The view the plebs demands often don't align with either the politicians vision for the country, what's possible near or long term, or the people you are indebted to (donors, etc).
In many cases it's acceptable and even advisable, in my opinion.
A head of state has insight into facts and knowledge of others about realities and facts that most will / can / not understand (and SOMETIMES shouldn't even be known publicly).
What's not acceptable is if a politician is a puppet for donors.
The amount of money and network it takes to become president in the US is ridiculous, and basically necessitates being dirty and indebted.
---
Also, Clinton is most likely no worse than most previous presidents. There's just considerably more information about her.
But if you have the choice between that and Trump, I cannot imagine how you could choose the latter.
Status quo vs. something different. The status quo is that Obama/Hillary have destabilised countless countries, and are sabre rattling against Russia, possibly leading to an eventual nuclear war.
By contrast, Trump is promising less wars, less interventionism, and otherwise is a relative wildcard with a penchant towards pragmatism and deal-making.
I'm not American, but on paper, it looks like Trump would be an improvement as far as world stability goes, I'd vote for him based on his policy concerning Russia alone.
The Clinton/Bush/Obama dynasties have not made the world a better place, have not contributed to anything positive IMO, and judging by all the leaked emails, they're all corrupt as well.
Also, I wouldn't call what Obama did sable rattling. Russia did invade several countries in the last years (Georgia, Ukraine, and maybe I'm missing one more?). If you don't have a good response for that, then how can you be trusted to defend your other allies (Poland, etc.)
Again, both actions you cite were reactions to US meddling in the region in the first place.
The fact Trump hasn't threatened any new invasions is already an improvement.
PS. Do you know who Mikheil Saakashvili is, what he did, where he is now, and why he's exiled from his own country? And have you seen Victor Yushchenko's face recently, what it looks like? The answers to both of these questions give a lot of insight into US actions in the region.
Right -- the several thousand army and special forces troops that Putin has since openly acknowledged sending there to size buildings and other strategic checkpoints were just out on vacation.
Either way -- the main point is (and presumably you do know this), the leased military base at Sevastopol != the Crimean peninsula.
Trump would improve relations with Russia.
I truly believe Trump is a populist reformer, trying to help the Everyman.
But keep in mind that even though the Populares were nominally "for the people", they only used them for their own ends. They were very much as political as the Optimates.
It's a sad state of affairs when a relative madman looks like a saner alternative to a truly sick and twisted authoritarian war-hawk.
But perhaps a madman is needed to tear down this malfunctioning and corrupt system where a few elites benefit at the expense of the common man.
It wouldn't surprise me if this election is the last one we'll ever have.
Populists can be dangerous, but they can also do a lot of good. It seems worth a chance in the current environment, though ever since I read this passage from http://www.constitution.org/eng/patriarcha.htm I've been wary of those with mass support: "Nero, Heliogabalus, Otho, Vitellius, and such other monsters of nature, were the minions of the multitude and set up by them. Pertinax, Alexander, Severus, Gordianus, Gallus, Emilianus, Quintilius, Aurelianus, Tacitus, Probus, and Numerianus, all of them good emperors in the judgment of all historians, yet murdered by the multitude."
The POTUS can literally end humanity with a few words. That's not an exaggeration. I want change as much as the next guy, but not if it means handing the power to start the apocalypse to a man like Donald Trump.
I'm struggling to comprehend how you can look at Trump's statements and come out thinking that he'll improve world stability. Trump thinks that NATO is obsolete - he's happy for the US to abandon it and totally change the balance of power in Europe. He has stated that nuclear proliferation is a good thing, even encouraging an Asian nuclear arms race between the DPRK and ROK/Japan. He's asked, "why can't [the US] use nuclear weapons?"
She tries to run on anti-establishment but there is no-one that is more establishment than her.
She tries to run on fighting for women's rights but she is an apologist for her husband's sordid history of sexual abuse towards other women, and not only that but she will readily accept funds from people that are the most misogynistic on the face of the Earth (the Gulf monarchies).
The difference is her stance is opposite from what she campaigns on -- there is a word for this: hypocrite. She clearly has no moral center.
Source?
> She tries to run on anti-establishment but there is no-one that is more establishment than her.
Sure, but that's just marketing, not substance.
