This morning, we woke up to the news that Roger Stone has been indicted and arrested. This may be an important step in the Mueller Investigation’s effort to discover and reveal the extent and reach of the Russian effort to undermine norms of truth and decency in the 2016 election.
But I have a related question that has been nagging me for a long time: Other than the email strongly suggesting that Donna Brazille passed along CNN questions to the Clinton Campaign in advance of one of her debates with Bernie Sanders, did any of the hacked and dumped emails actually reflect badly on Clinton or her campaign? Or were the releases designed to create a smokescreen to create the impression that somewhere in the dump there must be damning information, even if nothing could be identified? Were the dumps simply a way to “confirm” — without actual evidence — the trope (aided by Clinton herself with her obviously disingenuous explanations about why she set up a private server) that she was fundamentally corrupt and not to be trusted? if so, this was to greatest piece of B.S. ever successfully inflicted on the American electorate. In due course, the Mueller Investigation will definitively establish whether this was accomplished by the Russian Government in collusion with the Trump Campaign. And, finally, hopefully it will reveal how much Trump knew about the collusion. Given his past patterns of behavior - he was known to be a micromanager of the Trump Organization - and his close ties with corrupt Russian financial interests, it is a reasonable hypothesis that Donald Trump was, and is, The Siberian Candidate.
Hi David. I just found out about you through an exchange with Loraine Hutchins. Anyway, re: the leaked emails. I am a 54 year old woman ad have been a Democrat since I was 12. (obviously not registered to vote till a few years later!) I cast my primary votes in college for Jesse Jackson. I was on the board of my college dems for three years and president the last of those years. This was the time when the DLC emerged. As a young person, what I was told was that they were crafting a strategy to try to fight back against the Reagan tsunami in the south and rural states. Fielding more socially and economically conservative candidates, as well as more militaristic ones although I'm not sure the latter was by design. In college, I felt like within the Dem party I was slightly left of center, that is: my affect was mainstream, but my beliefs were very "power to the people" -- a life shaped by experience of poverty, the blessing of growing up in an integrated neighborhood, etc. Quizzes I took at the time pegged me as an "FDR Democrat" which, in the early and mid 80s, was a very normal thing to be in the party. Think: Tip O'Neill, Ted Kennedy, etc. What happened was that instead of being a strategy to win in rural and southern states, the DLC took over teh party, and began collaborating with republicans to break the back of labor power in the US. Things have gone downhill from there in terms of economic imbalance. So, back to your question: it was not Hillary's corruption that was revealed in those emails. In fact, I felt sorry for her reading them. They talked about her as though she were a product. They dished about her behind her back in often very critical ways. What WAS revealed that was infuriating was the corruption of the party itself. Of Debbie Wasserman Schultz directly requesting that Chuck Todd of NBC make sure his bosses punish Mika Breszinski for saying that they were not being fair to Bernie. The insider talk about the strategy of smearing Bernie as an atheist. See, policy wise, I am now and always have been on Bernie's page. I'm sorry he calls it (or anyone calls it) socialism, because it sounds like FDR to me. But the truth is, the party has gone far astray in my time. THAT was the outrage in the emails. The sense of entitlement to control things. We have only two parties in this country that are viable -- they fight to keep it that way. If one of those parties is controlled by a small group of elitists who allow us to vote just to put on a kabuki show sham of democracy but ensure that they can hand-pick the winner, then we have no democracy at all. And since we are supposed to be the leader of the free world (although, maybe no one believes that anymore) this means the free world is being led by people handpicked by individuals who too well enjoy power and patronage. It's also why we are more likely to lose to Republicans. You want a fair race so your best competitor goes forward to represent you. Just too bad what that says about teh other party. But one thing -- they didn't stand in his way even though many wanted to, and he won.
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