Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[hrothgar]

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/pay-play-hillary-got-12-million-clinton-foundation-arranging-meeting-morocco/

 

This was reported by The Daily Caller which gets 35 million views a month. Are you also going to tell me that this is a website that spews crap?

 

Comment 1: Number of page views a month is not an indication that that a source provides reliable information

 

Comment 2: The Daily Caller was founded by Tucker Carlson. This is a strong indication that the site spews crap

 

Comment 3: The Daily Caller has a somewhat strained relationship with objective reality (google daily caller + snopes)

 

With all this said and done, lets consider the "point" that the Daily Caller is raising.

 

The supposed "pay to play" incident involves actions of the Clinton Foundation.

 

• The King of Jordan wanted the CGI initiative to hold an event in Jordan
  
• The King of Jordan was willing to pay $12M to make sure this happened
  

 

This happens all the time.

It is not a scandal.

It most certainly did not involve the US State Department.

[cherdano]

If someone actually cares about what the Clinton foundation does, they can read about it here:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/22/12893444/clinton-foundation-effectiveness

[Kaitlyn S]

Just yesterday I was reading a claim that the Democratic Party was trying to undermine religion in the U.S.

I see that one all the time. I'm not ready to buy into it yet. I'm 100% certain it isn't true for Islam.

[hrothgar]

I see that one all the time. I'm not ready to buy into it yet. I'm 100% certain it isn't true for Islam.

 

Anyone else wondering if Lukewarm is back?

[Kaitlyn S]

DANG! Another conspiracy theory! The one who sent to me claims he checked this out on several other sources and found much collaboration but no contradiction.

 

FBI interview

[Winstonm]

Anyone else wondering if Lukewarm is back?

 

More like Al in drag. ;)

[kenberg]

. Just yesterday I was reading a claim that the Democratic Party was trying to undermine religion in the U.S

 

Heaven forbid! Actually, everyone knows that religion is trying to undermine the Democratic Party.

 

This being the internet, I probably need to say clearly that I am joking!

 

I also have heard that mosquitoes carry the paranoia virus.

[Kaitlyn S]

Most TERRIFYING Clinton Foundation Story So Far…It’s VERY BAD!

There are some damning emails from the Clinton Foundation via the Freedom of Information Act request that shows how their foundation even used the crisis in Haiti to fill their bags and extend favors to donors and friends. We have heard many stories and read many articles about the Clinton Foundation and their dirty businesses, but this is the most frightening so far…

VIA Thefederalistpapers

According to the Clintons, there was no impropriety at the Clinton Foundation. There wasn’t a pay-to-play scheme operated while Hillary Clinton was head of the State Department, which we all know is a massive lie.

But these emails proved, in detail, that the Clinton Foundation didn’t just trade favors, they even flagged certain individuals as “Friends of Bill” or “FOB,” for lucrative Haiti aid positions doled out by the State Department, regardless of their qualifications.

In the wake of the devastation in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, the Clintons and their friends swooped in to profit off of the people’s suffering.

The New York Post reported:

Indeed, the [state Department] aide, Caitlin Klevorick, kept asking foundation official Amitabh Desai “to flag when people are friends of WJC” — William Jefferson Clinton. Anyone without a special tag (FOB, WJC-VIP) got rebuffed by State and referred to a federal website.

State was besieged with requests to get in on $10 billion in aid contracts, described in one government cable as “a gold rush.”

One FOB, a major foundation donor who’d served as Bill’s Texas chair, used his pull on behalf of a firm he admitted “wanted to get some of the business” and had him use the Clinton Foundation as “a facilitator.”

Klevorick told ABC, according to the Post, that the flags were to expedite the process of finding those with a history in Haiti in order “to get the necessary resources to the right places as soon as possible to save lives.”

Oh that’s cute, but not so fast Klevorick. There’s a major problem with this claim, and it lies in the fact that, according to the Post, the only question asked was: “Is this a FOB?” The only instruction given to the foundation was to make sure that FOBs got flagged.

“I think when you look at both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation in Haiti, that line was pretty faint between the two,” Jake Johnston, a Haiti analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research, told ABC News. “You had a lot of coordination and connection between the two, obviously. And I think that raises significant questions about how they were both operating.”

