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Partial transcripts of Hillary Clinton's Wall Street speeches have been released by WikiLeaks along with other emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. Bernie Sanders had called on Clinton to release transcripts of the speeches, for which she is estimated to have earned around $26 million, during the Democratic primary:
Transcripts of private speeches by US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have been released by the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks. In one of the extracts, Mrs Clinton told bankers that they were best-placed to help reform the US financial sector. [...] The excerpts include comments made at an event sponsored by Goldman Sachs in October 2013 in which Mrs Clinton spoke of the need to consult Wall Street over financial reform. "The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry," Mrs Clinton said. At another speech presented to a Brazilian bank in 2013, she spoke of her "dream" for a common trade market. "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," Mrs Clinton said.
John Podesta blames the Russians. The emails were posted a few days after the 10th anniversary of WikiLeaks.
Here is "The Podesta Emails; Part One" press release at WikiLeaks, which emphasizes Clinton involvement with the sale of Uranium One to Russian interests:
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. When the New York Times article was published the Clinton campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon, strongly rejected the possibility that then-Secretary Clinton exerted any influence in the US goverment's review of the sale of Uranium One, describing this possibility as "baseless".
[Continues...]
The leaked emails have further angered former/current Sanders supporters, although that might not matter by Election Day:
Supporters of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday 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. [...] "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. The revelations were quickly overshadowed by the release of an 11-year-old recording of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, making lewd comments about women.
Bonus: John Podesta has been an outspoken supporter of the "Disclosure" movement, which seeks to reveal government knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Here are two emails sent by Edgar D. Mitchell, one of the Apollo 14 astronauts, to John Podesta. Mitchell branded himself as a "Zero Point Energy Consultant" before his death. Unfortunately for Earthlings, extraterrestrials "will not tolerate any forms of military violence on Earth or in space" (good luck with that).
UPDATE: 10 Oct: 14:56 UTC
Another 2086 emails have just been released by Wikileaks: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/breaking-wikileaks-dumps-another-2086-podesta-emails/.
As the article points out:
This ought to make Hillary Clinton's already bad day – even worse.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @12:03PM
Standard refrain, Buzz: "But Trump isn't qualified! And, Trump says mean things! And, Trump is a racist! And, Trump doesn't pay taxes!"
I've not seen one single thing that Hillary has ever done, that was done competently. Except, maybe killing people. But, we can't prove that it isn't just coincidence that people drop dead all around her. Just coincidence.
I encourage everyone to look up interviews done by Secret Service agents about Hillary. The bitch believes herself to be more than human, and/or that all of the people who serve her are less than human.
Is it only coincidence that Hillary and Hitler sound somewhat alike? Hitlery for prison!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @12:15PM
Maybe you'd like Hillary better if she talked about what a nice piece of ass her daughter is.
For a guy who is obviously old enough to have grown up through the Cold War, I find it rather remarkable you support someone who is not only cozy with the Russians, but actively takes assistance from them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @12:18PM
That's not optional this time if you want to vote R or D. Hillary's even cozier with the Russians than Trump. Or did you utterly miss the Uranium One story because you only pay attention to MSM news?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @04:48PM
> Or did you utterly miss the Uranium One story because you only pay attention to MSM news?
Apparently you missed it too because you only pay attention to crazy nutjobber news.
The entire sum of the wilileaks "expose" is that one of the sources used by the writer of the NY Times article on the mine's sale was friendly to Clinton.
O M G!!!!
Whatever involvement clinton had or did not have with the state department signing off on the sale of the canadian company that owned the rights to the mine, State was only one of 9 federal agencies and two nuclear regulators to sign off on the sale:
The Kremlin’s 2010 purchase of a controlling stake in Uranium One had to be approved by the nine members of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
That included Clinton as secretary of state, but also the secretaries of the Treasury (the chairman of the committee), Defense, Justice, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security as well as the the heads of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The deal also had to be okayed by the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as Utah’s nuclear regulator.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-inaccurately-suggests-clinton-got-pai/ [politifact.com]
Remember folks, buzzard doesn't give a fuck about truth or facts, he's happy to lie his ass off because clinton is such a bitch. she deserves it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @04:55PM
You seem to think I said something untrue and that the Secretary of State has influence only in the State Department. Both are false; the second especially when the Secretary's last name is Clinton.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @07:03PM
The sig of The Mighty Buzzard currently reads:
Why go for a Left nut or a Right nut when you can have the Johnson?
