lol was referring to Smollett and the media not Clinton. If the best pro media argument is "it's not their job to get it right" I think that says all it needs to say about their lack of credibility.
If the best anti media argument is "The media reported news as it was understood at the time", I think that says all it needs to about the anti media narrative we currently have.
Coincidentally, leaving out that the media jumped on reporting the fraud when it was established (you know, by the people in charge of investigating the crime - the police).
Total lack of evidence is just bull. The payments are there, at the time of the deal, and the favorable policy to show for it. The appearance of corruption, something the law sees problematic in and of itself, is plain as day and only the most partisan of us all would say otherwise.
So, the meat of the assertion, as you say, is all there. All that is not is the death blow. I'd call that pretty well evidenced, just not enough to confirm an absolute fact. Just short of the mark as it were.
It's why I simply laugh when terms like "conspiracy theory" and "total lack of evidence" are bandied about. In any neutral context nobody would use those terms to describe such a pretty well documented set of events.
The only evidence is that there was a deal. That deal is a matter of public record. What has absolutely zero evidence, other than a gut instinct held coincidentally by people with an established bias against the Clintons, is the corruption part. Huh. Almost sounds like a conspiracy theory...
It is easy to report only what is understood at the time if you never make any effort to verify stories or events or the things that your sources say to you, all things that go far beyond this individual case and apply to it less others.
The only evidence is that there was a deal and that Clinton was receiving millions of dollars from them during and after said deal. Had a deal just happened out of thin air, nobody would by saying anything and a conspiracy theory would be correct.
Here is what I don't think you understand, The panel (Committee of Foreign Investment) could only object to the sale if they reviewed it as a security risk to the United States to do so.
Both Homeland Security and National Defence said it wasn't. Basically the transaction was selling near depleted Uranium mines to a Russian Company, a state that is already flush with Uranium. There was no national security risk and no one has proven there was one (which would have made it corruptible) 12 years(?) later. Also, according to US law, any uranium removed from US mines must either a) stay in the US or b) be approved to be removed from the country only for peaceful purposes through another completely different panel. Bureaucracy, gotta love it.
The committee also can't stop the sale from going through, they can only recommend to the President that the sale should or should not go through. The President, and only the president can veto the sale.
The difficult thing with Uranium 1, as I mentioned, was it was a Canadian company and the Canadian government had more sway into the sale going through or not going through then the Americans did. At the time, and really still now, Canada's approval of it was just a formality.
Since it was a Canadian company, it would be very ballsy of a foreign government to decline the sale of another country's international company without offering concrete proof of why it shouldn't be sold and with all of the uranium regulations in place in the united states it would have been very, very hard for them to prove that even if it was the case.
Now to suggest that Clinton and only Clinton, at the time, could convince the military and homeland security and the president and Canada that the deal was not a security risk when it actually was (even though a decade later it has proven not to be and there was no proof at the time that it could have been) and it was only her controlling the strings the entire time is completely laughable while also not being able to provide any proof what so ever, even after the foundation was investigated.
That's an understandable point of view @jjstraka34 and as I've posted I don't think Hillary Clinton has done anything worthy of being pursued in this way. However, if she had done, I don't think the fact that she should no longer be such a focal figure would justify not pursuing a case.
There are plenty of prosecutors who would love to pursue a criminal case against Hillary Clinton, if there was a case to be made. Plenty of prosecutors are registered Republicans, and plenty of Democrats would pursue it as well; it would be huge, complex, high-exposure... a career-maker. If there was s case to be made. And with a bunch of Trump-appointed US Attorneys, it's not like politics are stopping that from happening. If (say it with me) there was a case to be made.
There's a pattern here...
I don't think one of the most powerful political families in America who have the backing of the most exclusive law firm in the country and are well versed to scandals and protecting themselves from them are super easy pickings.
Not that I think their excellent legal team is the reason I believe no conviction will come so much as the extremely high standards of having to prove quid pro quo. As I said, the practice of taking money from those you control policy over should just be illegal, period.
It is easy to report only what is understood at the time if you never make any effort to verify stories or events or the things that your sources say to you, all things that go far beyond this individual case and apply to it less others.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand that not all news reporting is investigative. If there's fraud, it's the responsibility of the police to uncover it, and the media to then report on that after the fact.
