U.S. Election: It's Gonna Be a Huge Thread, It's Gonna Be the Best Thread!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, alguien said:

Since it started as ISI (Islamic State of Iraq) , and was founded by Al Queda in Iraq in 2006 (who would never have been there if not for W) and only later expanded into Syria in 2013, I'm pretty sure you're incorrect. 

Linky. 

I think there is blame to spread around regarding the Daesh.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So...let's go through the timeline.

In 2009 the reset happens. The US gets to fly over to get to Afghanistan, gets sanctions against Iran (which led pretty directly to the Iran nuclear deal being done), and lifts sanctions against Russia.

In 2012 Clinton leaves office as SecState.

In 2014 Russia annexes Crimea after bad elections. The US imposes sanctions. Russia declares the reset to be failed. 

So...two years after Clinton leaves bad shit happens, and she gets blamed for said bad shit? 

Sure, after all, Bush is still being blamed for shit that's happened almost a decade after he left office.  Iran already had sanctions on it.  Adding more sanctions probably didn't impact things.  More sanctions never helped with Iraq, after all.  And considering that the US conceded more than Iran did in the deal, I'd say they were mostly irrelevant.

On the other hand, cancelling the sanction on Russian arms allowed them to modernize their military enough for operations in the Crimea.

 

14 minutes ago, alguien said:

Since it started as ISI (Islamic State of Iraq) , and was founded by Al Queda in Iraq in 2006 (who would never have been there if not for W) and only later expanded into Syria in 2013, I'm pretty sure you're incorrect. 

Linky. 

Al Qaida in Iraq was largely defeated, and was really forced to retreat in to Syria in 2013.  They were able to do that because of the civil war, caused by the Arab Spring.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

1 minute ago, BloodRider said:

And again I say - The conclusion stated here represents a profound misunderstanding of Statistics and polling.  Percentages are ratios, and turning a ratio into a discussion about just the denominator is frankly lying with numbers.  What is a bigger numerical lie is when you expand the denominator from one comparison to the other and pretend that doesn't further decrease his numbers.  Basic Math fact:  Increasing the denominator of a ratio while keeping the numerator the same makes the ratio smaller.  So when you go from total number of Republicans who voted in the Primary to total votes his ratio of support goes down.  And it was already small to begin with.

At this point, I am not doing this to convince you of anything, but more to point out to others where your analysis is flawed, and why.

You're not doing anything of the sort.  All you're doing is saying that compared to the nation as a whole, Trump's level of support is low while ignoring the fact that compared to the nation as a whole ALL candidates level of support is low.

[alguien]

 

3 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Al Qaida in Iraq was largely defeated, and was really forced to retreat in to Syria in 2013.  They were able to do that because of the civil war, caused by the Arab Spring.

Al Queda in Iraq (AQI) would never have existed as a thing, like, at all, if not for Bush's Iraq invasion. So yeah, it's largely his fault. ISIS was created in Iraq as a direct result of his illegal war.

It may have grown as a result of Syria's part of the Arab Spring, but that doesn't change the fact that it wouldn't have even existed if we hadn't invaded Iraq.

[BloodRider]

Just now, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

You're not doing anything of the sort.  All you're doing is saying that compared to the nation as a whole, Trump's level of support is low while ignoring the fact that compared to the nation as a whole ALL candidates level of support is low.

No - I posted his latest polling data.  You just ignored it.  And I was never arguing about other candidates support.  You are pulling that in as if it means something.  No matter what people think of the other candidate, this remains true.  Trump has the narrowest support for a national candidate - ever.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

Just now, alguien said:

 

Al Queda in Iraq (AQI) would never have existed as a thing, like, at all, if not for Bush's Iraq invasion. So yeah, it's largely his fault. 

That is like saying the current challenges facing our Social Security System are FDR's fault because he started it.  No, the mismanagement of subsequent administrations/congress' are at fault.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Are you going to pretend that the protests and the fall of the government in Morocco didn't inspire the revolt in Libya?  That both were unconnected to the fall of Mubarak?  Which was unrelated to the civil war in Syria?  They were all linked to the Arab Spring, which Clinton supported both diplomatically (pushing out Mubarak) and militarily (bombing Libya).  She then went on to support the rebels against Assad.

She wanted to support the rebels against Assad. She couldn't actually, ya know, do it. Again, you're blaming her for actions that she wanted to take which were denied by Obama. 

