About That Hunter Biden Thing

I'll start by saying there's nothing that will "defang Republican criticism", as Ms Cox puts it.

Given what we know so far about the behavior of DumFux News in the Dominion v Fox lawsuit, "conservatives" don't give one empty fuck about the truth - it's been an open secret for decades that finding the demarcation point between Republicans and Rupert's Gang Of Merry Pranksters is nigh-on to impossible.

Second - and this has come to be one of the big ones in my mind - there's still an awful lot of housecleaning to do before the Justice Department can be said to be relatively free of the kind of inside rot that makes it all but sure that every investigation is wired to some degree against whoever the GOP has decided needs to be tagged a "dangerously liberal".

And there's the rub - it's always pretty clear that the point of the exercise is not to prove anything, but only to plant the seeds of doubt, no matter how ridiculous. In fact - for some of the rubes - the more ridiculous the better.

Ana Marie Cox, trying to play PR Consultant. She makes some valid points reminding us that politics is a shitty game, but as always, NYT pays people to keep us on the knife's edge.

Whatever else happens we can't lean too far one way or the other because asshole conservatives buy dick pills and panty liners too.

So maybe Cynical Mike would like to know how the New York Times is so much different than DumFux News?

Nah - I'll think about that some other time.

Hunter Biden Has Some Explaining to Do

Name a recurring Fox News segment, and there is a Republican congressional investigation for it: the origin of the coronavirus, the threat to our capital markets, supposed collaboration between social media companies and the Democratic Party. Some representatives have launched an investigation into whether the Department of Justice targeted parents who protested vaccine and mask mandates at school board meetings. No bit of pique is too tangential to escape their notice; Lauren Boebert recently demanded during one of these investigations that former Twitter representatives answer for her perceived shortage of likes: “Did either of you approve the shadow banning of my account @LaurenBoebert? Yes or no?”

Nothing feeds the perpetual outrage machine like a sprawling investigation into a vague but titillating scandal. And no pursuit is more vague and more titillating than the so-far-fruitless obsession with Hunter Biden.

For two years now, conservatives have accused President Biden’s wayward son of influence peddling, money laundering, bribery and illegal foreign lobbying — and they have sought to turn his misadventures into a tawdry, sprawling hydra powerful enough to entangle and distract the whole administration. With control over House investigations, they may finally get what they want: a chance to turn Hunter Biden’s life inside out.

It may counter every instinct a loving parent (or a political consultant) could ever have, but the president should want a version of that, too. During Hunter Biden’s active addiction, Joe Biden made it clear to his son and the world that his paternal love was not contingent on his son’s behavior. Now is the time to make it clear that his behavior does have consequences. Joe Biden should clearly call for his son to cooperate — not with the Republican circus on the Hill but with the Justice Department. That would let Hunter Biden stand on his own and allow the administration to focus on issues that matter most to the American people.

Up until this point, the Biden family has — publicly, at least — brushed off Republican threats: “Lots of luck!” Joe Biden told them last fall. Jill Biden simply asserts that “Hunter is innocent.”

But even the most optimistic Democrats know Hunter Biden has some explaining to do. The Justice Department has been investigating him since 2018. Last fall, The Washington Post quoted sources close to the inquiry saying the department had enough evidence to charge him with criminal violations regarding tax crimes and lying on a federal form.

Of course, cheating on your taxes and lying on a form are nothing compared with the operatic tale of corruption at the highest levels spun out by Tucker Carlson et al. But the president’s Hunter Biden problem goes beyond the strict letter of the law. All Republicans want to do is conjure the clingy atmosphere of deviousness that Hillary Clinton never escaped.

Last month, Hunter Biden introduced a daring tactic in his defense: His legal team requested that the Delaware attorney general, the Justice Department and the I.R.S. investigate the key figures responsible for perpetuating the laptop story and disseminating his personal information without his permission.

As wild as the accusations against him are, the one nugget of irreducible truth is Hunter Biden’s privilege. It has served him as a just-about-literal get-out-of-jail-free pass. The same is true for countless other politicians’ kids — certainly including Donald Trump’s. But pointing out the double standard won’t be enough to defang Republican criticism. And neither will just waiting for it all to blow over.

Democrats have tried ignoring Republican fishing expeditions before, hoping that the accusations would evaporate or that voters wouldn’t really care. Sometimes that works. (R.I.P., Operation Fast and Furious.) But with enough prolonged effort, they really can do damage. They succeeded in tarnishing the Clinton brand forever.

