US Presidential Elections of 2016: from primaries to election day
November 8 as a referendum on neoliberal globalization
Trump's candidacy = sovereignty + NO War. Clinton's candidacy = Globalism + WAR. Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple...
The main issue in this election is that the Neoliberal Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have
abandoned the pretense of "Coke Pepsi" two party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests,
with WikiLeaks detailing the gory details of their corruption and malfeasance
Neoliberal MSM and fifth column of neocons in Washington are in panic: as more people understand
that this is a choice between petty criminal and Mafiosi, neocon Hillary, who was instrumental in
rape and killing of women and children in Libya and Syria might lose to Paleoconservative
Trump
Version 4.2 (Nov 08, 2016)
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice,
shame on me." Or perhaps, as Bush's critics might say,
"Elect
Clintons once, shame on you. Elect Clintons twice
... shame on me." (picked from Times)
This election is about the backlash against neoliberalism that became the dominant ideology of
the ruling elite in the USA since 1980th. At
this point blue color workers became sick of Demorats (aka Neoliberal Democrats) who are betraying them
after each elections ("Change we can believe in" in worlds of the king of "bait and switch" Obama) and expecting
still they will vote for Democratic as they have nowhere to go (Clinton strategy). They want to show
middle finger to Clinton and other neoliberal criminals who deprived them of work, of dignity, of health
(heroine epidemic is hitting the USA really hard). It's a class war all over again. Note how neoliberal
media tried to misrepresent it accusing Trump supporters of racism, bigotry, and all other sins to mask
anti-neoliberal backlash of the US population, and the revolutionary situation in the county,
when the elite lost the control of the population. Which really somewhat reminds me the last days
of the USSR when communist propaganda stopped working and people start seeing the "Politburo" as "naked
king" -- a bunch of corrupt priests of obscure religion, who do not believe in the ideology they promote
for "shmucks", only with their own and their families well-being. that their sons and daughters attend
Western universities and their wives are shopping in Paris.
It is not an exaggeration to see in 2016 Presidential election as a referendum on neoliberal globalization.
But the political power still belongs to Neoliberals, which dominates both the government and
the economy (transnationals are the cornerstone of neoliberal world order). It's a big question if the
American people will be able to change neoliberal dogma, the official civil
religion of the USA without a violent revolution...
The great Trump political breakthrough was consolidating the white working class and white middle
class vote. At last "clintonization" (sellout of the Party to Wall Street whichwas initialed by Bill
Clinton, converting it into the party of "soft neoliberalism" which at times was undistinguishable
from "hard neoliberalism" ) of Democratic Party backfired.
Demexit -- abandoning of Demorats by white working and middle class is now a reality.
If you listen closely to Trump, you’ll hear a direct repudiation of
the system of globalization and identity politics that has defined the world
order since the Cold War. There are, in fact, six specific ideas that he has
either blurted out or thinly buried in his rhetoric: (1) borders matter; (2)
immigration policy matters; (3) national interests, not so-called universal
interests, matter; (4) entrepreneurship matters; (5) decentralization
matters; (6) PC speech—without which identity politics is inconceivable—must
be repudiated.
These six ideas together point to an end to the unstable experiment
with supra- and sub-national sovereignty that many of our elites have guided
us toward, siren-like, since 1989.
That is what the Trump campaign, ghastly though it may at times be,
leads us toward: A future where states matter. A future where people are
citizens, working together toward (bourgeois) improvement of their lot. His
ideas do not yet fully cohere. They are a bit too much like mental dust that
has yet to come together. But they can come together. And Trump is the first
American candidate to bring some coherence to them, however raucous his
formulations have been.
This is a clear repudiation of neoliberalism
(aka "casino
capitalism" or
Trotskyism for the rich) -- the secular religion to both
Republican and Democratic parties adhere (while the term is prohibited from mass
media -- can you imagine the Communist Party of the USSR would prohibit its
members under the threat of purge to utter the word "communism" or call
themselves "communists"). And that means that Trump is a threat to
Washington neoliberal elite, the threat to neoliberal
Washington_Consensus,
which since 1980 (or even earlier) rules the place. That's why they fight
and demonization of Trump is conducted by neoliberal media with such a
fierce determination.
That's why such a tremendous efforts and money are spend on propelling sick and
unprincipled establishment candidate -- Hillary Clinton. A warmonger
neoconservative, who is a staunch neoliberal (like her husband Bill Clinton).
The US neoliberal elite ("creator
class" or "Masters
of the Universe" in neoliberal jargon) have successfully revolted against the political and
economic constraints on their wealth and power put by "enlightened corporatism"
of the New Deal, and for 36 years managed to
redistribute wealth up to the level that has no historical presidents. As a result social stability
is in danger and "the rest" (or Untermensch,
or "takers"/"welfare queen" in neoliberal jargon) are rebelling in the only way left open to them: voting for anyone
who claims to be an outsider.
(Romney-Ryan 'makers vs. takers' rhetoric helped spawn Donald Trump Washington Examiner)
This idea of low-income "takers" lay beneath Mitt Romney's view that the 47 percent of adults
in the U.S. who owed no federal income tax were therefore "dependent upon government" and "who believe
that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them…."
...
But "taker" is a slur also when aimed at recipients of government benefits. Millions of "takers"
are people who work 40 hours, but at low wages, and thus receive the earned-income tax credit. Will
you blame their low wages on them? Perhaps they got horrible education thanks to incompetent government,
or were just never blessed with marketable skills.
Some percentage of the 47 percent are World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam Veterans, who after
serving their country, put in decades of work, and now live off the Social Security they paid into,
without earning enough to owe federal income tax.
The "takers" include widows receiving food stamps, the ill being kept alive by Medicaid, and people
drawing on unemployment because their employer got up and moved to Mexico.
More importantly, many of those on welfare or disability hate that they are dependent. They want
to be working.
Are there "welfare queens," lazy able-bodied moochers, and people scamming disability? Yes. But
lumping in 47 percent of the country with these scoundrels is as illegitimate lumping all businessmen
in with the failed bankers who depend on bailouts.
This wasn't just Ryan's mistake. Conservatives broadly have equated low income with dependency.
The conservative belief that the market tends to reward skill and diligence often mutates into a
belief that poverty reflects some sort of turpitude.
That view helped give birth to Donald Trump, who has tapped into the working class that Ryan
and Romney had pushed away.
Globalization and free trade are fast becoming dirty words. That’s because they were culprits
for major shocks — like the 2008 financial crisis. In the United States alone, median household
income has been practically stagnant for about three decades, the labor market continues to be anemic,
manufacturing jobs have been lost, and many have experienced a significant deterioration in living standards.
Much of the post-Brexit and primary election conventional wisdom seems to be stuck in a political
narrative in which the Brexit vote and the rise of Trump_vs_deep_state in the United States are seen as symbols
of the populist revolution. These symbols are combined with a nationalist tide has been sweeping
not only the United Kingdom and the United States, but also many other parts of Europe, including
Poland, Hungary, France, The Netherlands and Scandinavia, not to mention, Russia, Turkey, India and
Israel.
According to this narrative, economic insecurity and cultural anxiety that reflect sociodemographic
trends have given momentum to ethnonationalism and religious separatism in both the United States
and the United Kingdom. The Rust Belt is pitted against New York City, and the Midlands against London.
All this means that the crisis of neoliberalism, which started in 2008 now obtained political
dimension, when the institutions created by neoliberalism are under attacks from the disgruntled
population. The power of neoliberal propaganda, the power of brainwashing and indoctrination of
population via MSM, schools and universities to push forward neoliberal globalization started to
evaporate. And the fight against neoliberal globalization is not easy and it is
not accidentally Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee and neoliberal
MSM unlashed unprecedented campaign of blackmail against Trump. The fact
is, Sheldon Wolin not accidentally calls neoliberalism "inverted totalitarianism" . It's a system where corporate power has
seized all of political levers of control. In fact, under
neoliberalism, there is no way to vote against the interests
of Goldman Sachs or ExxonMobil or Raytheon. We also have lost our privacy.
And under Obama, an assault against civil liberties has outstripped what George
W. Bush carried out.
This is about the crisis of neoliberal ideology and especially Trotskyism part of it
(neoliberalism can be viewed as Trotskyism for the rich). The following integral elements of this
ideology no longer work well and are starting to cause the backlash:
High level of inequality as the explicit, desirable goal (which raises the productivity).
"Greed is good" or "Trickle down economics" -- redistribution of wealth up will create (via
higher productivity) enough scrapes for the lower classes, lifting all boats.
"Neoliberal rationality" when everything is a commodity that should be traded at specific
market. Human beings also are viewed as market actors with every field of activity seen as a
specialized market. Every entity (public or private, person, business, state) should be governed
as a firm. "Neoliberalism construes even non-wealth generating spheres-such as learning, dating,
or exercising-in market terms, submits them to market metrics, and governs them with market
techniques and practices." People are just " human capital" who must constantly tend to their own
present and future market value.
Extreme financialization or converting the economy into "casino capitalism" (under
neoliberalism everything is a marketable good, that is traded on explicit or implicit exchanges.)
The idea of the global, USA dominated neoliberal empire and related "Permanent war for
permanent peace" -- wars for enlarging global neoliberal empire via crushing non-compliant
regimes either via color revolutions or via open military intervention.
Downgrading ordinary people to the role of commodity and creating three classes of
citizens (moochers, or Untermensch, "creative class" and top 0.1%), with the upper class
(0.1% or "Masters of the Universe") being above the law like the top level of "nomenklatura" was
in the USSR.
"Downsizing" sovereignty of nations via international treaties like TPP, and making
transnational corporations the key political players, "the deciders" as W aptly said. Who
decide about the level of immigration flows, minimal wages, tariffs, and other matters that
previously were prerogative of the state.
So after 36 (or more) years of dominance (which started with triumphal march of neoliberalism in
early 90th) the ideology entered "zombie state". That does not make it less dangerous but its power
over minds of the population started to evaporate. Far right ideologies now are filling the vacuum,
as ith the discreditation of socialist ideology and decimation of "enlightened corporatism" of the
New Deal in the USA there is no other viable alternatives.
The same happened in late 1960th with the Communist ideology. It took 20 years for the USSR to
crash after that with the resulting splash of nationalism (which was the force that blow up the
USSR) and far right ideologies.
It remains to be seen whether the neoliberal US elite will fare better then Soviet nomenklatura
as challenges facing the USA are now far greater then challenges which the USSR faced at the time.
Among them is oil depletion which might be the final nail into the coffin of neoliberalism and,
specifically, the neoliberal globalization.
This
has been a bipartisan effort, because they've both been captured by corporate
power. We have undergone what John Ralston Saul correctly calls a corporate
coup d'état in slow motion, and it's over.
Neoliberal poison destroys a society and lifts the politicians with
nationalistic bend like Trump. First, neoliberalism dislocated the working class, de-industrialized the country.
Then, in the name of austerity, it destroyed public institutions, education,
public broadcasting. And then it poisoned the political system.
I would argue that
in terms of megalomania and narcissism, Hillary Clinton is not far behind
Trump. But
the point is, we've got to break away from-which is exactly the narrative
neoliberal MSM
want us to focus on.
We've got to break away from political personalities
and understand and examine and critique the structures of power. And, in fact,
the Democratic Party, especially beginning under Bill Clinton, has carried water
for corporate entities as assiduously as the Republican Party.
We need to be aware of neoliberal
brainwashing. I mean, this whole debate over the
DNC WikiLeaks emails
disclosure is insane. The key question here is not who leaked emails,
but whether they are authentic or not. They are. As well as DNC dirty
laundry exposed those long emails -- you should read them. They're
really appalling, and exposes
the way the Democratic primaries were rigged. Tricks used included the
mechanism of the superdelegates (which unlawfully declared their allegiance
very early creating pro-Clinton pressure of voters) , the stealing of the caucus
in Nevada, and the huge amounts of corporate money and money of super PACs that flowed into
the Clinton campaign. This faux feminism on which Hillary Clinton based her
campaign is another propaganda trick. She si hostile to both women and
children. Cold like any sociopath. The fact is, Clinton has a track record
of hurting US
children: she and her husband destroyed welfare as we know it, and 70% of the original recipients were children.
If is important to understand that the rise of nationalism, the
phenomenal success of Trump is just a form of backlash against neoliberalism.
This is from 2016 election cycle but still relevant. Money quote: "Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's
faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all
the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free traders disappear from our public discourse. "
Despicable neoliberal MSM do not like to discuss real issue that facing people in 220 elections. They like to discuss personalities.
Propagandists of Vichy left like Madcow spend hours discussing Ukrainegate instead of real issues facing the nation.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump has promised to make deregulation one of the focal points of his presidency. If Trump is elected, the trend toward rising market concentration and all of the problems that come with it are likely to continue. ..."
"... If Clinton is elected, it's unlikely that her administration would be active enough in antitrust enforcement for my taste. But at least she acknowledges that something needs to be done about this growing problem, and any movement toward more aggressive enforcement of antitrust regulation would be more than welcome. ..."
"... Once again we have a stark 'choice' in this election...one party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them. Like flipping a coin: heads, the predator class wins; tails, we lose. ..."
"... "Vote third party to register your disgust..." and waste the opportunity, at least in a few states, to affect the national outcome (in many states the outcome is not in doubt, so, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, millions of voters could equally well stay home, vote third party, or write in their dog). ..."
"... But then it dawned on me: antitrust enforcement is largely up to the president and his picked advisers. If Democrats really think it is so damned important, why has Clinton's old boss Barack Obama done so very, very little with it? ..."
"... Josh Mason thinks a Clinton administration may push on corporate short-termism if not on anti-trust. We'll see, but seeing as the Obama administration didn't do much I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't either. ..."
"... They ignored the housing bubble, don't seem to understand the connection between manufacturing and wealth (close your eyes and imagine your life with no manufactured goods, because they are all imported and your economy only produces a few low value-added raw materials such as timber or exotic animals) then you will see that allowing the US to deindustrialize was a really, world-historic mistake. ..."
"... Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free traders disappear from our public discourse. ..."
Donald Trump has promised to make deregulation one of the focal points of his presidency. If Trump is elected, the trend
toward rising market concentration and all of the problems that come with it are likely to continue.
We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government and the magic of markets to justify ignoring the problem.
If Clinton is elected, it's unlikely that her administration would be active enough in antitrust enforcement for my taste.
But at least she acknowledges that something needs to be done about this growing problem, and any movement toward more aggressive
enforcement of antitrust regulation would be more than welcome.
"We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government" which has been amply demonstrated during the last 7 years by negligible
enforcement of anti-trust laws.
Once again we have a stark 'choice' in this election...one party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just
get rid of them. Like flipping a coin: heads, the predator class wins; tails, we lose.
Vote third party to register your disgust and to open the process to people who don't just represent the predator class.
"Vote third party to register your disgust..." and waste the opportunity, at least in a few states, to affect the national
outcome (in many states the outcome is not in doubt, so, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, millions of voters could
equally well stay home, vote third party, or write in their dog).
Thomas Frank: "I was pleased to learn, for example, that this year's Democratic platform includes strong language on antitrust
enforcement, and that Hillary Clinton has hinted she intends to take the matter up as president. Hooray! Taking on too-powerful
corporations would be healthy, I thought when I first learned that, and also enormously popular. But then it dawned on me:
antitrust enforcement is largely up to the president and his picked advisers. If Democrats really think it is so damned important,
why has Clinton's old boss Barack Obama done so very, very little with it?"
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/07/some-clintons-pledges-sound-great-until-you-remember-whos-president
One party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them...a distinction without a difference.
Who do you prefer to have guarding the chicken house...a fox or a coyote? Sane people would say, 'neither.'
Yes and Clinton supporters attacked Sanders over this during the primaries.
Josh Mason thinks a Clinton administration may push on corporate short-termism if not on anti-trust. We'll see, but seeing
as the Obama administration didn't do much I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't either.
"At Vox,* Rachelle Sampson has a piece on corporate short-termism. Supports my sense that this is an area where there may be
space to move left in a Clinton administration."
Economists have said for thirty years that free trade will benefit the US. Increasingly the country looks like a poor non-industrialized
third world country. Why should anyone trust US economists?
They ignored the housing bubble, don't seem to understand the connection between manufacturing and wealth (close your eyes
and imagine your life with no manufactured goods, because they are all imported and your economy only produces a few low value-added
raw materials such as timber or exotic animals) then you will see that allowing the US to deindustrialize was a really, world-historic
mistake.
Trust in experts is what has transformed the US from a world leader in 1969 with the moon landing to a country with no high
speed rail, no modern infrastructure, incapable of producing a computer or ipad or ship.
Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial
collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free
traders disappear from our public discourse.
This is from 2016 election cycle but still relevant. Money quote: "Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's
faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all
the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free traders disappear from our public discourse. "
Despicable neoliberal MSM do not like to discuss real issue that facing people in 220 elections. They like to discuss personalities.
Propagandists of Vichy left like Madcow spend hours discussing Ukrainegate instead of real issues facing the nation.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump has promised to make deregulation one of the focal points of his presidency. If Trump is elected, the trend toward rising market concentration and all of the problems that come with it are likely to continue. ..."
"... If Clinton is elected, it's unlikely that her administration would be active enough in antitrust enforcement for my taste. But at least she acknowledges that something needs to be done about this growing problem, and any movement toward more aggressive enforcement of antitrust regulation would be more than welcome. ..."
"... Once again we have a stark 'choice' in this election...one party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them. Like flipping a coin: heads, the predator class wins; tails, we lose. ..."
"... "Vote third party to register your disgust..." and waste the opportunity, at least in a few states, to affect the national outcome (in many states the outcome is not in doubt, so, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, millions of voters could equally well stay home, vote third party, or write in their dog). ..."
"... But then it dawned on me: antitrust enforcement is largely up to the president and his picked advisers. If Democrats really think it is so damned important, why has Clinton's old boss Barack Obama done so very, very little with it? ..."
"... Josh Mason thinks a Clinton administration may push on corporate short-termism if not on anti-trust. We'll see, but seeing as the Obama administration didn't do much I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't either. ..."
"... They ignored the housing bubble, don't seem to understand the connection between manufacturing and wealth (close your eyes and imagine your life with no manufactured goods, because they are all imported and your economy only produces a few low value-added raw materials such as timber or exotic animals) then you will see that allowing the US to deindustrialize was a really, world-historic mistake. ..."
"... Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free traders disappear from our public discourse. ..."
Donald Trump has promised to make deregulation one of the focal points of his presidency. If Trump is elected, the trend
toward rising market concentration and all of the problems that come with it are likely to continue.
We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government and the magic of markets to justify ignoring the problem.
If Clinton is elected, it's unlikely that her administration would be active enough in antitrust enforcement for my taste.
But at least she acknowledges that something needs to be done about this growing problem, and any movement toward more aggressive
enforcement of antitrust regulation would be more than welcome.
"We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government" which has been amply demonstrated during the last 7 years by negligible
enforcement of anti-trust laws.
Once again we have a stark 'choice' in this election...one party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just
get rid of them. Like flipping a coin: heads, the predator class wins; tails, we lose.
Vote third party to register your disgust and to open the process to people who don't just represent the predator class.
"Vote third party to register your disgust..." and waste the opportunity, at least in a few states, to affect the national
outcome (in many states the outcome is not in doubt, so, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, millions of voters could
equally well stay home, vote third party, or write in their dog).
Thomas Frank: "I was pleased to learn, for example, that this year's Democratic platform includes strong language on antitrust
enforcement, and that Hillary Clinton has hinted she intends to take the matter up as president. Hooray! Taking on too-powerful
corporations would be healthy, I thought when I first learned that, and also enormously popular. But then it dawned on me:
antitrust enforcement is largely up to the president and his picked advisers. If Democrats really think it is so damned important,
why has Clinton's old boss Barack Obama done so very, very little with it?"
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/07/some-clintons-pledges-sound-great-until-you-remember-whos-president
One party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them...a distinction without a difference.
Who do you prefer to have guarding the chicken house...a fox or a coyote? Sane people would say, 'neither.'
Yes and Clinton supporters attacked Sanders over this during the primaries.
Josh Mason thinks a Clinton administration may push on corporate short-termism if not on anti-trust. We'll see, but seeing
as the Obama administration didn't do much I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't either.
"At Vox,* Rachelle Sampson has a piece on corporate short-termism. Supports my sense that this is an area where there may be
space to move left in a Clinton administration."
Economists have said for thirty years that free trade will benefit the US. Increasingly the country looks like a poor non-industrialized
third world country. Why should anyone trust US economists?
They ignored the housing bubble, don't seem to understand the connection between manufacturing and wealth (close your eyes
and imagine your life with no manufactured goods, because they are all imported and your economy only produces a few low value-added
raw materials such as timber or exotic animals) then you will see that allowing the US to deindustrialize was a really, world-historic
mistake.
Trust in experts is what has transformed the US from a world leader in 1969 with the moon landing to a country with no high
speed rail, no modern infrastructure, incapable of producing a computer or ipad or ship.
Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial
collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free
traders disappear from our public discourse.
"... America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there
are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers. ..."
"... Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being
mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team. ..."
"... There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions. ..."
"... Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit
them to infest his administration. ..."
"... PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William
Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle. ..."
"... HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED... ..."
"... Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because
that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through 501C3
groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a massive web
of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil. ..."
"... Tyler, please rerun this! How George Sorros destroys countries, profits from currency trading, convinces the countries to privatize
its assets, buys them and then sells them for yet another profit: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly...
..."
"... We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an
advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... ..."
"... JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world. ..."
"... If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will
unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him) ..."
"... Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction
and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen. ..."
Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning
after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned
in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent
the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete
ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon
George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros,
were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump
administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution
will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of
Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation
faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the
Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide
Huma Abedin
. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because
there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being
mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit
them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have
read as follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms
as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect
Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle
East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted
off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War.
Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his
administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies
but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with
the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities
to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed
at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and
the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org
and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle,
Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great
Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump
presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans
to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street
protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former
Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign
policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the
Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against
Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump
newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair
Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible
for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets
of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as
"anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's
son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics
not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George
Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
"It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care."
None of those "pressing issues" involve the DOJ or the FBI.
Investigate, prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton and her crew.
Trump is going to need a hostage or two to deal with these fucks.
News for the Clintons, The R's and D's already united to vote against Hillary.
I do not understand why they think street protests will bring down a POTUS? And that would be acceptable in a major nation.
Why isn't the government cracking down the separatists in Oregon, California, and elsewhere? They are not accepting the legal
outcome of an election. They are calling for illegal secession. (Funny in 1861 this was a cause for the federal government to
attack the joint and seveal states of the union.) If a group of whites had protested Obama's election in 2008?
The people living in Kalispell are reviled and ridiculed for their separatist views. Randy Weaver and family for not accepting
politically correct views. And so on.
This is getting out of hand. There will be no walking this back.
Purple is the color of royalty! Are these fuckers proclaiming themselves as King and Queen of America? If so, get the executioner
and give them a "French Haircut"!
"Yes. And who are the neocons really? Progressives. Neocon is a label successfully used by criminal progressives to shield
their brand."
Well let's go a little bit deeper in examing the 'who' thing:
"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right,
is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary , a media arm
of the American Jewish Committee , which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward , the oldest American
Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: " If there is an intellectual movement in America
to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.... "
The idea of arresting the Clinton Crime, Fraud and Crime Family would be welcomed. BUT, who is going to arrest them? Loretta Lynch,
James Comey, WHO? The problem here is that our so called "authorities" are all in the same bed. The tentacles of the Eastern Elite
Establishment are everywhere in high office, academia, the media, Big Business, etc. The swamp is thoroughly infested with this
elite scum of those in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, Club of Rome,
Committee of 300, Jason Society and numerous other private clubs of the rich, powerful and influential. The Illuminati has been
exposed, however they aren't going down lightly. They still have massive amounts of money, they own the media and the banking
houses. Some have described it as MIMAC, the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex. A few months ago here at Zero Hedge,
there was an article which showed a massive flow chart of the elites and their organization
They could IF and WHEN Trump gets to Washington after 20 Jan 2017, simply implode the economy and blame t it on Trump. Sort
of what happened to Herbert Hoover in the late 1920's. Unfortunately the situation in the US will continue to deteriorate. George
Soros, a major financial backer of Hillary will see to that. Soros is a Globalist and advocate of one world government. People
comment that Soros should be arrested. I agree, BUT who is going to do that?
Agree. I think Trump will yank all the "aid" to Israel as well as "aid" to the Islamic murderers of the Palitrashian human garbage
infesting the area. This "aid" money is simply a bribe to keep both from killing each other. F**k all of them. None of our business
what they do.
We got progressives ( lots and lots of Jews in that group) who are the enemy of mankind and then we got Islam who are also
the enemy of mankind. Why help either of them? Makes no sense.
Soros is hated in Israel and has never set foot there but his foundations have done such harm that a bill was recently passed
to ban foreign funding of non profit political organizations
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the man puts America first, really says
it all.
The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to act? There should be no question
about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
There are entirely way too many Intelligence Agencies. Plus the Contractors, some of who shouldn't have high level clearance to
begin with which the US sub contracts the Intel / work out to.
For Fucks sake, Government is so incompetent it can't even handle it own Intel.
Something along the lines of Eurpoe's Five Eyes would be highly effective.
Fuck those Pure Evil Psychopaths at the CIA They're nothing more than a bunch of Scum Fuck murdering, drug running, money laundering
Global Crime Syndicate.
The FBI is still investigating the Clinton Foundation, Trump needs to encourage that through backdoor channels. Soro's needs to
be investigated, he has been tied to a conspiracy to incite violence, this needs to be documented and dealt with. Trump can not
ignore this guy. If any of these investigations come back with a recommendation to indict then that process needs to be started.
Take the fight to them, they are vulnerable!
Make a National APB Warrent for the apprehension & arrest of George Sooros for inciting violence, endsrgerimg the public & calling
for the murder of our Nations Police through funding of the BLM Group.
Have every Law Informent Agency in the Nation on alert. Also, issue a Bounty in the Sum of $5,000,000 for his immediate apprehension.
Trump needs to replace FBI chickenshits & sellouts with loyal people then get the FBI counter-terrorism to investigate and shut
down Soros & the various agencies instigating the riots. It's really simple when you quit over-thinking a problem. It's domestic
terrorism. It's the FBI's job to stop it.
I read what Paul said this morning and thought, despite Paul's hostility to Trump during the primaries most likely due to his
son, Rand's loss, that Paul gave good advice to Trump.
Let's face it Donald Trump is a STOP GAP measure. And demographic change over the next 4 years makes his re-election very, very
UNLIKELY. If he keeps his campaign promises he will be a GREAT president. However as ZH reported earlier he appears to be balking
from repealing Obamacare, I stress the word APPEARS.
Let us give him a chance. This is all speculation. His enemies are DEADLY as they were once they got total control in Russia,
they killed according to Solzhenitsyn SIXTY-SIX MILLION Russian Christians. The descendants of those Bolsheviks are VERY powerful
in the USSA. They control the Fed, Hollyweird, Wall Street, the universities...
Much of the media and advertising exist by pushing buttons that trigger appropriate financially lucrative reflexes in their
audiences, from pornography to romantic movies to team sports. Media profits are driven by competition over how best to push
those buttons. But the effort to produce politically and racially cuckolded Whites adds a layer of complexity: What buttons
do you push to make Whites complicit in their own racial and cultural demise?
Actually, there are a whole lot of them, which shouldn't be surprising. This is a very sophisticated onslaught, enabled
by control over all the moral, intellectual, and political high ground by the left. With all that high ground, there are a
lot of buttons you can push.
Our enemies see this as a pathetic last gasp of a moribund civilization and it is quite true for our civilization is dying.
Identity Christians describe this phase as Jacob's Troubles and what the secular Guillaume Faye would, I think, describe as the
catastrophe required to get people motivated. The future has yet to be written, however I cannot help but think that God's people,
the White people, are stirring from their slumber.
"PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William
Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.
JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. "explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's
security" Served on JINSA's Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Perle."
If Trump has probable cause on the Soros crimes, have his DoJ request a warrant for all of Soros's communications via the NSA,
empanel a grand jury, indict the bastard, and throw his raggedy ass in prison. It would be hard for him to run his retarded purple
revolution when he's getting ass-raped by his cell mate.
I agree. Thing is, I think as president he can simply order the NSA to cough up whatever they have, just like Obama could have
done at any point. The NSA is part of the Defense Department, right? What am I missing here?
But in respect to Soro's money and the Dalas shooting or other incited events, there should be a grand jury empanelled and
then charges brought against him. I think nothing short of him hiding in an embassy with all his money blocked by Swift is justice
for the violence that he funded.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on
Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be
distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
And so it begins; I really hope that this is just some misinformation/disinformation, because HE PROMISED he would appoint
a special prosecutor, PROMISED...
The likes of Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg get to catch up on their Torah for the forseeable future but the likes
of Lloyd Blankfein will probably get to entertain the court since they have probably crossed paths doing business in NYC. The
"real conservative" deeply introspective, examine-my-conscience crowd screwed themselves to the wall, god love them.
Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because
that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through
501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a
massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil.
We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an
advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... (just in case you confused him with Mother Theresa)..
But then again JFK took office with a set of initiatives that were far more bellicose and provocative (like putting huge Jupiter
missile launchers on the USSR border in Turkey)... once he saw he light and fired the pro Nazi Dulles Gang , JFK was gunned
down in front of the whole world.
If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will
unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him)
I'm guessing though that deep down Trump is quite comfortable with a neoCon cabinet... hell he already offered Jamie Diamon
the office of Treasry Secretary... no doubt a calculated gesture to signal compliance with the Deep State.
The Clintons do not do things by accident. Coordination of colors at the concession speech was meant for something. Perhaps the
purple revolution or maybe they want to be seen as royals. It doesn't really matter why they did it; the fact is they are up to
something. They will not agree to go away and even if they offered to just disappear with their wealth we know they are dishonest.
They will come back... that is what they do.
They must be stripped of power and wealth. This act must be performed publicly.
In order to succeed Mr. Trump I suggest you task a group to accomplish this result. Your efforts to make America great again
may disintegrate just like Obamacare if you allow the Clintons and Co. to languish in the background.
The protestors are groups of individuals who may seek association for any number of reasons. One major reason might be the loss
of hope for a meaningful and prosperous life. We should seek out and listen to the individuals within these groups. If they are
truly desirous of being heard they will communicate what they want without use of violence. Perhaps individuals join these protest
groups because they do not have a voice.
Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction
and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen.
The articles reporting that Mr. Trump has changed his response to the protestors is a good effort to discover the protestors'
complaints and channel their energy into beneficial political activity. Something must be done quickly though, before the protests
get out of hand, for if that happens the protestors will be criminals and no one will want to work with them.
In order to make America great again we need input from all of America. Mr. Trump you can harness the energy of these protestors
and let them know they are a part of your movement.
Classical economists are experts on today's capitalism, it is 18th and 19th Century capitalism, it's how it all started.
Adam Smith would think we are on the road to ruin.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society.
On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalizing itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services.
Got that wrong as well.
Adam Smith wouldn't like today's lobbyists.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great
precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous,
but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of
the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions,
both deceived and oppressed it."
AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge
in her own country!
lakecity55 -> CoCosAB •Nov 12, 2016 7:53 AM
Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money. Trump will have to do some rough stuff,
but he needs to, it's what we hired him for.
NATO strategists are reportedly planning for a scenario in which Trump orders US troops out of Europe,
as the shock result of the US presidential election sinks in, spreading an atmosphere of uncertainty.
According to Spiegel magazine,
strategists from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg's staff have drafted a secret report
which includes a worst-case scenario in which Trump orders US troops to withdraw from Europe and
fulfills his threat to make Washington less involved in European security. Read more
German
defense minister says Trump should be firm with Russia as NATO stood by US after 9/11
"For the first time, the US exit from NATO has become a threat" which would mean the end
of the bloc, a German NATO officer told the magazine.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly slammed NATO, calling the alliance "obsolete." He
also suggested that under his administration, the US may refuse to come to the aid of NATO allies
unless they "pay their bills" and "fulfill their obligations to us."
"We are experiencing a moment of the highest and yet unprecedented uncertainty in the transatlantic
relationship," said Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador in Washington and head of the
prominent Munich Security Conference. By criticizing the collective defense, Trump has questioned
the basic pillar of NATO as a whole, Ischinger added.
The president-elect therefore has to reassure the European allies that he remains firm on the
US commitment under Article 5 of the NATO charter prior to his inauguration, the top diplomat stressed.
Earlier this week, Stoltenberg lambasted Trump's agenda, saying: "All allies have made a solemn
commitment to defend each other. This is something absolutely unconditioned."
Fearing that Trump would not appear in Brussels even after his inauguration, NATO has re-scheduled
its summit – expected to take place in early 2017 – to next summer, Spiegel said.
The report might reflect current moods within the EU establishment as well, as Jean-Claude Juncker,
President of the European Commission, has called on the member states to establish Europe's own military.
Washington "will not ensure the security of the Europeans in the long term... we have to do this
ourselves," he argued on Thursday.
If Trump is serious about reducing the number of US troops stationed in Europe, large NATO countries
like Germany have little to offer, Spiegel said. Even major member states' militaries lack units
able to replace the Americans, which in turn may trigger debate on strengthening NATO's nuclear arm,
a sensitive issue in most European countries for domestic reasons.
Still, an increase in defense spending has already been approved by the Europeans following pressure
from the outgoing US administration. Over the past few days in Brussels, representatives of NATO
states have been working on the so-called "Blue Book," a secret strategy paper which stipulates
each member's contribution in the form of troops, aircraft, warships, and heavy armor until 2032,
Spiegel reported.
The document stipulates an increase in each NATO members' military spending by one percent of
each nation's GDP, in addition to the current two percent.
Uncertainty over Trump's NATO policy seems to be taking its toll; Germany, one of the largest
military powers in Europe, plans to allocate 130 billion euros ($140bn) to military expenditures
by 2030, but the remarkable figure may be a drop in the ocean.
"No one knows yet if the one percent more would be enough," the German NATO officer told Spiegel.
Nevertheless, the US is continuing to deploy troops to eastern Europe, justifying the move with
the need to protect the region from "assertive Russia." Earlier this week, the largest arms
shipment yet, 600 containers, arrived in Germany to supply the US armored and combat aviation brigades,
expected to
deploy
in Europe by January 2017.
"... Better relations with Russia will encourage them to venture into Europe? How does that work? The more friendly they are with us, I'd think the less they'd want to upset us and destroy those gains. The alternative might end up in a war with Russia. Yeah, that's great! Good grief, CNN. ..."
"... " ultranationalistic rhetoric". This sensationalist hyperbole is wrecking our language. Being against intervening in other countries affairs is not being "ultranationalistic" ..."
"... When you [neo]liberals living in your bubble fly over middle America, over all the small towns, farms, factories and coal miners that you often forget about. Just remember that there is a big middle finger pointing up at you. ..."
"... Well now a substancial portion of Americans know that free trade isn't so good. When it started to hit home for non working class folks, eyes opened up. ..."
Flynn, like Trump, sees Russian president Vladimir Putin as someone the US can do business
with. In December, Flynn attended a banquet in Moscow where he sat next to Putin. He also has
appeared on the Kremlin TV mouthpiece, Russia Today (which Flynn has compared to CNN).
If Flynn is Trump's national security advisor or secretary of defense we can expect him to push
for a closer relationship with the Russians; a punitive policy on Iran -- and a more aggressive
war on Islamist militants around the world. These views mesh well with what we have heard from
Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
Daniel, 35 minutes ago
Mr. Bergen : "American Islamists, Flynn claims, are trying to create "an Islamic state
right here at home" by pushing to "gain legal standing for Sharia." Flynn cited no evidence
for this claim." !!!?? Really ?? "German court lets off 'Sharia police' patrol in Wuppertal"
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35059488
SimpleStupid
Not a bad article up until the last paragraph. Better relations with Russia will
encourage them to venture into Europe? How does that work? The more friendly they are with us,
I'd think the less they'd want to upset us and destroy those gains. The alternative might end
up in a war with Russia. Yeah, that's great! Good grief, CNN.
And "derail the deal that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons"? What is this,
backwards day?
Ron Lane
" ultranationalistic rhetoric". This sensationalist hyperbole is wrecking our language.
Being against intervening in other countries affairs is not being "ultranationalistic"
hanklmarcus
Iraq was a failure , But attacking IRAN will not be ??????????? FOOLS
CNN User
When you [neo]liberals living in your bubble fly over middle America, over all the
small towns, farms, factories and coal miners that you often forget about. Just remember that
there is a big middle finger pointing up at you.
We don't accept your values and are tired of having ours oppressed.
LizardKing
@Lenny Good - Ukraine should clearly be dominated by Russia and who gives a s t about
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Call me when Russia is threatening Poland
Dwright :
Well now a substancial portion of Americans know that free trade isn't so good. When it
started to hit home for non working class folks, eyes opened up.
sou812
3h ago
0
1
The Democrats abandoned the only people that are paying
the bills in this country - period! And the working class
sent a message loud and clear. The arrogance and ignorance
of he left is astounding: focused on the novelty of
getting a woman elected to the presidency even though she
was the worst of choices. An arrogant, dishonest, bought
and paid for Wall Street elitist like her husband, they
thought that her experience was enough to seal her
success. Ta!
The Dem's have lost it all and it will take two decades to
recover, if ever.
After 8 years of "no change" Obama, a president totally owned by the corporations, banks, big
money etc. and the man who failed to do anything about that huge and ever widening wealth gap
the Democrats were obviously out of favour with the poor working class. But the voters seem to
have forgotten than Trump still stands for the Republicans and thats where he will enrol his
cabinet from, he can not act alone. Those same weak, ineffective ultra right loonies that
stood against Trump and made him look special will now stand with him in government. Its still
money politics.
Mutinous DNC Staffers Rage At Donna Brazile: "You Are Part Of The Problem... You Let This Happen"
Tyler Durden Nov 11, 2016 2:55 PM 0 SHARES Liar, cheat, and fired CNN contributor Donna Brazile faced
an angry crowd on Thursday night ... as Democratic Party officials held their first staff meeting since Hillary Clinton was crushed
by the "least qualified candidate for President ever."
As The Huffington Post reports, Donna Brazile, the interim leader of the Democratic National Committee, was giving what one
attendee described as "a rip-roaring speech" to about 150 employees, about the need to have hope for wins going forward, when
a staffer identified only as Zach stood up with a question.
"Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?" he asked, according to two people in the room. "You backed a
flawed candidate, and your friend [former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz] plotted through this to support your own gain
and yourself."
Some DNC staffers started to boo and some told him to sit down. Brazile began to answer, but Zach had more to say.
"You are part of the problem," he continued, blaming Brazile for clearing the path for Trump's victory by siding with Clinton
early on . "You and your friends will die of old age and I'm going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this
happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy."
Zach gathered his things and began to walk out. When Brazile called after him, asking where he was going, he told her to
go outside and "tell people there" why she should be leading the party.
Two DNC staffers confirmed the exchange, and Brazile appeared to confirm the exchange also...
"As you can imagine, the individual involved is a member of the staff and I personally do not wish to discuss our internal
meetings."
Brazile could move to stay on as chair after March, but Thursday's meeting shows at least some party officials want fresh blood
at the top.
"The party is at a crossroads. They have been using the same playbook for decades, and now, they won't let anyone else come
in and change it up," said one former longtime DNC staffer, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
"The fact that Democrats just sat through a devastating defeat and now have to trust the leadership that not only contributed
to Clinton's loss, but the crushing 2014 midterm losses, well, what do they expect?"
Mutiny at the DNC? And where does Brazile go now? No TV network will hire a proven liar and cheat. There's no Democratic campaign
for her to jump to like Wasserman-Schultz... So Brazile will probably find herself worling at The Clinton Foundation.
Disgusting as it is, yes, my understanding is Obama can do
exactly that. My guess is, want to or not, he probably will come under so much pressure
he will have to pass out plenty of pardons. Or maybe Lynch will give everyone involved
in the Clinton Foundation immunity to testify and then seal the testimony -- or never
bother to get any testimony. So many games.
For Obama, it might not even take all that much pressure. From about his second day
in office, from his body language, he's always looked like he was scared.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut, which he would do, being the lawyer he is,
Giuliani has been screaming for the Clintons' scalps. That's exactly what a sharp lawyer
would do if he was trying to force Obama to pardon them. If he really meant to get them
he would be agreeing with the FBI, saying there doesn't seem to be any evidence of wrong
doing, and then change his mind once (if) he's AG and it's too late for deals.
With so many lawyers, Obama, the Clintons, Lynch, Giuliani, Comey, no justice is
likely to come out of this.
@ Posted by: Ken Nari | Nov 11, 2016 2:51:53 PM | 55
I heard a podcast on Batchelor
with Charles Ortel which explained some things -- even if there are no obvious likely
criminal smoking guns -- given that foundations get away with a lot of "leniency"
because they are charities, incomplete financial statements and chartering documents, as
I recall. I was most interested in his description of the number of jurisdictions the
Foundation was operating under, some of whom, like New York were already investigating;
and others, foreign who might or might be, who also have very serious regulations,
opening the possibility that if the Feds drop their investigation, New York (with very
very strict law) might proceed, and that they might well be investigated
(prosecuted/banned??) in Europe.
The most recent leak wrt internal practices was just damning ... it sounded like a
playground of favors and sinecures ... no human resources department, no written
policies on many practices ...
This was an internal audit and OLD (2008, called "the Gibson Review") so corrective
action may have been taken, but I thought was damning enough to deter many donors (even
before Hillary's loss removed that incentive) particularly on top of the Band (2011)
memo. Unprofessional to the extreme.
It's part of my vast relief that Clinton lost and will not be in our lives 24/7/365
for the next 4 years. (I think Trump is an unprincipled horror, but that's as may be,
I'm not looking for a fight). After the mess Clinton made of Haiti (and the
accusations/recriminations) I somehow thought they'd have been more careful with their
"legacy" -- given that it was founded in 1997, 2008 is a very long time to be operating
without written procedures wrt donations, employment
Ed209
5h ago
2
3
Good article, but it fails to mention immigration as a
further factor hammering the working class. Of course it's
pc to pretend that immigrants create jobs rather than
taking them etc etc. But I would put this question to any
economist, journalist or politician who doesn't believe
that immigration hurts the working classes: how would you
like it if a million workers arrived, all qualified to
your level or above in economics/journalism/politics, and
all willing to work for much less than you make?
Of course, in the case of the UK it hasn't been one
million, but more than three million. And in the case of
the USA, untold millions (illegals alone are thought to
number 10 million).
It's because economists, journalists and politicians
never have to face this kind of competition for their own
jobs that they are so keen on mass immigration. But
low-skill/no-skill workers face this reality everyday.
Nika2015
Ed209
4h ago
0
1
Telling it like it is...Bravo!
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Dana Todd
Ed209
4h ago
0
1
There's a pretty in-depth analysis of immigration's
effect on economy and workers/wages here
http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature
Bottom line is, it's complicated, and not all
immigrants are the same - or the same value to a
country. Immigrants with college degrees definitely add
to the GDP of their new home, typically estimated in
six figures cumulative per individual contribution.
Immigrants without college degree do place a drain on
the country, through depressed wages, because there's
parity (and since we haven't invested as much in our
educations here, we are not as competitive to outside
labor). Illegal immigrants cause a definite deficit,
albeit not so big as to threaten an entire economy -
but by creating an artificial competition they drive
wages down.
I am by all measures a liberal and very open to
immigration - I think we can't measure in dollars what
we get in new ideas, new energy, culture, art, food,
music - but for those who take a hard line look at the
return/impacts, it's worth taking the time to
understand the more complex story in the data.
The Democrats did a fine job of stomping out any enthusiasm by sabotaging
Bernie Sanders.
The DNC became a wholly owned subsidiary of Clinton Family Inc. starting
in about 2008. Control the rulemakers/money flow, and you can control who
the nominee is. At least that is the conventional thinking, and Clinton Inc.
is nothing if not conventional.
To buy the DNC, she chose to go to the Wall Street banksters, and others.
Essentially an "up front" bribe. No smoking gun needed to be created. They
knew what they were paying for, without it being said.
(I'm curious to see how many "donations" the Clinton Foundation receives,
now that she's been pushed out on an ice floe.)
They never anticipated a challenger who didn't need the DNC, or it's
cash.
They ignored the stats showing how many people wouldn't vote for Hillary
Clinton under any circumstance. Just call them racist/sexist/dumbazz hicks,
and call them "deplorables". Ask Mitt Romney how that worked out for him.
She lost an election to DONALD TRUMP. Even without the airwaves filled
with Republican attack ads. (Lack of RNC enthusiasm for Trump? Or a
recognition that Hillary's negatives couldn't be covered in a 30 second
commercial?).
If it wasn't for the Clinton's collective ego, and lust for power/money
(after all, we all now that in the current state of affairs, the moneyed
class drives policy), we'd all (well, all of us who don't live in the
rarefied air of the 1%ers/Banksters) be celebrating the upcoming
inauguration of President Sanders.
". Clinton raised $154 million in September for her campaign and the party.
And people "getting the resources they needed"? Seems odd."
smells like the allegations thrown at the Clinton Foundation--insiders
directing very generous contracts to other insiders. with competence or
efficacy secondary.
How Podesta may have caused Clinton to weaken her position on Wall Street.
New Wikileak shows he pushed her to show "love" for Obama rather than criticism
of BHO's handling of reform
The next day, an OpEd under the byline of Hillary Clinton appeared at
Bloomberg News. Obama's name was mentioned four separate times in a highly
favorable light. Clinton said Obama had signed into law "important new
rules" after the 2008 financial crash; she was going to "build on the
progress we've made under President Obama"; "thanks to President Obama's
leadership" the economy is now on "sounder footing"; and the Dodd-Frank
financial reform legislation that Obama signed into law had "made important
reforms, but there's more to do."
Since Bloomberg News is heavily read by people on Wall Street, this was a
signal to them that Hillary Clinton would leave the bulk of her husband's
cash cow deregulation in place by following in the footsteps of Obama. What
Obama's administration had done in 2010 was to create the illusion of
regulating Wall Street by proposing hundreds of vaguely worded rules in the
Dodd-Frank legislation, then putting crony Wall Street regulators in charge
at the SEC and U.S. Treasury to be sure the rules were never actually
implemented in any meaningful way. (Under Dodd-Frank, the U.S. Treasury
Secretary now sits atop a new financial stability body known as the
Financial Stability Oversight Council. The crony Federal Reserve, which
failed to see the crisis coming, was given enhanced supervisory powers over
the largest Wall Street bank holding companies.) Obama even ignored one of
his own rules in Dodd-Frank. It called for Obama to appoint a Vice Chairman
for Supervision at the Federal Reserve to police Wall Street.[…]
There is another telling fact in the email. Hillary Clinton seems to have
had very little to do with actually fashioning her policies. Another Clinton
adviser, Dan Schwerin, indicates that WJC (William Jefferson Clinton, i.e.
Bill Clinton) had edited the OpEd with "further refinements from policy
team," but there is no mention that Hillary Clinton was involved in her own
OpEd that would bear her byline.
So not just by Podesta but victimized by her philandering husband one last
time? Awhile back Pat Lang suggested it was really Bill who pushed her into
running. The impeach-ee needed his legacy redeemed.
Hillary Clinton seems to have had very little to do with actually
fashioning her policies.
This is a point that has irked me ever since I waded into the Podesta
emails - how even the smallest public statement or even just a Tweet
required numerous rounds of revisions, feedback, vetting and tweaking from
the Clinton insiders.
It seemed that Clinton rarely had a fire in the belly on any particular
position. It was whatever her team determined was the most politcally
advantageous at the moment.
Maybe this is how most presidential candidates function, but it made me
see Clinton as Presidential Robot Version 2016, programmed by her team to
simulate the appearance of a person with convictions.
I'm sure she has some real convictions and I'm sure she has done real
good in the world. But maybe Assange is right - she has been consumed by
power and greed and was seduced by the possibility of more.
In the wreckage of Hillary Clinton's unexpected loss, liberal lawmakers and advocacy groups have started plotting a major overhaul
of the Democratic National Committee, with the aim of using the staid organization to reconnect the party with working-class voters
it lost to President-elect Donald Trump.
Much of the talk since Tuesday's election has focused on selecting a new chairman, with the most frequently mentioned successor
being Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who backed the primary bid of Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.).
On Thursday afternoon, former Vermont governor Howard Dean (D) offered his service for a second tenure as DNC chairman, saying
on Twitter: "The dems need organization and focus on the the young. Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman
again."
Evil Incarnate1956
I think the Republicans should get down on their knees and give thanks to God for Barack Obama. I'm serious.
He did great at getting himself elected, and he had some coattails when he was on the ballot. When he wasn't on the ballot,
the Dems' election performance has been one unmitigated disaster after another- midterm epic-fails in 2010 and 2014, and Tuesday's
election the frosting on the cake.
Where is the Democrats' bench strength? Where is their future? Besides Barack Obama, the face of their party today is Hillary
Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Steny Hoyer.
Obama, by cramming Obamacare down people's throats against their will, and his executive order overreach, has taken a wrecking
ball to the Democrat Party.
I hope the Democrats will adopt a strategy to continue the trend.
NewbieWaDoobie
Neat trick.....if you were to take the overtones of the media at large and the messaging coming from the HRC camp you can easily
see why she lost the rust belt. I worked as a carpenter in South Bend, IN from about 2002-2008 and she was never going to win
those people without a MESSAGE....when did she ELEVATE AND STUMP HARD for income equality and the platform....NEVER!!!! It
was against her principles and the interests of the people who surrounded her and the DNC.....FOOLS!!!!!
Neoliberalism is DEAD....even the IMF, published a report on this back in June 2016....take a look at Glen Greenwald's piece
while you're at it.
The GOP has the White House, the Senate and the House, the 33 state Governerships and, for the next 30 years, the US Supreme Court
(once Trump picks the next 3 Justices).
By Daniel
Larison James Traub gamely
tries to convince us (and himself) that Clinton's foreign policy won't be as aggressive and meddlesome
as she says it will be, but he undermines his argument when he says this:
As a senator and later secretary of state, she rarely departed from the counsel of senior military
officials. She was far more persuaded of the merits of Gen. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal's
counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan, which would have sent an additional 40,000 troops there,
than Obama was and maybe even more than then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates was. She rarely departed
from Gates on any significant issue. Of course, the one time she did so was on Libya, where she
advocated intervention and he did not [bold mine-DL]. On Syria, Clinton may have to choose between
her own expressed commitments and a Pentagon that is far more cautious and more inclined to see
mishap than are civilian interventionists. I wonder how Kagan-esque she will be in the White House.
Less so, perhaps, than she was as secretary of state.
In other words, when military officers recommended a larger escalation, she agreed with them,
and when Gates didn't support intervention she didn't agree. Clinton was fine with advice from the
military when it meant supporting deeper involvement, but she broke with Gates when he didn't want
to take sides in a foreign war. That isn't a picture of someone who consistently heeds military advice,
but rather someone who always opts for the more aggressive option available at the time. It doesn't
make much sense that Clinton as president would be less "Kagan-esque" than she was as a member of
Obama's Cabinet. As president, she will have considerable leeway to do as she sees fit, Congress
will be pathetically quiescent as usual, and most of the foreign policy establishment will be encouraging
her to do more in Syria and elsewhere. Clinton will be predisposed to agree with what they urge her
to do, and in the last twenty years she has never seen a military intervention that she thought was
unnecessary or too risky. Why is that suddenly going to change when she has the power of the presidency?
In virtually every modern case, a new president ends up behaving more hawkishly than expected based
on campaign rhetoric. All of the pressures and incentives in Washington push a president towards
do-somethingism, and Clinton has typically been among the least resistant to the demand to "do something"
in response to crises and conflicts, so why would we think she would become more cautious once she
is in office? I can understand why many of her supporters wish that to be the case, but it flies
in the face of all the available evidence, including most of what we know about how Washington works.
Traub makes a number of predictions at the end of his article:
She will not make dumb mistakes. She will reassure every ally who needs reassurance. She will
try to mute China's adventurism in the South China Sea without provoking a storm of nationalism.
She'll probably disappoint the neocons. She won't go out on any limbs. She won't shake the policymaking
consensus.
I don't know where this confidence in Clinton's good judgment comes from, but it seems misplaced.
I suppose it depends on what you think smart foreign policy looks like, but there is a fair amount
of evidence from Clinton's own record that she is quite capable of making dumb mistakes.
That doesn't just apply to her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq and her backing for intervention
in Libya, but could also refer to her support for sending weapons to Ukraine, her endorsement of
"no-fly" and safe zones in Syria, her preference for more sanctions on Iran while negotiations were
still taking place, and her belief that the U.S. has to bomb another country to retain its "credibility."
All of these are mistakes, and some are quite dumb.
It isn't at all reassuring to know that Clinton will "reassure every ally who needs reassurance,"
because in practice that means indulging bad behavior from reckless clients and rewarding them with
more aid and weapons. Earlier in the article, Traub seems to understand that enabling the Saudis
is a bad idea:
This last policy, which for Clinton will come under the heading of "alliance management," would
only deepen the violence and sectarian strife rending the region. She would be better advised
to tell the Saudis that the United States will reduce its support of their war effort unless they
make serious efforts toward a lasting cease-fire.
That would certainly be wiser than offering uncritical backing of their intervention, but what
is the evidence that Clinton thinks U.S. support for the war on Yemen needs to be curtailed? Yemen
has been devastated in no small part because of Obama's willingness to "reassure" the Saudis and
their allies. What other countries will be made to suffer so Clinton can keep them happy? Clinton
may disappoint neocons, but then they are disappointed by anything short of preventive war. Even
if Clinton's foreign policy isn't aggressive enough to satisfy them, it is likely to be far more
aggressive than necessary.
"... It is shockingly disappointing that MOA, this otherwise intelligent incisive, a deeply intellectual and factual blog's readership exhibit a trait common to overall American anti-intellectual sheeple constituency as Gore Vidal posited decades ago, having no shame expressing their utter confusion and ignorance about one fundamental fact of reality they are facing. ..."
"... Those political puppets, stooges of oligarchy are no alternatives to the calcified imperial system itself, they never have been and they never will. They are new/old faces of the same old 240 y.o. Anglo-American imperial regime based on ancient and modern slavery and they already declared it by submitting to it via pledging to run in this farcical rigged electoral fallacy. ..."
It is shockingly disappointing that MOA, this otherwise intelligent incisive, a deeply intellectual
and factual blog's readership exhibit a trait common to overall American anti-intellectual sheeple
constituency as Gore Vidal posited decades ago, having no shame expressing their utter confusion
and ignorance about one fundamental fact of reality they are facing.
THE FACT: The US elections are a staged political farce with NO MATERIAL IMPACT on the US imperial
policies, domestic or international WHATSOEVER. And that's the fact based on rock solid empirical
evidences also MOA proliferates that only a mental patient can deny.
SO WHAT THE F.U.CK ALL OF YOU PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT? "Voting" for this or that? NONSENSE;
Those political puppets, stooges of oligarchy are no alternatives to the calcified imperial
system itself, they never have been and they never will. They are new/old faces of the same old
240 y.o. Anglo-American imperial regime based on ancient and modern slavery and they already declared
it by submitting to it via pledging to run in this farcical rigged electoral fallacy.
All at the end will openly pledge unwavering support for the regime and their rotten deeply
corrupted parties while abandoning their gullible voters.
Supporters of any of these plastic puppets of oligarchy not unlike a cargo cult, are impatient,
nervous, excited and scared sitting and waiting before an impregnable curtain of political deceit,
lies and manipulation by the ruling elite in front of their wide shut eyes , turning to magic,
superstition, appeasement, making up stories, poems out of their incoherent utterances filed with
tautologies, innuendos and absurd, begging for mercy or praying for a caprice of good will to
save them ultimately in a form of fake, meaningless political turds passing as empty "political"
platform promises while blatantly abandoning their unalienable rights to independence, self-determination
and democratic system of people's rule, based on equality in the law, and one voter one vote principle,
for a role of a meddlesome spectators to their own execution.
THE FACT: The democratic electoral system worth participating does not exist in the US but
none of the candidates would utter this truth as long as they can benefit from the fraud and that
includes third parties. If this was a true change or revolution, that we desperately need, honest
leaders would not run their campaign within the corrupted system set up by and for two oligarchic
parties but they would decry and utterly reject it.
Think people, all the so-called candidates even third party candidates are just nibbling on
the behemoth of abhorrent and brutal US imperial power mostly with utterances that they never
intended to follow if they wanted to survive terror of the US security apparatus, while peddling
the lies about small incremental changes and stealing ours and our children future by asking us
to wait, be patient, and begging ruling elite for mercy and may be for some crumbs from an oligarchs'
table after they are not able to gorge themselves anymore with our blood sweat and tears.
Unfortunately, this time as well, millions of irrational, desperate and helpless in their daily
lives electoral zombies such as those, under a spell of exciting political masquerade, regrettably
also on this blog, will be aligning themselves with one or the other anointed by establishment
winner [whoever it will be] of a meaningless popularity/beauty contest, in a delusional feat of
transference of a fraction of elite's power to themselves just for a second of a thrill of illusion
of power, illusion of feelings that something depends on me, that I can make a difference, a delusion
of holding skies from falling and by that saving the world common among paranoid mental patients.
And they will continue to authorize their own suicide mission, since even baseless, continually
disproved hope of Sisyphus, of any chance of influencing of the political realm via means of begging
is the last thing that dies.
THE LOUD POLITICAL BOYCOTT OF THIS FARCE, UTTER REJECTION OF THIS FACADE OF DEMOCRATIC CHOICE,
REJECTION OF ANY POLITICAL LEGITIMACY OF THIS SORRY SPECTACLE IS THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE AVAILABLE
TO ANY DECENT PERSON, INDEPENDENT, SOVEREIGN CITIZEN WHO TAKES A MORAL STAND REJECTING ENSLAVEMENT
RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW.
THE REST WILL JUST PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THEIR OWN CHAINS.
"... I think Mormons are ticked over Romney losing in 2012 and blame Evangelicals ask when there was fear Evangelicals wouldn't vote for a Mormon. Romney did as well as a non Mormon robber baron would have done in 2012. Trump trashing Romney annoyed Mormons who probably aren't going to get another shot at the Oval Office any time soon. ..."
"... the Romney, Will, Kristol, McCain, Graham, Paulson, Blankfein NEVER TRUMP brigades are up to their sleazy behinds in the Clinton Foundation FRAUD. ..."
"... The Foundation is under very very strict rules but has ignored all of them, putting all their contributors at risk. If Trump wins – a grand jury will have all the necessary ammunition to bring down a whole lot of people, here and abroad. ..."
Shouldn't Utah be considered a swing state in 2016? Some Mormons are unhappy with aspects of
Trump's behavior, and wild card McMullin is a member of the LDS church.
Nate Silver's site gives Trump an overwhelming advantage in Utah, but I still think that surprises
are possible. See this article (which admittedly also shows a significant polling advantage for
Trump):
An Emerson College poll released on November 3 shows him at 28 percent to Trump's 40 percent
and Clinton's 20 percent.
Jason Perry, the director of Utah's bipartisan Hinckley Institute, says there is a large
percentage of voters who do not even know who McMullin is, "but they know who he is not. He's
not Trump, and he's not Hillary".
With 67 percent of Utah voters viewing Trump unfavourably according to a Monmouth University
poll, voting for the Republican candidate does not appear to sit well with Utah's value-minded
voters.
…
Becky Rasmussen, 37, of Highland City, is one such voter who could not see herself voting for
Trump, in part because of her Mormon faith.
While she also sees Clinton as unfit for the presidency, Trump, she says, is "completely
morally bankrupt …You see framed in his office him on the cover of Playboy Magazine".
…
But Porter Goodman, 28, from Provo – who believes that voting for McMullin "is the only way
to not throw away your vote" – says it is not his Mormon beliefs that cause him to view Trump
as having a "lack of morality".
"I say he lacks morality because he lies and because he abuses other people with his words
and actions," Goodman says. "Savour the magnificent irony of Trump supporters who say, 'Yeah,
Trump may be a pathological liar, but set that aside and focus on the great things he says
he'll do as president."
I think Mormons are ticked over Romney losing in 2012 and blame Evangelicals ask when there
was fear Evangelicals wouldn't vote for a Mormon. Romney did as well as a non Mormon robber baron
would have done in 2012. Trump trashing Romney annoyed Mormons who probably aren't going to get
another shot at the Oval Office any time soon.
Nate doesn't do a why or how of trends and just focuses on raw numbers based on previous polls.
It's why he never landed a baseball job when other Stat geeks did. If there was an usual trend
in Utah, Nate would miss it.
The key issue is are Mormons "Republicans" or "conservative" when they describe themselves.
If their identity is "conservative," I could see them not voting for Trump. If being a "Republican"
matters, they will vote. They voted for McCain, and the fundies hated that guy.
the Romney, Will, Kristol, McCain, Graham, Paulson, Blankfein NEVER TRUMP brigades are up to
their sleazy behinds in the Clinton Foundation FRAUD.
The Foundation is under very very strict rules but has ignored all of them, putting all their
contributors at risk. If Trump wins – a grand jury will have all the necessary ammunition to bring
down a whole lot of people, here and abroad.
It's the great untold story of this election. IT's also the spit and glue that holds the Clinton
coalition of media, government, Wall St, Dems and Goper royalty together in this fight to the
death to keep a "friendly" administration in DC. This is kill or be killed time.
"... "Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent to which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected white men." ... ..."
"... poor pk a leader of the Stalinist press ..."
"... the surprising success of Bernie Sanders -- a Brooklyn-born, Jewish socialist -- in the primaries is solid proof that the electorate was open to a coherent argument for genuine progressive change, and that a substantial portion of that electorate is not acting on purely racist and sexist impulses, as so many progressive commentators say. ..."
"... "I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine. I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine." That assumes you're about 85 years old...and don't have long to live! ..."
"... Laid out by whom? By the commercial "media" hype machine that has 12-16 hours of airtime to fill every day with the as sensationalized as possible gossip (to justify the price for the paid advertisements filling the remaining hours). ..."
"... Killary Clinton got no closer than Ann Arbor this weekend, a message! ..."
"... Mr. Krugman forgot to list the collusion of the DNC and the Clinton campaign to work against Sanders. ..."
"... putting crooked in the same sentence as Clinton or DNC is duplicative wording. This mortification is brought to US by the crooked and the stalinist press that calls crooked virtue. ..."
"... Krugman did so much to help create the mass of white working class discontent that is electing Trump. Krugman and co cheering on NAFTA/PNTR/WTO etc, US deindustrialization, collapse of middle class... ..."
"... Hopefully the working class masses will convince our rulers to abandon free trade before every last factory is sold off or dismantled and the US falls to the depths of a Chad or an Armenia. ..."
The Truth About the Sanders Movement
By Paul Krugman
In short, it's complicated – not all bad, by any means, but not the pure uprising of idealists
the more enthusiastic supporters imagine.
The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels have an illuminating discussion
of Sanders support. The key graf that will probably have Berniebros boiling is this:
"Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to
anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent
to which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected
white men." ...
[ Yes, I do find defaming people by speculation or stereotype to be beyond saddening. ]
The fact that Obama either won, or did so much better than Hillary appears to be doing with, the
white working-class vote in so many key battleground states, as well as the surprising success
of Bernie Sanders -- a Brooklyn-born, Jewish socialist -- in the primaries is solid proof that
the electorate was open to a coherent argument for genuine progressive change, and that a substantial
portion of that electorate is not acting on purely racist and sexist impulses, as so many progressive
commentators say.
And her opponent was/is incapable of debating on substance, as there was/is neither coherence
nor consistency in any part of his platform -- nor that of his party....
Question is, will Krugman be able to move on after the election...and talk about something useful?
Like how to get Hillary to recognize and deal with inequality...
Barbara Ehrenreich: "Forget fear and loathing. The US election inspires projectile vomiting. The
most sordid side of our democracy has been laid out for all to see. But that's only the beginning:
whoever wins, the mutual revulsion will only intensify... With either Clinton or Trump, we will
be left to choke on our mutual revulsion."
"I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine. I will live my life calmly
and my children will be just fine." That assumes you're about 85 years old...and don't have long
to live!
Laid out by whom? By the commercial "media" hype machine that has 12-16 hours of airtime to
fill every day with the as sensationalized as possible gossip (to justify the price for the paid
advertisements filling the remaining hours).
Something interesting today.... President Obama came to Michigan. I fully expected him to speak
in Detroit with a get out the vote message. Instead he is in Ann Arbor, speaking to an overwhelmingly
white and white-collar audience. On a related note, the Dems have apparently written off
the white blue collar vote in Michigan, even much of the union vote. the union leaders are pro
Clinton, but the workers not so much. Strange year.
The real danger of serious election-rigging: electronic voting machines. How do we know the machine
*really* recorded everyone's votes correctly? (Did any Florida county ever give Al Gore negative
something votes?)
That's a big subject but you are right, that is the biggest risk of significant fraud. Not just
the voting machines, but the automatic counting systems. Other forms of possible election fraud
are tiny by comparison.
Here is the transcript from 60 Minutes about the Luntz focus group rancor. Instructive to read
about the depth of feeling in case you didn't see the angry, disgusted faces of citizens.
putting crooked in the same sentence as Clinton or DNC is duplicative wording. This mortification
is brought to US by the crooked and the stalinist press that calls crooked virtue.
Before the 1970s the US was both rich and protectionist - no look at our horrible roads and hopeless
people - the miracle of free trade! : ,
November 07, 2016 at 07:13 PM
Krugman did so much to help create the mass of white working class discontent that is electing
Trump. Krugman and co cheering on NAFTA/PNTR/WTO etc, US deindustrialization, collapse of
middle class...
Hopefully the working class masses will convince our rulers to abandon free trade before
every last factory is sold off or dismantled and the US falls to the depths of a Chad or an Armenia.
"... We don't want World War 3 with Russia. We want our factories and jobs back, we would like to spend $1 trillion a year on infrastructure instead of blowing up yet another Middle Eastern nation. ..."
"... Fuck Hillary, Fuck the neolibcons, Fuck al-CIAda, Fuck the fascist banksters who eat our children for breakfast. ..."
"... Vote Trump in swing states. Vote Jill everywhere else. ..."
The heartland of the US is RED, solid RED.
The neolibcons are printing up their Newsweek mags with Madam President on the cover.
They don't have a clue about how pissed off the people in the "flyover states" are.
Fuck their rigged polls and lying news.
Sure Trump is behind or neck-and-neck . . . Just like we have 5% unemployment.
As long as you don't count the 1/3 of working age people who DON"T HAVE A JOB.
The deplorables can think of 650,000 reasons why Hillary should be in PRISON, even if the FBI
can't.
We don't want World War 3 with Russia. We want our factories and jobs back, we would like
to spend $1 trillion a year on infrastructure instead of blowing up yet another Middle Eastern
nation.
Fuck Hillary, Fuck the neolibcons, Fuck al-CIAda, Fuck the fascist banksters who eat our
children for breakfast.
Do not blow shit up, like the political system, without a clear idea where the pieces will
land and how you will put them back together. Crisis would benefit the right, not the left, given
the current correlation of class and political forces.
The best result. sadly, would be a resounding win for Mrs. Clinton. As the comment at 11 shows,
anything less than a crushing defeat will enable the alt-right and embolden the most reactionary
and nativist elements in society.
The notion that worsening conditions will automatically produce progressive revolution is a
pipe-dream. Beaten-down folks struggling to survive don't have the time or energy to organize.
Vote your conscience, your hopes. Takingg the long view, I am again voting, as I have for years,
for the Socialist Workers Party.
"... What America objects to in Russia is that Americans couldn't buy control of their oil, couldn't buy control of their natural resources, couldn't buy control of their public utilities and charge economic rents and continue to make Russia the largest stock market boom in the world as it was from 1994 through 1998 when there was the crisis. ..."
"... So the conflict is not one of economic systems. It's simply that America wants to control other countries and keep other countries within the dollar orbit. And what that means is that if the whole world saves in the form of dollars, that means saving by buying Treasury bonds. ..."
"... And other countries are trying to withdraw from this and America says, "Well, we can smash you." ..."
"... There really is no alternative, and that's the objective of control: to create a society in which there is no choice. That's what a free market [myth] is really all about: preventing any choice by the people except what the government gives them. ..."
"... has the illusion of choice in choosing either between which is the lesser evil. They get to vote for the lesser evil when it's all really the same process. ..."
> Ashcroft: What sort of president then will Hillary Clinton be?
> Hudson: A dictator. She… a vindictive dictator, punishing her enemies, appointing neocons in the secretary
of state, in the defense department, appointing Wall Street people in the Treasury and the Federal Reserve,
and the class war will really break out very explicitly. And she'll-as Warren Buffet said, there is
a class war and we're winning it.
> Ashcroft: As in the one percent are winning it.
> Hudson: The one percent are winning it. And she will try to use the rhetoric to tell people: "Nothing
to see here folks. Keep on moving," while the economy goes down and down and she cashes in as she's
been doing all along, richer and richer, and if she's president, there will not be an investigator of
the criminal conflict of interest of the Bill Clinton Foundation, of pay-to-play. You'll have a presidency
in which corporations who pay the Clintons will be able to set policy. Whoever has the money to buy
the politicians will buy control of policy because elections have been privatized and made part of the
market economy in the United States. That's what the Citizens United Supreme Court case was all about.
> Hudson: Well, after 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up, it really went neoliberal. And Putin is basically
a neoliberal. So there's not a clash of economic systems as there was between capitalism and communism.
What America objects to in Russia is that Americans couldn't buy control of their oil, couldn't buy
control of their natural resources, couldn't buy control of their public utilities and charge economic
rents and continue to make Russia the largest stock market boom in the world as it was from 1994 through
1998 when there was the crisis.
So the conflict is not one of economic systems. It's simply that America
wants to control other countries and keep other countries within the dollar orbit. And what that means
is that if the whole world saves in the form of dollars, that means saving by buying Treasury bonds.
And that means lending all of the balance-of-payments surplus that Russia or China or other countries
look at, by lending it to the U.S. Treasury, which will use that money to militarily encircle these
countries and threaten to do to any country that seeks to withdraw from the dollar system exactly what
they did to Iraq or Libya or Afghanistan, or now Syria.
And other countries are trying to withdraw from
this and America says, "Well, we can smash you." No country's going to invade any other country. There's
not going to be a military draft in any country 'cause the students; the population would rise up. Nobody's
going to invade, and you can't control or occupy a country if you don't have an army. So the only thing
that America can do-or any country can do militarily-is drop bombs.
And that's sort of the equivalent
of, just like the European Central Bank told Greece, "We'll close down your banks and the ATM machines
will be empty," America will say, "Well, we'll bomb you, make you look like Syria and Libya if you don't
turn over your oil, your pipelines, your utilities to American buyers so we can charge rents; we can
be the absentee landlords. We can conquer the world financially instead of militarily. We don't need
an army; we can use finance. And the threat of military warfare and bombing you to achieve things."
Other countries are trying to stay free of the mad bomber, and it's all about who's going to control
the world's natural resources: water, real estate, utilities-not a question of economic systems so much
anymore.
> Well, President Obama, even though he's a tool of Wall Street, at least he says, "It's not worth blowing
up the world to fight in the near east." Hillary says, "It is worth pushing the world back to the Stone
Age if they don't let us and me, Hillary, tell the world how to behave." That's a danger of the world
and that's why the Europeans should be terrified of a Hillary presidency and terrified of the direction
that America is doing, saying, "We want to control the world." It's not control the world through a
different economic philosophy. It's to control the world through ownership of their land, natural resources
and essentially, governments and monetary systems. That's really what it's all about. And the popular
press is not doing a good job of explaining that context, but I can assure you, that's what they're
talking about in Russia, China and South America.
> There really is no alternative, and that's the objective of control: to create a society in which
there is no choice. That's what a free market [myth] is really all about: preventing any choice by the people
except what the government gives them. That's what the Austrian school was all about in the 1920s, waging
war and assassination against the labor leaders and the socialists in Vienna, and that's what the free
marketers in Chile were all about in the mass assassinations of labor leaders, university professors,
intellectuals, and that's exactly the situation in America today without the machine guns, because the
population doesn't really feel that it has any alternative, but has the illusion of choice in choosing
either between which is the lesser evil. They get to vote for the lesser evil when it's all really the
same process.
"... The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists, which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young girls screaming while racing down the street in flames. ..."
"... Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable level of detachment. ..."
"... They both share to an extent the dominant New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody, but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it." ..."
"... Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what they would do to employ our military power. ..."
"... She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus directed against Russia. ..."
"... Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president, recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. ..."
"... Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power vacuum that will benefit the latter. ..."
"... Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran, which has been fighting ISIS. ..."
"... One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. ..."
"... Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do. ..."
"... She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles. ..."
The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on
multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile
military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely
of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists,
which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the
rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of
Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young
girls screaming while racing down the street in flames.
Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither
of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable
level of detachment. Hillary is notorious for her assessment of the brutal killing of Libya's
Moammar Gaddafi, saying "We came, we saw, he died." They both share to an extent the dominant
New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody,
but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers,
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi
children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it."
In the election campaign there has, in fact, been little discussion of the issue of war and peace
or even of America's place in the world, though Trump did at one point note correctly that implementation
of Hillary's suggested foreign policy could escalate into World War III. It has been my contention
that the issue of war should be more front and center in the minds of Americans when they cast their
ballots as the prospect of an armed conflict in which little is actually at stake escalating and
going nuclear could conceivably end life on this planet as we know it.
With that in mind, it is useful to consider what the two candidates have been promising. First,
Hillary, who might reasonably be designated the Establishment's war candidate though she carefully
wraps it in humanitarian "liberal interventionism." As Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
has always viewed a foreign crisis as an opportunity to use aggressive measures to seek a resolution.
She can always be relied upon to "do something," a reflection of the neocon driven Washington foreign
policy consensus.
Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally
and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what
they would do to employ our military power.
She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus
directed against Russia. And, unfortunately, there would be little or no pushback against the
exercise of her admittedly poor instincts regarding what to do, as was demonstrated regarding Libya
and also with Benghazi. She would find little opposition in Congress and the media for an extremely
risky foreign policy, and would benefit from the Washington groupthink that prevails over the alleged
threats emanating from Russia, Iran, and China.
Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly
Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric
Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president,
recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. I think it's coming.
It's going to be maritime confrontation and if it doesn't happen immediately, I'll bet you a dollar
it's going to be happening after the presidential election, whoever is elected."
Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in
that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no
way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power
vacuum that will benefit the latter. She has also called for a no-fly zone in Syria to protect
the local population as well as the insurgent groups that the U.S. supports, some of which had been
labeled as terrorists before they were renamed by current Secretary of State John Kerry. Such a zone
would dramatically raise the prospect of armed conflict with Russia and it puts Washington in an
odd position vis-à-vis what is occurring in Syria. The U.S. is not at war with the Syrian government,
which, like it or not, is under international law sovereign within its own recognized borders. Damascus
has invited the Russians in to help against the rebels and objects to any other foreign presence
on Syrian territory. In spite of all that, Washington is asserting some kind of authority to intervene
and to confront the Russians as both a humanitarian mission and as an "inherent right of self-defense."
Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which
have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran,
which has been fighting ISIS. As a Senator, she threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran but
she has more recently reluctantly supported the recent nuclear agreement with that country negotiated
by President Barack Obama. But she has nevertheless warned that she will monitor the situation closely
for possible violations and will otherwise pushback against activity by the Islamic Republic. As
one of her key financial supporters is Israeli Haim Saban, who has said he is a one issue guy and
that issue is Israel, she is likely to pursue aggressive policies in the Persian Gulf. She has also
promised to move America's relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a "new level" and
has repeatedly declared that her support for Israel is unconditional.
One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions
on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed
to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. Washington is not at war with either Iran or Yemen
and the Houthis are not on the State Department terrorist list but our good friends the Saudis have
been assiduously bombing them for reasons that seem obscure. Stopping ships in international waters
without any legal pretext would be considered by many an act of piracy. Morell has also called for
covertly assassinating Iranians and Russians to express our displeasure with the foreign policies
of their respective governments.
Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated
arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO,
which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views
expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional
coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED
has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do.
After making a number of bumper-sticker claims about Russia and Putin that are either partially
true, unproven or even ridiculous, Gershman concluded that "the United States has the power to contain
and defeat this danger. The issue is whether we can summon the will to do so." It is basically a
call for the next administration to remove Putin from power-as foolish a suggestion as has ever been
seen in a leading newspaper, as it implies that the risk of nuclear war is completely acceptable
to bring about regime change in a country whose very popular, democratically elected leadership we
disapprove of. But it is nevertheless symptomatic of the kind of thinking that goes on inside the
beltway and is quite possibly a position that Hillary Clinton will embrace. She also benefits from
having the perfect implementer of such a policy in Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland, her extremely
dangerous protégé who is currently Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
and who might wind up as Secretary of State in a Clinton Administration.
Shifting to East Asia, Hillary sees the admittedly genuine threat from North Korea but her response
is focused more on China. She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to
deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with
defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure
North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think
about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles.
Trump's foreign policy is admittedly quite sketchy and he has not always been consistent. He has
been appropriately enough slammed for being simple minded in saying that he would "bomb the crap
out of ISIS," but he has also taken on the Republican establishment by specifically condemning the
George W. Bush invasion of Iraq and has more than once indicated that he is not interested in either
being the world's policeman or in new wars in the Middle East. He has repeatedly stated that he supports
NATO but it should not be construed as hostile to Russia. He would work with Putin to address concerns
over Syria and Eastern Europe. He would demand that NATO countries spend more for their own defense
and also help pay for the maintenance of U.S. bases.
Trump's controversial call to stop all Muslim immigration has been rightly condemned but it contains
a kernel of truth in that the current process for vetting new arrivals in this country is far from
transparent and apparently not very effective. The Obama Administration has not been very forthcoming
on what might be done to fix the entire immigration process but Trump is promising to shake things
up, which is overdue, though what exactly a Trump Administration would try to accomplish is far from
clear.
Continuing on the negative side, Trump, who is largely ignorant of the world and its leaders,
has relied on a mixed bag of advisors. Former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Michael
Flynn appears to be the most prominent. Flynn is associated with arch neocon Michael Ledeen and both
are rabid about Iran, with Flynn suggesting that nearly all the unrest in the Middle East should
be laid at Tehran's door. Ledeen is, of course, a prominent Israel-firster who has long had Iran
in his sights. The advice of Ledeen and Flynn may have been instrumental in Trump's vehement denunciation
of the Iran nuclear agreement, which he has called a "disgrace," which he has said he would "tear
up." It is vintage dumb-think. The agreement cannot be canceled because there are five other signatories
to it and the denial of a nuclear weapons program to Tehran benefits everyone in the region, including
Israel. It is far better to have the agreement than to scrap it, if that were even possible.
Trump has said that he would be an even-handed negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians
but he has also declared that he is strongly pro-Israel and would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem,
which is a bad idea, not in America's interest, even if Netanyahu would like it. It would produce
serious blowback from the Arab world and would inspire a new wave of terrorism directed against the
U.S.
Regarding the rest of the Middle East, Trump would prefer strong leaders, i.e. autocrats, who
are friendly rather than chaotic reformers. He rejects arming rebels as in Syria because we know
little about whom we are dealing with and find that we cannot control what develops. He is against
foreign aid in principle, particularly to countries like Pakistan where the U.S. is strongly disliked.
In East Asia, Trump would encourage Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals
to deter North Korea. It is a very bad idea, a proliferation nightmare. Like Hillary, he would prefer
that China intervene in North Korea and make Kim Jong Un "step down." He would put pressure on China
to devalue its currency because it is "bilking us of billions of dollars" and would also increase
U.S. military presence in the region to limit Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea.
So there you have it as you enter the voting booth. President Obama is going around warning that
"the fate of the world is teetering" over the electoral verdict, which he intends to be a ringing
endorsement of Hillary even though the choice is not nearly that clear cut. Part of the problem with
Trump is that he has some very bad ideas mixed in with a few good ones and no one knows what he would
actually do if he were president. Unfortunately, it is all too clear what Hillary would do.
> Ashcroft: What sort of president then will Hillary Clinton be?
> Hudson: A dictator. She… a vindictive dictator, punishing her enemies, appointing neocons in the secretary
of state, in the defense department, appointing Wall Street people in the Treasury and the Federal Reserve,
and the class war will really break out very explicitly. And she'll-as Warren Buffet said, there is
a class war and we're winning it.
> Ashcroft: As in the one percent are winning it.
> Hudson: The one percent are winning it. And she will try to use the rhetoric to tell people: "Nothing
to see here folks. Keep on moving," while the economy goes down and down and she cashes in as she's
been doing all along, richer and richer, and if she's president, there will not be an investigator of
the criminal conflict of interest of the Bill Clinton Foundation, of pay-to-play. You'll have a presidency
in which corporations who pay the Clintons will be able to set policy. Whoever has the money to buy
the politicians will buy control of policy because elections have been privatized and made part of the
market economy in the United States. That's what the Citizens United Supreme Court case was all about.
"... Bush I and II, Mitt Romney, the neocons and the GOP commentariat all denounced Trump as morally and temperamentally unfit. Yet, seven of eight Republicans are voting for Trump, and he drew the largest and most enthusiastic crowds of any GOP nominee. ..."
"... How could the Republican establishment advance anew the trade and immigration policies that their base has so thunderously rejected? ..."
"... Do mainstream Republicans think that should Trump lose a Bush Restoration lies ahead? The dynasty is as dead as the Romanovs. ..."
"... The media, whose reputation has sunk to Congressional depths, has also suffered a blow to its credibility. ..."
"... Its hatred of Trump has been almost manic, and WikiLeaks revelations of the collusion between major media and Clintonites have convinced skeptics that the system is rigged and the referees of democracy are in the tank. ..."
"... But it is the national establishment that has suffered most. The Trump candidacy exposed what seems an unbridgeable gulf between this political class and the nation in whose name it purports to speak. ..."
"... Middle America believes the establishment is not looking out for the nation but for retention of its power. And in attacking Trump it is not upholding some objective moral standard but seeking to destroy a leader who represents a grave threat to that power. ..."
"... Moreover, they see the establishment as the quintessence of hypocrisy. Trump is instructed to stop using such toxic phrases as "America First" and "Make America Great Again" by elites... ..."
"... While a Trump victory would create the possibility of a coalition of conservatives, populists, patriots and nationalists governing America, should he lose, America's future appears disunited and grim. ..."
Herewith, a dissent. Whatever happens Tuesday, Trump has made history and has forever changed American
politics.
Though a novice in politics, he captured the Party of Lincoln with the largest turnout
of primary voters ever, and he has inflicted wounds on the nation's ruling class from which it may
not soon recover.
Bush I and II, Mitt Romney, the neocons and the GOP commentariat all denounced Trump as morally
and temperamentally unfit. Yet, seven of eight Republicans are voting for Trump, and he drew the
largest and most enthusiastic crowds of any GOP nominee.
Not only did he rout the Republican elites, he ash-canned their agenda and repudiated the wars
into which they plunged the country.
Trump did not create the forces that propelled his candidacy. But he recognized them, tapped into
them, and unleashed a gusher of nationalism and populism that will not soon dissipate.
Whatever happens Tuesday, there is no going back now.
How could the Republican establishment advance anew the trade and immigration policies that
their base has so thunderously rejected?
How can the GOP establishment credibly claim to speak for a party that spent the last year cheering
a candidate who repudiated the last two Republican presidents and the last two Republican nominees?
Do mainstream Republicans think that should Trump lose a Bush Restoration lies ahead? The
dynasty is as dead as the Romanovs.
The media, whose reputation has sunk to Congressional depths, has also suffered a blow to
its credibility.
Its hatred of Trump has been almost manic, and WikiLeaks revelations of the collusion between
major media and Clintonites have convinced skeptics that the system is rigged and the referees of
democracy are in the tank.
But it is the national establishment that has suffered most. The Trump candidacy exposed what
seems an unbridgeable gulf between this political class and the nation in whose name it purports
to speak.
Consider the litany of horrors it has charged Trump with.
He said John McCain was no hero, that some Mexican illegals are "rapists." He mocked a handicapped
reporter. He called some women "pigs." He wants a temporary ban to Muslim immigration. He fought
with a Gold Star mother and father. He once engaged in "fat-shaming" a Miss Universe, calling her
"Miss Piggy," and telling her to stay out of Burger King. He allegedly made crude advances on a dozen
women and starred in the "Access Hollywood" tape with Billy Bush.
While such "gaffes" are normally fatal for candidates, Trump's followers stood by him through
them all.
Why? asks an alarmed establishment. Why, in spite of all this, did Trump's support endure? Why
did the American people not react as they once would have? Why do these accusations not have the
bite they once did?
Answer. We are another country now, an us-or-them country.
Middle America believes the establishment is not looking out for the nation but for retention
of its power. And in attacking Trump it is not upholding some objective moral standard but seeking
to destroy a leader who represents a grave threat to that power.
Trump's followers see an American Spring as crucial, and they are not going to let past boorish
behavior cause them to abandon the last best chance to preserve the country they grew up in.
These are the Middle American Radicals, the MARs of whom my late friend Sam Francis wrote.
They recoil from the future the elites have mapped out for them and, realizing the stakes, will
overlook the faults and failings of a candidate who holds out the real promise of avoiding that future.
They believe Trump alone will secure the borders and rid us of a trade regime that has led to
the loss of 70,000 factories and 5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. They believe Trump is
the best hope for keeping us out of the wars the Beltway think tanks are already planning for the
sons of the "deplorables" to fight.
Moreover, they see the establishment as the quintessence of hypocrisy. Trump is instructed
to stop using such toxic phrases as "America First" and "Make America Great Again" by elites...
... ... ...
While a Trump victory would create the possibility of a coalition of conservatives, populists,
patriots and nationalists governing America, should he lose, America's future appears disunited and
grim.
But, would the followers of Donald Trump, whom Hillary Clinton has called "racist, sexist, homophobic,
xenophobic, Islamophobic … bigots," to the cheers of her media retainers, unite behind her should
she win?
No. Win or lose, as Sen. Edward Kennedy said at the Democratic Convention of 1980, "The work goes
on, the cause endures."
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon
Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority."
Tuesday on Fox News Channel, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump offered
his thoughts on how the campaign proceeded as Election Day has finally come.
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One of his criticisms was how the polls had been handled, which he called in
some cases "phony" and "purposefully wrong."
Partial transcript as follows:
DOOCY: A couple of weeks ago you know it was revealed that part of Hillary
Clinton's game plan was to try, you know, to talk up the polls and make it seem
like the show's over, no way you can win. Then of course the polls for the most
part right now are too close to call. Ultimately though do you think the polls
that we've seen over the last week or two, going back, are wrong because the
pollsters are not factoring in how many Democrats are going to be voting for
you?
You know all this early voting stuff, they say well this many Democrats
requested ballots, this many Republicans. And also just the gigantic number of
Republicans who have turned out to see you, the enthusiasm level. Do you think
those things the pollsters are getting wrong?
TRUMP:
I do think a lot of the polls are purposefully wrong. I think I
can almost tell you by the people that do it. The media is very dishonest,
extremely dishonest. And I think a lot of the polls are phony. I don't even
think they interview people.
DOOCY: Right.
TRUMP:
I think they just put out phony numbers. I do think this, after
the debates, I think my numbers really started to go up well. And then I did a
series over the last two weeks, only of you know, really important speeches I
think. 20,000, 25,000 people, 31,000 people were showing up to these speeches.
You saw yesterday, you saw the kind of crowds we're getting. I said
something's happening here. Something incredible is happening here. And tell
you the enthusiasm and the love in those rooms, in those arenas, they're really
arenas, I mean in New Hampshire last night it was a tremendous arena, beautiful
arena. And same thing, we had a big convention center last night in Michigan.
But they're packed. I mean we have thousands of people.
DOOCY: Right.
TRUMP: We had last night in Michigan we had 10,000 people outside that
couldn't get in.
DOOCY: Wow.
EARHARDT: Wow.
TRUMP: 10,000 people. It's been amazing. So I said something's happening.
Something's really going on.
After all, Clinton is not going to make it into the Oval Office unless she can secure the votes of
those who backed the far-more progressive Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.
Clinton's camp have wielded various sticks to beat these voters into submission. Not least they
have claimed that a refusal to vote for Clinton is an indication of one's
misogyny . But it has not been an easy task. Actor Susan Sarandon, for example, has
stated that she is not going to "vote with my vagina". As she notes, if the issue is simply about
proving one is not anti-women, there is a much worthier candidate for president who also happens
to be female: Jill Stein, of the Green Party.
Sarandon, who supported Sanders in the primaries, spoke for a vast swath of voters excluded by
the two-party system when she told BBC Newsnight:
I am worried about the wars, I am worried about Syria, I am worried about all of these things
that actually exist. TTP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] and I'm worried about fracking. I'm worrying
about the environment. No matter who gets in they don't address these things because money has
taken over our system.
Given that both Donald Trump and Clinton represent big money – and big money only – Clinton's
supporters have been forced to find another stick. And that has been the "lesser evil" argument.
Clinton may be bad, but Trump would be far worse. Voting for a non-evil candidate like Jill Stein
– who has no hope of winning – would split the progressive camp and ensure Trump, the more evil candidate,
triumphs. Therefore, there is a moral obligation on progressive voters to back Clinton, however bad
her track record as a senator and as secretary of state.
There is nothing new about this argument. It had been around for decades, and has been corralling
progressives into voting for Democratic presidents who have still advanced US neoconservative policy
goals abroad and neoliberal ones at home.
America's pseudo-democracy
So is it true that Clinton is the lesser-evil candidate? To answer that question, we need to examine
those "policy differences" with Trump.
On the negative side, Trump's platform poses a genuine threat to civil liberties. His bigoted,
"blame the immigrants" style of politics will harm many families in the US in very tangible ways.
Even if the inertia of the political system reins in his worst excesses, as is almost certain, his
inflammatory rhetoric is sure to damage the façade of democratic discourse in the US – a development
not to be dismissed lightly. Americans may be living in a pseudo-democracy, one run more like a plutocracy,
but destroying the politics of respect, and civil discourse, could quickly result in the normalisation
of political violence and intimidation.
On the plus side, Trump is an isolationist, with little appetite for foreign entanglements. Again,
the Washington policy elites may force him to engage abroad in ways he would prefer not to, but his
instincts to limit the projection of US military power on the international stage are likely to be
an overall good for the world's population outside the US. Any diminishment of US imperialism is
going to have real practical benefits for billions of people around the globe. His refusal to demonise
Vladimir Putin, for example, may be significant enough to halt the gradual slide towards a nuclear
confrontation with Russia, either in Ukraine or in the Middle East.
Clinton is the mirror image of Trump. Domestically, she largely abides by the rules of civil politics
– not least because respectful discourse benefits her as the candidate with plenty of political experience.
The US is likely to be a more stable, more predictable place under a Clinton presidency, even as
the plutocratic elite entrenches its power and the wealth gap grows relentlessly.
Abroad, however, the picture looks worse under Clinton. She has been an enthusiastic supporter
of all the many recent wars of aggression launched by the US, some declared and some covert. Personally,
as secretary of state, she helped engineer the overthrow of Col Muammar Gaddafi. That policy led
to an outcome – one that was entirely foreseeable – of Libya's reinvention as a failed state, with
jihadists of every stripe sucked into the resulting vacuum. Large parts of Gadaffi's arsenal followed
the jihadists as they exported their struggles across the Middle East, creating more bloodshed and
heightening the refugee crisis. Now Clinton wants to intensify US involvement in Syria, including
by imposing a no-fly zone – or rather, a US and allies-only fly zone – that would thrust the US into
a direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed power, Russia.
In the cost-benefit calculus of who to vote for in a two-party contest, the answer seems to be:
vote for Clinton if you are interested only in what happens in the narrow sphere of US domestic politics
(assuming Clinton does not push the US into a nuclear war); while if you are a global citizen worried
about the future of the planet, Trump may be the marginally better of two terribly evil choices.
(Neither, of course, cares a jot about the most pressing problem facing mankind: runaway climate
change.)
So even on the extremely blinkered logic of Clinton's supporters, Clinton might not be the winner
in a lesser-evil presidential contest.
Mounting disillusion
But there is a second, more important reason to reject the lesser-evil argument as grounds for
voting for Clinton.
Trump's popularity is a direct consequence of several decades of American progressives voting
for the lesser-evil candidate. Most Americans have never heard of Jill Stein, or the other three
candidates who are not running on behalf of the Republican and Democratic parties. These candidates
have received no mainstream media coverage – or the chance to appear in the candidate debates – because
their share of the vote is so minuscule. It remains minuscule precisely because progressives have
spent decades voting for the lesser-evil candidate. And nothing is going to change so long as progressives
keep responding to the electoral dog-whistle that they have to keep the Republican candidate out
at all costs, even at the price of their own consciences.
Growing numbers of Americans understand that their country was "stolen from them", to use a popular
slogan. They sense that the US no longer even aspires to its founding ideals, that it has become
a society run for the exclusive benefit of a tiny wealthy elite. Many are looking for someone to
articulate their frustration, their powerlessness, their hopelessness.
Two opposed antidotes for the mounting disillusionment with "normal politics" emerged during the
presidential race: a progressive one, in the form of Sanders, who suggested he was ready to hold
the plutocrats to account; and a populist one, in the form of Trump, determined to deflect anger
away from the plutocrats towards easy targets like immigrants. As we now know from Wikileaks' release
of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails, the Democats worked hard to rig their own primaries
to make sure the progressive option, Sanders, was eliminated. The Republicans, by contrast, were
overwhelmed by the insurrection within their own party.
The wave of disaffection Sanders and Trump have been riding is not going away. In fact, a President
Clinton, the embodiment of the self-serving, self-aggrandising politics of the plutocrats, will only
fuel the disenchantment. The fixing of the Democratic primaries did not strengthen Clinton's moral
authority, it fuelled the kind of doubts about the system that bolster Trump. Trump's accusations
of a corrupt elite and a rigged political and media system are not merely figments of his imagination;
they are rooted in the realities of US politics.
Trump, however, is not the man to offer solutions. His interests are too close aligned to those
of the plutocrats for him to make meaningful changes.
Trump may lose this time, but someone like him will do better next time – unless ordinary Americans
are exposed to a different kind of politician, one who can articulate progressive, rather regressive,
remedies for the necrosis that is rotting the US body politic. Sanders began that process, but a
progressive challenge to "politics as normal" has to be sustained and extended if Trump and his ilk
are not to triumph eventually.
The battle cannot be delayed another few years, on the basis that one day a genuinely non-evil
candidate will emerge from nowhere to fix this rotten system. It won't happen of its own. Unless
progressive Americans show they are prepared to vote out of conviction, not out of necessity, the
Democratic party will never have to take account of their views. It will keep throwing up leaders
– in different colours and different sexes – to front the tiny elite that runs the US and seeks to
rule the world.
"... Neoliberalism is a kind of statecraft. It means organizing state policies by making them appear as if they are the consequences of depoliticized financial markets. ..."
"... It involves moving power from public institutions to private institutions, and allowing governance to happen through concentrated financial power. Actual open markets for goods and services tend to disappear in neoliberal societies. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is not faith in free markets. Neoliberalism is not free market capitalism. Neoliberalism is a specific form of statecraft that uses financial markets as a veil to disguise governing policies. ..."
"... The only consolation is that clearly a Dem or Repub president doesn't really matter, given the corporatocracy (or oligarchy, take your pick). So the bonus this year is that Drump destroyed the Bush dynasty and most of the RNC. And Clinton has burnt all her bridges and allies and the liberal MSM in getting to her (assumed) victory. ..."
"... remember whatever happens the world will go on and one US president or another will screw the serfs domestically and bomb Middle Eastern countries. ..."
"... Unless Hillary and the gung-ho neocons decide that we really should see just how far Putin can be pushed. ..."
"... I don't care which one wins, all I know is that the rest of us in the 90% will be screwed either way. But I will settle down in the evening, have a cuppa, and hope that TV will provide me with some schadenfreude. ..."
"... We cannot betray the ideal of a popular democracy by pretending this contrived political theater is free or fair or democratic. We cannot play their game. We cannot play by their rules. Our job is not to accommodate the corporate state…. ..."
"... "I do not, in the end, fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists." ..."
"... "It is not my job to support someone who makes for a better Republican than they can come up with themselves." ..."
"... I will never again vote for the 'lesser of two evils'. Did it once for Obama (against Sarah Palin). Never again. It just encourages more crapification. ..."
"... I've read exactly one compelling argument for voting Hillary, by Jim Kunstler, who thinks it best if the crew responsible for the mess is still holding the bag when things really go south. ..."
Best pro-Trump piece I've seen: "The GOP's 'Ungrateful Bastard' Caucus" [
American Greatness ].
Best pro-Clinton piece remains: "Vote for the Lying Neoliberal Warmonger: It's Important" [
Common Dreams ].
The best reasons I can think of to vote for each candidate (as opposed to against the
other candidates). In no particular order:
Trump: A realist foreign policy Clinton: More of the same Stein: Break the two-party duopoloy
Johnson: Sanity on marijuna legalization
These reasons are, of course, entirely incommensurate.
"The American Conservative Presidential Symposium" [
The American Conservative ]. Michael Tracey: "Trump might be better than Hillary on foreign
policy (my top issue), but he's far too volatile to conclude that with any certainty, and he may
well end up being catastrophically worse. The Clintons' outrageous stoking of a war fervor over
Russia is quite simply depraved and should disqualify them from reentering the White House…. Democrats
deserve punishment for nominating a candidate with such severe legal problems, stifling a genuine
populist insurgent in the most craven possible fashion (I supported Bernie Sanders but find his
recent hectoring pro-Clinton conduct highly off-putting). Their shambolic, 'rigged' primary process
can't be countenanced, nor can the 2016 electoral debacle as a whole, so I'll do my small part
in rejecting this horror show by declining to vote."
Realignment
"America's Ruling Elite Has Failed and Deserves to Be Fired" [
Of Two Minds ]. "The last failed remnants of the state-cartel hierarchies left over from World
War II must implode before we can move forward. Healthcare, defense, pharmaceuticals, higher education,
the mainstream media and the systems of governance must all decay to the point that no one can
be protected from the destructive consequences of their failure, and no paychecks can be issued
by these failed systems." Tellingly, the author omits the FIRE sector. So I would say their definition
of elite is odd.
"[E]ducation levels are a more significant factor this year. Obama won a majority of those
with a high school diploma (or less) in 2012, while Romney won college-educated voters. This year
the numbers are reversed. Among white voters with only a high school education, Trump leads by
over 25 points. Among whites with a college degree, Clinton leads by about 10 percent. This is
the first time since serious polling began in 1952 that this has happened [
RealClearPoltiics ]. And when I ask myself who sent the United States heading toward Third
World status, it's not those without college degrees. In fact, it's Clinton's base.
[M]illions of Americans trudge through a bleak round of layoffs, wage cuts, part-time jobs
at minimal pay, and system-wide dysfunction. The crisis hasn't hit yet, but those members of
the political class who think that the people who used to be rock-solid American patriots will
turn out en masse to keep today's apparatchiks secure in their comfortable lifestyles have,
as the saying goes, another think coming. Nor is it irrelevant that most of the enlisted personnel
in the armed forces, who are the US government's ultimate bulwark against popular unrest, come
from the very classes that have lost faith most drastically in the American system. The one
significant difference between the Soviet case and the American one at this stage of the game
is that Soviet citizens had no choice but to accept the leaders the Communist Party of the
USSR foisted off on them, from Brezhnev to Andropov to Chernenko to Gorbachev, until the system
collapsed of its own weight…
If George W. Bush was our Leonid Brezhnev, as I'd suggest, and Barack Obama is our Yuri
Andropov, Hillary Clinton is running for the position of Konstantin Chernenko; her running
mate Tim Kaine, in turn, is waiting in the wings as a suitably idealistic and clueless Mikhail
Gorbachev, under whom the whole shebang can promptly go to bits. While I don't seriously expect
the trajectory of the United States to parallel that of the Soviet Union anything like as precisely
as this satiric metaphor would suggest, the basic pattern of cascading dysfunction ending in
political collapse is quite a common thing in history, and a galaxy of parallels suggests that
the same thing could very easily happen here within the next decade or so. The serene conviction
among the political class and their affluent hangers-on that nothing of the sort could possibly
take place is just another factor making it more likely.
"Why Trump Is Different-and Must Be Repelled" [Adam Gopnik,
The New Yorker ].
For the past months, and into this final week, as for much of the past year, many New Yorkers
have been in a position that recalls parents with a colicky baby: you put the baby down at
last, it seems safely asleep, grateful and unbelievably exhausted you return to bed-only to
hear the small tell-tale cough or sob that guarantees another crying jag is on the way. The
parents in this case, to fill in the metaphorical blanks, are liberal-minded folk; the baby's
cries are any indicators that Donald Trump may not be out of the race for President-as he seemed
to be even as recently as last week-and may actually have a real chance at being elected. Disbelief
crowds exhaustion: this can't be happening. If the colicky baby is a metaphor too sweet for
so infantile a figure as the orange menace, then let us think instead, perhaps, of the killer
in a teen horror movie of the vintage kind: every time Freddy seemed dispatched and buried,
there he was leaping up again, as the teens caught their breath and returned, too soon, to
their teendom.
Of course, Gopnik - who should really stick to writing sweetly atmospheric pieces about Paris
- is both passive-aggressive and infuriatingly smug. To "fill in the metaphorical blanks," but
for realz, both the "colicky baby" and the teen horror movie villain are infantilized and
displaced versions of a working class Other: The Trump voter that Eurostar-rider Gopnik hates
and fears, because he's afraid they're going to come and kill him and take his stuff. In short,
he has the guilty conscience of a classic liberal.
Democrat Email Hairball
"Dow surges 300 points as FBI clears Clinton on eve of election" [
USA Today ]. Hmm. Insiders go to HappyVille!
Our Famously Free Press
"Vox Scams Readers Into Thinking Prescient World Series Tweet Was A Scam [Update]" [
DeadSpin ].
Guillotine Watch
"Too Smug to Jail" [Matt Taibbi,
Rolling Stone ]. "As we reach the close of an election season marked by anger toward the unaccountable
rich, The Economist has chimed in with a defense of the beleaguered white-collar criminal."
[T]his is the crucial passage:
"Most corporate crime is the result of collective action rather than individual wrongdoing-long
chains of command that send (often half-understood) instructions, or corporate cultures that encourage
individuals to take risky actions. The authorities have rightly adjusted to this reality by increasingly
prosecuting companies rather than going after individual miscreants."
Yikes! This extraordinary argument is cousin to the
Lieutenant Calley defense , i.e., that soldiers bear no responsibility for crimes they were
ordered to execute. The Economist here would have you believe that there's no such thing
as an individual crime in a corporate context.
Neoliberalism is a kind of statecraft. It means organizing state policies by making them appear
as if they are the consequences of depoliticized financial markets.
It involves moving power from
public institutions to private institutions, and allowing governance to happen through concentrated
financial power. Actual open markets for goods and services tend to disappear in neoliberal societies.
Financial markets flourish, real markets morph into mass distribution middlemen like Walmart or
Amazon.
Neoliberalism is not faith in free markets. Neoliberalism is not free market capitalism. Neoliberalism
is a specific form of statecraft that uses financial markets as a veil to disguise governing policies.
"Uncovering Credit Disparities among Low- and Moderate-Income Areas" [
Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis ]. "Eggleston found that LMI [lower abd middle-income] neighborhoods
with relatively better credit tend to be in metros with a larger percentage of white residents, and
they are typically found in the East, West and parts of the upper Midwest. They also tend to be in
metros that have lower poverty rates."
Look at reddit r/politics. Did Hillary/Brock stop paying to downvote all anti-Hill posts/comments?
Reaction to the Daily Beast telling readers "YOU MUST VOTE HILLARY" was at 11,000. Maybe, Hillary
and Co are trying to get a handle on real voter sentiment?
Or they don't care now that it is in the bag.
LOL I was going to post (well, I guess I am doing so) that the finger I am counting down on
is my middle finger, which I shall extend to the DNC, the RNC, the MSM, and the rest of the corrupt
US oligarchy that brought us here. Especially the MSM - and note of course that it was Bill Clinton
who deregulated the media so it went from one hundred or so to the SIX corporate behemoths that
control 90%+ of the news that the average American consumes.
FU!
The only consolation is that clearly a Dem or Repub president doesn't really matter, given
the corporatocracy (or oligarchy, take your pick). So the bonus this year is that Drump destroyed
the Bush dynasty and most of the RNC. And Clinton has burnt all her bridges and allies and the
liberal MSM in getting to her (assumed) victory.
My humble advice for tomorrow: have a case of beer, wine, whiskey, or green tea at hand, relax,
play some good music, ignore the MSM, and remember whatever happens the world will go on and one
US president or another will screw the serfs domestically and bomb Middle Eastern countries.
Oh yeah, I will extend my own middle finger right back at them tomorrow. Voting for Stein will
at least give me the inner peace and comfort of knowing that I did not vote for the "lesser evil"
represented by Madame Secretary. I don't care which one wins, all I know is that the rest of us
in the 90% will be screwed either way. But I will settle down in the evening, have a cuppa, and
hope that TV will provide me with some schadenfreude.
I apologize if these concluding thoughts on an exhausting electoral season, by Chris Hedges,
have already been posted:
"We cannot betray the ideal of a popular democracy by pretending this contrived political
theater is free or fair or democratic. We cannot play their game. We cannot play by their rules.
Our job is not to accommodate the corporate state….
The state seeks to control us through fear, propaganda, wholesale surveillance and violence.
[This] is the only form of social control it has left. The lie of neoliberalism has been exposed.
Its credibility has imploded. The moment we cease being afraid, the moment we use our collective
strength as I saw in Eastern Europe in 1989 to make the rulers afraid of us, is the moment
of the system's downfall.
Go into the voting booth on Tuesday. Do not be afraid. Vote with your conscience."
Sounds too much like the Demos fighting for the people but never winning. Also a bit narcissistic.
And is Hedges a foe of, say, the government insurance of privately created deposits – a fascist
invention if ever there was?
Thanks for Correcting the Record! Glad that we can lump anyone who questions your narrative into four neat categories. There's
no possible way someone could have an original thought.
You only need to buy a plane etc. to hand out as favors, buy 4 or 5 dozen media personalities
at mainstream outlets (a network is a must), get your sycophants in elections offices all over
the country to purge your rival's voters and raise a billion dollars. Easy peasy.
Your assuming we don't get about a dozen Florida Hanging-chad scandals. If Trump wins the wrong
states – this will land in court, and all end in tears.
That Reed column, "Vote for the lying neoliberal warmonger; it's important, has always struck
me badly. His point that those who voted for a Democrat for President since '92 have done as badly
or worse than they would in voting for Clinton is just false. No one in my memory has so slavishly
supported finance capital and foreign wars. No one has made going to war with China, Russia or
Iran a central plank in their candidacy.
I, personally, can't get over that. Republicans will do what they will do, it is not my job
to support someone who makes for a better Republican than they can come up with themselves.
I will never again vote for the 'lesser of two evils'. Did it once for Obama (against Sarah
Palin).
Never again. It just encourages more crapification.
I've read exactly
one compelling
argument for voting Hillary, by Jim Kunstler, who thinks it best if the crew responsible for
the mess is still holding the bag when things really go south.
I'd be more inclined to value that possibility if it wasn't clear that the Executive Branch
can now launch wars of choice at will. I have a draft age daughter.
It's not a reference to Doing your Bit turning in family/friends/neighbors/coworkers who you
"know" to be abusing the system, and thus Causing the Problem??
First violence is not the answer. Still that does make one want to find a way to march the
people who came up with that along with the top management of Cigna to the stocks for some quality
communing time with their customers. That there should also be a huge pile of rotten produce near
the stocks would be merely coincidence.
LOL and tomorrow a majority of Americans will vote back in the crowd that brought this down
upon them. Wait til you see what they are gearing up to do to SocSec.
Maybe it's a deep-seated Calvinist/Protestant self-loathing? Catholic self-flaggelation? Stockholm
Syndrome?
Joe Bageant wrote about the curious phenomenon of the Republican base voting year in and year
out for candidates who acted in direct opposition to their own economic interests…maybe that's
both "sides" of politics now?
Ha! Nope. Bought a house in 2009 and thought it was appropriate, and have been using it on
finance / political forums ever since. Worked out OK for us, though.
" But lots of other states use electronic machines in some capacity" [Wired]. "
Much depends on exactly how. For an example, Oregon uses paper ballots marked by the voter,
but, at least in my county, electronic counters. But the paper ballots are audited and stored
for years, so it's easy to check up. Everything happens at the courthouse, so there's no transmission
from precincts, and transmission to the SOS is probably in person by phone, followed up by email.
I'm confident in this system, not least because Oregon is a "clean" state. One county official
has been caught cheating by filling in unvoted lines for Republicans, but went to jail. I can
think of other ways for insiders to cheat, but it would be dangerous and pretty easy to catch.
I'm not concerned about the electronic counters as long as they aren't connected to the internet
– no reason for them to be – and the results are properly audited, the biggest if. I wonder a
bit about very small rural counties, where everybody knows everybody else's business and there
isn't much money for safeguards.
In any case, from a national point of view Oregon's results are not in doubt. Now I have to
do some campaign work for our Ranked Choice Voting initiative, and I look forward to finding out
how it did in Maine.
Trump had big mo, maybe until yesterday…
Today's Ibd puts T ahead by 2, best for some time… Plus generally favorable LATimes…
And blacks not turning out nearly as 08/12.
And Brexit and MI primary polls were far off because ungrateful deplorables.
Regardless, FL is must win for T. If he gets that, then the following swings might fall into place:
OH, NV, NC, IA, NM, (270), and maybe NH bonus.
If he misses FL he would need PA plus CO, likely hopeless.
I guess we deserve what we've got here… Vastly corrupt warmonger running for Obomber's third
term vs loose racist/sexist cannon, albeit apparently the latter likes Putin and avoidsWWIII.
Does seem harsh.
Of course, if Hillary wins the bubble wins. Everyone with a 401k thinks they hit a triple,
but they were walked to third. They won't make it to "home" (comfy retirement).
Meanwhile, Trump is of the 80s heyday of corporate raids…letting it fall and buying up cheap.
Wall St knows.
Hillary wins – ride the bubble and pray you know when to dump (and you can't trust the MSM
info – otherwise suckers would have seen 2008 coming).
The election will continue until the correct result is obtained.
That could happen tomorrow; it could just as well drag into January if the EC is tied or, say,
the "Russians" interfere and we have to have a cyberwar or something. Wouldn't it be interesting
if the House of Rs had to pick the prez? Maybe if the Supremes hadn't lawlessly intervened in
the 2000 election, we wouldn't be in this pickle now. But they did. And we are.
The "correct result" one assumes is Hillary; one has assumed so since this morbid campaign
began. As appealing as Bernie could be at times, there was no chance he would be allowed to stand
as the Democratic nominee. And if the indications of chicanery are correct, he was actively prevented
from becoming the nominee regardless of the "vote."
At no time did those who rule us ever consider Trump for the Big Chair. He's just too open
and uncouth, don'tchaknow. Can't have that. Might give the game away. But he's a sop to the so-called
populists, and man does he run a masterful con. All the slick and perfumed members of his class
only wish they had his skill at suckering the rubes. Whoa. Dude.
Meanwhile, it's good to learn that there can be no corruption unless its name is Clinton (er,
correction: "Clintoon") or can be linked somehow, if only tangentially, to the Clintoon Crime
Syndicate, or it arises politically from the Democratic (er, correction: "Democrat") Party which
is the ultimate source of all corruption, even that of the Clintoons.
Nothing the Democrat Party or the Clintoons do is defensible; defenses for Trump, on the other
hand, well. "It's just business." Or my favorite: "At least he hasn't killed anybody (sotto voce:
yet… that we know of ") So let's give him a chance!
Our Rulers are close to panicking because no matter who is ultimately selected, they fear there
will be blood in the streets, and the unrest might get close to their compounds, lead to unpleasantness
in their high-rises, interfere, perhaps, with some of their looting and destruction for pleasure.
This election has, for once, discommoded the comfortable.
I voted for Stein, the completely incorrect candidate, though I toyed with leaving the topline
blank. Many people I know did that. But no, some of us feel the need to show solidarity with our
leftish comrades. So few though, in the end.
Also, if people are writing in a candidate to make a statement or as an act of personal conscience,
that's their choice, but if they want the vote counted the rules vary by state. In most states,
including Maine, the candidate has to file paperwork.
What's your prediction of how many votes Stein will get nationwide? The Wiki god of knowledge
says she got 470K in 2012. I'm going to say 3M in 2016 or about 2.5%.
One need only track the past month's series of outrages, each quickly receding into the
distance, to recall that he has done not one but almost innumerable things that in any previous
election would have been, quaint word, "disqualifying."
I don't know if it would ever occur to Gopnik, but perhaps people are tired of idiotic gaffes
and meaningless scandals sinking candidates. Maybe, for a sizable portion of the country,
the sex scandal has been overused as some kind of indicator for someone's ability to govern, or,
even though Gopnik doesn't understand this, it isn't a reflection on their ability to speak about
policies that mean something to them.
Talking with Trump supporters I know, they are all very much influenced by: 1) his embracing
of nationalism, 2) rejection of trade deals, 3) ideas about reforming government finance. Of course,
their distrust for Hillary is just as strong.
I haven't met any trump supporters saying, "Gee, I really think his misogyny lets me free my
own inherent sexism." But then again, when identity politics is what you rely on to make your
vote, anyone opposed to your candidate is part of a vast linked chain of ignorant brains and invisible
connections that only they can see or appreciate.
Also loved his closing line:
For, as Shakespeare would have grasped at once, there is no explaining Trump.
Isn't that your job, Adam? Put your keyboard down if you're unable to do it and spare us the
columns.
The slightest bit of self-discipline on Trump's part, and Clinton is suddenly in the race
of her life. Shows her extreme weakness as a candidate, and the decadence of the Democrat nomenklatura
that forced her nomination through, not to mention the decadence of the political class…
If Clinton wins by any margin that doesn't keep her up all night, will not be surprised if
she and Team Blue will act as if this is the most awesome-est triumph ever because they are the
most awesome-est ever. First women first couple both being Presidents etc etc. They don't seem
to have any sense of just how weak and disliked she/they are, and why. They will arrogantly proceed
to govern as if they received a powerful mandate and not give an inch anywhere on policy, confident
that the methods they used to get elected will work again in 4 years. It will be their way or
the highway.
A cynic might also view another first in this election: the first time that a "charitable"
foundation has been elected to the office! But perhaps I am being somewhat unfair in questioning
the esteemed institution's charity, as it has indeed been charitable towards some.
Taxable Donations to the Clinton Foundation could pay off the national debt – says Charles
Ortel, should a Trump administration request a grand jury to assess the many many deficiencies
and out and out crimes of that sham charity.
That is the spit and glue that binds the never Trump coalition. There are billions and billions
at stake. Wall St, foreign governments, world leaders and the Gates Foundation, Bezos, Slim, Geithner,
Paulson - all the big boys. Ortel does a splendid job on you tube explaining how strict the rules
are for charitable foundations.
The FBI has the goods on the Clinton's and their phony baloney "foundation".
All they need is a courageous and honest Atty General – state or federal – willing to literally
risk life, limb, children, dogs, cats and extended family members should they file charges on
the Royals and fail.
"The onus is on the charity" – says Ortel, to prove their innocence, once charges are filed.
And the Clinton Foundation has never EVER filed the proper paper work to do ANY of their activities.
AGAIN, the rules state you may not raise money for AIDS, unless your charter was filed to do so.
the Clintons have never filed the necessary paperwork. There is a 19 page expose on their failure
to file or provide the necessary forms.
Hundreds of billions in taxable penalties and interest will be due, should Trump prevail and
ask for a grand jury. He doesn't have to threaten them. THEY KNOW
When you see George Will, LInsay Graham, Bill Kristol and the Bush crime family pulling out
all the stops to end this revolution – it's because of EXPOSURE.
The Clinton Foundation is the GOLD MINE. Watch and listen.
Hillary Clinton's planned celebratory election night fireworks display over the Hudson River
has been canceled, it was revealed Monday.
"They do have a permit for fireworks, but at this point we believe the fireworks is canceled,"
NYPD chief of intelligence Tommy Galati said at a city press conference on Election Day security
with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner James O'Neill.
When asked by a reporter why the fireworks were canceled, Galati responded, "I cannot tell
you that."
Clinton was planning aerial detonations for her potential victory that would last for two
minutes starting as early at 9:30 p.m. - a half-hour after the polls close in New York.
Since Latino Turnout has been up and AA down Trumps best shot is hoping that the Philly transit
strike and Rain in Detroit and most of PA on tuesday suppress less enthusiastic Clinton voters.
Both have low early voting. Then he has to cross his fingers for NC and NH. http://www.270towin.com/maps/EXyOo
crud. Well maybe the rainstorm will blow in a little sooner then it is predicted, even then
it will only hit Pittsburgh though. But it will hit Detroit all day.
Gallup US Consumer Spending Measure, October 2016: " In October, Americans' daily self-reports
of spending averaged $93, similar to September's $91 average. However, it is among the highest
for the month of October in the survey's nine-year trend" [Econoday] - Was it too much to
hope for an economists-trying-to-sound-smart subtitle along the lines of "Economists cite effect
of Halloween falling in October this year" on this?
(And I wonder how that yuuge $2 rise compares to the error bars on the survey. Also whether
any portion can be attributed to all those new improved health insurance rates showering their
blessings on the country.)
What about the idea that if we elect Trump, Americans' anger will be diffused and most people
will be happy?
If Clinton gets it, everyone, except her financiers will be unhappy, sooner or later.
Four years of Hillary, continuing economic stagnation and more wars may usher in and elect
a candidate in 2020 who will make Trump look like a meek-mannered gentleman.
Will it really be worth it to the elite to elect Hillary and end up having to live behind locked
gates and only venture out in public with a cadre of bodyguards? Will the wealthy see their Teslas
and luxury cars stoned and trashed when they park them in public?
Or, should they just live with Trump and like it? If I were an elite, I'd vote for Trump for
that very reason.
Electing Trump will not defuse the anger–it will just mean that for a little while at least
the half of the population who owns most of the guns will be happier. That will give us a year
or so until they realize that he was never serious about helping them, and lacks the political
skills or even attention span to do so. By 2018, we'd be right back to the starting point–just
in time to start the whole stupid cycle all over again.
No, a lot of things would change. Clinton winning would be seen as validation of the status
quo. Trump winning would be destabilizing. To pretend that the two outcomes are the same is wrongheaded.
Trump winning would break the hold of the Clintons on the Democratic party, and since they've
made the party overly concerned with the Presidency, at the expense of building a bench or capturing
down-ticket races (all down the list, Congress, governorships, important state level posts), the
damage to the party would be profound. They were already expected to lose the Senate in 2018 even
if they recover it tomorrow.
Trump winning would also throw a wrench into the Republicans, although not to quite as profound
a degree, since him getting this far has already put them in disarray. It would put the orthodox
corporate types and many of the evangelicals in a tizzy. The lineup that Trump wants to bring
in as his team are either outsiders or not well like by the mainstream of the party. So you can
expect Trump to have to fight with much of his own party, as well as the Dems keen to re-establish
themselves in the face of their loss.
If nothing else, Trump can do a lot on the trade front without Congress, based on the analyses
I've seen so far. How far he would get in trying to wind down our over-involvement in the Middle
East is questionable, but it does appear that he would at least stop further escalation with Russia.
He also appears to have the ability to get INS rules enforced more strictly (Obama has deported
more people than is widely acknowledged).
In other words, the President has a fair bit of power to act unilaterally. That does not require
"political skills" since you don't need to get Congress to go along. I agree Trump would have
little success with Congress, based on the precedent of Jimmy Carter, who had been a governor
and had a House and Senate that were both solidly Democratic, and thus in theory should have gotten
some cooperation, but brought in a team of outsiders and acted as if being post-Watergate meant
he could do things differently.
I'm probably voting for Trump only because of TPP. Thanks to the trade traitors, fast track
passage made it much easier to pass TPP with a simple majority during the lame duck session. Clinton
will let it ride, but Trump will probably kill it, or at least try to.
If DARPA's robotics program will only come up with some cool enough robots we might send a
bot or two to closes down the flow of gated sewer lines or stop the flow of gated water - or add
a little something.
I never never even made these suggestions - a Russian spy working for PUTIN took over my keyboard.
I have absolutely no evidence that there's any manipulating of the polling data going on, or
how that would work if it were, but it seems to me that this down to the wire close and flip-flopping
polling data is hugely in the media's $$ interest. Gazillion$$ are being dumped into late media
buys especially for senate races. I can't see how they could manipulate it but if the media could
it's certainly in their $$ interest to do so.
I raised this yesterday as a comment, but would like to re-phrase as a question. Bearing in
mind that the Clinton 'team' had possession of all of her e-mails for 2 years prior to the original
request for the records re the Benghazi investigation, and that the Admin was kind enough to allow
Clinton's lawyers to be the ones who determined which e-mails were 'work-related' and which 'personal',
and further bearing in mind that the focus has been on whether or not any of the 'personal' e-mails
were classified or not, I'd like to ask everyone this:
Did the FBI audit all of the e-mails that Clinton lawyers put in the 'work-related' basket?
Given State is full of Clinton 'friendlies' would it not be possible that incriminating 'personal'
e-mails were improperly slotted as 'work-related' to hide them with State until it all blows over?
Alternately, was the FBI granted access to all Clinton's State Department '.gov' account messages,
and those on the systems often referenced by Clinton and others that was used for all important,
classified, secret stuff? Further, did FBI have access to all Clinton's (or others') communications
using State Department (or other Government) systems that may have been sent to the Foundation,
or to any of her usual suspects (Podesta, Mills, Abedin, Clinton lawyers, etc.)?
Two years is a long time for someone to think about what to do with a pile of incriminating
stuff – something a bit more selective than Podesta's 'dump it'.
Truly terrible NPR coverage of the start of the Dylann Roof trial in Charlestown on
both the
morning and
evening shows.
No mention of the fact that a charismatic black state senator, Clementa Pinckney, was assassinated.
Pinckney is referred to, and not by name, only as the pastor of the Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church.
No breathless speculations or leaks from anonymous LE sources about how Roof was radicalized
or who else might have been involved in the plot.
No use of the phrase `domestic terrorism', which apparently is off limits in such cases.
Hillary Loses the Left
| 06 Nov 2016 | While Donald Trump has been
consolidating his base of support, the opposite appears to be happening for Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton, who seems to be hemorrhaging supporters from her progressive
base...[I]n the closing days of the 2016 campaign, the rift has been laid bare through a
combination of WikiLeaks revelations, a series of high-profile endorsements for Green
Party presidential nominee Jill Stein from progressives like Marc Lamont Hill, Cornel
West, and Susan Sarandon, as well as polling data that suggests Trump's broad populist
messaging is resonating with Democrat-leaning voters. v Contrary to the narrative
perpetuated by corporate media, many prominent liberals are now expressing their belief
that installing Hillary Clinton, a "
corporatist
hawk
," in the White House is "
the
true danger
" and would be "
more
dangerous
" for progressive values, the well-being of the nation, and the stability
of the world than would four years of a Donald Trump presidency.
According to a new Wikileaks email, Bernie Sanders was just a Manchurian candidate and a
Clinton puppet all along. We finally have confirmation of what we have suspected since Bernie
said "people are sick of hearing about your damn emails" all the way back in 2015 during one
debate. That was a big give-away and a huge red flag which many have raised back then but now we
finally have irrefutable proof that Bernie Sanders was just a SCAM candidate and a con artist.
"... it's easy to imagine a President Trump refusing to heed our own highest court, which, as President Andrew Jackson observed, has no way, other than respect of institutions, to enforce its decisions. ..."
"... It's easy to carp like this but the sclerotic elite in charge of the country has failed to address demographic concerns, and has stamped out any politically incorrect thoughts as being signs of baseness. ..."
"... Now they are so upset that a challenger has arisen. It's unfortunate that this particular challenger has no background in government and will probably harm our economic growth with his lack of skill, but the elites will have to eat the cake they baked. ..."
"... Economists told us that free trade deals and open borders would make us prosperous and yet that hasn't happens. ..."
"... The technicians running trade policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy haven't held up their end of the bargain. ..."
"... Wealth and power has been redistributed upwards. ..."
"... The union movement has been destroyed in outright class war. ..."
"... The corporate media spread lies and distraction. It induces both apathy and a rat race/dog-eat-dog mentality. ..."
"... Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically leftist today. Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider. ..."
"... Yes, we've seen right wing policies killing jobs and steering wealth to the wealthy, and that's bad policy. But unfortunately it seems it's always possible to do *worse*. ..."
"... Trump's policies would double down on wealth transfer, while he spouts the typical RW mantra of "(my dopey policy which would destroy jobs) would be good for jobs." ..."
"... Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply? ..."
More Jobs, a Strong Economy, and a Threat to Institutions : ...Institutions are significant
to economists, who have come to see that countries become prosperous not because they have bounteous
natural resources or an educated population or the most advanced technology but because they have
good institutions. Crucially, formal structures are supported by informal, often unstated, social
agreements. A nation not only needs courts; its people need to believe that those courts can be
fair. ...
Over most of history, a small élite confiscated wealth from the poor. Subsistence farmers lived
under rules designed to tax them so that the rulers could live in palaces and pay for soldiers
to maintain their power. Every now and then, though, a system appeared in which leaders were forced
to accommodate the needs of at least some of their citizens. ... The societies with the most robust
systems for forcing the powerful to accommodate some of the needs of the powerless became wealthier
and more peaceful. ... Most nations without institutions to check the worst impulses of the rich
and powerful stay stuck in poverty and dysfunction. ...
This year's Presidential election has alarmed economists for several reasons. No economist,
save one , supports Donald J. Trump's stated economic plans, but an even larger concern is
that, were he elected, Trump would attack the very institutions that have provided our economic
stability. In his campaign, Trump has shown outright contempt for courts, free speech, international
treaties, and many other pillars of the American way of life. There is little reason to think
that, if granted the Presidency, Trump would soften his stand. ...
...it's easy to imagine a President Trump refusing to heed our own highest court, which, as
President Andrew Jackson observed, has no way, other than respect of institutions, to enforce
its decisions. No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on
the campaign trail, it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the
courts, the military, and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history
tells us, people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas. They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've
already amassed. Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses,
become poorer, uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail.
It's easy to carp like this but the sclerotic elite in charge of the country has failed to address
demographic concerns, and has stamped out any politically incorrect thoughts as being signs of
baseness.
Now they are so upset that a challenger has arisen. It's unfortunate that this particular
challenger has no background in government and will probably harm our economic growth with his
lack of skill, but the elites will have to eat the cake they baked.
"No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on the campaign trail,
it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the courts, the military,
and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history tells us, people stop
dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses, and new ideas.
They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've already amassed.
Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses, become poorer,
uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail."
This is all true but let's provide a little more context than the totebaggers' paint-by-numbers
narrative.
Economists told us that free trade deals and open borders would make us prosperous and
yet that hasn't happens.
The technicians running trade policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy haven't held up
their end of the bargain.
Wealth and power has been redistributed upwards.
The union movement has been destroyed in outright class war.
The corporate media spread lies and distraction. It induces both apathy and a rat race/dog-eat-dog
mentality.
The Democratic Party has been moved to right as the middle class has struggled.
And more and more people become susceptible to demagogues like Trump as Democrats try to play
both sides of the fence, instead of standing foresquarely behind the job class.
Let's hope we don't find out what Trump does if elected. My guess is that he'd delegate foreign
and domestic policy to Mike Pence as Trump himself would be free to pursue his own personal grudges
via whatever means are available.
Alex S -> Peter K.... , -1
As we can see here, through leftist glasses, the only possible remedy for solving a problem is
moving left.
Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically
leftist today.
Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider.
Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically
leftist today.
Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider.
Yes, we've seen right wing policies killing jobs and steering wealth to the wealthy, and that's
bad policy. But unfortunately it seems it's always possible to do *worse*.
Trump's policies would
double down on wealth transfer, while he spouts the typical RW mantra of "(my dopey policy which
would destroy jobs) would be good for jobs."
Tim Harford made a good case for trust accounting
for 99% of the difference in per capita GNP between the US and Somalia.
""If you take a broad enough definition of trust, then it would explain basically all the difference
between the per capita income of the United States and Somalia," ventures Steve Knack, a senior
economist at the World Bank who has been studying the economics of trust for over a decade. That
suggests that trust is worth $12.4 trillion dollars a year to the U.S., which, in case you are
wondering, is 99.5% of this country's income (2006 figures). If you make $40,000 a year, then
$200 is down to hard work and $39,800 is down to trust.
How could that be? Trust operates in all sorts of ways, from saving money that would have to
be spent on security to improving the functioning of the political system. But above all, trust
enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth." goo.gl/t3OqHc
Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration
By Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson
Abstract
The US economy has performed better when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather
than a Republican, almost regardless of how one measures performance. For many measures, including
real GDP growth (our focus), the performance gap is large and significant. This paper asks why.
The answer is not found in technical time series matters nor in systematically more expansionary
monetary or fiscal policy under Democrats. Rather, it appears that the Democratic edge stems mainly
from more benign oil shocks, superior total factor productivity (TFP) performance, a more favorable
international environment, and perhaps more optimistic consumer expectations about the near-term
future.
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
I was in college in the mid 1970's and we asked this question a lot. Some think this worry has
gone away. I don't agree with those types. Which is why a green technology investment drive makes
a lot of sense for so many reasons.
Quote from the paper you linked to: "Arguably, oil shocks have more to do with US foreign policy
than with US economic policy-the two Gulf Wars being prominent examples. That said, several economists
have claimed that US monetary policy played an important role in bringing on the oil shocks. See,
for example, Barsky and Kilian (2002)."
Do We Really Know that Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative
By Robert B. Barsky and Lutz Kilian
Abstract
This paper argues that major oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the
causal mechanism that generated the stagflation of the 1970s as is often thought. There is neither
a theoretical presumption that oil supply shocks are stagflationary nor robust empirical evidence
for this view. In contrast, we show that monetary expansions and contractions can generate stagflation
of realistic magnitude even in the absence of supply shocks. Furthermore, monetary fluctuations
help to explain the historical movements of the prices of oil and other commodities, including
the surge in the prices of industrial commodities that preceded the 1973/74 oil price increase.
Thus, they can account for the striking coincidence of major oil price increases and worsening
stagflation.
My quote dragged on too long. I should have ended it with the first sentence. Monetary policy
could play a role but foreign policy could still be the biggest factor.
"Former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said he's skeptical that fiscal policy will be loosened
a great deal if Clinton wins the election, as seems likely based on recent voter surveys.
"She is promising not to make budget deficits bigger by her programs," said Blinder, who is
now a professor at Princeton University. "Whatever fiscal stimulus there is ought to be small
enough for the Fed practically to ignore it."
PGL told us that Hillary's fiscal program would be YUGE.
Dean Baker in "Rigged" * reminds me of the lasting limits to growth that appear to follow the
sacrifice of growth, especially to the extent of allowing a recession, for the sake of budget
balancing during a time of surrounding economic weakness:
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich
Richer
By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the
world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies to help U.S. workers,
specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because
exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out
of poverty. The role model was China, which by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty
and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters would block the
rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented
media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016). After all, it was pretty
irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if
you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory
economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing
world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the United States don't buy
it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to
a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff.
In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world
would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't
sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff
they produced raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of
demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full
employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn't
produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find anyone
to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect total employment. Economies adjust so
that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics),
capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a
low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce and gets a high rate of
return....
It is yuuuuge - and no I did not say anything of the sort. Rather I noted it would be less than
1% of GDP. This is what I get for trying to get the facts right. It gets too complicated for you
even when we simplify things so you get angry and start screaming "liar". Grow up.
Per capta GDP grew from $51,100 to $51,400 between July 1 2015 and July 1 2016. This 0.6% growth
does not seem to me to be a statistic supporting claims of improving employment and improving
wage growth.
Dean has suggested in one of his commentaries that wage growth may be an artifact of a decline
in the quality of health insurance coverage. Wage growth is not figured net of increased outlays
for deductibles and copays related to changes in health insurance. PPACA discourages low deductible
and low copay health plans by placing a "Cadillac tax" on them, or at least threatening to do
so. The consequent rise in wage workers' outlays for copays and deductibles are not captured in
the statistics that claim to measure wage gains. This results in an income transfer from the well
to the sick, but can produce statistics that can be interpreted in politically convenient ways
by those so inclined
I get why the plans are taxed. I don't believe that the results of that policy have been beneficial
for the bulk of the population. Most of the good done by PPACA was done by the expansion of Medicaid
eligibility. I believe that requiring the working poor people to settle for high deductible high
copay policies has had the practical effect of requiring them to choose between adequate medical
and further impoverishment. I do not believe that the PPACA could not have been financed in a
way less injurious to the working poor. As the insurers have been unable to make money in this
deal, the hospital operators seem to have been the only winners in that their bad debt problems
have been ameliorated.
"people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas"
And this is entirely rational, as in the situation described, the fruits of their efforts will
likely be siphoned from their pockets by the elites and generally rent-seekers with higher social
standing and leverage, or at best their efforts will amount to too little to be worth the risk
(including the risk of wasting one's time i.e. opportunity cost). It also becomes correspondingly
harder to convince and motivate others to join or fund any worthwhile efforts. What also happens
(and has happened in "communism") is that people take their interests private, i.e. hidden from
the view of those who would usurp or derail them.
"Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about
the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it
is to die.
The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next, disguises
the fragility of its fabric. How many of our activities are made possible by the impression of
stability that pattern gives? So long as it repeats, or varies steadily enough, we are able to
plan for tomorrow as if all the things we rely on and don't think about too carefully will still
be there. When the pattern is broken, by civil war or natural disaster or the smaller-scale tragedies
that tear at its fabric, many of those activities become impossible or meaningless, while simply
meeting needs we once took for granted may occupy much of our lives.
What war correspondents and relief workers report is not only the fragility of the fabric,
but the speed with which it can unravel. As we write this, no one can say with certainty where
the unraveling of the financial and commercial fabric of our economies will end. Meanwhile, beyond
the cities, unchecked industrial exploitation frays the material basis of life in many parts of
the world, and pulls at the ecological systems which sustain it.
Precarious as this moment may be, however, an awareness of the fragility of what we call civilisation
is nothing new.
'Few men realise,' wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, 'that their life, the very essence of their
character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in
the safety of their surroundings.' Conrad's writings exposed the civilisation exported by European
imperialists to be little more than a comforting illusion, not only in the dark, unconquerable
heart of Africa, but in the whited sepulchres of their capital cities. The inhabitants of that
civilisation believed 'blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in
the power of its police and of its opinion,' but their confidence could be maintained only by
the seeming solidity of the crowd of like-minded believers surrounding them. Outside the walls,
the wild remained as close to the surface as blood under skin, though the city-dweller was no
longer equipped to face it directly.
Bertrand Russell caught this vein in Conrad's worldview, suggesting that the novelist 'thought
of civilised and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled
lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths.' What both Russell
and Conrad were getting at was a simple fact which any historian could confirm: human civilisation
is an intensely fragile construction. It is built on little more than belief: belief in the rightness
of its values; belief in the strength of its system of law and order; belief in its currency;
above all, perhaps, belief in its future.
Once that belief begins to crumble, the collapse of a civilisation may become unstoppable.
That civilisations fall, sooner or later, is as much a law of history as gravity is a law of physics.
What remains after the fall is a wild mixture of cultural debris, confused and angry people whose
certainties have betrayed them, and those forces which were always there, deeper than the foundations
of the city walls: the desire to survive and the desire for meaning."
Slavoj Žižek Says He'd Vote Trump: Hillary Clinton 'Is the Real Danger'
|
04 Nov 2016 | Slovenian-born philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek said a
Hillary Clinton presidency is a greater danger to the nation than a President Donald
Trump. Žižek explained that while he is "horrified" by Trump, he believes a Trump
presidency could result in a "big awakening" that could set into motion the formation of
"new political processes." By contrast, Žižek said he sees Clinton as "the true
danger"--pointing specifically to her insincerity, her ties to the Wall Street banks,
and her dedication to the "absolute inertia" of our established political system.
The author is a neocon...
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty was deeply unfair as it did not eliminated see based missiles, only ground based
one. It is essentially a trap Gorbachov went into.
Notable quotes:
"... On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) ..."
"... No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece. "Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants," he wrote, "cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon." And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president. ..."
By Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and
the author, most recently, of The Race
for What's Left . A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available
from the Media Education Foundation . Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. Originally published
at TomDispatch
... ... ..
With passions running high on both sides in this year's election and rising fears about Donald
Trump's impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton's hawkish one, it's hardly surprising that the "nuclear
button" question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign. In one of the more pointed exchanges
of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure
for the job. "A man who can be provoked by a tweet," she
commented , "should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes." Donald Trump has reciprocated
by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad. "You're going to end up in World War III
over Syria," he told
reporters in Florida last month.
For most election observers, however, the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated
discussions of the nuclear issue, with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate
is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codes. There is, however, a more important
reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around: at this very moment,
for a variety of reasons, the "nuclear threshold" - the point at which some party to a "conventional"
(non-nuclear) conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons - seems to be
moving dangerously lower.
Not so long ago, it was implausible that a major nuclear power - the United States, Russia, or
China - would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenario. No longer. Worse
yet, this is likely to be our reality for years to come, which means that the next president will
face a world in which a nuclear decision-making point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have
thought possible just a year or two ago - with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all.
No less worrisome, the major nuclear powers (and some smaller ones) are all in the process of
acquiring new nuclear arms, which could, in theory, push that threshold lower still. These include
a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in "limited" nuclear
wars - atomic conflicts that, in theory at least, could be confined to just a single country or one
area of the world (say, Eastern Europe) and so might be even easier for decision-makers to initiate.
The next president will have to decide whether the U.S. should actually produce weapons of this type
and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington's likely adversaries.
Lowering the Nuclear Threshold
During the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet
Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and
their allies might lead from, say, minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to full-scale tank combat
to, in the end, the use of "battlefield" nuclear weapons, and then city-busting versions of the same
to avert defeat. In some of these scenarios, strategists hypothesized about wielding "tactical" or
battlefield weaponry - nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation, but not Paris or
Moscow - and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but
still sub-apocalyptic level. (Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this
lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy .) Eventually, leaders
on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents
to the use of such weaponry by the other side. This was, of course, the concept of "
mutually assured
destruction ," or - in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times: MAD. It would,
in the end, form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers.
Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the
Soviet Union began deploying the
SS-20 intermediate-range
ballistic missile (capable of striking cities in Europe, but not the U.S.) and Washington responded
with plans to deploy nuclear-armed, ground-launched cruise missiles and the
Pershing-II ballistic missile
in Europe. The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe
and the United States. On December 8, 1987, at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear
conflagration in Europe might trigger an all-out nuclear exchange between the superpowers, President
Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty.
That historic agreement - the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems -
banned the deployment of ground-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and
5,500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existence. After the collapse
of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation inherited the USSR's treaty obligations and pledged to
uphold the INF along with other U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. In the view of most observers,
the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep
cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others,
including the
New START , the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010.
... ... ...
To put this in perspective, Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a
U.S.-led drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influence. They
point, in particular, to the
build-up
of NATO forces in the Baltic countries, involving the semi-permanent deployment of combat battalions
in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union, and in apparent violation of
promises made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do so. As a result, Russia has been bolstering
its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, and
training its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there.
... ... ...
On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a
new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also
known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), it is, like the Iskander-M, expected to be deployed
in both nuclear and conventional versions, leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what
might be heading their way.
In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis,
leading to the early use of nuclear weapons. Put another way, such missiles make for
twitchy trigger fingers
and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war, which, once started, might in turn
take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust.
No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed
piece. "Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants," he wrote, "cruise missiles
are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon." And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap
of the next president.
scanning it, it keeps referring to the obama administration's beliefs about russia, and
claims by american officials. given the hysteria about putin allegedly hacking the us election,
and the propaganda surrounding the war on terror, i'm reluctant to rely on this kind of evidence.
But even Hillary Clinton, for all her experience as secretary of state, is
likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise
in the years ahead, especially given that her inclination is to toughen U.S. policy toward
Russia.
"Even" is a little rich, given that the Clinton campaign has systematically - I hate to
use the word, but - demonized* Putin. One can regard the political class as cynically able to
turn on a dime when the election is done, but Clinton has also induced her base of "NPR
tote baggers" to buy in, and the more massive base is harder to turn. And then of course the neo-cons
have gone over to her, and they certainly know which side their bread has blood on.
So, if Clinton wins, the dominant faction of the Democrat Party is - from the leadership
through the nomenklatura to the base - committed to a "muscular" foreign policy, including a "No
Fly Zone" in Syria, where shooting down a Russian plane would be an act of war, so far as Russia
is concerned. (In the last debate, Clinton pointedly didn't answer what she would do in that eventuality.)
It is what it is. We are where we are.
NOTE * I mean, come on. Trump and Comey as Putin's agents of influence? Beyond bizarre.
UPDATE One of the salient features of the bureaucratic infighters who brought about World War
I is their utter mediocrity; see
this review of The Sleepwalkers , a diplomatic history of how World War I came out. If you
want to see real mediocrity in today's terms, read the Podesta emails.
Agreed. Klare's order of presentation creates a questionable sense of causality by talking
first about Russian tech and strategy and then about what appear to be US responses. For example,
my understanding of recent developments of low yield nuclear weapons - I'm thinking of the "dial
a bomb" - has the US once again opening up a new strategic front the Russians feel compelled to
duplicate. His discussion of the Iskander M similarly elides the question of how the Russians
think about the B52-based cruise missiles the US has had for years.
He also seems to lose track of a point he introduces by referring to Kissinger's advocacy of
the use of low yield nukes. Kissinger's book came out in 1957, and afair only the US had battlefield
nuclear missile delivery systems back in early 60s. After Kissinger gained power in the Nixon
administration, they both thought that it was useful to look rationally irrational, to set out
a logic for dangerous policies in order to make opponents fearful of a catastrophic reaction.
The Russians are likely doing the same thing. I'm sure, too, that talking of a low first use threshold
is a way to split Europe from the US.
This article on nuclear strategy makes no mention of the single most destabilizing thing
that happened in nuclear affairs in this century: the USA's unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty.
How could the author make such an omission?
The biggest nuclear problem we face is that there are "serious" military and political leaders
in the USA who think that their new ABM systems will allow them to burst the shackles of assured-destruction,
and thus to actively employ escalation dominance as a foreign policy tool..
The author puts too much emphasis on anti-cities warfare at a pre-strategic level. A strike
will be more likely to be an EMP anti-infrastructure strike. In modern societies, one doesn't
need to kill people to break their resolve. Disrupting the provision of electricity, mobile, cable
and internet connection is amply enough to eliminate the appetite for overseas military adventures.
The nukes run on a dead-man switch. If one EMP's "everything", the periodic "please do not
launch today, sir"-signal will not reach the silos/submarines and missiles will launch automatically.
We can be pretty sure that the last missiles launched will be salted with some "well, fuck
you too!"-concoction to create massive fallout and maybe even some bio-weapons on top for all
those weakened immune systems (from the gamma radiation). The USSR did a lot of very high quality
research on biological weapons, obviously, everyone else has whatever they had in the 1980's.
People who ingest radioactive dust are goners sooner or later. Sooner with bio-weapons on top
of the radiation poisoning.
People, especially people "on top" who should be informed and know better, yet still think
ABM systems work effectively for any other purpose than moving billions of USD to into the pockets
of defense industry cronies, are simply deluded. Even with cooked tests, where the speed and trajectory
of the opposition missile is known to the missile defence in advance, the odds of an intercept
are low.
Why would the elites not want to win, compared to the first 70 years of the nuclear age?
They are like 70-80 years old, geriatrics already, soon diaper-cases. All thes powerful people
are in a desparate race with time to "set things right", before they lose all of their faculties
(or start smelling of poo so no-one invites them anymore).
Even more troubling, Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use
of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war, and NATO is considering comparable
measures in response. The nuclear threshold, in other words, is dropping rapidly.
Of course this is the exact mirror image of the US policy during the Cold War. We relied
on the threat of "theater nuclear war" to deter the huge Soviet conventional forces that NATO
had little chance of stopping with conventional forces. Of course the Germans joked that the definition
of a "theater" nuclear weapon was one that went off in Germany.
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich
Richer By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the
world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies to help U.S. workers,
specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because
exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out
of poverty. The role model was China, which by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty
and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters would block the
rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented
media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016). After all, it was pretty
irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if
you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory
economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing
world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the United States don't buy
it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to
a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff.
In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world
would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't
sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff
they produced raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of
demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full
employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn't
produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find anyone
to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect total employment. Economies adjust so
that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics),
capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a
low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce and gets a high rate of
return....
More Jobs, a Strong Economy, and a Threat to Institutions : ...Institutions are significant
to economists, who have come to see that countries become prosperous not because they have bounteous
natural resources or an educated population or the most advanced technology but because they have
good institutions. Crucially, formal structures are supported by informal, often unstated, social
agreements. A nation not only needs courts; its people need to believe that those courts can be
fair. ...
Over most of history, a small élite confiscated wealth from the poor. Subsistence farmers lived
under rules designed to tax them so that the rulers could live in palaces and pay for soldiers
to maintain their power. Every now and then, though, a system appeared in which leaders were forced
to accommodate the needs of at least some of their citizens. ... The societies with the most robust
systems for forcing the powerful to accommodate some of the needs of the powerless became wealthier
and more peaceful. ... Most nations without institutions to check the worst impulses of the rich
and powerful stay stuck in poverty and dysfunction. ...
This year's Presidential election has alarmed economists for several reasons. No economist,
save one , supports Donald J. Trump's stated economic plans, but an even larger concern is
that, were he elected, Trump would attack the very institutions that have provided our economic
stability. In his campaign, Trump has shown outright contempt for courts, free speech, international
treaties, and many other pillars of the American way of life. There is little reason to think
that, if granted the Presidency, Trump would soften his stand. ...
...it's easy to imagine a President Trump refusing to heed our own highest court, which, as
President Andrew Jackson observed, has no way, other than respect of institutions, to enforce
its decisions. No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on
the campaign trail, it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the
courts, the military, and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history
tells us, people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas. They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've
already amassed. Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses,
become poorer, uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail.
It's easy to carp like this but the sclerotic elite in charge of the country has failed to address
demographic concerns, and has stamped out any politically incorrect thoughts as being signs of
baseness. Now they are so upset that a challenger has arisen. It's unfortunate that this particular
challenger has no background in government and will probably harm our economic growth with his
lack of skill, but the elites will have to eat the cake they baked.
"No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on the campaign trail,
it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the courts, the military,
and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history tells us, people stop
dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses, and new ideas.
They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've already amassed.
Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses, become poorer,
uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail."
This is all true but let's provide a little more context than the totebaggers' paint-by-numbers
narrative.
Economists told us that free trade deals and open borders would make us prosperous and
yet that hasn't happens.
The technicians running trade policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy haven't held up
their end of the bargain.
Wealth and power has been redistributed upwards.
The union movement has been destroyed in outright class war.
The corporate media spread lies and distraction. It induces both apathy and a rat race/dog-eat-dog
mentality.
The Democratic Party has been moved to right as the middle class has struggled.
And more and more people become susceptible to demagogues like Trump as Democrats try to play
both sides of the fence, instead of standing foresquarely behind the job class.
Let's hope we don't find out what Trump does if elected. My guess is that he'd delegate foreign
and domestic policy to Mike Pence as Trump himself would be free to pursue his own personal grudges
via whatever means are available.
As Bernie Sanders's campaign demonstrated, there is still hope. In fact hope is growing.
Lucky for us Sanders campaigned hard for Hillary, knowing what the stakes are.
Given the way people like PGL treated Sanders during the campaign and given what Wikileaks
showed, I doubt the reverse would have been true had Sanders won the primary.
The reverse would have been true, because we Democrats would have voted party above all else and
especially in this election year. Remember "party" the thing that Bernie supporters and Bernie
himself denigrated? I believe the term
"elites" was used more than once to describe the party faithful.
Alex S -> Peter K.... , -1
As we can see here, through leftist glasses, the only possible remedy for solving a problem is
moving left.
Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically
leftist today.
Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider.
Does the Right Hold the Economy Hostage to Advance Its Militarist Agenda?
That's one way to read Tyler Cowen's New York Times column * noting that wars have often been
associated with major economic advances which carries the headline "the lack of major wars may
be hurting economic growth." Tyler lays out his central argument:
"It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American
history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear
power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager
to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed
to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military
contracting, not today's entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik
satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic
growth."
This is all quite true, but a moment's reflection may give a bit different spin to the story.
There has always been substantial support among liberals for the sort of government sponsored
research that he describes here. The opposition has largely come from the right. However the right
has been willing to go along with such spending in the context of meeting national defense needs.
Its support made these accomplishments possible.
This brings up the suggestion Paul Krugman made a while back (jokingly) that maybe we need
to convince the public that we face a threat from an attack from Mars. Krugman suggested this
as a way to prompt traditional Keynesian stimulus, but perhaps we can also use the threat to promote
an ambitious public investment agenda to bring us the next major set of technological breakthroughs.
1. Baker's peaceful spending scenario is not likely because of human nature.
2. Even if Baker's scenario happened, a given dollar will be used more efficiently in a war.
If there is a threat of losing, you have an incentive to cut waste and spend on what produces
results.
3. The United States would not exist at all if we had not conquered the territory.
US Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion and Counting
Summary of Costs of the US Wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Homeland Security
By Neta C. Crawford
Summary
Wars cost money before, during and after they occur - as governments prepare for, wage, and
recover from them by replacing equipment, caring for the wounded and repairing the infrastructure
destroyed in the fighting. Although it is rare to have a precise accounting of the costs of war
- especially of long wars - one can get a sense of the rough scale of the costs by surveying the
major categories of spending.
As of August 2016, the US has already appropriated, spent, or taken on obligations to spend
more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria
and on Homeland Security (2001 through fiscal year 2016). To this total should be added the approximately
$65 billion in dedicated war spending the Department of Defense and State Department have requested
for the next fiscal year, 2017, along with an additional nearly $32 billion requested for the
Department of Homeland Security in 2017, and estimated spending on veterans in future years. When
those are included, the total US budgetary cost of the wars reaches $4.79 trillion.
But of course, a full accounting of any war's burdens cannot be placed in columns on a ledger....
Yes, we've seen right wing policies killing jobs and steering wealth to the wealthy, and that's
bad policy. But unfortunately it seems it's always possible to do *worse*. Trump's policies would
double down on wealth transfer, while he spouts the typical RW mantra of "(my dopey policy which
would destroy jobs) would be good for jobs." Tim Harford made a good case for trust accounting
for 99% of the difference in per capita GNP between the US and Somalia.
""If you take a broad enough definition of trust, then it would explain basically all the difference
between the per capita income of the United States and Somalia," ventures Steve Knack, a senior
economist at the World Bank who has been studying the economics of trust for over a decade. That
suggests that trust is worth $12.4 trillion dollars a year to the U.S., which, in case you are
wondering, is 99.5% of this country's income (2006 figures). If you make $40,000 a year, then
$200 is down to hard work and $39,800 is down to trust.
How could that be? Trust operates in all sorts of ways, from saving money that would have to
be spent on security to improving the functioning of the political system. But above all, trust
enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth." goo.gl/t3OqHc
Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration
By Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson
Abstract
The US economy has performed better when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather
than a Republican, almost regardless of how one measures performance. For many measures, including
real GDP growth (our focus), the performance gap is large and significant. This paper asks why.
The answer is not found in technical time series matters nor in systematically more expansionary
monetary or fiscal policy under Democrats. Rather, it appears that the Democratic edge stems mainly
from more benign oil shocks, superior total factor productivity (TFP) performance, a more favorable
international environment, and perhaps more optimistic consumer expectations about the near-term
future.
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
I was in college in the mid 1970's and we asked this question a lot. Some think this worry has
gone away. I don't agree with those types. Which is why a green technology investment drive makes
a lot of sense for so many reasons.
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
[ Having read and reread this question, I do not begin to understand what it means. There is
oil here, there is oil all about us, there is oil in Canada and Mexico and on and on, and the
supply of oil about us is not about to be disrupted by any conceivable war and an inconceivable
war is never going to be fought. ]
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
[ My guess is that this is a way of scarily pitching for fracking for oil right in my garden,
but I like my azealia bushes and mocking birds. ]
Quote from the paper you linked to: "Arguably, oil shocks have more to do with US foreign policy
than with US economic policy-the two Gulf Wars being prominent examples. That said, several economists
have claimed that US monetary policy played an important role in bringing on the oil shocks. See,
for example, Barsky and Kilian (2002)."
Do We Really Know that Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative
By Robert B. Barsky and Lutz Kilian
Abstract
This paper argues that major oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the
causal mechanism that generated the stagflation of the 1970s as is often thought. There is neither
a theoretical presumption that oil supply shocks are stagflationary nor robust empirical evidence
for this view. In contrast, we show that monetary expansions and contractions can generate stagflation
of realistic magnitude even in the absence of supply shocks. Furthermore, monetary fluctuations
help to explain the historical movements of the prices of oil and other commodities, including
the surge in the prices of industrial commodities that preceded the 1973/74 oil price increase.
Thus, they can account for the striking coincidence of major oil price increases and worsening
stagflation.
My quote dragged on too long. I should have ended it with the first sentence. Monetary policy
could play a role but foreign policy could still be the biggest factor.
"Former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said he's skeptical that fiscal policy will be loosened
a great deal if Clinton wins the election, as seems likely based on recent voter surveys.
"She is promising not to make budget deficits bigger by her programs," said Blinder, who is
now a professor at Princeton University. "Whatever fiscal stimulus there is ought to be small
enough for the Fed practically to ignore it."
PGL told us that Hillary's fiscal program would be YUGE.
Dean Baker in "Rigged" * reminds me of the lasting limits to growth that appear to follow the
sacrifice of growth, especially to the extent of allowing a recession, for the sake of budget
balancing during a time of surrounding economic weakness:
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich
Richer
By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the
world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies to help U.S. workers,
specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because
exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out
of poverty. The role model was China, which by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty
and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters would block the
rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented
media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016). After all, it was pretty
irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if
you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory
economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing
world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the United States don't buy
it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to
a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff.
In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world
would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't
sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff
they produced raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of
demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full
employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn't
produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find anyone
to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect total employment. Economies adjust so
that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics),
capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a
low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce and gets a high rate of
return....
It is yuuuuge - and no I did not say anything of the sort. Rather I noted it would be less than
1% of GDP. This is what I get for trying to get the facts right. It gets too complicated for you
even when we simplify things so you get angry and start screaming "liar". Grow up.
Per capta GDP grew from $51,100 to $51,400 between July 1 2015 and July 1 2016. This 0.6% growth
does not seem to me to be a statistic supporting claims of improving employment and improving
wage growth.
Dean has suggested in one of his commentaries that wage growth may be an artifact of a decline
in the quality of health insurance coverage. Wage growth is not figured net of increased outlays
for deductibles and copays related to changes in health insurance. PPACA discourages low deductible
and low copay health plans by placing a "Cadillac tax" on them, or at least threatening to do
so. The consequent rise in wage workers' outlays for copays and deductibles are not captured in
the statistics that claim to measure wage gains. This results in an income transfer from the well
to the sick, but can produce statistics that can be interpreted in politically convenient ways
by those so inclined
I get why the plans are taxed. I don't believe that the results of that policy have been beneficial
for the bulk of the population. Most of the good done by PPACA was done by the expansion of Medicaid
eligibility. I believe that requiring the working poor people to settle for high deductible high
copay policies has had the practical effect of requiring them to choose between adequate medical
and further impoverishment. I do not believe that the PPACA could not have been financed in a
way less injurious to the working poor. As the insurers have been unable to make money in this
deal, the hospital operators seem to have been the only winners in that their bad debt problems
have been ameliorated.
"people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas"
And this is entirely rational, as in the situation described, the fruits of their efforts will
likely be siphoned from their pockets by the elites and generally rent-seekers with higher social
standing and leverage, or at best their efforts will amount to too little to be worth the risk
(including the risk of wasting one's time i.e. opportunity cost). It also becomes correspondingly
harder to convince and motivate others to join or fund any worthwhile efforts. What also happens
(and has happened in "communism") is that people take their interests private, i.e. hidden from
the view of those who would usurp or derail them.
"Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about
the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it
is to die.
The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next, disguises
the fragility of its fabric. How many of our activities are made possible by the impression of
stability that pattern gives? So long as it repeats, or varies steadily enough, we are able to
plan for tomorrow as if all the things we rely on and don't think about too carefully will still
be there. When the pattern is broken, by civil war or natural disaster or the smaller-scale tragedies
that tear at its fabric, many of those activities become impossible or meaningless, while simply
meeting needs we once took for granted may occupy much of our lives.
What war correspondents and relief workers report is not only the fragility of the fabric,
but the speed with which it can unravel. As we write this, no one can say with certainty where
the unraveling of the financial and commercial fabric of our economies will end. Meanwhile, beyond
the cities, unchecked industrial exploitation frays the material basis of life in many parts of
the world, and pulls at the ecological systems which sustain it.
Precarious as this moment may be, however, an awareness of the fragility of what we call civilisation
is nothing new.
'Few men realise,' wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, 'that their life, the very essence of their
character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in
the safety of their surroundings.' Conrad's writings exposed the civilisation exported by European
imperialists to be little more than a comforting illusion, not only in the dark, unconquerable
heart of Africa, but in the whited sepulchres of their capital cities. The inhabitants of that
civilisation believed 'blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in
the power of its police and of its opinion,' but their confidence could be maintained only by
the seeming solidity of the crowd of like-minded believers surrounding them. Outside the walls,
the wild remained as close to the surface as blood under skin, though the city-dweller was no
longer equipped to face it directly.
Bertrand Russell caught this vein in Conrad's worldview, suggesting that the novelist 'thought
of civilised and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled
lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths.' What both Russell
and Conrad were getting at was a simple fact which any historian could confirm: human civilisation
is an intensely fragile construction. It is built on little more than belief: belief in the rightness
of its values; belief in the strength of its system of law and order; belief in its currency;
above all, perhaps, belief in its future.
Once that belief begins to crumble, the collapse of a civilisation may become unstoppable.
That civilisations fall, sooner or later, is as much a law of history as gravity is a law of physics.
What remains after the fall is a wild mixture of cultural debris, confused and angry people whose
certainties have betrayed them, and those forces which were always there, deeper than the foundations
of the city walls: the desire to survive and the desire for meaning."
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Hillary Clinton's plan for Syria would "lead to world war three"
because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, the Republican presidential nominee said defeating
Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading than Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to step
down, playing down a long-held goal of US policy.
Trump questioned how his Democratic opponent would negotiate with Russia's president Vladimir
Putin after having demonized him; blamed Barack Obama for a downturn in US relations with the Philippines
under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte;
bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy
and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders supported him.
"If we had party unity, we couldn't lose this election to Hillary Clinton," he said.
On Syria's civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the US into a world war with a more aggressive
posture toward resolving the conflict.
Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and "safe zones" on the ground to
protect noncombatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the US bring into
direct conflict with Russian fighter jets.
"What we should do is focus on Isis. We should not be focusing on Syria," said Trump as he
dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. "You're going to end up
in world war three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton," Trump said.
"You're not fighting Syria any more, you're fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia
is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,"
he said.
Trump said Assad is much stronger now than he was three years ago. He said getting Assad to leave
power was less important than defeating Isis.
"Assad is secondary, to me, to Isis," he said.
On Russia, Trump again knocked Clinton's handling of US-Russian relations while secretary
of state and said her harsh criticism of Putin raised questions about "how she is going to go back
and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil", if she wins the presidency.
On the deterioration of ties with the Philippines, Trump aimed his criticism at Obama, saying
the president "wants to focus on his golf game" rather than engage with world leaders.
Since assuming office, Duterte has expressed open hostility towards the US, rejecting criticism
of his violent anti-drug clampdown, using an expletive to describe Obama and telling the US not to
treat his country "like a dog with a leash".
The Obama administration has expressed optimism that the two countries can remain firm allies.
Trump said Duterte's latest comments showed "a lack of respect for our country".
"... In the presidential debates, Clinton talked of establishing a "no-fly zone" or a "safe zone" inside Syria. However, it is hard to see how that would be done without risking a direct clash with Russia, with all the risks that entails. The generals at the Pentagon, who have long argued against the feasibility of establishing such a zone, would work hard to block such a scheme. A Clinton White House is also likely to explore ways of increasing the flow of arms to moderate opposition groups. ..."
"... Trump has indicated that he would seek to work with Assad and Putin in a combined fight against Isis, and has not voiced criticism of the bombardment of rebel-held areas such as eastern Aleppo. That policy would also have heavy costs. The Syrian opposition and the Gulf states would see it as a betrayal, and the new administration would have to deal with the reality that neither the regime nor Russia has much immediate interest in fighting Isis. ..."
"... Trump is likely to take the opposite approach. He avoided criticism of Russia for its actions in Ukraine, hinted he might accept the annexation of Crimea, and ignored US intelligence findings that Moscow was behind the hacking of Democratic party's email. ..."
"... Trump has suggested, by contrast, that Nato is obsolete and questioned whether its security commitments in Europe are worth what the US is currently spending on them. ..."
"... Clinton first supported the TPP and then criticised it in the face of the primary challenge from Bernie Sanders. Her reservations may prolong the negotiations, but she is ultimately expected to pursue and seek completion of the ambitious multilateral trade deals. ..."
"... Trump built his campaign on opposition to all such deals , which he has characterised as inherently unfavourable to the US. He has promised to seek bilateral trade deals on better terms and to punish other countries deemed to be trading unfairly with sanctions, ignoring the threat of retaliation. ..."
Within his or her first year in office, a new US president would also face a direct challenge
to US power in the western Pacific. The Chinese programme of laying claim to reefs and rocks in
the South China Sea and turning them into naval and air bases gives Beijing potential control
over some the busiest shipping lanes in the world. US influence is under further threat by the
rise of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, who has
threatened to eject US troops , casting doubt on his predecessor's agreement to allow new
permanent American presence.
Clinton's likely policy will be to continue Obama's faltering "pivot to Asia", and to prioritise
restoring the faith of US allies in the region that Washington will help them resist Chinese attempts
to dominate the South China Sea. It is a policy that is held hostage to some extent by Duterte's
ultimate intentions, and it could lead to a rapid escalation of tension in the region.
Trump has pointed to the Chinese reef-building programme as a reflection of US weakness but has
not said what he would do about it. He has focused more on the threat posed to the US by its trade
relations with China. In the transactional model of foreign relations Trump favours, he
could
agree to turn a blind eye to creeping Chinese takeover in the South China Sea in exchange for
a bilateral trade deal with Beijing on better terms.
Syria
A new US president will arrive in office at a time of significant military advances against
Islamic State in Syria and
neighbouring Iraq, but diminishing options when it comes to helping shape the opposition battle
against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. It is possible that the rebel stand
in Aleppo will have fallen by then, giving the regime the upper hand and postponing yet again
any hopes of a political transition.
In the presidential debates, Clinton
talked of establishing a "no-fly zone" or a "safe zone" inside Syria. However, it is hard to
see how that would be done without risking a direct clash with Russia, with all the risks that entails.
The generals at the Pentagon, who have long argued against the feasibility of establishing such a
zone, would work hard to block such a scheme. A Clinton White House is also likely to explore ways
of increasing the flow of arms to moderate opposition groups.
Trump has indicated that he would seek to work with Assad and Putin in a combined fight against
Isis, and has not voiced criticism of the bombardment of rebel-held areas such as eastern Aleppo.
That policy would also have heavy costs. The Syrian opposition and the Gulf states would see it as
a betrayal, and the new administration would have to deal with the reality that neither the regime
nor Russia has much immediate
interest in fighting Isis.
Russia and Ukraine
A Clinton administration is expected to take a tougher line with Moscow than the Obama White House,
all the more so because of the
substantial evidence of the Kremlin's efforts to try to intervene in the US presidential election
in her opponent's favour. Clinton could well seek to take a leadership role in negotiations with
Moscow over Ukraine and the stalled Minsk peace process, which have hitherto been left to Germany
and France. She could also opt to send lethal aid to Ukraine as a way of increasing US leverage.
Trump is likely to take the opposite approach. He avoided criticism of Russia for its
actions in Ukraine, hinted he might accept the annexation of Crimea, and ignored US
intelligence findings that Moscow was behind the hacking of Democratic party's email. A
Trump administration is unlikely to contest Russian enforcement of its influence in eastern
Ukraine.
Europe and Nato
Clinton aides have signalled consistently that one of her priorities would be to show US willingness
to shore up EU and Nato cohesion,
and will attend summits of both organisations in February.
Trump has suggested, by contrast, that Nato is obsolete and questioned whether its security commitments
in Europe are worth what the US is currently spending on them. He said he would check whether US
allies "fulfilled their obligation to us" before
coming to their defence , calling into question the purpose of the defence pact. Later in the
campaign, he changed tack, saying he would seek to strengthen the alliance, but a win for Trump on
Tuesday would nonetheless deepen anxiety in eastern European countries, such as the Baltic states,
that a US-led Nato would come to their defence in the face of Russian encroachment.
Trade
The two major free trade projects of the Obama administration, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership with Europe (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with the countries on the
Pacific rim, will probably still be under negotiation when the new president comes into office, giving
him or her the option of killing or completing them.
Clinton
first supported the TPP and then criticised it in the face of the primary challenge from Bernie
Sanders. Her reservations may prolong the negotiations, but she is ultimately expected to pursue
and seek completion of the ambitious multilateral trade deals.
Trump built his campaign on
opposition to all such deals , which he has characterised as inherently unfavourable to the US.
He has promised to seek bilateral trade deals on better terms and to punish other countries deemed
to be trading unfairly with sanctions, ignoring the threat of retaliation.
Newly released emails from WikiLeaks suggest that the Democratic National Committee colluded
with CNN in devising questions in April to be asked of then-Republican primary candidate Donald
Trump in an upcoming interview.
In an email to DNC colleagues on April 25 with the headline "Trump Questions for CNN," a DNC
official with the email username [email protected] asked for ideas for an interview to be conducted
by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"Wolf Blitzer is interviewing Trump on Tues ahead of his foreign policy address on Wed. ...
Please send me thoughts by 10:30 AM tomorrow."
The sender of the email would seem to be DNC Research Director Lauren Dillon, who was identified
in previous reports of DNC emails released by WikiLeaks in July.
I think email sandals essentially zeroed Hillary changes to win any traditional Republican states...
But we will know for sure in two days. It also exposed such a level of incompetence by Hillary
herself and her close entourage that is really staggering even after Bush II administration.
Notable quotes:
"... Pence was not having it. "Ladies and gentlemen, mishandling classified information is a crime." He reminded the audience that "Hillary Clinton said there's nothing marked classified on her emails, sent or received, and the FBI director told to Congress, that's not true." ..."
"... Separate emails also indicated that a top State Department official had attempted to offer the FBI quid pro quo if the bureau agreed to let Clinton alter the classified status of the documents found on her private server. ..."
Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence tells New Hampshire residents that "mishandling
classified information is a crime" and is discussing Hillary Clinton's ethical lapses.
During a rally in North Carolina on Sunday, Pence taled about FBI Director James Comey, shortly
after news broke that Comey issued a written that the bureau had "not changed" its conclusions that
Clinton should not face indictment over her raucous email scandal.
Speaking at the Hickory Regional Airport, Pence said, "You have a four-star general that might
get five years in prison, before the end of this year, for mishandling classified information," of
retired Gen. James Cartwright who was charged with lying to the FBI about discussing classified information
with reporters about Iran's nuclear program, during a probe.
Pence continued, "you have a sailor that just went to jail for taking a half-a-dozen photographs
in a classified area of a nuclear submarine. So let me say this, if only for their decades of self-dealing
with the politics of personal enrichment, mishandling classified information and compromising our
national security, we must ensure that Hillary Clinton is never elected president of the United States
of America."
... ... ...
Comey wrote, "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July
with respect to Secretary Clinton."
Pence was not having it. "Ladies and gentlemen, mishandling classified information is a crime."
He reminded the audience that "Hillary Clinton said there's nothing marked classified on her emails,
sent or received, and the FBI director told to Congress, that's not true."
He also pointed out that Clinton said she did not email any classified information to anyone. "And
the head of the FBI told to Congress, there was classified information that was emailed."
Separate emails also indicated that a top State Department official had attempted to offer the
FBI quid pro quo if the bureau agreed to let Clinton alter the classified status of the documents
found on her private server.
RNC chairman Reince Priebus
issued a statement to Breitbart News, following Comey's announcement, making it clear that the
FBI's public corruption investigation of the Clinton Foundation - which has raised billions of dollars
- is ongoing:
The FBI's findings from its criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's secret email server
were a damning and unprecedented indictment of her judgment. The FBI found evidence Clinton broke
the law, that she placed highly classified national security information at risk and repeatedly
lied to the American people about her reckless conduct. None of this changes the fact that the
FBI continues to investigate the Clinton Foundation for corruption involving her tenure as secretary
of state. Hillary Clinton should never be president.
It is unclear whether it was actually hacked, but the server was so unprofessionally managed that
hacking it is within the reach of medium qualification hacker. It violates the USA guidelines
for setting government mail server in all major areas. The only thing that could saved it from
hacking is that it looked very much as honeypot. On state level hacking there are no idiots or
script kiddies. They would never attack the server directly. They would probably go first after 'no
so bright" Bryan Paglian home network, or, better, after home network of completely clueless in
computer security Huma Abedin. There are many ways to skin the cat, and after the USA
developed Flame and Stixnet the gloves went off. At least for Iranians, who were targeted by
those cyber attacks.
Notable quotes:
"... he is "100 percent confident" that Clinton's secret private email server was hacked by foreign enemies. ..."
"... Clinton could face espionage charges if FBI investigators find that she permitted national defense information to be "lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed" through "gross negligence," which includes dishonesty. ..."
"... Wouldn't we love to have in real time, the emails and the electronic communications of the Russian foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister, and the Chinese? They're going to use that to exploit their advantage in their global strategy. That is what was going on. Our enemies were getting information on our national security issues, our economic security issues, in real time to plan their strategy for how they will thwart American interest. ..."
"... So what did we lose? Did she identify some of our sources? Some of the people that were working for the United States getting information. If we did, then we've got to go back and get those people out of the field. People might have died because of the information that she left and put onto her server. ..."
Former House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra said that he is "100 percent
confident" that Clinton's secret private email server was hacked by foreign enemies.
"I said this right away when we found out she had a secret server. I said, 'OK, that thing was
hacked by the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and maybe some other governments,'" Hoekstra said
on "Breitbart News Saturday" on Sirius/XM Channel 125.
Clinton could face espionage charges if FBI investigators find that she permitted national
defense information to be "lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed" through "gross negligence," which
includes dishonesty.
... ... ...
Wouldn't we love to have in real time, the emails and the electronic communications of
the Russian foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister, and the Chinese? They're going to
use that to exploit their advantage in their global strategy. That is what was going on. Our enemies
were getting information on our national security issues, our economic security issues, in real
time to plan their strategy for how they will thwart American interest.
So what did we lose? Did she identify some of our sources? Some of the people that were
working for the United States getting information. If we did, then we've got to go back and get
those people out of the field. People might have died because of the information that she left
and put onto her server.
Breitbart News has led the media in exposing the national security ramifications of Clinton's private
email server. In a recent piece entitled, "Hillary Clinton Email Case Explained,"
Breitbart News reported:
Hillary's 2008 campaign IT specialist Bryan Pagliano
labored for months in a room on K Street in Washington, D.C., building the server for Clinton
to use.
Hillary Clinton kicked off her State Department career in Foggy Bottom in January 2009 with
a private Apple server, then switched to Pagliano's handcrafted server
in March 2009…
…Hillary Clinton went to great lengths to hide the fact that she was using a private email
server. She emailed with
President Obama while Obama was using a pseudonym. She kept her own State Department IT Help
Desk in the dark about her secret email activities, because her private email account
got flagged when she tried to send emails to her own staff. "It bounced back. She called the
email help desk at state (I guess assuming u had state email) and told them that. They had no
idea it was YOU," Abedin told her. Clinton even
paid a firm in Jacksonville called "Perfect Privacy LLC" to plug in phony owner names for
her email network on Internet databases.
The server
had an open webmail portal, making it easily vulnerable to run-of-the-mill hackers. James
Comey noted evidence showing
hacks by "hostile actors." Capitol Hill sources speak in hushed tones about
the "Russian
Files," which are said to include information about a Russian hack. Clinton was warned of
a security "vulnerability" on her BlackBerry on her first official trip to China, and the State
Department told her to stop using it. But Clinton decided to keep using it.
She told a private audience in a paid speech that her BlackBerry was under attack constantly
by the Chinese and Russians.
The State Department warned Clinton to stop using her Blackberry to conduct email
business after the Department flagged a major security "vulnerability" on Clinton's first
official trip to China as Secretary of State. But Clinton ignored the warning and kept using her
Blackberry.
Flynn said that the media is covering up Clinton's alleged crimes:
People need to know what this is and so the mainstream media-all of the media, basically 99 percent of the media-doesn't
even bother with it anymore. Nobody even covers it anymore. This is dangerous for our country and then you throw in all this
stuff from this past week-you have this case against Anthony Weiner and he's directly tied to Hillary Clinton.
He's under multiple investigations. Then you have the Clinton Foundation, which is under multiple investigations by the FBI,
and not just one but multiple.
You have the reopening of the national security investigation by the FBI directly against Hillary Clinton, that's another one
that's open.
So I mean we are stupid people, we are stupid people in this country is we elect Hillary Clinton to be our next president
because we're going to have nothing but scandal and dark cloud scandal over our country for the next four years and we cannot
afford it with all the problems we face in this country and all the problems we face around the world.
What we need is we need to drain the damn swamp .
We need to get new leadership in our country, we need to get fresh blood in our country, and we need to stop the madness we
are facing with this era of corruption in our country that has been going on for decades. We have got to stop it.
But the cough that she has struggled with during various moments of her campaign returned during
a rally in Ohio on Sunday afternoon. It was Clinton's second rally that day.
After coughing several times, Clinton reached for a lozenge and quickly popped it in her mouth
- then ended her speech just minutes later.
Sanders had non-aggression pact with Clinton who had "leverage" to enforce it Robby Mook
("re47") email reveals https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/47397#efmAAAAB2 …
Robert.
@robbiemakestees · Nov 4
@wikileaks the plot thickens. He basically handed her this nomination. What did he honestly
think was gonna happen?
"... He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors, the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary." ..."
"... "She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another lesser of two evils, there's no point." ..."
Just a few days before the general election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham
Clinton and her running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) still can't unite her party. Supporters of
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic primary rival, are disrupting her campaign's
efforts to take on GOP nominee Donald J. Trump, and in Iowa on Saturday one prominent Sanders
backer was actually escorted out of a Clinton campaign event for urging those present not to vote
for Clinton-for which he was cheered by the crowd.
Kaleb Vanfosson, the president of Iowa State University's Students for Bernie chapter, bashed
Hillary Clinton and told rally-goers at her own campaign event not to vote for her. He was
cheered.
He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly
turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care
about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors,
the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman
Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good
friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary."
The crowd at the Clinton-Kaine event erupted in applause.
"She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what
it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another
lesser of two evils, there's no point."
At that point, a Clinton staffer rushed on stage and grabbed the young man by the arm to
escort him off the stage and out of the event.
Now the question is: if this is true, why the invetigation was reopened in the first place?
For many voters, this story comes too late. More than 12m votes have already been cast across
the country in early voting, representing around 10% of the likely total votes in this election.
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, told Congress on Sunday that he
had seen no evidence in a recently discovered trove of emails to change his conclusion that
Hillary Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information.
... ... ...
The letter was a dramatic final twist in a tumultuous nine days for
both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, who drew
widespread criticism for announcing that the F.B.I. had discovered new emails that might be
relevant to its investigation of Mrs. Clinton, which ended in July with no charges. That
criticism of Mr. Comey from both parties is likely to persist after the election.
"... WikiLeaks series on deals involving Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta. Mr Podesta is a long-term associate of
the Clintons and was President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1998 until 2001. Mr Podesta also owns the Podesta Group with his brother
Tony, a major lobbying firm and is the Chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington DC-based think tank. ..."
"... if President Obama signs this terrible legislation that blatantly validates Bernie's entire campaign message about Wall Street
running our government, this will give Bernie a huge boost and 10,000 -20,000 outraged citizens (who WILL turn up because they will
be so angry at the President for preemption vt) will be marching on the Mall with Bernie as their keynote speaker. " ..."
"... But Hirshberg does not stop here. In order to persuade Podesta about the seriousness of the matter, he claims that " It will
be terrible to hand Sanders this advantage at such a fragile time when we really need to save our $$$ for the Trump fight. " ..."
WikiLeaks series on deals involving Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta. Mr Podesta is a long-term associate of the
Clintons and was President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1998 until 2001. Mr Podesta also owns the Podesta Group with his brother
Tony, a major lobbying firm and is the Chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington DC-based think tank.
Hirshberg writes to a familiar person, as he was mentioned at the time as a possible 2008 Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate,
requesting Obama should not pass the Roberts bill because " if President Obama signs this terrible legislation that blatantly
validates Bernie's entire campaign message about Wall Street running our government, this will give Bernie a huge boost and 10,000
-20,000 outraged citizens (who WILL turn up because they will be so angry at the President for preemption vt) will be marching on
the Mall with Bernie as their keynote speaker. "
But Hirshberg does not stop here. In order to persuade Podesta about the seriousness of the matter, he claims that " It will
be terrible to hand Sanders this advantage at such a fragile time when we really need to save our $$$ for the Trump fight. "
"... according to the State Department, the previously undisclosed donation suggests there may be an ethics violation by the foundation, even though the State of Qatar is shown on the foundation's website as having given at least that amount. There is no date listed for the donation. ..."
"... Underscoring the potential flagrant abuse of ethical guidelines if the Qatar payment is confirmed, Hillary Clinton promised the U.S. government that while she served as secretary of state the foundation would not accept new funding from foreign governments without seeking clearance from the State Department's ethics office . The agreement was designed to dispel concerns that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by donations to the foundation. ..."
"... She has another problem. Previous posts on ZH indicate that there exists a conflict between the Clinton Foundation and the CHAI the Clinton Health Access Initiative. ..."
"... The board of CHAI is upset that the CF accepts money intended for CHAI but this money never flows through to CHAI. The CF accepts funds and encourages donations based on CHAI activity but these funds do not appear to be transferrred to the legal entity undertaking the health work. ..."
"... "Pay my foundation": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GHth-bt0Qs ..."
"... We (CHAI) are very concerned about cases where we meet Clinton Foundation donors who believe they have given money to support CHAI's work because they have donated to the CF, when in reality CHAI does not receive the funds. ..."
"... only 5.7% goes to charitable causes. The remainder goes to salaries, travel and confrences. In other words, goes to pay Hillary's and Bill's personal and political expenses. ..."
"... The Clintons out Mafia the Mafia. ..."
"... "The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, 'We're going to go public with this if you don't reopen the investigation and you don't do the right thing with timely indictments,'" ..."
Three weeks ago,
when we first reported that Qatar had offered to pay the Clinton Foundation $1 million after
a hacked Podesta email disclosed that the ambassador of Qatar " Would like to see WJC [William Jefferson
Clinton] 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC's birthday
in 2011 ", we said that in this particular case, the Clinton Foundation may also be in violation
of State Department ethics codes.
As we said in early October, while this has been seen by critics of the Clinton Foundation as yet
another instance of influence pandering and "pay-to-play", this time there may actually be consequences
for the Clinton Foundation: according to the State Department, the previously undisclosed donation
suggests there may be an ethics violation by the foundation, even though the State of Qatar is shown
on the foundation's website as having given at least that amount. There is no date listed for the
donation.
Underscoring the potential flagrant abuse of ethical guidelines if the Qatar payment is confirmed,
Hillary Clinton promised the U.S. government that while she served as secretary of state the foundation
would not accept new funding from foreign governments without seeking clearance from the State Department's
ethics office . The agreement was designed to dispel concerns that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed
by donations to the foundation.
Of course, US foreign policy could be very easily swayed if Hillary accepted money and simply
did not report it the receipt of such money.
She has another problem. Previous posts on ZH indicate that there exists a conflict between the
Clinton Foundation and the CHAI the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
The board of CHAI is upset that the CF accepts money intended for CHAI but this money never
flows through to CHAI. The CF accepts funds and encourages donations based on CHAI activity but
these funds do not appear to be transferrred to the legal entity undertaking the health work.
Next question is - Where does the money go? And who benefits? ,
CHAI is often portrayed by the Clinton Foundation (CF) as an initiative of the Foundation.
. . . We (CHAI) are very concerned about cases where we meet Clinton Foundation donors who believe
they have given money to support CHAI's work because they have donated to the CF, when in reality
CHAI does not receive the funds.
See paragraph 4 on page 3 of the full memo which is a part of the above ZH post.
Hillay said at one of the debates that the Clinton Foundation pays out 90% to charity.
NOT SO. Latest filing - 2014 - shows that only 5.7% goes to charitable causes. The remainder
goes to salaries, travel and confrences. In other words, goes to pay Hillary's and Bill's personal
and political expenses.
Ten years ago I considered setting up a Non-profit Family Charitable corporation, the minimum
yearly donation was 7% at that time, of course it may have changed.
Citing a "well-placed source" in the New York Police Department, Blackwater USA founder and
retired Navy SEAL Erik Prince.....said the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the
warrants and the additional arrests they were making in the Weiner investigation but received
"huge pushback" from the Justice Department.
"The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by
her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they
gave it to the FBI, and they said, 'We're going to go public with this if you don't reopen the
investigation and you don't do the right thing with timely indictments,'"
"... An awful lot of people out there think we live in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is coming to be called the "Uniparty." ..."
"... There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people versus the politicians. ..."
"... Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. ..."
"... To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. ..."
"... Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important, the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment. ..."
A couple of remarks in
Professor Susan
McWillams' recent Modern Age piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of Christopher Lasch's
1991 book
The True and Only Heaven , which analyzed the cult of progress in its American manifestation,
have stuck in my mind. Here's the first one:
McWilliams adds a footnote to that: The 19 percent figure is from 2012, she says. Then she tells
us that in 1964, 64 percent of Americans agreed with the same statement.
Wow. You have to think that those two numbers, from 64 percent down to 19 percent in two generations,
tell us something important and disturbing about our political life.
Second McWilliams quote:
In 2016 if you type the words "Democrats and Republicans" or "Republicans and Democrats" into
Google, the algorithms predict your next words will be "are the same".
I just tried this, and she's right. These guesses are of course based on the frequency with which
complete sentences show up all over the internet. An awful lot of people out there think we live
in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is
coming to be called the "Uniparty."
There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national
politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people
versus the politicians.
Which leads me to a different lady commentator: Peggy Noonan, in her October 20th Wall Street
Journal column.
The title of Peggy's piece was:
Imagine
a Sane Donald Trump . [
Alternate link ]Its gravamen:
Donald Trump has shown up the Republican Party Establishment as totally out of touch with their base,
which is good; but that he's bat-poop crazy, which is bad. If a sane Donald Trump had done
the good thing, the showing-up, we'd be on course to a major beneficial correction in our national
politics.
It's a good clever piece. A couple of months ago on Radio Derb I offered up one and a half cheers
for Peggy, who gets a lot right in spite of being a longtime Establishment Insider. So it
was here. Sample of what she got right last week:
Mr. Trump's great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its
own base really thinks about the big issues. The party's leaders didn't know! They were shocked,
so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn't happening.
The party's leaders accept more or less open borders and like big trade deals. Half the base
does not! It is longtime GOP doctrine to cut entitlement spending. Half the base doesn't want
to, not right now! Republican leaders have what might be called assertive foreign-policy impulses.
When Mr. Trump insulted George W. Bush and nation-building and said he'd opposed the Iraq invasion,
the crowds, taking him at his word, cheered. He was, as they say, declaring that he didn't want
to invade the world and invite the world. Not only did half the base cheer him, at least half
the remaining half joined in when the primaries ended.
End of pause. OK, so Peggy got some things right there. She got a lot wrong, though
Start with the notion that Trump is crazy. He's a nut, she says, five times. His brain is "a TV
funhouse."
Well, Trump has some colorful quirks of personality, to be sure, as we all do. But he's no nut.
A nut can't be as successful in business as Trump has been.
I spent 32 years as an employee or contractor, mostly in private businesses but for two years
in a government department. Private businesses are intensely rational, as human affairs go-much more
rational than government departments. The price of irrationality in business is immediate and plainly
financial. Sanity-wise, Trump is a better bet than most people in high government positions.
Sure, politicians talk a good rational game. They present as sober and thoughtful on the Sunday
morning shows.
Look at the stuff they believe, though. Was it rational to respond to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
by moving NATO right up to Russia's borders? Was it rational to expect that post-Saddam Iraq would
turn into a constitutional democracy? Was it rational to order insurance companies to sell healthcare
policies to people who are already sick? Was the Vietnam War a rational enterprise? Was it rational
to respond to the 9/11 attacks by massively increasing Muslim immigration?
Make your own list.
Donald Trump displays good healthy patriotic instincts. I'll take that, with the personality quirks
and all, over some earnest, careful, sober-sided guy whose head contains fantasies of putting the
world to rights, or flooding our country with unassimilable foreigners.
I'd add the point, made by many commentators, that belongs under the general heading: "You don't
have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." If Donald Trump was not so very different from run-of-the-mill
politicians-which I suspect is a big part of what Peggy means by calling him a nut-would he have
entered into the political adventure he's on?
Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific on a hand-built wooden raft to prove a point, which
is not the kind of thing your average ethnographer would do. Was he crazy? No, he wasn't. It was
only that some feature of his personality drove him to use that way to prove the point he
hoped to prove.
And then there is Peggy's assertion that the Republican Party's leaders didn't know that half
the party's base were at odds with them.
Did they really not? Didn't they get a clue when the GOP lost in 2012, mainly because millions
of Republican voters didn't turn out for Mitt Romney? Didn't they, come to think of it, get the glimmering
of a clue back in 1996, when Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary?
Pat Buchanan is in fact a living counter-argument to Peggy's thesis-the "sane Donald Trump" that
she claims would win the hearts of GOP managers. Pat is Trump without the personality quirks. How
has the Republican Party treated him ?
Our own
Brad Griffin , here at VDARE.com on October 24th, offered a couple more "sane Donald Trumps":
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. How did they fare with the GOP Establishment?
Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he
has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. Probably he's less well-informed
about the world than the average pol. I doubt he could tell you what
the capital of Burkina Faso is. That's secondary, though. A President has people to look up that
stuff for him. The question that's been asked more than any other about Donald Trump is not, pace
Peggy Noonan, "Is he nuts?" but, "
Is he conservative? "
I'm sure he is. But my definition of "conservative" is temperamental, not political. My touchstone
here is the sketch of the conservative temperament given to us by the English political philosopher
Michael Oakeshott :
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried
to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the
near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss.
That fits Trump better than it fits any liberal you can think of-better also than many senior
Republicans.
For example, it was one of George W. Bush's senior associates-probably Karl Rove-who scoffed at opponents
of Bush's delusional foreign policy as "the reality-based community." It would be hard to think of
a more un -Oakeshottian turn of phrase.
Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important,
the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power
of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment.
I thank him for that, and look forward to his Presidency.
Actress Susan Sarandon on Thursday tore into the Democratic National Committee (DNC), calling it "completely corrupt." "After
my experience in the primary, it's very clear to me the DNC is gone," she
told CNN's Carol Costello .
"Every superdelegate is a lobbyist. The way that the system is set up in terms of trying of having superdelegates - you could
win a state and not get the delegates. It's crazy."
"Look, Bernie has said 'don't ever listen to me if I tell you how to vote,' " she said.
"What [Sanders] did is show people that they counted. He brought them hope. He's supporting a lot of candidates. It's very important
to go and vote down the ticket."
"I think we've been voting the lesser of two evils for too long. The good news is everybody's so frustrated that at least we're
awake."
Sarandon on Monday
endorsed Green
Party nominee Jill Stein.
"It's clear a third-party is necessary and viable at this time," she said in a letter posted on Stein's campaign website. "And
this is the first step in accomplishing that end."
Hillary Clinton deleted a 2009 email in which she forwarded classified information to her daughter,
Chelsea.
The email was released on Friday by the State Department. It is one of thousands of documents
recovered by the FBI from Clinton's private email server.
The Dec. 20, 2009 email chain , entitled "Update," started with a message from Michael Froman,
who served as a deputy assistant to President Obama and deputy national security adviser for international
economic affairs.
The email, which is redacted because it contains information classified as "Confidential," was
sent to Jake Sullivan, Clinton's foreign policy adivser at the State Department, and several Obama
aides. Sullivan sent it to Hillary Clinton who then forwarded it to Chelsea, who emailed under the
pseudonym "Diane Reynolds."
"... If this is so, Hillary Clinton as security risk ranks right up there with Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, though they acted out of treasonous ideology and she out of Clintonian hubris. What do these foreign intelligence agencies know about Clinton that the voters do not? ..."
"... The second revelation from Baier is that the Clinton Foundation has been under active investigation by the white-collar crime division of the FBI for a year and is a "very high priority." ..."
"... The FBI told Baier that they anticipate indictments. ..."
"... Indeed, with the sums involved, and the intimate ties between high officials of Bill's foundation, and Hillary and her close aides at State, it strains credulity to believe that deals were not discussed and cut. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... And he knows better than any other high official the answer to a critical question that needs answering before Tuesday: has Baier been fed exaggerated or false information by FBI agents hostile to Clinton? Or has Baier been told the truth? In the latter case, we are facing a constitutional crisis if Clinton is elected. And the American people surely have a right to know that before they go to the polls on Tuesday. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is a founding editor of ..."
For, if true, Clinton could face charges in 2017 and impeachment and removal from office in 2018.
According to Baier, FBI agents have found new emails, believed to have originated on Clinton's
server, on the computer jointly used by close aide Huma Abedin and her disgraced husband, Anthony
Weiner.
Abedin's failure to turn this computer over to the State Department on leaving State appears to
be a violation of U.S. law.
Moreover, the laptops of close Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, thought destroyed
by the FBI, were apparently retained and are "being exploited" by the National Security division.
And here is the salient point. His FBI sources told Baier, "with 99 percent" certitude, that Clinton's
Chappaqua server "had been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence services."
If this is so, Hillary Clinton as security risk ranks right up there with Alger Hiss and Harry
Dexter White, though they acted out of treasonous ideology and she out of Clintonian hubris. What
do these foreign intelligence agencies know about Clinton that the voters do not?
The second revelation from Baier is that the Clinton Foundation has been under active investigation
by the white-collar crime division of the FBI for a year and is a "very high priority."
Specifically, the FBI is looking into published allegations of "pay-to-play." This is the charge
that the Clinton State Department traded access, influence, and policy decisions to foreign regimes
and to big donors who gave hundreds of millions to the Clinton Foundation, along with 15 years of
six-figure speaking fees for Bill and Hillary.
According to Baier's sources, FBI agents are "actively and aggressively" pursuing this case, have
interviewed and re-interviewed multiple persons, and are now being inundated in an "avalanche of
new information" from WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
The FBI told Baier that they anticipate indictments.
Indeed, with the sums involved, and the intimate ties between high officials of Bill's foundation,
and Hillary and her close aides at State, it strains credulity to believe that deals were not discussed
and cut.
Books have been written alleging and detailing them.
Also, not only Fox News but also the Wall Street Journal and other news sources are reporting
on what appears to be a rebellion inside the FBI against strictures on their investigations imposed
by higher ups in the Department of Justice of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Director Comey has come under fire from left and right-first for refusing to recommend the prosecution
of Clinton, then for last week's statement about the discovery of new and "pertinent" emails on the
Abedin-Weiner computer-but retains a reputation for integrity.
And he knows better than any other high official the answer to a critical question that needs
answering before Tuesday: has Baier been fed exaggerated or false information by FBI agents hostile
to Clinton? Or has Baier been told the truth? In the latter case, we are facing a constitutional crisis if Clinton is elected. And the American
people surely have a right to know that before they go to the polls on Tuesday.
What is predictable ahead?
Attorney General Lynch, whether she stays or goes, will be hauled before Congress to explain whether
she or top aides impeded the FBI investigations of the Clinton scandals. And witnesses from within
her Justice department and FBI will also be called to testify.
Moreover, Senate Republicans would block confirmation of any new attorney general who did not
first promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the email and pay-to-play scandals,
and any pressure from Lynch's Justice Department on the FBI.
Even Democrats would concede that a Department of Justice staffed by Hillary Clinton appointees
could not credibly be entrusted with investigating alleged high crimes and misdemeanors by former
Secretary of State Clinton and confidants like Abedin and Mills.
An independent counsel, a special prosecutor, appears inevitable.
And such individuals usually mark their success or failure by how many and how high are the indictments
and convictions they rack up.
Virtually the whole planet holds its collective breath at the prospect of Hillary Clinton possibly
becoming the next President of the United States (POTUS).
How's that humanly possible, as the (daily) Bonfire of The Scandals – relentlessly fed by WikiLeaks
revelations and now converging FBI investigations – can now be seen from interstellar space?
It's possible because Hillary Clinton, slouching through a paroxysm of manufactured hysteria,
is supported by virtually the whole US establishment, a consensual neocon/neoliberalcon War Party/Wall
Street/corporate media axis.
But History has a tendency to show us there's always a straw that breaks the camel's back.
... ... ...
As far as the Clinton machine is concerned, an interlocking influence peddling pile up is the
norm. John Podesta also happens to be the founder of the Center for American Progress – a George
Soros operation and prime recruiting ground for Obama administration officials, including US Treasury
operatives who decided which elite Too Big To Fail (TBTF) financial giants would be spared after
the 2008 crisis. DCLeaks.com , for its part, has
connected Soros Open Society foundations to global funding rackets directly leading to subversion
of governments and outright regime change (obviously sparing Clinton Foundation donors.)
Exceptional bananas, anyone?
The perfectly timed slow drip of WikiLeaks revelations, for the Clinton machine, feels like a
sophisticated form of Chinese torture. To alleviate the pain, the relentless standard spin has been
to change the subject, blame the messenger, and attribute it all to "evil" Russian hacking when the
real source for the leaks might have come straight from the
https://www.rt.com/news/365164-assange-interview-wikileaks-russia/
belly of the (Washington) beast.
At the Valdai discussion club last week, it took President Putin
"Another mythical and imaginary problem is what I can only call the hysteria the USA has
whipped up over supposed Russian meddling in the American presidential election. The United States
has plenty of genuinely urgent problems, it would seem, from the colossal public debt to the increase
in firearms violence and cases of arbitrary action by the police. You would think that the election
debates would concentrate on these and other unresolved problems, but the elite has nothing with
which to reassure society, it seems, and therefore attempt to distract public attention by pointing
instead to supposed Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence and so forth.
I have to ask myself and ask you too: Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia can somehow
influence the American people's choice? America is not some kind of 'banana republic', after all,
but is a great power. Do correct me if I am wrong."
Reality, though, continues to insist on offering multiple, overlapping banana republic instances,
configuring a giant black hole of transparency.
Anthropologist Janine Wedel has been one of the few in Clinton-linked US mainstream media
Now, less than a week before the election, we have come to the crucial juncture where the WikiLeaks
revelations are merging with the FBI investigations – all three of them.
this WikiLeaks bombshell; Peter Kadzik, who's now in charge of the Department of Justice (DOJ)
probe into the 650,000 emails found on the laptop shared by Clinton's right-hand woman Huma Abedin
and her estranged, pervert husband Anthony Wiener, is a Clinton asset.
Not only Kadzik was an attorney for Marc Rich when he was pardoned by Bill Clinton; Podesta
– as also revealed by WikiLeaks – thanked Kadzik for keeping him "out of jail"; and it was Kadzik
who gave Podesta a secret heads up
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150#efmABWAB8ACiACqACvADUADXAIF on the Clinton
email investigation.
The Clinton machine, starring a self-described virtuous Madonna, is actually a pretty nasty
business. Huma and her family's close connections to Saudi Arabia – and the Muslim Brotherhood –
are legendary (that includes his brother Hassan, who works for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi). Podesta,
by the way, is a handsomely remunerated lobbyist for Saudi Arabia in Washington; that's part of the
Clinton Foundation connection.
Yet now, with Huma in the spotlight – still maintaining she didn't know all those emails were
in her and Wiener's laptop – it's no wonder Hillary has instantly downgraded her, publicly, to "one
of my aides". She used to be Hillary's ersatz
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/huma-abedin-hillary-clinton-adviser "daughter"; now she's
being framed as The Fall Princess.
And that brings us to the intersection of those three FBI investigations; on Hillary's Subterranean
Email Server (in theory closed by FBI's Comey last summer); on the Clinton Foundation; and on Wiener's
sexting of minors. The FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for over a year now. Let's
try to cut a long story short.
Follow the evidence
Last July, the DOJ – under Clinton/Obama asset Loretta Lynch – decided not to prosecute anyone
on Emailgate. And yet FBI director Comey – who nonetheless stressed Hillary's "extreme carelessness"
– turbo-charged his no-denial mode on another investigation, as in the FBI "sought to refocus the
Clinton Foundation probe."
Soon we had Clinton Foundation FBI investigators trying to get access to all the emails turned
over in the Emailgate investigation. The East District of New York refused it. Very important point;
up to 2015, guess who was the US attorney at the East District; Clinton/Obama asset Lynch.
Enter an extra layer of legalese. Less than two months ago, the Clinton Foundation FBI investigators
discovered they could not have access to any Emailgate material that was connected to immunity agreements.
But then, roughly a month ago, another FBI team captured the by now famous laptop shared by
Huma and Wiener – using a warrant allowing only a probe on Weiner's sexting of a 15-year-old girl.
Subsequently they found Huma Abedin emails at all her accounts – from
[email protected]to the crucial
[email protected]. This meant not only that Huma
was forwarding State Dept. emails to her private accounts, but also that Hillary was sending emails
from the "secret" clintonemail.com to Huma at yahoo.com.
No one knew for sure, but some of these emails might be duplicates of those the Clinton Foundation
FBI investigators could not access because of the pesky immunity agreements.
What's established by now is that the metadata in the Huma/Wiener laptop was duly examined. Now
picture both teams of FBI investigators – Clinton Foundation and pervert Wiener – comparing notes.
And then they decide Huma's emails are "relevant".
Key questions apply; and the most pressing is how the emails were deemed "relevant" if the investigators
could only examine the metadata. What matters is that Comey certainly was made aware of the content
of the emails – a potential game-changer. That's why one of my sources
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201610311046920348-clinton-fbi-november-surprise/ insists
his decision to go public came from above.
The other key question now is whether the DOJ – via Kadzik? – will once again thwart another
investigation, this time on the Clinton Foundation. Senior, serious FBI agents won't take that –
massive euphemism – kindly. The FBI has been on the Clinton Foundation for over a year. Now, arguably,
they are loaded with evidence – and they won't quit. Winning the presidency now seems to be the least
of Hillary Clinton's Bonfire of Scandals' problems.
Eric, November 4, 2016 1:08 pm
After the Nixon Watergate scandal, which avoided discussion of his war crimes and
treasonous undermining of Vietnamese peace talks, and probable role in JFK's assassination.
And after the Iran Contra scandal which also involved illegal arms transfers, obstruction of
justice, end running around supplying arms to terrorists, drug dealing, etc., it is refreshing
that after Bill's impeachment on relatively minor charges (do older guys having affairs with
younger women occur, and they don't want to talk about it?), to see some Democrats, who have
always portrayed themselves as the good guys against the evil Nixons and Reagans and Bushes,
being caught red handed in good oldfashioned money laundering, gun running, supplying arms to
terrorists and cavorting with and accepting money from good old fashioned head chopping human
rights violators, in true treasonous style.
As the saying goes, "The country is run by gangsters, and the ones who win are called 'The
Government'.
"... I'll be interested to see how much Hillary tries to "work with Republicans" when it comes to foreign or domestic policy, as she's promising on the campaign trail. ..."
"... In a recent interview Biden was talking about how his "friends" in the Senate like McCain, Lindsy Graham, etc. - the sane ones who hate Trump - have to come out in support of the Republican plan to block Clinton from nominating a Supreme Court judge, because of if they don't, the Koch brothers will primary them. ..."
"... While I agree that the Republican party has been interested in whatever argument will win elections and benefit their donor class, doesn't the Democratic Party also have a donor class? Haven't Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton had a close relationship with some business interests? Did anyone go to jail after the asset bubble? Did welfare reform work or simply shift the problem out of view? How complicit are the Democrats in the great risk shift? ..."
"... I would think the scorched earth politics of the neoliberals required Democrats to shift to the right if they ever hoped to win an election, again. That is what it has looked like to me. The American equivalent of New Labor in Britain. So, we have a more moderate business-interest group of Democrats and a radical business-interest group of Republicans during the past 40 years. I think Kevin Phillips has made this argument. ..."
"... Our grand experimental shift back to classical theory involved supply side tax cuts, deregulation based on the magic of new finance theory, and monetarist pro-financial monetary policy. All of which gave us the masquerade of a great moderation that ended in the mother of all asset bubbles. While we shredded the safety net. ..."
"... Now the population is learning the arguments about free trade magically lifting all boats up into the capitalist paradise has blown up. We've shifted the risk onto the working population and they couldn't bear it. ..."
"... Economists lied to the American people about trade and continue to lie about the issue day in and day out. Brainwashing kids with a silly model called comparative advantage. ..."
This is all true but Krugman always fails to tell the other side of the story.
I'll be interested to see how much Hillary tries to "work with Republicans" when it comes
to foreign or domestic policy, as she's promising on the campaign trail.
The centrists always do this to push through centrist, neoliberal "solutions" which anger the
left.
In a recent interview Biden was talking about how his "friends" in the Senate like McCain,
Lindsy Graham, etc. - the sane ones who hate Trump - have to come out in support of the Republican
plan to block Clinton from nominating a Supreme Court judge, because of if they don't, the Koch
brothers will primary them.
Let's hope Hillary does something about campaign finance reform and Citizen United and takes
a harder line against obstructionist Republicans.
While I agree that the Republican party has been interested in whatever argument will win
elections and benefit their donor class, doesn't the Democratic Party also have a donor class?
Haven't Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton had a close relationship with some business
interests? Did anyone go to jail after the asset bubble? Did welfare reform work or simply shift
the problem out of view? How complicit are the Democrats in the great risk shift?
I would think the scorched earth politics of the neoliberals required Democrats to shift
to the right if they ever hoped to win an election, again. That is what it has looked like to
me. The American equivalent of New Labor in Britain. So, we have a more moderate business-interest
group of Democrats and a radical business-interest group of Republicans during the past 40 years.
I think Kevin Phillips has made this argument.
Our grand experimental shift back to classical theory involved supply side tax cuts, deregulation
based on the magic of new finance theory, and monetarist pro-financial monetary policy. All of
which gave us the masquerade of a great moderation that ended in the mother of all asset bubbles.
While we shredded the safety net.
Now the population is learning the arguments about free trade magically lifting all boats
up into the capitalist paradise has blown up. We've shifted the risk onto the working population
and they couldn't bear it.
Perhaps the less partisan take-way would be - is it possible for any political candidate to
get elected in this environment without bowing to the proper interests? How close did Bernie get?
And, how do we fix it without first admitting that the policies of both political parties have
not really addressed the social adjustments necessary to capture the benefits of globalization?
We need an evolution of both political parties - not just the Republicans. If we don't get it,
we can expect the Trump argument to take even deeper root.
Economists lied to the American people about trade and continue to lie about the issue day
in and day out. Brainwashing kids with a silly model called comparative advantage. East Asian
economists including Ha Joon Chang among others debunked comparative advantage and Ricardianism
long ago.
Manufacturing is everything. It is all that matters. We needed tariffs yesterday. Without them
the country is lost.
"... With the reopening of the FBI investigation of Hillary and related scandals exploding all around her, election theft is not only more risky but also less likely to serve the Oligarchy's own interests. ..."
"... A Hillary presidency could put our country into chaos. I doubt the oligarchs are sufficiently stupid to think that once she is sworn in, Hillary can fire FBI Director Comey and shut down the investigation. The last president that tried that was Richard Nixon, and look where that got him. ..."
"... If you were an oligarch, would you want your agent under this kind of scrutiny? If you were Hillary, would you want to be under this kind of pressure? ..."
"... "Clinton's presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including "Tatiana." The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls." ..."
Yes they can ;-). that's how two party system is functioning by default. Rank-and-file are typically
screwed. the only exception is so called "revolutionary situation", when the elite lost legitimacy
and can't dictate its will on the people below.
November 4, 2016
The election was set up to be stolen from Trump. That was the purpose of the polls rigged by overweighting
Hillary supporters in the samples. After weeks of hearing poll results that Hillary was in the
lead, the public would discount a theft claim. Electronic voting makes elections easy to steal,
and I have posted explanations by election fraud experts of how it is done.
Clearly the Oligarchy does not want Donald Trump in the White House as they are unsure that
they could control him, and Hillary is their agent.
With the reopening of the FBI investigation of Hillary and related scandals exploding all
around her, election theft is not only more risky but also less likely to serve the Oligarchy's
own interests.
Image as well as money is part of Oligarchic power. The image of America takes a big hit if
the American people elect a president who is currently under felony investigation.
Moreover, a President Hillary would be under investigation for years. With so much spotlight
on her, she would not be able to serve the Oligarchy's interests. She would be worthless to them,
and, indeed, investigations that unearthed various connections between Hillary and oligarchs could
damage the oligarchs.
In other words, for the Oligarchy Hillary has moved from an asset to a liability.
A Hillary presidency could put our country into chaos. I doubt the oligarchs are sufficiently
stupid to think that once she is sworn in, Hillary can fire FBI Director Comey and shut down the
investigation. The last president that tried that was Richard Nixon, and look where that got him.
Moreover, the Republicans in the House and Senate would not stand for it. House Committee
on oversight and Government Reform chairman Jason Chaffetz has already declared Hillary to be
"a target-rich environment. Even before we get to day one, we've got two years worth of material
already lined up." House Speaker Paul Ryan said investigation will follow the evidence.
If you were an oligarch, would you want your agent under this kind of scrutiny? If you
were Hillary, would you want to be under this kind of pressure?
What happens if the FBI recommends the indictment of the president? Even insouciant Americans
would see the cover-up if the attorney general refused to prosecute the case. Americans would
lose all confidence in the government. Chaos would rule. Chaos can be revolutionary, and that
is not good for oligarchs.
Moreover, if reports can be believed, salacious scandals appear to be waiting their time on
stage. For example, last May Fox News reported:
"Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender's
infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at
least 26 trips aboard the "Lolita Express" - even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail
for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.
"Clinton's presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported,
but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included
extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by
their initials or first names, including "Tatiana." The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired
nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young
girls."
Fox News reports that Epstein served time in prison for "solicitation and procurement of minors
for prostitution. He allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to
service his friends on 'Orgy Island,' an estate on Epstein's 72-acre island, called Little St.
James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/13/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known.html
Some Internet sites, the credibility of which is unknown to me, have linked Hillary to these flights.
http
Thomas Frank
writes in The Guardian that the WikiLeaks emails to and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager
John Podesta "offer an unprecedented view into the workings of the elite, and how it looks after
itself." They provide "a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts
of the class to whom the party answers."
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their
loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed
her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks
as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she
appears to think that any kind of
bank reform should "come from the industry itself". And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted
by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people
at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's
careers, constantly.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon
Valley, the nonprofits, the "Global CEO Advisory Firm"
that
appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation
to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed
chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.But
the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part
of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're out.
Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince told Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM that
according to one of his "well-placed sources" in the New York Police Department, "The NYPD wanted
to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making" in
the Anthony Weiner investigation, but received "huge pushback" from the Justice Department.
Prince began by saying he had no problem believing reports that the FBI was highly confident multiple
foreign agencies
hacked Hillary Clinton's private email server . "I mean, it's not like the foreign intelligence
agencies leave a thank-you note after they've hacked and stolen your data," Prince said to SiriusXM
host Alex Marlow.
Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director
James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton's email server last week.
"Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena,
through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found
way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,"
Prince claimed.
"They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information,
including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted
pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there
at least six times," he said.
"The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her
immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it
to the FBI, and they said, 'We're going to go public with this if you don't reopen the investigation
and you don't do the right thing with timely indictments,'" Prince explained.
"I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza
in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional
arrests they were making in this investigation, and they've gotten huge pushback, to the point of
coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone
that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago.
That's the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice
in the email and other related criminal matters," Prince said.
"There's five different parts of the FBI conducting investigations into these things, with constant
downdrafts from the Obama Justice Department. So in the, I hope, unlikely and very unfortunate event
that Hillary Clinton is elected president, we will have a constitutional crisis that we have not
seen since, I believe, 1860," Prince declared.
Marlow asked Prince to clarify these revelations.
"NYPD was the first one to look at that laptop," Prince elaborated. "Weiner and Huma Abedin, his
wife – the closest adviser of Hillary Clinton for 20 years – have both flipped. They are cooperating
with the government. They both have – they see potential jail time of many years for their crimes,
for Huma Abedin sending and receiving and even storing hundreds of thousands of messages from the
State Department server and from Hillary Clinton's own homebrew server, which contained classified
information. Weiner faces all kinds of exposure for the inappropriate sexting that was going on and
for other information that they found."
"So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything,
and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen
that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week. The point being, NYPD has all the
information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn't," Prince contended.
"There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they've seen of that 650,000,
including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate
handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to SAP level Special Access Programs,"
he stated.
"So the plot thickens. NYPD was pushing because, as an article quoted one of the chiefs – that's
the level just below commissioner – he said as a parent, as a father with daughters, he could not
let that level of evil continue," Prince said.
He noted that the FBI can investigate these matters, "but they can't convene a grand jury. They
can't file charges."
"The prosecutors, the Justice Department has to do that," he explained. "Now, as I understand
it, Preet Bharara, the Manhattan prosecutor, has gotten ahold of some of this. From what I hear,
he's a stand-up guy, and hopefully he does the right thing."
Marlow agreed that Bharara's "sterling reputation" as a determined prosecutor was "bad news for
the Clintons."
Prince agreed, but said, "If people are willing to bend or break the law and don't really care
about the Constitution or due process – if you're willing to use Stalinist tactics against someone
– who knows what level of pressure" could be brought to bear against even the most tenacious law
enforcement officials?
"The point being, fortunately, it's not just the FBI; [there are] five different offices that
are in the hunt for justice, but the NYPD has it as well," Prince said, citing the Wall Street
Journal reporting that has "exposed downdraft, back pressure from the Justice Department" against
both the FBI and NYPD, in an effort to "keep the sunlight and the disinfecting effects of the truth
and transparency from shining on this great evil that has gone on, and is slowly being exposed."
"The Justice Department is trying to run out the clock, to elect Hillary Clinton, to prevent any
real justice from being done," he warned.
As for the mayor of New York City, Prince said he has heard that "de Blasio wants to stay away
from this."
"The evidence is so bad, the email content is so bad, that I think even he wants to stay away
from it, which is really telling," he said.
Prince reported that the other legislators involved in the case "have not been named yet," and
urged the NYPD to hold a press conference and name them.
"I wish they'd do it today," he said. "These are the unusual sliding-door moments of history,
that people can stand up and be counted, and make a real difference, and to save a Republic, save
a Constitution that we actually need and love, that our forefathers fought and died for. For any
cop that is aware of this level of wrongdoing, and they have veterans in their family, or deceased
veterans in their family, they owe it to them to stand up, to stand and be counted today ,
and shine the light of truth on this great evil."
"From what I understand, up to the commissioner or at least the chief level in NYPD, they wanted
to have a press conference, and DOJ, Washington people, political appointees have been exerting all
kinds of undue pressure on them to back down," he added.
Marlow suggested that some of those involved in keeping the details quiet might want to avoid
accusations of politicizing the case and seeking to influence the presidential election.
"Sure, that's it. That's the argument for it," Prince agreed. "But the fact is, you know that
if the Left had emails pointing to Donald Trump visiting, multiple times, an island with underage
sex slaves basically, emails, you know they'd be talking about it. They'd be shouting it from the
rooftops."
"This kind of evil, this kind of true dirt on Hillary Clinton – look, you don't have to make any
judgments. Just release the emails," he urged. "Just dump them. Let them out there. Let people see
the light of truth."
Prince dismissed the claims of people like Clinton campaign CEO John Podesta and DNC chair Donna
Brazile that some of the damaging emails already released by WikiLeaks were fabricated, noting that
"forensic analysis done shows that, indeed, they are not fabricated; they are really legitimate."
"This is stuff coming right off a hard drive that was owned by Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin,
Hillary's closest adviser for the last 20 years," he said of the new bombshells. "This is not from
some hacker or anybody else. This is a laptop seized from a warrant in a criminal investigation."
Prince confirmed that based on his information, Abedin is most likely looking at jail time, unless
she cuts a deal with prosecutors.
"There's a minimum of obstruction of justice and all kinds of unlawful handling of classified
information," he said. "Because remember, this laptop was in the possession of Weiner, who did not
have a security clearance. And many, many of those emails were from her Yahoo account, which had
State Department emails forwarded to them, so she could easier print these messages, scan them, and
send them on to Hillary. That's the carelessness that Hillary and her staff had for the classified
information that the intelligence community risks life and limb to collect in challenged, opposed
areas around the world."
"That's not who you want in the White House," Prince declared.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Eastern.
"... The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. ..."
"... "What is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that". ..."
"... Do they want more of the same + the Clinton's insatiable appetite for self-enrichmentand that permanent insincere smile? If not, why not give Trump a chance. If they don't like him, kick him out in four years' time. ..."
"... My feeling is this sort of behaviour has its equivalents throughout history and that when it peaks we have upheaval and decline. ..."
"... "Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're out." ..."
"... Of course you are quite correct, the Democratic Party is a fraud for working people and a collection of self serving elitist. If you have a solution to solve why people keep voting for them I would love to hear it. ..."
"... I am sure the people of Syria and Libya are grateful to these amazing people for destroying their countries and stealing their resources. ..."
"... What's left is a pretty ugly, self-righteous and corrupt crowd. Their attacks on Comey have been despicable, beneath contempt and absurd. I think they're going to lose and they will deserve to. ..."
"... "Former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Bill Ivey says a leaked e-mail to Clinton deputy John Podesta did not reveal a 'master plan' for maintaining political power via 'an unaware and compliant citizenry.'" ..."
"... I use work in these circles and the soul crushing thing is that elites look out for themselves and their careers and have no real personality, morals, values, character, backbone and certainly no interest in the people. They have personalities of wet fish and are generally cowardice and an embarrassment to mankind. In sort a waste of space ..."
The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital
collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique
of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly
released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta.
They are last week's scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance
goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the
dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.
The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied,
pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this
class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are written.
This bunch doesn't have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this class, the
choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They are also
the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of our streets;
the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to fix social security
or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think, not a class at all but
rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.
...I think the WikiLeaks releases furnish us with an opportunity to observe the upper reaches
of the American status hierarchy in all its righteousness and majesty.
The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work: financial
innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving children. Foundation
executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic achievement.
...Hillary's ingratiating speeches to Wall Street are well known of course, but what is remarkable
is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on
every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that. In one now-famous email chain, for
example, the reader can watch current US trade representative Michael Froman, writing from a Citibank
email address in 2008, appear to name President Obama's cabinet even before the great hope-and-change
election was decided (incidentally, an important clue to understanding why that greatest of zombie
banks was never put out of its misery).
The far-sighted innovators of Silicon Valley are also here in force, interacting all the time
with the leaders of the party of the people. We watch as Podesta appears to email Sheryl Sandberg.
He makes plans to visit Mark Zuckerberg (who, according to one missive, wants to "learn more about
next steps for his philanthropy and social action"). Podesta exchanges emails with an entrepreneur
about an ugly race now unfolding for Silicon Valley's seat in Congress; this man, in turn, appears
to forward to Podesta the remarks of yet another Silicon Valley grandee, who complains that one of
the Democratic combatants in that fight was criticizing billionaires who give to Democrats. Specifically,
the miscreant Dem in question was said to be:
"… spinning (and attacking) donors who have supported Democrats. John Arnold and Marc Leder
have both given to Cory Booker, Joe Kennedy, and others. He is also attacking every billionaire
that donates to [Congressional candidate] Ro [Khanna], many whom support other Democrats as well."
Attacking billionaires! In the year 2015! It was, one of the correspondents appears to write,
"madness and political malpractice of the party to allow this to continue".
There are wonderful things to be found in this treasure trove when you search the gilded words
"Davos" or "Tahoe".
... ... ...
Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which petitioners
for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely appeal to Podesta
– the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite – for a solicitous word whispered in the ear of a powerful
crony.
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their
loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed
her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks
as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of
bank reform should "come from the industry itself". And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted
by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people
at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's
careers, constantly.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon
Valley, the nonprofits, the "Global CEO Advisory Firm" that appears to have solicited donations for
the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup.
There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them
the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.
But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't
part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're
out.
It's all polyarchy,plutocracy and powerful lobbyists for the arms and finance industries. The
average US citizen counts for nothing. The higher up on the socio-economic scale you are, the
more you count. Except for a brainwashed vote once every 4 years.
From today's Guardian…
"US politics tends to be portrayed as driven by geopolitical interests rather than personalities,
and so most ordinary Russians assume that little will change, whoever wins."
"And nothing will change for the average US citizen, just like in Britain. Looks like most ordinary
Russians have got it spot on.
And as if that were not enough, the elections are 'rigged' in various ways.
Americans have a great responsibility not only to their country but to other so-called advanced
western democracies which follow they US model. A radical change in US politics to bring it in line
with genuine concern for the interests of the average citizen would greatly assist efforts here on
the other side of the Atlantic to do the same.
Astonishing that registered Democrats rejected one of the cleanest politicians in modern US
history in order to nominate the Queen of Wall St. What do they hope to gain from expanded corporate
globalism and entrenchment of the corporate coup d'etat at home?
Except that it was the same party grandees (Super-delegates - the very word sticks in your
throat no?) who all but confirmed Clinton's appointment before a single ballot was cast by the
party rank and file.
"What is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers
now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that".
Spot on. There's amnesia today about where the Democratic party historically stood in regard
to Wall Street and its interests.
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Real issues - like economic well-being for all - have been replaced by Democrats with mindless
identity politics. Clinton is literally running on "I will spend half a billion to reduce bullying",
on unisex bathrooms, and more women of color everywhere.
Is that what democracy should be all about? FDR and other real Democrats would die laughing
if they would see these current "progressive liberals" - they stand for nothing, they are a total
waste of time, as Obama so amply demonstrated.
The warning signals were screaming months ago and the mass media concocted a smear campaign against
Sanders because he wasn't owned and he was the wrong gender.
Sanders would have destroyed Trump in this election.
Yes he did endorse her. Because it is customary for the losing candidate(s) in the nomination
race to do so. He said he would endorse her if she won, right from the start of the process. For
the patently obvious reason, which he repeated again and again, that even a compromised HRC is
far better than Donald Trump.
And he kept his word, but not before he did his level best during the convention to get some
decent policies jammed into the Democratic Party platform.
And if the same sort of leakage had come from the Republicans you'd see exactly the same patronage
and influence peddling. If there's one area of politics that remains truly bipartisan it's the
gravitational pull of large sums of money.
We even read the pleadings of a man who wants to be invited to a state dinner at the White
House and who offers, as one of several exhibits in his favor, the fact that he "joined the DSCC
Majority Trust in Martha's Vineyard (contributing over $32,400 to Democratic senators) in July
2014".
Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which
petitioners for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely
appeal to Podesta – the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite – for a solicitous word whispered
in the ear of a powerful crony.
Something timeless about it all, isn't there? Like reading an account of court life in the
era of Charles II.
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There's nothing revelatory in the fact that this is happening among the Democrats, there is surely
a carbon copy going on with the Republicans! But somehow I don't think Wikileaks will be releasing
anything about that, until the GoP happens to do something that steps on Putin's toes...
We'll find out the truth about how Wikileaks operates one day. The alignment between Wikileaks
releases and interests of Russian foreign policy became suspicious a long time before you read
on Breitbart that Clinton made it up. And I wasn't in any way denying or diminishing the activities
described in the article. There are just better articles out there, which consider corruption
in "the system" from all sides - which is exactly how it should be viewed, not more of this divide
and conquer bullshit.
It is clear that rigging had taken place in the Democrat primaries, Bernie Sanders was more popular
with a big chunk of the electorate including the young, here in the Guardian few people had a
bad word to say about him, compare that to Hillary who's only strong point seems to be that she
is a safer choice than Trump.
I'm not so sure anymore either. For the world, maybe Trump is better in the end (ofc Clinton is
by far better for the US). I knew what a hawk Clinton is but seeing her "obliterate Iran" comments
made me think she might be even more dangerous than I thought.
The corollary is, Trump is the only candidate that Hillary can beat. That bares some thinking
over, I believe, especially in the light of the way we know the political system and the Democrats
in particular work. Oh well . . .
It didn't matter so much when the right-wing parties were puppets of billionaires.
The political crisis arrived when the supposedly "left-wing" parties sold out to them too.
At which point, democratic choice evaporated.
Financial interests have today captured the entire body-politic of Britain and America, and
it really doesn't matter which party you vote for - Goldman Sachs will call the shots regardless.
And they see you as simply a cash-cow to be milked for the benefit of the very rich, themselves
included.
Your general point is broadly accurate - however I would have second thoughts before singling
out Goldman Sachs any more than say Morgan Stanley , Citigroup or Bank of America.
I think he meant Goldman Sachs as a term for the larger banking group of interests (as you listed).
Some call them the 'white shoe boys'. Everyone knows the banks control everything now.
you've got it the wrong way round....it's the groups you mention that plead NOT speak with politicians.
Please don't include those running hospitals and universities with the worldwide business and
finance mafia.
"This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class:
their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else."
This is quite a mundane observation. To which social group does a tendency for in-group loyalty
NOT apply? I think what it actually shows is that high status people mix together and are more
confident in using such forms of communication with powerful people (with whom they assume a connection)
for personal gain. Hardly surprising. And also only applies to the sample - those who emailed
- rather than the general class. That is, it's a bad sample because it is self selecting, and
therefore says something more about people who are willing to communicate in this way, rather
than their broader class.
So to be clear, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. One is about how often you are loyal
to your group, and the other is about the nature of loyalty itself.
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That the people at the very top of their industry and professions know each other and communicate
with each other is hardly a surprise. Nor is it bad - it helps the world to function. Nor is it
necessarily corrupt provided they operate within the law. What is important is that getting to
the top of these professions is an opportunity open to everyone with the ability and the drive.
That, sadly, is not the case. Nepotism does not help either.
These people at the top of their professions have a track-record of abysmal failure. Goldman Sachs,
Citigroup and the other banks should have been allowed to collapse in 2008, as fitting punishment
for their greed and incompetence. Instead, they used their paid-for access to the Bush White House
to demand and acquire a trillion-dollar bailout.
[neo]Liberal may be a dirty word to call someone in America but the author of this piece seems
unaware it doesn't work quite the same way the other side of the Atlantic. May I suggest panty-waisted
pointy-head instead?
Better yet: Globalist. Its an underlying theme that we have seen unite the Clintons and Bush/Romney
families in this election cycle...we now know who the enemy is, and they have infiltrated both
the Democrats and the Republicans. They have a secret badge they wear pledging an allegiance to
a higher power: the Clinton/Bush/Romney families are the jack-booted thugs of the American globalists.
The more the administrative class' borderless "humanism" aligns with the oligarchy's desire for
cheap labor, the less objectionable those cuddly persons become.
It's very easy to make a case that HRC is unfit for the presidency... Except for the fact the
alternative is Trump. A clique arranges matters for themselves and the electorate is basically
told to go to hell.
What is over there is on it's way over here if it hasn't happened already. You can build big
corporations with a flourishing financial sector or you can build a nation. I would say choose
but you don't get a choice.
Good job in presenting Hillary as the poor victim, when she has the whole weight of the neo-liberal
media-banking system behind her... Next up in Orwell land...
"Along with the concept of American Dream runs the notion that every man and woman is entitled
to an opinion and to one vote, no matter how ridiculous that opinion might be or how uninformed
the vote. It could be that the Borderer Presbyterian tradition of "stand up and say your rightful
piece" contributed to the American notion that our gut-level but uninformed opinions are some
sort of unvarnished foundational political truths.
I have been told that this is because we redneck working-class Scots Irish suffer from what
psychiatrists call "no insight".
Consequently, we will never agree with anyone outside our zone of ignorance because our belligerent
Borderer pride insists on the right to be dangerously wrong about everything while telling those
who are more educated to "bite my ass!"
― Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
A meritocracy always crashes and crushes its actors and puppet masters whenever merit is neither
exhibited nor warranted ...... for then is it too much alike a fraudulent ponzi to be anything
else.
What Americans need to ask themselves is: Are they happy with things as they are after 8 years
of Obama? Do they want more of the same + the Clinton's insatiable appetite for self-enrichmentand
that permanent insincere smile? If not, why not give Trump a chance. If they don't like him, kick
him out in four years' time.
Are Americans happy with things as they are after 8 years of a Republican Congress stonewalling
every attempt to improve things for ordinary people, even shutting down the whole government in
pursuit of their partisan agenda? The childish antics of our 'democratic representatives' have
diminished the ideals of democracy and would sink even further with Trump, who could do a lot
of damage in four years.
Bit ironic, given your user name "noteasilyfooled". You are aware that Donald Trump (in spite
of several attempts to lose his fortune) is a billionaire?
It has been ongoing through out history, ancient Greece and the beginning of democracy, Romans,
Kings, Queens, courts and courtiers. Is it really a surprise that if you do not have a Harvard
MBA, you won't rise through the ranks of Goldman's and McKinsey? It's no different here in England,
£50,000 and up to dine with Dave and George last year.
Most of the population trusts who they elect to do the jobs they themselves would not do or
could not do, it's steeped in history that the well educated take the helm. Politics is nepotism
and money has always played a very large part, for every party, not just the democrats. Let's
not pretend the republicans are innocent saints in all of this, if Wikileaks were to delve into
their actions there would be a shit storm, remember the NRA is part and parcel of the Republican
party.
Most of the population trusts who they elect to do the jobs they themselves would not do or
could not do
Not sure we do .. We're totally apathetic and cynical in regards to politics, and certainly
those who put themselves forward mostly aren't up to the job but are seemingly unemployable elsewhere;
look no further than the last PM and his idiot chum, and now the current PM and her front bench.
Would you employ 'em?..
Ehm, sorry, no. Remember there is a word, democracy , which is taken to mean that governments
act according to the wishes of the people who elected them. Your petty partisanship is blinding
you.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They
are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers
of our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan
to fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they
think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered
to but who need never explain themselves.
This is across the WHOLE of the West no matter whether right leaning or left leaning.
The really interesting question is whether it has always been like this (and we just don't have
the emails to prove it) or whether this is a fairly new phenomenon. My feeling is this sort
of behaviour has its equivalents throughout history and that when it peaks we have upheaval and
decline.
The current malaise goes back a long way but was catalysed by the end of the Cold War. Because
the West 'won' with a system of liberal capitalist democracy, politics took a back seat to business
interests. The Clintonian and Blairite 'third way' was billed as a practical compromise but the
reality was an abdication of politics. Into this vacuum stepped the kind of self-serving elite
the Podesta emails reveal. Arrangements are starting to break down and Michael Gove's much derided
statement that people have 'had enough of experts' is actually the most insightful thing that
has been said about 21st Century politics so far.
Yes, yes, Thomas. But one click on your name reveals an approach to these elections which about
as unbiased against Clinton as Comley's - it's pretty clear who you want to win.
Among other things, if Trump wins, though, there will be war in Europe within 2 years, as Putin
grabs the Baltic states and the USA sits back, arms folded - you heard it here first.
And by electing Trump, we are trying to fuck up all of the people you mention in your article
above. We can't completely, but through things like term limits we can make Washington a city
full of strangers to them. It is much more difficult to deal with strangers in the "back room"
as you can't trust them.
We need to make Washington as inaccessible to those folks as it is to Main Street America.
We have to break America for these globalist elites before America will work for Main Street
again.
Because the American oligarchy has now turned globalist, their goals are now contrary to those
of the American people, and that's why all Hillary has is empty slogans like "I'll fight for you"
while Trump is saying tangible things like "I'll build a wall" and "I'll renegotiate or tear up
NAFTA."
We are done with them, and this is just getting started.
"Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous
in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're out."
What's particularly interesting is to contrast the main-chance sleaziness of their internal jockeying
with the overwhelming self-righteousness of their pronouncements on public issues. No wonder the
voters want revenge.
Of course you are quite correct, the Democratic Party is a fraud for working people and a
collection of self serving elitist. If you have a solution to solve why people keep voting for
them I would love to hear it.
I think the point is that all politics is the same, democrat or republican. These people are self
serving leeches on the rest of society and they have us thanking them for it......well in the
USA they have you mindlessly chanting USA USA USA over and over again but you get my drift.
Wikileaks doesn't get 'directed'. It's very likely the leaks are from the inside of the Clinton
campaign. They've been very sloppy and not very tech savvy by all accounts.
That such a state of affairs exists is no surprise at all, especially as the whole proclaimed
basis of society in America is designed to produce it exactly.
They may couch it in different terms and dress it up to look like 'democracy and freedom',
but it is a selfish, greedy stampede where only the lucky or the nasty succeed.
We are forever told that anyone can achieve the 'American dream', but it is a complete myth.
The idea that if everyone just puts in the effort they could all live in limitless luxury is such
a false illusion you wonder why it hasn't been buried along with believing the world is flat and
the sun is a god.
no they don't! The freedom and democracy is just bullshot that cons the populace to not see that
it's really "nick all your stuff under the threat of violence". They're gangsters. That's all
they do.
Seriously? Your story is powerful people associate with each other and do each other favours?
Absent a pure dictatorship, that's how power works. Even then, I happen to know you're inferring
too much design in some of the events you describe.
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their
kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this
class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else.
We all know how people in power act in their own interests and that goes for both Parties, not
only the one singled out in this article.
What is less clear is how all this hysteria about personalities makes any difference to ordinary
people whose interests have been entirely sidelined in this election circus. Where is the discussion
about how Americans can get affordable healthcare, or a job that pays more than the minimum, or
how to respond to climate change, for instance?
The US presidential race signifies the way the political process has become irrevocably debased.
The e-mails merely highlight the cynicism of politicians who long ago ceded power to the financial
and corporate world.
Politicians don't really understand the complexities of finance, in the same way they are unable
to fathom the Middle east, or even what life has become like for huge swathes of the American
population. At the same time politicians have long ceased to be the engine of social progress,
in fact more often than not their policies are more likely to do great harm rather than good.
If anybody is surprised by the general tenor of these e-mails I assume they must have been
the sort of children who were heartbroken when one day their parents gently sat them down to break
it to them that Santa was actually Daddy in an oversized red suit.
" The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work:
financial innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving
children. Foundation executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic
achievement."
I am sure the people of Syria and Libya are grateful to these amazing people for destroying
their countries and stealing their resources.
Just look over here as former politicians get on the gravy train as they lose their seats or retire.
As for the Eton alumni - closer than the mafia ....
Yes ...just look at thsi stunning revent incisive Guardian journam=lism that has helped break
this open
"But if she wins, what an added bonus that, as the first woman to enter the White House, she
will also step through the door as by far the most qualified and experienced arrival there for
generations."
"Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run"
First, no, no one in his right mind should forget the FBI cache which very likely contains
evidence of serious crimes by Clinton.
At the very least, they can prove she did not comply with subpoenas and destroyed evidence
and lied to the FBI.
Second, yes, the Podesta e-mails do show us something of how America is run, but the picture
is far from complete.
We've not had a enough look into the Clinton Foundation and its intertwining with the affairs
of a very senior official and the President himself.
One very much suspects Hillary of playing "pay for play" with foreign governments, much the
kind of corruption the US loves to accuse less-developed countries of.
After all, when the Clintons were in the White House, fund-raising gimmicks reached unprecedented
levels. President Bill came up with the offer of a sleep-over in the Lincoln Bedroom for rich
supporters who coughed up a $250,000 campaign contribution.
There are many indications, but no hard proof, of just how corrupt this foundation is. One
analyst who has spent some time studying it has called it a huge criminal scheme.
Let's not forget that Julian Assange, the man who gave us the Podesta material, has promised
revelations "which could put Hillary in jail" before the election.
You're right of course. All of politics is about doing favors for people high and low, you scratch
my back and I'll scratch yours. In the entire article the one real scandalous thing is that it
quotes from hacked personal emails that no on but those who wrote them have a right to see.
If anyone thinks that the immediate solution to not backing this type of behavior from one of
the major political parties is to elect a huckster riding the wave of righteous revulsion to all
of this, then they deserve everything that they will get when said huckster gets to the pinnacle
of power.
The solution does not lie with the other major political party either, boy would I love to
see a release of emails detailing how that organization is run. It is already in collapse due
to the eroding corruption resulting in downright robbery of the people, and on-going bigotry and
constant war-mongering to rob the world of its assets.
Nothing will happen to change any of this unless a realistic third party based on true service
to the people of this country gains national acceptance. The best thing that could come from these
emails and the fracturing of the Republican party would be that all disillusioned and disgruntled
citizens unite to form this third party. This will take the emergence of some genuine, selfless
leadership, but I have hopes that this can and will happen.
Otherwise, the future is not rosy, and one day we may look back at this hateful campaign with
nostalgia.
We have our own elite clubs in this country some of which have been here for centuries. All members
regardless of Party are connected through elite school networks and by of course the class system
which is copper fastened to keep the great unwashed out. Corruption, nepotism and cronyism are
all present here too even if concealed by the veil of respectability and having the right postcode.
From the comfort of their clubs, their marble homes and granite banks they rob the people of Britain
and the world.
I'd recommend reading "The Unwinding - An Inner History of the new America" by George Packer who
dissects this very well via potted biographies of several real people. The book also covers it's
opposite - the rising unemployment, de-industrialisation, repossessions and other themes. A very
useful background for understanding this election and whatever comes after. And a good read too
which can't always be said about such books.
Trump supporters say that Trump is not a politician or part of the Washington "establishment"
but he has built his empire by buying politicians for years. His flock is so fooled.
As someone who started in poverty and rose to do well through lots of hard work and lots of good
luck, the "revelation" that this country is controlled by a smug elite is not news. I may be liberal
but I have no illusions about the elitism and exclusionism that ruling cadres always exhibit.
And if I could achieve one thing, politically, in this lifetime it would be to break the back
of privilege in this country and on this planet forever, and make true meritocracy -- not cronyism,
not nepotism, not herdeitary wealth and power -- the ONLY determinant of success.
Then setup/ join a grassroots party.
I would like to see a pan-European, non-ideological party which will focus on getting people out
of the debt economy into economic and financial freedom. The price of housing and transportation
and education needs to be addressed. There needs to be less government, fewer MPs and more room
for people who create value and employment. There is a lot of innovation out there online for
example, but the mass of people are not being exposed to these options. A
This is how the rich, powerful and landed interest in all societies work. Constitutional democracy
was supposed to counter it`s worst excesses.
Voters everywhere understand how their governments have been subverted and that is why politicians
are mistrusted.
I was confused by your spelling for a second - David Icke.
One theory states that society would have had to crate a similar model if Icke hadn't provided
us with one. It is also, probably, better to blame alien overlords to human ones.
This is a pretty tame assessment. The more I see about HRC (who I once respected, not that long
ago) the more angry and saddened I feel. The Dems have lost their connection with the people they
were meant to represent. What's left is a pretty ugly, self-righteous and corrupt crowd. Their
attacks on Comey have been despicable, beneath contempt and absurd. I think they're going to lose
and they will deserve to.
The funniest thing about the comments of this article is the people who claim that electing Trump
will be different somehow. Trump will demolish the system, Trump will shake things up! Please!
Trump IS a part of this system, a system that has two clubs, A and B. Each club has its interests
and each club wants to elect a figure that would represent its interests. Moreover, clubs A and
B really work together, they are two groups of shareholders that are sometimes in disagreement
in the distribution of profit, but at the bottom line they are working for the same goal, the
enrichment of themselves and their associates. You have to be very naive to believe that POTUS,
a mere public relations figure, would be allowed to make any significiant executive decisions
in this company. That's not what a public relations officer does. The real decisions are with
the executives of the club, and they are not elected, they are admitted into the club. The real
question, however, is if it can be otherwise, if it has ever been otherwise, can we conceive of
a system that would be different. This should be the concern of all political experts, scientists
and journalists.
Yeah but he's going to build a wall, lock her up, tear up trade agreements with the neighbours,
bar Muslims from coming to the USA, create millions of well-paid jobs, open up loads of coal mines,
have a trade war with China, end lobbying, establish limited terms (if only a president could
have a third term) and sue umpteen women for alleging sexual assault.
"Just a bunch of expensive suits deciding on what's best for the world (and themselves)"
That's the wrong emphasis based on the points made in this article; surely it is "Just a bunch
of expensive suits deciding on what's best for the themselves (and the world)".
sanders said it and trump, an insider of independent means, are both right about the Clinton duo's
sleazy corruption. thank you Wikileaks, thank you perv Weiner, thank you Huma for sharing (one
of your) computers with your sex-fiend husband. thank you for sharing your total honesty and high
morality, all deserving that we citizens pay your pensions and salaries.
Its taken a while but i think I've decided. I genuinely want Clinton to lose, i think Trump will
be a disastrous president and the worst in history by far, and worse then Clinton.
That said
Clinton and the DNC deserve to lose for the horrific way they treated Sanders in the nomination
to see Clinton crowned the candidate... she does not deserve to win and i cannot face that smug
arrogant speech which will come if she does much less the next 4-8 years.
Lobbying, influence then a thin line to break into corruption and the system being run for the
selfish interest of the tiny few against the majority. The US is no exception to this, it is just
done more subtly with a smokescreen and sleight of hand.
I'm not sure where the "news" is in this piece. The same rules of engagement apply during Republican
administrations. The same rules of engagement apply in every administration in every country in
every part of our benighted World .... and, sadly, always have done. The only response to the
article that I can think of is that eternally useful Americanism ... "No s**t Sherlock."
it is the elite - both right and left wing who have accumulated all the power, know each other
very well and have one aim in life - to retain the power and priviledge for themselves, their
families and their peers - whether that is by social class, university, religion and yes race.
Bitter - you bet people are bitter - ignorant people who don't see they are all much of the same.
It's all about the power and the money that they have, you don't and you don't seem to care. Actually
you probably do have right power, money, class and race hence the pathetically flippant comment.
Well he's already aware of media bias and that a Deep State exists quietly in the background so
it will be interesting to see what happens after the election.
Brilliant. Absolutely and positively the best piece on the subject I have read. As an American,
once a cable installer who visited all the cliche homes of social-strata USA, I find a ray of
hope ij what you write. It is a hope that Americans will just admit the unbelievable folly of
Hillary Clinton as a choice for dog catcher, much less Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces.
For God's sake, or the sake of Howard Hughes even, this group would nuke Idaho for not approving
of a transexual-animal wedding ceremony, let along disagreeing on healthcare. You have framed
and illuminated a portrait of the macabre aristocracy now in charge. I hope more people read this.
Neither of the two main political parties have a candidate worth anyone's time. The choice
is between a sexual predator and a serial liar to see who will lead the richest most powerful
country on the face of the earth and these two are what the parties have puked up for us to choose
between. I cant imagine a general or admiral sitting in front of either of these two specimens
and thinking themselves proud to be led by them.
This entire cycle is a disgrace, vote for Hillary, impeach her in a year stick Kaine in as
a caretaker and then have a proper election in 2020, its the only sane way out of this disaster.
"Sexual predator", really? You mean like Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton, 2 men with RAPE accusations
following them around for decades? All Trump did was kiss women in show biz and beauty contests,
and they LET him. I guess you never saw Richard Dawson on Family Feud?
You know damn well, people who get to the top in so called western capitalist representative democracy,
only represent themselves. The very idea they care about the people in general is totally demolished
by observing the evidence, how countries function and where the money flows to and where from.
The people are no better than domesticated cattle being led out to graze and brought back in
the evening to be milked. Marx was right when he talked about wage slavery. The slavers are those
in the legislatures of the west.
I really like Thomas Frank, author of the brilliant Pity the Billionaire.
I can't help feeling here that he's really softballed the the US elite (the Democrats in this
case) by only mildly calling them on their epic corruption.
If seen from Main street, is it any wonder the US electorate have in their millions turned aournd
and said "no, you're not going to ensnare us again with your bullshit promises because you want
our vote, you are the problem and we're going to kick YOU out"
I mean how many times can they hope to fool the electorate with bought and paid for contestants,
all the while with the media having their back. When the media is as corrupt and 'owned' as the
US mainstream media, people look elsewhere and there they find voices that are far far more critical
of what their awful rulers get up to.
Trump and Clinton have been friends for years. So the electorate is fooled once again. Every time
the public start to get wind of what's going on, the establishment just adds another layer to
the onion. By the time the hoi polloi catch up, they've siphoned tens of billions, hundreds of
billions for themselves, and created all new distractions and onion layers for the next election.
People are undeniably stupid.
This confirms the existence of a shadow government, made up of rich and powerful industrialists
and bankers who control the way elections results turn out, so that they can help themselves.
From their standpoint, Trump will be a wart in their rear end, because he basically lacks the
sophistication needed to hide excretion under the carpet and walk over it smiling. He is already
full of it and therefore is of no use to them. They did not expect him to come this far. There
is a first time surprise for everything. They did not expect Sanders to gain momentum either.
But they managed to contain it, phew! Now with Clinton, they can continue with their merry ways,
earning billions more, settings fires across the globe and making more profits out them. It is
not just the Democratic party that is full of stench. It includes the other party as well. Right
wing and left wing belong to the same bird. All the campaign for voting, right to vote, participate
etc. are just window wash. American democracy is buried deep in the Arlington cemetery. What runs
now is Plutocracy, whose roots have cracked through the foundations and pillars of this country.
Either a bloody revolution will happen one day soon or America will go the way of Brazil.
The US public are pretty happy generally with extra-judicial killing (we call that murder in
the UK, remember this for later on in the post), seems little concern about the on-record comments
of Clinton regarding Libya.
In fact the on-record comments of Clinton generally, that doesn't even involve hacked email
accounts, are absolutely damning to most Europeans.
However.. here in the UK what passes for satire comedy TV shows have rigorously stuck to the
line Trump is an idiot, Clinton is a democrat.
I can understand their fascination with Trump.. he's an easy target.. but nobody in the UK media
seems to have the balls to call out the fact that Clinton is neck deep in 'extra judicial killing',
which I find odd.. More importantly I find this to be an absolutely damning indictment of British
media. This organ not withstanding.
Interesting, but this just tells of the usual cronyism and nepotism; unedifying as it is. We see
very little here though of her true masters; i.e. Goldman Sachs; or more specifically the people
who own GS who are Hiliary's puppet masters. I would be more worried about Hiliarys ambition apparently
to push for a conflict with Russia; a conflict that serves the Military industrial complex and
the bankers that own it. DT may be a Narcicist but as Michael Moore says; "the enemy of my enemy....."
It's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous
in-group – if you don't have XYZ's email address – you're out.
Great article that makes you think as a reader. For instance, though more ethical, it makes
you wonder how things are different in the BBC or The Guardian, or NYT, or other powerful organisations.
How far does merit count, how far does having the right background, how far not rocking the boat?
Hopefully the article will inspire others to look into the leaderships of American politics where
"everything blurs into everything in this world'.
The most shocking emails to me were the ones that revealed the Democratic Party had a substantial
role in creating and organizing groups like Catholics United, with the intent of using them to
try to liberalize the Catholic Church on issues like abortion and same sex marriage.
The same people who (rightly) cried foul over GW Bush crossing the church/state divide apparently
had no problem doing the same thing when it suited their agenda. I tend to vote Democratic, but
I don't know if I can continue to do that in the future. This kind of thing should not be happening
in America.
With a constitution like that of the US, with its establishment parties sharing a bought and sold
executive evey few years, and in the absence of representative parliamentary democracy, the psuedo
macarthyist insinuations of this article are as civilized as it can get.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599
"And as I've mentioned, we've all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in
general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong
but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking
- and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging."
And there is the thinking of the elite rolled into a few sentences.
"Former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Bill Ivey says a leaked e-mail to Clinton
deputy John Podesta did not reveal a 'master plan' for maintaining political power via 'an unaware
and compliant citizenry.'"
One might think that after reading this article, that a liberal/progressive like me would hate
the Democratic Party and all of the elites in it. Well, you would be right (no pun intended),
but the folks that I really despise are on the GOP side of the equation.
My animosity begins with Eisenhower, who turned the Dulles brother lose on the world to start
so many of the fires that still rage today. Then came Nixon, with his "southern strategy", to
turn the hate and racism that existed in America since its founding into a political philosophy
that only an ignorant, half-assed Hollywood actor could fully weaponize. Then there was GWB who
threw jet fuel onto the still smoldering ashes left from the Dulles boys.
(And if you think you can throw LBJ back at me, consider that he saw no way out of Vietnam
simply because he knew the right was accuse him of being soft on communism - and so the big fool
pushed ever deeper into the Big Muddy.)
And the toxic fumes from those blazes then drifted over Donald J Trump and his fellow 16 clown
car occupants - all trying to out-hate each other.
There is simply no alternative to the Democratic Party because the GOP represents hate, misogyny,
racism, and the zombie legions that catered to the corporatocracy and the Christian right. It
was such a winning strategy that the Democratic Party created the Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC) - led by the likes of the Clinton's who out-repug'd the Repugnants, and stole their corporate
lunches. And this is what we have left (no pun intended).
First, Frank misunderstood Kansas. Now he says he was blind to the reality of the Democratic party
until the Podesta emails enlightened him. He's right though that the Democrats are never out of
power whether they win or lose elections (although it's always more convenient to win them, even
with a Clinton and the knowledge that he or she means nasty baggage to come). Republicans have
a lock on country clubs; Dems have a lock on government.
i understand that the republicans make up most of the governor positions as well as state houses
plus the fed. senate and congress...that is why america is now a banana republic [re: see the
fbi interference] and is why america is now an embarassment...run as it is by the republican duck
dynasty intellectual class. stay tuned as fascism follows. please don't stand close to me...you're
an american and embarrassing....
Trust me, middle and lower-class people also try to let eachother know that their kids need a
job, and can you help out. And I don't mind the bank exec promoting the dinner of locally grown/caught
produce with the tastesful wine pairing. Certainly pretty twee, but otherwise pretty normal.
What should be concentrated on is the amount of "OMG, they are complaining about billionaires!"
whining in these emails, and the amount of manipulative news cycle management and duplicitous
skullduggery that takes place.
