“Hillary Clinton is consistently treated differently than just about any other candidate I see out there. There’s a reason we haven’t had a woman president.”
—-President Obama, playing the gender card, since the race card isn’t applicable, in a campaign speech in Columbus, Ohio.
How disgraceful is this? I know it’s a campaign speech and some hyperbole is expected, but there are limits. The statement is dishonest, insulting, divisive and stupid.
Hillary Clinton is treated differently “than just about any other candidate”? Does he mean Trump? That’s the only other candidate running for President, and sure, he’s treated differently: he’s routinely demonized in the news media, from which he received almost nothing but sneering, negative coverage, and called the equivalent of Hitler by members of Obama’s party. Nobody ever blames the bad press he gets on sexism. I guess she is treated differently.
Of course, Hillary is also the only allegedly feminist Presidential candidate who rose to power on the coattails of her more successful and powerful husband, whose rise she assisted by threatening the victims of his sexual advances into fearful silence, whose claim to being a Wall Street reformer is undercut by the huge speaking fees-as-access gifts she received from big financial firms, and who violated both ethical principles and her oath before Congress by shaking down foreign powers for gifts to her family foundation, aka slush fund, while Secretary of State.
She’s one of two candidates repeatedly caught in substantive and trivial lies, but the only one who secretly violated both her own Department’s policies and basic principles of competence by using an unauthorized e-mail system, exposing classified information to acquisition by hostile powers, destroyed potential evidence she knew would be subpoenaed, and lied to the press and the public about it for over a year. As a result of this and more, only 43% of women find Clinton trustworthy.
SEXISTS!
Oh, wait…
Those 43%, by the way, can only find Clinton trustworthy because they are gender-biased or pathetically gullible, because she is so clearly untrustworthy. Sexism is the only reason she has as much support as she does!
Obama’s statement is insulting to men and women, who he implies could not find a candidate within their ranks more trustworthy, honest and appealing than Hillary Clinton. It is also embarrassingly silly. Yeah, there are lots of reasons we don’t have a female President yet. For one thing, women couldn’t even vote until 1920, and weren’t entering the professional work force en masse until the Seventies, just 40 years and eleven Presidential elections ago.
There are still far, far fewer women in politics than men, meaning fewer role models, mentors and networks. I think it might have occurred to Obama that the main reason we haven’t had a female President is that very few have run or even wanted to run, and the pool still is neither impressive nor deep. The best qualified women have chosen other, less nasty, more lucrative, more family-friendly fields. Can anyone blame them? Look how Obama’s party and the news media treated a charismatic state governor who was also a wife and mother when she dared to run for Vice President in 2008. She was an idiot (but Joe Biden was good old, funny Joe!) and an inexperienced leader (but Barack Obama, with less experience, was going to be a wonderful President!).
Quick, Mr. President: name all those women who were obviously Presidential material and stopped from becoming President by sexism. Who are the other qualified women in the Democratic party, since the one your party chose is 69 years old with more political baggage than anyone around, and the wife of a previous President?
This is a fact, and cannot be denied: the only reason Hillary Clinton is this close to the Presidency is because she is a woman. A man with her record and negligible personal appeal wouldn’t have a chance.
President Obama’s legacy, however, is that he intentionally fostered societal divisions, suspicion and resentment for political gain. That’s why is leaving office having created the most divided nation since the Civil War.
This statement just adds to that disgraceful legacy.
Now he can play the race card.
WAIT!!!
I KNEW this unethical quote sounded familiar!
Obama has said almost the exact same thing in September the last time the election got close…and I made it the Unethical Quote of the Week then, too! (It is gratifying to know that the same things get my goat every time.) That was back when Hillary lied about having pneumonia. In that post, I concluded with this…
And if she is elected, be prepared for the gender card to be played over and over again, as it is being increasingly played the more panicked Democrats get.
I just de-friended a Facebook friend for writing that the only reason I am critical of Hillary’s e-mail machinations is because I’m a man. I cannot begin to tell you how furious that makes me, and how statements like Obama’s deepen my intense contempt for the manner in which Clinton’s corrupted supporters argue for her candidacy.
“There’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president.We as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women and it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly…This should not be a close election but it will be, and the reason it will be is not because of Hillary’s flaws.”
First, let us all take a moment and have a good laugh over the President’s glaringly dishonest claim that if the election is close, it won’t be because of Hillary’s “flaws.” Does anyone, including Obama, believe that? If Hillary Clinton wasn’t a chilly campaigner, an abrasive speaker, a venal master of crony politics, a compulsive liar, didn’t risk national security to avoid public scrutiny and lie about it, hadn’t been a mediocre Secretary of State involved in a failed foreign policy, didn’t aid, abet, deny and excuse her sexual predator husband, and wasn’t going to turn 69 before the election and do so in dubious health—these are all flaws, by the way—is there any question that she would be heading for a landslide victory, instead of facing very possible defeat? PBS pundit Mark Shields told a Georgetown University audience last week that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is less qualified for the Presidency than Clinton by far, who supports many of Bernie Sanders’ nuttier positions and who has some political baggage of her own, would have beaten Trump in a landslide, and he’s right.
Yet, oddly, Warren seems to be a woman too….
As has been the habit of Obama’s party and supporters in the press for eight long years, the mantra from the Clinton campaign is that one cannot possibly have principled, reasonable, legitimate objections to her corrupt candidacy; the opposition must be rooted in bigotry. Division and hatred are progressive tools of the trade now, for even in his final months in office, Obama seems determined to leave a society shattered along race and gender as his most damning legacy. If you are not a Hillary supporter, it is because you are a sexist bigot who unfairly rejects “powerful women.” Well, more specifically, since Obama was talking to a pro-Hillary audience, its “they” who are sexist bigots. Hillary’s deplorables, those lesser Americans. Now the President is “otherizing” those who don’t do his bidding. Nice.
Obama’s historical assertion that this is a major reason why we haven’t had a female President is so factually nonsensical that it qualifies as intentional disinformation, a false statement that the speaker knows is false, designed to make his audience stupid. Who are those qualified, experienced female candidates who have lost elections because they were “strong”? I’d like some names.
Most “strong women” who haven’t beaten Clinton to the White House didn’t do so because women didn’t even have the vote until 1920. By then, men had a 130 year head start, and when everyone who has held a prominent job has been a male, it isn’t surprising that the idea that it’s a male job gets firmly embedded in people’s heads. Fear or dislike of “strong women” isn’t the problem. Activist Victoria Woodhull ran for President in 1872 on the Equal Rights ticket, but that was nearly 50 years before the Nineteenth Amendment allowed women to vote in presidential elections. It’s fair to say the fact that she wasn’t eligible and couldn’t appear on any ballots was the reason people didn’t vote for her, not because she was a “strong woman” (and she sure was.)
Margaret Chase Smith (December 14, 1897 – May 29, 1995) of Maine, a Republican, was the first woman to serve in both houses of the United States Congress. As a New Englander, I remember her well, though her strongest moment in the spotlight came before I was born, when she attacked Joe McCarthy and his followers for her 1950 speech, “Declaration of Conscience.” Smith ran for the Republican nomination in the 1964 presidential election, but she was a moderate in a party that was turning to the right (Barry Goldwater was the nominee that year), and the problem with Smith was that she didn’t seem strong enough, though like Woodhull, she was—she had to be to as the only woman in the Senate. Smith looked and sounded like the president of the PTA.
