Hillary Clinton took some flak for invoking 9/11 to explain her chumminess with Wall Street during the last Democratic primary debate. Oops, she did it again in this newly released CBS interview teaser:
Here’s the pertinent part of the interview, in case you can’t watch the video:
“I have stood for a lot of regulation on big banks and on the financial services sector. I also represented New York and represented everybody from the dairy farmers to the fishermen…And so, yes, do I know people? And did I help rebuild after 9/11? Yes, I did. But that has nothing to do with my positions. Anyone who thinks they can influence me on those grounds doesn’t know me.”
Gawker’s Alex Pareene, usually a sensible fellow, takes Great Umbrage:
It now seems unlikely that her original invocation of 9/11 was some sort of mistake or misguided extemporaneous remark. It seems more likely that it was, in fact, a rehearsed—and focus-grouped, probably—rhetorical maneuver. In this instance, this week, she’s not even bringing up 9/11 as any sort of explanation; she just drops it in, unbidden, to remind people that she held political office on That Fateful Day.
There are many far less reprehensible ways to spin your banker connections. Clinton and her campaign are smart enough to have thought of most of them. The fact that they’re sticking with this one is a pretty clear indication of the amount of respect they have for the Democratic electorate.
Meh. I think the criticism of her response in the debate last month was somewhat justified, if a bit overblown — she did seem to channel Giuliani for a few seconds then.
But a quick reference to her role in representing Wall Street as a constituency and working with the financial sector in the post-9/11 rebuilding when asked about her Wall Street relationships doesn’t seem particularly craven, intelligence-insulting or out of bounds to me.
And she addressed the nut of the issue, which was whether her relationships with the banksters would influence policy. (Whether you believe her or not is a separate issue.)
What do you think?
gratuitous
Wasn’t it Willie Brown of the California Assembly who remarked, “If you can’t take their money and vote against them, you don’t belong in politics.” It may have been a little coarser than “vote against them.”
I’m an agnostic when it comes to Clinton’s ability to vote or act against the big money boyz. But there may be a difference between being a Senator and being the President.
Lord Baldrick
HRC is a conservative Democrat with about a 90% chance of being the next POTUS.
goblue72
@Lord Baldrick: Pretty much. Liberals expecting progressive policy out of a Clinton administration combined with a GOP Congress are smoking some good shit. She’ll triangulate her way to a modest child care subsidy program in exchange for gutting Dodd-Frank, lowering taxes and bombing some random Middle Eastern country.
If progressives want to win, they need to care less about the White House and care a LOT more about taking back Congress and the state legislatures.
p.a.
Not a fan, but nothing to see here. And vis Wall St. I don’t trust her. She’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing. And no lectures please, I will support her, work for her, vote for her, celebrate her win. But I predict her admin will run to the center asap. Scorpion and Fox.
timmeh
Assholery is truly a gender-neutral endeavour
leeleeFL
@Lord Baldrick: and for this alone, may we be grateful. She is not perfect, no one is. But no one can tell me she is not, hands down, the best choice among the likely nominees. Luvs Bernie, I really do, but I don’t see another surprise like 2008. I was certain about BHO from 2004. But I am not that sure about Sanders
leeleeFL
@Lord Baldrick: and for this alone, may we be grateful. She is not perfect, no one is. But no one can tell me she is not, hands down, the best choice among the likely nominees. Luvs Bernie, I really do, but I don’t see another surprise like 2008. I was certain about BHO from 2004. But I am not that sure about Sanders
leeleeFL
@leeleeFL: not sure what caused dbk post.
Origuy
@gratuitous: Jesse Unruh, also a California legislator and one-time State Treasurer, although Willie has been known to quote him. The actual quote is “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them you’ve got no business being up here.”
gene108
Link Huffington Post
Basically Wall Street’s backing Republicans more than Democrats.
I do not think Democrats are “in bed” with Wall Street like they were in the 1990’s, when they had a huge fund raising advantage from Wall Street or even 2008, when Wall Street turned to Democrats because they were the “adults in the room”.
I don’t think any Democratic candidate in 2016 will all that cozy with Wall Street.
Of course for some liberals, anything short of seeing Jamie Dimon, et. al. frog marched to Federal prison is being too cozy with Wall Street.
There’s no helping that.
Also, too why don’t Republicans get asked about their cozy relationship with Wall Street, as they are now the favored political party of the FIRE sector?
Should we just assume Republicans will be ciphers for their corporate overlords and not rock the boat about the double standard in the treatment of Hillary versus say Ted Cruz or John Ellis Bush, who have sucked up big bucks from Wall Street.
Frankensteinbeck
The chorus of people who know what Hillary Clinton really wants, which is totally different from what she says she’ll do, is reminding me more and more of the early years of Obama’s presidency.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: Excellent points. I think HRC’s record gets conflated with Bill Clinton’s in ways that aren’t 100% fair. Also, times have changed, and Hillary Clinton, no dummy, has changed with them. I don’t particularly know or care whether it’s conviction or political expedience as long as she gets the job done.
@Frankensteinbeck: That comparison has occurred to me as well.