Their fact checking in this case was (probably) to contact Smollett, and then contact the police. There was no one else to contact, and CNN, MSNBC and CBS dont make enough money to fly out a team of crack investigative journalists to the scene of every crime before reporting on it.
If you actually think you can immediately detect that there was clear fraud, then I recommend you seek a profession in journalism. Or maybe the FBI/police.
The only evidence is that there was a deal and that Clinton was receiving millions of dollars from them during and after said deal. Had a deal just happened out of thin air, nobody would by saying anything and a conspiracy theory would be correct.
The vast majority of people arent saying anything. It is a conspiracy theory.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand that not all news reporting is investigative. If there's fraud, it's the responsibility of the police to uncover it, and the media to then report on that after the fact.
Again, what I just said applies to them as a whole and especially less than it does this individual case. In that sense, I more or less agree with you about this particular story, and at this point I regret even including it because it's simply distracted from the point I was trying to make. But, since you said it isn't your responsibility to address any of my other examples of recent media lies, i'll simply say that when they do have a duty to verify claims, they don't.
The vast majority of people arent saying anything. It is a conspiracy theory.
Not really sure what to say to you if you are going to simply repeat the same assertion without any attempt to justify your own reasoning or rebut mine. Think we're done here.
Now to suggest that Clinton and only Clinton, at the time, could convince the military and homeland security and the president and Canada that the deal was not a security risk when it actually was (even though a decade later it has proven not to be and there was no proof at the time that it could have been) and it was only her controlling the strings the entire time is completely laughable while also not being able to provide any proof what so ever, even after the foundation was investigated.
Nobody is suggesting that, and it doesn't need to be true. Even if one person doesn't have control of the entire process it still makes sense to bribe the most powerful amenable authority you can as insurance in case something goes wrong. So far nobody has told me what fails to make sense there.
With respect, it's not a drop in the bucket; it's not a drop at all. And this example demonstrates a bias that undercuts your other arguments. How many other drops in that bucket really aren't drops? The bucket starts to seem a lot emptier than suggested...
Well, that's an attitude, more than an argument. If you can't defend the media on merit, cherry pick the weak link and pretend that's the whole chain.
If bias undercuts an argument rather than the merits of the arguments itself, there is no valid argument on this thread, to be straight up.
The Smollett case certainly got some play in the beginning, but it was nothing compared to how much it was covered when the scam was revealed. How do I know this?? Because his arraignment had wall to wall coverage on every network all afternoon. Wanna guess what other news broke that day?? An honest to god assassination plot about to be carried out by a member of the Coast Guard against multiple Democratic politicians. Guess which story dominated cable news that day?? Hint: it wasn't the one where a member of the armed services was planning to KILL prominent national Democrats with a massive arsenal of weaponry. It was the one where a guy paid people to beat him up to increase his TV show salary.
Yeah, I'm sure he and his 'massive' arsenal could really have brought the government to it's knees! Give me a break. How much of that arsenal could he possibly have carried with him? Is he Neo and can whip machine pistol after machine pistol out of his cloak? He could have accomplished more with one sniper rifle and a clear line of sight to any 'one' of those targets, and one chance is all he would have gotten. Sorry, that dipshit got about as much air time as he deserved.
Who said he was going to take down the government?
He was taking active steps to carry out politically motivated assassinations. A terrorist plot stopped becore it could be executed. That's a pretty newsworthy story!* You think a crazy Hollywood imbecile doing something crazy and imbecilic is more worthy of attention? I mean maybe so... Americans are kind of obsessed with actors, have been for 100 years. It's ingrained in our culture. That why I find it weird fir @WarChiefZeke to find fault in Smollett's assault being reported on...
Regardless, it's merely a drop in the bucket in a much larger issue of a lack of skepticism for anything that fits their biases. That you singled this out among a sea of other ones doesn't mean much to the larger point.
With respect, it's not a drop in the bucket; it's not a drop at all. And this example demonstrates a bias that undercuts your other arguments. How many other drops in that bucket really aren't drops? The bucket starts to seem a lot emptier than suggested...
* Finally, speaking of the foiled terrorist plot: can we talk about how Sanders went on and on about how Trump is "often the first to condemn" such things, yet Trump never actually condemned this one??? I seriously don't understand what world we're living in...
One man with a bunch of guns is not a 'terrorist' plot in my mind. If he had followers or somebody else was leading him or grooming him then I'd say terrorist. He's a lone nut job. I'm glad he decided to focus on politicians instead of shooting up a mall or a campus or something. THAT he could have done easily and is much scarier in my opinion...
