Patterico's Pontifications

6/24/2014

Mediaite and Gawker Falsely Report Fox News’s Gregg Jarrett Was “Brawling” With Police

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:11 pm



Mediaite:

The Minnesota State Airport Police released Jarrett’s incident report, as well as video of Jarrett brawling with police officers at the airport, to Gawker after they filed a FOIA request.

. . . .

After they brought him to a holding cell to be evaluated by health officials, officer Mark Dorsey reported that Jarrett grew belligerent, telling him “This is all your fault,” and calling him a “fucking stupid ass.” He then apparently grabbed at Dorsey and the firefighter multiple times, and was immediately thrown into a hold by Dorsey, who then yells at him for resisting.

Go ahead and watch the video and tell me whether you see Jarrett “brawling” with cops:

Here’s what happens in the video. Jarrett is cooperating with the firefighters until the cop shows up in the doorway. (It looks at first like Jarrett is becoming upset with the firefighters, but if you listen to the voices, you can tell he’s talking to the cop.) Jarrett calls the cop a “fucking stupid ass” and the cop then marches in, clearly pissed off. Jarrett stands up as the cop threatens to put cuffs on him.

At this point, maybe — maybe! — Jarrett touches the cop with his right hand. You can’t see it because the cop’s body blocks the view of what Jarrett is doing with his hand. (There’s a clue to what’s going on at this point in the video. Let’s see who among you observes it.) I assume Jarrett did at least touch the cop, because when the cop declares that Jarrett had put his hand on him, Jarrett replies: “Yeah.” As to whether Jarrett is “grabbing” the cop . . . the clue I mentioned suggests the cop is not being honest about that.

After Jarrett does whatever he does, the cop appears (to me) to totally overreact: first twisting Jarrett’s arm behind him, and then slamming him down onto the bench. Then the cop yells “Quit resisting!” while Jarrett . . . appears not to be resisting, at all. It’s like the cop is trying to be a real-life version of a cop-haters’ caricature of a cop. Then the cop puts handcuffs on Jarrett — who admittedly appears to either not understand the cop’s order to give him his right hand, or plays dumb about it — and the cop tells Jarrett he is going to jail.

For what? For touching the cop?

This is “brawling,” Mediaite???!

Of course, Mediaite probably fell prey to the power of suggestion of Gawker, which broke the story under the misleading headline Drunk Fox News Anchor Brawls With Airport Cops In Jailhouse Video. Give Gawker credit for this, though: they do present the cop’s account, which is . . . not the truth. Here is a passage from the cop’s report:

While [medical personnel] began to evaluate Jarrett, he looked at me in the doorway and stated, “This is all of your fault.” I asked what was, and Jarrett responded, “This is your fault.” I told Jarrett that this was his fault he was where he was. Jarrett then became visibly agitated (angry, upset), his body became rigid and he leaned forward like he was going to jump up on his feet or launch himself off of the bench, and yelled “Fuck You” and stated “Fuck You” again. Jarrett stayed at an agitated level and in the posture like he was going to jump up at any moment.

Gawker then states:

The officer goes on to allege that Jarrett “grabbed my left arm and I broke his grip” before he slammed the anchor into the wall and threw him onto the floor.

That account is false, and substantially inconsistent with the video. Jarrett is in a relaxed position and leaning back — until the cop marches towards him, obviously upset that Jarrett called him a name. The claim that Jarrett repeatedly said “fuck you” is false.

As for the detail that Jarrett “grabbed” the cop to the point where Jarrett had to break Jarrett’s grip? Remember I said there was a clue in the video? Watch it again, and tell me why the cop seems not to be telling the entire truth about that.

Go ahead. I’ll wait right here.

Did you see it?

Jarrett was holding his glasses in his right hand throughout the whole confrontation with the overbearing cop.

How is Jarrett, holding glasses in his hand, going to grab the cop’s arm so firmly that the cop has to break free? How is Jarrett going to muster a grip tight enough to justify charges of resisting arrest? A grip tight enough to justify the cop’s actions in twisting Jarrett’s arm behind him? A grip tight enough to justify the cop roughly slamming Jarrett down onto a bench?