Fair Economist
The 9/11 reference does sound focus-grouped, and I think it’s focus-grouped for the general. She’s daring the Republicans to say “9/11 was no big deal”.
different-church-lady
I think, “Gawker.”
gene108
@goblue72:
I can’t blame the Clintons for triangulating.
Bill came into Washington as a centrist, but immediately tried ramming a radical liberal agenda down everyone’s throat and it blew up in the Democrats faces.
Gays in the military? Waaaayyyyyy to the Left of where Congressional Dems were at the time and put them in a really tough spot to address an issue, they would rather have left alone.
Going for a twofer on gun control? Sure the Brady Bill could’ve been sold as reasonable gun policy to anyone, but the craziest gun-nut, but the Assault Weapons Ban just jumped the shark into gun confiscation conspiracy theories.
Socialized Medicine? Yeah, Democrats had pussy-footed around the idea of universal healthcare, but Clinton really screwed up how he handled it. Again, an issue a good chunk of Congressional Democrats would probably have preferred gradual changes.
I don’t think any Democrat is going to gut Dodd-Frank or the PPACA. They are corner stones of the Democratic legacy, as much as Medicare and Social Security.
A lot of prominent Democrats, who were O.K. with Wall Street deregulation have admitted the error of their ways and walked back their views from the 1990’s. There’s been a change in the way Democrats are thinking now versus 20 years ago.
Hillary’s about as liberal as anyone in the Democratic Party and I don’t see why people think she’s going to gut major Democratic accomplishments.
Emerald
@Frankensteinbeck: This.
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker: The other thing about Bill Clinton is: he was pretty upfront about what he planned to do. He ran and governed as a 90’s era moderate. It wasn’t a matter of pretending to be liberal and governing as a moderate. Likewise Hillary ran as a practical “listen to your constituents” Senator, and that’s exactly what *she* did. So why are people so convinced she has suddenly turned into a liar after a lifetime of try to carrying out campaign promises?
dmsilev
Somewhat off-topic: Dr. Frankenstein expresses concern about monster lurching towards village.
Litlebritdifrnt
Ha Ha The Donald is trashing Jen Rubin on twitter, I will have to go and find out what she said to set him off
“Highly untalented Wash Post blogger, Jennifer Rubin, a real dummy, never writes fairly about me. Why does Wash Post have low IQ people?
6 retweets 10 likes”
different-church-lady
@goblue72:
If progressive really want to win, maybe they should consider doing something other than offering ready-made snarky platitudes along the lines of “She’ll triangulate her way to a modest child care subsidy program in exchange for gutting Dodd-Frank, lowering taxes and bombing some random Middle Eastern country.”
Patricia Kayden
Unless Secretary Clinton is caught on live t.v. eating a baby, she’s got my vote. This is not a difficult decision. It’s clear what we have on the other side of the aisle. Given how crazy it is on the Republican side, it is highly plausible that she will be running against the likes of Trump or Carson.
Looks like every little thing she says, emails, wears, etc. is going to be nitpicked for the next year. Oh joy.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist:
Because it’s what the cool kids do.
GoBlue72
@different-church-lady: Seriously? Criticizing snark on the Internet, let alone THIS particular blog?
Clue. Find one.
Brachiator
@goblue72:
Win back? When in the modern era (or any time) did progressives ever hold Congress?
But I would welcome more liberal and progressive candidates at the state and federal level, and a healthy debate on policies. Until then, I don’t really care how cozy HRC, or even Bernie Sanders might be to Wall Street. A Californian, I know and respect the Jesse Unruh policy, take the bankers money and stick it to ’em anyway. It also reminds me of FDR’s response when asked why he put Joe Kennedy in charge of the SEC: “It takes a crook to catch a crook.” I want a president who understands Wall Street and will appoint people who knows how to rein the bankers in.
different-church-lady
@GoBlue72: Say what you want about the tenets of progressive snark, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
GoBlue72
@Frankensteinbeck: Anyone who trusts what a politician says they’d do is naive. What matters is what they’ve actually done, the policies they’ve inplemented, the votes they’ve taken, the bills they’ve led on, where their money comes from, etc.
Words are cheap.
BillinGlendaleCA
So she’s mentioned 9-11, twice, and now she’s the new “America’s Mayor”? The reason that “Handsome Joe’s” comment resonated was the Rudy would say it ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
Rafer Janders
I’m a New Yorker who was here on 9/11, volunteered on the site afterwards, and works in finance on Wall Street….and it seemed craven, intelligence (and decency) insulting and out of bounds to me. Disgusting, frankly, to shield herself from legitimate criticism of her entanglement with my colleagues by hiding behind the bodies of the dead.
Betty Cracker
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’ve gotta admit, I’ve enjoyed watching Trump go after people like Rove and Rubin.
@BillinGlendaleCA: And in response to specific questions, let’s remember. Rudy invoked 9/11 if you asked him what he had for breakfast — 9 cups of coffee and 11 slices of bacon.
GoBlue72
@Brachiator: During the long post-war period that Democrats controlled Congress, the budget priorities and legislation that came out of DC were far more progressive than today.
We had much deeper commitments to social welfare safety net spending. More progressive taxation. Actual civil rights laws.