And how about a law that prevents the Clintons from even stepping on Martha's Vineyard for
at least 4-5 years?
In all, a somewhat depressing but predictable confirmation that the Democratic party has embraced
the donor class to the extent that the donors are now the party's true constituents.
A self-interested, self-promoting, self-protecting "Elite" seeks to control and dominate. Clinton
is clearly integral to this abhorrent system. The USA is in desperate need of change yet the political
system is the antidote to any change. Trump is not the answer. Americans should be very worried.
The only benefit to Trump winning is that both parties will be blown up and recreated with new,
fresh faces - and Trump will be impeached within months.
Why isn't Trump the answer? No one can give me a valid rational reason. He is one of the few who
has shone light on the Swamp and is bringing the woke corrupt world down.
that elite you speak of happen to be your fellow americans and live on your street..unless of
course you live in a trailer park..in which case stop your whining and get yourself an education
and a better job instead of spending all your time watching wrestling and celebrity apprentice
and moaning about the elite...i notice trump hired his stupid kids instead of cracker jack executives...i
guess thats some of the nepotism you're crying about....ya rube.
Trump is different though. He socialized in these environments...the politicians...use hit him
up for donations....gossip too him about the goings on even try and sleep with him .
Trump does not drink so at these events he probably heard unlimited stories maybe even Bill Clinton
bragged to him.
For what ever reason he wants to bring
This scum down. Maybe they disgust him like they disgust us?
'This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
' I ss written as evidence of nepotism. But there is no mention of whether or not these requests
were successful. Nepotism requires that the person requesting the favour is granted it.
lol no she doesn't. she doesnt want single payer, neither did obama. she doesnt want a liberal
supreme court. she doesn't want the minimum wage raised to 15. she may support race gender lbgt
"fairness" as long as it is to her political advantage. but when it isn't, she will throw anybody
under the bus.
"Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of
American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's careers,
constantly."
As long as that class division exists, nothing will ever change, and that class will never
relinquish that division of their own accord.
How different is this from anywhere else on the planet? There will always be " elites" composed
of well connected and/or powerful and/ or wealthy and/or famous people.
I have a good job in a good firm and i am inundated by emails from clients or their friends
trying to place their offspring. I decline politely, blame HR and PC, express my sincerest regrets
and delete.
As for wealthy and powerful people enjoying holidays in the company of other wealthy and powerful
people, so what? I spend my holiday with my friends and my friends tend to have the same professional
middle class background and outlook.
She should have said ."You guys are a bunch of cowardly, greedy, malformed humans. You are the
cream of everything wrong with society today.. And the worse of it all is,. you know it too. I
can smell it in this very room."
That's what!
If we followed the likes of Frank Democrats would be out of power for ever.
No, these Democrats would merely be members of the Republican Party, honestly declaring that the
people with money make the rules to benefit themselves. What's the moral point of being in power
if you have to be just as bad as the opposing party in order to stay in power?
I use work in these circles and the soul crushing thing is that elites look out for themselves
and their careers and have no real personality, morals, values, character, backbone and certainly
no interest in the people. They have personalities of wet fish and are generally cowardice and
an embarrassment to mankind. In sort a waste of space
A meritocracy wouldn't have such hob-nobbing going on for positions of power. There'd be no reason
to ask for special consideration for 'Johnny' -- since he would already have risen to the top
based on his own MERIT. So I don't understand why this author keeps insisting that this is a meritocracy
when the evidence is so clearly and so obviously the opposite.
Once upon a time these emails would have been front and centre of Guardian reporting, headline
news and leader columns, now a single opinion article tucked away from the front page. Truly the
gatekeepers have lost just as much credibility as the political class that they shill for.
It is well known that there is a deep state operating in America, if you want to learn something
instead of sneering and being ignorant, you could do worse than reading books such as these:
This is happening in America, which has always claimed that there are no classes here and everything
is done according to merit. So, yes, it's exactly like the triad you mention and it is the more
offensive for occurring in a country that expressly repudiates it.
That article adds up to zero, it does not tell us anything. There are people with networks, and
people promote other people they know. Nothing peculiar about this, it works like this in every
walk of life. By and large people with high stakes will choose other people who they know can
get very hard jobs done, otherwise their project becomes a failure. Can other talented people
break into these networks? They can and they do.
he's pretty powerful yes. he just runs interference for clinton controlled foundations as far
as i know, but i'm sure he will help out the big banks if called upon. your comment reeks of dishonesty.
The Democrats are as bad if not worse than the Republicans at deceit, manipulation of the media,
leaking false information, feeding out a narrative etc..
Its basically become like an arms race between the 2 parties to win by any means necessary
because they are so polarized.
The system needs to be overhauled and changed because its not fit for the 21st century. The
UK political system too needs to modernise because its creaking as well.
Frank (What's the matter with Frank? Frank) misses the point. completely. The amazing thing about
all these emails is how absolutely squeaky clean Podesta is. How many of us could say the same
if our personal emails from the last 10 years were blasted all over the internet?!? Not one --
not one! -- example of intemperate language, of bias, of unchained passions, of immaturity. I'm
proud to be his fellow citizen and would gladly let him serve as Chief of Staff again if he so
chose. Go Italian-Americans!
The Democratic Party faces exactly the same problem as the Labour Party in the UK.
They are both parties which are supposed to represent the interests of the working class and
middle class but they have been infiltrated by corrupt right wing groups lining their own pockets
and representing the interests of the oligarchy.
The Labour and Democratic parties need to work together to get these poisonous people out of
their organisations before they destroy they destroy them from within.
This is all fascinating, and disturbing, but sadly, not a surprise.
It also isn't restricted to the upper echelons of political parties either.
It is no coincidence we hear the same comedians/pundits/writers on Radio Four every week.
It is no coincidence we see the same people on tv.
It is no coincidence the sons and daughters of sons and daughters of the people who went to certain
universities go the same universities.
It is no coincidence certain arts grants go to a certain group of people a lot more than they
go to others.
It is no coincidence that European grants go to the same small groups of people running organisations.
I'll wager it is no coincidence at the Guardian certain people get work experience and internships.
Its the way the world works, and it stinks.
Great essay. It is hard to get all the thoughts about the elite into words when so much anger
and confusion exist now that all lines have blurred. No longer left and right, but top to bottom.
Whereas the world is mostly very grey for the bulk of us, these emails shed a light very clearly
on what is black and white and green all over for a few who are really in control. This election
has certainly pulled back the curtain and left everyone exposed. For so long Americans could pretend
there was virtue and dignity in the "democratic" foundation of our politics, but now with absolute
certainly we can see that it is not so and likely never was. No pretending anymore.
The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied,
pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this
class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are
written. This bunch doesn't have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this
class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They
are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of
our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to
fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think,
not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who
need never explain themselves.
This is a good point. A lot of people who torpedoed Bernie Sanders' campaign against Hillary
Clinton in the primaries seem to be comfortable with little or no political change. They do not
seem willing to admit that the political and economic system in the US (and elsewhere) is fundamentally
broken, and effectively is in ruins.
You' re saying that one bad effect of hacks is that email security will be improved and it will
be harder to have secure communications. In effect, you hate the idea that the NSA can read our
emails, but you're worried that the Russians won't be able to. Personally, I don't want either
the government or Wikileaks to invade my privacy. You apparently think that data theft is OK as
long as Julian Assange does it.
That's an ahistorical understanding of the party. Yes, in the runup to the Civil War, the 'Democratic'
party was the party of proto-white supremacists, slave owners, and agriculturalists. But the party
system as it exists today with its alignment of Dems = liberal and Republicans = conservative
came into being around/after 1968. Claiming that today's 'Democrats' voted against slavery is
like claiming that today's 'Republicans' are worthy of being lauded for being abolitionists -
which would be high hypocrisy given their habits of racism and black voter suppression.
Righteousness and majesty...They are, they think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened
ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.
Exactly what Bernie Sanders was against, just think what 'could' have happened if he were the
nominee. The question is when will the email explicitly showing Clinton undermining him come out?
Hillary deserves every bit of what is coming out against her, she asked for it, she wants the
power and celebrity, but it comes with some pretty ugly stuff. As Mr. Sanders said, she is very
'ambitious', an understatement. If nothing comes out to prove her malice against Mr. Sanders,
I will always be convinced it is there somewhere. Now because of what the Democrats did against
him that was proven and oh by the way 'the Russians did it', we have her running neck and neck
with Trump. They asked for it, they got it.
Why is it that literally all Western democracies have developed totally incapable and immoral
political elites at the same time who seem to be lacking any kind of ethical compass?
It is blatantly obvious in the USA where both candidates are almost equally abysmal, but for
different reasons. But the same is also true in Germany, Great Britain, France and most other
Western countries I can judge on. How did that happen? Where are the politicians who are doing
the job for other reasons than self-fulfillment and ideology?
Trump, Clinton, May, Johnson, Farage, Hollande, Sarkozy, Le Pen, Merkel, Gabriel, Petry ...
and the rest are all product of a political system that is in a deep crisis. And this comes from
someone who has always and will always believe in democracy as such. But how can we finally get
better representatives of our political system again?
What the writer is describing and what the e-mails reveal, is, for anyone with half a brain not
too dumbed down by partisanship; is the structure of a system that isn't democracy at all, but
clearly an oligarchy. The super-rich rule and the rest are occasionaly alowed to vote for a candidate
chosen by the rich, giving the illusion of democracy.
Yup, that about sums it up. Yet in the case the choice is truly awful.
And whilst we are here let's remember that the European Parliament is very democratic. The
US system or the UK System would never allow so many nut jobs from UKIP, FN, Lega Nord and various
other facists have a voice. The EU parliament is very representative.
Good read. Money is like manure and if you spread it around it does a lot of good. But if you
pile it up in one place, like Silicon Valley or the banks, eventually it will smell pretty bad
and attract a lot of flies, like the one that seems attracted to Hillary.
You get some idea of just how batty the US electoral campaign system is when you consider that
John Podesta is the guy who has hinted at 'exposing' the US government 'cover up' of UFOs...and
even got Hillary Clinton making statements about looking into Area 51. Well, that's the vote of
all the multitude of conspiracy loons nicely in the bag -- It only shows just how desperate the
campaigns are.
world history has always provided that the wealthy look after themselves. What's new? Here, both
American candidates are wealthy. But Clinton appears to want to look after others and other will
look at and after her. I'm not sure what Trump can look after, perhaps his business dealings and
bankruptcy triumphs, and lawsuits. Perhaps America is going through a new type of revolution,
generational and the massive entry of the post-industrial age in America. How many Americans are
screaming for the past, while at least one U.S. automakers shifts some of their factories to Mexico
- e.g., Chrysler.
We get the candidates we deserve, in any so-called democracy. The west worships money and glitz
and celebrity, willingly watches "reality" TV, and in general can aspire to nothing better than
material superiority over the neighbours. The U.S., with its pathetic "American Dream," is the
most egregious victim of its own obsessions. Bernie Sanders, who in Canada, Britain, or western
Europe would be considered centrist, is vilified as a raving socialist. Genuinely well-disposed
people with a more humane alternative political vision lack the necessary millions to gain public
attention. And so one is left with Business-as-Usual Hillary Clinton (mendacious elitist one-percenter)
or the duplicitous demagogue Donald Trump (mendacious vulgar one-percenter).
The internet should be a democratic forum for intelligent discussion of alternatives but has
become largely the province of trolls and wingnuts. We should be able to do better.
I'm with MarkusKraut; not because of what the e-mails have discovered - I suspect we all suspected
this kind of machinery from BOTH parties - but because their discovery is entirely one-sided.
What does it prove? That the Republicans are any better? Or that Don is any more qualified to
be president than he was two weeks ago?
No. It proves one thing, and one thing only - that Republicans keep secrets better than
Dems do. At least the important ones.
And I say that as someone who was a security administrator for ten years. And I can guarantee
you one thing (and one thing only): The Russians would NOT have got past any e-mail server that
I built.
My worry is now not who gets elected - this was always a ship of fools - or who's to blame
(although I'm sure we'll be told in the first "hundred days"), but what it means for democracy.
And don't worry, I'm not going to try to equate democracy with Hillary (although I still support
her); but about secrecy .
E-mail has always been the most likely medium to be cracked (the correct term for illegal
hacking), and secrecy is anathema to democracy - always was, and always will be.
And having been caught with their pants down, I'd like to see the Democratic party, win or lose
this election, to say that ALL future e-mails will be a matter of public record. And challenge
the GOP to do the same.
Unfortunately, it'll simply be viewed as a failure of security that any administrator like
me could tell you is almost impossible, and they'll simply buy better servers for 2020.
I've never felt any of the mail to be particularly surprising, but merely a demonstration of what
a NeoLiberal society, run by money, looks like at a more granular level. I won't vote for a Trump,
but living in California I can vote Green without having to pull the lever for a Clinton. If California
goes Trump, then every other state in the nation will have swirled down the drain with him.
In the book 'Who Rules America" written by William Domhoff, first published in 1967, it laid out
how the ruling class sits on each others boards of directors, (which he called 'interlocking directorates",
inhabits certain think tanks and organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations or political
parties, goes to the same clubs, intermarries, and knows one another. I.E. the ruling class is
a coherent group of HUMAN BEINGS. People think they are some abstract, nameless wonder. They are
not. Podesta's e-mails, as Frank rightly notices, show the Democratic Party elite. Another set
will show the Republican Party elite, and how BOTH link to each other.
We are talking about the biggest war mongering outfit on the planet. An election. This ship is
being driven by assholes no one elected...and as per, walk away with money and knighthoods while
the fabric of our society is unravelling. Store water and tinned goods...or good luck on the help
line
Good comment except for the needless hand-wringing about reading "private" e-mails. The freak
show that is the 2016 US general election is yet another clear sign that neo-liberalism is a scam
run for and by bankers, corporate CEOs, kooky tech billionaires, corrupt politicians and other
wealthy and amoral sociopaths.
The media has become their propaganda arm and the divide between what people experience and
see and what the media tells them is happening grows ever wider. Alternative media outlets (although
some of these, such as VICE, are neo-lib shills also) and organisations like WikiLeaks are more
important than ever as they still speak truth to power. Even some dissidents and media 'agitators'
are coming down on the side of the establishment - I am thinking Snowden, Greenwald and Naomi
Klein all of whom have wagged their fingers at Julian Assange for doing a job the media used to
do.
A good rule of thumb that tells you who the establishment worries about is looking at who is
repeatedly denounced in the media. Trump, Assange and Putin currently have the powers that be
worried because they are giving them the proverbial two fingers (or one finger, depending on which
side of the Atlantic you are on) and exposing the rotten framework of lies and corruption that
hold the rickety system together. Media darlings like Snowden present no real threat and are tolerated,
even celebrated.
My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every
establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the
Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment," said Assange. "Banks, intelligence, arms companies,
foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and
the journalists themselves."
He is right, but the same was said about Brexit.
Cognitive Dissonance -> 1980XLS •Nov 4, 2016 8:10 AM
It seems the Shadow Government has decided to go full banana republic.
The sad fact is the vast majority of people simply don't believe this could happen 'here'.
Joe Davola -> two hoots •Nov 4, 2016 9:09 AM
In my opinion, the biggest thing to come out of these emails is the complete manipulation
of the "news". The only thing I can attribute it to is that the media are just another form
of the free-stuff crowd, because it's not as if Hillary offers a shining beacon of ideology. It's
easy to write stories when they're written for you, and it appears that you're really smart because
you "got the scoop".
Sure the Saudi angle is quite damning, but for most that's just too deep and difficult to piece
together - unless the news breaks it down to simple sound bytes (or an emoji). Heck, without Tyler
combing these dumps and lining them up with the overall picture of what was going down at the
time, it would be easy to just get swamped in the sheer volume. Much like the "we've printed out
50,000 emails" wasn't intended to help the investigation, it was intended to bog the process down.
Mike in GA -> I am a Man I am Forty •Nov 4, 2016 8:28 AM
Trump has pushed back on every issue that the establishment has thrown at him. Wikileaks has
helped with their steady drip of revealing emails giving us all a behind-the-scenes look at the
everyday thoughts of our "Leaders". The corruption, collusion and outright criminality thus exposed
could only have been accomplished by Trump - certainly no establishment Uniparty candidate would
so fearlessly take on the daily goring of everyone else's ox.
Now exposed, this corruption and criminality HAS to be addressed and can only be addressed
by an outsider, change-agent president. The opportunity to clean house so substantially does not
present itself often and may never again. If properly executed, the halls of power could largely
be purged of the criminal class so endemic in the wikileaked emails.
This is where it gets pretty hairy for Trump, and for America. These criminals, living large,
very large, on the taxpayer, will not go silently into the night. They will pull out every stop
to stop Trump or at least limit the damage. People will start dying a little faster in DC now.
Can anyone explain why that 55 y/o Major General, about to get the promotion of his lifetime
into the Air Force Missile Command would commit suicide? And why it took 2 months for the AF to
rule it a "suicide"? Rumor says he became privy to domestic EMP contingency plans and was unwilling
to comply.
When assassination becomes a tool of the ruling party, the Party has come to town.
"... The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome
Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter
are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. ..."
The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome
Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter
are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. They
are last week's scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance goes far beyond mere scandal: they
are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.
The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied, pretty contented. Nobody takes
road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the
ones for whom such stories are written. This bunch doesn't have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this
class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They are also the grandees of our national
media; the architects of our software; the designers of our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just
about every plan to fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think, not a class at
all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.
"... The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation? ..."
John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis,
particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while
Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive
arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails
reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made
with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from
the US doubled in dollar value.
JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious
jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are
giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
For the first time a presidential candidate, admittedly from a fringe party, is calling for a
reexamination of 9/11. Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United
States government examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates
the politicians and the federal bureaucracy. This has been the case since the Warren Commission report
on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which, inter alia, failed to thoroughly investigate
key players like Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and came up with a single gunman scenario in spite
of considerable evidence to the contrary.
When it comes to 9/11, I have been reluctant to enter the fray largely because I do not have the
scientific and technical chops to seriously assess how buildings collapse or how a large passenger
airliner might be completely consumed by a fire. In my own area, of expertise, which is intelligence,
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential foreign
government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11 but the only investigation
that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look at the possible Saudi role, the
notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a redacted form.
A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced
back in 2005. It is called
Loose Change 9/11
and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in
a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though
the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently
more accessible.
Loose Change
is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a
subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books,
but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the
events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes
a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor
and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption
of emergency powers by the respective heads of state.
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at
least parts of it, is capable of almost anything.
Loose Change
describes how leading hawkish
Republicans were, as early as 2000, pushing to increase U.S. military capabilities so that the country
would be able to fight multi-front wars. The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American
Century paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something,"
that "something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document
wound up in senior positions in the Bush Administration.
The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11.
Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include
the way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify
our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was
either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality.
That is not to suggest that either then or now most federal employees in the national security
industry were part of some vast conspiracy but rather an indictment of the behavior and values of
those at the top of the food chain, people who are characteristically singularly devoid of any ethical
compass and base their decisions largely on personal and peer group ambition.
9/11 Truthers are characteristically very passionate about their beliefs, which is part of their
problem in relating to a broader public. They frequently demand full adherence to their version of
what passes for reality.
In my own experience of more than twenty years on the intelligence side
of government I have frequently found that truth is in fact elusive, often lying concealed in conflicting
narratives.
This is, I believe,
the strength of
Loose Change
as it identifies and challenges
inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite
point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any
number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios.
I recommend that readers watch
Loose Change
as it runs through discussions of U.S. military
exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of
engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly
intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania,
a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed.
Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact.
The film describes the subsequent investigative failures that took place, perhaps deliberately
and arranged from inside the government, and concludes that the event amounts to an "American coup"
which changed the United States both in terms of its domestic liberties and its foreign policy.
After watching the film, one must accept that there are numerous inconsistencies that emerge
from any examination of the standard narrative promoted by the 9/11 Commission and covered up by
every White House since 2001. The film calls the existing corpus of government investigations into
9/11 a lie, a conclusion that I would certainly agree with.
The consequences of 9/11 are indeed more important than the event itself. Even those who have
come to accept the established narrative would have to concede that "that day of infamy" changed
America for the worse, as the film notes. While the United States government had previously engaged
in illegal activity directed against for suspected spies, terrorists and a variety of international
criminals, wholesale surveillance of what amounts to the entire population of the country was a new
development brought in by the Patriot Acts. And, for the first time, secret prisons were set up overseas
and citizens were arrested without being charged and held indefinitely. Under the authority of the
Military Commissions Act tribunals were established to try those individuals who were suspected of
being material supporters of terrorism, "material supporters" being loosely interpreted to make arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment easier.
More recently, executive authority based on the anti-terror legislation has been used to execute
American citizens overseas and, under the Authorization to Use Military Force, to attack suspects
in a number of countries with which the United States is not at war. This all takes place with hardly
a squeak from Congress or from the media. And when citizens object to any or all of the above they
are blocked from taking action in the courts by the government's invocation of State Secrets Privilege,
claiming that judicial review would reveal national secrets. Many believe that the United States
has now become a precursor police state, all as a result of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror
which developed from that event.
So who benefited from 9/11? Clearly the executive branch of the government itself, which has
seen an enormous expansion in its power and control over both the economy and people's lives, but
there are also other entities like the military industrial complex, the Pentagon and intelligence
agencies, and the financial services sector, all of which have gained considerably from the anti-terror
largesse coming from the American taxpayer. Together these entities constitute an American Deep State,
which controls both government and much of the private sector without ever being mentioned or seriously
contested.
Suggesting government connivance in the events of 9/11 inevitably raises the question of who exactly
might have ordered or carried out the attacks if they were in fact not fully and completely the work
of a handful of Arab hijackers? The film suggests that one should perhaps consider the possibility
of a sophisticated "false flag" operation, by which we mean that the apparent perpetrators of the
act were not, in fact, the drivers or originators of what took place. Blowing up huge buildings and
causing them to pancake from within, if indeed that is what took place, is the work of governments,
not of a handful of terrorists. Only two governments would have had that capability, the United States
itself and also Israel, unfortunately mentioned only once in passing in the film, a state player
heavily engaged in attempting to bring America into its fight with the Arab world, with Benjamin
Netanyahu subsequently
saying that
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq swung American public opinion in our favor."
To be honest I would prefer not to think that 9/11 might have been an inside job, but I am
now convinced that a new 9/11 Commission is in order, one that is not run and guided by the government
itself.
If it can be demonstrated that the attacks carried out on that day were quite possibly
set up by major figures both inside and outside the political establishment it might produce such
a powerful reaction that the public would demand a reversal of the laws and policies that have so
gravely damaged our republic. It is admittedly unlikely that anything like that could ever take place,
but it is at least something to hope for.
NosytheDuke, October 25, 2016 at 4:36 am GMT • 100 Words
Only by constantly repeating to all and sundry the blatant falsehoods, frauds and meddling
that are evident which absolutely contradict the official narrative of what happened can a tipping
point be reached and the demands for a new, open and independent investigation be the unavoidable
topic in political and social life.
Only after a new, open and independent investigation and a ruthless holding to account of those
responsible has taken place can America go about its business of being great because it is good.
Good luck with that.
3.MarkinLA, October 25, 2016 at 4:39 am GMT • 200 Words
Remember Korean Air flight 007. At that time the conspiracy theory was that the US and South
Korean governments got the pilot to invade Soviet air space while the Space Shuttle was in the
vicinity along with the electronic surveillance plane that crossed KAL007′s path in order to light
up USSR air defenses and collect data.
Whether it was true or not, the Reagan administration used it to vilify the USSR and push it's
hawkish agenda.
9/11 doesn't have to have been done by the government for Deep State entities to take advantage.
Any preplanning of what to do afterward could also be explained by them knowing what was going
to happen (ala Pearl Harbor) and letting it happen. There were plenty of intelligence reports
in the commission proceedings that have indicated something was up but not acted upon. They didn't
have an admiral they could blame like they did at Pearl so the whole system was blamed which made
expanding the security apparatus so much easier.
Too few people know, that the New York Times itself, a few weeks before the NYC towers fell,
photographed 'Israeli art students' (!) working in-between the walls of the those towers, amidst
stacks of boxes with certain markings which … identify the box contents as components of bomb
detonators
World Trade Center's Infamous
91st-Floor Israeli 'Art Student' Project
Also, too few people know that Osama Bin Laden himself denied being involved in the 11 Sep.
2001 NYC towers destruction, & that the 'Osama Bin Laden' videos & tapes shown for several years
afterwards, are clearly-proven fakes with actors
The claimed discoverer of those 'bin Laden' videos & tapes – allegedly scouring the 'Jihadi
YouTubes' for material no one else 'finds' – is Israeli-American Rita Katz of the laughable 'SITE'
– 'Search for International Terrorist Entities'
Dissident US military-intel veterans tell us:
" The truth about [Osama] Bin Laden, that his last known communication was December 3rd, 2001,
received by the CIA / NSA intercept facility in Doha, in which he accused American Neocons of
staging 9-11.
" This was less than two weeks before his death, as reported in Egypt, Pakistan, India, Iran
and even by Fox News, until Rita Katz brought him back to life in the guise of a Mercedes repair
shop owner of Somali parentage living in Haifa, Israel.
" The new short, fat Bin Laden, who lost his ability to speak Oxford English, continued to
drop audio tapes in the dumpster behind Katz's Brooklyn apartment for years, until his frozen
corpse was dumped into the Indian Ocean. "
- Gordon Duff, Veterans Today
Hans Vogel,
October 25, 2016 at 9:07 am GMT
If I recall correctly, it was Thierry Meyssan who in 2002 in his book La terrible imposture
first suggested that 9/11 was a coup. John Kerry's brother-in-law Sarkozy later forced Meyssan
into exile, because he was becoming a nuisance to the US and their French puppets.
Rehmat, October 25, 2016 at 12:35 pm GMT • 200 Words
Dr. Giraldi is missing the point. While Washington and Zionist-controlled mainstream media
had blamed the Taliban, Pakistan, Iran, and lately Saudi Arabia – they never mentioned the 800-pound
Gorilla – the Zionist regime.
The most vilified person had been head of Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul,
who pointed his finger to Israel Mossad two weeks after the 9/11 – even before media ridiculously
blamed Osama Bin Laden in order to invade and occupy Afghanistan – a country which did not had
a single tank, helicopter, fighter jet or even a commercial plane to defend itself from the so-called
ONLY WORLD POWER.
Hamid Gul's claim on September 26, 2001, is now supported by thousands of scientists, scholars,
politicians, architects and even a Jewish member of the so-called 9/11 COMISSION, Philip Zelikow
(Zionist Jew) admitted in 2004 that America invaded Iraq in 2003 because Saddam Hussein became
an existential threat to the Zionist entity.
In December 2001, US historian Michael Collins Piper claimed that the so-called "19 Arab hijackers"
could have been Israeli agents.
On September 10, 2016, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts posted an article, entitled, 9/11: 15 years of
a transparent lie.
Nine-Eleven Conspiracy Exam (Note: This was written when Israel was the most popular culprit.
Some questions may need to be changed to reflect changes in guilt. Failure to answer all questions
will result in a grade of F.)
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making
the President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the
two were not used together
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed,
and the source of your information.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't
know___
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
Diogenes,
October 25, 2016 at 2:24 pm GMT
9/11 was an amazing sociological event for what it can tell us about human psychology. The
vast majority of people uncritically swallowed the official explanation, a few critical observers
cast suspicions on the official story, then a group of chronically suspicious people, known as
conspiracy theorists, who believe the government cannot be trusted had a cause celebre, then a
group of anti conspiracy theorists and pro-government reactionaries devoted their energies to
discredit the 9/11 Truthers while the vast majority of people are as a result confused and paralyzed
into indecision and apathy. I will take note of who in these comments are 9/11 naysayers and observe
what they say about other controversial topics!
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or
at least parts of it, is capable of almost anything.
we now know that they set the Waco compound on fire, and that they were firing machine guns
into the only exit once the flames had engulfed the building. Bodies were piled up at the site
of the exit that the coroner ruled were homicide deaths from bullet wounds. Homicides that our
government committed. Most American yawn at such news. 'Those people (including the children)
were 'whackos'.
Recently our government has murdered or maimed or displaced millions upon millions of innocent
men, women and children in the Middle East, and destroyed several countries, all based on by now
well-established lies. Most Americans yawn at such knowledge. Those people 'hate our freedom'.
Our government is also running a permanent torture camp. A 'Ministry of Love', or Minluv, in
Orwell's Newspeak parlance.
The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century paper observed that was
needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that "something" being
an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound up in senior
positions in the Bush Administration.
the "something" that these neocon Zionists demanded from their "new Pearl Harbor like event"
was for America to set about destroying all Muslim nations considered inconvenient to Israel.
Without the 'event', Americans just were not willing to sacrifice their children to the Zionist
cause.
One of the central figures demanding that America act in Israel's interest was a one Phillip
D. Zelikow. A neocon insider extraordinaire.
This from his Wiki page:
In the November–December 1998 issue of Foreign Affairs, he co-authored an article Catastrophic
Terrorism, with
Ashton B. Carter
, and John M. Deutch, in which they speculated that if
the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had succeeded, "the resulting horror and chaos would
have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed
event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime
and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United
States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance
of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either
future terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders
negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently." [24]
Yes,
that
Ashton Carter, our current Secretary of Defense. And John Deutch was the director
of the CIA at one time. (perhaps Mr. Giraldi knows of him)
This Jewish neocon war mongering Zionist who called for a Peal Harbor like event to catalyze
Americans to go to war for Israel, ended up being the executive director of the 911 Commission.
The same 911 Commission that is universally recognized as a fraud and a cover up. Even by some
of the men who were on it.
I'm going to stop here. My head simply swims from the sheer evil of these people.
Miro23,
October 25, 2016 at 3:20 pm
@Fred Reed
A simpler 9/11 questionnaire for Fred;
"Did right wing elements in Israel close to Likud, and US Neocons close to the Bush administration
engineer the attacks to enable the Iraq war?" Yes____ No____ Don't know____
Essay question: Are there any similarities between these events and other False Flag attacks
aimed at Great Britain and the US such as 1) The King David Hotel bombing 2) Operation Susannah
– Lavon Affair 3) USS Liberty?
9/11 Family Members, Jersey Girls, and member of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee Lorie Van
Auken and Mindy Kleinberg released a report showing how poorly the 9/11 Commission answered their
questions:
The September Eleventh Advocates (Jersey Girls) have released a multitude of press releases
over the years bringing attention to and calling into question certain aspects of 9/11:
Here are the 9/11 Family Steering Committee's list of unanswered questions. The final statement
from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee states "the report did not answer all of our questions…":
Here are all of the different statements released by the 9/11 Family Steering Committee during
the time of the 9/11 Commission. They show extremely well the corruption and compromise within
the 9/11 Commission:
@Fred Reed
Nine-Eleven Conspiracy Exam (Note: This was written when Israel was the most popular culprit.
Some questions may need to be changed to reflect changes in guilt. Failure to answer all questions
will result in a grade of F.)
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making the
President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the two were
not used together
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed, and
the source of your information.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
no, Israel was also responsible
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
No, elements in the US gov and controlled media were also responsible
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
not governments per se, but
elements
in those governments. Like "the orders still stand"
Dick Cheney, but certainly not all the assorted minions of the US or Israeli governments.
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
not governments per se. If you restrict the question to this broadly defined blanket condemnation,
then the answer would be 'yes'.
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
there's zero reason for thinking so
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
at the highest levels, yes, but there again, that certainly doesn't mean every single employee
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making
the President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Don't know
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
there's no evidence of it. And if it had, they'd show us one of the scores (hundreds?) of videos
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
the reason the flights were wildly diverted was probably to land the planes, liquidate the
passengers and crew, and then send up specially outfitted jets for the purpose of crashing into
the towers. (as the pretext for them to collapse, as the pretext to start the Eternal Wars for
Israel and to turn us all into Palestinians)
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
it looks like it
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
Don't know. And again, it wouldn't be "the military", as in some monolithic entity that is
fully aware of everything that "it' does. There are fringe sub-sets of the military that are often
engaged in illegal and covert ops.
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Don't know
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
what data?!
From what I understand, we have not been made privy to any of the information on any of the
flight data recorders. If you're aware of any data from the flight data recorders then you should
give us a link!
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
yes
it's *obvious* that building seven was thus demolished, and so it follows that the other two
were also.
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
two of them, yes. The third was not hit by a plane, it simply plopped down in nicely cut pieces
ready for shipment to China.
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
In all likelihood, remote control. Check out the comptroller of the Pentagon at the time and
his sundry organizations. Nice little rabbit hole of its own.
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the
two were not used together
horror
they needed to horrify and anger the American people to rally us to war on Israel's neighbors.
(+ there was the added benefit to lucky Larry of a few billion shekels and an opportunity to get
rid of a couple of financial boondoggles. Such a deal!)
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed,
and the source of your information.
this is silly
we don't need to know the exact caliber of bullet that hit JFK to know that the government
and Warren commission was lying. And they likely used military type crap that we're not even privy
to. Come on Fred.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
elements, sure
like the people that went around and collected all the videos that might have showed what hit
the Pentagon. Certainly the people at the top were and are privy to the crime and cover up. Just
like with JFK.
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Yes, of course he was
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't
know___
not your local channel seven, but the media as it's controlled from the top, and lie about
EVERTYING. Yes Fred, that media was complicit. And still are. And are the ones that are going
to hand the reins of this nations to Hillary Clinton. That media, you betcha.
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
of course not. There again you're being silly Fred.
what America should do is the same thing is should (and still needs to) do as regards the other
cowardly and treacherous false flag that *elements* in the Israeli government and security forces
were responsible for- the attack on the USS Liberty. We should have a real investigation that
ferrets out these uber-criminals and brings them to justice.
911 was a coup to turn the US into Israel's rabid dog in the Levant. And create a police state
for any Americans that object, even with our very own torture camp. Isn't that something?
You should write about it someday Fred. I can't think of a person more suited to mock the American
idea of the free and the brave running a torture camp for goat herders and Afghans who don't want
America making them free too.
as for 911, all you have to know is that building seven was an obvious controlled demolition.
From there it doesn't matter if George Dubya Bush was in on it or what type of materials specifically
were used to bring the buildings down. That shit is all academic. We know they lied, and are lying.
Only a deluded fool or moral coward (or worse) would pretend to themselves otherwise once he's
seen the irrefutable evidence that they're lying.
There are multiple ways to engineer a "False Flag" attack:
1. You do it yourself, flying someone else's "flag" and hope no one notices. (Very primitive
… rarely works unless you are a wooden frigate at sea attacking enemy maritime commerce.)
2. You hire someone else to do it and hope none of them get caught. (Moderately primitive …
but it worked for awhile in the Kennedy assassination.)
3. You infiltrate a hostile terrorist organization, take control, and redirect it to the attack.
(Very difficult to do … but this was done in the NATO-sponsored Gladio terrorist attacks in Europe
in the 1960s as well as the Black Hand attacks that precipitated WWI.)
4. You infiltrate a hostile terrorist organization, discover what they have planned, and QUIETLY
remove all of YOUR obstacles that would otherwise have prevented the attack. (This is the best
if you can pull it off since you leave no fingerprints. You might, as in 911, be accused of incompetent
but, okay, you missed that one, so what!)
BTW: #4 doesn't mean you don't help the terrorists with a little demolition work to make sure
the spectacle unfolds as planned. You really need grand firework displays in these things to get
them the attention they deserve.
Si1ver1ock, October 25, 2016 at 5:04 pm GMT
For those just coming into the 911 Truth movement, you should probably look at the hard evidence
first to see if it merits further consideration. After that, you can go to he circumstantial evidence.
The question isn't whether this theory or that theory is absolutely correct. The question is whether
there is sufficient cause for a new investigation. I never hear a good argument from the anti-Truth
crowd as to why we shouldn't have another investigation.
We want a new investigation. They don't want one. Why?
Miro23, October 25, 2016 at 7:17 pm GMT
A key to instant identification of the faith-based C-theorist is the loud claim that
"steel-framed buildings" don't collapse as a result of fire. Fact is, yes they do - known,
verified, fully-explained using real, verifiable data.
Here's a list of steel framed high rises and other high rises that experienced major fires:
– One New York Plaza, New York. 50 stories steel. Dropped beams on 33rd & 34th floors.
– Alexis Nihon Plaza, Montreal. 15 stories steel. Partial collapse on 11th floor.
– Windsor Tower, Madrid. 29 stories steel/concrete. Partial collapse.
– One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia. 38 stories. No collapse.
– Broadgate Phase 8, London. 14 stories. No collapse.
– First Interstate Bank, Los Angeles. 62 stories. No collapse.
– MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas. 26 stories. No collapse.
– Joelma Building, Sao Paulo. 25 stories. No collapse.
– Andraus Building, Sao Paulo. 31 stories. No collapse.
These fires were much longer lasting and more intense than the WTC fires and none of these
buildings experienced a complete collapse.
Can you give a list of modern steel frame 20 storey+ buildings similar to WTC 1, 2 & 7 that have
experienced a complete collapse due to fire – known and verified.
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential
foreign government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia,
and Pakistan just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11
but the only investigation that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look
at the possible Saudi role, the notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a
redacted form.
It might have been worth checking out Israel a bit more closely. They have been running False
Flag operations against the British and the US for years, aimed at engaging them in war against
Arab states. For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government of
Palestine) in which Zionists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with explosives against
the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed British
and American cinemas, libraries and educational centres in Egypt to destabilize the country and
keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or on June 8th 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following nine
hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an
elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all lives lost on
the Egyptians and draw the US into the 6 Day War.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the more recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that carries
a lot of kudos with old ex-terrorist Likudniks. In any event, Israelis were sent to film the historic
day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations including photos of themselves
with a background of the burning towers.
CanSpeccy
says: • Website October 25, 2016 at 9:57 pm GMT •
@War for Blair Mountain
add in the fact that the steel support beams only had to be softened not melted to cause catastrophic
structural failure.
You are absolutely correct about that. If the beams had melted, or even softened, then the building
would have collapsed. But not straight down at near free-fall speed into its own footprint, while
crushing all the concrete to dust.
If the columns had melted, or merely softened, they would not have melted or softened uniformly
across the the building, so the result would have been an asymetric collapse resulting in the
top of the building toppling over and crashing onto the roof of adjacent buildings. The portion
of the building beneath the fire zone would have been left standing.
Pretty much my response. Something, I know not what, is amiss with Our Favorite Expatriate.
Not being sure of what really happened in an event this pivotal is a reason to proceed with
further discussion and investigation- not to shut it down.
The most successful, by far, commando operation in history performed flawlessly by a bunch
of guys with boxcutters directed by cell phone by a fugitive hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan
?
On the the face of it, that matches the goofiest of any of the conspiracy theories.
On the the face of it, that [the theory about 19 guys with box-cutters under the direction
of fugitive in a cave in Afghanistan] matches the goofiest of any of the conspiracy theories.
And even the members of the 9/11 Commission have admitted they don't really believe it.
Thus:
The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton)
said
that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation".
Presenting...the Clinton IT Department! This has not been an especially ennobling election.
Or a rewarding one. Or even entertaining. Pretty much everything about 2016 has been boorish and
grotesque. But finally it is time to laugh.
This has not been an especially ennobling election. Or a rewarding one. Or even entertaining.
Pretty much everything about 2016 has been boorish and grotesque. But finally it is time to laugh.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Clinton IT department.
Over the weekend we finally found out how Clinton campaign honcho John Podesta's emails were hacked.
But first a couple disclaimers:
1) Yes, it's unpleasant to munch on the fruit of the poisoned tree. But this isn't a court of
law and you can't just ignore information that's dragged into the public domain.
2) We're all vulnerable to hackers. Even if you're a security nut who uses VPNs and special email
encryption protocols, you can be hacked. The only real security is the anonymity of the herd. Once
a hacker targets you, specifically, you're toast.
I'm a pretty tech-savvy guy and if the Chinese decided to hack my emails tonight, you'd have everything
I've ever written posted to Wikileaks before the sun was up tomorrow.
But that is … not John Podesta's situation.
What happened was this: On March 19, Podesta got what looked--kind of, sort of--like an email
from Google's Gmail team. The email claimed that someone from the Ukraine had tried to hack into
Podesta's Gmail account and that he needed to change his password immediately.
This is what's called a "phishing" scam, where hackers send legitimate-looking emails that, when
you click on the links inside them, actually take you someplace dangerous. In Podesta's case, there
was a link that the email told him to click in order to change his password.
This was not an especially good bit of phishing.
Go have a look yourself. The email calls Podesta by his first name. It uses bit.ly as a link
shortener. Heck, the subject line is the preposterous "*someone has your password*". Why would Google
say "someone has your password?" They wouldn't. They'd say that there had been log-in attempts that
failed two-step authentication, maybe. Or that the account had been compromised, perhaps. If you've
spent any time using email over the last decade, you know exactly how these account security emails
are worded.
And what's more, you know that you never click on the link in the email. If you get a notice from
your email provider or your bank or anyone who holds sensitive information of yours saying that your
account has been compromised, you leave the email, open your web browser, type in the URL of the
website, and then manually open your account information. Again, let me emphasize: You never click
on the link in the email!
But what makes this story so priceless isn't that John Podesta got fooled by an fourth-rate phishing
scam. After all, he's just the guy who's going to be running Hillary Clinton's administration. What
does he know about tech? And Podesta, to his credit, knew what he didn't know: He emailed the Clinton
IT help desk and said, Hey, is this email legit?
And the Clinton tech team's response was: Hell yes!
No, really. Here's what they said: One member of the team responded to Podesta by saying "The
gmail one is REAL." Another answered by saying "This is a legitimate email. John needs to change
his password immediately."
It's like the Clinton IT department is run by 90-year-old grandmothers. I half-expect the next
Wikileaks dump to have an email from one Clinton techie to another asking for help setting their
VCR clock.
As the other guy likes to say, "only the best people."
Further to throwing Comey under the bus yesterday, Obama had this to say:
"I trust her," Obama said. "I know her. And I wouldn't be supporting her if I didn't have absolute
confidence in her integrity."
No amount of Bleach-bit can remove that yellow streak running down his back and straight through
the entirety of his 'legacy'. Not once did he come down on the side opposite entrenched power
– in fact, we can now add major 'obstruction of justice' to his prior litany of failures to prosecute
white collar criminals as the basis for its own section, splitting criminal activity into two
parts, one domestic, the other for a raft of war crimes.
Great interview. Very worthwhile to listen in full...
Notable quotes:
"... you're in the age of globalism, where a select few uber rich control everything and no one can do anything about it. ..."
"... She is every bit as banal and myopic as tRump. It is not about merit----it is about surrogates and political clans supported by gangster capitalists. ..."
Michael Hudson just sits there and details the exact situation and the real truth, as he
has been doing for a long time now. Remember this video in six months.
HarryObrian > NilbogResident
No, you're in the age of globalism, where a select few uber rich control everything and
no one can do anything about it. Everyone was warned about this over 30 years ago but
there wasn't enough exposure to the facts for enough people to care or do anything about it.
Now that the facts and reality have hit you have all these lazy alarmists like Hudson who prey
on the fear of a few who really can't do anything about it but who haven't realized it yet. Oh
well, whine on.
sufferingsuccatash > NilbogResident
Hillary is not a qualified leader either. She is every bit as banal and myopic as tRump.
It is not about merit----it is about surrogates and political clans supported by gangster
capitalists.
0040 • a day ago
Another great video from Mr Hudson. Von Clausewitz's axiom that "War is politics by other
means" has never been made clearer.
NormDP
Hudson is right on. Trump is the lesser of two evils. Under Trump, checks and balances will
remain strong and active. Under Hillary, they will disappear.
Glen Ford says Hillary Grand Bargain on the way (should she win).
But in the interim, Clinton will have a unique opportunity to cut grand austerity deals with all
the "big elements" of Simpson-Bowles, to renege on her corporate trade promises, and to wage war
with great gusto in the name of a "united" country. Ever since the Democratic National Convention
it has been clear that the Clintonites are encouraged to consider everyone outside of their grand
circle to be suspect, subversive, or depraved. Their inclusive rhetoric is really an invocation of
a ruling class consensus, now that Trump has supposedly brought the ruling class together under one
banner. In Hillary's tent, the boardrooms are always in session.
And yes, about the only thing "liberal" about Clinton involves identity politics. But if she is
elected, all of her supporters who used identity politics based attacks to smear Bernie Sanders
and his supporters (along with a good dose of that against Trump also) are going to be in for
a very rude awakening.
How easily in particular the gay and black communities forget the administration
of Bill Clinton and what he and Hillary did.
Just as a start, Clinton ignored the identity crowd by picking somebody for VP that the identity
crowd spent the previous year smearing the Sanders campaign over: Kaine is your prototypical straight
privileged white male who has failed upwards.
And not a peep from the identity crowd especially
black leaders who more than any other group put Clinton over the top (forgetting the cheating
for a moment). One of the early Wikileak revelations was a memo to Congressional candidates how
to marginalize BLM if they were ever confronted.
If BLM acts up and damages her politically, a President Hillary will smash the leaders and
movement in the same Obama violently smashed OWS
.
She will honor her "feminist" supporters by
appointing the most violent and virulent warmongering women into positions of power so they too
can like the men can decide which black and brown women and children to bomb.
She will stab in
the back such early supporters as SEIU by refusing to support min. wage increases. And women are
disproportionately the base of min. wage workers. She supports Simpson-Bowles as revealed by Wikileaks
and the Cat Food Commission recommended cutting social security. Guess which groups that will
really hurt? Maybe the next groveling task for John Lewis will be to attack people who are against
Hillary cutting social security.
And the hits just keep on comin' with the Abedin email stash:
"These emails, CBS News' Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary
Clinton's private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are
significant to the FBI's investigation into Clinton."
Two sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI's investigations told
Fox News Wednesday that a probe of the Clinton Foundation is likely to lead to an indictment.
Fox News's Bret Baier said Wednesday that the FBI probe into a possible pay-to-play scheme between
Democratic presidential nominee and the Clinton Foundation
has been going on for over a year. Sources told the news network that the investigation, which is
conducted by the White Collar Crime division of the FBI, is a "very high priority."
One source further
stated that the bureau collected "a lot of" evidence, adding that "there is an avalanche of new information
coming every day." Baier also said that the Clinton Foundation probe is more expansive than previously
thought, and that many individuals have been interviewed several times throughout the course of the
investigation. Sources said that they are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case" and that
investigations are likely to continue. Baier added that when he pressed the sources about the details
of both probes, they told him that they are likely to lead to an indictment. Additionally, Baier
reported that according to Fox News's sources, Clinton's private email server had been breached by
at least five foreign intelligence hackers. FBI Director James Comey said in July that he could not
say definitively whether her server had been breached.
"... If elected Hillary would have as much contempt for the electorate as she had for her staff. ..."
"... In an e-mail sent from Comcast after Clinton was interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer, Lauer came under fire after questioning Hillary on the e-mails, according to the technical crew after the show Hillary proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and throw it at the face of her assistant and then the screaming started, she was in full meltdown, she came apart literally unglued, she is the most foul mouthed woman I've ever heard, and that voice at screech level…"If that f-ing bastard wins we all hang from nooses! Lauer's finished and if I lose its all on your heads for screwing this up". She screamed "she'd get that f-ing Lauer fired for this". ..."
"... Donna Brazile was singled out by Clinton.."I'm so sick of your face, you stare at the wall like a brain dead buffalo while letting that fucking Lauer get away with this. What are you good for really? Get the f–k to work janitoring this mess.. do I make myself clear". ..."
If elected Hillary would have as much contempt for the electorate as she had for her staff.
In
an e-mail sent from Comcast after Clinton was interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer, Lauer came under
fire after questioning Hillary on the e-mails, according to the technical crew after the show
Hillary proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and throw it at the face of her assistant and
then the screaming started, she was in full meltdown, she came apart literally unglued, she is
the most foul mouthed woman I've ever heard, and that voice at screech level…"If that f-ing bastard
wins we all hang from nooses! Lauer's finished and if I lose its all on your heads for screwing
this up". She screamed "she'd get that f-ing Lauer fired for this".
Donna Brazile was singled out by Clinton.."I'm so sick of your face, you stare at the wall like
a brain dead buffalo while letting that fucking Lauer get away with this. What are you good for
really? Get the f–k to work janitoring this mess.. do I make myself clear". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NfFAaPZqs8
"... The outcome of the election remains in doubt despite one candidate's collapsing support. There are a number here who have been making similar arguments about the inefficacy of left-right labels. ..."
"... The prospect of a gutting of the Democratic party seems far more likely to me, if Brent Baier is to be believed, and that is a big 'if,' I concede. We should see the donor class candidate triumph as we normally do. ..."
"... The constituency that supports Trump is utterly indifferent to the Frums of the world, and even the Limbaughs. They are pissed-off, non-ideological, and highly-motivated. ..."
"... electoral politics in this country has come to such a pass but the Left (or what passes for it in the US) is as much to blame as the Right in that they haven't offered real substantive alternatives to the NeoLib/NeoCon orthodoxy that seems to dominate US policymaking. ..."
Corey does deserve credit for all the reasons jh notes. The outcome of the election
remains in doubt despite one candidate's collapsing support. There are a number here who have
been making similar arguments about the inefficacy of left-right labels.
... ... ...
The prospect of a gutting of the Democratic party seems far more likely to me, if Brent
Baier is to be believed, and that is a big 'if,' I concede. We should see the donor class
candidate triumph as we normally do. My basic read has not changed, however. The
constituency that supports Trump is utterly indifferent to the Frums of the world, and even
the Limbaughs. They are pissed-off, non-ideological, and highly-motivated.
Frum still hasn't figured out that he's just as likely to find himself the target of their
hostility as any Dem. And right now Trump supporters outnumber the Frums of the world by far
from inconsequential numbers.
I still say Trump edges it.
DMC 11.03.16 at 7:27 pm
There's just too many people in this country for whom "more of the same and harder" is a
deal breaker. They'll go with the guy who tells them "one more throw of the dice" and who
apparently scares the snot out of the Establishment types.
The ruder he is, the more they like it. The more the "grown-ups" say this is going to be
bad for the country, the better it sounds to people picking up cans off the road to make ends
meet. Its utterly hateful that electoral politics in this country has come to such a pass
but the Left (or what passes for it in the US) is as much to blame as the Right in that they
haven't offered real substantive alternatives to the NeoLib/NeoCon orthodoxy that seems to
dominate US policymaking.
It's looking increasingly like there is an ongoing mutiny underway within the FBI as the
Wall Street Journal is reporting that, according to "officials at multiple agencies", FBI agents
felt they had adequate evidence, including "secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton
Foundation" , to pursue an investigation of the Clinton Foundation but were repeatedly obstructed
by officials at the Department of Justice.
Secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an internal battle
between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements
as worthless hearsay, people familiar with the matter said.
The roots of the dispute lie in a disagreement over the strength of the case, these people
said, which broadly centered on whether Clinton Foundation contributors received favorable treatment
from the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
Senior officials in the Justice Department and the FBI didn't think much of the evidence, while
investigators believed they had promising leads their bosses wouldn't let them pursue , they said.
Despite clear signals from the Justice Department to abandon the Clinton Foundation inquiries,
many FBI agents refused to stand down. Then, earlier this year in February 2016, the FBI presented
initial evidence at a meeting with Leslie Caldwell, the head of the DOJ's criminal division, after
which agents were delivered a clear message that "we're done here." But, as the WSJ points out, DOJ
became increasing frustrated with FBI agents that were " disregarding or disobeying their instructions"
which subsequently prompted an emphatic "stand down" message from the DOJ to "all the offices involved."
As 2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general understanding that neither
side would take major action on Clinton Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first.
In February, a meeting was held in Washington among FBI officials, public-integrity prosecutors
and Leslie Caldwell, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. Prosecutors from
the Eastern District of New York-Mr. Capers' office-didn't attend, these people said.
The public-integrity prosecutors weren't impressed with the FBI presentation, people familiar
with the discussion said. "The message was, 'We're done here,' " a person familiar with the matter
said.
Justice Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents seemed to be disregarding
or disobeying their instructions.
Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message
to all the offices involved to " stand down ,'' a person familiar with the matter said.
The FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking
about alleged deals the Clintons made , these people said. The agents listening to the recordings
couldn't tell from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate, but it was,
they thought, worth checking out.
Obama can GTFO. He created this situation by allowing Loretta Lynch to be compromised, as well
as himself. The BFBI was left with little choice but to go public in a legal way via FOIA requests,
something that the corrupt DoJ can't stop. Jason Chaffetz has now formally asked another member
of the corrupt Government to recuse himself, as he too is compromised and was tipping off the
Clintons. We have yet to find out just how far these rabbit holes go, but the Illuminati appear
to be worried - $150M is a lot to explain away...
BillFromBoston 10h ago
Obama criticizes the FBI today...but didn't have a single bloody word to say when BillyBob
(that's Bill Clinton to you Brits) happened to bump into the nation's Attorney General several
days before she declared Hillary to be a candidate for sainthood.
But that's understandable...after all, all they talked about was grandchildren and golf.Just
ask them,they'll tell you!
curiouschak 10h ago
Idiot democrat primary voters. They actually ended up selecting such a toxic, defensive,
shifty corrupt candidate that she may up handing the election to an orange turd with a dead
raccoon on its head.
They couldn't do the right and smart thing and elect Sanders. He would have wiped the floor
with this tangerine blowhard
Chuckman 10h ago
You are pathetic, Obama, absolutely pathetic. Who ever heard of the chief magistrate criticizing
law enforcement during an investigation about which he indeed knows very little.
Or, maybe that should be, pretends to know very little. There are suggestions that some
material could be dangerous to Obama.
His previous testimony that he knew nothing about illegal, insecure computers being used
at State appears contradicted by the fact we now know from Wiki-Leaks material he had a pseudonym
and had e-mails back and forth from Hills and Company.
In an
interview with House magazine, Lord Richards of Herstmonceux – the former Chief of the Defence
staff – said Mr. Trump is "wise enough to get good people round him and probably knows that he's
got to listen to them and therefore I think we should not automatically think it will be less safe".
He added: "It's non-state actors like Isis that are the biggest threat to our security. If
countries and states could coalesce better to deal with these people – and I think Trump's instinct
is to go down that route – then I think there's the case for saying that the world certainly won't
be any less safe.
"It's that lack of understanding and empathy with each other as big power players that is a
risk to us all at the moment.
"Therefore I think he would reinvigorate big power relationships, which might make the world
ironically safer."
During the interview Lord Richards also discussed the somewhat controversial view that the
West should partner with Russia and Bashar al-Assad to take back the Syrian city of Aleppo.
He said: "If the humanitarian situation in Syria is our major concern, which it should be –
millions of lives have been ruined, hundreds of thousands have been killed – I believe there is
a strong case for allowing Assad to get in there and take the city back.
"The opposition groups – many of whom are not friends of ours, they're extremists – are now
intermingled with the original good opposition groups, are fighting from amongst the people. The
only quick way of solving it is to allow Assad to win. There's no way the opposition groups are
going to win."
Lord Richards added: "We want the humanitarian horror of Aleppo to come to a rapid halt. The
best and quickest way of doing that is to encourage the opposition groups to leave. The Russians
are undoubtedly using their weapons indiscriminately. If they're going to attack those groups
then there is inevitably going to be civilian casualties.
"The alternative is for the West to declare a no-fly zone and that means you've got to be prepared
to go to war with Russia ultimately. I see no appetite for that and nor, frankly, do I see much
sense in it. It sticks in my throat to say it because I have no love for Assad.
"The fact is, the only way to get it to stop now is to allow Assad to win and win quickly and
then turn on Isis with the Russians."
Fox News Channel's Bret Baier reports the latest news about the Clinton Foundation
investigation from two sources inside the FBI. He reveals five important new pieces of
information in these two short clips:
"... Holding on to the White House in 2016 is extremely important. We can't afford to let party elites jeopardize that by ignoring the will of the voters. Join me and DFA in telling superdelegates to pledge to support the popularly-elected winner of the nomination now. ..."
"... If Trump wins, all the Democratic party elites should be given their pink slips and never allowed to run the DNC again ..."
Recall this warning to the Democratic Party after Bernie Sander's landslide win in New Hampshire?
Shockingly, all the superdelegates went over to Hillary Clinton:
Holding on to the White House in 2016 is extremely important. We can't afford to let party
elites jeopardize that by ignoring the will of the voters. Join me and DFA in telling superdelegates
to pledge to support the popularly-elected winner of the nomination now.
If Trump wins, all the Democratic party elites should be given their pink slips and never allowed
to run the DNC again.
Donna Brazile was noticeably uncomfortable for every second of the following 10-minute interview
with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. Kelly pushed hard on the recent Project Veritas undercover videos showing
DNC operatives plotting to incite violence at Trump rallies and commit massive voter fraud and over
Brazile's leaked email showing that she provided a CNN debate question to Hillary ahead of a March
2016 debate with Bernie. Brazile tried every trick in the book to deflect and pivot but Kelly held
her feet to the fire.
By virtually every measurement, the United States is in deep crisis, as both a society and as the
headquarters of global capitalism. We can roughly measure the severity of some aspects of the crisis
with the tools of economic analysis. Such an analysis is quite useful in explaining why Washington
is so eager to risk war with Russia and China, whether in Syria or the South China Sea or along the
ever expanding borders of NATO. To put it simply, the U.S. and western Europe become smaller, in
terms of their economic influence, with every passing day, and cannot possibly maintain their political
dominance in the world except by military force, coercion and terror. Those are the only cards the
imperialists have left to play. The ruling circles in the U.S. are aware that time is not on their
side, and it makes them crazy -- or crazier than usual.
The ruling class's own analysts tell them that the center of the world economy is moving inexorably
to the East and the South; that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future; and that the
U.S. is already number two by some economic measures -- and dropping. The Lords of Capital know there
is no future for them in a world where the dollar is not supreme and where Wall Street's stocks,
bonds and derivatives are not backed by the full weight of unchallenged empire. Put another way,
U.S. imperialism is at an inflection point, with all the indicators pointing downward and no hope
of reversing the trend by peaceful means.
Now, that's actually not such a bad prognosis for the United States, as a country. The U.S. is
a big country, with an abundance of human and natural resources, and would do just fine in a world
among equals. But, the fate of the Lords of Capital is tied to the ongoing existence of empire. They
create nothing, but seek to monetize and turn a profit on everything. They cannot succeed in trade
unless it is rigged, and have placed bets in their casinos that are nominally seven times more valuable
than the total economic activity of planet Earth. In short, the Lords of Capital are creatures of
U.S. imperial dominance; they go out of business when the empire does.
Beat the Clock
The rulers are looking class death in the face -- and it terrifies them. And when the Lords of
Capital become frightened, they order their servants in politics and the war industries and the vast
national security networks to take care of the problem, by any means necessary. That means militarily
encircling Russia and China; arming and mobilizing tens of thousands of jihadist terrorists in Syria,
in an attempt to repeat the regime change in Libya; waging a war of economic sanctions and low-level
armed aggression against Iran; occupying most of the African continent through subversion of African
militaries; escalating subversion in Latin America; and spying on everyone on earth with a digital
connection. All this, to stop the clock that is ticking on U.S. and European world economic dominance.
Left political analysts that I greatly respect argue that Hillary Clinton and the mob she will
come in with in January will pull back from apocalyptic confrontation with Russia in Syria -- that
they're not really that crazy. But, I'm not at all convinced. The ruling class isn't just imagining
that their days are numbered; it's really true. And rulers do get crazy when their class is standing
at death's door.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
"... When Hillary was Secretary of State, she convinced Obama to authorize a covert operation in Libya (which included sending in special forces and arming terrorist groups) in preparation for a US/Nato aeronaval attack. ..."
"... Clinton's emails that subsequently came to light, prove what the real motive for war might be: blocking Gaddafi's plan to harness Libya's sovereign funds to establish independent financial organizations, located within the African Union and an African currency that could serve as an alternative to the dollar and the CFA franc. ..."
"... Immediately after razing the State of Libya, the US and Nato brought in the Gulf Monarchies and set about a covert operation to destroy the State of Syria by infiltrating it with special forces and terrorist groups that gave birth to Isis. ..."
"... "the best way to help Israel is to help the rebellion in Syria that has now lasted for more than a year" (i.e. from 2011). How? By mounting the case that the use of force is a sina qua non to make Basshar Assad fold, so as to endanger his life and that of his family". ..."
"... "wrecking Assad would not only be a huge advantage for the security of the State of Israel, but would also go a long way to reducing Israel's justifiable fear that it will lose its nuclear monopoly". ..."
From time to time, it is in the interests of the Western media and political establishment to
do a bit of "political cleansing".
Thus the West pulls out some skeleton from the closet. A British Parliamentary Committee has criticized
David Cameron for authorizing the use of force in Libya when he was Prime Minister in 2011. However
the basis for criticism was not the war of aggression per se (even though it erased from the map
a sovereign state) but rather the fact that war was entered into without an adequate "intelligence"
foundation and also because there was no plan for "reconstruction" [
1 ].
The same mistake was made by President Obama: thus he declared last April that Libya was his "biggest
regret", not because he used US-led Nato forces to reduce it to smithereens but because he had failed
to plan for "the day after". At the same time, Obama has confirmed his support for Hillary Clinton
who is now running for president. When Hillary was Secretary of State, she convinced Obama to authorize
a covert operation in Libya (which included sending in special forces and arming terrorist groups)
in preparation for a US/Nato aeronaval attack.
Clinton's emails that subsequently came to light, prove what the real motive for war might be:
blocking Gaddafi's plan to harness Libya's sovereign funds to establish independent financial organizations,
located within the African Union and an African currency that could serve as an alternative to the
dollar and the CFA franc.
Immediately after razing the State of Libya, the US and Nato brought in the Gulf Monarchies and
set about a covert operation to destroy the State of Syria by infiltrating it with special forces
and terrorist groups that gave birth to Isis.
An e mail from Clinton, one of the many the Department of State was compelled to de-classify following
the uproar triggered by the disclosures on Wikileaks, proves what one of the key objectives of the
operation still underway. In an e mail dated 31 December 2012, declassified as "case no: F – 2014
– 20439, Doc No. CO5794998", Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, wrote [
2 ]:
"It is Iran's strategic relationship with the Bashar Assad regime that allows Iran to threaten Israel's
security – not through a direct attack but through its allies in Lebanon such as the Hezbollah."
She then emphasizes that:
"the best way to help Israel is to help the rebellion in Syria that has now lasted for more than
a year" (i.e. from 2011). How? By mounting the case that the use of force is a sina qua non to make
Basshar Assad fold, so as to endanger his life and that of his family".
And Clinton concludes:
"wrecking Assad would not only be a huge advantage for the security of the State of Israel, but would
also go a long way to reducing Israel's justifiable fear that it will lose its nuclear monopoly".
So, the former Secretary of State admits what officially is not said. That Israel is the only
country in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons [
3 ].
The support given by the Obama Administration to Israel over and above some disagreements (more
formal than substantive) is confirmed by the agreement signed on 14 September at Washington under
which the United States agrees to supply Israel over a ten year period with weapons of the latest
design for a value of 38 billion dollars through an annual financing of 3.3 billion dollars plus
half a million for "missile defense".
In the meantime, after the Russian intervention scuppered the plan to engage in war to demolish
Syria from within, the US obtains a "truce" (which it immediately violated), launching at the same
time a fresh attack in Libya, in the sheepskin of humanitarian operations that Italy participates
in with its "para-medics".
Meanwhile Israel, lurking in the background, strengthens its nuclear monopoly so precious to Clinton.
Senior FBI officials were informed about the discovery of new emails potentially relevant to the
investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server at least two weeks before Director James
B. Comey notified Congress, according to federal officials familiar with the investigation.
The officials said that Comey was told that there were new emails before he received a formal
briefing last Thursday, although the precise timing is unclear.
The information goes beyond the details provided in the letter that Comey sent to lawmakers last
week declaring that he was restarting the inquiry into whether Clinton mishandled classified material
during her tenure as secretary of state. He wrote in the Friday letter that "the investigative team
briefed me yesterday" about the additional emails.
The people familiar with the investigation said that senior officials had been informed weeks
earlier that a computer belonging to former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) contained emails
potentially pertinent to the Clinton investigation. Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, shared the computer
with her husband, from whom she is now separated.
"... The Presidency is the Clinton's last chance to protect their empire. ..."
"... People are theorizing that the Clinton emails were in a folder marked life insurance because Uma feared for her life and thought that the folder would protect from being murdered. Good thinking Uma! ..."
"... You know, Huma looks so totally clueless about everything mechanical or technical that I might actually believe it if she were to nailgun herself to death. Same for Hillary, for that matter. ..."
Changing subject lines of classified e-mails days before attorneys delete e-mails of personal
nature by...subject line contents!?!?! Intent motherfuckers.
Holy crap.....they are both changing this email to be personal so it can be deleted and not
turned over! This is obstruction of justice!
Podesta replies, changes the subject line, and adds personal comments a month later because
that is when the lawyers were sorting through the emails to determine which ones were personal.
Hillary replied too!
· "They do not plan to release anything publicly, so no posting online or anything public-facing,
just to the committee."
· "That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear
to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over.
It also includes emails that HRC had that Sid didn't."
· "Think we should hold emails to and from potus? That's the heart of his exec privilege. We
could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I seems like they will."
· "We brought up the existence of emails in reserach this summer but were told that everything
was taken care of."
· "That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear
to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over."
· The State Department was:
o (1) Coordinating with the Clinton political campaign.
o (2) Colluding with the press to spin it positively.
o (3) Doing so BEFORE they released it to AN EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT. The Clinton campaign
was always a step ahead of the committee investigating them. Shameful.
· Nick states "Just spoke to State" He goes on to reveal that State colluded with him about
which emails are being revealed to committee and that the State plans to plant a story with AP.
· Shows intent to withhold emails from the subpoena.
People are theorizing that the Clinton emails were in a folder marked life insurance because Uma
feared for her life and thought that the folder would protect from being murdered. Good thinking
Uma!
You know, Huma looks so totally clueless about everything mechanical or technical that I might
actually believe it if she were to nailgun herself to death. Same for Hillary, for that matter.
"... Now being reported that the Cheryl Millls laptop, thought to have been destroyed as part of her immunity deal, is actually intact and being reviewed by the FBI. Ruh Roh. Not sure if it will contain emails related to yoga classes or national security ..."
Now being reported that the Cheryl Millls laptop, thought to have been destroyed as part of
her immunity deal, is actually intact and being reviewed by the FBI. Ruh Roh. Not sure if it will
contain emails related to yoga classes or national security
Rouvas -> stratplaya 45m ago
Why does she get immunity anyway? Usually you give someone immunity in return for getting
them to blab on someone...
Oh yes, silly me, it's the Clinton's we are talking about... different rules apply
Today's release follows dramatic revelations in which we learned that the DOJ's Peter Kadzik had
colluded with John Podesta in the early days of the Clinton campaign, while in a serpate email we
found more evidence of collusion between the Clinton campaign, the NYT and the State Department in
drafting the "breaking" story that exposed Hillary's possession of a home email server.
"... In the latest update from Fox's Bret Baier , we learn that the Clinton Foundation investigation has now taken a "very high priority," perhaps courtesy of new documents revealed by Wikileaks which expressed not only a collusive element between Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the "charitable foundation's" donors, which included the use of funds for personal gain, but also revealed deep reservations by people within the foundation about ongoing conflicts of interest. ..."
"... FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, Baier's sources said. Agents also are going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews as well as the FBI 302 documents, which agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up, according to sources. ..."
"... As expected, the Clinton Foundation denied everything, and Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian, told Fox news a statement: "We're not aware of any investigation into the Foundation by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any United States Attorney's Office and we have not received a subpoena from any of those agencies." ..."
"... Now that details of the infighting between the DOJ and FBI regarding the Foundation probe have been made public, Loretta Lynch may have no choice but to launch an official probe, including subpoeans. ..."
"... The information follows a report over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal that four FBI field offices have been collecting information about the foundation. The probes – in addition to the revived email investigation – have fueled renewed warnings from Republicans that if Clinton is elected next week, she could take office under a cloud of investigations. ..."
"... Separately, Fox News reports that authorities also are virtually certain, i.e., "there is about a 99 percent chance", that up to five foreign intelligence agencies may have accessed and taken emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations told Fox News. If so, it would suggest that the original FBI probe - which found no evidence of breach - was either incomplete or tampered with. ..."
"... In other words, Anthony Weiner may be ultimately responsible not only for the downfall of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, but also the collapse of the entire Clinton Foundation... which incidentally is just what Donald Trump warned could happen over a year ago. ..."
Now that thanks to first the
WSJ, and then
Fox News, the public is aware that a probe into the Clinton Foundation is not only a hot topic
for both the FBI and the DOJ (and has managed to split the law enforcement organizations along ideological
party lines), but is also actively ongoing despite the DOJ's attempts to squash it.
In the latest update from
Fox's Bret Baier, we learn that the Clinton Foundation investigation has now taken a "very high
priority," perhaps courtesy of new documents revealed by Wikileaks which expressed not only a collusive
element between Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the "charitable foundation's" donors, which included
the use of funds for personal gain, but also revealed deep reservations by people within the foundation
about ongoing conflicts of interest.
As Baier also notes, the Clinton Foundation probe has been proceeding for more than a year, led
by the White-Collar Crime division.
Fox adds that even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign,
FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, and FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed
multiple people regarding the case.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told
Fox News, adding some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and
interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, Baier's sources said. Agents also
are going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews as well as the FBI
302 documents, which agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up,
according to sources.
As expected, the Clinton Foundation denied everything, and Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian,
told Fox news a statement: "We're not aware of any investigation into the Foundation by the
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any United States Attorney's Office and
we have not received a subpoena from any of those agencies."
Now that details of the infighting between the DOJ and FBI regarding the Foundation probe have
been made public, Loretta Lynch may have no choice but to launch an official probe, including subpoeans.
The information follows a report over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal that four
FBI field offices have been collecting information about the foundation. The probes – in
addition to the revived email investigation – have fueled renewed warnings from Republicans that
if Clinton is elected next week, she could take office under a cloud of investigations.
"This is not just going to go away … if she ends up winning the election," Rep. Ron DeSantis,
R-Fla., told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" earlier this week.
Donald Trump has referenced this scenario, repeatedly saying on the stump this past week that
her election could trigger a "crisis."
Separately, Fox News reports that authorities also are virtually certain, i.e., "there is about
a 99 percent chance", that up to five foreign intelligence agencies may have accessed and
taken emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, two separate sources with intimate knowledge
of the FBI investigations told Fox News. If so, it would suggest that the original FBI probe - which
found no evidence of breach - was either incomplete or tampered with.
The revelation led House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul to describe Clinton's
handling of her email system during her tenure as secretary of state as "treason."
"She exposed [information] to our enemies," McCaul said on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning. "Our
adversaries have this very sensitive information. … In my opinion, quite frankly, it's treason."
McCaul, R-Texas, said that FBI Director James Comey told him previously that foreign adversaries
likely had gotten into her server. When Comey publicly discussed the Clinton email case back in
July, he also said that while there was no evidence hostile actors breached the server, it was
"possible" they had gained access.
Clinton herself later pushed back, saying the director was merely "speculating."
But sources told Fox News that Comey should have said at the time there is an "almost certainty"
that several foreign intelligence agencies hacked into the server.
The claims come as Comey's FBI not only revisits the email investigation following the discovery
of additional emails on the laptop of ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner – the estranged husband of Clinton aide
Huma Abedin – but is proceeding in its investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
In other words, Anthony Weiner may be ultimately responsible not only for the downfall of Hillary
Clinton's presidential candidacy, but also the collapse of the entire Clinton Foundation... which
incidentally is just what Donald Trump warned could happen over a year ago.
A summary of Baier's latest reporting is in the clip below...
The FBI has unexpectedly published papers from an over ten-year-old investigation of former president
Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of a financier, reports
NTB.
The case against Clinton was dismissed without charges in 2005, and several Democrats therefore question
why the 129-page report of the investigation is published right now, a few days before the election,
in which Bill Clinton's wife Hillary Clinton is trying to become president.
The rage against the FBI is already great in the Democratic Party after the federal police last week
announced they will investigate new emails relating to Hillary Clinton.
Financier Marc Rich was indicted for tax fraud and lived in exile in Switzerland when Bill Clinton
pardoned him on his last day as president on January 20, 2001. Several reacted to the pardon, especially
since Rich's ex-wife was a major donor to the Democratic Party.
The FBI started to investigate the pardon the year after.
"... The support Trump has enjoyed is directly tied to the frustration many across the country feel toward Washington and its entrenched leaders, and they shouldn't expect that sentiment to dissipate regardless of whether Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins at the ballot box on Nov. 8, he said. ..."
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel reiterated his support for Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump Monday morning, telling a room of journalists that a Washington outsider in the White
House would recalibrate lawmakers who have lost touch with the struggles of most Americans.
Thiel said it was "both insane and somehow inevitable" that political leaders would expect this presidential
election to be a contest between "political dynasties" that have shepherded the country into two
major financial crises: the tech bubble burst in the early 2000s, and the housing crisis and economic
recession later that decade.
The support Trump has enjoyed is directly tied to the frustration many across the country feel
toward Washington and its entrenched leaders, and they shouldn't expect that sentiment to dissipate
regardless of whether Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins at the ballot box on Nov.
8, he said.
"What Trump represents isn't crazy and it's not going away," he said.
I'd actually argue the opposite. Thousands of people are turning to Trump as a cynical form of
rebellion. They think that voting for him will be interesting/fun. If you were to ask them how
a Hillary Clinton presidency would seriously make their lives worse, they'd have nothing serious
to answer. At best they might say that they'll be fine, but that the rest of the country would
suffer, and then spout of a bunch of nonsense as to why that would be. It's a luxury to be so
reckless, which is where America is right now. If millions of lives literally depended on the
outcome of this election, people would be much more careful about how they plan to vote.
...they felt that mainstream America had left them and had gone by, didn't see
them, didn't recognize who they were and neither political party spoke to their
feelings and interests. In this sense, they felt like strangers in their own
land.
I'll give you an example of that.
One woman I spoke to said, "I'm
really glad you've come to interview us, because we are the fly-over-state and
people think of the South that we're ignorant, backward, that we have
old-fashioned attitudes, that we're pro-family, pro-life and that many people
think we're racist when we're not, and so they write us off, they call us
rednecks, so thanks for coming to see who we really are."
You've said that, "The conservatives of yesterday seem moderate or
liberal today" in the US. Can you elaborate on this move to the right in
American politics?
In 1968, Barry Goldwater was the first really
radical anti-government national candidate for the Republican presidency. His
wife was a founder of Planned Parenthood. Today, Republicans and the Tea Party
want to defund Planned Parenthood, which offers contraception, abortion, cancer
screening and other very important things.
Again, former Republican President Richard Nixon brought us the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act,
and now Republicans are calling for the end of the EPA.
Yet again, former Republican President Eisenhower called for a minimum
wage; now Republicans oppose this. Eisenhower called for investments in public
infrastructure, now it's opposed. Today, the Republicans of the '50s, '60s,
'70s and '80s look liberal. That's how far right we've become.
Fighting against total of the big ghetto states is a bitch. Looks like Trump
needs to run the table as in FL,OH,GA,NC,AZ,CO,IA,NV. Not impossible but
something resembling a real kill shot from Wikileaks sure would help.
I have always believed that Trump is actually the elites choice and that
they have been practicing reverse psychology on the voters.
Nothing that
has happened during this 'selection' season has put me off of that hypothesis.
I told my husband months ago that there would be an October/November surprise
and that Trump may very well end up in the White House. Hillary is just too
broken to be able to pull it off. I've heard his economic policy speeches:
privatize social security, etc., and they all line up with just what the elites
have wanted for a long time. I know most ZHers don't feel this way, but
politics is a bitch, my friends. Let the down voting commence.
Your theory is actually a theory - In
politics NOTHING happens by chance.
Mark Twain said: If voting really mattered- They wouldn't let us do it!
I honestly believe that the PTB have every election sewn up through
controlled opposition- yet Trump would move us to Totalitarianism at a much
slower rate than the HitlerBeast. The Political Overton Window has shifted
hard to the left over the last 30 years. Both parties are to the left of
John F. Kennedy, sadly. Lesser of two evils is the new name of the game!
Evidence doesn't support your theory Rob. Ask yourself why every news
organization in the English speaking world is busy trashing Trump? Odd way
to for the elites to show support.
I'm an establishment hater and long to see Clinton's get their due, so support
Trump by default. What I think is instructive, if nothing else interesting, is
Brandon Smith's POV on Trump's potential "victory". The chess board is
fascinating, but may not be R's and D's playing the game at all. For the
planned crash, they'd rather have the "isolationist" (falsely painted term)
than the Globalist at the helm for blame. "See?? Its these same Brexit and
Trump voting "isolationist"! We need the SDR and the Big Boys back in
charge!".......still, I'd have a thrill run up my leg to watch a long-time
crook get her just comeuppance....
BREAKING: Steve Pieczenik.com from infowars and youtube videos:
2:40 in; Unedited
"We've initiated a counter coup through Assange and Wikileaks."
Comey's action reflected a response to the Silent Coup.
"We're going to stop you from making HRC President of the U.S."
Massive corruption under Clinton Foundation.
"I am just a small part of something bigger than myself."
"Brave men and women in the FBI, CIA,Director of Intelligence, Military
Intelligence and 15 other intelligence agencies who were sick and tired of
seeing this corruption in the White House, Justice Department, Intelligence
Services (so we) decided that there was something we had to do to save the
Republic so we initiated a Counter Coup through Julian Assange through emails
that we gave to him in order to undermine Hillary and Bill Clinton."
Pieczenik indicated this "Second American Revolution" had no guns, wapons, or
intent to kill or harm." He says the Counter Coup is made up of veterans in the
intelligence service like (himself.) He asserts that they will make sure Obama
leaves office without a pardon or any other "act of treason."
The coup "wants a peaceful transition."
Pieczenik said this is a "moment of history occurring right now."
I'm sick of hearing about this Pieczenik guy. It's been non-stop here at ZH
lately. There's no way this Tribe member is up to any good with his
counter-coup distraction.
What happens when states like Maryland, New Jersey, Colorado and Iowa vote for
Trump (because they didn't bother to rig in those areas), but Hilary still
"wins" in super battle ground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania because those
elections were rigged?
"... So no mention of the Department of Justice tipping off the Clinton campaign Guardian? Surely that it a pretty damning new revelation. Corrupt to the core. No of course not, ignoring wikileaks and shilling more of the same old wall to wall Anti Trump scaremongering. ..."
"... We get it, Trump is a jerk. Hillary Clinton is systemically corrupt. ..."
"... And here I was thinking the Guardian was progressive… but you'll stoop to anything to get your chosen corporatist candidate over the line eh? ..."
"... Obama changed his tone. The Dems are in desperate mode. Kinda nice to see them on the defense. However they will never change their globalist agenda to sell off the rest of middle class. ..."
"... Trump against the entire establishment with unlimited funds. They sent out their top politicians/celebrities in full force and still can't flip Florida. If he wins with only popular support it will be the best upset in modern history. ..."
"... Obama has destroyed the nation with his identity politics, his lies, his elitist BS, his lack of awareness of the constitution, his constant pronouncing of guilt or innocence from the WH, his inviting key players in the BLM movement and the various idiot celebs like Jay-Z and Beyonce, to the WH, his arrogance, etc. ..."
"... As the above LA Times poll shows, Trump now has a monstrous 5.4% lead. His supporters are growing on a daily basis, as he continues to attract African-American supporters and Democrats in record-breaking numbers for a Republican candidate. ..."
"... Obama is a master of calling people racists without actually coming out with it. He is also a master of playing on people's fears. He has been such a disappointment. Instead of uniting the country he has kept it divided. ..."
"... The Obamas are hypocrites of the highest order,In 2007/8 they said the Clintons were toxic and Hillary should not be allowed anywhere near the White House. The Obamas cronyism for the powerful and elite makes my blood boil ..."
"... The Obamas swept into the White House on a dream ticket provided in the main by the black vote, With the first 2 yrs of hobnobbing with the rich, powerful and famous he was slow to do a thing for the voter and all of 8 yrs on he still hasn't and we all know he never will ? ..."
"... The condescending Obamas are now out rallying for the very same woman they denounced 8 yrs earlier. They are in essence expecting the voter to forget everything that went on before and vote the impeached X President and his caustic wife ..."
"... Sure... He's all that. But he said he doesn't want a nuclear war with Russia. Hillary on the other hand is really keen on the idea. All her MIC backers agree. ..."
"... And clinton has the official endorsement of all the republican neocons who wrote and implemented the project for the new American century which embarked your country on a series of illegal wars in the middle east, millions of people dead, and created international terrorism. Oh and your national debt rose to trillions and your country's Infrastructure is falling apart and you have absolutely nothing tangible to show for it. Good luck with Hillary guys. ..."
"... "But it was Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, who quote 'paid tribute' to Ronald Reagan's economic and foreign policy. She championed NAFTA - even though it has cost South Carolina thousands of jobs. And worst of all, it was Hillary Clinton who voted for George Bush's war in Iraq. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton. She'll say anything, and change nothing. It's time to turn the page. ..."
"... Shouldn't it be illegal, for Obama, a government official, to attempt to influence the election? The Guardian already reported that Obama has been campaigning more than any sitting president before him. ..."
"... And besides, is that what he does on taxpayers' dime? Shouldn't he in general be addressing important issues of the country? ..."
Massive multi billion dollar corporate entities and
financial conglomerates who have a vested self interest in
the election will throw everything they have got into the
system. No effort too extreme, nothing out of bounds.
65jangle 6h ago
So no mention of the Department of Justice tipping off the Clinton campaign Guardian?
Surely that it a pretty damning new revelation. Corrupt to the core. No of course not, ignoring
wikileaks and shilling more of the same old wall to wall Anti Trump scaremongering.
We get it, Trump is a jerk. Hillary Clinton is systemically corrupt.
And here I was thinking the Guardian was progressive… but you'll stoop to anything to get your
chosen corporatist candidate over the line eh?
BlueberryCompote -> ByzantiumNovum 6h ago
The lunatic Russophobia of the US State Department makes your intervention unnecessary as Obama probably was the last bulwark against insanity.
Obama changed his tone. The Dems are in desperate mode. Kinda nice to see them on the
defense. However they will never change their globalist agenda to sell off the rest of middle class.
Trump against the entire establishment with unlimited funds. They sent out their top
politicians/celebrities in full force and still can't flip Florida. If he wins with only popular
support it will be the best upset in modern history.
aldebaranredstar 8h ago
Obama has destroyed the nation with his identity politics, his lies, his elitist BS, his
lack of awareness of the constitution, his constant pronouncing of guilt or innocence from the WH,
his inviting key players in the BLM movement and the various idiot celebs like Jay-Z and Beyonce,
to the WH, his arrogance, etc.
He has not only destroyed the Dem Party--which is weaker than it has ever been--but the entire
nation with his Executive orders that got overturned by the SCOTUS--the man is pure hell. A bad
leader is a bad leader, no matter the color. People are disgusted with his actions as POTUS and
that is the bottom line cause of the rise of DT. Obama has waged war in his own nation--not only
overseas. Peace Prize--HAHAHA.
Flugler 8h ago
Walkover;
As the above LA Times poll shows, Trump now has a monstrous 5.4% lead. His supporters are
growing on a daily basis, as he continues to attract African-American supporters and Democrats in
record-breaking numbers for a Republican candidate.
In addition to this, the polls may be horribly off, as Trump has what many are calling the
"monster vote" waiting in the wings. This is in reference to the stunning amount of previously
unregistered voters who have never voted in their life but plan on showing up to the polls to
support Donald Trump, as internal polling is showing.
Further supporting how strong his momentum is across all categories is the fact that Donald
Trump now has the majority of support across ALL age categories. A huge development, considering
that he has been struggling with young voters throughout much of his campaign.
rocjoc43rd 8h ago
Obama is a master of calling people racists without actually coming out with it. He is
also a master of playing on people's fears. He has been such a disappointment. Instead of uniting
the country he has kept it divided. I wonder if he is keeping the country safe while he
spends the next week campaigning for his replacement.
mandyjeancole 8h ago
The Obamas are hypocrites of the highest order,In 2007/8 they said the Clintons were toxic
and Hillary should not be allowed anywhere near the White House. The Obamas cronyism for the
powerful and elite makes my blood boil
The Obamas swept into the White House on a dream ticket provided in the main by the black
vote, With the first 2 yrs of hobnobbing with the rich, powerful and famous he was slow to do a
thing for the voter and all of 8 yrs on he still hasn't and we all know he never will ?
The
condescending Obamas are now out rallying for the very same woman they denounced 8 yrs
earlier. They are in essence expecting the voter to forget everything that went on before and vote
the impeached X President and his caustic wife another bite of the proverbial cherry, Donald
Trumps somewhat blundering campaign has been mired in his apparent misogyny and he has come in
for the most horrendous criticism by the world's press while Mrs. Clintons lies and, deceit up
until now were considered acceptable for a 30 yr veteran of politics.
Mr. Trump maybe an
all-American dreamer, he may not always come across as the most coherent, but he loves his Country. and he wants what's best for it.....If America is looking for mistakes made look no
further than Europe, The powers that be.. have made the most catastrophic decisions that have in
turn left the once proud cultures of Europe in the grip of Islamic fundamentalist whose barbaric
in doctoring wants to take us back a 1000 yrs. Give Mr. Trump 4 yrs.. its not too long..He just
might surprise you. MJC
Meep_Meep 8h ago
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump decried Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as
"the candidate of yesterday," calling himself and his supporters "the movement of the future."
Yeah...the future!
DeAngelOfPi -> Brighton181 8h ago
Sure... He's all that. But he said he doesn't want a nuclear war with Russia. Hillary on
the other hand is really keen on the idea. All her MIC backers agree.
SoloLoMejor -> PostTrotskyite 9h ago
And clinton has the official endorsement of all the republican neocons who wrote and
implemented the project for the new American century which embarked your country on a series of
illegal wars in the middle east, millions of people dead, and created international terrorism. Oh
and your national debt rose to trillions and your country's Infrastructure is falling apart and
you have absolutely nothing tangible to show for it. Good luck with Hillary guys.
RememberRemember 9h ago
2016 Obama, perhaps you would like a word with 2008 Obama.
Obama: "I'm Barack Obama, running for president and I approve this message."
Announcer: "It's what's wrong with politics today. Hillary Clinton will say anything to get
elected. Now she's making false attacks on Barack Obama.
"The Washington Post says Clinton isn't telling the truth. Obama 'did not say that he liked
the ideas of Republicans.' In fact, Obama's led the fight to raise the minimum wage, close
corporate tax loopholes and cut taxes for the middle class.
"But it was Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, who quote 'paid tribute' to
Ronald Reagan's economic and foreign policy. She championed NAFTA - even though it has cost
South Carolina thousands of jobs. And worst of all, it was Hillary Clinton who voted for
George Bush's war in Iraq.
"Hillary Clinton. She'll say anything, and change nothing. It's time to turn the page.
Paid for by Obama for America."
calderonparalapaz 9h ago
A Hillary ad should be about Clinton Inc as the american dream. Thanks Teneo!
"Until the Friday blockbuster news that the FBI was reopening its probe into the Hillary email
server, the biggest overhang facing the Clinton Campaign was the escalating scandal involving the
Clinton Foundation, Doug Band's consultancy firm Teneo, and Bill Clinton who as a result of a
leaked memo emerged was generously compensated for potential political favors by prominent
corporate clients using Teneo as a pass-thru vehicle for purchasing influence.
In a section of the memo entitled "Leveraging Teneo For The Foundation," Band spelled out all of
the donations he solicited from Teneo "clients" for the Clinton Foundation. In all, there are
roughly $14mm of donations listed with the largest contributors being Coca-Cola, Barclays, The
Rockefeller Foundation and Laureate International Universities. Some of these are shown below
(the full details can be found in "Leaked Memo Exposes Shady Dealings Between Clinton Foundation
Donors And Bill's "For-Profit" Activities")"
the more the media hush up on Huma Abedin, the more there is to know. it was her & criminally
accused Weiner's PC which (in a folder innocuously labelled) had 650,000 emails. Abedin comments
"she did not now how the 650,000 emails got there" (sic). the US media continues to cover up this
aspect of the Trio story: Abedin-Clinton-Weiner... the fact that Weiner is buddy with Israel's
Netanyahu simply adds to this intertwined messy cover-up.
BoSelecta 9h ago
The Clintonite corruption spreads in to the Justice Department:
Shouldn't it be illegal, for Obama, a government official, to attempt to influence the
election? The Guardian already reported that Obama has been campaigning more than any sitting
president before him.
And besides, is that what he does on taxpayers' dime? Shouldn't he in general be
addressing important issues of the country?
ALostIguana -> vr13vr 9h ago
Hatch Act explicitly excludes the President and Vice-President. They can take part in
political campaigning. Most other members of the executive are constrained by the Hatch Act.
"... Let's hope that Mr. Assange is saving the best for last, and delivers the coup de grace to the warmongering sociopathic harpy and she melts down like the wicked witch of the west. ..."
"... Either way, methinks that a great mass of unwashed deplorables may just rise up and sweep the authoritarian orange barbarian into power. ..."
The stench of desperation and corruption is surrounding the Dems like the piles of rotting
corpses Obama and Clinton have stacked up in Libya and Syria.
Let's hope that Mr. Assange is saving the best for last, and delivers the coup de grace
to the warmongering
sociopathic harpy and she melts down like the wicked witch of the west.
Either way, methinks that a great mass of unwashed deplorables may just rise up and sweep
the
authoritarian orange
barbarian into power.
Which is why I'm stocking up on ribeyes, scotch, and ammo for next week. Should Trump prevail,
I give better than even odds that the leftist chimps will, literally, go
berserk .
REPORTERS RSVP (28) 1. ABC – Liz Kreutz 2. AP – Julie Pace 3. AP - Ken Thomas 4. AP - Lisa Lerer 5. Bloomberg - Jennifer Epstein
6. Buzzfeed - Ruby Cramer 7. CBS – Steve Chagaris 8. CNBC - John Harwood 9. CNN - Dan Merica 10. Huffington Post - Amanda Terkel
11. LAT - Evan Handler 12. McClatchy - Anita Kumar 13. MSNBC - Alex Seitz-Wald 14. National Journal - Emily Schultheis 15. NBC
– Mark Murray 16. NPR - Mara Liassion 17. NPR – Tamara Keith 18. NYT - Amy Chozik 19. NYT - Maggie Haberman 20. Politico - Annie
Karni 21. Politico - Gabe Debenedetti 22. Politico - Glenn Thrush 23. Reuters - Amanda Becker 24. Washington Post - Anne Gearan
25. Washington Post – Phil Rucker 26. WSJ - Colleen McCain Nelson 27. WSJ - Laura Meckler 28. WSJ - Peter Nicholas
Pigeon •Nov 3, 2016 9:49 AM
It bothers me these stories are constantly prefaced with the idea that Wikileaks is saving Trump's bacon. Hillary wouldn't
even be close if the press weren't in the tank for her. How about Wikileaks evening the playing field with REAL STORIES AND
FACTS?
"Huma Abedin is a US citizen who was raised in Saudi Arabia. Her father is director of an academic
revue – of which, for many years, she was the sub-editor – which regularly prints comments from the
Muslim Brotherhood. Her mother is president of the Saudi association of female members of the Brotherhood,
and worked with the wife of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Her brother Hassan works for Sheikh
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the religious authority of the Brotherhood and spiritual counsellor of Al-Jazeera."
... ... ...
Huma Abedin is today a central figure of the Clinton campaign, alongside the campaign director,
John Podesta, ex-General Secretary of the White House under the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Podesta
is also the appointed Congressional lobbyist for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – for the modest amount
of $200,000 per month. On 12 June 2016, Petra, the official Press agency of Jordan, published an
interview with the crown prince of Arabia, Mohamed Ben Salmane, in which he affirmed the modernity
of his family, which had illegally financed Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign to the tune of
20%, despite the fact that she is a woman. The day after this publication, the agency cancelled the
dispatch and claimed that its Internet site had been hacked.
... ... ...
As it happens, in the team of her challenger, Donald Trump, we note the presence of General Michael
T. Flynn, who attempted to oppose the creation of the Caliphate by the White House, and resigned
from the direction of the Defense Intelligence Agency in order to signal his disapproval. He works
alongside Frank Gaffney, a historical "Cold Warrior", now qualified as a "conspiracy theorist" for
having denounced the presence of the Brotherhood in the Federal State.
It goes without saying that from the FBI's point of view, any support for jihadist organisations
is a crime, whatever the policy of the CIA may be. In 1991, the police – and Senator John Kerry –
had provoked the ecollapse of BCCI, a Pakistani bank (although it is registered in the Cayman Islands),
which the CIA used for all sorts of secret operations with the Muslim Brotherhood and also the Latino
drug cartels.
"... What if she is elected? Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing her hands. ..."
It's obvious the American political system is breaking down. It's been crumbling for some time now,
and the establishment elite know it and they're properly frightened.
Donald Trump, the vulgarian at their gates, is a symptom, not a cause. Hillary Clinton and husband
Bill are both cause and effect.
FBI director
James Comey's announcement about the renewed Clinton email investigation is the bombshell in
the presidential campaign. That he announced this so close to Election Day should tell every thinking
person that what the FBI is looking at is extremely serious.
This can't be about pervert Anthony Weiner and his reported desire for a teenage girl. But it
can be about the laptop of Weiner's wife, Clinton aide
Huma Abedin, and emails between her and Hillary. It comes after the FBI investigation in which
Comey concluded Clinton had lied and been "reckless" with national secrets, but said he could not
recommend prosecution.>
... ... ...
What if she is elected? Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in
the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional
investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing
her hands.
The best thing would be for Democrats to ask her to step down now. It would be the most responsible
thing to do, if the nation were more important to them than power. And the American news media -
fairly or not firmly identified in the public mind as Mrs. Clinton's political action committee -
should begin demanding it.
... ... ...
The Clintons weren't skilled merchants. They weren't traders or manufacturers. The Clintons never
produced anything tangible. They had no science, patents or devices to make them millions upon millions
of dollars.
All they had to sell, really, was influence. And they used our federal government to leverage it.
If a presidential election is as much about the people as it is about the candidates, then we'll
learn plenty about ourselves in the coming days, won't we?
After Podesta mentions in the original email chain 'Yes and interesting but not for this channel.',
he then sends this email back to Hillary's inbox a month later with a subject line of 'Congrats!'.
Could this be an example of altering email subject lines for the purpose of getting deleted as 'personal'
emails? This chain appears to have classified material. I would assume Clinton would not want this
email in her system, and Podesta very blatantly was aware of it not belonging there. (More aware
than Clinton herself, which is quite frightening).
Can we compare this email to the emails that were turned over to state? Or, compare it to the
date that Congress sent the order to provide all emails? When was that again? I'm assuming it's certainly
not there.
EDIT: The dates line up. This email subject was changed and sent at the same time Hillary's team
was wiping personal emails.
EDIT 2: This needs to get out to everyone. Media / FBI / Wikileaks / TYT / You name it. Please
share/tweet/whatever!
"... FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation. ..."
"... Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News. ..."
"... "There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails. ..."
A second FBI investigation involving Hillary Clinton is ongoing. The investigation to uncover
corruption by the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton, is given high priority and now runs parallel
with the reopened FBI case of her using a private email server to avoid the Federal Records Act.
The FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year
has now taken a "very high priority," separate sources with intimate knowledge of the probe tell
Fox News .
FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which
is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation.
Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents
had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News,
who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing
the same people again, some for the third time, sources said.
Agents are also going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews and
the FBI 302, documents agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up,
according to sources.
"... A pregnant double-humped camel in pantsuit is more likely to squeeze through the eye of the needle than Hillary is to win Arizona. ..."
"... Why is a person who is being investigated by the FBI being considered for the Presidency of the US? ..."
"... She's fucked either way now. Way too much shit on her and they say they've got even more that will be so damning she could go straight to prison. ..."
"... Wow, I didn't know it was getting this bad: Chicago Tribune Asks Clinton To Step Down ..."
Thiel also criticized the media's coverage of Trump's bombastic remarks. He said that while the
media takes Trump's remarks "literally" but not "seriously," he believes Trump supporters take them
seriously but not literally. In short, Trump isn't actually going to impose religious tests on
immigrants or build a wall along the Mexican border, as he has repeatedly said, but will simply
pursue "saner, more sensible" immigration policies.
"His larger-than-life persona attracts a lot of attention. Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is
a humble man. But the big things he's right about amount to a much needed dose of humility in our
politics," Thiel said.
While the Silicon Valley tech corridor and suburbs around Washington have thrived in the last
decade or more, many other parts of the country have been gutted by economic and trade policies
that closed manufacturing plants and shipped jobs overseas, Thiel said, reiterating a previous
talking point.
"Most Americans don't live by the Beltway or the San Francisco Bay. Most Americans haven't
been part of that prosperity," Thiel said Monday. "It shouldn't be surprising to see people vote
for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump, who is the only outsider left in the race."
Thiel later said he had hoped the presidential race might come down to Sanders and Trump, two
outsiders with distinct views on the root cause of the nation's economic malaise and the best
course of action to fix it. "That would have been a very different sort of debate," he said.
Thiel's prepared remarks seemed more of an admonishment of the state of the country today than a
ringing endorsement of Trump's persona and policies. He decried high medical costs and the lack
of savings baby boomers have on hand. He said millennials are burdened by soaring tuition costs
and a poor outlook on the future. Meanwhile, he said, the federal government has wasted trillions
of dollars fighting wars in Africa and the Middle East that have yet to be won.
Trump is the only candidate who shares his view that the country's problems are substantial and
need drastic change to be repaired, Thiel said. Clinton, on the other hand, does not see a need
for a hard reset on some of the country's policies and would likely lead the U.S. into additional
costly conflicts abroad, he said.
A self-described libertarian, Thiel amassed his fortune as the co-founder of digital payment
company PayPal and data analytics firm Palantir Technologies. He has continued to add to that
wealth through venture capital investments in companies that include Facebook, Airbnb, Lyft and
Spotify, among many others.
Trump mirrors resentment with the current political culture. Unfortunately very few readers in this
forum understand that the emergence of Trump as a viable candidate in the current race, the candidate
who withstand 24x7 air bombarment by corrupt neoliberabl MSM (like Guardian ;-) signify deep crisis
of neoliberalsm and neoliberal globalization.
Notable quotes:
"... "What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent to which unconstrained campaign finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate an entire nation, regardless of its size." ..."
"... That's it – finance and sophisticated lobbying. And you can add to that mass brainwashing at election campaigns by means of choice language and orchestration as advised by cognitive scientists who are expressly recruited for this purpose. Voters remain largely unaware of the mind control they are undergoing. And of course the essential prerequisite for all of this is financial power. ..."
"... Now read again in this light Gore Vidal's famous pronouncement… "Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so." ..."
"... Worse still, the political spectrum runs from right to right. To all intents and purposes, one single party, the US Neoliberal party, with 2 factions catering for power and privilege. Anything to the left of that is simply not an available choice for voters. ..."
"... Americans have wakened up to the fact that they badly need a government which caters for the needs of the average citizen. In their desperation some will still vote for Trump warts and all. This for the same sorts of reasons that Italians voted for Berlusconi, whose winning slogan was basically 'I am not a politician'. ..."
"... The right choice was Bernie Sanders. Sadly, not powerful enough. So Americans missed the boat there. But at least there was a boat to miss this time around. You can be sure that similar future boats will be sunk well in advance. Corporate power has learnt its lesson and the art of election rigging has now become an exact science. ..."
"... Donald Trump, Brexit and Le Pen are all in their separate ways rejections of the dogma of liberalism, social and economic, that has dominated the West for the past three decades. ..."
"... In 2010, Chomsky wrote : ..."
"... The United States is extremely lucky.....if somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. ..."
"... Dangerous times. The beauty of democracy is we get what we deserve ..."
"... The worst thing about Donald Trump is that he's the man in the mirror. ..."
"... He is the distillation of all that we have been induced to desire and admire. ..."
"... I thought that he is the mirror image, the reverse, of the current liberal consensus. A consensus driven by worthy ideals but driven too far, gradually losing acceptance and with no self correcting awareness. ..."
"... Trump is awful - but by speaking freely he challenges the excesses of those who would limit free speech. Trump is awful - but by demonising minorities he challenges those who would excuse minorities of all responsibility. Trump is awful - but by flaunting his wealth he challenges those who keep their connections and wealth hidden for the sake of appearances. ..."
"... Trump is awful because the system is out of balance. He is a consequence, not a cause. ..."
"... Voting for Trump is voting for peace. Voting for Clinton is voting for WW3. ..."
"... It's quite clearly because Hillary as President is an utterly terrifying prospect. When half the population would rather have Trump than her, it must be conceded that she has some serious reputational issues. ..."
"... Personally, I'd take Trump over Hillary if I was a US citizen. He may be a buffoon but she is profoundly dangerous, probably a genuine psychopath and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Presidency. Sanders is the man America needs now, though, barring one of Hillary's many crimes finally toppling her, it's not going to happen... ..."
"... The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal ..."
"... And the shame is we seem to be becoming desensitized to scandal. We cannot be said to live in democracies when our political class are so obviously bought by the vastly rich. ..."
"... One of the things it says is that people are so sick of Identity Politics from the Left and believe the Left are not very true to the ideals of what should be the Left. ..."
"... When the people who are supposed to care about the poor and working joes and janes prefer to care about the minorities whose vote they can rely on, the poor and the working joes and janes will show their frustration by supporting someone who will come along and tell it as it is, even if he is part of how it got that way. ..."
"... People throughout the world have awoken to the Left being Right Light but with a more nauseating moral superiority complex. ..."
"... he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics ..."
"... 'Encouraged by the corporate media, the Republicans have been waging a full-spectrum assault on empathy, altruism and the decencies we owe to other people. Their gleeful stoving in of faces, their cackling destruction of political safeguards and democratic norms, their stomping on all that is generous and caring and cooperative in human nature, have turned the party into a game of Mortal Kombat scripted by Breitbart News.' ..."
"... Many years ago in the British Military, those with the right connections and enough money could buy an officer's commission and rise up the system to be an incompetent General. As a result, many battles were mismanaged and many lives wasted due to the incompetent (wealthy privileged few) buying their way to the top. American politics today works on exactly the same system of wealthy patronage and privilege for the incompetent, read Clinton and Trump. Until the best candidates are able to rise up through the political system without buying their way there then the whole corrupt farce will continue and we will be no different to the all the other tin pot republics of the world. ..."
"... There's the "culture wars" aspect. Many people don't like being told they are "deplorable" for opposing illegal (or even legal) immigration. They don't like being called "racist" for disagreeing with an ideology. ..."
"... I like the phrase Monbiot ends with - "He is our system, stripped of its pretences" - it reminds me of a phrase in the Communist Manifesto - but I don't think it's true. "Our" system is more than capitalism, it's culture. And Clinton is a far more "perfect representation" of the increasingly censorious, narrow [neo]liberal culture which dominates the Western world. ..."
"... Finally, Monbiot misses the chance to contrast Clinton's and Trump's apparent differences with regard to confronting nuclear-armed Russia over the skies of Syria. It could be like 1964 all over again - except in this election, the Democrat is the nearest thing to Barry Goldwater. ..."
"... As a life-long despiser of all things Trump, I cannot believe that I am saying this: Trump is good for world peace. ..."
"... I fully agree with Monbiot, American democracy is a sham - the lobby system has embedded corruption right in the heart of its body politic. Lets be clear here though, whatever is the problem with American democracy can in theory at least be fixed, but Trump simply can not and moreover he is not the answer ..."
"... His opponent, war child and Wall Street darling can count her lucky stars that the media leaves her alone (with husband Bill, hands firmly in his pockets, nodding approvingly) and concentrates on their feeding frenzy attacking Trump on sexual allegations of abusing women, giving Hillery, Yes, likely to tell lies, ( mendacious, remember when she claimed to be under enemy fire in Bosnia? remember how evasive she was on the Benghazi attack on the embassy) Yes Trump is a dangerous man running against an also extremely dangerous woman. ..."
"... Extremely interesting reference to the Madison paper, but the issue is less about the size of the electorate, and more about the power that the election provides to the victor. ..."
"... Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy. You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt? ..."
"... When you look at speeches and conversations and debates with the so-called bogeyman, Putin, he is not at all in a league as low and vile as portrayed and says many more sensible things than anybody cares to listen to, because we're all brainwashed. We are complicit in wars (now in Syria) and cannot see why we have to connive with terrorists, tens of thousands of them, and they get supported by the war machine and friends like Saudis and Turkey which traded for years with ISIS. ..."
"... Clinton the war hawk, and shows us we are only capable of seeing one side and project all nastiness outward while we can feel good about ourselves by hating the other. ..."
"... It fits the Decline of an Empire image as it did in other Falls of Civilizations. ..."
"... Trump spoke to the executives at Ford like no one before ever has. He told them if they moved production to Mexico (as they plan to do) that he would slap huge tariffs on their cars in America and no one would buy them. ..."
"... What happens in Syria could be important to us all. Clinton doesn't hide her ambition to drive Assad from power and give Russia a kicking. It's actually very unpopular although the media doesn't like to say so; it prefers to lambast Spain for re-fueling Russian war ships off to fight the crazed Jihadists as if we supported the religious fanatics that want to slaughter all Infidels! There is an enormous gulf between what ordinary people want and the power crazy Generals in the Pentagon and NATO. ..."
"... USA has got itself in an unholy mess . It's politicians no longer work for the people . Their paymasters care not if life in Idaho resembles Dantes inferno . Trump has many faults but being "not Hilary" is not one of them. The very fact he is disliked by all the vested interests should make you take another look. And remember , the American constitution has many checks and balances , a President has a lot less power than most people imagine. ..."
"... Like many on the right, the left have unthinkingly accepted a narrative of an organized, conspiratorial system run by an elite of politicians and plutocrats. The problem with this narrative is it suggests politics and politicians are inherently nefarious, in turn suggesting there are no political solutions to be sought to problems, or anything people can do to challenge a global system of power. As Monbiot asks: "You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt?" Well, what indeed? ..."
"... I don't think you need to believe in an organised conspiracy and I don't see any real evidence that George Monbiot does. The trouble is that the corporate and political interests align in a way that absorbs any attempt to challenge them and the narrative has been written that of course politics is all about economics and of course we need mighty corporations to sustain us. ..."
"... Not long after the start of the presidential campaign I began to reflect that in Trump we are seeing materializing before us the logical result of the neoliberal project ..."
"... The Republican party essentially offered their base nothing – that was the problem. ..."
"... They couldn't offer all the things that ordinary Americans want – better and wider Medicaid, better and wider social security, tax increases on the rich, an end to pointless foreign wars and the American empire. ..."
"... The Democrats have largely the same funding base, but they at least deliver crumbs – at least a nod to the needs of ordinary people through half-hearted social programmes. ..."
"... Trump is imperfect because he wants normal relations rather than war with Russia. No, Hillary Clinton is the ultimate representation of the system that is abusing us. What will occur when Goldman Sachs and the military-industrial complex coalition get their, what is it, 5th term in office would be a great subject of many Guardian opinion pieces, actually. But that will have to wait till after November 8. ..."
"... And, of course, we also have Hillary's Wall Street speeches -- thanks to Wikileaks we have the complete transcripts, in case Guardian readers are unaware. They expose the real thinking and 'private positions' of the central character in the next episode of 'Rule by Plutocracy'. ..."
"... The democrats is the party practicing hypocrisy, pretending that they somehow representing the interest of the working class. They are the ones spreading lies and hypocrisy and manipulating the working class everyday through their power over the media. Their function is to appease the working class. The real obstacle for improving conditions for the working class historically has always been the Democratic party, not the Republican party. ..."
"... In what concerns foreign politics, Trump some times seems more reasonable than Clinton and the establishment. Clinton is the best coached politician of all times. She doesn't know that she's coached. She just followed the most radical groups and isn't able to question anything at all. The only thing that the coaches didn't fix until now is her laughing which is considered even by her coaches as a sign of weirdness. ..."
"... Western economies are now so beholden to the patronage of the essentially stateless multinational, it has become a political imperative to appease their interests - it's difficult to see a future in which an administration might resist this force, because at its whim, national economies face ruination. In light of such helplessness our political representatives face an easier path in simply accepting their lot as mere administrators who will tinker at the margins [and potentially reap the rewards of a good servant], rather than hold to principle and resist an overwhelming force. ..."
"... "Trump personifies the traits promoted by the media and corporate worlds he affects to revile; the worlds that created him. He is the fetishisation of wealth, power and image in a nation where extrinsic values are championed throughout public discourse. His conspicuous consumption, self-amplification and towering (if fragile) ego are in tune with the dominant narratives of our age." ..."
"... Yes, they don't care any more if we see the full extent of their corruption as we've given up our power to do anything about it. ..."
"... It was once very common to see Democratic politicians as neighbors attending every community event. They were Teamsters, pipe fitters, and electricians. And they were coaches and ushers and pallbearers. Now they are academics and lawyers and NGO employees and managers who pop up during campaigns. The typical income of the elected Democrats outside their government check is north of $100,000. They don't live in, or even wander through, the poorer neighborhoods. So they are essentially clueless that government services like busses are run to suit government and not actual customers. ..."
"... Yea, 15 years of constant wars of empire with no end in sight has pretty much ran this country in the ground. ..."
"... We all talk about how much money is wasted by the federal government on unimportant endeavors like human services and education, but don't even bat an eye about the sieve of money that is the Pentagon. ..."
"... Half a trillion dollars for aircraft carriers we don't need and are already obsolete. China is on the verge of developing wickedly effective anti-ship missiles designed specifically to target these Gerald R. Ford-class vessels. You might as well paint a huge bull's-eye on these ships' 4-1/2 acre flight deck. ..."
"... There are plenty more examples of this crap and this doesn't even include the nearly TWO trillion dollars we've spent this past decade-and-a-half on stomping flat the Middle East and large swaths of the Indian subcontinent. ..."
"... And all this time, our nation's infrastructure is crumbling literally right out from underneath us and millions upon millions of children and their families experience a daily struggle just to eat. Eat?! In the "greatest," wealthiest nation on earth and we prefer to kill people at weddings with drones than feed our own children. ..."
"... I'd like to read an unbiased piece about why the media narrative doesn't match the reality of the Trump phenomenon. He is getting enormous crowds attend his rallies but hardly any coverage of that in the filtered news outlets. Hillary, is struggling to get anyone turn up without paying them. There is no real enthusiasm. ..."
"... The buzzwords and tired old catch phrases and cliches used by the left to suppress any alternative discussion, and divert from their own misdemeanors are fooling no one but themselves. Trump supporters simply don't care any more how Hillary supporters explain that she lied about dodging sniper fire. Or the numerous other times she and her cohorts have been caught out telling fibs. ..."
"... Very true. Throughout history the rich, the powerful, the landed, ennobled interest and their friends in the Law and money changing houses have sought to control governments and have usually succeeded. ..."
"... In the Media today the rich are fawned over by sycophantic journalists and programme makers. These are the people who make the political weather and create the prevailing narratives. ..."
"... Working class people fancied themselves to above the common herd and thought themselves part of some elite. ..."
"... It's quite disturbing the lengths this paper will go to in order to slur and discredit Trump, labelling him dangerous and alluding to the sexual assault allegations. This even goes so far to a very lengthy article regarding Trumps lack of knowledge on the Rumbelows Cup 25 years ago. ..."
"... Whereas very little examination is made into Hillary Clinton's background which includes serious allegation of fraud and involvement in assisting in covering up her husband's alleged series of rapes. There are also issues in the wikileaks emails that merit analysis as well as undercover tapes of seioau issues with her campaign team. ..."
"... One of the most important characteristics of the so-called neoliberalism is its negative selection. While mostly successfully camouflaged, that negative selection is more than obvious this time, in two US presidential candidates. It's hard to imagine lower than those two. ..."
"... Well, OK George. Tell me: if Trump's such an establishment candidate, then why does the whole of the establishment unanimously reject him? Is it normal for Republicans (such as the Bushes and the neocons) to endorse Democrats? Why does even the Speaker of the House (a Republican) and even, on occasion, Trump's own Vice-Presidential nominee seem to be trying to undermine his campaign? If Trump is really just more of the same as all that came before, why is he being treated different by the MSM and the political establishment? ..."
"... Obviously, there's something flawed about your assumption. ..."
"... Trump has exposed the corruption of the political system and the media and has promised to put a stop to it. By contrast, Clinton is financed by the very banks, corporates and financial elites who are responsible for the corruption. This Trump speech is explicit on what we all suspected is going on. Everybody should watch it, irrespective of whether they support him or not! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tab5vvo0TJw ..."
"... "I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily agree with him. They're not racist or redneck, they're actually pretty decent people and so after talking to a number of them I wanted to write this. ..."
"... Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives and said "if you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody's going to buy them." It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the "Brexit" states. ..."
"... Mrs Clinton is also the product of our political culture. A feminist who owes everything to her husband and men in the Democratic Party. A Democrat who started her political career as a Republican; a civil right activist who worked for Gerry Goldwater, one of last openly racist/segregationist politicians. A Secretary of State who has no clue about, or training in, foreign policy, and who received her position as compensation for losing the election. A pacifist, who has never had a gun in her hands, but supported every war in the last twenty years. A humanist who rejoiced over Qaddafi's death ("we came, we won, he is dead!") like a sadist. ..."
"... One thing that far right politics offers the ordinary white disaffected voter is 'pay back', it is a promised revenge-fest, putting up walls, getting rid of foreigners, punishing employers of foreigners, etc., etc. All the stuff that far right groups have wet dreams about. ..."
"... Because neoliberal politics has left a hell of a lot of people feeling pissed off, the far right capitalizes on this, whilst belonging to the same neoliberal dystopia so ultimately not being able to make good on their promises. Their promises address a lot of people's anger, which of course isn't really about foreigners at all, that is simply the decoy, but cutting through all the crap to make that clear is no easy task, not really sure how it can be done, certainly no political leader in the western hemisphere has the ability to do so. ..."
"... Wrong as always. Trump *is* an outsider. He's an unabashed nationalist who's set him up against the *actual* caste that governs our politics: Neo-liberal internationalists with socially trendy left-liberal politics (but not so left that they don't hire good tax lawyers to avoid paying a fraction of what they are legally obliged to). ..."
"... Best represented in the Goldman Sachs executives who are donating millions to Hillary Clinton because they are worried about Trump's opposition to free trade, and they know she will give them *everything* they want. ..."
"... Trumps the closest thing we're gotten to a genuine threat to the system in a long, long time, so of course George Monbiot and the rest of the Guardian writers has set themselves against him, because if you're gonna be wrong about the EU, wrong about New Labour, wrong about social liberalism, wrong about immigration, why change the habit of a lifetime? ..."
"... Lies: Emails, policy changes based on polls showing a complete lack of conviction, corporate collusion, Bosnia, Clinton Foundation, war mongering, etc. Racist stereotypes: Super predators. Misogyny: Aside from her laughing away her pedophile case and allegedly threatening the women who came out against Bill, you've also got this sexist gem "Women are the primary victims of war". ..."
"... Alleged gropings: Well she's killed people by texting. So unless your moral compass is so out of whack that somehow a man JOKING about his player status in private is worse than Clinton's actions throughout her political career, then I guess you could make the case that Clinton at least doesn't have this skeleton in her closet. ..."
"... Refusal to accept democratic outcomes: No. He's speaking out against the media's collusion with the democratic party favoring Clinton over every other nominee, including Bernie Sanders. He's talking about what was revealed in the DNC leaks and the O'Keefe tapes that show how dirty the tactics have been in order to legally persuade the voting public into electing one person or the other. ..."
"... When do the conspiracy theories about the criminality of his opponent no longer count as conspiracies? When we have a plethora of emails confirming there is indeed fire next to that smoke, corruption fire, collusion fire, fire of contempt for the electorate. When we have emails confirming the Saudi Arabians are actually funding terrorist schools across the globe, emails where Hilary herself admits it, but will not say anything publicly about terrorism and Saudi Arabia, what's conspiracy and what's reality? ..."
"... Is it because Saudi Arabia funded her foundation with $23 million, or because it doesn't fit with her great 'internationalists' global agenda? ..."
"... Yep trump is a buffoon, but the failure of all media to deliver serious debate means the US is about to elect someone probably more dangerous than trump, how the hell can that be ..."
"... Nothing wrong with a liberal internationalist utopia, it sounds rather good and worth striving for. It's just that what they've been pushing is actually a neoliberal globalist nirvana for the 1 per cent ..."
"... The problem is the left this paper represents were bought off with the small change by neoliberalism, and they expect the rest of us to suck it up so the elites from both sides can continue the game ..."
"... we near the end of the neoliberal model. That the USA has a choice between two 'demopublicans' is no choice at all. ..."
"... This is the culmination of living in a post-truth political world. Lies and smears, ably supported by the corporate media and Murdoch in particular means that the average person who doesn't closely follow politics is being misinformed. ..."
"... The complete failure of right wing economic 'theories' means they only have lies, smears and the old 'divide and conquer' left in their arsenal. 'Free speech' is their attempt to get lies and smears equal billing with the truth. All truth on the other hand must be suppressed. All experts and scientists who don't regurgitate the meaningless slogans of the right will be ignored, traduced, defunded, disbanded or silenced by law. ..."
"... Not so much an article about Trump as much as a rant. George Monbiot writes with the utter conviction of one who mistakenly believes that his readers share his bigotry. When he talks about the 'alleged gropings' or the 'alleged refusal to accept democratic outcomes', that is exactly what they are 'alleged'. ..."
"... The Democratic Party has been dredging up porn-stars and wannabe models who now make claims that Trump tried to 'kiss them without asking'. ..."
"... The press also ignored the tapes of the DNC paying thugs to cause violence at Trump rallies, the bribes paid to the Clintons for political favours and the stealing of the election from Bernie Sanders. Trump is quite right to think the 'democratic outcome' is being fixed. Not only were the votes for Sanders manipulated, but Al Gore's votes were also altered and manipulated to ensure a win for Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The same interests who engineered the 2000 election have switched from supporting the Republican Party to supporting Clinton. ..."
"... Great article. The neoliberals have been able to control the narrative and in doing so have managed to scapegoat all manner of minority groups, building anger among those disaffected with modern politics. Easy targets - minorities, immigrants, the poor, the disadvantaged and the low-paid workers. ..."
"... The real enemy here are those sitting atop the corporate tree, but with the media controlled by them, the truth is never revealed. ..."
America's fourth president, James Madison, envisaged the United States constitution as representation
tempered by competition between factions. In the 10th federalist paper, written in 1787, he argued
that large republics were better insulated from corruption than small, or "pure" democracies, as
the greater number of citizens would make it "more difficult for unworthy candidates to practise
with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried". A large electorate would
protect the system against oppressive interest groups. Politics practised on a grand scale would
be more likely to select people of "enlightened views and virtuous sentiments".
Instead, the US – in common with many other nations – now suffers the worst of both worlds: a
large electorate dominated by a tiny faction. Instead of republics being governed, as Madison feared,
by "the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority", they are beholden to the not-so-secret
wishes of an unjust and interested minority. What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent
to which unconstrained campaign finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate
an entire nation, regardless of its size.
For every representative, Republican or Democrat, who retains a trace element of independence,
there are three sitting in the breast pocket of corporate capital. Since the supreme court decided
that there should be no effective limits on campaign finance, and, to a lesser extent, long before,
candidates have been reduced to tongue-tied automata, incapable of responding to those in need of
help, incapable of regulating those in need of restraint, for fear of upsetting their funders.
Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy. You
can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics
is corrupt? Turn to the demagogue who rages into this political vacuum, denouncing the forces he
exemplifies. The problem is not, as Trump claims, that the election will be stolen by ballot rigging.
It is that the entire electoral process is stolen from the American people before they get anywhere
near casting their votes. When Trump claims that the little guy is being screwed by the system, he's
right. The only problem is that he is the system.
The political constitution of the United States is not, as Madison envisaged, representation tempered
by competition between factions. The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal. In other
words, all that impedes the absolute power of money is the occasional exposure of the excesses of
the wealthy.
greatapedescendant 26 Oct 2016 4:11
A good read thanks. Nothing I really disagree with there. Just a few things to add and restate.
"What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent to which unconstrained campaign
finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate an entire nation, regardless
of its size."
That's it – finance and sophisticated lobbying. And you can add to that mass brainwashing
at election campaigns by means of choice language and orchestration as advised by cognitive scientists
who are expressly recruited for this purpose. Voters remain largely unaware of the mind control
they are undergoing. And of course the essential prerequisite for all of this is financial power.
Now read again in this light Gore Vidal's famous pronouncement… "Any American who is prepared
to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so."
Which recalls Madison over 200 years before… "The truth is that all men having power ought
to be mistrusted."
What the US has is in effect is not a democracy but a plutocracy run by a polyarchy. Which
conserves some democratic elements. To which the US president is largely an obedient and subservient
puppet. And which openly fails to consider the needs of the average US citizen.
Worse still, the political spectrum runs from right to right. To all intents and purposes,
one single party, the US Neoliberal party, with 2 factions catering for power and privilege. Anything
to the left of that is simply not an available choice for voters.
Americans have wakened up to the fact that they badly need a government which caters for
the needs of the average citizen. In their desperation some will still vote for Trump warts and
all. This for the same sorts of reasons that Italians voted for Berlusconi, whose winning slogan
was basically 'I am not a politician'. Though that didn't work out too well. No longer able
to stomach more of the same, voters reach the stage of being willing to back anyone who might
bring about a break with the status quo. Even Trump.
The right choice was Bernie Sanders. Sadly, not powerful enough. So Americans missed the
boat there. But at least there was a boat to miss this time around. You can be sure that similar
future boats will be sunk well in advance. Corporate power has learnt its lesson and the art of
election rigging has now become an exact science.
UltraLightBeam 26 Oct 2016 4:11
Donald Trump, Brexit and Le Pen are all in their separate ways rejections of the dogma
of liberalism, social and economic, that has dominated the West for the past three decades.
The Guardian, among others, laments the loss of 'tolerance' and 'openness' as defining qualities
of our societies. But what's always left unsaid is: tolerance of what? Openness to what? Anything?
Everything?
Is it beyond the pale to critically assess some of the values brought by immigration, and to
reject them? Will only limitless, unthinking 'tolerance' and 'openness' do?
Once self-described 'progressives' engage with this topic, then maybe we'll see a reversal
in the momentum that Trump and the rest of the right wing demagogues have built up.
The United States is extremely lucky.....if somebody comes along who is charismatic
and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the
justified anger and the absence of any coherent response.
Dangerous times. The beauty of democracy is we get what we deserve.
DiscoveredJoys -> morelightlessheat 26 Oct 2016 6:11
The most telling part for me was:
The worst thing about Donald Trump is that he's the man in the mirror.
Except that instead of
He is the distillation of all that we have been induced to desire and admire.
I thought that he is the mirror image, the reverse, of the current liberal consensus. A consensus
driven by worthy ideals but driven too far, gradually losing acceptance and with no self correcting
awareness.
Trump is awful - but by speaking freely he challenges the excesses of those who would limit
free speech. Trump is awful - but by demonising minorities he challenges those who would excuse
minorities of all responsibility. Trump is awful - but by flaunting his wealth he challenges those
who keep their connections and wealth hidden for the sake of appearances.
Trump is awful because the system is out of balance. He is a consequence, not a cause.
Gman13 26 Oct 2016 4:25
Voting for Trump is voting for peace. Voting for Clinton is voting for WW3.
These events will unfold if Hillary wins:
1. No fly zone imposed in Syria to help "moderate opposition" on pretence of protecting civilians.
2. Syrian government nonetheless continues defending their country as terrorists shell Western
Aleppo.
3. Hillary's planes attack Syrian government planes and the Russians.
4. Russia and Syria respond as the war escalates. America intensifies arming of "moderate opposition"
and Saudis.
5. America arms "rebels" in various Russian regions who "fight for democracy" but this struggle
is somehow hijacked by terrorists, only they are not called terrorists but "opposition"
6. Ukranian government is encouraged to restart the war.
7. Iran enters the war openly against Saudi Arabia
8. Israel bombs Iran
9. Cornered Russia targets mainland US with nuclear weapons
10. Etc.
snakebrain -> Andthenandthen 26 Oct 2016 6:54
It's quite clearly because Hillary as President is an utterly terrifying prospect. When
half the population would rather have Trump than her, it must be conceded that she has some serious
reputational issues.
If Hillary and the DNC hadn't fixed the primaries, we'd now be looking at a Sanders-Trump race,
and a certain Democrat victory. As it is, it's on a knife edge as to whether we get Trump or Hillary.
Personally, I'd take Trump over Hillary if I was a US citizen. He may be a buffoon but
she is profoundly dangerous, probably a genuine psychopath and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near
the Presidency. Sanders is the man America needs now, though, barring one of Hillary's many crimes
finally toppling her, it's not going to happen...
jessthecrip 26 Oct 2016 4:29
Well said George.
The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal
And the shame is we seem to be becoming desensitized to scandal. We cannot be said to live
in democracies when our political class are so obviously bought by the vastly rich.
Remko1 -> UnevenSurface 26 Oct 2016 7:43
You're mixing up your powers. legislative, executive and judicial are the powers of law. Money
and business are some of the keys to stay in command of a country. (there's also military, electorate,
bureaucracy etc.)
And if money is not on your side, it's against you, which gets quite nasty if your main tv-stations
are not state-run.
For example if the EU would (theoretically of course) set rules that make corruption more difficult
you would see that commercial media all over the EU and notoriously corrupted politicians would
start making propaganda to leave the EU. ;)
yamialwaysright chilledoutbeardie 26 Oct 2016 4:38
One of the things it says is that people are so sick of Identity Politics from the Left
and believe the Left are not very true to the ideals of what should be the Left.
When the people who are supposed to care about the poor and working joes and janes prefer
to care about the minorities whose vote they can rely on, the poor and the working joes and janes
will show their frustration by supporting someone who will come along and tell it as it is, even
if he is part of how it got that way.
People throughout the world have awoken to the Left being Right Light but with a more nauseating
moral superiority complex.
Danny Sheahan -> chilledoutbeardie 26 Oct 2016 5:25
That many people are so desperate for change that even being a billionaire but someone outside
the political elite is going to appeal to them.
Tom1Wright 26 Oct 2016 4:32
I find this line of thinking unjust and repulsive: the implication that Trump is a product
of the political establishment, and not an outsider, is to tar the entire Republican party and
its supporters with a great big flag marked 'racist'. That is a gross over simplification and
a total distortion.
UnevenSurface -> Tom1Wright 26 Oct 2016 5:05
But that's not what the article said at all: I quote:
he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs
the global economy and governs our politics
No mention of the GOP.
Tom1Wright -> UnevenSurface 26 Oct 2016 5:14
and I quote
'Encouraged by the corporate media, the Republicans have been waging a full-spectrum
assault on empathy, altruism and the decencies we owe to other people. Their gleeful stoving
in of faces, their cackling destruction of political safeguards and democratic norms, their
stomping on all that is generous and caring and cooperative in human nature, have turned the
party into a game of Mortal Kombat scripted by Breitbart News.'
HindsightMe 26 Oct 2016 4:33
the truth is there is an anti establishment movement and trump just got caught up in the ride.
He didnt start the movement but latched on to it. While we are still fixated on character flaws
the undercurrent of dissatisfaction by the public is still there. Hillary is going to have a tough
time in trying to bring together a divided nation
leadale 26 Oct 2016 4:37
Many years ago in the British Military, those with the right connections and enough money
could buy an officer's commission and rise up the system to be an incompetent General. As a result,
many battles were mismanaged and many lives wasted due to the incompetent (wealthy privileged
few) buying their way to the top. American politics today works on exactly the same system of
wealthy patronage and privilege for the incompetent, read Clinton and Trump. Until the best candidates
are able to rise up through the political system without buying their way there then the whole
corrupt farce will continue and we will be no different to the all the other tin pot republics
of the world.
arkley leadale 26 Oct 2016 5:48
As Wellington once said on reading the list of officers being sent out to him,
"My hope is that when the enemy reads these names he trembles as I do"
Some would argue however that the British system of bought commissions actually made the army
more effective in part because many competent officers had to stay in the field roles of platoon
and company commanders rather than get staff jobs and through the fact that promotion on merit
did exist for non-commissioned officers but there was a block on rising above sergeant.
Some would argue that the British class system ensured that during the Industrial Revolution
charge hands and foremen were appointed from the best workers but there was no way forward from
that, the result being that the best practices were applied through having the best practitioners
in charge at the sharp end.
rodmclaughlin 26 Oct 2016 4:37
"he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs the global
economy and governs our politics."
Obviously, Donald Trump is not an "outsider" in the economic
sense. Trump definitely belongs to the ruling "caste", or rather, "class". But he is by no means
the perfect representative of it. "The global economy", or rather, "capitalism", thrives better
with the free movement of (cheap) labour than without it. Economically, poor Americans would be
better off with more immigration control.
And there's more too it than economics. There's the "culture wars" aspect. Many people
don't like being told they are "deplorable" for opposing illegal (or even legal) immigration.
They don't like being called "racist" for disagreeing with an ideology.
I like the phrase Monbiot ends with - "He is our system, stripped of its pretences" - it
reminds me of a phrase in the Communist Manifesto - but I don't think it's true. "Our" system
is more than capitalism, it's culture. And Clinton is a far more "perfect representation" of the
increasingly censorious, narrow [neo]liberal culture which dominates the Western world.
Finally, Monbiot misses the chance to contrast Clinton's and Trump's apparent differences
with regard to confronting nuclear-armed Russia over the skies of Syria. It could be like 1964
all over again - except in this election, the Democrat is the nearest thing to Barry Goldwater.
nishville 26 Oct 2016 4:40
As a life-long despiser of all things Trump, I cannot believe that I am saying this: Trump
is good for world peace. He might be crap for everything else but I for one will sleep much
better if he is elected POTUS.
dylan37 26 Oct 2016 4:40
Agree, for once, with a piece by George. Trump is nothing new - we've seen his kind of faux-outsider
thing before, but he's amplifying it with the skills of a carnival barker and the "what me?" shrug
of the everyman - when we all know he's not. The election result can't be rigged because the game
is fixed from the start. A potential president needs millions of dollars behind them to even think
about running, and then needs to repay those bought favours once in office. Trump may just win
this one though - despite the polls, poor human qualities and negative press - simply because
he's possibly tapped into a rich seam of anti-politics and a growing desire for anything different,
even if it's distasteful and deplorable. It's that difference that might make the difference,
even when it's actually just more of the same. It's all in the packaging.
greenwichite 26 Oct 2016 4:41
Donald Trump is a clumsy, nasty opportunist who has got one thing right - people don't want globalisation.
What people want, is clean, high-tech industries in their own countries, that automate the
processes we are currently offshoring. They would rather their clothes were made by robots in
Rochdale than a sweat-shop in India.
Same goes for energy imports: we want clean, local renewables.
What people don't want is large, unpleasant multinational corporations negotiating themselves
tax cuts and "free trade" with corrupt politicians like Hillary Clinton.
Just my opinion, of course...
TheSandbag -> greenwichite 26 Oct 2016 4:50
Your right about globalisation, but I think wrong about the automation bit. People want Jobs because
its the only way to survive currently and they see them being shipped to the country with the
easiest to exploit workforce. I don't think many of them realize that those jobs are never coming
back. The socioeconomic system we exist in doesn't work for 90% of the population who are surplus
to requirements for sustaining the other 10%.
Shadenfraude 26 Oct 2016 4:43
I fully agree with Monbiot, American democracy is a sham - the lobby system has embedded corruption
right in the heart of its body politic. Lets be clear here though, whatever is the problem with
American democracy can in theory at least be fixed, but Trump simply can not and moreover he is
not the answer.
... ... ...
oddballs 26 Oct 2016 5:24
Trump threatened Ford that if they closed down US car plants and moved them to Mexico he would
put huge import tariffs on their products making them to expensive.
Export of jobs to low wage countries, how do you think Americans feel when they buy 'sports
wear, sweater, t-shirts shoes that cost say 3 $ to import into the US and then get sold for20
or 50 times as much, by the same US companies that moved production out of the country.
The anger many Americans feel how their lively-hoods have been outsourced, is the lake of discontent
Trump is fishing for votes.
His opponent, war child and Wall Street darling can count her lucky stars that the media
leaves her alone (with husband Bill, hands firmly in his pockets, nodding approvingly) and concentrates
on their feeding frenzy attacking Trump on sexual allegations of abusing women, giving Hillery,
Yes, likely to tell lies, ( mendacious, remember when she claimed to be under enemy fire in Bosnia?
remember how evasive she was on the Benghazi attack on the embassy)
Yes Trump is a dangerous man running against an also extremely dangerous woman.
onepieceman 26 Oct 2016 5:31
Extremely interesting reference to the Madison paper, but the issue is less about the size
of the electorate, and more about the power that the election provides to the victor.
One positive outcome that I hope will come of all of this is that people might think a little
more carefully about how much power an incoming president (or any politician) should be given.
The complacent assumption about a permanently benign government is overdue for a shakeup.
peccadillo -> Dean Alexander 26 Oct 2016 5:43
Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy.
You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure
of politics is corrupt?
Having missed that bit, I wonder if you actually read the article.
tater 26 Oct 2016 5:46
The sad thing is that the victims of the corrupt economic and political processes are the small
town folk who try to see Trump as their saviour. The globalisation that the US promoted to expand
its hegemony had no safeguards to protect local economies from mega retail and finance corporations
that were left at liberty to strip wealth from localities. The Federal transfer payments that
might have helped compensate have been too small and were either corrupted pork barrel payments
or shameful social security payments. For a culture that prides itself on independent initiative
and self sufficiency this was always painful and that has made it all the easier for the lobbyists
to argue against increased transfer payments and the federal taxes they require. So more money
for the Trumps of this world.
And to the future. The US is facing the serious risk of a military take over. Already its foreign
policy emanates from the military and the corruption brings it ever closer to the corporations.
If the people don't demand better the coup will come.
MrMopp 26 Oct 2016 6:12
There's a reason turnout for presidential elections is barely above 50%.
Wised up, fed up Americans have long known their only choice is between a Coke or Pepsi President.
Well, this time they've got a Dr. Pepper candidate but they still know their democracy is just
a commodity to be bought and sold, traded and paraded; their elections an almost perpetual presidential
circus.
That a grotesque like Trump can emerge and still be within touching distance of the Whitehouse
isn't entirely down to the Democrats disastrous decision to market New Clinton Coke. Although
that's helped.
The unpalatable truth is, like Brexit, many Americans simply want to shake things up and shake
them up bigly, even if it means a very messy, sticky outcome.
Anyone with Netflix can watch the classic film, "Network" at the moment. And it is a film of
the moment.
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression.
Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks
are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street
and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the
air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local
newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if
that's the way it's supposed to be.
We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is
going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living
in is getting smaller, and all we say is: 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms.
Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave
us alone.'
Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I
don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know
what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and
the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. [shouting]
You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to
get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: I'M AS MAD
AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out
and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!' Things have got to change.
But first, you've gotta get mad!...You've got to say, I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO
TAKE THIS ANYMORE! Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and
the oil crisis. But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and
yell, and say it: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
And that was in 1976. A whole lot of shit has happened since then but essentially, Coke is
still Coke and Pepsi is still Pepsi.
Forty years later, millions are going to get out of their chairs. They are going to vote. For
millions of Americans of every stripe, Trump is the "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE
THIS ANYMORE", candidate.
And he's in with a shout.
André De Koning 26 Oct 2016 6:13
Trump is indeed the embodiment of our collective Shadow (As Jung called this unconscious side
of our Self). It does reflect the degeneration of the culture we live in where politics has turned
into a travesty; where all projections of this side are on the Other, the usual other who we can
collectively dislike. All the wars initiated by the US have started with a huge propaganda programme
to hate and project our own Shadow on to this other. Often these were first friends, whether in
Iran or Iraq, Libya: as soon as the oil was not for ""us" , they were depicted as monsters who
needed action: regime change through direct invasion and enormous numbers of war crimes or through
CIA programmed regime change, it all went according to shady plans and manipulation and lies lapped
up by the masses.
When you look at speeches and conversations and debates with the so-called bogeyman, Putin,
he is not at all in a league as low and vile as portrayed and says many more sensible things than
anybody cares to listen to, because we're all brainwashed. We are complicit in wars (now in Syria)
and cannot see why we have to connive with terrorists, tens of thousands of them, and they get
supported by the war machine and friends like Saudis and Turkey which traded for years with ISIS.
The Western culture has become more vile than we could have imagined and slowly, like the frog
in increasingly hot water, we have become used to neglecting most of the population of Syria and
focusing on the rebel held areas, totally unaware of what has happened to the many thousands who
have lived under the occupation by terrorists who come from abroad ad fight the proxy war for
the US (and Saudi and the EU). Trump dares to embody all this, as does Clinton the war hawk,
and shows us we are only capable of seeing one side and project all nastiness outward while we
can feel good about ourselves by hating the other.
It fits the Decline of an Empire image as it did in other Falls of Civilizations.
tashe222 26 Oct 2016 6:28
Lots of virtue signalling from Mr. M.
Trump spoke to the executives at Ford like no one before ever has. He told them if they
moved production to Mexico (as they plan to do) that he would slap huge tariffs on their cars
in America and no one would buy them.
Trump has said many stupid things in this campaign, but he has some independence and is not
totally beholden to vested interests, and so there is at least a 'glimmer' of hope for the future
with him as Potus.
Yes, when the Archdruid first posted that it helped me understand some of the forces that were
driving Trump's successes. I disagree with the idea that voting for Trump is a good idea because
it will bring change to a moribund system. Change is not a panacea and the type of change he is
likely to bring is not going to be pleasant.
Hanwell123 -> ArseButter 26 Oct 2016 6:59
What happens in Syria could be important to us all. Clinton doesn't hide her ambition to
drive Assad from power and give Russia a kicking. It's actually very unpopular although the media
doesn't like to say so; it prefers to lambast Spain for re-fueling Russian war ships off to fight
the crazed Jihadists as if we supported the religious fanatics that want to slaughter all Infidels!
There is an enormous gulf between what ordinary people want and the power crazy Generals in the
Pentagon and NATO.
unsubscriber 26 Oct 2016 6:43
George always writes so beautifully and so tellingly. My favourite sentence from this column is:
Their gleeful stoving in of faces, their cackling destruction of political safeguards and democratic
norms, their stomping on all that is generous and caring and cooperative in human nature, have
turned the party into a game of Mortal Kombat scripted by Breitbart News.
Cadmium 26 Oct 2016 6:51
Trump is not a misogynist, look the word up. He may be crude but that's not the same thing. He
also represents a lot more people than a tiny faction. He is also advocating coming down on lobbying,
which is good. He may be a climate change denier but that's because a lot of his supporters are,
he'd probably change if they did. The way to deal with it is with rational argument, character
assassination is counterproductive even if he himself does it. Although he seems to do it as a
reaction rather than as an attack. He probably has a lot higher chance of winning than most people
think since a lot of people outside the polls will feel represented by him and a lot of those
included in the polls may not vote for Hilary.
ID4755061 26 Oct 2016 6:52
George Monbiot is right. Trump is a conduit for primal stuff that has always been there and never
gone away. All the work that has been done to try to change values and attitudes, to make societies
more tolerant and accepting and sharing, to get rid of xenophobia and racism and the rest, has
merely supressed all these things. Also, while times were good (that hasn't been so for a long
time) most of this subterranean stuff got glossed over most of the time by some kind of feel good
factor and hope for a better future.
But once the protections have gone, if there is nothing to feel good about or there is little
hope left, the primitive fear of other and strange and different kicks back in. It's a basic survival
instinct from a time when everything around the human species was a threat and it is a fundamental
part of us and Trump and Palin at al before him have got this, even if they don't articulate it
this way, and it works and it will always work. It's a pure emotional response to threat that
we can't avoid, the only way out of it, whihc many of use use, is to use our intellects to challenge
the kick of emotion and see it for what it is and to understand the consequences of giving it
free reign. It's this last bit that Trump, Palin, Farage and their ilk just don't get and never
will, we aill always be fighting this fight.
PotholeKid 26 Oct 2016 6:56
Political culture includes the Clintons and Bushes, the Democratic party and Republican party.
exploring that culture using the DNC and Podesta leaks as reference, paints a much better picture
of the depth of depravity this culture represents..Trump is a symptom and no matter how much the
press focuses on maligning his character. The Clintons share a huge responsibility for the corruption
of the system. Mr. Monbiot would serve us well by looking at solutions for cleaning up the mess,
what Trumps likes to call "Draining the swamp"
lonelysoul72 26 Oct 2016 6:59
Trump for me , he is horrendous but Clinton is worse.
nooriginalthought 26 Oct 2016 7:06
"Democracy in the U.S. is so corrupted by money it is no longer recognisable as democracy."
Sounds like a quote from Frank Underwood. To catch a thief sometimes you need the services of
a thief. With a fair degree of certainty we can be sure a Clinton administration will offer us
continuity .
If that is what you think the world needs fine.
If you believe globalization to be of benefit only to the few .
If you believe Russia has no rights to a sphere of influence on its boarders.
If you believe America's self appointed role as world policemen a disaster.
If you believe trade agreements a backdoor to corporate control.
If your just pissed off with politicians .
Your probably going to vote Trump. Looking forward to a long list of articles here in November
prophecies of Armageddon a la brexit. You liberal lefties , you'll never learn. If you want to
know what people are thinking , you got to get out of the echochamber.
nooriginalthought -> aurlius 26 Oct 2016 7:45
Sorry , hate having to explain myself to the dim witted.
USA has got itself in an unholy mess . It's politicians no longer work for the people .
Their paymasters care not if life in Idaho resembles Dantes inferno .
Trump has many faults but being "not Hilary" is not one of them. The very fact he is disliked
by all the vested interests should make you take another look.
And remember , the American constitution has many checks and balances , a President has a lot
less power than most people imagine.
Pinkie123 26 Oct 2016 7:21
While it is impossible to credibly disagree with the general thrust of this, some of Monbiot's
assumptions exemplify problems with left-wing thinking at the moment.
But those traits ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his
caste, the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics. He is our system, stripped
of its pretences.
Like many on the right, the left have unthinkingly accepted a narrative of an organized,
conspiratorial system run by an elite of politicians and plutocrats. The problem with this narrative
is it suggests politics and politicians are inherently nefarious, in turn suggesting there are
no political solutions to be sought to problems, or anything people can do to challenge a global
system of power. As Monbiot asks: "You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what
do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt?" Well, what indeed?
I think Monbiot a principled, intelligent left-wing commentator, but at the same time he epitomises
a left-wing retreat into pessimism in the face of a putatively global network of power and inevitable
environmental catastrophe. In reality, while there is no shortage of perfidious, corrupt corporate
interests dominating global economies, there is no organized system or shadowy establishment -
only a chaotic mess rooted in complex political problems. Once you accept that reality, then it
becomes possible to imagine political solutions to the quandaries confronting us. Rather than
just railing against realities, you can envision a new world to replace them. And a new kind of
world is something you very rarely get from the left these days. Unlike the utopian socialists
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there is little optimism or imagination - just anger,
pessimism and online echo chambers of 'clictivists'.
Like the documentarian Adam Curtis says, once you conclude that all politics is corrupt then
all you can do is sit there impotently and say: 'Oh dear'.
deltajones -> Pinkie123 26 Oct 2016 8:12
I don't think you need to believe in an organised conspiracy and I don't see any real evidence
that George Monbiot does. The trouble is that the corporate and political interests align in a
way that absorbs any attempt to challenge them and the narrative has been written that of course
politics is all about economics and of course we need mighty corporations to sustain us.
Even the left has largely taken on that narrative and it's seen as common sense. Challenging
this belief system is the toughest job that there is and we see that in the howling indignation
hurled at Jeremy Corbyn if he makes the slightest suggestion of nationalisation of the railways,
for instance.
ianfraser3 26 Oct 2016 7:29
Not long after the start of the presidential campaign I began to reflect that in Trump
we are seeing materializing before us the logical result of the neoliberal project, the ultimate
shopping spree, buy an election.
furiouspurpose -> IllusionOfFairness 26 Oct 2016 8:08
The Republican party essentially offered their base nothing – that was the problem.
They couldn't offer all the things that ordinary Americans want – better and wider Medicaid,
better and wider social security, tax increases on the rich, an end to pointless foreign wars
and the American empire. None of these things were acceptable to their funders so that only
left emotional issues – anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-god, pro-gun. And all of the emotional issues
are on the wrong side of history as the US naturally grows more politically progressive. So the
Republican party couldn't even deliver on the emotionally driven agenda. I think their base realised
that they were being offered nothing – and that's why they turned to Trump. Perhaps a fascist
blowhard could bulldoze the system to deliver on the emotional side of the offer. That's why Trump
broke through
The Democrats have largely the same funding base, but they at least deliver crumbs – at
least a nod to the needs of ordinary people through half-hearted social programmes. In the
end the African Americans decided that Hillary could be relied upon to deliver some crumbs – so
they settled for that. That's why Sanders couldn't break through.
fairleft 26 Oct 2016 7:55
Trump is imperfect because he wants normal relations rather than war with Russia. No, Hillary
Clinton is the ultimate representation of the system that is abusing us. What will occur when
Goldman Sachs and the military-industrial complex coalition get their, what is it, 5th term in
office would be a great subject of many Guardian opinion pieces, actually. But that will have
to wait till after November 8.
Such commentary would be greatly aided the Podesta emails, which enlighten us as to the mind
and 'zeitgeist' of the HIllary team. And, of course, we also have Hillary's Wall Street speeches
-- thanks to Wikileaks we have the complete transcripts, in case Guardian readers are unaware.
They expose the real thinking and 'private positions' of the central character in the next episode
of 'Rule by Plutocracy'.
But, of course, opinion columns and think pieces on the Real Hillary and the Podesta emails
will have to wait ... forever.
toffee1 26 Oct 2016 7:58
Trump shows the true face of the ruling class with no hypocrisy. He is telling us the truth.
If we have a democracy, we should have a party representing the interests of the business class,
why not. The democrats is the party practicing hypocrisy, pretending that they somehow representing
the interest of the working class. They are the ones spreading lies and hypocrisy and manipulating
the working class everyday through their power over the media. Their function is to appease the
working class. The real obstacle for improving conditions for the working class historically has
always been the Democratic party, not the Republican party.
Kikinaskald Cadmium 26 Oct 2016 8:39
In fact presidents don't usually have much affect, they're prey to their advisors. Generally true.
But Obama was able to show that he was able to distance himself up to a certain point from what
was around him. He was aware of the power of the establishment and of their bias. So, when the
wave against Iran was as strong as never before, he made a deal with Iran. He also didn't want
to intervene more actively in Syria and even in what concerns Russia, he seems to have moderate
positions.
In what concerns foreign politics, Trump some times seems more reasonable than Clinton
and the establishment. Clinton is the best coached politician of all times. She doesn't know that
she's coached. She just followed the most radical groups and isn't able to question anything at
all. The only thing that the coaches didn't fix until now is her laughing which is considered
even by her coaches as a sign of weirdness.
Kikinaskald -> J.K. Stevens 26 Oct 2016 9:09
She is considered to be highly aggressive, she pushed for the bombing of a few countries and
intervening everywhere..
Unfortunately all politics in the west is based on a similar model with our own domestic landscape
perhaps most closely resembling that in the US. We've always been peddled convenient lies of course,
but perhaps as society itself becomes more polarised [in terms of distribution of wealth and the
social consequences of that], the dissonance with the manufactured version of reality becomes
ever sharper. It is deeply problematic because traditional popular media is dominated by the wealthy
elite and the reality it depicts is as much a reflection of the consensual outlook of that elite
as it is deliberate, organised mendacity [although there's plenty of that too].
Western economies are now so beholden to the patronage of the essentially stateless multinational,
it has become a political imperative to appease their interests - it's difficult to see a future
in which an administration might resist this force, because at its whim, national economies face
ruination. In light of such helplessness our political representatives face an easier path in
simply accepting their lot as mere administrators who will tinker at the margins [and potentially
reap the rewards of a good servant], rather than hold to principle and resist an overwhelming
force.
Meanwhile the electorate is become increasingly disaffected by this mainstream of politics
who they [rightly] sense is no longer truly representative of their interests in any substantive
way. To this backdrop the media has made notable blunders in securing the status quo. It has revealed
the corruption and self-seeking of many in politics and promoted the widespread distrust of mainstream
politicians for a variety of reasons. While the corruption is real and endemic, howls of protest
against political 'outsiders' from this same press is met with with the view that the political
establishment cannot be trusted engendered by the same sources.
The narrative for Brexit is somewhat similar. For many years the EU was the whipping boy for
all our ills and the idea that it is fundamentally undemocratic in contrast to our own system,
so unchallenged that it is taken for fact, even by the reasonably educated. Whilst I'm personally
deflated and not a little worried by our exit, it comes as little surprise that a distorted perspective
on the EU has led to a revolt against it.
There are of course now very many alternative narratives to those which are the preserve of
monied media magnates, but they're disparate, fractured and unfocused.
Only the malaise has any sort of consistency about it and it is bitterly ironic that figures
like Trump and Farage can so effectively plug into that in the guise of outsiders, to offer spurious
alternatives to that which is so desperately needed. It's gloomy stuff.
Western economies are now so beholden to the patronage of the essentially stateless
multinational, it has become a political imperative to appease their interests - it's difficult
to see a future in which an administration might resist this force, because at its whim, national
economies face ruination. In light of such helplessness our political representatives face
an easier path in simply accepting their lot as mere administrators who will tinker at the
margins [and potentially reap the rewards of a good servant], rather than hold to principle
and resist an overwhelming force.
I have been an advocate of this point for a long time.There is a saying in politics in America
that'' the only difference between a Democrat and a Republican is the speed at which they drop
to their knees when big business walks into the room''.
How it is going to be stopped or indeed if there is the will to do so,I do not know. The proponents
and those who have most to lose have been incredibly successful in propagating the myth that 'you
to can have what I have'and have convinced a sizeable minority that there is no alternative.
Until that changes and is exposed for the illusion that it is ,we are I fear heading for something
far worse than we have now.
"Trump personifies the traits promoted by the media and corporate worlds he affects
to revile; the worlds that created him. He is the fetishisation of wealth, power and image
in a nation where extrinsic values are championed throughout public discourse. His conspicuous
consumption, self-amplification and towering (if fragile) ego are in tune with the dominant
narratives of our age."
Because this is who we are and this is how we role. We got on rickety ships and braved the
cowardly waters to reach these shores, with tremendous realworld uncertainty and absolute religious
zeal. We are the manly men and womanly women who manifested our destiny, endured the cruel nature
naturing, and civilized the wild wild west, at the same time preserving our own wildness and rugged
individualism. Why should we go all soft and namby-pamby with this social safety nonsense? Let
the roadkills expire with dignified indignity on the margins of the social order. We will bequeath
a glorious legacy to the Randian ubermenschen who will inherit this land from us. They will live
in Thielian compounds wearing the trendiest Lululemons. They will regularly admonish their worses
with chants of: "Do you want to live? Pay, pal". If we go soft, if we falter, how will we ever
be able to look in the eye the ghosts of John Wayne, Marion Morrison, Curtis LeMay, Chuck Heston,
Chuck Norris, and the Great Great Ronnie Himself? Gut-check time folks, suck it up and get on
with the program.
"The political constitution of the United States is not, as Madison envisaged, representation
tempered by competition between factions. The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal."
The Founders had a wicked sense of humor. They set up the structure of various branches so
as to allow for the possibility of a future take-over by the Funders. That leaves room for the
exorbitant influence of corporations and wealthy individuals and the rise of the Trumps, leading
to the eventual fall into a Mad Max world.
"Yes, [Trump] is a shallow, mendacious, boorish and extremely dangerous man. But those traits
ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that
runs the global economy and governs our politics. He is our system, stripped of its pretences."
It is irrelevant if everyone sees the emperor/system has no clothes, it quite enjoys walking
around naked now that it has absolute power.
'It is irrelevant if everyone sees the emperor/system has no clothes, it quite enjoys
walking around naked now that it has absolute power.'
Yes, they don't care any more if we see the full extent of their corruption as we've given
up our power to do anything about it.
chiefwiley -> Luftwaffe 26 Oct 2016 9:31
It was once very common to see Democratic politicians as neighbors attending every community
event. They were Teamsters, pipe fitters, and electricians. And they were coaches and ushers and
pallbearers. Now they are academics and lawyers and NGO employees and managers who pop up during
campaigns.
The typical income of the elected Democrats outside their government check is north of $100,000.
They don't live in, or even wander through, the poorer neighborhoods. So they are essentially
clueless that government services like busses are run to suit government and not actual customers.
It's sort of nice to have somebody looking after our interests in theory, but it would
be at least polite if they deemed to ask us what we think our best interests are. Notice the nasty
names and attributes being hurled at political "dissidents," especially around here, and there
should be little wonder why many think the benevolent and somewhat single minded and authoritarian
left is at least part of their problems.
ghstwrtrx7 -> allblues 26 Oct 2016 14:02
Yea, 15 years of constant wars of empire with no end in sight has pretty much ran this
country in the ground.
We all talk about how much money is wasted by the federal government on unimportant endeavors
like human services and education, but don't even bat an eye about the sieve of money that is
the Pentagon.
Half a trillion dollars for aircraft carriers we don't need and are already obsolete. China
is on the verge of developing wickedly effective anti-ship missiles designed specifically to target
these Gerald R. Ford-class vessels. You might as well paint a huge bull's-eye on these ships'
4-1/2 acre flight deck.
And then there there's the most egregious waste of money our historically over-bloated defense
budget has ever seen: The Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter. Quite a mouthful,
isn't? When you hear how much this boondoggle costs the American taxpayer, you'll choke: $1.5
Trillion, with a t. What's even more retching is that aside from already being obsolete, it doesn't
even work.
There are plenty more examples of this crap and this doesn't even include the nearly TWO
trillion dollars we've spent this past decade-and-a-half on stomping flat the Middle East and
large swaths of the Indian subcontinent.
And all this time, our nation's infrastructure is crumbling literally right out from underneath
us and millions upon millions of children and their families experience a daily struggle just
to eat. Eat?! In the "greatest," wealthiest nation on earth and we prefer to kill people at weddings
with drones than feed our own children.
I can't speak for anyone else other than myself, but that, boys and girls, has a decided miasma
of evil about it.
transplendent 26 Oct 2016 9:49
I'd like to read an unbiased piece about why the media narrative doesn't match the reality
of the Trump phenomenon. He is getting enormous crowds attend his rallies but hardly any coverage
of that in the filtered news outlets. Hillary, is struggling to get anyone turn up without paying
them. There is no real enthusiasm.
If Hillary doesn't win by a major landslide (and I mean BIGLY) as the MSM would lead us to
believe she is going to, it could be curtains for the media, as what little credibility that is
not already swirling around the plughole will disappear down it once and for all.
The buzzwords and tired old catch phrases and cliches used by the left to suppress any
alternative discussion, and divert from their own misdemeanors are fooling no one but themselves.
Trump supporters simply don't care any more how Hillary supporters explain that she lied about
dodging sniper fire. Or the numerous other times she and her cohorts have been caught out telling
fibs.
leftofstalin 26 Oct 2016 10:06
Sorry George YOU and the chattering classes you represent are the reason for the rise of the
far right blinded by the false promises of new labour and it's ilk the working classes have been
demonized as striking troublemakers benefit frauds racists uneducated bigots etc etc and going
by the comments on these threads from remainders you STILL don't understand the psyche of the
working class
Gary Ruddock 26 Oct 2016 10:07
When Obama humiliated Trump at that dinner back in 2011 he may have set a course for his own
destruction. Lately, Obama does not appear anywhere near as confident as he once did.
Perhaps Trump has seen the light, seen the error of his ways, maybe he realizes if he doesn't
stand up against the system, then no one will.
transplendent 26 Oct 2016 10:38
Trump's only crime, is he buys into the idea of national identity and statehood (along with
every other nation state in the world mind you), and Hillary wants to kick down the doors and
hand over the US to Saudi Arabia and any international vested interest who can drop a few dollars
into the foundation coffers. I can't see Saudi Arabia throwing open the doors any day soon, unless
it is onto a one way street.
N.B. The Russians are not behind it.
gjjwatson 26 Oct 2016 11:10
Very true. Throughout history the rich, the powerful, the landed, ennobled interest and
their friends in the Law and money changing houses have sought to control governments and have
usually succeeded.
In the Media today the rich are fawned over by sycophantic journalists and programme makers.
These are the people who make the political weather and create the prevailing narratives.
I remember when President Reagan railed against government whilst he was in office, he said
the worst words a citizen could hear were "I`m from the government, I`m here to help you".
Working class people fancied themselves to above the common herd and thought themselves
part of some elite.
All of this chimes of course with American history and it`s constitution written by slave owning
colonists who proclaimed that "all men are created equal".
bonhiver 26 Oct 2016 12:10
It's quite disturbing the lengths this paper will go to in order to slur and discredit
Trump, labelling him dangerous and alluding to the sexual assault allegations. This even goes
so far to a very lengthy article regarding Trumps lack of knowledge on the Rumbelows Cup 25 years
ago.
Whereas very little examination is made into Hillary Clinton's background which includes
serious allegation of fraud and involvement in assisting in covering up her husband's alleged
series of rapes. There are also issues in the wikileaks emails that merit analysis as well as
undercover tapes of seioau issues with her campaign team.
Whereas it is fair to criticise Trump for a lot of stuff it does appear that there is no attempt
at balance as Clinton's faults appear to get covered up om this paper.
Whereas I can not vote in the US elections and therefore the partisan reporting has no substantive
effect on how I may vote or act it is troubling that a UK newspaper does not provide the reader
with an objective as possible reporting on the presidential race.
It suggests biased reporting elsewhere.
thevisitor2015 26 Oct 2016 12:46
One of the most important characteristics of the so-called neoliberalism is its negative
selection. While mostly successfully camouflaged, that negative selection is more than obvious
this time, in two US presidential candidates. It's hard to imagine lower than those two.
seamuspadraig 26 Oct 2016 13:37
Well, OK George. Tell me: if Trump's such an establishment candidate, then why does the
whole of the establishment unanimously reject him? Is it normal for Republicans (such as the Bushes
and the neocons) to endorse Democrats? Why does even the Speaker of the House (a Republican) and
even, on occasion, Trump's own Vice-Presidential nominee seem to be trying to undermine his campaign?
If Trump is really just more of the same as all that came before, why is he being treated different
by the MSM and the political establishment?
Obviously, there's something flawed about your assumption.
CharlesPDXOr -> seamuspadraig 26 Oct 2016 13:58
I think the answer to your question is in the article: because Trump has brought the truth
of the monied class into the open. He is a perfect example of all that class is and tries to pretend
it is not. And when the commoners see this in front of them, a whole lot of them are disgusted
by it. That doesn't sit well back in the country club and the boardroom, where they work so hard
to keep all of that behind closed doors. They hate him because he is one of them and is spilling
the beans on all of them.
bill9651 26 Oct 2016 13:01
Trump has exposed the corruption of the political system and the media and has promised to
put a stop to it. By contrast, Clinton is financed by the very banks, corporates and financial
elites who are responsible for the corruption. This Trump speech is explicit on what we all suspected
is going on. Everybody should watch it, irrespective of whether they support him or not!
Michael Moore explaining why a lot of people like him
"I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily
agree with him. They're not racist or redneck, they're actually pretty decent people and so after
talking to a number of them I wanted to write this.
Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives
and said "if you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico,
I'm going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody's going to buy
them." It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything
like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the "Brexit" states.
You live here in Ohio, you know what I'm talking about. Whether Trump means it or not, is kind
of irrelevant because he's saying the things to people who are hurting, and that's why every beaten-down,
nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves
Trump. He is the human Molotov Cocktail that they've been waiting for; the human hand grande that
they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them. And on November 8, although
they lost their jobs, although they've been foreclose on by the bank, next came the divorce and
now the wife and kids are gone, the car's been repoed, they haven't had a real vacation in years,
they're stuck with the shitty Obamacare bronze plan where you can't even get a fucking percocet,
they've essentially lost everything they had except one thing - the one thing that doesn't cost
them a cent and is guaranteed to them by the American constitution: the right to vote.
They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be fucked over and fucked up it doesn't
matter, because it's equalized on that day - a millionaire has the same number of votes as the
person without a job: one. And there's more of the former middle class than there are in the millionaire
class. So on November 8 the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth, be handed a ballot,
close the curtain, and take that lever or felt pen or touchscreen and put a big fucking X in the
box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that has ruined
their lives: Donald J Trump.
They see that the elite who ruined their lives hate Trump. Corporate America hates Trump. Wall
Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump, after they loved
him and created him, and now hate. Thank you media: the enemy of my enemy is who I'm voting for
on November 8.
Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go
and blow up the whole goddamn system because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be
the biggest fuck you ever recorded in human history and it will feel good."
Michael Moore
Debreceni 26 Oct 2016 14:15
Mrs Clinton is also the product of our political culture. A feminist who owes everything
to her husband and men in the Democratic Party. A Democrat who started her political career as
a Republican; a civil right activist who worked for Gerry Goldwater, one of last openly racist/segregationist
politicians. A Secretary of State who has no clue about, or training in, foreign policy, and who
received her position as compensation for losing the election. A pacifist, who has never had a
gun in her hands, but supported every war in the last twenty years. A humanist who rejoiced over
Qaddafi's death ("we came, we won, he is dead!") like a sadist.
Both candidates have serious weaknesses. Yet Trump is very much an American character, his
vices and weaknesses are either overlooked, or widely shared, secretively respected and even admired
(even by those who vote against him). Clinton's arrogance, elitism and hypocrisy, coupled with
her lack of talent, charisma and personality, make her an aberration in American politics.
BabylonianSheDevil03 26 Oct 2016 15:26
One thing that far right politics offers the ordinary white disaffected voter is 'pay back',
it is a promised revenge-fest, putting up walls, getting rid of foreigners, punishing employers
of foreigners, etc., etc. All the stuff that far right groups have wet dreams about.
Farage used the same tactics in the UK. Le Pen is the same.
Because neoliberal politics has left a hell of a lot of people feeling pissed off, the
far right capitalizes on this, whilst belonging to the same neoliberal dystopia so ultimately
not being able to make good on their promises. Their promises address a lot of people's anger,
which of course isn't really about foreigners at all, that is simply the decoy, but cutting through
all the crap to make that clear is no easy task, not really sure how it can be done, certainly
no political leader in the western hemisphere has the ability to do so.
ProseBeforeHos 26 Oct 2016 15:45
"But those traits ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste,
the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics."
Wrong as always. Trump *is* an outsider. He's an unabashed nationalist who's set him up
against the *actual* caste that governs our politics: Neo-liberal internationalists with socially
trendy left-liberal politics (but not so left that they don't hire good tax lawyers to avoid paying
a fraction of what they are legally obliged to).
Best represented in the Goldman Sachs executives who are donating millions to Hillary Clinton
because they are worried about Trump's opposition to free trade, and they know she will give them
*everything* they want.
Trumps the closest thing we're gotten to a genuine threat to the system in a long, long
time, so of course George Monbiot and the rest of the Guardian writers has set themselves against
him, because if you're gonna be wrong about the EU, wrong about New Labour, wrong about social
liberalism, wrong about immigration, why change the habit of a lifetime?
aofeia1224 26 Oct 2016 16:09
"What is the worst thing about Donald Trump? The lies? The racist stereotypes? The misogyny?
The alleged gropings? The apparent refusal to accept democratic outcomes?"
Lies: Emails, policy changes based on polls showing a complete lack of conviction, corporate
collusion, Bosnia, Clinton Foundation, war mongering, etc.
Racist stereotypes: Super predators. Misogyny: Aside from her laughing away her pedophile case
and allegedly threatening the women who came out against Bill, you've also got this sexist gem
"Women are the primary victims of war".
Alleged gropings: Well she's killed people by texting. So unless your moral compass is
so out of whack that somehow a man JOKING about his player status in private is worse than Clinton's
actions throughout her political career, then I guess you could make the case that Clinton at
least doesn't have this skeleton in her closet.
Refusal to accept democratic outcomes: No. He's speaking out against the media's collusion
with the democratic party favoring Clinton over every other nominee, including Bernie Sanders.
He's talking about what was revealed in the DNC leaks and the O'Keefe tapes that show how dirty
the tactics have been in order to legally persuade the voting public into electing one person
or the other.
Besides that, who cares about his "refusal" to accept the outcome? The American people protested
when Bush won in 2000 saying it was rigged. Same goes with Obama saying the same "anti democratic"
shit back in 2008 in regards to the Bush Administration.
Pot call kettle black
caravanserai 26 Oct 2016 16:16
Republicans are crazy and their policies make little sense. Neo-conservatism? Trickle down
economics? Getting the poor to pay for the mess created by the bankers in 2008? Trump knows what
sells to his party's base. He throws them red meat. However, the Democrats are not much better.
They started to sell out when Bill Clinton was president. They pretend to still be the party of
the New Deal, but they don't want to offend Wall Street. US democracy is in trouble.
rooolf 26 Oct 2016 16:24
When do the conspiracy theories about the criminality of his opponent no longer count as
conspiracies? When we have a plethora of emails confirming there is indeed fire next to that smoke,
corruption fire, collusion fire, fire of contempt for the electorate. When we have emails confirming
the Saudi Arabians are actually funding terrorist schools across the globe, emails where Hilary
herself admits it, but will not say anything publicly about terrorism and Saudi Arabia, what's
conspiracy and what's reality?
Is it because Saudi Arabia funded her foundation with $23 million, or because it doesn't
fit with her great 'internationalists' global agenda?
Either way there seems to be some conspiring of some sort
When is it no longer theory? And where does the guardian fit into this corrupted corporate
media idea?
Yep trump is a buffoon, but the failure of all media to deliver serious debate means the
US is about to elect someone probably more dangerous than trump, how the hell can that be
What the author overlooks is the media's own complicity in allowing this to develop
Unfortunately the corruption of the system is so entrenched it takes an abnormality like trump
to challenge it
Hard to believe, but trump is a once in a lifetime opportunity to shake shit up, not a pleasant
one, in fact a damn ugly opportunity, but the media shut him down, got all caught up in self preservation
and missed the opportunity
it what comes next that is scary
BScHons -> rooolf 26 Oct 2016 17:09
Nothing wrong with a liberal internationalist utopia, it sounds rather good and worth striving
for. It's just that what they've been pushing is actually a neoliberal globalist nirvana for the
1 per cent
rooolf BScHons 26 Oct 2016 17:17
Totally agree
The problem is the left this paper represents were bought off with the small change by
neoliberalism, and they expect the rest of us to suck it up so the elites from both sides can
continue the game
Talking about the environment and diversity doesn't cut it
mrjonno 26 Oct 2016 17:02
Well said as ever George. Humanity is in a total mess as we near the end of the neoliberal
model. That the USA has a choice between two 'demopublicans' is no choice at all.
I would go further in your analysis - media controlled by these sociopaths has ensured that our
society shares the same values - we are a bankrupt species as is.
As long as you are here to provide sensible analysis, along with Peter Joseph, I have hope
that we can pull out of the nosedive that we are currently on a trajectory for.
Thank you for your sane input into an otherwise insane world. Thank you Mr Monbiot.
annedemontmorency 26 Oct 2016 19:08
We'll ignore the part about the inability to accept democratic outcomes since that afflicts
so many people and organisations - Brexit , anyone?
More to the point is how the summit of US politics produces candidates like Trump and Clinton.
Clinton is suffering the same damage the LibDems received during their coalition with the Tories
.Proximity to power exposed their inadequacies and hypocrisy in both cases.
Trump - unbelievably - remains a viable candidate but only because Hillary Clinton reeks of
graft and self interest.
The obvious media campaign against Trump could also backfire - voters know a hatchet job when
they see one - they watch House of Cards.
But politics is odd around the whole world.
The Guardian is running a piece about the Pirate party in Iceland.
Why go so far? - the most remarkable coup in recent politics was UKIP forcing a vote on the
EU which it not only won it did so in spite of only ever having ONE MP out of 630.
Trump may be America's UKIP - he resembles them in so many ways.
ID6209069 26 Oct 2016 20:35
It's possible that something like this was inevitable, in a nation which is populated by "consumers"
rather than as citizens. There are "valuable demographics" versus those that aren't worthy of
the attention of the constant bombardment of advertising. I jokingly said last year that as I
was turning 55 last year, I am no longer in the 'coveted 29-54 demo'. My worth as a consumer has
been changed merely by reaching a certain age, so I now see fewer ads about cars and electronics
and more about prescription medicines. The product of our media is eyeballs, not programs or articles.
The advertising is the money maker, the content merely a means of luring people in for a sales
pitch, not to educate or inform. If that structure sells us a hideous caricature of a successful
person and gives him political power, as long as the ad dollars keep rolling in.
GreyBags 26 Oct 2016 21:19
This is the culmination of living in a post-truth political world. Lies and smears, ably
supported by the corporate media and Murdoch in particular means that the average person who doesn't
closely follow politics is being misinformed.
The complete failure of right wing economic 'theories' means they only have lies, smears
and the old 'divide and conquer' left in their arsenal. 'Free speech' is their attempt to get
lies and smears equal billing with the truth. All truth on the other hand must be suppressed.
All experts and scientists who don't regurgitate the meaningless slogans of the right will be
ignored, traduced, defunded, disbanded or silenced by law.
We see the same corrupted philosophy in Australia as well.
JamesCameron 7d ago
Yet Trump, the "misogynist, racist and bigot"' has more women in executive and managerial positions
than any comparable company, pays these women the same or more than their male counterparts and
fought the West Palm Beach City Council to be allowed to open his newly purchased club to blacks
and Jews who had been banned until then. I suspect his views do chime with Americans fed up with
political correctness gone mad as well as the venality of the administration of Barak Obama, a
machine politician with dodgy bagmen from Chicago – the historically corrupt city in Illinois,
the most corrupt state in the Union. Finally, unlike The Hilary, he has actually held down a job,
worked hard and achieved success and perhaps they are more offended by what she does than what
he says.
aucourant 7d ago
Not so much an article about Trump as much as a rant. George Monbiot writes with the utter
conviction of one who mistakenly believes that his readers share his bigotry. When he talks about
the 'alleged gropings' or the 'alleged refusal to accept democratic outcomes', that is exactly
what they are 'alleged'.
The Democratic Party has been dredging up porn-stars and wannabe models who now make claims
that Trump tried to 'kiss them without asking'. This has become the nightly fare of the mainstream
media in the USA. At the same time the media ignores the destruction of Clinton's emails, the
bribing of top FBI officials who are investigating the destroyed tapes and the giving of immunity
to all those who aided Clinton in hiding and destroying subpoenaed evidence.
The press also ignored the tapes of the DNC paying thugs to cause violence at Trump rallies,
the bribes paid to the Clintons for political favours and the stealing of the election from Bernie
Sanders. Trump is quite right to think the 'democratic outcome' is being fixed. Not only were
the votes for Sanders manipulated, but Al Gore's votes were also altered and manipulated to ensure
a win for Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The same interests who engineered the 2000 election
have switched from supporting the Republican Party to supporting Clinton.
Anomander64 6d ago
Great article. The neoliberals have been able to control the narrative and in doing so
have managed to scapegoat all manner of minority groups, building anger among those disaffected
with modern politics. Easy targets - minorities, immigrants, the poor, the disadvantaged and the
low-paid workers.
The real enemy here are those sitting atop the corporate tree, but with the media controlled
by them, the truth is never revealed.
mochilero7687 5d ago
Perhaps next week George will write in detail about all the scandals Hildabeast has caused
and been involved in over the past 40 years - which have cost the US govt tens of millions of
dollars and millions of man hours - but I won't be holding my breath.
Speeches does not matter much, especially in case of Hillary, who will forget about her election
promises sooner then Obama and like Obama is able to turn around on a dime. But still there is some
truth to that. Looks like the elite is slip. Look into
NYPost -- it is strongly pro-Trump.
Since 1993, Post has been owned by ,
Rupert Murdoch News Corporation and its
successor, News Corp , which had
owned it previously from 1976 to 1988. In 1976,
Rupert Murdoch bought
Post for US$30.5 million
Not sure. And neither are u. As the proportion of red pillers increases, exponentially now perhaps,
TPTB may change tact. Donald gave a great speech a couple of weeks or so ago, and clearly is not
the kind of puppet who has been instilled into high political office thus far.
However, is it not possible that TPTB realise all of this populism and moreover the insightful
but significant minority is becoming an issue. And perhaps Trump can either placate or give them
a scapegoat.
It is also possible he's either an elaborately cloaked puppet or they think they can manipulate
him eventually or worse. He is good, or rather better than what has come before. But is he the
real deal? Possibly. Worth a try of course. He may save us. Economy will tank on the next POTUS.
She will undoubtedly make it worse. He may make it better. Ron Paul would have saved us if
we/they let him. That chance has gone. Am waiting for one of the new wave of populist anti-politicians
to really lift the curtain. Trump has threatened to do it. Perhaps even the good ones realize
that if they dish out red pills like smartest then it's game over...
"... The roster of retired military officers endorsing Hillary Clinton in September glittered with decoration and rank. One former general led the American surge in Anbar, one of the most violent provinces in Iraq. Another commanded American-led allied forces battling the Taliban in Afghanistan . Yet another trained the first Iraqis to combat Islamic insurgents in their own country. ..."
"... After 15 years at war, many who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are proud of their service but exhausted by its burdens. They distrust the political class that reshaped their lives and are frustrated by how little their fellow citizens seem to understand about their experience. ..."
"... "When we jump into wars without having a real plan, things like Vietnam and things like Iraq and Afghanistan happen," said William Hansen, a former Marine who served two National Guard tours in Iraq. "This is 16 years. This is longer than Vietnam." ..."
The roster of retired military officers endorsing
Hillary Clinton in September glittered with decoration and rank. One former general led the American
surge in Anbar, one of the most violent provinces in Iraq. Another commanded American-led allied
forces battling the Taliban in
Afghanistan . Yet another trained the first Iraqis to combat Islamic insurgents in their own
country.
But as Election Day approaches, many veterans are instead turning to
Donald
J. Trump , a businessman who avoided the Vietnam draft and has boasted of gathering foreign policy
wisdom by watching television shows.
Even as other voters abandon Mr. Trump, veterans remain among his most loyal supporters, an unlikely
connection forged by the widening gulf they feel from other Americans.
After 15 years at war, many who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are proud of their service but
exhausted by its burdens. They distrust the political class that reshaped their lives and are frustrated
by how little their fellow citizens seem to understand about their experience.
Perhaps most strikingly, they welcome Mr. Trump's blunt attacks on America's entanglements overseas.
"When we jump into wars without having a real plan, things like Vietnam and things like Iraq
and Afghanistan happen," said William Hansen, a former Marine who served two National Guard tours
in Iraq. "This is 16 years. This is longer than Vietnam."
In small military towns in California and North Carolina, veterans of all eras cheer Mr. Trump's
promises to fire officials at the
Department of Veterans Affairs . His attacks on political correctness evoke their frustrations
with tortured rules of engagement crafted to serve political, not military, ends. In Mr. Trump's
forceful assertion of strength, they find a balm for wounds that left them broken and torn.
"He calls it out," said Joshua Macias, a former Navy petty officer and fifth-generation veteran
who lives in the Tidewater region of Virginia, where he organized a "Veterans for Trump" group last
year. "We have intense emotion connected to these wars. The way it was politicized, the way they
changed the way we fight in a war setting - it's horrible how they did that."
"... Never before have so many media organizations, old and new, abandoned all pretense of fairness to take sides and try to pick a president. It is unbelievable. ..."
Trump called integrity in journalism an important issue, but then denounced the media as "dishonest"
and cited
a New York Post piece by Michael Goodwin.
"Another important issue for Americans his integrity in journalism," Trump said. "These people
are among the most dishonest people I have ever met, spoken to, done business with. These are
the most dishonest people. There has never been dishonesty – there has never been dishonesty like
we have seen in this election. There has never been anywhere near the media dishonesty like we
have seen in this election. Don't worry, they won't spin the cameras to show the massive crowds.
They won't do that.
The very talented Michael Goodwin of the New York Post just wrote today that 2016 presidential
race will mark the low watermark of journalism that is worthy, if you think of it, of the First
Amendment. Never before have so many media organizations, old and new, abandoned all pretense
of fairness to take sides and try to pick a president. It is unbelievable. Honestly. for
instance, a great story given out to the media they'll make it look as bad as possible – as bad
possible.
"... A survey covering 12 weeks of the campaign after the summer conventions found that 91 percent of Trump coverage on the three largest broadcast networks was "hostile." The Media Research Center also found that much of the focus was on Trump's personal life, while the networks downplayed investigations into Clinton's emails and her family foundation. ..."
"... Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have irrefutable evidence that none of this is based on journalism standards. Rather, it reflects the incestuous relationship between liberal members of elite media organizations and the Democratic Party. The alliance mocks any claims that the media are independent. ..."
"... John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, was caught fielding flattering comments from reporters and columnists and guiding coverage. One Politico reporter, Glenn Thrush, sent Podesta a story to review before it was published, calling himself a "hack" and pleading, "Please don't share or tell anyone I did this." ..."
"... CNN proved that its nickname, the Clinton News Network, is deserved. Only after WikiLeaks showed that Democratic Party honcho Donna Brazile, a paid commentator, twice gave Clinton debate questions in advance did the network sever its ties with her. ..."
"... Tellingly, Clinton never rejected the insider advantage against rival Bernie Sanders, nor seemed surprised by it. And CNN still shows no curiosity about whether anyone else participated in the scam. ..."
"... When the New York Times crossed the Rubicon by allowing reporters to express their opinions in so-called news stories, the floodgates opened across the country as imitators followed suit. ..."
"... The decision by editor Dean Baquet to dismantle the standards of the Times to try to elect Clinton will not be easy to reverse after the campaign. The standards were developed over decades to build public trust, and removing them elevates the editor's bias to policy. ..."
In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned America about the "unwarranted
influence" of a "military-industrial complex." Were he speaking today, Ike might be warning about
a media-political complex.
And for the same reason - the dangers to democracy and liberty of "the disastrous rise of misplaced
power."
However it ends, the 2016 presidential race will mark the low-water mark of journalism that is
worthy of the First Amendment. Never before have so many media organizations, old and new, abandoned
all pretense of fairness to take sides and try to pick a president.
Their cozy confederacy with the incumbent political faction is largely in opposition to public
will. Although polls show a tight race for the White House, studies find staggeringly lopsided coverage,
with Donald Trump getting far more negative coverage than Hillary Clinton.
A survey covering 12 weeks of the campaign after the summer conventions found that 91 percent
of Trump coverage on the three largest broadcast networks was "hostile." The Media Research Center
also found that much of the focus was on Trump's personal life, while the networks downplayed investigations
into Clinton's emails and her family foundation.
Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have irrefutable evidence that none of this is based on journalism
standards. Rather, it reflects the incestuous relationship between liberal members of elite media
organizations and the Democratic Party. The alliance mocks any claims that the media are independent.
John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, was caught fielding flattering comments from reporters
and columnists and guiding coverage. One Politico reporter, Glenn Thrush, sent Podesta a story to
review before it was published, calling himself a "hack" and pleading, "Please don't share or tell
anyone I did this."
CNN proved that its nickname, the Clinton News Network, is deserved. Only after WikiLeaks
showed that Democratic Party honcho Donna Brazile, a paid commentator, twice gave Clinton debate
questions in advance did the network sever its ties with her.
Tellingly, Clinton never rejected the insider advantage against rival Bernie Sanders, nor
seemed surprised by it. And CNN still shows no curiosity about whether anyone else participated in
the scam.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that playing favorites, while pretending to be neutral, is
business-as-usual. The only difference is that WikiLeaks exposed the ugly truth. Much of the media
world has long tilted left, but this year, the bias became open and notorious war because the liberal
bell cow decided that Trump was not deserving of basic fairness.
When the New York Times crossed the Rubicon by allowing reporters to express their opinions
in so-called news stories, the floodgates opened across the country as imitators followed suit.
The decision by editor Dean Baquet to dismantle the standards of the Times to try to elect
Clinton will not be easy to reverse after the campaign. The standards were developed over decades
to build public trust, and removing them elevates the editor's bias to policy.
As such, the decision establishes a political litmus test for hiring, and new employees likely
will be expected to echo the party line in their "reporting." Let's see how many conservatives or
even moderates get promoted, and whether religiously observant employees feel discriminated against.
This "disastrous rise of misplaced power" is visible each and every day as the Times' front-page
headlines read like editorials in slamming Trump and boosting Clinton. Tuesday's was a classic, with
the top story accusing Trump of a "tax dodge" 30 years ago.
Trump shows the true face of the ruling class with no hypocrisy. He is telling us the
truth. If we have a democracy, we should have a party representing the interests of the
business class, why not.
The democrats is the party practicing hypocrisy, pretending that
they somehow representing the interest of the working class. They are the ones spreading lies
and hypocrisy and manipulating the working class everyday through their power over the media.
Their function is to appease the working class. The real obstacle for improving conditions for
the working class historically has always been the Democratic party, not the Republican party.
"... Actually there is a point about reducing migration that can be rationally made. It's not about racial purity or demonising refugees but the prospect of high population growth brings great challenges and a. Need to assess what population Australia can reasonably sustain. ..."
"... It's interesting that Australia has benefited greatly by migration since WW2. The enriching of our economic and cultural fabric has been incontestable. But maybe we've reached the safe limits of population growth. Even the Bernadis and Abetz clans have reached here relatively recently. ..."
"... Call me old fashioned but I thought it was the responsibility of Governments to develop sound policies in the interests of the country and EXPLAIN them to the voters so that they can get understanding and support. This seems to be way beyond our politicians now, they throw anything up in the air and abandon it when there is opposition. So much for integrity and conviction. ..."
"... This morning an economic think tank recommended doubling the immigration intake, saying it would "increase per capita GDP" despite the fact that per capita GDP has gone backwards due to increased migration. ..."
"... If you halved the current migration rate it would return to historical levels, and be better for the economy and for the well being of the people already here. ..."
"... The problem is not with migration in this country, but with the 457 visa program where employers, like Caltex and 7Eleven, pay below award wages and provide poor working conditions. ..."
"... This flows on into the broader community festering discontent amongst Australians who see their jobs and employment conditions disappearing. ..."
"... Rather than focusing on immigrants, how about a thoughtful discussion of growth: what it means, how it ought to be measured, what's good and bad about it, and moving forward, what we as a society want in those terms. Immigration will assume a far more meaningful place in the context of a discussion of that kind, which would hopefully incorporate a strong environmental focus. But even in terms of the latter, issues of sustainability are not simply about raw population numbers but ultimately about lifestyle, modes of consumption, and energy use. ..."
"... What's really interesting here are the telling contradictions within the governing party between its fundamental commitments to neo-liberalism and ever-increasing growth in GDP as absolute goods, and its stumbling attempts to also embrace political reaction against the economic consequences of both policies. ..."
"... In that sense Bernardi is a useful idiot - plays to reaction through the red herring of prejudice (plus allowing the extreme right in the LNP to vent a bit of steam) while remaining rock-solid behind neo-liberalism and free markets -- at least, when it comes to the free movement of capital anyway (though the LNP has very astutely used various categories of working visa as an attempt to gradually entrench the movement of labour also, though not in any 'free' sense, just in the interests of maximizing profits). ..."
"... Yes it has, but Australia is now a vastly different place to what it was in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Back then there was plenty of land and housing, jobs available to anyone who wanted them, and the roads and hospitals were virtually empty. ..."
"... Australia isn't like that anymore and anyone living in the major cities knows how overcrowded they currently are. The 2 bedroom flat opposite me is being rented out and 7 people are living in it. Also, one of the garages downstairs is being occupied by a small family of three.. ..."
"... We need pro family policies if we wish to reduce migration. Working women must be given bigger incentives. ..."
Liberal senator, who has reiterated his support for Trump while on taxpayer-funded
secondment to the UN, calls on government to 'reconsider' refugee intake
quintal -> MadDuck
Hi mad duck
Actually there is a point about reducing migration that can be rationally made. It's not
about racial purity or demonising refugees but the prospect of high population growth brings
great challenges and a. Need to assess what population Australia can reasonably sustain.
We are, Antarctica aside, the driest, ,soil poor of all the continents. To put further
pressure on our resources by too great a population increase is not wise.
It's interesting that Australia has benefited greatly by migration since WW2. The
enriching of our economic and cultural fabric has been incontestable. But maybe we've reached
the safe limits of population growth. Even the Bernadis and Abetz clans have reached here
relatively recently.
It's also instructive that those countries with relatively small populations that invest in
people as opposed to mines are economically more successful than are we. Think Singapore,
Sweden, Switzerland. Taken together they have about half of Austrlias population and are
amongst the strongest economies in the world.
So there's an irony that Senator BErnadi, detestable in so many of his statements, makes some
common purpose with environmental groups .
Ironic but I suppose that it is what it is and the issue needs some careful thought.
Cheers
Alpo88 1h ago
"Cory Bernardi warns One Nation will rise if migration not halved"....
Liberal Civil War- Dispatch from the front N. 22:
General Bernardi, commander of the Third Infantry Division of the Confederate Army of the
Australian Conservatives has sent an ultimatum to the besieged contingent of the Army of the
Waffler in Canberra warning that an all out assault, with a taking-no-prisoners rule is being
prepared unless the Waffler's Army surrenders immediately and unconditionally.
Commander in Chief Gen. Turnbull is reported to be in his bunker, frantically thinking how to
respond to the ultimatum: a task that he has described to his entourage as "squaring the
circle in a way that nobody notices I have failed in the task"....
A review of the young stormtroopers deployed to protect the bunker is planned for this
afternoon....
Facebook Twitter
McMurdo 1h ago
What an intelligent approach, there is criticism of policy so drop it quickly.
Call me old fashioned but I thought it was the responsibility of Governments to develop
sound policies in the interests of the country and EXPLAIN them to the voters so that they can
get understanding and support. This seems to be way beyond our politicians now, they throw
anything up in the air and abandon it when there is opposition. So much for integrity and
conviction.
Of course Bernardi is being opportunistic here and using scare tactics to get a policy
change he wants for other reasons. That he even tries this stunt indicates the very low point
our
politics has reached. In a healthy system his views would be disowned and rejected instantly.
Our brave pollies will spend days wafting in the wind waiting to see how much support he gets
before they declare a position, if they manage that at all. Pathetic.
ajostu 1h ago
OK I loathe Bernardi, but it's time to look at a bit of history.
John Howard has admitted that his "Stop The Boats" policy was a bait-and-switch scheme to
soften the public's resistance to higher immigration. Other ministers from the period
(Costello, Vanstone) have supported this version of history.
So while pushing the we-hate-boat-people line, Howard doubled the regular immigration intake.
Rudd, Gillard and Abbott have all gone along with this in a completely bipartisan fashion.
Why? Because it's what lazy, uninnovative Australian business wants. More people, business
expands, CEO bonus, that's all that matters.
Meanwhile people (particularly in Sydney and Melbourne) are noticing that their quality of
life has gone down. Cities are crowded, traffic appalling, and young people can't buy a house
(though immigration is a small factor in that last one).
Both Labour and Liberal have completely buggered up regular immigration. The 457 scheme is a
disaster, below-minimum-wage pseudo-slavery is widespread, and "students" are rorting the
system left right and centre.
And the Greens do SFA because they'd have to choose between genuine sustainability (which is,
you know, what Greens are supposed to be on about) and an open migration policy (because they
don't have the political skills to separate refugees from the overall intake).
This morning an economic think tank recommended doubling the immigration intake, saying it
would "increase per capita GDP" despite the fact that per capita GDP has gone backwards due to
increased migration.
If you halved the current migration rate it would return to historical levels, and be
better for the economy and for the well being of the people already here.
Of course Bernardi doesn't care about any of that he only cares about One Nation. But if One
Nation is the only party proposing a reduction in immigration, they'll get a lot of votes.
FredLurk 1h ago
I hate to agree with Bernadi, but he's dead right. Look at what is happening in Paris right
now. Ask yourself, do we want this here?
The problem is not with migration in this country, but with the 457 visa program where
employers, like Caltex and 7Eleven, pay below award wages and provide poor working conditions.
This flows on into the broader community festering discontent amongst Australians who
see their jobs and employment conditions disappearing.
But Bernadi and his ilk choose to distract from corporate malfeasance by playing the racist
card, and thereby protecting the vested interests of the Coalition.
Filipio 1h ago
I happen to be a fan of immigration to Australia. It's enriched Australian society
enormously. At the same time can we please move on from seeing GDP as some kind of sacred
measure of all that is holy and good, even in economic terms?
Rather than focusing on immigrants, how about a thoughtful discussion of growth: what it
means, how it ought to be measured, what's good and bad about it, and moving forward, what we
as a society want in those terms. Immigration will assume a far more meaningful place in the
context of a discussion of that kind, which would hopefully incorporate a strong environmental
focus. But even in terms of the latter, issues of sustainability are not simply about raw
population numbers but ultimately about lifestyle, modes of consumption, and energy use.
What's really interesting here are the telling contradictions within the governing party
between its fundamental commitments to neo-liberalism and ever-increasing growth in GDP as
absolute goods, and its stumbling attempts to also embrace political reaction against the
economic consequences of both policies.
In that sense Bernardi is a useful idiot - plays to reaction through the red herring of
prejudice (plus allowing the extreme right in the LNP to vent a bit of steam) while remaining
rock-solid behind neo-liberalism and free markets -- at least, when it comes to the free
movement of capital anyway (though the LNP has very astutely used various categories of
working visa as an attempt to gradually entrench the movement of labour also, though not in
any 'free' sense, just in the interests of maximizing profits).
jack1878 -> Filipio 43m ago
"I happen to be a fan of immigration to Australia. It's enriched Australian society
enormously."
Yes it has, but Australia is now a vastly different place to what it was in the 40s, 50s
and 60s. Back then there was plenty of land and housing, jobs available to anyone who wanted
them, and the roads and hospitals were virtually empty.
Australia isn't like that anymore and anyone living in the major cities knows how
overcrowded they currently are. The 2 bedroom flat opposite me is being rented out and 7
people are living in it. Also, one of the garages downstairs is being occupied by a small
family of three..
Is this what we really want? Just because a policy worked well 50 years ago doesn't mean it
should be retained for eternity.
jack1878 1h ago
I hate to say it, but I agree with Bernardi on the issue of immigration--but not much else.
To still be carrying out a policy of mass immigration in these disastrous economic times ie.
no jobs, shortage of housing, overcrowded roads, hospitals etc. is a recipe for social unrest.
To cause such social unrest merely to prop up an overheated housing market and create a large
pool of cheap labour for the benefit of wealthy elites is about as irresponsible a policy as
you can get.
James Graham 45m ago
We need pro family policies if we wish to reduce migration. Working women must be given
bigger incentives.
Abolish the tax breaks for novated lease vehicles for a start. Lift the GST on cars to 15%.
And lets offer even higher incentives to have the 2nd and 3rd child.
SisterRhino -> NambuccaBarry 34m ago
I note even CNN ( Clinton Network News!) that has championed the same views of Donald Trump
that you have just outlined, is starting to distance itself from Hillary.
She's so tainted that she will be of no use to her benefactors if she does squeak across
the line. Who'd be dumb enough to be asking for the favours they've paid for given the
scrutiny she'd going to be under from hereon in?
Just watch....as her backers desert the ship, one by one, then all at once.
"... It also demands Brock "immediately and publicly retract any statement or inference by yourself and/or Media Matters to the effect that Officer Byrne was not fully truthful in recounting within 'Crisis of Character' details from any previous testimony." ..."
"... His lawyer states that "some of our best witnesses to such immediacy are George Stephanopoulos, John Podesta, Leon Panetta, Bruce Lindsey, Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Clinton himself - who appear to have already confirmed … under oath … the regular proximity of Officer Byrne to the President for many years." ..."
"... Byrne claims the liberal advocacy group tried to hurt his credibility to defend the Clintons. ..."
"Officer Byrne will bring legal action against you, in your personal capacity, and against Media
Matters," a lawyer for the former Secret Service officer wrote to Brock, a loyal Clinton ally and
the founder of the liberal advocacy group Media Matters.
The letter requests Brock and Media Matters to "hold" all records and communications associated
with their communications regarding Byrne - including "Any communication(s) between David Brock and
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton" regarding the former Secret Service officer, suggesting there
might be collusion between the campaign and her defenders.
It also demands Brock "immediately and publicly retract any statement or inference by yourself
and/or Media Matters to the effect that Officer Byrne was not fully truthful in recounting within
'Crisis of Character' details from any previous testimony."
Additionally, Byrne's attorney demanded a retraction for "the utterly false statement(s) that
Officer Byrne was not in close proximity to President William Jefferson Clinton."
His lawyer states that "some of our best witnesses to such immediacy are George Stephanopoulos,
John Podesta, Leon Panetta, Bruce Lindsey, Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Clinton himself -
who appear to have already confirmed … under oath … the regular proximity of Officer Byrne to the
President for many years."
Byrne claims the liberal advocacy group tried to hurt his credibility to defend the Clintons.
In ''A Burden Too Heavy to Put Down,'' * David Brooks
writes, ''Inevitably, there will be atrocities'' committed by
our forces in Iraq. Did he forget to add that they must be
prosecuted?
War crimes are indeed more likely if influential
commentators foreshadow impunity for perpetrators of the
''brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt.''
The choice is not between committing war crimes and
retreating ''into the paradise of our own innocence.'' A
third option is for the United States to strive to avoid
complicity.
It is untrue that ''we have to take morally hazardous
action.'' Those who choose it, or urge others to, cannot
evade or distribute responsibility by asserting that ''we
live in a fallen world.''
"... That is the takeaway from the Trump candidacy. They fired every gun they could muster at him, and he's still standing. Standing, and even winning, if some polls are to be believed. ..."
"... It's kind of disappointing that it took an outsized personality like Trump to bring straightforwardness into the mainstream. Ron Paul was straightforward, and did amazingly well, but he wasn't glitzy enough to avoid being marginalized. Bernie Sanders was straightforward, but he wasn't glamorous enough to avoid being steamrollered by a political machine. Nope, it took a guy with cutthroat business savvy and TV experience to let America in on the Big Secret. ..."
"... Any hour now the NYT, WaPo, LAT, and Atlantic are going to publish poll results showing that among their selected samples, the Mainstream Media are viewed as the same MiniTru banners-flying young crusaders as liberated the people of the United States in the 1970s from marriage, ethics, societal trust, and the horror of a life lived without STDs, divorce, multiracial offspring, and stoner grandparents. ..."
"... "Only one major newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump. Only one. And this is a man whom the American people might choose as their president. What better proof could we have of the stark difference between printed opinion and public opinion, between what Americans think and what our rulers want us to think? Donald Trump has ripped away whatever was left of the pretense of media objectivity." ..."
"... "Despite the concerted shrieking of virtually the entire American ruling class" ..."
"... Ironically, the same potential outcome the discredited mainstream media bloviates and fear mongers about. ..."
"... Race is big issue in the US, since it is a country that had a 90%+ majority of people of white European ancestry as recently as the 1950′s, with an accompanying European foundation and Constitution. ..."
"... Yeah, the stupidity of it all offends me more than the content sometimes. Fortunately things are improving and sites like Breitbart are promoting the message while dropping this stupidity. ..."
"... On Unz.com, let me suggest reading Sailer, Mercer, Reed, and Derbyshire. Ron Unz also co-founded the more highbrow AmConMag.com. ..."
The demonization campaign has backfired. By trying to
hang racial dissidents around Donald Trump's neck, the media have given American Renaissance
and other organizations far more publicity than ever before. At the same time,
constant shouts of "racist" and "bigot" don't seem to hurt Mr. Trump: instead they are wrecking
what is left of media credibility. The biggest irony, though, is that Donald Trump is probably not
one of us at all. But even
small deviations from the
cast-iron orthodoxy of race are enough to plunge our rulers into
dark fantasies about Donald Trump as a secret
David Duke fan.
These articles had a simpleminded purpose: discredit Mr. Trump by parading before the reader any
Nazi, Kluxer, or racially conscious white person who had anything nice to say about the candidate.
The implication was that if "racists" were going to vote for Donald Trump
he must be "racist," too.
It is true that Mr. Trump gave the media just enough of an excuse to pretend he really is a closet
"bigot" because he did not repudiate "racists" with the snorts of indignation respectability requires.
There was the famous exchange in February when a reporter pushed Mr. Trump to disavow an endorsement
from David Duke. As
The Hill reported it: " 'David Duke endorsed me? OK, alright. I disavow, OK?' Trump said, seeking
to quickly move on to another question."
Tapper: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that
of other white supremacists in this election?
Donald Trump: Well just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK? I don't
know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.
So, I don't know. I don't know, did he endorse me, or what's going on? Because, you know, I know
nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.
There are far better explanations. First, Donald Trump is a pugnacious man. He doesn't like being
pushed around by anyone, especially not by
journalists who hate him . If Mr. Tapper had belligerently demanded that Mr. Trump agree that
the sky is blue, Mr. Trump would have bridled at that.
Second, Donald Trump probably doesn't know anything about David Duke or white supremacy.
I would be astonished if he has ever looked into the thinking of David Duke or any other alleged
"white supremacist." It is his feistiness and his ignorance of white advocacy that explain his answers,
not some carefully concealed racial consciousness.
The press has also pounced on Donald Trump's retweets of "racist" material, which is
supposed to be yet more proof that he is a secret supremacist. Business Insider, for example,
published this shocking story: " 5 times Donald
Trump has engaged with alt-right racists on Twitter ." Not one of these tweets is obviously
"racist," and it would be surprising if Mr. Trump or his
skeleton staff took the time to vet the sources of the thousands of tweets
@realDonaldTrump has sent
during the campaign.
Now the press is working on another smear-Trump angle. Recently, I have been contacted by journalists
from such places as Bloomberg News, Reuters, and the New York Times , who clearly want to
write that Donald Trump is
"mainstreaming hate," that he is responsible for a huge surge in the Alt-Right. They want to
know about all the people who have been flocking to
AmRen.com because of what Donald Trump says.
They want me to tell them about people who have been "emboldened" to "speak out against minorities"
because Donald Trump has led the way. They would love to find someone who now thinks he is free to
run down the street shouting "nigger!" because Mr. Trump wants to take a
hard look at
Muslim immigrants.
I have explained to them as patiently as I can that they have it the wrong way around. No one
comes looking for AmRen.com because Donald Trump
wants to build a wall. They come looking for us because the media have written about us in
their attempt to convince the world that Mr. Trump is a "racist." They come looking for us because
Mrs. Clinton kindly called attention to us by
complaining about the Alt-Right and her
"basket of deplorables." I also try to explain that if the media had not launched its malicious
campaign of trying to hold Donald Trump responsible for the views of certain people who support him,
few people would have heard of the Alt-Right. In their zeal to paint their enemy in the darkest colors,
they are promoting the Alt-Right, not Donald Trump.
I explain that racial dissent has been growing like never before, for reasons that have nothing
to do with the campaign. It is
Trayvon Martin , Michael
Brown ,
Black Lives Matter, and
black rioters who are sending hundreds of thousands of frustrated white people our way– not
Donald Trump. This will not change whether Mr. Trump wins or loses. The top landing pages on
AmRen.com are analyses of race and crime–something Mr. Trump never talks about.
I also explain to reporters that it is idiotic to think Mr. Trump has mainstreamed "hate," by
which they mean sensible observations about race. I ask them to name a single person who has been
"emboldened" to say something "racist" just because Donald Trump is the GOP nominee. Of course, they
can't. If anything, it is the opposite. Mr. Trump has been called
every name under the sun for the
mildest, most common-sense observations about Muslims and immigration. Anyone tempted to come
out of the closet is likely to hesitate more than ever. Things could change if Mr. Trump becomes
president, but the candidate himself has done very little to spread our ideas.
What Donald Trump has done is spark an
unprecedented interest in politics among disaffected young people who recognize that Mitt Romney
and John McCain are no different from Barack Obama when it comes to preserving whites, their society,
and their culture. I know a number of millennials who never bothered to vote before but who certainly
will in November. I know some who have made their first political contribution or who have spent
weekends volunteering for the Trump campaign.
I point out to reporters that this is what elections are supposed to be all about: giving the
voters real choices. I note that the Trump/Clinton contest will almost certainly produce a record
voter turnout for a modern election. Haven't our rulers been wringing their hands over a lack of
political engagement, especially among the young? Well, now they have engagement, alright, but they
don't like it. They don't like it because so many people are stumping for the candidate they love
to call a "
threat
to democracy ." Liberals are such transparent hypocrites. They claim to love democracy, but suddenly
start worrying about its health if the people refuse vote the way they tell them to.
The whole Trump-is-a-racist fracas shows just how painfully fragile orthodoxy has become. I may
be wrong, but I have no reason to think Donald Trump thinks at all as we do. He has never said or
done anything to suggest he is anything more than an ordinary American with normal instincts: He
doesn't want criminals sneaking across the border, he thinks sanctuary cities for illegals are crazy,
he doesn't see why we need more Muslims, and he is angry when immigrants go on welfare. Millions
of ordinary Americans clearly agree with him, and not because they are racially aware. It is
because they are decent, fair-minded people who also have a nagging sense that the country is changing
in unwelcome ways.
I am convinced that Mr. Trump does not have a sophisticated understanding of race. So far as I
can tell, he doesn't have a sophisticated understanding of much of anything. He has stumbled by instinct
onto a few sensible policies that white advocates have been promoting for a long time, but not because
he is one of us.
Maybe–just maybe–he will move in our direction. It's not impossible to imagine a President Trump
asking, in an offhand way, "What's wrong with white people wanting to
remain a majority in the United States?" Or he might casually note that you can't expect as
many blacks as Asians in AP classes because they don't have the
same levels of intelligence. But I can imagine the opposite, too: President Trump so bogged down
in Beltway baloney that he never even builds the wall.
There is one thing that Donald Trump has changed. He has proven that Republican bromides
about taxes and small government don't excite people. He has proven that there is tremendous anger
against political insiders of both parties. He has proven that Americans do want their country
to come first. They don't want it to try to save the world or to be a dumping ground for people who
have wrecked their own countries.
And even if he has not "mainstreamed racism," he has shown that if you have a backbone you can
withstand what is surely the most intense and concentrated program of hate ever directed at an American.
On October 11, Roger Cohen wrote in the
New York Times that Donald Trump is a "phony, liar, blowhard, cheat, bully, misogynist, demagogue,
predator, bigot, bore, egomaniac, racist, sexist, sociopath," and a "dictator-in-waiting with a brat's
temper and a prig's scowl." [
Trump_vs_deep_state After Trump ] This must be one of the most unhinged, hysterical outbursts in the
history of American political journalism. And it is unusual only for its wordiness, not its tone.
Don't the editors of the Times realize that this kind of frothing explains why more Americans
believe in
Bigfoot (29 percent) than
trust newspapers (20 percent)? Virtually the entire industry is so consumed with rage at Donald
Trump and contempt for his supporters that it cannot control itself. Open, petulant bias is driving
more and more Americans to social media and to sites like
AmRen.com for their news.
Despite the concerted shrieking of virtually the entire American ruling class, Donald Trump is
going to get close to half of the vote on November 8. Some 60 million people are going to vote for
a man for whom Roger Cohen [
Email him ] has emptied
his dictionary trying to insult. Only
one major
newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump. Only one . And this is a man whom the American people
might choose as their president. What better proof could we have of the stark difference between
printed opinion and public opinion, between what Americans think and what our rulers want us to think?
Donald Trump has ripped away whatever was left of the pretense of media objectivity.
Whether he wins or not, whether he is one of us or not, Donald Trump has laid bare the collusion
between big media and a political system in which both parties collaborate to run the country in
their interests and those of their big donors. Voters–finally–have a chance to vote against the entire
corrupt system. On November 8th they could bring it crashing down, but even if it still stands, it
is visibly weakened, badly discredited. These are the perfect conditions in which our ideas will
flourish as never before.
And even if he has not "mainstreamed racism," he has shown that if you have a backbone you
can withstand what is surely the most intense and concentrated program of hate ever directed
at an American.
That is the takeaway from the Trump candidacy. They fired every gun they could muster at
him, and he's still standing. Standing, and even winning, if some polls are to be believed.
(I suspect that this kind of determination resonates well with Mr. Taylor. Taylor is one of
the most inoffensive men to have ever put pen to paper, but his ideas and honor have been attacked
for years. Yet still he stands.)
It's kind of disappointing that it took an outsized personality like Trump to bring straightforwardness
into the mainstream. Ron Paul was straightforward, and did amazingly well, but he wasn't glitzy
enough to avoid being marginalized. Bernie Sanders was straightforward, but he wasn't glamorous
enough to avoid being steamrollered by a political machine. Nope, it took a guy with cutthroat
business savvy and TV experience to let America in on the Big Secret.
The Big Secret is:
1) For all the fait accompli chatter on TV, this is still America, and Americans still
get to vote.
2) America really is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and we defined those aspects
in the first two Amendments to the Constitution.
3) When you're free enough to be brave, some people are brave enough to be free.
The media make fun of conspiracy theories, but the more they lie, the more they are adding
fuel to fire to alternative media.
I still believe Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy.
But there have been so many lies about so many things that I wonder if future generations will
trust anything. And if I were a millennial today, I wouldn't trust that Lee Oswald killed Kennedy
either since the media are so surreal about everything. The 'new cold war' is the most ridiculous
thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8MsA9xZJok
Ah yes, the magic bullet.
And how's your Big Foot fantasy coming along?
• Replies:
@Olorin Interesting you mention we PNWers' favorite evolutionary atavism. (Well, second-favorite,
in Seattle and Portland.)
I read somewhere in these pages (Derb?) recently that more Americans now believe in Bigfoot
(29 percent) than believe the MSM are doing a good job (20 percent).
You know what this means.
Any hour now the NYT, WaPo, LAT, and Atlantic are going to publish poll results
showing that among their selected samples, the Mainstream Media are viewed as the same MiniTru
banners-flying young crusaders as liberated the people of the United States in the 1970s from
marriage, ethics, societal trust, and the horror of a life lived without STDs, divorce, multiracial
offspring, and stoner grandparents.
Trust in US Media at All-Time High!
Americans Praise NYT for Leading the Truth and Justice Vanguard against Fuhrer Trump and
Generalissimo Pepe!
Chocolate Rations Up 127%!
Only Hillary Can Supply HerTurn Singularity!
Coming Soon: Free Huma Abedin Action Figure!
Turn in Your Parents for Likes, Upthumbs, and Game Upgrades!
"…. it (the MSM) is visibly weakened, badly discredited."
This has to be one of the best articles on Unz.
"Only one major newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump. Only one. And this is a man whom
the American people might choose as their president. What better proof could we have of the
stark difference between printed opinion and public opinion, between what Americans think and
what our rulers want us to think? Donald Trump has ripped away whatever was left of the pretense
of media objectivity."
And this,
"Despite the concerted shrieking of virtually the entire American ruling class"
"...whether he is one of us or not, Donald Trump has laid bare the collusion between big media
and a political system in which both parties collaborate to run the country in their interests
and those of their big donors."
Momentarily accurate, but this isn't the way the hands of the clock point after that:
"These are the perfect conditions in which our ideas will flourish as never before."
Ironically, the same potential outcome the discredited mainstream media bloviates and fearmongers
about.
Ironically, the same potential outcome the discredited mainstream media bloviates and
fear mongers about.
Well, they could have tried having an open and frank discussion about RACE rather than just
using it as a propaganda tool.
Race is big issue in the US, since it is a country that had a 90%+ majority of people of
white European ancestry as recently as the 1950′s, with an accompanying European foundation and
Constitution. Now, as an open borders state, it is fast heading towards a country with a
non-European racial majority. with the Establishment pushing them towards multiculturalism, identity
politics and non-integration, probably to build a permanently fractured nation that they can easily
dominate with their highly effective private system of patronage.
• Replies:
@Fran Macadam It's not skin color or ethnicity that counts, it's character and beliefs. I've
no confidence in judging what policies or who to support by virtue of "race." I'd rather interact
with a community of another ethnicity, which has compatible beliefs, than one whose individual
physical characteristics most resemble mine, but reviles all I believe in. The fact is, there
is a lot of the latter.
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I'm one of those people who never paid any attention to the "alt-right" or any of the websites
associated with it until the obviously-biased msm made such a fuss.
"It is because they are decent, fair-minded people who also have a nagging sense that the country
is changing in unwelcome ways." I like to believe I belong to this group and will remain in it,
although with a somewhat harsher perspective than was previously the case. These sites have led
me to read books I'd never considered reading and at 70, I've read a great deal.
All things considered, I find the nazi stuff over the top, the racial slur stuff undignified,
but much of the message spot on: the country (and not just the USA) has changed in "unwelcome
ways", continues to do so based on observations from afar, and will continue to change for the
worse for as long as falsely conscious folks of European origin play into the hands of their openly
hostile enemies. I suggest visiting these sites to widen one's perspective if nothing else. One
can discover literature effectively censored by the thought police for many years now, literature
of far greater worth than much of what is promoted as "great" by others.
...literature of far greater worth than much of what is promoted as "great" by others.
For sure. The garbage gets front page, Nobel prizes and Pulitzer prizes while tons of good stuff
never sees the light of day or gets trashed. ,
@Lot Welcome aboard Montefrio! Please keep commenting. Since you are 70, I think this site's
mostly under-40 readers will appreciate your perspective. Keep in mind though half of us have
ADHD, so keep it brief too!
I find the nazi stuff over the top, the racial slur stuff undignified, but much of the message
spot on
Yeah, the stupidity of it all offends me more than the content sometimes. Fortunately things
are improving and sites like Breitbart are promoting the message while dropping this stupidity.
On Unz.com, let me suggest reading Sailer, Mercer, Reed, and Derbyshire. Ron Unz also co-founded
the more highbrow AmConMag.com.
AmConMag is nice too because you can email article links to potential converts without
having embarrassing anti-Semite crap all over the rest of the site that make you look like a nut.
,
@Schlock Trooper
All things considered, I find the nazi stuff over the top
"….he has shown that if you have a backbone you can withstand what is surely the most intense
and concentrated program of hate ever directed at an American."
It ain't just Trump. The continuous blizzard of hate is directed at me. Joe sixpack. Imperial
Washington is a steaming heap of excrement. Theft, lies, treason and murder are it's stock in
trade. Yet it is Trump who is vulgar and I who am deplorable. All I need to know about Trump is
he stands up to these dirtbags.
The continuous blizzard of hate is directed at me. Joe sixpack.
Actually it's also directed at anyone who smells a rat, and there are plenty of mangy rodents
in the steaming heaps of excrement in D.C., New Yawk and Chicago to name a few.And it appears
to be an inviolable rule that "Sixpackians" smell rats long before the masses of White Collar
Princes do.
Theft, lies, treason and murder are it's stock in trade.
And they always have been and shall continue, despite the silly mythology to the contrary. There's
a reason Patrick Henry boycotted the cornstitutional convention in Philly in 1787, giving as a
reason that he "smelt a rat." The rats have been spreading their droppings for centuries, and
it will take a true Hercules to clean up the Augean cesspool they've made of the world, and it
won't be done in one day, if ever.
I may be wrong, but I have no reason to think Donald Trump thinks at all as we do. He has
never said or done anything to suggest he is anything more than an ordinary American with normal
instincts: He doesn't want criminals sneaking across the border, he thinks sanctuary cities
for illegals are crazy, he doesn't see why we need more Muslims, and he is angry when immigrants
go on welfare. Millions of ordinary Americans clearly agree with him, and not because they
are racially aware. It is because they are decent, fair-minded people who also have a nagging
sense that the country is changing in unwelcome ways.
This seems to me to be a reasonable assessment of the man and his broad politics.
Maybe–just maybe–he will move in our direction. It's not impossible to imagine a President
Trump asking, in an offhand way, "What's wrong with white people wanting to remain a majority
in the United States?" Or he might casually note that you can't expect as many blacks as Asians
in AP classes because they don't have the same levels of intelligence. But I can imagine the
opposite, too: President Trump so bogged down in Beltway baloney that he never even builds
the wall.
This, too, seems to be a reasonable assessment of the prospects were Trump to win.
Though I have a general interest in the politics of identity and a more immediate interest
in the ongoing demonization and criminalisation of traditionalist dissent by the dominant left,
my primary interest in the US presidential election is in relation to foreign policy, and the
extent to which the next president is likely to continue the bipartisan interventionist idiocies
of the past 20 years. Clinton clearly will, having played a big part in driving said idiocies
in her career to date. Trump, though, is an unknown quantity. Much as Taylor sees the possibilities
in relation to his own area of particular interest, so it goes for my own area. It's possible
to imagine a President Trump presiding over a draw back from the aggressive confrontation of Russia
and China, and if not actually shutting down then at least deprioritising the various US "democracy
promotion" and other programs designed to try to spread US ideology around the world. But it's
also possible to imagine him going the other way, either leaving foreign policy to the US "experts"
while he concentrates on the pressing domestic issues he would undoubtedly have in dealing with
implacable sabotage of his time in office by the media, judicial and legislative branches of the
US regime, or worse, letting himself be convinced by the same interventionist lobbyists as filled
George W Bush's empty head after he took office.
Sill, for both of us an unknown with at least the possibility of sensible policy is clearly
better than the certainty of disaster the world would get with Clinton.
Trump is 'Hope an Change,' v 2.o. Or, if you like, Obama in 'white-face' to give the rubes
some entertainment while their world collapses around them and Wall Street pickpockets are nicking
what money they have left while watching the show.
The TBTF banks really run the show. Do you seriously think they'd let someone get into the
WH who might actually do their job of protecting the USA and not Wall Street casinos?
This is the only way to handle this distorted issue : DT and his folks must turn it around
on them, as they are the real racists, but nobody dares to say it out loud.
Detroit is a result of their racism.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years.
I think the best response to the assertion that one is a racist is to reply: "And?", and to
make the case that being racist is not necessarily a bad thing, if all the things that antiracists
claim are racist are to be included in the definition.
Nope it won't work, because agreeing with them, would be construed as a "Confession" and would
simply turn potential allies against us.
I would, if I had a say in campaign policy , I would accuse them, the leftists, the democrats
right back of every fucking thing they have accused us of, and I would be right, as they in reality
are the fucking racists, mysogenists, even the homophobes,as they now claim that a gay person
cannot bonafibably ever be a Republican,which simply indicates that they have no respect for the
self-determination of gay folks.
The dumb-ass nice-guy Republicans have taken everything sitting down for the last half century
and we see the results, and I am convinced that most of the turn-coats have done so because they
are terrified of being hit with the "Racist" label.
We need more allies and not a tedious redefinition of various labels.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years, and pro jazz performer. ,
@RadicalCenter You know that most people aren't ready for that, especially "swing voters".
If trump said that, he would surely lose. Counterproductive, if satisfying momentarily.
But trump should call Dems racist for treating black Americans like serfs, and he absolutely
should call out Clinton et al. on their fomenting racial hatred and division, and their apologism
for widespread racially-targeted violence and intimidation against white and Asian people.
in their current state, the MSM are just evangelists pushing their religions, the crazy unfounded
irrational beliefs that racism is evil and egalitarians are good. where are the independently
verifiable clinical tests? just like all the other myriad religions, creating gods in their own
image.
If HRC wins, we have war with Russia, including possibly WW3. That makes environmental issues
moot.
Separately, HRC will not even agree to a carbon tax, she lobbied for two giant polluting coal
plants in South Africa, and she promotes fracking worldwide.
"... With US belief in "conspiracy theory" over 50 percent (see our previous article here ) elites are showing increasingly concern that they have lost control of their narrative. ..."
"... The article explains that if people grow paranoid about government, then the "norms" of government will collapse. ..."
"... The article also has parallels to an article we analyzed recently here by Cass Sunstein. His Bloomberg editorial suggested that nothing was more important from a political standpoint than returning "civility" to Congress and politics generally. ..."
"... The NeoCons will take the United States in the same direction it is going until its' bust. Endless war, run down infrastructure and poverty is the future. Tax receipts are falling fast and government can't pay the big bills with service sector jobs. ..."
"... Decommissioning the plethora of foreign airbases and dismantling NATO would see the Bankster/MIC die a death. Gotta starve those beasts pronto. ..."
"... "Conspiracy theory is called "paranoid politics" in this article but it amounts to the same thing." ..."
"... "conspiracy theory" ..."
"... "paranoid" ..."
"... "we should" ..."
"... "paranoid politics" ..."
"... "good" ..."
"... necessarily controlled ..."
"... "The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are." ..."
With US belief in "conspiracy theory" over 50 percent (see our previous article
here ) elites are showing increasingly concern that they have lost control of their narrative.
This article again illustrates elite push back. The article explains that if people grow paranoid
about government, then the "norms" of government will collapse.
Conspiracy theory is called "paranoid politics" in this article but it amounts to the same thing.
The article also has parallels to an article we analyzed recently
here
by Cass Sunstein. His Bloomberg editorial suggested that nothing was more important from a political
standpoint than returning "civility" to Congress and politics generally.
This article runs along the same lines: Negative perceptions of the US government can make the
process of "governing" dysfunctional.
Herdee •Nov 1, 2016 12:13 AM
The NeoCons will take the United States in the same direction it is going until its' bust.
Endless war, run down infrastructure and poverty is the future. Tax receipts are falling fast
and government can't pay the big bills with service sector jobs.
WTFUD •Oct 31, 2016 11:14 PM
Major Civil Unrest is required in the USSofA to alleviate the pressure on Russia, the Elites'
would be bogeyman. The rest of the world would benefit too.
Decommissioning the plethora of foreign airbases and dismantling NATO would see the Bankster/MIC
die a death. Gotta starve those beasts pronto.
PoasterToaster •Oct 31, 2016 10:30 PM
Bankers hiding behind "government" and using the moral authority it carries in people's heads
to carry out their dirty deeds. But now the people have seen behind the curtain and the dope at
the controls has been found wanting. Writing is on the wall for them and they know it.
"The rise of paranoid politics could make America ungovernable"
We in America aren't supposed to be "governed". And our state of mind is none of your goddamned
business.
One of the most delightful ironies (to those with a sufficiently macabre sense of humour) is that
declassified CIA documents from the 1960s have proven that the mass media promotion of the
"conspiracy theory" meme was deliberately developed by the CIA, using their media assets.
Many people have developed ways to discuss the relatively slim differences between being "paranoid"
versus being realistic. After several decades of enjoying the luxury to
spend most of my time attempting to understand the political processes, my conclusion has always
been that THE MORE I LEARNED, THE WORSE IT GOT.
It is barely possible to exaggerate the degree to which "we should" seriously consider
"paranoid politics" as being the most realistic. Governments
are only "good" in the sense that they are the biggest forms of organized crime,
dominated by the best organized gangs of criminals. In my view, that conclusion can both
be derived from the basic principles of the ways that general energy systems operate, as well
as empirically confirmed by an overwhelming abundance of well-documented evidence. Indeed, more
rational evidence and logical arguments result in that any deeper analysis of politics ALWAYS
discovers and demonstrates the ways that civilization is necessarily controlled
by applications of the methods of organized crime, whose excessive successfulness are more and
more spinning out of control.
As H.L. Menchen stated:
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out
for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably
he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and
intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic
personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are."
The important things which most governments DO,
that are "dishonest, insane and intolerable,"
are ENFORCE FRAUDS by private banks.
Given those social FACTS, it is barely possible to develop a sufficiently
"paranoid politics," to encompass the degree to which the existing
political economy, based upon enforcing frauds, is being driven by advancing technologies
towards becoming exponentially more fraudulent. The problem is NOT that some
people are becoming too critical, but that the majority of them have not yet become critical enough
... "We need" to go beyond being merely superficially cynical, in order to become profoundly
cynical enough to perhaps cope with how and why governments ARE the biggest forms of organized
crime, dominated by the best organized gangs of criminals.
In my view, most of the content published on Zero Hedge, which engages in various
superficially correct analyses of those problems, tends to never engage in deeper levels of analysis,
due to the degree to which the resulting conclusions are way worse than anything which could be
adequately admitted and addressed. Rather, it is barely possible to exaggerate the degree to which
one is justifiably paranoid about the ways that the ruling classes in
Globalized Neolithic Civilization are becoming increasingly psychotic psychopaths:
THE EXCESSIVE SUCCESSFULNESS OF CONTROLLING CIVILIZATION
BY APPLICATIONS OF THE VARIOUS METHODS OF ORGANIZED CRIME
HAS RESULTED IN CIVILIZATION MANIFESTING CRIMINAL INSANITY!
Radical Marijuana -> medium giraffe •Nov 1, 2016 12:25 AM
Yes, mg, the CIA, in ways which were, of course, ILLEGAL, attempted to discredit those who
did not believe the official story regarding the assination of President Kennedy.
The most relevant conclusion of that documentary was that, at the highest levels, there is
no difference, because they blend together, between organized crime and government agencies such
as the CIA, which was effectively the American branch of the secret police employed by the international
bankers.
"... "And Valerie Jarrett was under explicit orders – I know people say, 'Well, you never really tell the Attorney General exactly what to do; you kind of wink.' There was no wink. She was told in no uncertain terms, according to my sources, that under no circumstances should Hillary Clinton be indicted because Barack Obama wants desperately for Hillary Clinton to succeed him in the White House, and not to have Donald Trump in the White House because Donald Trump will completely undo everything that Obama thinks is his legacy," he added. ..."
"... Obama's real endgame is to get Clinton over the finish line in the 2016 election, then let her running mate, Tim Kaine, the "real Obama guy," take over if she's removed from office. ..."
"... Tim Kaine and the Clintons were never good friends because Tim Kaine backed Obama in 2008 against Hillary, and one of the deals for Obama to back Hillary this time was for her to pick Tim Kaine, Obama's boy, as her vice president." ..."
"In my view, what has not been reported, and what I think is very significant, is that we've all
forgotten that Anthony Weiner is under investigation for what amounts to child pornography, alleged
child pornography," said Klein.
"Now, if he's found guilty on multiple charges, they can put him away for life because each
charge brings 15, 20 years. So if you're his attorney, you say to him, 'Tony, what can you give the
prosecutors in exchange for bringing down the number of years you're gonna have to serve?' And it's
my view that what he offered them was the computer, and that in exchange, he has gotten an agreement
to reduce his charges," he speculated.
"This computer apparently was unknown to the FBI, and I think the reason that it took two, three,
or even four weeks between the time that they stumbled on this computer – because Weiner made it
available in exchange for a deal – and the time that [James] Comey knew about it, the director of
the FBI, was because they were in the process of cutting this arrangement," Klein continued.
"Finally, it came to Comey's attention, as we know, and it became obvious to him and imperative
to him that he do something about it – because if he didn't, can you imagine what would happen after
the election, and it became knowledge that he knew about this, did nothing about it? Clearly, the
Congress would open a probe of the FBI and why it did nothing about it. And Comey would be, not only
on the hot seat, but perhaps even impeachable. So I think that this is the untold story of behind-the-scenes
maneuvering on these emails," he said.
Klein was convinced the allegations of Weiner "sexting" with underage children were "the alpha
and the omega of this whole story" because "otherwise, this computer would never have come to light."
Another factor Klein highlighted was the revolt among FBI agents angry at political interference
in their investigations of Hillary Clinton.
"That's not my opinion; this is my reporting," he said. "My reporting indicates from several sources
that the atmosphere at the FBI has never been, the morale has never been lower, that there is a stack,
literally a stack of resignations waiting on Comey's desk for him to sign, which he has yet to do,
that people, when they meet him in the hallway, and he says, 'Good morning' to them, many of them
don't even reply because they're not talking to him; that the sense within the FBI is that he disgraced
the institution back in July, when he knew quite well, obviously, that Mrs. Clinton had violated
not one, but several federal statutes in jeopardizing national security, and raked her over the coals
verbally – and then, for reasons that I think had to do with his not wanting to interfere in the
presidential race, let her off legally."
"Many of the people in the FBI thought that that was disgraceful," Klein asserted. "I think he's
been under huge pressure ever since to redeem himself. I'm told his wife even – who is not only his
most personal, deepest relationship, but also a major adviser in his career – has been telling him,
'Jim, you've got to do something about this.'"
"This is a guy who goes to church every Sunday. He's an evangelical Catholic," he said of Comey.
"He gets on his knees every night, prays to God, prays about his dead child that he lost, two or
three days after the child was born, believes deeply in his own moral rectitude and constantly thinks
that he is on the side of the angels. And I think he felt that what he did this time around, which
was to send this letter to the Congress, was the highest right, moral thing to do. Whether it was
or not, I think that's what motivated him."
Marlow suggested Comey would not have reopened the Clinton investigation "unless he knows he's
got the goods."
"I agree with you. I think the disgrace is not James Comey. I think the disgrace is the White
House and the Justice Department because as I report in my book Guilty as Sin, despite what
Loretta Lynch said about how independent she was or is, she and Valerie Jarrett were having secret
meetings last summer about the email investigation, keeping the President and the White House up
to date on everything that Jim Comey was doing," Klein said.
"And Valerie Jarrett was under explicit orders – I know people say, 'Well, you never really
tell the Attorney General exactly what to do; you kind of wink.' There was no wink. She was told
in no uncertain terms, according to my sources, that under no circumstances should Hillary Clinton
be indicted because Barack Obama wants desperately for Hillary Clinton to succeed him in the White
House, and not to have Donald Trump in the White House because Donald Trump will completely undo
everything that Obama thinks is his legacy," he added.
"So I think the disgrace is the Attorney General, and the Attorney General trying to interfere
with the FBI's investigations – both of the emails and the Clinton Foundation," Klein reiterated.
Marlow mentioned a theory proposed by Breitbart News Daily callers that Obama's real
endgame is to get Clinton over the finish line in the 2016 election, then let her running mate, Tim
Kaine, the "real Obama guy," take over if she's removed from office.
"That's not such a crazy theory," said Klein. "It may be a little far-fetched, but your callers
are completely right: Tim Kaine and the Clintons were never good friends because Tim Kaine backed
Obama in 2008 against Hillary, and one of the deals for Obama to back Hillary this time was for her
to pick Tim Kaine, Obama's boy, as her vice president."
"... 'The people he trusts the most have been the angriest at him,' the source continued. 'And that includes his wife, Pat. She kept urging him to admit that he had been wrong when he refused to press charges against the former secretary of state. ..."
"... 'He talks about the damage that he's done to himself and the institution [of the FBI], and how he's been shunned by the men and women who he admires and work for him. It's taken a tremendous toll on him. ..."
"... 'It shattered his ego. He looks like he's aged 10 years in the past four months.' ..."
"... But Comey's decision to reopen the case was more than an effort to heal the wound he inflicted on the FBI. He was also worried that after the presidential election, Republicans in Congress would mount a probe of how he had granted Hillary political favoritism. His announcement about the revived investigation, which came just 11 days before the presidential election, was greeted with shock and dismay by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the prosecutors at the Justice Department. ..."
"... 'Lynch and Obama haven't contacted Jim directly,' said the source, 'but they've made it crystal clear through third parties that they disapprove of his effort to save face.' ..."
'The people he trusts the most have been the angriest at him,' the source continued. 'And that
includes his wife, Pat. She kept urging him to admit that he had been wrong when he refused to
press charges against the former secretary of state.
'He talks about the damage that he's done to himself and the institution [of the FBI], and
how he's been shunned by the men and women who he admires and work for him. It's taken a tremendous
toll on him.
'It shattered his ego. He looks like he's aged 10 years in the past four months.'
But Comey's decision to reopen the case was more than an effort to heal the wound he inflicted
on the FBI. He was also worried that after the presidential election, Republicans in Congress would mount
a probe of how he had granted Hillary political favoritism. His announcement about the revived investigation, which came just 11 days before the presidential
election, was greeted with shock and dismay by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the prosecutors
at the Justice Department.
'Jim told me that Lynch and Obama are furious with him,' the source said. As I revealed in my latest New York Times bestseller
Guilty As Sin Obama said that appointing Comey as FBI direct was 'my worst mistake as president.'
'Lynch and Obama haven't contacted Jim directly,' said the source, 'but they've made it crystal
clear through third parties that they disapprove of his effort to save face.'
The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each
of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi
was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.
The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an "agreement" that demanded
the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy. His people were bombed, and he was
prosecuted in The Hague. Independence of this kind is intolerable.
As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected
an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked.
From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics –
the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage.
Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible
for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: "We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence,
or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked."
The West's medieval client, Saudi Arabia – to which the US and Britain sell billions of dollars'
worth of arms – is at present destroying Yemen, a country so poor that in the best of times, half
the children are malnourished.
"... HEDGES: Well what feeds the hatred toward the west has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It has to do with the one-thousand-pound iron fragmentation bombs and cruise missiles and 155 artillery shells that are being dropped all over areas that ISIS controls. ..."
"... That is a far more potent engine of rage than anything Trump says and I think sometimes we forget what we' re doing and the state terror that is delivered day in and day out on Muslims in areas that have been opened up by these failed states because of our military adventurism in countries like Libya and Iraq. ..."
"... : Chris the recently released WikiLeaks indicate that Hillary Clinton is involved in conspiring in maintaining Israels nuclear dominance in the region and containing Irans nuclear development program. ..."
"... Yea, I mean shes quite upfront. I have to give her credit on that in terms of her militantly pro-Israel stance. She of course has courted quite successfully wealthy pro-Israeli donors attacking the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement. ..."
"... So one of the dangers of Clinton and shes called for a no fly zone over Syria. Well, people forget that when you institute a no fly zone, that is patrolled and that requires very heavy presence of US forces. ..."
HEDGES: Well what feeds the hatred toward the west has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It
has to do with the one-thousand-pound iron fragmentation bombs and cruise missiles and 155 artillery
shells that are being dropped all over areas that ISIS controls.
That is a far more potent engine of rage than anything Trump says and I think sometimes we
forget what we' re doing and the state terror that is delivered day in and day out on Muslims in areas
that have been opened up by these failed states because of our military adventurism in countries
like Libya and Iraq.
PERIES: So connect those two for us. Give us some examples of how the war on terror in the Middle
East, Syria in particular, is causing this kind of islamophobia here and our hesitancy about doing
humanitarian work by accepting refugees that are fleeing these wars and how it manifests itself in
the form of islamophobia here.
HEDGES: Well, islamophobia here is a doctrine that plays quite conveniently into the goals of
the corporate state in the same way that anti-communism once played into the goals of our capitalist
democracy. So the caricature of threats from the Muslim world independent of the actual possibility
of those threats has especially since 9/11, one of the corner stones of the argument that has been
used by the security and surveillance state to strip us of basic civil liberties, including for instance,
under the Obama administration, misinterpreting the 2001 authorization to use military force act
as giving the executive branch to right to assassinate American citizens. Of course I'm talking about
Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son.
So the rise of islamophobia has been largely independent of anything Muslims have done other than
perhaps initially the attacks of 9/11. The continued over 15 years of indiscriminate violence, industrial
violence, delivered on whole swaps of the Muslim world has stirred up the kind of hornet' s nest that
we' re seeing enraged not only among Muslims in the Muslim world but Muslims in Europe and many other
parts of the globe who despite Clinton' s rhetoric see this as a war against Muslims. I think that
although she speaks in kind of a softer and more tolerate tone, Clinton has been one of the main
architects of the attacks for instance in Libya that have given or empowered or given rise to groups
like ISIS. While Clinton' s rhetoric is certainly more palatable, she has been an enthusiastic supporter
that we are going to bomb our way into peace in the Muslim world.
PERIES: Chris give us a sense of the climate created by what both candidates eluded to that Muslims
in this country has to help us in terms of identifying potential terrorists and any kind of activities
in the community that might feed terrorists attacks here. What does this do to a society?
HEDGES: Well it turns us into a society of informers. I think we have to acknowledge how pervasive
the harassment is of Muslim Americans when they go through the airport, intrusive invasions of their
privacy by Homeland Security, the FBI, and others. We have to acknowledge that almost all of the
homegrown terrorist attacks that the FBI have broken have been orchestrated by the FBI usually with
people of marginal means and sometimes marginal intelligence being prodded and often provided supposed
equipment to carry out terrorist attacks. The racial profiling that has gone on coupled with the
rhetoric and this is very dangerous because if you take already an alienated youth and subject it
to this kind of unrelenting harassment, then you provide a recipe for homegrown radicalism.
So yes it' s once again an effort in this case on part of the Trump rhetoric to blame the Muslims
for not only their own victimhood but for terrorist attacks that are being driven by jihadist whom
the vast majority, 99 plus percent of the Muslim world has no contact with and probably very little
empathy for, I mean there' s 4 to 5 million Muslims, I think I have that right, in the United States.
Most of them have integrated quite successfully into American. Unlike in Britain because Muslim immigrants
in the United States whereas in Europe, France, they came over as laborers, we largely absorbed Muslim
professional classes, doctors, engineers, and others and the Muslim community in the United States
is pretty solidly middle class and professional.
... ... ...
PERIES: Chris the recently released WikiLeaks indicate that Hillary Clinton
is involved in conspiring in maintaining Israels nuclear dominance in the region and containing
Irans nuclear development program. Your comments on those WikiLeaks.
HEDGES:Yea, I mean shes quite upfront. I have to give her credit on that in terms of
her militantly pro-Israel stance. She of course has courted quite successfully wealthy
pro-Israeli donors attacking the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement. And she has and will
continue what are considered Israeli interests in the region which are not our interest. Israel
pushed very heavily for an invasion of Iraq as a way to destroy a powerful state within the
region. That did not serve our interests at all. In fact, it elevated to the dominant position
within the region, Iran and out of these vacuums gave birth to these jihadist groups and got us
embroiled in wars that we can never win.
So one of the dangers of Clinton and shes called for a no fly zone over Syria. Well, people
forget that when you institute a no fly zone, that is patrolled and that requires very heavy
presence of US forces. Not just air forces but ground stations, radar stations,
anti-aircraft missile batteries. Shes quite openly calling for a further escalation for American
involvement in the Syrian quagmire which of course again we did so much to create by along with
our allies, the Saudis and Qataris and others pumping so many arms in them. I think we gave a
billion dollars worth of arms to Syrian rebels as if you can control where those arms go, just in
the last year.
"... You can disagree with the timing of Comey's disclosure, but that is not a matter for the Hatch Act or even an ethical charge in my view. ..."
"... Congress passed the Hatch Act in response to scandals during the 1938 congressional elections and intended the Act to bar federal employees from using "[their] official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election." Comey is not doing that in communicating with Congress on a matter of oversight. ..."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid alleges that FBI Director Comey has violated the law by announcing
the re-opened investigation into Clinton emails so close to the presidential election.
In his letter to Comey, Reid raised the the Hatch Act, which prohibits partisan politicking
by government employees.
5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1) prohibits a government employee from "us[ing] his official authority
or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election."
Reid argued:
"Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the
treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political
party over another. I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these
actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority
to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law."
The reference to "months" is curious. Comey has kept Congress informed in compliance with
oversight functions of the congressional committees but has been circumspect in the extent
of such disclosures. It is troubling to see Democrats (who historically favor both transparency
and checks on executive powers) argue against such disclosure and cooperation with oversight
committees. More importantly, the Hatch Act is simply a dog that will not hunt.
Richard W. Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and the chief ethics
lawyer in the George W. Bush White House from 2005 to 2007, has filed a Hatch Act complaint
against Comey with the federal Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics. He
argues that "We cannot allow F.B.I. or Justice Department officials to unnecessarily publicize
pending investigations concerning candidates of either party while an election is underway."
However, Comey was between the horns of a dilemma. He could be accused of acts of commission
in making the disclosure or omission in withholding the disclosure in an election year. Quite
frankly, I found
Painter's justification for his filing remarkably speculative. He admits that he has no
evidence to suggest that Comey wants to influence the election or favors either candidate.
Intent is key under the Hatch investigations. You can disagree with the timing of Comey's disclosure,
but that is not a matter for the Hatch Act or even an ethical charge in my view.
Congress passed the Hatch Act in response to scandals during the 1938 congressional elections
and intended the Act to bar federal employees from using "[their] official authority or influence
for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election." Comey is not doing
that in communicating with Congress on a matter of oversight.
Such violations under the Hatch Act, even if proven, are not criminal matters . The Office
of Special Counsel can investigate such matters and seek discipline - a matter than can ultimately
go before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
"... The Wall Street Journal today added to its so far excellent reporting on the Clinton issues by revealing the much bigger story behind it: FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe - Laptop may contain thousands of messages sent to or from Mrs. Clinton's private server (open copy here ). ..."
"... B, you're dead right, Hillary is screwed either way. Uncle Bill won't get to wave his mouldy bratwurst in the East Wing for long if she does get through this. ..."
"... Seems the entire "Atlantic media"(bbc, cnn etc etc, aka msm) have all put their collective eggs in Killary's leaky basket. Any pretence of balanced journalism's been thrown out of the window and replaced with brutal yellow propaganda - one which will make chairman Mao blush. ..."
"... The only downside of this for voters and for the people of the world is that a wounded Hillary Clinton may be even MORE likely to push for confrontation leading to WWIII. ..."
"... So did the FBI find Abedin's get out of jail insurance policy, and has that now become Comey's get out of jail insurance policy? ..."
"... Agree with WorldBLee. Hillary has virtually no mandate, little trust, and little support from we, the people...unless she can make the case for a big war. ..."
"... To rule, she will have to rely on her friends on Wall Street, the security establishment, and the media...all of whom find war to be lucrative. ..."
"... The dirt unearthed on HRC ought to have her facing prison for life. ..."
"... If HRC should somehow get elected, more than enough evidence already exists to Impeach and Convict ..."
"... b, you don't list the significance of the 650,000 (!) emails themselves among your bullets. That number of emails may well represent an image of Hillary's private server email store. It's said that several of her aides were tasked with their destruction ... but it now looks like Abedin 'forgot' about the copy on this machine. Once they're loose ... you're right when you say of Hillary that ... ..."
"... @7 stumpy, 'So did the FBI find Abedin's get out of jail insurance policy, and has that now become Comey's get out of jail insurance policy?' Very succinctly and well-put. ..."
According to the reporting, based on FBI sources, FBI agents in New York and elsewhere have been
looking into the Clinton Foundation for several months. They suspect that this "charity" was selling
political favors by then Secretary of State Clinton in exchange for donations that personally benefited
the Clinton family.
The Justice Department blocked further aggressive investigations into the issue, allegedly because
of the ongoing election. A high FBI official, Andrew McCabe, also showed disinterest in a further
pursuit of the issue. McCabe's wife had just tried to get elected as state senator and had receive
a campaign donation of nearly $500,000 from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton friend and at
times board member of the Clinton Foundation. The FBI agents pursuing the investigation into the
Clinton Foundation were not amused.
The separate investigation into former Congressman Weiner for sexual contacts with minors was
looking for pedophile stuff on Weiner's electronic devices. It didn't find any as far as we can tell,
but found some 650,000 emails archived on a laptop.
Several thousand of these emails were sent or received by Weiner's spouse, the intimate Clinton
aide Huma Abedin. They came through Clinton's private email server. At least some of these thousands
of emails are likely copies
of those that were deleted from Clinton's server when the (separate) investigation into it started.
They may be evidence that Clinton sent and received classified documents through her unsecured
system. Some of these emails may also contain serious dirt related to the Clinton Foundation. (It
is highly likely that at least some FBI agents know "unofficially" what these emails contain. Legally
they could not look at them without a warrant which they only got today.)
Thus we have three ongoing FBI investigations:
into Clinton's private email-server used illegally for official State Department business;
into the Clinton Foundation and its role in peddling political influence in exchange for donations;
into the personal conduct of Anthony Weiner.
Additional investigations that may come up are on:
the mixing of donations to the Clinton Foundation and personal compensation for Bill Clinton
for holding highly paid speeches;
for profit activities by the group of people
running Bill Clinton's businesses as well as the Clinton Foundation financing;
inappropriate hindering of the FBI investigations by the Justice Department and/or by McCabe.
With such a list of potentially very serious scandals pending it is highly understandable that
FBI director Comey went public and did not follow the advice from the Justice Department to pursue
these issues only on a reduced level. It would have been political suicide to try to keep this silent.
Way too many FBI agents eager to pursue these case were in the known and would have talked, as they
do now, to the media.
If Clinton gets elected she will be hampered by these scandals for the next two years. The
Republicans in Congress will jump on these issues as soon as possible. There will be endless hearings
with large media coverage. The only question is when the first attempts at an impeachment process
will be made - before or after she moves back into the White House. She and her family may be better
off with her losing the campaign.
If I'm not mistaken Eric Holder was a recurring chatacter in that 80's TV show CHIPS was he not...?
Something about that greasy B-Grade pornstar moustache.
B, you're dead right, Hillary is screwed either way. Uncle Bill won't get to wave his mouldy
bratwurst in the East Wing for long if she does get through this.
But she wont. Hillary has fallen off the cliff (see poll below) in the poll below and we're
all gonna get to Pitch'n'Putt a nice little 18 holes around the White House lawns on the back
of The Don.
No MSM poll is worth anything, especially with so many closet Trump voters this election...
but the USC/Dornslife Daybreak differs a little in it's methodology that's worthy of inspection
(random selection of 600-800 of the same 3000 participants emailed each day being the main feature).
Also worth checking the Characteristics of Candidate graphs - really interesting to get
ro know the demographics of what is going to drive what is now a likely landslide win.
Seems the entire "Atlantic media"(bbc, cnn etc etc, aka msm) have all put their collective
eggs in Killary's leaky basket. Any pretence of balanced journalism's been thrown out of the window
and replaced with brutal yellow propaganda - one which will make chairman Mao blush.
Trump is gunning for the WH those concerned better get use to it. The sad part is, the American
people are f*cked either way. Killary will only hasten America's decline and Trump will make it
a slow motion one.
What I don't get is, out of the approximately 300 million US citizens, couldn't they find any
smart,less crooked person to lead them???
Comey caved to right-wing criticism and pressure. In the U.S. there is a law that prohibits
a public official from influencing, or attempting to influence, an election and yet he took this
incomprehensible step against the advice of the Justice Dep't. lawyers.
The only downside of this for voters and for the people of the world is that a wounded Hillary
Clinton may be even MORE likely to push for confrontation leading to WWIII. Once talk of
war starts, all concern over illegal wrongdoing will fade to the background as everyone rallies
in the US to support the "Commander in Chief".
Many people have already voted via early voting and can't take back their votes even if they
wanted to. However, I suspect that dyed in the wool Clinton/DNC/Democrat zealots will continue
to shout that this is all a vast alt-right conspiracy to tarnish their sweet, innocent Hillary.
Agree with WorldBLee. Hillary has virtually no mandate, little trust, and little support from
we, the people...unless she can make the case for a big war.
To rule, she will have
to rely on her friends on Wall Street, the security establishment, and the media...all of whom
find war to be lucrative.
You do not want to give the GOP control of three branches of government, unless you really hate
the American people and want to see them suffer. Actually now it makes sense...
I suggest a triumvirat Trump-Johnson-Wilders or The Three Blond Mops to rule Amerikka and let
the rest of the world be a safer place without their interventionism (but if we look at the UK,
France or the Turks not to mention KSA and Qatar or Israel, it is hard to believe it would work
out).
The dirt unearthed on HRC ought to have her facing prison for life. Never knew about
the quaint rule chet380 @4 alludes to until I read Wheeler's item--a rule that grossly undermines
the Rule of Law and shouldn't exist!
If HRC should somehow get elected, more than enough evidence already exists to Impeach
and Convict -- but then the same was true regarding WJC's impeachment.
b, you don't list the significance of the 650,000 (!) emails themselves among your bullets.
That number of emails may well represent an image of Hillary's private server email store. It's
said that several of her aides were tasked with their destruction ... but it now looks like Abedin
'forgot' about the copy on this machine. Once they're loose ... you're right when you say of Hillary
that ...
She and her family may be better off with her losing the campaign.
... and the people on the other end of all those emails will be able to see that - and even more
clearly that they may be better off with her losing her campaign - even if dogged determination
keeps the blinders on the Clintons themselves.
Maybe Clinton will withdraw from the race. The DNC apparatchniks and the establishment have a
stake in defeating Trump. At what point do they bail on Hillary?
@7 stumpy, 'So did the FBI find Abedin's get out of jail insurance policy, and has that now
become Comey's get out of jail insurance policy?' Very succinctly and well-put.
Team Clinton was keeping tabs on Anthony Weiner's sexting habits as far back as 2011, according to
WikiLeaks emails.
One disturbing report came to the attention of John Podesta, now chair of Clinton's presidential
campaign, and Neera Tanden, a Senate aide and 2008 presidential campaign staffer, when Jennifer Palmieri,
the current campaign communications director, forwarded news of an investigation into Weiner's contacts
with a Delaware teenager.
"Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about
direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner," read the report dated June 10,
2011.
"Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl's home around 4:30
p.m. and asked to speak with the girl's mother about the daughter's contact with Weiner. Another
officer appeared at the home a short time later."
Palmeiri passed along the news story to Podesta and Tanden with a one-word comment: "Oof."
Weiner resigned from Congress on June 21, 2011, after he accidentally tweeted a picture of himself
in bulging briefs.
He apparently intended to send the photo privately to a woman he communicated with online - and
though he first insisted his Twitter account had been hacked, he later admitted wrongdoing and stepped
down from Congress.
"... We must forgive Mark Twain for his error when he declared that "history never repeats itself but it often rhymes." After all, he'd never met the Clintons. ..."
"... Why didn't you turn that computer over to the FBI during its initial investigation? ..."
"... Did you lie to the FBI about having work-related emails on it? ..."
"... Also, did Weiner have access to classified material? ..."
We must forgive Mark Twain for his error when he declared that "history never repeats itself but
it often rhymes." After all, he'd never met the Clintons.
... ... ...
...Clinton is understandably panicked because the timing of Comey's announcement could cost her
the election. Her demand that he release everything immediately is also understandable, even as she
knows it is impossible for him to release potential evidence before it is examined.
Clinton created the mess with her incredibly stupid decision to use a private server as secretary
of state.
... ... ...
She could simply order Abedin to hold a press conference and answer any and every question about
the newest batch of emails. Let reporters ask Abedin directly:
What's in those emails?
Did any contain classified material?
Why didn't you turn that computer over to the FBI during its initial investigation?
Did you lie to the FBI about having work-related emails on it?
Also, did Weiner have access to classified material?
Was the computer ever hacked?
... ... ...
Hillary won't do any of that because the potential downside is also huge.
My guess is she
fears the worst, and may secretly subscribe to the idea that Comey wouldn't have acted in such a
bold and controversial way without some conviction that he had stumbled on a potential bombshell.
"... told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. ..."
"... Justice Department officials told the FBI at the meeting they wouldn't authorize more aggressive investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But the FBI officials believed they were still well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods already under way, these people said. ..."
The continuing work means that if Mrs. Clinton wins the White House, she will likely do so amid
at least one ongoing investigation into her inner circle being handled by law-enforcement officials
who are deeply divided over how to manage such cases.
The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew
McCabe, the bureau's second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending
sexually charged messages to a minor, they had recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they
said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.
Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that both Mr. Weiner
and Ms. Abedin used and that hadn't previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said
in late August that the couple were separating.
