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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Eh, main thing I remember Michael Moore for is raising a big stink about how the iphone came out on the same day as one of his "documentaries" and that must be some sort of Government Conspiracy because REASONS and because he's important enough to warrant that sort of thing.
Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.What he said in that bit (in Sicko, about Cuba) was probably true, though. He completely sidestepped the problems of the Cuban government, but to be honest I think that's probably something that does get covered in US media more than the good parts of their system, so I think it's fair to give them 10 minutes in a documentary for once.
That said, I'm definitely not a Moore fan. He certainly has a gift for condensing a point into a few very simple images and comments. I'll give him that much, as sort of credit for storytelling in a documentary. (Fahrenheit 9/11 got a Palme d'Or for that reason - it was awarded as a movie, not as a documentary.) If Moore was a better journalist, though, he'd be more nuanced and go into more detail and be more honest about including the context of bits he cuts from speeches and interviews and such.
So I think the thing you need to know about Moore is that he's a very good storyteller in the format of documentary, but he's not a proper journalist.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Editorial commentary on James Comey by Suzanne Garment, a lawyer working with Reuters.
He accomplished this feat with his letter to Congress announcing that FBI personnel are going to review emails that they found while investigating criminal allegations against former Representative Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of key Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Comey said the emails may be relevant to Clinton’s own email scandal, though the FBI does not yet know their contents.
Comey acted against the practice that the Justice Department, of which the FBI is a part, should not interfere with the democratic process by publicly releasing information that might tip the outcome of the vote within 60 days of the election. But anyone who finds Comey’s behavior puzzling or self-contradictory hasn’t followed the career of this very careful bureaucrat.
What Comey’s behavior makes clear – and has made clear to observers of differing political stripes – is that a public official can do great harm through the expression of a kind of self-important moral vanity.
Comey has proved to be the quintessential bureaucrat, always focused on protecting his own back. That seems to be Comey’s prime motivation and appears to be fueling his intense drive to appear completely “transparent.”
In July he held a press conference to make an extremely careful announcement that the FBI’s “recommendation” in the Clinton email investigation was not to prosecute her even though, in his view, her behavior had been “extremely careless.” Or, as one post put it more succinctly, “I’m going to drop bombs on Hillary’s many email-scheme lies, then announce no prosecution.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been apoplectic ever since. But other Republicans have also expressed outrage at what they view as Comey’s favoritism toward Clinton.
Now, Comey has tried to restore his public reputation for balance. Did you think he was too easy on Clinton the last time? Well, he’ll show you: He’ll act so that no one can have the slightest justification for claiming that he has been anything but scrupulously, meticulously evenhanded in his official behavior. Nothing but clean, folks.
The FBI is an investigative agency whose findings enable Justice Department prosecutors to make prosecutorial decisions. Even in the Clinton email scandal, from which Attorney General Loretta Lynch had to recuse herself because of her tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton, there were plenty of career officials at the Justice Department who were capable of making the decision about whether to prosecute.
The country did not need the matter to be effectively decided in a public press conference by Comey. Still less did the country need this second public performance from him, which performs no function other than to try to extricate him from the trouble he reaped as a result of his first public performance.
This is not Comey’s first go-round in his need to publicly play a big role by inserting himself into a national debate.
In 2014, after the police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri and other places, Comey asserted that increased scrutiny of law enforcement was emboldening criminals, even as he said there was no data to back this up.
He also delivered a speech on African Americans and the police, in which he pointed to “deep-rooted social problems” causing “tensions with law enforcement.” He concluded it was “almost irresistible” for police to take a “mental shortcut” in enforcing the law. He then balanced this publicly expressed sentiment by announcing his worry, contrary to administration policy, that requiring the police to wear body cameras would lead to less effective law enforcement.
During the administration of President George W. Bush, Comey, then nominally a Republican, became a bête noir to other Republicans partly because of his role in the 2003 case of Valerie Plame, a former CIA operative whose identity had been leaked to the press by someone in the administration. Because Attorney General John Ashcroft had recused himself from the investigation of the leak, Comey, then deputy attorney general, was in charge.
Comey appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, as special counsel. The identity of the leaker was discovered soon enough: It was an official in the Defense Department.
But the investigation did not stop. Comey had written a careful letter, not publicly revealed at the time, that confirmed Fitzgerald’s authority was not limited to the questions of who had leaked the information and whether it was a crime. Instead, Fitzgerald’s authority was to extend beyond this to cover all matters related to the investigation – like obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI. It was this expanded authority that was used to indict Scooter Libby, an aide to Vice President Richard Cheney.
Comey also clashed with the Bush White House over domestic surveillance and the dismissal of U.S. attorneys; he left government for the private sector in 2005. In 2007, in testimony to Congress about the U.S. attorney controversy, he used the opportunity to state his view that the Justice Department “had to be seen as the good guys, and not as either this administration or that administration.”