Iowa Old Lady
@Litlebritdifrnt: Ha. She seems to have asked if Trump is too chicken to debate and that’s why he demands money from CNN so he’ll have an excuse not to.
Re Clinton: It’s been a long time since I read it but there’s actually empirical work saying politicians usually do what they say they will, assuming they can.
Mike J
@Patricia Kayden: Whose baby are we talking about?
Villago Delenda Est
Meanwhile, the remaining riders of the Klown Kar are apparently engaged in a fabulation competition, and the MSM has no time to question them much about it. Well, there’s that The Donald 9/11 crap, but on Planned Parenthood, the MSM is silent.
Amir Khalid
@Fair Economist:
I think the presidential campaign is sharpening the differences people have with Hillary. The Republicans have always been convinced that she’s a liar. (And a lesbian, and a murderer, and a crook, and who knows what else.) Her other main group of opponents are the hard-core Bernistas who see her as an enemy; in their fervour, they say and think the worst about her. They are rivals, sure, but they’re not enemies; and Bernie has noted that on her worst day Hillary would still make a far better president than any Republican candidate.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: “Who is baby we are talking about?”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Obviously the solution is to elect one of the Klowns to heighten the differences and elect Bernie in 2020.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I hear Planned Parenthood is selling baby parts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: There’s a hell of a lot of cult of personality crap going on here, and it needs to stop. The fact of the matter is that Bernie is INFORMING Hillary’s campaign, and he’s pulling her left. This is a good thing, and the Bernistas need to see the big picture that Bernie sees.
Villago Delenda Est
@BillinGlendaleCA: “Nacht Hitler, Uns”. The philosophy of the KPD, and of the Naderites. Dumbshits, all of them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I thought she said she dyed her hair, not wears a wig. Hilbot lies again, ya just can’t trust her.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
Shirley Eugest.
goblue72
@Amir Khalid: Whatever dude. Nobody is calling her the enemy. I realize that for centrist Democrats any criticism of their centrism is treated as wild-eyed “lefties” divorced from reality. And I get that even on BJ, the hippies must be punched.
There are perfectly legitimate criticisms of Clinton, and perfectly legitimate concerns about her centrism. Nobody on here is talking about protest voting for Nader or some such nonsense if she’s nominated. But I do see a lot of unsubstantiated accusations of that by her supporters.
But yes, I am sure there is some random commenter or diaries at Daily Kos who claims they will never vote for Clinton. So please, keep tossing out straw men.
pamelabrown53
@Lord Baldrick:
HRC is not a conservative democrat. A conservative democrat is someone on the line of Max Baucus.
There’s way too much hyperbole that frankly is reminiscent of Nader 2000.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Villago Delenda Est:
This!
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
I guess ol’ Linc did have an effect.
gene108
@GoBlue72:
There were a lot of people making demands in a very public manner to get that progressive agenda through.
In a lot of ways, those progressive / liberal victories have been cemented into the American way of thinking about what is normal.
An interracial couple on T.V.? No big deal.
Gay people serving in the military? O.K. with the us.
Premarital sex? Eh…no biggie…everyone’s doing it…
There’s probably more. I’m not saying we are in a post-racial society, but what would have been radical, ground breakingly liberal displays 40 or 50 years ago have been accepted as being part of normal America today.
In short, on many social issues the liberals won.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108:
And the Klowns are really, really upset about that and want to go back to
the 1950’s,the 1850’s, the 1250’s.liberal
@gene108:
If you think that D-F has reined in the FIRE sector to any considerable extent, you need to put down your bong and breathe some fresh air.
liberal
@GoBlue72:
This.
Betty Cracker
Somewhat OT (but hey, it’s my post): Joy-Ann Reid makes a good case for why #BLM is right to target Democrats rather than Republicans.
randy khan
@goblue72: Actually, lately it’s Salon where you go to find people claiming to be progressives who say they will never vote for Hillary. It’s like that site has cornered the market on them.
Brachiator
@GoBlue72:
More progressive legislation is not the same thing as saying that progressives ruled Congress.
Actually, there was a long hard fought battle, even among Democrats to achieve these goals. And battles among Democrats and moderate Republicans.
So again, the bottom line is that progressive candidates have to have good ideas, and have to be able to convince voters to send them to Congress and to state houses. And simply labeling something as “progressive,” won’t get the job done. Nor is it sufficient to talk about safety nets when the entire economic fabric of society is unraveling.
liberal
@different-church-lady:
While I’ll certainly vote for Hillary in the general, maybe even give her some money, the quoted prediction is certainly plausible.
She was perhaps the biggest force in the current administration in favor of overthrowing Ghaddafi. (Yeah, a bunch of dumbf*cks that comment here supported that. Betcha feel really good about that, now that ISIS is establishing a beachhead there, surrounding areas have been destabilized, the country has no government, and the claims that Ghaddafi was going to commit genocide have been thoroughly debunked.) Not to mention some of her stupid comments about a no-fly zone over Syria—at best, not well thought-out and incoherent, at worst, grounds for being considered unfit for the presidency.
The problem is that, while Hillary’s policy positions range from weak tea to horrible, she’s still better—way, way, way better—than the various incarnations of Cthulhu that the Republicans are running.
