Still from a video Tweeted by the Clinton campaign, showing Republicans saying candidates should release their returns.
Some topics as the week winds down:
- Clinton tax return shows couple made $10.7 million in 2015 — Meanwhile, someone else — I’m not saying who — is still sharing nothing.
- Clinton Widens Lead Over Trump in Battleground States — That’s in the WSJ. The NYT reports that since the conventions, “instead of attracting a surge of new admirers, Mr. Trump has been hemorrhaging support among loyal Republicans, anti-establishment independents, Clinton-loathing Democrats and others…”
- Lawyers for ex-N. Charleston officer say video defends shooting — The lawyers here know what Carl Sandburg said: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, argue total B.S.”
- The Trump we saw: Populist, frustrating, forever on the make — This is from a book a couple of Washington Post reporters are writing.
- Have we detected an alien megastructure in space? Keep an open mind — And now, for something completely different… It’s probably a space bypass being constructed by the Vogons, as part of a stimulus package pushed by President Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Related Posts
For the past 30 to 40 years, has every presidential candidate released his or her college transcripts?
and why should they?
For the same reason we feel we must see their personal tax returns. For that matter why don’t we get to see their medical histories? If we’re going to pry, let’s not do a superficial job of it.
“Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill deducted $1,042,000 in charitable contributions last year — $1 million of which went to their own family non-profit, the Clinton Family Foundation.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/12/96-percent-of-hillarys-charitable-donations-in-2015-went-to-clinton-foundation/#ixzz4H9q5upek
So if my math is correct they earned $10.3 million dollars and gave 4% of it to charity. The other 96% they “donated to charity” they stuffed in their pockets.
That’s not how foundations work, and you (ought to) know it. Foundations receive a great deal of scrutiny from the IRS, as they should. No private inurement.
Umm, I doubt the Clinton Foundation receives much scrutiny from the IRS.
Being the Clintons and all
2) Trump is in trouble not just in battleground states.
Recent polling shows him leading Clinton by just 2 points — in SC !
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Is that the poll WLTX stated was conducted by the Democratic party?
No, this was another one. The Democratic one was a couple of days before that.
Wait — I’m not sure now. I can’t tell WHO did that one.
I was thinking of the PPP poll…
PPP, which FiveThirtyEight scores as having a slight tendency to skew toward Republicans, reported last week that “Clinton/Trump Race Tight in South Carolina.”
Tex, I’m sorry; I was wrong. The PPP poll WAS commissioned by the Democrats! I’m sorry — I didn’t see that when I first checked, and just saw it a minute ago.
Still, this is PPP, and they usually do a pretty good job.
But that was a big mistake on my part!
I’ll let it slide this time, just don’t let it happen again.
What Bill said. Wow. What’s going on, Brad? PPP reports a sharp generational difference, but they need to give us cross tabs on age *and* race to get the full picture. Ditto for education as a factor; I was surprised to learn that college-educated whites now outnumber non-college educated whites in SC, as they do in other South Atlantic states, but not in the Gulf South or Greater Appalachia where I live.
Well I have hit the Washington Post pay wall 2 months in a row. I blame Trump. There are just too many articles about how horrible he is.
Unrelatedly, maybe it is Babylon 5.
We pause for a commercial message:
I have a subscription to all electronic versions of The Post that only cost $29 for a year.
That might have been a special, temporary offer, though…
Here’s the thing: I would pay for a multi-platform pass, like a Netflix deal, but I already contribute to Slate and subscribe to the Atlantic, the New Yorker, The State….it starts to add up, after a while. I wouldn’t mind a subscription to my hometown paper, either. I am not going to subscribe to WaPo, the Boston Globe, the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times.
I subscribe to The State, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker — although I should probably drop The New Yorker, as I seldom look at it. (But I never get around to stopping it, because it’s only $5.99 a month.)
I normally subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, but whenever they try to bump me from a barely affordable rate that is already MUCH higher than what I pay for the Post to a rate three or four times as much, I drop it until they offer me a good deal again.
I can understand going up 10, 20 or even at the outside 50 percent, but 300 or 400 percent? Fuhgeddaboudit.
But then, I do miss it during the periods when I’m cut off. Especially the Saturday Review section…
5 = 42
Realized today that people hate Trump because of what he has said. People hate Hillary for what she has done. Which is worse?
