Politics
Out of context: Reply #19955
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Does Hillary Clinton deserve the label 'Crooked Hillary' that Trump has given her?
https://www.quora.com/Does-Hilla…
Compared to who? As Joe Biden says, “Don’t compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative.” And in this case the alternative is a real estate swindler whose main difference from Bernie Madoff is that Trump has figured out how to cheat others while staying out of jail.
Take the candidates’ public statements. Pulitzer Prize-winning fact checker PolitiFact found that Clinton lies 28% of the time.
That’s a lot. If you stop there, as Trump supporters always do, it sounds like this alone justifies Trump’s damning characterization of her.
But if you do go on, PolitiFact found that Trump lies 76% of the time. The only candidate for this election who lies even more is Ben Carson at 84%—you know, the guy who at the GOP convention said Clinton was a Satan worshiper and meant it literally. Not sure if you can call something that delusional a liar. Trump, on the other hand, appears perfectly rational—or at least as rational as a terminally narcissistic demagogue can be.
A note for Bernie Bros—PolitiFact found that he also lies 28% of the time. Ditto Jon Kasich. Apparently 28% lying is the gold standard for politicians. Except all the other GOP candidates lied a lot more, though none approached Trump and Carson.
The Republican Party has spent how much on trying to pin something on this Demcrat, over the past 20 years? Who in American history has had more money and time and effort spent on trying to find something they could use to put her in prison?
If she is a crook she’s a billiant one, because there she is livin’ large, probably our next President (according to the 538 blog, which has the best track record for predicting elections), and all the GOP has come up with, after all that effort, is innuendo and character attacks.
Trump, on the other hand, while not in jail, has been involved in 3,500 lawsuits—more than the next five real estate developers combined.
To call someone “crooked” legitimately they need to be engaged in proven illegal activity in the eyes of the law—indicted, tried, and convicted. It’s a condemnation that can’t be legitimately applied to anything less, because it’s presented as a summation of someone’s character.
Now “Dollar” Jackson, the Democratic congressman now doing hard time, or Duke Cunningham, the Republican congressman now also doing hard time (who even had a menu with his prices for different services he could render businesses that paid him)—those are crooked politicians. Not the ones who were tossed out of office for personally scuzzy behavior, like Tony Wiener.
Possibly not even the many, many politicians of both parties who entered Congress as middle class citizens and left office as millionaires, then walked into cushy jobs with the companies they’d been in charge of regulating. All legally, since Congress made insider trading a felony for you and me but legal for them.
Possibly not even someone like Republican Dennis Hastert, who bribed the boys he raped to buy their silence (from when he was a boys wrestling coach), since that didn’t affect his work as long-term Speaker of the House (and who regularly moralized about how evil Bill Clinton was for his womanizing).
I would define a politician as being crooked if they committed crimes while in office that affected their actions as an elected politician, and those crimes were proven in a court of law, and their conviction was never overturned.
There are dozens of national politicians who earned that definition of “crooked” in my lifetime.
Clinton is not one of them. Trump calls her that, first and foremost because he’s a real estate swindler and an adroit demagogue always accuses his opponent of being what what he himself is. I don’t call him “crooked” because he’s never been convicted, and I’m not omniscient. as Republican ideologues believe they are. I call him “swindler” because you can be one of those and stay out of jail if you’re clever enough—especially in real estate, which enjoys lax laws in this area.
But consider how Fortune magazine (the source of the Fortune 500 listings each year) describes his style of business:
“No amount of spin will make Trump’s dozen years at the helm of a Trump Hotels, the only public company Trump has ever run, look like anything but a flop that damaged thousands of shareholders, bondholders, and workers. The sole “winner” now packs arenas across America, mesmerizing tens of thousands of cheering fans with tales of his business triumphs.”
There’s a reason why he, alone among presidential candidates in the last 50 years, won’t reveal his tax returns .
I started this comment by saying “compared to who?” Compared to all politicians currently in office or who served in national office over the last 20 years, she’s one of the more virtuous ones. I’m thinking of all the ones who are now lobbyists for the companies they once “regulated.” Which includes manyDemocrats and Republicans.
And if we include everything that doesn’t serve the American people under the sobriquet “crooked,” the most crooked are the fossil fuel industry puppets who deny the scientific fact of dangerous, man-caused climate change.
And heading the list of such fossil fuel industry puppets is Donald J. Trump, who dismisses it as a commie plot.
If you use “crooked” in the broadest possible terms, Trump’s policy positions define the word, because nearly every one of them betrays the American people.
Including stuff like his wall to keep Mexicans out. As it happens I’m against the Democrats’ amnesty proposals. But nothing the Republicans say would do any better at dealing with illegal immigrants, showing that they’re listening to their billionaire string-pullers who want that cheap, union-busting labor for their fields and factories.
What would work is adopting India’s nationwide biometric ID system. That’s the only way we can catch the many millions now here, and those who enter the country legally but then overstay their visas (which is in the millions by this point). Nothing less than a universal biometric ID will nab them, but no Republican will admit it, because they’ve spent so long cultivating antigovernment militia nut hysteria among their base that they dare not admit this.
Trump and the Republicans in general wrap themselves in the flag and put themselves on a towering moral pedastel, from which they smugly moralize at the rest of us. Then the GOP’s worst bottom feeders—of whom Trump is the cynosure—demonstrate their total lack of class with a constant stream of juvenile insults.
Like this one.
Side note: the biggest opponent of the TPP is Communist China, because it’s America’s best way of controlling Chinese imperialism that threatens our interests in Asia. Trump’s opposition to the TPP plays into their hands. The oligarchs of China and Russia would be delighted if someone as ignorant of America’s actual interests as Trump is won in November. He’s a clever real estate swindler, but in international politics he would be their “useful idiot.”
And note that if Trump wins and his tax plan is enacted, he will make a killing personally, making “President of the United States” an immensely profitable business venture for him. Is that “crooked”? Or just the ultimate application of thinking the President should run the United States as a business?
- lol, nice propaganda. needed a good laugh. thanks for posting.yurimon
- Sup words guy?teh
- Analyzing whether Clinton is crooked or not, shouldn't involve Trump unless you're trying to see which is more evil than the otheromg
- Here they are: Hillary's 22 biggest scandals
http://www.wnd.com/2…omg - i dont see those scandals in the article. hmmm.yurimon
- Maybe because they are conspiracy nonsense? The article is literally accusing her of having people who worked for her assassinated lolyuekit
- ^ sound like you examined them all. [sarcasm]yurimon