Hillary Clinton has " become part of the oligarchy that is destroying American democracy."

[imagine2015]

Oligarchy definition, a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few



May 02, 2016
Keeping Wall Street Speeches Secret Speaks Volumes About Hillary Clinton
by Bill Blum

It’s been roughly three months since Hillary Clinton promised, during her Feb. 4 debate with Bernie Sanders on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, to “look into” releasing the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street investment houses.

It may indeed be too late for accountability or, for that matter, to derail Clinton’s march to the Democratic nomination. But it’s never too late to tell the truth. The fact is that instead of producing the transcripts, Clinton and her surrogates have unleashed a cascade of excuses, obfuscations, false equivalents and evasions to justify her intransigence.

To date, the Clinton camp has failed to put forward a single convincing defense of its refusal to release the Wall Street speeches, much less of the wisdom of delivering the speeches in the first place.

But of all the excuses Clinton and her acolytes have concocted, none approaches her “quid pro quo” contention for sheer chutzpah and duplicity. The stunted idea that the only form of political corruption lies in outright quid-pro-quo bribery—campaign contributions in exchange for votes or executive actions—lies at the heart of the Supreme Court’s infamous 2010 Citizens United decision, which gutted existing campaign finance law and paved the way for the corrosive emergence of super PACs.

In reality, of course, political corruption extends beyond the crass exchange of money for votes and favors. It embraces, as Harvard Law School professor and erstwhile presidential hopeful Lawrence Lessig has instructed, “an economy of influence that leads any sane soul to the fair belief that private influence has affected public policy.”

Even if there is no smoking quid-pro-quo gun in Hillary’s history, there is plenty to suggest Lessig’s economy of influence. From her lackluster record in the Senate as an advocate of the poor and middle class to her intervention in 2009 as secretary of state to stave off criminal prosecution of the Swiss banking giant UBS, the fundraising shenanigans of her family foundation that has netted $2 billion in donations from American corporations and foreign governments, and the millions raised by her super PACs in the current election cycle, Clinton has fostered the widespread perception that she’s become part of the oligarchy that is destroying American democracy.

Producing the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches could transform that perception into certainty. It’s easy to understand, therefore, why Clinton is stalling on her look-into-it promise.

Read the full article at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/02/keeping-wall-street-speeches-secret-speaks-volumes-about-hillary-clinton

