“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh” – Voltaire
Many funny memes have emerged after the FBI’s announcement that, in their investigation of Anthony Weiner’s possible sexting relationship with a 15 year-old girl, they turned up emails that may or may not be related to the Hillary Clinton private server investigation.
The internets are having fun associating Weiner and Clinton:
Dickileaks – NY Post
Weiner Probe – WaPo
The only thing that would make this more insane is if Trump’s tax returns were found in Anthony Weiner’s email – twitter
The Cocktober Surprise – twitter
Apparently, HRC’s 33,000 deleted emails were all just dick pics from Anthony Weiner – twitter
Seriously, the NYT reports that officials at the DOJ urged FBI head James Comey not to violate policies and procedural norms by intervening in the presidential election. The linked article contains this rather remarkable set of facts: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
The FBI offered no comment, and Justice Department officials said they had no idea what Mr. Comey saw as his next move. Justice Department officials were particularly puzzled about why Mr. Comey had alerted Congress — and by extension, the public — before agents even began reading the newly discovered emails to determine whether they contained classified information or added new facts to the case.
Law enforcement officials have begun the process to get court authority to read the emails, officials said. How soon they will get that is unclear, but there is no chance that the review will be completed before Election Day, several law enforcement officials said.
So not only to they have no idea what’s in the emails, they don’t have a warrant to read them yet.
This from the Jane Mayer article at the New Yorker: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)
According to the Administration official, [Attorney General] Lynch asked Comey to follow Justice Department policies, but he said that he was obliged to break with them because he had promised to inform members of Congress if there were further developments in the case. He also felt that the impending election created a compelling need to inform the public, despite the tradition of acting with added discretion around elections…
In essence, Comey is saying: “Well, I know the rule is designed to make sure that our investigations don’t influence elections, but I think in this case, we should break that rule, because there’s an election, and we should influence it.”
There are as yet no further developments in the case. After the FBI obtains a warrant and reads the emails, there might be, but right now, nada.
What we have so far isn’t a “further development” at all. If a police detective walked into a DA’s office and told the DA the equivalent of what Comey said to Congress, say: “we found a box of Clinton files”. He would get a puzzled look and a question: “Yes? Go on? What did you find?” and if the cop responded with: “We haven’t looked in the box yet” the DA would say: “Why are you HERE, then?”
But that’s not how Congress works.
No one knows what the impact will be on the presidential election; we will see next Tuesday. Comey’s act of partisan bad faith is staggering, and there is no denying that his letter to Congress was a bombshell. This undermines democracy at least as much as anything the Pant Load says on the trail about “rigged elections.” Undermining democracy apparently comes with zero consequences these days.
So, it’s time to wake up America! You could lose your democracy without even knowing it is gone.
To help you wake up, here is Serj Tankian, the lead vocalist of the rock band System of a Down, with “Uneducated Democracy”, released in 2012. Serj lives in California and supported Bernie Sanders this year:
The video for “Uneducated Democracy” is made by Tumo, a technology school in Armenia. All of the crew were teenagers.
Sample Lyrics:
In dire need of reason
In a truly deaf nation
In dire need of reason
In a truly deaf nation
Without an education there is no real democracy
Without an education there is only autocracy
Open your eyes
Open your mouths
Close your hands
And make a fist
Down with the system
As we lay helpless against the machine
As sex scandals dictate
The winding road of realpolitik
The bully runs from his corner
Images rule through the media
Hungry hunger further
The hungry hunger further
The original statement by Comey was typical of prosecutors – he “overcharged” Hillary, refusing to acknowledge the well know problem with classification – that it is overused and done not to protect secrets but to prevent Americans from finding out what the govt is doing.
The new statement is even worse.