And yes, I'm going to pretend that ISIS - which existed prior to the Syrian revolt - did not come about because the US bombed Libya. I'm also going to say that the Syrian civil war - which started before the US and UN action in Libya - did not happen because the US bombed Libya, because that would mean something that started on March 19th 2011 caused something that started on March 11th 2011.

7 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

I'm not blaming her for not doing anything.  Bombing Syria would have been just as bad.  What she, and Obama, did wrong was support the revolts against all the leaders in the middle east.  Diplomatically or militarily.

Certainly ISIS has a foothold in Iraq now, but they got their momentum in Syria.  If you're going to blame the Iraq War for that, you may as well blame WWI for causing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The fact that ISIS has currently succeeded in Iraq is more the result of Maliki dismantling the Sunni militias and leaving a power vacuum in the north and west.

Okay - but you're blaming Clinton - and Clinton only - for supporting massive democratic and popular support, something that the entire world basically supported (including Russia - excluding Syria, of course). Bush supported it too. Congress supported it. The UN supported it. Bernie Sanders supported it, and he'd be contrary just to be a dick. I get that a lot of this had a bad outcome, but I am going to go out on a limb and state that the US should likely always support democratic reform in countries at least from a diplomatic perspective.

[alguien]

4 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

That is like saying the current challenges facing our Social Security System are FDR's fault because he started it.  No, the mismanagement of subsequent administrations/congress' are at fault.

Seriously? You're comparing 80 years to 8?

A group that was deliberately created in the midst of Bush's invasion (2006) to take back Iraq is a pretty one-step correlation in cause and effect.

ISIS would still exist without the Arab Spring. It would not have even been created if not for the Iraq War.  

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

Just now, BloodRider said:

No - I posted his latest polling data.  You just ignored it.  And I was never arguing about other candidates support.  You are pulling that in as if it means something.  No matter what people think of the other candidate, this remains true.  Trump has the narrowest support for a national candidate - ever.

I'm not pulling it in as if it means something, you are ignoring it as if it means nothing.

Also, no you didn't post his latest polling data.  That's a lie.  You posted his polling data from a month ago.  Here is more recent:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/trump_favorableunfavorable-5493.html

It's true that Trump has the highest unfavorablity ratings for a candidate ever.  That doesn't change the fact that he still has a broad base of support, it just means that the people who don't support him hate him more than they've hated others.

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Sure, after all, Bush is still being blamed for shit that's happened almost a decade after he left office.  Iran already had sanctions on it.  Adding more sanctions probably didn't impact things.  More sanctions never helped with Iraq, after all.  And considering that the US conceded more than Iran did in the deal, I'd say they were mostly irrelevant.

On the other hand, cancelling the sanction on Russian arms allowed them to modernize their military enough for operations in the Crimea.

Not really. They didn't go into Crimea with modern weapons at all, and they had what, a year to modernize? That's both way too fast and simply inaccurate. What they started with in Crimea was old weapons and fairly old troops. Point of fact, the sanctions on Russian arms were sanctions stopping the sale of Russian arms - specifically, selling arms to Iran. Like, I don't understand where you're getting this at all. 

Sanctions were very specifically the main reason Iran said they were willing to negotiate and hoped things would improve. This is what their people said, this is what their government said. You can doubt it, I guess, but that's what they've stated as their main reason and what they've been polled on. 

9 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Al Qaida in Iraq was largely defeated, and was really forced to retreat in to Syria in 2013.  They were able to do that because of the civil war, caused by the Arab Spring.

But ISIS at that point wasn't AQ, and the two were actually fighting. I agree that AQ did that, but AQ at that point was something of a nonentity because it had largely been subsumed by ISIS. 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And yes, I'm going to pretend that ISIS - which existed prior to the Syrian revolt - did not come about because the US bombed Libya. I'm also going to say that the Syrian civil war - which started before the US and UN action in Libya - did not happen because the US bombed Libya, because that would mean something that started on March 19th 2011 caused something that started on March 11th 2011.

Okay - but you're blaming Clinton - and Clinton only - for supporting massive democratic and popular support, something that the entire world basically supported (including Russia - excluding Syria, of course). Bush supported it too. Congress supported it. The UN supported it. Bernie Sanders supported it, and he'd be contrary just to be a dick. I get that a lot of this had a bad outcome, but I am going to go out on a limb and state that the US should likely always support democratic reform in countries at least from a diplomatic perspective.

