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Vox Nihili posted:I'm sure Bill was rubbing his hands and licking his lips as he watched those sweet, sweet charitable donations flow in. What do you not understand about the fact that donations to the Clinton Foundation do not benefit the Clintons? That money is earmarked for charitable work. They don't control it, draw on it, or get commercials in their favor from it. Most people aren't even aware of what the money goes towards, but for the interested, records are available. There is no evidence that the Foundation inures to the benefit of the Clintons personally. Period. Well, the situation of benefit and where the money sent to the Clinton foundation goes is quite a bit more complicated than that. I've looked through their available financial reports but charities are a tough nut because of the substantial leeway they're provided in characterizing program vs non-program expenses. For the Clinton foundation they're reporting that about 12% goes to non program (management + fundraising) which would seem pretty good for a charitable organization. The issue though is that the Clinton foundation is unlike many other charities that directly pass funds to recipients and other groups providing on the ground work. Instead they have opted to hire their own staff and build their own networks. That makes their organizations finances much more opaque than other charities, and has caused one of the most prominent organizations that rates how charities pass money to beneficiaries to decline rating them because of those difficulties. Based on the information I have I certainly wouldn't be able to declare that they don't draw from it or control its distribution. I've got a graduate degree in accounting and passed my CPA and when I look at their provided financials the best I can do is shrug and think they look fairly reasonable for an organization that size operating in the unorthodox model they've moved towards. But honestly who loving knows. People way more specialized into this area than me have looked at the same info and decided it wasn't worth trying to crack. E: I don't believe the clintons are deriving any undue benefit by either drawing on or directing foundation funds. I don't believe they'd really need to at this point. I'm just saying the financials don't seem to prove that they aren't or couldn't if that's what they wanted to do. Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 06:13 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 06:05
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Kalman posted:It's all relative - Bernie can have 20%, but if Hillary has 80%, he is dead in the water as to winning. If Rubio has 15%, but the top R candidate only has 20%, he's got a reasonable chance. Don't want this to get lost on the bottom of the last page, since it makes the point concisely. The Republican primary is currently a hilarious clusterfuck where the front runners can't stop dropping the ball and anyone who polls in the double digits is a serious contender. Bernie is up against an enormously prominent front-runner with the full backing of the Democratic Establishment who has already been under constant scrutiny for the last two and a half decades.
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May 28, 2015 06:54
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TheDisreputableDog posted:As I said before, people have been convicted recently of misconduct without even establishing a "quo", the idea that a definitive link between benefit and service needs to be solid is a canard. "Conflict of interest" doesn't mean you did something wrong, it means you put yourself in between two different groups with the appearance of impropriety - policies against conflicts exist to avoid those situations from the start. By that definition, almost every single politician and political candidate is guilty of conflict of interest and misconduct. In a way, I actually agree with this. I think that special interest money and PACs are poisoning the well of American political discourse. I'd be happy to see less money in politics, or even a system where the eligibility of a candidate wasn't determined by his or her skills at fundraising. Not only is such a system not currently feasible, I'm not even sure how we could get to a point where it would be feasible. More generally, though, I take issue with people attacking specific political candidates for doing things that every politician does. If your complaint is endemic to the system, then it's an indictment of the system, not of the candidate. That's what I found particularly offensive about the "Hillary selling weapons" faux-scandal. If one looks at the acknowledged facts: 1. The Obama administration sold weapons to bad people. 2. Every previous administration has sold weapons to bad people. 3. Some of the weapons sold were sold to bad people during Hillary's tenure as SoS. 4. Hillary received money from bad people during her tenure as SoS. As criticisms of the US government and its foreign policy, the international arms trade is a pretty solid one. As criticism of Hillary specifically, it's dumb. Even if the money was assumed to be a literal bribe, it means that Hillary required money before she would do something that Bush43/Clinton42/Bush41/Reagan would do for free. That's not much of an indictment. At least for me, though, it's not really a partisan thing. I'm offended when Republicans do it because it's an insult to the intelligence of the American people, insofar as such a thing is still possible. I'm offended when the Democrats do it, for the same reason. And I can't help but notice that both parties are using partisan attacks on things like campaign finance as an excuse to avoid passing things like actual campaign finance reform. As long as shady campaign financing is something that the Other Party does, we don't need to worry about it when Our Party gets into power, right? Right?
