7 ms·

The Clinton System

112 points by RaSoJo 11y ago

eatonphil 11y ago
"Rresearch done by Sirota and Perez of International Business Times and based on US government and Clinton Foundation data shows that during her term the State Department authorized $165 billion in commercial arms sales to twenty nations that had given money to the Clinton Foundation. These include the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, all of whose records on human rights had been criticized by the State Department itself. During Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state, arms sales to the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation ran at nearly double the value of sales to the same nations during George W. Bush’s second term." Maybe this is normal and I am naive, but this seems pretty screwed up.
- tghw 11y ago
  I'd like to know if that's adjusted for inflation (not that there's been a ton of it in the intervening years), but it's certainly worrisome. Of course, it could all be a coincidence...
- notliketherest 11y ago
  It's all hearsay and coincidence, stop spreading GOP FUD,stop thinking about this, and vote Clinton 2016. Don't ask questions.
  - rifung 11y ago
    GOP FUD? Doesn't the GOP support big contributions by corporations? If anything it should be "Sanders FUD"?
- obastani 11y ago
  Couldn't this be a result of the massively increased amount of conflict in the region since Bush's second term?
- kingkawn 11y ago
  Arab spring was happening during her tenure too, something that the countries listed wanted to make sure didn't take hold domestically.
- hiddencost 11y ago
  How did arms sales to other countries change in the same period? "Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress." [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreig... When did the IB times folks look at their numbers? (from October 2010 to September 2012). That looks damn cherry picked to me.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - meritt 11y ago
    Of course it is. That's all Clinton attackers have to go on. Constant attacks that she's corrupt and untrustworthy. Meanwhile her policies and stances are nearly identical to Sanders except with a dose of reality when it comes to implementation.
    - kaiku 11y ago
      There's a world of difference between the two candidates' positions. Sanders has a history of stubborn, unwavering commitment to his progressive ideas, whereas Clinton has only recently aligned herself with some of the popular ideas championed by him. (Many of these ideas were truly radical when they were first proposed, even fringe.) Clinton, like most politicians, maneuvers for votes when convenient, and when required by her deep, complex ties to industries with their own, decidedly non-populist agendas. As for reality – if I had to define the dialogue of this election, at least on the Democratic side, it wouldn't be a focus on modest, incremental, or "practical" approaches, but rather achieving ambitious, populist goals, demanded by those with a deep frustration with and even sense of injustice about the state of politics and the world. There's a very real desire for these kinds of changes, so much so in my view that implementation will necessarily follow from such strong demand.
      - meritt 11y ago
- luckydata 11y ago
  How many countries donated to the Clinton Foundation? Doesn't seem a particularly incriminating detail considering the scope and breadth of the foundation. Let's call this one irrelevant?
  - markdown 11y ago
    > How many countries donated to the Clinton Foundation? She gets a strike for each and every one. Why oh why would a government donate money to an NGO like the Clinton Foundation if not to buy influence. There is not a single government that doesn't have it's own poor and suffering to deal with. Others, like Qatar have their own vehicles (Qatar Foundation) through which to render aid and assistance and fund research. There is no reason to hand that off to a third party.
  - moonshinefe 11y ago
    Are you seriously not seeing the blatant conflict of interests here?
- hackuser 11y ago
  > International Business Times It's controlled by a religious cult or its leader, at least last I knew. I don't know that I put much faith in it. I'm not trying to tear down the whole story, but I think knowing and trusting sources is essential, especially in politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBT_Media#Partnerships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBT_Media#Partnerships Someone from IBT seemed to guard their Wikipedia pages, so there's probably more than you'll read there. If you really want to dig into it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:IBT_Media#Olivet_and_David_Jang_relationships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:IBT_Media#Olivet_and_Davi...
tghw 11y ago
I am genuinely concerned about how the Clintons play the game. While there's nothing conclusive, there are a lot of correlations between their "friendships" and the influence they exert. It's even more concerning that the DNC just scrapped the ban on lobbyist contributions. We know that money talks, how can we trust any of our leaders who take so much of it to get elected?
quadrangle 11y ago
"It is easier to avoid temptation than to resist it" — Dan Ariely. All the research in the world about the details may be interesting, but all anyone needs to know about Hillary Clinton is that she claims that huge quantities campaign contributions and face-to-face meeting time from Wall Street have no impact on her decisions and priorities. That claim alone is enough to completely discredit her. Period. Never never never trust any person who says "I'm immune to this apparent conflict of interest." I'm not even making a judgment about whether Hillary Clinton believes her own claim. She might be flat-out lying or she might be completely honest yet totally deluded. Either way, she's untrustworthy. The only way to trust someone is if they say "I am human, and so I am susceptible to conflicts of interest, so I am actively avoiding such conflicts (or, if any conflicts arise, I will recuse myself or at least acknowledging the conflict)." A person who denies the significance of conflicts of interest is a person unfit for decision-making.
