TASK DEFINITION: Given a document and an entity the task is to select the author's sentiment towards the entity. Sentiments can be Positive, Neutral and Negative. Select Positive if the article expresses a positive view towards the given entity or praises its quality or skills. Select Neutral if the document expresses no clear view towards the entity or has equal amounts of positive and negative statements or expressing some fact/quote by someone else. Select Negative if the article expresses a negative view towards like harsh remarks, criticizing entities action/decision etc. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Hillary Clinton ? Former secretary of  state Hillary Clinton  speaks to and meets voters in Allendale  Mich.  on Nov. 7  2016. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
How do you write a primal scream? Because my head is about to explode over the story about alleged sexual harassment on  Hillary Clintonâs  2008 presidential campaign and  her  appallingly mild response  then and now.
To recap  while we were still reeling from the report that President Trump ordered the firing of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III last summer  the New York Times posted this: âHillary Clinton Chose to Shield a Top Adviser Accused of Harassment in 2008.â
According to the Timesâ Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick  Burns Strider   Clintonâs  faith adviser â yes  faith adviser  you canât make this stuff up â was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a young woman with whom he shared a campaign office. The Times: â She  told a campaign official that Mr. Strider had rubbed  her  shoulders inappropriately  kissed  her  on the forehead and sent  her  a string of suggestive emails.â
The campaignâs response? Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle recommended that Strider be fired. So did Jess OâConnell  the national director of operations  who handled the investigation. And  Clinton  herself? Not so much  apparently. The young woman  not identified in the story  was moved to a different job. Strider â then married  by the way â was âdocked several weeks of pay and ordered to undergo counseling.â Which  predictably  he never attended.
And  even more predictably  when he was hired years later to oversee an independent group backing  Clintonâs  second presidential campaign  âHe was fired after several months for workplace issues  including allegations that he harassed a young female aide  according to three people close to Correct the Recordâs management.â
This is head-exploding stuff  but thereâs worse to come. Because now â now  after Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo and Roy Moore â this was Hillary Clintonâs belated response  in its bland totality: âA story appeared today about something that happened in 2008. I was dismayed when it occurred  but was heartened the young woman came forward  was heard  and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed.â
And classically  infuriatingly  this episode and its aftermath exposes  once again  the trademark Clinton failure to take personal responsibility; the allergy to owning up to error; the refusal to cede any ground  no less apologize; the incessant double-standarding  with different  more forgiving rules for the Clintons and their loyalists. Imagine a Hillary Clinton who said something like this:
Imagine that Hillary Clinton. She doesnât exist.

SOLUTION: Negative

PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Rafik Hariri ? Those accusations by anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians that quickly followed the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri galvanized hundreds of thousands of their supporters to take to the streets in a powerful protest movement. It drove tens of thousands of Syrian troops out of Lebanon and ended decades of Syrian domination over its smaller neighbor.
 The first U.N. investigator into the Hariri assassination  Germany's Detlev Mehlis  said the plot's complexity suggested a role by the Syrian intelligence services and its pro-Syria Lebanese counterpart. But the two chief investigators who followed Mehlis have worked quietly and have not named any individuals or countries as suspects.
 Saad Hariri's comments Monday are part of a remarkable reconciliation between Lebanon and Syria. Hariri has worked to mend ties with Damascus over the past year  traveling to Syria five times.
 Hariri's explicit repudiation of blaming Syria removes one major obstacle to closer ties. It also comes at a time when Hariri and his Western-backed political bloc are struggling to maintain momentum as Syria's allies in Lebanon -- the Shiite militant group Hezbollah -- gain influence.

SOLUTION: Neutral

PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Tom K. Wong ? This past Thursday  a new study conducted  Tom K. Wong   a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego  found that there are broad benefits for local jurisdictions that resist cooperating with federal immigration enforcement â they are safer in the aggregate and enjoy stronger economies. "For the first time we're kind of seeing that crime rates are lower when localities stay out of the business of federal immigration enforcement  " Wong  said.
 He  looked at federal data on immigration detainers  an ICE-initiated 48-hour hold on anyone identified as being in the country illegally. When someone is arrested and detained in a local jail  their fingerprints are cross-referenced with a federal database of undocumented immigrants. If the fingerprints match those of someone known to be in the country illegally  ICE can ask local law enforcement to hold that person as federal officials decide whether to start the deportation process. (There have been court battles over whether holding people for days without actual charges with these federal immigration detainer requests is in violation of the Constitution.)
 Wong  compared the the data from thousands of counties  those that ICE said did not honor detainer requests and those that did. "We don't have to make up a definition of what a sanctuary locality is "  Wong  said. "We have ICE telling us what it thinks a sanctuary county is."
On average  counties that did not comply with ICE requests experienced 35.5 fewer crimes per 10 000 people than those that did.  Wong  also found that counties that did not comply with detainer requests had higher household incomes  lower rates of unemployment  lower rates of poverty  and were less likely to have children under 18 in households receiving public benefits.
The crime numbers did not surprise  Wong . Research has shown that working with federal immigration enforcement made it harder for local police agencies to investigate crimes because witnesses and victims who were in the country illegally would be less likely to come forward if they thought they risked being detained and deported. It could be that sanctuary counties have immigrant populations who are more integrated into their social fabric and economies   he  said.
The research also revealed that smaller  more rural counties experienced the most significant impact from sanctuary policies on their crime rates (lower) and economies (stronger). Taken together   Wong  said  the net benefits to sanctuary cities would offset the impact of Trump's shame offensive on them. "The ultimate effect is going to be minimal "  he  said.

SOLUTION:
Neutral