The point is that the Syrian Civil War was a part of the Arab Spring, which Clinton and the Obama administration supported and encouraged, militarily, diplomatically, and financially.  The bombing of Libya did help escalate the civil war in Syria by giving hope to the rebels that they too would receive military support from the US.  Then we gave them arms and money, further deepening the conflict.

I'm not blaming Clinton alone, I blame Obama too.  As President and Secretary of State, they are the most culpable.  Clinton voted for the Iraq War, but that doesn't make her just as culpable as Bush does it?

I would absolutely disagree that the US should always support democratic reform.  Do you really think the hundreds of thousands of casualties and the millions of refugees was worth it?

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

I'm not pulling it in as if it means something, you are ignoring it as if it means nothing.

Also, no you didn't post his latest polling data.  That's a lie.  You posted his polling data from a month ago.  Here is more recent:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/trump_favorableunfavorable-5493.html

It's true that Trump has the highest unfavorablity ratings for a candidate ever.  That doesn't change the fact that he still has a broad base of support, it just means that the people who don't support him hate him more than they've hated others.

I think this is mostly people talking past each other.

It's clear that Trump has a lot more support than originally thought. It's also clear that he has less support than most other Republican candidates. And at this point, it's pretty clear that very few people are 'meh' on Trump - people either view him as very favorable or very unfavorable. 

What we don't know is whether or not people will vote party ticket with Trump. That has been the case for 28 years now - that about 40% of people will vote Republican straight ticket regardless of who is running - but that was with candidates that were largely selected by the party. It's not clear that this will happen this time. It's also not clear about how many people outside of that group Trump will attract. Really, nothing is predictive with Trump at this point. 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Not really. They didn't go into Crimea with modern weapons at all, and they had what, a year to modernize? That's both way too fast and simply inaccurate. What they started with in Crimea was old weapons and fairly old troops. Point of fact, the sanctions on Russian arms were sanctions stopping the sale of Russian arms - specifically, selling arms to Iran. Like, I don't understand where you're getting this at all. 

Sanctions were very specifically the main reason Iran said they were willing to negotiate and hoped things would improve. This is what their people said, this is what their government said. You can doubt it, I guess, but that's what they've stated as their main reason and what they've been polled on. 

But ISIS at that point wasn't AQ, and the two were actually fighting. I agree that AQ did that, but AQ at that point was something of a nonentity because it had largely been subsumed by ISIS. 

Modern weapons are relative.  Russia has no microelectronics industry that can support their jets, tanks, and missiles.  Lifting the sanctions gave them the capital and ability to purchase these and other items, which emboldened them to invade the Crimea.  "Sanctions" doesn't stop Russia from selling to Iran, because the US can't just make Russia do something.  Sanctions prohibit the US doing business with companies that are doing business with Iran. Removing those sanctions allowed the Russian arms industry to do more business with US manufacturers.

Iran had been under sanction for decades.  A few more sanctions didn't tip the scale.  They would have been willing to negotiate with or without them, since they believed they could get a favorable deal from the Obama administration.

Let's go through it again.  During the Iraq War, resistance fighters in Iraq form an Al Qaeda affiliate, called Al Qaeda in Iraq.  Eventually, Al Qaeda in Iraq started targeting Shia muslims more than US forces.  This led to a falling out with Al Qaeda prime in Afghanistan.

During the surge, US Forces and the Sons of Iraq drove Al Qaeda in Iraq out of Iraq, and into Syria.  After the US left, Maliki disarmed the sons of Iraq, and created a power vacuum which allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq, now calling itself ISIS, to invade and gain land and territory.  Maliki assumed that his shia forces would be enough to control Sunni areas, but as we saw, they ran rather than fight.

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

The point is that the Syrian Civil War was a part of the Arab Spring, which Clinton and the Obama administration supported and encouraged, militarily, diplomatically, and financially.  The bombing of Libya did help escalate the civil war in Syria by giving hope to the rebels that they too would receive military support from the US.  Then we gave them arms and money, further deepening the conflict.

Except...we didn't give the rebels arms and money. We gave them food and supplies. We gave them some communication equipment. That was it. It wasn't until 2015 that we gave them any money. I get that you're still thinking one thing, but really, your'e having problems getting basic facts straight at this point.

Clinton absolutely wanted to arm the rebels and give them a lot more, and start helping. Obama said no. They eventually went back on this - but that was 3 years later. 

Quote

I'm not blaming Clinton alone, I blame Obama too.  As President and Secretary of State, they are the most culpable.  Clinton voted for the Iraq War, but that doesn't make her just as culpable as Bush does it?

