ViseGrip
ViseGrip's JournalWhy is Hillary's 2008 campaign chair directing this town hall?
When George Stephanopoulos was not allowed to moderate a debate, only because he gave a contribution? Oh, and they like each other.
Now this so called "Town Hall" debate, ginned up by DWS and Hillary, was probably planned all along. Knowing there would be complaints because there WERE too few debates, they plan to throw in this type of event, where they say Hillary "performs well". Such shenanigans!!
Also, Hillary has already been caught stacking the audience questions at her town hall style debates. So why are the people being forced to endure such a shit show, all to try and show HILLARY at her finest one week before the Iowa caucuses? How can DWS and the DNC make this crap up as they go along? Can we sanction the party for this? After all, those were their rules?
NYT - In race defined by income gap, Hillary Clinton's Wall Street ties incite rivals
By Nicholas Confessore and Jason Horowitz, New York Times
Thursday, January 21, 2016 3:57pm
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gestures while speaking during a rally on the campus of Simpson College on Thursday in Indianola, Iowa. [Associated Press]
Nine months after leaving the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton sat on a stage under the life-size model of a blue whale that hangs in the American Museum of Natural History.
For a fee of $275,000, she had agreed to appear before the clients of GoldenTree Asset Management, the capstone of a lucrative speech making sprint through Wall Street that would earn her more than $2 million in less than seven months.
Clinton said the Dodd-Frank rules, while unpopular among some on Wall Street, were a necessary response to the financial crisis, the New York Times reported, citing one person who attended, while making clear she viewed Wall Street as a partner in securing the country's economic future, not an enemy. We have to win together, she said, not divide ourselves.
But her paid speeches are now emerging as the central line of attack in an increasingly bitter primary clash with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In Sunday's debate in South Carolina and at a series of campaign appearances in Iowa this week, Sanders has argued that Clinton is too personally beholden to Wall Street to effectively rein in the industry's excesses.
In Iowa on Wednesday, Sanders went even further, seeming to mock her sizable speaking fees as borderline bribes from a powerful industry. "You got to be really, really, really good to get $250,000 for a speech," he said.
The attacks have become one of Sanders' biggest applause lines in Iowa, where the median household earns about $52,229 a year. And Republican strategists are testing how to turn Clinton's speaking fees against her in an election defined by rising economic inequality and stagnant middle-class wages. Even some of her supporters are questioning the wisdom of accepting the fees when she knew she might run for the presidency again.
Clinton has sought to parry Sanders by highlighting her support for tighter regulation and comparing herself to President Barack Obama, who took millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Wall Street but went on to enact some of the farthest-reaching financial regulations in decades.
But the new attacks strike at what even some allies believe may be one Clinton's biggest vulnerabilities: not her positions on financial regulation, but her personal relationships with Wall Street executives, along with the millions of dollars the candidate, her husband and their family foundation have accepted in speaking fees or charitable contributions from banks, hedge funds and asset managers. Unlike Clinton, Obama has never earned speaking fees from Wall Street. (oh but he will cuz he's a goldman boy too!)
"The reason that Bernie is focusing on the speaking fees is that Hillary can't use the Obama defense," said Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor, who has supported Clinton.
In retrospect, Rendell conceded, Clinton would have been better off giving fewer such speeches.
"Although they needed money, I think that Bill was raking in enough that Hillary didn't have to do it," Rendell said.
"To people who earn $200,000 in seven years, it looks ridiculous."
Together, Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have earned in excess of $125 million in speech income since leaving the White House, one-fifth of it in the past two years. Goldman Sachs alone paid Clinton $675,000 for three speeches in three different states, a fact Sanders has highlighted repeatedly.
"Goldman Sachs also provides very, very generous speaking fees to some unnamed candidates," he told voters at a winery in Carroll, Iowa, on Tuesday.
In highlighting Clinton's ties to Wall Street, Sanders is tapping into suspicion that remains potent in both parties years after the last Occupy Wall Street tents disappeared from lower Manhattan. Donald Trump, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has mocked hedge fund managers as "guys that shift paper around" and "get lucky." Other Republicans have likewise sought to tap into popular discontent with Wall Street, blaming the Dodd-Frank legislation for letting "the big banks get bigger and bigger and bigger," as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican presidential candidate, put it last fall.
