Category: Hillary Clinton

What is Wrong with the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party Succinctly Stated

I am not at all surprised that it is a Brit who notes that aggressive identity politics has pushed economic justice out of the political spotlight.

I would argue that some political factions, most notably the Clinton political machine, have done so deliberately, because it allows them to check the “right” boxes while still aligning themselves with what Theodore Roosevelt called the “Malefactors of Wealth”.

People like Wal-Mart (Hillary was a member of its board for years) and Goldman Sachs (Hillary’s speeches, and they funded her son-in-law’s hedge fund) are Hillary’s peeps, because they all agree that focusing on identity politics, as opposed to the the increasingly ferocious war on the average American worker or the financialization of our economy, is a good thing:

The rise of identity politics means that the personal is commonly understood to be political. Being a radical today relates as much to who you are as to what you think. Class struggle, at one time the raison d’être of the socialist movement, has been usurped on the left by the personal grievances of women, gays and ethnic minorities.

Identity politics was an understandable response to some of the injustices of the twentieth century. Despite the loftiness of much left-wing rhetoric, sexism, racism and homophobia have never successfully been eliminated from socialist politics for the simple reason that these movements reflect the societies in which they were conceived. It was often made apparent to women in particular that the priorities for leftists lay strictly within the class framework.

It would be wrong to imply that today this dynamic has been turned on its head. One can still find sexism, racism and homophobia on the left as easily as one can find it in wider society. In an article for Slate about the US Democratic primaries, Michelle Goldberg wrote in late 2015 about a cultural phenomenon of so-called ‘Bernie Bros’ – male supporters of US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders who ‘seem to believe that their class politics exempt them from taking sexism seriously’.

………

Ultimately, though, the left should seek to move beyond identity politics for the simple reason that it is compatible with neo-liberal economics. Identity politics can co-exist with the corporate boss who makes more money in a week than his cleaner takes home in a year – as long as the chances of being the boss are assigned proportionally among different ethnic groups, sexualities and genders. Individual winners and losers remain as remote from each other as ever; they are simply sorted in direct proportion to their numbers in society. The ultimate aim of identity politics is to ‘tune up’ the elite rather than to abolish it.

………

Class politics must certainly evolve with the times – at the very least it should take account of the legitimate grievances of people who feel marginalised for reasons other than their class. However, liberal identity politics is increasingly a zero-sum game in which white men must invariably lose out so that women, ethnic minorities and LGBT individuals can prosper. With no account for the impact of class, this will simply give rise to another injustice, or at the very least, compound an existing one.

(emphasis mine)

I think that the author, James Bloodworth, undersells the deliberate nature of this transformation.

When one looks at the professional class, doctors, lawyers, and (most significantly) college professors, the top 2-5%, this focus on identity politics benefits them.

While they have not benefited to the degree of the top 1% of 1%, they have benefited, and now it’s easier to for them to find inexpensive domestic help.

Yep. This is a Woman of the People

If Hillary were serious about inequality, she wouldn’t be hosting $100,000.00 a head fundraisers:

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is ramping up her fundraising schedule, attending a number of fundraisers this week that cost donors six-figures to attend.

The former secretary of state attended a pair of small, intimate gatherings in New York City on Thursday evening that cost donors a minimum of $100,000 to attend, according to a campaign official. On Wednesday, she attended two $100,000-a-head events in Englewood, N.J., and New York City.

Maureen White and Steven Rattner, two prominent Democratic fundraisers, hosted one of the Thursday fundraisers at their home in Manhattan. Mr. Rattner also was a prominent businessman and served in the Obama administration. The second Thursday event was at the home of Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent New York businesswoman and supporter of Mrs. Clinton and Democratic candidates. On Wednesday, architect Jon Stryker and hedge fund manager Orin Kramer played host.

Rattner settled with the SEC and the New York State Attorney General over kickbacks.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild is one of Those Rothschilds, the original multinational banksters.

And $100,000.00 a head for the contributors.

