Donald Trump

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

Well, US elections are a zero sum game or so I understand thanks to reddit, so both statements are equivalent.

The single most important reform to implement in US politics would be nationalization of instant-runoff voting. This two-party shit is shit.

Well, everyone should push for that shit. I think that Maine is going to reform the voting system because they got sick, so there is a hope. Canada did something similar too. Funnily enough, both cases were mostly to avoid electing conservatives that a majority hates because the rest still doesn't agree.

Republicans would self destruct, Whigg style and be replaced for something better (Libertarians? Do you favour that party? I still think center right would be better than far right though).

I self-identify as libertarian but haven't really researched the Libertarian Party. Under first-past-post it seemed like a wasted effort.

I believe in civil liberties, limited scope of government but strong against fraud and the illegitimate use of force, minimal taxation, a lack of government discrimination, the right of every private citizen to discriminate as they damn well please, and that government recognition of marriage is a violation of separation of church and state.

I think most libertarians I've found on the internet (there are almost no one here in my country, left wing/statist shithole even for me) lack pragmatism and have positions that are inherently against almost any other ideology to allow compromise, except friedmanites. Still, I think there is value to that school of thought (then again, I find socialists can be valuable, even if I dislike a lot of their ideology). Diversity FTW.

There was that guy Sol Invictus in the libertarian party, he is hilariously insane, so it must be a hilarious party overall.

I don't know about libertarians in general, but for me pragmatism is in actions, not in words. If I'm blabbering on about how shit a plan is as I'm executing it, I'm being pragmatic.

Compromise should be a last resort, a result of a failure to make the ideal a reality.

trump 2016

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NeroNoah wrote:

Birtherism is personal for him.

He would have to be a granite boulder for it not to be personal. It was contrived just for him. Had Obama been forthright and asked Hawaii to produce the longform back in 2008, it would have been a non-issue.

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NeroNoah wrote:

Let's say that allowing Trump into the White House is the ultimate insult to him and his legacy. Start thinking a little, this is way too moronic. And no, Clinton doesn't bear any responsability for birtherism, don't even try to start to talk about that if you have any self respect and google skills.

Google works by prioritizing links by how others link to that link, and how people follow those links. A Google search on Rick Santorum's last name is a perfect example of how Google can be intentionally manipulated. Now consider this - how can Google search or archive things it doesn't have any access to like journalist memories or unpublished files in a newsroom? Google, like everything else has its limitations. In the case of Trump's claim, there is some backup for his claims:



"Meanwhile, former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had “told me in person” that Obama was born in Kenya.

“During the 2008 Democratic primary, Sid Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy Co.,” Asher said in an email Friday to McClatchy, noting that he was at the time the investigative editor and in charge of Africa coverage.

“During that meeting, Mr. Blumenthal and I met together in my office and he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false."



"The Trump campaign issued a news release with a portion of Solis Doyle’s interview and a link to memos back then to Clinton from Mark Penn, her 2008 pollster. One raises the issue of Obama’s “lack of American roots.” Obama was born in Hawaii. His father was Kenyan and his mother was from Kansas.

Penn’s memo said, “Every speech should contain the line that you were born in the middle of America in the middle class in the middle of the last century.”"

When the Los Angeles Times investigated - the best they could do was say no written proof exists of the claims Hillary started it.

Note that they try to distance the Clintons from Blumenthal, but at the same time make sure they aren't denying a strong connection:

Blumenthal, whose penchant for spinning dark hypotheses long ago earned him the nickname "grassy knoll" — a reference to Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories — did not work for the 2008 campaign. But he has been close to both Clintons since Bill Clinton’s first presidential bid in 1992, so he would be more than just a random, unhappy Clinton supporter.

"Asher, in a statement, said that “on the birther issue, I recall my conversation with Blumenthal clearly,” but “I have nothing in writing memorializing that conversation.”

The written records that do exist and the recollections of people involved at the time leave the question unsettled."

Though the LA Times would dearly love to throw Trump's claim into the ditch, the best they can do is say:

"Evidence on the question is ambiguous."

Sidney Blumenthal is enough of a non-random "supporter" that Hillary was reportedly taking his advice into consideration on actions in Syria and Libya.

How important was/is this "unofficial" member of Hillary's entourage?

You can check her emails yourself at the US Goverment's State Department Freedom of Information Act site:

https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=Clinton_Email

"H: GREAT TO SEE YOU, DROP IN AGAIN, HERE'S LIBYA. SID" <-- yeah, "Sid" definitely seems like some random person in this series of email, for instance.

.............

From the plethora of news coverage of Sid and Hillary:

"It appears that Clinton's office too was awash in Libya rumors. Nearly a third of all the emails she received on the security and political situation in Libya during her tenure as Secretary of State came from Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton associate who was not formally employed by the State Department. He was on the payroll of the Clinton Foundation, bringing in $10,000 a month as a consultant, while pursuing his own business interests in Libya. Blumenthal's emails to Clinton now have been made public in response to a FOIA lawsuit"

Why was Blumenthal interested in Libya?