Now to suggest that Clinton and only Clinton, at the time, could convince the military and homeland security and the president and Canada that the deal was not a security risk when it actually was (even though a decade later it has proven not to be and there was no proof at the time that it could have been) and it was only her controlling the strings the entire time is completely laughable while also not being able to provide any proof what so ever, even after the foundation was investigated.
Nobody is suggesting that, and it doesn't need to be true. Even if one person doesn't have control of the entire process it still makes sense to bribe the most powerful amenable authority you can as insurance in case something goes wrong. So far nobody has told me what fails to make sense there.
How is Clinton, "the most powerful amenable authority" in this situation then? Wouldn't have been smarter to bribe a Canadian official and not 1 of nine people who can only give a recommendation to the sitting president?
Perhaps she would have been if she was elected president and made sure that uranium being mined in the US could then be sold to Russia. but eh, the US already has a government in the process of selling uranium to a country that is involved on an attack on us soil but as long as it isn't hawkish Clinton but lets all talk about ancient history that doesn't mean anything while the US government does it.
Now to suggest that Clinton and only Clinton, at the time, could convince the military and homeland security and the president and Canada that the deal was not a security risk when it actually was (even though a decade later it has proven not to be and there was no proof at the time that it could have been) and it was only her controlling the strings the entire time is completely laughable while also not being able to provide any proof what so ever, even after the foundation was investigated.
Nobody is suggesting that, and it doesn't need to be true. Even if one person doesn't have control of the entire process it still makes sense to bribe the most powerful amenable authority you can as insurance in case something goes wrong. So far nobody has told me what fails to make sense there.
How is Clinton, "the most powerful amenable authority" in this situation then? Wouldn't have been smarter to bribe a Canadian official and not 1 of nine people who can only give a recommendation to the sitting president?
Perhaps she would have been if she was elected president and made sure that uranium being mined in the US could then be sold to Russia. but eh, the US already has a government in the process of selling uranium to a country that is involved on an attack on us soil but as long as it isn't hawkish Clinton but lets all talk about ancient history that doesn't mean anything while the US government does it.
Maybe it would have also made sense to bribe them, but do any of those powerful Canadian authorities have an influence peddling scheme like the Foundation and a history of such things? Trying to bribe someone not amenable to it is basically asking for them to go to the press and kill the deal. Again, it still all makes complete sense to me.
Not really sure what to say to you if you are going to simply repeat the same assertion without any attempt to justify your own reasoning or rebut mine. Think we're done here.
I think you'll find you've moved from trying to present evidence to making more and more nebulous claims that you think supports/justifies your reasoning. It hasnt. All of this is what makes conspiracy theories attractive. They're based in innuendo and half-truths that cannot be rebutted not because they're true but because they're meaninglessly vague or cannot be proven.
For example - that Clinton is "influential" and has a good lawyer team justifies/supports exactly nothing. No argument that rests upon that as the reason why evidence will not come to light is instructive.
So is everyone who donates to the Clinton foundation influence peddling?
Is she to deny donations from certain people? Who gets to decide if the donations are ethical or not? Does the Americans not have an Ethics committee or Commissioner?
Not really sure what to say to you if you are going to simply repeat the same assertion without any attempt to justify your own reasoning or rebut mine. Think we're done here.
I think you'll find you've moved from trying to present evidence to making more and more nebulous claims that you think supports/justifies your reasoning. It hasnt. All of this is what makes conspiracy theories attractive. They're based in innuendo and half-truths that cannot be rebutted not because they're true but because they're meaninglessly vague or unprovable.
For example - that Clinton is "influential" and has a good lawyer team justifies/supports exactly nothing. No argument that rests upon that as the reason why evidence will not come to light is instructive.
On the last point, I'll agree. We're done.
I specifically said it is not the reason she won't be convicted. I used it to justify nothing. I'll think you'll find you've gone from not responding to what i'm saying at all to misrepresenting it entirely.
I specifically said it is not the reason she won't be convicted. I used it to justify nothing. I'll think you'll find you've gone from not responding to what i'm saying at all to misrepresenting it entirely.
