
The Clinton System - RaSoJo
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/30/clinton-system-donor-machine-2016-election/
======
quadrangle
"It is easier to avoid temptation than to resist it" — Dan Ariely.

All the research in the world about the details may be interesting, but all
anyone needs to know about Hillary Clinton is that she _claims_ that huge
quantities campaign contributions and face-to-face meeting time from Wall
Street have no impact on her decisions and priorities. That claim alone is
enough to completely discredit her. Period.

Never never never trust any person who says "I'm immune to this apparent
conflict of interest." I'm not even making a judgment about whether Hillary
Clinton _believes_ her own claim. She might be flat-out lying or she might be
completely honest yet totally deluded. Either way, she's untrustworthy.

The _only_ way to trust someone is if they say "I am human, and so I am
susceptible to conflicts of interest, so I am actively avoiding such conflicts
(or, if any conflicts arise, I will recuse myself or at least acknowledging
the conflict)." A person who denies the significance of conflicts of interest
is a person unfit for decision-making.

~~~
mturmon
If you apply rigorous filters ("I will never vote for a person who _____.") to
all political candidates, you will have nobody to vote for. You can't isolate
in on one aspect of one candidate, in isolation from the other qualities of
the other candidates, and say that disqualifies them.

~~~
quadrangle
Nonsense. You can totally say, "I will never vote for a person who says they
are immune to bias". Well, that leaves _most_ politicians available to
consider still. All people have biases. Most politicians will admit at least
that fact.

Here's another: "never vote for someone who claims to be omniscient and
basically know everything". How about this: "Never vote for someone who claims
to never need advice from others". I support "never vote for someone who
claims to have all their decisions dictated to them by God".

There are all sorts of extremely low bars that can and should be set. We can
easily find tons of people who pass them. Anyone who doesn't pass very basic
requirements like this should indeed be disqualified.

To be clear, if Hillary came out and said, "I never meant to say I was beyond
bias or that the time and money from my supporters has no influence at all.
I'm human. But I meant that there's no quid pro quo. I'm not specifically
going to do whatever Wall Street asks, I'm going to do research and listen to
other views as well when making decisions," then I would immediately say
"okay, she retracted / qualified her previous claims, so she passes that
minimum test of acknowledging one's own bias after all".

Currently, she seems to be saying, "oh, I got millions from financiers and
gave lots of speeches to Wall Street, but that doesn't influence my views at
all". That disqualifies her. Nobody should support anyone who claims such
bullshit.

~~~
cmurf
Every candidate has broken one or more of you "never vote for" rules.

~~~
veidr
That's simply not true. I count 4 rules in the post, and most of the
candidates for US president this year have not broken any of them.

(It's even arguable that Clinton hasn't; she doesn't claim immunity to _all_
bias, she just claims that receiving millions of dollars from the titans of
the financial industry somehow doesn't bias her.)

~~~
awqrre
It's definitely possible that all this money doesn't affect her positions and
that the contributors already know that she would make decisions in their
favors (as opposed to other candidates)... so either way it is bad.

------
eatonphil
"Rresearch done by Sirota and Perez of International Business Times and based
on US government and Clinton Foundation data shows that during her term the
State Department authorized $165 billion in commercial arms sales to twenty
nations that had given money to the Clinton Foundation. These include the
governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab
Emirates, all of whose records on human rights had been criticized by the
State Department itself. During Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state,
arms sales to the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation ran at
nearly double the value of sales to the same nations during George W. Bush’s
second term."

Maybe this is normal and I am naive, but this seems pretty screwed up.

~~~
hiddencost
How did arms sales to other countries change in the same period?

"Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven
by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional
ambitions, according to a new study for Congress." [0]

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-
foreig...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-
sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html)

When did the IB times folks look at their numbers? (from October 2010 to
September 2012).

That looks damn cherry picked to me.

~~~
meritt
Of course it is. That's all Clinton attackers have to go on. Constant attacks
that she's corrupt and untrustworthy.

Meanwhile her policies and stances are nearly identical to Sanders except with
a dose of reality when it comes to implementation.

~~~
kaiku
There's a world of difference between the two candidates' positions. Sanders
has a history of stubborn, unwavering commitment to his progressive ideas,
whereas Clinton has only recently aligned herself with some of the popular
ideas championed by him. (Many of these ideas were truly radical when they
were first proposed, even fringe.) Clinton, like most politicians, maneuvers
for votes when convenient, and when required by her deep, complex ties to
industries with their own, decidedly non-populist agendas.

As for reality – if I had to define the dialogue of this election, at least on
the Democratic side, it wouldn't be a focus on modest, incremental, or
"practical" approaches, but rather achieving ambitious, populist goals,
demanded by those with a deep frustration with and even sense of injustice
about the state of politics and the world. There's a very real desire for
these kinds of changes, so much so in my view that implementation will
necessarily follow from such strong demand.

~~~
golergka
> Sanders has a history of stubborn, unwavering commitment to his progressive
> ideas

Does that sound as a positive quality for the _presidential_ candidate?

I don't know much about american politics in particular, but I always presume
that the role of the president is based on finding compromises between
different parties, slightly nudging them to what he believes is right, and
making the whole political machine works.

To elect someone who is known for his inability to compromise as a president
sounds like a good way to get your government completely locked. Even if you
think that any other candidate is evil and this one is fighting for what you
believe for, it still doesn't sound like a good idea.