As the media clutches their pearls over Donald Trump’s comments, the Clinton Foundation and their buddies made money off of the backs of Haitians reeling from a devastating earthquake.

This, and much worse, is what we can look forward to if Hillary Clinton is elected in November

 

 

LOOK - I KNOW TRUMP IS BAD! YOU DON'T HAVE TO VOTE FOR TRUMP! BUT JUST FIND SOMEONE - ANYONE!!!! BESIDES HILLARY CLINTON!

 

[Winstonm]

The crack and the pot have finally joined forces. Time for the ignore button.

[Kaitlyn S]

I feel like I could have practically written this same article.

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/10/23/why-i-now-feel-compelled-to-vote-for-trump-n2235899

[Kaitlyn S]

Duplicate post

[Kaitlyn S]

I feel like I could have practically written this same article.

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/10/23/why-i-now-feel-compelled-to-vote-for-trump-n2235899

[hrothgar]

I feel like I could have practically written this same article.

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/10/23/why-i-now-feel-compelled-to-vote-for-trump-n2235899

 

"Kaitlyn", I am curious whether you have heard of an expression known as the Gish Gallop.

 

Its a debate technique in which one side spewed a never ending stream of bullshyte, expecting the other to spend all their time refute their latest idiotic charge.

Any time one bit of idiocy has been refuted, Gish turn and makes another inane claim (never learning from their experience, updating their priors, or considering that their sources might be flawed)

 

The reason that I bring this up is that - over time - folks have also developed defenses against the Gish Gallop.

 

Once people recognize this sort of behavior, they simple attach a label to said individual and automatically discount/ignore anything that they say.

Its simply nothing worth the time and effort to try bother trying dealing with that person as a responsible member of the community.

 

(You might want to look at the recent posting history of Ken Rexford or anything that Al_U_Card has posted dating back to his early days and a 911 "truther", his migrations into climate change denial, and his more recent experiments into Anti Semitism)

 

You've had a relatively short posting history and the bridge related stuff that you are providing is really good...

It would be a shame if your political trolling were to start distracting from this...

[cherdano]

I feel like I could have practically written this same article.

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/10/23/why-i-now-feel-compelled-to-vote-for-trump-n2235899

 

Hahahaha. "I really think Trump is a racist misogynist pig, who is as unqualified as any presidential candidate ever, and who has so far been completely unable to surround himself with competent people. But the media bias for Hillary leaves me no choice but to vote for him. "

 

If you want to vote for Trump, just admit to yourself that you want to vote for Trump.

[Winstonm]

I would add that instead of repeated attacks against Clinton, perhaps it would be time better utilized to post the positive reasons you consider Donald Trump a better choice?

[Winstonm]

I feel like I could have practically written this same article.

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/10/23/why-i-now-feel-compelled-to-vote-for-trump-n2235899

 

This quote - as a reason to vote Trump - is from the article you source:

 

A Trump administration at least will include people I trust in positions that matter.

 

That includes Trump in the oval office? P.T. Barnum must be laughing his head off about now.

[PassedOut]

The Guardian today has an interesting piece on how -- in the wake of the failures of the Rolling Stone to investigate the UVA rape story -- professional reporters figure out which of Trump's accusers are credible and which are not: UVA rape story trial highlights struggle to report on sexual assault in Trump era

 

Regardless of the bruising fashion in which Trump has raised his doubts, there is no question that reporting these kinds of accusations poses inherent challenges.

 

Of the eleven women who have accused Trump of unwanted contact, three aired their accusations directly to the public in press conferences organized by the women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred. Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter for People, relayed her account in a first-person essay for the magazine. The rest have initially relayed their stories through the press – making reporters and their institutions the primary arbiters of their credibility.

 

“You really do have to show your work in all this,” said Karen Tumulty. Tumulty, a Washington Post reporter, wrote about a woman, Kristin Anderson, who claimed Donald Trump touched her inappropriately at a Manhattan night club many years ago.

 

With so much time having passed, “you’re never going to get a story like this beyond the point of being a ‘he said, she said’”, Tumulty said. “What we needed to make sure was that the ‘she said’ side of this story was credible. And we were convincing ourselves, through our reporting process, that she was.”