Or - as @subtledoctor seemed to mean it: There's no inculpatory evidence for a conviction of Clinton in the Uranium 1 deal. I just re-read the entire last two pages of the thread, and frankly - I still dont see that you've provided any meaningful evidence. Mostly "fishyness" and "appearance of corruption". I apologize if I misrepresented you, but... I'm not sure what you're even trying to represent at this point.
Netanyahu is now being forced to return money he obtained illegally that he was using to fund his defense against charges of obtaining money illegally;
Netanyahu is now being forced to return money he obtained illegally that he was using to fund his defense against charges of obtaining money illegally;
Netanyahu is now being forced to return money he obtained illegally that he was using to fund his defense against charges of obtaining money illegally;
The other day, I was looking into the upcoming Israeli parliamentary elections. It looks like Likud (Netanyahu's party) is poised to win again, which seems shocking giving the tremendous amount of scandal that he is under. I dont profess to know a lot about Israeli politics, and I'm sure what I'm seeing is somewhat curated and may not be emblematic of the whole truth... but havent the police in Israel basically agreed he's being investigated for widespread corruption?
Edit - yeah. A lot of that is repeated at the bottom of the article.
Bear in mind that negative comments about other forumites and off-hand snipes are against the rules--I notice a couple posts along those lines in the last page or two, and this community has higher standards than that.
The basis of the Politifact ruling was not just that she had no power to make the decision about the Russian takeover (as you say she could in theory have exercised influence anyway), nor that the donations were nearly all given years earlier, but that she was not involved at all ("Clinton has said that she was not personally involved and, in a New York Times article, then-Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez, who represented the State Department on the panel, said Clinton "never intervened" in CFIUS matters.").
So, let me get this straight, Politifact is basing their claim that she wasn't involved on the word of her and her assistant? Forgive me if I don't take it at face value.
Nice "fact checking", by the way, uncritically reporting her own statements and the statements of her direct underling as complete fact. Totally neutral and objective.
@WarChiefZeke my view is that the fact checking sites had no option about the opinion they rendered because there is no evidence to support a different opinion.
You've set out a general argument that systems should not allow situations where there is even the appearance of possible corruption - and I agree with that. However, you've also suggested that on the specific issue of Uranium One, you believe Hillary to be guilty of something more - even though evidence for that has not yet been (and may never be) found. The latter position seems to me to reflect the essence of conspiracy theories - if lack of evidence is not important, then it becomes essentially impossible to establish innocence or guilt.
You also drew a parallel between the Uranium One investigations and the Mueller investigation on Russia, which I think is not a fair one. Uranium One has been repeatedly investigated, including by people extremely hostile to Hillary - and no-one has found any statements, meetings or emails to suggest any involvement by Hillary in the decisions complained about. That's a very different situation to the Russian investigation where there is plenty of troubling evidence, e.g. off the top of my head:
- private meetings between Trump and Putin (extremely unusual for a US president)
- attempts to set up backchannel communications between the campaign and Russia
- lots of emails and meetings between campaign members and Russian representatives
- both Russian and campaign involvement with Wikileaks prior to leaked email publications
- actual and proposed significant changes on Russian policy led by Trump, against the prevailing wishes of Congress and the wider government
- public statements by Trump that contradict the views of US intelligence agencies about Russian actions
- clear and repeated lies by Trump about his business interests in Russia
- public statements by Trump about the motives and actions of investigators
As has been said repeatedly in this thread, Hillary did not have the power to make decisions about Uranium One. I agree in principle she could have influenced those decisions, but doing that would have been a complex process. I don't think it is at all credible to suggest that she somehow managed to exercise that influence without leaving any trace of that.
@WarChiefZeke my view is that the fact checking sites had no option about the opinion they rendered because there is no evidence to support a different opinion.
They aren't forced to uncritically publish her own statements as fact just because they can't verify it one way or another, nor are they forced to rely
unverified statements to help Clintons image or engage in all the intellectual gymnastics they do to argue in her favor. That's really not how "fact checking" should work.
Regarding Russia, hilarious how you can give all that circumstantial info but no smoking gun of quid pro quo. The parallels are funny as is the tendency for some to switch standards when convenient.
They don't support opinions anyway, at least they aren't supposed to, they are supposed to verify claims. And when a claim is true and they don't like it, they add rumors from the internet into it and run all the defense they can to give something an unfavorable rating. Pretty easy to see through.
