Political Roundtable Part X

[gtn130]

Breitbart is not a legitimate publication. IDK why people are even talking about it.

[AFM]

FWIW, Breitbart said that his law firm has deep ties with the Clinton Foundation. It never said Mr. Kahn himself did.

Sigh. Whatever "deep ties" means 2,500 attorney firm led by a decentralized confederation of partners, each with their own set of clients and interests.

You realize that if the partner(s) who managed the CF client relationship were to leave Hogan (or had already left), they'd likely take that client relationship with them, right? Partners switch firms all the time; more often than not, their value to their new firm is their "book of business": their existing client relationships. Firms will post job postings, saying, "we need a partner in XYZ practice with a $750,000+ book" -- meaning, they want a partner who can walk in with portable clients that would generate at least that amount in annual billings for the firm.

Meanwhile, Khan managed litigation technology. In other words, he managed a team comprised of paralegals, sys admins, IT types, and legal assistants who were using e-discovery software, etc. He was a non-practicing lawyer managing support staff.

The fact that Khan managed support staff at a 1,000 - 2,500 attorney firm where another partner had an attorney-client relationship with the CF, by itself, says absolutely nothing about Khan's relationship with Clinton or his potential biases.

Please. For my own sanity. At least acknowledge that the connection is too thin to even waste time on. Don't just keep parroting "deep ties" because you think it makes Khan's ex-firm look bad for some reason.

Just curious, where are you getting "2500 attorney firm" from?

[montestewart]

FWIW, Breitbart said that his law firm has deep ties with the Clinton Foundation. It never said Mr. Kahn himself did.

Sigh. Whatever "deep ties" means 2,500 attorney firm led by a decentralized confederation of partners, each with their own set of clients and interests.

You realize that if the partner(s) who managed the CF client relationship were to leave Hogan (or had already left), they'd likely take that client relationship with them, right? Partners switch firms all the time; more often than not, their value to their new firm is their "book of business": their existing client relationships. Firms will post job postings, saying, "we need a partner in XYZ practice with a $750,000+ book" -- meaning, they want a partner who can walk in with portable clients that would generate at least that amount in annual billings for the firm.

Meanwhile, Khan managed litigation technology. In other words, he managed a team comprised of paralegals, sys admins, IT types, and legal assistants who were using e-discovery software, etc. He was a non-practicing lawyer managing support staff.

The fact that Khan managed support staff at a 1,000 - 2,500 attorney firm where another partner had an attorney-client relationship with the CF, by itself, says absolutely nothing about Khan's relationship with Clinton or his potential biases.

Please. For my own sanity. At least acknowledge that the connection is too thin to even waste time on. Don't just keep parroting "deep ties" because you think it makes Khan's ex-firm look bad for some reason.

Just curious, where are you getting "2500 attorney firm" from?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan_Lovells

[keynote]

Just curious, where are you getting "2500 attorney firm" from?

? Did you google the name of the firm?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan_Lovells

No. of offices 46[2]
No. of attorneys 2,500

https://www.google.com/#q=number+of+attorneys+at+hogan+lovells

http://www.americanlawyer.com/law-firm-profiles-result?firmname=hogan+lovells&slreturn=20160703110337

I've added the low-end because, as stated in the same wikipedia entry, Hogan Hartson pre-merger was ~1100 attorneys deep.

[nate33]

FWIW, Breitbart said that his law firm has deep ties with the Clinton Foundation. It never said Mr. Kahn himself did.

Sigh. Whatever "deep ties" means 2,500 attorney firm led by a decentralized confederation of partners, each with their own set of clients and interests.

You realize that if the partner(s) who managed the CF client relationship were to leave Hogan (or had already left), they'd likely take that client relationship with them, right? Partners switch firms all the time; more often than not, their value to their new firm is their "book of business": their existing client relationships. Firms will post job postings, saying, "we need a partner in XYZ practice with a $750,000+ book" -- meaning, they want a partner who can walk in with portable clients that would generate at least that amount in annual billings for the firm.

Meanwhile, Khan managed litigation technology. In other words, he managed a team comprised of paralegals, sys admins, IT types, and legal assistants who were using e-discovery software, etc. He was a non-practicing lawyer managing support staff.