 

Tumulty learned about Anderson’s story from a tip. She interviewed Anderson days after the video was published, and Anderson gave her the names of three friends she had told her story to over the years.

 

“That was sort of just the beginning of what we had to do,” Tumulty said. Anderson couldn’t exactly remember the place where the alleged incident happened or the date. She remembered vividly the club’s red sofas and she was pretty sure the encounter took place at the China Club. While Anderson Googled China Club to see if she recognized the interior, Tumulty worked to establish whether Trump was known to frequent the China Club – he was.

 

Tumulty then asked Anderson if there were events in her life which might undermine her credibility. She volunteered that during an acrimonious breakup, she and her partner had restraining orders against one another. “Everything we asked, she was willing to provide,” Tumulty said. Smaller details, like the fact that Anderson claimed to be a registered independent, checked out, too.

 

“The thing is, if the little checkable details don’t add up, people are going to have reasons, legitimately, to doubt the big one. That’s how you can nail it down after this many years,” Tumulty said.

Of course, it's also important to steer clear of allegations, no matter how sensational, that cannot be verified.

 

But from a vantage point of judging the press, perhaps the most interesting Trump allegation is one that reporters have been unable to corroborate. To the contrary, those who have tried have raised serious questions about the credibility, and even the existence, of the accuser.

 

The accusation comes from a mysterious lawsuit filed against Trump and the celebrity and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, accusing both men of violently raping the plaintiff when she was 13 years old. The plaintiff listed on the lawsuit is a woman named Katie Johnson.

 

Several media outlets, including the New York Daily News, uncritically reported on the lawsuit.

 

But Anna Merlan, a reporter for Jezebel, documented at length her difficulties obtaining an interview with Johnson or indeed any evidence that she exists. An apparent corroborator, identified in the suit as Tiffany Doe, proved equally difficult to track down. Eventually, Merlan published a detailed account of how a handful of Trump opponents had aggressively shopped the story and all its flaws to the press.

 

The Guardian followed up with a report that a former producer for the Jerry Springer show had apparently coordinated the whole thing.

It's this level of professionalism that separates responsible news organizations from the biased sources designed to appeal solely to a particular uncritical group (right-wing, left-wing, or any other "true-believer" group).

 

Of course reporters have opinions, too, which spring from their individual histories and backgrounds, but a professional goes out of his or her way to look for actual evidence and then lets the chips fall where they may. Responsible news organizations have published plenty of negative stories about Hillary Clinton, but refuse to publish the unverified and/or debunked stories that appear in the biased sources.

 

As we've seen in this thread, some folks will believe a whole bunch of stuff that is distorted or even just plain made up, if it suits them to do so. And Hillary has been the recipient of a lot of that stuff over the years, which has (not surprisingly) affected her approach to the press.

 

The fact that Trump gets hit with stories that confirm his own recorded statements about assaulting women is because those accounts are corroborated and credible. Beyond that, all a news organization has to do to produce what the Trump people consider a negative story is to report on (or show film of) what Trump has actually said or done. That's why the balance seems to be one-sided against him.

[Kaitlyn S]

I would add that instead of repeated attacks against Clinton, perhaps it would be time better utilized to post the positive reasons you consider Donald Trump a better choice?

I'll be perfectly frank. There is nothing positive about Donald Trump other than that he isn't Hillary Clinton. However, once I stop squandering my time pretending to know something about bridge and answering bridge posts, I will explain exactly what I mean. And my reasoning may surprise you but if I let you know it has to do with checks and balances, some of you will work it out.

 

A short synopsis: There is no way in hell, with the demographics, that Donald Trump and the Republican Party will make the Democrats obsolete. As long as the Republicans, or ANY other second party exists that will keep the Clinton regime from becoming essentially a dictatorship, with control of both houses of Congress and a Supreme Count, and more importantly the DOJ who will never do anything to any of their own, no matter how flagrant the offenses, then we will still have a democracy.

 

However, once the Democratic machine has complete control, they are unstoppable. They can do whatever they want to keep winning elections, including getting rid of voter ID check by executive action and sending the newly Democratic illegal immigrants to whatever swing state they are needed. Busing illegal voters will no longer be necessary.