Does this sound like a woman who has the slightest interest in addressing the parasitic finance that is at the heart of Wall Street?

Does the former board member for Walmart sound like someone who would support labor unions?

Win or lose, this little foray into dynastic politics will not end well.

This is Mindbogglingly Stupid

At the Nevada state convention, it appears that the (Hillary supporting) convention chair decided to put her thumb on the scales even though her side had already won:

Organizers of the Nevada State Democratic Convention said they had to rush to wrap up the “unruly and unpredictable” event on Saturday after security became an issue and objects, including chairs, were being thrown.

State party officials said authorities at the Paris casino in Las Vegas informed them around 10 p.m. that they could no longer provide the necessary security for the event, where tensions between Bernie Sanders supporters and party leaders flared up. The convention was scheduled to end at 7 p.m.
………

Sanders supporters have accused state party leaders of rigging the process against them, and they objected to procedural votes to approve the rules of the event. They also questioned a credentials committee’s disqualification of 58 would-be Sanders delegates, who state party officials said didn’t provide evidence about their identities or weren’t registered to vote as Democrats by a May 1 deadline.

………

After casino officials told convention organizers to wrap up the event Saturday night, party chairwoman Roberta Lange accepted a motion to appoint delegates pre-approved by the Hillary Clinton and Sanders campaigns, organizers said. She also accepted a motion to elect the state central committee according to rules submitted by county party chairs.

Sanders supporters upset with the proceedings staged a protest outside the Nevada State Democratic Party headquarters on Sunday, writing in sidewalk chalk “Roberta Lange murdered democracy” and “Fire Roberta.” Officials also said Lange had received hundreds of phone calls and text messages, including death threats, after her cellphone number was posted on social media.

Sanders issued a statement Friday, as tensions simmered before the convention, saying all Democrats shared the common goals of defeating Donald Trump and electing Democrats to office. “Working together respectfully and constructively on Saturday at the Nevada Democratic convention will move us closer to those essential goals,” he said.

Hillary Clinton really has two things going for her in the race for the nomination, her “inevitability”, and her claimed ability to unify the party in November.

The actions in Nevada mitigate against these perceived advantages.

If the Clinton campaign is as sure as they claim about her victory in the nomination, they aren’t, (and neither am I) they need to stop going scorched earth.

What a Lovely Family

Chelsea Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, just shuttered a hedge fund after losing 90% of his investor’s money:

Despite having Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein as an investor and being Bill and Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky (and two former colleagues from Goldman Sachs who manage Eaglevale Partners hedge fund) told investors in a letter last February they had been “incorrect” on Greece, generating staggering losses for the firm’s main Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity, a/k/a the “Greek recovery” fund during most of its life. By ‘incorrect’ the Clinton heir apparent meant the $25 million Eaglevale Greek fund had lost a stunning 48% in 2014.

Which is not to say the larger fund it was part of is doing any better: as of last February, Eaglevale had spent 27 of its 34 months in operation below its high-water mark. We are confident that 13 months later the numbers are 40 out of 47, respectively.

………

Meanwhile, things went from terrible to abysmal for both the clueless hedge fund manager and his LPs, and as the NYT reports, Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law is finally shutting down the Greece-focused fund, after losing nearly 90% of its value.  Investors were told last month that Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity would finally be put out of its misery and would shutter.

The closure comes as the worst possible time: we are confident that Donald Trump will be quick to work it into his political attack routine.

While there is no indication of legal or ethical wrong doing, I guarantee that Mezvinsky made his millions in various fees out of this fiasco.

This might be ONE reason why Clinton is so dedicated to preserving the, “Heads I win, tails you lose,” ethos of  Wall Street.

The Donald Calls Hillary a War Monger

It looks like Donald Trump is going to be the anti-war candidate this election:

Donald Trump derided Hillary Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy record over the weekend, a glimpse into a potential general election strategy of casting Clinton as the more likely of the two to take the nation to war.