Whatever Hunter Biden did or didn’t do, if his father endorses the Justice Department investigation — and promises to stay out of it entirely — that would elevate law enforcement’s slow and steady conventional machinery over the thirsty ravings of far-right Congress members. (As a bonus, the Justice Department will be far less likely than Congress to delve into the most salacious elements of this story.)

And then there’s the fact that Joe Biden built a national profile as an eager participant in the war on drugs, which sent hundreds of thousands of people — primarily Black men — to prison. His son wound up a working artist in Malibu, Calif. Joe Biden’s honesty about that could dampen the nefarious background noise of “rules for thee but not for me” that followed the Clintons wherever they went. His reputation as an essentially honest politician (and a kind, loving father) is the mortar that has glued his career together; not admitting that his family has benefited from his position in this one case gives every other accusation a toehold.

Hunter Biden has endured considerable scrutiny, but he has advantages that most people don’t: No matter what happens, he is unlikely to find himself destitute or without opportunities. Even more of a privilege, perhaps, is that his family has such clear, unconditional love for him. As a person in recovery, I’ve been moved every time Joe Biden has come to his son’s defense. I know that his testimony to Hunter Biden’s value as a person has helped destigmatize the disease of addiction on a significant scale.

Being willing to fight for his son against all comers has been one way for Joe Biden to show love. Letting his son stand on his own two feet and loving him all the same is another.

Congressional Mobsters

Something has gone horribly wrong with these guys.

WaPo:

The events we just witnessed in the House of Representatives will surely earn an honored place in the annals of congressional clownishness.

Just as the House Intelligence Committee was preparing to hear testimony from another important witness in the impeachment inquiry, a couple dozen Republican members of Congress stormed into the room, phones in hand, and started live-tweeting their protest.

Because the hearing was to be held in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF — after all, it involved potentially sensitive and classified information — that put Republicans in violation of the room’s ban on cellphones.

Why did Republicans want to disrupt the proceedings? Because the testimony on tap is likely to add to the case against President Trump, perhaps substantially.

The person set to testify is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, the Pentagon official in charge of policy toward Ukraine. The committee wants to nail down more information about the hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid appropriated for Ukraine that Trump withheld to leverage the Ukrainian government into launching sham investigations to help his reelection campaign.

- snip -

“They know that Laura Cooper today would corroborate parts of that very damning testimony against the president,” Lieu continued. “And they’re trying to stop that from going forward.”

This display of lawlessness is not a small matter. As former congressional aide Mieke Eoyang helpfully explains, the whole point of having a secure facility is that it’s, well, secure.

So there are good reasons electronic devices are not allowed in a SCIF. There might be documents or other materials present whose exposure would be harmful to national security. Members of Congress are frequent targets for foreign intelligence services who might want to, say, hack their phones to turn them into listening devices. To have a bunch of them just storm into a SCIF compromises that security.

What’s more, the main argument Republicans are making to justify this display is just nonsense. They’re pretending to be outraged that the impeachment inquiry is being carried out behind closed doors.

“If behind those doors they intend to overturn the result of an American presidential election, we want to know what’s going on,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), one of Trump’s most rabid defenders.

“This shouldn’t be happening in the United States of America, where they’re trying to impeach a President in secret, behind closed doors,” added Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).

But here’s the thing: These hearings are being conducted with the full involvement of the Republican members of the three committees doing the inquiring. Not only are Republicans given equivalent time for questioning, but any member of any of the committees — Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight — is welcome to attend any of these sessions.



Under 40 USC §§5109(b) & 5104(e)(2)(C), entering a SCIF without authorization, is a federal crime and the penalty is imprisonment of up to 6 months and/or a fine. 30 CFR 2001, and 20003 CNSI prohibits use of Portable Electronic Devices in SCIF zones.

Put It To Bed

Same ol', same ol'. We get days of banner headlines, but when it turns out they got it all wrong, there's a "retraction" on page 7, buried in the middle of the ads for bras and panties.

From a series of tweets by Kurt Einchenwald:

I began to read the New York Times's editorial today, "...But Her Emails" and was excited it was catching up to what I wrote in 2015 based on regs and documents, and acknowledging the Clinton email "scandal" was about nothing. They my heart sank. They got it wrong again.

I don't understand it. It's all right there. I figured it out in a day and a half, just by poring through the regulations that were supposedly violated. And. They. Weren't. 