- markdown 11y ago
  > all anyone needs to know about Hillary Clinton is that she claims that huge quantities campaign contributions and face-to-face meeting time from Wall Street have no impact on her decisions and priorities. In the most recent Clinton/Sanders debate, she made two claims within a few sentences of each other: 1. That the Koch brothers are using their vast wealth to bankroll elections for politicians in exchange for influence in lawmaking. 2. That contributions to her campaign had no strings attached and that she was immune to such corruption. I was hoping that Sanders would pick it up but he missed that opportunity to expose her hypocrisy.
  - davmre 11y ago
    You can reconcile those claims under a model in which most politicians (including Clinton) have genuine beliefs that are not corruptible by money, but the Koch brothers can buy political outcomes by bankrolling those politicians whose genuine ideological beliefs align with theirs. That is, they are not changing the beliefs of individual politicians, just replacing politicians that disagree with them with others that don't. To first order I think this is a pretty good model of money's influence on politics, though it's definitely not the entire story.
wallflower 11y ago
There is a lot of voter anger against institutions and established ways of doing things that is emerging in this election. The Clintons are an institution in themselves.
Zaheer 11y ago
Anyone else find an uncanny resemblance between the Clintons & the Underwoods?
- venomsnake 11y ago
  If Hilary had even a hint of Robin Wright's charisma and presence she would have been president twice already. I think this is the curse of the Clintons - the ruthless one is the more unlikeable one.
- pekk 11y ago
  Bill Clinton is closeted gay man who murders journalists with his hands? Do share your information.
  - tghw 11y ago
    Frank is clearly pansexual.
ck2 11y ago
Doesn't matter how you feel or what you believe about Hillary. A president is mostly a figurehead except one area: It's going to come down to if you want Trump or Clinton picking the next couple of supreme court judges, which will basically set in concrete the future of our country and most definitely affect you for the rest of your lifetime. If you want fewer rights and more restrictions, you will vote Trump. If you want more rights and fewer restrictions you will vote Clinton. Each are a horrible mess and Clinton is a horrible compromise but she is certainly the lesser evil. If it makes you feel better, a president can only do so much, it's Congress that should be upsetting you.
- moonshinefe 11y ago
  I don't buy it. Hillary Clinton was proposing "talking to silicon valley" about putting limits on encryption. She is going to impose fewer rights in some areas, just like Trump will. She might be less bad in this arena, but painting it as an either/or is inaccurate.
  - ck2 11y ago
    Yes there are many areas where Hillary will be a horrible compromise. However you need to lookup what "conservative" means if you feel a republican president is going to allow more liberties. Trump isn't just financially conservative (at least for everyone else, not for himself) he is very socially conservative in his most current reality show (aka running for president). Ironically a decade ago he was fairly socially liberal.
dementis 11y ago
What I would like to know, is if Clinton is hoping that the FBI investigation into her will not result in an indictment before she gets elected(lets just assume she is enough of a narcissist to believe her election is fait accompli), so she can pardon herself of the crimes she might later be formally charged with? Because technically there would be nothing stopping her from trying to do it. "The right to pardon is an authority given to the President of the United States (POTUS) by the US Constitution in Article II, Section 2. This section specifically reads that the POTUS “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Essentially, the only way presidential pardon is restricted by the constitution is under the circumstance of the sitting president being impeached. Self-pardon is not restricted by law, and under interpretation by the Supreme Court, a president could have the right to pardon himself not only for crimes he has committed, but also for crimes with which he has not yet been charged" http://www.wisegeek.com/does-the-us-president-have-the-right-to-pardon-himself.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/does-the-us-president-have-the-right... And based on the mess around David Petraeus(retired CIA director) and his pleading guilty to mishandling of classified material some 3 or 4 years after the fact; the election could very well be over before any formal charges are made. Personally I feel like all of the US presidential elections come down to a choice which one possibility I dislike the least. Right now there is a lot of bad choices from my point of view; Bernie is a socialist, Clinton is under FBI investigation and shouldn't be running until that cleared up, Trump just wants to add to his "legacy" and probable make a bundle of money, Cruz is as far right as Bernie is to the left and extremist of any kind are a bad thing.
tropo 11y ago
What I find strange is that some people vote for Hillary in the primary because they think she is more electable than Bernie. Say what? Electability isn't just about crude left-right positioning. It's also about personality and trust. Moderate voters could reluctantly go for Bernie's politics, just as they could reluctantly go for any random republican's politics. What they won't tolerate is Hillary. People really really despise her.

