DNC e-mail scandal

Observations On The Donald Trump/ Russia/ Hacked E-Mails Story

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Hillary Putin Trump

I swear I am  trying to post on interesting ethics issues that have nothing to do with Hillary, Donald, either party or  their hot-button issues. My issue scout Fred and others have sent me scores of topics that are waiting on the runway. Then things like this happen.

To catch you up: After Wikileaks released embarrassing e-mails, hacked from the DNC, showing collusion by the supposedly neutral arm of the Democratic Party to ensure the nomination for Hillary Clinton, Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook told  ABC’s “This Week,” “It’s troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.”

Then Trump said at a news conference in Florida, “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Immediately Democrats, partisan lawyers, left-wing pundits and Trump-haters flipped out. Carl Bernstein, the far left half of Woodward and Bernstein, said Trump’s comments were “disqualifying.” Others wrote that his comments were “treason” or “virtual treason.” Clinton senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan said, “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent.”

Trump, predictably, said that he was being sarcastic.

Observations:

1. I trust that my disgust for Donald Trump, his values, his character and his candidacy have been clearly and thoroughly explained here, as they will continue to be. Nonetheless, basic ethics requires that he be treated fairly by the news media, and I will continue to point out the media’s bias against him, Republicans, and anyone standing in Hillary Clinton’s way as she attempts to corrupt the government and the culture by infecting both with her grubby ambition and dishonesty. This is one more episode of journalism bias in what will be a long, long trail leading right to election day.

2. The Democratic Party’s spin on the e-mail scandal is self-evidently desperate and misleading, not that this appears to discourage Clinton-supporters in the social media from adopting it. The central issue is what the hacked e-mails show, and what the DNC and the Clinton campaign did to rig the nomination. Mook’s deflection, which a fair and competent host would have immediately rejected (but George Stephanopoulos is a loyal former Clinton staffer and confidante with a conflict of interest), was a miserable, dishonest tactic. Naturally, it was quickly adopted by most of the party and its partisan journalist supporters. Sad, weak, Martin O’Malley  chimed in, Continue reading →

UPDATE: The DNC “Apology” Is Even Worse Than I Thought! NOW You Get The Kaboom. KABOOM!

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

Kaboom Red

 Well, she got me!

The utter dishonesty of the Hillary Clinton-dominated Democratic National Committee finally made my head explode, earning the Ethics Alarms KABOOM designation, and also gratitude from the makers of Scott Paper Towels.

I posted  on the deceitful DNC non-apology apology reported last night as the party’s  response to the Wikileaks revelation that the Debbie Wasserman Schultz-led, Hillary Clinton-supporting staff of the Democratic National Committee was actively assisting Clinton’s campaign and colluding to undermine that of her sole challenger for the nomination, Bernie Sanders. My conclusion was that by apologizing for “the e-mails” and “remarks” instead of acknowledging and apologizing for what those e-mails and remarks signified, the DNC was cynically pretending to be sorry while actually deflecting attention away from its real betrayal.

It was worse than that.

When I wrote this, I was not aware of the recent discovery of anti-gay and homophobic comments in the DNC e-mails, though the DNC surely was. For example, there were exchanges like this (from The Daily Caller): Continue reading →

The Final Insult: The DNC Issues A Cynical, Evasive And Dishonest “Apology”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments
The DNC is offering one for free!

The DNC is offering one for free!

I have been asked why none of the various ethical horrors emerging from the Democratic Party ( as in rigging its nomination process), the Democratic National Committee (as in claiming, in spite of smoking-gun evidence, that Hillary Clinton won the nomination “fair and square”) and Hillary Clinton ( as in immediately hiring the ex-chair of the DNC after she had been dumped for overseeing the unethical nomination process manipulation) rated a KABOOM! label, which is reserved for unethical conduct so stunning that it causes my head to explode. The reason is simple.  Being well-acquainted with the depth of Hillary Clinton’s corruption and her documented ability to corrupt others, I am immune to such episodes, which no longer can bring my brain to the necessary boil.

