Hasta La Gadget!

That headline is Hillary Clinton’s biggest current problem. At this point, it has become akin to how Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign used to be described: “a noun, a verb, 9/11.” Clinton has entered similar linguistic territory, because any headline using the word “Clinton” and the word “emails” now triggers a consistent reaction from the public. Details, even fresh new ones, don’t even really matter all that much at this point — all people are really hearing now is: “Clinton, a verb, emails.”

The anti-Clinton forces consider it a victory to see yet another round of email stories written, of course. But in all the investigating and document dumps, they have never uncovered any sort of bonfire-sized scandal to inflame public passions — it’s all been pretty small-scale stuff. More on the order of a damp match being lit in a rainstorm than a bonfire, really. A brief burst of light and energy and then (…pffffft…) it fizzles out into nothingness. Because of the lack of truly scandalous revelations, it has instead become a campaign of attrition, with those opposed to Clinton hoping mightily that the sheer volume of “Clinton Emails” headlines will eventually wear her down in the public eye.

Hillary Clinton has had this drag on her campaign for over a year now, and I don’t expect it to go away any time soon. Even long after she is elected president (assuming she wins), it’s a pretty safe prediction that late-night comics will still be doing endless email jokes about her. Indeed, it has now become one of the defining factors of how the public sees Clinton.

But even having said all of that, it hasn’t appeared to do her much damage politically. Her trustworthiness ratings are historically low, but they might have been that low even without the whole email mess (it’s impossible to tell, really, but it’s worth pointing out that people had other problems with trusting Hillary, long before the emails became a problem). Even so, she’s still up in all the polls. About the worst thing you can say about her political position versus Donald Trump is that if the Democrats had chosen a different nominee (Joe Biden, say), he might now be doing a lot better against Trump in the polls. While this might be true, the difference between winning by eight points and crushing Trump by 20 points is rather immaterial. In both cases, Trump loses.

Of course, if the F.B.I. had urged the Justice Department to indict Clinton over her use of a private email server, things would be different. But they didn’t. Once she got past that hurdle, it’s hard to see the public really changing their minds before the election, at this point. Bernie Sanders was rather prophetic, because most of the public are now “tired of hearing about her damn emails.”

The electorate has a short attention span for scandals. Especially damp-match-sized scandals. At some point, the candidate can realistically claim: “You’re just bringing up old stuff that has already been endlessly hashed out,” and then move on. It worked for Barack Obama over the Reverend Wright scandal, remember. The story broke, much ink was spilled over it, Obama gave a speech, and then he moved on. By the time the election happened, it was old news. Clinton’s email story seems to be travelling a similar arc, although with her there’s a constant drip, drip, drip of new emails being released. So far, though, they’ve shown nothing more than the shocking truth that wealthy individuals get access to the government — which is not exactly a big revelation. It’s likewise not a big revelation that the Clintons (both of them) have been in the midst of this atmosphere for decades now. Using Rumsfeldian language, this is a “known known.”

Most people have already made up their minds about Clinton’s emails, one way or the other. Absent any bonfire-sized new revelations, these attitudes are probably set in concrete and won’t be changing before November. Those who already think Clinton is too sleazy to vote for won’t be voting for her. Those who think Clinton is indeed sleazy but also far better than the alternative will probably be voting for her (unless they have something better to do on Election Day). Those who think the whole thing is a manufactured witchhunt straight out of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy playbook will be enthusiastically voting for Hillary, no matter how many more “Clinton Emails” headlines appear.

Call it email fatigue or just boredom at the lack of any fresher and more interesting scandals, but the public seems to have largely made up its mind on the question of Clinton’s emails. Oh, sure, Donald Trump will get as much mileage out of it as possible (I’d bet he’ll bring it up within the first ten minutes of the first debate, personally), but other than further enthusing his already-enthusiastic supporters, he’s not likely to get a whole lot of traction from such attacks.

So the problem will persist for Hillary Clinton, for a long time to come. However, the problem is relatively small at this point, because it hasn’t disqualified her in most voters’ opinion. She has largely weathered the scandal because people are so tired of hearing about it over and over again. If she had never set up a personal server she would doubtlessly now be in a stronger political position, but the one she currently occupies is probably strong enough.

Republicans (and the media) have cried “Wolf!” on the email story so many times now — with so little to show for it — that the public seems on the verge of not paying much attention to any such cries in the future. Every time a supposed smoking gun is spotlighted, it never lives up to its billing. At some point, the frantic spotlighting ceases to draw a whole lot of attention. We seem to have reached that point. So while Hillary’s problem has been pared down to two trigger words, seeing “Clinton Emails” headlines elicits no more than a shrug from most voters. The Republicans have, once again, overplayed the political hand they were dealt.

Chris Weigant blogs at:

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SAN FRANCISCO — The beverage industry is spending millions to fight Bay Area proposals that would tax sugary drinks. Meanwhile, vastly outspent supporters of soda taxes are wielding new data they say shows taxes reduce consumption of drinks linked to childhood obesity and diabetes. 