So, one more time, let's go through this incredibly important error so many STILL make.

This is the key paragraph in the Times editorial, the "on the other hand" element that lays out why what Clinton did was supposedly wrong. The argument being made is, essentially, while the email imbroglio was not that important, there was still a violation of the regs.

This is true - NOW - as of 2013 - AFTER Clinton left office. This is like driving 50 MPH in a 50 mile zone, and then getting a ticket because the speed limit was changed a year later.

So, let's go to the regulation at issue here, the one that seeming no one has ever read.

This is 36 CFR Chapter XII, Subchapter B. Yes, its complicated. Yes, its hard to find the relevant section. But if reporters are going to write articles & broadcast stories that they know can affect the outcomes of an election, they have do to it.

So, to make this easier for all reporters handling this story in the future, you go to 36 CFR Chapter XII, Subchapter B, Subpart C, § 1236.22. Now, read it carefully:

In that reg, there are 19 words - 19 - that tell you the primary argument under the email "scandal" could be wrong. "Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency.." 

Two questions are left ... sorry, 4 questions:

A. Was State an agency that allowed "employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency."

Yes. It was. 

B. Did regs allow for those documents to be printed out for preservation?

Yes. They did.

C. Are there records showing that Clinton's government staff in charge of document preservation used that method of printing out to follow the preservation rules?

Yes. There are. And yes. They did.

Finally, and most important - and the key to this entire ridiculous affair:

D. Are there two systems of emails for everyone with classified access, one for general business and one for classified?

Yes. There are.

Let's go through the last one so people understand how awful this reporting has been.

Regular emails, like those sent & received on HRC's personal email system, are general business. Those on the State system used that instead. It is not a classified system. The retroactively designated confidential emails would have gone through a nonclassified system.

In other words, no matter what was done, whether it was the State non-classified system or the HRC non-classified system allowed under the regs, those few retroactively marked emails in question would have gone through a permitted non-classified system no matter what anyone used.

Now, which was more secure? Not that it matters, since the regs allowed for HRC to do exactly as she did, but the answer is: HRC's. The State dot gov email was hacked by the Chinese and petabytes of information was taken by them. But not Hillary's. Her system was more...secure. 

OK, so if that is not where the classified emails were, where were they? Here is the system. Hold onto your hat, it's complicated: Those emails came through a highly secured system only accessible through a sensitive compartmented information facility, or what is known in intelligence circles as a SCIF. 

Most senior officials who deal with classified information have a SCIF in their offices and their homes. Hillary did. These arent just extra offices with a special lock. Each SCIF is constructed following complex rules imposed by the intelligence and defense communities. Restrictions imposed on the builders are designed to ensure that no unauthorized personnel can get into the room, and the SCIF cannot be accessed by hacking or electronic eavesdropping.

A group called the technical surveillance countermeasures team (TSCM) investigates the area or activity to check that all communications are protected from outside surveillance and cannot be intercepted. Most permanent SCIFs have physical and technical security, called TEMPEST.

The facility is guarded and in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week; any official on the SCIF staff must have the highest security clearance. There is supposed to be sufficient personnel continuously present to observe the primary, secondary and emergency exit doors of the SCIF. Each SCIF must apply fundamental red-black separation to prevent the inadvertent transmission of classified data over telephone lines, power lines or signal lines.

I could keep going but this was what was in Hillary's house for the classified emails.

The reason you get these imbecilic chants of "lock her up" is journalists almost never point out there are two systems, and that HRC was not just sitting around sending classified emails on her private system. 

Just like Colin Powell, who used a personal AOL account for his emails. 

Or the staff of Condoleezza Rice used personal accounts for their business emails. 

Reporters were just listening to Republican members of Congress, writing their outrage, and making it seem like there was something here. There was nothing there. There never was. And it was easy to figure out.

So it sure would be nice if, when journalists now apologize for overblowing the email "scandal," they stop repeating the very same errors that made them think it was a scandal to begin with.

Ew, Carly

Carly Fiorina got in on the outrage act.  Close to being red-faced and hysterical, it seemed she had really occupied the roll of incensed partisan, and she rode that pony right up to the edge.

“As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” -- Carly Fiorina

Unfortunately - Fiorina might have trouble finding the videotape to show Clinton. No video has surfaced showing the scene Fiorina describes taking place inside a Planned Parenthood facility.

So go blow yourself with it, lady.