The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

[CarolKing]

I think it is important that there is a video as a campaign add stating what the Clinton Foundatiion does and who it helps. Maybe something that might take a little while to explain like 5 or 7 min. I think folks are confused with all the BS that we are hearing from the right wing.

All this info regarding Hillary's email will continue to trickle out only helping Trump. I would imagine that they have saved the really bad stuff for last in hopes that folks will vote for the other side. This is a major manipulation of our election process. I wish someone would get to the bottom of this and prosecute whoever is to blame. All of this has turned our election campaigns into a damn circus. The democrats need to stop using the emails and text to communicate something they don't want others to know.

What about all the stuff they are saying about Hillary's health? It seems like desperation to me. What about Trump? He doesn't look all that healthy to me. I'm not sure if it's the right medical letter from Trump's Doctor that's floating around the net. It looks like a fake to me from a gastroenterologist.

 

[Joel W.]

4 days of the Democratic National Convention and not one word of the good work the Clinton Foundation was doing, not one word...

Clinton foundation was not even mentioned at the DNC..

I wonder why?

 

[KimDracula]

When someone has been in the public eye this long and we hear so few substantive arguments about her record, ethics, or character I tend to think Clinton has to be better than most. What are we hearing from opponents and critics, after all? "Benghazi! E-mails! Ummm... something vague about her health or paying for access through charity..." Is it so impossible to come up with an argument that can be at least partially supported by facts and hasn't been gone over by multiple congressional investigations?

If Clinton was selling access for charity then where is the evidence? There should be questionable moves that were made to support this or that because a big donor wanted it. Or is this like the rampant voter fraud that Republicans keep trying to convince us of?

 

[ReggieB]

So wait, colin powell and condoleeza rice both received actual classified information via personal email accounts but clinton is getting chased for not actually receiving classified information?

 

[t-dub]

I wish someone would get to the bottom of this and prosecute whoever is to blame.

Well, this last 14,900 was forensically retrieved from HER private server by the FBI which means they were deleted first. Another huge swath of the deleted emails is forensically unrecoverable which means they did an overwrite of at least 3 and probably 7 passes. Looks like a lot of them are work related which adds to a possible perjury charge.

Edit: Also by using her own server, which no one else has done, it makes those unrecoverable emails unavailable to the public by FOIA request. How convenient.

Like I said its the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Vicki]

Well, this last 14,900 was forensically retrieved from HER private server by the FBI which means they were deleted first. Another huge swath of the deleted emails is forensically unrecoverable which means they did an overwrite of at least 3 and probably 7 passes. Looks like a lot of them are work related which adds to a possible perjury charge.

Edit: Also by using her own server, which no one else has done, it makes those unrecoverable emails unavailable to the public by FOIA request. How convenient.

Like I said its the gift that keeps on giving.

If this helps the Ooompa Loompa get elected, I will really be pissed.

 

[cybrguy]

It won't. The Ooompa Loompa will never be king, no matter how much he wants it.

 

[t-dub]

I doubt Trump can turn things around at this point, however, this election cycle has been unprecedented so far and I wont be wagering any virtual chips, no cash value, on the outcome just yet.

 

[CarolKing]

Trump would look more grown up if he would just do something simple and cancel his twitter account. He won't do that though. I'm glad he's not, it shows him for the small, petty and ignorant person he is.
I've always liked the Morning Joe program on MSNBC.
America’s Choice 2016
Donald Trump rips into 'Morning Joe' and calls Mika 'neurotic'
by Brian Stelter @brianstelterAugust 22, 2016: 2:26 PM ET
Trump campaign taking aim at media bias

Donald Trump, presidential nominee, is taking a backseat to Donald Trump, media critic -- again.

On Monday morning he trained his Twitter fire at the MSNBC show "Morning Joe," formerly one of his favorite places to campaign.


Trump criticized "Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski in highly personal terms, calling her "off the wall, a neurotic and not very bright mess!"

He also implied that Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough have been secretly dating. He called them "two clowns."

The comments about Brzezinski were reminiscent of Trump's highly personal attacks against Fox host Megyn Kelly.

The co-hosts were in the middle of a three-hour live broadcast at the time and had been highly critical of Trump earlier in the morning.

Scarborough responded during a commercial break, stating that "Clinton is targeting key swing states today while Trump starts his day obsessed with cable news hosts while channeling Gawker."


He ended the tweet with one of Trump's favorite put-downs: "SAD!"