The answer is: that did not happen.

I think the cop should be disciplined (at a minimum) for overreacting, and for writing a false police report. I think the Mediaite writer, Tina Nguyen, and the unknown Gawker headline writer should both be disciplined for claiming Jarrett was “brawling” with the cop, which is clearly false. And Jarrett, if he isn’t already, might want to seek help for whatever substance abuse problems he might have.

As Ken White of Popehat sometimes says, this is one of those stories where I hate everyone.

But if I’m going to feel sorry for anyone, it’s not the overbearing cop who used too much force and wrote an inaccurate report because he wanted to justify sending someone to jail for contempt of cop. I’m going to feel sorry — just a little — for Gregg Jarrett, for undergoing a B.S. arrest for resisting, and for being lied about all over the Internet.

2/10/2011

Rep. Lee and Gawker: The Mental Gymnastics of Moral Relativists (Update: The Abolitionist’s Primer)

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 1:31 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Update: Powerful picture added at the end.

So we saw yesterday the flame out of Representative Lee, and while I knew Gawker got it all going, I was reluctant to mention or link to them just because generally I consider them sleazy and don’t want to encourage them.   And truthfully, I didn’t even read their original report, because the story was over by the time I even heard of it.

But this morning I found myself reading it, and these paragraphs leapt out at me.

Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives.

A spokesman for the Congressman confirmed that the email address belonged to Lee, and that he had deleted his Facebook account because our initial inquiry had him fretting about “privacy.” (A screenshot of his account before it vanished is at right.)

Isn’t it funny how people like this have to rationalize their interest in this salacious story?  They strike the pose of not caring at all about a person’s sex life, what two consenting adults do is no of their business, etc. etc., so they have to explain why it is normally that they don’t care, but here they do.

But the fact is they do care about it, in and of itself.  How do we know this?  Because their explanations don’t actually stand up to scrutiny.   (more…)

11/21/2010

Snark Fail: Gawker Mocks Sarah Palin for Her Supposedly Stupid, Yet Ultimately Correct Legal Position

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:53 am



Almost daily, it seems, some liberal moron criticizes Sarah Palin for being stupid — and then gets shown up. To take one recent and memorable example, she was taken apart for telling Tea Partiers to “Party like it’s 1773.” Stupid Sarah Palin! The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776! Except that, er, the Boston Tea Party (which inspired the Tea Party movement) occurred in . . . 1773.

With that as background, relish this gem from Gawker:

Did you catch the excerpt we posted yesterday from Sarah Palin’s new book? Sarah did. She tweets with rage: “The publishing world is LEAKING out-of-context excerpts of my book w/out my permission? Isn’t that illegal?”

[Sarah: If you’re reading this—and if you are, welcome!—you may want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with the law. Try starting here or here. Or skip the totally boring reading and call one of your lawyers. They’ll walk you through it.]

By now, you’ve guessed the punchline. Palin’s publisher Harper Collins sued Gawker, and a judge pretty much instantaneously ordered Gawker to pull down the excerpts. Next comes the part where Gawker pays monetary damages.

Hey Gawker legal geniuses: if you’re reading this — and if you are, welcome! — you may want to take a moment to actually read the links you posted. Here is one quote you might have found instructive, had you bothered to click on your own links:

[Y]ou will have a stronger case of fair use if the material copied is from a published work than an unpublished work. The scope of fair use is narrower for unpublished works because an author has the right to control the first public appearance of his expression.

Sarah Palin’s book comes out Tuesday. The fact that it is (as of yet) unpublished, is a huge factor against you. In fact, the case that immediately sprang to mind when I read your idiotic snark was the famous case where the Nation published excerpts from Gerald Ford’s unpublished memoirs. Was that case mentioned in the links you gave Ms. Palin? Oddly enough, it was!

Not a fair use. The Nation magazine published excerpts from ex-President Gerald Ford’s unpublished memoirs. The publication in The Nation was made several weeks prior to the date of serialization of Mr. Ford’s book in another magazine. Important factors: The Nation’s copying seriously damaged the marketability of Mr. Ford ‘s serialization rights. (Harper & Row v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539 (1985).)

