Donald Trump and Florida AG Pam Bondi
While some of us continue to complain about an alleged appearance of impropriety in the dealings of Hillary and Bill Clinton, we see yet another case study in the FACT of such impropriety in today’s news (emphasis mine):
The swirl of scandal around Donald Trump’s donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is intensifying, with the Republican nominee and his aides vigorously pushing back against the idea that he bought the decision by Bondi to not pursue an investigation into his Trump University.
The controversy whipped back up last week when news emerged that Trump paid a $2,500 fine because his foundation improperly donated $25,000 to Bondi’s political election committee in 2013 (tax-exempt charitable groups are not allowed to make political contributions).
Following the donation in 2013, Bondi’s office declined to join a fledgling multi-state probe into Trump’s real estate seminar program. The links between the two continued, with Trump hosting a lavish fundraiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2014, and Bondi endorsing Trump in March of this year.
Let me just, again, review the key points:
1. Contribution: A significant cash contribution was made by Donald Trump to the Florida Attorney General (Pam Bondi).
2. Quid Pro Quo: After the contribution (not to mention the “lavish fundraiser” hosted by Mr. Trump), Ms. Bondi decided not to join the several other states prosecuting “Trump University”
3. Admission of guilt: Mr. Trump paid a fine, acknowledging that his contributions were improper.
This is what actual scandal and actual pay-to-play corruption looks like, folks.
Here is what the Orlando Sentinel had to say (from the above link):
“Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him,” Maxwell wrote. “There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor.”
This currently-unfolding example illustrates the fallacy of asserting that the behavior of the Clintons is somehow comparable to this. For example, just today we have an otherwise-thoughtful comment that says:
Clintons have a toxic relationship with money
For profit colleges are a massive Ponzi scheme subsidized by tax dollars and it’s shameful Bill Clinton lent his good name and even the use of his wife’s State Department connections to advance the interests of one. It totally kills their line of argument about Trumps “colleges” since they literally profited off of similar activity. That was a compelling argument too that convinced a few Trump voters I knew to defect to Johnson.
…
No, it does NOT kill their line of argument against Mr. Trump. Neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton are being prosecuted for fraud. Neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton are in the midst of an unfolding scandal coupling an illegal contribution to a shameful quid pro quo. I disagree with the implied comparison, and I reject the accusations of impropriety against Bill and Hillary Clinton.
I get that some media sources desperately seek a way to maintain some sort of false “balance” between the flagrant corruption of Donald Trump and the endless empty accusations of same by the right wing against Bill and Hillary Clinton. In my view that is best explained the insatiable appetite of the media for advertising revenue — advertising revenue that is dramatically reduced by the runaway landslide that should be (and perhaps is) the real story of this election.
This story again demonstrates the myriad of ways that Donald Trump exemplifies the FACT of corruption.
Trump has only been around about a year and he’s only going to be around another couple months with any luck.
Pay to play has been around a lot longer, and it will still be around after Trump is defeated. Lomanesy said it best.
VP George Bush, when he was implicated in the Arms for Hostages scandal, became notorious for proclaiming “There was no quid pro quo!”
You sound just like him.
Ah, I see. I guess it’s more fun to throw stones at the Clintons than to actually engage in real and genuine corruption.
THIS thread is about Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, and the unfolding actual scandal. In this case, there IS a quid pro quo. Please try to keep up.
It’s about 40% about the Clintons which it shouldn’t be and doesn’t need to be. The Trump issue stands on its own and is worthy of discussion.
When we criticize Hillary and Bill for their money missteps, we are criticizing them from the left, the same way Senator Warren did when she saw an ally turn against her on the bankruptcy bill.
This isn’t actual corruption, I have never argued that. But it is certainly legalized corruption, and it has to stop. Putting Garland on the court and turning the House and Senate blue will help that, but I am worried at the amount of time she is spending courting the wealthy instead of interacting with the ordinary. Obama mentions this corrosive influence in his first book, and I am sure it has only gotten worse:
The Clinton’s have lived in that bubble for nearly 40 years, and I do think it is fair to say they are out of touch with the ordinary lives of most Americans. So was FDR, I get that, and they didn’t come from wealth, I get that too. But I think it is increasingly clear that she will win this race, and we should shift from hyper partisan defensive postures to critical examining the avatars of our own side and making sure they hold their end of the bargain. Our senior Senator is already doing just that.
I agree that there are few, if any supporters of Donald Trump here. I certainly hope that nothing I’ve written in any way communicates anything different from that.
Still, I bridle at your suggestion that it is a “hyper partisan defensive posture” for me to remind this community of just how much distance separates Mr. Trump from the Clintons.
