Libertarian Leanings

Hillary's Sorry

Big news this week.  Hillary Clinton used the S-word in a sentence.  "Sorry..."  But Hillary didn't apologize so much as express her undoubtedly sincere regret over all the grief she's caused herself by using of her own private email server for official State Department business.  From her Facebook page apology (boldface is mine):

"Yes, I should have used two email addresses, one for personal matters and one for my work at the State Department. Not doing so was a mistake. I'm sorry about it, and I take full responsibility.

It's important for you to know a few key facts. My use of a personal email account was aboveboard and allowed under the State Department's rules. Everyone I communicated with in government was aware of it. And nothing I ever sent or received was marked classified at the time."

A true apology begins with an admission of what you have done that is wrong, and then, that you are sorry for it.  But Hillary admits nothing.  It's pure Clinton: deny, deny, deny.  In fact, at the bottom of her I'm Sorry Page there is a link that goes into a denial overview page on Hillary's presidential campaign website.  And at the bottom of that page there is a link to a denial specifics page on her campaign website.  A sample:

Clinton only used her account for unclassified email. No information in Clinton's emails was marked classified at the time she sent or received them.

What a careful selection of words.  No information was "marked classified," specifically "at the time she sent or received" it. 

But Hillary was one of a small set of high level officials who were authorized to classify information at the top secret level.  Would a Hillary-originated email containing secret or top secret information have been marked classified at the time she wrote it?  She would have had to mark it herself.

In fact, laws that govern the handling or transmission of classified information, make no mention of any requirement that information must be marked classified in order for it to be classified.  Since Hillary had the authority to classify, one would expect her to know if something should be classified, whether it was marked or not.  Even so, she might not have to know that information was classified in order to be guilty of mishandling it.  (Boldface is mine.)

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

The Inspector Generals have determined that Hillary maintained classified emails on her own private server which was not within the government's protected network, and that she sent them.  She now quibbles that the information was not marked classified at the time she sent it.  It's plausible deniability, but just barely. 

It's truly astonishing that so many are comfortable with a candidate who constantly and deliberately lies. But that's what our earlier Clinton presidency gave us.  Hillary has defined a new level of statesmanship where greatness means that we can't actually prove she lied.  But everybody knows she did, and for so many it's OK.  Hillary is lying for them.

It's the Clinton aura, which is perfectly captured here.

Stealthy Censorship at the Huffington Post

I've been having a problem getting my comments to stick at the Huffington Post.  For the second time I've left a comment on a Huffington Post article, only to find that it has been moderated out of existence.  I described my first try here.  Yesterday, I tried again.  I left a comment on an article by Jonathon Cohn, Senior National Correspondent at the Huffington Post, On Labor Day, Here Are 5 Ways To Help Labor.  Here are his five ways:

1. Raise the minimum wage.
2. Provide paid family leave.
3. Stop the assault on unions and start allowing “card check.”
4. Bring the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion to the whole country.
5. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to childless workers.

His article begged a response.  In fairness, Mr. Cohn's article offered five ways to help labor, not five ways to help workers.  Missing from the list of five is anything at all that might encourage creation of more jobs.  After all, the best thing for a worker is a job, and the best thing for workers' wages is a lot of jobs and not enough workers to fill them.  I couldn't resist a comment to that effect:

"A more accurate title would be "Here are 5 ways to help the Democratic party," or maybe "Here are 5 ways to help Richard Trumpka." Raising the minimum wage will help some workers, but only at the expense of others who will remain unemployed. Sorry, but there is no free lunch. The real beneficiaries of a higher minimum wage are union fat cats and the Democratic party, which will rake in more union contributions thanks to all those union contracts that are tied to the minimum wage.

In order for workers to make real gains, there must be a situation where employers are forced to compete to attract a scarcity of workers. They typically compete by offering more money. Right now we have the reverse of that situation. There are too few employers and an overabundance of available workers, a situation which is driving wages down. The abundance of low cost labor flooding in from Mexico exacerbates this situation, at least on a local level.

Here's a clue: You don't have an employee unless you have an employer. That includes the self-employed. So, if you think punishing employer fat cats is the way to go, consider that you may just be limiting your own opportunities should you are ever find yourself forced into the self-employment route in order to make a living. On the other hand, if you happen to aspire to a career flipping burgers in a fast food joint, well, best of luck."

I posted my thoughts.  They appeared in the comment section of the article.  A few hours later I looked up the article again to see if anybody "liked" my comment.  They do Facebook "liking" there.  Imagine my surprise when I couldn't find my comment.  Not really.  I think I might have been more surprised if I did find it.

But I didn't.  Maybe my comment was too biting, too harsh.  It's not as if Mr. Cohn had made any thoroughly stupid points.  He included pretty maps, graphs, and charts to back up his points, and everything he said was true, more or less.  His prescriptions would be great for labor -- or more accurately, Labor with a capitol-L.  For workers, not so much.  My comment made that point.  So why didn't the Huffington Post want to hear it?

As it happens, the Huffington Post has a comment policy:

 Huffington Post Community Code of Conduct

Welcome to the Huffington Post Community - We are dedicated to maintaining a respectful community that actively engages in lively discussions about news stories and blog posts. Please keep the following in mind when writing your comments.

