The Official Paracast Political Thread!

[Bob Watson]

Can anyone post facts about the Clinton foundation that is not a right wing spin?

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[Gene Steinberg]

Just go to their site.

Start with this, which summarizes the work they do and links to pages with more information:

Our Work

A more specific example:

Clinton Health Access Initiative

 

[Gene Steinberg]

The problem with all the critics is that they can only look at one side of the equation, and cast shady aspersions on who talks to whom. But they've taken money, sometimes from governments that aren't friendly to human rights, and used it for good work. So even if those countries don't invest in their own people, by giving to the Clinton Foundation, they have invested in programs that do help people. This is the area the critics are afraid to talk about, because it shows the direct work that's being done around the world in ways that are difficult to criticize. It's easier to ignore what they actually do. There is no pay-for-play. Because nobody is playing.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And here's how the foundation allocates its funds:

2014 Consolidated Expenditures

• 87.2% Program Services
• 8.6% Management and General
• 3.7% Fundraising
• 0.5% Provision for Uncollectible Pledges

It's a non-profit organization, so this can be checked. But what it shows is that over 87% of the money they receive is used for charitable purposes. That's higher than most such organizations. The right wing lies about only using 10% for charitable use, but most of the funding is direct, not through a third-party. It's another example of how an organization that is doing good things is used as a vehicle to spread hate and vitriol.

One more thing: If this was called the Watson Foundation, or by any other name not related to Bill and Hillary Clinton, everyone would praise them for what they do. It's all about the politics.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And here's an example of the REAL voter fraud:

Trump supporter charged with voting twice in Iowa

Voter fraud is Republicans passing laws that make it difficult for minorities and lower income people to get the required identification in order to register to vote. There have been very public admissions that this is the purpose, to prevent the people who will vote against them from being able to vote. That's why appeals courts have turned back most of these laws. This is the result of the late Justice Scalia and his cohorts gutting a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. How does that benefit the people?

 

[marduk]

You might as well be talking to the NRA about gun control, Gene.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
-Upton Sinclair

The same thing can be said if he's afraid of it, he or perceives a decline in his power.

These guys will never, ever see the flaws in their rationale. I'd call it intellectual dishonesty, except there's nothing intellectual going on at all.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Talk show host Thom Hartmann — who once guested on The Paracast in our early days — says the Republican Party is a big scam operation run by oligarchs designed to steal from regular people to enrich those oligarchs.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

You might as well be talking to the NRA about gun control, Gene.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
-Upton Sinclair

The same thing can be said if he's afraid of it, he or perceives a decline in his power.

These guys will never, ever see the flaws in their rationale. I'd call it intellectual dishonesty, except there's nothing intellectual going on at all.

Did you know that most NRA members actually support what is called "commons sense" gun control, such as expanded background checks and other steps to make sure people who should not have guns do not get them. Indeed, the right wing lies that Clinton wants to take your guns — as they lied about Obama — but all she wants to do is tighten the regulations to protect people. Well, maybe renew the assault weapons ban, but who needs an assault weapon other than a criminal who wants to kill lots of people with minimal effort?

 

[matthew1977]

And here's an example of the REAL voter fraud:

Trump supporter charged with voting twice in Iowa

Voter fraud is Republicans passing laws that make it difficult for minorities and lower income people to get the required identification in order to register to vote. There have been very public admissions that this is the purpose, to prevent the people who will vote against them from being able to vote. That's why appeals courts have turned back most of these laws. This is the result of the late Justice Scalia and his cohorts gutting a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. How does that benefit the people?

Gene, you might want to sit down, you are likely to get dizzy from all the spinning you're doing. I have posted article after article regarding voter fraud and you dismissed them time and time again... then you flaunt one losey time it occurred to the opposite party... Think of all the journalist whose hard work to provide the facts that you dismiss until the news suits your slanted view point?

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[matthew1977]

Ex-FBI "Clinton's are a Crime Family"

Ex-FBI official: Clintons are a 'crime family'

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[Gene Steinberg]

Hot air. Just somebody mouthing off without evidence.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Gene, you might want to sit down, you are likely to get dizzy from all the spinning you're doing. I have posted article after article regarding voter fraud and you dismissed them time and time again... then you flaunt one losey time it occurred to the opposite party... Think of all the journalist whose hard work to provide the facts that you dismiss until the news suits your slanted view point?

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There is occasional voter fraud. But the biggest fraud is voter suppression, preventing people who are legally entitled to vote from voting by red tape. We're talking of hundreds of thousands of people who are being disenfranchised. I'm sorry you don't care about the real voter fraud.

 

[Burnt State]

You might as well be talking to the NRA about gun control, Gene.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
-Upton Sinclair

The same thing can be said if he's afraid of it, he or perceives a decline in his power.