112 points by RaSoJo 11y ago

"Rresearch done by Sirota and Perez of International Business Times and based on US government and Clinton Foundation data shows that during her term the State Department authorized $165 billion in commercial arms sales to twenty nations that had given money to the Clinton Foundation. These include the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, all of whose records on human rights had been criticized by the State Department itself. During Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state, arms sales to the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation ran at nearly double the value of sales to the same nations during George W. Bush’s second term." Maybe this is normal and I am naive, but this seems pretty screwed up.

tghw 11y ago
I'd like to know if that's adjusted for inflation (not that there's been a ton of it in the intervening years), but it's certainly worrisome. Of course, it could all be a coincidence...
notliketherest 11y ago
It's all hearsay and coincidence, stop spreading GOP FUD,stop thinking about this, and vote Clinton 2016. Don't ask questions.
- rifung 11y ago
  GOP FUD? Doesn't the GOP support big contributions by corporations? If anything it should be "Sanders FUD"?
obastani 11y ago
Couldn't this be a result of the massively increased amount of conflict in the region since Bush's second term?
kingkawn 11y ago
Arab spring was happening during her tenure too, something that the countries listed wanted to make sure didn't take hold domestically.
hiddencost 11y ago
How did arms sales to other countries change in the same period? "Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress." [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreig... When did the IB times folks look at their numbers? (from October 2010 to September 2012). That looks damn cherry picked to me.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- meritt 11y ago
  Of course it is. That's all Clinton attackers have to go on. Constant attacks that she's corrupt and untrustworthy. Meanwhile her policies and stances are nearly identical to Sanders except with a dose of reality when it comes to implementation.
  - kaiku 11y ago
    There's a world of difference between the two candidates' positions. Sanders has a history of stubborn, unwavering commitment to his progressive ideas, whereas Clinton has only recently aligned herself with some of the popular ideas championed by him. (Many of these ideas were truly radical when they were first proposed, even fringe.) Clinton, like most politicians, maneuvers for votes when convenient, and when required by her deep, complex ties to industries with their own, decidedly non-populist agendas. As for reality – if I had to define the dialogue of this election, at least on the Democratic side, it wouldn't be a focus on modest, incremental, or "practical" approaches, but rather achieving ambitious, populist goals, demanded by those with a deep frustration with and even sense of injustice about the state of politics and the world. There's a very real desire for these kinds of changes, so much so in my view that implementation will necessarily follow from such strong demand.
    - meritt 11y ago
luckydata 11y ago
How many countries donated to the Clinton Foundation? Doesn't seem a particularly incriminating detail considering the scope and breadth of the foundation. Let's call this one irrelevant?
- markdown 11y ago
  > How many countries donated to the Clinton Foundation? She gets a strike for each and every one. Why oh why would a government donate money to an NGO like the Clinton Foundation if not to buy influence. There is not a single government that doesn't have it's own poor and suffering to deal with. Others, like Qatar have their own vehicles (Qatar Foundation) through which to render aid and assistance and fund research. There is no reason to hand that off to a third party.
- moonshinefe 11y ago
  Are you seriously not seeing the blatant conflict of interests here?
hackuser 11y ago
> International Business Times It's controlled by a religious cult or its leader, at least last I knew. I don't know that I put much faith in it. I'm not trying to tear down the whole story, but I think knowing and trusting sources is essential, especially in politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBT_Media#Partnerships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBT_Media#Partnerships Someone from IBT seemed to guard their Wikipedia pages, so there's probably more than you'll read there. If you really want to dig into it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:IBT_Media#Olivet_and_David_Jang_relationships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:IBT_Media#Olivet_and_Davi...

tghw 11y ago

I am genuinely concerned about how the Clintons play the game. While there's nothing conclusive, there are a lot of correlations between their "friendships" and the influence they exert. It's even more concerning that the DNC just scrapped the ban on lobbyist contributions. We know that money talks, how can we trust any of our leaders who take so much of it to get elected?

quadrangle 11y ago

"It is easier to avoid temptation than to resist it" — Dan Ariely. All the research in the world about the details may be interesting, but all anyone needs to know about Hillary Clinton is that she claims that huge quantities campaign contributions and face-to-face meeting time from Wall Street have no impact on her decisions and priorities. That claim alone is enough to completely discredit her. Period. Never never never trust any person who says "I'm immune to this apparent conflict of interest." I'm not even making a judgment about whether Hillary Clinton believes her own claim. She might be flat-out lying or she might be completely honest yet totally deluded. Either way, she's untrustworthy. The only way to trust someone is if they say "I am human, and so I am susceptible to conflicts of interest, so I am actively avoiding such conflicts (or, if any conflicts arise, I will recuse myself or at least acknowledging the conflict)." A person who denies the significance of conflicts of interest is a person unfit for decision-making.