In 1972, as the Democratic Party turned left, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, Shirley Chisholm, made a serious bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Nobody had heard of Chisolm outside of her state; she was a sincere but poor public speaker (she had a speech impediment); and she was laboring under a dual handicap of being both female and black. Most important of all, no man with Chisolm’s relative lack of relevant experience, especially executive experience, would have had a chance.
That’s pretty much the list. (Well, there’s Carly Fiorina, whom I’m sure would love to blame her failure to catch on with Republican primary voters on the fact that she’s too strong. In truth, she lost because she’s dishonest and creepy, and was fired from the only top executive position she ever held.)
As Obama knows, women have been rising in politics, many of them very strong, but most women with the ability and character to be President have, on their own volition, chosen to do other things, in other fields, making up for lost time in the culture and making society increasingly comfortable with seeing women in the positions of responsibility and authority that were practically impossible for them to achieve for so long. Despite Obama’s insulting falsehood, most Americans believe it would be a societal advance to have a female President. A New York Times/CBS News poll found broad majorities of both men and women who were pleased that the milestone of a woman nominated by a major party had been passed. They just wished someone other than Clinton was the trailblazer.
The fact that there have been just 36 female governors in our entire history (there are more than 36 male governors in office right now) is among the main reasons we haven’t had a female President. The pool still isn’t very large, and women, for a wide range of reasons, have been more inclined to run for legislatures than for mayor or governor when they’ve been inclined to run at all. You may recall that a strong female governor ran for Vice-President against Obama, and she was savaged by a liberal press that suggested that she should be taking care of her special needs son and unwed pregnant daughter rather than running for office, attacked for her governing experience when she had more than their candidate for President, Barack Obama, and mocked as dim-bulb, which she was not and is not. She’s just intellectually lazy and more interested in fame than serious public service. I have never heard or read anyone who suggested that Sarah Palin’s problem is that he is a “strong woman.” She had so many other problems, real and concocted, that derailed her ambitions.
So once again, accusations of bigotry against others is the Democratic default tactic to avoid accountability for their own shortcomings, failures and misconduct. Democrats rigged their nomination for a female candidate who is a proven dud as a campaigner, whose resume is full of dubious or elusive achievements and whose character is untrustworthy. That Hillary Clinton is “strong” is one of her very few legitimate leadership attributes: if she wins, that will be a primary reason…well, that and the fact that she’s running against a nasty, ignorant jerk who is the least qualified major party candidate ever. If she loses, it will have nothing whatsoever to do with gender discrimination, but that will be the excuse. It will be our fault, not hers.
And if she is elected, be prepared for the gender card to be played over and over again, as it is being increasingly played the more panicked Democrats get. Did you know that the public is only concerned about Clinton’s health because she’s female? Funny, I remember some of the same journalists who are claiming this hammering away at John McCain’s age and health problems in 2008. Dwight Eisenhower’s age and heart problems was a major issue in his 1956 campaign, though in those more civil days the topic had to be handled delicately. No, for some reason, it has always mattered to the public that their Presidents and candidates to be President appear healthy and strong, whether they are men or women. Appearing too strong isn’t Clinton’s problem; appearing ill and lying about it is.
The best “I am so strong, it will blow your mind!” campaign stunt ever was when Theodore Roosevelt took a bullet to the chest from a would-be assassin and gave his speech anyway. Teddy was a little mad, of course, but still: is there any question that if Hillary did that, she’d gain support, not lose it?
Ethics Alarms 
Of course, Hillary is also the only allegedly feminist Presidential candidate who rose to power on the coattails of her more successful and powerful husband, whose rise she assisted by threatening the victims of his sexual advances into fearful silence, whose claim to being a Wall Street reformer is undercut by the huge speaking fees-as-access gifts she received from big financial firms, and who violated both ethical principles and her oath before Congress by shaking down foreign powers for gifts to her family foundation, aka slush fund, while Secretary of State.
Jack, while I agree that charges of sexism shouldn’t be thrown out willy-nilly, absolutely none of the above are facts; every single one of these is debatable, and yet you are presenting them as if they are universally agreed upon truths.
There is a double standard wherein accusations against Hillary Clinton are treated as proof of wrongdoing, but I don’t think it’s because of sexism. It’s because she’s a Clinton. ill is and has been treated exactly the same way, as evidenced by your statement regarding his “victims,” absent the qualifier “alleged.”
*Bill
I shouldn’t have commented without reading the whole article. This statement is even more troubling:
That was back when Hillary lied about having pneumonia.
Where is your proof of this claim?
You know Chris, I’m about to warn the shameless Clinton enablers that I’m not going to vote for their slimy, horrible candidate, as I otherwise feel I must, as a protest against their complete corruption and willingness to lie for her. Your absurd comment is nearly thefinal straw.
Here’s your damn proof; I wrote about it; even liberal columnists called them on it.
To summarize, since your brain obvious blots out any uncomfortable facts where this horrific, corrupt woman is concerned, when Hillary collapsed on 9/11, “the campaign said in a statement that Clinton felt “overheated”-–nothing to see here. They also sent out the word that it was in the high 80’s that day, and it was not.
Later, as the videos of her staggering went viral and the news media wouldn’t swallow the story, the campaign admitted that “Hillary Clinton has been diagnosed with pneumonia, according to a note from her doctor.”
SHE HAD BEEN DIAGNOSED TWO DAYS EARLIER, Chris. Got that? Two days. Before they told the public otherwise. She had pneumonia, the campaign knew it, but the campaign, which takes orders from her, made up a cover story. That’s a LIE, Chris. When a campaign knows that A is the reason for B, but tells the media and the public that the cause is C, that’s deception. That’s also typical of this candidate.
So I find your reaction outrageous, Chris. Outrageous and enabling deceptive, lying, power-mongers like Hillary Clinton. As long as good people like you permit and excuse this, AND make distracting accusations on sources that are trying to deal with the truth and discourage manipulation, the liars will prevail. It doesn’t matter what the proof is, or evidence. You’ll just keep denying and asking for more proof, then spinning, then pretending that we’re back at the beginning.
Just like Hillary.
I had read an online post that she was emotionally overcome by the moment. I am surprised they actually didn’t try to use that.
Yeah, I know I always fall over when I’m verklempt.
Thank you Jack. I continue to suspect Chris is a paid HRC campaign operative. He sure quacks like one and sticks out like a sore thumb among the liberal leaning commenters whom he makes look to the right of Attilla the Hun.
Chris’s likely response: “How do YOU know what Attila the Hun’s politics were???? You’re a liar.
“I continue to suspect Chris is a paid HRC campaign operative.”
I don’t. He’s literally the standard example of a Leftist I encounter daily. Unapologetic. Shameless. Dishonest.
There are a few courageous exceptions, though I only encounter them on this blog, and I can count Beth on one finger.
My running partner is similar to Chris. The usual response is “right wing conspiracy” and “She has never been convicted.” Then, of course, is just Republicans wasting time and money and it is a vendetta against the Clinton’s. You could have pictures of the Clinton’s schmoozing with the Taliban and Jong-Un and the reply would be the same. The simple fact is with firm ideologues you are wasting your brain cells attempting to point of inconsistencies. I’m the same way – as most of you know – on gun control.