There is, and will be, plenty of time and opportunity to keep President Hillary Clinton’s feet to the fire after she is elected.
During the campaign, I suggest that it is reckless and incorrect to conflate — for example — Laureate University to Trump University. The GOP and Trump campaign is already loudly attacking Ms. Clinton about such things, and will continue to do so. I see absolutely nothing constructive about piling on to those attacks.
It seems to me that now, during the heat of the campaign, is the most appropriate time to remind potential voters of how DIFFERENT Ms. Clinton is from Mr. Trump. I certainly hope that we will then have eight years to ensure that Ms. Clinton is appropriately dedicated to addressing the very real issues of wealth and income concentration that are doing so much harm to America today.
The man won’t be president, let’s hold our future presidents feet to the fire about the troubling associations she has. I am ok with joining our senior senator in doing that before the election is over. Why aren’t you?
What do you think is accomplished by joining the right-wing attacks on her?
We don’t know that “the man won’t be president”. You spent the first part of this campaign warning of complacency. It seems to me that the immediate task is to win this election — put Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office, take back the Senate, and with any luck take the House.
If you think that falsely conflating Donald Trump’s long history of actual fraud, apparent bribery, and worse with Hillary Clinton will somehow help accomplish that task, then I encourage you to think again.
In my view, the time between now and November is the time to support our candidate. The primary season is over. The decision is made, our nominee has been selected.
Our job, now, is to see that she is elected.
Come off it Tom, she’s our nominee for President but she ain’t a saint. And I am glad we have Warren willing to police her from her proven bad instincts on financial regulation.
I explicitly addressed the difference between Ms. Warren’s behavior and these attacks.
Your commentary here at BMG is markedly different and more hostile than anything I’ve seen from Ms. Warren since the convention.
I’m not saying that Ms. Clinton is a saint.
I’m saying that for every thing there is a season. This is NOT the season to be attacking Ms. Clinton in the way you do in some of your comments. That doesn’t mean that your complaints are invalid. It means that this is not the time to air them.
It would seem easy for this same argument to extend to post election. The other Clinton got this treatment from many Dems who were pissed that those on the left would criticize him rather than fighting back against the right wing attacks. That’s partially why he got away with so much terrible stuff.
This is effing BMG. It’s a better place than anywhere to air these grievances. If not here, where? Will criticism ever be convenient? We need to be honest about her weaknesses and potential problems and hold her feet to the fire at all times (like what Warren is doing re: appointees). None of that means we don’t support her against the worst and most dangerous candidate in memory. I don’t see jconway planning to grab a sign and protest Clinton rallies.
And I beg to differ. From your recent posting, you’re much more on the side of painting Clinton as a saint.
Jeesh.
I don’t have access to recent stats about BMG readership, but we ARE read by more people than we might think. In addition to “regular” people, we are also read by decision makers and decision influencers. I remind us that Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy here. Doug Ruben is reasonably active. We are read by staffers in government offices in both Massachusetts and Washington DC.
I haven’t been shy about criticizing Barack Obama or, for that matter, Deval Patrick. Please give me the courtesy of waiting until I inappropriately extend this same argument after the election, rather than attacking me now for what you fear I may do later.
The bulk of the attacks on Hillary Clinton recently have been, frankly, convoluted and incorrect (in my opinion). I’ve been picking on jconway’s “toxic relationship to money” as an example, but there are others. In my view, it is not painting the target of those attacks as a “saint” to challenge what are to me incorrect and unsubstantiated slams. Too many people said too little when similar attacks were made about Whitewater or, fthat matter, SwiftBoat — there was no “there” there either.
I’ve loudly criticized the abysmal failure of judgement on Ms. Clinton’s part when she chose to use her own email server. I’ve criticized her vote in support of the 2003 Iraq invasion. I’ve been frustrated by what I see as her too-hawkish view of foreign affairs.
I’m also fed up after twenty-odd years of false, ungrounded, and frankly sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton. Legitimate criticism is fine. The attacks on Ms. Clinton have gone so far over that line for so long that too many of us think such attacks are fine.
They are not.
There is massive wealth inequality in this country leading to massive injustices. All these issues are connected to that. We wouldn’t need a BLM if there wasn’t such inequity that persists due to racial injustice, and it was right for BLM to call them out on their past policies that exacerbated racial and income inequality. I trust her rhetoric that she has changed in these issues and she is obviously head over heels more qualified than any of the alternatives.