Just moments after maligning Syrian refugees at a rally in Lynden, Washington, Trump pivoted into a tirade against Clinton as a warmonger.

“On foreign policy, Hillary is trigger happy,” Trump told the crowd. “She is, she’s trigger happy. She’s got a bad temperament,” he said. “Her decisions in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya have cost trillions of dollars, thousands of lives and have totally unleashed ISIS.”

And he expressed a rarely heard appreciation for the “other side to this story,” noting: “Thousands of lives yes, for us, but probably millions of lives in all fairness, folks” for the people of the Middle East.

Trump implied that casualties inflicted by the U.S. military were far higher than reported. “They bomb a city” and “it’s obliterated, obliterated,” he said. “They’ll say nobody was killed. I’ll bet you thousands and thousands of people were killed every time you see that television set.”

I think that Trump is an isolationist, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

When you look at the history of US military and diplomatic interventions over the past 60 years, overthrowing a democratically elected government in Iran as well as any number of Latin American nations (Chile, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc), and interventions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq (1963, 1990, 2003), Lebanon, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Cambodia, Angola, Grenada, Kuwait, Somalia, Libya, the Ukraine, and Syria, you have a poor record.

At best (Kuwait) you have us propping up a corrupt, reactionary, and totalitarian state. 

At worst, you have the effective destruction of a country and its society, particularly in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq,  and Cambodia, and the death toll is in the tens of millions.

The only post Korea success that I can think of is in the former Yugoslavia.

The world would be better off if we were more isolationist.

Here is a suggestion for Hillary:  If you are making Donald Trump sound sane about anything, you are on the wrong side of history.

Meet the Old Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Hillary is now actively courting Bush donors:

Hillary Clinton’s supporters in recent days have been making a furious round of calls to top Bush family donors to try to convince them that she represents their values better than Donald Trump, multiple sources in both parties told POLITICO.

The moves come as Clinton and the Democratic Party try to take advantage of deep unease among establishment Republicans on Wall Street and elsewhere with Trump’s emergence as the presumptive Republican nominee.

Top targets for the Clinton team include people like Woody Johnson, Jeb Bush’s former finance chair and the owner of the New York Jets. In recent days, Bush’s brother and father, former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, have said they plan to skip Trump’s nominating convention.

One person close to Clinton said supporters of the former secretary of state drew up a list of Wall Street donors who supported Jeb Bush and other unsuccessful Republican candidates months ago but wanted to wait until Trump locked down the nomination before beginning to make the calls.

Yeah, now THERE’S a staunch defender of the Democratic Party’s liberal traditions, campaigning as the best Republican in the race.

At the rate that this is going, Jill Stein is going to qualify for federal matching funds.

Corruption, Baby, Corruption

And the Clinton Crime Family continues apace.
You may recall that Hillary Clinton criticized Bernie Sanders for not raising money for the state parties while she did.

Not so much. It was money laundering:

In the days before Hillary Clinton launched an unprecedented big-money fundraising vehicle with state parties last summer, she vowed “to rebuild our party from the ground up,” proclaiming “when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen.”

But less than 1 percent of the $61 million raised by that effort has stayed in the state parties’ coffers, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings.

The venture, the Hillary Victory Fund, is a so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. The setup allows Clinton to solicit checks of $350,000 or more from her super-rich supporters at extravagant fundraisers including a dinner at George Clooney’s house and a concert at Radio City Music Hall featuring Katy Perry and Elton John.

The victory fund has transferred $3.8 million to the state parties, but almost all of that cash ($3.3 million, or 88 percent) was quickly transferred to the DNC, usually within a day or two, by the Clinton staffer who controls the committee, POLITICO’s analysis of the FEC records found.

………

But it is perhaps more notable that the arrangement has prompted concerns among some participating state party officials and their allies. They grumble privately that Clinton is merely using them to subsidize her own operation, while her allies overstate her support for their parties and knock Sanders for not doing enough to help the party.