> She tries to run on fighting for women's rights but she is an apologist for her husband's sordid history of sexual abuse towards other women, and not only that but she will readily accept funds from people that are the most misogynistic on the face of the Earth (the Gulf monarchies).
It is not clear that Clinton ever sexually abused women. He cheated on his wife, yes. But that is a far cry from 'sexual abuse'.
Re: gay rights.
How about that cackle?
What is a political opportunist? The Clintons have always operated via the polls. Against gay marriage when being against it was popular, now an ardent supporter.
> her private positions is nothing short of abject disdain for LGTBs.
You recognize and admit (as you have no choice doing, after the mountain of proof) that the media willingly prostitutes itself to further the cause of the current administration, with no regard for actual truth.
But you allow yourself to be influenced in your opinion of Donald Trump by that same media.
Imagine if a mean girl in your office told everybody that you were a brown-nosing little weasel who stared at her all the time, even though it's not true. Nobody will sit next to you at lunch, and you refuse to sit next to Billy, since that same girl said he picks is nose and eats it. Can't you understand that once you know she's a liar, you can't trust her about Billy either?
Watching a video of one of his rallies or a debate is sufficient to form my own opinion.
He (is)
- lies or distorts the truth almost everytime he opens his mouth
- extremely authoritarian
- very anti free media (at his rallys, media is cordoned off and he gets the crowd to yell at them for minutes. that is if the outlet hasn't been banned for reporting the truth. I wonder why the media is anti Trump...)
- sexist and abusive (enough evidence there, he says so himself)
- racist (again, no more evidence needed, he said it all)
- only cares about his own interests (yay, big tax cuts for the rich are his tax plan)
- very uneducated and uninformed on the actual issues
and just generally a disgusting man (my opinion).
It might very well be that he is not actually racist and that a lot of what he says is just what works with the crowds. That really doesn't matter much, though.
He is a populist par excellence. You can't trust anything he says.
And a very dangerous man to be the head of state in a country where that position holds so much power.
Were I American, I'd have a hard time voting for Clinton too. But that more than 40% would even consider voting for Trump scares me.
I guess you haven't been paying attention. Trump was, for many years, a celebrity, making millions of dollars for NBC with his TV shows. Everything about him that they complain about now they happily accepted then, when it suited them.
For example, where was this 11-year-old video during the primaries? Answer that question and you will begin to understand what's going on here.
This "anti-free-media" claim is weird when you compare it to Clinton's campaign. For nearly a year she had zero press conferences--not even giving the media a chance. Now we find that her campaign specifically wanted to avoid answering any questions, to prevent the media from having a chance to question her about inconvenient stories. And we discover that the mainstream media is actively colluding with her campaign, giving them veto power over stories and quotes, etc.
So shouldn't you at least claim that she is as anti-free-media as he is?
> But that more than 40% would even consider voting for Trump scares me.
There is much more at stake here than these two individual people running for the office. The real contest here is between the movements they represent.
One of these two campaigns has been co-opted by a candidate who is not even a member of it. How did this candidate do so? With the help of the media, which vehemently attacked all other candidates during the primaries.
Now that same media is trying to destroy that candidate. That candidate is virtually a strawman candidate, set up for the sake of being torn down.
So, what does that tell you? Based on that, which candidate--which movement--should one vote for?
Seriously, can you provide references to back up some of this? The only thing I've heard about it so far is that in a profile piece, a portion was talked about off the record, and the reporter requested the use of some of the off the record material, and gave them a chance to review what could be used, since it was at their discretion it be used at all. The same reporter explained that there was a portion of his profile of Trump earlier he didn't use because it was off the record as well. The reporter is on record explaining this[1].
If there are other instances, please explain them, otherwise people are going to assume you are referring to this, which I think is pretty well explained. This is the reason people keep asking for sources. Without sources, it's just hearsay.
1: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a-medi...
How about Jake Tapper of CNN describing one of the events described in the emails about a question being leaked to the clinton campaign as "Journalistically it’s horrifying"?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/10/...
A Democratic Party official suggested the question was actually prep for a panel Brazile was set to appear on, saying Brazile normally checked with both Democratic candidates for their positions. The day after the email was sent, Brazile appeared on ABC's "This Week" as a panelist.