He missed the chance to tell you how awesome Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is.
Y'know, the guy who doesn't know what Aleppo is; who can't name a world leader that he admires; who has said about his complete ignorance of global affairs "I guess I wasn't meant to be president".
...and, contrary to TMB's sig, Gary Johnson *IS* Right-^W Wrong-Wing. [politicalcompass.org]
(Farther Right than Trump, according to that graphic.)
Now, it is true that he's not especially Authoritarian/Interventionist.
Again, that appears to be because he couldn't find on a map a place that he might want to bomb/invade/occupy.
...and, in case any of you took one of those online quizzes that said that you most closely agree with a Libertarian, you should give that a bit more thought.
Gary Johnson Is NOT the Third-Party Candidate You’re Looking For [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [socialistalternative.org]
...and, BTW, those quizzes are deeply flawed.
They will categorize you as "Left" without ever asking the question, "Do you reject the concentrations of wealth that characterize Capitalism and the skewed, anti-democratic power distribution with which that imbues a society?"
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @07:18PM
FFS, Johnson and Stein are both more "qualified" than either Trump or Clinton. The media hasn't dug up any scandals on either of them. Trump and Clinton are so filthy they leave a dust cloud behind them. It doesn't MATTER how smart, how far out, how crazy either of them are - they are BOTH better choices than what the Republicrats are offering us.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:38AM
He's not that awesome. I just think the slogan's funny.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Gaaark on Monday October 10 2016, @05:05PM
Starting to realize it yourself! Good for you!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:37AM
Oh boy. It's an anonymous fucking douchebag who offers nothing and makes character attacks at the person he's trying to discredit.
Here on SN, the vast majority of readers aren't as fucking retarded as the usual low information idiots you guys target. We understand that when Russia drops tons of cash in a Clinton slush fund at the exact same time as the Clinton State Department approves nuclear fuel to them, there is something suspicious about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @06:06PM
That's not optional this time if you want to vote R or D.
Which would make them kind of retarded.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday October 10 2016, @06:44PM
Not really. Unless you hate the candidates exactly equally to vote for a third party when you live in a swing state is misguided. Use some game theory to analyze it, it's not a difficult problem. The difficulty comes with what degree of risk you are willing to accept that you will get Kang instead of Kodos.
The problem is inherent to a plurality wins voting system. It could be avoided with either Instant Runoff Voting or Condorcet voting. Condorcet is slightly better in most ways, but Instant Runoff is easier to explain, so it's actually been tried. (It has it's own problems, of which information overload is only one.)
In this case I consider Trump probably considerably worse than Hillary, so I wouldn't be willing to accept much risk. But I also don't live in a swing state...so I'll probably vote 3rd party.
P.S.: Every 3rd party I've checked out would be a disaster if they won, but because they have no significant chance of winning, qualified people won't position themselves as candidates. Even so, some of them appear better than Trump.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @07:48PM
qualified people won't position themselves as [3rd party] candidates
Ralph Nader ran in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.
Every time, he was the smartest one on the ballot.
He has more experience interacting with gov't people than most people who have been elected to gov't (going back to auto safety advocacy before Congress in the early 1960s).
When Jill Stein opposed Mitt Romney in the Massachusetts gubernatorial debate, The Boston Globe called her "the only adult in the room".
Dr. Stein is currently on the ballot in 44 states plus DC and can be written in in 3 more states.
That leaves only a tiny number of states that are so opposed to Democracy that they will not allow their people to vote for her--just 3 of those. [jill2016.com]
(I recommend View + No Style to get rid of the blinking text.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @12:22PM
OMG! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!!