BillinGlendaleCA
@liberal: But was it better than the status quo?
goblue72
@gene108: Interesting you focus on the social issues as the sole defining criteria of liberalism and marker of success. While leaving out the economic issues – which in the 21st century at this point, is the key progressive challenge.
We are at rates of economic inequality unseen since the gilded age. And on that, Democrats have failed miserably since the Gingrich revolution, and in some ways, since Reagan.
And it wasn’t primarily outside activists that achieved those economic public policy achievements during the post-war period when Democrats had a firm control of Congress. It was labor unions – the only truly organized, institutionalized instrument of power for working peoples in the 20th century. Unions provided the money and the manpower to win elections for Democrats. You can directly trace the declining power of unions to the declining electoral successes of Democrats, and to the continual evisceration of a social-welfare safety net in this country.
liberal
@gene108:
This is completely true, with IMHO the notable exception of abortion rights. It’s more or less a complete rout. (The extent to which it’s a victory we can congratulate ourselves for, as compared to the natural evolution of a wealthier and more technologically advanced society, is another matter, but whatevs.)
OTOH, things aren’t so hot in terms of economic policy.
goblue72
@Brachiator: Dumbass – I said the budget priorities and legislation were far more progressive than today. But read whatever you want to fantasize I said.
BillinGlendaleCA
@goblue72:
Yes, and…
goblue72
@Brachiator: Having good ideas and securing power are completely unrelated things.
Ridnik Chrome
Nobody who writes for Gawker is “sensible”. And their editorial policy is largely based around taking Great Umbrage, usually over Penny-Ante Shit…
gwangung
@goblue72:
Ovegeneralizing from a single point. And this IS an ecumenical site.
I have seen much more of that in my circles than have you, apparently, It is not unsbutantiated, and I think it’s much more widespread than you thinl.
goblue72
@BillinGlendaleCA: Merely responding to the suggestion that it was activists outside the corridors of power that “pushed” Congress to enact progressive economic legislation and to enact budgets that included more robust domestic discretionary spending.
If you see the those mid-century accomplishments as the product of hippies in the street activism, then your solution to today’s economic challenges might be more hippie in the street activism. If you see those accomplishments as the product of having an institutionalized progressive base of power (and labor unions, by and large, WERE progressive in contrast to their opponents and the non-unionized workforce), then your solution might be to figure out how to constitute an institutionalized base of power for the 21st century.
pluege
the progressive kewl kidz are ridiculously out of touch with what it takes to win at the American political game.
goblue72
@gwangung: That may be. But I am not seeing it here, and what people are stating HERE in writing is generally what is being referred to.
Amir Khalid
@goblue72:
What I’ve noticed, even here on Balloon Juice, is a sometimes irrational conviction (well, so it seems to me) that Hillary is at core devoid of principle or convictions, that she’s a triangulator all the way down like Bill was. Not so much that she’s a centrist. I reckon Bill was more of a centrist in the 1990s than Hillary is now. Has Bill scooted a bit to the left since then? Who knows. It’s not him running for president this time.
Actually, compared to lefty politicians elsewhere in the world, Hillary and Bernie are rather centrist. Bernie is indeed to her left, but not by all that much. American mainstream politics at the national level is like that: it just doesn’t run that far to the left, the way politics does in other countries.
Geeno
It took 50+ years to build union power the first time. I wouldn’t wait around for the unions to rescue us at this point.
Rafer Janders
@liberal:
Well, though, what was the alternative? In Syria we DIDN’T overthrow Assad — and now the civil war there has lasted four years instead of four weeks as in Libya, set off the largest refugee wave in Europe since WWII, ISIS has more than a beachhead there, it has half the country, surrounding areas have been destabilized, and the country has only half a government.
Is Libya any worse off than if Qaddafi had managed to retain power in the way Assad has? I can’t say yes.
goblue72
Maybe Clinton just pulled a Lois.
goblue72
@Amir Khalid: Who gives a fuck how our politicians compare to other countries? We don’t get to have those other politicians. We have the ones we have and the only relevant metric is where on the scale they are vis a vis each OTHER within the context of the political constraints of THIS country.
BobS
Anyone who thinks that a serious presidential candidate from either party isn’t prepared – hell, required- to fall to their knees and fellate Wall Street doesn’t understand how national politics is played in this country. Obama is probably about as good as we can realistically expect from among the selections we’re allowed, and he’s spent the past 7 years wiping their cum from his face.
BillinGlendaleCA
@goblue72: OK, I tend to agree with you there. The unions are not going to be that platform, what is going to be their replacement in that context?
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Repeal Taft-Hartley!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Bill Clinton’s presidency was a creature of it’s times. We were coming off of 12 years of Reagan/Bush and 2 years into his presidency(as with Obama) he had to deal with an uncooperative Congress. I think many miss the context when thinking about Bill’s time in office.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Damn you Roger, you made my tummy hurt from laughing too much.
Brachiator
@goblue72: Relax. I read exactly what you said and responded appropriately.
It’s all fairy dust if you don’t have credible candidates who can actually win. And so far, the Democratic Party bench is looking weak.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
I keep hearing that, compared to what? The Republican “bench”?
gene108
@goblue72:
I stayed away from economic issues because liberalism really lost a lot of coherence, with regards to an economic policy sometime in the 1970’s, when stagflation confused a lot of people as to what should be done.
