2016 elections - because it's never too early

[garbon]

I love how this is scrutinized, but the Clinton Cash stuff barely got anyone here to bat an eye. 

After a few decades of reports of VILE CLINTON CRIMES continually proven to be overblown or untrue it does get a little old. Boy who cried wolf and all that.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-the-terrible-things-hillary-clinton-has-done-in-one-big-list-2016-02-04

1. When she was first lady, she murdered White House lawyer Vince Foster and then dumped his body in a park.

2. She drove Vince Foster to commit suicide through her temper tantrums.

3. She was having an affair with Vince Foster.

4. She's a lesbian.

5. Chelsea isn't Bill Clinton's child.

6. She murdered Vince Foster to cover up that she once bought a tract of undeveloped land in Arkansas and lost money.

7. She murdered Vince Foster to cover up her role in firing the White House travel department.

8. After she murdered Vince Foster, she ransacked his office in the middle of the night and stole all the documents proving her guilt.

9. When Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, she was a partner in the state's top law firm, and it sometimes did work involving the state government.

10. She once invested in commodities futures on the advice of a friend and made $100,000, proving she's a crook.

11. She once invested in real estate on the advice of another friend and lost $100,000, also proving she's a crook.

12. Unnamed and unverifiable sources have told Peggy Noonan things about the Clintons that are simply too terrible to repeat.

13. The personnel murdered at Benghazi make her the first secretary of state to lose overseas personnel to terrorism — apart from Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, George Schultz, Dean Rusk and some others.

14. Four State Department staff were murdered at Benghazi, compared with only 119 others murdered overseas under every secretary of state combined since World War II.

15. She illegally sent classified emails from her personal server, except that apparently they weren't classified at the time.

16. She may have cynically wriggled around the email law by "technically" complying with it.

17. She once signed a lucrative book contract when she was a private citizen.

18. Donald Trump says she "should be in jail," and he's a serial bankrupt casino developer in Atlantic City, so he should know.

19. Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay says his "law-enforcement sources" tell him she is "about to be indicted" — and if a man once convicted of money laundering and conspiracy doesn't have good law-enforcement sources, who does?

20. She's a hard-left radical who wants to break up the nuclear family.

21. She's a conservative "mousewife" who refused to break up her own family.

22. She's in favor of single moms.

23. She refused to be a single mom.

24. When she was first lady of Arkansas, she pandered to conservative voters by dyeing her hair.

25. Before that, she totally insulted them by refusing to.

26. She's a frump.

27. She spends too much money on designer dresses.

28. She has "cankles."

29. She has a grating voice.

30. She yells into the microphone.

31. She spent 18 years in Arkansas and some of the people she knew turned out to be crazy rednecks and crooks.

32. She's in the pay of the mafia.

33. She's in the pay of the Chinese government.

34. She's in the pay of the Wall Street banks.

35. In order to suppress the billing records from her time at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, she cleverly packed them up and took them to the White House rather than shredding them.

36. When she handed over the documents to public officials, they couldn't find any evidence she'd committed any crimes, so she must have doctored them.

37. Congress spent tens of millions of dollars and six years investigating her investment in the Whitewater real-estate project, and, while they didn't actually find anything, they wouldn't have spent all that money if there weren't something there.

38. By cleverly hiding all evidence of her crimes in the Whitewater affair, she caused Congress to waste all that taxpayers' money.

39. When she ran for senator of New York, she was still a fan of the Chicago Cubs.

40. She once said the Clintons were thinking of adopting a child, and they didn't follow through.

41. She was photographed holding her hand near her mouth during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

42. She's got brain damage.

43. She's old.

44. She's really ambitious and calculating, unlike all the other people running for president.

45. She secretly supported Palestinian terrorists, Puerto Rican terrorists and Guatemalan terrorists.

46. She secretly supported a group that wants to give Maine back to the Indians.

47. She's a secret follower of "radical prophet" Saul Alinsky.

48. She did her law degree at Yale, and it's a well-known "socialist finishing school."

49. When she was young, she did things to build up her résumé rather than just for their own good.

50. When Bill was president, she "allowed" him to keep people waiting.

51. She's married to a sex addict.

52. She's an enemy of traditional marriage.

53. She didn't divorce her husband.

54. His philandering is her fault because she is too strong, and too weak, and too frumpy, and too fat, and too cold.

55. She's hostile to women who fool around with her husband.

56. A divorced taxi driver in Florida told me that if Hillary is elected president, "women will take over everything."

57. She insulted Tammy Wynette.

58. When they left the White House, she and Bill bought a big house in New York that they couldn't afford.

59. She sometimes calls her staff during dinner, even when they're out at a restaurant.

60. She claimed there was a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband, and it turned out there was nothing but a bunch of tycoons financing private investigators, and some fake think tanks and books and news sites and stuff.

61. When she got married, she didn't "stay at home and bake cookies."

62. She supported the Iraq war because she's a secret foreign-policy conservative.

63. She's a secret foreign-policy radical with a plan to impose worldwide "radical social experimentation" through the World Bank.

64. She is secretly plotting to let children sue their parents for making them take out the garbage.

65. She looked bored during the Benghazi hearings.

66. Oh, yeah — and she totally has a vagina.

[Barrister]

I love how this is scrutinized, but the Clinton Cash stuff barely got anyone here to bat an eye. 