These guys will never, ever see the flaws in their rationale. I'd call it intellectual dishonesty, except there's nothing intellectual going on at all.

You don't know what you don't know. And when you are ignorant of most things outside your blinders there is no other reality you can be open to.
The other great theme in this election is the power to hatred to blind people to their own ignorance.

I do not understand how Hilary's supposed criminality makes Donald's racism, misogyny, classism & homophobia accectable. Nor do i understand how all his own illegal and anti-American worker/producer business practices become forgiveable. I suppose if you hate enough you can put yourself in such strange double blinds and still claim to see the light. Bizarre at best.

 

[Han]

Tyger,
Show me FACTUALLY wherein these "lefty" ideas worked. Just once! Please,

How about Americas war of independence?

If you want to look at everything through LEFT/RIGHT wing glasses, then you can surely see that Britain and the king would represent the "right" and the American rebels the "left".

Again in the American civil war I would say that the Union was on the left and the Confederates on the right.

Oh and WWII 1939-45 Axis powers on the right and Allies on the left.


Like I said before politics is a hard thing to discuss, especially if you are honest. Personally I am a complete hypocrite and my ethos is guided by my personal sense of right and wrong, I am also probably guilty of looking at the past too much, but one thing I have learned is that if you want to understand where you are going (or maybe where you are being lead is a better way of putting it) you have to look at the past.

Trump is a Trojan horse, and let us not forget that it was the Trojans themselves that inflicted the first damage on their own walls, when they had to smash the arch above the gates to get the horse in.
People tend to overlook the fact that many of the Trojans didn't trust that the Greeks had left, and bitterly opposed wheeling in the horse, unfortunately their cries fell on deaf ears and saying "I told you it was a trick" to their fellow Trojans didn't bring any consolation as they watched their City being reduced to dust.

I maybe guilty of quoting you out of context, but I think the point has to be made that "Liberals" or "lefties" or whatever you want to call them, have actually scored a lot of monumental victories which have resulted in you being able to speak your mind openly without fear of reprisals.

 

[Walter Bosley]

Spin and rhetoric and resorting to calling people weak-minded because you guys have nothing that's convincing anyone of anything. I get it, you pay close attention to other people whose spin you agree with. Everyone does that and we all vote how we choose and we hope enough people vote the way we do to say 'our side won'. I LIKE that Trump pisses so many people off. I like how he exacerbates people, especially the left. I'm not buying the accusations against him because we all know that's politics. I'm just enjoying the whole thing. Both sides in this are overlooking the deficiencies in our candidate of choice. That's just what people do.

 

[Tyger]

Talk show host Thom Hartmann — who once guested on The Paracast in our early days — says the Republican Party is a big scam operation run by oligarchs designed to steal from regular people to enrich those oligarchs.

Would very much like to hear what Thom Hartmann said on the Paracast. How cool!

Regarding your larger issue, here is Part 8 of RFK Jr's speech on May Day 2007 (at the end of my text). One must recall that he is speaking of the Bush Administration at the time (2007). He is calling out the corporatization of the US government by the Republicans - plus the fact that corporations are set up to plunder. This is very key to understanding the con Donald Trump is currently engaged in - he is like any corporatist - he views the presidency as an opportunity to privatize the commons and plunder said commons. His rhetoric is not to be believed given his resume, his past history with business practices. Hillary may have some issues but she has Bernie Sanders, the Progressives and Warren breathing down her neck - and a 2020 election to win (if she wants it by then). She is a politician in that word's best sense (a double edged sword always) - she will move and shift as needed. She can be worked with. Trump cannot - he is the con artist running the griff - for his own purposes.

RFK is stating - there is a difference between free market capitalism and corporate crony capitalism. Corporations don't want the same thing for America as Americans want. Corporations do not want free markets and they do not want democracy. They want profits. Best way to get profits is to use our current campaign system - legalized bribery - to control politicians to dismantle the marketplace, give them monopoly control, and then to privatize the commons - the shared resources of our society - to turn these over for profit to the corporations. [With the election of Obama this creeping encroachment slowed.]

Legally, corporations cannot do good things. They cannot do philanthropy. They cannot do things that are good for our country and for our communities. When Walmart brings bottled water down to the Katrina victims they are doing that so that there will be a perception of them that will enhance their shareholder value and their dividend distribution. If they have any other reason for doing so, any one of their shareholders can sue them and they will win the lawsuit because Walmart would be doing what is called 'wasting corporate assets'. It is against the law in this country for a corportation to turn itself into a philanthropy. If they're caught doing it their Board members will be punished and their shareholders can sue them.