Finally, there is the asshole factor — another point mentioned in one of your links:

When you review fair use cases, you may find that they sometimes seem to contradict one another or conflict with the rules expressed in this chapter. Fair use involves subjective judgments and are often affected by factors such as a judge or jury ‘s personal sense of right or wrong. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has indicated that offensiveness is not a fair use factor, you should be aware that a morally offended judge or jury may rationalize its decision against fair use.

Somehow, a bunch of snark mocking a correct legal position — and snidely advising the correct party to consult a lawyer if reading is too hard — seems to fail the “don’t be offensive” test. But maybe that’s just me.

12/23/2008

Chuck Philips Makes Gawker’s Top Ten Worst Media Moments of 2008

Filed under: Dog Trainer — Patterico @ 12:46 pm



It’s Number 7 on the list:

LA Times’ Fake Tupac Scoop—Lesson: don’t use serial con men as sources for front-page investigations.

The weird thing is, as I have noted before, Philips said in his article that Sabatino refused to comment, and Sabatino has denied to me that he was a source for Philips. And Philips claimed that other people had corroborated what was in the phony documents. So I’m still unsure about what happened there.

But I am sure of one thing: Philips embarrassed the paper. Badly.

2/10/2016

When Government Writes the Copy of “Journalists”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:50 am



J.K. Trotter at Gawker (I know) continues to show how flacks to Hillary Clinton were able to dictate to big-name journalists exactly how they would write their stories.

The latest reveal deals with Marc Ambinder, then of The Atlantic, who wrote Clinton spokeshole Phillippe Reines to ask for a copy of Hillary Clinton’s upcoming speech. Reines told Ambinder he could provide a copy on two conditions, to which Ambinder replied “ok.” Reines then wrote:

From: [Philippe Reines]
Sent: Wednesday, July 15 2009 10:06 AM
To: Ambinder, Marc
Subject: Re: Do you have a copy of HRC’s speech to share?

3 [conditions] actually

1) You in your own voice describe them as “muscular”

2) You note that a look at the CFR seating plan shows that all the envoys — from Holbrooke to Mitchell to Ross — will be arrayed in front of her, which in your own clever way you can say certainly not a coincidence and meant to convey something

3) You don’t say you were blackmailed!

Ambinder replied: “got it” — and like a dutiful little scribe, he complied with every request:

When you think of President Obama’s foreign policy, think of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That’s the message behind a muscular speech that Clinton is set to deliver today to the Council on Foreign Relations. The staging gives a clue to its purpose: seated in front of Clinton, subordinate to Clinton, in the first row, will be three potentially rival power centers: envoys Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell, and National Security Council senior director Dennis Ross.

Ambinder has taken a lot of criticism for this, and deservedly so. But lost in the shuffle has been Mike Allen of Politico. There are no emails showing a similar demand being made of Allen. But check out the opening of Allen’s piece about the same speech:

In a muscular first major address as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton warns adversaries on Wednesday that they “should never see America’s willingness to talk as a sign of weakness to be exploited.”

The seating! Don’t forget the seating, Mike!

A look at the CFR’s guest seating chart shows that arrayed in the front row will be top members of her team — the envoys she has called her “force multipliers”: Richard Holbrooke, George Mitchell, Dennis Ross, Philip Goldberg and Stephen Bosworth.

We told you to say “a look at the CFR’s guest seating plan,” Mike, not “chart.” It’s a minor quibble. Otherwise, we’re pleased. Holbrooke, Mitchell, Ross. You even got the order right, Mike! Well done!

On Friday, Trotter explained how Reines had once secretly ghostwritten an item on Allen’s blog. In November, Trotter showed that Allen promised positive coverage to Chelsea Clinton and promised to provide his interview questions in advance. “No one besides me would ask her a question, and you and I would agree on them precisely in advance.” The “no surprises” promise he made to Chelsea was common practice for Allen in dealing with Democrats, emails obtained by Trotter have revealed. So the chances that Reines dictated Allen’s coverage of Clinton’s speech are approximately yes it happened . . . give or take.