The Russians are a potential external threat. Yeah, you do make something of a point. But, then again - which of the presidential candidates enabled the Russians to buy out one of our supplies of fissionable ores? Let me think about that - was Hitlery not the acting Secretary of Corruption when that deal was made? I don' think Trump has approved of any sales of fissionables to Russia, now has he?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
Please, don't even suggest that Hitlery didn't know anything about it, or that it was an oversight, or whatever fucking excuse you might want to offer. I'm not as gullible as the left leaning portion of the American population. The bitch sold strategic mineral rights to a former and potential future enemy, it's just that simple. It is precisely as simple as the people who want to vote for Hitlery.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday October 10 2016, @02:09PM
From the article [nytimes.com] you linked:
Perhaps "understanding is a three-edged sword" [goodreads.com] after all, no?
I think we could all do with a little more understanding? Just sayin'.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @02:24PM
So, knowing for a fact that she sold access to the President and her own office doesn't make you think even a little that she might have sold other deals where she absolutely did get paid? And it doesn't matter who originally uncovered the information now that it's been confirmed via other sources.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday October 10 2016, @02:54PM
So, knowing for a fact that she sold access to the President and her own office doesn't make you think even a little that she might have sold other deals where she absolutely did get paid? And it doesn't matter who originally uncovered the information now that it's been confirmed via other sources.
That was my point WRT to "Understanding is a three-edged sword" (those three edges being your side, their side, and the truth) and the bolded text in the quoted section of the article. There is no actual evidence that she gave these folks favors in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.
That said, it does seem kind of strange that this went through on her watch. Which, given the donations, makes you wonder if there was some kind of quid pro quo.
At the same time, there were a whole bunch of other people and government agencies (in both the US and Canada) aside from Clinton and the State Department that had to sign off on the deal before it could be approved, which makes it unlikely that she alone was responsible for making it happen. That doesn't disprove her support based on some sort of quid pro quo, but that makes the theory seem less likely.
One side says it's corruption, the other says it was a mixture of Administration policy and happenstance.
Then there's the truth. What that is, I don't know. Nor do you.
I know you're a pretty bright guy, so I suspect you know that people (especially in politics, but it happens everywhere) tend to try to put themselves in the best light possible and their adversaries in the worst light possible. Often, the truth is somewhere in between. The difficulty lies in determining where that "in between" really is.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @03:03PM
Oh Trump's not my guy, though I do admire his trolling skillz. Truthfully, I don't really like anyone running this time. I'll likely go Johnson, not because I like him but because I'd like to see Libertarians get federal funding next time and possibly even a seat in the debates.
With Clinton though, I can't help thinking she's actually done worse than anything I suspect. Every factual revelation is worse than the last.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday October 10 2016, @03:17PM
I wasn't implying that you were supporting Trump and I wasn't being partisan. I was just pointing out that everyone has an agenda and Clinton (or Trump or Johnson or anyone else for that matter) isn't as rabidly evil as their enemies make them out to be, and they definitely aren't as angelic as they make themselves out to be.
Which is why a well-informed electorate (which we don't have) is important.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @03:41PM
Fair nuff. I disagree not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday October 10 2016, @05:16PM
ABSOLUTELY! You see it here in Canada, as well, unfortunately. Too many people rely on CNN or their local newspaper for their political views. No one is skeptical. They either see that "Hillary is a crook" or "Trump! What an ass!".
They don't seem to see "we need to get something rolling to support a third option".
Everyone call up Pauly Shore and ask him to run. Carrot top. ANYONE! Damn.... anyone at all!
Wish it were possible to get Sanders back in and Hill out (is it too late?).
Get Sanders back, and have him run up against Barney the Dinosaur or Tinkey-winkey instead of Trump. Should be a better race. At least i'd feel better with Sanders, Barney or Tinkey-winkey as President.
The way things are looking, no matter which way it turns, it's going to be a VERY, VERY COLD WINTER. :(
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 10 2016, @08:33PM
Where I live we get the "Trump! What an ass!" bit, but all comments about Hillary are "She's so Presidential" or "She won the debate" (whatever that means".