Am I pushing Jill Stein? Johnson? No. After today’s primary I am going to write a lengthy piece praising her on foreign policy, as I defended her from unfair attacks throughout the primary. Bernie isn’t a saint either and he wouldn’t have been as effective, that doesn’t mean she’s right to take money he won’t. Our politicians will act better when we vocally demand them to act better.
You ask “When is the time”.
That’s an easy one — AFTER she wins the election in November.
I’ll hold you to that. Senator Warren wisely thinks now is the time to press her on her progressive commitments and it’s an insult to me and to her to call that concern “a right wing attack”. I strongly reject the binary of your commentary where she can do no wrong and that of John T May who says she can do no right. It’s really tiresome and beneath both your intellects and values. I’ll stay out of it until November, it makes this place a lot less interesting and I’m not the only one who posts here who feels that way.
I fear your reading my commentary as more binary than it is.
I’ve already said, more than once, what I see as the difference between the statements of Ms. Warren and your criticisms of Ms. Clinton. I’ve not said Ms. Clinton can do no wrong.
There is a middle ground between “can do no wrong” and “has a toxic relationship with money”. I’d like us to seek that middle ground.
Once she and the new Congress are sworn we can judge how she will act on specific legislative proposals, or a specific possibility of engaging our armed forces, or a specific opportunity to appoint various officials.
And I have you on record as saying that we are to keep her feet to the fire after she is elected. And yes, that includes Laureate University , the infamous transcripts, her husband’s record of dismantling the New Deal, the whole lot. And I will not accept “But Trump was far worse” as a defense.
I for one don’t care about LU (which I think is Bill rather than she), the transcripts, or policies that had some merit in the 90s.
But I really did not need your blessing. I care about anything that hurts laborers and coddles the rentier class. You are free to believe otherwise.
You really had to answer a question from someone who thinks Bill Clinton dismantled the New Deal?
He signed legislation that gave the rentier class (the “1%) a smoother ride with the repeal of Glass-Stegall and the Commodities Modernization Act while at the same made life harder on the working class with NAFTA and welfare “reform” and had it not been for his mess up with Monica, he was on his way to chipping away at Social Security.
To guys like me, that’s an attack on the New Deal.
I was opposing it back then. You not so much.
But I’d prefer to not have a discussion based on you and me. Is there a reason that we can’t speak about the Clintons and the very real things that they did and tired to do?
This is the same line of attack Trump and his types like to use, claiming she has somehow mistreated women because he had affairs. Come on.
The thread-starter is about the flagrant bribery of Donald Trump. Some of us prefer to repeat tired accusations about the Democratic nominee.
Nothing that Bill or Clinton did or is accused of doing remotely compares to Donald Trump’s obvious and successful payoff of Florida AG Pam Bondi.
These comments about Bill and Hillary Clinton are simple trolling.
n/m
We call her one of the most, if not THE most qualified person to EVER run for the presidency in large part because of the eight years she spent as the wife of President Bill Clinton. Do we count ALL the things her husband did in those eight years? None if them? Just the ones we like? Just the ones we don’t like?
We “draw the line” in the same place we draw it for any male candidate.
I do not consider ANY of her husband’s actions relevant. I supported Barack Obama in 2008 over Ms. Clinton largely because at that time I felt that too many of her supporters were attracted because of her husband. In my view, that was sexist and demeaning.
I support her now because it was clear to me from her performance during the primaries that she was far better qualified than any of her primary competitors. That comparison is, to me, the only comparison that matters. Her husband’s record is irrelevant to that comparison.
A good starting point is her policies, statements, and behavior while serving in public office. Her vote for the 2003 Iraq invasion is fair game. Her husband’s affairs (and her alleged reactions to them) are not. She was appointed by her husband to lead his effort to provide universal health care. Her policies, statements, and behavior in that role are fair game. Her daughter’s choice of spouse is not.
This really isn’t hard for those of us willing to accept the resulting record.
I’m not going to play that game with you.
I will ask you this: What official policies of her husband do we accept as being part of who she is and what official policies of her husbands do we deny her playing a part in? None? All? These? Not those! ???
If her husband’s policies are off limits, than her tenure as his spouse does not add to or subtract to her qualifications.
Your reply?
I won’t play this game.
If HRC had not announced the Bill Clinton would be
then he would be less of an issue in the campaign. Some people think his deregulation of financial services was one of the biggest disasters of modern American economic history, his trade policies to be anti-worker and anti-environment, and his attempts to cut Social Security benefits and then privatize it to be GOP-styled barbarism.
