The kerfuffles over at TOP appear to have garnered the interests of the Strategic Culture Foundation in the form of author Eric Zuesse.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/06/why-hillary-clinton-pai...

Zeusse has many less-than-laudatory things to say about TOP:

On the fake-‘progressive’ (actually conservative-Democratic-Party) website that’s run by a longtime CIA asset [Link in original article: http://web.archive.org/web/20150922015512/http:/truth-about-kos.blogspot... ] Markos Moulitsas, «Daily Kos»...

[snip]

In other words, a foolish article [Link from original article: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/2/24/1490139/-I-have-personally-been-... ] elicited over a thousand comments from foolish readers, at that Democratic-Party propaganda site. They’re just the Democratic Party equivalent of Rush Limbaugh’s Republican-Party fools – no different, except for the labels they give themselves.

[snip]

This is how enough of such self-characterizing ‘liberal’ voters become suckered into voting for a far-right (except on ‘social’ issues) candidate who is as atrocious and unqualified to serve as President as is Hillary Clinton. [Link to support derogatory assertion from original article: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/02/hillary-clintons-six-foreign-poli... ]

The main focus of the article was Hillary's speech revenues, but TOP gets inserted as acting like a distraction from the real issues involved in the prices she can command. As Zeusse summarizes, "They’re pay-offs, for services that are anticipated, or else that have already been provided....In other words, her paid speeches are just a part of the legal graft she’s in politics for."

Could it be that the censorship and banishment happening at TOP are a means of keeping such realities from entering the local discussion, and perhaps weakening the "beneficial" (to Hillary) effects which TOP can hope to offer?

I don't happen to know if the assertion that Kos is a CIA asset is legitimate, but something is clearly driving the censorship and banishment of Hillary detractors there. There will be some kind of payoff for services rendered, especially if Hillary is elected and her policies take the hard-right turn I expect her to follow. She will need "progressive" defenders to justify her conservative actions, just as Obama has benefited from similar defenders. I doubt that anyone will use "eleven-dimensional chess" on her behalf, however.

I have no indication that Zeusse cares a whit about Bernie Sanders, but if anyone finds any such leaning, please include it in the comments. It looks to me like Zeusse is strictly anti-Hillary.

I personally happen to care about where Hillary's fees come from. I've been around far too long to believe that there is no quid pro quo in the amounts she's paid to appear before the firms which damaged the US economy and effectively ended the American Dream for the vast majority of our people. Anyone who has paid any attention at all to what TPP and TTIP will do to national sovereignty knows that what freedoms and liberties remain available to us are at risk, and that there are people like Hillary Clinton perfectly willing to betray us in her quest to gain great wealth in an increasingly insecure world.

I don't believe in political entitlement, especially in the form of "It's Her Turn". Just what has she done to make the next administration hers? I have yet to read anything by a Hillary supporter which can answer my question. In fact, I offer up an old tag line from ads shilling the old Smith-Barney investment firm - a company which would have been among Hillary's clients. If she wants the White House, she'll have to get it the old fashioned way. She'll have to EARN IT.

So agree, disagree, state your opinions. I have. The floor is now yours.