over reality, it doesn't change it and the reality is that Hillary Clinton is a tremendous woman, she isn't and has never been a criminal or anything closely resembling one, she's never been reckless in public office, millions and millions like, love and admire her.

She's winning, because of who she is and what she represents, not because she's bent people's minds into paranoia. And the more she's needlessly and senselessly targeted, the more impassioned, committed and determined Democrats become. 

Greek Bailout and Reform: BBC Doesn't Give the Whole Picture

Here’s the great thing about the BBC; if you have a complaint about the news you can message them. My complaint is that their reporting of Greek’s position is so bloody biased. I’m sick to death of the perspective that the Greeks are a lazy, irresponsible, hopeless, greedy good-for-nothing bunch with a leader who has no integrity. I clicked ‘contact us’, selected ‘complaints’ and answered a bunch of questions, each with its own pestilential pop-up page.

I dismissed the pestilential pop-up thought ‘couldn’t they have put all of these on one page?’—silly, it’s the BBC. They wouldn’t be so dumb as to put complainers through unnecessary hassle.

Finally I get to ‘for complaints about the news’ go to another bloody site. I take a deep breath—actually I lie. I do some highly appropriate, imaginative and very satisfying ranting and raving, then I take a deep breath and go to the bloody site. Where there’s no ‘complaints’ section. But there is one for ‘do you have an idea for a news story?’. I believe I do, I thought, and clicked on that. Below is my letter to them.

"My idea is unique and you'll pardon my sarcasm I hope and not see it as reason to dismiss my suggestion. Why not present both sides of the story regarding Greece; those who don’t support Greece and those who do? You could also place as much emphasis on the humanitarian crisis as you do on the money. 

You seek responses from European ministers to the latest Greek proposals and present only the Lithuanian finance minister saying there is no trust left for Greece. You don't interview Francois Hollande or Christine Lagarde on the same subject but why not? If you presented all three, side by side, we'd have a different picture.

On that matter, why don't you interview Professor Paul Krugman and ask for his views on austerity? Or interview Angela Merkel and pin her down on the fairness or otherwise of half of Germany’s debt being forgiven after WWII and the rest restructured on terms purely based on Germany’s capacity to repay. And these generous countries were the ones Germany had decimated; they had plenty of reason to punish Germany. The country had harbored and promoted a psychopath and numerous serial killers, the consequence of which was to wreak havoc on the entire world.

Why don’t we see this talked about over and over again in conjunction with the hardline stance of Angela Merkel et al? Why don’t you expose the hypocrisy of Germany today? It’s very relevant. 

Your reporters and anchors talk about 'reform' all the time as if reform was only about saving money but you never mention, in the same breath, which is when it needs to be mentioned to present the truth, the negative economic aspects of that ‘reform’. You rarely mention the humanitarian consequences and when you do you don't place it side by side with the austerity hacks' perspective.

But you should, because you boast in your PR that BBC has the best news coverage. It doesn’t. You don’t have anything different to SkyNews or CNN. This is an instance where you could truly lead. The double standards in the way Greece is being treated and how that treatment is being covered are off the charts. There are two possible conclusions, as far as I can see. Either the BBC editors aren’t smart enough to see what’s happening, or they’re plenty smart and the BBC doesn’t want to tell the truth.

Neither is particularly flattering. On thinking about both these options they kind of lead to one: The BBC news team is a lazy, irresponsible, hopeless, greedy good-for-nothing bunch with a leader who has no integrity."

p.s. Don't feel too bad. Take consolation from the fact that SkyNews and CNN are just as bad.

We the People - Working for Democracy

Four days ago somebody called Eric Roth, in a comment to a Paul Krugman article in the NYT, wrote “…While [Presidents, Congress and the Courts] are all are culpable for horrific crimes… none match the toxic quality of deadly damage done by President Obama [who] within a handful of years… has managed to evoke, arouse, and then kill hope itself. That cementing of cynicism will stand as his one extraordinary and abominable accomplishment, for which he will be rightly reviled throughout history…”

From where I’m standing, I see that Mr. Roth's hope is dead and his cynicism cemented but to say that his opinion is what history will reflect is a bit of an over-reach, given the reality. For the record, my hope for America isn’t diminished, it’s alive and burning. And I think history will appreciate Barack Obama for being one of the greatest American presidents. It’s not even hard to find evidence of his achievements. If I can find it so can anybody else.

It's not unusual to blame somebody else for our cynicism and to project our own feelings onto others we’ll never meet, and also to extrapolate that our experience and conclusions are an accurate illustration of how the entire world works. What’s missing from that picture is our own personal responsibility for where we find ourselves, for keeping hope alive and avoiding the death trap of cynicism. And accepting that how we feel has a lot to do with how much real effort and independent thought we put into understanding the complexity of a situation or a person.

Barack Obama is still the same man, with the same core integrity, humanity, intelligence, courage and profound understanding of social and economic issues and how they are interlinked, who stood in front of millions of Americans and said ‘Yes we can’. He said it wouldn’t be easy, and that he couldn’t do it on his own, but that together a lot could be achieved. 

I think many people didn’t hear that part or if they did they didn’t register what it really meant. The operative word in ‘Yes we can’ was ‘we’. 

It’s easy to lose heart when life is difficult, when you have to work too hard at a crappy job for not enough money to do much more than survive if that. It’s understandable that people need somebody to blame and that their first port of call is politicians. They make the laws, they’re in charge; they should know what they’re doing. 

What’s hard to comprehend is when people point their finger at those politicians who haven’t broken their election campaign promises, who work diligently and even effectively against back-breaking obstacles to improve the lives of those they represent. 

The problem America faces right now isn’t Barack Obama. He hasn’t let anybody down. He’s delivered magnificently. He’s part of the solution, which is there for anybody to see if they choose. The other part is everybody actively participating in democracy, rising above difficult circumstances so hope isn’t replaced with cynicism. Searching for the truth, taking responsibility for ourselves as individuals and as part of a whole. Using our minds to discern the lies. Writing to politicians who represent us, calling them, making their lives a nightmare if they aren’t working towards the betterment of the nation as a whole. And voting of course. There’s that.

At some level the easiest thing in the world is destruction, whether of self or somebody else and the easiest society to live in is one where the ruler dictates everything. But at heart we don’t want that, we want our independence and our power. We revere democracy, where the ruler can’t just do what they want, they have to take everybody’s needs into account. 

So why then does everybody expect President Obama to do it all on his own? He can’t order the House to do his bidding. He can’t force Democrats to the polls. He can’t stop Republican ads that are misrepresentative of the truth. He can’t force people to look further than those ads. He can’t magically wipe away the ill-effects of past administrations; all he can do is work incredibly hard at rebuilding America. And he’s doing that. Effectively. He’s pro environment protection, pro renewable energy, pro equality, pro decent wages, pro middle class, pro tolerance. 

Because of him, America didn't dip as badly as European countries in the recession. Because of him America is less at war - and they don't give you a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing. Obama is one of three sitting Presidents who received that prize. The last one was in 1919.

What more do people want? Another historical achievement? Well, they got that too. He's not the first President to try and accomplish universal health coverage, but he's the first to succeed. On its own that's award-winning stuff. Given the obstacles Republicans have put in his way - how many times have they tried to repeal it? 51? - it's verging on the miraculous. Given that Obama is up against conservatives like the Koch brothers, now worth $100 billion who use their money to control Republican politics and to try and destroy Obama and anything he achieved - forget about verging; it is miraculous.

President Obama is definitely doing his bit. But he can’t secure the Senate in the mid-terms.

It's not 'I the President' it's 'We the people'.