This is basically my stance on the Trump reporting. A TON of this stuff is being reported all the time, and it's really doing nothing. Blaming the media is silly and will do nothing to help.
That money to someone who influences foreign policy is a bad look. It's a valid concern when directed at any other comparable situation in politics, so why not here?
A ton of irrelevant, meaningless stuff is being reported. Basically they've looked into Trump, the reality TV star/walking TV disaster, waaay too much while basically ignoring Trump, the businessman/likely shyster. They've not allocated their time covering him well at all, but we know trainwrecks get more eyeballs than actual reporting.
It is a valid concern with Hillary and the Foundation, no question about it. For now there isn't anything to go on other than speculation based on who is on the donor list. But it's essentially covering a potential scandal in waiting more heavily than an actual ongoing scandal, and that's just dumb to me.
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I'm not comfortable with the person running for president, and a former president, having a foundation that gets millions upon millions from foreign governments.
I guess this puts me on the level of a 9/11 truther.
Yeah, it pretty much does.
It's a charity. They do international charity work. They get international funding. What the heck is the problem?
Again, it's a f***ing charity.
Literally not a single thing wrong has been found with the work the foundation does. They have a budget in the hundreds of millions and multiple programs running all over the world, and you can bet that the Republicans have gone through all of it with a fine comb to find anything they could use against the Clintons. How many charities could stand up to such scrutiny?
They even have overhead costs that are significantly smaller than average.
So again, yes. Seeing a problem with it is pretty much the same stuff as the truther/birther stuff. It's just tinfoilery that ignores everything that's actually known. It's not like the Clinton foundation is some secret organization that does who knows what.
In fact, any reasonable person should give credit to Hillary for being heavily involved in a charity that by all accounts seems to be relatively well regarded and doing some good work.
Which is probably why the Republicans think it's so important to keep attacking it, even though they really don't have anything to work with.
EDIT:
I might not be a huge fan of the Clintons as politicians, but it really kind of pisses me off that she seems to get zero recognition for a lifetime of very valuable work with various genuinely good causes, and that the Clintons are getting so little respect for creating a pretty sizable and fairly effective charity that also works for some very worthwhile causes.
I don't care if she's the nicest person in the world or a completely corrupt a-hole.
Good work is still good work and deserves recognition, not an everlasting smear campaign.
Last edited by Itse; 09-21-2016 at 06:49 PM.
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The comparison/contrast shouldn't be the Clinton Foundation vs Trump's charity, it should be the Clinton Foundation and Trump's business empire!
Yes in theory Clinton could do something that would benefit Norway in exchange for Norway donating $100 million to get.. clean water and food for kids? Clinton wouldn't directly benefit from that donation so it's not like there's a direct incentive to alter foreign policy to generate large donations. Plus the foundation is open so if someone really wants to go digging for things they can.
On the other hand Trump has many companies with many fingers in many domestic and foreign pies and IS in a direct position to profit from changes to policies. And Trump refuses to release his tax returns to indicate what potential conflict of interests there might be. I mean even the comparatively small amount of available information shows actual illegal and questionable dealings, not just invented rhetoric about Clinton running a personal slush fund.
That's the comparison contrast that should be being drawn.
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If someone thinks a charity tied to an active presidential nominee who was also head of the international relations apparatus of the United States is just like any other charity and doesn't deserve extra scrutiny, then that person is naive.
Trump deserves all he is getting, and more, but lets not be silly about this. It's not just any other charity.
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Generally a bunch of famous people saying what people should do is a bad call, especially considering the people they're trying to swing. But this is pretty good and hilarious in some parts (especially the end).
Well considering the Clinton foundation has foreign government money pouring into it, it's just more important than Trump bilking some rich people out of money. I'm sorry that you disagree with that, but I'd rather know about a legit political family doing this than some known crook doing what we expect.
If Clinton keeps her current pace, I'm sure everyone will feel a lot better blaming the "horrible media" after the loss.
I'd prefer she just stop making this as close as it is.
So the Clinton Foundation, which has again and again been proven to be an incredibly reputable charitable organization is a problem because foreign governments donate to it, while it's been proven that the work done by said organization overwhelmingly benefits citizens of foreign governments. It has been scrutinized ad nauseum and yet has never been found to be an issue.
Meanwhile on the other side of the coin, you have Donald Trump gifting $25K to Pam Bondi's campaign--and then magically out of nowhere, Pam Bondi closes her investigation into Trump University. He's literally bribing government officials to cover his own illegal "University."
Then six months later he held a fundraiser to help support her campaign again. But I'm sure those are just coincidences, I'm sure he was just trying to help her get re-elected out of the goodness of his heart.
I'm not comfortable with the person running for president, and a former president, having a foundation that gets millions upon millions from foreign governments.
I guess this puts me on the level of a 9/11 truther.
But yet we're not concerned about the massive amount of debt that Donald Trump holds, some of which is owed to banks in other countries? Not to mention properties he owns in other countries, which obviously he would have interest in protecting, which would influence his decision-making.
One half has conflict of interest to support a renowned charity that has helped many people in other countries in the last decade, the other side is desperately trying to selfishly protect his own wealth.
Both sides have foreign entanglements, one of them is at least in the name of helping less fortunate human beings, not just exploiting them to amass wealth.
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Well I certainly wasn't doing that. I was on about the media's kid gloves treatment of Trump. CNN being one of the very worst offenders, like this for instance.
