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notices and features - Date published:
5:58 am, November 1st, 2016 - 190 comments
Categories: us politics, you couldn't make this shit up -
Tags: donald trump, hillary clinton, us politics
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Info on whether Comey’s letter may have broken the law.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/what-is-the-hatch-act/index.html
Will he be tried under the law, or Republican truthiprudence?
If the article is correct, the FBI Director serves at the pleasure of the President. So what might happen is the Big O might just give him the heave-ho. After the election, of course, so there’s less argument that it was improper.
That isn’t how Republican truthiprudence works. First, guilt is declared, then wild unsupported accusations are made, then there’s an investigation which finds no substantive evidence, then you start from the beginning again.
Well, yeah. But the real world still occasionally intrudes.
Only by sheer coincidence.
Uncomfortable reality: President Obama and the White House appears to be maintaining their confidence in Director Comey
Via White House Press Sec Josh Earnest.
– White House will neither defend or criticise Director Comey’s decision.
– The President has not changed his assessment of Director Comey’s character.
– The President does not believe that Director Comey is intentionally trying to influence the election nor that he is strategising to benefit one candidate over another.
– Director Comey is in a tough spot and is the one who will be able to defend his own actions.
Guilty! Obama, like Comey, is in on the conspiracy to delete emails. And he ate all the thermite.
If you have a relevant point to make on what press sec Josh Earnest had to say, please do go ahead.
To me, the White House press secretary’s response suggests that Director Comey may have now briefed the White House (and/or President Obama) on what the FBI knows so far, and why Congress needed to know.
Behind the reasonable facade you’re affecting this morning, you know that Democrats and their fellow travellers like Paul Ryan are all guilty.
Lock them up.
Getting back to the point: President Obama’s position that Director Comey is not intentionally trying to throw the election means that Democrat talk about the Hatch Act is just panicked campaign bluster – at this stage.
You don’t have a point, trumpet. Your opinion is total shite.
[Drop the abuse]- Bill
I’ll simplify: no intention to throw an election or advantage a specific candidate, no applicability of the Hatch Act.
That’s right, slow clap, which is why Obama’s measured response contrasts so sharply with the deranged drivel people like say, you, spout every single day.
Hence “truthiprudence’.
You’ve been hard out on irrelevancies and rude (base) Trumpist vanities for months now CV. In fact you are the primary reason I’ve seriously considered not clicking on to TS very much at all in the future, you with your rubbishy “Look at Me Look at Me” crap. I said a while ago that you’re damaging TS. I repeat that. You’re not actually royalty around here CV. Well……..if you are it’s “sans vetements”.
Andre started this thread by linking to an article referencing the US Hatch Act.
Unlike your reply, my replies were directly relevant to the application of the Hatch Act.
It’s therefore ironic that you try and make out that my responses are “hard out on irrelevancies.”
Do what makes you happy, is what I say, and I’d love you to be happy.
Wow ! To think it all started with a spat with the New Zealand Labour Party. In the last days Trump will use that ! Purple Heart for CV !
Why are you even still here?
FBI have made a good bind for President Obama:
– Not constitutionally appropriate for the President to interfere with an investigation.
– Far too late in the election cycle to criticise or fire a senior official.
– Saying anything at all will be seen to favour one candidate or another.
– Saying anything at all will be seen as a cover-up by either winner. It’s the cover-up that kills you.
– Silence is the only option for the President.
I’m interested more in the Podesta emails. They show actual politics in action. Hopefully it adds fuel to reforming Citizens United.
I’m also interested in whether President Clinton will have any hand in prosecuting Trump after the election for tax evasion. Mercy me!
Least it puts to bed any further dump comments about conspiracies against Trump. System works. System works for both sides.
And she will of course still crush him like a bug, and have control of the Senate.
All good as I see it.
One more complication – after Loretta Lynch’s clandestine meeting on the tarmac with Bill Clinton became public, Lynch recused herself from involvement in the private server investigation. FBI director Comey has a much freer hand because of that.
We will talk about this later next Wed night!
Obama appointed Director Comey for a 10 year term of service.
A; “10 year term of service”, provided Comey is not found guilty of abusing his position:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/opinion/on-clinton-emails-did-the-fbi-director-abuse-his-power.html?_r=2
The president can dismiss the director at any time.
The 10 years was seen as a maximum term ( remembering Hoover !) although Comeys predecessor got a short extension to his 10 years.
The real cincher for US politicians is the 93 Federal prosecutors who are certainly more political. They have far more powers than the FBI in their area.
And why did it take so long for the FBI to get an email search warrant ?
“Did the warrant for Weiner’s laptop “particularly describe” emails sent to or received by Abedin while working at the State Department as material that could be seized as evidence of the alleged sexting crime? That seems highly unlikely.
[I understand the emails were a backup of Abdedin email program that she was unaware of]
In getting “new” Clinton emails, did the FBI violate the Constitution?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/10/in_getting_new_clinton_emails_did_the_fbi_violate_the_constitution.html
These are managerial/political people. They would make exactly these same noises if they were the literal truth or if they were flat-out preparing the guillotine behind the scenes.
Uncomfortable reality: you have lost the plot.
This isn’t maintaining confidence, it’s damning with faint praise (even “praise” is a bit strong. This is a “don’t ask me, ask Comey” strategy to avoid getting drawn into the same mess that Comey built for himself.
If they supported his decision, they’d be defending it. Instead, the White House is leaving him to fend for himself to avoid accusations that they are attempting to influence the outcome of the election.
I agree that suggestions of prosecution under the Hatch Act are probably overplayed – mostly because Comey’s actions are more likely incompetence than corruption. Though a player as political as Comey should have known what Chaffetz would do when presented with a vaguely worded letter that mentioned Hillary’s emails: Lie.