I have never seen or read anything from my local media raising any questions about Hillary except the bald comment that she used a private email server with no analysis at all.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @07:23PM
"Which, given the donations, makes you wonder if there was some kind of quid pro quo."
I gave up on wondering decades ago. The Clintons are dirty, dirty, dirty. The miasma of corruption just follows them around. Teflon Bill - nothing sticks.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday October 10 2016, @12:38PM
Maybe if her daughter WAS a nice piece of ass?
And her connection with Russia seem to be pretty deep.....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday October 10 2016, @02:08PM
Gaark's got it.
I donno if its generations of assortive mating or what, perhaps on both sides, but generally speaking right wing chicks are hotter than left wing after correcting for demographics as best as possible. I mean there are anecdotally hot leftie chicks and ugly right wing chicks but its funny to compare attendees and protestors at political rallies, guys are pretty good at the "hot or not" game and its pretty easy to guess which side is R and which is D at a glance. You don't even have to read the signs or listen to the chanting, just look at the women.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @04:17PM
Cool bro, that's the narrative we're looking for to attract female R voters.
GRAB OUR COUNTRY BACK 2016!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @04:34PM
GRAB OUR COUNTRY BACK 2016!
Grab them by the cuntry!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday October 10 2016, @04:55PM
or to be PC,
#c....y
But that's one of the things i like about Trump... who REALLY wants to be PC nowadays. 'They' DEMAND that you be, but no one WANTS to be.
Yeah, call it like it is.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @05:40PM
For a guy who is obviously old enough to have grown up through the Cold War, I find it rather remarkable you support someone who is not only cozy with the Russians, but actively takes assistance from them.
Because those of us who actually DO remember the cold war kind of enjoyed the brief period when Russia and the US weren't enemies. It was a relief - as the next generation is about to find out.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @12:16PM
If they're that afraid of Trump, they should have answered Stein when polled instead of Clinton. Stein isn't really worth a shit IMO but at least she's not a corrupt bag of dicks.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @08:44PM
Yeah. That whole **Let's create a whole bunch of American jobs** thing is really the pits. /sarc
Jill Stein on Jobs [ontheissues.org]
That whole **Let's rebuild USA's dilapidated infrastructure** thing is so off-the-mark. /sarc
Jill Stein on Principles & Values [1][2] [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [ontheissues.org]
...and, BTW, the sorry state of USA's cybersecurity would indicate there are plenty of opportunities in her proposed Green New Deal for unemployed|underemployed people with experience in bit-twiddling.
[1] Hey! They fixed their broken page and I can now index the page down to the good stuff!
[2] URL slightly altered by me because of the continued brokenness of the S/N comment engine WRT stuff like %2B and %22 in hyperlinks.
Dr. Stein has a lifetime of experience as a family physician and has the kind of empathy required to do that effectively i.e., she doesn't just "feel your pain", she understand your problems and knows what need to be done to solve them.
She also has 2 successful adult sons and is still married to her first and only husband.
She has also been arrested multiple times while peacefully protesting things she thinks are just plain wrong.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:37AM
You're never gonna win me over telling me she's a fan of the New Deal. That alone would keep me from ever voting for her.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @06:52AM
The only way a country has ever gotten out of a depression and back to a normal economy in under a decade is building/rebuilding infrastructure.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:53AM
[Citation Needed]
That aside, unlike you I'm unwilling to take out a mortgage on the next generation's solvency to prop up my own now. Which is exactly what you're talking about doing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:32PM
[Citation Needed]
It's so sad that you slept through History class.
Without direct gov't intervention, The Long Depression lasted 23 years. [1] [archive.li]
[1] It would be a good idea to fix the brokenness of the S/N comments engine so that things like %22 in hyperlinks don't get monkeyed with.
N.B. Additionally, starting in 1929, with Republican Herbert Hoover sitting on his thumb, for 4 years USA went deeper and deeper into depression; FDR's direct intervention, starting in 1933, had USA hitting full stride by 1937.