As has been said repeatedly in this thread, Hillary did not have the power to make decisions about Uranium One. I agree in principle she could have influenced those decisions, but doing that would have been a complex process. I don't think it is at all credible to suggest that she somehow managed to exercise that influence without leaving any trace of that.
As has been repeatedly said, you don't have to be the sole decision making authority to take bribes or have folks believe you can be useful to have in their corner. Not sure why this needs to be repeated ad infinitum.
If you're argument only is there isn' a smoking gun of quid pro quo, well, we've been over that.
How much influence did she have to exercise anyway? You seem to assume a large amount when i don't think that is necessarily the case. Having a politician in your pocket as insurance policy.
@WarChiefZeke my view is that the fact checking sites had no option about the opinion they rendered because there is no evidence to support a different opinion.
They aren't forced to uncritically publish her own statements as fact just because they can't verify it one way or another, nor are they forced to rely
unverified statements to help Clintons image or engage in all the intellectual gymnastics they do to argue in her favor. That's really not how "fact checking" should work.
Regarding Russia, hilarious how you can give all that circumstantial info but no smoking gun of quid pro quo. The parallels are funny as is the tendency for some to switch standards when convenient.
They don't support opinions anyway, at least they aren't supposed to, they are supposed to verify claims. And when a claim is true and they don't like it, they add rumors from the internet into it and run all the defense they can to give something an unfavorable rating. Pretty easy to see through.
As has been said repeatedly in this thread, Hillary did not have the power to make decisions about Uranium One. I agree in principle she could have influenced those decisions, but doing that would have been a complex process. I don't think it is at all credible to suggest that she somehow managed to exercise that influence without leaving any trace of that.
As has been repeatedly said, you don't have to be the sole decision making authority to take bribes or have folks believe you can be useful to have in their corner. Not sure why this needs to be repeated ad infinitum.
Because it doesn’t make sense. She had ZERO authority with the deal to begin with. Nothing she said or could have done would have either prevented the deal from going forward or not going forward.
There has also been no excuse in the last decade on to why this deal should not have gone through, except “it’s a Russian company,” which really isn’t an excuse.
And i’d still like your take on the question:
Is everyone who donates to the Clinton Foundation influence peddling?
If no, who gets to decide if it is influence peddling or not? Does the US have an ethics committee or commissioner to relegate these things?
Donald Trump is named as an unindicted co-conspirator of a felony for which his lawyer is going to jail. The felony was related to influencing an election in his favor that he managed to narrowly win despite receiving far fewer votes than the other candidate.
Yeah but have have you heard about Hillary's email though?! Seriously guys, some fatso who got kicked off YouTube told me all about it so it's totally true.
Netanyahu is now being forced to return money he obtained illegally that he was using to fund his defense against charges of obtaining money illegally;
"Capitalism never works! Just look at Israel!". How come Trump only says that about Venezuela and socialism? Yet he doesn't mention social security, Medicare, Sweden, France, Norway, and other countries?
Comments
If the best anti media argument is "The media reported news as it was understood at the time", I think that says all it needs to about the anti media narrative we currently have.
Coincidentally, leaving out that the media jumped on reporting the fraud when it was established (you know, by the people in charge of investigating the crime - the police).
The only evidence is that there was a deal. That deal is a matter of public record. What has absolutely zero evidence, other than a gut instinct held coincidentally by people with an established bias against the Clintons, is the corruption part. Huh. Almost sounds like a conspiracy theory...
The only evidence is that there was a deal and that Clinton was receiving millions of dollars from them during and after said deal. Had a deal just happened out of thin air, nobody would by saying anything and a conspiracy theory would be correct.
Both Homeland Security and National Defence said it wasn't. Basically the transaction was selling near depleted Uranium mines to a Russian Company, a state that is already flush with Uranium. There was no national security risk and no one has proven there was one (which would have made it corruptible) 12 years(?) later. Also, according to US law, any uranium removed from US mines must either a) stay in the US or b) be approved to be removed from the country only for peaceful purposes through another completely different panel. Bureaucracy, gotta love it.
The committee also can't stop the sale from going through, they can only recommend to the President that the sale should or should not go through. The President, and only the president can veto the sale.
The difficult thing with Uranium 1, as I mentioned, was it was a Canadian company and the Canadian government had more sway into the sale going through or not going through then the Americans did. At the time, and really still now, Canada's approval of it was just a formality.