The fact that Khan managed support staff at a 1,000 - 2,500 attorney firm where another partner had an attorney-client relationship with the CF, by itself, says absolutely nothing about Khan's relationship with Clinton or his potential biases.

Please. For my own sanity. At least acknowledge that the connection is too thin to even waste time on. Don't just keep parroting "deep ties" because you think it makes Khan's ex-firm look bad for some reason.

I have already acknowledged that the connections are circumstantial and mostly guilt-by-association type stuff. I said so several pages ago. But I maintain that the Clinton Foundation has deep ties with his law firm. The firm donated $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation. They have given the Clintons tax advice for 12 years. They employed Loretta Lynch.

Now how much of this is relevant to Mr. Kahn himself is yet to be determined. It's notable that they took down the web page.

[AFM]

Just curious, where are you getting "2500 attorney firm" from?

? Did you google the name of the firm?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan_Lovells

No. of offices 46[2]
No. of attorneys 2,500

https://www.google.com/#q=number+of+attorneys+at+hogan+lovells

http://www.americanlawyer.com/law-firm-profiles-result?firmname=hogan+lovells&slreturn=20160703110337

I've added the low-end because, as stated in the same wikipedia entry, Hogan Hartson pre-merger was ~1100 attorneys deep.

Okay--to be clear, we're talking about his previous employer.

[nate33]

Breitbart is not a legitimate publication. IDK why people are even talking about it.

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.



Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

[payitforward]

If you want to discuss economic performance under a dictator, you might want to consider an example under less extreme circumstances than Hitler's Germany. Take a look at Chile under Pinochet.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6069233

Umm... weren't you the one who brought up Hitler's Germany, zonk? Wouldn't it be better if we just drop this whole subject?

If my original response (negative on the relationship between dictatorial regimes and the flourishing of capitalism) stands in the way of your wanting to drop it, I'm happy to retract. It's fair to say that pretty much anything can happen for some amount of time under pretty much any set of conditions.

Of course that doesn't mean one would recommend a dictatorial regime as a way to help capitalism flourish. Then again... you didn't do that.

As is often the case, a better response would have been to ask a question, viz. "you're not suggesting dot dot dot, or are you?" Hence, on reflection, the heat began with me -- I should, and I do, apologize for that, Zonk.

[gtn130]

Breitbart is not a legitimate publication. IDK why people are even talking about it.

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.



Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

Have you ever considered that maybe Trump says/does insane, crazy, absurd, asinine, mind-blowing things on a regular basis and the mainstream news is simply reporting on the GOP candidate?

[AFM]

I only read Breitbart because otherwise I get my info from CNN and The Washington Post. I don't even consider myself conservative, I just think it's best to get both sides of an issue. I don't watch Fox News for obvious reasons.

[nate33]

Breitbart is not a legitimate publication. IDK why people are even talking about it.

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.



Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

Have you ever considered that maybe Trump says/does insane, crazy, absurd, asinine, mind-blowing things on a regular basis and the mainstream news is simply reporting on the GOP candidate?

Trump goes off the rails every once in a while, but I think 95% of what he says is reasonable and rationale. But that's not the issue. The issue here is the media coordination with the Democrat party. Fortunately, it has become so blatant that it's transparent to anyone but a brainwashed leftist.

[Induveca]

Breitbart is not a legitimate publication. IDK why people are even talking about it.

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.



Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

Have you ever considered that maybe Trump says/does insane, crazy, absurd, asinine, mind-blowing things on a regular basis and the mainstream news is simply reporting on the GOP candidate?

Reporting would be:

"President Obama publicly backed Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today by declaring RNC nominee Donald Trump as being "unfit for the office of president." during a speech in Washington."

Instead CNN puts a "Breaking News" headline yesterday at the bottom of the screen stating "Obama: Donald Trump Unfit for President" for nearly 2 hours. That's basically a billboard, and an attempt to get Clinton votes. They think?

CNN is toeing an odd line, capitalizing on Trump's huge ratings, while attempting to endorse Clinton via only portraying him in a negative light. They're oddly ensuring every single voter hears Trump's name 100x more than Clinton.

Not sure how that plays out in the age of viral media, and millions of active bloggers/spin artists. Thus far it seems to have drummed up unexpected millions to show up at the Republican voting booth.