I would absolutely disagree that the US should always support democratic reform.  Do you really think the hundreds of thousands of casualties and the millions of refugees was worth it?

I think that the US could have stepped in and been a lot more decisive and stopped the millions of refugees if we weren't so war-weary. And that sucks. 

I think that the US didn't do enough to help with peace, and probably the biggest problem was that we refused to even consider any plans that had Assad remaining in power. And that was an Obama choice, period. At the same time, when a civil war breaks out and one side wants to depose a dictator who is hostile to your country - the generally right choice is to try and support the side of democracy at least democratically. 

Mostly, however, I fail to see how the US basically doing nothing at all caused the Syrian civil war to continue - and more importantly, how it caused ISIS to exist. 

[Ice Queen]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's patently absurd to suggest that Clinton has no qualifications for the presidency.

But just to play devil's advocate, which nominees over the last 30 years or so do you think she's more qualified than? Because I can only point to Obama, Trump and The Lesser. 

Reagan. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Modern weapons are relative.  Russia has no microelectronics industry that can support their jets, tanks, and missiles.  Lifting the sanctions gave them the capital and ability to purchase these and other items, which emboldened them to invade the Crimea.  "Sanctions" doesn't stop Russia from selling to Iran, because the US can't just make Russia do something.  Sanctions prohibit the US doing business with companies that are doing business with Iran. Removing those sanctions allowed the Russian arms industry to do more business with US manufacturers.

Iran had been under sanction for decades.  A few more sanctions didn't tip the scale.  They would have been willing to negotiate with or without them, since they believed they could get a favorable deal from the Obama administration.

But again, Russia didn't invade the Crimea with modern anything. They didn't purchase anything like weaponry - they sold weaponry to gain (in general) food and modernizing equipment for oil. This is on record. Where are you getting any of this modern military garbage? 

Iran had been under US sanctions. The sanctions added were from Russia and China, and that was pretty crippling to them - because it meant that Iran no longer had basically anyone to sell to. And that hurt. Again, Iran stated publicly that their big goal was to get foreign companies to come back, and point of fact they're a bit frustrated because that hasn't happened fast enough. But that's how their moderate leadership got elected, that's how their people think, and that's what polling said. You can ignore it, but why would you think otherwise?

2 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Let's go through it again.  During the Iraq War, resistance fighters in Iraq form an Al Qaeda affiliate, called Al Qaeda in Iraq.  Eventually, Al Qaeda in Iraq started targeting Shia muslims more than US forces.  This led to a falling out with Al Qaeda prime in Afghanistan.

During the surge, US Forces and the Sons of Iraq drove Al Qaeda in Iraq out of Iraq, and into Syria.  After the US left, Maliki disarmed the sons of Iraq, and created a power vacuum which allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq, now calling itself ISIS, to invade and gain land and territory.  Maliki assumed that his shia forces would be enough to control Sunni areas, but as we saw, they ran rather than fight.

And the surge happened...when? I'm pretty sure it didn't happen under Obama. And really, really sure it didn't happen with SecState Clinton. 

Now, the Syrian civil war did give the AQI the ability to rebrand and get some power, which they did - and this caused a little fight with AQ international too. But this all happened prior to the US bombing of Libya. If you want to say that leaving Iraq caused a problem I'd agree with that - but that again doesn't have a lot to do with the Arab Spring, and it certainly doesn't have to do with the US choice of not doing anything with Syria, which itself was not the choice Clinton would have made. 

Now, the biggest problem actually was that US allies poured money into the Syrian civil war, and a lot of that funding and weapons ended up directly in the hands of ISIS. Maybe the US could have said 'don't do that' more, but again - the US did nothing, and that doing nothing was precisely not what Clinton wanted to do. Similarly, the withdrawal from Iraq by the US on a specific timeline also contributed to ISIS - and again, this was something that Clinton specifically did not want to do. I guess you can blame her for not being more convincing to Obama and not being able to get her point across more clearly - something I suppose you can blame Sanders for when he couldn't convince the US to invade Iraq either - but the notion that her foreign policy led to ISIS? It's just delusions that are based on things that don't exist. 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Except...we didn't give the rebels arms and money. We gave them food and supplies. We gave them some communication equipment. That was it. It wasn't until 2015 that we gave them any money. I get that you're still thinking one thing, but really, your'e having problems getting basic facts straight at this point.

