For those who haven't been paying attention: 1) Florida residents complain to the state of Florida about being bilked by Trump University 2) Florida AG's office announces investigation 3) Florida's AG, Pam Bondi, solicits a $25,000 campaign contribution from Donald Trump 4) Trump provides $25,000 campaign contribution via the Trump Foundation 5) Bondi announces that Florida will not pursue the Trump U. case 6) Trump Foundation reports the $25,000 to the IRS as a donation to a Kansas charity Of course, maybe all this is just coincidence? barfo
But e_blazer, how much have you heard about this? The AP headline that half the people with whom Hillary Clinton met as secretary of state were donors went viral. It is totally believed as fact. But it's not. AP admitted deep in the story they eliminated 90% of the people with whom Clinton met. Any scientist who threw out 90% of the data would be fired. Yet the supposed corruption of the Clinton Foundation is now "fact". Hillary Clinton released a medical report showing nothing beyond the creaks anyone gets at a certain age. Trump released a cheerleader. But now Clinton's health is in question due to a store literally invented out of thin air. Trump has been sued over and over for fraud. He imported undocumented, Polish workers to do construction, paid below minimum wage, did not provide safety equipment, imported models who were undocumented, did not pay them, stiffed contractors, some of whom went out of business as a result, ran a scam university, yet he is the truth teller. I'm not the only one to see shades of 2000. Bush, the product of three generations of wealth and privilege, was a "regular guy". Gore, from a modest background, was "phony snob". Gore would say something essentially correct but get a detail wrong and he was "deceptive". Bush would say something flat out provably wrong and he'd get a pass. It became "fact" that Gore claimed to have invented the internet although he never said that. You'd think Trump was running for President unopposed; news stations have become Trump TV, everything he does is front page. Clinton has held campaign events, given policy speeches, issued detailed policy statements, given interviews, but her only headlines are emails and the supposedly "corrupt" Clinton foundation, which provides nearly 100% of the anti-retrovirals to people with AIDS in Africa. Sure, shut it down! Let them die!
First, I only said that Hillary sucks as a candidate. While there's a hell of a lot of smoke relating to the Clinton Foundation, it's going to be years, at best, before anyone can begin to untangle the web of financial moves associated with what did or did not go on there and any personal gain the Clintons may have had from it. My main problem with Hillary is the documented history of lies and deceitfulness surrounding her. Second, this story about Trump is recent and the facts aren't out yet. I have no idea if it's true, but wouldn't be at all surprised if it is. Regardless, I can't stand Trump for multiple reasons and the man belongs nowhere near the White House.
The AP approach seems reasonable to me, crandc. The purpose of the analysis was to determine if there was a connection between donations to the Clinton Foundation and obtaining access to the Secretary of State. If there was, it certainly would violate the spirit and the letter of her agreement with the Obama Administration to keep separation between the charity and her office. Eliminating the normal day-to-day business appointments and focussing on the discretionary appointments on her schedule, is absolutely reasonable. She only had so many openings to meet with people not involved in the normal operations of her office. The AP report said that about half of those openings went to people who just so happened to have made a donation to the Clinton Foundation. I don't think there's enough there yet to document corruption, but it certainly is highly suspicious. As I said in my response to jlprk, it's Hillary's history of duplicity that disqualifies her from earning my vote. I'm not going to rehash all of the lengthy Clinton history. Just the email mess is enough to disqualify her, IMHO. Setting up a private email server in her home, at considerable expense and difficulty, can only, in my view, be explained by wanting to have direct control over what information was available to the public and other entities under FOIA requests. We now know as fact that she deleted over half of the contents of that server without any supervision except for her own attorneys, saying that they were simply personal emails relating to things like yoga and wedding-planning. We know that the server's contents were attempted to be destroyed with professional software before turning it over to the FBI. We know she had her staff take hammers to Blackberries to try to destroy their contents. We know that she offered up ever-changing stories about what classified information may have been inappropriately transmitted, stored, and made available to people without clearance. We know from the FBI investigations that all of her stories about classified documents were proven to have been untruthful. We know that thousands of the deleted emails that the FBI was able to recover from the server were, in fact, business-related. Some were classified documents. Some were related to Benghazi. I can understand people saying that they're voting for Hillary as the lesser of two evils and/or that they're voting for her because of policy positions. Fine, but I think there should at least be acknowledgement that this candidate has a demonstrated propensity to mislead the American people by telling lies and hiding information from view. Personally, I'm voting for Johnson as the least gag-inducing candidate remaining. I live in Oregon, one of the bluest of the blue states, so it really doesn't matter what I do with my vote. Barring some October surprise that's far more damaging than anything we've seen yet, Hillary will get all of the electoral votes from this state. She'll likely win the election and things will continue along pretty much the way they have for the past 7.5 years. Well, except for the probability that the emails/Clinton Foundation mess will continue to haunt her and may lead to an attempt to impeach her. I just think that it's horribly sad that, with all of the wonderful, talented, and highly-qualified women available in this country, it's likely to be someone as flawed as Hillary to be the first woman president.
Judicial Watch has, and they have presented the evidence in court. No University involved, just a bogus charity operating as a money-launderer for the Clinton Pay for Influence/Pay for State Secrets Cartel. I don't give a shit about some idiot who wanted Trump to "make me smart". I am more concerned about our next President owing $50,000,000 in favors to Arab states who sponsor anti-US terrorism on a massive scale. I am more concerned that the DNC staffer who leaked to Wikileaks was murdered for it, along with Assange's lawyer.