CV, what’s the date? Is it before November 8th, or after November 8th?
If it’s before November 8th, then you shouldn’t really believe any statement made by the President on this sensitive issue.
The FBI man was placed into a hard spot.
Fail to investigate further, and deepen the scope for criticism of his organisation.
Investigate but don’t say so – post election reason for Trump to call the election result invalid, and the FBI biased. It would probably leak out anyway.
Investigate and tell people – be accused to trying to influence the election with speculation rather than concluded facts.
Seems a no-win. I don’t envy him. I think he should have investigated and not told people until he had some facts to tell them about, but I don’t think any answer was clearly right.
Yeah, it was a tough spot. But a lot of the analysis seems to conclude that by putting out something extremely vague that could be spun as worse than Watergate, Comey found a particularly crap spot in between saying nothing and much more detail with less opportunity for spin.
Maybe Loretta Lynch could have another tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton to clear up the matter of due process.
Was there ever such a fucked up election anywhere like the one being held in the USA?
I mean, if I were an American voter, I’d be tearing my hair out, and I haven’t got much to spare!
On the one hand, a political novice with no history (of a political type) and all sorts of unspeakable baggage whose behaviour if in power is, at best, pretty unpredictable and frightening.
On the other, an establishment candidate with too much history and too many connections! And whose behaviour if in power is all too predictable!
And a two party system which doesn’t allow any third parties to get in front of a camera.
Oh, that American ‘democracy’ has sunk so low! Jill Stein for president!
…an establishment candidate with too much history and too many connections…
That’s probably one of the few true statements you will ever read about HRC. If you can find it amongst the parroting of deranged drivel.
if I were an American voter, I’d be tearing my hair out
Yes, me too probably, but only because of the grinding predictability of the repugs dirty tricks department.
Jill Stein for president!
Think Ralph Nader in 2000 – received 97,000 votes in Florida, and handed the election to ‘W’
“Jill Stein for President!”
If you cast a protest vote and nobody pays the slightest attention, is it still a protest?
If you cast a vote and the other candidate wins, was it worth casting a vote?
Point being, it’s not individual votes that make the protest, it’s a big enough number of them. People who live in states where their Stein vote won’t affect the outcome of the election could vote Stein in large enough numbers to make a difference. I think also that if she gets above a certain % she gets more electoral funding next time?
You get federal election funding for the next cycle if your nationwide popular vote goes above 5%. The most recent examples of that are Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.
In the context of the US presidential election, nobody is going to pay attention to a national candidate that gets 2%, except maybe intense hostility from near-allies if that 2% is perceived to be a spoiler (eg Nader).
But there are pockets along the West Coast and in the Northeast where a Green candidate might have a credible shot at winning a seat in the House, possibly then leading to a Senate seat a few election cycles later. IMO that’s the route to getting a greater Green influence in the US. As well as working from within the Democratic Party as Sanders and Warren have shown.
Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station reckons this has nothing on 1968, when segregationist George Wallace was running.
In 1968, half of America was on fire. North Korea had seized the US Navy electronic spy ship USS Pueblo and was holding her crew as prisoners of war and there wasn’t a damned thing America could do about it. USS Scorpion went to the bottom taking 99 American Sailors with it and no one knew why. That was also the year the Pentagon announced it was sending more than 24,000 mostly conscripted troops back to Vietnam for an involuntary second tour and a hell of a lot of young Americans decided they’d rather live in Canada.
[…]
That was the year Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Race riots immediately followed. Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, and Washington D.C. burned outright, but no American city was left untouched. In Oakland, Black Panthers shot it out with police in a bloody firefight reminiscent of Vietnam. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the Panthers to be “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and directed the Bureau to begin “neutralization” of Black Power organizations.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2016/09/greatness-again.html
Perhaps, as Jack Tame suggested in the TV1 news report, Comey is just covering his arse. It would not have looked good if something like this had surfaced after the election; he is already under suspicion for his failure to prosecute earlier. Let’s face it,, Mrs Clinton brought all this on herself by deleting the subpoenaed emails in the first place.
… and yet, the FBI had the information several weeks earlier and held onto it until just before voting: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/us-election-2016/85897392/FBI-agents-waited-weeks-to-tell-director-James-Comey-about-new-Clinton-emails
As Director, it was Comey’s business to know this, given its significance as a vote influencer.
The FBI is a bureaucracy. And if reports of severe rank and file FBI dissatisfaction are true, the separate hands-on investigation teams (Weiner team and Private Server team) would have covered all their bases before presenting Comey with a decisive investigative scenario that Comey could not ignore or keep private.
The timing of the announcement would stink to whichever side it came out against.
But the timing within the election of FBI investigations being released should be irrelevant. Justice should be greater than democratic processes, particularly when you are going for the Number 1 constitutional job. And no matter how embarrassing.
But she will still crush Trump like a bug , and rule the Senate majority with her VP. 😉
But she will still crush Trump like a bug
Here’s hoping. But 200 women have tried for that position over the years, and none have yet been accepted.
And as others have said – women will be the truly decisive voting block in this election.
Nasty women, too 🙂
As well as “Latinas for Trump” – looking at the rally signs 😛
About those signs…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-twitter-lost-its-mind-over-these-hispanic-para-trump-signs_us_57927945e4b0d3568f833aab
Always the signs…
http://addictinginfo.org/2016/10/15/this-woman-and-her-sign-show-us-everything-you-need-to-know-about-trumps-black-support-image/
the signs at wwe events are pretty good, too…
The polls say latinas are for Hillary.
It was nonetheless a breach of protocol, as noted by Eric Holder and ‘100 other former Justice officials’: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/eric-holder-and-100-other-former-justice-officials-sign-letter-blasting-comeys-breach-of-protocol/
“Justice Department officials are instructed to refrain from commenting publicly on the existence, let alone the substance, of pending investigative matters, except in exceptional circumstances and with explicit approval from the Department of Justice officials responsible for ultimate supervision of the matter,” the letter said.