Since it was a Canadian company, it would be very ballsy of a foreign government to decline the sale of another country's international company without offering concrete proof of why it shouldn't be sold and with all of the uranium regulations in place in the united states it would have been very, very hard for them to prove that even if it was the case.
Now to suggest that Clinton and only Clinton, at the time, could convince the military and homeland security and the president and Canada that the deal was not a security risk when it actually was (even though a decade later it has proven not to be and there was no proof at the time that it could have been) and it was only her controlling the strings the entire time is completely laughable while also not being able to provide any proof what so ever, even after the foundation was investigated.
It's a Briebart conspiracy theory, nothing more.
I don't think one of the most powerful political families in America who have the backing of the most exclusive law firm in the country and are well versed to scandals and protecting themselves from them are super easy pickings.
Not that I think their excellent legal team is the reason I believe no conviction will come so much as the extremely high standards of having to prove quid pro quo. As I said, the practice of taking money from those you control policy over should just be illegal, period.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand that not all news reporting is investigative. If there's fraud, it's the responsibility of the police to uncover it, and the media to then report on that after the fact.
Their fact checking in this case was (probably) to contact Smollett, and then contact the police. There was no one else to contact, and CNN, MSNBC and CBS dont make enough money to fly out a team of crack investigative journalists to the scene of every crime before reporting on it.
If you actually think you can immediately detect that there was clear fraud, then I recommend you seek a profession in journalism. Or maybe the FBI/police.
The vast majority of people arent saying anything. It is a conspiracy theory.
Again, what I just said applies to them as a whole and especially less than it does this individual case. In that sense, I more or less agree with you about this particular story, and at this point I regret even including it because it's simply distracted from the point I was trying to make. But, since you said it isn't your responsibility to address any of my other examples of recent media lies, i'll simply say that when they do have a duty to verify claims, they don't.
Not really sure what to say to you if you are going to simply repeat the same assertion without any attempt to justify your own reasoning or rebut mine. Think we're done here.
Nobody is suggesting that, and it doesn't need to be true. Even if one person doesn't have control of the entire process it still makes sense to bribe the most powerful amenable authority you can as insurance in case something goes wrong. So far nobody has told me what fails to make sense there.
Well, that's an attitude, more than an argument. If you can't defend the media on merit, cherry pick the weak link and pretend that's the whole chain.
If bias undercuts an argument rather than the merits of the arguments itself, there is no valid argument on this thread, to be straight up.
One man with a bunch of guns is not a 'terrorist' plot in my mind. If he had followers or somebody else was leading him or grooming him then I'd say terrorist. He's a lone nut job. I'm glad he decided to focus on politicians instead of shooting up a mall or a campus or something. THAT he could have done easily and is much scarier in my opinion...
How is Clinton, "the most powerful amenable authority" in this situation then? Wouldn't have been smarter to bribe a Canadian official and not 1 of nine people who can only give a recommendation to the sitting president?
Perhaps she would have been if she was elected president and made sure that uranium being mined in the US could then be sold to Russia. but eh, the US already has a government in the process of selling uranium to a country that is involved on an attack on us soil but as long as it isn't hawkish Clinton but lets all talk about ancient history that doesn't mean anything while the US government does it.
Maybe it would have also made sense to bribe them, but do any of those powerful Canadian authorities have an influence peddling scheme like the Foundation and a history of such things? Trying to bribe someone not amenable to it is basically asking for them to go to the press and kill the deal. Again, it still all makes complete sense to me.
I think you'll find you've moved from trying to present evidence to making more and more nebulous claims that you think supports/justifies your reasoning. It hasnt. All of this is what makes conspiracy theories attractive. They're based in innuendo and half-truths that cannot be rebutted not because they're true but because they're meaninglessly vague or cannot be proven.
For example - that Clinton is "influential" and has a good lawyer team justifies/supports exactly nothing. No argument that rests upon that as the reason why evidence will not come to light is instructive.
On the last point, I'll agree. We're done.
Is she to deny donations from certain people? Who gets to decide if the donations are ethical or not? Does the Americans not have an Ethics committee or Commissioner?
I specifically said it is not the reason she won't be convicted. I used it to justify nothing. I'll think you'll find you've gone from not responding to what i'm saying at all to misrepresenting it entirely.
