I don't think ceding the details of your personal life to your political opponents is the brilliant move that most people here seem to think it is. I guess we could ask former president John Kerry how leaving lies about his record in Vietnam unaddressed worked out for him. Or maybe we can't. Still, no one other than political hacks arguing in obvious bad faith (like Jerome Corsi) argued that John Kerry should have apologized for claiming he was awarded three Purple Hearts, so maybe this should go in our "Double Standard" thread as well.
The big weakness is the notion that she used this identity to get preferential treatment, or that she allowed Harvard to use her to fulfill an affirmative action quota. But I wonder whether that criticism will play to a centrist audience? I don't know.
This comment by @Simon Toad illustrates the dangers of allowing your political opponents to re-write your biography. Although it's been fairly exhaustively demonstrated that Warren never received preferential treatment from any employer because of her heritage, someone without any obvious political agenda like @Simon Toad is willing to uncritically pass along that libel as if it were uncontested truth.
Honestly, I'm thinking that whether or not Warren made the right move tactically, making her move this early was smart. When her opponents bring it up next year it'll be booooring, last year's news.
Originally posted by Ohher: I suppose I can hope that the stories about being descended from Robert the Bruce (along, apparently, with about half the population of Scotland) might be true.
I'd be surprised if it was only half the population of Scotland. Given 3 generations per century, you would have over a million 21 x gt grandparents in the C14th. Obviously, this wouldn't be a million discrete people as most people are descended from the same couples in different ways, but still - if you have any Scottish ancestry, the chances are that Robert the Bruce was at least one of those million ancestors.
As we inherit half of each parent's DNA it is possible that one of your parents had a trace of Native American ancestry, but didn't pass it on. You can't discount your family story on the basis of a lack of DNA evidence.
The Trump administration and the Saudi royal family are searching for a mutually agreeable explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — one that will avoid implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is among the president’s closest foreign allies, according to analysts and officials in multiple countries
Obstructing justice to preserve yourself is, if not laudable at least understandable. Doing it to protect a foreign despot who, to all appearances, is responsible for the murder of a Washington Post* journalist seems a lot less so. Do stories like this make anyone else curious about how much Saudi money has found its way into the pockets of Donald Trump and the coffers of the Trump Organization since election day 2016? This is why most presidential candidates make their tax returns (and other financial arrangements) public knowledge. The Emoluments Clause exists for exactly this reason, so Americans wouldn't have to wonder whether their officials were on the take from foreign governments. For whatever reason the Republican party seems to have decided that part of the Constitution doesn't really exist any more.
*The link goes to the Washington Post, so be advised that they may not be journalistically neutral on the murder of their co-workers. Caveat lector.
Do stories like this make anyone else curious about how much Saudi money has found its way into the pockets of Donald Trump and the coffers of the Trump Organization since election day 2016?
Except Kerry had actually been awarded those medals. I'm really sorry, but self-identification based on the truth or otherwise of a half-memory of a possible relative 6-10 generations[*] back is not in the same ballpark. It's a live and raw issue among the Native population in Oklahoma because of the freedmen controversy, and in that context EW refusing to meet with Cherokee representatives doesn't really play well.
Up thread you said that "putting the power to determine who is "really" Native American (or even simply who can claim such a background) in the hands of non-Native Americans is both perverse and destructive." Seems like you don't like it when it's in the hands of Native Americans either.
The Emoluments Clause exists for exactly this reason, so Americans wouldn't have to wonder whether their officials were on the take from foreign governments.
Secretary Clinton and her foundation pretty much laid waste to that, don't you think?
The Emoluments Clause exists for exactly this reason, so Americans wouldn't have to wonder whether their officials were on the take from foreign governments.
Secretary Clinton and her foundation pretty much laid waste to that, don't you think?
Since Secretary Clinton drew no salary from the Foundation nor derived any material benefit from it, I'd have to say no.
The Emoluments Clause exists for exactly this reason, so Americans wouldn't have to wonder whether their officials were on the take from foreign governments.
