Which news stories did news of the sit in displace?
I've read that you should, of course, take note of a big political news story, but you should also note which other story or stories it knocks out of the news. I imagine this applies especially when timing of an event, such as a sit in, is optional.
So, this afternoon, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, I learned this happened.
By Julian Hattem - 06/22/16 02:57 PM EDT
The man believed to have set up and maintained the private server in the basement of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s New York home invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination more than 125 times during a deposition as part of a civil court case on Wednesday.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/284481-clinton-it-specialist...
But, almost before I had a chance to process that in my mind, I learned this was happening:
07:21 PM Nora Kelly
Democrats have been occupying the House floor for almost eight hours. In that time, as we’ve already noted, CSPAN’s cameras have been turned off. Politico noted earlier today that the cameras are cut off because the House is not in session. But Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have suggested Republicans are deliberately trying to hide their sit-in from the American people. In his interview with CNN, Paul Ryan said that’s not true. “This is the way the rules work,” Ryan said, “and this is how they have [worked] ever since we’ve had TV.” Ryan noted that Democrats turned off the cameras in 2008 when House Republicans staged a similar protest, an incident my colleague Russell Berman wrote about earlier this afternoon.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/house-democrats-gun-...
The timing of the sit in doesn't seem to have been planned very far in advance because Rep. Ellison, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus outside the Democratic and Republican caucuses, didn't seem to know about it. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/284476-rep-ellisons-mom...
The sit in, of course, took up all the political media oxygen.
Very likely, the sit in would have taken place at some point, even if Hillary had never had a private server. However, was the sit in timed to divert attention from story about Bryan Pagliano pleading the Fifth? If not, it was just another lucky break for Hillary Clinton.
Comments
Was it luck
people not having their votes counted at the polls, was it luck MSM had a black out on Benie,was it luck the DNC made sure hrc had endless funds, was she just the lucky one to have her very own server. I think not, but that's just me.
I feel your sane.
I think the DNC behaved very badly, and so nakedly so that it hurt the Democratic Party. However, I also think it understandable that the Party would back Hillary over Bernie. I don't agree, but I understand it. Same for media. Bernie was advocating something that they don't want and thought they'd defeated once and for all, so I understand their opposition. The timing of the sit in, though, is more of a question mark in my mind.
Prience Riebus and I
finally agree on something.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Reince Priebus?
Did he claim the sit in was timed to distract from the Pagliano story? Ugh.
pagliano
invoked the fifth in September of 2015, and in early June of this year it was announced he would invoke the fifth again, in the civil-suit deposition you reference. Pagliano invoking the fifth is not news. That the congressional sit-in occurred to obscure coverage of the Pagliano fifth-taking that has been a known-known for months is . . . not something for which there seems to be any evidence.
Sure, sure.
John Lewis is the leader. He's an upstanding Congressman who was totally even-handed during the Democratic primary. There's absolutely no evidence that he would do whatever it takes to ensure Clinton becomes president. Because he's such a nice guy.
/snark
Lewis picked THIS moment
to get fed up enough to sit on the floor, because THIS MOMENT, not Sandy Hook, was just the last straw for Lewis et al.
And Ellison was just not on his speed dial or something.
This sit in is much like the distractions and muddy the waters stuff the DNC sent out on the Guccifer hacked emails.
Nothing in the democratic party is spontaneous, nothing happens in a vacuum.
Nothing.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
lewis,
and others, cared about gun violence before there was a Clinton II, and they'll care about it after she's gone. Astounding and unbelievable as it may be to people on this site, not everything revolves around Hillary Clinton.
My blog entry did not suggest otherwise.
I raised a question only as to the exact timing.
I respect your view.
However, I think it's also possible to see this as more political kabuki from the Democrats. While I don't think that it's cover for Hillary's email scandal, it seems like the Democratic Party is only willing to stand up and fight about issues when they have absolutely no ability to enact their agenda. The timing of this is incredibly suspect, particularly if you think of it as a ploy to convince the voters (at a time when party unity is a concern of lawmakers) that legislators actually stand for the things they purport to support.
Yes, John Lewis and others claimed to care about guns before this election cycle. But why didn't the Democrats renew the assault weapons ban when they had a supermajority in congress? Why didn't John Lewis take to the floor to fight for gun control when Democrats were in charge? Why wait until this shooting and not all the numerous shootings before this? Why weren't there protests against Obama early in his presidency when his stand on guns was murky at best? Democrats have done almost nothing about guns for the last 16 years.
In my view, you either believe in these issues or not. Before the primary, I held John Lewis in the highest regard. Now, not so much. We saw how easy it was for him to deploy politics for his own ends. Call me cynical, but who's to say that this sit-in is sincere and that the Democrats will actually do what they say they will if they regain either chamber of Congress? It's amazing how quickly their desire for reform fades once they're in the majority.
