Why can't Hillary Clinton stop lying?

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Undecided.

[KeithE]

To answer the topic’s question directly:

Because she refuses to take the rap for what she believes is common practice while in pursuit of a goal she has had for the last 20 years.

She is not nearly the serial liar that Trump is.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

So Trump makes a claim that he sees a plane unloading $400 million in cash in Iran, sent by the United States, and that the tape is sent to us for the express purpose of embarassing us. He claimed the $400 million was a ransom for some hostages.

Then the facts come out. Yes, the US did sent $400 million to Iran, in cash. It was not a gift, nor a payment of any kind, nor a ransom. It was part of the release on the hold of Iranian investments that was part of the old nuclear sanctions. It was their money. The deal was negotiated in the Hague, not in Washington, and it only coincided with the hostage release because it opened a narrow diplomatic window. The money had to be delivered in cash because there are no diplomatic relations between the US and Iran and that was the only way to get the money to them, because they aren't connected to the international banking system, either.

But that didn't stop Trump from lying about seeing a video of the cash being unloaded, even though no such video exists. Nor did it stop him from disseminating his own facts about what happened, ignoring the real, and verifiable truth.

And we're talking about four pinnochios over some political statements made by Hillary Clinton. Clearly, she must adhere to a different standard.

[William Thornton]

DNC talking points don't whitewash this. Hostage was kept waiting until the cash arrives, then released.

Great work, Obama. Now Americans have a price on their heads all over the world.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/opini ... 86431&_r=0

[William Thornton]

"Short circuit"....will have to try that some them.

[Dave Roberts]

If I understand the money trail here, this was actually money paid by the Shah for American weapons before the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970's. It had been frozen since they took American hostages at our embassy. We just finally unfroze their assets.

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

[Haruo]

Yeah, a lot of the mudslinging at the candidates involves a willingness to assume that ISIS, the Iranians, Putin, you name it, are truthful sources of pertinent information. I don't see why they should get a by when Clinton and Trump don't.

[Sandy]

Was there even an actual statement from the Iranians, or was that just more of Donald Trump's imagination. Interesting, Hillary isn't even involved in this particular event, but Trump lied through his teeth about it, and then had to back track, and once again go through the process of walking his comments back. There's your liar.

James Comey said, “We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI." Not much you can do with that. She said that what she told the FBI was consistent with what she has said all along to the American people. I'm sure a loyal, law and order Republican like James Comey, or Trey Gowdy for that matter, would love nothing more than to find something to destroy her reputation with anything they could inflate into some big deal and at least get things stirred up, especially among her detractors who are more interested in something they can distort, instead of real facts. Contrast that with Trump, who spends more time walking back inaccurate, false claims made in campaign speeches than he does actually promoting his non-existent policy proposals.

The diplomats who negotiated the hostage release should be commended for their creativity. Not a bad day's work, getting back hostages from a rogue, Islamic regime through the narrow window of the rare, open international diplomatic channel that was there for another reason. Not only did it not cost us anything, but if you want to believe that the money had anything to do with it, then the Iranians gave us our hostages back and used their own money to do it.

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

William is still into some of the extremist right wing radio deejay spin on this particular story. Kidnappings of Americans and Western Europeans happens in any place where there's instability and security is risky, and the state department issues frequent warnings which Americans can either pay attention to, or ignore. Your perspective of this particular incident depends totally on your political preferences, and of course, the Obama haters are going to pointlessly spin everything they can, including prevaricating about the facts. That's an expectation of political detractors these days. The idea that the Iranians paid, with their own money, a "ransom" to release American hostages they were holding is silly when you think about it. But hey, the people that you are trying to convince are the same ones who believe the President wasn't born here, and that there is no global warming. So go figure.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

Hillary is being less than truthful.
Read .
Gerson’s take is much like mine - she couldn’t bring herself to say “.... and for that I apologize” but instead said she would clarify. Her further words were not at all a clarification. Typical politician misdirection.

Now Trump takes this and turns it into what he has been dogged about (his mental fitness to be President). Her wording “short-circuit” does not involved any mental disorders (just standard figure-of-Speech) unlike the Trump is said to have.

Of embarrassing/unacceptable past actions/spoken words, Trump leads by at least an order of magnitude.

My opinion is that neither highly deserve to be President but Hilary is by far the better choice for experience and policies.

Since Stein appears too way short of getting on the Alabama ballot by the required date of Aug 24, and no-one has volunteered to lead a last second effort (as I did unsuccesfully wrt Rocky Anderson in 2012) and Sanders sitting it out as a watchdog, I’m looking further into Gary Johnson and his 3 major themes (A, B,C) . I like his (A) immediate plans to get out of the Middle East and stop supporting Israel so much. Those two actions would eliminate 2 out the the 3 complaints militant Muslims have against us (1- troops in their Holy Land, 2- favoritism of Israel over Palestinians, and 3)- our hedonistic lifestyle). We really do not have a great Muslim terrorism problem in the US right now (only a few killed in the last 10 years (far more by mentally ill people and multiple times more by cancer or gun accidents), compared to how many thousands we have killed/maimed/mentally scarred by being in these foreign wars. Getting out of the foreign wars in the Middle East and evenhanded support to Palestininans/Isaelis would likely end that terrorsm threat such as it is. Don’t get me wrong we will still benefit from Homeland Defense measures, but the threat would be minimized. I also am somewhat pleased with his second immediate acton - (B) to get out of the American bedroom. Johnson’s third major point is to (C) dismantle the federal government as much as possible. I suppose there could be another round of “Reinventing Government" as Gore led in the late 90’s which recommended some 300,000 federal jobs be eliminated (over 200,000 were eliminated). But most federal problems are working fairly well (despite what Fox News says). I judge he would not have carte blanche in dismantling government with limited “libertarian" support in Congress. That said his remarks about how he uses pot, makes me prefer his running mate Bill Weld. Oh well cannot have it all.

Any rate, I’m undecided Clinton or Johnson or write-in Sanders or Stein as a protest vote. If Trump falls further in Alabama polls, I'll make a choice between Clinton or Johnson (probably Clinton) or perhaps the newcomer McMullen (but I doubt that one). Otherwise I’ll write-in the Bern if Trump appears comfortably in the lead by Election Day.

I have rambled on enough. Respond to any portion of this as you see fit.

[Sandy]

The thought of Alabama being carried by Hillary Clinton, well, there's one for you. Though recent polls are showing that the "battleground" is shifting as Hillary opens up double digit leads in places like Colorado, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and is either ahead or well within the margin of error in North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, I guess anything is possible. I live in a red county that Romney won by about 12 points in the last election, in a blue state. The difference, though, is that the blue areas of Pennsylvania tend to be the counties where people actually live, while the red counties have a lot more cows, chickens and ground hogs than people.

The Republicans in charge of the investigations that were supposed to prove Hillary was a lying, cheating, conniving, sneaking traitor would have come up with something, or made up what they couldn't prove, rather than exonerate her. At any rate, what she's running against nullifies just about anything that's been said against her.

[Haruo]

[KeithE]