It continued, “They are also instructed to exercise heightened restraint near the time of a primary or general election because, as official guidance from the Department instructs, public comment on a pending investigative matter may affect the electoral process and create the appearance of political interference in the fair administration of justice.”
I thought he already politically interfered in the fair administration of justice when he conspired with the Clintons to grant amnesties to everyone in the giant conspiracy to delete emails.
It must be difficult to keep track of what you’re being accused of from minute to minute.
First the verdict, then the trial.
Or then again perhaps the FBI believes that
Do you believe that the four other people involved – the ones who actually identified and deleted the emails that is – are part of a conspiracy? Was Comey in on it? Is he in on it now?
This is an illuminating glimpse into the bunker, but it is quite long:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/trump-campaign-final-days.html?mid=twitter_nymag
Are you sure that is not the exact same mood currently in the Clinton campaign camp? “Despair and denial” sounds right.
Also the main message of your excerpt also applies directly to the Clinton camp:
This is evidenced by all the wikileaks emails with her own top advisors saying that Hillary has bad instincts, that Hillary and her top lieutenants have made awful calls around the private server trying to get away with it instead of coming out with it way earlier, etc.
(As previously I am still predicting an easy Trump win with around 290 electoral votes).
Of all the things to criticize Clinton for, not taking the; “advice offered to [her] by advisers”, has the least foundation in truth. Not that I expect you to care about that, but others here reading likely do. One of the main flaws of Clinton’s campaign is just how calculated it has been.
I am predicting that you will keep spouting rightwing lines after Clinton wins both the popular vote and electoral college.
“I am predicting that you will keep spouting rightwing lines after Clinton wins both the popular vote and electoral college.”
Yep – he’ll parrot the “rigged election” line.
Funny, this week it’s the Clinton campaign saying the elections rigged. lol
In what way are the Democrats claiming that the election is rigged?
You don’t provide a link, so I guess you mean the condemnation of Comey’s actions. Though last time I checked, Richard Painter who; “filed a complaint against the F.B.I. with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, and with the Office of Government Ethics”, was a Republican.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/opinion/on-clinton-emails-did-the-fbi-director-abuse-his-power.html?_r=2
Of course there are the persistent claims of voter intimidation (for which the Republican party is still under a court judgement from past elections), but that is not exactly the same as election rigging. Voter disenfranchising does seem to be a tactic used by the Republicans (who control three quarters of the state governments that control the voting there):
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/31/federal-lawsuits-filed-in-5-states-after-african-american-voters-purged-from-registration-rolls-targeted-for-intimidation-by-the-trump-campaign/
The difference is; even when an election is manifestly unjust (vide Gore’s loss in 2000), the Democratic party are committed to maintaining the rule of law by the peaceful transfer of power. The same can not be said of the Republicans, and particularly not of Trump.
Those criticizing Trump for the “rigged election” line are being a little disingenuous, surely.
Obama talking about both Democrats and Republicans having rigged elections and committing vote fraud in the past; the need for audits and paper trails.
We’ve forwarded this video to 6079 Smith – it’s off to the memory hole with this one!
OK, the Clinton campaign team has been “calculated” as you say – but it has been badly calculated. And even internal staffers know it. Especially on this private server issue which threatens to sink the Clinton campaign:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/25/politics/neera-tanden-john-podesta-clinton-email-server-wikileaks/
Kia Ora Trump Troll, Kia Ora. How the fuck would you know about 290 electoral college votes ? Trump blowhard you.
John Oliver’s commentary is always golden
Sweet sweet relief indeed.
Heh. Yet more proof Repugs are slow learners.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-not-paying-pollster-tony-fabrizio
38 Things the election will decide, that have nothing to do with Trump or Clinton:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/election-2016-ballot-initiatives-downticket-votes-measures-214400
For example, Medical marijuana will probably be legal in a majority of states—and the number of states with legalized recreational pot could double
The number of black Republicans in the U.S. House could drop from two to zero and Maine introduces ranked choice voting.
Please note that Trump considers medical marijuana a good idea, and believes that decriminalisation of marijuana is an issue of states rights.
Please note that what Trump says from day to day, or even hour to hour at times, can radically change relative to his perceived audience.
Certainly agree – but even Hillary Clinton has her “private” positions and her “public” positions on issues.
+1
Sticking to agreed policy despite personal misgivings is called “being a team player”. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Squawk!
I doubt he even knows what he’s saying.
Does he ? Trump says so many things that contradict what he said earlier- which you seem to find charming- but this group doesnt think its so easy.
https://www.theweedblog.com/does-donald-trump-support-marijuana-legalization/
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) recently released their grade for every presidential candidate. Here’s what they had to say:
Trump Grade: C+ [Clinton is B+ …hehehe bet you didnt expect that!]
‘States rights’ is easy to say, but in practice the federal government doesnt really want to look the other way as they have DEA agents throught those states
DEA Must Stop Interfering With Legal Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, Federal Court Rules
http://time.com/4080110/dea-medical-marijuana-california-ruling/
I think its likely the DEA will move up the chain from ‘dope pharmacies’ to the growers and their bank accounts.
In practice Trump would be a standard Republican President and largely continue the ‘War on Drugs’ viz the line O’Reilly takes
“O’Reilly continued to ask what Trump would do about it, and Trump responded: “I would really want to think about that one, Bill. Because in some ways I think it’s good and in other ways it’s bad. I do want to see what the medical effects are. I have to see what the medical effects are and, by the way — medical marijuana, medical? I’m in favor of it a hundred percent. But what you are talking about, perhaps not. It’s causing a lot of problems out there.
