Showing posts with label Phillippe Reines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phillippe Reines. Show all posts

Saturday, June 29, 2013

When Phillippe Reines — the man behind Hillary's "reset" button — said "fuck off" and "have a good life" to Michael Hastings — the reporter who died recently in a mysterious car crash.

In the comments to the "Snowden is like a hot meat pie in your hands" post — about what leaker Edward Snowden means to the Russians — David said "So much for reset. Apparently Obama and Clinton have not improved relations [with Russia] much." Which got me looking up articles about Hillary Clinton's foolish "reset" button. I found "Hillary’s Aide Really Half-Assed That ‘Reset’ Button Thing" from March 2009:
[F]ingers had to be pointed at someone, and, for the most part they were conveniently targeted at a guy everyone hated already anyway, Hillary's senior adviser Phillippe Reines, who was nearly fired during the presidential campaign for making a tactless comment about John McCain's torture experience. He's also been agitating some in the State Department press corps by restricting their access.
(I think the referenced comment about McCain is here.) Now, we talked about Reines last fall in connection with this story: "Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To 'Fuck Off' And 'Have A Good Life.'" And I'm surprised to see that the reporter is Michael Hastings, who died in a fiery single-car wreck on June 18th:
He had emailed a warning to colleagues on June 17 saying the "Feds" were interviewing his close friends and associates. He added: "I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the radat (sic) for a bit." BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith confirmed that he had received the email....

The circumstances and rumors surrounding the death led the FBI to issue a statement stating that Hastings was never under investigation.
In this light, you might want to read that Phillipe Reines/Michael Hastings email exchange again. Hastings was asking questions like "Why didn’t the State Department search the [Benghazi] consulate...?" and "What other potential valuable intelligence [besides Ambassador Stevens's diary] was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds?" Reines became extremely defensive and abusive:
I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you’re an unmitigated asshole.

How’s that for a non-bullshit response?

Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, have a good day.

And by good day, I mean Fuck Off.
ADDED: From 4 days ago: "Was Michael Hastings Murdered? Internet Conspiracy Theories Are Rife."
First, it's obvious that Hastings was working on a big story, though the exact subject is under debate. Considering the title of his email ["FBI Investigation, re:NSA"] and his last article on BuzzFeed, many (including the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald) think it may have been a piece on PRISM. The Huffington Post thinks he was writing about General Petraeus, while the Los Angeles Times stated that it was on a privacy lawsuit against the Department of Defense and the FBI. They are all big, government-related cases that many would prefer go unexamined.

Second, Hastings reached out to the legal team at Wikileaks for assistance, claiming that that FBI were investigating him. Wikileaks has also claimed that there is a "non-public complication" in Hastings' death, though they have not released more information.

Third, while is it ordinary protocol for police departments to issue a statement that there was no foul play (as the LAPD have done), the FBI hardly ever responds to media attention. However, in this case, they have made an exception. The FBI has released a statement denying that they were ever investigating Hastings, which is interesting considering that after years in his field, Hastings is well aware of what being investigated by the FBI looks like.

Fourth, the car accident itself was pretty bizarre. When the car hit the tree, the engine ejected and was later found over 100 feet away. That kind of ejection is pretty unusual, especially for a Mercedes, and it also meant that Hastings would have had to be driving close to 100 mph, which is much faster than that section of road permits.....

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Why is it "inhumane" and "idiotic" to question the veracity of the claims that have been made about Hillary Clinton's various medical conditions?

James Carville is saying:
I have no idea what it is about the secretary of state that drives them to this kind of inhumane idiotic behaving state.
Inhumane idiotic behaving state... is an odd way to struggle to make a point. People — like me — who notice the coincidence of this string of medical crises and the interest in avoiding questions about Benghazi are not "behaving." We're speaking. We're not in a "behaving state," whatever that's supposed to mean. We're looking at the information we have, analyzing it, and asking pertinent questions. This is political speech about powerful office holders in the United States of America. I am sick and tired of people who say that if you talk about Hillary's health you are inhumane and idiotic. I feel like yelling that. I want to stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to question and criticize any politician. I'm saying that out loud and sounding like this:



Clinton supporters are trying to shut down criticism by going hardcore on those of us who are just asking questions. We're being called inhumane on the theory that Hillary's problems are health problems. This accusation of inhumanity is — ironically, outrageously — being used to supervene any humane concerns directed at those who died in the Benghazi attack. I could just as well accuse Carville for going into a kind of inhumane idiotic behaving state whenever anyone suggests that anything other than Hillary's health deserves attention.

It's been said that those of us who ask — merely ask —whether there's some evasion going on here are asserting a conspiracy theory. First, asking is not asserting. Second, the idea that politicians are avoiding questions isn't a conspiracy theory. It's pretty much expecting the most ordinary and predictable sort of human behavior. Third, I can't think of anyone in American politics who is more famous for slapping the label "conspiracy" on something than Hillary Clinton:



And fourth, she was lying! When we're talking about Hillary Clinton, we're not talking about someone with a clean reputation for honesty. Talk about idiotic! It would be idiotic not to probe self-serving statements coming from the Clintons. The more histrionic these shut-up-she's-ill statements become the more suspicious I am. This is an immensely powerful politician who seeks even more power and has a motive to cover up what could be a terribly damaging story about an incident the American people deserve to know about. I'm sick and tired of people who say we can't talk about that, and I'm going to stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to question and criticize and debate about Hillary Clinton.

ADDED: Wow. Look at this NYT puff piece, crediting Hillary with "indomitable stamina and work ethic" because she went back to work after breaking her elbow. It's not like she continued working without getting it treated. She just went back to work with her arm in a sling while the healing took place. Doesn't everyone do that? (Unless their work requires you to do things with that arm.) I can't imagine if a co-worker came to work during the period of recovery for a broken bone that we'd be saying this is "vivid evidence of... indomitable stamina and work ethic." That's ludicrous!

Toward the end of the article, it says that Clinton still "plans to testify, while still in office" about Benghazi.
“She would have vastly preferred to testify that original date than go through the last 27 days,” said her senior adviser, Philippe Reines. “Only an imbecile would say otherwise,” he added, referring to charges by conservatives that Mrs. Clinton faked her illness to avoid the Congressional questioning.
Only an imbecile! Okay, if that's they way we are going to talk, I'll just say Reines is a.... oh, being a civil woman, I can't say it.