And in the face of right-wing dogma and overwhelming propaganda, in the 1980’s, liberal economic policy really lost focus on what its goals were.
I think that’s changing. There’s a clear realization that the economic inequality we have and the lack of opportunities for people, with or without great educations or contacts is severely limited for an economy of our size and we need to look at ways to deal with this.
But we’re also in a very challenging economic situation, where monetary policy has been used to its maximum, while fiscal policy just dithers around; held hostage by Republicans.
Lack of union muscle may account for why Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and other Midwest states have gone Republican recently.
It does not account for how the South, which never had high rates of union membership to begin with, has been totally taken over by Republicans in the last 15 to 20 years.
msdc
@Ridnik Chrome:
This, and this. Pareene may indeed be a sensible guy, but more and more lately it seems like his senses are telling him what gets the outrage (and what gets the approval) that runs the links economy.
? Martin
@gene108: I think Josh has it about right – it’s about the slow loss of white privilege. The GOP can talk all they want about minorities pulling themselves up, or immigrants succeeding here, but the bottom line is that instead of being 5 rungs higher on the ladder, whites are only maybe 3 rungs higher now – and uneducated whites are now clearly worse off than educated minorities, and I don’t think you could really make that claim 20 years ago. So look at the states you reference – they are states where a high school grad could roll into a manufacturing or farming job. You can’t do that any more and they’re pissed. It’s far worse for minorities with only a HS degree, but that doesn’t matter – it used to be enough and now it’s not – and they interpret it as American decline.
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m at least mildly serious about repealing Taft-Hartley. I don’t think it’s a realistic goal, but it was clearly a major win for management vs. labor, and undoing its more odious provisions like right to
moochwork laws would bring some balance back to labor relations.Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That was my first reaction as well.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I’m the candidate for you.
gogol's wife
I think I will vote for Hillary Clinton if I have to crawl bare-kneed over broken glass to do so.
Bobby Thomson
@Frankensteinbeck: it’s the same people. You know, the ones who held out for the true progressive, Hillary Clinton. PUMA was Republican ratfucking from start to finish. So is the Sanders or no one! crowd.
Bobby Thomson
@efgoldman: no, it’s whose. Who’s is a contraction for who is. Just like it’s always means it is.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore:
Hence my reaction.
? Martin
@gene108:
I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s more accurate to say that liberal economic policy was unpopular with voters and therefore wasn’t loudly discussed or defended. That economic policy, while moderately damaging to parts of the US economy has been massively beneficial to the global economy. Global poverty is falling at an amazing rate thanks to monetization, free trade, and all that. Sure, it’s hurt the US manufacturing sector that failed to respond to inevitable economic changes, and it resulted in the great recession, which stung, but you have to compare these setbacks to the reduction in death and suffering around the world.
In short, many of the arguments from the left around manufacturing and other declining sectors due to liberal economic policies in the 80s and 90s are identical to the complaints from the right about the loss of white privilege. Yes, its unpopular with many voters, but the best long-term position for the US is to raise as many other people up to our standard of living as possible, even if that stalls parts of the US economy because it will raise other parts more. The stalling isn’t necessary, but it’s a byproduct of industries that have stopped being reactive to the market – they’re lazy and overly conservative, and as such, you can either put them in a protectionist bubble or you can force them to step up, knowing that many will fail to do so, but the ones that do will flourish and create new economies.
The US manufacturing sector used to be the envy of the world, and these economic policies have hurt that sector, but it allowed the US tech sector to far eclipse it – to the extent now that the tech sector is looking to reinvent the manufacturing sector entirely. That’s not accidental. There isn’t a tech company in California that doesn’t hold the midwest and south manufacturing sector in utter contempt for being slow, antiquated, and unwilling to face to economic reality and rather than work with these companies, they seek to bury them.
Bobby Thomson
@goblue72: Actually, Salon has front paged three don’t vote for Hillary she has cooties columns. Dudebros gotta dudebro.
Daulnay
Hillary was a member of the DLC, her husband Bill was its chair from 1990-1991. The DLC Democrats opposed Howard Dean in ’04. DLC Democrats have been socially liberal while promoting and passing policies that screw over citizens in favor of the wealthy corporations: NAFTA, removing Glass-Stegal, and the bankruptcy ‘reform’ bill among many others. Right now, big business is winning every election cycle because the business candidates are the ‘centrist’, establishment ones on the right and left.
A business-dominated political system has given us 30 years of policies where “a rising tide will lift all boats”. Remember that? It was BS then and BS now. Only the yachts of the rich rose. Do you want another 30 years of no economic progress for anyone except the top 10%? By all means, vote for Hillary, Jeb, or Rubio — depending on how you stand on social issues.
The alternative is unpleasant, I know… trying to find common ground, and compromise, on social issues with right-wing trogs who, in heated rhetoric, seem ready to start gunning down everyone who doesn’t agree with ’em. But I don’t see how we’re going to free our government from corporate clutches if we can’t.