Good comment.
Perhaps it wasn't about the guy taking the 5th. Or about Trump finally giving a devastating takedown speech about Clinton. Or Guccifer 2.0 releasing material about the Clinton foundation. But it sure as hell was conveniently timed to benefit Clinton and drive negative news about her from the headlines. With luck like that, she should be first in line to buy a lottery ticket today.
I cannot be angry with Lewis.
Obviously, as a Sanders supporter, I was disappointed when Lewis endorsed Hillary and appalled when he implied Sanders had not been an activist. (He did apologize for that later, but still....). Much as I supported Bernie, however, John Lewis earned his place in history once and for all, when he was a young man. JMO. Of course, he still could have timed the sit in with Hillary in mind.
I can be angry. So can other white folks who put ourselves
out there and face the same risks or ridicule, ostracization or worse from our white peers only to have somebody with as much moral cache as he had do what he did for a cheap political win for a privileged white woman. Screw that. I don't give a damn about the electoral issues involved in the primary, either. Racial justice transcends slap fights over a POTUS nomination, and Lewis should have known better.
Of course you can be angry!
I simply can't, but that doesn't mean there is no reason to be angry.
You are absolutely correct.
People have to own what they do good and bad, and one does preclude the other. There was a time when Lewis had nothing left to lose and so offered up his body and safety in pursuit of his ideals. That John Lewis contracted affluenza along the way, and his idealism died.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
My take
John Lewis is a civil rights hero but that does not make him infallible in all things, particularly when politics are involved as we saw with his pronouncement against Bernie Sanders' own civil rights activism. I admire him for his civil rights activism, but he is now a politician and has been for a long time. He is also a loyal Democrat and has been for a long time.
I simply find it hard to "believe" that this situation with gun legislation is suddenly so critical now during the campaign season. Where were all those folks after Newtown massacres? Silent as usual. I do not trust nearly every Democrat in Congress, Lewis included, when they have failed to stand up for the people time and time again.
To me, this appears to be just more theater.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
since sanders
was down there on the floor with them, that makes him part of the Plot.
So sad. Gone over to the Dark Side.
Who's gone over...
to the Dark Side? And why?
sanders
He went and joined the sit-in.
That makes him part of the Plot. He's now a dark-sider. Heavens knows why. Certainly not me. I'm not the one who thinks the sit-in was nothing but a delibate distraction from the emails, or the rigging, or the Lizard People endorsement of Trump, or whatever. You'll have to ask those people. Why he up and joined, the Distraction of Evil.
And it's very disappointing he supported this particular item
Obviously not perfect, and no savior either.
Sometimes, anticipation of experiencing pain is worse than the pain. the pain is coming. What so many fail to realize is that the right wins no matter whether Clinton or Trump is elected.
People die. A few corporations may fold but the living personhood of the corporate conglomerate does not.
Even in the unlikely event of Sanders being elected, he'd be a stop gap to the advancement of the right wing agenda which will pick right up where it left off when he is gone. A hiccup to be sure, but a manageable one for the 'people' as long as one recognizes that corporations are the 'people' politicians now represent.
Really?
The plot to initiate a sit in is a Democratic one. Hillary Clinton met with organizers of the sit in shortly before it happened. John Lewis was one of the organizers of the sit in. Yes, Bernie Sanders went to the House and participated, but he was not one of the organizers.
Your comment is a little hyperbolic in the context of what happened. Dark side? Did I say that?
No, but it was a diversionary tactic organized and carried out by long term supporters of Hillary Clinton.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
citing
Moonie sites now.
Interesting.
Saint Bernard joined in the sit-in. That makes him one of Them. Gone over, to the Dark Side. A willing and complicit co-conspirator in the Diversion. Shame. For shame.
also,
the Moonie-beam smear speculation asserts the sit-in was to push Trump out of the news.
But I thought it was to distract from the rigging! And the email!
The Moonie-beam piece speculates that because House members met with The Mad Bomber on Wednesday, that it was all her Plot. No evidence, of course. And it neglects to mention that the idea came from John Larson (on the guns since the last millennium) and Katherine Clark (former civil-rights attorney), who came up with it Tuesday night. They then asked Lewis to be the figurehead. For obvious historical reasons.
Without evidence, that it was a "diversionary tactic," that is pure Hofstadter. Dominant in political discourse these days, on both the "left" and the "right."
I stated
my opinion and you seem to be taking it personally for some reason.
First thing, no where in my post above did I say or imply that this was about Bernie Sanders other than to say John Lewis is a politician who was factually wrong about Bernie's civil rights credentials and he (Lewis) used that assertion in the political context of his support for Hillary Clinton. You brought the assertion into the mix that implied that I believe Bernie is some sort of saint. Bernie Sanders is no saint. John Lewis is no saint either. They are politicians, both of whom have stood on the right side far more often than not.