"Blumenthal had invested in Osprey Global Solutions, a military contractor that wanted to do business with the Libyan rebels. While this was going down, he pushed Clinton, who was serving as Secretary of State at the time, to support business relations between western military contractors and Libyan rebels. "



"More than 3,000 pages of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s emails offer a detailed picture of her relationship with a longtime friend and political confidant, Sidney Blumenthal, who simultaneously served as a political adviser, one-man intelligence clearinghouse and personal friend during her time in office.

The emails show Mr. Blumenthal writing detailed dispatches on events across the world, offering advice on speeches, passing along press clippings about a variety of topics and serving as a political sounding board for Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Blumenthal first rose to prominence as a White House aide in her husband’s administration, and later was a top adviser on her 2008 campaign. After Mrs. Clinton was appointed to the State Department, she sought to bring Mr. Blumenthal on board.

In the summer of 2009, Mrs. Clinton asked for an update on plans to hire him. “What is latest re Sid Blumenthal?” Mrs. Clinton asked top aide Cheryl Mills in one email.

“Will see — he is doing the paperwork,” Ms. Mills, who was then serving as the secretary of state’s chief of staff, replied.

In another message, a State Department spokesman wrote to Ms. Mills that Mr. Blumenthal had inadvertently leaked the news of his potential hiring to a reporter.

The White House later halted the hiring process, citing the bad blood between Mr. Blumenthal and the Obama team dating back to the 2008 campaign, according to reports."

Even MSNBC (if they are an alt-right puppet, then Bernie is a Trump supporter) knows Hillary
was an early proponent of the birther topic against Obama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yIs_mKmAv0I

Then there was this photo which was reportedly circulated to various media outlets by unidentified members of the Clinton campaign:



"The Democratic White House race detoured into name-calling and accusations of "fear-mongering" Monday as Hillary Clinton scrambled to save her teetering campaign from annihilation.

The increasingly bitter duel for the nomination in advance of tonight's final debate went nuclear over a picture of Barack Obama dressed in traditional African garments making the rounds on the Internet.

Obama's team accused a "shameful" Camp Clinton of circulating the photo of Obama dressed as a Somali elder, taken during a visit to Africa in 2006."

When asked about the photo"I know nothing about it," Clinton told an ABC affiliate in Texas. "This is in the public domain. But let's just stop and ask yourself: ‘Why are you — why is anybody concerned about this?'""

Maybe it was wiped with a cloth or something?

The shameful behavior of Hillary was enough to cause several members of Hillary's campaign staff to leave her out of disgust, citing the her use of "birther" tactics against Obama as disgusting. You should be able to find that using your Google-Fu.

IIRC There was a monetary incentive for one of these two "Birther" advisers to get things going in Syria.

Aside from Hillary's own financial interests in instigating violence in the region:

"The City of Paris has struck a corporate partnership with French industrial giant, Lafarge, recently accused of secretly sponsoring the Islamic State (Isis or Daesh) for profit.

Documents obtained by several journalistic investigations reveal that Lafarge has paid taxes to the terror group to operate its cement plant in Syria, and even bought Isis oil for years.

Yet according to the campaign group, SumOfUs, Lafarge is the corporate partner and sand provider to the City of Paris for this summer’s Paris-Plages urban beach event. The project run by Office of the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, will create artificial beaches along the river Seine in the centre and northeast of Paris.

Lafarge also has close ties to Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Apart from being a regular donor to the Clinton Foundation, Clinton herself was a director of Lafarge in the early 1990s, and did legal work for the firm in the 1980s. During her connection to Lafarge, the firm was implicated in facilitating a CIA-backed covert arms export network to Saddam Hussein."

Back to the "starting" the Birther movement ...

It looks like the original claim was made in 2004, by Andy Martin. It didn't turn into a movement until Hillary's supporters and unofficial entourage got hold of it though.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8478044/Birther-row-began-with-Hillary-Clinton-supporters.html

" False rumours about Mr Obama’s background first surfaced in 2004, in Illinois, where he was a state senator. Andy Martin, a perennial local candidate and litigant, claimed Mr Obama was secretly Muslim. Related theories — including that he was radicalised in a “madrassa” in Indonesia — developed after Mr Obama entered the national stage with a speech to the Democratic National Convention later that year.

In 2005, Mr Obama went to Washington as the junior US senator for Illinois. The rumours about him persisted, but seemingly failed to take hold among political insiders and voters alike.

It was not until April 2008, at the height of the intensely bitter Democratic presidential primary process, that the torch paper was properly lit.
An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.

“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy,” it said. “She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth.”"

TL/DR - Hillary trends towards divisive racist tactics when it suits her needs. "Super Predators"

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I self-identify as libertarian but haven't really researched the Libertarian Party. Under first-past-post it seemed like a wasted effort.

I believe in civil liberties, limited scope of government but strong against fraud and the illegitimate use of force, minimal taxation, a lack of government discrimination, the right of every private citizen to discriminate as they damn well please, and that government recognition of marriage is a violation of separation of church and state.

Not to cherry pick, but I'd like to see an essay explaining how this wouldn't go exactly as it did pre-1960's. Honestly dude, this is not the ideological hill to die on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYJdFutL_yY

Hillary Clinton BTFO

Still cant stop laughting about that one... :')