Secretary Clinton and her foundation pretty much laid waste to that, don't you think?
Since Secretary Clinton drew no salary from the Foundation nor derived any material benefit from it, I'd have to say no.
Trump screwed this Kashoggi matter badly. Every other President would have handled the matter by making as many concerned noises as they needed to. Trump, as usual, issued contradictory messages.
We can't do anything to the Saudis about this, as I spoke about in another thread. If you can't do anything about something as President, just issue an appropriate condemnation and move on. If you're pursued on it, look sad when you repeat the condemnation. Trump's good at distraction. Why doesn't he pretended he screwed another porn star?
Trump, once again, shows that he has a cack hand at foreign affairs.
On the Kashoggi killing, Trump claims (a) he'll be tough on the Saudis (if it's proven they did it), but (b) he'll protect American jobs and money in the American arms industry. And of course (c) he will protect American motorists by maintaining imports of Saudi oil, especially as he doesn't want them to have to buy any "tainted" oil from Iran.
So I predict that Trump's "tough" sanctions will begin and end at a prohibition on selling executioners' beheading swords to his good friends and allies the Saudis.
"We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt" Hillary Clinton
In the intervening years the pair has raked in a quarter of a billion dollars.
Doing what? What product or service did they bring to market? None. Their only value in that time period was as former POTUS, and current Senator and then Secretary of State.
Did they parlay her salary into that fortune? Of course not.
"An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." Harry Truman
We can't do anything to the Saudis about this, as I spoke about in another thread.
I'm not sure that's true. Congress on both sides of the aisle seems to disagree with that assessment, having taken the first steps towards imposing Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has two big levers on the Saudis. The first is Saudi dependence on U.S. arms sales and military aid. The second is the possibility of sanctioning Saudi oil, possibly with the cooperation of American allies. This may be inconvenient for other items on the Trump agenda. For example, the administration* is depending on increased Saudi oil production to keep the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran in a couple weeks from spiking the price of oil.
So it's not so much a matter of "can't do anything to the Saudis". It's more along the lines of "it would be inconvenient to do anything to the Saudis".
"We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt" Hillary Clinton
In the intervening years the pair has raked in a quarter of a billion dollars.
Doing what? What product or service did they bring to market? None. Their only value in that time period was as former POTUS, and current Senator and then Secretary of State.
Did they parlay her salary into that fortune? Of course not.
"An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." Harry Truman
At least she released her income tax returns. As did her husband. We're still waiting for Trump to do likewise .....
People bitched and bitched about the fees Hilary charged for speaking engagements. Now they have forgotten that they even existed, and insist the only way she could have earned money was from raiding a trust. Some people will believe whatever they want, as it suits their pet theories.
It takes two to tango. No one collects an exorbitant fee for speaking unless someone is willing to pay it. "$200,000? We'll pay $200 or no dice, babe."
The Commander of Cheese landed in Phoenix last night. After staying in an undisclosed location, he's now taking an undisclosed route to another undisclosed location for a fund raising luncheon for a Senatorial candidate. There will be a MAGA rally tonight (they've actually announced where that will be). I do wish they'd say where he'd be so that I can avoid any nearby streets. I need to run some errands, but I'd rather stay home with my doors closed and locked.
Re: the whole Khashoggi murder scandal, I’m surprised the media is not talking much about how it appears that Turkey was bugging the Saudi consulate. What other consulates and embassies are they bugging?
The Commander of Cheese landed in Phoenix last night. After staying in an undisclosed location. . . .
It was some hotel in Scottsdale -- Snottsdale or Snobbsdale, as it's known to us persons who can't afford to live there. Scottsdale is an eastern suburb of Phoenix -- thank God I live on the west side. Pigwidgeon, I know you're not so fortunate.
Re: the whole Khashoggi murder scandal, I’m surprised the media is not talking much about how it appears that Turkey was bugging the Saudi consulate. What other consulates and embassies are they bugging?
