No, I am not making this up: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/statements/2016/07/2...

The only counter-argument I can imagine is basically what Bernie Sanders himself said -- that it's no surprise. lolwut ... who cares if it's a surprise.

The administration of the Democratic party: (i) conspired to push favor in the direction of a predetermined candidate long before any public preferences were known, (ii) made some outrageous and extremely, extremely, as-extreme-as-anything-you-want-to-say-about-the-Republican-platform bigoted remarks about homosexuals, often as fucking jokes and (iii) kicks around the idea of finding an audience plant to question Sanders on whether he is an atheist to win votes.

And what's the Democrat response? Russia's trying to do it. WTF!!!??? Don't believe expressly bigoted email data showing that popular opinion is ignored, mocked, and conceived as an opportunity for engineering. No. Discount that. Becuz Russia izzz 4 Trump. Jesus.

There's nothing further to say. It's not an excuse to vote for the equally train-wreck Republican ticket, but it's an overt and unequivocal confirmation that the parties, in every pragmatic sense, are identical, and that for the overwhelming majority of Americans, apparently even marginalized Americans in certain minority groups, there is absolutely no fucking difference between the two parties, no justification for favoring one over the other, no impending immigration or terrorism or international relations crisis that's going to drop like the sword of Damocles on us if one is elected over the other.

They. are. the. same. The. exact. same. There. is. 100%. zero. debate. about. it. any. more. So. just. fucking. stop.

The content of the email leak was one of the most depressing things I've experienced in my lifetime. Followed quickly by the equally depressing rationalizations basically trying to say "that's just politics" and downplay it. Vox immediately posts an article saying "they found no smoking guns" blah blah blah more of the same shit. It's just unbelievable the degree to which we are engineered.

Sorry. Had to vent.

What specifically do you find so outrageous?

I've had a bit of a look through them, and I don't see anything that seems out of place in any big company or organisation. Talking about advertising as propaganda, thinking of the public as a set of numbers and being disrespectful in discussing them, trying to help people they liked out over people they didn't. Isn't all of this just normal organisational stuff?

I think that Vox's assessment was pretty much correct.

(For context: Not a Hillary supporter, and think it is entirely appropriate that the DNC Chair resigns).

You say it is nothing that would be "out of place in any big company or organization" -- it's hard for me to read that without gathering that you tacitly imply it's OK for big company or organizational leadership to banter about their own bigoted beliefs over email, and that since this is commonplace among companies, no one should feel outraged by it.

How does that follow? As far as I'm concerned, the fact that it's commonplace only makes it all the more outrageous. A lot of people doing an indisputably anti-human behavior doesn't somehow make it more human.

[0] < https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4u5ztv/dnc_email_... >

You say it is nothing that would be "out of place in any big company or organization" -- it's hard for me to read that without gathering that you tacitly imply it's OK for big company or organizational leadership to banter about their own bigoted beliefs over email, and that since this is commonplace among companies, no one should feel outraged by it.

I just aren't seeing anything that is bigoted. I'm very, very open to being persuaded otherwise.

People use email when they are gossiping. They shouldn't, and lots of what they talk about it dumb or rude. But isn't that just the nature of gossip?

To be clear - I'm not defending the DNC. They shouldn't have talked like this over email.

But show me some email that has something that is an actual, interesting, newsworthy story in itself, but "creepy" isn't really going to make the front page of the NY Times.

So far people do these big link dumps, I read a few, and my opinion gets more solidified - the Vox assessment of "no smoking gun" seems appropriate.

Like I said - very happy to be shown to be wrong about this. I think this story is flagged of the front page, so there aren't even imaginary internet points at stake.

[1] https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/498

[2] http://www.swimdcac.org/about.php

See, I am starting to realize that you're not actually open, or at least you're not as open as you think you are and you're not acknowledging the way you're going out of the way to ignore or write off blatantly bigoted behavior.

Here's just one example [0] < https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4u5ztv/dnc_email_... >.

Since it seems like we have a disagreement even in kind, it might be best to just see what your thoughts are about that lone example. If we can't agree that it is egregiously, lose-your-job-on-the-spot bigoted, then it's doubtful we can agree on anything else.

It's pretty bad stereotyping, I agree. But for the LGBT Finance Director to say that - why do you think it is egregiously, lose-your-job-on-the-spot bigoted?

The linked Reddit discussion has a pretty wide range of views, but even there I don't see anyone calling him bigoted. The closest is "It's an vicious joke. I don't care whether the joker is gay. He's a duplicitous prick.", and the author of that comment is getting quite a lot of push-back on it. They later qualified their comment to say:

   You missed my point which I approached a bit too indirectly, perhaps. I don't take offense to jokes. My point: the question of whether the joker is gay is irrelevant to the ethical status of making a joke about being gay

  It's relevant for PC bots, sure, but I'm not bound to their code.