“It’s a one-sided benefit,” said an official with one participating state party. The official, like those with several other state parties, declined to talk about the arrangement on the record for fear of drawing the ire of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

In fact, the DNC, which has pushed back aggressively on charges that it is boosting Clinton at the expense of other Democrats, has advised state party officials on how to answer media inquiries about the arrangement, multiple sources familiar with the interactions told POLITICO.

“The DNC has given us some guidance on what they’re saying, but it’s not clear what we should be saying,” said the official. “I don’t think anyone wants to get crosswise with the national party because we do need their resources. But everyone who entered into these agreements was doing it because they were asked to, not because there are immediately clear benefits.”

Some fundraisers who work for state parties predict that the arrangement could actually hurt participating state parties. They worry that participating states that aren’t presidential battlegrounds and lack competitive Senate races could see very little return investment from the DNC or Clinton’s campaign, and are essentially acting as money laundering conduits for them. And for party committees in contested states, there’s another risk: They might find themselves unable to accept cash from rich donors whose checks to the victory fund counted toward their $10,000 donation limit to the state party in question — even if that party never got to spend the cash because it was transferred to the DNC.

But it gets even better: It turns out that The Clinton Foundation set up a dummy corporation in Canada to conceal its finances:

Aides to former President Bill Clinton helped start a Canadian charity that effectively shielded the identities of donors who gave more than $33 million that went to his foundation, despite a pledge of transparency when Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state.

The nonprofit, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada), operates in parallel to a Clinton Foundation project called the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is expressly covered by an agreement Mrs. Clinton signed to make all donors public while she led the State Department. However, the foundation maintains that the Canadian partnership is not bound by that agreement and that under Canadian law contributors’ names cannot be made public.

The foundation cited that restriction last weekend in explaining why it did not disclose $2.35 million in donations from the chairman of Uranium One, the subject of an article in The New York Times last week. The article examined how company executives and shareholders had sold a majority stake in the company — and with it a significant portion of American uranium reserves — to an arm of the Russian government in a deal that required the approval of the United States government.

“This is hardly an effort on our part to avoid transparency,” said Maura Pally, acting chief executive of the Clinton Foundation.

Instead, the foundation said that the partnership was created by the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra to allow Canadian donors to get a tax benefit for supporting his work with Mr. Clinton — a benefit that came with the price of respecting Canada’s privacy laws. On Wednesday, the partnership issued a statement citing a legal opinion that “charitable donors have an expectation and right of privacy.”

However, interviews with tax lawyers and officials in Canada cast doubt on assertions that the partnership was necessary to confer a tax benefit; an examination shows that for many donors it was not needed, and in any event, since 2010, Canadians could have donated to the foundation directly and received the same tax break. Also, it is not at all clear that privacy laws prohibit the partnership from disclosing its donors, the tax lawyers and officials in Canada said.

The partnership, established in 2007, effectively shielded the identities of its donors — and the amount they gave — by allowing them to bundle their money together in the offshoot Canadian partnership before it was passed along to Clinton Foundation programs. The foundation, in turn, names only the partnership as the source of those funds.

BTW, one of the things that this appears to have covered up is donations associated with a rather smelly deal involving Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, taking over a large Canadian uranium concern.

In addition to donations to the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton got paid a lot to give a talk to Russia bankers as well.

OK, so they are money laundering. I get it. You could do this in Delaware, or Nevada, or Wyoming, or Panama, or the Seychelles, or the Bahamas, but Canada? Laundering money through Canada?

Seriously?

That is just perverse, or as Eric Oram said so famously, “Seriously, I don’t even like working here. They are so weird.”

The Democratic Party Bears Far More Blame on This That the Republican Party.

Over at Medium, Steve Five notes that, “If These Two Win, This is Going To Be The Sh%$tiest Election in US History,” with the charming sub hed of, “Dear God When Will It Be Over Please Make It Stop.”

He’s right:

After last night’s sweeping wins by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, it appears even more likely that the two will become their respective party’s nominees. But according to multiple different polls and recent data, these are the sh%$tiest candidates in recorded history and this election will be a total mess.