Or - as @subtledoctor seemed to mean it: There's no inculpatory evidence for a conviction of Clinton in the Uranium 1 deal. I just re-read the entire last two pages of the thread, and frankly - I still dont see that you've provided any meaningful evidence. Mostly "fishyness" and "appearance of corruption". I apologize if I misrepresented you, but... I'm not sure what you're even trying to represent at this point.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-forced-to-return-300k-legal-defense-money-from-cousin-and-clothing-donation/
hahahahahhahaha
The other day, I was looking into the upcoming Israeli parliamentary elections. It looks like Likud (Netanyahu's party) is poised to win again, which seems shocking giving the tremendous amount of scandal that he is under. I dont profess to know a lot about Israeli politics, and I'm sure what I'm seeing is somewhat curated and may not be emblematic of the whole truth... but havent the police in Israel basically agreed he's being investigated for widespread corruption?
Edit - yeah. A lot of that is repeated at the bottom of the article.
@WarChiefZeke my view is that the fact checking sites had no option about the opinion they rendered because there is no evidence to support a different opinion.
You've set out a general argument that systems should not allow situations where there is even the appearance of possible corruption - and I agree with that. However, you've also suggested that on the specific issue of Uranium One, you believe Hillary to be guilty of something more - even though evidence for that has not yet been (and may never be) found. The latter position seems to me to reflect the essence of conspiracy theories - if lack of evidence is not important, then it becomes essentially impossible to establish innocence or guilt.
You also drew a parallel between the Uranium One investigations and the Mueller investigation on Russia, which I think is not a fair one. Uranium One has been repeatedly investigated, including by people extremely hostile to Hillary - and no-one has found any statements, meetings or emails to suggest any involvement by Hillary in the decisions complained about. That's a very different situation to the Russian investigation where there is plenty of troubling evidence, e.g. off the top of my head:
- private meetings between Trump and Putin (extremely unusual for a US president)
- attempts to set up backchannel communications between the campaign and Russia
- lots of emails and meetings between campaign members and Russian representatives
- both Russian and campaign involvement with Wikileaks prior to leaked email publications
- actual and proposed significant changes on Russian policy led by Trump, against the prevailing wishes of Congress and the wider government
- public statements by Trump that contradict the views of US intelligence agencies about Russian actions
- clear and repeated lies by Trump about his business interests in Russia
- public statements by Trump about the motives and actions of investigators
As has been said repeatedly in this thread, Hillary did not have the power to make decisions about Uranium One. I agree in principle she could have influenced those decisions, but doing that would have been a complex process. I don't think it is at all credible to suggest that she somehow managed to exercise that influence without leaving any trace of that.
They aren't forced to uncritically publish her own statements as fact just because they can't verify it one way or another, nor are they forced to rely
unverified statements to help Clintons image or engage in all the intellectual gymnastics they do to argue in her favor. That's really not how "fact checking" should work.
Regarding Russia, hilarious how you can give all that circumstantial info but no smoking gun of quid pro quo. The parallels are funny as is the tendency for some to switch standards when convenient.
They don't support opinions anyway, at least they aren't supposed to, they are supposed to verify claims. And when a claim is true and they don't like it, they add rumors from the internet into it and run all the defense they can to give something an unfavorable rating. Pretty easy to see through.
As has been repeatedly said, you don't have to be the sole decision making authority to take bribes or have folks believe you can be useful to have in their corner. Not sure why this needs to be repeated ad infinitum.
If you're argument only is there isn' a smoking gun of quid pro quo, well, we've been over that.
How much influence did she have to exercise anyway? You seem to assume a large amount when i don't think that is necessarily the case. Having a politician in your pocket as insurance policy.
German satire on Brexit
Because it doesn’t make sense. She had ZERO authority with the deal to begin with. Nothing she said or could have done would have either prevented the deal from going forward or not going forward.
There has also been no excuse in the last decade on to why this deal should not have gone through, except “it’s a Russian company,” which really isn’t an excuse.
And i’d still like your take on the question:
Is everyone who donates to the Clinton Foundation influence peddling?
If no, who gets to decide if it is influence peddling or not? Does the US have an ethics committee or commissioner to relegate these things?
Yeah but have have you heard about Hillary's email though?! Seriously guys, some fatso who got kicked off YouTube told me all about it so it's totally true.
"Capitalism never works! Just look at Israel!". How come Trump only says that about Venezuela and socialism? Yet he doesn't mention social security, Medicare, Sweden, France, Norway, and other countries?