It is undeniable that Secretary Clinton is accepting large donations from huge financial interests and millions of dollars from the health care corporations. While it is also quite clear that Senator Sanders is not attracting capital from the aforementioned sources but instead, relying on donations from the laborers of the nation. Yet somehow, supporters of the Secretary deny that this clear distinction means that their candidate will promote policy any different from the other. To hear them talk, real health care reform, health care as a human right and real financial reform that addresses the growing wealth disparity in the USA are at the forefront of both campaigns. The money does not matter! It plays no role. It simply cannot be! Supporters of the Senator so not share this vision. They are looking at the money along with the power and corruption that money brings.
The supporters of the Secretary reminds one of the moments after learning about sex and then the realization that ones parents had sex and are having sex. One does not want to think about it, much less envision it and it’s best to just place it out of ones rational mind and into the cognitive dissonance file. However, ones own existence is proof that it’s true.
…President Obama was one of the biggest recipients of WS money, then turned around and pushed Dodd-Frank. I don’t think anybody argued there are not differences in the two candidate’s approaches, but she has a VERY SOLID record on both the financial industry and health care. Your Hillary-bashing is getting tiresome, as is your implication that she can’t possibly compartmentalize. Sanders IS starting to sound a bit one-note. I actually laughed out loud a couple of times during the most recent debate at his uncanny knack for spinning a question on unrelated topics back to WS. A President needs to walk and chew gum at the same time and while I agree with a lot of what Sanders has to say, I do frankly doubt that ability to some extent. As a Clinton supporter, I will say that there is something to your description of us, but there are reasons for that which I absolutely stand by.
Yup, and look at the “recovery”. All the gains went to the top and no one went to jail. The banks that were too big to fail are still too big to fail. Wages are still flat. We still do not have health care as a human right. Nice, very nice indeed. Let’s go for another eight years of that!
Everyone got bailed out
The stock market took off boosted by the Fed
Low interest rates were used by companies to buy back stock and pay dividends.
Apparently there was no wrongdoing during the financial crisis because no one went to jail. The administration has collected $35 billion in fines- chump change. They should have gotten fines AND convictions.
Sounds pretty negative for Wall Street.
Obama nominated Bernanke for a second term as Fed chairman, so he is responsible for the Fed’s pro-bank, pro-Wall Street actions as well.
…in all this indignant rhetoric about bankers who should have gone to jail I’ve never quite figured out whether they actually committed jailable offenses according to the laws. I feel like there is a lot of foot-stomping “SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!” where in reality the laws themselves are to blame for not being tough enough.
For the most part, they got the capital requirements substantially up, which helps.
“Too big to fail” was addressed not by breaking up big institutions in the financial sector, but rather by banning the use of govt funds to bail out any of those institutions. So now I guess we have the potential for “Too Big And Failed.” Unfortunately, Dodd-Frank does nothing at all to address the reasons the government might be inclined to bail out one of these institutions in the first place, which would indeed require breaking them up.
Actually, it seems to me that Dodd-Frank causes as many problems at it fixes. Most significantly, it ignores that the ONLY reason there wasn’t a terrible depression, rather than a bad recession, is because the Fed went way off the reservation to keep liquidity in the economy. Dodd-Frank makes sense if you think that the bad thing about 2008 wasn’t the recession, but rather the impressive save carried out by the Fed.
To be fair, there wasn’t any support in the Congress for anything else. The real vote that weakened the rule came from Sen. Brown of Mass, whose vote was needed to pass the bill. That guy managed to have some seriously consequential votes in a very short Senate career.
The “send someone to jail” thing has always struck me as a bit of “Occupy Wall Street”ism, and its subsequent iterations: We are very upset about things, generally, and have very few specific demands, but really, we just want someone to resign so we can claim a pelt.”
fraudulent ratings for junk bonds, grading a triple-A. Remember refinance and mortgages taking people for a ride with how much they could borrow. That was done to package up the loans hide incomes and sell them as high rated bond to pensions and other large money funds who require triple-A ratings.
When you run a bank and you intentionally do a bad job underwriting loans, that’s usually just bad business. When you package those same loans up and sell them, telling the buyer and/or rating agency you followed best practices in originating them, that’s fraud.
If you doubt me, then you’re doubting St. Elizabeth Warren as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/02/elizabeth-warren-calls-out-obamas-top-wall-street-cop-saying-she-has-broken-promises/
Way Beyond.
Here was an inarguably criminal organization being given a slap on the wrist because banks are immune to criminal sanctions. That some people here are unaware of this story just reinforces that thesis of this post, that there are people who don’t pay attention to things they don’t want to know.