O’Reilly then called medical marijuana a “ruse,” to which Trump responded: “But I know people that have serious problems and they did that they really — it really does help them.”
Anyone ever noticed that the movie Gremlins 2 is full of references to Trump and weed?
Interesting and a little bit sad that HRC’s base has been overlooked.
Turns out they really like her and they want her to win.
‘Clinton has an overlooked but large base of devoted admirers. Her greatest strength is Democratic women 50 and older
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/10/30/a-hillary-clinton-secret-lots-of-voters-really-like-her.html
Why is this hypocrisy completely unsurprising:
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/george-w-bush-white-house-lost-22-million-emails-497373.html
Hypocrisy you say.
Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-emails-documents-515120.html
Let alone we still haven’t seen Trump’s tax returns and are very unlikely to before the election.
I agree. Any idea why President Obama has never in his 8 years instructed the Department of Justice and the FBI to follow up with investigations and prosecutions?
You’ll have to ask him
Edit:
“In plain terms, some 22 million e-mails had been deleted, though the White House described them as “lost” or “missing” — another apparent point of comparison between the Bush and Clinton e-mail scandals. However, at least some of the 22 million “lost” Bush administration e-mails (unlike Clinton’s 30,000) were eventually “found.”
To put it more accurately, a large number (it’s unclear exactly how many) of the messages were recovered from backup storage systems by technicians as a result of a deal struck between the federal government and two nonprofit groups that sued for release of the e-mails via the Freedom of Information Act. It may be impossible, ultimately, to restore all of the deleted e-mails due to funding limitations, and to date none of the recovered messages has been made public because they’re still under review, but the fact remains that not all of them were permanently lost.
As in Clinton’s case, the Bush administration e-mails were sought as evidence in government investigations. No no charges were filed and no criminal wrongdoing was found in regard to Clinton’s handling of e-mails. Bush aides were found in contempt of Congress for not complying with subpoenas in the U.S. attorney firings investigation, but no punishment was handed down.”
Because unlike you and trump, Obama recognises that politicians shouldn’t have a private police force at their beck and call,
More likely to keep Republican congressmen and senators on side, as well as not setting a precedent which might bite himself and his own staff in the arse after he himself leaves the White House.
As you yourself said, 8 years without turning the justice department into a purely political police force.
Trump couldn’t get through three debates without promising to thoroughly corrupt the legal system.
No more airport tarmac meetings, then?
Yeah, see?
You have innuendo and assumption about what might or might not have been discussed on a plane between friends, and the fact that Lynch followed the recommendations of her department regardless of what might have been discussed.
I have trump in a televised debate promising to put his political opponent in jail.
39 minute ‘chance’ private meeting between Bill Clinton, the spouse of an investigation target, and Loretta Lynch, the Democrat appointed Attorney General of the DoJ, on the airport tarmac.
Initially the meeting was apparently about golf, and about grandchildren.
So that was the first 5 minutes. What then?
The crowd roared in approval.
You have obviously never been stuck having some one going on to you about; golf, or grand children. She was lucky to get away after only 39 minutes!
Five minutes?
It was apparently a chat, not a race through bullet points.
Yes. They did that at nuremburg, as well.
I guess when you’re losing, Godwinning is the only winning you’ve got to cling to.
I guess when crowds “roar in approval” at their candidate promising politically-directed prosecutions against his opponent, all you can do is pretend that “Godwin’s Law” somehow indicates that your preferred candidate isn’t literally a fascist (or “ur-fascist”, as Eco termed it).
Or, for those of us living in reality, you appoint a special prosecutor to go after your opponent because they are too well connected for someone appointed by their own party to do the job properly.
I think it was Truman who said “the buck stops here”; in that moment, Trump was saying, “the [Clinton] bodycount stops here”.
That’s not reality. That’s your wet dream.
Allow me to re-formulate; speaking truth to power stops here.
as if you ever started
Interrogating the nature of the Clintons’ position in the plutocracy isn’t speaking truth to power? That’s one hell of a vast conspiracy.
Not when “interrogating the nature of the Clintons’ position in the plutocracy” consists of fantasies and conspiratorial pareidolia, or when “speaking truth to power” consists of plastering said fantasies all over afairly specialised and niche blogsite on the other side of the planet.
We might have a few NZ politicians, past and present, reading. That’s as close as your claimed truthiness gets to “power”.
This ‘fairly specialised niche blogsite’ is running daily threads on the campaign for public discussion. I don’t see how our geographical distance matters – American power goes where it pleases, and is relevant globally. Why else would you be posting in this thread if you didn’t believe that to be the case? What did you mean by referencing that?
Minimising the importance of criticism of the Clintons from the left and suggesting that you only get to speak truth to power if you’re in direct dialogue with politicians represents a complete denial of left wing methodology. It’s nothing less than top-down elitism to suggest that. You don’t think that ordinary people speaking among themselves has a role to play? Or just in circumstances you approve of?
As regards fantasy, well. The tarmac meeting wasn’t a fantasy. Articles from beige publications like the New Yorker pointing out the dodginess of their foundation isn’t fantasy. But pretending the Clintons are – or can ever be – an ally of the left is *epic* fantasy. That’s why you have to resort to clichés like fascism, conspiracy theories, and the on-trend liberal centrist pundit buzzword ‘truthiness’ to feel like you’re still in the game here.
Op ed in the Guardian describes how the wikileaks Podesta emails have revealed insights how the Clintons, and the elite DC clique, really rule things for each other.
Clearly the Guardian has now been infiltrated by anti-Clinton Putin agents.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it
That’s as may be. But I don’t think anyone in power is paying attention to thestandard.org.
Because while I’m under no illusions that the US elite will notice these threads, I occasionally learn things from these arguments, and it’s always fun pointing out when somebody is outright lying or making shit up as they go along.