Probably all of them. Just as most embassies and consulates are actually centers for espionage by the countries they represent (that's not their only function, but it is a function), they're typically subjects of espionage by the countries hosting them. Both of these facts are tacitly acknowledged by most and politely not mentioned most of the time. I've come across security bloggers wondering the same question from the opposite direction, why is Turkey being so coy about admitting they have bugs in the Saudi consulate when it's a widely known practice?
A story has been floated that Khashoggi’s Apple watch picked up the audio and sent it to the cloud, which is where Turkey got it. But this is probably a cover story to allow Turkey to deny it has listening devices inside the Saudi consulate. Of course, every country bugs every other country’s consulates and embassies. Hard to see why the Turks are being so coy.
The Commander of Cheese landed in Phoenix last night. After staying in an undisclosed location. . . .
It was some hotel in Scottsdale -- Snottsdale or Snobbsdale, as it's known to us persons who can't afford to live there. Scottsdale is an eastern suburb of Phoenix -- thank God I live on the west side. Pigwidgeon, I know you're not so fortunate.
Well, I don't think he'd set foot in my mostly-Democrat city, and if he passes through on the way to Mesa it will probably be on the freeway. I had to drive to Snottsdale today, but stayed on the surface roads. (The possibility of him going by helicopter was also mentioned.)
I would say the longer a family has been in the Americas the more likely there will be First Nation blood in them. My family has been in the Americas since 1560. There were four brothers. Three stayed in the colonies that became the United States. One went into Canada. Now I know that branch has a lot of First Nation blood because several descendants of that brother went into the fur trade. I know of several of that side of the family that are enrolled Blackfeet--on the Canadian side of the line. On my side four of my cousins can claim Hawaiian blood, since their mother was a native Hawaiian. I have even found some Native American names many generations back myself but the DNA does not indicate any significant NA markers.
I'm guessing Turkey is being coy as while it's an open secret bugging goes on (we did it to the East Timorese for oil reasons...), it is one of those things that actually admitting is not on.
Given what happened, I'd hope a desire for truth would be paramount. But Turkey and SA are hardly bastions of free expression...and Turkey seems to want to remain on good terms with SA.
We still have representatives going to SA's big business shindig. We know what's important here.
“A man makes a sound as of sighs and his last drops of blood fall from his emptied dismembered body. A stupid president, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, we said.” But we didn't do anything at all.
{With apologies to Samuel Beckett (The End, 1946)}
Anyone else wondering if that group of refugees headed from Guatemala to the US via Mexico is more than it seems? Like maybe someone in the US gov't (gee, who?) nudged them, or arranged for them to come, to prove that yes, we really do need that friggin' wall?
I think romanlion's claim of direct quid-pro-quo is ludicrous. But if someone is going to earn a lot of money once they are out of office by virtue of having been in office once, that is not unlikely to sway their behaviour in office.
I don't think it's on the same page as Trump, but it's a regrettable tendency that causes more harm than good.
Anyone else wondering if that group of refugees headed from Guatemala to the US via Mexico is more than it seems? Like maybe someone in the US gov't (gee, who?) nudged them, or arranged for them to come, to prove that yes, we really do need that friggin' wall?
I don't know if I'd exactly posit a false-flag, but the refugees, knowingly or not, are kind of providing a talking-point for Trump's apologists. "If the USA under Trump is such a horrible place for latino immigrants, how come they're still traveling all that way to get in?"
Re: the whole Khashoggi murder scandal, I’m surprised the media is not talking much about how it appears that Turkey was bugging the Saudi consulate. What other consulates and embassies are they bugging?
Sorry if someone has already brought this up.
Well, I've seen at least one reference to how Turkey isn't releasing their full trove of evidence, because it would "reveal the nature of their surveillance operations", or some such.
Though, presumably, if Turkey says they have this evidence, and it's known to be in the form of audio, the Saudis would know which room was bugged, since they would know where the murder had been commited.