  Edit: but, yeah, the guy is still a duplicitous prick

"Bigot" means "a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions". How do you get that from that particular comment?

I'd be disappointed if we couldn't find a position we can both understand. I completely respect your anger over these emails - they are nasty and unprofessional, and I'm not endorsing that or the behaviour they represent in any way.

But I'm not surprised they aren't "under 24/7 emphatic media coverage" - like someone said in that Reddit thread - it's like a bunch of office gossip.

The joke, which reveals a deeper personal value judgement on behalf of the person telling it, speaks of a "good gay" as if to stereotype gay men by a particular behavior, denying the possibility that you can be a "good" gay man but have a different cultural outlook. That, to me, is unquestionably a form of intolerance. Making light of someone can be a form of intolerance, depending on what property it is by which you make light of them and whether or not it is based in a harmful generalization. Another way to say it is: you can't claim tolerance if you're happy to propagate harmful stereotypes or generalizations.

Emphatically, it is crucial to dive into the language deeply. The urge to say "it's just a joke" is precisely the kind of let's-sweep-this-frat-house-bigotry-under-the-rug-and-go-back-to-thinking-everything's-nice rationalization that allows such bigotry to perpetuate.

Re: your last line that it's like gossip:

Except that this is our political process. It happens rarely (once per four years) and is a matter of passion, contention, and deep moral conviction. We have every right to expect it to be held to far higher standard than some bullshit gossip.

Let me be clear that I do not believe it's merely gossip and I'm not offering any credibility to that stance. It's not mere gossip. It is harmful, derogatory language about gays, as well as at the very least an amazingly insensitive and offensive simplification of American religious beliefs (e.g., that some particular Christian people will see "a Jew" differently than "an atheist" and that could be worth a few polling points, and that all three belief groups are nothing whatsoever but sources of polling points, to be engineered and manipulated with audience plants, etc.)

But even if it was "mere gossip" [it isn't] it would still be outrageously flagrant that the primary administrators of one half of our most important political process essentially view their jobs as a frat party. That's not some kind of let's-roll-our-eyes-but-boys-will-be-boys-and-move-on kind of thing, as you seem to think it is, but rather it is a let's-eject-everyone-from-this-Neanderthal-administration-and-hire-people-who-actually-give-a-damn issue. It's not boring nightly news to be eye-rolled and skipped for the sports section. It's our goddamn political process. It's frankly shocking to me that someone would suggest it's just boring gossip to be unconcerned with. I cannot reconcile that with any notion of caring about even the tiniest component of civic duty.

I think this is a fair point, and one I'm quite sympathetic to. I agree that it is all too easy to say "it's a joke, ha ha" when people say very offensive things.

I think you've persuaded me that it was pretty bad judgement to say that.

BTW, I think this one is inexcusable: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/7643

It's frankly shocking to me that someone would suggest it's just boring gossip to be unconcerned with. I cannot reconcile that with any notion of caring about even the tiniest component of civic duty

I think that this is a great ideal to stand by, but I can't imagine finding any large group where this kind of behaviour doesn't occur.

Maybe I'm too old and cynical to fight that kind of fight any more. Maybe I shouldn't give up so easily, but I just don't see any possibility of an organisation existing with ideals as high as that and yet still be able to win elections.

Bismark said: Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.

I think one way of ensuring no bad forms of government entrench themselves, thus making it impractically difficult to ever even try that next best thing, is to be vigilant when it comes to all of this.

Am I expecting zero gossip? Of course not. But do I think the opportunity of a massive email leak that exposes behavior that is, at minimum, inexcusably unprofessional, should go by without trumpets blaring? Absolutely not.

Leaked DNC Documents Show Plans To Reward Big Donors With Federal Appointments

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/24/leaked-dnc-documents-show-...

Two resignations in one day, yes, no biggie

I read the first one. Some DNC person asked another "Finance asked us to vet as potential POTUS host/donor." The vetting came back that he had a record:

George Lindemann - convicted of three counts of wire fraud in 1995 and received a 33-month term in federal prison; Investigation stemmed from a federal investigation where over 50 horses were killed in a 20 year period in acts of insurance fraud; nothing new as of 5/9/16

Then the reply is "I vote fail....again."

That sounds like they are saying not to invite him?

I dunno..

The "Re: BuzzFeed and DNC connection." one is an introduction email. To quote:

Adrian, thanks so much for the intro! Hi Luis, great to meet you. We are currently putting together some plans around the conventions and some other cool stuff, would be nice to connect down the line.

I completely concede I didn't read all those links, but it kinda looks like someone just glanced at some subject lines and pasted the links.

I'm really having trouble seeing what is supposed to be such a big deal.

One would think in the age of wikileaks and Snowden that politicians would have learned by now not to write anything they wouldn't want printed in the NY Times or the Washington Post.

I'd argue that ALL government official communications must be recorded and made public.