[payitforward]

I'm kinda blown away by what appears to be the right wing tenor of the political opinions of people w/ whom I so often agree about the Washington Wizards.

It's hard for me to imagine having even one positive response to Donald Trump, for example -- and I'd have said the same thing a couple of years ago; i.e. he seemed like a complete jerk to me well before he decided to enter politics. Hence, it's incomprehensible to me that people could view him in a positive light as potentially the POTUS.

As for the conspiratorial rhetoric, especially in re: Mr. Khan, truly I don't understand it at all. I don't care whom he worked for. I don't even care how he got his convention spotlight. What he said was important. And the part of it directed at Trump was based on the guy's rhetoric and nothing else.

There were many ways Donald Trump would have engaged the issue that would have been useful to his candidacy, or at least less negative to it than what he did. His reactions to Khan are themselves sufficient indication (to me at least) that it'd be easy to get his goat. I find it hard to see that as a good quality for a President.

[keynote]

Breitbart is not a legitimate publication. IDK why people are even talking about it.

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.

Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

I only read Breitbart because otherwise I get my info from CNN and The Washington Post. I don't even consider myself conservative, I just think it's best to get both sides of an issue. I don't watch Fox News for obvious reasons.

This false equivalence bothers me. The NYT, WaPo, etc., are not the same as, say, Gawker. The former put out well-researched, well-reported stories. When they get called on factual errors, they print retractions. You can question their editorial decisions (what to publish, what not to publish). You can quibble with their headline writing teams. And, you can disagree with their columnists, if their world view doesn't match yours. Gawker, OTOH, is more willing to wade in the muck; their editorial standards are looser. Ditto for HuffPo.

The WSJ, for its part, is a right-leaning publication. But they too publish well-researched, well-reported stories. If they get something wrong, they retract. I haven't read the Washington Times in years, but IIRC, they attempted to provide well-researched, well-reported stories, coupled with right-leaning columns and analysis.

Breitbart, OTOH, is a rag. If these Khan articles are any evidence of their journalistic standards, they're willing to publish anything, no matter how thinly supported, just to get a rise out of their base. I don't think I've ever seen Gawker publish anything this shoddy.

I don't post in this thread much; I usually lurk, roll my eyes at one position or another, and move on. But this Breitbart piece got my goat because I'm a patent attorney. And Breitbart's willingness to publish an article attempting to six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon their way into drawing a connection between Khan and Clinton by pointing to Hogan's representation of a company who acquired a patent relating to technology in Clinton's email server was just...appallingly bad. Not just partisan. Bad.

Mind you, according to the piece, the Hogan client "acquired" the patent -- which means they could've just bought it along with a bunch of other assets. The piece doesn't describe the technology in question, so the patent could've related to *anything* relating to email servers. And, the manufacturers of the actual hardware and/or developers of the actual software in Clinton's server particular may not have been the actual patent owner (or the previous patent owner, if the Hogan client acquired it by assignment). They may have been a licensee; or, they may have simply been infringing (i.e., using the technology without the patent owner's permission).

It's so bad, that the writer of the piece -- and the editors -- *had* to know it. They just didn't care.

And of course, Breitbart readers parrot it as if it's the gospel truth:

Yup. Khan's law firm has deep ties to the Clinton Foundation, Saudi Arabia, and even Clinton's home brew email server.

Do *not* pretend as if Breitbart is the journalistic equivalent of the NYT and WaPo, merely because they print stuff you like to read.

[montestewart]

I only read Breitbart because otherwise I get my info from CNN and The Washington Post. I don't even consider myself conservative, I just think it's best to get both sides of an issue. I don't watch Fox News for obvious reasons.

I use Google news feed, which frequently links to Breitbart and other conservative sites. I like the news feed because it rotates sources (including foreign news sources) and stories and can be customized (then I guess all your news interests go directly to the NSA).

[keynote]

Just curious, where are you getting "2500 attorney firm" from?

? Did you google the name of the firm?

Okay--to be clear, we're talking about his previous employer.

Yes. I've seen zero proof that Khan's current solo proprietorship has "deep ties" with Clinton, the CF, the Saudis, or Evil Corp, the nefarious technology company that specializes in building illegal private email servers for Secretaries of State.

[gtn130]

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.



Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

Have you ever considered that maybe Trump says/does insane, crazy, absurd, asinine, mind-blowing things on a regular basis and the mainstream news is simply reporting on the GOP candidate?

Trump goes off the rails every once in a while, but I think 95% of what he says is reasonable and rationale. But that's not the issue. The issue here is the media coordination with the Democrat party. Fortunately, it has become so blatant that it's transparent to anyone but a brainwashed leftist.

Dude, even GOPe cucks are turning on Trump. Apparently Reince Priebus, Newt, and Rudy are staging an actual intervention today in an effort to mitigate Trump's craziness. It's not just "brainwashed leftists" who think Trump is an unstable, orange man-child. If you believe Trump is reasonable and rationale 95% of the time, it says a lot about you and where you fall in the political spectrum.

[tontoz]

I'm kinda blown away by what appears to be the right wing tenor of the political opinions of people w/ whom I so often agree about the Washington Wizards.

It's hard for me to imagine having even one positive response to Donald Trump, for example -- and I'd have said the same thing a couple of years ago; i.e. he seemed like a complete jerk to me well before he decided to enter politics. Hence, it's incomprehensible to me that people could view him in a positive light as potentially the POTUS.

As for the conspiratorial rhetoric, especially in re: Mr. Khan, truly I don't understand it at all. I don't care whom he worked for. I don't even care how he got his convention spotlight. What he said was important. And the part of it directed at Trump was based on the guy's rhetoric and nothing else.

There were many ways Donald Trump would have engaged the issue that would have been useful to his candidacy, or at least less negative to it than what he did. His reactions to Khan are themselves sufficient indication (to me at least) that it'd be easy to get his goat. I find it hard to see that as a good quality for a President.

I don't see anyone trying to put a positive spin on Trumps comments regarding the Khans. Directly going after parents that lost their son is pretty much indefensible. Many, including myself, thought Trump's feet would be held to the fire on this.

But given the information that has just come to light about Khan it is pretty obvious that the Dems won't be bringing him up again. So Trump yet again wiggles out of a noose that he put himself into.

It just amazes me that the Democrats chose this guy to speak at their convention.

[payitforward]

The mainstream media outlets have proven to be completely controlled by the Democrats and have lost all credibility with me. There is no independence whatsoever at this point and I now view them as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.



Breitbart is surely a partisan outlet as well, but they are a partisan counterpart to the partisan New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CNN, et al.

Have you ever considered that maybe Trump says/does insane, crazy, absurd, asinine, mind-blowing things on a regular basis and the mainstream news is simply reporting on the GOP candidate?

Reporting would be:

"President Obama publicly backed Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today by declaring RNC nominee Donald Trump as being "unfit for the office of president." during a speech in Washington."

Instead CNN puts a "Breaking News" headline yesterday at the bottom of the screen stating "Obama: Donald Trump Unfit for President" for nearly 2 hours. That's basically a billboard, and an attempt to get Clinton votes. They think?

CNN is toeing an odd line, capitalizing on Trump's huge ratings, while attempting to endorse Clinton via only portraying him in a negative light. They're oddly ensuring every single voter hears Trump's name 100x more than Clinton.

Not sure how that plays out in the age of viral media, and millions of active bloggers/spin artists. Thus far it seems to have drummed up unexpected millions to show up at the Republican voting booth.

Wow.... mainstream media are negative on Trump, and from this Nate concludes that they are "completely controlled by the Democrats." This is a straightforward analogue of the far-left position that the mainstream media are no more than a mouthpiece for international capitalism. Which is, itself, not all that far from the position of long-ago Fascism that an international cabal of Jews and Bolsheviks control newspapers (and banks, and ....).

Not much room for an exchange of ideas and analysis in any of those positions, huh?

Iduveca -- if you think newspapers and other media have ever reported anything but progress in building the new dog park in terms as boring as you suggest, you may not have read much about the history of journalism! You might want to look at what newspapers wrote in a previous campaign for President: that between John Adams (seeking a 2d term) and Thomas Jefferson. I guarantee you they went a wee bit farther in their partisanship back then!!

[gtn130]

Nate, let me put it to you this way:

If Trump becomes president, I will join you in your fortified arms depot in the woods to fight the good fight against the evil, tyrannical government.