A recent CBS poll has Clinton at 52% unfavorable rating, with Trump at 57% unfavorable. These are the lowest favorability ratings of presumptive nominees since CBS began polling, and other polls show similar findings. Clinton’s sh%$tiness has been seen as a major problem for the Democratic party, while the only consolation to the Democrats is that Donald Trump is statistically sh%$tier, to the point that he is potentially starting a civil war within the Republican party. If either of these two are elected, they will be the least favored nominee to become president in the history of polling.

………

If Clinton and Trump win their party nominations, we’re in for six months of peak sh$%tiness. Trump saving $2 Billion on ad revenue means he can outspend a cash-strapped Clinton after the primaries, and his sh$%ty rhetoric and fistfuls of money will force a hawkish Clinton to at turns go tough on him and differentiate herself with a market-tested party unification approach.

………

One thing is certain, if Clinton and Trump become their party’s nominees, it will be a race to the bottom. With Trump’s schoolyard rhetoric and Clinton’s distrustfulness, a heated general election fight will turn off an already election-fatigued American populace. According to the data, no matter who wins, a majority of Americans will lose.

I think that the assessment is fundamentally accurate.

It’s a f%$#ing mess, but Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two different phenomena.

Donald Trump is the proverbial black swan. The Republican party could not have predicted him, or what he would be, or his ascendance.  No one could have predicted this.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has been a known quantity for decades, and she record of failure that would make Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld blush, whether it is Iraq, NAFTA, Hillary Care, crime bill, Libya, Syria, the Ukraine, or any other signature of her issues.

But the Democratic Party establishment, following the script to Blazing Saddles, has decided that, “”We’ve gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!”

It is the Iron Law of Organizations Institutions, where power WITHIN an organization is pursued at the expense of the power OF that organization.

The Democratic Party establishment has consciously chosen its course for the most venal of reasons, and the rest of us will pay for this.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

So Not a Surprise

In all the commotion about the Panama Papers, we tend to ignore the fact that most of the dodgy finance that is used to hide wealth from the tax man occurs right here in the good old US of A, most notably in Wyoming and Delaware.

Well there is a an address in Delaware that is the “Headquarters” of the tax avoidance activities of Donald Trump, the Clintons, and 285,000 other shell corporations:

There aren’t many things upon which Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agree, especially as they court very different Delaware voters ahead of a primary on Tuesday. But the candidates for president share an affinity for the same nondescript two-storey office building in Wilmington. A building that has become famous for helping tens of thousands of companies avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in tax through the so-called “Delaware loophole”.

The receptionist at 1209 North Orange Street isn’t surprised that a journalist has turned up unannounced on a sunny weekday afternoon.

“You know I can’t speak to you,” she says. A yellow post-it note on her computer screen reads “MEDIA: Chuck Miller” with the phone number of the company’s director of corporate communications. Miller can’t answer many questions either, except to say that the company does not advise clients on their tax affairs.

The Guardian is not the first media organisation to turn up at the offices of Corporation Trust Centre, and it’s unlikely to be the last.

The term tax haven may evoke images of exotic locales, but Panama actually ranks as the 13th most attractive spot for hiding assets, while the US lies third.

This squat, yellow brick office building just north of Wilmington’s rundown downtown is the registered address of more than 285,000 companies. That’s more than any other known address in the world, and 15 times more than the 18,000 registered in Ugland House, a five-storey building in the Cayman Islands that Barack Obama called “either the biggest building in the world, or the biggest tax scam on record”.

Officially, 1209 North Orange is home to Apple, American Airlines, Coca-Cola, Walmart and dozens of other companies in the Fortune 500 list of America’s biggest companies. Being registered in Delaware lets companies take advantage of strict corporate secrecy rules, business-friendly courts and the “Delaware loophole”, which can allow companies to legally shift earnings from other states to Delaware, where they are not taxed on non-physical incomes generated outside of the state.

