4 ms·

Not OP, and not sure I'd say 'held accountable', but I'll take a shot. I think there needs to be an honest investigation into the Clinton Foundation and whether

by r_smart 10y ago

Not OP, and not sure I'd say 'held accountable', but I'll take a shot. I think there needs to be an honest investigation into the Clinton Foundation and whether or not there is a pay for play situation going on there. It could be nothing, but it also could be one of the deepest corruption scandals in the history of the country. The fact that most news organizations have shit the bed in their effort to stop Trump means that it's been almost completely ignored. That's my top pick. *edit: removed redundant redundancy, also corrected word typo.

rconti 10y ago
Of all of the Clinton "scandals", that seems like an odd one to pick. I can't think of one LESS compelling, frankly. People making charitable donations before and after she has any actual political influence, with a tiny fraction of them having any contact with her whatsoever? All so that the Clintons can.. help poor people? All I needed to know to tune out was that the anti- crowd fanned the flames by saying that 95% (IIRC) of the funds were not spent on charities. Because... they are a charity themselves, and spend the money directly on causes?
- r_smart 10y ago
  Then I suppose we disagree about what qualifies as compelling. If you're one of the people concerned about how cozy politicians are with moneyed interests, than I have a hard time seeing how the Clinton's relationship with such people isn't troubling. [0] [1] [2] [3] I don't think your characterization of their expenditures is necessarily accurate (or wrong!). It's hard to tell, because the whole thing is so opaque[4]. This is a common criticism of the Clintons, even from supporters. They are so opaque about everything that things that would be innocuous end up seeming far worse because of their inclination to hide things. [0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-... [1]: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/82df550e1ec646098b434f7d5771f625/many-donors-clinton-foundation-met-her-state http://bigstory.ap.org/article/82df550e1ec646098b434f7d5771f... [2]: http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-complex-corporate-ties-1424403002 http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-complex-corpora... [3]: http://nypost.com/2016/08/11/hillary-played-favorites-with-huge-number-of-clinton-foundation-donors/ http://nypost.com/2016/08/11/hillary-played-favorites-with-h... [4]: https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Clinton-Foundation-money-goes-to-real-and-actual-charities-that-are-not-controlled-by-the-Clintons https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Clinton-Foundation-...
allemagne 10y ago
>It could be nothing, but it also could be one of the deepest corruption scandals in the history of the country. That seems to be the theme of Hillary scandals. It's always some superlative outcome. Either she is going to be exposed as a mastermind or "oh nevermind I guess that's not a big deal after all." It's absurd. An opponent of Clinton making a more modest critique than "she is the antichrist" would be very refreshing. Conservatives and Bernie supporters spent months fuming over how email servers showed exactly how evil Clinton was and the most that came out of it was apparently "extreme carelessness." Years of Benghazi and nothing to show for it but words to be poorly scrawled on protest signs for at least another year or so. I am definitely not informed enough to determine whether or not there is or isn't merit to any given controversy or scandal. There are probably a handful of people who could possibly know for sure. She is definitely one of the most powerful people in the world. She is certainly capable of conspiracy. But I know there are also powerful people who are would benefit a lot from harming her career and her image. Honestly, it's at least worth considering that innuendo, accusations, and connecting dots that aren't there, or are there in a much less dramatic form, are all much cheaper than actually pulling off conspiracies.
- r_smart 10y ago
  Agreed. I did my best to come across as measured and non-accusatory in my post. I'm very specifically not saying there's anything wrong, but there's evidence that there's some pretty deep corruption here. The trouble is, she seems to be untouchable. People don't seem interested in seriously pursuing investigations into her and her husband, and so you're stuck with apocalypse scenarios and people hand-waving it all away as fine. I don't think either are true. I remember when I got my first degree, in journalism (kinda), it was generally considered that the Watergate scandal would never get published in the modern age. I think the Clintons are pretty much the proof of that.
gotofritz 10y ago
> there needs to be an honest investigation into the Clinton Foundation In other words - you have no evidence of actual crimes. You just want an investigation.
- r_smart 10y ago
  Why would you possibly expect me to have evidence of actual crimes? Even were a crime committed? As I understand it, prosecutors typically look for patterns of behavior in cases like this since there's rarely a nice hand-written letter explaining how they are going to exchange favors. I'm not a prosecutor or a whistleblower. So yes, I think there's enough there to warrant someone with the proper expertise looking into it. Why would we not want to make sure our politicians are upholding ethical standards? I'm sure there are a lot of other people in D.C., some of whom are innocent, that would at least warrant an ethics investigation. I was asked about Clinton, so I focused on her.