The fact that these guys still work and don’t get disciplined in any way tells you all you need to know.

Excellent work by Trotter.

11/25/2015

The Clinton News Network Rides Again

Filed under: General — JVW @ 10:18 pm



[guest post by JVW]

CNN reporter Elise Labott, part of the network’s global affairs team, was recently given a two-week suspension for sending out a Tweet critical of last week’s House vote to tighten the vetting process for refugees from Syria and points beyond.

The Tweet apparently violates a CNN policy prohibiting their reporters from editorializing on “partisan” issues.

Whether prompted by Ms. Labott’s indiscretion or whether the timing is purely coincidental, conservative outlets such as the Daily Caller are reporting that Labott was unusually receptive to and accommodating of suggestions from one Philippe Reines, a Hillary! Clinton aide turned State Department flack turned Hillary! Clinton aide. On the morning that The Once and Future Inevitable Next President of the United States was being grilled in the Senate over her behavior during the Benghazi imbroglio, Labott and Reines begin an email correspondence which has been uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request by Gawker Media. At one point in the exchange Labott seems to refer back to a previous conversation she had with Reines, asking him in an email message, “are you sure rand paul wasn’t at any hearings?” Within five minutes, she sends out this tweet:

A few hours later when Her Majesty’s testimony had wrapped up, Labott emails Reines to pass along her congratulations on Hillary!’s testimony: “She was great. well done. I hope you are going to have a big drink tonight.”

Still later that evening, Reins emails Labott to mention that he has another tweet to suggest (it should be noted here that, like his boss, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reins appears to have a fondness for conducting government business on private email servers). She responds, “What did you suggest. [sic] I didn’t see it.” He replies, “Pin,” which appears to refer to a private messaging system. Labott makes a promise to “get back to you,” then six minutes later tweets out the following:

The Rand Paul campaign has naturally jumped all over the story of the CNN reporter colluding with the State Department employee (and Clinton aide) to ensure sympathetic coverage. As of this writing, CNN has not commented upon the situation and Elise Labott remains on suspension for one more week.

-JVW

11/18/2015

“16 Of The Worst Ways To Respond To ISIS’ Paris Attack”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 5:40 am



Mollie Hemingway has a great piece at The Federalist titled 16 Of The Worst Ways To Respond To ISIS’ Paris Attack. One thing I like about it is that she saves me the trouble of writing up my own response to the self-righteous morons at The Daily Beast who wrote a piece titled GOP Guvs Rely on ISIS Lies to Reject Syrian Refugees. Their thesis appeared to be that because the Syrian passport found next to one of the dead terrorists was apparently fake, then it follows that the GOP governors rejecting ISIS refugees are stupid idiots falling for an ISIS ruse. Mollie takes that argument apart adroitly:

I don’t know how this isn’t obvious to the folks at the Daily Beast, but the fact that ISIS appears to have intentionally and successfully exploited the refugee system to bust an agent into enemy territory only helps the arguments of those concerned about security and refugees. It’s not like the fakeness of the passport means that the terrorist is fake. He was all too real. And it doesn’t mean he didn’t come into enemy territory by claiming to be a refugee. He still did that. And even that Abott specifically scarequoted ‘refugee’ to point out that the terrorists wasn’t an actual refugee but one posing as such means that he didn’t fall for a “ruse.” This is really stupid analysis, in fact.

If people spent a bit of time understanding the arguments of their opponents, they’d understand that the concern isn’t that refugees are all terrorists waiting to attack but that terrorists could pose as refugees. As happened, apparently, in Paris.

Radical leftists aren’t big into understanding the arguments of their opponents; they prefer mocking them. (Oh, did I mention Gawker is becoming a political site? It plans to take a “Daily Show” approach to online political analysis, which I think we can all agree is sorely needed.)