http://iwilllookintoit.com/

Hillary Clinton’s Speaking Fees 2013-2015

DATE EVENT LOCATION FEE

March 19, 2015 American Camping Association (J-1 Visa Program) Atlantic City, NJ $260,000.00
March 11, 2015 eBay Inc. San Jose, CA $315,000.00
February 24, 2015 Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women Santa Clara, CA $225,500.00
January 22, 2015 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (Keystone Pipeline) Whistler, Canada $150,000.00
January 21, 2015 tinePublic Inc. (Keystone Pipeline) Winnipeg, Canada $262,000.00
January 21, 2015 tinePublic Inc. (Keystone Pipeline) Saskatoon, Canada $262,500.00
December 4, 2014 Massachusetts Conference for Women Boston, MA $205,500.00
October 14, 2014 Salesforce.com San Francisco, CA $225,500.00
October 14, 2014 Qualcomm Incorporated San Diego, CA $335,000.00
October 13, 2014 Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers Colorado Springs, CO $225,500.00
October 8, 2014 Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) Chicago, IL $265,000.00
October 7, 2014 Deutsche Bank AG New York, NY $280,000.00
October 6, 2014 Canada 2020 (Keystone Pipeline) Ottawa, Canada $215,500.00
October 2, 2014 Commercial Real Estate Women Network Miami Beach, FL $225,500.00
September 15, 2014 Cardiovascular Research Foundation Washington, DC $275,000.00
September 4, 2014 Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, LLP San Diego, CA $225,500.00
August 28, 2014 Nexenta System, Inc. San Francisco, CA $300,000.00
August 28, 2014 Cisco Las Vegas, NV $325,000.00
July 29, 2014 Corning, Inc. Corning, NY $225,500.00
July 26, 2014 Ameriprise Boston, MA $225,500.00
July 22, 2014 Knewton, Inc. San Francisco, CA $225,500.00
June 26, 2014 GTCR Chicago, IL $280,000.00
June 25, 2014 Biotechnology Industry Organization San Diego, CA $335,000.00
June 25, 2014 Innovation Arts and Entertainment San Francisco, CA $150,000.00
June 20, 2014 Innovation Arts and Entertainment Austin, TX $150,000.00
June 18, 2014 tinePublic Inc. (Keystone Pipeline) Toronto, Canada $150,000.00
June 18, 2014 tinePublic Inc. (Keystone Pipeline) Edmonton, Canada $100,000.00
June 10, 2014 United Fresh Produce Association Chicago, IL $225,000.00
June 2, 2014 International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association Denver, CO $225,500.00
June 2, 2014 Let's Talk Entertainment Denver, CO $265,000.00
May 6, 2014 National Council for Behavorial Healthcare Washington, DC $225,500.00
April 11, 2014 California Medical Association (via Satellite) San Diego, CA $100,000.00
April 10, 2014 Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. Las Vegas, NV $225,500.00
April 10, 2014 Let's Talk Entertainment San Jose, CA $265,000.00
April 8, 2014 Marketo, Inc. San Francisco, CA $225,500.00
April 8, 2014 World Affairs Council Portland, OR $250,500.00
March 24, 2014 Academic Partnerships Dallas, TX $225,500.00
March 18, 2014 Xerox Corporation New York, NY $225,000.00
March 18, 2014 Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal (Keystone Pipeline) Montreal, Canada $275,000.00
March 13, 2014 Pharmaceutical Care Management Association Orlando, FL $225,500.00
March 13, 2014 Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies New York, NY $250,000.00
March 6, 2014 tinePublic Inc. (Keystone Pipeline) Calgary, Canada $225,500.00
March 5, 2014 The Vancouver Board of Trade (Keystone Pipeline) Vancouver, Canada $275,500.00
March 4, 2014 Association of Corporate Counsel - Southern California Los Angeles, CA $225,500.00
February 27, 2014 A&E Television Networks New York, NY $280,000.00
February 26, 2014 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Orlando, FL $225,500.00
February 17, 2014 Novo Nordisk A/S Mexico City, Mexico $125,000.00
February 6, 2014 Salesforce.com Las Vegas, NV $225,500.00
January 27, 2014 National Automobile Dealers Association New Orleans, LA $325,500.00
January 27, 2014 Premier Health Alliance Miami, FL $225,500.00
January 6, 2014 GE Boca Raton, FL $225,500.00
November 21, 2013 U.S. Green Building Council Philadelphia, PA $225,000.00
November 18, 2013 CME Group Naples, FL $225,000.00
November 18, 2013 Press Ganey Orlando, FL $225,000.00
November 14, 2013 CB Richard Ellis, Inc. New York, NY $250,000.00
November 13, 2013 Mediacorp Canada, Inc. Toronto, Canada $225,000.00
November 9, 2013 National Association of Realtors San Francisco, CA $225,000.00
November 7, 2013 Golden Tree Asset Management New York, NY $275,000.00
November 6, 2013 Beaumont Health System Troy, MI $305,000.00
November 4, 2013 Mase Productions, Inc. Orlando, FL $225,000.00
November 4, 2013 London Drugs, Ltd. Mississauga, ON $225,000.00
October 29, 2013 The Goldman Sachs Group Tuscon, AZ $225,000.00
October 28, 2013 Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago Chicago, IL $400,000.00
October 27, 2013 Beth El Synagogue Minneapolis, MN $225,000.00
October 24, 2013 Accenture New York, NY $225,000.00
October 24, 2013 The Goldman Sachs Group New York, NY $225,000.00
October 23, 2013 SAP Global Marketing, Inc. New York, NY $225,000.00
October 15, 2013 National Association of Convenience Stores Atlanta, GA $265,000.00
October 4, 2013 Long Island Association Long Island, NY $225,000.00
September 19, 2013 American Society of Travel Agents, Inc. Miami, FL $225,000.00
September 18, 2013 American Society for Clinical Pathology Chicago, IL $225,000.00
August 12, 2013 National Association of Chain Drug Stores Las Vegas, NV $225,000.00
August 7, 2013 Global Business Travel Association San Diego, CA $225,000.00
July 11, 2013 UBS Wealth Management New York, NY $225,000.00
June 24, 2013 American Jewish University University City, CA $225,000.00
June 24, 2013 Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Company, LP Palos Verdes, CA $225,000.00
June 20, 2013 Boston Consulting Group, Inc. Boston, MA $225,000.00
June 20, 2013 Let's Talk Entertainment, Inc. Toronto, Canada $250,000.00
June 17, 2013 Economic Club of Grand Rapids Grand Rapids, MI $225,000.00
June 16, 2013 Society for Human Resource Management Chicago, IL $285,000.00
June 6, 2013 Spencer Stuart New York, NY $225,000.00
June 4, 2013 The Goldman Sachs Group Palmetto Bluffs, SC $225,000.00
May 29, 2013 Sanford C. Bernstein and Co., LLC New York, NY $225,000.00
May 21, 2013 Verizon Communications, Inc. Washington, DC $225,000.00
May 16, 2013 Itau BBA USA Securities New York, NY $225,000.00
May 14, 2013 Apollo Management Holdings, LP New York, NY $225,000.00
May 8, 2013 Gap, Inc. San Francisco, CA $225,000.00
April 30, 2013 Fidelity Investments Naples, FL $225,000.00
April 24, 2013 Deutsche Bank Washington, DC $225,000.00
April 24, 2013 National Multi Housing Council Dallas, TX $225,000.00
April 18, 2013 Morgan Stanley Washington, DC $225,000.00