Sanders' line of attack is now being bolstered by an unlikely ally: American Crossroads, the conservative "super PAC" advised by the prominent Republican strategist Karl Rove. In recent days, the group has run digital ads in Iowa questioning Clinton's Wall Street ties — even though several hedge fund billionaires are among the top donors to Crossroads.
"Wall Street made her a multimillionaire," the ad, titled "Hillary's Bull Market," asserts. "Does Iowa really want Wall Street in the White House?"
On Wednesday, the group escalated its attacks, targeting Clinton's daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who in her 20s worked for a New York-based hedge fund run by a Clinton friend and campaign donor, Marc Lasry.
Hillary Clinton's time on the speaking circuit connects her to a long and bipartisan tradition of prominent former officials who commanded large fees for modest work, including Rove himself (who reportedly charges about $25,000 per appearance), and former President George W. Bush ($100,000 to $250,000). Condoleezza Rice, Clinton's predecessor as secretary of state, also preceded her as a speaker for GoldenTree, appearing at a previous investor dinner for the New York-based firm, which manages $25 billion in assets.
The contracts for such events typically include strict confidentiality agreements, meaning there are no known video recordings of Clinton's Wall Street appearances. In a now-famous interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer in 2014, Clinton said she thought giving paid speeches was "a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people who leave public life do."
But a Crossroads official said that its polls and focus groups of voters in battleground states suggested that Clinton's speaking fee — typically around $225,000, or almost five times the median U.S. household income — could be a potent line of attack.
One poll, from June, found that when informed that the Clintons had made $25 million in speaking fees since the beginning of 2014, slightly more than half of respondents said she "does not understand" the "struggles of ordinary Americans."
"Our focus groups with swing and independent voters, especially women, responded very negatively to the contrast between Hillary's rhetoric on Wall Street and her close financial ties to the industry," said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads.
Clinton's campaign has seized on the group's intervention. Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton's communications director, said Sanders was "taking his cues" from Republicans and "using a Karl Rove attack to go after her."
Still, interviews with voters in Iowa suggest Sanders' attacks are finding an audience.
Russ Gifford, from South Sioux City, said he had always figured that the relationship between Goldman Sachs and the Clintons was beneficial to the Clintons personally and the bank institutionally, but also to Americans who benefited from a strong economy fueled by success on Wall Street.
Now, Gifford said, he is not so sure. "Bernie's calling it into question. 'Just how beneficial is it for us?' " Gifford said.
In race defined by income gap, Hillary Clinton's Wall Street ties incite rivals 01/21/16 [Last modified:
Thursday, January 21, 2016 10:06pm]
Photo reprints | Article reprints
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/in-race-defined-by-income-gap-hillary-clintons-wall-street-ties-incite/2262281
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This election will be about trust and judgment. This is why she cannot be the nominee. We have the greatest opportunity of our lifetime, in Bernie Sanders running for president!
These are the world’s best countries. (Sorry, America — you’re No. 4.)
By Niraj Chokshi January 21 at 9:08 AM
The world's 5 best countries
The inaugural "Best Countries" ranking was unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Jan. 20. Here are the top 5 countries according to U.S. News & World Report. (The Washington Post)
The votes are in, America, and the best country in the world is ...
(Drum roll, please.)
It's Germany. Sorry, United States, you're fourth — right behind third-ranked Britain and second-ranked Canada. But, hey, America beat Sweden!
That's according to the inaugural "Best Countries" ranking from U.S. News & World Report, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and global brand consultants BAV Consulting. The ranking was officially unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
“Just as we have done with universities, hospitals and other institutions, our Best Countries portal will be a global homepage for stories and data to help citizens, business leaders and governments evaluate performance in a rapidly changing world,” Mortimer B. Zuckerman, chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News, said in a statement. The publication is known the world over for many of its rankings.
Germany secured its top spot for a number of reasons, its economy key among them. The country is also, as U.S. News notes in a country profile, home to low unemployment, popular around the world, known for its high-quality brands and adept at using soft power abroad. And U.S. News credits Germany's leadership for its global rise.