The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the
matter said, but the warrant they used didn't give them authority to search for matters related to
Mrs. Clinton's email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit
or indecent messages to the teenager.
In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands,
that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton's home that had been the
focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner
investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back
to them.
At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department's
senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with
the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these
people said.
... ... ...
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength
of the evidence in that probe, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort,
and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the
case.
That led to frustrations among some investigators, who viewed FBI leadership as uninterested in
probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and
saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control
between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.
Such internal tensions are common, and it isn't unusual for field agents to favor a more aggressive
approach than supervisors and prosecutors think is merited. But the internal debates about the Clinton
Foundation show the high stakes when such disagreements occur surrounding someone who is running
for president.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. McCabe's wife, Jill McCabe, received $467,500
in campaign funds in late 2015 from the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe,
a longtime ally of the Clintons and, until he was elected governor in November 2013, a Clinton Foundation
board member.
Mr. McAuliffe had supported Dr. McCabe in the hopes she and a handful of other Democrats might
help win a majority in the state Senate, giving Mr. McAuliffe more sway in the state capitol. Dr.
McCabe lost her race last November, and Democrats failed to win their majority.
A spokesman for the governor has said that "any insinuation that his support was tied to anything
other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous."
Dr. McCabe told the Journal, "Once I decided to run, my husband had no formal role in my campaign
other than to be a supportive husband to me and our children."
In February of this year, Mr. McCabe ascended from the No. 3 position at the FBI to the deputy
director post, making him second only to Mr. Comey. When he assumed that role, officials say, he
started overseeing the probe into Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server for government work
when she was secretary of state.
FBI officials have said Mr. McCabe had no role in the Clinton email probe until he became deputy
director, and there was no conflict of interest because by then his wife's campaign was over.
But other Clinton-related investigations were under way within the FBI, and they have been the
subject of internal debate for months, according to people familiar with the matter.
Early this year, four FBI field offices-New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark.-were
collecting information about the Clinton Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes
or influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter.
Los Angeles agents had picked up information about the Clinton Foundation from an unrelated public
corruption case and had issued some subpoenas for bank records related to the foundation, these people
said.
The Washington field office was probing financial relationships involving Mr. McAuliffe before
he became a Clinton Foundation board member, these people said. Mr. McAuliffe has denied any wrongdoing,
and his lawyer has said the probe is focused on whether he failed to register as an agent of a foreign
entity.
Clinton Foundation officials have long denied any wrongdoing, saying it is a well-run charity
that has done immense good around the world.
The FBI field office in New York had done the most work on the Clinton Foundation case and received
help from the FBI field office in Little Rock, the people familiar with the matter said.
In February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice Department, according to these people.
By all accounts, the meeting didn't go well.
... ... ...
Justice Department officials told the FBI at the meeting they wouldn't authorize more aggressive
investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But
the FBI officials believed they were still well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods
already under way, these people said.
In July, Mr. Comey announced he was recommending against any prosecution in the Clinton email
case. About a week later, the FBI sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe, with Mr. McCabe
deciding the FBI's New York office would take the lead with assistance from Little Rock.
The Washington field office, FBI officials decided, would focus on a separate matter involving
Mr. McAuliffe. Mr. McCabe had decided earlier in the spring that he would continue to recuse himself
from that probe, given the governor's contributions to his wife's former political campaign.
Within the FBI, the decision was viewed with skepticism by some, who felt the probe would be stronger
if the foundation and McAuliffe matters were combined. Others, particularly senior officials at the
Justice Department, felt that both probes were weak, based largely on publicly available information,
and had found little that would merit expanded investigative authority.
According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official
called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly
pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe, despite the department's refusal to allow more aggressive
investigative methods in the case. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue
as long as they didn't use those methods.
... ... ...
Others further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were given a much starker
instruction on the case: "Stand down." When agents questioned why they weren't allowed to take more
aggressive steps, they said they were told the order had come from the deputy director-Mr. McCabe.
Others familiar with the matter deny Mr. McCabe or any other senior FBI official gave such
a stand-down instruction.
For agents who already felt uneasy about FBI leadership's handling of the Clinton Foundation case,
the moment only deepened their concerns, these people said. For those who felt the probe hadn't yet
found significant evidence of criminal conduct, the leadership's approach was the right response
to the facts on the ground.
In September, agents on the foundation case asked to see the emails contained on nongovernment
laptops that had been searched as part of the Clinton email case, but that request was rejected by
prosecutors at the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. Those emails were given to the
FBI based on grants of partial immunity and limited-use agreements, meaning agents could only use
them for the purpose of investigating possible mishandling of classified information.
Some FBI agents were dissatisfied with that answer, and asked for permission to make a similar
request to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. McCabe,
these people said, told them no and added that they could not "go prosecutor-shopping."
Not long after that discussion, FBI agents informed the bureau's leaders about the Weiner laptop,
prompting Mr. Comey's disclosure to Congress and setting of the furor that promises to consume the
final days of a tumultuous campaign.
Jill Stein to win over the hearts of some progressives and jump start her far-left "
people-powered
" movement.
"This is Jill Stein's moment," said longtime Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor Pat
Caddell.
"There are many Clinton voters who would rather vote their conscience than vote for a major party.
According to the latest Breitbart/Gravis poll, when given the choice of whether you should vote for
a major party candidate or vote your conscience, 44% of Clinton voters said you should vote your
conscience," Caddell explained.
Even before the FBI director's dramatic announcement on Friday, the ABC News/Washington Post
tracking poll
indicated that "loosely affiliated or reluctant Clinton supporters"- which includes white women
and young voters under the age of 30- seem to be floating off and "look less likely to vote."
Caddell explained that the polling data suggests "there are many people who are ambivalent
about Clinton who don't want to vote for Trump. Given these new revelations from WikiLeaks and the
re-intensity of the concern regarding the corruption of her emails, these ambivalent voters need
a place to go and Jill Stein-being not only a progressive woman, but an honest progressive woman-is
the obvious choice for so many of these voters, particularly for those who supported Bernie Sanders."
Indeed, nearly 60 percent of voters- including 43 percent of Democrats- believe America needs
a third major political party,
according to a Gallup poll released late last month.
As one former Bernie Sanders supporter told Breitbart News, "It's come to this: voting for
Hillary Clinton is voting for the lesser of two evils. But voting for the lesser of two evils is
still voting for evil, and I'm tired of voting for evil. That's why I'm voting for Jill Stein.
"
This sentiment has been echoed by Stein herself who has argued, "it's time to reject the lesser
of two evils and stand up for the greater good."
Stein seems ready to capitalize on the FBI's announcement as well as the steady stream of WikiLeaks
revelations that have exposed, what Stein has characterized as, the Clinton camp's "hostility" to
progressives.
"The FBI has re-opened the Clinton investigation. Will the American people rise up and vote for
honest change?" Stein asked on Friday, via Twitter.
... ... ...
Clinton's strained relationship with progressives has been well documented and could
present Stein– who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to articulately prosecute the progressive
case against Clinton– with an opening, especially as polling reveals a significant chunk of Clinton
voters believe voting their conscience ought to trump voting for a major political party.
As Politico reported in a piece
titled "WikiLeaks poisons Hillary's relationship with left" :
Some of the left's most influential voices and groups are taking offense at the way they
and their causes were discussed behind their backs by Clinton and some of her closest advisers
in the emails, which swipe liberal heroes and causes as "puritanical," "pompous", "naive", "radical"
and "dumb," calling some "freaks," who need to "get a life." […] among progressive operatives,
goodwill for Clinton - and confidence in key advisers featured in the emails including John Podesta,
Neera Tanden and Jake Sullivan - is eroding…
Even before the FBI's announcement, many noted that it was becoming increasingly difficult
to view a vote for Clinton as anything other than a vote to continue the worst aspects of political
corruption.
As columnist Kim Strassel recently
wrote , the
one thing in this election of which one can be certain is that "a Hillary Clinton presidency will
be built, from the ground up, on self-dealing, crony favors, and an utter disregard for the law."
As such, "anyone who pulls the lever for Mrs. Clinton takes responsibility for setting up the
nation for all the blatant corruption that will follow," Strassel
concludes
. "She just doesn't have a whole lot of integrity,"
said far-left progressive Cornel West.
West
endorsed Stein over Clinton explaining Stein is "the only progressive woman in the race."
"The Clinton train- [of] Wall Street, security surveillance, militaristic- is not going in
the same direction I'm going," West
told Bill Maher earlier this year.
She's a neoliberal… [I] believe neoliberalism is a disaster when it comes to poor people
and when it comes to people in other parts of the world dealing with U.S. foreign policy and militarism.
Oh, absolutely. Ask the people in Libya about that. Ask the people in the West Bank about that.
West has separately
explained that Clinton's "militarism makes the world a less safe place" and that her globalist
agenda created the "right-wing populism" that has fueled Trump's rise.
Clinton policies of the 1990s generated inequality, mass incarceration, privatization of schools
and Wall Street domination. There is also a sense that the Clinton policies helped produce the
right-wing populism that we're seeing now in the country. And we think she's going to come to
the rescue? That's not going to happen.
"It's too easy to view him [Trump] as an isolated individual and bash him," West
told Maher. "He's speaking to the pain in the country because white, working class brothers have
been overlooked by globalization, by these trade deals"– trade deals which Stein also opposes.
Stein has railed against the passage of TPP, which she and her party have described as "NAFTA
on steroids" that would "enrich wealthy corporations by exporting jobs and pushing down wages." They
have argued that the deal essentially amounts to a "global corporate coup" that "would give corporations
more power than nations" by letting them "challenge our laws".
Stein is
against the "massive expanding wars," "the meltdown of the climate," "the massive Wall Street
bailouts," and "the offshoring of our jobs."
Pointing to Clinton's "dangerous and immoral" militarism, Stein has
warned that "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war" and has explained how under a Clinton
presidency, "we could very quickly slide into nuclear war" or could start an air-war with Russia.
"No matter how her staff tries to rebrand her" Clinton is "not a progressive," Stein has
said -rather Clinton is a "corporatist hawk" that "
surrounds
herself with people who are hostile progressives" such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz "after she sabotaged
Bernie [Sanders]." Stein has warned progressives that the role of corporate Democrats like Clinton
is to "prevent progressives from defying corporate rule."
Stein has made a point to
highlight the fact that "we're now seeing many Republican leaders join Hillary Clinton in a neoliberal
uni-party that will fuel right-wing extremism," by continuing to push its "neoliberal agenda [of]
globalization, privatization, deregulation, [and] austerity for the rest of us."
In contrast to Clinton's corporatist "uni-party", Stein and her party have explained that their
campaign represents a "people's party with a populist progressive agenda" that-unlike Democrats and
Republicans- is not "funded by big corporate interests including Wall St. Banks, fossil fuel giants,
& war profiteer."
Stein is a Harvard Medical School graduate, a mother to two sons, and a practicing physician,
who became an environmental-health activist and organizer in the late 1990s. As the Green Party's
2012 presidential candidate, Stein already holds the record for the most votes ever received by a
female candidate for president in a general election.
In Jill Stein, her party writes, "progressives have a peace candidate not beholden to the billionaire
class."
"... For Comey to do what he did, when and how he did it, I gotta believe there is some extinction-level event inside those emails. Something so toxic that even Obama is throwing up his hands, or at least easing hiimself way, way back on the periphery. ..."
"... If Comey is playing politics with such an important job or can't even handle a mutiny us department, why did Obama nominate a life long Republican to the post of FBI Director? ..."
"... Interesting to literally see where Obama draws the line in the sand. "Sorry, you're on your own (smug Barry laugh meme)." ..."
"Clinton Foundation: Inurement" [
Amy Sterling Cassill ]. Word of the day: "The concept of "inurement" is one that most nonprofit
organization board members should be familiar with. In common language, "inurement" is a concept
that means a board member, donor, or employee can't benefit excessively from the organization's
funds."
"Donald Trump's Companies Destroyed Emails in Defiance of Court Orders" [Kurt Eichenwald,
Newsweek ]. Oppo
garbage truck unloads….
War Drums
"Harry Reid's incendiary claim about 'coordination' between Donald Trump and Russia" [
WaPo ].
But there is no public evidence to support Reid's claim of actual "coordination" between
the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And were that to be the case, it would be a
scandal of epic proportions. Asked what evidence exists of such a connection, Reid spokesman
Adam Jentleson cited classified briefings. "There have been classified briefings on this topic,"
Jentleson said. "That is all I can say."
Nudge nudge wink wink. Say no more! Say no more!
The Voters
"Signs Grow of Another Third-Party Fizzle" [
Wall Street Journal ]. "But it appears increasingly likely that no outside candidate will
take a meaningful chunk of the national vote, as seemed plausible in the early summer. The combined
clout of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein fell from 17% of registered voters in July to 9% in the most
recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The running RealClearPolitics polling average of all
four candidates is even less generous, showing Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein dropping from around
12% at various times this summer to just 7% now."
Realignment
"Would Trump "Make a Deal" With The Left?" [
Michael Tracey ]. I doubt it. And would the Left make a deal with Trump? Still, if the deal
were to prevent a war…
The Trail
UPDATE "CNN says it is 'completely uncomfortable' with hacked emails showing former contributor
and interim DNC chair Donna Brazile sharing questions with the Clinton campaign before a debate
and a town hall during the Democratic primary, and has accepted her resignation" [
Politico ]. Too funny! Instant karma, and Brazile turns out to be just as clumsy and dishonest
a hack as Wasserman-Shultz. No doubt there will be a place for her in the Clinton administration.
"FT endorsement: For all her weaknesses, Clinton is the best hope" [
Financial
Times ].
"Donald Trump has a path to victory again thanks to Florida" [
WaPo ]. "Remember that winning Florida isn't a luxury for Trump - it's a necessity. If Clinton
wins the 18 states (plus D.C.) that every Democratic presidential nominee has carried between
1992 and 2012, she has 242 electoral votes. Add Florida's 29 to that total and Clinton is at 271
and the election is over."
Democrat Email Hairball
"How Clinton plans to deal with Comey's October surprise" [
Politico ]. "Projecting confidence" and "galvanizing supporters." Those are the talking points?
Really? Seems a little meta.
Corruption
"A $72-million apartment project. Top politicians. Unlikely donors." [
Los Angeles Times
]. "No one is registered to vote at the run-down house on 223rd Street. The living room window
has been broken for months. A grit-covered pickup sits in the dirt front yard with a flat tire.
Yet dozens of donations to local politicians - totaling more than $40,000 - have come from four
of the people who have lived there over the last eight years." That's so dumb. If you want to
launder money, you set up a family foundation. What's wrong with these people?
"When CIA and NSA Workers Blow the Whistle, Congress Plays Deaf" [
The Intercept ].
One could add a few more. The Panic of 1907. The bear market of 1917. The recession and bear
market (50% decline) of 1937. The recession and bear market of 1957. The bear market of 1977.
Not that I would trade on this decadal pattern alone. But "7" years see more than their fair
share of calamities.
Christine Lagarde said something about sevens
six months before MH17 was downed by drunken Ukies. 7 is one of the more common digits coerced
into weak passwords by password "diversity" standards.
It's bisyllabic and sibilant, therefore powerful and mystical to the ear.
But then again, who cares what a lame duck thinks?
White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Monday said President Obama does not believe
FBI Director James Comey was meddling in the presidential election by announcing Friday that
his agency discovered new emails that may be related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton's
private server.
In his daily press briefing, Earnest said Obama believes Comey "is a man of principle
and good character," and "doesn't believe that Director Comey is intentionally trying to influence
the outcome of the election."
"We've heard these rumors. We don't know what to believe. I'm sure there will be even more
rumors," she explained about the new emails being connected to Abedin and Weiner. "That's why
it is incumbent upon on the FBI to tell us what they're talking about."
For Comey to do what he did, when and how he did it, I gotta believe there is some extinction-level
event inside those emails. Something so toxic that even Obama is throwing up his hands, or at
least easing hiimself way, way back on the periphery.
Don't forget Obama can't be embarrassed or make mistakes. Comey as an Obama appointee will
always be defended by Obama until there is a risk of the stench reaching Obama or missing a round
of golf.
If Comey is playing politics with such an important job or can't even handle a mutiny us
department, why did Obama nominate a life long Republican to the post of FBI Director?
"... "…the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other
radical Sunni groups in the region." ..."
"... "Clintons should know better than to raise money from folks whose primary concern has been supporting the NIAC, a notorious
supporter of the Radical Islamic Mullahs. "The Clinton's have thrown principle out the window in exchange for cold hard cash…putting
money ahead of principle." ..."
"... If these revelations don't completely terminate Hillary Clinton's candidacy, certainly four straight years of Congressional
Emailgate hearings will, should she outright steal the election from Donald Trump on November 8th, or shortly thereafter. ..."
"…the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and
other radical Sunni groups in the region."
"Clintons should know better than to raise money from folks whose primary concern has been supporting the NIAC, a notorious
supporter of the Radical Islamic Mullahs. "The Clinton's have thrown principle out the window in exchange for cold hard cash…putting
money ahead of principle."
Hillary's Chief of Staff admits in the 2nd link that foreign interests sway Hillary to do what they want her to do (money for
mandatory appearances). She also admits that the "Friend of Hillary" list is available and rentable to people who want to influence,
but that it's too sensitive to talk in email.
This leak shows Hillary knows Saudis and Qatar are funding ISIS, which is an enemy of the state. After knowing this, Hillary
accepted tens of millions in donations from these terrorist-funding governments (of course they are getting something back in
return). She also supported arms deals to them.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar commit horrible acts under Sharia law, including throwing gay people off of buildings, persecuting Christians,
Jews, and atheists, and making it legal to rape and beat women. They are the
leading funders of Hillary and her campaign through the Clinton Foundation.
If these revelations don't completely terminate Hillary Clinton's candidacy, certainly four straight years of Congressional
Emailgate hearings will, should she outright steal the election from Donald Trump on November 8th, or shortly thereafter.
Trump was commenting on the revelation by Wikileaks on Monday that CNN commentator Donna Brazile, who is now the chair of the Democratic
National Committee, had been caught again passing debate questions from the network to the Clinton campaign during the Democratic
primary.
Brazile had been exposed earlier doing the same - passing a question to the Clinton campaign in advance of a town hall debate
against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
At the time, Brazile was not yet DNC chair, but was a regular CNN contributor.
CNN
fired Brazile on Monday, releasing a statement: ""We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions
with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor."
Their IT guy, Justin Cooper I believe, put spyware on Bill's phone (per Chelsea in one of the
Wikileaks emails) and also embezzled CF money (again, per Chelsea).
Also, he's apparently kind of dim as he had to get IT advice from Reddit. So either JC was
deep undercover for the feds and he set them up, or, when Huma was working from home during his
pregnancy he set up auto-sync on her devices. Or...if they were using iPhones and Macs, they idiot
proof syncing and it happens without someone who isn't computer literate even knowing.
The most likely scenario IMO is simply hubris and stupidity. IT guy set that laptop on auto-sync,
they forgot about it when the FBI came calling the first time because that computer had fallen
into Weiner's sticky fingers full-time for a few years by that point.
Carelessness and poor judgement seem most likely here--remember thesee folks can get the best
Google IT people to their home anytime to deal with their IT needs. They could have gotten the
best people at the NSA. They didn't even get the best guy out of the phone book. As their colleagues
say in various Wikileaked emails, they have terrible judgement.....
"... In the second act of this movie, Comey learns that the Weiner laptop had emails that were so damning it would be a crime against the public to allow them to vote without first seeing a big red flag. And a flag was the best he could do because it was too early in the investigation to leak out bits and pieces of the evidence. That would violate Clinton's rights. ..."
"... In this movie, Comey did the hero thing. He alerted the public to the fact that the FBI found DISQUALIFYING information on the Weiner laptop. And he took a second bullet to his reputation. ..."
"... I start by assuming Comey is the same man now as the one who was carefully vetted before being hired to protect the integrity of one of our most important institutions. And even Comey's critics concede he's smart. ..."
"... The way you know the new emails are disqualifying for Clinton is because otherwise our hero would have privately informed Congress and honored the tradition of not influencing elections. Comey is smart enough to know his options. And unless he suddenly turned rotten at his current age, he's got the character to jump in front of a second bullet for the Republic. ..."
I'm hearing several interpretations for these two observations:
1. Comey seemed pro -Clinton when he dropped the initial email case.
2. Comey seems anti -Clinton this week because he announced a new round of investigations
right before the election.
How can both behaviors be explained? Or, as I like to ask, which movie does the best job of explaining
our observations and also predicting the future?
Some say Comey is a political pawn in a rigged system. By that movie script we can explain why
he dropped the initial email case. But we can't explain why he's acting against Clinton's interests
now. What changed?
Well, some say Comey had to reopen the case against Clinton after discovering the Weiner laptop
emails. If he failed to act, there might be a revolt at the FBI and maybe a whistleblower would come
forward. But that leaves unexplained why Comey detailed to Congress how Clinton appeared to be guilty
of crimes at the same time he said the FBI was dropping the case. If Comey had been protecting Clinton
on the first round, he would have softened his description of her misdeeds, wouldn't he? But he didn't
seem to hold back anything.
And none of those hypotheses explain why the people who know Comey have high regard for his integrity.
Comey also has the security of a 10-year appointment as Director, so he has a low chance of getting
fired or politically influenced. That's exactly why the job has a 10-year term. Given what we know
of Comey before any of the Clinton emails, any movie that casts Comey as an ass-covering weasel is
probably making a casting mistake.
So allow me to offer an interpretation of events that casts Comey as more of a patriot and hero
than an ass-covering weasel. Compare my interpretation with whatever movie you have in your head
and see which one works best for explaining and predicting.
My movie says Comey had good evidence against Clinton during the initial investigation but made
a judgment call to leave the decision to the American public. For reasons of conscience, and acting
as a patriot, Comey explained in clear language to the public exactly what evidence the FBI found
against Clinton. The evidence looked damning because it was. Under this interpretation, Comey took
a bullet to his reputation for the sake of the Republic. He didn't want the FBI to steal this important
decision away from the people, but at the same time he couldn't let the people decide blind. So he
divulged the evidence and stepped away, like the action hero who doesn't look back at the explosion.
In the second act of this movie, Comey learns that the Weiner laptop had emails that were so damning
it would be a crime against the public to allow them to vote without first seeing a big red flag.
And a flag was the best he could do because it was too early in the investigation to leak out bits
and pieces of the evidence. That would violate Clinton's rights.
But Comey couldn't easily raise a red flag to warn the public because it was against FBI policy
to announce a criminal investigation about a candidate so close to election day. So Comey had a choice
of either taking another bullet for the Republic or screwing the very country that
he has spent his career protecting.
In this movie, Comey did the hero thing. He alerted the public to the fact that the FBI found
DISQUALIFYING information on the Weiner laptop. And he took a second bullet to his
reputation.
How do I know the new emails are that bad?
I start by assuming Comey is the same man now as the one who was carefully vetted before being
hired to protect the integrity of one of our most important institutions. And even Comey's critics
concede he's smart.
So…
The way you know the new emails are disqualifying for Clinton is because otherwise our hero would
have privately informed Congress and honored the tradition of not influencing elections. Comey is
smart enough to know his options. And unless he suddenly turned rotten at his current age, he's got
the character to jump in front of a second bullet for the Republic.
According to this movie, no matter who gets elected, we'll eventually learn of something disqualifying
in the Weiner emails.
And we can't say we weren't warned. Comey took two bullets to do it.
So compare this movie to your own movie and see which one does the best job of explaining the
observed facts. And when we find out what is in the Weiner laptop emails, compare that news to my
prediction that the information is disqualifying.
The Persuasion Filter says there is no prefered reality. We all see our own movies. In my movie,
Comey's has a consistent personality from start to finish. He starts out his career as a smart, competent
patriot and he later proves it by taking two bullets for the Republic. If your movie script has Comey
suddenly changing his basic character for this election season, don't expect an Oscar.
Twelve facts reveal what everyone needs to know about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's
email server.
Those twelve facts consist of:
On October 3, FBI agents
seized a laptop, an iPhone, and an iPad from disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner,
as part of the investigation into a report that he was sexting a 15-year-old girl. While searching
the laptop, FBI agents uncovered new emails that are likely connected to the agency's investigation
of Hillary Clinton's private email server. The laptop was used by Anthony Weiner and his wife
Huma Abedin and
reportedly has 650,000 emails on it. Earlier in the investigation, Huma Abedin
swore under oath in a deposition that she had turned over the devices that may have been used
to email Clinton: two laptops, a BlackBerry, files she found in her apartment. Huma Abedin reportedly
did not know about emails that were on the computer the FBI discovered. "The possibility that
this device contains any emails of hers is news to her," a source familiar with the investigation
told CNN . Anthony Weiner is cooperating with the FBI's investigation, according to Fox News
anchor Bret
Baier . FBI Director James Comey was
reportedly informed about the new emails last Thursday. He notified Congress the following
day. Comey had testified to Congress that the investigation was complete. He sent a letter on
Friday to both Democrats and Republican members of Congress to clarify that the case remained
open. Justice Department officials tried to stop James Comey from sending the letter, according
to the
New York Times , warning that it would be a break of longstanding policy. Investigators
believe that some of the emails deleted from Hillary Clinton's private server are on this laptop,
according
to CNN . Many of the emails were "either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs.
Clinton's home," according to the
Wall Street Journal . Officials received a
court order during the weekend to investigate the emails. The process has begun, but it will
take weeks, according to several sources.
Again, if you really believed that Hillary ever had a 12 point lead over Trump I've got
news for you. Functionally tied even with a +8 Dem oversampling. Brace for a Trumpslide.
This was even BEFORE the FBI announcement.
I found a
surprisingly good article on BBC news this morning addressing whether Trump can pull off
the election. The poor predictions of Brexit vote outcome have clearly raised concerns
about polling accuracy. A key point was that "Some 2.8 million people - about 6% of the
electorate - who had not voted for decades, if ever, turned up at the polling stations on
23 June and almost all of them voted to leave the EU."
The article covers a broad range of issues raising uncertainty in elections like the
impact of cellphone use and the increasing reluctance of the public to answer surveys.
It suggests that there is probably more uncertainty in all of the presidential race
polling than is being admitted – with some emphasis on the limits of "proprietary 'likely
voter' models used by most polling companies. The article ends quoting Nate Silver
suggesting that many pollsters have not factored enough uncertainty into their models..
Huma Abedin has VOIDED her immunity deal with the FBI. She will be facing jail time or give up
dirt on Hillary Clinton. Hillary has got to be crying big ol' gator tears right about now…
Huma Abedin has been by Hillary's side for a long time. After those emails were found on her husband
Anthony Weiner's computer. Hillary Clinton does not want her around anymore. According to Hillary's
campaign, Abedin is now sitting in a different section of the plane when it was traveling to Florida.
"... Abedin was deeply involved with the establishment of Hillary's private email server, which was used for all of her work as Secretary of State. Now, since we know Hillary had hundreds of classified or top-secret documents on her vulnerable server (despite her early lies saying she did not), any faith in Huma's judgment - at the very least - has been demolished. You will soon ask yourself, "how did this woman get a security clearance?" ..."
"... There is no doubt that she and Hillary have an extremely close relationship. She has been loyal and faithful to Hillary for twenty years. "I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would be Huma." So spoke Hillary in 2010. She even visited with Huma's mother Saleha in Saudi Arabia in 2011, telling her that Huma's position was "very important and sensitive." Saleha is reportedly an outspoken advocate for genital mutilation for girls in the Islamic world. ..."
"... One exception to this was the February 2016 issue of Vanity Fair . Author William D Cohen's story, titled "Is Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton's Secret Weapon or Her Next Big Problem?" tackled some of the issues I have gone over in this piece. It was well written, informative, and controversial. The backlash was immediate. ..."
Chic gal pal? Mild mannered politician's wife? Harmless clotheshorse? Saudi plant? Innocent aide?
Handler?
Huma Abedin is Vice Chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. But Huma is more, much
more than that. She is the person closest to the most powerful woman in American politics and perhaps
the next President. Huma has been described variously as Hillary's "body woman," a sort of glorified
go-to personal maid, gentle confidant, and by others as an Islamic spy. She may be all of these things,
because as we shall see, Huma Abedin has an interesting and complex career history.
Abedin was
deeply involved with the establishment of Hillary's private email server, which was used for
all of her work as Secretary of State. Now, since we know Hillary had hundreds of classified or top-secret
documents on her vulnerable server (despite her early lies saying she did not), any faith in Huma's
judgment - at the very least - has been demolished. You will soon ask yourself, "how did this woman
get a security clearance?"
She was born Huma Mahmood Abedin in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her father, Syed Zainul Abedin,
was Indian and born in New Delhi. In the early 1970s, he was affiliated with the Muslim Students
Association at Western Michigan University. The Muslim Students Association or MSA was
started in 1963 by
Saudi Arabia's biggest charity, the Muslim World League,
a group formed
and funded by the Kingdom to spread Islam throughout the world.
... ... ...
There were several issues being investigated both internally by the State Department and Sen.
Charles Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee for
conflicts of interest and embezzlement . She filed inaccurate time sheets overpaying herself
$10,000. Mr. Grassley has also questioned whether the deal with Abedin really met the requirements
for a special government employee status. One of those requirements is that someone's work as a contractor
be different enough from the original job to warrant giving the person contractor status. Documents
acquired by the Washington Times show that she told State officials that she planned to do the same
kind of work as an SGE that she did as Deputy Chief of Staff.
She became part of Hillary's transition team in 2013, helping her to return to private life. She
continued her work at the Clinton Foundation and set up her own consulting firm,
Zain Endeavors LLC .
On October 16, 2015, Abedin
testified in a closed session before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, in a session that
was expected to focus on the 2012 Benghazi attack during which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens
and three other Americans were killed. She said, "I came here today to be as helpful as I could be
to the committee. I wanted to honor the service of those lost and injured in the Benghazi attacks,"
adding she was "honored" to work for Clinton at State and "proud" of her service there. Representative
Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican panel member, said Abedin frequently answered questions with responses
of "'I don't remember' and 'I don't recollect.'"
There is no doubt that she and Hillary have an extremely close relationship. She has been loyal
and faithful to Hillary for twenty years. "I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it
would be Huma." So spoke Hillary in 2010. She even visited with Huma's mother Saleha in Saudi Arabia
in 2011, telling her that Huma's position was "very important and sensitive." Saleha is reportedly
an outspoken advocate for genital mutilation for girls in the Islamic world.
So how has the media dealt with Huma Abedin? In short, they haven't. The family's critics have
been attacked and labeled as conspiracy theorists.
One exception to this was the February 2016 issue of Vanity Fair . Author William D Cohen's
story, titled "Is Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton's Secret Weapon or Her Next Big Problem?" tackled
some of the issues I have gone over in this piece. It was well written, informative, and controversial.
The backlash was immediate.
"... I watch the Post twist itself into a pretzel, trying to explain, carefully walking through this latest Clinton mess, picking certain facts, ignoring others, not asking the obvious questions ..."
"... In a previous release of information as a result of a Freedom of Information suit, it became known that Huma Abedin had forwarded emails from Clinton's private email server, to Ms. Abedin's personal yahoo email account. ..."
"... I understand that Mrs. Clinton was SOS for four years. Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? ..."
"... And what of the 30,000 destroyed (by Clinton) emails? The only thing that makes sense, is that the newly discovered emails include some of the missing emails. ..."
"... "We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are..." ..."
As I watch the Post twist itself into a pretzel, trying to explain, carefully walking through
this latest Clinton mess, picking certain facts, ignoring others, not asking the obvious questions
(e.g. are some of the emails found on Weiner's laptop copies of the 30,000 emails that Clinton
destroyed, even though she was under subpoena to turn them over to the State Dept.?) it makes
me believe that there is not an honest, moral, trustworthy person, left in our government, our
political leadership, or our press corps.
In a previous release of information as a result of a Freedom of Information suit, it became known
that Huma Abedin had forwarded emails from Clinton's private email server, to Ms. Abedin's personal
yahoo email account.
The new bit of news today, is that the FBI found TENS OF THOUSANDS of Clinton
related emails on Weiner's (shared with Abedin?) laptop. I understand that Mrs. Clinton was SOS
for four years. Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? I don't think it
can be a batch operation, they must have been forwarded individually. And what of the 30,000 destroyed
(by Clinton) emails? The only thing that makes sense, is that the newly discovered emails include
some of the missing emails. As Carl Bernstein (one of the two original Post reporters who broke
the Watergate story, which led to Nixon's resignation) said yesterday:
"We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that
the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to
the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified
e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation.
So that's where we are..."
Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended
up on a device she viewed as her husband's computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton
email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over
the matter.
The person, who would not discuss the case unless granted anonymity, said Abedin was not a
regular user of the computer, and even when she agreed to turn over emails to the State Department
for federal records purposes, her lawyers did not search it for materials, not believing any of her
messages to be there.
….
Abedin told the FBI in an interview in April that her attorneys asked for guidance from the State
Department on how to conduct that review but did not receive a response.
Summarizing Abedin's interview, FBI agents wrote that she told them the attorneys "erred on
the side of caution and opted to include anything that they were unsure about."
In a sworn deposition in June, Abedin said she "looked for all the devices that may have any
of my State Department work on it and returned - returned - gave them to my attorneys for them to
review for all relevant documents."
============================================================= Curiouser and curiouser.
Sherlock Holmes: How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
We have a Russian Weiner in our computers…
And in an abundance of caution, I am checking my drawers…
"... I have to take the same or similar training as Hillary Clinton must have taken when she was secretary of state. The difference is that I do not have selective memory like Hillary nor am I a pathological liar. If I had done what Hillary has done no doubt I would be in federal prison! ..."
"... IMO either one is disqualifying to be President of the United States. Her extraordinary incompetence need not rise to the level of criminality. The court of public opinion is not a court of law, and candidates running for public office are judged in the court of public opinion accordingly. ..."
"... Apparently Weiner is "cooperating" with the FBI, which gives them the right to search emails on the laptop without an additional warrant... including the Abedin emails. I would likely think this would involve a plea deal for Weiner for throwing Abedin and Hillary under the bus. Despicable , but this is Weiner we're talking about. ..."
I work with classified data and create derivative classifications as part of my job as a civilian
with the Navy. Classified information is a pain in the ass, but it has to be dealt with properly
and securely. That is why we have SIPRNET to e-mail classified data.
The SIPRNET system forces a header at the top of all e-mail messages stating the classification
level and if foreign nationalities can view the data, etc. Additonally when creating a derivative
classification one has to consult the security classification guide for the program and mark the
data properly in any files.
I have to take the same or similar training as Hillary Clinton must have taken when she was
secretary of state. The difference is that I do not have selective memory like Hillary nor am
I a pathological liar. If I had done what Hillary has done no doubt I would be in federal prison!
IMO either one is disqualifying to be President of the United States. Her extraordinary incompetence
need not rise to the level of criminality. The court of public opinion is not a court of law,
and candidates running for public office are judged in the court of public opinion accordingly.
What may have been confusing you is that POP3 clients (generally speaking, unless told NOT
to) remove e-mail from the server and keep it locally. IMAP and MS Exchange can do that too but
you have to take extra configuration steps to ensure that the client removes the mail and stores
it locally (instead of the e-mail simultaneously residing on both the client and the server).
Apparently Weiner is "cooperating" with the FBI, which gives them the right to search emails
on the laptop without an additional warrant... including the Abedin emails. I would likely think
this would involve a plea deal for Weiner for throwing Abedin and Hillary under the bus. Despicable
, but this is Weiner we're talking about.
This morning the FBI also secured a warrant for the notebook, so warrant-less search is no
longer an issue to discuss. It has also been reported that there are somewhere around 650,000
emails to sort through between Weiner's and Abedin's emails. That has to be a very distasteful
task.. separating the wheat from the shaft.
I believe the first one indicates this scenario is unfolding:
1. laptop went with Weiner when they split, so the FBI did not review it during the initial
investigation. (Gross incompetence on their part.)
2. In the later investigation for Weiner's weenie wagging the FBI obtained the laptop and reviewed
HIS emails. In the process they found some to or from HER, most likely in a separate login account.
The warrant they were using for his investigation did not apply to the Clinton investigation,
and they passed the observation up the chain of command but did not read those emails (or will
not admit to reading them.)
which brings us to today
3. Huma says she doesn't know what is on that laptop and does not know how any of her emails
got there.
We have been speculating previously about what mail protocols were used. The presence of
a large number of emails when she expected none suggests to me that at some point she borrowed
his machine to check her emails. (Hers being on the blink or left at the office or some such thing.)
The email client used may have employed IMAP and while she thought it was just showing her the
couple of emails she needed to look at, in the background it was downloading a full copy of each
folder she accessed. She may not have expected that because on her machine whichever email client
this was was configured to not make local copies.
"... The US has one thing in common with the UK. A massive hidden disenfranchised underclass, who are often unemployed or underemployed . He will get that vote, just as brexit did, and the reason he invited Farage over was because he knows this. ..."
"... When you see all the corruption and fraud that goes on around the world by the wealthy and powerful you see that change by grass root movements doesn't stand a chance. ..."
"... Politicians with their nepotism and cronyism , CEO's, Bankers/Hedge Funnd Managers, Big Business, Big Pharma, Lobbyists, Industrialists, Multi-Nationals...all part part of a Global Cabal that doesn't care about the poor or the working class. ..."
"... it is my belief that they are already relatively certain that at least one State Department email with classified information, and perhaps many more, reside on a laptop computer owned by Anthony Weiner and used by him to exchange sexually explicit content with supposedly underage women -- and I say "supposedly" because posing as an available member of the opposite sex is a common clandestine maneuver. ..."
"... The war candidate is and always has been Hillary. Never met a war she didn't like. Trump OTOH is much more interested in money than in war. He is an isolationist. It's one reason I like his platform, I am tired of the wars. Hillary would continue them. ..."
"... The problem with Hillary (which the DNC should have thought about as they sabotaged Bernie Sander's bid in the primaries) is that there is more then enough kindling in her background to create a decent fire....and lots and lots of smoke! ..."
"... exactly - enough skeletons in her closet to fill a good sized cemetery. ..."
"... "Pseudo-scandal"? Or pseduo-journalism. Richard Wolffe's credibility as a journalist just went up in flames. If you want to read Hillary Clinton's media releases, cut out the middle man and go directly to her campaign website. ..."
"... Clinton is unpopular because, at the innermost core, she's unlikable. Sort of an evil stepmother type who's trying to look more motherly. ..."
"... Into this mess is the media, which refuses to provide serious discussion and analysis over important economic, social, environmental and foreign policy issues. Instead it turns everything into theatre with a focus on sex scandals, rumours, hair cuts and what the candidate is wearing. ..."
"... Elections are being won or lost on wafer thin margins because the choice of candidate are so poor. Policy is ignored or even mostly absent. Instead we have what is little better than a game show. ..."
"... It is like a choice between Pepsi and Coke, whatever choice you make you only get highly sugared and fizzy lolly water that won't do your health any good in the long run. ..."
"... Perhaps all politicians close to an election should be immune from the law for a period? ..."
"... No spin from the neoliberal establishment will save their queen Hillary. ..."
"... Because we're talking about the Big Circumcised Weiner, someone who self-identifies as "a perpetually horny middle-aged man", we've got the fun prospects of one or more sex crimes, along with volumes of sorta' consensual sex, being documented among the, possibly, famous and the soon to famous; and a little wealthier too. ..."
"... When the the swamp is drained the American people will be shocked and sickened by the crimes of the people behind the so-called progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin that the bankster cabal sent among the people to destroy the United States. By all means, the corrupt politicians and their masters must be investigated. So too the people who run the disgusting corporate media and scurrilous vermin behind groups like "Media Matters" "Open Societies" etc. etc. etc. ..."
"... The trouble with your argument is that the Conservative side has analogous front organisations backed by oil and other interest groups which are intent on imposing their will regardless of the popular will. The Conservatives have indeed been outgunned by the Liberal mafia this time. ..."
"... " progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin"... How are the "bankster cabal" you conjure in any way progressive and/or socialist? Do you have any clue, or are these just two of your go-to slurs? ..."
"... She doesn't mind the disgusting behaviour and carryings-on of Trump being exposed before an election and it shouldn't be any different for her either. We hear a lot about the accusations against Donald Trump in this country and we don't hear much about what Hillary has done with all her emails or what is alleged to have been written in them. ..."
"... You have got to be joking. How about the War in Yemen, 90% + casualty rates with drone strikes and targeted assassination, Saudi Arabia weapons deals, vetoing JASTA, War in Syria and Libya disaster, NSA surveillance continuing, Civil Asset forfeiture equitable sharing program, NDAA 2012 - 17 including indefinite detention and now women's draft, 2nd Amendment infringement and calls for Australian gun control , Guantanamo still open, still pursuing REAL ID, TSA groping, Biometric database and associated ID card to track movements 24/7, Militarization of the police under 1033 program, Federal government procurement of Stingrays and ALPR readers, smart meter program spying, CISA, IRS and Fast and Furious scandals, prosecution of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, pursuance of TPP, TISA and TTIP ? ..."
"... "The latest pseudo-scandal to hit Clinton is unlikely to rob her of the presidency. But it sure isn't going to impress voters already sickened by a shocking campaign." ..."
"... Even a number of actions such as the possible destruction of 31,000 emails and several mobiles after receiving a Congressional subpoena to produce them was not enough to persuade him otherwise. ..."
"... A reasonable conclusion must be the latest criminal investigation concerns not the finding of these additional emails but the actual content of the emails. This matter therefore -far from a pseudo-scandal- must take a very serious form if it causes the FBI at this acutely sensitive time for the election to reopen criminal investigations. ..."
"... Comey has not re-opened the investigation, he simply notified Congress he is looking at "newly obtained info" to determine what it is and how should something be found) it might relate to a decision to re-open the investigation. Basically he is simply covering his ass, although, he now screwed that up and has Justice on his ass also calling for him to make a full disclosure. He will have to make public the info or possibly face a Justice Department investigation of his agency. Major error on his part. ..."
"... How many "non-stories" did Hillary generate in her lifetime? 50? 100? 200? It seems to me that wherever she goes, a "non-story" or two is sure to follow. This may be a non-story that broke the camel's back. Yes, Virginia, you can politically die of one "non-story" too many. ..."
"... Are they a banana republic? They are a great power, correct me if I'm wrong. ..."
"... It's bad enough that the 47 year old Jennifer Lopez, dressed in boots and suspenders is prancing about on stage in Miami. But she brings onto the stage the almost 70 year old Hillary Clinton who, as one of the worst speakers in political history, has the crowd silenced within seconds as she rants about how "we're not going to let Donald Trump get away with it". ..."
"... Her campaign is a fucking joke and they and the MSM are trying to sell this fetid pile of shit to the whole world ..."
"... Obama, Hillary, the Clinton Foundation, and Wall Street decided eight years ago she would be president in 2017. Americans are fed up with that sort of bullshit. ..."
"... Clinton's attacks on Russia are deeply worrying. I have no doubt at all that she'll try and impose a no fly zone in Syria, which will mean direct confrontation, risking an all out war. This woman is a warmonger and she needs to be stopped. ..."
"... People, this whole thing is merely a diversion to move attention from corruption in high places, onto Huma and Anthony Weiner. Comey's had to do something to move attention from the fact that Obama lied to the people, he lied to Congress concerning not knowing about Clinton's private e-mail arrangement and even used a pseudonym to connect with her. This is public knowledge now and not speculation. ..."
"... Clinton will make sure that the NWO gains control. It is being implemented in the background as all this is going. Many people are not the least bit interested in how their children are being brainwashed, how borders have been dissolved, how Obama has been quietly taking unilateral control of government. It seems that they will sit through the pantomime that is this election enjoying every diversionary twist, then when Clinton is elected, they will be unaware that the tentacles of the enemy of the people have penetrated every compartment of government. Vote for Clinton and you are voting for a one world government. There is a war going on and it is truly a battle between good and evil! God help the world. ..."
I think the reason people don't like Obama is because he has bombed 7 countries. Maybe Clinton
can get to 8 if she goes after Russia.
NotKindOrGentle 29 Oct 2016 17:52
How do the Americans ever get anything done when 18 months of their electoral cycle is taken
up with campaigning for the next one.
riggbeck -> NotKindOrGentle 29 Oct 2016 18:13
Then there's the lunacy of mid-term elections. Four years isn't very long for a president to
deliver on major election promises, yet the constitution potentially halves that time with the
threat of losing majorities in the House of Representatives or the Senate.
Checks and balances turn into gridlock.
GeeDeeSea 29 Oct 2016 17:54
It's not the FBI that made her use a private e-mail account. It's not the FBI that decided
to install a private server. Get real. These were her decisions in an attempt to conceal her activities
while in public office.
Preparetobeoffended 29 Oct 2016 17:58
And so it goes on.
Clinton, still heading for the White House? What planet are you on!
Will Bernie supporters vote for Clinton knowing the Democrats conspired to steal the nomination
from him. Will they, really.
Will Wikileaks and Project Veritas`s most damning offerings be ignored by these sheep with hands
covering ears yelling I`m not listening! Will they, really.
Trump is the less frightening of two frightening options, but at least he has going for him the
fact that he has tenaciously attacked the corruption clear to all capable of an independent thought.
Trump is going to win, and going to win comfortably. Get used to it.
GeeDeeSea 29 Oct 2016 18:01
2006 Audio Emerges of Hillary Clinton Proposing Rigging Palestine Election
"I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think
that was a big mistake," said Sen. Clinton. "And if we were going to push for an election, then
we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win."
We don't know what the emails are, I wouldn't expect us to. If there's an investigation then
you don't release confidential information. But the information that we have gleaned from Wikileaks
shows that the State authorities have been involved in shutting things down, as has the Clinton
campaign and we know that a large and suspicious payment was made to a close relative of an investigator.
We also know that the IRS has been used over a period in a partisan manner to the disadvantage
of the Republicans and that the previous decision on the emails not to take action was met with
incredulity within the FBI.
If the FBI is making this announcement now then it must have discovered something that has worried
it. It made the announcement soon after the matter arose as it should have done given that this
is a very important piece of information of which voters need to be aware.
The press to date has handled Clinton with kid gloves and it still wants to do so. Fortunately
the revelations coming out and probably the true polls have been making them think again and so
they are allowing a little doubt to enter their coverage.
Hopefully this will be the end of the Clinton campaign, but with the money, contacts and other
resources available to it there will be an immense effort, from the State and campaign, to blacken
the reputation of a body which previously has served Clinton so well.
absentlyadjustable 29 Oct 2016 18:16
Can I point out as well how biased the reporting of the Presidential campaign has been in the
UK? Most of the media have been acting as the publicity wing of the Democrats and the only people
to be interviewed, especially on the BBC, seem to have been from the liberal Clinton supporting
press
AndyPandy1968 29 Oct 2016 18:29
I am sorry to say my personal feeling is that this is the last straw and Trump will win.
I don't support him but he is not stupid, and he was running too close for comfort even before
this. He is not playing to the Guardian, he is playing to an American audience, many of whom have
a totally different view of the world.
The US has one thing in common with the UK. A massive hidden disenfranchised underclass, who
are often unemployed or underemployed . He will get that vote, just as brexit did, and the reason
he invited Farage over was because he knows this.
That is why he says these clumsy things. Not because he is stupid. He says them because he is
playing to that audience. It is deliberate.
Let's hope I am wrong.
DogsLivesMatter 29 Oct 2016 18:31
When you see all the corruption and fraud that goes on around the world by the wealthy
and powerful you see that change by grass root movements doesn't stand a chance.
Politicians with their nepotism and cronyism , CEO's, Bankers/Hedge Funnd Managers, Big
Business, Big Pharma, Lobbyists, Industrialists, Multi-Nationals...all part part of a Global Cabal
that doesn't care about the poor or the working class.
Even the UN and WHO are stacked with those who have influential connections. Pay to Play has
become the norm. What choice does anyone have anymore other than going with the devil you know?
None!
Sappho53 29 Oct 2016 18:35
The world wants a complete investigation into the illegal Iraq War with consequences. The world
is still reeling form this Republican LIE and it has cost US allies dearly in lives, finances,
and terrorism. The Republicans have hidden from the biggest scandal of the past one hundred years.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice must answer and so must all of their supporters in the Republican
Party.
Glenn Smith 29 Oct 2016 18:40
Contrary to your interpretation, Mr. Wolffe, I think the FBI's brave action is going to have
precisely the result of denying Hillary the election, and justifiably so (and not that I think
Trump is any better): it is my belief that they are already relatively certain that at least
one State Department email with classified information, and perhaps many more, reside on a laptop
computer owned by Anthony Weiner and used by him to exchange sexually explicit content with supposedly
underage women -- and I say "supposedly" because posing as an available member of the opposite
sex is a common clandestine maneuver.
providenciales -> BlueberryCompote 29 Oct 2016 19:12
Actually, people will be able to buy the insurance they can afford and that they want if we
get rid of Obamacare. You wouldn't like unaffordable insurance with deductibles that mean you
don't have any coverage either.
Trump has already said who he would nominate to SCOTUS so you can't scaremonger on that score.
He gave a list in fact.
The war candidate is and always has been Hillary. Never met a war she didn't like. Trump OTOH
is much more interested in money than in war. He is an isolationist. It's one reason I like his
platform, I am tired of the wars. Hillary would continue them.
Casey13 29 Oct 2016 18:51
Once Hillary is elected the whole stinking cesspit of Clinton Inc will start crashing down
around her in a hodgepodge of scandals that make Watergate look like Jay walking. She will be
Impeached within a year.
JavaZee 29 Oct 2016 18:56
The problem with Hillary (which the DNC should have thought about as they sabotaged Bernie
Sander's bid in the primaries) is that there is more then enough kindling in her background to
create a decent fire....and lots and lots of smoke!
boxcarwillie -> JavaZee 29 Oct 2016 19:08
exactly - enough skeletons in her closet to fill a good sized cemetery.
Theleme1532 29 Oct 2016 19:03
"Pseudo-scandal"? Or pseduo-journalism. Richard Wolffe's credibility as a journalist just
went up in flames. If you want to read Hillary Clinton's media releases, cut out the middle man
and go directly to her campaign website.
boxcarwillie 29 Oct 2016 19:06
Clinton is unpopular because, at the innermost core, she's unlikable. Sort of an evil stepmother
type who's trying to look more motherly. doesn't work. with that said, the article is right
- this has been a dumpster fire campaign and i'll be glad to see it over. i doubt HRC will make
good on any of her campaign promises, but i would be afraid Trump would. Hope it's better next
time. Bernie would be 78, but that's not as old as it used to be.
Reality_Man 29 Oct 2016 19:14
On the web I read that the NY FBI office is in open rebellion with the DC FBI and that during
the Antony Wiener investigation they found classified emails on a shared laptop PC. Who knows
maybe Huma will be under arrest before November the 8th. One way or another it was done for a
reason I would suggest that the FBI is still a law enforcement agency not a political organization.
As the end of the Obama administration comes to pass it's only natural that the Chinese made him
get out of the back of air force one to show a lack of respect and other countries and agencies
may be showing what they feel. Strong Together may not work if Huma is separated from her baby.
She just may sing terrified bird. Just Saying.
Arcane 29 Oct 2016 19:15
This election is a sad reflection on the current state of democracy across much of the Western
World. The major political parties are so compromised with insider politics and a lack of genuine
concern for the long-term benefit of the voters they purport to represent that they keep on producing
candidates of the worst quality.
Into this mess is the media, which refuses to provide serious discussion and analysis over
important economic, social, environmental and foreign policy issues. Instead it turns everything
into theatre with a focus on sex scandals, rumours, hair cuts and what the candidate is wearing.
Our democracies - not just in the United States but around the world - are under threat from this
same malaise. It starts with political parties that care more about protecting the interests of
a few insiders and influential interest groups. These political movements no longer appeal to
the majority of voters.
Elections are being won or lost on wafer thin margins because the choice of candidate are
so poor. Policy is ignored or even mostly absent. Instead we have what is little better than a
game show.
It is like a choice between Pepsi and Coke, whatever choice you make you only get highly sugared
and fizzy lolly water that won't do your health any good in the long run.
BlueberryCompote -> Arcane 29 Oct 2016 19:22
You've got to admit, however, that America has the worst and most extreme version of this problem
with little sign of anyway out.
bookworm7 29 Oct 2016 19:29
This raises the obvious question: what on earth was the FBI director thinking when he
dropped his letter on Friday making it crystal clear that he knew nothing?
He said the investigation was being re-opened in the light of new evidence. If the investigators
'knew everything' why would they investigate? The above is a piece of sophistry conflating the
knowledge of the facts with the knowledge that the facts are to be investigated.
I can see how the timing looks suspect, but consider the alternative; if he knew about the new
evidence necessitating the re-opening of the investigation, and withheld telling Congress on purpose
because Clinton was a politician close to an electron, would this also not look bad? Could he
not be accused of withholding pertinent information for political purposes?
Perhaps all politicians close to an election should be immune from the law for a period?
PlayaGiron 29 Oct 2016 19:32
No spin from the neoliberal establishment will save their queen Hillary.
Gangoffour -> Bifocal 29 Oct 2016 20:52
Because we're talking about the Big Circumcised Weiner, someone who self-identifies as
"a perpetually horny middle-aged man", we've got the fun prospects of one or more sex crimes,
along with volumes of sorta' consensual sex, being documented among the, possibly, famous and
the soon to famous; and a little wealthier too.
I'm sure it's a lot easier to pick up honey pots when they provide a sympathetic shoulder to snuggle
into because your wife refuses to satisfy your needs since she's doing all of Hillary's work.
Who wouldn't want to be part of the Clinton matchmaking machine?
Berkeley2013 29 Oct 2016 20:22
Mr Wolffe writes:
"From the Clinton Foundation to the private email server, from Benghazi to Weiner, from
Whitewater to Monica, the list is as long as it is utterly spurious. Whatever crumbs of wrongdoing
there may be, they don't amount to something worthy of Watergate, or even the myriad gate-suffixed
scandals since. Questionable behavior is not the same as criminal or even impeachable conduct."
How could anything involving the protocols and laws regarding national security communications
be called "spurious?"
How can anything involving many separate pieces of DoS communication be called "crumbs of wrongdoing?"
gladiointurkey 29 Oct 2016 20:41
When the the swamp is drained the American people will be shocked and sickened by the crimes
of the people behind the so-called progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin
that the bankster cabal sent among the people to destroy the United States. By all means, the
corrupt politicians and their masters must be investigated. So too the people who run the disgusting
corporate media and scurrilous vermin behind groups like "Media Matters" "Open Societies" etc.
etc. etc.
BlueberryCompote -> gladiointurkey 29 Oct 2016 20:45
The trouble with your argument is that the Conservative side has analogous front organisations
backed by oil and other interest groups which are intent on imposing their will regardless of
the popular will. The Conservatives have indeed been outgunned by the Liberal mafia this time.
nostrobo -> gladiointurkey 29 Oct 2016 20:57
" progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin"... How are the "bankster
cabal" you conjure in any way progressive and/or socialist? Do you have any clue, or are these
just two of your go-to slurs?
AdamEdward88 29 Oct 2016 21:10
She doesn't mind the disgusting behaviour and carryings-on of Trump being exposed before
an election and it shouldn't be any different for her either. We hear a lot about the accusations
against Donald Trump in this country and we don't hear much about what Hillary has done with all
her emails or what is alleged to have been written in them. I'd be quite interested to find
out what was in any she might have sent to Tony Blair. She hasn't got a good track record on the
Middle-East and we base our opinions in this country on a different set of media reports to people
in the US.
Starwars102 29 Oct 2016 21:11
The integrity of the Obama administration.
You have got to be joking. How about the War in Yemen, 90% + casualty rates with drone
strikes and targeted assassination, Saudi Arabia weapons deals, vetoing JASTA, War in Syria and
Libya disaster, NSA surveillance continuing, Civil Asset forfeiture equitable sharing program,
NDAA 2012 - 17 including indefinite detention and now women's draft, 2nd Amendment infringement
and calls for Australian gun control , Guantanamo still open, still pursuing REAL ID, TSA groping,
Biometric database and associated ID card to track movements 24/7, Militarization of the police
under 1033 program, Federal government procurement of Stingrays and ALPR readers, smart meter
program spying, CISA, IRS and Fast and Furious scandals, prosecution of Chelsea Manning, Julian
Assange, Edward Snowden, pursuance of TPP, TISA and TTIP ?
That list of problems was a mile long and there is probably a lot more I have not mentioned. Says
a lot about Obama's time in office.
mrjonno 29 Oct 2016 21:26
And we still look to the USA for leadership in the world? Give me a break. This is a country
that is responsible for destroying much of the world through the economic paradigm of neoliberalism
which has seen the introduction of economy based in 'throw away and buy new' along with 'dodgy
money' to create the 1% leading to resource overshoot. On current trends we are well in deficit.
From World Footprint -
Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue,
by the 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only
have one.
Neither Clinton nor Trump are suitable presidential material but when has the USA ever been
about being suitable for the world? Never.
BTW Earth Overshoot Day happened on August 8 this year. Since then we are using more than the
planet Earth can absorb or replenish. We are on a collision course with catastrophe.
Well done America....
unlywnted 29 Oct 2016 21:34
"The latest pseudo-scandal to hit Clinton is unlikely to rob her of the presidency.
But it sure isn't going to impress voters already sickened by a shocking campaign."
Pseudo-scandal??!! Where in Gods name are you coming from to arrive at that conclusion? FBI
Director Comey closed the file on further investigation a few months ago saying while Clinton's
casual handling of certain State Dept classified emails was reprehensible, he was not recommending
criminal action because there was an absence of any evidence she had acted with criminal intent.
Even a number of actions such as the possible destruction of 31,000 emails and several
mobiles after receiving a Congressional subpoena to produce them was not enough to persuade him
otherwise.
Yet now, despite clearly realising its dramatic effect on the impending presidential election
Comey informs all interested parties that the file on the criminal investigation is to be re-opened
because of new emails that have come to light. However, since his original ruling was that he
saw no criminal intent in Clinton's careless dissemination of State emails to private servers
it is difficult to understand why that ruling doesn't also cover the latest emails that presumably
are from Clinton's secretary's -or spouse- computer.
A reasonable conclusion must be the latest criminal investigation concerns not the finding
of these additional emails but the actual content of the emails. This matter therefore -far from
a pseudo-scandal- must take a very serious form if it causes the FBI at this acutely sensitive
time for the election to reopen criminal investigations.
OXIOXI20 -> unlywnted 29 Oct 2016 21:44
Comey informs all interested parties that the file on the criminal investigation is to be re-opened
because of new emails that have come to light.
NOT TRUE. That's the bullshit Trump is spewing. Comey has not re-opened the investigation,
he simply notified Congress he is looking at "newly obtained info" to determine what it is and
how should something be found) it might relate to a decision to re-open the investigation. Basically
he is simply covering his ass, although, he now screwed that up and has Justice on his ass also
calling for him to make a full disclosure. He will have to make public the info or possibly face
a Justice Department investigation of his agency. Major error on his part.
HerrPrincip -> sgwnmr 29 Oct 2016 22:38
How many "non-stories" did Hillary generate in her lifetime? 50? 100? 200? It seems to
me that wherever she goes, a "non-story" or two is sure to follow. This may be a non-story
that broke the camel's back. Yes, Virginia, you can politically die of one "non-story" too many.
pfox33 29 Oct 2016 22:13
Are they a banana republic? They are a great power, correct me if I'm wrong.
JuicyMinion 29 Oct 2016 22:15
It's bad enough that the 47 year old Jennifer Lopez, dressed in boots and suspenders is prancing
about on stage in Miami. But she brings onto the stage the almost 70 year old Hillary Clinton
who, as one of the worst speakers in political history, has the crowd silenced within seconds
as she rants about how "we're not going to let Donald Trump get away with it".
Her campaign is a fucking joke and they and the MSM are trying to sell this fetid pile
of shit to the whole world
antobojar -> JuicyMinion 29 Oct 2016 22:29
..Do you expect that declining empire, led by arrogant, corrupt and greedy "elite" can act
rationally..?
Look, who they chosen as a prospective saviours.. he he..
AveAtqueCave 29 Oct 2016 23:13
Obama, Hillary, the Clinton Foundation, and Wall Street decided eight years ago she would
be president in 2017. Americans are fed up with that sort of bullshit.
irishguy 30 Oct 2016 0:33
The author is baffled as to why the FBI has intervened this late in the election by opening
an apparent pseudo-scandal case against Clinton? Here's my theory why:
Maybe it's all about managing the psychology of the the majority voters through the media.
Maybe this whole episode has been orchestrated by the establishment (who want Clinton in);
is designed to go nowhere and allow Clinton to ultimately claim she was vindicated in the whole
email affair while at the same time with the purpose of maintaining a perceived sense of tension
in the minds of the US public in the run up to election day – in the sense that the election result
is not perceived to be a foregone conclusion already.
However, when you take a step back, it's not realistic to think Trump has a chance of getting
in at this point. He's alienated too much of the electorate already.
But the majority voters need to be made feel they're doing something positive by averting the
danger of Trump through voting Clinton – not simply voting for Clinton as the establishment's
chosen candidate in a foregone conclusion.
HarryFlashman 30 Oct 2016 1:26
Hillary Nixon. I mean would you buy a used car from her?
JVRTRL -> HarryFlashman 30 Oct 2016 3:19
It depends who the customer is. The Clintons have always taken very good care of their biggest
money donors. For ordinary people, it would be a bad idea. For their connected donors, it's a
completely different reality. The dealership and the other employees would have the problem, not
the rich and connected customer.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, would pawn off the lemons on unsuspecting customers, loot the
dealership purely for his own benefit, somehow get a tax credit for his trouble, and brag to the
world about what a smart and ethical guy he is.
europeangrayling 30 Oct 2016 1:35
Looks to me like the FBI got done taken over by Putin. This Putin guy, he is everywhere. Pike
fishing on horseback in Siberia while banging some hot Russian gold medal gymnast and overthrowing
the US government and running the FBI now. Putin is on a whole new level, he is changing the game.
And a few days ago, I got a pizza with hamburger and mushroom, and I didn't like it as much, the
regular mushroom one was better, and I said 'f-ing Putin man'. This guy, he did it again, made
me question myself and order that hamburger, meddling in our democracy. It was still OK, I ate
it, but that's 20 bucks I could have spent on a much better regular mushroom instead of that Russian
hamburger crap. Or at least put some chicken on it. Putin man.
furminator 30 Oct 2016 1:53
Anyway Howard Dean, you know primal scream Dean, is saying on his twitter that Comney is on
the side of Putin. Yes the Director of the FBI is really a Russian stooge, a sleeper agent. Poor
Hillary, the FBI, which is controlled by the Justice Department, which is controlled by the Obama
White House, is out to get her coz Russia. She's the victim of a vast right and left wing conspiracy.
Henrychan 30 Oct 2016 2:31
John Pilger's latest article:
"Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education –
Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia – and with careers on the BBC, the Guardian, the New York
Times, the Washington Post.
These organisations are known as the liberal media. They present themselves as enlightened, progressive
tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT.
And they love war.
While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless
women, including the right to life."
Clinton's attacks on Russia are deeply worrying. I have no doubt at all that she'll try
and impose a no fly zone in Syria, which will mean direct confrontation, risking an all out war.
This woman is a warmonger and she needs to be stopped.
Kess 30 Oct 2016 3:00
The media hasn't exactly cover itself in glory either. Throughout the nomination process Clinton
was given an incredibly easy ride. If the media (including the Guardian) had highlighted her issues
earlier then perhaps the DNC would'be been forced to nominate a candidate with a little more integrity,
and Trump wouldn't stand a chance.
BelieveItsTrue 30 Oct 2016 3:13
People, this whole thing is merely a diversion to move attention from corruption in
high places, onto Huma and Anthony Weiner. Comey's had to do something to move attention from
the fact that Obama lied to the people, he lied to Congress concerning not knowing about
Clinton's private e-mail arrangement and even used a pseudonym to connect with her. This is
public knowledge now and not speculation.
Of course HC has said publicise everything but she does not have to wait for the FBI to do
this, she could have done this to begin with, before she bleached her server, before evidence
was destroyed by the Democratic campaign (13 smart-phones) and lap tops destroyed by the FBI.
It is a croc and if you do not wake up to this, the world is lost.
Clinton will make sure that the NWO gains control. It is being implemented in the
background as all this is going. Many people are not the least bit interested in how their
children are being brainwashed, how borders have been dissolved, how Obama has been quietly
taking unilateral control of government. It seems that they will sit through the pantomime
that is this election enjoying every diversionary twist, then when Clinton is elected, they
will be unaware that the tentacles of the enemy of the people have penetrated every
compartment of government. Vote for Clinton and you are voting for a one world government.
There is a war going on and it is truly a battle between good and evil! God help the world.
"... Schrodinger's Election: Simultaneously hacked by Russia to make Trump win and not rigged at all if Killary wins. ..."
"... Hillary's tech guy asking questions on Reddit about how to manipulate/destroy email info for a VIP; ..."
"... Immunity given to virtually everyone involved that was close to Hillary. I believe that the number was 5 people. This seems overly generous and not in keeping with good investigative practice. ..."
"... Yes, people less well connected have gone to jail for lesser offenses than Hillary Clinton and her unsecured email thing. However, I think this issue is being deliberately raised specifically to shield Hillary Clinton and boost her candidacy. It's being used to flood the airwaves, and drive out the even more damning evidence against her. ..."
"... I mean, consider what she did in Libya: attacked a relatively prosperous and stable nation that was not a threat to us and was actually trying to cooperate, she allied us with Al Qaeda (!! why is this not blowing people's minds !!) blew it all to smithereens leaving behind a Mad max-style dystopia. And that's just for starters. There is her apparent desire to attack Russian forces in Syria, her desire to loot social security and give it all to her buddies in Wall Street, her desire to tear up the constitution and give supreme plenary power to multinational corporations... She is the Queen of Chaos, the candidate of Wall Street and War. ..."
"... I think the FBI suddenly raised this issue because the polls are tightening, and the establishment would prefer that in the remaining few days the airwaves be filled with lesser offenses that many Americans regard as technical, than with solid coverage of just what a corrupt monster Clinton really is. I mean, do you really think that any high governmeant official does anything that is not scripted and approved in advance? ..."
"... This would all be funny if it didn't represent the machinations of our overlords. This is like a carousel that is spinning out of control and now the pieces are starting to break off. ..."
"... Looks like he was wrong a lot farther back than July. Now we know that there was never a grand jury. Even the astute, ex-judge Andrew Napolitano claimed on more than one occasion that a GJ must be sitting. For instance, when the FIB gave immunity to Pagliano, that signaled to many in the know that a GJ had to be sitting. Not so. W/out a GJ, there was no real investigation. 147 FIB agents working on a sham. ..."
"... Napolitano also predicted a Saturday Massacre if Hilton was not indicted -- dozens of FIB agents would resign. ..."
"... He is doing Hilton a favor by trying to keep pissed-off FIB agents from jumping ship and spilling beans in the week before the election. ..."
"... Hillary is taking a risk in asking the FBI for more details. It could backfire. If Comey is put under heavy pressure to unveil the reasons that made him send this warning to the Congress, he may admit that at least one email his team checked was classified. ..."
"... That would be a huge blow to Hillary's campaign. She may have either to withdraw from the elections or risk been prosecuted after she is elected. She should pray that the FBI does not release more details... ..."
"... The funny aspect of this struggle is three women are involved in the justice abuse drama: Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin and Loretta Lynch, while three men are involved in the sexual abuse drama: Trump, Bill Clinton and Weiner. ..."
"... Let me tell you, if the FIB ever got a search warrant for your husband's computer and found your criminal em's on that computer, the original search warrant for the computer would be more than enough to allow them to open your em's. But the rules are different for Hilton, Bilton, and the entire Clinton RICO team. ..."
"... Sounds like FIB is going to Abedin's suits and asking for permission to look at the em's. Like WTF???? Since when does FIB or any law enforcement seek permission from a target's legal team to carry out an investigation? ..."
"... (there are reports that Abedin -- as is customary -- swore under oath that she had scrubbed all state department documents from all of her personal devices ... and -- FWIW -- she was granted immunity during the earlier investigation ... ..."
"... So Comey didn't use any of the Podesta files as evidence ? He's still an establishment coward. Comedy is a A lower class of criminal still serving a higher class of partisan criminals. ..."
"... I think Abedin's career is over ... which is a good thing since the reports of Clinton's cult-like oh-so-"loyal" inner circle were dismaying (cough). ..."
"... If most of these people never really look at urls, their tech people and security people, did. They passed it as acceptable. ..."
"... Comey couldn't prosecute Clinton without prosecuting all those people too, which is impossible ..."
"... Huma no sign of today 30th on or near Clingon campaign plane Florida this AM. ..."
"... Obviously Huma had an email account on Weiner's computer. It seems that the existence of this account and its email contents were found while looking at Wiener's email account. ..."
"... My suspicion was always that Comey was trying to preempt a leak ... likely by some FBI-well connected congress critter ..."
"... Calling for the FBI to release information is double edged. If the emails are copies of the ones that Hillary destroyed from her server because they were too compromising then she will be in deep trouble. ..."
"... Gee! What could go wrong with a scenario like that – a high-ranking government official seeking to become president who exhibits callous disregard for national security protocols, a trusted aide who worked in her family magazine in Saudi Arabia on behalf of radical Islamic causes who was married to a Jewish member of Congress who had a propensity for compromising himself through illicit and bizarre sexual activity? ..."
"... Demanding that the DOJ or FBI "release all the information" is simply grandstanding ... they can't (they apparently don't have legal access and haven't reviewed it) ... and Weiner and Abedin are entitled to privacy protection for all non-related content, and the various government agencies also have security and other concerns ... ..."
"... Demand away!!! Film at 11!!! Shake that fist, hold your breath until your face is read and your eyes bulge ... show the world just how well you can simulate OUTRAGE. ..."
"... Let's recall 24 years ago the 11th hr indictment of Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger that doomed the re-election of president George H.W. Bush . ..."
"... The Clintons seized on the new indictment, howling about a "culture of corruption" that supposedly pervaded the administration. Bush's poll numbers declined and Bill Clinton won the election. ..."
"... Brace for more bombshells – up next, The Clinton Family Foundation. ..."
"... Question of the day. Over half million emails on Weiner's computer, are the 33,000 deleted emails in this trove? ..."
"... According to a NYPD source, the emails on Weiner's laptop are NOT about state secrets, but are in fact pointing to a pedophilia ring with the Clintons at the center. ..."
"... New headaches for VP nominee Tim Kaine as alleged mistress comes forward with tape of thr ..."
"... FWIW, I read today Huma was also getting paid by Tedeo ... she is always described as "like a daughter", working for clinton since SHE was a 19 year old intern ... she's now 40 ... shudder ... meaning 21 years or 1996 ... ..."
"... The Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that came to light in 1998, referring to a sexual relationship between 1995 and 1996 with then 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. ..."
"... I've always wondered how Chelsea feels about the oh-so-elegant like-a-daughter Abedin ..."
"... Still, while Bill was destroying long-term Clinton family relationships via Lewinsky (and demands that people lie for him), Hillary had "Huma" to lean" on and "mentor" ... It sounds so co-dependent. (and I suggest zero other impropriety) I've witnessed some very dysfunctional boss/assistant relationships ... shudder. ..."
"... This is what I like about Donald Trump... (not exactly the same words) If I'm elected you will go to jail and to Ford's executives in Detroit. If you move productions to Mexico, I'll impost a 35% on all vehicles from Mexico and no one will buy Ford! ..."
"... The #1 meme about Donald Trump is his racism ... and the racism of his supporters ... this has been the drumbeat since last Spring ... daily, constant, unrelenting and without exception ... and unfair and ridiculous, without nuance, rejecting all other explanations and flatly rejecting any number of contradicting Trump rally witness reports ... ..."
"... The meme has been: Support Trump and you are a racist ... full stop. That all Trump supporters want to go back to pre-Civil Rights, pre-Women's liberation, and support for Trump is a rage-induced quest regain lost "white privilege" ... ..."
Comey is under pressure. Either thru his own reading of the situation and head banging
("I have to act now"), because threats of new/other leaks are looming, or because some
are pushing to break the dams (e.g. internal to FBI) or just becos the info is so
damning covering it up if it ever comes out will spark disaster for him in any case. Or
a combination, or even other, extra, reasons.
He is compelled, or wishes to as a white knight, I doubt that actually, to 're-open'
with vague, indeterminate words, the HRC e-mail private-server matter. Obviously
coverin' his ass but waiting on decisions from the VIPs. (Lynch. Clinton.)
3 FBI investigs. are ongoing:
1) Into the Clinton Foundation, which was never halted but seems to limp along (held
back? bogged down as very complicated, e.g. insider trading?) See also the Bill Clinton
foundation, though afaik it is not under scrutiny?
2) Into the sexting Wiener scandal, which was 'independent'? Not, imho, an FBI
matter, but NY authorities? - Charges of sexting to minors, one person, one count, not
too hard to deal with, but when huma - clinton - govmt. e-mails were found on 'his'
laptop, another dimension came into play…
3) Killary private server, e-mail scandal, bis repetita
…> there might even be other unknowns
Imho these 3 investigs. have now become intertwined, there is simply no way for the
FBI to keep up any Chinese Walls any longer.
I wrote about Comey and the newly discovered emails on the Open Thread
here
and
here
There's still lots of questions.
Some thought that Comey was part of the 'fix' when Bill Clinton met with Lynch on the
tarmac and Comey subsequently made the judgment call to NOT recommend prosecution.
We then heard about flaws in the investigation:
1. Hillary's tech guy asking questions on Reddit about how to manipulate/destroy
email info for a VIP;
2. Immunity given to virtually everyone involved that was close to Hillary. I
believe that the number was 5 people. This seems overly generous and not in keeping
with good investigative practice.
Comey's letter to Congress has reinvigorated the Trump campaign but also:
1. served as a distraction to Wikileaks release of the Podesta emails
(MSMS wrote
more about Russian hacking than about the Podesta emails)
2. allowed Hillary & Co. to grandstand and beat their chests
It's likely that Huma has told Hillary what these emails are
(if Hillary didn't
already know)
. So look at how hard Obama/Hillary fight the FBI to get a sense for
how important these emails are.
There's a possibility that these emails are a nothingburger and that the Hillary
campaign
ultimately benefits
from the perception that Republicans are after
Hillary.
Have you ever been party to a bureaucracy with electronic mail policies? If you are
anal-retentive, have no family life and sleep an hour a day, you could possibly comply
with the panoply written by lawyers covering the legal ass of the organization. Other
than that….
"He should have pressed for charges against Clinton..."
Sorry, no. It is not his
position to press for charges or to advocate against him. It is his job to perform the
investigation and turn to facts over to the prosecutor who decides whether or not a
prosecution is warranted. He may decide that duties assigned to him are not consistent
with the law and refuse to perform them, and has done so, but he does not decide how the
law should be enforced.
The weiner-abedin computer that carries sexting and US state emails has certainly been
hacked. US state secrets are intermixed with porno emails and available to the public.
yes america is great!
I would like to propose an alternative explanation.
Yes, people less well connected
have gone to jail for lesser offenses than Hillary Clinton and her unsecured email
thing. However, I think this issue is being deliberately raised specifically to shield
Hillary Clinton and boost her candidacy. It's being used to flood the airwaves, and
drive out the even more damning evidence against her.
I mean, consider what she did in Libya: attacked a relatively prosperous and stable
nation that was not a threat to us and was actually trying to cooperate, she allied us
with Al Qaeda (!! why is this not blowing people's minds !!) blew it all to smithereens
leaving behind a Mad max-style dystopia. And that's just for starters. There is her
apparent desire to attack Russian forces in Syria, her desire to loot social security
and give it all to her buddies in Wall Street, her desire to tear up the constitution
and give supreme plenary power to multinational corporations... She is the Queen of
Chaos, the candidate of Wall Street and War. She is Vlad the Impaler on crack.
I think the FBI suddenly raised this issue because the polls are tightening, and the
establishment would prefer that in the remaining few days the airwaves be filled with
lesser offenses that many Americans regard as technical, than with solid coverage of
just what a corrupt monster Clinton really is. I mean, do you really think that any high
governmeant official does anything that is not scripted and approved in advance?
This would all be funny if it didn't represent the machinations of our overlords. This
is like a carousel that is spinning out of control and now the pieces are starting to
break off.
I hope that question that the rest of the world is asking itself is: Why
the heck are we continuing to buy American T-bills?
The global plutocrats have had since 2008 to set this casting of throwing the US
under the bus up. The US public will rise up but have been too brainwashed to do
anything intelligent, unfortunately.
We need to rid ourselves of the tools that the global plutocrats use to retain
control of the West, Private Finance and unfettered inheritance.
And yes, I voted for Jill Stein again because I want to see the Green party get to at
least 5% so we can build another choice than the bifurcated one before Americans
currently.
b: "I for one believe that Comey was wrong in July and is right today. He should have
pressed for charges against Clinton early on."
Looks like he was wrong a lot farther
back than July. Now we know that there was never a grand jury. Even the astute, ex-judge
Andrew Napolitano claimed on more than one occasion that a GJ must be sitting. For
instance, when the FIB gave immunity to Pagliano, that signaled to many in the know that
a GJ had to be sitting. Not so. W/out a GJ, there was no real investigation. 147 FIB
agents working on a sham.
Napolitano also predicted a Saturday Massacre if Hilton was not indicted -- dozens of
FIB agents would resign. Two days day before Comey's October IED Napolitano claimed that
was now happening -- FIB agents are resigning and once they are out, the leaks will
become a flood. Comey is the Dutch boy with his thumb stuck
up his ass
in the dike. He is doing Hilton a favor by trying to keep pissed-off FIB agents from
jumping ship and spilling beans in the week before the election.
There is one certainty in this election: Whoever loses it will be someone most
Americans absolutely despise. (It is important to emphasize the positive.)
Hillary is taking a risk in asking the FBI for more details. It could backfire. If Comey
is put under heavy pressure to unveil the reasons that made him send this warning to the
Congress, he may admit that at least one email his team checked was classified.
That would be a huge blow to Hillary's campaign. She may have either to withdraw from
the elections or risk been prosecuted after she is elected. She should pray that the FBI
does not release more details...
The funny aspect of this struggle is three women are involved in the justice abuse
drama: Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin and Loretta Lynch, while three men are involved in
the sexual abuse drama: Trump, Bill Clinton and Weiner.
This will make the next successful series on HBO: Sex, power and politic!
The story now is that FIB agents investigating Weiner's kiddie sexting stumbled on
Abedin's em's on Weiner's laptop. Apparently, they think they have to have a special
search warrant to look at her em's.
Let me tell you, if the FIB ever got a search warrant for your husband's computer and
found your criminal em's on that computer, the original search warrant for the computer
would be more than enough to allow them to open your em's. But the rules are different
for Hilton, Bilton, and the entire Clinton RICO team.
Sounds like FIB is going to Abedin's suits and asking for permission to look at the
em's. Like WTF???? Since when does FIB or any law enforcement seek permission from a
target's legal team to carry out an investigation?
CNN also raises the specter of spousal privilege between Wiener and Abedin. Shouldn't
be a problem. Spousal privilege means one spouse cannot be compelled to testify against
another. It does not provide a safe haven on one spouse's computer for illegal em's of
the other . . . well, you know, unless you are on the Clinton RICO team. CNN's theory
(probably from Jeffrey Toobin) would be like saying, the cops can't look in a wife's
underwear drawer for a pistol used by the husband to commit a murder. What BS.
As far as I can tell, Comey knew that getting an expanded warrant (to cover actually
opening Abedin's newly discovered email trove) would be leaked and that that would be
more damaging (in many ways to many people) ... so he bit the bullet and is being
subjected to massive criticism from everyone ...
Imagine the bombshell if they had attempted to keep this secret and it had been
revealed next week or after the election ...
""The issue is complicated because the computer is considered to belong to Anthony
Weiner, her estranged husband, and the case may raise spousal privilege legal
protections for Abedin.
Government lawyers hope to secure the warrant to permit investigators to review
thousands of emails on a computer Abedin shared with Weiner, officials said.The new
search warrant is needed because the existing authorization, covered by a subpoena,
related only to the ongoing investigation of Weiner, who is accused of having
sexually explicit communications with an underage girl.Investigators from the FBI's
New York field office who are conducting the Weiner investigation " ""
cnn: Justice Department seeks approval for email search
(there are reports that Abedin -- as is customary -- swore under oath that she had
scrubbed all state department documents from all of her personal devices ... and -- FWIW
-- she was granted immunity during the earlier investigation ...
A political commentator believes the polls in the United States are being "manipulated,"
adding that they are not reflecting the will of the American people.
"Trump is an outsider. He is coming in new. He does not have any political history,
he has no political experience. He is coming as an agent of change," Mike Harris told
Press TV in an interview on Sunday.
Sometimes right on time, almost as if using a calendar(!), like 2011 when they
decided to sacrifice MF Global.
Or 2011 also when they ended their murderous bombing of Libya, started earlier MAR 31 by
those uncouth frenchie fokkers.
Sometimes "celebrated" late, as in 1956 NOV 5 with Brits sending invasion force to
take back Suez that Nasser just nationalized, or 1979 NOV 4 Iran US embassy hostages
(not like that wasn't due...Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953).
So Comey didn't use any of the Podesta files as evidence ? He's still an establishment
coward. Comedy is a A lower class of criminal still serving a higher class of partisan
criminals.
Sure drove WikiLeaks' (damning) Band memo out of discussion or consideration ... and the
irony is that this probably -- ultimately -- has nothing to do with Clinton ... I think Abedin's career is over ... which is a good thing since the reports of Clinton's
cult-like oh-so-"loyal" inner circle were dismaying (cough).
GOP congresscritters were already having kittens over the number of Clinton insiders
granted immunity during the long tangled course of the investigation ..
Cnn 09/23/201
.
Caveat: I previously found mention of Abedin getting immunity prior to July and now
cannot find a confirming source .... sigh
If using a private server to get around FOIA was a problem, it was a problem then, not
now. But getting around FOIA was something everybody else, as well as Clinton wanted.
That's why they had no problems sending and receiving emails from another server. If
most of these people never really look at urls, their tech people and security people,
did. They passed it as acceptable.
Comey couldn't prosecute Clinton without prosecuting
all those people too, which is impossible. Pretending you really give a shit about the
server when you don' care about all those other people who committed the same crime just
proves one thing: It's a political prosecution aimed exclusively at an opponent. Another
phrase for political prosecution is "show trial." You can't always make sure only the
people you don't like get prosecuted.
And, security issues? In the world of Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and wikileaks,
no sensible and honest person thinks using government equipment means security.
The only use for this fake scandal is to pander to mad dog reactionaries.
Huma no sign of today 30th on or near Clingon campaign plane Florida this AM.
Supposedly Lord O tried but failed to directly intercede to block the FBI from searching
Anthony's computer.
Maybe that 'suicided' top US missile general a day ago was the start of the cleanup
crew moving, & the rats are doing what they always do---ratting, or scurrying for cover.
Obviously Huma had an email account on Weiner's computer. It seems that the existence of
this account and its email contents were found while looking at Wiener's email account.
Possibly it is a pop3 account (connected to Hillary server) meaning that these emails
have been downloaded from the server and are physically on the computer probably without
any password. If these emails are duplicates of 'classified' emails that Hillary has
purposely deleted from her server, then she and Huma could be in deep trouble. In any
case Huma is in trouble even if the emails are not classified as she did not declare
their existence to the FBI. I understand the Wiener computer is in the hands of the
Wiener's case investigators.
My guess is that the FBI has already had access to that computer and had a peek at these
emails. I think that after examining some of them, they realize they were relevant to
the investigation. As they have no warrant, they cannot announce anything officially.
The FBI is now waiting for a warrant from Huma's lawers to officially view the account.
If Hillary is so keen to have details from these email, Huma should immediately give the
ok for a warrant.
My opinion is that Hillary is terrified that these emails are very damaging so she needs
to obstruct their release, while still accusing the FBI of backstabbing. It seems that
her only chance is to discredit Comey and she is working on that now.
My suspicion was always that Comey was trying to preempt a leak ... likely by some
FBI-well connected congress critter ... According to the NYT, while Weiner investigators
(and god knows who else) have known about the e-mails for weeks, Comey was not informed
until shortly before his announcement (he must have been angry and horrified).
I still think that the shit-storm that would have erupted from a "leak" of a "secret"
newly expanded arm of a "closed" investigation would have been far worse ... wrt to the
whole "undermining" or "rigging" the election meme being sold -- by both parties ...
I'm getting conflicting impressions of "plausible deniability" by folks claiming to
have been blind-sided by Comey's announcement ... I think (as I've said before) Comey is
the designated whipping boy, and perhaps even volunteered to be just that, as everyone
and their brother expresses horror at something that cannot be undone ...
Calling for the FBI to release information is double edged.
If the emails are copies
of the ones that Hillary destroyed from her server because they were too compromising
then she will be in deep trouble.
I guess her only way out is to discredit Comey and get him out of the way. Is Comey
strong enough to stand against the war Clinton will start on him?
Gee! What could go wrong with a scenario like that – a high-ranking government
official seeking to become president who exhibits callous disregard for national
security protocols, a trusted aide who worked in her family magazine in Saudi Arabia
on behalf of radical Islamic causes who was married to a Jewish member of Congress
who had a propensity for compromising himself through illicit and bizarre sexual
activity?
"I have an idea! Let's make the architect of this mess the president of the United
States." That's what the Democratic Party decided.
Demanding that the DOJ or FBI "release all the information" is simply grandstanding ...
they can't (they apparently don't have legal access and haven't reviewed it) ... and
Weiner and Abedin are entitled to privacy protection for all non-related content, and
the various government agencies also have security and other concerns ...
Demand away!!! Film at 11!!! Shake that fist, hold your breath until your face is
read and your eyes bulge ... show the world just how well you can simulate OUTRAGE.
and let's not forget -- as everyone seems to be doing -- that these e-mails are years
old and that there is no genuine urgency to this matter, no matter how much outrage and
urgency and panic and other theatrics are demonstrated.
This investigation is (almost certainly) a dead parrot ... but like Weiner's sexting,
it's something everyone can quite safely be OUTRAGED!!! about. Democrats and Clinton
supporter long ago announce they didn't give a flying fig about Clinton's disregard for
rules or transparency or truthfulness ... and the Republicans demonstrated -- that like
Whitewater and Benghazi that came before -- that they didn't care about a lack of
actionable findings as determined by those empowered to make such determinations ...
There were no indictments because even the wrongdoing that was found was "determined" to
not rise to the criteria necessary wrt to intent.
so, they cry ... let's have another investigation, more hearings, maybe a change in
venues, leadership, oversight authority ...
(is it rigged? almost certainly, but more more and more isn't likely to change the
outcome)
Probably just a coincidence, but as for Kaine making demands on
Comey, one has to wonder why he doesn't just pick up the phone and call him?
How close they are (were) is hard to say, but they are certainly well acquainted.
Both lived in Richmond, and taught at the University of Richmond Law School, a small,
private school. Both moved in the same Richmond social circle and have friends in
common.
Believe me, I do not move in that social circle, or have many friends in Richmond,
but at least two are also friends of both Kaine and Comey. Maybe Kaine's wife could just
call Comey's wife to find out what's going on. Or maybe Kaine is starting to get cold
feet about running with Hillary and put Comey up to this. :-)
Small world. Just another oddity of this comedy-horror show of an election.
2 - Putin rigs elections
2.1 - Trump and Putin poisoned Hillary
2.2 - Assange sucks Putin's dick
2.3 - McCarthy runs for president
3 - News of Putin's rigging of election makes Americans question integrity of
election
3.1 - Obama threatens WW3 with Russia
3.2 - Obama launches cyber attack on Russia
3.3 - Trump won't accept result if he loses
4 - Obama cancels elections
5 - Hillary grabs pussy
6 - Historians find signs of intelligent life
7 - The ballots
Everything is sourced to the most reliable sources, like the
Washington Post
,
Wall Street Journal
, and
The New York Times
.
I do believe that Trump is a safer
candidate than Clinton, but he is still seriously flawed. He stands out as a peace
candidate next to Clinton, but he still makes statements about bombing ISIS and their
family members. Two war crimes in that statement seeing as the US is in Syria illegally.
He also wants to increase the defense budget... WTF, it's already more than half of the
federal discretionary spending. His choice of Pence is also a huge warning sign.
Stein is the only candidate that I have heard make a rational statement regarding
Syria... stop sending in more weapons. I'll concede that I may be naive, but as a true
outsider she has the best chance to rein in the military. We could discuss the deep
state and who calls the shots, but at point it wouldn't matter who gets elected.
Baraka's Soros connection should be considered, but let's not forget that Rothschild
helped bailout Trump with his casino. I'm also very concerned about his dealings and
potential ties with organized crime.
I think the possibility that there were "rogue" FBI investigators keeping Comey in the
dark -- to create an "October surprise" -- may be the most significant (and scary) part
of this story (if true) ... shades of the numerous other "rogue" factions we've seen
under Obama ... see also the 50 anonymous state department dissenters to Obama's
policies (obviously endorsing Hillary). I'm curious if they and this ruse will ever be
mentioned again.
Another failure of the chain of command ... lack of respect for authority within the
highest levels of government. I'm thinking some people understood the message in too
many movies glorifying renegades and mavericks. This isn't whistleblowing because no one
will listen, this is subverting the process because you didn't like the outcome ... will
cheating and fabrication come next to these ideology driven zealots? Has it already?
The Bezos' Wapo rag is expected to be selective. Credibility destroyed. Now, with all
the howling from The Clinton gang. The best display of what goes around, comes around!
……
Let's recall 24 years ago the 11th hr indictment of Secretary of Defense Casper
Weinberger that doomed the re-election of president George H.W. Bush .
This was the
weekend before the election!
Bill Clinton cheered 11th hour indictment that doomed Bush re-election
[24 years ago], as former President George H.W. Bush was surging back against
challenger Bill Clinton, a special prosecutor raised new charges against Bush in the
Iran-Contra probe, prompting Clinton to claim he was running against a "culture of
corruption."
[.] Many Republicans claimed that the indictment made by special prosecutor Lawrence
Walsh against former Reagan-era Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger the weekend before
the 1992 election cost Bush a second term. The indictment, later thrown out, challenged
Bush's claim that he did not know about a controversial arms-for-hostages deal that
dogged the Reagan-Bush administration."
[.]The Clintons seized on the new indictment, howling about a "culture of corruption"
that supposedly pervaded the administration. Bush's poll numbers declined and Bill
Clinton won the election.
Shortly after the election, a federal judge threw out the new indictment because it
violated the five-year statute of limitations and improperly broadened the original
charges. President Bush then pardoned Weinberger.
I think the possibility that there were "rogue" FBI investigators keeping Comey in
the dark -- to create an "October surprise" -- may be the most significant (and scary)
part of this story (if true) ... shades of the numerous other "rogue" factions we've
seen under Obama ... see also the 50 anonymous state department dissenters to Obama's
policies (obviously endorsing Hillary). I'm curious if they and this ruse will ever be
mentioned again.
It's called Mutiny
in D.C. Comey's hand was forced.
and, add this to the mix – I read an article on a credible site of a new bombshell
but before I link to it, the contents should be confirmed during week of November 1st.
However, this gem was included in the article:
"people at the Pentagon are aligned:
Will not silently sit still as one of their 4-Star generals get ramrodded for MUCH
less than Hillary did. They are aligned with the insurrectionists at the FBI.
"It was wrong for me to mislead the F.B.I. on Nov. 2, 2012, and I accept full
responsibility for this," General Cartwright said. "I knew I was not the source of the
story and I didn't want to be blamed for the leak. My only goal in talking to the
reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to
this day to do everything I can to defend it."
~ ~ ~ ~
Brace for more bombshells – up next, The Clinton Family Foundation.
Question of the day. Over half million emails on Weiner's computer, are the 33,000
deleted emails in this trove?
There is another, rather adventurous accounting of the investigation. According to
this transcript
from a chat board,
some anonymous analyst at the Bureau turned to the public, basically saying they can't
do anything about the Clinton Foundation because the case is too big - it would mean
taking on the totally implied government, and exposing deeds that they fear might lead
to foreign declarations of war. He proceeded to ask the public instead to go after the
Foundation. But after seeing this route did actually not work out, the people at the
Bureau might have come up with plan B. This seems consistent; as long as you accept the
assumption. The transcript is a bit hard to read, but the story rather thrilling, and
definitely "se non è vero, è ben trovato".
You also might appreciate
Bill Still's
narration
of the Phoenix incident with Loretta Lynch.
The Clinton administration was bombing Iraq
three times a week during 1999 and 2000 at a cost of over $2 billion a year. Regardless
of who the next president was going to be, I think you could make a strong case that
they were going to war in Iraq. The war record of Clinton, followed by Bush, followed by
Obama lends credence to this assumption. Note that the attack on Afghanistan began on
October 7, 2001, less than a month after September 11. I'm not a military expert, but
that seems incredibly quick. Bush hadn't even been president for a year.
The Clinton Family Foundation seems so slushy ... the funds are totally at the family's
"discretion" and it's hard to imagine a genuine "scandal" The Foundation/CGI (Clinton
Global Initiative) really only needs a credible "dissatified customer" with records
saying they didn't get the quid-pro-quo what they paid for ... however, two credible
above-reproach dissatisified customers each other would be better. I've figured someone
like that exists (or even that one could have been created/manufactured for this
purpose) ... however, it's the bridgeburning involved in going public ....
(!) According to a NYPD source, the emails on Weiner's laptop are NOT about state
secrets, but are in fact pointing to a pedophilia ring with the Clintons at the center.
Looks like Bill wasn't alone on Epsteins Lolita Express. Hillary has a well documented
preference for underage girls.
Look into
-Jared Fogle
-Cathy O'^Brien
-the 'Hillary Clinton Tapes'
-Tim Kaine (WikiLeaks, VP choice since 07.2015(!))
The problem for the FBI, which once was a trusted American institution, but no
longer is, is that there is no longer any doubt that Donald Trump will win the
popular vote for president of the United States. His appearances are so heavily
attended that thousands are turned away by local fire/occupancy regulations. In
contrast, Hillary has curtailed her appearances, because she doesn't draw more than
30 or 40 people.
Americans are sick to death of the corrupt Clintons and the corrupt American
media. The Clintons are so completely bought-and-paid-for by the Oligarchy that they
were able to outspend Hollywood on their daughter's wedding, dropping $3,000,000 on
the event.
It's hard to imagine what "bombshell" could involve the Family
Foundation unless they's paying for the upkeep of Bill's baby-mamas and kiddy-farm ...
would anyone care?
Soon, more facts will be revealed - there is the probe of the Clinton Foundation that
the DOJ tried blocking but there is the mutiny.
One of the 7 appetizers before the main course:
via ZH:
Doug Band To John Podesta: "If This Story Gets Out, We Are Screwed"
Until the Friday blockbuster news that the FBI was reopening its probe into the
Hillary email server, the biggest overhang facing the Clinton Campaign was the
escalating scandal involving the Clinton Foundation, Doug Band's consultancy firm Teneo,
and Bill Clinton who as a result of a leaked memo emerged was generously compensated for
potential political favors by prominent corporate clients using Teneo as a passthru
vehicle for purchasing influence.
In a section of the memo entitled "Leveraging Teneo For The Foundation," Band spelled
out all of the donations he solicited from Teneo "clients" for the Clinton Foundation.
In all, there are roughly $14mm of donations listed with the largest contributors being
Coca-Cola, Barclays, The Rockefeller Foundation and Laureate International Universities.
Some of these are shown below (the full details can be found in "Leaked Memo Exposes
Shady Dealings Between Clinton Foundation Donors And Bill's "For-Profit" Activities")
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Do read the article and embedded links within.
Influence – peddling. I do recall some congress critters being charged and sent to
the other big house. This is more than pay-for-play
Added to what has already been exposed about the Clinton Foundation, here also ZH via
WSJ:
I had heard (sorry no memory of where and no cite) that the meeting on the tarmac was
actually about the Foundation probe ... it was ridiculous. That video is certainly
"partisan" but I had wondered who initiated the meeting and whose plane they met on ...
(as I recall those details somehow never made it into any article I read). So, if
accurate, Bill Clinton is an overbearing intimidating azzhole -- to his loyal long-term
"protégé" ... so what else is new. She can commiserate with the ex-Clinton-friend club
FWIW, I read today Huma was also getting paid by Tedeo ... she is always described as
"like a daughter", working for clinton since SHE was a 19 year old intern ... she's now
40 ... shudder ... meaning 21 years or 1996 ...
wiki:
The Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that came to light in
1998, referring to a sexual relationship between 1995 and 1996 with then 49-year-old
President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
I've always wondered how Chelsea feels about the oh-so-elegant like-a-daughter
Abedin. I saw a picture of her on the phone "on the tarmac" in 4-5 inch stilettos ...
Even when slender and glammed up, Chelsea looks just like her "rather dumpy" mother ...
blech... forgive me. Weiner, by reports, is whip smart and very funny, very well read
and delightful company ... he's just a compulsive wanker -- apparently in need of
constant re-assurance and praise and attention ... blech.
Still, while Bill was destroying long-term Clinton family relationships via Lewinsky
(and demands that people lie for him), Hillary had "Huma" to lean" on and "mentor" ...
It sounds so co-dependent. (and I suggest zero other impropriety) I've witnessed some
very dysfunctional boss/assistant relationships ... shudder.
This is what I like about Donald Trump... (not exactly the same words) If I'm elected
you will go to jail and to Ford's executives in Detroit. If you move productions to
Mexico, I'll impost a 35% on all vehicles from Mexico and no one will buy Ford!
The #1 meme about Donald Trump is his racism ... and the racism of his supporters ...
this has been the drumbeat since last Spring ... daily, constant, unrelenting and
without exception ... and unfair and ridiculous, without nuance, rejecting all other
explanations and flatly rejecting any number of contradicting Trump rally witness
reports ...
The meme has been: Support Trump and you are a racist ... full stop. That all Trump
supporters want to go back to pre-Civil Rights, pre-Women's liberation, and support for
Trump is a rage-induced quest regain lost "white privilege" ...
It's not true ... but that's the drill... utter ostracism, forever, long past the
election ... it's very destructive and dangerous ... it's a red-line, unforegivable ...
Moore's movie challenged that mindset and he was criticised for his "tolerance" of and
reaching out to Trump voters... to the point that the "claim" more was supporting Trump
has been widely repeated (sliming Moore) ... Sorry I was so emphatic, it's just I
supported Moore's outreach (because it's humane and reality-based) ... and I hated
seeing him slimed by the intolerant ... ghastly election.
As you have heard, the 30% import tax is an absolute non-starter ... in that the
president does not have that power and there is probably still too many automotive jobs
and the auto lobby too strong for congress is spank them in that way ... Driving the
auto industry into bankruptcy isn't good for "America's bottom line" either.
Briefly, it seems Podesta received an email "You need to change your password", asked for professional advice from his
staff if it was legit, was told "Yes, you DO need to change your password", but then clicked on the link in the original email,
which was sent him with malicious intent, as he suspected at first and then was inappropriately reassured about - rather than
on the link sent him by the IT staffer.
Result - the "phishing" email got his password info, and the world now gets to see all his emails.
Personally, my hope is that Huma and HRC will be pardoned for all their crimes, by Obama, before he leaves office.
Then I hope that Huma's divorce will go through, and that once Hillary is sworn in she will at last be courageous enough to
divorce Bill (who actually performed the Huma-Anthony Weiner nuptials - you don't have to make these things up).
Then it could happen that the first same-sex marriage will be performed in the White House, probably by the minister of DC's
Foundry United Methodist Church, which has a policy of LBGQT equality. Or maybe Hillary, cautious and middle-of-the-road as usual,
will go to Foundry UMC sanctuary for the ceremony, recognizing that some Americans' sensibilities would be offended by having
the rite in the White House.
As Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan wrote, "Love is all there is, it makes the world go round, love and only love, it can't be denied.
No matter what you think about it, you just can't live without it, take a tip from one who's tried."
"... It appears there was rift between the FBI and the DOJ with how to move forward with the investigation. Agents in the Washington office were directed to focus on a separate issue relating to the actions of former Virginia Governor and Clinton Foundation Board Member Terry McAuliffe. Agents inside the FBI believed they could build a stronger case if the investigation of McAuliffe and the foundation were combined. ..."
"... FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemed to be caught in the middle of the fight between DOJ officials who appeared to want to slow down or shut down the investigation and FBI agents who were eager to pour more resources into the investigation. ..."
"... The story gets more complicated when you factor in that McCabe's wife, Dr. Jill McCabe had received a $467,500 campaign contribution in 2015 for a state senate race from McAuliffe . ..."
"... CNN also reported that multiple field offices were "in agreement a public corruption investigation should be launched" with Clinton Foundation officials as a target. The cable news network reported the investigation would have looked at "conflicts of interest by foreign donors and official acts by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. ..."
FBI investigators from across the country have been following leads into reports of bribery
involving the Clinton Foundation. Multiple field offices have been involved in the investigation.
A report in Sunday's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by Devlin Barrett revealed that agents assigned
to the New York field office have been carrying the bulk of the work in investigating the Clinton
Foundations. They have received assistance from the FBI field office in Little Rock according to
"people familiar with the matter, the WSJ reported. Other offices, including Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., have been collecting evidence to regarding "financial crimes or influence-peddling."
As far back as February 2016, FBI agents made presentation to the Department of Justice (DOJ),
the WSJ's sources stated. "The meeting didn't go well," they wrote. While some sources said
the FBI's evidence was not strong enough, others believed the DOJ had no intention from the start
of going any further. Barrett wrote that the DOJ officials were "stern, icy and dismissive of the
case."
Barrett wrote, "'That was one of the weirdest meetings I've ever been to,' one participant told
others afterward, according to people familiar with the matter."
It appears there was rift between the FBI and the DOJ with how to move forward with the investigation.
Agents in the Washington office were directed to focus on a separate issue relating to the actions
of former Virginia Governor and Clinton Foundation Board Member Terry McAuliffe. Agents inside the
FBI believed they could build a stronger case if the investigation of McAuliffe and the foundation
were combined.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemed to be caught in the middle of the fight between DOJ officials
who appeared to want to slow down or shut down the investigation and FBI agents who were eager to
pour more resources into the investigation.
Barrett wrote, "'Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?'
Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official
replied, 'Of course not,' these people said."
Some of the WSJ sources told Barrett that a "stand down" order had been given to the FBI
agents by McCabe. Others denied that no such order was given.
Preet Bharara, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appears to have
taken in interest in moving forward from the DOJ side, the Daily Caller's Richard Pollock
reported in August.
Pollock wrote:
The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District
of New York. Bharara's prosecutorial aggressiveness has resulted in a large number of convictions
of banks, hedge funds and Wall Street insiders.
He said prosecutorial support could come from multiple U.S. Attorneys Offices and stated this
was a major departure from other "centralized FBI investigations."
CNN also reported that multiple field offices were "in agreement a public corruption investigation
should be launched" with Clinton Foundation officials as a target. The cable news network reported
the investigation would have looked at "conflicts of interest by foreign donors and official acts
by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, may have committed
perjury in testimony before Congress, two separate U.S. House committee chairmen detailed late Monday.
In
a letter from House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz
(R-UT) and House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) to U.S. Attorney for the
District of Columbia Channing Phillips, the two top House Republicans made their case that Clinton
committed perjury.
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote to Phillips:
On August 2, 2016, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik confirmed that you received the
Committees' request for an investigation regarding certain statements made by former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton during her testimony before Congress and will 'take appropriate action
as necessary. To assist the investigation, this letter identifies several pieces of Secretary
Clinton's testimony that appear to implicate 18 U.S.C. §§1621 and 1001 the criminal statutes that
prohibit perjury and false statements, respectively. The evidence collected by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email
system during her time as Secretary of State appears to directly contradict several aspects of
her sworn testimony, which are described in greater detail below.
Before detailing at least four specific instances in which Clinton allegedly committed perjury,
the House Republicans explained the matter a bit further:
During a House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing on October 22, 2015, Secretary Clinton
testified with respect to (1) whether she sent or received emails that were marked classified
at the time; (2) whether her attorneys reviewed each of the emails on her personal email system;
(3) whether there was one, or more servers that stored work-related emails during her time as
Secretary of State; and (4) whether she provided all her work-related emails to the Department
of State. Although there may be other aspects of Secretary Clinton's sworn testimony that are
at odds with the FBI's findings, her testimony in those four areas bears specific scrutiny in
light of the facts and evidence FBI Director James Comey described in his public statement on
July 5, 2016 and in testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July
7, 2016.
The first of four main areas where Hillary Clinton allegedly perjured herself before the U.S.
Congress was with her claim in sworn testimony that she never sent or received emails on her illicit
home-brew email server-which was in violation of State Department guidelines, and according to FBI
director James Comey "extremely careless."
"With respect to whether she sent or received emails that were marked classified at the time,
Secretary Clinton testified under oath to the Select Committee that she did not," Chaffetz and Goodlatte
wrote to the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. "Specifically, during questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan,
Secretary Clinton stated 'there was nothing marked classified on my emails, either sent or received.'"
Chaffetz and Goodlatte further quoted from Clinton's testimony by including this quote:
[M]any Americans have no idea how the classification process works. And therefore I wanted
to make it clear that there is a system within our government, certainly within the State Department
. . . where material that is thought to be classified is marked such, so that people have the
opportunity to know how they are supposed to be handling those materials . . . and that's why
it became clearer, I believe, to say that nothing was marked classified at the time I sent or
received it.
The two House Committee chairmen detail in the letter to the U.S. Attorney for D.C. that Clinton,
according to the FBI Director, was not telling the truth in that testimony before Congress:
The FBI, however, found several of Secretary Clinton's emails did in fact contain markings
that identified classified information therein. In Director Comey's public statement on July 5,
2016, he said, 'a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore the markings
indicating the presence of classified information.' When Director Comey testified on July 7, 2016,
he specifically addressed this issue. Rep. Trey Gowdy asked, 'Secretary Clinton said there was
nothing marked classified either sent or received. Was it true?' He said it was not. Director
Comey also stated, 'There was classified material emailed.' Specifically, he stated that three
documents on Secretary Clinton's private server contained classified information clearly marked
'Confidential.' He further testified, 'In the one involving 'top secret' information, Secretary
Clinton not only received but also sent emails that talked about the same subject.'
The second claim on which Hillary Clinton appears to have been caught perjuring herself according
to the two top House Republicans was with regard to her statements that her lawyers read all of her
emails.
"With respect to whether her attorneys reviewed each of the emails on her personal email system,
Secretary Clinton testified that her attorneys used search terms and reviewed every single email
to identify any that were work-related and should therefore be returned to the Department of State,"
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote, before quoting directly from Clinton's transcript from when she testified
under oath:
Rep. Jordan: But I'm asking how - I'm asking how it was done. Was
- did someone physically look at the 62,000 e-mails, or did you use search terms, date parameters?
I want to know the specifics.
Mrs. Clinton: They did all of that, and I did not look over their shoulders, because I thought
it would be appropriate for them to conduct that search, and they did.
Rep. Jordan: Will you provide this committee - or can you answer today, what were the search
terms?
Mrs. Clinton: The search terms were everything you could imagine that might be related to anything,
but they also went through every single e-mail.
"The FBI found, however, that Secretary Clinton's lawyers did not in fact read all of her emails-they
relied exclusively on a set of search terms to identify work-related messages," Chaffetz and Goodlatte
wrote, before quoting from Comey's July 5 testimony:
The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content
of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information
and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000
total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton's personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their
search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the
mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server. It is also likely that there are
other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere,
and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers
cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.
The third area where Hillary Clinton seems to have perjured herself according to the two House
Committee chairmen is when she testified that she only used one server or device.
"With respect to whether there was one, or more servers that stored work-related emails during
her time as Secretary of State, Secretary Clinton testified there was only one server," Goodlatte
and Chaffetz wrote to the D.C. U.S. Attorney, before pulling another transcript of congressional
testimony:
Rep. Jordan: In March, you also said this: your server was physically located on your property,
which is protected by the Secret Service. I'm having a hard time figuring this out, because this
story's been all over the place. But - there was one server on your property in New York, and
a second server hosted by a Colorado company in - housed in New Jersey. Is that right? There were
two servers?
Mrs. Clinton: No.
Rep. Jordan: OK.
Mrs. Clinton: There was a - there was a server…
Rep. Jordan: Just one?
Mrs. Clinton: . . . that was already being used by my husband's team. An existing system in
our home that I used, and then later, again, my husband's office decided that they wanted to change
their arrangements, and that's when they contracted with the company in Colorado.
Rep. Jordan: And so there's only one server? Is that what you're telling me? And it's the one
server that the FBI has?
Mrs. Clinton: The FBI has the server that was used during the tenure of my State Department
service.
Goodlatte and Chaffetz also wrote:
The FBI, however, found Secretary Clinton stored work-related emails on several servers. In
Director Comey's public statement, he said, 'Secretary Clinton used several different servers
and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous
mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain.' In Director Comey's testimony
on July 7, 2016, he stated that Secretary Clinton used several devices to send and receive work-related
emails during her tenure as Secretary of State. He testified, 'She used multiple devices during
her four years as secretary of state.'
The fourth and final area where Clinton seems to have, according to Chaffetz and Goodlatte, perjured
herself while under oath was during her claim that she provided all of her work-related emails to
the Department of State.
"Finally, with respect to whether she provided all her work-related emails to the Department of
State, Secretary Clinton testified to the Select Committee that she had," Chaffetz and Goodlatte
wrote, before again pulling a transcript of Clinton's testimony before Congress.
Mrs. Clinton: Well, Congressman, I have said repeatedly that I take responsibility for my use
of personal e-mail. I've said it was a mistake. I've said that it was allowed, but it was not
a good choice. When I got to the department, we were faced with a global financial crisis, major
troop decisions on Afghanistan, the imperative to rebuild our alliances in Europe and Asia, an
ongoing war in Iraq, and so much else. E-mail was not my primary means of communication, as I
have said earlier. I did not have a computer on my desk. I've described how I did work: in meetings,
secure and unsecured phone calls, reviewing many, many pages of materials every day, attending
. . .
Rep. Jordan: I - I - I appreciate (inaudible).
Mrs. Clinton: . . . a great deal of meetings, and I provided the department, which has been
providing you, with all of my work-related e-mails, all that I had. Approximately 55,000 pages.
And they are being publicly released.
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote:
The FBI found, however, 'several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of
30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014.' In the course of its investigation,
the FBI recovered 'still others . . . from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments
dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.' When Director Comey appeared
before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 7, 2016, he confirmed that Secretary
Clinton did not turn over all work-related emails to the FBI. He stated, 'We found work-related
emails, thousands, that were not returned.'
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrapped their letter to the U.S. Attorney for D.C. by noting that the FBI's
findings prove Hillary Clinton was not telling the truth when she testified under oath before Congress.
"The four pieces of sworn testimony by Secretary Clinton described herein are incompatible with
the FBI's findings," Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin said she doesn't know
how her emails wound up on a device she said was her husband's computer, according to a person
familiar with the investigation.
The person, who requested anonymity, said Abedin was not a regular user of the computer and
her lawyers did not search it for materials, thinking no messages would be there even after she
agreed to turn over her messages to the State Department for record-keeping, the
Washington Post reported.
On June 28, 2016, Abedin swore under oath that she looked for all devices containing work information
so the records could be given to the State Department, the
Daily Beast reported.
In the sworn oath, she said she "looked for all the devices that may have any of my State Department
work on it and returned - returned - gave them to my attorneys for them to review for all relevant
documents."
Investigators found thousands of emails on Weiner's computer that they believe to be relevant
to the Clinton investigation, according to federal law enforcement officials.
It is still unknown how the emails are relevant or whether or not they are significant.
Officials say it is possible that the messages could be duplicates of already investigated
emails, but that will not be determined until a computer program goes through the emails to weed
out the duplicates so officials can closely examine the emails for classified information.
"... "The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation," he said. "That's the problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled, I'm sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that." ..."
"... Kallstrom blamed the FBI leadership under FBI Director James Comey as the reason the investigation was held back, but not the rest of the bureau. ..."
"... "The agents are furious with what's going on, I know that for a fact," he said. ..."
A former FBI official said Sunday that Bill and Hillary Clinton are part of a "crime family"
and added that top officials impeded the investigation into Clinton's email server while she was
secretary of state.
Former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom praised Donald Trump before he offered a take down
of the Clintons in a radio interview with John Catsimatidis,
The Hill reported.
"The Clintons, that's a crime family, basically," Kallstrom said. "It's like organized crime.
I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool."
Kallstrom, best known for spearheading the investigation into the explosion of TWA flight 800
in the late '90s, called Clinton a "pathological liar" and blamed Attorney General Loretta Lynch
for botching the Clinton email server investigation.
"The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation," he said. "That's the
problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled,
I'm sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that."
"God forbid we put someone like that in the White House," he added of Clinton.
Kallstrom blamed the FBI leadership under FBI Director James Comey as the reason the investigation
was held back, but not the rest of the bureau.
"The agents are furious with what's going on, I know that for a fact," he said.
Saturday on CNN while discussing the FBI reopening the investigation into Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private unsecured email server during her tenure as secretary
of state, former Assistant Director of the FBI Thomas Fuentes said, "The FBI has an intensive investigation
ongoing into the Clinton Foundation."
He added, "The FBI made the determination that the investigation would go forward as a comprehensive
unified case and be coordinated, so that investigation is ongoing and Huma Abedin and her role and
activities concerning secretary of state in the nature of the foundation and possible pay to play,
that's still being looked at and now."
"... Her e-mailing practices have been under federal investigation ..."
"... Her unorthodox deals, including an agreement to speak in Morocco in exchange for a $12 million gift to the Clinton Global Initiative charity, have landed on the front pages of American newspapers. She infuriated liberals by cozying up to Wall Street banks. She's the consummate insider in the year of the political outsider. ..."
"... But at this point Clinton could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, to borrow one of Donald Trump's more remarkable boasts about himself, and she might not lose many votes. ..."
Her e-mailing practices have been under federal investigation for a big chunk of her
candidacy.
Her unorthodox deals, including an agreement to speak in Morocco in exchange for a $12 million
gift to the Clinton Global Initiative charity, have landed on the front pages of American newspapers.
She infuriated liberals by cozying up to Wall Street banks. She's the consummate insider in the year
of the political outsider.
... ... ...
"By any metric you would want to use, Hillary Clinton was probably the weakest possible general election
candidate the Democrats could have produced in 2016," said Tucker Martin, a Virginia-based Republican
strategist. "She was absolutely beatable."
But at this point Clinton could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, to
borrow one of Donald Trump's more remarkable boasts about himself, and she might not lose many votes.
"... Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists, mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions. ..."
"... The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise, in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies ..."
"... Apart from the fact that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration chooses to take. ..."
"... A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11 September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve of the paranoid Right. ..."
"Who says we share common values with the Europeans? They don't even go to church!" Will the atrocities
of September 11 push America further to the right or open a new debate on foreign policy and the
need for alliances? In this exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven
considers how the cold war legacy may affect the war on terrorism
Not long after the Bush Administration took power in January, I was invited to lunch at a glamorous
restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing
broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele
beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly insane. With regard to the greater
part of the world outside America, my hosts' attitude was a combination of loathing, contempt, distrust
and fear: not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese, French and others, but towards 'European socialist
governments', whatever that was supposed to mean. This went with a strong desire - in theory at least
- to take military action against a broad range of countries across the world.
Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies,
and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with
their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than
to people who were, at that point, on top of the world.
Today Americans of all classes and opinions have reason to worry, and someone real to fear and
hate, while prolonged US military action overseas is thought to be inevitable. The building where
we had lunch is now rubble. Several of our fellow diners probably died last week, along with more
than six thousand other New Yorkers from every walk of life. Not only has the terrorist attack claimed
far more victims than any previous such attack anywhere in the world, but it has delivered a far
more damaging economic blow. Equally important, it has destroyed Americans' belief in their country's
invulnerability, on which so many other American attitudes and policies finally rested.
This shattering blow was delivered by a handful of anonymous agents hidden in the wider population,
working as part of a tightly-knit secret international conspiracy inspired by a fanatical and (to
the West) deeply 'alien' and 'exotic' religious ideology. Its members are ruthless; they have remarkable
organisational skills, a tremendous capacity for self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and a deep hatred
of the United States and the Western way of life. As Richard Hofstader and others have argued, for
more than two hundred years this kind of combination has always acted as a prompt for paranoid and
reactionary conspiracy theories, most of them groundless.
Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce
two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists,
mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening
of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions.
The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white
heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously - as is usually
the case at the start of wars - pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply
rightward direction; all of which has taken place under an unexpectedly right-wing Administration.
If this leads to a crude military response, then the terrorists will have achieved part of their
purpose, which was to provoke the other side to indiscriminate retaliation, and thereby increase
their own support.
It is too early to say for sure how US strategies and attitudes will develop. At the time of writing
Afghanistan is the focus, but whatever happens there, it isn't clear whether the US Administration
will go on to launch a more general campaign of military pressure against other states which have
supported terrorist groups, and if so, what states and what kind of military pressure? US policy
is already pulled in two predictable but contradictory directions, amply illustrated in the op-ed
pages of US newspapers and in debates within the Government.
The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise,
in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies. There are the beginnings, too, of
a real public debate on how US policy needs to be changed and shaped to fight the new 'war'. All
this is reminiscent of US attitudes and behaviour at the start of the Cold War, when Communism was
identified as the central menace to the US and to Western capitalism and democracy in general.
On the other hand, the public desire for revenge has strengthened certain attitudes - especially
in the Republican Party and media, as well as parts of the Administration - which, if they prevail,
will not only be dangerous in themselves, but will make the search for real allies difficult. And
real allies are essential, above all in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the longer run, only the full
co-operation of Arab regimes - along with reform and economic development - can prevent the recruitment,
funding and operations of Arab-based terrorist groups.
As for Europe, British military support may be unconditional, but most European countries - Russia
among them - are likely to restrict their help to intelligence and policing. Apart from the fact
that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing
great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration
chooses to take.
Yet a blank cheque is precisely what the Administration, and the greater part of US public opinion,
are asking for. This is Jim Hoagland, veteran establishment foreign correspondent and commentator,
in the generally liberal Washington Post:
"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin
Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism.
These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States.
And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetiser of bin Laden and not share in the costs
of the rest of a meal cooked in hell."
If this is the Post, then the sentiments in the right-wing press and the tabloids can well be
imagined. Here is Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, writing in the Washington Times:
"The United States is now energetically in the business of making governments pick a side: either
with us and against the terrorists, or against us and with them... Against the category of enemy
stands the category of 'friend'. Friends stand with us. Friends do whatever they can to help. Friends
don't, for example, engage in commerce with enemies, otherwise they aren't friends."
A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11
September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve
of the paranoid Right. Now it has spread and, for the moment at least, some rather important ideas
have almost vanished from the public debate: among them, that other states have their own national
interests, and that in the end nothing compels them to help the US; that they, too, have been the
victims of terrorism - in the case of Britain, largely funded from groups in the United States -
but have not insisted on a right of unilateral military retaliation (this point was made by Niall
Ferguson in the New York Times, but not as yet in any op-ed by an American that I have seen); and
that in some cases these states may actually know more about their own part of the world than US
intelligence does.
Beyond the immediate and unforeseeable events in Afghanistan - and their sombre implications for
Pakistan - lies the bigger question of US policy in the Arab world. Here, too, Administration policy
may well be a good deal more cautious than the opinions of the right-wing media would suggest - which
again is fortunate, because much opinion on this subject is more than rabid. Here is AM Rosenthal
in the Washington Times arguing that an amazing range of states should be given ultimatums to surrender
not only alleged terrorists but also their own senior officials accused by the US of complicity:
"The ultimatum should go to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and
any other devoted to the elimination of the United States or the constant incitement of hatred against
it... In the three days the terrorists consider the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a day by the United States to flee the capital and major cities, because
they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth."
Rosenthal isn't a figure from the lunatic fringe ranting on a backwoods radio show, but the former
executive editor of the New York Times, writing in a paper with great influence in the Republican
Party, especially under the present Administration.
No Administration is going to do anything remotely like this. But if the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with a proper commitment to multilateralism, other
voices are audible, too. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, has spoken of "ending states
which support terrorism", and in the case of Iraq, there are those who would now like to complete
the work of the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein.
Here, too, the mood of contempt for allies contributes to the ambition. Thus Kim Holmes, vice-president
of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that only deference to America's Arab allies prevented
the US from destroying the Iraqi regime in 1991 (the profound unwillingness of Bush Senior to occupy
Iraq and take responsibility for the place also played its part in the decision): "To show that this
war is not with Islam per se, the US could be tempted to restrain itself militarily and accommodate
the complex and contradictory political agendas of Islamic states. This in turn could make the campaign
ineffectual, prolonging the problem of terrorism."
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is not in itself a bad idea. His is a pernicious regime, a menace
to his own people and his neighbours, as well as to the West. And if the Iraqi threat to the Gulf
States could be eliminated, US troops might be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: it was their permanent
stationing on the holy soil of Islam that turned Osama bin Laden from an anti-Soviet mujahid into
an anti-American terrorist.
But only if it were to take place in the context of an entirely new policy towards Palestine would
the US be able to mount such a campaign without provoking massive unrest across the Arab world; and
given what became of promises made during the Gulf War, there would first of all have to be firm
evidence of a US change of heart. The only borders between Israel and Palestine which would have
any chance of satisfying a majority of Palestinians and Arabs - and conforming to UN resolutions,
for what they are worth - would be those of 1967, possibly qualified by an internationalisation of
Jerusalem under UN control. This would entail the removal of the existing Jewish settlements in the
Occupied Territories, and would be absolutely unacceptable to any imaginable Israeli Government.
To win Israeli agreement would require not just US pressure, but the threat of a complete breach
of relations and the ending of aid.
There may be those in the Administration who would favour adopting such an approach at a later
stage. Bush Sr's was the most anti-Israeli Administration of the past two generations, and was disliked
accordingly by the Jewish and other ethnic lobbies. His son's is less beholden to those lobbies than
Clinton's was. And it may be that even pro-Israeli US politicians will at some point realise that
Israel's survival as such is not an issue: that it is absurd to increase the risk to Washington and
New York for the sake of 267 extremist settlers in Hebron and their comrades elsewhere.
Still, in the short term, a radical shift is unlikely, and an offensive against Iraq would therefore
be dangerous. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the celebrations in parts of the Arab
world have increased popular hostility to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular,
a hostility assiduously stoked by Israeli propaganda. But when it comes to denouncing hate crimes
against Muslims - or those taken to be Muslims - within the US, the Administration has behaved decently,
perhaps because they have a rather sobering precedent in mind, one which has led to genuine shame:
the treatment of Japanese Americans during world war two.
This shame is the result of an applied historical intelligence that does not extend to the Arab
world. Americans tend - and perhaps need - to confuse the symptoms and the causes of Arab anger.
Since a key pro-Israel position in the US has been that fundamental Palestinian and Arab grievances
must not be allowed legitimacy or even discussed, the only explanation of Arab hostility to the US
and its ally must be sought in innate features of Arab society, whether a contemporary culture of
anti-semitism (and anti-Americanism) sanctioned by Arab leaderships, or ancient 'Muslim' traditions
of hostility to the West.
All of which may contain some truth: but the central issue, the role of Israeli policies in providing
a focus for such hatred, is overwhelmingly ignored. As a result, it is extremely difficult, and mostly
impossible, to hold any frank discussion of the most important issue affecting the position of the
US in the Middle East or the open sympathy for terrorism in the region. A passionately held nationalism
usually has the effect of corrupting or silencing those liberal intellectuals who espouse it. This
is the case of Israeli nationalism in the US. It is especially distressing that it should afflict
the Jewish liberal intelligentsia, that old bedrock of sanity and tolerance.
An Administration which wanted a radical change of policy towards Israel would have to generate
a new public debate almost from scratch - which would not be possible until some kind of tectonic
shift had taken place in American society. Too many outside observers who blame US Administrations
forget that on a wide range of issues, it is essentially Congress and not the White House or State
Department which determines foreign policy; this is above all true of US aid. An inability or unwillingness
to try to work on Congress, as opposed to going through normal diplomatic channels, has been a minor
contributory factor to Britain's inability to get any purchase on US policy in recent years.
The role of Congress brings out what might be called the Wilhelmine aspects of US foreign and
security policy. By that I do not mean extreme militarism or a love of silly hats, or even a shared
tendency to autism when it comes to understanding the perceptions of other countries, but rather
certain structural features in both the Wilhemine and the US system tending to produce over-ambition,
and above all a chronic incapacity to choose between diametrically opposite goals. Like Wilhelmine
Germany, the US has a legislature with very limited constitutional powers in the field of foreign
policy, even though it wields considerable de facto power and is not linked either institutionally
or by party discipline to the executive. The resulting lack of any responsibility for actual consequences
is a standing invitation to rhetorical grandstanding, and the pursuit of sectional interests at the
expense of overall policy.
Meanwhile, the executive, while in theory supremely powerful in this field, has in fact continually
to woo the legislature without ever being able to command its support. This, too, encourages dependence
on interest groups, as well as a tendency to overcome differences and gain support by making appeals
in terms of overheated patriotism rather than policy. Finally, in both systems, though for completely
different reasons, supreme executive power had or has a tendency to fall into the hands of people
totally unsuited for any but the ceremonial aspects of the job, and endlessly open to manipulation
by advisers, ministers and cliques.
In the US, this did not matter so much during the Cold War, when a range of Communist threats
- real, imagined or fabricated - held the system together in the pursuit of more or less common aims.
With the disappearance of the unifying threat, however, there has been a tendency, again very Wilhelmine,
to produce ambitious and aggressive policies in several directions simultaneously, often with little
reference at all to real US interests or any kind of principle.
The new 'war against terrorism' in Administration and Congressional rhetoric has been cast as
just such a principle, unifying the country and the political establishment behind a common goal
and affecting or determining a great range of other policies. The language has been reminiscent of
the global struggle against Communism, and confronting Islamist radicalism in the Muslim world does,
it's true, pose some of the same challenges, on a less global scale, though possibly with even greater
dangers for the world.
The likelihood that US strategy in the 'war against terrorism' will resemble that of the Cold
War is greatly increased by the way Cold War structures and attitudes have continued to dominate
the US foreign policy and security elites. Charles Tilly and others have written of the difficulty
states have in 'ratcheting down' wartime institutions and especially wartime spending. In the 1990s,
this failure on the part of the US to escape its Cold War legacy was a curse, ensuring unnecessarily
high military spending in the wrong fields, thoroughly negative attitudes to Russia, 'zero-sum' perceptions
of international security issues in general, and perceptions of danger which wholly failed, as we
now see, to meet the real threats to security and lives.
The idea of a National Missile Defense is predicated on a limited revival of the Cold War, with
China cast in the role of the Soviet Union and the Chinese nuclear deterrent as the force to be nullified.
Bush's foreign and security team is almost entirely a product of Cold War structures and circumscribed
by Cold War attitudes (which is not true of the President himself, who was never interested enough
in foreign policy; if he can get his mind round the rest of the world, he could well be more of a
free-thinker than many of his staff).
The collapse of the Communist alternative to Western-dominated modernisation and the integration
(however imperfect) of Russia and China into the world capitalist order have been a morally and socially
ambiguous process, to put it mildly; but in the early 1990s they seemed to promise the suspension
of hostility between the world's larger powers. The failure of the US to make use of this opportunity,
thanks to an utter confusion between an ideological victory and crudely-defined US geopolitical interests,
was a great misfortune which the 'war against terrorism' could in part rectify. Since 11 September,
the rhetoric in America has proposed a gulf between the 'civilised' states of the present world system,
and movements of 'barbaric', violent protest from outside and below - without much deference to the
ambiguities of 'civilisation', or the justifications of resistance to it, remarked on since Tacitus
at least.
How is the Cold War legacy likely to determine the 'war against terrorism'? Despite the general
conviction in the Republican Party that it was simply Reagan's military spending and the superiority
of the US system which destroyed Soviet Communism, more serious Cold War analysts were always aware
that it involved not just military force, or the threat of it, but ideological and political struggle,
socio-economic measures, and state-building. The latter in particular is an idea for which the Bush
team on their arrival in office had a deep dislike (if only to distance themselves from Clinton's
policies), but which they may now rediscover. Foreign aid - so shamefully reduced in the 1990s -
was also a key part of the Cold War, and if much of it was poured into kleptocratic regimes like
Mobutu's, or wasted on misguided projects, some at least helped produce flourishing economies in
Europe and East Asia.
The Republican Party is not only the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but of Eisenhower, Nixon and
Kissinger. Eisenhower is now almost forgotten by the party. 'Eisenhower Republicans', as they refer
to themselves, are usually far closer to Tony Blair (or perhaps more accurately, Helmut Schmidt)
than anyone the Republican Party has seen in recent years, and I'd wager that the majority of educated
Americans have forgotten that the original warning about the influence of the 'military industrial
complex' came from Eisenhower.
Kissinger is still very much alive, however, and his history is a reminder that one aspect of
the American capacity for extreme ruthlessness was also a capacity for radical changes of policy,
for reconciliation with states hitherto regarded as bitter enemies, and for cold-blooded abandonment
of close allies and clients whose usefulness was at an end. It would not altogether surprise me if
we were now to see a radical shift towards real co-operation with Russia, and even Iran.
In general, however, the Cold War legacies and parallels are discouraging and dangerous. To judge
by the language used in the days since 11 September, ignorance, demonisation and the drowning out
of nuanced debate indicate that much of the US establishment can no more tell the difference between
Iran and Afghanistan than they could between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s - the
inexcusable error which led to the American war in Vietnam. The preference for militarised solutions
continues (the 'War on Drugs', which will now have to be scaled back, is an example). Most worryingly,
the direct attack on American soil and American civilians - far worse than anything done to the US
in the Cold War - means that there is a real danger of a return to Cold War ruthlessness: not just
in terms of military tactics and covert operations, but in terms of the repulsive and endangered
regimes co-opted as local American clients.
The stakes are, if anything, a good deal higher than they were during the Cold War. Given what
we now know of Soviet policymaking, it is by no means clear that the Kremlin ever seriously contemplated
a nuclear strike against America. By contrast, it seems likely that bin Laden et al would in the
end use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if they could deliver them.
There is also the question of the impact of US strategies (or, in the case of Israel, lack of
them) on the unity of the West - assuming that this is of some importance for the wellbeing of humanity.
However great the exasperation of many European states with US policy throughout the Cold War, the
Europeans were bound into the transatlantic alliance by an obvious Soviet threat - more immediate
to them than it was to the US. For the critical first decade of the Cold War, the economies of Europe
were hopelessly inferior to that of the US. Today, if European Governments feel that the US is dragging
them into unnecessary danger thanks to policies of which they disapprove, they will protest bitterly
- as many did during the Cold War - and then begin to distance themselves, which they could not afford
to do fifty years ago.
This is all the more likely if, as seems overwhelmingly probable, the US withdraws from the Balkans
- as it has already done in Macedonia - leaving Europeans with no good reason to require a US military
presence on their continent. At the same time, the cultural gap between Europeans and Republican
America (which does not mean a majority of Americans, but the dominant strain of policy) will continue
to widen. 'Who says we share common values with the Europeans?' a senior US politician remarked recently.
'They don't even go to church!' Among other harmful effects, the destruction of this relationship
could signal the collapse of whatever hope still exists for a common Western approach to global environmental
issues - which would, in the end, pose a greater danger to humanity than that of terrorism.
· Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington
DC.
"... But the Clinton team also had to deal with a newly emboldened Mr. Trump, who urged voters at a rally on Saturday in Golden, Colo., to oppose Mrs. Clinton because of her "criminal action" that was "willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful." ..."
"... Handed a new opening against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump used the moment to baselessly claim there had been an internal F.B.I. "revolt" and made a sexually suggestive joke about Mr. Weiner. ..."
"... "As Podesta said, she's got bad instincts," Mr. Trump said, distorting a comment in one of the thousands of Mr. Podesta's hacked emails recently released by WikiLeaks. "Well, she's got bad instincts when her emails are on Anthony Weiner's wherever." ..."
"... The paramount fear among Clinton advisers and Democratic officials was that an election that had become a referendum on Mr. Trump's fitness for office, and that had increasingly seemed to be Mrs. Clinton's to lose, would now become just as much about her conduct. ..."
"... "This is like an 18-wheeler smacking into us, and it just becomes a huge distraction at the worst possible time," said Donna Brazile, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and a close Clinton ally. ..."
"... a reflection of 18 months of frustration that her personal decisions about her email practices and privacy were still generating unhelpful political drama. ..."
"... Two Clinton aides, for example, pointedly noted in interviews that it was difficult to press a counterattack without fully knowing what was in Ms. Abedin's emails. ..."
"... While some voters are undecided, about 20 million Americans have already cast ballots in early voting, and millions more long ago concluded which candidate they would support. ..."
"... In a polarized country where many are unwaveringly contemptuous of either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton, the latest development in the email story prompted a mix of shrugs and renewed determination from the left and told-you-so claims of Clinton perfidy from the right. ..."
'Some prominent Democratic women, meanwhile, were angry that a murky announcement from the F.B.I.
might impede the election of the first female president of the United States.
"It worries me because it gives the Republicans something to blow up and fan folks' anger with,"
said former Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, who considered a run for the Democratic
nomination for president in 1988. "I was on the Judiciary Committee when I was in Congress, and
I have never seen the F.B.I. handle any case the way they have handled hers."'
Hillary Clinton Assails James Comey, Calling Email
Decision 'Deeply Troubling' http://nyti.ms/2dYalYs
NYT - PATRICK HEALY and JONATHAN MARTIN - Oct 29
Hillary Clinton and her allies sprang onto a war footing on Saturday, opening a ferocious attack
on the F.B.I.'s director, James B. Comey, a day after he disclosed that his agency was looking
into a potential new batch of messages from her private email server.
Treating Mr. Comey as a threat to her candidacy, Mrs. Clinton took aim at the law enforcement
officer who had recommended no criminal charges less than four months earlier for her handling
of classified information as secretary of state.
"It's pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before
an election," Mrs. Clinton said at a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla. "In fact, it's not just strange;
it's unprecedented and it is deeply troubling."
For Democrats, it was also deeply worrying. Mrs. Clinton's advisers expressed concern that
the F.B.I.'s renewed attention to emails relating to the nominee would turn some voters against
her, hurt party candidates in competitive House and Senate races, and complicate efforts to win
over undecided Americans in the final days of the election.
So after stepping gingerly around the issue on Friday, calling on Mr. Comey to release more
specific information but not overtly criticizing him, her campaign made it personal on Saturday,
accusing the director of smearing Mrs. Clinton with innuendo late in the race and of violating
Justice Department rules.
The decision to target Mr. Comey for his unusual decision to publicly disclose the inquiry
came during an 8 a.m. internal conference call, after aides saw reports that Justice Department
officials were furious, believing he had violated longstanding guidelines advising against such
actions so close to an election.
Even before Mrs. Clinton spoke in Florida, her campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, and campaign
manager, Robby Mook, criticized Mr. Comey for putting out incomplete information and breaking
with Justice Department protocol.
"By providing selective information, he has allowed partisans to distort and exaggerate
to inflict maximum political damage," Mr. Podesta said during a conference call with reporters.
"Comey has not been forthcoming with the facts," he added, describing the director's letter to
Congress on Friday as "long on innuendo."
Whatever shortcomings Mrs. Clinton may have as a candidate, Saturday's coordinated effort showed
that the political organization that she, her husband and her allies had built over decades remained
potent and would not let what seemed like victory erode easily. By midday, Mr. Comey, a Republican
appointed by President Obama and confirmed nearly unanimously by the Senate, found himself in
its cross hairs.
Encouraged by Mrs. Clinton's senior aides to reframe the story and make it about Mr. Comey's
actions, liberal groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus demanded that he release more information.
Other surrogates were emailed talking points prodding them to deem it "extraordinary that 11 days
before the election a letter like this - with so few details - would be sent to 8 Republican committee
chairmen." (Ranking Democrats on the committees also received copies.)
Mr. Comey has not publicly commented on the investigation, other than with the letter saying
that more emails were being examined. He also wrote an email to F.B.I. employees explaining that
he felt he had to inform Congress even though the agency did not yet know "the significance of
this newly discovered collection of emails."
With Mrs. Clinton leading Donald J. Trump in nearly every battleground state, Clinton advisers
were emphatic that they would not be thrown off stride. They said they would not change any political
strategy, television advertising or campaign travel plans.
For months, the F.B.I. had investigated whether Mrs. Clinton had broken any laws by using a
private email server while she was secretary of state. This past summer, Mr. Comey said that Mrs.
Clinton had been "extremely careless" by allowing sensitive information to be discussed outside
secure government servers, but that the agency had concluded that Mrs. Clinton had not committed
a crime. The investigation was closed.
But on Friday, Mr. Comey notified Congress that the agency had discovered emails, possibly
relevant to the investigation, that belonged to Mrs. Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin. The emails
were discovered on the computer of Ms. Abedin's estranged husband, Anthony D. Weiner, during a
separate investigation into allegations that he had exchanged sexually explicit messages with
a teenager.
According to several Clinton advisers, Mrs. Clinton told them overnight and on Saturday that
she wanted the campaign to operate normally, not rashly, while pressuring Mr. Comey to dispel
any possibility that her candidacy was under legal threat.
But the Clinton team also had to deal with a newly emboldened Mr. Trump, who urged voters
at a rally on Saturday in Golden, Colo., to oppose Mrs. Clinton because of her "criminal action"
that was "willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful."
Handed a new opening against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump used the moment to baselessly claim
there had been an internal F.B.I. "revolt" and made a sexually suggestive joke about Mr. Weiner.
"As Podesta said, she's got bad instincts," Mr. Trump said, distorting a comment in one
of the thousands of Mr. Podesta's hacked emails recently released by WikiLeaks. "Well, she's got
bad instincts when her emails are on Anthony Weiner's wherever."
The paramount fear among Clinton advisers and Democratic officials was that an election that
had become a referendum on Mr. Trump's fitness for office, and that had increasingly seemed to
be Mrs. Clinton's to lose, would now become just as much about her conduct.
In phone calls, email chains and text messages on Saturday, Clinton aides and allies were by
turns confident that the F.B.I. would find nothing to hurt Mrs. Clinton and concerned that the
inquiry would nudge demoralized Republicans to show up to vote for down-ballot candidates - and
perhaps even cast ballots, however reluctantly, for the battered Mr. Trump.
"This is like an 18-wheeler smacking into us, and it just becomes a huge distraction at the
worst possible time," said Donna Brazile, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee
and a close Clinton ally. "We don't want it to knock us off our game. But on the second-to-last
weekend of the race, we find ourselves having to tell voters, 'Keep your focus; keep your eyes
on the prize.'"
As much as Clinton advisers stressed that they were not panicking, some of them radiated anger
at Mr. Comey, Mr. Weiner and even Mrs. Clinton - a reflection of 18 months of frustration that
her personal decisions about her email practices and privacy were still generating unhelpful political
drama.Two Clinton aides, for example, pointedly noted in interviews that it was difficult to
press a counterattack without fully knowing what was in Ms. Abedin's emails.
Some prominent Democratic women, meanwhile, were angry that a murky announcement from the F.B.I.
might impede the election of the first female president of the United States.
"It worries me because it gives the Republicans something to blow up and fan folks' anger with,"
said former Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, who considered a run for the Democratic
nomination for president in 1988. "I was on the Judiciary Committee when I was in Congress, and
I have never seen the F.B.I. handle any case the way they have handled hers."
While some voters are undecided, about 20 million Americans have already cast ballots in
early voting, and millions more long ago concluded which candidate they would support.
In a polarized country where many are unwaveringly contemptuous of either Mr. Trump or
Mrs. Clinton, the latest development in the email story prompted a mix of shrugs and renewed determination
from the left and told-you-so claims of Clinton perfidy from the right.
'Hopefully, it will infuriate & motivate
Dem voters more than it will please
& energize GOPsters.'
likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
"Encouraged by Mrs. Clinton's senior aides to reframe the story and make it about Mr. Comey's
actions"
Reminds me a reaction of a cornered rat...
It was she who created private "Shadow IT" within the State Department.
It was she who hired Huma Abedin who proved to be completely clueless in computer security
(and not only in computer security) and, as such, represented probably even higher level of security
risks then Mrs Clinton herself. Forwarding email to her private Web mail account for printing
because direct printing from the State Department email account was convoluted is an interesting
solution for a high level State Department official, who signed various non-disclosure documents.
It was she who was eliminated incriminating emails by claiming the they are private after investigation
was already opened and she was asked to provide them. Elimination was done using special software
to prevent recovery.
"... In recent interviews, Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, observed wryly that almost every malicious, lie-filled article about herself or he husband was written by a … female. ..."
"... On the Soviet-style witch-hunt launched against her husband with media mediation, she said this: "All sexual assault allegations should be handled in a court of law. To accuse someone, man or woman, without evidence is damaging and unfair." ..."
"... The very embodiment of the malevolent liberal matriarchy rising is the sainted Michelle Obama. The First Lady was lauded for an unhinged anti-Trump address to the nation's women. ..."
In recent interviews, Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, observed wryly that almost every malicious,
lie-filled article about herself or he husband was written by a … female.
... ... ...
When a liberal woman declares she's a strong woman (usually uttered in a tart-like, staccato inflection),
she's using a cliché. Look at her actions. You'll see that "strong" to liberal distaff means kicking
and screaming until she brings others into compliance with her worldview and ways.
... ... ...
More material than her mien were Melania Trump's words of reason. On the Soviet-style witch-hunt
launched against her husband with media mediation, she said this: "All sexual assault allegations
should be handled in a court of law. To accuse someone, man or woman, without evidence is damaging
and unfair."
This was the exact verdict of famed defense attorney Tom Mesereau, about the Bill Cosby
pile-on. Quit the feeding frenzy. Give the man his due process. Investigate the women, counseled
Mesereau, Esq., at the time.
... ... ...
The very embodiment of the malevolent liberal matriarchy rising is the sainted Michelle Obama.
The First Lady was lauded for an
unhinged anti-Trump
address to the nation's women. In a world where Americans have been beheaded on camera, women
raped en masse on Europe's streets, and Christians exterminated in the Middle East-the First Lady
bewailed being "shaken" to her shallow core by raunchy words. "I can't stop thinking about it," groaned
Michelle about Mr. Trump's Access Hollywood indiscretion. It "has shaken me to my core in a way I
could not have predicted."
Rank Name Donations
1 Tom Steyer $38 million
2 Donald Sussman $23.4 million
3 Miriam & Sheldon Adelson $21.5 million
4 Robert Mercer $20.2 million
5 Michael Bloomberg $20.1 million
6 Fred Eychaner $20 million
7 Paul Singer $17.3 million
8 George Soros $16.5 million
9 Maurice "Hank" Greenberg $15.1 million
10 Elizabeth & Richard Uihlein $14 million
In the aftermath of one of the most memorable (c)october shocks in presidential campaign history, Wikileaks continues its ongoing
broadside attack against the Clinton campaign with the relentless Podesta dump, by unveiling another 596 emails in the latest Part
22 of its Podesta release, bringing the total emails released so far to exactly 36,190, leaving less than 30% of the total dump left
to go.
As usual we will go parse through the disclosure and bring you some of the more notable ones.
* * *
In a February 2012 email from Chelsea Clinton's
NYU alias, [email protected], to Podesta and Mills, Bill and Hillary's frustrated
daughter once again points out the "frustration and confusion" among Clinton Foundation clients in the aftermath of the previously
noted scandals plaguing the Clinton consultancy, Teneo:
Over the past few days a few people from the Foundation have reached out to me frustrated or upset about _____ (fill in the
blank largely derived meetings Friday or Monday). I've responded to all w/ essentially the following (ie disintermediating myself,
again, emphatically) below. I also called my Dad last night to tell him of my explicit non-involvement and pushing all back to
you both and to him as I think that is indeed the right answer. Thanks
Sample: Please share any and all concerns, with examples, without pulling punches, with John and Cheryl as appropriate and
also if you feel very strongly with my Dad directly. Transitions are always challenging and to get to the right answer its critical
that voices are heard and understood, and in the most direct way - ie to them without intermediation. Particularly in an effort
to move more toward a professionalism and efficiency at the Foundation and for my father - and they're the decision-makers, my
Dad most of all
I have moved all the sussman money from unity '09 to cap and am reviewing the others . I will assess it and keep you informed
Something else for the DOJ to look into after the elections, perhaps?
* * *
And then there is this email from August 2015
in which German politician Michael Werz advises John Podesta that Turkish president Erdogan "is making substantial investments in
U.S. to counter opposition (CHP, Kurds, Gulenists etc.) outreach to policymakers" and the US Government.
John, heard this second hand but more than once. Seems Erdogan faction is making substantial investments in U.S. to counter
opposition (CHP, Kurds, Gulenists etc.) outreach to policymakers and USG. Am told that the Erdogan crew also tries to make inroads
via donations to Democratic candidates, including yours. Two names that you should be aware of are *Mehmet Celebi* and *Ali Cinar*.
Happy to elaborate on the phone, provided you are not shopping at the liquor store.
This should perhaps explain why the US has so far done absolutely nothing to halt Erdogan's unprecedented crackdown on "coup plotters"
which has seen as many as 100,000 workers lose their jobs, be arrested, or otherwise removed from Erdogan's political opposition.
The FBI announcement comes on the heels of a report yesterday
by journalist Paul Sperry, who gave new details about Abedin's role in the email scandal.
Protective detail assigned to guard former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her two residences
complained that her closest aide Huma Abedin often overrode standard security protocols during
trips to the Middle East, and personally changed procedures for handling classified information,
including highly sensitive intelligence briefs the CIA prepared for the president, newly released
FBI documents reveal.
The security agents, who were interviewed as witnesses in the FBI's investigation of Clinton's
use of an unauthorized private email server to send classified information, complained that Abedin
had unusual sway over security policies during Clinton's 2009-2013 tenure at Foggy Bottom.
Abedin's influence in these matters, including the revelation in Sperry's article that "Abedin
possessed much more power" over Clinton's staff, schedule, and security than other former chiefs
of staffs, is especially concerning given the links that Abedin has to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia
and to the Muslim World League, a group that Hillary Clinton herself said in 2009 was funding terrorism.
Hillary Clinton has stated publicly
that she helped "start and support" the Media Matters group, and that organization has consistently
come to her rescue with misinformation, half-truths, and smears that invariably get repeated by the
established media.
The Vanity Fair article apparently sent shockwaves through the Clinton camp. Any mainstream
press coverage of Huma Abedin is rare, and what coverage there is almost universally laudatory. Despite
the fawning coverage she has received, there are many unanswered questions about Abedin, especially
given Abedin's complete access to Hillary Clinton, one of the most powerful people in the world,
a former Secretary of State and possible future president.
As Vanity Fair's William Cohan
writes in his piece:
Over the years Huma has served in several positions, with increasingly important-sounding titles.
She has been Hillary's "body woman," her traveling chief of staff, a senior adviser, and a deputy
chief of staff when Hillary was secretary of state. Now, based in Brooklyn, she is the vice-chair
of Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign.
The Vanity Fair piece on the secretive Abedin confirmed a number of facts that have been
reported by conservative media for a couple of years but have been twisted and convoluted by the
mainstream media.
For example, the Vanity Fair article flatly lays out the information that Huma Abedin was
an assistant editor at a publication called the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs from 1996
until 2008. He writes:
When (Huma) Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with
the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father
founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of
its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which stated its mission as "shedding light" on minority
Muslim communities around the world in the hope of "securing the legitimate rights of these communities."…
It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business. Huma was
an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008. Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book-review editor
at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman
of the board of trustees. Huma's sister, Heba, 26, is an assistant editor at the Journal.
Breitbart News added information this year that shows that the "Abedin family business" is housed
in the offices of the Muslim World League.
The webpage for the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs site says how to reach the Journal
: "Editorial Correspondence including submission of articles and books for review should be addressed
to: Editor, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 46 Goodge Street, London WIP 1FJ, U.K."
The current official Journal
website also lists the same 46 Goodge Street address, which is the same exact address listed
on the Muslim World League's London office address.
The official website for the Muslim World
League's London office lists its address as 46 Goodge Street.
A
Yelp! listing for the Muslim World League shows the same 46 Goodge Address and a photo of the
entrance.
Google Maps from 2008 -the earliest
date available-shows the Muslim Word League London office entrance, which appears to have office
space above a pizza restaurant .
This direct connection to the Muslim World League and a child organization called the World Arab
Muslim Youth Association (WAMY)-also housed at Goodge Street offices-is significant due to a 2009
State Department memo which reveals that while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and Huma Abedin
was her top aide, and the Secretary of State's office was engaged in talks with Saudi Arabia about
stopping the Muslim World League from funding terrorism at the same time the "Abedin family business"
was operating out of the Muslim World League's London office.
This revelation shows that while Huma Abedin was serving at the highest level of government as
Hillary Clinton's aide and had access to this information, Abedin had a direct connection to a group
that was suspected of actively funding groups like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hamas, which had not
only killed civilians around the world but also U.S. servicemen.
The memo, which
was originally
published by WikiLeaks , was sent on December 30, 2009 from the Secretary of State to the Department
of Treasury and ambassadors in several Gulf region countries including Saudi Arabia. The stated goal
of the memo is that "all action posts deliver the general talking points" to those countries.
The connection to terror funding is also listed in the infamous "missing 28 pages" from a report
by the 9/11 commission that were kept hidden for years until their release on a Friday afternoon
earlier this year. Page 24 of the 28-page report discusses Osama Bin Laden's half-brother and says
in part:
According to the FBI, Abdullah Bin Ladin has a number of connections to terrorist organizations.
He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute
of Islamic and Arabic Science in America. Both organizations are local branches of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is "closely associated with the
funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical
support to individuals wishing to to fight in the Afghan War." In 1998, the CIA published a paper
characterizing WAMY as a NGO that provides funding. logistical support and training with possible
connections to the Arab Afghans network, Hamas, Algerian extremists and Philippine militants.
Although the 28 pages make no mention of Abedin at all, the information in the 28 pages lays out
a timeline of events during the planning and execution of the 9/11 terror attack that shows that,
at all times, Huma Abedin was working for both Hillary Clinton and the WAMY organization the Institute
for Muslim Minority Affairs.
Another guard assigned to Clinton's residence in Chappaqua, N.Y., recalled in a February FBI
interview that new security procedures for handling delivery of the diplomatic pouch and receiving
via fax the highly classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) had been "established by Abedin."
The witness added that Abedin controlled the operations of a secure room known as a SCIF located
on the third floor of the residence.
In her own April 2016 interview with the FBI, Abedin contended that she "did not know that
Clinton had a private server until about a year and a half ago, when it became public knowledge."
The clintonemail.com server was set up in the basement of the Chappaqua residence.
However, another witness told agents that he and another Clinton aide with an IT background
built the new server system "at the recommendation of Huma Abedin," who first broached the idea
of an off-the-grid email server as early as the "fall (of) 2008," ostensibly after Barack Obama
was elected president.
With the FBI investigation reopened, it will be interesting to see if the mainstream media finally
begins to do their job and ask tough questions about Huma Abedin.
Polling offers some
clues . Last week, George Washington University
released the results of a survey of 1,000 adults who said they were registered and likely
to vote. Only 29% of those who said that they would vote for Clinton said their vote was intended
to stop Trump from getting to the White House. By contrast, 43% of Trump voters said their decision
was a defensive vote against Clinton.
That doesn't necessarily get us any closer to forecasting the results. It's a fact that voter
turnout will shape this election outcome but it's much harder to predict how human nature might affect
that turnout. What drives people to action more – support for a set of values or fear of the alternatives?
Love or hate?
What I do not get is how one can call himself/herself a democrat and be jingoistic monster.
That's the problem with Democratic Party and its supporters. Such people for me are DINO ("Democrats
only in name"). Closet neocons, if you wish. The level of militarism in the current US society
and MSM is really staggering. anti-war forces are completely destroyed (with the abandonment of
draft) and are limited for libertarians (such as Ron Paul) and paleoconservatives. There is almost
completely empty space on the left. Dennis Kucinich is one of the few exceptions
(see
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/must-read-of-the-day-dennis-kucinich-issues-extraordinary-warning-on-d-c-s-think-tank-warmongers/
)
I think that people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney can now proudly join
Democratic Party and feel themselves quite at home.
BTW Hillary is actually very pleasant with people of the same level. It's only subordinates,
close relatives and Security Service agents, who are on the receiving end of her wrath. A typical
"kiss up, kick down personality".
The right word probably would not "nasty", but "duplicitous".
Or "treacherous" as this involves breaking of previous agreements (with a smile) as the USA
diplomacy essentially involves positioning the country above the international law. As in "I am
the law".
Obama is not that different. I think he even more sleazy then Hillary and as such is more difficult
to deal with. He also is at his prime, while she is definitely past hers:
== quote ==
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current
U.S. administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people
chose, and to discuss any problem.
== end of quote ==
Syria is an "Obama-approved" adventure, is not it ? The same is true for Libya. So formally
he is no less jingoistic then Hillary, Nobel Peace price notwithstanding.
Other things equal, it might be easier for Putin to deal with Hillary then Obama, as she
has so many skeletons in the closet and might soon be impeached by House.
"... She [Hillary Clinton] has concurrently this Clinton Foundation business, where she is granting special favors, special partnerships, special government contracts, weapons deals, etc., to Clinton Foundation donors. So, there's just a lot here that represents how the economic and political elite are very much represented, I think, by both of these candidates, and underscores why it's really important for us to exercise our power in a democracy . ..."
"... To present a no-fly zone here as a solution is extremely dangerous. A no-fly zone means we are going to war with Russia, because it means we will be shooting down planes in the sky in order to create this no-fly zone, which is where Russia has a commitment to defending the Assad government. So, remember, there was a ceasefire, which was very hard-won, and that ceasefire was destroyed by the action of the Americans bombing, apparently by mistake, although some people say not by mistake, but it was our bombing of the Syrian troops that destroyed that ceasefire . ..."
"... That was our part, the U.S., in allowing the nuclear arms race to re-engage . Mikhail Gorbachev, the former premier of the Soviet Union, said last week that we are now at a more dangerous period regarding nuclear war than we have ever been. So, it's really important for the warmongers in the Democratic and Republican parties to be cooling their jets now and for us to be moving forward towards a weapons embargo and a freeze on the funding of those countries that are continuing to fund terrorist enterprises . ..."
'There was a ceasefire, which was very hard-won, and that ceasefire was destroyed by the action
of the Americans bombing, apparently by mistake, although some people say not by mistake, but it
was our bombing of the Syrian troops that destroyed that ceasefire'
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! explains again the process, in this second presidential debate:
" We spend the rest of today's show airing excerpts of the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton debate
and give Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein a chance to respond to the same questions
posed to the major-party candidates. Again, Dr. Stein and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary
Johnson were excluded from the debate under stringent rules set by the Commission on Presidential
Debates, which is controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. We invited both Stein and
Johnson to join us on the program; only Stein took us up on the offer. "
In this last part of the second debate, Jill Stein, again, was the only presidential candidate
that told the whole truth to the American people without hesitation.
Concerning the Syrian mess and the Russian intervention, Hillary Clinton showed again why she
is the most dangerous to be the next US president. She avoided again to admit the huge responsibility
of the US intervention and their allies in Libya and the Middle East which created absolute chaos.
She blamed again the Russians, although - as Jill Stein stated very correctly - it was the US that
destroyed the hard-won ceasefire in Syria. Hillary showed again her absolute devotion to the neocon/neoliberal
agenda, therefore, start a war with Russia. She showed again how dangerous she is.
On the contrary, Jill Stein stated very clearly that war with Russia is out of question.
Key points:
She [Hillary Clinton] has concurrently this Clinton Foundation business, where she is granting
special favors, special partnerships, special government contracts, weapons deals, etc., to Clinton
Foundation donors. So, there's just a lot here that represents how the economic and political elite
are very much represented, I think, by both of these candidates, and underscores why it's really
important for us to exercise our power in a democracy . We have a right to know who we can vote
for, as well as a right to vote.
Syria is a disaster, and it's a very complicated disaster. It is a civil war. It is a proxy war
among many nations. It is a pipeline war also between Russia and the Gulf states, who are competing
to run their pipelines with fracked gas into Europe across Syria. So, this is a very complicated
situation, and there is a hornets' nest, a real circular firing squad of alliances here that's, you
know, extremely, extremely complicated.
To present a no-fly zone here as a solution is extremely dangerous. A no-fly zone means we
are going to war with Russia, because it means we will be shooting down planes in the sky in order
to create this no-fly zone, which is where Russia has a commitment to defending the Assad government.
So, remember, there was a ceasefire, which was very hard-won, and that ceasefire was destroyed by
the action of the Americans bombing, apparently by mistake, although some people say not by mistake,
but it was our bombing of the Syrian troops that destroyed that ceasefire .
We need to redouble our efforts here. And we need to acknowledge that war with Russia is not an
option. There are 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. And who was it that dropped out of
the nuclear arms control? That was George Bush. That was our part, the U.S., in allowing the
nuclear arms race to re-engage . Mikhail Gorbachev, the former premier of the Soviet Union, said
last week that we are now at a more dangerous period regarding nuclear war than we have ever been.
So, it's really important for the warmongers in the Democratic and Republican parties to be cooling
their jets now and for us to be moving forward towards a weapons embargo and a freeze on the funding
of those countries that are continuing to fund terrorist enterprises .
"... James Comey was on the Board of Directors of HSBC while they were money laundering for drug runners and terrorists, he has done squat to stop GamerGate, he has a horrible record as director of the FBI and should have never been nominated, never been confirmed, and is a completely horrible person. ..."
"... Mark Felt was of the same mind when it came to being passed over after J. Edgar Hoover died. And recall that he gained notoriety as Deep Throat. ..."
"... Here is a chance to redeem himself and stop Hillary. ..."
"... In a situation where one has an truly abysmal leader, that leader will need sidekicks who are obviously worse. The abysmal leader can position herself to the reasonable / competent side of the "bad cop" sidekicks, thus being not exactly the "good cop" but the "better cop" while still going in the desired direction of crazy and misery for all. ..."
"... If things get a bit out of hand, the blame can be pinned on the sidekick "going overboard" and the sidekick publicly sacrificed to "restore confidence" and "look forward". ..."
"... I think there is some possibilities, The rusty old ship "The Foundation" has simply sprung yet another leak and there is more evidence for FBI to dismiss and immunities to be doled out to fix the situation ..."
"... Something so nasty has come up so that the oligarch factions forming the "inner party" decided that Something Must be Done About The Situation – or Else. Jeffrey Epstein did home movies, apparently. ..."
James Comey was on the Board of Directors of HSBC while they were money laundering for drug runners
and terrorists, he has done squat to stop GamerGate, he has a
horrible record as director of the FBI
and should have never been nominated, never been confirmed,
and is a completely horrible person.
Mark Felt had already gained notoriety before Watergate because he was
one of the FBI's special agents who was charged for conducting illegal surveillance
on American leftists. It's one of those things all those conspiracy theorists
don't emphasis about COINTELPRO and other programs. The only people actually
charged and convicted in the matter were FBI agents.
He was also general counsel of the largest defense contractor in the world
(Lockheed Martin) and
general counsel of the largest hedge fund / personality cult in the world (Bridgewater).
Just a small town lawyer. If the town is Davos.
In a situation where one has an truly abysmal leader, that leader will need sidekicks who are
obviously worse. The abysmal leader can position herself to the reasonable / competent side of the
"bad cop" sidekicks, thus being not exactly the "good cop" but the "better cop" while still going
in the desired direction of crazy and misery for all.
If things get a bit out of hand, the blame can be pinned on the sidekick "going overboard" and
the sidekick publicly sacrificed to "restore confidence" and "look forward".
Why Obama needed Biden around, George Bush had Cheney … The European Left has the Islamists and
the Social Democrats has the neo-liberals to bisect against.
PS:
I think there is some possibilities, The rusty old ship "The Foundation" has simply sprung yet another
leak and there is more evidence for FBI to dismiss and immunities to be doled out to fix the situation
Enough mail-votes have come in to predict a crushing victory for Trump. Comey realizes that he
is maybe on the wrong side of this whole thing and goes for "incompetence" being part of his legacy
rather than "conspiracy"
Something so nasty has come up so that the oligarch factions forming the "inner party" decided
that Something Must be Done About The Situation – or Else. Jeffrey Epstein did home movies, apparently.
However, I think that it is just FBI doing another fix for Hillary.
"... Just like 0bama finding out about HRC's private email from the press … after he'd been corresponding with her from his own
private email address. ..."
"... With daily practice, the faux naif act comes easy. :-) ..."
"... I gather that Clintonland is honestly shocked, though. They're having to expose their talking points unmodified pushed directly
by people like Krugman, instead of their normal process of using CTR trolls for cover. ..."
"... It's also possible that the emails are more about Clinton Foundation corruption than they are State Department rule breaking,
so there wouldn't be any reason to notify State. (Although how that would connect to the original case without being at least in part
about transmitting classified information insecurely is beyond me.) ..."
UHH @4:30…State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday that the department knows nothing about why the FBI reopened its
investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server just hours earlier.
"First, what do we know? Not much more than you know, in fact. About the same," Toner said. "We just learned about this when
we saw news reports of the letter."
"What emails they may be looking at, what they're looking for, any more details at all, we just don't know anything about the
scope of this new–I'm not even sure it's an investigation, but this effort to look at additional emails," Toner continued.
I gather that Clintonland is honestly shocked, though. They're having to expose their talking points unmodified pushed
directly by people like Krugman, instead of their normal process of using CTR trolls for cover.
I don't have an explanation for why Comey would start acting like a law enforcement official at this late date, but it does
look like he didn't notify Clintonland ahead of time, and apparently the State Department has basically been a Clinton sleeper
cell for the last four years, so that would include State.
It's also possible that the emails are more about Clinton Foundation corruption than they are State Department rule breaking,
so there wouldn't be any reason to notify State. (Although how that would connect to the original case without being at least
in part about transmitting classified information insecurely is beyond me.)
"... Intriguing. Maybe these emails have survived so far is, because Abedin's laptop was shared, it wasn't on the list of agreed-to-be-destroyed laptops (so far, at least). ..."
"... I wonder if there will be any public pressure on FBI to go after some of the numerous devices/servers you posted about on other threads about a week ago. If so, no one is talking about it yet. ..."
Cyberspace opened up the Clinton Foundation's Pay for Play scams for scrutiny despite the best efforts
of corporate media and the connected elite to keep it closed; the endless wars at Saudi Arabia and Israel's
bequest, the purposeful burdening of debt on anyone who needs housing, medical care or education, and
the utter contempt for the little people. Corruption so inept that missing Hillary Clinton e-mails are
in Carlos Danger's explicit underage passion filled smartphone in FBI's possession.
Intriguing. Maybe these emails have survived so far is, because Abedin's
laptop was shared, it wasn't on the list of agreed-to-be-destroyed laptops
(so far, at least).
I wonder if there will be any public pressure on FBI to go after some of the numerous devices/servers
you posted about on other threads about a week ago. If so, no one is talking about it yet.
maybe clinton made the decision unilaterally, which is quite possible.
seems like the campaign would want to bury the email scandal instead of
going on the offensive. i do so hope this means their internal polling
is scaring them.
"... After weeks of revealing information behind the Clinton Foundation and their self-motivated fundraising tactics, there is no other word to describe the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. She's engaged in behavior that is disqualifying to be a candidate for the highest office, and yet dozens of American legislators, leaders and even media outlets have endorsed her candidacy. ..."
"... She's swindled countries out of donations, she's swindled corporate America with her lofty promises and she's swindled the American people – over and over and over again. ..."
"... So why now, after the knowledge that top-tier corporations and other wealthy supporters paid to meet with both the former president and the now Democratic presidential nominee should we believe that she would change her behavior to act in the best interest of the country? In fact, one could argue that this information is a window into how Clinton would rule the land. She'd have an eye out for only herself and her family, while leaving the American people - who so desperately want a change - with the same old Clinton-first approach. ..."
"... Beyond her blatant disregard for the American public, Clinton's cavalier approach to national security has come into question from a myriad of angles. From the secret server in her home basement that received hundreds of confidential email communications, to the lack of response she paid to the Congress when asked about the issue, to the suggestion that she made promises to the FBI that would cause them to "look the other way" when ruling on the secret email server. And then how about the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation took from countries that are of disrepute, not to mention those that show little concern for women's rights. ..."
It was 25 years ago that Martin Scorsese delighted audiences with his movie rendition of the Jim
Thompson novel, "The Grifters."
The story is an ingenious tale of deception and betrayal. By definition a grifter is someone who
has made money dishonestly, in a swindle or a confidence game.
After weeks of revealing information behind the Clinton Foundation and their self-motivated fundraising
tactics, there is no other word to describe the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
She's engaged in behavior that is disqualifying to be a candidate for the highest office, and yet
dozens of American legislators, leaders and even media outlets have endorsed her candidacy.
She's swindled countries out of donations, she's swindled corporate America with her lofty promises
and she's swindled the American people – over and over and over again.
So why now, after the knowledge that top-tier corporations and other wealthy supporters paid to
meet with both the former president and the now Democratic presidential nominee should we believe
that she would change her behavior to act in the best interest of the country? In fact, one could
argue that this information is a window into how Clinton would rule the land. She'd have an eye out
for only herself and her family, while leaving the American people - who so desperately want a change
- with the same old Clinton-first approach.
Beyond her blatant disregard for the American public, Clinton's cavalier approach to national
security has come into question from a myriad of angles. From the secret server in her home basement
that received hundreds of confidential email communications, to the lack of response she paid to
the Congress when asked about the issue, to the suggestion that she made promises to the FBI that
would cause them to "look the other way" when ruling on the secret email server. And then how about
the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation took from countries that are of disrepute, not to
mention those that show little concern for women's rights.
The most recent set of Clinton emails that have come to light are of such great concern to national
security that the FBI has announced they will conduct a new investigation of Clinton's emails. This
is just ELEVEN days before the country goes to the polls and decides on our next president.
Where has the leadership gone in this country? Since when do reputable news outlets stand behind
candidates who have proven themselves over and over to be out for themselves and dangerous, even?
It used to be that newspapers and legislators and leaders who speak from a platform would find themselves
offering wisdom. Wisdom about which candidate was best for the job – based on the facts. Instead
we find ourselves sifting through the list of endorsements for Clinton with little or no mention
of her disregard for the law, her lack of concern for those she serves, and the careless nature in
which she has proven herself to lead.
Now that the newspapers know better and have written about the truth in their own words, how can
the media and elected officials stand by their decision to endorse her? They need to rescind their
endorsement. That includes President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
In a quote from his book Thompson describes one of the characters, "Anyone who deprived her of
something she wanted, deserved what he got."
Sounds all too familiar to the Democratic nominee for grifter-in-chief. If she's not changed by
now, who is to say she'd be any different when she was the most powerful elected official in the
United States. Once a grifter, always a grifter.
Sharon Day is the Republican National Committee Co-Chair.
"... Wow, they clearly state Bill Clinton uses golfing to establish communication with donors ..."
"... "People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation. But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton had declared her own presidential run the month before." - source ..."
"... In total, The Wall Street Journal reports, two dozen companies and groups, plus the Abu Dhabi government, gave Bill more than $8 million for speeches, even as they were hoping for favorable treatment from Hillary's bureaucracy. And 15 of them also gave at least $5 million total to the foundation. ..."
"... Can someone help me see the shadiness, what am I missing? unless the "foundation donors require significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation" means they are giving them political favors then it just looks like the clinton foundation is accepting donations and that is it. ..."
"... so pro-clinton sources have been propping up the Clinton Foundation for years as the pinnacle of charity while not really being able to explain where all the money goes; ..."
"... This shows that they require 20 million a year to operate with 8 employees. It shows they have to raid the Clinton Global Initiative for $6M to $11M every year to cover that budget hole... ..."
"... This is useful information that is probably not reflected on tax returns. Most importantly it shows that when Bill was offered a shady $8 million dollar over 2 year deal that would appear to be a conflict of interest while Hillary was Sect of State, Podesta and Band suggested hiding the money as payment for speeches. This boosts the accusation that the speeches are payments for quid pro quo. ..."
"... Does any of it contradict the MOU she signed when appointed Sec State? https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34993 ..."
He also said they were talking about golf when he called Donald trump last year before trump decided
to run.
"People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton
and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation.
But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton
had declared her own presidential run the month before." -
source
Question-Are we to assume that any OTHER speaking engagements that WJC did were not because of
the foundation, but from when his wife was SOS?
In total, The Wall Street Journal reports, two dozen companies and groups, plus the
Abu Dhabi government, gave Bill more than $8 million for speeches, even as they were hoping
for favorable treatment from Hillary's bureaucracy. And 15 of them also gave at least $5 million
total to the foundation.
Can someone help me see the shadiness, what am I missing? unless the "foundation donors require
significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation" means they are
giving them political favors then it just looks like the clinton foundation is accepting donations
and that is it.
so pro-clinton sources have been propping up the Clinton Foundation for years as the pinnacle
of charity while not really being able to explain where all the money goes; because it sure
doesn't seem to be going to Haiti or many other charities.
This shows that they require 20 million a year to operate with 8 employees. It shows they
have to raid the Clinton Global Initiative for $6M to $11M every year to cover that budget hole...
so this gives credence to the suspicion that the CF is hiding money somewhere (laundering money
to Clintons and friends). Also this document shows how teneo made Bill Clinton " more than $50
million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date
or the $66 million in future contracts" as of 2011.
This is useful information that is probably not reflected on tax returns. Most importantly
it shows that when Bill was offered a shady $8 million dollar over 2 year deal that would appear
to be a conflict of interest while Hillary was Sect of State, Podesta and Band suggested hiding
the money as payment for speeches. This boosts the accusation that the speeches are payments for
quid pro quo.
Bill and Hillary Clinton failed to get required permits for a
rushed renovation of the house and grounds they recently bought next to
their original Westchester home, it was reported Friday.
Records show that the Clintons' contractors filled in an in-ground pool,
covering it with gravel, and extensively remodeled the interior of the
property - all without applying for permits and paying the required fees to
the town of New Castle.
Building Inspector William Maskiell inspected the Chappaqua property
after getting the tip about the pool work and then discovered the other
renovations that were underway.
Attached to the building inspector's letter was a document titled Clinton
Violation Inspection Report in which Maskiell said the contractor told him
the Clintons "were quite adamant about [the Thanksgiving deadline] and what
had started as a paint job turned into this," meaning the major renovation.
Crazy - there are more problems than just the lack of building permits:
The Clintons also have outstanding zoning and Building Department
problems at their residence next door at 15 Old House Lane,
They obtained variances in 2000 for a guard house on the property, for
a higher fence and for "lot coverage," or the amount of space buildings
take up on the property.
The variances must be renewed every five years - but the Clintons
never showed up before the Zoning Board of Appeals.
"Consequently, they are null and void. They should have come back in
2005, 2010 and 2015. So the variances have expired and they have to start
from scratch" and reapply, said the inspector.
The original home and a combination library and gym in an outbuilding
still have outstanding building permit issues as well, including a
sprinkler "sign off" by the town engineer and an electrical inspection in
the library/gym
I'm not seeing much basic competency here in executing home ownership
responsibilities. Next I'll hear Bill steals the neigbor's Sunday newspaper
off their porch.
"... Remember back when President Bill Clinton got into all that trouble molesting the young intern in his Oral Office? Remember the first thing the lying, conniving, dissembling commander-in-cheek did? ..."
"... In the latest batch of leaked emails, one top Democratic operative is still grappling with "WJC Issues." "How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did?" Ron Klain asks in a list of questions worth posing to Mrs. Clinton. "You said every woman should be believed. Why not the women who accused him?" And, perhaps the best: "Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?" ..."
"... Never apologize. Never admit. And always keep lying. ..."
"... That is the very heart of the ethos of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Lie about everything. Lie all the time. ..."
"... Lie about emails. Lie about servers. Lie about national security. Lie about who knew what when. Lie about spilling classified secrets. Lie about dead soldiers. ..."
...l each batch of stolen emails is worse than the last.
Hillary Clinton is a liar. She has terrible instincts. She doesn't believe in anything. Her head
is broken. She doesn't know why she should be president. She is pathological. And she is psychotic.
Just ask everybody who works for her. Just ask campaign chairman John Podesta. Just ask the people
working the hardest to get her elected president.
I mean, in her most rabid streak of attacks on Donald Trump's alleged unfitness for office, Mrs.
Clinton doesn't call him "psychotic."
Psychotic! That is what her campaign chairman called her.
Remember back when President Bill Clinton got into all that trouble molesting the young intern
in his Oral Office? Remember the first thing the lying, conniving, dissembling commander-in-cheek
did?
Take a poll. And he found out that he could skate by on even this - even this! But first - the
poll told him - he had to stall for time. He had to lie about it for as long as he possibly could
before coming clean.
And that was exactly what he did. And he survived.
And good thing he survived so he could go on to haunt America another 15 years later.
In the latest batch of leaked emails, one top Democratic operative is still grappling with "WJC
Issues." "How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did?" Ron Klain asks in a list of
questions worth posing to Mrs. Clinton. "You said every woman should be believed. Why not the women who accused him?" And, perhaps the best: "Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband
and his allies?"
Answer: Not likely.
Never apologize. Never admit. And always keep lying.
That is the very heart of the ethos of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Lie about everything. Lie all
the time.
Lie about emails. Lie about servers. Lie about national security. Lie about who knew what when.
Lie about spilling classified secrets. Lie about dead soldiers.
Exhaust the people with lies. And then, very flippantly, after months or years of lying, say whatever
you have to say to make the press go away.
"I am sorry you were confused."
"I have already said I wish I had done it differently."
"What difference, at this point, does it make?"
It is all so shameless and dirty and befuddling that it would make Niccolo Machiavelli blush.
"... An acquaintance of mine said of the Clintons: "They define success as how much they can get away with." Clearly, this is just the latest example. ..."
"... Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid pro quo, Clinton tells us. ..."
"... Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue to surge and will win on November 8th. ..."
"... Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton. ..."
"... The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest level since Gallup began asking the question. ..."
"... Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls were all for naught. ..."
"... More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs, deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker. ..."
"... A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster. ..."
"... Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war? ..."
"... Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets. ..."
"... Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from documented Clinton corruption. ..."
"... The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks. ..."
"... Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard, corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office. Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of a political and personal wreck. ..."
Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been
sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half
of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid
pro quo, Clinton tells us.
Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised money for
the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge fees for Bill's
speeches.
What were the corporations buying if not influence? What were the foreign contributors buying,
if not influence with an ex-president, and a secretary of state and possible future president?
Did none of the big donors receive any official favors?
"There's a lot of smoke and there's no fire," says Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps, but there seems to be more smoke every day.
If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress, Clinton
were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special prosecutor,
as was Nixon's.
And, with the election over, the investigative reporters of the adversary press, Pulitzers beckoning,
would be cut loose to go after her.
The Republican House is already gearing up for investigations that could last deep into Clinton's
first term.
There is a vast trove of public and sworn testimony from Hillary, about the server, the emails,
the erasures, the Clinton Foundation. Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, there are tens of thousands of emails
to sift through, and perhaps tens of thousands more to come.
What are the odds that not one contains information that contradicts her sworn testimony? Rep.
Jim Jordan contends that Clinton may already have perjured herself.
And as the full-court press would begin with her inauguration, Clinton would have to deal with
the Syrians, the Russians, the Taliban, the North Koreans, and Xi Jinping in the South China Sea-and
with Bill Clinton wandering around the White House with nothing to do.
This election is not over. But if Hillary Clinton wins, a truly hellish presidency could await
her, and us.
Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue
to surge and will win on November 8th.
Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either
a Trump lead or a statistical dead-heat.
The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed
by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest
level since Gallup began asking the question.
Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will
show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls
were all for naught.
Thus, fortunately, the American people will avoid the spectacle of a "truly hellish" Clinton
presidency.
More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs,
deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage
stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker.
A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster.
James Polk, no charmer, was a one-term president, but a great one, victorious in the Mexican
War, annexing California and the Southwest, negotiating a fair division of the Oregon territory
with the British.
Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is
defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?
The only people responsible for that "cloud" are conservatives. If you wish to prevent the horrid
fate that you're describing, Pat, you need to apologize and concede that these investigations
are groundless. You can't say "where there's smoke, there's fire" if we can all see your smoke
machine.
The Visigoths will continue their advance on Rome by the millions. The Supreme Court and Fed will
shy away from diversity in their numbers. The alternative media will go bonkers, but to no avail.
The military will provide employment (endless wars) to those displaced by a permissive immigration
policy. Elizabeth I – will look down (up) in envy.
Re: "Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised
money for the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge
fees for Bill's speeches."
Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets.
Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or
Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless
red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from
documented Clinton corruption.
The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos
do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling
the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically
inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks.
Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard,
corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office.
Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of
a political and personal wreck.
Agree with Pat though that it's going to be a wild ride for the rest of us – straight down.
P.S. A Republican Congress does have the power of the purse and could shave away Clinton's
Imperial use of the executive branch. But the feckless Congress has never been intelligent enough
to utilize that power effectively.
SteveM makes excellent points about the mainstream media cover-up of the Wikileaks revelations:
"Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets."
Alex Pfeiffer (The Daily Caller) expands upon SteveM's critique in "The Anatomy Of A Press
Cover-Up." Great stuff:
@William N. Grigg: "Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential
"greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?"
Yes, that's one aspect of PJB's thought that has long disturbed me. Granted, PJB is a nationalist,
and I can see why an old-fashioned nationalist would admire Polk. But PJB also advocates an "enlightened
nationalism." There's nothing enlightened about stealing someone else's land. Frankly, I fail
to see how Polk's actions are any different from Hitler's actions a century later. I don't want
to offend anyone but, I'm sorry… this needs to be said.
I greatly admire Pat Buchanan, but this article is rather ridiculous.
"If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress,
Clinton were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special
prosecutor, as was Nixon's."
Translation: "I want revenge for Watergate."
Look, I admire Nixon. I think he was one of our greatest Presidents. I really mean that. I
also think that he was unfairly subjected to a witch hunt and that there was no valid reason for
him to have faced the prospect of impeachment (and the same is true, in my view, for both of the
Presidents who were actually impeached, interestingly enough). Nixon should have been allowed
to finish his second term.
I think Hillary Clinton is also facing a witch hunt. I don't agree with her foreign policy
views or with many of her domestic policy views, but this vicious attempt by the GOP to take her
down needs to stop. There is no evidence that she is any more corrupt than anybody else.
And, in any case, if she gets elected, she will be entitled to serve as President. To deliberately
try to sabotage her Presidency by hounding her with these investigations would be to show profound
contempt for democratic norms.
Enough already. I don't support Clinton or Trump. Jill Stein is my gal now. But I hope that
whoever wins does a great job and that all goes well for them. Nothing else would be in the best
interests of the country or the world.
"Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either a Trump
lead or a statistical dead-heat."
We heard this in 2012. Go back and read the Free Republic election night thread to see how
such comforting thoughts came crashing down as the night went on. Then read the posts today…all
the exact same people saying all the exact same things.
For a society to work well and to succeed, the good-will (trust and support) of it's productive,
tax-paying citizens is of paramount importance. The corrupt politics in DC for the last 25 years
has used up this good-will. Only few trust these elitists , as evidenced by the success of
the socialist, Sanders, and Trump.
With the election of the corrupt, lying, unaccomplished politician, the legitimacy of the
D.C. "Leaders" will be gone. It would be a disaster!
" She would enter office as the least-admired president in history, without a vision or a mandate.
She would take office with two-thirds of the nation believing she is untruthful and untrustworthy.
"
Funny you should go there. Sure, HRC has historically high unfavorability ratings. Fact: DJT's
unfavorability ratings are even higher. Check any reasonably non-partisan site such as RCP or
538.
Pretty much all the negatives about HRC are trumped by Trump. His flip-flopping makes hers
look amateur: he used to be a pro-choice Democrat; has publicly espoused admiration for HRC and
declared that WJC was unfairly criticized for his transgressions. Integrity: he's stiffed countless
businesses, small and large; he's been sued by his own lawyers for non-payment. Character: he
behaves like a child, 'nuff said.
Corruption: his daddy illegally bailed him out of a financial jam; Trump's foundation makes
the Clintons' look legit by comparison.
With HRC, the GOP had a huge chance to take back the WH: she has plenty of genuine baggage
to go along with the made-up stuff. However the GOP managed to nominate the one candidate who
makes her transgressions appear tolerable. The end result is that a significant number of moderate
Republicans are supporting no one, Johnson, or even HRC. Trump is so toxic that very few progressive
Dems will stray from HRC, despite being horrified by her corporate connections.
Re today: The FBI is not investigating her server. Servers don't send emails on their own. They
are investigating Hillary Clinton. They just don't like to say that. I wonder if it's in order
to – once again – announce Hillary's "innocence," just before the end of early voting and voting
day. We'll see.
For those interested in a functional government, note that this is three straight elections
– over twelve years – where the incoming president is a priori deemed illegitimate, regardless
of the scale of the victory, and the opposing political party has no interest in working with
that president.
In fact, some senators and representatives (Cruz, Gowdy, Issa, etc.) seem to take joy and pride
in noting the extent and length of these investigations, regardless of what they find. It is the
very process of governmental obstruction they seek, not necessarily justice or truth.
Could we have a new historic first if Hillary wins, the First Woman President to be impeached
by Congress? And the first couple in the history of the Republic to both be impeached?
At some point the Republicans have to be for something. I suppose they will be tempted to go after
Ms. Clinton for what she has elided or attempted to, but I think that is a major mistake. You
wrote: "Yet the hostility Clinton would face the day she takes office would almost seem to ensure
four years of pure hell.
The reason: her credibility, or rather her transparent lack of it."
There are a few assumptions in this – first, that any investigations into her past behavior
will be impartial. True or not, the impression will be hard to pull off – I expect they will easily
be framed as misogynist. And some most likely will be, so it takes a bit of thought and study
to determine which are motivated by misogyny and which are not. News cycles are too fast for that
sort of reflection, and in any event more or less all the major papers and television networks
are in her camp, so can't really expect journalism out of them anymore. It will be a called a
misogynist, partisan investigation and that will be the end of it.
Second, it assumes that the people doing the investigation have credibility. That's a big if
– the GOP went from Bush 43's two terms of military adventurism, increasing income inequality
and economic catastrophe to no introspection or admission of error in the ensuing 8 years of apparently
mindless, vindictive opposition. That is a long time of being kind of – well – less than thoughtful.
And it's had tremendous costs. Mr. Obama presents as a decent man in his profiles, but he was
very inexperienced when elected and in my opinion has more or less been bumbling around for almost
8 years now, kind of like Clouseau in those old Pink Panther movies. Only a lot of people of died,
lost their homes or have seen their communities consumed by despair. Government has been very
ineffective for many Americans, and the Republicans have a lot to answer for with the way they've
chosen to spend their time and direct their energy over the last 8 years. It's been a waste going
after Obama, and going after Clinton will just be more of the same.
And the last assumption is that with all that might be going on in the next few years, this
is important. Ms. Clinton has made some statements, some good, some bad. The bad, though, are
remarkably bad – she's for invading a Middle Eastern country and establishing control over their
airspace, as an example. In 2017. It's pure crazy. She has Democratic support. Hate to think if
she is elected the Republicans will be focusing on email.
when bloomberg was having problems w the times he called Arthur schulzburger and asked
for coffee. He made the case that they were treating him like a billionaire dilettante instead
of Third term mayor. It changed the coverage moderately but also aired the issues in the newsroom
so people were more conscious of it. But Arthur is a pretty big wuss so he's not going to do
a lot more than that.
Hillary would have to be the one to call.
He also thinks the brown and women pundits can shame the times and others on social
media. So cultivating Joan Walsh, Yglesias, Allen, perry bacon, Greg Sargent , to
defend her is helpful. They can be emboldened. Fwiw - I pushed pir to do this a yr ago.
I'm guessing Harvard graduate Matt Yglesias is thrilled to find out that Clintonland views
his usefulness primary through the prism of his skin color, particularly given that his family
background not actually all that "brown."
Videos constructed from public sources that show the true
Hillary Clinton. All video used under the doctrine of FAIR
USE.
For more, check out
http://www.vidzette.com
"... Let's see: Promoting the notion that it's okay for one country to interfere with and influence a democratic election of another country. I need to see if I can figure out what the implications of this might be in a current context. ..."
"The Clinton campaign raked in $101 million this month, pressing its cash advantage in the
final stretch to election day" [
Politico ]. "Only about $18 million of the haul came in checks of less than $200." Ka-ching.
Policy
"From the outset, I've argued that without a public option - a Medicare-like plan that would
be available to all Americans buying health insurance - insurance competition would dwindle and
premiums would skyrocket. Now that they have, it's time to do now what we should have done then:
take the simplest route to a more stable and affordable health care system." [Jacob Hacker,
New York Times ]. "Critics of the public option are convinced it's a one-way ticket to single
payer (the government alone provides coverage). History suggests the opposite: The public option
isn't a threat to a system of broad coverage through competing private plans. Instead, it's absolutely
critical to making such a system work." Notice the equivocation on "Medicare- like
plan," setting up exactly the same kind of
bait and switch operation that career "progressives" and Hacker personally ran in 2009 .
War Drums
"Political Airpower, Part I: Say No to the No-Fly Zone" [
War on the Rocks ].
The Voters
"This market barometer says Trump still has a chance at the White House" [
MarketWatch ]. "The slump [of the Mexican peso, a] key barometer of Trump's chances represents
'recognition that the election may be closer than polls suggest and growing fears U.S. political
uncertainty may be on the rise,' [Colin] Cieszynski says."
Downballot
"'There's a danger the dike could break for Republicans,' says Tim Storey, who analyzes politics
for the National Conference of State Legislatures. He found that there has been a sea change in
expectations on both sides since Oct. 7 when The Washington Post reported on the existence of
the 'Access Hollywood' tapes… Republicans have become increasingly concerned that they could lose
statehouse majorities in as many as 10 states, Storey said" [
RealClearPolitics ].
The Trail
"Clinton lead shrinks, even as nearly 6 in 10 expect her to win, Post-ABC tracking poll finds"
[
WaPo ]. Only one poll, so FWIW. "Trump saw his biggest gains among political independents,
favoring Trump by a 12-point margin in the latest tracking poll, 49 to 37 percent, after giving
Clinton a narrow edge in late last week." Now that's volatile!
Funny:
Democrat Email Hairball
"Clinton campaign manager John Podesta apparently thinks Eric Garner's death was justified"
[
Mic ].
Erica Garner reacts:
Check the responses…
And then this happened:
Oopsie.
UPDATES Good heavens!
"FBI to take new 'investigative steps' on Clinton emails" [
WaPo ]. "The FBI will investigate whether additional classified material is contained in emails
sent using Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was secretary of state, FBI Director
James B. Comey informed congressional leaders Friday. The announcement appears to restart the
FBI's probe of Clinton's server, which previously ended in July with no charges…"
"New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Anthony Weiner's Electronic Devices" [
New York Times ]. "Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered
in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server were discovered
after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton,
and her husband, Anthony Weiner… The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new
emails related to the Clinton case - one federal official said they numbered in the thousands."
Then again, if Weiner runs true to form, classification won't be an issue. But that
most definitely does not mean Clinton's home free .
Quite the Friday afternoon news dump. And not a good week for the Clinton campaign, despite
the triumphalism.
This may get overshadowed by the FBI's reopened investigation of Hillary. But it shouldn't:
On September 5, 2006, Eli Chomsky was an editor and staff writer for the Jewish Press, and
Hillary Clinton was running for a shoo-in re-election as a U.S. senator. Her trip brought her
to Brooklyn to meet the editorial board of the Jewish Press.
The tape was never released and has only been heard by the small handful of staffers in
the room. According to Chomsky, his old-school audio cassette is the only existent copy and
no one has heard it since 2006, until today when he played it for the Observer.
Speaking about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council,
Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over
the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats).
"I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I
think that was a big mistake," said Sen. Clinton. "And if we were going to push for an election,
then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.
"
Let's see: Promoting the notion that it's okay for one country to interfere with and influence
a democratic election of another country. I need to see if I can figure out what the implications
of this might be in a current context.
The famine in Yemen caused by our Saudi allies is receiving very little attention in the US,
so I would expect our great American liberals to agree with Clinton that we have every right to
rig the elections of furriners.
I keep expecting that right after Clinton wins, the great humanitarian liberals will let out
their outrage, suppressed up to this point because of the need to stop Trump. Just kidding.
This is extraordinarily forthright. No wonder why her aides ensure that all her interviews
are scripted in advance. Don't miss the part where she seems to allude to the revenge-escalation of "these cultures."
I expect to see some hard work….. finding FBI Agent spouses to run for office, appoint to think
tanks and scam foundations so they can funnel some of that sweet, sweet repressive regime laundered
money. A corrupt political party's work is never done.
No, as a former SoS (and Senator, for that matter) they can impeach her after she left office
if it is connected to anything she did whilst she held the position.
I'm skeptical. Maybe this is just about throwing Huma under the bus and a pretext to restore
FBI morale while diverting attention from the abundant evidence the FBI is sitting on which easily
proves Clinton's many crimes?
Surprising. I had assumed that we could have video footage of Hillary barbecueing babies and
the FBI would just say "There was no intent! Nothing to see here folks, move along".
It looks as though an "October surprise" is coming from an unexpected place–
the FBI. There are numerous articles about this on the web now, but this one contains a decent
analysis.
I've been saying something big would happen before Election Day, as it would be uncharacteristic
of this crazy cycle to have a quiet home stretch. Kim Dotcom was claiming a couple of days ago
that he has her emails and sent them on to Wikileaks and Gowdy.
But I'm unsure of how this FBI investigation plays out. Obviously, the FBI won't release findings
on the new emails for months. And, FBI is not Wikileaks, they don't dump the emails for the public
to review.
Something tells me this is Comey covering his (and FBI) ass. Perhaps he's been made aware that
an outside source, e.g., Wikileaks, has the emails and is going to release soon, so he's trying
to get ahead of it.
I have no doubt that her emails are out there somewhere, I'm certain the NSA has had them all
along and has been using them for leverage. Any script kiddie could have hacked that joke of a
server they were running in their closet, let alone the NSA.
The response is the investigation has nothing to do with WL or hacking. So yes, I'd go with
it's him trying to get out in front of what he knows is coming.
I'll bet that Wall Street thought that Clinton's e-mail scandals had already been baked in.
They have recovered some, but that is one mighty jumpy graph.
TisTis: Trump Hopes "Justice Will Finally Be Done" As FBI Reopens Probe Into Hillary Clinton
Emails
JUSTICE WITHIN 2 WEEKS? i don't think soooo Rats and roaches live by competition under the
laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice
and mercy. ~Wendell Berry
Should Hillary be working on 'due to stress and bad health, I am quitting' speech?
From Nixon's last speech:
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would
have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation
must always come before any personal considerations.
Considering who her VP is, maybe the goal all along was for her to somehow crawl across the
finish line then turn over all the evil doing to Kaine while she enjoys her lavish rewards in
the nursing home.
NYT: "the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony
Weiner."
Ah ha … wouldn't it be a hoot if the FBI's probe of Carlos Danger sexting a 15-year-old turned
up evidence that was right under their noses … if they'd only bothered to convene a grand jury
and subpoena it.
It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary's private illegal emails. Huma's PR
husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.
11:50 AM – 3 Aug 2015
For those who don't look, it's very 2016….
On your left is Abedin leaning her head away with a face palm. In the center is Weiner, shirtless,
dopey wide eyed expression taking a selfie. On the right is Clinton, squinting with a hand up
blocking the glare of the bright lights being shone on her.
i caught his documentary with her in it…found it strange myself that she's still around…then
a toddler waddled into the frame.
can't help ponder they hadn't planned this for awhile…
It seems reasonable to assume that all "power couples" are sham marriages for the salt-of-the-earth
quaintsters. I have no idea how one might objectively rebut that conjecture regarding any particular
case.
If there is an email from Hillary, whether containing top secret info or not, which was pertinent
to Clinton's performance at State (and thus pertinent to the FBI inquiry,) but FBI never received
it or recovered it, then that shouldould make an open and shut case of obstruction and lying to
the FBI against her. Of course it's too late to stop her legally. But politically she could be
kneecapped. Impeachment proceedings launching during Inaugural speeches and balls are a real turd
in the punch bowl.
Could it be Abedin sending receiving on her computer with an address through Clinton's server
not involving Clinton at all? It is all exempt under the 'I don't recall' principle anyway.
If the OverClass has the power to prevent that impeachment, the OverClass will prevent that
impeachment.
Hillary is the designated Obama 2.0 President. Her job is to cement the Obama legacy just as
Obama's job was to cement the Bush legacy.
Don't expect any impeachment anytime soon.
The only way to stop Hillary is to vote for Trump and get Hillary defeated.
Can't remove a sitting president…unless you have the votes to impeach…the comey show…announce
something..and gosh darn it…got timed out by the election…
New on Friday usually means that the majority of Americans will have forgotten everything but
their name by the time Monday rolls around. All the MSM has to do is find another bright shiny
object to write about together on the weekend. Their past open collusion with HRC's campaign makes
that a foregone conclusion.
Chances are the FBI will ask Hillary which of the Weiner's emails she deems important.
I think Comey overestimated his standing and the standing of "FBI Director" with the populace
at large and expected everyone to just applaud when he criticized Clinton and expected Clinton
to win big or Republican voters to sour on Trump providing him protection going forward.
Heres what I believe scares Comey, the GOP base hasn't soured on Trump, Hillary won't big,
and the GOP House will remain intact with me ears under pressure for not supporting the elected
GOP leader. No one has really voted for Paul Ryan (Veep doesn't count) outside of one congressional
district.
The "left" (everyone who isn't a Republican and isnt on the CGI payroll is what I mean) won't
defend Hillary or actions to protect her past the 8th. If Comey has acted in anyway inappropriately
and has mutininous agents, he will be in trouble.
Further… didn't she get immunity? Seems like Comey needs to re-open, re-question and cover
these items under the immunity also so she can't be prosecuted for them in the future.
Why do we hear so much about the racism of the white working class and so little about the
racism of the ruling class?
Well, the Ruling Class remained silent in Public until Trump. Then the ugly truth was revealed
was revealed on TV, by both Trump (Mexicans) and Clinton (Deplorables).
And possibly by Romney as wee in his comment about the 49% who don't pay (income) taxes, and
the republican meme of Makers and Takers (stated in the wrong order I believe).
Front page of the Seattle Times had side-by-side articles of a Dakota Pipeline story (dozens
arrested) beside the story of the acquittal of Bundy's bunch. They're so factually different though.
One story involves powerful interests using and abusing the land to their own economic advantage
and squandering the land resources for future generations and the other story involves . . .
Or the racism of the middle class. People are tribal and arguably it is baked into our DNA.
That doesn't excuse the mental laziness of trafficking in stereotypes but one could make a case
that racism is as much a matter of ignorance as of evil character. Obama with his "bitter clingers"
and HIllary with her "deplorables" are talking about people about whom they probably know almost
nothing. One of the long ago arguments for school integration was that propinquity fosters mutual
understanding. This met with a lot of resistance. And for people like our Pres and would be Pres
a broader view of the electorate would be inconvenient. They might have to turn into actual liberals.
The McClatchy article on 'digital fingerprints' has a wonderful quote that should be hammered
into everyone's minds:
"We do freely make available information about ourselves episodically that we may think isn't
terribly revealing but aggregated, it reveals a whole lot." - Rebecca Weiner, New York City Police
Department
People who don't worry about what's actually lost in information disclosure and leakage simply
lack creativity. They don't conjure up the broader (or lateral) contexts for simple data to take
on broader meaning. It's actually nice to see this admitted openly and clearly by someone from
the NYPD. The next time someone speaks apologetically of surveillance because they have, "nothing
to hide," I may use this as part of a retort and pivot to a discussion on naivete and trust of
authority.
"Jury acquits Ammon Bundy, six others for standoff at Oregon wildlife refuge" [WaPo].
Were any of the defendants Black? I rather doubt it. Just as Driving-While-Black can be a capital
offense, I would assume that the penalty for Seizing-Federal-Property-While-Black is quite severe
also. The sentencing stage for Driving-While-Black is sometimes reached before there has even
been a trial.
Defense lawyers also raised questions about the FBI informants at the refuge. Prosecutors
confirmed there were 15 informants involved in the case, nine of whom were at the refuge –
including three who were identified at the trial. Six others at the refuge remained unidentified.
Without knowing who they were or what they did during the occupation, the lawyers didn't
know if any of the informants conspired with the defendants to commit any of the crimes alleged
in the indictment, defense lawyers argued. They revealed that one of the informants at the
refuge was a man who went by the alias "John Killman" but was really Fabio Minoggio of Las
Vegas, who was asked to oversee the shooting range at the refuge.
The prosecution dropped the ball and was incredibly complacent. They barely spent any time
laying out the charges. The whole trial amounted to the defense sucking up all the oxygen in the
courthouse.
It's disappointing but I'm even more disappointed by the fact the migrating birds didn't return
early and attack the yeehadists. After they come north they're all horny and mate. It makes them
particularly aggressive against puny humans who get in their way.
Ah, yes, the old Entrapment Ploy, wherein some of the illegality comes about through incitement
by informers/agents provocateur. Works wondrously well if you can keep the identities of the informers/agents
provocateur a secret, but no so well if you can't. I should imagine that the Bundy folks might
have been on the lookout for tells, such as when the individual who generally is passive, or stays
in the background starts making, uh, suggestions . Counter-intelligence 101.
Hah! If you can't spot a agent provocateur you're probably stupid enough to do something that
should land you in prison. The Department of Homeland Security's fusion centers in Portland and
Salem were busy during the wildlife refuge takeover. All those radicalized hipsters and lefties
supporting/harassing the yeehadists with their edible sex products et cetra.
-_^
Gotta help the white people collecting welfare via the US Intelligence community to keep receiving
those checks. I gotta wonder though if activists were targeted for inflammatory internet speech/actions
or if their Mormon co-religionists in the federal government didn't appreciate what amounted to
a crowdsourced psychological warfare campaign.
Re: "This market barometer says Trump still has a chance at the White House" et al.
The polls – Rasmussen, LA Times & IBD – say that Trump has a 50% (or more, since electoral
votes=independent-minded states determine the winner of the presidential race) chance at the White
House. The race continues to be a dead heat nationally, just as it has been for two or three weeks
now.
The FBI is making news at this hour, but is this going to be the Podesta email that makes the
largely worthless & discredited press wake up and take notice?
Bezzle Airbnb: [a fine of up to $7,500 on advertising short-term rentals of less than 30 days.
This means users can still list a room in their home, but cannot advertise entire apartments."]
Won't people just code their advertisements…. bdrm 900 sq ft, own kitchen and bath, sleeps
6. Owner travels.
Talking in pix or emojis gives a certain latitude, even deniability, which words, with their
specific meanings, (confound it,) just can't offer. Words can be tracked down, and mean specific
things, and hold you to account. We don't need that anymore. What we need in today's world is
cover for our vague jumble of impressions and our nagging feeling that global warming is simply
going to solve all of our problems for us – panic. Calm down, I say. Stop thinking in words, and
things will get a lot simpler for you.
re: Apple, it seems, is angling for the 'amateur creative' and isn't interested in anything
else anymore.
A few years back I bought a used 2009 Mac Pro for $800, upgraded the firmware to 2010-12, upgraded
the CPUs to two 2.8 ghz 6 cores for $400 and the memory to 24 GB 1333 MHz DDR3. I suspect that
when I shuffle off this mortal coil this machine will still be the fastest and most functional
Mac I'll ever have owned. Too bad the PCIe bus is old-timey but I'm not much of a game player.
For the last few years all of the released Macs have been a letdown.
I hope that one day I can get one of those 2013 trashcans for cheap but calling them Mac Pros
is completely inappropriate. Where I somewhat disagree with the author of the article is that
the trashcans were the proof that Apple had no interest in making a highly functional, professional
machines. These new, slower, unrepairable MacBook Pros are just more of the same for the portable
crowd.
Moore's law is dead and buried but no one wrote an obit. Apple is a bank wannabe that sells
some other products.
Is there a more accurate term than militarized police? They are former military, military equipment,
military training, military practices etc. They went around the constitution to put military on
the streets… They are more accurately mercenaries. Anyone familiar with any terms for the backdoor
military?
Thanks for the Apple IT links. Looks like the Touchbar was especially designed to sync with
Adobe graphics programs and other camera/photo programs, which would have been a nice addition
to the function keys. A Touchbar as a replacement to the function keys? Privileging app
users over program developers? (shakes head, mutters inaudibly)
Apple began to lose me with the MacBook Pro when they made it un-openable and replaced the
nice metal power button with just another key. Now it just seems like they have run out of incremental
things to "improve" with a machine that really has no huge issues, other than the need to keep
up with ongoing technological changes.
My guess: Apple bought a lot of tech properties before it knew how it would integrate them,
and before it had a project for them (e.g. bought wireless headphone maker Wi-Gear) . In this
new release Apple seemed to let the parts drive the project; to kludge together a few of these
acquired techs. Just a guess.
"What Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the president of the United States
should not suggest violence in any way," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook tweeted.
You had better luck than I did with my search. thanks! The one tweet left on his account makes
it sound like he just joined, even though the joined date says August 2015. Very odd.
I'm not from belgium, but the belgian SP/PS = basically neoliberal, while the Belgian labor
party (PvdA) is more properly thought of as Socialist (i.e., well to Bernie's left). (For reference,
in NL it's the other way around: the SP is actually socialist, while the PvdA is neolib with a
bleeding heart contingent that carps ineffectually from the sidelines, always accepting that "the
revolution will happen mañana". It may be that this was an act by Magnette, in the hope that he
could pacify that contingent, in or outside his party; I don't know who organized the reading
+ discussion of CETA in the Wallonian Parliament.)
It looks like the Walloon SP is a typical social dem party that has become neoliberal, but
they are being pushed hard in the regional elections by the Workers' Party of Belgium (PvdA-PTB).
I think this is an attempt by them to square the circle and give in to the demands of the EU ruling
class and attempt to head off the growing threat to their left. Seems incredibly cynical to me,
rather than coming from any genuine place. It remains to be seen what would happen if the Workers'
Party gained regional control after this: would they, too, capitulate or would they force a confrontation?
Hillary Clinton isn't saying anything yet about the FBI decision to investigate new emails
linked to her private email server.
Clinton ignored shouted questions from reporters about the FBI investigation as she walked
off her plane Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
She smiled and waved to reporters gathered on the tarmac, but made no comments.
Clinton spent about 25 minutes on the plane after it landed before she emerged. Following Clinton
off the plane was famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. She was shooting photos of the candidate
for at least part of the time reporters were waiting for the candidate.
"The Army said Friday it has determined that suicide was the cause of death of a two-star general
who was found dead in his home on a military base in Alabama, the AP reports. Maj. Gen. John Rossi
was found dead July 31 at Redstone Arsenal, two days before he was to assume command of Army Space
and Missile Defense Command . He is the first Army general to commit suicide on active duty since
record-keeping began in 2000, according to the Army; USA Today reports that he is "the highest-ranking
soldier ever to have taken his own life."" hmmm
It's Bill Clinton's interstate emergency management agreement (then pitched for FEMA-type emergencies)
and not the PATRIOT Act's DHS Fusion Centers that are managing law enforcement response to #NoDAPL,
eh? That means that the federal agencies are not particularly involved yet, doesn't it?
People shake their heads when Trump says that he took advantage of tax loopholes like any other
businessman, but they are okay with the same law compliance bullshit that Hillary resorts to with
the emails, Clinton foundation etc.
this election has just really hammered in the message that people will simply ignore any logical
or factual realities if they contradict their own prejudices, even as they loudly proclaim their
moral and intellectual superiority in choosing the "right" candidate.
"The IRS rule apparently used by Trump and many others dates back to 1918. Put simply, businesses
can "carry forward" tax losses to future years. In other words, if a business loses $50,000 one
year, and makes the same amount the following year, it is considered to have "broken even." If
a business takes a loss of $1 million, it could theoretically make $100,000 for the next ten years
and pay no taxes.
In fact, in 1995 (the same year of Trump's tax return), 500,000 people used the same tax advantages
that Trump apparently used. However, unlike Trump's losses of nearly a billion dollars, the average
American's claimed loss was $97,500.
These losses are allowed to flow through the business to the benefit of the business owner.
So, the loss of the business can be used to offset personal income of the business owners.
Using the rule is perfectly legal, assuming of course that the losses claimed are legitimate
losses under the tax code. Losses must be real net operating loss, enough to cancel out any profit
made.
Advantages for Real Estate Owners
Real estate has a number of losses that can be claimed, including depreciation of the value
of real estate assets, real estate taxes, and costs to maintain the property. Real estate owners
also can use losses in real estate, to offset non-real estate gains in certain cases. So, for
example, if property depreciates, those losses can cover not only any profits made from the real
estate itself, but also any other business ventures the real estate owner may be involved in.
Owners of investment real estate, however, may be subject to the "passive activity" rules, which
limit the owner's ability to use real estate losses against other business income.
Real estate owners can also defer taxes by flipping property. If a developer exchanges property
routinely, the losses can be continually carried forward so that no taxes are actually paid."http://www.davidtobacklaw.com/what-is-the-trump-tax-loophole/
"Clinton foundation etc." would take up too much bandwith and unfair to other NC posters BUT
YOU GET THE POINT, RIGHT?
if not let's settle this with her own record… Forbes: Christopher Preble points out "Clinton
supported every one of the last seven U.S. military interventions abroad, plus two others we ended
up fighting." For instance, while First Lady she pushed for U.S. intervention in the Balkans-attacking
the Bosnian Serbs and then Serbia. She was an enthusiastic war advocate, explaining: "I urged
him [her husband] to bomb." Alas, Bosnia remains badly divided while Kosovo has turned into a
gangster state which, according to the New York Times, is "a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline
for jihadists."
"Sen. Hillary Clinton supported the overbroad Authorization for Use of Military Force after September
11, which 15 years later the Obama administration claims as warrant for its very different war
against the Islamic State. She strongly backed the Iraq invasion. Only after it turned out badly
and threatened to damage her political career did she acknowledge her mistake. Of course, that
was too late to retrieve the thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives,
and trillions of dollars squandered. At the same time, she said she was sorry for opposing the
2007 "surge" of troops, despite what Iraq became. Worse, a former State department aide reported
that Clinton later announced she would not feel "constrained" in the future by the failure in
Iraq."
It's working but I can't tell if they are serious or if that is some epic level trolling. That
seems to be consistent with the theme of this election though.
James Comey was on the Board of Directors of HSBC while they were money laundering for drug
runners and terrorists, he has done squat to stop GamerGate, he has a
horrible record as director of the FBI and should have never been nominated, never been confirmed,
and is a completely horrible person.
Mark Felt had already gained notoriety before Watergate because he was one of the FBI's special
agents who was charged for conducting illegal surveillance on American leftists. It's one of those
things all those conspiracy theorists don't emphasis about COINTELPRO and other programs. The
only people actually charged and convicted in the matter were FBI agents.
He was also general counsel of the largest defense contractor in the world (Lockheed Martin)
and
general counsel of the largest hedge fund / personality cult in the world (Bridgewater).
Just a small town lawyer. If the town is Davos.
I read the comments earlier in the day so not sure if this has been noted. In a new emergency
procedure, the Left Party is still trying to block the CETA agreement in the final hours before
the agreement. It is not clear whether the application has reached the court in time. I think
it would be called the Federal Constitutional Court. Preventatively the Left Party has also submitted
an alternative claim should the first one be too late to be considered
site in German
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2016/10/28/wagenknecht-reicht-in-karlsruhe-eilantrag-gegen-ceta-ein/
I began to read today's Water Cooler and went, "What? Is this a parody?", about a link I no
longer recall, BUT I kept saying that to myself as I read on And felt the same about some other
reports I came across today. Have we passed some "red line" into another dimension?
These really are real links?
(Yeah, I know they are…it's just that they seem like they shouldn't be….)
Bill and Hillary Clinton failed to get required permits for a rushed renovation of the house
and grounds they recently bought next to their original Westchester home, it was reported Friday.
Records show that the Clintons' contractors filled in an in-ground pool, covering it with
gravel, and extensively remodeled the interior of the property - all without applying for permits
and paying the required fees to the town of New Castle.
Building Inspector William Maskiell inspected the Chappaqua property after getting the tip
about the pool work and then discovered the other renovations that were underway.
Attached to the building inspector's letter was a document titled Clinton Violation Inspection
Report in which Maskiell said the contractor told him the Clintons "were quite adamant about
[the Thanksgiving deadline] and what had started as a paint job turned into this," meaning
the major renovation.
Crazy - there are more problems than just the lack of building permits:
The Clintons also have outstanding zoning and Building Department problems at their residence
next door at 15 Old House Lane,
They obtained variances in 2000 for a guard house on the property, for a higher fence and
for "lot coverage," or the amount of space buildings take up on the property.
The variances must be renewed every five years - but the Clintons never showed up before
the Zoning Board of Appeals.
"Consequently, they are null and void. They should have come back in 2005, 2010 and 2015.
So the variances have expired and they have to start from scratch" and reapply, said the inspector.
The original home and a combination library and gym in an outbuilding still have outstanding
building permit issues as well, including a sprinkler "sign off" by the town engineer and an
electrical inspection in the library/gym
I'm not seeing much basic competency here in executing home ownership responsibilities. Next
I'll hear Bill steals the neigbor's Sunday newspaper off their porch.
Interesting tidbit about the Illinois US senate race. The incumbent, the Republican Mark Kirk,
had a stroke and since then has made notably non-PC comments. Last night he made a comment about
Tammy Duckworth's Chinese heritage (her mother is Chinese born in Thailand), and that comment
has drawn attention to his overall neurological health.
A friend of mine had a stroke which deeply affected the part of the brain responsible for impulse
control. He used to be highly organized, extremely conscious of ramifications of his actions,
spent carefully, prepared for exigencies, etc. Since the stroke, and especially when he's feeling
more energetic, he spends like a drunken sailor, swears like one, has no care about consequences
of his actions. If he's feeling under pressure this is even more exaggerated.
Kirk's recovery from his stroke has won him some sympathy, but I gather there's has not been
much reporting about any personality changes. The debate made this change a bit more open to scrutiny
and other examples are apparently being discussed.
During a debate between Rep. Tammy Duckworth and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) for his U.S. Senate
seat in Springfield, Illinois, Kirk mocked Duckworth's ancestry, saying in rebuttal of her
comments on the true cost of war,
"I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington."
His remark came in response to her statement that, "My family has served this nation in
uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a Daughter of the American Revolution."
NC started the "Thanks Ms. Lewinsky for saving Social Security" meme ;
I don't think this scandal alone will sink Clinton, but if it does, would that make Anthony the
'boy Monica'?
In line with the Corruption theme, check out the election fraud documentation at
Fraction Magic – Short Version
video recently released. It shows manipulation of actual vote files (Statement of Votes Cast)
and how locations selected for audit were not tampered with.
The hero of the story is Bennie Smith, a soft-spoken Memphis TN-based genius who has skills
in computer programming and databases; accounting; and political demographic analysis. By luck
those are the same skills that convicted felon Jeffrey Dean had. (Dean wrote the software for
the Diebold voting machines–and I've been told they can now prove that Dean was the originator
of the fractionalized vote-counting software for the central tabulators.)
A longer version of the video is due out in days–in the meantime, the 9 min. excerpt on the
Short Version is amazing. Check out the tips at the end–how the public can help.
Don't worry, Lloyd Blankfein is checking Comey's work. FBI today placed the Weiner investigation
under their crack Special Agent for Witness Liquidation, Aaron McFarlane.
Hello …According to
Reuters , the European Union on Friday lifted limits on Gazprom's use of a link from its offshore
Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, allowing Russia to pump more gas to Europe and bypass its usual
routes via Ukraine.
UHH @4:30…State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday that the department knows nothing
about why the FBI reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server just
hours earlier.
"First, what do we know? Not much more than you know, in fact. About the same," Toner said.
"We just learned about this when we saw news reports of the letter."
"What emails they may be looking at, what they're looking for, any more details at all, we
just don't know anything about the scope of this new–I'm not even sure it's an investigation,
but this effort to look at additional emails," Toner continued.
Cyberspace opened up the Clinton Foundation's Pay for Play scams for scrutiny despite the best
efforts of corporate media and the connected elite to keep it closed; the endless wars at Saudi
Arabia and Israel's bequest, the purposeful burdening of debt on anyone who needs housing, medical
care or education, and the utter contempt for the little people. Corruption so inept that missing
Hillary Clinton e-mails are in Carlos Danger's explicit underage passion filled smartphone in
FBI's possession.
The international community considers backroom corporate trade deals as one example of the
general problem of fragmentation. The US government tries to end-run the UN Charter with NATO.
It tries to end-run ILO conventions with the WTO. It tries to end-run economic and social rights
with ISDS. It tries to end-run sovereign debt principles (e.g. A/69/L.84) with the Paris Club
and the IMF. In response, the international community has been working to synthesize the different
legal regimes in an objective way.
Corporate special pleading gets subsumed in old-time diplomacy, finding common ground, so the
pitched-battle narrative is absent, but when Zayas comes out and says ISDS cannot negate human
rights, this is the context. They're trying to preserve a non-hierarchical regime in which the
only absolute is the purposes and principles of the UN: peace and development, which comes down
to human rights.
… One key Utah proponent of land transfer affirmed the importance of respectful dialogue
and seeking change through legal channels.
"I would hope there would never be a green light to act outside the rule of law. I can understand
the frustration, but in Utah we do things different. We honor the law," said Rep. Keven Stratton,
R-Orem. "Guns on either side would never be appropriate."
But when it comes to land management, Stratton said, the federal government has strayed
from "constitutional anchors of state sovereignty and equal footing." Restoring balance between
federal and state authority would help resolve issues before they lead to confrontations like
those at Bunkerville and Malheur. …
`Restoring balance … resolve issues' is Sage Brush Rebel for `My way or the
RS 2477 highway '.
New evidence appears to show how hackers earlier this year stole more than 50,000 emails
of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, an audacious electronic attack blamed on Russia's government
and one that has resulted in embarrassing political disclosures about Democrats in the final
weeks before the U.S. presidential election.
The hackers sent John Podesta an official-looking email on Saturday, March 19, that appeared
to come from Google. It warned that someone in Ukraine had obtained Podesta's personal Gmail
password and tried unsuccessfully to log in, and it directed him to a website where he should
"change your password immediately."
Podesta's chief of staff, Sara Latham, forwarded the email to the operations help desk of
Clinton's campaign, where staffer Charles Delavan in Brooklyn, New York, wrote back 25 minutes
later, "This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately."
maybe clinton made the decision unilaterally, which is quite possible. seems like the campaign
would want to bury the email scandal instead of going on the offensive. i do so hope this means
their internal polling is scaring them.
I think my 1st year university student daughter [business with high distinctions] summed up
the election in the car whilst taking her to work – its stupid – and can't believe these are adults
running for president of America of all places….
Her immunity deal does not cover this incident. They now can force her sing...
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton's most trusted State Department aide Huma Abedin once left classified papers in the pocket behind the front seat of a staff car she was assigned in India, according to an email released Monday. ..."
"... Abedin wrote to Clinton's personal assistant Lauren Jiloty on July 20, 2009 to ask her to move the material to her trunk so an ambassador wouldn't see them when he rode with her in the back seat. ..."
"... She told Jiloty that the papers consisted of 'burn stuff,' indicating that they were classified documents that belonged among materials that agency rules required employees to place in 'burn bags' for incineration. ... ..."
"... New emails the FBI is examining related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private computer server were discovered after the agency seized electronic devices belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing law enforcement officials. ... ..."
(So, more sloppy handling of classified
material going on, looks like. Not
by Hillary Clinton however.)
Bombshell email shows Huma Abedin left classified material in her CAR
http://dailym.ai/2bz34lU via @MailOnline
- Aug 23
Hillary Clinton's most trusted State Department aide Huma Abedin once left classified papers
in the pocket behind the front seat of a staff car she was assigned in India, according to an
email released Monday.
Abedin wrote to Clinton's personal assistant Lauren Jiloty on July 20, 2009 to ask her to move
the material to her trunk so an ambassador wouldn't see them when he rode with her in the back
seat.
She told Jiloty that the papers consisted of 'burn stuff,' indicating that they were classified
documents that belonged among materials that agency rules required employees to place in 'burn
bags' for incineration. ...
FBI found Clinton-related emails on devices belonging to Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner http://aol.it/2ejHtuo via @AOL - Oct 28
New emails the FBI is examining related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's
use of a private computer server were discovered after the agency seized electronic devices belonging
to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Times reported on Friday,
citing law enforcement officials. ...
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Someone at FBI missed the cease and desist memo....
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current U.S.
administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people chose,
and to discuss any problem.
Trump
claims that Clinton's policy on Syria would lead to World War 3.
Let's fact check …
The Washington Post
points out that a vote for Clinton is a vote for escalating military confrontation in Syria and
elsewhere:
In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama's departure
from the White House - and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton
- is being met with quiet relief.
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork
for a more assertive American foreign policy, via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who
are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House .
***
The studies, which reflect Clinton's stated views, break most forcefully with Obama on Syria
…. call[ing] for stepped-up military action to deter President Bashar al-Assad's regime and Russian
forces in Syria.
***
Most of the studies propose limited American airstrikes with cruise missiles to punish Assad
….
***
Last year, Obama dismissed calls for a no-fly zone in northwestern Syria - a position advocated
by Clinton - as "
half-baked ."
***
Even pinprick cruise-missile strikes designed to hobble the Syrian air force or punish Assad
would risk a direct confrontation with Russian forces, which are scattered throughout the key
Syrian military bases that would be targeted.
"You can't pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the Russians,"
said a senior administration official who is involved in Middle East policy and was granted anonymity
to discuss internal White House deliberations.
The most liberal presidential candidate still running – Green Party candidate Jill Stein – says:
Hillary Clinton wants to start an air war with Russia. Let's be clear: That's what a no-fly
zone means. It is tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia.
***
Clearly the Democrats are incredibly embarrassed about the nature of these revelations, and
they've created a smokescreen here to try and distract from that. But that smokescreen is pushing
us to the brink of warfare with Russia now, where you have the U.S. head of defense, Ashton Carter,
talking about nuclear war. We just did a dry run dropping fake nuclear bombs over Nevada. This
is really dangerous stuff; this is not pretend. So we need to take a deep breath here, we need
to step back and stop beating the war drums. In this context, Hillary Clinton is talking about
starting an air war with Russia. Which could slide-you know, we're on the verge of nuclear war
right now.
***
The most likely nuclear threat right now is with Russia. There's no doubt about that. When
you have Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the prime minister of the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
saying that the threat of nuclear war is hotter now than it has ever been in all of history, you've
got to take that pretty seriously. And when you have Hillary Clinton then beating the war drums
against Russia, and essentially saying that if she's elected that we will declare war on Russia-because
that's what a no-fly zone over Syria amounts to. Shooting down Russian warplanes.
***
Hillary Clinton is a disastrous nuclear threat right now in a context where we're already off-the-charts
in the risk of nuclear war. She has stated in this context that she's essentially opening up a
battlefront with Russia. So to my mind, this emerges as the clearest and most present danger.
Prominent liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs
writes in the Huffington Post, in an essay bannered " Hillary Is the Candidate of the War
Machine ":
It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints
on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious
realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring
American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.
Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage
for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the
Iraq
Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq.
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed
by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to
replace that regime.
Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.
Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has
cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle
East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote,
Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein
has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability,
and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including
Al Qaeda members… "
After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO
to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans.
Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank.
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern
US history . Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence
complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches
from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless
promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary
strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law
but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil
war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the
African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko
Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime,
Hillary found it hilarious
to declare of Qaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died."
Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary's relentless
promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria . Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda
that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful.
In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must
"get out of the way," backed by
secret CIA operations.
Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses
a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are
drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the
European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad,
ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.
The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary's support at every turn for
NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire
that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia's violent
counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored
2008-SR439 , to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided
over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.
It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is
it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that
as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign
financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record
of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence
that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security .
Trump would probably be the better choice in the question of war and peace than Clinton.
Clinton has expressly expressed the wish to establish a flight ban on Syria, or parts of it.
*** In truth, it would be an act of war. The risks are unpredictable. Above all, the risk of a
military conflict with Russia.
***
The highest soldier of the United States of America, General Joseph Dunford, President of the
United States General Staff of the United States Forces, is certain. To control the entire airspace
over Syria would mean war with Syria and Russia. Dunford's predecessor in office estimated a few
years ago that an effective flight bomb over Syria would involve the use of 70,000 soldiers and
a monthly cost of $ 1 billion.
But the bottom line is Clinton's proven historical track record … she's at least partly responsible
for war after catastrophic war and coup after disastrous coup in
Libya, Syria, Kosovo, Haiti, Honduras and
other countries
around the world.
"... Hillary has suggested on several occasions publicly that Trump cannot be trusted with the 'Nuclear Codes' because he is erratic and unstable. Now that most people agree that no matter where they came from the Wikileaks is telling the truth we can see how Hillary's own people are scared of her 'mood swings' and her health problems.... ..."
"... She is the one who should not have access to the Nuclear Codes much less be running for President ..."
"... Hillary's own campaign team is waging a war on women. ..."
"... The American media, nothing but despicable State Sycophant Propaganda Ministry runt traitors! ..."
"... Whether Russia is behind it or not is irrelevant. Its not like the USA is an innocent player in hacking other countries. What's of importance is the contents of the emails. Whoever hacked them - if any at all (they were most likely provided by disgruntled DNC insiders) did not alter them (as proven by security checks). HRC, the DNC and her campaign team are deeply corrupt, hence she is unqualified to lead the USA. ..."
"... So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission. Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams. ..."
"... It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video. ..."
"... Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about, why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor. ..."
Hillary has suggested on several occasions publicly that Trump cannot be trusted with the 'Nuclear
Codes' because he is erratic and unstable. Now that most people agree that no matter where they came
from the Wikileaks is telling the truth we can see how Hillary's own people are scared of her 'mood
swings' and her health problems....
She is the one who should not have access to the Nuclear
Codes much less be running for President because she also is a Criminal and belongs in Federal
Prison.
This is coded speech microaggression. They are discriminating against her because she is a
woman, implying she is 'moody' you know 'hysterical'... hysterectomy... its sexist, its misogynist
its harassment, its abuse, its hate speech.
Come on Liberal media, where are you ... call it out... this is your bread and butter...
Hillary's own campaign team is waging a war on women.
They did it to Sarah Palin and Barbara Bachman... You know they'd do it if Trump said Hillary
was 'moody'.
The American media, nothing but despicable State Sycophant Propaganda Ministry runt traitors!
Whether Russia is behind it or not is irrelevant. Its not like the USA is an innocent player
in hacking other countries. What's of importance is the contents of the emails. Whoever hacked
them - if any at all (they were most likely provided by disgruntled DNC insiders) did not alter
them (as proven by security checks). HRC, the DNC and her campaign team are deeply corrupt, hence
she is unqualified to lead the USA.
Wikileaks needs to get this out (I have not verified the info sent to me last night):
So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve
US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission.
Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some
of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July
25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot
Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance
team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept
in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to
retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down
orders given to multiple commando teams.
It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus
wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then,
Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking
points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video.
Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about,
why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks
after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone
knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy
without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing
the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone
KNEW he was a traitor.
So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that
is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS. Only
the Dems, with their hands out, palms up, will support her. Perhaps this is why no military aircraft
was called in…because the administration knew our enemies had Stingers.
Tim Kaine: "I don't think we can dignify documents dumped by WikiLeaks and just assume that they're
all accurate and true,"
They were confirmed true when John Podesta's Twitter password was distributed in one of the
WikiLeaks email releases and his Twitter account was hijacked the same day by a troll saying,
"Trump 2016! Hi pol". Checkmate b!tch. see more DNC Russian Hacker Pepe
Regular Guy •
12 minutes ago The way they parse words, the Kaine statement still doesn't state the documents
are not accurate. He makes an editorial statement to mislead the listener into thinking there
is some reason to question the facts.
Sounds pretty much like poor temperament to me when you have mood problems. Can we please put
national security on hold for now, we have to check her mood ring. It is imperative for the best
outcome that we check her head space. WOW! That's a real dumb explanation. Maybe if we use the
word mood instead of temperament that will be better than telling people she has health problems
in her head.
"... So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission. Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams. ..."
"... It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video. ..."
"... Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about, why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor. ..."
Wikileaks needs to get this out (I have not verified the info sent to me last night):
So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to
retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight
or permission. Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc
Turi. Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own
military. It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own
Stingers, but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had
to land anyway. An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to
a cache of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic
mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die"
mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams.
It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because
Petraeus wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial
aircraft. Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he
OK'd the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video.
Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about,
why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two
weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even
though everyone knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and
abetted the enemy without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the
Taliban began pushing the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe
Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor.
So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that
is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS.
Only the Dems, with their hands out, palms up, will support her. Perhaps this is why no
military aircraft was called in…because the administration knew our enemies had Stingers.
"... The discussion, which was released by WikiLeaks from a batch of messages apparently stolen from Podesta's account, sheds additional light on the campaign's lack of preparation for questions about Clinton's bespoke setup. The private email arrangement has become a cloud over the Democratic presidential nominee and spurred a yearlong FBI investigation. ..."
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign-in-waiting appeared unprepared for a New York Times story
last year that exposed her exclusive use of private email account and server for government business,
according to a newly released email.
The day the
Times story was published, John Podesta, who would later be named campaign chairman, asked future
campaign manager Robby Mook
if he had seen it coming
.
"Did you have any idea of the depth of this story?" Podesta asked Mook in an email late on the evening
of March 2, 2015, roughly a month before Clinton launched her bid for the White House.
"Nope," Mook responded after 1 a.m. that night. "We brought up the existence of emails in research
(sic) this summer, but were told that everything was taken care of."
The discussion, which was released by WikiLeaks from a batch of messages apparently stolen from
Podesta's account, sheds additional light on the campaign's lack of preparation for questions about
Clinton's bespoke setup. The private email arrangement has become a cloud over the Democratic presidential
nominee and spurred a yearlong FBI investigation.
The email released on Thursday is one of several published by WikiLeaks detailing the Clinton
campaign's scurrying response to revelations about her email server.
Days later, President Obama would say that he was unaware of Clinton's email setup until it
became public knowledge.
However, Clinton's aides knew that he and the former secretary of State had exchanged emails,
and they worried that contradicted Obama's public statement.
"[W]e need to clean this up - he has emails from her - they do not say state.gov," Cheryl Mills,
Clinton's former State Department chief of staff,
told other aides on March 7.
The White House later said Obama was aware of Clinton's email address but did not know the
full scope of her unusual setup. Notes from the FBI investigation into Clinton's arrangement revealed
that Obama
used a pseudonym for emailing with Clinton and others.
As
an old SDS-er, I found it hard to see Tom Hayden go. However meandering his path, he was at the heart
of radical history in the 60s, an erstwhile companion, if not always a comrade, on the route of every
boomer lefty.
One of his finer moments for me, which I've never seen mentioned (including among this week's
encomia) since he wrote it, was his 2006
article
, published on CounterPunch with an introduction by Alexander Cockburn, in which he apologized
for a "descent into moral ambiguity and realpolitick that still haunts me today." It would be respectful
of Hayden's admirers and critics, on the occasion of his passing, to remember which of his actions
"haunted" him the most.
The title of the article says it clearly: "I Was Israel's Dupe." In the essay, Hayden apologizes
for his support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was for him that "descent into
moral ambiguity" More importantly, he explains why he did it, in a detailed narrative that everyone
should read.
Hayden sold out, as he tells it, because, in order to run as a Democratic candidate for the California
State Assembly, he had get the approval of the influential Democratic congressman Howard Berman.
Berman is a guy who, when he became Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was proud to
tell the
Forward that he took the job because of his "interest in the Jewish state" and that: "Even before
I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist."
Hayden had to meet with Howard's brother Michael, who, acting as "the gatekeeper protecting
Los Angeles' Westside for Israel's political interests," told Hayden: "I represent the Israeli Defense
Forces"-a sentence that could serve as the motto of most American congress critters today. The "Berman-Waxman
machine," Hayden was told, would deign to "rent" him the Assembly seat on the "one condition: that
I always be a 'good friend of Israel.'"
But American congressmen were not the only "gatekeepers" through whose hands Hayden had to pass
before being allowed to run for Congress. Other "certifiers" included "the elites, beginning with
rabbis and heads of the multiple mainstream Jewish organizations, the American-Israel Political
Action Committee (AIPAC), [and].. Israeli ambassadors, counsels general and other officials."
In fact, Hayden had to, in his words, be "declared 'kosher' by the ultimate source, the region's
representative of the state of Israel," Benjamin Navon, Israel's Counsul-general in Los Angeles.
In other words, in this article Hayden was describing, in an unusually concrete way, how the
state of Israel, through its state officials and their compliant American partners, was effectively
managing-exercising veto power over Democratic Party candidates, at the very least-American elections
down to the level of State Assembly . In any constituency "attuned to the question of Israel,
even in local and state elections," Hayden knew he "had to be certified 'kosher,' not once but over
and over again."
This experience prompted Hayden to express a "fear that the 'Israeli lobby' is working overtime
to influence American public opinion on behalf of Israel's military effort to 'roll back the clock'
and 'change the map' of the region." Hayden warned of the "trepidation and confusion among rank-and-file
voters and activists, and the paralysis of politicians, especially Democrats," over support of Israel.
He vowed to "not make the same mistake again," and said: "Most important, Americans must not be timid
in speaking up, as I was 25 years ago."
Whatever else he did-and he was never particularly radical about Palestine-this article was a
genuinely honest and unusual intervention, and it deserves a lot more notice-as a moment in Tom Hayden's
history and that of the American left-than it has got. Looking back and regretfully acknowledging
that one had been duped and morally compromised by what seemed the least troublesome path 25 years
earlier, saying "I woulda, shoulda, coulda done the right thing," is a haunting moment for anyone.
Doing it in a way that exposes in detail how a foreign country constantly manipulates American elections
over decades is worthy of everyone's notice.
I doubt Hillary and her Democratic supporters will have anything to say about this "interference
"in American elections, even local and state. But I do hope many of those who are touched by the
loss of Tom Hayden heed these words from him, and don't wait another 25 years to overcome their "fear
and confusion" about saying and doing the right thing regarding the crimes of Israel, troublesome
as that might be.
"... The announcement comes at a pivotal time in Clinton's presidential campaign, as recent polls have suggested she is strongly favored to win the presidential election. But with this recent development-coupled with embarrassing revelations recently released by WikiLeaks implicating the Clinton Foundation and exposing Clinton's policies as little more than political expediency --- a victory that seemed almost inevitable is now in jeopardy. ..."
"... What's more likely is that James Comey chose to announce the new evidence under the review in the investigation shortly after it was discovered, rather than wait to announce its review after the election, as that would politicize the investigation. If Democrats didn't want an FBI investigation impacting their presidential candidate, then they shouldn't have propped up a candidate who was under a FBI criminal investigation. ..."
The
FBI announced on October 28 that they are reopening their investigation into
Hillary Clinton's private email server.
"In connection with an unrelated case, the
FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.
I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed
that the
FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these
emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance
to our investigation," wrote FBI Director
James Comey in a
statement
.
The announcement comes at a pivotal time in
Clinton's presidential campaign, as recent polls have suggested she is strongly favored to win
the presidential election. But with this recent development-coupled with embarrassing revelations
recently released by
WikiLeaks implicating the
Clinton Foundation and exposing
Clinton's policies as little more than political expediency --- a victory that seemed almost
inevitable is now in jeopardy.
WikiLeaks emails from
Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta confirmed criticisms of
Clinton's private email server. In the
leaked emails , her staff is shown coordinating with the State Department, the
White House , the Department of Justice, and
mainstream media to cover up the scandal and distort it as a partisan issue to protect
Clinton's presidential candidacy. Reports from the
State
Department Inspector General , FBI Director Comey, and two reports on the
FBI's investigation have effectively disproven every defense of
Clinton's private email server that has been utilized by
Clinton partisans since it's use was first revealed in early 2015.
And pro-Clinton
journalists are already trying to spin the FBI's latest announcement.
Newsweek 's Kurt Eichenwald
falsely claimed the FBI wasn't re-opening their investigation but that FBI Director Comey had
to amend his previous testimony. But Comey never testified the FBI reviewed all the evidence-rather,
he testified there is a list of evidence we saw in the investigation. If Eichenwald is correct about
Comey needing to amend his testimony, it is because the FBI found new evidence that suggests
Clinton is guilty. Eichenwald, notorious for touting disproven assumptions and theories-as with
a
Russian conspiracy theory he still pushes, which
The Washington Post , BuzzFeed and other news outlets have debunked-is incorrect. The FBI
investigation is being reopened because new emails were discovered, and the FBI is going to review
them.
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress , founded by Podesta,
called Comey
"extremely careless" for reopening the investigation before the election, and claimed the FBI director
was meddling in the election by doing so because he is a Republican. This is the same argument
Clinton partisans refuted when critics argued politics played a role in Comey's initial decision
not to recommend an indictment.
MSNBC's Joy
Reid made the same claim that Comey was meddling in the election.
What's more likely is that James Comey chose to announce the new evidence under the review
in the investigation shortly after it was discovered, rather than wait to announce its review after
the election, as that would politicize the investigation. If
Democrats
didn't want an FBI investigation impacting their presidential candidate, then they shouldn't
have propped up a candidate who was under a FBI criminal investigation.
"... The New York Times is reporting that the emails came from the FBI's investigation into the sexting habits of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner , who was married to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's all-purpose factotum. The idea that another hack by persons unknown has truly opened Pandora's Box for Clinton, Inc. less than two weeks before the election, seems too delicious for some Republicans to contemplate. ..."
"... It could be the long-awaited "smoking gun" that establishes serious criminality by Clinton, Inc.-or it could be more emails of Hillary discussing yoga and how to figure out the DVR. ..."
"... That said, Democrats who are wordsmithing this development and prematurely declaring that it's no big deal-or worse, some nefarious Trumpian plot-need to step back and let the FBI do its job. It seems unlikely that the Bureau will wrap this up before November 8, and since Comey has informed Congress what's going on, the FBI director won't be telling the public much either. ..."
"... Just over a year ago I predicted that EmailGate was far from over, and it remains very much alive today, despite the best efforts of Hillary Clinton, her staff, and her ardent defenders in the media. Nobody should expect that the Democratic nominee will be charged with any crimes in EmailGate: the naked interference of President Obama's Justice Department in this case demonstrates that reality. ..."
"... However, this scandal remains very much alive as a political matter, and less than two weeks before the election, politics is what matters now. Hillary has never come up with very good answers about why she strictly avoided the use of State Department email when she was the boss at Foggy Bottom, much less why her "unclassified" emails contained so much highly classified information -and she seems unlikely to, all of a sudden. ..."
"... Throughout this scandal, Friday news-dumps have been a regular feature, per well-honed Beltway bureaucratic practice. This one may be the biggest of all. ..."
Newly incriminating Clinton emails may have been found during the FBI's investigation into the
sexting habits of former NY Congressman Anthony Weiner
FBI Is Re-Opening Clinton E-Mail Investigation Oct. 28 -- The inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use
of private e-mail as secretary of state is being re-opened by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congressional committee chairman alerting them of his decision.
Bloomberg's Margaret Talev reports on "Bloomberg Markets."
Just 11 days before our presidential election, the explosive issue of EmailGate is back in the
news, thanks to James Comey, the FBI director who
less than four months ago gave Hillary Clinton a pass on her illegal use of email and a personal
server when the Democratic nominee was secretary of state.
After weeks of damaging revelations care of Wikileaks about just how much the Clinton camp knew
about EmailGate for years, and tried to downplay its significance in the media, Comey today sent
a
letter to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional committees-including, significantly, the
House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees -- that blows EmailGate wide open all over again.
He says:
"In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email
server. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that
appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative
team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative
steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain
classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and
I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important
to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony."
Having
taken Comey to task for his serious mishandling of the FBI's year-long EmailGate investigation-particularly
how his account of what the Bureau discovered made Hillary's guilt clear, but he still declined to
ask the Department of Justice to seek prosecution-he deserves some credit for due diligence here.
It requires some political fortitude to do this practically on an election's eve.
Clearly the FBI has uncovered new emails-the mention of "connection with an unrelated case" is
intriguingly vague-that may (or may not) have relevance to the investigation. We don't yet know what
that information might be, or how it was obtained, but rumors are swirling as usual. Some are pointing
a finger at a leaker inside the U.S. Government; other rumors point to a foreign origin of these
newly discovered emails. The New York Times is reporting that the emails came from the
FBI's investigation into the sexting habits of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner , who
was married to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's all-purpose factotum. The idea that another hack by
persons unknown has truly opened Pandora's Box for Clinton, Inc. less than two weeks before the election,
seems too delicious for some Republicans to contemplate.
In truth, the FBI isn't reopening the EmailGate investigation because it was never actually closed.
Director Comey here is merely doing what he's legally required to: inform the relevant Congressional
committees that new information which may have relevance has been discovered, and the FBI is now
assessing its value to the on-going investigation.
Republicans shouldn't get too excited just yet, since Comey hasn't told us anything about the
provenance of these emails. It could be the long-awaited "smoking gun" that establishes serious criminality
by Clinton, Inc.-or it could be more emails of Hillary discussing yoga and how to figure out the DVR.
That said,
Democrats who are wordsmithing this development and prematurely declaring that it's no big deal-or
worse, some nefarious Trumpian plot-need to step back and let the FBI do its job. It seems unlikely
that the Bureau will wrap this up before November 8, and since Comey has informed Congress what's
going on, the FBI director won't be telling the public much either.
Just over a year ago I
predicted that EmailGate was far from over, and it remains very much alive today, despite the
best efforts of Hillary Clinton, her staff, and her ardent defenders in the media. Nobody should
expect that the Democratic nominee will be charged with any crimes in EmailGate: the naked interference
of President Obama's Justice Department in this case demonstrates that reality.
However, this scandal remains very much alive as a political matter, and less than two weeks before
the election, politics is what matters now. Hillary has never come up with very good answers about
why she strictly avoided the use of State Department email when she was the boss at Foggy Bottom,
much less why her "unclassified" emails contained
so much highly classified information -and she seems unlikely to, all of a sudden.
For Team Clinton, EmailGate remains a nightmare that they would really prefer not to talk about.
But here we are, talking about it all over again, thanks to Director Comey. Throughout this scandal,
Friday news-dumps have been a regular feature, per well-honed Beltway bureaucratic practice. This
one may be the biggest of all.
Just 11 days before our presidential election, the explosive issue of EmailGate is back in
the news, thanks to James Comey, the FBI director who less than four months ago gave Hillary Clinton
a pass on her illegal use of email and a personal server when the Democratic nominee was secretary
of state.
After weeks of damaging revelations care of Wikileaks about just how much the Clinton camp
knew about EmailGate for years, and tried to downplay its significance in the media, Comey today
sent a letter to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional committees-including, significantly,
the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees-that blows EmailGate wide open all
over again. He says:
ADVERTISING
"In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due
to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear
to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed
me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed
to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information,
as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot
predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to
update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony." ...
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Devices Once
Used by Anthony Weiner http://nyti.ms/2dU5zed
NYT - Oct 28
Just 11 days before our presidential election, the explosive issue of EmailGate is back in
the news, thanks to James Comey, the FBI director who less than four months ago gave Hillary Clinton
a pass on her illegal use of email and a personal server when the Democratic nominee was secretary
of state.
After weeks of damaging revelations care of Wikileaks about just how much the Clinton camp
knew about EmailGate for years, and tried to downplay its significance in the media, Comey today
sent a letter to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional committees-including, significantly,
the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees-that blows EmailGate wide open all
over again. He says:
ADVERTISING
"In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due
to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear
to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed
me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed
to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information,
as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot
predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to
update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony." ...
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Devices Once
Used by Anthony Weiner http://nyti.ms/2dU5zed
NYT - Oct 28
ilsm : , -1
Suddenly, the FBI finding 'stuff'.
Too many 'agency' whistleblowers have been talking to congress persons!
Will the country be better off with a 'Nixon' gone in a few months or Trump with no public
trial of the crooked [yes, redundant word use] DNC 'establishment'?
As
CNBC adds , Donald Trump seized on the news Friday that the FBI is probing new emails related to Hillary Clinton's private server,
contending that she threatens United States security and cannot be trusted in the White House. "I have great respect for the fact
that the FBI and Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made," Trump said
at a rally in New Hampshire. "This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood and is about to be
corrected."
"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.
I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate
investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information,
as well as to assess their importance to our investigation," Comey wrote.
"Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take
us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous
testimony," he concluded.
Trump claimed that "Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before."
Update:
More details from
CNN which writes that after recommending this year that the Department of Justice not press charges against the Secretary of
State, Comey said in the letter to eight congressional committee chairman that "recent developments" urged him to take another look.
"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,"
Comey wrote the chairmen. "I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that
the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they
contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation."
Comey said that he was not sure how long the additional review would take and said the FBI "cannot yet assess whether or not this
material may be significant."
Law enforcement sources say the newly discovered emails are not related to WikiLeaks or the Clinton Foundation. They would not
describe in further detail the content of the emails. It's also unclear whether the emails in question are from Clinton herself.
Clinton's campaign learned of the news while they were aboard a flight to Iowa. "We're learning about this just like you all are,"
a Clinton aide told CNN.
The surprising news jolts a presidential race that had largely settled as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump struggled
in national and key battleground polls. Now, Clinton will be placed back on the defensive and forced to confront yet again questions
about her trustworthiness.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, in a stunning development moments ago Jason Chaffetz tweeted that the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton
emails has been reopened: saying that "The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation."
FBI Dir just informed me, "The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation."
Case reopened
After being briefed by his investigative team, Comey "agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed
to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to asses their
importance to our investigation." Comey said he could not predict how long it would take the bureau to assess whether the new emails
are "significant."
Moments later, NBC News reported that the agency was reopening the investigation and shared a letter from FBI director James Comey
informing key lawmakers of the investigation.. .
"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,"
Comey wrote.
"I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take
appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified
information," Comey wrote
The full letter to members of Congress, in which FBI director James Comey said the agency had "learned of the existence of emails
that appear to be pertinent to the investigation" in connection with an unrelated case, is shown below.
No, it's not for real. How much more evidence can you possibly need? She is guilty of at least 5 violations of federal law by
any objective measure and they let her walk. Anyone thinking this will go any different hasn't been paying attention. Banana republic,
two sets of laws.
Blink and you missed it: in a brief, 3 minute 47 second address to the press, a defiant Hillary slammed the FBI, said that she hopes
that whatever information the Bureau has will be shared with the American people and added that she is confident that no charges
will be brought against her by the FBI, while taking the opportunity to ask people to go out and vote for her.
She took three questions which some have mockingly said were drafted and/or preapproved by Clinton campaign direction of communications
Jennifer Palmier.
"We are 11 days out from perhaps the most important national election of our lifetimes," Clinton said during the brief press conference
in Des Moines, Iowa. "Voting is already underway in our country, so the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts
immediately."
Hillary revealed that the FBI had not contacted her before or since Comey sent a letter to lawmakers Friday afternoon.
"So we don't know the facts, which is why we are calling on the FBI to release all the information that it has," she said.
"Even Director Comey noted that this new information may not be significant, so let's get it out."
Comey's letter said that the FBI was reviewing pertinent emails that it found in an unrelated investigation, but did not reveal
much more than that. Republicans and the GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump quickly pounced on the news.
Clinton was asked about a New York Times report that said the FBI had found the new emails in its separate investigation into
Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal.
"We've heard these rumors," she said "We don't know what to believe. And I'm sure there will be even more rumors. That's why it's
incumbent on the FBI to tell us what they're talking about, Jeff. Your guess is as good as mine and I don't think that's not good
enough."
Watch the brief recording below:
BREAKING: Hillary Clinton addresses FBI director's revelation of new review related to private email server case.
https://t.co/vSxftfXcIZ
Hillary's statement was similar to what Tim Kaine said earlier: it's "very, very troubling" that the FBI is releasing information
about a new probe into emails that may relate to Hillary Clinton just 11 days before the election. The Democratic vice presidential
nominee is commenting on the development in an interview with Vice News. Kaine says the FBI director needs to provide more details
on the situation. He suggests it's troubling that members of the press are finding out information before campaign officials. Kaine's
comments in turn echo the a statement made by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and thus by Hillary.
* * *
Finally, President Obama is staying silent - for now - on the FBI director's announcement of an investigation into new emails
related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Obama is in Orlando, Florida, where according to AP he is encouraging
voters - young voters in particular - to take advantage of their opportunity to cast their ballots before Election Day on Nov. 8.
by
Tyler Durden
Oct 28, 2016 3:22 PM
0
SHARES
In the latest stunning revelation in today's saga involving the FBI's second probe,
moments ago the
NYT reported
that the
new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into
Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized
electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner.
The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to
a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina
. The bureau told Congress on Friday
that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case - one federal official
said they numbered in the thousands - potentially reigniting an issue that has
weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less
than two weeks before the election.
Until recently Anthony Weiner was married to Hillary Clinton's closest aide, Huma
Abedin, who separated from Weiner recently after news emerged that Weiner had engaged in
an online affair with an underage girl
.
The F.B.I. told Congress that it had uncovered new emails related to the closed
investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified
information, potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential
campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the
election.
One clue as to what the FBI may have uncovered comes courtesy of FOIAed Judicial
Watch email disclosures, revealed one month ago, according to which Hillary Clinton's
chief of staff at the State Department, Cheryl Mills, had received classified national
security information through one of two or three personal, unsecured email accounts she
regularly used to communicate with Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Approximately 10 percent of Abedin's emails released through Judicial Watch Freedom
of Information Act requests were addressed to one of Mills' various personal email
addresses. As
WND reported at the time
,
several were found to contain such highly
sensitive material that the State Department redacted 100 percent of the content pages,
marking many pages with a bold stamp reading "PAGE DENIED
."
Of the more than 160 emails in the latest Judicial Watch release, some 110
emails – two-thirds of the total – were forwarded by Abedin to two personal addresses
she controlled
. The Washington Times reported in August 2015 that the State
Department had admitted to a federal judge that Abedin and Mills used personal email
accounts to conduct government business in addition to Clinton's private
clintonemail.com to transact State Department business.
In a curious twist, one heavily redacted email, dated May 15, 2009, was sent by the
infamous Doug Band (who until today was the primary source of headaches for Hillary
Clinton due to his role as head of the Clinton Foundation-linked Teneo consulting firm
whose recently leaked confidential memo exposed the fund flows involving Bill Clinton),
to Mills at a personal address and to Huma Abedin at her State Department address.
Band was forwarding to Mills and Abedin an email request from an associate who was
seeking a State Department position in Charleston, South Carolina. Attached was a letter
that the office-seeker had first sent to Bill Clinton containing the office-seeker's
resume . In the email Band was making a State Department job request on behalf of a
Clinton Foundation and/or Teneo-related person.
