RiverLover
RiverLover's JournalLet's Face It, Our Presidential Candidates Are Hucksters
March 28, 2016
Let's Face It, Our Presidential Candidates Are Hucksters
Here is Bill Clinton, the U.S. President who served Wall Street by removing all regulations on derivatives-trading and by ending FDR’s Glass-Steagall Act separation of investment-banking from consumer-banking, now telling an audience, that his successor George W. Bush had done this, and that Bush’s successor Barack Obama has unfortunately continued it. He said this on March 21st when explaining why everyone should vote for his wife to undo the ”awful” and “trickle-down” legacy of George W. Bush and Barack Obama:
"If you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her because she’s the only person who basically had good ideas, will tell you how she’s going to pay for them, can be commander in chief, and is a proven change maker with Republicans and Democrats and independents alike.”
...The truth is that just before Bill Clinton ended his Presidency he gave Wall Street exactly what it wanted: the ability to gamble with FDIC-insured money, so that Wall Street would be bailed out by taxpayers if their gamblers stopped gambling (‘investing’) and the financial system consequently froze up — which happened in 2008. George W. Bush didn’t make that change, Clinton did. ...snip...
Here is Donald Trump, pandering to the far-right, ethnocentric-Jewish, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), who hate Palestinians and Iran, telling these racist ethnocentric Jews why they should support Trump for President — and opening by telling his suckers that he’s not going to “pander to” them...
Read in full~
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/lets-face-it-our-presidential-candidates-are-hucksters
This article should be titled "Let's Face It, Our Presidential FRONTRUNNERS Are Hucksters" because it only discusses Trump & Clinton.
Bernie is so popular because his progressive stances supporting the People are genuine. This article unfortunately doesn't cover that.
Hope you have a strong stomach, but here's the thread~
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1576747Its the worst exchange of insane & divisive bullsh*t I've ever read.
Life is too short for this dark, nasty, manipulative place. Bad energy.
"Hillary Clinton's Ghosts: A Legacy of Pushing the Democratic Party to the Right"
......enormous snip.....didn't want to....
......More importantly, Clinton adopted the DLC strategy in the way she governed. She tried to portray herself as a crusader for family values when she introduced legislation to ban violent video games and flag burning in 2005. She also adopted the DLC's hawkish military stance. The DLC was feverishly in favor of Bush's "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. Will Marshall, one of the group's founders, was a signatory of many of the now infamous documents from the Project for the New American Century, which urged the United States to radically increase its use of force in Iraq and beyond.
The DLC led efforts to take down Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq as an example of his weakness. Two years later, the organization played a similar role against Ned Lamont's antiwar challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman, which the DLC decried as "The Return of Liberal Fundamentalism."
However, the DLC's influence eventually waned. A formal affiliation with the organization became something of a deal breaker for some progressive voters. When Barack Obama first ran for the Senate in 2004, he had no affiliation with the DLC. So, when they wrongly included him in their directory of New Democrats, he asked the DLC to remove his name. In explaining this, he also publicly shunned the organization in an interview with Black Commentator. "You are undoubtedly correct that these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC," he wrote when pressed by the magazine. "That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC."
The DLC's decline continued: A growing sense of discontent among progressives, Clinton's loss in 2008 and the economic crisis that followed turned the DLC into something of a political liability. And in 2011, the Democratic Leadership Council shuttered its doors.
When the DLC closed, it records were acquired by the Clinton Foundation, which DLC founder Al From called an "appropriate and fitting repository." To this day, the Clinton Foundation continues to promote the work of the DLC's founding members. In September 2015, the foundation hosted an event to promote From's book The New Democrats and the Return to Power. Amazingly, O'Malley provided a favorable blurb for the book, praising it as a "reminder of the core principles that still drive Democratic success today."
The 2016 Election and New Democrats
The DLC's demise was seen as a victory by many progressives, and the populist tone of the 2016 primary is being celebrated as a sign of rising progressivism as well. But it is probably too soon to declare that the "battle for the soul of the Democratic Party is coming to an end," as Adam Green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, recently told the Guardian.