I also loved Mollie’s piece because it introduced me to this tweet:

By the way, I have also listened to a handful of podcasts at The Federalist, which are hosted by Ben Domenech, one of the co-founders. He has a very easy style that works well for podcasting. Last night I listened to Charles C.W. Cooke talking about his new book The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right’s Future. (I just purchased the Kindle version with the accompanying Audible narration that seamlessly transfers between text and speech. You can do the same at the link. Bonus: Charles narrates it himself!) Cooke says his book is for that ever-increasing group of people (and this describes me) who feel like libertarians around conservatives . . . and like conservatives around libertarians. This is the future — or at least it should be.

4/18/2015

This Is What An Entitled Mean Girl Looks Like And It Isn’t Pretty [UPDATED With Dissent By Patterico] [Further Post Update]

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:50 am



UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I’m going to exercise my prerogative as blog owner to insert an update at the head of this post. It’s actually a concurrence and a dissent, not just a dissent.

I am uncomfortable, and indeed angry, about what this business did, because they edited out the comments by the employee. Dana notes that at the end of the post, but I personally think it is far more significant than most apparently do, and I want to take a moment to explain why.

If these people are going to put out a video with only one side of the conversation, and edit out the comments of the employee, then I believe I am entitled to assume the absolute worst about what the employee said. So, until I hear different, I am going to assume that the employee hurled insults and profanities at the ESPN reporter. Am I wrong, towing company? Prove it. Until you do, I assume what I assume.

And given my assumption, the comments made by McHenry . . . still were not wise. But might be far more understandable than they seem in a video where all the context has been deliberately ripped out.

I’m just not comfortable joining in the online lynch mob based on an edited video like this. That said, I am happy to have a guest poster disagree, and I am happy to have all viewpoints aired. I just wanted to register my discomfort with the pile-on in a prominent way.

Again: if the towing company wants even the slightest bit of sympathy from me, they can present the entire video, or they can go to hell.

— PATTERICO

SECOND UPDATE BY PATTERICO: To be clear, I’m not accusing Dana of participating in an “online lynch mob” with this post. See the update by me below — the really long (and interesting!) one. — PATTERICO

[guest post by Dana]

Young, blonde and beautiful? You’ve got it made in our society – for a while, anyway. Power, confidence, and lots of attention. Who wouldn’t want that? Well, if young, blonde and beautiful is also demonstrably a mean-girl – arrogant, cruel and ill-mannered like ESPN reporter Britt McHenry, not me.

Having been warned that she was on camera and that a *video of her could be released, McHenry nonetheless chose to unleash a personal and caustic attack on a tow-truck company employee at Advanced Towing where McHenry was paying to have her towed car released:

Some of her comments to the woman working the counter:

The parking attendant can be heard in the video warning McHenry she is being filmed and threatens to ‘play your video’.

‘That’s why I have a degree and you don’t – I wouldn’t work in a scumbag place like this,’ McHenry responds.

‘Makes my skin crawl even being here.’

The parking attendant patiently replies: ‘Well lets get you out of here quickly.’

McHenry then fires back: ‘Yep, that’s all you care about – taking people’s money…with no education, no skill set. Just wanted to clarify that.’

“I’m in the news sweetheart, I will f—ing sue this place.”

“Do you feel good about your job? So I could be a college dropout and do the same thing?”

“I’m on television and you’re in a f—ing trailer, honey.”

“Maybe if I was missing some teeth, they would hire me, huh?”

“Lose some weight, baby girl.”

As someone who has had to pay to have a stolen car released from impound, I can understand McHenry’s frustration with the system. The painful fact of the matter is, if you want your impounded auto back, you have to pay. That being said, McHenry’s car was towed because of where she was parked, not because it was stolen. And while I may have resented having to pay for my car’s release, I certainly didn’t make it personal and blame the person behind the counter.

While the tow-truck company, along with the employee herself, have less-than-stellar reputations, it’s noteworthy that McHenry chose to go mean-girl in her attack when she went for the female jugular: physical looks. It may be the most powerful weapon in a beautiful woman’s arsenal. Young, blonde and beautiful, humiliated at finding herself having to pay for something I’m sure she felt was unfair, but adding insult to injury, also having to submit to someone so clearly beneath her. Unacceptable!