I was just giving a specific example to what they did wrong. I’m sure more laws were violated (including misleading investors) but this example I thought was the easiest to understand.
including jail if warranted, but not just that.
Here’s what should have happened that didn’t.
The tycoons should have been hauled over the coals and into congressional hearings. Heads should have rolled.
Reforms should have been profound.
The banksters should have lost their jobs en mass; losses should have been clawed back. Those who profited should have repayed those who were robbed.
Investment firms should have been prohibited from using bailout money to lobby Congress.
instead we have the old boss, same as the old boss. That’s what people are mad about.
Maybe it was all legal under the laws that the banksters wrote, but it was wrong. There should have been consequences, There should be accountability.
The way she brings up Obama’s WS money as a defense is bizarre.
People are angry because Obama did NOT jail anyone for fraud in the financial crisis. Because the new regulations, however verbose, were designed to keep the status quo in place rather than abolish or punish bad actors. Because he appointed allies of the industry to his cabinet.
The crisis was bad enough that it was politically necessary for Obama to do SOMETHING, but what actually happened appears to be formulated to do as little as possible. Now MAYBE that perception is wrong, and we can’t prove that he would have acted differently without the WS money in his campaign. But that is the perception that Hillary is fighting: Obama did as little as possible to reign in Wall Street because he was funded by them, and she is the same. Using that funding as a defense is utterly absurd and shows that she doesn’t understand why people are even asking about the WS money and transcripts.
While it’s true that Clinton has multiple PACs created supporting her candidacy, your argument goes out the window when you try to argue that a PAC which follows the same rules is different because they support your candidate.
Yes, a nurses union created a political arm within their group and created and funded a PAC. This is a political group they formed it in this way. So this my PAC is good, your PAC is bad business doesn’t hold water.
Sanders should be truthful, he should say that he is being support by a PAC (BECAUSE HE IS) but then discuss why he has not called out the group to stop and why he supports their message. I think being truthful is better than a post like this. He’s on the winning side of the argument.
We think a group of unidentified millionaires and billionaires. At least I do. Let’s be clear, being backed by a nurses union is a far cry from being backed by Wall Street speculators, health insurance corporations, and the private prison lobby.
This is the kind of stuff I don’t like. There is a lot of lazy grouping out of convenience going on. As I’ve noted above, this is an area that Sanders has a winning argument.
The nurses union created a political, no spending limit arm. it’s not a union, it a PAC. They created a no spending limit political group. That’s what happened.
Hillary Clinton does not see health care as a human right. Bernie Sanders sees it at a human right. Senator Ted Kennedy saw it as a human right.
Hillary may have, at one time, seen health care as a human right, but not now. Today, she sees the idea of health care as a human right as “a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass.” Her own word, not mine. By the way this theoretical health care exists in all the nations of the developed world. It’s not theoretical, it’s a reality.
Hillary’s present view of health care is that it needs to be a commodity that is bought and sold in the marketplace. A marketplace where the CEOs of the Big Five for-profit health insurance companies all took home at least $10 million in 2014, according to each insurers’ annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
…from 90% coverage to 100% coverage, so I’m not sure why you’re griping. Plus I think Kennedy was a strong proponent of the ACA. The rest of the developed world doesn’t have a US-style Republican party at the moment either.
Yes indeed, she wants to deliver more customers and revenue to the health insurance corporations. Kennedy supported the ACA but only as step towards health care as a human right, not a commodity bought and sold in the market place.
His words in 2008.
For me this is a season of hope — new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few — new hope.
And this is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.
When Jimmy Carter flip flopped on health care, as Hillary has done recently, here is what Senator Kennedy had to say about it:
“The Jimmy Carter who had declared that he wanted mandatory and universal coverage and had a plan that was nearly identical to mine had now been replaced by the President Carter who wanted to approach health insurance in incremental steps, over time, if certain cost containment benchmarks were met–and after the 1978 midterm elections.”
It does not sound too congratulatory, does it?
Carter had a limited health insurance reform bill that, from altitude, doesn’t look terribly different from the ACA, but got the cold shoulder in Congress. This, five years or so after the Nixon administration was willing to support something that also bears more than a passing resemblance to the ACA.
Kennedy tanked both of these attempts. A lot of the reason so little happened after 1968, all the way through to 2010, is because Sen. Kennedy wanted it his way, or no way.
into bizaroland. John you need to find a Bernie nuttty, nut nut board. That’s where this stuff is posted.