………

Both the leading candidates for president – Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – have companies registered at 1209 North Orange, and have refused to explain why.

Clinton, who has repeatedly promised that as president she will crack down on “outrageous tax havens and loopholes that super-rich people across the world are exploiting in Panama and elsewhere”, collected more than $16m in public speaking fees and book royalties in 2014 through the doors of 1209, according to the Clintons’ tax return.

The routine corruption in the United States is mind buggering.

I’m Not Sure that Hillary Wants this Endorsement………

Charles Koch just said that Hillary Clinton might make a better President than the potential Republican nominees:

Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, a key source of financing for conservative Republican causes along with his brother, said Democrat Hillary Clinton might make a better president than the candidates in the Republican field.

Koch, in an interview to air on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program, said that in some respects Bill Clinton had been a better president than George W. Bush, who Koch said had increased government spending. Then when asked if Hillary Clinton would be a better president than the Republicans currently running, he said, “It’s possible, it’s possible.”

Not a big surprise.

After all, Hillary is arguably the best Republican in the race.

What Joe Biden Said

In an interview with the New York Times, Biden makes a very trenchant point:

………

“I like the idea of saying, ‘We can do much more,’ because we can,” Mr. Biden said in an interview on the Washington-to-Wilmington, Del., Amtrak train he has ridden throughout four decades in national politics.

“I don’t think any Democrat’s ever won saying, ‘We can’t think that big — we ought to really downsize here because it’s not realistic,’ ” he said in a mocking tone. “C’mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I’m not part of the party that says, ‘Well, we can’t do it.’”

It puts something about Hillary’s campaign for President in perspective.

Much like a dog chasing a car, she has no idea what to do if she catches the Presidency.

Good Point, But Wrong

Over at The New Republic, David Dayen observes that observes that that transcripts from Hillary Clinton’s speeches to the Vampire Squid are irrelevant, because she has always been in Wall Street’s pocket anyway:

I don’t want to see the transcripts from Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches.

………

The actual transcript is unnecessary because we already have enough in the public domain to know the real issue with these speeches: the rapport and camaraderie between political leaders and financial institutions, which results in a frame of mind that accepts their arguments and privileges their views. In fact, the best example of this comes from a speech that Clinton habitually touts as an example of her get-tough approach to Wall Street.

On the stump and in debates, including last week’s in Brooklyn, Clinton highlights a speech she made at Nasdaq in December 2007, in the thick of the foreclosure crisis. “When I was serving as the senator from New York, I did stand up to the banks,” Clinton said last week. “I did make it clear that their behavior would not be excused.”

In the speech, available here, she castigated Wall Street for “playing a significant role in the current problems,” for fueling irresponsible mortgage lending through securitization, and for having “shifted risk away from people who knew what was going on onto the people who did not.” Clinton has been criticized for this speech, however, because of a few lines where she said “there’s plenty of blame to go around” for the housing bubble, and that “homebuyers who paid extra fees to avoid documenting their income should have known they were getting in over their heads.”

You can read this as a throwaway nod to personal responsibility, a typical politician’s remark, when the thrust of the speech indicts Wall Street. I would argue that spreading around responsibility for something that was a demonstrably criminal action by lenders fits with Wall Street’s moralizing about deadbeat borrowers who should have known the risks. It’s a form of public shaming. And it arguably led to the lack of accountability we saw for the financial crisis—after all, if everybody is responsible, then ultimately nobody is responsible

………

When something could have been done to pressure mortgage servicers, Hillary Clinton, like many politicians, adopted their argument that they were prevented from helping homeowners. She believed their claims that they were hamstrung, when they weren’t. And I have to believe that’s attributable to proximity, access, and whose arguments get priority of place.

Wall Street purchases that priority of place simply by donating to campaigns, bringing politicians in for chats, marinating them in its worldview. Finance executives can make very compelling arguments about the complex intricacies of the financial system. They can sound charming and smart and logical. And in a moment of truth, they can get the payoff, when a powerful politician like Hillary Clinton makes a reasonable-sounding statement about mortgage servicers needing legal immunity.

