Let’s imagine for a second that come summer, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the lead candidates for their respective parties; what could possible go wrong, since Hillary is viewed in a more “favorable” light compared to the Donald?
Well, remember that tricky little email scandal that our favorite lady had to combat earlier? If she gets even a whiff of an indictment from the FBI (whose recently appointed director is, surprise surprise, a partisan Republican), let the floodgates of Trump brownshirts open up and hellooooo 1984!
*Note: Fox News suck, but remember the case that people are TLDRs, so they watch mass media and go OMG SHE’S INDICTED, WE NEED TRUMP.
Interestingly, while the CBS poll points to Hillary as the winner of the second democratic debate, many online polls clearly signify Bernie as the victor. This interesting dichotomy between the results of major media’s polls versus those of independent online polls continues to persist!
I am very suspicious of CBS’s sampling though. Many Hillary supporters believe that we should trust more the “scientifically” compiled polls of CNN, CBS, MSNBC etc. Do you know what that entails? Here’s the exact quote I pulled out of the website:
This CBS News poll was conducted online using GfK’s web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 674 voters who identified themselves as Democrat or independent who watched the debate.
GfK’s KnowledgePanel®’s participants are initially chosen scientifically by a random selection of telephone numbers and residential addresses. Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those who agree to participate, but do not already have Internet access, GfK provides at no cost a device to connect to the internet. – Taken from CBS website: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-who-won-the-second-democratic-debate-november-2015-cbs-news/
When I took a look at the study’s sampling technique, I can hardly tell the difference between its mechanism and those of the independent online polls. They’re basically the same! Random folks from around the country log on to the web and go to sites like Slate and vote their hearts out, regardless of their political affiliation! Can you tell the difference?
My generic opinion: Bernie wins. This is generic because the general public thinks so too.
CBS Poll
Total respondents are 674.
Syracuse.com Poll from last night. Total respondents here are 607. Nearly the same as CBS!
Slate Poll from last night.
*Update: Syracuse.com’s polls results show 8000 respondents believing that Bernie won, versus Hillary’s 800!
Wait, exactly which Clinton are we speaking of? OF COURSE it’s Bill. Who was the United States president during the tech boom of the 90’s? It certainly wasn’t the missus.
Does that disqualify her from any influence in the administration, though? Absolutely not. You bet your ass the couple worked together on many different issues, healthcare and NAFTA aside.
So what exactly are we talking about here?
Remember the entertaining Democratic debate that occurred just a few weeks ago? Does anyone recall the small point about Hillary being a lawyer for Wall Street? Well pointing fingers aside, let’s take a closer look at a single point raised by Rana Foroohar of TIME:
One of Clinton’s legislative legacies was his attempt to relax excessive corporate compensation by allowing companies to tie deductions for executive pay (reducing the amount of income to be taxed, i.e., pay less taxes) to “individual achievement of personal commitments.” In other words, corporate pay was now linked with a vague definition of performance-based awards, determined by the companies themselves. On top of that, you must realize that much of the compensation is awarded in the form of stock options (let’s call them stock for simplicity’s sake). Then came the lackluster accounting standards: Marking down stock was not seen as an expense. Therefore on the books, low-priced stocks were purchased, yet nothing was documented as value being exchanged. What does that mean exactly? Well, folks like Carly Fiorina were incentivized to operate in a short-term gain scheme: purchase the stock at extremely low values, market the hell out of a company to raise stock prices without adding any substance to the company’s products, and trade them for massive capital gains, leaving the rotten shell of a company with a nice compensatory package. This is an example of a moral hazard in outrageous proportions. Of course Clinton sought advice for his plan, but did he take heed? Unfortunately, not. He had a base to cater to after all, and that’s the American Dream.
Now let’s be fair about this assessment. Perhaps it was a different time back then, when the American Dream determined our futures to be driven by monetary gain in every aspect, without being mindful of the consequences of the growing income divide. It’s true: Folks in the past really were optimistic about rising up the corporate chain to a favorable status. It’s not surprising then that the general American public was genuinely okay with stock-options based executive pay, as a tie-in to a “performance-based” approach.
It’s an unfortunate unforeseen consequence. Corporate pay since the Clinton years has reportedly skyrocketed from 3 million to 9 million by 2006. And yet, the front-runner for the Democratic Party claims on her part that she went up to Wall Street and asked them naively to “knock it off.” Starkingly similar, former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson did the same thing to Wall Street before the crash of 2008.
Imagine that: a government official coming to the big banks saying: hey guys, stop this now 😡
So, do we want a moderate to tell Wall Street to knock it off, or do we want actual regulatory policy to curb the rampant behavior of corporate greed?
Pic Source: Wikipedia. Side note: That flag is legit
It was only natural that a kingdom would face an onslaught of criticism on hindering democratic principles from every group in every sector, right?
Well, here ladies and gentlemen we have trade groups (both in and out of the country) like Cosatu, TUCOSWA, and the SADC who are asking for more democratic practices to be restored in the nation, especially with respect to the rights of workers.
Listen, a country whose top searches on YouTube bring up videos of naked women dancing for the King’s pleasure is sure to be on the loopy side of the international spectrum of sanity, no? Or perhaps YouTube just doesn’t have many Swazi users, or maybe the white devil has some strange obsession with swinging African mammaries.
I’m sure the Ingwenyama (lion…King Mswati…like Mufasa) of the land would be delighted to hear that his personal praise-singer is having an effect on generating his cute little cult-of-personality.
If I had a goddamn praise-singer, I would walk with a bit of swagger too.
The reactions of those other officials were priceless.
To quote the big guy…”OF COURRRSSEEE!!!!!!”
That Political Site 