The email from Band was completely redacted, except for a salutation and first
sentence. The letter the office-seeker had sent to President Clinton, as well as the
office-seeker's résumé, was redacted except for a phrase that reads, "Well organized,
driven professional."
A second email dated May 15, 2009, was sent by Abedin from her State Department email
to her personal email, presumably
[email protected]
. Abedin apparently was archiving in her personal
email account an email Hillary Clinton sent her from Clinton's private email server at
[email protected]. Abedin was asked to print out attachments to an email Mills
sent via a private address the previous day to Clinton involving "timetables and
deliverables" for her review via Alec Ross, a technology policy expert who then held the
title of senior adviser for innovation to Secretary Clinton.
The two pages of timetables and deliverables attached to the email were 100 percent
redacted, with "PAGE DENIED" stamped across the first redacted page.
DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON HILLARY CLINTON'S BAD JUDGMENT
"Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be
far better off without h
im. I only worry for the country in that Hillary
Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to
highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just
another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country
and its security have been greatly compromised by this.
" - Donald J. Trump
and then, previously with this August 3, 2015 tweet:
It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary's private
illegal emails. Huma's PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.
Well, maybe not tell the world, but certainly drag Hillary into another scandal just
as she appeared certain to win the election with less than 2 weeks until D-Day.
"... These are accurate, statistically sound statements. But they are something else, too. Declarations that Trump is highly unlikely to win also serve as counters to the Republican nominee's warning that the "rigged" election could be " stolen from us ." ..."
Callum Borchers, author at the Washington Post blog The Fix, admits that the press is
declaring victory for Hillary Clinton - to discredit claims that the election is rigged.
Since the final presidential debate last week, many news outlets have been delivering an unvarnished
message to Donald Trump supporters: Your candidate is virtually certain to lose the election Nov.
8.
These are accurate, statistically sound statements. But they are something else, too. Declarations
that Trump is highly unlikely to win also serve as counters to the Republican nominee's warning that
the "rigged" election could be "
stolen from us ."
"... "As secretary of state, Clinton was an early supporter of arming and training members of the Syrian opposition to fight Assad, a plan that faced resistance out of concern that it would be difficult to appropriately vet fighters and ensure that weapons didn't fall into the hands of extremists. Today, the program is off to a slow start, with only 54 graduates from the first class, several of whom scattered after coming under attack by an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. As commander-in-chief, Clinton would dramatically escalate the program, she said. " Who was in charge of the training program? Ira Magaziner? ..."
"... Trump leads Clinton by 2 in Florida" [ Politico ]. Of course, it's madness to track individual polls, but since the miasma of Clinton trumphalism has grown so thick, people may need a breath of fresh air. ..."
"... "Hillary's 33,000 emails might not be 'missing' after all" Like a MacGuffin in a Hitchcock movie? [ New York Post ]. Important! ..."
"... "Richard Nixon could only wish he got Hillary's FBI treatment" [ New York Post ]. True! Sadly, I have to quote the New York Post twice in a row. It is what it is. We are where we are. ..."
"... Lordie. There are entire cultures where women are not at all liked….start with India. ..."
"... I could suggest American Black culture is similarly biased in general. The American Black antipathy to 'Gays' is a known ..."
"... Turning the argument on it's head, I would argue that so called 'feminine' characteristics on the part of Trump are a positive for his character. The less confrontational and more cooperative aspects of Trump's personality being dominant are good signs for a position where the gentle arts of politics are needed. ..."
"... Finally, well now, Trump is a complicated mess. So what. It's what he will do, and more importantly, what he will not do, when in office that are of interest. He can be as 'gay' as he wants. If he keeps us out of war with Russia, I'll back him as much as I can. Then he can compete in the Miss America pageant in drag for all I care. ..."
"... Personally, I think a corrupt woman warmonger claiming to speak for all women is an insult to all women, but maybe we both know different sets of women. ..."
"... Within one or two weeks after the fall of Libya, a central bank was established by the "rebels" there, whereby they immediately adopted the US dollar as their base currency. (Ghadaffi had been working with other African countries towards adopting an Afro-centric currency to trade in oil and commodities, and dropping the USD.) ..."
"... This is why all of the polls are BS. People do not want to be questioned incessantly nor bullied. But when it's just the voter and the ballot, watch what happens. ..."
"... I find the whole hysteria over Russian hacking very one-sided. If the US takes it upon itself, out of sincere concern, to help out "moderates" in overthrowing a repressive, evil government in Syria, Libya and Iraq, maybe the same thing happening to the US itself is not that weird? Here is a tyrannical government with little regard for its demotivated and demoralized citizens who can not on their own displace it. This government threatens nuclear war and kills an unjustified number of its own citizens. Its public infrastructure is in ruins and oligarchy is everywhere. In the past the US has set the example for dealing with such troubled states; its time the doctor took his own medicine. ..."
"... The "17 intelligence agencies" claim is complete Clinton bullshit. I'm kind of amazed that journalists are now stating this as fact. ..."
"... Love the headline for the Bay News article you linked to - "Hillary calls for unity." Old miss "basket of deplorables" - also known as Miss "hire bird dogs to incite violence at rallies and blame her opponent" - is getting all squishy to extol the virtues of unity. Seriously - does anyone still believe a word that comes out of her mouth? ..."
"... I believe her line she constantly repeats: "Celebrating diversity" is code for destroying the middle class! ..."
"But Trump's biggest local political donation [in Chicago] was the $50,000 he donated to
Emanuel's first mayoral campaign" [
Chicago Reader (DG)]. "That donation came on December 23, 2010, a couple months before
Rahm was elected. In 2011, Emanuel's administration approved the god-awful 20-foot-high "T-R-U-M-P"
sign that the Donald felt compelled to plaster on his building overlooking the Chicago River.
But Mayor Emanuel's not Trump's only Democratic pal in town. Trump also hired Alderman Burke's
law firm to handle his tax appeals to Assessor Berrios's office. Burke then won Trump several
million dollars worth of property tax breaks." There don't seem to be many degrees of separation
between the elites. I suppose that's why they're elites…
Policy
"A hotelier's guide to the 2016 presidential election" [
Hotel News Now ]. "Many hotels in the U.S. rely on a flow of legal immigrants to fill a
variety of positions. Hoteliers want that pipeline of potential employees to remain open, while
avoiding additional red tape to verify their statuses."
"Battlegrounds: The Fight for Mosul and Election Day Disruptions" (podcast) [
Foreign Policy Editor's Roundtable ]. If you want to get a good reading on the insanity
that is
The Blob , this is the podcast for you. The speakers spend a good twenty minutes discussing
the details of Syria and Iraq, concluding that historians will look back on it as "a forty
year's war," without ever once giving a reason for us to be there . Soothing NPR voices,
no anger, a lot of laughter. Smart people.
War Drums
"Hillary Clinton Promises A More Muscular Foreign Policy As President" [
HuffPo ]. "As secretary of state, Clinton was an early supporter of arming and training
members of the Syrian opposition to fight Assad, a plan that faced resistance out of concern
that it would be difficult to appropriately vet fighters and ensure that weapons didn't fall
into the hands of extremists. Today, the program is off to a slow start, with only 54 graduates
from the first class, several of whom scattered after coming under attack by an al Qaeda affiliate
in Syria. As commander-in-chief, Clinton would dramatically escalate the program, she said.
" Who was in charge of the training program? Ira Magaziner?
The Voters
"What Do Trump and Marx Have in Common?" [Jochen Bittner,
New York Times ]. This is another piece along the lines of the article from
the
Manhattan Institute's City Journal that Yves linked to this morning, although it's not
a piece of outright hackery. For example: "When Hillary Clinton calls half of Mr. Trump's voters
a 'basket of deplorables,' she sounds as aloof as Marie Antoinette, telling French subjects
who had no bread to 'eat cake.'" But both articles deploy the "angry populists of left and
right" vs. the "sensible center" trope (remember that in the Beltway you should never
display anger; it's a strong taboo). Bittner concludes: "Mrs. Clinton has the chance to
change, by leading a political establishment that examines and processes anger instead of merely
producing and dismissing it." Obama destroyed hope by not delivering change. And now Clinton
is holding the bag for the anger that caused. From the Department of Schadenfreude…
UPDATE "Clinton's image has improved 9 percentage points since the summer in the 18-29 age
group, while Trump's has remained the same" [
McClatchy ]. "But the survey also found that half of young voters are more 'fearful' about
the future than 'hopeful.' This was true across all demographic groups, with the highest level
of anxiety among whites. Under a third of white women thought they would better off financially
than their parents. More than a third of white men agreed."
The Trail
UPDATE "Poll: Trump leads Clinton by 2 in Florida" [
Politico ]. Of course, it's madness to track individual polls, but since the miasma of
Clinton trumphalism has grown so thick, people may need a breath of fresh air.
UPDATE "Hillary Clinton has a small lead in New Hampshire, according to the results of a
Monmouth University poll released Wednesday, but Donald Trump has shrunk her advantage since
the university's last survey of the battleground state" [
Politico ]. Same caveat, same rationale.
UPDATE "No, Texas' balky machines aren't switching Trump votes to Clinton" [
McClatchy
]. Electronic voting sucks and should be abolished in favor of hand-marked paper ballots
counted in public, but they don't suck for that reason .
"But academic research has picked up something that thousands of hours of campaign punditry
has missed completely: Donald Trump talks like a woman" [
Politico ]. "Donald Trump is a stunning outlier. His linguistic style is startlingly feminine,
so much so that the chasm between Trump and the next most feminine speaker, Ben Carson, is
about as great as the difference between Carson and the least feminine candidate, Jim Webb.
And Trump earns his ranking not just because he talks a lot about himself or avoids big words
(both of which are true); according to Jones, he also shows feminine patterns on the more subtle
measures, such as his use of prepositions and articles. The key then is not what Trump talks
about-making Mexico pay for the wall or bombing the hell out of ISIL-but rather how he says
it." Readers?
Well, well:
Realignment
"This party was dead before Lincoln got here" [
USA Today ]. "Pity the poor Republican Party, which has been on its deathbed since the
age of 2. Never mind that Republicans currently control both houses of Congress, 30 state legislatures
and 31 governors' mansions - this split between Establishment Republicans and Trump Republicans
is a sure sign the party will be flatlining any day now. Aaaaaany day now …"
Democrat Email Hairball
"Hillary's 33,000 emails might not be 'missing' after all" Like a
MacGuffin
in a Hitchcock movie? [
New York Post ]. Important!
"Richard Nixon could only wish he got Hillary's FBI treatment" [
New York Post ]. True! Sadly, I have to quote the New York Post twice in a row. It is what
it is. We are where we are.
And then there's this:
Hopefully, Our Neena can kiss that chief of staff position goodbye.
"New Research Blames Insiders, Not North Korea, for Sony Hack" [
Time
]. The obvious parallel being…
Police State Watch
"AT&T Is Spying on Americans for Profit, New Documents Reveal" [
Daily Beast
]. "The telecom giant is doing NSA-style work for law enforcement-without a warrant-and
earning millions of dollars a year from taxpayers." Not sure what's new here….
"The day when police zap suspects from the sky with drones carrying stun guns may be nearing"
[
Wall Street Journal
].
Black Injustice Tipping Point
"The U.N. Caused Haiti's Cholera Epidemic. Now the Obama Administration Is Fighting the Victims"
[
The New Republic
]. 2014, still relevant today.
Geographic Information Systems can be empowering:
Class Warfare
"Don't Diss the Dark Ages" [
Of Two Minds
]. " New modes of production and new social /political orders do not arise fully
formed. They are pieced together by trial and error and numerous cycles of adaptation, innovation
and failure." Salutary reminder!
"This issue brief explains how monopsony, or wage-setting power, in the labor market can reduce
wages, employment, and overall welfare, and describes various sources of monopsony power. It then
reviews evidence suggesting that firms may have wage-setting power in a broad range of settings
and describes several trends in recent decades consistent with a growing role for monopsony power
in wage determination. It concludes with a discussion of several policy actions taken by the Obama
Administration to help promote labor-market competition and ensure a level playing field for all
workers" [
Council of Economic Advisors
]. How I hate that dead "level playing field" metaphor. Generally,
playing fields are level. It's the refs and the crooked guys with their hands in the till
in the front office that I worry about.
"In late 2007, before the recession started, the prime-age employment-to-population ratio in
the U.S. was about the same as in other Group of Seven developed nations (which also include Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.K.). The U.S., however, experienced a much larger decline
during the recession, and remains much farther from undoing the damage. As of June, the G-7 as
a whole had recovered almost completely, while the U.S. was only 60 percent back from its lowest
point" [
Bloomberg
]. "Prime-age" like "prime beef"…
A community-owned Twitter would result in new revenue streams, since we users would have
a chance to buy in as co-owners. We could re-open the platform's data to spur innovation.
We could set more transparent, accountable rules for handling abuse. And we would no longer
merely be fickle users; we'd be invested in your sustainability and success. The very meaning
of success would change. Without the short-term pressure of the stock markets, we believe
we can realize Twitter's full value-which the current business model has struggled to do
for years now.
So, here's the situation. A group of us wants to set up a cooperative to gather fellow
Twitter users in the hope that we'll be able to make a deal. A fair deal-one that rewards
and includes the people who helped create the Twitter we love. We hope they'll work with
us. And Twitter is only the start, a chance to flex our thinking and organizing around co-owning
a major platform utility; our cooperative is cooking up plans for bringing shared ownership
elsewhere on the internet, too.
We, the undersigned, call on Twitter to work with us to share the future of the company
with those who love and rely on it most.
Twitter, Inc. has shown they can't be trusted with control of a major communication platform.
Their management or other employees routinely censor trending hashtags to suit their own political
preferences. I don't know if a community managed version would be any better, but at least
it would be in different hands. Come to think about it, that sums up a lot of elections, too.
____. n. The despondency that steals over you when you're committed to inventing an election
drinking game but have just realized that no rules can possibly be adequate to the task.
Lordie. There are entire cultures where women are not at all liked….start with India.
And I don't buy this analysis at all.
If you are a guy with a high sex drive, you are thinking about sex a ton. One study said
men think about sex anywhere from twice a minute to twice a day. That means if you aren't getting
laid frequently, you are basically thinking about how you aren't getting enough sex. And there
is clearly more male appetite for sex than women willing to provide it, whether due to genetics
or cultural programming. That's why "prostitute" mean a female prostitute; you need to state
otherwise if male.
So if you are a guy not getting enough sex and you perceive women to be withholding sex
from you (which is a big undercurrent of male/female relations, women trading sex for security
and/or money), it isn't hard to imagine that the men are low or even high grade angry with
women all the time . The only women who would be exempt would be the ones too old to
be sex partners, except they may be guilty by association.
I could suggest American Black culture is similarly biased in general. The American Black
antipathy to 'Gays' is a known, (at least the segment of said culture observable here Down
South.) I might go so far as to posit this characteristic of the culture as having been inculcated
by White Southern culture in the past as a means of 'managing' the black population. Such trends
are generational in duration. Notice that Ben Carson was the next most 'effeminate' on the
list.
Turning the argument on it's head, I would argue that so called 'feminine' characteristics
on the part of Trump are a positive for his character. The less confrontational and more cooperative
aspects of Trump's personality being dominant are good signs for a position where the gentle
arts of politics are needed.
Finally, well now, Trump is a complicated mess. So what. It's what he will do, and more importantly,
what he will not do, when in office that are of interest. He can be as 'gay' as he wants. If
he keeps us out of war with Russia, I'll back him as much as I can. Then he can compete in
the Miss America pageant in drag for all I care.
Surely you know
that's not true . Save the rah-rah pom-pom waving for your Facebook page.
Personally, I think a corrupt woman warmonger claiming to speak for all women is an insult
to all women, but maybe we both know different sets of women.
1. Women apologize all the time. Just listen. Does Trump ever apologize?
2. Most women phrase orders as questions. Trump loves giving orders, famously, "You're fired!"
If you give orders like a guy as a woman, people get pissed with you.
3. Men interrupt women like crazy. Women are loath to interrupt and usually apologize when
they do. Trump has no inhibitions about interrupting.
I suspect the "talking like a man" is about professional class markers. If you talk like
a lawyer or an accountant, you are talking like a man, in what they depict as depersonalized
and distant and "complex" ergo masculine. Trump pointedly talks in a borderline lower class
manner.
And Trump is a salesman. The "personal" style is a selling technique.
Because it is not a civil war. Because financial hegemony is the ultimate goal.
Within one or two weeks after the fall of Libya, a central bank was established by the "rebels"
there, whereby they immediately adopted the US dollar as their base currency. (Ghadaffi had
been working with other African countries towards adopting an Afro-centric currency to trade
in oil and commodities, and dropping the USD.)
The north African states intended that the new currency would be backed by gold. It was
ready to implement (ex Egypt) and the French went berserk (again) about their disobedient (ex)
colonies. The president of France was also mindful of having accepted a large donation from
Ghadaffi to assist his re-election, he got caught out. That is illegal in France. He is running
for re-election again.
This is why all of the polls are BS. People do not want to be questioned incessantly nor
bullied. But when it's just the voter and the ballot, watch what happens.
If I were uber wealthy I might have done a flyer that says "Voting for a lesser evil is
still voting for evil. When you vote for X, your vote is for X regardless of who X is, it is
not a vote for A or B. People claiming otherwise are trying to prop up a weak candidate they
know is unacceptable by using scare tactics. They have the problem you do not. Never forget
that any party can nominate awful people and it is not limited to only one at a time. And this
is a wonderful example of both major Parties throwing a finger at the people of America and
nominating vastly disliked and distrusted people who are unfit for the office of President.
Vote for who you want and tell the whiners they screwed themselves and might want to nominate
a better candidate next time."
It never occurred to them to pick Bernie, an anti neolib, anti neocon.
They are the opposite of Bernie on absolutely every issue.
Guess he doesn't agree? Seems odd…
I find the whole hysteria over Russian hacking very one-sided. If the US takes it upon itself,
out of sincere concern, to help out "moderates" in overthrowing a repressive, evil government
in Syria, Libya and Iraq, maybe the same thing happening to the US itself is not that weird?
Here is a tyrannical government with little regard for its demotivated and demoralized citizens
who can not on their own displace it. This government threatens nuclear war and kills an unjustified
number of its own citizens. Its public infrastructure is in ruins and oligarchy is everywhere.
In the past the US has set the example for dealing with such troubled states; its time the
doctor took his own medicine.
The "evidence" for Russian hacking is so suspect that anyone who repeats the story instantly
stamps themselves as either a con or a mark. It's depressing to see media corruption so blatantly
displayed. Now I know what 2003 must have felt like (I was too young to have much of an opinion
back then).
What more evidence do you need than the word of Hillary and CNN? They both say that 17
intelligence agencies have confirmed it. Which makes me think that maybe we have too many
intelligence agencies.
The "17 intelligence agencies" claim is complete Clinton bullshit. I'm kind of amazed
that journalists are now stating this as fact. I could say I'm shocked but nothing the
presstitutes do surprises me anymore.
They are busy preening for their future White House
access. It kind of makes me want to get drunk and vote for the orange haired guy.
Just finished trying to "re-educate" my husband after he listened to [and apparently
believed] a report in the CBS Evening News on the "Russian hacking of Clinton's e-mails."
They reported it as complete "fact," without even a perfunctory "alleged."
Too difficult to do this correction one person at a time, while the networks have such
massive reach.
Love the headline for the Bay News article you linked to - "Hillary calls for unity."
Old miss "basket of deplorables" - also known as Miss "hire bird dogs to incite violence at
rallies and blame her opponent" - is getting all squishy to extol the virtues of unity. Seriously
- does anyone still believe a word that comes out of her mouth?
"... Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them. ..."
"... Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people. ..."
"... As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket. ..."
"... According to the front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal" hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO. ..."
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only
one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and
the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority
of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit
of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the
warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for
the American people to stop them.
Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality
by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests,
including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life
concerns of the American people.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings
where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking
devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to
reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged
a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and
foremost a profitable racket.
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city's so called bipartisan foreign policy
elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened
Pandora's box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military
contractors. DC's think "tanks" should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles
and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
According to the
front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends
the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal"
hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya
along with allied powers working through NATO.
The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own
analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and
easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress
and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made
from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States
and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat
pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq
and Libya experience.
The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall
of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi's
murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, "We came, we saw, he
died." President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy
establishment, which is spoiling for more war.
The self-identified liberal
Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America's
current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on "mission accomplished."
CAP, according to
a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing,
who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.
As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister
jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The
Brookings Institute,
in a report to Congress , admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom,
where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think
tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style.
And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department
of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously
told Colin
Powell , "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we
can't use it," predictably
says of this current moment , "We do think there needs to be more American action." A former
Bush administration top adviser is also
calling for the United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria.
The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering,
propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.
The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d'être for stone-cold
warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world
domination.
It's infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast
a fictional show that contemplated
WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic
Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home).
The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia's targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder
that by the summer of 2016
a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM's launching a nuclear
strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report.
As this year's presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating
the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly
more dangerous place.
The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with
a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry.
I'm fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts,
at the cost of other people's lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by
a list of the think tank's sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of
the report's authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors
have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of
the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians
alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America,
to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its
media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as
inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the
White House, must face visible opposition.
Just like Ron Paul (with whom he agrees on matters of foreign policy and the Fed), he was painted
by MSM as a kook. I wonder why. While I understand that many here would never vote for him because
he believes in things like social programs, so do all of the Republicans in Congress. He would
have made a far better president than zero or McCain.
"... Reality dictates ...abstaining or voting for anyone other than Donald Trump is a de facto vote for Hillary Clinton. As POTUS she has declared her intentions of imposing a (Libyan style) "NO FLY" zone over Syria, to "Obliterate" "Iran" and "Russia", confront China and expand the globalization of the American economy. ..."
"... For the sake of all humanity, criminal warmonger Hillary must be voted out on Nov.8 2016 ..."
"... While what you say may be half true, you miss the point entirely. It's irrelevant weather or not Trump keeps his words as we have no control over that anyway. What we do have control over however is not giving a mandate to Hillary's criminal war making intentions and the only way to do that under the circumstances, is to vote her out, by voting Trump in period. ..."
"... The clever economic left realizes that although Trump has some of dem ebul GOP economic ideas, he's more sensible than Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... I think b should've taken note of the Hillary camp's attempt in recent days to play down her militarism. ..."
"... IMO the best strategy is to vote Trump in battleground states and vote Green everywhere else. ..."
"... Very early on, I was of the opinion that Hillary's negatives were so high that her run should be seen as electing the Republican. But neocon defections, DNC collusion, 'sheepdog' Sanders, and more convinced me that the establishment really does want a Hillary coronation. ..."
"... The lesser-evilists are assuming that there aren't enough votes, so you are just taking votes from the lesser evil and helping the greater evil. True if their assumption is true, that there aren't enough votes for a third party to win. ..."
"... Another third-party argument is sending a signal to party leaders and the public that there are voters who despise the oligarchy candidates. That would improve growth of a third party (it would also attract oligarchy influence to them). ..."
"... We need to stop letting the corporate press goad us into fighting over trivia - transgenders in bathrooms! Trump's hair! Clinton's smile! - and focus on what is truly crucial. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton is a monster and God help us all if she wins. I envision President Clinton with perfectly coiffed hair with a rosy plastic smile (kudos to her mortician) giving a perfectly written speech with all the trendy buzzwords (celebrating diversity, helping the middle class, sustainable energy, etc.etc.) while outside the world burns. ..."
"... Whatever you do, no matter how much the corporate press tells you that Trump is 'finished,' go to the polls and vote. Because for the first time in decades, a US presidential election matters. ..."
"... Trump will meet with much resistance from the establishment. His worst instincts will be constrained. That is not true for Hillary & Co. ..."
"... A loss for a corrupted Democratic Party is best for the country. A strong showing by Greens is a further embarrassment. The left can then build on a solid foundation. ..."
"... Chomsky advocated for voting for Hillary in battleground states and Greens elsewhere. ..."
"... I do not believe that the 'Third Way' Democratic Party can be changed from within. The example of Obama and Hillary should have disabused any progressive of such fantasies. ..."
"... Trump, both domestically and internationally is the best breath of fresh air in American politics since FDR. Of course purists and utopians might disagree, but when he wins on Nov.8,I'll treat that day as the second 4th of July. America first, at long last, instead of traitors for zion. Hoo haw. Todays Wapoo intimates Trump anti-Semite. And Colin liar Powell is for the Hell Bitch. ..."
"... This elections cycle almost all fake leftist and NeoCon, both Democratic Party and Republicans voting for Hillary. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is taken straight out of "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties" by Oded Yinon, also known as The Yinon Plan. ..."
"... I am a spectator outside the USSA. USSA policies affect all of humanity on planet earth. A vote for the Clinton adds another potential 16 years reign in the WH, a continuation of the corruption, death, destruction and endless wars. ..."
"... Since the 1990s in Arkansas then in D.C., their retirement is long overdue. Stop the Clintons from enriching themselves on the public purse…foreign and domestic. ..."
"... OMg Illary cares about women's rights but takes $millions in donations from such likes as KSA, Qatar. Not to mention, countries that are steeped in poverty. Take a look at the donors to the Clinton Foundation. ..."
Some highlights of a recent Donald Trump
interview with Reuters:
U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton's
plan for Syria would "lead to World War Three," because of the potential for conflict with military
forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a
higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down,..
Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin after
demonizing him; blamed President Barack Obama for a downturn in U.S. relations with the Philippines
under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte;...
Trump's foreign policy talk is far more sane than Clinton's and her camp's. It is ludicrous
to event think about openly attacking Russian (or Syrian) troops in Syria with an al-Qaeda supporting
"no-Fly-Zone". Russia would respond by taking down U.S. planes over Syria. The Russian government
would have to do so to uphold its authority internationally as well as at home.
The U.S. could respond by destroying all Russian assets in and around Syria. It has the capabilities.
But then what? If I were Putin my next step would be a nuclear test shoot in Siberia - a big one
- to make a point and to wake up the rest of the world. I would also provide secret support to any
indigenous anti-U.S. movement anywhere. China would support Russia as its first line of self defense.
"What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria," said Trump as he dined
on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. "You're going to end up in
World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton.
"You're not fighting Syria any more, you're fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia
is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,"
he said.
...
On Russia, Trump again knocked Clinton's handling of U.S.-Russian relations while secretary of
state and said her harsh criticism of Putin raised questions about "how she is going to go back
and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil," if she wins the presidency.
On the deterioration of ties with the Philippines, Trump aimed his criticism at Obama, saying
the president "wants to focus on his golf game" rather than engage with world leaders.
The last two points are important. Trump, despite all his bluster, knows about decency. What is
the point of arrogantly scolding negotiation partner who have the power to block agreements you want
or need?
Why blame Russia for hacking wide open email servers when
no Russian speakers were involved? Why blame Duterte? It is the U.S. that has a long
history of violent racism in the Philippines and FBI agents
committed false flag "terrorism" is Duterte's home town Davao. Bluster may paper over such history
for a moment but it does not change the facts or helps solving problems.
Trump's economic policies would be catastrophic for many people in the U.S. and elsewhere.
But Hillary Clinton would put her husband, the man who deregulated Wall Street, back in charge of
the economy. What do people expect the results would be?
The points above may be obvious and one might be tempted to just pass them and dig into some nig-nagging
of this or that election detail. But the above points as THE most important of any election. The
welfare of the people is not decided with some "liberal" concession to this or that niche of the
general society. The big issues count the most. Good or evil flow from them. Trumps principle, and
I think personal position, is leaning towards peaceful resolution of conflicts. Clinton's preference
is clearly, as her history shows, escalation and general belligerence. It is too risky to vote for
her.
Reality dictates ...abstaining or voting for anyone other than Donald Trump is a de facto vote
for Hillary Clinton. As POTUS she has declared her intentions of imposing a (Libyan style) "NO
FLY" zone over Syria, to "Obliterate" "Iran" and "Russia", confront China and expand the globalization
of the American economy.
Thus all Americans by default and their own actions will have given her a mandate to do her
will and thereby become complicit in their own economic destruction, war crimes and potentially
starting world war three and a planetary thermonuclear holocaust.
Striped of all the other none issue nonsense and distractions the critical choice we are all
faced with making is that simple. And one that will for all eternity weigh on our collective souls
conscience.
For the sake of all humanity, criminal warmonger Hillary must be voted out on Nov.8 2016
Why are you still beating on that worn out tin drum of yours, Dr. Jill Stein isn't going anywhere,
not even if she politically walks on water. You keep at it like the dog in a manger, gnawing on
the remains of some desiccated bone. What you (and others maintaining your OPINIONS) have become
is stool pigeons to land some herd of discontents into the position of self inflicted voter suppression,
their votes without effect on the outcome of the election. If you and the others weren't so completely
innumerate, you would realise the first division in the election was between elegible participants
and non-participants. Of the participants only voters for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump
will decide the eventual winner (with the highly probable event of assisted voting machine fraud).
All other votes are the effete delusions of some morally deranged cult. There Is No Alternative
(TINA) is the illusion of your political kindred is saying there is an alternative. You cannot
point out even one city commission in the top thousand that either the 'Greens' or 'Libertarians'
exercise control over, at best there may be a Communist mayor somewhere in that number. If perchance
Dr Stein were to win, where is the political support necessary to conduct governance at any level?
No your ideas come from Walt Disney directly - they are cartoon delusions. You need to carry a
warning whenever you express your opinions, like those posted on nuts - My opinion may contain
delusions.
About the only ability for today's voter to have any effect on the voting system is to provide
an unexpected aggregate that would draw back the curtains to expose the expectations and machinations
of the vote counters. Voting as you suggest will only allow those manipulations to remain hidden
- not effective voting by any measure, nor is it voting one's interests. If any of your ilk have
a counter argument that will stand scrutiny, please have at it, otherwise your silence after once
stating your opinion might be your best course to follow.
While what you say may be half true, you miss the point entirely. It's irrelevant weather or
not Trump keeps his words as we have no control over that anyway. What we do have control over
however is not giving a mandate to Hillary's criminal war making intentions and the only way to
do that under the circumstances, is to vote her out, by voting Trump in period.
Anything else amounts to a dereliction of patriotic duty and criminal negligence.
The idea that there is any real "choice" here to be had, other than doing what's of a critical
necessity at this point in time, is totally delusional in and of itself buying into the illusion
that we have any real freedom of choices here. Sorry we don't have that luxury.
We don't have a choice, other than to resister our protest vote against the political establishment
which clearly doesn't want to see Trump win the presidency of the US empire under any circumstances.
Given how close trump has gotten to within the reach of taking real power as commander in chief
of the worlds most powerful imperial empire, the deep state and political establishment will make
sure that, that threat will never happen again, if they even allow him to live very much longer.
So no second chances here for us all in another 4-8 years down the road, nor for all the men,
women and children victims to be killed by wars in all the countries Hillary has set her cross-hair
sights on as soon as she takes control of the entire state apparatus from the white house.
Time to get off our asses and get real here, and back on the right side of history, if but
for once in our lifetimes.
Talk is cheep but action is not. As in Trump's Gettysburg address he said "we have now crossed
the Rubicon" and heaven or hell there's no going back to the status quo, as he's already declared
war on the corrupt state department, the media and the whole of the elite's political establishment.
"So there's but one choice left to make here, and it's which side are you fighting on?"
According to an email from Marissa Astor, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook's assistant,
to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, the campaign knew Trump was going to run, and pushed
his legitimacy as a candidate.
WikiLeaks' release shows that it was seen as in Clinton's best
interest to run against Trump in the general election. The memo, sent to the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) also reveals the DNC and Clinton campaign were strategizing on behalf of their
candidate at the very beginning of the primaries. "We think our goals mirror those of the DNC,"
stated the memo, attached to the email under the title "muddying the waters."
The memo named Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson as wanted candidates. "We need to be
elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press
to them seriously," the memo noted.
Clinton was widely presumed to be the Democratic presidential nominee long before the primaries
began. This assumption was held by the mainstream media and the Democratic Party leadership.
Expecting Clinton to be the nominee, the DNC and Clinton campaign developed strategies for
the general election.
In June, hacker Guccifer 2.0 released an opposition research dossier on Trump, dated December
19, 2015. Coincidentally, no other opposition research dossiers were released by Guccifer 2.0
from the DNC hacks.
It was in the best interest of Clinton, and therefore the Democratic Party, that Trump was
the Republican presidential nominee. Polls indicated Sen. Rubio, Gov. Kasich, or almost any
other establishment Republican would likely beat Clinton in a general election. Even Cruz,
who is reviled by most Republicans, would still maintain the ability to rally the Republican
Party-especially its wealthy donors-around his candidacy. Clinton and Democrats expected the
FBI investigation into her private email server would serve as a major obstacle to Clinton's
candidacy, and the public's familiarity with her scandals and flip-flopping political record
put her at a disadvantage against a newcomer. Donald Trump solved these problems.
All the Clinton campaign had to do was push the mainstream media in the general direction
of covering and attacking Trump as though he was the star of the Republican presidential primaries.
As the presumed Democratic nominee, whomever she decided to dignify by responding to-whether
the comments were directed at her or not-would be presumed to be the spokesperson, or nominee,
of the Republican Party.
"Clinton, Trump trade insults as rhetoric heats up between front-runners," read the headline
from a CNN article in September 2015. "Hillary Clinton Seizes On Donald Trump's Remarks to
Galvanize Women," read a New York Times headline from December. Several media outlets criticized
the mainstream media obsession with Trump, but despite a few concerns that the media was propping
up his legitimacy as a candidate with their constant news coverage, it continued unabatedly.
The mainstream media was more than willing to do the Clinton campaign and DNC's work for
them by creating a narrative that the 2016 presidential elections was about Hillary Clinton
vs. Donald Trump.
Hey T bear are you Aussie, their was a poster T bear banging on in Aussie press, quite liked your
arguments as of now.
As Trump policy I predicted it (quite like Alexander Mercouris ) by 1. observation of what is
said, what was not said and what you can tease out of the rest. After the 2 debate i was convinced
that Trump would not declare "Assad must go " Just for this he has my consent to be POTUS.
How does the saying go?... 'oh what a tangled web we weave when we seek to deceive". Hence
I don't believe that if Hillary actually chose Trump to be who she ran against, that she (nor
all the expert politico's around her)had any real idea of what a Pandora's box they were opening.
Same thing go's for Trump, whom I don't think understood how fate and destiney would seize
him and transform his role in life into a renegade against the systemic corruption of the deep
state's political establishment.
Now only a year back, I would never have thought and sooner die and be the last person on earth
to be plumbing for a megalomaniac character like billionaire Trump.
But when faced with the real prospect of a criminally indictable and clinically insane, maniacal
psychopathic personality like Hillary, having her finger on the red nuclear button, my instincts
for survival and that of all humanity, informs my rational judgements and actions.
And that's essentially the basis on which I've decided that voting for Trump is the only sane
option left to try and avert more wars and the possibility of a thermonuclear disaster.
Very early on, I was of the opinion that Hillary's negatives were so high that her run should
be seen as electing the Republican. But neocon defections, DNC collusion, 'sheepdog' Sanders, and more convinced me that the establishment
really does want a Hillary coronation.
"About 30% of what's on Veterans Today is patently false. About 40% of what I write is at
least purposefully partially false. Because if I didn't write false information I wouldn't
be alive. I simply have to do that."
Your points are good but there is no need for this vitriol: the opposing points are also good
as far as they go.
You believe that a third party is the only way out of the 2-party oligarchy sham. True only
if it works, which it hasn't. You are assuming that there are, or eventually would be enough voters.
That argument is missing so far. Provide that evidence and you beat the lesser-evilists.
The lesser-evilists are assuming that there aren't enough votes, so you are just taking votes
from the lesser evil and helping the greater evil. True if their assumption is true, that there
aren't enough votes for a third party to win.
You both need to get that evidence before getting angry.
Another third-party argument is sending a signal to party leaders and the public that there
are voters who despise the oligarchy candidates. That would improve growth of a third party (it
would also attract oligarchy influence to them).
I think that your anger would be better directed at the problem (take out MSM stations and
staff and oligarchy generally). Between ourselves, let's get the evidence on vote effects.
Consider each state a 'battleground' state, there are national aggregates to consider that,
if nothing else, shed light on the historical contest for future historians to inspect and pass
judgement, particularly should the qualified 'not participating' outnumber the qualified participants.
No telling what future criteria will be about the validity of sub-median voter turnout, in some
places it is enough to invalidate a poll, that could easily spread.
@ 12
No, not Aussie but have friends who were. I hold the Australian government to be the hiding
place for the 3rd Reich, so not likely any beneficial relationship will exist.
@ fairleft | Oct 26, 2016 8:05:28 AM | 14
Experience informs those who rely on 'ad hominem' as defence against another's argument are
incapable of mounting a counter argument using facts. Furthermore, with few exception most so
doing have developmental problems and have not matured much past adolescence, they going
through life as man-children. Check back when you have matured. And that is definitely an ad
hominem - to the person.
We need to stop letting the corporate press goad us into fighting over trivia - transgenders
in bathrooms! Trump's hair! Clinton's smile! - and focus on what is truly crucial.
It's rational to worry about Trump. Yes, he has a good track record of getting along with business
partners when it counts, but he has no track record in governance. But Hillary Clinton is a monster
and God help us all if she wins. I envision President Clinton with perfectly coiffed hair with
a rosy plastic smile (kudos to her mortician) giving a perfectly written speech with all the trendy
buzzwords (celebrating diversity, helping the middle class, sustainable energy, etc.etc.) while
outside the world burns.
Whatever you do, no matter how much the corporate press tells you that Trump is 'finished,'
go to the polls and vote. Because for the first time in decades, a US presidential election matters.
Trump will meet with much resistance from the establishment. His worst instincts will be constrained.
That is not true for Hillary & Co.
A loss for a corrupted Democratic Party is best for the country. A strong showing by Greens
is a further embarrassment. The left can then build on a solid foundation.
@fair Chomsky advocated for voting for Hillary in battleground states and Greens elsewhere.
I do not believe that the 'Third Way' Democratic Party can be changed from within. The example
of Obama and Hillary should have disabused any progressive of such fantasies.
Trump, both domestically and internationally is the best breath of fresh air in American politics
since FDR.
Of course purists and utopians might disagree, but when he wins on Nov.8,I'll treat that day as
the second 4th of July.
America first, at long last, instead of traitors for zion.
Hoo haw. Todays Wapoo intimates Trump anti-Semite.
And Colin liar Powell is for the Hell Bitch.
The U.S. could respond by destroying all Russian assets in and around Syria. It has the capabilities.
But then what? If I were Putin my next step would be a nuclear test shoot in Siberia - a big
one - to make a point and to wake up the rest of the world.
Russia's "deescalation" procedure (in reality it could be viewed both ways) is a take off of
several strategic bombers (TU-160 from Engels) and deployment into the Arctic Region with subsequent
launch of salvo of cruise missiles (Kh-102) armed with nuclear warheads into the polygons or uninhabited
spaces. Putting all RVSN (nuclear strategic missile forces) on the immediate readiness (Combat
Station) is also an option.
There are certain ways, including diplomatic ones, to make "partners"
more attentive to the events. Plus, most likely, the price, which US and NATO would pay in case
some moron will decide to eliminate Russian Forces in Syria, will be very high purely militarily
and, especially, reputation-wise.
Attack on Russian Forces in Syria will also be the beginning
of the end of NATO, if not the outright collapse. In the end, Russia has means to directly conventionally
counter US, just this last quarter alone Russian Navy took delivery of 100+ cruise and ASMs of
Kaliber and Onyx-classes. Contingencies have been counted and planned for.
Trump's foreign policy summed up in a 35% levy threat on Ford exporting jobs to Mexico. Read my
lips ...! Nails the underlying tensions in the Race for the Place. The Big "F__k You!" election... Even the spinless Bernie S. is slithering into criticism of Klinton and the Wall St Gang. "Michael Moore Explains Why TRUMP Will Win"
James Clapper thinks the Russians just might be serious.....
'...says he wouldn't put it past Russia to "to shoot down an American aircraft" if a no-fly
zone is imposed over Syria.'
A loss for a corrupted Democratic Party is best for the country. A strong showing by Greens
is a further embarrassment. The left can then build on a solid foundation.
We are on the same wavelength. YES , we can't have Green and Democratic Party at the
same time. First eliminates the Democratic party in this election cycle. You can't eat your cake
and have it too . Therefore, voting against Democratic Party is my first priority.
This elections cycle almost all fake leftist and NeoCon, both Democratic Party and Republicans
voting for Hillary.
Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is taken straight out of "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen
Eighties" by Oded Yinon, also known as The Yinon Plan.
Here are are a few illustrative excerpts:
"The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated
than the Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place
recently. Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire
Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that
track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas
such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the
dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria
will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such
as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni
state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and
the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in
northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area
in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.
Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate
for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is
stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat
to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before
it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation
will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking
up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along
ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible."
Now compare this to what Gen. Wesley Clarke revealed about the lead-up to the Iraq War. Six
weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: "Are we still going to attack Iraq?" He said:
"Sir, it's worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: "I
just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office. It says we're going to attack and destroy
the governments in 7 countries in five years – we're going to start with Iraq, and then we're
going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran."
This document, and the events which have followed its publication, should lay to rest once
and for all any illusions we might have harboured in relation to the various wars in the Middle
East.
The depths of the associated treason and treachery are simply breathtaking and will continue in
overdrive should Hillary Rodent Clinton be elected President.
The only answer is eliminating the pre-selection mechanism that delivers the 2-candidate,
elephant/jackass non-choice every election.
This is the election to do so: No to Clinton, no to Trump
jfl, I have always admired and read your comments here on MoA.
Sadly your posit means either of these two candidates will be (s)elected. Third Party rise
in the USSA Will. Not. Happen. Anytime .Soon. Third Party candidates will not attract the ->$7
+ billions required to run for the presidency. The status quo prevails.
So, in this very close election, wherein Soros told Bloomberg Hillary is a done deal,
http://toprightnews.com/the-fix-is-in-george-soros-says-hillary-election-a-done-deal-despite-trump-landslide/
Amerikans are left with these two options; voting for the least dangerous of the two:
[.] The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won't do it, it's something.
Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don't want me to, and I believe I
must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton.
I am not of the mindset that any vote not for Trump is a vote for Hillary, but a vote for Trump
is a vote against Hillary. And I need to vote against Hillary. I need to vote against the media.
After the last debate, when no outlet "fact checked" Hillary's lie that her opposition to the
Heller decision had anything to do with children, or her lie that the State Department didn't
lose $6 billion under her leadership, I couldn't hold out any longer.
A Trump administration at least will include people I trust in positions that matter. I don't
know if they will be able to hold him completely in check, but I know a Clinton administration
will include people who have been her co-conspirators in corruption, and there won't even be a
media to hold her accountable.
The Wikileaks emails have exposed an arrogant cabal of misery profiteers who hold everyone,
even their fellow travelers deemed not pure enough, in contempt. These bigots who've made their
fortune from government service should be kept as far away from the levers of power as the car
keys should be kept from anyone named Kennedy on a Friday night. My one vote against it will not
be enough, but it's all I can do and I have to do all I can do.
I won't stop being critical of Trump when he deserves it; I won't pretend someone is handing
out flowers when they're shoveling BS. But I'd rather have BS shoveled out of a president than
our tax dollars shoveled to a president's friends and political allies.
The Project Vertias videos exposed a corrupt political machine journalists would have been
proud to expose in the past. The Wikileaks emails pulled back the curtain on why that didn't happen
– journalists are in on it. I can't pretend otherwise, and I have no choice but to oppose it.
[.]
I oppose much of what Donald Trump has said, but I oppose everything Hillary Clinton has done
and wants to do. And what someone says, no matter how objectionable, is less important than what
someone does, especially when it's so objectionable. A personal moral victory won't suffice when
the stakes are so high. As such, I am compelled to vote against Hillary by voting for the only
candidate with any chance whatsoever of beating her – Donald Trump.
~ ~ ~ I am a spectator outside the USSA. USSA policies affect all of humanity on planet earth. A vote
for the Clinton adds another potential 16 years reign in the WH, a continuation of the corruption,
death, destruction and endless wars.
Since the 1990s in Arkansas then in D.C., their retirement is long overdue. Stop the Clintons
from enriching themselves on the public purse…foreign and domestic.
OMg Illary cares about women's rights but takes $millions in donations from such likes as KSA,
Qatar. Not to mention, countries that are steeped in poverty. Take a look at the donors to the
Clinton Foundation.
The Clintons have no shame, no conscience and they can't grow one.
@ 12
No, not Aussie but have friends who were. I hold the Australian government to be one of
the hiding place s for the 3rd Reich, so not likely any beneficial relationship will exist.
...
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Oct 26, 2016 8:55:20 AM | 23
There, fixed it.
ALL of the Christian Colonial countries have pro-AmeriKKKan fascist governments which studiously
ignore the Will Of the People.
I can't think of a single X-tian government which has NOT fallen into lockstep with the US - in
flagrant defiance of the electorate.
Since we can't outbid the ppl who are bribing them to defy us, the only practical solution is
rg the lg's pitchforks.
I don't post here much anymore but Dr. Stein is the head of an NGO called the Green Party not
a political party. She is busy protesting in North Dakota to get on Democracy Now instead of camping
out in Bernie States pushing those voters to continue our political revolution with her. It's
a shame really.
I've never had much respect for the Green Party and they have shown that they are incapable
of becoming an oppisition party in the U.S.
If you are interested in 3rd parties take some time to check out the Justice Party and Rocky
Anderson. They are not active this cycle. The Justice Party does not have an International Party
which is problematic for the Greens in the U.S. The name Justice is much better in rhetorical
fights than Green and they are not riddled with former Democratic whores.
With that said vote for Trump in swing states. He is the Lesser of Two Evils and this time
we are talking about Nuclear War with Russia. Clinton is still a Goldwater Girl.
The Green Party should, for all intents and purposes, be opposed to a billionaire lobbyist like
Soros, however Jill Stein's running mate, Baraka, was also a board member at the Center for Constitutional
Rights, CCR.
There are other connections between the Green Party and George Soros, but I haven't got time
to pursue this....
Anyone interested should look into the period from 2004 to 2011, when Baraka was the Executive
Director of the US Human Rights Network, and look at who was funding the HUNDREDS of NGOs that
make up the Human Rights Network.
Anyone who seriously considers that voting...or NOT voting...for either of these creatures
will change a goddamned thing is totally asleep to what has happened in the U.S. over the past
60+ years.
Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen
and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional
government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized
political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish
a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology
but its organization… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government….
This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is
practically irremovable."
- Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech
Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law.
Say hello to America's shadow government.
A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed
by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents
the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.
No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow government is here
to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI reveal, this shadow government-also referred
to as "The 7th Floor Group"-may well have played a part in who will win the White House this
year.
And then go take care of your own business as best you can. The status quo will remain...hidden
in various ways as it has been hidden since the late '40s/early '50s...until it fails of its own
doing. No amount of talky talk talk, no amount of organizing, no amount of anything is going to
change what is up here. The best any of us can do is to try to reach one mind at a time.
Eisenhower tried to warn us in his farewell speech:
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the
main, understood these truths and have responded to them well in the face of threat and stress.
But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.
Of these, I mention two only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty,
ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors
in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American
makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can
no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create
a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million
men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military
security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now
we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to
create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in
the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt
in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative
need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil,
resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the
proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture,
has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex,
and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal
government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces
of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university,
historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution
in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract
becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are
now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations,
and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also
be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive
of a scientific-technological elite.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations,
and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces,
new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme
goals of our free society.
"It is ludicrous to event think about openly attacking Russian (or Syrian) troops in Syria
with an al-Qaeda supporting "no-Fly-Zone". Russia would respond by taking down U.S. planes over
Syria. The Russian government would have to do so to uphold its authority internationally as well
as at home."
It is ludicrous. And stupid. It would also be tantamount to a declaration of war. And the chickenshit
US Military does NOT want a war with Russia, no matter what the daydreamers might say.
Stating that the Green Party can not win does not take reality into account. Only 18% of
voters participated in the primaries, the majority of voters are neither Democrats nor Republicans,
and the population of Millennials has surpassed that of the Baby Boomers.
Of course this doesn't change the fact that it is still very unlikely that Jill Stein will
win, but to imply that it's impossible is dishonest. I have always voted for the candidate that
I liked... never for the lesser of two evils. How different would the world be if Nader had either
won or gained popular support in 2000? Voting for the lesser of two evils has pushed the Republican
Party into crazy town with the Democratic Party taking their place.
I'm not arrogant enough to tell people how to vote, however I am arrogant enough to inform.
The lack of information and the inability to process more than one thought by both the voters
and the media, alternative included, is astounding.
I'm pretty sure that people on this site know what imposing a no-fly zone in Syria would entail.
How is this not advocating a war of aggression? Have we forgotten what the Nuremberg Tribunal
declared as the supreme international crime:
War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states
alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only
an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war
crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Not only do you have the current administration committing war crimes, you also have it's presidential
candidate openly advocating a war crime.
[.] The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won't do it, it's something.
Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don't want me to, and I believe I
must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton.
I am not of the mindset that any vote not for Trump is a vote for Hillary, but a vote for Trump
is a vote against Hillary. And I need to vote against Hillary. I need to vote against the media.
After the last debate, when no outlet "fact checked" Hillary's lie that her opposition to the
Heller decision had anything to do with children, or her lie that the State Department didn't
lose $6 billion under her leadership, I couldn't hold out any longer.
A Trump administration at least will include people I trust in positions that matter. I don't
know if they will be able to hold him completely in check, but I know a Clinton administration
will include people who have been her co-conspirators in corruption, and there won't even be a
media to hold her accountable.
The Wikileaks emails have exposed an arrogant cabal of misery profiteers who hold everyone,
even their fellow travelers deemed not pure enough, in contempt. These bigots who've made their
fortune from government service should be kept as far away from the levers of power as the car
keys should be kept from anyone named Kennedy on a Friday night. My one vote against it will not
be enough, but it's all I can do and I have to do all I can do.
I won't stop being critical of Trump when he deserves it; I won't pretend someone is handing
out flowers when they're shoveling BS. But I'd rather have BS shoveled out of a president than
our tax dollars shoveled to a president's friends and political allies.
The Project Vertias videos exposed a corrupt political machine journalists would have been
proud to expose in the past. The Wikileaks emails pulled back the curtain on why that didn't happen
– journalists are in on it. I can't pretend otherwise, and I have no choice but to oppose it.
[.]
I oppose much of what Donald Trump has said, but I oppose everything Hillary Clinton has
done and wants to do. And what someone says, no matter how objectionable, is less important than
what someone does, especially when it's so objectionable. A personal moral victory won't suffice
when the stakes are so high. As such, I am compelled to vote against Hillary by voting for the
only candidate with any chance whatsoever of beating her – Donald Trump.
~ ~ ~ ~
It is long past due and time to stop the corrupt Clintons from continuing to enrich themselves
off the backs of taxpayers; domestic and foreign.
Illary professes to care about women's rights yet her Clinton Family Foundation takes in $millions
from the likes of KSA and Qatar. Moreover, there is no shame in taking donations from small countries
steeped in poverty. It is high time to retire the Clintons. They have no conscience. If you haven't
a conscience you can't grow one.
RayB - well stated arguments to vote for Trump. Thank you for taking the time to post them.
As folks here already know, Hillary's stated commitment to impose a No-Fly Zone in Syria is
a show stopper for me. There is no way I can support more tragedy in Syria let alone elsewhere.
Any who don't think such a policy position does not matter tells me you are a supporter of
the neoliberal/neocon imperial building for which I cannot support. This is what a vote for Clinton
means.
I may have had a different opinion or thought about the U.S. morphing into the world's top
cop had I ever been asked, but I wasn't. I never was asked to vote on it or for/against it. These
sneaky rastards intentions were never spelled out, never communicated succinctly to the populous
let alone debated on the merits. Nope. These rastards are hell bent on shoving their neoliberal/neocon/third
way/nwo crap down American's throats.
And no, Donald is and always will be an outsider. If you believe otherwise you've obviously
not been paying much attention to him over the last four years. That man did not win the primaries
by chance, he won them handily through skill and out maneuvering his opponents. He has spent the
last four years learning up close the plethora of challenges an open border presents to the security
of the U.S. He gets the issues revolving around policing and the growing police state. He has
formiddable experience making, losing and making money again. He's had a front seat to big business
and its multiple machinations for decades.
And a vote for Hillary is a vote for the Establishment and their utopian new world order, which
includes WAR, WAR, and MORE WAR!
Touching naivety about Trump however the probability of him being 'different', given his record,
doesn't support it.
The problem with Trump is he made a #1 strategic mistake in supporting and giving in to the
religious right.
Apart from anything else this gives zero confidence that he'd stand up to the far more powerful
neo-liberal, neo-con 'war party' establishment if he got into power. If he caves totally to a
bunch of fundamentalist nutjobs, who themselves are neo-liberal and neo-conservative to the core,
it doesn't actually inspire any confidence whatsoever. Take one example Mike Pence is a neo-conservative
'Israel firster'... through and through.
Somehow I can't see the world being a safer place if the US tears itself to pieces trying to
become a fundamentalist religious 'state', dominated by a bunch of people wanting 'the end of
times'....
Despite the "with some "liberal" concession to this or that niche of the general society."
comment, he has threatened the rights of the majority of voters and even the very existence of
some.
In case no one had noticed 50% of the population are women, add in all the other minorities and
you have a healthy 60-70% he is directly threatening.
Religious right candidates (like Cruz and Pence) are unelectable, ever more so with time as
organised religion dies in the US and their policies on women and LGBTI people, plus let's not
forget their endemic racism, become every more unacceptable.
And note ALL the 'religious right' people are total neo-conservatives, that almost make Clinton
look like a pacifist.
Trump has nearly destroyed the Republican Party. And he has done so by speaking truths that
are rarely heard in "polite company": our politicians are puppets and our elections are "rigged".
Sanders spoke against inequality but he didn't go as far as Trump. He couldn't because he was
merely a sheepdog, leading his young 'flock' to Hillary.
If Trump wins, it would be a body blow to the Democrats who play on peoples fears to get elected
but never deliver workable solutions. Rinse. Repeat.
The Greens can win in 2020 after Trump fails and both parties are in disarray.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
I'm not telling people how to vote. I encourage people to think for themselves. This is only
MY opinion.
Its hard to emotionally accept the occurrence of a nuclear war today.
You should see how Saker couldn't cope with it at first.
If Russian assets in Syria get destroyed. The response will not to be nuking that little island
in the Indian ocean far away from everything or Hawaii that is in the middle of nowhere.
"The U.S. could respond by destroying all Russian assets in and around Syria. It has the capabilities.
But then what?" Then the US activates also activates phase D which is NATO invasion of Russia
(from Ukraine, the Baltics, Scandinavia) and China (from South Korea, Japan + other US bases scatered
all over the US empire).
I don't believe Trump's domestic and foreign policy will be any more different or peacefull.
I think he would just be facing a lot more resistance. Either way, unless Hillary dies there is
no doubt she will be the next POTUS.
As a 50 something adult who lives in a state where we have a healthy voter population of Christian
Right, which you refer to as religious right, folk let me assure you that your description of
them is way the hell out of line. Your distasteful comment shows just how inexperienced and ignorant
you are about this very American voting block.
Why are you even weighing in here? You seem more of a DailyKos kinda poster. Posters around
here tend to avoid language that is as divisive as yours and that all knowing punkish tone you
are using.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but these neoconservative you are talking about have
been leaving his camp in droves in the preceeding months. Please do not lecture us on some secret
collusion between Trump and those wicked shits. There is no doubt they will be crawling back to
the Donald when he sits on the throne. But make no mistake: he will not forget the treachery of
these subjects, just as the constituents of these jokers will not forget how they abandoned the
Donald and revealed their obedience to the uniparty. These are the voters that hate "politicians,"
remember? I can't wait to see Paul Ryan squirm.
And GTFO with your lgbtq trolling nonsense. Time to relegate these babies to their safe spaces
so we can all breathe a sigh of relief to be rid of their loud, obnoxious mental anguish over
their own petty insignificance. Remember, too, that Syrian lives matter. Once the culture of death
is curtailed anroad, we can tackle the culture of death at home. Ancient Chinese wisdom for dumb
trolls.
Trump sounds very scary in many ways but most of the stuff he babbles on about should not worry
anybody. The President of the US does not rule the US. Power in the US is distributed into the
three branches of government -- the executive, Congress and the judiciary. Most of Trump's worst
ideas will have to pass through Congress and the judiciary. There is only one area where the President
has total dominion and that is foreign policy and making war.
The question should come down to who do we want want as the next President -- a candidate that
seeks war with Russia or one who wants to negotiate and make deals? Given that question we will
be better off with Trump.
If Trump wins he will not have any support in Congress so it makes no sense that he will succeed
in cutting taxes for the richest or build the Mexican wall or any of the other nutty things he
advocates. But making peace with the Russians is the one thing he could accomplish.
Also I support Trump because the Democratic National Committee has been completely taken over
by the Hillary and neocon wing of the Democratic Party. As long as they control the Democratic
Party (which they do today) any US president that is a Democrat means that WWIII is a real option
always on the table. Tax cuts for the rich, increased monopolization of the economy, increased
poverty rates, restrictions on abortions, etc, are quite secondary. [BTW, I have served on a county
Democratic central committee for the last two decades and worked on presidential campaigns for
Democrats going back to Eisenhower-Stevens in 1956 (except for Humphrey in 1968). What I have
witnessed is that the entire party has been taken over by the big money contributions going down
to city council elections.] A Trump victory will give us a small chance for the grass roots Democrats
to regain some influence in national Party affairs -- today we have none.
NOT voting requires no amount of talky talk talk, no amount of organizing, no amount of anything.
but if everyone did it the central government would become immediately irrelevant and collapse,
and if the central government collapsed, its attendant institutions would unravel, the primary
grifters would atrophy on the vine, and the deep state would be in deep shit.
@1 I think it makes little sense to convince progressives that the should vote for Hillary. And
it is absurd to insist that a vote for anyone other than Trump is "a de facto vote for Hillary
Clinton." The more people that don't vote for Hillary the better. And a vote for Jill Stein builds
up the Green Party. If we could get the message out that Hillary is just too dangerous and that
a real progressive choice is Jill Stein, then it is possible that a good number of people who
may have voted for Hillary (and who can't stomach Trump) could take away Clinton's margin of victory
. I am voting for Jill Stein, I live in NY, it is not practical, given past elections, to think
Trump could win NY. I would be wasting my vote to vote for Trump in NY. When I vote for Jill Stein,
that is another vote NOT going to Hillary Clinton. see video:
VIDEO
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the U.S., 13% approve of the job Congress is doing, in line with approval
ratings ranging from 11% to 16% since August. The current rating is just four percentage points
above the record low of 9% recorded in November 2013.
'Selection' 2016 is a clown show. Trump, Hill & Bill, Bu$h I, Bu$h II even Romney are all heavily
involved is the drug money laundry business. A vote is a vote that legitimises the system.
I just cannot bring myself to vote for any of these criminals. Every vote legitimises this
freak show.
***Last letter of the alphabet does not work on my keyboard.
Donald Trump as the front runner and then candidate of the Republican Party didn't just happen.
This was by design, it was what the DNC and the Hillary campaign wanted and what they told the
media to do, to elevate him to leader of the pack. (
Wikileaks reveals
NOT voting requires no amount of talky talk talk, no amount of organizing, no amount of anything.
but if everyone did it the central government would become immediately irrelevant and collapse,
and if the central government collapsed, its attendant institutions would unravel, the primary
grifters would atrophy on the vine, and the deep state would be in deep shit.
A huge majority of the U.S. population is still caught up in the wonderful political virtual
reality game so generously provided for free by the Deep State-controlled media. They will clomp-clomp-clomp
on out of their zombified dwellings and vote for whichever of the two-dimensional VR candidates
for whom they root.
Ludicrous propaganda once again from b. B sure is trying his darndest to want to work for the
Russian state under his lord and saviour Putin the irresistible.
Trump himself said that China is a threat to the US. And he refuses to rule out no war with
China. Therefore Trump is likely wanting to start world War three by attacking China. How is that
worse than Hitlery wanting to attack Russia in Syria.
Trump will take Iraqs oil, make Mexico pay for a wall on the US side starting a war with them,
and so much more horrendous criminality
And Trumps foreign policy is "sane". What despicable ludicrous lies
Seriously people. If anyone believes either candidate means what they say, with all due respect,
you're delusional. No matter what, whomever "wins", they'll do as they're instructed to do.
Sorry b, with all due respect and gratitude for what you do, that includes you. Living up to
one's rhetoric is difficult, for anyone running for POTUS, impossible.
The only relevant vote against that crazy bitch from hell?
Of course:
Trump
A number of commentators have pointed out that the US could destroy Russia's assets - what they don't
point out is that this would expose US assets to destruction - which is why WW3 is almost inevitable
if the US escalates in Syria
A number of commentators have pointed out that the US could destroy Russia's assets - what they
don't point out is that this would expose US assets to destruction - which is why WW3 is almost
inevitable if the US escalates in Syria
Those who say: Its all a charade, voting changes nothing, Trump will do what he's told, etc. have
either given up in disgust or are purposely ignoring reality. The establishment is afraid of a
Trump win. There are numerous instances of their manipulating or attempting to manipulate the
election.
Vote Trump in swing states. Vote Green everywhere else.
So what? I've read that leak. Doesn't speak or reference in any way complicity of Trump's campaign
or even the repubs. I think you are framing that to fit your perspective that the DNC is the main
powerbroker, here. Whereas, the more hilarious conclusion to draw would be that, through their
arrogance and complete and utter disdain for the disaffected, they underestimated the threat of
a "fringe" candidate. Talk about the most fuckin' shortsighted political decision (all-time bone
head plays #1) this side of Joe Liebermann. God it makes me smile. And to think, the media played
right into Trump's tiny hands. That's showmanship. Face it: he is smarter and crafter and he knows
the people just a hair more.
Yes, we all want Trump to save the whales, make cake healthy, unite the Muslim world, make
college free, fix health-care, restore the rust-belt, solve climate - change while delivering
more jobs to energy sector, defeat Isis while not upsetting KSA, Qatar, et.al, and not go into
Syria.
I'll take one of those at least for my vote. Can you guess which one?
Lately I can understand why most people hate trump and love Clinton or vise versa. But I have
to say that both party's have great and solid points that needs to be taken serious the voting
will be harder then before that is for sure the only thing I hate about the politics is that when
the candidate has won all point's they have made in the election round will go out the window.
My dutch boyfriend just ask me why do they always put one man in the seat to control all why
not join forces will this not be a better option what do you think those he has a point or is
it just wrong thinking on his part.
Look at Greece. The progressives/socialists could not win. It seems that we need a nationalist.
It is a hard truth for progressives. The left has failed miserably to check the tyranny of
neolibcon Centrists who sell us all out to the highest bidder.
We need a Trump, like Russia needed a Putin. To right the ship.
When the dust settles, and lessons are learned, real progressives with integrity can rebuild.
Jimbo is giving a good daily rundown of the fraud coming in from the advance polls, & other things.
I like the one where the poll station workers are filling in the paper ballot votes after, for
those not voting. http://82.221.129.208/basepageq5.html
I don't know about Trump. But Hillary is a fucking nightmare. I don't live in America and I can't
vote there, but to those who do and can, please don't vote for that psycho bitch. Anyone else.
Anybody. But to cast a vote for her would be an exhibition of ignorance and willful sociopathy.
The world is begging you, please... Pleeeeeeeease. Do not vote for whole countries to be flushed
down the same toilet of meglomaniacal greed. Be nice. There are a lot of other people living on
this planet. We don't wanna kill anybody, we just wanna relax and thrive. Get with the program....
Trump loses in the Electoral College. Gets his own TV network and proceeds to preempt and co
opt 3rd party Constitution Party. Just like Dr. Ron Paul's campaign was co opted by supposed Tea
Party people who were in fact Conservative paid stooges. Right off the top the Cock brothers come
to mind.
@Jackrabbit 74
The Nationalist response is a natural one in the face of this unseen, centralising, globalist
beast. UK just had theirs with Brexit, and now we see the battle lines redrawn and subsequent
rally behind Corbyn. France could be next in Europe.
The left seems not to know where it is in the states... I agree it needs to fall into disarray
before rediscovering itself.
Trump has the momentum going down the straight, no one knows what the fuck is going on amongst
all the monkey shit being flung in the cage...but no one is oblivious to the the fact that the
establishment, from the neocon flight to the unprecedented MSM collusion and everything in-between,
is so OTT Trump. Too much so. It's what the progressive left always wanted, a hero like this,
to stand up to the machine.
All that money and all Hillary cam come up with is a naughty word and 'Never Trump' - almost
as if Trump goaded them into a shitfight by making idiotic, outlandish statements alongside his
more thoughtful output that doesn't make primetime cable news. Now the Dems have less than two
weeks to attack some real issues to quiet the silent majority's upcoming 'fuck you' vote...
I'd even go as far to say there will be plenty of silent Dems voting Trump if the election
was right now. No wonder Trump wants a 4th debate.
The only recourse the citizenry of the Outlaw US Empire has in attempting to restore its freedoms
and regain control of the national government is to revolt. Unfortunately, such a dire action
requires a high degree of solidarity amongst a body of citizens large enough to make the attempt
and there's no sign of such a body anywhere to be seen. Thus we'll see the selection of HRC and
the last gasp of the Neoliberalcons attempt to establish Full Spectrum Dominance of the planet
and its people that will likely escalate the already existing Hybrid WW3 to a hot war. In other
words, it doesn't matter who you vote for, so you ought to vote your conscience so you can be
right with yourself. Our household's voting Stein.
'The big issues count the most. Good or evil flow from them. Trumps principle, and I think personal
position, is leaning towards peaceful resolution of conflicts.' - b
The latter sentence contrasts with trump's determination to kill ISIS and take their oil. Sounds
like occupation to me. And his manner of fighting them - with unrestrained torture and bullets
dipped in pig's blood - is likely to catalyse supporty for them else where in the muslim world
(and the muslim parts of the west), even if ISIS is stomped flat in Syria/Iraq. Coup[led with
his blanket ban on muslim immigration, this sounds like a recipe for more conflict, not less.
Likewise with some other big issues: climate change and world trade. As shitty as the WTO system
can be, simply withdrawing and erecting huge tariffs would have catastrophic effects on world
trade that wwe comparable to if not worse than the 1931 Smoot-Hawley tariffs that crippled world
trade and set the stage for WW2. Worse, Trump's 100% opposition to acting on climate change, and
his determination to allow all fossil fuel extraction projects to go ahead, will guarantee catastrophic
global warming that will make WW2 itself look insignificant in the long run.
I agree that Hillary is a menace. But that doesn't make Trump less of one.
Perfect legacy of Obama is the just announced Obamacare insurance premium 25℅ avg rate increases.
Covered at WSWS but can't link from this phone. How about a $10,000 deductible for a family of
4 making $40,000? Things will get worse on several fronts next year, according to bipartisan plans
published in the NYT. Trump's 'solution' is going back to what we had before, ie he has no solution.
Wants to turn Medicaid, aid for our poor, into a voucher program. Don't vote for austerity, don't
vote for HillTrump.
Trump isn't a leftist, nor is he a pacifist. In fact, Trump is an ardent militarist, who has
been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years. It's a kind of nationalist hawkishness
that we haven't seen much of in the United States since the Cold War - but has supported some
of the most aggressive uses of force in American history.
You'll see a robust bill of particulars in the article; I've cited some of them earlier. To
little effect of course; Red Hats and Green Tea Bags make excellent counter-factual filters.
The author, Zack Beauchamp, quite helpfully puts The Day-Glo Orange Duckhead in historical
context. He quotes the historian Walter Russell Mead on the Jacksonian tradition in American foreign
policy. He's from Bard College, BTW, which rates fairly high up on the uber-liberal university
scale. So they don't be doin' too many Orange Jello Shots, know what I mean?
Jacksonians, according to Mead, are basically focused on the interests and reputation of the
United States. They are skeptical of ... idealistic quests removed from the interests of everyday
Americans. But when American interests are in question, or failing to fight will make America
look weak, Jacksonians are more aggressive than anyone.
"The Gulf War was a popular war in Jacksonian circles because the defense of the nation's
oil supply struck a chord with Jacksonian opinion.... With them it is an instinct rather than
an ideology - a culturally shaped set of beliefs and emotions rather than a set of ideas,"
Mead writes. Sound familiar?
Historically - and here's the important part - the Jacksonian tradition has been partly
responsible for a lot of what we see today as American atrocities....
Jackson himself is responsible for the "Trail of Tears."
On the campaign trail, Trump routinely cites Gens. George Patton and Douglas MacArthur as foreign
policy models - uber-Jacksonians both. Patton wanted to invade the Soviet Union after World
War II to head off perceived future threats to America. And President Harry Truman fired MacArthur,
despite his strategic genius, for publicly and insubordinately advocating total war against
China during the Korean War.
This is the tradition Trump's views seem to fit into. But while Patton and MacArthur at
least had real military expertise and intellectual heft animating their hawkishness, Trump
is just a collection of angry impulses. There's no worked-out strategic doctrine here, just
an impulse to act aggressively when it seems like America's interests and/or reputation are
at stake.
Just a bundle of anger, driven by emotion, no set plan, aggressive with poor impulse control.
What could possibly go wrong?
So he doesn't want the present wars in the Ukraine and Syria, he says, now. But all the better
to bomb Iraq and Iran into a pulp, it would seem.
Climate change is already affecting the world, and it will take a concerted effort over a much,
much longer period to get it under control, when compared to the Nazi threat.
This is scientifically certain. The prospect of WW3 under Hillary's presidency is very far from
being certain.
what oligarch will those pesky amerikkans vote for?
oligarch 1 - hillary
or oligarch 2 - trump
if it was me, i would be voting 2.. but being in canada, i don't get to vote.. i just get to
listen to bullshite 2016 election usa 24/7 any time i venture onto the internut..
The third - and final - presidential debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican
Donald Trump was held Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and moderated by Fox News'
Chris Wallace.
At one point Hillary said: "....and I'm going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe
havens within Syria"
A No Fly Zone means we shoot down Russian planes. And THAT MEANS WW-III.
= = = = Furthermore = = = =
With single-bid ("plurality") voting you only have two candidates to choose from.
I have described the strategic hedge simple score election method all over the Internet, and
it has been known of for many years. It is simple in the sense that does not require easily hackable
voting machines, and can easily work with hand counted paper ballots at non-centralized poling
stations. It is not hampered by any requirement to cater to so-called "sincere," "honest" (actually
artless and foolish) voters. It easily thwarts both the spoiler effect and the blind hurdle dilemma
(the "Burr Dilemma"), which prevents voters from exercising the strategies that they need to use
to defeat the big bosses. It just works.
Strategic hedge simple score voting can be described in one simple sentence: Strategically
bid no vote at all for undesired candidates (ignore them as though they did not exist), or strategically
cast from five to ten votes for any number of candidates you prefer (up to some reasonable limit
of, say, twelve candidates), and then simply add all the votes up.
Both IRV-style and approval voting methods suffer from the blind hurdle dilemma, which can
be overcome with the hedge voting strategy. An example of usage of the hedge strategy, presuming
the (most famous) case of a "leftist" voter, would be casting ten votes for Ralph Nader, and only
eight or nine "hedge votes" for Al Gore. This way, the voter would only sacrifice 20 or 10 percent
of their electoral influence if Nader did not win.
Don't be fooled by fake "alternatives" like "IRV" and "approval voting". Ranked choice voting
is supported by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Foundations
(of Soros), and on and on.
Ranked choice voting is just as bad,or worse than out present single-bid ("plurality") method
with regard to enforcing the two party syndrome, and this has been demonstrated repeatedly in
history.
Score voting is fundamentally distinct from ranked choice voting, and does not promote the
two party syndrome. That's probably why it doesn't get hundreds of millions of promotion dollars
as the "Green" Party's ranked choice system does.
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers".
We are stuck with this miserable system because of a surprisingly large array of people who
I call the "election methods cognoscenti". Over many years, these cognoscenti have assembled an
enormous collection of distracting, unworkable election methods. This "intellectual subject" has,
for instance, consumed perhaps hundreds of pages in works such as the Wikipedia. These cognoscenti
have created a gigantic Glass Bead Game which serves no real purpose other than to facilitate
intellectual speculation. In nearly every instance where their election methods have been employed,
disaster has ensued, although in a few cases, their systems have languished on, providing no better
results than the choose-one voting system. Millions, perhaps tens of millions of dollars, have
been spent promoting the "IRV" method, which has been tried and abandoned in several venues where
it caused massive chaos.
We cannot afford any more of this intellectual masturbation, which has lead to this absurd
2016 "election". All we should be doing is protesting for safe, easy-to-understand strategic hedge
simple score voting.
And I will be voting for Donald Trump, even though I know that my "ballot" is going to be fed
into an infernal machine.
Clinton advised the mainstream media to push his legitimacy as a "pied piper" candidate because
she realized, after looking at the poll numbers, that she wouldn't stand a chance at winning the
presidency against any of the establishment republicans without making them "pied pipers" – it
just so happened that Donald was the easiest to play the role considering his long history of
friendship with the Clintons.
https://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2016/10/25/rigged-election-hillary-trump-caught-partying-like-bffs-kissinger-jesuit-gala.html
Oh c'mon. Stooping pretty low on that one. One of election's sicker sideshows: Briebert's site
covering Stein more then almost anyone else... when they can twist one of Jill's criticism's of
Hillary into and endorsement of Trump. Jill is most certainly a NASTY woman. :)
Trump has some strange ideas. And he'll cause some real harm in some areas.
But again, his strong medicine is what is needed. We can spill loads of electronic ink debating
the
reasons why and talking about how he sucks but that won't change the reality.
I am very much against the duopoly. But one of these two will win. A win by Trump and a strong
showing by the Greens is the best we can hope for.It sends a clear message. What message does
voting for Hillary send? That we will allow ourselves to be compromised yet AGAIN?
Trump says: "either you have a country, or you don't". So what are the 'borders' that the left
will
defend? Just how much will the Left allow its so-called leaders to compromise and marginalize
us?
There is a natural alliance between the principled left and principled right that the mercenary,
mendacious establishment fears. Don't be fooled by Hillary/DNC scare tactics and media manipulation!
Hillary tells some voters that she will continue Obama's policies and other voters that she
will be
different. She assures Goldman Sacks that her private positions differ very much from her public
positions. She runs pay to play scams via the Clinton Foundation, takes tons of money from Wall
Street
and pretends that none of that influences her. The Chair of the DNC joined her campaign after
her
work against Sanders was revealed! And Sanders response? He endorsed Hillary!!
The Democrats believe that YOU and your family, friends, and neighbors are confused and scared
or just
plain dumb and foolish enough to vote for Hillary and other Democrats that will ride her coattails.
Prove them wrong. Stand up for yourself! Vote for Trump in swing states and Jill Stein in other
states.
That the establishment candidate is not automatically the worst possible candidate. Not when
the other is an unrepentant racist determined to castrate the First Amendment and incinerate the
climate. What message does it send when a candidate whose campaign took off at the point he called
most - if not all - illegal immigrants 'rapists' wins the White House? Besides, you sound more
like a Sanders supporter than a Trump supporter - so maybe his thoughts are worth taking into
account here.
I had assumed your link would be garbage, but took a look, anyway. In fact, it raises significant
points. In particular, previously unknown (to me) details about his views about "taking the oil".
I'm definitely for Trump, consider him far safer and saner than Clinton wrt foreign policy
with most of the world (I suspect he could be worse wrt N Korea, than Clinton; also, no better
wrt Africa, than Clinton).
I have never been impressed with the Trumpian "take the oil" position that I learned of during
the campaign, and have described it as "goofy" and "sure sounding like a war crime". That this
particular stupidity (or hawkish stupidity, if you prefer) is nothing new, and extended to Libya,
is disappointing.
Still, on balance, compared to the endless hemming in and provocation of nuclear super-power
Russia (not to mention smearing of Putin), by the neocon class of which Hillary is an obvious
example of, the author's claim that Trump is more of a hawk than her still sounds absurd. Even
if the argument has some merits.
"Donald Trump's foreign policy speech last Wednesday deserves at least a solid B+ and you can
read my take on it in the June issue of Chronicles. It offered an eloquent argument for offensive
realism, based on the fact that the international system-composed of sovereign nation-states pursuing
their interests-is still essentially competitive and Hobbesian. Trump is the only candidate who
understands this cardinal fact, and who unambiguously states America is not and should not be
an exception to that timeless principle."
"Since leaving government, Flynn has angered U.S. officials over his friendly ties to Russia,
with which he has publicly advocated better relations and military cooperation in the Middle East
- a departure from the official Pentagon line. He even recently sat at the head table at a dinner
in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has praised."
This same article also says,
"Much as Trump likes to keep things in the family, Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, serves as
a chief adviser."
The idea that Trump wouldn't consult with the likes of Flynn - who might be his Secretary of Defense
- also seems goofy. Of course he will.
The Obama Administration, of which Hillary was an integral part, deliberately allowed ISIS
to flourish, in it's early stages. Trump's incompetence as a political candidate is amply demonstrated
by the fact that, even given 3 national debate audiences, he FAILED to pin the US non-interdiction
of the mega ISIS oil trade, run through Turkey, on the Obama administration (thus, to one degree
or another, also on Clinton). See "Russian intel spots 12,000 oil tankers & trucks on Turkey-Iraq
border - General Staff" for photos that Trump should have (pardon the expression) trumpeted during
all 3 national debates. Had he done so, in stead of being politically inept and inarticulate,
he would have cemented in the public's mind just HOW evil the foreign policy of both Obama and
Clinton were. (Of course, he should have also mentioned the wikileaks tick tock memos, crediting
uber SoS failure Hilary Clinton with steps on the road to the destruction of Libya).
Hillary has not just spouted militaristic, imperialistic hokum. She was also in the decision
loop, as war crimes against Libya, in particular, were being decided on, then perpetrated. She
has a history that is far more evidential of catastrophic militarism than goofy statements about
"taking the oil".
Very kind of you to note your new-found concerns, anytime.
Trump has net yet been in the loop. I do not want him there, he would be bad for the country
and planet. His public statements suggest he would make far worse decisions.
{quote} > BREAKING: JILL STEIN ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP
Oh c'mon. Stooping pretty low on that one. {end quote}
You are misquoting me intensionally. I put: "BREAKING: JILL STEIN ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP [Sort
Of][1 min., 15 sec.]" And that is because YouTube links often break up while their titles remain
searchable.
You ignored that I added "[Sort of]"!
I think there are likely a lot of DailyKos zombies around here tonight.
Trump may be a bullheaded semi-thug, but I'll vote for him before I join the "die with Hillary"
movement.
"His public statements suggest he would make far worse decisions."
On balance, no, they don't. Even if Flynn couldn't talk any sense into him regarding "taking
the oil", and a President Trump somehow managed to pull that off, and it turned into an endless
conflict, the $$ cost of which exceeded the oil profits thus obtained, that would still be preferable
to nuclear exchanges with Russia.
I read just today about a Russian nuke, called "Satan", that supposedly can destroy a country
the size of France (or the state of Texas). I had to read it twice, since the claim seemed preposterous.
(I assume it's some sort of multiple warhead device, and what the claim really means is that it
can destroy all cities in an area the size of France.)
Peace with Russia is, to use a Star Trek phrase, the "prime directive". Trusting that to Clinton
is a fool's errand. Trusting that to Trump is not.
No matter the facts, and b has laid it out as clearly as one can, the left and the urban classes
in America will vote for the proven warmonger. Why? For them virtue signalling is more important
than the existential threat of riding up an escalatory ladder to a nuclear exchange with Russia.
After listening to right-wingers howl and whine today, droning on about big bad gumint and the
only salvation is their guy and/or the free market. I say we end the misery that the capitalist
system produces once and for all by throwing all support for Hillary. An anti-war vote for Trump
helps preserve the madness, how could any sane person help capitalism, that to me is abnormal
behaviour that Hillary can rectify. Death is an inevitable human condition, Right-wing evangelists
are nothing but cowards. Viva Hillary and cheers to accelerating the process!
President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey's military operations in Syria aimed to secure al-Bab
and the town of Manbij, which a group of Kurdish and Arab militias seized from Islamic State
in August, but were not intended to stretch to Aleppo.
"Let's make a joint fight against terrorist organizations. But Aleppo belongs to the people
of Aleppo ... making calculations over Aleppo would not be right," he said in a speech in Ankara.
Turkey launched "Operation Euphrates Shield" two months ago, sending tanks and warplanes into
Syria in support of the largely Turkmen and Arab rebels.
Erdogan signaled Turkey could target the Afrin region of northwest Syria, which is controlled
by Kurdish YPG forces and lies just west of the "Euphrates Shield" area of operations.
"In order to defeat threats directed at our nation from Kilis to Kirikhan, we are also putting
that area on our agenda of cleansing from terror," he said, referring to two Turkish towns
across the border from Afrin.
Looks fairly clear the objectives are Al-bab & Manbij, and then the Afrin pocket. Definitely
if the Syrians/Russians don't intervene to "save" Afrin, then that would push the Kurds into the
arms of the Americans, but if that's all the Turks do, then that solidifies the Turkish-Russian
pact at the same time.
Inching ever closer, one reported death at a time, to the current world record holder who is either
Mark Twain or perhaps Binny himself.
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1877644
26 October 2016 14:48
Iraqi Analyst Discloses S.Arabia, Turkey's Plot to Transfer Al-Baghdadi to Libya
A prominent Iraqi military analyst disclosed that Riyadh and Ankara had hatched plots to transfer
ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from Mosul to Libya but the massive presence of the popular forces
and Russian fighter jets at the bordering areas of Iraq and Syria dissuaded them.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he wants all foreign troops, in which the majority
are American, out of the Philippines in the next two years.
This comes amidst his desire to realign his country with China and Russia, and further from
the grasps of Washington.
Russia has launched the latest addition to its series of super-stealth diesel-electric submarines,
the Veliky Novgorod, which sports advanced stealth technologies and increased combat range.
The latest addition to the Black Sea Fleet is capable of striking land, sea and underwater
targets and was officially launched from St. Petersburg's Admiralty Shipyard on Wednesday in the
presence of Russian Navy Deputy Commander Vice-Admiral Aleksandr Fedotenkov, and Admiralty Shipyard
CEO Alexander Buzakov.
GOP nominee Donald Trump does not believe that settlements built by the Zionist regime of Israel
in Palestine are illegal, his advisor on Israel says.
David Friedman, who was campaigning for the New York billionaire at a restaurant on Mount Zion
(Jabel Sahyoun) in East Jerusalem al-Quds, made the comments to AFP after the Wednesday rally.
Remember on November 8, vote for any party, but not The Democratic Party. The Democratic Party
is the war party.
For me still undecided - Donald Trump or Jill Stein.
Dr. William Wedin | Oct 27, 2016 12:48:06 AM |
112
I agree with Moon of Alabama's predictions up to the point that he asserts that Putin's "best"
or "most likely" response (I am not clear which) to having all of Russia's military assets in
Syria destroyed is the meek test-firing of a "big" tactical nuclear weapon in Siberia by way of
a non-lethal display of "shock and awe." Neither Putin nor his generals would ever let things
get so one-sided in America's father. Rather, the Russian military would respond the way Putin,
the 8th-degree black-belt Judoka has responded in every match that led to his becoming the Judo
Champion of Leningrad in 1976. Namely, they would attack, attack, attack--no matter the cost.
That's how General Zhukov defeated Hitler. The same way Grant won the Civil War. Zhukov never
let up the pressure. Putin learned his lesson on that score when he tried to teach the US the
Judo principle of Jita Kyoei (or the "mutual benefit") in mutual self-restraint in his acceptance
of a ceasefire and a partial pull-out of Russian forces back in March; followed by another betrayed
ceasefire last month. No more. Now if he is hit, he's going to hit back harder--in unexpected
places and ways. He has vowed to never fight another war on Russian soil. So he may well carry
the attack early to the US homeland. Study the way he won Judo matches--with lightning speed and
startling moves. The Saker would argue that Putin would go for lateral rather than vertical escalation.
But I think that Hillary's transsexual desire (I speak as a psychologist here) to prove herself
the "tougher man" may force Putin to launch a First Strike in the expectation she's about to.
Indeed he tells us that the first lesson he learned as a street fighter at the age of 10 was:
"Strike First." I think he will.
I can never under understand why so many 60s and 70s antiwar become warmongers today?
Amerika drops more than 7 millions tons of bombs, about 20 to 30% unexploded. They knew millions
innocent civilians perished and many more will die of unexploded bombs. Further Napalm & Agent
Orange was used and still causing deforms children today.
How can anyone vote for The Democratic Party is beyond common sense? The Democratic Party had
always been a warmonger party, yesterday, today and tomorrow....
With the Clinton's long list of shady deals Hillary would be an easy target for blackmail by some
organisation such as a security service that wants to control the policies of the president.
It's not funny how hypocritical the right-wing have become just to get their guy in office.
Fuck 'em I say. For those same fucktards that believe Obama a communist/socialist, they're simply
invoking a red scare tactic. The love to scapegoat the other, ie. teacher's, immigrants because
their brainwashed minds love their servitude and criticism of the capitalist system is beyond
the pale.
Both parties represent what you nominally call warmonger in one form or the other, serving
their corporate paymasters. Any minds reconciling the differences would be well advised to check
up on Glen Ford, Omali Yeshitela and the world socialist website periodically.
Would you please delete ArthurGilroy's comments
at #42 and #60?
#42 could have been an accident caused by
failure to Preview.
But #60 was a deliberate margin wrecker, imo.
@ psychohistorian | Oct 26, 2016 11:42:46 PM | 103
No they did not mess up their HTML, they put ==== well beyond the wrap limits. It happens when
commentators use any lengthy address that does not have hyphens incorporated. If the programming
were to put in a virtual hyphen, that changes the address for using, it seems. HTML is the tool
to use to get around that problem. The problem is few commentators are tool users; the result
is the reader suffers from one: stupid, inattention or intent. The perpetrator:
With Hillary Clinton in the audience, singer Adele told her fans at a Miami concert Tuesday
night not to vote for Donald Trump.
"Don't vote for him," the Grammy Award winner said on stage, according to a Clinton aide. "I can't
vote but I am 100% for Hillary Clinton, I love her, she's amazing."
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/26/politics/hillary-clinton-adele-concert/
And so on.
Also for example:
Elton John
John Fogerty
Neil Young
Paul mcCartney
Roger Waters
@119 FTH
Holier than thou superstars wrapped in the warm bosom of capitalism that is the 1%. Can't blame
them, they're being looked after. They just hear the un-pc bleating.
Working Class Nero | Oct 27, 2016 4:21:36 AM |
122
What makes me happiest about this election is that we are finally seeing some left/right cooperation
in the fight against the corporate oligarchy. I follow both sides closely and it is great to see
right wingers cheering Jill Stein, Julian Assange, and even Bernie Sanders.
In order for the left/right combination to work both sides have to make compromises. Certainly
we see the Trumpian right dumping the warmongering. as MoA is pointing out. Trumpsters are also
open to universal health care, and are less insistent on divisive social issues. And the rejection
of job-killing "free" trade is another great evolution towards sanity on the right.
The left are goig to have to abandon the idea of remaking America by pumping in millions of
3rd world immigrants. This is the largest wedge still existing between the left and right. if
you have not seen Bernie Sanders denouncing Open Borders as a Koch Borthers scam to lower wages
then you need to get busy on Google right now. Besides universal health care is absolutely impossible
without very tight borders -- just ask Canada who have far more Draconian immigration laws than
even Trump is proposing.
But the most important reason to vote Trump is because if he wins the Powers-That-Be will never
let him take power! Remember the Electoral College? TPTB can and will strip the victory away from
Trump and give it to someone else. This will do more to destroy the current capitalist system
than anything else.
@105, quoting Reuters: "Erdogan signaled Turkey could target the Afrin region of northwest Syria"
When Turkey launched "Operation Euphrates Shield" there was much commentary about how this
would end the Kurdish plan to link Kobane with the Afrin pocket.
At the time I thought to myself: OK, so does that leave the Afrin pocket exposed, or is it
pretty secure even when left to its own devices?
Nobody else seemed the slightest bit interested in pondering that though, apparently, Erdogan
has now decided that it is a blister that needs to be lanced.
@105: "then that would push the Kurds into the arms of the Americans"
Err, no, I suspect not. After all, it was Biden who ordered the Kurdish forces to withdraw
back behind the Euphrates once Erdogan started his little adventure, so it's pretty obvious that
if the choice is between (a) Turkey and (b) the Kurds then good ol' Uncle Sam is going to side
with the Turks.
Surprised to see Roger Waters on that list. WTF, Roger?
His condemnation of Israel and his love for Palestine has been clear.
Expressing his staunch I/P political views, Roger has consistently angered warmongering wingnuts
at his concerts. (They like his music, but they wish he would shut up about " his politics".)
Waters should know clearly that Hillary Rotten Clinton will explicitly follow the Yinon Plan
dictates for Greater Israel; and feed our sons and daughters (not hers) into the military meat
grinder.
Many thanks for those who read and comments.. I can never under understand why so many 60s
and 70s antiwar become warmongers today?
I'm from the sixties - baby boom generation, not antiwar but leaning from anti commie to warmonger.
I cannot understands why antiwar movements were against Vietnam war . America, land of
the free leading the fighting against the commies spreading from the North moving southward to
the two Korea, (Indochina) Laos, Cambodia, North &South Vietnam, Thailand, Malaya (independent),
Singapore British Crown colony, Hong Kong British Crown colony, Indonesia, The Philippines. The
warmonger was Lyndon B. Johnson a Democrat.
Blowin' In the Wind sang by leftist's antiwar singers. I'm especially touched by Peter, Paul
and Mary, Joan Baez... Where are they today? Warmongers for Hillary?
The red zionist leader pretend hates Trump.
Hee hee,the vitriol from the serial liars should be enough for sane human to vote Trump.
Imagine the debt that the HB will owe the zionists if they manage to steal this election for her,their
obvious chosen whore.
The zionists aint going to like the heartlands response to the fix.
The raw deal they are issuing to Trump will be rejected.
"But I think that Hillary's transsexual desire (I speak as a psychologist here) to prove herself
the "tougher man" may force Putin to launch a First Strike in the expectation she's about to.
Indeed he tells us that the first lesson he learned as a street fighter at the age of 10 was:
"Strike First." I think he will."
So do I. He did not go into Syria without a long-range strategy. And when he and China and
others use the term "multi-polar" they mean it. Their commitment/strategy is at the cellular level
which makes them unpredictable and dangerous to their adversary. Putin is all business.
----------------
Here's a vid of Podesta's think tank - Center for American Progress - where Mike Morrell NOT
Chris Morrell along with others discuss the Middle East and U.S. partners -
I've written along this line before, apologies for the repeat.
The US has lost power, particularly economic power, and some soft power -not military power-
in the last 20 or ++ years. An uncomfortable situation. This has disturbed, and will continue
to disrupt, nay shatter, the PTB (Shadow Gvmt., fake duopoly, corporate rule, neo-fascism, slot
in yr perso description) control.
The selection of Obama was a simplistic move: he could be ushered in as representing 'change',
and seemingly 'win' an 'election' twice, with biz as usual (hopefully) maintaining itself, continuing
with a puppet President. (As is organised 'abroad', see Poroshenko for ex.)
A crack on the political scene was the Tea Party, within Repub. circles, and it was genuine
(if wacky), unlike Occupy Wall Street, or the present Black Lives Matter, which are more or less
'fake color revol.' controlled splinters that can be turned on or off. The Sanders candidacy split
the Dem. base, and was either a nasty surprise for the neo-libs (they brought it on themselves,
read Podesta e-mails) or an 'allowed' move to maintain the pretense of real political options.
The Repubs. could not turn up a convincing candidate (anyone with brains would avoid this situation
like the plague, and the Rubio, Cruz type personas were just 'place holders') so the plan
morphed into letting Trump win the nomination and lose the election to the neo-lib-con (HRC)
faction. This plan was born out of arrogance, hubris, 'bubble' blindness and ignorance, and the
supposed iron grip control of the MSM, aka 'the narrative.'
Trump did much better than expected, went on doing so. CNN at first gave him a 1% chance of
winning the nomination, what a laugh. Imho Trump played the MSM masterfully, but that is neither
here nor there - the PTB were shocked to see their hold erode, they never imagined losing control
of the 'opposition' or the discontents, aka the rabble, the compliant sheeples: many different
strands: Greens, e.g. Stein, whose vicious tweets against HRC are something to behold, libertarians,
BernieBros for 'social democracy' and free college, now turned to Cleaning Out the Swamp, law
-n- order types, gun toters, Blacks for Trump, and on and on ..unimaginable.
As no reasoned politically argued response was available, the PTB went into attack mode which
completely backfired, as could readily be predicted. This is the post-Democracy Age (if it ever
existed and the term 'democracy' is of course BS.)
Trump appears to confusedly propose a way of dealing with the US loss of economic domination,
of power and place on the World Stage: nationalistic retrenchment, "better deals", OK, plus "a
stronger military," a double-pronged sword, not pacifist, on the face of it.
Makes a kind of hopeful sense, and appeals greatly. HRC (she is just a propped up figure) in
a corrupt circuit of PTB-NWO - the top 20% globalist class - has to push the agenda of the MIC,
of Wall Street, Big Corps, Silicon Valley, etc. for personal position. Donors who give mega-cash
get corp. and pol. favors, etc.
French MSM report as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Erdogan made a speech
to say he intends to get back Manbij from the Kurds and participate in getting back Northern Syria,
in cooperation with the US.
If the Turks enter that far, there is no doubt it will lead to a wider war ... Could that be the
reason Hollande is so sure of being reelected in May?
stopped going to VT several years ago during their grand support of the slaughter of Libya. duff
wrote I was posting from tel aviv.
have to be careful with vt. what is a lie and what is decent.
trump is hated/feared by repubs/dems, the establishment, wall st, the crooks, cronies, pedophiles,
liars, warmongers, creepers in the dark, rich beggars with hands out, culture-destroyers.
supporting legal immigration is sound national policy as is not wanting to fight wars for jewry.
supporting soc sec and medicare and spending tax dollars on repairing infrastructure in America
not Israel is also sound.
My take is similar to rufus magister, namely that Trump (a) talks a lot of nonsense, but unlike
a disciplined robot like Marco Rubio, he is eclectic and mixes that nonsense with surprisingly
reasonable statements.
Many attacks on Trump almost convince me that he is the best candidate out there. But his own
web site is much less convincing, and his personal appearances may be outright scary.
On domestic issues, he more or less follows all bad aspects of GOP model. His trade policy
ideas are so unworkable that nothing will come out of them. Not that I disagree that there is
too much of "free trade", but like with any complex system, it is much easier to make it worse
that to make it better.
Back to Trump as an architect of new, improved foreign policy. Here the room for improvement
is much more clear, because so much of the current policy is to effectively do little shits here
and there, and to sell more arms than before, so totally ineffective policy would be a plus. It
does not even need to be particularly consistent etc. But "greedy merchant" mentality exhibited
by Trump in many quotes, like "take their oil", "those allies do not pay their dues", and "why
did we give [returned!!!] money to Iran", make me genuinely worried that he would continue selling
weapons to Gulfies and help them bombing Yemen and smuggling weapons to Syria: if they pay us
that this is OK. Secondly, he was abjectly pandering to AIPAC. Thirdly, some mad statements about
decisive direct intervention and using torture. The only change that I would be sure under Trump
presidency is that CIA would be out of the loop, or at least, much less visible than now. And
he would probably stop pressing EU to maintain and expand sanctions on Russia. But he would restore
sanctions on Iran??
In other words, a mixed bag at best on foreign policy, probably ineffectual nonsense on trade
policy and very retrograde changes in domestic policy. To name the few, green light to all possible
abortion restriction, if not outlawing the abortion by SCOTUS, advocacy of police brutality, regressive
taxation, letting people with chronic diseases die as uninsurable etc. So one has to consider
how scary HRC is.
My estimate is that she would be basically Obama with inferior rhetoric. Leaked e-mails show
that her decision making is quite deliberative, and the circle of opinions that are included not
particularly insular. It is too neocon to my liking, and "Obama as is" happened to be much less
appealing than "Obama before elected". Since there is no consensus to attack the Russians, she
would not hammer it through.
Thus one can reasonably hope that HRC will be relatively harmless. And it is not even clear
that Russia is harmed by sanctions. They restrict somewhat the access to goods and financial services,
but during cheap oil, the top issues for Russia is import substitution, development of domestic
production, and curtailing the capital flight. Good access to financial services can be quite
detrimental to a country, as we can study on the example of Greece: joining Eurozone vastly improved
the access to the financial markets and enabled to borrow much more that prudent. As Russia remains
a net exporter by a quite large margin, keeping money at home is much more important than access
to credit.
That said, a reasonable hope does not exactly dispel the fears described above. Moreover, it
is predicated on the lack of "imperialist/neo-con consensus", and wobbly results of the elections
would help. Thus, everybody here who can vote should vote as she/he damn pleases. If you do not
like Clinton, I would suggest Stein, because she actually spells out a coherent and sensible position,
and not patches of senses and horror, so this is
Trump's policy and this is
Stein's
policy.
I thought I'd never say this, but Glenn Beck gave a very
thoughtful interview with Charley Rose last night. He
raised a lot of issues that the other Glenn (Glenn
Greenwald) has been raising--the moral bankruptcy of each
political party and the tendency of each to attack the
other for things that they themselves would deny, excuse,
and say that it doesn't
matter when their own party does it.
Glenn is not
supporting Trump. But he gives the example of the many
Republicans who viciously attacked Bill Clinton for his
sexual behavior but now deny, excuse and say that it
doesn't matter when Trump does it.
The flip side, of course, is found with the many
Democrats who viciously attack Trump but denied, excused,
and said that it didn't matter when Bill Clinton did it.
Glenn says that to restore trust with the American
people, both parties need to clean their houses and become
parties that put laws and principles first, which implies
criticizing their own instead of shielding them when
they misbehave.
This sounds like another attempt to claim the two parties
are equivalent. Your claim that "many
Democrats...viciously attack Trump but denied, excused,
and said that it didn't matter when Bill Clinton did it,"
would be a bit more credible if you actually named a few
of the alleged "many Democrats."
Most of the attacks on Trump are the result of Trump
boasting about sexually assaulting women, which Clinton
has not done. In any case, to claim that the Democratic
party needs to "clean its house" you need evidence that
there is a problem today, not merely one two decades ago
when Bill Clinton was in office.
Thanks for providing a great example of a Democrat trying
to deny, explain away, and say that Bill Clinton's
behavior in the 1990s didn't matter!
Of course, Bill
Clinton's radical deregulation of the 1990s (ending
Glass-Steagall, commodities deregulation, etc.) and ending
welfare as we knew it doesn't matter either...because it
was done by a Democrat.
Nor did his attack on Serbia, which set the precedent
for the pointless and futile war in Iraq. It's OK when
Democrats wage war, as long as it's papered over with
claims of 'humanitarian bombing.'
And Barack Obama's refusal to prosecute bankers and
torturers doesn't matter, though Democrats would have
cried 'bloody murder' if a Republican had behaved this
way. Nor does his embrace of NSA spying really matter. Nor
his proposed cuts to Social Security and social programs
in general...because his is a Democrat.
This is why economic elites love to have Democrats in
power...because they can push through horrible
reforms...and rest confident that many of the party
faithful will deny, excuse, and even claim that it didn't
matter...because a Democrat did it.
John, speaking only for myself, the defense of Bill
Clinton in the 1990's had nothing to do with excusing his
atrocious behavior -- it had to do with the opposition
engaging in a witch hunt to destroy a sitting president.
and exploiting the vehicle of a special prosecutor's
authority, granted to look into entirely different and
unrelated matters, to do so. This was a gross misuse of
official power. Clinton's mistake was in refusing to
answer questions unrelated to the authorized inquiry.
As to the other items on your list of objections to
Bill Clinton's actions, a few I'd agree with, and others
I'd disagree with; but they are all unrelated to the issue
of equivalence that you and Beck raise.
I'd agree that Democrats never organized a witch hunt
against any sitting Republican since Nixon.
Problem is,
they never organized a serious opposition either, and
readily bought into the opposition's tax cuts, budget
cuts, and pointless and futile wars.
If Democrats won't organize a serious opposition to the
likes of Cheney/Bush43, how can you take them seriously as
an opposition party?
Kenneth Almquist claims that Bill Clinton never assaulted
anyone, which provides yet more evidence of a Democratic
denial of charges against their guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita_Broaddrick
Did
Juanita Brodderick's name ever register among the
Democratic faithful, staunch defenders of Bill Clinton,
right or wrong?
Brodderick's claim of rape was met with the typical
denial and disbelief, which is still commonplace
today...particularly when rape might have been done by
someone rich or powerful...
Yes the big difference is that Clinton never ran around
and said that sexual assault is OK, and he could get away
with it. He was accused but never convicted of sexual
assaults. You don't condemn a person for being accused of
something. The only actual sex was consensual sex with a
young woman.
The for-profit media thrive and depend on controversy and
generally content that is emotionally engaging. Racism is
only a small part of it, it is much more broadly appealing
- it is essentially "addressing", channeling, amplifying,
and redirecting existing grievances of a large part of the
public. If economy and society would be doing great and a
large majority of people would be happy/contented, these
anger-based media formats wouldn't find an audience.
The
same underlying causes as the success of Trump. The reason
why he can maintain considerable success despite of grave
shortcomings is because he continues to be a channel for
the anger that is not disappearing. (With the support of
the media, who are also interested in an ongoing
controversy with details as scandalous as possible.)
This "anger that is not disappearing" has
been based on racism for decades. None of these Trump
supporters are newly minted Rep voters; they have voted
Rep their entire lives.
This is not so new group based on outrage over the
problems of our "rigged system", this is the base that has
voted consistently against their economic well being for
decades.
"But holy hell, Republicans still refuse to be
convinced.
According to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll,
seventy-two percent of registered Republicans "still
doubt" the President's place of birth. Forty-one percent
outright disagreed with the statement, "Barack Obama was
born in the United States," while only twenty-seven
percent of Republicans agree.
As NBC News blatantly states in the poll's findings,
"Only slightly more than one in four Republican voters
agreed that the president was born in the United States."
The main area where Faux needs to make a decision, is how
far it will move with the GOP base on closed borders. The
interest of the corporates is for open borders, whereas
the xenophobe GOP base is strongly against. If Faux decide
to remain on the corporates side of that issue, a Trump/Breibart
media would have a chance. The GOP will face the same
choice, but there is no way they split from the corporates
that owns them. So the question is whether Faux will split
with GOP on the issues that divide the GOP corporates from
the GOP base. Their business office would say yes (hold on
to the viewers), but they are not just a business.
I'd love to know exactly how pgl 'read' the video that our
host provided...transcript please!
The left needs media
that
1) Does not need Hillary
2) Does not engage in cold war fearmongering
3) Becomes less establishment and more progressive.
Will Krugman talk about that?
BTW Here's an address on inequality by Stiglitz, given
two weeks ago. When was the last time that Krugman, whose
day job at CUNY is allegedly about studying inequality,
even talked about the subject?
The trade deficit will continue to explode; the US will
lose most of its remaining industrial base over the next
few years and the population of new poor and unemployed
will grow sharply. Trump will be in a strong position to
say "I told you so" and pick up the pieces of our broken
society in 2020. You can't destroy the livelihood of
150-300 million people without some kind of political
movement emerging to restore the economy to its industrial
age prosperity.
reason
-> forgotten ghost of American
protectionism...
, -1
Where does 150-300 million people come from? And why
aren't you looking at what is happening in finance which
is just as important in driving the demise of US industry
(an overvalued currency is exactly the same as a cut in
tariffs).
Sanjait and PGL tell us that Hillary plans about $1.65
trillion in additional spending over the next ten years.
Wow that sounds like a lot! No wonder conservative web sites
are all up in arms about the new spending. (No doubt they're
trying to fan the flames of their already enflamed readers.)
Alan Blinder is a smart economist. He says otherwise:
"Former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said he's skeptical
that fiscal policy will be loosened a great deal if Clinton
wins the election, as seems likely based on recent voter
surveys.
"She is promising not to make budget deficits bigger by
her programs," said Blinder, who is now a professor at
Princeton University. "Whatever fiscal stimulus there is
ought to be small enough for the Fed practically to ignore
it.""
But PGL bashed Bernie Sanders supporters and supported
centrist Clinton during the primary. What gives?
Why is he lying about her fiscal plans now?
And what about Hillary's endorsement of the centrist view
that we are not allowed to discuss the Fed during a
Presidential election. The deplorable voters aren't to be
trusted (when the experts like PGL and Bobby Rubin did such a
fine job with the housing bubble and financial crisis).
As the Blinder quote shows, Fed policy is very important
especially if it can "brush off" fiscal policy's effects on
employment levels and aggregate demand.
Peter K. -> Peter K....
, -1
Larry Summers and Krugman argue that Hillary Clinton's
infrastructure investment plans are "substantially" too
small. And they supported her!
Krugman went so far as to lie about Sanders and his
supporters. Summers called them populist authoritarians.
And yet PGL just outright ignores what they have to say
when he brown-noses them on every other occasion.
We know Sanjait is a centrist at heart the way he
bad-mouths Dean Baker on a regular basis.
"... Societies Under Siege is a sophisticated account of how, and why, economic sanctions applied in recent years to South Africa, Iraq and Myanmar affected the politics of those three countries without achieving the goals that the Western politicians which dictated them intended ..."
"... Precisely… The whole idea that "this is not the time for reform" Is complete crap. If these people are the best we've got, we are screwed. ..."
"... I do not believe "revolutions purity" means much more than continued bribes for access and favors for the Clinton Foundation, or its members. Or does it mean "clean money"? ..."
"... or they could create a character like Emmanuel Goldstein. they've sort of overlaid him on trump, but virtual reality is the bestest. ..."
"... I voted the straight republican ticket. If HRC wins I want her to get impeached immediately. Prior to this election, I never voted for any Republican. ..."
"... I voted for NO incumbents …. If that meant voting for Republican candidates ..well then, so be it … ..."
"... A good reason to vote for Stein is that if she gets 5+% of the vote, the Greens could get federal matching funds in 2020. We have to have more choices than the Republicrats! ..."
"... And would that mean that the Greens would start acting like a real political party? Instead of the ecology club for misfits? ..."
"... Forget the Easter Bunny. She can't win. But that's not the point, is it? The point is to send a multi-part message: (1) You're disgusted with the two big parties and (2) presumptive winner H had better keep looking over her left shoulder, because you are out there. ..."
"... Honestly, this is one of the best explanations of people voting against Hillary I have seen. Well worth the read. (I give it an A+ FWIW) jacobinmag.com ..."
"... Another must-read from Jacobin: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/haiti-clinton-guantanamo-hiv-aristide-constant/ I wasn't aware of this terrible chapter. Anyone who cares about Haiti should shun the Clintons. ..."
"... The fact that the Haitians seem to be so unanimously against them (in my observations) should be a clear WARNING to voters regarding their foreign affairs and personal character… Alas, so should so much of the other evidence. ..."
"... I wonder if Hillary will out herself as a Republican after the election… "No more hiding my private positions in a closet for me." ..."
"... These aren't health, labor and consumer groups - these are simply anti-American and anti-worker swine! No parsing about the TPP, it is a solid crapfest of which no portion should be passed, and any group which claims otherwise should be deported! ..."
"... Like it or not, only change candidate, now and for the foreseeable future, is trump. On the plus side, we avoid emptying out the Ibm silos. And maybe, just maybe, he really gets bills passed for infrastructure spending. Best of all, dems might actually move left. ..."
"As a longtime Bill Clinton adviser came under fire several years ago for
alleged conflicts of interest involving a private consulting firm and the
Clinton Foundation, he mounted an audacious defense: Bill Clinton's doing
it, too" [
Politico
].
"The unusual and brash rejoinder from veteran Clinton aide and Teneo
Consulting co-founder Doug Band is scattered across the thousands of
hacked emails published by WikiLeaks, but a
memo
released Wednesday provides the most detailed look to date at
the intertwined worlds of nonprofit, for-profit, official and political
activities involving Clinton and many of his top aides.
The memo at one point refers bluntly to the money-making part of
Clinton's life as 'Bill Clinton Inc.' and notes that in at least one case
a company - global education firm Laureate International Universities -
began paying Clinton personally after first being a donor to the Clinton
Foundation.
I think it's important for young women and girls to see that a corrupt
dynasty can occupy the White House a second time.
"Inside 'Bill Clinton Inc.': Hacked memo reveals intersection of charity
and personal income" [
WaPo
].
Gives "intersectionality" a new twist, eh? Rather a lot of detail in this;
well worth a read.
War Drums
"Societies Under Siege is a sophisticated account of how, and why,
economic sanctions applied in recent years to South Africa, Iraq and Myanmar
affected the politics of those three countries without achieving the goals
that the Western politicians which dictated them intended" [
Asian
Affairs
].
The Voters
"Goldman Sachs: Election Won't End Like Brexit" [Barrons, via
Across the Curve
]. "We think that the upcoming U.S. election won't end
up as another Brexit-styled surprise for for two reasons."
First, and most importantly, whole both situations represented an
opportunity for voters to endorse a change in the status quo, voters in
the UK were asked to decide on an idea whereas in the US they are being
asked to decide on a person. The distinction is illustrated in US polling
by the difference between the small share of Americans who believe the
country is moving in the right direction (29%) and majority who approve
of the job President Obama is doing (52%).
Second. While the polls conducted on the eve of the referendum vote
showed "remain" with a 4.6pp lead, in contrast to the 3.8pp actual vote
margin in favor of "leave", an average of polls published by the
Economist magazine the day before the election showed a tied race, and
showed "leave" leading for much of the prior month. As much as 10% of the
public in many of these surveys was also undecided. By contrast, Sec.
Clinton has led the average of presidential polls consistently for more
than a year, with the exception of one week in late July following the
Republican convention, and for most of the last year her lead has been
substantial, averaging 4pp since the last primary elections were held.
Includes a wrap-up of polling methodologies as well.
"Laboratories of change" [Tim Canova,
Medium
]. Florida referendum proposals. Interesting!
Downballot
"Less than two weeks from Election Day, Democrats are on track to pick up
between 10 and 20 House seats, a slight uptick in their fortunes, but still
well short of the 30 seats they need for the majority. Low enthusiasm for
the top of the GOP ticket remains a concern for down-ballot Republicans, but
Trump isn't as much of a drag outside of well-educated suburbs, which could
limit Democrats' gains" [
Cook
Political Report
].
The Trail
"Win or lose, the Republican candidate and his inner circle have built a
direct marketing operation that could power a TV network-or finish off the
GOP" [
Bloomberg
].
And Trump controls a lot of data. Fascinating article. Son of Berlusconi?
"Texas: Trump 45%, Clinton 42%, Johnson 7% (UT/Texas Tribune); Texas:
Trump 45%, Clinton 38%, Johnson 7% (Austin American Statesman); Florida:
Clinton 43%, Trump 39%, Johnson 6% (University of North Florida);
Pennsylvania: Clinton 46%, Trump 39% (NYT/Siena)" [
Political
Wire
]. FWIW!
UPDATE "20 percent of Florida voters have already cast their ballots" [
McClatchy
].
The breathless coverage of early voting, and its "historic levels," is
making me crazy. Early voting seems like a terrible idea to me. For some
large percent of the population, it renders the last part of the race
irrelevant, incentivizing earlier "surprises." The real answer is to make
Election Day a national holiday. Why the heck not?
Realignment
"For decades, Democratic presidential candidates have been making steady
gains among upper income whites and whites with college and postgraduate
degrees. This year, however, is the first time in at least six decades that
the Democratic nominee is positioned to win a majority of these upscale
voters" [
New
York Times
]. "What these figures suggest is that the 2016 election will
represent a complete inversion of the New Deal order among white voters.
From the 1930s into the 1980s and early 1990s, majorities of downscale
whites voted Democratic and upscale whites voted Republican. Now, looking at
combined male and female vote totals, the opposite is true."
"Elizabeth Warren, the Democrats' Madame Defarge, and Bernie Sanders,
winner of 22 millennial-fueled primaries, are going to guarantee the
revolution's purity in any Clinton presidency" [
Wall
Street Journal
, "The Warren-Sanders Presidency"]. "For starters, they
have a list.
Politico reported in early September that Sen. Warren and
progressive policy groups such as the Roosevelt Institute are 'developing a
hit list of the types of people they'll oppose-what one source called 'hell
no' appointments-in a Clinton administration.
'" Well,
we can but hope that the Roosevelt Institute has improved since 2011
.
Readers?
Democrat Email Hairball
UPDATE "Podesta tops Clinton's short list for chief of staff" [
Politico
].
"Podesta, the architect of President Barack Obama's climate initiatives, is
also rumored to be interested in a potential Cabinet post, such as energy
secretary. But that road would require Senate confirmation, which could be
an opening for hearings on the WikiLeaks release of his hacked email - in
total, the site plans to release 50,000 emails revealing behind-the-scenes
dealmaking going back 10 years."
By scaling internationally, Facebook is creating a situation whereby
future Trending failures will potentially occur at a scale unheard of in the
history of human communication. Fake stories and other dubious content could
reach far more people faster than ever before.
For Trending to become a reliable, global product, it will need to
account for the biases, bad actors, and other challenges that are endemic to
Facebook and the news media. Put another way, in order to succeed, the
Trending algorithm needs to be better than the very platform that spawned
it. That's because fake news is already polluting the platform's News Feed
organically. A recent BuzzFeed News analysis of giant hyperpartisan Facebook
pages found that 38% of posts on conservative pages and 19% of posts on
liberal pages featured false or misleading content
Imperial Collapse Watch
"Rise of the American Mercenary" [
The
American Conservative
]. " [T]he rise of the contractor to wage America's
military operations is Obama's silent national-security legacy, with more dead
contractors on his watch (1,540 as of March) and little or no transparency
about who these contractors are and what they do. [Foreign Policy writer Micah
Zenko] scoffed at Obama's insistence that he has pursued a 'fight U.S.
footprint' across these lonflict zones. "Were it not for these contractors,
Obama's 'light footprint' would suddenly be two or three times as large,' Zenko
wrote."
Gaia
" Globalization has greased the slippery slope from factory to landfill by
enabling the global distribution of defective parts. Whether they are pirated,
designed to fail or just the result of slipshod quality control, the flood of
defective parts guarantee that the entire assembly they are installed
in–stoves, vacuum cleaners, transmissions, electronics, you name it–will soon
fail and be shipped directly to the landfill, as repairing stuff is far
costlier than buying a new replacement" [
Of
Two Minds
].
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was slated to hold four days
of public meetings, Oct. 18-21, focused on essentially one question: Is
glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide, safe?" [
Alternet
].
"However, the EPA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meetings were 'postponed,'
just four days before they were suppose to meet, after intense lobbying by the
agrichemical industry, including Monsanto."
Guillotine Watch
Class Warfare
"Iowans on their wages: 'I'm not stupid or lazy. It's just not there'" [
Des
Moines Register
].
When CIA and NSA Workers Blow the Whistle, Congress Plays Deaf
Do the committees that oversee the vast U.S. spying apparatus take
intelligence community whistleblowers seriously?
Do they earnestly investigate reports of waste, fraud, abuse,
professional negligence, or crimes against the Constitution reported by
employees or contractors working for agencies like the CIA or NSA?
For the last 20 years, the answer has been a resounding "no."
Looking deeper, were our founding fathers without personal faults?
Perhaps some were rude, with too much ego, didn't say acceptable nice things
about many people, etc.
But none tried to get into the White House (not sure it existed then)
through a personal foundation.
"
So let's recap Hillary's America, past, present, and future. It's a
land lacking in meaningful structural reform of the financial system, a
place where the big banks have been, and will continue to be, coddled by the
government. No CEO will be jailed, no matter how large the fines his bank is
saddled with or how widespread the crimes it committed. Instead, he's likely
to be invited to the inaugural ball in January.
"
Contains many other good observations; good enough that I hope Yves or
Lambert consider it for tomorrow's Links or Water-cooler.
"Elizabeth Warren, the Democrats' Madame Defarge, and Bernie Sanders,
winner of 22 millennial-fueled primaries, are going to guarantee the
revolution's purity in any Clinton presidency"
I have serious doubts that Warren and Sanders will be able to veto any
of Clinton's choices for office. I think we can expect to see plenty of clones
of Eric Holder, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Mary Jo White in a Clinton
administration. Similarly, we'll clones of Donald Rumsfeld, Hank Paulson, and
Alberto Gonzales in a Trump administration.
We missed our chance during the Democratic primaries - the oligarchs saved
themselves.
Elizabeth Warren, the Democrats' Madame Defarge, and Bernie
Sanders, winner of 22 millennial-fueled primaries, are going to
guarantee the revolution's purity in any Clinton presidency
I do not believe "revolutions purity" means much more than
continued bribes for access and favors for the Clinton Foundation, or
its members.
Or does it mean "clean money"?
The only people that can stop Clinton in DC are Jason Chaffetz
and Trey Gowdy. Sanders and Warren are going to play ball. They may
hold up a nominee or two but Clinton is already working with
Republicans to form a unity Cabinet. Sanders and Warren will have no
clout if Clinton is able to bring on Republican and Democratic
neo-cons/neo-liberals. Granted Warren is a politician now and has
clearly embraced Clinton on the trail…too the point that I get sick
when I see her. I really really really hope that Berniecrats primary
her.
Guaranteeing the revolutions purity: As I recall, the presidential election is winner-takes-all and to
quote Alec Baldwin from the movie Glengary-Glenross, "second place gets a
set of steak knives."
I suppose that in terms of leverage, it will depend on the outcome
of the Senate races to see if Warren or Sanders will get committee
chairmanships and thus be able to control legislation. If the Senate does
not trun over, Warren and Sanders will be seen as weak.
In truth it depends on the numbers AND how obstructionist the Republicans
choose to be.
Will the oligarchs demand that their most rewarded Senators support the
usual suspects for confirmation even though they are Clinton nominees
regardless of party OR will the Republicans need to continue obstructing the
Dems for the base? If it is the former, you are right that the Progressive
wing will have little say, the latter could mean that they have some
bargaining power, especially if the Dems have the majority and it is
embarassing to Clinton.
Frankly I figure it will be the former for anything the oligarchs care
about (which will be pretty much everything Warren cares about) and
obstruction for everything else.
My greatest fear is that the next 4 years will be exactly the same
as the last 6 months, including Trump is still running for prez and the
media is idolizing Hillary to stop the Trump threat. The Deep State and
oligarchs convince Congress they are "stronger together". WikiLeaks hacks
the FBI and deletes the FBI copies of Hillary's e-mails. 'Course I could
be wrong about that.
wow that is a scary thought. Hillary v Trump 2020.
I think the Republican party might try to stop any Trump threat in
the future, but it does a world of good for Hillary and the oligarchs.
It's been a long time since there has been a congressional group with
enough solidarity to push things around like this, I have many doubts.
(Well, except most of Congress regularly acting to do horrible things like
the TPP).
I have been wondering if the Democrats are just holding Warren and
Sanders out as bait. In a sense, they are bait to the voting public. In a
sense, they are bait to see which politicians will be foolhardy enough to
make a movement to join them. I suspect that they are being set up to be
purged. I'm surprised that the WSJ was so temperate (maybe the editorial
board is waiting for the elections). Why didn't WSJ signal better by calling
him Bernie Robespierre and her the Charlotte Corday of the Democratic Party?
A good reason to vote for Stein is that if she gets 5+% of the vote, the
Greens could get federal matching funds in 2020. We have to have more
choices than the Republicrats!
thanks, all I could find were old articles about how NC's
straight-party ballot that excludes prez resulted in undervoting –
assumed to be in error. but will keep looking. to be safe, guess I'll
vote Stein.
Forget the Easter Bunny. She can't win.
But that's not the point, is it? The point is to send a multi-part
message: (1) You're disgusted with the two big parties and (2) presumptive
winner H had better keep looking over her left shoulder, because you are out
there.
After the election, counties and states publish a canvass of the total
number of ballots cast, and how many votes each candidate got. The sum of
votes for candidates minus the vote total shows disengagement for that race.
Political researchers and campaign strategists examine these numbers, and
they work their way into future campaign strategies. PACs, lobbyist firms,
and other donor-funded groups also consider these figures along with others
to determine candidate viability.
Total Voters: 786522
Sum of all Presidential votes: 783757
Difference: 2765 (~0.35%)
But the NM Secretary of State's office did not publish total ballot
numbers for 2014. The current trend is for counties and state to publish
fewer and fewer details (and not just of elections). This is why state and
county seats are important.
Imperial Collapse Watch…. increasingly used on the domestic front also. I
don't believe the attack dogs used on the NoDAPL watchers were law enforcement.
Democracy Now is covering the military ramp up today but it looks like that is
police agencies (out of the area). Use of multiple MRAPs, sound cannon, armored
truck, bulldozer.
An interview about Money Laundering
By Golem XIV on October 27, 2016 in latest
Here is a 9 minute interview I did recently for Real Media about Money
Laundering and what happened to me when I wrote about it. It's an extract from
a much longer and wide ranging interview.
In case you're interested I wrote in more length about the incident in
"Making the Truth Illegal – revisited"
'the UK lobbied the US not to prosecute UK banks'
Well, the US doesn't prosecute US bank money launderers, so clean, clean
money must be the most important factor in making an economy successful*
I may have missed it, but I did not see this link to Conner Kilpatrick in
the Jacobin Magazine listed at this site.
Honestly, this is one of the best explanations of people voting against
Hillary I have seen.
Well worth the read. (I give it an A+ FWIW)
jacobinmag.com
The fact that the Haitians seem to be so unanimously against them (in
my observations) should be a clear WARNING to voters regarding their
foreign affairs and personal character… Alas, so should so much of the
other evidence.
NPR reported the Clinton Foundation reported they distributed half of
all HIV drugs globally.
So what are the odds she'll really fix Obama/Affordable care?
She's already sold us to the pharma's.
"Elizabeth Warren, the Democrats' Madame Defarge, and Bernie Sanders, winner
of 22 millennial-fueled primaries, are going to guarantee the revolution's
purity in any Clinton presidency"
The four "reports" below are the trial balloons so far for the post-election
counter-purity campaign to inoculate Clinton against her "supports". Beneath
the BS, there is the same derogatory message, belittling and denying any
Warren/Sanders agency under the new regime – at a point when it is not at all
clear whether they actually have any, anyway.
Belgium will ask the European Court of Justice to clarify the proposed
investment court system,
Hmm, I wonder if the Court will preserve it prerogative of being the Court
of last resort?
I also wonder about a constitutional challenge to ISDS in the US, based on
Marbury V Madison.
Synoia: I have a feeling that the Walloons know that it will, which is
why they are kicking the matter upstairs. The E C of J has overruled whole
piles of national law, sending legislators scurrying.
"Inside 'Bill Clinton Inc.': Hacked memo reveals intersection of charity
and personal income" [WaPo].
According to
this article
, as of 2012, the pension for ex U.S. Presidents is $199,700
per year, which explains why Bill Clinton needs so much money from other
sources. He held that job for a full 8 years, and he gets less than $200,000
per year from the U.S. government! Some folks might think that a six figure
pension like that should only be given to a person who has worked a full career
of 30 to 40 years.
Oops,
another article
says that the current pension is $205,700 - my bad.
According to page 5, George W. Bush ($214,000) and Bill Clinton ($218,000)
received more the statutory pension. There's no explanation as to why. Former
Presidents also get office allowances.
Note difference betw the ARMED Bundy standoffs in Oregon & Nevada vs. the
unarmed standoff in North Dakota. Full media coverage vs Silence.
And sure enough, currently no story on the front pages of the NYT or WaPo
about either the encampment in ND
or the occupation of the HRC campaign headquarters in Brooklyn.
TPP: "Health, labor and consumer groups are warning President Barack
Obama to refrain from including a 12-year monopoly period for biological drugs
in legislation to implement the TPP as a means for addressing congressional
concerns over the pact. . .
These aren't health, labor and consumer groups - these are simply
anti-American and anti-worker swine!
No parsing about the TPP, it is a solid crapfest of which no portion should
be passed, and any group which claims otherwise should be deported!
Obama McCain 2008… McCain possibly more belligerent, but Obama did smash
Libya, now Yemen.
Obama Romney 2012… Didn't matter who won. Identical policies.
Clinton trump 2016… Clinton more of same, trump?
People wanting change are waiting for an ideal changer. Not gonna happen.
Bernie one such, but wouldn't get into the mud with opponent. Imagine she wins
and runs again in 2020… Which of the 16 reps on the stage would be an
improvement? Or imagine she retires for health, or is impeached… Look who she
selected for veep… Might even be worse. And don't bleet the supremes… We know
she's considering a rep Texan.
Like it or not, only change candidate, now and for the foreseeable future,
is trump. On the plus side, we avoid emptying out the Ibm silos. And maybe,
just maybe, he really gets bills passed for infrastructure spending. Best of
all, dems might actually move left.
"... The revelations that - as Secretary of State - Clinton had committed such a huge security gaffe was quickly picked up on - and has since extensively been used by - Republican candidate Donald Trump, as an example of how Clinton is unfit for the presidency. ..."
"... "This is a change election: people (even those who support Obama) are not interested in the status quo. Therefore they want a candidate who will make change, actually fight the status quo." ..."
"... It is believed they will continue to be dripped out ahead of the presidential election on November 8. Apart from the embarrassment over the email account, the leaks show Clinton changing her position on free trade agreements. ..."
"... The question is not whether or not Donald or Hillary are fit to be US President. The question should be is the United States fit to exist in a civilized world? The answer is; not in its current form! Perhaps if the US returned to following its Constitution, but not otherwise! ..."
Whoever advised US Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton that she could use private
emails while in office should have been "drawn and quartered," according to the latest batch of emails
of the campaign chairman John Podesta, published by WikiLeaks on October 27.Clinton ran into huge
trouble when it was revealed that - while Secretary of State - she had been using insecure private
email accounts based on non-government servers, exposing the US administration to hacking or surveillance
from foreign nations.
In the latest cache of emails, one of Clinton's advisers, Neera Tanden wrote to Podesta asking: "Do
we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and
quartered? Like whole thing is f****** insane."
One of the 'Podesta Emails' released by Wikileaks An investigation by the FBI concluded that 110
e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information
at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top
Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight
contained Confidential information.
The revelations that - as Secretary of State - Clinton had committed such a huge security
gaffe was quickly picked up on - and has since extensively been used by - Republican candidate Donald
Trump, as an example of how Clinton is unfit for the presidency.
Apology Enough?
Another chain of emails delivered Clinton's advisers' verdict on her round of interviews with
the media apologizing for the email gaffe and saying: "As I look back at it now, even though it was
allowed, I should have used two accounts. That was a mistake. I'm sorry about that. I take responsibility."
Tanden responded: "She rocked it!" in a suggestion that the plan had been to admit culpability
personally - an honest appeal for empathy to kill the political furore.
Another adviser, Jennifer Palmieri replied: "I actually cried a little bit with relief."
However, John Podesta replied that Clinton may not have gone far enough and that Trump had
found her weak spot. "No good deed goes unpunished. Press takeaway was the whine of but 'she really
didn't apologize to the American people' I am beginning to think Trump is on to something," Podesta
wrote
Too 'Establishment'?
Meanwhile, another email - also from Tanden - show the sense of vulnerability within the Clinton
camp: her need to appeal to voters who conceive of her as being part of the establishment and - in
particular - part of the Obama set who promised much, but delivered little. "So if she attacks [Trump]
from the right (say on taxes), she will sound establishment/centrist and that hurts her. She needs
to reaffirm her liberal credentials, not just her doer credentials," Tanden wrote.
"This is a change election: people (even those who support Obama) are not interested in the
status quo. Therefore they want a candidate who will make change, actually fight the status quo."
Wikileaks has gradually been releasing more than 30,000 emails hacked from the account belonging
to Podesta since October 7, 2016, giving an insight into the background thinking within her team.
It is believed they will continue to be dripped out ahead of the presidential election on
November 8. Apart from the embarrassment over the email account, the leaks show Clinton changing
her position on free trade agreements.
The question is not whether or not Donald or Hillary are fit to be US President. The question
should be is the United States fit to exist in a civilized world? The answer is; not in its current
form! Perhaps if the US returned to following its Constitution, but not otherwise!
President Barack Obama used a pseudonym in email communications with Hillary Clinton and others,
according to FBI records made public Friday.
The disclosure came as the FBI released its second batch of documents from its investigation
into Clinton's private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Story Continued Below
The
189 pages the bureau released includes interviews with some of Clinton's closest aides, such
as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills; senior State Department officials; and even Marcel Lazar, better
known as the Romanian hacker "Guccifer." In an April 5, 2016 interview with the FBI, Abedin was
shown an email exchange between Clinton and Obama, but the longtime Clinton aide did not recognize
the name of the sender.
"Once informed that the sender's name is believed to be a pseudonym used by the president,
Abedin exclaimed: 'How is this not classified?'" the report says. "Abedin then expressed her amazement
at the president's use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email."
"... The simplest explanation is usually best. All the indicators, especially the support of the donor class, elites of all kinds
etc. points towards a Democratic victory, perhaps a very strong victory if the poll numbers last weekend translate into electoral college
numbers. ..."
I stopped by to check if my comment had cleared moderation. What follows is a more thorough examination (not my own, entirely)
on Corey's point 1, and some data that may point towards a much narrower race than we're led to believe.
The leaked emails from one Democratic super-pac, the over-sampling I cited at zerohedge (@13o) is part of a two-step process
involving over-sampling of Democrats in polls combined with high frequency polling. The point being to encourage media
to promote the idea that the race is already over. We saw quite a bit of this last weekend. Let's say the leaked emails are reliable.
This suggests to me two things: first – the obvious, the race is much closer than the polls indicated, certainly the poll cited
by Corey in the OP. Corey questioned the validity of this poll, at least obliquely. Second, at least one super-pac working with
the campaign sees the need to depress Trump turn-out. The first point is the clearest and the most important – the polls, some
at least, are intentionally tilted to support a 'Hillary wins easily' narrative. The second allows for some possibly useful speculation
regarding the Clinton campaigns confidence in their own GOTV success.
The simplest explanation is usually best. All the indicators, especially the support of the donor class, elites of all
kinds etc. points towards a Democratic victory, perhaps a very strong victory if the poll numbers last weekend translate into
electoral college numbers.
That's a big if. I suggest Hillary continues to lead but by much smaller margins in key states. It's also useful to
point out that Trump's support in traditionally GOP states may well be equally shaky.
And that really is it from me on this topic barring a double digit swing to Hillary in the LA Times poll that has the race
at dead even.
Layman 10.25.16 at 11:31 am
kidneystones:
"The leaked emails from one Democratic super-pac, the over-sampling I cited at zerohedge (@13o) is part of a two-step
process involving over-sampling of Democrats in polls combined with high frequency polling."
Excellent analysis, only the email in question is eight years old. And it refers to a request for internal polling done by
the campaign. And it suggests over-sampling of particular demographics so the campaign could better assess attitudes among those
demographics.
And this is a completely normal practice which has nothing to do with the polling carried out by independent third parties
(e.g. Gallup, Ipsos, etc) for the purposes of gauging and reporting to the public the state of the race.
And when pollsters to over-sample, the over-sampling is used for analysis but is not reflected in the top-line poll results.
"... It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and ex-parliamentarian. ..."
"... Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration. In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004. ..."
"... Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. ..."
A sinister atmosphere surrounds the Clinton Foundation's role in Ukrainian military coup of February
2014, experts point out.
It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's
European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was
the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while
Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many
of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman
and ex-parliamentarian.
Remarkably, among individual donors contributing to the Clinton Foundation in the period between
1999 and 2014, Ukrainian sponsors took first place in the list, providing the charity with almost
$10 million and pushing England and Saudi Arabia to second and third places respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation alone transferred at least $8.6 million
to the Clinton charity between 2009 and 2013. Pinchuk, who acquired his fortune from a pipe-making
business, served twice as a parliamentarian in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada and was married to the daughter
of ex-president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
Although the Clinton's charity denies that the donations were somehow connected with political
matters, experts doubt that international private sponsors received no political support in return.
In 2008 Pinchuk pledged to make a five-year $29 million contribution to the Clinton Global Initiative
in order to fund a program aimed at training future Ukrainian leaders and "modernizers." Remarkably,
several alumni of these courses are current members of Ukrainian parliament. Because of the global
financial crisis, the Pinchuk Foundation sent only $1.8 million.
Experts note that during Mrs. Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, Viktor Pinchuk was introduced
to some influential American lobbyists. Curiously enough, he tried to use his powerful "friends"
to pressure Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych to free Yulia Tymoshenko, who served a jail
term.
Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration.
In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board
including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice,
Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent
figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004.
No one would argue that proponents of Ukraine's pro-Western course played the main role in organizing
the coup of February 2014 in Kiev. Furthermore, the exceptional role of the United States in ousting
then-president Viktor Yanukovich has also been recognized by political analysts, participants of
Euromaidan and even by Barack Obama, the US President.
Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet
government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment
banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the
Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have
previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.
So far, experts note, the recent "game of thrones" in Ukraine has been apparently instigated by
a few powerful clans of the US and Ukraine, who are evidently benefitting from the ongoing turmoil.
In this light the Clinton Foundation looks like something more than just a charity: in today's world
of fraudulent oligopoly we are facing with global cronyism, experts point out, warning against its
devastating consequences.
"... This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven to be lies ..."
"The 2016 election campaign was dominated for many months by explosive popular disaffection with
the whole political and corporate establishment. But it has concluded in a contest between two candidates
who personify that establishment-one a billionaire from the criminal world of real-estate swindling,
the other the consensus choice of the military-intelligence apparatus and Wall Street.
This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the
capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of
big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to
reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven
to be lies."
"... Their grievances about a grift-maximized political economy were genuine, and Trump managed to make them look like a claque of sinister clowns. This cartoon of a rich kid with no internal boundaries was unable to articulate their legitimate complaints. His behavior during the so-called debates verged on psychotic. ..."
"... The "tell" in these late stages of the campaign has been the demonization of Russia - a way more idiotic exercise than the McCarthyite Cold War hysteria of the early 1950s, since there is no longer any ideological conflict between us and all the evidence indicates that the current state of bad relations is America's fault, in particular our sponsorship of the state failure in Ukraine and our avid deployment of NATO forces in war games on Russia's border. Hillary has had the full force of the foreign affairs establishment behind her in this war-drum-banging effort, yet they have not been able to produce any evidence, for instance, in their claim that Russia is behind the Wikileaks hack of Hillary's email. They apparently subscribe to the Joseph Goebbels theory of propaganda: if you're going to lie, make sure it's a whopper, and then repeat it incessantly. ..."
"... The media has been on-board with all this. The New York Times especially has acted as the hired amplifier for the establishment lies - such a difference from the same newspaper's role in the Vietnam War ruckus of yesteryear. Today (Monday) they ran an astounding editorial "explaining" the tactical necessity of Hillary's dishonesty: "In politics, hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools," The Times editorial board wrote. Oh, well, that's reassuring. Welcome to the George Orwell Theme Park of Democracy. ..."
"... Of course neither Trump nor Hillary show any signs of understanding the real problems afflicting the USA. They don't recognize the basic energy equation that has made it impossible for industrial economies to keep growing, or the deformities in banking and finance that result from official efforts to overcome these implacable conditions, namely, the piling up of ever-greater debt to "solve" the problem of over-indebtedness. ..."
"... Hillary would bring a more measured discredit to the system with the chance that our institutions might be rehabilitated - with the cherry-on-top being Hillary's eventual impeachment for lying, a fate that her husband and the late Richard Nixon both wiggled out of one way or another. ..."
It's getting hard to give a shit about this election, though you might still care about this country.
The damage has been done to the two long-reigning political parties and perhaps that's a good thing.
They deserved to be dragged into the gutter and now they can either go through a severe rehab or
be replaced by as-yet-unformed coalitions of reality-based interests.
Trump did a greater disservice all-in-all to the faction he supposedly represented. Their grievances
about a grift-maximized political economy were genuine, and Trump managed to make them look like
a claque of sinister clowns. This cartoon of a rich kid with no internal boundaries was unable to
articulate their legitimate complaints. His behavior during the so-called debates verged on
psychotic. If Trump loses, I will essay to guess that his followers' next step will be some
kind of violence. For the moment, pathetic as it is, Trump was their last best hope.
I'm more comfortable about Hillary - though I won't vote for her - because it will be salutary
for the ruling establishment to unravel with her in charge of it. That way, the right people will
be blamed for the mismanagement of our national affairs. This gang of elites needs to be circulated
out of power the hard way, under the burden of their own obvious perfidy, with no one else to point
their fingers at. Her election will sharpen awareness of the criminal conduct in our financial practices
and the neglect of regulation that marked the eight years of Obama's appointees at the Department
of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The "tell" in these late stages of the campaign has been the demonization of Russia - a way more
idiotic exercise than the McCarthyite Cold War hysteria of the early 1950s, since there is no longer
any ideological conflict between us and all the evidence indicates that the current state of bad
relations is America's fault, in particular our sponsorship of the state failure in Ukraine and our
avid deployment of NATO forces in war games on Russia's border. Hillary has had the full force of
the foreign affairs establishment behind her in this war-drum-banging effort, yet they have not been
able to produce any evidence, for instance, in their claim that Russia is behind the Wikileaks hack
of Hillary's email. They apparently subscribe to the Joseph Goebbels theory of propaganda: if you're
going to lie, make sure it's a whopper, and then repeat it incessantly.
The media has been on-board with all this. The New York Times especially has acted as the
hired amplifier for the establishment lies - such a difference from the same newspaper's role in
the Vietnam War ruckus of yesteryear. Today (Monday) they ran an
astounding editorial "explaining" the tactical necessity of Hillary's dishonesty: "In politics,
hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools," The Times editorial board wrote. Oh, well, that's reassuring.
Welcome to the George Orwell Theme Park of Democracy.
Of course neither Trump nor Hillary show any signs of understanding the real problems afflicting
the USA. They don't recognize the basic energy equation that has made it impossible for industrial
economies to keep growing, or the deformities in banking and finance that result from official efforts
to overcome these implacable conditions, namely, the piling up of ever-greater debt to "solve" the
problem of over-indebtedness.
The beginning of the way out of this quandary will be recognition that the federal government
is the greatest obstacle for America making the necessary adjustments to a world that has changed.
If Trump got elected, I'm convinced that he would be removed from office by a military coup inside
of a year, which would be an epic smash-up of our political machinery per se, comparable to the period
44 BCE in Rome, when the republic crashed. Hillary would bring a more measured discredit to the system
with the chance that our institutions might be rehabilitated - with the cherry-on-top being Hillary's
eventual impeachment for lying, a fate that her husband and the late Richard Nixon both wiggled out
of one way or another.
Hitler is accused of being the evil practitioner of the "Big Lie" technique, but as usual,
he was misquoted. Here's the entire idea in context:
"In this they [the Jews] proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always
contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very
bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and
that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall
victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would
be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads, and they
will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation
in others.…" (p. 231 of the Manheim translation)
Hitler is accusing the Jews of the Vienna press of this strategy. It is often taken as evidence
that Hitler advocated the "Big Lie." He is, in fact, accusing his enemies of lying.
One might say, rightly, that Trump and Hitler ARE on the same page here... both accusing the
jews of bearing grand false witness. (Trump implicitly)
You exist for my entertainment. Some of you are great eye candy. Some of you can deliver a
line with such conviction that you bring tears to my eyes. Some of you can scare the hell out
of me. Others make me laugh.
But you all have one thing in common, you only have a place in my world to entertain me. That's
it. You make your living pretending to be someone else . Playing dress up like a 6 year old. You
live in a make believe world in front of a camera.
And often when you are away from one too. Your entire existence depends on my patronage. I'll
crank the organ grinder; you dance. I don't really care where you stand on issues.
Honestly, your stance matters far less to me than that of my neighbor. You see, you aren't
real. I turn off my TV or shut down my computer and you cease to exist in my world . Once I am
done with you, I can put you back in your little box until I want you to entertain me again.
Get back into your bubble. I'll let you know when I'm in the mood for something blue and shiny.
And I'm also supposed to care that you will leave this great country if Trump becomes president?
Ha. Please don't forget to close the door behind you.
We'd like to reserve your seat for someone who loves this country and really wants to be here.
Make me laugh, or cry. Scare me. But realize that the only words of yours that matter are scripted.
I might agree with some of you from time to time, but it doesn't matter. In my world, you exist
solely as entertainment So, shut your pie hole and dance, monkey!
"In politics, hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools," but she has made it a way of life that nobody
knows if her campaign promises are essentially a "doublespeak". If only the criteria is being
the best liar, she would win the presidency hands down.
This gang of elites needs to be circulated out of power the hard way, under the burden of their
own obvious perfidy, with no one else to point their fingers at.
Ahh, but you think they'll be "circulated out of power" under Hillary?! No chance. The bitch
will have tanks in the street first. And after the financial collapse, the soldiers will cooperate,
because they won't want their families starving like everybody else's will be.
"I'm more comfortable about Hillary - though I won't vote for her - because it will be salutary
for the ruling establishment to unravel with her in charge of it."
Sorry, but that is a leap of faith I can't make. It's like being at the event horizon of a
black hole and deciding to jump into the hole because you look forward to seeing what is on the
other side. Chances are you will be spaghettified so that your atoms might arrive elsewhere, but
not in particular relation to the you that jumped into the hole, so you will not survive to see
any change of scenery.
There will be a USA after Hillary, but it will not be your father's USA, and getting to this
new promised land will be a very painful process. Rome lived on until 1453 in the form of the
Byzantine empire, but the Republic died well before the birth of Christ.
"... A former [key] IT staffer at the State Department who oversaw technology for senior officials invoked his Fifth Amendment right in a sworn deposition on Monday when asked about Hillary Clinton's private email server. ..."
John Bentel is one of the key future of "private email server" scandal, the manager who squashed
concerns of other IOt personnel about legality of the so called "bathroom server".
October 24, 2016
A former [key] IT staffer at the State Department who oversaw technology for senior officials invoked
his Fifth Amendment right in a sworn deposition on Monday when asked about Hillary Clinton's private
email server.
Bentel answered over 90 questions that were submitted him to by Judicial Watch, the conservative
watchdog group that has been leading the charge for more information from Clinton and her associates
regarding her email server. Bentel was ordered by a federal judge to answer the questions similarly
to how Clinton had been.
Judicial Watch says that the topics of the questions they submitted to Bentel included whether
Clinton was paying Bentel's legal fees or had offered him other compensation.
"On advice from my legal counsel, I decline to answer the question and I invoke my Fifth
Amendment rights," Bentel answered each question.
Bentel invoking the Fifth Amendment "highlights the disturbing implication that criminal acts
took place related to the Clinton email and our Freedom of Information Act requests," Judicial
Watch President Tom Fitton said Monday.
"... Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United States government examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates the politicians and the federal bureaucracy. ..."
"... A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced back in 2005. It is called Loose Change 9/11 and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently more accessible. ..."
"... Loose Change is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books, but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption of emergency powers by the respective heads of state. ..."
"... The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at least parts of it, is capable of almost anything. ..."
"... The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that "something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound up in senior positions in the Bush Administration. ..."
"... The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11. Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include the way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality. ..."
"... the strength of Loose Change as it identifies and challenges inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios. ..."
"... I recommend that readers watch Loose Change as it runs through discussions of U.S. military exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania, a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed. Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact. ..."
11 Truth? Was it an "American coup?"
Leave a Comment For
the first time a presidential candidate, admittedly from a fringe party, is calling for a reexamination
of 9/11. Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United States government
examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates the politicians
and the federal bureaucracy. This has been the case since the Warren Commission report on the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy, which, inter alia, failed to thoroughly investigate key players like
Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and came up with a single gunman scenario in spite of considerable
evidence to the contrary.
When it comes to 9/11, I have been reluctant to enter the fray largely because I do not have the
scientific and technical chops to seriously assess how buildings collapse or how a large passenger
airliner might be completely consumed by a fire. In my own area, of expertise, which is intelligence,
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential foreign
government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11 but the only investigation
that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look at the possible Saudi role, the
notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a redacted form.
A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced back
in 2005. It is called
Loose Change 9/11 and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in
a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though
the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently
more accessible.
Loose Change is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a
subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books,
but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the
events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes
a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor
and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption
of emergency powers by the respective heads of state.
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at least
parts of it, is capable of almost anything.Loose Change describes how leading hawkish Republicans
were, as early as 2000, pushing to increase U.S. military capabilities so that the country would
be able to fight multi-front wars. The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century
paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that
"something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound
up in senior positions in the Bush Administration.
The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11. Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include the
way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify
our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was
either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality.
That is not to suggest that either then or now most federal employees in the national security
industry were part of some vast conspiracy but rather an indictment of the behavior and values of
those at the top of the food chain, people who are characteristically singularly devoid of any ethical
compass and base their decisions largely on personal and peer group ambition.
9/11 Truthers are characteristically very passionate about their beliefs, which is part of their
problem in relating to a broader public. They frequently demand full adherence to their version of
what passes for reality. In my own experience of more than twenty years on the intelligence side
of government I have frequently found that truth is in fact elusive, often lying concealed in conflicting
narratives. This is, I believe, the strength of Loose Change as it identifies and challenges
inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite
point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any
number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios.
I recommend that readers watch Loose Change as it runs through discussions of U.S. military
exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of
engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly
intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania,
a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed.
Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact.
The film describes the subsequent investigative failures that took place, perhaps deliberately
and arranged from inside the government, and concludes that the event amounts to an "American coup"
which changed the United States both in terms of its domestic liberties and its foreign policy. After
watching the film, one must accept that there are numerous inconsistencies that emerge from any examination
of the standard narrative promoted by the 9/11 Commission and covered up by every White House since
2001. The film calls the existing corpus of government investigations into 9/11 a lie, a conclusion
that I would certainly agree with.
The consequences of 9/11 are indeed more important than the event itself. Even those who have
come to accept the established narrative would have to concede that "that day of infamy" changed
America for the worse, as the film notes. While the United States government had previously engaged
in illegal activity directed against for suspected spies, terrorists and a variety of international
criminals, wholesale surveillance of what amounts to the entire population of the country was a new
development brought in by the Patriot Acts. And, for the first time, secret prisons were set up overseas
and citizens were arrested without being charged and held indefinitely. Under the authority of the
Military Commissions Act tribunals were established to try those individuals who were suspected of
being material supporters of terrorism, "material supporters" being loosely interpreted to make arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment easier.
More recently, executive authority based on the anti-terror legislation has been used to execute
American citizens overseas and, under the Authorization to Use Military Force, to attack suspects
in a number of countries with which the United States is not at war. This all takes place with hardly
a squeak from Congress or from the media. And when citizens object to any or all of the above they
are blocked from taking action in the courts by the government's invocation of State Secrets Privilege,
claiming that judicial review would reveal national secrets. Many believe that the United States
has now become a precursor police state, all as a result of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror
which developed from that event.
So who benefited from 9/11? Clearly the executive branch of the government itself, which has seen
an enormous expansion in its power and control over both the economy and people's lives, but there
are also other entities like the military industrial complex, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies,
and the financial services sector, all of which have gained considerably from the anti-terror largesse
coming from the American taxpayer. Together these entities constitute an American Deep State, which
controls both government and much of the private sector without ever being mentioned or seriously
contested.
Suggesting government connivance in the events of 9/11 inevitably raises the question of who exactly
might have ordered or carried out the attacks if they were in fact not fully and completely the work
of a handful of Arab hijackers? The film suggests that one should perhaps consider the possibility
of a sophisticated "false flag" operation, by which we mean that the apparent perpetrators of the
act were not, in fact, the drivers or originators of what took place. Blowing up huge buildings and
causing them to pancake from within, if indeed that is what took place, is the work of governments,
not of a handful of terrorists. Only two governments would have had that capability, the United States
itself and also Israel, unfortunately mentioned only once in passing in the film, a state player
heavily engaged in attempting to bring America into its fight with the Arab world, with Benjamin
Netanyahu subsequently
saying that "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq swung American public opinion in our favor."
To be honest I would prefer not to think that 9/11 might have been an inside job, but I am now
convinced that a new 9/11 Commission is in order, one that is not run and guided by the government
itself. If it can be demonstrated that the attacks carried out on that day were quite possibly set
up by major figures both inside and outside the political establishment it might produce such a powerful
reaction that the public would demand a reversal of the laws and policies that have so gravely damaged
our republic. It is admittedly unlikely that anything like that could ever take place, but it is
at least something to hope for.
"... Wait just a damn minute. Why is the DNI telling THE RUSSIANS what the USIC suspects? Wouldn't
that blunt the capability for taking counter measures? Unless... red herring? ..."
"... The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is there
anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the media and
the DNC and used them to their advantage? ..."
"... Indeed. So far there is a little of note in the leaked emails. They confirm, among the other
things we already knew: ..."
"... The Clintonites don't think very highly of Sanders. ..."
"... They have a lot of trusted friends in the media - some *very* trusted embeds. ..."
"... There is a difference between what Clinton says in public and what she really believes. ..."
"... They didn't want to release the content of the Goldman Sachs speeches because the contents
included a lot of Clinton pandering and rear-kissing to banksters. ..."
"... Podesta is an influential man, and a lot of people email him to use his influence and for help
them. ..."
"... Presumably, if US intelligence is so confident about Russian government methods, motivations,
tactics, tic tacs and techniques they also should have a pretty damn good idea about what is still out
there and also would have the means to disrupt its dissemination, if necessary. ..."
"... In other words, don't hold yer breath. ..."
"... "First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very
strange." ..."
"... Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake! ..."
"... Keith B. Alexander:"Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds
of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense."
..."
"... "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee
in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator
asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning.
Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having
given false testimony." ..."
"... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control
of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise.
..."
"... That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent
compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the
Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.
These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity
is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia,
for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of
these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
Wait just a damn minute. Why is the DNI telling THE RUSSIANS what the USIC suspects? Wouldn't
that blunt the capability for taking counter measures? Unless... red herring?
The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is
there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the
media and the DNC and used them to their advantage?
I'm shocked, shocked that there is backroom power politics going on in a political campaign!
The upshot of the WikiLeaks Podesta emails is to DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS as an independent source
of disclosure.
Indeed. So far there is a little of note in the leaked emails. They confirm, among the other
things we already knew:
1. The Clintonites don't think very highly of Sanders.
2. They have a lot of trusted friends in the media - some *very* trusted embeds.
3. There is a difference between what Clinton says in public and what she really believes.
4. They didn't want to release the content of the Goldman Sachs speeches because the contents
included a lot of Clinton pandering and rear-kissing to banksters.
5. Podesta is an influential man, and a lot of people email him to use his influence and
for help them.
"One of the first leaked files had been modified on a computer using Russian-language settings
by a user named "Feliks Dzerzhinsky." Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet secret
police"
The Russian connect was not "revealed" by NSA alone and the evidence for anybody who understand
computers and "trails" is quite strong.
The fact that the initial "leaks" were not such a big deal was no surprise. Given Julian's
desperate need to not get Clinton into the white house, you would expect him to save the most
juicy stuff until a few days before the election.
From the Esquire article: "Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator... was particularly prolific. Hours
after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious."
For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly.
Presumably, if US intelligence is so confident about Russian government methods, motivations,
tactics, tic tacs and techniques they also should have a pretty damn good idea about what is still
out there and also would have the means to disrupt its dissemination, if necessary.
Well, I assume Podesta has given somebody all of his emails, so they can compare against what
is already released and see what is to come. I think their only defense against it is to try to
discredit whatever it is ahead of time.
Only your imagination is the limit - since they are not real. But we will most likely never know
since even Assange knows that he can only lose this one.
No he would be the exact person to make such a mistake. After looking at them he would not have
the technical expertise to understand that he had left a fingerprint.
First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very
strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth
shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.
This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies
becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".
There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:
I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually
existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state
uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless
entourage.
Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community itself
with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward Russia
stance, which might not be shared by others.
Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised
computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by
the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed
efforts....
-- Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security
and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security
[ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made public,
but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency, for these
last 15 years. ]
Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake!
Keith B. Alexander:"Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds
of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute
nonsense."
...
Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions
of Americans?"
DNI Clapper"No, sir."
Senator Wyden: "It does not?"
DNI Clapper:"Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect,
but not wittingly."
The [IN]operative word there was "collect" which in NSAspeak does not mean... collect.
[ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made public,
but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency, for these
last 15 years. ]
Not shocking anymore. It is, after all, consistent with the methods and motivations of our
rulers.
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.
Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something
that does relate to Krugmans post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over
the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately though the Democratic Party hasn't
been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."
Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call
the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their
'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protected it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative
of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior the we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?):
Edward Snowden: "...the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James
Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. … Seeing that really meant for me there was no going
back."
"Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee
in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans.
One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses
under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed
justice, and having given false testimony."
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican
brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after
so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to
me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern
this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that
Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and
double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses
control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would
be otherwise.
I disagree with the basic premise of the post in that the right has been beaten because it
has won.
That's certainly not how the right sees the landscape. The tea party of 2010 was co-opted by
Richard Armey and the Kochs on the one hand and buried under a mountain of forms by Lois Lerner
on the other. The Armey group rallies to Ted Cruz, who is sure to have something to say about
America and the future of the Republican party should Trump be undone because of his lewd behavior
and actions.
The media is certain to be savaged no matter what the outcome. The number of artists and musicians
who both profit from and promote misogyny and violence invited to the WH over the last 8 years
to serve as role models for America's youth should raise nary an eyebrow. The prudery of the moment
is going to be the template for 'social reform' under the Republicans. If Hillary and her
media allies succeed in derailing the Trump insurgency via his mouth, his hands, and his zipper
they're going to face an extremely hostile electorate. Cruz is certain to try to step into Trump's
shoes as leader, preaching that Trump was a flawed messenger undone by an unforgiving god. This
will make sense for too many Americans to completely ignore. The unhappy white males who have
yet to self-identify as angry white males, rather than simply as Americans, may well decide to
do so.
Whatever few victories the Democrats enjoy lower down the ticket are unlikely to survive skyrocketing
Affordable Care Act premiums, some form of amnesty, and an extension of America's wars in the
ME. The Democrats are betting the farm that Republicans will never unlock the padlock Democrats
maintain over socially-conservative minorities. Cruz's ground game and networking with the evangelical
community didn't get the job done in 2016, but we can be sure that he and his team are already
mapping 2020.
Trump should be defeated according to most here. Some may actually believe Trump really
is the anti-Christ Hitler we've been constantly told he is, instead of a widely watched and often
admired vulgarian capitalist welcomed into living rooms across America for more than a decade.
Whatever Trump is, he's not Cruz. His supporters are not Cruz supporters. Yet.
I've no idea whether those supporting the Democratic candidate expect her to wake up on November
9, should she win, and suddenly decide to abandon the practices that got her this far. I certainly
don't. If you're nauseated at the prospect of 4-8 more years of secrecy, war, lies, and corruption
you're going to need to keep more than barf bags at hand, however. The polarization that has divided
America over the last 8 years is, imho, far more likely to become much more corrosive and
damaging with Democrats in charge.
Ted Cruz will literally be burning crosses and probably books, pornography, and anyone/thing
else that strikes his fancy. The donor class is praying that Hillary/Bush can stamp out the fires.
With rising unemployment, stagnating wages, and more and more Americans feeling that the system
isn't interested in them, or their children, there may very well be a little hell to pay, or a
lot.
@ 14 It won't surprise you to learn I think you're wrong about Trump. The battle against Trump
is for many a rejection of what they see in the mirror transposed onto Trump, as far as males
go. Many women, including some who support him, see in Trump a dangerous predator who offers the
promise of protection and wealth, but at a cost. Good thing no woman would ever sell herself,
or her principles, to such a man – and if Bill Clinton pops into your head, please don't blame
me.
Which is why, in this instance, I think the polls are wrong. Who in their right mind is
going to ever admit that Trump's language and behavior is not offensive? Nobody. Who in their
right mind looks out at America and sees Donald Trump, not Bill Cosby etc, etc, etc as a threat
to their own daughters, sisters, sons, etc? Which is why, in the end, enough voters are going
to say no thanks to Hillary and roll the dice with Donald.
I like your question re: Cruz. I find him such a phenomenally transparent phony that I can't
quite believe anyone trusts him. With Trump, and Bill Clinton, what you see is what you get –
Slick Willie.
At the moment Americans are being told they don't like what they see in Trump, but if that
were the case, why was he so popular back when he was actually on the Howard Stern show and otherwise
acting out? I frankly don't think most Americans give a toss what Trump did or said this week,
much less ten years ago. The stink coming out of the Clinton campaign is so rank it's actually
penetrating the media wall of silence. Given that social media provides numerous ways for candidates
to bypass the gate-keepers, I suspect enough voters are learning what's in the emails whether
CNN, or the Wapo, report the discoveries, or not.
Like I said. I think it will be close and right now I still say Trump edges it.
"One of your prime objectives," J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, said in one memo,
"should be to neutralize ... the New Left movement."
Notable quotes:
"... First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc. ..."
"... Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and intelligence services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and resilient prior. ..."
First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is
very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their
mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.
This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies
becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".
There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:
I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually
existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state
uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless
entourage.
Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community itself
with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward Russia
stance, which might not be shared by others.
Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised
computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.
I can't claim that a mere mortal like me actually has the slightest clue what is really going
on. All I will hazard is that, whatever it is, it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation
schemes.
Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and
intelligence services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and
resilient prior.
"... There are a variety of potential threats around the world today: tensions in the South China Seas, a nuclear North Korea, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and civil wars in the Middle East are just a few. In order to better think about these challenges and how they relate to U.S. national security, the Center for the National Interest partnered with the Charles Koch Institute to host a foreign policy roundtable which addressed the question: What is the most pressing issue for America's foreign policy? ..."
"... Mearsheimer argues that the second problematic dimension of U.S. foreign policy is that the United States is "heavily into transformation." By "transformation," Mearsheimer means that "We believe that what we should do in the process of running the world is topple governments that are not liberal democracies and transform them into [neo]liberal democracies." ..."
"... according to Mearsheimer, the United States is pursuing "a hopeless cause; there is a huge literature that makes it clear that promoting democracy around the world is extremely difficult to do, and doing it at the end of a rifle barrel is almost impossible." ..."
"... "It's remarkably difficult to understand why we still continue to think we can dominate the world and pursue the same foreign policy we've been pursuing at least since 2001, when it has led to abject failure after abject failure." ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich opines that the United States needs to "come to some understanding of who we are and why we do these things – a critical understanding of the American identity." Notre Dame's Michael Desch agrees: "That cuts to the core of American political culture. I think the root of the hubris is deep in the software that animates how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the world." ..."
There are a variety of potential threats around the world today: tensions in the South China
Seas, a nuclear North Korea, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and civil wars in the Middle East
are just a few. In order to better think about these challenges and how they relate to U.S. national
security, the Center for the National Interest partnered with the Charles Koch Institute to host
a foreign policy roundtable which addressed the question: What is the most pressing issue for America's
foreign policy?
Watch the rest of the videos in the "Grand Strategy" series.
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago doesn't shy away from a bold answer: The most pressing
issue is that the United States has a "fundamentally misguided foreign policy." Mearsheimer argues
that there are two dimensions to U.S. foreign policy that get the United States into "big trouble."
First, he says, "We believe that we can dominate the globe, that we can control what happens in every
nook and cranny of the world." The problem with this is that "the world is simply too big and nationalism
is much too powerful of a force to make it possible for us to come close to doing that."
Mearsheimer argues that the second problematic dimension of U.S. foreign policy is that the United
States is "heavily into transformation." By "transformation," Mearsheimer means that "We believe
that what we should do in the process of running the world is topple governments that are not liberal
democracies and transform them into [neo]liberal democracies."
The United States has engaged in numerous international military interventions over the past fifteen
years, primarily in the Middle East. Proponents of these interventions argue that they are necessary
in order to build stable democracies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. However, according to Mearsheimer,
the United States is pursuing "a hopeless cause; there is a huge literature that makes it clear that
promoting democracy around the world is extremely difficult to do, and doing it at the end of a rifle
barrel is almost impossible."
So why has the United States continued to pursue policies and strategies that fail to convert
U.S. military might into political ends?
Eugene Gholz of the University of Texas at Austin suggests that the root of the issue could be
American hubris. The United States has made the mistake of "thinking we can control things we can't
control." Mearsheimer agrees with Gholz, although he finds the situation perplexing: "It's remarkably
difficult to understand why we still continue to think we can dominate the world and pursue the same
foreign policy we've been pursuing at least since 2001, when it has led to abject failure after abject
failure."
Several other scholars chime in to offer their own thoughts on this thorny issue. Boston University's
Andrew Bacevich opines that the United States needs to "come to some understanding of who we are
and why we do these things – a critical understanding of the American identity." Notre Dame's Michael Desch agrees: "That cuts to the core of American political culture. I think the root of the hubris
is deep in the software that animates how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the world."
Harvard University's Stephen Walt offers yet another possibility. Walt asks if the U.S. commitment
to its current misguided and damaging foreign policy is due to "deep culture" or if it is result
of "the national security apparatus we built after World War II." Walt thinks it is the latter: the
United States "was not a highly interventionist country until after the Second World War." After
World War II, "we built a large national security state, we had bases everywhere, and then we discovered
that we can't let go of any of that, even though the original reason for building it is gone."
Did the other panelists agree with Walt? Did anyone suggest a different problem as a candidate
for the most pressing issue? Watch the full video above to see and be sure to check out the other
videos of CNI and CKI's panel of nationally acclaimed foreign policy scholars addressing additional
questions.
"... My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders. ..."
"... Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude. ..."
"... Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to me. ..."
"... In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and double dealing are still too fresh. ..."
"... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
"That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse."
Because of economic stagnation and anxiety among lower class Republicans. Trump blames immigration
and trade unlike traditional elite Republicans. These are economic issues.
Trump supporters no longer believe or trust the Republican elite who they see as corrupt
which is partly true. They've been backing Nixon, Reagan, Bush etc and things are just getting
worse. They've been played.
Granted it's complicated and partly they see their side as losing and so are doubling down
on the conservatism, racism, sexism etc. But Trump *brags* that he was against the Iraq war.
That's not an elite Republican opinion.
likbez -> DrDick... , -1
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican
brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after
so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to
me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern
this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that
Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and
double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control
of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be
otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks.
This strange statement of DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE means direct involvement of Us
intelligence agencies in the US election.
Notable quotes:
"... Not to worry. The "Intelligence Community" (USIC) has it all figured out. ..."
"... Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia. Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight Step three: ?? anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 12:10 PM Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia. Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight Step three: ?? [ Step three could be terrifying if the new Washington and media Cold Warriors and McCarthyists continue on their way. Democrats have become wild, militarist Republicans on foreign affairs, so where is any counter to come from? ..."
"... TIME, the Economist, and the New Yorker have all now published covers portraying Putin as a scary, Evil menace ..."
"... This could be a poster for a horror movie. But it's just the sane, sober, centrist @TheEconomist, doing what they do best ..."
"... The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities. ..."
"... The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the media and the DNC and used them to their advantage? ..."
"... The upshot of the WikiLeaks Podesta emails is to DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS as an independent source of disclosure. ..."
"... http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/ "One of the first leaked files had been modified on a computer using Russian-language settings by a user named "Feliks Dzerzhinsky." Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police" ..."
"... From the Esquire article: "Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator... was particularly prolific. Hours after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious." For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly. ..."
"... First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. ..."
"... The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.... ..."
"... Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake! ..."
"... Keith B. Alexander: "Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense." ..."
"... Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" ..."
"... DNI Clapper "No, sir." ..."
"... Historically it was the USA that started cyberwar and who developed the most advanced capabilities in this space. Remember the worm which tried to subvert functionality of Iranian centrifuges electronics using specially designed malware and Trojans like Flame? ..."
"... So the first suspect should internal (kind of Snowden II), not external. There was also a story with an alternative viewpoint: http://www.amtvmedia.com/why-nsa-may-have-leaked-dnc-emails/ ..."
"... There were also rumors about FOXACID - The NSA's hacking program getting into DNC hands. http://investmentwatchblog.com/warning-trump-fans-be-careful-possible-leaked-info-on-plans-to-attack-trump-supporters/ ..."
"... Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protected it, everybody else be damned. ..."
"... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
"... More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?): Edward Snowden: "...the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. … Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back." ..."
"... "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony." ..."
"... My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles. ..."
"... In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary. ..."
It's Trump's Party, by Paul Krugman, NY Times : ...Everyone who endorsed Mr. Trump in the
past owns him now... And voters should realize that voting for any Trump endorser is, in effect,
a vote for Trump_vs_deep_state, whatever happens at the top of the ticket.
Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia.
Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight
Step three: ??
[ Step three could be terrifying if the new Washington and media Cold Warriors and McCarthyists
continue on their way. Democrats have become wild, militarist Republicans on foreign affairs,
so where is any counter to come from? ]
When I need to be reminded of just how afraid of the new McCarthyists I have to be, I will
look to the crazily prejudiced cover of The Economist and remember that I have yet to come
across a complaint by any academic economist.
No matter though, as I keep promising I will be naming names. I have my list, and am steadily
writing down names to name and name names from morning to evening I surely will.
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed
the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political
organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and
WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations
of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US
election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and
techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe,
based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials
could have authorized these activities.
The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is
there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the
media and the DNC and used them to their advantage?
I'm shocked, shocked that there is backroom power politics going on in a political campaign!
The upshot of the WikiLeaks Podesta emails is to DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS as an independent
source of disclosure.
Why would Putin want to do that? Why would CLAPPER want to do that?
The Russian connect was not "revealed" by NSA alone and the evidence for anybody who understand
computers and "trails" is quite strong.
The fact that the initial "leaks" were not such a big deal was no surprise. Given Julian's
desperate need to not get Clinton into the White house, you would expect him to save the most
juicy stuff until a few days before the election.
From the Esquire article: "Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator... was particularly prolific.
Hours after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious."
For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly.
First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very
strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth
shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.
This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies
becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".
There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:
I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually
existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state
uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless
entourage.
Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community itself
with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward Russia
stance, which might not be shared by others.
Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised
computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and
by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed
efforts....
-- Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security
and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security
[ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made
public, but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency, for
these last 15 years. ]
Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake!
Keith B. Alexander: "Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds
of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute
nonsense."
...
Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of
millions of Americans?"
DNI Clapper "No, sir."
Senator Wyden: "It does not?"
DNI Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps,
collect, but not wittingly."
The [IN]operative word there was "collect" which in NSAspeak does not mean... collect.
Not shocking at all unless you are ignorant about tracing and analyzing hacks. The traces and
approaches are like fingerprints. Nobody in the business have any doubts that the Russians did
this - but they will never give you the details of how they got to that conclusion, because this
is a public website and the hacking wars are like the missile wars, if the other side knows what
you got they can counter it and make your job harder.
The first rule of such activities on state level is to pretend that you are somebody else deliberately
leaving false clues (IP space, keyboard layout, etc), everything that you call traces.
Historically it was the USA that started cyberwar and who developed the most advanced capabilities
in this space. Remember the worm which tried to subvert functionality of Iranian centrifuges electronics
using specially designed malware and Trojans like Flame?
Using botnets essentially gives anybody substantial freedom about what IP space you want to
use. You can pretend to be Russian if you want to and use computers from Russian IP space.
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.
Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something
that does relate to Krugmans post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over
the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately though the Democratic Party hasn't
been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations.
likbez -> Sandwichman... October 24, 2016 at 06:05 PM
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."
Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call
the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their
'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protected it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative
of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior the we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?): Edward Snowden: "...the breaking
point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath
to Congress. … Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back."
Private hackers may be tired of all this Russia friendly "measured response" from the US government
and take the matter of retaliation into their own hands.
"Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee
in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans.
One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses
under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed
justice, and having given false testimony." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper
Oliver Stone's movie was pretty good. I agree with you that the hacked email are pretty "weak
sauce" for the Russians to risk a confrontation with the sole super power. It's possible given
that Putin was upset over Hillary backing the pro-democracy movement publically in recent elections.
"... "I did not receive any questions from CNN, let's just be very clear," a shaky Brazile told Kelly. ..."
"... "I never got documents from CNN," she reiterated, adding that "a lot of those emails I would not give them the time of the day. I've seen so many doctored emails. I've seen things that come from me at two in the morning that I don't even send." (RELATED: DNC Chair Now Says Podesta Emails Were 'Doctored') ..."
"... Brazile then offered to share whatever documents she has. "If there is anything that I have I will share," she said. ..."
"... Martin, the TV One host suspected of giving Brazile the question, gave a convoluted answer last week when asked if he coordinated with Brazile. ..."
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile complained during an interview on Wednesday
that she is being "persecuted" by being asked questions about leaking a town hall question to the
Clinton campaign.
And during the interview, conducted on Fox News after the presidential debate, Brazile said that
her interviewer, Megyn Kelly, was "like a thief" because her questions cited emails that were stolen
from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and released by Wikileaks.
"From time to time I get the questions in advance," Brazile wrote in a March 12 email to Clinton's
communications director, Jennifer Palmieri.
The question, which was about the death penalty, was asked of Clinton by Roland Martin, a host
with TV One, which co-hosted the debate with CNN.
"I did not receive any questions from CNN, let's just be very clear," a shaky Brazile told Kelly.
"Where did you get it?" the host shot back.
"First of all what information are you providing to me that will let me see what you are talking
about?" said Brazile.
She grew more defensive.
"As a Christian woman I understand persecution, but I will not sit here and be persecuted because
your information is totally false," the operative said.
"Podesta's emails were stolen. You're like the thief that what's to bring into the night what
you found in the gutter," she continued.
"I am not going to try to validate falsified information. I have my documents, I have my files,"
Brazile told Kelly.
"I never got documents from CNN," she reiterated, adding that "a lot of those emails I would not
give them the time of the day. I've seen so many doctored emails. I've seen things that come from
me at two in the morning that I don't even send."
(RELATED: DNC Chair Now Says Podesta Emails Were 'Doctored')
Brazile then offered to share whatever documents she has. "If there is anything that I have I will share," she said.
Brazile did not return an email from The Daily Caller asking how she plans to prove that she did
not send the question to Palmieri.
Martin, the TV One host suspected of giving Brazile the question, gave a convoluted answer last
week when asked if he coordinated with Brazile.
Update: Brazile responded to TheDC's questions about the town hall questions and about her comments
in the interview with Megyn Kelly.
Asked if she would make good on her pledge to share the information she has and why she refused
to say that TV One was not the source of the town hall question, she responded: "You're so unprofessional."
TheDC followed up on the questions.
"Ask where the doctored videos were made. Chinese or Russians," Brazile responded.
It was painful watching Donna Brazile get caught in Megan Kelly's cross examination. She (Donna)
was loyal to a fault, making herself look like an idiot, a very sad idiot, when she claimed the
emails had been doctored.
"... I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato ..."
"... A very interesting and pretty plausible hypothesis... That actually is the most deep insight I got from this interesting discussion. In such case intelligence agencies are definitely a part of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" which is yet another explanation of their strange behavior. ..."
"... it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation schemes. ..."
I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal
Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato.
Reply
Monday, October 24, 2016 at 02:11 PM
> ...some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about
re-assessing Nato.
A very interesting and pretty plausible hypothesis... That actually is the most deep insight
I got from this interesting discussion. In such case intelligence agencies are definitely a part
of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" which is yet another explanation of their strange behavior.
I can't claim that a mere mortal like me actually has the slightest clue what is really going
on. All I will hazard is that, whatever it is, it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation
schemes.
Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and intelligence
services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and resilient
prior.
"... the discontent that motivates the Trump voters seems less likely to just vanish. We seem to be in the midst of a realignment of both UK and US politics, of which Trump and Farrage are just symptoms ..."
"... Trump should be defeated according to most here. Some may actually believe Trump really is the anti-Christ Hitler we've been constantly told he is, instead of a widely watched and often admired vulgarian capitalist welcomed into living rooms across America for more than a decade. Whatever Trump is, he's not Cruz. His supporters are not Cruz supporters. Yet. ..."
"... Which is why, in this instance, I think the polls are wrong. Who in their right mind is going to ever admit that Trump's language and behavior is not offensive? Nobody. Who in their right mind looks out at America and sees Donald Trump, not Bill Cosby etc, etc, etc as a threat to their own daughters, sisters, sons, etc? Which is why, in the end, enough voters are going to say no thanks to Hillary and roll the dice with Donald. ..."
"... The stink coming out of the Clinton campaign is so rank it's actually penetrating the media wall of silence. Given that social media provides numerous ways for candidates to bypass the gate-keepers, I suspect enough voters are learning what's in the emails whether CNN, or the Wapo, report the discoveries, or not. ..."
"... On most wedge issues, Trump is running as a bog-standard Republican conservative, and he's losing on those issues. ..."
"... Indeed I see the synthesis of neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism as the final consolidation of conservatism and the end of what we have understood as history – the final triumph of capitalism as it dies. ..."
"... The right has also succeeded in the same way to reduce consumer rights. Arbitration agreements are attached to almost everything you buy that needs an agreement (software, mobile phones, etc.) before use. The agreements not only mandate secret arbitration they also prevent consumers from banding together in order to form a class thus making each individual consumer litigate alone. Obviously this reduces the power of individual consumers and also decreases the incentive for any one consumer to do something about what, on the individual level, may be a small injury. Basically it allows business to steal a small amount from a lot of people. ..."
"... On the "economy", "taxes", and, "foreign affairs" the respondents "trust" the GOP more than the Dems. Though on one key measure "caring about people like you" the Dems are trusted over the GOP by a slight margin. ..."
"... The reduction of marginal income tax rates on the highest "wage" incomes combined with new doctrines of corporate business leadership that emphasized the maximization of shareholder value created a new class of C-suite business executives occupying positions of great political power as allies and servants of the rentier class of Capital owners. The elaborate structures of financial repression and mutual finance were systematically demolished, removing many of the protections from financial predation afforded the working and middle classes. ..."
"... she's the least popular Democratic candidate perhaps ever! That's the only reason it would be close. A party built around the principles of white male supremacy and dedicated to expanding the wealth and income gap is at a massive disadvantage in any non-gerrymandered election. ..."
"... It is striking to me how even on the left the discussion of U.S. militarism and imperialism has been marginalized and does not come up much in casual conversation. We had an active peace movement through the worst days of the Cold War, and then there was a bit of a resurgence of it in response to the Iraq War. But Obama's acceptance of the core assumptions of the 'War on Terror' (even as he waged it more responsibly) seems to have led to the war party co-opting the liberals as well until there is no longer an effective opposition. The rhetoric of 'humanitarian intervention' has been hugely successful in that effort. ..."
Trump himself will go away, I think. But the discontent that motivates the Trump voters
seems less likely to just vanish. We seem to be in the midst of a realignment of both UK and US
politics, of which Trump and Farrage are just symptoms. Farrage has already made an attempt
at retiring from politics, and I could easily see Trump going back to reality television after
the election. The real question is: what will their supporters do next?
I am also surprised that Corey thinks feminism and the civil rights movement has been defeated.
These seem to me to be areas in which some progress has been made (along with other forms of identity
politics, e.g. gay marriage). It's been the class-based labour/union movement that's been the
real loser.
Possibly it depends on which time scale you're talking about, and that some of us now count
as old people, in that our implicit timescale is over our lifetimes. Maybe young college students
think that all the progress made by feminism happened before they were even born, and things have
slowed down of late. (With a slight hat-tip to Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions
, I could easily see some further progress on feminist issues being made simply by the older
guys in management positions dying off, and being replaced by younger people who grew up in a
different culture),
I disagree with the basic premise of the post in that the right has been beaten because it
has won.
That's certainly not how the right sees the landscape. The tea party of 2010 was co-opted by
Richard Armey and the Kochs on the one hand and buried under a mountain of forms by Lois Lerner
on the other. The Armey group rallies to Ted Cruz, who is sure to have something to say about
America and the future of the Republican party should Trump be undone because of his lewd behavior
and actions.
The media is certain to be savaged no matter what the outcome. The number of artists and musicians
who both profit from and promote misogyny and violence invited to the WH over the last 8 years
to serve as role models for America's youth should raise nary an eyebrow. The prudery of the moment
is going to be the template for 'social reform' under the Republicans. If Hillary and her
media allies succeed in derailing the Trump insurgency via his mouth, his hands, and his zipper
they're going to face an extremely hostile electorate. Cruz is certain to try to step into Trump's
shoes as leader, preaching that Trump was a flawed messenger undone by an unforgiving god. This
will make sense for too many Americans to completely ignore. The unhappy white males who have
yet to self-identify as angry white males, rather than simply as Americans, may well decide to
do so.
Whatever few victories the Democrats enjoy lower down the ticket are unlikely to survive skyrocketing
Affordable Care Act premiums, some form of amnesty, and an extension of America's wars in the
ME. The Democrats are betting the farm that Republicans will never unlock the padlock Democrats
maintain over socially-conservative minorities. Cruz's ground game and networking with the evangelical
community didn't get the job done in 2016, but we can be sure that he and his team are already
mapping 2020.
Trump should be defeated according to most here. Some may actually believe Trump really
is the anti-Christ Hitler we've been constantly told he is, instead of a widely watched and often
admired vulgarian capitalist welcomed into living rooms across America for more than a decade.
Whatever Trump is, he's not Cruz. His supporters are not Cruz supporters. Yet.
I've no idea whether those supporting the Democratic candidate expect her to wake up on November
9, should she win, and suddenly decide to abandon the practices that got her this far. I certainly
don't. If you're nauseated at the prospect of 4-8 more years of secrecy, war, lies, and corruption
you're going to need to keep more than barf bags at hand, however. The polarization that has divided
America over the last 8 years is, imho, far more likely to become much more corrosive and
damaging with Democrats in charge.
Ted Cruz will literally be burning crosses and probably books, pornography, and anyone/thing
else that strikes his fancy. The donor class is praying that Hillary/Bush can stamp out the fires.
With rising unemployment, stagnating wages, and more and more Americans feeling that the system
isn't interested in them, or their children, there may very well be a little hell to pay, or a
lot.
kidneystones 10.24.16 at 12:37 pm @ 14
It won't surprise you to learn I think you're wrong about Trump. The battle against Trump is
for many a rejection of what they see in the mirror transposed onto Trump, as far as males go.
Many women, including some who support him, see in Trump a dangerous predator who offers the promise
of protection and wealth, but at a cost. Good thing no woman would ever sell herself, or her principles,
to such a man – and if Bill Clinton pops into your head, please don't blame me.
Which is why, in this instance, I think the polls are wrong. Who in their right mind is
going to ever admit that Trump's language and behavior is not offensive? Nobody. Who in their
right mind looks out at America and sees Donald Trump, not Bill Cosby etc, etc, etc as a threat
to their own daughters, sisters, sons, etc? Which is why, in the end, enough voters are going
to say no thanks to Hillary and roll the dice with Donald.
I like your question re: Cruz. I find him such a phenomenally transparent phony that I can't
quite believe anyone trusts him. With Trump, and Bill Clinton, what you see is what you get –
Slick Willie.
At the moment Americans are being told they don't like what they see in Trump, but if that
were the case, why was he so popular back when he was actually on the Howard Stern show and otherwise
acting out? I frankly don't think most Americans give a toss what Trump did or said this week,
much less ten years ago.
The stink coming out of the Clinton campaign is so rank it's actually penetrating the media
wall of silence. Given that social media provides numerous ways for candidates to bypass the gate-keepers,
I suspect enough voters are learning what's in the emails whether CNN, or the Wapo, report the
discoveries, or not.
Like I said. I think it will be close and right now I still say Trump edges it.
Layman 10.24.16 at 12:55 pm
"Clinton will win easily, but it could easily be argued that the victory will be over
Trump the man than over any ideology. If Clinton were running against Cruz – who on any reasonable
measure is well to the right of Trump – would she be 20 points ahead with women?"
Hard to find more recent polling than this; but based on this, women would solidly still prefer
Clinton over Cruz.
I also doubt that notion that it is Trump's vulgarity, on its own, rather than Republican conservative
ideology which is driving the likely result. Trump does himself no favors, but Clinton's negatives
hold her back, too. On most wedge issues, Trump is running as a bog-standard Republican conservative,
and he's losing on those issues.
Which is why, in the end, enough voters are going to say no thanks to Hillary and roll the
dice with Donald.
What odds would you accept on this outcome?
SusanC 10.24.16 at 2:26 pm @20.
Indeed. There's a difference between a biased sample and the oversampling technique. The difference
being that with oversampling you statistically correct for the fact that you've intentionally
sampled some subpopulation more frequently than you would have done if you just chose members
of the whole population uniformly at random (while a biased sample just ignores or is ignorant
of the problem…)
(I hope this isn't too much of a derail. There is a grand CT tradition of yawn-not-that-again
OPs with derails where you might learn something).
I am not sanguine about the apparent collapse of this version (Trump) of American fascism. If
conservatism can be said to be that which argues for the preservation of traditional social institutions
and traditional political values then conservatism is far from dying. Indeed I see the synthesis
of neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism as the final consolidation of conservatism and the end
of what we have understood as history – the final triumph of capitalism as it dies.
Bernard Yomtov 10.24.16 at 3:59 pm
the reason I think the right has not much of a future is that it has won. If you consider its
great animating energies since the New Deal-anti-labor, anti-civil rights, and anti-feminism-the
right has achieved a considerable amount of success.
I agree with dd that this is just wrong. Are labor, the civil rights movement, women's rights,
worse than they were at the end of the New Deal? I don't see how.
The right has won or is winning in an some ways on labor and civil rights issues by changing the
procedure by which one can assert the rights that may exist.
The number of strikes are down as someone else mentioned. But the Right has also largely succeeded
in reducing the ability of individual employees to engage in private actions to vindicate their
rights. E.g. the huge increase in enforceable arbitration agreements in what are essentially contracts
of adhesion. The Right has solidified the ability of business to prevent employees from using
the independent, publicly funded judiciary, and instead forces them to use private, secretive,
arbitrators who essentially work for the companies (because the business is a repeat player and
the arbitrators rely on being chosen to arbitrate in order to make their money).
The right has also succeeded in the same way to reduce consumer rights. Arbitration agreements
are attached to almost everything you buy that needs an agreement (software, mobile phones, etc.)
before use. The agreements not only mandate secret arbitration they also prevent consumers from
banding together in order to form a class thus making each individual consumer litigate alone.
Obviously this reduces the power of individual consumers and also decreases the incentive for
any one consumer to do something about what, on the individual level, may be a small injury. Basically
it allows business to steal a small amount from a lot of people.
In regards to Clinton and her chances against any other Republican, here is some polling which
suggests the country at least trust the GOP over the Dems on a number of important issues. It
is from April, 2016 so not the freshest data. But it might indicate Trump's bog standard GOP policies
are not what is driving votes to Clinton/away from Trump.
On the "economy", "taxes", and, "foreign affairs" the respondents "trust" the GOP more
than the Dems. Though on one key measure "caring about people like you" the Dems are trusted over
the GOP by a slight margin.
bruce wilder 10.24.16 at 5:04 pm
Among the most successful projects of the Right was financialization of the economy.
The reduction of marginal income tax rates on the highest "wage" incomes combined with
new doctrines of corporate business leadership that emphasized the maximization of shareholder
value created a new class of C-suite business executives occupying positions of great political
power as allies and servants of the rentier class of Capital owners. The elaborate structures
of financial repression and mutual finance were systematically demolished, removing many of the
protections from financial predation afforded the working and middle classes.
In the current election, the Democratic Party has split on financial reform issues, with the
dominant faction represented by the Party's candidate prioritizing issues of race and gender equality.
"In regards to Clinton and her chances against any other Republican, here is some polling
which suggests the country at least trust the GOP over the Dems on a number of important issues."
I imagine any poll pitting 'generic Republican' against Hillary Clinton in April of this year
would have shown 'generic Republican' winning. The problem is, you can't run 'generic Republican'.
I'm hard pressed to point at any prominent Republican who I think would be handily beating
Clinton now. Once you name them, they have to say what they're for and against, and she takes
her shot at them, and they're fighting an uphill battle. And she's the least popular Democratic
candidate perhaps ever! That's the only reason it would be close. A party built around the principles
of white male supremacy and dedicated to expanding the wealth and income gap is at a massive disadvantage
in any non-gerrymandered election.
PGD 10.24.16 at 6:28 pm
It is striking to me how even on the left the discussion of U.S. militarism and imperialism
has been marginalized and does not come up much in casual conversation. We had an active peace
movement through the worst days of the Cold War, and then there was a bit of a resurgence of it
in response to the Iraq War. But Obama's acceptance of the core assumptions of the 'War on Terror'
(even as he waged it more responsibly) seems to have led to the war party co-opting the liberals
as well until there is no longer an effective opposition. The rhetoric of 'humanitarian intervention'
has been hugely successful in that effort.
One of the most depressing things about this election campaign to me has been to see
the Democrats using their full spectrum media dominance not to fight for a mandate for left policies,
but to run a coordinated and effective propaganda campaign for greater U.S. military involvement
in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, focusing on demonizing Putin and on humanitarian intervention
rhetoric around Aleppo and the like.
Qatar, like most Muslim countries, treats women as second-class citizens, but
champion-of-women Hillary never lets a little thing like that stop her from doing business. (See:
"On favors.") And a far greater threat than murderous Muslims adhering to a fanatical 7th-century
religious ideology lurks right here at home - those pesky Roman Catholics and their silly
2,000-year-old faith. (See: "On Catholics.")
Lloyd Blankfein is all in for HRC, so we know what sort of
economy we will get.
The Clinton administration will have a
tough balance, throwing enough crumbs to the left to keep
them happy while giving payback for the speaking fees.
Before Anne demands that you identify who this is - let me
help. Lloyd Craig Blankfein is an American business
executive. He is the CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs.
Now
was that so hard? As for "we know what sort of economy we
will get". No Rusty - we do not know WTF you mean by this. So
get to it as man splain this to us.
Since both major parties are owned by plutocrats, we get a
choice between quicker or slower misery. And since Hillary is
in bed with the neocons, we also get the probability of major
conflagration or US oppression of the globe.
If a
progressive/populist revolt doesn't change the current path
we are all screwed.
Last week, Jame O'keefe and Project Veritas Action potentially
altered the course of the U.S. election, or at a minimum raised serious doubts about the practices of the Clinton campaign and
the DNC, after releasing two undercover videos that revealed efforts of democrat operatives to incite violence at republican rallies
and commit "mass voter fraud." While democrats have vehemently denied the authenticity of the videos, two democratic operatives,
Robert Creamer and Scott Foval, have both been forced to resign over the allegations.
Many democrats made the rounds on various mainstream media outlets over the weekend in an attempt to debunk the Project Veritas
videos. Unfortunately for them, O'Keefe fired back with warnings that part 3 of his multi-part series was forthcoming and would
implicate Hillary Clinton directly.
Anything happens to me, there's a deadman's switch on Part III, which will be released Monday.
@HillaryClinton and
@donnabrazile implicated.
Now, we have the 3rd installment of O'Keefe's videos which does seemingly reveal direct coordination between Hillary Clinton,
Donna Brazile, Robert Creamer and Scott Foval to organize a smear campaign over Trump's failure to release his tax returns. Per
Project Veritas :
Part III of the undercover Project Veritas Action investigation dives further into the back room dealings of Democratic
politics. It exposes prohibited communications between Hillary Clinton's campaign, the DNC and the non-profit organization
Americans United for Change. And, it's all disguised as a duck. In this video, several Project Veritas Action undercover journalists
catch Democracy Partners founder directly implicating Hillary Clinton in FEC violations. " In the end, it was the candidate,
Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground," says Creamer in one of several
exchanges. "So, by God, we would get ducks on the ground." It is made clear that high-level DNC operative Creamer realized
that this direct coordination between Democracy Partners and the campaign would be damning when he said: "Don't repeat that
to anybody."
Within the video both Clinton and Brazile are directly implicated by Creamer during the following exchange:
"The duck has to be an Americans United for Change entity. This had to do only with some problem between Donna Brazile and
ABC, which is owned by Disney, because they were worried about a trademark issue. That's why. It's really silly.
We originally launched this duck because Hillary Clinton wants the duck .
In any case, so she really wanted this duck figure out there doing this stuff, so that was fine. So, we put all these ducks
out there and got a lot of coverage. And Trump taxes. And then ABC/Disney went crazy because they thought our original slogan
was 'Donald ducks his taxes, releasing his tax returns."
They said it was a trademark issue. It's not, but anyway, Donna Brazile had a connection with them and she didn't want to
get sued. So we switched the ownership of the duck to Americans United for Change and now our signs say 'Trump ducks releasing
his tax returns.' And we haven't had anymore trouble."
As Project Veritas points out, this direct coordination between Clinton, Brazile and Americans United For Change is a violation
of federal election laws:
"The ducks on the ground are likely 'public communications' for purposes of the law. It's political activity opposing Trump,
paid for by Americans United For Change funds but controlled by Clinton/her campaign."
"As Project Veritas points out, this direct coordination between Clinton, Brazile and Americans United For Change is a violation
of federal election laws "
Yeah, you pretty much got the head shot there. Unfortunately, no gun to shoot it from. The enforcement authorities all work
FOR the Democrat party.
Full spectrum dominance. It's a bitch. Even if you catch them red-haned there's no "authorities" to report it to that will
listen to you.
Remember what happened to Planned Parenthood when they were caught red-handed selling human tissue for profit (which is also
illegal)? That's right. Nothing. Same thing here.
The problem is that the MSM isn't reporting on any of this stuff about Hillary. And, the Republicans in office aren't on the news
at all to talk about any of this. So, the only place it is reported is on the Trump campaign trail where just a few thousand hear
about.
If the media won't report it and the Republicans won't talk about it, Hillary gets a pass. The audience for sites like ZH and
Drudge are just preaching to the chior and not reaching the people who could change their minds or haven't made up their minds.
froze25 -> ImGumbydmmt •Oct 24, 2016 3:40 PM
What this video is, is evidence of collusion between a campaign and a SuperPac. That is illegal in a criminal court. This is enough
to open an investigation, problem is nothing will be done by Nov 8th. All we can do is share it non-stop.
Bastiat d Haus-Targaryen •Oct 24, 2016 2:11 PM
Don't discount the Enquirer: remember who took down Gary Hart and John Edwards:
Hillary Clinton's shady Mr. Fix It will tell all on TV tonight, just days after his explosive confession in The National ENQUIRER
hit the stands.
The man who's rocked Washington, D.C., will join Sean Hannity on tonight's episode of "Hannity" - airing on the FOX News Channel
at 10 p.m. EST - to reveal his true identity at last.
"... Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, helped steer $675,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an FBI official who went on to lead the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email system, according to a report. ..."
"... The money directed by McAuliffe began flowing two months after the FBI investigation into Clinton began in July 2015. Around that time, the candidate's husband was promoted from running the Washington field office for the FBI to the No. 3 position at the bureau. ..."
"... In a statement to the Journal, the FBI said McCabe "played no role, attended no events, and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind. Months after the completion of her campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position, he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton's emails." ..."
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, helped steer $675,000 to the
election campaign of the wife of an FBI official who went on to lead the probe into Hillary
Clinton's use of a private email system, according to a report.
The political action committee of McAuliffe, the Clinton loyalist, gave $467,500 to the state
Senate campaign of the wife of Andrew McCabe, who is now deputy director of the FBI, according to
the Wall Street Journal.
The report states Jill McCabe received an additional $207,788 from the Virginia Democratic Party,
which is heavily influenced by McAuliffe.
The money directed by McAuliffe began flowing two months after the FBI investigation into
Clinton began in July 2015. Around that time, the candidate's husband was promoted from running
the Washington field office for the FBI to the No. 3 position at the bureau.
Within a year, McCabe was promoted to deputy director, the second-highest position in the bureau.
In a statement to the Journal, the FBI said McCabe "played no role, attended no events, and
did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind. Months after the completion of her
campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position,
he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton's
emails."
The governor's office claimed the FBI's McCabe met the governor only once - on March 7, 2015,
when McAuliffe persuaded Jill McCabe to run.
The 2015 Virginia state Senate run - her first attempt to gain public office - was unsuccessful
as she lost to the incumbent Republican.
McAuliffe "supported Jill McCabe because he believed she would be a good state senator. This is a
customary practice for Virginia governors … Any insinuation that his support was tied to anything
other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous," a
spokesman for the Virginia governor told the Journal.
McAuliffe has been a longtime backer of the Clintons, even serving as Hillary Clinton's campaign
chair in 2008.
"... The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes. ..."
"... Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. ..."
"... "Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011. ..."
"... Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war. Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country's Libya policy from start to finish." ..."
"... Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in the Atlantic last summer. ..."
"... Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya. Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war. ..."
"... Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson to Libya or to Syria. ..."
"... The pattern is clear: Hillary Clinton is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under President Obama . Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious interventionism. ..."
Hillary Clinton
can change her views in an instant on trade, guns, gay marriage, and all sorts of issues, but
she's consistent in this: she wants war.
The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined
with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in
Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes.
"I am going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria," Clinton said
Wednesday night. Totally separate from the fight against ISIS, Clinton's "no-fly zones and safe havens"
are U.S. military intervention in the bloody and many-sided conflict between Syria's brutal government,
terrorist groups, and rebel groups.
Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at
the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate that a no-fly zone created "the
potential of a direct conflict with the Syrian integrated air defense system or Syrian forces or,
by corollary, a confrontation with the Russians."
Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified in the same hearing that "safe zones" would require significant
U.S. boots on the ground.
So while Hillary says she doesn't want war with Russia or Syria, or boots on the ground in Syria,
she pushes policies that the Pentagon says risk war and require boots on the ground.
Hillary showed that same cavalier attitude toward war earlier this decade, laughingly
declaring "we came, we
saw, he died." This was her version of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment, and Libya
was her smaller - and less legal - version of Bush's Iraq War.
"Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary
of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011.
Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war.
Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship
of this country's Libya policy from start to finish."
Sullivan listed, point-by-point, how Clinton helped bring about and shape the war. Before Obama's
attack on Moammar Gadhafi, "she [was] a leading voice for strong UNSC action and a NATO civilian
B5 protection mission," the memo explained.
Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization
for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in
the Atlantic last summer.
ISIS has spread, no stable government has arisen, and the chaos has led to refugee and terrorism
crises.
Clinton nevertheless calls her war "smart power at its best," declaring during the primary season,
"I think President
Obama made the right decision at the time."
Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya.
Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running
on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war.
Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war
was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson
to Libya or to Syria.
The pattern is clear:
Hillary Clinton
is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next
president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under
President Obama
. Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious
interventionism.
If Hillary wins big and sweeps in a Senate majority with her, we could be in for four more years
of even more war.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at
[email protected]. His column appears
Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
"... US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US. ..."
"... Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as central to American greatness." ..."
"... President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas. Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency. ..."
"... The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism' because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term. ..."
"... I think we should embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense. ..."
"... Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+ severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E. ..."
"... Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost to the U.S. in human and non-human resources. ..."
Donald Trump played a wily capitalistic trick on his Republican opponents in the primary fights
this year-he served an underserved market.
By now it's a cliché that Trump, while on his way to the GOP nomination, tapped into an unnoticed
reservoir of right-of-center opinion on domestic and economic concerns-namely, the populist-nationalists
who felt left out of the reigning market-libertarianism of the last few decades.
Indeed, of the 17 Republicans who ran this year, Trump had mostly to himself the populist issues:
that is, opposition to open borders, to free trade, and to earned-entitlement cutting. When the other
candidates were zigging toward the familiar-and unpopular-Chamber of Commerce-approved orthodoxy,
Trump was zagging toward the voters.
Moreover, the same sort of populist-nationalist reservoir-tapping was evident in the realm of
foreign affairs. To put it in bluntly Trumpian terms, the New Yorker hit 'em where they weren't.
The fact that Trump was doing something dramatically different became clear in the make-or-break
Republican debate in Greenville, S.C., on February 13. Back in those early days of the campaign,
Trump had lost one contest (Iowa) and won one (New Hampshire), and it was still anybody's guess who
would emerge victorious.
During that debate, Trump took what seemed to be an extraordinary gamble: he ripped into George
W. Bush's national-security record-in a state where the 43rd president was still popular. Speaking
of the Iraq War, Trump said, "George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was
a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East."
And then Trump went further, aiming indirectly at the former president, while slugging his brother
Jeb directly: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign, remember that."
In response, Jeb intoned the usual Republican line, "He kept us safe." And others on the stage
in Greenville that night rushed to associate themselves with Bush 43.
In the aftermath of this verbal melee, many thought that Trump had doomed himself. As one unnamed
Republican "strategist" chortled to Politico , "Trump's attack on President George W. Bush
was galactic-level stupid in South Carolina."
Well, not quite: Trump triumphed in the Palmetto State primary a week later, winning by a 10-point
margin.
Thus, as we can see in retrospect, something had changed within the GOP. After 9/11, in the early
years of this century, South Carolinians had been eager to fight. Yet by the middle of the second
decade, they-or at least a plurality of them-had grown weary of endless foreign war.
Trump's victory in the Palmetto State was decisive, yet it was nevertheless only a plurality,
32.5 percent. Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, running as an unabashed neocon hawk, finished second.
So we can see that the Republican foreign-policy "market" is now segmented. And while Trump proved
effective at targeting crucial segments, they weren't the only segments-because, in actuality, there
are four easily identifiable blocs on the foreign-policy right. And as we delineate these four segments,
we can see that while some are highly organized and tightly articulate, others are loose and inchoate:
First, the libertarians. That is, the Cato Institute and other free-market think tanks, Reason
magazine, and so on. Libertarians are not so numerous around the country, but they are strong
among the intelligentsia.
Second, the old-right "isolationists." These folks, also known as "paleocons," often find common
ground with libertarians, yet their origins are different, and so is their outlook. Whereas the libertarians
typically have issued a blanket anathema to all foreign entanglements, the isolationists have been
more selective. During World War I, for example, their intellectual forbears were hostile to U.S.
involvement on the side of the Allies, but that was often because of specifically anti-English or
pro-German sentiments, not because they felt guided by an overall principle of non-intervention.
Indeed, the same isolationists were often eager to intervene in Latin America and in the Far East.
More recently, the temperamentally isolationist bloc has joined with the libertarians in opposition
to deeper U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Third, the traditional hawks. On the proverbial Main Street, USA, plenty of people-not limited
to the active-duty military, veterans, and law-enforcers-believe that America's national honor is
worth fighting for.
Fourth, the neoconservatives. This group, which takes hawkishness to an avant-garde extreme, is
so praised, and so criticized, that there's little that needs be added here. Yet we can say this:
as with the libertarians, they are concentrated in Washington, DC; by contrast, out beyond the Beltway,
they are relatively scarce. Because of their connections to big donors to both parties, however,
they have been powerful, even preeminent, in foreign-policy circles over the last quarter-century.
Yet today, it's the neocons who feel most threatened by, and most hostile to, the Trump phenomenon.
We can pause to offer a contextual point: floating somewhere among the first three categories-libertarians,
isolationists, hawks-are the foreign-policy realists. These, of course, are the people, following
in the tradition of the great scholar Hans Morgenthau, who pride themselves on seeing the world as
it is, regarding foreign policy as just another application of Bismarckian wisdom-"the art of the
possible."
The realists, disproportionately academics and think-tankers, are a savvy and well-credentialed
group-or, according to critics, cynical and world-weary. Yet either way, they have made many alliances
with the aforementioned trio of groups, even as they have usually maintained their ideological flexibility.
To borrow the celebrated wisdom of the 19th-century realpolitiker Lord Palmerston, realists don't
have permanent attachments; they have permanent interests. And so it seems likely that if Trump wins-or
anyone like Trump in the future-many realists will be willing to emerge from their wood-paneled precincts
to engage in the hurly-burly of public service.
Returning to our basic quartet of blocs, we can quickly see that two of them, the libertarians
and the neocons, have been loudly successful in the "battle of ideas." That is, almost everyone knows
where the libertarians and the neocons stand on the controversies of the moment. Meanwhile, the other
two groups-the isolationists and the traditional hawks-have failed to make themselves heard. That
is, until Trump.
For the most part, the isolationists and hawks have not been organized; they've just been clusters
of veterans, cops, gun owners, and like-minded souls gathering here and there, feeling strongly about
the issues but never finding a national megaphone. Indeed, even organized groups, such as the American
Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, sizable as they might be, have had little impact, of late,
on foreign affairs.
This paradoxical reality-that even big groups can be voiceless, allowing smaller groups to carry
the day-is well understood. Back in 1839, the historian Thomas Carlyle observed of his Britain, "The
speaking classes speak and debate," while the "deep-buried [working] class lies like an Enceladus"-a
mythological giant imprisoned under a volcano. Yet, Carlyle continued, the giant under the volcano
will not stay silent forever; one day it will erupt, and the inevitable eruption "has to produce
earthquakes!"
In our time, Trump has provoked the Enceladus-like earthquake. Over the past year, while the mainstream
media has continued to lavish attention on the fine points of libertarianism and neoconservatism,
the Peoples of the Volcano have blown up American politics.
Trump has spoken loudly to both of his groups. To the isolationists, he has highlighted his past
opposition to the Iraq and Libya misadventures, as well as his suspicions about NATO and other alliances.
(Here the libertarians, too, are on board.) At the same time, he has also talked the language of
the hawks, as when he has said, "Take the oil" and "Bomb the [bleep] out of them." Trump has also
attacked the Iran nuclear agreement, deriding it as "one of the worst deals ever made."
Thus earlier this year Trump mobilized the isolationists and the hawks, leaving the libertarians
to Rand Paul and the neocons to Rubio.
Now as we move to the general election, it appears that Trump has kept the loyalty of his core
groups. Many libertarians, meanwhile, are voting for Gary Johnson-the former Republican governor
at the top of the Libertarian Party's ticket-and they are being joined, most likely as a one-off,
by disaffected Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, the neocons, most of them, have become the objective
allies, if not the overt supporters, of Hillary Clinton.
Even if Trump loses, his energized supporters, having found their voice, will be a new and important
force within the GOP-a force that could make it significantly harder for a future president to, say,
"liberate" and "democratize" Syria.
♦♦♦
Yet now we must skip past the unknown unknowns of the election and ask: what might we expect if
Trump becomes president?
One immediate point to be borne in mind is that it will be a challenge to fill the cabinet and
the sub-cabinet-to say nothing of the thousands of "Schedule C" positions across the administration-with
true Trump loyalists. Yes, of course, if Trump wins that means he will have garnered 50 million or
more votes, but still, the number of people who have the right credentials and can pass all the background
checks-including, for most of the top jobs, Senate confirmation-is minuscule.
So here we might single out the foreign-policy realists as likely having a bright future in a
Trump administration: after all, they are often well-credentialed and, by their nature, have prudently
tended to keep their anti-Trump commentary to a minimum. (There's a piece of inside-the-Beltway realist
wisdom that seems relevant here: "You're for what happens.")
Yet the path to realist dominion in a Trump administration is not smooth. As a group, they have
been in eclipse since the Bush 41 era, so an entire generation of their cadres is missing. The realists
do not have long lists of age-appropriate alumni ready for another spin through the revolving door.
By contrast, the libertarians have lots of young staffers on some think-tank payroll or another.
And of course, the neocons have lots of experience and contacts-yes, they screwed up the last time
they were in power, but at least they know the jargon.
Thus, unless president-elect Trump makes a genuinely heroic effort to infuse his administration
with new blood, he will end up hiring a lot of folks who might not really agree with him-and who
perhaps even have strongly, if quietly, opposed him. That means that the path of a Trump presidency
could be channeled in an unexpected direction, as the adherents of other foreign-policy schools-including,
conceivably, schools from the left-clamber aboard. As they say in DC, "personnel is policy."
Still, Trump has a strong personality, and it's entirely possible that, as president, he will
succeed in imprinting his unique will on his appointees. (On the other hand, the career government,
starting with the State Department's foreign service officers, might well prove to be a different
story.)
Looking further ahead, as a hypothetical President Trump surveys the situation from the Sit Room,
here are nine things that will be in view:
1.
Trump will recall, always, that the Bush 43 presidency drove itself into a ditch on Iraq. So he
will surely see the supreme value of not sending U.S. ground troops-beyond a few advisors-into Middle
Eastern war zones.
2.
Trump will also realize that Barack Obama, for all his talk about hope and change, ended up preserving
the bulk of Bush 43's policies. The only difference is that Obama did it on the cheap, reducing defense
spending as he went along.
Obama similar to Bush-really? Yes. To be sure, Obama dropped all of Bush's democratic messianism,
but even with his cool detachment he kept all of Bush's alliances and commitments, including those
in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then he added a new international commitment: "climate change."
In other words, America now has a policy of "quintuple containment": Russia, China, Iran, ISIS/al-Qaeda,
and, of course, the carbon-dioxide molecule. Many would argue that today we aren't managing any of
these containments well; others insist that the Obama administration, perversely, seems most dedicated
to the containment of climate change: everything else can fall apart, but if the Obamans can maintain
the illusion of their international CO2 deals, as far as they are concerned all will be well.
In addition, Uncle Sam has another hundred or so minor commitments-including bilateral defense
treaties with countries most Americans have never heard of, along with special commitments to champion
the rights of children, women, dissidents, endangered species, etc. On a one-by-one basis, it's possible
to admire many of these efforts; on a cumulative basis, it's impossible to imagine how we can sustain
all of them.
3. A populist president like Trump will further realize that if the U.S. has just 4 percent of the
world's population and barely more than a fifth of world GDP, it's not possible that we can continue
to police the planet. Yes, we have many allies-on paper. Yet Trump's critique of many of them as
feckless, even faithless, resonated for one big reason: it was true.
So Trump will likely begin the process of rethinking U.S. commitments around the world. Do we
really want to risk nuclear war over the Spratly Islands? Or the eastern marches of Ukraine? Here,
Trump might well default to the wisdom of the realists: big powers are just that-big powers-and so
one must deal with them in all their authoritarian essentiality. And as for all the other countries
of the world-some we like and some we don't-we're not going to change them, either. (Although in
some cases, notably Iraq and Syria, partition, supervised by the great powers, may be the only solution.)
4.
Trump will surely see world diplomacy as an extension of what he has done best all his life-making
deals. This instinct will serve him well in two ways: first, he will be sharply separating himself
from his predecessors, Bush the hot-blooded unilateralist war-of-choicer and Obama the cool and detached
multilateralist leader-from-behind. Second, his deal-making desire will inspire him do what needs
to be done: build rapport with world leaders as a prelude to making things happen.
To cite one immediate example: there's no way that we will ever achieve anything resembling "peace
with honor" in Afghanistan without the full cooperation of the Taliban's masters in Pakistan. Ergo,
the needed deal must be struck in Islamabad, not Kabul.
Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not as rogue
states that must be single-handedly tamed by America.
Moreover, Trump's deal-making trope also suggests that instead of sacrificing American economic
interests on the altar of U.S. "leadership," he will view the strengthening of the American economy
as central to American greatness.
5.
Trump will further realize that his friends the realists have had a blind spot of late when it
comes to eco nomic matters. Once upon a time-that is, in the 19th century-economic nationalism was
at the forefront of American foreign-policy making. In the old days, as America's Manifest Destiny
stretched beyond the continental U.S., expansionism and Hamiltonianism went together: as they used
to say, trade follows the flag. Theodore Roosevelt's digging of the Panama Canal surely ranks as
one of the most successful fusions of foreign and economic policy in American history.
Yet in the past few decades, the economic nationalists and the foreign-policy realists have drifted
apart. For example, a Reagan official, Clyde Prestowitz of the Economic Strategy Institute, has been
mostly ignored by the realists, who have instead embraced the conventional elite view of free trade
and globalization.
So a President Trump will have the opportunity to reunite realism and economic nationalism; he
can once again put manufacturing exports, for example, at the top of the U.S. agenda. Indeed, Trump
might consider other economic-nationalist gambits: for example, if we are currently defending such
wealthy countries as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Norway, why aren't they investing some of the trillions
of dollars in their sovereign-wealth funds into, say, American infrastructure?
6.
Trump will also come into power realizing that he has few friends in the foreign-policy establishment;
after all, most establishmentarians opposed him vehemently. Yet that could turn out to be a real
plus for the 45th president because it could enable him to discard the stodgy and outworn thinking
of the "experts." In particular, he could refute the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always
must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and
even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow. That was
always, of course, a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over
the well-being of the larger U.S. population-and maybe Trump can come up with a better and fairer
vision.
7.
As an instinctive deal-maker, Trump will have the capacity to clear away the underbrush of accumulated
obsolete doctrines and dogmas. To cite just one small but tragic example, there's the dopey chain
of thinking that has guided U.S. policy toward South Sudan. Today, we officially condemn both sides
in that country's ongoing civil war. Yet we might ask, how can that work out well for American interests?
After all, one side or the other is going to win, and we presumably want a friend in Juba, not a
Chinese-affiliated foe.
On the larger canvas, Trump will observe that if the U.S., China, and Russia are the three countries
capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to figure out a modus vivendi among this
threesome. Such practical deal-making, of course, would undermine the moralistic narrative that Xi
Jinping and Vladimir Putin are the potentates of new evil empires.
8.
Whether or not he's currently familiar with the terminology, Trump seems likely to recapitulate
the "multipolar" system envisioned by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Back then,
the multipolar vision included the U.S., the USSR, Western Europe, China, and Japan.
Yet multipolarity was lost in the '80s, as the American economy was Reaganized, the Cold War grew
colder, and the Soviet Union staggered to its self-implosion. Then in the '90s we had the "unipolar
moment," when the U.S. enjoyed "hyper-power" primacy.
Yet as with all moments, unipolarity soon passed, undone by the Iraq quagmire, America's economic
stagnation, and the rise of other powers. So today, multipolarity seems destined to re-emerge with
a slightly upgraded cast of players: the U.S., China, Russia, the European Union, and perhaps India.
9.
And, of course, Trump will have to build that wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
♦♦♦
Some might object that I am reading too much into Trump. Indeed, the conventional wisdom, even
today, maintains that Trump is visceral, not intellectual, that he is buffoonish, not Kissingerian.
To such critics, this Trump supporter feels compelled to respond: when has the conventional wisdom
about the New Yorker been proven correct?
It's not easy to become president. In all of U.S. history, just 42 individuals have been elected
to the presidency-or to the vice presidency and succeeded a fallen president. That is, indeed, an
exclusive club. Or as Trump himself might say, it's not a club for dummies.
If Trump does, in fact, become the 45th president, then by definition, he will have proven himself
to be pretty darn strategic. And that's a portent that bodes well for his foreign policy.
James P. Pinkerton is a contributor to the Fox News Channel.
Among James Pinkerton's most compelling reasons to hope for a Trump presidency are these two:
[1] "Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not
as rogue states that must be single-handedly tamed by America…Trump will observe that if the U.S.,
China, and Russia are the three countries capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to
figure out amodus vivendi among this threesome…"
US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two
powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US.
[2] Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is,
and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its
allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits,
and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the
well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on
the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as
central to American greatness."
President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans
those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas.
Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency.<
The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons
proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism'
because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we
needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone
wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term.
I think we should
embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts
because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense.
Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's
walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+
severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E.
Trump just came across as different while maintaining conservative, albeit middle-American values.
Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish
their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme
Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost
to the U.S. in human and non-human resources.
The song goes on. Trump hit a real nerve. Even if he loses, the American people have had a
small but important victory. We are frustrated with the ruling cabal. A sleeping giant has been
awoken. This election could be the political Perl Harbor….
Pinkerton has spent thousands of words writing about someone who is not the Donald Trump anyone
has ever seen.
In this, he joins every other member of the Right, who wait in hopeful anticipation
to see a Champion for their cause in Donald Trump, and are willing to turn a blind eye to his
ignorance, outright stupidity, lack of self-discipline, and lack of serious intent.
Pinkerton, he will only follow your lead here if he sees what's in it for HIM, not for the
Right and certainly not for the benefit of the American people.
Flawed premise. This opine works its way through the rabbit hole pretzel of current methodologies
in D.C. The ones that don't work. The city of NY had a similar outcome building a certain ice
skating facility within the confines of a system designed to fail.
What Trump does is implode those failed systems, implements a methodology that has proven to
succeed, and then does it. Under budget and before the deadline. Finding the *right* bodies to
make it all work isn't as difficult as is surmised. What that shows is how difficult that task
would be for the author. Whenever I hear some pundit claim that Trump can't possibly do all that
means is the pundit couldn't possibly do it.
The current system is full of youcan'tdoits, what have you got to lose, more of the same?
LOL! "Very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick."
Putin/Russia were by far the most mentioned topics at the debates...yet EMichael has the naivety
to assert that cold war tactics don't matter. What a rube!
As usual, EMichael is as uninformed as ever. For his information, Russia/Putin were mentioned
178 times in the 3 debates, topping the list of topics covered.
By comparison, climate change got four mentions, poverty 10, and US economic performance--hold
onto your hats!--didn't make the list. NSA snooping didn't get mentioned either.
So, EMichael, if Russia/Putin don't matter to voters, why did candidates talk so much about
it? Oh, I know, to distract attention from more serious issues that their paymasters didn't want
them to talk about!
Clinton had attracted a lot of centrist Republicans to her campaign, and I think the hawkish and
old school foreign policy stance has something to do with it.
"... So… Russia is already isolated, its economy is in shreds… or not? Because you can't have isolation (as you, pressitudes, claimed since 2014) of Russia and demand it at the same time! At the same time, no – ignoring Russia completely and talking only about "plox, don't use nukes, m'cay?" is not a "diplomacy". ..."
"... Absolutely schizophrenic Clinton-McFoul (yes, I know that his surname is spelled differently), which is still dominants in the alls of power of the West boils down to the following: ..."
"... 1) Talk harsh (really harsh!) with Russia on things we don't like ..."
"... 2) Cooperate with Russia when it possible as if never happened. ..."
"... And when Russia says that there are direct links between 1) and 2), that you can't expect to get 2) after doing 1) – there is no use to fake a hurt innocence of Ukrainians from this old anecdote with the "А на за що?!" punchline, ..."
"... You want war? You will have one! Want peace? Then behave yourself accodringly. ..."
"... Eli Lake is a dork who used to be the 'National Security Correspondent' for the Daily Beast. You know what a rag that is. Also, he was educated at Trinity College, a private liberal-arts school. ..."
"... I know how we can reach a compromise – me and the Russian government. Every year on the day that article was published, they could have "Eli Lake Day". On that day, an American company could be chosen at random to be kicked out of the country and have all its assets confiscated. The documents could lead off with, "Congratulations! You have been selected to receive the Eli Lake Award for Bankruptcy. You can thank Eli Lake and his big fucking mouth". ..."
Unsurprisingly – this article is from the Blub-blub-bloomberg. What is surprising – it's not by
Lyonya Bershidski. It's by another titan of handshakability – Eli Lake.
Why, surely with the name like that the article must be honest, objective and answer to all
standards of the journalism (in the West)?
I was again surprised when the now standard litany of Kremlin sins suddenly became an accusation
of "Murder, Kidnapping and Jaywalking":
"Russia also poisons the international system in small ways… It continues to support Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov as head of the International Chess Federation, despite his chummy visits to rogue
states like North Korea and Iran. His recent plan to hold the international chess championship
in Iran has drawn protest from the U.S. women's chess champion, Nazi Paikidze-Barnes, because
Iran requires women to cover their heads with a hijab."
Wow. Yet another bottom is crushed successfully and the standards of journalism in the Free
West get new way to fall! Or was it a secret way to endorse a "legitimate" head of the Chess Federation
– fearless Gary Kimovich Kasparov?
With new way to fall achieved by crashing yet another bottom the article takes a plunge:
"Browder last month proposed a plan for Interpol to create a two-tiered system. Speaking
before a human-rights commission in Congress, he said that transparent countries like the U.S.
would have their red notice requests processed immediately, whereas countries like Russia,
known to abuse the system, would have their requests reviewed by a panel of objective and independent
experts before being sent out to member states."
How handshakable! Surely, such approach will demonstrate the equality of countries in the international
relations and the true value of the Rule of Law!
The article ends in – now traditional for all Westie journos – couple of self-contradicting
paragraphs:
"None of this should preclude diplomacy with Russia. The U.S. and Russia should still
have channels to discuss nuclear stockpiles and other matters. But as Secretary of State John
Kerry has learned in his fruitless engagements, Russian promises are worthless. Everyone in
U.S. politics, with the exception of Donald Trump and a few other extremists on the left and
right, understands this. Russia is a pariah.
Pariahs are not asked to cooperate on challenges to the global commons. They shouldn't
get to host events like the World Cup, as Russia is scheduled to do in 2018. They should not
be diplomatic partners in U.S. policy to disarm other pariahs like Iran. No, pariahs should
be quarantined. With Russia, it's the very least the U.S. and its allies can do to save the
international system from a country that seeks to destroy it."
So… Russia is already isolated, its economy is in shreds… or not? Because you can't have
isolation (as you, pressitudes, claimed since 2014) of Russia and demand it at the same time!
At the same time, no – ignoring Russia completely and talking only about "plox, don't use nukes,
m'cay?" is not a "diplomacy".
Absolutely schizophrenic Clinton-McFoul (yes, I know that his surname is spelled differently),
which is still dominants in the alls of power of the West boils down to the following:
1) Talk harsh (really harsh!) with Russia on things we don't like
2) Cooperate with Russia when it possible as if never happened.
Now imagine that your neighbour decided to harm you in some nasty, really mean way. Imagine
him throwing seeds on you car, parked outside, and then filming how birds land (and shit) o your
car on his phone – with lots, and lots of really "smart" comments. Then your neighbor uploads
this video on YouTube, his Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram etc, etc. Here he engages with other
commenters in the vein of "Yeah, I know – he's a total douche! He got what he deserved! But wait,
guys – I have more plans for my neighbour!!!:)".
Next week he asks you to borrow him a landmover – as if nothing has ever happened before.
And when Russia says that there are direct links between 1) and 2), that you can't expect
to get 2) after doing 1) – there is no use to fake a hurt innocence of Ukrainians from this old
anecdote with the "А на за що?!" punchline,
You want war? You will have one! Want peace? Then behave yourself accodringly.
Eli Lake is a dork who used to be the 'National Security Correspondent' for the Daily Beast.
You know what a rag that is. Also, he was educated at Trinity College, a private liberal-arts
school. But the day will come when it is Russia's choice to punish Americans for the ignorant
things people like Eli Lake said. I would do it in a heartbeat; I would chortle with glee as I
tore up American proposals for joint ventures, and send balaclava-sporting kids dressed like Voina
around to paint giant dicks on their office doors with the message, "This is for Eli", until they
fled for the airport gibbering with terror. But that's me. Russia probably won't do it, because
they are pragmatic and like business and profit.
I know how we can reach a compromise – me and the Russian government. Every year on the
day that article was published, they could have "Eli Lake Day". On that day, an American company
could be chosen at random to be kicked out of the country and have all its assets confiscated.
The documents could lead off with, "Congratulations! You have been selected to receive the Eli
Lake Award for Bankruptcy. You can thank Eli Lake and his big fucking mouth".
"... "We have not run this campaign as a campaign against the GOP with the big broad brush - we've run it against Donald Trump," Kaine told the Associated Press. "We're going to get a lot of Republican votes, and that will also be part of, right out of the gate, the way to bring folks back together." ..."
"... In an interview, Kaine said Saturday that he and Hillary Clinton have already discussed how to work with Republicans if they win the presidential election against Trump and his running-mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, in a little more than two weeks. He said that tackling economic anxieties, finding common policy ground with the GOP, and perhaps bringing Republicans into the administration would be elements of unity, though he added that he and Clinton did not discuss cabinet positions, the AP reported. ..."
"... So the plan isn't to try and turn the Senate blue? What kind of work can a Clinton/Kaine administration "get done" with a GOP congress? My first guess would be giving big business something they want in "exchange" for something they want like a repatriation tax holiday to gently suggest corporations bring some of the money they have overseas back to the US and using a small portion of that money to pay for infrastructure spending business associations like the US COC have been advocating for years. ..."
"... It's not like the Dems have a chance of taking congress or at least the Senate so why do anything that might annoy the GOP. Since the GOP are usually so reasonable and the slightest suggestion Dems may want to take over Congress would be the straw that broke the camel's back and turn the generally reasonable GOP into a well oiled "no" machine. ..."
Sen. Tim Kaine said he's already reaching out to Republicans as the Democratic
vice presidential hopeful looks for ways to repair damage done between the two parties during
th divisive race for the White House.
"We have not run this campaign as a campaign against the GOP with the big broad brush -
we've run it against Donald Trump," Kaine told the Associated Press. "We're going to get a lot
of Republican votes, and that will also be part of, right out of the gate, the way to bring folks
back together."
In an interview, Kaine said Saturday that he and Hillary Clinton have already discussed
how to work with Republicans if they win the presidential election against Trump and his running-mate,
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, in a little more than two weeks. He said that tackling economic anxieties,
finding common policy ground with the GOP, and perhaps bringing Republicans into the administration
would be elements of unity, though he added that he and Clinton did not discuss cabinet positions,
the AP reported.
Kaine, who is in his fourth year as a senator from Virginia after serving as the state's governor,
said Clinton is stepping up efforts to help Democrats recapture Senate control, but he hasn't
made a specific pitch for a Democratic Senate. He's focusing his efforts on finding policies Republicans
and Democrats can agree on.
"I have very good relations with Republicans in the Senate," Kaine said.
"There's some people
who really want to get some good work done."
[So the plan isn't to try and turn the Senate blue? What kind of work can a Clinton/Kaine administration
"get done" with a GOP congress? My first guess would be giving big business something they want
in "exchange" for something they want like a repatriation tax holiday to gently suggest corporations
bring some of the money they have overseas back to the US and using a small portion of that money
to pay for infrastructure spending business associations like the US COC have been advocating
for years.
It's not like the Dems have a chance of taking congress or at least the Senate so why do anything
that might annoy the GOP. Since the GOP are usually so reasonable and the slightest suggestion
Dems may want to take over Congress would be the straw that broke the camel's back and turn the
generally reasonable GOP into a well oiled "no" machine.
"... I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite. ..."
"... But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid. ..."
"... In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to governance of such a huge country crook. ..."
The key problems with Democratic Party and Hillary is that they lost working class and middle
class voters, becoming another party of highly paid professionals and Wall Street speculators
(let's say top 10%, not just 1%), the party of neoliberal elite.
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time. I think it will not. Even upper middle class is very resentful
of Democrats and Hillary. So many votes will be not "for" but "against". This is the scenario
Democratic strategists fear the most, but they can do nothing about it.
She overplayed "identity politics" card. Her "identity politics" and her fake feminism are
completely insincere. She is completely numb to human suffering and interests of females and minorities.
Looks like she has a total lack of empathy for other people.
"What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not
hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times (
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html ) revealed
that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces
whenever her opinion is solicited. "
Usually people are resentful about Party which betrayed them so many times. It would be interesting
to see how this will play this time.
Beverly Mann October 23, 2016 12:00 pm
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time?
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand over
to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC, the FCC,
the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including the Antitrust
Division)-to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
And then there's the incessant push to privatize Social Security and Medicare. It ain't the
Dems that are pushing that.
You're drinking wayyy too much Kool Aid, likbez. Or maybe just reading too much Ayn Rand, at
Paul Ryan's recommendation.
beene October 23, 2016 10:31 am
I would suggest despite most of the elite in both parties supporting Hillary, and saying
she has the election in the bag is premature. In my opinion the fact that Trump rallies still
has large attendance; where Hillary's rallies would have trouble filling up a large room is a
better indication that Trump will win.
Even democrats are not voting democratic this time to be ignored till election again.
likbez October 23, 2016 12:56 pm
Beverly,
=== quote ===
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand
over to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC,
the FCC, the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including
the Antitrust Division) -- to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
=== end of quote ===
This is all true. But Trump essentially running not as a Republican but as an independent on
(mostly) populist platform (with elements of nativism). That's why a large part of Republican
brass explicitly abandoned him. That does not exclude that he easily will be co-opted after the
election, if he wins.
And I would not be surprised one bit if Dick Cheney, Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz and Perle
vote for Hillary. Robert Kagan and papa Bush already declared such an intention. She is a neocon.
A wolf in sheep clothing, if we are talking about real anti-war democrats, not the USA brand of
DemoRats. She is crazy warmonger, no question about it, trying to compensate a complete lack of
diplomatic skills with jingoism and saber rattling.
The problem here might be that you implicitly idealize Hillary and demonize Trump.
I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests
complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite.
But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in
addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John
McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon
all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and
a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid.
That's what classic neoliberal DemoRats "bait and switch" maneuver (previously executed
by Obama two times) means. And that's why working class now abandoned Democratic Party. Even unions
members of unions which endorses Clinton are expected to vote 3:1 against her. Serial betrayal
of interests of working class (and lower middle class) after 25 years gets on nerve. Not that
their choice is wise, but they made a choice. This is "What's the matter with Kansas" all over
again.
It reminds me the situation when Stalin was asked whether right revisionism of Marxism (social
democrats) or left (Trotskyites with their dream of World revolution) is better. He answered "both
are worse" :-).
In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that
in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely
dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to
governance of such a huge country crook.
Of course, we need also remember about existence of "deep state" which make each of
them mostly a figurehead, but still the power of "deep state" is not absolute and this is a very
sad situation.
Beverly Mann, October 23, 2016 1:57 pm
Good grace.
Two points: First, you apparently are unaware of Trump's proposed tax plan, written by Heritage
Foundation economists and political-think-tank types. It's literally more regressively extreme
evn than Paul Ryan's. It gives tax cuts to the wealthy that are exponentially more generous percentage-wise
than G.W. Bush's two tax cuts together were, it eliminates the estate tax, and it gives massive
tax cuts to corporations, including yuge ones.
Two billionaire Hamptons-based hedge funders, Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, have
been funding a super PAC for Trump and since late spring have met with Trump and handed him policy
proposals and suggestions for administrative agency heads and judicial appointments. Other yuge
funders are members of the Ricketts family, including Thomas Ricketts, CEO of TD Ameritrade and
a son of its founder.
Two other billionaires funding Trump: Forrest Lucas, founder of Lucas Oil and reportedly Trump's
choice for Interior Secretary if you and the working class and lower middle class folks whose
interests Trump has at heart get their way.
And then there's Texas oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Trump's very first billionaire mega-donor.
One of my recurring pet peeves about Clinton and her campaign is her failure to tell the public
that these billionaires are contributing mega-bucks to help fund Trump's campaign, and to tell
the public who exactly they are. As well as her failure to make a concerted effort to educate
the public about the the specifics of Trump's fiscal and deregulatory agenda as he has published
it.
As for your belief that I idealize Clinton, you obviously are very new to Angry Bear. I was
a virulent Sanders supporter throughout the primaries, to the very end. In 2008 I originally supported
John Edwards during the primaries and then, when it became clear that it was a two-candidate race,
supported Obama. My reason? I really, really, REALLY did not want to see another triangulation
Democratic administration. That's largely what we got during Obama's first term, though, and I
was not happy about it.
Bottom line: I'm not the gullible one here. You are.
likbez, October 23, 2016 2:37 pm
You demonstrate complete inability to weight the gravity of two dismal, but unequal in their
gravity options.
All your arguments about Supreme Court justices, taxes, inheritance and other similar things
make sense if and only if the country continues to exist.
Which is not given due to the craziness and the level of degeneration of neoliberal elite and
specifically Hillary ("no fly zone in Syria" is one example of her craziness). Playing chickens
with a nuclear power for the sake of proving imperial dominance in Middle East is a crazy policy.
Neocons rule the roost in both parties, which essentially became a single War Party with two
wings. Trump looks like the only chance somewhat to limit their influence and reach some détente
with Russia.
Looks like you organically unable to understand that your choice in this particular case is
between the decimation of the last remnants of the New Deal and a real chance of WWIII.
This is not "pick your poison" situation. Those are two events of completely difference magnitude:
one is reversible (and please note that Trump is bound by very controversial obligations to his
electorate and faces hostile Congress), the other is not.
We all should do our best to prevent the unleashing WWIII even if that means temporary decimation
of the remnants of New Deal.
Neoliberalism after 2008 entered zombie state, so while it is still strong, aggressive and
bloodthirsty it might not last for long. And in such case the defeat of democratic forces on domestic
front is temporary.
"As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just
like any other attack," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious
political, economic and military responses. "
We need to tell everyone that for the sake of the word. do not vote for this
dangerous woman!
"... Hillary Clinton did not just pay mercenaries to assault Trump supporters, she also violated the law on several occasions. ..."
"... In Illinois, Trump will be citing the Illinois criminal statute. The Mob action is a Class Four felony punishable by 3-6 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for each charge in Illinois. When Trump brings forward the paperwork, he very well could charge anyone associated with helping, planning, organizing, or paying anyone to commit acts of violence–which would include Hillary Clinton. ..."
In Illinois, Trump will be citing the Illinois criminal statute. The Mob action is a Class
Four felony punishable by 3-6 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for each charge in Illinois.
When Trump brings forward the paperwork, he very well could charge anyone associated with helping,
planning, organizing, or paying anyone to commit acts of violence–which would include Hillary
Clinton.
In Illinois, statute reads as follows:
A person commits mob action when he or she engages in any of the following:
The knowing or reckless use of force or violence disturbing the public peace by 2 or more persons
acting together and without authority of law;
The knowing assembly of 2 or more persons with the intent to commit or facilitate the commission
of a felony or misdemeanor; or
The knowing assembly of 2 or more persons, without authority of law, for the purpose of doing
violence to the person or property of anyone supposed to have been guilty of a violation of the
law, or for the purpose of exercising correctional powers or regulative powers over any person
by violence.
Donald Trump would win this case easily, but he is not stopping in Illinois. Trump and his
team have indicated that he will also be suing for the brutal attacks that occurred in San Diego,
California.
"... And continued and constant propaganda-peddling that the race is over because Trump's sexual assault allegations are "sucking all the air out of the room" compared to Hillary's stream of WikiLeaks facts. ..."
"... CNN made the mistake of asking its focus group of real Americans who won the final debate... and instantly regretted it... ..."
"... The media is just going to claim a winner on election night no matter what happens. You can't know otherwise. ..."
"... I know that in my day to day dealings, as a businessman and as a private individual, I am taking every opportunity to fuck over the main stream media and anyone that works in it, hard and without mercy. ..."
"... As Trump said CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Wash Post, NYT working hard to elect Hillary Rodent. ..."
"... Rep Sheila Jackson (D) continues to embarrass herself by denouncing Wikipedia for engaging in espionage. ..."
And continued and constant propaganda-peddling that the race is over because Trump's sexual
assault
allegations are "sucking all the air out of the room" compared to Hillary's stream of WikiLeaks facts.
CNN made the mistake of asking its focus group of real Americans who won the final debate...
and instantly regretted it...
I know that in my day to day dealings, as a businessman and as a private individual, I am taking
every opportunity to fuck over the main stream media and anyone that works in it, hard and without
mercy.
These opportunities are many and significant. I am enjoying it. Consequences, bitchezzz!!!
As Trump said CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Wash Post, NYT working hard to elect Hillary Rodent.
Rep Sheila Jackson (D) continues to embarrass herself by denouncing Wikipedia for engaging
in espionage.
She is the congresswoman from Mars
Claimed we sent a man to Mars
We won the Vietnam war
Hurricanes need more diverse names
Wore a gold Hillary Clinton campaign pin Wednesday to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on
the FBI investigation into Clinton's private email server.
If you still can't decide which candidate the "best policies", you're the enemy.
Here is the list of the "Contract with the American Voter" policies detailed by Trump:
Propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress
Institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through
attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health)
Require for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.
Institute a five year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists
after they leave government service
Create a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.
Institute a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.
Announce intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205.
Announce withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Direct Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.
Direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign
trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under
American and international law to end those abuses immediately.
Lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars' worth of job-producing
American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
Lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like
the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward.
Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America's
water and environmental infrastructure.
Cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President
Obama.
Begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges
on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities.
Begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and
cancel visas to foreign countries that won't take them back.
Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting
of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
Work with Congress on a Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act.An economic plan
designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive
tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and
lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle
class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of
brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The
business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American
corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.
Work with Congress on a End The Offshoring Act. Establishes tariffs to discourage companies
from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products
back to the U.S. tax-free.
Work with Congress on a American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private
partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure
investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.
Work with Congress on a School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education
dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet,
religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to
local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college
more affordable.
Work with Congress on a Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces
it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines,
and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the
FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval
of life-saving medications.
Work with Congress on a Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act.Allows Americans to deduct
childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare
services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents,
with matching contributions for low-income families.
Work with Congress on an End Illegal Immigration Act. Fully-funds the construction of a
wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing
the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal
prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year
mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor
convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties
for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.
Work with Congress on a Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and
violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that
train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and
federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.
Work with Congress on a Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating
the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability
to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital
infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure
those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values
Work with Congress on a Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms
to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.
In a lengthy speech on Saturday night in Manheim, Pennsylvania, Republican nominee for president
Donald J. Trump lambasted his opponent Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton for a secret tape
recording of her bashing supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont-and even called for Clinton
to be placed in prison and questioned as to whether she has been loyal to her husband former President
Bill Clinton.
Trump said in the speech on Saturday night:
A new audio tape that has surfaced just yesterday from another one of Hillary's high roller
fundraisers shows her demeaning and mocking Bernie Sanders and all of his supporters. You know,
and I'll tell you something we have a much bigger movement that Bernie Sanders ever had. We have
much bigger crowds than Sanders ever had. And we have a more important movement than Bernie Sanders
ever had because we're going to save our country, okay? We're going to save our country. But I
can tell you Bernie Sanders would have left a great, great legacy had he not made the deal with
the devil. He would have really left a great legacy. Now he shows up and 120 people come in to
hear him talk. Bernie Sanders would have left a great legacy had he not made the deal, had he
held his head high and walked away. Now he's on the other side perhaps from us and we want to
get along with everybody and we will-we're going to unite the country-but what Bernie Sanders
did to his supporters was very, very unfair. And they're really not his supporters any longer
and they're not going to support Hillary Clinton. I really believe a lot of those people are coming
over and largely because of trade, college education, lots of other things-but largely because
of trade, they're coming over to our side-you watch, you watch. Especially after Hillary mocks
him and mocks all of those people by attacking him and his supporters as 'living in their parents'
basements,' and trapped in dead-end careers. That's not what they are.
Also in his speech on Saturday night, Trump summed up exactly what came out in the latest Hillary
Clinton tapes in which she mocks Sanders supporters:
She describes many of them as ignorant, and [that] they want the United States to be more like
Scandinavia but that 'half the people don't know what that means' in a really sarcastic tone because
she's a sarcastic woman. To sum up, and I'll tell you the other thing-she's an incompetent woman.
She's an incompetent woman. I've seen it. Just take a look at what she touches. It never works
out, and you watch: her run for the presidency will never ever work out because we can't let it
work out. To sum up, Hillary Clinton thinks Bernie supporters are hopeless and ignorant basement
dwellers. Then, of course, she thinks people who vote for and follow us are deplorable and irredeemable.
I don't think so. I don't think so. We have the smartest people, we have the sharpest people,
we have the most amazing people, and you know in all of the years of this country they say, even
the pundits-most of them aren't worth the ground they're standing on, some of that ground could
be fairly wealthy but ground, but most of these people say they have never seen a phenomenon like
is going on. We have crowds like this wherever we go.
WATCH THE FULL SPEECH:
Later in the speech, Trump came back to the tape again and hammered her once more for it.
"Hillary Clinton all but said that most of the country is racist, including the men and women
of law enforcement," Trump said. "She said that the other night. Did anybody like Lester Holt? Did
anybody question her when she said that? No, she said it the other night. [If] you're not a die hard
Clinton fan-you're not a supporter-from Day One, Hillary Clinton thinks you are a defective person.
That's what she's going around saying."
In the speech, Trump questioned whether Clinton has the moral authority to lead when she considers
the majority of Americans-Trump supporters and Sanders supporters-to be "defective" people. And he
went so far as saying that Clinton "should be in prison." He went on:
How on earth can Hillary Clinton try to lead this country when she has nothing but contempt
for the people who live in this country? She's got contempt. First of all, she's got so many scandals
and she's been caught cheating so much. One of the worst things I've ever witnessed as a citizen
of the United States was last week when the FBI director was trying so hard to explain how she
away with what she got away with, because she should be in prison. Let me tell you. She should
be in prison. She's being totally protected by the New York Times and the Washington Post and
all of the media and CNN-Clinton News Network-which nobody is watching anyway so what difference
does it make? Don't even watch it. But she's being protected by many of these groups. It's not
like do you think she's guilty? They've actually admitted she's guilty. And then she lies and
lies, 33,000 emails deleted, bleached, acid-washed! And then they take their phones and they hammer
the hell out of them. How many people have acid washed or bleached a Tweet? How many?
He returned to the secret Clinton tape a little while later:
Hillary Clinton slanders and attacks anyone who wants to put America First, whether they
are Trump Voters or Bernie Voters. What she said about Bernie voters amazing. Like the European
Union, she wants to erase our borders and she wants to do it for her donors and she wants people
to pour into country without knowing who they are.
Trump later bashed the media as "dishonest as hell" when calling on the reporters at his event
to "turn your cameras" to show the crowd that came to see him.
"If they showed the kind of crowds we have-which people can hear, you know it's interesting: you
can hear the crowd when you hear the television but if they showed the crowd it would be better television,
but they don't know much about that. But it would actually be better television," Trump said.
Trump also questioned whether Hillary Clinton has been loyal to her husband, former President
Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton has been known to cheat on Hillary Clinton with a variety of mistresses
and has been accused of rape and sexual assault by some women.
"Hillary Clinton's only loyalty is to her financial contributors and to herself," Trump
said. "I don't even think she's loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really, folks,
really: Why should she be, right? Why should she be?"
Throughout the speech, Trump weaved together references to his new campaign theme about Clinton-"Follow
The Money"-with details about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. He said:
We're going to take on the corrupt media, the powerful lobbyists and the special interests
that have stolen your jobs, your factories, and your future-that's exactly what's happened. We're
going to stop Hillary Clinton from continuing to raid the industry from your state for her profit.
Hillary Clinton has collected millions of dollars from the same global corporations shipping
your jobs and your dreams to other countries. You know it and everybody else knows it. That's
why Clinton, if she ever got the chance, would 100 percent approve Trans Pacific Partnership-a
total disastrous trade deal. She called the deal the 'gold standard.' The TPP will bring economic
devastation to Pennsylvania and our campaign is the only chance to stop that and other bad things
that are happening to our country. She lied about the Gold Standard the other night at the debate.
She said she didn't say it-she said it. We want to stop the Trans Pacific Partnership and if we
don't-remember this, if we don't stop it, billions and billions [of dollars] in jobs and wealth
will be vacuumed right out of Pennsylvania and sent to these other countries. Just like NAFTA
was a disaster, this will be a disaster. Frankly I don't think it'll be as bad as NAFTA. It can't
get any worse than that-signed by Bill Clinton. All of us here in this massive room here tonight
can prevent this from happening. Together we can stop TPP and we can end the theft of American
jobs and prosperity.
Trump praised Sanders for being strongly opposed to the TPP:
I knew one man-I'm not a big fan-but one man who knew the dangers of the TPP was Bernie
Sanders. Crazy Bernie. He was right about one thing, only one thing, and that was trade. He was
right about it because he knew we were getting ripped off, but he wouldn't be able to do anything
about it . We're going to do a lot about it. We're going to have those highways running the
opposite direction. We're going to have a lot of trade, but it's going to come into our country.
We are going to start benefitting our country because right now it's one way road to trouble.
Our jobs leave us, our money leaves us. With Mexico, we get the drugs-they get the cash-it's that
simple.
Hillary Clinton, Trump noted, is "controlled by global special interests."
"She's on the opposite side of Bernie on the trade issue," Trump said. "She's totally on the opposite
side of Bernie."
He circled back to trade a bit later in the more-than-hour-long speech, hammering TPP and Clinton
cash connections. Trump continued:
Three TPP member countries gave between $6 and $15 million to Clinton. At least four lobbyists
who are actively lobbying for TPP passage have raised more than $800,000 for her campaign. I'm
just telling you Pennsylvania, we're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to
make it if we have Pennsylvania for sure. It'll be easy. But you cannot let this pass. NAFTA passed.
It's been the worst trade deal probably ever passed, not in this country but anywhere in the world.
It cleaned out New England. It cleaned out big portions of Pennsylvania. It cleaned out big portions
of Ohio and North Carolina and South Carolina-you can't let it happen.
Trump even called the politicians like Clinton "bloodsuckers" who have let America be drained
out of millions upon millions of jobs.
"These bloodsuckers want it to happen," Trump said. "They're politicians that are getting taken
care of by people that want it to happen. Other countries want it to happen because it's good for
them, but it's not good for us. So hopefully you're not going to let it happen. Whatever Hillary's
donors want, they get. They own her. On Nov. 8, we're going to end Clinton corruption. Hillary Clinton,
dishonest person, is an insider fighting for herself and for her friends. I'm an outsider fighting
for you. And by the way, just in case you're not aware, I used to be an insider but I thought this
was the right thing to do. This is the right thing to do, believe me."
"... in accordance with the prevailing American ideology, one can complain all they want about the system and pose limited questions why things are the way they are. But one is not allowed to seriously question the basis of the system without being labeled a heretic and banished to the hinterlands where demons and dragons reside. ..."
"... A perfect example is the setup we all witnessed during the final debate between Clinton and Trump. The Presidential Debates are long established ideological rituals designed to reinforce and affirm faith and belief in the system. They are part and parcel of the supporting façade the election process represents to the controlling meme. "We the People" select one of 'us' to travel to the capital city where rules and laws are enacted to protect 'us' from enemies foreign and domestic while at the same time enriching 'our' lives. ..."
"... It was no accident of chance the last question posed to both 'candidates' (would they accept and support the election results if they lose) was essentially a pledge of allegiance to the ideological ethos. And for Trump, the self appointed establishment heretic, it was a trap designed to fully ensnare and expel him, and his heathen campaign, into the fires of faithless hell. But by doing so the heretics are also affirmed in their belief both in their leader and their cause. ..."
"... Nor was it an accident Trump was chosen first to answer while the priest's favored candidate (whom I suspect was already alerted to the deception) sat ready to embrace the system and reject the wrong thinking dissenter. ..."
"... Of all the barbs and venom exchanged between the two candidates, is it really surprising at all that every major mainstream news outlet, known collectively as the mouthpiece of the ideological priests, led the next morning's ' news ' with huge headlines about the final nonconforming utterance from Trump? ..."
"... Burn the bastard at the stake, the angry priests wail in agony ..."
"... The more a prevailing political meme strays from its founding ideology, meaning in this case crony corruption and political favoritism, the tighter the screws must be turned to drive the antithetical strays back toward the center. And the place to begin this process is with its leadership, either established or budding. Uncharacteristically, the heretical plebes have long been without acknowledged leadership until Trump arrived on the scene. ..."
"... Whether he is controlled opposition, useful puppet or exactly who he appears to be, Trump has succeeded in flushing the misfits and malcontents from the redoubt woodpile and out into the open. This may be precisely why Trump was allowed to get this far and not promptly buried under the end zone in the new Giants Stadium when he first appeared on the political scene. ..."
"... How is it that political novice Trump not only appeared on the scene, but ascended the obviously rigged primary system to become the Republican nominee? Ron Paul (and others) knocked on this same door for decades and were quickly dispatched each time using time honored control techniques. Why not Trump? Because his time has come? Because he's the one? ..."
"... This is not to say Hillary Clinton isn't also being propelled forward by the very same mechanism that has empowered Trump. If " The Donald " is flawed, Hillary Clinton is mortally impaired. And it would made perfect sense from the control system's perspective to match or exceed the glaring imperfections of one candidate (Trump) with an even more egregious example of crony capitalism run riot in the other (Clinton). The great white hope verses establishment lackey and career criminal. The choice couldn't be both clearer and more obscure than as presented for your electoral blessing. ..."
"... This is the principal reason why I expect Trump to ' win ' this election, if not by hook then by mainstream crook. The crony capitalists represented by Clinton have had their fill at the public feeding trough and are more than capable of fending for their selves during the next spiraling leg downward. But those who had previously abandoned all hope, and thus were primed for more drastic (read destructive) measures if not properly corralled, have once again been engaged in the political system and have thrown their support behind the white knight. ..."
"... The golden rule of dying ideological Empires is simplicity itself. What it cannot subvert or corrupt it destroys. Significant and healing change cannot, and therefore will not, originate from within the Empire for that would disenfranchise the powerful priests, the hanger-on's and sycophants. ..."
"... Orders of magnitude hotter than burning magnesium, any effort made to dampen or disperse the white hot insanity of the dying Empire, either from within or externally, only succeeds in spreading and intensifying the Luciferian conflagration. Simply stated, madness breeds more madness. ..."
"... In my opinion this is the only explanation for the blatant media bias against Trump combined with the obviously scripted non media responses to all things Clinton, the in-your-face rigging and distortions of the political process ..."
"... Plato described the inability of a group of (ideological) prisoners chained in a cave to interpret reality based solely upon the play of shadows projected upon the stone wall in front of them. The utter futility of their efforts is only revealed when one prisoner frees himself, enabling him to fully view the puppeteers behind them creating the illusion. ..."
This is why, in accordance with the prevailing American ideology, one can complain all they want
about the system and pose limited questions why things are the way they are. But one is not allowed
to seriously question the basis of the system without being labeled a heretic and banished to the
hinterlands where demons and dragons reside.
A perfect example is the setup we all witnessed
during the final debate between Clinton and Trump. The Presidential Debates are long established
ideological rituals designed to reinforce and affirm faith and belief in the system. They are part
and parcel of the supporting façade the election process represents to the controlling meme. "We
the People" select one of 'us' to travel to the capital city where rules and laws are enacted to
protect 'us' from enemies foreign and domestic while at the same time enriching 'our' lives.
It was no accident of chance the last question posed to both 'candidates' (would they accept
and support the election results if they lose) was essentially a pledge of allegiance to the ideological
ethos. And for Trump, the self appointed establishment heretic, it was a trap designed to fully ensnare
and expel him, and his heathen campaign, into the fires of faithless hell. But by doing so the heretics
are also affirmed in their belief both in their leader and their cause.
Nor was it an accident Trump was chosen first to answer while the priest's favored candidate (whom
I suspect was already alerted to the deception) sat ready to embrace the system and reject the wrong
thinking dissenter.
Of all the barbs and venom exchanged between the two candidates, is it really
surprising at all that every major mainstream news outlet, known collectively as the mouthpiece of
the ideological priests, led the next morning's 'news' with huge headlines about the final
nonconforming utterance from Trump?
Burn the bastard at the stake, the angry priests wail in agony, their power and prestige coming
under serious attack from the process itself. Or so they piously claim.
