US Election: 2016

[a_majoor]

I'm sure after the fallout after the election will continue for years to come:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441517/clinton-foundation-scandal-wikileaks-discredit-hillary-presidency

WikiLeaks Dumps Mean Hillary’s Presidency Would Be Tainted from Day One
by JOHN FUND
October 27, 2016 4:37 PM @JOHNFUND

Evidence of her corruption would aid America’s adversaries.

Critics of WikiLeaks claim its leaking of sleazy Clinton e-mails is serving the interests of Vladimir Putin, who wants Donald Trump to win the 2016 election. But, if Putin is in fact behind the WikiLeaks dumps, he may actually be making a safer bet. Should Trump lose, a weakened Hillary Clinton will take office with a big chunk of the American people viewing her as illegitimate and many others as untrustworthy in foreign affairs. That kind of geopolitical advantage could be priceless.

The latest WikiLeaks revelation is a 2011 memo from top Clinton aide Doug Band outlining conflicts of interest at the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was secretary of state. It essentially is a confession of massive charity fraud and corruption. As Politico reports: “The memo at one point refers bluntly to the money-making part of Clinton’s life as ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’ and notes that in at least one case a company — global education firm Laureate International Universities — began paying Clinton personally after first being a donor to the Clinton Foundation.”

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former Clinton Treasury official and Hillary defender Steve Rattner didn’t even bother to swat back at the sleazy appearance of the revelations. He insisted nothing illegal had been done, but admitted that, if elected, Hillary faces “continuing, ongoing investigations.” Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, confirmed that yesterday: “It’s a target-rich environment. Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.”

While clear evidence of a quid pro quo between donors to the Clinton Foundation and State Department officials hasn’t surfaced yet, there are lots of warm pistols. Peter Schweizer, the author of the book Clinton Cash, wrote last August in the Wall Street Journal about large donations to the Clinton Foundation from the Kremlin-backed Stolknovo Foundation:

The (Clinton) State Department recruited and facilitated the commitment of billions of American dollars in the creation of a Russian “Silicon Valley” whose technological innovations include Russian hypersonic cruise-missile engines, radar surveillance equipment, and vehicles capable of delivering airborne Russian troops.

A Russian reset, indeed.

Even if no improper favors beyond access to top State Department officials is ever shown, the WikiLeaks e-mails reveal a disturbing pattern of international solicitation fraud on the part of the Clinton Foundation. Formed as a vehicle to build a presidential library for Bill Clinton, the Foundation began work in Haiti and other countries in 2003. But it didn’t have clearance from New York authorities to operate internationally, which may explain why no official audit of its activities was conducted for several years. Even now, the Clinton Foundation has yet to fill in required lines on 990s for 1998 through 2007, aggregating their government grants.

Moreover, the Clinton Foundation never was authorized by the IRS to engage in activities such as “fighting HIV/AIDS,” providing disaster relief, and tackling “climate change” internationally that are much more fruitful fundraising hooks than the Clinton complex in Little Rock.

The books and internal controls of the Clinton entities remain a shambles, and purposefully, so that the incoming streams of “donations” could be diverted to everything from keeping a retinue of Clinton sycophants in place until Hillary became president to other questionable activities.

The WikiLeaks e-mails reveal a disturbing pattern of international solicitation fraud on the part of Clinton Foundation. According to investment analyst Charles Ortel, who follows charities closely, the Clinton Foundation hasn’t complied with New York laws that clearly require the identity and amounts of all government grants (domestic and foreign) be reported. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has suspended the Donald J. Trump Foundation from operating in New York over its questionable activities. As Joe Scarborough noted on Thursday, “Why will Schneiderman not shut the Clinton Foundation down, given that its size dwarfs the Trump Foundation?”

I think we know why. An election in which Hillary Clinton is on the ballot is less than two weeks away. Once the details of the Foundation’s activities come to light, there will likely be evidence of it engaging in massive solicitation and operating frauds.

To solicit in most states and in many nations, charities and their fundraisers must register, making truthful declarations. Early registrations made by the Clinton Foundation in New York, Massachusetts, and Minnesota show it was raising money for limited purposes — namely, the creation of a presidential library and archive based in Little Rock. The IRS requires that money sought and spent should have solely been for these purposes.

E-mails revealed by WikiLeaks show the Foundation expanded into international and other activities without filing the required paperwork. This sloppiness — or deliberate concealment — soon had consequences. In 2008, for example, the Foundation diverted $23 million in an international endowment to another entity to avoid questions about how millions in donations had suddenly disappeared.