Kennedy’s signature bill is not what he wanted. Thanks, good stuff.
Please, live in reality.
and so do I. And so does Bernie Sanders and so did Hillary at one time, but not now.
It does not mean health care. Many people who have health insurance defer getting treatment because of the costs. Lots of insurance plans are crappy insurance plans. Getting that last 10% enrolled in crappy insurance plans is not delivering them good health care, it’s delivering more customers to parasitic insurance companies.
When I lost my job in September, we lost our insurance. We went on the “connector” to find a policy. My wife and I have a GP and a few specialists. Trying to find a plan that covered them was a nightmare. Trying to understand what any policy would truly cost was and remains a mystery. The billing clerks at all of our health care providers hate this system. My GP hates this system and spends way too much of his time on billing issues, not medical treatment. My nurse who gives me allergy shots once a week now has to check each patient on the morning of their appointment to see if they are still covered.
When health care is viewed as a commodity to be traded in regulated markets (regulations in large part written by the sellers), this is what you get.
When health care is viewed as a human right, you get what all the developed nations of the world have, a system that Hillary Clinton calls “some better idea that will never, ever come to pass.”
…I have also heard the right, not privilege mantra from her lips as recently as this campaign. I strongly favor single-payer, but I refuse to be a foot-stomping single-issue voter who suggests that everyone with a different idea is the embodiment of evil.
Affordable health care is a basic human right.
Excuse me? If something is a “right” that means I have it, I do not have to buy it from someone who has it and wants to sell it to me. The word “affordable” means I have to buy my rights?
Typical Clintonesque doublespeak.
…but I don’t think even the NRA has argued that weapons should just be handed out and not purchased.
Sure I have the right to own a particular object, according to the Constitution. This is not about the Constitution. There is no “right to health care” listed in the Constitution and I am not saying there is, neither does Bernie and neither did Senator Kennedy. What we are all saying it that health care should be a human right in the USA. Hillary agreed with us at one time, but has reversed her position.
..especially as someone who agrees with you on the merits, is that you are trying to make the perfect the enemy of the good, which will ultimately get us nowhere.
Does anyone really believe that whatever difference there is between Hillary and Bernie on healthcare would actually matter if either became President? Unless you believe that the Democrats are going to take back the House and get filibuster-proof majority in the Senate I cannot see that it will make a difference.
It seems to me, that if one is really committed to any progressive legislative cause such as this, it would be far more productive to concentrate your energy on flipping Congress. Wasting time on anti-Hillary rants might make you feel better but it doesn’t really further your cause.
The moment she is sworn into office, Hillary will start fund raising for her second term and that means going to the same health insurance companies for “donations”. Those corporations will expect a return on their “investment”.
Frankly, I don’t Bernie gives a damn about a second term and he will rally his supporters to push for a European style, 21st Century, developed nation style health care.
In what way are his supporters going to bring about this huge change exactly? Protests and rallies? Angry tweets?
Sorry, but if you think anything is going to change without Democratic control of Congress you are deluding yourself. And neither Bernie nor his supporters have a plan for that or even want to talk about it.
By staying on point, on message, and putting all their energy into the 2018 elections.
There are congressional elections this year. Why wait for 2018? To ensure that Bernie cannot get anything done for at least two years? Vague hand waving about perhaps doing something two years for now is lazy.
The problem is that working on House and Senate races isn’t nearly as fun as going to big Bernie rallies. It remains to be seen whether the excitement for Bernie can actually translate into actual political action. So far it hasn’t and it seems that his supporters have spent almost as much energy attacking the Democrats as they have the Republicans. That is not really a recipe for regaining Democratic control.
Someone running on a platform of revolutionary progressive change or someone running a defensive campaign of moderation over extremism. Which of those strategies worked time and time again and which one failed time and time again? We got it back in 2006 and expanded it in 2008 by running as liberals, we lost it in 2010 and 2014 because our candidates were wimps.
Hillary can choose to be the last gasp of the DLC or the first gasp of the new progressive majority. If she was smart she would lead the former rather than following the latter to defeat at the hands of Trump who is artfully outflanking her on the economic left.
Surely you jest!
I don’t see either Hillary or Bernie as being especially likely to flip Congress. I don’t hear either of them talking about it.
I do find it highly unlikely that it is going to happen without a strong national organization. A popular figurehead is not sufficient. You need to recruit candidates, raise money, give them advice, and you need to do this in every state. What organization is going to do that? If it is not going to be the DNC then an alternative needs to be created very soon.
…talk about helping downballot Dems if she is the nominee and selling herself as someone who can do that.