Trump is way worse. His word just scratch the surface of the craven character of this child-man. He’s cheated small contractors, scammed folks through his Trump University and Trump Institute cons. His business practices, especially the casinos cost lenders millions while he exploited bankruptcy laws to skate free. The man is a thug, a cheat and a fraud. But most importantly his narcisistic temperament makes him totally unsuited for POTUS. He is very dangerous and has no business ever getting the opportunity to make executive decisions.
Hillary? She’s shown herself to be one of the toughest, most well versed candidates in history. All this nattering about Benghazi, emails and the Clinton foundation is little more than Fox News bloviating and conspiracy theory nonsense. She’s worked tirelessly her entire adult live championing causes for children, the disabled, 9-11 victims and a whole host of others left behind by the plutocracy.
I disagree with your premise. Trump’s words are egregiously attention getting, it is true, but his actions, though overshadowed, are also not good. I have issues with both. Hillary on the other hand has done some good things, like working for children’s issues and for healthcare and education.
Prior to 2016, what level of anger would you have had toward Trump based on his actions? Hillary has been despised by 40% of the American public for 20 years.
His actions did not impact me prior to 2016. I dismissed him as a silly selfish person who was irrelevant to me prior to 2016. Except, now that I think about it, his actions promoting the birther stuff did make me a bit angry, prior to 2016. But anyway, his actions are now very relevant to me if he wants to lead the country. I had no reason to pay attention to how he ran his company or his life until now. But now having done so, I’m not impressed with either.
I’m not sure what exactly you are getting at here. What is the relevance of how angry either of them have made anybody in the past to whether or not they are qualified to do the job at hand in the future? Anger and hate can be drummed up by people with an interest to do so. So yes, the anti Clinton crowd has had a lot more time to build up and ingrain those feelings whether they are truly warranted or not. Just because they have a headstart with negative propaganda doesn’t mean the propaganda is true.
Not saying I think she is flawless, but I don’t think she is nearly as bad as the hate against her would warrant.
As responsible voters, people should try to look with fresh eyes at the current situation and the information at hand from as primary a source as possible. Yea I know I live in a dream world, but that’s what I try to do. I wish more people did.
Personally, I never had a terribly positive impression of Hillary prior to this race, but I never paid close attention either until now. I’ve found that once I’ve really looked at what she says and what she’s done, I actually like her better than my previous casual impression. I think she makes a lot of sense but doesn’t come across well. She has some personality quirks, quite possibly understandable ones given her personal history and temperament, but that are nevertheless easy to exploit if you are inclined to not like her at all.
Still – OMG – how can any sane person not think she is the better choice out of this particular match up.
Agree Scout. Brad is actually right for a change
Wait a minute: Who are you and what have you done with Bud?
What you know of Donald Trump is what your biased selection of media outlets tells you to think of him. You get a filtered view. You just don’t realize you’ve been duped.
Interesting. I’m not sure how you think you know what media outlets I use or why the same would not apply to you. It could be that you are the one being duped due to your biased selection of media outlets.
Seriously, this is obviously a potential pitfall for any consumer of information. I do try to listen to a variety of sources and pay attention to what the candidates themselves say as much as possible (rather than just what someone else says it means). Listening to the same event covered in different ways by different outlets is very illuminating to me. It’s easier to infer the truth in the middle if you get several perspectives on the same thing.
Confirmation Bias – the tendency to interpret evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.
Trumps birtherism charges against Obama had me real pissed off years ago. The animosity toward Hillary is largely the result of Fox News propaganda.
I have had disgust towards the Donald at least since he crudely dumped Ivana for Marla “Moolah” Maples….and he just kept adding on, culminating in the ridiculous, scurrilous birtherism
I don’t get that. People who hate Hillary hate her for sounding and looking like she does, and for not divorcing her husband, as far as I can see. What other things has she done? Voted for the Iraq War promulgated by the party that hates her?
It started with HillaryCare, then making the choice to side with Bill following his multiple infidelities, then Benghazi, then the email server, and throw in millions made off speeches to Wall Street. There’s enough to anger liberals and Conservatives.
It’s easier if you just admit to yourself that like Trump, Hillary would have to shoot someone on the street in broad daylight before you’d consider NOT voting for her. You’re all in.
Sure. No way would I vote for Donald Trump. He is simply unfit to serve based on his clear lac of impulse control, if nothing else.
But do I wish a less polarizing candidate who was also likely to trounce Trump were on offer–sure. It’s just that I think a lot of the “polarizing” is misogyny, pure and simple, fomented by troll Roger Ailes and lapped up by the same people who have no issue with all the horrible misogynistic things Trump has said over the decades….