Ordinarily, the IRS and other government authorities take much smaller transgressions seriously. Democratic representative Corinne Brown (Fla.) is currently under federal indictment for far less serious transgressions involving a foundation she controlled. Because of the failure of government authorities to act, Ortel is contacting large private donors to the Clinton Foundation and asking them if they will ask for their money back, given that the Clinton Foundation wasn’t operating lawfully as a tax-exempt organization. 

“Failures by top donors such as the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation to attempt retrieving their past donations or to correct their public filings will eventually result in stiff financial and legal penalies,” Ortel warns.

Almost a decade ago, in 2007, Jonathan Rauch of The Atlantic magazine wrote a searching piece on how the then-nascent Clinton Foundation was stretching the envelope of philanthropy in new and sometimes disturbing ways. Rauch’s conclusion was simple: “This is not charity.”

Should Hillary Clinton become president, she will drag the country into yet another national nightmare over her ethics and the ethics of the Clinton Foundation. Who knows what else will be belatedly revealed should she win the White House? Whatever it is, it’s not likely to be pretty or enable her to command the respect of the American people or leaders abroad when she makes tough decisions. — John Fund is NRO’s national-affairs correspondent.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441517/clinton-foundation-scandal-wikileaks-discredit-hillary-presidency

 

[Brad Sallows]

Having read a few political bios, I noted that whenever leaders were under distracting stress (eg. PET when Margaret got a wild hair up her ass), the business of the country suffered.  (Obviously the business of the country is stressful, but the focus is maintained.)

The real problem with electing Hillary Clinton is the risk that her administration is going to be dancing to others' tunes, at the times of their choosing, whenever information that was not properly secured is served out.  Four years of drip, drip, drip.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Well things might just get more interesting...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/politics/fbi-reviewing-new-emails-in-clinton-probe-director-tells-senate-judiciary-committee/index.html?adkey=bn

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/28/fbi-reopens-investigation-into-clinton-email-use.html

1. FBI thinks Trump is going to win and want to be in good with the new Boss.
2. FBI thinks/knows their investigation wasn't on the up and up and want to save face.
3. FBI thinks Hillary is going to win so is re-investigating Hillary only to not charge her with anything again thus strengthening her.


Seems like the Media is covering Clintons emails a bit more too, I wonder if they're getting nervous as well.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

https://ca.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=AwrBTvcMDxVY97QAEXHrFAx.;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N2Noc21lBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwaXZz?p=haitian+condemns+Clinton+foundation&fr=mcafee&fr2=piv-web#id=1&vid=26759d1fc3006c3c04e7711ccf9420ba&action=view

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/03/clinton_foundations_chickens_coming_home_to_roost_in_haiti.html

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/24/video-pay-for-play-at-clinton-foundation-for-haiti-relief/

http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/haitians-fear-clintons-will-scam-them-again/

:cheers:

 

[a_majoor]

The cutting observations of Camille Puglia. Always worth looking at, even of you don't agree with her views:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/the-woman-is-a-disaster-camille-paglia-on-hillary-clinton/

{quote]
‘The woman is a disaster!’: Camille Paglia on Hillary Clinton
A wide-ranging interview with the iconoclastic professor
Emily Hill
29 October 2016
9:00 AM

Talking to Camille Paglia is like approaching a machine gun: madness to stick your head up and ask a question, unless you want your brain blown apart by the answer, but a visceral delight to watch as she obliterates every subject in sight. Most of the time she does this for kicks. It’s only on turning to Hillary Clinton that she perpetrates an actual murder: of Clinton II’s most cherished claim, that her becoming 45th president of the United States would represent a feminist triumph.

‘In order to run for president of the United States, you have to spend two or three years of your life out on the road constantly asking for money and most women find that life too harsh, too draining,’ Paglia argues. ‘That is why we haven’t had a woman president in the United States — not because we haven’t been ready for one, for heaven’s sakes, for a very long time…’

Hillary hasn’t suffered — Paglia continues — because she is a woman. She has shamelessly exploited the fact: ‘It’s an outrage how she’s played the gender card. She is a woman without accomplishment. “I sponsored or co-sponsored 400 bills.” Oh really? These were bills to rename bridges and so forth. And the things she has accomplished have been like the destabilisation of North Africa, causing refugees to flood into Italy… The woman is a disaster!’

Not that Paglia was always opposed to the Clintons. She voted for Bill Clinton twice before becoming revolted by the treatment meted out to Monica Lewinsky: ‘One of the very first interviews I did here — the headline was “Kind of a bitch — why I like Hillary Clinton”. My jaundiced view of her is entirely the result of observing her behaviour. And last election, I voted for Jill Stein’s Green party. So I have already voted for a woman president.’