Unless you can bug a room from outside the building? I'm not knowledgable on these things.
Anyone else wondering if that group of refugees headed from Guatemala to the US via Mexico is more than it seems? Like maybe someone in the US gov't (gee, who?) nudged them, or arranged for them to come, to prove that yes, we really do need that friggin' wall?
Not really. Such caravans are a regular thing, both for the purposes of safety and publicity. It may be getting more publicity in U.S. media right now because of the current focus on immigration, but the group of refugees is probably exactly what it seems.
No one would pay to hear either of them say a word if there wasn't access for sale, which there clearly was.
"An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." Harry Truman
My wife and I and about 16000 other Melbournians paid something like $200 each to see Hillary and our former PM Julia Gillard in conversation. I think she gave another speech in Sydney at a similar price. From what I heard they could have tripled their money in Australia, given the interest in the events, which were both sold out. I note that $200 is hardly an exorbitant fee when compared to tickets to a concert, or the opera.
The Clintons are far and away the most heavily investigated couple in America today. There is no evidence that they are corrupt. Not one single skerrick. Starr found no evidence of corruption, and he became so desperate to find anything on Bill Clinton that he had a young woman taken from a shopping centre to a hotel and interrogated there by a room full of agents, where she was threatened with imprisonment if she didn't admit to sexual impropriety with the President of the United States. What a low act by a man who prides himself on his so-called morality, prompted by a faction having the gall to call themselves the moral majority.
There are two problems with the Clintons. First and foremost, Bill was incapable of keeping it in his pants. Second, they are just too right wing on economics. Hillary herself embodies the American dream of a woman born into straightened circumstances who makes it to the top of her field by her intelligence and wit. It is a crying shame that people like Romanlion continue to denigrate her. They do their country a great disservice by denying it her leadership.
I think romanlion's claim of direct quid-pro-quo is ludicrous.
Outrageous even, considering I never made any such claim.
I don't see how else to read this:
"No one would pay to hear either of them say a word if there wasn't access for sale"
Other than that people could pay something and get access, or get access in return for something, hence quid-pro-quo.
People paid for access through the foundation, this is beyond dispute. More than half of the private meetings Clinton took while Secretary of State were with foundation donors. Her chief of staff communicated regularly with foundation employees via email and phone.
Clinton apologists will wail that there has never been any evidence that her actions as Secretary of State were influenced by this access. That would be your QPQ.
Why do you suppose there was a precipitous drop in foundation donations after she (thank god) lost the election?
People paid for access through the foundation, this is beyond dispute. More than half of the private meetings Clinton took while Secretary of State were with foundation donors.
This is one of the zombie falsehoods that seems to have been manufactured about Hillary Clinton. The ultimate source was an AP article that said that 85 of the 154 people that Secretary Clinton met with were Clinton Foundation donors, which is more than half. Now you may say to yourself "Meeting with 154 people over a span of four years seems like an awfully low number for the U.S. Secretary of State", and you'd be right.
Clinton served as secretary of state from 2009-13. The Associated Press analyzed 154 of her State Department meetings and found that 85 of those were with Clinton Foundation donors. Those 85 gave as much as $156 million to the foundation, combined.
But this is a tiny subset of Clinton’s meetings.
The analysis excluded meetings with people who work for the U.S. government or foreign governments. And it does not include many meetings Clinton took in the second half of her term because the Associated Press only had access to detailed schedules from the first half.
ABC reported back in 2013 that Clinton met with 1,700 foreign leaders and had 755 meetings at the White House while secretary of state. So that’s at least 2,455 meetings the Associated Press did not include in its analysis
The Associated Press mischaracterized its own reporting in a post on Twitter claiming that "More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation." The AP later deleted the tweet.
So the basic argument is that Secretary Clinton had over half her meetings with people who were donors to her husband's foundation, provided you exclude most of her meetings with non-Clinton Foundation donors. The inherent bad faith in advancing this argument should be obvious. I think it says a lot about Hillary Clinton's lack of corruption that her detractors are reduced to using obviously bogus statistics like this.