"Germany's ascendance as a world leader comes largely from the work of [Chancellor Angela] Merkel," Drew writes. "Only the third German since World War II to hold the chancellorship for a decade or more, Merkel has shown decisive leadership on several issues. That is a change. Traditionally, Germans are consensus seekers who have chosen multilateral strategies over acting in a singularized manner."
Naturally, the rankings prompted official responses from officials around the world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/20/these-are-the-worlds-best-countries-sorry-america-youre-number-4/
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What is missing that is in 'print', is the fact that Canada was ranked number one in this survey for 'quality of life'. Canada keeps the waters open to public, not the elite, AND their healthcare system. People can plan families, and never worry if they get sick, or worry if they are well, and they might get sick. Our system has bankrupted our happy carefree way of life, many of us knew long ago. It exists no more. We must get the power back into our hands, and take it away from the corporations who now write our laws, via campaign contributions. This is why I support Bernie Sanders. The rot from within, but be bored out of our country.
For the U.S. to have a real national healthcare program, this is what must be fixed
House lawmakers have issued a subpoena to compel Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical executive reviled for price-gouging, to appear at a congressional hearing next Tuesday
By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Health Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — House lawmakers have issued a subpoena to compel former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, reviled for price-gouging, to appear at a congressional hearing next Tuesday.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating several companies for exorbitant drug price increases, including embattled Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
Shkreli became notorious after his company Turing hiked the price of Daraprim, the only approved drug for a rare and sometimes deadly parasitic infection, by 5,000 percent. Since then, Shkreli has been deluged with criticism from patients, politicians and the media, with some labeling him the "most hated man in America."
Last month, the 32-year-old former hedge fund manager was arrested in New York and charged with securities fraud and conspiracy related to another pharmaceutical company he previously ran called Retrophin. Shkreli pleaded not guilty and was released on $5 million bail. He resigned as CEO of Turing, which he founded and ran.
He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday evening.
The House committee issued the demand January 11 under chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, according to a copy obtained by the Associated Press on Wednesday.
"I have been trying for the better part of a year to get information from Martin Shkreli about his outrageous price increases, and he has obstructed our investigation at every turn," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, the committee's ranking Democrat.
Turing and Valeant Pharmaceuticals both previously refused requests for documents from Cummings and other Democrats.
The committee is also seeking testimony from Turing's chief commercial officer, Nancy Retzlaff, Valeant Pharmaceutical's interim CEO, Howard Schiller, and experts from government and the private sector. Calls placed to New York-based Turing were not immediately returned.
A spokeswoman for Laval, Quebec-based Valeant confirmed that Schiller will testify next week. He was named interim CEO earlier this month after the company's chairman and CEO, J. Michael Pearson, was hospitalized for severe pneumonia.
Concerns about sky-high drug prices have been building for years but boiled over last fall after news reports about Turing, Valeant and a handful of other drugmakers hiking prices of old drugs many times over their prior cost.
Valeant drew Congress' interest following its purchase of the life-saving heart drugs Nitropress and Isuprel. The company, known for gobbling up smaller drugmakers to get their products and then slashing jobs and research programs, jacked up the drugs' prices shortly after buying them from Marathon Pharmaceuticals in February, tripling one and raising the other six-fold.
Daraprim, which Turing acquired in August, is the only approved drug for a life-threatening parasitic infection that mainly strikes pregnant women, cancer patients and AIDS patients.
Amid mounting criticism from patients, doctors and politicians, Shkreli pledged to lower Daraprim's price, but later reneged and instead offered hospitals a 50 percent discount — still amounting to a 2,500 percent increase. Patients normally take most of the weeklong treatment at home, so they still face the 5,000 percent price increase, though Turing is offering financial aid to those who can't afford the drug.
Both Turing and Valeant have also received multiple subpoenas from federal prosecutors seeking information about drug pricing and other business practices.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-01-20/price-hiking-pharma-exec-martin-shkreli-gets-house-subpoena
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This is what congress and Wall Street allow folks....only the USA allows this shit from Big Pharma, no cost controls. And just look at the greed! Our healthcare system has ruined our economy, along with NAFTA.
Bernie reminds everyone about the $600,000.00 Hillary got from Goldman Sachs for speeches!!!
Bernie's message is so important. If we don't get the money out of politics, nothing will change. NOTHING.