[mooseprime]

1. well that may all be true

but she TOLD us she's not influenced, so there.

[Thinkingabout]

4. Like influenced by NRA, oh yes Sanders knows about this one.

Still waiting on Sanders example of Hillary being influenced, looks like it is Sanders who is influenced.

[imagine2015]

6. Great point! Hillary is clearly not influenced in the least by money. She's a public servant!

[Thinkingabout]

16. Where has she been influenced by Goldman Sachs?

[Hortensis]

23. Nowhere, of course. You guys really need to pull

yourselves together. This trashing of our candidate has gotten way, way, way out of hand. Look behind you -- all lines were crossed way back there some place.

What are you doing?

[Thinkingabout]

29. We continue to see OP's with the same talking points.

[Hortensis]

30. LOOK AROUND you.

What are you doing associating with the worst of these people, empowering them? It's not about talking points for them.

[Ferd Berfel]

10. Yea Bernie's D- means he's getting Clinton level $$ from the NRA?

[Thinkingabout]

15. As compared to a F rating for Hillary, he got this by voting the NRA way, yes clearly by the rating

given by the NRA he has been influenced. Thanks for the rating information.

[MisterP]

12. and her followers really, really don't want her to, so she won't check and mate

[Buzz Clik]

2. That's the first time I've seen that list...

... this week.

Thanks.

[COLGATE4]

28. I really want the transcripts

from her speech to the American Camping Association! Who knows what she promised them and what dastardly influence they will have on her when she's elected?

[Thinkingabout]

3. With Hillary getting over three million more votes than Sanders it appears the oligarchy is being

attempted by Sanders, as per your posted definition

Oligarchy definition, a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few

Sanders is trying to dominate the rest of us, why try to put this on the candidate who has the larger numbers.

[imagine2015]

7. Hillary "the candidate who has the larger numbers." She certainly does have larger numbers.

From corporate and Wall Street donors!

Her benefactors!

If Hillary captures the nomination her vote totals will be much smaller than Trump's.

That's the unfortunate truth.

Please get off the Titanic and go with a winner .... Bernie!

Why Hillary thinks she can win without the 42% of independent voters who want stand her but love Bernie.

She has a ton of baggage that the Republican candidate will exploit to the maximum. She hasn't even seen what a Trump attack machine will throw at her. All the stuff thrown at her in the past pales in comparison to what's coming down the road if she's the candidate.

The gloves will come off and she won't be able to handle it.

[Schema Thing]

8. why are you openly advocating for Oligarchy?