This is the way institutions go off the rails; if we are lucky, we see them derailing themselves and taking steps to stop the slide.
Consider the institution of the independent counsel, established after Watergate to ensure that grubby politics would have no further influence over criminal investigations of high government officials.
Independent counsels were accountable only to judicial panels, not to Justice Department superiors. They had broad powers to determine how far their investigations would go and how long they would last.
After years of cases that ensnared officials in both parties in seemingly endless legal proceedings, some clearly unjustifiable, the legislation authorizing the office of the independent counsel was finally allowed to expire. The institution died an unlamented death.
Maybe now that the FBI director has gored the oxen of both political parties in his insistence that everyone know how virtuously careful and nonpartisan he is, we can exercise our capacity for self-correction once again. Why not return to a more traditional allocation of responsibilities – in which the prosecutors make the decisions about whether to prosecute, after the investigators have investigated and reported the results to them?
Then these prosecutors, as prosecutors have traditionally done, either put up, by getting an indictment, or shut up, without press conferences and public self-justification.
Trump has a loud and in your face personality and the reason he won the nomination was because he tells it like it is.
So it shouldn't exactly be probable to have hidden Trump supporters considering he embolden the base. Unless they are THAT paranoid that voting on an online poll will somehow get them "find out."
And even getting found out is an irrational fear. Oh I found out you're Trump supporter? NOW FACE MY WRATH OF.... not agreeing with you.
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Demographics and the general advantage that the Electoral College gives Democrats.
Reagan steamrolled the country and Clinton won some Midwestern and Southern states with holdout Southern Democrats when his popularity rebounded, but since then most states are predictable in terms of who is getting their presidential votes, and the states going Democrat reliably give them an advantage. It's not enough to win by itself, but it gives Democrats an edge that requires either something extraordinary going on or the fickleness of the American Public to overcome. (Because the public is willing to give Republicans time to work and implement policy, but Democrats never have more than 2 years as a majority in Congress. If Democrats don't wave a wand and solve everybody's problems in that time, then it must be time to throw out the Democrats and give Republicans another chance! [/sarcasm])
edited 31st Oct '16 8:48:21 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |There is a difference between the Clintons, who have been on the national stage since the 1990s and Democratic Representatives and Senators. Given how long she's been in the public spotlight, people already know what they are getting with Clinton. The same can be said with Trump given how long he's been in the spotlight as well. Both Clinton and Trump are known quantities.
Wizard Needs Food BadlyWell, they're making a serious effort to put horrible people in power, so....
Punch-Clock Villains are still villains.
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for youTo be a Trump supporter, you have to be okay with the idea of voting for a terrible man. Though I do feel like noting that less than have of the people planning to vote for him actually like him.
I'm okay with calling 16% of the vote terrible people, though. Really, when you think about, if 84% of the population are good people, that's an encouraging figure. But really, a decent proportion of that 16% is probably people who got taken in by a con man, so even that's too high.
No. That's a delusional thing to say.
edited 31st Oct '16 9:24:10 AM by Gilphon
Now, I would say that there are a fair number of people who dislike Trump but are still going to vote for him because they think Clinton is even worse. They're mostly victims of the GOP spin machine, which is unfortunate, but doesn't make them terrible people.
But Trump really, truly does stand for a lot of terrible things, so saying "people who support terrible things are themselves terrible" isn't exactly off in the weeds in terms of outrageous statements that you can make, even if it's not exactly charitable, either.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.The only people I know who support Trump seem to do so only because they hate Hillary more - I think they would've preferred someone like Kasich.
Still, the fact that they're willing to pass off on the stuff that he says and does...well, it doesn't really help my opinion of them.
I am more willing to judge the people who actively profess their love and admiration towards him, though.
edited 31st Oct '16 9:24:27 AM by KarkatTheDalek
Oh God! Natural light!I'm talking about Trump supporters. Terrible person, terrible leader, terrible boss. Encourages sexually predatory attitudes, nonchalant usage of nuclear weapons, has fucking Mike Pence as his running mate...
Xenophobic, religious exclusionist, and overtly racist. Has the unambiguous, unabashed support of American Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Descended from an active Klan member.
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for youThey really generally don't.
Let me repeat: American Nazis, The KKK remnants, and Christian fundamentalists.
The Republican party has American citizens convinced that being bled dry by corporate overlords builds spirit and makes them free or some shit. That those with money being able to evade taxes benefits the economy. This is literally what the party runs on, and they have the gall to be surprised and indignant when a candidate like Trump takes over and runs with it. Trump is literally what the Republican party constituency has been taught to worship since the day they were born.
edited 31st Oct '16 9:35:09 AM by blkwhtrbbt
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Moore always came off as one of those almost stereotypical liberal types that like to root for abusive dictatorships just because they're not the USA. His Sicko documentary contained a goodly bit of propaganda supporting Fidel Castro, for example.
edited 31st Oct '16 8:13:34 AM by carbon-mantis