My comment was more about the Democratic party using theater. That was and still is my opinion.
You are correct that there is no evidence one way or another in this case. There never is. What there is evidence of is the timing of this and the history of Democrats cowardly capitulating on nearly every tough issue. So they suddenly banded together and staged a sit in? Where were they after the Newtown massacre of children?
Call me jaded and I will agree. I have been fooled far too many times by the very political party I loyally supported for decades. For me, past predicts future. And the Democratic party has shown itself to be one of misdirecting attention away from the real issues when it is convenient. So the jaded me says that it is theater as I said in my comment titled "My Take."
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
you state
"you are correct that there is no evidence one way or another in this case. There never is." That is simply not true. There is evidence Republicans met the night of The Kenyan's inauguration to decide to oppose eveything he might propose. There is evidence that John Lewis was pushing for gun control when The Mad Bomber was still a Goldwater girl. There is evidence that John Larson was shaken by the dead children of Newtown, their bodies blown apart just down the road from his district.
Meanwhile, the "evidence," for your "opinion," that this was a diversionary tactic, it is equivalent to the "evidence," for an "opinion," that the moon is made of applesauce and underpants, or gravity forces bees to fly underwater.
As for "where were they after the Newtown massacre of children?" I'll ask you this: where were you during the Reagan/Bush I administrations, not in a peace vigil? What took you so long to join one? Didn't you care about Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Panama, Grenada, El Salvador, Iraq I, the MX, deployment of nuclear missiles to Europe, South Africa, Iran, the nuclear freeze, etc. etc. etc.? What's with the timing on that one? I don't know: seems suspicious to me. How would you like it if I said that, in my "opinion," you weren't sincere, it was just some sort of diversionary tactic? Because I'm "jaded," and "have been fooled far too many times," by individual human beings?
I'll say to you what I said to dk elsewhere: People grouse: why didn't they do this for some earlier shooting? Why didn't they do it for some other issue? Because human beings are not logical, predictable, that's why. That's why everyone who tries to Nostradamus, inevitably quickly fails. Why did it take Charleston to bring down the slavery diaper, to rid the land of other emblems of the confederacy-of-dunces? People had been pushing for that for decades. And got nowhere. Why was it Michael Brown who awoke the nation to the fact that badged-up crackers kill young black men with all the ease and empathy of cleaning their nails? Why wasn't it one of the earlier tens of thousands of black men killed? Why did the French revolt under Louis XVI, rather than under Louis XV and Louis XIV, tyrants so much worse?
Because, as Charles Fort observed, it steam engines when it comes steam engine time.
I'm sorry you "loyally supported for decades" the Democratic Party. Maybe that's the problem. I never did. Your steam-engine time for dropping tools on the Democrats, it arrived a lot later than did mine. Does that give "jaded" me the right to sneer at your Damascian conversion, as you sneer at the people sitting-in there on the House floor?
Still a horrible thing they supported ultimately.
These Democrats held their sit in in support of a measure which would remove due process from the people it would have affected, thus they (Democrats) displayed their support of a measure which would have been yet another governmental infringement on the rights of people.
And this is supposed to 'better than the Republicans'?
We have a single party system consisting of far right Republicans and Center Right Democrats.
And we're about to have an election between a hawkish right wing political hack and Donald Trump.
The emotionalism attached to the gun control issue doesn't excuse political leaders from knowing what measures they should be in support of based on how they would affect the rights of their constituents, but then the 99 percent aren;t exactly the constituency the political class are concerned about either.
Even if there was no ulterior motive (distraction, swaying voters in upcoming election(s), the Democrats supporting this piece of garbage no fly list no buy list stuff were still wrong, and a solid example of what is wrong with the so-called left.
So your point is?
That a key figure in a major scandal invoking the fifth 125 freakin times is not news? OK I guess there's nothing to see here.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings
If only it had been 126.
Then it might have been considered news. But a measly 125? That's apparently not news.
It's gotta be gross to be covered...
and a gross is 144...
Sooo close....
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
its not
news, in that it's not new: he had already invoked the fifth, and it was known he would invoke the fifth at this appearance. This diary posits that Congressmembers staged a firearms sit-in to keep this already known news, out of the news. Absurd.
Really
it was well known? Can you tell me one MSM source that carried this news? All MSM carried the sit in!
i'll
link it again: it was known on June 1 that Pagliano would take the fifth at the JW deposition. And maybe not many news outfits felt like going with this "news," again, yesterday, because the heavy-breathing "more than 125 times" fifth-invoking claim came but from a mouthpiece for Judicial Watch, which is a clown car.
That is not what my blog entry posits.
From what I have read,
the FBI made him take the Fifth in the civil suit because they want and need his testimony for the criminal case. Now the question becomes, will there even be a criminal case?