~~~
tghw
If the other option is someone who will take whatever position is most
politically convenient, then yes, I will choose the one who has been
advocating for the things I believe in for the past 30 years over the one who
just got on the bandwagon.

It's also pretty disingenuous to suggest that one of the few independents in
the Senate can't work with both sides.

~~~
golergka
> It's also pretty disingenuous to suggest that one of the few independents in
> the Senate can't work with both sides.

If you actually read my comment, you'll notice that I not only don't mention
Sanders, I don't mention US at all. I specifically construct my arguments to
be abstract, because it's easier to reason about abstract model that
approximate some certain aspects of reality, than trying to argue about a
complex situation as a whole.

~~~
tghw
You did mention Sanders, by using him as the example which you quoted. You
used him as a basis for your model, except that you used a flawed
interpretation of him:

> To elect someone who is known for his inability to compromise as a
> president...

Having "stubborn, unwavering commitment" to ones ideals does not mean that one
is incapable of compromise. That's a separate axis that may be correlated, but
is not the same as commitment to your ideals.

~~~
golergka
> Having "stubborn, unwavering commitment" to ones ideals does not mean that
> one is incapable of compromise.

Good point. However, I haven't used Sanders as a whole for the model, I only
used the quoted property — and I did implicitly assume that these two
properties are closely correlated.

So, wouldn't you agree, that _by default_ , a person A who with "stubborn,
unwavering commitment can be expected to have problems reaching compromises?
And that if he wishes for people to think that he's able to reach a compromise
and be a peacemaker, he has to do more convincing than a person without said
quality? Once again, I'm not talking about any particular politicians here.

------
tghw
I am genuinely concerned about how the Clintons play the game. While there's
nothing conclusive, there are a lot of correlations between their
"friendships" and the influence they exert. It's even more concerning that the
DNC just scrapped the ban on lobbyist contributions.

We know that money talks, how can we trust any of our leaders who take so much
of it to get elected?

------
wallflower
There is a lot of voter anger against institutions and established ways of
doing things that is emerging in this election. The Clintons are an
_institution_ in themselves.

------
dementis
What I would like to know, is if Clinton is hoping that the FBI investigation
into her will not result in an indictment before she gets elected(lets just
assume she is enough of a narcissist to believe her election is fait
accompli), so she can pardon herself of the crimes she might later be formally
charged with? Because technically there would be nothing stopping her from
trying to do it.

"The right to pardon is an authority given to the President of the United
States (POTUS) by the US Constitution in Article II, Section 2. This section
specifically reads that the POTUS “shall have power to grant reprieves and
pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of
impeachment.” Essentially, the only way presidential pardon is restricted by
the constitution is under the circumstance of the sitting president being
impeached. Self-pardon is not restricted by law, and under interpretation by
the Supreme Court, a president could have the right to pardon himself not only
for crimes he has committed, but also for crimes with which he has not yet
been charged"

[http://www.wisegeek.com/does-the-us-president-have-the-
right...](http://www.wisegeek.com/does-the-us-president-have-the-right-to-
pardon-himself.htm)

And based on the mess around David Petraeus(retired CIA director) and his
pleading guilty to mishandling of classified material some 3 or 4 years after
the fact; the election could very well be over before any formal charges are
made.

Personally I feel like all of the US presidential elections come down to a
choice which one possibility I dislike the least. Right now there is a lot of
bad choices from my point of view; Bernie is a socialist, Clinton is under FBI
investigation and shouldn't be running until that cleared up, Trump just wants
to add to his "legacy" and probable make a bundle of money, Cruz is as far
right as Bernie is to the left and extremist of any kind are a bad thing.

------
tropo
What I find strange is that some people vote for Hillary in the primary
because they think she is more electable than Bernie. Say what?

Electability isn't just about crude left-right positioning. It's also about
personality and trust.

Moderate voters could reluctantly go for Bernie's politics, just as they could
reluctantly go for any random republican's politics. What they won't tolerate
is Hillary.

People really really despise her.

------
Zaheer
Anyone else find an uncanny resemblance between the Clintons & the Underwoods?

~~~
pekk
Bill Clinton is closeted gay man who murders journalists with his hands? Do
share your information.

~~~
tghw
Frank is clearly pansexual.

------
ck2
Doesn't matter how you feel or what you believe about Hillary. A president is
mostly a figurehead except one area:

It's going to come down to if you want Trump or Clinton picking the next
couple of supreme court judges, which will basically set in concrete the
future of our country and most definitely affect you for the rest of your
lifetime.

If you want fewer rights and more restrictions, you will vote Trump.

If you want more rights and fewer restrictions you will vote Clinton.

Each are a horrible mess and Clinton is a horrible compromise but she is
certainly the lesser evil.

If it makes you feel better, a president can only do so much, it's Congress
that should be upsetting you.

~~~
moonshinefe
I don't buy it. Hillary Clinton was proposing "talking to silicon valley"
about putting limits on encryption. She is going to impose fewer rights in
some areas, just like Trump will. She might be less bad in this arena, but
painting it as an either/or is inaccurate.

~~~
ck2
Yes there are many areas where Hillary will be a horrible compromise.

However you need to lookup what "conservative" means if you feel a republican
president is going to allow more liberties.

Trump isn't just financially conservative (at least for everyone else, not for
himself) he is very socially conservative in his most current reality show
(aka running for president). Ironically a decade ago he was fairly socially
liberal.

