Little-Acorn
10-13-2015, 02:47 PM
Tonight's Democrat Debate comedy show will probably have more subjects the moderators are not allowed to ask about, than at any time since the Russians successfully defended Stalingrad.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/vegas-comedy-show-1444759820
Vegas Comedy Show
A scandal-plagued front-runner prepares to take the stage.
by James Taranto
Oct. 13, 2015 2:10 p.m. ET
National Journal humor columnist Ron Fournier gets off to a slow start in his preview of tonight’s debate between inevitable Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Fournier goes through the motions of offering “advice” to the three nobodies who’ll also appear—Lincoln Mercury and those guys—and while the concept is funny it’s difficult to keep the joke going. But his advice to Mrs. Clinton is comedy gold:
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Tell the truth. Your apology for causing confusion about your use of private email on the job rang hollow because your wrongdoing is clear: You stashed official email on a covert server, an act that subverted the Freedom of Information Act, thwarted legislative oversight, and jeopardized U.S. secrets. It violated federal rules in place while you headed the State Department. So, please, don’t say it was “above board.” Don’t claim you turned over all your work-related email. Don’t pretend you didn’t traffic U.S. secrets over a home-brewed server. We know those are lies. Don’t cite phony precedents. Don’t blame the GOP or the media. Credibility and accountability are gateways to leadership. So, please, just tell us: What were you hiding?
If your answer is nothing, tell the FBI to make public your deleted email—everything that isn’t absolutely personal. We need to see your email because you’ve made it impossible to take your word.
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The idea of somebody under investigation barking orders at the FBI—“Make the evidence public! Stat!”—is both original and hilarious. In real life, the FBI has already refused a judge’s request that it cooperate with the State Department in recovering wrongfully deleted public records.
The idea that Mrs. Clinton should “tell the truth” is, of course, a hoary old gag—but it’s one that gets funnier with each telling as its implausibility grows. And Fournier’s timing is brilliant. His column came out yesterday, to be followed this morning by a lengthy investigation by Politico’s Glenn Thrush and Annie Karni, who inform us that a member of Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle offered her the same “advice” months ago:
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The wiry and wily John Podesta, [Mrs.] Clinton’s campaign chairman, thought right away that she needed to dump everything out in public as quickly as possible to avoid the deadly drip-drip-drip. “We need to throw the facts to the dogs, and let ’em chew on it,” Podesta told the candidate. But Clinton’s answer—and that of her lawyer David Kendall and her former State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills—was a “no” when Podesta and other advisers asked for some details. Foggy Bottom needed to review the emails, they were told, and besides, half of them, the ones deemed “personal,” had already been deleted.
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Apparently they thought Podesta was serious. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. Thrush and Karni quote a straight man, identified only as “an aide,” asking Kendall: “Why does the other side always know more than we do?” On Twitter, intel expert John Schindler supplies the punch line: “Maybe insecure email?”
Even Barack Obama is getting in on the humor. “I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered,” he deadpanned in a CBS interview, quoted by Politico. The Associated Press fires back that Mrs. Clinton’s homebrew server “was connected to the Internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers while using software that could have been exploited”:
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Clinton’s server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn’t intended for such use without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders.
Records show that Clinton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet. One contained similar remote-control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities, known as Virtual Network Computing, and the other appeared to be configured to run websites.
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David Burge on Twitter shows a graphic of the Microsoft’s animated paper clip offering assistance: “It looks like you’re trying to avoid federal email laws. Would you like me to help?” Then the bulleted choices: “Wipe hard drive,” “Ask Huma to fetch tea,” “Find NPR stations.”
(The last two are actual technical challenges that beset Mrs. Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. As for the paper clip, if you’re too young to recognize the reference, count your blessings.)
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.wsj.com/articles/vegas-comedy-show-1444759820
Vegas Comedy Show
A scandal-plagued front-runner prepares to take the stage.
by James Taranto
Oct. 13, 2015 2:10 p.m. ET
National Journal humor columnist Ron Fournier gets off to a slow start in his preview of tonight’s debate between inevitable Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Fournier goes through the motions of offering “advice” to the three nobodies who’ll also appear—Lincoln Mercury and those guys—and while the concept is funny it’s difficult to keep the joke going. But his advice to Mrs. Clinton is comedy gold:
---------------------------------
Tell the truth. Your apology for causing confusion about your use of private email on the job rang hollow because your wrongdoing is clear: You stashed official email on a covert server, an act that subverted the Freedom of Information Act, thwarted legislative oversight, and jeopardized U.S. secrets. It violated federal rules in place while you headed the State Department. So, please, don’t say it was “above board.” Don’t claim you turned over all your work-related email. Don’t pretend you didn’t traffic U.S. secrets over a home-brewed server. We know those are lies. Don’t cite phony precedents. Don’t blame the GOP or the media. Credibility and accountability are gateways to leadership. So, please, just tell us: What were you hiding?
If your answer is nothing, tell the FBI to make public your deleted email—everything that isn’t absolutely personal. We need to see your email because you’ve made it impossible to take your word.
---------------------------------
The idea of somebody under investigation barking orders at the FBI—“Make the evidence public! Stat!”—is both original and hilarious. In real life, the FBI has already refused a judge’s request that it cooperate with the State Department in recovering wrongfully deleted public records.
The idea that Mrs. Clinton should “tell the truth” is, of course, a hoary old gag—but it’s one that gets funnier with each telling as its implausibility grows. And Fournier’s timing is brilliant. His column came out yesterday, to be followed this morning by a lengthy investigation by Politico’s Glenn Thrush and Annie Karni, who inform us that a member of Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle offered her the same “advice” months ago:
----------------------------------
The wiry and wily John Podesta, [Mrs.] Clinton’s campaign chairman, thought right away that she needed to dump everything out in public as quickly as possible to avoid the deadly drip-drip-drip. “We need to throw the facts to the dogs, and let ’em chew on it,” Podesta told the candidate. But Clinton’s answer—and that of her lawyer David Kendall and her former State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills—was a “no” when Podesta and other advisers asked for some details. Foggy Bottom needed to review the emails, they were told, and besides, half of them, the ones deemed “personal,” had already been deleted.
----------------------------------
Apparently they thought Podesta was serious. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. Thrush and Karni quote a straight man, identified only as “an aide,” asking Kendall: “Why does the other side always know more than we do?” On Twitter, intel expert John Schindler supplies the punch line: “Maybe insecure email?”
Even Barack Obama is getting in on the humor. “I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered,” he deadpanned in a CBS interview, quoted by Politico. The Associated Press fires back that Mrs. Clinton’s homebrew server “was connected to the Internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers while using software that could have been exploited”:
----------------------------------
Clinton’s server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn’t intended for such use without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders.
Records show that Clinton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet. One contained similar remote-control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities, known as Virtual Network Computing, and the other appeared to be configured to run websites.
----------------------------------
David Burge on Twitter shows a graphic of the Microsoft’s animated paper clip offering assistance: “It looks like you’re trying to avoid federal email laws. Would you like me to help?” Then the bulleted choices: “Wipe hard drive,” “Ask Huma to fetch tea,” “Find NPR stations.”
(The last two are actual technical challenges that beset Mrs. Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. As for the paper clip, if you’re too young to recognize the reference, count your blessings.)