Now, this isn't the best excuse, so I'm not sure I believe it, but I'm also not sure what I'm supposed to expect the Clinton campaign to have done. Loudly proclaim they got a town hall question beforehand when Brazile may have been misinterpreted, or wrong? Denounce her afterwards when they had already benefited from the knowledge, so people would vilify them anyway? If this was as bad as it looks, I'm still left concluding it was, until proven otherwise, and isolated incident, and one in which I think the campaign may have benefited, but ultimately didn't act in any way I wouldn't have expected them to (barring further information, such as them pumping her for more info). I also don't harbor any fantasies that the Trump campaign would have acted any differently.
Finally, I agree, it is journalistically horrifying. That's because journalism has it's own standards and ethics to consider. It was horrible for a journalist. But Clinton and her staff aren't journalists, they are politicians, and while it would be great if it wasn't true, we expect less from them. That's why journalism is so important and why it's protected under the first amendment, because it keeps politicians in check.
1: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/wikileaks-email-hack-c...
Of course that's not indicative of a problem--they're just exercising their free speech rights, right? They're not biased at all...
(And before you go all wikipedia on me with "sources, sources! hearsay!", just google "journalist campaign contributions" and do your own homework.)
>racist (again, no more evidence needed, he said it all)
Trump has more support of black and hispanic people than any other Republican presidential nominee. [1] He has that because the ones who speak English (not getting their news only from Univision) understand that he wants to help Americans of all ethnic groups.
The co-opting of minority votes by the democratic machine is legendary, but it's over. Those minority AMERICANS that are getting the message undistorted by the media are understanding that their lives are made worse by liberal policies, not better.
It's not racist to wish to enforce current immigration law. It's not racist to wish to protect the jobs and lives of American citizens. If you're reading HN, I know you actually understand this, but choose to spit venom anyway.
[1] http://truthfeed.com/trump-surging-with-black-americans-beat...
The only way you can defend this kind of claim is cherry picking a high outlier poll against the comparable-time polling consensus (or low outliers) for previous GOP nominees.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/donald-trump-continu...
Is it your contention that any poll that doesn't support your thesis is an "outlier poll"?
1: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old...
You can actually read the sampling percentages yourself, on most of them.
Anyway, I'll just leave this here. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/actuarial-review-of-...
Truthfeed pointed out that NBC/WSJ didn’t mention that the poll was created by a Hillary Super PAC.
The sourced article does not prove that. It proves that the polling organization that did the polling received money. Now, as a rational person, I might think that was money required to actually run a poll, since they aren't free, and cost money to run. Zero consideration was given to this, no follow up was done with the polling organization to ask them what this money was for, nor to ask them if they received money from other organizations (from ones supporting Trump, for example).
A partisan blog is very low journalistic standards sourcing its news from another blog with both low journalistic and low investigative standards should not be your source of news. Seriously, how can you put forward a link like this with a straight face? Did you actually look into this at all, or did you just take what was written on random blogs as de facto truth, and completely suspend all disbelief?
It’s also well known that the Monmouth University poll is run by a Hillary Huckster who recently was caught manipulating a poll and then lied about it.
Already off to a good start! Such unbiased reporting, referring to a "Hillary Huckster". This claim, that they only weighted based on party affiliate, is easily proven false. I downloaded the PDF with the poll results in question[1], located the tables references, and ran some numbers. No weighting is immediately apparent by gender, but the gender breakdown is close to the actual makeup of the country/region, so none may have been needed (or it may have been small enough to be undetectable). There is definitely weighting by age and race, and of course past political affiliation. The claims that only political affiliation were weighted for are provably false. Even by the data shown in the blog, if anyone had bothered to actually look, rather than just take what was said at face value.
With all the liberal distortions and dishonesty we decided to have a small team of actuarial and statistics professionals take a look at a couple of the recent polls to get their take on the reliability of these polls.
Good! That sounds like a good way to investigate this. So who are these actuaries and statisticians? They aren't ever identified. See, this is where a real journalist would be called out for sloppy reporting. Are these actuarial and statistician professionals "self-professed", or are they recognized in their fields? Do they even really exist? We have no way to know for sure, beyond "this blog referenced them".
By selecting more Dems the polls are designed to provide a Dem result.