That is spot on. It is a bad-faith claim made by bad people and people who are taken in by bad people.
I made a mistake in my previous post. 5000 people, not 16000 people, saw Hillary speak in Melbourne. If I was Hillary, there'd be about three congressional investigations into this, and I would probably be accused of fraud.
One of the things I sometimes wonder about is what various Clinton haters would do with their time if she'd actually lost the 2016 presidential election. Just imagine an alternate universe where Donald Trump's fat, orange ass is parked behind the Resolute Desk! (I know it's hard, but stretch your imagination.) What would folks like @romanlion have to fill their days if not conspiracy theories about President Clinton? I mean, I suppose it's possible they'd still be obsessing over a woman who would never again hold elected office, hijacking threads about the Trump administration* to fuel their vendetta, but c'mon, there have to be some kind of reasonable limits.
And now we're hearing trumpy taking Americans out of a nuclear treaty with Russia, continuing to support Saudi as they change the story but adhere to the trumpy rogue elements story. Regime change needed. In more than one country.
Just after his meeting with Kim Jong Un, Trump claimed that nuclear weapons were the greatest threat to the world today.* Now he does this. I know I shouldn’t expect him to be consistent in any shape or form, but still…
*Which is of course arrant nonsense. Climate change is the greatest threat to the world today.
He IS being consistent...he always does what Putin wants. The Russians have wanted out from that treaty for some time but wanted the US to be the ones who backed out. And that is just what they are getting. It is good to have a puppet.
@romanlion following on from Gwai's post above, this is to let you know that your persistent trolling has now reached the admins' radar.
You have shown yourself capable of contributing constructively to the debate in hand instead of constantly yanking people's chains with Clinton-era conspiracy theories. Do so or expect temporary or permanent shore leave.
Comments
This comment by @Simon Toad illustrates the dangers of allowing your political opponents to re-write your biography. Although it's been fairly exhaustively demonstrated that Warren never received preferential treatment from any employer because of her heritage, someone without any obvious political agenda like @Simon Toad is willing to uncritically pass along that libel as if it were uncontested truth.
I suppose I can hope that the stories about being descended from Robert the Bruce (along, apparently, with about half the population of Scotland) might be true.
I'd be surprised if it was only half the population of Scotland. Given 3 generations per century, you would have over a million 21 x gt grandparents in the C14th. Obviously, this wouldn't be a million discrete people as most people are descended from the same couples in different ways, but still - if you have any Scottish ancestry, the chances are that Robert the Bruce was at least one of those million ancestors.
As we inherit half of each parent's DNA it is possible that one of your parents had a trace of Native American ancestry, but didn't pass it on. You can't discount your family story on the basis of a lack of DNA evidence.
Obstructing justice to preserve yourself is, if not laudable at least understandable. Doing it to protect a foreign despot who, to all appearances, is responsible for the murder of a Washington Post* journalist seems a lot less so. Do stories like this make anyone else curious about how much Saudi money has found its way into the pockets of Donald Trump and the coffers of the Trump Organization since election day 2016? This is why most presidential candidates make their tax returns (and other financial arrangements) public knowledge. The Emoluments Clause exists for exactly this reason, so Americans wouldn't have to wonder whether their officials were on the take from foreign governments. For whatever reason the Republican party seems to have decided that part of the Constitution doesn't really exist any more.
*The link goes to the Washington Post, so be advised that they may not be journalistically neutral on the murder of their co-workers. Caveat lector.
Not so much curious as fearful.
Except Kerry had actually been awarded those medals. I'm really sorry, but self-identification based on the truth or otherwise of a half-memory of a possible relative 6-10 generations[*] back is not in the same ballpark. It's a live and raw issue among the Native population in Oklahoma because of the freedmen controversy, and in that context EW refusing to meet with Cherokee representatives doesn't really play well.