Every significant ex pol collects speaking fees.  Not saying it should be cheered by why single out the Clintons?

Bill got huge speaking fees while his wife was Secretary of State.  HIllary got huge speaking fees shortly before running for President.  The Clinton Foundation gather huge donations throughout the whole period.

Only someone as noxious as Trump would be losing to HIllary in this election.

[Berkut]

I love how this is scrutinized, but the Clinton Cash stuff barely got anyone here to bat an eye. 

Every significant ex pol collects speaking fees.  Not saying it should be cheered by why single out the Clintons?

Bill got huge speaking fees while his wife was Secretary of State.  HIllary got huge speaking fees shortly before running for President.  The Clinton Foundation gather huge donations throughout the whole period.

I think you left off part of this story.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think Trump could probably come up with a billion in liquidity. I believe when Forbes did its review of his wealth, Trump showed them proof of ownership of around $300m in liquid assets. Then reasonable assessments of his real estate holdings put them at around $3bn (which I think is where Forbes get its estimated net worth of around $3.4bn.) He probably has debts he's not telling us about so it may be lower, but with the amount of real estate he has and the existing liquid assets he can probably pull together $1bn for his campaign if he wanted.

Evidence is he hardly wants to spend any money on his campaign, most of his personal investment in the campaign has been in the form of loans, which he probably expects to recoup at some point or another from donors.

Everything I'm hearing out of the Trump camp is he doesn't buy into traditional campaign finance. He sees no reason to waste his time buttering up big donors, he thinks he can just beat Hillary with free media (which won him the primary) and holding selected rallies which generate awareness. At the primary level it's hard to argue with his strategy, he generated probably the most votes/dollar spent of any primary candidate in ages, maybe ever inflation-adjusted. But it's just highly unlikely this approach is suitable for winning a general election.

[Legbiter]

So apparently the Trump campaign spent more money on hats in May, than on communications, data-managemnet, and advertising... combined.

Eh, Jeb! had money to burn, didn't get him much.

And if the funding difference persists that just paints Clinton as the big-money candidate owned by the donor class. Plus, the media will continue to work ceaselessly as his unpaid marketing interns and Trump's social media does the rest. 

[FunkMonk]

Trump is the self-proclaimed King of Debt. Money is no object to him.

[Admiral Yi]

And if the funding difference persists that just paints Clinton as the big-money candidate owned by the donor class.

This particular line worked better before Trump went hat in hand to the donor class and they told him to take a hike.

[Zanza]

Bill got huge speaking fees while his wife was Secretary of State.

Do you suggest that his fees were somehow related to her being Secretary of State?

HIllary got huge speaking fees shortly before running for President.

Good for her...?

The Clinton Foundation gather huge donations throughout the whole period.

That doesn't seem unusual for a charitable foundation...

Only someone as noxious as Trump would be losing to HIllary in this election.

Which of the other contenders in the Republican field would look better than Trump now? Kasich or Cruz? Hmm.

[Jacob]

Random internet rumours has Michelle Bachman as a possible VP nomination. Allegedly Corey Lewandowski (Trump's recently fired campaign manager) is the source.

The Republican convention is going to be something else...

[Zanza]

She is batshit crazy, right? American presidential elections are really good entertainment.

[The Minsky Moment]

Bill got huge speaking fees while his wife was Secretary of State.  HIllary got huge speaking fees shortly before running for President.  The Clinton Foundation gather huge donations throughout the whole period.

Bush 41 got $ for speeches while his son was President, and Bush 43 while his brother was running.  Gingrich collected speaking fees shortly before running for Prez.  Probably could think of a few more examples if I took the time.  But no one blinks an eye if it's not the Clintons.

[The Minsky Moment]

She is batshit crazy, right?

No regular grade batshit is calm, cool and collected compared to Michelle Bachman.

[Zanza]

Isn't Trump supposedly earning mega-dollars right now from gambling?

[Barrister]

Bill got huge speaking fees while his wife was Secretary of State.

Do you suggest that his fees were somehow related to her being Secretary of State?

Yes.

HIllary got huge speaking fees shortly before running for President.

Good for her...?

Hillary isn't all that interesting a speaker, as we have seen in this campaign.  So why would Goldman Sacks (amongst others) be willing to give her hundreds of thousands of dollars for a couple hours work?

The Clinton Foundation gather huge donations throughout the whole period.

That doesn't seem unusual for a charitable foundation...

It doesn't trouble you that foreign governments were donating to the Clinton Foundation (to the tune of millions of dollars), even during the time that Hillary was Secretary of State?  Can you not see a conflict of interest there?

Only someone as noxious as Trump would be losing to HIllary in this election.

Which of the other contenders in the Republican field would look better than Trump now? Kasich or Cruz? Hmm.

Any of them.  Kasich, Cruz, Bush, Huckabee, Paul... all would look better than Trump right now.

Ben Carson is the only one I might say otherwise, because he has the same fundamental problem as Trump - he doesn't know politics, and refuses to listen to those who do.

[The Minsky Moment]

On the flip side of the speechgate allegations, Trump got Yuge $$ from giving "motivational" speeches for ACN, a "multi-level marketing" company, and for being a keynote speaker for pre-subprime crash real estate "investment seminars" where ordinary folks were taught about flipping properties. 

So pick your poison: appearance of corruption vs appearance of exploitative skeevyness.