Actually, that's what the weighting is for. You know, the thing this blog recently calling out as unfair? The whole purpose is to account for random sampling error. If the population was split evenly at 50% Democrat and 50% Republican, but your sample showed of the 100 people you asked a question, 45 were Democrat and 55 were Republican, due purely to chance and the fact you are sampling, not asking every person, how do you propose we would adjust for that to account for how we think it would really break down on election day? We weight the Democrats up to 50%, and the Republicans down to 50%. In reality, it's not obviously not 50%, but that's the point of weighting a poll.
Let me put it very simply. If your news sources refer to Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" or alternatively to Trump as "The Donald", or refers to "The Democrats" or "The Republicans" as a singular force that can be corrupt, or make blanket statements like "Let’s face it NOBODY likes Hillary and NOBODY trusts Hillary" or reference blogs as their source that do any of those things, you can't really trust them to give you an honest, impartial view of anything. You may think the MSM is biased, but usually what I hear as evidence of that assertion is that they aren't reporting on "news" such as this, when it's very cleat this isn't "news", by any journalistic standard. The MSM might be somewhat biased, but I think it's clear they are definitively less biased than the source you referenced, which ranges between referencing other sources that are plain wrong and itself making unsubstantiated statements without evidence.
If you want info on polls to trust, it's not too hard to find people willing to look into them with a more balanced approach[2].
1: https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthP... PDF at bottom.
This is absolutely ridiculous, trump has been a public figure for 30+(?) years. Even if you ignore the smearing that's been happening for the past year in the media, there's plenty of reasons to think this guy is the last person you'd want as president
Absolutely! I agree wholeheartedly.
> The amount of money and network it takes to become president in the US is ridiculous, and basically necessitates being dirty and indebted.
I thought we just agreed that politicians should not be puppets? And now they must be dirty and indebted? The situation is definitely ridiculous!
> Also, Clinton is most likely no worse than most previous presidents. There's just considerably more information about her.
That is certainly a rational outlook on the matter. We are definitely in a period where we have more information available.
But something else has changed (some 60 years and just 10 presidents past) - politicians are now evaluated largely according to TV performance, and costs have spiralled out of control. Perhaps when it was much less costly to become president, you didn't need to be dirty and indebted?
> But if you have the choice between that and Trump, I cannot imagine how you could choose the latter.
Only this convoluted bit of logic could possibly suffice: I think Clinton would make an acceptable President, and would continue the status quo. There would be little reform-instead, things would just get a little bit worse. Trump would be awful. However, I think that I (and my son, who will not be 18 in this presidency) could probably survive with only moderate loss of personal resources. As a result of that... experiment, I expect that in coming years the DNC and the country in general would institute various reforms that would be good for the long-term health of the country.
Really? Even with binary opinions like supporting gay marriage?
So you agree that she is trying to create an alternative reality for private purposes?
[1] https://www.charitywatch.org/ratings-and-metrics/bill-hillar...
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-...
http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/09/22/clinton-cash-autho...
Page 18 and 19. Out of a budget of $217 million, they spent $34 million on direct program expenditures. That's about 16%, not 88% as your link would lead us to believe.
Additionally, what is this money spent on?
Clinton Global Initiative, Clinton Presidential Center, Clinton Development Initiative, Clinton Health Matters Initiative, Clinton Giustra Sustaninable Growth Initiative
A little self-serving, don't you think? And what percentage of the money going to those initiatives do you think are spent on directly charitable causes?
No one should be under the illusion that the Clinton Foundation is a charity. It isn't. It's a slush fund for political purposes. Look at how mismanaged the billions of dollars for Haiti has been if you want to see how charitable the Clintons are (spoiler: nearly none of the money has actually been spent on Haiti, and virtually none of it on direct relief).
It's easy to imagine situations where that money is not being spent 100% efficiently, but it also seems unlikely that it is being spent perfectly inefficiently.
If the foundation were trying to fight AIDS by directly funding the distribution of treatments the numbers in the report would be pretty bad, but that's not the picture here.
[1] http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/22/12893444/cl...
HRC is the same woman that literally laughed and bragged on a television interview about killing Gaddafi. As shitty as he was, he was a real person. A living human, and she laughs about killing him. It's fine to have pride in protecting your country, but killing someone (much less a head of state) should never be a laughing matter.
I find it a bit troubling that in the article he makes passing mention of the drug company the CGI was working with but no mention of how they got into huge trouble for not actually passing many drugs, including the AIDS vaccine through QA.