 

With the Clintons and her hand picked successors in control, things like the Lois Lerner IRS scandal will become commonplace and conservatives will lose their voice as there are many government agencies to sic on them. Who will be the watchdog? The Deomcrats control everything and the DOJ will be helping keep the dictatorship alive, going after conservatives while flagrant violations by those at the top in government will be ignored. The media, who is now in love with the Democratic machine, will actually be forced to stay in line if they ever want to do real journalism, for there will be no watchdog to stop the new dictatorship from squashing the First Amendment rights of the journalists, having long since trashed the Second Amendment.

 

While it is possible that Donald Trump's character is worse than Hillary Clinton's, the country will still have a strong democracy after Donald Trump whose administration won't be able to pull any shenanigans because in 4 years the Dems will be back in charge and any clear wrongdoing will send all the wrongdoers in the administration to prison for a long time. So it likely won't happen. Of course I am assuming that her character is bad, which I believe it almost certainly is.

 

But we have no such safety with Hillary Clinton. If she gets in, she chooses her own DOJ and that could guarantee (with the help of the demographic that is largely liberal) that the Democrats will win all future elections because the American public won't even know that malfeasance is going on (because any true journalism will be punished.) There will be no government that can come in after 4 years and punish her and her administrations for any crimes; for it will be a government of her own choosing, and much of the American public will be fooled forever because the illegal forces that keep the Democrats winning election after election will never see the light of day.

 

And don't you think that you'll get to pick Hillary's successor either. It will be her choice. Her agencies can make sure that any real challenger to her choice is either intimidated into not running or totally trashed. Of course, there's those super delegates too.

[Winstonm]

The entire Trump campaign has been a disaster, OK? A catastrophe. He should have to pay us to watch...and that girl...Katrina....fitting!....windy and a blowhard, OK? Disaster, too!

[Winstonm]

I'll be perfectly frank. There is nothing positive about Donald Trump other than that he isn't Hillary Clinton. However, once I stop squandering my time pretending to know something about bridge and answering bridge posts, I will explain exactly what I mean. And my reasoning may surprise you but if I let you know it has to do with checks and balances, some of you will work it out.

 

A short synopsis: There is no way in hell, with the demographics, that Donald Trump and the Republican Party will make the Democrats obsolete. As long as the Republicans, or ANY other second party exists that will keep the Clinton regime from becoming essentially a dictatorship, with control of both houses of Congress and a Supreme Count, and more importantly the DOJ who will never do anything to any of their own, no matter how flagrant the offenses, then we will still have a democracy.

 

However, once the Democratic machine has complete control, they are unstoppable. They can do whatever they want to keep winning elections, including getting rid of voter ID check by executive action and sending the newly Democratic illegal immigrants to whatever swing state they are needed. Busing illegal voters will no longer be necessary.

 

With the Clintons and her hand picked successors in control, things like the Lois Lerner IRS scandal will become commonplace and conservatives will lose their voice as there are many government agencies to sic on them. Who will be the watchdog? The Deomcrats control everything and the DOJ will be helping keep the dictatorship alive, going after conservatives while flagrant violations by those at the top in government will be ignored. The media, who is now in love with the Democratic machine, will actually be forced to stay in line if they ever want to do real journalism, for there will be no watchdog to stop the new dictatorship from squashing the First Amendment rights of the journalists, having long since trashed the Second Amendment.

 

While it is possible that Donald Trump's character is worse than Hillary Clinton's, the country will still have a strong democracy after Donald Trump whose administration won't be able to pull any shenanigans because in 4 years the Dems will be back in charge and any clear wrongdoing will send all the wrongdoers in the administration to prison for a long time. So it likely won't happen. Of course I am assuming that her character is bad, which I believe it almost certainly is.

 

But we have no such safety with Hillary Clinton. If she gets in, she chooses her own DOJ and that could guarantee (with the help of the demographic that is largely liberal) that the Democrats will win all future elections because the American public won't even know that malfeasance is going on (because any true journalism will be punished.) There will be no government that can come in after 4 years and punish her and her administrations for any crimes; for it will be a government of her own choosing, and much of the American public will be fooled forever because the illegal forces that keep the Democrats winning election after election will never see the light of day.