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May 28, 2015 08:00
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Leaving Hillary alone for a moment, am I the only one calling Bernie fans "Bernouts"?
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May 28, 2015 08:06
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TheDisreputableDog posted:I'm getting that sinking feeling where a community has self-selected into such a narrow range that anyone with a position outside the norm is ruining the picnic and "trolling". I'm getting the sinking feeling you're not going to address your poo poo-and-run defense of Romney's bullying getting called out, even after you doubled-down on it. You want to make some headway and not get called a troll? How about admitting when you're wrong?
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May 28, 2015 08:53
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Dolash posted:I'm getting the sinking feeling you're not going to address your poo poo-and-run defense of Romney's bullying getting called out, even after you doubled-down on it. You want to make some headway and not get called a troll? How about admitting when you're wrong? Hey, I'll bite. I read those posts and it struck a chord; I'm currently doing a teaching course and we were actually covering development of moral/ethics in our psych class this week (I also did a BA in Psychology as an undergrad). It varies a lot from person to person, but according to Kohlberg, who is probably the most widely-accepted theorist, around the teenage/high school years one's moral outlook is usually more informed by what would please peers than anything else. Most people grow beyond that (a disappointing percentage don't, however), but plenty of otherwise good, upstanding adults could have perpetrated similar behaviours in their youth. As a teacher I'd be sure that such behaviour got dealt with, but I wouldn't think "next stop, Sociopath City  " about the kids who got up to it. I think it's ridiculous to look back at when political figures were teenagers and try to hold them accountable for that stuff as middle-aged adults. I mean, the Obama of today isn't exactly rollin' out with the choom gang. Yes, Romney comes off as a weirdly out-of-touch plutocratic robot, but I think it's silly to go digging back into when he was going through puberty to find stuff to fit that narrative when there is so much more damning material about the Romney of today. Also, somebody really needs to write the fanfic where the dude Mitt bullied faces off against Anne Romney in a dressage contest.
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May 28, 2015 09:41
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Raskolnikov38 posted:"The queen sets the tone" *cuts to graham* "He was real popular with all the other boys."
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May 28, 2015 10:31
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I think it's ridiculous to look back at when political figures were teenagers and try to hold them accountable for that stuff as middle-aged adults. True; but if a middle-aged adult is confronted with assholish stuff they did as a teenager and reacts by denying that it was assholish, doesn't that reflect poorly on the adult?
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May 28, 2015 12:31
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Eschers Basement posted:True; but if a middle-aged adult is confronted with assholish stuff they did as a teenager and reacts by denying that it was assholish, doesn't that reflect poorly on the adult? Exactly. He said "hurr he just cut someone's hair", when in reality he terrorized a fellow student, attacked him, and cut his hair while his buddies held the kid down. Mitt's the only one of the three people who attacked Lauber that didn't apologize. If that isn't indicative of being a colossal, entitled dickhole, I don't know what is.
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May 28, 2015 12:36
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Alter Ego posted:Exactly. He said "hurr he just cut someone's hair", when in reality he terrorized a fellow student, attacked him, and cut his hair while his buddies held the kid down. Mitt's the only one of the three people who attacked Lauber that didn't apologize. If that isn't indicative of being a colossal, entitled dickhole, I don't know what is. There was also the story about him dressing up as a cop and pulling people over just to mess with them when he was in college.
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May 28, 2015 12:45
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Skwirl posted:There was also the story about him dressing up as a cop and pulling people over just to mess with them when he was in college. If Mitt Romney hadn't gone into politics, he'd be one of those guys in the schadenfreude thread over in PYF who got the poo poo beat out of him while yelling "IT'S A PRANK!"
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May 28, 2015 13:09
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Ted Cruz Rap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWTzcOgKTLo Set it on fire
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May 28, 2015 13:38
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Alter Ego posted:If Mitt Romney hadn't gone into politics, he'd be one of those guys in the schadenfreude thread over in PYF who got the poo poo beat out of him while yelling "IT'S A PRANK!" And then sues the people that beat him up into abject poverty.