Clinton absolutely wanted to arm the rebels and give them a lot more, and start helping. Obama said no. They eventually went back on this - but that was 3 years later. 

I think that the US could have stepped in and been a lot more decisive and stopped the millions of refugees if we weren't so war-weary. And that sucks. 

I think that the US didn't do enough to help with peace, and probably the biggest problem was that we refused to even consider any plans that had Assad remaining in power. And that was an Obama choice, period. At the same time, when a civil war breaks out and one side wants to depose a dictator who is hostile to your country - the generally right choice is to try and support the side of democracy at least democratically. 

Mostly, however, I fail to see how the US basically doing nothing at all caused the Syrian civil war to continue - and more importantly, how it caused ISIS to exist. 

On the contrary, I think you're the one having problems getting facts straight.  The US has been providing money (for arms) and training since at least 2012, and probably earlier.  The US didn't do 'basically nothing'.  It gave them support and kept them going.  That created a vacuum which allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq to rebrand as ISIS, then gain success and legitimacy in the region.

 

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

But again, Russia didn't invade the Crimea with modern anything. They didn't purchase anything like weaponry - they sold weaponry to gain (in general) food and modernizing equipment for oil. This is on record. Where are you getting any of this modern military garbage? 

Iran had been under US sanctions. The sanctions added were from Russia and China, and that was pretty crippling to them - because it meant that Iran no longer had basically anyone to sell to. And that hurt. Again, Iran stated publicly that their big goal was to get foreign companies to come back, and point of fact they're a bit frustrated because that hasn't happened fast enough. But that's how their moderate leadership got elected, that's how their people think, and that's what polling said. You can ignore it, but why would you think otherwise?

And the surge happened...when? I'm pretty sure it didn't happen under Obama. And really, really sure it didn't happen with SecState Clinton. 

Now, the Syrian civil war did give the AQI the ability to rebrand and get some power, which they did - and this caused a little fight with AQ international too. But this all happened prior to the US bombing of Libya. If you want to say that leaving Iraq caused a problem I'd agree with that - but that again doesn't have a lot to do with the Arab Spring, and it certainly doesn't have to do with the US choice of not doing anything with Syria, which itself was not the choice Clinton would have made. 

Now, the biggest problem actually was that US allies poured money into the Syrian civil war, and a lot of that funding and weapons ended up directly in the hands of ISIS. Maybe the US could have said 'don't do that' more, but again - the US did nothing, and that doing nothing was precisely not what Clinton wanted to do. Similarly, the withdrawal from Iraq by the US on a specific timeline also contributed to ISIS - and again, this was something that Clinton specifically did not want to do. I guess you can blame her for not being more convincing to Obama and not being able to get her point across more clearly - something I suppose you can blame Sanders for when he couldn't convince the US to invade Iraq either - but the notion that her foreign policy led to ISIS? It's just delusions that are based on things that don't exist. 

You're acting like all of this is defined as relations between Russia and Iran.  You do realize that international relations encompasses the whole world, right?  Let's try this again.  Russia is selling arms to Iran.  As a result, the US places sanctions on Russia, saying that the US cannot do business with Russian arms manufacturers.  Russia and the US later come to an agreement about sanctions on Iran.  As a result, the sanction on US arms manufacturers is lifted, allowing them to do business with US companies.  This, in turn, gives them access to the electronics they need to run their military.

Iraq was also sanctioned by everyone and didn't break.

It's clear when the surge happened.  I was just listing out the history since you didn't seem to know it.  As far as ISIS, if you want to be techincal is was founded in 1999, when Clinton was de facto secretary of state for her husband to hear the people on this board tell it.  It rebranded itself in 2013 as ISIS, which is, you'll note, well after the Syrian Civil War started and the bombing of Libya.  You might want to check your own facts there.  Before that, it was the Al-Nusra front, which was in 2012.  Again, after the bombing in Libya and the start of the Syrian Civil War.

There are two issues here that are getting mixed up.  There is the success of ISIS in Syria, and there is the success of ISIS in Iraq.  ISIS was successful in Syria because Obama and Clinton destabilized the entire region in the name of Democracy.  ISIS was successful in Iraq because Maliki disarmed the Sons of Iraq, and believed that his Shia coalition was capable of controlling the country.

Unlike most people, I don't blame Obama or Clinton for withdrawing from Iraq.  That deal was negotiated between Maliki and Bush (indirectly, of course).  Maliki refused to give US troops immunity from Iraqi law, so Bush decided to withdraw them.  Obama just followed the deal already in place.