I must admit, however, that the DNC’s outrageous apology  to “Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party” issued tonight (it’s Monday evening, the first night of the Democratic National Convention) nearly did it. My skull almost blew.

I’m sure there have been more deceitful, evasive, too-cute-by-half and insulting apologies by major institutions. Well maybe not. Anyone who accepts this slap in the face of accountability as anything better than a sham is either a fool, or complicit in the Democratic Party’s machinations.

Here is the “apology”:

DNC apology

According to the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale, this is both a Level 9 and a Level 10 apology, which is to say a stinking, steaming pile of excrement, and about as unethical as an apology can be. Continue reading →

More On The DNC E-Mail Scandal: Proposition Proved! An Unethical Organization, Seeking To Respond To The Revelation Of Corrupt Practices, Will Only Further Demonstrate The Depth Of Its Unethical Nature [Part 2]

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments
"Fair and square," eh Donna?

“Fair and square,” eh Donna?

[Items 1-5 are covered in the previous post, More On The DNC E-Mail Scandal: Proposition Proved! An Unethical Organization, Seeking To Respond To The Revelation Of Corrupt Practices, Will Only Further Demonstrate The Depth Of Its Unethical Nature,Part I]

6. Donald Trump remains, and will remain, the riskiest option for President in 2016, simply because he has no qualities and no experience that qualify him for high office, and many, many traits and habits that disqualify him absolutely. Nonetheless, not since Richard Nixon has a presidential candidate been more likely, if elected, to get enmeshed in scandals involving abuse of power and the violation of laws than Hillary Clinton. Democrats and anyone else who votes for her must understand this. Clinton’s lauditory statement about Wasserman Schultz is proof of it, as was her State Department e-mail scheme. She will encourage and support dishonest, undemocratic schemes in pursuit of her agenda. Nothing could be more certain.

7. The key question is this: How can Clinton herself, and not just the ex-DNC chair, not be held accountable for the nomination fix? Are Democrats satisfied with that result: she coordinates the rigging of the system, and completely benefits from the plot, achieving everything she sought, and the only one punished is an official who should have been fired long ago? Poignantly asks New York Times columnist Charles Blow, as reliable a Democratic Party apologist as walks the earth,

“What are those Democratic voters supposed to do who don’t trust the candidate, the party or the process, even if they view The Donald as the Devil?”

Continue reading →

More On The DNC E-Mail Scandal: Proposition Proved! An Unethical Organization, Seeking To Respond To The Revelation Of Corrupt Practices, Will Only Further Demonstrate The Depth Of Its Unethical Nature [PART 1]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
debbie-wasserman-schultz

“Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

Last week, the Republicans revealed to the world how untrustworthy it had become under the curse of Donald Trump during its ugly convention. The Democratic Party  has, against all odds, still managed to equal them, proving beyond all doubt that it is equally untrustworthy—and equally loathsome—before its convention even started.  Debating which party debased itself more is a ludicrous exercise—“more untrustworthy” is like “more pregnant”—but boy, it’s hard to conceive of more cynical, “We’re corrupt to the core and proud of it!” behavior than the Democratic Party’s reaction to the Wikileak-ed DNC e-mails.

Many of my progressive Facebook friends spent last week knocking themselves out gloating, and writing screeds beginning with “How can anyone look at themselves in the mirror and say they support the Republican Party?” If they have integrity—and most of them don’t, being thoroughly infected with partyism, bias, and Clinton Corruption–they will be asking their mirrors the same question, with the substitution of one key word.

Here is the unethical aftermath as it has unfolded so far, and what it revealed to anyone not in denial:

1. As I predicted, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was designated official scapegoat for the entire party’s primary season-wide cheat, as if she rigged the nomination all by herself, and nobody else knew. Indeed, the damning e-mails revealed that the whole DNC staff management was involved in an organization-wide plot to guarantee the nomination for Clinton, undermine Sanders, and lie to the nation that it was an open and fair process. If the staff knew, the party leaders knew. If the party leaders knew, Hillary Clinton knew….and anyone who argues that she didn’t know is either so dumb or so corrupt themselves that I wouldn’t recommend letting them house-sit for you.