And yet some women keep wanting to be associated with Trump and his various endeavors. Did you ever watch him on the Apprentice? More often than not, he valued the leadership capabilities of women — he also held them to the same tough standards he has for men. I’m not sure I’ve heard a single female contestant who was on that show come out against Trump. Sure, it was a reality show but there were far too many women who spent a lot of time with him in a business setting and didn’t have a bad word to say about him.
And then there’s all the young women who keep entering Miss Universe pageants even though they are run by a misogynist. But then I would suspect that participating in those types of contests would automatically elicit the scorn of some women.
Right–HillaryCare is a reason to hate her? It didn’t even pass. She chose to honor her marriage vows. That’s a reason to *hate* her? Wow.
And exactly what did she do with “Benghazi” that justifies the derision?
The email server–do you also hate Colin Powell?
The Wall Street speeches–again–if it were anyone else, you’d be clapping!
and you prefer Donald, who just throws away his wives after he hooks up with a younger model. That’s rich.
Uh, I don’t prefer Donald at all. I am not voting for him. Never considered it. I just have a less biased opinion of him.
Hillary was an enabler of Bill’s multiple infidelities including the worst incident in American political history. She could have encouraged him to resign AND stood by him as a wife. She didn’t do that. She attacked the women who came forward. She tied her political ambition to Bill’s ability to lie to the American public.
Is it not entirely possible that she actually loves Bill? Lots of people who know them believe she is and has always been head over heels for him, and as we know, people who are in love have rose-colored glasses when viewing the actions of the beloved. Bill is a charmer, no doubt about it. He has charisma to burn, and you can feel it in a crowded room.
Charisma to Burn is my favorite Def Leppard song.
Sure she could love Bill. But she could have done that if he resigned too. She tied her political career to his infidelities. Bill a sexual predator who would have been fired from any other job. He lied. He denied. He stonewalled. He wasted a lot of resources defending the indefensible. And she stood by on to his coattails.
We believe the ones we love, far more than we should many times. How many parents just cannot believe little Sweetums could possibly have done X?
Right up until the blue dress appeared, right? Or even after that?
She knew what she was doing. She was an enabler.
How do you know what she knew and when she knew it, and then there’s the issue of how we probably do know things about loved ones but we are in denial…
I love the excuse, Colin Powell did it so it must be okay.
No, Colin Powell did it and you aren’t crucifying/prosecuting/vilifying him…that’s the argument.
I’ll give you the Wall Street speeches. The other stuff, ESPECIALLY Benghazi amounts to nothing.
Doug just won’t accept that in politics, saying IS doing. But at least he’s consistent. He won’t give people credit for saying the right things, or blame for saying the wrong.
In our system of checks and balances, individual politicians are limited in what they are able to DO. So we judge them by what they intend to do.
Besides, there’s plenty of things he’s DONE that are bad. It’s just that he hasn’t done them in public office because he hasn’t HELD public office. And that IS different. Which is why it matters whether a candidate has held public office previously, so that we can assess their performance.
Basically, all we have to go on with Trump are the outrageous things he says. Which are FAR more than enough to tell them he should never get anywhere near any public office, especially POTUS…
And to underline yet again how unprecedented Trump is (as much as we might strain to compare him to William Jennings Bryan, or Andrew Jackson), think about 2012, when Romney was done in by ONE slipup in a private meeting with supporters — the 47 percent gaffe.
By comparison, Trump says worse things than that every day, and he does it publicly; he shouts it from the rooftops.
But we’ve become accustomed to it, and it doesn’t hurt him — except perhaps on the aggregate, over time, which might explain his slipping in the polls. But anyone ONE of his daily outrages should have sunk him long ago.
For that matter, his birther insanity should have disqualified him before he started. But it didn’t, which testifies to a profound sickness out there in the electorate…
One last thing on this topic. Hillarycare would have been a good thing for this country. But even if you disagree it cant be viewed as a reason to deny her legitimacy as a candidate for POTUS.
She had no authority to push Hillarycare. She wasn’t elected President. It was the same with all the ludicrous school lunch regulations Michelle Obama has championed.
She had the authority that any presidential appointee has. People just didn’t like the president appointing his wife…
She was a perfectly reasonable appointee. If she weren’t First Lady, she still could have been a top pick. She, like Michelle Obama, has top credentials!
Each time Michael Phelps stood on the podium last week to receive his gold medal, it made those against the legalization of marijuana look more archaic. “Don’t smoke dope, kids, or you may end up the greatest swimmer in history… or President of the United States (or, allegedly his daughter)”.