Trump evidently did not like what he heard on "Morning Joe" Monday morning. He said he "tried watching" the talk show but it was "unwatchable."

(Then he called into a competing morning show, "Fox & Friends," one hour later.)

Trump has taken similar jabs at "Morning Joe" before. But his personal references to Brzezinski and Scarborough are new.

Trump isn't the first person to wonder aloud if the co-hosts are more than friends.

Both Scarborough and Brzezinski recently divorced, and Page Six of the New York Post wrote about "romance chatter" in June.

But coming from the Twitter account of the GOP nominee, the comment raised eyebrows right away.

The tweet implied some form of retribution, because he said "some day, when things calm down, I'll tell the real story" of Scarborough and Brzezinski.

A number of political reporters pointed out that Trump's attacks came one day after new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said that Trump does not hurl "personal insults."

Trump used to have a cordial, even cozy relationship with "Morning Joe." He called into the show regularly during the GOP primary season. At one point he called Scarborough and Brzezinski "supporters." Radio host Hugh Hewitt floated the possibility of Scarborough serving as Trump's running mate.

The Scarborough-Trump relationship became a source of discomfort inside NBC, CNNMoney reported in mid-February.

 

[grokit]

And we're off...


Trump calls for special prosecutor to investigate Clinton Foundation

(video)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump urged the Justice Department on Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if donors to the Clinton Foundation got special treatment from the State Department when it was run by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Trump made the appeal at a rally before thousands of cheering supporters in Akron, Ohio, as he tries to rebound from a slide in national opinion polls with little more than two months to go until the Nov. 8 election.

Trump accused former President Bill Clinton and his wife of turning the Clinton Foundation charity into a "pay-for-play" scheme in which wealthy donors, foreign and domestic, got favors from the State Department during Hillary Clinton's 2009-2013 tenure as the country's top diplomat.

Trump faulted both the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation for not indicting Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey cited her careless handling of classified emails but opted not to prosecutor her.

"The Justice Department is required to appoint a special prosecutor because it has proved to be, sadly, a political arm of the White House," Trump said. "Nobody has ever seen anything like it before."

Trump's appeal came the same day a conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, released 725 pages of State Department documents, including some it said were examples of preferential treatment provided to donors at the request of former Clinton Foundation executive Douglas Band.

Trump's call for an independent investigation followed an announcement by the Clinton Foundation that it would no longer accept foreign donations should Clinton be elected president.

The Clinton campaign fired back at Trump, saying the foundation had already laid out "the unprecedented steps the charity will take if Hillary Clinton becomes president."

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement that Trump "needs to come clean with voters about his complex network" of businesses that are in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, after a New York Times report on the subject.

"Donald Trump should stop hiding behind fake excuses and release his tax returns and immediately disclose the full extent of his business interests," Podesta said.

SEEKING TO EXPAND BASE

While keeping up the attack on Clinton, Trump in his speech also outlined some agenda items, as Republicans have been urging him to do for months. The more disciplined Trump followed a campaign shake-up last week that brought in veteran pollster Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager.

But in a sign that organizational challenges remain, Trump canceled a rally planned for later this week in Las Vegas and postponed an immigration speech in Denver.

Earlier on Monday, Trump insisted he was not "flip-flopping" on immigration, despite a comment by Conway on Sunday that his plan to deport 11 million illegal immigrants was still under review.

In his Akron remarks, Trump, struggling to broaden his support beyond the white working-class voters who have been his base of support, again urged blacks and Hispanics to give him a chance, saying: "What the hell do you have to lose?" repeating a line he delivered on Friday that was criticized by Clinton as "ignorant."

Trump said Democratic politicians had not been able to stem crime and poverty in inner cities despite pledges to do every election year.

"I say it and I'm going to keep saying it and some people say: 'Wow that makes sense' and some people say: 'That's not very nice,'" Trump said. "And I say it with such a deep-felt feeling, what do you have to lose? We’ll bring jobs back. We’ll bring spirit back. We'll get rid of the crime."

 

[t-dub]

And we're off...

You forgot to sound the horns . . .

 

[lwien]

New poll out today. Clinton widening her lead in Virginia, a battleground state. Up double digits !!!: Even Georgia is in play. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/virginia-poll-clinton-over-trump/index.html

Whatever negatives there are in regards to Hillary's emails, they're already baked in so I don't think that any future revelations are going to have much of an impact. On the other side, Trumps negatives are baked in as well and there's really nothing that he can do now to reverse them.