On a strictly factual level, DDay is right:  We do not have to read her transcripts in order to know that she is, always has been, and likely always will be be Wall Street’s stooge.

The only question is whether Hillary and her Evil Minions or not she will be a bigger stooge than Barack and his Evil Minions.

Needless to say, this sucks like 1000 Hoovers all going at once.

That being said, her the fact that she is a suck up to Wall Street means nothing without sound bites for the press to make it a real issue for most of the voting public.

That is the reality of our culture, media, and political system,

Hillary Clinton Is the Kindest, Bravest, Warmest, Most Wonderful Human Being I’ve Ever Known

Over at Daily Kos, a diary has the best title ever:

Hillary Clinton is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known

By Steven D Monday Apr 18, 2016 · 1:45 PM EST 2016/04/18 · 13:45

I’ve finally come around, after seeing so many diaries on Daily Kos extolling her deserving qualities and virtues, to realizing that Hillary Clinton really is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known. Laugh all you want, but I can prove that she possesses each of those in abundance.

Read the rest, it’s marvelous snark.

I Just Saw the Debates

Hillary and Bernie went toe to toe in Brooklyn.

I was watching, and Charlie was hooting and hollering like it was the denouement of the next Star Wars movie.

He has Hillary pegged as being part of the Empire.

My quick take:

  • It was the most contentious debate yet.
  • Wolf Blitzer could be replaced as moderator by a toaster with a not particularly advanced operating system.  (I should note here that it is not my intent to offend any toasters)
  • Hillary Clinton kept filibustering, and it drove Charlie nuts.
  • Hillary Clinton seemed to be seething with barely suppressed anger at times.
  • It really is a treat to hear Bernie Sanders say, “Yuge.”

No clue as to what the pundits will be saying in the morning.

    It’s On

    Bernie and Hillary in Brooklyn 14 April at 2100EDT:

    Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have finally agreed to have a high-stakes debate in Brooklyn on April 14 starting at 9 p.m., five days before New York Democrats vote in the April 19 primary.

    The debate will be held at the Duggal Greenhouse on the Brooklyn Navy Yard, hosted by CNN and moderated by Wolf Blitzer. CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash and NY1 political anchor Errol Louis will join in the questioning of the candidates. The debate will also be covered by NY 1, which serves the New York Metropolitan Area.

    Brooklyn is an auspicious place for the two candidates to meet, as Sanders grew up in Brooklyn, and Clinton’s campaign headquarters is in downtown Brooklyn. This will be the first debate between the two candidates since the Univision-Washington Post debate in Miami on March 9.

    I will be watching.

    The Night of the NCAA Finals? Seriously?

    The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns are negotiating a time for their New York debate, and Hillary wants it tomorrow night, while the NCAA basketball finals are on the air:

    The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns are still negotiating over the timing of a debate before the New York primary on April 19th, with no resolution in sight.

    Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a statement Saturday saying they had offered the Sanders campaign three possible dates for what would be the ninth debate between the Democratic presidential hopefuls.

    All were rejected, Clinton press spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement.

    “The Sanders campaign needs to stop with the games,” Mr. Fallon said.

    In a statement issued later, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said the dates and locations proposed by the Clinton campaign “don’t make a whole lot of sense.”

    “We have proposed other dates which they have rejected,” he added.

    “We hope we can reach agreement in the near future,” Mr Briggs continued. “The people of New York and America deserve to see and hear a debate on the important issues facing the state and country.”

    In his statement, Mr. Fallon said the Clinton campaign agreed to debate on April 4th, April 14th or April 15th.

    The Clinton campaign’s 15th suggestion is in the morning.

    They really don’t want to debate.

    Notice a Pattern?