...and, had FDR ignored the Wall Street idiots and -not- dialed back on The New Deal for a short spell in 1937, there wouldn't have been "The Roosevelt Recession" of 1937.
This stuff was also figured out by Hitler's guy who directed money to autobahns, etc. [google.com]
If we're going to stick with a Capitalist system, it's important to recognize that, under that boom-and-bust paradigm, Keynesianism works the best. [wikipedia.org]
(The gov't becomes The Employer of Last Resort when the Capitalists have completely fucked up everything and are firing USAians instead of hiring them.)
a mortgage on the next generation's solvency
While I'm generally opposed to municipal|state bond measures (a tax increase PLUS INTEREST), that's effectively what this is: AN INVESTMENT WHICH PAYS DIVIDENDS.
People with gov't paychecks spend that into the economy, the Capitalists start to produce again and hire again to meet the increased demand, and pretty soon the gov't workers can find better-paying jobs in the private sector and their old gov't positions can even be eliminated.
See "Keynesianism", above.
In the process, we get improved roads, bridges, public buildings with integrated 21st-Century solar power generation and 21st-Century insulation, parks, water systems, sewer systems, electricity grids, more secure internet, yada, yada, yada.
...and, for well over a decade, the engineers' guild has given USA's infrastructure a D+.
With proper public investment, bridges stop falling into rivers.
...and, if we were to fix our crappy century-plus-old water delivery systems, we could halve our consumption by reducing leakage.
(With weather patterns changing for the worse, that seems incredibly smart.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 11 2016, @08:22PM
Keynesian policies do nothing except move the burden of paying your way in life to your children. We would have recovered just fine without the New Deal and we would not now have soul-crushing piles of debt.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @01:14PM
I keep forgetting these are two different user IDs with two different people behind them. I remember a place where some regulars created alternate IDs and had conversations with themselves, but I'm thinking this is more of cut from the same cloth rather than ventriloquist dummies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @01:22PM
The only way I'd ever post under a different nick is if I needed to test something and then it'd be on dev [soylentnews.org]. Anyway, he's more conservative than I am. I'm more of a libertarian.
What you're seeing is just both of us hating the Dems quite a lot. Mind you, I hate Reps as well but the Dems are currently the biggest oppressive cocksuckers on the block, so that's where I put most of my effort.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @02:22PM
They're birds of a feather, if you will.
(Score: 4, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday October 10 2016, @04:34PM
> "But Trump isn't qualified!
I find this quit amusing. Doesn't anyone else remember back in 2007/ 2008 when one of the inescapable right-wing talking points about Obama was that he was unqualified because he'd never run anything more important than a local political office?
It isn't just that Trump is "unqualified"[1], it's that he is fundamentally unfit for the post. If he was unqualified but otherwise intelligent, articulate and ready to learn it would be one thing. But Trump is quite clearly a raging spoilt child who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. Hilary's claims that he lives in an alternate universe inside his own imagination are spot on. Whenever he makes a mistake or things don't go away there is absolutely no introspection on Trump's part whatsoever, he just blunders on ahead according to his own version of reality instead, which usually manifests as either claiming that it never happened in the face of all evidence, or making wild accusations and trying to shift the blame. See his response to the results of the first debate for an example. And then when something does touch a nerve - and he seems to have quite a few of those exposed - he just blurts out whatever offensive shit happens to be in his head at that moment, even if it's not in his best interests to do so. Hence his constant 3AM twitter fights that his staff have to clean up after every morning. I know it suits his bombastic "fuck you and your politically correct book-learnin" image to spout offensive crap but it really doesn't make any logical sense for him doing it deliberately. For example that fight with the parents of the dead muslim soldier - All he had to do was say something diplomatic or nothing at all, and he could have avoided alienating the entire US armed forces. Or the "Miss Housekeeping" comment - I'm pretty sure a couple million Latino votes would have been pretty useful for him, but he flushed them all away for what? To appease a bunch of ignorant right-wingers who were already in his pocket? Doesn't make any sense. The only explanation for this behaviour is that he just can't help himself. He runs his mouth off because he believes so profoundly in his own untouchability that he cannot conceive that his actions have consequences, so he just does and says whatever the fuck he wants, whenever the fucks he wants to. Is that really who you want representing your country in sensitive international negotiations? Is this the guy you want in charge of your missiles and drones? He's more than just unqualified, he is UNFIT.