The more a prevailing political meme strays from its founding ideology, meaning in this case
crony corruption and political favoritism, the tighter the screws must be turned to drive the antithetical
strays back toward the center. And the place to begin this process is with its leadership, either
established or budding. Uncharacteristically, the heretical plebes have long been without acknowledged
leadership until Trump arrived on the scene.
Regardless of who or what Donald Trump truly is, the long suffering and rapidly increasing ranks
of the disenfranchised and disillusioned have rallied around The Donald, elevating him to the revolutionary
figurehead of 'The Movement' determined to drain the ideological swamp that is present day
Washington DC.
Whether he is controlled opposition, useful puppet or exactly who he appears to be, Trump
has succeeded in flushing the misfits and malcontents from the redoubt woodpile and out into the
open. This may be precisely why Trump was allowed to get this far and not promptly buried under the
end zone in the new Giants Stadium when he first appeared on the political scene.
Since one must never be allowed to seriously question the system (because the doubt it raises
is threatening to the system) if one does question and is allowed to continue and even flourish (ala
Trump) there must be a hidden reason for this heretical event to occur 'naturally'.
Therefore to naively believe the priest's controllers have lost mastery over their ideology simply
because a heretic has appeared and is growing amongst their ranks is to misunderstand the methods
employed, honed and refined over thousands of years by those very same priests and their descendants,
regardless of the prevailing controlling meme. They've been doing this for thousands of years folks
and are quite accomplished at their craft.
How is it that political novice Trump not only appeared on the scene, but ascended the obviously
rigged primary system to become the Republican nominee? Ron Paul (and others) knocked on this same
door for decades and were quickly dispatched each time using time honored control techniques. Why
not Trump? Because his time has come? Because he's the one?
Really?
I do not disagree with those who carefully document the growing instability of the dominant socioeconomic/political
system. There is little doubt large and widening cracks are appearing in the carefully constructed
and nurtured ideological façade.
But to believe the Empire is so close to collapse that a revolutionary could slip between the
cracks and come within a few weeks of ascending to the throne is, in my humble opinion, pushing it
just a wee bit too far. Those shadows on the cave wall have little to no relation to reality.
Take the time to study the disruptive techniques used by the ideological establishment to co-opt
and control the last attempted American revolution, that of the anti war generation of the 60's and
early 70's. Nearly every counter cultural uprising during that period of time was thoroughly infiltrated
and sometimes directly controlled by operatives. To think this isn't happening today with the massive
increase in intrusive spy technology is to remain firmly planted in La-La Land.
Trump's popularity among the great unwashed is a product of the mainstream media, the very same
control device used on a daily basis to feed the indentured population its ration of
Soma. However, in an effort
to turn Trump into a super magnet for the downtrodden, the mainstream media needed to employ reverse
psychology and condemn that which they wished to empower with credibility. Quite frankly, this only
works if the population is so desperate for salvation to appear they would accept such a psychologically
flawed and egotistic front man as Donald Trump.
That alone doesn't necessarily make Trump an establishment 'made man'. But while he wasn't
breast fed at the political nipple, he certainly isn't an 'outsider' by any stretch of the
imagination. And yet here he is……the embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of a vast cross section
of disaffected and disenfranchised. It just doesn't get any better than this.
This is not to say Hillary Clinton isn't also being propelled forward by the very same mechanism
that has empowered Trump. If "The Donald" is flawed, Hillary Clinton is mortally impaired.
And it would made perfect sense from the control system's perspective to match or exceed the glaring
imperfections of one candidate (Trump) with an even more egregious example of crony capitalism run
riot in the other (Clinton). The great white hope verses establishment lackey and career criminal.
The choice couldn't be both clearer and more obscure than as presented for your electoral blessing.
And ultimately this may be the purpose for this obviously concocted and orchestrated charade.
The last stage of a dying Empire is the looting of the weak from within by the elite. When the barbarians
finally break through the outer gates, all they will find are empty vaults and the scattered remains
of a desperate native population, the valuables having long ago been strip-mined and spirited away.
But before this point in the end game can be reached, the natives must be held in place long enough
for the final rape to commence. As public confidence in a political solution dissipates and restlessness
(some might say desperation) grows, a false hope and belief must be re-instilled in various sub factions
of the population in order to draw them back in, ultimately imprisoned by their own ideological bent.
This occurred in 2008 with the great black hope, Barrack Obama, and once again is happening in
2016 with the great white hope, Donald Trump. Both of these individuals, while presenting as one
would expect political outsiders to appear, were/are deeply conflicted and entangled. Don't forget
Obama was a political newbie with only a few years in public office before being miraculously elevated
to the highest office in the land. It is more than coincidence they both talk a thoroughly convincing
game to the sub-set they were created to enthrall.
This is the principal reason why I expect Trump to 'win' this election, if not by hook
then by mainstream crook. The crony capitalists represented by Clinton have had their fill at the
public feeding trough and are more than capable of fending for their selves during the next spiraling
leg downward. But those who had previously abandoned all hope, and thus were primed for more drastic
(read destructive) measures if not properly corralled, have once again been engaged in the political
system and have thrown their support behind the white knight.
All the king's horse's and all the king's men couldn't put the Empire
back together again.
Emotionally stabilized and increasingly mesmerized, the plebes are now ripe for the rape if for
no other reason than they will wait and see if the revolution is actually tweeted and originates
from the White House.
I suspect 'they' will be severely disappointed.
The golden rule of dying ideological Empires is simplicity itself. What it cannot subvert or corrupt
it destroys. Significant and healing change cannot, and therefore will not, originate from within
the Empire for that would disenfranchise the powerful priests, the hanger-on's and sycophants.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely and power in the hands of the corrupt is never relinquished,
only forcefully taken and then passed from one dirty hand to the next. This renders any discussion
of a positive healthy change from within moot and a non starter.
This is an insanity very few understand when viewed from a distance, an all encompassing madness
that is always underestimated in its ferocity and velocity. When face to face with this evil phenomenon,
few have the strength of will to stand their ground, let alone survive the encounter. Evil madness
of this magnitude always self consumes and can never be extinguished by an external force.
Orders of magnitude hotter than burning magnesium, any effort made to dampen or disperse the white
hot insanity of the dying Empire, either from within or externally, only succeeds in spreading and
intensifying the Luciferian conflagration. Simply stated, madness breeds more madness. To
engage the madness is to feed the insanity.
In my opinion this is the only explanation for the blatant media bias against Trump combined
with the obviously scripted non media responses to all things Clinton, the in-your-face rigging and
distortions of the political process and the incomprehensible capitulation by so many previously
withdrawn and cynical ideological escapees who are willingly walking back into the belly of the political
beast to support a critically flawed and conflicted Trump.
Plato described
the inability of a group of (ideological) prisoners chained in a cave to interpret reality based
solely upon the play of shadows projected upon the stone wall in front of them. The utter futility
of their efforts is only revealed when one prisoner frees himself, enabling him to fully view the
puppeteers behind them creating the illusion.
Unless and until "We the Individuals" engage in a determined and consistent effort
to see beyond our ideological horse blinders and fully grasp the true nature of our reality, "We
the People" will remain at best mere spectators, and at worst indentured servants, to the
reality puppeteers behind us.
As much as I wish this insanity would just end, I fear we have many miles to go before the final
awakening.
A vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, the Clinton campaign has suggested in broad ways
and subtle ones, isn't just a vote for a Democrat over a Republican: It's a vote for safety over
risk, steady competence over boastful recklessness, psychological stability in the White House
over ungovernable passions.
This theme has been a winning one for Hillary, in her debates and in the wider campaign, and
for good reason. The perils of a Trump presidency are as distinctive as the candidate himself,
and a vote for Trump makes a long list of worst cases - the Western alliance system's unraveling,
a cycle of domestic radicalization, an accidental economic meltdown, a civilian-military crisis
- more likely than with any normal administration.
Indeed, Trump and his supporters almost admit as much. "We've tried sane, now let's try crazy,"
is basically his campaign's working motto. The promise to be a bull in a china shop is part of
his demagogue's appeal. Some of his more eloquent supporters have analogized a vote for Trump
to storming the cockpit of a hijacked plane, with the likelihood of a plane crash entirely factored
in.
But passing on the plane-crash candidate doesn't mean ignoring the dangers of his rival.
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarian
unknowns, because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite groupthink,
of Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They're
the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn't recognize itself as either, because
it's convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it
cannot possibly be folly.
Almost every crisis that has come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this
establishmentarian type of folly. The Iraq War, which liberals prefer to remember as a conflict
conjured by a neoconservative cabal, was actually the work of a bipartisan interventionist consensus,
pushed hard by George W. Bush but embraced as well by a large slice of center-left opinion that
included Tony Blair and more than half of Senate Democrats.
Likewise the financial crisis: Whether you blame financial-services deregulation or happy-go-lucky
housing policy (or both), the policies that helped inflate and pop the bubble were embraced by
both wings of the political establishment. ...
(Crises happen. How are these two linked? The first came about because we were in the throes
of 9/11. The 2nd arguably because we were in the delayed throes of a dot.com bubble collapse.
And with a president who was out of his depth.)
likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs...
== quote ===
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarian unknowns,
because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite groupthink, of
Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They're
the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn't recognize itself as either, because
it's convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it
cannot possibly be folly.
=== end of quote ===
That looks like indirect attack on neocons which is atypical for NYT.
IMHO the main danger of Hillary presidency is the danger of WWIII due to her own jingoism and
recklessness as well as outsize neocons influence in her administration (she is the person who
promoted Cheney's associate Victoria Nuland, who got us into Ukrainian mess).
As such outweighs all possible dangers of Trump presidency by a wide margin.
Voting for Hillary is like voting for John McCain in a pantsuit in order to prevent decimation
of the remnants of the New Deal inherent in Trump administration.
Trump at least gives us some chance of détente with Russia.
Also he faces hostile Congress and "deep state", while Hillary is a creature of "deep state",
a marionette, if you wish, which will continue the current disastrous interventionist foreign
policy.
Of course Trump can be co-opted by "deep state" too. That's also a danger.
There is a nice cartoon, probably from Times, that I found at
"... From Clinton to Clinton they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies. The Fed is their stronghold. How in the world will Trump deal with these rabid "crazies in the basement"? ..."
"... When Putin came to power he inherited a Kremlin every bit as corrupt and traitor-infested as the White House nowadays. As for Russia, she was in pretty much the same sorry shape as the Independent Nazi-run Ukraine. Russia was also run by bankers and AngloZionist puppets and most Russians led miserable lives. ..."
Option two: Trump wins. Problem: he will be completely alone. The Neocons have total, repeat
total, control of the Congress, the media, banking and finance, and the courts. From Clinton
to Clinton they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies.
The Fed is their stronghold. How in the world will Trump deal with these rabid "crazies in the
basement"?
When Putin came to power he inherited a Kremlin every bit as corrupt and traitor-infested
as the White House nowadays. As for Russia, she was in pretty much the same sorry shape as the
Independent Nazi-run Ukraine. Russia was also run by bankers and AngloZionist puppets and most
Russians led miserable lives.
While trump idea of cutting taxes for business might work in a sort term, the whole neoliberal
system is so corrupt that any attempt to make distribution more fair will be sabotaged. and Trump
appeal to small business owners is somewhat fake. When political in the USA talks about small
business owners typically he is a Wall Street stooge.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is in a unique position to be able to tell the Wall Street lobbyists and special interests to "go to hell" while he actually fixes the U.S. economy, his senior economic adviser Peter Navarro told Breitbart News Saturday. ..."
"... The basic problem is for a congressman or a president to get elected, they need obscene amounts of money. And the only place you can get obscene amounts of money is from Wall Street and the big corporations who benefit from shipping our jobs and our factories overseas-that's the fundamental political problem. That's the beauty of Donald Trump. He's the change agent. He can tell Wall Street and these big people and corporations that want to ship our jobs overseas to go to hell. He stands up for our workers. ..."
"... Navarro's interview came just an hour before Trump's address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he laid out what he will do in his first 100 days as president if elected on Nov. 8, and made his closing argument to the American people in the campaign. ..."
"... What happens is there will be a major speech that goes on for 40 minutes laying out in precise detail exactly what's going to get done and then the media will take a clip from that that's unrelated to the policy agenda and make that the news. It's difficult to push through that when so much of the media has a NeverTrump agenda. ..."
"... For every one percent of GDP growth that we have lost over the last 15 years, we've lost 1.2 million jobs. If you add that up over the 15-year period, that would be over 20 million jobs, which is about what we need to put everybody back to work at a decent wage. So that's the grim reality. ..."
"... Clinton is part of the problem. In fact, it's extraordinary to me-you cannot name a presidential candidate in history who has singlehandedly through bad trade deals destroyed more American jobs and more American factories than Hillary Clinton. She did NAFTA, she did China's entry into the World Trade Organization, she did the South Korean 2012 deal, every single one of those. We're talking about millions and millions and millions of jobs and just misery in all of the swing states in this election. ..."
Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is in a unique position to be able
to tell the Wall Street lobbyists and special interests to "go to hell" while he actually fixes
the U.S. economy, his senior economic adviser Peter Navarro told Breitbart News Saturday.
Navarro said on the program, which aired on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
on Saturday:
The basic problem is for a congressman or a president to get elected, they need obscene
amounts of money. And the only place you can get obscene amounts of money is from Wall Street and
the big corporations who benefit from shipping our jobs and our factories overseas-that's the
fundamental political problem. That's the beauty of Donald Trump. He's the change agent. He can
tell Wall Street and these big people and corporations that want to ship our jobs overseas to go
to hell. He stands up for our workers.
Navarro's interview came just an hour before Trump's address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
where he laid out what he will do in his first 100 days as president if elected on Nov. 8, and
made his closing argument to the American people in the campaign.
Navarro told Breitbart News Saturday of the speech:
This is basically a broad overview of the whole Trump policy agenda for America. It's very
exciting news. If you think about what's going on this year in America, we've got the slowest
growth since World War II. We've got a national security mess in every theater in the world
from Asia to the Middle East, and we've got a healthcare plan that is imploding, and we've got
an immigration plan that is overwhelming this country, so in the remaining days until Nov. 8
Mr. Trump is going to lay all of this out and it's going to be exciting to hear positive
policies talked about to the American people instead of anything but policy.
Trump, Navarro noted, has been giving detailed policy-oriented speeches across the United
States over the past several months while his Democratic opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton has been
running a policy-free campaign focused on insults and the politics of personal destruction.
Nonetheless, the media completely ignores Trump's solutions-focused campaign. So what Trump plans
to do now is circumvent the media while taking his message directly to the American people.
Navarro said:
What happens is there will be a major speech that goes on for 40 minutes laying out in
precise detail exactly what's going to get done and then the media will take a clip from that
that's unrelated to the policy agenda and make that the news. It's difficult to push through
that when so much of the media has a NeverTrump agenda.
So what Mr. Trump's going to do is just take the case to the American people between now
and election day that his agenda is the right one on the economy, immigration, healthcare, and
everything on down-national security-this is a critical election.
Hillary Clinton's agenda, Navarro said, would devastate the United States on every front. He
said:
In fact, if we turn the country over to Hillary Clinton at this point we know the
following: We know that she can't possibly be better at economically than we've been doing and
she'll probably do worse. We know that she will continue with the Obamacare agenda which is
collapsing before our eyes. We know that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy agenda will continue
to be weakness and chaos in places like the Middle East. We know all of this and it's
important for the American people to learn more in more granular detail about the competing
policies of each of the candidates and that's the mission between now and Nov. 8.
One of the key points he brought up during the interview was Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
growth in the United States, which since the early 2000s has significantly slowed down compared
with the latter half of the 20th century. That crushes Americans' chances of getting a good job
with high-paying wages, as the slowdown in the 21st century has cost the United States around 20
million jobs, maybe more. Navarro went on:
Let me give you just the central statistic of American life right now: From 1947 to 2001,
our economy grew at an average rate of 3.5 percent a year. Since 2002, that rate's fallen to
1.9 percent a year. For every one percent of GDP growth that we have lost over the last 15
years, we've lost 1.2 million jobs. If you add that up over the 15-year period, that would be
over 20 million jobs, which is about what we need to put everybody back to work at a decent
wage. So that's the grim reality.
Navarro said the reason this has happened is because of a "structural problem" in the U.S.
economy that people like Hillary Clinton refuse to solve:
Now, the question is: Why has this happened? The answer is simply that we have a deep
structural problem in our economy and the basic answer is we don't invest on American soil
like we used to. That's a major problem. We invest in Mexico and China and Vietnam and
Cambodia instead. That drains our GDP directly, and then we also run a massive trade deficit:
$766 billion a year, which alone probably takes a point off our growth rate. Now, Donald Trump
recognizes this. He recognizes that two of the most important things are to get more
investment on domestic soil by corporations and businesses and to eliminate the trade deficit.
Trump will solve the problem on four separate fronts, Navarro said, something that will take
bold leadership and courage in Washington. Navarro continued:
So what do you do? You attack that on four different fronts: regulatory, trade directly,
energy, and basically what we need to do is realign the incentives of corporations so that it's
better to invest in Michigan than Mexico. One of the ways to do that is to reduce the corporate
tax rate from 35 percent down to 15 percent, which would make us competitive with all of those
countries which have lower corporate tax rates and are basically running huge surpluses with us:
Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, Mexico. These are the countries that are just killing us
strategically. So, if we want to get better growth-stronger growth-we have to attack this
structurally. Now, what Obama and Clinton have been doing is treating the problem not
structurally but as a cyclical phenomenon that you can simply use what we call Keynesian stimulus
- named after John Maynard Keynes, famous economist: the idea that if you simply spend a bunch of
government money and print a bunch of government money that somehow that will stimulate the
economy. Well, we've had eight years of that. Barack Obama has doubled our debt from $10 to $20
trillion using fiscal stimulus and our Federal Reserve balance sheet has been totally destroyed
and what do we have to show for it? We have one percent growth instead of 3.5 or 4.
Navarro said Clinton has two separate ideas to "stimulate the economy," both of which he said
won't work.
"One is to basically tax the rich and give the money to everybody else," he said, noting that
that is essentially classic leftist redistribution of wealth that will "depress savings and
investment from the people who save the most and allow the most investment." Navarro added:
And the other is this wacky thing to significantly raise business taxes to get a pot of
money and then build some infrastructure. It might sound good to some people-we definitely
need the infrastructure-but the last thing we want to do is reallocate funds in America from
the efficient private sector to the less efficient public sector. Trump has an infrastructure
plan which will produce twice as much spending without having to raise any taxes. He uses an
elegant system of a tax credit to incentivize the private sector to build this stuff.
Navarro said the problem is, in addition to cheap labor overseas, a number of government
policies that strangle business development in the United States while encouraging offshoring of
U.S. companies. He elaborated:
Cheap labor is a small part of the problem at work here. If it were only cheap labor,
America would be in trouble. Because it's other things too, we have a great chance to turn it
around. Here's the problem: Our high corporate tax rate pushes our companies offshore. Our
high regulatory burden pushes our companies offshore. To the extent we put our coal miners and
oil and gas industry out of business and raise electricity costs and energy costs, that pushes
our corporations offshore. To the extent that we allow China to illegally subsidize goods and
sell them into this country, that pushes our jobs and factories offshore. To the extent we
don't hold the World Trade Organization and Mexico accountable for manipulating the rules of
the VAT versus income tax is very injurious to this country.
Navarro added that if someone is elected president with the "will and the intelligence" to
take on the special interests and fix the problems, America can survive this threat. He
concluded:
All of this stuff is in our hands. It simply takes the will and the intelligence to do it,
and the ability to resist the special interests who are on the other side of that equation.
Trump will solve this problem, Clinton is part of the problem. In fact, it's extraordinary
to me-you cannot name a presidential candidate in history who has singlehandedly through bad
trade deals destroyed more American jobs and more American factories than Hillary Clinton. She
did NAFTA, she did China's entry into the World Trade Organization, she did the South Korean
2012 deal, every single one of those. We're talking about millions and millions and millions
of jobs and just misery in all of the swing states in this election. If anybody is
listening to this in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, please
recognize that Hillary Clinton bears a major responsibility for whatever misery your state is
going through.
LISTEN TO PETER NAVARRO'S FULL INTERVIEW ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY:
"... Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed. ..."
"... After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach. ..."
"... Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy" among the "lesser breeds without the Law." ..."
"... By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy, and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots. ..."
"... For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic. ..."
"... Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old republic; it is the corruption of it. ..."
"... Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November. ..."
"... Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution." ..."
"... Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained. ..."
What explains the hysteria of the establishment? In a word, fear. The establishment is horrified
at the Donald's defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks
no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority. It may rule and run the country, and
may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is
never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it
rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.
Having fixed the future, the establishment
finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers
came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.
Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political
religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed.
Trump is "talking down our democracy," said a shocked Clinton.
After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment
installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools
began to teach.
Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England, and France to bring
Christianity to the New World.
Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy"
among the "lesser breeds without the Law."
Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas,
and the Muslim Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to reestablish their true God.
And Allah is no democrat.
By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing
an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy,
and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots.
For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the
Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic.
When Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, was asked by a woman what kind of
government they had created, he answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old
republic; it is the corruption of it.
Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that
by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November.
If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it. And if felons decide the electoral votes
of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next U.S. president, are we obligated to honor that
election?
In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority,
the matter went to the House. There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency
to Adams-and Adams made Clay secretary of state, putting him on the path to the presidency that had
been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams himself. Were Jackson's people wrong to regard
as a "corrupt bargain" the deal that robbed the general of the presidency? The establishment also
recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke's declaration that it is now "torches and pitchforks
time."
Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in
"Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether
it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition,
is also revolution."
Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro
Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal
democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained.
After the first debate, numerous videos surfaced alleging that Hillary was using some sort of
teleprompter built into her podium to assist with answering questions or to offset whatever medical
condition she's dealing with. The videos were largely dismissed as "cooky alt-right conspiracy theories"
and didn't get much attention outside of those spheres.
But, when similar abnormalities surfaced on Hillary's podium in the third debate, combined with
the fact that she spent an awkward amount of time during her answers peering down rather than at
the camera, we grew a bit more curious.
With that said, here is a video analyzing the abnormalities from debate 1. Notice that around
18 seconds into this video one can very clearly see a light shut off on Hillary's podium even though
there is no such light at Trump's podium.
But, you don't have to take that guy's word for it. Here is the actual debate footage from NBC..
.fast forward to the 1:38:30 mark at the very end of this video and you can see the exact same phenomenon.
And here is a screen capture from the end of the debate. Notice there is a light on Hillary's
podium while Trump's is completely dark.
But where things get really interesting is that the exact same phenomenon occurred at debate 3
this week as pointed out by the following video posted by Anonymous.
Again, as you can see, there seems to be a light on Hillary's podium...
...but none at Trump's.
And here is one more angle...
And the two together...
But again, no need to take our word for it as you can simply scan through the full debate footage
posted by USA Today and see the phenomenon for yourself. Also note that, at numerous points while
answering questions throughout the debate, Hillary seems to be looking down at her podium for extended
periods of time rather than at the camera...to the point that it was actually awkward for people
watching the debate live.
Don't believe it? In the following video, fast forward to the 42:25 mark and watch Hillary's eyes
as she responds to the question... where is she looking?
Now, recall that debate 2 was structured as a town hall discussion so this type of cheating would
not have been feasible. That said, oddly enough, debate 2 was the one that almost everyone universally
thought she lost.
If this is rigged then so will the vote. All Trump supporters should stay at the booth on the
day as a show of force. That could be our only chance at non-violent revolution. Identify with
the group, T shirts (Bill is a Rapist!), placards, hats etc.
It's fascinating watching the America far right (libertarians, nationalists, ultraconservatives)
all in this election. Even the kitchen sink "teleprompter" they're throwing into our political
and our social systems. Now, are they right or wrong in doing so? Or, does it really matter?
On the surface one would not think so. But I think it matters a lot. Wonder why?
What will happen if they lose?
Or worse, let's imagine that Trump won.
Will the "vast majority" of clueless Americans know, or have a clue what will be coming in
either case?
Trump doesn't know how to lose unless there's something for him to gain. I do wonder what the
system will have to offer the Devil for his concession speech? And good luck to them post election,
because it will be impossible to govern, especially for the Republicans.
Now, the picture is much clear if Trump wins, and below is a good take, in my opinion. Found
it very insightful. It's by Norman Pagett: The "weimar Period" puts it very neatly
It really is worth reading up on Hi-ler's speeches in the 30s-Trump word for word pretty much.
HRC cant deliver any more than trump can, because the resources do not exist to "make America
great again" or even to sustain the economy at its current level.
when Hit-ler was saying exactly the same thing he had to invade Poland to sustain his fantasy,
and despite the wailing and contrition in 1945-the German people cheered him on when he was initially
successful. The same millions are cheering Trump now.
When the system collapses, as it must (as Hit-ler's ponzi scheme), the chaos that will ensure
will demand the takeover by a dictator, because faced with breakdown of society, governments have
no option but to introduce martial law and in US political terms-that means a theofascism-the
godbotherering wannabe dictators are waiting in the wings.
The military will fall in behind whoever pays their wages. There's no Poland to invade, and subjugate
therefore the only "masses" to subjugate will be the American people-at least that section of
them who are "unbelievers"-ie any kind of minority-and ultimately political opponent.
We all know what happened to minorities in Germany in the 30s. The same thing will happen again-someone
has to take the blame for what's gone wrong wth the country and its economy. The parallels are
exact.
The constitution?
Democracy is the child of affluence. It ends when democracy ends.
Hey toro , previously mofio then santafe then Aristotle of Greece then Gargoyle then bleu then
oops then lance-a-lot then most recently Loftie . Looks like Loftie got banned or just outed.
I shall miss him! Let's see how long toro survives, shall we?
You are a serial spammer and a serial pain in the ass. Might I politely suggest that you go
fuck yourself? And get a life.
PS. You might have noticed that my attempt to expose you for what you are is always the same.
That's because your Spam is always the same (Using fake links to your BS site which has no connection
to your comments; which are deliberately dramatic to mislead people into responding or clicking
on the fake link) so it seems only fair that my exposure of your crap should also always be the
same. An eye for an eye.
... check out the scumbag john poo desta trying his best while he struggled to explain, lie
some more and stuttered to deflect wikileaks facts exposed on his hacked emails and being called
out for his lies while being heckled non-stop by the public ... >>>
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bce_1477088736
... and while you're at the site, take a look at this ... hiliary insults barack hussein at
the al smith 2016 dinner ... too funny ... >>>
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ea3_1477070639
...
the part of hillary's third debate performance that seeemed the oddest was the "surprise" question
at the end as to why the voters should support them. hillary was first and ripped into it with
nary a glance down, like she was expecting it.
trump went second and gave a worse performance on that question, imo.
Upton Sinclair, author 'Grapes of Wrath, The Jungle,. ' wrote ' It Can't Happen Here' in the
1930s.
Leonard Piekoff wrote 'The Ominous Parallels' in 1982.
The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America is a 1982 book by philosopher Leonard
Peikoff, in which Peikoff compares the culture of the United States with the culture of Germany
leading up to the Nazis......
I said it was very dangerous Oct 16-21 with Mars conjunct Pluto at 15* Capricorn.
That is where the elites get the knife in the heart.
It happened at that Catholic dinner in NYC with media and Wall St bailout recipients.
Donald delivered it for us.
The Ruling Elite Has Lost the Consent of the Governed
Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed.
Every ruling Elite needs the consent of the governed: even autocracies, dictatorships and corporatocracies
ultimately rule with the consent, however grudging, of the governed.
The American ruling Elite has lost the consent of the governed.
I was wrong, it wasn't a act of war between global powers, it is an act of war declared by
Donald Trump on our behalf.
With the money channel whore dressed in scarlet with her tits out and white leather gloves
on behind The Donald. The whole thing has been a magic lantern show put on by Hollywood to entertain
the sheep. While wages go down, jobs shipped out and cheap labor flooding in.
The Catholics support Hillary's rape of Haiti and phony chairty that she enriched herself with.
They were even uneasy with Donalds statement that "we need to celebrate the culture of life" meaning
don't use abortion as birth control. Tim Kaine a Jesuit, which is basically a Jewish organization
and Hillary 24 hrs before saying she supports partial birth abortion. They couldn't wait to congradulate
her and fawn all over her.
Dying Killer Kissinger melting behind the white funeral flowers in the pyramid table arrangement.
I should have known at 15* Capricorn it would be this. Watching them boo and hiss at him, he
was us and that was the knife in the heart with all masks down.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart;
the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,
and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-Willam Butler Yeats
This party is just getting started, I said it was going to start now and the real action (Execution
of French King, Execution of English King) takes place at the Pluto/Uranus opposition in 2046-2048.
Jewish power is hanging by a thread, that's only 30 yrs.
I won't be here in this form, but maybe you will be.
Good point. Nothing left to chance. I was so frustrated with Trump and his stupid, banal, vapid
speeches, and the fact that I could make all of the arguments against clinton better than him.
Now it makes sense.
How do you get an incompetent corrupt, and malignant candidate elected? You stand them off
against some other tainted character that will be just as controllable.
The pupetmasters have run this model to ground. They are not prepared to lose.
The fall of legacy media has assumed about it the hue of 'epic saga'. The People are really rooting
for us. Legacy media, so thoroughly detested among the masses as it is, having in this last election
permanently offended over 80% of their audience with demonstrative hostility to both of The People's
candidates (Donald Trump & Bernie Sanders), will NEVER regain any semblance of trust or veneration
in the broader public's sentiments. This David & Goliath epic being all the more heroic as The
People know, in their heart of hearts, that these scheming gremlins in the media are rotten to
the core, and they similarly know that we're pure of heart and motive. It truly is good vs. evil
story-book heroics...and the crowd is roaring for us with each blow stricken. This is serious;
The People not only want to see them defeated, they seek a punitive spectacle, they demand a grand
finale -- the ornery and agitated mob lusts for its pound of flesh. Gotta give the people what
they want.
A servant to all is mastered by none -- this has been my governing philosophy since declaring
war on this establishment some five years ago. Before initiating phase one of my campaign and
this adventure in Boston, I owned a restaurant back in Alabama. In that time, I learned a little
bit about satisfying the public's appetite...in a distinct and idiosyncratic way. I've gone about
revolution is just such a fashion -- iconaclastic and idiosyncratic. I've often had to improvise,
but have always adhered to an overarching strategy...or i should say 'recipe'. I've been working
on a formula of sorts...cooking up something for The People's consumption. I've been sorta chronicling
my adventures within the broader context of this societal/political shift -- a seismic rearrangement
of prevailing paradigm so profound and absolute you won't see anything like it for another millennia.
Yes, I knew something BIG was abrew in the machinations of this species back in Hickstick, Alabama.
Feeling janus had the wherewithal and talents sufficient to make some contribution to this great
turning, I devoted myself wholly to it. I'm not alone. There are many who've risked everything.
And it makes for a great story. But beyond the story, and regarding phase two, I have a bit of
surprise up my sleeve for tptb: the truth is, janus is a more effective and persuasive speaker
than writer. Please forgive me for saying so, and I do say this from a sense of rational modesty,
but I have something of a gift for words and their arrangement. Again, I'm not attempting to boast
-- I mean really, I would not keep going if I didn't know what kind of impact we're having on
the Hedge... janus has from the beginning pledged his gifts to this campaign...us vs. them...good
vs. evil. All the while I'd been hiding the greater talent under a bushel, preparing to make of
it another donation.
tptb, you will soon be forced to deal with my perspicacity in an extemporaneous setting. There
will be no way to mitigate the damages nor prepare. Imagine if you will the fearlessness, confidence
and courage of Donald Trump but from a manner imminently polite and courteous -- even to a fault.
Think about the quick and nimble thinking of Trump expressed with a command of language and erudition
that would make Cicero jealous. Throw into this the ability to instantly structure highly complex
arguments that are both cogent and stimulating to a wise mind. all of which is to say -- and pardon
my french -- tptb, you're fucked. One way or another, janus will soon start speaking...you have
my permission to start freaking. I told you all from the beginning, ain't a goddam thing you can
do to stop me. I'm better than you all...you used to laugh and now you gulp. What's that ole saying
about laughing last?
Meanwhile, as I rest and prepare my vocal chords, chef janus will carve another pound of flesh
from the carcass of a freshly slain legacy-media, slicing off a hunk while the beast still simpers
and serve it to the public rare, with the blood still in it. (just wait till I rip their heart
out while it beats for the grande finale) I've entitled it:
As The Pendulum Swings
The ponderous procession of Providence is subject to the laws of stasis and extremes. All things
tend to extremes and then return, ever so temporarily, to the equilibrium of stasis -- this is
the pattern of dynamism in nature; the inertia intrinsic to this swing back to stasis has a value
slightly greater than the force which propelled it to the most recent and retreating extreme.
As this relates to the mass-sentiments governing the hive-mind of mankind, we are just now starting
the descent from a peak of institutional perfidy. The political pendulum is edging ever so slightly
away from a totalitarian control matrix so absolute it would make stalin blush. We will soon pick
up speed and then accelerate quickly to arrests and trials. But the extreme to which these devils
have pushed The People being so far beyond what's ever been done in the civilized world, I feel
that by the time this is all over, we will see guillotines. Understand, this pitch of acrimony
is still only nascent. Once the dollar goes and everyone's investments, jobs, food stamps, etc.,
we are going to see a ferocity within the masses unique in all of history.
yes, media clowns, you are in great peril. The people will be calling for your hides. Sure,
you won't be the only targets, but you'll most certainly be a focus. How do you like it now that
it's your emails being hacked and scrutinized? How will you like it when your sordid private lives
are exposed? You thought it was funny when you were on the inside; but now that things are turning
inside out, do you feel so insulated? Think you're protected? hardly...your masters will happily
throw you to the baying mob hoping your hide will sate their appetite. Your fates are only these:
prison, death or, if you're lucky, menial service sector jobs. Yes, those of you wise enough to
start speaking the truth now will be spared prison or something more severe. I recommend you exercise
this option. Perhaps you think janus is exaggerating...but after everything that's happened, do
you think it wise to bet on tptb? janus has peered into the future. Predictable outcome: Good
Guys win. Not even close. In fact, you could call it a blood-bath:
You reap what you sow in this world. The metaphysical concept of equilibrium is what we call
justice; justice necessarily involves punitive measures. You journalists are the custodians of
democracy. You have abrogated your end of the social contract. You have betrayed The Public in
service to wickedness. Whether you did so from fear or to curry favor with The People's enemies
is largely immaterial, you cast your lot with evil which has for a while flourished -- you just
so happen to be involved in the time of its denoument...sucks to be you. In aiding and abetting
the deception and fleecing of the public, you have several wars to your credit, rivers of blood
stain you hands, the mass poisoning of the people has been undertaken as you advanced it...you
have not only sat back and watched The People suffer, you have contributed your life's work to
that end.
Same as Nuremberg, 'just following orders' will not be a permissible defense. As to this equilibrium
and its relationship to the concept of justice, when the punishments are meted out, they will
be far more severe than you can now fathom, but they will be proportionate to the sentiments of
the time. When the pendulum reaches the other extreme of its travel, when The People discover
the level of your involvement and participation, an eye for an eye won't do -- they'll be demanding
two. Mark my words, legacy media. Be ye therefore wise and know the signs of the times.
Donald Trump is just the beginning...there are several more volumes to this story...and the
best part is, there's a very happy ending.
The little seeds cast about here on the Hedge have germinated and are starting to take root
in The Public...just wait till they bloom:
{btw, the above song is from a band to which i give a five star recommendation...first such
honor since Houndmouth...and so, i introduce the Hedge to Shovels and Rope (gotta love that name)}
There was another part of the Post
article I cited in my
last post that I wanted to address:
"The dynamic is totally different from what I saw a decade ago" when Democratic and Republican
elites were feuding over the invasion of Iraq, said Brian Katulis, a senior Middle East analyst
at the Center for American Progress. Today, the focus among the foreign policy elite is on rebuilding
a more muscular and more "centrist internationalism," he said [bold mine-DL].
Every term used in that last sentence is either misleading or flat-out wrong. A more aggressive
policy in Syria or anywhere else
shouldn't be described as "muscular" for a few reasons. For one thing, committing the U.S. to
short-sighted and ill-conceived military interventions does nothing to enhance the strength or security
of the country. Such a policy doesn't build strength–it wastes it. Calling an aggressive policy "muscular"
betrays a bias that aggressive measures are the ones that demonstrate strength, when they usually
just demonstrate policymakers' crude and clumsy approach to foreign problems. One might just as easily
describe these policies as meat-headed instead.
"Centrist" is one of the most overused and abused words in our politics. The term is often used
to refer to positions that are supposedly moderate, pragmatic, and relatively free of ideological
bias, but here we can see that it refers to something very different. Many people that are considered
to be "centrists" on the normal left-right political spectrum are frequently in favor of a much more
aggressive foreign policy than the one we have now, but that doesn't make their foreign policy a
moderate or pragmatic one. In fact, this "centrism" is not really a position in between the two partisan
extremes, both of which would be satisfied with a less activist and interventionist foreign policy
than we have today, but represents an extreme all its own.
Besides, there's nothing moderate or pragmatic about being determined to entangle the U.S.
deeper in foreign wars, and that is what this so-called "centrist" foreign policy aims to do.
Likewise, it is fairly misleading to call what is being proposed here internationalist. It
shows no respect for international law. Hawkish proposals to attack Syria or carve out "safe zones"
by force simply ignore that the U.S. has no right or authority to do either of these things.
There appears to be scant interest in pursuing international cooperation, except insofar as it is
aimed at escalating existing conflicts. One would also look in vain for working through international
institutions. The only thing that is international about this "centrist internationalism" seems to
be that it seeks to inflict death and destruction on people in other countries.
Kocherlakota:"Another possibility, highlighted in Yellen's
speech, is that the recovery engineered by the Fed was so
slow that it did (possibly reversible) damage to the
supply side -- for example, as long-term unemployment
eroded the skills and motivation of workers"
Unfortunately they won´t give up their favorite Phillips
Curve Model:
https://thefaintofheart.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/the-fomc-its-forecasts/
US Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion
and Counting
Summary of Costs of the US Wars in Iraq, Syria,
Afghanistan and Pakistan and Homeland Security
By Neta C. Crawford
Anne, wars are certainly "destructive", but why should
this one damage the supply side so much more than all the
other wars?
[ I would argue that the unprecedented
amount of time taken by the wars, the important actual
spending and what was not spent as a result of the
constraint of spending on the wars. Also, while there was
spending on the wars which bolstered the economy, I would
argue this spending did relatively little to build a
productive base for the economy.
We could properly argue that digging ditches and
filling them in provides needed work and support for the
economy in a recession, but we were lots better off
productively because of New Deal ditch digging and filling
designed for the Tennessee Valley Authority. ]
But just think what all of our pre-emptive invasions did
to the global environment....
[ A refrain that I have
often read, but have no reference just now, is that
American militarism has been the price of economic advance
or well-being. Likely because I am bothered by militarism
and such a generality, I have never set down a reference.
But, I have not thought about the environmental effects of
war since 2001. ]
The other problem with foreign wars is that, to the extent
that money is spent abroad and stays there, they represent
leakage to the US economy...IOW they are a contractionary
force. Of course, there is no reporting on how much of the
DOD budget gets spent abroad and stays there. However,
leasing alone of 800 plus military bases can't be cheap...
OTOH digging ditches and filling them in keeps money in
the economy and probably even has a positive multiplier.
anne -> JohnH...
, -1
The money spent abroad argument is faulty as such, since
dollars spent in abroad on development programs will in
turn be spent in the United States. China has begun a "one
belt, one road" program in which large, large sums will be
spent on infrastructure from Russia and Mongolia to Laos
and Cambodia to Pakistan and Bangladesh... to build an
Asian trading network.
Money spent abroad on fighting
however is another matter.
The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the
Century
By Alexander J. Field
Abstract
There is now an emerging consensus that over the course
of U.S. economic history, multifactor productivity grew
fastest over a broad plateau between 1905 and 1966, and
within that period, in the two decades following 1929.
This paper argues that the bulk of the achieved
productivity levels in 1948 had already been attained
before full scale war mobilization in 1942. It was not
principally the war that laid the foundation for postwar
prosperity. It was technological progress across a broad
frontier of the American economy during the 1930s.
Ghost of Christmas
Future :
, -1
$800 billion trade
deficit still not a
major topic in
economics. This is
incredible. The US
has only 5% of the
world's population
yet we are
absorbing more than
a third of the
global trade
surplus of surplus
economies.
Is it easier for
5% of the world to
absorb $800 billion
a year in annual
trade deficits or
would it be easier
for 95% of the
world able to do
that? A trade
surplus for the US
of $800 billion is
much more
reasonable. A swing
of $1.6 trillion in
aggregate demand
would have enormous
consequences for US
development,
stability and
unemployment
levels. A
commitment to
industry, combined
with low interest
loans, government
contracts and high
tariffs would lead
to a boom in
industrial
investment rather
than its virtual
absence. The
working class could
actually find jobs
working again
rather than being
forced into the
drug trade and
prison - even
people in the
destroyed cities of
Camden, Chicago and
Buffalo could find
hope again. We
could get 10-14%
annual GDP growth
as 25-50 factories
were built a day.
(We lost 15 a day
from 2000-2010 with
our economists not
noticing or caring)
Why does the US
settle for economic
destruction when
Vietnam, Singapore,
China, Israel etc.
etc. show that
growth and
development are
easy? Why must we
accept poverty and
deindustrialization?
Why do Americans
need to be forced
to return to stone
age subsistence
agriculture, street
commerce,
prostitution,
begging, the drug
trade?
The pointless
destruction of the
US as an economy,
center of wealth
and technology
continues apace
without attracting
any attention from
our serious
economists. Trump
should continue to
focus on his
message - Clinton
won't fix anything,
and things may very
well collapse
between now and
November 2020. At
which point Trump
will be ideally
positioned to
champion the 40-70%
of the population
that is "new poor".
Our last hope is
that Trump wins in
November 2016 or
Nov. 2020 and as
soon as he takes
office both
disbands all
economics
departments and
raises tariffs to
the necessary
300-400% range.
Anything else is
continued insane
economic suicide.
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs...
, -1
Hegemon needs all the tools it can scrape up to perpetrate
its evil.
Obama was going to end Iraghistan, now US has
done Libya, is doing Syria and still losing lives and
wasting treasure in Iraghistan.
Obama advocated a nuclear free world until someone
offered a reason to add $30B a year to the pentagon
trough.
Safety and reliability is a sham in the pentagon
trough.
The only use of nuclear weapons is extending the terror
bpmbing which Le May and Bomber Harris perfected.
Smaller nuclear yields add the the useless but very
expensive read profitable strategy of bombing them "into
the stone age".
If the only strategy is count body bags then small
nukes fit.
Bottom line hegemon war is immoral.
Adding $30B a year is adding opportunity cost to the
immoral!
Love of "security" (cash for the trough) is the root of
all evil.
ilsm -> anne...
, -1
$30B a year for nuclear arms modifications on top of the
spending keeping the existing A-bombs ready to blow away
the world for the hege0mon!!!!!
Russia and China
spending less than half the pentagon core budgets which do
not include the munificent war supplements.
Between Russia's $78B a year and China's $140B per year
they have a long way to go with the US putting $500B a
year in the core pentagon trough and adding plus ups for
bombing Assad.
However, if China is as efficient in war as in
manufactures the $500B riddled with waste and welfare is
concerning.
Stein: Stop beating war drums. NATO surround Russia, war games
around russia, fake nucs as prep for war, Clinton virtual
declaration of war no fly zone, Brzyenski neo-con has changed,
Aleppo horrible US broke cease fire, we are not the bad guys, no
good guys or bad guys, need honest brokers instead of tools of
defense industry (Kerry good).
QCenk: less war footing, were would you use force. Ex. Syria:
Bagdadi, can we drone strike?
A: Israel had Eichmann, they did not take him out, they complied
w/inter law, captured, tried, paid price, world of laws or bullies,
I would use a force were int law, when under imminent threat or
under attack.
Q: Special forces like they did with Bin Laden or no?
A: SF acceptable in policing.
Q:Judgment in court would you enforce.
A: Inter respected rules Yes. Drones are assassination program.
Mobilize population against us. No drones as a weapon of war.
Q: Iraq/Syria: Our allies say they are advancing on Iraq what would
you do. Brinkmanship, engage weapons embargo, US, Russia, allies.
ISIS success supported by allies, cut that support by Saudis, hold
Baghdad for weeks but reversed, blindly continue? Fails and creates
next generation.
Q: If Russia goes into Estonia to protect some Russians, what would
you do?
Communicate starting now, brinkmanship, surrounding Russia, reverse
of Cuban missile crisis.
Q: That's long term, what is short term plan.
A: Estonia member of NATO. Obliged by NATO contract. Bacevich-let
NATO take care of Europe. Create truly defensible policy.
My question, too. For example, if Stephanie Kelton were
Stein's nominee for Treasury, I wouldn't worry so much about
Stein's views on what quantitiative easing can and cannot do.
I went looking. The
official GP site
links to the
"Green Shadow Cabinet"
site ("The Green Shadow Cabinet of
the United States is a civic project not sponsored by or
affiliated with any political party," so who knows whether
it's really authoritative, despite the GP link). From the
Cabinet Members
page:
I hate to be a critic of someone who has her heart in
the right place. but agreed in spades. Brown so does not
understand the Fed, money and banking that I sometimes
wonder if she's a plant to make people on the left spout
ideas that will discredit them.
The Green Shadow Cabinet was around during the 2012
elections. They are placeholders for these positions
though not yet official. I don't know if all the
'appointments' are current (I see 2015 dates), so some
of them may have changed.
Yves, I know you don't need homework (thanks for all
you do here), but if you have a moment and are so
inclined, maybe contact the campaign with your concerns
about Brown and offer an opinion as to why the choice
discredits them or their aims? Or don't. I realize your
time and experience is valuable and more suited to
remunerated advising than free opining.
Q6: Energy from coal etc. Stein: green new jobs etc.
Q: push.. short term would you shut down the coal mines? Stein? 17
years to zero out fossil fuels. Emergency put people to work in
other industries, solar, transportation, rail, or light rail or
it's curtains in a matter of decades. 2060 10,20,30 feet of sea
rise. Goodbye population centers, nuclear plants will go Fukashima,
where does money come from? 1/2 T essential for our survival.
Organizer in the white house instead of bloated military, or tax
wall street .2%.
Q: cenk still pushing. European countries limit coal mines, so
would you say no more coal mines, no oil drilling?
Stein: you can't negotiate with environment, climate. More jobs to
be created by doing what science says to do. zero mean zero.
Scientists say play with fire. EPA to protect environment and
health, extinction is not compatible with health.
Taking a break and then back to : are you a spoiler?
Q7: can't hear, hopefully someone will repeat?
Stein: dealing with congress that doesn't get anything done and a Pres that
does opposite of elected purpose? Turn the wh into the Green house. Political
house of cards is falling down. Dislike, distrusted candidates. When? organize
for life saving, civiliZation saving event. Organizer and chief. Lobbyists
calling the shots, predatory banks etc, we the public locked out, vast number
to mobilize end student debt, health care, agenda doable, flood offices
insisting (she's meandering) on green new deal, phone, e-mail, show up. Quaking
in boots, organized political power we have.
Q8: Campaign finance, lobby etc seems rigged, how to overcome?
Stein: passed Camp finance reform thru referendum as 85% D legislature wouldn't
do it. Public financing, money no longer in control can't buy elections,
holding airwarve hostage to corp profiteering, not rocket science. Mass. Ds
repealed public finance on voice vote, worser evil to make themselves
inevitable. (At least she admits what her state did was an ultimate failure)
Cenk: Constitutional amendment, what would it say? Stein: Yes, CU not only
problem, distorted constitution, money is not speech, 1$ 1 Vote, corps not
people, we have the right to democratically decide.
Cenk: Clinton too, within first 30 days?
Stein: Clinton only refers to unaccountable money pretends to support, ok
declared money,
Q9: If someone doesn't want Trump, vote for you instead of Clinton?
Stein: 4 out fo 10 don't vote, it will be 6 out of 10, stand up, what is exit
strategy of greater and lesser evil, Trumps' statements, Clinton's acts Libya,
bombing Muslims, D, unfathomable hr vilations against immigration, coup in
Honduras and refugees, R hate and fear, D deportation and night raids, they get
worse more corp, more militarist, interrupt the downward spiral. Trump scumbag
smokescreen for economic predators once Clinton wins, SS privatization, fool me
once, twice, three, vote like your lives depend on it because they do.
Cenk: T or C, who would you pick?
Difference not enough to save your job, environment, climate etc. I will not
sleep wll if T elected. I will not sleep well if C elected either, war with
Russia. This is a democracy.
Q10: drug war, 160,000 died against cartels, 1T$, drug use hasn't dropped.
Alcohol prohibition makes more powerful, drug also. Lack of regulation, arrests
(every 25 seconds) legalize, tax, regulate all drugs as prohibition makes it
work?
Stein: Instruct DEA to use science what will and won't be scheduled. Marijuana
off, pulls rug out from under mafioso industry. Decriminalize, health issue,
needs more study. Legalize marijuana.
MCR for all discussion.
Ooh, here we go: Sam Seder question: Some are voting to get the GP to 5%,
100 in office but that is less statewide. Do you have a plan for off years
and what is it? (I'm betting she won't answer)
Stein: So much we can do, fear campaign delivers what we're afraid of,
this democracy not for us, stand up, (still no plan) make most progressive
vote, rank choice voting, politics of fear, moral compass, raise up local
candidates, go to website, donate, independent parties lead the way,
abolition spoilers, (still no plan) Abraham Lincoln, stand up like your
lives depend on it…… nope, no plan.
"... Nonsense. You would have to be so incompetent as to need a daily caregiver to be a "liberal" activist and not know Hillary Clinton despises you. ..."
"... Didn't click on the link. I presume this is just face-saving blather from inside the pen. ..."
"... It's compatible with Hillary's three-act campaign's third act of "putting the Party back together" with the solvent glue of conflation and the structural adhesive of Stronger Together ("get in mah fasces, maggots"). ..."
Some fun dish in here: WikiLeaks poisons Hillary's relationship with left. After learning
how Clinton feels about them, liberals vow to push back against her agenda and appointments.
Nonsense. You would have to be so incompetent as to need a daily caregiver to be a "liberal"
activist and not know Hillary Clinton despises you.
Didn't click on the link. I presume this is just face-saving blather from inside the pen.
Gotta pretend you're not in the pen to get more calves in there with you. If they can actually
see the wires and the prods, it takes more effort to get them down the chute.
It's a decent bit of dish, but what one gets out of the forced synonymy of "liberal" and "left"
and "progressive" depends on what priors one brings in with it, and I don't think I'll wait for
the third time around before calling it as enemy design.
It's compatible with Hillary's three-act
campaign's third act of "putting the Party back together" with the solvent glue of conflation
and the structural adhesive of Stronger Together ("get in mah fasces, maggots").
Today's aptrogram from professional political kayfabe: Amanda Marcotte → At Drama, Moan Etc.
I agree with this. All a person has to do is look at a few of her votes in the Senate to see
how right wing she is. Some examples (which I posted during the primaries - sorry for the repetition):
Her vote in favor of the insidious bankruptcy reform act:
The 2001 bill did not become law, but it was similar to the 2005 bill (S. 256) which did
become law. Hillary Clinton was not present for the 2005 vote, because her husband was having
surgery for a partially collapsed lung:
She is a Democrat only by name. In reality she is a wolf in sheep clothing -- a neoliberal (and
a neocon -- a warmonger with the distinct anti-Russian bet) that betrayed working people
and middle class long ago and pandering only to the top 1%. The while "clitonized" Democratic party
is the party of top 1% (top 10% at best). Rejection of Hillary is just rejection of Demorats
(neoliberal democrats) betrayal of working and middle classes. It remains to be seen f Wall Street
managed to push her thrith the thoat of Americal people, despite all re revultion her candidacy
evoke, her corruption and her failing health.
The soullessness of [Clinton's] campaign - all ambition and entitlement - emerges
almost poignantly in the emails, especially when aides keep asking what the campaign
is about. In one largely overlooked passage,
Clinton
complains
that her speechwriters have not given her any overall theme or
rationale. Isn't that the candidate's job? Asked
one of her aides
, Joel Benenson: "Do we have any sense from her what she believes
or wants her core message to be?"
It's that emptiness at the core that makes every policy and
position negotiable and politically calculable. Hence the
embarrassing about-face
on the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the popular winds
swung decisively against free trade.
So too with financial regulation, as in Dodd-Frank
.
As she told
a Goldman Sachs gathering, after the financial collapse there was "a
need to do something because, for political reasons . . . you can't sit idly by and
do nothing."
Of course, we knew all this. But we hadn't seen it so clearly laid out.
Illicit and illegal as is WikiLeaks, it is the camera in the sausage factory. And
what it reveals is surpassingly unpretty.
Who on the left is genuinely excited about voting for Hillary Clinton? Sure, there
are some, but
she strikes me as being a Democratic figure who's a lot like Mitt
Romney was on the Right: the perfect distillation of a kind of Establishmentarianism
within their own party.
(I hasten to say that whatever my disagreement with Romney
over policy might have been, he always struck me as a thoroughly decent person. Hillary
Clinton … not.) It is hard to think of two more different figures on the Right than Mitt
Romney and Donald Trump - temperamentally and otherwise. Yet within four years, the GOP
convulsed so much that it got Donald Trump. What Trump's triumph over the GOP
Establishment showed was its deep weakness. It just needed a strong push.
Might that be the case for the Democrats post-Clinton? Who is the Donald Trump of the
Democratic Party? Where might he come from? I don't think we can see him (or her) now,
but I have a hunch that he's out there.
I find it hard to believe that the Democrats
are not going to be immune to the same economic and cultural forces that dismantled the
GOP. I could be wrong. Her sort of conniving, careerist, technocratic liberalism surely
is not long for this world. Yes?
Posted in
Democrats
,
Presidential politics
. Tagged
Charles
Krauthammer
,
Donald Trump
,
Hillary Clinton
.
There was a time, not long ago, when deficit scolds were
actively dangerous - when their huffing and puffing came
quite close to stampeding Washington into really bad policies
like raising the Medicare age (which wouldn't even have saved
money) and short-term fiscal austerity. At this point their
influence doesn't reach nearly that far. But they continue to
play a malign role in our national discourse - because they
divert and distract attention from much more deserving
problems, depriving crucial issues of political oxygen.
You saw that in the debates: four, count them, four
questions about debt from the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget, not one about climate change. And you see it
again in today's New York Times, with Pete Peterson (of
course) and Paul Volcker (sigh) lecturing us * about the
usual stuff.
What's so bad about this kind of deficit scolding? It's
deeply misleading on two levels: the problem it purports to
lay out is far less clearly a major issue than the scolds
claim, and the insistence that we need immediate action is
just incoherent.
So, about that supposed debt crisis: right now we have a
more or less stable ratio of debt to GDP, and no hint of a
financing problem. So claims that we are facing something
terrible rest on the presumption that the budget situation
will worsen dramatically over time. How sure are we about
that? Less than you may imagine.
Yes, the population is getting older, which means more
spending on Medicare and Social Security. But it's already
2016, which means that quite a few baby boomers are already
drawing on those programs; by 2020 we'll be about halfway
through the demographic transition, and current estimates
don't suggest a big budget problem.
Why, then, do you see projections of a large debt
increase? The answer lies not in a known factor - an aging
population - but in assumed growth in health care costs and
rising interest rates. And the truth is that we don't know
that these are going to happen. In fact, health costs have
grown much more slowly since 2010 than previously projected,
and interest rates have been much lower. As the chart above
shows, taking these favorable surprises into account has
already drastically reduced long-run debt projections. These
days the long-run outlook looks vastly less scary than people
used to imagine.
Still, it's probably true that something will eventually
have to be done to bring spending and revenues in line. But
that brings me to the second point: why is this a crucial
issue right now?
Are debt scolds demanding that we slash spending and raise
taxes right away? Actually, no: the economy is still weak,
interest rates still low (meaning that the Fed can't offset
fiscal tightening with easy money), and as a matter of
macroeconomic prudence we should probably be running bigger,
not smaller deficits in the medium term. So proposals to
"deal with" the supposed debt problem always involve
long-term cuts in benefits and (reluctantly) increases in
taxes. That is, they don't involve actual policy moves now,
or for the next 5-10 years.
So why is it so important to take up the issue right now,
with so much else on our plate?
Put it this way: yes, it's possible that we may at some
point in the future have to cut benefits. But deficit scolds
talk as if they offer a way to avoid this fate, when in fact
their solution to the prospect of future benefit cuts is … to
cut future benefits.
If you try really hard, you can argue that locking in
policies now for this future adjustment will make the
transition smoother. But that is really a second-order issue,
hardly deserving to take up a lot of our time. By putting the
debt question aside, we are NOT in any material way making
the future worse.
And that is a total contrast with climate change, where
our failure to act means pouring vast quantities of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, materially increasing
the odds of catastrophe with every year we wait.
So my message to the deficit scolds is this: yes, we may
face some hard choices a couple of decades from now. But we
might not, and in any case there aren't any choices that must
be made now. Meanwhile, there are genuinely scary things
happening as we speak, which we should be taking on but
aren't. And your fear-mongering is distracting us from these
real problems. Therefore, I would respectfully request that
you people just go away.
I keep trying to imagine what special interest is so invested in the no-fly zone that they
can force Hillary to keep proposing it, even though it is obviously no longer feasible. Is it
just inertia? She is so used to pushing the idea that she brings it up without thinking, and then
has to dodge out of the way? But the whole situation has passed out of the realm of rational thought.
It reminds me of Vietnam.
The idea the South and North Vietnam were separate countries was never
true, but John Foster Dulles insisted on repeating the lie at every opportunity and after a while
the Village all started to believe it.
None of the stated goals in Syria make any sense any longer
(if the ever did), but we keep pursuing them. Scary.
As Europeans assess the fallout from the U.K.'s
Brexit referendum
, they face a series of elections that could equally shake the political establishment. In the
coming 12 months, four of Europe's five largest economies have votes that will almost certainly mean
serious gains for right-wing populists and nationalists. Once seen as fringe groups, France's National
Front, Italy's Five Star Movement, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands have attracted legions
of followers by tapping discontent over immigration, terrorism, and feeble economic performance.
"The Netherlands should again become a country of and for the Dutch people," says Evert Davelaar,
a Freedom Party backer who says immigrants don't share "Western and Christian values."
... ... ....
The populists are deeply skeptical of European integration, and those in France and the Netherlands
want to follow Britain's lead and quit the European Union. "Political risk in Europe is now far more
significant than in the United States," says Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of macro research at Barclays.
... ... ...
...the biggest risk of the nationalist groundswell: increasingly fragmented parliaments that will
be unable or unwilling to tackle the problems hobbling their economies. True, populist leaders might
not have enough clout to enact controversial measures such as the Dutch Freedom Party's call to close
mosques and deport Muslims. And while the Brexit vote in June helped energize Eurosceptics, it's
unlikely that any major European country will soon quit the EU, Morgan Stanley economists wrote in
a recent report. But they added that "the protest parties promise to turn back the clock" on free-market
reforms while leaving "sclerotic" labour and market regulations in place. France's National Front,
for example, wants to temporarily renationalise banks and increase tariffs while embracing cumbersome
labour rules widely blamed for chronic double-digit unemployment. Such policies could damp already
weak euro zone growth, forecast by the International Monetary Fund to drop from 2 percent in 2015
to 1.5 percent in 2017. "Politics introduces a downside skew to growth," the economists said.
"... Once again, during the last hour of the third debate, Clinton reiterated her position on a 'no fly zone' and 'safe zones' in Syria. She is absolutely committed to this policy position which aligns with the anonymous 50+ state dept lifers and Beltway neocons stance. ..."
"... Trump's candidacy = sovereignty - NO War. Clinton's candidacy = Globalism - WAR. Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple... ..."
"... Simply incredible the borg,and all those who say she is a lock are in for a big surprise,as Americans don't believe the serial liars anymore. ..."
"... It will be a 'fuck you' vote more than a vote for The Don. ..."
"... The dems forgot to switch off the internet. The anti-Trump MSM campaign is so total and over the top because it has to be --> CNN is so last century. No one is getting out of bed to vote Hillary. ..."
"... Step away from your TVs, smartphones and computers with your brains in the air. Let them breathe freely. ..."
"... Clinton seems to have had some of the questions ahead of time. She seemed to be reading the answers off a telepromter in her lecturn. ..."
"... He should declare that Hillary helped arm Al Qaeda to topple Assad for her banker buddies (cant mention the Jewishness/Israeli Firsterism of the 'neocons' of course, not because false but because true) and will be happy to send African Americans and Latinos to die for 'oil companies' and her 'banker friends' and after decades of establishment Dems promising the sky, maybe they dont need an inveterate liar who arms Islamic terrorists. ..."
"... Hillary armed Al Qaeda and possibly ISIS - both AngloZionist proxies. How in the fuck is she not in jail??? ..."
"... As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, duopolistic elections are merely mechanisms of manufactured consent. When each of the major parties are controlled by the different factions of the oligarchy, there is only afforded the option to vote for the ideology put forth by each oligarchic group. ..."
"... What fascinates me is how Obama went all public about Trumps assertions of rigged elections. It appears the puppet masters are very afraid of a "cynical" (realistic) population. Manufactured consent only works if people play the game. As evidenced in South Africa when no one showed up to vote, the government collapsed. ..."
"... "Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple." Is this being lost sight off amongst all the noise? I hope not, for the sake of the Ukrainians and the Syrians. And for the sake of the countries yet to be destabilised. ..."
"... A vote for Clinton = War and a vote for Trump = NO war ..."
"... Don't know when WH was created but the whitehelmets.org domain name was registered (in Beirut not Syria) in August 2014 and it is hosted on Cloudflare in Texas. Maybe it took some time get the brand recognition going? ..."
"... she also tends to repeat the same talking points 900 times so i knew what she'd say before she said it. did catch her whining about imaginary "russian rigging". again; no surprise there. ..."
"... as for trump, he mentioned abortion stuff more than usual in what i'm guessing is an attempt to win back any jesus freaks he lost with the billy bush tape. ..."
"... For the first time I listened to a Trump speech - delivered in Florida on the 13th of this month. What struck me is how much the media attacks on him and his family have got to him. He mentions how he could have settled for a leisurely retirement, but that he felt he had to do something for his country. ..."
"... perhaps he hadn't quite realized the array of power that is lined up against him. They are not going to let one dude wreck their party. ..."
"... It examines Trump through the prism as a likely "Jacksonian Conservative", who are not dissimilar to traditional conservatives but are not non-interventionists as such, just far more honest about their interventionism (as they are unburdened by the neocon bullshit about "killing them to make them barbarians more civilised") and really only likely to want to apply aggression where they feel that fundamental American interests are threatened. ..."
"... Getting Julian Assange's internet connection cut off just makes the Obama regime look even more stupid and pathetic now. The document dumps keep on coming. Did they really think they would stop that by shutting off the LAN in the Ecuadoran embassy? ..."
"... The underlying problem seems to be that John Podesta bought into the marketing bullshit about The Cloud. So he kept all his very sensitive correspondence at his Gmail account, apparently using it as the archive of his correspondence. ..."
"... I don't know if we'll ever know who hacked his account. It is not that hard to do, so it doesn't really require a "state actor". Google only gives you a few tries at entering your password, so Podesta's account couldn't have been hacked by randomly trying every possibility. Somehow, the hacker got the actual password. Either it was exposed somewhere, or it was obtained by spear phishing . That involves sending your target an email that directs him to a Web page that asks him to enter his password. All that's required to do that is being able to write a plausible email, and setting up a Web site to mimic the Web site where the account you want to hack resides, Gmail in this case. ..."
"... Nearly all information technology security breaches are insider jobs, genuine crackers/hackers are rare. Wikileaks is by far the most likely being fed from the inside of the DNC etc. and/or from their suppliers or security detail by people that are disgusted, have personal vendettas, and so on. It's the real Anonymous, anyone anywhere, not the inept CIA stooges or the faux organized or ideological pretenders. In addition any analyst at the NSA with access to XKeyScore can supply Wikileaks with all the Podesta emails on a whim in less than half an hour of "work" and the actual data to be sent would be gotten with a single XKeyScore database query. That sort of query is exactly what the XKeyScore backend part was built to do as documented by Snowden and affirmed by Binney and others. ..."
"... Duterte may well be flawed but he has a keen nose for where things are heading, Filipinos should be proud of him. ..."
"... 'Hillary "We will follow ISIS to Raqqa to take it "back"' (take Raqqa back from the Syrians?) ..."
"... The crazy hyper-entitled White Supremacist bi*ch is beyond any belief. ..."
"... Jesus Christ, Adolf F. Hitler would've blushed if he said some of her shit. This woman admits she is a war criminal in real time. ..."
"... If Hillary is elected, she will be haunted by her 'mistakes' and by the exposure of her double face by Wikileaks. She is stigmatized as 'crooked Hillary' and as an unreliable decision maker. From now on, all her decisions will be tainted with suspicion. I doubt that she'll be able to lead the country properly during the 4 years she hopes to stay in power. ..."
"... the United States has strayed from its democratically-based roots to become a banking and corporate plutocracy. ..."
The candidates are not the first to blame for this. The first to blame are the moderators of such
debates, the alleged journalists 8and their overlords) who do not ask questions that are relevant
for the life of the general votes and who do not intervene at all when the debaters run off course.
The second group to blame are the general horse-race media who each play up their (owner's) special-interest
hobbyhorses as if those will be the decisive issue for the next four years. The candidates fight
for the attention of these media and adopt to them.
I didn't watch yesterday's debate but every media I skimmed tells me that Clinton was gorgeous
and Trump very bad. That means she said what they wanted to hear and Trump didn't. It doesn't
say what other people who watched though of it. Especially in the rural parts of the country they
likely fear the consequences of climate change way more than Russia, ISIS and Iran together.
Another reason why both candidates avoided to bring up the issues low in the list above is that
both hold positions that are socially somewhat liberal and both are corporatists. None of those low
ranked issues is personally relevant to them. No realistic answer to these would better their campaign
finances or their personal standing in the circles they move in. Personally they are both east coast
elite and don't give a fu***** sh** what real people care about.
As far as I can discern it from the various reports no new political issues were touched. Clinton
ran her usual focus group tested lies while Trump refrained from attacking her hard. A huge mistake
in my view. He can beat her by attacking her really, really hard, not on issues but personality.
Her disliked rate (like Trump's) is over -40%. She is vulnerable on many, many things in her past.
Her foreign policy is way more aggressive than most voters like. Calling this back into mind again
and again could probably send her below -50%. Who told him to leave that stuff alone? Trump is a
major
political disruption . He should have emphasized that but he barely hinted at it for whatever
reason.
The voters are served badly -if at all- by the TV debates in their current form. These do not
explain real choices. That is what this whole election circus should be about. But that is no longer
the case and maybe it never was.
I watched a couple of minutes of the Hillary&Donald show. Then got a book and read instead.
Granted the Queen of Chaos will now have an empire to rule over ... but there will be no honeymoon
- there are a lot of issues that will dog her heels irrespective of the so-called press trying
to help cover-up. The good news in that is the probability of political gridlock. The bad news
is that the QoC will have almost no control over her neo-con handlers, the military nor the CIA
...
It's going to be a helluva ride. The DuhMurriKKKan people have little to do with anything ...
and it is possible the economy may show a slight increase as the DuhMurriKKKan people do what
they've been trained to do: go on a shopping spree for shit they don't need on the grounds that
it'll make them feel better.
Plus, the DNC bus did dump shit in the street in Georgia ... a fitting symbol for politics
in Dumb-shit-MurriKKKah. Doh!
"In this venue, your honours, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States,"
Duterte said to applause at a Chinese forum in the Great Hall of the People attended by Chinese
Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. "Both in military, not maybe social, but economics also. America has
lost."
Obviously, TheRealDonald's missing Minot nuke will be visiting the Duterte presidential compound
shortly after the Trump-Clinton fraud selection, then Der Decider, whoever plays that 'hope and
chains' spox role for Deep State, will announce it was a 'Russian strike', against US 'peace-keeping'
forces in the Western Pacific, and then proceed accordingly to attack and occupy Crimea, to 'protect
our BFF in the Middle East, Israel'.
Deep State has already cued up a SCOTUS decision on Citizens United Ultra for 2017. QEn+ already
cued up to support junk T-bonds for 'The Wall' or 'The Infrastructure'. US national 'debt' (sic)
will hit $25,000,000,000,000 by 2020, then it's game over.
as an American citizen, I am truly terrified of this election. Hillary Clinton will most likely
start WW3 to serve her masters in Saudi Arabia which seek to eliminate Iran and Russia. Most of
us who read this page see Russia as the country fighting terrorist and the US as the one supporting
terrorism. Not good. The problem is Trump does himself no favors with the women voters. This election
I think also put the world and the normally clueless and self centered American citizens that
we are in alot of trouble. The fact that these are the two candidates means we are in serious
decline. The world has known that for a while and to be honest, a multi polar world is a good
thing
Hillary Clinton will most likely start WW3 to serve her masters in Saudi Arabia which seek
to eliminate Iran and Russia
Saudis are dumb, it was about them, now famous, Lavrov's phrase--debily, blyad' (fvcking morons),
but even they do understand that should the shit hit the fan--one of the first targets (even in
the counter-force mode) will be Saudi territory with one of the specific targets being Saudi royal
family and those who "serve" them. It is time to end Wahhabi scourge anyway.
I watched, it was boring. And I agree, Trump should have been more on the offensive, but with
more precision, not just his usual rambling.
jdmckay | Oct 20, 2016 10:26:19 AM | 11 He tried to distance himself from Putin, oddly the only thing he had going for him in my book
(realization Putin's got things done right, things we should have done, and US has lied about
it). Trump backed off...
YES, major point.
Once again, during the last hour of the third debate, Clinton reiterated her position on a
'no fly zone' and 'safe zones' in Syria. She is absolutely committed to this policy position which
aligns with the anonymous 50+ state dept lifers and Beltway neocons stance.
This irresponsible, shortsighted, deadly position alone disqualifies her completely from serving
as Commander in Chief.
Imagine, if you will, she wins. She convenes her military advisors and they discuss how to
implement this policy - no fly zone. Dunsford tells her, again, if said policy were to be implemented
we, the US, would risk shooting down a Russian fighter jet(s) who is safeguarding, by invitation,
the air space of the sovereign state of Syria. She says that is a risk we must take b/c our 'clients'
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel are demanding such action and Assad must go.
Kaboom - we either have a very real WWIII scenario on our hands OR a complete revolt by our
armed forces...nobody in their right mind wants to go to war with Russia...and I'm no longer convinced
she's in her right mind.
So, what if Hillary wants WWIII?
What if this is in her and her fellow travelers long-term game 'Global' plan?
What if she's insane enough to believe the U.S. and our allies could beat Russia and their
allies?
What if she gets back into the WH and we spend the next four years poking, taunting, propagandizing
pure hate and fear at the bear all the while brainwashing the American psyche to hate, loathe
and fear all things Russian? How maddening will that be? Haven't we already been through enough
psychological warfare?
What if one of the next steps in the New World Order or Global governments game plan is to
untether the U.S. military from the shores of the U.S. and grow it into a Global government military
force? You know, the world's police force.
What if they scenario'd out WWIII plans and the implementation of a no fly zone in Syria is
where it all begins?
What if this is the reason Clinton isn't budging from her 'no fly zone' position? She wants
war. She believes we can win the war. If we win the war the American Globalists morph into 'World'
leaders.
Who in the hell would want this other than those that are quietly leading and championing this
monster. I don't. Do you?
This election is about one thing and one thing only. The people of the United States, our founding
documents, our sovereignty vs the American Globalist class, their control and their Global government
wet dream.
Trump's candidacy = sovereignty - NO War. Clinton's candidacy = Globalism - WAR. Your vote
is either for War or against War. It's that simple...
Simply incredible the borg,and all those who say she is a lock are in for a big surprise,as
Americans don't believe the serial liars anymore.
dahoit | Oct 20, 2016 10:47:07 AM | 14
I believe your assertion is correct. A low turn out, monster win is out there. It will
be a 'fuck you' vote more than a vote for The Don. I would imagine a lot of people are in
for a shock - and a bigger shock than the public backlash against austerity that Brexit was, where
'respected' polling was off by 10 points by election day.
The dems forgot to switch off the internet. The anti-Trump MSM campaign is so total and
over the top because it has to be --> CNN is so last century. No one is getting out of bed to
vote Hillary.
Scylla and Charybdis. Does it really matter much which one wins? I await the collapse of this
empire and pray that it does not totally explode. What we say and/or think will make absolutely
no difference to the final result. The controllers are in control and have been so since the assassination
'60s.
Step away from your TVs, smartphones and computers with your brains in the air. Let them
breathe freely.
The Strait of Messina is dangerous waters so the American public's only logical recourse is
to steer the ship of democracy towards sense and sensibility and let go the anchor of "None of
The Above". The people must demand new candidates who are worthy of holding the Office of the
President. The federal bureaucracy will continue to run the government through September of 2017,
plenty of time for a new election.
Declare Tuesday, November 8th a national day of voter independence and stay home!
That's a simply ludicrous position to take! Trump's 'The Wall' together with 'Defeat ISIS'
together with 'Stand with Israel' is EXACTLY the same Yinon Plan as Clinton's, although it probably
spares the poor folks in Crimea, now under the Russian Oligarchy, and does nothing at all for
the poor folks of Ukraine, now under the Israeli Junta Coup.
Either candidate is proposing soon $TRILLION Full Battle Rattle NeoCon DOD-DHS-NSA-CIA There's
zero daylight between them. The only difference is Trump will make sure that the Exceptionals
are relieved of any tax burden, while Clinton will make sure the burden falls on the Middle Class.
Again, there is zero daylight between them. For every tax increase, Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz receives the
equivalent salary increase or annual bonus.
This whole shittery falls on the Middle Class, and metastasizes OneParty to Stage Five.
Trump won't win in any case. His role was to throw FarRightRabbinicals off the cliff, and make
Hillary appear to voters to be a Nice Old Gal Centrist. She's not. The whole thing was rigged
from the 1998 and 9/11 coup, from Bernie and Donald, on down the rabbit hole.
Debates are to convince, not to illuminate. What a person did not figure out before the debates,
it is rather hopeless to explain.
Thus the stress on issues that are familiar even to the least inquisitive voters, heavily overrepresented
among the "undecided voters" who are, after all, the chief target. Number one, who is, and who
is not a bimbo?
The high position of Putin on the topic list is well deserved. This is about defending everything
we hold pure and dear. We do not want our daughters and our e-mail violated, unless we like to
read the content. Daughters are troublesome enough, but the threat to e-mails is something that
is hard to understand, and that necessitates nonsense. Somehow Putin gets in the mix, rather than
Microsoft, Apple, Google and other companies that destroyed the privacy of communications with
crappy software.
But does it matter? It is like exam in literature or history. It does not matter what the topic
is, but we want to see if the candidates can handle it to our satisfaction. For myself, I like
Clinton formula: "You will never find me signing praises of foreign dictators and strongmen who
do not love America". It is so realistic! First, given her age and fragile throat, I should advise
Mrs. Clinton to refrain from singing. And if she does, the subject should be on the well vetted
list, "leaders who love America". That touches upon some thorny issues, like "what is love", but
as long as Mrs. Clinton does not sing, it is fine.
Trump, if I understand him, took a more risky path, namely, the he is more highly regarded
by people who count, primarily Putin, than schwartzer Obama and "not so well looking chick" Clinton.
Why primarily Putin? It is a bit hard to see who else. The person should have some important leadership
position. And he/she should be on the record saying something nice about Trump. At that point
the scope of name-dropping is narrow.
Wasn't ''PEOPLES GET THE GOVERNMENT THEY DESERVE'',the regime change war cry of so called ''US''?.Dont
see why Madame ''we came we saw he died'' become POTUS approves ''no fly'' wet dream of war mongers
gets shot down by ''evil '' putin and aliies from the skies of Syria onto the ground in pieces.Than
discrimination for hundreds of years while ''americans'' figure out what happened withdrawing
into a shell like a wounded animal leaving the rest of the world to live in peace!
He should declare that Hillary helped arm Al Qaeda to topple Assad for her banker buddies
(cant mention the Jewishness/Israeli Firsterism of the 'neocons' of course, not because false
but because true) and will be happy to send African Americans and Latinos to die for 'oil companies'
and her 'banker friends' and after decades of establishment Dems promising the sky, maybe they
dont need an inveterate liar who arms Islamic terrorists.
Hillary armed Al Qaeda and possibly ISIS - both AngloZionist proxies. How in the fuck is
she not in jail???
As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, duopolistic elections are merely mechanisms of manufactured
consent. When each of the major parties are controlled by the different factions of the oligarchy,
there is only afforded the option to vote for the ideology put forth by each oligarchic group.
Each party defines their ideology to distinguish itself from the other to assure a divided
population. They also manipulate the population via identity politics and state it in such a way
that voters decisions are not rationally resolved but emotionally so, to assure that sufficient
cognitive dissonance is developed to produce a risky shift to a make a decision in favor of a
candidate that would otherwise be unacceptable.
Rigged from the get go is definitely true.
What fascinates me is how Obama went all public about Trumps assertions of rigged elections.
It appears the puppet masters are very afraid of a "cynical" (realistic) population. Manufactured
consent only works if people play the game. As evidenced in South Africa when no one showed up
to vote, the government collapsed.
"Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple." Is this being lost sight
off amongst all the noise? I hope not, for the sake of the Ukrainians and the Syrians. And for
the sake of the countries yet to be destabilised.
Where has Trump once advocated for a no fly zone let alone war? Links and sources please. Enlighten
me.
The only candidate who has been steadfast in support of a no fly zone in Syria is Clinton.
Trump avoids the entire Syrian mess like the plague. Have you not heard him attack Hillary on
her Iraq vote, Libyan tragedy, Syria etc? He's not only attacking her for her incompetence and
dishonesty, but b/c he finds these wars/regime changes abominable. As do I.
A vote for Clinton = War and a vote for Trump = NO war
I share your frustration. In my opinion televised 'debates' should be banned, and we should go
back to the time-honored technique of looking at the record. Whether Clinton is smooth or has
a weird smile, or Trump is composed or goes on a rant, makes no difference to me.
I know what Hillary Clinton will do, which is, what she has done for the past 20+ years. She
will aggressively fight even more wars, maybe even attacking Russian forces in Syria (!). She
will spend trillions on all this 'nation-destroying' folly, and of course, that will necessitate
gutting social security because deficits are bad. She will throw what's left of our retirement
funds to the tender mercies of Wall Street, and after they are through with us we will be lucky
to get pennies on the dollar. She will open the borders even more to unchecked third-world immigration,
which will kill the working class. She will push for having our laws and judiciary over-ruled
by foreign corporate lawyers meeting in secret (TPP etc. are not about trade - tariffs are already
near zero - they are about giving multinational corporations de-facto supreme legislative and
judicial power. Really). She will remain the Queen of Chaos, the candidate of Wall Street and
War, who never met a country that she didn't want to bomb into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Trump? He says a lot of sensible things, and despite his mouthing off in public, he has a track
record of amicably cooperating with people on long-term projects. But he has no track record in
governance, so of course, I don't really know. He's a gamble.
But right now I am so fed up with the status quo that I am willing to roll the dice. Trump
2016.
I agree Trump has had chance after chance to effectively attack Clinton. But here is the problem.
Much of that attack would have had to be done from a leftist angle. Outside of Russia, Trump looks
to be as much a militarist as Obama at least. The gop money daddies are just as militarist as
the democratic party money daddies. The gop is pro-war just they don't want democrats running
them.
Benghazi is a perfect example. They refuse to attack Clinton on her pro-war, destroy everybody
policies, so they they make up attacks about the handling of the Benghazi attacks, rather than
the reason why Americans were there--to send arms to jihadist terrorists in Syria. (By the way
this is why silence on Obama letting criminal banksters go--they would have done the same thing.)
Trump is intellectually challenged. He could have seen what was happening and brought along
his base to an anti-war position and attracted more people. His base was soft clay in his hands
as even he noticed. However he had no skills as political leader to understand nor the ability
to sculpt his base and win the election, which was given Clinton's horrible numbers, his to lose.
Q: Where you are on the question of a safe zone or a no-fly zone in Syria?
TRUMP: I love a safe zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people
coming. What they should do is, the countries should all get together, including the Gulf states,
who have nothing but money, they should all get together and they should take a big swath of land
in Syria and they do a safe zone for people, where they could to live, and then ultimately go
back to their country, go back to where they came from.
Q: Does the U.S. get involved in making that safe zone?
TRUMP: I would help them economically, even though we owe $19 trillion.
Source: CBS Face the Nation 2015 interview on Syrian Refugee crisis , Oct 11, 2015
I don't know about your read of Trump's response, but I don't think he's talking about the
same kind of safe zone the Brookings Institute has in mind aka carving up Syria. His answer suggests
he's thinking a 'safe zone' as more in terms of a temporary refugee zone/space/camp...'they do
a safe zone for people, where they could to live, and then ultimately go back to their country,
go back to where they came from.'
btw, does anyone know which exact month in 2013 the WH were founded?
It´s a minor detail, but it would fit so neatly if it is after the first week of September '13
when the "humanitarian" airstrike for the false-flag Ghouta attack was called off. Demonstrating
it was conceived as Project R2P Intervention 2.0 after the first one failed.
Don't know when WH was created but the whitehelmets.org domain name was registered (in
Beirut not Syria) in August 2014 and it is hosted on Cloudflare in Texas. Maybe it took some time
get the brand recognition going?
Le Mesurier claims that he persoanlly trained the first group of 20 volunteers in early 2013.
It seems these 20 'carefully vetted moderate rebels' each went on to train further groups of 20.
So, if we allow 1-2 months training, it looks like mid-late 2013 might be a reasonable date for
them to take an effective role in the PR business.
b, 'The voters are served badly -if at all- by the TV debates in their current form. These do
not explain real choices. That is what this whole election circus should be about. But that is
no longer the case and maybe it never was.'
No 'maybe' ... the 'political' process in the US is a complete fraud. The present political
class must be removed and replaced. People term 3rd Party/Write-in votes as 'protest votes' but
they can - must in my view - be more than that. They must be the first step taken to simply seize
power and control of the USA by US citizens. We cannot have a democracy - anywhere - without an
engaged demos. That's just the way it is.
No
to Clinton, no to Trump . No to the elephants and the jackasses and the menagerie. It will
take a decade/a dozen years. If we had begun in 2004 we'd be there by now.
downloaded it from youtube late last night. that gave me the option of skimming past hillary and
her WASPy passive aggressive act. she also tends to repeat the same talking points 900 times
so i knew what she'd say before she said it. did catch her whining about imaginary "russian rigging".
again; no surprise there.
as for trump, he mentioned abortion stuff more than usual in what i'm guessing is an attempt
to win back any jesus freaks he lost with the billy bush tape. the fact that he supposedly
went so far down in the polls from that tape makes the whole thing seem pointless ("who can pander
to uptight morons with moronic priorities more") but saying silly stuff about overturning roe
v wade seemed desperate. even if he got to appoint more than the one judge replacing the fat dead
greaseball he probably won't get another. and even in that case he would need approval from a
congress that agrees on nothing but their hatred for him.
even the things that got more mentions didn't matter. all i saw on the screeching MSM (especially
CliNtoN) was "oh mah gerd he said he's waiting until election day to comment on the election!
that means riots and bloodshed cuz that's what goes on in our dumb fuck heads all day!"
at least canada will be spared all the rich whining hipster pieces of trash like lena dunham.
small consolation.
For the first time I listened to a Trump speech - delivered in Florida on the 13th of this
month. What struck me is how much the media attacks on him and his family have got to him. He
mentions how he could have settled for a leisurely retirement, but that he felt he had to do something
for his country.
It's almost as if he'd already decided to back off, convincing himself
that maybe he can do more outside the White House. There is a resigned tone to his voice especially
the way he finishes sentences. Maybe he just knows, or was told, that he'd be assassinated if
he ever got elected. Or perhaps he hadn't quite realized the array of power that is lined
up against him. They are not going to let one dude wreck their party.
Good, substantive
interview with Jill Stein . Includes insightful discussion on ME, Syria & relations with Putin/Russia.
Especially for those not familiar with her may find this interesting. Conducted yesterday (10/19).
Nah, it's ludicrous. 'Cuz this is like the gazillionth time I posted this. And will sadly have
to do it a few more times in the next three weeks.
The Donald Trump dove myth dies hard.
In the past five years, Trump has consistently pushed one big foreign policy idea: America
should steal other countries' oil....
"In the old days when you won a war, you won a war. You kept the country," Trump said. "We
go fight a war for 10 years, 12 years, lose thousands of people, spend $1.5 trillion, and then
we hand the keys over to people that hate us on some council." He has repeated this idea for
years, saying during one 2013 Fox News appearance, "I've said it a thousand times."
....To be clear: Trump's plan is to use American ground troops to forcibly seize the most
valuable resource in two different sovereign countries. The word for that is colonialism.
Trump wants to wage war in the name of explicitly ransacking poorer countries for their
natural resources - something that's far more militarily aggressive than anything Clinton has
suggested.
This doesn't really track as "hawkishness" for most people, mostly because it's so outlandish.
A policy of naked colonialism has been completely unacceptable in American public discourse
for decades, so it seems hard to take Trump's proposals as seriously as, say, Clinton's support
for intervening more forcefully in Syria....
He also wants to bring back torture that's "much tougher" than waterboarding. "Don't kid
yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn't work,"
he said at a November campaign event. But "if it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway, for
what they're doing."
....The problem is that Trump's instincts are not actually that dovish. Trump... has a consistent
pattern of saying things that sound skeptical of war, while actually endorsing fairly aggressive
policies.
....In a March 2011 vlog post uncovered by BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski and Christopher Massie,
Trump full-throatedly endorsed intervening in the country's civil war - albeit on humanitarian
grounds, not for its oil.
"Qaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we're
sitting around," Trump said. "We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very
easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives."
In a later interview, he went further, endorsing outright regime change: "if you don't get
rid of Gaddafi, it's a major, major black eye for this country."
Shortly after the US intervention in Libya began in March 2011, Trump criticized the Obama
administration's approach - for not being aggressive enough. Trump warned that the US was too
concerned with supporting the rebels and not trying hard enough to - you guessed it - take
the oil.
"I would take the oil - and stop this baby stuff," Trump declared. "I'm only interested
in Libya if we take the oil. If we don't take the oil, I'm not interested."
Throw in a needy, fragile ego -- the braggadocio is overcompensation -- and a hairtrigger temper,
and the invasion scenarios write themselves.
And by the way, he's apparently not really that good a businessman either.
Riches-to-Riches Trump Spins Fake Horatio Alger Tale . If he'd put his money into S&P 500
index fund, he'd be worth about eight times what he likely is now. Which is very likely substantially
less than what he says he is. Good reason to withhold the tax returns, no?
So I guess his only recommendation is a reality show with the tagline "You're fired!" All surface,
no depth, the ultimate post-modernist candidate. No fixed mean to that text, alright, he both
invites you to write your interpretation but polices "the other" outside of it.
Interesting that the first post-modern candidate is a bloodthirsty fascist (given his refusal
to accept the electoral results, I would now consider this not wholly inappropriate).
But then again, someone as innocent as
Chauncey Gardiner was
unlikely to emerge from the media.
Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
" Obama: Vote Rigging Is Impossible - If In Favor Of Hillary Clinton | Main
October 20, 2016
This Election Circus Is A Disservice To The People
Via Adam Johnson:
"Total mentions all 4 debates:
Russia/Putin 178
ISIS/terror 132
Iran 67
...
Abortion 17
Poverty 10
Climate change 4
Campaign finance 3
Privacy 0"
The candidates are not the first to blame for this. The first to blame are the moderators of such
debates, the alleged journalists 8and their overlords) who do not ask questions that are relevant
for the life of the general votes and who do not intervene at all when the debaters run off course.
The second group to blame are the general horse-race media who each play up their (owner's) special-interest
hobbyhorses as if those will be the decisive issue for the next four years. The candidates fight
for the attention of these media and adopt to them.
I didn't watch yesterday's debate but every media I skimmed tells me that Clinton was gorgeous
and Trump very bad. That means she said what they wanted to hear and Trump didn't. It doesn't
say what other people who watched though of it. Especially in the rural parts of the country they
likely fear the consequences of climate change way more than Russia, ISIS and Iran together.
Another reason why both candidates avoided to bring up the issues low in the list above is
that both hold positions that are socially somewhat liberal and both are corporatists. None of
those low ranked issues is personally relevant to them. No realistic answer to these would better
their campaign finances or their personal standing in the circles they move in. Personally they
are both east coast elite and don't give a fu***** sh** what real people care about.
As far as I can discern it from the various reports no new political issues were touched. Clinton
ran her usual focus group tested lies while Trump refrained from attacking her hard. A huge mistake
in my view. He can beat her by attacking her really, really hard, not on issues but personality.
Her disliked rate (like Trump's) is over -40%. She is vulnerable on many, many things in her past.
Her foreign policy is way more aggressive than most voters like. Calling this back into mind again
and again could probably send her below -50%. Who told him to leave that stuff alone? Trump is
a major political disruption. He should have emphasized that but he barely hinted at it for whatever
reason.
The voters are served badly -if at all- by the TV debates in their current form. These do not
explain real choices. That is what this whole election circus should be about. But that is no
longer the case and maybe it never was.
Posted by b on October 20, 2016 at 09:11 AM | Permalink
Comments
I didn't watch too.
Posted by: Jack Smith | Oct 20, 2016 9:22:12 AM | 1
I don't follow US elections closely, but my take on this - Trump had made a deal. He pretends
to be fighting, but he is not. Dunno what was that - either he was intimidated, blackmailed, bought
off, or any combination of thereof, and it doesn't matter actually.
Hail to the first Lady President of the United States. Best luck to Middle East, Eastern Europe
and SE Asia - they all gonna need it. Oh, and dear US voters - don't blame yourself, you don't
have any influence on the election, so it's not your fault. You'll pay the price too, though.
Posted by: Wizzy | Oct 20, 2016 9:27:47 AM | 2
"But that is no longer the case and maybe it never was"
It was when the League of Women Voters ran the show but when they wouldn't agree to selling
out the citizens in Amerika is when we got this dog and phoney show.
I didn't watch and I'll be Voting Green.
rg the lg | Oct 20, 2016 10:19:53 AM | 10
Strictly speaking, if the voters aren't getting what they want from the politicians in a democracy,
and they're too chickenshit to demand reform or else - then they should blame themselves because
it IS their fault.
We're getting really, really sick of the bullshit that passes for politics in 2 Party Oz. We
sent them a subtle message in 2015 by voting for independents and splinter groups and the "Government"
governs with a majority of 1 seat. Next election there will either be a responsive non-traitorous
Government, or a revolution. Some of them are starting to wake up and others are pretending not
to notice. But the writing is on the wall...
I've had a good look at your "The Donald Trump dove myth" article and I must admit that its
quality far exceeds your own verbal rubbish.
It examines Trump through the prism as a likely "Jacksonian Conservative", who are not
dissimilar to traditional conservatives but are not non-interventionists as such, just far more
honest about their interventionism (as they are unburdened by the neocon bullshit about "killing
them to make them barbarians more civilised") and really only likely to want to apply aggression
where they feel that fundamental American interests are threatened.
To me, that's a big step up from the NEOCON/NEOLIB false pretense garbage. I'd far rather have
an honest RATIONAL and RISK ASSESSING thug than a two faced snake, which better describes your
C**tory and her Kissenger/Albright gang of perfectly murderable certified war criminals. You can
call him a "fascist" if you like. You obviously prefer the 1984 thuggery to more honest, above
the table varieties. To each one his own.
One last note. Those goons that the Dems kept sending to Trump's rallies to stir violence up,
there's now the fucking Himalayas of evidence that it's entirely real and beyond any doubt.
Guess who was the historical king of criminal spamming of shit stirring goons at political
adversaries' rallies? The Bolsheviks and your own fixated Fascists/Nazis. Looks like your Hillary
learned from the best, inspired by the best, via her fascist mentor Klitsinger et num al.
So, enjoy your Clintory, dear Pom, and good luck as you and yer Britannia're gonna need it
if that discard of a dementia stricken half-human wins the elections.
Getting Julian Assange's internet connection cut off just makes the Obama regime look even
more stupid and pathetic now. The document dumps keep on coming. Did they really think they would
stop that by shutting off the LAN in the Ecuadoran embassy?
The underlying problem seems to be that John Podesta bought into the marketing bullshit
about The Cloud. So he kept all his very sensitive correspondence at his Gmail account, apparently
using it as the archive of his correspondence.
I don't know if we'll ever know who hacked his account. It is not that hard to do, so it
doesn't really require a "state actor". Google only gives you a few tries at entering your password,
so Podesta's account couldn't have been hacked by randomly trying every possibility. Somehow,
the hacker got the actual password. Either it was exposed somewhere, or it was obtained by
spear
phishing . That involves sending your target an email that directs him to a Web page that
asks him to enter his password. All that's required to do that is being able to write a plausible
email, and setting up a Web site to mimic the Web site where the account you want to hack resides,
Gmail in this case.
Nearly all information technology security breaches are insider jobs, genuine crackers/hackers
are rare. Wikileaks is by far the most likely being fed from the inside of the DNC etc. and/or
from their suppliers or security detail by people that are disgusted, have personal vendettas,
and so on. It's the real Anonymous, anyone anywhere, not the inept CIA stooges or the faux organized
or ideological pretenders. In addition any analyst at the NSA with access to XKeyScore can supply
Wikileaks with all the Podesta emails on a whim in less than half an hour of "work" and the actual
data to be sent would be gotten with a single XKeyScore database query. That sort of query is
exactly what the XKeyScore backend part was built to do as documented by Snowden and affirmed
by Binney and others.
The powers that be can cheat but people can ignore their efforts, it's what happens in every
revolution and civil war. It's hard to see how a second Clinton presidency will have any shred
of legitimacy in the US or in the world.
Duterte may well be flawed but he has a keen nose for where things are heading, Filipinos
should be proud of him.
Don't believe anyone who says what you do or don't do doesn't matter.
CLINTON: Well, I am encouraged that there is an effort led by the Iraqi army, supported by
Kurdish forces, and also given the help and advice from the number of special forces and other
Americans on the ground. But I will not support putting American soldiers into Iraq as an occupying
force. I don't think that is in our interest, and I don't think that would be smart to do.
In fact, Chris, I think that would be a big red flag waving for ISIS to reconstitute itself.
The goal here is to take back Mosul. It's going to be a hard fight. I've got no illusions
about that. And then continue to press into Syria to begin to take back and move on Raqqa,
which is the ISIS headquarters.
I am hopeful that the hard work that American military advisers have done will pay off
and that we will see a real - a really successful military operation. But we know we've got
lots of work to do. Syria will remain a hotbed of terrorism as long as the civil war, aided
and abetted by the Iranians and the Russians, continue.
Considering Lynn Forester de Rothschild's apparent hand in potential President Hillary Clinton's
economic policy, such theories don't appear so far from the truth - and only further prove the
United States has strayed from its democratically-based roots to become a banking and corporate
plutocracy.
This is a bit misinformed conclusion. Some of you may know "Wizard of Oz". It is a famous novel
for children that was used for the screenplay of an adorable movie with the same title. Not everybody
knows that it was also a novel for the adults, with a key: a political satire against banking
and corporate plutocracy that controlled the government of USA around 1900. If I recall, the title
figure of the Wizard was Mark Hanna, and Wicked Witch of the East stood for eastern banks which
at that time included the largest banks that were behind Mark Hanna (who in turn was the puppeteer
of the President). Certain things change in the last 120 years, for example, the rich and famous
largely abandoned the mansions in Rhode Island, but New York remains the financial capital. I
somewhat doubt that Rothschild secretly have the sway over this crowd, if one would have to point
to the most powerful financial entity I would pick Goldman Sachs. Yes, it helped that Lady de
Rothschild was sociable, amiable and communicated well with Hillary and numerous gentlemen who
could drop 100,000 on a plate to please the hostess, but at the end of the day, things were quite
similar when Rothschild largely sticked to Europe.
The structural problem is not a conspiracy, but simply, capitalism. Any way you cut it, democracy
relies on convincing the citizens what is good and what is bad for them, and that still requires
money. Money can come from numerous small donors or few large ones, or some combination. Unfortunately,
large donors have disproportional influence, until a politician creates his/her brand, too few
small donors would know about him/her. Nice thing about Sanders was that he operates largely outside
the circle of large donors. That said, both Clintons and Obama entered the political scene as
"outsiders".
I met rich people only few times in my life, and I must admit, it is a pleasant experience.
Sleeping is comfortable, food is good, when you go to restaurant the owner greets your party very
politely and explains the best dishes of the day and so on. In politics, there are reactionary
fat cats and progressive fat cats, but needless to say, they tend to share certain perspective
and they skew the media, the academia and the policies in a certain direction.
If Hillary is elected, she will be haunted by her 'mistakes' and by the exposure of her double
face by Wikileaks. She is stigmatized as 'crooked Hillary' and as an unreliable decision maker.
From now on, all her decisions will be tainted with suspicion. I doubt that she'll be able to
lead the country properly during the 4 years she hopes to stay in power.
@ Piotr Berman who wrote: The structural problem is not a conspiracy, but simply, capitalism.
I heartily disagree. Capitalism is a myth created to cover for decisions made by those who
own private finance.....part of my undergraduate degree is in macro economics. Your assertion
that the Rothschild influence is restricted to Europe is laughable.
Joe6pac has it right......the United States has strayed from its democratically-based roots
to become a banking and corporate plutocracy.
I believe that it is Piotr Berman that is misinformed.
With single-bid ("plurality") voting you only have two candidates to choose from.
I have described the strategic hedge simple score election method all over the Internet. It
is simple in the sense that does not require easily hackable voting machines, and can easily work
with hand counted paper ballots at non-centralized voting places. It is not hampered by any requirement
to cater to so-called "sincere," "honest" (actually artless and foolish) voters. It easily thwarts
both the spoiler effect and the blind hurdle dilemma (the "Burr Dilemma"). It just works.
Strategic hedge simple score voting can be described in one simple sentence: Strategically
bid no vote at all for undesired candidates (ignore them as though they did not exist), or strategically
cast from five to ten votes for any number of candidates you prefer (up to some reasonable limit
of, say, twelve candidates), and then simply add all the votes up.
Both IRV-style and approval voting methods suffer from the blind hurdle dilemma, which can
be overcome with the hedge voting strategy. An example of usage of the hedge strategy, presuming
the case of a "leftist" voter, would be casting ten votes for Ralph Nader, and only eight or nine
for Al Gore. This way, the voter would only sacrifice 20 or 10 percent of their electoral influence
if Nader did not win.
Don't be fooled by fake "alternatives like "IRV" and "approval voting".
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers".
Reagan delivered Stingers to the Northern Alliance and Taliban, why is Reagan not in prison?
Because of people like Ollie North and Dick Armitage. Because the Deep State is in control under
Continuance of Government, ever since the 2001 military coup.
Trump may have gone to Catholic prep school, but he's no choir boy either.
Hillary will win, it's in the bag, and she won't be haunted by anything at all, she doesn't
have an introspective bone in her hagsack. She will be our Nero for 21st C.
"We came, we saw, he died, haww, haww, haww."
Should have been bodybagged and tagged and disposed of at sea, her, not M.
"... Point being that not only would The Clintons have the Democratic Party machine to rely on for potential vote rigging in this stage of the process (distinguishing vs. primaries simply for rhetorical focus), ..."
"... but with the clear reality of the Republican Party elite also backing her, she can rely on at least some of the Republican Party machine also being available for potential vote rigging, and who have their experience in Florida, Ohio, etc to bring to the table. ..."
"... The longer term issue is the Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have abandoned the pretense of 2 party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests, with WikiLeaks detailing the gory bits of their corruption and malfeasance. And everybody in the system is tainted by that, both parties, media, etc. It has overtly collapsed to the reality of a single Party of Power (per the term Oligarch media like to use re: Russia for example). ..."
"... the Clinton faction is 100% "bi-partisan" and about confluence of both Oligarchic parties. ..."
"... I would say the Democratic primary was even a mirror of this, I would guess that Clinton had hoped to win more easily vs Sanders without rigging etc... essentially between Sanders and Trump turning anything but "radical status quo" into boogymen. ..."
"... That just reveals how close to the line the Imperial Oligarchy feels compelled to play... and, I suppose, how confident they are in the full spectrum of tools at their disposal to manipulate democracy. ..."
"... But that is also shown merely by the situation we are in, with the collapse of the two party system in order to maintain the strength of Imperial Oligarchy. ..."
Point being that not only would The Clintons have the Democratic Party machine to rely on
for potential vote rigging in this stage of the process (distinguishing vs. primaries simply for
rhetorical focus),
but with the clear reality of the Republican Party elite also backing her, she can rely
on at least some of the Republican Party machine also being available for potential vote rigging,
and who have their experience in Florida, Ohio, etc to bring to the table.
The longer term issue is the Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have abandoned
the pretense of 2 party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests, with
WikiLeaks detailing the gory bits of their corruption and malfeasance. And everybody in the system
is tainted by that, both parties, media, etc. It has overtly collapsed to the reality of a single
Party of Power (per the term Oligarch media like to use re: Russia for example).
And the craziest thing of course is not that this all happened by accident because some "scary
clown" appeared, but that this was nearly exactly planned BY The Clinton faction themselves (promoting
Trump in order to win vs. "scary clown"). Most notably, not simply as a seizure of power by Democratic
Party "against" Republicans... They are very clear the Clinton faction is 100% "bi-partisan"
and about confluence of both Oligarchic parties.
I would say the Democratic primary was even a mirror of this, I would guess that Clinton
had hoped to win more easily vs Sanders without rigging etc... essentially between Sanders and
Trump turning anything but "radical status quo" into boogymen. Only surprise was how well
Sanders did, necessitating fraud etc, with polls in fact showing Sanders was BETTER placed to
defeat Trump than Clinton.
That just reveals how close to the line the Imperial Oligarchy feels compelled to play...
and, I suppose, how confident they are in the full spectrum of tools at their disposal to manipulate
democracy.
But that is also shown merely by the situation we are in, with the collapse of the two
party system in order to maintain the strength of Imperial Oligarchy.
Washington forgot his role in color revolutions in Ukraine, Russia, Serbia and other countries,
when Washington controlled neoliberal media served as air support for local fifth column. Now
boomerang returned...
On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador confirmed WikiLeaks' charge that Ecuador itself
had ordered the severing of Assange's Internet connection under pressure from the US government.
In a statement, the ministry said that WikiLeaks had "published a wealth of documents impacting
on the US election campaign," adding that the government of Ecuador "respects the principle of
non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states" and "does not interfere in external
electoral processes." On that grounds, the statement claimed, the Ecuadorian government decided
to "restrict access" to the communications network at its London embassy.
Looks like Yahoo commentariat is definitely anti-Hillary and did not buy the Yahoo story.
the first pro-hillary comment was in the second dozen of comments by ratings from Yahoo readers.
Brad
11 hours ago
I watched the presidential
candidates at the Al Smith dinner
tonight and thought how wonderful
that they raised $6 million for
the nations children..The thing
that is sad is that Hillary spent
over $150 million on negative adds
against Donald Trump in one
month...Goes to show exactly how
much Hillary truly cares about the
children when they stand in her
way ...Win at all cost...no matter
how the money could be better
spent...THIS COUNTRY NEEDS DONALD
TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT 2016
LisaAllenC
11 hours ago
Trump was not booed by anyone
but the far left stunked up
media, everyone else that i
could see was raising their
fist and laughing as they were
nodding that they agreed with
TRUMP, you little people of the
left media have really lost
yourself s, lost your
professionalism in your field,
i mean you took an oath when
you started that career as a
journalist to report as fairly
and as honest as you could and
you took that platform as
something that you would treat
as a place the American people
and the rest of the world could
come to for an honest and
balanced look at issues, not a
place to be used to push your
own interests on people in such
ways that even small children
that listen well can tell is
words filled full of lies and
dishonesty, words that are
filled with hate and such
lopsided views that our kids
are saying, turn that trash
daddy, it makes me sick to my
stomach to watch such lies, my
kids and our neighbors kids
actually said that, they are
watching very closely and you
people of the far left trash
machine should be so ashamed of
what you have been force
feeding not only these kids but
some of the very easily
confused people, i mean thats
the only ones you are hurting
because we the American people
know better but still you
should have to stand up and
answer to what you have done to
the ones you have terribly hurt
during this mess. You want to
ever say that you are someone
this country could ever trust
and believe, you wonder why
Trump knows not to trust
anything you may have your
hands or words mixed in with,
you have dishonored yourself's
and no one will ever believe
you again, we have your names
etched in our brains as
dishonest nobody's and know to
stop reading or listening to
anything you say or do, what a
shame but your true colors came
out and the honest people of
this country see you as who you
are. We are so glad and HONORED
TO VOTE FOR TRUMP, we know
there is no one that is perfect
but Christ himself but we also
know the heart of a person as
well and TRUMPS HEART IS IN THE
RIGHT PLACE, he wants real
honest change for us Americans
and he wants real honest help
to be given to ALL THE AMERICAN
PEOPLE, and without you left
twisting word machine, TRUMP
WANTS REAL HELP FOR OUR AFRICAN
AMERICANS AND OUR MEXICAN
AMERICANS, he does want the law
to be honored but he doesn't
want to harm anybody, you
people have twisted his words
in such dramatic fashion that
we rarely get to hear his real
plan to bring safety and lawful
ways at our borders. I have
heard the plans and i am no
genius but the plans make very
good since and they will be
fair and help people that want
to be here legally, now if you
are trying to break our laws,
thats another story but at
least he does have a great plan
that will work so much better
and give our men and women
officers at the border the help
they so desperately have been
needing, TRUMP IS BY FAR THE
BEST CHOICE FOR AMERICA, the
twisted person that you people
have tried to make him out to
be, will of course that person
is not who we need but thats
not TRUMP, WE NEED TRUMP FOR
CHANGE WE NEED TRUMP FOR OUR
COUNTRY AND OUR FAMILY, VOTE
TRUMP FOR CHANGE.
Louis
10 hours ago
I watch the whole thing, the
article is wrong. Hillary was
booed just as much, and her
insulting joke about Guiliani was
followed by an awkward silence.
The author here is very biased,
Trump was right, the media is in
collusion with HRC.
Melissa
11 hours ago
When I was a little girl I felt
such pride in America. I recall
hearing how awful Russia was
because their poor citizens didn't
know the truth because they were
filled with propaganda. I am so
disgusted with our country on so
many levels. Freedom of the press
was not meant to mean what you
people are doing. Didn't you take
some sort of pledge to honestly
report unbiased news when you
graduated from journalism school?
As Donald said to Hillary, you
should be ashamed.
carle
11 hours ago
Every time Trump is booed by the
media that equals another vote
from an undecided.
LOYAL
11 hours ago
I am not going to lie to you,
Hillary is stupid, confused,
and has been exposed. Her guilt
of running a stupid campaign
and a stupid office called the
Secretary of State is no longer
in question. During the debate
Hillary got confused on
proposed gun laws. On abortion,
Hillary thinks it's ok to kill
babies ready to be delivered.
This is like saying I love
children that have been
delivered alive but not so much
those not yet delivered. Sound
like, I like a hero that does
not get captured? Hillary is
all talk and no action. Black
people should understand this
by now. So should everyone
else.
Pro-Clinton interpretation, but with some interesting insights....
Notable quotes:
"... But Trump demonstrated greater self-control early in the debate than he has displayed at times previously, and he didn't take the bait. He countered by saying Clinton wanted "open borders" and emphasizing the necessity any sovereign nation has for clearly delineated borders. "Either we have a country or we don't," he said. "Either we have borders or we don't." ..."
"... "Look," he said at one point, "she's been proven to be a liar. This is just another lie." And he reverted to form late in the debate when he interjected into one of her perorations, "What a nasty woman!" ..."
"... In supporting his allegation that the election is "rigged," Trump cited three elements of concern. First, the mainstream media - "so bad, so dishonest, so corrupt; it is poisoning the minds of the voters." Second, he said millions of unqualified people have been added to the voter rolls when they shouldn't be registered. Third, he said Clinton "should not be allowed to run," presumably because of previous allegations of wrongdoing related to her private email server and the machinations of the Clinton Foundation. ..."
"... the suggestion that the media have poisoned the minds of citizens evinces a lack of faith in the voters' ability to sort through the events of the day and arrive at sound political judgments... ..."
The two existential challenges of any long-term government-democracy, dictatorship, oligarchy,
royalty-are the necessity of legitimacy and the dangers of succession. The American Founders crafted
a system designed to ensure both legitimacy and peaceful succession through a complex and delicately
balanced system of popular sovereignty. That system is healthy only when the nation at large accepts
its sanctity. Trump signaled that he might not accept it in the face of defeat.
The refusal was stunning in its revelation that this man who seeks the presidency wouldn't perceive
how incendiary - and, in the view of millions of Americans, disqualifying-such a pronouncement would
be. Perhaps Trump didn't really mean it. Perhaps he thought he was merely introducing "suspense"
into the race, as he put it, when he said, "I will look at it at the time." And no doubt his core
supporters will defend the position, tossing out comparisons to Al Gore in 2000 or Andrew Jackson
in 1824. But, in the annals of recent American presidential politics, it is difficult to think of
a candidate pronouncement more guaranteed to stymie that candidate's path to the White House.
Clinton, studied and pugnacious, avoided any such gaffe. After her first two outings with Trump,
she had mastered the art of delivering body blows at every opportunity, citing specific episodes
and anecdotes that she portrayed as demonstrating his unfitness for office-the controversy over his
alleged mistreatment of women, his rough language toward illegal immigrants, his criticisms of a
gold star family and a Hispanic federal judge, his purchase of Chinese steel to build his buildings.
She chided him for not mentioning the border wall he wants to build during a recent visit with Mexican
President Enrique Pena Nieto. "He didn't raise it," she declared, clearly seeking to get Trump's
goat. "He choked."
But Trump demonstrated greater self-control early in the debate than he has displayed at times
previously, and he didn't take the bait. He countered by saying Clinton wanted "open borders" and
emphasizing the necessity any sovereign nation has for clearly delineated borders. "Either we have
a country or we don't," he said. "Either we have borders or we don't."
But, when debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, queried Clinton about a recent WikiLeaks
revelation that she extolled "open borders" to foreign bankers, the candidate deftly elided the thrust
of the question by saying she was talking merely about the transfer of electrical energy across borders
through an international grid system. Then she pounced on the WikiLeaks mention to slam Trump for
not condemning the Russians, considered by U.S. intelligence services to be behind the WikiLeaks
revelations.
Trump drew a smattering of laughter by calling her segue "a great pivot" and suggested nobody
really knows who is behind the ongoing WikiLeaks revelations. He repeated his call for better U.S.
relations with Russia, particularly in combatting the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria.
Clinton also demonstrated her rhetorical dexterity in avoiding any direct response to Wallace's
question about allegations of "pay to play" practices at the controversial Clinton Foundation, viewed
by many as an institution designed primarily to bolster the Clintons' political clout and generate
huge speaking fees for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Democratic candidate launched into an extensive
defense of the foundation's lofty good works that proved so long and off-point that Wallace repeatedly
sought to get her back to the question at hand. Clinton ignored him.
Trump seemed to enter the debate bent on avoiding the kind of jarringly harsh attacks he had engaged
in previously, and he succeeded for the most part. But he still reached for his blunderbuss from
time to time. "Look," he said at one point, "she's been proven to be a liar. This is just another
lie." And he reverted to form late in the debate when he interjected into one of her perorations,
"What a nasty woman!"
Wallace, who seemed resolved to get the candidates into some substantive discussions on major
issues facing the nation, elicited serious exchanges on the role of the Supreme Court in the American
constitutional system, abortion, immigration, economic policy, trade and the burgeoning national
debt, fueled significantly by unchecked entitlement spending. On the latter question, neither candidate
demonstrated much credibility as someone who particularly cares about reining in federal spending.
Clinton said she would "go where the money is"-the corporations and the rich-and placed unrealistic
expectations on the capacity of this fiscal approach to address the debt problem. Trump, without
much detail, said his policies, including big tax cuts, would generate so much economic growth, and
federal revenue, that entitlement spending won't be a problem.
Clinton seized every opportunity to direct her rhetoric to the constituent elements of her party
women , minorities, the LBGT community, affluent liberals. Hers was a program of expanded entitlements,
including federal support for college students, greater aid to education, and a solution to the Affordable
Care Act that would entail greater federal intervention into health care. She said little that separated
her from her socialist opponent in the primaries, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
In supporting his allegation that the election is "rigged," Trump cited three elements of concern.
First, the mainstream media - "so bad, so dishonest, so corrupt; it is poisoning the minds of the
voters." Second, he said millions of unqualified people have been added to the voter rolls when they
shouldn't be registered. Third, he said Clinton "should not be allowed to run," presumably because
of previous allegations of wrongdoing related to her private email server and the machinations of
the Clinton Foundation.
While many observers, including some liberals, agree that the media establishment is largely against
Trump, and probably more overtly than we have seen in recent memory, the suggestion that the media
have poisoned the minds of citizens evinces a lack of faith in the voters' ability to sort through
the events of the day and arrive at sound political judgments...
"... The presidential candidate also tweeted the words of her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who said, "It should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war." ..."
"... Regrettably for Americans, Stein is right about the Democratic nominee. Those concerned about the future of America with someone as erratic as Donald Trump in the Oval Office are justified in their worry, but to believe Hillary is somehow a "better option" is not only a naive assumption - but a reckless one. A vote for Hillary is undoubtedly a conscious vote to go war with a nuclear-armed superpower. ..."
"... US empire is bigger than any President. No president can change it. ..."
Dr. Stein, who has
strongly advocated
for a more
peaceful approach
to U.S. relations in the Middle East - as well as throughout the world - recently took to her
Twitter account to boldly state what may come as a shock to many Americans:
"Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is much scarier than Donald Trump's."
The presidential candidate also tweeted the words of her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who said,
"It should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war."
Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is much scarier than Donald Trump's, who does not want to
go to war with Russia.
#PeaceOffensive
Dr. Stein elaborated on her social media statements when asked by a reporter in Texas this week
what she felt a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like.
"Well, we know what kind of Secretary of State she was,"
Stein said in her response.
"[Hillary] is in incredible service to Wall Street and to the war profiteers. She led the way
in Libya and she's trying to start an air war with Russia over Syria, which means, if Hillary
gets elected, we're kinda going to war with Russia, folks…a nuclear-armed power."
While many Americans act as if one's disdain for Hillary Clinton and her policies automatically
make them a supporter of Donald Trump for president - or vice versa - Stein went on to vocalize her
fear of both major party candidates.
"Who will sleep well with Trump in the White House? But you shouldn't sleep well with Hillary
in the White House either. Fortunately, we live in a democracy and we have more than two deadly
choices," Stein said, referring to herself and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
Regrettably for Americans, Stein is right about the Democratic nominee. Those concerned about
the future of America with someone as erratic as Donald Trump in the Oval Office are justified in
their worry, but to believe Hillary is somehow a "better option" is not only a naive assumption -
but a reckless one. A vote for Hillary is undoubtedly a conscious vote to go war with a nuclear-armed
superpower.
Still not a believer? Watch the video below and see for yourself:
There are so many holes on Dr. Stein observations that I don't even know where to start.
First: US empire is bigger than any President. No president can change it.
Second: Only the naive can think that a neocon (Hillary) can be more dangerous than a bully
(Trump).
Third: Dr. Stein, could you please tell us what will happen when the empire has not enough
energy, food, and resources to give to its people? Tell us your "un-reckless" solution, because
I can't wait to hear.
Ohh. I just remember. You can't, because it doesn't exist.
This well-articulated executive summary (10 minutes of your time) integrates the consequences
of the world's biggest financial bubble with the risk of military escalation with Russia in Syria,
the Balkans, or Ukraine. Hilllary's foreign policy goes head-to-head with Russia's foreign policy:
they are different with respect to use of nuclear weapons, particularly tactical nuclear weapons.
Show me ANY stories from her on ANY of the Million Dicks in a Bag "credible" media.....
<tapping foot>...............
................yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah
But Cankly-pooper has that jag off Air Force cucked dickwad on TeeVee ads every ten fucking
minutes saying Trump is unfit to have his finger on the button.
Just like the moron I talked to a couple of weeks ago, when he said he was voting for Catheter
because "Trump was going to take us to war".....(finding out he gets his "news" from social media,
Google News and the NYT)
MORONS...that's who Clinton has .....fucking morons....
Jill Stein - Green Party candidate, and Gary Johnson - Libtarian candidate .......
[In battleground states] BOTH need to come out and tell their voting supporters to NOT vote
for them but to vote Trump...and only vote for them if they can't vote Trump. Because there is
no point in a Greens platform if the planet is at war or in destruction, likewise their is no
chance of a Libertarian platform for a country in increased wars, or world at war.
The Libertarian and Greens platform assume a peaceful country and world - with Cliinton and
her backers the USA will ge the exact opposite.
This is why the Greens and Libitarians most not only endorse Trump but tell their voters they
must vote for Trump for there to be any hope for the USA's future.
In fact if I were Trump I would be making this pitch to them.
"... Also, Wallace has kept control of this thing... asked good questions to both of them and been the best moderator (IMO) by far of the 3 previous debates. At least tonight, both of them have been able to actually talk about some relevant policy... although nothing close to enlightening from either. ..."
"... Basically you have a treacherous but effective salesman that stiffs contractors versus a treacherous career politician. Two of the top in their class, respectively. Ultimately Russia, Iran and China will need to assess the future threats and assert the defense of their interests in anticipation of whatever the result may be, while being diplomatically astute. ..."
"... He was constantly on-topic and superior ..."
"... In the debate, Trump came across to me as someone who would make a welcome change to the phoniness of Reagan and Obama (Bill Clinton and Bush 2 came across not so much as phonies as hicks), while Hillary came across as someone playing her on Saturday Night Live. ..."
"... And Trump got the best final line ever of a final presidential debate: you want another Obama term, vote for her (words to that effect). ..."
"... Ultimately I think Trump made Hillary look worse to me than she made him, so he won the debates based upon their respective records. That's me however, and not the general voting public. ..."
Trump seemed subdued. Trying to be more Presidential?
- He should've:
- spoken of the connection between the Khans and the Democratic Party;
- talked about Hillary's having lied to the Benghazi families about why the reasons for
the Benghazi attack? (She says she has made working for families her life's work) ;
- discussed the failure of the Obama Administration to protect us from terrorism and the
heroin epidemic - most heroin comes from Afghanistan where we have had troops for years;
I think Trump made Hillary look worse to me than she made him, so he won the debates based upon
their respective records. That's me however, and not the general voting public.
The debate got particularly nasty. Trump went at her hard, but came off as being a bully. Hillary
dodged and weaved through some treacherous waters, and both continued to affirm their positions,
however good or bad.
Basically you have a treacherous but effective salesman that stiffs contractors versus
a treacherous career politician. Two of the top in their class, respectively. Ultimately Russia,
Iran and China will need to assess the future threats and assert the defense of their interests
in anticipation of whatever the result may be, while being diplomatically astute.
In the debate, Trump came across to me as someone who would make a welcome change to the phoniness
of Reagan and Obama (Bill Clinton and Bush 2 came across not so much as phonies as hicks), while
Hillary came across as someone playing her on Saturday Night Live.
And Trump got the best final line ever of a final presidential debate: you want another
Obama term, vote for her (words to that effect).
@111 But his bullying attitude possibly turns off many (female) voters, and he's most definitely
stiffed workers and investors. He is very very salesmanish, which is not such a good thing. Hillary
doesn't change her tune, despite how awful it is. I can't say the same about Trump.
Ultimately I think Trump made Hillary look worse to me than she made him, so he won the
debates based upon their respective records. That's me however, and not the general voting public.
I think people will hold their nose and vote for Hillary, while others will be scared to associate
themselves with Trump by voting for him. That's how I see it anyway. Perhaps the level of anger
with the status-quo will be substantial enough to tip the scales for Trump.
"... It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all. ..."
"... There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all." Of course there is - to rig elections. What do you think they are used for. ..."
"... The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on. Bush won in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida. ..."
"... There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio. ..."
"... Here's the best statistical analysis of US vote count irregularities to date. Not a pretty picture. ..."
"... There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors. ..."
"... At present the US seem to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private" club including a very small part of the population. ..."
"... for the 1 percent the system is not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should the peasants rebell. ..."
"... US citizens are reduced to vote in a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks any political progress there might be. ..."
"... There's lots of evidence that the 2004 election was stolen for Bush in Ohio. ..."
"... "smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself. ..."
"... Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof) this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often. ..."
"... obomber has a friend in the vote rigging business. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-18/robert-creamer ..."
"... Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream". ..."
"... Hillary is as nasty and hysterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children. ..."
"... We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s) to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable. ..."
"... paper vote or bust. Everything else hides an attempt at control and ultimately fraud. ..."
"... How does that help Trump? Most DNC *and* RNC Deep State insiders favor Hillary. ..."
"... Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the US. ..."
"... In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon, aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, "You've got a gentleman in the White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft." Lodge later ordered, "Get it across to the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S." ..."
"... Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle? Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota of his policies being broadcast? ..."
"... Obomba, the most un-criticised POTUS in American history, is a laughable pos concerned about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal, once in. ..."
"... Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this very topic. ..."
"... The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing. It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now ..."
"... Trump say the election is rigged ? Obama's setting up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged , that's so plainly obvious it's painful. ..."
"... And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere. ..."
"... There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of 'rigging' or 'organising' in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. ..."
"... Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren't necessarily outright fabricated (is easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but 'arranged' to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.) ..."
"... Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of HRC. ..."
"... It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls. (Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will 'rig' the election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: "see we were winning all the time Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares" - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls while not the same as 'riggin' the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from Wikileaks.) ..."
"... I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office. ..."
"... Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution stuff - the carrot revolution? ..."
"... "Hillary Clinton now says her "number one priority" in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad, putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year. ..."
"... no-fly zone" over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread ..."
"... Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some 'moves' to retain credibility, and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major downsides. ..."
"... Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged. The US system is rigged in a far larger sense than any Americans realize. It's rigged to blow off the Constitution. ..."
"... the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that chooses a president and vice-president. ..."
"... The process is "supposed" to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal was done. If not, go to the second person. ..."
"... And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers". It's called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range") voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines). ..."
"... Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition. Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity? ..."
"... it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the viciously dishonest Mainstream Media." ..."
"... "When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party's presidential candidate? What does that say about the media?" ..."
"... Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?" ..."
"... It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq (Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton: ..."
"... Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon: Paul Wolfowitz (aka, the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff, John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc ..."
"... All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER. ..."
"... To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition" or diversity of opinion where there is none. ..."
"... MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational thought and must be dismissed entirely. ..."
"... The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing. The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear. ..."
"... The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as: ..."
"... No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen as anybody who opens eyes can see. ..."
"... "The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant oligarchy, while simultaneously "participating" in sham democracy." ..."
"... Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?) to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it? ..."
"... Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia believes in. ..."
"... Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored Bernie Sanders by 17% ..."
"... Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results, may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines. 68 out of the state's 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by 1.42 %. ..."
"... In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility crisis and everything went smooth. ..."
Obama was asked about Trump's voter fraud assertions on Tuesday [..] He responded with a blistering
attack on the Republican candidate, noting that U.S. elections are run and monitored by local
officials, who may well be appointed by Republican governors of states, and saying that cases
of significant voter fraud were not to be found in American elections.
Obama said there was "no serious" person who would suggest it was possible to rig American
elections , adding, "I'd invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."
That is curious. There are a lot of "non serious" persons in the Democratic Party who tell us
that Russia is trying to manipulate the U.S. elections. How is it going to that when it's not possible?
Is rigging the election only impossible when it is in favor of Hillary Clinton? This while rigging
the elections in favor of Donald Trump, by Russia or someone else, is entirely possible and even
"evident"?
Curious.
That said - I do believe that the U.S. election can be decided through manipulation. We have evidently
seen that in 2000 when Bush was "elected" by a fake "recount" and a Supreme Court decision.
The outcome of a U.S. presidential election can depend on very few votes in very few localities.
The various machines and processes used in U.S. elections can be influenced. It is no longer comprehensible
for the voters how the votes are counted and how the results created. *
The intense manipulation attempts by the Clinton camp, via the DNC against Sanders or by
creating a Russian boogeyman to propagandize against Trump, lets me believe that her side is well
capable of considering and implementing some vote count shenanigan. Neither are Trump or the Republicans
in general strangers to dirty methods and manipulations.
It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process
is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries
show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible
reason why machines should be used at all.
* (The German Constitutional Court prohibited the use of all voting machines in German
elections because for the general voters they institute irreproducible vote counting which leads
to a general loss of trust in the democratic process. The price to pay for using voting machines
is legitimacy.)
Posted by b on October 19, 2016 at 01:54 AM |
Permalink
I just found out that many states in the US use electronic voting systems made by Smartmatic which
is part of the SGO Group. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown is the chairman of SGO. This man is heavily
entangled with Soros. Hillary is Soros' candidate. You simply can't make this sh*t up
No. The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on. Bush won
in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida.
There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio.
There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations
and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors.
And diverse political parties that present voters with a choice. At present the US seem
to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private"
club including a very small part of the population.
But democracy never meant the power of the poor. So, no, for the 1 percent the system is
not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should
the peasants rebell.
And in the end, this is the way things are run in Russia and China, with a lot less media circus.
Add - a limit to presidential power for one person. US citizens are reduced to vote in
a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks
any political progress there might be. The US are the oldest modern democracy. It is like
being stuck in the age of steam engines.
Good one, wj2! Here's some more info on Lord Malloch-Brown and George Soros, courtesy of WikiPedia:
Malloch Brown has been closely associated with billionaire speculator George Soros. Working
for Refugees International, he was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia in 1993–94,
formed by George Soros. He has since kept cordial relations with Soros, and rented an apartment
owned by Soros while working in New York on UN assignments. In May 2007, Soros' Quantum Fund
announced the appointment of Sir Mark as vice-president. In September 2007, The Observer reported
that he had resigned this position on becoming a government minister in the UK. Also in May
2007, Malloch Brown was named vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute,
two other important Soros organisations.
DOOOOOOOOOM! "smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like
Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself. With a population
so gleefully ignorant and self centered as D'uhmerica, you should be lowering your expectations
significantly.
Are honest elections even legal in Texas and Louisiana? How about Massachusetts and New York?
They may be legal there but it would be dangerous to try to enforce that.
Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof)
this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often.
PB 13 "Concerning attacks from both sides, Trump is definitely more hysterical."
Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the
trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream".
Trump's hysterical rants (and the smear campaign) are played up in a organized attempt to knock
him out. People are getting kneecapped (Billy Bush) to demonstrate to others the wrath that may
be visited upon them for supporting the wrong candidate.
Take Bill O'Reilly for example, He told a subordinate female employee (documented court record)
that he wanted to "get a few wines in her and soap up her tits in the shower with a loofah and
falafel. There was a settlement and the story was under-reported. Forgotten and forgiven. In fact
Bill O stands as an arbiter of moral virtue.
Hillary is as nasty and hysterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams
at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children.
It is simply "not in the script" to malign Hillary with her own words and obnoxious behavior.
By the way, she is also a drunk.
We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine
tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s)
to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable.
https://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/bushs-it-guy-killed-in-plane-crash/
Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself
unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of
shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the
US.
Daniel Ellsberg, in his book Secrets , recounts what he had learned during his government
service about the honesty of U.S. elections. As reported in
Counterpunch :
In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify
its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon,
aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, "You've got a gentleman in the
White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent
most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention
to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft." Lodge later ordered, "Get it across to
the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S."
But Lodge's comments were downright uplifting compared with a meeting that Ellsberg attended
with former Vice President Richard Nixon, who was visiting Vietnam on a "fact-finding mission"
to help bolster his presidential aspirations. Former CIA operative Edward Lansdale told Nixon
that he and his colleagues wanted to help "make this the most honest election that's ever been
held in Vietnam." Nixon replied, "Oh, sure, honest, yes, honest, that's right … so long as
you win!" With the last words he did three things in quick succession: winked, drove his elbow
hard into Lansdale's arm, and slapped his own knee.
12,13,will you clowns keep your zippers closed? Your propaganda is unseemly, and we'll see just
whose victory will be huge Nov.8,won't we? Why does anyone put any credence in serial liar polls?
Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle? Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota
of his policies being broadcast?
That is his vote rigging angle, that the MSM is corrupt and is politically assassinating him
daily,not the polls themselves being a major factor in the rigging accusations.
Obomba, the most un-criticised POTUS in American history, is a laughable pos concerned
about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal, once in.
And only commie morons would oppose that.
Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator
and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this
very topic. I suggest those interested in learning more take the time to investigate his
site and its many years of accumulated evidence proving Election Fraud a very big problem,
http://bradblog.com/
The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing. It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now.
A bloviating bunko artist vers a grifting crypto neocon is not a 'choice', it's a suicide squad
lootfest it's taking America down.
In Humboldt County California we still use paper ballots. Our polling place also has one electronic
voting machine sitting in a corner for voters who can't use the paper ballots. I have never seen
it being used. There was a transparency program that I think they still do where all ballots were
scanned and the images made available online for the public to double check results. I'm no wiz
with machine vision but I think I could knock together enough code to do my own recount.
I'm not paying much attention but doesn't Trump say the election is rigged ? Obama's setting
up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting
process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged , that's
so plainly obvious it's painful.
And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere.
There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of 'rigging' or 'organising'
in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. (See for ex. Adjuvant @ 6, john
@ 18)
Ideally, one would have to divide it into different types. It is also traditional, which some
forget, I only know about that from 'realistic' novels, I recently read Dos Passos' Manhattan
Transfer, and was amazed how little things change (despite horse-drawn carriages, rouge, spitoons,
cigars, sauerkraut, etc.) - see karlof1 @ 25.
Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren't necessarily outright fabricated (is
easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but 'arranged'
to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following
SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.)
Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet
sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of
HRC.
It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls.
(Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will 'rig' the
election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: "see we were winning all the time
Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares" - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls
while not the same as 'riggin' the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from
Wikileaks.)
This is also the reason for the mad accusations of Putin interference in US elections - if
somebody is doing illegit moves it is Trump's supporter Putin and so the 'bad stuff' is 'foreign
take-over' and not 'us', and btw NOT the Republicans, or Trump circle, which is very telling.
I didn't see the O Keefe, Project Veritas, vids mentioned. Here the first one. There is a second
one up and more coming.
I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going
quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest
the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office.
Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution
stuff - the carrot revolution?
It is an interesting experiment if you can make people vote for a candidate they don't like
by it being the only way to prevent a candidate they dislike even more. You just showed you aren't
able to.
"Hillary Clinton now says her "number one priority" in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad,
putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year.
Any "no-fly zone" over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian
and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread
Russia will not back down if we start shooting down its aircraft. Is Hillary willing to risk
nuclear war with Russia in order to protect al-Qaeda in Syria?
96% of disclosed campaign contributions from journalists went to the Clinton campaign.
From the MSM: TIME.
Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled
and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but
it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to
do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some 'moves' to retain credibility,
and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major
downsides.
Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged. The US system is rigged in a far larger sense
than any Americans realize. It's rigged to blow off the Constitution.
If you want to know how badly rigged, ask any voter when they leave the voting venue: "What
is the name of the elector you just voted for?" You'll get either: 1) a dumb stare; 2) a laugh,
or 3) a "WTF is an elector?"
Under the Constitution, Americans vote for electors. They do not vote for presidents, and there's
a reason for that. It's called "mass stupidity."
The Fondling Fathers were smart enough to know that the people are too stupid to choose their
own leader. So the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote
for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that
chooses a president and vice-president.
There is not "supposed" to be any campaign, candidates, or polls. The process is "supposed"
to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate
the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would
be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal
was done. If not, go to the second person. Pretty much how the CEO of a large corporation
is chosen.
Having the people of a community vote for the local person who would be the most trustworthy
to deliberate on who should be president is a reasonable objective. I mean, essentially the question
for the voter would be reduced to: "What person in our community would be least likely to be bought
off?" But having a gang-bang of 60 million voting Americans who don't really know shit about the
morons they are voting into office . . . that, on its face, is a sign of mass self-deception and
insanity. It is mass stupidity perpetuating itself.
The circus that the US presidential election has turned into – including the grotesque primaries
– just goes to show how fucking stupid Americans are. The system is an embarrassment to the entire
country. And it is an act of flipping-off the Fondling Fathers and their better judgment every
four years. But worst of all, the present system is virtually certain to eventually produce the
most powerful person in the world who is a complete moron, and who will precipitate a global catastrophe
– economic, or military, or both.
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers". It's
called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range")
voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines).
Just got my mail-in ballots from the postman. Voting against all Democrats except, for POTUS.
Take a few days and vote either Jill Stein or Donald Trump.
Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving
liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition.
Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity?
"For any minimally conscious American citizen, it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump
is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the
viciously dishonest Mainstream Media."
-Boyd D. Cathey, "The Tape, the Conspiracy, and the Death of the Old Politics", Unz Review
"When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party's presidential
candidate? What does that say about the media?"
Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are
inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?"
If Jill Stein needs 5% of the vote in order to be considered a legitimate candidate (or to bring
the Green party up to legitimate third-party status for the 2020 election), then you can rest
assured that no matter how many votes she actually gets, her percentage will never be above 4.99%.
Just like when Obama swept into office in 2008, the powers-that-be made sure the Democrats never
had a filibuster-proof majority. Give 'em just enough to believe that the system works, but never
enough to create a situation where the lack of change can't be explained away by "gridlock". Brilliant
in its malevolence, really.
It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq
(Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton:
Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon: Paul Wolfowitz (aka,
the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill
Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff,
John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc
All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless
war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER.
To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or
most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition"
or diversity of opinion where there is none.
Actually MOA is one of few, more or less independent, aligning itself with any sane ideology,
a welcome island of order in the ocean of media cacophony and I often disagreed with MOA but I
appreciate its logical consistency and integrity, hard facts based journalism,no matter from what
moral stand MOA writings are coming from. MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational
thought and must be dismissed entirely.
But there is much, much more rigging going on, on massive, even global scale. The fraud is
so massive and so visible that blinds people from the truth about it. From the truth of how massively
they are being controlled in their opinions and thoughts.
The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed
in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing.
The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear.
It may seem shocking for people under spell of overwhelming propaganda, but this government
run by Global oligarchs is dangerous to our physical and mental health and must be eradicated
as a matter of sanitary emergency.
Let's sweep all those political excretions into the sewage pipes where they belong. But first
we have to recognize the scale of their influence and their horrifying daily routine subversion
of social order, gross malfeasance or even horrendous crimes also war crimes covered up by MSM.
Only after we get rid of this abhorrent, brutal regime, cut the chains of enslavement we can
have decent democracy or voting, not before.
John Stuart Mill - "Government shapes our character, values, and intellect. It can affect
us positively or negatively. When political institutions are ill constructed, "the effect is
felt in a thousand ways in lowering the morality and deadening the intelligence and activity
of the people"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "I had come to see that everything was radically connected
with politics, and that however one proceeded, no people would be other than the nature of
its government.
And here we are, believing the shit those mofos and feeding us about freedom and democracy
citing bought and sold lies as "scientific research" concocted for one reason alone, to fuck us
up , exploit and discard when not needed.
Here is, in a small part, about how they do it, starting from phony polls that suppose to sway
you one way or another into following supposed projected winner anointed by the establishment.
Polls are routinely skewed, even MSM pundits say use polls they can trust i.e. which give them
results their bosses seek.
Now over hundred top newspapers and media outlets endorsed Hillary so you can safely remove
them from your list of polls you can rely on.
Anyway most polls are rigged even more than elections themselves, mostly by skewing the content
of a poling sample like in the above example. If you poll Dems about Reps that exactly you get
what you seek. But they are more insidious like doubling or tripling polling sample and then pick
an choose what answers they like, or focus sample on the area you know there is overall support
for your thesis or assertion of candidate regardless of official affiliation, and many more down
to raw rigging by fixing numbers or adjustments.
The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in
thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as:
By limiting selection of possible candidates and their access to statewide or national ballot
box via rigged undemocratic caucuses and primaries and other unreasonable requirements, goal-seeking
ad-hoc rules. by eliminating and/or confusing voters about voting at proper physical location
often changed in last moments, forcing into never counted provisional vote by purposely hiding
registered lists, purging made up "felons" from voter lists, requiring expensive or unavailable
or costly to obtain due to extensive travel, identifying documents, threatening citizen (of color)
with deportation, accusing them of voter fraud [baseless challenging that automatically pushes
voter into provisional vote], or strait offering meaningless provisional ballots instead of proper
ballot for people who can't read (English) well, eliminating students and military vote when needed
on phony registration issues, signature, pictures, purposefully misspelled names, mostly non-British
names etc., reducing number of polling places where majority votes for "rouge" candidate, forcing
people to stand in line for hours or preventing people from voting al together.
Selecting remote polling locations with obstructed public access by car or transit, paid parking,
exposed to weather elements, cold, wind and rain in November.
Hacking databases before and after vote, switching votes, adding votes for absent voters, and
switching party affiliations and vote at polling places as well up in the data collating chain,
county, state, filing in court last minute frivolous law suits aimed to block unwanted candidates
or challenging readiness of the polling places in certain neighborhoods deemed politically uncertain,
outrageous voting ON a WORKING DAY (everywhere else voting is on Sunday or a day free of work)
skewing that way votes toward older retired people.
Massive lying propaganda of whom we vote for, a fraudulent ballot supposedly voting for "candidates"
but in fact voting on unnamed electors, party apparatchiks instead, violating basic democratic
principle of transparency of candidates on the ballot and secrecy of a voter, outrageous electorate
college rules design to directly suppress democracy. Requirement of approval of the electoral
vote by congress is an outrageous thing illegal in quasi-democratic western countries due to division
of powers.
Outrageous, voting day propaganda to discourage voting by phony polling and predictions while
everywhere else there is campaigning ban, silence for two to three days before Election Day.
No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers
about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen
as anybody who opens eyes can see.
All the above fraud prepared by close group of election criminals on political party payroll,
months/years before election date often without any contribution from ordinary polling workers
who believe that nothing is rigged.
If somebody thinks that they would restrain themselves this time, think again. The regime,
in a form of mostly unsuspecting county registrars are tools of the establishment and will do
everything, everything they can and they can a lot, to defraud those elections and push an establishment
candidate down to our throats, without a thought crossing their comatose minds. "Just doing their
jobs like little Eichmanns of NAZI regime".
One way or another your vote will be stolen or manipulated up and down the ticket at will
and your participation would mean one thing legitimizing this abhorrent regime.
We must reject those rigged elections and demand that establishment must go, all of them GOP,
DNC and that including Hillary before any truly democratic electoral process worth participating
may commence.
"The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant
oligarchy, while simultaneously "participating" in sham democracy."
C. Wright Mills,"The Power Elite" (1956)
Any sane person must thus conclude that an act of voting in the current helplessly tainted
and rigged political system is nothing but morally corrupting tool that divides us, conflicts
us, extorts from us an approval for the meaningless political puppets of the calcified, repugnant
oligarchic US regime, in a surrealistic act of utter futility aimed just to break us down,
to break our sense of human dignity, our individual will and self-determination since no true
choice is ever being offered to us and never will.
Idea of political/electoral boycott, unplugging from the system that corrupts us and ALTERNATIVE
POLITICAL PROCESS designed, developed and implemented for benefit of 99% of population is the
only viable idea to express our political views that are absent from official regime candidates'
agendas and from the rigged ballots. Let's not be afraid, it was already successfully done
in the past. It works." Without courage there is only slavery.
Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?)
to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like
he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it?
Grow up.
I took the time off (I'm a software engineer) after the primaries (having supported neither
BO or HRC) because that's who get got. We were coming off 8 years of BushCo which was, in summary...
a horror. The republicans were 100% unrepentant, and McCain was a far louder and steadfast supporter
of Iraq then Hillary... wasn't even close. McCain burried his Abramhoff investigation, sealed
their findings for 50 years. And his running mate was not just bereft of any policy expertise,
she was a loudmouth loon... even FOX canceled her post election show.
I was well aware of BO's questions/limitations. He didn't put his time in as a Senator and
sponsored no meaningful legislation. He played it safe. He had no real policy track record. And
as a Senator he quietly slipped away and hob-nobbed with Bush several times (no other Dem Senator
at the time did this that I was aware). So yeah, Obama was on open question.
I was going to pass on this election, but I've read a lot here about it and started to consider
what as a US voter I might do.
Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly
that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see
if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia
believes in.
I believe in voting. I believe in multiple parties. I believe the game is totally rigged but
sometimes you can win, except that you have to play for this to happen. I believe that you have
to be the thing you want.
I believe in a Green Party and I admire the sanity that comes from Dr. Jill Stein every time
I encounter her position. This is the world I believe in. This is the world I'll vote for and
support, with all tools that comes to hand, forever.
~~
I don't believe in the view that aspiring for betterment is foolish or naive, or the view that
current status cannot change or be changed. Such views fail to acknowledge the physical reality
of a new universe manifesting in each moment, always different in some way from that of the previous
moment. Such views are lost, bewildered, behind the curve, forever.
Term limits are useless. There could never be a Cynthia McKinney or a Dennis Kucinich -- Ever!
Term limited representatives would by definition be track record-free representatives. If you
really would like positive change, you simply need to get strategic hedge simple score voting:
SHSV
Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored
Bernie Sanders by 17%
Mar 06 2016
J.T. Waldron
Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results,
may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines.
68 out of the state's 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference
of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine
vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by
1.42 %.
In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to
get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner
and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility
crisis and everything went smooth.
"... I think that Trump is referring to Clinton's use of her private, insecure server for confidential e-mails of which she ordered 30,000 to be deleted and had Obama intervene to stop an FBI investigation. Honest and transparent, I think not. ..."
"... In "normal" circumstances she would have been disqualified as a candidate and possibly be facing criminal proceedings. Let's face it, neither candidate is at all suitable as leader of the western world. ..."
"... The current bedrocks of the capitalist system are at breaking point. Parliamentary democracy and the nation state are crumbling under various pressures. They may be saves but I think we are entering the period when they will be replaced. I have no idea what with though. ..."
"... Remember when U.S. NGOs were "respected" bodies around the world. Now we know they were spies and subverters, now banned from all self respecting countries around the world. ..."
"... Remember how the U.S. went into Iraq for De4mocracy. Now we know it was oil and deliberate mayhem. ..."
"... Ditto Afghanistan, Libya, and their failed attempt to lay waste Syria. ..."
"... Ukraine is just a stand alone shithole created by the U.S., lied about by them, down to the downing of MH17 ..."
"... If you want lies and deceit, look at the U.S ..."
"... Not to be too critical, but most of what you mentioned was perpetrated under a single presidential administration. Cheney was dividing Iraqi oilfields way before the "invasion". Bush was just a puppet. You know, the kind of guy you would like to have a beer with. Just a good ole'boy. ..."
"... Is Hillary trying to stir up her own counter revolution in case she loses too? It seems like a fatally flawed attempt. People barely have the energy to turn out to vote for her, let alone take up arms for her. ..."
"... The DNC rigged the vote to nominate Clinton over Sanders. Why wouldn't they employ the same tricks in the election itself? ..."
"... Any individual with a shred of decency should be extremely disturbed by the actions of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. They privately discussed methods of discrediting Sanders based SOLELY on his religious affiliation. ..."
"... Despite having a tonne of shit thrown at him and the msm and big money donors squarely in Clinton's corner, Trump's still standing. Polls released today: LA Times +2 Trump; NBC +6 Clinton; Rasmussen +1 Clinton ..."
The fight over vote rigging in 2016 is a proxy war for a much deeper crisis: the legitimacy of
American democracy
Nearly 90% of Trump supporters agreed with a Rand Corporation survey statement that "people like
me don't have any say about what the government does." The irony here is that Trump voters are historically
some of the most enfranchised, with some of his strongest support coming from white protestant men.
A study done during the primaries also found that Trump backers make an average of $72,000 per year,
compared with a $61,000 average among likely Clinton voters.
... ... ...
Corporate citizens – as defined by Citizens United – now have an easier time getting a hold of
their elected representative than just about any other American. In other words, money talks in Washington,
and Super Pacs have spend just under $795m this election cycle. Because lobbying money courses through
every level of politics, the most successful candidates are the best at making friends in the Fortune
500.
Meanwhile, just
six
in 10 Americans are confident their votes will be accurately cast and counted. And unlike in
systems based on proportional representation, our winner-take-all electoral model creates some of
the highest barriers to entry for political outsiders of any democracy on earth.
Americans' distrust of politics is about more than just elections, though. Congressional approval
ratings have declined steadily
since
2009 , and now sit at just 20% – a high in the last few years. Unions – which used to cudgel
Democrats into representing working people's interests – are at their weakest point in decades, and
lack the sway they once held at the highest levels of government.
Declines in organized labor have been paired with the disappearance of steady and well-paid work,
either succumbed to automation or shipped overseas by free trade agreements. A jobless recovery from
the financial crisis has left many adrift in the economy, while executives from the firms that drove
it got golden parachutes courtesy of the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve.
On the table now are to very different responses to these crises. Using an apocryphal quote from
Frederich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg once
wrote
: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into
barbarism."
SmartestRs 2d ago
I think that Trump is referring to Clinton's use of her private, insecure server for confidential
e-mails of which she ordered 30,000 to be deleted and had Obama intervene to stop an FBI investigation.
Honest and transparent, I think not.
In "normal" circumstances she would have been disqualified
as a candidate and possibly be facing criminal proceedings. Let's face it, neither candidate is
at all suitable as leader of the western world.
furiouspurpose
When Mrsfuriouspurpose got a gig as a poll clerk on the EU referendum she offered everyone
who came through the door a pencil to write their cross.
Many brought their own pens and a fair few explained that they were concerned that pencil could
be rubbed out and wanted to make sure – just in case.
It ain't only the yanks who are getting suspicious about how honest our democracy has become.
davidc929 -> furiouspurpose
The current bedrocks of the capitalist system are at breaking point. Parliamentary democracy
and the nation state are crumbling under various pressures. They may be saves but I think we are
entering the period when they will be replaced. I have no idea what with though.
Kholrabi
Remember when U.S. NGOs were "respected" bodies around the world.
Now we know they were spies and subverters, now banned from all self respecting countries around
the world.
Remember how the U.S. went into Iraq for De4mocracy.
Now we know it was oil and deliberate mayhem.
Ditto Afghanistan, Libya, and their failed attempt to lay waste Syria.
Ukraine is just a stand alone shithole created by the U.S., lied about by them, down to the
downing of MH17.
If you want lies and deceit, look at the U.S.
Trump is right in his accusations. Idle chatter is just that, wasteful of time and distracting
idle chatter,
Thomas Hosking -> Kholrabi
Not to be too critical, but most of what you mentioned was perpetrated under a single presidential
administration. Cheney was dividing Iraqi oilfields way before the "invasion". Bush was just a
puppet. You know, the kind of guy you would like to have a beer with. Just a good ole'boy.
DaanSaaf -> Kholrabi
Ukraine is just a stand alone shithole created by the U.S.,
tbf, that was as much the handiwork of the EU as it ever was the US
leadale
For better or for worse, the 2016 presidential campaign was all about him.
Not about his policies. Not about calm analysis of what was wrong and how it could be fixed.
It was always about him. And now, the nation's attention is still focused on him and his peccadillos…rather
than Ms Clinton and her scams, corruptions, and Deep State flimflams.
'Remember, it's a rigged system. It's a rigged election,' said the candidate over the weekend.
Is the election really rigged? Probably not in the way Mr Trump intends listeners to believe.
But the 'system' is so rigged that the election results hardly matter.
A real conservative would shift the debate away from fanny pinching and other ungentlemanly comportment
to how it is rigged. Americans want to know. How come the economy no longer grows as it used to?
How come most Americans are poorer today than they were in 1999? How come we no longer win our
wars?
He would explain to listeners that much of the rigging took place while Hillary and Bill Clinton
were collecting more than $150 million in speaking fees, telling us how to improve the world!
Then, he would help listeners put two and two together - explaining how the fake dollar corrupted
the nation's economy…and its politics, too.
And he would offer real solutions.
As it is, nobody seems to care. Not the stock market. Not the bond market. Not commentators. Not
Hillary. Not Donald. Nobody.
Bill Bonnar - Daily reckoning
Ken Weller -> leadale
Actually, he did address those issues quite frequently, including during the debate. It's the
media that is trying to dictate what the important issues are.
Ken Weller
I recall that in previous elections, notably the 2004 presidential, progressive voices rightly
pointed to possible election rigging. I even remember DNC chair Howard Dean interviewing Bev Harris
of blackboxvoting.org about how this could be achieved. Now that Trump's people are concerned
about the issue, it's suddenly crazy.
Meanwhile, Clinton's camp has put forth there own conspiracy
theory that Russia may somehow rig it for Trump, never mind that that the voting machines are
disconnected from the internet and thus hackers.
Brett Hankinson -> Ken Weller
Is Hillary trying to stir up her own counter revolution in case she loses too? It seems like
a fatally flawed attempt. People barely have the energy to turn out to vote for her, let alone
take up arms for her.
Trump is far more effective and newsworthy because he's inciting violence during the US election
and it actually seems plausible that violence could result. He doesn't even need to win the popular
vote to wreck the place.
Whodeaux Brett Hankinson
It's win/win for Trump and his ilk. Or rather, if he wins then obviously he wins. If he loses
he can just say he won, his fanbois will take over bird sanctuaries left and right, and when FBI
and National Guard inevitably kill some of them he can screech about how Real Mericans® are being
picked on by those nasty Globalist Bankers and the Entitlement Class, those two terms being the
current dog whistles for what the John Birchers used to call Jews and Blacks.
Trump doesn't seem to realize actual people are going to be actually dead before this is all
over. One cannot untoast bread.
MountainMan23
The DNC rigged the vote to nominate Clinton over Sanders. Why wouldn't they employ the
same tricks in the election itself?
Our voting machines & tabulators are insecure - that's a known fact.
So the concern among all voters (not just Trump supporters) is real & justified.
HiramsMaxim MountainMan23
If I were a Sanders supporter I would be furious.
Hell, I'm not a Sanders supporter, and I am still furious. What matters an individual's vote,
if the outcome has already been determined by The Powers That Be?
Todd Owens HiramsMaxim
Any individual with a shred of decency should be extremely disturbed by the actions of
Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. They privately discussed methods of discrediting Sanders
based SOLELY on his religious affiliation.
"It might may (sic) no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief.
Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he
is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps
would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," Bradley Marhsall, former CFO of the
DNC.
This is identity politics at its absolute worst.
HiramsMaxim ButtChocolate
Its a little more sophisticated than that.
In the Podesta email dumps, there is plenty of evidence of particular members of the Press
actively colluding with the Clinton campaign, and even submitting articles for review by the campaign
before publishing.
So, he is taking what are, at the very least, journalistic standards lapses, and spins it into
something larger. He takes a little fear, and makes a big story out of it. And, because these
media organisations cannot admit what they are doing, or deny the generally accepted verity of
the Wikileaks dumps, he gets a free shot.
Remember, to all the good progressives out there, Trump is not trying to appeal to you, convince
you, or make you like him. In fact, the more you hate him, the more "ideologically pure" he looks
to his supporters.
Example: Look at The Guardian reporting of the firebombing at the Republican office here in
NC. Any reasonable person would agree that firebombing is wrong. But, TG could not even use that
word. The article they published bent over backwards to minimise the action, and blame it on Trump.
Sure, that plays well to The Guardian readership. But, it just confirms (well, at least it
appears to confirm) the loud cries of media bias that Trump and his supporters rail against. The
irony is that when the same types of things happen domestically, by a Press that thinks it is
"helping" their preferred candidate, it only confirms the worst suspicions of the opposition.
And, it only taked one or two examples to give Trump room to condemn all media.
Trump has one overwhelming skill on display here. He is able to bait the media, and they cannot
resist rising to that bait. He is, for lack of a better term, a World Class Troll.
Harryy
"as his support slips"
Despite having a tonne of shit thrown at him and the msm and big money donors squarely
in Clinton's corner, Trump's still standing. Polls released today: LA Times +2 Trump; NBC +6 Clinton;
Rasmussen +1 Clinton
HiramsMaxim Harryy
It is facinating that the last two weeks of ugliness on both sides has had just about zero
effect on people.
Its as if both sides have already made up their minds, and refuse to pay attention to the Media.
"... The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party established in the United Kingdom in 1983 by the musician David Sutch, better known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow" or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch". It is notable for its deliberately bizarre policies and it effectively exists to satirise British politics, and to offer itself as an poignant alternative for protest voters, especially in constituencies where the party holding the seat is unlikely to lose it and everyone else's vote would be quietly wasted. ..."
I watched that yesterday. Funny and a complete take down of Jill Stein. How come a British comedian
knows more about our issues than one of our candidates for the White House? Oh wait - even Jill
Stein knows more than Donald Trump. If it were not for that Constitutional matter, I'd say Oliver
for President.
Fred C. Dobbs -> pgl... , -1
All politics is 'wacky',
the third-party kind is
the wackiest of all.
Maybe the UK does it best.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party established in
the United Kingdom in 1983 by the musician David Sutch, better known as "Screaming Lord Sutch,
3rd Earl of Harrow" or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch". It is notable for its deliberately bizarre
policies and it effectively exists to satirise British politics, and to offer itself as an poignant
alternative for protest voters, especially in constituencies where the party holding the seat
is unlikely to lose it and everyone else's vote would be quietly wasted.
(Wikipedia)
"... a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF) the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly even WWIII. ..."
"... One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness. ..."
"... Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of TBTF to rip people another four years. ..."
"... The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers, who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism to survive. ..."
"... And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the elections. ..."
Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do. That plus voter suppression may hand this to Trump yet. There was an LA Times poll this month
that showed a small Trump lead. An outlier, sure, but the same poll was right about Obama in 2012
when other polls were wrong. Just saying
likbez -> Adamski... , -1
> "Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do."
Yes. Thank you for making this point.
Also people over 50 have more chances to understand and reject all the neoliberal bullshit
MSM are pouring on Americans.
As well as a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF)
the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly
even WWIII.
One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that
remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness.
Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of
TBTF to rip people another four years.
Not that Trump is better, but on warmongering side he is the lesser evil, for sure.
The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal
media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers,
who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism
to survive.
And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts
is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the
elections.
That's why they supposedly pump Hillary with drugs each debate :-).
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump added one more accusation against Democratic rival
Hillary Clinton: "inappropriately" getting the debate questions.
Trump's tweet with the latest allegation comes the day after the final presidential debate in
which he refused to commit to the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions -
she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary.
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2016
Less than two hours after sending the tweet, the real estate mogul told a rally in Ohio that he
would accept the results of the election - if he wins.
"I would like to promise and pledge . . . that I will totally accept the results of this great
and historic presidential election if I win."
Trump later said in the rally that he would accept a clear result but reserves the right to contest
a questionable outcome.
Trump's comments about the election results during the debate were blasted by politicians on both
sides of the aisle, including Governor Charlie Baker and Libertarian vice presidential candidate
Bill Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts. Weld called the debate remarks "the death knell for
[Trump's] candidacy."
Senator John McCain of Arizona, a top Republican who withdrew his support of Trump earlier this
month, said he conceded defeat "without reluctance" in 2008 when then-Senator Barack Obama won the
presidential election. McCain said the loser has always congratulated the winner, calling the person
"my president."
"That's not just the Republican way or the Democratic way. It's the American way. This election
must not be any different," McCain said in a statement.
Trump and his supporters have been making unsubstantiated claims that the election is rigged,
putting officials on the defense weeks before most voters head to the polls. Civil rights activists
have called some of the accusations a thinly veiled racist attack.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump added one more accusation against Democratic rival
Hillary Clinton: "inappropriately" getting the debate questions.
Trump's tweet with the latest allegation comes the day after the final presidential debate
in which he refused to commit to the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions
- she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary.
10:55 AM - 20 Oct 2016
Less than two hours after sending the tweet, the real estate mogul told a rally in Ohio that
he would accept the results of the election - if he wins.
"I would like to promise and pledge ... that I will totally accept the results of this great
and historic presidential election if I win."
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
(But he didn't want the job anyway.)
President? It would be a demotion, says
Donald Trump Jr http://dailym.ai/2eJLQ71
via @MailOnline - Oct 20
Donald Trump Jr said last night moving into the White House would be a 'step down' for his
father.
Trump Jr was being interviewed on Fox News after the third presidential debate in Las Vegas
and was asked how he thought the Republican candidate had performed during the final presidential
debate. ...
"... As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word for
maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political fixing,
price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated version of Medieval
feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines of wealth and governs
the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and taxes--all
of which benefit the financiers and political grifters. ..."
"... The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the privileged
ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry ) and political
influence. ..."
"... If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
..."
Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed.
Every ruling Elite needs the consent of the governed: even autocracies, dictatorships and corporatocracies
ultimately rule with the consent, however grudging, of the governed.
The American ruling Elite has lost the consent of the governed. This reality is being masked by
the mainstream media, mouthpiece of the ruling class, which is ceaselessly promoting two false narratives:
The "great divide" in American politics is between left and right, Democrat/Republican
The ruling Elite has delivered "prosperity" not just to the privileged few but to the unprivileged
many they govern.
Both of these assertions are false. The Great Divide in America is between the ruling Elite and
the governed that the Elite has stripmined. The ruling Elite is privileged and protected, the governed
are unprivileged and unprotected. That's the divide that counts and the divide that is finally becoming
visible to the marginalized, unprivileged class of debt-serfs.
The "prosperity" of the 21st century has flowed solely to the ruling Elite and its army of technocrat
toadies, factotums, flunkies, apparatchiks and apologists. The Elite's army of technocrats and its
media apologists have engineered and promoted an endless spew of ginned-up phony statistics (the
super-low unemployment rate, etc.) to create the illusion of "growth" and "prosperity" that benefit
everyone rather than just the top 5%. The media is 100% committed to promoting these two false narratives
because the jig is up once the bottom 95% wake up to the reality that the ruling Elite has been stripmining
them for decades.
As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word
for maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political
fixing, price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated
version of Medieval feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines
of wealth and governs the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit
cards, mortgages and taxes--all of which benefit the financiers and political grifters.
The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the
privileged ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry
) and political influence.
The cold truth is the ruling Elite has shredded the social contract by skimming the income/wealth
of the unprivileged. The fake-"progressive" pandering apologists of the ruling Elite--Robert Reich,
Paul Krugman and the rest of the Keynesian Cargo Cultists--turn a blind eye to the suppression of
dissent and the looting the bottom 95% because they have cushy, protected positions as tenured faculty
(or equivalent). They cheerlead for more state-funded bread and circuses for the marginalized
rather than demand an end to exploitive privileges of the sort they themselves enjoy.
Consider just three of the unsustainably costly broken systems that enrich the privileged Elite
by stripmining the unprivileged:
healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare because sickness is profitable, prevention is unprofitable),
higher education
Imperial over-reach (the National Security State and its partner the privately owned Military-Industrial
Complex).
While the unprivileged and unprotected watch their healthcare premiums and co-pays soar year after
year, the CEOs of various sickcare cartels skim off tens of millions of dollars annually in pay and
stock options. The system works great if you get a $20 million paycheck. If you get a 30% increase
in monthly premiums for fewer actual healthcare services--the system is broken.
If you're skimming $250,000 as under-assistant dean to the provost for student services (or equivalent)
plus gold-plated benefits, higher education is working great. If you're a student burdened with tens
of thousands of dollars in student loan debt who is receiving a low-quality, essentially worthless
"education" from poorly paid graduate students ("adjuncts") and a handful of online courses that
you could get for free or for a low cost outside the university cartel--the system is broken.
If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
If you joined the Armed Forces to escape rural poverty and served at the point of the spear somewhere
in the Imperial Project--your perspective may well be considerably different.
Unfortunately for the ruling Elite and their army of engorged enablers and apologists, they have
already lost the consent of the governed.
They have bamboozled, conned and misled the bottom 95% for decades, but their phony facade of
political legitimacy and "the rising tide raises all boats" has cracked wide open, and the machinery
of oppression, looting and propaganda is now visible to everyone who isn't being paid to cover their
eyes. Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed. The disillusioned governed have not fully absorbed this
epochal shift of the tides yet, either. They are aware of their own disillusionment and their own
declining financial security, but they have yet to grasp that they have, beneath the surface of everyday
life, already withdrawn their consent from a self-serving, predatory, parasitic, greedy and ultimately
self-destructive ruling Elite.
"... At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in
the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt
establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight
of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect
threats to their personal safety. ..."
"... The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. ..."
"... People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. ..."
"... They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences
for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner,
whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they
forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently
culled. ..."
"... The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from
connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out
organized forms of activism. ..."
"... In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced.
Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are
instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate
entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent
ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their
own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state. ..."
"... Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads
to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything
resembling a solution, even despotism. ..."
"... Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding
liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level
of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly
distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that
their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them. ..."
"... When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines
that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant
exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police
no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.
..."
"... Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent
to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating
even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares
to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses. ..."
"... Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive
boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their
anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments
are able to kill two birds with one stone. ..."
"... Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery. Citizen
spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons of their communities.
..."
"... Tyrannies are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think
..."
"... Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality is
sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those labeled
as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is done discretely,
but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it. ..."
As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular
question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice
what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their
cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage
of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately,
such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day.
For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness
in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on
corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect
the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent
indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies,
and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless
herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment
and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have
to be pretty damnably oblivious.
The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition
a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger's
day is never quite done. In my recent article
'The
Essential Rules of Liberty' we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations
required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let's examine the frequently
wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…
People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually
confronted and defeated.
Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill
apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for
standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every
corner, whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal
that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have
been sufficiently culled.
In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another
religion, another political ideology, a "hidden" and ominous villain created out of thin air.
Autocrats assert that we "need them" in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters
bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken,
even those that dissolve our freedoms, are "for the greater good". Frightened people tend to shirk
their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective
is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality
almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked
for the sake of the group.
In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public
gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount
to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms.
The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting
with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized
forms of activism.
Through co-option, modern day tyrant's can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating
and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of
a nation on the verge of revolution. These "false paradigms" give us the illusion of proactive
organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us
from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into
meaningless battles over "left and right", or "Democrat versus Republican", for example. Only
movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of
their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to
the disasters wrought by tyranny.
In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are
enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required.
Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust
each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures
are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support.
People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore,
a potential risk to the state.
You'll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government
gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty,
and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly
hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine
upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake;
they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.
Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime
leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance
of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.
Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while
demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain
a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation
keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously
chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end
them.
This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived
notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny
right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on
every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naïve position.
Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed
nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation,
terrorism, etc.
When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed.
The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority
emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of
the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards
out to keep us subdued and docile.
As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and
small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.
At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers,
behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous
and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.
Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their
ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed,
and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person
or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the
minds of the masses.
All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders
of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already
disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media
in an attempt to make the public believe that "everyone else" must have the same exact views,
and those who express contrary positions must be "crazy", or "extremist". Events are even engineered
by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive
anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them
directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.
Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an
elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention,
and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the
truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.
Ultimately, the life of a totalitarian government is not prolonged by the government itself,
but by the very people it subjugates. Citizen spies are the glue of any police state, and our
propensity for sticking our noses into other peoples business is highly valued by Big Brother
bureaucracies around the globe.
There are a number of reasons why people participate in this repulsive activity. Some are addicted
to the feeling of being a part of the collective, and "service" to this collective, sadly, is
the only way they are able to give their pathetic lives meaning. Some are vindictive, cold, and
soulless, and actually get enjoyment from ruining others. And still, like elites, some long for
power, even petty power, and are willing to do anything to fulfill their vile need to dictate
the destinies of perfect strangers.
Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery.
Citizen spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons
of their communities. People who lean towards citizen spying are often outwardly and inwardly
unimpressive; physically and mentally inept. For the average moral and emotional weakling with
persistent feelings of inadequacy, the allure of finally being given fifteen minutes of fame and
a hero's status (even if that status is based on a lie) is simply too much to resist. They begin
to see "extremists" and "terrorists" everywhere. Soon, people afraid of open ears everywhere start
to watch what they say at the supermarket, in their own backyards, or even to family members.
Free speech is effectively neutralized.
In the end, it is not enough for a government fueled by the putrid sludge of iniquity to lord
over us. At some point, it must also influence us to forsake our most valued principles. Tyrannies
are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think. If they
can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely. Of course, the elements of
conscience are inborn, and not subject to environmental duress as long as a man is self aware.
However, conscience can be manipulated if a person has no sense of identity, and has never put
in the effort to explore his own strengths and failings. There are many people like this in America
today.
Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality
is sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those
labeled as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is
done discretely, but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it.
All tyrannical systems depend on the apathy and moral relativism of the inhabitants within
their borders. Without the cooperation of the public, these systems cannot function. The real
question is, how many of the above steps will be taken before we finally refuse to conform? At
what point will each man and woman decide to break free from the dark path blazed before us and
take measures to ensure their independence? Who will have the courage to develop their own communities,
their own alternative economies, their own organizations for mutual defense outside of establishment
constructs, and who will break under the pressure to bow like cowards? How many will hold the
line, and how many will flee?
For every American, for every human being across the planet who chooses to stand immovable
in the face of the very worst in mankind, we come that much closer to breathing life once again
into the very best in us all.
"... "Now we have the three [Goldman] transcripts. Everyone can read them, and everyone should. What they show is Clinton's extraordinary understanding of our world - its leaders and their politics, terrorist groups and their vulnerabilities, the interplay of global forces, and the economic well-being of Americans" ..."
"... I think this debate especially was "priced in" - any Trump supporter at this stage has lost the capacity for changing minds, especially as so much of it is anti-Hillary. ..."
"... It is astounding that with all her money and MSM support/collusion HRC is only a few digits ahead in the polls. I still see a slim chance that Trump will win, if his hidden and shy voters go out and some of Hillary's stay home (lazy and complacent). ..."
"... Having said that, the establishment is terrified of a Trump win, and so many of those voting machines don't leave an audit trail… ..."
I can tell what how the press stories will read from the headlines and the writers, so I won't
bother to link to them.
See the NC debate live blog for a rice bowl-free discussion.
"Trump had done well, delivering his best prepared and most substantive performance, but it
wasn't nearly good enough to reshape the race. He came into Las Vegas trailing big time, and surely
leaves the same way" [
New York Post ]. "Absent an unforeseeable black swan event that tips the table in his favor,
Hillary Clinton is headed to the White House." Although I'd bet the terrain is quite different
today from the terrain Clinton imagined back when she was influence peddling at Goldman in 2015.
... ... ..
And then there's this, which does seem to under cut the bizarre "our electoral system is perfection
itself" narrative that Democrat loyalists are pushing:
... ... ...
UPDATE "But the negativity in this campaign has been something else, and the debates have been
very heavy on character attacks. In terms of the overall impact on the health of American democracy,
I think there's one thing that's particularly concerning: These two candidates, whose personal
conduct and character have been impugned over and over, both went through competitive primaries.
There were other candidates. Clinton and Trump both won their nominations, fairly and decisively.
But for people who might tune in sporadically, the conclusion that this is the best we can do
might produce real dismay." [
FiveThirtyEight ]. Yes, it's called a legitimacy crisis.
"The stream posted on his Facebook wasn't anything different than what people saw on CNN or
Fox News or MSNBC, just a livestream of the debate, but more than 170,000 watched it at once.
By the time the broadcast ended, more than 8.7 million had tuned in at some point. Compare that
to the half a million views Time posted for its debate lifestream, or the nearly 900,000 who watched
BuzzFeed News'" [
Independent Journal Review ]. "Welcome to the first broadcast of Trump TV."
War Drums
"Anyone who believes the United States is not fighting enough wars in the Middle East can be
happy this week. We have just plunged into another one. Twice in recent days, cruise missiles
fired from an American destroyer have rained down on Yemen. The Pentagon, a practiced master of
Orwellian language, calls this bombing 'limited self-defense'" [
Boston Globe ]. "American forces were already involved in Yemen's civil war. Since 2002, our
drone attacks have reportedly killed more than 500 Yemenis, including at least 65 civilians. We
are also supplying weapons and intelligence to Saudi Arabia, which has killed thousands of Yemenis
in bombing raids over the last year and a half - including last week's attack on a funeral in
which more than 100 mourners were killed." But I'm sure none of the mourners were women or people
of color. So that's alright, then.
Wikileaks
"Now we have the three [Goldman] transcripts. Everyone can read them, and everyone should.
What they show is Clinton's extraordinary understanding of our world - its leaders and their politics,
terrorist groups and their vulnerabilities, the interplay of global forces, and the economic well-being
of Americans" [
RealClearPolitics ].
This is the line the Moustache of Understanding took. Which is all you need to know, really
Although this writer is a little vague on
just how they are "extraordinary."
"Walmart, Wendy Clark, Target and Apple: More WikiLeaked Clinton Campaign Messaging Secrets"
[
Advertising Age ].
The Trail
"Trump Holds On To 1-Point Lead As Debate Sparks Fly - IBD/TIPP Poll" [
Investors Business Daily ]. Incidentally, IBD sounds like the sort of publication Trump would
read.
There is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump's scorched-earth presidential campaign
is treated as a mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of
the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama's departure from the White House
- and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton - is being met
with quiet relief.
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork
for a more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who
are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House. …
This consensus is driven by broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly
stressed the dangers of overreach and the limits of American power, especially in the Middle
East. "There's a widespread perception that not being active enough or recognizing the limits
of American power has costs," said Philip Gordon, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama
until 2015. "So the normal swing is to be more interventionist." …
Smart investors will go long producers of canned food and manufacturers of fallout shelter
materials.
George Saunders strives mightily to have us believe our economic situation has nothing to do
with the attractiveness of The Donald to certain constituencies. But even he has to acknowledge
what people are angry about (emphasis added):
"All along the fertile interstate-highway corridor, our corporations, those new and
powerful nation-states, had set up shop parasitically, so as to skim off the drive-past money
, and what those outposts had to offer was a blur of sugar, bright color, and crassness
that seemed causally related to more serious addictions. Standing in line at the pharmacy in an
Amarillo Walmart superstore, I imagined some kid who had moved only, or mostly, through such bland,
bright spaces, spaces constructed to suit the purposes of distant profit, and it occurred to me
how easy it would be, in that life, to feel powerless, to feel that the local was lame, the abstract
extraneous, to feel that the only valid words were those of materialism ("get" and "rise")-words
that are perfectly embodied by the candidate of the moment.
Something is wrong, the common person feels, correctly: she works too hard and gets too little;
a dulling disconnect exists between her actual day-to-day interests and (1) the way her leaders
act and speak, and (2) the way our mass media mistell or fail entirely to tell her story.
What does she want? Someone to notice her over here, having her troubles. "
Pavel, October 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm
I blissfully ignored the televised "debate" last night though I followed the comments here
at NC and on Twitter for a while. Not sure my blood pressure would survive 90 mins of Hillary's
voice and smug smile or anything about Trump.
It is amusing to note the OUTRAGE that Trump might dare question the election results. Jesus
H Christ the media are just taking us all for amnesiac idiots, aren't they?
I think this debate especially was "priced in" - any Trump supporter at this stage has
lost the capacity for changing minds, especially as so much of it is anti-Hillary.
It is astounding that with all her money and MSM support/collusion HRC is only a few digits
ahead in the polls. I still see a slim chance that Trump will win, if his hidden and shy voters
go out and some of Hillary's stay home (lazy and complacent).
Having said that, the establishment is terrified of a Trump win, and so many of those voting
machines don't leave an audit trail…
Twice in recent days, cruise missiles fired from an American destroyer have rained down
on Yemen.
Whoaaa. There may still be doubts about this. After all, what do the Houthis gain, especially
right after the Saudis have outdone themselves in atrocities.
Officials Saturday night were uncertain about what exactly happened, if there were multiple
incoming missiles or if there was a malfunction with the radar detection system on the destroyer.
Even if the Yemenis did, I fail to see why this is considered shocking and unacceptable. I
get that decades of kowtowing to Israel has conditioned the United States to not understand that
a blockade is inherently an act of war, but quite aside from starving the people of Yemen we've
been directly supporting the Saudi bombing. We've been belligerents in this conflict from the
start.
Yet another attempt to explain Trump success... and Democratic Party disintegration because Dems
lost working class voters and substantial part of middle class voters.
Notable quotes:
"... I have a great deal of empathy for the Donald Trump voters. ..."
"... The elites have failed the people so thoroughly that tens of millions of people, on any side of any issue, can legitimately say they don't think the system is working for them anymore, if it ever did. ..."
"... There are elements of racism, xenophobia and misogyny in the Trump movement, and there's also all kinds of legitimate of anxieties. ..."
"... The rise of Trump is a judgment on the progressive movement that has adopted a style that doesn't leave much room for a 55-year-old heterosexual white Republican living in a red state to feel that he has any place of honor or dignity in the world progressives are trying to create. We see the disrespect coming from them, but there's a subtle disrespect coming from us, the NPR crowd, that is intolerant of intolerance. Nobody wants to feel as though they don't count. ..."
I also believe that people are fundamentally good, but this election cycle has tried that
hypothesis for me.
I have a great deal of empathy for the Donald Trump voters. When you listen to them talk
about feeling hurt, scared and left behind, they sound like the Black Lives Matter activists.
How so? The elites have failed the people so thoroughly that tens
of millions of people, on any side of any issue, can legitimately say they don't think the system
is working for them anymore, if it ever did. ...
... ... ...
A lot of people are mocking the idea that you can explain the bigotry at a Trump rally
by writing it off as simply a response to economic anxiety.
There are elements of racism, xenophobia and misogyny in the Trump movement, and there's also
all kinds of legitimate of anxieties.
The rise of Trump is a judgment on the progressive movement that has adopted a style that
doesn't leave much room for a 55-year-old heterosexual white Republican living in a red state to
feel that he has any place of honor or dignity in the world progressives are trying to create. We
see the disrespect coming from them, but there's a subtle disrespect coming from us, the NPR crowd,
that is intolerant of intolerance. Nobody wants to feel as though they don't count.
They talked about poverty 8 times in one night? Krugman
only mentioned it 6 times yesterday. Krugman NEVER talk
about income inequality. Seriously - do you not get why
your own dog says you are a stupid bore?
Kind of like Obama's gift of mandated health insurance
coverage given to a health insurance industry that is
consolidating more and more every day...and becoming an
oligopoly?
Of course, we already know how this ends from
privatization of retirement plans in Britain and in
Chile--it's a boon mainly to the finance industry.
"Britain's experience with individual accounts has been
troubling. None other than the business oriented Wall
Street Journal, in fact, headlined an article on the
British experience: "Social Security Switch in U.K. is
Disastrous; A Caution to the U.S.?"[7] While the Journal
article mainly focused on a multi-billion dollar fraud
scandal in which British pension sellers gave workers bad
investment advice, others have critically noted the
system's unexpectedly high administrative costs and the
growing income inequality among the nation's workers"
http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/social-security/PensionPrivatizationBritainBoondoggle-Sep00.pdf
What else would you expect from the Clintons, who have
spent a good part of their careers sucking up to the
finance industry?
"... Trump should be ready for the Russia thing. I expect him to clearly delineate himself from HRC by saying he really really really wants no war with Russia. in fact, he's already said if he's elected he will meet with Putin before he's even inaugurated. It's a winning position for Trump. People hate war. ..."
"... I am skeptical of how much that will win over people in Hillary's base, since many well-to-do liberals I know swallow the Putin-is-evil propaganda without question and consider the threat of nuclear war as a distant, impossible thing. For them Trump is an immediate, concrete threat and bad relations with Russia leading to nuclear war a considerably more abstract proposition. ..."
"... Clinton: Citizens United "undermined" our democratic system. So, in other words, the system is indeed rigged. Glad they agree on something. ..."
"... I'm watching with a former TV producer who just pointed out that they've got soft light on her and hard light on him. ..."
"... I noticed that too, this debate and the last one. She has that Doris Day'ish type of look and he looks pale. The lighting – ..."
"... The heroin use is from having no jobs. ..."
"... and from doctors and Big Pharma pushing it. Marijuana appears to be better for pain and less harmful. ..."
"... That "she always supported the wall, never gets anything done so no wall" was quite adroit ..."
"... Clinton can't resist gleeful smirk, she can throw in some of her prepared remarks. ..."
"... ooh-Clinton's already on wikileaks and Russia and Putin. 17 intelligence people have supposedly confirmed they were trying to change the election. ..."
"... Trump–great calling her out on her pivot off the borders. ..."
"... "You encouraged espionage of our people" I remember Hillary calling for a bolstering of NSA surveillance efforts after Orlando? ..."
"... Of course no mention that Obama has deported more people than any other president. ..."
"... Clinton's pivot from "hemisphere without borders" to Wikileaks/Russia/Putin interfering with out democracy. Pathetic. The audience found it laughable. ..."
"... she just lied about nuclear weapons…the secty of defense has to approve…she…is…well…she always lies so what else is new… ..."
"... Hillary's eyes are very glassy, She's doped up ..."
"... Trump saying jobs are stagnant, last report so bad "I should win the election". ..."
"... Your 30 years of experience coincide with the utter screwing over of the working people. ..."
"... Amen. I just watched about two minutes… all I could take. Her smirk and lies drive me nuts. ..."
"... Her basic narrative is she is the single most qualified person in the history of things to ever be deign to run for President and then she mumbles about one thing she did between being a lawyer for Wal-Mart and the governor's wife. It's a terrible narrative. Oh, and being on the wrong side of every foreign policy decision for 25 years. ..."
"... American bombs and bullets are humanitarian, dontcha know? ..."
"... NBC set up the Billy Bush tape, if that's what's being referred to. The Clintons set up the big frontpage NYT 'accusers,' or whatever it was. ..."
"... These agents provacateurs accusations against Clinton are quite plausible (hey, they were on PBS Newshour) even if the source is shady. They just feel very Clintonesque. ..."
"... Dirty politics Clinton style. ..."
"... There is a lot of evidence dug up by reddit amateur investigators after the tape leaked. They found people on the tape in a few protest videos as well as a woman on the Clinton payroll. I don't trust the voter fraud tape at all, but the inciting violence at riots tapes looks like the real deal. ..."
"... They go along well with the shots fired into and the burglary/ransacking of Sander's Nevada campaign headquarters, and the firebombings of Republican campaign offices in swing states. ..."
"... well done $hillary…the question was for her to respond about bill and his stuff…good diversion…congrats… ..."
"... "America is great because America is good." We kill because we love… ..."
"... She twists everything. Chubby Checker would be proud of Shillary. ..."
"... Now he's bringing up her emails. What happened to the FBI, he asks? Talks about 1 guy getting 4 yrs in jail for 1 lie to the FBI, a 4-star general, but she makes hundreds of lies. ..."
"... Has Hillary Clinton ever apologized for anything? Or just said "I misspoke." ..."
"... Hillary did not respond to Trump's charge that she paid for people to riot in Chicago before his rally. Instead she began to speak very slowly to eat up her time. ..."
"... Oooh, Clinton uses rhetoric–says Trump is "dark, divisive, dangerous". She practiced that one. There was no context. ..."
"... Wallace is pressing her more on pay to play. Trump says it's a criminal enterprise, Saudi & Qatar giving lots of money. They kill women & treat them horribly, push gays off buildings, but Clinton takes their money. He says she should give their money back. He says in Haiti they hate Clinton, what the foundation did was a disgrace. ..."
"... Clinton claims they spend 90% of donations on their programs. (Pinocchio moment, anyone?) ..."
"... Spending money on programs is lawyerly language. From what I have read, CF runs events but does little that benefits people "on the ground" ..."
"... Too bad Trump doesn't have any facts on Haiti. He could have buried her. This is so boring. Just low grade snipes at each other. ..."
"... Almost focusing on Haiti, almost a good point, then narcissism derails Trump … ..."
"... Media dishonest & corrupt, NYT wrote about it, poisoned the minds of voters but he thinks people can see through it. ..."
"... the fbi did a one year investigation or a three day cover up…? ..."
"... Clinton claims we've had "free and fair elections". Now there's a huge lie. Bigger lie than about her emails. ..."
"... Oh noes, Trump is denigrating our democracy. So did the DNC by rigging the primaries. ..."
"... She's appalled? What hypocrisy! ..."
"... Grabbing women. Nine came forward, said you groped them. Why would so many women all make up these stories, and Clinton, what your husband, was that worse? ..."
"... Hey, it's the best democracy that Organized Money can buy! ..."
"... "Intelligence surge." Sounds bad and worse. ..."
"... I do have to say without Trump in this election the lid would not have been blown off the criminality of the government in Washington. Mouthing off about it all the time every chance he gets. Not that Trump will do anything to change it. But still. ..."
"... Good point. He's exposing this fraud for what she is. ..."
"... This election would have been all about transgender bathrooms. ..."
"... Trump: Sanders supporting Clinton is a big mistake. Amen. ..."
"... To Americans of either side who are sick of our failed foreign policy and wondering whether it's intentionally duplicitous, yah, I think it's a winner. Keep reading, you'll see. ..."
"... Hillary sticking to technicals and official truths – "FBI cleared me after a year-long investment"; "Google Trump Iraq – all these sources" etc. If she can validate it, it must be true! ..."
"... He should have mentioned wikileaks. They found her own oppo research said his Iraq war opposition would be a huge problem for her. ..."
"... Trump is kicking butt. Stein or Trump… Can't stomach Bill in the WH again. ..."
"... Wallace asks Clinton about no fly zone, risk of starting a war. She says those are genuine risks, but thinks she could "strike a deal". ..."
"... Oh god, she says no-fly zone would save lives…. ..."
"... Trump occasionally emits MMT-like sounds, but I'm not sure that he believes them. For example, he has previously accurately noted that US can't be forced to default on USD-denominated debt, since it prints its own currency. Then he suggested that we could reduce the outstanding debt by negotiating down the price of previously issued Treasury bonds (not sure the details; perhaps threaten to default, hammer the price by terrifying bond-holders, and buy the depressed price bonds.) ..."
"... Hillary has become a traditional Republican with regard to American exceptionalism. ..."
"... I couldn't believe it when she was appalled Trump criticized Reagan. All Obama did was say Reagan had some "good ideas." ..."
"... Liberal talking heads are hyperventilating about the Donald dissing Reagan. Tells me all I need to know. ..."
"... She's gonna create two classes of SS/Medicare recipients. Great. Some will get a fraction more, most will be screwed. ..."
"... I guess you could say Donald at least can learn. He's gotten better in each debate in terms of not appearing to be a drug addict with anger issues. ..."
"... "Because neo-liberalism. Because I like the idea, a lot, of catching the Mount Pelerin Society, Pinochet, Diane Rehm, the Friedmans, Joe Biden, Rush Limbaugh, and the people who drafted the Democratic platform in one big net, and then deep-sixing the entire squirming and gesticulating political class with language that's "exceptionally bloggy and aggressively casual and implicitly ironic." ..."
"... Media all freaking out about the "respect the results of the election" question. Strange that nobody has brought up Al Gore - it certainly would have been better for the country if Al had pushed harder in 2000. ..."
"... Wow ABC, the elections ain't rigged but Russia hacked them?! Make up your damned minds already, this is more schizophrenia in a single sentence than I can handle… ..."
"... #Breaking: Trump's lead advisor Roger Ailes has left the Trump campaign. According to reports: "[Fox] said the pair had a falling out, with both sides saying debate prep had not gone the way they wanted. The report came just hours before Wednesday's third presidential debate in Las Vegas, where Trump will try to dig out of a recent polling hole. ..."
"... The report said that Ailes had concerns that Trump could not focus and that preparation would be a "waste of time," while Trump thought Ailes spent too much prep time telling old stories." ..."
"... And Hillary is against Citizens United, now that she has been the one who has benefited the most and won't need it anymore. ..."
"... Just in terms of tone, whenever Clinton says something appalls her, it makes me think "Gee, that might be a good idea!" Not that it is, but that's my reaction at this point. ..."
"... With that forced smile of HER's …. I wouldn't get within 5 kilometers of the bloody white hag -- ..."
"... 'families' …. Cosa Nostra ?? ..."
"... The Clinton dynasty needs to be brought down asap. Their grip and influence is even more than most realize, I suspect. ..."
"... I thought Trump did pretty well, said more about "jobs" than Clinton, which is usually a smart move. Not a lot of specifics. Closing minute was a flop though. Clinton spent far too long accusing Russian hackers, which she can't substantiate, and people care less about than the content of the leaked information. ..."
"... And Hillary, do you promise then not to rig the elections with your allies like you did the Democratic primaries? "Bernie Sanders will not be a factor in N.J." 9/22/2015. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9846 ..."
"... Biggest muffed issue: Wallace asks Clinton if she'd shoot down a Russian plane that violated her no-fly zone. Clinton dodges, Wallace does not press her, Trump does not press her either. "No, Hillary, I'm anxious to know. How badly do you want a new war, this time with Russia?" or some such. ..."
"... I stand by my opinion of chris wallace being the best and this is really awkward but fox has great post-debate commentary. ..."
"... Fox is probably more free to push Clinton because their networks of political access are less tied to her campaign than all the other outlets, who seem scared shitless of being thought to cause the slightest embarrassment for her. ..."
"... actually, mr. wallace did the best job by far of any of these "moderators". ..."
"... The fact that wallace hit both sides hard made trump loom better. ..."
Trump should be ready for the Russia thing. I expect him to clearly delineate himself from
HRC by saying he really really really wants no war with Russia. in fact, he's already said if
he's elected he will meet with Putin before he's even inaugurated. It's a winning position for
Trump. People hate war.
I am skeptical of how much that will win over people in Hillary's base, since many well-to-do
liberals I know swallow the Putin-is-evil propaganda without question and consider the threat
of nuclear war as a distant, impossible thing. For them Trump is an immediate, concrete threat
and bad relations with Russia leading to nuclear war a considerably more abstract proposition.
I may switch to watching Call the Midwife on PBS after the first hour so as to restore my faith
in humanity and universal national healthcare, instituted in the UK seven decades ago during the
years of extreme postwar austerity while we trudge along here in "never ever" land.
CLINTON Clinton Need Supreme Court stand up for women LBTQ, stand up on Citiznes United [chutzpah]
Not reverse Roe v Wade, not reverse marriage inequality, stand up and say Supreme Court should
represent all of us
TRUMP What it's all about. Imperative have right justice. Ginsberg forced to apologize for
statements she made
Uphold Second Amendment, which is under seige. Justices I name pro-life, great scholars, interpret
the way the Founders waned it interpreted. Constitution way it was meant to be…
CLINTON Respect Second Amendment. But 33K year die, need background checks, close loopholes,
sensible reforms that do not conflict.
Heller: Disagree with SC application in that case. DC wanted to protect toddlers, a reasonable
regulation
WALLACE How will you ensure 2A protected?
TRUMP SHe was angry when Heller came down. Scalia well-crafted.
W Were you upset?
CLINTON Yes bc toddlers kill people with guns. No doubt I respect 2A and right to bear arms.
No conflict w sensible regulation. I understand Donald is funded by NRA and running millions of
ads against me.
W You support a national right to carry law?
TRUMP Chicago toughest laws, more violence than any other city. I support 2A, very proud to
have the NRA endorsement. We are going to appoint justices that will feel strongly about 2A, won't
damage it.
Trump fear mongering immigrants people kill people. Sheesh. Talking about heroin flooding across the southern border. I bet he won't mention the prescription
opiate issue.
There is no way the 11 million figure is real. No way.
They have been telling us it's 11 million for over 3 decades. It's got to be over 30 million by now.
Trump says "bad bad bad". Clinton – on immigration starts with things that sound sane then goes all cerebral, just more
word soup. She doesn't know when to shut up.
These debates seem to be mainly focused on scaring each tribe into showing up to vote there
is certainly no appeal to independents by either side.
Hillary really gave the liberals a good he's Hitler scare on immigration, "round them up",
"put them on trains", hmm I wonder what focus groups said those phrases reminded them of.
Of course no mention that Obama has deported more people than any other president.
Any job an illegal gets is a job a legal could have had, albeit at a higher wage.
This includes apple picking and all the others.
And the legal Hispanics and others have all worked this out.
When Alabama passed laws against undocumented immigrants, the tomatoes rotted on the plants
because no one else would do the work, even at higher wages.
I've pointed that out, but that is because the wages weren't high enough because….drumroll….those
farmers competed with farmers in other states that can and do hire illegal workers.
So this isn't a valid test of what would happen if you shut down the seasonal worker flow on
a widespread basis. You probably would have a very painful transition the first year as farmers
tried bidding for workers and bid too low.
When I was a kid, lots of kids picked strawberries in the summer. Not terribly pleasant work
but reasonably paid and only a few weeks. You could probably get teenagers in the summer for crops
that had short harvest windows.
Picking various crops meant new school clothes and a new bicycle for many kids back in the
day. There was a sense of camaraderie and shared experience that made the work seem easier, and
some brought transistor radios to provide background music. People generally had a good time and
kids saw the work ethic in action.
Guess you never had to work those jobs to survive;
manual labor jobs like construction and working in a restaurant and just about anything else that
the little people do.
Now most Americans can't get hired at those jobs.They go to illegals.
Trump's digs are more effective–short, clear words. "She's the puppet"
Clinton's ideas are sometimes better but it's overly cerebral and too word-soupy. Trump – "Putin has outsmarted her in Syria", etc. etc.
W Immigration. Trump wall, Clinton 100 days include pathway to citizenship
TRUMP Amnesty unfair to people waiting in line for years. In audience 4 mothers killed by illegal
immigrants. We have no country if we have no borders. Border control and ICE endorsed me. It means
their job is tougher. They want strong borders. Up NH, single biggest problem heroin, poisoning
the blood of our youth. Strong borders, amnesty, ICE, they all want the wall [Trump starts sniffing].
When the border is secured, we'll make a determination [about the rest of it]
CLINTON Carla, worried she was born here, parents were not. I don't want to see parents separated
from children. 11M undocumented, 4 million children. Would need a massive law enforcement presence
to round up the undocumented, then put them on trains and buses. Not in keeping with who we are,
would rip our country apart. Voted for border security. My comprehensive plan includes border
security. Get rid of violent. Trump went to Mexico, didn't mention the wall, got into a twitter
war
TRUMP Mexican President nice man, CLinton fought for the wall in 2006 but she never gets anything
done so naturally it was't built
WALL I voted for border security. It is clear what Donald has a different view of what to do.
Bring undocumented out of the shadows. Donald used undocumented workers to build Trump tower.
Don't want employers to exploit.
TRUMP Under Obama millions have already been moved out. We're a country of laws. We either
have a border or we don't. MIllions in line and waiting and unfair to have open borders, also
a disaster on trade. Obama has deported millions
CLINTON Open borders a rank mistatement. Used to be partisan
W $225K from bank stpeech, "my dream is open trade and open borders"
CLINTON I was talking about energy [!!]. I want an electric grid. Wikileaks has engaged in
espionage against Americans. Hacked and given info. Clearly from Putin himself, as 17 intel officials
say Most important question: Will Trump admit and condemn Russians have done this. Those are the
questions we need answered
TRUMP Big pivot she wants open borders. How'd we get to Putin
W [dithers]
TRUMP She wants open borders, 550% [more Syrians]. If Russia and US got along and went after
ISIS that would be good.
TRUMP 1800 nuclear warheads and she's playing chicken.
CLINTON He's rather have a puppet
TRUMP You're the puppet
CLINTON You are willing to sign up for Putin's wish list. He has a clear favorite. We've never
had a foreign govt try to interfere. 17 agencies all conclude highest levels Russian
TRUMP SHe has no idea if it's Russia or China
CLINTON 17 agents sworn to protect
TRUMP Putin has outsmarted her every step of the way. In Syria–
W Even if you don't know who, do you condemn?
TRUMP Of course I condemn. If we were friends with Russian. Putin has outsmarted them at every
step of the way. All you have to do is look at the Middle East. We've spent six trillion dollars
and they've taken over the middle east
CLINTON I find it ironiic she's raised nuclear weapons since he's been cavalier. Bottom line
on nuclear weapons When President gives order it must be followed. 4 minutes between order and
launch. 10 people who had responsibility would not trust Turmp
TRUMP 200 generals endorse. As far as Japan and other countries, all I said is we have to renegotiate
[can't afford].
Look, she's been proven to be a liar in so many ways.
CLINTON US has kept the peace through our alliances. They've made us safer.
Clinton seemed to almost tear up a little when she heard a particularly damning salvo, as when
Wallace asked about Bill, and then she pivoted. Her wet eyes were a tell.
Both are really solidifying their anti-status quo and pro-status quo credentials. No one who
still professes to be undecided is going to be convinced beyond their own pre-conceived tendencies.
Trump says Wallace is "correct" (during his debt/bailout related question to Clinton), with
big grin/smirk, some laughter from audience at how he got that in there.
Clinton feels like she's on the defensive about her budget's ability to get the economy moving.
$hillary…has there ever been an economic crash anywhere in the world where the clowns who were
running the show/economy into the ground were allowed and continue to be allowed to run the show…??
usually it is off with their heads…even if it is symbolic…
Depends what you mean by "doing well". He's holding his own, getting in a good few zingers,
not losing it. She keeps going on and on and on and sounds more defensive, he's more confident.
Unless you also have right wing political commentators on your Twitter feed, you are suffering
from sample bias. The MSM is all in for Clinton. Ditto any political sites in the center and left
save the pretty far left ones like Counterpunch and Black Agenda Report, which are willing to
entertain the idea that Clinton is the more effective evil.
Now here is a different slice of sample bias: my only mother in law survey has been of the
guys in my gym. Upscale Upper East Side (I get a big break by having been a charter member 21
years ago). They chat at night like hens, even about their love lives (which is kinda cute, particularly
given that the youngest guy is in his late 30s). So I am highly confident that only one guy there
is right wing (and he's the only guy who knows what I do, he's a Zero Hedge reader with a classic
libertarian mindset). Most were Sanders voters.
They are all gonna vote for Trump, including one of the trainers (who is clearly of a lower-class
background from the way he speaks, and he is one of the Sanders supporters). And what surprises
me more is that they are wiling to say this out loud in this neighborhood (heavy Clinton supporters)
when there are women (besides me) within earshot.
Just sayin'.
Now Trump may indeed not be doing all that well, but my Twitter feed is dominated by journalists,
and I don't even need to look to tell you that they would declare Clinton the winner, as they
did in debates with Sanders when polls later deemed Sanders to have come out on top.
You said upscale. That kinda gives it away. My experience in this neighborhood is those with
higher incomes generally are in or near management and generally vote republican even though they
may have little idea of the issues. Sanders may have tickled their fancy but Hillary, after all,
is a felon. Right? It says so right here all over my FB.
Was not on twitter during debate so I don't know what it was like there but I thought he did
both well and horrifically, depending on when/what. He was decent at the infighting part (very
good at the non-policy infighting), not so good at the policy part (granted, he has to get the
horrible-at-policy base to turn out, and what will work for them will not work for me).
He actually did a good job pointing out real (and some possibly not-real, I dunno about some
of it) corruption. If his allegations were false, Clinton certainly didn't seem in a hurry to
make impossible to walk back flat denials.
Clinton was on her game to begin with and cleaning his clock, except when she went stupid/scary
w/the anti-Russia stuff, but her evasions were glaringly obvious in places and he got better the
first third of the debate.
Debate also started w/Supreme Court, which was the one area the Dems have always been able
to reliably scare people into voting for candidates they don't want. And choice, where HIllary
was great and Trump was awful. Rest of debate occasionally appeared to have been sponsored by
the Peterson Foundation.
If I can't say her red glassy eyes are red and glassy you can not have the donation I planned.
I'm disappointed in the moderation of this thread. Will not forget.
Now Trump is attacking her about losing $6 Billion from the State Department. Criticizes her
record, her "bad experience". Oh no she's going on about Children's Defense Fund again. But she's on the defensive. Trying
to build up her experience–the trouble is she hasn't really done much.
Her basic narrative is she is the single most qualified person in the history of things to
ever be deign to run for President and then she mumbles about one thing she did between being
a lawyer for Wal-Mart and the governor's wife. It's a terrible narrative. Oh, and being on the wrong side of every foreign policy decision
for 25 years.
Then of course, there are the weekly introductions to the real Hillary her crooked friends
really like.
CLINTON I want biggest jobs program since WWII. New jobs and clean energy [she goes all singsong
when emitting talking points.] Raise minimum wage, equal pay. You will not get a tuition bill
from public college or u if plan Sanders and I worked out. Most gains gone to the top, and the
rich will pay for their share. Plan analyzed by experts, would gain 10 million jobs. Trump tax
cuts trickle down economics on steroids, cost us jobs, lead to recession
TRUMP Her plan will raise and even double your taxes. The rest of the public will pay for her
tuition.
Start off where we left. Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia. They're very rich, why aren't they
paying? Since I questioned, they've all started to pay up. She says "We love our allies," but
that makes it hard for them to pay up. DUring his regime, deficit doubled.
Look at all the places I just left, our jobs have fled. I'm going to renegotiate NAFTA, and
if we can't, walk away. Bring offshore taxes back into the country
CLINTON Let me translate that if I can.
TRUMP You can't
CLINTON He wants tax cuts. I have said no tax increase $250K. He mentioned the debt. We went
from deficit to surplus. Obama has cut the deficit by two-third. One of the ways you create jobs
is by investing in people. We've tried cutting taxes on the weathy
W Your plan similar to Obama stim plan, slowest growth
TRUMP Corrent
W Is your plan a continuation of Obama stimulus plan?
CLINTON Never seen people as physically distraught as Bushies. Obama doesn't get credit he
deserves for hard decisions. I'm proposed we invest from the middle out and the ground up. My
proposal won't add a penny to the debt. We're beginning to see increasing wages.
W Trump, even conservative economists say your numbers don't add up?
TRUMP India is growing at 8%, China at 7%. We are growing at 1% and I think it's going down.
Is that the last jobs report before the election? I should win easily! We've lost our jobs, products
pouring in from all over the world. I pass factories that were thriving 20 years ago. It's horrible
what happened. She can say her husband did well. Now she wants to sign TPP. She lied when she
said it wasn't gold standard
CLINTON When I saw the TPP, I was against. There's only one of us that's shipped jobs to China
and that's Donald. I fought Chinese dumping steel, but Donald bought Chinese steel. Crocodile
tears!
TRUMP She's been doing this for 30 years, why the hell didn't she do it for the last 15 years?
You have experience over me, but it's bad experience. The problem is you talk and don't do anything.
At State, $6 billion dollars is missing. Where did it go?
CLINTON State Dept untrue and debunk. [Deploys Children's Defense Fund]. On the day I was in
the briefing room [watching OBL get whacked], he was on the Apprentice
TRUMP I think I did a better job. I built a phenomenal company with that million dollar loan.
Take a look at Syria, Look at ISIS. She and Obama created a vacuum. She gave us ISIS as sure as
you're sitting there.
NBC set up the Billy Bush tape, if that's what's being referred to. The Clintons set up the
big frontpage NYT 'accusers,' or whatever it was. The latter story was written by Haberman & Jonathan Martin, two of the Clinton campaign's favorite
hacks named in the Wikileaks emails. Interesting, no?
(PS. With all due respect to site policy it is not a certainty that the NYT allegations are
false, but they are certainly suspicious for the reason given.)
These agents provacateurs accusations against Clinton are quite plausible (hey, they were on
PBS Newshour) even if the source is shady. They just feel very Clintonesque.
There is a lot of evidence dug up by reddit amateur investigators after the tape leaked. They
found people on the tape in a few protest videos as well as a woman on the Clinton payroll. I
don't trust the voter fraud tape at all, but the inciting violence at riots tapes looks like the
real deal.
They go along well with the shots fired into and the burglary/ransacking of Sander's Nevada
campaign headquarters, and the firebombings of Republican campaign offices in swing states.
Clinton is calling out Trump's criticism of women, their appearance, etc. She's on stronger
ground here. Now she's losing it again, word soup about what our country is. Why can't she stay
on a topic? She keeps weakening her points by going on and saying nothing. Making America great
again. Using his memes.
Trump saying no one respects women more than here.
Now he's bringing up her emails. What happened to the FBI, he asks? Talks about 1 guy getting
4 yrs in jail for 1 lie to the FBI, a 4-star general, but she makes hundreds of lies.
Hillary did not respond to Trump's charge that she paid for people to riot in Chicago before
his rally. Instead she began to speak very slowly to eat up her time.
Wallace asks her questions about Foundation, donation. Wallace is nervous. (When questioning
Trump, he uses a different tone – he's not as scared, he's more deprecating.)
Wallace is pressing her more on pay to play. Trump says it's a criminal enterprise, Saudi &
Qatar giving lots of money. They kill women & treat them horribly, push gays off buildings, but
Clinton takes their money. He says she should give their money back. He says in Haiti they hate
Clinton, what the foundation did was a disgrace.
Clinton claims they spend 90% of donations on their programs. (Pinocchio moment, anyone?)
Trump talks about his foundation, 100% used. Wallace asks if the money was used to pay his
debts. Trump says it went to building houses for veterans and disabled.
Clinton says we won't know cuz he won't release his tax returns, so we can't prove anything.
She claims her tax returns reveal something. (Ha ha ha ha–Clinton Foundation docs don't reveal
much.)
Trump says Clinton should have changed the law, she gets lots of money. He mentions his beautiful
hotel and she says again "built with Chinese steel", audience laughs. Wallace asks Trump about rigged election, will he commit to accept the result of the election,
he says he'll look at it at the time.
Media dishonest & corrupt, NYT wrote about it, poisoned the minds of voters but he thinks people
can see through it.
Voter roles – people on the register who shouldn't be.
the fbi did a one year investigation or a three day cover up…? but the question or statement was the transition of power… donald…just respond since he is not in power there is no issue here
W Grabbing women. Nine came forward, said you groped them. Why would so many women all make
up these stories, and Clinton, what your husband, was that worse?
TRUMP Debunked. I think she made them come forward. My rally in Chicago violent because them.
I didn't even apologize to my wife, sitting right here, bc I didn't do it. I don't know why. I
believe she got these people to step forward, or 10 minutes of fame. Lies or fiction
CLINTON At the last debate, we heard what Donald did. Others come forward. He went on to say
"Look at her." Donald thins belittling women makes him bigger. So we now know how Donald thinks
of women. That's who Donald is. It's up to all of us to say who we are. We want to celebrate our
diveristy. America is great because America is good….
TRUMP Nobody has more respect for women than I do. I want to talk about something slightly
different. What isn't fictionalized are her emails, where she destroyed 33K emails after getting
a subpoena. We have a general going to jail for 1 lie. She's A four star general. And she gets
away with it, and she can run for President.
CLINTON Every time Donald is pushed, he goes for denying responsibility. [Kahn, McCain…] It's
not onte thing, it's a pattern of divisiness, a dark vision where he incites violence at his rallies.
TRUMP So sad when she talks about violence at my rallies when she incites it!
W Clinton, in 2009 you promised to avoid appearance of Clinton with CF. Can you really say
you kept your pledge? WHy is this not "pay to play"
CLINTON Everything I did in furtherance of our country. CF is a world-renowned charity. 11M
get HIV treatment. We have made environment
W The question went to pay to play
TRUMP It's a criminal enterprise. Saudis gave millinos. These are people who kill gays. Why
don't you give back the money? In Little Haiti and they hate the Clintons because of what the
CF did in Clinton
CLINTON Happy to compare to Donald's foundation, portrait. Haiti is the poorest country. CF
raised 30 million. We're going to keep working to help.
TRUMP They don't want your help.
CLINTON Hasn't released his tax returns, so we don't know anything about his charities. Half
of all immigrants actually pay income taxes
TRUMP We're entitled to depreciate because of laws you passed. Most of her donors have done
what I did. You should have changed the law when you were a Senator. But you want change the law
because you've taken so much ad. I sat there and watched ad after ad after ad paid for by your
friends on Wall Street
W Trump, warned election rigged. Pence pledges will accept, Ivanka said will accept.
TRUMP I will look at it at the time. What I've seen is so bad. The media is so corrupt and
the pile-on is so amazing. If you look at your voter rolls you will see millions that are registered
to vote that shouldn't be. She's guilty of a serious crime and should not be allowed be to run.
In that respect it's rigged!
W A tradition is the peaceful transition of power. The country comes together.
TRUMP What I'm saying is that I'll tell you at the time.
CLINTON Donald always says everything was rigged. Trump U, claims judge is rigged. There was
even a time he didn't an Emmy three times. This is mindset, it's how he things. Funny but troubling.
We've been around 240 years, we've had free and fair elections [!!!!!]. Obama said, when you're
whining, you're not up to doing the job! He is denigrating, talking down to our democracy. I am
appalled.
TRUMP What the FBI did and the Justice did, including meeting with the AG on the tarmac in
Arizona, is a disgrace.
IF only Clinton would use her moments of impassioned rhetoric to talk about doing things for
the American people rather than pushing to shame Trump or defending the FBI… Now back to droning Clinton on protecting soldiers and conflict in Syria (yawn)
Clinton says we have a lot of work to do. Syria etc. We have to keep our eye on ISIS, we need
an "intelligence surge". Continue to push for no fly zone and gain leverage on Syrian gov't and
the Russians to bring the conflict to an end.
Trump – we had Mosul, she left, her fault. No secrecy, people talking about Mosul for 3 months. Clinton wants to look good for the election. The leaders we wanted to get (in Mosul) are all gone. Iran is taking over Iraq, we've made it easy for them. We'll take Mosul and Iran will benefit.
I do have to say without Trump in this election
the lid would not have been blown off the criminality
of the government in Washington. Mouthing off about it all the time every chance he gets. Not that Trump will do anything to change it.
But still.
Oh I don't know. I thought that when Trump pointed out the objective fact that Hillary is a
criminal who should be in prison right now rather than running for president that was pretty much
all that needed to be said for him to win.
To Americans of either side who are sick of our failed foreign policy and wondering whether
it's intentionally duplicitous, yah, I think it's a winner. Keep reading, you'll see.
Hillary sticking to technicals and official truths – "FBI cleared me after a year-long investment";
"Google Trump Iraq – all these sources" etc. If she can validate it, it must be true!
Trump, on the other hand, is winging it with "homebaked" truths – some bald lies, some half-truths,
some actual truths. However, if it resonates with the gut feeling of enough people, it is much
better basis for argument than pure technicality.
She just giggled after calling him the most dangerous man to have ever run for the Presidency.
Wtf.
Wallace says Aleppo has fallen, Trump says it's still there, still happening. Wallace sounds
shaky. Trump again "it's so sad". Says Assad is tougher than Clinton & Obama. Says it's our fault
Iran is powerful, we gave them bundles of cash, $1.7 Billion.
We're backing the rebels, but we don't know who the rebels are. If they ever did overthrow
Assad, they might end up with something worse than Assad. Causes Great Migration, in many cases
they are ISIS-aligned, great Trojan horse, "Thanks a lot Hillary for doing a great job."
Trump is kicking butt. Stein or Trump…
Can't stomach Bill in the WH again.
Even though I'm in CA, and should vote Stein; what if, Trump gets the majority???
Wallace asks Clinton about no fly zone, risk of starting a war. She says those are genuine
risks, but thinks she could "strike a deal".
Re: refugees, they will be vetted, but not close our doors, that boy with blood coming down
his face is haunting. Orlando Pulse Nightclub killer born in Queens just like Donald. (Wow that's
a low blow.)
Clinton: This great country of America is good because greatness of our good people. I don't
believe that Donald has greatness good enough for America because of his ungood comments about
women reporters I've disabled in defense of Children's Defense Fund. That's not the kind of double
plus goodness of America I want to fight for.
Trump: I have the highest regard for all overweight and disabled women. Always have. I will
let them speak for my successes. But Hillary is trying to distract from emails. Lots of generals
are in prison for breaking security but the FBI has to look the other way, because 6 billion is
lost in Syria and there is no action. I will renegotiate the Missouri Compromise, and the Louisiana
Purchase if I have to. They were bad deals for America's workers, and I have a lot of money.
W If we push ISIS out, you put troops into that vacuum?
CLINTON I am encouraged there is an effort by Iraq in Syria. Will not support American troops
"as an occupying force" [ZOMG, the lawerly parsing!] Hopeful that the hard work military advisors.
Intelligence surge… I'm going to continue to push for a no-fly zone. Need serious negotation to
bring conflict to an end.
TRUMP I've been reading about Mosul for three months. What about the element of surprise? They've
all left. Why are we doing it? So she can look tough for the election. So Mosul is going to be
a wonderful thing, and Iran should write us a letter of thanks.
CLINTON Once again, Donald is implying he dind't support Iraq. I just want everybody to Google
"Donald Trump Iraq" and you can hear the audio [thank you Eric Schmidt]. What's really important
is to understand all the interplay. We need to go after the leadership, "get rid of them" in Mosul,
then move on to Rakka. I'm amazed to see Donald thinks all these governments [colluded to elect
me].
TRUMP Wikileaks. Podesta said some horrible things about you and boy was he right. "Terrible
instincts." Sanders "bad judgment" I agree with both.
CLINTON Sanders says you're the most dangerous person to run and I think he's right
W Aleppo? Said some wrong things about Alepp
TRUMP It's a disaster
W ALso said Syria and Russia fighting ISIS but they've been been bombing.
TRUMP By fighting Assad, he was tougher and smarter than her and Obama. Now he's aligned with
Russia, and Iran, who we made stronger. They don't want ISIS. We're backing rebels. We don't know
who the rebels are. If the rebels overthrow Assad, could be worse. If she did nothing, we would
be better off. And she caused the Great Migration. What 'til you see what happens. Lots of luck
Hillary. Great job
W No-fly, Obama has refused to do. What if a Russian plane violates, shoot it down?
CLINTON I am aware of the legitimate concerns you have expressed. I think we could strike a
deal and make it clear that this was something in the best interests of people on the ground.
I am not going to get anybody into the country not vetted. Picture of the 4-year-old haunting.
We have [Doesn't answer about shooting the plane down]
TRUMP Had a ceasefire, Russia took over land, ceasefire ends. We are so outplayed by Putin
and Assad and Iran. Nobody can believe how stupid our leadership is.
Trump says ISIS never should have happened. No one can believe how stupid our leadership is. (He's probably right about that. Can't imagine what foreigners make of this crazy election.)
Four years ago I would have been surprised to see that the rhetoric and tactics are quite similar
to those frequently employed in Indian politics; I somehow thought that the developed, Enlightened
West would be above that. The thing that surprises me is not the abysmal quality of the candidates,
but the attitude of Americans towards this election.
They are much better informed than their
developing world counterparts and much better (or longer) educated – on average. And yet, they
are either enthusiastic for their candidate or unable to grasp just how truly broken their political
system is. They joke about it, post memes and get self-righteous on social media and in-person,
but they seem to have little to no concern about what it means in the big picture. They have no
willingness to be open-mindedness (although all of them worship the innovation and out-of-the-box
thinking of Silicon Valley and Steve Jobs) and consider points of view that may not align with
their preferences. As you may have guessed, I live on a University campus – which is not representative
of the USA, but is definitely the pool of people from which the "future leaders of the free world"
are expected to be drawn. I am not enthusiastic about that prospect.
This then, to me, is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of life in America and the most clarifying
aspect of this election.
Trump "I'm going to create the kind of country we used to be".
[Well God save us from someone who wants to take us backwards.]
We have to use our great people. We will create an economic machine, the likes of which we
haven't seen in many decades, companies that will grow and expand and start from new.
Trump occasionally emits MMT-like sounds, but I'm not sure that he believes them. For example,
he has previously accurately noted that US can't be forced to default on USD-denominated debt,
since it prints its own currency. Then he suggested that we could reduce the outstanding debt
by negotiating down the price of previously issued Treasury bonds (not sure the details; perhaps
threaten to default, hammer the price by terrifying bond-holders, and buy the depressed price
bonds.)
At other times Trump has criticized the level of debt, for example the fact that the nominal
public debt doubled under Obama (after doubling under Bush II, it must be admitted). It appears
to me that Trump favors lower nominal debt as a good thing in itself, without consideration of
the effect of lowering the debt on other sectors.
I'm not confident that Trump actually believes any MMT principles.
OTOH, I'm pretty confident that HRC rejects MMT completely. She boasts of WJC's surpluses,
for example. She evidently doesn't know elementary accounting facts such as the sectoral balances
identity.
back in 1987…he basically said then what he says now…because her beltway buddies have been
doing fine since 1987….the folks in youngstown ohio and johnstown pennsylvania….not so much…
Clinton criticizes a $100,000 ad Trump took out in 1987 criticizing things.
Clinton says she doesn't add a penny to the national debt. How we'll pay for education, infrastructure,
get prescription drug costs down–ask wealthy & corporations to pay their fair share, it won't
diminish growth.
We have to get back to building the middle class, I want to invest in you. (wonder who she
means by that)
Trump–"we've heard this before" He says he disagreed with Reagan on trade.
Wallace on entitlements, 60% of the budget, neither one has a plan to deal with this.
Trump – says cut taxes, grow the economy. Repeal & replace Obamacare, it's destroying out businesses.
It'll probably die of his own weight, premiums going up 70 80 100%. He says Clinton wants to make
it worse.
I don't understand how people accepted referring to SS and Medicare as "entitlements".
T: Obamacare has to go – increase in premiums – bad health care at most exp. price.
W: Same question: will you +taxes /-benefits to save SS?
C: I want to increase benefits for those who have been disadvantaged.
ACA extended solvency of Medicare Trust Fund. Have to get costs down, increase value (???), emphasize
wellness.
Wallace's question is really limiting the framing of the question about benefits, taxes, entitlements.
No room in his world for MMT or any kind of non-austerity approach.
W Clinton debt/GRP ratio to 86% and debt to 105%. Why aren't you dealing with the problem?
TRUMP They're wrong, because I'm going to create jobs. We could get to 1% growth to 5%. Have
business people not political hacks making trade deals. We will create an economic machine like
we haven't seen for decades. People will get back to work
CLINTON When did he think the country was great? Trump has been criticizing our government
for decades. He was criticizing President Reagan. To the debt, I won't add a penny to the debt.
We are going where the money is. Ask the rich and corps to pay their fair share. What economists
call "middle-out growth" [they do?]
TRUMP I disagreed with Reagan on trade. Now we're going to do it right.
W Biggest driver is entitlements, neither has a serious plan on Medicare and Social Security
running out of money?
Would President Trump do a Grand Bargain?
TRUMP Cutting taxes and grow economy. Repeal and replace ObamaCare. It's probably going to
die of its own weight. Premiums. "Bad health care at the most expensive price."
CLINTON I am on record as saying we need to put more money in SS Trust Fund, taxing rich, assuming
Donald doesnt' get out of them.
TRUMP Such a nasty woman
CLINTON I will not cut benefits. I want to enhance benefits for poor and women who have been
disadvantages.
Wallace gives them each 1 minute closing statement why they should be elected.
Clinton- everyone watching, I'm reaching out to everyone to help make our country what it should
be, make it fairer for everyone, we need your talents, energy, ambition. (Yeah she'll suck out
our energy for sure.) I'll stand up for your interests against powerful corporations. (Really???)
Trump–she's raising money from the people she wants to control. I'll take care of veterans
better than our immigrants. Law & order. Take care of everyone. I'll take better care of African
Americans & Latinos, better than she could do in a hundred years. We can't take 4 more years of
Barack Obama and that is what we would get with her.
CLINTON Reaching out to all Americans because we need everybody to make country what it should
be. I've been privileges to see presidency up close. I will stand up for families against powerful
interests, good jobs, rising incomes. Hope give me a chance to server.'
TRUMP She's raising money from people she wants to control. It doesn't work that way. Military,
police, law and order and justice. Inner cities a disaster. I will do more for AAs than she can
do in ten lifetimes. We are going to make America great again. We cannot take four more years
of Obama and that's what you get with her.
In the immortal words once electronically presented here on NC….
"Because neo-liberalism. Because I like the idea, a lot, of catching the Mount Pelerin Society,
Pinochet, Diane Rehm, the Friedmans, Joe Biden, Rush Limbaugh, and the people who drafted the
Democratic platform in one big net, and then deep-sixing the entire squirming and gesticulating
political class with language that's "exceptionally bloggy and aggressively casual and implicitly
ironic."
Whats that thingy again about being oblivious about irony…. oh yeah….
Excessive examples
Irony is the fact that Paul Wolfowitz gave his girlfriend a pay raise during an anti-corruption
drive by the World Bank.
Irony is that the drummer of ZZ Top, Frank Beard, is the only beardless member of the band.
Irony is that former Penn State coach and convicted sex offender Jerry Sandusky wrote an autobiography
in 2001 called Touched[wp] …and no one thought anything of it.[3]
Irony is that General David Petraeus' mistress biographer Paula Broadwell wrote a book in January
2012 called All In[wp] …and no one thought anything of it.[4]
Irony is the fact that Sax Rohmer, who did much to popularize the Yellow Peril with the Fu
Manchu series, died from the Asian flu.
Irony is that a military that costs six times more than its Chinese counterpart couldn't kill
one frail, kidney-failing terrorist in a timeframe longer than WWI and WWII combined.[5]
Irony is the fact that evil gummint-control of everything socialist countries have the highest
standards of living and political freedoms available on the planet.[6] They also place highly
on The Ease of Doing Business Index,[7] with socialist New Zealand, Denmark and Norway even topping
the US.
Irony is the fact that the Bush administration patriotically took away our rights in the name
of defending our rights. – snip
Media all freaking out about the "respect the results of the election" question. Strange that
nobody has brought up Al Gore - it certainly would have been better for the country if Al had
pushed harder in 2000.
And Podesta is claiming it was a "low moment" for Trump that he said he'd wait and see. Why should anyone accept results in advance with so much election rigging past & present?
Podesta again talks about "a dark place"–same wording Clinton used. That must be the new meme.
Wow ABC, the elections ain't rigged but Russia hacked them?! Make up your damned minds already,
this is more schizophrenia in a single sentence than I can handle…
#Breaking: Trump's lead advisor Roger Ailes has left the Trump campaign.
According to reports: "[Fox] said the pair had a falling out, with both sides saying debate prep had not gone the
way they wanted.
The report came just hours before Wednesday's third presidential debate in Las Vegas, where Trump
will try to dig out of a recent polling hole.
The report said that Ailes had concerns that Trump could not focus and that preparation would
be a "waste of time," while Trump thought Ailes spent too much prep time telling old stories."
The statements re: wikileaks no doubt were discussed, and Ailes couldn't support that. Has Trump been to enough shitty mid-western and southern towns with empty factories and had
an epiphany? Perhaps he's not just going to throw the election to H->
Nothing we didn't know before. She's a corrupt, lying warmonger with a record of policy debacles.
He's a stew of conservative talking points and failed policy nostrums, personal behaviors perhaps
no worse than many other billionaires, spiced with occasional sharp perceptions. Neither of them
are nice people. I wouldn't want to have a beer with him, and if I had coffee with her, I'd be
sure to bring a taster.
Tactically, Trump did well (although the Beltway is going to go nuts on Putin and Trump not
rolling over for a stolen election* like Gore did). If Trump had brought his game to this level
in debates one and two, he'd be a lot closer.
NOTE * Not that Trump is correct to say that voter fraud is significant; that's one of the
many conservative talking points that are just wrong.
I would have gone along with you on that a few days ago. However please explain why Democrats
are systematically engaging in election fraud, as proven by videos over the past two days, if
it has no impact. I changed my opinion on this subject specifically because of these videos by
the way.
Problem is that if Trump calls out election fraud, he won't be understood by his base, who
for various reasons prefer to believe that elections are rigged by busloads of sweaty brown people
with fake ID's rather than by a well-dressed white man sitting at a computer.
It really seemed both were focused on appealing to their tribes and not much else. There certainly
appeared to be no attempt to reach "undecideds" or independents. Maybe because internal polls show they are mostly staying home or voting third party? So no
point (al la CNN changing 3Rd party to "undecideds"). Basically, scare your tribe into showing up to vote, but only your tribe. Not even a passing
shout out to independents on positions (except trump on Russia)
Just in terms of tone, whenever Clinton says something appalls her, it makes me think "Gee,
that might be a good idea!" Not that it is, but that's my reaction at this point.
I watched a prime time show (on my computer) recently and noted it had a several second shot
of a street sign named Clinton that had no bearing whatsoever to the story. (Having become a cynic
during this election, I now notice small things like that)
Swell. Subliminal messaging it seems, since apparently all the in-your-face-naming
('Clinton, Clinton'!) wasn't judged to be sufficient.
The Clinton dynasty needs to be brought down asap. Their grip and influence is even more than
most realize, I suspect.
I thought Trump did pretty well, said more about "jobs" than Clinton, which is usually a smart
move. Not a lot of specifics. Closing minute was a flop though. Clinton spent far too long accusing Russian hackers, which she can't substantiate, and people
care less about than the content of the leaked information.
Clinton also tried too hard to show she's knowledgeable about foreign policy getting too far
into the weeds on Middle East strategy, so basically talking over the heads of most people. Her
closing statement was pretty good and well rehearsed (has she used this elsewhere?)
And Hillary, do you promise then not to rig the elections with your allies like you did the
Democratic primaries? "Bernie Sanders will not be a factor in N.J." 9/22/2015.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9846
But what does this really mean? It sounds like state-party politics in-speak but I am not certain
I understand what is being said. Here's the fuller quote from the email you link to:
"Presently the Chair has given the line to Hillary in 20 of the 21 counties which only assures
that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders will not be a factor in N.J. Also, all of the major city mayors
are aligned with us as well."
Could mean lots of things, not all of them shady, no?
Biggest muffed issue: Wallace asks Clinton if she'd shoot down a Russian plane that violated her no-fly zone. Clinton dodges, Wallace does not press her, Trump does not press her either. "No, Hillary,
I'm anxious to know. How badly do you want a new war, this time with Russia?" or some such.
That is why i think trump lost. He cannot afford to miss those opportunities. I've got a few
beers in me so i'm missing dodges. Trump should have smelled blood and hammered those dodges.
He only picked at her over the 'open borders'
I stand by my opinion of chris wallace being the best and this is really awkward but fox has
great post-debate commentary. Am i just wasted? I swear they really are being fair and balanced.
Maybe they are doing their job because of their mixed feelings on trump?
Fox is probably more free to push Clinton because their networks of political access are less
tied to her campaign than all the other outlets, who seem scared shitless of being thought to
cause the slightest embarrassment for her. One upside to her presidency will be watching Wolf
Blitzer and Chuck Todd try to outdo one another like two beaten dogs in performing the requisite
rituals of submission.
I thought the questions in this debate were better then the last one. The answers from the
candidates were still mostly hot air. How many nanoseconds would a President Clinton need to decide
she actually likes trade agreements and Wall Street giveaways and the resulting contributions
after all? I liked that fact that Trump was calling out Clinton on her miserable record, even
though his facts/critique often seemed garbled/superficial. I was also glad he was questioning
the validity of our elections, although his reasons sounded wrong. I found Wallace's suggestion
that questions of election fraud should be ignored for the sake of unity disturbing. When a journalist
says something like this you have to wonder what crimes they are covering up in their own reporting
for "unity". I agreed with Clinton that Trump's economic and immigration plans are bogus nonsense.
If Trump becomes president I expect his truth-telling will end. As an outsider, speaking "truth
to power" helps him nut it would hurt him as an insider.
5. The private sector cannot consistently generate sufficient demand to create jobs for
everyone who wants one. As technology and productivity have increased, so it has become more
difficult. Entrepreneurs cannot be blamed for adding self-checkout lanes, they have families
and stockholders. But it means the store can sell the same volume of output with fewer employees–unemployment
therefore rises. (For more, see "Why the Private Sector NEEDS the Government to Spend Money.")
Hence, we need the public sector to spend in deficit so that a.) the private sector can
net save and b.) jobs are created to supplement those generated by the market system. And it
creates neither a default risk nor inflation–unless we are already at full-employment, which
means we don't need to be spending that much in the first place! It is noteworthy that when,
in the midst of the Great Depression, the government decided to try to reduce the deficit,
unemployment jumped from 14% (after having fallen from nearly 25%) to 19%. Once WWII hit, however,
any worries about government spending went right out the window and unemployment plummeted
to 1.9%. There's no reason we can't be there right now. Only bad policy can stand in our way.
I may have to re-watch to make sure I have this right, but I was shocked that Chris Wallace
said it would be 2-minute answers and then 10 minutes of free discussion.
But, with the first topic about the Constitution, after the 2-minute answers, he immediately
asked Clinton a question about partial-birth abortion …. wth did that come from? I have not heard
either candidate talking much about this … Trump has been tongue-tied about that earlier in the
year, and it's not one of his big points, anyway. Now, watching the C-Span post-debate calls,
people are harranguing Clinton for wanting to kill babies in the days before birth, when she wouldn't
do anything to touch Roe v. Wade, so it's a false issue. That didn't come from Trump; it came
from the moderator!!!!!
I feel the whole debate as sandbagged at that point, and it freed the topic about women to
get pivoted to Russia.
"... To this day, I am dumbfounded that the Trump campaign has never used "We came, we saw, he died!" or "What difference, at this point, does it make?" against Clinton. To not replay these gaffes over and over again is quite possibly the worst case of political amateurism I have ever seen. ..."
"... At least Trump *started,* however haltingly, to put the Washington foreign policy consensus under scrutiny. That was a small but unprecedented step for a major-party presidential candidate. ..."
"... This election has focused so (word removed by author) much on scandals about foundations and emails and groping and "OMG he said this" and "OMG she said that" that there's no room left to talk about actual policy. ..."
"... Trump is leading a voice desperate to be heard and needing to be heard, but he's the worst man for the job. ..."
"... His record and past is incredibly flawed and wide open to character attacks. This allowed Clinton to pivot every question she didn't like right into a character issue. Free trade issues? Trump used illegal Chinese Steel. Taxes? Trump never paid any. Jobs? Trump hires illegals and doesn't pay his contractors. Foreign policy? Trump worships Putin and wants to nuke and grab all the oil. So on so on. ..."
"... the folks of TAC and other conservative areas have plenty of good ideas of how he could do it, Trump doesn't do it. He just makes the same generic insults ("she's a disaster, it's a disaster, everything is a disaster, and everyone is smarter too") but beyond the initial quote-worthy line he doesn't press hard on specifics nor does he focus on enough specifics on what makes him better. ..."
"... Clinton is a candidate that started out with a lot of flaws and very low support from her base. A strong Republican Candidate would've either forced Clinton to clean up her act and pivot more into a populist stance or resulted in a stronger Democratic primary due to a desperate need to put up a more electable contender to follow up on Obama. ..."
"... Trump was put up as an alternative to Clinton. And after we saw him a hawkish extremely pro-life perfect example of "typical politician" with a lot of skeletons doesn't seem all that bad anymore. ..."
"... Look at this and tell me all he ways Trump is demonstrating his blatantly obvious dementia. Wandering speech. Inability to concentrate. Irrelevant replies to specific questions. Inability to remember his own talking points. Inability to recognize the meaning of what is said to him and around him. Inability to distinguish fact from fancy, his own fantasies from reality. The man is senile. ..."
"... let's remember that the three biggest crackpots in the primaries – Carson, Cruz, and Trump – got more than 60% of the votes. So, before we go around trying to make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves that, without Trump, everything would have been fine, just imagine what a disaster the GOP would be facing if Ted Cruz were the nominee. ..."
"... The alternative to Trump wasn't Rubio the lightweight, Jeb the retread, or Kasich. It was Cruz. Just ruminate on that a bit. ..."
"... Clinton lied through her teeth on the issue of the Clinton Foundation; which she made sound like God's personal charity. He didn't lay a glove on her on that issue. Why? ..."
"... As a Christian, I find Hillary Clinton unacceptable. I also find Donald Trump unacceptable. I think most people who are not Christians feel the same way. 2016 is a loss for everyone. ..."
"... Our republic– I'm sorry, our oligarchy - is in bad shape. But to the debate: The election isn't rigged if you are such an idiot that you are clearly losing it by your own fault. ..."
"... Cruz pokes all sorts of people (including people he needs as allies and voters) in their eyes, repeatedly, and then tells them it's for their own good, when it's perfectly apparent that his ego is so needy he will abandon his principles when the right opportunity arises (viz his endorsement of Trump as Trump looked likely to overtake HRC). ..."
"... Rubio is an empty suit for the Israel-Saudi Arabia neocon set. ..."
"... Because Cruz is a Dominist. Meaning he specifically wants to establish a Christian theocracy in America and thinks he was sent by God to create it. Claiming that the first amendment only applies to Christians is so antithetical to the American foundation it scares this even of us who dont share his beliefs. ..."
"... Foreign Policy is an area where Trump could have scored some points on Hillary Clinton's rather flawed record, Libya, Syria, etc. However, Trump is so undisciplined and unfocused that he failed to really nail her. ..."
"... On top of all of this, the Republican Party is fractured between the GOP Establishment and the GOP Base. The GOP Base strongly supports Trump, the the GOP Establishment is weak at best. Indeed, many of the GOP elite, such as the Bush Family cannot stand him and refuse to support him. ..."
"... He knew the question about his accepting the outcome of the election should he lose was going to come up, and he know he could only hurt himself by the answer he gave. He intentionally shot himself in the foot, once again. ..."
The
third presidential debate was arguably the most substantive of the general election, but that
wasn't a high bar to clear. It was also probably Trump's best performance against Clinton, but it
still wasn't nearly good enough to close the gap between them. His
refusal to say simply that he would accept the result of the election became the main takeaway
from the debate and the banner headline in practically every newspaper. Trump was very likely to
lose the election anyway at this point, but he seems determined to lose it in a way that will bring
even more discredit on him and his supporters. He managed to overshadow everything else he said during
the debate with that one answer, and anything else he said–for good or ill–will receive very little
attention. Since Trump was already trailing Clinton going into the debate, the onus was on him to
score a clear victory. He did not, and he missed his last major chance to make the election more
competitive. That failure is his, and no one else did it to him.
Clinton was forced to dodge questions about donors to the Clinton Foundation and her support for
a "no-fly zone" in Syria, but that was the result of tough questioning from the moderator. Her answers
to these questions were woefully inadequate and evasive, but her opponent didn't take advantage of
them. Trump never really managed to get the better of Clinton the entire night, and he tended to
ramble aimlessly in response to questions that might have worked to his advantage. On more than one
occasion, he ended up railing against the nuclear deal with Iran in response to questions that had
nothing to do with it. This not only kept him from giving a coherent answer to the questions he was
asked, but it also showed how heavily he relied on discredited hawkish talking points when he ran
into difficulty. At one point, Trump tried to attack Clinton over New START, which he laughably called
"the start-up." Even if there had been merit to Trump's criticism, he made such a hash of it as to
make his attack useless.
The result of all this was that Clinton was able to escape scrutiny of most of her record. She
was never asked to defend her support for the Libyan war, nor did she really have to answer for anything
else that she did as Secretary of State. Once again, her opponent didn't know enough to know how
to use her record against her. Despite her poor record on foreign policy, Clinton was able to get
off almost completely scot-free.
"The result of all this was that Clinton was able to escape scrutiny of most of her record. She
was never asked to defend her support for the Libyan war, nor did she really have to answer for
anything else that she did as Secretary of State."
Yes. I would have expected this if Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush had been the GOP nominee, but I
truly expected better from Trump.
To this day, I am dumbfounded that the Trump campaign has never used "We came, we saw, he died!"
or "What difference, at this point, does it make?" against Clinton. To not replay these gaffes
over and over again is quite possibly the worst case of political amateurism I have ever seen.
Just think back to 2008: one of the Obama campaign's most devastating tactics was to constantly
remind voters of McCain's "The fundamentals of the economy are strong" gaffe.
The GOP had a golden opportunity this year. Clinton is an incredibly flawed candidate. Yet
the GOP blew it by nominating a bad person who is totally unqualified to be President. My only
consolation is that Rubio or Bush would have been even worse candidates than Trump… and probably
worse Presidents than Clinton.
At least Trump *started,* however haltingly, to put the Washington foreign policy consensus
under scrutiny. That was a small but unprecedented step for a major-party presidential candidate.
Hopefully, it will pave the way for a more serious, profound, and systematic critique of the Washington
consensus from a major-party candidate in the future. Right now, I don't see who that could possibly
be, but then I never imagined Trump would ever actually throw his hat into the ring, much less
win the GOP nomination.
Firstly, let me start up with a suggestion for the country: Figure out a way to clone Wallace
twice and have each one of them run a debate. The only reason why this debate actually had a bit
of meat to it is because of what Wallace put into it and I loved how he kept both candidates feet
on the fire while actually letting them debate and go after each other at times.
The problem is that he had far too many issues to go over and not enough time to do it. This
election has focused so (word removed by author) much on scandals about foundations and emails
and groping and "OMG he said this" and "OMG she said that" that there's no room left to talk about
actual policy. That's part of the problem.
The main part, though, is Trump. Not his original platform, which I've repeatedly said is appealing
(even if I disagree with a good portion of it, it brings points of discussion that need to be
addressed) or his voter base (some of which are crazy, but as we've seen, the crazies of the democrats
are also fully active). Trump is leading a voice desperate to be heard and needing to be heard,
but he's the worst man for the job.
His record and past is incredibly flawed and wide open to character attacks. This allowed Clinton
to pivot every question she didn't like right into a character issue. Free trade issues? Trump
used illegal Chinese Steel. Taxes? Trump never paid any. Jobs? Trump hires illegals and doesn't
pay his contractors. Foreign policy? Trump worships Putin and wants to nuke and grab all the oil.
So on so on.
Of course you can do similar against Hillary and she's just as open. But while the folks of TAC and other conservative areas have plenty of good ideas of how he could do it, Trump doesn't
do it. He just makes the same generic insults ("she's a disaster, it's a disaster, everything
is a disaster, and everyone is smarter too") but beyond the initial quote-worthy line he doesn't
press hard on specifics nor does he focus on enough specifics on what makes him better. Or he's
hitting points that hurt him more than help. He based his claim that Clinton wants open boarders
on immigration on a wikileaks document that was about energy policy? He's attacking the Clinton
Foundation while holding a similarly shady Foundation of his own?
Though really all of this is moot since he tends to take ALL of the air out of the room with
talking points that have nothing to do with Clinton's policy issues or his benefits on policy
but are all about Trump. I take note that everyone, from the analysis after the debate to the
news sites to even TAC's first point to bring up about the debate was Trump's answer when asked
if he'll respect the results of the election. He could've spent the entire debate pinning Clinton
to the wall with a powerful performance and it'll all be useless because:
"Trump won't commit to accepting election results if he loses"
is the big takeaway.
And that's why I cringed when I saw what Republicans were selecting during the primaries. It
wasn't just because Trump is Trump, but also because a weak Republican candidate results in a
weak Democratic candidate that wins anyway. Clinton is a candidate that started out with a lot
of flaws and very low support from her base. A strong Republican Candidate would've either forced
Clinton to clean up her act and pivot more into a populist stance or resulted in a stronger Democratic
primary due to a desperate need to put up a more electable contender to follow up on Obama.
But we got Trump. Which, I remind myself, was still the best option from the primary (given
that Rand Paul fell off a cliff somehow). And because we got Trump THIS is the election we got.
Honestly the folks I feel worst about are his voting base, and I mean in a "I feel for your
loss" way. It's full of people who are either losing their way of life, such as blue collars that
used to be in manufacturing, and those who fear they are going to lose it, such as the evangelicals.
They have real issues, and this election realized their party isn't going to solve them, so they
looked for an alternative that would help.
And they got someone who, after wooing them by showing how little he's related to the GOP,
spent all his time with a horribly managed campaign, attacks that don't hold water even when they
are valid, presents enough material to easily feed a political media hungry for viewers, and who
pivots to become more like the GOP when he needs to get to specifics.
It's like Samsung and Apple. Apple brings out an expensive, disliked phone, Samsung decides
to throw a phone thinking "any phone will do that's not Apple." and now not only did it blow up
in their face but the public isn't as bothered about a phone with no headphone jack.
And so here. Trump was put up as an alternative to Clinton. And after we saw him a hawkish
extremely pro-life perfect example of "typical politician" with a lot of skeletons doesn't seem
all that bad anymore. Perhaps she also needs an election win rivaling Reagan and supreme court
slot left open just for her and her newly minted Democratic Senate?
I would say "perhaps this will result in a better, more reasonable, and stronger Republican
party come next time" but I said that in 2008 with McCain. And instead I get Trump.
So I don't know. Maybe folks like me who are left-of-center will be considered conservatives
now after this Left-shift is over. I'm already on the TAC more than I'm in the more leftward sites.
But if there's still hope for the current Right in 2020, please PLEASE, no more "anyone buts".
And seriously. Wallace Clones. 10 of them. THAT would help Make America Great Again.
Look at this and tell me all he ways Trump is demonstrating his blatantly obvious dementia. Wandering
speech. Inability to concentrate. Irrelevant replies to specific questions. Inability to remember
his own talking points. Inability to recognize the meaning of what is said to him and around him.
Inability to distinguish fact from fancy, his own fantasies from reality. The man is senile.
Before we get too much into ego-salving revisionism about which candidates would have been better
opponents to Hillary, let's remember that the three biggest crackpots in the primaries – Carson,
Cruz, and Trump – got more than 60% of the votes. So, before we go around trying to make ourselves
feel better by telling ourselves that, without Trump, everything would have been fine, just imagine
what a disaster the GOP would be facing if Ted Cruz were the nominee.
The alternative to Trump wasn't Rubio the lightweight, Jeb the retread, or Kasich. It was Cruz.
Just ruminate on that a bit.
Clinton lied through her teeth on the issue of the Clinton Foundation; which she made sound like
God's personal charity. He didn't lay a glove on her on that issue. Why?
Overseas reader here. A little bit off topic, but I'd really like to have TAC's writers (and commenters)
take on how the political processes would work if Trump in fact won the election. A President
totally unacceptable to all Democrats and many establishment Republicans, would he face a majority
working against him on all issues? Would we see the office of the President cut down to the bare
minimum the Constitution permits, or beyond? Would he be the lamest of lame ducks?
As a Christian, I find Hillary Clinton unacceptable. I also find Donald Trump unacceptable. I
think most people who are not Christians feel the same way. 2016 is a loss for everyone. My hope
is that a chastened Republican Party regroups and finds better leaders for 2018 and 2020. Trump
is an idiot savant at best. You can't assign thoughtful strategy to him. Our republic– I'm sorry,
our oligarchy - is in bad shape. But to the debate: The election isn't rigged if you are such
an idiot that you are clearly losing it by your own fault.
"I really don't understand why no one likes Cruz. He seems like a well-spoken, principled social
and fiscal conservative that has a healthy skepticism of U.S. interventions abroad."
In case you forget or never understood, it's because Cruz pokes all sorts of people (including
people he needs as allies and voters) in their eyes, repeatedly, and then tells them it's for
their own good, when it's perfectly apparent that his ego is so needy he will abandon his principles
when the right opportunity arises (viz his endorsement of Trump as Trump looked likely to overtake
HRC).
It doesn't help that his personality screams that he has Daddy Issues (his father treats
him like a new Messiah). People see him and go "eew" in a different way than they go "eew" with
Trump.
Rubio is an empty suit for the Israel-Saudi Arabia neocon set.
Cruz and Rubio were even worse than Trump. Which is saying a ton.
"I really don't understand why no one likes Cruz. He seems like a well-spoken, principled social
and fiscal conservative that has a healthy skepticism of U.S. interventions abroad."
Because Cruz is a Dominist. Meaning he specifically wants to establish a Christian theocracy
in America and thinks he was sent by God to create it. Claiming that the first amendment only
applies to Christians is so antithetical to the American foundation it scares this even of us
who dont share his beliefs.
And this isn't some light weight Anglican theocracy, he wants to bring back Old Testament punishments
for crimes… a woman who gets raped must be stoned to death and all of that.
Then Cruz wraps his amazingly scary theocracy nonsense in a creepy, slimy exterior.
Foreign Policy is an area where Trump could have scored some points on Hillary Clinton's rather
flawed record, Libya, Syria, etc. However, Trump is so undisciplined and unfocused that he failed
to really nail her.
He has some good ideas, but he fails to follow up and get specific on anything. He has this
hard core of supporters who think he is great, but he has not captured many moderates or undecided
voters.
On top of all of this, the Republican Party is fractured between the GOP Establishment and
the GOP Base. The GOP Base strongly supports Trump, the the GOP Establishment is weak at best.
Indeed, many of the GOP elite, such as the Bush Family cannot stand him and refuse to support
him.
I really cannot see him winning. The math is simply not there. When you consider that African-Americans,
Hispanics and educated women are strongly against him, it will be unusually difficult for him
to win swing states.
Trump has simply never been serious about this election. Last night only provided the 1,001st
piece of evidence of that.
He knew the question about his accepting the outcome of the election should he lose was going
to come up, and he know he could only hurt himself by the answer he gave. He intentionally shot
himself in the foot, once again.
He has never, ever been interested in responsibility of the presidency. He alluded to that
some months ago when he intimated that he may not be inaugurated should he win.
He went into this for attention, adulation and power, mostly attention. He is a deeply sick
man, who I honestly feel some pity for.
"... Much of the content of these speeches to U.S. bankers dealt with foreign policy, and virtually all of that with warfare, potential warfare, and opportunities for military-led domination of various regions of the globe. This stuff is more interesting and less insultingly presented than the idiocies spewed out at the public presidential debates. But it also fits an image of U.S. policy that Clinton might have preferred to keep private. Just as nobody advertised that, as emails now show, Wall Street bankers helped pick President Obama's cabinet, we're generally discouraged from thinking that wars and foreign bases are intended as services to financial overlords. "I'm representing all of you," Clinton says to the bankers in reference to her efforts at a meeting in Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has great potential for U.S. "businesses and entrepreneurs," she says in reference to U.S. militarism there. ..."
"... "We're going to ring China with missile 'defense,'" Clinton tells Goldman Sachs. "We're going to put more of our fleet in the area." ..."
"... In public debates, Clinton demands a "no fly zone" or "no bombing zone" or "safe zone" in Syria, from which to organize a war to overthrow the government. In a speech to Goldman Sachs, however, she blurts out that creating such a zone would require bombing a lot more populated areas than was required in Libya. ..."
"... Clinton also makes clear that Syrian "jihadists" are being funded by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. In October 2013, as the U.S. public had rejected bombing Syria, Blankfein asked if the public was now opposed to "interventions" - that clearly being understood as a hurdle to be overcome. Clinton said not to fear. "We're in a time in Syria," she said, "where they're not finished killing each other . . . and maybe you just have to wait and watch it." ..."
"... Regarding China again, Clinton claims to have told the Chinese that the United States could claim ownership of the entire Pacific as a result of having "liberated it." She goes on to claim to have told them that "We discovered Japan for heaven's sake." And: "We have proof of having bought [Hawaii]." Really? From whom? ..."
"... it's fascinating that even the bankers in whom Clinton confides her militarist mania ask her identical questions to those I get asked by peace activists at speaking events: "Is the U.S. political system completely broken?" "Should we scrap this and go with a parliamentary system?" ..."
In the speech transcripts from June 4, 2013, October 29, 2013, and October 19, 2015, Clinton was
apparently paid sufficiently to do something she denies most audiences. That is, she took questions
that it appears likely she was not secretly briefed on or engaged in negotiations over ahead of time.
In part this appears to be the case because some of the questions were lengthy speeches, and in part
because her answers were not all the sort of meaningless platitudes that she produces if given time
to prepare.
Much of the content of these speeches to U.S. bankers dealt with foreign policy, and
virtually all of that with warfare, potential warfare, and opportunities for military-led domination
of various regions of the globe. This stuff is more interesting and less insultingly presented than
the idiocies spewed out at the public presidential debates. But it also fits an image of U.S. policy
that Clinton might have preferred to keep private. Just as nobody advertised that, as emails now
show, Wall Street bankers helped pick President Obama's cabinet, we're generally discouraged from
thinking that wars and foreign bases are intended as services to financial overlords. "I'm representing
all of you," Clinton says to the bankers in reference to her efforts at a meeting in Asia. Sub-Saharan
Africa has great potential for U.S. "businesses and entrepreneurs," she says in reference to U.S.
militarism there.
Yet, in these speeches, Clinton projects exactly that approach, accurately or not, on other nations
and accuses China of just the sort of thing that her "far left" critics accuse her of all the time,
albeit outside the censorship of U.S. corporate media. China, Clinton says, may use hatred of Japan
as a means of distracting Chinese people from unpopular and harmful economic policies. China, Clinton
says, struggles to maintain civilian control over its military. Hmm. Where else have we seen these
problems?
"We're going to ring China with missile 'defense,'" Clinton tells Goldman Sachs. "We're going
to put more of our fleet in the area."
On Syria, Clinton says it's hard to figure out whom to arm - completely oblivious to any options
other than arming somebody. It's hard, she says, to predict at all what will happen. So, her advice,
which she blurts out to a room of bankers, is to wage war in Syria very "covertly."
In public debates, Clinton demands a "no fly zone" or "no bombing zone" or "safe zone" in Syria,
from which to organize a war to overthrow the government. In a speech to Goldman Sachs, however,
she blurts out that creating such a zone would require bombing a lot more populated areas than was
required in Libya. "You're going to kill a lot of Syrians," she admits. She even tries to distance
herself from the proposal by referring to "this intervention that people talk about so glibly" -
although she, before and at the time of that speech and ever since has been the leading such person.
Clinton also makes clear that Syrian "jihadists" are being funded by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar.
In October 2013, as the U.S. public had rejected bombing Syria, Blankfein asked if the public was
now opposed to "interventions" - that clearly being understood as a hurdle to be overcome. Clinton
said not to fear. "We're in a time in Syria," she said, "where they're not finished killing each
other . . . and maybe you just have to wait and watch it."
That's the view of many ill-meaning and many well-meaning people who have been persuaded that
the only two choices in foreign policy are bombing people and doing nothing. That clearly is the
understanding of the former Secretary of State, whose positions were more hawkish than those of her
counterpart at the Pentagon. It's also reminiscent of Harry Truman's comment that if the Germans
were winning you should help the Russians and vice versa, so that more people would die. That's not
exactly what Clinton said here, but it's pretty close, and it's something she would not say in a
scripted joint-media-appearance masquerading as a debate. The possibility of disarmament, nonviolent
peacework, actual aid on a massive scale, and respectful diplomacy that leaves U.S. influence out
of the resulting states is just not on Clinton's radar no matter who is in her audience.
On Iran, Clinton repeatedly hypes false claims about nuclear weapons and terrorism, even while
admitting far more openly than we're used to that Iran's religious leader denounces and opposes nuclear
weapons. She also admits that Saudi Arabia is already pursuing nuclear weapons and that UAE and Egypt
are likely to do so, at least if Iran does. She also admits that the Saudi government is far from
stable.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein asks Clinton at one point how a good war against Iran might
go - he suggesting that an occupation (yes, they use that forbidden word) might not be the best move.
