Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[André]

In the 2016-2020 period I would not be surprised that a new axis of power between Germany, China and Russia emerges.

I am not suggesting anything on a military connotation. Only a realignment on where the real geo-political sub-global power will take place. While America is busy fighting, defining and imposing its so-called "values", the world will have moved on and away.

It happened to Egypt. It happened to Greece. It happened to Rome. It happened to Spain. It happened to France. It happened to England. It happened to Germany. Throughout history, it was through infighting the demise came about. I'm not that old  but I don't think infighting has ever been so harsh and vicious as now.

[North Star]

In the 2016-2020 period I would not be surprised that a new axis of power between Germany, China and Russia emerges.

I am not suggesting anything on a military connotation. Only a realignment on where the real geo-political sub-global power will take place. While America is busy fighting, defining and imposing its so-called "values", the world will have moved on and away.

It happened to Egypt. It happened to Greece. It happened to Rome. It happened to Spain. It happened to France. It happened to England. It happened to Germany. Throughout history, it was through infighting the demise came about. I'm not that old  but I don't think infighting has ever been so harsh and vicious as now.

It even happened to Lithuania!

[Parsifal]

There is only one candidate in this election cycle who could have been indicted on federal criminal charges.  Is there nothing that may still be disclosed about Hillary Clinton that would cause you to reconsider your vote?

You refer, I presume, to her use of a private email server for official communications. I will not claim that I am not concerned with this. It was an error in judgement. Sensitive communications were not handled with adequate security. But to put it in perspective, she did not willfully pass sensitive information to someone not cleared to receive it, there is no evidence that her email was ever compromised, and all previous secretaries of state used non-government email servers for at least some of their official communication. She went a step beyond by using a privately maintained server, rather than a public email service. But she had nothing to gain from it, except the ability to conduct the government business more easily.

I should hope that the bar for president is somewhere north of the fact that FBI recommended no indictment to be brought against the candidate.  Usually when a suspect destroys evidence prosecutors understand it as some indication of guilt.

My understanding from the FBI statement is that a group of emails was not preserved when the server was replaced, although they were later recovered from the retired hardware. This is far from proof that evidence was willfully destroyed.

I am mainly concerned with policy. I don't find Hilary Clinton disingenuous in her statements in policy.  I am quite satisfied that if elected she will try to do what she says she will do (to the extent that opposition in Congress permits).

[EddieRUKiddingVarese]

Trump Sandwich

[Madiel]

For me that issue is which of these to candidates will nominate Supreme Court judges and influence the balance of the court for the next generation. 

There's already a nominee for Supreme Court. Republican Senators are currently ignoring that nomination. I'd say that's a hell of a lot more influence.

[André]

From the conservative, business and establishment based Globe and Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/clinton-is-sick-but-we-should-all-be-worried-about-trumpsimmunity/article31852643/?reqid=f73744f5-c374-47e6-a54d-6185fcdf7cfb

[snyprrr]

Trump Sandwich

Should the US Go to War With Russia for Bringing On Clinton Health Crisis?

[snyprrr]

Amanpour: Can't A Girl Get A Break?

[snyprrr]

Look, if I heard Trump say or do something stupid, I'd be right on it.



"My only problem with Trump is... the jews!"

[kishnevi]

Ah, then you will miss my respectful suggestion that there are a hundred G.O.P. lawyers who would be happy to pursue an indictment, whether recommended by the FBI or no.

Why don't they?  (He asks, even as he expects the quasi-conspiracy-theorist obstinacy to consider that one's own idea may be wrong.)

Not working for the Obama DoJ is where they are.
Only Federal prosecutors could bring criminal charges for a federal crime. And none of them happen to be GOP lawyers.

Karl, you are not usually this disingenuous.

[zamyrabyrd]

Well, I'll repeat what I replied to zb:  if there are charges and evidence, let a case be brought.
And if she is taken to court, I'll vote for . . . Gary Johnson.