As for your offhand dismissal of his racism - Well, I guess that says a lot. I know I wouldn't want a racist representing me.
The tax thing is a clear indicator that he doesn't represent the average, working, republican-voting, middle-class Joe as he claims, but that he represents the interests of the very wealthy.[2]
[1] Although I don't really see why the word "unqualified" should be preceded by the word "just" - It's an important job and I don't think it unreasonable to insist upon someone with the skills to do it competently.
[2] Or more specifically, of one very wealthy person.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @07:38PM
I've said this a couple different ways, on various posts, but I want to be sure you know my position.
Trump is hardly fit to be president, we all know that. But, Trump will be a lame duck president from day one. He lacks the political clout to do the crazy shit he might want to do. He won't convince very many people of anything, and he can't coerce congress. Trump is an embarrassment, no more and no less than he was as a TV show host. But, Trump isn't dangerous.
Clinton, on the other hand, has a screwy left wing backing her. At least 1/4 and probably more of congress will happily line up to grovel for her. Much of the rest of congress will grovel with a little coercion. Left and right, it doesn't matter - there really is only one party. Hillary plays ball just like the career politicians like to play ball.
And all of that makes her dangerous, even before you consider her positions on issues - whatever those might be this week. She constantly "pivots" - meaning that she tells each handpicked audience whatever the hell they want to hear. She has been quoted as saying that her private position is not the same as her public position. She lies, lies, lies.
Hillary is the most dangerous person in America. She won't be the lame duck that Trump would be. And, precious few of us are going to like any of her positions when they are revealed.
Remember that bullshit, "We've got to pass the bill before you can read the bill"? That's Hillary Clinton.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday October 11 2016, @12:41AM
and how mang times can you forget the foreign relt
ations power that Trump would have. My God, what heve we done, is what we'd say after he sends a missle at Mexico for giving Trump the finger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:10PM
I'm sorry, but you're making an assumption here: that Trump will "play along the rules".
Because: all previous presidents of the U.S.A. (maybe except for Nixon) have "played along the rules", so you're making the assumption that a president Trump will, too.
But that is not how dictators work. That may be how they *get* to power. But I'm sure Trump has enough followers/believers/2nd amendment people who wouldn't mind blindfolding the entire U.S. Congress & putting them against the wall. And, face it, it is really not difficult to spin the execution afterwards as "they had it coming for their crimes against you, the American people!". I'm foreign, but I've seen the documentary/comedy "The Distinguished Gentleman" [wikipedia.org] starring Eddie Murphy.
After the U.S. Congress has thus been "dismissed", I'm sure Ted Cruz will find some like-minded politicians to repopulate the "new & improved" U.S. congress. And they will do as their leaders say; because they can see the plastered-over bullet holes in the Capitol wall.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:17AM
Uhhhh, yeah. What you describe is far more likely to happen if Clinton is elected. Whichever chump gets the office, there are checks and balances in place. It seems that you assume those checks and balances have no real power, outside of a court room? There are many different armed services paid for by the government. They answer to several different authorities, such as the president, the governors, congress, justice, county judges, mayors. If the president decides to become the de facto dictator, he's going to have to quell a lot of resistance before it happens. Not to mention armed civilians.
I don't know where your nightmares come from, but they ain't happening for real.
Stop worrying about the bumbling fool, and worry more about the traitorous bitch who sold fissionables to Russia.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday October 10 2016, @06:40PM
Well, there was CHIP in the 90's. She spearheaded that legislation and got it through (as a First Lady, by convincing Congressmen). Disagree with her all you like, but she's actually gotten things done.