[Thinkingabout]

37. Seems like this is one of Sanders talking points, since he says this so often and

From some of the post here I do not doubt Sanders is pushing for oligarchy especially when he says Hillary has to have required delegates with the pledged delegates or he is going to contest the convention. This is a wonderful example of oligarchy, a few in control.

[insta8er]

34. Wow, I mean...wow...There is no hope anymore, did you come up with that one by yourself?

I don't think I want to give your comment anymore legitimacy by trying to explain what it is that is so fundamentally flawed in your reasoning. But all I can say is wow, we are actually moving backwards now.

[snot]

5. K&R'd & bookmarked.

Speculation about the 1%'s secret motto:

"If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em."

(If you can't buy 'em, well . . . . )

[2cannan]

20. Blackmail 'em. nt

[Tarc]

9. Once again, sanders people hate money

Especially when it is someone else's.

[Ferd Berfel]

11. Spoken like a Republican

Simple and off track

Well done

[Tarc]

14. Sometimes when you're so far left, everyone else looks like they're far right

[Ferd Berfel]

17. I guess for some missing the point is a MO

OK so I have to spell it out - again

No one cares about the money - it's what was said that most of us are interested in.

Fell free to change the subject again

[Live and Learn]

19. For some people, everything is about money and they have infiltrated the party. Sad but true. nt

[Hortensis]

26. Strangely, Bernie may be temporarily protecting America

from the rise of extreme-left antisemitism coupled with anti-capitalism that is happening in Britain and other western countries. Anti-money/anti-capitalism sentiment is burning bright on the far left here also, but the ancient bigotry of Jews as the very emblem of greed is not.

From an article about left-wing antisemitism in present-day British politics, The return of left-wing anti-Semitism,

Many commentators seem surprised, having evidently associated anti-Semitism with the far Right. They should read their history. The man who invented the word "socialist" was an anti-Semite: Pierre Leroux, a 19th-century French radical, told his comrades, "When we speak of the Jews, we mean the Jewish spirit — the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, of speculation; in a word, the banker's spirit."

Conversely, the man who coined the term "anti-Semitism" was a leftist. "Anti-Semitism is a socialist movement," declared Wilhelm Marr, "only nobler and purer in form than social democracy".

"How, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-Semite?" Adolf Hitler asked his party members in 1920. No one thought it an odd question. Anti-Semitism was by then widely understood to be part of the broader revolutionary movement against markets, property and capital."

In Europe it's deja vu all over again, at least in peripheral vision. But not here. In America capitalists are rightly blamed for the excesses of capitalism.

(And, of course, Hillary. Good god--could she be the American substitute for anti-semitism? On top of everything else?)

[Live and Learn]

32. Rubbish. nt

[Hortensis]

33. Just look at the title of this thread, Hillary = Oligarch.

"Oligarch" these days stands for unbridled greed, money-hungry corrupt bankers, economic exploitation -- really all we despise in the very wealthy who are victimizing America.

If this isn't demonizing her and blaming her for crimes others committed, typically the first necessary steps to create a "justification" for vicious attacks on another person or people, what is?

[AgingAmerican]

36. Oligarch is a member of the moneyed ruling elite

Oligarchs buy elections, etc. They USED to be GOP.

Hitler was a 'socialist'? That is a standard Rush Limbaugh rant.

Hillary supporters now openly embrace extremist right wing ideology.

[AgingAmerican]

35. Someone has been listening to Rush Limbaugh

[Ferd Berfel]

13. So...WHAT the hell is she afraid of?

[Live and Learn]

18. K&R nt

[matt819]

21. It's a start

Now take a look at contributions to the Clinton Foundation over the same period, and then go to the time when she was SoS and see actions taken with respect to those she spoke to.

The Clintons are as much grifters as the Palins, just leagues smarter and more presentable in certain circles.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

22. Cut it out!

[CharlotteVale]

24. K&R

[NorthCarolina]

25. "Has become"?

She and her husband helped build the corrupt system of graft that poses as our government. I think it's safe to say she's pretty much always been that way.

[FlatBaroque]

27. That list makes me very angry,

[pdsimdars]

31. Important data . . .K & R