 

[Kalbear]

Quote

On the contrary, I think you're the one having problems getting facts straight.  The US has been providing money (for arms) and training since at least 2012, and probably earlier.  The US didn't do 'basically nothing'.  It gave them support and kept them going.  That created a vacuum which allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq to rebrand as ISIS, then gain success and legitimacy in the region.

This...isn't true. Like, at all. Here's an article. Specifically, 'military gear' refers to communication equipment; I can find a link to that as well. In fact, here it is! 

In 2014 the US started giving actual arms to Syrian rebels, but again - 2 years after Clinton had left, and 2 years after ISIS had been established. 

Now, there was some record of the US via the CIA giving about $15million in arms to Syrian rebels over the Syrian/Turkey border, but it's not clear who that went to, and it's not clear how much of it ended up anywhere near Syria. 

Quote

There are two issues here that are getting mixed up.  There is the success of ISIS in Syria, and there is the success of ISIS in Iraq.  ISIS was successful in Syria because Obama and Clinton destabilized the entire region in the name of Democracy.  ISIS was successful in Iraq because Maliki disarmed the Sons of Iraq, and believed that his Shia coalition was capable of controlling the country.

Again, how precisely did the US destabliize Syria by providing humanitarian aid and communication equipment? 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Believe me, I have known Nestor a while now, and because of that I would extend him the benefit of the doubt, if I believed there were any in this case.

But: read his post. No, he doesn't explicitly say 'it's because she's a woman!' But just read that dismissive remark, describing a female's direct experience of diplomatic work as 'party-planner in chief' - which reads pretty clearly as 'oh, women's work', because party planning is just foofy girl stuff. Couldn't be any more to the job than that, and what there is, can be safely dismissed as just women's work. Yeah, that's sexism, unambiguous and clear.

This is all projection. 

I don't think party-planning (or, I suppose, event planning, if you want to get fancy) is "women's work." Many of the most famous and successful event planners are men. David Tutera. Preston Bailey. Colin Cowie. David Beahm. etc. and so on. I think it's kind of curious that you associate party-planning with "women's work." But  I daresay that says more about your (perhaps unconscious?) adherence to heterosexist normative gender roles than anything I've actually said. 

The reality is, party-planning is not diplomacy, even if you party-plan for a diplomatic event. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

not really, just a joke. distributing funding through various networks of the party seems non-objectionable, did I miss something? The Media that Cried Wolf means that they scream bloody murder about anything and everything related to Clinton, so I pretty much just automatically dismiss every anti-Clinton story as meaningless, baseless lying and misrepresentation since this is an accurate description of every anti-Clinton Media story ever reported in all of human history.

I like Barry Whitebeard very much, he is successfully uniting democrats behind Clinton in this very thread! Go Team!

 

The allegation, and there seems to be some evidence to back it up, is that the Hillary Victory Fund is transferring money raised for state parties back to the DNC almost immediately after it goes to the state and those funds are then being used disproportionately to campaign for Clinton. So if one donor gives a max contribution to the fund ($358,000.00) there should be $10,000.00 going to 32 state parties, but those funds are being redirected to the DNC, usually within 24 hours, and thus effectively bypassing individual and national party caps. 

 

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Maybe? Obama did similar things and also championed campaign finance reform, because (and this makes sense) he isn't going to go into a fight with his hands tied. For me, corruption applies when you clearly would desire to do something that is shady and would likely do it again. Clinton has been kind of absurdly open about this sort of stuff, which either implies one of two things: she knows that it's not great but will do it because it's what the field can do, or she doesn't care that it's not great and will do whatever it takes to win.

I think that which you think it is has a lot more to do with your personal view.

I also think that if you want corruption, Trump is a lot clearer of a candidate. Here's someone who doesn't reveal his taxes, who says that he's doing a campaign without donations and is paying his own money but is in fact taking a loan for it (which will end up making the campaign actually profitable for him). He has dealings with mafia and his own senior advisor was laundering money for the mob. Like, this isn't hard!

What did Obama do? I don't remember, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. And for what it's worth, Obama did not achieve any significant campaign finance reform. And how has Clinton been open about this? Her campaign and the HVF are denying it's happening.

Personally, I think it's difficult for someone to reform our campaign finance laws if they are comfortable utilizing the flawed aspects of them for their advantage. But I wouldn't go as far as Sanders and say it cannot be done.

And I agree with you regarding Trump.