Thoughtful Today
Fixed:
“But no one can tell me she is not, hands down, the best choice among the likely [REPUBLICAN] nominees.”
I’ll tell you:
Bernie would be a far superior President. He has better judgement, a superior moral code, and a better understanding of reality.
But yes, Hillary’s the best REPUBLICAN option. Money and right-wing interests will be well served.
gene108
@? Martin:
Just to be clear, I’m not disagreeing with your point, I was just trying to convey to people, who say that economic policy has drifted to the Right that part of the problem is a lack of consensus on the Left as to what liberal economic policy should look like from the late 1970’s, when stagflation had everyone confused till the past few years. But I think that’s changing and there’s beginning to be a new, better organized Liberal economic philosophy people will shape in the near future.
20 years ago, there were a lot of Democratic / liberal / left-leaning policy people, who figured that given the changes in technology and globalization, the person working at a factory would slide into an equivalent job in telecommunications for example.
There were others, who wanted to keep things the way they were and avoid trade deals as much as possible. Maybe lean towards some level of protectionism, even if the American company produced an inferior product at a higher cost than foreign competitors (the auto industry is an example, from this era).
There were probably other ideas floating around too, but these are the two that stick out in my mind.
I’m not disagreeing about the job prospects for people right now.
It’s just that the prevailing economic view of how things should work out has changed from 20 years ago, among Democrats / liberals / left-leaning policy people and others in the Democratic coalition and that this point of view has shifted to the Left.
When people bemoan the decline of a left-leaning economic policy, versus say the 1960’s or the 1950’s (the good old days), I think people lose track of the fact that the liberal establishment did not have a clear vision of where it wanted to go, after traditional Keynesian responses did not effect the stagflation of the 1970’s.
Gwangung
@Thoughtful Today: I like his policies better. I am far from convinced he’d make a better President.
Thoughtful Today
…
I’ve listened to Bernie for over a decade, his policies, moral compass, and judgement are far superior to Hillary who’ve I’ve been listening to for over 25 years.
Hillary’s a superior servant of money, absolutely. She’s a knack for superficial pandering, absolutely. For instance, her quick pander to put up an image of Rosa, even though Hillary’s received a _lot_ of money from the private prison industry that’s profiting from over-incarceration of Black and Brown Americans, is seen by her supporters as politically savvy.
I follow the money, look at the policies, and recognize a Hillary Presidency will hurt a lot of Americans. Still, she’s the best Republican option.
Which says a lot about the modern Democratic Party.
mclaren
@Betty Cracker:
Shorter Betty Cracker: “Richard Nixon has changed. He’s the New Nixon! For a new era in 1968!”
mclaren
@Thoughtful Today:
Bingo. There are sane Republicans out there — only nowadays, they’re called Democrats.
mclaren
@liberal:
That’s doubtful.
The Republican party today wants to turn America into the Confederacy. Their policies involve shutting down social security and medicare, eliminating workplace safety and anti-pollution laws, bringing back child labor, turning America into a garrison state operating under undeclared martial law with panopticon surveillance and summary execution by crazed cop for anyone who dissents, and the eventual elimination of voting rights for anyone who doesn’t own property or is a minority, together with involuntary servitude for debt (debtors’ prison).
The Democrats want most of the same things but at a slower rate. Democrat movement towards these goals in incremental, while Republicans want to get there within a single presidential administration.
We’ve already gone much of the way toward a confederacy already under Democratic presidents. Bill Clinton started government kidnapping and torture with no access to a lawyer (he called it “extraordinary rendition,” but it’s still the same kind of black ops stuff that went on in Argentina when hundreds of thousands of labor leaders and dissenters got ‘disappeared’ and tortured). Bill Clinton rolled back the Glass-Steagall Act and made the world safe for corrupt Wall Street cronyism and thievery. Bill Clinton gutted welfare (in a 1996 bill he says he “now regrets signing”).
Barack Obama expanded the Drunk Driving C Student’s garrison state with undeclared martial law to include murdering American citizens without a trial or even accusing them of a crime (the Drunk Driving C Student had not dared to do that, although his torturer sidekick ran a black ops JSOC death squad out of the VP’s office, and we still don’t know all the murders they committed). Barack Obama signed off on the Drunk Driving C Student’s panopticon surveillance and on continued tax cuts for the rich. Barack Obama even rammed through the TPP, which effectively dismantles the constitution and lets corporations bypass U.S. laws and override congress if they can prove they’ve lost money. (Look forward for many multinational corporations to file suit because they can’t own slaves and must pay a minimum wage and can’t employ children in their factories. All these laws cost the multinationals money, and they’ll be able to sue for big bucks under the TPP.)
So, really, what is there left for the Democrats to do to complete the Republican agenda?
Not much. The Democrats are “moderate” and “leftist” because they haven’t yet passed a law mandating involuntary servitude for debt. The Democrats have, however, supported and continually voted to keep in place the 1978 atrocity known as Marquette v. Michigan, which eliminated all usury laws in the United States. So under the Democrats we now have 35% interest rates on credit cards in a 1.5% inflation rate economy, and 300% to 500% interest rates on payday loans (GE run a huge group of payday legalized loansharking storefronts that charge 300% interest under the name “GE capital.” It accounts for 70% of GE’s corporate profits).
