Tag: Hillary Email Scandal

Republican Fuckery: MTG’s Gazpacho Comment & You Know Who’s Burning Documents

When it comes to the United States, we want to believe that the people who work at the highest levels of our government are good faith actors, even if we do not agree with them.

The last few years have proven us wrong.

Last week, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene misspoke when she referred to Capitol police as Gazpacho police. Gazpacho is a type of soup.

“Not only do we have the DC jail, which is the DC gulag, now we have Nancy Pelosi’s Gazpacho Police spying on members of Congress,”

https://giphy.com/gifs/seinfeld-soup-no-for-you-j2pOFyuTJqWj9S5qdE

What she meant to say was Gestapo. In Europe during World War II, they were the undercover arm of the police and were known for not being subtle or gentle in doing their job. I would love to laugh at her, knowing that this is not the first stupid comment she has made and it will likely not be the last. But I can’t. Once more the inappropriate use of Holocaust imagery is being used in a way that at best is misunderstood and at worst disrespectful.

In other news, he who shall not be named is accused of violating the Presidential Records Act. It requires all outgoing Presidential administrations to transfer all documentation to the National Archives. In a move that surprises no one, he is accused of taking boxes of classified documents to his home in Florida and destroying other paperwork along the way.

I don’t know about anyone else, this screams that he has something to hide. When someone is innocent of the crimes they are being accused of, they act in a certain manner. When they are guilty and know that they have done something wrong, they do anything and everything in their power to hide the evidence. The hypocrisy and silence from the right compared to the accusations leveled at Hillary Clinton during the last days of the 2016 Presidential election says it all.

Just another day of Republican fuckery in America.

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The Comey Rule Review

Politics is a strange push pull of personal needs vs. the needs of those who voted for you. It would be easy to say that you became a politician to serve the nation and your constituents. The harder aspect of the job is ignoring your gut instincts for prestige and press.

The Comey Rule premiered last year. Based on former FBI Director James Comey‘s 2019 book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Jeff Daniels steps in the role of the man whose held the fate of the 2016 Presidential election in his hands. The 4 part miniseries follows two different and important narratives in recent political history: the Hillary Clinton email scandal and the four year tenure of you know who in the Oval Office.

The discovery that Clinton used personal servers for government business sends Comey and his staff on a year long search to discover if anything untoward was located within her emails. When they come to the conclusion that it was just a mistake by the former Senator/Secretary of State/First Lady and her staff, Comey is torn as to how to proceed. He could keep it within bureau, or make a public statement. His wife, Patrice (Jennifer Ehle) and those who work under him advise Comey to not say anything to the press or or public. But, as we all know, he chose to bring this information into the light.

When a certain reality show star and businessman is elected President (played by a fantastic Brendan Gleeson), Comey does his best to do his job. But when it becomes clear that the new leader of the free world is underqualified, he knows that this man is different than any other who has held the role.

I loved this series. Combining news clips with scenes based from the real James Comey’s book, it is tense, dramatic, and reveals an aspect of the 2016 election that only a few at the time were privy to. If nothing else, it is a reminder of how important the separation of powers is and how democracy if not tended to as it ought to, can quickly disintergrate.

Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

The Comey Rule is available for streaming on Netflix.

Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump Book Review

The intelligence community is supposed to be non-partisan. Regardless of who is in office, their job is to protect the country. But like anything politically based these days, it is hard to be non-partisan.

Up until a few years ago, FBI agent Peter Strzok was just doing his job and minding his own business. Then you know who was elected and he was pulled into the whirlwind. Agent Strzok’s memoir, Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, was published in September.

At the height of the 2016 Presidential election, the allegation of possible Russian interference and questions about the contents of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton‘s emails added to the growing tension. It was Agent Strzok’s job to investigate both. He concluded that not only had Russia helped you know who to win the election, their reach into the White House was deep. When his private conversations became public, he was fired after decades of service.

This is not one of the better books about the current state of American politics. Instead of just jumping into the meat of the book, he took his time. The problem is that while it was readable, I would have preferred to just jump into the climax of the narrative.

Do I recommend it? Maybe.

Thoughts On the Michael Cohen Hearing

When we were children, we were taught that lying is bad. There are consequences for not telling the truth.

Today, Michael Cohen appeared before Congress for the second time. He appeared to be contrite and from a certain perspective, he appeared to finally speak the truth. The question is, was he really telling the truth or was he again lying to save his own skin?