Frankly that all seems pretty reasonable. If his contract says he keeps getting paid regardless, there's not really a conflict of interest. He could call Trump the spawn of satan and still get his $20k per month.
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Frankly that all seems pretty reasonable. If his contract says he keeps getting paid regardless, there's not really a conflict of interest. He could call Trump the spawn of satan and still get his $20k per month.
Well... maybe.
We all know Trump would rather get sued than pay what he owes people.
But I agree, I don't see a problem with it. That's one hell of a severance though, dang.
Frankly that all seems pretty reasonable. If his contract says he keeps getting paid regardless, there's not really a conflict of interest. He could call Trump the spawn of satan and still get his $20k per month.
Except they terminated terminated someone from the DNC for that exact same reason
It'll be reasonable if they suspend him as they did Brazile. So far hasn't happened and they denied a story earlier that they had. And it's been widely reported that he signed a non-disclosure agreement so I seriously doubt he'll be calling him anything other than Mr. Trump.
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
If someone thinks a charity tied to an active presidential nominee who was also head of the international relations apparatus of the United States is just like any other charity and doesn't deserve extra scrutiny, then that person is naive.
No-one has suggested the Clinton foundation should not be scrutinized. In fact, there has already been tons of scrutiny, and we have plenty of facts to form an opinion about how the Clinton foundation reflects on Hillary Clinton.
Every fact we have suggests that it's a legitimite charity that does plenty of good work relatively cost effectively. No one has found anything questionable that has resulted from donations to the Clinton foundation.
So really the only rational position is that "the Clinton foundation is a credit to the Clintons, showing they are good at organizing and leading and that they spend a significant amount of their time and energy trying to genuinely make the world a better place".
I know that stuff like that makes cynics really uncomfortable, but really it's just a demonstration of why cynicism is actually a form of intellectual laziness.
Instead of accepting something that is emotionally uncomfortable for you, you take the easy route of "remaining sceptical". Which really just means that your dancing to the GOP tune.
Because let's face it, if the GOP hadn't been beating this drum for years, you would never on your own have considered that the Clinton foundation somehow makes the Clintons look suspicious. The GOP has managed to put that idea into your head, and you're now sticking to that idea without any facts to support this idea, and ignoring all the facts to the contrary.
It's very hard for people to admit they have bought into something that isn't true, which is why smear campaigns are so difficult to fight against.
You believe that money doesn't influence. I find that hilariously naive. I'm pretty fine with you thinking whatever you want about my position.
You pretty much just keep re-enforcing my point there.
All you've done so far is throw around extremely vague cynical one-liners, and ignore the facts I've pointed out.
If you have an actual argument to make on what exactly is going on and why, and you can point to some facts that back up that view, I'd genuinely be interested.
Heck, if at least you could actually spell out your theory on what might be going on, that would be a huge improvement.
I've made it pretty clear that I'm uncomfortable with a foundation tied to an active nominee for president taking money from foreign governments. Money buys favour in the political system of the United States, and it's not like this is something new. Obviously this is something that is not going to be provable, just like it isn't for Lobby money.
If you are totally fine with that, good for you. I'm not. I think my concern is pretty simple to understand. Not sure why I have to state it again for you.
No one seems to be clamoring for proof for the reasons I'm uncomfortable (or anyone is uncomfortable) with Trump campaign ties to the Russians.
I've made it pretty clear that I'm uncomfortable with a foundation tied to an active nominee for president taking money from foreign governments. Money buys favour in the political system of the United States, and it's not like this is something new. Obviously this is something that is not going to be provable, just like it isn't for Lobby money.
If you are totally fine with that, good for you. I'm not. I think my concern is pretty simple to understand. Not sure why I have to state it again for you.
No one seems to be clamoring for proof for the reasons I'm uncomfortable (or anyone is uncomfortable) with Trump campaign ties to the Russians.
For me it's more a question of what's the point? Of course money is an issue in politics. Sure, not for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, because neither of them are even slightly viable as a candidate for President, so it's less that they won't take money, it's more that no one is going to waste their money on a candidate who stands zero chance of winning.
Basically it comes down to this: there are two options for President this November. Both have questionable ties to foreign companies/governments in a monetary way. Clinton's ties relate to a heavily scrutinized but consistently exonerated charitable foundation that has a proven track record of responsible use of the money people donate to it. Trumps ties relate to shady dealings with Russia, China, extreme amounts of debt, using his charitable organization to buy himself gifts, to pay off officials, etc.
Clinton represents Democrats, who at least bother to pay lip service to the idea of limiting money's influence in politics. If Clinton wins and her influence continues down the ticket, progressives such as Sanders and Warren in the Senate might be able to make strides towards limiting campaign spending and lobbying.
Trump represents Republicans, whose platform includes even further loosening the restrictions on campaign contributions, giving money even more influence than it already has, making the problem even worse.
Clinton isn't clean, but on this she's a little dusty, whereas Trump is rolling in the mud. It's just not the same scale.
Yeah I agree, but just because one is a gong show doesn't mean we just ignore concerns about the good one. Clinton and the money behind her has been a question for a while and it's not just a GOP hit piece, Sanders addressed it all through the primaries. I'm not sure why being concerned about it is suddenly tinfoil hat territory.
I honestly don't predict a lot of differences between an Obama and Clinton presidency. She's going to govern from the center.