Clinton replies that Iran can just be bombed. Blankfein, rather shockingly, appeals to reality -
something Clinton goes on at obnoxious length about elsewhere in these speeches. Has bombing a population
into submission ever worked, Blankfein asks. Clinton admits that it has not but suggests that it
just might work on Iranians because they are not democratic.
Regarding Egypt, Clinton makes clear her opposition to popular change.
Regarding China again, Clinton claims to have told the Chinese that the United States could claim
ownership of the entire Pacific as a result of having "liberated it." She goes on to claim to have
told them that "We discovered Japan for heaven's sake." And: "We have proof of having bought [Hawaii]."
Really? From whom?
This is ugly stuff, at least as damaging to human lives as the filth coming from Donald Trump.
Yet it's fascinating that even the bankers in whom Clinton confides her militarist mania ask her
identical questions to those I get asked by peace activists at speaking events: "Is the U.S. political
system completely broken?" "Should we scrap this and go with a parliamentary system?"
Et cetera.
In part their concern is the supposed gridlock created by differences between the two big parties,
whereas my biggest concern is the militarized destruction of people and the environment that never
seems to encounter even a slight traffic slowdown in Congress. But if you imagine that the people
Bernie Sanders always denounces as taking home all the profits are happy with the status quo, think
again. They benefit in certain ways, but they don't control their monster and it doesn't make them
feel fulfilled.
In the latest, 13th daily Podesta email release,
one particular email sticks out : on February 2, 2016 Neera Tanden, a close confidante of Hillary Clinton and according to many
one of the key organizers of her presidential campaign asks John Podesta a question which may be interpreted that banker money received
by Hillary can be deemed equivalent to a bribe.
Specifically, Tanden asks Podesta that " speaking at the banks... don't shoot me but if we lose badly maybe she should
just return the money ." To which she then adds "say she gets the anger and moves on. Feels a little like an open wound."
The exchange may be one of the more clear indications of a tentative "quid-pro-quo" arrangement, in which cash is provided in
exchange for 'services' which naturally would not be rendered if Hillary were to "lose badly."
Luckily for Tanden and Podesta, not to mention Hillary, at least according to the latest scientific polls, losing badly is not
a contingency that should be a major consideration, at least not as of this moment.
Christopher Barron
Donald Trump came to this behind in the polls and reeling after weeks of negative media coverage.
He needed a big night – and he got one.
For a campaign that prides itself on its mastery of policy, Hillary spent much of the night
trying trying to get Trump to take the bait on sideshow issues.
In previous debates, Trump took the bait. Tonight, however, we saw a much more disciplined
candidate. Trump stuck to the issues and forced Hillary to talk policy and – quite frankly – she
had her worst debate performance.
Unlike previous moderators, Chris Wallace was willing to properly challenge both Trump and
Clinton. His line of questioning, particularly when it came to the Clinton Foundation, kept
Hillary off balance.
Clinton also found herself on the defensive on foreign policy, where she seemed more like a
George W Bush Republican than a Democrat.
As a result, this ended up being Trump's best debate. For far too long, the Republican candidate
has let the campaign be about the circus and not about policy. If this race is about the circus
then Hillary Clinton wins. If its about policy then Trump has a shot. It's frustrating for me, as
a Trump supporter, that it has taken this long for him to focus on where his opponent stands on
the issues.
Foreign policy has received relatively little attention so far in the debates, but we
might hear a bit more about a wider range of these issues tonight. One of the announced
topics for the final 2016 presidential debate is "foreign hot spots," which suggests
that the candidates will be pressed for their views on various conflicts and flashpoints
around the globe. It is almost a given that one question will be on the recently
announced Mosul offensive against ISIS, and I assume there will be more of the same
leading Syria questions that we heard last time.
Ideally, we should also hear questions about at least two of the following: the
ongoing war in Afghanistan, heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the
attack in Uri, the war on Yemen and the U.S. role in it, the supposed firing of missiles
at U.S. ships in the Red Sea related to that role, the Russian
deployment
of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, and the public rift between the U.S.
and the Philippines under its new president.
All of these involve U.S. policies and relationships in one way or another, and we
have not heard much of anything from either candidate about any of them. I doubt that
any of these additional topics will come up tonight, but Wallace may surprise me.
Tonight will be Trump's last chance to challenge Clinton on her lackluster foreign
policy record. He has mostly failed to do this in the last two debates, and I don't
expect him to do any better this time. If he could spell out the dangerous implications
of Clinton's Syria policy, that could finally put her on the defensive and possibly put
a dent in her support, but to do that he would have to know what he's talking about.
Meanwhile, Clinton has been allowed to skate through the entire campaign without facing
much scrutiny on foreign policy at all, and there is almost no time left. For all the
talk of how this was going to be a foreign policy election, the subject has mostly been
ignored for the duration of the general election. Considering that the next president
will take office while the U.S. is fighting and/or supporting at least three wars after
fifteen years of being at war somewhere in the world, this is a major failure on the
part of the candidates and the media. Americans are electing another wartime president,
but the candidates have had to answer remarkably few questions about how and why they
would continue America's entanglements in foreign conflicts.
P.S. As usual, I will be covering the debate on Twitter (
@DanielLarison
).
The debate begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.
Trump's promise to deport illegal immigrants and build a massive wall along the Mexican border
has been one of his signature issues of this campaign. "They are coming in illegally. Drugs are pouring
in through the border. We have no country if we have no border. Hillary wants to give amnesty, she
wants to have open borders," the GOP nominee argued.
And he also argued that the border problem was contributing to the drug and opioid crisis in the
country by allowing them to pore over the border.
"We're going to get them out, we're going to secure the border, and once the border is secured,
at a later date, we'll make a determination as to the rest, but we have some bad hombres here, and
we're going to get them out," Trump said.
Clinton said she didn't want to "rip families apart. I don't want to be sending parents away from
children. I don't want to see the deportation force that Donald has talked about in action in our
country." She pointed she voted for increased border security and that any violent person should
be deported.
"I think we are both a nation of immigrants and we are a nation of laws, and that we can act accordingly
and that's why I am introducing comprehensive immigration reform within the first hundred days with
a path to citizenship," Clinton promised.
This guy is die hard neoliberal. That's why he is fond of Washington consensus. He does not understand
that the time is over for Washington consensus in 2008. this is just a delayed reaction :-)
Notable quotes:
"... after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic "experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly blame for their economic travails. ..."
"... Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. ..."
"... They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath – thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy. ..."
"... The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration will rise, making politics even more toxic. ..."
"... At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic interests -- now, it is simply owned by them. ..."
"... The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus began to break down". ..."
"... In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable. ..."
"... However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded out the ostensibly centrist politics... ..."
"... The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme. In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean. ..."
In the 1990s and 2000s, for example, the so-called Washington Consensus dominated policymaking
in much of the world...
... ... ...
But after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is
breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic
"experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly
blame for their economic travails.
Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using
inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to
disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. The United Kingdom proved
that in June, with its Brexit vote – a decision that directly defied the broad economic consensus
that remaining within the European Union was in Britain's best interest.
... ... ...
... speeches by Prime Minister Theresa May and members of her cabinet revealed an intention to
pursue a "hard Brexit," thereby dismantling trading arrangements that have served the economy well.
They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies
that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath
– thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy.
Several other advanced economies are experiencing analogous political developments. In Germany,
a surprisingly strong showing by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in recent state
elections already appears to be affecting the government's behavior.
In the US, even if Donald Trump's presidential campaign fails to put a Republican back in the
White House (as appears increasingly likely, given that, in the latest twist of this highly unusual
campaign, many Republican leaders have now renounced their party's nominee), his candidacy will likely
leave a lasting impact on American politics. If not managed well, Italy's constitutional referendum
in December – a risky bid by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to consolidate support – could backfire,
just like Cameron's referendum did, causing political disruption and undermining effective action
to address the country's economic challenges.
... ... ...
The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration
will rise, making politics even more toxic. ...
Mr El-Erian, I know you are a good man, but it seems as though everyone believes we can synthetically
engineer a way out of this never ending hole that financial engineering dug us into in the first
place.
Instead why don't we let this game collapse, you are a good man and you will play a role in
the rebuilding of better system, one that nurtures and guides instead of manipulate and lie.
The moral suasion you mention can only appear by allowing for the self annihilation of this
financial system. This way we can learn from the autopsies and leave speculative theories to third
rate economists
It is sadly true that "the relationship between politics and economics is changing," at least
in the U.S.. At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic
interests -- now, it is simply owned by them.
It seems to me that the best we can hope for now is some sort of modest correction in the relationship
after 2020 -- and that the TBTF banks won't deliver another economic disaster in the meantime.
Petey Bee OCT 15, 2016
1. The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus
began to break down".
2. In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than
a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central
feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable.
In the concluding paragraph, the author states that the reaction is going to be slow. That's absolutely
correct, the evidence has been pushed higher and higher above the icy water line since 2008.
However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that
the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded
out the ostensibly centrist politics...
Paul Daley OCT 15, 2016
The Washington consensus collapsed during the Great Recession but the latest "consensus" among
economists regarding "good economics" deserves respect.
atul baride OCT 15, 2016
The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme.
In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective
and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean.
"... The news was released that Hillarnazi had lesbian lovers, paid for sexual encounters, has had memory issues so severe going
back to 2009 that her own people aren't sure if she knows what planet she is on, can't walk without getting massively fatigued, a new
rape victim came forward, the Clinton Foundation stole over $2 billion in Haitian relief funds, the Clinton Foundation has a pay gap
between men and women of $190,000 and she referred to blacks repeatedly as the dreaded "n" word . ..."
"... Again, that is from YESTERDAY Yet there has been no movement in the polls. She is the most criminal and unethical candidate
in the history of America, and is likely to win. There is no greater indictment about our citizens than her candidacy. if thise was
1920, she would be in front of a firing squad. ..."
"... But we have 2016. This is not breaking news at the main media outlets. Only people actively digging know this. All this pales
in comparison with the fact of bussing people around different states to vote. If elections can be rigged then nothing else actually
matters. Nothing will change because the only tool to repair the country is the election. ..."
"... The ballot box is not the last remedy to fix things. Just saying. Voting is more to bring you into the system than you changing
the system. What better way to keep you happy inside the system than to give you the ability to "vote the bums out" at the next (s)election?
..."
"... Europe is also facing the problem of not enough breeding to keep up the exponential expansion of their currency (debt issued
with interest) so they import people to keep the ponzi going. Not going to work as the people you bring in are not going to be expanding
it at the rate that someone born into that system is going to. ..."
"... Sucks to be them - the humillatiion and embarrassment of the cockroaches as they all scurry for cover. Not to mention the career
nose-dives en masse for all the selfsame scum floating around the turd herself. I'm surprised Hillary hasn't told Podesta to eat a bullet
(or nail-gun) yet, given the damage he has caused by being hacked. Err...rewind, eh Hillary? Because it is not as if you are an angel
in this respect, you dumb fucking senile cunt. ..."
"... Neocons are IT illiterate, and this must be their primary weakness, given how fucking useless they are at securing their insidious
evil shit (now in the public domain - eh, Poddy, old chum, you evil CUNT). It must be a fucking disease given how utterly bereft of
intelligence with respect to IT security they collectively are. ..."
"... It definitely sucks to be Hillary when even the help knows you're crooked. It sucks to be the help too. HILLARY FOR PRISON
2017!!!! ..."
"... As if. Former Lousiana Governor Edwin Edwards in 1983 said "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with
either a dead girl or a live boy." In 2016, neither of those conditions is a bar to election to the presidency. ..."
"... Evidently the rats have been assured the ship isn't sinking. Besides it's insured if crossing is successful. ..."
"... Americans have the attention span of a gnat these days. The hypocrisy is stunning and has no bounds. ..."
"... The best part of waking up is realizing that TPTB had been pissing in our cup while we weren't looking. ..."
"... Another body to add to the Clinton Death List, this time the doctor who treated her for a concussion and knew about her glioma.
A devout Hindu, this doctor supposedly committed suicide after threatening to reveal Hillary medical information if prosecutors continued
to go after him for bogus criminal charges. http://www.govtslaves.info/clinton-doctor-who-confirmed-hillarys-brain-t... ..."
"... Neera Tanden must be suicidal by now. She probably doesn't even realise it yet. ..."
"... I was thinking the same thing. With so many on the "team" having such critical positions on their own "leader", why the fuck
are they supporting her, and why do they still have jobs? ..."
"... Power. Money. The belief that they will be able to run things themselves once she goes full brain clot. One thing I do know,
Hillary would be very unwise to let any of them pick her nursing home for her. ..."
"... Neera Tanden: "It worries me more that she doesn't seem to know what planet we are all living in at the moment." https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/18353
..."
"... I imagine cankle's inner circle are gobling a lot off drugs about now. Their paranoia is no doubt palpable. I hope they devour
one another. ..."
"... It ain't just the US where free press is extinct. Had Wiki dropped the lot, it would simply have sunk without a trace with
respect to the MSM reporting it to the sheeple, as we have seen in the last 12 days. ..."
"... Free Shit and open borders and speaking well while lying. The stupidity of the average person, particularly those who only
get their news from the corporate controlled media, is fuckin' amazing. Only a military coup could hunt down and arrest the Deep State...
The Kagans and Powers and Jarretts and every cunt who has given HRC money. ..."
"... Short of a coup, massive desertion would be very helpful. ..."
"... you hit the nail on the head - "speaking well while lying". Middle class English people speak very well - appear attractive
to Americans - when in fact they have zero monopoly on honesty, brains or ability ..."
"... just because someone speaks well does not mean they are legal, decent, honest and truthful - in fact clinton fails on all four
of these positives and is illegal, indecent, crooked and a liar ..."
"... The no fly zone doesn't like questions not preprogrammed. I hope his brother gets a chance to rip Obama a new asshole. ..."
"... rule by criminals REQUIRES deep knowledge and primary experience with criminal exploits. She is the ONLY candidate who is qualified
to run Gov-Co. ..."
"... Comey is a Dirty Cop – Former US Attorney. How Crooked Clinton Got Off. ..."
"... Juan Williams email to John Podesta found here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/DrainTheSwamp?src=hash ..."
"... How does it feel working for a total scumbag just to get a paycheck? ..."
The latest WikiLeaks dump reveals yet another bombshell from the outspoken, an likely soon to be unemployed, Neera Tanden.
The email chain comes from March of this year and begins when Neera distributes a memo on proposals for reform policies
relative to bribery and corruption of public officials . That said, apparently the folks within the Hillary campaign were
aware that this was a very dicey topic for their chosen candidate as even Tanden admits " she may be so tainted she's really
vulnerable. "
Meanwhile, Hillary advisor Jake Sullivan provided his thoughts that he really liked the following proposal on strengthening bribery
laws...
"Strengthen bribery laws to ensure that politicians don' change legislation for political donations."
...but subsequently admits that it might be problematic given Hillary's history.
"The second idea is a favorite of mine, as you know, but REALLY dicey territory for HRC, right?"
Even a month before these internal campaign discussions, Stan Greenberg, a democrat strategist of Democracy Corps, wrote to Podesta
highlighting that "reform of money and politics is where she is taking the biggest hit." That said, Stan was quick
to assure Podesta that there was no reason for concern as a specially crafted message and a little help from the media could make
the whole problem go away.
"We are also going to test some messages that include acknowledgement of being part of the system , and know how much
has to change. "
Finally, perhaps no one has better summarized why the Clinton camp may be worried about corruption charges than Obama:
The news was released that Hillarnazi had lesbian lovers, paid for sexual encounters, has had memory issues so severe going
back to 2009 that her own people aren't sure if she knows what planet she is on, can't walk without getting massively fatigued,
a new rape victim came forward, the Clinton Foundation stole over $2 billion in Haitian relief funds, the Clinton Foundation has
a
pay gap between men and women of $190,000 and
she referred to blacks repeatedly as the dreaded "n" word .
Again, that is from YESTERDAY Yet there has been no movement in the polls. She is the most criminal and unethical candidate
in the history of America, and is likely to win. There is no greater indictment about our citizens than her candidacy. if thise
was 1920, she would be in front of a firing squad.
But we have 2016. This is not breaking news at the main media outlets. Only people actively digging know this. All this pales
in comparison with the fact of bussing people around different states to vote. If elections can be rigged then nothing else actually
matters. Nothing will change because the only tool to repair the country is the election.
The ballot box is not the last remedy to fix things. Just saying. Voting is more to bring you into the system than you changing
the system. What better way to keep you happy inside the system than to give you the ability to "vote the bums out" at the next
(s)election?
Europe is also facing the problem of not enough breeding to keep up the exponential expansion of their currency (debt issued
with interest) so they import people to keep the ponzi going. Not going to work as the people you bring in are not going to be
expanding it at the rate that someone born into that system is going to.
But, it is a plausible explanation for why they are trying it. The moneychangers have their very lives depending on keeping
this going, so they have to try it.
All I know is, most the cunts behind the curtain have been completely compromised pre-election.
Sucks to be them - the humillatiion and embarrassment of the cockroaches as they all scurry for cover. Not to mention the
career nose-dives en masse for all the selfsame scum floating around the turd herself. I'm surprised Hillary hasn't told Podesta
to eat a bullet (or nail-gun) yet, given the damage he has caused by being hacked. Err...rewind, eh Hillary? Because it is not
as if you are an angel in this respect, you dumb fucking senile cunt.
The fucking irony is palpable.
Neocons are IT illiterate, and this must be their primary weakness, given how fucking useless they are at securing their
insidious evil shit (now in the public domain - eh, Poddy, old chum, you evil CUNT). It must be a fucking disease given how utterly
bereft of intelligence with respect to IT security they collectively are.
As if. Former Lousiana Governor Edwin Edwards in 1983 said "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed
with either a dead girl or a live boy." In 2016, neither of those conditions is a bar to election to the presidency.
Another body to add to the Clinton Death List, this time the doctor who treated her for a concussion and knew about her glioma.
A devout Hindu, this doctor supposedly committed suicide after threatening to reveal Hillary medical information if prosecutors
continued to go after him for bogus criminal charges.
http://www.govtslaves.info/clinton-doctor-who-confirmed-hillarys-brain-t...
I was thinking the same thing. With so many on the "team" having such critical positions on their own "leader", why the fuck
are they supporting her, and why do they still have jobs?
Power. Money. The belief that they will be able to run things themselves once she goes full brain clot. One thing I do
know, Hillary would be very unwise to let any of them pick her nursing home for her.
Assange has played a blinder, and all those who bitched about him "not dropping everything at once" give some thought to the fact
that even in the UK barely one reference to the deluge of shit landing on Hillary thus far has been reported in the MSM. They
have killed virtually everything, and are mainlining Trump the mad man (for insinuating election fraud) shit.
It ain't just the US where free press is extinct. Had Wiki dropped the lot, it would simply have sunk without a trace with
respect to the MSM reporting it to the sheeple, as we have seen in the last 12 days.
Better a death by a thousand cuts to build up momentum, and give EVERYONE the chance to absorb the full criminallity of this
fundamentally evil bitch and her cohorts. There is way too much to take in one hit.
sadly, most Americans are going to vote based on which candidate they think is least 'offensive' to them, and ISMism prevails
in the corporate MSM and Regressive Left:
For secure borders and controlled immigration: RACIST
Against set asides for women or think rosie o'donnell could lose a few: MISOGYNIST.
But voting for a banker owned duplicitous warmonger who is the crooked politician par excellance of this millenium, one
who will pursue more neocon/zionist wars and involve arming and aiding Al Qaeda and worse.... : 'PROGRESSIVE'.
Why?
Free Shit and open borders and speaking well while lying. The stupidity of the average person, particularly those who only
get their news from the corporate controlled media, is fuckin' amazing. Only a military coup could hunt down and arrest the Deep
State... The Kagans and Powers and Jarretts and every cunt who has given HRC money.
Short of a coup, massive desertion would be very helpful.
you hit the nail on the head - "speaking well while lying". Middle class English people speak very well - appear attractive
to Americans - when in fact they have zero monopoly on honesty, brains or ability
just because someone speaks well does not mean they are legal, decent, honest and truthful - in fact clinton fails on all
four of these positives and is illegal, indecent, crooked and a liar
Authoritarian rule by criminals REQUIRES deep knowledge and primary experience with criminal exploits. She is the ONLY candidate
who is qualified to run Gov-Co.
Is this from "The Onion"? Seriously, these people are so fucking tone deaf and out of touch it's amazing. Throw 'em all in prison.
How does it feel working for a total scumbag just to get a paycheck?
"... Among the initial emails to stand out is this extensive exchange showing just how intimiately the narrative of Hillary's server
had been coached. The following September 2015 email exchange between Podesta and Nick Merrill, framed the "core language" to be used
in response to questions Clinton could be asked about her email server, and the decision to "bleach" emails from it. The emails contain
long and short versions of responses for Clinton. ..."
The daily dump continues. In the now traditional daily routine, one which forces the Clinton campaign to resort to ever more stark
sexual scandals involving Trump to provide a media distraction, moments ago Wikileaks released yet another 1,803 emails in Part 12
of its ongoing Podesta Email dump, which brings the total number of released emails to 18,953.
As a reminder among the most recent revelations we got further insights into Hillary's desire to see Obamacare "
unravel" , her contempt
for "doofus" Bernie Sanders, staff exchanges on handling media queries about Clinton "flip-flopping" on gay marriage, galvanizing
Latino support and locking down Clinton's healthcare policy. Just as notable has been the ongoing revelation of just how "captured"
the so-called independent press has been in its "off the record" discussions with John Podesta which got the head Politico correspondent,
Glenn Thrush, to admit he is a "hack" for allowing Podesta to dictate the content of his article.
The release comes on the day of the third and final presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and as a result
we are confident it will be scrutinized especially carefully for any last minute clues that would allow Trump to lob a much needed
Hail Mary to boost his standing in the polls.
As there is a total of 50,000 emails, Wikileaks will keep the media busy over the next three weeks until the elections with another
30,000 emails still expected to be released.
* * *
Among the initial emails to stand out is this extensive exchange showing just how intimiately the narrative of Hillary's server
had been coached. The following September 2015 email
exchange between Podesta and Nick Merrill, framed the "core language" to be used in response to questions Clinton could be asked
about her email server, and the decision to "bleach" emails from it. The emails contain long and short versions of responses for
Clinton.
"Because the government already had everything that was work-related, and my personal emails were just that – personal – I
didn't see a reason to keep them so I asked that they be deleted, and that's what the company that managed my server did. And
we notified Congress of that back in March"
She was then presented with the following hypothetical scenario:
* "Why won't you say whether you wiped it?"
"After we went through the process to determine what was work related and what was not and provided the work related
emails to State, I decided not to keep the personal ones."
"We saved the work-related ones on a thumb drive that is now with the Department of Justice. And as I said in March, I chose
not to keep the personal ones. I asked that they be deleted, how that happened was up to the company that managed the server.
And they are cooperating fully with anyone that has questions."
* * *
Another notable email reveals the close
relationship between the Clinton Foundation and Ukraine billionaire Victor Pinchuk, a
prominent
donor to the Clinton Foundation , in which we see the latter's attempt to get a meeting with Bill Clinton to show support for
Ukraine:
From: Tina Flournoy < [email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 9:58:55 AM
To: Amitabh Desai
Cc: Jon Davidson; Margaret Steenburg; Jake Sullivan; Dan Schwerin; Huma Abedin; John Podesta
Subject: Re: Victor Pinchuk
Team HRC - we'll get back to you on this
> On Mar 30, 2015, at 9:53 AM, Amitabh Desai < [email protected]> wrote:
>
> Victor Pinchuk is relentlessly following up (including this morning) about a meeting with WJC in London or anywhere in Europe.
Ideally he wants to bring together a few western leaders to show support for Ukraine, with WJC probably their most important participant.
If that's not palatable for us, then he'd like a bilat with WJC.
>
> If it's not next week, that's fine, but he wants a date. I keep saying we have no Europe plans, although we do have those events
in London in June. Are folks comfortable offering Victor a private meeting on one of those dates? At this point I get
the impression that although I keep saying WJC cares about Ukraine, Pinchuk feels like WJC hasn't taken enough action to demonstrate
that, particularly during this existential moment for the county and for him.
>
> I sense this is so important because Pinchuk is under Putin's heel right now, feeling a great degree of pressure and pain for
his many years of nurturing stronger ties with the West.
>
> I get all the downsides and share the concerns. I am happy to go back and say no. It would just be good to
know what WJC (and HRC and you all) would like to do, because this will likely impact the future of this relationship, and slow
walking our reply will only reinforce his growing angst.
>
> Thanks, and sorry for the glum note on a Monday morning...
Sure. Sorry for the delay I was on a plane.
On Apr 30, 2015 9:44 AM, "Glenn Thrush" < [email protected]> wrote:
> Can I send u a couple of grafs, OTR, to make sure I'm not fucking
> anything up?
* * *
Another notable moment emerges in the emails, involving Hillary Clinton's selective memory. Clinton's description of herself as
a moderate Democrat at a September 2015 event in Ohio caused an uproar amongst her team. In a
mail from Clinton advisor Neera Tanden to Podesta
in the days following the comment she asks why she said this.
"I pushed her on this on Sunday night. She claims she didn't remember saying it. Not sure I believe her," Podesta replies.
Tanden insists that the comment has made her job more difficult after "telling every reporter I know she's actually progressive".
" It worries me more that she doesn't seem to know what planet we are all living in at the moment ," she adds.
* * *
We also get additional insight into Clinton courting the Latino minority. A November 2008
email from Federico Peña , who was on the Obama-Biden
transition team, called for a "Latino media person" to be added to the list of staff to appeal to Latino voters. Federico de Jesus
or Vince Casillas are seen as ideal candidates, both of whom were working in the Chicago operations.
"More importantly, it would helpful (sic) to Barack to do pro-active outreach to Latino media across the country to get our
positive message out before people start spreading negative rumors," Peña writes.
* * *
Another email between Clinton's foreign policy adviser
Jake Sullivan and Tanden from March 2016 discussed how it was "REALLY dicey territory" for Clinton to comment on strengthening
"bribery laws to ensure that politicians don't change legislation for political donations." Tanden agrees with Sullivan:
" She may be so tainted she's really vulnerable - if so, maybe a message of I've seen how this sausage is
made, it needs to stop, I'm going to stop it will actually work."
* * *
One email suggested, sarcastically, to kneecap
bernie Sanders : Clinton's team issued advise regarding her tactics for the "make or break" Democratic presidential debate with
Sanders in Milwaukee on February 11, 2016. The mail to Podesta came from Philip Munger, a Democratic Party donor. He sent the mail
using an encrypted anonymous email service.
"She's going to have to kneecap him. She is going to have to take him down from his morally superior perch. She has done so
tentatively. She must go further," he says.
Clearly, the desire to get Sanders' supporters was a key imperative for the Clinton campaign. In a
September 2015 email to Podesta , Hill columnist
Brent Budowsky criticized the campaign for allegedly giving Clinton surrogates talking points to attack Bernie Sanders. "I cannot
think of anything more stupid and self-destructive for a campaign to do," he says. "Especially for a candidate who has dangerously
low levels of public trust," and in light of Sanders' campaign being based on "cleaning up politics."
Budowsky warns voters would be "disgusted" by attacks against Sanders and says he wouldn't discourage Podesta from sharing the
note with Clinton because "if she wants to become president she needs to understand the point I am making with crystal clarity."
"Make love to Bernie and his idealistic supporters, and co-opt as many of his progressive issues as possible."
Budowsky then adds that he was at a Washington university where " not one student gave enough of a damn for Hillary to
open a booth, or even wear a Hillary button. "
* * *
One email focused on how to address with the
topic of the TPP. National Policy Director for Hillary for America Amanda Renteria explains, "The goal here was to minimize our vulnerability
to the authenticity attack and not piss off the WH any more than necessary."
Democratic pollster Joel Benenson says, "the reality is HRC is more pro trade than anti and trying to turn her into something
she is not could reinforce our negative [sic] around authenticity. This is an agreement that she pushed for and largely advocated
for."
* * *
While claiming she is part of the people, an email exposes Hillary as being "
part of the system ." Clinton's team acknowledges
she is "part of the system" in an email regarding her strategies. As Stan Greenberg told Podesta:
" We are also going to test some messages that include acknowledgement of being part of the system, and know how much
has to change ,"
* * *
Some more on the topic of Hillary being extensively coached and all her words rehearsed, we find an email which reveals that
Clinton's words have to be tightly managed by her
team who are wary of what she might say. After the Iowa Democratic Party's presidential debate in November 2015 adviser Ron Klain
mails Podesta to say, "If she says something three times as an aside during practice (Wall Street supports me due to 9/11), we need
to assume she will say it in the debate, and tell her not to do so." Klain's mail reveals Sanders was their biggest fear in the debate.
"The only thing that would have been awful – a Sanders break out – didn't happen. So all in all, we were fine," he says.
The mail also reveals Klain's role in securing his daughter Hannah a position on Clinton's team. "I'm not asking anyone to make
a job, or put her in some place where she isn't wanted – it just needs a nudge over the finish line," Klain says. Hannah Klain worked
on Clinton's Surrogates team for nine months commencing in the month after her father's mail to Podesta, according to her Linkedin.
I love this...Assange is incommunicado, yet the data dumps keep coming!
Horse face looks like such a fool to the world as a result; & due to John Kerry's stupidity which is drawing major attention to
the whole matter; Americans are finally beginning to wake up & pay attention to this shit!
Looks like the Hitlery for Prez ship is starting to take on MASSIVE amounts of water!
I believe they are beyond the point where any more news of 'pussy grabbing' will save them from themselves (and Mr. Assange)!
The new lowered expectations federal government just expects to get lucre + bennies for sitting on their asses and holding
the door for gangsters. Traitors. Spies. Enemies foreign and domestic. Amphisbaegenic pot boiling.
With Creamer's tricks effective in Obama's re-election, it now makes sense why Obama was so confident when he said Trump would
never be president.
Trump is still ahead in the only poll I track. But i conduct my own personal poll on a daily basis and loads of Trump supporters
are in the closet and won't come out until they pull the lever for Trump on election day.
The DailyKos put out a report on Oct. 17 that WikiLeaks describes
as a "smear campaign plot to falsely accuse Julian Assange of pedophilia."
"An unknown entity posing as an internet dating agency prepared an elaborate plot to falsely claim that Julian Assange received
US$1M from the Russian government and a second plot to frame him sexually molesting an eight year old girl," WikiLeaks said in
a
press release Tuesday.
The press release went on: "The second plot includes the filing of a fabricated criminal complaint in the Bahamas, a court
complaint in the UK and laundering part of the attack through the United Nations. The plot happened durring WikiLeaks' Hillary
Clinton related publications, but the plot may have its first genesis in Mr. Assange's 16 months litigation against the UK in
the UN system, which concluded February 5 (Assange won. UK and Sweden lost & US State Dept tried to pressure the WGAD according
to its former Chair, Prof. Mads Andenas)."
The DailyKos reported that a Canadian family holidaying in the Bahamas reported to the police that their 8-year-old daughter
was "sexually molested online" by Assange on Toddandclare.com.
Julian Assange's legal team provided a timeline in the press release which showed that the self-claimed dating agency ToddAndClare.com
contacted WikiLeaks' defense team offering one million dollars for Assange to appear in a video advertisement for the "dating
agency".
Assange's defense wrote back, stating that the proposal appeared to be an "elaborate scam designed to entrap Mr. Assange's
reputation into unwanted and unwarranted publicity."
WikiLeaks was able to trace down the address of the front, posting an image on twitter of what appears to be a warehouse or
garage.
Here is the "headquarters" of the front (PAC?) behind the Assange "took US$1M from Russia" plot
Internet sleuths from Reddit were able to dig up some information about the dating service pushing the attacks on Assange,
finding that the company shares the address with a private intelligence corporation named Premise Data Corporation.
Here is the Reddit post that lays out the findings:
As other Redditors point out, the Center for American Progress was founded by Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and
was funded by billionaire and pro-Clintonite George Soros.
As one Redditor so laughably put it, "If this was merely a coincidence, then I'm the queen of England."
As
we reported yesterday , Fox News had told its audience Tuesday morning that Assange would be arrested "maybe in a matter of
hours," leading to the speculation that there could have been a plot to arrest Assange over the pedophilia accusations.
"... If you insist on focusing on individuals, you may miss the connection, because the worst off
within communities - actual chronic discouraged workers, addicts - are likely to express no opinion
to the degree they can be polled at all. Trump primary voters are white Republicans who vote, automatically
a more affluent baseline* than the white voters generally. ..."
EMichael quotes Steve Randy Waldman and Dylan Matthews in today's links:
""Trump voters, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver found, had a median household income of $72,000,
a fair bit higher than the $62,000 median household income for non-Hispanic whites in America."
...
""But it is also obvious that, within the Republican Party, Trump's support comes disproportionately
from troubled communities, from places that have been left behind economically, that struggle
with unusual rates of opiate addiction, low educational achievement, and other social vices."
I followed the link and failed to find any numbers on the "troubled communities" thing. It
seems strange to me that the two comments above are in conflict with each other."
It seems like you are missing the point of Waldman's blog post (and Stiglitz and Shiller)
You didn't quote this part:
"... If you insist on focusing on individuals, you may miss the connection, because the
worst off within communities - actual chronic discouraged workers, addicts - are likely to express
no opinion to the degree they can be polled at all. Trump primary voters are white Republicans
who vote, automatically a more affluent baseline* than the white voters generally.
"Among Republicans, Trump supporters have slightly lower incomes. But what really differentiates
them?"]
"At the community level**, patterns are clear. (See this*** too.) Of course, it could still
all be racism, because within white communities, measures of social and economic dysfunction are
likely correlated with measures you could associate with racism."
Of course, it could still all be racism, because within white communities, measures of social
and economic dysfunction are likely correlated with measures you could associate with racism.
Social affairs are complicated and the real world does not hand us unique well-identified models.
We always have to choose our explanations,**** and we should think carefully about how and why
we do so. Explanations have consequences, not just for the people we are imposing them upon, but
for our polity as a whole. I don't get involved in these arguments to express some high-minded
empathy for Trump voters, but because I think that monocausally attributing a broad political
movement to racism when it has other plausible antecedents does real harm....
"... First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market" rather than "single payer"; ..."
"... Clinton frames solutions exclusively ..."
"... Policy Sciences ..."
"... Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is the palace. ..."
"... SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that includes Wall Street and Main Street. ..."
"... Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution. ..."
"... One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework instead of building her own ideas with it. ..."
"... What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know? Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You know! ..."
"... I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing. No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate. But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring Wall St. is one method for getting money – large, large amounts of money. ..."
"... A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid." ..."
"... in that context ..."
"... So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016, and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open question, but this post argues not. ..."
"... Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at 100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k for a single speech… ..."
"... Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction of her speeches as mindless drivel. ..."
"... Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and that was not the case, either. ..."
"... Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompsky–all those used to seem like bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people. ..."
"... What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan B" Obama is pursuing in Syria? ..."
"... The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards. ..."
"... But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding little… ..."
"... Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large, however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility. A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article ..."
"... both of which present a clinical assessment that Hillary suffers from Parkinson's. Seems like an elephant in the room. ..."
"... The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory "so no quid pro quo ..."
"... The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades - that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake." ..."
"... basically, every real world policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem ..."
"... Most noticeable thing is her subservience to them like a fresh college grad afraid of his boss at his first job ..."
As readers know, WikiLeaks has
released transcripts
of the three speeches to Goldman Sachs that Clinton gave in 2013, and for which she was paid
the eyewatering sum of $675,000. (The link is to an email dated January 23, 2016, from Cllinton staffer
Tony Carrk , Clinton's research director, which pulls out
"noteworthy quotes" from the speeches. The speeches themselves are attachments to that email.)
Readers, I read them. All three of them. What surprises - and when I tell you I had to take a
little nap about halfway through, I'm not making it up! - is the utter mediocrity of Clinton's thought
and mode of expression[1]. Perhaps that explains Clinton's
otherwise inexplicable refusal to release them. And perhaps my sang froid is preternatural,
but I don't see a "smoking gun," unless forking over $675,000 for interminable volumes of shopworn
conventional wisdom be, in itself, such a gun. What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they
were paying for?
WikiLeaks has, however, done voters a favor - in these speeches, and in the DNC and Podesta email
releases generally - by giving us a foretaste of what a Clinton administration will be like, once
in power, not merely on policy (the "first 100 days"), but on how they will make decisions. I call
the speeches a "munitions dump," because the views she expresses in these speeches are bombs that
can be expected to explode as the Clinton administration progresses.
With that, let's contextualize and comment upon some quotes from the speeches
The Democrats Are the Party of Wall Street
Of course, you knew that, but it's nice to have the matter confirmed. This material was flagged
by Carrk (as none of the following material will have been). It's enormously prolix, but I decided
to cut only a few paragraphs. From
Clinton's second
Goldman speech at the AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium:
MR. O'NEILL: Let's come back to the US. Since 2008, there's been an awful lot of seismic activity
around Wall Street and the big banks and regulators and politicians.
Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now , what would be your
advice to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you for eight years. I had great relations and
worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown, and a lot of respect for the work you
do and the people who do it, but I do - I think that when we talk about the regulators and the
politicians, the economic consequences of bad decisions back in '08, you know, were devastating,
and they had repercussions throughout the world.
That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in February of '09, so people could, you
know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere.
Now, that's an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom [really?!].
And I think that there's a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding
and really politicizing [!] what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on
all sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening?
You guys help us figure it out and let's make sure that we do it right this time .
And I think that everybody was desperately trying to fend off the worst effects institutionally,
governmentally, and there just wasn't that opportunity to try to sort this out, and that
came later .
I mean, it's still happening, as you know. People are looking back and trying to, you know,
get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of the agreements that are being
reached.
There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get
to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry
better than anybody are the people who work in the industry .
…
And we need banking. I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where
the banks are not doing what they need to do because they're scared of regulations , they're
scared of the other shoe dropping, they're just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way
it needs to to restart economic growth.
So people are, you know, a little - they're still uncertain, and they're uncertain both because
they don't know what might come next in terms of regulations, but they're also uncertain because
of changes in a global economy that we're only beginning to take hold of.
So first and foremost, more transparency, more openness, you know, trying to figure out,
we're all in this together , how we keep this incredible economic engine in this country
going. And this [finance] is, you know, the nerves, the
spinal column.
And with political people, again, I would say the same thing, you know, there was a lot
of complaining about Dodd-Frank, but there was also a need to do something because for political
reasons , if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were
losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of
Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing, but what you do is really important.
And I think the jury is still out on that because it was very difficult to sort of sort through
it all.
And, of course, I don't, you know, I know that banks and others were worried about continued
liability [oh, really?] and other problems down the road, so it would be better if we could
have had a more open exchange about what we needed to do to fix what had broken and then try to
make sure it didn't happen again, but we will keep working on it.
MR. O'NEILL: By the way, we really did appreciate when you were the senator from New York and
your continued involvement in the issues (inaudible) to be courageous in some respects to associated
with Wall Street and this environment. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be
an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that
includes Wall Street and Main Street.
And there's a big disconnect and a lot of confusion right now. So I'm not interested in,
you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers , but I am interested in trying to
figure out how we come together to chart a better way forward and one that will restore confidence
in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment
rate [five years into the recession!].
So it's something that I, you know, if you're a realist, you know that people have different
roles to play in politics, economics, and this is an important role, but I do think that there
has to be an understanding of how what happens here on Wall Street has such broad consequences
not just for the domestic but the global economy, so more thought has to be given to the process
and transactions and regulations so that we don't kill or maim what works, but we concentrate
on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power
that exists here.
"Moving forward." And not looking back. (It would be nice to know what "continued liability"
the banks were worried about;
accounting
control fraud ? Maybe somebody could ask Clinton.) Again, I call your attention to the weird
combination of certainty and mediocrity of it; readers, I am sure, can demolish the detail. What
this extended quotation does show is that Clinton and Obama are as one with respect to the
role of the finance sector. Politico describes Obama's famous meeting with the bankster CEOs:
Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs
of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying
high salaries to their employees - and, by extension, to themselves.
"These are complicated companies," one CEO said. Offered another: "We're competing for talent
on an international market.".
But President Barack Obama wasn't in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and
offered a blunt reminder of the public's reaction to such explanations. "Be careful how you make
those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that.".
"My administration," the president added, "is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
And he did! He did! Clinton, however, by calling the finance sector the "the nerves, the spinal
column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did.
So, from the governance perspective, we can expect the FIRE sector to dominate a Clinton administration,
and the Clinton administration to service it. The Democrats are the Party of Wall Street. The bomb
that could explode there is corrupt dealings with cronies (for which the Wikileaks material provides
plenty of leads).
Clinton Advocates a "Night Watchman" State
The next quotes are shorter, I swear! Here's a quote from
Clinton's third
Goldman speech (not flagged by Carrk, no doubt because hearing drivel like this is perfectly
normal in HillaryLand):
SECRETARY CLINTON: And I tell you, I see any society like a three-legged stool. You have to
have an active free market that gives people the chance to live out their dreams by their own
hard work and skills. You have to have a functioning, effective government that provides
the right balance of oversight and protection of freedom and privacy and liberty and all the rest
of it that goes with it . And you have to have an active civil society. Because there's
so much about America that is volunteerism and religious faith and family and community activities.
So you take one of those legs away, it's pretty hard to balance it. So you've got to get back
to getting the right balance.
Apparently, the provision
of public services is not within government's remit -- What are Social Security and Medicare?
"All the rest of it"? Not only that, who said the free market was the only way to "live
out their dreams"? Madison, Franklin, even Hamilton would have something to say about that! Finally,
which one of those legs is out of balance? Civil society? Some would advocate less religion in politics
rather than more, including many Democrats. The markets? Not at Goldman? Government? Too much militarization,
way too little concrete material benefits, so far as I'm concerned, but Clinton doesn't say, making
the "stool" metaphor vacuous.
From a governance perspective, we can expect Clinton's blind spot on government's role in provisioning
servies to continue. Watch for continued privatization efforts (perhaps aided by Silicon Valley).
On any infrastructure projects, watch for "public-private partnerships." The bomb that could explode
there is corrupt dealings with a different set of cronies (even if the FIRE sector does
have a finger in every pie).
Clinton's Views on Health Care Reflect Market Fundamentalism
MR. O'NEILL: [O]bviously the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the supreme court. It's
clearly having limitation problems [I don't know what that means]. It's unsettling, people still
- the Republicans want to repeal it or defund it. So how do you get to the middle on that clash
of absolutes?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this is not the first time that we rolled out a big program with the
limitation problems [Clinton apparently does].
I was in the Senate when President Bush asked and signed legislation expanding Medicare benefits,
the Medicare Part D drug benefits. And people forget now that it was a very difficult implementation.
As a senator, my staff spent weeks working with people who were trying to sign up, because
it was in some sense even harder to manage because the population over 65, not the most computer-literate
group, and it was difficult. But, you know, people stuck with it, worked through it.
Now, this is on - it's on a different scale and it is more complex because it's trying to create
a market. In Medicare, you have a single market , you have, you know, the government
is increasing funding through government programs [sic] to provide people over 65 the drugs they
needed.
And there were a few variations that you could play out on it, but it was a much simpler market
than what the Affordable Care Act is aiming to set up.
Now, the way I look at this, Tim, is it's either going to work or it's not going to work.
First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market"
rather than "single payer"; but then
Clinton erases single payer whenever possible . Second, Clinton frames solutions exclusively
in terms of markets (and not the direct provision of services by government);
Obama does the same on health care in JAMA , simply erasing the possibility of single payer.
Third, rather than advocate a simple, rugged, and proven system like Canadian Medicare (single payer),
Clinton prefers to run an experiment ("it's either going to work or it's not going to work")
on the health of millions of people (and, I would urge, without their informed consent).
From a governance perspective, assume that if the Democrats propose
a "public option," it will be miserably inadequate. The bomb that could explode here is the ObamaCare
death spiral.
The Problems Are "Wicked," but Clinton Will Be Unable to Cope With Them
MR. BLANKFEIN: The next area which I think is actually literally closer to home but where American
lives have been at risk is the Middle East, I think is one topic. What seems to be the ambivalence
or the lack of a clear set of goals - maybe that ambivalence comes from not knowing what outcome
we want or who is our friend or what a better world is for the United States and of Syria, and
then ultimately on the Iranian side if you think of the Korean bomb as far away and just the Tehran
death spot, the Iranians are more calculated in a hotter area with - where does that go? And I
tell you, I couldn't - I couldn't myself tell - you know how we would like things to work out,
but it's not discernable to me what the policy of the United States is towards an outcome either
in Syria or where we get to in Iran.
MS. CLINTON: Well, part of it is it's a wicked problem , and it's a wicked
problem that is very hard to unpack in part because as you just said, Lloyd, it's not clear
what the outcome is going to be and how we could influence either that outcome or a different
outcome.
(I say "cope with" rather than "solve" for reasons that will become apparent.) Yes, Syria's bad,
as vividly shown by Blankfein's fumbling question, but I want to focus on the term "wicked problem,"
which comes from the the field of strategic planning, though it's also infiltrated
information technology
and management
theory . The concept originated in a famous paper by Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber
entitled: "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning" (PDF), Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155-169.
I couldn't summarize the literature even if I had the time, but here is Rittel and Webber's introduction:
There are at least ten distinguishing properties of planning-type problems, i.e. wicked ones,
that planners had better be alert to and which we shall comment upon in turn. As you will see,
we are calling them "wicked" not because these properties are themselves ethically deplorable.
We use the term "wicked" in a meaning akin to that of "malignant" (in contrast to "benign") or
"vicious" (like a circle) or "tricky" (like a leprechaun) or "aggressive" (like a lion, in contrast
to the docility of a lamb). We do not mean to personify these properties of social systems by
implying malicious intent. But then, you may agree that it becomes morally objectionable for the
planner to treat a wicked problem as though it were a tame one, or to tame a wicked problem prematurely,
or to refuse to recognize the inherent wickedness of social problems.
And here is a list of Rittel and Webber's ten properties of a "wicked problem" (
and a critique ):
There is no definite formulation of a wicked problem Wicked problems have no stopping rule Solutions
to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. There is no immediate and no ultimate
test of a solution to a wicked problem. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation";
because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions,
nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the
plan. Every wicked problem is essentially unique. Every wicked problem can be considered to be
a symptom of another [wicked] problem. The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous
ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution. [With wicked
problems,] the planner has no right to be wrong.
Of course, there's plenty of controversy about all of this, but if you throw these properties
against the Syrian clusterf*ck, I think you'll see a good fit, and can probably come up with other
examples. My particular concern, however, is with property #3:
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad
There are conventionalized criteria for objectively deciding whether the offered solution to
an equation or whether the proposed structural formula of a chemical compound is correct or false.
They can be independently checked by other qualified persons who are familiar with the established
criteria; and the answer will be normally unambiguous.
For wicked planning problems, there are no true or false answers. Normally, many parties are
equally equipped, interested, and/or entitled to judge the solutions, although none has the power
to set formal decision rules to determine correctness. Their judgments are likely to differ widely
to accord with their group or personal interests, their special value-sets, and their ideological
predilections. Their assessments of proposed solutions are expressed as "good" or "bad" or, more
likely, as "better or worse" or "satisfying" or "good enough."
(Today, we would call these "many parties" "stakeholders.") My concern is that a Clinton administration,
far from compromising - to be fair, Clinton does genuflect toward "compromise" elsewhere - will try
to make wicked planning problems more tractable by reducing the number of parties to policy decisions.
That is, exactly, what "irredeemables" implies[2], which is unfortunate, especially when the cast
out amount to well over a third of the population. The same tendencies were also visible in the Clinton
campaigns approach to Sanders and Sanders supporters, and the general strategy of bringing the Blame
Cannons to bear on those who demonstrate insufficient fealty.
From a governance perspective, watch for many more executive orders acceptable to neither right
nor left, and plenty of decisions taken in secret. The bomb that could explode here is the
legitimacy of a Clinton administration, depending on the parties removed from the policy discussion,
and the nature of the decision taken.
Conclusion
I don't think volatility will decrease on November 8, should Clinton be elected and take office;
if anything, it will increase. A ruling party in thrall to finance, intent on treating government
functions as opportunities for looting by cronies, blinded by neoliberal ideology and hence incapable
of providing truly universal health care, and whose approach to problems of conflict in values is
to demonize and exclude the opposition is a recipe for continued crisis.
NOTES
[1]
Matt Taibbi takes the view that "Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she
came off as relaxed, self-doubting, reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and
unafraid to admit she lacked all the answers." I don't buy it. It all read like the same old Clinton
to me, and I've read a lot of Clinton (see, e.g.,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here , and
here ).
[2] One is irresistibly reminded of Stalin's "No man, no problem," although some consider Stalin's
methods to be unsound. oho
October 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm
I had never read this article before. Near perfect diagnosis and even more relevant today than
it was then. For everyone's benefit, the central thesis:
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason-the
powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market
governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit-and, most of the time,
genteel-oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are
the controlling shareholders.
…
Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world's most advanced economy, military,
and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.
In a primitive political system, power is transmitted through violence, or the threat of
violence: military coups, private militias, and so on. In a less primitive system more typical
of emerging markets, power is transmitted via money: bribes, kickbacks, and offshore bank accounts.
Although lobbying and campaign contributions certainly play major roles in the American political
system, old-fashioned corruption-envelopes stuffed with $100 bills-is probably a sideshow today,
Jack Abramoff notwithstanding.
Instead, the American financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of
cultural capital-a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good
for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street
was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors
to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the
way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it
benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions
and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America's position in the world.
A hypothesis (at least for "Main Street") proven true between 2009 and 2016:
Emerging-market countries have only a precarious hold on wealth, and are weaklings globally.
When they get into trouble, they quite literally run out of money -- or at least out of foreign
currency, without which they cannot survive. They must make difficult decisions; ultimately,
aggressive action is baked into the cake. But the U.S., of course, is the world's most powerful
nation, rich beyond measure, and blessed with the exorbitant privilege of paying its foreign
debts in its own currency, which it can print. As a result, it could very well stumble along
for years-as Japan did during its lost decade-never summoning the courage to do what it needs
to do, and never really recovering.
Lastly, the "bleak" scenario from 2009 that today looks about a decade too early, but could
with minor tuning (Southern instead of Eastern Europe, for example) end up hitting in a big way:
It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central
Europe collapses, and-because eastern Europe's banks are mostly owned by western European banks-justifiable
fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits
and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated,
and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic
worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto
both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration's current budget are increasingly
seen as unrealistic, and the rosy "stress scenario" that the U.S. Treasury is currently using
to evaluate banks' balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
…
The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump "cannot be as
bad as the Great Depression." This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse
than the Great Depression-because the world is now so much more interconnected and because
the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries,
a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances.
If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on
the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.
That's a good reminder to us at NC that not all our readers have been with us since 2009 and
may not be familiar with the great financial crash and subsequent events. I remember reading the
Johnson article when it came out. And now, almost eight years later…
There's a reason that there's a "Banana Republic" category. Every time I read an article about
the political economy of a second- or third-world country I look for how it applies to this country,
and much of the time, it does, particularly on corruption.
We truly must consider the possibility Goldman wrote the 3 speeches, then paid Hillary to give
them.
Next, leak them to Wiki. Everything in them is pretty close to pure fiction – but it is neolib
banker fiction. Just makes it all seem more real when they do things this way.
Yike's, I'm turning into a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Don't fall for the 'status quo's' language Jedi mind trick crazyboy. I like to call myself
a "sane conspiracy theorist." You can too!
As for H Clinton's 'slavish' adherence to the Bankster Ethos; in psychology, there is the "Stockholm
Syndrome." Here, H Clinton displays the markers of "Wall Street Syndrome."
Ugh. Mindless drivel. Talking points provided by Wall St itself would sound identical.
Then there's this: She did NOT represent Wall St and the Banks while a Senator. They cannot
vote. They are not people. They are not citizens. She represented the PEOPLE. The PEOPLE that
can VOTE. You cannot represent a nonexistent entity like a corporation as an ELECTED official.
You can ONLY represent those who actually can, or do, vote. End of story.
I saw a video in high school years back that mentioned a specific congressional ruling that
gave Congress the equivalent to individual rights. I swear it was also in the 30s but I cannot
recall and have never been able to find what it was I saw. Do you have any insight here?
Historical Background and Legal Basis of the Federal Register / CFR Publications System
Why was the Federal Register System Established ?
New Deal legislation of the 1930's delegated responsibility from Congress to agencies to
regulate complex social and economic issues
Citizens needed access to new regulations to know their effect in advance
Agencies and Citizens needed a centralized filing and publication system to keep track of rules
Courts began to rule on "secret law" as a violation of right to due process under the Constitution
But don't forget. She is the most qualified candidate… EVER . Remind me again
how this species was able to bring three stranded Apollo 13 astronauts back from the abyss, the
vacuum of space with some tape and tubing.
This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested
in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward
in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is
the palace.
The show is disappointing, the debaters play at talking nuclear policy, but have *nothing*
to say about Saudi Arabia's new arsenal.
When politicos talk nuclear, they only mean to allege a threat to Israel, blame Russia, or
fear-monger the North Koreans.
We're in the loop, but only the quietest whispers of the conflict in Pakistan are available.
It sounds pretty serious, but there is only interest in attacking inconvenient Arabs.
On Trump, what an interesting study in communications. The no man you speak of. Even himself
caught between his own insincerity towards higher purpose and his own ego as 'the establishment'
turns on him.
The proles of his support are truely a silent majority. The Republicans promised us Reagan
for twenty years, and it's finally the quasi-Democrat Trump who delivers.
> This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
+100
With a wall of American flags waving in the background as the smoke and flames rise.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to
be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and
that includes Wall Street and Main Street.
this all reads like a cokehead's flow of consciousness on some ethereal topic with no intellectual
content on the matter to express. I would have said extemporaneous, but you know it was all scripted,
so that's even worse.
PHOTOJOURNALIST
"Do you know what the man is saying? Do you? This is dialectics.
It's very simple dialectics. One through nine, no maybes, no
supposes, no fractions - you can't travel in space, you can't go out
into space, you know, without, like, you know, with fractions - what
are you going to land on, one quarter, three-eighths - what are you
going to do when you go from here to Venus or something - that's
dialectic physics, OK? Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you
either love somebody or you hate them."
"Da5id's voice is deep and placid, with no trace of stress. The syllables roll off his tongue
like drool. As Hiro walks down the hallway he can hear Da5id talking all the way. 'i ge en i ge
en nu ge en nu ge en us sa tu ra lu ra ze em men….'" –Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Completely agree. When I first read excerpts from her speeches, I was appalled at the constant
use of "you know" peppering most of her sentences. To me, people who constantly bifurcate sentences
with "you know" are simply blathering. They usually don't have any in-depth knowledge of the subject
matter on which they are opining. Compare Hillary being asked to comment on a subject with someone
such as Michael Hudson or Bill Black commenting on a subject and she simply sounds illiterate.
I have this feeling that her educational record is based on an ability to memorize and parrot
back answers rather than someone who can reach a conclusion by examining multiple concepts.
Here's what I don't understand: The lady (and her husband) have LOADS of money. Yet this is
the best that she can do?
Really?
Heck, if I had half the Clintons' money, I'd be hiring the BEST speechwriters, acting coaches,
and fashion consultants on the planet. And I'd be taking their advice and RUNNING with it. Sheesh.
Some people have more money than sense.
Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate
and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in
a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further
fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution.
Its in the culture: Podesta does it, Blumenthal does it
And now they blame the Russians!!!! Imagine the lunacy within the white house if this fool
is elected.
I think she is just not that smart. Maybe intelligent but not flexible enough to do much with
it.
Smart people seek the advice of even smarter people and knowing that experts disagree, they
make sure that there is dissent on the advisory team. Then they make up their mind.
One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent
advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on
the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will
not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework
instead of building her own ideas with it.
I don't think so. The "you know" has a name, it's called a "verbal tick" and is one of the
first things that is attacked when one learns how to speak publicly. Verbal ticks come in many
forms, the "ums" for example, or repeating the last few words you just said, over and over again.
The brain is complex. The various parts of the brain needed for speech; cognition, vocabulary,
and vocalizations, actually have difficulty synchronizing. The vocalization part tends to be faster
than the rest of the brain and can spit out words faster than the person can put them together.
As a result, the "buffer" if you will runs empty, and the speech part of the brains simply fills
in the gaps with random gibberish.
You can train yourself out of this habit of course – but it's something that takes practice.
So I take HRC's "you know" as evidence that these are unscripted speeches and is directly improvising.
How come her responses during the debates are not peppered with these verbal ticks. At least,
I don't recall her saying you know so many times. Isn't she improvising then?
As Lambert said, HRC doesn't do unscripted. The email leaks even sends us evidence that her
interviews were scripted and town hall events were carful staged. Even sidestepping that however,
dealing with verbal ticks is not all that difficult with a bit of practice and self-awareness.
"You know" is an insidious variation on "like" and "andum", the latter two being bias neutral
forms of mental vapor lock of tbe speech center pausing for higher level intellectual processes
to refill the speech centers tapped out RAM.
The "you know" variant is an end run on the listener's cognitive functions logic filters. Is
essence appropriating a claim to the listener.
I detest "you knows" immediately with "no i dont know, please explain."
The same with "they say" i will always ask "who are they?"
I think this is important to fo do to ppl for no ofher reason thanto nake them think critically
even if it is a fleeting annoyance.
Back on HRC, i have maintai we that many people overrate her intellectual grasp. Personally
I think she is a hea ily cosched parrot. "The US has achieved energy independence"…. TILT. Just
because you state things smugly doesnt mean its reality.
I think what I call the lacunae words are really revealing in people's speech. When she says
"you know" she is emphasizing that she and the listener both know what she is "talking around."
Shared context as a form of almost - encryption, you could say. "This" rather than '"finance"
Here rather than at Goldman.I don't know what you'd call it exactly- free floating referent? A
habit, methinks, of avoiding being quoted or pinned down. It reminds me of the leaked emails…everyone
is very careful to talk around things and they can because they all know what they are talking
about. Hillary is consistently referred to, in an eerie H. Rider Haggard way, as "her" - like
some She Who Must Not Be Named.
What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know?
Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You
know!
This election cycle just proves how bad things have become. The two top presidential candidates
are an egotistical ignoramus and the quintessential establishment politician and they are neck
and neck because the voting public is Planet Stupid. Things will just continue to fall apart in
slow motion until some spark (like another financial implosion) sets off the next revolution.
"Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now, what would be your advice
to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you [Wall St] for eight years."
I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing.
No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate.
But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we
need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that
for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring
Wall St. is one method for getting money – large, large amounts of money.
I heard similar impressions of her at the time, from women who had dealt with her: Book smart.
Street smart. Likeable. But what might have been the best compromise you could get in one decade,
may have needed re-thinking as you moved along in time. The cast of players changes. Those who
once ruled are now gone. Oh, but the money! And so old ideas can calcify. I'm not suggesting that
Trump is even in the ballpark in terms of making compromises, speeches, life changes or anything
else to have ever been proud of. Still, the capacity to grow and change is important in a leader.
So where are we going now?
A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid."
I've said this once, but I'll say it again: After the 2008 caucus debacle, Clinton fired the
staff and rejiggered the campaign. They went to lots of small venues, like high school
gyms - in other words, "deplorables" territory - and Clinton did her detail, "I have a plan" thing,
which worked really well in that context because people who need government to deliver
concrete material benefits like that, and rightly. They also organized via cheap phones, because
that was how to reach their voters, who weren't hanging out at Starbucks. And, history being written
by the winners, we forget that using that strategy, Clinton won all the big states and (if all
the votes are counted) a majority of the popular vote. So, good decision on her part. And so from
that we've moved to the open corruption of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign apparatus
that takes 11 people to polish and approve a single tweet.
So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016,
and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that
will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open
question, but this post argues not.
"Apparently, the provision of public services is not within government's remit! What are Social
Security and Medicare? "
What is the US Post Office? Rumor has it that the PO is mentioned in the US Constitution, a
fact that is conveniently forgotten by Strict Constructionists.
With respect to regulation, I think it should be less a case of quantity, and more one of quality,
but Clinton seems to want to make it about finding the sweet spot of exactly how many regulations
will be the right amount.
In general, when companies are willing to spot you $225,000 to speak for some relatively short
period of time, willing to meet your demands regarding transportation, hotel accommodations, etc.,
why would you take the chance of killing the goose that's laying those golden eggs by saying anything
likely to tick them off?
I'd like to think she's kind of embarrassed to have people see how humdrum/boring her speeches
were for how much she was paid to give them, but I think there's got to be more "there" somewhere
that she didn't want people to be made aware of – and it doesn't necessarily have to be Americans,
it could be something to do with foreign governments, foreign policy, trade, etc.
After learning how many people it takes to send out a tweet with her name on it, I have no
idea how she managed this speech thing, unless one of her requirements was that she had to be
presented with all questions in advance, so she could be prepared.
I am more depressed by the day, as it's really beginning to sink in that she's going to be
president, and it all just makes me want to stick needles in my eyes.
Also the "Wicked Problems" definitions are very, very interesting. Thank you for bringing those
in! I would add that these wicked problems lead to more wicked problems. It is basically dishonesty,
and to protect the lie you double down with more, and more, and more…. Most of Clinton's decisions
and career seem to be knots of wicked problems.
The wicked problem is quickly becoming our entire system of governance. Clinton has been described
as the malignant tumor here before, but even she is a place holder for the rot. One head of the
Hydra that I feel Establishment players would generally be okay with sacrificing if it came to
it (and maybe I am wrong there–but it seems as if a lot of the push fro her comes from her inner
circle and others play along).
Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall
take its place! We serve the Supreme Hydra, as the world shall soon serve us!
I've heard/read in some places Hillary Clinton described as a "safe pair of hands". I don't
understand where this characterization comes from. She's dangerous.
If she wins with as strong of an electoral map as Obama in '08, she'll take it as a strong
mandate and she'll have an ambitious agenda and likely attempt to overreach. I've been meaning
to call my congressional reps early and say "No military action on Syria, period!"
She might use a "public option" as an ACA stealth bailout scheme, but I don't think the public
has much appetite to see additional resources being thrown at a "failed experiment". I worry that
Bernie's being brought on board for this kind of thing. He should avoid it.
Is she crazy enough to go for a grand bargain right away? That seems nutty and has been a "Waterloo"
for many presidents.
Remember how important Obama's first year was. Bailouts and ACA were all done that first year.
How soon can we put President Clinton II in lame duck status?
Not really surprised by the intellectual and rhetorical poverty demonstrated by these speeches.
Given the current trajectory of our politics, the bar hasn't really been set very high. In fact
it looks like we're going to reach full Idiocracy long before originally predicted.
You ask, " What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they were paying for? "
But I think you know. Corruption has become so institutionalized that it is impossible to point
to any specific Quid Pro Quo. The Quo is the entire system in which GS operates and the care and
feeding of which the politicians are paid to administer.
We focus on HRC's speeches and payments here but I wonder how many other paid talks are given
to GS each year by others up and down the influence spectrum. As Bill Black says, a dollar given
to a politician provides the largest possible Return on Investment of any expenditure. It is Wall
Street's long-term health insurance plan.
Yeah we know which part of the "stool" we'll be getting.If the finance sector is "the nerves,
the spinal column" of the country, I suggest the country find a shallow pool in which to shove
it – head first.
I skimmed the /. comments on a story about this yesterday; basically everyone missed the obvious
and went with vox-type responses ("she's a creature of the system / in-fighter / Serious Person").
"So I'm not interested in, you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers,
but I am interested in trying to figure out how we come together to chart a better way
forward and one that will restore confidence in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and
consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment rate [five years into the recession!]."
Basically, even better than a get out of jail free card, in that it is rather a promise that
we won't go back and ever hold you responsible, and we have done the best we could so far to avoid
having you own up to anything or be held accountable in any way beyond some niggling fines, which
of course, you are happy to pay, because in the end, that is simply a handout to the legal industry,
who are your best drinking buddies.
The latter part of that quote is just mumbo jumbo non-sequitir blathering. Clinton appears
to know next to nothing about finance, only that it generates enormous amounts of cash for the
oh so deserving work that God told them to do.
+1 exactly: There will be no retrospective prosecutions and none in the future either, trust
me! Not the she is any better than Eric Holder but she is certain she should be paid more than
him.
Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at
100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing
except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k
for a single speech…
I've only skimmed through the speech transcripts; did I miss something of substance?
Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual
fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction
of her speeches as mindless drivel.
However, you may be overthinking the "wicked problem" language. While it is certainly
possible that she is familiar with the literature that you cite, nothing else in her speeches
suggests that she commands that level of intellectual detail. This makes me think that somewhere
along the line she befriended someone from the greater Boston area who uses "wicked" the way Valley
Girls use "like". When I first heard the expression decades ago, I found it charming and incorporated
it into my own common usage. And I don't use it anything like you describe. To me it is simply
used for emphasis. Nothing more or less than that, but I am amused to see an entire literature
devoted to the concept of a "wicked problem".
I remain depressed by this election. No matter how it turns out, it's going to wicked suck
; )
I think the inarticulateness/cliche infestation is a ploy and a deflection; this is a very
intelligent woman who can effectively marshall language when she feels the need. That need was
more likely felt in private meetings with the inner cabal at Goldman.
Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and
that was not the case, either.
Finally, as a thought experiment, I'd like to suggest that, granting that Clintonismo will
privilege those interests which best fortify their arguments with cash, it's also true that Bill
and Hillary are all about Bill and Hillary. In other words, it could be that she has the same
hustler's disregard toward the lumpen Assistant Vice Presidents filling that room at GS as she
does for the average voter. Thus, the empty, past-their-expiration-date calories.
Sure, she'll take their money and do their bidding, but why even bother to make any more effort
than necessary? On a very primal level with these two, it's all about the hustle and the action,
and everyone's a potential rube.
As in, when Bill put his presidency on the line, the base were expected to circle the wagons.
As in, "I'm With Her". Not "She's With Us", natch. It's *always* about the Clintons.
"Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she came off as relaxed, self-doubting,
reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and unafraid to admit she lacked all
the answers."
seriously, matt taibbi? next, i would like to hear about the positive, feelgood, warmfuzzy
qualities of vampire squids (hugs cthulhu doll).
Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompsky–all those used to seem like
bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should
henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets
on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people.
agree w you except about Bernie. he always said he'd support the nominee. the suddenness of
his capitulation has led many of us to believe he was threatened. somewhere I read something about
"someone" planting kiddieporn on his son's computer if he didn't do…… I dunno. I reserve judgement
on Sanders until I learn more,…. if i ever do
Clinton's remarks were typically vague, as one might expect from a politician; she doesn't
want to be pinned down. This may be part of the banality of her remarks.
What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for
a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying
this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor
of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear
war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon
used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan
B" Obama is pursuing in Syria?
In the Russian press every day for a long time now they have been discussing the prospect of
a conflict. Russia has been conducting civil defense drills in its cities and advised its citizens
to recall any children living abroad. This is never reported in our press, which only presents
us with caricatures of Putin. Russians are not taken seriously.
During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war
must not be allowed.
No it wasn't. Far from it. By some miracle, the globe escaped instant incineration but only
barely. The Soviets, to their credit, were not about to risk nuclear annihilation to get one
up on the US of Perfidy. Our own Dauntless Warriors were more than willing, and I believe it's
only through dumb luck that a first strike wasn't launched deliberately or by deliberate "accident."
Review the Cold War concept of Brinkmanship.
The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of
which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane
ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards.
But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding
little…
Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large,
however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility.
A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban
missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article
" "the nerves, the spinal column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did."
But this description is technically true. That is finance's proper function, co-ordinating
the flow of capital and resources, especially from where they're in excess to where they're needed.
It's a key decision-making system – for the economy, preferably not for society as a whole. That
would be the political system.
So on this basic level, the problem is that finance, more and more, has put its own institutional
and personal interests ahead of its proper function. It's grown far too huge, and stopped performing
its intended function – redistributing resources – in favor of just accumulating them, in the
rather illusory form of financial instruments, some of them pure vapor ware.
So yes, this line reflects a very bad attitude on Hillary's part, but by misappropriating a
truth – pretty typical propaganda.
No, finance does NOT "channel resources". Wash your mouth out. This is more neoliberal cant.
Financiers do not make investments in the real economy. The overwhelming majority of securities
trading is in secondary markets, which means it's speculation. And when a public company decides
whether or not to invest in a new project, it does not present a prospectus on that new project
to investors. It runs the numbers internally. For those projects, the most common source of funding
is retained earnings.
Clinton shows that she is either a Yale Law grad who does not have the slightest idea that
Wall Street does very little in the economy but fleece would-be investors, or that she is an obsequious
flatterer of those from whom she openly takes bribes.
Having heard Hillary, Chelsea (yes, she's being groomed) and many, many other politicians over
the years, including a stint covering Capitol Hill, Mme C's verbal style does not surprise to
me at all but rather strikes me as perfectly serviceable. It is a mellifluous drone designed to
lull the listener into thinking that she is on their side, and the weakness of the actual statements
only becomes clear when reading them on the page later (which rarely happens). The drowsy listener
will catch, among the words strung together like Christmas lights, just the key terms and concepts
that demonstrate knowledge of the brief and a soothing layer of vague sympathy. Those who can
award her $600K can assume with some confidence that, rhetoric aside, she will be in the tank
when needed. The rest of us have to blow away the chaff and peer into the yawning gaps lurking
behind the lawyerly parsing. In all fairness, this applies to 90% of seekers of public office.
The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional
wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory
"so no quid pro quo here" bribe.
Who on earth gives up their vote to a politician who is so shameless an corrupt that she openly
accepts bribes from groups who equally shamelessly and corruptly are looting the commons? Apparently
many, but not me.
Nothing like making lemons out of lemonade, is there?
There really is a question why she didn't do this doc dump herself when Bernie asked. Yeah,
sure, she would have been criticized ("damned if you do, damned if you don't") but because of
who she is she'll be criticized no matter what. There is nothing she can do to avoid it.
Not only is there no smoking gun, it's almost as if she's trying to inject a modicum of social
conscience into a culture that has none. And no, she isn't speaking artfully; nor is she an orator.
Oh. Not that we didn't know already.
The most galling aspect is her devotion to the neoLibCon status quo. Steady as she goes. Apparently
a lot of people find the status quo satisfactory. Feh.
If this document dump came out during the primary campaign, then HRC may have lost. Even Black,
Southern ladies can smell the corrupting odor clinging to these "speeches".
Given the way DNC protected her during the primaries, and what looked like a pretty light touch
by Bernie and (who? O'Malley was it?) toward her, I doubt these speeches would have been her undoing.
Dull and relatively benign, and policy-wise almost identical to Obama's approach to the bankers'
role in the economic unpleasantness. "Consensus" stuff with some hint of a social conscience.
Not effective and not enough to do more than the least possible ("I told them they ought to
behave better. Really!") on behalf of the Rabble.
But not a campaign killer. Even so, by not releasing transcripts during the primary, she faced
- and still faces - mountains of criticism over it. No escape. Not for her.
I'm not sure that's an appropriate strategy for dealing with multiple interlocking wicked problems,
but I'm not sure why. Suppose we invoke the Precautionary Principle - is incremental change
really the way to avoid harm?
The Consensus (of Opinions That Matter) says it is. On the other hand, blowing up the System
leads to Uncertainty, and as we know, we can't have that. Mr. Market wouldn't like it…
The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really
odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades -
that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain
of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was
particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential
to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major
task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake."
So while I think you are wrong that the speeches wouldn't have hurt her in the primary, I also
think Huma would have had to knock her out and tie her up (not in a fun way) to get those speeches
released.
I can't imagine a worse temperament to govern, particularly under the conditions she'll be
facing. But she'll be fully incompetent before too long, so I don't suppose it matters that much.
I'm morbidly curious to see how long they can keep her mostly hidden and propped up for limited
appearances, before having to let Kaine officially take over. Will we be able to figure out who's
actually in power based on the line-up on some balcony?
Fair points, though the "temperament" issue may be one that follows from the nature of the
job - even "No Drama Obama" is said to have a fierce anger streak, and secrecy, controlling behavior,
and refusing to admit error is pretty typical of presidents, VPs, and other high officials. The
King/Queen can do no wrong, dontchaknow. (cf: Bush, GW, and his whole administration for recent
examples. History is filled with them, though.)
As for Hillary's obvious errors in judgment, I think they speak for themselves and they don't
speak well of her.
TINA vs WATA (we are the alternative)…the next two years are gonna be interesting…evil is often
a cover for total incompetence and exposure…our little tsarina will insist brigades that dont
exist move against enemies that are hardly there…when she & her useless minions were last in/on
the seat of power(j edger version of sop) the netizens of the world were young and dumb…now not
so much…
I got into wicked problems 35 years ago in the outstanding book by Ian Mitroff and R. O. Mason,
"Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions." First page of Chapter One has subsection title COMPLEXITY,
followed by "A Little Experiment" Lets try the experiment with current problems.
One could come up with a list of major problems, but here is the one used by C. West Churchman
mentioned along with Horst Riddle. Churchman back in the 80's said that the problems of the world
were M*P**3, or M, P cubed, or M * P * P *P with the letters standing for Militarism, Population,
Poverty and Pollution.
Here is how they ran the exercise
1. Suppose there were a solution to any of these 4 problems, would that solution be related
to the other problems. Clearly.
2. Thus 'whenever a policy maker attempts to solve a complex policy problem, it is related
to all the others
Repeated attempts in other contexts give the same result: basically, every real world
policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem
This is from page 4, the second page of the book.
I ran this exercise for several years in ATT Bell Labs and ATT.
List major problems
How long have they been around? (most for ever except marketing was new after breakup in
'84
If one was solved, would that solution be related in any way to the other ones?
Do you know of any program that is making headway? (occasionally Quality was brought up)
This could be done in a few minutes, often less than 5 minutes
5. Conclusion: long term interdependent problems that are not being addressed
Thus the only grade that matters in this course on Corporate Transformation that now begins
is that you have new insights on these problems. This was my quest as an internal consultant in
ATT to transform the company. I failed.
I was a Sanders supporter. Many here will disagree, but if Clinton wins I don't think she's
going to act as she might have acted in 2008, if she had won.
Clinton is a politician, and *all* politicians dissemble in private, unless they're the mayor
of a small town of about 50 people – and even then! Politicians – in doing their work – *must*
compromise to some degree, with the best politicians compromising in ways that bring their constituents
more benefit, than not.
That said, Clinton is also a human being who is capable of change. This election cycle has
been an eye opener for both parties. If Clinton wins (and, I think she will), the memory of how
close it was with Sanders and the desperate anger and alienation she has experienced from Trump
supporters (and even Sanders' supporters) *must* have already gotten her thinking about what she
is going to have to get done to insure a 2020 win for Democrats, whether or not she is running
in 2020.
In sum, I think Clinton is open to change, and I don't believe that she is some deep state
evil incarnate; sge's *far* from perfect, and she's not "pure" in her positioning – thank god!,
because in politics, purists rarely accomplish anything.
If Clinton reverts to prior form (assuming she makes (POTUS), 2020 will make 2016 look like
a cakewalk, for both parties – including the appearance of serious 3rd party candidates with moxy,
smarts, and a phalanx of backers (unlike the current crop of two – Johnson and Stein).
"... Everything Wikileaks is putting out on this simply continues to CONFIRM the verifiable existence of this vast network of Clinton MSM Media Mafia that Hill-Billery have constructed over the years. The MSM is absolutely IN THE TANK for the war-whore. ..."
"... AMAZING how the "Objective", "Fact-Checking" MSM is shown to be totally tainted, but the very stranglehold that the MSM mafia have on the information flow prevents these clear facts form being widely disseminated to the (sometimes willfully) stupid masses. ..."
"... George H.W. Bush - Potus - CIA, Bill Clinton - Potus - CIA, George W. Bush - Potus - CIA, Barack Obama - Potus - CIA, Hillary Clinton - CIA Is Trump toast or what? ..."
"... As an aside, the sheeples are easily persuaded by simple catchy headlines and seldom read deeper into the articles to separate fact from fiction. Look at how many facts have been released proving the massive widespread fraud by Hillary and the Clinton Foundation, yet there is not one indictment...yet. ..."
"... As corporate control of media outlets has tightened, the Democrats have become the party of hot-money Corporate America. As our economy disintegrates, most corporate interests are moving to finance as their main activity. The Clinton Democrats realized this faster than the Republicans did, and pivoted to represent Finance above all other sectors of the economy. So the Clintons have safely positioned themselves in alignment with the interests that control the media, and any opponents have to take on the media to get to the Clintons. ..."
Everything Wikileaks is putting out on this simply continues to CONFIRM
the verifiable existence of this vast network of Clinton MSM Media Mafia that Hill-Billery have constructed
over the years. The MSM is absolutely IN THE TANK for the war-whore.
AMAZING how the "Objective", "Fact-Checking" MSM is shown to be totally tainted, but the very
stranglehold that the MSM mafia have on the information flow prevents these clear facts form being
widely disseminated to the (sometimes willfully) stupid masses.
George H.W. Bush - Potus - CIA,
Bill Clinton - Potus - CIA,
George W. Bush - Potus - CIA,
Barack Obama - Potus - CIA,
Hillary Clinton - CIA Is Trump toast or what?
As an aside, the sheeples are easily persuaded by simple catchy headlines
and seldom read deeper into the articles to separate fact from fiction. Look at how many facts have
been released proving the massive widespread fraud by Hillary and the Clinton Foundation, yet there
is not one indictment...yet. Add to that the corrupt FBI cheif 0Comey) and DOJ AG (Lowrenta) and
Americans are royally screwed unless they read deeper and thoughtfully AND vote!
I will admit I used to be that simply way (pretty stupid) and seldom read analytically ... when
I was 6 years old. But a person needs to educate themselves for their own survival and read and listen
critically.
Simple. Two reasons, actually. As corporate control of media outlets has tightened, the
Democrats have become the party of hot-money Corporate America. As our economy disintegrates,
most corporate interests are moving to finance as their main activity. The Clinton Democrats
realized this faster than the Republicans did, and pivoted to represent Finance above all
other sectors of the economy. So the Clintons have safely positioned themselves in alignment
with the interests that control the media, and any opponents have to take on the media to get
to the Clintons.
Also, the Clintons have had to face the weakest and least media-attractive opponents available.
Trump is a little different, as he's a complete media creation and probably the most media-savvy
public figure out there, but what the media create, they can tear down also. When the media have
to choose between their paymasters and their creations, their paymasters win every time.
Global Hunter
y3maxx
Oct 16, 2016 1:06 PM
"In layman's terms...how have the clintons been so successful controlling
MSM?"
Clinton's are the public and political front and in return they have been given license to loot
whatever they can. The people the Clinton's represent control the MSM and pretty much all the people
who work in the MSM will do or say anything for not only money but esteem of their peers (or to feel
superior or better than their peers).
There are six big corporations that own 90% of the MSM, including Time Warner,
Comcast and Disney. Thus, they tightly control the CONTENT asnd FLOW of the news. They work together
controlling the NARRATIVE for the candidate they wish to promote.
sushi y3maxx
Oct 16, 2016 2:53 PM
Look at her advertising budget. It is in the hundreds of millions. Look
at Trumps advertising budget. It is the cost of his Twitter account.
The corporate media are bleeding. Advertisers are leaving for new media. The Clinton ad money
is manna from heaven. Would you risk being cut off the gravy train by running a negative story? No
way. This is why NBC holds a negative tape on Clinton but happily releases a negative tape on Trump.
This campaign shows the 1% all talking to themselves and assuring each other they are victorius.
Outside the 1% who counts? Nobody. They are all deplorable. I think the results on November 8th could
be shocker.
The Fourth Amendment gives protection against unlawful searches and seizures, and, as shown in
the previous cases, its protection applies to governmental action. Its origin and history clearly
show that it was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not
intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies; as against such authority, it
was the purpose of the Fourth Amendment to secure the citizen in the right of unmolested occupation
of his dwelling and the possession of his property, subject to the right of seizure by process duly
issued.
In the present case, the record clearly shows that no official of the federal government had anything
to do with the wrongful seizure of the petitioner's property or any knowledge thereof until several
months after the property had been taken from him and was in the possession of the Cities Service
Company. It is manifest that there was no invasion of the security afforded by the Fourth Amendment
against unreasonable search and seizure, as whatever wrong was done was the act of individuals in
taking the property of another. A portion of the property so taken and held was turned over to the
prosecuting officers of the federal government. We assume that petitioner has an unquestionable right
of redress against those who illegally and wrongfully took his private property under the circumstances
herein disclosed, but with such remedies we are not now concerned.
The Fifth Amendment, as its terms import, is intended to secure the citizen from compulsory testimony
against himself. It protects from extorted confessions, or examinations in court proceedings by compulsory
methods.
government retain incriminating papers coming to it in the manner described with a view to their
use in a subsequent investigation by a grand jury where such papers will be part of the evidence
against the accused, and may be used against him upon trial should an indictment be returned?
We know of no constitutional principle which requires the government to surrender the papers under
such circumstances. Had it learned that such incriminatory papers, tending to show a violation of
federal law, were in the hands of a person other than the accused, it having had no part in wrongfully
obtaining them, we know of no reason why a subpoena might not issue for the production of the papers
as evidence. Such production would require no unreasonable search or seizure, nor would it amount
to compelling the accused to testify against himself.
The papers having come into the possession of the government without a violation of petitioner's
rights by governmental authority, we see no reason why the fact that individuals, unconnected with
the government, may have wrongfully taken them should prevent them from being held for use in prosecuting
an offense where the documents are of an incriminatory character.
It follows that the district court erred in making the order appealed from, and the same is
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS dissenting with whom MR. JUSTICE HOLMES concurs.
Plaintiff's private papers were stolen. The thief, to further his own ends, delivered them to
the law officer of the United States. He, knowing them to have been stolen, retains them for use
against the plaintiff. Should the court permit him to do so?
That the court would restore the papers to plaintiff if they were still in the thief's possession
is not questioned. That it has power to control the disposition of these stolen papers, although
they have passed into the possession of the law officer, is also not questioned. But it is said that
no provision of the Constitution requires their surrender, and that the papers could have been subpoenaed.
This may be true. Still I cannot believe that action of a public official is necessarily lawful because
it does not violate constitutional prohibitions and because the same result might have been attained
by other and proper means. At the foundation of our civil liberty lies the principle which denies
to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same
rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. And, in the development of our liberty, insistence
upon procedural regularity has been large factor. Respect for law will not be advanced by resort,
in its enforcement, to means which shock the common man's sense of decency and fair play.
"... The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming 2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn. ..."
"... All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all the peace and stability we bring to the region. ..."
"... This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') ..."
"... Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable. ..."
"... Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has actually driven me to turn off the nets ..."
"... Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars ..."
Reading thru the link, my favorite part was the stated purpose of the cocktail party for elite
NY reporters: "Give reporters their first thoughts . . ."
@244 Good eye, Bruce. The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming
2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn.
All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are
now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all
the peace and stability we bring to the region.
This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and
the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill
enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') .
Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary
and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime
change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable.
Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has
actually driven me to turn off the nets .
Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current
war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars
.
I learned that reading the pro-Hillary 'liberal' press.
"... she collapsed at the 9/11 memorial and went stiff as a board when she fell into the van....90 minutes later she comes out of Chelseas' apartment looking 20 pounds thinner! She was also grinning and hopping around....I'd like to know what they are giving her and order some..LOL ..."
"... They accused him of using cocaine, and he comes back by asking for a drug test for both. Sheer brilliance ..."
Huma Abedin, top aide to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, asked a speechwriter
to shorten a potential statement to reporters because Clinton would not deliver it at a podium, according
to the latest Wikileaks release of messages from John Podesta's email accounts.
"I would make it shorter only because it's a bank of Mics and no podium," Abedin replied.
Based on contemporaneous news reports, Clinton's team appears to have scrapped a "post-game" statement
altogether - since Clinton ultimately sat and talked for 11 hours over the course of the hearing.
During that time, Clinton suffered a coughing fit for several minutes while answering questions from
Rep. Elijah Cummings.
That makes sense...because when she collapsed at the 9/11 memorial and went stiff as a board
when she fell into the van....90 minutes later she comes out of Chelseas' apartment looking 20
pounds thinner! She was also grinning and hopping around....I'd like to know what they are giving
her and order some..LOL
It reminds of the movie. "Death Becomes Her" with Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep where they are
dead and Bruce Willis keeps them animated with "science"....
ladywarrior > Realistic Observer
Yes! I saw that medicinal drip apparatus in a photo of her leaning down talking to supporters
at the last debate....small box showing through her jacket with a hose running up the middle of
her back between her shoulder blades....it was clear as a bell.....she's being kept upright with
super drugs....
constitutionminded > Bloodaxe
They accused him of using cocaine, and he comes back by asking for a drug test for both. Sheer
brilliance.
"... So now David Axelrod suggests Hillary should drop out of third debate scheduled for Wednesday, blames Trump's call for drug test! ..."
"... Drudge says Hillary about to be very publicly finally forced out of the closet! ..."
"... Here's what the Clinton Staff say about Chelsea: "..the apple doesn't fall far. A kiss on the cheek while she's sticking a knife in the back, and the front." ..."
Among the latest, ninth round of Podesta email releases by Wikileaks this morning,
is a July 31, 2015 email
by Hillary Clinton's National Press Secretary Brian Fallon who lays out the agenda for the day's
rollout of Clinton's tax record and, more importantly, Hillary's "excellent health" medical statement,
where once again the media, listed as "AP, Politico, WSJ, WaPo, etc" is exposed as coordinating and
colluding with the campaign to send a message that Hillary is in great health.
In the email written in the early hours on Friday, Fallon writes that in the "rollout plan" for
that same day, the campaign will "Pitch the first round of stories to the travelling press corps
(AP, Politico, WSJ, WaPo, etc) with a 2 pm embargo."
He goes on to say that for these stories "we will provide the full text of HRC's physician's letter,
summarizing that she is in excellent health and is medically fit to perform the duties of President.
We will push that she is the FIRST presidential candidate to release this info."
In further evidence of the prepared media narrative, Fallon points out that "we expect the stories
that pop at 2 pm to have headlines such as "CLINTON IN 'EXCELLENT HEALTH,' MEDICAL RECORDS SAY" …
"CLINTON RELEASES HEALTH REPORT."
... ... ...
* * *
The above takes places several months after a
March 2015 email exchange
in which campaign manager Mook wrote Podesta, asking if he had talked to Hillary "about her taxes
and health:, admitting that both topics are "hypersensitive" to her, yet adding that "both are better
dealt with very early so we control them--rather than responding to calls for transparency."
* * *
And that is how Hillary's well-greased organization maintained the lid on her health narrative
from day one, and prevented it from sliding out of control in an undesired direction by coordinating
with the "friendly press." Of course, it was unable to do so for too long, as we noted over the summer;
at that point the Clinton campaign would simply smear those non-compliant press as "alt-right" elements,
or as has been the case recently, invoke "Russian-support" elements and suggest it is one vast conspiracy,
at least until a video of Hillary collapsing on September 11 emerged and confirmed it was all just
"conspiracy fact."
Yes We Can. But... •Oct 16, 2016 12:28 PM
So now David Axelrod suggests Hillary should drop out of third debate scheduled for Wednesday,
blames Trump's call for drug test!
And Drudge says Hillary about to be very publicly finally forced out of the closet! Payback
for going after Trump's supposed kissy-kissy feely-feely thing.
Methinks it all may be a bit more than she has the strength and/or willingness to bear this
Wednesday.
Here's what the Clinton Staff say about Chelsea:
"..the apple doesn't fall far. A kiss on the cheek while she's sticking a knife in the back, and the front."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cu5G4KNVYAA9yw9.jpg
And here's Posdesta's racist remark about white people when he found out the San Bernadino
shooter was Muslim
WOW! Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein is on fire! After previously blasting Hillary
Clinton, accusing her of basically being a scary psychopath who "would start World War 3 with
Russia", Jill is now warning liberal progressives not to throw away their vote by supporting
corporatist Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton because she is a "two faced public and private
position, corporatist who takes Wall Street special interest big donor money, traitor who would
betray you, a crook who controls the media, a monster and your votes would be wasted on her" in
what is basically a summary of what Jill Stein said.
"Don't waste your vote on corporate Democrats. #InvestYourVote," Stein wrote on Twitter on
Wednesday:
"If Trump's campaign is flailing, does a "spoiler" vote even exist anymore? Don't waste your vote
on corporate Democrats."
Stein then retweeted a statement from the Green Party's official Twitter account which read,
"It's time to #InvestYourVote in building a people's party – not waste your vote on corporate
party candidates that continue to betray you."
"Unlike the Democrats and Republicans, we don't cuddle up to Wall Street and special interests
with our 'public' and 'private' positions," Stein added in a separate tweet, referring to the
recent WikiLeaks revelation that Hillary Clinton said that politicians need to have "both a
public and private position" on every issue:
"Unlike the Democrats and Republicans, we don't cuddle up to Wall Street and special interests
with our "public" and "private" positions."
she's right the Republicans are in the same boat! People like Paul Ryan, John McCain, there's
no doubt about it, they are just as corrupt as the Democrats. Its only Donald Trump himself who
is not bound to any Wall Street special interests and who doesn't accept donations from big
banks, but other Republicans are just as corrupt as your average Democrats. That's why GOP elites
are not endorsing Trump. Trump himself is also at war with the GOP establishment.
Stein observed that "corporations were originally chartered to serve the public good, but they've
become monsters that dominate our government."
Stein has previously explained that the liberal progressive agenda–on health care, crime, climate
change, trade, etc.– cannot be accomplished under a corporatist like Hillary Clinton. Stein
argued that a Clinton presidency will simply be the continuation of the policies supported by
Washington's "uniparty," which is controlled by special interest donors–and will not in any way
advance the goals of liberal progressives.
Seeming to borrow Trump's moniker for Clinton, Stein also attacked DNC chair Donna Brazile for
her "crooked" behavior– providing Clinton's campaign with a question in advance for a town hall
as Clinton was trying to defeat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary:
"Invest your vote in a movement party, not in more crooked behavior from the Democrats!
PodestaEmails4 http://thehill.com/media/300427-emails-donna-brazile-gave-town-hall-questions-to-clinton-camp-in-advance
"
Stein is a Harvard Medical School graduate, a mother to two sons, and a practicing physician, who
became an environmental-health activist and organizer in the late 1990s. As the Green Party's
2012 presidential candidate, Stein holds the record for the most votes ever received by a female
candidate for president in a general election.
While third party Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has received quite a bit of media attention
throughout this election, Stein said that she has experienced a virtual media blackout. Stein
urged supporters to help her "#BreakTheBlackout from corporate media."
Stein suggested that the reason for the media blackout stems is because she is an effective
messenger against Washington's "uniparty."
"I debated @MittRomney in 2002 and was declared the winner by viewers. After that they locked me
out of the debates," Stein tweeted. "The Democratic and Republican candidates + @GovGaryJohnson
refuse to debate me because they're scared. #OccupyTheDebate":
"Help us #BreakTheBlackout from corporate media – go to http://Jill2016.com and sign up to join
our team! #GreenTownHall"
WOW! Her anti-Hillary rants have been really strong lately! Its nice to finally see someone else
take on the crooked Democrats with such anger. Seeing Trump doing all the ranting all by himself
is really nice but now its even better. Perhaps the two should meet and discuss some sort of
alliance. Jill Stein could be an effective messenger to the Bernie voters. Perhaps Trump could
make her the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency or something, since she's
Green.
In exchange Jill should of course drop out and ask her 2% voter base to vote Trump. She should
also keep bashing the Democrats and target Bernie Sanders's people to vote Trump. Wouldn't be
such a bad idea, wouldn't it??
The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice,
with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously
believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.
The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said Obama appointee FBI Director James Comey's dramatic July
5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General's office that the former secretary of state be charged left members
of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys
from the DOJ's National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.
"No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute - it was a top-down decision,"
said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.
A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, "It was unanimous that we all
wanted her [Clinton's] security clearance yanked."
"It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted," the senior FBI official told Fox News. "We were floored while
listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said 'but we are doing nothing,' which made no sense to us."
The FBI declined to comment directly, but instead referred Fox News to multiple public statements Comey has made in which he has
thrown water on the idea that politics played a role in the agency's decision not to recommend charges.
Among the latest, ninth round of Podesta email releases by Wikileaks this morning,
is a July 31, 2015 email
by Hillary Clinton's National Press Secretary Brian Fallon who lays out the agenda
for the day's rollout of Clinton's tax record and, more importantly, Hillary's
"excellent health" medical statement, where once again the media, listed as "AP,
Politico, WSJ, WaPo, etc" is exposed as coordinating and colluding with the campaign to
send a message that Hillary is in great health.
In the email written in the early
hours on Friday, Fallon writes that in the "rollout plan" for that same day, the
campaign will "Pitch the first round of stories to the travelling press corps (AP,
Politico, WSJ, WaPo, etc) with a 2 pm embargo."
He goes on to say that for these stories "we will provide the full text of HRC's
physician's letter, summarizing that she is in excellent health and is medically fit to
perform the duties of President. We will push that she is the FIRST presidential
candidate to release this info."
In further evidence of the prepared media narrative, Fallon points out that "we
expect the stories that pop at 2 pm to have headlines such as "CLINTON IN 'EXCELLENT
HEALTH,' MEDICAL RECORDS SAY" … "CLINTON RELEASES HEALTH REPORT."
... ... ...
* * *
The above takes places several months after a
March 2015 email exchange
in which campaign manager Mook wrote Podesta, asking if he had talked to Hillary
"about her taxes and health:, admitting that both topics are "hypersensitive" to her,
yet adding that "both are better dealt with very early so we control them--rather than
responding to calls for transparency."
* * *
And that is how Hillary's well-greased organization maintained the lid on her
health narrative from day one, and prevented it from sliding out of control in an
undesired direction by coordinating with the "friendly press." Of course, it was unable
to do so for too long, as we noted over the summer; at that point the Clinton campaign
would simply smear those non-compliant press as "alt-right" elements, or as has been the
case recently, invoke "Russian-support" elements and suggest it is one vast conspiracy,
at least until a video of Hillary collapsing on September 11 emerged and confirmed it
was all just "conspiracy fact."
Yes We Can. But...
•Oct 16, 2016 12:28 PM
So now David Axelrod suggests Hillary should drop out of third debate scheduled for
Wednesday, blames Trump's call for drug test!
And Drudge says Hillary about to be very publicly finally forced out of the closet! Payback
for going after Trump's supposed kissy-kissy feely-feely thing.
Methinks it all may be a bit more than she has the strength and/or willingness to bear this
Wednesday.
Groupinggate was essentially an attempt to distract votes from a more serious issue, especially
Hillary warmongering, her role in mass rape of women in Syria and Libya, and latest Podesta emails leaks.
This was a defensive strike with material that was specifically reserved for this purpose.
Notable quotes:
"... there are many more than two sides in Syria's civil war. First of all the civil war is not limited to Syria. ISIL, Hezbollah, and arguably Kurdish Rojava are belligerents not particularly invested in the borders of long defunct Mandate Syria. ..."
"... The rebel forces arrayed against or for Assad in any particular area are various in their motivations and political identities and they never divide neatly into two opposed camps. ..."
"... In short, you either support US violent regime change in the ME, or you do not. ..."
"... All who are voting for Hillary Clinton are voting for US violent regime change in Syria. That's been the stated policy of the Obama administration for some years, Hillary was played a key role in formulating that policy as Secretary of State. Now, as candidate for President she has explicitly promised more US violent regime change in Iraq. ..."
"... Violent regime change in Syria is the stated policy of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate most US members of the CT community plan to vote for in November. ..."
intervene in a civil war on the side of the rebels
I apologize if anyone feels I am harping on this too much, but there are many more than
two sides in Syria's civil war. First of all the civil war is not limited to Syria. ISIL, Hezbollah,
and arguably Kurdish Rojava are belligerents not particularly invested in the borders of long
defunct Mandate Syria.
The rebel forces arrayed against or for Assad in any particular area are various in their
motivations and political identities and they never divide neatly into two opposed camps.
kidneystones 10.15.16 at 8:06 am
@ 190 There aren't many times you're this wrong, Bruce. There are only two sides. The side that
holds a UN seat; votes or abstains on UN resolutions; borrows or does not borrow from the World
Bank; has the authority to sign, or abrogate international treaties along, for example, the Golan
heights – and the forces not aligned with the government.
The CT community evidently wants to 'confuse itself' and the issues. You are either in favor
of the US using US military power to unilaterally intercede in a civil war against the Assad government,
which as you and Peter T note, is inextricably linked to Iraq and other regional disputes, or
you oppose the unilateral use of US military power to topple governments in the ME.
In short, you either support US violent regime change in the ME, or you do not.
All who are voting for Hillary Clinton are voting for US violent regime change in Syria.
That's been the stated policy of the Obama administration for some years, Hillary was played a
key role in formulating that policy as Secretary of State. Now, as candidate for President she
has explicitly promised more US violent regime change in Iraq.
Violent regime change in Syria is the stated policy of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic
candidate most US members of the CT community plan to vote for in November.
"... Regarding Clinton, the revelation was the latest batch of WikiLeaks disclosures. It included excerpts of her speeches before Wall Street audiences, which she had refused to make public. Now we know why. They show her making nice-nice with her billionaire benefactors-no surprise there. After all, they paid her a standard fee of $225,000 per speech, for 92 speeches between 2013 and 2015, earning her $21.6 million in less than two years. How many of us could resist being nice-nice to nice people like that? ..."
"... Stop the presses! Trump is a misogynist! ..."
"... Friends of mine know that I am no fan, at all, of Ted Cruz. But he is the only person I've seen so far, before the second debate, who has stated the obvious. He tweeted: "NBC had tape 11 yrs. Apprentice producer says they have more & worse. So why not release in 2015? In March? Why wait till October? #MSMBias" ..."
"... As the saying goes, "Give me a break!" Presidents like Kennedy and Clinton did more than talk about groping women, they practiced it-and worse. But now people who voted for, or defended, these Presidents-and other politicians like the woman-killing Ted Kennedy-can strike poses of shock and horror at Trump's words. Politically correct philanderers and models of progressive sexual attitudes like Arnold Schwarzenegger can refuse to endorse the scoundrel. Politics is indeed a hothouse of fertilizer for hypocrisy. ..."
"... The difference in this debate, however, is that Trump fought back with passion, limiting her advantage with both zingers and policy contrasts. His policy positions are muddled, but hers are disingenuous at best. And with the possible exception of college and high-school debate contests, debates are rarely won on points. They are won with passion and-especially in the case of presidential debates-how you motivate your backers. And here Trump won the debate hands-down. ..."
"... Above all, we must remember that the election is mostly bread and circuses to distract us from issues that aren't being discussed-the disposition of over $150 trillion in sovereign state debt, the largest bubble in the history of the world; how our own $20 trillion in debt is exploding at a rate that is unsustainable; the role of the Deep State in making the concept of "democracy" a joke; and how the neocons' (Hillary included) policy of perpetual war is threatening us not only with national bankruptcy but the risk of a nuclear World War III. As Mark Twain or Emma Goldman said (take your pick as to who the real author was), "If voting made a difference, they wouldn't let us do it." ..."
Regarding Clinton, the revelation was the latest batch of WikiLeaks disclosures. It included
excerpts of her speeches before Wall Street audiences, which she had refused to make public. Now
we know why. They show her making nice-nice with her billionaire benefactors-no surprise there. After
all, they paid her a standard fee of $225,000 per speech, for 92 speeches between 2013 and 2015,
earning her $21.6 million in less than two years. How many of us could resist being nice-nice to
nice people like that?
But the excerpts from her speeches also show her saying she is for "open borders," which will
not endear her to the majority of American voters. They show her admitting she often has a private
position on issues (one satisfactory to her benefactors) different from her public position on those
issues, which does nothing to repair her reputation as a liar (though it could not have come as a
surprise to her benefactors, who are used to paying off two-faced politicians).
These and other revelations were potentially damning to Clinton's chances in a deadlocked race,
so the leftist media did what it had to do under the circumstances: it ignored the Clinton revelations
and went unhinged on the Trump "revelation." As a result, about the only place in the mainstream
media where you will find discussion of the Clinton speeches is Fox News. Thankfully, as many people
watch that cable news network as watch its two competitors combined, that is, the Clinton News Network
(CNN) and MSDNC.
Stop the presses! Trump is a misogynist!
... ... ...
Friends of mine know that I am no fan, at all, of Ted Cruz. But he is the only person I've
seen so far, before the second debate, who has stated the obvious. He tweeted: "NBC had tape 11 yrs.
Apprentice producer says they have more & worse. So why not release in 2015? In March? Why wait till
October? #MSMBias"
... ... ...
As the saying goes, "Give me a break!" Presidents like Kennedy and Clinton did more than talk
about groping women, they practiced it-and worse. But now people who voted for, or defended, these
Presidents-and other politicians like the woman-killing Ted Kennedy-can strike poses of shock and
horror at Trump's words. Politically correct philanderers and models of progressive sexual attitudes
like Arnold Schwarzenegger can refuse to endorse the scoundrel. Politics is indeed a hothouse of
fertilizer for hypocrisy.
... ... ...
Hillary Clinton will always be able to out-point Donald Trump on policy matters. That is the advantage
of being a politician for more than 30 years. "Slick Willie" has now been supplanted by slick Hillary.
But most Americans expected that.
The difference in this debate, however, is that Trump fought back with passion, limiting her
advantage with both zingers and policy contrasts. His policy positions are muddled, but hers are
disingenuous at best. And with the possible exception of college and high-school debate contests,
debates are rarely won on points. They are won with passion and-especially in the case of presidential
debates-how you motivate your backers. And here Trump won the debate hands-down.
... ... ...
Above all, we must remember that the election is mostly bread and circuses to distract us from
issues that aren't being discussed-the disposition of over $150 trillion in sovereign state debt,
the largest bubble in the history of the world; how our own $20 trillion in debt is exploding at
a rate that is unsustainable; the role of the Deep State in making the concept of "democracy" a joke;
and how the neocons' (Hillary included) policy of perpetual war is threatening us not only with national
bankruptcy but the risk of a nuclear World War III. As Mark Twain or Emma Goldman said (take your
pick as to who the real author was), "If voting made a difference, they wouldn't let us do it."
David Franke was a founder of the conservative movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
He is currently writing his magnum opus on the trajectory of conservatism and American politics during
his lifetime.
"... I don't buy the left neoliberal hysteria over Trump as the scariest reactionary dude evah. I think that's just to prevent the dissatisfaction that Trump has tapped into blending with the dissatisfaction Sanders tapped into. ..."
"... And, I tend to think that strategy has been successful in keeping the left v right neoliberal monopoly of power intact. The Republicans may take a hit, but it will only result in a slight shuffling among the seats of power. The left neoliberals will keep the right neoliberal seats warm for them. ymmv ..."
"... This really is another post 9/11 moment for the chattering classes. All their claims of expertise, clear eyed analysis, logic above emotion, has come crashing down around their hysterical, emotion driven response to the current political situation. There is, at this stage, basically zero willingness among these groups to do their Job of explaining the world, all they want to achieve is a combination of political signalling and intense personal satisfaction. ..."
"... The best analyses I've read were a couple of essays from 2015 comparing Trump to Berlusconi. Those interested will need to insert 2015 into the search string to skip past the more breathless 2016 versions. The 2015 essays are largely free of tbe breathless need to stop Trump cold that mar 2016 comparisons. ..."
"... middle-class unhappy with the rapine corruption and self-serving nature of the elites. ..."
"... The problem is that Trump is an entertainer/marketer and his product is him. Van Jones remains the single best pundit on Trump because Jones understands that the elections are about stagecraft, more than politics. ..."
"... the college-educated white new middle class (professionals and managers), is approximately 30 percent of the population, but are overrepresented, at 40 percent, among Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, the median household income of Trump voters is around $70,000 annually. ..."
"... More importantly, the category "non-college educated whites" includes both wage workers and the self-employed - the traditional middle class. The Economist found that "better-paid and better-educated voters have always formed as big a part of Mr. Trump's base as those at the lower end of the scale for income and education." ..."
"... 'I don't know, so I assume' is kind of the defining characteristic of reactions to the Trump Candidacy. Maybe he will, continue with neoliberalism. Or maybe he will go full communism now, or perhaps at least anti-imperialism, as one prolific poster here repeatedly claims. It all depends on which 10% of his statements you believe are not lies, and what you project into the gap left by the rest. ..."
"... But it could equally plausibly lead to a stable regime that would have European political scientists in lively debate as to whether or not it is most accurately called fascist. ..."
"... Clearly, Trump's right-wing opposition to neoliberal trade and tax policies resonates with a minority of older, white workers, including a minority of union members." ..."
"... these sectors have experiencing declining living standards and are fearful about their children's prospects of remaining in the middle class." ..."
"... The developments of late capitalism have to do with the transition of these decisions from the elite capitalist class as such to a group of managers. These managers can not and do not go against the traditional interests of capital as such. But their decisions characteristically favor their class in ways that a traditional class analysis can not fathom, and their ideology appeals to a group variously called "professionals", "technocrats", "the 10%" etc. who more broadly control the levers of power in society. ..."
"... The managerial class operates a world system - the system of trade agreements, monetary agreements, etc. This system keeps the world economy going as it is going through the cooperation of American economists, Eurocrat bureaucratic appointees, Chinese Communist Party higher-ups, important people in the financial industry (whether bankers or at central banks), CEOs of multinationals, and even the leaders of important NGOs. These interactions are observable and not a matter of conspiracy theory. ..."
soru: "Precisely because it is not left neoliberalism versus right neoliberalism, but left
neoliberalism versus something that is:
a: worse b: a predictable consequence of neoliberalism.
I think there is something to the thesis that Trump ripped the scab off the place where Luttwak's
"perfect non-sequitur" had rubbed the skin off the connection between the tax-cut loving Republican
establishment leadership and the Republican electoral base of male reactionary ignoramuses.
But, I don't know what actual policy follows from Trump_vs_deep_state, if not Mike Pence brand right neoliberalism.
A little light flavoring of theocracy on the tax cuts in other words.
I don't buy the left neoliberal hysteria over Trump as the scariest reactionary dude evah.
I think that's just to prevent the dissatisfaction that Trump has tapped into blending with the
dissatisfaction Sanders tapped into.
And, I tend to think that strategy has been successful in keeping the left v right neoliberal
monopoly of power intact. The Republicans may take a hit, but it will only result in a slight
shuffling among the seats of power. The left neoliberals will keep the right neoliberal seats
warm for them. ymmv
" The national polls (though not so much the state polls) were off in 2012. During the closing
month of the campaign, they showed, on average, a 0.3 point Romney lead. The RAND poll [LA Times],
by contrast, showed a 3.8 point Obama lead – which was almost exactly correct."
Sean Trende throws a big bucket of salt on the LA Times poll, before getting to the accuracy
of the poll in 2012.
This really is another post 9/11 moment for the chattering classes. All their claims of expertise,
clear eyed analysis, logic above emotion, has come crashing down around their hysterical, emotion
driven response to the current political situation. There is, at this stage, basically zero willingness
among these groups to do their Job of explaining the world, all they want to achieve is a combination
of political signalling and intense personal satisfaction.
@208 I generally agree. Thanks for the link to the Nation piece. I earlier skimmed this Guardian
piece by JJ which features an extended essay from the reviewed text. John has been beating this
drum for more than a year trying to wear his two hats: partisan Dem and serious social critic.
The first serious undermines the second.
The best analyses I've read were a couple of essays from 2015 comparing Trump to Berlusconi.
Those interested will need to insert 2015 into the search string to skip past the more breathless
2016 versions. The 2015 essays are largely free of tbe breathless need to stop Trump cold that
mar 2016 comparisons.
The Judis essay marries Trump too closely to George Wallace, another populist, but critically
also a professional politician, a Democrat, and a New Dealer.
Judis has a good quote, or two, from Wallace that definitely fit the Tea Party/Silent Majority
profile – rule followers, middle-class unhappy with the rapine corruption and self-serving
nature of the elites.
The problem is that Trump is an entertainer/marketer and his product is him. Van Jones
remains the single best pundit on Trump because Jones understands that the elections are about
stagecraft, more than politics. Both the Nation and the Guardian piece function as much as
thinly disguised GOTV arguments as academic assessments of the Trump phenomena.
What both get right, along with many others, is that removing Trump from the equation removes
nothing from the masses of ordinary folks who a/will not apologize for who they are and in fact
celebrate themselves and their values b/aren't interested in the approval, or the explications
of elites c/are completely determined to burn down this mess irrespective of whether Trump is
elected, or not.
Thanks for the link kidneystones, I'll check.it out. I'm working through Judis' book at the moment
and find larger parts, of it convincing.
Who. Is van Jones? Is it this lad?
…while approximately 55 percent of Trump supporters do not have a bachelor's degree, this
demographic makes up approximately 70 percent of the US population - they are underrepresented
among Trump voters. However, the college-educated white new middle class (professionals
and managers), is approximately 30 percent of the population, but are overrepresented, at 40
percent, among Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, the median household income of Trump voters
is around $70,000 annually.
More importantly, the category "non-college educated whites" includes both wage workers
and the self-employed - the traditional middle class. The Economist found that "better-paid
and better-educated voters have always formed as big a part of Mr. Trump's base as those at
the lower end of the scale for income and education."
A systematic review of Gallup polling data demonstrates, again, that most Trump supporters
are part of the traditional middle class (self-employed) and those sectors of the new middle
class (supervisors) who do not require college degrees. They tend to live in "white enclaves"…
Kidney stones I'll check out the link above when by a laptop.
Personally I don't know how j feel about the managerial class argument (I still have to read
both Hayes and Frank ) but it's becoming quite clear that large parts of the left and right "establishment"
(which is just a shorthand way of saying those with high profile journalistic, political and cultural
positions) are going out of their way to not acknowledge what is right in from of their eyes,
that there are political and economic (as well as racial and cultural) reasons behind the rise
of right wing populism.
> But, I don't know what actual policy follows from Trump_vs_deep_state, if not Mike Pence brand right neoliberalism.
'I don't know, so I assume' is kind of the defining characteristic of reactions to the
Trump Candidacy. Maybe he will, continue with neoliberalism. Or maybe he will go full communism
now, or perhaps at least anti-imperialism, as one prolific poster here repeatedly claims. It all
depends on which 10% of his statements you believe are not lies, and what you project into the
gap left by the rest.
If he was elected, things would be different from what they are, or at least are understood
to be. And things being different, they would continue to be so, taking a different path from
the continuation of a status quo. My personal evidence-free assumption is that this would likely
take the nature of a decade-long crisis that would end with a return to a weakened version of
the pre-Trump regime. A pale echo of the rosy days of Obama, Bush and Clinton.
But it could equally plausibly lead to a stable regime that would have European political
scientists in lively debate as to whether or not it is most accurately called fascist.
For those not wager to read the link, here are the bits engels cut. From the beginning.
"Who are Trump's voters? Despite claims that he has won the "white working class," the vast
majority of Trump's supporters, like those of the Tea Party, are drawn from the traditional
and new middle classes, especially the older, white male and less well-off strata of these
classes. Clearly, Trump's right-wing opposition to neoliberal trade and tax policies resonates
with a minority of older, white workers, including a minority of union members."
And after enclave
"isolated from immigrants and other people of color, have worse health than the average
US resident, and are experiencing low rates of intergenerational mobility. While not directly
affected either by the decline of industry in the Midwest or by immigration, these sectors
have experiencing declining living standards and are fearful about their children's prospects
of remaining in the middle class."
Roman, I already said I broadly agreed with you (is it the case you literally zzzzzzzzzzz)- I'm
delighted that via Luttwak you're groping towards a class analysis of fascism that has been standard
on the left since at least Trotsky…
Ronan(rf): "Personally I don't know how j feel about the managerial class argument"
There are certain decision makers who make all of the important decisions, or who at least
get a tremendously inordinate amount of power over those decisions. If they aren't making a decision
in a positive sense, their power often controls decisions in a negative sense by restricting the
available choices to those that are all acceptable to them.
The developments of late capitalism have to do with the transition of these decisions from
the elite capitalist class as such to a group of managers. These managers can not and do not go
against the traditional interests of capital as such. But their decisions characteristically favor
their class in ways that a traditional class analysis can not fathom, and their ideology appeals
to a group variously called "professionals", "technocrats", "the 10%" etc. who more broadly control
the levers of power in society.
The managerial class operates a world system - the system of trade agreements, monetary
agreements, etc. This system keeps the world economy going as it is going through the cooperation
of American economists, Eurocrat bureaucratic appointees, Chinese Communist Party higher-ups,
important people in the financial industry (whether bankers or at central banks), CEOs of multinationals,
and even the leaders of important NGOs. These interactions are observable and not a matter of
conspiracy theory.
"... "deep state" - the Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you think ..."
"... Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. ..."
"... Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ..."
Steve Sailer links to this
unsettling
essay by former career Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, who says the "deep state" - the
Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you
think. The partisan rancor and gridlock in Washington conceals a more fundamental and pervasive
agreement.
Excerpts:
These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they
tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over
the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United
States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya,
and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert
assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing
meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government
was somehow able to commit $115 millionto keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay
at least
£100m to the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over
and access to that country's intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways
have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During
that same period of time, the government spent
$1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This
mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a
yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined.
A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive
every single trace of your electronic life.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country
according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled
by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not
an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain
sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately
termed an "establishment." All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed
to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global
reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither
omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister
aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such
as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness
towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent
ineptitude.
More:
Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it
is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes.
One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating
as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the
status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember
their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity.
On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: "I am concerned that the size of some of
these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when
we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will
have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy." This, from the
chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically
abolished the constitutional right to
trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall
Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason
than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative
beyond the dreams of avarice - certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.
[3]
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities
we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert
Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic
involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General
David Petraeus
joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity
firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance.
General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however,
is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State
do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident
senior fellow at theBelfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the
preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.
Lofgren goes on to say that Silicon Valley is a node of the Deep State too, and that despite the
protestations of its chieftains against NSA spying, it's a vital part of the Deep State's apparatus.
More:
The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war
on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of
a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the
Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited
by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live
upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face."
... I would love to see a study comparing the press coverage from 9/11 leading up to the Iraq War
with press coverage of the gay marriage issue from about 2006 till today. Specifically, I'd be curious
to know about how thoroughly the media covered the cases against the policies that the Deep State
and the Shallow State decided should prevail. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy here, not at all. I'm
only thinking back to how it seemed so obvious to me in 2002 that we should go to war with Iraq,
so perfectly clear that the only people who opposed it were fools or villains. The same consensus
has emerged around same-sex marriage. I know how overwhelmingly the news media have believed this
for some time, such that many American journalists simply cannot conceive that anyone against same-sex
marriage is anything other than a fool or a villain. Again, this isn't a conspiracy; it's in the
nature of the thing. Lofgren:
Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist
Irving L. Janis called
"groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers.
This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating
biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the
town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has
to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe
of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always
going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness
of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. Government
life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the
Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00 in
the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life
is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist. After
a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite
remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles
off steel plate: "You mean the
number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious
retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine
sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase
the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew, at least until I had had a couple
of years away from the government to reflect upon it.
When all you know is the people who surround you in your professional class bubble and your social
circles, you can think the whole world agrees with you, or should. It's probably not a coincidence
that the American media elite live, work, and socialize in New York and Washington, the two cities
that were attacked on 9/11, and whose elites - political, military, financial - were so genuinely
traumatized by the events.
Anyway, that's just a small part of it, about how the elite media manufacture consent. Here's
a final quote, one from
the Moyers interview with Lofgren:
BILL MOYERS: If, as you write, the ideology of the Deep State is not democrat
or republican, not left or right, what is it?
MIKE LOFGREN: It's an ideology. I just don't think we've named it. It's a
kind of corporatism. Now, the actors in this drama tend to steer clear of social issues. They
pretend to be merrily neutral servants of the state, giving the best advice possible on national
security or financial matters. But they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus
at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization. And they
believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is boots on the ground everywhere, it's our right
to meddle everywhere in the world. And the result of that is perpetual war.
This can't last. We'd better hope it can't last. And we'd better hope it unwinds peacefully.
"... I would not precisely characterize the recognizable pattern of American choices and strategies - that is, of American policy - as that of "an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony" without further qualification. I would say the pattern is that of a global hegemon approaching imperial collapse. There are important differences, with immediate relevance. ..."
"... When commenters decry the failure to observe the norms of international law, they are not just being moralists in an immoral world; they are decrying the erosion of international order, an erosion that has been accelerated by the U.S. turn toward futile expedience as a foreign policy justified by groundless self-righteousness. ..."
"... And, the R2P doctrine has been ruined not just by hypocrisy but by the demonstrated incapacity to match means to putative ends. It is not just suspicious that the impulse to humanitarianism emerges only when an opportunity to blow things up arises, it's criminal. Or should be. (sarcasm) But, of course, it is not criminal, because atrocities are only a problem when it is the other guy committing them. Then, we can exercise our righteousness for the good, old cause. (end sarcasm) ..."
"... This chaos, I repeat, is inherent in the organization of U.S. policy - it is an observable pattern, not a property by axiomatic definition as your strawman would have it, but it is very worrisome. It is a symptom of what I rather dramatically labeled "imperial collapse". That the next President of the U.S. cannot work out why a no-fly zone in a country where the Russians are flying might be a bad idea is not a good sign. That the same person was a proponent of the policy that plunged Libya into chaos is another not-good sign. That's not an argument for Trump; it is an argument that Trump is another symptom. ..."
Dropping the heavy mockery for a moment to get at the logic of my view:
I think that if Y wants to stop Z from happening, Y might consider as a first expedient, self-restraint:
not doing Z, itself. That is, discipling its own forces and reforming its own strategies, when
it finds itself either doing Z or creating the conditions where Z happens.
Your strawman summation of my view is actually not half-bad:
. . . we know a priori that X [the U.S.] cannot act without committing war crimes because X
[the U.S.] is an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony, therefore any employment
of any military force in any way by X [the U.S.] anywhere necessarily constitutes a war crime,
because every aspect of X's [the U.S.'s] foreign policy is criminal and therefore every act
taken by X is criminal.
What makes this a strawman is the "we know a priori ". I don't think we know this
a priori . I think we know this, a posteriori , that is, from ample recent experience
and observation. I think there's a pattern of choice and strategy that we ought to recognize and,
if we recognize it, there might actually be an opportunity to choose differently and realize less
horrific consequences.
I would not precisely characterize the recognizable pattern of American choices and strategies
- that is, of American policy - as that of "an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony"
without further qualification. I would say the pattern is that of a global hegemon approaching
imperial collapse. There are important differences, with immediate relevance.
A global hegemon in its prime is all about reducing the risks and costs of armed conflicts
and coordinating the cooperation of allied, nominally neutral and even rival states with the elaboration
of international law, norms, conventions and other agreements. The U.S. in its prime as global
hegemon was all about sponsoring the formation of organizations for global and regional multilateral
cooperation, even where its direct participation was not welcome. It is true that the political
autonomy of states was respected only to the extent that they adopted sufficiently reactionary
and economically conservative or authoritarian governments and the political costs to any other
course could be large. Back in the day, a Gaddafi or an Assad or a Saddam had to balance on an
international tightrope as well as a domestic one, but it was doable and such regimes could last
a long-time. Anyway, I do not want to litigate the mixed virtues and vices of (Anglo-)American
hegemony past, just to point out the contrast with our present circumstances.
The turn toward a palsied expedience is a distinct symptom of impending imperial collapse.
That the U.S. cannot seem to win a war or bring one to a conclusion in any finite period of time
is relevant. That a vast "deep state" is running on auto-pilot with no informed instruction or
policy control from Congress is a problem.
When commenters decry the failure to observe the norms of international law, they are not
just being moralists in an immoral world; they are decrying the erosion of international order,
an erosion that has been accelerated by the U.S. turn toward futile expedience as a foreign policy
justified by groundless self-righteousness.
"It's complicated" shouldn't be a preface to ungrounded simplification and just rounding up
the usual policy suspects: let's declare a no-fly zone, then find and train some moderate faction
of fierce fighters for liberal democracy (as if such exist). If we demonstrate the will and commitment
and stay the course . . . blah, blah, blah.
And, the R2P doctrine has been ruined not just by hypocrisy but by the demonstrated incapacity
to match means to putative ends. It is not just suspicious that the impulse to humanitarianism
emerges only when an opportunity to blow things up arises, it's criminal. Or should be. (sarcasm)
But, of course, it is not criminal, because atrocities are only a problem when it is the other
guy committing them. Then, we can exercise our righteousness for the good, old cause. (end sarcasm)
The situation in Syria is chaotic, but the chaos is in U.S. policy as well as on the ground.
But, the immediate question is not whether the U.S. will intervene, because, as other commenters
have pointed out, the U.S. has already involved itself quite deeply. The creation of ISIS, one
belligerent in the Syrian conflict is directly attributable to the failure of U.S. policy in Iraq
and the U.S. is actively attacking ISIS directly in Syrian as well as Iraqi territory. The U.S.
provides military support to multiple factions, including both Turkish-backed forces and the forces
of a Kurdish belligerent, which are in conflict with each other. Meanwhile, our great good allies,
the Saudis and Qataris are apparently funding Al Qaeda in Syria and maybe ISIS as well.
This chaos, I repeat, is inherent in the organization of U.S. policy - it is an observable
pattern, not a property by axiomatic definition as your strawman would have it, but it is very
worrisome. It is a symptom of what I rather dramatically labeled "imperial collapse". That the
next President of the U.S. cannot work out why a no-fly zone in a country where the Russians are
flying might be a bad idea is not a good sign. That the same person was a proponent of the policy
that plunged Libya into chaos is another not-good sign. That's not an argument for Trump;
it is an argument that Trump is another symptom.
The chaos, the breakdown of rational, deliberate and purposive control of policy, means that
policy and its rationales are often absurd. I mock the absurdity as a way of drawing attention
to it. Others seek to normalize. So, there you have it.
LFC: We do have Bruce Wilder mocking the notion that the Russians hacked into the DNC
email. Cyber specialists think it was the Russians to a 90 percent certainty, but of
course Wilder knows better. Anyway, who cares whether the Russians hacked the *******
email?
Most establishment news reporting has taken note that no evidence has been offered by
the U.S. officials making the attribution.
It looks like LFC is completely clueless about such notion as Occam's razor.
Why we need all those insinuations about Russian hackers when we know that all email boxes in
major Web mail providers are just a click away from NSA analysts.
Why Russians and not something like "Snowden II".
And what exactly Russians will get politically by torpedoing Hillary candidacy. They
probably have tons of "compromat" on her, Bill and Clinton Foundation. Trump stance on Iran is
no less dangerous and jingoistic then Hillary stance on Syria. Aggressive protectionism might
hurt Russian exports. And as for Syria, Trump can turn on a dime and became a second John
McCain anytime. Other then his idea of avoiding foreign military presence (or more correctly
that allies should pay for it) and anti-globalization stance he does not have a fixed set of
policies at all.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the
country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only
intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of
this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a
state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day.
Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment." All complex
societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and
perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the
American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither
omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly
sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its
failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only
the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to
escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.
In view of all this, LFC anti-Russian stance looks extremely naïve and/or represents
displaced anti-Semitism.
In a way Hillary laments about Russia interference are
what is typically called "The pot calling the kettle black" as she is exactly the specialist
in this area. BTW there is a documented history of the US interference into Russian elections
of 2011-2012.
In which Hillary (via ambassador McFaul and the net of NGOs) was trying to stage a "color
revolution" (nicknamed "white revolution") in Russia and prevent the re-election of Putin. The
main instrument was claiming the fraud in ballot counting.
Can you imagine the reaction if Russian ambassador invited Trump and Sanders to the embassy
and offered full and unconditional support for their noble cause of dislodging the corrupt
neoliberal regime that exists in Washington. With cash injections to breitbart.com, similar
sites, and especially organizations that conduct polls after that.
And RT covered staged revelations of "Hillary campaign corruption" 24 x 7. As was done by
Western MSM in regard to Alexei Navalny web site and him personally as the savior of Russia
from entrenched corruption (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny )
Actually the USA has several organizations explicitly oriented on interference in foreign
elections and promotion of "color revolutions", with functions that partially displaced old
functions of CIA (as in Italian elections of 1948). For example, NED.
Why Russia can't have something similar to help struggling American people to have more
honest elections despite all the blatantly undemocratic mechanisms of "first to the post",
primaries, state based counting of votes, and the United States Electoral College ?
It would be really funny if Russians really resorted to color revolution tricks in the
current presidential elections :-)
Here is a quote that can navigate them in right direction (note the irony of her words
after DNC throw Sanders under the bus ;-)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called "troubling
practices" before and during the vote in Russia. "The Russian people, like people
everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," she said
in Bonn, Germany.
With 99.9 percent of ballots processed, election officials said that United Russia had
won 238 seats in Parliament, or about 53 percent, from 315 seats or 70 percent now. The
Communist Party won 92 seats; Just Russia, a social democratic party, won 64 seats and the
national Liberal Democratic Party won 56 seats.
Rich Puchalsky 10.16.16 at 9:26 pm
LFC: "Would a multilateral action - not unilateral by the U.S. alone, but multilateral -
undertaken in response to, e.g., the current situation in Aleppo necessarily violate
international law if it lacked UN sanction?"
This would be a kind of coalition - only of willing countries, of course - maybe we could
call it something catchy, like The Willing Coalition. Are we allowed to bring up recent history
at all, or does that make us America haters? It's strange how these hard cases just keep coming
up. Alternatively, we could go for Reset Theory. We need to look forwards instead of looking
backwards.
So let's avoid recent history, and just go to ancient history, like that long-outmoded relic,
the Security Council. I'd had some vague impression that the chance of military conflict between
Security Council members was supposed to be Very Very Bad and by definition worse than any other
result, so much so a lot of the legalities that you're casually thinking of writing into the law
books later were intended to prevent exactly the kinds of situations that you're proposing, in
which members of the Security Council started to think about gathering coalitions to shoot down
each other's planes.
But I'm a crazy anarchist, and you're an international affairs expert. So why don't you tell me.
Donald Trump's solid core of support comes from white working-class America. As the
blue-collar voter has become central to the political conversation, a clear picture of who we're
talking about has emerged: He's likely male and disillusioned with the economy and loss of
industry. He's a coal miner that's been
laid off in Hazard, Kentucky, and is scraping by off his wife's income; a machinists' union
member in a Pennsylvania steel town who
says "a guy like Donald Trump, he's pushing for change." Through the campaign, we've seen
endless portraits of Trump support in the heart of
Appalachian coal country, and a recent spate of books documents
white working-class alienation and the history of the
white underclass in America. Trump's iron grip on the support of blue-collar white Americans
has been one of the most striking threads of his unprecedented campaign.
... ... ...
...Thomas Frank, who recently published
Listen, Liberal, about the Democratic Party's abandonment of the working class and
Robert Reich, public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley and former
secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. They
both have outlined a
series of Democratic moves to elevate free trade and an inability to defend unions as proof that
Democrats created a platform that left no room for the white working class.
Marginalized for years without working-class candidates or elected officials, "the white
working class found their voice in Trump," says Justin Gest, assistant professor of public policy
at George Mason University and author of The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an
Age of Immigration and Inequality. "He speaks directly to conspiracy, frustration and a sense
of powerlessness, and they're grateful he speaks to them." Trump, too, has worked hard to burnish
his working-class cred,
telling a crowd in Pennsylvania on Tuesday that he considers himself "in a certain way to be
a blue-collar worker."
...In terms of the economy, white working-class women also differ from their male
counterparts. While manufacturing concerns and the white working class may be linked in our
cultural narrative (especially in Trump's campaign), the women were focused on different economic
concerns-in particular, the cost of higher education and preschooling.
.... Single women tend to lean to the left,and in recent years white working-class
marriage rates have fallen more sharply than those of their more educated and affluent
counterparts, who are more likely to delay marriage than not get married at all, according to
FiveThirtyEight's
analysis of
Census data. (Roughly 45 percent of white working-class women are unmarried, according to
GQRR's Nancy Zdunkewicz). In a June/July national survey by GQRR, white working-class womenput Trump 23 points ahead of Clinton in a three-way ballot, but when you looked at only
unmarried white non-college-educated women, that gap was only 11 percent-a preview, if current
trends continue, of a gap likely to grow in the future.
..For Democrats hoping to capitalize on this group, it's not obvious they can just
swoop in and grab alienated women. For one thing, white working-class women don't necessarily
trust Hillary Clinton any more than men do.
,,,For now, though, if Democrats continue bleeding white working-class men and women, the
party's white base will be mostly highly educated and white collar, a perhaps uncomfortable shift
for the so-called party of the people
Julia Sonenshein is California-born writer and editor living in New York City. Her work
focuses on social-political issues like reproductive rights, American gun culture and
intersectional feminism.
"... 'End of Growth' Sparks Wide Discontent By Alastair Crooke (October 14, 2016, consortiumnews): The global elites' false promise that neoliberal economics would cure all ills through the elixir of endless growth helps explain the angry nationalist movements ripping apart the West's politics. ..."
"... Yes, that would seem transparently obvious to anyone who doesn't have a vested interest in defending the neoliberal programme. ..."
"... The last thing that powerful elites and their court economists want to talk about is the relationship between an increasingly unequal distribution of income and wealth and the rise of ethnic nationalism...it might force the elites to do something about it. One would think that that would entail redistribution. Unfortunately, increasing militarization of the police seems to be a far cheaper solution...for the short term. ..."
"... The elites used religious, tribal and ethnic, conflict to keep a lid on the rabble for thousands of years. They are supremely comfortable with this, it's part of the toolbox. ..."
"... However I think they are overly complacent because it appears to me that in an industrial society such conflicts now involve a lot more than a few hundred peasants going after each other with random farm implements. ..."
"... The media is shocked -- just shocked -- that a foreign government would tamper with US elections...such behavior is supposed to be off limits to anyone but the CIA and National Endowment for Democracy or their deputies... ..."
"... I'm not sure that Putin has a preference. It may be enough for him to show that Russia can play the destabilization card as well as NED. Displaying the profound corruption of the US political system also serves to undermine the US abroad, since much of its standing is based on the myth of its taking the moral high ground. International elites will have a harder time garnering support for pro-US policies, if those policies are seen as morally bankrupt. ..."
"... Establishment economists are making excuses for slow growth and poor policy by pointing at things like demographics and technology. Excuse-making isn't going to stem the rising tide of ethnic nationalism. Thomas Friedman's Flat World is turning into Tribalistic World. ..."
"... Many of the "Rich" love to push the dialectics of "ethnic nationalism" where none is to be found in reality ..."
"... the pointless destruction of the manufacturing sector of Western economies because of their decision to have private banking systems and eschew tariffs - no surprises here folks ..."
"... Of course economy plus consequences of the state of the economy, i.e. many people being treated like shit, without recourse, except turning away from mainstream politics (which isn't much of a recourse usually). ..."
"... external factors are much more significant in determining success or lack of it than any personal virtues or failings the individual may have. It is not even luck. ..."
"... People do not blame the actual causes of their lack of success. Instead, they seek and find scapegoats. Most Trumpista have heard all their lives from people they respect that black and latino people unfairly get special treatment. That overrides the reality. ..."
"... The comment started with: "When things aren't going as you expect or want, people always have to find someone to blame... since the ego works to prevent you blaming yourself." ..."
In the United States, despite his attempts to woo minority voters, Donald J. Trump appears
to derive support from such sentiment. In Moscow, Vladimir V. Putin has used Russian nationalist
sentiment to inspire many of his countrymen. And we see growing ethnic political parties inspired
by national identity in countless other countries.
It is natural to ask whether something so broad might have a common cause, other than the obvious
circumstantial causes like the gradual fading of memories about the horrors of ethnic conflict
in World War II or the rise in this century of forms of violent ethnic terrorism.
Economics is my specialty, and I think economic factors may explain at least part of the trend.
...
'End of Growth' Sparks Wide Discontent By Alastair Crooke (October 14, 2016, consortiumnews):
The global elites' false promise that neoliberal economics would cure all ills through the elixir
of endless growth helps explain the angry nationalist movements ripping apart the West's politics.
The last thing that powerful elites and their court economists want to talk about is the relationship
between an increasingly unequal distribution of income and wealth and the rise of ethnic nationalism...it
might force the elites to do something about it. One would think that that would entail redistribution.
Unfortunately, increasing militarization of the police seems to be a far cheaper solution...for
the short term.
The elites used religious, tribal and ethnic, conflict to keep a lid on the rabble for thousands
of years. They are supremely comfortable with this, it's part of the toolbox.
However I think they are overly complacent because it appears to me that in an industrial
society such conflicts now involve a lot more than a few hundred peasants going after each other
with random farm implements.
The media is shocked -- just shocked -- that a foreign government would tamper with US
elections...such behavior is supposed to be off limits to anyone but the CIA and National Endowment
for Democracy or their deputies...
Paradoxically Pravda in old times did have real insights into the US political system and for
this reason was widely read by specialists. Especially materials published by the Institute
of the USA and Canada -- a powerful Russian think tank somewhat similar to the Council
on Foreign Relations.
As for your remark I think for many people in the USA Russophobia is just displaced Anti-Semitism.
JohnH remark is actually very apt and you should not "misunderestimate" the level of understanding
of the US political system by Russians. They did learn a lot about machinations of the neoliberal
foreign policy, especially about so called "color revolutions." Hillary&Obama has had a bloody
nose when they tried to stage a "color revolution" in 2011-2012 in Russia (so called "white revolution).
A typical US citizen probably never heard about it or heard only about "Pussy riot", Navalny and
couple of other minor figures. At the end poor ambassador Michael McFaul was recalled. NED was
expelled. Of course Russia is just a pale shadow of the USSR power-wise, so Obama later put her
on sanctions using MH17 incident as a pretext with no chances of retaliation. They also successfully
implemented regime change in Ukraine -- blooding Putin nose in return.
But I actually disagree with JohnH. First of all Putin does not need to interfere in a way
like the USA did in 2011-2012. It would be a waist of resources as both candidates are probably
equally bad for Russia (and it is the "deep state" which actually dictates the US foreign policy,
not POTUS.)
The US political system is already the can of worms and the deterioration of neoliberal society
this time created almost revolutionary situation in Marxists terms, when Repug elite was not able
to control the nomination. Democratic establishment still did OK and managed to squash the rebellion,
but here the level of degeneration demonstrated itself in the selection of the candidate.
Taking into account the level of dysfunction of the US political system, I am not so sure the
Trump is preferable to Hillary for Russians. I would say he is more unpredictable and more dangerous.
The main danger of Hillary is Syria war escalation, but the same is true for Trump who can turn
into the second John McCain on a dime.
Also the difference between two should not be exaggerated. Both are puppets of the forces the
brought them to the current level and in their POTUS role will need to be subservient to the "deep
state". Or at least to take into account its existence and power. And that makes them more of
prisoners of the position they want so much.
Trump probably to lesser extent then Hillary, but he also can't ignore the deep state. Both
require the support of Republican Congress for major legislative initiatives. And it will very
hostile to Hillary. Which is a major advantage for Russians, as this excludes the possibility
of some very stupid moves.
Again, IMHO in no way any of them will control the US foreign policy. In this area the deep
state is in charge since Allen Dulles and those who try to deviate too much might end as badly
as JFK. I think Obama understood this very well and did not try to rock the boat. And there are
people who will promptly explain this to Trump in a way that he understands.
In other words, neither of them will escape the limit on their power that "deep state" enforces.
And that virtually guarantee the continuity of the foreign policy, with just slight tactical variations.
So why Russians should prefer one to another? You can elect a dog as POTUS and the foreign
policy of the USA will be virtually the same as with Hillary or Trump.
In internal policy Trump looks more dangerous and more willing to experiment, while Hillary
is definitely a "status quo" candidate. The last thing Russians needs is the US stock market crush.
So from the point of internal economic policy Hillary is also preferable.
A lot of pundits stress the danger of war with Russia, and that might be true as women in high
political position try to outdo men in hawkishness. But here Hillary jingoism probably will be
tightly controlled by the "deep state". Hillary definitely tried to be "More Catholic then the
Pope" in this area while being the Secretary of State. That did not end well for her and she might
learn the lesson.
But if you think about the amount of "compromat" (Russian term ;-) on Hillary and Bill that
Russians may well already collected, in "normal circumstances" she might be a preferable counterpart
for Russians. As in "devil that we know". Both Lavrov and Putin met Hillary. Medvedev was burned
by Hillary. Taking into account the level of greed Hillary displayed during her career, I would
be worried what Russians have on her, as well as on Bill "transgressions" and RICO-style actions
of Clinton Foundation.
And taking into account the level of disgust amount the government officials with Hillary (and
this is not limited to Secret Service) , new leaks are quite possible, which might further complicate
her position as POTUS. In worst case, the first year (or two) leaks will continue. Especially
if damaging DNC leaks were the work of some disgruntled person within the USA intelligence and
not of some foreign hacker group. That might be a plus for Russians as such a constant distraction
might limit her possibility to make some stupid move in Syria. Or not.
As you know personal emails boxes for all major Web mail providers are just one click away
for NSA analysts. So "Snowden II" hypothesis might have the right to exist.
Also it is quite probably that impeachment process for Hillary will start soon after her election.
In the House Republicans have enough votes to try it. That also might be a plus for s for both
Russia and China. Trump is extremely jingoistic as for Iran, and that might be another area were
Hillary is preferable to Russians and Chinese over Trump.
Also do not discount her health problems. She does have some serious neurological disease,
which eventually might kill her. How fast she will deteriorate is not known but in a year or two
the current symptoms might become more pronounced. If Bill have STD (and sometime he looks like
a person with HIV;
http://joeforamerica.com/2016/07/bill-clinton-aids/)
that further complicates that picture (this is just a rumor, but he really looks bad).
I think that all those factors make her an equal, or even preferable candidate for such states
as Russia and China.
I'm not sure that Putin has a preference. It may be enough for him to show that Russia can
play the destabilization card as well as NED. Displaying the profound corruption of the US political
system also serves to undermine the US abroad, since much of its standing is based on the myth
of its taking the moral high ground. International elites will have a harder time garnering support
for pro-US policies, if those policies are seen as morally bankrupt.
Procopius -> likbez... October 16, 2016 at 05:01 AM
Your analysis does give me some comfort. My greatest fear is that the Deep State seems to currently
be in disarray. Their actions in Syria are divided, contradictory, foolish, counterproductive,
and without direction.
Obama has mostly obviously obeyed the Deep State but has seemed to sometimes "nudge" them in
a direction that seems to me better for the country. The deal with Iran is an exception. It's
significant, but it is both sensible and pragmatic. It's hard to believe anything as important
as that was not sanctioned by the Deep State, in defiance of Israel, and yet it is quite uncharacteristic
of the Deep State's behavior over the last fifteen years.
Walker Connor, perhaps the leading student of the origins and dynamics of ethnonationalism,
has consistently stressed the importance of its political implications. In these essays, which
have appeared over the course of the last three decades, he argues that Western scholars and policymakers
have almost invariably underrated the influence of ethnonationalism and misinterpreted its passionate
and nonrational qualities....
[ I do appreciate the reference, which strikes me as fine since I would like to read older
essays or essays extending over a few decades for perspective on the matter. I will begin here.
]
Brexit. Theresa May's recent speeches at the Conservative conference was very nationalistic and
Little Englander. See Benjamin Friedman's book The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.
Establishment economists are making excuses for slow growth and poor policy by pointing
at things like demographics and technology. Excuse-making isn't going to stem the rising tide
of ethnic nationalism. Thomas Friedman's Flat World is turning into Tribalistic World.
Your usual theatrics, but I largely agree with you lattermost statement. Things are always best
when we share. Tribesman can be especially selfish, even amongst themselves.
Frankly, I am not seeing it. Many of the "Rich" love to push the dialectics of "ethnic nationalism"
where none is to be found in reality or manipulated like half-jew Donald Trump, who is being
run by the rothschild flank in Russia due to his disaster when he went with fellow jews during
the post-Soviet Oligarch scam. Much like all his businesses, it flopped. He owes the bank of russia(owned
by rothschild) 100's of millions of dollars. They own him.
The point? The "monied elite" tell you what they want you to believe. The dialectical illusion
and collision of the duelism is how they stay in power. I feel bad for Trump supporters, most
are old and not very smart. But I also feel bad for Trump opposition who refuse to bring this
up, mainly because they are financed by the same crowd(aka the Clinton have worked with Rothschild
as well, they come from the same cloth).
Growth adjusted for population was not overly impressive in the 70's or 90's. Yet...............
Neoliberalism creates an impulse for nationalism in several ways:
1. It destroys human solidarity. And resorting to nationalism in a compensational mechanism
to restore it in human societies. that's why the elite often resorts to foreign wars if it feels
that it losing the control over peons.
2. Neoliberalism impoverishes the majority of population enriching top 1% and provokes the
search for scapegoats. Which in the past traditionally were Jews. Now look like MSM are trying
to substitute them for Russians
3. Usually the rise of nationalism is correlated with the crisis in the society. There
is a crisis of neoliberalsm that we experience in the USA now: after 2008 neoliberalism entered
zombie state, when the ideology is discredited, but forces behind it are way too strong for any
social change to be implemented. Much like was the case during "Brezhnev socialism" in the USSR.
So those who claim that we are experiencing replay of late 1920th on a new level might be partially
right. With the important difference that it does not make sense to establish fascist dictatorship
in the USA. Combination of "Inverted totalitarism" and "national security state" already achieved
the same major objectives with much less blood and violence.
the pointless destruction of the manufacturing sector of Western economies because of their
decision to have private banking systems and eschew tariffs - no surprises here folks
cm -> cm... , -1
Of course economy plus consequences of the state of the economy, i.e. many people being treated
like shit, without recourse, except turning away from mainstream politics (which isn't much of
a recourse usually).
cm -> Longtooth... October 15, 2016 at 02:19 PM
This analysis totally misses the point that often external factors are much more significant
in determining success or lack of it than any personal virtues or failings the individual may
have. It is not even luck.
Procopius -> cm... October 16, 2016 at 05:22 AM
I think you miss Longtooth's point. You are, of course, right that personal virtues or failings
usually have no effect on success or lack of it, but if I understand Longtooth correctly, he is
saying that's irrelevant. People do not blame the actual causes of their lack of success.
Instead, they seek and find scapegoats. Most Trumpista have heard all their lives from people
they respect that black and latino people unfairly get special treatment. That overrides the reality.
cm -> Procopius...
The comment started with: "When things aren't going as you expect or want, people always
have to find someone to blame... since the ego works to prevent you blaming yourself."
In a recently-leaked speech from 2013, Hillary Clinton said that it is important to take both public
and private positions on each issue. Is this the language of the typical politician, or something
even more deceptive? How does that explain her positions on Syria and Saudi Arabia?
"... The Federal Bureau of Investigation [sic] revealed Friday that President Barack Obama used a private email address and pseudonym to communicate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary R. Clinton and her own private email account as early as June 2012. ..."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
[sic]
revealed
Friday that President Barack Obama used a private email address
and pseudonym to communicate with Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary R. Clinton and her own private email account as
early as June 2012.
Posted at the FBI's Vault site, the revelation was part of a
189-page document dump of interview notes from conversations its
agents conducted about how Clinton handled classified electronic
correspondence, other documents, and her private email scheme
during her tenure as secretary of State.
Obama told CBS News March 7, 2015 that he did not know about
Clinton's private email while she was his secretary of state
from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013.
Q: Mr. President, when did you first learn that Hillary Clinton
used an email system outside the U.S. government for official
business while she was secretary of state?
Obama: The same time everybody else learned it through news
reports.
"... Is the solution supposed to be that HRC's foreign policy team will be much better than Obama's? ..."
"... The US will unilaterally determine to seize sovereignty of Syrian airspace, intervene in a civil war on the side of the rebels, and shoot down Syrian government and Russian planes. ..."
"... Shooting down Russian planes is the plan. ..."
"... If anyone has any doubt how little Hillary and company have learned from invading Iraq, violent regime change in Iraq, and removing inconvenient one-time friends at will, we're living through it real time all over again. ..."
"... This is a community of adults: LFC, Lee, W Berry et al who lecture the rest of us for wankery, emotionalism etc. and who are now fully behind the candidate who is promising a 'do-over' of Iraq with the promise to this time get it right. ..."
"... Trump, whatever his real deficiencies is openly ready to cede Syrian air-space to Assad. Most informed observers I've read argue that the civil war in Syria has been extended by years thanks to US and UK wankery. ..."
"... At some point, the US may decide not to proceed with violent regime-change. Not yet, however, or so it seems. ..."
"... All the responsible US diplomats and generals who brought us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria are lined-up to support the only candidate who is running on 4-8 years of violent regime change. ..."
"... With regard to Aleppo, the eastern part of the city has been under the control of the rebels for some years. The majority of the population is in western Aleppo, under government control. Eastern Aleppo is now cut off, and under attack by various pro-government forces supported by the Russian air force. Rebel forces in eastern Aleppo are estimated to be around half al-Qaeda linked Islamists and half local Sunnis. They regularly bombard the western part, as the government does the rebel enclave. ..."
"... The government has opened seven exit corridors for civilians to leave, and repeatedly offered the rebels evacuation to other areas (several similar offers have been accepted and carried through for rebel enclaves around Damascus). The latest news is that the rebels are reported to have mined the exits to prevent civilians leaving. ..."
"... A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic. ..."
"... Obviously you must want to turn a helpless population over to the evil Assad instead of the good(?) Islamists or the nonexistent moderates. Anything that equates to letting Assad win would be the ultimate proof of a love of dictators. ..."
"... I've often noticed that opponents of humanitarian intervention are cast as the ones peddling a simplistic, unrealistic set of fantasies - nonsense, in short. But whenever an actual case comes up, it appears that the reverse is true. The people calling for war are peddling fantastical nonsense. ..."
...I purposefully haven't addressed anything about the recent history of American involvement
in war in Syria, because that would lead to the same old accusations that this is about hating
America.
But now we're talking about the present as a guide to the future. Does anything about the known
history of recent American involvement in Syria indicate that there are detailed expert analyses
available that will do any good once filtered through policy? Is the solution supposed to
be that HRC's foreign policy team will be much better than Obama's?
What crap-for-brains doesn't seem to appreciate is that there are only two sets of pilots
and planes for the US to shoot down: pilots flying under the Syrian flag and those flying under
the Russian flag. There will be no 'random' misunderstandings and miscommunications for Hillary
to hide behind. And that's before Russia decides to flex in the Crimea, the Ukraine, and the Baltic
states.
The US will unilaterally determine to seize sovereignty of Syrian airspace, intervene in
a civil war on the side of the rebels, and shoot down Syrian government and Russian planes.
Shooting down Russian planes is the plan.
If anyone has any doubt how little Hillary and company have learned from invading Iraq,
violent regime change in Iraq, and removing inconvenient one-time friends at will, we're living
through it real time all over again.
This time we have the CT majority in favor of Bush III and her invasions.
@180 I'm extremely grateful, btw, to see you gaming out how the US plays chicken with the Russians
who 'back down' as a 'reason to vote for Hillary.'
This is a community of adults: LFC, Lee, W Berry et al who lecture the rest of us for wankery,
emotionalism etc. and who are now fully behind the candidate who is promising a 'do-over' of Iraq
with the promise to this time get it right.
Trump, whatever his real deficiencies is openly ready to cede Syrian air-space to Assad.
Most informed observers I've read argue that the civil war in Syria has been extended by years
thanks to US and UK wankery.
At some point, the US may decide not to proceed with violent regime-change. Not yet, however,
or so it seems.
All the responsible US diplomats and generals who brought us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and
Syria are lined-up to support the only candidate who is running on 4-8 years of violent regime
change.
You're voting in favor of invading Iraq all over again. Thanks!!!
The Syrian/Iraqi wars are …complicated. But they are both – from the viewpoint of the major combatants
– the same war, a contest between the two current major streams of political thought in the Islamic
Middle East. Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'a militias are active in support of the regime in Damascus,
as are Sunni Palestinian ones and the Druze. Christian and Yezidi groups and Kurdish nationalists
have lined up behind both Baghdad and Damascus. One the other side is a loose grouping of Salafi
Islamists – ISIS, an-Nusra, the many groups under the FSA umbrella. There are, of course, a few
politiques in the middle, too small to count in the fighting, but much courted by the press, and
always trotted out as the "moderate opposition". Any intervention that tries to slice across the
broad lines of division soon gets hopelessly tangled diplomatically and militarily. As the US
has found out.
With regard to Aleppo, the eastern part of the city has been under the control of the rebels
for some years. The majority of the population is in western Aleppo, under government control.
Eastern Aleppo is now cut off, and under attack by various pro-government forces supported by
the Russian air force. Rebel forces in eastern Aleppo are estimated to be around half al-Qaeda
linked Islamists and half local Sunnis. They regularly bombard the western part, as the government
does the rebel enclave.
The government has opened seven exit corridors for civilians to leave, and repeatedly
offered the rebels evacuation to other areas (several similar offers have been accepted and carried
through for rebel enclaves around Damascus). The latest news is that the rebels are reported to
have mined the exits to prevent civilians leaving.
A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning
and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy
in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic.
Peter T: "A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning
and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy
in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic."
Obviously you must want to turn a helpless population over to the evil Assad instead of
the good(?) Islamists or the nonexistent moderates. Anything that equates to letting Assad win
would be the ultimate proof of a love of dictators.
I've often noticed that opponents of humanitarian intervention are cast as the ones peddling
a simplistic, unrealistic set of fantasies - nonsense, in short. But whenever an actual case comes
up, it appears that the reverse is true. The people calling for war are peddling fantastical nonsense.
He missed the foreign policy aspect of Hillary vs Trump candidacy. A vote for Hillary is vote for
continuation of wars of expansion of neoliberal empire.
Notable quotes:
"... reforms that political leaders promised would ensure prosperity for all – such as trade and financial liberalization – have not delivered. Far from it. And those whose standard of living has stagnated or declined have reached a simple conclusion: America's political leaders either didn't know what they were talking about or were lying (or both). ..."
"... Thus, many Americans feel buffeted by forces outside their control, leading to outcomes that are distinctly unfair. Long-standing assumptions – that America is a land of opportunity and that each generation will be better off than the last – have been called into question. The global financial crisis may have represented a turning point for many voters: their government saved the rich bankers who had brought the US to the brink of ruin, while seemingly doing almost nothing for the millions of ordinary Americans who lost their jobs and homes. The system not only produced unfair results, but seemed rigged to do so. ..."
"... Support for Trump is based, at least partly, on the widespread anger stemming from that loss of trust in government. ..."
"... The simplistic neo-liberal market-fundamentalist theories that have shaped so much economic policy during the last four decades are badly misleading, with GDP growth coming at the price of soaring inequality. Trickle-down economics hasn't and won't work. Markets don't exist in a vacuum. The Thatcher-Reagan "revolution," which rewrote the rules and restructured markets for the benefit of those at the top, succeeded all too well in increasing inequality, but utterly failed in its mission to increase growth. ..."
But several underlying factors also appear to have contributed to the closeness of the race. For
starters, many Americans are economically worse off than they were a quarter-century ago. The median
income of full-time male employees is lower than it was 42 years ago, and it is increasingly difficult
for those with limited education to get a full-time job that pays decent wages.
Indeed, real (inflation-adjusted) wages at the bottom of the income distribution are roughly where
they were 60 years ago. So it is no surprise that Trump finds a large, receptive audience when he
says the state of the economy is rotten. But Trump is wrong both about the diagnosis and the prescription.
The US economy as a whole has done well for the last six decades: GDP has increased nearly six-fold.
But the fruits of that growth have gone to a relatively few at the top – people like Trump, owing
partly to massive tax cuts that he would extend and deepen.
At the same time, reforms that political leaders promised would ensure prosperity for all – such
as trade and financial liberalization – have not delivered. Far from it. And those whose standard
of living has stagnated or declined have reached a simple conclusion: America's political leaders
either didn't know what they were talking about or were lying (or both).
Trump wants to blame all of America's problems on trade and immigration. He's wrong. The US would
have faced deindustrialization even without freer trade: global employment in manufacturing has been
declining, with productivity gains exceeding demand growth.
Where the trade agreements failed, it was not because the US was outsmarted by its trading partners;
it was because the US trade agenda was shaped by corporate interests. America's companies have done
well, and it is the Republicans who have blocked efforts to ensure that Americans made worse off
by trade agreements would share the benefits.
Thus, many Americans feel buffeted by forces outside their control, leading to outcomes that are
distinctly unfair. Long-standing assumptions – that America is a land of opportunity and that each
generation will be better off than the last – have been called into question. The global financial
crisis may have represented a turning point for many voters: their government saved the rich bankers
who had brought the US to the brink of ruin, while seemingly doing almost nothing for the millions
of ordinary Americans who lost their jobs and homes. The system not only produced unfair results,
but seemed rigged to do so.
Support for Trump is based, at least partly, on the widespread anger stemming from that loss of
trust in government. But Trump's proposed policies would make a bad situation much worse. Surely,
another dose of trickle-down economics of the kind he promises, with tax cuts aimed almost entirely
at rich Americans and corporations, would produce results no better than the last time they were
tried.
In fact, launching a trade war with China, Mexico, and other US trading partners, as Trump promises,
would make all Americans poorer and create new impediments to the global cooperation needed to address
critical global problems like the Islamic State, global terrorism, and climate change. Using money
that could be invested in technology, education, or infrastructure to build a wall between the US
and Mexico is a twofer in terms of wasting resources.
There are two messages US political elites should be hearing. The simplistic neo-liberal market-fundamentalist
theories that have shaped so much economic policy during the last four decades are badly misleading,
with GDP growth coming at the price of soaring inequality. Trickle-down economics hasn't and won't
work. Markets don't exist in a vacuum. The Thatcher-Reagan "revolution," which rewrote the rules
and restructured markets for the benefit of those at the top, succeeded all too well in increasing
inequality, but utterly failed in its mission to increase growth.
This leads to the second message: we need to rewrite the rules of the economy once again, this
time to ensure that ordinary citizens benefit. Politicians in the US and elsewhere who ignore this
lesson will be held accountable. Change entails risk. But the Trump phenomenon – and more than a
few similar political developments in Europe – has revealed the far greater risks entailed by failing
to heed this message: societies divided, democracies undermined, and economies weakened.
this part seems to support those of us who have been saying that those adopting a blinkered
class/income based argument to 'disprove' the economic insecurity arguments are not even trying
to get at the truth(imo, theyre purposely working backwards from their conclusions towards a
conventional answer)
"Hayes argues that the angriest voters are not going to be the people at the bottom, but the
people in the middle, who used to expect that they and their kids could do well through
enterprise and don't believe that anymore. Experts have disagreed over whether Trump supporters
are richer or poorer than the average. Yet emerging evidence is beginning to portray a more
nuanced portrait of Trump's supporters than those earlier takes.
Jonathan Rothwell, a senior economist at Gallup, has used survey data on nearly 113,000
Americans to ask what really drives Trump support. He finds that support for the mogul turned
politician is concentrated in the middle-income categories; in contrast, those who are relatively
rich and those who are relatively poor are less likely to support him. Furthermore, economic
insecurity is a huge factor – those who worry about their economic future are much more likely to
vote for Trump. Rothwell builds on work by Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren at Harvard to find
that people in living in areas with weak mobility for kids from middle-class families are more
likely to vote for Trump.
These findings are only the start of what is likely to be a long debate. Nonetheless, they
support Hayes's argument. People seem to be more likely to support an anti-system candidate like
Donald Trump when they have a middling income, when they feel economically insecure, and when
they live in places where middle-class kids have worse prospects for getting ahead."
Ronan(rf)
10.14.16 at 4:04 pm
towards a *convenient* answer (ie an answer they want to be true, as it supports their worldview
).
In one of the
more
interesting threads
to emerge from today's latest, seventh Wikileaks dump of Podesta
emails, we read a detailed exchange between Clinton press secretaries Brian Fallon and
Nick Merrill, in which we learn how on June 24, 2015 the Clinton Campaign was preparing
for the upcoming news release in which the State Department, and the mainstream press,
would acknowledge for the first time that Hillary Clinton had deleted a certain number
of Sid Blumenthal emails from the 55k pages of material produced by Hillary Clinton from
her personal server.
By way of background, this is what Fallon wrote in preparation
for the official and unofficial response the Clinton campaign would provide to the State
Department:
Q: The State Department says that at least 16 of the emails that Sid
Blumenthal turned over to the Benghazi Select Committee were not included in the
55,000 pages of materials produced by Hillary Clinton. Doesn't this prove that
Hillary Clinton deleted certain emails at some point before producing them to the
Department?
ON-THE-RECORD RESPONSE FROM SPOKESMAN NICK MERRILL:
"Hillary Clinton has turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State
Department, including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal."
ADDITIONAL POINTS ON BACKGROUND FROM CLINTON AIDE:
Not only did Clinton turn over all emails that she has from Blumenthal, she
actually turned over more than a dozen emails that were not included in what Mr.
Blumenthal handed over to the House committee.
We do not have a record of other correspondence between Mrs. Clinton and Mr.
Blumenthal beyond that which was turned over to the State Department. In terms of the
documents provided by Mr. Blumenthal to the House committee, we do not recognize many
of those materials and cannot speak to their origin.
OFF RECORD, if pressed on whether we are essentially admitting the
possibility that she deleted some emails:
Look, we do not know what these materials are, or where they came from. Just take
a look at them: many of the documents are not even formatted as emails.
For all we know, it could be that, in the course of reproducing his emails after
his account was hacked,
Sid misremembered which memos he actually forwarded
to her and which he did not.
And hey, even if Sid is right and some of these documents were at some point sent
to Clinton, this is unremarkable anyway for two key reasons:
One, she would have been under no obligation to preserve them since Blumenthal
wasn't a government employee.
Two, there is nothing in any of these emails that is remotely new or interesting.
Indeed, none of these 16 emails are qualtitatively different than the dozens
of others that Hillary already produced to the State Department
.
So it is completely ridiculous to
suggest that there might have been any nefarious basis for her to want to delete any
of Sid's correspondence
.
After one turn of comments he revised his "Off the Record" statement to omit the "Sid
misremembered" part to end up with the following:
OFF RECORD, if pressed on whether we are essentially admitting the
possibility that she deleted some emails:
Look, we do not know what these materials are, or where they came from. Just take
a look at them: many of the documents are not even formatted as emails.
But even if Sid is right and some of these documents were at some point sent to
Clinton, there is nothing in any of these emails that is remotely new or interesting.
Indeed, none of these 16 emails are qualitatively different than the dozens of others
that Hillary already produced to the State Department. So it is completely ridiculous
to suggest that there might have been any nefarious basis for her to want to delete
any of Sid's correspondence.
The revision took place after Nick Merrill confirmed - yet again - that there had
been collusion between the State Department and the Clinton campaign when he said that "
Just
spoke to State a little more about this.
" He then noted the following updates:
1. The plan at the moment is for them to do this tomorrow, first thing in the
morning.
2. What that means specifically is that they are going to turn over all
the Blumenthal emails to the Committee that they hav along with some other HRC emails
that include
a slightly broader set of search terms
than
the original batch.
That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that
HRC didn't, which will make clear to them that she didn't have them in the first
place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over
. It also includes emails that
HRC had that Sid didn't, as Brian noted.
Then, providing further evidence of ongoing collusion not just between Hillary's
campaign and the State Department, but also the press, Merrill then adds the following
note to explain how the State Department hoped to use the Associated Press to product a
piece that "lays this out" before the "committee has a chance to realize what they
have.":
3.
They do not plan to release anything publicly, so no posting online or
anything public-facing, just to the committee
. That said,
they are
considering placing a story with a friendly at the AP (Matt Lee or Bradley Klapper
),
that would lay this out before the
majority on the committee has a chance to realize what they have and distort it
.
On that last piece, we think it would make sense to work with State and
the AP to deploy the below.
So assuming everyone is in agreement we'll
proceed. It would be good to frame this a little, and frankly to have it break
tomorrow when we'll likely be close to or in the midst of a SCOTUS decision taking
over the news hyenas.
But what is the most interesing part of this exchange is not what is in the email,
but what may have been discussed offline, for one reason: a curious discrepancy emerges
just one day later, when the
AP wrote an article,
as expected by the "friendly" AP reporters Bradley Klapper and
Matt Lee, which laid out the narrative precisely as the Clinton campaign wanted it.
While we are confident many readers recall it from when it first appeared last June,
from AP
:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department cannot find in its records all or part of
15 work-related emails
from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server
that were released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in
Benghazi, Libya, officials said Thursday.
The emails all predate the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility and
include scant words written by Clinton herself, the officials said. They consist of
more in a series of would-be intelligence reports passed to her by longtime political
confidant Sidney Blumenthal, the officials said.
Nevertheless, the fact that the State Department says it can't find them among
emails she provided surely will raise new questions about Clinton's use of a personal
email account and server while secretary of state and whether she has provided the
agency all of her work-related correspondence, as she claims.
The State Department has not been able to find emails from former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's private server in its archives, State Department officials
said Thursday.
The officials said the State Department is missing all or part of
15
emails
from longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal released this week by a
House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in
Benghazi, Libya. Blumenthal provided the Select Committee on Benghazi with the
emails.
The State Department cannot find in its records all or part
of 15
work-related emails
from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server that were
released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya,
officials said Thursday.
The State Department said on Thursday
that 15 emails sent or received
by Hillary Rodham Clinton were missing from records that she has turned
over, raising new questions about whether she deleted work-related emails from the
private account she used exclusively while in office.
The State Department cannot find in its records all or part of
15
work-related emails
from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server that were
released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya,
officials said Thursday.
And so on, but
notice something similar: every press reports note
15
emails from Blumenthal were missing
.
Why is "
15
" strange? Because recall what the Clinton campaign was
discussing just one day prior in the preparation of its talking points to the State
Department:
... the State Department may acknowledge as soon as today
that
there were 16 Sid emails
missing from the 55k pages of material produced by HRC...
... none of
these 16 emails
are qualitatively different than the dozens of
others that Hillary already produced to the State Department...
... The State Department says that
at least 16 of the emails
that Sid Blumenthal turned over to the Benghazi Select Committee were not
included in the 55,000 pages of materials produced by Hillary Clinton...
We have just one question: how - and why - in the span of 24 hours, did a confirmed
sample of
16 deleted Sidney Blumenthal emails,
as discussed off the
record within the Clinton campaign, become
15 deleted emails
overnight
when the State Depratment unveiled its "official", and massaged especially for the
press, version of what Hillary had stated she had done with the Blumenthal's emails.
Was the publicly announced "embarrassing" deletion of
15 Blumenthal emails
merely a smokescreen to cover up the real malfeasance: the elimination of
just one
Blumenthal email which the State Department, in collusion with
Hillary, deemed would be too damaging to even disclose had been produced?
And if so, who at the State Department lied
and why
?
Actually we have another question: what was in the missing
, and (twice?)
deleted 16th
, email?
Alas, since one of the many pathways of undisputed coordinated, and collusion,
exposed thanks to this latest Wikileaks release is that between the government, the
mainstream press, and Hillary Clinton, we are confident we will never find out, and are
even more confident this question will never emerge.
"... the danger that he presents is shaking the rats from under the carpet. ..."
"... Yet the NYT keeps reporting that American intelligence asserts (without providing evidence) that Russian intelligence is behind the Clinton email hacks, and this is nothing less that attempts of American intelligence to manipulate the election. ..."
"... I'm afraid, when it comes to end-of-the-Republic stuff, it's worse when your own intelligence guys are trying to manipulate the election than when their intelligence guys are. ..."
I'll begin with the necessary avowal that I think Trump is a clown, and dangerous, and I hope
he goes down to a record defeat.
But still… the danger that he presents is shaking the rats from under the carpet.
How many times have I read that Russian intelligence is trying to manipulate the American election?
And that this is a Very Bad Thing?
Yet the NYT keeps reporting that American intelligence asserts (without providing evidence)
that Russian intelligence is behind the Clinton email hacks, and this is nothing less that attempts
of American intelligence to manipulate the election.
And I'm afraid, when it comes to end-of-the-Republic stuff, it's worse when your own intelligence
guys are trying to manipulate the election than when their intelligence guys are.
SharkBit
Oct 14, 2016 9:20 AM
To all Sanders supporters. Your hero sold out to the devil. Your party is
corrupt to the core. If you care about America, voting Trump is the only way out
of this Shit Show. Otherwise, we all die as that corrupt bitch of your party is
crazy enough to take the USA into WWIII. You may not like Trump but he is nothing
compared to the Clinton Crime Family and all its globalist tenacles.
"... "This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. This election will determine whether we are a free nation, or whether we have only the illusion of democracy but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system." ..."
"... "Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe and morally deformed," Trump said. "They will attack you, they will slander you, they will seek to destroy your career and reputation. And they will lie, lie and lie even more." ..."
"... "It is not coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment, and all together at the same time, as the WikiLeaks documents expose the massive international corruption of the Clinton machine," he said. ..."
"... Before thousands in U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Trump said the email leaks have shown that Clinton and the Democrats "raped the system" to keep Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination. ..."
"... The enthusiastic crowd responded loudly as Trump repeated his pledge to seek a special prosecutor on Clinton if he becomes president - a move constitutional experts have said would be dubious - to "investigate the investigation" of Clinton by the FBI. ..."
"... "A vote for me is a vote for you, and it's a vote for change," he said. "I honestly believe this is the last chance we'll ever get. … Either we win this election or we lose this country." ..."
After describing this year's election in apocalyptic terms earlier in the day,
Donald Trump was down to merely alleging Hillary Clinton is a criminal by the time he made a
pair of stops Thursday in Ohio.
"This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the
history of our civilization," Trump said early Thursday afternoon in Palm Beach, Fla.
"This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. This election will determine
whether we are a free nation, or whether we have only the illusion of democracy but are in
fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system."
Trump said Clinton and media co-conspirators are at the heart of the effort
against him.
"Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe
and morally deformed," Trump said. "They will attack you, they will slander you, they will
seek to destroy your career and reputation. And they will lie, lie and lie even more."
In the Florida speech, Trump elaborated for the first time on both an
11-year-old video of him describing his sexual advances and new allegations that he groped
women.
"It is not coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment, and all
together at the same time, as the WikiLeaks documents expose the massive international
corruption of the Clinton machine," he said.
"These claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and
absolutely false - and the Clinton machine knows it is. It's all fabricated. It's pure fiction
and outright lies. These events never happened …
"We already have substantial evidence to dispute these lies, and it will be made
public in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time."
When the crowd began chanting "Lock her up, lock her up!" Trump chuckled. "So
young and jaded already," he said. "You understand life at a young age."
Before thousands in U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Trump said the email
leaks have shown that Clinton and the Democrats "raped the system" to keep Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders from getting the nomination.
The enthusiastic crowd responded loudly as Trump repeated his pledge to seek a
special prosecutor on Clinton if he becomes president - a move constitutional experts have
said would be dubious - to "investigate the investigation" of Clinton by the FBI.
But the biggest response from the Queen City audience came after this Trump
pledge: "I am going to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country."
The crowd in heavily Republican southwestern Ohio was probably Trump's largest
rally in the Buckeye State. Three days earlier, Clinton had her biggest crowd of the entire
campaign on the South Oval of Ohio State University.
Near the end of his 45-minute talk, Trump said, "You are going to remember this
rally for the rest of your life."
And once he wins the election, Trump said, his supporters will look back and
regard it as the most important vote ever because that's when the country started turning
around.
"A vote for me is a vote for you, and it's a vote for change," he said. "I
honestly believe this is the last chance we'll ever get. … Either we win this election or we
lose this country."
Yes, yes he is. That's why he's
pretty much single-handedly 1) multiplied his large inheritance into a much
larger fortune; 2) broken the Bush political machine (Jeb!); 3) repeatedly
humiliated the MSM news for its US election coverage; 4) broken the careers of
16 status-quo RNC pretenders and certain ex-pretenders such as Romney; 5) split
the establishment Repub party itself and driven out several of its worst
offenders (now voting Democrat!); 6) raised probably the biggest army of
citizen supporters since Reagan; 7) dominated news stories for free coverage
that tends to bring him more support; and 8) spent relatively little money
doing it.
All totally and completely by accident! Beginner's luck!
Thank God he's such a fucking moron, right? Just imagine the kind of damage
he could have done if he'd been wicked smart!
Renfield
WillyGroper
Oct 14, 2016 12:58 PM
<<
herd redirection. any press is good press. jerry springer reality
show politics. if this was the real deal he'd have been ron paul'd in the
press from the beginnning. ZERO time.
>>
Could well be. I have no
strong opinion on Trump since he has no record in office yet, so since
I'm not an American citizen & cannot vote in those elections anyway I
have to sit back and wait, see what the truth turns out to be. I
apologise for commenting on your elections, and normally I'd keep out of
it, but there's this:
The reason I have lately become a foreign 'Trump supporter' is that
the alternative is Hillary, a known war criminal. Living next door to you
guys I stand a much better chance of seeing old age if the Washington
string-puller for Canada's subsidiary of the Corporation isn't, you know,
already a known war criminal with a hard-on for Russia. Not that thrilled
with the prospect of an immediate & 'voter-supported' nuclear WW3. Hence,
I'm a Trump supporter now... as a foreign commenter the only current US
pollies I've a really strong opinion on are Jeb!, Barky, and Cankles.
That's b/c people (or in Jeb's case their immediate families) who've
already demonstrated their willingness to commit war crimes become very
relevant to those even outside American borders, especially when they
call the shots for my own, err, 'leaders'. (I know, that's our own damn
fault, too.)
I am very, very FOR your remaining non-war-criminal candidate since it
prevents Hillary as getting in as CEO of the US corporate office, with
"nuclear war" as her first order of business.
So here, just pointing out that DT, while he is and may be a lot of
things, is certainly not stupid! That particular MSM myth always makes me
giggle and reply flippantly (as above). Whether he's also evil, in my
foreigner's eyes, still remains to be seen from his record in office, if
he gets one. (Back to lurking, and let you better-informed Americans get
on with things!)
The
consequences (of Hillary's Libya decision as Secretary of State) would be more
far-reaching than anyone imagined, leaving Libya a failed state and a terrorist
haven, a place where the direst answers to Mrs. Clinton's questions have come
to pass.
The Hillary Clinton campaign says the hackers behind the leaked
email evidence of their collusion with the major media are from
Russia and linked to the Russian regime. If so, I want to publicly
thank those Russian hackers and their leader, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, for opening a window into the modern workings of
the United States government-corporate-media establishment.
We always knew that the major media were extensions of the
Democratic Party. But the email evidence of how figures like
Maggie
Haberman
of The New York Times,
Juliet
Eilperin
of The Washington Post, and
John
Harwood
of CNBC worked hand-in-glove with the Democrats is
important. The Daily Caller and Breitbart have led the way in
digging through the emails and exposing the nature of this
evidence. It is shocking even to those of us at Accuracy in Media
who always knew about, and had documented, such collusion through
analysis and observation.
The Clinton campaign and various intelligence officials insist
that the purpose of the Russian hacking is to weaken the confidence
of the American people in their system of government, and to
suggest that the American system is just as corrupt as the Russian
system is alleged to be. Perhaps our confidence in our system
should be shaken. The American people can see that our media are
not independent of the government or the political system and, in
fact, function as an arm of the political party in control of the
White House that wants to maintain that control after November 8.
In conjunction with other evidence, including the ability to
conduct vote fraud that benefits the Democrats, the results on
Election Day will be in question and will form the basis for Donald
J. Trump to continue to claim that the system is "rigged" against
outsiders like him.
The idea of an American system of free and fair elections that
includes an honest press has been terribly undermined by the
evidence that has come to light. We are not yet to the point of the
Russian system, where opposition outlets are run out of business
and dissidents killed in the streets. That means that the Russians
have not completely succeeded in destroying confidence in our
system. But we do know that federal agencies like the Federal
Election Commission (FEC) and Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) are poised to strike blows against free and independent
media. Earlier this year the three Democrats on the FEC
voted
to punish
filmmaker Joel Gilbert for distributing a film
critical of President Barack Obama during the 2012 campaign.
The New York Times is
reporting
that
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta has been contacted by the
FBI about the alleged Russian hackers behind the leaks of his
emails. This is what Podesta and many in the media want to talk
about.
But the Russians, if they are responsible, have performed a
public service. And until there is a thorough house-cleaning of
those in the major media who have made a mockery of professional
journalism, the American people will continue to lack confidence in
their system. The media have been caught in the act of sabotaging
the public's right to know by taking sides in the presidential
contest. They have become a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party,
coordinating with the Hillary Clinton for president campaign, which
apparently was being run out of Georgetown University, where John
Podesta was based. Many emails carry the web address of
[email protected], a reference to the Georgetown
University position held by the chairman of the 2016 Hillary
Clinton presidential campaign. Podesta is a Visiting Professor at
Georgetown University Law Center. His other affiliations include
the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress and the United
Nations High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Podesta and the other members of this U.N. panel had proposed "
A
New Global Partnership for the World
," which advocated for a
"profound economic transformation" of the world's economic order
that would result in a new globalist system. Shouldn't the American
people be informed about what Podesta and his Democratic allies
have planned for the United States should they win on November 8?
That Podesta would serve the purposes of the U.N. is not a
surprise. But it is somewhat surprising that he would use his base
at Georgetown University to run the Hillary campaign. On the other
hand, Georgetown, the nation's oldest Catholic and Jesuit
university,
describes
itself
as preparing "the next generation of global citizens to lead and
make a difference in the world."
When a Catholic university serves as the base for the election
of a Democratic Party politician committed to taxpayer-funded
abortion on demand and transgender rights, you know America's
political system and academia are rotten to the core. The
disclosure from WikiLeaks that Podesta used his Georgetown email to
engage in party politics only confirms what we already knew.
If the Russians are ultimately responsible for the release of
these emails, some of which
show
an anti-Catholic animus
on the part of Clinton campaign
officials, we are grateful to them. The answer has to be to clean
out the American political system of those who corrupt it and
demonstrate to the world that we can achieve higher standards of
integrity and transparency.
For its part, Georgetown University should be stripped of its
Catholic affiliation and designated as an official arm of the
Democratic Party.
Paul Kersey
balolalo
Oct 14, 2016 12:02 PM
The well deserved hatred for Hillary and the globalists is so
great, that at least 40% of the males in this country would back
anyone who went up against the Clintons. That's just not the
same thing as "BUYING TRUMPS BULLSHIT HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER".
Trump is exposing the corruption and the hypocrisy of the
Clintons in a way that no one has ever had the guts to do in the
past. He's doing it on national TV with a large national
audience. With Trump we may get anarchy, but with the Clintons,
Deep State is guaranteed. It is Deep State that is working
overtime to finish building the expressway to neofeudalism.
still no mention of the clincher - that proves the entire democrat party has no respect for the office of president - or any other
government office for that matter..
stay on target!!!
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully
and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be
disqualified from holding any office under the United States .
We could always have a few murders and suspecious deaths looked
into again. .... A few to chose from:
-
Kevin Ives
and
Don Henry
, both 17, crushed by a train, August
23, 1987. Their deaths were ruled accidental, with the medical examiner saying
they had fallen asleep on a railroad line after smoking marijuana, but a grand
jury found they had been murdered before being placed on the tracks. They had
allegedly stumbled on a plot to smuggle drugs and guns from an airport in Mena,
Arkansas, that Bill Clinton was said to be involved in as state governor.
-
Victor Raiser
,
53, small plane crash, July 30, 1992. The second finance co-chair of Bill
Clinton's presidential campaign was killed along with his son during a fishing
vacation in Alaska. Campaign press secretary Dee Dee Myers called Raiser a major
player in the organization.
-
Paul Tully
,
48, heart attack, September 25, 1992. A chain-smoking, heavy drinking political
consultant who weighed more than 320lb. Tully died seven weeks before Clinton's
first presidential election win. He had been political director of the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) during Clinton's rise. Tully was on the left of the
Democratic Party and usually worked for those who shared his views, however he
agreed to work for Clinton because he thought he was the only Democrat who could
beat President George Bush.
-
Paula Gober
,
36, single car accident, December 7, 1992. She was Clinton's interpreter for the
deaf for several years and traveled with him while he was governor of Arkansas.
Her vehicle overturned on a bend, throwing her 30 feet. There were no witnesses.
-
Vince Foster
,
48, suicide, July 20, 1993. A long-time friend of the Clintons in Arkansas, new
president Bill Clinton appointed him Deputy White House Counsel. Foster soon
realized he hated the job and fell into a deep depression. He was found shot to
death in Fort Marcy Park in Washington.
-
Stanley Heard
,
47, small plane crash, September 3, 1993. An Arkansas chiropractor who, according
to the book, A Profession of One's Own, treated the Clinton family, Heard was
asked by Bill Clinton to represent the practice as plans for 'Hillarycare' were
being finalized. His attorney Steve Dickson, was flying him home from a healthcare
meeting in Washington, DC. On the way to the capital from his home in Kansas,
Dickson's small plane developed problems so he landed in St Louis and rented
another plane. That rented plane was the one that crashed in rural Virginia,
killing both men.
-
Jerry Parks
,
47, shot to death, September 23, 1993. The head of security for Bill Clinton's
headquarters in Arkansas was driving home in West Little Rock when two men pulled
alongside his car and sprayed it with semi-automatic gunfire. As Parks's car
stopped a man stepped out of the Chevy and shot him twice with a 9mm pistol and
sped off. Despite several witnesses, no-one was ever arrested. The killing came
two months after Parks had watched news of Foster's death and allegedly told his
son Gary 'I'm a dead man'. His wife Lois remarried, and her second husband, Dr
David Millstein was stabbed to death in 2006.
-
Ed Willey
, 60,
suicide, November 29, 1993. Husband of Bill Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey, he
was deeply in debt and shot himself to death on the day that his wife alleges she
was groped by Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.
-
Herschel Friday
,
70, small plane crash, March 1, 1994. Friday was an Arkansas lawyer who Richard
Nixon had once considered for the Supreme Court. Friday was known as a benefactor
of Bill Clinton, serving on his campaign finance committee.
-
Kathy Ferguson
,
37, gun suicide, May 11, 1994. She was the ex-wife of Arkansas State Trooper Danny
Ferguson, who was named in a sexual harassment suit brought by Paula Jones against
Bill Clinton. Ferguson left a note blaming problems with her fiancé, Bill Shelton.
A month later Shelton, upset about the suicide verdict, killed himself.
-
Ron Brown
, 54,
plane crash, April 3, 1996. Brown was chair of the Democratic National Committee
during Bill Clinton's rise to the presidential nomination and was rewarded with
the cabinet position. He was under a corruption investigation when his plane
slammed into a mountainside in Croatia. Doctors who examined his body found a
circular wound on the top of his head which led to suspicions that he had died
before the plane crashed, but that theory was later discounted. The crash was
attributed to pilot error.
-
Charles Meissner
,
56, same plane crash as Brown. Meissner was assistant secretary for international
trade and had been criticized for allegedly giving special security clearance to
John Huang, who later pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges for violating
campaign finance laws, in a case that enmeshed the Clinton administration.
-
Barbara Wise
,
48, natural causes, November 29, 1996. Wise, who worked alongside Brown, Meissner
and Huang in the Commerce Department was found dead at her desk on the day after
Thanksgiving 1996. Her death was originally classified as a homicide but police
later said Wise, 48, who had a history of severe ill health, had died from natural
causes. A local TV station initially quoted an unidentified police source as
saying her body was partially nude and her office was locked, but those reports
were later denied.
-
Mary Mahoney
,
25, armed robbery, July 7, 1997. Mahoney was a White House intern during the
Monica Lewinsky scandal. A lesbian gay rights activist, she never found herself
troubled by Clinton, but she did take to counseling those who did. She was shot
dead during a robbery at a Washington Starbucks where she worked.
-
Jim McDougal
,
57, heart attack, March 8, 1998. McDougal and his wife Susan were involved in the
Whitewater real estate scandal that rocked the Clinton administration. They and
the Clintons had invested $203,000 to buy land in the Ozarks but the venture
failed and McDougal was convicted of corruption for borrowing money from his
Savings and Loan to cover the cost. He died in federal prison in Fort Worth,
Texas.
-
John Ashe
, 61,
weightlifting accident, June 22, 2016. The Antiguan diplomat dropped a dumbbell on
his neck and asphyxiated himself at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He was due
to stand trial for allegedly receiving $500,000 from billionaire real estate
developer Ng Lap Seng who was involved in a scandal involving illegally funneling
hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic National Committee during Bill
Clinton's presidency.
-
Seth Rich
, 27,
armed robbery, July 26, 2016. A rising star in the DNC, Rich was robbed at
gunpoint after a night of drinking in Washington, DC. The robbers took nothing,
leaving his watch and wallet after shooting him several times in the back. Rich
had allegedly been involved in the leak of documents that brought down Hillary
Clinton ally Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
-
Mark Weiner
,
62, leukemia, July 26, 2016. Despite his condition, Weiner, a prodigious Clinton
fundraiser, was due to attend the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia
and was dressing on the day he was due to travel from his home in Rhode Island.
But he suddenly felt ill and went to bed and never got up again.
-
Victor Thorn
,
54, suicide, August 1, 2016. Thorn shot himself in the head at the top of Nittany
Mountain, Pennsylvania, on his birthday. He had written four books highly critical
of the Clintons. He was also a Holocaust denier.
-
Shawn Lucas
,
38, unexplained, August 2, 2016. Just days before his death, Lucas, a process
server had delivered papers to the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in
Washington, DC, filming himself as he did so. He was found dead in his apartment
in the city.
There are more but these are a good start.
Live Hard, This Many Deaths Are Way More Than
Happenstance, Die Free
Killary only can beg that voters hold their noses and vote for her. Guardian neoliberal presstitutes
still don't want to understand that Hillary is more dangerous then trump, Sge with her attempt that
she is more militant then male neocons can really provoke a confrontation with Russia or China.
Notable quotes:
"... War at home versus another foreign war, nothing will get through Congress, and either will get impeached...so third party all the way for me. ..."
"... Keep in mind, the election is not over and that drip, drip, drip of Hillary emails may push more people towards Trump. ..."
"... Shameless. Absolutely shameless, Guardian. This is not-even-disguised Clinton sycophancy... ..."
"... Clinton has everything going for her. The media, the banks, big business, the UN, foreign leaders, special interest lobbyists, silicon valley, establishment Republicans. How can she not win in an landslide?! ..."
"... We came, we saw, and he grabbed some pussy. ..."
"... It seems nobody wants to talk about what is really going on here - instead we are fed this bilge from both sides about 'sexual misconduct' and other fluff ..."
"... The stagnation of middle-class incomes in the West may last another five decades or more. ..."
"... This calls into question either the sustainability of democracy under such conditions or the sustainability of globalization. ..."
"... These classes of "globalization losers," particularly in the United States, have had little political voice or influence, and perhaps this is why the backlash against globalization has been so muted. They have had little voice because the rich have come to control the political process. The rich, as can be seen by looking at the income gains of the global top 5 percent in Figure 1, have benefited immensely from globalization and they have keen interest in its continuation. ..."
"... But while their use of political power has enabled the continuation of globalization, it has also hollowed out national democracies and moved many countries closer to becoming plutocracies. Thus, the choice would seem either plutocracy and globalization – or populism and a halt to globalization. ..."
The vast majority of her support comes from people that will be holding their noses as they vote
for her. Seems to me that convincing those same people that you have it in the bag will just cause
them to think voting isn't worth their time since they don't want to anyway.
I know Trump's supporters, the real ones, and the anyone-but-Hillary club will show up as well.
Funny if this backfires and he wins.
I won't be voting for either one and couldn't care less which one wins. War at home versus
another foreign war, nothing will get through Congress, and either will get impeached...so third
party all the way for me.
"Trump has to be the limit, and there has to be a re-alignment"
Trump has shown one must fight fire with fire. The days of the meek and mild GOP are over. Twice
they tried with nice guys and failed. Trump has clearly shown come out with both fists swinging
and you attract needed media and you make the conversation about you. Trump's mistake was not
seeking that bit of polish that leaves your opponent on the floor.
Keep in mind, the election is not over and that drip, drip, drip of Hillary emails may
push more people towards Trump.
Shameless. Absolutely shameless, Guardian. This is not-even-disguised Clinton sycophancy...
tugend49
For every woman that's been sexually harassed, bullied, raped, assaulted, catcalled, groped,
objectified, and treated lesser than, a landslide victory for Clinton would be an especially sweet
"Fuck You" to the Trumps of this world.
Clinton has everything going for her. The media, the banks, big business, the UN, foreign
leaders, special interest lobbyists, silicon valley, establishment Republicans. How can she not
win in an landslide?!
It might be a reaction against Trump, but it's also a depressing example of the power of the
establishment, and their desire for control in democracy. Just look at how they squealed at Brexit.
It seems nobody wants to talk about what is really going on here - instead we are fed this
bilge from both sides about 'sexual misconduct' and other fluff
There is a report from two years ago, July 2014, before the candidates had even been selected,
by the economist Branko Milanovic for Yale 'Global' about the impact of Globalisation on the Lower
Middle Classes in the West and how this was basically going to turn into exactly the choice the
American electorate is facing now
Why won't the media discuss these issues instead of pushing this pointless circus?
These are the penultimate paragraphs of the article on the report (there is a similar one for
the Harvard Business Review
here ):
The populists warn disgruntled voters that economic trends observed during the past three
decades are just the first wave of cheap labor from Asia pitted in direct competition with
workers in the rich world, and more waves are on the way from poorer lands in Asia and Africa.
The stagnation of middle-class incomes in the West may last another five decades or more.
This calls into question either the sustainability of democracy under such conditions
or the sustainability of globalization.
If globalization is derailed, the middle classes of the West may be relieved from the immediate
pressure of cheaper Asian competition. But the longer-term costs to themselves and their countries,
let alone to the poor in Asia and Africa, will be high. Thus, the interests and the political
power of the middle classes in the rich world put them in a direct conflict with the interests
of the worldwide poor.
These classes of "globalization losers," particularly in the United States, have had
little political voice or influence, and perhaps this is why the backlash against globalization
has been so muted. They have had little voice because the rich have come to control the political
process. The rich, as can be seen by looking at the income gains of the global top 5 percent
in Figure 1, have benefited immensely from globalization and they have keen interest in its
continuation.
But while their use of political power has enabled the continuation of globalization, it
has also hollowed out national democracies and moved many countries closer to becoming plutocracies.
Thus, the choice would seem either plutocracy and globalization – or populism and a halt to
globalization.
Globalisation will continue to happen. It has pulled a large part of the world population out
of poverty and grown the global economy.
Sure on the downside it has also hugely benefitted the 1%, while the western middle classes
have done relatively less well and blue collar workers have suffered as they seek to turn to other
types (less well paid) of work.
The issue is the speed of change, how to manage globalisation and spread the wealth more equitably.
Maybe it will require slowing but it cannot and should not be stopped.
"... Meanwhile, between journalism's insiders and outsiders-between the ones who are rising and the ones who are sinking-there is no solidarity at all. Here in the capital city, every pundit and every would-be pundit identifies upward, always upward. ..."
"... We cling to our credentials and our professional-class fantasies, hobnobbing with senators and governors, trading witticisms with friendly Cabinet officials, helping ourselves to the champagne and lobster ..."
"... "The real "deplorables" generally aren't the people whom Hillary denounced as wholly "irredeemable," or at whom economically secure commentators fulminate on a regular basis. More obviously "deplorable" are Hillary's fellow financial, political, economic, and military elites who wrecked the economy, got us mired in endless unwinnable foreign wars, and erected a virtually impenetrable cultural barrier between everyday Americans trying to live fruitful lives and their pretentious, well-heeled superiors ensconced in select coastal enclaves. It is thanks to the actions of this "basket of deplorables" that we're in the situation we're in" ..."
I skimmed the Harpers article by Thomas Frank on the media's extermination of Bernie Sanders.
It's a good article about an unpleasant topic. One point that is not clear from the blurb is that
Frank isn't writing about the media's treatment of Sanders, but rather about the Washington Post's
treatment of Sanders. Occasionally other media outlets are mentioned (I saw a reference to the
Associated Press), but it's almost all about the Bezos Washington Post's unfairness
to Sanders. A lot of other newspapers mistreated him as well.
The article is excellent, but if anyone doesn't have the time to read it, I'd suggest going
straight to the last page, its a brilliant demolition of modern punditry journalism. The last
two paragraphs in particular:
Meanwhile, between journalism's insiders and outsiders-between the ones who are rising
and the ones who are sinking-there is no solidarity at all. Here in the capital city, every
pundit and every would-be pundit identifies upward, always upward.
We cling to our credentials and our professional-class fantasies, hobnobbing with senators
and governors, trading witticisms with friendly Cabinet officials, helping ourselves to the
champagne and lobster. Everyone wants to know our opinion, we like to believe, or to celebrate
our birthday, or to find out where we went for cocktails after work last night.
Until the day, that is, when you wake up and learn that the tycoon behind your media concern
has changed his mind and everyone is laid off and that it was never really about you in the
first place. Gone, the private office or award-winning column or cable-news show. The checks
start bouncing. The booker at MSNBC stops calling. And suddenly you find that you are a middle-aged
maker of paragraphs-of useless things-dumped out into a billionaire's world that has no need
for you, and doesn't really give a damn about your degree in comparative literature from Brown.
You start to think a little differently about universal health care and tuition-free college
and Wall Street bailouts. But of course it is too late now. Too late for all of us.
Yes, thanks for the link to Thomas Frank's essay in Harpers about the efforts of corporate
media, particularly the Washington Post and New York Times, to kill Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign
for the presidency.
Yesterday NC linked to an article from the American Conservative by Michael Tracey titled
"The Real Deplorables". In his article Tracey observed: …
"The real "deplorables" generally aren't the people whom Hillary denounced as wholly
"irredeemable," or at whom economically secure commentators fulminate on a regular basis. More
obviously "deplorable" are Hillary's fellow financial, political, economic, and military elites
who wrecked the economy, got us mired in endless unwinnable foreign wars, and erected a virtually
impenetrable cultural barrier between everyday Americans trying to live fruitful lives and
their pretentious, well-heeled superiors ensconced in select coastal enclaves. It is thanks
to the actions of this "basket of deplorables" that we're in the situation we're in"…
Clearly Michael Tracey overlooked a group. But what is particularly troubling me was Thomas
Frank's observation: …"for the sort of people who write and edit the opinion pages of the Post,
there was something deeply threatening about Sanders and his political views. He seems to have
represented something horrifying, something that could not be spoken of directly but that clearly
needed to be suppressed."
"... Recast and repeated enough times, and they become facts. ..."
"... Trump has lost it. ..."
"... Voters are deserting him ..."
"... "Hillary will win ..."
"... The news organizations have (or used to have) a duty not to report lies. And remember, all it takes is one phone call from the DNC. So, if they are reporting it, the emails are legitimate. Wiki can leak, but they can ignore. ..."
"... If the MSM wanted to find out whether the emails were genuine or doctored or forgeries, all they have to do is ask Podesta for the authentic emails. The MSM hasn't done so, because the results would spoil their narrative. ..."
The news organizations have (or used to have) a duty not to report lies. And remember,
all it takes is one phone call from the DNC. So, if they are reporting it, the emails are legitimate.
Wiki can leak, but they can ignore.
If the MSM wanted to find out whether the emails were genuine or doctored or forgeries,
all they have to do is ask Podesta for the authentic emails. The MSM hasn't done so, because the
results would spoil their narrative.
"... I think the media destroyed Donald Trump as a candidate ..."
"... I have to say I am truly disappointed by this blog post. The election is a clear choice. Hillary has a confirmed track record of war, the death of muslim, laws that incarcerated black people, stumping for banks, stumping for Monsanto, stealing aid money, corruption and slut-shaming raped women. ..."
"... Socialists, Progressives, the Left, HATE corrupt HRC's actions, policies, behavior, and record. Why can't people get the terminology and concepts correct? ..."
"... HRC is the OPPOSITE of progresssive, socialist, leftist. Hillary Clinton is a NeoLiberal NeoCon. She wants reckless regime change, war, trade agreements that decimate US jobs and wages, etc. ..."
"... Mish is acting like some gal looking for the perfect man as a husband. There is no perfect man in either love or politics. Trump is the closest thing to it given what I see of the puppets of politics so far. The central bankers / globalists appear to hate him. That alone should be enough for Mish who has railed against both to vote for Trump. Imagine the heat Trump has already taken? An Mish just blithely jumps ship. And what for? Because of some imagined stampeded because Trump is hetero. ..."
"... Hillary destroyed evidence she was subpoenaed to turn over to criminal investigators. She should lose her law license just as Bill had. Instead, she will become president. ..."
"... I recently registered to vote for the first time in over 15 years. I'm voting for Trump and I've never voted for a Republican before in my life. I'm completely ignoring all the polls, all the talking heads, all of the 'smart' people, alt or otherwise. I'm going to vote for what I see as the only option for not *more of the same*. ..."
"... It is a fraud to reject Trump for his failures to make the best case against Hillary. It really doesn't matter as we have seen just in the last few days that the media is not covering the issues, no matter how much he brings them up. He has massive rallies and goes through all of this, yet NOTHING in the media ..."
"... Sure they will cover his vulgarities while saying NOTHING of Hillary's issues other than to claim the content of her emails is less relevant than a potential Trump/Russia conspiracy. Birther my ass, will they apologize for inferring Trump is a traitor or spy? I doubt it. ..."
"... The corrupt FBI cover-up of Clintons violations of the espionage act has convinced me that Clinton should be in prison. She wants to appoint left-wing ideological Supreme Court justices who further destroy the law and move us down the road to tyranny. She will not repeal the ACA. She will further destabilize the world just as she did Libya. ..."
"... Trump is a very flawed individual who really has no business being President. I disagree with many of his policies, but at this point, we all we have left is damage control. As much as I hate it, I will vote for Trump. ..."
"... Disagree. Voting for the 2 party system is what has got us where we are today. It's people like you, who will always vote for who the oligarchs give you, that has put the country in this position. ..."
"... Trump, even if elected, cannot do anything without an agreeable Congress. ..."
"... Trump may call himself a republican (as Ron Paul did) but in fact he is an independent. ..."
"... The oligarchs most certainly did not give us Trump, the people voted for Trump in spite of the oligarchs continuously trying to destroy him and supporting establishment professional politicians. ..."
"... Likely, if Hillary wins, they will attempt to change the laws and structure of party politics to make sure we NEVER see another Trump like candidacy. ..."
"... Trump is not a nation builder, which is why the neocons are against him. Wake up Mish – any vote against Trump is a vote for Hitlary, AND YOU KNOW IT, and would be a vote for what you despise. ..."
"... Oh please it's hardly over. Polls don't matter when a wikileak, 11 year-old tape, or bad debate performance could potentially swing sentiment overnight from one candidate to another. ..."
"... I conclude no one wants to admit who they support. The only reason anyone would vote for HIllary is to stop Trump. Now, if the polls show an easy win for Hillary, those people may figure their vote is not needed, and since they don't really care for her, not vote at all. By contrast, Trump supporters are more likely to be angry by how the press has treated him, and vote anyway. ..."
"... I expect record low turnout. It's possible that with a record low turnout that Trump might actually win. It's also possible that Johnson might get 15% of the vote and surprise everyone. It's a shame, honestly, that the Libertarians didn't nominate a more qualified nominee this year as this would have been the year for him to be taken seriously. ..."
"... If I put a 'Trump' sticker on my car, it would be vandalized. If I put a Trump sign on my building, it would be vandalized if not outright fire bombed. I live in a very blue district in a very blue state. ..."
"... Trump was not my first choice, but he is the better choice. I have warmed to him a bit seeing how he has upset the party oligarchs.. and not just in the USA ..."
"... It's easy to do. There is no chance in Hell that she will win, and you can set back and watch it all burn down with a clear conscience, right? This is what I love about principles. We pretend our principles are about the greater good…like we are sacrificing ourselves, when in reality, we are simply trying to shield our own delicate sensibilities from any thought of responsibility. ..."
"... The USA is not a nation (at least not in the traditional nation-state sense). It's too fractured and too diverse, it doesn't even have its own language and culture. How can one say "we"? How many of you can find enough people in your area with the same interests to form any organized group? ..."
"... Gary Johnson is the one expressing this "romantic" view, of an America that doesn't exist, never existed, has no chance of existing because it's too diverse and fractured in its social core, and it's against all global plans and policies of all other countries. He can only fracture the republican party even more, until republicans become "the other democrats" on the table. ..."
"... The same happened in Greece with the third party "To Potami", which helped bring Syriza in power after fracturing the center-right. It was a "catalyst" party that played its role and then almost vanished. ..."
"... I read Stockman's article in full, and he gets even more preposterous and unhinged from reality than that sentence you disagree with, Mish. Stockman seems to think the ruination of the USA under Hillary will be a good thing that leads to a Utopian paradise arising out of the financial ashes and radioactive rubble. Bolsheviks in 1917 and more recent Marxists such as Paul Pot in Cambodia have had that same vision of a Utopian society arising from the ashes and killing fields. I think Stockman needs to rethink that part of his narrative. Anyway, the Media did not kill Trump. Rather, the Media Have Made Trump. ..."
"... 40 million or so Trump supporters watching debate number two on TV saw it for themselves, and now more than ever know the falseness of the mainstream media narrative, both in its spin and coverage deletions. The media has been 99% anti-Trump from Day One, and ditto the GOP elite who are touted by the media as now ditching Trump. In that sense, what Trump and Bill Clinton have in common is that they both get stronger when under attack. If the media and GOP elite suddenly embraced Trump, that might confuse Trump's supporters into bolting. ..."
"... The Bush cousin, Billy, and NBC were a month too soon releasing the trash talking tape, and timing counts. People who watched the debate, including the Hillary voters, now have too much time to talk and reconsider. The danger to Hillary is that some of the robotic drones who vote Democratic by rote will agree that Hillary is all talk and empty words and that nothing will be done under her rule to help the black, Latinos and inner city people who robotically vote the Democratic ticket. That is the defection that could hurt Hillary on election day, defections among her own core believing that They Have Nothing to Lose by Voting Trump. The media cannot sustain the Bush family/NBC tape frenzy much longer. It will soon be old news, and something else will emerge to turn the election. ..."
"... My research shows evidence of poll fixing to make hillary look good. My independant polls and questions show trump will win election by a large margin. My guess he will beat Hillary by 6 million votes if not more. Media is so wrong on this. ..."
"... Whatever the media says is a lie, I have no doubt. My prediction is Hilary's team will know that she can't win, so they'll play the poor health card so that Obama will stall the election (with him in power) for another year. ..."
"... They hope that Clinton builds some kind of commanding position in the polls and they convince a significant number of voters that Trump will lose anyway. The problem is that everyone knows that the polls are rigged, and the more people see of Hillary and the more questions are asked, the more the people don't like her. The polls are still too close for comfort. ..."
"... But if there is one thing I have learned about neo-liberals (or whatever these creatures call themselves) over the past decade or so – that is they make and break the rules to suit themselves. Done in Europe all the time. We will see. ..."
"... Hillary will lead the polls but lose the election which will be proclaimed fraudulent due to Russian hacking at the behest of Trump. Its all set up. ..."
"... They keep bringing up all of these leaked and hacked emails, claiming they are all tracked back to Russia, which is impossible to actually verify WHO did it, but none the less, this will be their plan if ballot box stuffing and election fraud are not enough to get her across the finish line. They keep TELLING us that Hillary is the WINNER. They claim its not even close. ..."
"... I am not so sure that Trump will lose. People are so anti-establishment that it is likely the media by defiling Trump almost on a daily basis and their visible bias towards Hillary may be helping Trump along. However I do accept Trump can lose it with his foot-in-mouth disease but even now I do not think it is sure thing. If the anti-establishment crowd land up in droves to vote, it might well be Trump. ..."
"... I like David Stockman and enjoy what he has to say but it looks like he is trying to put some lipstick on the cover of his new book. He hoped that Trump would get to the left of Hillary on Wall Street and ruffle Janet's feathers. ..."
"... Basically David is saying that it will be a good thing that Hillary will be our next President because she will preside over the next recession. He also more or less said up to this point that it would be great if she gets "Trumped". ..."
"... We are ruled by largely a false consensus. Exactly what these polls are about…creating the perception of what the public believes in an effort to direct that perception. ..."
"... Trump has gotten to this point despite a massive push back from Republicans and an almost universal opposition from the mainstream media….and yet we still hear those proclaiming his candidacy is dead. If just a few more people would show a spine instead of running away from each and every Political correct attack, we MIGHT still have a democratic republic rather than a world ruled by powerful elites through political and corporate mouthpieces. ..."
"... I guess like many others, I slapped my forehead when the "tape" was released and initially thought it would be the last we saw of Donald Trump. Over the next few days I re-evaluated and came to the conclusion that it was inevitable that something like this would occur. TPTB will never allow Trump to ascend to the presidency willingly and if it can't be stopped by character assassination, they may well try another way. ..."
"... Personally I hope Donald wins by a good margin and Clinton, who couldn't keep the grin from her face, will be consigned to where she should be. ..."
"... Hillary will get the election simply by how the votes get counted. The character assassinations are a prelude and necessary part of the story as to why Trump lost. The faked vote counts for Hillary will be the reason Trump lost. But that won't be discussed. ..."
"... Hillary was a vote canvasser in Chicago in 1960 and learned a lot about vote fraud (she said so herself). I'm sure that will come in handy, no wonder she switched to the Vote Fraud Party. ..."
"... The way things are heating up between Washington and Russia, there's a lot more than the market to worry about, especially if Hillary is elected because she will not be able to control the Pentagon nor her neocon advisers like Paul Wolfowitz and Mike Morell. Simply put, they will get US into a war with Russia and Russia will defend itself with nukes because, for Russia, the 'conventional' alternative to nuclear war would be far worse. ..."
"... Russia will not likely allow that to happen. As part of the USSR, they lost 20m people during WWII, ejecting the Germans from their own territory while the Germans were fighting on multiple fronts. That represents as much of a "never again" tragedy for Russia as the holocaust represents for Jews. ..."
"... US military planners know this and will try to take out Russia's nukes as soon as the hostilities begin. The Russians know this and that they must launch as quickly as possible. It will be all out and all over, with little chance of negotiating a cease fire. ..."
"... As Lavrov said, we cannot even negotiate anymore. As soon as Kerry and he made their agreement last month, the Pentagon trashed it and attacked a Syrian base – as ISIS was attacking a nearby mountain. The Syrians even claim to have a recording of communications between US forces and ISIS – which 'our' government has yet to deny. We know now from Hillary's emails that the Saudis and Qataris were funding ISIS in 2014. There's surely more than that. ..."
"... I'm still voting for Trump as my big FU to the current way things are done. I still think a Trump presidency will result in something tangible being done to either our infrastructure needs or to causing everyone to re-engage in their local politics. Both positives in my mind. The World will take care of itself without the United States for a few years. ..."
"... Trump is still in the race and come Nov. 9 we will have our own version of Brexit. The dominant ruling minority have overstepped their bounds with the voting majority, who now see through all of the Zioglobalist falsehoods. ..."
"... The best we can hope for is Trump represents a different faction of our masters that realize a leech can't survive on a corpse. ..."
"... In the last debate I think I heard Trump say "oh so it's 3 against one again?" I was thinking the same thing before he said it. ..."
"... Only the MSM seem to be unaware of female sexuality – perhaps they think of them all as saints and mothers. I doubt that Trump has suffered lasting damage by the Bush inc. attack. Normal people are realists. ..."
"... Trump has many flaws and yes he has hurt himself but it is the media that is attempting to destroy him. Even Nixon got treated better then Trump. They cover up for Clinton, they work with Clinton. The media is doing a total hatchet job on Trump. ..."
"... According to my state Secretary of State, the second debate generated a flood of last minute new voter registrations, so it isn't over. ..."
"... I do agree Donald could have done way better in the first debate, and somewhat better in the second although he still won the second debate. We can also still hope the Most Evil Bitch will have a heart attack. If she is elected I am going to build a fallout shelter. ..."
"... And people are going to vote for Gary Johnson? Jesus Christ. Hope you're living on 10 acres of arable land in the middle of nowhere, Mish! ..."
"... The other problem for Bush was a short, mild recession during the election. Slick Willy made a big deal out of it; Bush said "don't worry, it won't amount to anything". Bush was right, but The Weasel won. ..."
"... Mish you are so wrong. I think Trump he will win solidly. The 2nd debate was a master stoke. If the election was over, you wouldn't have OBAMA and his wife, GORE, Sanders, Bill Clinton and assortment of idiotic actors all campaign wildly. ..."
"... Debates are never very memorable, statements are. The one-statement that will stay with everyone is you would be in Jail if I were president. ..."
"... A vote for Gary Johnson now is without a doubt a vote for Hillary, which in turn is a vote for WW3. That is not hyperbole. ..."
"... Political consultant Dick Morris knows the Clintons better than anybody and is vigorous in his support of Trump. He has been lambasting third party voters as Hillary votes and says it's really a wasted vote. ..."
"... Not sure why I would have to say this, but what Trump said into that hot mic was accurate. I lived in Miami for several years. Wealth purchases people and beauty is DEFINITELY purchaseable. They let him do it just the same as all of the athletes and celebs in the VIP sections of the clubs I frequented in SoBe. We used to joke that buying a bottle and getting a table in VIP increased our likelihood of hooking up by ~300%. Groping willing participants is not sexual assault. ..."
"... Don't be silly. If Trump loses this, he will be DONE. He has flown into the face of every power group in America, and if there is one thing we know about progressives, they do not forgive or forget. ..."
"... Personal destruction is their game. ..."
"... People want to think that Trump is just in it for publicity, which to me is to assume he is stupid, which I think is far from true. I think he truly does believe he can make a difference. He is probably wrong, but he is NOT stupid. This is his end. ..."
"... If anyone in the media had a clue about how voters feel, voters wouldn't be disconnecting their overpriced cable TV. 500 channels and they are all crap. ..."
"... Of course Trump will wreck Washington DC. That is the point. Of course Paul Ryan hates voters as much as Nancy Pelosi and Obama and McCain do - our public servants have made their hatred of the public quite clear. ..."
"... Believe it or not, Hillary started out as a conservative republican. At age 13 she canvassed for Nixon in Chicago in the 1960 election and saw vote fraud firsthand (seems to have made an impression!). In '64 she campaigned for Goldwater! Then in '65 she went to college and started drifting to the left. Her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky. Enrolling at Yale in '69 she met Bill Clinton and joined the Dark Side. ..."
"... Clinton is still the Republican candidate. She is certainly to the right of Nixon or Eisenhower. Pro big business, pro free trade, pro immigration, pro defense spending. The only non-alignment is with the Christian-right. But they were just a play thing for votes by the GOP anyway. ..."
"... Go back and read Eisenhower's Farewell Address again Jon. It's the opposite of Hellary. ..."
"... The thing about Trump is that he hasn't got a plan. Lowering taxes and spending more on defense is not a plan. Saying you will do better deals is not a plan. Voters are just hoping that once he was in he would achieve things but really we don't know what he will do. ..."
"... Trump does not have a plan and it is obvious. But no plan is better than Hillary's bad plan. ..."
"... But he really lost me when he degenerated into pandering to every minority race, religion and special interest group that yelled the loudest… just like all the other politicians. And the most recent revelation about his vulgar views of women didn't help either. Nothing to love there. ..."
"... "Trump was asked several pointed questions. Hillary was asked none." ..."
"... Never mind preparing for a biased moderator, accepting the conditions of such a debate at all makes him look like failed leadership. He could have demanded better conditions, especially if he were slightly ahead as he may have been at the time. ..."
"... One more thing that struck me was that if the election was in the bag why would they release the tape? They might as well be preparing for the coronation. ..."
"... IMO, the establishment is still running scared and thus using all the dirty tricks that they are capable of and which they think will win them the election. The crux of the issue is that they do not want to acknowledge that people might prefer a discredited Trump to the establishment at this stage of the game. Establishment is the problem but they are masquerading as the solution. This is the problem with gaming people. At some point the game is up. ..."
"... Exactly. And why release polls with a so called 11% lead, polls conducted by a company connected to Clinton? That has an overweight in left/democratic voters? ..."
"... Brexit was supposed to be over before the final result came in. How quickly people forget. It is the people vs Wall Street/corrupt politicians. The latter is represented by Clinton. the former by Trump. We will see how angry the U.S. people really are at the current clique of career politicians, bought and paid for by the big companies. ..."
"... Why indeed would they send out Obama only yesterday to wag his finger in dire warning? The powers to be know it's NOT all over. The problem is that each time they send one of these 'asshat extrodinaires' out To preach to the public they simply cause MORE dissent, more mocking, and more retrenchment. ..."
"... Does anyone actually think that Obama, who has done more to divide the nation than anyone can make the blindest bit of difference at this stage? Respectfully, a curious Englishman. ..."
"... PS! It's not as though Obama has anything better to do with his time, is it? Enjoy 18 holes of golf, or go out campaigning for a woman he (allegedly) loathes and despises. Tough call, that one! ..."
"... "We will see how angry the U.S. people really are at the current clique of career politicians, bought and paid for by the big companies." ..."
"... I hope they are angry enough to come and vote for him in such numbers that it assures a Trump victory. Anybody but establishment is all I ask! What is happening is too nauseating to stomach any longer. ..."
"... Unfortunately Gary Johnson will split the anti-establishment vote, helping to elect the Soros and banksters funded candidate. ..."
"... This is not a vote for election. It is a vote against election. ..."
Stockman: "This election is over. Trump made a game defense of himself, enough to keep him in
the race, but it is going to descend deeper into the gutter from here, than ever before in American
history. And the people of America are going to be disgusted. And they're not going to come out and
vote. And a lot of them now feel free to vote their conscience and their conviction for the third
party candidate. So Hillary will have no mandate. And I think that's good. Because she stands for
everything that's wrecking this country. We're gonna now have a crisis; there will be a market crash;
there will be a recession. She will be a 45 percent politically-crippled mandate-less president,
and we are going to finally show the American people that this fantasy that both parties have been
projecting has to end. … I do not think she won the debate. I think the media destroyed Donald Trump
as a candidate."
General Agreement
There is very little I disagree with, until the final sentence.
It's pretty clear the election is over, but that was clear after the first debate.
I would not go so far as to say the markets will "crash", but that depends on the definition.
I actually suspect more like a 40-50% decline over seven to ten years with nothing much worse than
a 15-20% decline.
No year may look like a "crash" but the end result for pension plans will be worse.
Hillary certainly is damaged goods, but she will be able to damage the country with help of her
Republican neocon friends who would rather see her in the White House than Trump.
All things considered, that's a lot of agreements. But, if a "crash" is coming, however one defines
it, Donald Trump would not have stopped it either.
Media Destroyed Trump?
My main disagreement with Stockman is his statement " I think the media destroyed Donald Trump
as a candidate ." Certainly the media tried to destroy Trump, but the media failed every step
of the way.
Trump Destroyed Trump
It is Trump who destroyed Trump. The man finally imploded.
Heading into the first debate, it was Trump's election to lose, and he lost it with an amazing
set of gaffes.
When asked about taxes, he had an easy answer: "I pay may taxes according to the law, just as
I presume Hillary does. Warren Buffet complained his secretary pays more in taxes than he does. But
does Buffet voluntarily pay extra taxes? Does Hillary? If Hillary does not like the law, why didn't
she change it when she was a senator?"
How hard was that?
Why didn't Trump ever bring up the Clinton Foundation? Why didn't he press harder on Libya?
In regards to the "birther" issue, all Trump had to say was "I changed my mind once I saw the
birth certificate. Am I not allow to change my mind? Didn't Hillary change her mind on the Trans-Pacific
Trade Agreement (TPP)? Of course she did. She now agrees with me. If she can change her, mind why
can't I?
Trump was asked several pointed questions. Hillary was asked none. Trump could have and should
have, after the third pointed question, gone after the moderator with a comment "Doesn't Hillary
get any hard questions? Whose side are you on?" That would have brought lots of laughs.
Such a response to the moderator by Trump would have required some quick thinking, but there is
no excuse for Trump flat out not being prepared for the debate.
Ahead of the first debate, Trump was one state away from pulling into the lead, and a moderately
good debate would likely have done that. Answers like the above, easily worked out in advance, may
have been a knock out blow to Hillary.
Finally, and in regards to all the new sexual allegations, Trump should simply have said something
along the lines "I made a mistake. So did Hillary when she married Bill."
The bottom line is the medial did not destroy Trump, his own arrogance, lack of humility, and
total lack of preparation for the first debate did.
Barring a medical or other type of disaster, this election is indeed over.
I am voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
thoughts on "Trump Destroyed Trump, Not the Media: "This Election is Over""
michael said:
October 11, 2016 8:44:34 at 8:44 PM Trump has not lost yet, although the mainstream media would
suggest otherwise. Of course they also predicted Brexit to fail. It is not over until the votes are
counted. It will be a travesty if Hillary is elected.
Gary Johnson believes Wall Street has committed no crimes. Hard rhetoric to stand behind.
Arvind Damarla
October 12, 2016 4:04:38 at 4:04 AM I have to say I am truly disappointed by this blog
post. The election is a clear choice. Hillary has a confirmed track record of war, the death of
muslim, laws that incarcerated black people, stumping for banks, stumping for Monsanto, stealing
aid money, corruption and slut-shaming raped women.
Trump has made fast and loose comments because he is not a slick politician. However I challenge
you to tell us what you find so objectionable about the *substance* of his statements (not the
media spin) that you would vote to allow Clinton in. Maybe you're in California and your vote
doesn't matter, but still … very disappointing.
CJ
October 12, 2016 12:37:29 at 12:37 PM The election "should" be a clear choice, but unfortunately
the democrat/liberal/progressive/socialist/fascist/communist fans of Hillary will not view, read
or discuss anything that is not favorable to their queen. The new voting block generation Y is
grossly uninformed, and being brainwashed by the MSM. Best thing to do is try to educate them.
mg
October 12, 2016 9:28:01 at 9:28 PM @CJ, Socialists, Progressives, the Left, HATE corrupt
HRC's actions, policies, behavior, and record. Why can't people get the terminology and concepts
correct?
HRC is the OPPOSITE of progresssive, socialist, leftist. Hillary Clinton is a NeoLiberal
NeoCon. She wants reckless regime change, war, trade agreements that decimate US jobs and wages,
etc.
October 13, 2016 7:50:33 at 7:50 AM Mish is acting like some gal looking for the perfect
man as a husband. There is no perfect man in either love or politics. Trump is the closest thing
to it given what I see of the puppets of politics so far. The central bankers / globalists appear
to hate him. That alone should be enough for Mish who has railed against both to vote for Trump.
Imagine the heat Trump has already taken? An Mish just blithely jumps ship. And what for? Because
of some imagined stampeded because Trump is hetero.
For those of you who think what Trump said is "bad". Well I guess it is considered bad. But
it is true. Women like powerful males and they drop their panties quite easily for them. I have
experience this. If you have not perhaps you think it is a myth. It is not. Even being relatively
fit and tall you would be surprised what a prim and proper lady will do if you intone that you
can keep a secret. Reality is those cloths come off quite rapidly.
So let's all stop the Victorian tongue clucking.
Diogenes
October 11, 2016 9:26:23 at 9:26 PM Exactly. I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012. It was/is a
mistake. He is unable to identify Aleppo as a Syrian city and flashpoint of ISIS terror.
Trump got a ton of free publicity in the primary. Hard to sit there now and gripe over how
he got treated.
Hillary destroyed evidence she was subpoenaed to turn over to criminal investigators. She
should lose her law license just as Bill had. Instead, she will become president.
The world recoils in horror as President What-Difference-Does-It-Make takes office.
the_gardener
October 11, 2016 8:52:36 at 8:52 PM I recently registered to vote for the first time in
over 15 years. I'm voting for Trump and I've never voted for a Republican before in my life. I'm
completely ignoring all the polls, all the talking heads, all of the 'smart' people, alt or otherwise.
I'm going to vote for what I see as the only option for not *more of the same*.
And I don't discuss it with anyone. I don't get into political arguments or discussions. I
don't have a lawn sign or a bumper sticker. I don't go to rally's.
I'm betting there are plenty more people just like me and there is a big surprise awaiting
all of the pundits.
October 12, 2016 7:56:30 at 7:56 AM So why do you believe Johnson is superior to Trump? Have
you seen the beat-downs he has given people for the use of the term "illegal Alien". Are you good
with open borders? Do you think he is anything close to a libertarian in hs views? Do you think
there is a chance in hell he can win?
It is a fraud to reject Trump for his failures to make the best case against Hillary. It
really doesn't matter as we have seen just in the last few days that the media is not covering
the issues, no matter how much he brings them up. He has massive rallies and goes through all
of this, yet NOTHING in the media .
Sure they will cover his vulgarities while saying NOTHING of Hillary's issues other than
to claim the content of her emails is less relevant than a potential Trump/Russia conspiracy.
Birther my ass, will they apologize for inferring Trump is a traitor or spy? I doubt it.
Mish, you are still free and can do as you wish, but you KNOW a vote for Johnson is a vote
for Hillary. YOU KNOW THINS, so please do us all a favor and not pretend it is some principled
stand. You are willing to vote for a loser because you think trump will lose…..ensuring he WILL
lose if others follow you path.
October 12, 2016 7:57:06 at 7:57 AM We are partially in this mess because of people like you
that don't take responsibility. Life is full of hard choices – make one. Sorry Mish, a vote for
Johnson, who does not have a plan for our biggest financial issue, healthcare spending, is also
spineless, or worse, because it helps an even bigger bag of horse sh*t – CROOKED Hitlary.
DesertRat
October 11, 2016 8:58:28 at 8:58 PM When Mike several months ago asked who his readers would
vote for, I replied that I could not imagine a universe that could exist in which I would vote
for Trump. Well I have found that universe.
The corrupt FBI cover-up of Clintons violations of the espionage act has convinced me that
Clinton should be in prison. She wants to appoint left-wing ideological Supreme Court justices
who further destroy the law and move us down the road to tyranny. She will not repeal the ACA.
She will further destabilize the world just as she did Libya.
Trump is a very flawed individual who really has no business being President. I disagree
with many of his policies, but at this point, we all we have left is damage control. As much as
I hate it, I will vote for Trump.
October 11, 2016 9:17:36 at 9:17 PM Gee thanks. After cheerleading for Trump all through the
Republican primaries, now you bail. Nothing that's happened wasn't predictable, in fact wasn't
predicted. Where were you when something could be done about it?
October 12, 2016 12:33:44 at 12:33 AM Please tell me what could have been done besides nothing.
If you say vote Cruz or Rubio I would throw up. The least warmonger will get my vote actually.
That may be Stein. I have to look. But it sure aint Cruz or Rubio. They are as bad as Hillary
October 12, 2016 8:06:58 at 8:06 AM Mish will vote for someone he KNOWS will lose rather than
risk his vote for someone who MIGHT lose. If Trump does lose it will be the result of people like
Mish. For someone who lives in alternate media, he sure swallows the main stream media's crap
whole.
It's sad. It's disappointing, but we live in a world of choices, one that ALWAYS revolves around
choosing the lesser of evils. The role of the media is ALWAYS to incentivize us to choose poorly,
be it in our consumption or politics. Humans have an inner need to self destruct and media and
the commercial interests they ultimately represent seek to push us a long, to buy what we don't
need and as ALWAYS lure us with "something for nothing" which is ALWAYS the most expensive "purchase"
we could have made.
"Buy" Johnson and get Hillary and all that comes with her.WAR and financial depression in perpetude.
Jon Sellers
October 12, 2016 11:41:14 at 11:41 AM Disagree. Voting for the 2 party system is what
has got us where we are today. It's people like you, who will always vote for who the oligarchs
give you, that has put the country in this position.
Trump, even if elected, cannot do anything without an agreeable Congress.
Mish is a self-professed Libertarian and is taking the reasonable and responsible stand. He
is voting his conscious. Everyone should.
CJ
October 12, 2016 12:56:47 at 12:56 PM And I disagree with you, Jon. Trump may call himself
a republican (as Ron Paul did) but in fact he is an independent. Look at all the repubs that
won't support "their" candidate. The oligarchs most certainly did not give us Trump, the people
voted for Trump in spite of the oligarchs continuously trying to destroy him and supporting establishment
professional politicians.
I am fine with Washington getting nothing done. What they do get done usually does more harm than
good. Do you want to have Hillary impose her 75% tax plan? Are you happy that Obama brought back
the Cold War, and Hillary intends to raise the temperature?
October 12, 2016 1:23:32 at 1:23 PM What CJ said.
What good are your principles if they have no effect on the outcome? A vote for a third party
is a vote for Hillary. Are you so deluded to think that Hillary will care, or ANYONE will care,
that Johnson got 10% of the vote? What good did it do to vote for Perot? WE got Clinton and what
we have today. IT IS THE MEDIA that controls the elections, and the two main parties are in league
with them. One reason they hate Trump so much is he has not spent the money Hillary has and his
political power is a public demonstration to other potential candidates that maybe they too do
not have to suckle at that tit of donors and media buys. This is a MAJOR threat to those running
our country. NO donors, OH SHIT!, No advertising, OH HELL NO! Trump is no hero, no savior, but
he is PROVING to be the only effective adversary to the powers that be. Only an fool would not
see this. Third parties are a waste of effort, always have been. With Trump, even if he loses,
it will change the political process for years to come.
Likely, if Hillary wins, they will attempt to change the laws and structure of party politics
to make sure we NEVER see another Trump like candidacy. There is SO MUCH riding on this election
and people are so caught up with the media shilling and traditional cognitive capture that they
just don't realize. The system IS the system and when you are inside of it it is invisible, but
when you are on the outside, trying to break in, you realize, be it business or politics, that
there are walls built to prevent you from doing so, and typically the only way in is to pay tribute
to the system, bend to its will, accept the corruption, fraud and criminality designed specifically
to limit access.
October 12, 2016 8:10:18 at 8:10 AM Trump is not a nation builder, which is why the neocons
are against him. Wake up Mish – any vote against Trump is a vote for Hitlary, AND YOU KNOW IT,
and would be a vote for what you despise.
Norman
October 12, 2016 8:43:40 at 8:43 AM You could vote for Trump and use your platform here to
encourage every 3rd party, undecided and uninterested citizen to also vote for Trump.
Everyone understands he is flawed but the alternative is the end of the United States as we
know it…the simple demographics of a Clinton presidency – likely 8 years followed by more Democratic
dictatorship will bring in millions of Syrian and other Muslims, tens of millions more illegal
aliens and we will become Greece/France/Germany/Sweden.
There are millions of Americans with young children who will be fighting the civil war and
bear the brunt of the violence that will occur – and in many places is already occurring but being
completely blacked out by the media.
Thanks for nothing pal.
Bayleaf
October 11, 2016 9:18:27 at 9:18 PM Oh please it's hardly over. Polls don't matter when
a wikileak, 11 year-old tape, or bad debate performance could potentially swing sentiment overnight
from one candidate to another.
Carl R
October 12, 2016 11:39:53 at 11:39 AM Or, maybe polls do matter, but not in the way most think.
In the last two weeks I have been keeping a count of yard signs I see for Presidential candidates.
There are many for local issues, but for President I have counted 0 for Hillary, 0 for Trump,
5 for Johnson. On bumper stickers I counted 1 for Bernie, and none for anyone else.
I conclude no one wants to admit who they support. The only reason anyone would vote for
HIllary is to stop Trump. Now, if the polls show an easy win for Hillary, those people may figure
their vote is not needed, and since they don't really care for her, not vote at all. By contrast,
Trump supporters are more likely to be angry by how the press has treated him, and vote anyway.
I expect record low turnout. It's possible that with a record low turnout that Trump might
actually win. It's also possible that Johnson might get 15% of the vote and surprise everyone.
It's a shame, honestly, that the Libertarians didn't nominate a more qualified nominee this year
as this would have been the year for him to be taken seriously.
On the whole of politics, I'll make one final comment. Back in the 60's politics was a dirty
business, featuring guys like LBJ and Nixon. After Watergate the mood changed, and instead we
got nice guys, and who could be nicer than Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford? It's taken 30 years, but
we're right back where we were.
October 12, 2016 1:31:14 at 1:31 PM Not if it is a Johnson Libertarian platform.
Free trade? does he even know what that is? Because none of us do as we haven't had any in our
history. We PAY tariffs to just about every country we hope to export to and charge none at all.
Free my ass.
Open borders and citizenship for all? Does he understand supply and demand principles, does he
not look at the number of people out of the workforce? Does he have even the slightest clue how
economics works? He is a Utopian that is completely clueless. I'm sure he is smart enough to run
a business, but he has no business running mine. How many illegals did he hire when he had his
own business anyway? Here in Texas there are lots of successful businesses profiting from illegal
employment. Doesn't make it right.
Hell_Is_Like_Newark
October 12, 2016 3:06:15 at 3:06 PM If I put a 'Trump' sticker on my car, it would be
vandalized. If I put a Trump sign on my building, it would be vandalized if not outright fire
bombed. I live in a very blue district in a very blue state.
Trump was not my first choice, but he is the better choice. I have warmed to him a bit
seeing how he has upset the party oligarchs.. and not just in the USA . H
Robert
October 11, 2016 9:33:34 at 9:33 PM They're trying to set the narrative before anything happens
like a soothsayer. Nobody can say with certainty that Trump is finished. He isn't. He's still
attracting massive crowds and money.
The captured pollsters are like the credit rating agencies during the financial crisis. They
are putting a AAA-rating on a pile of dog crap. Buy it at your own risk.
Just as I have done with Trump, I am not going to judge you Mish on one bad call, but please
re-think your position. You are way too smart to come to your conclusion. The other smart people
coming to your decision are either 'useful idiots' or are establishment hacks, who benefit some
way from selling their soul.
October 12, 2016 12:30:44 at 12:30 AM Hillary without a doubt will carry Illinois. I never
really looked much beyond Trump. I heard today that Ron Paul said Stein had the best foreign policy.
So I will investigate.
October 12, 2016 8:10:20 at 8:10 AM I heard that Jesus had the BEST platform. Maybe we should
all vote for HIM.
It will be at least as effective as voting for Stein or Johnson, and if you are going for a principled
vote, how can you do better? At least we may have an express lane to heaven when Hillary's policies
will have us evaporated in a fireball from Russia.
It's easy to do. There is no chance in Hell that she will win, and you can set back and
watch it all burn down with a clear conscience, right?
This is what I love about principles. We pretend our principles are about the greater good…like
we are sacrificing ourselves, when in reality, we are simply trying to shield our own delicate
sensibilities from any thought of responsibility.
***don't look at me, I didn't vote for her/him/undecided***
It is like the way that radical Islamist shoot their rifles. They avoid aiming directly and
instead simply point their rifles in the general direction of who they want dead, but by not aiming
directly, they can claim that the resultant death was not their fault but Allah's will.
It is the typical progressive stance that they defend themselves from the destruction their
policies create by claiming that it was okay because they only had good intentions. People voting
for people that they know cannot win are no different. Our every action AND inaction has consequence
that only our deluded minds can shield us from. Every vote and non vote counts. Throwing your
vote away or not voting is but a delusion from accepting that responsibility, a pretense of "principles".
Real principles require personal sacrifice. You have to give up something for them, not receive
something (like absolution). No one is forcing you to vote (yet), but life is nothing else BUT
a choice of lesser evils, and to pretend it is not, to believe that simply not participating does
anything positive, flies in the face of the notion that all that evil requires to succeed is for
good people to do nothing (and voting for a third party is doing NOTHING). Half the country doesn't
vote now, and we are in the worst position ever. Voting for a sure loser is no different
The USA is not a nation (at least not in the traditional nation-state sense). It's too
fractured and too diverse, it doesn't even have its own language and culture. How can one say
"we"? How many of you can find enough people in your area with the same interests to form any
organized group?
The Democrats know this very well, and that is why they have been fracturing it further by
creating artificial "communities" (such as the "gay community" etc.).
What's over with this election is not Trump (who will go back to his business and find some peace),
but the very underlying "romantic" concept of America.
Gary Johnson is the one expressing this "romantic" view, of an America that doesn't exist,
never existed, has no chance of existing because it's too diverse and fractured in its social
core, and it's against all global plans and policies of all other countries. He can only fracture
the republican party even more, until republicans become "the other democrats" on the table.
The same happened in Greece with the third party "To Potami", which helped bring Syriza
in power after fracturing the center-right. It was a "catalyst" party that played its role and
then almost vanished.
kevinmackay
October 12, 2016 8:24:31 at 8:24 AM My son has a history book that says things like "We went
into world war two…", "America wanted to build a better…" and "Americans wanted more equality".
I asked him to define who "We", "America" and "Americans" were. He said he thought the book
was boring and repetitive and he only studied to get the grade. I said "good boy, keep the math
grade up."
Soon I'll have to explain what nonsense to write to slip under the literature teacher's radar.
Diogenes
October 12, 2016 1:37:24 at 1:37 PM Trump was responsible for Super Bowl sized audiences during
the GOP debates. The question is : can he get them to get off their butts and vote?
If he can, this is going to be very interesting indeed.
The historic concept of nation… where the people share the same race, religion, culture, language,
history and territory… is dying. TPTB want all nations to die to further their evil globalist
agenda. If a nation won't die a natural death, it will be given a lethal dose of diversity via
massive immigration.
I read Stockman's article in full, and he gets even more preposterous and unhinged from
reality than that sentence you disagree with, Mish. Stockman seems to think the ruination of the
USA under Hillary will be a good thing that leads to a Utopian paradise arising out of the financial
ashes and radioactive rubble. Bolsheviks in 1917 and more recent Marxists such as Paul Pot in
Cambodia have had that same vision of a Utopian society arising from the ashes and killing fields.
I think Stockman needs to rethink that part of his narrative. Anyway, the Media did not kill Trump.
Rather, the Media Have Made Trump.
40 million or so Trump supporters watching debate number two on TV saw it for themselves,
and now more than ever know the falseness of the mainstream media narrative, both in its spin
and coverage deletions. The media has been 99% anti-Trump from Day One, and ditto the GOP elite
who are touted by the media as now ditching Trump. In that sense, what Trump and Bill Clinton
have in common is that they both get stronger when under attack. If the media and GOP elite suddenly
embraced Trump, that might confuse Trump's supporters into bolting.
The Bush cousin, Billy, and NBC were a month too soon releasing the trash talking tape,
and timing counts. People who watched the debate, including the Hillary voters, now have too much
time to talk and reconsider. The danger to Hillary is that some of the robotic drones who vote
Democratic by rote will agree that Hillary is all talk and empty words and that nothing will be
done under her rule to help the black, Latinos and inner city people who robotically vote the
Democratic ticket. That is the defection that could hurt Hillary on election day, defections among
her own core believing that They Have Nothing to Lose by Voting Trump. The media cannot sustain
the Bush family/NBC tape frenzy much longer. It will soon be old news, and something else will
emerge to turn the election.
dan
October 11, 2016 10:38:08 at 10:38 PM My research shows evidence of poll fixing to make
hillary look good. My independant polls and questions show trump will win election by a large
margin. My guess he will beat Hillary by 6 million votes if not more. Media is so wrong on this.
mattson01
October 12, 2016 5:55:34 at 5:55 AM Whatever the media says is a lie, I have no doubt.
My prediction is Hilary's team will know that she can't win, so they'll play the poor health card
so that Obama will stall the election (with him in power) for another year.
A/ They get rid of Trump now and Clinton gets some kind of coronation. That is why they are
pulling out all of the stops with the current smear campaign. (Some geezer in the UN is the latest
to wag his finger), or
B/ They hope that Clinton builds some kind of commanding position in the polls and they
convince a significant number of voters that Trump will lose anyway. The problem is that everyone
knows that the polls are rigged, and the more people see of Hillary and the more questions are
asked, the more the people don't like her. The polls are still too close for comfort.
Roger
October 12, 2016 1:34:30 at 1:34 PM Well CJ, you are probably right. But if there is one
thing I have learned about neo-liberals (or whatever these creatures call themselves) over the
past decade or so – that is they make and break the rules to suit themselves. Done in Europe all
the time. We will see.
October 12, 2016 1:58:06 at 1:58 PM Hillary will lead the polls but lose the election
which will be proclaimed fraudulent due to Russian hacking at the behest of Trump. Its all set
up.
They keep bringing up all of these leaked and hacked emails, claiming they are all tracked
back to Russia, which is impossible to actually verify WHO did it, but none the less, this will
be their plan if ballot box stuffing and election fraud are not enough to get her across the finish
line. They keep TELLING us that Hillary is the WINNER. They claim its not even close.
Hillary is laughing at Trump supporters and denigrating them as she believes she is the heir
apparent. Look at the polls and see very lopsided democrat/republican sampling as well as other
metrics. Look at those running the polling companies who are also on Hillary's payroll. Its blatant
and it is sad, but they don't care because they own the media and will spin the story to their
ends. Most if not many will see through it, but they don't care, because no one will push back,
especially not from rank and file republicans. Only the Deplorables would be so crass. And we
know how much respect they get.
KPL
October 11, 2016 9:57:26 at 9:57 PM I am not so sure that Trump will lose. People are
so anti-establishment that it is likely the media by defiling Trump almost on a daily basis and
their visible bias towards Hillary may be helping Trump along. However I do accept Trump can lose
it with his foot-in-mouth disease but even now I do not think it is sure thing. If the anti-establishment
crowd land up in droves to vote, it might well be Trump.
October 11, 2016 9:58:13 at 9:58 PM I like David Stockman and enjoy what he has to say
but it looks like he is trying to put some lipstick on the cover of his new book. He hoped that
Trump would get to the left of Hillary on Wall Street and ruffle Janet's feathers.
Basically David is saying that it will be a good thing that Hillary will be our next President
because she will preside over the next recession. He also more or less said up to this point that
it would be great if she gets "Trumped".
October 12, 2016 8:18:56 at 8:18 AM Yeah, well I said that about Obama…TWICE, and look at
what we have. The dream that this will EVER blow back on progressives is pure delusion as the
"public" opinion as created by the media is the rule, not facts or reality. Conservatives have
been waiting for progressives to get slapped with the consequences of their actions for a hundred
years and still NOTHING. The PROOF is to look at where we are right NOW!
We are ruled by largely a false consensus. Exactly what these polls are about…creating
the perception of what the public believes in an effort to direct that perception.
Trump has gotten to this point despite a massive push back from Republicans and an almost
universal opposition from the mainstream media….and yet we still hear those proclaiming his candidacy
is dead. If just a few more people would show a spine instead of running away from each and every
Political correct attack, we MIGHT still have a democratic republic rather than a world ruled
by powerful elites through political and corporate mouthpieces.
DCMCM
October 11, 2016 10:00:51 at 10:00 PM While I have no vote in the US election, it doesn't
mean I have no interest. On the contrary, I have followed it closely.
I guess like many others, I slapped my forehead when the "tape" was released and initially
thought it would be the last we saw of Donald Trump. Over the next few days I re-evaluated and
came to the conclusion that it was inevitable that something like this would occur. TPTB will
never allow Trump to ascend to the presidency willingly and if it can't be stopped by character
assassination, they may well try another way.
What I am not seeing from Trump is humility. If anyone expects him to be a supernatural leader
in the event he does win, I suspect they will be very disappointed. He needs to come out with
a statement to the effect that he has said and done many silly things in his life and many of
them have come back to haunt him, however his love of America is much greater than his personal
failings and he will be able to make America GREAT AGAIN. To this end he will need to spell out
that he has a great vision of how to do this and that he knows how to find the right people for
his team to oversee the various changes that need to be made. He needs to stress that it will
not be easy and there will be pain, but that pain is on the way anyway and his plan will make
it as soft as possible.
In the event he does make it, the scene is set for undoing him. Maybe those pesky Russians will
hack the electronic voting so Obama can call the election a fraud and invalidate it. Personally
I hope Donald wins by a good margin and Clinton, who couldn't keep the grin from her face, will
be consigned to where she should be.
Jon Sellers
October 12, 2016 11:57:20 at 11:57 AM Hillary will get the election simply by how the
votes get counted. The character assassinations are a prelude and necessary part of the story
as to why Trump lost. The faked vote counts for Hillary will be the reason Trump lost. But that
won't be discussed.
CJ
October 12, 2016 1:18:53 at 1:18 PM Hillary was a vote canvasser in Chicago in 1960 and
learned a lot about vote fraud (she said so herself). I'm sure that will come in handy, no wonder
she switched to the Vote Fraud Party.
The way things are heating up between Washington and Russia, there's a lot more than the
market to worry about, especially if Hillary is elected because she will not be able to control
the Pentagon nor her neocon advisers like Paul Wolfowitz and Mike Morell. Simply put, they will
get US into a war with Russia and Russia will defend itself with nukes because, for Russia, the
'conventional' alternative to nuclear war would be far worse.
Russia, whose population is 1/6 of NATO's and whose economy is 1/20 of NATO's, has a long and
easily penetrable border. In a strictly conventional war, once its air defenses are gone, NATO
bombers will have field day, after field day, carpet-bombing Russian cities and towns, laying
waste that Chechen and other Muslims will scavenge. It would be far worse than the quick death
of nuclear war. They might hold out for a while, and make it costly for US, but they know they
would not hold out forever.
Russia will not likely allow that to happen. As part of the USSR, they lost 20m people
during WWII, ejecting the Germans from their own territory while the Germans were fighting on
multiple fronts. That represents as much of a "never again" tragedy for Russia as the holocaust
represents for Jews.
US military planners know this and will try to take out Russia's nukes as soon as the hostilities
begin. The Russians know this and that they must launch as quickly as possible. It will be all
out and all over, with little chance of negotiating a cease fire.
As Lavrov said, we cannot even negotiate anymore. As soon as Kerry and he made their agreement
last month, the Pentagon trashed it and attacked a Syrian base – as ISIS was attacking a nearby
mountain. The Syrians even claim to have a recording of communications between US forces and ISIS
– which 'our' government has yet to deny. We know now from Hillary's emails that the Saudis and
Qataris were funding ISIS in 2014. There's surely more than that.
Each day a new war tidbit is in the news. Today, we hear that Russia is advising government
officials to bring home their children who are studying abroad. Yesterday, Gorbachev warned of
the growing nuclear threat. But no one is paying attention, except those think the US can win.
So before the election, I shall stock up on needed items, drop my class and head for somewhere
safer than Phoenix. I hope I am wrong but this time it really could be doomsday.
October 11, 2016 10:20:42 at 10:20 PM I'm still voting for Trump as my big FU to the current
way things are done. I still think a Trump presidency will result in something tangible being
done to either our infrastructure needs or to causing everyone to re-engage in their local politics.
Both positives in my mind. The World will take care of itself without the United States for a
few years.
Seychelles
October 11, 2016 10:27:01 at 10:27 PM Trump is still in the race and come Nov. 9 we will
have our own version of Brexit. The dominant ruling minority have overstepped their bounds with
the voting majority, who now see through all of the Zioglobalist falsehoods.
Stuki Moi
October 11, 2016 11:02:23 at 11:02 PM No politician, least of all a Clinton, will tax their
biggest potential donors. "The rich" that stand to get taxed, are small business people and professionals
who have more important tings do do with their money than act as "job creators" for Clinton Foundation
jobs.
But you have to admit, tax RATE plans make for an excellent TALKING point… to the PERCEPTION
of the sacrificial Middle Class: a politician feels THEIR pain… but the reality is: the rich protected
their asse(t)s with LOOPHOLES long ago.
Stuki Moi
October 12, 2016 8:37:59 at 8:37 PM No doubt that's how it will be done. Straight out of the
Pancho Villa playbook: Kill off competent men after stealing all their stuff. Arrange grandiose
public spectacles where you publicly toss a small fraction of what you stole from her now deceased
husband to the starving, starry eyed, widow. Demonstrating what a "great leader" you are.
daddysteve
October 11, 2016 10:38:31 at 10:38 PM The best we can hope for is Trump represents a different
faction of our masters that realize a leech can't survive on a corpse.
October 11, 2016 10:41:03 at 10:41 PM I love it to study psychological cases through comments.
People express their reactions and never their cold reasoning
CJ
October 11, 2016 11:20:38 at 11:20 PM In the last debate I think I heard Trump say "oh
so it's 3 against one again?" I was thinking the same thing before he said it.
greg
October 12, 2016 12:03:39 at 12:03 AM Yaknow, really, the next debate should be done with
swords. Just put the 2 of them out on the stage in separate corners, with Anderson Cooper and
Martha Raddatz on the floor, front stage, tied to chairs and several winds of duct tape over their
mouths, a bell rings and they have at it. May the best man win.
Eric Coote
October 12, 2016 8:14:34 at 8:14 PM Yes Paul – I think most women realise that there are quite
a few (women) who line up for the attention of alpha males – so male hubris is somewhat encouraged.
It has been reported for instance that the lines outside the Beetles (pop group) hotel rooms in
Australia anyway, were very long, unruly and overheated to the extent that one Beetle told them
all to go and 'get *ucked' to which came the obvious reply.
Only the MSM seem to be unaware of female sexuality – perhaps they think of them all as
saints and mothers. I doubt that Trump has suffered lasting damage by the Bush inc. attack. Normal
people are realists.
For the record – I do not agree with molestation of women or forgive it. Nor do I agree with
men using their power position to enforce female compliance – but we should all be aware that
there are fuzzy lines and women are better than men at drawing them.
October 11, 2016 11:01:46 at 11:01 PM No one knows who is going to win. The polls are all
over the place and they are all different based on who is taking them. We will not know the outcome
of this election till election night or maybe even later.
Trump has many flaws and yes he has hurt himself but it is the media that is attempting
to destroy him. Even Nixon got treated better then Trump. They cover up for Clinton, they work
with Clinton. The media is doing a total hatchet job on Trump.
I think this election is going to have higher turnout numbers then we have seen in a very
long time and it's the reason Trump can still win. There is a lot of people that have given up
on the system that he's going to bring out to the polls and it can turn this election in his way.
It would also be something not counted in polls and would lead to a surprise victory.
Paul Niemi
October 11, 2016 11:13:50 at 11:13 PM According to my state Secretary of State, the second
debate generated a flood of last minute new voter registrations, so it isn't over.
The last time the media were so unanimous in depreciating a presidential candidate, I think,
was 1968, when Nixon was written off early. He won, and the mainstream press lost.
This telling voters the winner, before the election, can backfire, and I think it will. Voters
like to show their independence, and most do not make up their minds until just a few days before
the election. People know the polling methodologies are flawed or rigged. Only the exit polls
have any real validity, so we won't know the outcome until the election is over. What we do know
about polls, is that they consistently predict outcomes that underestimate the closeness of individual
races.
CJ
October 11, 2016 11:17:40 at 11:17 PM It ain't over until it's over. I like Mish's blog, but
really he is not a great forecaster. I forecast that wikileaks is saving the most damaging exposures
until just before the election. All political types know that just before has the greatest effect.
The MSM tried to withhold the Trump locker room talk tapes until as close to the election as possible
for the most damage, but had to release them now because they found out they were about to get
scooped.
I do agree Donald could have done way better in the first debate, and somewhat better in
the second although he still won the second debate. We can also still hope the Most Evil Bitch
will have a heart attack. If she is elected I am going to build a fallout shelter.
R G
October 11, 2016 11:37:50 at 11:37 PM LOL yep, spot on. People think it's a cute game to "vote
your conscience". I remember being naive enough to do that. I did it in 2008 for God's sake. But
this election is for all the marbles. This country has no moral compass right now. It's enraged;
a race war appears to be shaping up; we're drowning in debt; we're deployed all over the planet;
and there's not a single country that's not sick to death of us.
Now, if a Black Friday event can turn Americans into raving loons, think about what a Black
Swan would do.
And people are going to vote for Gary Johnson? Jesus Christ. Hope you're living on 10 acres
of arable land in the middle of nowhere, Mish!
October 12, 2016 2:47:20 at 2:47 PM Bush The First would probably have been re-elected in
'92 had it not been for his incredibly stupid "Read my lips, no new taxes" and then he raised
taxes. Since I am always against more of my earnings being confiscated and wasted, it sure soured
me on Bush.
The other problem for Bush was a short, mild recession during the election. Slick Willy
made a big deal out of it; Bush said "don't worry, it won't amount to anything". Bush was right,
but The Weasel won.
Tony of CA
October 11, 2016 11:24:38 at 11:24 PM Mish you are so wrong. I think Trump he will win
solidly. The 2nd debate was a master stoke. If the election was over, you wouldn't have OBAMA
and his wife, GORE, Sanders, Bill Clinton and assortment of idiotic actors all campaign wildly.
As for the 1st debate, no one can even remembers it. Debates are never very memorable,
statements are. The one-statement that will stay with everyone is you would be in Jail if I were
president.
R G
October 11, 2016 11:26:15 at 11:26 PM All I can say is that I truly hope people are prepared
for the ramifications of a Hillary presidency if they vote for anyone other than Trump. I have
never voted for a Republican POTUS. It's always been third party for me, with the exception of
2000, when my girlfriend and I neutralized each other's votes. I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012
and Bob Barr in 2008.
A vote for Gary Johnson now is without a doubt a vote for Hillary, which in turn is a vote
for WW3. That is not hyperbole.
R G
October 12, 2016 11:47:31 at 11:47 AM Then you're not thinking this thing through to its conclusion.
Throughout American history, which is the political party that ultimately splits the vote, or
even splinters? We could discuss political party history in this country but it would be out of
place. The Demo-Reps were NOT present-day Democrats. Bull Moose were NOT liberals. Libertarian
voters are generally NOT present-day Democrats.
I know this because I've been one of those voters from Perot onwards. This is no time in our
nation's history to be rolling the dice on a no-shot. Even if he were the next George Washington
(he's far from it), he stands no mathematical shot. Only a vote for one of the two major party
candidates does. We do not have a parliamentary system in this country. And even if we did, human
beings generally fall into one of two camps: Makers and Takers, or hard money guys (Gold Standard
Republicans) versus easy money guys (Silver Democrats).
I'm not trying to convince you to vote for someone else. My wife is debating a vote for Johnson
as well. But what I am saying is that not acknowledging the facts is unacceptable to me, and as
far as I'm concerned, third party voters in this election will be treated the same as Democrats
when we look back 10 years from now.
Political consultant Dick Morris knows the Clintons better than anybody and is vigorous
in his support of Trump. He has been lambasting third party voters as Hillary votes and says it's
really a wasted vote.
R G
October 12, 2016 9:32:39 at 9:32 AM Not sure why I would have to say this, but what Trump
said into that hot mic was accurate. I lived in Miami for several years. Wealth purchases people
and beauty is DEFINITELY purchaseable. They let him do it just the same as all of the athletes
and celebs in the VIP sections of the clubs I frequented in SoBe. We used to joke that buying
a bottle and getting a table in VIP increased our likelihood of hooking up by ~300%. Groping willing
participants is not sexual assault.
This race boils down to all of the marbles. Vote Johnson, a guy who mathematically stands no
chance of winning, and you're voting for Hillary. Johnson pulls more support from paleo-cons who
are so far right they're left. Been there, done that.
Recessions happen on average every 7-8 years. We're due. Imagine the state of this country
during the next recession with 7 years of ZIRP, a race war, and neocons fomenting world war.