Gary Johnson did not ask "Where is Aleppo" but "What is it?"
Other responders have given reasons how a person can evade investigation and prosecution.
I happen to subscribe to the "invisible hand" notion of capitalism which means that it is not an intrinsically moral system, still the checks and balances force it into some kind of accountability.
Over the years, I have been witness and also victim to ecclesiastical abuses of systems fueled by donations. Like absolute power, it is an unfailing recipe for absolute corruption.
Business deals involving real estate and casinos may be corrupt but the degree of accountability they are subject to still puts them in a different class. 
Among the multiplicity of subjects to choose from, the Clinton Foundation probably encapsulates the abuses of power and privilege that only those well versed in the letter of the law can skillfully evade.
There is simply too much damning information out there (much more than this forum can cope with) but the trickery and ill-treatment of actual victims in Haiti should disabuse anyone who takes cheap talk about protecting the weak and helpless seriously:

In January 2015 a group of Haitians surrounded the New York offices of the Clinton Foundation. They chanted slogans, accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of having robbed them of "billions of dollars." Two months later, the Haitians were at it again, accusing the Clintons of duplicity, malfeasance, and theft. And in May 2015, they were back, this time outside New York's Cipriani, where Bill Clinton received an award and collected a $500,000 check for his foundation. "Clinton, where's the money?" the Haitian signs read. "In whose pockets?" Said Dhoud Andre of the Commission Against Dictatorship, "We are telling the world of the crimes that Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for in Haiti."

Haitians like Andre may sound a bit strident, but he and the protesters had good reason to be disgruntled. They had suffered a heavy blow from Mother Nature, and now it appeared that they were being battered again — this time by the Clintons. Their story goes back to 2010, when a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated the island, killing more than 200,000 people, leveling 100,000 homes, and leaving 1.5 million people destitute. The devastating effect of the earthquake on a very poor nation provoked worldwide concern and inspired an outpouring of aid money intended to rebuild Haiti.

Countries around the world, as well as private and philanthropic groups such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, provided some $10.5 billion in aid, with $3.9 billion of it coming from the United States. Haitians such as Andre, however, noticed that very little of this aid money actually got to poor people in Haiti. Some projects championed by the Clintons, such as the building of industrial parks and posh hotels, cost a great deal of money and offered scarce benefits to the truly needy.
Port-au-Prince was supposed to be rebuilt; it was never rebuilt. Projects aimed at creating jobs proved to be bitter disappointments. Haitian unemployment remained high, largely undented by the funds that were supposed to pour into the country. Famine and illness continued to devastate the island nation. The Haitians were initially sympathetic to the Clintons. One may say they believed in the message of "hope and change." With his customary overstatement, Bill told the media, "Wouldn't it be great if they become the first wireless nation in the world? They could, I'm telling you, they really could."

I don't blame the Haitians for falling for it; Bill is one of the world's greatest story-tellers. He has fooled people far more sophisticated than the poor Haitians. Over time, however, the Haitians wised up. Whatever their initial expectations, many saw that much of the aid money seems never to have reached its destination; rather, it disappeared along the way. Where did it go? It did not escape the attention of the Haitians that Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. Following the earthquake, Bill Clinton had with media fanfare established the Haiti Reconstruction Fund. Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was the United States secretary of state. She was in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world. Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons. The Haitian protesters noticed an interesting pattern involving the Clintons and the designation of how aid funds were used. They observed that a number of companies that received contracts in Haiti happened to be entities that made large donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Haitian contracts appeared less tailored to the needs of Haiti than to the needs of the companies that were performing the services. In sum, Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons.

For example, the Clinton Foundation selected Clayton Homes, a construction company owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, to build temporary shelters in Haiti. Buffett is an active member of the Clinton Global Initiative who has donated generously to the Clintons as well as the Clinton Foundation. The contract was supposed to be given through the normal United Nations bidding process, with the deal going to the lowest bidder who met the project's standards. UN officials said, however, that the contract was never competitively bid for. Clayton offered to build "hurricane-proof trailers" but what they actually delivered turned out to be a disaster. The trailers were structurally unsafe, with high levels of formaldehyde and insulation coming out of the walls. There were problems with mold and fumes. The stifling heat inside made Haitians sick and many of them abandoned the trailers because they were ill-constructed and unusable.