    A site unaffiliated with the Clinton Campaign details her, and her campaign’s speaking engagememts:

    Date
    Location
    Event Type
    Speaker(s)
    April 1, 2016 Newtown, Pennsylvania Fundraiser John Podesta
    April 1, 2016 Syracuse, New York Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 1, 2016 Syracuse, New York Organizing Event Hillary Clinton
    April 1, 2016 Appleton, Wisconsin Organizing Event Bill Clinton
    April 1, 2016 State College, Pennsylvania Fundraiser Laura Rosenberger
    April 1, 2016 Tenafly, New Jersey Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 2, 2016 Madison, Wisconsin Organizing Event Cecile Richards
    April 2, 2016 Washington, Connecticut Fundraiser Daniel Kurtz-Phelan
    April 2, 2016 Boston, Massachusetts Fundraiser Michelle Kwan
    April 3, 2016 Los Angeles, California Fundraiser Bill Clinton
    April 3, 2016 Los Angeles, California Organizing Event Bill Clinton
    April 6, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser Gary Gensler
    April 6, 2016 Tulsa, Oklahoma Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 6, 2016 Little Rock, Arkansas Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 7, 2016 Denver, Colorado Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 7, 2016 Bexley, Ohio Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 7, 2016 El Paso, Texas Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 7, 2016 San Antonio, Texas Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 7, 2016 Dallas, Texas Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 7, 2016 New York City, New York Fundraiser De’Ara Balenger
    April 8, 2016 Forth Smith, Arkansas Fundraiser Bill Clinton
    April 10, 2016 McLean, Virginia Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 10, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser John Podesta
    April 10, 2016 Villanova, Pennsylvania Fundraiser Valerie Plame
    April 11, 2016 Glen Cove, New York Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 11, 2016 Mount Kisco, New York Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 11, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 11, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 11, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser John Podesta
    April 12, 2016 Miami, Florida Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 12, 2016 Miami Beach, Florida Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 12, 2016 Manalapan, Florida Fundraiser Hillary Clinton
    April 12, 2016 Brooklyn, New York Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 12, 2016 New York City, New York Fundraiser Entrpreneurs for Hillary
    April 13, 2016 Princeton, New Jersey Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 13, 2016 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 13, 2016 Erie, Pennsylvania Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 13, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser Bill Clinton
    April 13, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser Bill Clinton
    April 14, 2016 Brooklyn, New York Fundraiser John Podesta
    April 14, 2016 Newton, Massachusetts Fundraiser Bill Clinton
    April 17, 2016 London, England Fundraiser Jake Sullivan
    April 17, 2016 London, England Fundraiser Jake Sullivan
    April 21, 2016 Westport, Connecticut Fundraiser Bill Clinton
    April 25, 2016 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 25, 2016 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Fundraiser Chelsea Clinton
    April 28, 2016 Polanco, Mexico City, Mexico Fundraiser Melanne Verveer
    April 28, 2016 New York City, New York Fundraiser John Podesta
    May 2, 2016 Washington, DC Fundraiser John Podesta

    Notwithstanding the campaign’s claims, I don’t think that they have managed to harness the power of the small donors.

    H/t Naked Capitalism.

    This is a New Level of Low

    The Clinton campaign is saying that they won’t debate Sanders unless he stops criticizing her:

    A top aide to Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Monday dodged questions about setting up a debate with Bernie Sanders in New York, saying it depends on the senator’s “tone.”

    “This is a man who said he’d never run a negative ad ever. He’s now running them. They’re planning to run more,” Joel Benenson, Clinton’s chief strategist, said on CNN. “Let’s see the tone of the campaign he wants to run before we get to any other questions.”

    After winning a trio of states over the weekend, Sanders on Sunday called for a debate in New York ahead of that state’s April 19 primary. The Vermont senator is looking to cut into Clinton’s delegate lead and says he has the “momentum” heading into the latter half of the race.

    The pair faced off in a Miami debate earlier this month, and a Sanders campaign letter on Sunday said the two campaigns had agreed to a California debate in May but had not agreed to terms on a debate in April, according to The New York Times.

    How long before someone says, “If she can’t debate Bernie Sanders, how can she stand up to Vladimir Putin?”

    Never mind, I just did.