Ordinary people speaking among themselves is ordinary people speaking among themselves, not speaking truth to power. Otherwise arguing with you could be described as “having a really nice dinner and conversation with Michelle Pfeiffer”.
Fuck, have all the conversations you want. Just don’t pretend that you’re risking anything or influencing beyond all that this is – regular bullshit that might be edifying for some participants, but probably won’t shake the world.
No, but your assumptions about its conversation topic is
well, your description of its content is
Indeed, that’s why I never pretended it. It’s your fantasy that anyone has.
@CV
Are you suggesting that patronage and nepotism are rare in the US, except where Clintons are concerned?
Good luck with that one. Run it by Ivanka before you start trumpeting too loudly, though
I take back everything I said. Conspiracy theories are rife now.
“Alberto Gonzalez? What about muh KGB?”
Seriously McFlock, you think Clinton and Lynch’s urgent need to discuss golf and grandkids couldn’t wait a couple weeks under the circumstances? They didn’t pause to think about how it might look, or did they give it thought and go ahead anyway? That to me shows a completely born to rule attitude. As you’d expect from plutocrats. And no, my characterisation of that New Yorker article is exactly how it reads. The Clinton foundation is a dodgy as Key’s blind trust. Probably dodgier actually.
My view would be that any undermining of elite narratives does speak truth to their power. They’re trying to convince us of their version of reality with mass communication of total bs narratives, and we are resisting and disputing these narratives.
I don’t know what they discussed. I don’t know whether they made a special trip to meet, or just told their respective aides that if they were within 50 miles of each other in their various roles, maybe they could try to arrange a half hour catchup. I don’t know if one heard the other was in town and looked them up. I don’t know, or particularly care.
The obsession people have over it is more interesting to me.
Similarly, your reading of the New Yorker article is coloured by your own desire for it to conform to your narrative. Mine is coloured to mine. The New Yorker outlines the Uranium one issue, and asks whether it’s low-hanging fruit from the source book or simply the worst that the smear artists could find – it seems to have been the worst they could find. Even then, there’s some quid going to the clintons, but no obvious benefit to the people paying for the quid. Unlike, say, trumps “charity” donating to the pac of an attorney general who declined to prosecute him (contrary to some advice received).
That’s a conceit you’re welcome to have. My view is that you’re a “useful idiot” whose muddying of the waters with crackpot fantasies obstructs other people from being involved in the political process. One of many thousands of idiots, few if any paid, who are all relied on to be their own crackpot selves and thus disrupt real attacks on whatever “plutocrats” actually exist.
Well, I consider your view unlikely to bear out – if a plutocracy exists, or even just a competing network of oligarchies vying for primacy, the Clintons and their allies are clearly major movers.
I don’t think the Uranium issue is the worst of the Clinton foundation; the New Yorker would consider it the worst on the basis that they’re pandering to the Russophobia of their rich American subscribers. For me, the relations hinted at with the Saudi and Qatari royal families – if the pessimistic interpretation bears out – would be the worst of it. There is no greater enemy of democracy or progressive values.
Well, UraniumOne is the worst that was even vaguely documented (although it still has no clear motive or benefit for almost everyone involved). If there was anything worse, it would have come out by now imo, but all they could do was rescuscitate the emails hype.
You haven’t been paying attention.
I have, I just didn’t include trumpet fantasies among HRC’s “crimes”.
That’s OK McFlock. I actually expect Hillary Clinton will never be held to account for what she has done in breaching USC Title 18 in multiple ways, regardless of the outcome of Nov 8.
Really?
Because I reckon it’s even odds as to whether Trump gets held to account for fraud or sexual assault by 2019. Not through prosecutions by Clinton appointees, either. I just reckon that opening himself to the close examination of being a vaguely realistic presidential candidate was the biggest mistake that jerk like trump could have made…
When you’ve lost John Yoo……
On the eve of the New Hampshire primary last February, for example, Trump repeated the words of a supporter who called a leading opponent, Ted Cruz, a “p***y” for not showing enough enthusiasm for torture.
Trump later credited the moment with helping power him to victory in the state. “Torture works, OK folks?” he said later that month. “If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway,” he has also said.
[…]
“On issue after issue, Trump lacks a fundamental humanity in his approach to people that is absolutely startling,” said Alberto Mora, the former top Navy lawyer who led efforts to oppose practices like waterboarding within the Bush administration. “His support of torture is of a piece with his innate cruelty.”
John Yoo, author of the so-called “torture memos” that provided legal footing for enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding, condemned Trump using equally strong language, even comparing him to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
“He’s the classic demagogue described well in the Federalist Papers that our system is designed to stop,” Yoo said.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/analysis-vengeful-world-donald-trump-why-it-matters-n671721
I think you should call her and sober her up some
Via wikileaks. This quote from an email sent by Jennifer Palmieri, Communications Director for the Clinton Campaign. Sat Aug 8, 2015 at 4:31pm.
Clinton Campaign Chief John Podesta first writes at 1:55pm that afternoon
Palmieri responds later:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25842
She is an adult and get drunk if she wants and by my calendar the 8 of August 2015 was a Saturday.
‘Sobering up’ could just be a reference to ‘getting real’ and not necessarily about being drunk.
How do you make someone ‘undrunk’ over a telephone?
And it could be that.
But I bet CV believes that not only does she have some kind of disease she is covering up but is also an alcoholic.
The thread’s about the US election and not about what you may or may not think CV reckons or what standing CV has in your mind, y’know?
Well, based on his previous comments re: Clintons health I am making an educated guess.
that and the fact that there’s literally no other content in cv’s excerpt.