As far as most feminists are concerned, such a view is unconscionable. Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright made it their business to castigate American girls who wanted Bernie Sanders, while Madonna has promised a blowjob for every Clinton vote. Professor Paglia does not seem to mind much if she makes herself violently unpopular with her contemporaries — she’s an expert at it. Currently professor of the humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, she first shot to fame in 1990 with the publication of Sexual Personae — a manuscript turned down by seven publishers before it became a bestseller.

Paglia’s feminism has always been concerned with issues far beyond her own navel and the Hillary verdict is typical of her attitude — which is more in touch with women in the real world than most feminists’ (a majority of Americans, for example, have an ‘unfavourable view of Hillary Clinton’ according to recent polling).

‘My philosophy of feminism,’ the New York-born 69-year-old explains, ‘I call street-smart Amazon feminism. I’m from an immigrant family. The way I was brought up was: the world is a dangerous place; you must learn to defend yourself. You can’t be a fool. You have to stay alert.’ Today, she suggests, middle-class girls are being reared in a precisely contrary fashion: cosseted, indulged and protected from every evil, they become helpless victims when confronted by adversity. ‘We are rocketing backwards here to the Victorian period with this belief that women are not capable of making decisions on their own. This is not feminism — which is to achieve independent thought and action. There will never be equality of the sexes if we think that women are so handicapped they can’t look after themselves.’

Paglia traces the roots of this belief system to American campus culture and the cult of women’s studies. This ‘poison’ — as she calls it — has spread worldwide. ‘In London, you now have this plague of female journalists… who don’t seem to have made a deep study of anything…’

Paglia does not sleep with men — but she is, very refreshingly, in favour of them. She never moans about ‘the patriarchy’ but freely asserts that manmade capitalism has enabled her to write her books.

As for male/female relations, she says that they are far more complex than most feminists insist. ‘I wrote a date-rape essay in 1991 in which I called for women to stand up for themselves and learn how to handle men. But now you have this shibboleth, “No means no.” Well, no. Sometimes “No” means “Not yet”. Sometimes “No” means “Too soon”. Sometimes “No” means “Keep trying and maybe yes”. You can see it with the pigeons on the grass. The male pursues the female and she turns away, and turns away, and he looks a fool but he keeps on pursuing her. And maybe she’s testing his persistence; the strength of his genes… It’s a pattern in the animal kingdom — a courtship pattern…’ But for pointing such things out, Paglia adds, she has been ‘defamed, attacked and viciously maligned’ — so, no, she is not in the least surprised that wolf-whistling has now been designated a hate crime in Birmingham.

Girls would be far better advised to revert to the brave feminist approach of her generation — when women were encouraged to fight all their battles by themselves, and win. ‘Germaine Greer was once in this famous debate with Norman Mailer at Town Hall. Mailer was formidable, enormously famous — powerful. And she just laid into him: “I was expecting a hard, nuggety sort of man and he was positively blousy…” Now that shows a power of speech that cuts men up. And this is the way women should be dealing with men — finding their weaknesses and susceptibilities… not bringing in an army of pseudo, proxy parents to put them down for you so you can preserve your perfect girliness.’

In an hour’s non-stop talking, Professor Paglia is only lost when asked which younger feminists she would pass the baton to. ‘I would love to inspire dissident young feminists to realise that this brand of feminism is not all feminism…’ she says, before citing Germaine Greer as the woman she admires most alive, and Amelia Earhart and Katharine Hepburn as heroines alas dead.

As with Greer, it is Paglia’s power of speech that utterly devastates. Her collected works read like a dictionary of vicious quotations. (Leaving sex to the feminists? ‘Like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.’ Lena Dunham? ‘She’s a big pile of pudding.’) Paglia is pro-liberty, pro–pornography, pro-prostitutes and anti- any and all special treatment when it comes to women in power: ‘I do not believe in quotas of any kind. Scandinavian countries are going in that direction and it’s an insult to women — the idea that you need a quota.’ Which brings us back to Hillary and the so-called victory her re-entering the White House would represent: ‘If Hillary wins, nothing will change. She knows the bureaucracy, all the offices of government and that’s what she likes to do, sit behind the scenes and manipulate the levers of power.’

Paglia says she has absolutely no idea how the election will go: ‘But people want change and they’re sick of the establishment — so you get this great popular surge, like you had one as well… This idea that Trump represents such a threat to western civilisation — it’s often predicted about presidents and nothing ever happens — yet if Trump wins it will be an amazing moment of change because it would destroy the power structure of the Republican party, the power structure of the Democratic party and destroy the power of the media. It would be an incredible release of energy… at a moment of international tension and crisis.’

