Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

My impressions so far:

- There's a lot of stuff to sift through that hasn't been thoroughly sifted through, so it's premature to say "nothing to see here."
- However to the extent stuff has come out so far, there's no complete shocker/smoking gun stuff. There is however a lot of interesting stuff in terms of insights into how the Clinton campaign operates, what people inside it really think, arguably just how political power works in the US in 2016 and how it interacts with finance and other industries (speaking both to the transcripts and the podesta emails).

I don't like the knee-jerk "we already knew all of this" reactions because (1) it's not always exactly true and (2) it's the kind of stuff that Clinton supporters deny all the time. Nonetheless, if you are looking for bodies, bribes etc, that's not here, at least so far.

Can I just say, it's not okay to hack and leak peoples personal emails to find out how they 'really think'. It's illegal bullshit, and nothing that has come out of the podesta mails so far legitimates what's a gross breach of privacy.

The way certain parts of the hard left has become completely okay with illegal attacks on their 'liberal' opponents is gross and unhealthy.

seems likely Hillary called in some State Dept favors from Ecuador and if so good for her Assange should be in jail

when you give 1.4 million people top secret clearance these things happen

Clinton campaign shouldn't have given 1.4 million staff members security clearance. Thx Adam!

There is however a lot of interesting stuff in terms of insights into how the Clinton campaign operates, what people inside it really think, arguably just how political power works in the US in 2016 and how it interacts with finance and other industries (speaking both to the transcripts and the podesta emails).

i have yet to see anything particularly interesting or enlightening

How about the proposal to put fake anti-wall-street rhetoric in the Deutsche Bank speech in order to then leak it and throw people off the scent.

At a minimum that's hilarious imo

It didn't happen. And hilarious doesn't make it legal to hack.

NOT OKAY!

I mean sure, it's not legal. But it is legal to publish the contents of hacked emails that you legally received. And also the sanctity of the private communications of a presidential election campaign is very, very low on my list of ethical issues to care about.

is anybody saying this was legal?

I don't honestly believe that he doesn't have internet access, he just wanted some attention today

its kind of obvious leaking intel is bad, frowned upon, and in practice severely punished. Thurston Moore's even made a record about it.

Is it true or not? Kind of lol if the one maybe interesting thing isn't real

What is true?

Indeed, Thurston Moore's record is a myth

is this the point where i advise people on the safe handling of usb drives

I shouldn't complain. The discussion in the election thread reminded me that I took Podesta's advice on risotto-making, even though that was illegally obtained as well. Sorry everyone.

fred i hate to break it to you but there are sites all over the internet that will give you the same intel. if you've seriously been dumping all the stock in at once all this time you might want to consider watching a youtube cooking show now and again.

Why would I seek out intel, my risotto is fine for all intent and purposes. But now it's even better!

people tell me my risotto is the best. really just the best.

there are people who put the stock in all at one time while making risotto?

disgusting savages imo

there are people who put the stock in all at one time while making risotto?

― *-* (jim in vancouver), Monday, October 17, 2016 2:56 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol right? this is like the first rule of making risotto

there are people who put the stock in all at one time while making risotto?

― *-* (jim in vancouver)

no, there are people who make rice with gravy and falsely allege it to be risotto.

okay that's just wrong

IDK if I ever posted about it here or anywhere, but I said early on I thought the speech transcripts were a waste of time issue. To me the real concern is in plain sight, i.e. that the presumptive democratic nominee for president and her husband earned millions of dollars directly from wall street and a handful of other industries for "speeches" and it's pretty obvious that at least part of the point is to buy influence. All perfectly legal of course within the system we have. Still not a good thing.

her speaking fee is about the same as Jerry Seinfeld's and she donated a large portion of her financial gains from speaking to charity

it's not like she charged some groups $200K and Deutsche Bank or someone got charged $1M is it?

huh, jerry seinfeld gives speeches to big banks?

https://media.giphy.com/media/l41lIkTqv4NTHPktO/giphy.gif

Idk how this can be any state actor other than Ecuador.

Lol, wikileaks has just confirmed it.

huh, jerry seinfeld gives speeches to big banks?