Why should he not be part of the campaign? HRC said he is, so it is easy to understand why there are people who will play the fool’s game and vote for Stein or just not actively embrace HRC in part because of him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bill-hillary-clinton-administration-economy.html
would rather bury their heads in the sand. Thanks for posting this. Yes, HRC “entered WJC into evidence” (as lawyers say) but dare anyone here mention it and the down votes and personal attacks abound. How dare they start those sexist trolls….and so on.
That’s what concerns me and should concern anyone who works for a living. I know, to some, we are an out of date remnant of a time that they say will “never ever happen” again, and to others, well, it’s a “global economy” so suck it up.
And each year more gated communities are built, wealth disparity widens, and and why? Because, in my humble opinion, too many Democrats have succumbed to the power of Wall Street, the wealthy, the .1% and sold their souls for money that “HAS to come from somewhere”.
…that who is setting the policy agenda will have much impact on how many literal or metaphorical gated communities are built. There will always be people with enough money to more or less live the life they want how and where and with whom they want.
If you care to, please pick up and read a copy of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better was published in 2009. Written by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson as it painstakingly provides data that proves the point. As wealth disparity widens, the wealthy become more fearful of the poor and are prone to building gated communities, hiring private security, and voting for increased spending on police, prisons, and punishment of the poor.
Why do you think that John Henry has a “safe room” in his mansion?
I think the kind of First Lady she was absolutely is part of what makes her so qualified. I am also happy that she will have the ear of arguably one of the most successful Presidents in recent decades and to the extent hers is a third Clinton term I won’t complain too loudly. HOWEVER, we are also almost a generation removed from that administration and I think both Clintons understand that different times call for different solutions.
Just the parts that you like and not the others? That’s where you lose me even more so. You think Bill was successful, that can only mean that you were not a laborer then or now. As for me and mine, we make our living with our hands and backs and we’ve been ignored for 45 years.
I DO HOPE that Hillary takes a bold stand on this. Her campaign web site does talk that talk but meetings with Barbara Streisand on the Cape and multi-million dollar fundraisers with the .1% (who EXPECT something in return for their “investment”) bring shivers down my spine.
The fact that the world has become much harder for laborers in the last 45 years is NOT the fault of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, or the Democrats. Had the GOP been in power, it would likely have been worse.
The world invested in “efficiency” — meaning automation — as a way of making laborers unnecessary. Hundreds of Americans, of all political persuasions and all parties, signed up for that agenda. Once the “computer” cat was out of the bag, if America had not done what we did, somebody else would have and the result would have been much worse.
You seem to be seeking a scapegoat, and nothing more than that. Your pain from 45 years ago offers little if any guidance about what the best way forward is today. Your political priorities led you to support Rush Limbaugh and the GOP during the administration of Bill Clinton, and lead you to similarly attack Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton today. Those priorities were ineffective and counterproductive then and are ineffective and counterproductive now.
The most that commentary like yours can accomplish is the defeat of Hillary Clinton. That will make your life, and everyone elses, FAR worse.
Your constant harping on anything “Clinton” does far more harm than good. You seem to forget that the original threadstarter describes a GOP nominee who bought off a Florida AG for a mere $25,000.
The double-digit percentage of American voters who think that Donald Trump and the GOP is the best answer to all this is something that SHOULD send shivers down your spine. The fact that you are so eager to trash anything Clinton, and so utterly silent about the corrupt fraud who this thread is about, is just more evidence of how backwards your priorities seem to be.
I’d like to remind you, once again, that Donald Trump:
– Gave $25,000 to Pam Bondi
– Pam Bondi subsequently decided to not pursue prosecution of Trump University
– Donald Trump agreed that the $25,000 was improper and paid a fine
No matter how much you yell and scream about Bill Clinton, NOTHING that Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton has done REMOTELY compares to this.
The commentary you offer here suggests a badly misplaced set of priorities.
And “they are better than the Republicans” is all you have?
That’s pathetic.
…”I liked Bill Clinton, but…”? (although there is precious little “but” in this case).
Some of us were actually involved in the fight to limit the damage that Bill Clinton could do to working people and the poor. He was not the worst President of my lifetime as GWB clearly beats him on that count. But you were still in high school and college during those years so your recollection is a mix of hagiography and hopeful thinking, not reality. Do you remember when you denied that Clinton tried to cut SS benefits?
Bill Clinton was the beneficiary of the tax increases signed into law by GHWB that balanced the budget in conjunction with Clinton cutting social spending. He was the beneficiary of worldwide economic growth. He created neither except the cutting of social spending and of course the doubling down on the war on drugs. Your continued defense of NAFTA along based on your mistaken claims that most trade agreements are about tariffs is evidence of why Clinton ruined our national debate about trade.
