COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, November 02, 2017

The Democrats Discover Hillary Clinton is a Crook



Brazile says she found DNC deep in debt from Obama, controlled by Clinton a year before nomination

WASHINGTON TIMES 

Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile says President Obama decimated the party’s finances to win re-election in 2012 and that Hillary Clinton’s campaign took control of the DNC long before she defeated Sen. Bernard Sanders for the party’s presidential nomination last year.
In revelations from her upcoming book that are roiling an increasingly divided Democratic PartyMs. Brazile said she was shocked at the sorry condition of the DNC’s finances when she took over in July 2016 for embattled Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who she said was “not a good manager.”
Ms. Brazile described a phone call she had with Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, on the morning after the Democratic National Convention ended in late July 2016.
“He told me the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt,” Ms. Brazile wrote. “‘What?’ I screamed. ‘I am an officer of the party and they’ve been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems.’ That wasn’t true, he said.”
Also Thursday, the DNC dismissed its top fundraiser after five months on the job amid the party’s weak fundraising efforts. Finance director Emily Mellencamp Smith was let go in a shake-up.
The party had only $7 million on hand by the end of September. The DNC raised $51 million since January, but the Republican National Committee raised $104 million over the same period.
During eight years under Mr. Obama, Democrats lost more than 1,000 state and federal posts nationwide, including congressional and state legislative seats and governorships. Not as well-known was that Mr. Obama also left his party’s finances deep in the red.
“Officials from Hillary’s campaign had taken a look at the DNC’s books,” Ms. Brazile said. “Obama left the party $24 million in debt — $15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly.”
The manager of Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000 also described her shock at discovering a written agreement that proved what Mr. Sanders had been claiming — that the DNC was in the tank for Mrs. Clinton long before primary voting ended.
The joint fundraising agreement among the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary for America was signed by DNCofficial Amy Dacey and Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook.
The agreement “specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNCHillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” Ms. Brazile said. “Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
The Clinton-DNC pact allowed donors who had maxed out their $2,700 individual contribution limit to write another check of up to $353,400 to Mrs. Clinton’s PAC. Of that, $10,000 would be given to the 32 state parties that were part of the agreement, for a total of $320,000.
The states then funneled the remaining $33,400 to the DNC.
“The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical,” Ms. Brazile wrote. “If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.”
The agreement was signed in August 2015, just four months after Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy and almost a year before she secured the party’s nomination.
Ms. Brazile said, “I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn [site of Clinton campaign headquarters]. Well, here was the answer.”
The result was the Clinton campaign controlled the vast bulk of the party money and doled out small shares to the DNC to keep it afloat. Mr. Gensler told Ms. Brazile that the Clinton campaign “had to do it or the party would collapse.”
Ms. Brazile’s revelations produced a chorus of I-told-you-so’s from the Democratic Party’s grass roots and raised calls to end what many consider a “rigged game” of superdelegates controlled by the party establishment.
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether the Democratic primary was rigged, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, said simply, “Yes.”
Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, the outside group started by Mr. Sanders after the 2016 campaign, said Ms. Brazile “just told the world what millions of independents and progressives already suspected.”
“The presidential primary was rigged as far back as 2015, as then-chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz ceded all authority to the Clinton campaign,” she said in a fundraising email. “The DNC’s reliance on big money donors tipped the scales against progressives.”
Mrs. Turner said the DNC leadership “continues to alienate progressives.”
“Tom Perez, the current DNC Chair, just demoted supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Keith Ellison, including Our Revolution Board Member Dr. Jim Zogby, the only Arab American, from the Executive Committee,” Mrs. Turner said. “The DNC’s preference for large campaign contributions over our revolutionary model of small-dollar donations goes against everything a grassroots organization is supposed to be about. Progressives, independents, and a growing number of Democrats feel that the party no longer works for them. That has to change.”
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said Mr. Sanders has every right to be upset about the Democratic primary race.
“To see that the Hillary Clinton campaign was funding the DNC and in return demanded total control of the DNCbefore she was the nominee shows how truly broken the DNC was,” Mrs. McDaniel said on Fox News. “Donna Brazilehas shed light on the total dysfunction of the DNC and how clearly they put their thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted, “Will Justice Department investigate Hillary Clinton’s takeover of the DNC?”
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said the developments add urgency to the pending recommendations of the party’s Unity Reform Commission, which was created at the national convention as a last-minute compromise with Sanders supporters who were demanding the elimination of superdelegates from presidential primaries.
“When it comes to fostering trust in the DNC, the entire ballgame is the Unity Reform Commission’s forthcoming proposals and whether they are strong and adopted by DNC leadership,” Mr. Green said. “Those proposals should include dramatically scaling back the role of unelected superdelegates in skewing the nomination process, making primaries open to more people, making caucuses less time-consuming for working families, and mandating more DNC budget transparency and oversight.”
He said in light of Ms. Brazile’s revelations, “reforms should also include barring joint fundraising agreements that give an advantage to one candidate over another during a primary.”
⦁ Sally Persons contributed to this report.