Consider the way Marshall spun the closing of the DLC. "With President Obama consciously reconstructing a winning coalition by reconnecting with the progressive center, the pragmatic ideas of PPI and other organizations are more vital than ever," he said in an interview with Politico.
His reference to "PPI and other organizations" refers to the still-existing Progressive Policy Institute and Third Way. These institutions have the same Wall Street support and continue to push the same agenda that their predecessor did.
Many of these "centrist" ideas lack popular support these days. But New Democrats were never really about popular support; they were about bringing together big business and the Democrats. The group's board of trustees is almost entirely made up of Wall Street executives. Further, in the aftermath of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, these same moneyed interests have more influence over the political process than ever before.
"These organizations now are basically just corporate lobbyists today," Schmitt said.
So while the DLC may be a dirty word among many progressives, this didn't stop Obama from appointing New Democrats to key posts in his White House.
The same Bill Daley who works for a hedge fund and is on the board of trustees for Third Way was also President Obama's White House chief of staff. And, as was noted above, he is now actively trying to influence the Democratic Party's direction in the 2016 election.
...........snip.......
PLEASE read in full. We as a Party need to WAKE UP~
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33869-hillary-clinton-s-ghosts-a-legacy-of-pushing-the-democratic-party-to-the-right
....& FYI, anonymous corporate donors give the Third Way think tank $9 billion A YEAR to work their republican magic on the Democratic Party.
Please see~
The Democratic think tank Third Way relies on money from corporate interests, lobbyists and Republican donors.
http://www.thenation.com/article/gop-donors-and-k-street-fuel-third-ways-advice-democratic-party/
Why would you trust someone who's been a republican her whole life
D
I
N
O
And then, with her powerfully charismatic and equally deceptive husband, has led the party into becoming a mere corporate shell shadowing the GOP.
???
What would FDR think?
Maybe close to Elizabeth Warren as she is genuinely, today,
Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You
Assistant Professor of English at University of New Hampshire
Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You
03/23/2016 09:33 am ET
Nobody cares how well a politician does at the ballot box when he or she is running for an office unopposed. What matters is how a politician performs in contested primaries and general elections, as when it really matters — like it will, for instance, this November — you can be certain of a contested election.
With that said, let’s make an important observation: Bernie Sanders has tied or beaten Hillary Clinton in a majority of the actively contested votes this election season.
You doubt it? Okay, let me explain.
Bernie Sanders has terrible name recognition in states where he hasn’t advertised or campaigned yet; meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has universal name recognition everywhere. Realizing this, the Clinton camp pushed hard to rack up the early vote in every state where early voting was an option. They did this not primarily for the reason we’ve been told — because Clinton performs well among older voters, and older voters are more likely to vote early than other age demographics — but rather because they knew that early votes are almost always cast before the election season actually begins in a given state.
That’s right — in each state, most of the early primary voting occurs before the candidates have aired any commercials or held any campaign events. For Bernie Sanders, this means that early voting happens, pretty much everywhere, before anyone knows who he is. Certainly, early voting occurs in each state before voters have developed a sufficient level of familiarity and comfort with Sanders to vote for him.
But on Election Day — among voters who’ve been present and attentive for each candidate’s commercials, local news coverage, and live events — Sanders tends to tie or beat Clinton.
In fact, that’s the real reason Sanders does well in caucuses.
It’s not because caucuses “require a real time investment,” as the media likes to euphemistically say, but because caucuses require that you vote on Election Day rather than well before it.
Consider: in North Carolina, Hillary Clinton only won Election Day voting 52% to 48%. Given the shenanigans in evidence during the live voting there — thousands of college students were turned away from the polls due to insufficient identification under a new voter-suppression statute in the state — it wouldn’t be unfair to call that 4-point race more like a 2-point one (51% to 49% for Clinton).