HRC retreated on the TPP not because she got smart but because she got pressured by working voters. Alas it was too late for a lot of people who know that their standard of living went down with the new trade regime and have now flocked to Trump. She has yet to come down firmly against the TTIP, the TPP on steroids, even though most of our European partners acknowledge it is dead due to the demands of American corporations. When she drags her heels on acknowledging the disaster of the TTIP, she gives Breitbart more legitimate ammo to keep angry blue collar voters from returning to vote for her and other Democrats.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/699362/TTIP-European-Union-crisis-Hillary-Clinton-EU-US-trade-deal-CETA-President-Donald-Trump
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/29/hillary-called-economic-nato-now-ttip-ruins/
I am glad to vote for HRC but do not take it as an article of faith that either Clinton has learned anything in the intervening years. Political pressure is the only thing that will “learn them.” That is why so many of us are tired of being told by two of the most prolific posters that critics should either shut up until after the election or just rely upon magical thinking.
I am a democrat, not a Democrat and especially not a Clinton Democrat. I believe in activism, not cheerleading.
I’m glad you did whatever it is you did. You are not the only one who did that, and your perspective on what is good and bad is not the only perspective.
Ours is a political system that supports a wide variety of viewpoints. You offer ONE of those viewpoints.
There are others.
I don’t remember meeting you during any of the efforts to limit the worst of Bill Clinton excesses against the poor, the working poor, pumping up the war on drugs, in favor of a horrific trade regime and his worst offense, bringing Wall Street into the White House to regulate Wall Street.
I do remember you writing on this site that he defined cool. Sunglasses and saxophones matter after all. Using power to take sexual advantage of a very young woman in his charge does not seem to matter in your book.
Personally I would appreciate it if you would stop telling those of us who believe in open political debate to shut up until after the election. It really is not nice.
Woops
I know this might be REALLY REALLY hard to understand.
Here’ the deal. I don’t remember YOU either. I know where I was and what I was doing. I never heard from you until you started offering commentary on this site. I have no clue who you really are, and you similarly have no clue about me. So please … try not to get carried away with how important and special you are.
It is typical that you hear my comments as “shut up”. It is as if you cannot imagine offering anything except attacks against Hillary Clinton and her family.
There is a world of difference between your relentless criticism and “shut up”. Perhaps if you work as hard towards finding that as work towards attacking me, you might find one or two things to say.
…in the early years, with precious little help from the GOP, that got the ball rolling. We need to look at results and resist the temptations of the left to parrot conservative talking points about Clinton.
Parroting conservative talking points? LOL
Clinton f-ed up because he did most of what the right wanted. Did you read what I wrote? It was a critique from the left of his center right positions. The phrase you used “parrot conservative talking points” is an empty catch phrase the way you used and not worthy of an adult who knows the difference between the left and right. Spare me.
I give Clinton credit for increasing the marginal highest tax rate in his 1993 budget. The EITC, one of my favorite programs was increased. But the budget included none of the middle-class tax cuts he had promised, and he gave up the investments in education and infrastructure because he listened to the Goldman Sachs crowd of Rubin et als who were more interested in deficit reduction than in the middle class.
When you write that I am parroting conservative talking points, I take personal offense, especially from someone in the center-right of the Democratic party.
Clinton was our Rhodes Scholar, our deliverer. Our New Democrat. Yes, I totally get it how the Democrats embraced this guy. After eight years of Reagan’s massive popularity followed by Bush for a total of twelve years, Democrats like the selected folks here on BMG just wanted to WIN, regardless of how, or where the money came from. Clinton knew that.
It was to be a new day, a new beginning with new Democrats who were bright, innovators, top of the class, not the average blue collar Joe of the past.
Only now that the too many average blue collar Joe’s are voting Republican and rallying behind Trump, the Democrats are still hoping that the Clinton magic will win again. I have no doubt that Hillary will be our next president. I just hope that she abandons most all of her husband’s legacy, hell, I hope she rips them apart and puts the party back in tune with the blue collar people. She does that and she becomes the savior of the party. However, if she plays it safe, continues to play footsie with her cronies at Goldman Sachs and the rest, she serves one term and we go back to “Democrats” as a political albatross for any White House race.
…the big unions continued to support Democrats generally and the Clintons in particular throughout that entire period. I put more faith in them as representative of workers than you.
You don’t seem to get it.
“Democrat” was, in fact, an albatross until Bill Clinton changed the landscape. Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis — a succession of Democrats stood frozen in the spotlight, paralyzed by just the kind of attacks you and TBD are making here and now.