by r_smart 10y ago

rconti 10y ago

Of all of the Clinton "scandals", that seems like an odd one to pick. I can't think of one LESS compelling, frankly. People making charitable donations before and after she has any actual political influence, with a tiny fraction of them having any contact with her whatsoever? All so that the Clintons can.. help poor people? All I needed to know to tune out was that the anti- crowd fanned the flames by saying that 95% (IIRC) of the funds were not spent on charities. Because... they are a charity themselves, and spend the money directly on causes?

r_smart 10y ago
Then I suppose we disagree about what qualifies as compelling. If you're one of the people concerned about how cozy politicians are with moneyed interests, than I have a hard time seeing how the Clinton's relationship with such people isn't troubling. [0] [1] [2] [3] I don't think your characterization of their expenditures is necessarily accurate (or wrong!). It's hard to tell, because the whole thing is so opaque[4]. This is a common criticism of the Clintons, even from supporters. They are so opaque about everything that things that would be innocuous end up seeming far worse because of their inclination to hide things. [0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-... [1]: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/82df550e1ec646098b434f7d5771f625/many-donors-clinton-foundation-met-her-state http://bigstory.ap.org/article/82df550e1ec646098b434f7d5771f... [2]: http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-complex-corporate-ties-1424403002 http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-complex-corpora... [3]: http://nypost.com/2016/08/11/hillary-played-favorites-with-huge-number-of-clinton-foundation-donors/ http://nypost.com/2016/08/11/hillary-played-favorites-with-h... [4]: https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Clinton-Foundation-money-goes-to-real-and-actual-charities-that-are-not-controlled-by-the-Clintons https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Clinton-Foundation-...

allemagne 10y ago

>It could be nothing, but it also could be one of the deepest corruption scandals in the history of the country. That seems to be the theme of Hillary scandals. It's always some superlative outcome. Either she is going to be exposed as a mastermind or "oh nevermind I guess that's not a big deal after all." It's absurd. An opponent of Clinton making a more modest critique than "she is the antichrist" would be very refreshing. Conservatives and Bernie supporters spent months fuming over how email servers showed exactly how evil Clinton was and the most that came out of it was apparently "extreme carelessness." Years of Benghazi and nothing to show for it but words to be poorly scrawled on protest signs for at least another year or so. I am definitely not informed enough to determine whether or not there is or isn't merit to any given controversy or scandal. There are probably a handful of people who could possibly know for sure. She is definitely one of the most powerful people in the world. She is certainly capable of conspiracy. But I know there are also powerful people who are would benefit a lot from harming her career and her image. Honestly, it's at least worth considering that innuendo, accusations, and connecting dots that aren't there, or are there in a much less dramatic form, are all much cheaper than actually pulling off conspiracies.

r_smart 10y ago
Agreed. I did my best to come across as measured and non-accusatory in my post. I'm very specifically not saying there's anything wrong, but there's evidence that there's some pretty deep corruption here. The trouble is, she seems to be untouchable. People don't seem interested in seriously pursuing investigations into her and her husband, and so you're stuck with apocalypse scenarios and people hand-waving it all away as fine. I don't think either are true. I remember when I got my first degree, in journalism (kinda), it was generally considered that the Watergate scandal would never get published in the modern age. I think the Clintons are pretty much the proof of that.

gotofritz 10y ago

> there needs to be an honest investigation into the Clinton Foundation In other words - you have no evidence of actual crimes. You just want an investigation.

r_smart 10y ago
Why would you possibly expect me to have evidence of actual crimes? Even were a crime committed? As I understand it, prosecutors typically look for patterns of behavior in cases like this since there's rarely a nice hand-written letter explaining how they are going to exchange favors. I'm not a prosecutor or a whistleblower. So yes, I think there's enough there to warrant someone with the proper expertise looking into it. Why would we not want to make sure our politicians are upholding ethical standards? I'm sure there are a lot of other people in D.C., some of whom are innocent, that would at least warrant an ethics investigation. I was asked about Clinton, so I focused on her.