26 comments:

  1. Half Time

    Mighty Idaho Vandals 3, or 7, depending on which announcer one is listening to

    Troy 10

    One Mighty Vandal has been escorted off the field for "targeting".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Idaho Vandals 7
      Troy Trojans 10

      Confirmed

      Half Time Primeland Grain Report

      Wheat up 10 cents on export sales.

      Australian harvest begins in December, outlook uncertain.

      Delete
    2. The farms are so large in Australia the combine crews often take pickup/campers with them so they can sleep out in the fields.

      Delete
  2. Hillary got all the money and all the control, got the primary rigged, left the DNC broke and lost the general election.

    Sometimes it appears there is a Just God.


    Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted, “Will Justice Department investigate Hillary Clinton’s takeover of the DNC?”

    Nah.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There may be a Just God, but asking for a Just Justice Department is too much.

      Delete
  3. .


    I forgot about that whole superdelegate stuff.


    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies


    1. .


      Do you know where your glasses are ? Have you looked on your head ?


      .

      Delete
    2. .

      I don't dwell on the inconsequential. They are obviously legal and won't really be consequential again for another couple years. I'll worry about them at that time.

      As for the Cognium, if that's what you take, I'll pass.

      .

      Delete
  4. .

    Since everyone seems to have had one of these JFAs, I assume they must be legal; however, given the magnitude of what Clinton was doing you would think that there's probably some money laundering or reporting irregularities somewhere along the line in her campaign.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  5. She's not called Crooked Hillary for no reason.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Australia's economic fortunes have received an unexpected boost with stronger than expected trade and building approvals in September.

    In seasonally adjusted terms, the trade surplus doubled to $1.74 billion over the month, much higher than $1.1 billion the market had factored in.

    ...

    Exports of rural goods rose 5 per cent, thanks to a strong demand for meat (+17 per cent) and wool (+18 per cent), which more than offset a 65 per cent drop in the value of wheat and cereal exports.

    Building approvals defied gloomy talk surrounding the housing sector, edging up 1.5 per cent in September.

    ...

    ANZ's David Plank said the solid result supported the view that the downturn in dwelling approvals is most likely over.

    "Indeed, housing approvals are now up a touch over 15 per cent from their low in October 2016 and up more than 12 per cent from the 2017 low in March," Mr Plank noted.

    ReplyDelete

  7. Looks like Sam Clovis needs to be added to those on the contact list that may need a Presidential pardon

    ReplyDelete
  8. .

    FISA Section 702

    Christopher Wray has been politicking for reauthorization of FISA Section 702 which is scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

    Today, I heard Jeff Sessions doing the same; however, he used the NY terrorist attack to make his political point saying we need 702 to prevent this type of thing happening in the future.

    To both gentlemen, the old Quirkster says, 'Bushwa!!!'

    The NSA has been secretly monitoring the conversations of American citizens for over a decade. They have been denying it since the beginning. They would still be denying it if it wasn't for Snowden.

    Section 702 may have some limited value in matching connections after the fact but not enough to justify infringing on citizens' privacy rights and making a mockery of the 4th Amendment. The information obtained through this program has had limited value if any at all in predicting the crimes it was designed to prevent but we have seen documented abuses on citizen privacy by the people running the program.