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Of course, my blog didn't say that.
Thank you for your comment, but I disagree about the Pagliano story being news.
First, I think, we need to distinguish between what is news to political posters and what is news to the general public, who are far from laser focused on politics, let alone on Pagliano. Second, I think it was news because news outlets had begun reporting it until news of the sit in spread. You, of course, are entitled to a different view on both those posts. However, my blog did not say anything like the sit in occurred only because of the Pagliano story. I asked only if the timing of the sit in may have been linked to the Pagliano story.
In other news, Oliver North
pleads the Fifth Amendment at least 40 times during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. (1986)
So 125 times seems ... substantial. Perhaps it's just a mark of persistence, or perhaps that had that many different questions.
Yes, Democrats use gun control as a shiny object to distract from things they don't want to talk about (oh, like nationalizing the banks or shrinking the military or taking action about corruption). Identically to the way that Republicans use abortion.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Civil liberties beyond 2nd Amendment
The issue seems to be voting of the no-fly, no-buy issue. There are very few Americans on the no-fly list so the whole thing seems like a publicity stunt to me. That no-fly list also sucks up innocent, non-violent dissidents and, because there is no control, anyone else they might have a hard-on for. Its a civil liberties issue beyond the 2nd Amendment. Sort of akin to suspending other constitutional rights based on a list created with no oversight. Its a slippery slope.
Now, I would join the sit-in if they were also going to ban the police from having assault weapons and other military hardware within the USA.
But as it is.. I agree with the Libertarians on this one.
From the Light House.
The NRA drew that line.
I think Democrats are trying for this because of the NRA's position. http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/06/johannes-paulsen/nra-endorses-n...
What is getting lost in all this: the FBI interviewed Mateen twice and made the wrong call twice.
I imagine they were asking the wrong questions.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
And yet people push for their rights to be abused
Oh please, take away this right which I do not care about and take it away form others and this will make us all safer. People don't need due process when it comes to banning this or that based on generation of these lists of people.
The same people telling us the government is corrupt and not to trust the government think giving up rights and trusting the government is going to solve things.
And with an obviously corrupt government, already in the process of taking away as many rights as it can (4th amendment violations), we're supposed to accept this kind of BS because we want to feel safe...
No.
Not emphatic enough…
Hell NO!
And I received three separate emails
regarding the sit in, at least one of them a fund raising email. Yeah, publicity alright, and distraction from whatever they want us distracted from. At this point, I'm no longer sure that's only the server issue either, but who knows. And the spin on this, showing that only establishment "Democrats" are the ones sitting in and protesting. Please.
While I agree with banning the sale of assault weapons to the entire civilian gun owning public, this is just another in a long line of distraction and yes, shiny object of supposed progressive policy for us all to say, why gee look, these people really DO care about us, don't they? Hogwash.
And then there's that other shiny object - SS funding and long term viability. Somehow, I think that too is spin to get us all to vote Shillary, because she will "save" SS from itself, don't ya know. Just gag me.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Means testing?
Meeting with Pete Peterson about OASDI is not a comforting sign.
They've been known to operate under that SOP
where they 'create' shit to obscure other shit. A lot. But I have to disagree with you in this case, as several others have noted, it made news last week that Pagliano was gonna plead the Fifth in that depo, because of his immunity with the FBI. So...not exactly news to be obscured.
Although the flip side of that is, if they didn't have the sit-in to cover, the would have been talking about JW, because they do that a lot. But it would have been all slanted in such a way that you'd think it was all about Nothing anyway. So....which is worse, you know?
(Filed under: Pick Your Battles Wisely)
Who knew?
Asking if timing was possibly purposeful or just coincidental is picking a battle? Who knew?
It was a figure of speech
I thought I tried to note that sometimes, what you're talking about is completely and totally valid. I've said it more than once myself.
In this case, though, I tend to disagree with it, because a number of us make note that we saw several mentions of it in various outlets last week, when it was learned he was going to plead the Fifth here in the JW depo.
So I tried to validate your bigger point (MSM news is, by and large, complete bullshit and propaganda; often news is created to obscure other news, etc.) here in this post. It is entirely possible, of course. Is it possible here? Maybe, but probably not if other people already know about it.
Does that help?
Political Theater
They have to earn their keep somehow, don't they?
It's June 23. But for the sit in, which is a first, they are now on the their July 4 break. How much time off for July 4 do you get? When not on break, they "work" three days a week. I can't remember anything really important to Mr. and Ms. Six Pack being enacted into law lately. During this primary, I learned that a Senator who writes one or two bills a year that become law is meeting the Senate average--even if those two bills rename post offices or observe the anniversary of the American Revolution. If we aren't paying them for entertainment, just what is it that we are paying them for?
And
don't even get me started about their "vacation time". Gah, that's a whole other post...they don't do shit!