The Clintons also funneled $10 million in federal loans to a firm called InnoVida, headed by Clinton donor Claudio Osorio. Osorio had loaded its board with Clinton cronies, including longtime Clinton ally General Wesley Clark; Hillary's 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz; and Democratic fundraiser Chris Korge who has helped raise millions for the Clintons. Normally the loan approval process takes months or even years. But in this case, a government official wrote, "Former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to organize its logistical and support needs. And as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437883/hillarys-america-secret-history-democratic-party-dinesh-dsouza-clinton-foundation

[North Star]

Well, if Dinesh D'Souza says so, it must be true..

[zamyrabyrd]

Well, if Dinesh D'Souza says so, it must be true..

The facts can be checked.

[Herman]

I am voting for Trump not because I support much of what he says,

You have to be an moral or intellectual athlete to support all those conflicting and mutually exclusive positions Trump has been spouting, congratulations!

[Herman]

I can answer that. HRC is endorsed by Planned Parenthood. As a Christian, I cannot accept that.
But not only that, she claims to be for women, yet she harassed Billy Boy's victims.

Surely you're aware that Trump used to support Planned Parenthood before he realised being anti would improve his chances, having switched from the Democrats to the GOP?

Yes, it was very bad that HRC supported her husband thru bad times and thus said bad things about some women.

However, have you ever paid close attention to the way Trump talks about women, and how they have to walk a very thin and straight Barbie line, and otherwise his hatred and disgust comes out in pure unadulterated form? "DISGUSTING!" over and over again. I would venture to say that this is one of the few genuine things about Trump, the instant, visceral hateful response to women as living human beings made from flesh, blood and their own agency. Bimbo or Barbie are the only options. Arm candy.

[Karl Henning]

Not working for the Obama DoJ is where they are.
Only Federal prosecutors could bring criminal charges for a federal crime. And none of them happen to be GOP lawyers.

Karl, you are not usually this disingenuous.

Your criticism is fair, and I thank you; though I will claim to be insufficiently knowledgeable rather than utterly disingenuous.  And really, I have posed the questions to understand why;  so again, I thank you.

[zamyrabyrd]

Surely you're aware that Trump used to support Planned Parenthood before he realised being anti would improve his chances, having switched from the Democrats to the GOP?
Yes, it was very bad that HRC supported her husband thru bad times and thus said bad things about some women. However, have you ever paid close attention to the way Trump talks about women, and how they have to walk a very thin and straight Barbie line, and otherwise his hatred and disgust comes out in pure unadulterated form? "DISGUSTING!" over and over again. I would venture to say that this is one of the few genuine things about Trump, the instant, visceral hateful response to women as living human beings made from flesh, blood and their own agency. Bimbo or Barbie are the only options. Arm candy.

Ignorance may be the reason the moniker "Planned Parenthood" is taken at face value. Their foundress, Margaret Sanger was a unashamed racist. Her "planning" was to reduce the birth rates of Black people. As the abortion rate seems to be high in that community, she is succeeding. I didn't know about how DISGUSTING they were until i took it upon myself to become more informed. Most people for whatever reason don't have that luxury.

After spending a lot of time reading about the Bushes (some astute people warned me about them), I realized what what twisted webs they wove for about a century, starting from their (secret) "Skull and Bones Society" at Yale. So many of the political movers and shakers have links to it. The complicated network of political favors is revealed by just a small insight into the Clinton Foundation and one of their projects, such as Haiti.

It is rare for an outsider to get even a foot in the door if you are not a member of the club. I was reading an article about Teddy Roosevelt who allegedly challenged the system at the time and succeeded, the same might be said for Ronald Reagan. Whatever Trump's faults are and he may be contemptuous of women (but around his daughter, it doesn't seem that way) he is a political outsider, he doesn't need their money! As a businessman, he will not be as liberal and wasteful, since he knows its value. Politicians who are used to taxpayers footing the bills can go on spending sprees and expensive vacations, like Obama who racked up millions just for jolly trips for him and his family. The outsider status to me is a stroke of luck, a real advantage.