Hell, we don’t even know who might get along we with cheryl, or what style haircut Palmieri got…
Fair and balanced?
https://thinkprogress.org/we-now-know-james-comey-really-did-apply-two-different-standards-to-trump-and-clinton-7314d9b55cd0#.e8t8v8oc4
A couple of weeks back, my impression was that Clinton was essentially home and hosed. Not so sure now.
Thinking that if I watch the results and Trump takes it, my sole compensation will be the likelihood that I get a short time falling over with laughter at the absurdity of it all before my brain goes to thinking about possible consequences.
With Clinton I don’t get that momentary respite and it will be straight into head in hands muttering ‘oh fuck’ mode.
A correction to the photo caption:
One white middle class millennial in a safe leaf-lined street describes her privileged opinion of the election in one word.
She can afford to be just “disappointed”. Others might use stronger language.
Nicely observed.
+1
Typical white cis male response, showing your privilege in a patriarchal society, spewing forth hate speech, you’re so full of micro-aggression I have to retreat to my safe space
Trigger warning!
Heard all that before in earnest from spoilt brats, PR. Especially when I point out their privileges, which is apparently “doing real harm” (waaah!).
You’re sounding a bit old middle class white male yourself there. Surely your privilege entitles you to use strong language rather than just sneering.
Nate Silver seems to have tarnished his record
http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-election/us-election-2016-statistician-nate-silvers-big-donald-trump-mistake-20161030-gseaye.html
This article misunderstands what 538 is doing when it makes a prediction.
You’re probably better to read the apology from Nate Silver and decide whether he’s tarnished his record…
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/
538 is a sports betting/prediction outfit owned by ESPN
dukeofurl
You keep saying that as if it means something. Firstly, 538 was started by Nate Silver in 2008, licensed to the NYT in 2010, before finally becoming; “owned by ESPN”. They do not offer any betting features, but do statistics on Sports, as well as; Politics, Science, Economics, and Culture.
It makes as much sense to say that they’re solely focused on Sports because they’re owned by EPSN as it does to say they’re only interested in Culture because EPSN is owned by Disney. Not much, but greater than zero.
The problem I see with 538 is that while they tend to be rigorous with the numbers, they also editorialise a lot to bulk out the content (and justify the increased staff). This may be helpful for those who don’t enjoy studying graphs and spreadsheets, but it is easy for their opinions to obscure the actual evidence. Which if you read weizguy’s link is pretty much what happened with Trump.
I did say sports betting/prediction as intended them to read together, as you pointed out they dont offer betting.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/sports-betting/
Im sure that feature/bug gets them a lot of subscribers
Its an interesting world , getting an edge with sports betting
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/inside-the-shadowy-world-of-high-speed-tennis-betting/
I would bet ( pardon the pun) a deeper commercial arrangement with 538 would offer more than a subscription/earlier access.
I’m not really interested enough in sports observation (participation is one thing, watching others is a bit tedious to me) to chase up those links. Silver got his start in analysing baseball stats, so the ESPN connection seems a reasonable fit with his skillset.
It is 358’s history in predicting US elections down to the state level that keeps me going back to the site. Lots of people talk about the presidency, but not many have detailed info on how those down-ballot are faring.
This is interesting, but keep a large container of salt handy.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html
Lotsa salt.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/31/fbis-comey-opposed-naming-russians-citing-election-timing-source.html
And if you’ve got any salt left over from the first two:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump
Was Trump Server communicating with Russia ?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html
” Some of the most trusted DNS specialists—an elite group of malware hunters, who work for private contractors—have access to nearly comprehensive logs of communication between servers.”
“The server was first registered to Trump’s business in 2009 and was set up to run consumer marketing campaigns.
” After studying the logs, he concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” Put differently, the logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence. Over the summer, the scientists observed the communications trail from a distance.
“Tea Leaves and his colleagues plotted the data from the logs on a timeline. What it illustrated was suggestive: The conversation between the Trump and Alfa servers [moscow] appeared to follow the contours of political happenings in the United States. “At election-related moments, the traffic peaked,” according to Camp. There were considerably more DNS lookups, for instance, during the two conventions.”
Traffic corresponding with political activity with spikes during the high drama conventions – looks awfully like the loaded gun.
smoking gun dammit, smoking gun
Meh bunch of bullshit. Any professional government agency could have compromised those servers without their owners knowing.
.. just in case someone later discovered those deliberately-obscured servers existed. #tinfoil
“All votes are sent to a central location….”
Not big on Alex Jones, but the lady he interviews here on how specifically election voting is rigged is very interesting/disturbing/aroogah/wtf?!
+100 …interesting…can there be recounts?…implications for voting in New Zealand?
This sums pretty much things up.
https://twitter.com/afdcaptrb/status/793231646262759424
I wonder what Trump was up to during those Moscow visits…….?
Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.” It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on “bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump
” It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.”
Yep. All those voluptuous Russian damsels hanging out to be “kissed” by the Trump. Ri would have been hard pressed to keep up with them all. 😉
Maybe he could go hang out with Pussy Riot for a while. I’d pay to watch that!
Somehow I doubt there was anything particularly voluptuous about those Russian damsels.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/6/1578544/-The-Untold-Story-of-Trump-Model-Management-A-Daily-Kos-Exclusive-Part-1
I’m having trouble getting my head around what he could possibly do in Moscow that would compromise him and leave him vulnerable to blackmail that’s worse than what we already know about him.
However, he always seems to be able to plumb new depths.
Having trouble Andre ? I’m not. Think back to the Remington Man. He bought the company. Now what company was it that $$$ Don Juan bought ? Oh that’s right – Miss Universe was it ?
As you say…….the $$$ Don Juan always seems to be able to plumb new depths. Drunk with a hard-on comes to mind.
You can obviously imagine a lot more dishonesty, selfishness, depravity and corruption than I can.