Awww .. thanks Tex!
I’d include Charles with Sparty. And there are others.
Feel free. I find Charles to be the most predictable of the loyal knee jerk lefties. Though Chris has far surpassed him.
Charles will concede various points from time to time. And Jack is a big fan of Charles so I’ll defer to Jack. I get a real kick out of Sparty because she’s probably my daughter’s age and of comparable thoughtfulness and intelligence but, as is not the case with my daughter, I can discuss fairly abstract but freighted issues with Sparty here. Her father must be very proud of his daughter.
That is a very kind thing to say Other Bill. My dad was a libertarian and we disagreed on many political issues, but we loved discussing them. I lost him in my late twenties — I miss him every day. And yes, he was very proud of me.
Don’t forget deery, and be nice to all of them. I wish there were ten times more like them. It is a constant battle to keep an opinion site from becoming an echo chamber, with intelligent and articulate comments from all perspectives. They also uniformly have thick skin, which I admire greatly. “Liberal Dan” left in a huff, you’ll recall, when I pointed out how his fact-free insistence that George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin because he was black was evidence of Dan’s approaching dementia. Ampersand banned himself because he didn’t like my pointing out that his blog IS an echo chamber, and that he censored my comment there pointing out that his SJW throng’s Dan-like positions on the Martin-Zimmerman affair was intellectually dishonest. (OK, he censored me because I didn’t say they were race-baiting liars nicely.)
We also lost Steven Pilling, our most active far, far right commenter. He gave me some weird explanation about the internet, but I have to believe something or someone ticked him off.
He told me that work requirements were weighing him down. Even in off time.
Though his departure seemed to coincide with a knock down drag out about his apparent Lost Cause Southern Utopian revisionism.
Right. Thanks, I had forgotten.
Was that the dude who couldn’t stop talking about buttsex? Pity, he sometimes had good observations on other issues.
I think so, Chris. He couldn’t get past his anti-gay religious background, often rational and perceptive on other issues, emotional and fact-free on that one.
It is a constant battle to keep an opinion site from becoming an echo chamber
I bet.
Because most people don’t want to have their comfortable, confirmation bias challenged by reality. I purge many comments each day that consist only of insults and boilerplate slurs on Democrats, Republicans, Whites, Blacks…and “LOL”s, of course.
Charles has a brain, I’ll give him that, although I can’t figure out some of his thinking. Beth I have yet to completely figure out – when Scalia died her comments were extremely nasty, yet she is usually at least intelligent, and I have to give her some kind of credit for saying in earnestness she wanted to invite me to dinner after I spewed some pretty blatant venom at her. Chris is just a stubborn pain in the ass and Deery an idiot who I pay little attention to. Lets not forget THE Bill, who I was an inch away from reaching through the screen and throttling, and V-girl, who is also a stubborn pain in the ass with a hateful edge, who I personally hate.
I don’t think we lost a lot with the folks you list, nor with the loss of Luke, who went completely off the reservation on a capital punishment thread. I was glad to hear some of what SMP thread, but in the end he was a Bible-thumper, and, you will be surprised to hear this, but, I’m not comfortable with evangelicals.
Oh, and let’s not forget the loss of Scott, who for a while was amusing, but whom you accurately described as “a deeply unhappy young man.”
Trying to accommodate Scott’s obscene performance art in order to take a stand for open expression cost me a LOT of followers, especially women.
I miss Luke. He had some excellent comments. You never know when you will hit someone’s hot button. And any time I want to boost traffic, I have about ten topics that will ensure people coming here just to protest.
I know – I have acted very badly here a few times when I felt my button was touched and I won’t make excuses for extremely foul language or violent threats. It’s just a case of letting one’s emotions outpace one’s brain. Still, even in a rage I am not stupid or blind enough to attack the guy who’s holding all the cards. I don’t buy that what Scott was doing was a performance. Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.
Well, you were proven right, and I was re-introduced to the cynical line, “No good deed goes unpunsihed.”
And I take absolutely no pleasure in being right. Speaking as a writer sometimes you WANT to get to the point where one character is going to lose it, and it’s emotionally satisfying to either read a beatdown or a “reason you suck” speech. Sometimes it’s appropriate to deliver a “precision F strike.” To listen to that stuff all the time though? No way.
I thought Luke left because of a drug legalization debate. Am I recalling this incorrectly?
That was Scott. Luke flipped out when I wrote that how much momentary pain a brutal killer suffered while being justly executed didn’t trouble me at all.
Sorry, Spartan, but I remember it distinctly. Jack said it was perfectly all right that the guy who was executed in Oklahoma didn’t go painlessly into whatever’s next because the point was to take him out of circulation. Luke went off on Jack with a profane and rude post including “fuck you” telling him he was basically a sonofabitch for being ok with this execution or capital punishment generally (because the way to win people over to your side is curse and yell and tell them what jerks they are). I thought Jack should “punch his ticket” then and there, but Luke just said he was going to steer clear of the blog henceforth.
I miss Luke — he was our science guy.
I think Deery, Charles, and I hold very similar views. Chris too, but I do think that he should be more critical at times.
Jack, sound as if you need an Ethics Alarm HOF. Or maybe trading cards. I thought Sparty, Deery, Charles and Chris were the identifiable lefties. Guess I need a scorecard. Maybe you could post commenters’ stats next to their names: Bats left, throws right, etc.
Sorry to hear about your Dad, Sparty.
Other Bill said, “I continue to suspect Chris is a paid HRC campaign operative.”
Maybe yes, maybe no.
What’s absolutely clear is Chris is a Clinton apologist. You don’t have to be a paid HRC campaign operative to be a Clinton apologist but you do have to be a political hack.
Chris does it pro bono, which is either better or worse. Is it worse to believe the Clinton lies, or to accept money to spread them knowing they are lies? I think better.
I disagree. A paid apologist is easier to understand.
Apologies, Jack–I thought when you said “Hillary lied about having pneumonia,” you meant she was lying when she said she had pneumonia,not that she was lying previously. It does seem clear that her staff lied when they said she was merely “overheated” and undoubtedly they did so on Clinton’s orders.
No deception on my part was intended; I misunderstood what you meant, and thought you were doubting the pneumonia diagnosis, engaging in “Hillary is clearly dying” conspiracism. My bad. Don’t let me affect your vote
for my boss, who pays me $24,000 a year to post pro-Hillary comments on ethics blogs in order to sway swing voters.I’m still mystified by your coy responses to the question, Chris. They are very Clintonian, as is the consistently ferocious tenor of your comments.
I’m stealing Clintonian.
Certainly not a term I can claim, but you’re more than welcome to it, Joe.
I’m still mystified by your coy responses to the question, Chris.
I’m still mystified that you’re mystified. I told you point-blank, once, that I was not a paid Clinton operative–this, after having first said I wasn’t going to dignify such a stupid question with an answer. Since then I’ve simply been having fun with the concept. No one else seems to think it’s funny, but that’s OK.