Up thread you said that "putting the power to determine who is "really" Native American (or even simply who can claim such a background) in the hands of non-Native Americans is both perverse and destructive." Seems like you don't like it when it's in the hands of Native Americans either.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-native-american-dna-test-response-tribal-heritage-2018-10?r=US&IR=T
[*] Even before one factors in the deficiencies of 23andme and the like.
Since Secretary Clinton drew no salary from the Foundation nor derived any material benefit from it, I'd have to say no.
Even in Canada, you cannot be that high.
We can't do anything to the Saudis about this, as I spoke about in another thread. If you can't do anything about something as President, just issue an appropriate condemnation and move on. If you're pursued on it, look sad when you repeat the condemnation. Trump's good at distraction. Why doesn't he pretended he screwed another porn star?
Trump, once again, shows that he has a cack hand at foreign affairs.
So I predict that Trump's "tough" sanctions will begin and end at a prohibition on selling executioners' beheading swords to his good friends and allies the Saudis.
"We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt" Hillary Clinton
In the intervening years the pair has raked in a quarter of a billion dollars.
Doing what? What product or service did they bring to market? None. Their only value in that time period was as former POTUS, and current Senator and then Secretary of State.
Did they parlay her salary into that fortune? Of course not.
"An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." Harry Truman
I'm not sure that's true. Congress on both sides of the aisle seems to disagree with that assessment, having taken the first steps towards imposing Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has two big levers on the Saudis. The first is Saudi dependence on U.S. arms sales and military aid. The second is the possibility of sanctioning Saudi oil, possibly with the cooperation of American allies. This may be inconvenient for other items on the Trump agenda. For example, the administration* is depending on increased Saudi oil production to keep the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran in a couple weeks from spiking the price of oil.
So it's not so much a matter of "can't do anything to the Saudis". It's more along the lines of "it would be inconvenient to do anything to the Saudis".
At least she released her income tax returns. As did her husband. We're still waiting for Trump to do likewise .....
"An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." Harry Truman
:killingme:
Sorry if someone has already brought this up.
It was some hotel in Scottsdale -- Snottsdale or Snobbsdale, as it's known to us persons who can't afford to live there. Scottsdale is an eastern suburb of Phoenix -- thank God I live on the west side. Pigwidgeon, I know you're not so fortunate.
Probably all of them. Just as most embassies and consulates are actually centers for espionage by the countries they represent (that's not their only function, but it is a function), they're typically subjects of espionage by the countries hosting them. Both of these facts are tacitly acknowledged by most and politely not mentioned most of the time. I've come across security bloggers wondering the same question from the opposite direction, why is Turkey being so coy about admitting they have bugs in the Saudi consulate when it's a widely known practice?
Well, I don't think he'd set foot in my mostly-Democrat city, and if he passes through on the way to Mesa it will probably be on the freeway. I had to drive to Snottsdale today, but stayed on the surface roads. (The possibility of him going by helicopter was also mentioned.)
Given what happened, I'd hope a desire for truth would be paramount. But Turkey and SA are hardly bastions of free expression...and Turkey seems to want to remain on good terms with SA.
We still have representatives going to SA's big business shindig. We know what's important here.
“A man makes a sound as of sighs and his last drops of blood fall from his emptied dismembered body. A stupid president, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, we said.” But we didn't do anything at all.
{With apologies to Samuel Beckett (The End, 1946)}
I think romanlion's claim of direct quid-pro-quo is ludicrous. But if someone is going to earn a lot of money once they are out of office by virtue of having been in office once, that is not unlikely to sway their behaviour in office.
I don't think it's on the same page as Trump, but it's a regrettable tendency that causes more harm than good.
I don't know if I'd exactly posit a false-flag, but the refugees, knowingly or not, are kind of providing a talking-point for Trump's apologists. "If the USA under Trump is such a horrible place for latino immigrants, how come they're still traveling all that way to get in?"