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May 28, 2015 13:47
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Tobermory posted:More generally, though, I take issue with people attacking specific political candidates for doing things that every politician does. If your complaint is endemic to the system, then it's an indictment of the system, not of the candidate. That's what I found particularly offensive about the "Hillary selling weapons" faux-scandal. If one looks at the acknowledged facts: #4 is the problem and where your argument falls flat. "Every politician" does not see direct, personal, monetary gain from countries when they have oversight on huge deals like this. If there is a similar situation involving any other secstate or other high level Obama administration official (either personally or through a spouse) - I'm all ears. Since they "all do it", I assume it should be an easy citation. I mean the fact that the same people who are screaming about citizens united and are giving this a "business as usual" pass is ludicrous. TheDisreputableDog fucked around with this message at 14:05 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 14:01
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Dolash posted:I'm getting the sinking feeling you're not going to address your poo poo-and-run defense of Romney's bullying getting called out, even after you doubled-down on it. You want to make some headway and not get called a troll? How about admitting when you're wrong? There's nothing really to address after Alter Ego's assessment of the situation: quote:Hillary's a typical rich person. Mitt Romney is a loving sociopath. So raking in tens of millions from countries and organizations from which you oversee deals that are supposed to be in the best interests of our country, deciding governmental oversight over sensitive emails just isn't your thing, etc is just "typical rich person" behavior, nbd. While acting like an entitled douche when you were a teenager is an automatic disqualification from any governmental role for being a KNOWN SOCIOPATH.
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May 28, 2015 14:45
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TheDisreputableDog posted:So raking in tens of millions from countries and organizations from which you oversee deals that are supposed to be in the best interests of our country, deciding governmental oversight over sensitive emails just isn't your thing, etc is just "typical rich person" behavior, nbd. You have to demonstrate that a. there was a quid pro quo from Hillary for donations to her PAC and b. that the Clintons benefitted from donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation is huge - there are few wealthy donors that are not somehow impacted by a State Department decision somewhere, if you look hard enough. That doesn't mean it was somehow used as a vehicle to influence Hillary.
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May 28, 2015 14:55
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Skwirl posted:There was also the story about him dressing up as a cop and pulling people over just to mess with them when he was in college. Don't forget being a missionary in France to skip out on Vietnam then coming home and protesting people that wanted it to end.
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May 28, 2015 14:58
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Skwirl posted:There was also the story about him dressing up as a cop and pulling people over just to mess with them when he was in college. Wasn't there also a thing about him putting his dog on top of his car on vacation or something?
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May 28, 2015 15:00
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Concerned Citizen posted:You have to demonstrate that a. there was a quid pro quo from Hillary for donations to her PAC and b. that the Clintons benefitted from donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation is huge - there are few wealthy donors that are not somehow impacted by a State Department decision somewhere, if you look hard enough. That doesn't mean it was somehow used as a vehicle to influence Hillary. Sorry, I was talking about speaking payments directly to Bill.
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May 28, 2015 15:03
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Poll time! And yes, they are kinda important even this early because they determine who is and isn't allowed to participate in the GOP debatesQuinnipiac posted:There are five leaders - or no leaders - as Republican voters look at likely GOP candidates in the 2016 White House race, with no candidate above 10 percent and 20 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. quote:In a general election matchup, Clinton gets 46 percent of American voters to 42 percent for Paul and 45 percent of voters to 41 percent for Rubio. She leads other top Republicans:
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May 28, 2015 15:16
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FMguru posted:Poll time! And yes, they are kinda important even this early because they determine who is and isn't allowed to participate in the GOP debates Holy poo poo, I forgot all about that. The scraping and clawing from the 2nd-tiers as we get down to debate #1 is just going to be amazing.
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May 28, 2015 15:24
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FMguru posted:Poll time! And yes, they are kinda important even this early because they determine who is and isn't allowed to participate in the GOP debates Donald Trump: the most electable GOP candidate. 
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May 28, 2015 15:25
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It's official https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw5DmSp0gtI http://www.georgepataki.com
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May 28, 2015 15:51
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Isn't Trump just faking a run to improve ratings for his TV show? Is there any chance he'd go to a debate just to be embarrassed by most of the field?
The X-man cometh fucked around with this message at 15:58 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 15:55
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FMguru posted:Poll time! And yes, they are kinda important even this early because they determine who is and isn't allowed to participate in the GOP debates That poll seems pretty far-ferched actually. Generic Republican X will get 45% or more of the popular vote at election time. Odds are they will get 48% or more. Polling at this time has an impact on who "X" is, but one shouldn't read much into it beyond that this far out.