    The biggest reason Section 702 info won't help with terrorist attacks like the one in NY is information overload. The amount of info scooped up by this program in a single day is staggering. There is no way a predictive algorithm can be constructed to sort through it all on a timely basis.

    The NY terrorist attack is a perfect example. The guy had been planning this attack for about a year. He visited all kinds of radical web sites. He ran trial runs. His activities were seen by neighbors.

    The NSA's rationale for 702 is that it allows them to connect the dots and track contacts between key players and others. The FBI was aware of the guy. He was in contact with others they were interested in. Yet, he was allowed to pass under the radar. What do we need 702 for if its useless?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  9. .

    U.S. investigators have identified Russian government hackers who breached the DNC

    Federal investigators have identified several Russian government hackers who penetrated the Democratic National Committee's computers last year and siphoned out information that was released online, according to individuals familiar with the matter.

    Gathering the evidence necessary to bring charges against them has proven to be a challenge, and it is not clear when that might happen, the individuals said. Prosecutors and FBI agents have been in discussions about the case and could bring charges next year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    The Justice Department declined to comment. Russian President Vladi­mir Putin has denied his government played any role in the hacking or in seeking to influence the 2016 election.

    Bringing such a prosecution could stir political controversy. President Trump, both as a candidate and after his election, has repeatedly expressed skepticism that Russia was behind the hack of Democratic targets including the DNC.

    He famously suggested the hackers could be Russian, Chinese, or "somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds..."


    .

    ReplyDelete
  10. Final

    Troy Trojans 24

    Mighty Idaho Vandals 21

    Looks like our Idaho quarterback is out for the next game, may have a broken thumb.

    Egregious misbehavior by the time judge in favor of the Trojans.

    Only 3 games left in this season.

    Looking like we won't even go to The Potato Bowl.

    :(

    BEING A VANDAL BOOSTER BUILDS CHARACTER !

    ReplyDelete
  11. Plaque - Do NOT exhume loved ones and dance with the dead

    Daily Mail

    Deadly airborne plague in Madagascar is now at 'crisis' point and the 'worst outbreak in 50 years' as cases rocket by almost 40% in just 5 DAYS and could hit a further 20,000 in weeks
    The World Health Organization now states there are 1,801 suspected cases
    This is significantly higher than the 1,309 the agency reported last Thursday
    Professor Robin May, an infectious diseases expert at Birmingham University, told MailOnline that the outbreak is 'concerning definitely'
    Analysis of figures by MailOnline show the epidemic could strike a further 20,000 people in just a matter of weeks, if current trends continue
    The 'unprecedented' outbreak has prompted warnings in 9 nearby countries


    Officials in Madagascar have warned residents not to exhume bodies of dead loved ones and dance with them because the bizarre ritual can cause outbreaks of plague

    Plague season hits Madagascar each year and still has six months to run, however, this year’s outbreak has seen triple the amount of cases that was expected.

    This year's outbreak has started earlier as forest fires have driven rats into rural communities, which has then spread into cities for the first time, local reports state.

    It comes amid warnings annual celebrations to honour the dead saw large crowds gather in cities, increasing the risk of infection.

    These figures in italics are MailOnline’s analysis of what would happen if the current 37 per cent increase continued in five-day gaps.

    Actual figures in upcoming reports issued by the WHO completely depend on intervention by international aid agencies, and could paint a much different picture.

    All Saints Day, otherwise known as the 'Day of the Dead', is a public holiday which takes place on November 1 each year, sees families often gathering at local cemeteries.

    'In that type of situation, it may be easy to forget about respiratory etiquettes,' Panu Saaristo, the International Federation of Red Cross' team leader for health in Madagascar, told MailOnline.

    And earlier this week MailOnline revealed the 'Godzilla' El Niño has been blamed for the severity of this year's outbreak by causing freak weather conditions.

    Commenting on the WHO figures, Professor May told MailOnline: ‘It sounds like a very big increase in five days. It’s a serious outbreak and needs careful monitoring.’