And it is this that makes McHenry not just an angry customer, but a seriously unattractive angry customer. If she was that frustrated and provoked by the experience of having to go to a seedy joint and pay for something she felt unfair, why not rant about the unethical behavior of the company and their bad business practices? Why make it personal and attack another woman’s looks? I think it’s because she is simply a mean girl. This is who she is. This personal attack did not happen in a vacuum, did not come out of nowhere. She knew exactly how to remind the employee – an employee who momentarily held power over young, blonde and beautiful – who had the real and lasting power. And who did not. She knew her cruelty would hit the mark and hurt the employee. And in that moment, she wanted to hurt the employee, not the business.

Untitled-3

Untitled-1(2)

Not surprisingly, McHenry herself appears to already have a reputation for being a rude snob.

McHenry later apologized but not directly to the recipient of her mean-spirited rant:

In an intense and stressful moment, I allowed my emotions to get the best of me and said some insulting and regrettable things. As frustrated as I was, I should always choose to be respectful and take the high road. I am so sorry for my actions and will learn from this mistake.

ESPN has suspended McHenry for one week.

(*The video, of course, does not reflect the entire conversation. We do not know what the employee may have said to further provoke McHenry, however, that does not change the personal attacks McHenry made.)

UPDATE: According to this report, the towing company sat on the video for 10 days, plenty of time to edit it, which is the claim being made. Note: the source is unnamed and the report comes from US Weekly:

The damning security camera footage, which surfaced on April 16, shows McHenry verbally attacking a female attendant while trying to retrieve her car in Arlington, Va. During the heated berating, McHenry says “I’m in the news, sweetheart” and “I will f-king sue this place.” The source, however, says that some of her words were taken out of context.

For one, the D.C. sports reporter really said “I’m in the news, I know that there are lawsuits against you.” (The Advanced Towing Company LLC received an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau.) She did not, according to the source, say it to brag about her job.

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Let me clarify a few things. First, I do not mean to accuse Dana of participating in an “online lynch mob.” I have re-read her post and, while I would not have written it the same way myself, one cannot accurately call this post “lynch mob” activity. To the extent that my update at the top might seem to suggest that, let me make it clear I did not intend that. However, I do think there are lynch-mobby aspects to the general reaction on the Internet to all of this, and I do think that it’s important to call for a little perspective on all of this.

First, let’s take a step back and look at what is going on. This morning I was listening to a fascinating podcast that Ace did with John Sexton on the concept of “Altruistic Punishment.” As Ace explained, they have done studies with young children where a young girl witnessed a monkey puppet stealing cookies from an elephant puppet. The girl shunned and otherwise punished the monkey puppet for stealing the cookie even though it wasn’t hers. Chimpanzees don’t react this way; they couldn’t care less whether the monkey puppet steals the elephant puppet’s cookie. That’s the elephant puppet’s problem.

So this sense that we need to band together and enforce social rules, even when we ourselves are not the target of the wrongdoing, is actually very important to human society. It has been shown that this is fundamental to human cooperation. You won’t follow the rules unless you know that everyone is subject to the rules. And so you enforce rules even when you aren’t being harmed.

But, as Ace points out, this can go overboard. Because it feels good to punish wrongdoers. We all know this. When we are righteously busting someone for dishonesty or crass behavior, we get a little frisson of self-righteousness that feels fantastic. This doesn’t make one a bad person. Every human feels this. On the podcast, Ace admits he feels it. “It’s like hunting a buffalo,” he says. When I was putting together posts detailing the sock-puppetry of supercilious people like Michael Hiltzik or Glenn Greenwald, I felt it. It’s natural.

And it can go overboard, leading to mob action. There was that Justene Sacco incident, which Ace discussed, in which Sacco wrote “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m White!” An online lynch mob formed, literally while she was on the plane, and people got whipped into a frenzy over her purported racisms. There was a specially created hashtag: #HasJustineLandedYet. She was actually met at the airport by an intrepid online shamer with a cellphone. She was fired. As it turned out, Sam Biddle, one of the leaders of the lynch mob, later interviewed her and learned that the tweet had been misintepreted. Context — the other side of the story; her side of the story — wasn’t necessary for the lynch mob to make its judgment. She was convicted before she landed. The fact that her tweet “was supposed to mimic—and mock—what an actual racist, ignorant person would say” was unknown and the possibility did not matter to people. Biddle’s later-expressed regret for his participation didn’t get Justene Sacco back her job.