The biggest mistake Leon Lott ever made in his career was going after Phelps in an obvious grandstanding move. Maybe Phelps’ success could open up a dialog about the wasted efforts of the “war on drugs” and the terrible impact that criminalizing the use of marijuana has had on society – the punishment has been worse than the crime – filling jails with non-violent people, altering the educational and career opportunities for millions due to criminal records, clogging the court system with people who should never be there. Using drugs is a choice. Using drugs that are addictive is a medical issue, not a criminal issue. Voting for Hillary or Trump won’t alter the current policies much if at all. Vote for Gary Johnson if you want to see our law enforcement agencies focus on actual crimes.
“The biggest mistake Leon Lott ever made in his career…”
Not really. You weren’t there for his appearance at Rotary right after that, at which he received three standing ovations…
Phelps has turned a corner from what had been a self-destructive drinking bout. I don’t think at this point in his life, he would make a defense of drugs while he s promoting his foundation for youths.
Regarding marijuana, I would like to see it as controlled medicine, if it works.
Yeah, legal alcohol was more of a problem for him than illegal pot.
Political bias test:
Hillary or Bernie?
Hillary or Kasich?
Hillary or Romney?
Hillary or G.W. Bush?
Hillary or Bill?
Hillary or Reagan?
Hillary or Bernie? Hillary, no question.
Hillary or Kasich? That’s easy — Kasich.
Hillary or Romney? That’s a little tougher. Probably Romney, since I think he’d be less divisive.
Hillary or G.W. Bush? Tough. Maybe Hillary. Although remember, I’m factoring in the fact that she voted with Bush on Iraq. But I’m not sure; I’d have to sweat over it. Now if you said “G.H.W. Bush,” I’d say Bush, definitely.
Hillary or Bill? Bill. He lied to us shamelessly, but he was a competent president, and a known quantity.
Hillary or Reagan? Arrggghhhh! That’s a fargin’ trick question! I’m one of the few people in the country (it spmetimes seems) who really, viscerally disliked Reagan at the time. But since he was fairly successful in office, and the country was less divided then, I guess I’d hold my nose and go with him. Again, the known quantity…
I’m also wavering on the Bill vs. Hillary thing. I don’t think Tony Blair would have had to drag Hillary kicking and screaming into intervening in the Balkans the way he had to do Bill. So she’s got that going for her…
But then Bill would have been for TPP, and her pandering opposition to that is one of my biggest objections to Hillary…
I should give my answers:
Bernie
Kasich
Romney
Abstain (never Bush or Hillary).. if pushed, I guess Hillary. Bush was a disaster.
Bill
Hillary over Reagan (especially second term Reagan)
So, except for Bernie, we’re in agreement!
Yes, but my real picks were Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Kerry, Steve Forbes…
Hillary was paid well for addressing some guys on Wall Street. She didn’t rob them at gunpoint. It was their money which they happily paid. It’s called a free market economy. Or should she take less because she’s a woman?
No other place to put this… but as the saying goes, “Another day, another example of how corrupt the Richland County government is”.
Once again, Ron Aiken of Quorum has done the yeoman’s work to uncover another shady deal involving Pinewood Lake Park. It’s almost sickening to see how much money is stolen and wasted in this county.
http://quorumcolumbia.org/2016/08/17/pinewood-lake-park-county-illegally-spent-1-4-million-no-bid-deal/
Here’s the teaser:
“How does a weed-covered, semi-abandoned property in Lower Richland county that sold for $90,000 in 2003 stand at empty for nearly a decade with no improvements suddenly sell for $605,000 in March 2010 when the real estate market is in a freefall to a buyer who wasn’t interested in the property until a realtor friend “told him” to buy it?
It helps when in the very same month Richland County Councilman Norman Jackson made a motion at council’s regular meeting to “pursue purchasing all properties associated with Caughman Creek using Hospitality Tax funds for recreational, historical, and conservation purposes”?
By the time the county closed the deal in November 2011, the price had reached $1 million, or $910,000 more than it sold for eight years prior.”
Meawhile, the top story in the local section of The State webpage is: “A water balloon battle of historic proportions set for Friday in Columbia”
You can’t make up this level of disconnectedness from doing the job of journalism.
You’re always just looking at thestate.com, right? Not the actual paper?
I’m not saying the paper version prioritizes news the way I would (I’m old school, very much a hard news guy, and a stickler about using play to communicate importance), but it’s a far better guide to what editors regard as significant than the website…