The FBI revelation that an indictment is a near-certainty in the Clinton Foundation investigation should be the final straw, Jack, with respect. Trump is a narcissist and a PIG, but he is not an out-and-out criminal, nor did he abuse high government office WHILE OCCUPYING THAT OFFICE. Misconduct in office is a second degree crime here, and I’ve sent people to jail for three and five years for a lot less than that – from low grade stuff like stealing gas and moonlighting without submitting the proper paperwork to serious stuff like sexual harassment of underage lifeguards and submitting fraudulent overtime slips for hours never worked, oh, and my favorite, the cop who stole another cop’s ticket book, had a third cop run a license plate under false pretenses, and then wrote twelve fraudulent tickets against his neighbor because that neighbor told him to stay away from his 14yo daughter.
None of those people were fit to occupy LOW government office, leave alone high, and yet we’re going to look the other way and elect someone who did a lot worse? No way.
Yeah but if she were ever convicted she’d spend her days in her very own La Catedral…
Or be bricked up in one room like Elizabeth Bathory.
I have a friend, Brian Losey, who lost his senate confirmation for his second star and his 30-plus year naval career essentially over unproven, highly-suspect claims that he retaliated against a subordinate who complained about his alleged misallocation of personal travel funds.
Sounds like he was pushed out like Joe Sestak, for the amorphous allegation of “creating a poor command climate.”
The FBI revelation that an indictment is a near-certainty in the Clinton Foundation investigation should be the final straw, Jack, with respect.
Except that the reporter who made this “revelation,” Bret Baier, has already backtracked and said he misspoke:
BRET BAIER: I want to be clear — I want to be clear about this, and this was — came from a Q and A that I did with Brit Hume after my show and after we went through everything. He asked me if, after the election, if Hillary Clinton wins, will this investigation continue, and I said, “yes absolutely.” I pressed the sources again and again what would happen. I got to the end of that and said, “they have a lot of evidence that would, likely lead to an indictment.” But that’s not, that’s inartfully answered. That’s not the process. That’s not how you do it. You have to have a prosecutor. If they don’t move forward with a prosecutor with the DOJ, there would be, I’m told, a very public call for an independent prosecutor to move forward. There is confidence in the evidence, but for me to phrase it like I did, of course that got picked up everywhere, but the process is different than that.
Of course the rumor’s already out, and with a quick Google I see far more websites repeated the initial rumor than Baier’s correction.
Trump is a narcissist and a PIG, but he is not an out-and-out criminal,
As has been explained to you numerous times, he is. He has routinely stolen money from his own charity. No one disputes this fact. That is a crime.
nor did he abuse high government office WHILE OCCUPYING THAT OFFICE.
This is just stupid. Trump has never abused high government office because he has never occupied a government office. He has made it abundantly clear that as soon as he does, he will begin the process of abusing it. He says he will use his position to reward his friends and punish his enemies. How have you missed this?
You see, it makes little difference to me whether there is an indictment or not. By the most rudimentary ethics analysis, the Clinton Foundation’s practices along with Hillary’s connections to them are incredibly, horrifyingly, rotten-to-the corifically unethical.
I’m almost afraid of her being indicted. Seeing her being handcuffed would be a peak experience. The rest of my life would be all downhill from there.
” You’ll just keep denying and asking for more proof, then spinning, then pretending that we’re back at the beginning.”
You’ve just neatly summarized the phenomenon. Thanks for the assist!
And this exactly the kind of lie that makes HC untrustworthy, What a stupid thing to lie about! See, she lies when she doesn’t have to lie. She just lies; it’s her first reflex. If she’ll lie about that, which is TRIVIAL, what won’t she lie about? We have to assume that someone like this lies when she’s accused of wrongdoing. Figuring that out doesn’t make me sexist, it makes me immune to this woman’s deceptions. So why do you enable this liar? What’s wrong with you?
He really believes in the Left’s vision for America. Never mind the corruption and dishonesty needed to get there.
Jack: you’re right about this. She lied about not having pneumonia, not about having pneumonia, which is what you originally said. I “covered” for this because I misunderstood you and legitimately thought you were wrong (because technically, what you said WAS wrong, and not what you actually wrote). I still think you’re wrong about most of the other claims you leveled against Clinton, but again, I don’t think that’s the result of sexism.
Keep spinning.
1. who rose to power on the coattails of her more successful and powerful husband FACT.
2. “whose rise she assisted by threatening the victims of his sexual advances into fearful silence” FACT. Multiple targets of her efforts have stated this. She denied Monica Lewinsky’s mistatement on the Today Show knowing what Bill had done. Monica was by definition a victim, according to sexual harassment laws and policies. NOT just alleged. Paul Jones recieved a settlement, larger than what she asked for, which is prima facie evidence that her account is true.
3. whose claim to being a Wall Street reformer is undercut by the huge speaking fees-as-access gifts she received from big financial firms, FACT. That’s what they are. $225,000 a speech is only justifiable under fiduciary ethics if there is a tangible benefit in proportion to the expenditure. No one hour speech is worth that to a company, unless it is buying something else. She denied that she sucked up to those firms, but refused to release the speeches. Now we’ve seen them.
4. and who violated both ethical principles and her oath before Congress by shaking down foreign powers for gifts to her family foundation, aka slush fund, while Secretary of State. FACT. She accepted gifts that she promised she would not. It is per se conflict of interest and a government ethics violation. Is it “shake-down” you object to? OK…but if contacts from a high government official ask a nation with business before that official’s department for money, that’s sure what it looks like.
1. Fine, Bill’s career helped her make a name for herself. But there’s no reason to bring that up unless you’re implying that she wouldn’t have been just as successful without him, which I find ridiculous. She is at least as savvy a politician as he is, and what she lacks in charm she makes up for in know-how.
2) No, that is not a “fact.” There is no evidence that she “threatened” Lewinsky or Jones, and neither have stated this; none of what you wrote supports this claim. (Only Broaddrick has claimed Clinton “threatened” her, and said “threat” was vague as Hell.) It’s also been dismissed by every fact-checker. I know you’re generally unimpressed with fact-checkers, but as far as I’ve seen, you haven’t contradicted their claims.
And no, settlements are not evidence of guilt. That’s an outrageous position.
3) No. Is there ANY evidence that Clinton bases her policies on what Wall Street wants to hear? Unless you can prove that Clinton has compromised her policy positions and sold out the middle class to help Wall Street as a result of her speaking fees, then said fees are utterly irrelevant, and you’re suggesting that she’s done this with no evidence.
4) I literally don’t know what you’re talking about here, but that could just be my ignorance. I see shades of “Clinton approved sales of plutonium to Russia in exchange for money for the Clinton Foundation!” conspiracism here, which has been fact-checked to death and found bogus, but maybe you’re referring to something else here.
4. Hillary accepted gifts from quite a few foreign entities…
“The Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the State Department — before, during and after Mrs. Clinton’s time as secretary — criticized for their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues. The countries include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria.
Saudi Arabia has been a particularly generous benefactor. The kingdom gave between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Donations are typically reported in broad ranges, not specific amounts.) At least $1 million more was donated by Friends of Saudi Arabia, which was co-founded by a Saudi prince.”
while Secretary of State. Even if she didn’t make promises to them of preferential treatment, she can’t avoid people thinking that they must be getting *something* for the millions that are coming in. I’m not a lawyer but it sure looks like conflict of interest to me for someone in the position of Secretary of State collecting foreign donations for a private fund…
Saying that Hillary would be as successful without bill is hilarious.
Why?