It was Bill Clinton who changed all that. If Al Gore had embraced, rather than abandoned, Bill Clinton’s legacy, George W. Bush would not have been elected. The odds are very much that the 2003 invasion of Iraq would never have happened. We would not have spent the past fifteen years in a self-destructive and increasingly desperate “war on terror” that squanders our treasury, destroys our moral standing in the world, shreds our civil liberties, fills the streets of too many cities with the blood of innocents, and sets us against each other.
There have been “average blue collar Joe’s” voting Republican since Spiro Agnew and the hardhats. You were one of them, according to your own accounts of your history. We were better at ignoring the “basket of deplorables” then than we are now, and we will be better off walking away from them now.
No amount of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, hate speech, or scapegoating will be bring back the blue collar jobs that the entire world’s economy has spent fifty years eliminating. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about right-wing movements in Austria, in Germany, in the UK, or here — the result will be the same.
It was Bill Clinton who destroyed the “albatross”.
The way Hillary Clinton becomes the savior of the party is by doing what she has been telling us she’ll do this entire campaign. It will be by leveraging the energy of Elizabeth Warren. It will be by ignoring the brick-bats from people who did everything they could to destroy Bill Clinton twenty years ago and who are doing everything they can to destroy Hillary Clinton today.
You choose which camp you want to this community to place you with each and every comment. The choice continues to be yours.
The real albatross on the Democratic Party is the abandonment of the New Deal and Great Society programs. Bill Clinton was the guy who locked it into party orthodoxy. Mondale did not abandon the working class. Hart and the Atari Democrats did. The Duke wavered in both directions and it was painful to be part of that campaign in a swing state in 1988. It took Clinton to master the rhetoric of being pro-worker during the election but then turn to Wall Street to make low and middle income people pay for the enrichment of the .1%.
I have no doubt Clinton thought he was doing a good thing. He was wrong in all of the ways I have described before: financial deregulation, trade, cutting the social net and his insane war on drugs. That is the true albatross on Dems.
I thought Obama understood that problem but he has had a hard time breaking with the Clinton orthodoxy, appointing so many of the same Wall Street crowd that every victory (saving the auto industry) was offset by pursuit of horrible trade agreements like the TPP and the TTIP.
HRC is not saving the Dems. She is the first nominee of this half century to make working class people feel truly alienated from a progressive economic agenda, not simply because of Trump’s nasty race and xenophobic politics, but because she has to be dragged to a progressive agenda, where the media accurately report it as a policy flip. As noted before, she has yet to come out against the TTIP even though our European partners have said it is dead. It tells me that she is still wedded to bad trade agreements supported by multi-national businesses until they become politically untenable. I have done too much work, going back to the 1970s, in international trade to buy this BS. Yeah STom, I have done real work in this field.
I hope that we do not arrive at STom’s wish where HRC leverages Sen Warren. I want the reverse, as Warren is currently using her power to move HRC
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/elizabeth-warren-clinton-administration-appointments-227699
…you are saying the same things almost verbatim as Dole and the party were saying in 1996 in response to Clinton claiming credit for how the economy was turning around. As for me, I consistently score to the left of center in various quizzes designed to determine your place on the spectrum.
Obviously you do not understand the meaning of the word “verbatim.” Look it up. There was nothing about my criticism that hinted at being from the political right. It is hard to fathom the depth of your mistake. You take quizzes to figure out your ideology? Really?
OTOH, there are plenty of people who believe as you do that Presidents have great sway over the performance of the economy, the same kind of people who think that governors do. Nonsense.
The Presidents who have had a meaningful positive impact on the economy include FDR and Obama. Reagan first tanked the economy and then helped turn it around. Clinton’s impact on the economy, as opposed to balancing the budget, was minimal. There is a colossal difference between the two. Clinton’s real impact on the economy was felt in 2007 and 2008 when his financial services deregulation nearly destroyed the economy.
OTOH, there are plenty who have been demonstrably bad, including GWB.
I am glad you take pop tests on where you score on left-right spectrum. Alas, your failure to understand that my criticism of Clinton is from the left, not the right as you claim, well that is just sad beyond words.
I guess this is some new talking point — as if attempting to couch the same groundless accusations “from the left” somehow makes them different from the same accusations the right has been hurling for decades.
Maybe Bill Clinton’s impact on the economy was “minimal” for you — it was not minimal for me. It was not minimal for people who lived all around me in the Merrimack Valley. I guess you don’t remember the unemployment lines winding around the streets of Lowell for blocks during the first Bush administration. I guess you don’t remember the wave of bank crashes that followed the disastrous S&L scandal, and the resulting depression in the Massachusetts housing market. I don’t know where you did your banking then. My family did mine at Shawmut, then Bank of Boston, then Bank of New England, no doubt with some others along the way. They all got gobbled up, on after the other, until the predatory Bank of America was the only one standing. THAT is the reality that Bill Clinton turned around.