There isn’t that much left for Democrats to do to get us to the Confederacy the Republicans wants. Democrats will have to cut social security and medicare, and keep cutting until they’re gone, but that project is well under way with the ACA and sky-high deductibles that most families can’t afford to pay, along with skyrocketing drug prices that are completely unaffordable. Once medical care in America gets fully privatized on the ACA model, the transition to a Confederacy will be nearly complete. The Democrats will of course ram through this atrocity in the name of “saving medicare,” just as Democrats keep floating key Republican proposals like increasing the retirement age in the name of “saving social security.” Eventually the Democrats will ‘save’ these programs so effectivley that they will be to all intents and purposes gone.
DINOS like Hillary love endless unwinnable foreign wars, and need to get at least three or four of them cranked up and quagmired to keep their defense contractor campaign supporters fat and happy. So there’s no meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans as far as endless unwinnable foreign wars goes. America is at war in the Forever War, from now until the sun goes dark: once one endless unwinnable foreign war ends, another will begin.
Hillary, like the Republicans, opposes a federally mandated increased minimum wage (Hillary cleverly says she supports a higher minimum wage but “wants to let the states decide” which is of course the same situation we’ve got today) and since Hillary’s daughter is married to Goldman Sach hedge fund trader, she obviously plans to do nothing to rein in the Wall Street thievery that will eventually crash the economy again and impoverish the middle class even more badly. Two or three more gigantic boom-and-bust cycles should eliminate the U.S. middle class entirely, leaving America in a full-on Confederate condition.
Hillary loves the prison-industrial complex and wants more prison inmates, more prisons, more gaurds, more beatings, more torture, more executions, more wage slavery by prisoners, more surveillance on parolees, more felonization of every possible human activity up to and including breathing.
There are a few differences between Republicans nowadays, but not many. Republicans want an immediate holocaust of black people, while Democrats favor the kinder gentler more incremental genocide of blacks produced by the prison industrial complex. Republicans want to set up a theocracy, while Democrats want a largely secular plutocracy. You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to…
Bernie Sanders is an outlier and thus must be relentlessly villified and ridiculed by the babboon-juice commentariat. Standard operating procedure. As born serfs, you need to assure your new masters that you’re not going to cause trouble or rock the boat. Don’t trust that Bernie, nossir, not him. Hillary has problems, but she’s clearly the best choice. I’s a good slave massah, yessir, I ain’t gonna cause no trouble, nosirree.
mclaren
Incidentally, Donald Trump gets slammed for fascism and rightly so — but can anyone imagine a clearer and more accurate depiction of fascism than justifying Wall Street thievery and mass corruption by tossing up references to the post-9/11 undeclared martial law and panopticon surveillance state that now rules America in place of a democracy?
Militarized quasimartial law in which cops freely murder anyone perceived as a threat to the system, and institutionalized Wall Street thievery — two great flavors that go great together!
The wonderful thing about Hillary’s true-blue American-pie brand of Mussolinismo is that the various component parts of her cryptofascist agenda mutually justify one another. We need to cut Wall Street a break because we’re in a war against terrifying enemies who threaten our sacred national purity! But it works just as well if you say: We need to go to war against terrifying enemies because they threaten the sacred national purity of our capitalist Wall Street system which has made us the greatest nation in the world!
In fact, you can make all the component parts of modern Democrat/Republican cryptofascist stratokakistokleptocracy (government by militarized rule of the worst in order to enable mass thievery) justify one another with just a teensy weensy bit of rheotrical foofaraw. Torture makes America strong because it preserves our Wall Street-based capitalist system! Our Wall Street-based capitalist system makes America strong because it keeps us rich and prosperous enough to torture people in the poorest third wordl countries without consequences! America’s prisons are crucial to the national defense because the prison inmates produce much of our military supplies (true, that, by the way, from bulletproof vests to light manfucaturing of military products). America’s national defense is crucial to our prison system because without ex-military to supply prison guards and cops, we wouldn’t be able to staff our endlessly prolifering gulag archipelago!
It all works together beautifully. Once the Hillary-style Newspeak gets vetted and memorized, it can be deployed to justify all elements of the crypofascist stratokakistokleptocracy. Without giving Wall Street honchos the freedom to earn vast sums, we can’t have the entrepreneurial innovation necessary to produce the white phosphorus munitions America used on women and children at Fallujah, or the microwave pain rays that promise to elicit such wonderful confessions when deployed by the police, or the LRAD military sound cannons that keep those filthy dirty hippy protesters at bay in Chicago when they dared protest our Glorious Leader.
Hillary’s campaign slogan should be: STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY!
chris9059
“And she addressed the nut of the issue, which was whether her relationships with the banksters would influence policy. ”
She did NOT address the nut of the issue. She merely asserted, without offering any evidence, that she hasn’t been bought by Wall Street despite all the the evidence to the contrary.
Her whining that people who doubt her “just don’t know her” is no more cogent and convincing (and just as condescending and irrelevant) as George W. Bush’s repeated responses to criticism that people “don’t know what’s in his heart”.