All we need now is for the Democratic electorate to turn out and vote. The fat lady is standing stage right and ready to go out and sing so fucking loud that your ears will bleed.

 

[BD9]

trump paid staffers post racist and xenophobic comments on social media.

Article

“A comfort level with people who think this is OK is indicative of what you think is OK,” Packer said. “Maybe the campaign just doesn’t know about this, but that’s malpractice.”

Fear or dislike of Muslims was a recurring theme.

Many accounts AP reviewed embraced conspiracy theories. Lloyd, the Virginia field director, said Obama is aiding the Iranian nuclear program as part of the president’s “‘final solution’ to the Israel problem,” a phrase evoking the Holocaust.

On Facebook, Mark Kevin Lloyd of Lynchburg, Virginia, who has been paid $36,000 as Trump’s field director in the state, shared a post June 30 calling Islam “a barbaric cult.” He shared a meme June 16, four days after the Orlando nightclub shooting by a heavily armed Muslim who professed allegiance to the Islamic State group. The meme said people should be forced to eat bacon before they can purchase firearms.

Teresa Unrue, a field organizer and graphic designer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for Trump’s advance team, shared a video on her Facebook account July 11 — the week before the Republican National Convention — of a black man eating fried chicken while shaming fellow black people.

“Why are you mad about slavery?” the man asks. “Y’all weren’t no damn slaves.”

“Had me crack’n up!! Thank you!” Unrue wrote of the video. “Please share this with people.”

Delgado also shared a discredited, hoax photo of the State Department’s Kerry with Jane Fonda, and commented: “I say hang them!” She was paid $11,146 through April, according to campaign records.

 

[cybrguy]

I wish I could say that was surprising behavior for the Trump campaign and its supporters, but that is right in line with what we have come to expect. These are very sad times for America and there will be much to do after the election is over. Getting over the hate and working together towards progressive aims will not be easy, but it will be necessary. If not we could get deeper and deeper into the fever swamps...

Breitbart being the mouthpiece for a major party's campaign for the white house. Who could have imagined this?

 

[grokit]

Who could have imagined this?

For starters how about those with a dominionist political theology/ideology.

Dominion Theology is a grouping of theocratic ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based on understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of achieving governing authority are varied. For example, Dominion Theology can include theonomy, but does not necessarily involve advocating Mosaic law as the basis of government. The label is applied primarily toward groups of Protestants in the United States. Some have applied the term "Dominionist" more broadly to the whole Christian right. Such commentators define "soft" dominionism as the belief that "America is a Christian nation" and opposition to separation of church and state, while "hard" dominionism refers to dominion theology and Christian Reconstructionism, which is a whole 'nother can of worms...

We're in the twilight zone with these types, logic need not apply

 

[TeeJay1952]

 

[cybrguy]

Beyond the Headlines About Emails and the Clinton Foundation
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 23, 2016 8:58 AM

You’re going to see a lot of headlines like this today: “Emails reveal how foundation donors got access to Clinton and her close aides at State Dept.” Sounds bad doesn’t it? Here are the details.

A sports executive who was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and whose firm paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars in consulting fees wanted help getting a visa for a British soccer player with a criminal past.

The crown prince of Bahrain, whose government gave more than $50,000 to the Clintons’ charity and who participated in its glitzy annual conference, wanted a last-minute meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

U2 rocker and philanthropist Bono, also a regular at foundation events, wanted high-level help broadcasting a live link to the International Space Station during concerts.​

But wait…in the 5th paragraph of the story comes this:

The emails show that, in these and similar cases, the donors did not always get what they wanted, particularly when they sought anything more than a meeting.​

Way down in the story we are told that the “sports executive” got a “no” to his request for the British soccer player, no one had any idea what to do with Bono’s request, and yes, the crown prince of Bahrain got a meeting with Clinton – by going through “official channels.”

Going back to that headline, what we see is that – when it comes to “foundation donors” – 2 of them didn’t get access, but the crown prince of Bahrain did eventually get a meeting with the Secretary of State. That’s the big story? Really?!

Beyond that there seems to be some inference related to the fact that many of these requests went through Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin. There are a couple of other stories about people who donated to both Democrats and the Clinton Foundation getting meetings with the Secretary of State via contacting Abedin – people who wanted to discuss their involvement in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process and refugee issues.