You offer up all these impressive theories — at least some of us who lived through the time have very different memories. I don’t care how aggressive you make your comments here, it isn’t going to change the reality of how the economy of Massachusetts changed virtually overnight from 1991 (when the Bank of New England failed) to the early Bill Clinton years.
I don’t care whether you tell us you’re coming from right or coming from the left. You blame the near-collapse of the entire world’s banking system in 2008 on Bill Clinton, ignoring the eight long years of disastrous policy from George W. Bush and his GOP cronies. That is pure nonsense, whichever segment of the political spectrum you claim to come from.
Your relentless attacks on Hillary Clinton are equally damaging, whatever “side” you believe you are coming from.
I do not remember you when I was occasionally helping with political organizing in The Acre in Lowell during the bad days. Nope, I would definitely remember a white guy like you in that economically tough ethnic neighborhood while in my very small role in helping Phil and Jerry. Give me their last names and I will know you are legit. Otherwise you are paddling water.
You are not god. You are not omniscient. The fact that you do not remember me means absolutely nothing, other than revealing an appalling arrogance on your part.
I learned to ignore the taunts of a schoolyard bully sixty years ago, and your petty challenges are no different.
Until you reveal who you are in the real world there is no way for us to know where you were and what you were doing and you aren’t likely to know the same about any of us. I have lived in Greater Lowell basically all my life and can vouch for what Tom in saying for conditions around here. You, sir, have zero credibility, not to mention zero manners and respect.
…and maybe “verbatim” is a bit of a rhetorical flourish, but only a bit. However, I know I heard essentially this argument:
(maybe minus the complaint about cutting social spending) from Dole partisans in 1996.
.
. . .if we start bringing up issues during a political campaign?
The discussion here is about political tactics. How can we obtain the best progressive outcome?
This is not a discussion about freedom of speech, or rights, or any of that other stuff.
So if I can tease it apart, of course, you have the right to raise whatever issue you want — and hooray for free speech. Like somvervilletom, I claim this is a tactically wrong-headed time to raise it.
Really, we don’t need more contributions to the “Crooked Hillary” theme — and that, not a seminar on the the works of Thomas Piketty, is what’s on the national agenda now. So sure, let’s raise the income inequality stuff, but, for God’s sake, we risk electing an authoritarian to the Presidency. That’s really dangerous. And, if we win this election big, retaking the House would be a wonderful win. Even a centrist House of Representatives would be a remarkable improvement over the stinking miasma of regressive stupidity that currently runs it.
Electing someone claiming to be a progressive is indeed, an outcome. Holding them to their word is a direction. Yes, we are at risk of electing an authoritarian to the White House. Let’s let her know now from he start that we will not tolerate that. If we do not speak up now, loudly, and Hillary wins, why would she listen to us later?
not interested
Wall Street? Where’s that again? Oh, right – NEW YORK, the state she served as Senator and were therefore her constituents. The complaint here is one growing louder that the media are playing this like every other race that finds false balance to the point of normalizing white supremacy, whether as an actual belief or a political tactic. If one side claims the earth is round and the other the earth was flat the media should not just say there is a dispute about the earth’s shape. They should report the earth is round and loudly proclaim the flat-earthers are full of it. I’m confident HRC will win too, but I cringe to see Trump polling in the 40s. That means 40%+ of my fellow Americans are willing to vote for a dangerous, unqualified, bigot. If there were any justice in the world Trump would not only be crushed by Clinton, but come in fourth behind Johnson and Stein as well. Maybe he would if the media did their job, but nooooo – they are so afraid of their own shadow when it comes to accusations of liberal bias that they will bend over backward to give Trump a “fair” shake. (end of rant)
And the fact that the media is doing this is makes it look like an unfair attack, but it’s not a right wing attack for a center left voter to be concerned about her troubling associations with Wall Street donors, for profit colleges, and neoconservative policy advisors. I am glad that Sen. Warren, and you’d find no better surrogate for Hillary, has been assertive about preventing these associations for guiding policy in a future Clinton White House.
The point is that the media stance is bullshit, self-serving, and dangerously incorrect. It is not hard for the media to convey just how unsavory David Duke is — they are perfectly able to do the same for Mr. Trump.
I understand that you are no right-winger, and I understand that your criticisms are coming from the left. My point is that such nuance doesn’t matter right now. Relentless and groundless attacks are made every day by the Donald Trump campaign, the GOP, the alt-right universe, and their surrogates, and your commentary supports those attacks whether intentional or not.