My brain hurts from trying to come up with a suitably descriptive analogy. Is this like one of bullet-riddled Sonny Corleone’s assassins kissing his forehead and saying “There! Boo-boo all better?”  Is it as if Major League Baseball’s response to the 1919 Black Sox scandal and its rigged World Series was to fire the corrupted team’s manager and let the players who took the bribes continue as if nothing happened? The best analogy is probably the most obvious one: Wasserman Schultz is a scapegoat in the traditional sense of the word, a symbolic living vessel let loose in the wilderness to atone for the sins of the people. Of course, that practice was cynical and idiotic, but understandably popular with everyone but the goat. Continue reading →

Observations On The Leaked DNC E-mails

/ Jack Marshall / 71 Comments
"Thanks for all your good work for me, Debbie! And thank the rest of the DNC staff too!"

“Thanks for all your good work for me, Debbie! And thank the rest of the DNC staff too!”

1. In case you missed it—and there were a lot of people trying to make sure you did—the illegal hacking organization Wikileaks released nearly 20,000 stolen e-mails from the Democratic National Committee. It is, by any estimation, a scandal, and potentially a devastating one. You can read various takes on it from Heat Street, BuzzFeed, NPR, The Daily Beast, CNN, BizPac Review, Business Insider, The New York Observer, Fox News Insider, Associated Press, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, and the Associated Press. Among other things, the e-mails show that the Democratic National Committee was actively colluding to undermine Bernie Sanders and ensure that Hillary Clinton won the race to become the Democratic nominee. That means that the Democratic Party, while holding itself out as running a fair nomination process to be determined by primaries and voters while the party played neutral referee, was in fact cheating. It was fixing the competition. It lied to Democratic voters and the nation.

I think that’s a big deal.

2. Objective observers and commentators knew this was the orientation of the DNC long before the leaks, of course. It was obvious, or should have been, that the fix was in. The party tried to make sure that no real competition for Clinton emerged to challenge her for the nomination, despite her obvious weaknesses as a candidate and her self-evident corruption. All that Hillary had to overcome were a Star Wars cantina of token opposition: Sanders, an elderly socialist crackpot; Jim Webb,  a conservative, sort-of-Democrat maverick with even less charm than Hillary; Martin O’Malley, a lightweight former governor with no policy positions that varied significantly from Clinton’s, and whatever the heck ex-Republican Lincoln Chafee was supposed to be.  Even against this motley crew, Hillary  might well have lost in a fair contest, just as she did to an unproven, inexperienced junior Senator from Illinois in 2008.  But Clintons don’t do “fair,” and the DNC was willing to  serve as her accomplice. Thus the party appointed Hillary-supporting “superdelegates,” including Hillary’s husband and many former Clinton appointees and previous enablers. Thus they held as many debates as possible on weekends and opposite major sporting events, so as few undecided people as possible would be exposed to the inevitable Clinton gaffes, lies, and awkward public persona.

2. There should be little sympathy for indignant Democrats who are shocked—-shocked!—that the leaked emails show that the DNC was trying to sabotage Sanders and push Clinton over the finish line. Hillary cheats. Everyone knows that. Everyone knew that  before she announced her candidacy. She was cheating all along, just like she was lying about her State Department e-mails all along, and continues to lie about her Goldman Sachs speeches. Knowing all that, with an obligation to his conveniently adopted party and his principles to try to stop a manifestly unfit woman from gaining power, Bernie Sanders still refused to attack Clinton where she is least fit to be President: her character. All the pieces were there. If the Wikileaks leaks were necessary for Sanders and his supporters to figure out that they were the marks in a rigged  game, they are too gullible and pathetic to be involved in politics. Continue reading →