Seems like the big one forced early by circumstance. I think the dems should have held on cos the impact and realisations of how bad it is will be diluted because of the Clinton battle for her reputation.
Should have figured it out earlier.
Donald Trump is a pivotal Russian asset in a long term Machiavellian Kremlin plot to accelerate the disintegration of the Union (both the EU and the United States).
He has been fed all kinds of resources and intelligence to use against his political/Democratic enemies.
It’s like the ultimate real life IMAX version of the cable TV series AMERIKA.
Na, he just someone stupid enough to buy Putins billshit
Mike Moore makes his opinion very clear here:
Moore then addressed the slings and arrows Clinton has been subjected to over the years — primarily from men.
“If I were her, I would be sick and tired of these men by now,” Moore explained. “Especially the sexual predator nature of both Trump and, allegedly, Weiner. This poor woman, hasn’t she had to deal with enough men? I hope women who are watching this or going to be voting have just said, ‘I’m sick of it, this is it!’ This woman has had to go through enough over these last 25 years. She is going to be there for the people and we’re going to put her into the Oval Office.” [vid at link]
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/michael-moore-i-feel-sorry-for-hillary-having-to-put-up-with-sexual-predators-like-trump-and-weiner/
Comment from the article below.
Between the human asshole that is Donald, an actual Weiner, and reminders of Bill’s inability to keep it in his pants, it has never been clearer why we need more women in power.
http://theslot.jezebel.com/how-exactly-did-huma-abedins-emails-end-up-on-anthony-w-1788400412
Another comment from that link:
I feel like it’s the White House IT department that should be investigated, not Clinton.
and I wonder, if she were a “he”, would that be what happened – shift straight to IT, not to the user
Why do you think that Michael Moore did not add the very obvious name of Bill Clinton to this well endowed list?
But…but…Clinton emails!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwIpcsNWYAEbBty.jpg
It’s never been about “Clinton emails.” It’s been about why Clinton required a private server away from the public record in order to conduct business while she was Sec State.
Surely a smart guy like you has managed to figure that out by now.
The private server was a technology tool, nothing else.
Your man is a suspected traitor facing allegations of money laundering and dog knows what else with a fraud trial and suit alleging the rape of an underage girl coming up…..Clinton emails!.
Hillary Clinton was paid millions of dollars after helping to facilitate the sale of 20% of US uranium resources to Russian interests while she was Sec State.
From a prima facie perspective, she IS a traitor.
Given Clinton was one of nine sitting on the Committee on Foreign Investment in U.S, the deal was not hers to veto or approve.
***Guffaw***
Charmingly naive antipodeans.
Indeed, spectacularly so if you think one of nine could over rule the heads of eight other departments.
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/foreign-investment/Pages/cfius-members.aspx
How did she do it then bigbrain cv – answer duhhhnno. Somehow all other heads and departments all went along with her secret plan – real life nah
The Podesta emails, the revelations as to how the Clinton Foundation works means that ‘how it is done’ is very fucking well described at this point. All it takes is to pay a little attention with open eyes.
Grow up CV. You’re a pain in the arse. All from a spat with the New Zealand Labour Party. Jesus Christ !
Cv you’re a fucking liar. Pretty much every claim you made in that comment was outright wrong and you know it. The only thing you might have vaguely correct is “20%”.
Funnily enough, the infamous right wing magazine known as the “New Yorker” thinks that there are plenty of questions which should be asked.
But since so many people seem to think it is all above board that Hillary Clinton using the Secretary of States office in order to facilitate the sale of major US uranium assets to Russia in exchange for big $$$ for Bill Clinton and for the Clinton Foundation, I have nothing else to add.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/five-questions-about-the-clintons-and-a-uranium-company
Where in that article are millions paid to Hillary, after the decision was made by ten agencies, and how did she facilitate those decisions.
No payments to Hillary. No facilitation. You even got the timeline of payments to not-hillaries wrong. Your errors have been pointed out previously. You’re a liar.
Oh OK. I see how you have manage to intellectualise this.
Hillary had the power of the office of the Secretary of State.
But because the millions in monies provided by the private sector parties (or their intermediaries) who massively profited from the uranium deal went to her husband Bill and to the Clinton Foundation, and not straight into her own pocket, she can’t be a corrupt part of the arrangement.
If you want to look at the world that way, go ahead.
(I mean, obviously Hillary Clinton is smart enough and subtle enough not to take the brown envelopes full of $100 bills herself.)
I’m not writing sworn affidavits. I’m commenting from memory. But the guts of the message is right. The Clintons are corrupt as fuck, and everything and everyone they touch goes that way.
Yeah in your world actually thinking about something is a drawback.
1: none in the Clinton family benefit from the cf. You know this. It’s in cf reports and hrc tax returns.
2: assuming your report of a half million dollar speech is correct, it’s the going rate for former presidents. Why be corrupt when you aren’t short of offers in the speaking circuit.
3: secstate didn’t control the other agencies and that okayed the deal. It was in line with regular practise. Where are the memos and official advice against it? So why pay a bribe for something you’ll get anyway ?
But you don’t even need to think to know all this because it’s been explained to you before and in really small words. Yet still you repeat your falsehoods . Because you’re a liar.
Thanks to wikileaks, we can now see how Doug Band himself detailed out the massively beneficial “circle of enrichment” that he helped design, and which the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative is an integral part.
It’s hardly my problem if you want to look away from this.
You made that up.
Dare you to find the last three paid speeches that W or GW did for a fee of $500,000 for a speech.
meh. this link seems to be typical for the ballpark from an easy google search.
Clinton gets the most, but you’d expect that for the most successful president, rather than a one-termer and a joke.
And you still haven’t addressed why WJC would even be offered a bribe in the hope his wife would do exactly what she was advised to do along with every other agency that agreed with the decision.