markdown 11y ago
> all anyone needs to know about Hillary Clinton is that she claims that huge quantities campaign contributions and face-to-face meeting time from Wall Street have no impact on her decisions and priorities. In the most recent Clinton/Sanders debate, she made two claims within a few sentences of each other: 1. That the Koch brothers are using their vast wealth to bankroll elections for politicians in exchange for influence in lawmaking. 2. That contributions to her campaign had no strings attached and that she was immune to such corruption. I was hoping that Sanders would pick it up but he missed that opportunity to expose her hypocrisy.
- davmre 11y ago
  You can reconcile those claims under a model in which most politicians (including Clinton) have genuine beliefs that are not corruptible by money, but the Koch brothers can buy political outcomes by bankrolling those politicians whose genuine ideological beliefs align with theirs. That is, they are not changing the beliefs of individual politicians, just replacing politicians that disagree with them with others that don't. To first order I think this is a pretty good model of money's influence on politics, though it's definitely not the entire story.

wallflower 11y ago

There is a lot of voter anger against institutions and established ways of doing things that is emerging in this election. The Clintons are an institution in themselves.

Zaheer 11y ago

Anyone else find an uncanny resemblance between the Clintons & the Underwoods?

venomsnake 11y ago
If Hilary had even a hint of Robin Wright's charisma and presence she would have been president twice already. I think this is the curse of the Clintons - the ruthless one is the more unlikeable one.
pekk 11y ago
Bill Clinton is closeted gay man who murders journalists with his hands? Do share your information.
- tghw 11y ago
  Frank is clearly pansexual.

ck2 11y ago

Doesn't matter how you feel or what you believe about Hillary. A president is mostly a figurehead except one area: It's going to come down to if you want Trump or Clinton picking the next couple of supreme court judges, which will basically set in concrete the future of our country and most definitely affect you for the rest of your lifetime. If you want fewer rights and more restrictions, you will vote Trump. If you want more rights and fewer restrictions you will vote Clinton. Each are a horrible mess and Clinton is a horrible compromise but she is certainly the lesser evil. If it makes you feel better, a president can only do so much, it's Congress that should be upsetting you.

moonshinefe 11y ago
I don't buy it. Hillary Clinton was proposing "talking to silicon valley" about putting limits on encryption. She is going to impose fewer rights in some areas, just like Trump will. She might be less bad in this arena, but painting it as an either/or is inaccurate.
- ck2 11y ago
  Yes there are many areas where Hillary will be a horrible compromise. However you need to lookup what "conservative" means if you feel a republican president is going to allow more liberties. Trump isn't just financially conservative (at least for everyone else, not for himself) he is very socially conservative in his most current reality show (aka running for president). Ironically a decade ago he was fairly socially liberal.

dementis 11y ago

What I would like to know, is if Clinton is hoping that the FBI investigation into her will not result in an indictment before she gets elected(lets just assume she is enough of a narcissist to believe her election is fait accompli), so she can pardon herself of the crimes she might later be formally charged with? Because technically there would be nothing stopping her from trying to do it. "The right to pardon is an authority given to the President of the United States (POTUS) by the US Constitution in Article II, Section 2. This section specifically reads that the POTUS “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Essentially, the only way presidential pardon is restricted by the constitution is under the circumstance of the sitting president being impeached. Self-pardon is not restricted by law, and under interpretation by the Supreme Court, a president could have the right to pardon himself not only for crimes he has committed, but also for crimes with which he has not yet been charged" http://www.wisegeek.com/does-the-us-president-have-the-right-to-pardon-himself.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/does-the-us-president-have-the-right... And based on the mess around David Petraeus(retired CIA director) and his pleading guilty to mishandling of classified material some 3 or 4 years after the fact; the election could very well be over before any formal charges are made. Personally I feel like all of the US presidential elections come down to a choice which one possibility I dislike the least. Right now there is a lot of bad choices from my point of view; Bernie is a socialist, Clinton is under FBI investigation and shouldn't be running until that cleared up, Trump just wants to add to his "legacy" and probable make a bundle of money, Cruz is as far right as Bernie is to the left and extremist of any kind are a bad thing.

tropo 11y ago

What I find strange is that some people vote for Hillary in the primary because they think she is more electable than Bernie. Say what? Electability isn't just about crude left-right positioning. It's also about personality and trust. Moderate voters could reluctantly go for Bernie's politics, just as they could reluctantly go for any random republican's politics. What they won't tolerate is Hillary. People really really despise her.