I don’t care to “know” Hillary Clinton anymore then I care what was in Bush’s heart. I care what they did and do and by that metric Clinton is in Wall Street’s pocket.
Omnes Omnibus
@chris9059: Vote accordingly in the primary.
James E Powell
@Lord Baldrick:
And a 100% chance of being a better president than any Republican currently alive.
Applejinx
@Villago Delenda Est: OK, so MOST Bernie commenters see the big picture as Bernie sees it? :/
Here’s the deal: the real election is the Dem primary. The Republicans are likely to use this as a means of spanking the Teahadis, they’re likely to toss the nom to Trump and then sit on their hands. To actually support him would be abandoning their own power. He can’t win, but Bernie is better against him than Hillary because Hillary would motivate more Republicans to vote for the outsider, where if Bernie runs they’re both outsiders (it’s just that one has years of service to Vermont on his resume, voted against Iraq etc etc.)
Bernie always meant to steer Hillary and lose. He didn’t expect the groundswell of support. That’s still there. I’m working for the campaign and have seen some suggestions of this (unwilling to go farther as it’s not my place to say it). From where I’m standing, Hillary’s people are ALREADY going full ratfuck and doing everything they can, as yet still pretty decently, to make it appear that she’s still the preordained winner.
Think Right to Rise and Bush, but the Dem version which is way, way, way more competent. She’s doing a very very good job of appearing relevant but I’m not seeing the reality of the situation, Hillary is trying to align power blocs and look Presidential by any means necessary. Bernie’s still on message and the message is not ‘Hil sucks!’ and never has been. That’s rogue Bernistas who are taking advantage of the rather decentralized Bernie movement.
The Bernie movement is acting a lot like the two-time winner Obama movement (though oddly, from what I see a lot of these folks are pissed with Obama for not doing more). It’s made out of nonpolitical Americans of all different positions and skills who are pitching in as if a levee was breaking. They’re not fully engaged with this yet but we gotta accelerate into the actual primaries: Hillary is trying to do that, I just think she’s failing. It’s all playing smart with her, like figuring out she can do a 5-D chess thing with ‘9/11’ and putting that out there. It’s still a politics game with her. The Bernie people aren’t playing a game and are largely ignoring the media as we have basically no way of affecting them: it’s ground game all the way, we can’t make the Beltway people behave or even cover all those record-breaking rallies or record-breaking fundraising.
They will insist on trumping up a horse race narrative with Clinton the ordained winner, right up to when votes are cast (dems are somewhat less likely to try doctoring votes or voter intimidation: the only permissible way is to cry ‘unelectable!’ and accuse the other guy of being a traitor able to make the Republicans win by running the wrong guy. And that’s never been a sillier accusation, in my lifetime, and I’m 47)
I hope one day we get to know the whole story of this election, because it looks to me we have TWIN establishment/outsider races, one for each party, with very similar dynamics.
It’s just that Bush absolutely sucks and is useless (they might still run him, though!) and Clinton is actually damned smart and effective. I think they’re in similar positions in some ways, but Hil is so much better than anybody on the R side that she’s making it look like a tightly fought race indeed, and doing pretty well at invoking the ‘choose me or you’re a traitor’ thing that’s the only real option available to her.
If Hillary does manage to trick enough people into thinking she’s the only one running, she will know in her bones who’s really out there… and as President she’d do way better than she would if Bernie hadn’t run at all. She’ll know the truth, because she’s so very much not stupid, she’s just an establishment Dem who’s not inherently representing anything useful (other than an admittedly important and meaningful gender symbol), potentially a step back from Obama had Bernie not been there.
Too late for that, so it looks like both our serious nominees will be solidly Left in important ways, and it will probably save our asses in the long run.
But ONLY if Bernie goes for broke and tries to win it. This is no time to roll over and concede. Hell no. It’s good for both nominees for Bernie to try for the win here.
mclaren
@Applejinx:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
What reason does anyone have to believe that Hillary isn’t simply mouthing leftish platitudes in order to placate the Bernie Sanders supporters until she gets in office, then does a full about-face and slashes taxes for the rich (like the hedge fund manager her daugher is married to), cuts the social safety net (fortunately HER daughter doesn’t need any of that, what with her 10.5 million dollar penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park West) and gets us into 4 more endless unwinnable wars (and who cares? Because only impoverished southerners volunteer for that meatgrinder)?
Didn’t Obama do exactly the same thing during his campaign in 2008? Obama mouthed a bunch of leftish platitutdes, then reneged on every one of ’em. Obama mocked the concept of privatized insurance with mandates, then enacted it. Obama swore he’d shut down Gitmo, then didn’t. Obama pledged to withdraw from Afghanistan and 8 years later we’re still there. Obama savagely criticzed Bush’s national security stasi state, then expanded it.
What reason do we have to believe HRC wouldn’t do exactly the same thing?
If Bernie doesn’t win, I see no reason to expect any change in any policy, except for the worse. More war. More undeclared martial law with muggers wearing badges summarily executing people on the streets and getting away with it. More panopticon surveillance. More tax cuts for the rich. Higher rents and housing costs. Lower wages for everyone except the top 10%. Higher energy costs. Higher tuition costs. Fewer jobs. Less social safety net.