    ‘Depending on what position of the curve you’re at, you’re either going to see a lot more cases or it’ll hit the peak and drop down.’

    The figures dispute claims by Dr Manitra Rakotoarivony, Madagascar's director of health promotion, that the epidemic is on a downward spiral.

    On the same day WHO released its latest situation report, he told local radio: ‘There is an improvement in the fight against the spread of the plague, which means that there are fewer patients in hospitals.’

    In Madagascar, a sacred ritual sees families exhume the remains of dead relatives, rewrap them in fresh cloth and dance with the corpses


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5043497/Deadly-airborne-plague-cases-rocket-40.html#ixzz4xLDuPH8O
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I knew a Doctor from this area that had gone to Madagascar on a sort of medical mission for some time.

      He said it was a real hell hole.

      Delete
  12. In good news, the Earth's ozone hole continues to shrink. Way to go, humans !

    Earth's ozone hole shrivels to smallest since 1988
    Associated Press
    SETH BORENSTEIN
    ,Associated Press•November 2, 2017

    ...."It's really small this year. That's a good thing," Newman said.

    Newman said this year's drop is mostly natural but is on top of a trend of smaller steady improvements likely from the banning of ozone-eating chemicals in a 1987 international treaty. The ozone hole hit its highest in 2000 at 11.5 million square miles (29.86 million square kilometers)....

    ....Ozone is a colorless combination of three oxygen atoms. High in the atmosphere, about 7 to 25 miles (11 to 40 kilometers) above the Earth, ozone shields Earth from ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.
    Scientists at the United Nation a few years ago determined that without the 1987 treaty by 2030 there would have been an extra 2 million skin cancer cases. They said overall the ozone layer is beginning to recover because of the phase-out of chemicals used in refrigerants and aerosol cans.


    https://www.yahoo.com/news/earths-ozone-hole-shrivels-smallest-since-1988-232827571.html


    ReplyDelete
  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From the video at the top of this thread -

      "Less than 1/2 of 1% of the money ($82,000,000) raised by the states went back to the states. The rest went 'to Brooklyn'."

      That is to say, 99.5% of the $82,000,000 went to Hillary.

      :):)

      Suckers !

      Delete
  14. Confirmed: Humans Love Dogs More Than Other People

    A UK medical research charity staged two phony donation campaigns — one for a dog and the other featuring a man. Of course, the pooch drew more contributions.

    “Would you give 5 pounds to save Harrison from a slow, painful death?” the separate ads said, featuring a canine and human “Harrison.”

    Then a Northeastern University study showed that only a baby human could compete with man’s best friend....

    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2017/11/confirmed-humans-love-dogs-people/

    This is called The Quirk Effect.

    Humans are all dicks, but a dog is a man's best friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At least, all humans out of diapers are all dicks.

      Delete
  15. The media is in the advertising business -

    STORY LAUNDERING: FUSION GPS, FAKE NEWS, RUSSIANS AND REPORTERS

    The media’s real business is ‘story laundering’.

    November 3, 2017 Daniel Greenfield

    ....The media has outsourced story generation to the shadowy underworld that produced the Trump dossier. Much as NPR outsourced its coverage of the Iran Deal to Ploughshares and the Iran Lobby in exchange for $100K. This isn’t bias in the conventional sense. It’s native advertising all the way. The media ‘rents’ space to outside interests. It rewrites their stories in the house style and runs them.

    Sometimes, like NPR, there’s a financial arrangement. Other times the media gets stories that it lacks the resources and the time to generate on its own. Or access. And sometimes it’s just a political alliance.

    The media is trying to cash in on the institutional legacy of the corporations that bear the old names, but have no functional resemblance to what the news business used to be. Today’s media isn’t in the news business. Its outlets report the news only to the degree that they have to. And when they do, they rely on viral stories or rewriting an original report. The media’s real business is serving as a clearinghouse for narratives. These clearinghouses operate out of major urban power centers. They know next to nothing about much of the country. And they don’t care. It’s why they didn’t see Trump’s victory coming.