Events like this have made me very reluctant to join in online mobs that form over alleged outrages — especially when I sense that there may be another side to the story. And I do think that such a mob has formed around this Britt McHenry story. Just look at Facebook or Twitter and you’ll find large groups of people saying a suspension is not enough; she needs to be fired; she’s a terrible person; etc. etc. etc.

Dana’s post is not like that. Dana’s post largely concentrates on the way women can sometimes act like “mean girls” in attacking others’ looks and other superficial things. These are all valid observations, and I think it’s clear that this is happening in the video. My update above is not meant to “defend” or “justify” or “excuse” the bratty behavior of a pretty TV girl attacking someone on superficial grounds.

That being said, my by-now innate reluctance to join online mobs leads me to be very circumspect about forming conclusions based on one side of the story. Again: this company deliberately edited out most of the commentary from the employee. This is not because the employee did not consent to having her voice on the video; it does appear at least twice, where she threatens to show the video, and where she says, in effect, let’s get you out of here quickly. The other comments she made — the ones which were edited out — were undoubtedly nasty and embarrassing to the employee. McHenry says the employee was being abusive, and based on the video being edited, I completely believe her. And that makes me angry.

And this is where I take issue with Dana in the post, because she characterizes McHenry’s comments as “cruel” and seems to accept the narrative being offered by the company. Dana says: “And while I may have resented having to pay for my car’s release, I certainly didn’t make it personal and blame the person behind the counter.” I could be misreading this, but I read this as implying that McHenry is simply upset about the situation and is taking it out on an innocent person behind the counter. Now, it’s possible that’s what happened. But I doubt it. Because if that’s all it was, they would have shown the whole video, unedited. And they didn’t.

Now, Dana does indeed acknowledge that the video has been edited, saying: “The video, of course, does not reflect the entire conversation. We do not know what the employee may have said to further provoke McHenry, however, that does not change the personal attacks McHenry made.” I’m glad Dana said that, and it shows that Dana is aware of the possibility that McHenry was provoked. I just think I assign more importance to that distinct possibility than is assigned by Dana, or frankly, by most people I see discussing this online. To me, it’s impossible to know how bad McHenry’s reaction is without the full context. Since the company has deliberately chosen to edit out the full context, I believe it is reasonable for me to conclude that their employee acted badly, and that the unedited video would be very embarrassing for them and would make McHenry’s remarks look (perhaps only slightly) less unreasonable.

TL;DR. I know. Mainly, I wanted to make clear that I do not accuse Dana of being involved in an online lynch mob. I know her too well to think that about her. But to the extent that one has formed outside this blog, I want to make it crystal clear that I am not joining in. Hence the update above.

3/30/2015

Did Hillary Clinton Employ a Private Intelligence Gatherer Who Has Promoted Brett Kimberlin?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 1:36 pm



At the Weekly Standard, Mark Hemingway has a piece titled: Meet the Men Behind Hillary Clinton’s Private ‘Spy Network’.

Two big Clinton stories landed last week. The first is that Hillary Clinton destroyed the electronic copies of her State Department emails on her private server after the State Department subpoenaed her emails. The second is that Hillary Clinton had an aide running a “secret spy network” that was, among other things, feeding her information on Benghazi, according to a report by Pro Publica and Gawker. Earlier this month, I noted the myriad ways that Clinton running her own private email server breathes new life into the Benghazi investigation, but this last revelation takes things to a whole new level.

Specifically, this new report suggests that three men — Sidney Blumenthal, Tyler Drumhiller, and Cody Shearer — were involved in her private intelligence gathering efforts. Each of these men has a reputation for being associated with scandal.