I think it’s unlikely. Although she is probably the smarter one of that couple, Bill is the charismatic one and the one with all the political access, at least initially. On her own, her flat personality, ruthless nature, and tendency to come unglued when pressed would not have been enough to get her all this way, although at this point she might occupy the place Elizabeth Warren does.
I think it’s unlikely. Although she is probably the smarter one of that couple, Bill is the charismatic one and the one with all the political access, at least initially. On her own, her flat personality, ruthless nature, and tendency to come unglued when pressed would not have been enough to get her all this way, although at this point she might occupy the place Elizabeth Warren does.
This is an extremely fair response. Thank you.
Chris asked, “Why?”
After reading that one word reply to Eternal optometrist’s “saying that Hillary would be as successful without bill is hilarious” comment, maybe I should seriously reconsider my reply to Other Bill above – maybe Other Bill wasn’t so very far off.
It’s a very, very awful tactic and just seems like something someone would pick up at a training session run by Paul Begala or James Carville or Lanny Davis or Howard Dean.
“1. Fine, Bill’s career helped her make a name for herself. But there’s no reason to bring that up unless you’re implying that she wouldn’t have been just as successful without him, which I find ridiculous. She is at least as savvy a politician as he is, and what she lacks in charm she makes up for in know-how.”
I laughed, out loud. I startled someone. No she isn’t. By what metric? Bill was charismatic where Hillary is… not. (See? I can censor myself!) He was smooth where she was abrasive, He was a popular attorney general and governor, and she was an ineffective Senator and a scandal ridden Secretary of State. Both of which I’m scratching my head to figure out a path to which she would have got without riding Bill’s coattails.
Seriously… Why do you think that?
“2) No, that is not a “fact.” There is no evidence that she “threatened” Lewinsky or Jones, and neither have stated this; none of what you wrote supports this claim.”
He claimed what now?
JM: ““whose rise she assisted by threatening the victims of his sexual advances into fearful silence” FACT. Multiple targets of her efforts have stated this. She denied Monica Lewinsky’s mistatement on the Today Show knowing what Bill had done. Monica was by definition a victim, according to sexual harassment laws and policies. NOT just alleged. Paul Jones recieved a settlement, larger than what she asked for, which is prima facie evidence that her account is true.”
Huh. Well lookit that. Jack never said that Monica or Jones was threatened (Although victims have said that she did… Listen and believe, right? But I digress.). He said that Hillary denied her statement, and that Jones got paid, big. And I dare you to challenge those. Getting caught up on word choice while ignoring what’s actually said makes you look like a hack. Stop. Or don’t, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you look like a hack.
“And no, settlements are not evidence of guilt. That’s an outrageous position.”
Ooh, I don’t think you’ll get much support from the legal community on this, mainly because I don’t think “prima facie” means what you think it does. And you should reconsider your habit of labelling everything you disagree with some synonym of “outrageous”. I think it’s your tell when you’re projecting.
“3) No. Is there ANY evidence that Clinton bases her policies on what Wall Street wants to hear? Unless you can prove that Clinton has compromised her policy positions and sold out the middle class to help Wall Street as a result of her speaking fees, then said fees are utterly irrelevant, and you’re suggesting that she’s done this with no evidence.”
Well… There were several parts of her speeches which directly contradict her public policies. In fact… Wasn’t some variant of “You have a private policy and a public policy” part of those released speeches? Let me Google! Yes she did!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/8/hillary-clinton-says-she-has-both-public-and-priva/
As for proof? Tenuous. Hillary is devious. But I have to ask… What do you think the company gets for the money? Seriously. This is the glaring question, that I think you need to account for… If they weren’t buying access… Why spend a quarter million dollars on it?
There’s an ethical theory called fiduciary duty, and there’s a moderate debate regarding it: “Is it ethical for a corporation to donate money to x?”
The answer leans no. Seeing as the first duty of a corporation is to create shareholder wealth, taking money from the shareholders and spending it in a way that doesn’t create wealth down the road is an ethics breach. An argument could be made say, if you were an oil company, giving money to Ducks Unlimited, that you’re buying PR or Goodwill. Or perhaps if the discussion was designed as a training exercise, that would increase management’s ability to perform. But generally shareholders get antsy when you throw a quarter million dollars on a political donation, or on a giant staff party.
So again: If they weren’t buying access… What DID they spend a quarter million dollars on?
“4) I literally don’t know what you’re talking about here, but that could just be my ignorance. I see shades of “Clinton approved sales of plutonium to Russia in exchange for money for the Clinton Foundation!” conspiracism here, which has been fact-checked to death and found bogus, but maybe you’re referring to something else here.”
I’d suggest you read Clinton Cash. Peter Schweizer is a partisan hack, through and through… But his book chronicles money paid to the Clintons, by who, and actions that came out later… These are all objective facts… You don’t get to disagree with them. You can try to disprove them, but I think if they were able to be disproven, better people than us would have done so. I’ll admit, saying that the action was because of the cash is subjective… And could even be a coincidence…. But one instance is a coincidence, two is a coincidence of coincidences, but when there’s an entire book listing hundreds of transactions that appear pay for play, it’s easy to understand at least where the impression comes from.
Thanks, HT (not “Bill”…don’t know why I did that)—this saves me time. I would also add that Chris should just search Ethics Alarms for “Clinton Foundation.” Here’s one of the articles there…
The new fallback position for the Clinton denial machine is to argue that without criminal trial level proof, it is unfair to reach a conclusion. It’s an old dodge, and a Clinton favorite. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln. OJ killed his wife and Ron. Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich for money, And Bill and Hillary made themselves rich peddling influence and access, using the Clinton Foundation. They only have to be proved in court to lock the miscreants up. They have no right not to be assessed and judged according to what anyone with eyes, a brain and a modicum of objectivity can and should figure out.
You are right, though, the claim that Hillary would have succeeded without using Bill to gain popularity, connections and power is laughable. Same with Mary Bono, right? Hillary never held elective office, and is a standard issue lawyer with ambition, but a poor public presence, bad political skills, a nasty disposition and mediocre speaker. How, exactly, would she rise to this level on her own? Obviously SHE knew she needed to ride the coattails of a powerful man, or she would have tried to do it herself. Who was stopping her?
Too many Bills on the brain?
If they wanted to work under the premise that only trial level evidence and convictions were proof of wrongdoing, well… that’s stringent, but if evenly applied wouldn’t necessarily be damning… But what is especially toxic about this is the degree to which it’s obvious that this high burden of proof falls on partisan lines. For fucks sake… The same people denying Bill and Hillary’s behaviours around their victims are the same people screaming on social media that they have proof that Trump raped a 13 year old.
This election cycle OOZES cynicism.
I’m referring to everyone as Bill now. Didn’t I announce that?
I resent that
-Bill
Not cynicism, HT, TRIBALISM. Cynicism is the folks saying “a pox on BOTH their houses, they are both just looking for money and power.” Tribalism is a step beyond the kind of thinking that former president George W. Bush characterized as “judging ourselves by our best intentions and others by their worst examples,” where everyone wearing your party’s letter gets the benefit of the doubt and you greet damaging facts by either spinning them away, outright denying them, or claiming the messenger must be part of a conspiracy to destroy a good future, and everyone wearing the other party’s letter gets no benefit of any doubt and you not only magnify their known bad facts but you believe every accusation against them no matter how ridiculous.