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May 28, 2015 15:59
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George Pataki announcement 
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May 28, 2015 16:11
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This is making the rounds on my Facebook feed, will be interesting to see if it gets any traction: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/sanders-men-fantsize-about-women-being-abused
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May 28, 2015 16:17
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Iucounu posted:This is making the rounds on my Facebook feed, will be interesting to see if it gets any traction: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/sanders-men-fantsize-about-women-being-abused "Men and women -- both are losers" Well that loses my vote. 
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May 28, 2015 16:29
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Ahahaha George Pataki. Did he run in 2012? I think he made some noise about it but ultimately realized the futility. At 69, he must be bored or something. I see no other possibility for him spending that much time in New Hampshire.
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May 28, 2015 16:31
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Alter Ego posted:Holy poo poo, I forgot all about that. The scraping and clawing from the 2nd-tiers as we get down to debate #1 is just going to be amazing. 
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May 28, 2015 16:40
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Iucounu posted:This is making the rounds on my Facebook feed, will be interesting to see if it gets any traction: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/sanders-men-fantsize-about-women-being-abused It's lovely, but at least he confines it to the realm of fantasy. Has he used it to dismiss rape as a crime?
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May 28, 2015 16:42
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Gross, it's like reading a hot GoT scene and then looking at a picture of GRRM *shudders*
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May 28, 2015 16:46
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Did anyone tell the 9/11 commission about this?  
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May 28, 2015 16:51
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Primary polls? More like primary  s!quote:“You can’t use polls to make very fine distinctions among candidates—such as who is in 10th place vs. 11th place,” says John Sides, a George Washington University Professor and co-founder of the popular political science blog Monkey Cage. “Even an average of several polls will have enough underlying uncertainty that you won’t be able to clearly distinguish who should be in and out.” I give it better than even odds that Fox changes the debate entrance criteria by August.
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May 28, 2015 17:03
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Joementum posted:Primary polls? More like primary But what other criteria would/could they use?
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May 28, 2015 17:31
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:
They left so much out. Time posted:For Sanders, who maintains he is running to win, pushing Clinton to the left would be fitting capstone to a lifetime spent agitating from the sidelines of powerful American institutions. As a teenager, he read Karl Marx, and as a college student he organized sit-ins against segregation, worked for a union, protested police brutality and attended the 1963 March on Washington. Throughout that time, the central theme of his life has never wavered. “We were concerned obviously about economic injustice,” says Sanders of his college days. “And we were concerned with the question, ‘How do you make change?’” He did a lot of civil rights work and was even arrested for protesting.
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May 28, 2015 17:35
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:Ted Cruz Rap Weird I didn't know John Cena was a Ted Cruz fan.
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May 28, 2015 17:38
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richardfun posted:But what other criteria would/could they use? They could include all the candidate, either doing one-on-one sessions with each candidate and a panel of moderators, like the Palmetto State Forum from 2012, or multiple debates on the same day with randomly picked candidates. Another option: just rig it. There's a clear list of plausible candidates, so just do that. I'd invite Bush, Walker, Rubio, Paul, Cruz, Kasich, Perry, Huckabee, Santorum, and Christie. Maybe Reince would rather have Carson than Santorum. That's a perfectly reasonably decision to make too. Oh, and if you can't tell Donald Trump to get lost, you aren't much of a political organization. The RNC should insist on his exclusion no matter what criteria are used.
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May 28, 2015 17:45
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Speaking of polls, here's an interesting one (from Gallup) showing the shifting social issues landscape.
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May 28, 2015 17:49
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Looks like Bernie isn't the only filthy Socialist in the 2016 race according to a 1968 issue of Andover Academy's The Phillipian. quote:“The Socialist Anti-Nationalist Party under the direction of lowers Jim Steinberg and Jeb Bush and upper Charlie Finch, feels that, ‘Nationalism is the sole cause of hatred and war in the world today.’ Therefore, they advocate the abolition of nationalism and the joining of all countries to form ‘one nation-one people.’” It's important to recall that Bush spent a considerable amount of time in his room at Andover doing bong hits, which may explain why none of his friends remember whether this was a joke or not.
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May 28, 2015 17:51
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