Respect Others - Please be polite to all the members of our Community, including other commenters, authors and the subjects of articles. Also, keep in mind that there are real people reading your comments.

Safe Space - Above all, we believe strongly that the Huffington Post Community should be a safe and welcoming space for all individuals, groups and their ideas. As such, any rudeness, insults, hate, hostility, or negativity may be removed and you may lose your ability to comment.

Moderation - In order to provide a safe space for our community, comments may be pre-moderated by our team before posting to the site, but they will appear on your and your friend's Facebook walls immediately.

Well, I didn't think to provided a trigger warning.  So, based on the HuffPo policy, I was betting on the Safe Space item being the reason my comment was Moderated out of existence.  I decided I would ask HuffPo why, but I couldn't find anything in the comments section that told me how to do it.  However, down at the bottom of the page I found a Contact Us link that I followed where I found this:

Welcome to HuffPost's Contact Us page.

Please select your reason for contacting us from the list below. For example, if you have a question about the comment community, select "Comments." Or if you have a scoop, choose "News Tips." Once you select your topic, you will be able to contact the best person at HuffPost to answer your question or resolve your issue.

There's more on that page, but first, a note about that welcoming paragraph.  You are advised to "select 'Comments'" if you have a question about the "comment community," but there is no "Comments" link to select among the list of options provided, which are as follows:

Give Us The Scoop

Do you have a news tip, firsthand account, information or photos about a news story to pass along to our editors? Send a news tip or email us at [email protected]

Send us a blog-pitch

Contact us to pitch an idea for a blog post to the HuffPost Blog Team

Advertise on HuffingtonPost.com

Contact us to discuss advertising and custom solutions.

Advertising Problem on HuffingtonPost.com

Contact us to report that advertising is interfering with your Huffington Post experience.

Work with Us

Check out current Job Openings at HuffingtonPost.com

Rights and Permissions

Contact us to obtain republishing rights for original HuffingtonPost.com commentary or videos.

Legal

Contact us if you have a question for The Huffington Post legal team.

Report a Correction or Typo

To ensure that the correct editors are notified as soon as possible, please click the "Report Corrections" link at the bottom of the appropriate article. If the correction does not relate to a specific article, please contact us here.

Press Inquiries

Contact us if you are a member of the press seeking information about The Huffington Post

Obviously, HuffPo discourages questions about their "comment community" since they removed the link that might provide a way to ask one.  I decided the next best thing would be to report the missing link by way of "Report a Correction or Typo," but selecting that one looped me right back to the "Contact Us" page.  Hmmm.  I persisted.  I decided to send my "Correction or Typo" report to the Huffington Post legal team, and, with it, I included my question wondering what happened to my comment.  Here is what I sent:

"Please select your reason for contacting us from the list below. For example, if you have a question about the comment community, select "Comments." Or if you have a scoop, choose "News Tips." Once you select your topic, you will be able to contact the best person at HuffPost to answer your question or resolve your issue."

I would like to point out that the instructions in the paragraph above, which may be found on your “Contact us” page, are inaccurate.  There is no “comments” link to select.  In my attempt to notify HuffPost of the error, I found that the link under “Report a Correction or Typo” looped me back to the “Contact us” page.

My reason for attempting to contact HuffPost was to inquire about a comment I posted which does not appear in the comments section.  My comment was posted to the article “On Labor Day, Here Are 5 Ways To Help Labor” under my Facebook User ID.   I presume my comment was rejected, but how do I find out why?  Thank you.

Hours went by.  I decided to start working on this post.  I don't knock these things out in seconds, so more time went by before I got to a point where I thought I would look through the comments that were acceptable to HuffPo.  Maybe it would be obvious why mine was not.  Lo and behold, my comment reappeared.  Nobody liked it, but that came as no surprise.  In any case, the reappearance of my comment took away any point there might have been to telling my story about it.  So I saved what I had done as a draft, and off we went to run some errands.

This morning I decided to look for my comment again to see if anybody "liked" it.  Surprise.  Once again, my comment is nowhere to be found.  But the "Report a Correction or Type" link works now!  So here we are again, finishing off my post on comment censoring at HuffPo.  I haven't gotten any reply as to what was objectionable, but it is typically progressive to suppress dissenting opinions whenever possible, especially when they come with a solid argument. 

So let me ask.  Was my comment too harsh?  Would it really have traumatized those who frequent the HuffPo "Safe Space?"  Did I insult anybody?  Or did I make my point too persuasively.  Let me know in comments.  Thanks.

Some Welcome Progressive Candor

Writing in the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin anticipates a series of judicial setbacks for progressives at the Supreme Court in the coming term.

[C]onservatives on the Court are poised for a comeback, and the subjects before the Justices appear well suited for liberal defeats.

The subjects that concern him are affirmative action, abortion, and public-employee unions, and it is on this last topic that Toobin most candidly reveals what's at stake.

At the end of June, the Justices agreed to decide Friedrichs v. California; it could sharply limit the power of public-employee unions, which have been bulwarks of support for Democratic office-holders.

No mincing words, no beating around the bush, the purpose and power of public-employee labor unions is to support Democratic office-holders.  Nothing more.