The major problem with tribalism is that it prevents really dealing with corruption and kills any objective view of right and wrong. If the GOP had chosen to go tribal in 1974 it could have closed ranks around Richard Nixon, stonewalled investigation, and probably drawn things out until after the 1976 election, and then said “for the good of the country let’s move on.” Would that have been a good thing? Didn’t think so. Was it good that the Dems closed ranks around Teddy Kennedy and allowed him to duck the consequences of what would have been a career-ending manslaughter for anyone else? Just as a note, it was also the Democrats who twisted the protocol for replacing a Senator from MA once in 2004 to prevent Mitt Romney from appointing a replacement if John Kerry became President and tried to do it again in 2009, to make sure Deval Patrick could hurry an appointee into office after Ted took the dirt nap.
Cynicism is being waaaay too charitable.
The other problem with tribalism is it’s how the Islamic world works. Tribalism is Islam’s real threat to the world. It’s really weird that the West is facing a tribalism threat simultaneously from both the far, far right (Islamic fundamentalism) and the Left. When people on the Left say Islamic fundamentalism is not an existential threat to the West or the U.S. they are dead wrong.
I laughed, out loud. I startled someone. No she isn’t. By what metric? Bill was charismatic where Hillary is… not. (See? I can censor myself!) He was smooth where she was abrasive, He was a popular attorney general and governor, and she was an ineffective Senator and a scandal ridden Secretary of State. Both of which I’m scratching my head to figure out a path to which she would have got without riding Bill’s coattails.
Seriously… Why do you think that?
I addressed this already. She’s smarter than he is, and at least as ambitious. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as successful–the status of First Lady obviously helped her career–but my point was that it seems weird to accuse her of only being successful because of Bill when she has plenty of political talent all on her own.
He claimed what now?
Huh. Well lookit that. Jack never said that Monica or Jones was threatened (Although victims have said that she did… Listen and believe, right? But I digress.). He said that Hillary denied her statement, and that Jones got paid, big. And I dare you to challenge those. Getting caught up on word choice while ignoring what’s actually said makes you look like a hack. Stop. Or don’t, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you look like a hack.
Is it possible for you and Jack to consider that someone could simply be misreading what he wrote, rather than constantly jumping to assumptions of bad faith?
Jack said Bill’s victims said Hillary threatened them. He gave no such examples of threats, and instead moved on to talking about Lewinski and Jones. This seemed to imply to me that he was saying those were examples of victims that Hillary threatened. Reading it over, I can see that wasn’t what he meant. But like when he said Hillary “lied about having pneumonia,” the way the sentences were structured seemed to imply something he didn’t actually mean.
Anyway: I maintain that Jack’s statement was inaccurate. Only one woman has claimed to be threatened by Hillary Clinton. That person is Juanita Broaddrick. That’s one victim, singular, not “victims.” Secondly, the “threat,” according to Broaddrick, was H saying “We appreciate all you do for Bill.” That’s literally the only example of a “threat” you have, and it’s incredibly weak. So this “FACT” is in fact not a fact at all.
“And no, settlements are not evidence of guilt. That’s an outrageous position.”
Ooh, I don’t think you’ll get much support from the legal community on this, mainly because I don’t think “prima facie” means what you think it does. And you should reconsider your habit of labelling everything you disagree with some synonym of “outrageous”. I think it’s your tell when you’re projecting.
I believe it was Spartan–who if I’m not mistaken is a lawyer–who originally challenged Jack on this point. I stand by it–a settlement is not evidence of guilt, it’s evidence that the sued party wants the case to be over. Guilt is one possible reason. Damage to one’s reputation from a false charge could be another.
Well… There were several parts of her speeches which directly contradict her public policies. In fact… Wasn’t some variant of “You have a private policy and a public policy” part of those released speeches? Let me Google! Yes she did!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/8/hillary-clinton-says-she-has-both-public-and-priva/
Google better; the Washington Times is trash, and doesn’t provide the full context of the quote, which is less sensational than the bit you’ve summarized here.
As for proof? Tenuous. Hillary is devious. But I have to ask… What do you think the company gets for the money? Seriously. This is the glaring question, that I think you need to account for… If they weren’t buying access… Why spend a quarter million dollars on it?
I don’t know. Maybe they thought they were buying access. Maybe they wanted favors. Is there any evidence that Hillary Clinton actually reciprocated?
I’d suggest you read Clinton Cash. Peter Schweizer is a partisan hack, through and through…
Well, after that ringing endorsement, I’ll pass.
But his book chronicles money paid to the Clintons, by who, and actions that came out later… These are all objective facts… You don’t get to disagree with them. You can try to disprove them, but I think if they were able to be disproven, better people than us would have done so.
Sir. They have disproven many of them. It isn’t hard to Google “Clinton Cash fact-check” and find that several of Schweizer’s claims have been debunked. You really didn’t think to do this before submitting this comment?
“Only one woman has claimed to be threatened by Hillary Clinton.”
The rest probably died of multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head.
“I addressed this already. She’s smarter than he is, and at least as ambitious. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as successful–the status of First Lady obviously helped her career–but my point was that it seems weird to accuse her of only being successful because of Bill when she has plenty of political talent all on her own.”
I think you’re overestimating the importance of intelligence and ambition in politics.
“Is it possible for you and Jack to consider that someone could simply be misreading what he wrote, rather than constantly jumping to assumptions of bad faith?”
No. Not really. Once is a coincidence, twice is a coincidence of coincidences, but you have a tendency to ‘misread’ quotes and then complain that people have rushed to judge you after you rushed to judge them. I don’t know what else to tell you; Spend more time reading and understanding, and less time reflexively spasming words onto the page. I’m not saying that no one ever makes those mistakes, but you’re the first person I’ve ever seen bitch about it.
“Jack said Bill’s victims said Hillary threatened them. He gave no such examples of threats, and instead moved on to talking about Lewinski and Jones. This seemed to imply to me that he was saying those were examples of victims that Hillary threatened. Reading it over, I can see that wasn’t what he meant. But like when he said Hillary “lied about having pneumonia,” the way the sentences were structured seemed to imply something he didn’t actually mean.
Anyway: I maintain that Jack’s statement was inaccurate. Only one woman has claimed to be threatened by Hillary Clinton. That person is Juanita Broaddrick. That’s one victim, singular, not “victims.” Secondly, the “threat,” according to Broaddrick, was H saying “We appreciate all you do for Bill.” That’s literally the only example of a “threat” you have, and it’s incredibly weak. So this “FACT” is in fact not a fact at all.”
I have a friend named Kevin. Every now and again he’ll say something stupid like “The sky is green”… And we’ll look at him and be like, “No Kevin, the sky is blue.” And he’ll be adamant, “NO, you asshole! The sky is green!” And I’ll say something like… “No… particles in the air scatter blue light emitted by the sun better than they scatter red light, and so the sky appears blue.” But he’ll persevere, stubbornly, and we’ll end up walking outside to a glorious, cloudless, pristine blue sky, and I’ll just point, and he’ll say, sulkingly “Well, it’s a greenish blue.”