As the region once again becomes a battleground over soda and sugary drinks, residents in San Francisco, Oakland and the small city of Albany will vote separately in November on proposals that would add a 1-cent per ounce tax on sweetened beverages. 

The well-funded beverage industry has reserved roughly $9.5 million in television ad time before Election Day, and has already spent $1 million on commercials in the Bay Area, Joe Arellano, a spokesman for groups opposing taxes, told HuffPost. 

That could be trouble for soda tax supporters, who complain that the industry has bombarded voters with dishonest messages. Recent campaign spending reports showed the industry had spent $747,267 in Oakland, for example, compared with $23,297 by tax proponents. 

Oakland voters have received multiple mailings that label the soda tax proposition a “grocery tax”  that will raise prices across the board at supermarkets. Instead of hitting shoppers with a steep increase only on sugary drinks, commercials featuring local shopkeepers say they’ll spread the cost around to staples like milk, bread and produce. 

“It’s an incredibly painful and unethical lie,” said Oakland Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan. “People worry about having to pay for their groceries. To threaten that their groceries are going to be taxed when it’s not true is a totally despicable tactic from the soda industry.”

There’s nothing untrue about it, according to Arellano. “Those businesses have shown repeatedly that they will pass on those costs to their consumers,” he said. 

Elected officials in Oakland, led by Vice Mayor Annie Campbell-Washington, vowed in July to fight Big Soda’s commercials and mailings by filing complaints with the Federal Communications Commission and the city’s Public Ethics Commission. Her office ignored repeated inquiries from HuffPost about whether the threat was carried out.

FCC and Public Ethics Commission spokesmen told HuffPost they had no open investigations into the “grocery tax” campaigns, but were barred from saying whether they had received any complaints about them. 

Berkeley became the first city in the U.S. to impose a soda tax in 2014. An attempt that year in San Francisco failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed to become law. This year’s measure requires a simple majority of San Franciscans because of a modification in how tax revenue would be spent. Philadelphia became the biggest city to enact a soda tax in June.

An encouraging sign to Bay Area soda tax supporters is that Berkeley’s tax is having a greater impact than initially expected. 

Consumption of soda, energy drinks and other taxed items fell by 21 percent in some neighborhoods after the tax took effect, according to research published Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health. That’s double the 10 percent drop researchers had expected, according to Pat Crawford, a University of California-Berkeley professor.

Shoppers reported drinking 63 percent more water, according to surveys from a team led by University of California-Berkeley researchers. At the same time, consumers in Oakland and San Francisco increased their consumption of soda and other sweet beverages by 4 percent, researchers found. 

The tax “is the single most important way” to deter people from drinking too much soda or iced tea, said Crawford.

Arellano, the soda industry spokesman, said the study was flawed. Survey participants in Berkeley had higher incomes and education levels than counterparts in Oakland and San Francisco, factors that may account for different behavior, he said. 

Barry Popkin, a University of North Carolina professor who supports soda taxes as a tool to improve public health, said the income and education levels of Berkeley residents may produce larger results than in cities with different demographics.

Benefits like less tooth decay and weight gain would appear several years after launching a tax, Popkin said. Changes would be more dramatic if the taxes were higher, he said. 

Other attempts to steer people away from soda are underway in the Bay Area. 

A law that would require warning labels in advertising for sugary drinks, similar to warnings on cigarette ads, was supposed to take effect in San Francisco on July 25, but is tied up in court. It’s the first such law in the country.

“We know we’re at the front lines here and we know what the stakes are,” said Larry Tramutola, a consultant organizing support for the taxes in San Francisco and Oakland. “The soda industry is doing everything they can to try and defeat these.”

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None of us will probably ever make it to the red planet but if you want to get a feel for what Mars would sound like (or hear what it’s like from inside an airlock), saddle up with this video from Cody’s Lab. He drops a camera inside a vacuum chamber and then turns down the pressure to mimic what it’s like on Mars. He actually makes it so that there’s no air inside the chamber at all, which means that sound can’t be created. It’s pretty chilling to hear that sort of silence (even if we hear silence all the time).

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Superbook, the system that turns your smartphone into a laptop, has wrapped up its Kickstarter campaign with runaway success – it raised nearly $3 million in funds, making it one of the most successful tech crowdfunding campaigns in Kickstarter history. As we’re previously reported, Superbook is a shell of sorts with the hardware needed to turn your smartphone to a … Continue reading

Maybe the Olympics oughta take a page out of these guys’ books. 

A video shared on the New Zealand’s Invercargill City Libraries and Archives’ Facebook page features some of its staff participating in “synchronized shelving.” 

After seeing the video, you’ll probably agree with the video’s description, saying there should be a petition to get the “sport” added as an Olympic event.

Watch as the “athletes” put the pizzazz into their shelving duties, performing a fabulous routine with coordinated arm movements and book tosses. It all looks pretty spectacular ― disregarding that little tumble at the 13-second mark. 

Unfortunately, though the crew didn’t get perfect scores from their tough-critic colleagues they definitely won gold in our hearts. 

So seriously, folks. Let’s make synchronized shelving a thing.

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