Bernie waited for Hillary but she turned and walked away! That felt horrible!
All said good night and Bernie waited for Hillary to continue speaking to another, then she turned and walked away. You could see it was deliberate and it looked horrible!
What Chelsea Clinton could have said....
There are so many things Chelsea could have talked about, shared with the outside world.
Let me give you a wonderful example:
I attended a $500 speech her father Bill gave a few years ago. He said that when he was president and Chelsea was doing her homework in grade school, he was on the phone with Nelson Mandela. He then told Chelsea to "get on the phone and say hello and talk to Nelson Mandela for a minute, because this is the most important man you'll ever speak with in your entire life." She took the phone and said hello, and told him she was doing her school work.
I am sure there are so many of these awesome opportunities bestowed upon her, because of who her parents are. How nice it would have been to share that with the public she was sent to speak with, and for the country to get to know her. She could have explained how as parents they never took any of it for granted and wanted to share it with her too, even though she was just a child. There are many wonderful things I'm sure, just like this she could have shared. The good side of Hillary and Bill, and as 'parents'.
Instead, we got to see them send their daughter out on her first political hack job, against another democrat. It's very transparent now that they have been grooming her. What a big mistake. You have to like someone first before then can get away with such shenanigans. But we don't really know Chelsea and she should have been sent out for positive meet n greets.
The good that has come out of this? We know exactly who these people are now. All three of them. If it took a license to have kids, I'd take theirs away. Did Chelsea believe she was ready for this and this is how she should conduct herself out in public? I hope Chelsea Clinton stays away from elected office herself. This family is like a soulless machine.
Very disappointing indeed....
Bill also spoke about Medicare and how people with more money need to pay more or something. He said changes had to come and most people $$ in the room weren't going to like it. He went on to say he became a 'burden on the system', because it was true he loved donuts and McDonald's. He finally had a heart attack, and became a burden on the system.
So you see? Bill can eat and do whatever he wants and be a burden on Medicare, but those habits had to change for the rest of us. It was at that moment someone in the audience yelled out "why is someone like you who makes 220 million a year EVEN ON MEDICARE?" "Why wouldn't you go get a private policy if Medicare is so strained?" Bill did not respond, he just continued with he speech.
Not everyone can pay to attend such a speech, my ticket was a Christmas gift. So I wanted to share what I learned that evening, things that Chelsea could have talked about with voters, and who these people really are.
Hey Marco, our own contractors sell women and children too. Not just ISIS! See DynCorp
It's Déjà Vu for DynCorp All Over Again (Bosnia)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html
Then they did it again in Afghanistan...see 'The Boys of Afghanistan'
Then, we gave them ANOTHER CONTRACT. So be very careful Marco!
Hillary sent her daughter out to lie, and her daughter knowingly did lie. What does this mean?
For me, it's serious character flaws, there is plenty that separates them such as reinstating Glass Steagall. To go after healthcare with such lies, is despicable. This is why I cannot support a Clinton, ever again. Our country has been changed, from Bill's policies and not for the better.
But sending out Chelsea to lie, and Chelsea is no dummy, I have lost all respect for her as well.
Is this how a mother uses a daughter? Not my mother. She has crossed a line, and it's all over the news that what Chelsea said was 'untrue', 'not true', every other definition of a LIE.
This is so sad, after Senator Sanders was so respectful of her. He's smart enough to know she'll step in it all on her own. And she just did. I just lost all respect for Hillary, and I was a former supporter while this time I chose Bernie Sanders.
I am hearing Obama touting right wing proposals for unemployment similar to Rick Scott of FLA.
I heard a few right leaning things....and several that make Paul Ryan happy. Paul Ryan is the most feared congressional office holder for me.....and if I didn't know any better, I'd think I was watching a right wing president.
Don't attack me, this is how hIS speech makes me feel. It's all laced with stuff I cannot stand. If it's no right leaning, it doesn't really go far enough to the left to help. I'm sick of this shit.
GO BERNIE SANDERS
Profile Information
Name: Kevin FoxeGender: Male
Hometown: Detroit/Michigan/Midwest
Home country: USA
Current location: Florida
Member since: Wed Oct 14, 2015, 09:59 PM
Number of posts: 3,133