[Herman]

Whatever Trump's faults are and he may be contemptuous of women (but around his daughter, it doesn't seem that way)

that's true, he bragged on tv about Ivanka's boobs and said he would have liked to "date" her if she weren't his daughter.

he is a political outsider, he doesn't need their money! As a businessman, he will not be as liberal and wasteful, since he knows its value. Politicians who are used to taxpayers footing the bills can go on spending sprees and expensive vacations, like Obama who racked up millions just for jolly trips for him and his family. The outsider status to me is a stroke of luck, a real advantage.

you seem to have missed the many reports that Trump regards the elections as a for-profit venture. (Obviously at first he entered the primaries just to boast his various products, not expecting to make it to the general elections) The whole "I'm so rich I'm self funding; I don't need your money" talk is a window dressing. A scam (like everything he's ever done). The little money (relatively speaking) he's put into the campaign were loans. If you have made a donation to his campaign, you're paying back that loan. The plan is he comes out with a profit. It's not supposed to cost him a n y t h i n g. Trump organizes events in such a manner that a lot of the expenses are billed to his various companies. So basically he's lining his pockets.

Also, if it's about taxpayers footing bills, recently it was revealed Trump claimed $150.000 from the gvt for the damages Trump Tower supposedly suffered during the aftermath of 9/11, while there was no damage whatsoever. So the terrorist attacks of 2001 were another for-profit opportunity for Trump, besides being an ego boost  -  he talked about Trump Tower previously being the second tallest building in Manhattan; now he was nr 1.

You know of course that one reason he's not releasing his tax returns is because he's organized his businesses in such a manner that he's not paying taxes but claiming rebates for failing businesses. I don't know how you look at these matters but a (self-proclaimed) billionaire who's not paying any taxes is basically a freeloader. He doesn't want beliebers like you to know. That's why we're not ever going to see those tax returns.

[North Star]

Ignorance may be the reason the moniker "Planned Parenthood" is taken at face value. Their foundress, Margaret Sanger was a unashamed racist. Her "planning" was to reduce the birth rates of Black people. As the abortion rate seems to be high in that community, she is succeeding. I didn't know about how DISGUSTING they were until i took it upon myself to become more informed. Most people for whatever reason don't have that luxury.

Yeah, how dare she try to improve the lives of poor black people. It's as if she actually thought that reproduction control could somehow help women - black women, at that! Ridiculous.

[Margaret Sanger] worked with eminent African American leaders and professionals who saw a need for birth control in their communities. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a black social worker and leader of New York's Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem.[83] Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with black doctors, in 1930. The clinic was directed by a 15-member advisory board consisting of black doctors, nurses, clergy, journalists, and social workers. The clinic was publicized in the African-American press and in black churches, and it received the approval of W. E. B. Du Bois, civil rights legend and author of The Souls Of Black Folk, co-founder of the NAACP and editor of its magazine, Crisis, whom Martin Luther King Jr. would eulogize as "unsurpassed as an intellect."[84][85][86][87] Sanger did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects.[88] Sanger's work with minorities earned praise from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1966 acceptance speech for the Margaret Sanger award.[89]

From 1939 to 1942 Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory role—alongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble—in the Negro Project, an effort to deliver birth control to poor black people.[90] Sanger wanted the Negro Project to include black ministers in leadership roles, but other supervisors did not. To emphasize the benefits of involving black community leaders, she wrote to Gamble, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea, if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." While New York University's Margaret Sanger Papers Project, argues that in writing that letter, "Sanger recognized that elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow South;"[91] Angela Davis erroneously used the quote to support claims that Sanger intended to exterminate the black population.[92]

[zamyrabyrd]

Yeah, how dare she try to improve the lives of poor black people. It's as if she actually thought that reproduction control could somehow help women - black women, at that! Ridiculous.

There's an implication in what you say that I'm not even going to address. It is as though other races "control" themselves better, so don't need help. Nevertheless, PP is the modern equivalent of Moloch and filthy rich, too.