2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Clinton Files: Those White House Coffee Klatsches
or "More things for her supporters to be proud of"
First came the lobbyists, but they were not bought....
First, some sociology on the attendees. By far the most heavily represented group were the Washington lobbyists, arriving in a familiar torrent of names: Patton, Boggs, and Blow, the most influential firm on the Hill; Skadden, Arp, the Republican lobby-shop; the PR house of Hill & Knowlton; Mickey Kantor’s old firm, Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips; and Davis, Polk and Wardwell, the law offices of Robert Fiske, the first special prosecutor in the Whitewater scandal.
Chasing close on the lobbyists’ heels were the bankers, bond traders, and mutual fund operators, including executives from Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and Chase Manhattan. One intriguing session, which seems particularly ripe for the scrutiny of a special prosecutor, occurred on May 13, 1996, between the top 16 bankers in the country, the President of the United States, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Secretary of the Treasury.
Third in frequency was the telecommunications sector, headlined by what must have been a tense session with Sumner Redstone, who owns the controlling interest in cable giant Viacom, and the company’s CEO, Frank Biondi, who Redstone fired soon thereafter. Also making an appearance were executives from Time/Warner, Disney, Knight-Ridder, Miramax and the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page pounds out a daily anti-Clinton drumbeat. Remember that in this period the largest “reform” of telecommunications since 1932 was in progress, with billions at stake. Telecommunications companies wired the Democratic Party with nearly $20 million.
Next came the health care and insurance lobbies, which were keen on killing any new initiative for a national health care system. The most frequent insurance company sipping coffee with the president was Travelers Group, whose executives attended no less than seven White House klatsches, one of them ennobled by the attendance of Travelers’ CEO Sanford Weill, at $50 million a year the highest paid corporate executive in 1995. Weill made clear his position on product liability lawsuits: He wants them limited. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/the-clinton-files-those-white-house-coffee-klatsches/
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ViseGrip
(3,133 posts)Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By Timothy P. Carney (@TPCarney) • 11/20/08 12:00 AM
Goldman Sachs always has clout in Washington, as evidenced by the firm’s alumni serving as Treasury secretaries under both Presidents Bush and Clinton. Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman can leverage its most valuable asset yet—incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Goldman Sachs is the giant of Wall Street, and more than any other investment bank, Goldman is surviving the current financial storm. Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had some particularly strong allies within government. Emanuel is one such ally.
An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.
At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny.
Corporations and partnerships are and were at the time prohibited by law from contributing to federal candidates out of the corporate coffers. So, while Rahm tapped Goldman employees personally for six figures in gifts to Clinton’s candidacy—more than any other firm—Goldman, as a company, was helping keep Clinton’s top fundraiser well-fed.
When you look at the explanations Goldman and Emanuel gave for Emanuel’s employment—he was advising on “local political races” or “introduc[ing] us to people”—it’s easy to suspect that Goldman was using firm money to fund the Clinton campaign by paying the campaign’s top fundraiser for nebulous “consulting” work—all while the campaign was in debt and delaying paychecks to campaign staff.
You can run a campaign on the cheap if you can get big corporations to pay some of your staff’s salary for you. This isn’t a far-fetched theory, especially considering the slew of fundraising irregularities the Federal Election Commission noted in Emanuel’s fundraising efforts for Clinton.
A Washington Post article from the era reports that FEC auditors “found that nine companies or individuals, including Goldman Sachs & Co.—where Clinton fund-raisers and officials Robert E. Rubin and Kenneth D. Brody worked … were paid $246,162 by the primary committee for work at discounted rates. Normally, companies have to charge campaigns the same rates they would other customers.”
So, Goldman may have been funneling money to Clinton’s campaign through the back door (Emanuel’s retainer and those discounts the FEC noted), and the front door. By March of 1992, the heart of that dramatic primary season, Goldman partners had sent $54,000 to the Clinton campaign.
They would contribute another $50,000, making the firm the top source of funds for Clinton’s election, and contemporaneous media credit Emanuel, together with Robert Rubin, with this tight relationship.
In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman?
The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.
Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.
Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?
The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.
Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes. And don’t be surprised Goldman soon sitting pretty once again.
Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney is editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report. His Examiner column appears on Fridays.
It's from here in case you want to check the story:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/goldman-sachs-will-be-sitting-pretty-with-emanuel-in-the-obama-white-house/article/37832
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)validated every reservation I had about BHO to that point.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)From a right wing rag and right wing writer. Why are you posting right wing shit here?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/timothy-p.-carney
jeff47
(26,549 posts)ESKD
(57 posts)Thank you, jeff47
840high
(17,196 posts)
Autumn
(45,058 posts)
Baitball Blogger
(46,700 posts)You are violating copyright laws.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)The use of right wing talking points is ridiculous here on Democratic Underground.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)You should look up the word hypocrisy. It suits you.
Go post that at the Clinton Cave where you hang out. They'd love it there. Or is that where you got it from?