Carl R
October 12, 2016 11:54:11 at 11:54 AM Well, first of all, Libertarians are normally isolationists,
so it isn't really relevant that he doesn't know Aleppo. In any case, I one voted for a Presidential
Candidate that confused Eastern Europe with Western Europe when questioned during a debate. If
the matter came up in a discussion were the topic was not taken out of context, I don't think
it would be an issue. I personally don't care for Johnson, but the "Aleppo" question would be
a stupid reason for deciding whether or not to vote for him.
CJ
October 12, 2016 1:28:31 at 1:28 PM Yes Libertarians tend to be isolationist, but that is
not an excuse for not knowing what is going on in the world. Aleppo is only one example. The presidency
is half foreign policy and half domestic policy. I wish the libertarians had a better candidate,
but then again if they got more votes it would just increase Hellary's chances.
October 12, 2016 2:31:26 at 2:31 PM Don't be silly. If Trump loses this, he will be DONE.
He has flown into the face of every power group in America, and if there is one thing we know
about progressives, they do not forgive or forget. When you cross a line with progressives,
they do not seek to just defeat you, they will DESTROY YOU. Personal destruction is their
game.
The youo not debate or argue on policies, they dig up dirt and then try to bury you in it.
This is especially true with those they see as traitors, people who were formally aligned with
the left, or are from a deomgraphic that they fell they OWN. Look at how they beat Herman Cain…not
policy, personal. Look at Bill Cosby who was their hero until he spoke out against black ignorance….does
anyone really think that only after decades of silence these women just "decided" to go public?
Ben Carson, they went after his history, not his policies. They we smart enough to bow out before
any lasting damage was done, but Trump? I believe they have hell waiting for him. Do you think
he will get any of his real estate deals done in these big cities. Do you not think they will
be digging up everything they can from his past to bedevil him to the grave? I do.
People want to think that Trump is just in it for publicity, which to me is to assume he
is stupid, which I think is far from true. I think he truly does believe he can make a difference.
He is probably wrong, but he is NOT stupid. This is his end.
Freddie
October 11, 2016 11:54:09 at 11:54 PM If anyone in the media had a clue about how voters
feel, voters wouldn't be disconnecting their overpriced cable TV. 500 channels and they are all
crap.
If anyone in the media could forecast elections (DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, AGAIN!) - they have
been forecasting the end of Trump's campaign for over a year.
With markets all but disabled from inept central planning, Mish hasn't been able to talk about
economics in a long time. Unfortunately, he decided to try his hand at driverless cars (which
only work under ideal circumstances, and only when manufacturers "forget" to report accidents).
And now Mish is just parroting really bad media nonsense.
Mish's own polling posts show Trump is very much in the race. Hilary is out campaigning and
soliciting bribes (campaign contributions isn't fooling anyone) as though her career depends on
it - because her crime syndicate knows it is far from over.
No one believes or ever did believe that Trump is a saint. A giant ego, a giant hair pile,
a real estate empire that depends on cheap borrowing, two wildly popular TV shows (Miss universe
and Celeb Apprentice) that aren't exactly "high society".
Of course Trump will wreck Washington DC. That is the point. Of course Paul Ryan hates
voters as much as Nancy Pelosi and Obama and McCain do - our public servants have made their hatred
of the public quite clear.
Whether its ObamaCare, obeying illegal searches, lopsided prosecutions, or just plain arrogance
and greed - Washington DC doesn't eat its own cooking.
That is why "Trump" will win.
The federal government will be severely cash constrained for decades to come no matter who
wins. Anyone who can read the GAO reports on Medicare and Obamacare knows that.
Only a fool believes a parasite (government) can grow faster than its host (the tax base).
CJ
October 11, 2016 11:57:45 at 11:57 PM Believe it or not, Hillary started out as a conservative
republican. At age 13 she canvassed for Nixon in Chicago in the 1960 election and saw vote fraud
firsthand (seems to have made an impression!). In '64 she campaigned for Goldwater! Then in '65
she went to college and started drifting to the left. Her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky.
Enrolling at Yale in '69 she met Bill Clinton and joined the Dark Side.
Jon Sellers
October 12, 2016 12:16:21 at 12:16 PM Clinton is still the Republican candidate. She is
certainly to the right of Nixon or Eisenhower. Pro big business, pro free trade, pro immigration,
pro defense spending. The only non-alignment is with the Christian-right. But they were just a
play thing for votes by the GOP anyway.
October 12, 2016 12:52:08 at 12:52 AM The thing about Trump is that he hasn't got a plan.
Lowering taxes and spending more on defense is not a plan. Saying you will do better deals is
not a plan.
Voters are just hoping that once he was in he would achieve things but really we don't know what
he will do.
Clinton is conservative and will retain the status quo. Hope she proves me wrong.
I voted for Trump in the GOP primary. Since then, he has said and done too much [or too little]
and lost my vote in the general election. He was terrible in the first debate. His Arizona immigration
speech was great. But he really lost me when he degenerated into pandering to every minority
race, religion and special interest group that yelled the loudest… just like all the other politicians.
And the most recent revelation about his vulgar views of women didn't help either. Nothing to
love there.
Yet you say the media didn't destroy him? His lack of preparation for the first debate destroyed
him?
Never mind preparing for a biased moderator, accepting the conditions of such a debate
at all makes him look like failed leadership. He could have demanded better conditions, especially
if he were slightly ahead as he may have been at the time.
"This battle is really the PEOPLE v CAPITOL HILL. It is a shame it has to be Trump leading
the charge." – But then someone is leading.
"This is also the end of the press. They have lost all credibility." – I am sure by now the bias
is obvious to anyone. This should also aid Trump IMHO.
"About 99% of donations to Trump come from small people" – These small people are definitely going
to vote for him. Also there could be equal number who did not donate but will be voting for him.
I am not sure whether he will win but this is one election where people are likely to try and
land a good punch on the establishment's face and this definitely should work in his favor.
KPL
October 12, 2016 3:34:50 at 3:34 AM One more thing that struck me was that if the election
was in the bag why would they release the tape? They might as well be preparing for the coronation.
IMO, the establishment is still running scared and thus using all the dirty tricks that
they are capable of and which they think will win them the election. The crux of the issue is
that they do not want to acknowledge that people might prefer a discredited Trump to the establishment
at this stage of the game. Establishment is the problem but they are masquerading as the solution.
This is the problem with gaming people. At some point the game is up. (Like interest rates..
you cannot ram it beyond a point)
Exactly. And why release polls with a so called 11% lead, polls conducted by a company
connected to Clinton? That has an overweight in left/democratic voters?
Brexit was supposed to be over before the final result came in. How quickly people forget.
It is the people vs Wall Street/corrupt politicians. The latter is represented by Clinton. the
former by Trump. We will see how angry the U.S. people really are at the current clique of career
politicians, bought and paid for by the big companies.
Roger
October 12, 2016 6:11:52 at 6:11 AM Why indeed would they send out Obama only yesterday
to wag his finger in dire warning? The powers to be know it's NOT all over. The problem is that
each time they send one of these 'asshat extrodinaires' out To preach to the public they simply
cause MORE dissent, more mocking, and more retrenchment.
Does anyone actually think that Obama, who has done more to divide the nation than anyone
can make the blindest bit of difference at this stage? Respectfully, a curious Englishman.
Roger
October 12, 2016 6:24:24 at 6:24 AM PS! It's not as though Obama has anything better to
do with his time, is it? Enjoy 18 holes of golf, or go out campaigning for a woman he (allegedly)
loathes and despises. Tough call, that one!
KPL
October 12, 2016 7:33:51 at 7:33 AM "We will see how angry the U.S. people really are
at the current clique of career politicians, bought and paid for by the big companies."
I hope they are angry enough to come and vote for him in such numbers that it assures a
Trump victory. Anybody but establishment is all I ask! What is happening is too nauseating to
stomach any longer.
CJ
October 12, 2016 10:48:49 at 10:48 AM Unfortunately Gary Johnson will split the anti-establishment
vote, helping to elect the Soros and banksters funded candidate.
JP
October 12, 2016 5:39:33 at 5:39 AM The problem with "voting your conscious" (Libertarian,
etc.) is you'll put Crooked Hillary in the Whitehouse. How bad could that be for the country?
Watch the video:
If Rotten Clinton is elected it's time to move to Italy or another Banana Republic. At least
the food is good and the citizens less ignorant.
Stockmarket
October 12, 2016 5:50:45 at 5:50 AM "I would not go so far as to say the markets will "crash",
but that depends on the definition. I actually suspect more like a 40-50% decline over seven to
ten years with nothing much worse than a 15-20% decline."
So you expect that rates on government bonds will drop to, let's say minus 3%? Minus 5%? Minus
10%? Why don't you show a historical graph of bonds vs stocks? Then you will see that stocks have
never been cheaper relative to bonds since….. WWII! The crash will be in bonds, not stocks. Furthermore,
capital from Europe will flow to the dollar, adding to a RISE in the stock market.
You make the crucial mistake to view the stock market in isolation. If big capital has to make
a decision to go for negative rates in bonds, or 3%-5% on blue chip stocks, what will they choose?
It is the bond market that is reaching the limit of 0% interest rates, after which there is only
one possibility for bonds to go: down.
Hence we will get a run up for the stock market first, with Dow at least 22,000-23,000. If
we exceed that, 30,000 – 35,000 becomes possible. Only THEN do we have a bubble and a crash. Big
money all over the world will scramble to buy the dollar and U.S. assets. A capital flow you also
don't see coming, because you only look at the domestic picture.
EVERYBODY is negative about stocks. And the majority is running to bonds. It is clear where
the bubble is going to be first. The majority is ALWAYS wrong.
Stockmarket
October 12, 2016 5:55:39 at 5:55 AM I don't think it is over yet. Just as with Brexit. The
polls giving Clinton a 11% lead, are seriously flawed. You can read it over here:
Thus what the media are telling you, is that there is a 11% lead. But those polls were held
by a company that is actually helping Clinton to get elected:
Zerohedge is correct: this is a mind game to make you think it is all over.
Tuberville
October 12, 2016 5:57:23 at 5:57 AM We had the same comments during Brexit, I waited for the
price to get upto 6/1 and took the price and I will do the same with Trump. Never forget the global
trends
Garry Gentry
October 12, 2016 6:07:38 at 6:07 AM Mish. hopefully after the election you can go back to
writing about economics instead of cheer-leading for Trump and Republicans in general. Reading
your economic writings is why I started reading your blog and I will be glad when this one is
over for a while and the Republicans can get on with obstructing everything and keep the gridlock
going until people are so feed-up they rebel.
Felix
October 12, 2016 6:17:24 at 6:17 AM Did anyone else get the feeling the 2nd debate was "Brought
to you by Facebook, the leading social network?" Lots of band plugs. Rather like modern news articles
filled with images of Tweets.
October 12, 2016 6:42:45 at 6:42 AM Trump was grossly unprepared for the first debate, "I'm
a great negotiator" isn't the correct answer to every question.
Instead of becoming more presidential as the campaign progressed he became more reality TV.
The digression into Trump vs Clinton pussy scores was lethal.
Hillary has a ton of political flaws and Trump didn't do his homework to inform the voters.
There is a huge disconnect between the RNC and Repub voters, the RNC acts like they're entitled
to veto power over the people's choice, once the unwashed masses chose Trump the RNC needed to
support him completely. If there's a congressional blowout they deserve it.
The silver lining is that Hillary isn't healthy enough for two terms, maybe not even one. The
bad news is that she'll probably continue/accelerate the pattern of Bush/Obama neo colonial wars.
PS The wildcard is a major mohammedan attack prior to the election. The Russians always had
General Winter to aid them, Trump has General Isis
R G
October 12, 2016 10:06:54 at 10:06 AM In all fairness, I don't think a terror attack will
change Americans' minds for more than a week. Look at Clinton…even one vote for her shows you
how grossly lost America is. She has overtly committed more crimes than any high level politician
in American history. Nixon, Grant, and Harding look like Marcus Aurelius when compared to her.
The most recent Wikileaks show you she wants no more America based on her views of borders
and markets…if you have open borders and markets, you have no nation-state. Her views of "irredeemables"
and her spokesman's views of Catholics are just more examples. I could write a book on this witch.
And yet people would vote for her. The unfortunate circumstance of that is that if she gets
in, it won't be just them glowing green.
CJ
October 12, 2016 11:09:16 at 11:09 AM I have found that many Generation Y types (born '77-'94)
have no clues about all the Clinton's lies and scandals. They weren't watching politics when much
of it happened. They are being misled by the MSM propaganda. When you have a chance, please educate
them, they are a big voting block now.
As for Hillary's health, keep in mind that Wilson and FDR were incapable of carrying out the duties
of president before their terms ended. In FDR's case, he was severely disabled even during his
last campaign in '44. They used the war as an excuse for not campaigning. However these issues
were kept secret from the public, and spouses and aides pretty much ran the country. I could see
the same thing happening with Hillary. It may have already begun.
teapartydoc
October 12, 2016 6:51:31 at 6:51 AM You are a handy source of information that many of us
otherwise would not have easy access to. If someone else did the job as well, you would be disposable.
I will continue to visit this site, but I think you are a political idiot.
October 12, 2016 8:49:10 at 8:49 AM Trump did indeed lose the election but not because he
failed to come up with snappy responses in the debates. He lost the election because he captured
one group of voters, those who have drunk the Hillary is the sum of all evil kool-aide. Instead
of backing down from that and moving into the space where he could accumulate voters who have
not geeked out on Obama/Clinton conspiracy trivia, he choose to double down.
And he did so because his character weakness is obvious to almost everyone who watches him
for an extended period of time. His absurdly inflated ego will not accept any criticism, any change,
and openness to collect facts and evaluate what should be done rather than deciding what should
be done and then making up the facts that support that.
Bashing Hillary over her marriage isn't flying now and wouldn't have flown better in the debates.
To those not in the conspiracy geek band wagon, what does that look like? "You're a bad person
for having a husband who had affairs, so voters should support me since I have affairs" Yea that
really worked well. 'Doubling down' just looks pathetic, like an aging rock star releasing new
songs that are just variations on the old hit song the guy had in the 80's.
The captured pollsters are like the credit rating agencies during the financial crisis. They
are putting a AAA-rating on a pile of dog crap. Buy it at your own risk.
Just as I have done with Trump, I am not going to judge you Mish on one bad call, but please
re-think your position. You are way too smart to come to your conclusion. The other smart people
coming to your decision are either 'useful idiots' or are establishment hacks, who benefit some
way from selling their soul.
I don't know about people like Stockman, Jim Rickards, Paul Craig Roberts, Jim Sinclair, and
other seamingly well intention fellows, who accurately descibe the problems, but get the solution
and markets reaction wrong. Are they just US-centric in their analysis, disregarding the overwhelming
influence of global capital flows, or is it as simple as them being gold bugs, who always say
" buy, buy, buy", say good by to your hard earned money?
Tony Bennett
October 12, 2016 9:21:01 at 9:21 AM Virginia's last governor's race (2013) was between Ken
Cuccinelli (wayy right social conservative) and Clintons' best bud Terry McAuliffe .
Virginia used to be red and has turned blue the past 10 to 12 years. Well, Cuccinelli way behind
in the polls all along. So much so that RNC wasted no money (yeah yeah social conservative … but
off year election and not much else going on … and if you can score a win helps Republicans going
into 2014 election season) on him. Guess what? Cuccinnelli lost by only 2.5 points … and McAuliffe
got less than 50% of the vote. ANY sort of help from national party and KC might have won.
Just don't trust polls. Just another data point to be goal seeked by TPTB (see the embarrassing
methodology on the nbc/wsj poll post second debate).
October 12, 2016 12:20:50 at 12:20 PM "The captured pollsters are like the credit rating agencies
during the financial crisis. They are putting a AAA-rating on a pile of dog crap. Buy it at your
own risk."
Only internet commentators are more protected from bad calls than rating agencies.
Let's recall it wasn't too long ago a certain chap around here was hawking a theory that Hillary
is in late stage Parkinson's disease. No doubt when Trump loses the election, those here telling
us the polls are rigged will disappear from accountability until the next big election rolls around.
When did the democratic party ever denounce John Kennedy?
When did the democratic party ever denounce Bill Clinton?
Joy Bahar just called one of Bill's victims a tramp, on The View.
Democrats have a double standard.
Polls are over sampling democrats, to skew the data. Polling fraud.
Why is there any need for polling fraud, if people have actually changed their vote?
They have all been out to get Trump, from the beginning. The government, the media, even the
republican party elitists.
Hardly any one in the media is talking about Venezuela. Given all of the other issues that
you touch on, would you keep us up to date on how things are evolving in Venezuela. Thanks,
Trump makes Venezuela great again and it becomes the next world power.
Seenitallbefore
October 12, 2016 10:56:40 at 10:56 AM This is not a vote for election. It is a vote against
election. Any vote other than trump is a vote for Hillary. Now I know how hitler got into power,
he run against a failed establishment. Luckily we have trump instead of hitler. If we don't turn
this around in a few elections, a hitler type will rise to power in America. Remember this is
a country who rounded up,and jailed an entire race of people at the start of WWII. It could happen
again when the final dictator emerges who crushes the constitution once and for all.
That is a very reasonable point of view. Is Trump more of an anti-establishment candidate than
Johnson?
CJ
October 12, 2016 1:42:09 at 1:42 PM "Is Trump more of an anti-establishment candidate than
Johnson?" If you rate the answer to that interesting question by how many establishment people
are bashing Johnson or Trump, Donald wins the anti-establishment rating by a landslide.
October 12, 2016 11:12:03 at 11:12 AM Slip-ups happen. You don't really think Obama thought
there were 57 states, do you? When you're campaigning 20 hours a day, it's bound to happen.
Well that would have been another obvious lie, since he was on the record multiple times saying
he didn't believe it was genuine.
Trump tweeted in August 2012 that "An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and
told me that Barack Obama's birth certificate is a fraud." In September of that year, Trump shared
via Twitter an article claiming the birth certificate was fake. In a June 2014 tweet, Trump boasted,
"I was the one who got Obama to release his birth certificate, or whatever that was!" And in 2013
he retweeted someone who alleged the long-form birth certificate was "a computer generated forgery."
October 12, 2016 11:55:00 at 11:55 AM OK – I changed my mind once I was convinced the birth
certificate was real.
There are easy alternatives to not look like a fool.
Bobby Hill
October 12, 2016 1:07:57 at 1:07 PM "How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies
of Obama's "birth certificate" died in plane crash today. All others lived"
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2013
Trump should have simply leveled with us by quoting Goebbels,"It would not be impossible to
prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that
a square is in fact a circle."
Mike
October 12, 2016 11:56:28 at 11:56 AM Doesn't matter which of the two wins if the bank's war
on the majority and pension plans continues regardless. Perhaps the libertarians will protect
us.
Gutsy call on coming out with your personal vote. You'll probably lose half of your readership.
People have become so wildly caught up with the day to day b.s. of the federal government that
their entire world-view and personal self-esteem are on the line. It's a tragedy.
Anyhow, my neighborhood now has 3 Trump signs, 2 Johnson signs, and 0 Clinton signs.
For those who might have a Biblical prophecy perspective… Trump may symbolize the "last trump"
that occurs when the power of the holy people is totally broken [Daniel 12:7] and heralds the
resurrection of the dead [1 Corinthians 15:52.]
Bobby Hill
October 12, 2016 12:39:24 at 12:39 PM "Heading into the first debate, it was Trump's election
to lose … ." I disagree. It has always been HRC's election to lose. Trump was never ahead. Sure,
he was gaining on her, but to say that he could actually have overtaken her but for this mistake
or that miscalculation is hyper-speculative. Clinton had not and has not even unleashed her GOTV
ops.
Trump has a ceiling of support, not much greater than his share of the primary electorate.
Peak Trump was right before the debate. Peak Hillary hasn't arrived. Her final assault armada
hasn't even landed.
Johnson is the best candidate. But he gets my vote only if the polls show HRC is 100% safe.
Trump is worse than Johnson is good. I'd consider writing-in Mish or Rand Paul, but again, only
if there is zero chance of Trump. NeverTrump
Bobby Hill
October 12, 2016 12:50:28 at 12:50 PM "Heading into the first debate, it was Trump's election
to lose … ." I disagree. It has always been HRC's election to lose. Trump was never ahead. Sure,
he was gaining on her, but to say that he could actually have overtaken her but for this mistake
or that miscalculation is hyper-speculative.
Trump has a ceiling of support, not much greater than his share of the Republican primary electorate.
Peak Trump was right before the debate. Peak Hillary hasn't arrived. Her final assault armada
(GOTV operations) hasn't even landed.
I agree that Johnson is the best candidate. But he gets my vote only if the polls show HRC
is 100% safe. Trump is worse than Johnson is good. I'd consider writing-in Mish or Rand Paul,
but again, only if there is zero chance of Trump. Mish is better than Paul on war and peace. Main
reservation on Mish for President is immigration, and refugees.
NeverTrump
October 12, 2016 2:20:48 at 2:20 PM Bill Clinton, serial philanderer and alleged rapist. Impeached
as prez, but not removed from office ("Bad president! Bad!") during his last term. Trump makes
locker room talk, it's the end of the world. Policy specifics don't matter. The entire series
of Clinton scandals, no problem at all. Teflon.
US voters get the results they deserve, simple as that.
October 13, 2016 12:43:58 at 12:43 AM Nigel Farage is a very intelligent and dynamic man.
No teleprompter needed for him! Quite an orator for sure. And quite a fighter. If we had a handful
of Nigel Farage's in the US Congress we could turn the corner and restore America back to the
beautiful, vigorous and envy of the world we once were. But I can't name even one Nigel Farage
that walks the hall of the Nation's Capital Building. We only have puppets driven by power and
money. And that's why we continue in decline mode – sliding down the slippery slope. What a travesty
for our younger and unborn generations.
October 12, 2016 3:26:47 at 3:26 PM I agree with you that Hillary is going to be a disaster.
Its going to be 1 scandal after another. Hillary has more enemies than the republicans…and she
has accumulated them over years.
Trump would not have been a utopia either. The same forces against him in his campaign would be
with him causing scandal for his entire administration.
However, we got more racial, gender, religious, sexual orientation, etc hatred while Obama
/ Clinton have been in office than ever in our history. Obama and Clinton have been using govt
law and victimization for democratic vote farming. People were pleading for Trump to win because
there were large segments of society that have been blamed, demeaned and targeted with massive
vitriol by the left simply for not being a member of their victimized minority (aka non-union,
white, religious, married, mother/father, husband/wife, straight, single gender, etc). Trump speak
was cutting right thru the straight jacket of political correctness, trigger warnings, safe spaces,
cultural Marxism, etc. People called Trump every name in the book and it amounted to nothing.
Trump was like Toto pulling the curtain back and exposing the wizard as a charlatan. Many people
hooked their star to Trump for that single reason.
Hillary said that if Trump wins, that she would use her political office to undermine him into
a failed presidency. I would be very very surprised if Trump goes away and doesn't do the exact
same thing to Hillary. The Trump-Rosie feud lasted what a decade. I think Trump now has a vendetta
against the republican establishment and a vendetta with Hillary. If true, expect the new GOP
to be much much more aggressive…worse than fascist radical democratic leftists. No matter who
wins or loses…its going to stay mean for a decade. Bill Clinton has already lost his legacy by
Hillary running for President…and before its all thru…I think there is going to be a lot more
destroyed on the Clinton side. Chelsea is no Hillary and no Bill Clinton BUT Trump has 3 children
and any one of those 3 could be a presidential contender. You know what happens when a dam cant
hold the water back any longer. what do you think will happen when the Clintons don't have the
money or power to deflect their crimes. do you think they will fade away into retirement or do
you think the wolves will circle. Before Trump, they would have faded into retirement. Now, I
think the wolves will circle them.
DFC
October 12, 2016 3:28:36 at 3:28 PM Hi Mish,
Our knowledge of what's happening in the electorate is imperfect. We can't make easy judgments
about this election based on available data. BUT, we do now know that the " elitist establishment'
has taken over large swaths of our government, media and popular culture for its own narrow and
largely selfish benefits. Our best bet is to vote for an anti-establishment candidate that has
a shot at making changes and providing a future where the electorate's influence can grow, not
shrink. That is still Donald Trump and, yes, there is still some doubt about how anti-establishment
he is. It's not a perfect world and we often have to make choices that are far from optimal or
certain. This election is one such example.
I urge you to reconsider.
Dave
October 12, 2016 11:15:35 at 11:15 PM I may indeed reconsider
But it will not matter. My personal vote is meaningless.
I was very upset at Trump following the first debate. It is clear he did not bother to prepare
for it.
Nadda. Not at all.
He could have won this thing. Easily. All he had to do was act presidential for 90 minutes, and
prepare for some obvious questions.
He did neither. Now it is all but over.
While we do not "know" what will happen, Hillary could have a massive medical attack for example.
But I do think for the first time all in 18 months Silver has the odds about right. They stand
today at 13% or so.
Yes, I am bitter over this. It was only at the last second I wrote I was voting for Johnson. I
do not remember precisely, but I may have even done it as an edit after I made the post.
Note to self, do not write when you are angry.
Mish
DFC
October 13, 2016 11:35:43 at 11:35 AM Thanks Mish – we are all frustrated. And I suspect that
will only get worse after 11/8 no matter who wins. But nothing gets us more frustrated than witnessing
the array of forces lines up against Trump. Particularly the media which has long been held up
as a centerpiece of liberty in America. No longer, their ethics have been laid bare for all to
see….. I for one believe that this race is much closer than the establishment would have us believe
– yes, even with Trump's warts and foibles. In large measure this is a reaction to the overplayed
hand in the media. Americans are fundamentally a fair people who love the underdog – even more
so if he is bullied. On that basis alone Trump enjoys widespread support IMHO. And it may be growing.
We won't know for sure until 11/9 as there is so little public trust left in the American media.
Pravda must be proud.
Dave
Mish always seem like a down-to-earth, sensible and logical communicator of the news.
Then he wrote this.
The media has treated Hillary and Bill with kid gloves and lambasted Trump for the smallest
of things from the very start. The media is tremendously influential over public opinion. This
election was fixed by the establishment. And the media are card carrying members of the establishment.
For Mish not to see that is willful blindness.
Then to add insult to injury – he says he's going to vote for Gary Johnson, the GOP retread
who endorses illegal immigration and told us no crimes were committed on Wall Street.
Sorry, Mish. I can't take you seriously anymore, sir. You've stepped over the line.
There's no possible way that Trump can fight all of them off.
The entire thing was fixed, start to finish.
Apparently Mish can't see that.
Now I've lost faith in him too.
CJ
October 12, 2016 4:45:21 at 4:45 PM Don't give up on Mish just yet LF, he hasn't voted yet
and I don't think he is firmly committed to his (this week's) position.
;Winston
October 12, 2016 6:42:29 at 6:42 PM As pointed out elsewhere, there were some big names who
communicated with her via emails to and from her unauthorized, unsecured server. One of them was
the POTUS. There be why there was no prosecution or even what was claimed as the unanimous FBI
and lawyer opinion according to that Fox article that her security clearance be pulled, something
which would have made her ineligible to serve at any decent level in government.
David
October 12, 2016 5:06:24 at 5:06 PM Mish, I've followed your blog for many years. Did I or
any of your blg followers ever say. "Hey. Mish was wrong about calling the top or the bottom in
anything. So therefore I will no longer follow him." You are too smart to see the obvious, have
you been at the rallies of Trump and compated them to Hillary's? Well, there's something an analyst
geek can't measure. it's called. PASSION! Go Trump!
Carl R
October 12, 2016 7:35:34 at 7:35 PM Going back to the primary, Mish predicted that Trump was
the only Republican who could win. I predicted that Trump could lose badly enough to cost both
the House and Senate as well as a number of states. I hope I'm wrong. I don't fear a Hillary presidency
so long as she doesn't control Congress, too.
October 12, 2016 7:57:13 at 7:57 PM You really don't get it, do you? Hillary is the the establishment
and CONgress is too. Look how much damage Obama did with a Republican Congress. It's the establishment
(D's, R's, the mainstream media, the military and healthcare industrial complexes, etc.), versus
the rest of us.
October 12, 2016 8:08:37 at 8:08 PM Not to mention decades and possibly permanent damage by
SCOTUS.
Sheep do not lament their lost freedoms as long a feeding time is reliable.
LFOldTimer
October 12, 2016 9:35:16 at 9:35 PM You're forgetting the fact that the next President will
likely appoint 4 Supreme Court Justices. We know SCJ's vote down ideological lines. The law be
damned. And those appointments could live another 20-30 years. It will be an overwhelmingly LIBERAL
SCOTUS.
If that happens all of us and our kids are screwed, blued and tattooed.
And if that happens you won't recognize this country in 20 years. We'll be a socialist hellhole
full of indigent illiterates from 3rd world nations.
Anybody with any aspirations in life will have an albatross tied around their necks. For every
dollar you earn the government will get 70 cents of it.
What you are watching is the continued DECLINE of an empire. And Hillary will only accelerate
that DECLINE.
Sorry, Carl R. Your theory is greatly flawed.
Carl R
October 13, 2016 12:36:12 at 12:36 PM My "best possible outcome" for this election is a Hillary
win, along with Republicans continuing to hold congress. Yes, there are problems with that outcome,
the the other possible outcomes are much worse. As far as the Supreme Court, Hillary would make
it more liberal, but her choices would be tempered by the need to get them by a Republican Senate.
If Hillary wins, and also wins the Senate, just think then how liberal her appointees will be?
Just think how many more crazy things she can get pushed through than Obama ever was able to.
Yes, the Republican Congress sucked, and didn't limit him as much as they should have, but they
did limit him.
The worst alternative is for Trump to completely divide and destroy the Republican party, which
I think is his true agenda. The result will be a repeat of the 30s and 40s, with Republicans being
irrelevant.
But you've missed an obvious weakness in your argument.
We have a Republican majority House and Senate now. Have they protected us from Obama? The
answer to that is "no". Obama got all his budget increases, debt ceiling increases, no realistic
pushback on Obamacare (when the Republicans had that opportunity), illegals continue to pour over
the border forcing innocent American to pay for them, the top Republicans support Obama's push
for TPP sending millions of more US jobs to the third world and allowing more foreigners to come
to America to steal ours, etc….
So if Hillary is elected it will be another replay. Every time the budget issue comes up the
GOP will use the excuse that we can't shut down the government because it will hurt the reputations
of the conservatives. So we can't win for losing, Carl R.
With Trump in the oval office we would have a veto vote. And he would NOT hesitate to use it
and his executive orders to start enforcing the damn laws again!!!
So while I appreciate your articulate response – I don't agree with it. If Hillary makes it
into the White House this nation is done. It is the end of America as we've know it. More government
control. Less for the ordinary citizens. More for the pigs who run the show.
No doubt you love your sons. And I'm sure that they are productive and valued citizens. Hillary
in the White House would ruin their lives prematurely. Please keep that in mind.
Of course. We all know that the US is in decline, and can not be saved. Once the limitations
on the Federal Government were removed (1913 – Enactment of 16th Amendment, 1913 – Creation of
the Federal Reserve, 1937 – FDR Court Packing plan), the end of the US has been inescapable. That's
proven by history. Nevertheless, the decline will be much faster with Hillary in power, and with
a Democratic Congress along with her. Just remember the irreparable damage that FDR and LBJ (Great
Society) were able to do, and contrast that with the 90's under Bill Clinton.
Obama, unfortunately, only had to deal with the feckless Boehner, rather that Newt Gingrich,
and was able to do more things than he should have been able to, but even a Boehner led Congress
slowed him down quite a bit. With all the other limitations gone (the Federal Government now has
the power to tax, spend, and print money), the separation of powers is all that's left, and it
is only a delaying tactic, slowly the inevitable collapse somewhat.
I have told my sons since they were born that they will live to see the end of the United States
as we know it, and that I may very well live long enough, too. I'm 62. I have predicted that we
will get through this economic downturn, but not the next one. Thus I expect the end in 2037 or
so, which I may live to see. If the US makes it one more cycle after that, I'll be gone, however.
Lest we think that the end of the US is some great tragedy, yes, it is sad for those that follow
us, but it is unavoidable. Even our founding fathers knew that a Republic was only a temporary
form of government. We should consider ourselves lucky that we lived in such a wonderful time.
I don't begrudge those who dream that they can stop the inevitable. It's a noble goal, and
I admire you for your goal. To me, however, it's as futile as tilting at windmills.
The rabbit hole goes even deeper and darker. T Roosevelt and Taft administrations teamed up
with Russian revolutionaries to undermine Russia's Tsar. In his April 1917 war speech to congress,
Wilson said the Russian revolutionaries [who weeks before had forced the Tsar to abdicate and
destroyed the Russian empire] were America's "partner." A few months later the Bolsheviks continued
the revolution to its horrific end.
October 12, 2016 7:54:34 at 7:54 PM I find this post to be very disappointing. It is worth
watching the PBS Frontline episode that aired yesterday
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365861606/
that shows just how inept this administration has been in the Middle East. Now you want to
vote for someone who doesn't even know what Aleppo is, over a wise and decisive leader.
Mish, your post is typical of the Boomer mentality that knows what is right, yet is weak enough
not to choose it. You'd rather carry on about the end of the world than do anything to really
change things. I once regarded you as a source of wisdom, yet now can't help but see an old crank.
October 12, 2016 8:07:56 at 8:07 PM Mish – I do want to thank you for your tolerance. There
are MANY sites that "moderate" comments, giving the host the opportunity to not post comments
they don't like. Other sites actually ban people that have a point of view and evidence that conflicts
with their beliefs and biases.
Eric Coote
October 12, 2016 9:36:51 at 9:36 PM Blacklist I support your comment. Also this site is reasonably
restrained and has not degenerated into rank abuse like happens on zero hedge sometimes. Mish
does a good job of bringing facts to attention of all even if we don't all agree with him
LFOldTimer
October 12, 2016 10:53:56 at 10:53 PM The primaries and this presidential runoff should have
taught an observer with working neurological synapses that your vote has been discounted and devalued
down to virtually nothing.
There's a small group of power brokers in the back room pulling the strings and deciding where
your vote will go.
The trick was to get you so disgusted with Trump that you would change your mind and waste
your vote on some goofball who didn't even know what "Allepo" is. And they've been successful
in many cases.
Trump was the first (and likely the last) candidate in many decades who wasn't formed and molded
by the corrupted establishment to ensure the status quo is strictly followed. And they've stepped
on the accelerator with a huge push for centralized globalization that is the main ingredient
for the New World Order and One-World Government.
Trump never had a chance from the beginning. Until you realize that you've missed the entire
point.
If you look around at the events occurring around the world and can't see what's coming get
your vision checked. It's as obvious as the nose on your face.
Trump was not in that plan. So he's been eliminated.
Hillary was selected President well over 2 years ago. You're just finding that out now.
Sure, they'll blame the Russians for it even without a scintilla of evidence.and it'll cause
an international incident. Maybe even halt the elections. Who knows?
Putin's the kind of guy who'll say "bring it on".
I don't think Obama has the nads – to be quite honest.
This could get interesting.
Don't leave the theater quite yet.
Sam Stovall
October 13, 2016 12:48:24 at 12:48 AM if you vote Johnson, in effect you are voting for crooked
and corrupt Hillary. If you do not understand that, you are dumber than my Lhasa Apso.
October 13, 2016 12:51:28 at 12:51 AM Don't be delusional. A vote for Johnson is a vote for
Johnson because the election is effectively over.
The only question left at this point is: Which is the bigger protest vote?
Mish
R G
October 13, 2016 8:27:11 at 8:27 AM Mish, it sounds like you're climbing a wall of worry.
Buy low, sell high. I agree that it appears there is nothing Trump can do to get elected in this
system. It doesn't matter what he would or would not have said. There is too much at stake for
the establishment to allow it. If it wasn't the latest nonsense which is so clearly a hatchet
job, it would have been something else.
A vote diverted away from Trump is effectively a vote for Hillary.
This isn't over until the fat lady sings.
Anything could happen between now and Nov 08. Particularly with all those bleached emails floating
around somewhere in cyberspace.
With all due respect, Mish….I believe claiming it's effectively over on Oct 12 is delusional.
If Johnson wasn't such an assclown I would halfway comprehend your position.
I simply don't understand your reasoning, Sir.
I have to be honest.
JayTe
October 13, 2016 4:47:41 at 4:47 AM Mish, You're not even close to correct. The establishment
is panicked. The locker room talk is a minor issue. You seem to have a short memory because I
remember another candidate who was accused of cheating on his wife (who is now running for president)
during the campaign who still won the election. And now you're saying that a candidate caught
talking trash in private about women cannot win the election?!?
Since the establishment know that there will be a steady stream of disclosures on Hilary up
to election day, there are looking high and low on anything that they can find to compromise Trump.
They even descended to putting out overtly biased polls saying Hilary now has a wide lead by a
Clinton operative who works for a Clinton Superpac where the selection processed was already biased
towards Democrats by 7% before the question of who they were voting for was even asked! And it's
given a veneer of acceptability by NBC and the Wall Street Journal. What you fail to grasp is
that large parts of the population are not going to come out and say anything in public about
who they really support. But you will discover who they really support (Trump) on election day.
That's why the establishment (Democrats and Republicans, the media, the intelligence services
who issue completely bogus statements about Russia being behind the hacks when they know very
well from the tools NSA talked about by Edward Snowden, etc) is going full tilt to get him to
drop out. Because otherwise they will be forced to stoop to open rigging of the election in order
to get Clinton into power. And if that happens, you will see open revolt.
Finally as concerns David Stockman, I respect him but is from time to time completely off in
terms of his opinions. A couple of weeks ago, he made the statement that the US infrastructure
was absolutely fine despite the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers had given a
D grade about the USA's Infrastructure.
R G
October 13, 2016 8:10:39 at 8:10 AM Certain Russian politicians, no matter how bombastic they
are, are hinting toward what to expect in that Hillary may be our last POTUS if she were elected.
My caveats would be:
– Hillary would be the last woman POTUS just as Obama was likely the last black POTUS, fortunate
or unfortunate as that may be. Both Obama and Clinton have permanently tarnished even the consideration
of a future woman or minority POTUS for at least a generation. They would have been by far the
worst two POTUSes in American history. And that is saying something, because Twiggy was horrific.
Demographic trend won't make my caveat any less likely, because…
– Clinton as POTUS will either foment nuclear war, secession, or both. It should be obvious to
any discerning viewer that America like all "diverse" nations is ungovernable. Nation-states survive
and thrive based on conformity, common language, and common culture. When you have entire states
(CA) whose culture and language are not the foundational culture and language, regardless of official
language status, you have problems. It's like the Tower of Babel.
Such is the nature of history. It's cyclical like any good historian will attest to.
The more I think about it, I'm torn. In a warped way I am hoping for a Clinton Presidency.
Anything she does will be ultimately rendered null and void if my reasoning above pans out. And,
given the macroeconomic indicators, we shall know pretty doggone soon. We could get it over with
in a couple of years.
But on the flipside, what would fill that power vacuum? History teaches us that a Washington
is much, much less likely than a Napolean. That scares me.
CJ
October 13, 2016 9:55:20 at 9:55 AM I saw a study that found that if only women voted, Clinton
would win in a landslide. But if only men voted, Trump would win in a landslide. The women may
get what they want – the first woman president, but they may come to regret what they wished for.
Clinton being Clinton, it will be 4 years of scandals and investigations, and she will be blamed
for the inevitable economic failure. Add to that her dismal record of foreign policy failure.
Hillary will be the worst thing that ever happened to the Women's Movement.
I would never vote for a woman president. In the Bible, women rulers are a form of national
punishment. I prefer going back in time when only White male landowners could vote. Now that is
really un-PC, considering I am a woman.
I am totally serious. If you think I would run for president, you missed my point.
From an historical perspective, women voting is a recent travesty as are the majority of women
who have sacrificed family [allowing institutions to raise their children] to be in the workplace.
Many of these women prefer to be homemakers and be at home with their babies. But they are forced
to work because TPTB have destroyed society and the economy.
AS HE IS A FAMOUS INVESTMENT ADVISOR HE HAS A LONG EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE FINANCIAL
MARKETS SO HE COULD IMPLEMENT GOOD APPROPRIATE ECONOMIC REFORMS IN ORDER TO BOOST AMERICAN GROWTH
AND THE STXX MARKETS
Trump did a great job attacking Hillary in his West Palm Beach, Florida speech today… it is
well worth watching.
LFOldTimer
October 13, 2016 2:21:05 at 2:21 PM Now the women are coming out of the woodwork accusing
Trump of sexually assaulting them 20-30 years ago. The NY Times is having a field day.
Isn't it strange that none of these women apparently filed police reports?
If I were a woman and some guy started grabbing my breasts and trying to put his hand up my
skirt I wouldn't be able to call 911 fast enough – whether it happened today or in 1975.
Just the fact that these stories get legs should tell anyone with any intelligence that the
media is crooked and trying to throw the election.
They are maliciously interfering with the electoral process by floating these stories. IMO
there should be a law against it. It damages whatever sanctity remains in the electoral system
– which is supposed to be above reproach.
economicsjunkie
October 13, 2016 3:11:05 at 3:11 PM Trump's already threatened to sue them. He'll come out
confident and honest and the media as the usual crooked lying pieces of trash they are. It'll
only help him.
Below is a link to a video and transcript of Trump's great speech today in West Palm Beach,
Florida. I thought I remember hearing him also say the word, cabal… but maybe that was just wishful
thinking.
Liberal globalists are having a hissy-fit over Trump's speech.. they are using the words "bizarre
& frightening". One journalist said "Trump has gone nuts", that he has gone "full Breitbart."
Pi314
October 13, 2016 2:29:56 at 2:29 PM Mish, you may be jumping the gun in this case. I have
mostly ignored all polls except the USC tracking poll for obvious reasons. The USC tracking poll
showed Trump leading by 3.9% pre 1st debate. As of today, Trump leads by 0.1%. So Trump has lost
'merely' 3.8% after the debates and the tape. The poll appears to be trending up in Trump's favor
now. I believe we have seen the worst for Trump. If the rumored release of 33,000 emails is true,
it will have an impact on the poll.
This is a ridiculous election. We are electing president based on one locker room tape over
national issues.
October 13, 2016 6:42:27 at 6:42 PM The obvious reason you ignore all the other polls is that
they don't give the result you want.
This is going to be a massive loss, worse than the one that got Obama elected. If Trump had a
bit more depth (developed policies) and wasn't so lazy (prepared for debates) he could have won
but he is the wrong guy at the right spot in history, Clinton must be the luckiest politician
in US history. Unfortunately. I find all these media blaming a bit pathetic.Mish is right.
Check out this link, very funny take (Clarke and Dawe who Mish has previously published) from
the Australian viewpoint of this election. They are both hopeless candidates. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-1
…ace-is/7929574
October 13, 2016 5:34:29 at 5:34 PM The MSM has given 15x as much coverage to Trump's 10 yr
old Locker Room remarks than to emails that prove Hilary is bought and paid for by the people
who crashed our economy.
Shame on the voters if they vote the way teh MSM tells them too. It's no wonder Millenials
have zero trust for the MSM,
"... [Qatar] would like to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous aides, including Doug Brand ..."
"... No doubt! The Clintons sure were working the Haiti angle any way that they could. I wonder how that's playing in Florida? ..."
"[Qatar] would like to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that
Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous
aides, including Doug Brand [isc]. "Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti
- particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are
happy to consider projects we suggest. I'm collecting input from CF Haiti team."
No doubt! The Clintons sure were working the Haiti angle any way that they could. I wonder how
that's playing in Florida?
"... +A large part of the uproar over the Trump tapes is driven not by the fact that Trump's comments are shocking but because they are so familiar. We've heard similar, perhaps even more rancid, things from our fathers, uncles, brothers, coaches, teachers, pastors, teammates, and friends. Perhaps we've even made similar comments ourselves. Now the public wants to project its own shame onto Trump. His humiliation serves as a kind catharsis for the nation's own systemic sexism. Perhaps NOW will give him a medal one day for his "sacrifice"… ..."
Until a second Hunter Thompson comes along, the appropriately jaded Jeffrey St. Clair will have
to do [
Counterpunch ].
+A large part of the uproar over the Trump tapes is driven not by the fact that Trump's
comments are shocking but because they are so familiar. We've heard similar, perhaps even more
rancid, things from our fathers, uncles, brothers, coaches, teachers, pastors, teammates, and
friends. Perhaps we've even made similar comments ourselves. Now the public wants to project its
own shame onto Trump. His humiliation serves as a kind catharsis for the nation's own systemic
sexism. Perhaps NOW will give him a medal one day for his "sacrifice"…
"... I have never before seen the press take sides like they did this year, openly and even gleefully bad-mouthing candidates who did not meet with their approval. ..."
"... This shocked me when I first noticed it. It felt like the news stories went out of their way to mock Sanders or to twist his words, while the op-ed pages, which of course don't pretend to be balanced, seemed to be of one voice in denouncing my candidate. ..."
"... I propose that we look into this matter methodically, and that we do so by examining Sanders-related opinion columns in a single publication: the Washington Post, ..."
"... its practitioners have never aimed to be nonpartisan. They do not, therefore, show media bias in the traditional sense. But maybe the traditional definition needs to be updated. We live in an era of reflexive opinionating and quasi opinionating, and we derive much of our information about the world from websites that have themselves blurred the distinction between reporting and commentary, or obliterated it completely. ..."
Neoliberal press serves its neoliberal paymasters. As simple of that. There is no even hint of
Us press being press. In certain aspects US jounalists are more "solgers of the Party" then their
colleagues in the Brezhnev time Pravda and Izvesia.
For once, a politician like Sanders seemed to have a chance with the public. He won a
stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, and despite his
advanced age and avuncular finger-wagging, he was wildly popular among young voters.
Eventually he was flattened by the Clinton juggernaut, of course, but Sanders managed
to stay competitive almost all the way to the California primary in June.
His
chances with the prestige press were considerably more limited. Before we go into
details here, let me confess: I was a Sanders voter, and even interviewed him back in
2014, so perhaps I am naturally inclined to find fault in others' reporting on his
candidacy. Perhaps it was the very particular media diet I was on in early 2016,
which consisted of daily megadoses of the New York Times and the Washington Post and
almost nothing else. Even so,
I have never before seen the press take sides like
they did this year, openly and even gleefully bad-mouthing candidates who did not
meet with their approval.
This shocked me when I first noticed it. It felt like the news stories went
out of their way to mock Sanders or to twist his words, while the op-ed pages, which
of course don't pretend to be balanced, seemed to be of one voice in denouncing my
candidate.
A
New York Times
article greeted the Sanders campaign in
December by announcing that the public had moved away from his signature issue of the
crumbling middle class. "Americans are more anxious about terrorism than income
inequality," the paper declared-nice try, liberal, and thanks for playing. In March,
the
Times
was caught making a number of post-publication tweaks to a news
story about the senator, changing what had been a sunny tale of his legislative
victories into a darker account of his outrageous proposals. When Sanders was finally
defeated in June, the same paper waved him goodbye with a bedtime-for-Grandpa
headline,
hillary
clinton made history, but bernie sanders stubbornly ignored it.
I propose that we look into this matter methodically, and that we do so by
examining Sanders-related opinion columns in a single publication: the
Washington
Post,
the conscience of the nation's political class and one of America's few
remaining first-rate news organizations.
I admire the
Post
's
investigative and beat reporting. What I will focus on here, however, are pieces
published between January and May 2016 on the paper's editorial and op-ed pages, as
well as on its many blogs. Now, editorials and blog posts are obviously not the same
thing as news stories: punditry is my subject here, and
its practitioners have
never aimed to be nonpartisan. They do not, therefore, show media bias in the
traditional sense. But maybe the traditional definition needs to be updated. We live
in an era of reflexive opinionating and quasi opinionating, and we derive much of our
information about the world from websites that have themselves blurred the
distinction between reporting and commentary, or obliterated it completely.
For
many of us, this ungainly hybrid
is
the news. What matters, in any case, is
that all the pieces I review here, whether they appeared in pixels or in print, bear
the imprimatur of the
Washington Post,
the publication that defines the
limits of the permissible in the capital city.
... ... ...
On January 27, with the Iowa caucuses just days away, Dana Milbank nailed it with a
headline:
nominating sanders would be insane
. After promising that he adored the Vermont
senator, he cautioned his readers that "socialists don't win national elections in
the United States." The next day, the paper's editorial board chimed in with
a campaign full of
fiction
, in which they branded Sanders as a kind of flimflam artist: "Mr.
Sanders is not a brave truth-teller. He is a politician selling his own brand of
fiction to a slice of the country that eagerly wants to buy it."
Stung by the
Post
's trolling, Bernie Sanders fired back-which in turn allowed no fewer than
three of the paper's writers to report on the conflict between the candidate and
their employer as a bona fide news item. Sensing weakness, the editorial board came
back the next morning with yet another kidney punch, this one headlined
the real problem
with mr. sanders
. By now, you can guess what that problem was: his ideas
weren't practical, and besides, he still had "no plausible plan for plugging looming
deficits as the population ages."
... ... ...
After the previous week's lesson about Glass
–
Steagall, the editorial board
now instructed politicians to
stop reviling tarp
-i.e.,
the Wall Street bailouts with which the Bush and Obama Administrations tried to halt
the financial crisis. The bailouts had been controversial, the paper acknowledged,
but they were also bipartisan, and opposing or questioning them in the Sanders manner
was hereby declared anathema. After all, the editorial board intoned:
Contrary to much rhetoric, Wall Street banks and bankers still took losses and
suffered upheaval, despite the bailout-but TARP helped limit the collateral damage
that Main Street suffered from all of that. If not for the ingenuity of the
executive branch officials who designed and carried out the program, and the
responsibility of the legislators who approved it, the United States would be in
much worse shape economically.
As a brief history of the financial crisis and the bailout, this is absurd. It is
true that bailing out Wall Street was probably better than doing absolutely nothing,
but saying this ignores the many other options that were available to public
officials had they shown any real ingenuity in holding institutions accountable. All
the Wall Street banks that existed at the time of TARP are flourishing to this day,
since the government moved heaven and earth to spare them the consequences of the
toxic securities they had issued and the lousy mortgage bets they made. The big banks
were "made whole," as the saying goes. Main Street banks, meanwhile, died off by the
hundreds in 2009 and 2010. And average home owners, of course, got no comparable
bailout. Instead, Main Street America saw trillions in household wealth disappear; it
entered into a prolonged recession, with towering unemployment, increasing
inequality, and other effects that linger to this day. There has never been a TARP
for the rest of us.
... ... ...
Charles Krauthammer went into action on January 29, too, cautioning the Democrats that they
"would be risking a November electoral disaster of historic dimensions" should they nominate
Sanders-cynical advice that seems even more poisonous today, as scandal after scandal engulfs the
Democratic candidate that so many Post pundits favored.
... ... ...
The Iowa caucuses came the next day, and Stephen Stromberg was at the keyboard to identify the
"three delusions" that supposedly animated the campaigns of Sanders and the Republican Ted Cruz
alike. Namely: they had abandoned the "center," they believed that things were bad in the United
States, and they perceived an epidemic of corruption-in Sanders's case, corruption via
billionaires and campaign contributions. Delusions all.
... ... ...
On and on it went, for month after month, a steady drumbeat of denunciation. The paper hit
every possible anti-Sanders note, from the driest kind of math-based policy reproach to the
lowest sort of nerd-shaming-from his inexcusable failure to embrace taxes on soda pop to his
awkward gesticulating during a debate with Hillary Clinton ("an unrelenting hand jive," wrote
Post dance critic Sarah L. Kaufman, "that was missing only an upright bass and a plunky piano").
The paper's piling-up of the senator's faults grew increasingly long and complicated. Soon after
Sanders won the New Hampshire primary, the editorial board denounced him and Trump both as
"unacceptable leaders" who proposed "simple-sounding" solutions. Sanders used the plutocracy as a
"convenient scapegoat." He was hostile to nuclear power. He didn't have a specific recipe for
breaking up the big banks. He attacked trade deals with "bogus numbers that defy the overwhelming
consensus among economists." This last charge was a particular favorite of Post pundits: David
Ignatius and Charles Lane both scolded the candidate for putting prosperity at risk by
threatening our trade deals. Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer grew so despondent over the meager
2016 options that he actually pined for the lost days of the Bill Clinton presidency, when
America was tough on crime, when welfare was being reformed, and when free trade was accorded its
proper respect.
... ... ...
The danger of Trump became an overwhelming fear as primary season drew to a close, and it
redoubled the resentment toward Sanders. By complaining about mistreatment from the Democratic
apparatus, the senator was supposedly weakening the party before its coming showdown with the
billionaire blowhard. This matter, like so many others, found columnists and bloggers and op-ed
panjandrums in solemn agreement. Even Eugene Robinson, who had stayed fairly neutral through most
of the primary season, piled on in a May 20 piece, blaming Sanders and his noisy horde for
"deliberately stoking anger and a sense of grievance-less against Clinton than the party itself,"
actions that "could put Trump in the White House." By then, the paper had buttressed its usual
cast of pundits with heavy hitters from outside its own peculiar ecosystem. In something of a
journalistic coup, the Post opened its blog pages in April to Jeffrey R. Immelt, the CEO of
General Electric, so that he, too, could join in the chorus of denunciation aimed at the senator
from Vermont. Comfort the comfortable, I suppose-and while you're at it, be sure to afflict the
afflicted.
... ... ...
It should be noted that there were some important exceptions to what I have
described. The paper's blogs, for instance, published regular pieces by Sanders
sympathizers like Katrina vanden Heuvel and the cartoonist Tom Toles. (The blogs also
featured the efforts of a few really persistent Clinton haters.) The Sunday Outlook
section once featured a pro-Sanders essay by none other than Ralph Nader, a kind of
demon figure and clay pigeon for many of the paper's commentators. But readers of the
editorial pages had to wait until May 26 to see a really full-throated essay
supporting Sanders's legislative proposals. Penned by Jeffrey Sachs, the eminent
economist and professor at Columbia University, it insisted that virtually all the
previous debate on the subject had been irrelevant, because standard economic models
did not take into account the sort of large-scale reforms that Sanders was
advocating:
It's been decades since the United States had a progressive economic strategy,
and mainstream economists have forgotten what one can deliver. In fact, Sanders's
recipes are supported by overwhelming evidence-notably from countries that already
follow the policies he advocates. On health care, growth and income inequality,
Sanders wins the policy debate hands down.
It was a striking departure from what nearly every opinionator had been saying for
the preceding six months. Too bad it came just eleven days before the
Post,
following the lead of the Associated Press, declared Hillary Clinton to be the
preemptive winner of the Democratic nomination.
What can we learn from reviewing one newspaper's lopsided editorial treatment of a left-wing
presidential candidate?
For one thing, we learn that the Washington Post, that gallant defender of a free press, that
bold bringer-down of presidents, has a real problem with some types of political advocacy.
Certain ideas, when voiced by certain people, are not merely debatable or incorrect or misguided,
in the paper's view: they are inadmissible. The ideas themselves might seem healthy, they might
have a long and distinguished history, they might be commonplace in other lands. Nevertheless,
when voiced by the people in question, they become damaging.
... ... ...
Clinging to this so-called pragmatism is also professionally self-serving. If "realism" is
recognized as the ultimate trump card in American politics, it automatically prioritizes the
thoughts and observations of the realism experts-also known as the Washington Post and its
brother institutions of insider knowledge and professional policy practicality. Realism is what
these organizations deal in; if you want it, you must come to them. Legitimacy is quite literally
their property. They dole it out as they see fit.
There is the admiration for consensus, the worship of pragmatism and bipartisanship, the
contempt for populist outcry, the repeated equating of dissent with partisan disloyalty. And
think of the specific policy pratfalls: the cheers for TARP, the jeers aimed at bank regulation,
the dismissal of single-payer health care as a preposterous dream.
This stuff is not mysterious. We can easily identify the political orientation behind it from one
of the very first pages of the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide to the Ideologies. This is common
Seaboard Centrism, its markings of complacency and smugness as distinctive as ever, its habitat
the familiar Beltway precincts of comfort and exclusivity. Whether you encounter it during a
recession or a bull market, its call is the same: it reassures us that the experts who head up
our system of government have everything well under control.
It is, of course, an ideology of the professional class, of sound-minded East Coast strivers,
fresh out of Princeton or Harvard, eagerly quoting as "authorities" their peers in the other
professions, whether economists at MIT or analysts at Credit Suisse or political scientists at
Brookings. Above all, this is an insider's ideology; a way of thinking that comes from a place of
economic security and takes a view of the common people that is distinctly patrician.
Donald Trump is accusing the Clintons of cashing in on Haiti's deadly 2010 earthquake.
The Republican nominee cited State Department emails obtained by the Republican National
Committee through a public records request and detailed in an ABC News story.
At issue is whether friends of former President Bill Clinton, referred to as "friends of Bill,"
or "FOB," in the emails, received preferential treatment or contracts from the State Department
in the immediate aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. More than 230,000
people died, the U.S. has said.
I got news for you, Trump has enough enemies that if there was anything that could be pinned
on him he would have been in the slammer long ago; competitors , ex-wives, casino regulators,
you name it.
All they can come up with is Miss Universe, locker room banter and net operating loss carryforwards.
Absolutely spot on assessment. You can bet that from the intelligence community to querying
everyone he's ever been in contact with has been covered. The best they could come up with was
an 11 year old video of him preening his feathers.
+1000 Banzai! logged in just to upvote your coment.
Was thinking the same thing. is this the best dirt they got on him?
I see Trump's warts, I'm not blind.He's not Ron Paul, ok ok, we get it. and still I will
vote for Trump becasue i see how much opposition is being hurled at him everyday.
PLUS we see what a vile menace, murdering sack of fecal matter wrapped in corruption that "Die
Furher Hitlery" is.
And Because i've got two little kids that i dont want to die in Hitlery's nuclear war.
The Trump vs Clinton debacle seems to follow the UK's own pre-Brexit debate where the 'evil' (leavers)
were on the wrong end of a constant onslaught by the 'good' (remainers).
What was disregarded by the media and establishment alike was the undercurrent of disillusionment
of the PEOPLE with the system that was widely perceived to be betraying the public for the good
of a few - corporates, politicians, banksters et al - and they almost took it for granted that
remain would win the day.
Look how THAT turned out. The establishment line, backed by virtually all the media and the
apallingly corrupt BBC, were bitch-slapped the morning after the vote and it was a pleasure to
watch!
Parallels - right up to the 'bitch slapping' - this is what you may yet see.
Rape, pillage and plunder; it's as amerikan as apple pie. So whether you be a chump on da stump
for oligarch Trump or a psychopathic moron into the Clinton Crime Organization of sexual deviants
and murderers, in the end one of these bums is the real face of the USSAN thug state. Like NAZI
Germany before it (that other anglozionazi project) USSA will be "cured" from the outside and
that process is already well underway.
Good point. The Don has only "gamed the system," by using the rules and laws available to him.
He plays the press like a fiddle, therefore, generating free publicity, he would otherwise have
to pay for. The perpetual smirk, sneer, arrogance and disdain he has, is for many others, who
have done far worse, for far less, than he has.
"... When Hillary Clinton recently declared half of Trump supporters a "basket of deplorables", Zaitchik told another reporter, the language "could be read as another way of saying 'white-trash bin'." ..."
When Hillary Clinton recently declared half of Trump supporters a "basket of deplorables", Zaitchik
told another reporter, the language "could be read as another way of saying 'white-trash bin'."
Clinton
quickly apologized for the comment, the context of which contained compassion for many Trump voters.
But making such generalizations at a $6m fundraiser in downtown New York City, at which some attendees
paid $50,000 for a seat, recalled for me scenes from the television political satire Veep in which
powerful Washington figures discuss "normals" with distaste behind closed doors.
Beginning in the 1970s, it has increasingly become an organ of this same class. Affluent
white-collar professionals are today the voting bloc that Democrats represent most faithfully,
and they are the people whom Democrats see as the rightful winners in our economic order. Hillary
Clinton, with her fantastic résumé and her life of striving and her much-commented-on
qualifications, represents the aspirations of this class almost perfectly.
kaxitaksi
2
months ago (edited)
Only way to put this right and if DNC and Shillary
really wants the best for the people is to step down
and hand over the nomination to Bernie or Stein. I
don't want to listen to that lying bitch voice for
four years.
Lu A
5
days ago
If this is really Anonymous...I really hate to say
this but...these guys are the right guys for the job
to expose Hillary Clinton. If they wanna stop her
they gotta expose her at a huge hackable event.
Scott Lesley
17
hours ago
there is no humanity in that woman
Unity Anonymous
6
hours ago
remember the civilians, kids, ppl who they kill
Unlike Reuters' political "reporters" , it seems the hacker collective
"Anonymous" is less impressed by Hillary Clinton's awesomeness.
Following Wikileaks' recent release of leaks, Anonymous reminds Americans of the 'career criminal' in a video containing
a well researched list of wrong-doings, exposing the actions of Hillary over her career .
This includes things like:
fraud investigations
conflicts of interest
political corruption
wrongful pardons
campaign and finance law violations
business & political scandals
This is only a small list of what is explored in the video below...
With so much exposed already, why do we continue to follow, allow, and accept people like Hillary and Trump as potentials
to be country leaders? Truly think about it. Can we even take a system that puts these two so high up in the ranks seriously?
Is this not the perfect storm to allow us to wake up to the reality of our current state? We should be thankful
that this is going on so we can help wake up the world and begin a conversation about what we can legitimately do next.
This isn't about Trump vs Clinton. That is merely the illusion we are being invited to believe. This is about
awakening to the fact that our system is absurd and that it's time to do something different. What is the answer? That is what we
must discuss instead of playing this broken political game of dividing and choosing who to "vote" for.
Occident Mortal
Kidbuck
Oct 12, 2016 3:41 AM Any journalist should feel enormous professional humilation and deep personal shame at the fact a bunch
of teenagers are offering more scrutiny on this presidential candidate than the entire press industry.
Guided and also manufactured to a great degree by an MSM-fabricated matrix of misinformation at the behest of the fuckers pulling
the strings. The disinterest in the morals of policy and action and their effect on millions of people both at home and abroad is
quite jaw-dropping, and a sad reflection on how low society (not just in the US) has fallen.
However Brexit proved all hope is not lost and sheeple can develop an awareness (probaly as a result of the intimidating bullshit
they were being fed).
I wish you could say that was happening. I just don't see it at all. I see things getting worse, and it's this "business" mentality
that is sucking the rest of us all down beneath the waves to drown.
I tend to agree.
Though just personal anecdote, in my career, I've seen this 'business mentality' at work, and it can be ugly.
For instance, I was in the room, to hear the CFO and COO discuss how to 'reach the numbers' so that the COO would get his bonus.
The decision in this case was to rid 100+ employees, many with decades of experience and accumulated skillsets, to reduce costs,
hit the 'correct' bottom line for a quarter or two, and voila! Company 'hit the numbers' and COO gets his bonus...in addition to
the already lucrative salary, well beyond what most would 'need'. Within a week of the bonus, he drives up in a flashy, new, red
sportscar. Should have witnessed the rage many of the remaining, spared employees that had watched their friends/coworkers get axed
and still remain unemployed; there were literally conversations about lighting that car on fire in the parking lot.
There were similar decisions to gobble up local and other national competitor shops. Some were immediately shut down and everyone
axed, but some with more glowing numbers that could be used to pad forecasts, were kept on for a short while. After saddling the
company with immense debt to cover the acquisitions, boosting the sales and forecast figures 'on paper' for the foreseeable near
future, he penned himself a nice, shiny résumé about 'increasing sales 4x in just a year' landed himself a different COO job in California
and left. Soon thereafter, when the weight of everything crashed down (scarce employees, with little skill left to efficiently accomplish
a quality product...both measures suffering/declining), those acquisitions were shut down and the original company is now scarcely
a shadow of what it was, thereby causing more layoffs and terminations. Now the $150 million +/year company, with 900 employees,
is a $10 million/year company, with 200 employees.
But that COO? He's living it up in CA, several companies later, and my periodic checkup on the 'net shows he's done similarly
a few more times, yet entrenched in the network of corporate boards/COOs that still perpetuate this scheme. Contrary to 'building'
anything, they construct a false narrative and tear everyone down in the process. But he and his cohorts get rich.
No, not everyone at that level does this, but the incentives are such that it is very tempting to follow suit and a review of
corporate history in this nation shows it is/was quite typical over many decades...because it works for those that engage this behavior.
Sound familiar to U.S. policy abroad? michelp
luckylongshot
Oct 12, 2016 10:37 AM "The answer is to start studying what it takes to apply power productively and use the findings to select
and train appropriate leaders."
Sorry but! In the currupt USA run by zio and war machines any 'appropriate leader' is DOA (Dead on Arrival.)
Donald J. Trump
tbd108
Oct 12, 2016 3:58 AM As I'm sure there are some that put Ttump on a high horse, I think most Trump supporters are supporting
him because of the exact reason they are fed up with system as aanonymous says. Trump is a big middle finger to the status quo of
Washington politics. I for one hope he does as he says he will do to hopefully right the ship of the US. He may even sink the ship
but it's going down already, he's our only chance to right it. What he's done takes a certain level of celebrity, balls, and money,
and I can't think of another person who could do what he has done. As great a cure Trump may be for our country, there are some side
effects so talk to your doctor to see if Trump is right for you. Dial 1(844)LIB-TARD or (855)LIB-TARD for a free sample of Trump.
Btw- those phone numbers are available if someone could actually make a good use for it. I'm also interested if the other exchanges
that are already taken have anything to with libtards.
kevin b
1
day ago
+Eric Shutter tell that to the
investigation committee..the FBI and the
congress investigation who all covered her
with "gross misconduct" instead of guilty
by hacked emails to known hacking and
homeland security of confidential
documents! another clinton victory by
paying off or threatening these guys if she
gets into office. what an ugly person she
is..she does think the law is beneath her
to follow...typical elitist narcissistic
profile!
Hank Chinaski
1
day ago
This psycho bitch will start WWIII... elect her at
your own risk.
Tam
1
day ago
0:17
Travelgate
1:03
Vince
Foster's
Death
1:29
Hillary
Care
2:56
Whitewater
Investigation
4:44
Cattlegate
5:48
Filegate
6:22
The
Clinton
Legal
defense
fund
6:33
Chinagate
7:18
IRS
Abuses
7:52
Pardongate
9:41
FALN
Terrorists
10:58
New
York
Senate
Campaign
Finance
12:15
New
York
Senate
performance
12:50
Senate
Rules
Violations
13:11
2008
Presidential
Canidate
13:45
Madam
Secretary
15:08
State
Department
Scandals
and
Cover-ups
15:59
Benghazi
Terrorist
Attack
Cover-up
17:12
Clinton
Secrets
(FoI)
17:37
Clinton
Foundation
Conflicts
of
Interest
20:37
Various
snippets
hellopuppy00
2
days ago
The fact that so many corrupts scandals of one
person can be listed for 25 minutes straight like
this is bad enough. The horrific part is that
American is about to make her President.
Eric Barth
1
day ago (edited)
we have no control over who we get to
choose and even then electoral votes
control th powers above popular votes.
Citizens do not matter in this regard
whatsoever. This game is controlled from
the top while feigning that it is
controlled by the people.
Raymond Cestaro
1
day ago
and this video is just scratching the
surface
Erkuht Ateue
5
months ago
HOLY SHIT, How can american people be so fucking
blind? This is outrageous!
View all 55 replies
Kevin S
3
days ago
Two ways. 1. Dumbing Down of the
population. 2. Entertainment. It is
sickening!
Tom F
48
minutes ago
Past Mobsters never come close to besting this bitch
and her Billy.
Took the Red Pill
1
day ago
Holy shit this is amazing. The work here is
fantastic. FBI really outdid themselves here. Still
gonna vote for Clinton, we cannot allow a man who
likes Pussy into office. I'm with HER :D
jefftc14
4
months ago
anyone else notice or remember how the Clinton's
were heavily involved in massive amounts of cocaine
smuggling into the U.S. and then hmm look at all
their friends they bail out.. all cocaine kingpins..
Just as cops take more money from people with civil forfeiture than burglars
do, they arrest more people for cannabis than for all violent crimes combined:
Law enforcement agencies made 574,641 arrests last year for small quantities of the drug intended
for personal use, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by the American Civil
Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. The marijuana arrests were about 13.6 percent more than
the 505,681 arrests made for all violent crimes, including murder, rape and serious assaults.
To state it differently, more people are arrested for victimless crimes (where the only complainant
is a law enforcement officer) than for crimes in which someone actually suffered harm.
'Perhaps we should put some of those responsible for that mass black on
black violent crime in prison rather than drug offenders. Why doesn't Obama
direct his DOJ to do just that?'
Or maybe the US should finally face up to the fact it has never done more than the least
it could possibly get away with when it comes to dealing with deeply entrenched systemic racism/poverty.
That's pretty damning on its face. The drug war is the primary function of
the police in the USA. Violent stuff is secondary.
"Tess Borden, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and the A.C.L.U., who wrote the report, found
that despite the steep decline in crime rates over the last two decades - including a 36 percent
drop in violent crime arrests from 1995 to 2015 - the number of arrests for all drug possessions,
including marijuana, increased 13 percent.
The emphasis on making marijuana arrests is worrisome, Ms. Borden said."
of course sexism and bigotry is probably ALL wrapped up in people's economic plights. Back
in the real world women put up with sexual harassment at work etc. because they need the income.
Yes it's illegal, but it's not always enforced especially in the blue collar workplace. And yes
Trumps comments were mostly about consensual stuff and if so arent' harassment. But sexism as
such isn't actually separable from economics.
I heard it as consensual, too. Women "let me" grab them. Maybe I am more forgiving than others
because I worked for a famous musician when I was younger and witnessed women throwing themselves
at him constantly. Are we taking away the agency of women by assuming this was unwanted attention?
Is it possible there are women who might have enjoyed the contact with him? Assuming he was even
telling the truth in his statements.
Do you want the willfully, aggressively ignorant on your side?
Would you choose purposely to select the most willfully wrong person to do any task for
you for pay?
1)Certainly: Will, Aggression and Plenty of Ignorance is *exactly* what it takes to put a good
scar on the face of the most organized, high-level, well-connected, mob-operation run by the US
government since the Shah of Iran.
Trump "going over the top", thus attracting all the "fire", has set in motion a flood of leaks.
Soon we will see defections when the rats see that the ship is indeed leaking and the water is
getting close to their nest. Then there will be congress hearings, the hyenas sizing up which
parts of the carcass they like to have when it dies, impeachment, several years of some progress
for the little folks while the new management rebuilds the enterprise and re-tune the neglected
Engine of Looting at the core.
2)The only people doing any task for *me* *for pay* are the carpenter and the guy cleaning
the drain. We have a deal: I don't care about their opinions and they don't complain over my coffee.
You are a bit naive if you think any kind of leadership works for you. In the best situation,
your interests are aligned with theirs, it looks like "working together". And since one does not
look in the mouth of a gift horse, everyone are happy. Right now, "our interests" and "theirs"
are blatantly opposed.
"... I've never heard anyone say "grab them by the pussy" but I have heard young college males talk about porn in a college library loud enough for me to hear them 2 tables over. I've heard detail accounts of what they want to do w/ girls they no. I just stared out them for a few minutes but it was clear that they did not care about my opinion or that they were in the library. ..."
"... St. Claire is right. Anyone that says that Trump can not be in the White House better vote for Stein or Johnson otherwise they are giant hypocrites. Bill Clinton is a rapist and Hillary Clinton aided and abetted his history of abuse. ..."
I've never heard anyone say "grab them by the pussy" but I have heard young college males
talk about porn in a college library loud enough for me to hear them 2 tables over. I've heard
detail accounts of what they want to do w/ girls they no. I just stared out them for a few minutes
but it was clear that they did not care about my opinion or that they were in the library.
I spent much of my childhood around athletes. The higher you go up the food chain the more
crass the comments. I was never in a football locker room but baseball and basketball were pretty
terrible. I played at the national level in AAU and spent a lot of time around traveling baseball
players. They were into drugs and girls. The comments were reprehensible and they have not changed
much behind closed doors. I'm 34 now.
My brother is older and his friends have all said horrible things when no women were around.
I was typically the voice of reason which made me a target for gay bashing. I'm straight but since
I did not see the need to devalue women I was asked if I was gay.
St. Claire is right. Anyone that says that Trump can not be in the White House better vote
for Stein or Johnson otherwise they are giant hypocrites. Bill Clinton is a rapist and Hillary
Clinton aided and abetted his history of abuse.
"... 2018 and 2020 will be interesting indeed, assuming HRC hasn't started WW3 by then. ..."
"... Speaking of which, Ray McGovern warns against the sabre-rattling over Syria and the calls for
"no fly zones" in CounterPunch today: ..."
"... For instance, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov warned on Oct. 6 that Russia
is prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft – including any stealth aircraft – over Syria. It is
a warning that I believe should be taken seriously ..."
"... It's true that experts differ as to whether the advanced air defense systems already in Syria
can bring down stealth aircraft, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this warning out of hand. Besides,
Konashenkov added, in a telling ex-ante-extenuating-circumstance vein, that Russian air defense "will
not have time to identify the origin" of the aircraft. ..."
"... In other words, U.S. aircraft, which have been operating in Syrian skies without Syrian government
approval, could be vulnerable to attack with the Russian government preemptively warning that such an
incident won't be Moscow's fault. ..."
"... Bush & Cheney & Co were horrific enough with their neocon games in the Mideast, but their actions
seem mild compared with the latest anti-Russian lunatic talk by Clinton and her neocon pals. Really
scary. ..."
"... Yes the entire situation with out-of-touch imperialist aristocrats blindly blundering their
way to Sarajevo Aleppo has a very reminiscent feel to it…an easy chapter to write in the future history
books. ..."
"... This should terrify everyone. I wish we would elect someone who says we should sit down and
talk to our biggest rivals, not just provoke them to world war. But oh I forgot he said vulgar things
about women 15 years ago. ..."
"... sexual misconduct in the oval office-while president ..."
"... while being the leader of our country! ..."
"... I have a hierarchy of reactions to issues and I just can't seem to put vulgar language above
the ultimate vulgarity of world war for profit. ..."
"... I can't seem to care more about people with hurt feelings than people with their heads blown
off because a Saudi billionaire or arms manufacturer just had to have some more ka-ching. There is nothing
more vulgar than that. ..."
re WikiLeaks: adding to the endless hypocrisy and double standards over Trump's "grabbing pussy"
remarks and HRC & Co's behaviour:
* Hillary herself wondered about extrajudicially killing Assange by droning. In what world
is that considered permissible?
* It seems that the Clinton campaign's Catholic "outreach" person was involved in a prostitution
ring. So that's all good.
I'm starting to think Trump might yet pull this off. The Clinton camp must be terrified and
trying desperately to see what else might come out. If only Bernie had agreed to run with Jill
Stein… I honestly think they might have won. In any case the Republican party is going down in
flames, and after the Podesta leaks the Dems will have absolutely ZERO credibility and not much
of a mandate. 2018 and 2020 will be interesting indeed, assuming HRC hasn't started WW3 by
then.
Speaking of which, Ray McGovern warns against the sabre-rattling over Syria and the calls
for "no fly zones" in CounterPunch today:
We analysts were responsible for picking up warnings from Moscow and other key capitals
that the U.S. news media often missed or downplayed, much as the major news outlets today are
ignoring the escalation of warnings from Russia over Syria.
For instance, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov warned on Oct. 6
that Russia is prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft – including any stealth aircraft
– over Syria. It is a warning that I believe should be taken seriously .
It's true that experts differ as to whether the advanced air defense systems already
in Syria can bring down stealth aircraft, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this warning
out of hand. Besides, Konashenkov added, in a telling ex-ante-extenuating-circumstance vein,
that Russian air defense "will not have time to identify the origin" of the aircraft.
In other words, U.S. aircraft, which have been operating in Syrian skies without Syrian
government approval, could be vulnerable to attack with the Russian government preemptively
warning that such an incident won't be Moscow's fault.
Bush & Cheney & Co were horrific enough with their neocon games in the Mideast, but their
actions seem mild compared with the latest anti-Russian lunatic talk by Clinton and her neocon
pals. Really scary.
Yes the entire situation with out-of-touch imperialist aristocrats blindly blundering their
way to Sarajevo Aleppo has a very reminiscent feel to it…an easy chapter to write
in the future history books.
This should terrify everyone. I wish we would elect someone who says we should sit down
and talk to our biggest rivals, not just provoke them to world war. But oh I forgot he said vulgar
things about women 15 years ago.
"Why do so many men claim that's what men do typically (not universally)?"
Because it's usually true of most men at one time or another in their lives. For all the talk
(and the reality) about women being treated as second rate, they do have enormous power; the power
to reject. And reject they do. You can be the nicest guy in the world, but if you're not her type,
if there's no chemistry or you're not her "caliber", down in flames you go. It's not necessarily
mean on her part, it's just reality. And it's not just looks or money that is a consideration.
You can be a nice, successful guy at a time in her life when she's attracted to the rebellious,
slightly "dangerous", exciting "bad boy".
This can be frustrating. And it's magnified when you grow up being taught that you can do anything
if you just try hard enough. But that's just it; you can't. Guys want to be rich and successful
(like Trump) or rich/successful/famous, because that's the inside track to the most elite women.
Except that even then, it's no guarantee. Look at all the women who wouldn't get involved with
Trump if they were marooned on an island and he was the only man. All his fame, all his money,
and They. Just. Aren't. Interested. And it's the same with virtually every guy whose name isn't
Tom Brady. So like I said, it breeds frustration - sometimes soul-crushing frustration - which
is displayed in crude anger.
Jess, and, thanks to political correctness, there are a dwindling number of venues where one
might seek to build lateral relationships, especially of the romantic or life partner sort, and
a dwindling amount of discretionary time to spend in those venues. Never mind the most elite women
- ten-year-olds with bottle-blonde updos and optional silicone-enhanced "chopped chicken parts"
are actually kinda gross - the less elite but still very aspirational Modern woman's
standards and policies are too high (unrealistic, as the less aspirational might put it) for the
life partner market to clear without externalizing something.
"Because it's usually true of most men at one time or another in their lives."
And therefore SIN, or whatever the symbol manipulators might prefer to call it, and therefore
PENANCE (payable in 3 easy installments), and THEN absolution. We do know how path dependence
cramps the American liberal's style and their group narcissism.
"When we're an empire, we create our own reality."
Jess–
It works both ways. Men also have the power to reject, & they do.
Your own wording of "that's the inside track to the most elite women" (my
emphasis) seems to say that a woman must be beautiful in figure and face to attract a man.
So what's different about a woman wanting a man who is nice looking with a nice body?
None.
It's just two different views, depending on gender.
Regarding what Trump supposedly said/did many years ago, even as a woman, I still find the
fact Hellary's husband was engaged in sexual misconduct in the oval office-while president
-even more disgusting.
I saw/see that as a huge slap in the face and a big FU to the entire nation that he would conduct
himself in such a way while being the leader of our country!
He couldn't even keep it zipped while sitting in the WH? How dare he!
At least Trump wasn't our freakin' PRESIDENT when he said/did those things.
Yet Bill's behavior is still a 'hush-hush' subject because he's a Clinton, it seems. (Or because
people don't want to be on that 'Clinton' list and disappear?)
No, I do not support Trump or his actions or manners or ego.
But since it's being made such a big deal, then I'd like to see all the facts about Bill brought
up again in the way he acted while leading this country.
THEN maybe all these 'distractions' would end and we could get down to policies!
Until then, which it appears will never happen, this 'election' is a sick joke, at best.
Yes, but at least Hillary has come out boldly against the Saudi persecution of women, gays,
and other races, has denounced the Saudi genocide in Yemen, and fought vigorously as Secretary
of State to ensure arms including cluster bombs and white phosphorus were not sold to a regime
with such a dreadful human rights record. And the Clinton Foundation displayed their "whiter than
white" sense of ethics by returning the millions of dollars of Saudi donations.
And Trump's words from 11 years ago were much worse than anything the Saudis did, in any case.
I have a hierarchy of reactions to issues and I just can't seem to put vulgar language
above the ultimate vulgarity of world war for profit.
Try as I might, I can't seem to care more about people with hurt feelings than people with
their heads blown off because a Saudi billionaire or arms manufacturer just had to have some more
ka-ching. There is nothing more vulgar than that.
I am surprised that Trump is not making the Podesta Wikileaks into a major story. Perhaps Trump
is not earnestly trying to actually win, or Trump is a Bush43/Palin level low IQ person.
Trump & his media spokeshacks could repeat "Podesta Wikileaks show HClinton's actual 'private
position' is cut SS & MC, & pro-TPP. Trump will not cut SS & MC, & will veto TPP. Vote for Trump".
Even if Trump is lying, Trump could "pull an 0bama 2008 on NAFTA" & privately tell PRyan/Trump
BigFunders/Owners Trump's actual plan.
IMHO Trump could possibly win if he took such an approach. Why isn't he doing so?
"... Clinton talked of the need to have "both a public and a private position" on controversial issues. The former first lady also said her family's wealth had made her "kind of far removed" from the problems facing the middle class. ..."
"... one of the leaked Podesta emails appeared to show that the Clinton campaign had been in contact with the Justice Department during an open records court case in which it was not a party. The Trump campaign said the email "shows a level of collusion which calls into question the entire investigation into her private server." ..."
"... Trump has also seized on an email that revealed Clinton in one speech said that terrorism is "not a threat to us as a nation," clarifying, "it is not going to endanger our economy or our society, but it is a real threat." ..."
"... In "a speech made behind closed doors, crooked Hillary Clinton said that terrorism was not a threat - quote, 'not a threat to the nation,' " Trump said during a rally on Monday evening in Pennsylvania. ..."
On Tuesday, one of the leaked Podesta emails appeared to show that the Clinton campaign had
been in contact with the Justice Department during an open records court case in which it was not
a party. The Trump campaign said the email "shows a level of collusion which calls into question
the entire investigation into her private server."
Trump has also seized on an email that revealed Clinton in one speech said that terrorism
is "not a threat to us as a nation," clarifying, "it is not going to endanger our economy or our
society, but it is a real threat."
In "a speech made behind closed doors, crooked Hillary Clinton said that terrorism was not
a threat - quote, 'not a threat to the nation,' " Trump said during a rally on Monday evening in
Pennsylvania.
"During one of the secret speeches - amazing how nothing is secret today when you talk about the
internet - Hillary admitted that ISIS could infiltrate with the refugees," he added, referring to
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. "Then why is she letting so many people into our country?"
Some of the emails released have no bearing on the campaign at all.
In one message, Podesta offers advice for cooking risotto (don't add the water all at once). In
others, the former guitarist for pop-punk band Blink-182, Tom DeLonge, suggests that Podesta
meet with a variety
of individuals, seemingly
to discuss UFOs.
The release comes at a time when the intelligence community is casting doubt on WikiLeaks and
its motives.
(Busy with nurturing some illness, please bear with me.)
Quotes from the Wikileaks stash of Hillary
Clinton speeches and
emails from her campaign chair John Podesta.
Clinton in a 2013 speech to the Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner (via
The Intercept ):
[Arming moderates has] been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons-and pretty
indiscriminately-not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems
in the future, ...
Clinton also says that the no-fly zone bombing in Syria she is arguing for "would kill a lot of Syrians" - all for humanitarian
reasons of course.
The following was written by Podesta, a well connected former White House Chief of Staff, in an 2014
email to Clinton. As introduction Podesta notes:"Sources
include Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region.":
While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence
assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia , which are providing clandestine
financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.
Not new - the 2012 DIA analysis
provided as much , and more, - but these email's prove that Clinton was and is well aware that U.S. allies are financing the
radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq.
Telling several members of the investment bank's board of directors how they had to check her out
whenever they get a chance, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was overheard Monday describing to
friends how incredible it is to see Hillary Clinton live.
"You can forget any recordings you've heard of Hillary, because they don't even compare to the
experience of seeing her in person," said Blankfein, who excitedly recounted the first time he saw
the Democratic presidential nominee in a small, intimate venue back in 2013, noting how he was instantly
captivated by what he was hearing and found himself nodding along throughout the 90-minute solo performance.
"... They were in active collusion with the 1990s Clinton campaigns too, but I didn't have Wikileaks around to confirm it, or the internets for alternative sources of information. I suspected it anyway. I finally cut the cord after 2002. ..."
"... Well the NYT, WaPo, CNN et al have shot themselves in the foot with this blatant collusion with the Clinton campaign. They've pissed off their most intelligent readers & viewers, shown themselves to be knaves and fools, and what are they going to say when HRC is president and investigated up the wazoo for corruption? ..."
"... If you defeat Trump, you prevail over one guy. When Clinton is defeated, you win over all those 'with her.' ..."
"... Yes… But leverage much higher than 100:1… Not just MSM, but banks, neocons, corrupt ceo's, and all these alphabet groups keeping us safe… Hopefully he'd be vindictive against all the elites trying to defeat him. ..."
"... Some combination of "it's a Russian plot" and "we told you so." The MSM - they know everything. ..."
"... NEVER overestimate the intelligence of the American public. If Hillary can get an 11 point lead over a salacious story that affects almost nobody and yet get no drop in popularity over revelations that will affect everyone's lives, I don't think there is much hope that the NYT, WaPo, CNN, et al, will get their comeuppance. But Americans who drink in what these MSM sites are feeding them WILL get the President they so obviously deserve, won't they? ..."
"... Yes, it's the public's fault… despite being subject to the most brutal propaganda campaign in history and being assaulted by years of neoliberalism that barely gives them time to breathe between their three zero-hour contract jobs, it's their fault and they deserve a president who will grand-bargain away their social security benefits, TPP away the few remaining good jobs and start a civilisation-threatening war with Russia. ..."
"... And just for the record (/sarc), HRC only has an 11-point lead because most people won't be voting anyway, as they've correctly surmised that the system is completely rigged against them. ..."
"... I have not seen the data on that poll but I doubt that it is a "scientific poll". Many of the polls that I have taken the time to look at the data shows that they avoid asking 35 and under voters and heavily skew the data set to democrats. Lee Camp from Redacted Tonight has also shown this on his TV show on RT. Those even ruskies. ..."
"... Stupid Bloomberg headlines I never clicked on: The Trump Video Would Get Most CEOs Ousted. No doubt. But so would running their own private server outside the company system, then destroying emails in response to a Congressional subpoena. ..."
NYT: the toilet paper of record. In yet another Wikileaks dump it's come out that they're in
active collusion with Hillary's campaign. How anyone is still dumb enough to believe the lies
they're alwaus putting out is beyond me.
Really, it's fine to be biased lackeys for the rich and powerful as long as you're honest about
it. Pretending to be unbiased arbiters of truth while doing that though is pathetic.
These media presstitutes are so rancidly despicable that I want to throw up whenever I think
of them. Newspapers and the rest of the media: want to know why you're going bankrupt? It's not
the internet–it's because every day more and more people are clued into the fact that you are
pathetic lying scum. In my mind these media people are in the same exact category as child molesters.
They were in active collusion with the 1990s Clinton campaigns too, but I didn't have Wikileaks
around to confirm it, or the internets for alternative sources of information. I suspected it
anyway. I finally cut the cord after 2002.
Well the NYT, WaPo, CNN et al have shot themselves in the foot with this blatant collusion
with the Clinton campaign. They've pissed off their most intelligent readers & viewers, shown
themselves to be knaves and fools, and what are they going to say when HRC is president and investigated
up the wazoo for corruption?
Yes… But leverage much higher than 100:1… Not just MSM, but banks, neocons, corrupt ceo's,
and all these alphabet groups keeping us safe…
Hopefully he'd be vindictive against all the elites trying to defeat him.
NEVER overestimate the intelligence of the American public. If Hillary can get an 11 point
lead over a salacious story that affects almost nobody and yet get no drop in popularity over
revelations that will affect everyone's lives, I don't think there is much hope that the NYT,
WaPo, CNN, et al, will get their comeuppance. But Americans who drink in what these MSM sites
are feeding them WILL get the President they so obviously deserve, won't they?
Yes, it's the public's fault… despite being subject to the most brutal propaganda campaign
in history and being assaulted by years of neoliberalism that barely gives them time to breathe
between their three zero-hour contract jobs, it's their fault and they deserve a president who
will grand-bargain away their social security benefits, TPP away the few remaining good jobs and
start a civilisation-threatening war with Russia.
And just for the record (/sarc), HRC only has an 11-point lead because most people won't
be voting anyway, as they've correctly surmised that the system is completely rigged against them.
I have not seen the data on that poll but I doubt that it is a "scientific poll". Many
of the polls that I have taken the time to look at the data shows that they avoid asking 35 and
under voters and heavily skew the data set to democrats. Lee Camp from Redacted Tonight has also
shown this on his TV show on RT. Those even ruskies.
Just watched a documentary on the murder of Kitty Genovese. It sure made me think there has
been a culture of corruption at the New York Times for decades, enabled by outside journalists
refusing to question them for whatever reason (intimidation, careerism…).
Stupid Bloomberg headlines I never clicked on: The Trump Video Would Get Most CEOs Ousted.
No doubt. But so would running their own private server outside the company system, then destroying
emails in response to a Congressional subpoena.
WikiLeaks hack reveals DNC's favoritism as Clinton staff in damage control over Hillary's support
for DOMA
On October 10,
Wikileaks released part two of their emails from
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.
Friday,
Wikileaks released their first batch of Podesta's emails, which included excerpts from
Clinton's Wall Street transcripts that reaffirmed why
Clinton refused to release them in full. During the second presidential debate,
Clinton confirmed their authenticity by attempting to defend one statement she made in the speech
about having a public and private stance on political issues. She
cited Abraham Lincoln, a defense comparable to her ridiculous
invocation of 9/11 when pressed on her ties to Wall Street during a
Democratic primary debate.
The latest release reveals current DNC chair Donna Brazile, when working as a
DNC vice chair, forwarded to the Clinton campaign a January 2016
email obtained from
the Bernie Sanders campaign, released by Sarah Ford, Sanders' deputy national press secretary, announcing
a Twitter storm from Sanders' African-American outreach team. "FYI" Brazile wrote to the Clinton
staff. "Thank you for the heads up on this Donna," replied Clinton campaign spokesperson Adrienne
Elrod.
One
email
, received by prolific
Clinton donor Haim Saban, was forwarded to
Clinton staff, praising the friendly moderators in the early March 2016 Democratic primary
debate co-hosted by Univision in Florida. "Haim, I just wanted to tell you that I thought the
moderators for last nights Debate were excellent. They were thoughtful, tough and incisive. I thought
it made
Hilary appear direct and strong in her resolve. I felt it advanced our candidate. Thanks for
Univision," wrote Rob Friedman, former co-chair of the Motion Picture Group.
Another email discusses planting a favorable Clinton story in The New York Times in March
2015. "NYT heroine. Should she call her today?" Podesta wrote to other Clinton campaign staffers
with the subject line 'Laura Donohoe.' "I do think it's a great idea! We can make it happen," replied
Huma Abedin. The story they referred to is likely "
In New Hampshire, Clinton Backers Buckle Up," published in The New York Times on March
12, 2015 about Laura Donohoe, a retired nurse and Clinton supporter in New Hampshire.
John Harwood, New York Times contributor and CNBC correspondent, regularly exchanged
emails with Podesta-communicating more as a
Clinton surrogate than a journalist.
In an October 2015
email thread, Clinton staff were in damage control over Hillary's support for the 1996 Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Hillary Clinton would not disavow her support for it. "I'm not saying double down or ever say
it again. I'm just saying that she's not going to want to say she was wrong about that, given she
and her husband believe it and have repeated it many times. Better to reiterate evolution, opposition
to DOMA when court considered it, and forward looking stance."
Former
Clinton Foundation director, Darnell Strom of the Creative Artist Agency,
wrote
a condescending email
to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard after she resigned from the
DNC
to endorse
Bernie Sanders , which he then forwarded to Clinton campaign staff. "For you to endorse a man
who has spent almost 40 years in public office with very few accomplishments, doesn't fall in line
with what we previously thought of you. Hillary Clinton will be our party's nominee and you standing
on ceremony to support the sinking Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton," wrote
Strom.
A memo sent from Clinton's general counsel, Marc Elias of the law firm Perkins Coie, outlined
legal tricks to circumvent campaign finance laws to raise money in tandem with Super Pacs.
In a March 2015 email
,
Clinton Campaign manager
Robby Mook expressed frustration DNC Chair
Debbie Wasserman Schultz hired a Convention CEO without consulting the Clinton campaign, which
suggests the
DNC and Clinton campaign regularly coordinated together from the early stages of the Democratic
primaries.
"... If only Frank Sinatra had had the foresight to get a hidden tape spool running, we could now
enjoy the lasting record of Senator John F.Kennedy's attitudes toward "poontang". ..."
"... Anyway, if HRC actually broke the law… shouldn't she face prosecution? I know some people (at
amconmag, as it happens) have called for members of the Bush administration to be put on trial. Over
here, the demand for Blair to be tried at the Hague for war crimes is now a tired old Left cliche. Obviously,
it would be new to demand punishment for the loser just for losing, but that isn't the context here.
..."
"... Looking at the FB timelines of my 'professional class' milquetoast 'progressive' acquaintances
in the US (who all gravitas/te towards Vox), who have since this weekend become unglued, this is very
much a case of people deliberately goading themselves into frenzies, tumbling over one another in their
attempts to win an apparent virtue-signalling-contest. ..."
"For months, I've been beating the drum of the non-novelty of Donald Trump, but try as I might,
even I can't remember a presidential candidate caught on tape bragging about assaulting women
and grabbing pussy."
If only Frank Sinatra had had the foresight to get a hidden tape spool running, we could
now enjoy the lasting record of Senator John F.Kennedy's attitudes toward "poontang".
Anyway, if HRC actually broke the law… shouldn't she face prosecution? I know some people
(at amconmag, as it happens) have called for members of the Bush administration to be put on trial.
Over here, the demand for Blair to be tried at the Hague for war crimes is now a tired old Left
cliche. Obviously, it would be new to demand punishment for the loser just for losing, but that
isn't the context here.
Looking at the FB timelines of my 'professional class' milquetoast 'progressive' acquaintances
in the US (who all gravitas/te towards Vox), who have since this weekend become unglued, this
is very much a case of people deliberately goading themselves into frenzies, tumbling over one
another in their attempts to win an apparent virtue-signalling-contest.
Meanwhile, nary a word about "we came, we saw, he died", as it apparently is just peachy to
destroy a country if you want to tick 'killing an autocrat who is not in the US's pocket' off
your bucket-list.
To put it bluntly, looking away and excusing evils one "understands" and thinks one can "contain"
(except insofar as it affects non-nationals and
the bottom 30-40%
, anyway, but who cares about them) because the "other side" is perceived to be "more" evil/disruptive/threatening
to the status quo is a pattern of behavior that disturbs me far more than the behavior of the
other side, however nasty that may be.
"... it's obvious why Hillary Clinton's campaign and her supporters in the media would want to ignore bad news from hacked emails in favor of decade-old comments Donald Trump made about women. ..."
"... On Friday we learned that the Obama administration actively worked to crush stories relating to Clinton's emails after the story broke in early 2015. In one email, White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri emailed her counterpart at the State Department: "between us on the shows… think we can get this done so he is not asked about email." Palmieri was trying to make sure Secretary of State John Kerry would not be asked about the email scandal on his Face the Nation ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... This is exactly what Sanders warned about during the primary -- that Clinton took money from Wall Street but was not adopting his position against the banks because it was politically popular. It was hard to believe that Clinton would be just as harsh against the banks privately as she was publicly. ..."
"... Clinton awkwardly defended this comment at the debate on Sunday by speaking at length about Lincoln. But it certainly plays into the notion of Clinton's corruption; that she will say anything to anyone to get elected. It also begs the question: Who is being told the truth? Is her private position the one that she will institute in the Oval Office or will she stick with the public position? How can we trust anything she says? ..."
"... Other hacked emails revealed Clinton's campaign privately insulting journalists who didn't praise the Democratic nominee. In one email, campaign Press Secretary Nick Merrill called New York Times ..."
"... Merrill also said he had tried "to shame" the Intercept's Emily Kopp's "lousy reporting" on Clinton using her campaign account as a slush fund. ..."
"... More emails were released on Monday, and they were just as bad. In one email , former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band called Hillary's daughter Chelsea "a spoiled brat kid." ..."
"... Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media. ..."
The Left must stop pretending this is a nonstory
•
10/10/16
We're just a month away from the election, so it's obvious why Hillary
Clinton's campaign and her supporters in the media would want to ignore bad
news from hacked emails in favor of decade-old comments Donald Trump made about
women.
But the story isn't going away-especially if Clinton becomes president.
On Friday we learned that the Obama administration
actively worked to crush stories
relating to Clinton's emails after the
story broke in early 2015. In one email, White House Communications Director
Jennifer Palmieri emailed her counterpart at the State Department: "between us
on the shows… think we can get this done so he is not asked about email."
Palmieri was trying to make sure Secretary of State John Kerry would not be
asked about the email scandal on his
Face the Nation
appearance that
occurred three days later.
The next day, State Department Communications Director Jennifer
Psaki
responded: "Good to go on killing CBS idea." And guess what? Kerry
wasn't asked about the emails.
Also on Friday, leaked transcripts from Clinton's Wall Street speeches were
revealed by Wikileaks.
The New York Times
reported that
"The tone and language of the excerpts clash with the fiery
liberal approach she used later in her bitter primary battle with Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont and could have undermined her candidacy had they
become public."
Ouch.
Clinton said in the transcripts that she dreamed of "open trade and open
borders." She also spoke about how Abraham Lincoln twisted arms behind the
scenes to get things done, and said it was important to have "both a public and
a private position."
This is exactly what Sanders warned about during the primary -- that Clinton
took money from Wall Street but was not adopting his position against the banks
because it was politically popular. It was hard to believe that Clinton would
be just as harsh against the banks privately as she was publicly.
Clinton
awkwardly defended
this comment at the debate on Sunday by speaking at
length about Lincoln. But it certainly plays into the notion of Clinton's
corruption; that she will say anything to anyone to get elected. It also begs
the question: Who is being told the truth? Is her private position the one that
she will institute in the Oval Office or will she stick with the public
position? How can we trust anything she says?
While Trump's comments predictably dominated the news cycle over the
weekend, more damaging information was linked about Clinton.
Other hacked emails revealed Clinton's campaign
privately insulting journalists
who didn't praise the Democratic nominee.
In one email, campaign Press Secretary Nick Merrill called
New York Times
reporter Amy Chozick an "idiot" for writing an article about supporters
becoming wary of Campaign Manager Robby Mook after Clinton narrowly eked out a
win against Sanders.
Merrill also said he had tried "to shame" the Intercept's Emily Kopp's
"lousy reporting" on Clinton using her campaign account as a slush fund.
More emails were released on Monday, and they were just as bad. In
one email
, former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band called Hillary's daughter
Chelsea "a spoiled brat kid."
"I don't deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect or at least a
direct dialogue for me to explain these things," Band wrote in response to a
dispute with Chelsea over the Clinton Foundation. "She is acting like a spoiled
brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she's
doing."
Band founded Teneo Strategies, which for a brief time employed Clinton aide
Huma Abedin while she was also working for the State Department.
Perhaps most damaging of all, it appears Team Clinton was "
petrified
"
of any GOP presidential nominee except Trump.
"Right now I am petrified that Hillary is almost totally dependent on
Republicans nominating Trump," wrote Brent Budowsky, a former Capitol Hill
staffer (and Observer
columnist
).
"She has huge endemic political weaknesses that she would be wise to rectify …
even a clown like Ted Cruz would be an even money bet to beat and this scares
the hell of out me."
Clinton's own campaign knew she wasn't a strong candidate and that the email
scandal was damaging-that's why they worked behind the scenes to crush stories
about the emails and disparaged reporters who didn't fall in line. They also
worked to make Trump the GOP nominee
because anyone else would have run
away with the election against such a flawed candidate.
The Left's response is always the same: Either this is a nonstory or it's
"old news." The more they make such proclamations, the more it's clear that
they just want the story to go away because they know how bad it is for
Clinton. Voters care about this issue; it's part of why Clinton is routinely
described as "untrustworthy."
The Left wouldn't be calling this a nonstory if the Secretary of State in
question were Condoleeza Rice (and to be fair, Republicans would then be the
ones claiming it was a non-story).
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the
publisher of Observer Media.
"... Yes, on all points, especially this: "I don't know whether this obfuscation is due to the journalists themselves believing that Clinton is a crook and therefore shouting "Thief, thief!" to distract attention from this, or whether they're just being opportunistic and throwing raw meat to the rubes. But it's not a good sign for the future of American civil society either way." I say both . The donor class 1% that own the media, especially the new media, are solidly behind Hillary to an extent that I wonder whether we can call any of the media 'liberal.' Trump correctly noted that to even refer to the 33,000 documents she destroyed after receiving a federal subpoena as 'email' clouds the key facts: the FBI and government inspectors had to have access to all the documents to determine their status. ..."
"... In the short term, it's all upside. They won't be fighting in any of Hillary's wars. They aren't going to be drafted and they aren't going to be bombed. The are almost all staunchly and proudly anti-Republican and that's the sole metric by which actions are judged both morally and legally. ..."
"... When the elephant starts to take heat for the crap effect of donor class policies, the donor class simply pour money into donkey coffers to ensure the continuation of the donor class crap policies. ..."
"... Politically-motivated prosecutions of former presidents would obviously not be good, but prosecutions motivated by their legitimately criminal actions would be a welcome change. ..."
"... It's equally clear that you're quite comfortable with Clinton Inc. taking de facto control of the Democratic party so that Hillary did not have to face the kind of opposition she did in 2008. ..."
"... You're obviously equally cool with her 7 in a row coin toss escapade that 'won' her the Iowa primary, and the numerous cases of collusion between the Hillary campaign and the DNC, you know – the ones that forced Wasserman-Schultz to run fleeing from the podium during the train wreck called the Democratic Convention. ..."
"... Then there are the wars, none of which Hillary is responsible for. We came, we saw, he died has the character and the temperament to be in the oval office because she wouldn't say shit when she obviously has more than a mouthful, but a guy who engages in lewd locker room talk can credibly be compared to Hitler. ..."
"... She wants to confront Russia over control of Syrian airspace, an act that could well put America on a collision course with both Russia and Iran. Speaking of which, you can learn a little bit more of the kinds of geopolitical changes Bush-Clinton-Obama and their doofus allies have wrought in the ME. ..."
"... Her corruption is the corruption of the 1%, whom she serves. Her wars are the wars of the 1%. Her supporters are the elite 1%. The recent leaks confirm collusion between the Hillary campaign and the DNC to tilt the primary in favor of Hillary. The most recent leaks confirm the Obama WH and the Kerry State department worked to suppress evidence and FOI requests. ..."
"... Let's not dismiss this as ancient history. Do you know who else is being charged under the Espionage Acts of 1917? Snowden. This is still very much living U.S. law, ..."
"... "They were emailed to her personal server, for her own personal use." Wrong. The government owned emails were mailed to her government-purposed (at least in part) server for her professional use as an employee of the federal government. ..."
"... The entire exercise is, of course, absurd. As we've learned, US and UK politicians lie routinely to investigators over starting wars, torturing people, targeting dissidents for special treatment, punishing whistle-blowers, lying to the public, etc. with complete impunity. ..."
"... The mere suggestion that Ted Kennedy, or George Bush, or Hillary Clinton would ever be charged with any crime is laughable. Punishments and trials are for 'ordinary' citizens. ..."
"... Everyone knows that. Which is why Trump will win. ..."
@5 MFB Yes, on all points, especially this: "I don't know whether this obfuscation is due
to the journalists themselves believing that Clinton is a crook and therefore shouting "Thief,
thief!" to distract attention from this, or whether they're just being opportunistic and throwing
raw meat to the rubes. But it's not a good sign for the future of American civil society either
way."
I say both . The donor class 1% that own the media, especially the new media,
are solidly behind Hillary to an extent that I wonder whether we can call any of the media 'liberal.'
Trump correctly noted that to even refer to the 33,000 documents she destroyed after receiving
a federal subpoena as 'email' clouds the key facts: the FBI and government inspectors had to have
access to all the documents to determine their status.
The press understands all this, of course. They are neither forgetful, or entirely stupid.
They, however, quite blind to the damage they are doing to institutions they claim to care about.
In the short term, it's all upside. They won't be fighting in any of Hillary's wars. They
aren't going to be drafted and they aren't going to be bombed. The are almost all staunchly and
proudly anti-Republican and that's the sole metric by which actions are judged both morally and
legally.
Which makes them the perfect dupes of the donor class.
When the elephant starts to take heat for the crap effect of donor class policies, the
donor class simply pour money into donkey coffers to ensure the continuation of the donor class
crap policies.
Ezra and Ryan and their ilk are all aspiring VSPs. They'll get their 'one-on-one' interviews
to boost clicks and Hillary will simply forget to schedule more than one actual press conference
per year.
Liberals will clap and high five each other over the goofus they helped remove.
Politically-motivated prosecutions of former presidents would obviously not be good, but prosecutions
motivated by their legitimately criminal actions would be a welcome change. Everyone knows
that elite politicians (Bushes, Clintons) are basically immune from serious legal consequences,
and fury regarding the unfairness of our two-tiered justice system is part of what fuels the current
populism.
@19 Your legal expertise consists of exactly what? I have none but I know how to read and the
reading makes it quite clear that Hillary's use of the private server for State business was not
sanctioned, that mixing Foundation documents with government documents did not give her the authority
to destroy documents on the server after she received the subpoena, she was certainly not entitled
to destroy devices with a hammer, bleach her hard drives and otherwise do everything possible
to obstruct the FBI and justice department investigation.
Most tellingly, as the linked piece above at the NRO makes clear, Trump did not threaten to
put Hillary in jail. Unlike Obama, who used one arm of his administration, his own Justice department,
to investigate another arm of his own administration, the Secretary of State, Trump stipulated
clearly that he would distance himself and his administration from any investigation by appointing
a special prosecutor. His explicit remark re: jail was a counter-factual.
Had he been President, Hillary would have been in jail.
But you're clever enough (I hope) to know and understand all this. It's equally clear that
you're quite comfortable with Clinton Inc. taking de facto control of the Democratic party so
that Hillary did not have to face the kind of opposition she did in 2008.
You're obviously equally
cool with her 7 in a row coin toss escapade that 'won' her the Iowa primary, and the numerous
cases of collusion between the Hillary campaign and the DNC, you know – the ones that forced Wasserman-Schultz
to run fleeing from the podium during the train wreck called the Democratic Convention.
Down the
memory hole go the empty seats, the chain link fences, and emails suggesting Hillary's only obstacle
to power then was 'possibly' an agnostic, or a Jew. She gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
a pop to give secret speeches to bankers and her daughter collected three six-figure salaries,
one from NBC the folks who sat on the tape until just the right moment.
If she and Bill hadn't harassed Jones et al, why then was she so shocked and rattled to see
them up close? No desire for reconciliation? A healing hug? Bill banged a few of them, of that
there's no doubt and one credibly claimed he raped while serving as state attorney general.
Then there are the wars, none of which Hillary is responsible for. We came, we saw, he died
has the character and the temperament to be in the oval office because she wouldn't say shit when
she obviously has more than a mouthful, but a guy who engages in lewd locker room talk can credibly
be compared to Hitler.
Lee above says that Donald 'loomed' over Hillary. Ooooh. Well, she was sitting down half the
time and he six-foot.
I suppose Trump could have just stretched out on the floor staring at the ceiling microphone
in hand. That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do.
She wants to confront Russia over control of Syrian airspace, an act that could well put
America on a collision course with both Russia and Iran. Speaking of which, you can learn a little
bit more of the kinds of geopolitical changes Bush-Clinton-Obama and their doofus allies have
wrought in the ME.
One set of laws for the ruling class, and another for the rest of us. The FBI director stipulated
that any other suspected felon could not expect the same exceptional treatment.
Had she been charged and facing trial she would have been out of the race right now.
kidneystones @48 People in authority, which includes law enforcement, knew while Clinton
was Secretary of State she was taking emails on a private server. They had to know, because
the address for the emails had to be available or they couldn't have emailed her. If it wasn't
a problem then, it isn't a problem now.
That's true, even if a corrupt police bureaucrat like Comey wants to pretend his political
opinions are anything but an improper intervention. Unsafe to use a private server? After Snowden,
Manning and the entire career of wikileaks, not to mention the allegations about Russian and north
Korean cyberwarfare, Comey needs to explain how using a government server is safe! It's not even
unprecedented. Powell did the same, even if dumbasses want to excuse this as being somehow slipping
in before some regs.
No, sorry to say that buying into email scandal as anything but business as usual, especially
by people who vocally approve the American way of exceptional profits, is nothing but…sorry, no
way to be properly forceful but to correctly call it "dumbfuckery." This is probably why people
are looking for things like chauvinism or internalizing the decades of insane attacks by mad dog
reactionaries as the causes of such flagrant stupidity.
And yes, political prosecutions are legal, but highly destructive to any system that permits
such nonsense. I mean, really, it was the threat of a political prosecution that "forced" Caesar
to cross the Rubicon. The effects are rarely helpful. Consider for example one of the most notorious
political prosecutions in recent times, the impeachment of Bill Clinton. (Isn't the glee over
the Trump tape exactly like the glee over the blue dress? And just as likely to lead to anything
worthwhile?) Prof. Robin has either forgotten, or for some inexplicable reason things deems it
a good thing.
As for the election being over, the polls for Brexit or the polls for the FARC peace treaty
show that it's not over til the votes are counted, or not, as intimidation and fraud may (or may
not) determine. There isn't the slightest reason to be sure the down ballot Republican Party is
going to be dragged down by the candidate the party has resisted from the beginning.
It all depends on turnout. The relentless assault on Clinton will probably have its desired
effect of suppressing turnout. The humane feelings of the population at large have always suggested
the majority will endorse Clinton, who passes for human much better than Trump. But the US political
system is designed for minority rule. It's still too possible for Trump to win the electoral college.
Although CT and its commentariat unhesitatingly support the same viciously reactionary policies
in action under Obama (even as they pretend on occasion to oppose them as they predict Clinton's
future,) those same fundamentally incompetent policies leave Trump hope for a disaster that seemingly
vindicates him.
Last and least, the question of Trump's precedents is irrelevant when the gravity of Trump's
precedents are falsified. Trump's closest precedent is Nixon. The historical revisionism where
Nixon was just another conservative implicitly tells us Watergate was an unjust power grab by
malign liberal media. This is part and parcel of the increasing move towards reaction.
53@ The majority of Americans wanted her charged for her actions.
You're welcome to believe that her use of the private server (in direct violation of State
department guidelines, but useful when avoiding FOI requests), mishandling of classified materials,
and destruction of evidence merit no charges, or even investigation, as long as you understand
most Americans wanted her charged for her actions.
Her corruption is the corruption of the 1%, whom she serves. Her wars are the wars of the
1%. Her supporters are the elite 1%. The recent leaks confirm collusion between the Hillary campaign
and the DNC to tilt the primary in favor of Hillary. The most recent leaks confirm the Obama WH
and the Kerry State department worked to suppress evidence and FOI requests.
I don't dispute that parts of the Trump campaign are about 'revenge' or at least replying in
kind. The attacks on Bill's predatory sexual behavior is certainly that. The email case is simply
an illustrative example of elite corruption involving various branches of government, the media,
the Clinton foundation and a global list of grifters.
Some partisans suggest that Clinton was never going to be charged because the WH has known
from day 1 that charging Clinton would also mean charging Obama, who knew of the server from day
1, and well aware how insecure the system for handling State documents actually was. Hard as it
may be to imagine (and it is hard to imagine at this juncture) Clinton might not be the only one
indicted should Trump win and get his special prosecutor.
The world will certainly look very different should he pull this out. Hard to imagine.
@ 55 stevenjohnson. I have no problem with much of this, or most of your comments. You're quite
right to draw our attention to the grave insecurities in America's cyber defenses. I'm certainly
not one who sees the outcome as certain. The health of the Republicans at the state level is very
good already, in many cases, and the revulsion for the corruption in the media and government
that is fueling Trump_vs_deep_state and support for Bernie is unlikely to decline should Trump be defeated.
marcel proust: "Furthermore, he was not singled out for prosecution & jailing; many others (thousands?)
who actively opposed US participation in WW1 also went to jail: socialists and other pacifists
including religious objectors, as well as many of German (and perhaps Irish) ancestry."
Which is how the U.S. government broke the IWW: they had had an anti-war position for as long
as they existed, but backed down on doing any actual, coordinated resistance in favor of preserving
their ability to organize workers. But that wasn't enough and they were broken anyways.
Let's not dismiss this as ancient history. Do you know who else is being charged under
the Espionage Acts of 1917? Snowden. This is still very much living U.S. law, and the people
who say that we must elect HRC at all costs are generally the same people who don't care that
Obama is using it.
This election also can be seen in a more general, global context of how forces have been accommodating
to the end of the cold war. Perhaps a detour into the history of some 3rd world banana republics,
those that many Americans deem as deplorable as a Trump supporter, can shed some light.
Starting in the 50's, and with the expressed goal of modernizing their countries (meaning an
accelerated capitalist development with the US as its model and as the only possible model) military
and terror regimes took over South America (Paraguay: 1954-1991, Chile: 1973-1990, Argentina:
1976-1982, Uruguay: 1966- 1985). For the most part, before being forced out of power, these military
regimes declared amnesty for themselves. Enter truth commissions, whose purpose is to investigate
the causes of violence and human rights violations and to establish judicial responsibility.
Back in the US, those responsible for human rights violations around the world, such as torture,
extra-judicial assassinations, and renditions, have never been brought to justice and the mere
mention of Clinton (a politician!) facing jail for a very minor infraction is considered in undemocratic
bad taste.
Conclusion: perhaps more than a special prosecutor, a commission of truth is in order, but
not at the moment, after the US crumbles as the USSR did. Only then can 3rd worlders hope to see
Kissinger, Bush, Blair, Aznar, Obama, and all their enablers brought to justice. For the moment,
we have to put up with the spectacle of some Americans, in an intent at preemptive amnesty, outraged
at the mere thought that their presumptive tin-pot, global Caesar is not above suspicion and that
they themselves are better than 3rd worlders.
kidneystones @48 People in authority, which includes law enforcement, knew while Clinton
was Secretary of State she was taking emails on a private server. They had to know, because
the address for the emails had to be available or they couldn't have emailed her. If it wasn't
a problem then, it isn't a problem now.
This is technically incorrect. SMTP mail is very old and pretty convoluted protocol.
Existance of private address means only that the email server exists but it does not determine
where the mailbox is located (multiple layers of redirection are possible).
the level of incompetence and malevolence that Clinton and her associated demonstrated is simple
staggering for any specialist or lawyer. Which aspects of it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt
is an interesting theoretical question, but for any specialist it is clear that Hillary not only
cut corners and but also had driven on red light. As simple as that.
The essence of emailgate is not existence of email server per se. the strongest part of evidence
against her is the saga of destroying "non-essential" emails while being under investigation and
indirectly instructing technical personnel to use special technical means which make deleted emails
unrecoverable. You might wish to look at
Based on the amount of evidence collected my personal opinion is that this might well be a
provable offence.
That means that Hillary risks impeachment if elected. So the idea of assigning special prosecutor
is baked in the case independently of who wins in November.
18 U.S. Code § 793(e) and (f). This offense carries a potential penalty of ten years imprisonment.
Executive Order 13526 "The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed
to cause damage to the national security." , Sec. 1.1(4)(d) (for violations committed after December
29, 2009)
44 U.S. Code § 3106 – Unlawful removal, destruction of records
A very simple question to you: Is not the notion of a "note relating to the national defense"
include emails, for example, emails related to the targets of drone strikes, which were present
in the steam?
As for "proper place of custody" this argument is not applicable to the deletion of emails
when a person is under federal or Congressional investigation. In this case the act of deletion
itself constitute the violation of the statute independently of the "proper place of custody"
and sensitivity of information in the email.
I would recommend to read (or re-read) URLs that were provided above. They contain wealth of
information and arguments both pro and contra. The one about 'shadow It" created by Hillary is
slightly outdated, but still useful. And they might help to answer your next questions :-)
I tend to view Hillary Clinton as a person, who escaped prosecution due to Obama pardon delivered
via Comey (probably under pressure from Bill Clinton via Loretta Lynch). Essentially putting herself
above the law, by the fact of belonging to "ruling neoliberal elite", the 0.01%. Your mileage
can vary.
Back to the OP. There's a bumper crop of new email on the topic of the press and debate moderators
colluding with the Hillary campaign to: screw Sanders (Boston Herald – also on board for anti-Trump),
minimize damage from the email fallout, and best of all (for me) John Harwood (neutral debate
moderator) providing written evidence that even that venue was tilted to damage Trump and protect
Hillary.
"They were emailed to her personal server, for her own personal use." Wrong.
The government owned emails were mailed to her government-purposed (at least in part) server
for her professional use as an employee of the federal government.
As an employee of the federal government she is bound by all (not some) federal laws respecting
government property, and by all (not some) State Department regulations regarding the handling
of government documents and electronic devices.
And whether she 'removed' the documents from their proper place for the purpose of espionage,
or not, the fact that we're now reading these emails, we are told by the Clinton campaign, thanks
to the insecurity of her private unsecured system – she's wide open to charges of gross negligence
in the handling of government documents, especially when State department regulations demand that
those with any kind of security clearance understand how government documents are to be handled
and fully comply with all protective measures.
Comey called her handling of sensitive documents 'extremely careless.'
That alone provides solid grounds for charges and a trial.
@112 Thanks for the clarity – you agree that she acted well outside the law. You agree there are
grounds to charge her and to proceed with a trial. Good.
I'm quite comfortable leaving charges and the trial to a special prosecutor, as Trump promises.
The majority of Americans certainly held the view that charges and a trial are warranted.
If you're of the opinion that she shouldn't be charged for possible crimes until after the
election, go ahead and make that case.
@119 Determining guilt, or innocence is not the job of the FBI. The job of the FBI is to determine
if there are grounds for charges to be laid.
"I said it appeared plausible she might have obstructed justice."
Let's first provide Hillary with a trial in order to determine if she actually committed
any crime. That's normally how it works. Then after the verdict if she's found guilty,
you're welcome to suggest appropriate punishment.
Still waiting for an answer: put Hillary on trial now, or after the election.
The entire exercise is, of course, absurd. As we've learned, US and UK politicians lie routinely
to investigators over starting wars, torturing people, targeting dissidents for special treatment,
punishing whistle-blowers, lying to the public, etc. with complete impunity.
The mere suggestion that Ted Kennedy, or George Bush, or Hillary Clinton would ever be
charged with any crime is laughable. Punishments and trials are for 'ordinary' citizens.
Obama called Sanders a 'shiny new object' while praising Clinton for
overcoming adversity
•
10/10/16 2:30pm
In an
interview
with Fox News this past April, President
Obama
asserted that he did not put pressure on the FBI's criminal
investigation into
Hillary Clinton's
private email server
. "I guarantee that there is no political influence in
any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI-not just in
this case but in any case," he said. There is now mounting evidence suggesting
Obama's claim was false.
"Newly disclosed emails show top
Obama
Administration officials were in close contact with
Hillary
Clinton
's nascent presidential campaign in early 2015 about the potential
fallout from revelations that the former secretary of state used a private
email server,"
reported
Bryon Tau for
The Wall Street Journal
on October 7. The
emails were obtained by the Republican National Committee through a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
requesting those records.
A few months before White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri
went to work for her campaign, emails show her in damage control for
Clinton
as early as 2015, when news first broke that Clinton's private
server existed. In one chain of emails between Palmieri and State Department
spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, Palmieri asked Psaki to ensure that Secretary of
State John Kerry wasn't asked about
Clinton's
private email server
during an upcoming CBS interview. "Good to go on
killing CBS idea," Psaki responded back to Palmieri, according to the
Journal
,
adding, "going to hold on any other TV options just given the swirl of crap out
there."
In March 2015,
The New York Times
reported
that
Obama
said he didn't know
Clinton
was using a private email address. That turned out to be false, as
the second
FBI
report on their investigation into
Clinton's
private server
revealed
that the president used a pseudonym in email communications with
her. "How is this not classified?"
Clinton
aide Huma Abedin
asked
the FBI during their interview. Obama's use of a pseudonym suggests
he not only was aware of Clinton's private server, but he knew it wasn't
secured to communicate with
Clinton
, as there were no security officers to mark the correspondence as
classified.
Obama's administration has intervened to delay several FOIA requests until
after Election Day to shield
Clinton
from further scrutiny.
In October 2015, the White House
stopped
the release of emails between
Clinton
and Obama, citing the need to keep presidential communications
confidential.
In June, the Obama administration stepped in to
delay
the State Department fulfilling an FOIA request from International
Business Times for emails regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership until 2017.
"The delay was issued in the same week the Obama administration filed a
court
motion
to try to kill a lawsuit aimed at forcing the federal government to
more quickly comply with open records requests for
Clinton
-era State Department documents,"
reported
David
Sirota.
President Obama has also repeatedly
defended
Clinton
when questioned about her
private server
,
blaming
the controversy on politics. But while the
FBI
was conducting an investigation, Obama should have refrained from
making his own judgment on the case.
This was the consensus among the
Democratic
Party
establishment: provide
Clinton
with impunity. No presidential candidate has ever won their party's
nomination while under a FBI investigation, yet the
Democratic Party
, with the president's support, protected
Clinton
throughout the private email server controversy. Though Obama
waited until after the end of the
Democratic primaries
to formally endorse
Clinton
, his support and praise throughout the primaries favored her. In
October 2015, CNN
reported
a top
Obama
strategist said he would support
Clinton
.
In a January interview with Politico, Obama
denigrated
Sen.
Bernie
Sanders'
support, calling him a "shiny new object" while praising Clinton
for overcoming adversity.
The
State Department Inspector General
and
FBI
Director
James Comey
issued severe criticisms in their reports on Hillary Clinton's
use of a
private server
. But to merit an indictment, the
FBI
would have been forced to be even more aggressive in their
investigation than usual. The investigation had already been polarized
politically, while
Clinton's
staff were granted immunity and a team of lawyers guided
Clinton
every step of the way throughout the investigation. For similar
reasons to why big bankers don't get indicted anymore,
Clinton
managed to avoid the FBI recommending an indictment. The political
climate in which all
Democratic Party
leaders stood behind
Clinton
,
that Obama affirmed repeatedly, made it virtually impossible for
Clinton
to be held accountable.
"... Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice ..."
"... Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Sidney Powell worked in the Department of Justice for 10 years, in three federal districts under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties. She was lead counsel in more than 500 federal appeals. She is the author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice -a legal thriller that tells the inside story of high-profile prosecutions. ..."
"... Face the Nation ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Many Americans, you once told students at the University of New Hampshire, "don't seem to appreciate the link between what happens abroad and what happens here at home." Can you think of ways to strengthen that weak link? ..."
"... Name three people aside from yourself that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton should pick as the next Secretary of State? ..."
"... So forgive and forget? ..."
"... This interview was edited and condensed ..."
"... Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media. ..."
"... City & State ..."
"... City & State ..."
"... The New Republic ..."
"... International Business Times ..."
"... Los Angeles Times ..."
"... Los Angeles Times ..."
"... Social Science and Medicine ..."
"... Health Psychology ..."
"... John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. He can be reached at ..."
"... This story has been updated to clarify that the state's plan to rebuild the its transportation system includes federal funds and other sources. ..."
Former federal prosecutor says that Hillary obstructed justice and destroyed evidence-with
the support of the president himself • 10/11/16 8:30am
Just when one thinks the cavalier cabal of Clinton and her cronies has exhausted all manner of corruption,
yet another outrage surfaces, implicating even more people.
The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary's
closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson-who, despite being attorneys, destroyed
evidence right and left-but, in a secret side deal, agreed to
limit the FBI's review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops
when the FBI review was complete.
Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction
of evidence is obstruction of justice itself.
We no longer have a Department of Justice: We have a Department of Obstructing and Corrupting
Justice to protect the power elite of the chosen side.
It's easy to see now why Lynch
secretly met Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac on June 27. Only a few days later, the FBI had
its little chat with Hillary-neither under oath nor with a rights warning-in the presence of her
coconspirators. Then, Hillary announced she would keep Lynch as Attorney General if she is elected
president. Surely by coincidence, the very next day Comey does his song and dance ending the "investigation."
Comey's "investigation" was a
farce . Any former prosecutor worth a flip would have convened a grand jury, issued subpoenas,
gotten search warrants, seized computers, run wire taps, indicted the Clinton cabal, and squeezed
the underlings to plead guilty and cooperate. This business of friendly chats, immunity agreements
handed out like party favors, and side deals that include the Attorney General approving the destruction
of evidence to keep it from Congress doesn't happen for others targeted by the feds.
Just ask any number of
Wall Street executives who for various reasons found themselves on the opposite side of the Department
of "Justice." In fact, my former client, Jim Brown, served a year in prison convicted of perjury
and obstruction of justice for testifying about his personal understanding of a telephone call to
which he was not even a party. Yes, you read that correctly. Read
Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice . It becomes more
relevant every day.
How did we get here?
Thanks to the work of
Judicial Watch and others, we learned over a year ago now that Hillary Clinton ran the most important
and confidential of world affairs and the United States Department of State through an unsecured
computer server assembled by her minions and ensconced in the basement of her New York home. She
did so despite repeated warnings of security risks, against protocol, and contrary to her
own memo to all of her underlings. That posed no problem simply because the rules don't apply
to
Clinton .
Conveniently, her server also handled
Clinton Foundation correspondence that facilitated the personal enrichment of Hillary and Bill
by hundreds of millions of dollars. That money came from Bill's remarkable "
speaking fees " at hundreds of events around the world-each of which was quickly approved as
requested by Clinton crony
Cheryl Mills at the State Department-as if there were no
conflict of interest . Simultaneously, foreign entities made "donations" of hundreds of millions
of dollars to the Clinton Foundation to obtain the immediate attention of and curry favor with the
secretary of state-and it worked.
The personal home server allowed Hillary Clinton to send and receive all of her emails and run
the State Department free from protected, secure, and
required government channels. It was established deliberately to circumvent the Federal Records
Act and the Freedom of Information Act-both of which applied to her work-related correspondence.
That was no problem for Clinton however, as she simply "didn't know how to use a computer," apparently
was incapable of learning to do so (unlike most toddlers in the country), and she liked her Blackberry-which
was reason enough for her highness to ignore the national security interests of the entire country.
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: 'My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation.'
Clinton's insistence on operating outside the government security protocols demonstrated at best
deliberate disregard for the law and national security-and, at worst, conduct that was treasonous.
That is why 18 USC 793 (d) and (f) make it a crime punishable by imprisonment for
10 years to even move
any information relating to the national defense from secure conditions or to fail to return it upon
demand. Clinton did both-repeatedly.
The unsecure server also facilitated the clearly conflicting roles of Clinton confidant and protégé
Huma Abedin, who was paid simultaneously by the Clinton Foundation and the taxpayers through the
State Department. That made it easier for the double-dipping Abedin to schedule meetings quickly
for Clinton with those who had paid to play-substantial donors to the Foundation, such as the Crown
Prince of Bahrain, who had been denied a face-to-face through those pesky State Department protocols
in place for mere mortals. His millions in contributions to the Foundation got him an appointment
with Clinton through Abedin in a matter of hours.
We wrote more than a year ago-as soon as we heard one Clinton server was "wiped"-about
the Countless Crimes of Hillary Clinton . We foresaw the need for a special prosecutor and predicted
that if emails could be found, they would likely implicate high ranking people across the government,
including the president.
Lo and behold, President Obama, who told the country he heard of Clinton's
private email from news reports, was in reality emailing her at Clintonemail.com and using an
alias. He must have forgotten. But, wait-just this week, we get more emails, and there's now evidence
that the
White House and the State Department coordinated an attempt
to minimize the problem.
Now we have a candidate for president of the United States who has committed lie after lie, obstructed
justice, and destroyed evidence with the support of the president himself-conduct for which many
people are in prison. Sometimes it's called False Statements to federal officials, punishable by
up to five years in prison under 18 USC
1001 . Under other circumstances, such as in sworn statements to federal judges or testimony
to Congress, it can be perjury under
18 USC 1621 or 1623.
And let's not forget obstruction of justice under 18 USC 1519. That statute was tailor-made to
fit the facts of the Clinton cabal's destruction of evidence. It reads:
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a
false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence
the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department
or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation
of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or
both.
Remember the man relentlessly prosecuted by the feds for throwing a few fish overboard?
That
case had to go all the way to the Supreme Court for them to decide that fish weren't the kind
of tangible objects/evidence to which Congress intended the new obstruction statute to apply. But
emails, computers, and servers are. Senator Clinton voted for that new statute-but it doesn't apply
to her. Well, it would, but Loretta Lynch and James Comey just agreed to destroy evidence of it themselves.
These false statement and obstruction offenses are so easy to prove that prosecutors often tack
them on to already multi-count indictments just for good measure when they want to hammer Wall Street
bankers or other citizens and business people who actually work for a living.
How many of these federal criminal offenses are established by the limited evidence that has been
pried out of the Clintons' hands or resurrected from unsuccessful although mighty attempts to destroy
it? They are truly countless, as each email would be a separate charge but, for the sake of brevity,
we'll just pick three or four-that don't even include all the conspiracy charge options routinely
used by "reasonable" prosecutors.
First, Clinton
testified to Congress that she "turned over all of her work-related emails." Second, she "only
wanted to use one device." Later, she chose her words carefully, claiming "nothing was marked classified
when it was sent or received." That sounds good to people who are not lawyers, but it's Clintonese
and not the law.
She "turned over all her work emails"?
First, her friend Sidney Blumenthal found a number of emails he exchanged with her about confidential
matters of State that she didn't produce. Next, that pesky Pentagon found over 1,000 emails between
Hillary and General Petraeus alone. Most recently, the FBI found roughly
15,000 Clinton thought had been erased completely when she had her servers "wiped" professionally
with BleachBit. We'll never know how many were deliberately destroyed to protect her incompetence
and corruption. Mills, Samuelson, and others at Platte River Networks destroyed whatever they wanted.
As both secretary of state and an attorney who had long been paid by the taxpayers, Clinton should
know that information "relating to the national defense" is what is protected under 18 USC 793(f).
It doesn't have to be "classified"-marked or unmarked-even though much of it was.
Sure, let's give her the presidency and the nuclear codes and access to every national secret-ISIS
can just hack her and use our own missiles to destroy us. They won't have to worry about trying to
bring nukes into the country.
Clinton may have only wanted "one device," but the truth is that
she had 13 "personal mobile devices that were lost, discarded, or destroyed."
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson has an excellent timeline of irrefutable, no-spin facts derived from
the part of the FBI's file that has been made public. The timeline of events alone is damning.
Not surprisingly, Attkisson reports that "[a]fter the State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her
records would be sought by the House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her
attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with Bleachbit, and the FBI couldn't review
them. After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton's email archive was also permanently deleted
from her then-server 'PRN' with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn't review it."
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: "My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation."
I guess that's why they invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination, had
hard-drives wiped, destroyed devices with hammers, put the selected emails in the hands
of her attorney and refused to produce them for weeks, while her staff all refused to speak without
grants of immunity or took the Fifth. I guess it just depends on how you define "cooperation."
Enter stage left James Comey, Director of the FBI, who fills himself with righteous indignation
to tell Congress what a great job the FBI did in this "investigation." As Congressman
Trey Gowdy said , and I concur, "This isn't the FBI I used to work with."
Clinton ran her shenanigans without an Inspector General in the State Department. An Inspector
General is appointed by the President, but his or her job is to serve as a watchdog on behalf of
the taxpayers. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Clinton
declined to allow an Inspector General at the State Department during her entire tenure-so there
was no internal oversight, and President Obama allowed that. More than a year ago, the Inspector
Generals for State and for the Intelligence Community conducted a limited review of only 40 of Clinton's
emails. They quickly found several containing
classified information which they immediately reported to the executive branch and advised Congress.
They
wrote : "This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal
system."
Remember Richard Nixon? Remember Attorney General John Mitchell? Remember White House Counsel
John Dean? Nixon White House cronies Haldeman and Erlichman?
They all went
to prison .
It's not just the private server. It's not about personal emails or even a few business emails
sent from a personal account.
It is about the fair administration of justice and trust in our justice system. It is about the
accountability of our highest officials. It is about destroying evidence in the face of a serious
investigation. It is about national security breaches of the highest order, and it's about the privatization
and sale of our State Department for personal enrichment. The conduct of the Clintons, their cronies,
their Foundation, and now our highest law enforcement officials make the entire Watergate scandal
look like an insignificant computer hack.
Where is the Congress? Where are what used to be our great newspapers? The sounds of silence are
terrifying indicators of how government-controlled our mainstream media has become. I guess that's
why Reporters Without Borders has dropped our Freedom of Press rank to 46 th world-wide.
FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch should be impeached for their roles
in whitewashing
Clinton's crimes and their own participation in the destruction of evidence . They facilitated
and participated in the obstruction of justice-spitting in the face of the Congressional investigation.
Congress should be able to name a special prosecutor when the Attorney General has a clear conflict-such
as meeting secretly with Bill Clinton during the "investigation" and receiving a promise of continuing
as Attorney General if Hillary is elected President. The timeline of events and their conduct reek
of corruption.
Stay tuned. Clinton's answers under oath to D.C. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan are due October
13. Remember, he's the judge who appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Department of
Justice following the Bush administration's corrupted prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
And it was Judge John Sirica-combined with what was then the great Washington Post -who
exposed the Nixon corruption.
With more and more government intrusion in every aspect of our individual businesses and lives,
we are quickly losing the land of the free, and we now must wonder if any of the brave are home.
Who has the chutzpah to stand up to the Clintons? Where are the real Americans? Hopefully, on election
day, they will pour out in droves and resoundingly demand real change. The election and Judge Sullivan
are our only chances for justice at all.
Sidney Powell worked in the Department of Justice for 10 years, in three federal districts
under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties. She was lead counsel in more than
500 federal appeals. She is the author of
Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice -a legal thriller that tells
the inside story of high-profile prosecutions.
Rod Dreher
hysterics became pretty annoying.
He dooes not want to understand that Hillary Clinton is a stuach neocon warmonger, has poor helath,
can be impeached even after winning due to emailgate and her platform is actually more of a moderate
republican, then a democrat. She is completly in the pcket of major Walll street bank and
enjoys this status.
Back in May, Michael Lind penned what I still think is
the most insightful essay
describing what's happening, and what is going to happen, in
US politics after this year. With the Left having won the culture war, the parties of the
future will be a nationalist GOP vs. a multiculturalist, globalist Democratic Party.
Excerpt:
The outlines of the two-party system of the 2020s and 2030s are dimly visible. The
Republicans will be a party of mostly working-class whites, based in the South and West
and suburbs and exurbs everywhere. They will favor universal, contributory social
insurance systems that benefit them and their families and reward work effort-programs
like Social Security and Medicare. But they will tend to oppose means-tested programs
for the poor whose benefits they and their families cannot enjoy.
They will oppose increases in both legal and illegal immigration, in some cases
because of ethnic prejudice; in other cases, for fear of economic competition. The
instinctive economic nationalism of tomorrow's Republicans could be invoked to justify
strategic trade as well as crude protectionism. They are likely to share
Trump's
view
of unproductive finance: "The hedge-fund guys didn't build this country. These
are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky."
The Democrats of the next generation will be even more of an alliance of upscale,
progressive whites with blacks and Latinos, based in large and diverse cities. They will
think of the U.S. as a version of their multicultural coalition of distinct racial and
ethnic identity groups writ large. Many younger progressives will take it for granted
that moral people are citizens of the world, equating nationalism and patriotism with
racism and fascism.
The withering-away of industrial unions, thanks to automation as well as offshoring,
will liberate the Democrats to embrace free trade along with mass immigration
wholeheartedly. The emerging progressive ideology of post-national cosmopolitanism will
fit nicely with urban economies which depend on finance, tech and other industries of
global scope, and which benefit from a constant stream of immigrants, both skilled and
unskilled.
"For months, I've been beating the drum of the non-novelty of Donald Trump, but try as I might,
even I can't remember a presidential candidate caught on tape bragging about assaulting women and
grabbing pussy."
If only Frank Sinatra had had the foresight to get a hidden tape spool
running, we could now enjoy the lasting record of Senator John F.Kennedy's attitudes toward "poontang".
Anyway, if HRC actually broke the law… shouldn't she face prosecution? I know some people (at
amconmag, as it happens) have called for members of the Bush administration to be put on trial.
Over here, the demand for Blair to be tried at the Hague for war crimes is now a tired old Left
cliche. Obviously, it would be new to demand punishment for the loser just for losing, but that
isn't the context here.
Looking at the FB timelines of my 'professional class' milquetoast 'progressive' acquaintances in
the US (who all
gravitas/te
towards Vox), who have since this weekend become unglued, this
is very much a case of people deliberately goading themselves into frenzies, tumbling over one
another in their attempts to win an apparent virtue-signalling-contest.
Meanwhile, nary a word about "we came, we saw, he died", as it apparently is just peachy to
destroy a country if you want to tick 'killing an autocrat who is not in the US's pocket' off
your bucket-list.
To put it bluntly, looking away and excusing evils one "understands" and thinks one can "contain"
(except insofar as it affects non-nationals and
the
bottom
30-40%
,
anyway, but who cares about them) because the "other side" is perceived to be "more"
evil/disruptive/threatening to the status quo is a pattern of behavior that disturbs me far more
than the behavior of the other side, however nasty that may be.
"... I better like the reasoning in Basic Instinct when Sharon Stone just after passing a lie detector test said to Nick in reference to his killing civilians while on cocaine: "You see Nick … we're both innocent." ..."
"In an election in which one of the nominees is promising he'll make great deals-that he'll
deliver everything under the sun, without remotely explaining how any of it would be politically
possible-there's something bold, even radical, in espousing such a practical philosophy for political
deal-making.
Maybe it's not a popular message in this populist moment, but it would have the virtue of being
honest."
"The Case for a 'Two-Faced' Hillary Clinton" [The New Republic]. "In an election in which one
of the nominees is promising he'll make great deals-that he'll deliver everything under the sun,
without remotely explaining how any of it would be politically possible-there's something bold,
even radical, in espousing such a practical philosophy for political deal-making. Maybe it's not
a popular message in this populist moment, but it would have the virtue of being honest."
I better like the reasoning in Basic Instinct when Sharon Stone just after passing a lie
detector test said to Nick in reference to his killing civilians while on cocaine: "You see Nick
… we're both innocent."
Yikes:
"We therefore hold that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured,' the court said" … PHH said
the law creating the CFPB gave an unaccountable director too much authority."
Can we get this same judge to rule on the constitutionality of the AUMF, Patriot Act, or any
case brought regarding NSA spyiny?
"Can we get this same judge to rule on the constitutionality of the AUMF, Patriot Act, or any
case brought regarding NSA spyiny?"
Unfortunately, this very same judge has a long history on those issues,
including time in the Bush Cheney White House before getting a lifetime appointment
on the bench,
and for the most part it's not pretty. Emptywheel has an
entire archive devoted
to him.
This segues into an argument in favor of voting for Hillary Clinton that I can't rebut: Republicans
appoint bad people to both the Executive branch and to the Judiciary, but Democrats only appoint
bad people to the Executive branch. Therefore, one should vote for Hillary Clinton, Democrat.
I've oversimplified the argument, but in general, that's what some people have told me, and I
don't have a good counter argument.
That doesn't mean I'm going to vote for Clinton. She's a crook. I'll either leave the Presidential
part of the ballot blank, or vote for Stein, despite my great annoyance over some of the things
that Ajamu Baraka has said.
Merrick Garland, Obama's latest nominee, is pro-Ciizen's United, so not sure how "good" he
is. Conventional wisdom about Democratic vs. Republican appointees to the bench would seem suspect
to me in a day when the Overton window has shifted so far to the right that the Democratic candidate
for President is more conservative, more pro-business, more hawkish, and less environmentally
responsible than Richard Nixon,
I challenge you to find any Democratic judicial appointments of the past 3 decades that are
as bad as Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, or Samuel Alito.
As for Garland, he's not good, but he's certainly not as bad as any Republican
nominee would be. And he hasn't even been confirmed.
Hillary is surrounding herself with exactly the same cast of characters as those who appointed
the judges you name. Why do you think her taste in justices will be any different than her taste
in policy advisors or potential cabinet members?
After Clinton signs the TPP, the Supreme Court will be moot anyway.
Obama's Executive branch appointments have been dismal, but his judicial appointments seem
to be better - Sotomayor and Kagan. Bill Clinton appointed Breyer and Ginsburg. None of these
4 judges is remotely like Scalia.
I strongly suspect that Hillary Clinton would nominate similar judges.
We definitely don't want the TPP to pass. We need to keep the pressure on Congress, so we don't
have to worry about what a President might do.
I reiterate: there are many things wrong with Clinton, and I will not vote for her.
Sotomayor has been great, but Kagan has been a mixed bag. She voted (in a losing dissent,
along with Scalia, Kennedy and Silent Clarence) , to allow Sarbanes-Oxley to be used against
a fisherman for throwing his catch overboard. She was to the right of Roberts on this one. Even the liberal Harvard Law School …
Clinton's first "appointment," first in the line of succession, Tim Kaine, is pro-TPP, pro-Hyde
Amendment, anti-labor (pro-right-to-work-for-nothing), and pro-intervention in Syria.
Know what you mean but try asking people who bring up judges as the reason to vote blue, why
should we believe that when Dems can't even deliver on judges when their nominee is a
REPUBLICAN for goodness sakes? Then take exaggerated offense at being expected to settle
for so LITTLE .
I appreciate the feedback. However, I don't think it's clear that Garland is a Republican.
Prior to nominating him, there were trial balloons from the White House suggesting that Republican
Brian Sandoval of Nevada would be chosen.
The New Republic piece is a festering pile of shit, and I intend that phrase as purely descriptive
account of the object.
This is a woman who with her husband earned over $139 MILLION DOLLARS in paid speeches to the
.1%–the OLIGARCHY–between 2007-2014 ALONE!
And yet the cretin of a human being calling himself the author of this "piece" [of shit] chooses
to insult my intelligence–yea, even perpetrate fraud upon the species!–by pretending as if this
UNQUESTIONABLE FACT is simply IRRELEVANT to Clinton's "nuanced"–[insert sounds of my heaving vomit]–distinction
between her public and private position. A DISTINCTION THAT WOULD ITSELF HAVE BEEN WITHHELD FROM
THE PUBLIC RECORD IF IT HAD NOT BEEN LEAKED BY WIKILEAKS, THE FOUNDER OF WHOM SHE HAS PROPOSED
BE MURDERED BY DRONE STRIKE!!
No, MY PROBLEM, YOUR PROBLEM, ANYBODY'S PROBLEM with this avaricious sociopathic warmongering
ulcerous wretch is–MUST BE–that she is a WOMAN?!
"As substantively defensible-even virtuous-as dealmaking can be, taking this tack runs the
risk of confirming the public's worst fears about Clinton: that she's dishonest and lacking in
core conviction. That notion, which has a gendered element to it…." [but might also perhaps not
be unrelated to her long history of manipulation, lying, stealing, backstabbing, fraud, embezzlement,
fraud, more lying, murder, more murder, more fraud]…
Fuck it. The oligarchy doesn't even have to be good at "public relations" anymore. Might as
well get ahead of the curve and move to Brazil.
PHH is horrible. They purchased my mortgage last year, and started forclosure proceedings within
the 60 day grace period while my autopayment was still going to the previous servicer (as allowed
by law). Their customer support in Asia lied repeatedly, and when I starting informing them that
I would record the calls, they would hang up or refuse to talk to me.
They finally acknowledged their error after 3-4 calls (particularly once I found out I had
to keep asking for a supervisor until I was connected to the US), but it was a huge waste of my
time.
Nor the 'Necrotelecomnicon.' The handy guide to contacting H Clinton's core advisor circle.
As for which precise 'circle' (of H-,) H Clintons advisors come from; opinions are divided.
"... This election also can be seen in a more general, global context of how forces have been accommodating to the end of the cold war. ..."
"... Back in the US, those responsible for human rights violations around the world, such as torture, extra-judicial assassinations, and renditions, have never been brought to justice and the mere mention of Clinton (a politician!) facing jail for a very minor infraction is considered in undemocratic bad taste. ..."
"... For the moment, we have to put up with the spectacle of some Americans, in an intent at preemptive amnesty, outraged at the mere thought that their presumptive tin-pot, global Caesar is not above suspicion and that they themselves are better than 3rd worlders. ..."
This election also can be seen in a more general, global context of how forces have been accommodating
to the end of the cold war. Perhaps a detour into the history of some 3rd world banana republics,
those that many Americans deem as deplorable as a Trump supporter, can shed some light.
Starting in the 50's, and with the expressed goal of modernizing their countries (meaning an
accelerated capitalist development with the US as its model and as the only possible model) military
and terror regimes took over South America (Paraguay: 1954-1991, Chile: 1973-1990, Argentina:
1976-1982, Uruguay: 1966- 1985). For the most part, before being forced out of power, these military
regimes declared amnesty for themselves. Enter truth commissions, whose purpose is to investigate
the causes of violence and human rights violations and to establish judicial responsibility.
Back in the US, those responsible for human rights violations around the world, such as
torture, extra-judicial assassinations, and renditions, have never been brought to justice and
the mere mention of Clinton (a politician!) facing jail for a very minor infraction is considered
in undemocratic bad taste.
Conclusion: perhaps more than a special prosecutor, a commission of truth is in order, but
not at the moment, after the US crumbles as the USSR did. Only then can 3rd worlders hope to see
Kissinger, Bush, Blair, Aznar, Obama, and all their enablers brought to justice.
For the moment, we have to put up with the spectacle of some Americans, in an intent at
preemptive amnesty, outraged at the mere thought that their presumptive tin-pot, global Caesar
is not above suspicion and that they themselves are better than 3rd worlders.
"... But if the third globalisation wave is mostly about taking advantage of cheap labour not commodities - whilst simultaneously reducing industrial capacity at home - today's global imbalances could result in a very different type of correction (something which may or may not be happening now). ..."
"... The immediate consequence may be the developed world's desire to engage in significant industrial on-shoring. ..."
"... I'm not convinced the end of globalization and the retrenchment of banking industry are the same thing. There are some things that can't be exp/imported. Maybe we just got to the point where it didn't make sense to order moules marinieres from Brussels!? ..."
"... You forget the third leg - reducing the price of labour for services via immigration of labour from poorer countries. On top of the supply-and-demand effects, it reduces social solidarity (see Robert Putnam) - of which trades union membership and activity is one indicator. It's a win-win for capital. ..."
According to strategists Bhanu Baweja, Manik Narain and Maximillian
Lin the elasticity of trade to GDP - a measure of wealth creating
globalisation - rose to as high as 2.2. in the so-called third wave
of globalisation which began in the 1980s. This compared to an
average of 1.5 since the 1950s. In the post-crisis era, however,
the elasticity of trade has fallen to 1.1, not far from the weak
average of the 1970s and early 1980s but well below the second and
third waves of globalisation.
... ... ...
The anti-globalist position has always been simple. Global trade isn't a net positive for anyone
if the terms of trade relationships aren't reciprocal or if the trade exists solely for the purpose
of taking advantage of undervalued local resources like labour or commodities whilst channeling
rents/profits to a single central beneficiary. That, they have always argued, makes it more akin to
an imperialistic relationship than a reciprocal one.
If the latest wave of "globalisation" is mostly an expression of
American imperialism, then it does seem logical it too will fade as
countries wake-up to the one-sided nature of the current global
value chains in place.
Back in the first wave of globalisation,
of course, much of the trade growth was driven by colonial empires
taking advantage of cheap commodity resources abroad in a bid to
add value to them domestically. When these supply chains unravelled,
that left Europe short of commodities but long industrial capacity
- a destabilising imbalance which coincided with two world wars.
Simplistically speaking, resource rich countries at this point
were faced with only two options: industrialising on their own
autonomous terms or be subjugated by even more oppressive
imperialist forces, which had even grander superiority agendas than
their old colonial foes. That left those empires boasting domestic
industrial capacity but lacking natural resources of their own,
with the option of fighting to defend the rights of their former
colonies in the hope that the promise of independence and friendly
future knowledge exchanges (alongside military protection) would be
enough to secure resource access from then on.
But if the third globalisation wave is mostly about taking
advantage of cheap labour not commodities - whilst simultaneously
reducing industrial capacity at home - today's global imbalances
could result in a very different type of correction (something
which may or may not be happening now).
The immediate consequence
may be the developed world's desire to engage in significant
industrial on-shoring.
But while reversing the off-shoring trend may boost productivity
in nations like the US or even in Europe, it's also likely to
reduce demand for mobile international capital as a whole. As UBS
notes, global cross border capital flows are already decelerating
significantly as a share of GDP post-crisis, and the peak-to-trough
swing in capital inflows to GDP over the past ten years has been
much more dramatic in developed markets than in emerging ones:
To note, in China trade as a % of GDP fell from
65% in 2006 to 42% in 2014. The relationship
between trade and GDP is in reality more variable
than is usually claimed.
I'm not convinced the end of globalization and
the retrenchment of banking industry are the same
thing. There are some things that can't be
exp/imported. Maybe we just got to the point
where it didn't make sense to order moules
marinieres from Brussels!?
"if the third globalisation wave is mostly about taking advantage of cheap labour not
commodities - whilst simultaneously reducing
industrial capacity at home"
You forget the third leg - reducing the
price of labour for services via immigration of
labour from poorer countries. On top of the
supply-and-demand effects, it reduces social
solidarity (see Robert Putnam) - of which trades
union membership and activity is one indicator.
It's a win-win for capital.
The simple problem with globalization is that it was based off economic views which looked
at things in aggregate - but people are
individuals, not aggregates. "On average, GDP
per person has gone up" doesn't do anything for
the person whose income has gone down. "Just
think about all the people in China who are so
much better off than they used to be" isn't going
to do much for an American or European whose
standard of living has slipped from middle class
to working class to government assistance.
"Redistribution" is routinely advertised as
the solution to all of this. I leave it as an
exercise to the reader to figure out how to
redistribute wealth from the areas that have
prospered the most (Asia, particularly China) to
the individuals (primarily in the West) who have
lost the most. In the absence of any viable
redistribution scheme, though, I suspect the most
likely outcome will be a pulling back on
globalization.
@
Terra_Desolata
The aggregates also do apply to countries -
i.e. the US on aggregate has benefited from
globalisation, but median wages have been
stagnant in real terms, meaning that the
benefits of globalisation have not been
well distributed across the country
(indeed, companies like Apple have
benefited hugely from reducing the costs of
production, while you could make the case
that much of the benefits of lower
production costs have been absorbed into
profit margins).
That suggests that redistribution can
occur at the country level, rather than
requiring a cross-border dimension.
@
Meh...
in the US, median male wages were
lower in 2014 than in 1973 - when a
far higher proportion of working-age
males were active in the labour
force.
Growing up in the 1970s, it would
have been unthinkable for wages to
have fallen since the 1930s.
Terra_Desolata
5pts
Featured
8 hours ago
@
Meh...
@
Terra_Desolata
Yes, there has been uneven
distribution of income within
countries as well as between them -
but as the Panama Papers revealed, in
a world of free movement of capital,
incomes can also move freely between
borders. (See: Apple.) While the
U.S. has lower tolerance than Europe
and Asia for such games, any attempts
at redistribution would necessarily
include an effort to keep incomes
from slipping across national
borders, which would have the same
effect: a net reduction in
globalization.
I did not take that to mean she hated actual, everyday Americans – I took it that she hates
that phrase.
I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans, but I think we should use it once
the first time she says I'm running for president because you and everyday Americans
need a champion. I think if she doesn't say it once, people will notice and
say we false started in Iowa.
And no, I don't know why the phrase wasn't put into quotes, but I note that there aren't any
quotes around the part that begins "she says I'm running for president because…" either. As I
read the e-mail, it sure seems to me like it's about the phrase, not about people.
"... Chekov said something like: "If you show a gun in Act One, make sure it goes off in Act Three." So, Act One was bringing in Bill Clinton's accusers. But then nothing. Odd. ..."
"... * Interesting comment from the analyst after, something like: "I was talking to Trump voters in Ohio. They say they know exactly who he is" (and from the analyst's tone, that wasn't positive with respect to his character. I think a lot of voters, across the spectrum, are appalled by the choices, which is what the trust/likeability numbers are telling us) ..."
"... In retrospect, all the media questioning whether or not Trump would be effective in this kind of venue seems silly. Of course Trump can work a room. ..."
"... When Trump says he will put Hillary in jail, what do you think his kids and wife see regarding a Clinton presidency? Will she go after her enemies? ..."
"... Media going blatantly in the tank prob boosts turnout for trump. Cnn concedes trump did pretty well. Fox seems contented with him. Glad to see him break with pence on russia. Glad to see him say get isis, not assad. Aleo enjoyed him zinging clinton. ..."
"... With all the Russian efforts to undermine our democracy I can only hope we return to paper ballots hand counted in front of skeptical witnesses to the process. ..."
"... No mention of any laws broken by any previous presidents. No concerns about droning us citizens, no sweating any wars of opportunity. ..."
"... Trump absolutely dominated this debate. Hillary was on the ropes all night. The moderation was pretty good too. ..."
"... CNN directs us dweebs that this was a "contentious, nasty debate". It was contentious but aren't most debates like that? Nasty? Not that much. Sometimes but not as much as I thought it could be. ..."
"... HuffPo headline: "Don in Flames" I think, all things considered, he did fine. Neither one is offering any serious or meaningful solutions to anything we need. ..."
"... On the other had, HRC kept treating the debate like the white-shoe lawyer she is. "Refer to my website" = "I filed a brief on this." No one reads either. Too much relying on subtle distinctions. Worst of all, most of the time she speaks with no passion or genuineness. This is death to a lawyer speaking to a jury. ..."
"... She wants the debate to be like a federal class action case with multiple motions and lengthy affidavits and briefs that the Judge's top-of-their-law-school-class clerks will dissect and recommend a decision upon. ..."
"... The genius of this is that Trump is the device through which all of the real arguments against Clinton, the ones relating to criminal conduct and atrocious policy, are symbolically cleansed, ritually bled out. Trump as the public's cry for contrition and oh, how she has suffered for her vanity! Yet she is redeemed through him. She has crossed the pit of burning hard drives and she is sorry for her sins, but after all, America is nothing if not a forgiving nation. ..."
"... Once again we see America will get the president it deserves. The world? Not so much. ..."
Where were the questions about the 30 million illegals?
About the H-1B sand Greencard foreigners taking our jobs?
About health care we can't afford?
About corporations paying no taxes?
About people killing themselves with heroin because they have no hope,
no way out of poverty?
Trump did better than the first debate, where I thought he was destroyed. I'm not sure who
won, both were pretty repulsive. I really, really dislike the both of them, whether on policies
or on personality.
It doesn't matter who won. The pundits will spend several days telling you who won and that
your eyes and ears are lying again….
Frankly, from the comments above, it is pretty obvious America was embarrased again……glad I didn't
watch it……
No contrition from Trump, either, even though that's what the establishment wants (not that
any amount of contrition would work).
Which makes sense: 1) His base doesn't care 2) Backing down would be worse than gutting it
out, because backing down would make him look weak, destroying his brand.*
Chekov said something like: "If you show a gun in Act One, make sure it goes off in Act
Three." So, Act One was bringing in Bill Clinton's accusers. But then nothing. Odd.
* Interesting comment from the analyst after, something like: "I was talking to Trump voters
in Ohio. They say they know exactly who he is" (and from the analyst's tone, that wasn't positive
with respect to his character. I think a lot of voters, across the spectrum, are appalled by the
choices, which is what the trust/likeability numbers are telling us).
Once the crowd reacted positively to his "33K emails" attacks, he calmed down. I got the sense
he decided he didn't have to go low, since there were some in the room still on his side.
In retrospect, all the media questioning whether or not Trump would be effective in this
kind of venue seems silly. Of course Trump can work a room.
Media going blatantly in the tank prob boosts turnout for trump. Cnn concedes trump did
pretty well. Fox seems contented with him. Glad to see him break with pence on russia. Glad to
see him say get isis, not assad. Aleo enjoyed him zinging clinton.
He's still an idiot and has terrible policy ideas.
With all the Russian efforts to undermine our democracy I can only hope we return to paper
ballots hand counted in front of skeptical witnesses to the process.
With all the talk about 'the Russians did it", I'm tempted to write in Putin just to p*ss off
the Dems! (but I won't) Both candidates suck worse than a tornado.
Cnn people very much on edge. Dana bash breathless at trump saying he'd put her in jail. Said
that's what makes us different than African dictators, stalin and hitler. I'm not kidding.
No mention of any laws broken by any previous presidents. No concerns about droning us
citizens, no sweating any wars of opportunity.
CNN directs us dweebs that this was a "contentious, nasty debate". It was contentious but
aren't most debates like that? Nasty? Not that much. Sometimes but not as much as I thought it
could be.
HuffPo headline: "Don in Flames" I think, all things considered, he did fine. Neither one
is offering any serious or meaningful solutions to anything we need. It was, unfortunately,
just some lame entertainment and both remain equally unlikable and untrustworthy and unhelpful.
Watching this I kept thinking that Trump has been working with trial lawyers to prepare.
He used a lot of tricks trial lawyers use to influence juries. One, don't let the facts get
in the way of a good story (i.e. Why didn't you as one of 100 senators change the tax code? Answer:
"if she was an effective senator she could have"). Another is make the jury think the judge is
biased against you. The main one is put the black hat on your opponent and keep it there. Jury
trials are pretty simple affairs that way, the big thing is to make the other side the bad guy.
On the other had, HRC kept treating the debate like the white-shoe lawyer she is. "Refer
to my website" = "I filed a brief on this." No one reads either. Too much relying on subtle distinctions.
Worst of all, most of the time she speaks with no passion or genuineness. This is death to a lawyer
speaking to a jury.
She wants the debate to be like a federal class action case with multiple motions and lengthy
affidavits and briefs that the Judge's top-of-their-law-school-class clerks will dissect and recommend
a decision upon.
But it's not. It's an afternoon trial in front of a bunch of bored people sitting in a jury
box in a hot county courthouse. "Smart" lawyers get creamed by savvy ones in that situation all
the time. That's what I saw tonight.
Some low-watt bulb writing tomorrow is going to say 'This is how America does politics, does
democracy. We let it all hang out. A big old barn burner. A national catharsis, a venting of pent-up
emotion and frustration at some things in America and the world that just haven't worked out for
everybody, no matter how hard we try. This is good for America, even necessary, in fact it's what
makes us Americans. We deal with things and move on. Let all that poison out. And we move on.
I'm inclined to think the third debate will be a much more civil affair.'
The genius of this is that Trump is the device through which all of the real arguments
against Clinton, the ones relating to criminal conduct and atrocious policy, are symbolically
cleansed, ritually bled out. Trump as the public's cry for contrition and oh, how she has suffered
for her vanity! Yet she is redeemed through him. She has crossed the pit of burning hard drives
and she is sorry for her sins, but after all, America is nothing if not a forgiving nation.
Raise your right hand, Mrs. Clinton, and repeat after me….no, your right hand, please…
Possibly, it will be interesting to see if the Clinton camp is going to use
this, and if so how Bill will be protected. Could be a case of Mutually Assured
Destruction.
The Billionaire Pedophile Who Could Bring Down Donald Trump and
Hillary Clinton
"Trump's supporters have long wondered whether he'd use billionaire
sicko Jeffrey Epstein as ammo against the Clintons-until a lurid new
lawsuit accused The Donald of raping one of Epstein's girls himself."
There's plenty other stuff if you google "Jeff Epstein" and "Bill
Clinton"
It's all pretty vile but not at all surprising for what these overage,
entitled "stars" do behind the scenes.
I never got a chance to respond to
Yves' comment to my comment about Schwarzenegger a few days ago. Three
women came forward to accuse him of groping (or whatever – I, mercifully,
forget the details now). Arnold, with Maria standing dutifully by his
side, publicly apologized and it all went away.
My contention is that: 1)
there were many, many more women who didn't come forward (the threat of
never working again in Hollywood is very real – Arnold was represented by
one of the most powerful and nastiest law firms) and 2) it all
disappeared quickly from the media because Arnold was able to buy off and
intimidate the media.
But the stories I read in alternate media at the
time were pretty awful. I can only imagine the lewd bragging Arnold did
behind the scenes. Don't forget that Arnold was screwing the nanny and
sired a child with her while the nanny was living under the same roof as
him and Maria. "The rich are different than you and I."
"... "You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your campaign raise money, we no longer trust your judgement
so will not be raising money for your campaign." ..."
"... "How DARE you not give our Crown Princess the respect she deserves!" ..."
"... financially squeeze those not with status quo… guess they object to woman patriots that want to serve "all the people"??…..telling
..."
"For you to endorse a man who has spent almost 40 years in public office with very few accomplishments, doesn't fall in
line with what we previously thought of you. Hillary Clinton will be our party's nominee and you standing on ceremony to support
the sinking Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton."
"You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your campaign raise money, we no longer trust your
judgement so will not be raising money for your campaign."
I sort of enjoy the typo in Podesta's intro to the forward, if not the sentiment aka gloating that a couple of CAA agents decided
to punish Gabbard for supporting the better candidate. I mean they are clearly a couple of pigs.
"... Hillary took it upon herself to review them and delete documents without providing anyone outside her circle a chance to weigh in. It smacks of acting above the law ..."
"... That sums up the Clintons right there: It smacks of acting above the law ..."
"... I've been browsing through #PodestaEmails2 and jeezus, there are some pretty incriminating docs there. Of course the MSM are doing their best to ignore them, but it looks like a real firestorm to me. ..."
More wikileaks, some interesting detail on Hill's emails I hadn't run
across before:
why the "twisted truth" (not my words) on why – with the two
problematic areas being (a) emails to bill (when they were to bill's
staff) and (b) i only used one device - BB, when 2 weeks earlier, it was
an iphone, BB and ipad. As Ann and I discussed, hopefully that's a timing
issue and whilst in state, she only used one. :)
While we all know of the occasional use of personal email addresses
for business, none of my friends circle can understand how it was viewed
as ok/secure/appropriate to use a private server for secure documents AND
why further
Hillary took it upon herself to review them and delete
documents without providing anyone outside her circle a chance to weigh
in. It smacks of acting above the law
and it smacks of the type of
thing I've either gotten discovery sanctions for, fired people for, etc.
My emphasis
From Erika Rottenberg (former Linked In General Counsel)
To Stephanie Hannon (CTO of Hillary For America), Ann O'Leary (senior policy
advisor)
CC Lindsay Roitman
Fwded to Podesta
That sums up the Clintons right there: It smacks of acting above
the law
I've been browsing through #PodestaEmails2 and jeezus, there are
some pretty incriminating docs there. Of course the MSM are doing their
best to ignore them, but it looks like a real firestorm to me.
"... For example, IMO now that we have in writing that Hillary has 2 positions on issues (a public and private position) it is 100%
fair that debate moderators and the media ask Clinton aggressively which position she is giving in her responses – her public or private
position? ..."
"... If the media won't focus on the public/private position issue (and Obama did the same in 2008 regarding NAFTA, I recall), then
Trump can force them to by putting that front and center in the debate. ..."
Not surprised, no. But IMO has definite implications.
For example, IMO now that we have in writing that Hillary has 2 positions on issues (a public and private position) it
is 100% fair that debate moderators and the media ask Clinton aggressively which position she is giving in her responses – her
public or private position?
Won't happen with our media, but IMO this should now be standard operating procedure for the media with regard to Hillary and
would be completely fair, prudent, and necessary to inform the public and voters.
The debate is setting up to be the mother of all debates.
If the media won't focus on the public/private position issue (and Obama did the same in 2008 regarding NAFTA, I recall),
then Trump can force them to by putting that front and center in the debate.
"... As a college educated white, I'm not thrilled with Trump; however I will vote for him as the last chance to prevent WW3 (that would begin almost immediately), thousands of Waco's and Ruby Ridge's, and the final clamp down by the American Stasi. As will my asian, latino, black, american indian, and other ethnic co-workers...college degree or not. ..."
"... Hillary is the embodiment of the establishment evil. WE, my co-workers and I, want to kill it...by any means possible. ..."
TRUMP: "Bernie Sanders and between super delegates and Debra Wassermann Schultz and
I was surprised to see him sign on with the devil. The thing that you should be apologizing
for are the 33,000 e-mails that you deleted and you acid washed and the two boxes of e-mails and
other things last week that were taken from an office are are now missing. I didn't knowledge
I would say this, but I'm going to and I hate to say it. If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney
general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. There has never been so many
lies, so much exception. There has never been anything like it. We will have a special prosecutor.
I go out and speak and the people of this country are furious. The long time workers at the FBI
are furious. There has never been anything like this with e-mails. You get a subpoena and after
getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 e-mails and acid watch them or bleach them. An expensive
process . We will get a special prosecutor and look into it. You know what, people have
been -- their lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5 of what you have done. You should be a shamed."
COOPER: "Secretary Clinton, I will let you respond."
CLINTON: "Everything he said is absolutely false . It would be impossible
to be fact checking Donald all the time. I would never get to talk and make lives better for people.
Once again, go to Hillary clinton.com. You can fact check trump in realtime. Last time at the
first debate we had millions of people fact checking and we will have millions more fact checking.
It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the
law in our country."
TRUMP: "Because you would be in jail."
COOPER: " We want to remind the audience to please not talk out loud. Do not applaud.
You are wasting time. "
As a college educated white, I'm not thrilled with Trump; however I will vote for him as
the last chance to prevent WW3 (that would begin almost immediately), thousands of Waco's and
Ruby Ridge's, and the final clamp down by the American Stasi. As will my asian, latino, black,
american indian, and other ethnic co-workers...college degree or not.
Hillary is the embodiment of the establishment evil. WE, my co-workers and I, want to kill
it...by any means possible.
"... I'll admit, as a woman, I was disgusted by the tapes, but I turned on the debate just in time for the question on Syria, and his answer won me back. Pence's foreign policy had me worried, but Trump was willing to disagree with him and once again be the only person talking any sense about this situation. The contrast of his Supreme Court answer to hers ("real world experience" can only be code for social justice activist judges) was icing on the cake. I think John Gruskos' theory may be right. Next debate, Trump needs to point out that Clinton has all the neocon war hawk endorsements, and that tells you all you need to know on foreign policy. ..."
I like the phrase corrupt and half-competent status quo . It captures the real problem
we have- society has good reason for not trusting those of us in the elite, but in a real sense
the very survival of society depends on experts… (how long would most of the country last if our
systems for distributing food, water, power and money crashed?).
Trump certainly won tonight. I don't know that it changes the trajectory of the race (he was losing
before GEBTP) but it changes the speed. Hillary is counting on oppo dumps and ground game to see
her through.
The answer to why Hillary did not deliver a knockout blow is simple. She doesn't have one. There
is nothing Hillary could bring up that could end it for Trump.
Or is anyone really stupid enough to think that tape matters to the voters? People have real
things to worry about.
One thing is clear: all networks should fire their political commentators and hire Scott Adams.
And perhaps less clear, but is Trump delivering a death blow to political correctness with his
bizarre persona and performance-art campaign? (Not to excuse him for being a grotesque human being.)
I am not sure Trump won. He survived tonight. We have two liars: one is an idiot and another one
is the most corrupted politician in the US history. Any other Democrat would have destroyed Trump.
Any other Republican would have destroyed Hillary. What a nightmare.
Brit Hume tweeted something about Trump's performance making the lewd tape controversy "fade"
and he got hammered by anti-Trumpers for saying so, but I think he's right. That's just the nature
of our times–both the acceptance of coarseness, and the short memory of TV/Internet culture. Remember
how people speculated that if Bill Clinton had been eligible to run for a third term he very well
might have been elected? Heck his approval ratings were sky-high after the impeachment hearings
aired all the sordid details out for public view!
The main way Trump won was just by moving the debate forward from the tape stuff everyone was
expecting. We were back to Muslim vetting, and fossil fuel energy, and the email scandals…. It
really makes it feel like it's all just business as usual again.
I'll admit, as a woman, I was disgusted by the tapes, but I turned on the debate just in time
for the question on Syria, and his answer won me back. Pence's foreign policy had me worried,
but Trump was willing to disagree with him and once again be the only person talking any sense
about this situation. The contrast of his Supreme Court answer to hers ("real world experience"
can only be code for social justice activist judges) was icing on the cake. I think John Gruskos'
theory may be right. Next debate, Trump needs to point out that Clinton has all the neocon war
hawk endorsements, and that tells you all you need to know on foreign policy.
"... It's an election for and among the ruling class. ..."
"... Scott Adams who has been right so far says Trump still has a clear path to victory. The media is just trying to blackpill everyone. Why should we believe them? They are saying Trump can't win because they said he can't win. ..."
"... Somehow Clinton bragging about getting a pedophile off the hook is OK? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCDzRtZLUkc CLinton will start WW III. Trump may do so. What a choice. ..."
"... For nearly a generation now there have been decent candidates for US president who would, to a greater or lesser degree, have opposed our increasingly corrupt and violent oligarchy. Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean, Jill Stein, Rick Santorum ... and many more you haven't heard of. The elites have perfected a system of taking them down, with no messy assassination. Ridicule them in the press, don't cover their positions, just their style, find a flaw or mis-statement and hammer hammer hammer until people believe that they are ridiculous, then ban them from the media. ..."
"... now the establishment is doubling down on the only thing it knows how to do. They are 'reporting' that Trump is finished. ..."
"... Donald Trump has said unfortunate off-the-cuff things. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, has actually DONE some things so crazy that if I wrote her up as a character in a work of fiction my editor would reject it as unbelievable. ..."
"... The Podesta e-mails show Killary in her true colors (see b.) The few I read though were unsurprising and boring, because she is mentally challenged, as is her staff, they are in a bubble. The leaks re. her speeches to Banksters ditto, and anyway the speeches are immaterial, they are just empty, fakelorum, performances carried out to legitimise bribery in a completely corrupt circuit. ..."
"... I concur with the very first post...it will be a Trump landslide. The silent majority- the plurality of voters who are neither D nor R. We have no voice in politics and no voice in the media. We already see through the lies and the hypocracy. That is Trumps target audience. Even if it is just a show at least Trump talks about policies ..."
"... Trump and his supporters must henceforth be more vigilant and pull no punches in exposing the Clintons' perfidy. ..."
"... And on other fronts - the Vice News vid I just watched was titled 'the US/Russia Proxy War in Ukraine'. I was shocked. Their prior coverage was 200% neocon blather. (Aka Simon Otrovsky IIRc) Could it be a beginning of a revolt by the MSM? If CNN begins to refer to Syria and Ukraine as proxy wars, it means the Empire's control of MSM is slipping. And that would spell the end for them. ..."
"... "This is a very dangerous game given that Russia, being in Syria at the invitation of the legitimate government of this country and having two bases there, has got air defense systems there to protect its assets," Lavrov said, according to Reuters. ..."
"... IMO Sanders is worst among all the POTUS hopefuls. He lied repeatedly, In a debate with Hillary on Edward Snowden "He broke the law … but what he did [exposing the NSA surveillance] should be taken into consideration," Edward Snowden wanna fair trial, but can he get it? Dun Forget Assange afraid of assassinated, to speak from Ecuador embassy balcony to exposed Hillary. Can you trust Obomo's Justice Dept. or anyone in his administration? ..."
"... Outrage Can No Longer Be Ignored. The elections methods enterprise consists of an imposing compilation of distracting, unworkable feints, erroneously purported to constitute viable election methods. Get strategic hedge simple score voting. No More Two-Party!!! No more!!! ..."
"... The social theorist Zygmunt Bauman argues that the age of nations states, which was born with the treaty that ended the Thirty Years War, and which we all take for granted, is now over. Nation States made decisions through politics and then used power to implement their wishes. Now, however, power no longer resides with the state, but instead is in the hands of international entities -- corporations, banks, criminal enterprises -- that are above, beyond and indifferent to any nation's political decisions. ..."
"... Although American presidents, the congress, the courts still pretend otherwise, it's pretty clear they know they have no real power, and so go through charades of legislating meaningless issues. Allowing Americans to sue Saudi Arabia, for example, when there's not the slightest chance of pinning 911 on the Saudis. ..."
"... The election is a circus meant to distract and entertain a powerless public. Might as well enjoy it. The Dems and Repugs like to strut and posture, rake in dollars and enjoy prestige, and try to make us believe they can still shape the future, but really it out of their control. ..."
"... Of course the U.S. has tremendous military power, but the "elected" government has no control over it, how it is used or where. JFK's murder ended that era, ..."
"... Many here think the U.S., and hence the U.S. military, is controlled by Israel, but Israel too is a nation state, and supra-national institutions ($$$$) seem to be running it as well, ..."
"... My take as an outsider. Use Trump to take down the elite. His foreign policy basics are consistent and solid - non intervention, pull back of US military to the US, protection of local manufacturing. ..."
"... US involvement in Libya began at Hillary's urging shortly after Hillary received this advice from her confidante Sidney Blumenthal. Note that the advice that the overthrow of Qaddafi needed to be connected with "an identifiable rebellion" in Syria means that it needs to be connected with civil war in Syria. US involvement in Libya was, of course, coordinated out of Benghazi, as the advice to Hillary suggested. ..."
"... Once the fall of Qaddafi was a fait accompli, Hillary's State Department advocated the overthrow of Bashar Assad as a critical component for calming Israel so that President Barrack Obama could accomplish his legacy nuclear pact with Iran without Israel blowing Iran up before the deal was sealed. ..."
"... No. Planning for overthrow of Assad - and use of extremists as a weapon of State - was begun in earnest in 2006; as described by Seymour Hersh in "The Redirection". ..."
"... Anyone else notice that Hillary couldn't remember what she did while in office? Major mistake. ..."
"... Clinton insisted she had retired from the government by the time that happened. Not so: Obama dared Assad to cross his line in August 2012, six months before Clinton's term ended. ..."
The tape of Trump talking dirty was released just in time to sidetrack from the release of more
of Clinton's dirty secrets by Wikileaks. Trump's talk was juvenile and sexist bragging in front of
other "boys". Surprising it was not. There will more releases like that, all timed to run cover for
Clinton.
The just released emails of
her campaign chairman John Podesta about Clinton's talk to Wall Street and other Clinton related
issues are indeed revealing. She
is the sell-out you
would expect her to be:
*CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY*
Clinton: "But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals,
you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a
private position."
It is funny how the U.S. electorate has a deeper
"very negative" view of Trump (-44%) and Clinton (-41%) than of the much vilified Russian President
Putin (-38%).
When Trump will come back in the polls (not "if"), it will be a devious fight with daily "leaks"
followed by counter leaks and a lot of dirty laundry washed in front of the public. Good.
Many of the people who will vote will vote against a candidate, not for the one
that they will mark on their ballot. I expect a very low turn out election, barely giving a mandate,
to whomever may win or get selected to have won. Elwood | Oct 9, 2016 9:26:03 AM |
1
Uh no. The silent majority that swept Reagan into office will speak again this year.
Please stick to geo-politics and quit embarrassing yourself re: domestic US politics. Trump is
done and the longer it takes for you and the rest of the fake-left - both domestically and abroad
- to get their heads around that fact, the longer the rest of us have to witness the frightfully
shameful mental contortions your Trump-love takes.
Please stop. It's one thing to have to deal with shallow and inaccurate fake-left analysis
without a healthy dose of butt-hurt b/c Hillary will be POTUS.
Grow up and quit being a victim of the US propaganda arsenal.
In other words, I shall lie to the "Deplorables" to keep you safe from regulation and incarceration.
Give me money. I am a corrupt and experienced liar.
I had a home inspector come to my place last week, intelligent and skilled working class guy,
who didn't even know who Trump was. He knew Clinton was running and hates her. But had zero clue
who her opponent was. And he's never voted before. There are very few election signs on yards.
It's an election for and among the ruling class.
BURN. IT. DOWN. That was the WHOLE point of Trump voters from the get-go. And his slide toward
zionist scumbags was a HUUUGE problem. To me at least. Now he SEES. And he won't be shut down
by the fukwits. And regardless of what happens. He is likely carefully considering having his
son-in-law fall down a VERY deep hole. His daughter and grandchildren will thank him one day.
Et tu Brutus?
Here's what the Deplorables will be doing. On election day. 1) Bring black sharpie. 2) Demand
PAPER ballot. 3) Vote Trump. 4) Vote I or D down-ballot. 5) Fill in all blanks.
And by-the-way. To #2 Ron. We do this for Syria. And Yemen. And all the OTHER people the USG,
MIC, MSM ZIOthugs have been murdering and enslaving for the past 50+ years. Not just for ourselves
and our children. It's the absolute LEAST we can do. But its a start.
Scott Adams who has been right so far says Trump still has a clear path to victory. The media
is just trying to blackpill everyone. Why should we believe them? They are saying Trump can't
win because they said he can't win.
Ron is obviously a Clinton groupie.
Btw, how is what Trump said sexist? It's just real dude talk with the lads. Plenty of people
say that behind closed doors.
@2. I happen to think Trump is another wolf in a sheep's clothe and won't deliver any significant
part of his promises, so like you, I am baffled that someone like b could actually buy into this.
However unlike you, I don't think the election is predictable, I think it actually bodes well
for Trump, why? It seems clear from the polls, that Hillary isn't a preferred choice for majority
of the voters. If he was, she should be polling close to the 50 point mark by now, yet she's in
the low 40s, someone with her resume running against a political light weight like Trump should
be doing much better. So what does that mean? It means (at lest to me) voters have rejected Hillary
as a firs choice, she may be second or third but she's definitely not most voters first choice.
So Trump has a chance, although he's working his darnes to ruin it, Imagine if it was someone
else had Trumps message without the baggage?
The polls wouldn't be close, I think the undecided (who don't have Hillary has their first
choice) will decide this election at the last minute, if Trump has more recordings leaked (not
about his tryst) but for instance the NYT interview where he supposedly said he's not going to
build a wall? ( I think that will be leaked soon if the polls don't move in Hillary's favor, the
establishment clearly has their preference). If there are no more damages to Trump, he may very
well win this thing, but I suspect the empire has more leaks coming.
I for one thinks a third party candidate is where its at, but what do I know?
Want to read some original observations? (1) The Pence-Is-So-Presidential vp debate win was a
complete set-up, with the DNC complicit in instructing Tim Kaine to play the obvious heavy, a
movie caricature villian, complete with raised eyebrows, crazy expressions, and interrupting 70+
times. Made Pence a new hero. Reason? (2) GOP Rinos and DNC have been co-ordinating for months
on "perfect time" to release Trump's Naughty Audio Tape (sharp ears can also detect it was edited),
and this was reported by DC Whispers and journalists Mr/Mrs Bill & Beth Still in a recent video.
(3) Media had their 'talking points' to conclude with NBC's Chuck Todd yesterday: "The election
is over. Hillary has won." (4) GOP Paul Ryan did high-profile dis-invitation of Trump to Wisconsin;
and then Pence substitution at event (vetoed by Trump) was to support GOP Establishment plot to
replace Trump with Pence on the ticket, which they will still try to do when the DNC floats false
pedophile charges against Trump w/o Oct. 9 (DNC whistleblowers gave full plan to Alex Jones because
even there, some people are too disgusted with all this dirt to 'carry on camping'). Pence was
in on the conspiracy from the very beginning. Another smiling choirboy.
For nearly a generation now there have been decent candidates for US president who would, to a
greater or lesser degree, have opposed our increasingly corrupt and violent oligarchy. Ross Perot,
Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean, Jill Stein, Rick Santorum ... and many more you haven't
heard of. The elites have perfected a system of taking them down, with no messy assassination.
Ridicule them in the press, don't cover their positions, just their style, find a flaw or mis-statement
and hammer hammer hammer until people believe that they are ridiculous, then ban them from the
media.
Trump's big mouth and complete lack of shame has, for now, made him relatively immune to this
treatment. So now the establishment is doubling down on the only thing it knows how to do. They
are 'reporting' that Trump is finished. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But it would be wise to remember
that the corporate press doesn't report the news any more, it is attempting to create the news,
out of whole cloth. Remember how many times they said that Trump was 'finished' during the primary?
I mean, how come what Trump said ten years ago in a private conversation, is headline news,
while Hillary Clinton's decision to ALLY THE UNITED STATES WITH AL QAEDA AND RISK WAR WITH RUSSIA
TO DEFEND THEM is somehow a minor detail? It's crazy when you think about it.
Donald Trump has said unfortunate off-the-cuff things. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State,
has actually DONE some things so crazy that if I wrote her up as a character in a work of fiction
my editor would reject it as unbelievable.
So I am voting for Trump even if the New York Times says he is doomed. We don't really know
what he will do as president, but in the business world he has proven the ability to actually
get along with disparate people in a constructive way. Hillary Clinton is a bona fide monster
who should scare any sane person. We know exactly what she will do as president, and attacking
Russian forces in Syria will be just the start...
Better a chance on a wildcard, then certain doom. IMHO.
The Podesta e-mails show Killary in her true colors (see b.) The few I read though were unsurprising
and boring, because she is mentally challenged, as is her staff, they are in a bubble. The leaks
re. her speeches to Banksters ditto, and anyway the speeches are immaterial, they are just empty,
fakelorum, performances carried out to legitimise bribery in a completely corrupt circuit.
One e-mail (idk who wrote it and can't find it back): a campaign manager who had his head screwed
on stated that most likely one needs to add 10 points to Trump re. polls. Details were a bit bizarre
and convoluted...no matter...
It reminded me that in France all the 'official' polls use an 'algorithm' based on 'hunches
dressed up in fancy pyscho-babble verbiage' that add between 2 and 5% to NF votes (depending on
election, region, first/second round, etc.) Necessary for maintaining their credibility, to come
closer to what the real results will show.
As for Trump's locker-room bragaddacio, not one single Trump supporter will flip, and undecideds
etc. may switch to Trump, finding such an 'attack' illegit, frivolous, etc. It throws light on
the fact that what Killary is being accused of - e-mails, Benghazi, Clinton Foundation, pay to
play, etc. - is extremely serious, whereas smutty chat is part-o-life.
Imho the underlying aim of the release (first, serving to create buzzz! to cover over the leaks
natch) was to furnish a reason for segments of the PTB establishment base, nominally
Repubs., to come forward and support HRC, after they were subjected to pressure, arm-twisting,
possibly even blackmail.
I concur with the very first post...it will be a Trump landslide. The silent majority- the plurality
of voters who are neither D nor R. We have no voice in politics and no voice in the media. We
already see through the lies and the hypocracy. That is Trumps target audience. Even if it is
just a show at least Trump talks about policies
Trump is still going to "win" the election. I put the win in quotations because that will not
mean that he would be declared winner. The plan to rig the election has always been part of the
plan, what this leak provides is a way to persuade the gullible people that the tape cost Trump
the election. The oligarchs in both parties and all over the Western world are truly terrified
of a Trump presidency but equally terrified of the reaction of the masses, should the election
be brazenly rigged with no plausible reasons. They have tried to manipulate the polls and it is
not succeeding. But now they can go back to their pseudo pollsters and start dishing out dubious
polls until the election. That would appear credible to the credulous voters who by and large
are, frankly, dim. The two parties and the global oligarchs and their media shoeshine crew have
now found a convenient talking point to prepare the ground for an eventual rigging of the election.
Trump and his supporters must henceforth be more vigilant and pull no punches in exposing the
Clintons' perfidy.
#22 I'd say "war criminals who rule us" is Hillary's job title to a T. So many Hillary supporters
are giving off the scent of mixed rage and panic these days.
And on other fronts - the Vice News vid I just watched was titled 'the US/Russia Proxy War in
Ukraine'. I was shocked. Their prior coverage was 200% neocon blather. (Aka Simon Otrovsky IIRc)
Could it be a beginning of a revolt by the MSM? If CNN begins to refer to Syria and Ukraine as
proxy wars, it means the Empire's control of MSM is slipping. And that would spell the end for
them.
To 31. Nah. It's not the end of 'em. Just controlled opposition. Cuz thru all this miasma. LOTS
of decent folks are hip to what's happening in Yemen and Syria. The muppets are rubbing sleep
from their tired little eyes. And SEE what the MSM has been neglecting to tell them. The MSM aren't
stupid. They hope feeding the muppets some bit of truthiness, we'll fall back into an MSM-stupor.
Sadly. The MSM has lost too many muppets. Gone for good. This CIVIL WAR won't be fought carnally.
But it will be just as bloody. Cuz metaphysical warfare is something for which they are NOT prepared
to battle.
I think the term used here refers to any form of modern mass release of bombs or missiles.
Each B-52 which of course can refuel so fly from anywhere, & is ponderously slow, can release
about 24 cruise missiles, serially, from a rotary dispenser inside, from standoff distances.
So the problem becomes "How many 'rounds' do the russians have for each & every one of their
missile batteries there?"
Except that he didn't inherit or steal his money, he demonstrated he's nearly perfect example
of the 1% when he mocked any voter who has a opinion about anything except for his own opinion
that estate taxes are theft (though so would be Trump's inflation-based tax -- thereby demonstrating
Mr. Scott 1%-er Adams is less informed than he is rich) and that (according to Scott Adams himself)
is far and away the issue that matters to Scott Adams in this election.
Who gave you or the Democrats the right to demand changes after the Primaries? .....believe
Gallup's polls and anyone who happen to disagree with you a troll?
IMO Sanders is worst among all the POTUS hopefuls. He lied repeatedly, In a debate with Hillary
on Edward Snowden "He broke the law … but what he did [exposing the NSA surveillance] should be
taken into consideration," Edward Snowden wanna fair trial, but can he get it? Dun Forget Assange
afraid of assassinated, to speak from Ecuador embassy balcony to exposed Hillary. Can you trust
Obomo's Justice Dept. or anyone in his administration?
Sanders said "Well, as somebody who spent many months of my life when I was a kid in Israel,
who has family in Israel, of course Israel has a right not only to defend themselves, but to live
in peace and security without fear of terrorist attack." Did you look at Google's Palestine
map (taken down after protests)?
You have, perhaps, heard me mention "strategic hedge simple score voting" here before. Here are
two short pieces I have posted at the website "The Center for Election Science", at: https://electology.org/forums/theory
/~~~~~~~~~~
They tend to fall back on a Google+ Groups "site" which I do not use since I refuse to join (corporate)
"social media" at: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/electionscience
Outrage Can No Longer Be Ignored. The elections methods enterprise consists of an imposing
compilation of distracting, unworkable feints, erroneously purported to constitute viable election
methods. Get strategic hedge simple score voting. No More Two-Party!!! No more!!!
Giving Americans a choice of candidates no one wants is a way of humiliating them, of showing
them they have no say in how they are ruled. It's much like Caligula appointing his horse to the
Roman Senate to show his power and his contempt for the senators who might still have thought
they had a say in running Rome.
The social theorist Zygmunt Bauman argues that the age of nations states, which was born with
the treaty that ended the Thirty Years War, and which we all take for granted, is now over. Nation
States made decisions through politics and then used power to implement their wishes. Now, however,
power no longer resides with the state, but instead is in the hands of international entities
-- corporations, banks, criminal enterprises -- that are above, beyond and indifferent to any
nation's political decisions.
Although American presidents, the congress, the courts still pretend otherwise, it's pretty
clear they know they have no real power, and so go through charades of legislating meaningless
issues. Allowing Americans to sue Saudi Arabia, for example, when there's not the slightest chance
of pinning 911 on the Saudis.
If WW3 or anything else is in the cards it will happen no matter who is elected, Clinton, Trump
or someone else.
The election is a circus meant to distract and entertain a powerless public. Might as well
enjoy it. The Dems and Repugs like to strut and posture, rake in dollars and enjoy prestige, and
try to make us believe they can still shape the future, but really it out of their control.
Indeed, according to Bauman, things may be spinning out of anyone's control. That's everywhere,
not just in the U.S.
Of course the U.S. has tremendous military power, but the "elected" government has no control
over it, how it is used or where. JFK's murder ended that era,
Many here think the U.S., and hence the U.S. military, is controlled by Israel, but Israel
too is a nation state, and supra-national institutions ($$$$) seem to be running it as well,
Recently there have been plenty of posts here pointing out the contradictions and inexplicable
behavior of American leaders concerning Syria -- is the military opposing the State Department?
Is the "CIA" opposing both and calling the shots? I think Bauman would agree (?) that in the final
analysis, none of them are running things. Americans, including their supposed leaders, have lost
control of their destiny and can only do as they are told.
I'm not qualified to judge Bauman's assertion. I'm only suggesting it gives a plausible explanation
for the current insanity we're living through. "The State of Crisis" (2014). A great work (only
150 pages) that you'll be glad to read if you haven't already read it.
My take as an outsider. Use Trump to take down the elite. His foreign policy basics are consistent
and solid - non intervention, pull back of US military to the US, protection of local manufacturing.
These are the two best policies to break the globalised elite, US would go through some hard times
for a bit re-adjusting, then take off again as part of this world rather than wannabe ruler of
this world.
Trump's line about Gens. Macarthur and Patton rolling over in their graves was masterful. Telling
Hil that she doesn't know who Isis is. Declaring Aleppo lost. Scored some points. The Trump of
yesterday's news is not the Trump in the debate. I find this strangely reassuring. Got her on
the 3:00AM phone call in res Benghazi. Whoever ran Trump's prep gets a free drink on me.
US involvement in Libya began at Hillary's urging shortly after Hillary received this advice
from her confidante Sidney Blumenthal. Note that the advice that the overthrow of Qaddafi needed
to be connected with "an identifiable rebellion" in Syria means that it needs to be connected
with civil war in Syria. US involvement in Libya was, of course, coordinated out of Benghazi,
as the advice to Hillary suggested.
Once the fall of Qaddafi was a fait accompli, Hillary's State Department advocated the overthrow
of Bashar Assad as a critical component for calming Israel.
No. Planning for overthrow of Assad - and use of extremists as a weapon of State - was begun in
earnest in 2006; as described by Seymour Hersh in "The Redirection".
Anyone else notice that Hillary couldn't remember what she did while in office? Major mistake.
Trump recalled that Clinton was secretary of state when President Barack Obama drew his now-infamous
rhetorical 'red line' in Syria, ineffectively warning Bashar al-Assad not to use chemical weapons
against insurgents and civilians.
Clinton insisted she had retired from the government by the time that happened. Not so: Obama
dared Assad to cross his line in August 2012, six months before Clinton's term ended.
She can't even remain standing during a presidential debate, and can't remember what she did,
either.
@ 31 Vice "news" is a bad joke. All their Syria and Libya coverage is 200% pro al-Qaeda/DoS policy.
They even had a "journalist" embedded with al-Nusra in Aleppo in 2014 and portrayed them in a
favourable light. It doesn't surprise me that their Ukraine coverage follows a similar pattern.
"... He hit on her every issue he wanted to. Repeatedly and strongly. ..."
"... On that, his taking on one of the hardest gigs in the business/political world tonight after the last few days, and dealing with it, and winning, he may have convinced a swathe of undecideds that he has what it takes. ..."
"... Sad for all Trump haters, but he demolished the incredibly boring HRC. Trump says it how it is, even if he mixes in fibs and exaggerations. ..."
"... The Guardian's view of the debate is a predictable one, considering the complete lack of objectivity in covering the election. ..."
"... There has been no questioning of the fact that Hillary has received millions of dollars, for "speeches" given to Wall st banks. And of course, no questioning of the millions spent by the Clintons as "hush money" to women, in order that they keep quiet about Bill's sexual proclivities. Yep, no objectivity and little attempt at unbiased reporting here. ..."
"... Do you want to know why Trump won tonight? It's because all Hillary has to offer is the same pre-canned answers over and over again. She comes off as less genuine than any other candidate in history and it's dispicable. ..."
"... Saddam Hussein was a leader who did not have WMDs and whose orchestrated removal and subsequent murder opened the door to the biggest infestation of mass-murderers and islamic terrorism in the history of the world; Gadaffi was a popular leader who had turned Libya into the most prosperous and the only truly independent Arab nation in Africa, and Putin is the democratically elected leader of his country with a wide national mandate. Neither of the three can hold the candle to the menagerie of tyrannical and maniacal baboons and banana republic chipmonks who paraded and goose-stepped through Obama White House over the past eight years. ..."
"... I'm no fan of the United States since their criminal actions around the globe post '9-11' but I actually feel some pity for it at this point. ..."
"... Many of us are sickened more than you may realize. The unfortunate part is the entire system in the US is rigged against its own people. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton in favour of a no-fly zone in Syria, which basically means a hot war with Russia. Now, rebels are armed by Saudi Arabia amongst others. And Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest donors Clinton Foundation. Coincidence? ..."
"... This is terrifying. Hillary might put sons and husbands of American women in harm's way on behalf of interests of Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... hillary's biggest weakness in my opinion is that she is the "goldman sachs candidate" ..."
"... Then the debate switched to other topics and Trump landed blow after punishing blow. Hillary's non-answer to the question about whether she had public positions and private ones was (for her) uncharacteristically bizarre and rambling. Trump's Honest Abe retort was gold. ..."
"... On tax issues he noted she had 30 years to do something about the tax code and did nothing. Why? Because all of her billionaire donors use the same tax loopholes she accuses Trump of using, which is also why it won't change if she is elected. ..."
"... Trump is the first non-establishment presidential candidate to get this far, and he landed lots of painful punches on Hillary during this debate. ..."
"... The current administration has repeatedly taken unrealistic positions based on ideology and clung to them until the reality on the ground made them utterly untenable to hold onto. As exhibit one, does anyone remember Obama's big speech to the nation when he announced his plan to arm moderate Syrian rebels? That turned out to be one of the most ineffective flops in history, a complete waste of time, money, and resources. ..."
"... Instead of a debate that was focused on Trump's vulgar comments, the debate was focused on policy issues, and despite all of Clinton's "preparation" when it came to the nuts and bolts of policy, Trump managed to not only go toe-to-toe with Clinton, he often got the best of her. ..."
"... Finally, finally someone actually asked the question that had to be asked on Syria, despite all the pointless hand wringing. Those rebels, what do we actually know about them, that we are willing to go to war for them? Are they islamists? How will they govern? Do they have any popular support of any kind? ..."
"... And its not even the whole of Alleppo we are talking about. 2/3rds is already in govt control, Sorry but there is the bitter truth about civil wars. IF they cant come to an agreement, then the best thing that can happen is if one part wins and the fighting stops. ..."
"... Not many people could face off against a highly skilled politician like Hillary, and win - especially when all the media and grandees have extrapolated from a "locker room" recording to woman-hater/sex pervert. ..."
"... Trump showed up HRC as unexciting and mediocre. DT could still win. ..."
"... I fear the Presidency of Hillary Clinton as I believe that she is VERY capable of initiating a nuclear war with Russia. I truly believe that for Donald Trump, this would be a last alternative and that he would insist upon speaking, rather than acting, as HRC would. ..."
"... I just can not believe a word she utters. She has proven me correct with her "one position for public, and one position for private" quote. Two-faced liar. On the other hand is Trump. There are many laws or positions he endorses which would NEVER survive the two houses of Congress needed to implement them. ..."
"... You may like or loathe Trump, but it's impressive what he achieved tonight. They had him on the ropes, it was the middle of this fight and he knocked his opponent out tonight. ..."
"... Here's why. her record! She boasts of so many sponsored bills as senator, yet when you actually look at what she ACHIEVED - 3 meaningless bills - named a museum, a road and a post office! As for her SOS "achievements" are there any? The only things we can say for certain she did, ultimately she has admitted they were mistakes - experience is meaningless if you have poor judgement, and she has prove to have terrible judgement. ..."
"... And ultimately at the end of the day, IF the will is there, Trump can be prevented from causing ANY damage. Clinton on the other hand has openly stated that she will cooperate with the republicans, thus only right wing conservative bills will get passed! ..."
"... So she has proven poor judgement, a proven record of incompetence, and is desperate to raise the stakes with the Russians! Can anyone explain to me how she is better in any way. Remember Trump is disgusting, but she is a war criminal - her actions should have put her in the hague yet alone the whitehouse! ..."
"... Hillary's tough talk against Russia and regime change in Syria scare the crap out of me. She's talking nuclear war, and she and the media lie about Russia. ..."
"... Modern politics is all about have media houses in your pocket to promote your side of the story. For the life of me i cannot believe the presidential race is still so close even though there is a clear bias against trump. ..."
"... It's been rather stunning as to how far the Guardian has gone to blanket it's news with pro-hilly propaganda. The most shameful moments came when Bernie was running in the primary. ..."
"... of the two, Hillary represents the most acute, immediate threat to humanity with her calling for a no fly zone over Syria and her neo-McCarthy Russia bashing, demonizing Putin. ..."
"... The the recent events in Syria witness this threat, with the US openly protecting (supplying) the misogynist, stoneage Al Nusra in Eastern Alleppo, bombing Syrian soldiers who are actively engaged in combat against ISIS, and now bombing bridges leading to the ISIS capital of Raqqa thus preventing the advancing Syrian army from attacking ISIS. ..."
"... She is backed by the debt slavery banksters, the planet destroying fossil fuel parasites, the fascist military industrial security prison complex and the whole corporate fascist shadow state, not to mention the MSM (including this journal). At least Trump has said this, which is much saner than any of HIlliary's comments regarding Syria, (not to mention Lybia): ..."
"... Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up together because of our weak policy," he said. ..."
Terrible summary by Tom McCarthy of the debate completely omits the main event, namely Trump promising
to prosecute Clinton should he become President. WTF.
There's a job waiting for him at the NYT, the number 1 newspaper for anyone who wants to miss
what's actually going on in this election.
Trump won this debate because Clinton wanted to make the issue personal and the fact is that even
though Trump is disgusting, she hasn't got a great record to defend. It's shameful that the Democrats
chose her and the Republicans chose him.
I agree with you to a point, but to be entirely honest, I don't think any of the politicians have
more than a surface level knowledge of any of these issues. They rely on experts and advisors
to come up with solutions to complex problems and then they make decisions after weighing the
options presented. Politicians who have been in the game a long time know all the generic buzzwords
and slogans to use, whereas Trump doesn't have the lingo down. It's actually part of his charm.
Obama had almost no real world experience with any of this stuff and especially when it comes
to foreign policy it would be hard to argue that anyone could do much worse (and Hillary was part
of his administration).
Success of debates can only be based on their effectiveness or otherwise in improving a candidate's
position. Trump`s position was almost untenable before the debate. He`s now in an election. By
any standards that is a massive win for him.
Given that the only relevant audience are undecideds (and consider the politics of people as
yet undecided about voting for Trump), Trump played a blinder. He hit on her every issue he
wanted to. Repeatedly and strongly.
On that, his taking on one of the hardest gigs in the business/political world tonight
after the last few days, and dealing with it, and winning, he may have convinced a swathe of undecideds
that he has what it takes.
I am non-partisan. But I can`t see how anybody can conclude he didn`t win that big time. His
position now V before the debate? Answers itself.
Still don`t see an electoral path to victory for him. That was monumental television. Ugly
America. But it is ugly, that`s the reality.
The Guardian's view of the debate is a predictable one, considering the complete lack of objectivity
in covering the election. Much has been made of Trump's sexist comments, yet not even a raised
eyebrow at the Clinton foundation receiving tens of millions in "donations" from Saudi Arabia,
a nation that bans women from driving, voting or having human freedoms.
There has been no questioning of the fact that Hillary has received millions of dollars,
for "speeches" given to Wall st banks. And of course, no questioning of the millions spent by
the Clintons as "hush money" to women, in order that they keep quiet about Bill's sexual proclivities.
Yep, no objectivity and little attempt at unbiased reporting here.
Not everyone is a political junky and not everyone lives in a black and white world.
Telling people they are not qualified to vote because they haven't made up their minds yet
is an elitist statement. One of the main reasons I refuse to vote for Hillary or Bernie is because
of all the elitist people who like to demean others simply because they disagree with the progressive
or neo-liberal talking points.
Do you want to know why Trump won tonight? It's because all Hillary has to offer is the same
pre-canned answers over and over again. She comes off as less genuine than any other candidate
in history and it's dispicable. It was bad in the Democratic debates and it is atrocious
in the presidential debates. Is it really so hard to just speak what she is actually thinking
that she just robots out the same rhetoric over and over again? It seems so.
I was going to vote for her but after this debate, the level of disgust with her is too much.
Be a damn person for a change instead of this thing that makes me shudder when she opens her mouth.
I just can't do it, Bernie, sorry. Trump repulses me to think of voting for but she makes me physically
sick to think about voting for. They say I will be throwing my vote away to vote for a third party
candidate but I just don't care. To throw it away is better than to cast it for someone I would
forever regret voting for the rest of my like. That goes for the both of them.
Saddam Hussein was a leader who did not have WMDs and whose orchestrated removal and subsequent
murder opened the door to the biggest infestation of mass-murderers and islamic terrorism in the
history of the world; Gadaffi was a popular leader who had turned Libya into the most prosperous
and the only truly independent Arab nation in Africa, and Putin is the democratically elected
leader of his country with a wide national mandate. Neither of the three can hold the candle to
the menagerie of tyrannical and maniacal baboons and banana republic chipmonks who paraded and
goose-stepped through Obama White House over the past eight years.
Stay on topic. This thread is about alleged Trump's camaraderie with dictators which is now
totally and permanently debunked.
It was an awful display from any conceivable point of view. There were no winners; none at all.
I'm no fan of the United States since their criminal actions around the globe post '9-11'
but I actually feel some pity for it at this point. The fact that most Americans appear not
to be completely sickened and ashamed by their farce of an election speaks volumes about how far
their country as fallen on so very many fronts.
A very sad night for the world, but none more so than for the United States and their people.
Many of us are sickened more than you may realize. The unfortunate part is the entire system
in the US is rigged against its own people. We're fucked, we know it, if we try to do anything,
they shit all over us with lies and propaganda and wave their corruption in our faces like a damn
battle flag. It won't be long before the people finally stand up to this. Trouble is, it may already
be too late...
Hillary Clinton in favour of a no-fly zone in Syria, which basically means a hot war with
Russia. Now, rebels are armed by Saudi Arabia amongst others. And Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest
donors Clinton Foundation. Coincidence?
This is terrifying. Hillary might put sons and husbands of American women in harm's way
on behalf of interests of Saudi Arabia.
hillary's biggest weakness in my opinion is that she is the "goldman sachs candidate".
and trump was able to exploit that. trump said that he was only taking advantage of the same tax
laws that hillary's campaign-financing friends take advantage of. and he said that it had been
within hillary's powers to change those laws but she wouldn't because of her friends. all hillary
has to do is declare that she will stop big tax avoidance and claw bag these avoided taxes and
she would have the bernie sanders'
Christopher R Barron is not too far off the mark in scoring this one. Trump started the debate
with the same awkward and uncomfortable manner as he finished the last one. Hillary's line of
attack about Trump being unfit to be president was delivered with maximum skill and effectiveness,
and Donald's rebuttal was a bit flat and floundering. Things were looking gloomy in Trumpville.
Then the debate switched to other topics and Trump landed blow after punishing blow. Hillary's
non-answer to the question about whether she had public positions and private ones was (for her)
uncharacteristically bizarre and rambling. Trump's Honest Abe retort was gold. He killed
her on Obamacare, a real sore spot with middle class voters, pointing out that the premiums and
deductibles are so high you have to get hit by a Mack truck before it actually pays off. Foreign
policy, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria--all he had to do was point to 8 years of Obama and her own
tenure as Secretary of State leading to the present unmitigated disaster. Our friends don't trust
us and our enemies don't fear us.
On tax issues he noted she had 30 years to do something about the tax code and did nothing.
Why? Because all of her billionaire donors use the same tax loopholes she accuses Trump of using,
which is also why it won't change if she is elected. You can argue pro or con on everything
Trump said, but there is no question that this was a much stronger debate performance from him
than the first and the final question in which he complimented Hillary actually helped soften
his image quite a bit and ended the night on a perfect note.
Trump is the first non-establishment presidential candidate to get this far, and he landed
lots of painful punches on Hillary during this debate.
Hillary hardly touched Trump.
If no more serious revelations come to light, don't be surprised if he gets a Brexit victory
in one month: Americans are sick of polished elite politicians like the Clintons and Bush's.
I disagree with everyone here, every poll I've seen has had Trump on top in that debate by a majority.
I'd like to see links to other polls, always welcome! I have read the CNN poll was a majority
Democrat demographic, which many have stated render that poll biased. I don't know if this is
still the case?
The key thing is - IS TRUMP a lesser of two evils?
Simply, in my view, YES. Because I believe a less aggressive US foreign policy is essential
for global well-being in general The current war party in the white house, whose views Clinton
clearly espoused tonight in her accusations, denigration and aggressive stance toward Russia,
can only lead one way. It is archaic, medieval and dangerous.
If there can possibly be a turnaround in attitude from the barbaric, 1980s-style foreign policy
hysterically issuing forth from US Military officials atm I would very much recommend we encourage
it.
Trump did not fudge his words regarding the middle east and ISIS. He praised Russian and Syrian
combat of ISIS, he stated he did not hate Russia, unlike his rival. His message was altogether
one of more solidarity.
I am not a Trump butt-monkey, Putinbot or an idiot. But Clinton and her War Party are openly
arming moderate rebels in Syria, fighting a two-faced phoney war in order to unseat Assad - causing
a massive humanitarian disaster out there. The moderate rebels and, at one time, ISIS (I get the
impression they've gone out of control now) are nothing more than mercenaries, paid for and armed
out of US coffers. Can we wake up to the implications of this? Russia threatened to shoot down
US aircraft in Syrian airspace the other day! Are you not alarmed by Clintons gung-ho attitude
in this climate?
This is not a perspective much agreed on in the MSM, but I happen to believe it is the single
most important thing in the world today.
"He also obviously has no idea what is going on in Syria."
He said Allepo is probably already lost. There is a reality check for you.
The current administration has repeatedly taken unrealistic positions based on ideology
and clung to them until the reality on the ground made them utterly untenable to hold onto. As
exhibit one, does anyone remember Obama's big speech to the nation when he announced his plan
to arm moderate Syrian rebels? That turned out to be one of the most ineffective flops in history,
a complete waste of time, money, and resources.
The sad thing is that I remember numerous military commentators in the media who immediately
predicted it would be an utter failure and they were right.
Instead of a debate that was focused on Trump's vulgar comments, the debate was focused
on policy issues, and despite all of Clinton's "preparation" when it came to the nuts and bolts
of policy, Trump managed to not only go toe-to-toe with Clinton, he often got the best of her.
Trump needed to win tonight to stay alive. Clinton did not. Trump won, and he lives to fight
another day. This race is far from over.
An accurate analysis.
The CNN Democrat commentators were shell-shocked after the debate and were trying to convince
themselves and the viewers that it was a tie.
Neither Richard nor Jessica have actually given an analysis of who one the debate. Both are just
rehashing their own personal opinions about Trump, and Jessica, as she usually does, threw in
some complaints about men in general. Terrible journalism.
Hillary won on temperament but Trump won on the issues. He is an awful candidate, and it sucks
that such a terrible candidate is the message bearer but that is what it is.
Finally, finally someone actually asked the question that had to be asked on Syria, despite
all the pointless hand wringing. Those rebels, what do we actually know about them, that we are
willing to go to war for them? Are they islamists? How will they govern? Do they have any popular
support of any kind?
He should have also shouted out loudly when asked what are the consequences of Alleppo falling.
The answer is none! There is nothing in Alleppo that is worth a single American life. If anything
there might be good consequences. The civil war will end, people will go back to work and rebuilding
will begin. Alleppo falling could be the best thing that happens to Syria.
And its not even the whole of Alleppo we are talking about. 2/3rds is already in govt control,
Sorry but there is the bitter truth about civil wars. IF they cant come to an agreement, then
the best thing that can happen is if one part wins and the fighting stops.
Trump is a desperately poor candidate, but you lot on the left are not making it easy to defeat
him.
And he should have shouted
Not many people could face off against a highly skilled politician like Hillary, and win -
especially when all the media and grandees have extrapolated from a "locker room" recording to
woman-hater/sex pervert.
Trump showed up HRC as unexciting and mediocre. DT could still win.
This was actually a reasonably decent debate, as far as these two candidates are concerned. Trump
maintained his composure, Clinton came close to losing hers. And yes, I DID watch it.
I fear the Presidency of Hillary Clinton as I believe that she is VERY capable of initiating
a nuclear war with Russia. I truly believe that for Donald Trump, this would be a last alternative
and that he would insist upon speaking, rather than acting, as HRC would.
I just can not believe a word she utters. She has proven me correct with her "one position
for public, and one position for private" quote. Two-faced liar.
On the other hand is Trump. There are many laws or positions he endorses which would NEVER survive
the two houses of Congress needed to implement them.
HRC, on the other hand, has the "connections" which would give her the ability to do so. That
scares me. She is someone. two-faced, who can not be trusted.
You may like or loathe Trump, but it's impressive what he achieved tonight. They had him on
the ropes, it was the middle of this fight and he knocked his opponent out tonight.
It was the "rumble in the jungle" all over again - Trump absorbed all kinds of punishment,
he absorbed it all and then ended up in triumph. "Trump bomaye! Trump bomaye! :-)
What I found amusing was her line about keeping the high ground - immediately after making several
low blows and saying he was unqualified! She claimed she never says that about other candidates,
yet said it about both Obama and Sanders - and no doubt every other opponent she has faced!
This is the fundamental problem with Clinton. Because so many people despise her, she has always
campaigned negatively, and apart from the virtually uncontested NY senate positions (bought by
her wall street donors), she has lost each time! Now you can sling all the charges at Trump, and
I will not disagree with any other them. Trump is indeed unfit to be president. However Clinton
is infinitely less qualified.
Here's why. her record! She boasts of so many sponsored bills as senator, yet when you
actually look at what she ACHIEVED - 3 meaningless bills - named a museum, a road and a post office!
As for her SOS "achievements" are there any? The only things we can say for certain she did, ultimately
she has admitted they were mistakes - experience is meaningless if you have poor judgement, and
she has prove to have terrible judgement.
And ultimately at the end of the day, IF the will is there, Trump can be prevented from
causing ANY damage. Clinton on the other hand has openly stated that she will cooperate with the
republicans, thus only right wing conservative bills will get passed!
And as for SCOTUS picks, Obama has proven there is no guarantee of progressive picks, and AGAIN
if Trump picks an awful SCOTUS judge he CAN be blocked!
So she has proven poor judgement, a proven record of incompetence, and is desperate to
raise the stakes with the Russians! Can anyone explain to me how she is better in any way. Remember
Trump is disgusting, but she is a war criminal - her actions should have put her in the hague
yet alone the whitehouse!
But this is all moot as Clinton shills simply refuse to be honest with themselves and refuse
to look at her record. I have asked elsewhere dozens of times to Clinton supporters to name a
crime / charge against Trump that cannot be said against Clinton - STILL waiting.
Frankly it matters not who you vote for as they are both ubfit, but Clinton has a proven record
of incompetence and war crimes whereas Trump has not. Personally it is way over time to stuff
the 2 party nonsense and vote 3rd party - if they get 5% they get funding next time. Personally
I
Trump today had to show that he, not the GOP leadership, was master of his base. And his base
is by far the largest component of Republican voters so he is master of the party in the month
before an election. He is not going to drop out and if the party wants to push that fight, Donald
is going to decisively win it. His base wanted Hillary's blood and he gave it to them. In that
sense he won. But winning undecideds, no. In that sense he lost.
Hillary was addressing mainly women voters according to a statistical demographic profile.
Don't confront too much, stay calm and collected, and let him have it on his 2005 tape. She saw
the debate as a means to finally move women, maybe especially white women, to her side. She absolutely
did not need to nail down her actual base, and was out to decisively pick up undecided voters.
She probably succeeded. In that sense she won. And it is by far the bigger victory. And mostly
because it was already mission accomplished in the 48 hours before the debate.
In a week we will see the polling for the tape and for the debate. Hillary is going to increase
her lead by 2 points if not more. And that includes the battlegrounds. And Trump will very definitely
still be the candidate.
Hillary's tough talk against Russia and regime change in Syria scare the crap out of me. She's
talking nuclear war, and she and the media lie about Russia.
Trump was correct to point
out that if the US really wanted to knock out ISIS, they'd have to join forces with Russia. That
was the most intelligent thing he said all night. I will not vote for either of them. Because
as much as Trump is offensive, she has a sh*t eating grin which makes me sick. I think I'll write
in Vladimir Putin, as he is 'currently' along with Xi in China working to make their countries
true super-powers with science and technology.
A "pearl" from Hilarious : "Russia (when not) is hacking our mails". Then again, she kill the
messenger, but don't say 'what' was the contents of those e-mails. Especially those of the pre-campaign
against Sanders.
Modern politics is all about have media houses in your pocket to promote your side of the
story. For the life of me i cannot believe the presidential race is still so close even though
there is a clear bias against trump. As an observer i am curious to know why?
It's been rather stunning as to how far the Guardian has gone to blanket it's news with pro-hilly
propaganda. The most shameful moments came when Bernie was running in the primary.
Guardian bias is bordering on the bizarre. There are few news sites reporting that Hillary
won. So Trump won this debate and didn't take Anderson Coopers bate..... big deal.
I think an article on how this late comeback won't help Trump at this late stage in the election
would be more interesting.
They are both disgusting human beings. Though, of the two, Hillary represents the most acute,
immediate threat to humanity with her calling for a no fly zone over Syria and her neo-McCarthy
Russia bashing, demonizing Putin.
The the recent events in Syria witness this threat, with the US openly protecting (supplying)
the misogynist, stoneage Al Nusra in Eastern Alleppo, bombing Syrian soldiers who are actively
engaged in combat against ISIS, and now bombing bridges leading to the ISIS capital of Raqqa thus
preventing the advancing Syrian army from attacking ISIS.
Then you have her history -to name just a few of her callous, inhumane, and cruel in the name
of the 1%- of starving hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to death, her admiration of Henry
Kissinger, her recent coup of a progressive, honest and legitimate president in Honduras and its
replacement with corporate controlled puppets using death squads to kill environmentalists, journalists,
etc.
She is backed by the debt slavery banksters, the planet destroying fossil fuel parasites,
the fascist military industrial security prison complex and the whole corporate fascist shadow
state, not to mention the MSM (including this journal). At least Trump has said this, which is
much saner than any of HIlliary's comments regarding Syria, (not to mention Lybia):
""Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. Iran is killing ISIS. And those three
have now lined up together because of our weak policy," he said.
"I think it would be great if we got along with Russia. We could fight ISIS together," Trump
had said earlier in the evening."
Trump just neutralized his tape scandal and has made Hillary's emails an
issue again. His talking about the inner city isn't about getting the black
vote, but keeping it home on election day. The 30 years bit is effective,
which even for someone like me, an unrepentant leftist, made me smile and
think so true.
Clinton could have sunk the knife tonight, but instead, she comes out of
this more wounded than him, I believe.
RADDATZ On Wikikeasl, you need both a public and a private position. Is it
OK for politicians to be two-faced
CLINTON As I said, it was about Lincoln getting Congress getting the 13th
Amendment approved. It was principled and strategic.
CLINTON But lets talk about what's really going on. It's Russian hacking. We
don't know if its accurate. We have never been in a situation where an
adversary is working so hard to infuence the election. They're not doing it to
elect me. We deserve answers. Clinton should release tax returns.
TRUMP Caught in a lie. She lied. Now she's blaming the lie on Honest Abe. I
think it would be great if we got along with Russians. We could fight ISIS
together. I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia, no loans from
Russia. Segues into the glories of his balance sheet [!!!]. I have no loans
from the Russians, got govt work. Many of our friends took bigger deductions:
Soros, Buffet, take massive deductions. I pay 100s of millions. When audit
released…
While the Trump Tape scandal may end up far less damaging to the Trump campaign than
many pundits predicted, confirmed by several polls this morning which showed
rank-and-file Trump supporters barely changed their opinion of the candidate in the
aftermath of the hot mic recording leaked on Friday afternoon, he will have to pull off
a strong debate performance while ignoring loud calls from both the press and top
elected republicans to step aside, in order to offset a decline in polls has suffered
since the first debate.
That may be easier said than done, especially since over the past 24 hours Trump has
seen a barrage of attacks not only from the left but also from his own party, with
dozens of GOP lawmakers calling for him to stand down.
As Fox wrote earlier
, Trump was already struggling through a tough couple of weeks,
after the first debate with Clinton, in which she argued Trump was verbally abusive to a
1996 Miss Universe winner. Still, trying to appear unfazed, Trump struck a defiant tone
on Sunday in the face of calls for him to abandon the U.S. presidential race, attacking
prominent Republicans and saying he has "tremendous support."
As he so often has done in times of campaign stress, Trump took to social media to
try to squelch any speculation that he could leave the race. "Tremendous support (except
for some Republican leadership"). Thank you," Trump wrote on Twitter.
"So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers - and elections - go
down!" Trump tweeted, apparently referring to Republican lawmakers seeking re-election
who have withdrawn their support for him over a 2005 video that emerged on Friday.
The negative speculation over the fate of Trump's campaign was the bulk of Saturday's
news cycle, and continued on Sunday.
As
Reuters
writes,
Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters on
Clinton's campaign plane: "We understand that this is uncharted territory ... to face an
opponent that is in the grips of a downward spiral in terms of his own party belatedly
walking away from him." A source close to the campaign of Trump's vice presidential
running mate, Mike Pence, dismissed talk among some political analysts the Indiana
governor might bolt the ticket in the uproar over Trump's comments. "Absolutely not,"
the source told Reuters.
Meanwhile, as noted above, with Republican Party leaders in crisis mode and doubts
emerging over Trump's ability to draw support from crucial undecided voters, it appeared
that many of Trump's core supporters would remain loyal despite the hot mic incident. A
public opinion poll by POLITICO/Morning Consult, taken just after news broke of the
video, found 39 percent of voters thought Trump should withdraw, and 45 percent said he
should stay. Of those who said Trump should leave, only 12 percent identified themselves
as Republicans.
Suggesting blowback may be in store for some Republicans who attacked Trump,
House
Speaker Paul Ryan was heckled by Trump supporters at a rally in his congressional
district in Wisconsin on Saturday, after having disinvited Trump following the release
of the recording of Trump making lewd remarks. "You better back Trump!" they yelled.
"You turned your back on him!" "Shame on you!"
But while there has been much verbal speculation about the future of the Trump
campaign, now one month ahead of the election, in practice it would be virtually
impossible to replace Trump. As we reported previously, in what have been largely
symbolic moves, at least two Republican governors, 10 senators and 11 House of
Representatives members withdrew their support of Trump, with some advising him to drop
out of the race, including John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the Senate Republican
leadership. But, as Reuters notes, any attempt to replace Trump on the ballot would face
huge legal and logistical hurdles.
The Trump campaign fought back, circulating "talking
points" to a core of high-profile Republicans who promote Trump in the news media. The
points sought to undermine establishment Republicans who have abandoned Trump.
"They are more concerned with their political future than they are about the future
of the country," said a copy of the talking points, described to Reuters by two sources
close to the campaign.
It might work: as we noted previously, Trump has made his battle against the
establishment a central campaign theme: what better way of underscoring that than by
showcasing that not only do Democrats hate his brand, as of this moment a vast majority
of Republicans do too.
"Phones have been blowing up for the past 24 hours," said a prominent Republican
political operative in Washington, referring to a heavy volume of calls among party
officials and Republican members of Congress.
There could be financial complications for Trump however. As we
reported last night
, Trump's troubles could steer campaign donations away from him
and to Republican candidates for Congress and other down-ballot offices.
But money may be the least of Trump's worries if he is unable to keep his head in
tonight's debate.
What should one expect?
According to one Reuters source, Trump could help himself if he himself quickly
addressed the video and the Oct. 1 New York Times report that he took so substantial a
tax deduction on a declared $916 million loss in 1995 that he could legally have avoided
paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years.
Altternatively, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump adviser, told Sunday
talk shows that at the debate Trump might choose to go on the offensive against Clinton
by bringing up past infidelities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press," Giuliani said both presidential contenders were
flawed but that Trump feels he owes it to his supporters to stay in the race.
Republicans have attacked Clinton, 68, over what they say is her role in trying to
discredit women who accused her husband of sexual misconduct decades ago, and have
wondered why Trump ignored to approach the topic during the first debate.
According to the WSJ, which writes that "
Trump
Signals Attack on Bill Clinton in Coming Days
" a taste of what may be to
come was unveiled on Saturday when Bill Clinton was midway through a remark about
climate change Saturday when a heckler gave a taste of what he and his wife's
presidential campaign might get from Republican Donald Trump in coming days. "Nobody can
dispute the fact..." Mr. Clinton started to say at a rally in a union hall,
"...
that you're a rapist!"
the protester shouted, finishing the sentence for the
42nd president.
Previewing a hard-line attack on Clintons' sexual past, Trump on Sunday morning
tweeted an interview given by Juanita Broaddrick, who claimed Mr. Clinton sexually
assaulted her in the late 1970s.... Ms. Broaddrick tearfully recounts the episode in the
videotaped interview and said "I'm afraid of him."
As the WSJ adds, "Trump, facing fierce blowback for his lewd comments about women,
is signaling that he will target Mr. Clinton's behavior as he tries to stabilize
a campaign coping with its biggest crisis to date."
In weekend apologies for his remarks, the Republican nominee invoked Mr. Clinton
repeatedly, saying he had "abused women" and talked about them in ways that were more
offensive than his own in a 2005 video in which he boasted of sexual aggression.
He also claimed Mrs. Clinton attacked the women who accused her husband of sexual
misconduct.
"I've said some foolish things, but there's a big difference between the words
and actions of other people," Mr. Trump said in a Saturday morning video. "Bill
Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and
intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days."
That line of attack threatens to yank Mr. Clinton directly into the campaign
scrum, a space the former two-term president has largely avoided since his wife
launched her campaign a year and half ago.
The WSJ notes that according to strategists in both parties, a tactic where Trump
goes for Clinton's past infidelities may backfire.
Rudolph Giuliani, a Trump campaign surrogate, said Sunday on NBC that he didn't
expect his candidate to raise Mr. Clinton's past during an evening presidential town
hall meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.
Additionally, the WSJ notes that Bill Clinton remains a popular figure, outshining
his wife and her Republican opponent.
A recent Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll found that 45% of voters said they
have very positive or somewhat positive feelings about the former president, compared
with 38% who have very negative or somewhat negative feelings.
The same survey found that 37% of voters have positive feelings about Mrs.
Clinton, while 52% have negative feelings. Meanwhile, just 28% of voters have very
positive or somewhat positive feelings about Mr. Trump; 61% have very negative or
somewhat negative feelings about him.
Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster, said Mr. Trump would be playing to his base of
hard-core supporters by attacking Mr. Clinton, but he isn't winning over any new voters.
"If he were running a Republican primary race, this could be an effective strategy," Mr.
Newhouse said. Now, "it's a failed strategy to try to bring Bill Clinton to this."
Lashing out at the former president and saying that he has done something worse is "like
an argument that a third-grader might make," Mr. Newhouse said. " When you use an
apology to turn around and attack your opponent, you lose ground," he said.
A democratic strategist, Joe Trippi, believes that "there's no way out for him other
than to be humble and apologize", which on the other hand some say would show weakness
and give Hillary the offensive. He also pointed out that Trump now needs to somehow win
over women and college-educated white voters and that "taking aim at Mr. Clinton is only
going to "repulse them further."
* * *
While nobody has any idea what Trump's best angle of attack may be, or what the
republican presidential contender will say in under three hours when the townhall-styled
debate begins, it is certain that following a brief courteous open, the mudslinging on
both sides will promptly escalate, resulting in one of the most memorable, "deplorable"
yet entertaining slow-motion trainwrecks observed in primetime history. The biggest
unknown, however, is how America will respond to it: and for Trump that particular
gamble could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
"... Saw less than a dozen Trump Signs. Not a single Hillary. And this one that I meant to steal, but we came back a different route: 2016 EVERYONE SUCKS ..."
David Dayen reenforces the point that Paul Ryan is party ideologist (and has
been for years) in bringing up Ryan's Wednesday statement that "he intends to
jam through the Ryan budget next year under a procedure that bypasses
Democratic opposition in Congress-and make that vow without fear of reprisal,
right in the heat of election season":
. . . Even today, the media assists Ryan when he tries to distance
himself from Donald Trump-when in reality, Trump would likely be little more
than an
autopen as president
, signing whatever noxious
policy Ryan shuttled through the House and put on his desk. Despite this,
the media almost affords him sympathy for his plight about dealing with
Trump (he's campaigning with Trump on Saturday, so it can't be that
wrenching), rather than recognizing his role as the author of the agenda the
next Republican president will carry out.
The normalization of Ryan as a serious, honest figure allows him to put
out as radical a budget as would ever be initiated
in American
history
without anyone batting an eyelash. This may not come back
to sting the country next year, if Trump falls the way his poll numbers
currently suggest. But at some not-too-distant point, when conservatives
capture the entire government, they'll be able to implement this blueprint,
the Ryan budget, that should have been made into nuclear waste long ago.
Isn't it nice that Ryan's plan is to save the Democratic Party in 2018
when they face challenges in keeping their seats at the same level the GOP
is facing this year?
If Ryan thinks there won't be consequences in ramming through changes to
Social Security or Medicare, he's bleeping insane and clearly hasn't been
paying attention.
I almost wonder if he can get the rest of his coalition to sign his
little suicide pact. If Trump doesn't implode him then Ryan's budget just
might.
Republicans merely can cherry-pick Ryan's budget-but they're a
monolith on core doctrine, tax cuts on income from wealth and
deregulation, eh?
. . . or this bonus–Robert Kuttner in American Prospect:
Trump has promised to repeal the
Dodd-Frank Act
.
That would take an act of Congress, but would not be necessary. He'd
need only to appoint stooges to several key Treasury positions, or
repeal existing regulations and not write new ones. The same is true
of a broad swath of environmental, civil-rights, and labor regulation,
not to mention rights of immigrants. . . Trump could reach out to such
relatively conservative unions as police, fire, and building trades
with a blend of carrots and sticks. He could try to enlist industrial
unions such as the Steelworkers and the United Auto Workers that are
most threatened by trade, and ask for their explicit support. Then he
could concentrate his fire on left unions like the Service Employees
International Union, which has a heavily black and Latino membership.
His white working-class bona fides would be strengthened-and the labor
movement's alliance with the Democratic Party sundered.
As a white union guy in an AFL union who knows plenty of other
white guys in other AFL unions, I find your whole scenario entirely
plausible.
Trump is very popular among my cohorts, which I find rather ironic
since he spent years on TV playing the role of boss. It wouldn't take
much, maybe a federal pre-emption of state right-to-work laws, to get
the union factions you spoke of on board. Cardcheck seems to be more
of an SEIU/UFCW type of issue and those definitely aren't Trump
unions.
Even today, the media assists Ryan when he tries to distance himself
from Donald Trump
Curiously, he fails to mention - or mentioned but editors cut -
allegations that to do so was official Hillary policy. The impending
flame-out of this Party system can be hung right on her and her mooks'
shoulders.
I have no fear of Ryan enacting his budget. Any party that enacts that
budget will be removed from power for the following three generations.
Everyone that was alive when that happened would have to die before that
party ever got another chance.
No doubt that party would then repeat that same mistake.
"... Contradicting FBI view, Clinton's leaked speeches portray her as computer savvy McClatchy ..."
"... charged with a computer facilitated crime – computer illiterate ..."
"... charged with generating funds from Silicon valley financiers – computer savvy… ..."
"... Public position, private position, Dan. She has been completely forthright about this. ;-) ..."
"... Similar to choosing Clinton for President despite her record of leading from behind on good things and disastrously wrong choices in financial policy and oversight, Foreign Policy and civil rights, choosing to listen to one thing Richard Rubin says after decades of evidence that he couldn't find his hands in front of his face on a sunny day… Oh wait these are only failures and disasters if you aren't part of the in crowd. ..."
"... there is a ton of material both in those emails AND from the hurricane where Clinton is extremely vulnerable. Attack her on the record of her actions and of the Foundation in Haiti and tie her to the dead from the hurricane (justified). Point out what her statements regarding the trade deals, Social Security, Medicare. even sending your kids to war. He has an opportunity and material, but can he or will he use it? ..."
Contradicting FBI view, Clinton's leaked speeches portray her as computer savvy McClatchy
Pretty simple charged with a computer facilitated crime – computer illiterate charged with generating funds from Silicon valley financiers – computer savvy…
Similar to choosing Clinton for President despite her record of leading from behind on good
things and disastrously wrong choices in financial policy and oversight, Foreign Policy and civil
rights, choosing to listen to one thing Richard Rubin says after decades of evidence that he couldn't
find his hands in front of his face on a sunny day… Oh wait these are only failures and disasters
if you aren't part of the in crowd.
I believe we will know how serious Trump is if he manages to shift the conversation tonight
to Clinton's own quotes and what they mean. He will have to say his prepared piece in answer to
the planted questions and refuse to let them get under his skin, ignore the bait to attack back
on that. Who knows if he can.
But there is a ton of material both in those emails AND from the
hurricane where Clinton is extremely vulnerable. Attack her on the record of her actions and of
the Foundation in Haiti and tie her to the dead from the hurricane (justified). Point out what
her statements regarding the trade deals, Social Security, Medicare. even sending your kids to
war. He has an opportunity and material, but can he or will he use it?
"... Zach Bee Of all the words you could chant, in the entire english language, they pick the ONE that rhymes with liar? What does Hillary! Fire! Even mean? I thought that was a joke at first. Wow. ..."
"... Moh Moony Spot on mate. No one ever accused Hillbots of being very bright. beidoll I kept thinking it should have been "Fire Hillary". I'd fire her before I'd hire her. ..."
For those who want a few laughs in these grim times, check out the excellent Jimmy Dore's video (6
minutes) comparing Bernie's rallies with Hillary's. There is a truly cringeworthy episode of HRC cheerleading
in the clip.
Heh. I liked this little exchange in the comments:
Zach Bee
Of all the words you could chant, in the entire english language, they pick the ONE that rhymes with
liar? What does Hillary! Fire! Even mean? I thought that was a joke at first. Wow.
Moh Moony
Spot on mate. No one ever accused Hillbots of being very bright.
beidoll
I kept thinking it should have been "Fire Hillary". I'd fire her before I'd hire her.
So even after Hillary says she's going to renounce every campaign promise
she made two hours after the polls close, Bernie can't wait to get out on the
campaign trail urge us to vote for our own extinction?
Donald may be "The Apprentice" but Bernie has got to be "The Biggest Loser"
Bernie is the Biggest Frigging Sellout, if you ask me. He spends 6 months
railing against HRC's policies and now is out promoting her. He is dead to
me now.
I can see the expediency of a reluctant endorsement at the convention,
but he's lost his credibility with this behaviour. They must've threatened
him with loss of his Senate committee positions or something.
…or offered to fund his foundation and invite hi to expensive
lectures. Carrot or stick, carrot or stick; so hard to tell. I imagine
the stick is avoided when possible; no point in bringing needless
ugliness into what could be a nice relationship.
BREAKING: The Alabama Media Group, publisher of the Mobile Press-Register,
The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and other publications, as well as
one of the most right wing publishers in the South, has endorsed Hillary
Clinton for President.
For those who are familiar with Alabama politics (Yves?) this is
yuuge.
And tomorrow, their subscription office will be flooded with
cancellations. The GOP hive mind simply doesn't work this way.
When people buy newspapers for the op-eds, they want to read what they
already think. The newspapers themselves are largely purchased as local
papers of record or status symbols. The Union Leader endorsed Hillary, and
New Hampshire isn't breaking for Hillary. The Union Leader is a huge deal.
I know Team Blue is excited, but Palin, McCain (Team Blue seems to love
his deranged positions), Shrub, Jeb, Reagan, Nixon, Rick Scott, Graham,
Thurmond, Helms, Mittens…do you see where I am going?…haven't destroyed the
GOP. Partisan politics matters, believe it or not. By the end of the week,
every Republican outside of the ones close to retirement will have
apologized and declare war on "micro aggressions."
Once you get past the BRANDING (repub versus dem) isn't it just obvious
that Hillary would have been to the comfortable with most of the repub
candidates, on most issues, except for a very, very few social issues, and
even there not significantly outside repub suburban norms???
The parties in my view are the biggest impediment to critical thinking
there is – their downfall can't happen soon enough.
But I agree – this is YUUGE! Its kinda like the death of Sears.
Many men talk like Donald Trump in private. And only other men can stop
them.
WaPo. The difference between these many men (at least the elite
ones) and Trump is that Trump aspired to political power. The implicit
Democrat narrative that Trump is a uniquely pernicious outlier is ludicrous
on its face, as indeed this article urges.
Lewd Donald Trump Tape Is a Breaking Point for Many in the G.O.P.
NYT.
Except… This is the Republican establishment that (a) fielded 17 candidates
none of whom could be bothered to do oppo even to the extent of listening to
Trump's
public
tapes on Howard Stern, that (b) failed to fund or
unify behind a candidate to stop Trump when they had the chance, and that
(c) is hated by the most powerful factions in its own base. I think they're
going to have to carry Trump to term.
AP Exclusive: Job hunt substantial part of Bayh's last year
AP. "Evan
Bayh spent substantial time during his last year in the Senate searching for
a private sector job even as he voted on issues of interest to his future
corporate bosses, according to the former Indiana lawmaker's 2010 schedule."
So what? Both party establishments accept the central doctrine of
Citizens United
, that absent a showing of
quid pro quo
,
there's no corruption. Move along, people, move along. There's no story
here.
I'm shocked that Trump would say rude things in private. Men (and women,
don't fool yourself) being rude. Huh. Never would have seen that coming. An
entire entertainment industry called comedy, especially standup, based on
levels of rudeness. Can't be.
World leaders like LBJ watching movies of animals copulating in the White
House or bragging about having a Senator doing his bidding indicated by having
the man's p*cker in his pocket.
Yesterday John McCain again showed that he is a national treasure when he
assailed Donald Trump's "demeaning comments about women." This voice of
decency and reason in 1998 told a meeting of Republicans: "Do you know why
Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father." [1]
McCain was joined in withdrawing support from Trump by his fellow neocon
Condoleezza Rice. Rice demonstrated her superior judgement during the summer
of 2001 when she systematically devalued intel that explicitly warned of an
impending major terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The Republican hawks repudiating Trump are motivated not by his attitude
towards women but by his refusal to kowtow to a War Machine that has bought
and paid for Hillary Clinton.
And given that it was already universally known that Trump is a
despicable lout, these defections look a lot more like part of a larger
orchestrated outrage than a spontaneous reaction to the Trump tape.
Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also
let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In
his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his
wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes
Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said,
"You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and
he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop,
you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected
president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair ran a great demolition
series on MCain during his presidential campaign, with a lot about his
disgusting behaviour towards his wife and general gilded misogyny. No
link here because the theme recurred through too many articles, a lot
of them the late Cockburn's wonderful Friday 'Diary' column (if you
missed those at the time, look them up and start reading anywhere;
also St Clair has lately revived the tradition, and his diary is
almost as good), but they should be easily searchable in the
Counterpunch archive. Or you could find them in AC's final book, 'A
Colossal Wreck'.
I could go all Plato and shadows on the cave walls, but everything we
see is filtered. Or emphasized.
Very, very rich people, with very, very specific agendas, do the
filtering and decide what you see, but more IMPORTANTLY, what you don't.
maybe they are just repudiating for a reason Trump if anyone on earth
would understand. They don't want to be seen with a loser (when Trump
loses the election).
Re: Badgers. From Hunter S. Thompson's Rolling Stone obituary for Richard
Nixon"
"It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he's gone, I
feel lonely. He was a giant in his way. As long as Nixon was politically alive
- and he was, all the way to the end - we could always be sure of finding the
enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil
bastard. He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The
badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the
dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it
is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that
fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it
by the head with all four claws.
"That was Nixon's style - and if you forgot, he would kill you as a lesson
to the others. Badgers don't fight fair, bubba. That's why God made dachshunds.
I haven't watched him in a while but I gotta feel concerned for CNN's Wolf
Blitzer. Having to acknowledge the Russian punk band Pussy Riot on the air a
couple of years ago. Now he has to acknowledge " grab them by the pussy" has to
be causing him some anguish. Because I'm sure he has never heard that before.
Then again a seven figure salary will undoubtedly sooth some of that faux
disgust.
You know, on PBS Gwen Ifil's Washington Week in Review, a woman
correspondent ACTUALLY quoted the audio tape that has Trump saying he grabs
a women's "P" – except she SAID, apparently to "clean it up" a woman's
"kitty cat."
I spit up my Cabernet!!!
Language – funny how the common name we use to name that small mammalian
predator, star of countless Youtube videos, that we keep as pets also refers
to womens's sexual organs – except apparently the other name we use for the
small mammalian predator can also be used (at least in hip hop videos), but
isn't as DIRTY…yet
(hmmm, I thought you could only say kitty cat if you were actually
referring to a…."cat" but you can't say "kitty cat" if your referring to a
"P" – odd…)
I imagine I could saaaaay any word in such a way to make it sound dirty…
a) Trump's comments are, of course, deplorable. But I do not see how they
are at all unexpected or out of character for Trump, especially given all the
preceding stories about how he behaved on the set of The Apprentice, etc. I
mean, what's next, Breaking News – Sun Rises in East as Previously Thought?
b) If you look at the electoral map (e.g. at RealClearPolitics) and make
some reasonable poll-based assumptions (e.g. Virginia and Indiana break for
Kaine and Pence, respectively), you end up with exactly three contested areas
of the country.
The Southwest – Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. Let's say those
are split 50/50, although so long as Trump keeps flogging the "illegal brown
rapists" horse, who knows.
The Rust Belt-ish – the Pennsylvania-to-Wisconsin arc around the Great Lakes
(Penn, Ohio, Michigan, WI, MN, minus Indiana).
Florida.
So basically you're looking at something like six states that are likely
going to decide the whole contest, because everything else breaks 200-180 or
210-170 or some combination thereof.
Are Trump's comments going to have any influence whatsoever on his Rust Belt
vote? Or are those people voting for him because of anti-trade,
anti-establishment, anti-Clinton, whatever other factors? More bluntly, are the
pro-Trump women in those states going to shriek in horror at his latest
crudeness, or say something like "boys will be boys, but Clinton is still
worse"? I don't know. I doubt anyone in the media knows either. Maybe we'll
have an inkling in 1-2 weeks with fresh sets of polls.
Are Trump's comments going to really change the Florida-white-senior-citizen
vote, or whatever bloc over there is (reportedly, per Politico) breaking 2:1
for him? I don't know. I doubt anyone in the world knows. Maybe we'll have a
better view in 1-2 weeks (again).
c) Given (a) and (b), as well as the similarly-timed Wikileaks release, as
well as the similarly-timed "evil Russians are evil" release by the White
House, as well as the upcoming debate…nah, I'm just going to call the whole
thing a big set of coincidences and say the media is rightly focusing on the
most important story of the hour and not at all willfully ignoring anything
else of substance.
Lambert noted Trump is already an ugly billionaire who has made horrid
statements and noted it's likely this is priced in.
Three issues stand put:
-it's a claim from a very bizarre person with a history of ugly statements
not an accusation
-Bill is a serial predator. Lewinsky was an intern under his power. Hillary
has been part of smear campaigns and is a purveyor of violence to boot. I
recall Gaddafi was widely seen being raped before his death which produced
laughter. Also how many people laughed at Shrub's correspondents video where
he looks for WMDs. First hand accounts of the occupations and wars have been
spread for a long time now.
-the glee from the uni-party and msm can only backfire when they are widely
distrusted.
Virginia is breaking for military contracts. Northern Virginia is largely
"military Keynesianism" run amok. The vote there will break for whoever is
least likely to move federal spending to other locations. They have to lay
the mortgage on government salaries. Northern Virginia outside of a few
small enclaves is such a dump. Without the spending, no industry will
relocate there.
British blogger John Ward (self-exiled to France, I believe) made
similar and useful points today:
* The recording is eleven years old.
* It takes place in a locker room, where 97% of those mouthing off
this morning have never been in their lives. It was the sort of male
fantasy-boasting I listened to every Saturday before getting changed
into my footie kit.
* Nobody died. The US Ambassador wasn't anally raped and dragged
through the streets to a grisly demise. No whistleblower was taken out
with a drone.
* It didn't take place in the offices of Goldman Sachs, it didn't
take place in the Oval Office, and there were no cigars involved.
* If American men are shocked by this kind of talk, they're either
deaf or just never played sports.
* From the day he first opened his mouth in this campaign, anyone
with an iota of sensitivity could discern what kind of bloke he is:
crude, narcissistic and misogynist. This tape is, therefore, not news.
* The behaviour of his running mate evokes suspicion, I think. Mike
Pence voted for Cruz in his home State, and is renowned for his nose
being able to sniff a populist soundbite. Both he and Ryan (another
Trump-hater in private) were quick to condemn Trump's remarks
unequivocally. Senior GOP movers, however, are reputed to have told
the Vice-Presidential nominee that if he dumped Trump, they would make
him the Republican candidate "by acclamation".
* The source of the story – the Washington Post – is the biggest
non-surprise of all of all: the journalist involved there, David
Fahrenthold, has written several stories about Trump's charitable
foundation (but ignored the infinitely more septic Clinton Foundation)
while casting aspersions on his mental capacity to be President (while
ignoring Clinton's consistent inability to stand upright unaided.
* Fellow Washpost blogger Richard Cohen wrote two months ago (with
remarkable prescience) 'The way to hurt Trump is to ridicule him. He
is a man of immense pride, a pompous bloviator and a locker-room
towel-snapper. Either ignore him or ridicule him.'
* According to the Post, Farenthold knows the identity of the
person who leaked the video to him, but will not disclose it. It seems
the person works for NBC, who had a team working full-time to find
lewd tapes of Trump during production of their programming featuring
him. I understand, however, that NBC were going to leave airing the
featured extract until Monday – after the Second TV Debate – and so an
activist Democrat supporter downloaded the tape and gave it to
Farenthold.
I just cannot believe the level of outrage over this comments compared
to the real outrages and crimes going on in the world today. Ironically,
if Trump implodes, HRC will go on to win but more voters - assuming she
has it safely in the bag - may vote 3rd party. In any case the victory
will be a poisoned chalice. The most corrupt, dishonest, and disliked
candidate as POTUS?
Probably the best political analogy is "Bill's" Monica moment. The
institutional D party reaction was, "It's just about sex."
As for "Bill," so for Trump. If it's "just about sex," Trump's
supporters (including women) will rationalize it away, just as their
Democratic sisters did for "Bill."
Those for whom it's a deal killer were opponents anyway. So nothing
has really changed, except that the Clintons could end up getting
hoisted on their own petard if the counterattack includes some really
damning fresh dirt.
Incredible set of links, as always and nice work by our own Richard Smith.
SLPs being used to front illegal operations– who would've thought? Excellent
investigative work.
The revelations being sussed-out from the Goldman Sachs speeches could be
the last straw for Hillary's campaign, tipping undecideds and ex-Sanders
supporters further away from her. Public and private position, indeed. It's
also an apt term to describe people who answer polls and tell their friends and
colleagues they're voting for candidate A, while in fact voting for B,C, or D.
The Trump hot-take comes as another deflection, but it seems that his base
supporters could care less.
On a lighter note, the Onion hits the nail on the head once again:
The selective outrage regarding Trump's boorish behavior and Hillary
Clinton's bloodthirtsy and dangerous policy stances is profound.
In 2013, Clinton says,
"To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many
of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are
standoff missiles so we're not putting our pilots at risk- you're going to
kill a lot of Syrians," Clinton admitted. She then expressed concern that
would make that "intervention that people talk about so glibly" a
full-fledged "American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of
civilians."
3 days ago, a Rueters report says:
"In a departure from the Obama administration, [Clinton] supports the
establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria and has called for an intensified
air campaign by the U.S.-led coalition."
See, it's okay when Clinton 'glibly' advocates for military escalation that
is guaranteed - by her own admission - to kill innocent civilians. Like a Hindu
goddess of death, she is in her rights to decide when it is acceptable to
"take" civilians.
But god forbid Trump mentions wanting to f*ck someone who he thinks is
attractive. There is no place for that kind of talk in Hillary's civilized
world!
Trump admitted to past sexual assualts, "hitting on married women by
kissing them & grabbing their p***y".
Far worse than expressing sexual desire towards another person. Agreed
that HClinton is worse. Trump sexually assaulting 10s of women, is lower on
the scale of moral atrocities than killing 1000s of innocent civilians.
Speaking of killing innocent civilians, your friendly reminder that the
entire Real Basket of Deplorables cohort of US politicians, including 0bama,
P Ryan, HClinton, Trump; kill 45K USians/yr per Harvard Public Health Profs,
by their continual blockage of Canada-style MedicareForAll, e.g. another
ANNUAL killing of 1000 of innocent (USian) civilians.
I believe part of the context is that Trump is boasting how his fame
gets him a lot of beautiful women and sex. This is undoubtedly true -
just look at Rupert Murdoch's recent marital history. The boasting (and
vulgarity) are such a part of his personality. It's odious and I wouldn't
want any of my female friends to associate with him, but compared to
killing 500,000 kids with Iraqi sanctions, I'd say it's relatively
unimportant in the scheme of things.
Henry Kissinger: "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." He got to
screw Jill St. John, and a whole lot of Vietnamese, Cambodians,
Laotians, and me and my fellow troops, among others.
We're all screwed, us ordinary people. Don't even have the option
of "laying back and enjoying it." Too bad we don't have an organizing
principle we can coalesce around, to defeat the parasites and mass
murderers and enable a world of decency and comity and viable
stability…
So I just went to the
NY Times
"Politics" page at 9:30AM (Eastern
Time). Here is a list of the articles, in order. For your reading pleasure or
convenience, I have
bolded the articles not
about Donald
Trump. Note their position in the list.
Lewd Donald Trump Tape Is a Breaking Point for Many in the G.O.P.
By JONATHAN MARTIN, MAGGIE HABERMAN and ALEXANDER BURNS
Inside Trump Tower in Manhattan. Donald J. Trump is facing increasing
pressure in his own party to end his candidacy.
Pressure built on the candidate to withdraw from the presidential campaign
as party leaders urged the G.O.P. to shift its focus to down-ballot
contests.
Donald J. Trump waves to supporters outside Trump Tower in New York on
Saturday.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Donald Trump's Conduct Was Excused Again and Again. But Not This Time.
By MICHAEL BARBARO and PATRICK HEALY
It turns out that even the most self-interested members of the political
class, the true weather vanes swinging in the wind, have their limits.
Why Republicans Are Probably Stuck With Donald Trump
By ALAN RAPPEPORT
Unless he becomes incapacitated or quits, getting rid of him is, legally and
logistically, "the equivalent of a triple bank shot."
Donald Trump the Showman, Now Caught in the Klieg Lights
By JIM RUTENBERG 5:00 AM ET
Donald J. Trump deftly used the blending of news and entertainment to build
a brand, and then a campaign. But all that drama has turned into a big,
messy show.
Graphic: More Than 150 Republican Leaders Don't Support Donald Trump.
Here's When They Reached Their Breaking Point.