Just to recap: You feel the statement was inaccurate because of the letter s. The fact that one of Hillary’s victims reported threats is so significantly different from multiple victims reporting threats that THAT’s the point we should get hung up on, and nothing else that was said was relevant. I understand. It’s a greenish blue.
“I believe it was Spartan–who if I’m not mistaken is a lawyer–who originally challenged Jack on this point. I stand by it–a settlement is not evidence of guilt, it’s evidence that the sued party wants the case to be over. Guilt is one possible reason. Damage to one’s reputation from a false charge could be another.”
Spart is a lawyer, but you ask three of them a question and you’ll get four answers. I’m going to quote the wiki ‘prima facie’ to you. Because you’re still wrong. I think this goes back to Jack’s point about your unhealthy obsession with trial/conviction level proof… That’s not what’s being proposed here.
“Prima facie evidence need not be conclusive or irrefutable: at this stage, evidence rebutting the case is not considered, only whether any party’s case has enough merit to take it to a full trial.”
“Google better; the Washington Times is trash, and doesn’t provide the full context of the quote, which is less sensational than the bit you’ve summarized here.”
He says, bitching about the source, but not actually addressing the material.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927
“CLINTON: You just have to sort of figure out how to — getting back to that word, “balance” — how to balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and that’s not just a comment about today. That, I think, has probably been true for all of our history, and if you saw the Spielberg movie, Lincoln, and how he was maneuvering and working to get the 13th Amendment passed, and he called one of my favorite predecessors, Secretary Seward, who had been the governor and senator from New York, ran against Lincoln for president, and he told Seward, I need your help to get this done. And Seward called some of his lobbyist friends who knew how to make a deal, and they just kept going at it. I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”
Lincoln. Lincoln was her context. Lincoln who lied to his peers to push through Emancipation. Just so we’re all aware, she’s comparing whatever she’s lying to the public about to the Emancipation Act. She’s literally saying that she needs to have both a public and private position that are wildly different, (read: lying to people) is necessary because she sees say…. pipelines…. as being on the same level of importance as ending slavery, and it’s just the way to get things done. This is DAMNING, Chris.
“I don’t know. Maybe they thought they were buying access. Maybe they wanted favors. Is there any evidence that Hillary Clinton actually reciprocated?”
YES! (More on this later)
“Sir. They have disproven many of them. It isn’t hard to Google “Clinton Cash fact-check” and find that several of Schweizer’s claims have been debunked. You really didn’t think to do this before submitting this comment?”
Did you actually do that before suggesting it? The Google thing? Because there are a lot of sources that’ll say things like:
“Clinton’s relationship with the oppressive government of Brunei, which stands to benefit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that Clinton helped sell. “Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was secretary of state,” he claimed.
Though Clinton received the jewelry, federal law requires that most gifts from foreign governments must go directly to the U.S. government, either to the National Archives or the General Service Administration. Clinton’s house is not, presumably, filled with illicit Bruneian jewels.”
Which is basically: Yes, she took the jewels, yes she did something that benefited the source of those jewels, but we don’t KNOW she still has them, and she was supposed to give them back (like they were supposed to return all that state furniture) so obviously this is a lie. Except that nothing Schweizer wrote was actually a lie.
Well, remember how I said Schweizer was a hack? That wasn’t so you could preemptively strap on your blinders and ignore him, it was so you could read the damn book with the author’s bias in mind and look at the factual claims outside the dogma of his conclusions.
“large donations were made to the foundation from the chairman of Uranium One, Ian Telfer, at around the time of the Russian purchase of the company and while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, which were never disclosed to the public. The multimillion sums were channeled through a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation, CGSCI, which did not reveal its individual donors.”
Prove that false.
I don’t know why Chris thinks “she only threatened one!” is a defense, but anyway, its pretty clear it was more than one, though clintonian word gamers would say, “Oh you meant THAT?”
CNN, in a recent peace examining the question, and it worked hard to give HC the benefit of the doubt (a doubt I don’t think is reasonable), it concluded,
So it is clear that Hillary Clinton reacted in what could be seen as negative ways. According to some accounts, she at the very least went along with the hiring of a private investigator to look into the background of Gennifer Flowers. Some see her reaction as especially problematic coming from a person who promotes herself as a champion of women.
Still, Broaddrick’s example of intimidation is open to interpretation, and is weakened by her answer to NBC that no one “near Bill Clinton” had tried to intimidate her. Willey is not able to link the incidents that occurred directly or indirectly to Hillary Clinton. The comments Clinton made about Lewinsky were spoken in private to a close confidante. And Paula Jones has not pointed to a specific attack.
Whatever you call it, it is still 180 degrees from “believing women who say they are victims.”
Humble Talent:
Just to recap: You feel the statement was inaccurate because of the letter s. The fact that one of Hillary’s victims reported threats is so significantly different from multiple victims reporting threats that THAT’s the point we should get hung up on, and nothing else that was said was relevant. I understand. It’s a greenish blue.
There is a very large leap that comes into play when asserting a pattern of behavior based on one vague accusation. That you can’t see how big such a leap is, and want to make that seem like a trivial point, is your problem.
Jack, nothing in that CNN link supports your claim that Clinton assisted her husband “by threatening the victims of his sexual advances into fearful silence.” None of it.
Of course it does.
One vague accusation.
It’s only a ‘single’ vague accusation if you choose to ignore everything that happened around it, and pidgeonhole ‘threatening’ into a verry narrow definitive fact pattern. It’s very… Clinton… of you to play this game. Take the hiring of a PI to investigate one of the accusers… Is that threatening? Gee. I think it might be.
What blows me away is that you hit me as one of those people who would normally be all about the rights of the accuser… Something to the tune of “We shouldn’t allow anything negative to happen to an accuser, not only because it re-victimises them, but because it might discourage future victims from coming forward. These women are the ones we know about, these threats are the ones we know about. If this were anyone but a Clinton, and especially if this were a Republican… You would not be making these arguments.
You want to talk about a pattern of behaviour? Me too. If you want to sit there and say that because every time Hillary was shitty to a woman, she was shitty in a new, exciting and unique way, there isn’t a pattern, my obvious answer would be that the pattern is that she has a history of being shitty to women.
What’s the contention here? Are you really attempting to paint Hillary’s stance on Women’s Issues as anything other than parasitic and self serving?
“If this were anyone but a Clinton, and especially if this were a Republican… You would not be making these arguments.”
You know why I think this? Because I went and cross searched “rape” and “Chris” on this site (And then removed “Christmas” “Christian” “Chris Marschener” and “Chris Bentley”) ((And by the way…. “Christmas” “Rape” was by far the most common link… I have no idea why.))
Here’s your take on Cosby:
And here’s your defence of the UVA frat guys:
Here’s your take on Paul Nungesser, Emma Sulkowitz (mattress girl)’s victim:
And your defence of the Duke Lacrosse Team:
On Wanetta Gibson, who thought it would be a blast to invite her victim to be friends on Facebook after he’d been cleared:
Elizabeth Paige Coast:
Chaneya Kelly:
Cassandra Kennedy:
So where’s all this skepticism when it’s absolutely anyone that isn’t Clinton, eh Chris? Where’s the flag waving, proof requiring, and doubt flinging? Cosby I’ll give you, it was almost immediately apparent what happened very quickly. But there’s a spectrum all the way from that to the most obvious of false accusers: Gibson… Surely this isn’t a position special for the Clintons. Or is it? What’s the difference between Clinton and every other case ever?