.
ViseGrip
(3,133 posts)From another DU thread, and I believe while non related, it's a lot of stink that sticks!
********************************************************************
Rahm's troubles ripple toward Obama, Clinton
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/rahm-obama-clinton-troubles-216401
Republicans want to make the Chicago mayor's woes a political liability for his former bosses.
By Sarah Wheaton
12/03/15 06:18 PM EST
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s struggles are reverberating in Washington, where he’s causing headaches for his most powerful of close friends and former bosses, the Obamas and the Clintons.
Republicans are eager to make Emanuel — who worked in both the most recent Democratic administrations — a political liability for President Barack Obama and the campaign of Hillary Clinton, both of whom have resisted calling for his resignation over the handling of a video showing a police officer shooting a retreating black teenager. And even among the president’s allies, the famously profane Emanuel is a polarizing figure after playing a key role in the tough-on-crime legislation of the mid-1990s that Obama has made his mission to undo.
A top GOP strategist predicted that Emanuel would become a “massive liability” for Hillary Clinton.
“At some point, she’s going to have to come out — I think the pressure’s going to build on her — on where she stands on her longtime family adviser,” the strategist said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel
From wiki, Rahm is more than just an associate of the Clintons, he has been a deep part of their political career:
Working early in his career in Democratic politics, Emanuel was appointed as director of the finance committee for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. In 1993, he joined the Clinton administration, where he served as the Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and as the Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy before resigning in 1998.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-05/clinton-voices-confidence-in-rahm-emanuel-as-chicago-mayor
Clinton Voices Confidence in Rahm Emanuel as Chicago Mayor
In Iowa, the Democratic front-runner also called for a deeper look into the nation's visa waiver program following the shootings in San Bernardino.
Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said she still has confidence in the embattled mayor of the city where she was born: Rahm Emanuel of Chicago.
"I do," Clinton told reporters Friday evening in Fort Dodge, Iowa. "He loves Chicago and I'm confident that he's going to do everything he can to get to the bottom of these issues and take whatever measures are necessary to remedy them."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/04/sanders-no-elected-official-should-be-shielded-in-wake-of-chicago-shooting/
Sanders: No elected official should be ‘shielded’ in wake of Chicago shooting
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders added his voice Friday to those calling for a federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department — including his party’s front-runner, Hillary Clinton — but took it a step further.
Amid calls for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down, Sanders also urged the resignation of “any elected official” who knew that a recording was improperly withheld in the high-profile case there of a black teenager fatally shot by a white police officer.
“No one should be shielded by power or position,” Sanders, a Vermont senator, said in a statement about the case of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald that has roiled the city.
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Well this is a sad and unfortunate turn of events. I wonder if Rahm will be forced to resign. It's too bad we live in such a corrupt world. I can't imagine this will be good for the Democratic Party if Rahm has culpability in hiding the tapes. It seems like a criminal act if you ask me. Murder, on tape, hidden for over a year.
I was in Chicago on Michigan Avenue on the Black Friday after Thanksgiving. There is a lot of rage toward Rahm. A hell of a lot. They were calling for his resignation at the protests. People marching in the streets, linking arms to deter shopping on Michigan Avenue, and giving speeches. 16 shots.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)And now it's 25 year old recycled bullshit. Cockburn was the epitome of a "Loony leftist" and an avowed Marxist. He was also a pro gunner and the first to suggest that giving hall monitors guns in schools would be a solution to mass shootings in schools.
In short, he was a nut.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)First you gripe about "right wing" sources, and then "loony leftist" sources.
I guess in your mind the only acceptable purveyors of information is the Conventional Wisdom of the small number of centrist mainstream media...Oh wait, I guess they are unacceptable too if they dare to criticize Clinton or say something nice about Sanders.
Far easier to shoot the messenger than actually discuss the subjects at hand, I guess.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with Bernie's supporters, IMO. They are attracted to extremists of all ilk. And they want to attack the Democratic party and actual Democrats for not following their lead.
What they cannot seem to accept is that most rank and file Democrats are not extremists. And thank goodness. We have enough of those in this country already.
ESKD
(57 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)MaggieD
(7,393 posts)I don't notice any of you complaining about it here in this thread, so it must be okay, right?
ESKD
(57 posts)If you are quoting it as a right-wing source, then I'm not bothering to read it. Yet, you want ME to read a ultra-right wing teabagger website targeting progressives? Especially when the breakdown sounds about right for campaign work payment schedule, and it's already public information.
R B Garr
(16,950 posts)Juxtaposing is also not understood. Either that or the confusion is just to get posts hidden.
MineralMan
(146,287 posts)I though he couldn't by law.
I wonder who cares about this stuff from the 90s? More old oppo research hauled into view again, it looks like to me.
leftofcool
(19,460 posts)
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)I can't wait until Big Dog is right back in the Whitehouse because his wife was elected POTUS. it will piss off all the right people.