 

And don't you think that you'll get to pick Hillary's successor either. It will be her choice. Her agencies can make sure that any real challenger to her choice is either intimidated into not running or totally trashed. Of course, there's those super delegates too.

 

You have done me a great service. I used to think Trump supporters must be stupid. Now I know they are not. They are unhinged. Trump support is surely based on psychology, emotive responses rather than cognitive, which helps explain why logical arguments seem to be useless.

 

Addendum: The following fits in quite nicely with the observations about authoritarian voters I have previously posted.

 

Psychologists state that those whose personalities tend to be authoritarian are more likely to believe in conspiracies.

These findings suggest that paranoid ideation and schizotypy are strongly associated with belief in conspiracy theories.

[Winstonm]

Here is another reason James O'Keefe is ignored:

 

James O’Keefe has been teasing journalists for weeks about an undercover operation that could take down Hillary Clinton — I’ve received four “email blasts” from O’Keefe’s Project Veritas about these videos in the past 48 hours alone — so I was suprised to learn that the “trickle-down corruption” he’d come to expose amounted to a Project Veritas operative buying a few Hillary-themed t-shirts for a Canadian.

 

You read that right — O’Keefe’s own operative captured herself, on camera, illegally purchasing the shirts on behalf of a Canadian and this, O’Keefe claimed, demonstrates the criminal mendacity of the Clinton campaign.

 

This is from Wikipedia:

 

James Edward O'Keefe III (born June 28, 1984) is an American conservative[1][2] political activist. He has produced secretly recorded undercover audio and video encounters, some selectively edited to imply its subjects said things they did not...

 

Yet this guy, and others like him, are more reliable than Hillary Clinton?

[Kaitlyn S]

You have done me a great service. I used to think Trump supporters must be stupid. Now I know they are not. They are unhinged. Trump support is surely based on psychology, emotive responses rather than cognitive, which helps explain why logical arguments seem to be useless.

There are many stupid Trump supporters just as there are many stupid Clinton supporters. (Just look on Youtube for the myriad of people doing "man on the street" interviews; most of the shown Clinton voters are voting for her "because she's a woman" and have no other good reason.

 

Most of you have good reasons for voting for Clinton and I don't think anybody here is voting for her because she's a woman.

 

I am passionate about my beliefs of Hillary Clinton; that she is the best disciple Saul Alinsky ever had. She has been taught to grab power and use unusual methods to do so, and she has learned her lesson well. She also is not a nice person and has terrible character. This seems like an awful combination to give power to, especially as the Overton Window has been moved so that people will accept the progressiveness, the big Federal Government and its control of the people, and despicable acts by its leaders. Fifty years ago this wouldn't have been a problem because the Overton Window is in a different place and if she tried to wrest control from the people and states and into the Federal Government there would have been an outcry from the public and the biggest Republican sweep in history. Now I fear that most of you are going to be only too accepting of policies that keep her cronies and progressive policies in place forever, and America as our Founding Fathers imagined it will be lost forever.

 

Now, really, I hope I'm wrong and that she really wants the presidency so that she can try to run the country well for all of us and will actually run it as the Constitution suggests and that she won't do anything evil. She is very likely to be elected and for America's sake I hope I am wrong because if I am not wrong our country is in deep trouble.

 

If you think I'm bat sh*t crazy for thinking this way, so be it. But I really do believe this and I felt a responsibility to share my thoughts. You may choose to ignore them.

[kenberg]

There are many stupid Trump supporters just as there are many stupid Clinton supporters. (Just look on Youtube for the myriad of people doing "man on the street" interviews; most of the shown Clinton voters are voting for her "because she's a woman" and have no other good reason.

 

Most of you have good reasons for voting for Clinton and I don't think anybody here is voting for her because she's a woman.