By KAREN YOURISH, LARRY BUCHANAN and ALICIA PARLAPIANO
Which statements caused Republicans to bail on Donald Trump.
Presidential Debate: What to Watch For
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE 5:00 AM ET
To achieve anything resembling a victory, Donald J. Trump needs to focus on
the most compelling parts of his message: trade, the threat of terrorism,
and the creation of jobs.
Women React With Fury to Donald Trump's Remarks, but Some Offer Support
By ABBY GOODNOUGH and WINNIE HU
What to tell a 10-year-old daughter? Why hasn't Mr. Trump outgrown the
locker-room talk? These are among the questions being asked across the
country.
Men Say Trump's Remarks on Sex and Women Are Beyond the Pale
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Men of many backgrounds and parts of the country had varied opinions on how
men talk, but they agreed that Mr. Trump's version was unacceptable.
Donald Trump's Long Record of Degrading Women
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
The candidate has a history of insulting or unwelcome conduct that goes back
several decades, The New York Times has found.
John McCain Withdraws Support for Donald Trump After Disclosure of
Recording
By ALAN RAPPEPORT
Mr. McCain became the latest party leader to distance himself from the
nominee after a recording showed Mr. Trump speaking about women in lewd and
degrading terms.
Paul Ryan, Reluctant Supporter, Weighs Response to Donald Trump's Remarks
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Mr. Ryan uninvited Mr. Trump from a rally on Saturday, and said he was
"sickened" by Mr. Trump's remarks about women. But he did not withdraw his
support.
Graphic: Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell Reject Donald Trump's Words, Over
and Over, but Not His Candidacy
By LARRY BUCHANAN, ALICIA PARLAPIANO and KAREN YOURISH
How the two top Republicans in Congress have responded to Mr. Trump's
comments.
Donald Trump Apology Caps Day of Outrage Over Lewd Tape
By ALEXANDER BURNS, MAGGIE HABERMAN and JONATHAN MARTIN
A vulgar discussion recorded in 2005 on a soap opera set added to evidence
that Mr. Trump has a record of sexist behavior.
Donald Trump's Apology That Wasn't
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
In a video expressing regret over his lewd comments, Mr. Trump remained
defiant, calling the disclosure a "distraction" and used it to renew
political and personal attacks on Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump: King of the Old Boys' Club, and Perhaps Its Destroyer
By SUSAN DOMINUS
A taped conversation involving the Republican nominee shows a world women
rarely see, and may not forget before Election Day.
Can't Find a Plan on HealthCare.gov? One May Be Picked for You.
By ROBERT PEAR
Under a new policy to make sure people maintain insurance coverage in 2017,
the government may automatically enroll them.
What Options Does the U.S. Have After Accusing Russia of Hacks?
By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTH
Pentagon and intelligence officials have been debating how to deter future
attacks while controlling the potential escalation of a cyberconflict.
To Redefine Homestretch, Hillary Clinton Cues the Children
By NICK CORASANITI
"Measure," a new ad that begins with girls checking their heights against
wall rulers, aims to stand out near the end of a negative campaign season.
Leaked Speech Excerpts Show a Hillary Clinton at Ease With Wall
Street
By AMY CHOZICK, NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL BARBARO
According to documents posted online by WikiLeaks, Mrs. Clinton displayed an
easy comfort with business and embraced unfettered trade in paid speeches to
financial firms.
Newly Released Hillary Clinton Emails Offer Glimpse at Husband's
Advice
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC LICHTBLAU
The State Department began releasing emails the F.B.I. collected during its
investigation into her use of a private email server.
Billy Bush, a cousin of former President George W. Bush, in August.
Billy Bush Says He's Ashamed by Lewd Talk With Donald Trump
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM and JOHN KOBLIN
Mr. Bush, a cousin of President George W. Bush, said he was "less mature,
and acted foolishly" in a 2005 conversation with Mr. Trump about women.
Imagine if the sexual harassment and rape claims against Bill Clinton were
given the same amount of exposure? We know Trump is a lewd, sexist, buffoon,
but it was Bill who lied for six months about getting blowjobs from a 20 year
old intern in the Oval Office.
The Guardian this morning has a huge front page spread about Trump but not a
mention of the Wikileaks release of the Podesta emails.
The MSM just don't give a shit about their credibility.
I just have to note this. I remember how well argued and coordinated the
defense of Bill Clinton was. I believed it at first. Do you remember that he
couldn't have possibly had sex in the oval office because it is sooooo
busy??? (I still think the most outrageous lie is trying to convince people
that the president works hard). I could imagine the president having a
tryst…but in the Oval office!?!!?? don't be ridiculous.
That people come in and out (dirty side long glance) of the oval office
all day unexpectedly????
And of course, the despicable character assassination of Monica …by "pro
women" people.
I noticed that as well. Same at the Guardian - their main anti-Trump
pieces today have comments turned off. Mustn't have the "plebs" mention
Bill Clinton's past or bring up the Wikileaks Podesta emails!
(The email is a compilation of quotes from Clinton's paid speeches, not
otherwise available. It begins: "Attached are the flags from HRC's paid
speeches we have from HWA." The asterisked material is how the Clinton campaign
staffer "flagged" the quotes they considered dangerous.) Since these quotes are
from paid speeches, we can expect Clinton's private position - expect, that is,
if we assume that Clinton isn't cheating her clients by failing to deliver
value for money in terms of services to be rendered - to be a more accurate
representation of her views than her public one. In other words, we're looking
at a pitch to the donor class, when Clinton was laying the groundwork for her
campaign. In an oligarchy, this would be natural.
===============================================
Sorry, but as I have said before, I don't believe Clinton's speeches are
important – they are just a McGuffin to deflect from the real travesty
occurring in plain site – what Lloyd Blankfein tells Clinton at the gladhanding
after the speech….
As someone once told me in Washington, nothing TRULY important is ever
committed to paper.
The WikiLeaks material is highly relevant to how Clinton would
actually govern, as opposed to how she says she will govern. Because of
the oddly timed release of the Trump hot mike tape, this story seems to
be getting buried, so I'll go into it in some detail. First some links:
*CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON
POLICY*
*Clinton: "But If Everybody's Watching, You Know, All Of The Back
Room Discussions And The Deals, You Know, Then People Get A Little
Nervous, To Say The Least. So, You Need Both A Public And A Private
Position."*
(The email is a compilation of quotes from Clinton's paid speeches,
not otherwise available. It begins: "Attached are the flags from HRC's
paid speeches we have from HWA." The asterisked material is how the
Clinton campaign staffer "flagged" the quotes they considered dangerous.)
Since these quotes are from paid speeches, we can expect Clinton's
private position - expect, that is, if we assume that Clinton isn't
cheating her clients by failing to deliver value for money in terms of
services to be rendered - to be a more accurate representation of her
views than her public one. In other words, we're looking at a pitch to
the donor class, when Clinton was laying the groundwork for her campaign.
In an
oligarchy
, this would be natural.
I believe I've mentioned to readers that my vision of the first 100
days of a Clinton administration includes a Grand Bargain, the passage of
TPP, and a new war. So you can read the following as confirmation bias,
if you will.
But Simpson-Bowles - and I know you heard from Erskine earlier
today - put forth the right framework. Namely, we have to
restrain spending
, we have to have adequate revenues, and we
have to incentivize growth. It's a three-part formula. The specifics
can be negotiated depending upon whether we're acting in good faith or
not [!!].
Readers will of course be aware that the fiscal views intrinsic to
Simpson-Bowles have been the perennial justification for Social Security
cuts (
"the
progressive give-up formula"
) and austerity generally. And if you
think Democrat orthodoxy on SImpson Bowles has changed, see Robert Rubin
today (below). If you buy Simpson-Bowles, you buy Social Security cuts.
The policy is bad enough, but "depending upon whether we're acting in
good faith or not" is, to me, the real mind-boggler.
Hillary Clinton Said Her Dream Is A Hemispheric Common Market, With
Open Trade And Open Markets. *"My dream is a hemispheric common
market, with
open trade and open borders
, some time in the
future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it,
powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere."
On "green," see Clinton below on climate change. On trade, anybody
with a "dream" like that will not surrender TPP lightly.
Hillary Clinton Said One Of The Problems With A No Fly Zone Would
Be The Need To Take Out Syria's Air Defense, And "You're Going To Kill
A Lot Of Syrians." "So we're not as good as we used to be, but we
still-we can still deliver, and we should have in my view been trying
to do that so we would have better insight. But the idea that we would
have like a no fly zone-Syria, of course, did have when it started the
fourth biggest Army in the world. It had very sophisticated air
defense systems. They're getting more sophisticated thanks to Russian
imports. To have
a no fly zone
you have to take out all of
the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our
missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we're not putting our
pilots at risk-you're going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a
sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an
American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians." [
Speech to Goldman Sachs, 2013 IBD Ceo Annual Conference, 6/4/13]
And speaking of beating the war drums, there's this gobsmacking quote
on
climate change
(tinePublic, 2014):
Clinton Talked About "Phony Environmental Groups" Funded By The
Russians To Stand Against Pipelines And Fracking. "We were up against
Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up
against phony environmental groups, and I'm a big environmentalist,
but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, oh
that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,
and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from
Russia." [Remarks at tinePublic, 6/18/14]
With the media exclusively attuned to every new, or 11-year-old as the case may be, twist in the
Trump "sex tape" saga, it appeared that everyone forgot that a little over 24 hours ago, Wikileaks
exposed the real reason why Hillary was keeping her Wall Street speech transcripts - which we now
know had always been within easy reach for her campaign - secret.
In her own words : "if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the
deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and
a private position." In other words, you have to lie to the general public while promising those
who just paid you $250,000 for an hour of your speaking time something entirely different, which
is precisely what those accusing Hillary of hiding her WS transcripts had done; and as yesterday's
hacked documents revealed, they were right.
The Clinton campaign
refused to disavow the hacked excerpts, although it quickly tired to pin the blame again on Russia:
"We are not going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by Julian Assange, who
has made no secret of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton," spokesman Glen Caplin said in a prepared
statement. Previous releases have "Guccifer 2.0 has already proven the warnings of top national security
officials that documents can be faked as part of a sophisticated Russian misinformation campaign."
Ironically, it was literally minutes before the Wikileaks release of the "Podesta Files" that
the US formally accused Russia of waging a hacking cyber attack on the US political establishment,
almost as if it knew Wikileaks was about to make the major disclosure, and sought to minimize its
impact by scapegoating Vladimir Putin.
And while the Trump campaign tried to slam the leak, with spokesman saying "now we finally get
confirmation of Clinton's catastrophic plans for completely open borders and diminishing America's
influence in the world. There is a reason Clinton gave these high-paid speeches in secret behind
closed doors - her real intentions will destroy American sovereignty as we know it, further illustrating
why Hillary Clinton is simply unfit to be president", Trump's campaign had its own raging inferno
to deal with.
So, courtesy of what Trump said about some woman 11 years ago, in all the din over the oddly coincident
Trump Tape leak, most of the noise created by the Hillary speeches was lost.
But not all.
According to
Reuters , supporters of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday "
seethed ", and "expressed anger and vindication over leaked comments made by Hillary Clinton
to banks and big business that appeared to confirm their fears about her support for global trade
and tendency to cozy up to Wall Street. "
Clinton,
who last it emerged had slammed Bernie supporters as "basement dwellers" in a February fundraiser,
with virtually no media coverage, needs Sanders' coalition of young and left-leaning voters to propel
her to the presidency, pushes for open trade and open borders in one of the speeches, and
takes a conciliatory approach to Wall Street , both positions she later backed away from
in an effort to capture the popular appeal of Sanders' attacks on trade deals and powerful banks.
Needless to say, there was no actualy "backing away", and instead Hillary did what he truly excels
in better than most: she told the public what they wanted to hear, and will promptly reneg on once
she becomes president.
Only now, this is increasingly obvious to America's jilted youth: " this is a very clear
illustration of why there is a fundamental lack of trust from progressives for Hillary Clinton,"
said Tobita Chow, chair of the People's Lobby in Chicago, which endorsed Sanders in the
primary election.
" The progressive movement needs to make a call to Secretary Clinton to clarify where
she stands really on these issues and that's got to involve very clear renunciations of the positions
that are revealed in these transcripts," Chow said.
Good luck that, or even getting a response, even though Hillary was largely spared from providing
one: as Reuters correctly observes, the revelations were immediately overshadowed by the release
of an 11-year-old recording of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, making lewd comments
about women. In fact, the revelations were almost entirely ignored by the same prime time TV that
has been glued to the Trump slow-motion trainwreck over the past 24 hours.
Still, the hacked speeches could lead to further erosion in support from the so very critical
to her successful candidacy, young American voter.
Clinton has worked hard to build trust with so-called progressives, adopting several of Sanders'
positions after she bested him in the primary race. The U.S. senator from Vermont now supports
his former rival in the Nov. 8 general election against Trump. Still, Clinton has struggled to
win support from young "millennials" who were crucial to Sanders' success, and some Democrats
expressed concern that the leaks would discourage those supporters from showing up to vote.
"That is a big concern and this certainly doesn't help," said Larry Cohen, chair
of the board of Our Revolution, a progressive organization formed in the wake of Sanders' bid for
the presidency, which aims to keep pushing the former candidate's ideas at a grassroots level. "It
matters in terms of turnout, energy, volunteering, all those things."
Still, despite the Trump media onslaught, the message appeared to filter through to those who
would be most impacted by Hillary selling out her voters if she were to win the presidency.
"Bernie was right about Hillary," wrote Facebook user Grace Tilly cited by Rueters, "she's a tool
for Wall Street."
"Clinton is the politicians' politician - exactly the Wall Street insider Bernie described," wrote
Facebook user Brian Leach.
Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf said progressive voters would still choose the former first
lady, even with misgivings. "I'd like to meet the Bernie Sanders supporter who is going to say, 'Well
I'm a little worried about her on international trade, so I'm going to vote for Donald Trump'," he
said.
He just may meet a few, especially if Bernie's supporters ask themselves why Bernie's support
for Hillary remained so unwavering despite a leak confirming that Hillary was indeed all he had previously
railed against.
In a statement earlier, Sanders responded to the leak by saying that despite Hillary's paid speeches
to Wall Street in which she expressed an agenda diametrically opposite to that espoused by the Vermont
socialist, he reiterated his his support for the Democratic Party platform.
"Whatever Secretary Clinton may or may not have said behind closed doors on Wall Street, I am
determined to implement the agenda of the Democratic Party platform which was agreed upon by her
campaign," he said in a statement.
"Among other things, that agenda calls for breaking up the largest financial institutions
in this country, re-establishing Glass-Steagall and prosecuting those many Wall Street CEOs who engaged
in illegal behavior. "
In retrospect we find it fascinating that in the aftermath of October's two big surprises served
up on Friday, Sanders actually believes any of that having read through Hillary's
Wall Street speeches, certainly far more fascinating than the staged disgust with Trump who, the
media is suddenly stunned to find, was no more politically correct 11 year ago than he is today.
I'm surprised not to see anything here about the "political bombshell" of Trump's latest sexist
remarks.
As I listen to the talking heads bloviate about what a "death blow" this is to the Trump campaign,
it occurs to me that if the Repubs could engineer Trump's withdrawal from the top of the ticket,
they could probably beat Hillary with Pence. They would have to arrange it so that Trump goes
agreeably - should not be too hard to do, since many doubt if he WANTS to be president - and Pence
could pledge that he would carry forward all of Trump's wonderful Screw the Establishment policies.
Trump without the messy Trump_vs_deep_states.
Disgusting as Trump is, I'm sure not looking forward to the howls of misogyny that will be
coming from the Clinton camp. And, just another distraction from talking about policy.
1. Clinton is corrupt (again), liar (still), dishonest (again), warmonger (still) etc. Trump
is racist(still), bigot (again), misogynist (still), Hitler (Putin, Ahmedinejad)…. gets tedious
after the 20th time.
2. I think Trump does it on purpose as a response to a Clinton dump. It looks like her GS speeches
are out today so the networks can cover Trump's latest bigoted statement and ignore Clinton insulting
the voters and sucking up to the oligarchs.
"... Then, Mook reveals that the campaign is working with Epstein on a piece bashing Sanders staff for underhanded tactics. ..."
"... "We are also working with Jen Epstein for a story about this (not necessarily the 11pm knocks, which we are working to confirm) regarding Sanders staff coming to office openings, tracking us, lying about endorsements, other shady field activity, etc.," Mook says in the email. ..."
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign collaborated with Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Epstein to
create an anti-Bernie Sanders story prior to the Nevada caucus.
In the vast trove of Clinton emails leaked Thursday by the organization DCLeaks, there is an email
exchange between Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and Emily Ruiz, head of the campaign's Nevada
operation. In the exchange, Ruiz and Mook discuss rumors that Sanders volunteers were posing as Clinton
operatives and engaging in irritating behavior like knocking on voters' doors at 11 pm.
Then, Mook reveals that the campaign is working with Epstein on a piece bashing Sanders staff
for underhanded tactics.
"We are also working with Jen Epstein for a story about this (not necessarily the 11pm knocks,
which we are working to confirm) regarding Sanders staff coming to office openings, tracking us,
lying about endorsements, other shady field activity, etc.," Mook says in the email.
"... "In my lifetime I cannot remember anything like the scepticism about these values that we see today," said Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. ..."
"... There was much discussion this week about the underlying causes of that scepticism - low growth, stagnant wages and other scars of the 2008 global financial crisis - together with calls for governments to do more to ensure the benefits of globalisation are distributed more widely. ..."
"... Lou Jiwei, China's finance minister, told reporters on Friday, the current "political risks" would in the immediate future lead only to "superficial changes" for the global economy. But underlying them was a deeper trend of "deglobalisation". ..."
The world's economic elite spent this week invoking fears of protectionism and the
existential
crisis facing globalisation
.... ... ...
Mr Trump has raised the possibility of trying to renegotiate the terms of the US sovereign debt
much as he did repeatedly with his own business debts as a property developer. He also has proposed
imposing punitive tariffs on imports from China and Mexico and ripping up existing US trade pacts.
... ... ...
"Once a tariff has been imposed on a country's exports, it is in that country's best interest
to retaliate, and when it does, both countries end up worse off," IMF economists wrote.
It is not just angst over Mr Trump. There are similar concerns over Brexit and the rise of populist
parties elsewhere in Europe. All present their own threats to the advance of the US-led path of economic
liberalisation pursued since Keynes and his peers gathered at Bretton Woods in 1944.
"In my lifetime I cannot remember anything like the scepticism about these values that we
see today," said Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
There was much discussion this week about the underlying causes of that scepticism - low growth,
stagnant wages and other scars of the 2008 global financial crisis - together with calls for governments
to do more to ensure the benefits of globalisation are distributed more widely.
Lou Jiwei, China's finance minister, told reporters on Friday, the current "political risks" would
in the immediate future lead only to "superficial changes" for the global economy. But underlying
them was a deeper trend of "deglobalisation".
"... Weak global trade, fears that the U.K. is marching towards a hard Brexit , and polls indicating that the U.S. election remains a tighter call than markets are pricing in have led a bevy of analysts to redouble their warnings that a backlash over globalization is poised to roil global financial markets-with profound consequences for the real economy and investment strategies. ..."
"... From the economists and politicians at the annual IMF meeting in Washington to strategists on Wall Street trying to advise clients, everyone seems to be pondering a future in which cooperation and global trade may look much different than they do now. ..."
"... "The main risk with potentially tough negotiating tactics is that trade partners could panic, especially if global coordination evaporates." ..."
Weak global trade, fears that the U.K. is marching towards a
hard Brexit , and polls indicating that the U.S. election remains a
tighter call than markets are
pricing in have led a bevy of analysts to redouble their warnings that a backlash over globalization
is poised to roil global financial markets-with profound consequences for the real economy and investment
strategies.
From the economists and politicians at the annual
IMF meeting in Washington to strategists on Wall Street trying to advise clients, everyone seems
to be pondering a future in which cooperation and
global trade may look much different than they do now.
Brexit
Suggestions that the U.K. will prioritize control over its migration policy at the expense of
open access to Europe's single market in negotiations to leave the European Union-a strategy that's
being dubbed a "hard Brexit"-loomed large over global markets. The U.K. government is "strongly supportive
of open markets, free markets, open economies, free trade," said
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York
on Thursday. "But we have a problem-and it's not just a British problem, it's a developed-world problem-in
keeping our populations engaged and supportive of our market capitalism, our economic model."
Trade
Citing the rising anti-trade sentiment, analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch warned that
"events show nations are becoming less willing to cooperate, more willing to contest," and a
backlash against inequality is likely to trigger more activist fiscal policies. Looser government
spending in developed countries-combined with trade protectionism and wealth redistribution-could
reshape global investment strategies, unleashing a wave of inflation, the bank argued, amid a looming
war against inequality.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew did his part to push for more openness. During an interview in
Washington on Thursday, he said that efforts to boost trade, combined with a more equitable distribution
of the fruits of economic growth, are key to ensuring
U.S. prosperity. Rolling back on globalization would be counterproductive to any attempt to boost
median incomes, he added.
Trump
Without mentioning him by name, Lew's comments appeared to nod to Donald Trump, who some believe
could take the U.S. down a more isolationist trading path should he be elected president in November.
"The emergence of Donald Trump as a political force reflects a mood of growing discontent about immigration,
globalization and the distribution of wealth," write analysts at Fathom Consulting, a London-based
research firm. Their central scenario is that a Trump administration might be benign for the U.S.
economy. "However, in our downside scenario, Donald Dark, global trade falls sharply and a global
recession looms. In this world, isolationism wins, not just in the U.S., but globally," they caution.
Analysts at Standard Chartered Plc agree that the tail risks of a Trump presidency could be significant.
"The main risk with potentially tough negotiating tactics is that trade partners could panic, especially
if global coordination evaporates." They add that business confidence could take a big hit in this
context. "The global trade system could descend into a spiral of trade tariffs, reminiscent of what
happened after the
Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 , and ultimately a trade war, possibly accompanied by foreign-exchange
devaluations; this would be a 'lose-lose' deal for all."
Market participants are also concerned that populism could take root under a Hillary Clinton administration.
"We believe the liberal base's demands on a Clinton Administration could lead to an overly expansive
federal government with aggressive regulators," write analysts at Barclays Plc. "If the GOP does
not unify, Clinton may expand President Obama's use of executive authority to accomplish her goals."
"... Hillary Clinton and husband Bill will turn the White House and the U.S. Government into their personal bank. ..."
"... If the American electorate selects Hillary as their commander and chief she will immediately demand a No-Fly Zone over Syria. She will impose more economic sanctions on Russia, including an increase in NATO strength on Russia's western borders, just to show she is the Queen bitch. She will give israHell carte blanche to increase and expand further abuse in the Gaza strip. She is a woman scorned. And a very dangerous one. ..."
"... [neo]Liberalism is in terminal decline, and not a moment too soon. ..."
"... Hillary does not have any creative spark at all. She, like Obama is a dud, but one thing is for sure, she is not Donald. ..."
"... These same americans should go back, for once, to his 2008 campaign to defeat first Hillary in the primaries and then the republican McCain. ..."
"... The climate was dominated by the financial meltdown, which really started in the summer of 2007 and was evident by early spring of 2008. Hillary was the candidate of Wall Street, according to Obama, the republicans were one and the same with Wall Street and all the big corporate world, he was Hope and Change. ..."
"... Hope? What hope? And even more: change, what change? There has been little change, if almost half of the nation is now ready to accept Trump as a promise of change. Obama's main financial support came in 2008 from Wall Street, hedge funds in particular, and they were right because nobody like the first Afro-American president, himself inevitably the incarnation of progressivism, could save their ass after all the criminal finance they indulged in. ..."
"... So, Obama's inheritance is a problem, and Hillary is running on Obama's inheritance. ..."
"... Robert Kagan, ringleader of the cabal of neo-cons has endorsed Hillary, who is Roberts wife? why bless me if it isn't Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland, ..."
"... Samantha Powers is a neo-con acolyte, Ashton Carter is too, the State Dept. and the council of foreign relations is riddled with their people, all the horror figures of Dubya's days are lurking there and pulling strings, ..."
"... Kerry isn't really a neo-con, but the Pentagon and CIA sabotage anything half decent he tries to do, ..."
"... Basically Hillary is as genuine, left leaning and honest as Tony Blair.... ..."
"... Also remember the lack of believability of Hillary. She is a politician that has been caught in lies so often that people just don't believe her. She pushed the soda tax in Philly until Coca-Cola complained that they gave too much money to the Foundation to be treated that way. Hillary backed off. She made millions from speaking to Big Banks. So we really believe she will go after Wells Fargo? She is beholden to them (unless Goldman Sachs gets to choose). She says raise taxes to pay fair share, but her biggest supporters are Apple, Google, and their executives that keep billions of income overseas to avoid the highest corporate income tax in the world. Do we really think she will hurt the contributors to the Foundation? And the more the email saga plays out, the longer the untrustworthy issue remains in everyone's mind. MonotonousLanguor , 2016-10-07 20:58:06 Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton will hold anyone on Wall Street accountable??? She is bought and paid for by Wall Street, starting with all the green backs Hillary and Bill stuffed in their pockets from the those speaking fees. Obama's Justice Department motto was, Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail. The Democrats are not going to bite their masters on Wall Street, and of course neither will the Republicans. IanB52 -> NoctilucentGinswig , 2016-10-07 20:41:06 Prosecuting bankers, prosecuting torturers, stopping white collar crime, wars, assassinations, warrantless spying and even scheduling of Marijuana are all under the control of the Executive Branch. Find even one of these where the President did the right thing. Uncle Putin , 2016-10-07 20:26:49 This is exactly what I was thinking during the first presidential debate. Hillary is an old pro at saying all the right things, pushing all the right buttons to get the votes she needs, but can you believe much of what she says? ..."
"... This is why, despite a poor debate performance overall, I thought Trump was spot on when he simply said she was a typical politician--all talk, no action, sounds great, none of it will ever happen. He's correct. ..."
"... What Frank seldom writes of but remains extremely important to many people on the left in the US is that Obama has governed as the effective prisoner of the Pentagon and security establishment. His wars (including on whistleblowers), nuclear build-up, and confrontation with Russia have given added momentum to growing neoconservative bipartisan consensus that will likely see a new President Clinton start a war with Russia in Syria and/or Ukraine. ..."
"... The Democrats are now both so neoliberal and so neoconservative that the only thing that differentiates them from Republicans is social progressivism. Given a choice between the latter and greatly increased likelihood of nuclear war, I have to confess to preferring that Trump win. Trump has been consistent in wanting to lessen tensions with Russia. ..."
"... Not even social progressivism, so much as a set of captive client constituencies whom they name-drop and weaponize. ..."
The puzzle that is currently frustrating the pundit minds of America is this: why is Hillary
Clinton not simply clobbering Donald Trump? How is this ranting, seething buffoon still competitive
with her? Trump has now stumbled through a series of the kind of blunders that break ordinary
political campaigns – the sort of deadly hypocrisies that always kill the demagogue in old movies
– and yet this particular demagogue keeps on trucking. Why?
Let us answer that burning pundit question of today by jumping to what will undoubtedly be
the next great object of pundit ardor: the legacy of President Barack Obama. Two months from now,
when all the TV wise men are playing historian and giving their estimation on where Obama ranks
in the pantheon of the greats, they will probably neglect to mention that his legacy helped to
determine Hillary's fortunes in this election cycle.
"As a beloved figure among Democrats, for example, Obama was instrumental in securing the nomination
for her. As a president who has accomplished little since 2011, however, Obama has pretty much
undermined Clinton's ability to sell us on another centrist Democratic presidency. His legacy
has diluted her promise
…. Or take this headline from just a few days ago: "Clinton promises to hold Wells Fargo accountable".
Go get 'em, Hillary! To see a president get tough with elite bankers and with CEOs in general
– that's something we can all cheer for. But then that nagging voice piped up again: if Democrats
think it is so critical to get tough with crooked banksters, why oh why didn't Barack Obama take
the many, many opportunities he had to do so back in the days when it would have really mattered?"
Senator Elizabeth Warren pronounced on the current state of middle America as follows:
Look around. Americans bust their tails, some working two or three jobs, but wages stay
flat. Meanwhile, the basic costs of making it from month to month keep going up. Housing, healthcare,
child care – costs are out of sight. Young people are getting crushed by student loans. Working
people are in debt. Seniors can't stretch a social security check to cover the basics.
It was a powerful indictment of what Warren called a "rigged" system – except for one thing:
that system is presided over by Barack Obama, a man that same Democratic convention was determined
to apotheosize as one of the greatest politicians of all times.
The larger problem facing them is the terminal irrelevance of their great, overarching campaign
theme. Remember the "man from Hope"? "Hope is on the way"? "Keep hope alive"? Well, this year
"hope" is most assuredly dead. Thanks to Obama's flagrant hope-dealing in the dark days of 2008
– followed up by his failure to reverse the disintegration of the middle class – this favorite
Democratic cliché has finally become just that: an empty phrase.
If the American electorate selects Hillary as their commander and chief she will immediately
demand a No-Fly Zone over Syria. She will impose more economic sanctions on Russia, including
an increase in NATO strength on Russia's western borders, just to show she is the Queen bitch.
She will give israHell carte blanche to increase and expand further abuse in the Gaza strip. She
is a woman scorned. And a very dangerous one.
[neo]Liberalism is in terminal decline, and not a moment too soon. It's far past time
we redeveloped a politics of interests rather than this Christianised values sham.
Hillary will win because she is not Trump. If she wins it is another 4 Obama like years and it
is Bill's Third Term in Office. Hillary does not have any creative spark at all. She, like
Obama is a dud, but one thing is for sure, she is not Donald.
Too many americans are mesmerized by the fact that Obama is young and articulate, plays well
the presidential role, is generally speaking what is called a nice person or at least behaves
formally as if he were one, has but only of late (thanks to Hillary and Trump perhaps, by contrast)
a fairly high popularity score.
These same americans should go back, for once, to his 2008 campaign to defeat first Hillary
in the primaries and then the republican McCain.
The climate was dominated by the financial meltdown, which really started in the summer
of 2007 and was evident by early spring of 2008. Hillary was the candidate of Wall Street, according
to Obama, the republicans were one and the same with Wall Street and all the big corporate world,
he was Hope and Change.
Hope? What hope? And even more: change, what change? There has been little change, if almost
half of the nation is now ready to accept Trump as a promise of change. Obama's main financial
support came in 2008 from Wall Street, hedge funds in particular, and they were right because
nobody like the first Afro-American president, himself inevitably the incarnation of progressivism,
could save their ass after all the criminal finance they indulged in.
And Obama did save their skin, as everybody knows. Obama took on board plenty of Clinton (and
Wall Street) people, starting in June 2008, when Hillary was finished. You cannot change that
much after the financial crisis if you take Lawrence Summers as economic top advisor and you install
young Geithner at the Treasury. Paul Volcker, who inspired so many good and useful judgements
for candidate Obama, was put in the closet.
Obama is a lawyer by education and he knows who is the best customer. That's not the man or
the woman of Main Street. To them, some of them, he gave Obamacare, which is not all bad and something
of it will remain, I think, but it's not at all that major reform he has been boasting about.
By november 8 everybody will know that Obamacare has serious problems.
So, Obama's inheritance is a problem, and Hillary is running on Obama's inheritance.
nice to see the Guardian have a moment of clarity!
I do feel sympathy for Obama, he, and his family, have effectively spent 8 years held hostage
in the White House by those perfidious neo-conservatives,
they existed in Ronnie Raygun's day but he laughed at them, G H Bush referred to them as 'the
crazies in the basement' and kept close tabs on them,
they were happily meddling away during Bill Clintons era helping destroy Yugoslavia and furiously
planning their 'Project for a New American Century' PNAC basically a blueprint and justification
for every shitty thing done since,
G W Bush let loose the neo-cons of war and we know what they've done,
Barack Obama's greatest folly was to not round them up on the first day of his presidency,
put them in a sack with a brick and throw them in the river,
they have infested his government and followed their own agenda whilst laughing at him, so
the story goes, at a private dinner party Barack was asked why he wasn't doing anything to thwart
these shits and his reply was 'you saw what they did to MLK'
now at the transition to Clinton these neo-cons are actively endorsing her, they consider her
'their girl' Clinton may well turn out to be George 'Dubya' with tits,
Robert Kagan, ringleader of the cabal of neo-cons has endorsed Hillary, who is Roberts
wife? why bless me if it isn't Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland,
Samantha Powers is a neo-con acolyte, Ashton Carter is too, the State Dept. and the council
of foreign relations is riddled with their people, all the horror figures of Dubya's days are
lurking there and pulling strings,
Kerry isn't really a neo-con, but the Pentagon and CIA sabotage anything half decent he
tries to do,
Elizabeth Warren as VP would have given Hillary great credibility but she is explicitly not
a neo-conservative,
Basically Hillary is as genuine, left leaning and honest as Tony Blair....
and people wonder why they pin their last tatter of hope Donald 'Mr Bombastic' Trump?
much as I find Trump and his hardcore supporters loathsome I have to point out that he has:
expressed interest in talking with and working with Putin as opposed to starting WW3
accepted the concept of climate change (massive move for a Republican) but pointed out nuclear
war is an even greater and more immediate threat,
pointed out the expenditure of 5-6 Trillion dollars on pointless wars whilst the country crumbles
to ruins, basically a third of the US national debt run up in 15 years,
the fact he wants to make America great again is because he acknowledges that it isn't great
atm,
he's pointed out that Hillary makes all these pledges but has been in a position of power for
decades and has done sod all about it,
and the establishment , especially the neo-cons absolutely hate him...
if you're going to hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil maybe chauvinism and casual
racism are those lesser evils,
LGBT rights will not defend you from nuclear bombs, the heat flash that vaporises you is fairly
indifferent to skin colour or religion,
Also remember the lack of believability of Hillary. She is a politician that has been caught
in lies so often that people just don't believe her. She pushed the soda tax in Philly until Coca-Cola
complained that they gave too much money to the Foundation to be treated that way. Hillary backed
off.
She made millions from speaking to Big Banks. So we really believe she will go after Wells
Fargo? She is beholden to them (unless Goldman Sachs gets to choose).
She says raise taxes to pay fair share, but her biggest supporters are Apple, Google, and their
executives that keep billions of income overseas to avoid the highest corporate income tax in
the world. Do we really think she will hurt the contributors to the Foundation?
And the more the email saga plays out, the longer the untrustworthy issue remains in everyone's
mind.
Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton will hold anyone on Wall Street accountable??? She
is bought and paid for by Wall Street, starting with all the green backs Hillary and Bill stuffed
in their pockets from the those speaking fees.
Obama's Justice Department motto was, Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail. The Democrats are not
going to bite their masters on Wall Street, and of course neither will the Republicans.
Prosecuting bankers, prosecuting torturers, stopping white collar crime, wars, assassinations,
warrantless spying and even scheduling of Marijuana are all under the control of the Executive
Branch. Find even one of these where the President did the right thing.
This is exactly what I was thinking during the first presidential debate. Hillary is an old
pro at saying all the right things, pushing all the right buttons to get the votes she needs,
but can you believe much of what she says?
This is why, despite a poor debate performance overall, I thought Trump was spot on when
he simply said she was a typical politician--all talk, no action, sounds great, none of it will
ever happen. He's correct.
Hillary is promising all sorts of things that she knows will never come to fruition. I voted
for Obama twice, but I'm chomping at the bit to vote for Trump, for no other reason then the fact
that he is the true outsider here. It's a gamble for sure, but with the right advisors he could
potentially institute some major changes that will never happen under a cautious Hillary who will
be obsessed with re-election the minute she starts her first term.
What Frank seldom writes of but remains extremely important to many people on the left in
the US is that Obama has governed as the effective prisoner of the Pentagon and security establishment.
His wars (including on whistleblowers), nuclear build-up, and confrontation with Russia have given
added momentum to growing neoconservative bipartisan consensus that will likely see a new President
Clinton start a war with Russia in Syria and/or Ukraine.
The Democrats are now both so neoliberal and so neoconservative that the only thing that
differentiates them from Republicans is social progressivism. Given a choice between the latter
and greatly increased likelihood of nuclear war, I have to confess to preferring that Trump win.
Trump has been consistent in wanting to lessen tensions with Russia.
As a voter, of course, I could vote for neither, and so am voting for Jill Stein.
Thus my nightmares about the coming election. Consider:
Trump:
He promises to "make America great again."
("Deutschland uber alles," anyone?) He rants against immigrants and Muslims and
conniving foreign nations like Mexico and China. (Jews and gypsies get a pass this
time.) He is a bully. He promises hope to those who have been left behind economically
and socially. He attracts huge and very devoted crowds at his rallies. He has no
coherent program, at least yet-you have to believe in him as a great leader.
Whom does he remind you of, at least vaguely?
Clinton:
She is secretive to a fault, perhaps
paranoid in her pursuit of power. There are hints of hidden illnesses, so reminiscent of
Uncle Joe. An unhidden lust for money at any cost. Considering "two for the price of
one" (Bill and Hill), there are the key operatives who conveniently die when in
disfavor. They do not hesitate to use the Justice Department, and especially the IRS, to
persecute opponents. She runs a tight operation, as secretive as she is personally, and
has an ideological platform for totally transforming America.
Whom does she remind you of, at least vaguely?
Again, let me be clear. I do not think Trump has a
holocaust in mind; he is just an opportunist using "the other" both domestically and
abroad to gain power. And I do not think Clinton has the stamina for sustained great
purges and great gulags. Yes, she has a lust for power, but she has even more lust for
getting rich through politics. She can be bought, and has been, constantly.
It is these characteristics, however, that are so
disturbing. They build on what has come before, but suggest a revolutionary escalation.
Every president during my lifetime has added to the power of the American empire and the
deep state, but now we seem to be at an unprecedented and transformative junction.
This may actually help the Donald mobilize his base of pissed-off white
guys. I mean, how do you think
they
talk about women in their
locker rooms, truck stops, and on the unemployment line?
I don't recall those women actually being on the ballot for
president.
Good to know you wouldn't be offended to hear a bunch of women
treat you like a piece of meat and brag about how they attempted to
"nail you" even ignoring the fact that you were married? Nothing
offensive there right? You'd love it if women spent their time looking
at your pants straining to figure out the size of the bulge so they
can discuss it in detail instead of I don't know, actually listening
to you? It's classy and professional behavior(and yes Donald was there
for work).
Hey, I do have to respect that you've adopted his strategy also of
excusing his behavior by making this all about everyone else too-
incredibly adult. The "mommy they did it first" defense utilized by
Donald Trump, his defenders and 3 to 7 year olds throughout the US.
Right. Stop the presses. Trump is lascivious. That's news to who,
exactly?
And what's next? We learn that Trump sometimes farts in public? Or worse,
lets go the occasional SBD? "Revealed" to deflect the latest revelation of
Clinton greed and corruption, I'm sure.
Sheesh … what a low, debased and sad spectacle all around.
"But for all Trump's many faults and flaws, he saw things that were true
and important-and that few other leaders in his party have acknowledged in
the past two decades" [David Frum,
The Atlantic
].
Trump saw that Republican voters are much less religious in behavior
than they profess to pollsters. He saw that the social-insurance state
has arrived to stay. He saw that Americans regard healthcare as a right,
not a privilege. He saw that Republican voters had lost their optimism
about their personal futures-and the future of their country. He saw that
millions of ordinary people who do not deserve to be dismissed as bigots
were sick of the happy talk and reality-denial that goes by the too
generous label of "political correctness." He saw that the immigration
polices that might have worked for the mass-production economy of the
1910s don't make sense in the 2010s. He saw that rank-and-file
Republicans had become nearly as disgusted with the power of money in
politics as rank-and-file Democrats long have been. He saw that
Republican presidents are elected, when they are elected, by employees as
well as entrepreneurs. He saw these things, and he was right to see them.
Thanks for the link. Interesting and depressing. A snippet:
" Oligarchy is rule by the few. Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy.
Corporatocracy is a society governed or controlled by corporations. We have
all three."
Kathleen Lake
9m ago
1
2
Hillary, we believe Assange not you and you have earned
out contempt. It's sickening to know isn't it, that
almost ANY anonymous hacker has more credibility than
she who pretends to the throne (and in Clinton's case
it is a monarchy not a democracy as thev"line of
succession" was determined long before even one vote
was cast). Thanks for allowing your (lack of) character
to give us one more entry into you litany of lies,
corruption, deceit and infamy.", hillary. I will not
vote for corruption, lies and oil wars, so I will not
vote you... ever.
David Stalker
11m ago
0
1
Well what with Bill Clinton gaining the presidency and
Hillary the secretary of state position along with the
wealth they have generated how could they be none other
than establishment for those not familiar with that
phrase. and i quote from wikipedia. The Establishment
generally denotes a dominant group or elite that holds
power or authority in a nation or organization. The
Establishment may be a closed social group which
selects its own members or specific entrenched elite
structures, either in government or in specific
institutions. And as such my view is she will get the
job as President.
eldudeabides
14m ago
1
2
In public we hear her yarn about being against TTIP.....in
private, the opposite.
....In April 2015 the New York Times published a
story about a company called "Uranium One" which was
sold to Russian government-controlled interests,
giving Russia effective control of one-fifth of all
uranium production capacity in the United States.
Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with
implications for the production of nuclear weapons,
the deal had to be approved by a committee composed
of representatives from a number of US government
agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed
off the deal was the State Department, then headed
by Secretary Clinton. The Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States (CFIUS) comprises,
among others, the secretaries of the Treasury,
Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy.
As Russian interests gradually took control of
Uranium One millions of dollars were donated to the
Clinton Foundation between 2009 and 2013 from
individuals directly connected to the deal including
the Chairman of Uranium One, Ian Telfer. Although
Mrs Clinton had an agreement with the Obama White
House to publicly identify all donors to the Clinton
Foundation, the contributions from the Chairman of
Uranium One were not publicly disclosed by the
Clintons.
sblejo
1h ago
3
4
How can anyone trust Clinton and CO. when they
undermined Bernie Sanders, of their own party, because
he was winning??? Despicable, disreputable, dishonest,
power hungry, corrupt. What else can be said about her
and her ilk. And then they blame Russia for exposing
the treachery, Americans, so easily led, ignored the
truth of the situation. Americans, still do not admit
the ugly truth, voting for power rather than ethics.
Incredible, she is the other side of the Trump coin.
Confucion
2h ago
3
4
"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue
and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters,"
Trump said at a campaign rally here.
No difference between Trump and Hillary. They are
pathological liars, sociopath and extremely sick minds.
They can be caught constantly in their bad deeds but
yet they still US presidential candidates.
Time ago people will reject slavery, injustice and
abuse. Today it is laissez faire, laissez passer
because US people became zombies. Hopeless of hopeless.
europeangrayling
2h ago
8
9
It does not matter, people who support Hillary they
support Hillary. Does not matter, either they don't
believe it, it's right wing conspiracy, or it's OK,
nothing wrong with it.
She has a 'private and public position', that's
Hillary, she is so smart and experienced. She is for
TPP, then against TPP in the primary, now we see 'her
private position' is as many 'free trade' deals as we
can, they are fine with it. There was survey that says
over 70% of Americans don't know what the TPP is, so
that makes sense. She even said she supports cutting SS
and raising retirement age in a speech, called it
'sensible'.
Hillary's support for the Iraq war, Libya,
supporting the Saudis in Yemen and Syria, LIkud in
Israel, the Honduras coup of a democratic government
helped greatly by the US, that she admitted and
advocated for in her book, but then took it out in the
new paper back version.
Where now environmental Native American activists
and regime critics are being killed by the new regime,
and there's a lot more violence in general, but the new
regime is friendly' to western corporate interests and
Hillary donors, so Hillary loves it, still says there
was no coup at all. Even as the EU and our ambassador
to Honduras said it was a coup.
I don't know why, but that Honduras thing really hit
me, and Berta Cáceres's murder. I mean Hillary is
ruthless, or is so detached from reality of life and
what these policies and politics do to regular people,
I don't know. Just like Cheney, so it makes sense that
Wolfowitz and the neocons support her too. But the
Honduras things alone, I can't vote for all that.
"Some of Clinton's pledges sound great. Until you remember who's president"
(Thomas Frank)
Yes, and I don't recall (hey, that's
her
line!) the exact phraseology, but something
Mrs. Clinton said during the first debate reminded me strongly of Bill in '92. And we all know how
that
worked out.
No one believes the Dems' talking points any more because they have largely been unfulfilled during
the last two Democratic presidencies.
Oct 7, 2016 6:01 PM
Zero Hedge
0
SHARES
While the media is transfixed with the just released Washington Post leak of a
private Donald Trump conversation from 2005
in which he was speaking "lewdly" about
women, and for which he has apologized, roughly at the same time, Wikileaks released
part one of what it dubbed the "
Podesta
emails
", which it describes as "a series on deals involving Hillary Clinton campaign
Chairman John Podesta. Mr Podesta is a long-term associate of the Clintons and was
President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1998 until 2001. Mr Podesta also owns the
Podesta Group with his brother Tony, a major lobbying firm and is the Chair of the
Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington DC-based think tank."
While the
underlying story in this specific case involves the alleged kickbacks received by the
Clinton Foundation from the Russian government-controlled "Uranium One", a story which
has been profiled previously by the NYT, and about which Wikileaks adds that "as Russian
interests gradually took control of Uranium One
millions of dollars were donated to
the Clinton Foundation between 2009 and 2013 from individuals directly connected to the
deal including the Chairman of Uranium One, Ian Telfer.
Although Mrs Clinton had an
agreement with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors to the Clinton
Foundation, the contributions from the Chairman of Uranium One were not publicly
disclosed by the Clintons",
what caught our attention is an email from Tony
Carr,
a Research Director at
Hillary for America
, in which he lay outs hundreds of excerpts from the heretofore
missing transcripts of Hillary Clinton's infamous Wall Street speeches, with an emphasis
on those which should be flagged as they may be damaging to Hillary.
But first, here are the greatest hits as conveniently flagged by the Clinton Campaign
itself on page one of the 80 page addendum dubbed "
awkward"
Hillary Clinton: "I'm Kind Of Far Removed" From The Struggles Of The
Middle Class "Because The Life I've Lived And The Economic, You Know, Fortunes That
My Husband And I Now Enjoy."
"And I am not taking a position on any policy,
but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over
the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing
up. Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were. My father
loved to complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle
class upbringing. We had good public schools. We had accessible health care. We
had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money,
didn't believe in mortgages. So I lived that. And now, obviously, I'm kind of far
removed because the life I've lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my
husband and I now enjoy, but I haven't forgotten it." [Hillary Clinton Remarks at
Goldman-Black Rock, 2/4/14]
When A Questioner At Goldman Sachs Said She Raised Money For Hillary
Clinton In 2008, Hillary Clinton Joked "You Are The Smartest People
."
"PARTICIPANT: Secretary, Ann Chow from Houston, Texas. I have had the honor to
raise money for you when you were running for president in Texas. MS. CLINTON: You
are the smartest people. PARTICIPANT: I think you actually called me on my cell
phone, too. I talked to you afterwards." [ Speech to Goldman Sachs, 2013 IBD Ceo
Annual Conference, 6/4/13]
Hillary Clinton Joked That If Lloyd Blankfein Wanted To Run For Office, He
Should "Would Leave Goldman Sachs And Start Running A Soup Kitchen Somewhere
.
" "MR. BLANKFEIN: I'm saying for myself. MS. CLINTON: If you were going
to run here is what I would tell you to do -- MR. BLANKFEIN: Very
hypothetical. MS. CLINTON: I think you would leave Goldman Sachs and start running a
soup kitchen somewhere. MR. BLANKFEIN: For one thing the stock would go
up. MS. CLINTON: Then you could be a legend in your own time both when you were
there and when you left." [ Speech to Goldman Sachs, 2013 IBD Ceo Annual Conference,
6/4/13]
Hillary Clinton Noted President Clinton Had Spoken At The Same Goldman
Summit Last Year, And Blankfein Joked "He Increased Our Budget."
"SECRETARY
CLINTON: Well, first, thanks for having me here and giving me a chance to know a
little bit more about the builders and the innovators who you've gathered. Some of
you might have been here last year, and my husband was, I guess, in this very same
position. And he came back and was just thrilled by- MR. BLANKFEIN: He increased
our budget. SECRETARY CLINTON: Did he? MR. BLANKFEIN: Yes. That's why
we -- SECRETARY CLINTON: Good. I think he-I think he encouraged you to
grow it a little, too. But it really was a tremendous experience for him, so I've
been looking forward to it and hope we have a chance to talk about a lot of things."
[Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit, 10/29/13]
Clinton Said When She Got To State, Employees "Were Not Mostly Permitted
To Have Handheld Devices."
"You know, when Colin Powell showed up as
Secretary of State in 2001, most State Department employees still didn't even have
computers on their desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have
handheld devices. I mean, so you're thinking how do we operate in this new
environment dominated by technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I
can't expect people to change if I don't try to model it and lead it." [Clinton
Speech For General Electric's Global Leadership Meeting – Boca Raton, FL, 1/6/14]
Clinton Joked It's "Risky" For Her To Speak To A Group Committed To
Futures Markets
Given Her Past Whitewater Scandal. "Now, it's always a
little bit risky for me to come speak to a group that is committed to the futures
markets because -- there's a few knowing laughs -- many years ago, I actually traded
in the futures markets. I mean, this was so long ago, it was before computers were
invented, I think. And I worked with a group of like-minded friends and associates
who traded in pork bellies and cotton and other such things, and I did pretty well. I
invested about a thousand dollars and traded up to about a hundred thousand. And then
my daughter was born, and I just didn't think I had enough time or mental space to
figure out anything having to do with trading other than trading time with my
daughter for time with the rest of my life. So I got out, and I thought that would be
the end of it." [Remarks to CME Group, 11/18/13]
Hillary Clinton Said Jordan Was Threatened Because
"They Can't Possibly
Vet All Those Refugees So They Don't Know If, You Know, Jihadists Are Coming In Along
With Legitimate Refugees."
"So I think you're right to have gone to the
places that you visited because there's a discussion going on now across the region
to try to see where there might be common ground to deal with the threat posed by
extremism and particularly with Syria which has everyone quite worried, Jordan
because it's on their border and they have hundreds of thousands of refugees and they
can't possibly vet all those refugees so they don't know if, you know, jihadists are
coming in along with legitimate refugees. Turkey for the same reason." [Jewish
United Fund Of Metropolitan Chicago Vanguard Luncheon, 10/28/13]
Hillary Clinton Said Her Dream Is A Hemispheric Common Market, With Open Trade And
Open Markets.
"My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and
open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as
we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere."
[05162013 Remarks to Banco Itau.doc, p. 28]
* * *
Here is the full email by Carrk as of January 25, 2016 laying out all the potentially
delicate issues that the Clinton campaign would wish to avoid from emerging. One thing
to note: as Michael Tracey points out, the
Hillary campaign had all the transcripts
at her disposal all along, despite repeated deflection.
Perhaps as a result of this
leak she will now release the full transcripts for the "proper context."
Attached are the flags from HRC's paid speeches we have from HWA. I put some
highlights below. There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub
with Policy.
Hillary Clinton: "I'm Kind Of Far Removed" From The Struggles Of The Middle
Class "Because The Life I've Lived And The Economic, You Know, Fortunes That My Husband
And I Now Enjoy."
"And I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think
there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that
the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing up. Never. I mean,
were there really rich people, of course there were. My father loved to complain about
big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing. We had
good public schools. We had accessible health care. We had our little, you know,
one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn't believe in mortgages. So
I lived that. And now, obviously, I'm kind of far removed because the life I've lived
and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven't
forgotten it." [Hillary Clinton Remarks at Goldman-Black Rock, 2/4/14]
CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY
Clinton: "But If Everybody's Watching, You Know, All Of The Back Room
Discussions And The Deals, You Know, Then People Get A Little Nervous, To Say The Least.
So, You Need Both A Public And A Private Position."
CLINTON: You just have to
sort of figure out how to -- getting back to that word, "balance" -- how to balance the
public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and
that's not just a comment about today. That, I think, has probably been true for all of
our history, and if you saw the Spielberg movie, Lincoln, and how he was maneuvering and
working to get the 13th Amendment passed, and he called one of my favorite predecessors,
Secretary Seward, who had been the governor and senator from New York, ran against
Lincoln for president, and he told Seward, I need your help to get this done. And Seward
called some of his lobbyist friends who knew how to make a deal, and they just kept
going at it. I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always
has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody's
watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then
people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private
position. And finally, I think -- I believe in evidence-based decision making. I want to
know what the facts are. I mean, it's like when you guys go into some kind of a deal,
you know, are you going to do that development or not, are you going to do that
renovation or not, you know, you look at the numbers. You try to figure out what's going
to work and what's not going to work. [Clinton Speech For National Multi-Housing
Council, 4/24/13]
CLINTON TALKS ABOUT HOLDING WALL STREET ACCOUNTABLE ONLY FOR POLITICAL
REASONS
Clinton Said That The Blame Placed On The United States Banking System For
The Crisis "Could Have Been Avoided In Terms Of Both Misunderstanding And Really
Politicizing What Happened."
"That was one of the reasons that I started
traveling in February of '09, so people could, you know, literally yell at me for the
United States and our banking system causing this everywhere. Now, that's an
oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom. And I think that there's
a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really
politicizing what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on all
sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening?
You guys help us figure it out and let's make sure that we do it right this time. And I
think that everybody was desperately trying to fend off the worst effects
institutionally, governmentally, and there just wasn't that opportunity to try to sort
this out, and that came later." [Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium,
10/24/13]
* * *
Clinton: "Even If It May Not Be 100 Percent True, If The Perception Is That
Somehow The Game Is Rigged, That Should Be A Problem For All Of Us."
"Now, it's
important to recognize the vital role that the financial markets play in our economy and
that so many of you are contributing to. To function effectively those markets and the
men and women who shape them have to command trust and confidence, because we all rely
on the market's transparency and integrity. So even if it may not be 100 percent true,
if the perception is that somehow the game is rigged, that should be a problem for all
of us, and we have to be willing to make that absolutely clear. And if there are
issues, if there's wrongdoing, people have to be held accountable and we have to try to
deter future bad behavior, because the public trust is at the core of both a free market
economy and a democracy." [Clinton Remarks to Deutsche Bank, 10/7/14]
CLINTON SUGGESTS WALL STREET INSIDERS ARE WHAT IS NEEDED TO FIX WALL
STREET
Clinton Said Financial Reform "Really Has To Come From The Industry Itself."
"Remember what Teddy Roosevelt did. Yes, he took on what he saw as the
excesses in the economy, but he also stood against the excesses in politics. He didn't
want to unleash a lot of nationalist, populistic reaction. He wanted to try to figure
out how to get back into that balance that has served America so well over our entire
nationhood. Today, there's more that can and should be done that really has to come from
the industry itself, and how we can strengthen our economy, create more jobs at a time
where that's increasingly challenging, to get back to Teddy Roosevelt's square deal.
And I really believe that our country and all of you are up to that job." [Clinton
Remarks to Deutsche Bank, 10/7/14]
* * *
Speaking About The Importance Of Proper Regulation, Clinton Said "The People
That Know The Industry Better Than Anybody Are The People Who Work In The Industry."
"I mean, it's still happening, as you know. People are looking back and trying to, you
know, get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of the
agreements that are being reached. There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is
bad, too little is bad. How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what
works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who
work in the industry. And I think there has to be a recognition that, you know, there's
so much at stake now, I mean, the business has changed so much and decisions are made so
quickly, in nano seconds basically. We spend trillions of dollars to travel around the
world, but it's in everybody's interest that we have a better framework, and not just
for the United States but for the entire world, in which to operate and trade." [Goldman
Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, 10/24/13]
CLINTON ADMITS NEEDING WALL STREET FUNDING
Clinton Said That Because Candidates Needed Money From Wall Street To Run For
Office, People In New York Needed To Ask Tough Questions About The Economy Before
Handing Over Campaign Contributions.
"Secondly, running for office in our
country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. New York is
probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides
of the aisle, and it's also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who
should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who
were really playing chicken with our whole economy." [Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative
Investments Symposium, 10/24/13]
* * *
Clinton: "It Would Be Very Difficult To Run For President Without Raising A
Huge Amount Of Money And Without Having Other People Supporting You Because Your
Opponent Will Have Their Supporters."
"So our system is, in many ways, more
difficult, certainly far more expensive and much longer than a parliamentary system, and
I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. Even when I, you know, think
they should not be elected president, I still think, well, you know, good for you I
guess, you're out there promoting democracy and those crazy ideas of yours. So I think
that it's something -- I would like -- you know, obviously as somebody who has been
through it, I would like it not to last as long because I think it's very distracting
from what we should be doing every day in our public business. I would like it not to
be so expensive. I have no idea how you do that. I mean, in my campaign -- I lose
track, but I think I raised $250 million or some such enormous amount, and in the last
campaign President Obama raised 1.1 billion, and that was before the Super PACs and all
of this other money just rushing in, and it's so ridiculous that we have this kind of
free for all with all of this financial interest at stake, but, you know, the Supreme
Court said that's basically what we're in for. So we're kind of in the wild west, and,
you know, it would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge amount
of money and without having other people supporting you because your opponent will have
their supporters. So I think as hard as it was when I ran, I think it's even harder
now." [Clinton Speech For General Electric's Global Leadership Meeting – Boca Raton, FL,
1/6/14]
CLINTON TOUTS HER RELATIONSHIP TO WALL STREET AS A SENATOR
Clinton: As Senator, "I Represented And Worked With" So Many On Wall Street
And "Did All I Could To Make Sure They Continued To Prosper" But Still Called For
Closing Carried Interest Loophole.
In remarks at Robbins, Gellar, Rudman & Dowd
in San Diego, Hillary Clinton said, "When I was a Senator from New York, I represented
and worked with so many talented principled people who made their living in finance.
But even thought I represented them and did all I could to make sure they continued to
prosper, I called for closing the carried interest loophole and addressing skyrocketing
CEO pay. I also was calling in '06, '07 for doing something about the mortgage crisis,
because I saw every day from Wall Street literally to main streets across New York how a
well-functioning financial system is essential. So when I raised early warnings about
early warnings about subprime mortgages and called for regulating derivatives and over
complex financial products, I didn't get some big arguments, because people sort of
said, no, that makes sense. But boy, have we had fights about it ever since." [Hillary
Clinton's Remarks at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego, 9/04/14]
* * *
Clinton On Wall Street: "I Had Great Relations And Worked So Close Together
After 9/11 To Rebuild Downtown, And A Lot Of Respect For The Work You Do And The People
Who Do It."
"Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now, what
would be your advice to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way
forward with those two important decisions? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all
of you for eight years. I had great relations and worked so close together after 9/11
to rebuild downtown, and a lot of respect for the work you do and the people who do it,
but I do -- I think that when we talk about the regulators and the politicians, the
economic consequences of bad decisions back in '08, you know, were devastating, and they
had repercussions throughout the world." [Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments
Symposium, 10/24/13]
CLINTON TALKS ABOUT THE CHALLENGES RUNNING FOR OFFICE
Hillary Clinton Said There Was "A Bias Against People Who Have Led Successful
And/Or Complicated Lives," Citing The Need To Divese Of Assets, Positions, And Stocks.
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. Well, you know what Bob Rubin said about that. He said,
you know, when he came to Washington, he had a fortune. And when he left Washington, he
had a small -- MR. BLANKFEIN: That's how you have a small fortune, is you
go to Washington. SECRETARY CLINTON: You go to Washington. Right. But,
you know, part of the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such a
bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives. You know, the
divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It
just becomes very onerous and unnecessary." [Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators
Summit, 10/29/13]
CLINTON SUGGESTS SHE IS A MODERATE
Clinton Said That Both The Democratic And Republican Parties Should Be
"Moderate."
"URSULA BURNS: Interesting. Democrats? SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh,
long, definitely. URSULA BURNS: Republicans? SECRETARY CLINTON: Unfortunately, at the
time, short. URSULA BURNS: Okay. We'll go back to questions. SECRETARY CLINTON: We
need two parties. URSULA BURNS: Yeah, we do need two parties. SECRETARY CLINTON: Two
sensible, moderate, pragmatic parties." [Hillary Clinton Remarks, Remarks at Xerox,
3/18/14]
* * *
Clinton: "Simpson-Bowles… Put Forth The Right Framework. Namely, We Have To
Restrain Spending, We Have To Have Adequate Revenues, And We Have To Incentivize Growth.
It's A Three-Part Formula… And They Reached An Agreement. But What Is Very Hard To Do Is
To Then Take That Agreement If You Don't Believe That You're Going To Be Able To Move
The Other Side."
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this may be borne more out of hope
than experience in the last few years. But Simpson-Bowles -- and I know you heard from
Erskine earlier today -- put forth the right framework. Namely, we have to restrain
spending, we have to have adequate revenues, and we have to incentivize growth. It's a
three-part formula. The specifics can be negotiated depending upon whether we're acting
in good faith or not. And what Senator Simpson and Erskine did was to bring Republicans
and Democrats alike to the table, and you had the full range of ideological views from I
think Tom Coburn to Dick Durbin. And they reached an agreement. But what is very hard
to do is to then take that agreement if you don't believe that you're going to be able
to move the other side. And where we are now is in this gridlocked dysfunction. So
you've got Democrats saying that, you know, you have to have more revenues; that's the
sine qua non of any kind of agreement. You have Republicans saying no, no, no on
revenues; you have to cut much more deeply into spending. Well, looks what's happened.
We are slowly returning to growth. It's not as much or as fast as many of us would like
to see, but, you know, we're certainly better off than our European friends, and we're
beginning to, I believe, kind of come out of the long aftermath of the '08 crisis.
[Clinton Speech For Morgan Stanley, 4/18/13]
* * *
Clinton: "The Simpson-Bowles Framework And The Big Elements Of It Were Right…
You Have To Restrain Spending, You Have To Have Adequate Revenues, And You Have To Have
Growth."
CLINTON: So, you know, the Simpson-Bowles framework and the big
elements of it were right. The specifics can be negotiated and argued over. But you
got to do all three. You have to restrain spending, you have to have adequate revenues,
and you have to have growth. And I think we are smart enough to figure out how to do
that. [Clinton Speech For Morgan Stanley, 4/18/13]
CLINTON IS AWARE OF SECURITY CONCERNS AROUND BLACKBERRIES
Clinton: "At The State Department We Were Attacked Every Hour, More Than Once
An Hour By Incoming Efforts To Penetrate Everything We Had. And That Was True Across
The U.S. Government."
CLINTON: But, at the State Department we were attacked
every hour, more than once an hour by incoming efforts to penetrate everything we had.
And that was true across the U.S. government. And we knew it was going on when I would
go to China, or I would go to Russia, we would leave all of our electronic equipment on
the plane, with the batteries out, because this is a new frontier. And they're trying
to find out not just about what we do in our government. They're trying to find out
about what a lot of companies do and they were going after the personal emails of people
who worked in the State Department. So it's not like the only government in the world
that is doing anything is the United States. But, the United States compared to a
number of our competitors is the only government in the world with any kind of
safeguards, any kind of checks and balances. They may in many respects need to be
strengthened and people need to be reassured, and they need to have their protections
embodied in law. But, I think turning over a lot of that material intentionally or
unintentionally, because of the way it can be drained, gave all kinds of information not
only to big countries, but to networks and terrorist groups, and the like. So I have a
hard time thinking that somebody who is a champion of privacy and liberty has taken
refuge in Russia under Putin's authority. And then he calls into a Putin talk show and
says, President Putin, do you spy on people? And President Putin says, well, from one
intelligence professional to another, of course not. Oh, thank you so much. I mean,
really, I don't know. I have a hard time following it. [Clinton Speech At UConn,
4/23/14]
* * *
Hillary Clinton: "When I Got To The State Department, It Was Still Against
The Rules To Let Most -- Or Let All Foreign Service Officers Have Access To A
Blackberry."
"I mean, let's face it, our government is woefully, woefully
behind in all of its policies that affect the use of technology. When I got to the
State Department, it was still against the rules to let most -- or let all Foreign
Service Officers have access to a Blackberry. You couldn't have desktop computers when
Colin Powell was there. Everything that you are taking advantage of, inventing and
using, is still a generation or two behind when it comes to our government." [Hillary
Clinton Remarks at Nexenta, 8/28/14]
* * *
Hillary Clinton: "We Couldn't Take Our Computers, We Couldn't Take Our
Personal Devices" Off The Plane In China And Russia.
"I mean, probably the most
frustrating part of this whole debate are countries acting like we're the only people in
the world trying to figure out what's going on. I mean, every time I went to countries
like China or Russia, I mean, we couldn't take our computers, we couldn't take our
personal devices, we couldn't take anything off the plane because they're so good, they
would penetrate them in a minute, less, a nanosecond. So we would take the batteries
out, we'd leave them on the plane." [Hillary Clinton Remarks at Nexenta, 8/28/14]
* * *
Clinton Said When She Got To State, Employees "Were Not Mostly Permitted To
Have Handheld Devices."
"You know, when Colin Powell showed up as Secretary of
State in 2001, most State Department employees still didn't even have computers on their
desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have handheld devices. I
mean, so you're thinking how do we operate in this new environment dominated by
technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I can't expect people to change
if I don't try to model it and lead it." [Clinton Speech For General Electric's Global
Leadership Meeting – Boca Raton, FL, 1/6/14]
* * *
Hillary Clinton Said You Know You Can't Bring Your Phone And Computer When
Traveling To China And Russia And She Had To Take Her Batteries Out And Put them In A
Special Box.
"And anybody who has ever traveled in other countries, some of
which shall remain nameless, except for Russia and China, you know that you can't bring
your phones and your computers. And if you do, good luck. I mean, we would not only
take the batteries out, we would leave the batteries and the devices on the plane in
special boxes. Now, we didn't do that because we thought it would be fun to tell
somebody about. We did it because we knew that we were all targets and that we would be
totally vulnerable. So it's not only what others do to us and what we do to them and how
many people are involved in it. It's what's the purpose of it, what is being collected,
and how can it be used. And there are clearly people in this room who know a lot about
this, and some of you could be very useful contributors to that conversation because
you're sophisticated enough to know that it's not just, do it, don't do it. We have to
have a way of doing it, and then we have to have a way of analyzing it, and then we have
to have a way of sharing it." [Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit, 10/29/13]
* * *
Hillary Clinton Lamented How Far Behind The State Department Was In
Technology, Saying "People Were Not Even Allowed To Use Mobile Devices Because Of
Security Issues."
"Personally, having, you know, lived and worked in the White
House, having been a senator, having been Secretary of State, there has traditionally
been a great pool of very talented, hard-working people. And just as I was saying about
the credit market, our personnel policies haven't kept up with the changes necessary in
government. We have a lot of difficulties in getting-when I got to the State
Department, we were so far behind in technology, it was embarrassing. And, you know,
people were not even allowed to use mobile devices because of security issues and cost
issues, and we really had to try to push into the last part of the 20
th
Century in order to get people functioning in 2009 and '10." [Goldman Sachs Builders And
Innovators Summit, 10/29/13]
CLINTON REMARKS ARE PRO KEYSTONE AND PRO TRADE
Clinton: "So I Think That Keystone Is A Contentious Issue, And Of Course It
Is Important On Both Sides Of The Border For Different And Sometimes Opposing Reasons…"
"So I think that Keystone is a contentious issue, and of course it is important
on both sides of the border for different and sometimes opposing reasons, but that is
not our relationship. And I think our relationship will get deeper and stronger and put
us in a position to really be global leaders in energy and climate change if we worked
more closely together. And that's what I would like to see us do." [Remarks at
tinePublic, 6/18/14]
* * *
Hillary Clinton Said Her Dream Is A Hemispheric Common Market, With Open
Trade And Open Markets.
"My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open
trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and
sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the
hemisphere." [05162013 Remarks to Banco Itau.doc, p. 28]
* * *
Hillary Clinton Said We Have To Have A Concerted Plan To Increase Trade; We
Have To Resist Protectionism And Other Kinds Of Barriers To Trade.
"Secondly, I
think we have to have a concerted plan to increase trade already under the current
circumstances, you know, that Inter-American Development Bank figure is pretty
surprising. There is so much more we can do, there is a lot of low hanging fruit but
businesses on both sides have to make it a priority and it's not for governments to do
but governments can either make it easy or make it hard and we have to resist,
protectionism, other kinds of barriers to market access and to trade and I would like to
see this get much more attention and be not just a policy for a year under president X
or president Y but a consistent one." [05162013 Remarks to Banco Itau.doc, p. 32]
CLINTON IS MORE FAVORABLE TO CANADIAN HEALTH CARE AND SINGLE PAYER
Clinton Said Single-Payer Health Care Systems "Can Get Costs Down," And "Is
As Good Or Better On Primary Care," But "They Do Impose Things Like Waiting Times."
"If you look at countries that are comparable, like Switzerland or Germany, for
example, they have mixed systems. They don't have just a single-payer system, but they
have very clear controls over budgeting and accountability. If you look at the
single-payer systems, like Scandinavia, Canada, and elsewhere, they can get costs down
because, you know, although their care, according to statistics, overall is as good or
better on primary care, in particular, they do impose things like waiting times, you
know. It takes longer to get like a hip replacement than it might take here." [Hillary
Clinton remarks to ECGR Grand Rapids, 6/17/13]
* * *
Clinton Cited President Johnson's Success In Establishing Medicare And
Medicaid And Said She Wanted To See The U.S. Have Universal Health Care Like In Canada.
"You know, on healthcare we are the prisoner of our past. The way we got to develop any
kind of medical insurance program was during World War II when companies facing
shortages of workers began to offer healthcare benefits as an inducement for
employment. So from the early 1940s healthcare was seen as a privilege connected to
employment. And after the war when soldiers came back and went back into the market
there was a lot of competition, because the economy was so heated up. So that model
continued. And then of course our large labor unions bargained for healthcare with the
employers that their members worked for. So from the early 1940s until the early 1960s
we did not have any Medicare, or our program for the poor called Medicaid until
President Johnson was able to get both passed in 1965. So the employer model continued
as the primary means by which working people got health insurance. People over 65 were
eligible for Medicare. Medicaid, which was a partnership, a funding partnership between
the federal government and state governments, provided some, but by no means all poor
people with access to healthcare. So what we've been struggling with certainly Harry
Truman, then Johnson was successful on Medicare and Medicaid, but didn't touch the
employer based system, then actually Richard Nixon made a proposal that didn't go
anywhere, but was quite far reaching. Then with my husband's administration we worked
very hard to come up with a system, but we were very much constricted by the political
realities that if you had your insurance from your employer you were reluctant to try
anything else. And so we were trying to build a universal system around the
employer-based system. And indeed now with President Obama's legislative success in
getting the Affordable Care Act passed that is what we've done. We still have primarily
an employer-based system, but we now have people able to get subsidized insurance. So
we have health insurance companies playing a major role in the provision of healthcare,
both to the employed whose employers provide health insurance, and to those who are
working but on their own are not able to afford it and their employers either don't
provide it, or don't provide it at an affordable price. We are still struggling. We've
made a lot of progress. Ten million Americans now have insurance who didn't have it
before the Affordable Care Act, and that is a great step forward. (Applause.) And what
we're going to have to continue to do is monitor what the costs are and watch closely to
see whether employers drop more people from insurance so that they go into what we call
the health exchange system. So we're really just at the beginning. But we do have
Medicare for people over 65. And you couldn't, I don't think, take it away if you
tried, because people are very satisfied with it, but we also have a lot of political
and financial resistance to expanding that system to more people. So we're in a learning
period as we move forward with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And I'm
hoping that whatever the shortfalls or the glitches have been, which in a big piece of
legislation you're going to have, those will be remedied and we can really take a hard
look at what's succeeding, fix what isn't, and keep moving forward to get to affordable
universal healthcare coverage like you have here in Canada. [Clinton Speech For
tinePublic – Saskatoon, CA, 1/21/15]
* * *
Below is the full 80 page documents of "speech flags" in Hillary speeches:
"... What struck me was not so much Clinton's statements about letting Wall Street regulate Wall Street, the fact that she is "out of touch" with Main Street, or her favorable comments about single payer (very ironic given how she has not advocated for this publicly). No, what struck me is that she is NOT a leader. ..."
"... No, Clinton is many things, but not a leader. She is revealed as the perfect tool for the elite. Occasionally piping up to express some concern, but so distanced and entrenched in the establishment that she will never do anything of consequence for working Americans. ..."
"... I didn't even read the stuff about the blackberries and computer nonsense. She is incompetent with technology, doesn't understand digital security and is dangerously arrogant about her ignorance. Stipulated. ..."
What struck me was not so much Clinton's statements about letting Wall Street regulate Wall Street,
the fact that she is "out of touch" with Main Street, or her favorable comments about single payer (very
ironic given how she has not advocated for this publicly). No, what struck me is that she is NOT a leader.
Opposed to Citizens United?
… it's so ridiculous that we have this kind of free for all with all of this financial interest
at stake, but, you know, the Supreme Court said that's basically what we're in for. So we're kind of
in the wild west, and, you know, it would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge
amount of money.
Sorta like, "Meh! This stinks, but this is how the world works so I'm gonna go raise me some cash."
A Forceful Champion of Wall Street Reform?
I called for closing the carried interest loophole and addressing skyrocketing CEO pay. I also
was calling in '06, '07 for doing something about the mortgage crisis, because I saw every day from
Wall Street literally to main streets across New York how a well-functioning financial system is essential.
So when I raised early warnings about early warnings about subprime mortgages and called for regulating
derivatives and over complex financial products, I didn't get some big arguments, because people sort
of said, no, that makes sense.
Really? She called for reinstatement of Glass-Steagall? I don't remember her anywhere near the scene
of the crime in '06/07. She (may have) made a few comments here and there but never took any real action
or was serious about meaningful reform. Still isn't.
And then there is this gem.
We need two parties. .. Two sensible, moderate, pragmatic parties.
A Model of Two Sensible, Pragmatic Parties Working Together: Simpson-Bowles
Simpson-Bowles framework and the big elements of it were right. The specifics can be negotiated
and argued over. But you got to do all three. You have to restrain spending, you have to have adequate
revenues, and you have to have growth. And I think we are smart enough to figure out how to do that.
Oh, no, we aren't! Not when "figuring it out" means following neoliberal dogma to extract more from
labor and give more and more and more to the 1%.
No, Clinton is many things, but not a leader. She is revealed as the perfect tool for the
elite. Occasionally piping up to express some concern, but so distanced and entrenched in the establishment
that she will never do anything of consequence for working Americans.
I didn't even read the stuff about the blackberries and computer nonsense. She is incompetent
with technology, doesn't understand digital security and is dangerously arrogant about her ignorance.
Stipulated.
She comes across as either naive or duplicitous, re Latin America "coming
out of 2 decades of doing well," but now having to deal with disruption and
regime change.
Yesterday
we pointed out the many amazing one-liners offered up by Hillary as she was out collecting millions of dollars for her "Wall
Street speeches." Here is an expanded sample:
Hillary Clinton: "I'm Kind Of Far Removed" From The Struggles Of The Middle Class "Because The Life I've Lived And
The Economic, You Know, Fortunes That My Husband And I Now Enjoy." "And I am not taking a position on any policy, but
I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never
had that feeling when I was growing up. Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were. My father loved to
complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing. We had good public schools. We had
accessible health care. We had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn't believe in
mortgages. So I lived that. And now, obviously, I'm kind of far removed because the life I've lived and the economic, you know,
fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven't forgotten it." [Hillary Clinton Remarks at Goldman-Black Rock, 2/4/14]
Hillary Clinton Said There Was "A Bias Against People Who Have Led Successful And/Or Complicated Lives," Citing The
Need To Divese Of Assets, Positions, And Stocks. "SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. Well, you know what Bob Rubin said about that.
He said, you know, when he came to Washington, he had a fortune. And when he left Washington, he had a small -- MR. BLANKFEIN:
That's how you have a small fortune, is you go to Washington. SECRETARY CLINTON: You go to Washington. Right. But, you know, part
of the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated
lives. You know, the divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes very onerous
and unnecessary." [Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit, 10/29/13]
Hillary Clinton Noted President Clinton Had Spoken At The Same Goldman Summit Last Year, And Blankfein Joked "He Increased
Our Budget." "SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, thanks for having me here and giving me a chance to know a little bit more
about the builders and the innovators who you've gathered. Some of you might have been here last year, and my husband was, I guess,
in this very same position. And he came back and was just thrilled by- MR. BLANKFEIN: He increased our budget. SECRETARY CLINTON:
Did he? MR. BLANKFEIN: Yes. That's why we -- SECRETARY CLINTON: Good. I think he-I think he encouraged you to grow it a little,
too. But it really was a tremendous experience for him, so I've been looking forward to it and hope we have a chance to talk about
a lot of things." [Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit, 10/29/13]
Clinton Said When She Got To State, Employees "Were Not Mostly Permitted To Have Handheld Devices." "You know,
when Colin Powell showed up as Secretary of State in 2001, most State Department employees still didn't even have computers on
their desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have handheld devices. I mean, so you're thinking how do we operate
in this new environment dominated by technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I can't expect people to change if
I don't try to model it and lead it." [Clinton Speech For General Electric's Global Leadership Meeting – Boca Raton, FL, 1/6/14]
Clinton Joked It's "Risky" For Her To Speak To A Group Committed To Futures Markets Given Her Past Whitewater
Scandal. "Now, it's always a little bit risky for me to come speak to a group that is committed to the futures markets because
-- there's a few knowing laughs -- many years ago, I actually traded in the futures markets. I mean, this was so long ago, it
was before computers were invented, I think. And I worked with a group of like-minded friends and associates who traded in pork
bellies and cotton and other such things, and I did pretty well. I invested about a thousand dollars and traded up to about a
hundred thousand. And then my daughter was born, and I just didn't think I had enough time or mental space to figure out anything
having to do with trading other than trading time with my daughter for time with the rest of my life. So I got out, and I thought
that would be the end of it." [Remarks to CME Group, 11/18/13]
Hillary Clinton Said Jordan Was Threatened Because "They Can't Possibly Vet All Those Refugees So They Don't Know If,
You Know, Jihadists Are Coming In Along With Legitimate Refugees." "So I think you're right to have gone to the places
that you visited because there's a discussion going on now across the region to try to see where there might be common ground
to deal with the threat posed by extremism and particularly with Syria which has everyone quite worried, Jordan because it's on
their border and they have hundreds of thousands of refugees and they can't possibly vet all those refugees so they don't know
if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees. Turkey for the same reason." [Jewish United Fund Of Metropolitan
Chicago Vanguard Luncheon, 10/28/13]
Hillary Clinton Said The Saudis Opposed The Muslim Brotherhood, "Which Is Kind Of Ironic Since The Saudis Have Exported
More Extreme Ideology Than Any Other Place On Earth Over The Course Of The Last 30 Years." "And they are getting a lot
of help from the Saudis to the Emiratis-to go back to our original discussion-because the Saudis and the Emiratis see the Muslim
Brotherhood as threatening to them, which is kind of ironic since the Saudis have exported more extreme ideology than any other
place on earth over the course of the last 30 years." [2014 Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner, 10/28/13]
Hillary Clinton Said Her Dream Is A Hemispheric Common Market, With Open Trade And Open Markets. "My dream is a hemispheric
common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can
get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere." [05162013 Remarks to Banco Itau.doc, p.
28]
Meanwhile, there are plenty of other great email exchanges as well.
The following exchange comes from the President of the Soros-funded "
Open Society Foundation " (we previously wrote about
the society's plan to "Enlarge electorate by at least 10 million voters"
here ) who offers some advice on "police reform." The email points Podesta to an article previously written
by the
Open
Society Foundation , ironically titled "
Get
the Politics Out of Policing ." Surprisingly, Stone points out that the problem isn't a lack of independence
by police but by politicians:
The problem is not a lack of independence just from the police , but independence from city politics.
Since 2007, Chicago has had an agency separate from the police to investigate officer-involved shootings, but the "independent"
agency (the Independent Police Review Authority, or IPRA) is still under the mayor, and generally retreats from any investigation
that might lead to criminal charges. Until we get investigations of cases like this out of the hands of politicians, even
the best policies a police chief can impose won't change the culture.
Well that seemed to backfire. To summarize, Stone says don't do exactly what the FBI did in its investigation of Hillary's
email scandal.
"... Krugman is such a deplorable hack. I know we are supposed to accept bribe-taking politicians and the economy run by looting robber barons. But can't we even have a goddamn fourth estate? ..."
"... The way Krugman murders journalism ethics by outright campaigning for one of the most corrupt politicians in American history is outrageous. Barfing up her disgusting campaign memes verbatim as if he's coordinating his columns with her war room. ..."
"... If you're a scientist you would know that economics does not remotely resemble a science. One familiar with the history of math and science will notice that their development (based on discovered facts) forms a tree-like structure. One discovery branches out to more discoveries. The growth is therefore exponential. ..."
Sure...Krugman will occasionally pay lip service to green energy.
The problem is that 'liberal' economists tend to keep separate silos for green energy and infrastructure.
Question is, why do they refuse to connect the dots between climate change mitigation, green
energy, fiscal stimulus, and lots of jobs? And why do they prioritize more road and bridges, which
will only make climate change worse?
Krugman is an abhorrent neoliberal hack (as well as Hillary stooge).
Who actually understand very little about climate change clearly being non-specialist without
any training of physics and geophysics. He is a second rate neoclassical economist with penchant
for mathiness (and a very talented writer).
The key question here is Clinton warmongering and the threat of nuclear war with Russia. Washington
neocon chichenhawks became recently realty crazy. Obama looks completely important and does not
control anything.
I think this is more immediate threat then climate change.
Oil depletion (which already started and will be in full force in a couple of decades) might
take care about climate change as period of "cheap oil" (aka "oil age") probably will last less
then 100 years and as such is just a blip in Earth history.
End of cheap oil also might lead to natural shrinking of human population -- another factor
in the global climate change and a threat to natural ecosystems.
Hillary is the fracking Queen. Claiming she's a champion of the environment is as ridiculous portraying
Donald Trump a feminist.
Obomba is another pretender on the environment. The Paris Agreement commits to absolutely nothing
but more talk at a future time. China signed on and is still keeping its commitment to do absolutely
nothing to reduce emissions until 2030. (By the time the West has exported the lion share of its
emissions to the country in a pointless GHG emissions shell game; emission per capita have skyrocketed
since 2002! a 25% increase!)
Krugman is such a deplorable hack. I know we are supposed to accept bribe-taking politicians
and the economy run by looting robber barons. But can't we even have a goddamn fourth estate?
The way Krugman murders journalism ethics by outright campaigning for one of the most corrupt
politicians in American history is outrageous. Barfing up her disgusting campaign memes verbatim
as if he's coordinating his columns with her war room.
So to all the pretend liberals out there who offer the people nothing more than more corruption,
lies, war-profiteering and public trust liquidation: you deserve Trump. And I pray that you get
him. (After him, a New Deal; and the 'me generation,' the Void.)
If you're a scientist you would know that economics does not remotely resemble a science.
One familiar with the history of math and science will notice that their development (based on
discovered facts) forms a tree-like structure. One discovery branches out to more discoveries.
The growth is therefore exponential.
Economic history does not follow this pattern.
With science there are paradigm shifts that occur with groundbreaking discoveries like the
theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. The Friedmanian paradigm shift was founded on jettisoning
all the enormously successful work Keynes accomplished and digging up failed 19th century ideology,
repeating disastrous history.
Even psychology follows the pattern. Although it began with a lot of unsubstantiated Aristotelian
philosophizing, it was a starting point from which a significant body of definite knowledge and
medical treatments developed. A real social science. (Not perfect. It was recently discovered
that about 50% of published psychological experiments were not reproducible.)
As an anthropologist you should know about cliques and group-think. Have an inkling of how
corruption could gradually develop and spread among upper-echelon cliques to the point where the
government, the economy, the courts and the news media become captured by the upper class. Understand
how cowards would rather look the other way than take a stand and deal with it: "see no evil,
hear no evil, speak no evil."
As an anthropologist, I can assert with confidence that you are babbling about things you do not
really understand at all. I have issues with a lot of economics, but you are completely incoherent.
Completely incoherent? Then it should be easy enough for you to tear apart what I wrote. It was
certainly easy enough for me to tear into Krugman's crass political pandering. But all you got
is lame generalizations. Stock insults that could be said about anything.
What issues do you have with "a lot of economics?" I bet you can't come up with anything. Come
on. Out with it! Say something intelligent about anything, if you are at all capable, Mr. Dick.
I have yet to read anything from you that indicates you have any knowledge about anything.
It is Dr. Dick, since I have a Ph.D. If you ever read the comments on this blog, you would know
full well what those issues are, since I have raised them here many times. For a start the assumption
of "rational actors" (only partially true), the assumption of economic maximization (people maximize
many different things which affect their economic choices), and the assumption of "rational markets"
(this ignores pervasive information assymetry and active deceit).
"... It's because they couldn't get assurances from him that his anti-globalization talk was just talk, unlike Hillary whom they have gotten assurances that the outsourcing bloodbath will continue unabated. ..."
"... If Trump tears up NAFTA and the TPP then Americans will, at least, have gotten SOMETHING out of "their" government over the past 35 years. Some little morsel of democratic representation. Something that can be marked as a turning point from 35 years of escalating political and economic corruption that has put civilization on the verge of implosion into fascist revolutions and world war repeating, verbatim, the history of the 1920s and 30s. ..."
"... For a $10-million donation to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary gave the thumbs up for the use of child soldiers in South Sudan as SoS. A shady businessman had an eye on African mining rights and regime change. (Hillary data-shredded "business" related emails on an illegal private server; smashed her smartphones with a hammer; to destroy evidence.) ..."
"... Really? Stiffing his employees. Stiffing his creditors. Stiffing the tax man. All "perfectly legal". ..."
"... Is not this is what neoliberalism is about? Especially for the employees part ..."
If Trump is all talk, why are all the establishment neocons as hysterical over him as the PC pearl
clutchers?
It's because they couldn't get assurances from him that his anti-globalization talk was just
talk, unlike Hillary whom they have gotten assurances that the outsourcing bloodbath will continue
unabated.
If Trump tears up NAFTA and the TPP then Americans will, at least, have gotten SOMETHING out
of "their" government over the past 35 years. Some little morsel of democratic representation.
Something that can be marked as a turning point from 35 years of escalating political and economic
corruption that has put civilization on the verge of implosion into fascist revolutions and world
war repeating, verbatim, the history of the 1920s and 30s.
Trump is a weasel of a businessman and a weasel of a politician (par for the course on the latter.)
But he made all his money legally.
The concept of pure corruption, however, might suit the Clintons, given they have pocketed
over $100-million in bribe-related wealth.
They deregulated the banks for kickbacks from Wall Street. Set the stage for the 2000s Bust
Out - a complex web of fraud among all manner of banker including cheerleading central banker
- that culminated in global economic collapse.
For money from the burgeoning private prison industry, they labeled African American youth
"super predators" with "no conscience; no empathy" (a most vicious of racist dog whistle that
blows anything Trump has said out of the water.) Hillary called for a police crackdown ("we can
talk about how they ended up that way, but they first must be brought to heel") that kicked off
the era of mass incarceration; produced a militant police force filled with racist thugs and cowards;
and created the Black Lives Matter movement.
For a $10-million donation to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary gave the thumbs up for the use
of child soldiers in South Sudan as SoS. A shady businessman had an eye on African mining rights
and regime change. (Hillary data-shredded "business" related emails on an illegal private server;
smashed her smartphones with a hammer; to destroy evidence.)
All this (and MOAR) might not be pure corruption. But something around 99.99% pure. Like Ivory
soap, except evil.
Trump is small potatoes compared to what the real Wolves of Wall Street did to the global economy.
But if he did break the law he should be thrown in jail, right along with the Clintons and all
the other bribe-taking criminals.
nikbez -> pgl... , -1
Is not this is what neoliberalism is about?
Especially for the employees part
"But, you know, part of the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such a
bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives. You know, the divestment of
assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes so very onerous
and unnecessary."
Back aching scrubbing and knee straining cleaning to maintain a decent and safe environment is
exhausting. Accumulating wealth and being criticized for accumulating it at the expense of others
is equally exhausting. She is the personification of empathy.
Hmmm. … I thought this e-mail was a copy of the Wash Exam article, is
it really leaks of portions of Clinton's speeches? It's text book Clinton.
I couldn't find the WE article and now Buzzfeed writes it appears to be paid
speeches.
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. Well, you know what Bob Rubin said about that. He said, you
know, when he came to Washington he had a fortune. And when he left Washington, he had a small
– – MR. BLANKFEIN: That's how you
have a small fortune
, is you go to Washington.
. .
The sacrifices they make for us.
Reminds me of a saying in racing. How do you get a million bucks? Start with two.
*Hillary Clinton Said Her Dream Is A Hemispheric Common Market, With
Open Trade And Open Markets. *"My dream is a hemispheric common market,
with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy
that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and
opportunity for every person in the hemisphere." [05162013 Remarks to
Banco Itau.doc, p. 28]
What? Open borders with Europe? She can't mean Russia. To be clear, she's also declaring
support for that greenest of projects, the Keystone pipeline in another speech.
Hillary is a very warm and nurturing person. When an 8-ball can't make
you feel good about your master of the universe self, you hire madame secretary
to fluff your fragile feelings a bit. Or you pay mr. president to put on
a comfortable pair of shoes and stand guard between you and the peasants
with the pitchforks.
In my continued talks with people who insist that voting for Clinton is the
only choice because TRUMP, I just got I would rather have war with Russia than
Putin deciding American policy because the President owes him money.
After I decimated that one by asking if everyone in Congress owes Putin as
well, I continued by noting that Congress is also a stumbling block if ACA was
really their only concern.
That they better figure out how to move to a country with a real health care
system or give up being an artist and find a better paying job with employer
provided insurance because the idea that Clinton has some magic method of
preventing it from dying is a fantasy.
The President cannot unilaterally do anything to stop insurance companies
from dropping out and no legislation saving it is going to pass in a Congress
where one or both of the Houses have Republican majorities. Sure she might stop
them from cutting their subsidy, but even with Clinton they have a couple of
years at most before they are royally screwed. Especially since Clinton's
Democratic Party is not bothering to try to fight every race in an attempt to
get the House, and even have grabbed money from the state parties for her
campaign.
Every once in a while I get a little annoyed with people who want to accuse
me of not being realistic and believing in unicorns when it is beyond clear
that they are dreaming.
I should note that they also pulled out the SCOTUS canard. I have to thank
Clinton for picking Kaine since just quoting his record as Governor pretty much
destroys the idea that she picks liberals.
Barry and the spooks make it official today –
Putin did it!
re: the DNC email leaks.
But as you note, the Dems are not coming off as particularly trustworthy.
Checking the comments of that article, the dogs aren't eating the dogfood
and seem to have noticed the claims are still based on absolutely no
evidence whatsoever.
"Wikileaks' Julian Assange to release 'significant' documents on US election, Google, arms trading over next 10 weeks" [
International Business Times ]. Oh, not the next 31 days?
Complete with a copy of everything problematic in her wall street spaces. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmAIuAMKAViAXv
THEY ARE BAD
"But If Everybody's Watching, You Know, All Of The Back Room Discussions And The Deals, You Know, Then People Get A Little Nervous,
To Say The Least. So, You Need Both A Public And A Private Position ."
-100% pro trade
-Shits on single payer
-Wall Street should regulate itself… sigh.
Don't worry, the CTR shills are already on Reddit and social media framing this as another "nothing burger," or that it is
actually good for her. The campaign's pals in the MSM are sure to follow, especially considering the reprehensible recording of
Trump that was released earlier today (granted, as a man, I have heard many men say things as bad or worse than Trump has said
at various stages in my life) gives them a foil to wrap this hot potato in.
And WikiLeaks makes it official, Obama knew about Hilary's email, of
course he knew. So a bald-faced lie from the president of the United
States to millions of Americans:
A former Miss Universe who says Donald Trump 'fat-shamed' her and called her 'Miss Piggy' says
she's done battling the billionaire.
Alicia Machado will not give any more interviews on the way Trump treated her, representatives
for the Venezuelan-born beauty queen told DailyMail.com.
'We will not be discussing the Trump subject any further,' an email from her reps at Anderson
Public Relations Group said.
A statement from Machado that accompanied to the message blasted Trump and his campaign for 'launching
insults and are attempting to revive slanders and false accusations about my life, in order to humiliate,
intimidate, and unbalance me.
'These attacks are cheap lies with bad intentions,' she said.
A former Miss Universe who says Donald Trump 'fat-shamed' her and called her 'Miss Piggy' says
she's done battling the billionaire. Alicia Machado says she will not give any more interviews on
the way Trump treated her
Machado blasted Trump in a statement for 'launching insults and are attempting to revive slanders
and false accusations about my life, in order to humiliate, intimidate, and unbalance me.' She's
pictured fighting off the press on Oct. 1 at a Fashion Week event in California
After Hillary Clinton put a spotlight on Machado's strife with Trump in the first general election
debate, the 39-year-old's dirty laundry spilled out into the public.
Video from a Spanish reality TV show Machado participated in showed her having sex with another
contestant while she was engaged to baseball star Bobby Abreu.
It was further revealed that she was listed as an accomplice in an attempted murder in 1998, two
years after she carried the Miss Universe crown.
Machado allegedly drove the getaway car and threatened to kill the judge overseeing the case.
Her then-boyfriend was indicted in the criminal case.
Clinton's campaign has been unwilling to admit to knowing, or not knowing, about Machado's past.
'I don't think that in any way excuses what Trump has said about her,' Clinton's national press
secretary, Brian Fallon, told DailyMail.com.
Alicia Machado appears topless on reality show The Farm
Loaded:
ROLE (IN THE HAY) MODEL: Machado had sex in front of the cameras – and moaned about Spanish TV
host Fernando Acaso's 'p***a' – during a 2005 episode of 'La Granja'
Trump last week accused Machado of making a 'sex tape' as he lashed out at Clinton in a 3 AM Twitter
rant for propping her up.
That was a reference to a 2005 reality TV show modeled after 'Big Brother,' in which Machado was
filmed having intercourse on camera with a fellow contestant.
In the 2005 episode of 'La Granja,' she had sex in front of the cameras with Spanish TV host Fernando
Acaso.
Machado was engaged to Philadelphia Phillies right fielder Abreu at the time. The Venezuelan major-leaguer
called off the wedding after clips of the show appeared online.
The broadcast showed Acaso on top of her, with Machado whispering in Spanish about his manhood.
'Oh your d***, my love, what a tasty d***! Your d*** is divine,' she moans while they go at it.
Later during the broadcast replay, the show's host read aloud what Machado had written about the
man.
CRINGE: Machado's sex scene in the reality-show fun house was relived frame by frame complete
with mortified squirming, and her fiancé Bobby Abreu later called off their engagement
Interviewed about sex scene: Machado was interviewed about what she did in bed with Fernando Acaso,
appearing to be embarrassed as an interviewer revealed she had said: 'He f***s me like a b****.'
'Really, that guy is cute, he loves me, he understands me, he accepts me, he protects me, he supports
me, he respects me,' read her testimonial.
'He treats me like a goddess, he f***s me like a b****!'
Machado told Univision when she returned to Miami that 'I felt fine as a person, as a human being.'
'It was a very strong experience, very difficult in all senses, and I feel very happy with the
events in Spain. I had people's support once more and I gained respect for what I am as a person
and that was the purpose.'
Trump has also suggested that Clinton's campaign obtained U.S. citizenship for Machado. The Democrat's
aides say that's not true. Machado became a citizen on her own.
The scrutiny appears to have taken a toll on the actress and mother.
Hillary Clinton made Machado's strife with Trump over her weight the focal point of her charge
in last week's general election debate that the Republican is a sexist
In response to DailyMail.com's request for an interview, Machado's representatives said: 'Thank
you for reaching out regarding Alicia. At this point in time Alicia has said her comments about the
trump situation (please see her statement below) and we are no longer discussing the subject.
'If you are interested in talking about Alicia's career, her businesses and her philanthropy we
are open to discussing, however we will not be discussing the Trump subject any further.'
A long statement from Machado said Trump is 'attempting to distract from his campaign's real problems
and his inability to be the leader of this great country' by 'discrediting her.'
'When I was young, the now candidate, humiliated me, insulted me, disrespected me both publicly
and privately in the cruelest way. The same way this happened to me, it's clear that throughout the
years, he's continued his actions and behavior with other women.
'Therefore, I will continue to stand on my feet, sharing my story and my absolute support for
Secretary Clinton, on behalf of all women.'
Machado's commitment to spreading the word about the public humiliation she says the Republican
presidential nominee caused her does not, apparently, extend to interviews on the topic, however.
As of Wednesday evening, Hillary Clinton was still using Machado as an example of her opponent's
'lack of respect for women.'
'The list is long. He insulted Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe. He said that pregnancy
is an inconvenience for a woman's employer,' Clinton said at a Women's Leadership Forum in Washington,
D.C..
She said, 'Recently, more than 20 people who worked on his TV show have come forward to say he
was frequently inappropriate with the cast and crew members – another reason why he is temperamentally
unfit to be president.'
Clinton was referring to an Associated Press report from Monday in which contestants and crew
members from The Apprentice claimed the married Trump rated participants by the size of their breasts
and talked about having sex with them.
Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said in response, 'These outlandish, unsubstantiated,
and totally false claims fabricated by publicity hungry, opportunistic, disgruntled former employees,
have no merit whatsoever.'
Defending his comments about women's looks Wednesday in a TV interview with Las Vegas channel
KSNV Trump said 'a lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment.'
'I can tell you this: There is nobody – nobody,' he said, that has more respect for women than
I do.'
A spokesman for Clinton's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Machado's
decision to stop doing interviews on Trump and how that might affect the Democratic candidate's own
speeches.
Clinton has no public events on her schedule between now and Sunday's presidential debate. Her
next rally is on Monday in Michigan.
FULL ALICIA MACHADO STATEMENT ON DONALD TRUMP
'The Republican candidate and his campaign are, once again launching attacks, insults and are
attempting to revive slanders and false accusations about my life, in order to humiliate, intimidate,
and unbalance me. These attacks are cheap lies with bad intentions. This, of course, is not the first
time the candidate insists on discrediting someone or insists on demoralizing women, minorities,
and people of certain religions through his hateful campaign. This is definitely one of his most
frightful characteristics. Through his attacks, he's attempting to distract from his campaign's real
problems and his inability to be the leader of this great country.
When I was young, the now candidate, humiliated me, insulted me, disrespected me both publicly
and privately in the cruelest way. The same way this happened to me, it's clear that throughout the
years, he's continued his actions and behavior with other women. Therefore, I will continue to stand
on my feet, sharing my story and my absolute support for Secretary Clinton, on behalf of all women
-- my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, women within the community. I want to thank all of my
Latinas and those who have supported me and given me love and respect for my career, and as a human
being. I became a United States citizen because my daughter was born here and because I wanted to
exercise my rights, among them, I wanted to vote.
I will continue standing firm in my lived experience as Miss Universe and even stronger with your
support. I've been so pleased and honored by so many kind and heartfelt words. I'm focusing on my
career and my work as a mother, and I will continue taking positive steps for the Latino community.
I will continue being an activist for women's rights and fighting for the respect we deserve. I appreciate
all your love and thank you again for your support.'
"... It's a pattern not just for the Clinton campaign, but liberals generally: the "irredeemable" "basket of deplorables"; the basement dwelling millenials. ..."
"... Worse, the Democrat approach is calculated: As Bernard Shaw says: "A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven." ..."
"... It's difficult to convince someone whose life is objectively worse that their life is better. And it's disengenuous to try. ..."
"... Neoliberal capitalism is not sustainable for these people. ..."
"... Neither party seems to be aligned with the interests of my union brothers and sisters. I'm sick and tired of hearing the kayfabe crap every election season about how I should vote dem to keep the evil GOPers from busting unions, when in reality both parties seem more or less committed to the corporate agenda of employment crapification. ..."
"... I believe in union's, but part of the decline can be directly laid at the feet of leadership that either knowingly or stupidly help elect people who aren't with their union members in any meaningful fashion. ..."
"... Some of the unions are straight out sell outs (I'm looking at you AFL/CIO – but the AFL kind of always has been, that's it's history, but now it's pretty appalling the positions being taken). Not sure about Teamsters and smaller unions are hit and miss I guess only a few are radical. The unions were defanged long ago in order to have un-threatening corporate unions and of course labor was the loser. But that still doesn't excuse their horrible political choices. ..."
"... Why in the hell are the Democrats parading around like they are the default? Oh my! The Republicans could get the White House snatched from the Dems! Why should an independent give a damn if the Democrats lose? If they are so freaking important, change your policies to win their votes legitimately you HACKs! ..."
"Fact-checking the vice-presidential debate between Kaine and Pence" [
WaPo ]. On the "insult-driven campaign" back-and-forth, where WaPo proffers a lovingly compiled
list of Trump's insults: If smearing an entire cohort of disfavored voters as racist and sexist
#BernieBros isn't an insult, I don't know what is. And that approach isn't isolated: It's
a pattern not just for the Clinton campaign, but liberals generally: the "irredeemable" "basket
of deplorables"; the basement dwelling millenials.
Worse, the Democrat approach is calculated: As Bernard Shaw says: "A blow in cold blood
neither can nor should be forgiven." So miss me with the insult discussion.
... ... ...
"I Listened to a Trump Supporter" [
Extra News Feed ]. The foreclosure crisis destroyed her landscraping business. Then she lost
her own house. "She told me that every week, it seemed there was another default letter, another
foreclosure, another bank demanding more blood from her dry veins. To her, that pile of default
notices and demands for payment looked suspiciously similar to Hillary Clinton's top donor list."
And she's not wrong.
"The Trump candidacy succeeded because of a massive revolt among rank-and-file Republicans
against their leaders. Should the Trump candidacy fail, as now seems likely, those leaders stand
ready to deny that the revolt ever happened. Instead, they'll have a story of a more or less normal
Republican undone only because (as Pence said last night) 'he's not a polished politician.' The
solution for 2020? Bring back the professionals-and return to business as usual" [David Frum,
The Atlantic ]. "It's unlikely to work. But you can understand why it's an attractive message
to a party elite that discovered to its horror that it had lost its base and lost its way."
"Trump faces new battleground threat from steelworkers: The United Steelworkers union is pledging
to make sure every one of its workers in make-or-break states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and
Ohio are well aware that the Republican presidential candidate may have circumvented U.S. laws
to import Chinese steel" [
Politico ].
"I Listened to a Trump Supporter" [Extra News Feed].
Thank the heavens the Banks made it out okay though. All those nice people might have had to
go through the same thing.
"It's difficult to convince someone whose life is objectively worse that their life is better.
And it's disengenuous to try. You can break down the specifics, sure.
What is the author talking about? Their lives ARE NOT better.
"Neoliberal capitalism is not sustainable for these people."
It is not sustainable period! What do you think will happen when all these people disappear?
My primary political concern is labor so why should I get behind a dem or a GOPer?
Neither party seems to be aligned with the interests of my union brothers and sisters. I'm
sick and tired of hearing the kayfabe crap every election season about how I should vote dem to
keep the evil GOPers from busting unions, when in reality both parties seem more or less committed
to the corporate agenda of employment crapification.
My union's bulletin arrived yesterday with a full color cover of Hillary touting how they are
with her.
I believe in union's, but part of the decline can be directly laid at the feet of leadership
that either knowingly or stupidly help elect people who aren't with their union members in any
meaningful fashion.
Some of the unions are straight out sell outs (I'm looking at you AFL/CIO – but the AFL kind
of always has been, that's it's history, but now it's pretty appalling the positions being taken).
Not sure about Teamsters and smaller unions are hit and miss I guess only a few are radical. The
unions were defanged long ago in order to have un-threatening corporate unions and of course labor
was the loser. But that still doesn't excuse their horrible political choices.
Al Gore: "The former vice president, a climate activist, will speak about not just Clinton's
plan to address global warming, but also the idea that voting for an independent presidential
candidate could deliver the White House to Republicans in the same way that Ralph Nader's candidacy
helped undermine his presidential bid in 2000."
Why in the hell are the Democrats parading around like they are the default? Oh my! The Republicans
could get the White House snatched from the Dems! Why should an independent give a damn if the
Democrats lose? If they are so freaking important, change your policies to win their votes legitimately
you HACKs!
Nah, just parade around an old loser… that will get those kids and independents invigorated
for sure! He made a movie! - ARGHH!!!! (this infuriates me).
"... Marshall's central importance to the Clintons' political operations was realized earlier this year by Citizens United. The conservative watchdog group filed a federal lawsuit for Marshall's State Department emails. ..."
"... At State, Marshall served as chief of protocol from 2009 to 2013. In that role, she helped the State Department and White House manage issues related to diplomatic protocol. ..."
"... The emails, which appear to be from Marshall's Gmail account, span the period from March 2015 through June 2016. ..."
Marshall's central importance to the Clintons' political operations was realized earlier this
year by Citizens United. The conservative watchdog group
filed a federal lawsuit for Marshall's State Department emails.
At State, Marshall served as chief of protocol from 2009 to 2013. In that role, she helped the
State Department and White House manage issues related to diplomatic protocol.
She entered the Clinton sphere during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, working as a
special assistant to Hillary Clinton. She later worked on Clinton's senatorial and presidential campaigns,
helping lead fundraising efforts.
The DC Leaks emails appear to be authentic.
The emails, which appear to be from Marshall's Gmail account, span the period from March 2015
through June 2016.
"... The Military Industrial Complex with the Saudi/Qatari/Gulf Mafia in cahoots with The Religious Cult We're No Longer Allowed To Mention, have it in the bag. ..."
"... Expect another war in the Middle East shortly after she's crowned. ..."
"... Oh please. Yeah I'd sooner eat a cyanide sandwich than vote for that corrupt witch. ..."
"... It's amusing to see the Guardian claim that it has "no bias", like when Marxists argue that their doctrine is a 'science' instead of a set of political beliefs. ..."
"... Do the 1%ers and biased media believe that even if Clinton wins that the Trump supporters will just shrug their shoulders? Not a chance. ..."
"... 2020 is going to be the most epic fought POTUS election in the history of America, that's if CLinton can stay upright and read the teleprompter for 4 years. ..."
"... The only winner here will be globalist bankers and mega multinationals, the losers will, as usual, be all of the common people. ..."
"... The Guardian will be 3 times a loser, despite it's supersonic propaganda campaign. 1) Brexit vote 2) Corbyn re-elected 3) Trump will win ..."
"... In terms of comparing how much they are working Trump is simply working harder. He was campaigning yesterday and is today as well. It shows how dedicated he is for this whilst Hillary is in hiding and no doubt will be until Sunday !!! ..."
"... At a townhall two days ago in Pennsylvania the Hillary Clinton campaign used a child actor, a daughter of a democrat state senator from Pennsylvania, to further her narrative. ..."
"... The American people are like a sleeping elephant, sedated by a tame and corrupt media, yet when awoken with the truth they will trample everything in their path. Clinton is running out of tranquilisers. ..."
The Military Industrial Complex with the Saudi/Qatari/Gulf Mafia in cahoots with The Religious
Cult We're No Longer Allowed To Mention, have it in the bag.
The Guardian is an independent voice in this year's election. That means no bias
It's amusing to see the Guardian claim that it has "no bias", like when Marxists argue
that their doctrine is a 'science' instead of a set of political beliefs.
Do the 1%ers and biased media believe that even if Clinton wins that the Trump supporters
will just shrug their shoulders? Not a chance.
2020 is going to be the most epic fought
POTUS election in the history of America, that's if CLinton can stay upright and read the teleprompter
for 4 years.
Trump and Sanders supporters are just getting started.
In terms of comparing how much they are working Trump is simply working harder. He was campaigning
yesterday and is today as well. It shows how dedicated he is for this whilst Hillary is in hiding
and no doubt will be until Sunday !!!
At a townhall two days ago in Pennsylvania the Hillary Clinton campaign used a child actor,
a daughter of a democrat state senator from Pennsylvania, to further her narrative.
Unfortunately all about Hillary is fake and as the media don't even pretend to practice journalism
concerning Hillary Clinton, citizen researchers have to do the media's job. Here is a video explaining
what took place.
The American people are like a sleeping elephant, sedated by a tame and corrupt media, yet
when awoken with the truth they will trample everything in their path. Clinton is running out
of tranquilisers.
he High Dollar: President Clinton's Unaffordable Tax Cut
by Dean Baker
Truthout, November 15, 2006
Everyone knows about George W. Bush's unaffordable tax
cuts, the big tax breaks that gave millions to millionaires
and billions to billionaires, but few people are aware of the
even more unaffordable tax cut from the Clinton
administration. That is because President Clinton's tax cut
took a somewhat different form: an over-valued dollar.
While few people recognize it, the effect of an
over-valued dollar on the US economy is very similar to the
effect of large tax cuts. Tax cuts reduce revenue, which
leads to deficits and a growing debt, which will impose a
larger interest burden on the country in the future. In the
same way, an over-valued dollar leads to a trade deficit,
which results in borrowing from abroad. In future years, the
country will have to pay interest on the money it borrows
from abroad today, leading to lower living standards in the
future. In fact, the most important difference between the
two is that the trade deficit is much larger, clocking in at
more than $800 billion in 2006 (6.1 percent of GDP), while
the budget deficit is a comparatively modest $260 billion
(2.0 percent of GDP).
Clinton did not start his administration with a high
dollar policy. Lloyd Bentsen, his first Treasury Secretary,
deliberately allowed the dollar to weaken in the first years
of the Clinton administration, with the hope of keeping the
trade deficit at a manageable level. When he left office in
1994, the trade deficit was less than 1.5 percent of GDP, a
level that could be sustained indefinitely.
The high dollar policy came into being under Bentsen's
replacement, Robert Rubin. Rubin argued that a high dollar
would help control inflation. He made it the official policy
of the Clinton administration to support a high dollar.
As a short-term measure, Rubin is exactly right; a high
dollar does help to control inflation by making imports
available at a lower cost. This has the effect of keeping
prices lower in the United States and putting US
manufacturing firms at an enormous competitive disadvantage.
The basic story is relatively simple - if the dollar is
over-valued by 20 percent, then this is equivalent to
providing a 20 percent subsidy to imports, while placing a 20
percent tariff on all goods exported from the United States.
With the high dollar policy in place, it should not be a
surprise that we have lost more than 3 million manufacturing
jobs in the last decade.
But, it is important to realize that the feel good part of
the high dollar policy is only a short-term story. Just as a
tax cut can put more money in people's pockets until the
interest burden starts to exceed the size of the tax cut,
eventually the foreign debt builds to the point where it is
no longer possible to sustain the over-valued dollar. At some
point in the future, the dollar will fall, and it will hit a
level that is much lower than would have been the case if we
had not built up a massive foreign debt (now more than $3
trillion) during the years of the high dollar. As a result
future generations will be paying much more for everything
that the country imports from abroad - oil, other raw
materials, manufactured goods and services. In other words,
future generations will experience lower standards of living
because of today's high dollar, and the impact is more than
three times as large as the impact of the budget deficit.
The blame for the high dollar policy is bi-partisan. It
started under Clinton-Rubin, but it has continued in the Bush
years, even as the trade deficit exploded to more than twice
its previous record (measured relative to the size of the
economy). The Bush administration could have taken steps to
bring down the value of the dollar and thereby reduce the
trade deficit, but this would have meant sharp increases in
import prices, which would lower living standards. This would
be no more popular than tax increases - it is not surprising
that Bush would not choose to go this route.
Instead, President Bush continued the high dollar policy
that he inherited from Clinton, obviously hoping that its
collapse occurs when someone else is sitting in the White
House. For the politicians, this is a convenient pass the
buck story; only the person sitting there at the time will
have to take the blame when the bill from the high dollar
policy comes due. But, those of us who will have to pay this
bill should be clear, it was Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin
who started the tab running and George W. Bush who lacked the
courage to close the account.
The desire to beat
up on Donald Trump is
understandable, but it
is important to
realize that not
everything he says is
wrong. For example,
according to press
accounts he adheres to
the belief that the
world is round.
Anyhow, Greg Ip
goes a bit over board
in a Wall Street
Journal piece where he
argues that Trump's
claim that a trade
deficit can be reduced
or eliminated with
tariffs is wrong.
Referring to Trump's
approach to the trade
deficit, Ip tells
readers:
"But that is out of
step with standard
economics, which
predicts that a
country's trade
balance is determined
by the gap between
what it invests and
saves, not by
tariffs."
As an accounting
identity a country's
trade balance is
always equal to the
gap between what it
invests and what it
saves. This means that
if the U.S. invests
$200 billion a year
more than it saves,
then it will by
definition be true
that it has a trade
deficit of $200
billion.
However this
accounting identity
tells us nothing about
causation. If we are
below the full
employment level of
output, and Donald
Trump's tariffs or
threats of tariffs,
reduce our annual
trade deficit by $200
billion (@ 1.1 percent
of GDP), then this
would lead to
additional employment,
output, and savings in
the United States. A
standard multiplier
would suggest that a
$200 billion reduction
in the size of the
trade deficit would
lead to a $300 billion
increase in GDP. This
higher GDP would lead
to more corporate and
individual savings, as
well as more tax
revenue, which also
count as savings. (The
growth in GDP would
also led to more
imports, partially
offsetting the initial
improvement in the
trade deficit.)
In other words, it
is totally possible to
reduce the size of the
trade deficit as long
as the economy is
below its full
employment level of
output. This is basic
economic theory. Folks
should be clear on
this point, even if it
suggests that Trump
might be partly right
on something.
"... Policy makers and politicians, Goodman writes, "failed to plan for the trauma that has accompanied the benefits of trade. When millions of workers lost paychecks to foreign competition, they lacked government supports to cushion the blow. As a result, seething anger is upending politics in Europe and North America.' ..."
"... Along these lines, Trump has successfully appropriated an issue - the distributional impact of free trade - that was, in recent years, the turf of Democrats. ..."
"... 'The story of Trump's amazingly successful movement is also the story of how Democrats turned their backs on their working-class roots and sided with the elites on the crucial economic question of our times: Who would win from globalization, and who would lose? ..."
"... 'I don't want you to do that. And if you do it, you're not going to have any cars coming across the border unless you pay a 35 percent tax.' ..."
"... 'I'm going to tell the head of Carrier: "I hope you enjoy your stay in Mexico folks. But every single unit that you make and send across our border, which now will be real, you're going to pay a 35 percent tax."' ..."
Let's take Donald Trump's trade policies at face value.
If he is elected, "The era of economic surrender will finally be over," Trump declared, repeating
a favorite theme in a July speech in Monessen, Pa., once the heart of the state's steel industry.
(#) "I want you to imagine how much better your life can be if we start believing in America again."
As the world knows, Trump's rhetoric has found a receptive audience among angry white working-class
voters who have lost well-paying jobs to automation and outsourcing.
Legions of Trump supporters have legitimate grounds for discontent. As my colleague Peter Goodman
wrote last week:
'Trade comes with no assurances that the spoils will be shared equitably. Across much of the industrialized
world, an outsize share of the winnings has been harvested by people with advanced degrees, stock
options and the need for accountants. Ordinary laborers have borne the costs and suffered from joblessness
and deepening economic anxiety.'
Policy makers and politicians, Goodman writes, "failed to plan for the trauma that has accompanied
the benefits of trade. When millions of workers lost paychecks to foreign competition, they lacked
government supports to cushion the blow. As a result, seething anger is upending politics in Europe
and North America.'
Along these lines, Trump has successfully appropriated an issue - the distributional impact
of free trade - that was, in recent years, the turf of Democrats.
On Sept. 30, Rex Nutting, a columnist at MarketWatch.com, wrote "How Donald Trump hijacked
the Democrats' best issue":
'The story of Trump's amazingly successful movement is also the story of how Democrats turned
their backs on their working-class roots and sided with the elites on the crucial economic question
of our times: Who would win from globalization, and who would lose?
The downside of Trump's trade policy proposals is, however, considerable. Trump's protectionist
policies would negatively affect overall American economic performance and further aggravate the
harsh distributional consequences of globalization for just those workers who support him.
Gordon Hanson, an economics professor at the University of California, San Diego, emailed me his
analysis of Trump's economic scheme:
'Trump's strategy is essentially one of withdrawal from the world economy. He wants less trade
and less outward foreign investment. He offers no plans for how to improve our export performance.
This is protectionism, pure and simple.'
Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management, was more forceful:
'No nation can succeed by trying to protect the past from the future. We will succeed by having
the confidence to embrace competition, and leveraging our comparative strengths, which are numerous.
We have the largest, most productive and most technologically advanced economy that's ever existed
on this planet. The more open the world economy is, the more we have an opportunity to leverage
our many strengths.'
Looked at this way, Trump's stance is an implicit admission that he and his followers do not
"believe in America" - an argument that the United States cannot compete successfully in the world
arena unless protected by the imposition of high tariffs and punitive taxes on foreign production
and foreign competitors.
Robert Reich, an economist at Berkeley, former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton and a leading
supporter of Bernie Sanders during the primaries, agrees.
Trump's trade proposals, Reich argues, 'assume the U.S. can't compete and must erect trade
barriers lest other countries flood America with better and cheaper products. That's the opposite
of believing in America.'
On Jan. 7, Trump told The New York Times that he would impose a 45 percent tax on goods imported
from China. "I would tax China on products coming in," he told the paper's editorial board. "The
tax should be 45 percent."
When Ford proposed building new manufacturing facilities in Mexico, Trump declared in a September
2015 speech that he would call the president of Ford and tell him:
'I don't want you to do that. And if you do it, you're not going to have any cars coming
across the border unless you pay a 35 percent tax.'
Trump said the same thing in March after the Carrier Corporation announced plans to move air-conditioning
production facilities to Mexico:
'I'm going to tell the head of Carrier: "I hope you enjoy your stay in Mexico folks. But
every single unit that you make and send across our border, which now will be real, you're going
to pay a 35 percent tax."'
Andrew McAfee, a director of M.I.T.'s Initiative on the Digital Economy and co-author of "The
Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies," was sharply
critical of Trump. In an email, McAfee wrote:
'There's a reason that all good economists support free trade, and that none of them are supporting
Trump's proposals. The reason is that trade gives us more and better access to goods and services
than we could produce on our own. It also provides jobs for exporters, people working in airports
and ports, and so on.
Free trade is not surrender, and not something that only suckers do. In fact, just the opposite.
Closing our borders would be surrender to a nonexistent enemy. It would make us poorer without
bringing back the jobs.'
Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton, contends that Trump's proposal is only slightly less drastic
than the Smoot-Hawley Tariff - a law passed over the objection of more than 1,000 economists and
signed by Herbert Hoover in June 1930. Smoot-Hawley is largely acknowledged as one of the principle
causes of the subsequent worldwide economic catastrophe. In an email, Wilentz wrote:
'Smoot-Hawley raised tariffs across the board, with every trading partner. The results were disastrous
for the world economy, let alone for the U.S. at the opening stage of the Great Depression. A worldwide
trade war commenced, and international trade was shattered. Trump so far has proposed only sharp
tariff hikes with Mexico and China - but these are two of the three largest sources of U.S. imports.'
...
... A Newsweek investigation has found that in at least two of Trump's last three construction
projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United
States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. ...
Maybe instead of Al Gore, Michael Moore should hit the stump with Clinton
to work the crowd and sign people up to MoveOn.org membership since it will
be needed to defend Hillary in her up-coming impeachment trial in the
Republican Senate. It will bring back memories as we relive the Clinton
years all over again. And while the oxygen gets sucked out policy discussion
from Hillary's impeachment, she can get to work on Grand Bargain and finally
privatize SS and maybe no-fly zone & WW3, too. With so much stuff like that
going on, people should be sufficiently distracted from from their
shittacular healthcare, declining wages, and student loaners lurking in
basements as the number of states experiencing Obamacare "collapse" go from
current 4-7 to who knows … 10-20 or so.
EMAIL RELEASE: Citizens United Releases 198 Pages Of Emails Between State Department And Clinton
Foundation
10/05/2016
Today Citizens United is releasing 198 pages of emails between the State Department and Clinton
Foundation on a host of issues.
43 of the pages have to do with the creation of the "Friends of the Clinton Centre" 501c3,
its connection to an official State Department trip to Ireland, and a dinner that Secretary Clinton
attended that doesn't appear on her schedule.
Other topics include China, Haiti, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, and more.
The specter of foreign influence and the appearance of conflicts of interest are critically
important issues. We will continue to release emails such as these in the weeks and months to
come.
In these emails, you'll find the following:
• "Is this accurate?"
• "Following Secretary Clinton's lecture at Dublin City University…Patrick McDermott will provide
a room for us for a brief discussion on the Friends of the Clinton Centre 501…"
• "And what does Megan Rodham have to do with this"
• "…asked wjc to help avoid currency legislation b/c it'll mean lots of Chinese businesses
collapsing…"
• "When HRC visited Sarajevo, she proposed a program to train Bosnian entrepreneurs through
the Clinton Foundation(?)"
• "Oh come on…you can make this happen…"
• "Jake - unfortunately, like a bad penny, I'll keep turning up one way or another."
• "Kicking DS off"
• "Greetings from Jet Li"
• "[REDACTED] wants barbados"
• "I think it should be okay. We have interacted with this guy."
Sadly, this is just business as usual for the FBI. Hoover accepted valuable gifts from wealthy
friends and refused to acknowledge the existence of the mob, much less prosecute them.
The entire hearings and so-called investigations surrounding Hillary's emails are a theatrical
production designed to make it appear as though the US Feral gangster government actually cares
about enforcing the Rule of Law. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone of the posturing
DemonRat–ReplutoRat Party political parasites have been bribed to NOT enforce the Law against
other political parasites, the banking gangsters, Con Street swindlers, criminal crony capitalist
conporations and filthy Oligarchs.
Not one single current or former KKK (Klinton Krime Klan) gangster will ever be charged with
a crime by our corrupt US Department of Corruption, Injustice & Persecution. Not one single current
or former KKK (Klinton Krime Klan) gangster will ever be prosecuted for their violations of any
US Federal criminal statutes. Not one single current or former KKK (Klinton Krime Klan) gangster
will ever see the inside of a prison cell regarding the innumerable Federal felonies committed
by the KKK (Klinton Krime Klan).
The investigations and hearings are all smoke and mirrors political theater. Enjoy it for the
sick display of utter corruption and indifference on display by the political parasites and government
gangster thugs (FBi). Remember it well when these criminals are begging for mercy at the gallows
and guillotines. Don't be swayed by their protestations of innocence at that time. They are all
very corrupt, very willing participants in the looting of America and the destruction of the Rule
of Law. They all richly deserve their eventual dates at the gallows and guillotines.
"... Today, Jason Chaffetz, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a follow-up letter requesting additional information and blasting the investigative process in which the "FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters." ..."
"... But, perhaps the most startling takeaway from the Chaffetz letter is that limitations imposed by "side agreements" with Mills and Samuelson strictly prohibited the FBI from investigating the "intent" of Hillary's staff to obstruct justice and/or destroy evidence subject to a Congressional subpoena . ..."
"... Even more disturbing, Chaffetz points out that the FBI agreed to the "side agreements" in June 2016 at which point they were already aware that Combetta deleted Hillary's emails using Bleachbit on 3/31/15 after a conference call with Cheryl Mills and Hillary attorney, David Kendall. That said, the restrictions imposed by the "side agreements" strictly prohibited the FBI from reviewing Mills' emails during that period which could have spoken to her intent to destroy evidence. ..."
Two days ago the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), wrote a letter
to AG Lynch that, for the first time, revealed that the FBI apparently struck "side agreements"
with both Cheryl Mills an Heather Samuelson to, among other things, "destroy" their "laptops after
concluding their search" (see "
FBI Allowed 2 Hillary Aides To "Destroy" Their Laptops In Newly Exposed 'Side Agreements' ").
Today, Jason Chaffetz, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a follow-up
letter requesting additional information and blasting the investigative process in which the
"FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject
of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters."
But, perhaps the most startling takeaway from the Chaffetz letter is that limitations
imposed by "side agreements" with Mills and Samuelson strictly prohibited the FBI from investigating
the "intent" of Hillary's staff to obstruct justice and/or destroy evidence subject to a Congressional
subpoena . As pointed out by Chaffetz, the "side agreements" allowed the FBI to
only review emails between 6/1/14 through 2/1/15 and only those sent/received by one of Clinton's
four email addresses used during her tenure as Secretary of State .
Even more disturbing, Chaffetz points out that the FBI agreed to the "side agreements" in June
2016 at which point they were already aware that Combetta deleted Hillary's emails using Bleachbit
on 3/31/15 after a conference call with Cheryl Mills and Hillary attorney, David Kendall. That said,
the restrictions imposed by the "side agreements" strictly prohibited the FBI from reviewing Mills'
emails during that period which could have spoken to her intent to destroy evidence.
But, as always, we're sure the DOJ and FBI will promptly clarify all of these new questions in
a completely open and transparent way.
"prohibited the FBI from investigating the "intent" of Hillary's staff to obstruct justice
and/or destroy evidence subject to a Congressional subpoena"
Um… yeah, that was the whole purpose of the exercise..
People should be impeached here.
Start with Loretta for her tarmac golf and grandkid discussions with Bill and supervision of
the Hillary/FBI travesty.
Their hubris is what is shocking and frightening. Like a blitz they are trying to overwhelm the
rule of law. Like rabid dogs they are willing to take some hits if they can make it to the throats
of the system. Conspiracy theories of sleeper cells and fifth columns have nothing on the pervasive
nature of the threat we face.
While this election may be the last chance it is only the start since to root out this threat
to the Republic makes cancer look like a mild cold. These people are insidious and liberty loving
people better be prepared to stand on Election Day and beyond.
The Clinton Dynasty might be seeing what is happening and buying "no extradition agreement" with
some foreign countries and the getting the money "out of Dodge" before she loses. Every American
should read this and linked followups of this:
Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of wet sponges."
Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It
drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh.
It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with Hillary
Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live on.
And when a person keeps pointing out the importance of keeping one's word, it almost always
means that he or she is lying.
At least Harding was aware of the damage his friends caused to him: "I have no trouble with
my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're
the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! "
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Harding had the political courage to pardon, and free from
prison, Eugene V. Debs for his crime of giving an anti-war speech the Wilson administration did
not like.
Harding did not believe in foreign involvements and was never personally implicated in the
financial corruption of his administration.
The Presidency was pushed on him, and he admitted felt he was not qualified. I believe Harding gets a bad rap because he was not the leader of bold actions (wars) and the
corruption of people in his administration was well-documented. His death was widely mourned in the USA.
As far as long term harm to the country, the do-nothing Harding was not bad for the country.
If Clinton is to be compared to Harding, it would be to view Clinton as a "new" Harding who
now believes she is well qualified to be President, wants to do much foreign military involvement,
perhaps resulting in war, who is now trusting of her sociopathic friends to give her good advice,
and who is personally involved in selling government favors (via the Clinton foundation)
Clinton is probably well coached by well paid advisors in her oratory. Probably Harding
wrote his own. I would prefer Clinton to be like the old Harding, and the country would muddle through.
When it comes to war & nukes, I believe that HRC is the more dangerous of
the two.
Before I explain, I would like to invite Yves or any female NC reader to
consider & give their POV on what I'm about say.
HRC is more dangerous because she is the 1st woman to become a serious
contender for a position that has traditionally been considered a "man's job".
Therefore she believes she must not, in any way, be perceived as "soft" or
lacking "toughness" or aggressiveness. She feels compelled to "out-macho" the
macho guys.
Obviously this could have serious implications in any situation involving
escalating tensions. Negotiation or compromise would be off the table if she
thought it could be perceived as soft or weak (and she contemplates being a 2
term pres.)
What say you NC readers? Is this a justified concern or am I letting male
bias color my view?
"... Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief. ..."
"... Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a significant number of people from his own party. ..."
"... But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs. some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull it off. ..."
"... What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited. ..."
"... All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone" she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly, as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia. ..."
"... Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear. That fear is what drives her to the most extreme of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in front of the criticism she anticipates. ..."
"... How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief, Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued participation in NATO. ..."
Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political
complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular
concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing
for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as
Commander-in-Chief.
Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has
proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy
on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a
significant number of people from his own party.
But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs.
some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in
a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull
it off.
What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate
to pull the trigger. An illuminating
article in the NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless
dispositions of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited.
All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest
thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone"
she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly,
as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia.
Her willingness to roll the dice, to gamble with other people's lives, is ingrained within
her political personality, of which she is so proud.
Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak
on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear. That fear is what drives her to
the most extreme of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in front
of the criticism she anticipates.
It is what we can count on. She will most assuredly get America into a war within the first
6-9 months of her Presidency, since she will be looking forward to the muscular response she will
order when she is 'tested', as she expects.
How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief,
Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of
responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between
Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a
threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued
participation in NATO.
These differences alone are enough to move me to actually vote for someone I find politically
detestable, simply because I fear that the alternative is a high probability of war, and a greatly
enhanced risk of nuclear annihilation-through miscalculation-under a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
Excellent, really excellent summary. Thank you. Especially this observation:
"Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak
on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear. That fear is what drives her to the most extreme
of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in front of the criticism
she anticipates."
2. She (like most sociopaths, although it is unclear whether she is one or not) is not able
to apologize for mistakes. New York Times:
In the end, she settled on language that was similar to Senator John Kerry's when he was the
Democratic nominee in 2004: that if she had known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraqi weaponry,
she would never have voted for the Senate resolution authorizing force.
Yet antiwar anger has festered, and yesterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response
to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather
than make an apology she did not believe in.
"If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or
has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from," Mrs. Clinton told an
audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack
Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
Her decision not to apologize is regarded so seriously within her campaign that some advisers
believe it will be remembered as a turning point in the race: either ultimately galvanizing
voters against her (if she loses the nomination), or highlighting her resolve and her willingness
to buck Democratic conventional wisdom (if she wins).
At the same time, the level of Democratic anger has surprised some of her allies and advisers,
and her campaign is worried about how long it will last and how much damage it might cause
her.
3. Due to her greed she and her close entourage represent a huge security risk. Emailgate had
shown that as for computer security she is an absolute zero. Absolutely, horribly incompetent
and absolutely, horribly greedy (the key idea of private server was to hide her "pay for play"
deals related to Clinton foundation). The same level of computer security incompetence is prevalent
in her close circle (Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, etc) .
4. She strongly believe in the neoconservative foreign-policy agenda by re-casting the neoconservatives'
goals in liberal-interventionist terms. In reality the difference between "liberal interventionism"
and Neoconservatism are pretty superficial (Kagan already calls himself liberal interventionalist)
and Hillary's willingness to infest a foreign-policy establishment with neocons is beyond any
doubt and comparable with Bush II.
As the recent Republican primary contest had shown neoconservatives have virtually no support
among the US voters. Their base is exclusively military-industrial complex. So the reason she
is reaching out to those shady figures is a deceptively simple: she shares common views, respects
their supposed expertise, and wants them in her governing coalition. That means that "… today's
Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners,
lobbyists for every foreign intervention, promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters
of the natural resources of corrupt governments. …" (
http://crookedtimber.org/2016/09/27/donald-trump-the-michael-dukakis-of-the-republican-party/#comment-693421
)
5. She is completely numb to human suffering. She has a total lack of empathy for other people.
"... The only bright spot in the prospect of a Hellary Klinton presidency is the probability that she may not survive long enough to start a war with Russia. I wonder how the training for the Mark I body double is coming? ..."
"... And how can anyone with a functioning brain cell think that anything a politician says or promises during an election has any connection to how they will act once elected? Remember Obama, Mr. "Audacity of Hope?" ..."
The only bright spot in the prospect of a Hellary Klinton presidency is the probability
that she may not survive long enough to start a war with Russia. I wonder how the training for
the Mark I body double is coming?
On the other hand, why should anyone think that a bubble-headed blowhard like Trumpet has the
intelligence or gumption to have any effect upon the operations of the Warfare State? When the
opinion makers of his own party and the neoliberal leaders of Klinton's party are all riding on
the Military-Industrial gravy train looking for the next enemy to keep business booming?
And how can anyone with a functioning brain cell think that anything a politician says
or promises during an election has any connection to how they will act once elected? Remember
Obama, Mr. "Audacity of Hope?"
"... "I am not satisfied [with the Chilcot report]," ..."
"... . "It won't bring me back my family; it won't bring me back my arms or it won't bring me back my country. My country Iraq is destroyed because of this invasion." ..."
"... "when the missile hit my home." ..."
"... "I was still young, living with my family. At 12:00 o'clock in the night I suddenly heard a very big blast hitting my home, the house collapsed on us. There was a lot of fire and I heard my family screaming and shouting," ..."
"... "We were farmers. We had sheep and cows outside. There wasn't a military base near to my home," ..."
"... "There are lots of people like me who lost some members of their family. So we have no answer for this: why they have done it – we don't know." ..."
"... "Yes, Saddam [Hussein] was a terrible person and a dictator, but what's happening now is much worse than it was under Saddam. They took one Saddam and they got us many more Saddams," ..."
"... "inadequate" ..."
"... "deeply sorry for the loss of life" ..."
"... "good faith". ..."
"... "This makes me angry. He just said 'sorry' and he also said he would do the same thing again. They have caused so many deaths and so much suffering […]," ..."
"... "to say 'sorry' and just walk away with it – it's not justice." ..."
"... "I want to ask him if he wants to come back with me to Iraq and tell the Iraqi people that he will do the same thing again…" ..."
"... "presented with a certainty that was not justified." ..."
"... "chaos" ..."
"... "Before the war started we knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. We knew that they're only coming for economic reasons and to have power in this part of the world. And you can see what's happening today in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria – it's all linked to the 2003 invasions of Iraq," ..."
"... "There's was violence but now there's hundreds of more violence than before…If you want to rebuild Iraq again you need probably another hundred years to do this…I go back to Iraq and I see the country is destroyed," ..."
Published time: 02:03 Edited time: 8 Jul, 2016 02:55
Get short URL
Blair's apology for the Iraq invasion is not going to bring the "destroyed" country and dead people
back, a disabled Iraqi man, who lost his whole family, told RT. He demands justice for those whose
actions only created "many more Saddams". "I am not satisfied [with the Chilcot report],"
25-year-old Ali Abbas said . "It won't bring me back my family; it won't bring me back my
arms or it won't bring me back my country. My country Iraq is destroyed because of this invasion."
Thirteen years ago, Abbas lost his mother, father, and a little brother as well as 13 other members
of their family in the UK-US allied 2003 invasion.
Now residing in London, he recounts terrors of the war, saying he can vividly remember the day
and time "when the missile hit my home."
"I was still young, living with my family. At 12:00 o'clock in the night I suddenly heard
a very big blast hitting my home, the house collapsed on us. There was a lot of fire and I heard
my family screaming and shouting," Abbas said.
That attack left the young man disabled – having suffered burns to 60 percent of his body, he
lost his arms amputated due to severe burns.
The one thing that Abbas does not understand is why the militants had to target his home and family
of peaceful farmers.
"We were farmers. We had sheep and cows outside. There wasn't a military base near to my home,"
he said. "There are lots of people like me who lost some members of their family. So we
have no answer for this: why they have done it – we don't know."
Abbas says that the Iraq's 2003 invasion and the following regime change brought the country leaders
much worse than Saddam Hussein.
"Yes, Saddam [Hussein] was a terrible person and a dictator, but what's happening now is much
worse than it was under Saddam. They took one Saddam and they got us many more Saddams," he
said.
The so-called Chilcot inquiry released by Sir John Chilcot criticized former UK government led
by Tony Blair for "inadequate" planning and underestimation of the Iraq invasion's consequences.
It also found that Britain's choice to support the Iraq war unjustified.
Speaking in light of the Chilcot inquiry release, Tony Blair said he was "deeply sorry for
the loss of life" , but stressed that he acted in "good faith".
"This makes me angry. He just said 'sorry' and he also said he would do the same thing again.
They have caused so many deaths and so much suffering […]," Abbas said, adding that "to
say 'sorry' and just walk away with it – it's not justice."
"I want to ask him if he wants to come back with me to Iraq and tell the Iraqi people that
he will do the same thing again…" he says.
The Chilcot report also showed that Britain's decision to bomb Iraq was not clearly evaluated
as one of the major arguments for the campaign – Iraq's weapons of mass destruction – was "presented
with a certainty that was not justified."
Abbas agrees that the WMD was just a pretext for the UK and US to initiate war which resulted
in total "chaos" in the Middle East and proliferation of terrorism.
"Before the war started we knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. We knew that
they're only coming for economic reasons and to have power in this part of the world. And you can
see what's happening today in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria – it's all linked to the 2003 invasions
of Iraq," Abbas said.
He says that the 2003 invasion unleashed terrorists that Iraq did not know of before.
"There's was violence but now there's hundreds of more violence than before…If you want to
rebuild Iraq again you need probably another hundred years to do this…I go back to Iraq and I see
the country is destroyed," he added.
"... Average US wages rose 350% in the 40 years between 1932 and 1972, but only 22% over the next 40 years. The pattern holds similar across the developed world. In other words, for all their hype, the computer and the internet have done less to lift economic growth than the flush toilet. ..."
"... ahem… the computer and the internet sped outsourcing to countries like China. Ask China or India how their economic growth has been since 1972. The author is mixing up several things at once. ..."
"... When so many of our jobs, technology and investment is offshored to China (and elsewhere), the future for innovation is certainly not bright, and this should be obvious to everyone, including the author. ..."
" Average US wages rose 350% in the 40 years between 1932 and 1972, but only 22% over the next
40 years. The pattern holds similar across the developed world. In other words, for all their hype,
the computer and the internet have done less to lift economic growth than the flush toilet."
ahem… the computer and the internet sped outsourcing to countries like China. Ask China or India
how their economic growth has been since 1972. The author is mixing up several things at once.
Great comments, and please allow me to piggyback off them:
When so many of our jobs, technology and investment is offshored to China (and elsewhere), the
future for innovation is certainly not bright, and this should be obvious to everyone, including
the author.
When so many have contributed so much, only to see their jobs and livelihoods offshored again
and again and again, that great jump the others have will then zero out OUR innovation!
The question was an obvious trap and looks like selected by Huma Abedin. Trump could decimate
Hillary responding with the questin about her defence of 12 years old girl rapist, but shoose not
to.
Notable quotes:
"... I've been writing here for years about the question "What makes large parts of the white working class vote for the GOP?" and my main answer is that people who are a step up from the bottom will do a lot to preserve their sense that they have someone to look down on, which racism functions socially to preserve. Social wages of whiteness, etc. ..."
"... Believe it or not, many strands of conservatism are / were critical of capitalism. If you view conservatism as wanting to preserve or reinstate a kind of aristocracy, it's pretty easy to see why. Aristocracies like hereditary lands, preserving them, etc. Conservatism has been captured by pro-capitalists for, again, historically path-dependent reasons. ..."
In the U.S., at least, perceived threats to social status obviously have something to do with
it. I've been writing here for years about the question "What makes large parts of the white working
class vote for the GOP?" and my main answer is that people who are a step up from the bottom will
do a lot to preserve their sense that they have someone to look down on, which racism functions
socially to preserve. Social wages of whiteness, etc.
Since you can't really do much about educating
people out of racism that hasn't already been done, maybe you can do something about the "step
up from the bottom" part by making society less precarious.
But whenever people here wrote something like this around the election, they were told that they
only wrote this because they were white, that they only cared about white people, and that they
supported white supremacy. That is the intellectual heritage that the HRC supporters here will
leave behind. It's tremendously stupid and they've added nothing.
merian: "Overall, though, you need to be at least to some degree critical of capitalism to mount
a coherent ecological political theory, I think."
Believe it or not, many strands of conservatism are / were critical of capitalism. If you view
conservatism as wanting to preserve or reinstate a kind of aristocracy, it's pretty easy to see
why. Aristocracies like hereditary lands, preserving them, etc. Conservatism has been captured
by pro-capitalists for, again, historically path-dependent reasons.
"... I think Trump may be the one and only person to increase the likelihood the US will still be an independent country in ten years. ..."
"... Trump may have some issues, but at least he psychologically identifies with the US. Most US elites think of themselves as world citizens and really couldn't care less if the US becomes like the DRC. ..."
"... Univision's lead owner is Hillary's largest contributor, the Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban: ..."
"... This convenient FCC rule change hands them a nice exit strategy. Not convinced to contribute to the Clinton Foundation yet? They make magic happen. ..."
There is a real risk the media will be wholly foreign owned very soon. The FCC under Pres.
Obama eliminated the rule on foreign ownership. This, the TPP, and giving up internet control
are of a piece.
I think Trump may be the one and only person to increase the likelihood the US will still
be an independent country in ten years. With Clinton we may end up losing our sovereignty
by 2020. Trump may have some issues, but at least he psychologically identifies with the US.
Most US elites think of themselves as world citizens and really couldn't care less if the US becomes
like the DRC.
I trust Trump's instincts much more than Hillary's. The continued existence of an independent
US will be very, very important for the world to have any degree of pluralism. Any global hegemony
is likely to be unpleasant for most people.
Grupo Televisa, a Mexican company with a minority stake in the Spanish-language station
Univision, might now be able to increase its ownership.
Univision's lead owner is Hillary's largest contributor, the Israeli-American media mogul
Haim Saban:
On June 27, 2006, Saban Capital Group led a group of investors bidding for Univision
Communications, the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States.
Other investors in the Saban-led group were Texas Pacific Group of Fort Worth, Texas and
Thomas H. Lee Partners. The group was successful in acquiring Univision with a bid valued at
$13.7 billion.
This convenient FCC rule change hands them a nice exit strategy. Not convinced to contribute
to the Clinton Foundation yet? They make magic happen.
Afaict, neither HRC nor Trump has said much of anything about the worldwide
network of U.S. bases. HRC doesn't talk about (this aspect of) the U.S. global
military footprint, and while Trump rambles on about making S Korea and Japan
shoulder more (or all) of their own security (and ponders aloud whether it
might be a good idea for both to acquire their own nuclear weapons), I haven't
heard him address the issue of bases: a question is whether Trump even knows
that the base network exists.
See also
Girl Talk at Trump Tower
MoDo, NYT. "After working with psychologists to figure out how to goad
Trump into an outburst in the first debate, the commanding Hillary saved the Machado provocation
until the end."
This was such garbage from the get go. Anyone with minor audio production
experience would have known that was a mic problem. It isn't the kind of thing
I would wonder if someone did intentionally. They certainly could have tried to
correct the problem at the soundboard as the debate went on.
"... As a side note, it's obvious that there are at least three separate US policies active in Syria. The Defense Dept supports the largely Kurdish YPG against ISIS, the CIA works with Gulf backers to support the Free Syrian Army – an amalgam of mostly ineffective "moderate" rebels and effective, but murderous, Islamists affiliated to al-Qaeda, and State hovers around making noises about Assad, variously placating and irritating the Turks and dickering with the Russians. Whatever the merits of their individual stances, there is no reason to suppose that either Obama or Hillary can exert more than loose control over this mess. stevenjohnson , 10.02.16 at 12:59 pm LFC @300 It is unclear to me how a change from an independent secular national state in Syria to a patchwork of sectarian statelets wholly dependent upon foreign support is anything but a regime change. Unless of course, the phrase "regime change" merely means the murder of a designated leader and his replacement by someone acceptable to the regime changers. ..."
"... CIA of course, as more or less the President's Praetorian Guard over humanity at large, is no more under the Secretary of State than the Pentagon. ..."
"... It seems to have been forgotten that the democratic rebels were lynching black Africans within days of their glorious uprising. Barack Obama is too tan for the Klan, thus it was advisable for a loyal servant to provide an excuse for a half-Kenyan man to support the mass murder of darker skinned people. ..."
"... She repeated the performance in the Benghazi affair, where she loyally excused the murder of Stevens as a religious mob, instead of a falling out with his jihadi employees ..."
"... Lee A. Arnold is sort of correct there was once a genuine democratic Syrian opposition, largely inspired by the economic liberalization (neoliberalization according to many CTers,) in the face of the stresses of the world economic downturn and the prolonged Syrian droughts. Nonetheless there was from almost the very beginning an organized Islamist element that relied on violence, and refused to negotiate any reforms whatsoever, despite the Assad government's attempt to do so. Whether he was sincere is moot. ..."
"... Arnold's other point that Trump's professed plans are not for peace but victory is correct. Whether he has any real ideas how to achieve this other than firing generals until he gets a winner is anybody's guess. Like Nixon, Trump has a secret plan. ..."
"... The recent leak that Clinton is against nuclear armed cruise missiles and isn't committed to Obama's trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade appears to suggest she's not quite on board with plans for general war. (Yes, the purpose of this program is to prepare for general nuclear war, or at minimum, plausible threat of imminent general nuclear war.) It is unclear whether this was leaked to make her look good to the public, or to discredit her with the military's higher ups. (It is likely dissident military played a role in the leak, either way.) ..."
"... I firmly believe!…most ordinary people don't vote interests, they vote the national good. It's the rich and their favored employees who vote their interests. ..."
As a side note, it's obvious that there are at least three separate US policies active in
Syria. The Defense Dept supports the largely Kurdish YPG against ISIS, the CIA works with Gulf
backers to support the Free Syrian Army – an amalgam of mostly ineffective "moderate" rebels and
effective, but murderous, Islamists affiliated to al-Qaeda, and State hovers around making noises
about Assad, variously placating and irritating the Turks and dickering with the Russians.
Whatever the merits of their individual stances, there is no reason to suppose that either
Obama or Hillary can exert more than loose control over this mess.
stevenjohnson, 10.02.16 at 12:59 pm
LFC @300 It is unclear to me how a change from an independent secular national state in Syria
to a patchwork of sectarian statelets wholly dependent upon foreign support is anything but a
regime change. Unless of course, the phrase "regime change" merely means the murder of a designated
leader and his replacement by someone acceptable to the regime changers.
@306 "And (Clinton) also played an instrumental role in destroying Libya…"
@316 "Hillary Clinton served as the US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, which makes her at
least one of the prime architects of US foreign policy…"
It was NATO which attacked Libya. The prime "architects" were well known, namely, Cameron and
Sarkozy. The US role in this matter was conducted largely through NATO, the CIA and international
diplomacy. In the US, relations with Cameron and Sarkozy would be conducted largely by either
Obama personally, with other diplomatic duties taken up by the UN ambassador Samantha Power, a
figure that has always been in an ambiguous relationship with the Secretary of State. CIA
of course, as more or less the President's Praetorian Guard over humanity at large, is no more
under the Secretary of State than the Pentagon.
It seems to have been forgotten that the democratic rebels were lynching black Africans
within days of their glorious uprising. Barack Obama is too tan for the Klan, thus it was advisable
for a loyal servant to provide an excuse for a half-Kenyan man to support the mass murder of darker
skinned people. Enter that dutiful public servant, able to suffer undeserved ignominy in
service to her country. (She repeated the performance in the Benghazi affair, where she loyally
excused the murder of Stevens as a religious mob, instead of a falling out with his jihadi employees.)
Lee A. Arnold is sort of correct there was once a genuine democratic Syrian opposition,
largely inspired by the economic liberalization (neoliberalization according to many CTers,) in
the face of the stresses of the world economic downturn and the prolonged Syrian droughts. Nonetheless
there was from almost the very beginning an organized Islamist element that relied on violence,
and refused to negotiate any reforms whatsoever, despite the Assad government's attempt to do
so. Whether he was sincere is moot.
Arnold's other point that Trump's professed plans are not for peace but victory is correct.
Whether he has any real ideas how to achieve this other than firing generals until he gets a winner
is anybody's guess. Like Nixon, Trump has a secret plan.
Peter T @320 "As a side note, it's obvious that there are at least three separate US policies
active in Syria…Whatever the merits of their individual stances, there is no reason to suppose
that either Obama or Hillary can exert more than loose control over this mess." Skipping over
the question of how obvious it is to CT and its regular commentariat that the military has a semi-independent
policy, the idea of Presidential leadership does sort of include a vague notion that the President
sets the policy, not the generals. The facts being otherwise show how the US is a deeply militaristic
polity. I would add the CIA is very much the President's army. State is more or less, Other, on
the multiple choice exam. Trump's hint he would fire generals til he finds a winner suggests he
more or less agrees that the military is an independent enterprise in the political market (which
is what US governance seems to be modeled on.)
The recent leak that Clinton is against nuclear armed cruise missiles and isn't committed
to Obama's trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade appears to suggest she's not quite on board
with plans for general war. (Yes, the purpose of this program is to prepare for general nuclear
war, or at minimum, plausible threat of imminent general nuclear war.) It is unclear whether this
was leaked to make her look good to the public, or to discredit her with the military's higher
ups. (It is likely dissident military played a role in the leak, either way.)
The fact that these kinds of issues are ignored in favor of twaddle about Clinton Foundation,
emails and the actions of the Secretary State, an office whose relevance has been dubious for
decades, says much about the level of democratic discourse.
Rich Puchalsky, the primary reason so many white workers vote Republican is because they are
voting values, which are religious, not policies. Even more to the point, the notion that voting
is like a market transaction (a very liberal idea) founders on the fact…
I firmly believe!…most ordinary people don't vote interests, they vote the national good.
It's the rich and their favored employees who vote their interests.
As to the religious bigotry, well, once it was necessary to say or write "racial bigotry,"
because everyone knew bigotry to be an expression of religious belief. Today, the very notion
of religious bigotry is more or less forbidden as some sort of expression of anti-religious fanaticism.
"... The chaotic civil war in Syria and Iraq seems like another example where the U.S. is having a hard time "thinking" things thru realistically. ..."
"... One interpretation is she's stupid and vicious as a badge of class honor, blissfully consistent with the bloodthirsty record of Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger. Unfortunately, that might be true, though I think if it is true, it is more likely a product of being caught up in the amoral bubble of political and media process that has enveloped the whole foreign policy establishment than any personal psychopathy. ..."
Anarcissie @ 239: We basically have a whole class of people, at the top of the social order,
who seem devoid of a moral sense - a problem which the upcoming election isn't going to touch,
much less solve. I don't blame Clinton for this . . .
JimV @ 317: I am sorry if I mischaracterized BW as implying that HRC is evil, . . .
Peter T @ 320: Whatever the merits of their individual stances, there is no reason to suppose
that either Obama or Hillary can exert more than loose control over this mess [the multi-sided
regional civil war engulfing Syria and northern Iraq]
stevenjohnson @ 324: The recent leak that Clinton is against nuclear armed cruise missiles
and isn't committed to Obama's trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade appears to suggest she's
not quite on board with plans for general war.
LFC @ 330: I disagree w the notion that the pt of nuclear 'modernization' is to make plausible
the threat of "imminent general nuclear war." If U.S. military planners took hallucinogenic drugs
and went nuts, they could "plausibly" threaten "imminent general nuclear war" right now with the
US nuclear arsenal as currently configured. They don't need to upgrade the weapons to do that.
The program is prob more the result of rigid, unimaginative thinking at top levels of Pentagon
and influence of outside companies (e.g. Boeing etc) that work on the upgrades.
I don't know if that seems like a somewhat random collection of precursors to assemble as preface
to a comment. I was thinking of picking out a few upthread references to climate change and the
response to it (or inadequacy thereof) as well.
I am a little disturbed by the idea of leaving the impression that I think Hillary Clinton
is "evil". What I think is that American politics in general is not generating realistic, adaptive
governance.
I am using that bloodless phrase, "realistic, adaptive governance", deliberately, to emphasize
wanting to step outside the passions of the Presidential election. I think the Manichean narrative
where Trump is The Most Horrible Candidate Evah and Everyone Must Line Up Behind Clinton as an
Ethical Imperative of a High Order is part of the process of propaganda and manipulation that
distorts popular discussion and understanding and helps to create a politics that cannot govern
realistically and adaptively. This is not about me thinking Trump is anything but a horrible mess
of a candidate who ought to be kept far from power.
I see Clinton as someone who is trapped inside the dynamics of this seriously deranged politics
qua political process. I don't see her as entirely blameless. Politicians like Obama and either
Clinton, at the top of the political order, are masters (keeping in mind that there are many masters
working to some extent in opposition to one another as rivals, allies, enemies and so on) of the
process and create the process by the exercise of their mastery, as much as they are mastered
by it. I see them as trapped by the process they have helped (more than a little opportunistically)
to create, but trapped as Dr Frankenstein is by his Creature.
Clinton must struggle with the ethical contradictions of governance at the highest levels of
leadership: she must, in the exercise of power in office and out, practice the political art of
the possible in relation to crafting policy that will be "good" in the sense of passably effective
and efficient - this may involve a high degree of foresightful wonkery or a lethally ruthless
statesmanship, depending upon circumstances. Beside this business of making the great machinery
of the state lumber forward, she must strive to appear "good", like Machiavelli's Prince, even
while playing an amoral game of real politick, gathering and shepherding a complex coalition of
allies, supporters, donors and cooperative enemies.
Machiavelli, when he was considering the Princely business of appearing "good", was contending
with the hypocrisies and impossible idealism of authoritarian Catholic morality. He barely connected
with anything that we would recognize as democratic Public Opinion and could scarcely conceive
of what Ivy Lee or Edward Bernays, let alone Fox News, Vox and the world wide web might do to
politics.
We are trapped, just as Clinton is trapped, in the vast communication nightmare of surrealistic
news and opinion washing in upon us in a tide that never ebbs. We are trapped by the politics
of media "gotchas" and Kinsley Gaffes (A Kinsley gaffe occurs when a political gaffe reveals some
truth that a politician did not intend to admit.)
I don't think Clinton lacks a moral sense. What I think is that Clinton's moral sense is exhausted
calculating what to say or do within the parameters of media-synthesized conventional wisdom policed
by people who are themselves exhausted trying to manage it. Matt Lauer's interview with Clinton
was notorious for the relentless and clueless questioning about the email server, although I,
personally, was shocked when he asked her a question that seemed premised on the idea that veterans
should be offended by admitting the Iraq War was a mistake.
I would think it is easy to see that the media circus is out of control, especially when a
clown like Trump graduates from The Apprentice to the Republican nomination. YMMV, but
I think this is a serious problem that goes beyond vividly imagined sepia-toned parodies of Trump's
candidacy as the second coming of Mussolini.
While we're getting ourselves agitated over Trump's racism or threats to bar Muslims from entry,
apparently the Military-Industrial Complex, left on autopilot, is re-designing the nation's nuclear
arsenal to make the outbreak of nuclear war far more likely. And, the closest Clinton gets to
a comment, campaign commitment or public discussion, let alone an exercise of power, is a PR "leak"!!!
The chaotic civil war in Syria and Iraq seems like another example where the U.S. is having
a hard time "thinking" things thru realistically. Clinton offered up a sound-bite last year,
saying that she favored imposing a "no-fly" zone, which was exposed as kind of crazy idea, given
that the Russians as well as Assad's government are the ones flying, not to mention the recent
experience with a no-fly zone in Libya. One interpretation is she's stupid and vicious as
a badge of class honor, blissfully consistent with the bloodthirsty record of Madeleine Albright
and Henry Kissinger. Unfortunately, that might be true, though I think if it is true, it is more
likely a product of being caught up in the amoral bubble of political and media process that has
enveloped the whole foreign policy establishment than any personal psychopathy. What's most
alarming to me is that we cannot count on personal character to put the brakes on that process,
which is now the process of governance. I am writing now of the process of governance by public
relations that was has been exposed a bit in profiles of the Deputy National Security Advisor
for Strategic Communications, Ben Rhodes.
In Syria, it has become almost comical, if you can overlook the bodies piling up, as the U.S.
has sought a the mythical unicorn of Syrian Moderate Democrats whom the Pentagon or the CIA can
advise, train and arm. This is foreign policy by PR narrative and it is insanely unrealistic.
But, our politics is trapped in it, and, worse, policy is trapped in it. Layer after layer of
b.s. have piled up obscuring U.S. interests and practical options.
Recently, U.S. forces supporting
the Turks have come dangerously close to blowing up U.S. forces supporting the Kurds. When you
find yourself on opposing sides of a civil war like Charles I you may be in the process of losing
your head. Some of the worst elements opposing Assad have been engaged in a transparent re-branding
exercise aimed at garnering U.S. aid. And, U.S. diplomats and media face the high challenge of
explaining why the U.S. supports Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
But, hey, Clinton will get Robert Kagan's vote and a better tomorrow is only a Friedman unit
away, so it is all good.
"... If the goal for both candidates was to avoid self-inflicted wounds , Clinton certainly had the better showing. Trump showed how easily he could be baited and distracted by criticism ..."
"... the only attack on Clinton that really landed was when he hit her on her cynical maneuvering on TPP, and that attack worked because it happened to be true and reminded voters why Clinton isn't trustworthy, but the vast majority of Americans don't know or care about TPP and so the effect of this attack will likely be minimal. ..."
"... Remarkably, Trump mostly failed to use Clinton's foreign policy record against her, and he spent more of his time having to clarify or defend his own "positions" with little success. ..."
"... He mentioned the Libyan war only in passing, but never even tried to explain why Clinton was responsible for any of it. Clinton was able to deflect this by pointing out that Trump backed intervention in Libya, and that was the end of it. Foreign policy is one of Clinton's biggest liabilities and one of the most obvious ways to question her judgment, but Trump isn't prepared enough to talk about policy to use it against her. ..."
So she won the debate on points, and probably won it in the court of public opinion, and in
the process eased liberal anxiety and pushed the race back toward its "Hillary by four" equilibrium.
What she didn't do, however, was goad Trump into a true meltdown or knock him out with a truly
devastating attack.
If the goal for both candidates was to
avoid self-inflicted wounds, Clinton certainly had the better showing. Trump showed how easily
he could be baited and distracted by criticism, and even when he was gesturing in the direction of
talking about policy he fell back on many of his worst arguments (e.g., "take the oil," inane complaints
about the nuclear deal, etc.). As I recall, the only attack on Clinton that really landed was when he hit her on her cynical maneuvering on TPP, and that attack worked because it happened to be true
and reminded voters why Clinton isn't trustworthy, but the vast majority of Americans don't know
or care about TPP and so the effect of this attack will likely be minimal.
Remarkably, Trump mostly failed to use Clinton's foreign policy record against her, and he
spent more of his time having to clarify or defend his own "positions" with little success.
He mentioned the Libyan war only in passing, but never even tried to explain why Clinton was
responsible for any of it. Clinton was able to deflect this by pointing out that Trump backed intervention
in Libya, and that was the end of it. Foreign policy is one of Clinton's biggest liabilities and
one of the most obvious ways to question her judgment, but Trump isn't prepared enough to talk about
policy to use it against her.
Clinton also avoided having to say very much about her position on what should be done in Syria.
The candidates were never asked about it, and she mentioned the country briefly as part of an answer
about the war on ISIS. Overall, the foreign policy section of the debate touched on only a handful
of issues, most of which were related to U.S. policies in the Near East. If anyone wanted to know
about something other than the candidates' views on Iran and Russia, last night's debate wouldn't
have provided many answers.
"... Wow, that 5 minute video is well worth watching. HRC calls multiple times for walls and "barriers" to be constructed along the Mexican border. ..."
"... trump campaign should distribute that to every spanish speaking organization that's out there. ..."
"... Understandably, Hillary was filled with enthusiasm after visiting Israel's security wall and seeing how well it keeps out unwanted brown people. /sarc ..."
Guardian is firmly in Hillary camp. Neoliberal media defends neoliberal candidate. What can
you expect?
Notable quotes:
"... "Some people insist on disguising this Great Satan as the savior angel." -- Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, referring to the United States, 2015. ..."
"... The US has already been doing that for a long time. Your country is currently allied with al Qaeda in Syria and other so called moderates whose intention is to create a sharia law fundamentalist society as aopposed to Assad who is euro centric and secular. ..."
"... From the article: We know from Wikileaks that she believed privately in the past that Saudi Arabia was the largest source for terrorist funding worldwide, and that the Saudi government was not doing enough to stop that funding. ..."
"... and yet the Clinton Foundation benefits massively from KSA donations ..."
"... I heard that Donald Trump speaks out against the USA funding extremists to overthrow leaders like Assad, while they couldn't care about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Tourists are being shot in Tunisia from extremists in Libya since we became involved in killing Gaddafi. ..."
"... The USA armed and trained extremists in Afghanistan to get one over on Russia, and despite more British troops and civilians being killed by USA friendly fire than the 'enemy' our media never make the same fuss about the USA. ..."
"... The USA didn't care for years when the government they helped implement in Afghanistan made women walk around in blue tents and banned them from education. ..."
"... Different political systems; two people who come from very different backgrounds with different views and experiences. Ahmadinejad was a social conservative with a populist economic agenda. Trump is all over the map, but in terms of his staff and advisers and his economic plans he's much more of a conventional Republican. David Duke's admiration is the main thing the two have in common. ..."
"... Clinton is tripe. She, and her kin, have a ponderous history of talk, and either inaction, or actions that generate disastrous results. Zero accomplishments across the board. Those who'd vote for Hillary must have a "horse" in this race. ..."
"... Yawn... The Guardian has Trump and Putin bashing on the brain. ..."
"... John Bolton as possible Secretary of State? http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/john-bolton-no-regrets-about-toppling-saddam/article/2564463 Unless you're not talking about the guy who looks like a dead ringer for Mr Pastry that is a really terrifying proposition. ..."
"... USA and Britain are very directly responsible for Iran being ruled by the Islamic mafia which has been in power in Iran since 1979. Iran had a democratic government which for the benefit of its people and against the stealing of its oil by Britain, nationalised the oil. Britain then, desperate to carry on stealing the Iranian oil persuaded USA to collaborate with it to covertly organise a coup by MI5 and CIA to topple the legitimate democratic government and install a puppet dictatorship. ..."
"... All that happened in 1953, and Britain and USA totally admitted to all that 30 years later when the official secrets were declassified. ..."
"... ..., forgot to mention, Jimmy C1arter recently admitted that while he was the president, they contributed to the funding of the Khomeini gang against their own installed ally, the Shah in 1979 to topple him ..."
"... Trump makes George W Bush seem like an intellectual heavyweight and Hillary Clinton makes Bush seem as honest and truthful as a Girl Scout! ..."
"... What a shitty choice Americans have to make this time round. A compulsive liar warmonger or an ignorant buffoonish bigot.... ..."
"... US hatred for Iran is hard to fathom. Other adversaries have been forgiven: Germany, Italy, Japan, Vietnam, China. Iran is an outlier. ..."
"... I think it's mainly to keep US allies happy. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel regard Iran as their greatest enemy and the Syrian Civil War is largely a proxy conflict between the Saudis and the Iranians over their respective oil supplies, regional clout and religious affinity. ..."
"... Vote Clinton and absolutely nothing changes or improves. Hillary might as well take golf lessons from Barack, and saxophone lessons from bonking Bill, every day of her presidency. ..."
"... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the CIA and/or the US Armed Forces do that sort of thing too actually! The CIA, after all, toppled the then democratically elected PM of Iran in 1953, forcibly installing the Shah in his place, the CIA helped bring the Taliban and Saddam to power in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively in the first place, unleashing decades of death and destruction on the peoples of those two countries ..."
"... When the Iraqi people rose up against Saddam's brutal dictatorship back in 1991, the US actually helped him crush the rebellion, thus ensuring he stayed in power. ..."
"... One of Trump's top advisors John Bolton wrote an article for the New York Times titled "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran" calling for a joint US-Israel strike on Iran, including regime change. He could well end up being Sec. Of State if Trump wins. ..."
"... Meanwhile Clinton is on record as saying that Iran are the world's main sponsor of terrorism and that if she became president she would obliterate Iran if they attacked Israel. Given that Hezbollah are always involved in tit for tat encounters with Israel, and Clinton feels Hezbollah is effectively the state of Iran, it wouldn't take much. ..."
"... Bolton is a vile neocon of the lowest order, what a charade if he gets a senior post and they call Hillary a warmonger? Just wait for Bolton, you mugs ..."
"... Let's hope the Saudis defeat the Houthi uprising and support the internationally recognised government of Yemen. Oh, sorry this is the Guardian: let's hope the Russians defeat the Sunni uprising and support the internationally recognised government of Syria... ..."
"... Yes. Trump is going to steal ISIS's oil. Only slight hole in that theory is that ISIS doesn't own any phucking oil. They aren't a nation state, just thieves. Stealing a thief's stolen goods is still stealing. ..."
"... I've never understood why we're allied to Saudi. They were complicit in 9/11, they hate the west and despise us. ..."
"... >I've never understood why we're allied to Saudi. Oil. Oil. And more Oil. ..."
"... There's nothing bizarre about working with Russia on Middle Eastern issues unless you're married to the idea of a new Cold War. Why Washington is so hell-bent on making Russians the enemies again is beyond me. ..."
"... Russia - does it really need all that land? Wouldn't it be better if Vladivostok was Obamagrad and Ekaterinburg was Katemiddletown? ..."
"... What exactly is the US now? a supplier of sophisticated weaponary to "rebels" or rather terrorists that the legitimate governnent ( with Russian help thankfully) is trying to defeat... ..."
"... There is no moral equivalence here. Once you look at what western intel has been upto all these decades, nowhere could Russia be close to the evil that the US and UK are. ..."
Donny is the best chance for the lasting world peace and stability because he is more likely
to work with Russians on key geopolitical issues.
Hillary is the best chance for ww3 and nuclear anihilation of the mainland American cities
because she is russophobic, demonizer of Russia, hell bent on messing with them and unexplicably
encouraged to do so by supposedly "normal" people in mainstream media.
The US has already been doing that for a long time. Your country is currently allied with
al Qaeda in Syria and other so called moderates whose intention is to create a sharia law fundamentalist
society as aopposed to Assad who is euro centric and secular.
From the article: We know from Wikileaks that she believed privately in the past that Saudi
Arabia was the largest source for terrorist funding worldwide, and that the Saudi government was
not doing enough to stop that funding.
You know who else believes that about the KSA? Joe Biden.
I heard that Donald Trump speaks out against the USA funding extremists to overthrow leaders
like Assad, while they couldn't care about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Tourists are being
shot in Tunisia from extremists in Libya since we became involved in killing Gaddafi.
The USA armed and trained extremists in Afghanistan to get one over on Russia, and despite
more British troops and civilians being killed by USA friendly fire than the 'enemy' our media
never make the same fuss about the USA. It wasn't long ago that many doctors were killed
in a hospital by a USA bomb, but I only found out about it on the Doctors Without Borders facebook
page.
The USA didn't care for years when the government they helped implement in Afghanistan
made women walk around in blue tents and banned them from education.
The Ahmadinejad - Trump comparison is a weak comparison.
Different political systems; two people who come from very different backgrounds with different
views and experiences. Ahmadinejad was a social conservative with a populist economic agenda.
Trump is all over the map, but in terms of his staff and advisers and his economic plans he's
much more of a conventional Republican. David Duke's admiration is the main thing the two have
in common.
Clinton is tripe. She, and her kin, have a ponderous history of talk, and either inaction,
or actions that generate disastrous results. Zero accomplishments across the board. Those who'd
vote for Hillary must have a "horse" in this race.
I won't be specific, but that horse, or horses, are generally the disenfranchised ones. What
to say: I get their plight. But Hillary? Elected, she only make sure they stay that way so she'll
be elected again. Time to wake up. There ain't no "pie in the sky", but with perserverance, all's
possible, and likely. Trump's the guy.
USA and Britain are very directly responsible for Iran being ruled by the Islamic mafia which
has been in power in Iran since 1979. Iran had a democratic government which for the benefit of
its people and against the stealing of its oil by Britain, nationalised the oil. Britain then,
desperate to carry on stealing the Iranian oil persuaded USA to collaborate with it to covertly
organise a coup by MI5 and CIA to topple the legitimate democratic government and install a puppet
dictatorship.
All that happened in 1953, and Britain and USA totally admitted to all that 30 years later
when the official secrets were declassified. One of the consequences of that criminal act
was that it lead to the Islamic revolution which brought the Islam clergy to power which turned
this most strategically, economically, and culturally important country of the region into an
enemy of the west, supporter of terrorism, human rights abuser, arch enemy of Israel, total economic
ruin, and eternal nuclear threat to the region- not to mention the Shia-Sunni sectarian division
that it has perpetrated which to the large extent has contributed to the mighty mess that the
Middle East is in now and potentially spreading to the outside of the region.
..., forgot to mention, Jimmy C1arter recently admitted that while he was the president, they
contributed to the funding of the Khomeini gang against their own installed ally, the Shah in
1979 to topple him
I think it's mainly to keep US allies happy. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel regard Iran as their
greatest enemy and the Syrian Civil War is largely a proxy conflict between the Saudis and the
Iranians over their respective oil supplies, regional clout and religious affinity.
Though the continuance of PNAC's schema shouldn't be discounted either. US policy hawks close
to both Clinton and Trump still aim for dominance in Central Eurasia. I expect if they could press
a button and magically summon up a new Shah for Iran they'd jump at the chance.
Cuba spent over half a century living beneath the shadow of American wrath too for different
reasons. Though perhaps burning revenge at the loss of a compliant puppet also played a role.
Vote Clinton and absolutely nothing changes or improves. Hillary might as well take golf lessons
from Barack, and saxophone lessons from bonking Bill, every day of her presidency.
Vote Trump and things are going to change in America. No more pussyfooting around.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the CIA and/or the US Armed Forces do that sort of thing
too actually! The CIA, after all, toppled the then democratically elected PM of Iran in 1953,
forcibly installing the Shah in his place, the CIA helped bring the Taliban and Saddam to power
in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively in the first place, unleashing decades of death and destruction
on the peoples of those two countries.
When the Iraqi people rose up against Saddam's brutal dictatorship back in 1991, the US
actually helped him crush the rebellion, thus ensuring he stayed in power. So the US is arguably
at least partly responsible for the crimes Saddam and the Taliban committed (in the case of Iraq,
as well as murdering at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the US is probably also partly
responsible for Saddam's DRAINING OF THE MARSHLANDS OF SOUTHER IRAQ).
One of Trump's top advisors John Bolton wrote an article for the New York Times titled "To
Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran" calling for a joint US-Israel strike on Iran, including regime change.
He could well end up being Sec. Of State if Trump wins.
Meanwhile Clinton is on record as saying that Iran are the world's main sponsor of terrorism
and that if she became president she would obliterate Iran if they attacked Israel. Given that
Hezbollah are always involved in tit for tat encounters with Israel, and Clinton feels Hezbollah
is effectively the state of Iran, it wouldn't take much.
Let's hope the Saudis defeat the Houthi uprising and support the internationally recognised
government of Yemen. Oh, sorry this is the Guardian: let's hope the Russians defeat the Sunni
uprising and support the internationally recognised government of Syria...
Yes. Trump is going to steal ISIS's oil. Only slight hole in that theory is that ISIS doesn't
own any phucking oil. They aren't a nation state, just thieves. Stealing a thief's stolen goods
is still stealing.
There's nothing bizarre about working with Russia on Middle Eastern issues unless you're married
to the idea of a new Cold War. Why Washington is so hell-bent on making Russians the enemies again
is beyond me.
What exactly is the US now? a supplier of sophisticated weaponary to "rebels" or rather terrorists
that the legitimate governnent ( with Russian help thankfully) is trying to defeat...
Both America and Russia have been supplying arms to terrorists or to destabilise elected Govts.
Since the end of WW2. Neither country has a right to take the moral high ground especially not
Russia at this time with the revelations coming out about shooting down passenger aircraft. You're
both as bad as each other.
There is no moral equivalence here. Once you look at what western intel has been upto all
these decades, nowhere could Russia be close to the evil that the US and UK are.
There is a real risk the media will be wholly foreign owned very soon. The
FCC under Pres. Obama eliminated the rule on foreign ownership. This, the TPP,
and giving up internet control are of a piece.
I think Trump may be the one and only person to increase the likelihood the
US will still be an independent country in ten years. With Clinton we may end
up losing our sovereignty by 2020. Trump may have some issues, but at least he
psychologically identifies with the US. Most US elites think of themselves as
world citizens and really couldn't care less if the US becomes like the DRC. I
trust Trump's instincts much more than Hillary's. The continued existence of an
independent US will be very, very important for the world to have any degree of
pluralism. Any global hegemony is likely to be unpleasant for most people.
Grupo Televisa, a Mexican company with a minority stake in the
Spanish-language station Univision, might now be able to increase its
ownership.
Univision's lead owner is Hillary's largest contributor, the
Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban:
On June 27, 2006, Saban Capital Group led a group of investors bidding
for Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-language media company
in the United States.
Other investors in the Saban-led group were Texas Pacific Group of
Fort Worth, Texas and Thomas H. Lee Partners. The group was successful in
acquiring Univision with a bid valued at $13.7 billion.
This convenient FCC rule change hands them a nice exit strategy.
Convinced to contribute to the Clinton Foundation yet?
They make magic
happen.
"... "There's just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that what we've done hasn't gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don't know what that means, but it's something that they deeply feel," ..."
"... "I am occupying from the center-left to the center-right. And I don't have much company there. Because it is difficult when you're running to be president, and you understand how hard the job is – I don't want to overpromise," said Clinton, who has customarily eschewed political spectrum labels. ..."
"... "understanding" ..."
"... "Some are new to politics completely. They're children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents' basement. They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don't see much of a future," ..."
"... "If you're feeling like you're consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn't pay a lot, and doesn't have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing." ..."
"... "listening to the concerns" of "the most diverse, open-minded generation in history." ..."
"... People who have the TV on all day and watch the news from the mainstream media are naturally going to get hoodwinked. They aren't the brightest, but they're also distracted and mislead. ..."
"... She is the definition of implicit bias. ..."
"... After all, they are the deplorables. HRC is truly the most despicable, scandal ridden, lying war monger to ever grace American politics. ..."
"... Shame on Sanders for supporting that Nazi witch. ..."
"... Millions of people were adversely harmed by her misguided policies and her "pay-to-play" operations involving favors in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. ..."
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made forthright remarks about Bernie Sanders'
supporters during a private meeting with fundraisers, an audio from which has been leaked following
an email hack.
"There's just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that
what we've done hasn't gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know,
Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don't know what that means, but it's something
that they deeply feel," Clinton said during a Q&A with potential donors in McLean in Virginia,
in February, when she was still in a close primary race with Sanders.
The frontrunner to become the next US President said that herself and other election observers
had been "bewildered" by the rise of the "populist, nationalist, xenophobic, discriminatory"
Republican candidates, presumably Donald Trump, on the one side, and the radical left-wing idealists
on the other.
Clinton painted herself as a moderate and realistic contrast to the groundswell.
"I am occupying from the center-left to the center-right. And I don't have much company there.
Because it is difficult when you're running to be president, and you understand how hard the job
is – I don't want to overpromise," said Clinton, who has customarily eschewed political spectrum
labels.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, which posted the audio of Clinton's remarks, the recording
was attached to an email sent out by a campaign staffer, which has been hacked. It is unclear if
the leak is the work of the same hackers who got hold of a trove of Democratic National Committee
(DNC) emails in July.
... ... ...
In the session, Clinton called for an "understanding" of the motives of Sanders' younger
backers, while describing them in terms that fluctuate between patronizing and unflattering.
"Some are new to politics completely. They're children of the Great Recession. And they are
living in their parents' basement. They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available
to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don't see much of a future,"
said Clinton, who obtained the support of about 2,800 delegates, compared to approximately 1,900
for Sanders, when the results were tallied in July.
"If you're feeling like you're consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some
other job that doesn't pay a lot, and doesn't have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it,
then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing."
Despite well-publicized tensions, particularly between the more vocal backers, Sanders endorsed
Clinton at the Democratic National Convention two months ago, and the two politicians have campaigned
together this week, sharing the stage.
Following the leak, the Clinton campaign has not apologized for the audio, insisting that it shows
that the nominee and is "listening to the concerns" of "the most diverse, open-minded generation
in history."
"As Hillary Clinton said in those remarks , she wants young people to be idealistic and set big
goals," said her spokesman Glen Caplin. "She is fighting for exactly millennial generation cares
more about – a fairer, more equal, just world."
In other parts of the 50-minute recording, Clinton spoke about US capacity to "retaliate"
against foreign hackers that would serve as a "deterrence" and said she would be "inclined"
to mothball the costly upgrade of the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) missile program.
The more she runs her mouth the more support she loses.
Gold Carrot -> Olive Sailboat 6m
Well if somebody is supported by Soros, Warren Buffet, Walmart family, Gates, Moskowitz, Pritzker,
Saban and Session what do you expect. Give me 8 names of other Americans who can top their money
worth. And even so called financial supporters of Republican party like Whitman and Koch brothers
are not supporting Trump. Whitman actually donate to Clinton. In fact most of the donation for
Trump campaign is coming from people who donate at average less than 200 dollars. Clinton represent
BIG MONEY that... See more
GA 2h
Clinton has a supremacist problem, she considers all americans under deserving people, she
thinks she is a pharaoh and we are little people. Reply Share 15
Red Ducky -> GA 23m
you think trump is different? ask yourself this question: Why do Rich people spend hundreds
of millions of dollars for a job that only pays $400K a year?
Rabid Rotty -> Red Ducky 9m
And Trump has stated several times that he will not take the Presidential Salary
pHiL SwEeT -> Rabid Rotty 8m
Uh, yah, Red Ducky just explained how it's not about the money, they're already rich. It's
about power, status, control and legacy.
Green Weights 2h
if Clinton sends her followers and their families to concentration camps, they'll still continue
supporting her. yes, that's how stupid they really are.
Olive Basketball -> Green Weights 55m
People who have the TV on all day and watch the news from the mainstream media are naturally
going to get hoodwinked. They aren't the brightest, but they're also distracted and mislead.
Cyan Beer 2h
She is the definition of implicit bias.
Norm de Plume
Sure enough. The real Americans. Not people, like her, who have dedicated their lives to
aggrandizing
themselves living effectively tax-free at the people's expense.
Seve141 7m
After all, they are the deplorables. HRC is truly the most despicable, scandal ridden, lying war
monger to ever grace American politics.
Tornado_Doom 12m
Shame on Sanders for supporting that Nazi witch.
Green Band Aid -> Tornado_Doom 12m
Sanders will be getting paid. All he does is for money.
Tornado_Doom -> Green Band Aid 11m
Does an old rich man like him need money?
Green Leaf 43m
Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State during Barack Obama's first term was an unmitigated
disaster for many nations around the world. The media has never adequately described how a
number of countries around the world suffered horribly from HC's foreign policy decisions.
Millions of people were adversely harmed by her misguided policies and her "pay-to-play" operations
involving favors in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative.
Countries adversely impacted by HC's foreign policy decisions include Abkhazia, Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil, Central African Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti,
Honduras, Iraq, Kosovo, Libya, Malaysia, Palestine, Paraguay, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand,
Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, Western Sahara, Yemen - one would think they had
a visit from the anti-Christ instead of HC. Or is HC the anti-Christ in disguise?
Green Leaf 45m
The majority of American's will vote Trump for 3 primary reasons.
1. National Security: They
trust him when it comes to protecting national security and to stop illegal aliens from entering
US boarders along with stopping the mass importation of un-vetted refugees from the middle
east.
2. Economy: They know he knows how to get things done under budget and ahead of schedule..
and he knows how to make money. They want a successful businessman in office, not another political
who is out to enrich his or herself at their expense. In addition he knows how to create jobs
and he has a major plan to cut taxes to help the poor - no tax for anyone earning less then
$50,000 and
3. Hillary's severe covered-up health problems: With all of the problems that the
US is experience they don't want someone who passes out from a seizure in the middle of the
day running the country. This is a severely ill woman is, evidently, of the rare kind that
requires a permanent traveling physician and a "mystery man" who rushes to her side whenever
she has one of her frequent and uncontrollable seizure "episodes" (or otherwise freezes up
with a brain "short-circuit" during a speech). She has Parkinson's. The pneumonia was just
a symptom for something much more serious. She even had a mini seizure during the debate for
those with a medical background to see.
"... But Paul Krugman I have lost a lot of respect for. There was a candidate that people believed in and that stood up for working people and liberal values and that motivated people to come out and support him and his goals for the U.S.A. A candidate that would have neutralized Trump's appeal to the working class (which is mostly where I am). Krugman trashed him relentlessly using his very large soap box. ..."
I won't say bad things about Clinton. Because she is far better than the alternative at this point.
But Paul Krugman I have lost a lot of respect for. There was a candidate that people believed
in and that stood up for working people and liberal values and that motivated people to come out
and support him and his goals for the U.S.A. A candidate that would have neutralized Trump's appeal
to the working class (which is mostly where I am). Krugman trashed him relentlessly using his
very large soap box.
Now he is horrified that the polls are so close.
I can't say anything more without being negative. Except vote for Clinton- she's better than
Trump. Which is a pathetic endorsement.
"... I have noticed a pattern with you where you are misconstruing Trump's positions and framing his behaviour as the corrupt media wishes you to frame it. Trump is not great, but he's also not nearly as awful as you're thinking he is. Don't be so influenced by the propaganda coming from Hillary and her devoted lackeys in the MSM. ..."
"... As a female voter I don't give a crap how bad he is, I'd still rather watch Congress go nuts impeaching him than I would Hillary taking us to war with Russia. ..."
Uh that only happens if someone manages to duct tape Trump's mouth shut.
Trump's got his own brand of offensive and apparently his goal this week was to alienate female
voters even more with his antics.
I hear that at the next debate his big idea is to blame Hillary for Bill's wandering penis.
That should go over like a lead balloon (because believe it or not women don't like to be blamed
for the times men act like dogs.)
I have noticed a pattern with you where you are misconstruing Trump's positions and framing
his behaviour as the corrupt media wishes you to frame it. Trump is not great, but he's also not
nearly as awful as you're thinking he is. Don't be so influenced by the propaganda coming from
Hillary and her devoted lackeys in the MSM.
You want to run on the fact the guy has no public record per se (Look! He didn't bomb anybody!
Yeah, that's probably because he didn't have the means to do so either.). That's great.
However, he does have a very real past and I refuse to wallpaper over that past. It's completely
unacceptable and unprofessional to call your employees Miss Piggy. Acknowledge it. Move on.
Oh like anyone is left who wasn't already aware that Trump's a misogynist gasbag.
As a
female voter I don't give a crap how bad he is, I'd still rather watch Congress go nuts impeaching
him than I would Hillary taking us to war with Russia.
"... The race baiting has to stop. Krugman should travel to Camden, Rochester, East St. Louis or any of the thousands of towns and cities that were stripped of their wealth thanks to free trade policies he championed. ..."
"... It is close because Trump offers hope. People remember that times were much, much better when their cities had factories before the so-called globalization hurricane just "naturally" swept everything away. ..."
"... Twenty years of protectionism and an undervalued currency will turn the US into a star trek land like Singapore. 10 more years on our current free trade trajectory and we'll be Haiti, another free trade paradise. ..."
The race baiting has to stop. Krugman should travel to Camden, Rochester, East St. Louis
or any of the thousands of towns and cities that were stripped of their wealth thanks to free
trade policies he championed.
It is close because Trump offers hope. People remember that times were much, much better when
their cities had factories before the so-called globalization hurricane just "naturally" swept
everything away.
Twenty years of protectionism and an undervalued currency will turn the US into
a star trek land like Singapore. 10 more years on our current free trade trajectory and we'll
be Haiti, another free trade paradise.
Only to relatively prosperous, uneducated, old white men who are terrified by watching their
privilege slip away. Trump would actually make all those issues you mention far worse.
"... But today's Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners, lobbyists for every foreign intervention, promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters of the natural resources of corrupt governments. We have American military bases in 80 countries, and there are now American military personnel on the ground in about 130 countries, a remarkable achievement since there are only 192 recognized countries. ..."
"... How you can defend such a deeply flawed (as in insane) candidate is beyond me. ..."
"... Robert Kagan is desperate to save us from fascism, you see. Because anything Athens did wrong in the Peloponnesian War, America can do again, but bigger. And, his wife is a favorite to become Secretary of State. She's deeply experienced, having brought peace to Ukraine. ..."
"... I went through this with them in a recent discussion. For the most part, liberals (American terminology) simply do not care for or about anti-war and anti-imperialism arguments. Just saving everyone a little time here. ..."
John and Robert Kennedy devoted their greatest commitments and energies to the prevention of
war and the preservation of peace. To them that was not an abstract formula but the necessary
foundation of human life. But today's Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for
arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners, lobbyists for every foreign intervention,
promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters of the natural resources of corrupt
governments. We have American military bases in 80 countries, and there are now American military
personnel on the ground in about 130 countries, a remarkable achievement since there are only
192 recognized countries. Generals and admirals announce our national policies. Theater
commanders are our principal ambassadors. Our first answer to trouble or opposition of any
kind seems always to be a military movement or action.
How you can defend such a deeply flawed (as in insane) candidate is beyond me.
likbez: How you can defend such a deeply flawed (as in insane) candidate is beyond me.
How? By focusing on the other guy, on Trump.
Today, Brad Delong points to the daily anti-Trump screed by James Fallows, which features a
four month old piece by Robert Kagan: I disagree with Robert Kagan on just about everything.
But in the months since he originally published his essay, called "This Is How Fascism Comes to
America," I think his arguments have come to seem more rather than less relevant.
Robert Kagan is desperate to save us from fascism, you see. Because anything Athens did
wrong in the Peloponnesian War, America can do again, but bigger. And, his wife is a favorite
to become Secretary of State. She's deeply experienced, having brought peace to Ukraine.
None of that matters because Trump is unprecedented.
Anarcissie 09.29.16 at 2:47 am
likbez 09.29.16 at 12:35 am @ 118 -
I went through this with them in a recent discussion. For the most part, liberals (American
terminology) simply do not care for or about anti-war and anti-imperialism arguments. Just saving
everyone a little time here.
OK, here's what puzzles me. Looking back upthread, what is the source of the really deep antipathy
that people on CT have for Hillary Clinton? I haven't heard anyone say that her tax policy is
not progressive enough. That's a legitimate argument, but no one seems excited about it. Apparently
two things really get people hot under the collar. (1) She is somewhat interventionist militarily.
Of course, people aren't content just to say that, they have to say that she is a "war criminal"
(sorry, could I have some specifics on this?), or at least a warmonger. But basically, by that
they just mean that she is somewhat interventionist militarily. (2) She's more inclined toward
trade agreements than most people here.
OK, fine, these are legitimate areas of disagreement. Here's what puzzles me: those are the
traditional positions of paleoliberals in the Democratic Party. You don't have to like them, but
there's nothing neo about them. So how is Clinton a neoliberal?
There's one respect in which Clinton follows the DLC line: this business of favoring means-testing
rather than universal programs. I think that as a political strategy this is bad, and I get irritated
every time she trots out that line about not wanting to pay for Donald Trump's kids (there just
aren't that many rich people, and they're not sending their kids to state schools anyway). But
I haven't heard anyone say they could never vote for Clinton because of this. So what's neo about
Clinton? What distinguishes her from Mondale?
... ... ...
LFC 09.29.16 at 1:29 pm
@H Frant
I'm glad you picked up on the imbalanced quote re JFK etc, b/c I was too lazy to do it. The
explanation is that the quoted piece is by Adam Walinsky, who was (I think, w/o Wiki'ing) a speechwriter/adviser
for RFK. Walinsky's probably getting on in years, and his idea of a column is to contrast the
peace-loving JFK (and RFK) to the bad promoters of American empire and bases-around-the-world
who followed him/them. Which is somewhat weird.
This is a pt about the overall trajectory of US f.p. since c.1947, which has exhibited a good
deal (though not, of course, complete) continuity (as well as some variation from admin to admin.).
[Whether JFK, had he lived, wd have gotten involved in Vietnam in the major way LBJ did, or wd
have stopped short of that kind of escalation, is a separate and disputed question, and there
is evidence to support conflicting answers – but it doesn't alter the main pt above. A past CT
commenter, who went by 'mattski' iirc, was very big on the JFK-wd-not-have-escalated-had-he-lived
thesis, so one can find some cites supporting that view if one searches on mattski's past comments
here.]
Walinsky also lumps JFK and RFK together, which is problematic since, inter alia, RFK lived
5 yrs longer and into a diff. historical period in which he played a major role.
"... Forget the Bernie hack, this one shows David Brock (Hilary Super-PAC) in action. Apparently they got access to FoxAcid, the top secret NSA software Snowden exposed. ..."
"... Honey for the conspiracy bears but this does smell right, and if it's real it's a bombshell: ..."
Forget the Bernie hack, this one shows David Brock (Hilary Super-PAC) in action. Apparently
they got access to FoxAcid, the top secret NSA software Snowden exposed.
Honey for the conspiracy bears but this does smell right, and if it's real it's a bombshell:
The way Lester Holt "corrected" Donald Trump at Monday's debate (as he was clearly instructed
to do) regarding the Iraq War, you'd think the answer to whether he supported it or not was clear-cut.
The truth is, it may not be that simple.
Joe Concha (who has been doing some great work by the way), just wrote an excellent
article at The Hill exploring the topic in detail. Here's what he found:
Question: Did Donald Trump oppose or support the Iraq War?
Before answering, a quick note on why providing clarity around a relatively simple question:
It's rare that cooler heads can prevail in this media world we live in. Lines in the sand have
never been drawn between blue and red media as vividly as they are now. And as a result, simple
logic and lucidity is supplied less and less to drawing a verdict on whether a story is true or
not.
Exhibit A today is the aforementioned question: Did Trump - as he insists - oppose the Iraq
War?
At first, given that Trump wasn't a politician in 2002 and therefore had no official vote on
the war authorization (as is the case with Hillary Clinton 's support of it), the press simply
took him at his word on the matter with no evidence readily available to provide otherwise.
Except there was evidence, albeit flimsy at best, thanks to the dogged work of Buzzfeed's Andrew
Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott in unearthing a 2002 interview Trump did with Howard Stern.
Here's what Trump said when asked by Stern during a typically long interview (Howard can go
more than an hour without taking a break) if he was for going into Iraq.
"Yeah, I guess so," Trump responded. "I wish the first time it was done correctly."
So to review, Trump, a businessman at that time, didn't broach the topic. There are no other
public statements by him on the matter in 2002.
"Yeah, I guess so" isn't what one would call someone absolutely advocating the invasion of
another country.
Instead, a reasonable person listening could only conclude that Trump probably hadn't given
the matter even a passing thought and answered matter-of-factly. Because if Trump was so pro-Iraq
War at the time, as he's being portrayed of being by the media in 2016, one would think he - who
seemingly shares every perspective that enters his head - would be mentioning it every chance
he got in other interviews, which never happens.
Trump's next interview occurred with Fox's Neil Cavuto in February 2003, just weeks before
the invasion occurred.
In the video, Cavuto asks Trump how much time President Bush should spend on the economy vs.
Iraq.
"Well, I'm starting to think that people are much more focused now on the economy," Trump said.
"They're getting a little bit tired of hearing 'We're going in, we're not going in.' Whatever
happened to the days of Douglas MacArthur? Either do it or don't do it."
Trump continued: "Perhaps he shouldn't be doing it yet. And perhaps we should be waiting for
the United Nations."
But during Monday night's debate, Lester Holt followed the lead of many in the media who had
come to a definitive conclusion on Trump's (at first) apathetic-turned-ambiguous stance.
"The record shows it," Lester Holt pushed back on Trump after the candidate challenged the
moderator's assertion that Trump absolutely was for the Iraq War. The record also shows Trump
cautioning that the United Nations needs to be on board.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time, Kofi Annan, said this when speaking
on the invasion:
"I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. Charter. From our point of view, from
the charter point of view, it was illegal."
So if following Trump logic in his interview with Cavuto, if the U.S. and its allies had waited
for U.N. approval, the war likely never happens.
But here's an important nugget few are speaking about: On March 26, 2003, just one week after
the invasion began, Trump says at an Academy Awards after-party, "The war's a mess," according
to The Washington Post. One day earlier, a Gallup poll showed public support for the war at 72
percent.
The "war's a mess" quote is even included in Politifact's verdict before coming to the conclusion
that Trump is absolutely false in stating he opposed the war.
In the end, the solution here is simple: Politifact needs to change its "False" rating on Trump's
claim. That isn't to say it should be not characterized as "True" or "Mostly True" either.
Instead, in a suggestion likely to send the usual suspects in our polarized media crazy, the
rating of "Half True" needs to be applied here.
The Hill reached out to Politifact for comment but did not get a response.
As for media organizations (and this applies to almost every one), who keep insisting that
Trump supported the Iraq War so definitively, not every situation lives in absolutes. Not every
question has an absolute "yes" or "no" as a final verdict.
In the case of businessman Donald Trump circa 2002 and 2003, chalk up his perspective on the
Iraq War before it started as the following:
- At first - months before it began to get any real traction in the American mindset - Trump's
thought process was one of ambivalence via having not given it almost any thought before being
asked about it by Stern, which was nothing more than a quick tangent in an interview focusing
on 20 other things.
- And then in January 2003, Trump's public "stance" was one of caution-before-proceeding by
stating a need to wait for the United Nations before rushing in. Note: There weren't declarations
around the threat of weapons of mass destruction, spreading democracy or the need to remove a
brutal dictator. Trump never cites any of those common arguments for war even once, as Republicans
and even some Democrats did.
In March of 2003, as the war just began, Trump declares "the war's a mess."
Bottom line: There's was nothing to indicate Trump supported the war, as the so-called record
showed.
He didn't seem 100 percent against it either.
"On the fence" would be another apt way to describe it.
Cooler heads need to prevail here.
But "sanity," "media," and "this year's election" are five words rarely seen in the same sentence
anymore.
Meanwhile, we know for sure which candidate absolutely loves war and leaves a trail of death and
destruction in her wake: Hillary Clinton.
RE: Debate Night Message: The Markets Are Afraid of Donald Trump
[ Justin Wolfers convincingly argues that Wall Street's darling in this election is Hillary Clinton
and not Donald Trump although that was probably an unintended consequence of making his case without
reading between his own line.]
Wall Street fears a Trump presidency. Stocks may lose 10 to 12 percent of their value if he wins
the November election, and there may be a broader economic downturn.
These conclusions arise from close analysis of financial markets during Monday's presidential
debate, which provides a fascinating case study of the complex interconnections between American
politics and economics. The market's judgment stands in sharp opposition to Donald J. Trump's claims
that his presidency would be good for business.
Decoding these market signals is no easy task because it is difficult to disentangle correlation
from causation. Ideally we would observe stock prices in parallel universes with identical economic
conditions, with a single exception: In one, Mr. Trump has a good shot at becoming president, while
in the other, his chances are low.
Monday's presidential debate provided a rough approximation of this experiment. At 9 p.m., before
the debate began, the betting markets gave Mr. Trump a 35 percent chance of becoming president. Two
hours later, after the debate, we had entered the parallel universe in which economic conditions
were the same, but Mr. Trump's chances had fallen a tad below 30 percent...
RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to RC AKA Darryl,
Ron... , -1
"The stock market has forecast nine of the last five recessions." Paul Samuelson (1966), quoted
in: John C Bluedorn et al. Do Asset Price Drops Foreshadow Recessions? (2013), p. 4
[Of course the real question is how well do the betting markets predict the stock market? The
only question actually answered was "Who do you love?"]
"... Not because of policy, but because they *hate* Clinton's dishonest scumbags like Debbie Wasserman Shultz... They know them and hate them. ..."
"... Clinton brags about how much she's done for the children meanwhile she's a millionaire who gives speeches to Goldman Sachs and does nothing but attend fundraisers thrown by rich donors. ..."
"... a lot of Sanders supporters have a visceral dislike of Sanders people who lied to them and about us... The dishonesty is blatant, just how Hillary lied about Sanders during the primary. ..."
"... wait until the election is over. The hatred toward Clinton and surrogates ... will come pouring out. That is if she wins. ..."
Peter K. :
September 30, 2016 at 06:35 AM
Clinton should be beating Trump easily in the polls. Sanders
would be. Trump is the worst candidate in history.
Why
isn't she don't better? It's because Clinton surrogates like
PGL are hateful and obnoxious. The voters hate these people
and don't agree with Clinton's centrism. The voters hate the
BS we're expected to believe like how corporate trade is
nothing but beneficial or that the Obama years were great.
Not
because of policy, but because they *hate* Clinton's
dishonest scumbags like Debbie Wasserman Shultz... They
know them and hate them.
Clinton brags about how much she's done for the children
meanwhile she's a millionaire who gives speeches to Goldman
Sachs and does nothing but attend fundraisers thrown by rich
donors.
I'll vote for Hillary but
a lot of Sanders supporters
have a visceral dislike of Sanders people who lied to them
and about us... The dishonesty is blatant, just how
Hillary lied about Sanders during the primary.
But Sanders
knows policywise Trump is much, much worse than Hillary even
if she's not that good.
Peter K. -> Peter K....
, -1
That's why Sanders is campaigning for Hillary. But
wait
until the election is over. The hatred toward Clinton and
surrogates ... will come pouring out. That is if she
wins.
Actually, a Malfunction Did
Affect Donald Trump's
Voice at the Debate
http://nyti.ms/2cGN1m8
NYT - NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and PATRICK HEALY - SEPT. 30
The Commission on Presidential Debates said Friday that the first debate on Monday was marred
by an unspecified technical malfunction that affected the volume of Mr. Trump's voice in the debate
hall.
Mr. Trump complained after the debate that the event's organizers had given him a "defective mike,"
contributing to his widely panned performance against Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton lampooned Mr.
Trump's claim, telling reporters on her campaign plane, "Anybody who complains about the microphone
is not having a good night."
Mr. Trump was clearly audible to the television audience. And there is no evidence of sabotage.
But it turns out he was on to something.
"Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the
sound level in the debate hall," the commission said in its statement.
The commission, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the presidential debates, released no other
information about the malfunction, including how it was discovered, which equipment was to blame,
or why the problem was admitted to only on Friday, four days after the debate.
Reached by phone, a member of the commission's media staff said she was not authorized to speak
about the matter.
Some members of the audience, held at Hofstra University in New York, recalled in interviews that
the amplification of Mr. Trump's voice was at times significantly lower than that for Mrs. Clinton.
And at times Mr. Trump appeared to be hunching down to get his face closer to his microphone.
Zeke Miller, a reporter for Time Magazine who attended the debate, mentioned the difference on
Monday in a report to the traveling press pool for Mr. Trump. From his vantage point, Mr. Miller
wrote, Mr. Trump was sometimes "a little quieter" than Mrs. Clinton.
In an interview, Mr. Trump said he had tested out the audio system two hours before the event
and found it "flawless." Only during the debate did he notice the problem, Mr. Trump said, and he
tried to compensate by leaning down more closely to the microphone. He complained that the changing
volume had distracted him and alleged again that someone had created the problem deliberately.
"They had somebody modulating the microphone, so when I was speaking, the mike would go up and
down," Mr. Trump said. "I spent 50 percent of my thought process working the mike." ...
"... Clinton was told over eight years ago that a huge number of Americans are in pain with good reason. See John Edwards' Two Americas… She was ignoring it then, she planned on ignoring it again. Unfortunately Trump came along and recognized the pain. Sanders felt it. Clinton doesn't feel diddly except her own personal greed, ambition, entitlement, and anger at anyone who thinks her being a public servant means actually working in the public interest not her own. ..."
"... Yeah but Donald is at least pointing out the problem and proposing tax and tariff measures to partially restore manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt. Hillary offers platitudes and attacks on Donald as her solution to the Dispossessed Americans. ..."
"... The Republican party is almost a monolith on core doctrine. Let's see Congressional Republicans move to upend the current trade regime or, indeed, give any indication. ..."
"... These 2 utterly wretched candidates do not cancel out each others' flaws at all. They both stink like rotten meat. The Trump-cheerleading that now typifies this comments section is as pitiable as the slavish Hillary boosting crap that tars the pages of the New York Times. ..."
"... It's not cheerleading. It's the reasonable assessment that Trump MIGHT be a disaster, but Clinton WILL be a disaster. ..."
"... OK. You're comparing a heel to a known mass murderer who took petty bribes to destroy entire countries. I don't really understand how you arrived at your conclusion, but ok. ..."
Clinton was told over eight years ago that a huge number of Americans are in pain with good reason.
See John Edwards' Two Americas… She was ignoring it then, she planned on ignoring it again. Unfortunately
Trump came along and recognized the pain. Sanders felt it. Clinton doesn't feel diddly except her
own personal greed, ambition, entitlement, and anger at anyone who thinks her being a public servant
means actually working in the public interest not her own.
For that alone she needs to be dropped kicked into obscurity and a future where she and Bill really
do find out what being broke and looking forward to the Social Security Check is like.
Yeah but Donald is at least pointing out the problem and proposing tax and tariff measures to
partially restore manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt. Hillary offers platitudes and attacks on Donald
as her solution to the Dispossessed Americans.
If we had journalism instead of Poodledom there would be first a laying out of
what are presidential powers-given the limited possibilities of who controls the other branches of
government. And secondly, a replay of recent history of the two parties' actions on the major issues
affecting the common good (which admittedly doesn't exist for libertarians and Thatcherites).
The Republican party is almost a monolith on core doctrine. Let's see Congressional Republicans
move to upend the current trade regime or, indeed, give any indication.
Donald Trump is not a "much better candidate" than Clinton. More's the pity.
The Donald is a heel; a frivolous egotist who has screwed up many times over the decades. His
money and showman's cunning allowed him to prosper despite all the screw overs and screw ups.
He's been a heel for decades and there is no likelihood he'll improve if he attains high office.
Hillary Clinton - by contrast, not - is a supercilious elitist with more baggage than the cargo
compartment of a fully loaded 747.
These 2 utterly wretched candidates do not cancel out each others' flaws at all. They both
stink like rotten meat. The Trump-cheerleading that now typifies this comments section is as pitiable
as the slavish Hillary boosting crap that tars the pages of the New York Times.
OK. You're comparing a heel to a known mass murderer who took petty bribes to destroy entire
countries. I don't really understand how you arrived at your conclusion, but ok.
Doing what contemporary American economists
suggest: eliminate tariffs, don't worry about huge capital inflows or a ridiculously overvalued dollar,
has led the US from being the envy of the world to being a non-developed economy with worse roads
than Cuba or Ghana.
That US economists are still treated with any degree of credibility it totally
appalling. They are so obviously bought-and-paid for snake oil salesmen that people are finally tuning
them out.
TRUMP 2016: Return America to Protectionism - Screw globalism
[There is a pdf at the link. Olivier Blanchard has
surprised me again. As establishment economists go he is not
so bad. There is plenty that he still glosses over but
insofar as status quo establishment macroeconomics goes he is
thorough and coherent. One might hope that those that do not
understand either the debate for higher inflation targets or
the debate for fiscal policy to accomplish what monetary
policy cannot might learn from this article by Olivier
Blanchard, but I will not hold my breath waiting for that. In
any case the article is worth a read for anyone that can.]
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
,
Friday, September 30, 2016 at 07:07 AM
Get real! No alumni of the Peterson Institute and IMF is
going to go all mushy on the down sides of globalization and
wealth distribution.
The State of Advanced Economies and Related Policy
Debates: A Fall 2016 Assessment
By Olivier Blanchard
Perhaps the most striking macroeconomic fact about
advanced economies today is how anemic demand remains in the
face of zero interest rates.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, we had a
plausible explanation why demand was persistently weak:
Legacies of the crisis, from deleveraging by banks, to fiscal
austerity by governments, to lasting anxiety by consumers and
firms, could all explain why, despite low rates, demand
remained depressed.
This explanation is steadily becoming less convincing.
Banks have largely deleveraged, credit supply has loosened,
fiscal consolidation has been largely put on hold, and the
financial crisis is farther in the rearview mirror. Demand
should have steadily strengthened. Yet, demand growth has
remained low.
Why? The likely answer is that, as the legacies of the
past have faded, the future has looked steadily bleaker.
Forecasts of potential growth have been repeatedly revised
down. And consumers and firms-anticipating a gloomier
future-are cutting back spending, leading to unusually low
demand growth today....
Young people reject neoliberalism... And thus they reject Hillary. As simple as that...
Notable quotes:
"... Here is my own wild take on why millennials don't support Clinton "enough": Many younger American voters, perhaps a sufficient number of them to seriously imperil Clinton's chances, have significant ideological differences with the candidate. That's my theory ..."
"... I would like to suggest that the threat these young voters pose to technocratic [neo]liberalism is not the possibility of electing Donald Trump. Despite Clinton's flagging numbers, her chances of success remain high. Rather, the fear is that if younger voters really are committed to a host of ideological positions at odds with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, then that Party, without a Trump-sized cudgel, is doomed. ..."
"... So why have liberal pundits resisted such a move? Why are they intent on not just defeating but discrediting the ideological preferences of the young left, dismissing them not as a legitimate divergence but as mere ignorance and confusion? ..."
The given causes vary but the consensus is clear: Young voters are pathological and the cure is
to disabuse them of their ignorance.
Here is my own wild take on why millennials don't support Clinton "enough": Many younger American
voters, perhaps a sufficient number of them to seriously imperil Clinton's chances, have significant
ideological differences with the candidate. That's my theory. Many liberal pundits seem unimpressed
by this idea perhaps because it suggests that votes must be earned in a democracy, but it does have
the benefit of the evidence.
... ... ...
I would like to suggest that the threat these young voters pose to technocratic [neo]liberalism
is not the possibility of electing Donald Trump. Despite Clinton's flagging numbers, her chances
of success remain high. Rather, the fear is that if younger voters really are committed to a host
of ideological positions at odds with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, then that Party, without
a Trump-sized cudgel, is doomed. It should not escape anybody's notice that politics by negative
definition-the argument, at bottom, that "we're better than those guys"-has become the dominant electoral
strategy of the Democratic Party, and that despite the escalation of the "those guys" negatives,
the mere promise to be preferable has yielded diminishing returns. At some point, the Democratic
Party will either need to embrace a platform significantly to the left of their current orthodoxy,
or they will lose.
... ... ...
This might not seem such a bad thing. Positions shift. Parties evolve. A serious threat of millennial
desertion might lead to a natural compromise: support, in exchange for real policy concessions going
forward. So why have liberal pundits resisted such a move? Why are they intent on not just defeating
but discrediting the ideological preferences of the young left, dismissing them not as a legitimate
divergence but as mere ignorance and confusion?
Emmett Rensin is a writer based in Iowa City, Iowa. His previous work has appeared in Vox,The
New Republic, The Atlantic and The Los Angeles Review of Books (where he is a contributing editor).
Follow him on Twitter at @EmmettRensin.
"... Right now, the SYSTEM(establishment) is rigged favoring Hillary. Trump is no saint but unpredictable as perceived by deep state and the MSM. What more damage he can do compared to Bush, Obama or the Hilabama. At least he is challenging the status quo and the establishment, unlike any other candidates in the past! ..."
"... I am vacillating about whom to vote. Bernie would have been my choice. Now Trump vote by default is a protest vote, against the rigged system. Not the best choice but I am fed up with status quo. It needs a jolt and now, only Trump can do that. ..."
"... Paul Ryan went on record that if Trump is elected they'll just ignore him and further the agenda hammered out for them by their Kochtopus overlords. Which is exactly what I have expected would be the case all along. This isn't a damned game, but the more I hear the more it seems that's how it's being viewed, as if the final winner has no real-world relevance. ..."
"... Amen. These so-called "best and brightest" like Clinton and Obama are not only morally bankrupt, the awful truth is they are also obviously poorly informed and self-evidently not very bright either. Obama could, in fact, be almost the definition of the "empty suit". ..."
"... I no longer entertain any such illusions, Hilary and Obama know full well what the consequences of their actions are, all the way from Yemen to Minnesota health insurers. Obama is working toward a sexy retirement golfing with billionaires and raising funds for his Library, as for Hilary, her lust for pure unbridled power for its own sake knows no bounds. From the hallowed halls of Goldman Sachs to the board room at Monsanto, Hilary knows *precisely* where she can get the funds to satisfy her blood and power lusts. ..."
"... Well, her leaked audio fits in with her new plan to give all those "basement dwellers" something to do – that National Service Reserve thing…… But yea, all you stupid millennials – get off the couch and vote for Hillary because she told you to!! And then get off her lawn! ..."
"... Beyond a tone-deafness in self-expression that's astonishing for an experienced politician (even if she did not expect the statement to become public), I find it amazing that there is not even a hint of the thought, "well, maybe there's something about our economy that we need to adjust." ..."
"... Maybe not super generous, but the U.S. medical system already costs more than single payer, so there is more than that going on than just "can't afford it". I have often though the citizens of an empire must be kept in abject poverty, so they don't get to questioning the empire thing (maybe they learned from Vietnam). ..."
"... As Hillary derides those who think we ought to be more like Scandinavia, with free college, free national health care, what she isn't making clear is that America the nation is paying more military money than most of the rest of the world combined. In her mindset, we are the Global Police, and if that $791 billion of military spending reduces us to recession, unaffordable college, unaffordable medical care, and a few dozen people owning over half of all the assets in a nation of 300 million, well that's the price of being the Good Guys. ..."
"... What this tells me about Hillary is she thinks the economy is fine, thinks the current economic policies and trade deals are fine, and has no intention of changing anything. For her, the current economic situation is the best of all possible worlds. ..."
"... Not to mention selling cluster bombs and white phosphorus to the same Saudi despots who use them against Yemeni civilians with the US's assistance. 10s of thousands have been killed and there is a dreadful famine affecting hundreds of thousands. ..."
"... But Trump called a woman fat, so he is the evil one. ..."
About that hacked audio, I suddenly saw it all over youtube last night on various progressive
channels from around midnight on. Well, here is a primary source! 2 minutes of Hillary explaining
that Bernie supporters are basement dwelling barista losers without futures who are too naive
to understand how politics really work. And she confirms she's center-right, in case anyone was
fooled by her recent ostensible leftness:
...Right now, the SYSTEM(establishment) is rigged favoring Hillary. Trump is no saint but
unpredictable as perceived by deep state and the MSM. What more damage he can do compared to Bush,
Obama or the Hilabama. At least he is challenging the status quo and the establishment, unlike
any other candidates in the past!
I am vacillating about whom to vote. Bernie would have been my choice. Now Trump vote by
default is a protest vote, against the rigged system. Not the best choice but I am fed up with
status quo. It needs a jolt and now, only Trump can do that.
A vote for Greens is not a vote for Hillary. A vote for the Green candidate is a vote for the
Green candidate.
The GOP should have vetted someone who wasn't a buffoon and who wasn't going to treat minority
populations with disdain and use their pain as a tool. In much the same way that the Democratic
Party shouldn't have ignored the pain of average Americans and rigged their primary for Hillary.
You're entitled to your own strategy for how to vote, however be gracious enough to let others
have that same courtesy.
The GOPs idea of 'vetting' was the usual one this go-round: They gave a lot of media attention
to the crazies like Rubio and Cruz and Trump. The way it always worked before was the media would
then focus on the 'grown-up' or the 'serious' candidate. In this case it was JEB!
The problem was Trump went off the reservation talking about things the Republican base actually
cares about. And stole a lot of Bernie's thunder since Bernie had a long list of no-go issues
(we can rail against the banks but can't actually do anything about them)
It didn't help that JEB! so obviously didn't want the job. Maybe because he can see the trainwreck
coming down the pike. For the same reason Trump ended the debate by shouting about the bubble
economy. (When it wasn't his turn, natch)
"…vote for Greens not worthless. If they average 5% of the vote nationwide they will get
matching funds in 2020. Please consider this and also spread the word."
And by 2020, if the Republicans gain control of all three branches of government, those "matching
funds" will be a memory. I know I'm going to catch flack for this, but in the sense that too many
of the younger voters have had an all but nonexistent education in political science, history
and civics, Clinton is at least right on that score. I've seen it too often-and been attacked
for trying to point out that election fraud and party corruption are not what we should
be focused on now when the future of the republic is in jeopardy.
How any intelligent human being can say, much less believe, that allowing Trump to be elected
will "teach the Democrats" anything is beyond my comprehension. After all, it's not as if anything
that happens after that will affect them in any discernible way. It will be the poor and the elderly
and the people of color who'll bear the weight of a GOP-owned government.
Paul Ryan went on record that if Trump is elected they'll just ignore him and further the
agenda hammered out for them by their Kochtopus overlords. Which is exactly what I have expected
would be the case all along. This isn't a damned game, but the more I hear the more it seems that's
how it's being viewed, as if the final winner has no real-world relevance.
In a rush to judgment, I decided Clinton did not understand ACA when she said its problems
could be addressed with incremental changes. Nice to have proof this is one more area the self
proclaimed policy wonk is unaware of the details of the policy and its effects.
Don't confuse her awareness with her propaganda talking points. She is perfectly aware of what
ACA is for and she is glad. Does she want us to share her awareness? No.
I agree she understands its true purpose. Where I differ is that I don't for a moment belief
that either Clinton or Obama have a clue what is really in that law or what its true effect would
be over time. I think it of it this way – both of them understood the true purpose of overthrowing
Qaddafi, neither of them or the architects of that strategy began to understand that it would
not just continue to destabilize the region it would destabilize Europe.
Do you think either of them recognized that forcing people to buy garbage insurance with no
health care attached in order to entrench insurance companies was going to significantly help
their opponents? Endanger Clinton's election? Or that it might not last long enough for the opening
of the Obama library because the sheer weight of it was unsustainable?
True, they don't care, but it also shows how stupid not caring is.
I don't think they cared if it helped their "opponents." Remaining in power is less important
than the payout afterwards – I think they just don't think in the long term because the short
term is good enough for their purposes.
Amen. These so-called "best and brightest" like Clinton and Obama are not only morally
bankrupt, the awful truth is they are also obviously poorly informed and self-evidently not very
bright either. Obama could, in fact, be almost the definition of the "empty suit".
Look at who goes onto the success track out of the Ivies, if it isn't legacy offspring dimbulbs
like Chelsea, it's frequently superficially articulate suck-ups who can be trusted to faithfully
and unquestioningly follow orders and has almost an inverse relationship with objective merit
of the sort we are sold.
I was ahead of the curve and saw that the fix was in before Obama's inauguration, boy that
was an unpopular stance. Then I went through a long internal debate: is he stupid or is he evil?
I chose "stupid" for quite a while, giving the benefit of the doubt, I just *wanted to believe*
that Lucy would not pull the football away at the last minute this time around.
I no longer entertain any such illusions, Hilary and Obama know full well what the consequences
of their actions are, all the way from Yemen to Minnesota health insurers. Obama is working toward
a sexy retirement golfing with billionaires and raising funds for his Library, as for Hilary,
her lust for pure unbridled power for its own sake knows no bounds. From the hallowed halls of
Goldman Sachs to the board room at Monsanto, Hilary knows *precisely* where she can get the funds
to satisfy her blood and power lusts.
Funny how that leaked in a week where Clinton, and the Obamas were busy explaining political
reality according to the usual suspects to those same basement dwellers. You know the one where
any vote not for Clinton was automatically the same as voting for Trump, and voters couldn't really
do that because Hillary was not perfect. But now we have proof that Clinton isn't just "not perfect"
she isn't even interested in the concerns of those voters the entitled turds were lecturing.
Well according to Hillary and Obama a vote for Jill Stein is the same as a vote against Hillary.
Then that means that a vote for Trump is like two votes against Hillary! Think about it.
Well, her leaked audio fits in with her new plan to give all those "basement dwellers"
something to do – that National Service Reserve thing……
But yea, all you stupid millennials – get off the couch and vote for Hillary because she told
you to!! And then get off her lawn!
Uh I don't even see what is so bad about anything she says at least in the clip (maybe I'm
missing some larger context). Otherwise much ado about nothing. Look I'm not a fan of Hillary's
policies, it's unlikely I'd vote for Hillary but … really … mountains out of molehills. It's like
Trump's comment about how it might be a 400 pound person who hacked the DNC and suddenly it's
a fat person's rights issue or something, and frankly his statement was more offensive than this,
only in context it was a common throwaway nerd stereotype in the face of Hillary falsely blaming
a nuclear power.
But no not everyone who has been in an election or more knows any history is bewildered. When
times are bad the choice is always go left or go right. And go right always ends in disaster,
but if going left is blocked, it's exactly what people will do even so. The way to avoid that
it to keep the left alive, but the ruling class will risk the hard right over going left every
time.
Free health care of course is not "going as far as Scandinavia" but is what every developed
country on earth has pretty much except the U.S.. So yes it's offensive if one imagined Hillary
was for single payer, but did anyone seriously think this? It is not like she has campaigned on
it.
OK, if you don't see it, you don't see it. Just take my word for it then: whatever slim chance
Hillary had to win just went out the window. Other than that it's not a big deal.
After all we've (1%) done? for those educated? basement living? baristas?!!
Each one of those is problematic (based on memes mocking millenials) not to mention she's doing
it in a room of 1%ers. The rich flat out mocking the people they victimize is not going to go
over well. Her statements are worse than Rmoney's 47% garbage. MSM can ignore it, which takes
care of half the citizenry but the other half is on-line.
Beyond a tone-deafness in self-expression that's astonishing for an experienced politician
(even if she did not expect the statement to become public), I find it amazing that there is not
even a hint of the thought, "well, maybe there's something about our economy that we need to adjust."
It's clear that the only adjustment HRC feels necessary is citizens' expectations of their
future in the USA. This person is not fit for public service at any level. I hope every voter
who's thinking of voting for her listens carefully to exactly what she said here and ponders what
it reveals about her assessment of the challenges we face.
It's unclear what people just don't understand about Scandinavia. Higher taxes? Yea it's true
people might balk at Scandinavian level taxes, however at the actual point in the continuum the
U.S. actually exists in, I think a lot of people would trade higher taxes for the benefits of
a welfare state (not dealing with insurance companies, not facing poverty in old age – and hey
paid sick time and paid 6 week vacations).
When I was in the insurance biz I met a Swedish woman who was an up and coming exec in the
company. She had been a school teacher in Sweden and had moved to the U.S. to earn more and pay
less taxes. Her plan, once she had made her pile, was to move back to Sweden explaining, "because
I would never want to be old in America."
What Americans don't understand about Scandinavia is that those countries don't have a bloated
military – or any military really – to protect their 'exorbitant privilege'.
An Empire cannot be a welfare state, and vice versa.
Maybe not super generous, but the U.S. medical system already costs more than single payer,
so there is more than that going on than just "can't afford it". I have often though the citizens
of an empire must be kept in abject poverty, so they don't get to questioning the empire thing
(maybe they learned from Vietnam).
An Empire's priorities are usually not with the welfare and general well-being of its citizenry.
In fact its population can best be kept in a precarious state in order to lower labor costs,
limit social demands and, or course, fill the lower military ranks.
Quite a revealing mindset on Hillary's part. Reminds me of Romney dismissing 47% of the population
as free riders.
As Hillary derides those who think we ought to be more like Scandinavia, with free college,
free national health care, what she isn't making clear is that America the nation is paying more
military money than most of the rest of the world combined. In her mindset, we are the Global
Police, and if that $791 billion of military spending reduces us to recession, unaffordable college,
unaffordable medical care, and a few dozen people owning over half of all the assets in a nation
of 300 million, well that's the price of being the Good Guys.
This brings up a new (old) definition of nationalism; the simple idea that you take care of
your own people and infrastructure first, and that your military expenses are only for defensive
purposes - not for establishing 800+ military bases all over the world, and dividing the entire
globe into theaters of war. That's what our military and political leaders have done, following
the wishes of the very, very few ultra wealthy who make billions every year off this system.
A nation, any nation, has no more precious and priceless resource than the minds of its young
people. The health and wellbeing of its young people. Where do they think the citizens of coming
decades are going to come from? Some other country?
America the nation is dying because America's Empire is pulling up the floorboards and chopping
up the furniture to feed the flames of endless wars around the world, wars which accomplish nothing
for America but poverty of its citizens. We need voters and political leaders who will stand against
America's Empire, who will dismantle it and return our attention to becoming a leading nation
among nations, not Number One in arms sales, not Number One in blood spilled, not Number One in
war crimes.
wow…… clueless in bubble-land. So a bad economy for most (since 2008 at least) and poor job
prospects for most is a matter of "mind set" ? Oh, if only the young did positive thinking. That
would fix everything.
What this tells me about Hillary is she thinks the economy is fine, thinks the current
economic policies and trade deals are fine, and has no intention of changing anything. For her,
the current economic situation is the best of all possible worlds. If people can't find decent
jobs it's their own fault.
Her audio clip sounds like Mitt Romney's 47 percent comment: "And so my job is not to worry
about those people - I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and
care for their lives." – Romney
"What this tells me about Hillary is she thinks the economy is fine, thinks the current economic
policies and trade deals are fine, and has no intention of changing anything. For her, the current
economic situation is the best of all possible worlds."
This is why the concept of a Buy Nothing Month in October is being mentioned as a means of
passive protest. No discretionary purchases. Cash only for essentials to hammer Wells Fargo and
the credit card tapeworms in the economy.
Most people are already down to essentials, and those who aren't likely agree with Hillary
or don't see why they should suffer more for a very tenuous possibility of doing mild harm to
their tormentors.
Poor, brave Hillary - trapped between the Deplorables and the Basement Dwellers (presumably
on their way to becoming the Morlocks and the Eloi). What I find hysterical is the way she depicts
herself as the sane one in a world gone mad.
It's appalling that Hillary and her media toadies are playing up the fact that Trump called
women fat, while that same media completely ignores that Hillary took money from Saudi Arabia
to send America to war against Libya.
Seriously, in the entire history of the human race has there ever, ever been a more singularly
corrupt act than to take money from a foreign power to send your own nation to war against some
other nation? And all we hear about is that Trump called women fat! These people are out of their
minds.
Not to mention selling cluster bombs and white phosphorus to the same Saudi despots who
use them against Yemeni civilians with the US's assistance. 10s of thousands have been killed
and there is a dreadful famine affecting hundreds of thousands.
But Trump called a woman fat, so he is the evil one.
The famine is affecting millions. Yemen is enduring the worst humanitarian crisis on the
planet. That is a war for Saudi Arabia to flex its muscle against Iran and shiites to counteract
their economic weakness from oil price declines. No one has any real geopolitical interest there.
Only Trump brings attention to Yemen on the campaign trail. Not the media, and definitely not
Clinton who gleefully increased weapons sales to Saudi Arabia while she was at State.
The Obama/Hilary government in action. Anyone voting for a continuation is complicit.
So yes, you can have a president who did not call someone "fat"….but be sure and keep a photo
of the Yemeni girl with her arms blown off on your bedside table to remind you the price you paid
for that crucial advantage.
OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL
Re: Syria, Yemen, Honduras, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil et alia ad nauseam.
What we need is an American Anti-Imperialist League, it should have a former president, a titan
of industry, and a famous celebrity as founding members.
Oh, look, we had one already, with Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie, and Mark Twain:
"... Hey get that straight, NBC paid her Six Hundred Thousand a year for the years she was there. And I apologize I was under the impression that her contract was allowed to lapse, but it was renewed once. They really were paying her for nothing after the first year… ..."
"... You and your son might want to think about the fact that extended families living together has been historically and still is the norm for many. My son works in the building trades and doesn't make enough money to buy a house in our neighborhood. He has been living with me for several years and our relationship is very good. ..."
About that hacked audio, I suddenly saw it all over youtube last night on various progressive
channels from around midnight on. Well, here is a primary source! 2 minutes of Hillary explaining
that Bernie supporters are basement dwelling barista losers without futures who are too naive to
understand how politics really work. And she confirms she's center-right, in case anyone was fooled
by her recent ostensible leftness:
Our son is one of those recent grads Hillary disdains. He has just picked up his third slightly
above minimum wage part time job. He has had two interviews in his chosen field only to be told at
the end of each the companies were 'just looking' at the job field prospects and did not actually
have an open job available…. he has applied for a number of generic type jobs that just require a
college degree as well… to no response so far. He is personalble, bright and according to the managers
at his part time jobs he was a great interviewee…
He has severe kidney stone issues that require hospitalization and stents about once a year –
often for ten day stays and so we have chosen to pay for a Cadillac policy for him ourselves so he
gets the quality care he needs ( no the ACA was useless – he tried) . He is embarrassed we have to
do this for him… He spends every bit of his meager pay paying off his small student loan debt so he can at least get
that burden off and keeping his ancient little car in repair. He refused to allow us to help him
pay his loans and or buy him a better car. He lives at home and feels terrible about it – and so
is constantly doing all the home work he can during the few hours between his jobs to 'make up' for
needing our help. Friends go out to dinner and movies sports games etc and have stopped asking him
because he usually does not have the money …. So….. He is on his way to depression I think…. all that work in college. He has a solid 3.4 GPA and a 3.7
GPA in his field.and he is willing to move anywhere immediately and would not mind a job that entailed
a lot of travel…. But I guess Hillary just thinks he is some unmotivated stupid despite all that….
I know a vote for Stein is totally useless but other that leaving it blank I have no options here.
This country is tanking….I cannot believe this is happening to my son. Spouse and I walked out of
college with a 3.1 and 3.0 gpas directly into decent paying career jobs and an upward trajectory
that continues to this day… he is smarter and works harder than either of us ever have frankly….
Meanwhile Chelsea (who "doesn't care about being rich" or whatever nonsense she spouted) is grifted
into a $500K/year do-nothing job at NBC, marries a hedge fund manager, and flies in private jets.
And her mom and dad make $300,000 for one hour speeches.
Hey get that straight, NBC paid her Six Hundred Thousand a year for the years she was there.
And I apologize I was under the impression that her contract was allowed to lapse, but it was
renewed once. They really were paying her for nothing after the first year…
And don't forget the various Boards she serves on, mostly Clinton entities.
You and your son might want to think about the fact that extended families living together
has been historically and still is the norm for many. My son works in the building trades and
doesn't make enough money to buy a house in our neighborhood. He has been living with me for several
years and our relationship is very good. I am the son of a man who abandoned his own children,
which perhaps accounts for my finding our arrangement particularly gratifying and take great pleasure
in his company as well as that of his friends and lovers.
brilliant son in college, nothing out there at all except 711 jobs. the store he works and
was on shift at got robbed twice on consecutive nights and i had to ask him to stop going there
for his safety.
it is sad sad sad how the future of the kids is being destroyed. the 0.01% have "arranged"
sinecures for their kids and they dont care about our kids. Go into debt to get an education no
one seems to need to pay overpaid professors and administrators at the university, and then carry
that around your neck all your life.
I hope your son does find what he's looking for. I'm worried for my own children and what they
will do too.
What strikes me the most about stories like yours is how much luck factors into things. Graduating
into a recession is horrible. Decisions that made sense 4 years prior to graduation suddenly seem
irresponsible when the day comes to leave college.
So much of my own career has benefitted from being in the right place at the right time, and
I could only have been at this place at that time because I graduated when I did. Sure, I've hustled
and taken advantage of opportunities too. I've always been willing to get dirty and do the things
other people weren't willing to do. But the fact is that I was in a position to do all of that
because of many things that had nothing to do with how hard I worked, how smart I was, or what
degrees I had. If I had been born a year later, graduated a year earlier, chosen a slightly different
discipline… so many things would be different for me now. It's one reason why I don't complain
too much about taxes.
"... Well if you look at this US presidential election from 30,000 feet, it does not reflect very well upon the US system. On the one hand, you have Hillary Rodham Clinton who was the chief architect of the disastrous overthrow of the Libya regime in 2011 who voted in favor of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 which shows she is not a person who is learning the lessons from her mistakes. ..."
"... I would urge and encourage the voters in the swing states to study the polls very carefully. For example, I may vote in North Carolina this year, where I've voted in the past 2 decades and I'm going to study the polls almost up to election day to determine whether or not it is a worthwhile vote to vote against the two party system, the duopoly, that has brought us this disaster and catastrophe. ..."
"... Clinton has a terrible history of hawkishness. Help destroy Libya, help destroy Syria, and help destroy Iraq. And has played certainly a leading role in destroying Libya. ..."
"... She does defend the Iranian agreement and Trump has said he will tear it up and is surrounding himself, including his vice president and others, most of his advisors, who also want to tear it up and he has made nice-nice with Sheldon Adelson who is apparently giving him 25 million bucks. ..."
"... So on that Iran deal, does that sort of deciding factor why one might think Clinton's foreign policy could be at least less disastrous than Trump? ..."
"... The fact that some supported Sanders and now support Trump, only suggest to me a kind of political illiteracy. That is to say I guess what they're suggesting is they want a disruptive factor which is why they voted for Sanders then Trump. ..."
"... Which is the fact that the mainstream press, the New York Times, the Washington Post in particular, are bitterly hostile to Donald J. Trump. I would say even to the point of distorting what is thought to be or what was thought to be straight ahead news coverage. ..."
"... I think because the elite press has taken such a turn, such a partisan turn, the working class constituency which knows that the elite press does not have their best interest at heart, might be turning reflexively to Donald J. Trump. ..."
"... Now the 1930's when capitalism was deep in crisis, there was a significant support for outright fascism in Europe and of course in Italy and Germany and eventually took over much of Europe. Direct fascism was the answer to the crisis. In the United States, there was a real battle over what was the answer for the crisis in the United States. There were certainly those that loved Adolf Hitler in the United States including Henry Ford and a whole section of the American elite. But the New Deal won out. ..."
"... Well first of all the 1930's needs to be distinguished from today. Insofar as in the 1930's you had a surging labor movement, particularly in the steel workers' union, the autoworkers union, the rubbers workers' union in Akron, Ohio. You had left wing political parties with membership in the double digits in terms of the thousands. ..."
"... today one of the strongest basis for Trump's support rest in coal mining country in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. ..."
"... So I'm not sure if we can be reassured by the fact that in the 1930's the United States was able to escape a unique form of neo fascism. I think the danger is actually greater in 2016 than it was in 1936 for example. ..."
HORNE:Well if you look at this US presidential election from 30,000 feet, it does not reflect
very well upon the US system. On the one hand, you have Hillary Rodham Clinton who was the chief
architect of the disastrous overthrow of the Libya regime in 2011 who voted in favor of the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein in 2003 which shows she is not a person who is learning the lessons from her mistakes.
...
... ... ....
JAY: And what about in the swing states?
HORNE: Well that's hearts of a different color. I would urge and encourage the voters in the
swing states to study the polls very carefully. For example, I may vote in North Carolina this year,
where I've voted in the past 2 decades and I'm going to study the polls almost up to election day
to determine whether or not it is a worthwhile vote to vote against the two party system, the duopoly,
that has brought us this disaster and catastrophe.
... ... ...
JAY: So that's what I want to dig into on the foreign policy side. Because there's been a lot of
debate about who's really more dangerous on the foreign policy side. Frankly I think you could make
the argument both ways. Clinton has a terrible history of hawkishness. Help destroy Libya, help
destroy Syria, and help destroy Iraq. And has played certainly a leading role in destroying Libya.
On the other hand, she does and I think in my mind this might be the deciding factor is that she
does defend the agreement with Iran even though I don't know how enthusiastic she was in the beginning
and even though she tells lies about the Iranian nuclear program. She does defend the Iranian
agreement and Trump has said he will tear it up and is surrounding himself, including his vice president
and others, most of his advisors, who also want to tear it up and he has made nice-nice with Sheldon
Adelson who is apparently giving him 25 million bucks.
So on that Iran deal, does that sort of deciding factor why one might think Clinton's foreign
policy could be at least less disastrous than Trump?
HORNE: Well I think that's a fair point. Keep in mind not only is Donald Trump hostile to the
Iranian nuclear deal. He's told the voters of South Florida he'll break away from President Obama's
[en tant] with Cuba. The fact that in the first few moments of the debate last night, he tore and
tore to China is not reassuring. His hostility towards Mexico bids fair to ratchet up tension and
pressure and hostility toward the Mexican-American and Latino population. So I whole-ly and totally
understand the fear and fright on the left with regard to a Trump presidency. At the same time there's
more than one way to try to defeat Donald Trump and the way that is now being suggested which is
witling down the Green vote from 3% to 1.5%, it seems to me that's almost like a waste of time.
JAY: Why do you think progressive forces and such have so little influence amongst that section
of the working class that supports Trump? Although I have to add my barber, his father he was telling
me, 33 years in the military supported Sanders and now supports Trump. It's a complicated mix of
why people are supporting Trump.
HORNE: Well it's very complicated. We'd have to take a stroll down memory lane. We'd have to go into
the corners of US history and talk about the United States was formed as a slave holder's republic
despite the propaganda to the contrary and there was a kind of [falstry] [embargins] between the
Euro-American poor and working class and the Euro-American ruling elite to loot and plunder the Native
Americans and then stock the Native America's former land with Africans and that kind of trend has
continued down to this very day. Facilitating [falstry] [embargins] and corrupt bargains between
the ruling elite and the working class. The fact that some supported Sanders and now support
Trump, only suggest to me a kind of political illiteracy. That is to say I guess what they're suggesting
is they want a disruptive factor which is why they voted for Sanders then Trump.
... ... ...
JAY: But that's highly unlikely isn't it? Especially given the preponderance of the elites seem to
be supporting Clinton including much of the Republican elites.
HORNE: You are correct. As a matter of fact, you've hit on a very important point which I think
might be helping to push working class voters toward Trump. Which is the fact that the mainstream
press, the New York Times, the Washington Post in particular, are bitterly hostile to Donald J. Trump.
I would say even to the point of distorting what is thought to be or what was thought to be straight
ahead news coverage.
I think because the elite press has taken such a turn, such a partisan turn, the working class
constituency which knows that the elite press does not have their best interest at heart, might be
turning reflexively to Donald J. Trump. To your main point I do think it is unlikely that the
electoral college would overturn the results of the November vote. At the same time, the strange
political times, I don't think we could rule anything out.
JAY: Now the 1930's when capitalism was deep in crisis, there was a significant support for outright
fascism in Europe and of course in Italy and Germany and eventually took over much of Europe. Direct
fascism was the answer to the crisis. In the United States, there was a real battle over what was
the answer for the crisis in the United States. There were certainly those that loved Adolf Hitler
in the United States including Henry Ford and a whole section of the American elite. But the New
Deal won out.
The idea of a compromise with the working class and trying to create the conditions for a revival
of the economy based on state intervention, Keynesian kind of expansion of stimulus and so on and
so on. More or less trying to forestall deeper radicalization of the American working class and not
impose a direct kind of police state militarism and so on. Do you think the conditions are different
now in the sense that there are more of the elites willing to go down that kind of road, which I
think is representative not so much by Trump's rhetoric but by his alliance?
HORNE: Well first of all the 1930's needs to be distinguished from today. Insofar as in the 1930's
you had a surging labor movement, particularly in the steel workers' union, the autoworkers union,
the rubbers workers' union in Akron, Ohio. You had left wing political parties with membership in
the double digits in terms of the thousands.
Today we're facing the industrialization today one
of the strongest basis for Trump's support rest in coal mining country in Eastern Kentucky and West
Virginia.
So I'm not sure if we can be reassured by the fact that in the 1930's the United States
was able to escape a unique form of neo fascism. I think the danger is actually greater in 2016 than
it was in 1936 for example.
... ... ... Coughing can be a symptom of so many different illnesses, but it is interesting to
note that it happens to be one of the symptoms
of Parkinson's Disease …
Difficulty swallowing, called dysphagia, can happen at any stage of Parkinson disease. Signs
and symptoms can range from mild to severe and may include: difficulty swallowing certain foods
or liquids, coughing or throat clearing during or after eating/drinking, and feeling as if food
is getting stuck . As the disease progresses, swallowing can become severely compromised and food/liquid
can get into the lungs, causing aspiration pneumonia. Aspiration pneumonia is the leading cause
of death in PD.
By itself, it would be impossible to link Hillary Clinton with Parkinson's Disease just based
on her coughing. But the truth is that she has exhibited so many of the other symptoms as well.
According
to Google , here are some of the other symptoms that Parkinson's Disease victims often exhibit…
Tremor: can occur at rest, in the hands, limbs, or can be postural
Muscular: stiff muscles, difficulty standing, difficulty walking, difficulty with bodily
movements, involuntary movements, muscle rigidity, problems with coordination, rhythmic muscle contractions,
slow bodily movement, or slow shuffling gait
Sleep: daytime sleepiness, early awakening, nightmares, or restless sleep
Whole body: fatigue, dizziness, poor balance, or restlessness
Cognitive: amnesia, confusion in the evening hours, dementia, or difficulty thinking and
understanding
A lot of those should ring a bell if you have been following Hillary's bizarre behavior in recent
months.
In this
video , a medical doctor with 36 years of experience named Ted Noel puts the pieces together
and explains how he reached his conclusion that Hillary Clinton is suffering with Parkinson's Disease.
I think that you will find that his reasoning is quite compelling…
"... OK, let's be more charitable here – if Hillary did indeed overheat and become dehydrated, then it was a partial truth, but it was made a lie because it wasn't the whole story ..."
"... she did not tell either her staff or running mate Tim Kaine of the pneumonia diagnosis until after her Sunday collapse ..."
"... visiting the 9/11 ceremonies was certainly a high-risk event for Hillary to attend, since there were lots of people, lots of things going on with multiple distractions occurring at the same time in an uncontrolled environment, lots of reporters, lots of cameras taking pictures ..."
Only four days after I wrote "The
Decrepit Candidate" here at American Thinker, Hillary Clinton took ill at the 9/11 fifteenth
anniversary memorial ceremonies in New York City, ditched her press pool, left prematurely, and
was unceremoniously stuffed, stiff as a board, into her van to escape to daughter Chelsea's
apartment. Thanks to a
citizen video, taken by Zdenek Gazda and now viewed by millions of people worldwide, we know
that the Clinton campaign's original statement that Hillary became "overheated" is a lie.
OK, let's be more charitable here – if Hillary did indeed overheat and become
dehydrated, then it was a partial truth, but it was made a lie because it wasn't the whole story.
After Gazda's video became public, a new excuse explanation was needed, and it was provided by
Hillary's personal physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, who has written that she examined Hillary on
Friday, September 9, performed tests, and diagnosed "a mild non-contagious bacterial pneumonia"
(whatever that is; probably a simplified description in layman's terms). Hillary was put on
antibiotics (for the second time since September 2) and told to rest. Presumably ignoring
the good doctor's advice, Hillary returned to full-bore campaigning and fundraising that same
day.
I don't doubt that Hillary had pneumonia, but is this also a lie, because it is not the
complete story? We now understand that Hillary is very secretive about her health, as
she did not tell either her staff or running mate Tim Kaine of the pneumonia diagnosis until
after her Sunday collapse.
I remain skeptical that Hillary is really in good health, and I think there are very good odds
that the very secretive Hillary is hiding a degenerative neurological condition from the public,
and probably from most everybody except those people closest to her, possibly even from her
primary care physician (Dr. Bardack).
If so, then visiting the 9/11 ceremonies was certainly a high-risk event for Hillary to
attend, since there were lots of people, lots of things going on with multiple distractions
occurring at the same time in an uncontrolled environment, lots of reporters, lots of cameras
taking pictures, a lot of chances to spot evidence of a neurological disorder, and not a
good time for something to go "wrong," which it did.
"... For much of the last century the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the Great Society and more recently through capitalist enterprise 'freed' from the bind of social accountability, ..."
"... The Clinton's special gift to the people -- citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a filter of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt 'leadership' class, lies in the social truths revealed by their actions. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, poses the greater-evilism of an ossified political class against the facts of its own creation now in dire need of resolution- wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises, economic predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to end social misery. Hillary Clinton's roster of donors is the neoliberal innovation on Richard Nixon's enemies list- government as a shakedown racket where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by 'donation' status rather than personal animus. ..."
"... That is most ways conservative Republican Richard Nixon's actual policies were far Left of those of contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological mobility of political pragmatism freed from principle. ..."
"... That Hillary Clinton is the candidate of officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America's wars of choice to dedicated environmental irresolution as the candidate who 'gets things done.' ..."
"... As historical analog, the West has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed by state power; in the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries. ..."
"... Left unstated in the competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is 'dangerous' only by overlooking how dangerous the American political leadership has been for the last one and one-half centuries. So the question becomes: dangerous to whom? Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions like the IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the 'free-choices' of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians really be? And with them, how not-dangerous have liberal Democrats actually been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class interests put forward as systemic intent. ..."
"... The liberals and progressives in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting as enforcers to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard by those they serve within the existing economic order. ..."
into political power. The structure of economic distribution seen through Foundation 'contributors;'
oil and gas magnates, pharmaceutical and technology entrepreneurs of public largesse, the murder-for-hire
industry (military) and various and sundry managers of social decline, makes evident the dissociation
of social production from those that produced it.
For much of the last century the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the
Great Society and more recently through capitalist enterprise 'freed' from the bind of social accountability,
if not exactly from the need for regular and robust public support, served to hold at bay the perpetual
tomorrow of lives lived for the theorized greater good of accumulated self-interest. The Clinton's
special gift to the people -- citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a filter
of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt
'leadership' class, lies in the social truths revealed by their actions.
Being three or more decades in the making, the current political season was never about the candidates
except inasmuch as they embody the grotesquely disfigured and depraved condition of the body politic.
The 'consumer choice' politics of Democrat versus Republican, Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump,
poses the greater-evilism of an ossified political class against the facts of its own creation now
in dire need of resolution- wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises, economic
predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to end social misery. Hillary
Clinton's roster of donors is the neoliberal innovation on Richard Nixon's enemies list- government
as a shakedown racket where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by 'donation'
status rather than personal animus.
That is most ways conservative Republican Richard Nixon's actual policies were far Left of
those of contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological mobility
of political pragmatism freed from principle. The absurd misdirection that we, the people, are
driving this migration is belied by the economic power that correlates 1:1 with the policies put
forward and enacted by 'the people's representatives', by the answers that actual human beings give
to pollsters when asked and by the ever more conspicuous hold that economic power has over political
considerations as evidenced by the roster of pleaders and opportunists granted official sees by the
political class in Washington.
To state the obvious, dysfunctional ideology- principles that don't 'work' in the sense of promoting
broadly conceived public wellbeing, should be dispensable. But this very formulation takes at face
value the implausible conceits of unfettered intentions mediated through functional political representation
that are so well disproved by entities like the Clinton Foundation. Political 'pragmatism' as it
is put forward by national Democrats quite closely resembles the principled opposition of Conservative
Republicans through unified service to the economic powers-that-be. That Hillary Clinton is the
candidate of officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America's wars of choice to dedicated
environmental irresolution as the candidate who 'gets things done.'
As historical analog, the West has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed
by state power; in the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries.
The result, in addition to making connected insiders rich as they wield social power over less existentially
alienated peoples, has been the not-so-great wars, devastations, impositions and crimes-against-humanity
that were the regular occurrences of the twentieth century. The 'innovation' of corporatized militarization
to this proud tradition is as old as Western imperialism in its conception and as new as nuclear
and robotic weapons, mass surveillance and apparently unstoppable environmental devastation in its
facts.
Left unstated in the competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political
resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is 'dangerous' only by overlooking how dangerous
the American political leadership has been for the last one and one-half centuries. So the question
becomes: dangerous to whom? Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions
like the IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the 'free-choices'
of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians really be? And with them, how not-dangerous
have liberal Democrats actually been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class
interests put forward as systemic intent.
The complaint that the Greens- Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, don't have an effective political
program approximates the claim that existing political and economic arrangements are open to challenge
through the electoral process when the process exists to assure that effective challenges don't arise.
The Democrats could have precluded the likelihood of a revolutionary movement, Left or Right, for
the next half-century by electing Bernie Sanders and then undermining him to 'prove' that challenges
to prevailing political economy don't work. The lack of imagination in running 'dirty Hillary' is
testament to how large- and fragile, the perceived stakes are. But as how unviable Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump are as political leaders becomes apparent- think George W. Bush had he run for office
after the economic collapse of 2009 and without the cover of '9/11,' the political possibilities
begin to open up.
The liberals and progressives in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting
as enforcers to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard by those
they serve within the existing economic order. The premise that the ruling class will always
need dedicated servants grants coherent logic and aggregated self-interest that history has disproven
time and again. A crude metaphor would be the unintended consequences of capitalist production now
aggregating to environmental crisis.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both such conspicuously corrupt tools of an intellectually
and spiritually bankrupt social order that granting tactical brilliance to their ascendance, or even
pragmatism given the point in history and available choices, seems wildly generous. For those looking
for a political moment, one is on the way.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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Joe100 said in reply to
Tyler...
Tyler -
LisaAllenC
11 hours ago
Trump was not booed by anyone
but the far left stunked up
media, everyone else that i
could see was raising their
fist and laughing as they were
nodding that they agreed with
TRUMP, you little people of the
left media have really lost
yourself s, lost your
professionalism in your field,
i mean you took an oath when
you started that career as a
journalist to report as fairly
and as honest as you could and
you took that platform as
something that you would treat
as a place the American people
and the rest of the world could
come to for an honest and
balanced look at issues, not a
place to be used to push your
own interests on people in such
ways that even small children
that listen well can tell is
words filled full of lies and
dishonesty, words that are
filled with hate and such
lopsided views that our kids
are saying, turn that trash
daddy, it makes me sick to my
stomach to watch such lies, my
kids and our neighbors kids
actually said that, they are
watching very closely and you
people of the far left trash
machine should be so ashamed of
what you have been force
feeding not only these kids but
some of the very easily
confused people, i mean thats
the only ones you are hurting
because we the American people
know better but still you
should have to stand up and
answer to what you have done to
the ones you have terribly hurt
during this mess. You want to
ever say that you are someone
this country could ever trust
and believe, you wonder why
Trump knows not to trust
anything you may have your
hands or words mixed in with,
you have dishonored yourself's
and no one will ever believe
you again, we have your names
etched in our brains as
dishonest nobody's and know to
stop reading or listening to
anything you say or do, what a
shame but your true colors came
out and the honest people of
this country see you as who you
are. We are so glad and HONORED
TO VOTE FOR TRUMP, we know
there is no one that is perfect
but Christ himself but we also
know the heart of a person as
well and TRUMPS HEART IS IN THE
RIGHT PLACE, he wants real
honest change for us Americans
and he wants real honest help
to be given to ALL THE AMERICAN
PEOPLE, and without you left
twisting word machine, TRUMP
WANTS REAL HELP FOR OUR AFRICAN
AMERICANS AND OUR MEXICAN
AMERICANS, he does want the law
to be honored but he doesn't
want to harm anybody, you
people have twisted his words
in such dramatic fashion that
we rarely get to hear his real
plan to bring safety and lawful
ways at our borders. I have
heard the plans and i am no
genius but the plans make very
good since and they will be
fair and help people that want
to be here legally, now if you
are trying to break our laws,
thats another story but at
least he does have a great plan
that will work so much better
and give our men and women
officers at the border the help
they so desperately have been
needing, TRUMP IS BY FAR THE
BEST CHOICE FOR AMERICA, the
twisted person that you people
have tried to make him out to
be, will of course that person
is not who we need but thats
not TRUMP, WE NEED TRUMP FOR
CHANGE WE NEED TRUMP FOR OUR
COUNTRY AND OUR FAMILY, VOTE
TRUMP FOR CHANGE.
LOYAL
11 hours ago
I am not going to lie to you,
Hillary is stupid, confused,
and has been exposed. Her guilt
of running a stupid campaign
and a stupid office called the
Secretary of State is no longer
in question. During the debate
Hillary got confused on
proposed gun laws. On abortion,
Hillary thinks it's ok to kill
babies ready to be delivered.
This is like saying I love
children that have been
delivered alive but not so much
those not yet delivered. Sound
like, I like a hero that does
not get captured? Hillary is
all talk and no action. Black
people should understand this
by now. So should everyone
else.
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