How about corruption due to owing a real $25 million cash legal debt, instead of possibly owing psychological gratitude for $50 million in contributions to a charity. http://gawker.com/under-governor-chris-christie-new-jersey-forgave-25-m-1785392641 Gawker was put out of business 2 weeks ago by a political billionaire, Peter Thiel. It has dozens of investigative articles just like that one. Read all you can while they're still online. I agree with you. The State Dept. is at war with Assange and Snowden.
If the foundation bought a 747 and flew the Clintons around the world, not at their expense, it's real money.
This is what real corruption looks like: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/hillary-clinton-emails-state-foundation-226897 Ethicists: Clinton team violated ‘spirit’ of pledge Emails suggest aides were catering to Clinton foundation donors. “For the duration of my appointment as Secretary if I am confirmed, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which The William J. Clinton Foundation (or the Clinton Global Initiative) is a party or represents a party, unless I am first authorized to participate,” Clinton wrote in a Jan. 5, 2009, letter to State Department Designated Agency Ethics Official James H. Thessin. She was the only one to sign that letter, but a December 2008 “memo of understanding” outlining ethics protocols for the foundation was signed by Clinton Foundation CEO Bruce Lindsey and Valerie Jarrett, a key adviser to President Barack Obama. Clinton lawyer David Kendall signed a separate Jan. 5, 2009, letter outlining “voluntary steps ... President Clinton intends to take to assist Senator Clinton to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with her duties as Secretary of State.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/...s-is-Clear-Quid-Pro-Quo-Donations-for-Weapons In the 2010 Human Rights Report, Clinton’s State Department inveighed against Algeria’s government for imposing “restrictions on freedom of assembly and association” tolerating “arbitrary killing,” “widespread corruption,” and a “lack of judicial independence.” The report said the Algerian government “used security grounds to constrain freedom of expression and movement.” That year, the Algerian government donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation and its lobbyists met with the State Department officials who oversee enforcement of human rights policies. Clinton’s State Department the next year approved a one-year 70 percent increase in military export authorizations to the country. The increase included authorizations of almost 50,000 items classified as “toxicological agents, including chemical agents, biological agents and associated equipment” after the State Department did not authorize the export of any of such items to Algeria in the prior year. During Clinton’s tenure, the State Department authorized at least $2.4 billion of direct military hardware and services sales to Algeria -- nearly triple such authorizations over the last full fiscal years during the Bush administration. The Clinton Foundation did not disclose Algeria’s donation until this year -- a violation of the ethics agreement it entered into with the Obama administration.
Lets vote for Gary Johnson (Libertarian) In the least, he governed a State rather than generating career fails from the likes of T and C .
I won't vote for Gary Johnson. I don't agree with him. Meanwhile, on topic... The top consumer affairs enforcement person (sorry, can't remember exact title) in Texas also was planning to bring charges against Trump University. He was overruled. He said it was the first time that ever happened. The Attorney General told him not to even discuss it. Trump had given a large donation to Texas Governor Greg Abbott's campaign. (Side note, this same Attorney General is the one who sought out a school district to challenge transgender access, picked the one in a county with the most antigay judge to be the test case. Fraud doesn't merit legal action, transgender kids peeing does.) Yesterday Trump said the "University" would be re-started in Texas because "we won'". Pam Bondi, the Florida Attorney General who dropped the suit against Trump University after the illegal campaign contributions, said she had only one complaint against the fake university. Journalists who investigated found 8000 pages of documentation from people who lost their homes and life savings. But the Wall Street Journal has found an OUTRAGE, AN OUTRAGE I TELL YOU scandal about Hillary Clinton. Seems she, while Secretary of State, attended a social function where the guests included donors to the Clinton Global Initiative. OUTRAGE I TELL YOU. SCANDAL!! The social function was a birthday party for Bill Clinton. Only Hillary Clinton could be accused of something nefarious for attending her spouse's birthday party. The source of the OUTRAGE was David Bossie of Citizens United, now a top Trump campaign official. It was Bossie who, just before Bill Clinton was nominated in 1992, broke a story about a young pregnant woman who committed suicide after Bill Clinton impregnated and abandoned her. Bossie sorted through the family's garbage, peeked in their windows, pounded on the door demanding they show him the woman's suicide note. When the woman's father had a stroke, Bossie broke into the hospital room demanding they answer questions about their daughter's suicide. President George H.W. Bush called him the lowest form of life. The story was a fake. The woman had indeed killed herself but had never met Bill Clinton and had no connection to him; Bossie made it up out of thin air. He declared his mission in life was to take down Bill and especially Hillary Clinton. He was hired as an investigator by Congressman Dan Burton who, among other things, spent tens of thousands of dollars to investigate the Clintons' holiday card list. Bossie was fired after Dan Rather exposed him on national TV falsifying data to make it appear Hillary Clinton was guilty of something when the investigation showed the opposite. After promoting the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Congressman Burton was later revealed to have a kept mistress and second family; he left Congress. Bossie was hired as investigator several times and fired for falisfication. He showed Bush to be correct as no consideration of decency or fact would restrain him. He was hired by the Trump campaign to be the hit man against Hillary Clinton. THAT is the source for the Wall Street Journal OUTRAGE that Hillary (gasp!) attended her husband's birthday party. Some of us would really like a campaign about issues.
Heh! I will vote for Trump. I can easily imagine some did not get rich by attending Trump U. He hasn't let any of our people die by deigning then assistance requested or shrugging when the attack was a fact. That is a hell of a big one for me. Voting for a President because he supports your weed is ridiculous. Leave that to the States, I don't even want to hear what the President thinks on the issue.