Well, I've seen at least one reference to how Turkey isn't releasing their full trove of evidence, because it would "reveal the nature of their surveillance operations", or some such.
Though, presumably, if Turkey says they have this evidence, and it's known to be in the form of audio, the Saudis would know which room was bugged, since they would know where the murder had been commited.
Unless you can bug a room from outside the building? I'm not knowledgable on these things.
Outrageous even, considering I never made any such claim.
Read my post(s) again, and if you would like me to drag you through the known and documented paper trail to back up my assertion I will be happy to.
Not really. Such caravans are a regular thing, both for the purposes of safety and publicity. It may be getting more publicity in U.S. media right now because of the current focus on immigration, but the group of refugees is probably exactly what it seems.
My wife and I and about 16000 other Melbournians paid something like $200 each to see Hillary and our former PM Julia Gillard in conversation. I think she gave another speech in Sydney at a similar price. From what I heard they could have tripled their money in Australia, given the interest in the events, which were both sold out. I note that $200 is hardly an exorbitant fee when compared to tickets to a concert, or the opera.
The Clintons are far and away the most heavily investigated couple in America today. There is no evidence that they are corrupt. Not one single skerrick. Starr found no evidence of corruption, and he became so desperate to find anything on Bill Clinton that he had a young woman taken from a shopping centre to a hotel and interrogated there by a room full of agents, where she was threatened with imprisonment if she didn't admit to sexual impropriety with the President of the United States. What a low act by a man who prides himself on his so-called morality, prompted by a faction having the gall to call themselves the moral majority.
There are two problems with the Clintons. First and foremost, Bill was incapable of keeping it in his pants. Second, they are just too right wing on economics. Hillary herself embodies the American dream of a woman born into straightened circumstances who makes it to the top of her field by her intelligence and wit. It is a crying shame that people like Romanlion continue to denigrate her. They do their country a great disservice by denying it her leadership.
I don't see how else to read this:
"No one would pay to hear either of them say a word if there wasn't access for sale"
Other than that people could pay something and get access, or get access in return for something, hence quid-pro-quo.
People paid for access through the foundation, this is beyond dispute. More than half of the private meetings Clinton took while Secretary of State were with foundation donors. Her chief of staff communicated regularly with foundation employees via email and phone.
Clinton apologists will wail that there has never been any evidence that her actions as Secretary of State were influenced by this access. That would be your QPQ.
Why do you suppose there was a precipitous drop in foundation donations after she (thank god) lost the election?
This is one of the zombie falsehoods that seems to have been manufactured about Hillary Clinton. The ultimate source was an AP article that said that 85 of the 154 people that Secretary Clinton met with were Clinton Foundation donors, which is more than half. Now you may say to yourself "Meeting with 154 people over a span of four years seems like an awfully low number for the U.S. Secretary of State", and you'd be right.
So the basic argument is that Secretary Clinton had over half her meetings with people who were donors to her husband's foundation, provided you exclude most of her meetings with non-Clinton Foundation donors. The inherent bad faith in advancing this argument should be obvious. I think it says a lot about Hillary Clinton's lack of corruption that her detractors are reduced to using obviously bogus statistics like this.
I made a mistake in my previous post. 5000 people, not 16000 people, saw Hillary speak in Melbourne. If I was Hillary, there'd be about three congressional investigations into this, and I would probably be accused of fraud.
Now the man wants to withdraw from the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties) Reagan signed with Gorbachev.
Is that ticking I hear the Doomsday Clock getting closer to midnight?
*Which is of course arrant nonsense. Climate change is the greatest threat to the world today.
Or two...
@romanlion following on from Gwai's post above, this is to let you know that your persistent trolling has now reached the admins' radar.
You have shown yourself capable of contributing constructively to the debate in hand instead of constantly yanking people's chains with Clinton-era conspiracy theories. Do so or expect temporary or permanent shore leave.
/admin mode
Where, oh, where is the Chance of Apocalypse meter when it is so sorely needed?