Consider: on Super Tuesday 3, because early voting is always reported first, Clinton’s margins of victory were originally believed to be 25 points in Missouri, 30 points in Illinois, and 30 points in Ohio. Missouri, which doesn’t have conventional early voting, ended up a tie. Illinois ended up with a 1.8% margin for Clinton (after being a 42-point race in Clinton’s favor just a week earlier) and Ohio a 13.8% margin.
Any one of us could do the math there. And yet the media never did.
Consider: in Arizona yesterday, the election was called almost immediately by the media, with Clinton appearing to “win” the state by a margin of 61.5% to 36.1%. Of course, this was all early voting. CNN even wrongly reported that these early votes constituted the live vote in 41% of all Arizona precincts........
Read the rest, there is MUCH more covered to prove the point~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/sanders-currently-winning-democratic-primary-race-ill-prove-to-you_b_9528076.html
********
.......editing to add an important point~
The fact that early voting statutes and media reporting of elections in America favors the maintenance of the illusion that Hillary remains popular when voters become familiar with other credible options does not excuse ignorance of the reality; certainly, it won’t help Democrats in November............
I don't know, Cajun. When you push me aside as "very liberal" & "13%", does that mean believing
in regulating industry to protect people is very liberal? Like Banks and fossil fuel cos?
Believing in fighting for the right to form unions so workers aren't abused is too liberal?
Believing prisons for profit is astoundingly immoral, too liberal?
Wanting Made in the USA to not be a thing of the past, liberal?
Wanting Moneyed Interests to not run our govt "representatives" and considering this outright corruption? Too liberal?
Wanting public schools to have the support & the funds to educate children effectively? Not wanting people to profit off of that?
Wanting college to be affordable like it was when I put myself through?
Not wanting corps like GE & Verizon to go YEARS without paying taxes?
Not wanting endless war so that corps can profit & thousands of good innocent people die? Too liberal?
Wanting fracking to be regulated with oversight to ensure safety & to fight for ending the unDemocratic banning of local fracking bans which people voted on?
Not wanting water privatized? This is liberal?
13% far left? Really?
These are Democratic principles. They aren't that far left. And having the most corrupt candidate (the most purchased politician) in my lifetime run & having the entire party elite go to striking pains to ensure her nomination completely stinks to me. Is that too liberal? Wanting the corrupt purchase of our party to not pay off by leaving us with a corrupt republican DINO in office?
To want the Democratic Party to BE Democratic is too liberal? Too far left?
Then maybe the party has left me.
If only FDR's Democratic Party hadn't been taken over by those w republican principles,
then voting for the Democrat would actually mean voting for Progressive Principles & not the conservative deregulating food stamp cutting fracking off shoring corporate welfare crap we have now.
Clearly, with centrist corporate-bought Hillary's anointment, we can see we're losing this struggle to the Third Way "Democrats"~
Third Way in struggle for the Democratic Party’s soul
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/10/06/struggle-for-soul-democratic-party-pits-wall-street-backed-think-tank-against-elizabeth-warren/pYk3SXRnZDmpi7C7N4ZpXN/story.html
^^^ This, the entire article, should be required reading for everyone who genuinely considers themselves Democratic. $9 billion annually donated by undisclosed corporations. Hillary is their candidate. Think about it.
But Clinton2 will be just as republican as Clinton1 was, so how is this helping your family?
Just the title of Democrat doesn't mean they'll be Democratic in office. And with another Clinton, its a guarantee they won't.
15 Ways Bill Clinton’s White House Failed America and the World
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/15-ways-bill-clintons-white-house-failed-america-and-world
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1277&pid=8899
Third Way in struggle for the Democratic Party’s soul
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/10/06/struggle-for-soul-democratic-party-pits-wall-street-backed-think-tank-against-elizabeth-warren/pYk3SXRnZDmpi7C7N4ZpXN/story.html
The Democratic Primaries Have One Clear Loser: Third Way Centrism
Something HOPEFUL from the...
The Roosevelt Institute
By Mike Konczal | 03.03.16
The Democratic Primaries Have One Clear Loser: Third Way Centrism
It’s worth taking a break from watching the implosion of the Republican Party to pay attention to intra-Democratic fighting.