You really have to wonder the about effects of pushing down the margins of a drug company who wasn't even following safety standards at the time.
Every time we get a new accusation from Trump (Clinton Foundation is a slush fund!!!) it turns out that Trump is actually the one doing it.
It's classic mis-direction. Accuse your opponent first to put them on the defensive, then when evidence if your own wrongdoing comes out you can muddy the waters and say no one has clean hands.
The Clintons used their personal connections and foundation money to lobby drug companies to give massive discounts on AIDs drugs to poor people. They've literally saved thousands of lives.
Trump's charity has done nothing charitable. He hasn't even donated to it in many years.
This is unproductive and dishonest hyperbole and I'm not going to waste my breath explaining the obvious.
>It's classic mis-direction
So is your post. "Just look at how bad Trump is!".
>to lobby drug companies to give massive discounts on AIDs drugs to poor people
What they've actually done is lobby drug companies into business dealings that make money for everyone. Do you think the drug companies are just giving shit out for free because Hillary and Bill asked nicely? Of course not. This would be like Trump saying he's saved lives by providing employment with health benefits.
>Trump's charity has done nothing charitable
It's funny that you try to say this in the same post as "Trump uses his charity to pay off his businesses legal settlements" because that pay-off was actually a donation to a charity for veterans (something the city of Palm Beach agreed to).
"What that means specifically is that they are going to turn over all the Blumenthal emails to the Committee that they hav along with some other HRC emails that include a slightly broader set of search terms than the original batch. That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over."
- Purposefully witholding all emails that were between HRC and POTUS [2]:
"Think we should hold emails to and from potus? That's the heart of his exec privilege. We could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I seems like they will."
- Evidence that the DNC purchased craigslist ads in attempt to frame Trump [3]
"We’re proud to maintain a “fun” and “friendly work environment, where the boss is always available to meet with his employees. Like it or not, he may greet you with a kiss on the lips or grope you under the meeting table. Interested applicants should send resume, cover letter, and headshot to jobs@trump.com<mailto:jobs@trump.com>"
- Clinton Foundation accepting $1 million from Qatar for Bill's birthday. [4]
1. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272
2. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9545
How is your reading comprehension this bad?
1. Your understanding of the comment here is miserable given the point you are trying to make. If you should find anything suspicious, it is that the 2nd set of e-mails, with a broader search, included e-mails that should have been turned over previously but weren't. If you want to go down that angle, you think the Benghazi committee would sit on those e-mails and not say anything if there was anything particularly salient in them?
2. You have an issue that State is considering whether releasing POTUS e-mails are subject to executive privilege and should be cleared first?
3. Really? I'll parrot the guys that give out free comedy show tickets - "you don't like to laugh? you don't like humor?"
4. Please point me to the illegal or unethical behavior here.
Well to start, Qatar is funding ISIS according to other emails so maybe don't accept money from states that sponsor terrorism?
I mean we could go into how they stone gays for being themselves and women for having the gaul to think they can drive but we all know that's totally ethical.
No, wait, that was the Trump Foundation protecting the fraudulent Trump University.
For Trump, it's completely different. His strategy is built on two pillars - exposing the existence of the corrupt system and presenting himself as somebody who can fix it. The second part, unfortunately, is completely false and that's where alternative reality comes in - he needs to paint himself as somebody capable of doing a thing he has no idea how to do and no capability to do. That's why he always proposes over the top things - to capture one's imagination and paint himself as somebody who can do things. The proposal itself does not matter, neither the facts he claims to base it on - what matters is the image of somebody who knows how to do things, and has the guts to do them. Since the reality of his capabilities is rather modest, constant stream of fiction is required to keep this idea alive.
It's not irrational paranoia to believe your government operates as a separate entity, one that is not subject to the rule of law. From the Iraq war, to torture, to retroactively legal bulk collection, to immunity granted to telecoms for doing illegal surveillance, to no one going to jail in response to 2008, the list goes on and on.
We have a government all too happy to throw millions of us in jail for the most minor of offenses, yet the same rules don't appear to apply to the people constantly on our TV screens or ones that aren't with enough connections.
HRC is not the devil, but she represents something deeply unsavory to a lot of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum.
Trump is an obvious mad man. The fact that so many people are willing to give such a man the ability to unilaterally destroy humanity speaks volumes about where western civilization is at right now.