I suppose that if there was never a Clinton Foundation, we wouldn’t be subjected to stories about whether the Secretary of State held meetings with people involved in the work she was doing because of donations rather than simply because that was part of her job. So we can now say, “Damn the Clintons for trying to raise money to address global issues! It just messed everything up.” But knowing that a lot of people simply read headlines and run with them, perhaps we could also ask that the media not load them up with unjustified inferences.

Nah, that one is probably a bridge too far.

 

[CarolKing]

I'm thinking out loud here.
Wondering if it would have been better for Hillary to have not run for president if it meant the Clinton's Foundation's demise basically if she wins. It seems to me like this foundation has done a lot of good.

I'm curious if Hillary is wondering if it's worth it?
Wouldn't she rather this foundation continued verses having to possibly dismantle it?
They aren't going to be able to continue because its too much of a distraction.
With no overseas funding how would it survive?
No trying to make a point just throwing it out there.

 

[cybrguy]

Trump Embraces Obama’s Immigration Policies
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 23, 2016 12:59 PM

Reporters’ heads have been spinning the last couple of days while they try to understand Donald Trump’s position on dealing with the 11 million undocumented people in this country. For months now the Republican nominee’s position has been simple: Deport ’em all! Now he appears to be waffling on that one. This is precisely why I gave up on trying to document Trump’s position on policy issues months ago. It is a constantly moving target. I would simply remind you that on this issue, one of Trump’s primary supporters told us a while ago that we should think in terms of “virtual walls and rhetorical deportations.” It was a huge tell.

Even so, some of the things Trump said to Bill O’Reilly last night about his deportation policy are pretty interesting. Much as he rails about President Obama’s approach to ISIS, only to embrace most of his strategies, he seems to be parroting exactly what the current occupant of the White House is doing on dealing with undocumented people. Take a listen:

Last night the candidate pulled the rug out from under everything he and Republicans have been saying about Obama: “What people don’t know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country.” Wait…I thought there were hordes of people getting into this country and the President refused to do anything about it! Trump just admitted that is a lie.

Next, Trump says ““The first thing we’re gonna do, if and when I win, is we’re gonna get rid of all the bad ones. We have gang members, we have killers, we have a lot of bad people that have to get out of this country.” Hmmm…that sounds a lot like what President Obama said way back in 2014.

That’s why, over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day.​

It also sounds a lot like a couple of memos ICE Director John Morton sent to his employees back in 2011. At the time, right wing media went nuts.

The White House, acting through John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has set up a mandate that could wind up granting amnesty to many illegal aliens…

The memo sets forth categories that DHS officers, agents, and attorneys are to consider in determining whether or not to cancel deportation/removal proceedings or efforts — regardless of where in the system an alien may be…

Such guidelines will lead to utter chaos with thousands of DHS employees making helter-skelter decisions as to whether an alien should be granted amnesty.

The result will be selective enforcement of the nation’s current immigration laws. The granting of unbridled discretion to DHS officials will subject them to a myriad of troubles including bribery.​

It will be interesting to hear what they think about the fact that Donald Trump is now parroting the strategies of the Obama administration.

Time for a death hug?

I'm thinking out loud here.
Wondering if it would have been better for Hillary to have not run for president if it meant the Clinton's Foundation's demise basically if she wins. It seems to me like this foundation has done a lot of good.

I curious if Hillary is wondering if it's worth it?
Wouldn't she rather this foundation continued verses having to possibly dismantle it?
They aren't going to be able to continue because its too much of a distraction.
With no overseas funding how would it survive?

Hopefully that won't be necessary, because YES, the foundation has been remarkably sucessful. There is no reason why the foundation needs to be axed. The Clinton's will just have to step away and let other people run it until 2020 or 2024, whenever Hillary's term is over.

 

[Joel W.]

Why delete them? Why try and hide it in the first place?

If one out of three look bad, what about the other deleted 14,887 emails?

Seems like more of the same.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton-donor-sensitive-intelligence-board/story?id=39710624

Edit. If I was in a conflict of interests situation, I would be more open and forthcoming, not shady as shit about it..

 

[cybrguy]

Can Trump Get Any Less Support from African Americans?
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 23, 2016 3:40 PM

I can’t honestly describe Donald Trump’s so-called “outreach” to African Americans as a joke – because it’s not funny. But it certainly isn’t serious. As Ed Kilgore wrote the other day, his appeal to Black voters is actually directed at White voters. Here’s a great example:

Trump’s fundamental pitch to African-Americans was the hoariest of all conservative cross-racial appeals: the “plantation” meme whereby black folk are scolded as suckers for supporting a Democratic Party interested only in their votes and in keeping them dependent on government.​

Yep. Nothing more, nothing less that Mitt Romney’s “free stuff.”