 

I am passionate about my beliefs of Hillary Clinton; that she is the best disciple Saul Alinsky ever had. She has been taught to grab power and use unusual methods to do so, and she has learned her lesson well. She also is not a nice person and has terrible character. This seems like an awful combination to give power to, especially as the Overton Window has been moved so that people will accept the progressiveness, the big Federal Government and its control of the people, and despicable acts by its leaders. Fifty years ago this wouldn't have been a problem because the Overton Window is in a different place and if she tried to wrest control from the people and states and into the Federal Government there would have been an outcry from the public and the biggest Republican sweep in history. Now I fear that most of you are going to be only too accepting of policies that keep her cronies and progressive policies in place forever, and America as our Founding Fathers imagined it will be lost forever.

 

Now, really, I hope I'm wrong and that she really wants the presidency so that she can try to run the country well for all of us and will actually run it as the Constitution suggests and that she won't do anything evil. She is very likely to be elected and for America's sake I hope I am wrong because if I am not wrong our country is in deep trouble

 

If you think I'm bat sh*t crazy for thinking this way, so be it. But I really do believe this and I felt a responsibility to share my thoughts. You may choose to ignore them.

 

.Saul Alinsky: I heard him speak at a Black church in St. Paul. c. 1965. (Yes, even in 1965 there were enough African Americans in St. Paul to support a church or three.) He does not much remind me of Hillary Clinton. Or of Bill either.

 

Now about that fifty years ago you are thinking of. 1965-1970 say. An active period! Alinsky. Civil Rights legislation. Turn on, Tune In, Drop Out. You say you want a revolution, well all right, we all want to change the world. Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz. A good time.But of course I was writing a thesis etc so I missed it all. Well, most of it.

[hrothgar]

 

If you think I'm bat sh*t crazy for thinking this way, so be it. But I really do believe this and I felt a responsibility to share my thoughts. You may choose to ignore them.

 

 

Just understand, you know those individuals from the "person on the street" that you were discounting as poorly informed idiots...

I put you in precisely the same basket...

 

The fact that you like to pretend that you are well informed because you can name drop Saul Alinsky doesn't buy you much around here dittohead....

[kenberg]

An experiment. The fact that I expect a fairly vitriolic response is testimony to its importance.

 

I could pick any of several topics, and perhaps I will later pick others, but I will start with police/race issues.

 

Here is my list of Obvious Facts (OF):

 

1. Young black males would like to get home alive.

2. Police officers would like to get home alive.

3. The community would like crime, especially drugs and violence, effectively dealt with.

 

An Obvious Consequence of the OF is that there are strong reasons for a cooperative effort. We should look at why this doesn't happen. As I see it, and I repeat that there are many examples other than the police/race issue, we are all led into taking one of two positions, A or B. Whether a person sides with A or B s/he regards the problem as very serious. Those siding with A believe that those siding with B are villains or idiots.They insist that great change is needed, and that all of the change must come from side B since they, on side A, are abused victims who must defeat side B. Other than that there is no problem at all, since all on side A are totally without fault. Those on side B believe exactly the same, except for the interchange of A and B.

 

The natural and predictable result is that things get worse, not better.

 

There is much written about "The Talk". I think I get it, at least as much as an old white guy can get it. But go back to Michael Brown for a moment, since this is often cited as the starting point of Black Lives Matter. I am not not not saying that he deserved to be shot. Of course not. I did stupid things as an adolescent and I did not get shot. But I did not slug a cop and try to grab his gun. Even as an adolescent, if I had trouble with the police (sometimes justified, sometimes not) I thought it best to be calm and cooperative.

 

History doesn't disclose its alternatives, but it is not hard to make reasonable guesses. Better training for the police, or better judgment by the cop whose name I no longer recall, might have kept Michael Brown alive. But it is also true that better judgment by Michael Brown might have kept Michael Brown alive. We so easily fall into this us against them mentality. It causes problems and it gets people killed.

 

And I do hold the media partly to blame here. It is not so much that they have a liberal bias, rather they have a headline bias. "If it bleeds it leads" is an old cynicism. Cynicism can be overdone, but it often has a source.

 

And there is another problem that is often overlooked. I don' t encounter problems with the police. I don't have problems with drugs. I don't have problems with street violence. When it comes right down to it, like Will Rogers I only know what I read in the papers. I have often thought the problem could be solved a lot more easily if the cops, the young men, and the community just worked on this by themselves without the rest of us choosing sides, cheering and analyzing. Save that approach for the sports pages.

 

Does this apply to the current election? Oh, I think so.