He stated that you know who is a cheat, a liar and a con man. The 2016 election was not about the genuine belief that you know who could govern this country, it was a marketing ploy to increase business. The payments to Stormy Daniels were directed by you know who to ensure that the affair would stay a secret until after the election. You know who also knew about the Clinton emails before they were released to the public.

Both Republicans and Democrats wanted the truth, at the end of the day. While the Republicans focused on the fact that Mr. Cohen lied during his previous hearing, the Democrats seemed more interested in the facts.

Though I am a Democrat and proudly so, I have to agree with the Republicans in this instance. If Mr. Cohen lied previously, can Congress and the American people trust that he is telling the truth this time? Even if he is finally telling the truth backed up by cold, hard facts, he is still going to prison for three years while his former client is free as a bird.

As a fellow Jew, I am sure that Mr. Cohen is aware of the Al Chet prayer we chant during Yom Kippur. Al Chet is basically a confession, where we admit to our creator that we have sinned during the past year. Where he is going, from my perspective, it will take more than chanting Al Chet to be absolved of his sins.

P.S. Mr. Cohen also lost his law license yesterday.  It’s not karma, but it’s a step in the right direction.

 

Thoughts On Ivanka’s Response To The Email Scandal

We all know how vulnerable we are when we go on the Internet. We are reminded every day of how easily the websites we visit everyday can be hacked into or destroyed by viruses.

One of the hallmarks you know who’s Presidential bid was the constant reminder that Hillary Clinton used her personal email server for government business. On Tuesday, Ivanka Trump was interviewed about her own use of government emails on a personal server. She defended herself by stating the following:

Well, there really is no equivalency. All of my emails that relate to any form of government work which was mainly scheduling and logistics and managing the fact that I have a home life and a work life are all part of the public record. They’re all stored on the White House system so everything has been preserved. Everything has been archived. There just is no equivalency between the two.

In previous interviews Mrs. Clinton claimed that the emails did not contain sensitive data and apologized for her error.

Regardless of where one lands on the political spectrum, using a private server for government emails is wrong. No server, regardless of how strong the firewall or anti-virus program is, is completely free from hacking or viruses. From my perspective, logic dictates that any government employee should only be using government email on a government server when discussing work matters. I do not want to think of what would happen if a hacker is an able to get their hands on classified data because a government employee used a personal server to access that email account.

The other issue is that Ivanka, like the rest of her family, believes that she is above the law. No one is above the law, not even members of the Trump family.

I keep thinking about what our children and grandchildren will one day ask about this time in American history. I just hope that when that question is asked, we can give them an answer that makes sense.

 

What Was That About Ivanka Using Personal Email For Government Business?

There many on the left (myself included) who believe that Hillary Clinton might have been elected President had it not been for the email scandal that curtailed her chances of winning.

Yesterday, it was announced that Ivanka Trump has been using her personal email account for government business.

It is deliciously ironic that her father used Hillary Clinton’s emails as one of the major reasons as to why she was ill-equipped to be President. I wonder if the phrase “lock her up” can be applied to Ivanka? If nothing else, it is hypocritical that Ivanka can use personal email for work and it is totally fine, but Hillary Clinton is made into a political pariah by some for the same activity?

What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If a government official, regardless of their position or where they stand on the political spectrum, uses personal email for business, they should be reprimanded as needed. Ivanka Trump is not and should not be immune from the consequences because she is the President’s daughter.

 

 

Damned If We Do, Damned If We Don’t- The 2016 Presidential Election

With the 2016 Presidential election coming up, I think we are all a little nervous.

It feels like the future of our country is hanging in the balance.

Every election has felt like that, at least since I’ve been voting, but this one feels more contentious.

I will not reveal who I am voting for, but I feel like neither of the presumptive nominees is really the best choice for our country.

Donald Trump is an ego maniac who speaks without thinking, indirectly encourages his supporters to be openly hostile to women and minorities and has built his campaign on keeping Mexicans and Muslims fleeing the violence in the Middle East out of this country. He has also gone bankrupt several times.

On a personal note, he also not spoke out against the anti-Semitic images and language used by his supporters. His eldest daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism when she married her husband is raising her children as Jews. That does not sit well with me.

Hillary Clinton is the former first lady who has worked her way up the political chain. This is the second time she has ran for President. While her presence in this race represents how far American women have come from where we were only a few decades ago, I will admit that I still question some of her choices. The whole thing about Benghazi aside, what I still question is the email scandal.

We all know that our emails are not 100% hacker safe. The problem is that she used personal email, which I’m sure had a certain level of security. However, given her position and the information she had access to, it was not the best choice to use a personal email instead of her work email.

Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

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