― k3vin k., Monday, October 17, 2016 2:23 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe not seinfeld, but goldman sachs has had Deepak Chopra and Yao Ming

can't believe this corruption in the nba and spirituality

http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/talks-at-gs/speaker-list.html

Laura Bush!

idk if people get that the larger the corporate entity, the more internal speakers they're going to have, some for the company at large and some for smaller groups. part of it is strategic, part of it is just making employees think that they're in a creative, innovative workplace and providing "inspiration"

there are people who put the stock in all at one time while making risotto?

― *-* (jim in vancouver), Monday, October 17, 2016 2:56 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol right? this is like the first rule of making risotto

― k3vin k., Monday, October 17, 2016 2:03 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you guys are so wrong

huh, jerry seinfeld gives speeches to big banks?

― k3vin k., Monday, October 17, 2016 2:23 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe not seinfeld, but goldman sachs has had Deepak Chopra and Yao Ming

can't believe this corruption in the nba and spirituality

― mh 😏, Monday, October 17, 2016 3:52 PM (four minutes ago)

huh, wonder what the difference could be between a politician and an NBA player cozying up to wall street

CEO of the NAACP on the list is interesting

There's also a difference between paying $30k to a retired athlete and $250k to a presumptive nominee whose entire living is corporate speeches.

How about the proposal to put fake anti-wall-street rhetoric in the Deutsche Bank speech in order to then leak it and throw people off the scent.

can u link this? it's v hard to google.

does it come from here? https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8086

bc afaict this is dan schwerin recommended they leak an actual (not fake) speech she gave to deutsch bank bc it's more antagonistic towards wall st than some of the others. calling it a fake speech they wanted to leak is a mischaracterization.

no I meant the rhetoric was fake tbc, not the speech.

I wrote her a long riff > about economic fairness and how the financial industry has lost its way, > precisely for the purpose of having something we could show people if ever > asked what she was saying behind closed doors for two years to all those > fat cats. It's definitely not as tough or pointed as we would write it > now, but it's much more than most people would assume she was saying in > paid speeches.

Remind me never to have y'all over for risotto.

ah ok i misunderstood. it's not v hilarious imo. he wrote a pointed speech for her that she actually delivered and that they decided to not leak. it's like theoretically hilarious i guess that he had her delivery a speech to bankers that maybe wasn't what they signed her up for and they had to sit through it and they didn't ever end up using it for anything. still not sure this constitutes interesting or significant.

I think what I find more funny (maybe not "hilarious") is the amount of anxious calibrating that goes/went on behind closed doors to make Clinton appear to be things that she transparently wasn't, sometimes in multiple, contradictory ways, and how much effort went into this for how little effect. I mean only Clinton's most hardcore supporters insist she is anything other than centrist and no one on the left thinks she's much better than a status quo option in the face of a monster. But they try really, really hard to make her seem otherwise, without producing much result.

she's, as self-described, a liberal centrist. wall st would prefer jeb or romney to her, but they'd prefer her to sanders (not even getting into all the ppl they'd prefer to a existential system threat like trump). it doesn't seem they tried very hard to make her seem different here tho - they wrote her a speech that they never leaked with the idea that maybe at some pt they could use it to deflect negative attention on her wall st speeches. it seems like v little work and zero payoff bc they did nothing with it.

like i think you have a very superficial understanding of her ideology if you think she's just rah-rah pro wall st. she doesn't think banks are the source of all evil, or that making money is inherently evil, but she is clearly still in favor of raising tax cuts on the wealthy and expanding social programming (though like obama she's probably willing to negotiate things like chained CPI to get other things she might want). there are obv graduations here.

also this characterization was silly when bernie said it and continue to believe it's silly: "the presumptive democratic nominee for president and her husband earned millions of dollars directly from wall street and a handful of other industries for "speeches" and it's pretty obvious that at least part of the point is to buy influence." i think "let's pay hillary now for a speech so that she gives us more favorable legislation in the future" was not on the agenda of people who hired her. there's plenty to critique about how wealth associates with power and the most powerful ppl have an easy pipeline to bring cash in for practically nothing. but there were no stipulations from goldman sachs that she reject regulation A if she delivers this speech. nb that doesn't preclude that she might just feel gratitude for getting paid and that could influence her politics but still it's not "pretty obvious that at least part of the point is to buy influence."