Regarding Shearer, Hemingway says:

And two, Slate also notes that “it was Shearer who, during the 1992 presidential campaign, introduced the world–through the unlikely medium of Doonesbury–to Brett Kimberlin. Kimberlin, you may recall, was the convicted bomber, habitual liar, and all-around sociopath who claimed to have sold drugs to Dan Quayle. Was Shearer acting on behalf of the legendary Clinton ‘opposition research’ outfit, which had floated damaging rumors during the ’92 primaries about Paul Tsongas’ health and Jerry Brown’s drug use? Or was he just an enthusiastic free-lancer?” In recent years, Kimberlin has been involved in number of frivolous lawsuits aimed at shutting down conservative blogs.

Kimberlin’s Justice Through Music has in the past claimed a relationship with the Hillary Clinton-era State Department:

MAY 24, 2012 – JTMP has been a participant in the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Programfor 3 years now, where citizens from around the world involved in the arts get to come to America and visit to learn about the role of arts in the US. This year we had visitors that came from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia to see how Justice Through Music Project uses art to raise awareness on issues, and to bring about social change. This year’s contingent had musicians, playwrights, and people involved in art production. We gave them a presentation and showed them many of our musical art videos that deal with politics and issues, while we spoke about how we operate and produce our art videos. We then showed them how we use this art on our website and YouTube channel to raise awareness on an issue to help bring about positive social change.

It would be interesting to know just how close that relationship was.

3/8/2015

Hillary And The White House: Getting Lost In The Tangled Web

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:03 pm



[guest post by Dana]

(Hillary’s email scandal is getting messier by the day. With each new revelation, it gets that much harder to keep things straight.)

It’s always tough to keep the thread of a “story” simple and tight. The more people involved, the more complicated it becomes. One loose thread, and the whole thing threatens to unravel. Ari Fleischer points out the difficult position the White House now finds itself in with regard to Hillary’s brewing email scandal:

“It’s an extraordinarily delicate dance they have to do to not throw someone overboard, but not get anyone in the White House in deeper trouble.”

On Friday, Josh Earnest attempted to address when the White House learned about Hillary’s private email account and server:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, when asked about what the White House knew, said senior officials were emailing Clinton while she was secretary of state and a few noticed she wasn’t using a .gov email address. However, he did not say when they noticed it and whether red flags were raised.

He also said he had no idea when President Obama first found out and claimed he wouldn’t be surprised if Obama only learned about it from “newspapers.”

Par for the course and surprising no one, President Obama confirmed Earnest’s suggestion and claimed that he learned of this scandal – as he has with so many other scandals involving his administration – via the news:

President Obama only learned of Hillary Clinton’s private email address use for official State Department business after a New York Times report, he told CBS News in an interview.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante asked Mr. Obama when he learned about her private email system after his Saturday appearance in Selma, Alabama.

“The same time everybody else learned it through news reports,” the president told Plante.

It’s interesting that the president, Josh Earnest and Valerie Jarrett all denied knowing Hillary used a private account maintained by servers at her residence.

How is that possible?

“The White House, State Department and Hillary Clinton’s personal office knew in August that House Republicans had received information showing that the former secretary of state conducted official government business through her private email account — and Clinton’s staff made the decision to keep quiet.”

Further, if one of them knew, do you think that individual would sit on the information?

John Cook, the executive editor for investigations at Gawker Media, said in 2013, after emails from Clinton to Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, leaked, he “alerted” White House press secretary Josh Earnest that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was using a private email account.

Cook said it was “strange,” President Obama said Saturday he learned about Hillary Clinton exclusively emailing all official State Department business using her private email account when she was serving in his administration from the news, because Cook explained, “I alerted his spokesperson in 2013. I saw it coming from the White House. It’s not like we published a story and they missed it. I emailed Josh Earnest, who is now his spokesperson, and said this email address exists. Does it comport with the presidential records act and freedom of information act. I got no response.”

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: “On the news,” eh? That’s also how he found out about the IRS scandal. (Obama said: “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.”)

And the VA scandal. (Jay Carney said: “I believe, we learned about them through reports.”)

Also Fast and Furious, DOJ wiretapping of reporters, and Air Force One being used for a photo op in lower Manhattan.

This video is an oldie but a goodie, and still relevant today:

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