I suggest that you are mischaracterizing Ms. Warren’s public statements. Ms. Warren is pursuing a very specific agenda, one that we each support. I’m not familiar with recent statements from Ms. Warren asserting that our nominee has a “toxic relationship with money” or that Trump University cannot be attacked because of contributions from Laureate University.
Here is what Ms. Warren seeks (emphasis mine):
Nothing there about Bill Clinton, nothing there about dirty money, no references to “toxic relationship” — instead we see a very specific and concrete proposal about the makeup of the incoming administration after Ms. Clinton is elected.
I also note the response of the Clinton team, buried near the end of the linked piece:
Ms. Warren is making constructive suggestions, and Ms. Clinton is embracing them. Ms. Clinton is, in fact, doing EXACTLY what we progressives want our nominee and eventual president to do.
I therefore suggest that this is a time to support, not attack, Ms. Clinton.
as a moderate, pro-Wall Street, Democrat who is open to more charter schools, not interested in aggressively fighting to take health insurance away from private corporations….and when she is elected as this person, why on earth would she care to listen to us? We elected her “as is” and why should she change?
Making shit up
(Uprated your comment to balance Fred’s downrate.)
That seems like a thoroughly legitimate concern that I’m hoping the Clinton campaign can get ahead on. It’s not as if those concerns weren’t addressed rather heavily in the Democratic convention. Perhaps more emphasis would help?
Granted, yes, anyone elected to the Presidency in our current environment is going to spend a lot of time with the same people Obama lists. I’d agree too that the laws are tilted as David Cay Johnston documented a few years ago with his book Perfectly Legal. That’s certainly an important point. But dwelling on that now sort of misses the political stakes and our political environment.
The election coverage in the last few weeks has been particularly damaging for Clinton the campaign — and in ways that are predictably unfair. The Clinton Foundation (a charity, not a casino) has gotten all these “suggestions” and “hints” of things wrong. And who knows what deviously naughty thing Mrs. Clinton said at Goldman-Sachs. But none of it, none of it rises to the level of Trump University, Trump’s seminars, Trump’s housing & employment discrimination, Trump’s stiffing contractors (and even his own campaign workers apparently), and Trump’s seamy relationships with organized crime, also documented by that same David Cay Johnston. There’s been this odd equivalence between the “maybe something’s amiss here” coverage of the Clinton and the outright unethical, likely illegal behavior of Trump.
And you know, someone like Bill Clinton was uniquely placed to run a charity like that. Charities like that need a lot of money. There are a lot of people with AIDS. So, I suppose the Clintons could have sat on their hands — or stayed home baking cookies. There’d be nothing complicated but good for them, they did some actual good in the world. It seems sort of appalling that manufactured suspicion has again overwhelmed them.
..because “the money HAS to come from somewhere”…once we agree to this, we’ve lost. As Senator Sanders has demonstrated, the money can come from somewhere else, unadulterated, and had the party leaders not conspired against him (because they are cowards), he would have had an honest chance.
In short, once you concede that honesty and principles do not matter because you believe that honesty and principles will never, ever win over massive wealth, we’ve lost.
25 grand to drop an investigation? (Allegedly.)
If I lived in Florida I’d be offended.
Trump came on the political scene by getting more free media than any candidate—ever. The guy just called into TV shows, they put him on the air, they would ask him one question, he’d get diarrhea of the mouth, and he’d hang up. Billions of dollars in free media, afforded no other candidate. And, BTW, if other candidates tried that the TV shows told them “show up in person for a real interview.” But not Trump. The media didn’t apply the normal rules to him. Now, he’s getting a free pass on: investigations and fines from the FTC, FEC, SEC, IRS; his tax returns; his IRS audits; the suit against Trump University; birtherism; racism; misogyny, and the list goes on-and-on. I wanted to throw-up last night when Matt Lauer completely failed to follow-up on (probably) half-a-dozen bizarre, know-nothing remarks from Trump about demoting/removing generals, saying nice things about Putin because Putin says nice things about Trump (holy &^%$#^& narcissism), his great success in Mexico, the body language of intelligence briefers, etc. On flip side, Lauer spent nearly half his time with Sec. Clinton on emails, and Iraq, instead of what was supposed to be the topic of the day. And, for days, the media has been conflating the Clinton Foundation with Trump’s Biondi bribe. There’s no comparison between the two, yet the media acts like the conduct is comparable. When will the media drill down on his positions, make him answer a question, call him to task when he can’t, and point out the complete and utter failings of the Republican party’s nominee for president?