All of a sudden, the professor seems excited. Perhaps, like all radicals in pursuit of the truth, Paglia is still hoping the revolution will come.
[/quote]

 

[vonGarvin]

There is a whole series of similar ads as this out in the land of the meme-ridden internet:

They are not so much advocating votes for The Trumpkin:

They instead call to light her foreign policy, which they see as failed.  Agree with their premise or not, these are rather clever.


This is the first one I think I saw:

 

[a_majoor]

And voter fraud in Minnesota. In this case, the fish is rotting from the head:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/voter-fraud-in-minnesota.php

POSTED ON OCTOBER 29, 2016 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN VOTER FRAUD
VOTER FRAUD IN MINNESOTA
That’s a big topic, as Minnesota’s same-day registration scheme is notoriously subject to–in fact, invites–abuse. But a group called Minnesota Voters Alliance has brought to light another problem: substantial numbers of felons, among others, are illegally being allowed to vote, because Minnesota’s Secretary of State refuses to follow the law. Yesterday, lawsuits were commenced by three election judges:

Minnesota Secretary of State and county election managers are being sued by election judges who claim the 2016 Minnesota Election Judge Guide requires them to violate state election laws.

The lawsuits were filed today in Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis Counties by three election judges who are requesting an injunction relieving them from having to provide ballots to people who are listed as felons, people under guardianship and noncitizens.
***

State law establishes a detailed procedure to match felons, people under guardianship and noncitizens against the list of people who have registered to vote in the statewide voter registration system. In the case of a match, county auditors are required to change the voter status of any registered voters who are determined to be felons, under guardianship or noncitizens.

But according to instructions from the Secretary of State, election officials must allow felons, people under guardianship and noncitizens who are identified as such on the poll roster to vote anyway, so long as they take an oath claiming they are eligible to vote.

This is sheer lawlessness on the part of Governor Mark Dayton’s administration, and it is just one of a number of ways in which laws intended to promote ballot security are being violated or circumvented so that felons (who overwhelmingly vote Democratic), illegal aliens and others can cast ballots.

Voter fraud in Minnesota has already done great harm to the nation as a whole. Al Franken cast the decisive 60th vote for Obamacare after he took office in 2009, following a disputed election in which he defeated Republican Norm Coleman by 312 votes. It is almost certain that voter fraud provided Franken’s margin of victory–not fraud in absentee ballots, which were the subject of an extended recount, but fraud committed on election day when felons, non-citizens, and persons who had already voted elsewhere were allowed to cast ballots. We are living with the consequences today, as Obamacare unravels.

 

[The Bread Guy]

1. FBI thinks Trump is going to win and want to be in good with the new Boss.
2. FBI thinks/knows their investigation wasn't on the up and up and want to save face.
3. FBI thinks Hillary is going to win so is re-investigating Hillary only to not charge her with anything again thus strengthening her.

4.  FBI finds more stuff to look into, so it looks into it because that's what cops do.

Although the announcement this close to election day is, at best, a bad judgement call.

 

[QV]

4.  FBI finds more stuff to look into, so it looks into it because that's what cops do.

Although the announcement this close to election day is, at best, a bad judgement call.

Hmm, interesting perspective.  I suggest the bad judgement remains with Clinton et al. 

 

[vonGarvin]

Although the announcement this close to election day is, at best, a bad judgement call.

I'm not so sure.  Given the timing, I can only assume that there is some pretty damning stuff there.  Maybe some of the 33,000 emails that were BleachBitted into oblivion?  We'll see.

 

[FJAG]

I'm not so sure.  Given the timing, I can only assume that there is some pretty damning stuff there.  Maybe some of the 33,000 emails that were BleachBitted into oblivion?  We'll see.

That's the big problem: everyone is assuming or, even worse, jumping to conclusions.

The way I understand it is that the FBI investigation relates to Anthony Weiner (re scandalous photos to a minor) and Weiner and his wife Huma Abadin (who works for Clinton) shared a laptop which contains email from both of them. At this point in time, there is absolutely no knowledge as to whether the emails that Abadin had included any new emails from Clinton that have not already been disclosed or whether in fact any of them include any issue of wrongdoing. Makes me wonder if the FBI's was even legally entitled to look at Abadin's information on the laptop much less disclose information about it.

The only thing that appears clear is that the FBI director's letter, contrary to the usual practice in keeping information about investigations confidential until complete, has created an issue which may not even exist and has done so at a very critical time in the election.