But over the last couple of days, Trump and his supporters have managed to dig the ditch even deeper. Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, the Republican nominee basically alluded to giving a wink and a nod to police brutality.

Pushed by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly to provide specifics on curbing violent crime in cities like Chicago, Donald Trump said Monday that he would simply put “tough” cops in charge.

“So, specifically, specifically. How do you do it? How do you do it?” O’Reilly asked.

“I know police in Chicago,” Trump replied. “If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done.”

“How? How?” O’Reilly pressed.

“You have unbelievable—how? By being very much tougher than they are right now,” Trump said. “They are right now not tough. I mean, I could tell you this very long and quite boring story but when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, ‘How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge,’ to a specific person, ‘Do you think you could stop it?’ He said, ‘Mr. Trump, I would be able to stop it in one week.’ And I believed him 100 percent.”​

That gives Trump a modicum of deniability if anyone accuses him of promoting police brutality. But everyone knows exactly what he means – just like we knew what he was referring to when he suggested that “2nd amendment people” have a way of dealing with Hillary Clinton. This has been Trump’s racialized message all along. From the time he called for the death penalty for black and brown teenagers who were falsely accused in the Central Park murder to his law and order message at the Republican Convention, he’s been consistent on this one.

Then yesterday Trump’s top spokesman on CNN said that the reason the candidate gives speeches that are supposedly aimed at African Americans to white audiences is because Black communities are not safe environments for his rallies. I wonder why he feels that way. Could it have anything to do with this?

The last I saw, Trump was getting about 2% support from African Americans. In other words, if you factor in the margin of error, it could be as low as 0%. I don’t think he can go any lower. But he certainly seems determined to try. My message would be that anyone who actually cares about justice in this country – beyond their skin color – needs to pay attention to what the Trump campaign is saying as they pretend to reach out to African Americans.

 

[Silat]

EMAIL
Emails Prove No 'Pay To Play' Between State And Clinton Foundation

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/08/huma-abedin-emails-and-clinton-foundation

The Clinton Foundation is in no danger and neither is Hillary winning the Presidency.
The reich will continue to try and prove she uses the wrong toilet paper by having multiple investigations throughout her presidency.

 

[Snappo]

From what I've gathered so far, the Clinton Foundation does a stellar job at doing what government should be doing with taxpayer's money, EFFICIENTLY and EXPEDITIOUSLY. International relations can never be a squeaky clean affair, and all-too-often rubbing elbows with grimy sorts goes with the territory. Pay to Play... GOOOD! As long as the payoff for the good of the world-at-large is at hand, deal. The media hoopla over this BS is just that, BS! It's incoming dirty money that plays clean. We win, the world wins.

 

[Silat]

From what I've gathered so far, the Clinton Foundation does a stellar job at doing what government should be doing with taxpayer's money, EFFICIENTLY and EXPEDITIOUSLY. International relations can never be a squeaky clean affair, and all-too-often rubbing elbows with grimy sorts goes with the territory. Pay to Play... GOOOD! As long as the payoff for the good of the world at large is at hand, deal. The media hooplah over this BS is just that, BS! It's dirty money to play clean. We win, the world wins.

Yes.
I have posted this info previously:
Look under the "Peace and International Relations" group
https://www.charitywatch.org/top-rated-charities

The Link to the info on the Clinton Foundation:
https://www.charitywatch.org/ratings-and-metrics/bill-hillary-chelsea-clinton-foundation/478

This is a top rated foundation that does much good. Nice to see people with money pay the top rate in taxes and use their foundations for the betterment of people and not as a way to enrich themselves further.
What % does Drumpf pay on his taxes? How is his foundation doing? /s

 

[Snappo]

Yes.
I have posted this info previously:
Look under the "Peace and International Relations" group
https://www.charitywatch.org/top-rated-charities

The Link to the info on the Clinton Foundation:
https://www.charitywatch.org/ratings-and-metrics/bill-hillary-chelsea-clinton-foundation/478

This is a top rated foundation that does much good. Nice to see people with money pay the top rate in taxes and use their foundations for the betterment of people and not as a way to enrich themselves further.
What % does Drumpf pay on his taxes? How is his foundation doing? /s

My opinions on this issue stand irrespective of any FC posted media citations on this thread to which I have no familiarity, and I do not not offer my opinions in recognition or support of them.