Liberal economics has had a pretty great run in the 2016 primary, and I’m optimistic about its chances going forward. I’m even more optimistic after reading this thrown-together op-ed from Jon Cowan, president of the centrist think tank Third Way, titled “3 Ways Hillary Clinton’s Super Tuesday Wins Upend Democratic Conventional Wisdom,” in which he tries to prove my optimism wrong.
Super Tuesday, to Cowan, shows that “the implications of Hillary Clinton’s winning streak are significant: Liberal populism can’t possibly be the future of the Democratic Party.”
Even better for centrism, “Mrs. Clinton has not tacked left to beat Mr. Sanders; she is beating him because she has attacked his core premises.” (If Clinton goes on to lose in 2016, he’ll blame centrism for that loss, right?)
This is clearly wrong, both as a read of the campaign and as a claim about where the future of the party is.
If this were simply a matter of an op-ed being wrong on the internet, we shouldn’t care, but the question of how Democrats understand what has happened has consequences for their general election strategy—a strategy in which liberal economics must play a central role.
The primary has shown us that young voters, the future of the party, are very liberal, and that the debate is centered around liberal economic goals, excluding traditional centrist concerns. It has also shown us where the limits currently are in liberal economics—limits that are important to know so we can continue to push past them.
......snip.......
A 25-year-old voter right now was negative three years old when Michael Dukakis lost in 1988. They simply aren’t of an era in which the old Reagan battles are relevant. They don’t know that being a liberal (or a socialist!) is obviously a dirty thing in D.C. circles. A place like Third Way makes no sense to them. They’ve grown up in a world of war and economic stagnation, and they think a more expansive version of liberalism is crucial to challenging this. Polling work we’ve done here at Roosevelt shows that a robust liberal message is the best way to increase enthusiasm among these key groups, enthusiasm that will be necessary for the general election.
These voters are the future of the Democratic Party, and it’s essential that there’s liberal infrastructure to guide this generation into power, directing its energy into local, state, and national elections. (I hope Sanders has a way to keep this base active and growing after the primary.)
But the future, as of now, is clear: The party must choose between liberal economics ideas and arguments to engage and sustain them or centrist ones if it wants them to stay home on election day.
......snip........
Read in full~
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/democratic-primaries-have-one-clear-loser-third-way-centrism/
She's confirmed she knows how to spin things & gets her people to follow suit, that's it.
WaPo
3/1/16
......snip.......
Sanders's plan would help workers with scarce earnings and savings by making their Social Security benefits more generous and by increasing the annual cost-of-living adjustment.
[How Social Security penalizes working women]
At the same time, his plan would help middle-class workers and young people. Social Security is running out of money, and the agency projects it won't be able to pay beneficiaries what they are owed starting in 2034.
Sanders's plan would improve the program's finances, guaranteeing that all workers are paid in full through 2074, according to a recent analysis by Social Security's actuaries.
The wealthy would pick up the tab. Sanders would levy taxes of 6.2 percent on income over $250,000 in both salaries and capital gains.
Clinton has not given her support to such a broad expansion of Social Security, or put forward a plan detailing what changes she would make to the system or how she would pay for them.
Broadly, she has said she wants to help widows and female retirees in particular. They generally receive less from Social Security because they spend more years out of the labor force raising children or caring for loved ones.
It's a particular problem for black women, who are strong supporters of Clinton (89 percent of black female Democrats cast ballots for Clinton in South Carolina's primary on Saturday). That's because Social Security offers spousal and survivors' benefits for retirees whose husbands or wives made substantially more than they did. Black women, however, are less likely to marry, and if they do, they are more likely to earn as much as their spouses.
As of 2009, more than a third of black women in late middle age would be ineligible for these benefits in retirement, about twice the number of white and Hispanic women who would not receive them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/01/white-privilege-is-being-able-to-retire/
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Member since: Thu Dec 1, 2011, 12:59 PM
Number of posts: 7,830