As for doug band, you still haven’t stated what his scam was supposed to be: to not let people donate to charity unless WJC got asked to do a speech that he might be able to fit into his already busy speaking schedule…
No wait, maybe WJC wouldn’t do a paid speech uness the clients also made a donation to charity. That’s outrageous! /sarc.
Off to bed soon. Try to come up with new lies tomorrow, yes?
Come on, man – the New Yorker is as beige as it gets, and they are raising an eyebrow. At some point, you just need to accept that the Clintons are a pair of reckless plutocratic fools who don’t have their nation’s interests at heart.
I think the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson wrapped it up in a cutesy polka dotted bow when she wrote, “Are the Clintons correct in saying that there is an attack machine geared up to go after them? Of course. But why have they made it so easy?”
Sooner or later certain people will finally deduce *why* Hillary Clinton needed a private server outside of the State Department’s official systems and oversight to operate her and her staff’s emails and other work from.
Cluetip – it’s not because it was easier to do the printing or whatever implausible excuses the Clinton campaign has been putting forth.
Her team learned from Dubya’s. Unpunished.
They’re raising an eyebrow.
You’re calling the Clintons reckless plutocrats protected from answering for their “bodycount” by their connections who have manipulated the entire justice system.
Slight tone difference.
And the hits keep coming.
A Mexican government official filed a federal criminal tax fraud complaint Friday against Donald Trump in Tijuana, Mexico, related to Trump Ocean Resort, a real estate project that folded in 2009.
[…]
Trump and his partners, Los Angeles-based developer Irongate Wilshire and Mexican company P.B. Impulsores, allegedly collected $32.5 million from customers before giving up on the project. Trump Ocean Resort started selling the properties in 2006, but folded before construction had started in 2009 after the housing crash.
Martínez singled out Trump in the complaint, saying the slow start in construction evidenced tax fraud “by Mr. Donald Trump against the Mexican state because beyond defrauding investors he also committed fraud by not paying taxes in Mexico for the mercantile operations he took part in.”
http://thehill.com/latino/303691-trump-accused-of-tax-fraud-in-mexico
Add it to the dozens of lawsuits Trump has faced over the last decade.
He could well be facing many more:
Here is what he did CV. Justify it if you can:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/politics/trump-taxes-loophole.html
How this amoral corrupt individual could possibly be considered as POTUS is beyond comprehension.
Note – He still refuses to release his tax situation – because if he were to do so he would become a pariah overnight.
Give me a break Macro. Trump’s tax avoiding business activities are typical for any significant US corporate entity. In other words – it is business as usual for the Trump billionaire set and also for the billionaire types who donate to Hillary Clinton.
On the other hand, you are a former military man.
Tell me what would have happened to you if you and your subordinates knowingly and routinely communicated confidential, secret or top secret materials over insecure channels, and stored them in unauthorised ways vulnerable to foreign hacking and interception.
Maybe you think that such persons would be a good fit in high public office?
So you cannot justify his blatant and corrupt dealings, And this is the man you want as POTUS! Actually the Trump dealings were not typical of business practices in the US or anywhere else for that matter and his advisers specifically warned Trump against the deceitful practices that he employed. That is why he has been persistently sued for business malpractice and why US banks will no longer advance him funds.
That is also why he has had to go cap in hand to the Russians, and in essence it has been the Russians who have bankrolled his campaign.
Having served at Top Management Level on the Naval Staff, and been privy to highly classified information, I can assure you that that highly sensitive information would not have been the subject of routine emails.
The Military routinely classify all manner of stuff which in many ways is public knowledge. If some correspondence refers to some classified correspondence it is automatically classified, and so it goes on almost ad infinitum. Something might cross your desk, and you wonder why on earth is it “Restricted”. We know that the FBI have reviewed the emails on the Clinton server and concluded that while careless use was made, it would appear that nothing highly sensitive was found. Had it been, then the the result would have been different. That sort of indiscipline is taken very seriously.
This latest round has no indication that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with the current batch – nor whether they contain any information that is highly sensitive to US security.
A call for the FBI to release the information they have on their investigations into Trump:
A top Democrat demanded Monday that the FBI make public any investigations it is conducting into GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump or his associates, saying it’s only fair now that the agency has confirmed it has renewed its probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said FBI Director James Comey broke with years of precedent in confirming publicly, just before the election, that Mrs. Clinton’s case was once again alive.
“If it is comes out after the election that the FBI kept secret from the American people the fact that it was investigating former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, or seeking access to his emails, or investigating anyone else associated with Trump, then I have no idea how Director Comey will be able to explain his actions,” Mr. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, said in a statement.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/31/elijah-cummings-demands-fbi-reveal-trump-probes/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS
An interesting approach from the Democrats, given that there are/were multiple separate FBI investigations into Clinton Foundation activities.
Perhaps the FBI should release all details on those investigations too?
!!!! If they were to do so, that would instantly provide information to non US intelligence, and would be a major breach of US Security.
Have you folk not discussed Senator Harry Reid’s allegations about Trump yet?
This US election will show how gullible, how easily manipulated, are US voters:
Voters might be forgiven for nominating Trump given the high level of dissatisfaction with the political establishment, but the evidence that something more disturbing is going on is abundant. Exhibit A is that his supporters have told pollsters they believe only Trump can be trusted to give them the truth. This is so laughably misguided it’s hard to know what to make of it. Every time he opens his mouth the fact checkers catch him lying.
Why can’t his voters see that? They don’t want to see it. Once he had won them over by various means (anger, fear, xenophobia) they refused to revise their commitments. Like he said: His voters would stand by him even if he killed someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue. To Trump this was evidence of their loyalty. But it’s actually a clear sign that they were easily bamboozled by his histrionic appeals.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/this-election-is-helping-answer-an-age-old-question-are-voters-easily-manipulated/