:cheers:

 

[ModlrMike]

There may be another issue at work. Apparently Ms Abadin assured the FBI that she had surrendered all devices with emails from Mrs Clinton. That may no longer be the case. I think this is the angle that the FBI used to launch another Clinton investigation.

 

[cavalryman]

The only thing that appears clear is that the FBI director's letter, contrary to the usual practice in keeping information about investigations confidential until complete, has created an issue which may not even exist and has done so at a very critical time in the election.

:cheers:

And that begs the question cui bono?  :nod:

 

[FJAG]

And that's begs the question cui bono?  :nod:

Exactly! cui indeed?

:cheers:

 

[The Bread Guy]

Great math there, Obama Haters ...

 

[George Wallace]

There may be another issue at work. Apparently Ms Abadin assured the FBI that she had surrendered all devices with emails from Mrs Clinton. That may no longer be the case. I think this is the angle that the FBI used to launch another Clinton investigation.

The New York Times provide video and article, by Adam Golman and Alan Rappeport, OCT. 28, 2016, Emails in Anthony Weiner Inquiry Jolt Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

WASHINGTON — The presidential campaign was rocked on Friday after federal law enforcement officials said that emails pertinent to the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server were discovered on a computer belonging to Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide.

In a letter to Congress, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said the emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, which law enforcement officials said was an F.B.I. investigation into illicit text messages from Mr. Weiner to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, is married to Huma Abedin, the top aide.

Mr. Comey's letter said that the F.B.I. would review the emails to determine if they improperly contained classified information, which is tightly controlled by the government. Senior law enforcement officials said that it was unclear if any of the emails were from Mrs. Clinton’s private server. And while Mr. Comey said in his letter that the emails “appear to be pertinent,” the F.B.I. had not yet examined them.

By the end of a day that brought stinging criticism of Mr. Comey from both Democrats and Republicans, he appeared on the defensive, saying in an internal email to bureau employees that he had felt obligated to inform Congress, and “we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails.’’

......../snipped.

Remainder of article on LINK, including a selection of videos related to the campaign.


And I thought our last election was the worse.  Times sure are a changing.

 

[vonGarvin]

The only thing that appears clear is that the FBI director's letter, contrary to the usual practice in keeping information about investigations confidential until complete, has created an issue which may not even exist and has done so at a very critical time in the election.
:cheers:

My own, completely uninformed wild guess is that he did so in spite of the timing because there is something huge in there.

 

[GR66]

There may or there may not be anything damaging in there.  By coming out and saying that they are re-opening the investigation due to potentially finding additional emails to review the FBI is being accused of unfairly impacting the election. 

Imagine however if they instead kept quiet and the then announced AFTER the election that they did find emails indicating security breaches from Clinton's server?  Would that not open up the FBI to accusations that they interfered with the election by protecting Clinton from potentially damaging information prior to the vote?

It's really a no win situation for the FBI.  I think they really have likely done the only thing they can do as an impartial agency.  Act on the information that they find in a way that ignores the fact that there is an election going on.  Their role is not to be involved in politics.  If there was no election and they found information potentially related to a closed case they would re-open that case and check the information.  They shouldn't act any differently just because there is an election going on. 

As to how they announced it, I don't know what their usual procedure is so I can't comment on that.  My understanding is that they previously informed Congress that the investigation was closed.  Due to this new information that is no longer true so they informed Congress of that change in fact.  Seems reasonable to me.

It's quite possible that there is nothing on those emails to warrant any different end result from the original FBI investigation.  Clinton may take a hit just before the election as a result regardless.  That being said, if she didn't show the poor judgement of insisting on having her own private email server in the first place then this issue wouldn't exist.  I can't really find myself feeling terribly sorry for her on this issue.   

 

[jollyjacktar]

:goodpost:

 

[cupper]

Even the FBI doesn't know what is in the e-mails. They have no idea if they are duplicates of e-mails they already have, if it is new material not yet discovered, or if it even has any significant relevance. And to accomplish a comprehensive review of the information would take until after the election was over.

Comey went against the advice and rules of the Justice Department to not compromise a current investigation, and to not interfere with any election. However there was an issue that if they didn't notify Congress about this until after they concluded their review, then he would be accused of holding back information to help Clinton's cause. So he decides to implement CYA. Unfortunately by being so vague in the letter to Congress, if backfired and stirred up a hornets nest. He was damned if he did it, and damned if he didn't. By being forthcoming, and if nothing was found that changed the situation (for example if these e-mails turned out to be all duplicates to the e-mails they already have) then an argument could be made that he unduly interfered with, and potentially gave Trump enough to stumble past 270.