    Trump doesn’t just outrage the media politically. He’s a threat to their business model. The media’s new business is political gatekeeping as the intermediary between political interests and the public. If you want to give Iran a blank check to develop its nukes, touch off a panic over the environment or make anthem protests into a trend, you go to the media. And then your business deal with Iran, your solar panel investments or your hijacked family foundation pushing black nationalist chic will thrive.



    The existence of President Trump undermines the media’s gatekeeping powers. He is a living reminder that the media’s power is limited. That’s why he has become the media’s number one target.

    The internet is the media’s other problem. Gatekeeping was easier when broadcasting was expensive and hard. The media used Trump’s victory to corral Facebook and Google, the big search and social media companies, into letting them serve as the gatekeepers of online news under the guise of fighting fake news. But the media’s fake news crusade is entirely a consequence of its own corruption.

    The public turned to alternative news, both real and fake, because it doesn’t trust the media. And the Trump dossier case is more evidence that the media can’t be trusted. Everything from satire sites to Russian influence operations thrive in the alternative media space because there is no longer a consensus about truth or ethics. And it’s the media that destroyed truth and ethics in journalism.

    As the media moved from biased reporting to political gatekeeping, it sharply narrowed the range of permissible opinions. Every story became an ‘ad’ for one cause or another. Fewer stories existed for their own sake. Instead each story promoted a political or cultural agenda. Even if a story was not overtly political, a political ‘advertisement’ of some kind had to be slipped in there somehow.

    Most people didn’t realize that they were reading, watching and hearing a bunch of non-stop political ads disguised in a thousand different styles from reporting (“Gun Violence Strikes Again in American City) to explainers (“10 Things You Need to Know About Gun Violence”), but they found the product stifling and artificial. When everything is an ad, then nothing feels real....


    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268280/story-laundering-fusion-gps-fake-news-russians-and-daniel-greenfield

    ReplyDelete
  16. She's got my vote -

    Elena Berkova for President of Russia


    Porn star announces she will stand against Putin in Russian elections and vows to bring in the death penalty for sexual harassment in the wake of Weinstein scandal
    Elena Berkova of Murmansk previously unsuccessfully stood for mayor of Sochi
    She has turned sights to The Kremlin and wants to introduce sweeping new laws
    Ex-porn star wants to make it illegal for women to wear skirts longer than 40cm
    The mother-of-two, 32, will be the fourth female candidate to run for office


    By Ed Wight For Mailonline
    PUBLISHED: 10:31 EDT, 2 November 2017 | UPDATED: 16:11 EDT, 2 November 2017

    An ex-Russian porn star is the latest woman to announce she'll be standing against President Putin in next year's presidential elections.

    Busty brunette Elena Berkova from the city of Murmansk in northwest Russia, who also stood for mayor of Sochi, posted a video on Instagram outlining her plans.

    The 32-year-old mum-of-two, who will be the fourth female candidate to run for office, said she would introduce the death penalty for sexual harassment because she was fed up with people like Harvey Weinstein.

    Porn star Elena Berkova from the city of Murmansk in northwest Russia, who also stood for mayor of Sochi, posted a video on Instagram outlining her plans

    Russian ex-porn star Elena Berkova formerly ran for mayor of Sochi

    The busty brunette from the city of Murmansk in northwest Russia, who also stood for mayor of Sochi, posted a video on Instagram outlining her plans

    The former porn star is hoping to beat Vladimir Putin (pictured) in next year's Russian election

    She also said she would make it almost impossible for men to divorce, introduce sex education in schools, and make it an offence to wear a skirt longer than 40cm.

    The model who is known for posting saucy videos on social media said: 'I made this decision recently, because women are actively taking part in the presidential campaign.

    'Some of them are from show business, I ran for mayor of Sochi and took have taken part in politics, so I decided to run for the President of Russia.

    'I plan to make divorces almost impossible for men, as these days women bear almost all the responsibility for children.

    'I plan to introduce sexual and legal education in schools. And to introduce a mandatory sex exam.

    'Often our youth still do not know about sexual legal norms, hygiene, not to mention pleasure.'



    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5043165/Porn-star-announces-stand-against-Putin.html#ixzz4xLtzx2Ba
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    ReplyDelete