We actually want corporations to be this way. We do not want them to turn into philanthropies. No one would invest in them. We want them to focus narrowly on shareholder value - but, we would be nuts to let them anywhere near our government - because we design corporations to plunder - and that is what they will do to us (plunder the US) if we let them run our country. That's what they are doing now. [And is what Trump is poised to do should he win the presidency - plunder. Whatever his rhetoric, to energize a very prejudiced, angry, hating base, Trump's past buisness actions and practices should be warning enough as to what we can expect from Trump as president.]

That is why since the beginning of our country's history, politicians - Republican and Democrat alike - have been warning against the domination of corportate power - Teddy Roosevelt (Republican) said America would never be dominated by a foriegn power but warned we would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth who would steal our country from within; Dwight Eisenhower (Republican) warned Americans about the domination of the military-industrial complex; Abraham Lincoln (Republican) said in 1863 'I have the South in front of me, and the bankers behind me, and for my country I fear the bankers more'; Franklin Roosevelt (Democrat) said during WWII 'The domination of government by corporate power is the essence if Fascism'; [The Boston Tea Party itself was a push back against corportate monopoly (East India Company), and the founders of the country had concerns and voiced innumerable warnings about monied interests getting power.]; and Benito Mussolini, who had an insider's view of that process [of Fascism] said essentially the same thing [as FDR] that Fascism should not be called Fascism but should be called Corporatism because it was the merger of 'state' and corporate power.

What we need to understand in this country is that the domination of business by government is called communism, and the domination of government by business is called fascism, and what we need to do in America is to walk that narrow trail in between which is free market capitalism and democracy, where we hold government at bay with our right hand and big business at bay with our left. In order to do that we need an informed public that are able to recognize all the milestones of tyranny - and we need an aggressive and independant press that is willing to stand up and speak truth to power - which we no longer have here in the US.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Thom Hartmann:

November 5, 2006 — Linda Zimmerman and Thom Hartmann | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And you have to wonder the fascination for corporate raiders, such as Mitt Romney. He does what the Richard Gere character did in the movie, "Pretty Woman," which is to acquire companies, friendly or otherwise, split them up and sell off the parts.

 

[Tyger]

There has been a serious subversion of the truth. Instead of arguing policies and ideas, there has been a successful subversion of the dialog into polarized factions, replacing ideas with characterizations (usually racist, sexist and just plain nasty and obscene) as filler for actual debate.

The worst part is the suggestion that violence is 'okay' - and that treason is 'American'.

We are in Orwell's '1984' and 'Animal Farm' when language is used in it's opposite meaning.

The sad truth is people will be voting for Trump believeing they are giving the system the shaft, when the terrible awful truth is - if they could only see it - Trump is their worst nightmare.

As I stated earlier: none of Trump's histrionics, nor his resume, convince anyone who is in business that he is capable of getting any job done except 'the con'. As stated, Trump is the ultimate confidence man - and he's running the griff on a segment of the US population who for (whatever reasons) cannot discern the scam. People think they are giving the shaft to - quite frankly, I'm not clear who they think they are doing this to - but the sad, sad truth is: Trump will bring this country to heel by the very forces the Trump voter thinks they are shafting. Trump is the puppet of those forces.

There is an illusion among those who do not have great wealth - and that is that - those with great wealth are free, not beholden to anyone. Even on this thread that conviction has been stated - the belief that Trump is the ultimate outsider, not bought. Trump declares as much but it's not true at all. Trump relies on cronies, as far as I can see. His wealth is tied up in so many deals he has a lot of people he has to keep happy. (But he has also jiggered with the law too often, ruined too many people and buisinesses, that the wheels of justice are grinding up to speed against him. He has been his own worst enemy. He is facing criminal charges as we speak - and a lot of it is pretty nasty stuff).

 

[marduk]

Tyger,
Show me FACTUALLY wherein these "lefty" ideas worked. Just once! Please, I await your smokey and shiny reflective enlightenment. I can FACTUALLY link you to how they have made EVERY SINGLE notion, that they are supposedly the antithesis of, exponentially worse off. Including the many once thriving megalopolises scattered in ruin across the USA that have been swallowed up whole by these "lefty" beneficial programs. Only the utterly media brainwashed, and/or the parasitically dependent, could ardently champion. and wave the flag that you're doing your damnedest to hold onto right now. How could someone as nice and as intelligent as you commonly demonstrate yourself to be, support such utter false authority empowering horse crap? These programs, and indeed those comfortably situated between your ears, have done nothing but promote and grow the decisive despair of crippling mediocrity upon the face of everything they've touched.

How about most of the rest of the democratic world?

Even your versions of liberals are pretty right wing to the rest of the world.

That seems to be mostly getting along just fine.