Unofficial Apolyton Predicts

[C0ckney]

I think there are some specific cases which appear they might have some conflict of interest (from what I've seen), but the numbers you quoted seem rather benign in and of themselves. Any group with enough money to pay such speaking fees is likely to be lobbying the government. Simply having overlap between groups that lobby the government and groups which the Clintons have spoken to doesn't necessarily mean anything.

22 groups that lobbied the State Department (successfully or not?) which account for X out of 729 speeches? If X is a very high number ... or if the speaking fees for those 22 (or the portion of them that lobbied successfully) are significantly higher than their normal speaking fees, then it would be more telling. So needs more specific details to matter.

well, if it were just about state department contracts then i might agree. but there plenty of other ways that a politician can influence things in favour of donors, and indeed they do so all the time. clinton herself claimed that the family were 'dead broke' and 'in debt' when they left the white house (of course one can question the truth of this statement), yet now they have an estimated 9 figure fortune. if a brazilian or filipino politician or political family had done the same, no one would believe that the money had come from something other than corruption, and they'd be right!

at the end of the day, she's raked in nearly $40,000,000 from giving speeches. those corporations weren't paying for her eloquence.

[rah]

While I'll agree that there is no proof that they got anything from their donations, I'll bet their hope was to get something.

[kentonio]

That stuff with foreign governments donating to her Foundation just as their contracts were going through State was grubby as **** as well.

[Ming]

This is all just more proof of how bad a candidate Hillary really is. She should be up by a ton more at this point. But there are so many people who simply will not vote for her.
Yeah, she will win hands down, but it could have been an even greater slaughter which may have helped even more in the local races.

[Elok]

The data does not support the claim that globalization is to blame for lack of jobs. There was no globalization in the In the 70s and 80s.

Technological progress made the heavy industry jobs of the past obsolete and they are not coming back irrespective of globalization. The US produces as much steel today as in the 70s but with a tiny fraction of the people employed. It is the same for all manufacturing.

If you have strong sense of belonging to a tribe/race it is easier to blame China (a foreign/different entity) than to blame technological progress which is a lot more abstract.

The most severe losses occurred in the nineties and oughts, but fair enough. What exactly are they supposed to do about it, either way? The typical answer is some talk about continuing education and jumping aboard the new economy. In practice, that simply doesn't work. John the millworker is not going to become an IT specialist or what-have-you. The problem isn't just that the jobs went away, but that nothing replaced them, and that nobody (apparently) cared.

[Proteus_MST]

The most severe losses occurred in the nineties and oughts, but fair enough. What exactly are they supposed to do about it, either way? The typical answer is some talk about continuing education and jumping aboard the new economy. In practice, that simply doesn't work. John the millworker is not going to become an IT specialist or what-have-you. The problem isn't just that the jobs went away, but that nothing replaced them, and that nobody (apparently) cared.

That surely will become more and more of a problem ... jobs for people with only limited intellectual capabilities will continue to decrease in numbers, as more and more robotics and the like (and with it the requirement to handle complicated machinery) gain entry into professions that traditionally were ideally suited for people with little to no education

[-Jrabbit]

While I'll agree that there is no proof that they got anything from their donations, I'll bet their hope was to get something.

Which - much like speaking fees - is no different than other politicians. GWB rakes in $150,000 for a speech. Trump has a foundation that is clearly little more than a money laundering device. Why are these things suddenly so objectionable when it's HRC?

Feels like a double standard to me.

[rah]

If it wasn't for Hillary, Bill's fees, I agree are no different. But I think Hillary's past post and current run do make it different.
GWB doesn't really have the influence he did before.
I'm not even going to compare Trump's because I agree with you on the sleazy aspect, but it was started before any of his political aspirations where acted on.
So no I don't see a double standard.

[Giancarlo]

Will you pull your head out of your ass for two minutes and try and grasp the idea of human empathy for long enough to let a challenging idea into your self-absorbed brain? You're doing exactly what the Democratic party has done for decades now, TELLING people why they think or vote how they do, and never actually bothering to go talk to them and actually find out.

To people who have lived their whole lives in a ****ty town, with mass unemployment, living in borderline poverty, with no realistic hope of getting out and no idea of how to improve their lives in any meaningful way, they really don't give a **** about most of the issues you care about. Maybe they would if they weren't spending their lives in an endless cycle of misery and despair, but when you're barely scraping by in the world and thats pretty much all you've ever known, no you're not likely to give much of a damn about other people's social equality issues.



You sound like exactly the kind of disgusting, soulless, arrogant bastard the GOP run in elections. Well done showing exactly why millions of people wouldn't piss on either party if they were on fire.

Your condescending know it all attitude is exactly why I will take the high ground and not respond to you. Grow up.

The democrats care more about people who have been in hard times. It is as simple as that. If one refuses to acknowledge that point, they are living in a parallel reality.

[C0ckney]

That surely will become more and more of a problem ... jobs for people with only limited intellectual capabilities will continue to decrease in numbers, as more and more robotics and the like (and with it the requirement to handle complicated machinery) gain entry into professions that traditionally were ideally suited for people with little to no education

this will be one of the great questions of our age. ultimately the solution must be some kind of universal basic income. unfortunately, the current 'solution' is to make semi-skilled/unskilled workers compete for scraps in increasingly demeaning conditions of employment, leaving them bouncing between insecure dead-end jobs and welfare. meanwhile, more third world immigrants arrive to drive down wages yet further. hence the rise of right-wing populism.

[Elok]

You sound like exactly the kind of disgusting, soulless, arrogant bastard the GOP run in elections. Well done showing exactly why millions of people wouldn't piss on either party if they were on fire.

The foolish part is pretending that the election is going to settle it, as if all those millions of angry people are going to say, "Welp, we lost, time to go back to the ol' trailer park and drink ourselves to death for the greater good. Not much else to do when you're irrelevant." If we're lucky, the GOP will reform into something that can address their grievances and channel them in a constructive way. If we're not lucky, well, these folks tend to be armed, they're organized now, and after all the BLM-bashing I suspect a fair number of the police are going to be somewhat sympathetic . . .

[rah]

The democrats care more about people who have been in hard times. It is as simple as that. If one refuses to acknowledge that point, they are living in a parallel reality.

Not exactly the best post to refute the charge of acting like a know-it-all.
Whether true or not.

[Giancarlo]

This is all just more proof of how bad a candidate Hillary really is. She should be up by a ton more at this point. But there are so many people who simply will not vote for her.
Yeah, she will win hands down, but it could have been an even greater slaughter which may have helped even more in the local races.

She will win big.

She is probably going to win by a bigger margin than Obama did.

By the way, I was right about Texas.

http://www.wfaa.com/mb/news/local/texas-news/new-poll-trump-lead-shrinks-in-texas-within-margin-of-error/335896258

Donald Trump 47%, Hillary Clinton 43%... That is now within the polls margin of error. If it tightens further and it possibly could, Texas will be in swing state status like Arizona.

In other words, she is better than you think.

[Giancarlo]

Not exactly the best post to refute the charge of acting like a know-it-all.
Whether true or not.

If he is going to drop the a-hole like behavior, I would respond. At this point, I am not going to lower myself to his level. He can sling all the poop he wants. I will be above that. His statements were utterly false.

[kentonio]

She will win big.

She is probably going to win by a bigger margin than Obama did.

...

In other words, she is better than you think.

The Fonz could run against Donald Trump and get a higher vote total than Hillary is going to get. She's a ****ing atrocious candidate, who has made running against Donald Trump look difficult. There really isn't a more damning indictment than that.