You know who isn’t running into the fray to the Clinton’s defence? Spartan. You know why I think that is? Because she’s self conscious enough to realise that attempting to undermine what the Clintons did to their victims would undermine her own credibility. She’s taken a regular stance on this issue, and (I think) it’s pretty clear.
IT’S BECAUSE CHRISTMAS IS ON EVERY PAGE “”A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens”
Hah! Mystery solved!
Plus there was a whole discussion about the “Christmas” song which was essentially a veiled conversation about date rape.
I commend your energy. I remember when I was this tenacious back in the days of the ever-fallacious TGT.
I don’t think hiring a private investigator is threatening, and I think it’s something a lot of women would do if they thought their husband was being falsely accused of something.
Flowers also never claimed to be a “victim” of Bill Clinton; she claimed they had a consensual affair. This is my problem with so many of the hysterical claims about the Clintons’ “abuse” of women: you are constantly conflating affairs with “victimization.”
The Clinton Foundation’s income multiplied severalfold immediately upon her taking over the State department, and plummeted again immediately after she left. I don’t see how that can be spun, but spinning it they are.
For me, it was NEVER about Hillary being a woman.
I’d vote for Condoleeza Rise to be president, or Nikki Haley, or Susanna Martinez, or Kelly Ayotte, or Congresswoman McSally…
I voted twice for a woman governor, and I’d vote for all those women too. It’s not about the vagina.
I agree with Chris that every one certainly is debatable and I have seen exactly that debated. Facts presented, innuendo presented and mixed in with a healthy dose of quesionable behaviors. So do I believe they are true? Certainly, but with a bit more restraint than Jack had.
They are debatable only because the Clintons keep denying and evading, and smoking gun evidence is always elusive. “Restraint”? They are true or untrue, and I resent the evasion and obfuscation, hence the lack of restraint.
Great post! But Jeez…now I’m starting to suspect the Cntons of arranging for the hit on the young Congresswoman from Arizona, Gabby Giffords.
It would be just unthinkable for a strong woman from the West to team-up with another apparently strong woman from the East (Liz Warren), and out- position, out-campaign and, using that most unfair advantage of all – AGE! – out-shine the great and flawless, rich and famous husband of Bl, Hlary, to win primaries and ultimately, the Democrat Party POTUS nomination.
I wish Donald, just once, had had the sense of irony, knowledge of history, and oratorical competence to counter Hlary in one of the THREE debates with a Bentsen-esque, “I’m no sexist – you’re no Bill Clinton.”
Ha-ha! I said “husband of Bl.” I did mean to say “wife.”
It’s pretty obvious who wears the pants-suit in that relationship.
And by the way, “Hillary Clinton is consistently treated differently than just about any other candidate I see out there.” has to be the most factually correct and straightforward statement President Obama has made in his entire presidency. Inadvertently so, of course.
Jack, did you see this? I was curious as it seems Obama was honest via this spokes person, to defend James Comey? I was wondering what your take was on it?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-defend-criticize-fbi-director-james-comey/story?id=43197456
And.. the woman card… what a JOKE!! I am a woman who has employed men and worked in an industry where there are NO women… (try being a female record producer, starting 27 years ago!) and I never, ever for the life of me thought my bad experiences were because I was a woman. Young, yes… (21 at my first gig doing that) inexperienced, yes… a woman?? Never occurred to me until years later when a few men brought it up.
But… I was taught not to play the victim card, and looking back maybe I was treated differently because I was a woman and maybe not, maybe some people just didn’t like my style or perhaps some had a bad day? No way to know.
Would love your comment on Obama’s saying Comey has integrity etc. (watch the clip?)
Thank you for all you do!
Is it still silly to vote for a third party candidate? Or even for a certain former governor/senator who isn’t even running?
“Sarah Palin’s problem is that he’s a strong woman.”
Right there you just revealed your misogyny, which every man secretly harbors, and your “and the pool still is neither impressive nor deep” is an obvious dig against Wasserman Shultz. Not cool, sir.
I’m puzzled why you compare Teddy Roosevelt and Hillary. TR’s favorability rating were off the chart when he was the president. As you know he ran against Taft who he believed was too soft on the trusts. When he took the bullet and continued his speech anyway it wasn’t some kind of a political stunt.
I pulled the proverbial lever for Elizabeth Dole once. I believe I had just turned voting age. If I recall, she dropped out due to relative lack of funds.
Since President Obama is a political hack, I expected nothing less from him. He has disgraced the office of President of the United States by stooping to political hackery countless times.
Both Clinton and Trump would disgrace the office of President of the United States further, much, much further; their presence in the White House will, in comparison, make Obama look like a saint.
This seems like the perfect opportunity to tap into some things Extradimensional Cephalopod said in another blog and elaborate on my comments from that thread…
Trump represents the exacerbation of everything unethical about the American public and is anti current government establishment; Clinton also represents everything unethical about the American people and everything unethical about the the current government establishment.
Both Trump and Clinton are 100% tapped into the segment of society that actively rationalize what the candidates do and say and firmly believe that the ends justify the means; the Democratic Party has been playing this tune for years and now the Republicans have jumped in head first and have been completely consumed with unethical behavior! Trump and Clinton are unethical political hacks tapping into a constituency full of pissed off people and both sides are actively ginning up partisan outrage, division, and literal hate. It’s not likely that this will end very peacefully if either one of these political hacks are elected as President.
I’ve heard the drums beating daily; “Anyone but Trump!” and “Anyone but Clinton!” I believe that all those that choose to vote for Clinton to keep Trump out of the White House personify the ends justify the means and all those that choose to vote for Trump to keep Clinton out of the White House also personify the ends justify the means. Like it or not; people who are actively engaging in promoting this kind of behavior are willing participants in spreading the rationalization that it’s for a good cause.
In my opinion; the United States culture is in the midst of an ethical flush. This election cycle has encouraged reasonable and intelligent people to flush their ethics and join the ends justify the means choir. I refuse to part of the ethical flush; there is no conceivable condition that will force me flush my ethics and vote for either Trump or Clinton – period!
The government and politicians have become what we have allowed them to become; there will be no lasting solution until We the People choose to change ourselves, we are the root problem. If we continue down the path of unethical rationalizations we will damn the United States to a state of chaos; we must stand up for what’s ethical and moral and we must do it now!
In my opinion, here are your choices:
You can choose to join the short term, tunnel-visioned, ends justify the means crowd and that light in the tunnel will be an oncoming train, or you can join the long term stability for the United States crowd and that light in the tunnel will be daylight and freedom. Choose wisely.
I have chosen who will receive my vote for President and it’s none of your damn business who that candidate is, so don’t even bother to ask.
I genuinely fear for the future stability of the United States if Trump or Clinton are elected as President of the United States.
P.S. Above I said, “there will be no lasting solution until We the People choose to change ourselves, we are the root problem”; I honestly think that the majority of We the People are just a bunch of ignorant blowhards, so damned ignorant of their own ignorance that I don’t think it’s reasonably possible to get a lasting solution in my lifetime. Maybe, just maybe, there will be hope that the generations in a hundred and fifty years or so can look back at this time like we look back on slavery and say what the hell was wrong with our ancestors!